What is Exalted? An epic high-flying role-playing game about reborn god-heroes in a world that turned on them. Start here: theonyxpath.com/category/worlds/exalted/
>That sounds cool, how can I get into it? Read the 3e core book (link below). For mechanics of the old edition, play this tutorial: mengtzu.github.io/exalted/sakuya.html . It’ll get you familiar with most of the mechanics.
>Gosh that was fun. How do I find a group? Roll20 and the Game Finder General here on Veeky Forums.
So in a game I'm currently running military campaigns are a big deal and therefore armies and large scale fights are happening much more frequently than would be normal. Because of this I've been looking at adding some new rules to the Battlegroup system to give it a bit more of a tactical element, though narratively sized range bands really hamper this.
First, added a new Command roll that allows you to push an enemy battlegroup out of a range band. This would be a contested [Int/App/Cha/] + War check between the commanders of the two people groups. Each commander gets a bonus to this roll equal to the Size of their Battlegroup. This gives larger armies the leg up on smaller ones. Was thinking of letting threshold successes get added as extra dice to your Battlegroup's action like the Order action. This command lets you fight over a strategic position without having to kill/rout an entire Battlegroup.
Second, Battlegroups can take up a number of range bands equal to their Size but must take up at least (Size/2 round up) range bands. These have to be contiguous but since range bands are pretty abstract you can get away with somewhat weird positioning.
Third, bumping up the Ambush Strategic Maneuver by at least 1 to Difficulty 4, maybe up to 5. It's just leg and shoulders better than every other difficulty 3.
Thoughts? Anyone else have any ideas about making Battlegroups more tactical?
Carter Powell
It looks good to me, but the question is what do you mean by "more of a tactical element"? What is your ideal end goal?
Asher Mitchell
Battlegroup combat is pretty boring and not very engaging. They steal Initiative and just kind of sit there and get pummeled. I am seeking to create interesting and engaging large scale combats that are drastically different from one another to remain fresh.
This is difficult to do with the base rules of the game because BGs are usually considered backdrops Dynasty Warrior style or just really large fists for their Commanders which is a tad too simplistic when they are the focus of a large part of the game.
Chase Wright
Battle groups have two niches:
1) They can AoE attack (In 3e which really dailed such things back, this is huge)
2) Any initiative taken from them is flushed down a toilet. Trying to build up initiative so you can attack an Abyssal General while he and his army attacks you is painful.
These things are simplistic, but are good additions to the game. You're more powerful just by having them. Also keep in mind that while battle groups are deadly, they are designed to be something like the Dynasty Warrior mooks you basically blow past in order to reach something like an officer.
To alter something like this you might need to go down to the very root of this problem and rework how BG's work.
Wyatt Moore
I'm mostly talking about Battlegroup vs Battlegroup fighting. I would like more tactical depth than "I Order my BG to attack, they get +8 dice, my BG attacks, they do 6 damage" repeat for the other side.
Fighting BGs is a slog, I seek to spice that up some.
Samuel Russell
>1) They can AoE attack (In 3e which really dailed such things back, this is huge)
Seriously, don't underestimate this. I've had large missile-armed BGs actually drop a Dawn Caste (admittedly a wildly overspecialised one) through consecutive turns of AoE fire while actually assaulting the Dawn's unit.
But in response to the OP - one issue with the use of BGs is that the rules don't well support implementing new Strategic Maneuvers on the fly during the battle. Being able to do that would cover a whole multitude of sins - your band-push mechanic, for example, screams out Strategic Maneuver to me. Maybe some kind of Tactical Maneuver system, paralleling Gambits in small-scale combat?
Jace Ward
>admittedly a wildly overspecialised one
This presumably wasn't a White Reaper Stylist. What were his stats?
Jaxon Sanchez
It seems like it could work, but the devil is in the details.
Oliver Collins
Strategic Maneuvers are where I kind of started out. Originally I was going to make it a Gambit the commanders could take but them draining Initiative isn't fun and involving BGs already lowers the amount of Initiative that can be thrown around.
So I took the contested action idea from Strategic Maneuvers and with that. Size should impact this, larger groups should be able to push around smaller groups easier, but this is a mythic setting so the band of 100 being able to push around the horde of 1,000 if they're commander is good enough is in theme.
I'm not sure if additional Tactical Maneuvers (as I will now call them) would be simple Contested Actions in the same vein but it could work.
