Exalted General - /exg/

You can't see the appeal of ripping the heart out of your opponent in the figurative, in the love sense, and in the literal, organ sense?

Martial arts are much better than in the past. The in past editions they were jokes, something you took purely for character. Taking an MA in this edition won't make you the best fighter ever, but it does give you a solid damn base to start off of.

They're not as close to some solar charms but they're much closer than in the past. They're at the "Huh, I may actually want to take this" level rather than the "No damn way I want this, my native charms are way better."

To put it into perspective, Single Point has the highest burst damage in the game. Melee and Brawl tie with it.

Until Brawl actually gets deep into its tree, Righteous Devil is on par with sustained damage, plus it can make an AoE damage to outright kill or severely cripple everyone in an encounter whereas brawl remains on one target. The reflexive aiming and ability to attack at medium range every turn is another amazing feature that archery and thrown would kill for.

If you're an Exalt that wants to focus on caste abilities more than combat abilities then MA's are a worthwhile investment as you can buy into them without impacting your character growth/shaping that much. Yes native Solar abilities outrace Martial Arts, but never to a point where Martial arts is obsolete. An MA'ist may not be able to solo entire groups like some minmax'd dawn but he can hold his own without being liability (Unless you're Steel Devil, which you're useless).

What movie is this from. I remember it only vaguely.

Nothing of true note has happened in the line since iirc 2012, no wonder it's dead in here.

Can't you spend solar xp on them but not on actual solar charms?

They're not solar charms so yes, you can buy them with SXP.

yep which is why they are worth more at higher essence levels.

Whens arms coming out as an actual book

>11:38:44
I have this great, big, new Exalted book on my shelf, but I am an user of many RPGs.

I'm thinking I want to run Shadowrun for my group on Saturday, but could be convinced to run Exalted instead.

This general is pretty inactive, is all hope lost with the new edition? What are its sins and what house rules do you use to fix them?

Anyone have a the pastebin for the New Adversaries?

I find it difficult to run without the essential antagonists to solars, dragon bloods, out. Doable yes, I'm managing, but with the help with homebrews.
The actual mechanical system is quite good, combat is fast "internally" if that makes sense, you could have something like a gigantic session encompassing combat without it being a bog. Social system is also really really good, but your players have to really understand that characters are characters, and that characters change based on their actions. I recommend you track the player's Limit yourself, without telling them where it's at, only when they Break. I also recommend using a rewrite for Craft, if one of the players wants to use it, like the one from Exalted Wikidot.
Not very active here since there's uh, about a decade of 2e stigma to undo.

Shit, I have actually perused most of the mechanics but didn't realize Dragon Blooded aren't even in there as enemies.

I'd probably find that out quick designing possible encounters.

Does anyone have the new version of Arms with all of the changes and corrections?

Neat. An armored kraken, a "ghostfisher", and a godblooded mercenary that works for a Deathlord and is literally powered by her hatred. Neat.

There's a few, it's just that you need a bit more then 2 BDs and 2 Immaculates, and we on't got rules or charms from them.

The leak version has 5 Immaculates if it helps.

>This general is pretty inactive, is all hope lost with the new edition?
It's been something like... what, six years now since third edition was announced? I've never seen delays this bad with an RPG.

The game looks like it's finally picking up again, though. There haven't been any major releases yet since the core, but we got a good book on artifacts recently, and there have been little releases with individual NPCs and monsters over the past months since the new developers took over. Plus there's a Kickstarter for the next big book scheduled sometime after Onyx Path's current one finishes, which will hopefully include a text preview, but there's no official promise on that yet.

>What are its sins and what house rules do you use to fix them?
Overall, it's pretty good. Very crunch-heavy, and the text can be vague when it comes to the details of how things work, but that can all be dealt with.

Of more specific parts of the game, the parts I see criticized most often are crafting and naval combat.

Opinions seem to vary on why crafting is bad (or sometimes, if it is), but it's a part of the game you can ignore entirely, and there are various rewrites out there if you want them. I have never tried it in any form, though, so I can't make any recommendations.

The problems with naval combat are simpler: it takes forever to resolve, and it doesn't give anyone but the captain anything to do until it's over. I've heard that the former can be fixed by making Positioning actions give Momentum equal to the total successes, rather than the number by which you beat the opponent's result. The latter is harder to deal with, but there are things characters could try to do (sniping the enemy captain, jumping into the water and trying to overturn the enemy boat with your herculean strength, etc.) - they just aren't supported by the naval combat system itself, so it's up to the GM to figure out how to fit any of that in.

Look up "A Clutch of Dragons"

There is a disease god in the 3E Core, and he can't cure his disease.

Ok that's true
But that doesn't change what i said about every disease having a god. They're inseparable

Sure. I mean, I don't remember anyone ever claiming otherwise in these threads, but it could've happened. God and his disease aren't inseparable in the sense that the disease would just disappear if the disease god was permanently slain, though.

Eh, it's the calm before a new book. Not a lot to chat about, questions largely answered. People basically come in here to troll with a few handfuls of legit questions. I should get me or a player to bring storytime to /exg/ as offering. But I can't be bothered right now.

Game can be run as is, options are about to increase drastically. But the game expects you to take ideas and run with it with some homebrew for a game of any length. From antagonists to custom artifacts/evocations. But I've found it easy to do such things with a bit of cross referencing what we have and some basic logic.

Beyond that, do you like giving players a long leash and reacting to their actions in a robust setting? Definitely go Exalted.

Do you like planning a complex heist every 2-3 sessions? Run SR.

Not that you can't do these things in the opposing system, but they lend themselves to what I say in my experience.

It was two or three threads ago, i just got around to reading roll of divinity again recently. The god would pop back up from the disease existing yes, as if the diseased were his sanctum.

I was specifically talking about being permanently slain, as in through GET or similar means. There's no popping back up after that, but the disease itself wouldn't be affected in the least. Not immediately, at least. Over time situations that would require a god's active intervention would no doubt appear. Under normal circumstances, though, the disease would go on working as it should even without the god.

I'm also pretty sure a "new" gold could be created or get the disease put under another god. Otherwise what's the point of half the damn Celestial Bureaucrac?.

How normal is it for a circle to be running around a Direction, putting out fires without end?

Assuming we're not talking about literal fires, it sounds pretty normal to me.

Could happen in theory I'd guess. Kinda matters on player/st I'd think. Logically? A Solar Circle going around, even being nice, is going to get attention drawn and the larger world will thus be drawn to them.

But I've had games go their entire length in basically one city so...

Yeah, a new god would emerge to manage the disease even without Heaven intervention. Disease gods will die if their disease is totally cured.

Sure, but that's kind of besides the point. I'm talking about how a disease could exist without its god, and in this sense a disease and disease god aren't inseparable.

So I'm thinking of doing something special with a pair of players and I want /exg/ opinion on how stupid and ridiculous the planned backstories are

The game/campaign is just going to be the two of them with a handful of npcs that pop in and out of their group. The two of them want to play a Infernal and Lunar who are each others Lunar/Solar mate. By the time the Infernal exalts the Lunar has been exalted for around six years. The Lunar was a former prostitute (Magical Realm Ho) and exalted after escaping the brothel and was found by an older Lunar pretty quick. Gets the tattoos, learns some history, then goes fuck it I don't care about ancient history and dead people and goes back home to kill some people. The Lunar steals another prostitute's shape to infiltrate the brothel and just when she starts killing the brothel gets raided by a princess of the kingdom, the other PC, seeking to arrest corrupt nobles.

The princess not knowing the girl is a Lunar in disguised is impressed by her fighting ability and takes her in. The princess sees someone with potential and future loyalty while the Lunar stays at first because she has no where else to go but then starts to like the princess and believe in her vision for the future. Eventually the Lunar becomes her personal bodyguard/aid and over the years the two secretly fall in love. The Lunar has been in disguise this whole time.

All things come to an end and after one of the princess's cousins exalts as a dragonblood he tries to get rid of her. Through an ambush that has the Lunar nearby but distracted the princess ends up exalting as an Infernal. Days later after emerging from the chrysalis the princess decides her first act is to kill her cousin and while attempting that reunites the Lunar also out for revenge.

I wanted to hint that the Infernal exaltation may have been drawn to its Lunar mate and that's why princess exalted but whether that's true is left to interpretation.

Yeah, I'm not arguing with my statement, was just making sure that bit wasn't being misunderstood. A thing isn't assigned a single god that can't be replaced if killed.

Not for long, since the disease itself will generate a god if there aren't enough of them to oversee it all.

What happened to make her exalt as an Infernal?

During the ambush she tried to kill her dragonblood cousin and of course failed and then when he momentarily gets distracted she runs instead of trying again. That should work for a Slayer right? Or should she instead be stabbed in the back by one of her soldiers while trying to attack her cousin?

the former

Is there a way to learn beast merits?

>The two of them want to play a Infernal and Lunar who are each others Lunar/Solar mate

Garbage

Power questing

No fleeing, giving up is not for Infernal candidates. Betrayal or a crippling blow from the BD is more like it.

Is there any natural, Creation born animal that could threaten a Brawl/Melee supernal? Or even an Essence 5 combat solar? Groups are fine too, but second rate to single combat challenges. I haven't done the shadowboxing with Tyrant Lizard yet, but I'd like to have some more options regardless

>Is there any natural, Creation born animal that could threaten a Brawl/Melee supernal? Or even an Essence 5 combat solar?
no, that would be retarded

Why would there ever be?

>I fail to see the appeal of them over other combat abilities.
let's see...
-You can use solar xp for them
-They have gimmicky charms you won't find in the regular combat trees
-They require fewer charms to master

I think there's quite a lot of reasons to use them

For hunting of course. How are you going to have a Hunter concept without worthy prey?

You're an Exalted Dawn Caste hunter. "natural, creation born animals" were beneath you the second you took your Second Breath. Do not disgrace the sun with your lack of vision.

At a quick glance, I don't see anything in the Roll of Glorious Divinity indicating this is the case. I also don't remember reading anywhere that things work like that. I'm not saying you're wrong, because I sure as hell don't remember every bit of fluff I've read about Exalted, but I'd definitely appreciate a citation.

You realize that solars are the strongest kind of exalts so combat focused ones are gonna be among the greatest combatants in creation.
Essemce 5 solars are like one in a thousand even among the solars and they're gonna kick an unbelieveable amount of ass.
If there was a "natural, creation born animal" that could threaten that than they would be pretty much untouchable by 99.99999% of creation
It would also make 99.9999% of the unnatural denizens of creation look like absolute scrubs
It would be able to kill war gods and second circle demons and ifirit lords and whatnot.

Overall it would make the setting a lot dumber

if I were to port the edited version of eclipse charmshare into 2e, which of 2e's spirit charms should be tagged eclipse-no right off the bat before even getting into specific variants tagged eclipse-no or eclipse-yes on a subjective game by game basis as the st comes up with them?

follow up question: same question for any problematic spirit charms or arcanoi being preemptively tagged godblood-no

Not hunter guy up there but
The [Animal] Avatar gods exist don't they? Natural to creation, not mundane animal. The River Dragon Avatar or the Mammoth Avatar surely could compete with a second circle demon.

They're gods not animals.
One very important thing about animals is that you can't just have one of them. You need to have a high enough density for them to breed.
Can you imagine what having thousands dawn solar tier animals running around would do?

(said situations including uncontrollable plagues that need to be reigned in)

depends. are they also causing at least as many fires as they put out as is right and proper?

probably thinking of the green mile, although he didn't need to spit them into a host there and could also just vent the flies out into the open air.

which answers the question since that would obviously be a good chunk of their appeal over solar melee/brawl/(possibly also thrown and archery depending on the style) charms.

are you trying to answer based on the retracted infernal preview for 3e? we're pretty obviously takling 2e here.

oh yes, the traditional 5 year lull. that always comes right before the line picks up. I'm sure exalted 3e will take off any minute now.

oh look, they're running a second kickstarter where the first one was pitched as being for the entire line not just one book and half a supplement

Probably a really strong human population. Supposedly humans were out there fighting Salt Gods for salt, it's not that wild to imagine groups of Dragon-Ox and Imperial Sloth hunters.

Sure, they require fewer charms to master, but you have to buy the M.A. merit and then buy up M.A. (individually) for each martial art you want to learn.

If you want to be good with a sword, you could spend your solar XP on M.A. Single Point Style (which only covers slashing swords, not all swords), or you could spend your solar XP on Melee which covers all melee weapons.

And I know you can then go on to spend your Solar XP on Single Point Charms, but they tend to be worse than Melee charms AND you've already invested an additional 12xp to begin with just on the M.A. Merit.

(Besides, I'm one of the stronger combat characters in my game and I have all of 6 Brawl Charms. So I'm not sure you need to dip that far into Solar combat abilities to be good).

Like I said before, thematically I like M.A.; I want it to be good, I just don't think they're worth it at the moment.

It may just be my group, but we've played to 180xp and I've never found myself with a load of SXP just sitting on my sheet and nothing to spend it on.

Not a Martial Artist, not a Sorceror, not a crafter.

>Dragon-Ox and Imperial Sloth hunters.
Those animals are very much not capable of threatening a combat dawn because if they were you'd require...
>Probably a really strong human population.
A very strong human population. Like dragonblooded exalt level of power.
At which point you'd need to bump up the power of the dragonblooded. Then the solars would require improving, at which point said animals aren't gonna threaten a combat dawn anymore

What is the games of divinity?

had you maxed out all of your Attributes and Abilities, or something?

"What is it's function?" or "What kind of game is it?"

It's something that the Primordials came up with in order to stave off boredom, the spent much of prehistory playing it in Heaven when they weren't busy fucking up Creation. The Primordials, being beings you created a cycle of Reincarnation that doesn't take into account what happens to a Primordial when it dies (because primordials were never supposed to die in the first place), didn't take into account what happens when a non-Primordial plays it (because a non-Primordial was never supposed to play it), so to non-Primordials it's horribly addictive, so much so that the UCS, greatest of all gods and embodiment of perfection in all things and persistent, sustained excellence, can't seem to break away from the GoD for much time. It has been nnoted that Luna is more resistant to the addiction than the other gods.

It has never been mentioned what the Games look like, what the rules are, or how they're played, but it has been mentioned that the sky of Yu-Shan changes colour to reflect that of who's winning at any given moment.

>oh look, they're running a second kickstarter where the first one was pitched as being for the entire line not just one book and half a supplement
The first Kickstarter wasn't even for the 3E Core, it was for the deluxe edition or whatever it's called of the 3E core. Major books being Kickstarted was known from the beginning, because it's how OPP works these days.

And that it's played in turns, and that the Incarna get smashed on celestial wine playing it.
Thanks dad

>the UCS, greatest of all gods and embodiment of perfection in all things and persistent, sustained excellence
Just a thing I've been wondering, but when did this view of the UCS first appear? In the early 1E material he's described as the god of the sun and the mightiest of gods, but I don't think perfection or excellence were a part of hiw purview early on.

Glories:UCS, or thereabouts. It basically broke down his personality, intimacies, and desires. It's by no means the best characterization that he's ever had, but it's the most complete one.

Why do you guys even talk about their kickstarter/selling of products after they fucked up so badly last time? Any time you look at the Scarlett Empress's bad shop you should feel disgusted in your soul.

Because the art in the book is mostly acceptable, the actual rules and fluff content are pretty good, and a couple of genuinely bad pieces of art aren't enough to ruin the whole. Despite all the fuckups, the core is a solid product, as is Arms, and there's no particular reason to assume that any future products will be any worse.

Do Liminals have a place in the setting other than Holden's autistic Promethean fanfiction?

Faggot.

they don't really mess anything up so....

Possibly. We'll know for sure whether there's more than Promethean fanfiction to them once they're actually out. Setting doesn't necessarily need another type of Exalt related to death and the Underorld, but there's room for something like that without stepping on Abyssal's toes.

I don't know if they should be called "Exalts" since.. who the fuck exalted them? That said, nothing wrong with playable zombobos.

Well, considering they're the Exalted of Death now and the Abyssals have been relegated to the Exalted of Murder...

You do realize that what you're saying isn't based on anything we've actually been told about 3E Abyssals, right? I'm pretty sure the only time anyone's called Abyssals the Exalted of Murder was Neph, and he was talking about 2E Abyssals.

perfection in all things, even being the perfect crackhead

how are the new adversaries and monsters?

most likely not. from what we've heard so far the majority of their niche is being carved off of what used to be lunar playspace and/or what should have gone to abyssals(mostly on the abyssal side) and if any two splats absolutely need every scrap they can get it's abyssals and lunars.

I'm trying to figure out how a giant kraken grappling someone with a tentacle means that you risk hitting them if you attack it. I guess it's smart enough to use them to intercept attacks? That's the only thing that makes sense, but it seems weird.

I don't have the PDF, though. I'm just looking at the preview.

Everytime I think about Exalted and how much I'd like to play it, I remember how much of a challenge it is for a GM to run the hecking game.

I should probably start downloading cheat sheets for everything, because otherwise it takes a day to run a session. It's so complicated.

Talking about Liminals is useless because those who don't have a hate-boner for them don't know anything about them past the small crumbs we got from Masters of Jade and Ex3 Core, and as such don't have much to talk about; while those who do have a hate-boner for them will freely speak out of their arse with incoherent complaints about how they eat up Abyssal concept-space that was never theirs (Liminality isn't an Abyssal thing, neither are patchwork bodies as a general thing) and Lunar concept-space that doesn't exist (because the single biggest problem with Lunars is that they never had a clearly defined and properly focussed concept-space anyway).

In the end these discussions will necessarily devolve into shit-posting.

There's a reason the glorious tutorial takes hours to complete. And it's not good game design.

still not worth buying individually. wait for the book and grab the pastebins til then

iirc holdmork said the same tihng repeatedly in reply to complaints about "oh great, now abyssals will have even less space to play in than in 2e"

sadly, rad as the setting is, the exalted rules kinda suck

the lord of ghosts/static feudalism of the underworld, death's lawgivers, taking the ghost's side or scolding people for not making offerings to their ancestors etc was abyssal space. it was the only abyssal space that wasn't straight up murder and emo winging. they needed that space badly.

now on the 3e forum they're being described as solidly painted into the roll of "killfuck soulshitter the murder exalt" with all those themes inkmonkies was tentatively expanding abyssals into(and to a lesser extent a few of the abyssal book's chapter comics did as well) being set as the liminal's thing.

3E rules are good

You'll probably be happy to know the tutorial is one edition late? One of the systems in it doesn't even exist anymore and the combat is revamped to the point of 2e experience being non-applicable.

None of these are Liminality (being the border between the Dead and the Living) or Patchwork Bodies. So I don't see how that has anything to do with Liminals.

here's all i found talked about them in the ask the devs thread
#1
>While Abyssals and Solars have much in common, theirs is not a perfect symmetry. The Abyssal Exalted are masters of necromancy—it says so in their prestige spread!—and we need to be able to give them something unique and powerful in necromancy without outdoing the Solars completely. Weakening Abyssal's proficiency with Evocations creates room to give them more power in other places.

so are abyssals not stolen exaltations anymore? or is it more complicated than that?

>When an Abyssal is Exalted, she inherits the >power and legacy of a shining sun-king, but >one that has been stolen by thirteen vengeful >ghosts of the Usurpation and corrupted by the >power of the Neverborn.

>I consider the above statement to be >essentially equivalent to "Abyssal Exaltations >are corrupted Solar Exaltations," which they >are, but far more useful for describing what >the deathknights actually are.

And, for the bonus round... Necrotech. Is it best to treat Craft(Necrotech) as, say, Craft(Artifacts) [or First Age Artifice, but less difficult to start learning], and then allow characters to build, say, siege engine-esque creatures as part of superior projects?

>Necrotech isn't going to exist as a discrete >category any more. Undead siege engines are >likely to be the result of necromancy in Ex3, >rather than Craft.

Will there still be something like resonance that forces the abyssal to kill?

>My current plan is to call it Limit rather than >Resonance, but otherwise have it largely >resemble their Dark Fate in First Edition.

Do people still have to promise to murder the entire world to become a Deathknight?
>There are still Abyssal Exaltations unclaimed >by any Deathlord, as described in Ink >Monkeys, so no.

>Also, even if you are Exalted by a Deathlord, >you can cross your fingers. It's not like most of >them actually plan to murder the entire world; I >bet they'd be willing to overlook it.

cont

Why would I be happy that such a work of art and labor of love is obsolete?

#2
Which Deathlord is least likely to lose their temper and obliterate you for your first failure?
>None of the Deathlords are morons, which >you'd have to be to try that shit on an Abyssal

Is the Abyssal Kickstarter preview still valid? Or can we expect a new vision from the new dev Team?
>While it's been a while since I've read it, I think >the general premise is still valid, unless it's >contradicted by the material on Abyssals in >the core.

Can a Solar be 'corrupted' into being an Abyssal in 3e?
>Undetermined.

Do you imagine Abyssals in Third Edition having substantially different anima powers than previously?
>About as different as the Solars' are. Maybe >an oonch more.

Liminals being created via Necromancy -- is that a thing? Like a Daybreak Caste could ride around with their own personal Frankenstein?
>If an Abyssal attempted to resurrect the dead, >the Dark Mother could intervene to Exalt a >Liminal, the same way she could if a mortal >attempted a blasphemous rite to the same >end. Necromancy has no special power to >create Liminals without the Dark Mother's >intervention.

Thought on Abyssals: If Abyssal Charms are influenced by their Deathlord patrons, then what about those Abyssals that serve other masters, like the Dual Monarchy? Or is that just an issue of semantics?
>It doesn't matter whether you serve the >Deathlords, or which one you serve.