Exalted General - /exg/ - Remaking the World in your own Image Edition

It's mostly limited to my playgroup and friends of mine, I'm not really joining rando games or anything...

Different user here, but that’s the way to do it.

well, at least you guys are having fun.

How powerful are mortal sorcerers exactly? I know that they're a league above anything that any regular mortal can reach, but the game seems to paint them as being bigger than what they actually are.

I’m in a group that plays 3e. I find it better than 2e in my personal opinion.

If I wanted to create a nation or region based on Ancient Greece, where would it fit best?

>How powerful are mortal sorcerers exactly? I know that they're a league above anything that any regular mortal can reach, but the game seems to paint them as being bigger than what they actually are.
Depend on what you mean by powerful. They won't be much tougher than a mortal by themselves, but given enough time they can transform themselves into an Adonis looking, fire breathing, stone skinned guy that bleeds lighting bolts and has a dozen blood apes under his control

That's Lookshy, but also just about anything can be fit in the Hundred Kingdoms territory

I play 3E and fuck Infernals, Infernals fans, Infernals writers, and basically everyone who makes up the wider pro 2E forum culture. I hope you are inflicted with a condition that is aggravating enough to make you quit posting but otherwise not harm you because it's just a game bro.

Why are your jimmies so rustled?

Do you know how I can tell you're not from here?

Exalted 3E is obviously better than 2E, but does anyone else just not like the momentum based combat?

Momentum interacts in weird ways with multiple combatants. It really feels like something they didn't do anything but duels with in the testing.

I'm really not a fan of 3e's combat either, but it's bearable and there are other things I really, really like about the game, like the social influence system. With charmsets not designed by an actual retard (hatewheel) I think the game can really shine honestly.

If your Abyssal died by decapitation, does that mean his head is detachable?

Abyssals are saved from death by Exaltation. They don't and can't Exalt after death.

How well can Athletics substitute for Ride and Sail?

So does that mean you end up with like a harry potter’s nearly-headless nick situation then?

You can hold on real well while someone else actually does the work.

In what way? In carrying a large number of people like Sail can, it can't substitute at all. If you're just talking about speed Athletics can keep up pretty well when it comes down to it but I feel Athletics is a bit more expensive and requires more investment to really keep up in terms of successes.

Sail and Ride both have Speed which gives them a pretty decent advantage when it comes to their dice pools, but Athletics has some pretty strong dice tricks to get a lot of successes out of it. Sail I think has the cheapest cost though that's more of a gut reaction based off of my recollection rather than an in depth study. Getting real good at Athletics takes more Charms I think though.

Swim under the boat and push it along.

...why?

So what does the 3e revisionists have thoroughly raped?

>Creation had hard border, but now it doesn't have one.
REEEEEEEEE IT'S A PRIMORDIAL SHITTY TTTTTHINGGG

>In the first age a primordial escaped Creation and came back with a revenge, provoking an universal war.
REEEEEEEEE NOT FIRST AGE FIRST AGE A SHIIIITTTTTTTTTTT

>The sun is a mecha
REEEEEE NOT A MECCHHHHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAA

>The Ebon Dragon is the embodiments of sins.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEE THE EBON DRAGON IS A DRAGON? IT'S NOT A CONCEPTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!

Feel free to add to the list. The 3e revisionism has gone too far, too quickly, too stupidly.

>>Creation had hard border, but now it doesn't have one.
>REEEEEEEEE IT'S A PRIMORDIAL SHITTY TTTTTHINGGG
This does not matter in any way or on any level.

>>In the first age a primordial escaped Creation and came back with a revenge, provoking an universal war.
>REEEEEEEEE NOT FIRST AGE FIRST AGE A SHIIIITTTTTTTTTTT
I don't remember the devs saying anything definitive about the Aftershock War, as I believe that was called. I might be wrong, though.

>>The sun is a mecha
>REEEEEE NOT A MECCHHHHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAA
Why the fuck should the sun be a mecha? It wasn't a mecha in 1E, or in the beginning of 2E.

>>The Ebon Dragon is the embodiments of sins.
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEE THE EBON DRAGON IS A DRAGON? IT'S NOT A CONCEPTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!
Ebby wasn't the embodiment of sins to begin with, why should he be that way in 3E?

ok holden

>So what have the 3e revisionists thoroughly fixed?

FTFY

>Ebby wasn't the embodiment of sins to begin with, why should he be that way in 3E?
Because it's cool

If you really want that, just make it so. the current devs are totally okay with that.

But it isn't cool. It's just boring shit.

Do say what's cool then

Are there such things as comets and meteors in Exalted?

Comets I'm not sure about, but meteors are specifically where starmetal comes from, being based on meteoric iron. However instead of random rocks from space they're fallen stars.

In 2e (not sure about 1e) stars fell when gods died and so Sidereals would find ways to gank gods to harvest their starmetal. In 3e this is going away, instead stars fall because of ineffable reasons there being no way to guarantee it. This plays into starmetal being the rarest of the five magical materials.

1E Ebon Dragon was pretty cool.

Well if we look at it from a physics perspective a comet is only possible if it's orbiting another celestial body and not the actual landmass of creation. Meteors fall all the time, it's starmetal.
It use to be condensed essence, as it flowed trough the celestial sphere it coalesced into starmetal and fell. I tought god starmetal was just when you defeated a god you could shape him into it? When gods die usually they just reform.

Gaia rides a comet sometimes. So the fact that Creation calls it a comet must mean that there are others. Probably divine in nature but still they should exist.

Not him, but I agree with him in principal. Once Inferals dropped, it's all anyone wanted to play. I ran an Autocthonia game and two people tried to get me to allow Infernals. Yes, I realize a lot of people liked them, but for fuck's sake, branch out a little. Personally I don't care for them, demons are bad, people who serve demons are bad, not even Exalted's frequently gray morality can change that, but that's just me, that's why I don't play them, the problem is so many people wanted to play ONLY them and it's aggravating.

>demons are bad
But they're not, not necessarily

>people who serve demons are bad
This, too, is untrue.

>not even Exalted's frequently gray morality can change that
Of course it can. More importantly, the simple fact that demons aren't inherently evil obviously changes things.

I don't mind it, it's different, but I didn't mind the old system either.

How was that?

What crossovers with existing setting could you abide by?

A Song of Ice & Fire
D&D
Eclipse Phase
Law & Order: SVU
Worm

Rare exceptions do not change the fact the insanely vast majority are evil, and the demons who choose Infernals are absolutely evil. Now, if I wanted to play a game with an evil party that's fine, but I generally don't. And Infernals have another problem in that they tend to try and dominate the game, especially since all that devil-tiger bullshit was released, then everyone wants to be a Yozi.

If you were going to make a version of Creation that's centered around college comedy, which NPC would be the headmaster of a school that admitted every Exalted type?

Her Redness, but she's on vacation this year leaving the department heads to run things in her place.

>Rare exceptions do not change the fact the insanely vast majority are evil
I don't know what you're basing this on, but you sure as fuck aren't basing it on any canon lore.

She'd be the headmaster for the rival dynast college.

I read the Malfeas book cover to cover, wholly evil.

Did the Dissedia video game handle it the same way?

Lytek, of course. He'd be a learned but snobby upper class gentleman who speaks with a posh British accent and kind of looks down on the Dragon-Blooded students without being so crass as to make his views explicit. What's-his-face, the God of Inherited Might, I think Parad was his name, would be the deputy headmaster who's always coming up with schemes to replace the headmaster.

Hmm, it would be fun to put Lytek in authority above Ryzala.

Running a game, playing another. Be a faggot in a way that's at least interesting.

Where's the N/A artifact parasol.

In that scenario, I'd see Ryzala as a meddling representative of higher administration.

>I read the Malfeas book cover to cover, wholly evil.
Okay, so looking at demons if CoCD: Malfeas,how is the Manse-building Amalion "wholly evil"? Or Stanewald, who really loves dancing and has no nefarious plans in store for the Creation?

Yeah, that would be the few, rare exceptions part. But you can't use a handful of second or third circle demons to say the vastly more numerous first circle demons aren't bad. Amalion, not so bad. Too bad Octavian makes up for it and then some, isn't it? And seeing as how Amalion literally has "blasphemies" written on herself, I wouldn't say she's not at least a little bad anyway.

Octavian is bad in the same way mortal warlords are bad. Octavian also isn't any more representative of the"'average" 2CD, if there even is such a thing, than Stanewald is. As for 1CDs, blood apes may be violent brutes and theodozija militant evangelists from Hell, but angyalkae just want to play their harps, heranhal are just craftsmen who like to spend their pay on women, neomah ply their trade with no sinister agendas, and so on. Demons that are if not harmless then at least not outright evil outnumber the demons who are just plain bad, at least going by demons who've got a writeups in published books.

It's not so much that your grammar is bad, rather this was just shit communication altogether.

But why do you have to conflate all Infernal fans with the dipshits who tried to play Infernals in your Autochthonian campaign? You're like the bitter bastards who hate all women after being divorced.

Because it really was ridiculous how Infernals were stuck in everything on the forums and what not. Sure, the vocal minority isn't indicative of the entire group and I'm certain there are a ton of cool Infernal loving players but holy shit did it get fucking stupid how much everyone was obsessing about Infernals. It didn't help that due to the Reclamation metaplot being pushed many STs felt forced to include Infernal and Yozi shit in their games because the gameline told them that was a major thing going on.

It's very easy to see how a lot of spiteful behavior developed towards Infernals.

Whether or not demons can generally be considered to be evil depends on your definition of evil. Most demons are not intentionally malignant, but they cause suffering to themselves and to others simply because of the way the interpret what they experience in life choose to act on it, because of their conception of right and wrong. Hell is a state of mind that creates the place itself by mangling people and things. An example would be how demons understand love: If the one they love doesn't hurt them it causes them to become unstable and act out, because they can't understand how one could experience true happiness without proportional pain. And they'll inflict pain on those they love, in keeping with that. Sure, angyalke just want to play their music, but you have to consider that in view of what demonkind as a whole are like.

Bitching about Infernals in an Exalted thread just shits up the level of discourse.

Forever mad that Infernals were the real PCs

Since we're talking about Infernals, why do you like Infernals? I like Infernals because of

1. Devil-Tigers. Becoming a neo-Primordial with none of the weakness and being able to make heretical charms is just so fucking amazing.

2. There abilities are so much more interesting and cool than all the other splats. Lunar's shapeshifting and Sidereals fate stuff are cool. Solars are just boring and Abyssals act like solars painted black half the time. Dragonblood are okay but I wish they embraced their elemental natures more and aspect markings being brought up instead of being mentioned once or twice and never being mentioned again. Infernals however can do all this awesome and strange shit which makes them superior in my mind.

I'll second point 1, become a new god and then fuck off from Creation and all its bullshit to do better elsewhere. It's like Doctor Manhattan at the end of Watchmen.

If you're a survivalist or holy man or what have you who's used to eating very little and are forced because of etiquette to pig the fuck out at a banquet, do you have to roll against sickness from overeating?

Unless you've got Charms against that, yes.

In my experience every time I see or hear people go with "I could do things better than everyone else and make everything better. Unicorns and rainbows" it almost always ends with "this is one of reasons why Usurpation happened".

...

Solar's aren't exactly lame. They have amazing powers. It would be cool to have those kind of powers.

The thing is that they are more bland then that of the other splats. It's basically "Wow im great at stuff lol".

Did the crown of thunders have a 1e incarnation?

>And they'll inflict pain on those they love, in keeping with that.
Eh, I don't think this has been stated anywhere. The whole "there is no love without pain" thing or however it's worded is a general part of demonic worldview, sure, but it doesn't translate into every demon having some kind of a compulsion to hurt those they love. It just means that, as you said, they can't really deal with love without pain. It's weird, confusing, scary, and they can't help but wait for the inevitable suffering to come.

Entirely because of the second reason. Like, I don't think any other Exalt type from third edition will be able to compete with 2E Infernals for how interesting their mechanics were simply because they were purposely designed to be the weirdest. Sidereals come kind of close what with retroactively altering fate to not get hit, dragging entire cities via a belt and a rope, or turning a mortal into a goddamn dragon. But Infernals have a greater diversity to their weirdness: I can irradiate people, use telekinesis, turn into a body horror mutant, and turn into a fucking cloud of crystal spheres.

Solars can be kinda bland, but at the same time they're the closest things to hfy in the entire setting. Don't get me wrong, I like Infernals more, but I still like Soalrs over Sidereals. I came here to be awesome at what I do, not be defined by the paperwork I have to do in order to do, maybe, one neat trick a session.

Of course, that could just be my GM's fault. The one time we played Sidereals, and it was 90% office politics. I already get enough office politics in my dang office.

Yeah, it was in BOok of Three Circles, page 96.

>HFY in Exalted
You can roleplay as inspiring, life affirming heroes, but a defined route to salvation for the setting doesn't really exist in 3E. How would you run a HFY campaign in 3E in such a way that the PCs are not spinning their wheels?

sid /charms/ at least are significantly more fun than solars even if you don't like the culture, right?

I'm all in on #2.(sv made #1 far too cringy for me to like it) which is most of why I hate what the devs say they'll be doing to ruin infernals in 3ed

green abilitybased solars but with vaguely metal album astetics is not why they were fun.

also the whole "decadence of ancient solars" feels too abyssal vampire lord of the dead to me.

Only Adorjani demons would believe that really
This is a great campaign idea

So I was reading Weapons of the Gods and there was this style called Heart Moves The Blade, which seemed pretty cool to me. I'm just wondering what crunch would work for the various technique names they supplied:

Ambition: Soaring Blade (an extra-attack technique, also allows quickdraws)
Ruthlessness: Swift Blade (JB booster, an always-go-first if you win effect?)
Detachment: Sharp Blade (demoralize people with a glance)
Serenity: Nimble Blade (decreases an enemy's DVs?)
Rancor: Potent Blade (cone-shaped AoE with knockback)
Valor: Ferocious Blade (in WOTG it combined Swift/Nimble/Potent Blade, but in Exalted, maybe some kind of anti-BG effect to represent moving swiftly through a mass of foes and cutting them down)
Compassion: Excellent Blade (area attack that is armor piercing, extra damage, reduces DVs, and Essence-disrupting; however, if you botch the attack, it centers on you instead)

>Because it really was ridiculous how Infernals were stuck in everything on the forums and what not.

they were the best splat by a ridiculous margin, so /of course/ 3e 'has to shit on them'. 9_9
it's wrongfun to like the only fun splat so the easiest solution is to make them ass instead of fix the others.

solars "the main character splat" were bland as fuck and their constant attempts to prop it up as the only one you should enjoy and 'the only one who can do anything because they are the extra most special marysue capable of anything' just made it worse, 2e went out of it's way to just constantly shit on dragonbloods for some reason, sidereals while awesome in concept were mechanically unsound because large sections were copy/pasted from 1e and never bothered to be fixed because they weren't solars, lunars were "solars but worse" with a dash of fairly useless shapeshifting (which, like necromancy, never got the attention needed to make it awesome because solars couldn't have it) in part because the writer was too worried about making the charms eclipse-compatible to let them actually be lunars so we got "shitty knockoff abilitybased" instead of attribute based giving them a terrible foundation on top of everything else, alchemicals are kickass but sequestered on autochothonia where nobody can play with them which sucks for you if you like creation's setting, and abyssals suck intentionally to make their solar counterparts seem even cooler.

I mean I'll grant you most of the forum's infernal fans were terrible, but the 3e reaction against infernals and the funpurge in general are bullshit

By acting like a First Age Solar and ignoring the fact that your powers came from the Unconquered Sun and aren't simply you being an awesome human being. That's pretty much what all that noise is about.

>they were the best splat by a ridiculous margin, so /of course/ 3e 'has to shit on them'. 9_9
it's wrongfun to like the only fun splat so the easiest solution is to make them ass instead of fix the others.

Fucking this.

No, you've missed the gist of my question. HFY is a hollow lie if the protagonists cannot save the setting from themselves, from the Great Curse. Basically you'd need a campaign structured around eliminating the Great Curse, the very concept of which is treated as being FILTHY HERESY by everyone in these threads. And then assuming you ignored that and still built the campaign, what specifically is that campaign? What happens? What do the protagonists do?

Your power doesn't come from the UCS. It's yours.

How do you keep the game fun when it reaches kingdom level?

There are many house rules but no canon rules for statting up a kingdom and using it in a game, so arguably you just shouldn't let kingdom level gameplay happen. Which is a spectacular failure for a game based on demigods.

The fact that their self-aggrandizing bullshit ruins things doesn't make it less HFY unless they admit that it's a problem. They could just act like it's a good thing and be proud of it, which is a very First Age Solar/HFY attitude to have.

There aren't rules anymore you mean.

>The fact that their self-aggrandizing bullshit ruins things doesn't make it less HFY
It ruins the HFY for the players and ST even if it doesn't ruin it for the characters. Besides, the Great Curse directly contributes to the probability that Creation will suffer up to four different kinds of apocalypse: Dissolution into the Wyld because of the Fair Folk, corruption into hellscape because of the Yozi, annihilation because of the Neverborn, or a catastrophe caused by the Solars themselves.

2E Mandate of Heaven was ass and 2E was ass in general, you aren't even making a point.