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Exalted Questions Thread

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Unbanshee said:
I know I wouldn't. The ability to toss off spells is amazing even compared to modern weapons. Travel options that people can't take away from you? Summoned beings bound to you? All stuff that, as is, is tremendously useful even in a modern game.
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Sorcery is exceptionally powerful in the modern era; Death of Obsidian Butterflies can still wipe out a large portion of a fighting force, including damaging light vehicles or low flying aircraft like an VTOL's or attack choppers going low, Demon-Summoning is still one of the most powerful spells in the game, a gun isn't going to you much good against Blood-Ape who has a dodge Excellency and who does agg damage to mortals (though heavy ordnance does level the playing field, but that was true even in base Creation) furthermore, in the age of mass surveillance and wire-tapping, Infallible Messenger provides a means of communicaion that's largely immune to mundane surveillance.

Not to mention that even in the modern era has famines and droughts, Summon the Harvest and Water from a Stone spells are still very powerfull and useful.

And that's just Terrestrial Sorcery, the higher levels are going to be just as powerful, if not more so, in a modern era. Teleportation is still absolutely fantastic, even in an era with modern transport, and Third Circle Demons are still city killers.
 
Let's see.... ok. Guys, I'm going to scale this according to terrestrial scale sorcery. A flying, bombing, monster. Here goes nothing.

Two demons.

RAKETA, THE DEATH FROM ABOVE

Many are the myraid threats within the demon city. Many are the dangers on the street. A Kigyo may strike from below. A dark alley may attack from a dark alley. A denizen, walking past you, may pull a knife and gut you. Your food may be poisoned. The Silent Wind may come. Some climb onto the top of roofs to escape this death, and lie there, glad that, except for the mostly-harmless Agatae, no one can reach them with ease.

They are wrong.

Here comes the Raketa, their 6 wings buzzing on dark chitinous plate. Their 8 legs beneath them, their gigantic, red eyes scanning above, below, and in front of them for prey. When they spy an unfortunate, they swoop over and above him, contracting muscles and pulling away plates of steel-hard chitin to reveal spincters and ovipositers, all which drop parasites and symbiotes which detonate with great force when dropped below. Some contain liquids which are vitorlic, sending hapless victims screaming and causing stone to smoke. Some are filled with flames, and the green light of the fire mixes in with the sunlight. Some are simply armoured in the same shell as the Raketa, and when the explode, up to 30 yards of mortals are left bleeding on the floor.

The Raketa are used by Ocatavian, as bombers and scouts. Their 6 wings enable them to fly with great speed, though they are not very intelligent. They are skilled at their craft, however, and many in Malfeas have learnt to fear their sight. Their appearance provokes the counterattacks of Agatae-riders and Glass Hawk Lancers. In the sky above armies, a dance of death breaks out as the Raketa's defenders and attackers do battle.
 
greensun said:
Sorcery is exceptionally powerful in the modern era; Death of Obsidian Butterflies can still wipe out a large portion of a fighting force, including damaging light vehicles or low flying aircraft like an VTOL's or attack choppers going low, Demon-Summoning is still one of the most powerful spells in the game, a gun isn't going to you much good against Blood-Ape who has a dodge Excellency and who does agg damage to mortals (though heavy ordnance does level the playing field, but that was true even in base Creation) furthermore, in the age of mass surveillance and wire-tapping, Infallible Messenger provides a means of communicaion that's largely immune to mundane surveillance.

Not to mention that even in the modern era has famines and droughts, Summon the Harvest and Water from a Stone spells are still very powerfull and useful.

And that's just Terrestrial Sorcery, the higher levels are going to be just as powerful, if not more so, in a modern era. Teleportation is still absolutely fantastic, even in an era with modern transport, and Third Circle Demons are still city killers.
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A blood ape is not going to do super well against a bunch of people with guns. Blood apes really aren't that potent of a supernatural being, even in Second Edition. Even less so in third, but like...even in Second, the Blood Ape dodge excellency wasn't very good. A group of skilled soldiers are gonna be landing their shots. The utility of a blood ape in the modern era is a super strong, weirdly durable wall-phasing monster that can become intangible. If a bunch of people with assault rifles get their shots off, it'll probably die pretty hard, but one surprised person, with body guards who can't see it?

Or if you've got a bunch of blood apes, the modern soldiers will fare considerably worse.
 
Kaiya said:
A blood ape is not going to do super well against a bunch of people with guns. Blood apes really aren't that potent of a supernatural being, even in Second Edition. Even less so in third, but like...even in Second, the Blood Ape dodge excellency wasn't very good. A group of skilled soldiers are gonna be landing their shots. The utility of a blood ape in the modern era is a super strong, weirdly durable wall-phasing monster that can become intangible. If a bunch of people with assault rifles get their shots off, it'll probably die pretty hard, but one surprised person, with body guards who can't see it?

Or if you've got a bunch of blood apes, the modern soldiers will fare considerably worse.
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Nah. Back up the blood apes with sesseljae and peronelles.
 
Kaiya said:
A blood ape is not going to do super well against a bunch of people with guns. Blood apes really aren't that potent of a supernatural being, even in Second Edition. Even less so in third, but like...even in Second, the Blood Ape dodge excellency wasn't very good. A group of skilled soldiers are gonna be landing their shots. The utility of a blood ape in the modern era is a super strong, weirdly durable wall-phasing monster that can become intangible. If a bunch of people with assault rifles get their shots off, it'll probably die pretty hard, but one surprised person, with body guards who can't see it?

Or if you've got a bunch of blood apes, the modern soldiers will fare considerably worse.
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Of course, in a modern Exalted setting, Blood Apes should have taken to firearms like highly violent murder-apes to things that make lots of noise and make things die.

So these murder apes should be carrying pairs of sawn-offs, and AKs with bayonets, so they can hose down areas and get in nice and bloody.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Of course, in a modern Exalted setting, Blood Apes should have taken to firearms like highly violent murder-apes to things that make lots of noise and make things die.

So these murder apes should be carrying pairs of sawn-offs, and AKs with bayonets, so they can hose down areas and get in nice and bloody.
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Also I'd note that unlike humans Blood Apes are not at all discouraged by death and injury, while also being the size of a gorilla. Longarms, sure.
I don't think a most pistols are going to do much more than get them excited before you are being wishboned by a gorilla.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Of course, in a modern Exalted setting, Blood Apes should have taken to firearms like highly violent murder-apes to things that make lots of noise and make things die.

So these murder apes should be carrying pairs of sawn-offs, and AKs with bayonets, so they can hose down areas and get in nice and bloody.
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I actually did this in my Exalted modern game. I had a buried prayer strip guarded by blood apes all using massive fuck-off shotguns and assault rifles. They were reinforced by a couple squads of power-armored soldiers with artifact machine guns and attack helicopters, in a remote mountain fortress with machine gun nests all along the only road leading to the fortress.

Naturally, this being Exalted 2.5, our enemies decided it'd be a lot safer to attack the fortress than assassinate me with my prayer-strip fueled regeneration still in effect.

(Exalted Second Edition could be nonsense, but by God it was fun nonsense. I'm never going back, but my memories are fond.)
 
Kaiya said:
Men in Black meets Young Justice. We were a task force opposing rogue spirits and Exalts, rooting out terrorist plots and attacking Abyssals and Solar revolutionaries and navigating the politics of the Infernal conspiracy.
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How did it interact with sorcery, guns, martial arts, and modern tech?
 
Accelerator said:
How did it interact with sorcery, guns, martial arts, and modern tech?
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The two strongest characters were the ones who forsook technology in favor of martial arts. The two strongest NPCs were both Exalted firearms specialists. My character could pretty casually take apart a tank with his bare hands, while the homebrewed warstriders our ST made were a reasonably powerful bossfight for the group. One of our biggest assets was a starmetal survelliance van that I made out of a dragon who was a spymaster for the spirit courts (Sidereal Bureaucracy is the best Charmtree ever made).

Basically, modern tech without magic loses to magic. Modern tech with magic has a lot of advantages over just magic (A magic cellphone was way, way better than, say, the magic coin in vanilla that lets you send hidden messages). We had an assault craft that completely failed to do damage to a Sworn Brotherhood of elite Dragonblooded. Their reaction to having 20mm shells rained down on them was "Really? You thought that would hurt. I'm insulted."

The PC who called in the airstrike shrugged and said it was the only artillery we had, and then IIRC shot him with an artifact sniper rifle while another PC charged into melee.

The difference between swords and guns was huge for mortals and non-existent for the Exalted, who were just too damn magical for it to matter. Multiple philosophical discussions on the dichotomy between magic and technology happened IC.

My character was a powerful Sorcerer, and it was a game-changing ability at several key points. Sorcery as an art was nearly dead, and the practioners still around were effectively walking WMDs, and had to register as such. I was on record with the government myself for my one explody spell, though my actual spec as a Sorcerer was in teleportation.
 
Woah. Like... explain more. On the 20mm shell thing and the magical artifacts. Like, what did they do?

And the sorcery.
 
Accelerator said:
Woah. Like... explain more. On the 20mm shell thing and the magical artifacts. Like, what did they do?

And the sorcery.
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The 20mm shelling was modeled as an environmental hazard hitting everyone in a reasonable range. It did a lot of damage without beneitting from any magical enhancements. Had it struck the PCs at the start of the game, we would have all been badly injured, or at least those of us without Perfect Defenses. By this point, though, we were all so durable that it couldn't do more than scratch damage. My PC in particular was the toughest of the group, with powerful regeneration, and only the strongest attacks in the game could hope to do more than minimum damage.

The Dragonblooded we were fighting were all very powerful as well, Essence 4 and 5, and they were kinda beyond caring about mundane explosions, only magical effects that ignore all defenses were really a threat to any of the combatants. If you were to fire a tank shell at my PC, he would likely have deliberately not dodged and tanked (heh) the hit, because he knows it wouldn't do much to him. Even if it did, he'd heal the damage in seconds and then tear the tank to shreds, and he liked to show off because he was an asshole like that.

We had the starmetal van, as I said, and IIRC one PC had a magic cellphone that couldn't be traced and could make calls anywhere, but I forget the details. My biggest spells were Travel Without Distance, which I had a secondary artifact+hearthstone combo to cast on the fly for a fuckton of motes and instantly teleport the whole party 50 miles in any direction, and Faithful Ally, which allowed telepathic communication with all PCs, and for me to instantly teleport to anyone's side who I had marked with the spell.

We used this to escape an ambush by an elder Lunar, a Jadeborn killsquad, and the Avatar of Gaia. I smashed through an anti-teleport ward with raw power and teleported us all 50 miles up. We were pretty deep under Mount Meru at the time. We cleared the stone by about a mile, which rather vindicated my maximum range choice.

Gaia still nearly killed us all with a bullshit super illness. Thank god for Medicine Charms is all I can say.
 
Kaiya said:
Too many to count. I had 70 Charms by the end of the game, 60ish around then. The Dragonblooded all had dozens of Charms, each built towards a specific playstyle, martial artist, meleeist, crafter/sniper, ect ect.
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Huh.

To be honest?

I always thought the dragonblooded were the low powered dudes who would get taken down by a rain of artillery shells.
 
Accelerator said:
Huh.

To be honest?

I always thought the dragonblooded were the low powered dudes who would get taken down by a rain of artillery shells.
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This is a common meme. But only a meme. The Dragonblooded in Second Edition were incredibly efficient, powerful, durable demigods. They suffered from holes in their Charmset that Solar and Lunar magic could take advantage of. The Dragonblooded was about as invincible as a...well, not as a Solar, 2e Solars were fucking batshit. But as a Sidereal would be to mundane or godly assaults. It's just that a lot of their Charms auto-failed when a Solar or Lunar or Sidereal was attacking.

The Earth Aspect PC was outright stronger and faster than my Sidereal was. She just couldn't say "I automatically hit for my maximum damage" like my Sidereal could. But that didn't matter, because my maximum damage was 21/6. Hers was 50/6.

The Dragonblooded are terrifying. Never underestimate them.

/6 denotes minimum damage.

Dragonblooded also suffered from crappy keyword defenses, which meant that a Solar could auto-kill them with shaping and disease and crippling effects and the like. Because Second Edition was garbage.
 
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Kaiya said:
This is a common meme. But only a meme. The Dragonblooded in Second Edition were incredibly efficient, powerful, durable demigods. They suffered from holes in their Charmset that Solar and Lunar magic could take advantage of. The Dragonblooded was about as invincible as a...well, not as a Solar, 2e Solars were fucking batshit. But as a Sidereal would be to mundane or godly assaults. It's just that a lot of their Charms auto-failed when a Solar or Lunar or Sidereal was attacking.

The Earth Aspect PC was outright stronger and faster than my Sidereal was. She just couldn't say "I automatically hit for my maximum damage" like my Sidereal could. But that didn't matter, because my maximum damage was 21/6. Hers was 50/6.

The Dragonblooded are terrifying. Never underestimate them.

/6 denotes minimum damage.

Dragonblooded also suffered from crappy keyword defenses, which meant that a Solar could auto-kill them with shaping and disease and crippling effects and the like. Because Second Edition was garbage.
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I suppose transferring from game terms to cinematic was always one of my problems...

Fine then. How does a essence 3, melee supernal solar exalt look like?
 
Accelerator said:
I suppose transferring from game terms to cinematic was always one of my problems...

Fine then. How does a essence 3, melee supernal solar exalt look like?
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First off, this is really broad, there are significant differences in builds. But, generally speaking, this is where you have your casually army destroying Solars who come untouched out of volcanic eruptions and turn aside the hearts of nuclear detonations while having the raw durability and fortitude to survive the radiation and flames afterwards. Essence 3 is the height of most Exalts, reaching beyond it is fairly rare in Ex3, and Essence 3 Charms are usually the most broadly useful, though not doing the crazy nonsense of the Essence 5 effects.

At Essence 3, you've got Ruin-Abasing Shrug, that forces your opponent to reroll all successful damage on a decisive attack, which is likely to turn a haymaker into a whiff. You've got Wound-Knitting Exercise, which is a slow regen of your -0 health levels. You've got Fury-Fed Ardor, which turns failed decisive damage into initiative for you. This results in a Solar who rarely gets hurt, even by the strongest attacks, and from those can regenerate, backed by the insane counter attacks and defensive power of Supernal Melee. Socially, they have access to Hypnotic Tongue and such effects, can remove people's memories of their social goals for a scene, can terrifyi armies casually into submission, can create alternate personas to hide in, can access all the best efficient defenses from all abilities...

An Essence 3 Solar is an army-slaying, world changing force of shining golden power. Doing all the crazy anime nonsense and wrecking faces all over the play, while their Supernal lets them shake the heavens with their specialty.
 
Kaiya said:
First off, this is really broad, there are significant differences in builds. But, generally speaking, this is where you have your casually army destroying Solars who come untouched out of volcanic eruptions and turn aside the hearts of nuclear detonations while having the raw durability and fortitude to survive the radiation and flames afterwards. Essence 3 is the height of most Exalts, reaching beyond it is fairly rare in Ex3, and Essence 3 Charms are usually the most broadly useful, though not doing the crazy nonsense of the Essence 5 effects.

At Essence 3, you've got Ruin-Abasing Shrug, that forces your opponent to reroll all successful damage on a decisive attack, which is likely to turn a haymaker into a whiff. You've got Wound-Knitting Exercise, which is a slow regen of your -0 health levels. You've got Fury-Fed Ardor, which turns failed decisive damage into initiative for you. This results in a Solar who rarely gets hurt, even by the strongest attacks, and from those can regenerate, backed by the insane counter attacks and defensive power of Supernal Melee. Socially, they have access to Hypnotic Tongue and such effects, can remove people's memories of their social goals for a scene, can terrifyi armies casually into submission, can create alternate personas to hide in, can access all the best efficient defenses from all abilities...

An Essence 3 Solar is an army-slaying, world changing force of shining golden power. Doing all the crazy anime nonsense and wrecking faces all over the play, while their Supernal lets them shake the heavens with their specialty.
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Wow.

Like.... can you be my beta for a campione/ exalted fic i'm writing?
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in 2e you learn thaumaturgical Degrees as Occult Specialties, yes?
 
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