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General Exalted Thread

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Rand Brittain said:
In the end, I decided not to wait on a final decision on whether Golden Calibration could be sold on the Vault (DriveThru didn't feel qualified to make the decision, and finding someone at Paradox to make it had taken weeks and might wind up taking even longer).

Here is the final book, released as a free supplement under the Dark Pack rules. May it bring you joy. May you send me any comments you come up with so I can continue to make corrections and adjustments. May I spend the rest of my life working on IP I actually own.
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Just want to say I finally read through this and yes it does bring joy. A few Charms seem overpowered, but I love the Sail Charms especially the first.
Amidatelion said:
So a different question... how does everyone prefer to use the concept of Past Lives and associated trappings?

Ex3 has heavily de-emphasized any mechanical effects of past lives in favor of a more "vague deja vu and flashes of insight" approach but also presents lots of hooks and NPCs that rely on past life memories and identity.

I can see the benefits of multiple approaches and think that any level of "past life memories" should be settled between the player and storyteller throughout the game. Still, I'd like to know what other people make of it and how that's played out in games.
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If I was running a game I would offer XP bonuses for players willing to give me 'tokens' for Past Life Bullshit, ie 'you've just been insulted in every way possible, and deja vu whisks you back to your past life where this person who your entire party wants to ultraviolence was your greatest friend, have a Major Intimacy that says you need to protect them'. Complicating stuff, not critical, but the sort of thing that livens up a session that might be a bit boring.
 
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Gazetteer said:
I've been involved with one game where they feature pretty heavily, with the player in question really buying into the idea that their PC and at least one of her past lives have enough in common that the memories feel meaningfully like hers. An original deathlord who ended up as a major antagonist is the ghost of that prior incarnation, so we had a lot of fun with it.

It's a fun element a player can dip into as much or as little as they like, and you can tie it into a lot of story hooks or not, as suits your needs. I've not felt a need to mechanise it or houserule in new lore to make it work differently, so far.
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As another player in that game, this runs the gamut even within the same game to "a previous life of mine was in the Shadow Fang Vanguard, haha, I feel a bit silly about that".

It's good to have it as a viable hook, but not a mandatory hook.
 
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I honestly have not touched much on past lives much in any game I've played or run. I don't really view them as actual past lives, you know? The Solar who last held your character's Exaltation in the First Age before coming to an end wasn't your character's soul in a previous time, he was just some dude that had the same font of power your character gets theirs from. There's no sense of responsibility for anything their prior incarnations did beyond just, "Damn, First Age Solars were fucked up and I don't want to repeat anything they did."
 
SunnySprings said:
There's no sense of responsibility for anything their prior incarnations did beyond just, "Damn, First Age Solars were fucked up and I don't want to repeat anything they did."
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This is actually why I often find it more compelling to play characters who don't entirely reject the concept of their past incarnations having significance to them. You get that sense of responsibility or connection, that way, and it can have more narrative significance. Many Celestial Exalts in the setting view things this way, so it makes sense to me to regard that as a reasonable way to feel about these experiences, even if not everyone has to feel exactly the same way.

I don't actually care about nailing down some objective truth on the matter or about what players out of character have decided must be true on the subject, compared to what the specific character this story is about thinks.
 
I really like past lives but it's more of an interesting imposition, a strange feeling of being out of place and a kind of dissociation and weight that comes with it. For me it's a character conflict and a source of plot hooks, allowing a character to be 'mature beyond their years' without being overpowered. What I really want to avoid with past lives is using it as an excuse to lord over people or feel more competent than the character should be. You're still you, but you're haunted and bedeviled by these past yous.

And other people I play with don't use their past lives at all. It's a fun spectrum - a useful tool if you'd like to deploy it. I actually took a merit related to it in the Essence game I'm playing.
 
When it comes to past life's I like to make it have big contrasts. Like my dear Warlord Zenith Beryl has a fairly strong past life merit. But his past life is that of the most peaceful solars in all the realm, who once ruled Whitewall. It mostly so I can pile on angst cause I'm a fucking dork.
 
Shane_357 said:
Just want to say I finally read through this and yes it does bring joy. A few Charms seem overpowered, but I love the Sail Charms especially the first.
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Glad to hear it! Always glad to receive any feedback people have, especially since I now need to go back through the whole thing and incorporate the formatting changes from Sidereals, like the standardized wording for reset Charms.
 
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I think I'm gonna start off Essence 2 in my Exalted: Essence Alchemicals game with a bang. The party (Alchemicals that have been sent into Creation by the nation of Jarish) has been working with the Sidereal assigned to handle their case, a Chosen of Serenity who hopes to continue the Autochthonians' current path of pacifism and beneficial trade with the rest of the region they popped out in, as it causes her the least amount of headaches for doing her job in the (literally) foreseeable future. She's happy with them enough that she is considering using her institutional clout to get them added to the Bureau of Destiny's rosters as special consultants (also reduces the other headache of Arcane Fate), but before she does that, there is one manner of interest to the Alchemicals. 3e Sids details a place called the Dweomerforge, which is a left-over Primordial structure in Yu-Shan that has been sealed off by the authorities due to being absolutely riddled with crazy defense systems. Let's say, for the purposes of my game, that it's Autochthon's left-over workshop/fragment of his world self.

Why not have the Sidereal propose the players conduct a heist there? The player characters are sufficiently shady people that they'd love the idea, to say nothing of the fact that I can finally put all the other dang plot beats I want to establish there (such as, "Where to find stuff to make Autochthon stop dying"), and it would be fun to send these city Exalts (not literally) to the greatest city in the universe. How would I handle a heist in this system? I'm thinking I run it as a Venture, let them use Stealth and what not to plan it out, and then adjust from there when they set it in motion, but any advice is appreciated.
 
On the topic of past lives, one of my proudest moments was the Prologue I ran for three players back at the beginning of 3E. The players were newly-Exalted Solars who all Exalted in the city of Cactus Rock in the Southeast, which I modeled after Tenochtitlan. As part of the pregame discussion, I asked each player to think of their First Age incarnation, who was somehow instrumental in the founding of Cactus Rock. I wrote a series of seven prompts in the style of the Codex Mexicayotl, here's an example:
This is what is told, this is what came next:

You are walking a dry road. You have left towns and villages behind. The God is at your back. The God is whispering promises in your ear.

Promises of jade and quetzal feathers; of gold, silver, and gemstones; of cotinga feathers and human hearts.

The People are eating herbs, worms, and snakes. The People are eating deer, white rabbit, and birds. Your people are on a dry road walking.
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And then each player narrated a short description of how their First Age incarnation participated in that part of the mythical story of the city's foundation. It was really great. But that was also a game where everyone decided going into it that we would focus heavily on the idea of reincarnation and past lives, so YMMV.
 
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Honestly, I keep coming away from Essence feeling like 3e, as wonky and bizarrely made as it is, has more strengths in comparison to Essence, but it's the only way to run an Alchs game for now that isn't going back to 1e/2.5e and dealing with those rulesets. The Ventures system is great (although that is generally the easiest thing to adapt to 3e), I like how potent the Caste/Exalt advantages are, but I honestly just don't get the weird Force/Finesse/Fortitude thing since it seems too simplified, flavorless, and easy to just roll the best attribute for every task. I especially dislike Milestones over XP since the former requires that players contort themselves into weird scenarios to get Exalt milestones (the latter is present to a lesser extent with Splat XP but the criteria for those are much broader) and the personal/Exalt milestone progression is obviously way overtuned. If I'm reading the rules right, each player gets one guaranteed personal milestone a session, and when every player has gotten a personal milestone or a Exalt milestone, they get their choice of another personal milestone or Exalt milestone? This is incredibly fast progression compared to minor and major milestones; if your players hit their caste conditions every other session and you play for ten sessions, that's 15 Exalt charms guaranteed.

For reference, I counted how many Solar Exalt charms there were and there's 30 total. Your Solar player, if you have one, has half of their total charm count now (or over, if they bought some Solar charms at chargen) at 10 sessions in; they're probably sitting on a pile of them now because they've gotten everything they have Ability dots in already. Universal charms, for comparison, progress roughly equivalent to how they do in past editions of Exalted; you get a minor milestone every other session and that can buy +1 to an ability or a new universal charm. I really don't get what this fast pace accomplishes, considering Exalt charms are just as potent as universal charms and it feels stupid to sit on things you can't spend because the game gave you too much of them.

I also think the antagonists are kind of undertuned, considering how easy it is to max out your dicepool and get every charm you need for combat or social situations. There's a very arbitrary limit on how many qualities (which include charms) an antagonist gets: 6. That seems very low for no good reason beyond "It's simpler". I hope the finished product does something about any of these, because for now I'm trying my best to homebrew this stuff into a workable state.
 
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SunnySprings said:
Honestly, I keep coming away from Essence feeling like 3e, as wonky and bizarrely made as it is, has more strengths in comparison to Essence, but it's the only way to run an Alchs game for now that isn't going back to 1e/2.5e and dealing with those rulesets. The Ventures system is great (although that is generally the easiest thing to adapt to 3e), I like how potent the Caste/Exalt advantages are, but I honestly just don't get the weird Force/Finesse/Fortitude thing since it seems too simplified, flavorless, and easy to just roll the best attribute for every task. I especially dislike Milestones over XP since the former requires that players contort themselves into weird scenarios to get Exalt milestones (the latter is present to a lesser extent with Splat XP but the criteria for those are much broader) and the personal/Exalt milestone progression is obviously way overtuned. If I'm reading the rules right, each player gets one guaranteed personal milestone a session, and when every player has gotten a personal milestone or a Exalt milestone, they get their choice of another personal milestone or Exalt milestone? This is incredibly fast progression compared to minor and major milestones; if your players hit their caste conditions every other session and you play for ten sessions, that's 15 Exalt charms guaranteed.

For reference, I counted how many Solar Exalt charms there were and there's 30 total. Your Solar player, if you have one, has half of their total charm count now (or over, if they bought some Solar charms at chargen) at 10 sessions in; they're probably sitting on a pile of them now because they've gotten everything they have Ability dots in already. Universal charms, for comparison, progress roughly equivalent to how they do in past editions of Exalted; you get a minor milestone every other session and that can buy +1 to an ability or a new universal charm. I really don't get what this fast pace accomplishes, considering Exalt charms are just as potent as universal charms and it feels stupid to sit on things you can't spend because the game gave you too much of them.

I also think the antagonists are kind of undertuned, considering how easy it is to max out your dicepool and get every charm you need for combat or social situations. There's a very arbitrary limit on how many qualities (which include charms) an antagonist gets: 6. That seems very low for no good reason beyond "It's simpler". I hope the finished product does something about any of these, because for now I'm trying my best to homebrew this stuff into a workable state.
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I remember the devs saying there was a versioning error with the milestones as presented in the backer text. pulling from the relevant pins in the Discord:

Okay, hypothetical session, Milestone rules example.
When everyone earns enough Milestone 'Beats' to equal the circle's members they gain the benefits of that type of Advancement.

Three exalts are breaking into Plentimon, the god of Gambling's sanctum-casino; he's ticked them off so they're gonna mess with him. We have a Night, Twilight and Changing Moon
Their Personal Goals are respectively:
-Humiliate him publicly - Twilight
-Steal from him - Night
-Make out with at least on hot god while there - Changing Moon

The Night doesn't break a sweat robbing him through their incredible disguise and stealth skills. Personal milestone 'Beat'.
The Twilight attempts to humiliate Plentimon but he plays it off, no beat. However they also play wingman to the Changing Moon. Personal Milestone 'Beat'.
The Changing Moon manages to make out with two separate gods, both political rivals there for the party. Personal Milestone 'Beat'.
At the end of the session the circle earns a Personal Milestone Advancement.

While there the Night stole an important item and gained access to a locked or guarded place undetected. Exalt Milestone 'Beat'.
The Twilight used their knowledge of divine politics to help the Changing Moon flirt. Exalt Milestone 'Beat'.
The Changing Moon was too busy flirting to really help sabotage or espionage, and while their new contacts may help with that in future everyone agrees it doesn't count for this session. No Exalt Milestone 'Beat'.
At the end of the session the circle has only 2/3 of the exalt milestones needed to earn the Advancement. Anyone who earns one next session will earn the whole circle the Advancement at the end of next session.

For clarity:
Personal and Exalt milestones are two separate tracks. You track them separately. They are accomplished by doing specific goals.
Personal goals you make up yourself and should be talking about regularly - it's okay if a personal goal takes a little bit to achieve, but you should be buying into every story arc.
Exalt goals are defined by your Caste or Aspect. Some are hard and some are easy. This is on purpose.
You mark a goal every time you hit one of these, up to a number of times equal to the players. So 4 times in a four player game.
Then, you earn the milestone which gets you stuff.

I haven't compared those clarifications against the manuscript. I also remembered making a post about it when the kickstarter was going on, so there's that version of the clarification as well.
 
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Oh, that's a relief, that's much more feasible.

Anyway, getting my thoughts together on the Sidereals 3e charm set. I'd say its just the outright best they've had in this edition; I've never felt such indecision when I create sample characters because there's just so many fun things for every Caste to get at. Should I pick the Journeys rider who can ride her horse (who is also her assistant) anywhere since it runs off open world RPG logic? How about the Serenity who has picked the charms that will make her the most effectively nice person and least likely to Limit Break person on the Circle? What about the Secrets who is such a big nerd that she can use Intelligence instead of Appearance for extra social influence dice because she's using her INTJ powers to calculate the optimal response? It got me to care about Ride and Sail, which is high praise from me, as I never bother with either since I am a suspicious gamer who fears my GM taking away my precious horse or boat.

I can think of a few shortcomings, however. The Endings set is a little smaller than the others, which is a shame because I feel like Athletics and Awareness could have been fleshed out just a bit more (also you can turn into a crow but can't summon crows with Awareness, which is sad if you want to impersonate Odin). Battles has the most charms of all, but replicates the Dawn Problem; you don't really wanna be spreading out into more than two attack trees, and Battles has three plus the quasi-attack tree of War. I would really have liked to have seen charms in Archery, Brawl, and Melee that were non-combat focused. There are, weirdly enough, a handful of House of Battles charms that do just that but would fit in much better in the ability trees to give you a reason to actually buy some Archery if you're adamantly a Melee person, or vice versa. I'll probably try to homebrew some myself, honestly; I'd love to explore the Gauntlet's patronage of surgeons and judge, or gambling tricks with the Spear.
 
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SunnySprings said:
Battles has the most charms of all, but replicates the Dawn Problem; you don't really wanna be spreading out into more than two attack trees, and Battles has three plus the quasi-attack tree of War. I would really have liked to have seen charms in Archery, Brawl, and Melee that were non-combat focused. There are, weirdly enough, a handful of House of Battles charms that do just that but would fit in much better in the ability trees to give you a reason to actually buy some Archery if you're adamantly a Melee person, or vice versa. I'll probably try to homebrew some myself, honestly; I'd love to explore the Gauntlet's patronage of surgeons and judge, or gambling tricks with the Spear.
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This is my main problem with the charm set as well. The fluff description of what the Mars and the Chosen of Battles oversee include conflicts outside of combat like politics, court cases, or athletic competitions, but there's very few charms even in Presence that support that. I really think War charms in particular should be expanded to include recruiting, training, and organizing people outside of battle groups, and there set as a whole needs some stuff to support logistics, debate, and similar things.
 
Sidereals don't train people? I reject that notion! However, I do acknowledge that Sidereals tend to have little specific tricks for all their different applications, and that they've got a lot of stuff in unorthodox places. For instance, Sidereals have some great training stuff in Throne Shadow, and also spread across various martial arts. (Emerald Gyre has one, but I think in 2e there were also some training powers in Logic Style)

Also Sidereals already have a charm that helps them (end) debate, so charms that let them do other rhetorical stuff wouldn't go amiss. Though I'm pretty sure they've got some stuff in their 3e writeup, just probably in some nonstandard places.
 
SunnySprings said:
Damn! Oh well, at least the one new one is cool.
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EDIT: uh, sorry Sunny Springs, I accidentally quoted this post and have no idea how? My apologies!
Amidatelion said:
So a different question... how does everyone prefer to use the concept of Past Lives and associated trappings?

Ex3 has heavily de-emphasized any mechanical effects of past lives in favor of a more "vague deja vu and flashes of insight" approach but also presents lots of hooks and NPCs that rely on past life memories and identity.

I can see the benefits of multiple approaches and think that any level of "past life memories" should be settled between the player and storyteller throughout the game. Still, I'd like to know what other people make of it and how that's played out in games.
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I ran two entire sessions for @emeralis00 and @Maugan Ra each involving playing out past life flashbacks after dramatic moments prompted them to have echoes that related to the events of the game, and personally had great fun doing so.
 
Artifact chapter is out.

Enlightening Abnegation Sabers backstory makes me sad. Almost bankrupted the house for a love they lost from no fault of their own
 
Nice to see that the Sidereals book was well recieved, I really like them conceptually, but the second edition take on them was awful, and first edition was before I learned Exalted was a thing.
 
*reads Pallian-Azar's write up*

how dare they drop this plot hook about devil-stars, and then taunt me with the meanest crumbs of lore

how dare they
 
The God-Kicking Boots are very amusing to me because it's such an exceptionally enby thing.

Ten thousand faceless shapes and yet to be perceived is agony? ...Yeah, mood.
 
Gazetteer said:
After two editions of her conspicuously not getting a proper write-up, this is a very good take on Anys Syn.
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Anys Syn really is simply Built Different. She was Constructed Alternatively. Absolute meme of a woman, your overbearing but well meaning auntie with the high expectations has a nuclear first strike capability in her right hand and second strike in her left. They had to put a glass case and a two-key activation system over her character sheet. It's ridiculous I love it, she's probably played by Michelle Yeoh.
 
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