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General Exalted Thread

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Shyft said:
  • On paper, 1wp is equal to about 10 motes
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... uh? Where's this value from, out of interest? I tend to use the fact that a two-dot stunt lets you either respire 4m or 1wp, meaning that the two are equal as far as opportunity cost goes and can be treated as equivalent in terms of combat-time expense. Unless you're talking about 3e?
 
Aleph said:
... uh? Where's this value from, out of interest? I tend to use the fact that a two-dot stunt lets you either respire 4m or 1wp, meaning that the two are equal as far as opportunity cost goes and can be treated as equivalent in terms of combat-time expense. Unless you're talking about 3e?
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I'm actually refering an old old sidebar from 1e actually, but it holds true even in 2e if you look at it the right way. Uhm... Arsenal of the Unconquered Sun, I think it was- it had some guidelines on how to write customs back then. I fully admit that it's relevance to 2e is variable from person to person!

Edit! having checked,Arsenal of the Unconquered Sun is a title in the 3e line, but it's not what I was referring to about the source. I might have mis-remembered something.

However, I can agree that opportunity cost, 4m is roughly equal to 1wp, but I think there are other kinds of costs and metrics that can be utilized, or have been in the past.
 
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Peori, if you're going to argue that combinatorial hell is not a thing re designing Charms, in the sense that you do not need to look at every charm (and special use artifact, and hearthstone power, and bullshit merit, and sorcerous buff spell...) that can interact with the one you are writing while you are writing it, I'm going to mock you severely.

The larger the set of different bits of rules exceptions a given proposed rule exception can interact with, the higher the chances are that some kind of dumbshit broken interaction will exist: see the entire publication history of Exalted, Magic the Gathering, D&D etc etc for choice examples. In order to reduce the number of dumbshit broken interactions in an exception-based game, said game should therefore try to keep the number of exception-packets any given exception packet-can interact with to a reasonable minimum, while satisfying other design goals.

For example, if we want it to be easy to assemble NPCs on the fly, we can simply use some wordcount in the GM chapter of any given book (which we acquire by sacrificing the martial arts styles, ha ha) to make prefabricated competency-packages which use only the set of native Charms and commonly available equipment, take up vastly less space than Martial Arts Styles, and are orders of magnitude easier to balance, as we are creating no new effects and only suggesting sets of already extant effects that work together well to accomplish some goal or satisfy some competency.

If our only goal is this, going for Martial Arts as collections of universally available, universally interacting splat agnostic charms in order to do it is a madman's choice. Who has the time to test all those combinations?
 
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My point is that Martial Arts are not unique in this aspect. The entire system is based on Exception Based Design, and the more you increase the exceptions regardless of the label the more complex it gets.

Why should we eliminate Martial Arts and not, say, Sorcery? Or Artifacts? Or Thaumaturgy? Or Astrology?

There is no reason to target Martial Arts in specific as increasing complexity beyond an acceptable level of utility. Any standard you apply to it will apply to dozens of other sub-systems of the game with equal strength. You're making an entirely arbitrary decision based on purely aesthetic preference.
 
Come now Peori, don't be deliberately obtuse.

The reason to target Martial Arts specifically is because none of the other things you've mentioned are Charms that are expected to work in combat time. You know this.
 
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Salty said:
Come now Peori, don't be deliberately obtuse.

The reason to target Martial Arts specifically is because none of the other things you've mentioned are Charms that are expected to work in combat time. End of line.
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Really? Really? There are no combat spells? There are no combat artifacts? Fucking really?

You are going to sit there with a straight face and make that claim? I want to be sure you make that claim, right now. I have my copy of both the 1e and 2e corebook within hands reach for you to confirm you are saying there are no spells or artifacts meant to be used in combat. Please confirm that is what you are saying.
 
Aaron Peori said:
My point is that Martial Arts are not unique in this aspect. The entire system is based on Exception Based Design, and the more you increase the exceptions regardless of the label the more complex it gets.

Why should we eliminate Martial Arts and not, say, Sorcery? Or Artifacts? Or Thaumaturgy? Or Astrology?
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Because Martial Arts is a larger set than all of those put together in terms of combinatorial hell being real. Once Martial Arts is dead we can start murdering the others and sacrificing them to Nyarlathotep, then maybe the end result will have a structure that attempts to minimize combinatorial hell rather than aggravate it as egregiously as possible.

Aaron Peori said:
There is no reason to target Martial Arts in specific as increasing complexity beyond an acceptable level of utility. Any standard you apply to it will apply to dozens of other sub-systems of the game with equal strength. You're making an entirely arbitrary decision based on purely aesthetic preference.
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Sure there is. Go through 2E. Count the number of martial arts charms. Realize that one must test them against Solar, Lunar, Infernal, Abyssal, Alchemical, Dragon-Blooded, raksha, ghost, dragon king and spirit charmsets, plus artifacts, plus hearthstones, plus sorcerous buffs, if you want to ensure there aren't any dumbshit game-breaking combinations. Laugh.
 
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Aaron Peori said:
Really? Really? There are no combat spells? There are no combat artifacts? Fucking really?

You are going to sit there with a straight face and make that claim? I want to be sure you make that claim, right now. I have my copy of both the 1e and 2e corebook within hands reach for you to confirm you are saying there are no spells or artifacts meant to be used in combat. Please confirm that is what you are saying.
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That is indeed not what I am saying, and you are well aware of it.

Now if you wish to go ahead and look through those corebooks and find the reflexive or supplemental Spells or Artifacts, be my guest. But you aren't fooling anyone when you pretend that Spells and Artifacts are directly equivalent to actual Charms.
 
Jon Chung said:
Once Martial Arts is dead we can start murdering the others and sacrificing them to Nyarlathotep, then maybe the end result will have a structure that attempts to minimize combinatorial hell rather than aggravate it as egregiously as possible.
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Sacrificing them to Nyarlathotep? But who else would have designed Exalted from the ground up to be a combinatorial nightmare? :p

More seriously, isn't an exception-based combinatorial hell going to be the inevitable result of a ruleset like Exalted's, seeing as it is almost entirely built of tiny packages of exceptions that are intended to be common enough to be earned every other session at a minimum?
 
notthepenguins said:
Sacrificing them to Nyarlathotep? But who else would have designed Exalted from the ground up to be a combinatorial nightmare? :p

More seriously, isn't an exception-based combinatorial hell going to be the inevitable result of a ruleset like Exalted's, seeing as it is almost entirely built of tiny packages of exceptions that are intended to be common enough to be earned every other session at a minimum?
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Yes. So you should build your massive list of exception packets such that the amount of other exception packets any given packet needs to interact with in order for you to build it is as small as possible. Let's say the size of your charmset total is a large number: arbitrarily call it 10,000. However, the set of all the things that directly interact with your new charm is much smaller! Say, it's only the set of all combat-relevant Solar Charms and common gear, something that doesn't even break a count of, say, 100 because we're sane and try to limit cross-set interaction as much as possible. This is much easier to test, yes?

Further on, you only need to test the set of 100 against the other sets of 100 combat-relevant Dragon-Blooded charms and common gear (and Sidereal, and so on) in order to look at splat balance, which is again, much easier to test. The size of the whole can be large, as long as the size of the sets we're actually working with is kept small.
 
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Jon Chung said:
Because Martial Arts is a larger set than all of those put together in terms of combinatorial hell being real. Once Martial Arts is dead we can start murdering the others and sacrificing them to Nyarlathotep, then maybe the end result will have a structure that attempts to minimize combinatorial hell rather than aggravate it as egregiously as possible.
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Or you could just play Hero of M&M or GURPS and jump straight to the end game.

Sure there is. Go through 2E. Count the number of martial arts charms. Realize that one must test them against Solar, Lunar, Alchemical, Dragon-Blooded, raksha, dragon king and spirit charmsets, plus artifacts, plus sorcerous buffs, if you want to ensure there aren't any dumbshit game-breaking combinations. Laugh.
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Now count up the number of artifacts and spells and everything else. Realize you also have to balance every single one against everything else.

Again, Martial Arts is targeted solely out of preference, not out of any objective criteria.

Salty said:
That is indeed not what I am saying, and you are well aware of it.

Now if you wish to go ahead and look through those corebooks and find the reflexive or supplemental Spells or Artifacts, be my guest. But you aren't fooling anyone when you pretend that Spells and Artifacts are directly equivalent to actual Charms.
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Lightnning Torment Hatchets, page 392. "the wielder must recall them as a reflexive action by spending a mote of Essence."

Windhands Gemstone, Freedom Stone.

Wood Dragons Claw "At the beginning of each turn the character can reflexively reallocate"

Dolorous Reflection "The sorcerer's player makes a reflexive (Wits + Occult) roll for each reflected attack."

Adamant Countermagic "The character can shape Solar Circle sorcery to cast this spell as three reflexive 0-tick actions."

Going to have to try harder dude.
 
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Jon Chung said:
Yes. So you should build your massive list of exception packets such that the amount of other exception packets any given packet needs to interact with in order for you to build it is as small as possible. Let's say the size of your charmset total is a large number: arbitrarily call it 10,000. However, the set of all the things that directly interact with your new charm is much smaller! Say, it's only the set of all combat-relevant Solar Charms and common gear, something that doesn't even break a count of, say, 100 because we're sane and try to limit cross-set interaction as much as possible. This is much easier to test, yes?

Further on, you only need to test the set of 100 against the other sets of 100 combat-relevant Dragon-Blooded charms and common gear (and Sidereal, and so on) in order to look at splat balance, which is again, much easier to test. The size of the whole can be large, as long as the size of the sets we're actually working with is kept small.
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Which is not even getting into the generic effects like excellencies which can be lumped together.
 
Aaron Peori said:
Or you could just play Hero of M&M or GURPS and jump straight to the end game.
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Oh look, a fallacy. Nah.

Aaron Peori said:
Now count up the number of artifacts and spells and everything else. Realize you also have to balance every single one against everything else.

Again, Martial Arts is targeted solely out of preference, not out of any objective criteria.
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Nope! Go count the number of artifacts with Charm-like effects and the number of combat-relevant buff spells, then count the number of martial arts charms. I'm happy to wait, this is a non real-time interaction method, ha ha ha.

Martial Arts is called out as being the worst offender here because, well, it is the worst offender. Are you trying to deny that Martial Arts is the largest chunk of splat-agnostic cross-usable effects around or what? Because that's crazy, dude.
 
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Jon Chung said:
Oh look, a fallacy. Nah.
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Oh look, Jon acting like a dick instead of addressing my points. Old times.

Nope! Go count the number of artifacts with Charm-like effects and the number of combat-relevant buff spells, then count the number of martial arts charms. I'm happy to wait, this is a non real-time interaction method, ha ha ha.
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I'm not doing your work for you Jon. The burden of proof is on you to show me that Martial Arts is especially burdensome to the game. I await your numbers and citations.
 
Aaron Peori said:
Oh look, Jon acting like a dick instead of addressing my points. Old times.
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Do I need to link you to the definition of the slippery slope fallacy? I don't think I've ever done that, but we can always break new ground.

Aaron Peori said:
I'm not doing your work for you Jon. The burden of proof is on you to show me that Martial Arts is especially burdensome to the game. I await your numbers and citations.
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My sides! Sure, if you want to wait, given that you apparently have your entire set of reference material literally within reach and I am on a train.

Also, nobody is saying Martial Arts alone contributes to combinatorial hell. I am saying Martial Arts is demonstrably a fucking whale of a contributor to combinatorial hell, all contributors to combinatorial hell should be killed, and we might as well start with the one that looks the biggest. Right after that comes hearthstone powers and non-basic artifacts, then our bloody sacrifices can move on to combat sorcery.
 
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Jon Chung said:
My sides! Sure, if you want to wait, given that you apparently have your entire set of reference material literally within reach and I am on a train.
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Go ahead and do it Jon.

Also, nobody is saying Martial Arts alone contributes to combinatorial hell. I am saying Martial Arts is demonstrably a fucking whale of a contributor to combinatorial hell, all contributors to combinatorial hell should be killed, and we might as well start with the one that looks the biggest. Right after that comes hearthstone powers and non-basic artifacts, then our bloody sacrifices can move on to combat sorcery.
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"Do I need to link you to the definition of the slippery slope fallacy?"

" all contributors to combinatorial hell should be killed,"

Pick one.
 
Aaron Peori said:
And what objective criteria do we use to define "hell"?

11000​ permutations? 1100​?
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A cursory scan of some probably incomplete lists shows me that there are something around 50 martial arts styles out there. From memory, styles average 10 Charms, maybe 11 or 12. Varies a bit by the tier, for sure.

That makes something like 500 Charms? More? They're a huge contributor to the explosion, almost certainly the single largest one. Like yeah, it's preference whether or not the problems outweigh the benefits, but...

(If you were trying to do something cute by writing "1" in different ways, by the way, I didn't understand it in the slightest)
 
I still prefer martial arts to evocations though...

At least you can get more use out of martial arts trees
 
notthepenguins said:
A cursory scan of some probably incomplete lists shows me that there are something around 50 martial arts styles out there. From memory, styles average 10 Charms, maybe 11 or 12. Varies a bit by the tier, for sure.

That makes something like 500 Charms? More? They're a huge contributor to the explosion, almost certainly the single largest one. Like yeah, it's preference whether or not the problems outweigh the benefits, but...
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Okay. Now cut them in half. Still a problem? Halve that again. Still a problem?

Your argument is literally that the number of effects is the problem. This is not an inherent problem of martial arts. It is a problem of the number of effects.

If Holden had a homebrew-boner for Sorcery or Artifacts, we'd be talking about those instead.

Nothing inherent to martial arts as used in the gameline makes them an inherent problem.

(If you were trying to do something cute by writing "1" in different ways, by the way, I didn't understand it in the slightest)
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It's late and I'm tired? (edits)
 
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A way to make everyone unhappy(Except for the ebon dragon, who is shedding tears of joy to the thought of the clusterfuck) could be having the Style system that Earthscorpion is using, but with the caveat that essence users can create a few charms based on it(Maybe one charm for dot of style, so the homebrewers are less unhappy?Oh Ohh!! Except if the Style resonate with the power of the user, in which case they can be more than one charm for dot of style), even if it otherwise goes against their themes.

This way you have non essence users with cool powers, and every essence user still gain some essence powered trick when using Styles.(Which means that the Sidereal doesn't really have a closed charmset, thanks to the fact that Styles aren't limited to martial arts).

This shold do the trick and make everything unhappy: the homebrewer will balk before the mass of styles needing different charms for type of essence being, the players will not have anymore cool ten charms martial styles, but merely three/six(Or more if the style had more dots), the gm will not have anymore a tool to easily create a complete character by inserting a single style, thus complicating their lives.

See! Everybody is unhappy! Yay!
 
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