Remove ads

General Exalted Thread

Reader mode
So, what sources would you guys and gals recommend for someone who is completely new to this Exalted thing? (And by "someone" I mean "me".)

My sum total knowledge is as follows:

1. There is this RPG that is called "Exalted".

2. Sosuke Aizen, The Saint of Killers, and the Juggernaut would be the rough equivalent of a Face, Tank and DPS Exalted PC party straight out of CharGen.
 
Last edited:
Fenrir555 said:
This actually changed, by the way. Weapons get like...5, 6 Evocations, tops, now. My Night's weapon is Artifact 4 because it has 5 Evocations (and also I guess because I gave it esoteric bullshit instead of normal stuff). The three dot artifacts tend to have three or four Evocations.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Interesting. When did that happen?

Have Martial Arts Styles also been cut down? I think you can easily mechanically express a unique fighting style in 4-6 Charms, so I'd be interested.
 
Wade Garrett said:
So, what sources would you guys and gals recommend for someone who is completely new to this Exalted thing? (And by "someone" I mean "me".)

My sum total knowledge is as follows:

1. There is this RPG called "Exalted".

2. Sosuke Aizen, The Saint of Killers, and the Juggernaut would be the rough equivalent of a Face, Tank and DPS Exalted PC party straight out of CharGen.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You're going to get wildly different answers to that question, because the Edition Wars are real here.

My own personal advice would be that the Ex3 core rulebook is literally a week out from general release, and from personal experience it plays far more smoothly than previous editions. As such… get that when it comes out.
 
Wade Garrett said:
So, what sources would you guys and gals recommend for someone who is completely new to this Exalted thing? (And by "someone" I mean "me".)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Games of Divinity remains the best and most beautifully written introduction to any line I've ever seen, and Scavenger Sons is a quick, cheap and easy introduction to Creation and Where Everything Is.

They're both 1e, which means they're cheap, they aren't heavy on mechanics and everything that's in them is still basically valid in 2e and 2.5e. Actually, I think a fair amount is still valid in 3e, at least in broad strokes, so... there you go.
 
Revlid said:
Interesting. When did that happen?

Have Martial Arts Styles also been cut down? I think you can easily mechanically express a unique fighting style in 4-6 Charms, so I'd be interested.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The Evocations thing got changed between the leak and the backer pdf, as I understand. Martial Art styles are currently about 8-10 charms each on average, though I'm generally quite happy with them, if only because they don't all have the same basic charms (JB enhancer etc) that 2.5 martial arts did.

Anyway... @Aleph, @EarthScorpion, the two of you have been name-dropping a number of Styles that the character in Age of Bronze might have. Are these ones that already have rules, or am I going to need to write them up myself, assuming Sesus Minola ends up being the PC?
 
Revlid said:
Interesting. When did that happen?

Have Martial Arts Styles also been cut down? I think you can easily mechanically express a unique fighting style in 4-6 Charms, so I'd be interested.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The Evocation cut-down happened between the big leak and the backer PDF. There were a bunch of reasons for it, but mainly it was hell to balance. Some Artifacts lost in the trade, others gained from a tighter focus. On the upside, now Artifacts have a unique 'attunement bonus' that you get upon owning them - so even before investing in Evocations, you have stuff like 'this sword does more damage against people you hate' or 'this lamellar increases your lifting strength.'

Martial Arts, however, remain the same.
 
Maugan Ra said:
@Aleph, @EarthScorpion, the two of you have been name-dropping a number of Styles that the character in Age of Bronze might have. Are these ones that already have rules, or am I going to need to write them up myself, assuming Sesus Minola ends up being the PC?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, the nice thing about Styles you're using behind the scenes is that you don't strictly need to write them up formally and in full - you can just decide roughly on bonuses and have a simple "it's this sort of thing" note to yourself, or indeed just have the "it's this sort of thing" and ignore bonuses entirely.

They don't have writeups, but I'm sure ES and I will be happy to do some for you if you want. Styles are like pringles; you make one or two and the next thing you know you're halfway down a 5000 word document trying to decide on a name for your "I'm Sam Vimes" Command Style.
 
Aleph said:
Flat no to the first question; Enlightenment 6 is equivalent to Essence 1 for Solaroids and Essence 6+ Charms are just flat-out gone because they're basically all terrible
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Do you mean essence 2? Not many essence 1 charms in the infernal trees.
Aleph said:
As to the Style, hmm. No. The first two bonuses essentially always apply, and it's not really thematic enough. And honestly I'm inclined to say... hmm. What sort of game is this Style for? Because if it's an Age of Sorrows game, it's just not suitable at all. High First Age, maybe, but in the Age
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Its for an Exalted SI into Marvel, I want to stat out my SI for easier writing and the kerisgame hax seem far better for that kind of thing than the 2ed rules.

Related to that, with the ID Po homebrew background does the first dot replace your limitbreak, or is it an alternate way to bleed limit similar to the acts of villainy?
 
Wade Garrett said:
So, what sources would you guys and gals recommend for someone who is completely new to this Exalted thing? (And by "someone" I mean "me".)

My sum total knowledge is as follows:

1. There is this RPG called "Exalted".

2. Sosuke Aizen, The Saint of Killers, and the Juggernaut would be the rough equivalent of a Face, Tank and DPS Exalted PC party straight out of CharGen.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's a hole big can of worms. There are 2 editions out now, and another one coming out Soon(valve time). They all have problems, though, and have various partisans. Third edition has some good underlying mechanics, but favors lots of little fiddly mechanical bits that are insignificant alone but group up to be important for magical powers. So far, most of the fluff is in second or first edition, with people largely favoring first over second.

I'd also say that your example is pretty inaccurate. Mapping characters to exalted is inexact due to a lot of setting elements in Exalted, and how the various magic powers work.

Fenrir555 said:
I don't see the desirability of realism here, yeah.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It doesn't need to be perfectly realistic for it to not be the optimal strategy.
 
andres said:
Do you mean essence 2? Not many essence 1 charms in the infernal trees.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No. If you're using similar progression to canon then you start at E7 (as an Exalt who by default has been established and doing stuff for a while). But for Solaroids, Enlightenment 6 corresponds to Essence 1, just as Enlightenment 10 corresponds to Essence 5.
andres said:
Its for an Exalted SI into Marvel, I want to stat out my SI for easier writing and the kerisgame hax seem far better for that kind of thing than the 2ed rules.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Then yeah, Tony has a metric craptonne of Styles. You don't get to be that good by spending 6xp on one field.
andres said:
Related to that, with the ID Po homebrew background does the first dot replace your limitbreak, or is it an alternate way to bleed limit similar to the acts of villainy?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Alternate. Though in practice you can just decide I'MMA TURN INTO A GIANT SNAKE every time you would have gone into Torment, so eh.
 
@Aleph

I'm trying to create a style that is essentially 'be Knight Artorias'.

I'm having trouble with the third one, so I was wondering if you have any suggestions for it.

I was also thinking that the second one might be too good for its place, and should be moved up to three.


'Artorias Style'
A Style favored by the Air and Fire Aspects of the North, this style focuses on a vicious offense designed to take on multiple opponents and come from unexpected directions, most notably from right above you. This style uses Greatswords as form weapons, and can be practiced in medium armor.
1: +1 to attacks made whilst jumping or at the end of a jump.
2: +1 to flurries made against multiple opponents.
3:
 
Aleph said:
... I would point out, among the myriad delays of this edition, the date of the last time Exalted 3e was said to be a week away. And remain correspondingly cautious until it's actually genuinely been published for real no backsies this time honest.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Fair enough, yes (and I'm not going to try to pretend 3e's development process was smooth, because that's easily the greatest complaint I have about it).

Still, call me cautiously optimistic here, basically- this isn't a vague 'a few weeks', this is 'there is exactly one thing holding up the general release, this is what the progress is on that thing'.
 
Wade Garrett said:
So, what sources would you guys and gals recommend for someone who is completely new to this Exalted thing? (And by "someone" I mean "me".)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm going to leave out mechanical material, here, on the basis that two editions have been mechanically crap and the third has yet to be released. In terms of background material, you can largely skip Second Edition - there are only a few books worth touching, many of which come with qualifiers. Scroll of Kings is pretty good, Compass: Malfeas has some fun stuff, and Masters of Jade was a last gasp of actual quality before the edition expired. The rest you can skip.

"But Revlid", you ask, "surely you don't mean to offer conditional recommendations to three books out of an edition with more than 30 publications to its name!" In response, I only tug my cap down a little further over my eyes, to hide a single salty tear.

There's technically also Manual: Alchemicals and Compass: Autochthonia, but they deal with a very far-removed alternate setting.

1e has a much better spread of books, at least in part because they were still busy introducing new ideas back then, so even stupid stuff can be buried under a dozen other things or is left unfleshed enough that it's an easy fix. There are potholes, absolutely, but they can be avoided more easily. You can get a brought sweep of the setting from Scavenger Sons (for an ant's eye view) and Games of Divinity (for a god's eye view). I'd recommend you start there. Other excellent books include Manacle and Coin (the older brother of Masters of Jade), Exalted: The Dragon-blooded (everything you need to know about The Empire and why they're morally obliged to stomp on your face), Savage Seas (perhaps overly dry maritime stuff), and Houses of the Bull God (a marvelous snapshot of one particular corner of the setting). A lot of the Caste Books are also good, and The Book of Three Circles covers sorcery.

Technically you should probably also get a core book, since, y'know, it's intended as the first thing you see and will give you basic context for other mechanical stuff. I don't believe it hugely matters which you pick up, though you won't get much use out of them if you're waiting for 3e.


Oh, and to make a recommendation no-one else will... Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny, is just about the most Exalted thing I have ever read.
 
Walker of the Yellow Path said:
@Aleph

I'm trying to create a style that is essentially 'be Knight Artorias'.

I'm having trouble with the third one, so I was wondering if you have any suggestions for it.

I was also thinking that the second one might be too good for its place, and should be moved up to three.


'Artorias Style'
A Style favored by the Air and Fire Aspects of the North, this style focuses on a vicious offense designed to take on multiple opponents and come from unexpected directions, most notably from right above you. This style uses Greatswords as form weapons, and can be practiced in medium armor.
1: +1 to attacks made whilst jumping or at the end of a jump.
2: +1 to flurries made against multiple opponents.
3:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Good strong theme. Hmm. Not sure where the focus on multiple opponents comes from. The description should emphasise "rapid lunges", "distance-spanning leaps" and "repeated disengagement and attack". Change the bonuses to, hmm:
1: +1 to Jump distance (both horizontal and vertical).
2: +1 to attacks made while jumping or at the end of a full-length jump.
3: +1 damage when jumping down from a height of at least 10 yards [1].

[1] By RAW mechanics on pg 127-128 of 2e core, this requires a Strength + Athletics pool of at least 7 - you can add two yards with a 2-die stunt plus the 1-dot Style bonus - as well as enough room to jump that high (or terrain to jump down from). Tweak this if you're using different Jump rules, obviously. Though, hmm. If Styles count for that Strength+Athletics pool, bump it up to 12 yards, since they'll have 3 dots in this style by default.
 
Aleph said:
Good strong theme. Hmm. Not sure where the focus on multiple opponents comes from. The description should emphasise "rapid lunges", "distance-spanning leaps" and "repeated disengagement and attack". Change the bonuses to, hmm:
1: +1 to Jump distance (both horizontal and vertical).
2: +1 to attacks made while jumping or at the end of a full-length jump.
3: +1 damage when jumping down from a height of at least 10 yards [1].

[1] By RAW mechanics on pg 127-128 of 2e core, this requires a Strength + Athletics pool of at least 7 - you can add two yards with a 2-die stunt plus the 1-dot Style bonus - as well as enough room to jump that high (or terrain to jump down from). Tweak this if you're using different Jump rules, obviously. Though, hmm. If Styles count for that Strength+Athletics pool, bump it up to 12 yards, since they'll have 3 dots in this style by default.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was thinking that's what the spinning attacks player acquired version of Artorias's Greatsword would be good for, though I prefer your version. Thank you!
 
horngeek said:
Okay, I love the thematics behind Lunars, then, fine. :V
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Who doesn't like the Animal fucking exalted?

I mean they aren't the shapeshifting Exalted, because Holden doesn't like that.
They aren't the Conan exalted, because the last two attempts sucked harder then the Vacuum exalted.
They aren't allowed to be the really cool (and villainous) 'faerie prince' exalted that was their original plan.
They better not be fucking garou with the serial numbers painted off again (because that would be too WWOD).

So clearly the only design space they have left is the Animal Fucking Exalted!
 
Walker of the Yellow Path said:
@Aleph

I'm trying to create a style that is essentially 'be Knight Artorias'.

I'm having trouble with the third one, so I was wondering if you have any suggestions for it.

I was also thinking that the second one might be too good for its place, and should be moved up to three.


'Artorias Style'
A Style favored by the Air and Fire Aspects of the North, this style focuses on a vicious offense designed to take on multiple opponents and come from unexpected directions, most notably from right above you. This style uses Greatswords as form weapons, and can be practiced in medium armor.
1: +1 to attacks made whilst jumping or at the end of a jump.
2: +1 to flurries made against multiple opponents.
3:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I would recommend to also have a style expressing the fact that he's a broken raging shell of a god that he once was
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top