Legacy of First Edition
Exalted 1st edition gets a lot of props and a lot of hate for numerous reasons. I wanted to take the time to call out some interesting things they did with the book.
Ability Descriptions
When Exalted 1e described abilities, it did so with example situations and example difficulties. This is contrasted with how 2nd edition handled it, where a given dot-rating was used to express how good someone was at a given task.
This is all detailed on Page 134 of the 1st edition book- in that it gives you Example feats with implicit Difficulty. Standard (1), Challenging (3) or Legendary (5).
For example, a Legendary feat of Archery is ' shoot an apple off someone's head at 50 paces, with a warped arrow, at night'.
That is much more effective at communicating what a character does with Archery, than saying 'Someone with Archery 5 can shoot a mouse out of the claws of a hawk flying in high wind, without harming the mouse.
Drama and Systems
I'm not going to grab all 25 abilities here, because it's not necessary. These are just the standouts.
Wrestling
In terms of formatting, Exalted 1e has a few brilliant points and more than a few strange ones. My cursory review of the combat section offered me few gems, but then I saw the 'Wrestling' entry, which would later become 2e clinches.
The main difference, is that 'Wrestling' encompassed five separate sub-actions; Clinching, Holding, Throwing, Sweeps and Tackles. Contrast this with how 2e wedged 'sweeps and tackles' next to the Knockdown/Knockback/Stunning rules. The question here isn't which version is mechanically better, but I think the 1e version is much more readable.
Extras
I want to bring this up, because 1e handled 'extras' and antagonist statblocks in the same general section within 2 paragraphs and a handful of bulleted points. It is by no means the most elegant or robust, but it is succinct.
Endurance
Back in 1e, we didn't have 'Resistance' the ability, we had Endurance, which covered physical resilience. It covered the following actions: Withstanding Illness, Staying Awake, Enduring Fatigue, and Treading Water. 2nd edition condensed the last 3 of those into the 'Enduring Hardship' mechanic, not unreasonably!
Performance
Omitted from 2nd edition was the composing action, where one would use Performance to write a work of music as an Extended roll. An artful flourish that was lost in the changeover. Using a composed work adds a dice bonus to actual performance actions; in this we see the legacy code of 'Tool' bonuses.
Presence
Most aspects of the following actions were subsumed into 2nd edition's Social Combat system, for good or ill. Presence gave us mechanical blurbs for Seduction, Persuasion, Intimidtation and Leadership.
It's interesting that most of the social mechanics of the day were handled as extended actions, instead of the transitory 'Against MDV' model we see in 2e.
Intimidation gives us a lot of interesting texture and 'knobs' to arbitrate the nuances of the action.
Leadership, meanwhile, clearly states that most non-physical Attribute + Presence roll can be useful in context of leading people. It's not at all a fully realized set of rules for arbitrating a kingdom, but it is somewhat descriptive.
Survival
Omitted from 2nd edition was a specific action focused on animal-taming- also an Extended roll. Young animals had a lower per-roll difficulty to train, while exotic animals had a longer cumulative success.
Craft
Hooboy. This is not Oadenol's Codex, or even 2e corebook crafting. Craft is focused on creating Unique, Impressive Objects, not necessarily artifacts, but that is involved. It's divided into three stages- Planning, Assessment, and Construction.
Interestingly, the idea here is that you are allowed to plan as long as you want, with a gradually lengthening interval. The rules meander on this point, but the intent is to generate a surplus of 'planning' successes as a means to identify useful materials or adventure hooks for later.
Assessment is essentially taking the 'best of' the planning stage and locking down what you have and want to use to make the best thing possible. It's a kind of 'gut check' to prevent your character from making a great thing out of crap material- but it does allow you to play to a material's strengths, even unorthodox ones.
Construction is the final step, and it requires you to earn [Int + Craft] successes with another extended roll.. The best planning and extra materials can add +3 dice to this roll. I find it interesting that your project's final difficulty actually rises as your skill does.
Now, notably, Craft in 1e tried very hard to get across that you were working on month or year timescales, even more than the [seasons per roll] mechanic Oadenol's stated.
Investigation
1e had four actions set aside for this ability, which in 2e were condensed or otherwise refit elsewhere. Interestingly, the opening blurb of the ability points out that the ST should give players evidence, not conclusions.
The four actions are Searching for Something, Searching for Anything, Concealing a Search, and Reconstructing an Event.
Occult
A great deal of what was described here became part of Thaumaturgy. Sensing Magic, Geomancy, sensing Spirits, and Astrology. It's interesting that you were apparently intended to be able to notice dematerialized beings without specialized magic.
Athletics
Likely as a throwback to DnD, Exalted did infact have Encumbrance rules, and they were more or less dropped in the transition to 2nd edition. Amusingly, these rules are succinct, barely a paragraph, and surprisingly elegant.
Larceny
Picking Locks, Picking Pockets, Blending into the Underworld, Casing a Target and Disguise were all actions that were clearly defined in 1st edition. I want to specifically call attention to Blending- it communicates very quickly that this is a thing that can be done, and helps the storyteller flesh out the world very fast by dint of how it's worded.
Bureaucracy
Ahh, the much maligned, red-headed step child of 2nd edition. Bureaucracy offers us rules on Evaluating Goods, Buying and Selling, Bribery and Bureaucratic Maneuvering.
Take a gander, if you will at these rules,and you will see the legacy code for a smattering of 2nd edition Charms we now take as given. Maneuvering, for example, is the mundane version of Speed the Wheels.
Linguistics
Like Performance, you can 'compose' with Linguistics, using the same basic rules. More interestingly, Linguistics governs translation of lost or hidden languages, codes and cryptography.
Ride
The art of keeping your rear in the saddle; Ride has a handful of lost Actions as well. Evaluating a mount; it's quality. Training Mounts, Riding Under Stress, and Pushing Horses. Most of this was absorbed by Charms or the Travel Chapter in 2nd edition.
Sail
Navigation and Shipboard Movement are both Sail actions as per 1st Edition. The former is a mutli-stage affair of several rolls, while the latter is essentially an athletics/balance hazard. The unsteady footing rules of 2e replaced this handily.
Socialize
Ahh, the last ability of note. In 2nd edition, Socialize is, outside of Charms, rolled Twice: optionally as part of Reading Motivation, and for establishing a social surprise attack. Otherwise it is used as a 'throttle' for Mass Social Combat.
In 1st edition, Socialize gave us rules for Sensing Social Situations, Making Friends and Poisoning the Waters.
More meaningfully, Sensing Social Situations is a specialized 'notice detail' action. Making friends is actually funny, because it's arbitrated as a contextual extended roll- often an asymmetrical one. Exalted 1e had affection points, with friendship governed by a 0-100 point scale via an extended roll. This is actually very nice, because it tells you quite clearly that 10 successes is 'acquaintance', and 80-100 is 'Friend for life and into the next'.
Poisoning the Waters, meanwhile, is the fine art of mudslinging and rumormongering, including frameups! The Solar Charm 'Venomous Whispers Technique' is the magical version of this same basic mechanic.
