General Exalted Thread

[azoicennead]

Again, please stop spreading falsehoods. Pgs 147~150 exist.

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Unless you're talking about 3e - which I was not, I was responding to an ongoing discussion about dangerous surprises in 2e - you're pointing me at the rules for attack resolution.

Did you, perhaps, mean 247-250? Which don't even explain what state you should get those values from in a game where they are going to vary for 90% of relevant opponents? With a system that isn't mentioned anywhere else, and only rates specific aspects rather than an actual stat block? It wouldn't be that hard to make a character with a Hazard 5 Damage, but much lower accuracy and DV. What would that make them? Oh, and how many experience should my players have before I expect them to fight that enemy?

For all the talk about how terrible the CR system is, at least it gives you a single answer for each enemy, rather than 3. That system is functionally useless for anything that has an attack roll, damage roll, and DV, because you get better results from just fucking eyeballing it.

 

[Aaron Peori]

Did you, perhaps, mean 247-250? Which don't even explain what state you should get those values from in a game where they are going to vary for 90% of relevant opponents? With a system that isn't mentioned anywhere else, and only rates specific aspects rather than an actual stat block? It wouldn't be that hard to make a character with a Hazard 5 Damage, but much lower accuracy and DV. What would that make them? Oh, and how many experience should my players have before I expect them to fight that enemy?

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A Hazard 1~4 accuracy threat with a Hazard 5 damage capability, thus requiring a strategy for both.

Like, the system breaks down the level of threats like that because opponents can not be easily categorized by a single number. The game gives you four ratings, so you can balance encounters around those. If nobody in your party has artifact armor/soak charms? Don't put them up against Hazard 4~5 damage enemies. It allows you to know how well a particular PC can handle particular combat challenges. Which is immensely more useful than a single number which tries to cover all possible 4 man PC team compositions.

And the game doesn't measure by XP. It measures by actual capabilities. If you have Acc X you can defeat DV Y reliably. If you spend 100xp on Bureaucracy Charms that isn't going to change.

 

[DayDreamer]

Pathfinder is basically 3.5 with a minimum of houserules. Its got all the same problems, is intended to do the same things, and Paizo was making 3.5 adventures for years before Pathfinder.

Speaking from my personal experience, a game that makes a party's Rogue and Enchanter useless because the GM wanted to run a tomb-robbing adventure is fucking up somewhere!

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I still don't really understand. How does Paizo making unbalanced/too difficult adventures have anything to do with CRs?

Someone making an adventure path that comes off as incorrectly balanced has literally nothing to do with the success or failure of CRs, because CRs are a tool for GMs creating their own adventures to have a sense of if a given monsters is going to be roughly appropriate for the party to fight. CRs exist in some hypothetical white room vacuum where the environment doesn't matter, the PCs have some unknown set of gear, and the PCs may or may not be at full capability.

In a module, the developers can control the environment for every encounter to make monsters considerably more or less capable (theoretically), as well as their gear. They know roughly how exhausted the party will be when they make it to a given room, as well as what useful equipment they've found. They don't need CRs, because they can playtest the encounter with a bunch of different party compositions and tune it manually.

Basically, you're complaining about shitty adventure design, and then turning around and saying that somehow a pretty much unrelated system is responsible for the designers being mediocre.

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

I'm going to quote something over to the D&D thread. I invite anyone else who wants to keep on with D&D stuff to please follow me.

 

[Deations]

@DayDreamer Pathfinder is pretty friggin' related to D&D 3.5, man. Have you read Pathfinder?

 

[azoicennead]

A Hazard 1~4 accuracy threat with a Hazard 5 damage capability, thus requiring a strategy for both.

Like, the system breaks down the level of threats like that because opponents can not be easily categorized by a single number. The game gives you four ratings, so you can balance encounters around those. If nobody in your party has artifact armor/soak charms? Don't put them up against Hazard 4~5 damage enemies. It allows you to know how well a particular PC can handle particular combat challenges. Which is immensely more useful than a single number which tries to cover all possible 4 man PC team compositions.

And the game doesn't measure by XP. It measures by actual capabilities. If you have Acc X you can defeat DV Y reliably. If you spend 100xp on Bureaucracy Charms that isn't going to change.

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So, tell me, how does this do anything that I don't do just by looking at my players' soak scores, attack pools, and DVs?
How is it any more useful than saying "don't use high damage attacks when your players' soaks are low", or "don't use high-accuracy attacks when their DVs are low", or "don't throw high DV opponents against players with low attack pools"?
How is it actually useful?
EDIT: Oh, and how does it address anything outside that, like the charms 99% of meaningful opponents have?

 

[pheonix89]

Any Exalt type that favors a combat ability can make a meaningful contribution to a combat encounter. A Night Caste isn't fucked over by having their charms auto fail against the undead.

edit @Chloe Sullivan: the problem is not a GM being a jerk, the problem is the GM being new and not understanding potential issues that the book doesn't explain to them.

Like a GM running Exalted 2.5, for example.

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Yeah, no. Rogues and Enchanters having a hard time vs the undead is something that the GM can only not know if he didn't read the freaking Players handbook.

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

@DayDreamer Pathfinder is pretty friggin' related to D&D 3.5, man. Have you read Pathfinder?

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Dude, you're the one not reading. He's talking about the difference between the CR system and Adventure paths, not between 3.5 and PF.

Also, please take it to the D&D thread.

 

[Aaron Peori]

So, tell me, how does this do anything that I don't do just by looking at my players' soak scores, attack pools, and DVs?

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It spells out what those numbers mean for new players and STs. I don't see how this is difficult to grasp?

Like, not every person who picks up the game is going to be an rpg veteran with a grasp of statistics. It's useful advice for balancing encounters and keeping some general guidelines in line for what you as the player should be doing for certain opponents.

 

[Leetsepeak]

Going back to Exalted, have you guys playing 3e had your player characters go up against any of the bigger meaner QCs in the book? How did they fare against them? Do any of them get totally chomped, and if so, how does it generally happen/is it a hole that can be filled?

 

[Nonagon]

Going back to Exalted, have you guys playing 3e had your player characters go up against any of the bigger meaner QCs in the book? How did they fare against them? Do any of them get totally chomped, and if so, how does it generally happen/is it a hole that can be filled?

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If you get chomped by something in the back of the book it's generally because you're up against a high-level combat monster (Lunar/Sidereal/2CD/big god/etc) and you have only a handful of defense charms. The solution is to enact Operation Get Behind the Dawn.

 

[Azrael]

If you get chomped by something in the back of the book it's generally because you're up against a high-level combat monster (Lunar/Sidereal/2CD/big god/etc) and you have only a handful of defense charms. The solution is to enact Operation Get Behind the Dawn.

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He was talking about the enemy being chumped.

*Edit, nevermind. That didn't say what I thought it did.

 

[Leetsepeak]

No, yeah, I was talking about the enemy getting chomped. Like people talking about Octaviab, or Fakharu or Ahlat.

 

[notanautomaton]

Back when I played 3e that happened a lot. In the first game the Zenith's Tyrant Lizard kept killing everything, and in the second a full Shikari group got chumped by demons.

 

[azoicennead]

It spells out what those numbers mean for new players and STs. I don't see how this is difficult to grasp?

Like, not every person who picks up the game is going to be an rpg veteran with a grasp of statistics. It's useful advice for balancing encounters and keeping some general guidelines in line for what you as the player should be doing for certain opponents.

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So, it doesn't do anything else.
How does it give any idea what the ability to do literally anything else adds to a fight? Like, y'know, half the shit things do in Exalted. Does it provide an actually useful measure of threat level for anything other than mortals fighting mortals (which is a ridiculously minuscule portion of what players/GMs care about)? What does the ability to inflict crippling penalties mean for a fight? Or the ability to attack two enemies with one roll? The ability to light people on fire? The ability to place a -2 penalty on your targets everything? Y'know, entry-level charms for two of the most common splats.

Also, how am I supposed to find it without someone saying "hey, look at these pages"?

 

[Aaron Peori]

So, it doesn't do anything else.
How does it give any idea what the ability to do literally anything else adds to a fight? Like, y'know, half the shit things do in Exalted. Does it provide an actually useful measure of threat level for anything other than mortals fighting mortals (which is a ridiculously minuscule portion of what players/GMs care about)? What does the ability to inflict crippling penalties mean for a fight? Or the ability to attack two enemies with one roll? The ability to light people on fire? The ability to place a -2 penalty on your targets everything? Y'know, entry-level charms for two of the most common splats.

Also, how am I supposed to find it without someone saying "hey, look at these pages"?

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2e has a very flat threat level matrix. Once you hit X dicepool in accuracy, damage or DV the only solution is "Charms which bypass normal resolution".Pages 247~250 explicitly note this. Like, it outright says that if your opponent is throwing around 35+ dice of raw damage don't even bother trying to soak.

It does include discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of various strategies.

Penalties are simple to abjduicate. -2 penalty reduces the opponents dicepool by 2. This may or may not be enough to reduce his Hazard rating.

 

[Jon Chung]

Okay, I jumped to conclusions on the damage adders: I was thinking along the lines of Terrestrial ones being not much better than mundane weapons; for comparison, we've encountered a DB who could breathe fire for roughly killstick damage, and one of the PCs had Tiger Style with actually huge damage dice pools as a result.

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Vicky, look. The second charm in the most well-known terrestrial martial arts style in the game (Five Dragon Force Blow in Five Dragon Style) costs two motes, doubles (strength + weapon) damage, and is compatible with grand daiklaves. A jade grand daiklave does 14L-P damage. If you have Strength 3, that's 17L-P damage. If you use that charm, you will hit for 34L-P damage before accuracy overflow successes, and your target will probably be splattered.

If you want even more gibs, have some of your goons surround and clinch before you strike. If your target happens to be clinched and have 0 DV, and you have 23 dice in your attack pool (13 base, +2 weapon, +8 DB Excellency), you will do ~45L-P after accuracy overflow successes. Have fun soaking that without a perfect soak. Remember that it costs all of 6 motes and having some goons.

Alternatively, if you aren't into martial arts, you could use Ringing Anvil Onslaught and get, once again, more gibs, as you attack ~6-7 times for 17L-P base damage vs 0 DV. This would cost you 12 motes total since you need to use your Excellency on the activation roll for optimal results. For reference, Solar Melee's Iron Whirlwind Attack attacks 8 times for 5m 1w.

Your GM didn't use this on you. I'm pretty sure you know why, yes?

 

[azoicennead]

2e has a very flat threat level matrix. Once you hit X dicepool in accuracy, damage or DV the only solution is "Charms which bypass normal resolution".Pages 247~250 explicitly note this. Like, it outright says that if your opponent is throwing around 35+ dice of raw damage don't even bother trying to soak.

It does include discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of various strategies.

Penalties are simple to abjduicate. -2 penalty reduces the opponents dicepool by 2. This may or may not be enough to reduce his Hazard rating.

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Okay, and what about Speed? Rate? Health levels?
Where do you account for Hungry Tiger Technique? Where do you account for Leaping Dodge Method? Where do you account for flurries? Where do you account for counter-attacks? Where do you account for Hardness? Mounts? Multiple enemies? Forcing a Valor check to target you? The ability to cause drowning/suffocation? Blindness? Movement speed? Range? Penalty reduction? Where do you account for all of these things that are easily accessible to starting characters?

How is this supposed to help me determine how dangerous someone is if the only thing it considers is also the thing that doesn't require knowing the system to judge the danger of?

 

[Aaron Peori]

Okay, and what about Speed? Rate? Health levels?
Where do you account for Hungry Tiger Technique? Where do you account for Leaping Dodge Method? Where do you account for flurries? Where do you account for counter-attacks? Where do you account for Hardness? Mounts? Multiple enemies? Forcing a Valor check to target you? The ability to cause drowning/suffocation? Blindness? Movement speed? Range? Penalty reduction? Where do you account for all of these things that are easily accessible to starting characters?

How is this supposed to help me determine how dangerous someone is if the only thing it considers is also the thing that doesn't require knowing the system to judge the danger of?

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In order:

Speed and Rate were legitimately broken in 2e but fixed in like the first errata. Health levels is covered in the damage and soak sections. All Charms are covered under Hazard 4 (Essence based attacks or defenses) which basically state "Use charms to defend yourself". Suffocation and drowning are environmental hazards covered in another chapter. Blindness, range and penalty reduction are all either applied universally ti dicepools or are "essence based attacks/defenses" in which cases the answer is "have a comparable effect to equalize or a perfect to ignore it."

 

[azoicennead]

In order:

Speed and Rate were legitimately broken in 2e but fixed in like the first errata. Health levels is covered in the damage and soak sections. All Charms are covered under Hazard 4 (Essence based attacks or defenses) which basically state "Use charms to defend yourself". Suffocation and drowning are environmental hazards covered in another chapter. Blindness, range and penalty reduction are all either applied universally ti dicepools or are "essence based attacks/defenses" in which cases the answer is "have a comparable effect to equalize or a perfect to ignore it."

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So... It doesn't.
Nice.

 

[Tekomandor]

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stop You have a history of contentless sniping in this thread, @Deations, and you seem not to have learnt your lesson. Fifty points and a two week thread ban, and a permanent one if you misbehave in this thread again.

 

[Nonagon]

No, yeah, I was talking about the enemy getting chomped. Like people talking about Octaviab, or Fakharu or Ahlat.

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Generally speaking, enemies don't get chomped. I've seen Octavian crunch a low combat investment character and get in turn defeated by a high combat one; in the latter case, it was never really a sure thing up until that critical decisive landed while Octavian was in crash. A fight against a clutch of DBs won't generally result in you losing your combat tertiary party members, but you won't just instagib them either. IME, anyway.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

There really isn't such a thing as a 2nd Edition Exalted fan. There's really only 3E fans and people disappointed in 3E. Probably why relations are acrimonious, actually.

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I want to build on this because I think it's relevant to how a lot of discussions here work. When people are disappointed in 3E, I think 3E fans implicitly see that as comparing 3E (which is, for all its problems, actually a playable game) to 2E and judging it as inferior (this is incredibly insulting), when for most people it's more that 3E is an improvement over 2E but nowhere near enough of an improvement to, well, adapt to a game which may well have discarded a lot of the things they liked about Exalted 2E for the devs' specific vision of the line. When you have Your Own Exalted, Someone Else's Exalted is probably not going to be as interesting to you, and that's not the fault of the devs.

2E being so bad is the core problem here-everyone still playing has, as @Jon Chung said, houseruled the fuck out of Exalted 2E, to the point where they more or less have a different game with some Exalted-y bits in it. Or they're playing without using most of the rules, at which point why do you need a new edition? If Exalted 2E had been better, ironically enough, I think 3E would have been better received, because it'd be competing with Ex2E, rather than, you know, your personal houseruled version of Exalted 2E which emphasizes the very specific things you want emphasized and deemphasizes the things you don't. I don't think it's coincidence that everyone in this thread who isn't playing 3E have basically their own specific houseruled version of the 2E system rather than using second-hand hacks.

 

[Dif]

When you have Your Own Exalted, Someone Else's Exalted is probably not going to be as interesting to you, and that's not the fault of the devs.

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There is also the case where the Ex3 that everyone was being sold on initially WAS as close to the "ideal" impression of Exalted as many people already possessed, and if the Devs had simply stopped there, with the unofficial party-line of "what 2e should have been" many of those voices wouldn't be nearly as so critical as they are now, mine included.

But instead we got the reintroduction of Charm-bloat, unnecessary splitting and blending of Exalt-type themes, revisionist and questionably-tasteful fluff, increased mechanical complexity, backsteps in mechanical clarity, some things which seem tossed in for no real reason but Holden's own 2e houserules making the cut to final draft, and everything else which has strained things significantly to "make [this] seem more than a Revised Edition," when the majority isn't attempts to do anything New with Ex3 per se, but instead "make their mark" on the franchise the same way they attempted too with the Ink Monkeys extra-content, just now focusing on the core and mundane elements of the thing, rather than the cosmic and esoteric ones of the yozis, wyld and Celestial Incarna.

Its pretty understandable that for a lot of people, reneging on the "foundation-level" stuff being canon-sacrosanct to be a much bigger deal than the latter tack of "just forget the Ink Monkeys stuff if you want."

 

[veekie]

If you get chomped by something in the back of the book it's generally because you're up against a high-level combat monster (Lunar/Sidereal/2CD/big god/etc) and you have only a handful of defense charms. The solution is to enact Operation Get Behind the Dawn.

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Definitely.

Last time I get in reach of the flaming Magma Kraken...