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General Exalted Thread

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Aaron Peori said:
Nah. All of Dark Solar. All of it, needs to go away. No MIrror effects, no nothing. Your entire charmset should be built around "I want to play an undead horror story." The problem with Dark Solar and Mirror Charms is they create this context for Abyssals that they are not suited for; they are not Underworld Solars and shouldn't be. Because Solars can be underworld Solars. Just like Solars can be "I champion the serfs of Malfeas" Solars if they damn well please. Solar themes are universal outside their default play area. Infernal themes work just as well if the Infernal is in Creation of Auotcthonia.

Abyssals should be the same. They should be able to do unique and interesting things in Creation. Not just be be Solars with different paint, not at any level. It should be burned out with fire because its an insidious thoughtworm that taints their entire conceptual space.
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Pretty much!

Just like I said Abyssal Investigation should be JUDGEMENT DAY, Abyssal Resistance should be "What are you going to do, kill me?" and Abyssal Survival should be "Holy shit I'm in a fucking slasher movie and it's following me".

Nervaqus987 said:
Although I feel like this effect is a valid one, I'm not really sure if it should be in this Charm and Charmtree.

Knowing this dude is a murderer or a thief or an oathbreaker feels like it should be distinct from knowing that he's a Sidereal or a demon or what have you.

The former fits with the themes of punishment and judgement you want to go for. You can look at a man and know the weight of the crimes on his soul, see how the world twists in response to pain his continued existence causes, and so on.

The later on the other hand, feels like it should be in Occult given it senses supernatural beings. Maybe something upgrading the Abyssal equivalent to Spirit Detecting Glance or being a prereq to the AESS alike.

The difference between "Knowing what someone has done" vs "Knowing what someone is" essentially.
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The trick about that one?

It's for "your crime is being a Sidereal". It's there for characters who have vowed to track down and kill every single X, and to give them the tools to do so.

I'll make it clear that it has the same "grudge against them" requirements as the crime thing.
 
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EarthScorpion said:
Pretty much!

Just like I said Abyssal Investigation should be JUDGEMENT DAY, Abyssal Resistance should be "What are you going to do, kill me?" and Abyssal Survival should be "Holy shit I'm in a fucking slasher movie and it's following me".
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So Abyssal Brawl is like, Alucard when he fights and just goes "lol my arm is broken, whatevs now it's an excellent improvised club"? :V

I can live with this.
 
Honestly i don't think the Abyssal charmset should be structured around abilities. There is absolutely no reason to structure it that way-

(Then again, is not like that i have thought an alternate structure).
 
Broken25 said:
Honestly i don't think the Abyssal charmset should be structured around abilities. There is absolutely no reason to structure it that way-

(Then again, is not like that i have thought an alternate structure).
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You cearly aren't a three 3e dev, who seem to think EVERYTHING should be structured around ablities.

No, I'm not bitter that 3e Infernals will lose most of the cool stuff that made them them!
 
Sucal said:
You cearly aren't a three 3e dev, who seem to think EVERYTHING should be structured around ablities.

No, I'm not bitter that 3e Infernals will lose most of the cool stuff that made them them!
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on the bright side the abyssals charm preview was structured around their deathlords.

why they took away the infernal's charm system only to give the abyssals a similar one we'll never know.
 
Aaron Peori said:
Abyssals should be the same. They should be able to do unique and interesting things in Creation. Not just be be Solars with different paint, not at any level. It should be burned out with fire because its an insidious thoughtworm that taints their entire conceptual space.
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This becomes a clear 'your mileage may vary', then, because IMO the similarities to Solars are an essential part to the Abyssal thematics.
 
It sounds like Morke's interest in structuring Abyssal charms to invoke the Deathlords would, in practice, be more like the way the Unconquered Sun is invoked in the Solar Charms. So some pinnacle charms like Eye of the Unconquered Sun, but suited towards one of their revised ideas for the Deathlords that makes them seem EDIT: less petty and dumb.

What was the deal with some 2e writers making every big player seem petty and dumb? The Deathlords particularly seem like huge jokes.
 
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Carrnage said:
on the bright side the abyssals charm preview was structured around their deathlords.

why they took away the infernal's charm system only to give the abyssals a similar one we'll never know.
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That's not really what happened: I'm not sure about the infernals, but Abyssals were leaked with ability based trees, plus Deathlord Themed expansions/capstones to those trees. It's quite possible that Infernals would have ended up similarly.
 
Sucal said:
No, I'm not bitter that 3e Infernals will lose most of the cool stuff that made them them!
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If you mean the mindbending charms, then you are probably right.

Any accusation of 3ED Infernals being "Green Solars" will be pointed to the preview stealth charms:
Voiceless Aura Method
The Infernal's anima becomes a curtain of wind that swallows
sound. Enhances Stealth rolls and defeats any Stealth detection
based entirely on hearing.
→ Wind Cloak Vanish
The Infernal pulls a dense ribbon of wind around herself and
vanishes. Character achieves visual Stealth and reduces her penalty
to remain hidden while moving by one die (from -3 to -2).
→ Drifting Trauma Gale
The Infernal becomes the Silent Wind, and cannot be detected
by sight, sound, or scent. She is also blind while moving
in this form. If she encounters any living being of more consequence
than a small animal or insect, the Charm's effect ends
and she reflexively launches an attack against that target.
→ World-Shedding Asana
The Infernal closes her eyes and forces her will outward, shutting
out all sound and motion. All affected targets are forced into
Stealth and temporarily forget what they were just doing.
Blood-Scenting Cyclone
Whenever a target leaves Stealth within the Exalt's range,
she gains an attack or a clash attack against them.
→ Moment-Murdering Assignation
The Infernal savors the inevitable defeat of her cowering
prey. Every turn her target remains in Stealth reduces his [combat
momentum] by 1.
→ Ravenous Whirlwind Prana
The Exalt gains a damage bonus on an attack that breaks
Stealth.
→ Crimson Razor Wind
The Exalt's anima becomes a compact hurricane of crimson
wind that can slice through granite. The Infernal may channel
this wind into her attacks, suffusing her strikes with a crimson
wind slash that does additional damage to her targets. People
slain and objects destroyed by this attack are erased utterly
from memory.
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I see lots-a Adorjany charms, and no solars.
 
Leetsepeak said:
What was the deal with some 2e writers making every big player seem petty and dumb? The Deathlords particularly seem like huge jokes.
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Hamfisted attempts to "ground" all the major players with big sweeping ambiguous histories and mythic flaws, showing that they weren't impossibly powerful and perfect unimpeachable fixtures of the status quo for all time, which while that is a laudable writer-goal, in execution when it was compounded across several writers competing to see who could out-tragedy the other it came down to cheap melodrama ploys, "humanizing" efforts being actually really childish bullshit when embellished on multiple-millenia-old personalities, presenting straight-up Soap Opera idiot plots that starting players could find gaps in, and trying too hard to emphasize "this can be your end-boss" by going "so here's all the receipts on why this guy is the Forever Asshole."

The worst combination of comicbook writing and RPG fluff, especially when put in context of people who you are supposed to fear, respect and/or work under to accomplish your missions.
 
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Aaron Peori said:
Unfortunately those themes are better captured by Infernals now. They used to be Abyssal themes, but now they are thoroughly Infernal headspace and chasing after them just means you're going to get a poor man's version of Infernals out of the bargain. Not a good space to go to for making Abyssals unique and interesting.

An Infernal had one bad day, then got offered a deal and now (maybe) regrets it because they have Demonic Power that pushes them to be The Darkness.

An Abyssal had one bad day, died, and then dragged themselves out of their grave because fuck you I'm not finished yet!
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While I think the Abyssals have more claim to the theme than Infernals do, due to the nature of how much worse/more of a betrayal their deal is, I agree overall.

This was something that really annoyed me when Infernals first came out. They took a lot of the themes that the Abyssals had, which I was interested in, as their own. Then combined them with the ability to actually leave their(more interesting) home realm, much more interesting incentive mechanics, and powers that were actually worth it. They were also more fun for most of my group because of how much easier it was to be actually heroic or feel justified in working for the Reclamation character.

Several friends and I tried to re-write the Abyssal charmset to have more interesting effects and themes, but kept running into an issue where a lot of charms far too much felt like they should have been Infernal charms instead. Malfeas was the most frequent offender, but each of them got involved at some point.

The other problem was finding enough differences between their effects and those of Solars so that the two would be peers, instead of Solars always being strictly better. Our main answer was to give Abyssals stronger charms when operating within certain themes, but made them have unwanted effects like always hitting everyone with large AoE's(even allies).

The themes we were going for were: Champion of the Underworld, Unnatural/Mutating Power(Malfeas), Stasis(SWLIHN), Destructive Savior(Malfeas, Adjoran), Double Edged Swords(all of them), Rule Breaking(Ebon Dragon), Collateral Damage(Malfeas again), and Making Bad/Immoral Practices Work Anyway(Cecelyne).
 
MJ12 Commando said:
When the fluff treats you as an existential threat, when everyone in-universe treats you as an existential threat, when the entire point of the game is 'you are playing an existential threat with the power to carve and reshape nations the way you choose' trying to make that archetype simultaneously work with 'underdog battling for justice' is basically not going to work. A Solar's archetype was not originally designed to represent 'an underdog' because 'an underdog' isn't the guy who, when he shows up, a bunch of guys in the throes of civil war drop fucking everything to send all their most elite forces in large amounts to crush because they worry them that much.

They're the underdog like the aliens in Independence Day were the underdogs-i.e. not at all. The flavor text of the 1E and 2E charms gets that across, even. The impression that they give is one of well, inevitability. Of there being no obstacles in front of a Solar. Not that a Solar defeats them with luck and hard work and guts and determinations, but rather that by the nature of a Solar there is no such thing as an underdog Solar.
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We have, as you say, the inevitable return of the unstoppable God-Kings of Old. But we also have the Wyld Hunt, which has never once failed and is only temporarily weakened. Let's check the current score:

Dragon-Blooded: 100,000+
Solars: 0

"Do you hear that, Mr. Anathema? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death."
 
Anasurimbor said:
We have, as you say, the inevitable return of the unstoppable God-Kings of Old. But we also have the Wyld Hunt, which has never once failed and is only temporarily weakened. Let's check the current score:

Dragon-Blooded: 100,000+
Solars: 0

"Do you hear that, Mr. Anathema? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death."
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The Wild Hunt is also weaker than ever, and facing a shitton more Solars.
 
Yeah, ganking a newly exalted Solar is very different to facing one who has some time to grow their essence or build up a power base. Doubly so when your facing not three or four of them but a hundred of them.
 
Anasurimbor said:
We have, as you say, the inevitable return of the unstoppable God-Kings of Old. But we also have the Wyld Hunt, which has never once failed and is only temporarily weakened. Let's check the current score:

Dragon-Blooded: 100,000+
Solars: 0

"Do you hear that, Mr. Anathema? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death."
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The Harvard Business Review talks about what an underdog is. An underdog is in a disadvantaged position, which it overcomes through-get this, not talent, but rather passion and determination. Eddie the Eagle is an underdog because he has no real skill, but still managed to end up in the Olympics via his determination to do so. Usain Bolt is not an underdog because despite coming from a less-developed country than American or Chinese or whatever sprinters and not having access to a multi-million dollar sports science program which basically turns olympic hopefuls into unstoppable sporting machines, he has so much fucking talent that he could just not give a shit. Where Solars fall on the chart are "privileged achievers," not "underdogs." The underdog narrative requires that your success be not primarily from inherent talent, but rather from hard work and determination.

An underdog might have talent, but it's secondary to their determination.

In the case of Exalted, Solars versus the Realm are privileged achievers versus the top dog, not underdogs versus the top dog. Given some of the writing making the Realm baen-villain incompetent, one could argue it's privileged achievers versus victims. :V

But Solar Exalted are kind of a eh place to hang an underdog narrative on. Honestly Exalts in general make for pretty mediocre underdogs because their point is being all larger-than-life heroes with phenomenal talent.
 
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Broken25 said:
Honestly i don't think the Abyssal charmset should be structured around abilities.
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Abyssal Charm trees should be built in a similar way to Infernal ones. Each should be focused on a specific type of Abyssal to emulate. There should be the vampire tree, which is all about drinking blood and gaining various benefits from the process thereof. There should be the tree for being the Frankenstein monster, all about replacing parts of yourself with a variety of corpses to become a better monster. There should be the the mummy tree, which makes you able to inflict horrific curses on people who defile your sacred sites. There should be the slasher zombie tree, about being an unstoppable murder machine. There should be the dream wraith tree about haunting people in their sleep and driving them to suicide or madness.

And yes, as @EarthScorpion says, there should be the tree about being the revenant who has come back from the dead to pass judgement on the living.

The trick, I think, would be that while Infernals have huge sprawling trees that are mostly meant to be self-contained I think Abyssals should have small trees each based around a specific horror movie archetype. Then you can mix and match much more easily to create your vampire, with some flavor of banshee and grim reaper and poltergeist thrown in. Maybe, say, five to ten Charms for each archetype tree, just enough to give a variety of effects from Essence 1~5 but not enough to be the entire character.

Monsters tend to swap and trade gimmicks much more frequently than supervillains. You get fast or slow zombies, bestial or sophisticated vampires, sexy or horrifying ghosts and so on.
 
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