- Location
- Spain
General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Spain
Hmm. Humans can hide things inside bodily cavities, so presumably Solars can hide things really well in their cavities - even things most people would assume couldn't fit. They are legendarily good at hiding things on - or within - their person.
The Charm's probably in Larceny.
This is actually a 3e charm.
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Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
- Location
- MI, USA
If you want Melee, Thrown and Archery to be more realistic, make Specialties more important. Perhaps have Charms require a Specialty in the weapons you want to use it with past a certain point, or be able to use the Specialty instead of the generic skill at a lower number.
Say a Charm normally takes Melee 3. With this setup, you could have an alternative purchase be at Specialty 1 or 2 instead, or have it require Specialty 1 in a weapon to use it with that weapon. You could make it so that the best stuff requires or is only practical with decent Specialty rating in the weapon you are using with it. The framework would also be useful for making MAs actually require dedicated skill with the weapon the MA uses.
Of course, Specialty (Human Flail) would be an entire valid pick for this, allowing you to be dedicated to wacking people with other people. It would allow for utterly ridiculous characters specializing in nonsense like throwing torn off limbs, or sniping people with slingshots. Or being a Glorious Solar Link, with Specialties in all of Links weapons. Including the Deku Stick.
Generally, use Specialties in weapons as a secondary Melee/Thrown/Archery stat, with all the same bonuses and Charm support. Granted, the Charm support would be 'You need X Melee and/or Y Specialty in a weapon you use this Charm with,' but it's still support. Figuring out how to give Brawl Specialties that make sense will be the hardest part of making it work, because if you didn't then Brawl would become OP by having less prerequisites.
The view that is making me think like this is that the Onmi-skill is the general skills, like how to handle blocks without getting pushed over, that are applicable to basically everything in that category. If you know good footing and how to swing one weapon, the skills involved are cross referential in quite a lot of ways.
If you know how to fight with a Greatsword, you know how to handle swinging large, somewhat heavy objects in an efficient way that lets you get a lot of force in. This skill is useful for Warhammers as well, but the difference in how the swings are aimed makes the skills different enough that, from a game mechanics perspective, it makes sense to have them share the same basic skill with specialties that show you are good at one above the other.
Say a Charm normally takes Melee 3. With this setup, you could have an alternative purchase be at Specialty 1 or 2 instead, or have it require Specialty 1 in a weapon to use it with that weapon. You could make it so that the best stuff requires or is only practical with decent Specialty rating in the weapon you are using with it. The framework would also be useful for making MAs actually require dedicated skill with the weapon the MA uses.
Of course, Specialty (Human Flail) would be an entire valid pick for this, allowing you to be dedicated to wacking people with other people. It would allow for utterly ridiculous characters specializing in nonsense like throwing torn off limbs, or sniping people with slingshots. Or being a Glorious Solar Link, with Specialties in all of Links weapons. Including the Deku Stick.
Generally, use Specialties in weapons as a secondary Melee/Thrown/Archery stat, with all the same bonuses and Charm support. Granted, the Charm support would be 'You need X Melee and/or Y Specialty in a weapon you use this Charm with,' but it's still support. Figuring out how to give Brawl Specialties that make sense will be the hardest part of making it work, because if you didn't then Brawl would become OP by having less prerequisites.
The view that is making me think like this is that the Onmi-skill is the general skills, like how to handle blocks without getting pushed over, that are applicable to basically everything in that category. If you know good footing and how to swing one weapon, the skills involved are cross referential in quite a lot of ways.
If you know how to fight with a Greatsword, you know how to handle swinging large, somewhat heavy objects in an efficient way that lets you get a lot of force in. This skill is useful for Warhammers as well, but the difference in how the swings are aimed makes the skills different enough that, from a game mechanics perspective, it makes sense to have them share the same basic skill with specialties that show you are good at one above the other.
Jon Chung
=][=
Amusingly, this is what I was thinking of with the Caste Charm trees. We already have five handy pre-defined and thematically fitting "job descriptions", so writing five sets of "job powers" would allow for a lot of consolidation and also free the actual skill list from having to pull double duty as anchors for powers.
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Graypairofsocks
What is Grammar?
- Location
- earth
The brick in the sock is clearly the superior weapon.
It's possible, yes. But you almost certainly aren't going going to be doing that, as you train in Melee. More likely, you'll cross-train between various weapons, because that's how nearly everybody tended to do it back then*. Training with weapons in the fashion done in Kendo or Olympic fencing is bizarre because that kind of hyper-specialisation is a fairly recent thing, relatively speaking. Your Medieval man at arms or Sengoku-period Samurai aren't like some guy in the modern world who goes to a class to study the use of a single weapon as a hobby. Your Exalted character, as a person living in a pre-Industrial environment, is probably training as the people of the ancient and feudal periods did, when they're upping their dots in Melee.
It's true that giving you perfectly equal skill in (almost) every hand-to-hand weapon created in human history isn't believable, but I feel like that's getting a little too anal about the granular details. For starters, you have specialties anyway, and secondly your character is unlikely to be wielding 7+ weapons or whatever to begin with.
* In as much as 'back then' can be applied to a Fantasy setting, of course.
The concept of the broad over-skill, of course. Exalted doesn't implement it in the most realistic fashion, obviously, but the idea that you could be one of the greatest swordsmen alive and then be as useless as a civilian who's never used a weapon before if you had to resort to something like a spear is much more ludicrous than the Melee mechanic as it stands.
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- Location
- Virginia
No no no no no no no.
Specialties need to die in a fire. Specialties are second only to the BP/XP split in terms of how much they damage actual characters and character creation.
The existence of Melee (Swords) means that:
- To be anywhere remotely optimal, anyone who uses swords needs to have it at three dots.
- (Similarly, everyone has a three-dot speciality in [whatever weapon I use])
- Each person is locked into a single weapon unless they purchase redundant specialties.
- Abilities without obvious, always-on specialties require a lot of hand-wringing and awkward derp, like the question of whether Dodge (while unarmored) is legitimate.
- (If it's not then Melee has a significant advantage over Dodge as a defensive stat!)
- In non-combat abilities, every single character ends up with a three-dot speciality in [most mechanically demanding application of the ability], such as Occult (Sorcery) or Craft (Artifacts).
- As a result, specialties don't reflect the special unique things about characters, they make characters more cookie-cutter.
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- Location
- Spain
Don't forget Awareness (Join Battle).
- Pronouns
- They/Them
By the way, how do Styles interact with set/opposed dice pools? Like, is the language, "Attribute+Ability+Relevant Style"? And then people argue/contend on whether a style is relevant for the instance?
- Location
- Singapore
- Location
- Spain
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- Location
- Singapore
Eh, fine then.Like this?
I mean, it's not melee, but close enough.
Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
- Location
- MI, USA
Optimal is a question of how much power the PCs have. And being optimal shouldn't be how the game has to be played. That's why the paranoia combos were considered such a cancer, because any character that would be involved in combat had to have one or they got splattered.
They'd be locked into one weapon as what they pull their high bullshit with. It's that you don't get to grab any weapon ever, including a random stick on the ground, and butcher an army with it just as effectively as the thing they have fought a thousand battles with. You can still fight with any weapon, you just have to specialize to get the high bullshit.
So? Dodge has no business as a separate stat anyway, there's too many alternatives with better flexibility. Like Melee almost is in the base game already. As for Dodge specializations, I'd go with types of thing to be dodged, like large, slow weapons, or dodging arrows. Maybe include the type of armor worn, because having dodge skills hinging on the extra momentum of heavy armor, while bizarre, doesn't break Suspension of Disbelief. The Drunken Master IRL MA is focused on controlled stumbling to dodge, which can be aided by extra weight. If not, then the average player wouldn't know otherwise.
Again, roleplay versus rollplay. You seem to not think of it outside of what it does to the versatility of characters who are optimized murder machines. Personally, I like the idea of making it so that you have to specialize to be optimized, because it gives more options to stop the optimized murder machines. Take away the huge Daiklave and they can't butcher you with a holdout knife.
When it comes to combat, yes, they do make characters more unique. Because you get to specialize in utter nonsense like using random sticks on the ground or roundhouse kicks alone for your fights. It cripples the versatility, making optimized characters less powerful because they need specific weapons, rather than just specific artifact abilities.
Yes, Daiklave specialization is a massive bonus. Good luck fighting without it when the character made to exploit this facet of the system takes that Daikalve away. And who says that getting a big bonus to specific types of Craft is bad? It makes it so that you don't have equal skill at making Manses and Artifacts. Similarly, the dedicated Sorcerer should not be equally good at other Occult things.
Above all else, this is intended to make the game a bit more realistic and characters less likely to be omnidisciplinary. I made this idea in response to the complaint that Melee is too versatile.
Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
- Location
- MI, USA
That looks like a mix of Melee, Thrown and Archery training.Like this?
I mean, it's not melee, but close enough.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Paranoia combos are responses to a shitty system, not the problem in itself.
So I'm a high XP character because I can dodge lots of stuff and use six weapons?
That doesn't seem right, given that I'm only 26.
This is nonsensical.
I know how to dodge and parry lots of stuff because I have practiced baguazhang.
I don't know how to dodge arrows because the technique used for dodging is "step sideways", knowing how to dodge crossbow bolts and arrows should not be different things.
False elitist dichotomy. I enjoy optimizing, so do quite a lot of people here, this does not make us into bad roleplayers.
I prefer @EarthScorpion and @Aleph's approach.
"Take away their primary character specialization and everyone is balanced" is a shitty approach to the game that mocks players for bothering to specialize.
Styles are wooonderfuuul.
- Location
- Virginia
You are the problem.
Bad play is downstream of the system; if your solution to a shitty system is "people should role-play, not ROLL-play hahahahaha" you have no business designing anything.
In a good system good character design and roleplaying are the path of least resistance, not something actively opposed at every turn by the mechanics of the game.
- Location
- New York City
I like specialties but I'm not much of a fan of 3-dot specialties for the previously mentioned reason. I like single point specialties for how they can help communicate how a character approaches things and says something about them.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Indeed, declaring "roll-play vs roleplay" as well, makes him the perpetrator of quite a Stormwind Fallacy.
In fact, I would like to give the word to the lovely @Chloe Sullivan about why "roleplay vs roll-play" is such a meaningless dichotomy and fallacy.
Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
- Location
- MI, USA
That's a Martial Art. And keep in mind the scaling, here. Melee (Daiklave) 3 is the low end of the level of skill legendary heroes known for their skill in one weapon has, much like Melee 3 is in the upper end of non-legendary mortals, provided you keep the generic form and specialty even. A better way to balance it would probably be to cap Specialties to one-half the skill, rounded up.
I'm sorry, you seem to like the idea of a character who's basically impossible to beat by disarming because they are just as good with their Dailave as they are with the half-dozen different types of holdout weapon they have on them. And the specialties interacting with disarming only matter when you have backup weapons in the first place. How often have you bothered to do that?
Are you at the top end of the martial art, able to handle five people who are well above novice in the same art? If not, you aren't at the point of needing Specialties to describe your skill. Even then, that would be describable by a Style or Marial Art based bonus.
Why is it so hard to understand that roleplaying someone who is awesome at literally every weapon ever should be hard to pull in the mechanics? Melee 5 should not be the peak because it makes someone who has it be at the peak of skill with every weapon in existence.
And all the arguments about characters with specialties being crippled by not having their chosen weapon available miss the point that a character should be crippled by not having their chosen weapon available in the first place.
Again, using a magic material pocket knife with the same effectiveness as your legendary sword you've fought a thousand battles with is both ridiculous and makes it far too easy to make disarming useless, even though disarming is one of the most effective things one can do to a fighter in real life.
Hell, given the setting and more than a few lore blurbs, a character normally wouldn't have specialties in the first place. And the ones who do would have two or three different Melee specialties to actually be able to use backup weapons.
- Location
- Virginia
This... totally misses the mark?
We know the actual consequences of Specialties existing. Just as we know the consequences of the BP/XP split. It's not just predictable; we see it all the time.
The consequences are that people strongly favor specialties that are "always-on", or effectively so, or failing that they pick specialties that cover the most mechanically significant application of the skill. You can say as much as you like "but they shouldn't do that" but they do.
The system's mechanical incentives lie in the opposite direction of good role-play. That's bad. So it should be removed. If you want to add Styles in its place, that's fine, because Styles create mechanical incentives towards good role-play.
(I personally am fine with neither specialties nor Styles, but that's because I am a boring person who looks at spreadsheets all day.)
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
The existence of bland, functionally omniapplicable specialties needs to die, yes. That's not quite the same as saying Specialties need to die.
- Location
- Singapore
Is there a list of what each dot for each trait means?
Like, what is the meaning in five dots in appearance?
Or 4 dots in resources?
Like, what is the meaning in five dots in appearance?
Or 4 dots in resources?
- Location
- New York City
I feel this on a spiritual level. I just ask my players to shoot for specialties that are more interesting or fun than "Sword."
If they're just really insistent on taking Sword then I'm not gonna fight it, but I always prefer to encourage interesting Specialties over blandly broad ones.
- Location
- Virginia
You can't get rid of bland, functionally omniapplicable specialties without getting rid of the entire system and replacing it with something else, something conceptually different. The amount of mind-bending necessary to say that "Swords" is not an appropriate specialty for "Melee" is too much. (Or your player narrows it down to "a specific type of sword, which is conveniently the type that I am wielding at all times".)
Just give in and stop trying. The dream of "I want some stuff on a character sheet that makes me unique" is not worth the price this mechanic imposes on the system - it's not even achieved by the system. And it leads to ST-player conflict as the ST constantly has to police the players against sneaking in more-and-more broad specialties versus less.
Pick a different way to represent these things. Or don't represent them, mechanically, in the system, and just role-play them.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
No, that's not really a solution. Kuciwalker is correct that the rules are not fit for purpose, but ditching them entirely is going too far, that's all.
Sure you can, I've done it; you can have any number of specialties, but they all have to be different, and only three can apply at once. Then give examples that are things like "light swords" and "greatswords" instead of just "swords". You want to get maximum use out of your specialties, you'll have to pick an intersection of three that makes a statement about how you approach a given skillset.
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