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General Exalted Thread

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Some new Modern-focused battle group rules and Charms:

Support

A unit's Support rating reflects its attached armor, artillery, and airpower. The Support rating of a unit is rated in dots, from zero to the Size of the battle group. A unit can add its Support rating to its damage rolls. A unit with Support equal to Size gains 5 hardness and two automatic successes on rout checks.

If a unit with Support would lose a point of Size due to taking damage that forces a rout check, it also loses a point of Support if the triggering attack was decisive or it already had Support equal to its Size. If the triggering attack was withering, its Support rating stays the same.

(I want to say that a unit with Support equal to its Size causes the battle group stats to be based on the vehicle stats rather than the soldier stats, but that would require me to come up with vehicle rules and part of the point of the Support rating was to avoid that. The decisive / withering split is inspired by the Hardness / Softness mechanic in Hearts of Iron.)

Supply

A unit's Supply rating reflects its stockpile of ammunition and fuel. The effect of Supply depends on the difference between it and the unit's Size rating:
  • 0: A unit with Supply equal to its Size is fully supplied and takes no penalties.
  • 1: A unit with Supply 1 less than its Size takes a -1 penalty on rout checks.
  • 2: A unit with Supply 2 less than its Size takes a -1 penalty on rout checks and must make an ammunition check (Exalted, pg. 202) every round.
  • 3: A unit with Supply 3 less than its Size is wholly incapable of combat.
In addition, if a unit ever has Supply less than its Support then it loses all benefits of that Support.

Every scene spent in combat costs a battle group 1 dot of Supply.

Strategems:

Whites of their Eyes (threshold: 1): The victorious general has drilled his troops in strict fire discipline to conserve ammunition. Even if they fail their ammunition check, they may make attacks within short range.

Intercept Supplies (threshold: 3): The victorious general has raided the enemy's supply lines and his troops profit from the enemy's loss. Friendly battle groups are at +1 Supply and enemy battle groups are at -1 Supply.

Charms:

Ever-Ready Preparedness Prana

Cost: -; Mins: Logistics 1, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None

The Solar is a master of organization to the smallest detail.

You never forget to pack anything you might need. At any point you may retroactively declare yourself to have packed anything you could have reasonably acquired before you set out.

Superior Scrounging Methodology

Cost: 2m; Mins: Logistics 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Ever-Ready Preparedness Prana

Trigger: You or a nearby ally makes a Strategic Maneuver roll.

Effect: Eliminate any penalties to the roll based on your poor supply situation, the insuitability of the terrain for establishing supply lines, or for being enveloped.

Unsurpassed Optimizing Meditation

Cost: - (Varies); Mins: Logistics 5, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Superior Scrounging Methodology

You may commit (Size) motes to a battle group; that battle group is always considered to be at full Supply. You must spend at least five hours per week managing the logistics for this battle group or the commitment ends. If you've used this Charm on multiple battle groups, the five hours can be split among them so long as each is attended to.

Upgrade (Essence 4+): You need only commit a single mote.
 
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FBH said:
Regarding the mountain folk, I actually think at least some of the war under the world is a huge wasted opportunity.

The idea of like, those spirits who wanted to stick with the primordial (but weren't actually their souls) being now evil and twisted things from being imprisoned so far beneath the world with the mistakes that the Primordials locked away down there is really cool as a set of adversaries, but as it never affects the rest of the setting, it's a pretty huge wasted opportunity.
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Hell, it could give Lunars something to do.

Guardians of the Outside and Underneath.
 
Kuciwalker said:
Some new Modern-focused battle group rules and Charms:

Support

A unit's Support rating reflects its attached armor, artillery, and airpower. The Support rating of a unit is rated in dots, from zero to the Size of the battle group. A unit can add its Support rating to its damage rolls. A unit with Support equal to Size gains 5 hardness and two automatic successes on rout checks.dy had Support equal to its Size. If the triggering attack was withering, its Support rating stays the same
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Why wouldn't the Supporting Units be their own separate entities on the battlefield?

I know if you tried to tell me my lovingly hand crafted squad of artificat tanks would only act as an upgrade to an infantry company, I'd throw the Corebook at you. Hell, I'd throw the kickstarter book at you, save that It would be replacing a chair leg. Hell, I'd rather hear about the adventures of the Warthog Squadron as they give me close firesupport against a charging line of Blood Apes then go '+2 firepower'
 
Sucal said:
Why wouldn't the Supporting Units be their own separate entities on the battlefield?
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Because then I would have to come up with vehicle rules which is scary and hard and which I've never seen done well.

Also even if I do come up with vehicle rules, then I need separate rules for, say, air or artillery or whatever and it's much more elegant to roll all the not-explicitly-represented stuff into battle groups.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Hell, there isn't even a Dragonblooded Host, and they're the ones with the teamwork focus. Sure, the Realm is the Realm (and on the brink of civil war), but as I recall they're just a plurality of the Dragonblooded out there - they're outnumbered by Outcastes. And most Outcastes hold the opinion that the Realm can go sit on a dire lance if they want to make them do something.
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Heck, what's the largest plurality of Dragonblooded outside the Realm? Lookshy. Insofar as the Dragonblooded remain a 'host', it's one embroiled in civil war, one side of which is about to have another, separate civil war.
 
Imrix said:
Heck, what's the largest plurality of Dragonblooded outside the Realm? Lookshy. Insofar as the Dragonblooded remain a 'host', it's one embroiled in civil war, one side of which is about to have another, separate civil war.
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To be honest, given the nature of the Shogunate, I'd be willing to bet that the Scavenger Lands itself counts as the largest plurality. I don't really agree with ES on a lot of Lookshy's details (The brotherhood of steel depiction doesn't move me. They're more like the Ming left overs after the Qing took over or any other half dead Chinese dynasty), but I agree with him that most Dragonblooded in the Scavenger lands are going to have fellow feelings with one another if it comes to fighting the realm or any external threat.

Basically, the River Province Dragonblooded are most likely a continuation of the Shogunate, with local military governors and warrior aristocrats controlling their own smallish estates and fiefs, and lots of Dragon Blooded clans doing stuff. Sure, they're probably warring with one another pretty often, but if there's an external threat, they'll come together to oppose it, and the realm is far more unstable right now.

Though it should be noted that the Realm Santrapy on the Dreaming Sea is probably the third. . . not that they're gonna help the Realm any unless like, the Ebon Dragon rises.
 
Imrix said:
Yeah, but the Scavenger Lands isn't a coherent polity. The Dragonblooded there aren't even nominally on the same side.
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I actually meant the second largest plurality, cause the realm likely has more.

And I'd say that whether the Scavenger land DBs are on the same side kind of depends. Like, if you're one of those DBs it probably doesn't seem like you are on the same side as the hated (whatever) clan, and if creation survives, they'll all be making video games about how their enemies were totally Akuma. But if you're a solar trying to conquer the Scavenger Lands, or the realm trying to conquer the scavenger lands, or a lunar trying to conquer the Scavenger Lands, IE if you're some kind of external threat. . .

Well then it'll look a lot like they're all one faction.
 
EarthScorpion said:
(And for that same reason, Terrifying Argent Witches scrapped the idea of the Lunars being unified ever since the youngsters in the Shogunate got sick of being used as expendable assets by asshole Deliberative-era Lunars, and promptly turned on them. Instead, they're a loose network of alliances and debts and favours, with the remnants of the Silver Pact as a hardcore group which is only usually 60-120 Lunars)
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That's... not the canon? Huh. Always thought it was.
 
Setting aside if you like/dislike 1e-2e Lunars or not, it helps to remember that they have a lot of Werewolf legacy code, first of all. Second, that the Silver Pact was largely written as a contrast to the 'Solar' game. I really can't emphasize this enough- each splat book is actually meant to be a Different Game with different tropes, and a lot of the Lunar problems are rooted in how it doesn't do a good enough job of making a 'New Game'. Silver Solars are not just a problem in the lunar charm set , after all.

So the 'Idea' of the Silver Pact exists to make the Lunar Game a bit more like the Dragonblooded and Sidereal Game, where you have a 'home base' culture to ping off of and interact with. Remember also that Exalted desperately wants you to not be an Island Murderhobo, and the Pact/TSR was 2e's attempt to address that for Lunars.

Now, I think 2e Lunars gets a lot of shade tossed at it, more than it deserves really. It does need to be fixed, but like with a lot of late-late 2e homebrew, there's a dire slash-and-burn attitude to everything. Sometimes you have to do that, sure, but not always.
 
What was the thing in the first age called where all the Exalted went into parallel dimensions and had to save the world?
 
Broken25 said:
A really hamfisted way to give you things to play with in the first age.
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No, but seriously. I've been thinking about an Exalted/Young Justice crossover recently, and I feel like that's the best way to explain all the alternate universes. Just can't remember what it was called.

Not going to argue that Dreams of the First Age sucked donkey balls though.
 
In my personal opinion, I think the First Age would have been a lot more interesting if the Jade Obelisks and Reality Engines had...maybe not exactly not been a thing, but been a lot less common and/or absolute of a thing. So there would be defenses against the Wyld, yes, but there wouldn't be a nigh-invincible barrier on the border between Creation and the Wyld. As such, there would need to be a standing defense force on the outskirts of Creation. Combine this having the Wyld be like its present state (whether due to Rakasha opportunism during the Primordial War or as a side effect of the Three Spheres Cataclysm allowing the Wyld to seep into the gaps in Creation) so that the Wyld could be a place potentially worth exploring and exploiting, rather than it being six inches of Deep Wyld and then all Pure Chaos, and there would be room for some interesting stories.

Not only would the Old Realm have to be constantly vigilant against threats from the Wyld, instead of just setting up fire and forget defenses, but the extreme size of Creation during the Old Realm might lead to a dynamic similar to one that cropped up sometime in Imperial China. If I'm remembering my textbooks correctly, there would be a growing contrast between the leaders/people/values who lived out on the borders of the empire, manning the walls and forts against nomadic invaders, and those in the central lands. The groups on the rim would be more militaristic, skilled, and pragmatic, which the groups at the center would place more value on agriculture, politics, and etiquette, etc. This dynamic would lead to trends in Chinese history such as "the military guy who actually knows what he's doing because he and his men have years of genuine combat experience gets sick of his so-called "superior's" corrupt and/or incompetent bullshit and stages a coup, where he curbstomps the central armies who have much less actual combat experience and few to nonexistent competent leaders."

This would lead to a divide in the Old Realm between those Exalts who manned the borders and those who preferred to dick around on the Blessed Isle indulging themselves.
 
Kuciwalker said:
Some new Modern-focused battle group rules and Charms:
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The problem is that Ex3E's battle group system is an okay system for medieval-styled combat but completely breaks in dealing with modern warfare.

Modern warfare has significantly shorter OODA loops and all weapons have much better instantaneous lethality. C4ISR is much better so tactics are generally not based on large blocks of men but relatively smaller maneuvering elements which all work together in a whole. But more importantly, modern warfare is much more about support, support which is generally launched at an off-board distance. The masses of your soldiers are no longer the arm of decision-it's not your 10,000 burly men with swords assault rifles who matter, it's the rocket launchers they carry and the artillery support they can call on.

These rules have it backwards-it's not the support assets which assists your guys with rifles in winning, it's your guys with rifles who mostly screen the actual things that do work.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The problem is that Ex3E's battle group system is an okay system for medieval-styled combat but completely breaks in dealing with modern warfare.

Modern warfare has significantly shorter OODA loops and all weapons have much better instantaneous lethality. C4ISR is much better so tactics are generally not based on large blocks of men but relatively smaller maneuvering elements which all work together in a whole. But more importantly, modern warfare is much more about support, support which is generally launched at an off-board distance. The masses of your soldiers are no longer the arm of decision-it's not your 10,000 burly men with swords assault rifles who matter, it's the rocket launchers they carry and the artillery support they can call on.

These rules have it backwards-it's not the support assets which assists your guys with rifles in winning, it's your guys with rifles who mostly screen the actual things that do work.
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I completely agree, but representing modern warfare in an RPG is hopeless anyway, 1000x so if you need the system to be able to express Solar bullshit like "and then, guns akimbo, he mowed down a hundred mooks" or "a dozen shining bolts from his sniper rifle destroyed a dozen tanks" as a round of combat. If you have suggestions, though, I'm all ears!

I lowballed the benefits of Support because battle groups already get significant bonuses to attack and soak, but they could easily be adjusted upwards.
 
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Kuciwalker said:
I completely agree, but representing modern warfare in an RPG is hopeless anyway, 1000x so if you need the system to accommodate Solar bullshit like "and then, guns akimbo, he mowed down a hundred mooks" or "a dozen shining bolts from his sniper rifle destroyed a dozen tanks" as a round of combat. If you have suggestions, though, I'm all ears!

I lowballed the benefits of Support because battle groups already get significant bonuses to attack and soak, but they could easily be adjusted upwards.
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I joked a while back about Solars playing Modern Warfare but Modern Warfare is honestly one of the better ways of representing modern warfare in a cinematic fashion. Most of the time it's you plus a bunch of buddies plus a bunch of no-names shooting a bunch of other no-names but occasionally one side or the other calls in off-board support and drops a tank or an attack helicopter on your ass.

So you go with fairly low numbers of mans and the occasional 'killstreak' showing up on a relatively constrained part of a battlefield. The exciting part of modern warfare happens there. The less exciting part would be the high-level command and logistics stuff where you roll War and/or Bureaucracy to get, let's call them, Command Tokens which you can spend on doing shit on the Exciting Part.

Like "ho ho ho I have an attack helicopter." :V
 
It's almost a pity that Holden and Hatewheel are gone because I liked one of their ideas for a WoD/Exalted Shard. It would have been really neat to see the crossover ruleset, but it'd probably have had to involved the people who now own WoD unless Onyx Path made it a Chronicles thing.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The less exciting part would be the high-level command and logistics stuff where you roll War and/or Bureaucracy to get, let's call them, Command Tokens which you can spend on doing shit on the Exciting Part.

Like "ho ho ho I have an attack helicopter." :V
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I like the idea of "suddenly a helicopter" or similar as being an in-scene application of War or a similar ability. This actually connects with something else I'd planned - just like battle groups are vastly less powerful than their members represented individually, an independent vehicle would be vastly more powerful than the vehicles implicit in a Support rating.

So one encounter that has an enemy helicopter, and a squad troops, and a couple DBs is an interesting encounter where the helicopter is a reasonably scary threat, and then in another you fight hundreds of men and they're dropping like flies.
 
Shyft said:
So the 'Idea' of the Silver Pact exists to make the Lunar Game a bit more like the Dragonblooded and Sidereal Game, where you have a 'home base' culture to ping off of and interact with. Remember also that Exalted desperately wants you to not be an Island Murderhobo, and the Pact/TSR was 2e's attempt to address that for Lunars.
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I think the primary problem that Lunars continually run into is that while "established social organization" is something that can help change the tone of a game away from Solar-esque "wandering gunslinger/samurai" narratives, it IS the same method used for Dragonblooded and Sidereals already, who seem naturally better suited for it by having a lot more internal coherence and demand to align together socially. Which means you need to look at ways to set apart Lunars as iconoclastic, roaming folk-heroes from comparable Solar Savior stories in ways that don't require them to have ridiculous amounts of coordination and shared beliefs, but still retaining communication and "culture."

The way I would do it, in order to help tie things back into territorial-themes and how Lunars are supposed to be Stewards of Creation, recognizing the bond between Luna and Gaia, is that the Silver Pact is not so much a united front of Exalts, but a shared agreement of safekeeping composed by the First Age Lunars, written across the world in the same manner as the Salinian Working. The "Pact" contains all manner of resonant supernatural places and peoples, like an especially potent demesne or ancestral bloodline and the connecting infrastructure between them, like old songlines or migration patterns. The arrangement and composition of the Pact is never fully stable, and changes according to the time of year and the component pieces, but by tapping into the Pact and engaging with it a Lunar gains all manner of locally-relevant knowledge from reading the auspices of birds and omens to give them a better idea of the "health and condition" (ie plothooks) a general stretch of Creation is suffering under.

Obviously there are competing factions within the Pact, like the Swords of Luna who prioritize only those things which will help combat the wyld and lurking things beyond the veil of death, or the Crossroads Society who wishes to locate, identify and preserve whatever vestiges of the Old Realm remain in this fallen age, or the Seneschals of the Sun Kings who wish to use the Pact to cultivate a Creation more amenable to the return of the Solar Exalted to power. Each faction is really nothing more than a shared ideology working towards a nebulous goal, and approaches the Pact and all it contains from different understandings, to use them in different ways for different methods based on the individual. But for Lunars as a whole, everything within the Pact is another tool in the box for advancing their agendas, whichever it happens to be for the moment, and whoever is the hand guiding the rudder.

Sometimes newer things are retroactively folded into the Pact, like the rise of the Haslanti League or the construction of a manse, not notable as explicit creations of the Lunar Exalted, but as deliberate "message-carriers" which other Lunars may be drawn towards, track down and innately read to gain a better insight into the world and the place/purpose of that thing inside it, and the underlying need to either retain it or leverage its existence as another way to protect Creation from harm. One wandering Exalt might "Pact tag" a shadowland as a useful gateway to the Underworld, while another finds it and claims the territory as a source of necromantic power and promoting herself its new master, as another Lunar following the adjustments to nearby caravan routes picks up the scent of something necessary to destroy for the good of everyone and comes into conflict with the new rulership. If she drives away the would-be necromancer and annihilates the shadowland, she changes the message, and with it what the Pact "says" about the area.

This is how the Pact "organizes and communicates," draws Lunars together into makeshift alliances, rivalries, and loosely-assorted packs drawing from regional history, pulling them back out of the safety of wyld spaces and into dealing with Creation's various conflicts and cultures firsthand. And THAT is what helps separate the Wandering Lunar from the Wandering Solar, being guided by the paths laid from the Silver Pact into other sources of Lunar activity and working from there, rather than following distant clouds of smoke on the horizon.
 
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