- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This was from over 300 pages ago and you reply with it to correct spelling mistakes without using a single dot for punctuation?
General Exalted Thread
Which ends up making no sense. Because if all of those characters remember the previous age and are available to people then these previous ages shouldn't be lost to memory. Demon Princes or powerful god's/celestial ones sure, they're both uncommon and hard to get a hold of. But the setting really isn't written with the understanding that there are many beings who remember these previous ages active in Creation.
- Location
- Singapore
Give me a break, i did all that on the phone
Then you should have waited till you got home and then PM'd Jen. After all, page count aside, that post was nearly a year ago.
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
It occupies a similar place in my mind to MoEP: Infernals. The bad parts suck, but a lot of the fluff is great or completely ignorable. There's some awful stuff, yes. On the other hand, the great Houses, Cherak, the secondary schools, those are all great. I especially like the bit it had on Thorns, and the minor bloodlines it had. It made Lookshy plausibly able to keep the Realm out of the Scavenger Lands, and I really got into the plight of the Tepet.
- Location
- Ottawa
Be that as it may, nobody cares about year-old typos.
- Location
- United States
@Dif yeah but every single 3e complaint I've read, I've read it a dozen to a hundred times by now. I'm just burnt out when it comes to being outraged. Honestly, by now if I bother to buy anything else in 3e, it will be as a curiosity at best when I have some extra pocket change. 3e and the culture that it feeds into and feeds into it has turned me from a fan of the gameline to someone who just doesn't particularly care if it succeeds or fails anymore.
I'llNameThisL8r
Bad at names
- Location
- Here
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Does anyone have any guides or references for writing balanced homebrew, or what is and isn't a balanced charm?
Warning: DO NOT DO THIS
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
do not do this
@Accelerator, you've had problems here before. Going back 300 pages to make an irrelevant spelling correction post that itself has lots of typos is just stupid. It also triggered far too many posts derailing onto an argument about it. You've disrupted this thread before with behavior you should have known was likely to cause trouble. If you didn't know, this is your learning experience. So you're taking a week off.
If you really feel spelling errors from last year are that important, PM the person in question. Make another post like this that just triggers a derail, and you'll be taking an even longer vacation from the thread.
If you really feel spelling errors from last year are that important, PM the person in question. Make another post like this that just triggers a derail, and you'll be taking an even longer vacation from the thread.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yes and do you know where it got all that from? From Exalted: The Dragon-Blooded and Exalted: The Outcaste, both much better books that are not awful and written literally unfinished.
- Location
- Spain
Yeah but without MOEP: DB we wouldn't know about the high libido of the fire aspects and how they existed to be the concubines of their shiny kings.
Last edited:
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
shit good point, i concede
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
Thanks, so should i get those next, or is all the good stuff included in MoEP: The Dragonblooded?
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sincerely, read Exalted: The Dragon-Blooded along with Exalted: The Outcaste, Scavenger Sons and Games of Divinity. The view offered by these (especially the picture painted of the Forest Witches by The Outcaste) is absolutely gorgeous, and in many ways what got me into Exalted in the first place.
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
Thanks very much for the advice, I'll do that when I can!
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
I tend to run with the assumption that the gods of rivers and such were for the most part unconcerned with the greater state of the world until the world changed. They know things were 'better' in the First Age, but for the most part they've been busy monitoring their domains. They only really start to care once they realize that the watchers who ensure that they're doing their jobs are gone, and then they often go Divine Warlord in search of extra prayer. So while a forest god can give you an incredibly accurate history of how the forest has grown and changed since the First Age, she can only give a limited summary of how the humans living near the forest have grown.
If you have enough gods, you'll be able to get something close to accurate, but for the most part you'll get the memories of a being who for a long time was infinitely more interested in things other than the relevant history you want to know.
That applies to nature gods, but there are plenty of old gods that did, if not interact with humans, then at least keep track of their actions. City fathers remember sieges and sackings and parades and festivals. House gods recall who lived in that home, even after humans lost the ability to make houses and castles that could last for centuries. The god of an old grain silo could very well remember how much grain was stored there every year for as long as the silo was around, and with reinforced concrete construction, a silo can last a damn long time.
Sure, none of them are likely to raise the humans they document up to the level of the Shogunate, but they still remember it. They still talk about those lost wonders.
Not a guide, because there are so many independent variables at work in every Charm that establishing set rules without rewriting half of them in the process would be an ordeal, but something to keep in mind that most "fair" Charms do Only One Thing Well and operate by some pretty consistent math. When in doubt, always simply down and focus a Charm on modifying One Action, resisted in One way. Its extremely tempting and common to try and create a small novel of a Charm, covering every single option of its use and everything, but you're not writing Sorcery here. Charms exist to be Declarations of Intent, or Modifiers to present circumstances, and if you're getting too mired in redundancies, don't be afraid to simply divide the Charm in half into a base form and a Permanent upgrade which re-introduces that complexity later.
As for the math: 1.5 Conditional/non-Trait Dice (like Specialties, pre-soak Damage, Weapon Accuracy, etc), 1 innate Die (from traits or Charms), 1L/2B/.5A point of Charm/Armor soak, and -1d in penalties all tend to be roughly 1 mote per instance. So an attack which doubles your Strength for the purposes of damage would be roughly 3-4m, assuming the maximum Strength of 5 for most anyone wanting it. On that note, always look at your potential maximums if you are creating formulas which can be stacked together, so you're aware of how high your top-end will become. People who are good at the thing your Charm excels at will by that Charm, so don't assume starting character stats. Set limits like Essence/(Trait) in total motes if you're allowing a variable costs comparable to an Excellency. Because Excellencies themselves are a fair measure stick to judge against, and you don't want to a situation where your Charm is much more efficient than they are in practice.
An autosuccess/+1 to a static value, a level of post-soak damage, 1L/2B/.5A point of Natural soak, -1 Tick Speed, and -1 success in penalties all derive out to 2m per instance. So a Charm which flat-out subtracts -3 to both Dodge/Parry DVs would be 6m. Be careful with these, because hard modifiers create a measure of consistency you don't get from rolling dice and applying conditional triggers. So if your idea is to add +Essence autosuccesses to every action of a set type, that character will be passing any/all rolls with a Difficulty of Essence or less uncontested, even before the actual pool is rolled. Plan your benchmarks accordingly.
Inapplicables/Absolute narrative effects, the kind which say "cannot X" or "Event happens" run about 5m, with an additional +2m for each further option on top of it. So an Unblockable/Undodgable attack is about 7m, optimistically. Since they lack any "hard" math to judge by like Excellencies, these should always have a form of resistance against the effect, whether presented as an attack or a contested roll, even if they deny traits from those rolls. Like our Unblockable/Undodgable must still be Soaked, and a theoretical 9m Unblockable/Undodgable/Unsoakable attack should be required to roll against someone's Willpower or MDV as defense instead.
If you're being clever and shuffling traits around among actions, like using Charisma to make attack rolls instead of Dexterity, cost the Charm like you would if the new trait was added on the base pool in dice. So that Charisma-attack would be 3-4m baseline for the potential +5 dice before anyother additions, while using Willpower in dice as a replacement for the attack pool entirely would run about 5-6m (Willpower being a conditional, niche trait which is expensive to raise, so more like an inflated Specialty here). Keep in mind that you're effectively allowing a player to modify how the base-system functions, so what they are paying in motes is more about build-flexibility than sheer power.
Lastly, if the Charm has a duration longer than Instant, it usually will require a Willpower to use. Scenelongs next to always demand this, and One Action attack Charms which have particularly broad effect can have them as well. Willpower can be assumed to "cost" themselves anywhere from 3m to 10m depending on the power of the Charm they are being used on, and sharply decrease the number of times the Charm will get used in a scene, especially on the Instant-scale. If you feel an effect is simply too potent to be used very often, dropping a Willpower-adjustment on the cost is usually a good first balancing step. Remember that a Willpower-payment is competing against other things Willpower can be paid for, like an autosuccess or channeling a Virtue (+3-5 uncapped dice), and so the Charm should roughly as useful as that before anything else.
Permanent Charms are their own bugbear here, and generally-speaking should be regarded as a kind of Mutation which provides approximately the same amount of bonuses for the XP paid to have it. They should Never be a cheaper option than raising traits normally. Never allow them to stack with copies of themselves or comparable effects either, unless it is something like Ox-Body Technique where having a Lot More of what it provides doesn't especially alter your pools, dice or stats all that significantly. Having options is fine, not so much when you've codified their character advancement down to 9xp chunks. If the Permanent modifies a base Charm as an upgrade, keep in mind everything interconnected to that Charm will now be benefiting from that upgrade as well, and adjust your math and costs accordingly (which may even demand the base Charm be costed higher as a result).
Now mind you, all of this is spitballed from simply using a shitload of canon Charms as examples and drawing parallels between them. So you should obviously do the same, and always compare your intended Charm against what already exists to see if it competes well. Like writing, the implementation of Charms is more art than science, and you will have to make some hard judgement calls about how niche an effect is against how much of a bonus it provides and how deeply into the tree it will be placed. Generally-speaking, the more hoops you have to jump through to make the Charm function beyond having the necessary motes onhand, the cheaper the mote-cost should be.
Sometimes its enough to make it conditional, like a single mode of action (ie, Jumping) or targeting a particular thing (like Objects) to reduce the overall costs, but this loops back into how often you want the power to be used and possibly abused through focusing onto it heavily. If the Charm has potential to derail a scene by someone devoting an entire character-build towards it as the gimmick, you should probably revise the idea a little and reassess what your intended goal is for making it a Charm to begin with.
Beyond those basics, all I can say is good luck with everything.
I'llNameThisL8r
Bad at names
- Location
- Here
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Thank you, you've just saved me a whole lot of stumbling around looking for a measuring stick to use.
Also, Dif forgot to mention the most important thing (which is also usually the first mistake anyone makes).
Don't fuck with dice caps. Never fuck with dice caps. Do not let people increase their dice caps. Do not let people use different dice caps from their native splat. Do not write charms which implicitly or explicitly let the character fuck with their dice caps. Unless you are very, very aware of what you are doing, always make sure any autosuccesses your Charms grant count as dice granted by charms, because autosucceses don't automatically count as dice granted by charms and those will break dice caps. In fact, basically never give autosuccesses for combat actions, because combat reacts very badly to autosucceses (whether on damage or on to-hit).
(and be aware of how dice curves interact and how a two dice difference is usually enough to guarantee victory for one party over the other)
I'llNameThisL8r
Bad at names
- Location
- Here
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I get that charms that reliably and cheaply turn Dragon Bloods into a fine red mist are bad in all cases, but what about charms like Faster Than Sight that add (Essence) autosux to a contested roll against a Perfect tracking effect? Because I remember there being a lot of 'Perfect + autosux against other Perfects' charms in the infernal charmtrees.
Last edited:
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
That's more of a IF/UO interaction with a side of 'Charm Rolloff', and they're poorly understood mechanics as they're hard to read sometimes.
Generally though, 'biased rolloff' mechanics like that are fine, because they're highly niche- focused on specific Dramatic Actions or similar, and exist to break ties. They exist to keep the game moving, in the face of arbitrary 'No you can't' obstacles. Remember, first and foremost, Exalted is a Low-Trust system. A lot of these highly advantageous charms are to protect Players from Storytellers being abusive, knowingly or unknowingly. Fundamentally, the Perfect Defenses exist to prevent 'Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies'.
On a more general Charm Design note, don't forget timing. A lot of the issues of Exalted's combat engine (2e especially) are exacerbated when every single action is an Attack, and combat or action scenes all begin with no jocking for position or in that 'everyone is in range' white space. Most games I played in allowed the PCs and opponents to turn on their scene-long simple charm buffs before the fight begins- simply because if they spent the whole combat activating their scenelongs, it'd take forever.
This in turn is exacerbated by the Stunt Obligation- now I personally like stunting, but sometimes it can be seen as a time and creativity tax. I turn on Solar Hero Form, I stunt the form, which takes anywhere from 10 seconds of at-table speech to 2-3 minutes of typing if doing it via an online format. That shit adds up.
So it's not that you shouldn't stunt, but those kinds of things shouldn't obligate stunts.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that how Often you can act is an important component of Charm design as well. If you can't activate a Simple Charm due to say, environmental conditions, for example, that immediately closes off combat-deforming effects like Iron Whirlwind or other Magical Flurries. Like, if I have to flurry a Dash + Attack to hit someone, that means I can't Simple Charm.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
I don't think that's the culture of 3E, so much as the culture of this specific space? Holden and Morke are no longer working for the line, so if nothing else it's not really feasible to criticize 3E on the basis of the developer's personalities, unless there's some sort of controversy I'm not aware of with Vance and Minton. If you look at a lot of other spaces for Exalted discussion, such as on /tg/, reddit, OPP's forums, SpaceBattles forums (which I note, is frequented by quite a few of the same posters here but has never reached the same level of vitriol), or the Something Awful forums, you largely won't get the same degree of constant outrage or abusive behavior, from a purely objective perspective.
Who are these folks, Dif? Would you like me to argue on the merits of Exalted 3E? Given that the substance of your criticism in this post seems to be that "Morke and Holden are really mean assholes!" then surely their removal has removed any issues with the game.
So you're arguing current devs are irrevocably tainted due to association with this project that you disliked? That's not a very reasonable position, I feel. Have I misinterpreted the point you're trying to make?
If I can make an argument, with 3E people have an edition of Exalted that doesn't devolve into attritional combat via Perfects, has a social system that functions as intended instead of by fiat or by the same sort of constant attrition, a battle system where combat does not last for several hours as all the contenders stack up their defenses or mere seconds as they are splattered by a killstick, a situation where a combat sorcerer is worth a damn, and many other ease of life changes. I personally am happy just that they drove a stake into the heart of paranoia combat, but I and many others feel that the game has merit in and of itself for the first time, rather than something to be tolerated for the sake of the setting it's attached to. Could you address these points, then? In what ways do you feel the game lacks merit as a game, rather than as a vehicle for developers that you may or may not like?
The only arguments you've put forth in this post are that the former devs were rude to you, and you think they had a bad attitude. I, personally, don't factor in the attitudes of a creator when judging their creation, simply because what I paid for was a book that I received and enjoyed rather than a bunch of twitter posts by Holden or whoever.
Last edited:
Dynamesmouse
Bzzzzzz
I say this guy literally edit his Elloge Charmset while I was reading it.
I even told him about it through editing Elloge's Unseen Author Assumption tree.
He locked everyone else out of editing.