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General Exalted Thread

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So, I dislike the Tell still, as it's still a weakness of shapeshifting framed as a 'flaw' rather than 'lack of skill'...

That said, it's nice it isn't so easy to see through anymore also that if you pick something more obvious you can pick a corresponding mutation, which is a nice motivation to pick something obvious like catears or turtle shell or whatever.
 
Sucal said:
If you want to use the form you'll still need the charm tax!
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Yes, but I don't have to use the form, and if I do, I don't need to take the charm at chargen. Being able to turn into an actual mouse is not as important to my character concept as being Mathaias and recovering Martin the Warrior's Daiklave and using it to defeat Clooney the Scourge.
 
I mean, you could always activate HBT to become a anamorphic mouse. Even without Emerald Grasshopper Form
 
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AmineHsu said:
So, I dislike the Tell still, as it's still a weakness of shapeshifting framed as a 'flaw' rather than 'lack of skill'...

That said, it's nice it isn't so easy to see through anymore also that if you pick something more obvious you can pick a corresponding mutation, which is a nice motivation to pick something obvious like catears or turtle shell or whatever.
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In 2E the Tell was hidden by a 12 success illusion effect you could not spend WP to see through. If you knew what it was, were specifically looking for lunars, and they were in a true form you still needed an MDV of 4 to see through it which is well above almost everyone in the setting. If they weren't in a true form and you didn't know what it was you needed an MDV of 10 while looking for Lunars which is well above even most Exalted.

It was never easy to see through.
 
Exthalion said:
In 2E the Tell was hidden by a 12 success illusion effect you could not spend WP to see through. If you knew what it was, were specifically looking for lunars, and they were in a true form you still needed an MDV of 4 to see through it which is well above almost everyone in the setting. If they weren't in a true form and you didn't know what it was you needed an MDV of 10 while looking for Lunars which is well above even most Exalted.

It was never easy to see through.
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You mean to tell me that every single NPC and PC in creation doesn't dump the chargen bonus points into WP and Essence, starting with a minimum MDV of 6 before any investment in Integrity, because it's optimal? Have I been playing the game wrong!?! Next you'll be telling me that everyone in Creation doesn't have Dexterity 5!
 
Exthalion said:
In 2E the Tell was hidden by a 12 success illusion effect you could not spend WP to see through. If you knew what it was, were specifically looking for lunars, and they were in a true form you still needed an MDV of 4 to see through it which is well above almost everyone in the setting. If they weren't in a true form and you didn't know what it was you needed an MDV of 10 while looking for Lunars which is well above even most Exalted.

It was never easy to see through.
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You're kinda right, but I feel like you're still wrong.

A MDV of 4 is a pool of Will+Integrity+Ess of 8, a Heroic mortal with no investment has a pool of 6, one with an Investment of 1 in Willpower and 1 in Integrity, they hit a pool of 8, a fairly small investment, especially as Willpower is a valueable resource is a wide number of situation and is super-cheap to increase during character creation.

That last bit further is complicated by Exalted character creation, Exalted want Will even more than mortals and the character creation rules would seem to encourage maxing it then. I see a MDV of 10 and it reads as "A chargen Solar with 3 Integrity and a Integrity Excellency can beat that. a Chargen DB with 4 Integrity and an Excellency can beat it". Like it's probably more impressive than it seems but if you've played the system a lot it just seems....low.
 
I am pandora, insufficiently sarcastic poster who's arrogance summons people to defend what are narratively Olympic levels of skill and talent as basic expectations of proficiency
 
I don't think that's really fair; the Dodge MDV formula being what it is, a high rating in it isn't as narratively meaningful as, say, a high Resolve is in 3e.

Willpower starts at 5, Essence starts at 2. It's been forever since I paid attention to these rules but I think the formula is (Willpower + Integrity + Essence)/2, rounded up. So an MDV of 4 is the bare minimum for an Exalted PC, even at chargen, and 6 is quite ordinary even at a low-optimisation table. You actually have to try if you want to hit 10, though.
 
Unbanshee said:
I am pandora, insufficiently sarcastic poster who's arrogance summons people to defend what are narratively Olympic levels of skill and talent as basic expectations of proficiency
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*shrug*

Not our fault that if you don't 'win' character creation, you can start off more then 100 XP behind other player characters
 
yeah........... Stuff like that is why I consider Exalted primarily as an inspiration for stories instead of a game to play.
 
The simple fact is that if the scale is whack, people will recalibrate it. Exalted tells you that an action that requires five successes is a super legendary success. Exalted also tells you that 5 successes is a thing that can be quite reasonably achieved with minimal investment by every player character splat. If the scale doesn't go above 5, what do you DO when you get like 10 successes every time you put a little effort into it? So people end up moving the scale and what becomes thought of as "baseline competence".
 
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Sanctaphrax said:
I don't think that's really fair; the Dodge MDV formula being what it is, a high rating in it isn't as narratively meaningful as, say, a high Resolve is in 3e.

Willpower starts at 5, Essence starts at 2. It's been forever since I paid attention to these rules but I think the formula is (Willpower + Integrity + Essence)/2, rounded up. So an MDV of 4 is the bare minimum for an Exalted PC, even at chargen, and 6 is quite ordinary even at a low-optimisation table. You actually have to try if you want to hit 10, though.
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So, It's been a little while since I played 2e, but according to pg 10 of the Errata document under the 'Dodge Mental Defense Value', Willpower counts as an attribute for determining dice caps for DMDV.... So this means that an Exalt with 8 Willpower and 2 Integrity would have a DMDV of 6 and be able to use to Second Integrity Excellency to boost that to as high as 11. That still feels pretty low on the optimization scale....
 
AmineHsu said:
A MDV of 4 is a pool of Will+Integrity+Ess of 8, a Heroic mortal with no investment has a pool of 6, one with an Investment of 1 in Willpower and 1 in Integrity, they hit a pool of 8, a fairly small investment, especially as Willpower is a valueable resource is a wide number of situation and is super-cheap to increase during character creation.
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An heroic mortal that is specifically searching for Lunars discovering a Lunar is, uh, perfectly fine? The tell exists precisely for situations like that.

Meanwhile if you aren't looking for it you need to pass a diff 10 roll, likely without using excellencies. (If you are using perception charms in someone is because you suspect something is off anyway).
 
AmineHsu said:
So, It's been a little while since I played 2e, but according to pg 10 of the Errata document under the 'Dodge Mental Defense Value', Willpower counts as an attribute for determining dice caps for DMDV.... So this means that an Exalt with 8 Willpower and 2 Integrity would have a DMDV of 6 and be able to use to Second Integrity Excellency to boost that to as high as 11. That still feels pretty low on the optimization scale....
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Honestly with all this back and forth, I think I've decided that I prefer 3E's version, which boils down to 'diff 7 unless you use Subtle Silver Declaration'
 
ichypa said:
Far more importantly, you can also start as a Mouse/Vole/Hare/Squirrel/etc. Lunar, which means I can make all the Redwall references I want without having to pay a Knack tax.
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Sucal said:
If you want to use the form you'll still need the charm tax!
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RE: Lunars with HUGE/tiny forms

So, we suppose we do away with the knack tax. How about an optional post-chargen purchase as a Training effect?

As in, if you're picking a form that is too big/small to be used without an associated knack, you may either have it locked until you purchase the relevant knack - or you may choose, at the time of "start of their first adventure", to get the relevant knacks as a Training effect without any training time. Fluffing it won't be hard, even.
 
My contribution to Exalted's lore, an island full of hot dads ~


I'll die happily when I finally finished writing all the locations on this island.
 
AmineHsu said:
You're kinda right, but I feel like you're still wrong.

A MDV of 4 is a pool of Will+Integrity+Ess of 8, a Heroic mortal with no investment has a pool of 6, one with an Investment of 1 in Willpower and 1 in Integrity, they hit a pool of 8, a fairly small investment, especially as Willpower is a valueable resource is a wide number of situation and is super-cheap to increase during character creation.

That last bit further is complicated by Exalted character creation, Exalted want Will even more than mortals and the character creation rules would seem to encourage maxing it then. I see a MDV of 10 and it reads as "A chargen Solar with 3 Integrity and a Integrity Excellency can beat that. a Chargen DB with 4 Integrity and an Excellency can beat it". Like it's probably more impressive than it seems but if you've played the system a lot it just seems....low.
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A heroic Mortal with no investment as an MDV of 3, 5wp + 1 Essence is 6 and halved is 3.
The heroic Mortal in the antagonist section of Core has an MDV of 6. (Essence was errated down to 1)

A Chargen Solar can do rather a lot of things, if they invest in it. Pretending they got WP 10, Integrity 5, and Integrity Specialty against Lunars 3, and raised their essence to 3 their MDV is 11, still a point under what they need to spot a random Lunar if they aren't specifically looking for one. So even a fairly optimized Solar must either be in paranoia (in the none combat sense) or use magic to see through the zero investment defense of the tell.

You know who doesn't have MDV 12? Literally, everyone that isn't a hyper-optimized PC, godlike Elder, or significant spirit. Like all those non-heroic mortals guarding the grain caravan who won't notice that their drunk comrades who went to throw up now has backward hands or what not. If you are curious about who else doesn't have MDV 12, the list includes storm mothers, Gri-Fel, and Fakharu - Censor of the West!

Who does have a high enough MDV to see through the tell without magic? Celestial Lions, most Third Circle Demons, and various extremely high ranking gods.

PCs are not built like "regular" people. They are usually hyperspecialist zealots whose entire life apparently consisted of nothing but training to accomplish the exact thing they are meant to be good at.



But, conveniently, Lunars can add other magic to make themselves more stealthy, which they really should be expected to if they are going against beings potent enough to see through the zero investment concealment of the tell.
 
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Drascin said:
The simple fact is that if the scale is whack, people will recalibrate it. Exalted tells you that an action that requires five successes is a super legendary success. Exalted also tells you that 5 successes is a thing that can be quite reasonably achieved with minimal investment by every player character splat. If the scale doesn't go above 5, what do you DO when you get like 10 successes every time you put a little effort into it? So people end up moving the scale and what becomes thought of as "baseline competence".
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Technically, I believe that successes beyond the difficulty are supposed to indicate how amazingly you have accomplished the task, but that also only goes up to five, so anything beyond 10 successes is basically the same as getting 6+ successes.

So yeah, Exalted's sense of scale is wacky, and to me it feels like static challenges are often flat-out meaningless and the only challenges that actually matter are ones where something is actively contesting you, i.e. a situation where instead of trying to get X successes, you're trying to get more successes than the other party.

Jen said:
My contribution to Exalted's lore, an island full of hot dads ~


I'll die happily when I finally finished writing all the locations on this island.
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Are bonito common in the waters around Baradise?
 
So, for Exalted vs WoD, how useful is Linear Magic for a Solar or the like? Is it something worth investing exp into?
 
greensun said:
So, for Exalted vs WoD, how useful is Linear Magic for a Solar or the like? Is it something worth investing exp into?
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Assuming you're using Sorcerer Revised, there are a lot of effects that a Solar literally has no access to (e.g. shapeshifting, longish distance teleportation) that you can get through linear sorcery but obviously the cost for this kind of stuff is pretty insane. Direct combat effects are expensive and kind of ass, same with the art of Enchantment.

There is a broken-ass combination that you should probably ban, which is taking one of the Linear Sorcery merits that lets you spend Mana to lower roll difficulties as a Solar (and remember Essence can replace Mana expenditures), giving access to an (expensive and inefficient) version of the Mage TN reduction mainstay. This is probably particularly broken for shit that involves long-term extended rolls less so than combat, though.

In general, sorcery is expensive and if you already have an aptitude in some form, trying to double-dip on things with sorcery is bad.
 
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I wonder what spells will show up in 3e Lunars. It's always nice to have more of those, especially with how cool sorcery is in this edition, even though it takes forever to get to Essence 3 with rules-as-written and thus get Celestial Sorcery.
 
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