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General Exalted Thread

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From a practical gameplay perspective, I'd expect everything involving large groups of people to be a bit of a nightmare. In most games, when a fight breaks out in a public place, you can mostly ignore the random bystanders. But in a game where everyone is Exalted, any given crowd probably contains two dozen people with the ability to intervene productively. And each of those people has a very complicated character sheet.

It would make sense, I think, to declare that the Exalted of this transcendent future mostly lack the "heroism" of the original Exalts. They might have the same power, but they don't have the same protagonist-y drive to affect the world.
 
I think, if I were doing a heaven's reach setting where everyone was some kind of exalt, I'd make it where everyone had access to excellencies but further developing their potential into full fledged Charms is something that a lot of people just don't really do.
 
The magic that only really works on mortals isn't the problem. Its everyone having access to society shaping social magic or high tier sorcery. Imagine a society where everyone is a nuclear bomb able to go off at any moment.

It's very quickly going to approach one of a few end states. The world might end from all the city smashing kung fu duels and Death Ray castings, things might revert to a mind-control feudal system from people with unrestrained society shaping magic, everyone (or enough for a herd immunity type situation) might be loaded with defensive charms to protect against the above, etc.

If everyone has layered magical defenses, then the fact that people have various powers doesn't mean anything anymore. If everyone's DV is 5 higher, then having a 10 dice excellency hasn't changed the math. This world of everyone exalted is also a world where no one is really exalted, where all the magic has become cheep rather than miraculous.

And before you jump on me about that, the average smartphone has enough computing power to run every moon mission at the same time and they get left in junk drawers when the new one comes out. They would be the work of gods even a few decades ago and now they are worthless a year after they come out. Their power didn't change, but the common availability of that power means that the perception did.
 
So I finally started running Exalted vs. WoD in earnest, running a game where the PCs were a Dawn, Dusk, and Full Moon who more or less spontaneously decided to kill the Prince of Phoenix. As they ascended the skyscraper the Prince held court in, I started to sweat because I kept on needing to retroactively upgrade the Prince so the fight with him would not be a total anticlimax. I originally envisioned him as a Gen 8 Elder Gangrel with a bunch of flexibility with multiple five dot disciplines, nearly capped dice pools, and a bit of Celerity.

By the time they massacred the local Primogens, disabled the ghoul security forces, and rescued the owner of the Phoenix Suns, the Gangrel was now a Gen 6 with maxed out Protean for a transformation sequence and about 5 dots of Celerity and Fortitude.

He still went down in a single round thanks to the full moon doing about 13 automatic levels of damage in exchange for taking a point of lethal on himself. So, that was exciting. The players also decided to befriend the saddest Caitiff in Phoenix and use him to snitch on other prominent Vampires in the city.

GM: "Soon you reach a storage bay that wouldn't look out of place in hit reality TV show Storage Wars. Jonah's hideout is just as depressing as Jonah's car. Also, as depressing as Jonah himself."
Full Moon: "Man, and here I thought vampires were supposed to be sexy and suave and everything else you aren't."
GM: "So uh, I don't have wi-fi in here but, like, there's a Chinese place nearby that's close enough to get you like two bars. You gotta give them your e-mail though. So uh, watch out for that."
Dusk: "That's a bit mean, Lloyd. Guy's doing the best he can!"
GM: Jonah looks at the Rancorous Tyrant as if he were Jonah's own angry, drunken father finally telling him that he is proud of his boy.
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So yeah, pretty fun stuff overall.
 
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Deations said:
As they ascended the skyscraper the Prince held court in, I started to sweat because I kept on needing to retroactively upgrade the Prince so the fight with him would not be a total anticlimax.
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So, the lesson of this?
Next time just let the character get pwned, and try to focus on something other than direct combat if you want to provide a challenge for three murder-gods.
 
Sydonai said:
So, the lesson of this?
Next time just let the character get pwned, and try to focus on something other than direct combat if you want to provide a challenge for three murder-gods.
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To be fair, they were suitably impressed when the Prince was able to tank the White Phosphorous the Abyssal summoned.

It didn't help him, in the end, but it earned him a bit of a golf clap.
 
"Everyone is an exalt in the Space!Future" would probably end up meaning that the average person has an excellency for their job and whatever their hobbies are while at some point society has developed some kind of charm-as-equipment infrastructure that provides access to basic charms. Like, most hospitals will have equipment that let people trained in their use duplicate the effects of medicine charms, there's shoe-stores that sell designer athletic charms, Space!IPhones with lore charm apps, body armor that provdes soak AND resistance charms, etc.

Developing more than the occasional charm beyond excellencies would represent a lot of work that the average person just never feels the need to do, especially in the more civilized areas of the galaxy. Conversely, the further you get from the centers of civilization, the more charms people have because they need to develop personal charms to have the effects on hand.

IDK, just spitballing
 
Exthalion said:
If everyone has layered magical defenses, then the fact that people have various powers doesn't mean anything anymore. If everyone's DV is 5 higher, then having a 10 dice excellency hasn't changed the math. This world of everyone exalted is also a world where no one is really exalted, where all the magic has become cheep rather than miraculous.
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That's a little bit of what I'm actually going for.

This idea that this wondrous, powerful magic of ancient eras is... just expected and normal now.
 
rogthnor said:
What is age of scorpio?
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Sanctaphrax said:
This, perhaps?
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Yep, that's Age of Scorpio. What you need to know is that there is a synopsis on that page. The synopsis talks about a down on his luck space-salvager being paid to grab a derelict in a dangerous hell-dimension. That synopsis is all lies. What it actually is is basically some absolute madman writing an Exalted novel-and then deciding to mash it up with an Exalted modern novel and a Heaven's Reach novel and somehow tie all three of them together. I do not understand how Gavin G. Smith managed to get something this insane published, but he did.

Salty said:
So it's Shadowrun.
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That actually kind of works as an analogy I guess.

Honestly it'd work even better if the setting was an explicit extension of, like actual Exalted (but with actual spaaaaace) or something. Someone in the Third or Fourth Age cracks the code and makes Exaltation mass-producible, some team of Geniuses who want to avoid the First Age decide that the best way to do it is to give everyone an Exaltation, and things escalate just a bit from there.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Yep, that's Age of Scorpio. What you need to know is that there is a synopsis on that page. The synopsis talks about a down on his luck space-salvager being paid to grab a derelict in a dangerous hell-dimension. That synopsis is all lies. What it actually is is basically some absolute madman writing an Exalted novel-and then deciding to mash it up with an Exalted modern novel and a Heaven's Reach novel and somehow tie all three of them together. I do not understand how Gavin G. Smith managed to get something this insane published, but he did.
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Got it and OH MY GOD the initial characters are so unlikable I haven't been able to get through the first chapter.
 
A lot of this really depends what these additional Exalts can do.
Is there a new tier of mass-produced exalt? Is basically everyone Dragon-Blooded? Or are not even the Celestial Exalts safe from mass production?
 
Lioness said:
A lot of this really depends what these additional Exalts can do.
Is there a new tier of mass-produced exalt? Is basically everyone Dragon-Blooded? Or are not even the Celestial Exalts safe from mass production?
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Are there even tiers of Exalts anymore? Or are there only Exigents, and power varies purely on an individual basis?
 
You are ignoring content by this member.
why do I keep purchasing four-five dot artifacts at character creation that aren't in the dang books so I have to custom make all their charms by myself

like oh well least I've probably got a month until the game starts but I've no idea other than "mooonsilver reaper daiklave"
 
If we're designing "everyone is Exalted", then my approach would also include a relative rarity of (2e terminology) Heroic Motivations to explain why not everyone has their potential fully realized.

That, despite having potential for greatness thrust at them, most Exalts feel no need to work on it.
 
Faraway-R said:
If we're designing "everyone is Exalted", then my approach would also include a relative rarity of (2e terminology) Heroic Motivations to explain why not everyone has their potential fully realized.
That, despite having potential for greatness thrust at them, most Exalts feel no need to work on it.
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Either they shouldn't have access to any Exalted-ness until they have a proper Motivation, or they are forced to have a proper Motivation.
 
Peacock Style

Those who see only the beauty of the peacock miss its vicious spurs. Practitioners copy its distracting motions and flashy displays, often attaching bright ribbons and bells to their decoy weapon as to draw the eye and ear. The style is a graceful one where the practitioner fends off the enemy with wide, sweeping gestures, while their killing blows are sudden and direct. Its form weapons are divided into feathers and talons. Feathers include rope weapons, war fans, segmented staffs, and improvised weapons of a graceful nature. Talons consist of knives, throwing knives, and short swords. It may only be practised in armour or equipment with a mobility penalty of -1 or less.

1: +1 Defence for feathers, as long as the character has room to retreat.
2: +1 Accuracy with talons if their previous action did not include any attacks with talons.
3: +1 difficulty to detect hostile intent from the Peacock-style practitioner on Read Motivation actions.
 
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I mean, the premise of this idea is that in the far far spacefuture, tech has gotten so advanced that the hypertech-that-is-exaltation is essentially so commonplace that EVERYONE has it.

At that point "you have to be a hero to be an exalt" just isn't sustainable, unless society is so radically different that it's impossible for there to not be normal people who do office jobs. And what kind of heroic drive IS there when you live in a post scarcity singularity society where everyone is the captain of their own destiny? How "heroic" is someone who just wants to use their sublime skill at panting to travel the galaxy and paint scenes of such breathtaking beauty that they have to be locked away and only shown to people who have developed a dozen charm filters to keep the art from acting as an inadvertent Basilisk Hack that compels viewers to worship it?
 
Sanctaphrax said:
That seems like a recipe for an unplayable world.
Why not just let there be non-heroic Exalted?
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"That seems like a recipe for an unplayable world."
Why not just let there be non-Exalts?
Unbanshee said:
normal people who do office jobs.
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These kinds of people? Incapable of being Exalted.
The exception being Terrestrials, who are born into it even if they only find out about it later on.
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Also, you are talking about a world where everyone is Exalted, why would you even for a second believe that this world wouldn't be radically different?
 
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Sydonai said:
"That seems like a recipe for an unplayable world."
Why not just let there be non-Exalts?

These kinds of people? Incapable of being Exalted.
The exception being Terrestrials, who are born into it even if they only find out about it later on.
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Also, you are talking about a world where everyone is Exalted, why would you even for a second believe that this world wouldn't be radically different?
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Because the Heaven's Reach setting is more or less "Star Wars, except with Exalts" and someone wants to change that to "Star Wars, except EVERYONE is an Exalt" and no one has really put forward a whole lot of other ideas on how the setting would be changed. When exaltation is so common as to be universal, it's absurd to also demand that exalts also be heroic with heroic motivations.
 
Sydonai said:
"That seems like a recipe for an unplayable world."
Why not just let there be non-Exalts?
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Because that's against the premise of the question, obviously.

Sydonai said:
These kinds of people? Incapable of being Exalted.
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Sez who?

The mechanics work fine for such people, and the narrative elements that prohibit them are already out the window. It's Heaven's Reach, after all.

Granted, there would be much less need for office jobs in a world where everyone had Charms. But the people who work them don't need to become "heroic" just because they've been given magitech superpowers.
 
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