General Exalted Thread
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- The North
They're still on their last legs, though, so it'd be pretty easy for them to get incap'd again. It's a neat recovery mechanic, regardless.
- Pronouns
- They/them
The flipside of this is that incapacitation itself is kinda wishy-washy (it can mean being stabbed and on death's door, but also being disarmed and put in an awkward spot but also just being really fucking sad - and, by RAW, I can keep singing at my friends and build their Power while being any of those three).
It also seems really hard to get incapacitated in the first place? Dramatic injuries reduce incoming damage to 0, taking a dramatic injury to an attribute is pretty much equivalent to a slap on the wrist, and you can take FOUR of the damn things before you'd have to face the music. All in all, I get the impression that the game is just really afraid to let players fail at anything, which is... not the thing I'm looking for in a game. Yes, not even in a game about epic kung-fu demigods who can shake the pillars of the heavens.
It also seems really hard to get incapacitated in the first place? Dramatic injuries reduce incoming damage to 0, taking a dramatic injury to an attribute is pretty much equivalent to a slap on the wrist, and you can take FOUR of the damn things before you'd have to face the music. All in all, I get the impression that the game is just really afraid to let players fail at anything, which is... not the thing I'm looking for in a game. Yes, not even in a game about epic kung-fu demigods who can shake the pillars of the heavens.
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- my house
Thinking further on it, I suppose the issue is that if hardness doesn't reduce the damage of attacks, well then what is it for?
Since a high power attack deals more damage, that means that someone with high hardness is receiving the same damage over the same period of time, its just in the form of a few powerful blows instead of several weaker ones.
In which case, what is even the point of having hardness? It doesn't seem to actually do anything useful, and so any charm or ability that grants extra hardness would be a waste of XP. It makes it feel a little like a trap choice or an XP tax.
Related, high hardness is actually really bad for a soak tank. Since soak reduces the damage of incoming attacks by a set amount, then they are going to want to be hit by a bunch of smaller hits rather than a few big hits*. Which means that for a Soak Tank, high hardness is actively detrimental since it incentivizes using stronger attacks.
*Breakdown of the math in the spoiler below.
On a separate note, but I am having some difficulty with the attributes. Specifically Fortitude. Force and Finesse both feel like active descripters to me. You do things with force or with finesse. But you don't really do things with fortitude. You endure things with fortitude.
IDK, I just feel like I'm not grokking Fortitude. All the uses I can think of for it feel very passive.
Since a high power attack deals more damage, that means that someone with high hardness is receiving the same damage over the same period of time, its just in the form of a few powerful blows instead of several weaker ones.
In which case, what is even the point of having hardness? It doesn't seem to actually do anything useful, and so any charm or ability that grants extra hardness would be a waste of XP. It makes it feel a little like a trap choice or an XP tax.
Related, high hardness is actually really bad for a soak tank. Since soak reduces the damage of incoming attacks by a set amount, then they are going to want to be hit by a bunch of smaller hits rather than a few big hits*. Which means that for a Soak Tank, high hardness is actively detrimental since it incentivizes using stronger attacks.
*Breakdown of the math in the spoiler below.
Character A has 2 hardness, 2 soak.
Over the course of the fight, they get hit for a total of 50 damage.
If that damage is spread out over 10 hits (each which deal 5 damage) then each of those hits has their damaged reduced by 2, for a total damage reduction of 20. Thus, our soak tank is dealt 30 damage instead of 50.
If that damage is done in 1 hit, then that singular hit has its damage reduce by 2, for a total damage reduction of 2. Thus our Soak Tank takes 48 damage instead of 50.
Over the course of the fight, they get hit for a total of 50 damage.
If that damage is spread out over 10 hits (each which deal 5 damage) then each of those hits has their damaged reduced by 2, for a total damage reduction of 20. Thus, our soak tank is dealt 30 damage instead of 50.
If that damage is done in 1 hit, then that singular hit has its damage reduce by 2, for a total damage reduction of 2. Thus our Soak Tank takes 48 damage instead of 50.
On a separate note, but I am having some difficulty with the attributes. Specifically Fortitude. Force and Finesse both feel like active descripters to me. You do things with force or with finesse. But you don't really do things with fortitude. You endure things with fortitude.
IDK, I just feel like I'm not grokking Fortitude. All the uses I can think of for it feel very passive.
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Yeah, I feel like something along the lines of "Steadfastness" or whatever would better convey the various concepts that Fortitude is trying to encompass.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
You always get at least overwhelm in power when you attack, even if you miss.
It's to require you to spend at least that much time / game presence building up to make that attack in the first place.
Like, the entire "but hardness makes people more likely to be one-shot" line implicitly claims that build power / withering attacks / etc don't have game presence. Consider a group of infantry trying to maneuver around a tank, bait it down narrow alleyways and distract the gunner so they can sneak their ATM into position to shoot it through the weaker back armor. That's an extended fight in which the infantry might only make one serious attack, and if they win the fight that one attack is going to kill the tank; does that seem like a story that implies tanks are fragile compared to infantry?
- Location
- my house
So, your example definitely helps me better conceptualize hardness as a way of forcing longer engagements, and I can definitely see some fun build options, but barring some sort of mechanic that lets you reduce the power built up on you, hardness is still only marginally useful.
Like, soak works just as well at forcing longer engagements/buying time, and a high hardness still runs into the issue of being actively detrimental to having high soak.
Barring hardness being substantially easier to get, some sort of mechanics which let you lower power to make your hardness more useable, or soak being prohibitively more expensive, I just don't see hardness being useful mechanically.
Are you certain about that? People have brought it up, and yeah, I suppose RAW it could be read that way, but that just seem kind of nonsensical to me.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I guess it would be good if like, there was a whole chapter of this book featuring magic powers you can buy that change how the rules work for your character.
- Location
- The North
It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that Exalted is a game where the characters are supposed to succeed at everything. The drama, the game posits, ought to come from the consequences of success and the ways that your legendary deeds shape the world, rather than the struggle to perform those deeds or the tension of not knowing if you will succeed or fail. That's a perfectly fine idea for a game. What gets me, though, and what I think has led to a lot of tension whenever I sit down to play or run Exalted, is that all of the actual game, its mechanics, doesn't seem to support that. Actions, be they attacks or treating diseases or climbing mountains, have Difficulties that you roll dice to overcome. All of the tension present in that dice roll, in the random chance, the probability curve, is about whether or not you do the thing. The mechanics of the game don't really care about, or help to shape, what happens next.
I think what you're pointing out is indicative of that. The game is doing everything it can to stack the deck in favor the PCs, so that when they utilize this tactical skirmishing combat system there is a feeling of dramatic tension but no real possibility of failure. It's a ton of effort put in to something that, for me, seems... kind of tangential to the actual point of the game. If player characters are going to win their fights, and the aftermath and consequences of victory are the real important part, then this combat system is a two hour formality. Why bother?
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- my house
Except that chapter hasn't been released yet, and there is no proof that there will be charms to solve this problem.
I can only offer my feedback on what exists, not the imaginary charms that you have invented in your head to fix this problem. Maybe the charms chapter will fix this problem, maybe it won't. We can't know that until that chapter is released.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
it was asked about in the discord and was confirmed by the devs to be intentional
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- Nova Scotia
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- She/Her
My point was more that the degree to which this is a problem at all (you have gotten pretty strong pushback on this point and not just from me) is predicated on like, at best a very incomplete picture of the game and that this is probably not the time to declare that things are A Problem anymore than the doomsaying about which anima powers were good or bad was warranted before we even knew how the system worked.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
I need to reread the anima powers now that I know the basic system.
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- my house
Except I'm not. I'm offering feedback on something about the system that worries me, and breaking down why. Which is kind of the whole reason that early manuscripts are provided to backers.
Also, I didn't want to bring it up in my earlier post, but charms should not be used as fixes for problems in the base system. If hardness relies on charms to be patched into usefulness, than that is in itself a bit of a red flag.
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- The North
Charms are part of the base system. Essence isn't built for mortal play. You're supposed to have Charms.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Without commenting on the larger debate re: Hardness,
This is the kind of thinking that gave us EX3's godawful craft system, so Solar Craft could look good by obviating large chunks of it.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
The base system seems to hold up fine even without charms. At least to my untrained eyes.
I have heard from the people who play with it that the craft system itself isn't terrible, just what solar craft does to it. The major failing is that it doesn't allow architects. That's just what I've heard tho. Haven't actually managed to play a game of exalted that lasted long enough for craft to become relevant in any form.
I have heard from the people who play with it that the craft system itself isn't terrible, just what solar craft does to it. The major failing is that it doesn't allow architects. That's just what I've heard tho. Haven't actually managed to play a game of exalted that lasted long enough for craft to become relevant in any form.
I…that's…
*sigh*
You know what, the devs have accrued enough good Will from me so far that I will give them the benefit of the doubt until we have all the rules.
Anyway, regarding Hardness, regardless of its mechanical effectiveness or lack thereof, I will say that it probably does the best job at making armor feel like armor I've seen, and it does a lot for me in helping me embrace withering attack's conceit that they're fer realz srs attacks, but they still only cause scrapes or other minor cosmetic damage lol.
'Cause, your armor is your armor, yeah? It's supposed to protect you. So when someone hits with a withering attack, it's a real, serious attempt to inflict injury, but thanks to your armor protecting you the attack itself doesn't inflict any serious injury.
So you maneuver, and test defenses, Building Power until you are able to make a decisive attack, at which point you're able to strike at a weak point or land a blow strong enough that it's able to penetrate the armor and actual inflict harm on your meaty bits.
But because your armor protects you in a non-binary fashion and doesn't just crumple like paper the moment you whack it juuust hard enough, it still absorbs some of the harm, which is your Soak.
So, yeah. Ultimately I just like how they did hardness and soak, regardless of whether it turns out to be flawed.
Incorrect. You deal more damage than just the Power invested, the damage of a decisive attack is Power invested+Threshold Sux+Weapon Autosux+(other modifiers). If you spend 10 power at once, you only get threshold sux and weapons modifiers once. if you split it into two 5 power attacks each, you get to double up on threshold sux and co.
Edit: But of course, soak applies twice as well.
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- Location
- my house
Honestly, yeah. I'm picking at these things because I feel like the system is really good overall, and so there are concrete issues I can point to for improvement. Unlike say, F.A.T.A.L. where the whole thing is so bad I can't pick out singular issues, the core of Essence is really strong and so my complaints are mostly minor things. I've said before that most of what I dislike is an easy houserule away, and even what I consider the worst mechanic (hardness) isn't, like, awful or anything.
This is honestly a really good point. I hadn't considered how the smaller, weaker, decisivie attacks are more Power-efficient and thus allow you to get more attacks which translates to more damage from Thresh-hold sux and weapon damage.
Honestly, it kinda undercuts my entire argument since the weapon chapter will be so integral to seeing the effectiveness of hardness. Thank you for this.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't think those are remotely comparable. The kind of thinking that gave us EX3's godawful Craft system is in fact - exactly as you allude to - that the core system is still built for mortals (but in a way so it feels shitty), but the Craft system lets you obviate all the parts that feel bad. Essence is built around the assumption that you are an Exalt from the ground up.
- Location
- Ottawa
That's not really true. At least, not by default.
When the Wyld Hunt comes for you, or you descend into the Labyrinth hoping to sing the Neverborn to sleep, or you storm the Pleasure Dome to demand answers for the Incarnae regarding the sad state of the world... you're meant to be in real danger.
It's just that you're overpowered, by the standards of the challenges that you face day to day. An adversarial game system is placed in front of you, and you're given enough power to make mock of it until you come up against something unusual. I like this angle, personally; I think it provides Exalted with a big part of its distinctive feel.
But as Cherazad just pointed out, Essence has a somewhat different set of baseline assumptions.
The problems with Craft are many, varied, and idiosyncratic. Ask ten people what's wrong with it and you'll get eleven answers, plus one guy saying it works great.
The base system involves a fair bit of "busywork" that some people are okay with (or occasionally even like) and others hate. The Charms then let you steamroll that busywork by creating a hilariously grandiose edifice of cookie-clicker-esque magic. Most people find that edifice a pain in the neck, but there are exceptions.