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General Exalted Thread

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Thelxiope said:
Not sure I like that a Getimian can just create 5-dot merits arbitrarily, as currently written.
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Well to be fair, pulling out a five dot artifact is pretty much limited to high level/endgame as it is currently written.

Exalted Essence Backer Manuscript said:
Spend up to the Getimian's Essence in motes. For each mote spent, she instantly summons one dot of a Merit per mote spent.
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Thelxiope said:
Personally, I think Summoned From Time should only pull social merits like Allies or Command, because as it is it steps on the toes of a couple other cool charms which summon Artifacts or Hearthstones from the Getimian's Origin. It should probably be a mote commitment, too, to be honest - in its current state, I feel like it's overtuned.

I definitely do not think Summoned From Time is intended to let you summon manses: both because that seems absurd; and because that very much is stepping on the toes of Demesne-and-Manse Emulation, which explicitly conjures a Hearthstone and makes everything out to extreme range a part of the Getimian's domain - which in turn implicitly suggests that Summoned From Time is not intended to do that, and should only be summoning the Hearthstone proper, not any of the infrastructure.

If I had any input into the editing of Essence, Summoned From Time would commit its motes, and only summon Allies, Familiar, or Command - it pulls people to help you, with the attendant angst of them fading back into the Beyond at the end of the scene. Go ahead and keep the option to purchase them, though - wordcount permitting - I would probably like something like "1 Exalt Milestone for a Tertiary Merit; 2 for a Secondary; maybe 3 for a Primary?" And while there's no way they have the wordcount for this, I think it'd be cool to be able to pay in installments - to be able to only pull someone partway into Creation, or only part of your army or whatever; and have them function at a lower Merit rating until you spend the additional Milestones. Not sure I like that a Getimian can just create 5-dot merits arbitrarily, as currently written.

Unforged Masterworks summons Artifacts - in its current state, it already does what @Red Orion wants, i.e. allows a Getimian to conjure a new artifact weapon every fight (personally that would annoy me? But I guess if your ST is fine with it, who cares what I think?); while also (via the repurchase) supporting players who want their own cool, unique Artifact that, you know, functions as if they had actually bought the Merit and can gain Evocations and all. I think it works fine. No major changes I'd make.

... and, um, I'm not entirely sure what is meant with Demesne-and-Manse Emulation (the Getimian mode of Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Form)? Like, "everything out to extreme range is the Getimian's domain." Sure. But -

The absolute strictest reading of that is just that the Getimian can automatically detect Essence expenditure within extreme range, which is, you know, fine. It's useful.

The cooler and more thematic reading is that Demesne-and-Manse Emulation actually summons the Demesne or Manse for the duration - a bubble of the Getimian's Origin, displacing, for a brief time, the dross of this Heaven-marred Creation.

I like this because a) it means that this is an "instant boss arena" charm, which is frankly just cool and awesome spectacle; because b) it's thematic - the pinnacle of the Getimian form of the SMA based around understanding and emulating the bones of Creation is saying 'fuck off Creation, we're fighting in my better universe now''; and c) because it gives an excuse to make the innate power and possibly the Evocation of the Hearthstone granted by the charm into Lair Actions.

...So obviously if I were in charge of editing Essence, or running for a Getimian martial artist, I'd go with the second reading.
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I definitely think it's the second reading. Pretty sure D and M Emulation is meant to be a reality marble
 
Latest update to my Baseless Accusation Charm. Built using the Principle system, though I plan to update it for base 2e. Will probably replace the intimacy with a servitude effect for that.

Baseless Accusation Methodology

Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Counter-Pronouncement Of Enthymemic Law

The Judges of Cecelyne are swift in their ruling, for they care not whether their accusations are true. In Hell, everyone is guilty of something.
The Infernal makes a (Charisma + Performance) Social Attack against the target's MDV, wherein they accuse the target of some sort of crime. The crime need not be one the target committed, nor must the Infernal actually specify the crime of which the target is accused. For Cecelyne, the accusations of the powerful are proof of any crime. Should this social attack succeed, the target is marked with a glowing blue glyph somewhere on their body, the exact location being decided by the Infernal. This glyph can be seen clearly in darkness and shines through any clothes like a castemark, but it does not invalidate stealth. The mark may only be removed through the use of appropriate countermagik (Terrestrial Circle for Ess 1-2 Infernals, Celestial for Ess 3-4, and Solar for Ess 5 Infernals. This is based on the Ess of the Infernal when this charm was used, not their current Ess_

While the mark remains, anyone with an MDV lower than the initial Social Attack gain a principle of "Vile Criminal" towards the target. The dot rating of this principle is equal to the permanent Ess of the Infernal at the time they used this charm.

Character's may suppress this principle for 1 scene by spending 1 WP but are otherwise expected to act in line with their principles, including this one. Note that this means that at Ess 5, characters will hate the bearer of this glyph as much (or more) as they love living. This may take drastic action to rectify the injustice of such a criminal's existence.

The intimacy generated by this charm may be eroded just like any other intimacy, but each time a character sees the glyph they are affected by this charm anew.

The Infernal's MDV is considered 0 when interacting with characters who bear his own glyph.
 
Uh hey, I was trying to find an old post using Ruroni Kenshin as an example of the kinds of problems violence can't solve. I remember it was using Kenshin's master's background of 'coming off the mountain, seeing problems like "because of economic conditions we sold our own kids into slavery" and then went back up his mountain and never left it'. The original post worded all that much better, of course, but the cursory use of the search tool hasn't given me any hits. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Spot me a link?
 
That is a really useful post, thank you both for mentioning/unearthing it. I had not come across the Layer model before and it is a rather interesting way of looking at Exalted. It does not tell me many new things, but it does offer a new perspective.
Now if only I had the time and energy to read all those books mentioned. Water Margin and Tales from the Flat Earth have been on my pile of shame for literal years.
 
Tbh, Tales from the Flat Earth is also really, incredibly, profoundly rapey, so uhh, that's a thing you probably want to know about before diving in.
 
elfgames said:
Tbh, Tales from the Flat Earth is also really, incredibly, profoundly rapey, so uhh, that's a thing you probably want to know about before diving in.
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I was not prepared. I still really loved the book, and I'm glad that I read it, but I had to put it down for a while after I got to that part.

Heed their warning well!
 
If you remain unconvinced: it's probably telling that upon reading Kymme's post, my first thought was "which 'that part'? There's at least one but usually more in each book".
 
elfgames said:
If you remain unconvinced: it's probably telling that upon reading Kymme's post, my first thought was "which 'that part'? There's at least one but usually more in each book".
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The bit with Zorayas and the merchant. Admittedly, her subsequent vengeance was very satisfying, but I had to stop after that and read something else for a while.

Fun story about that that post by SLS. I first read this post a few years ago and I saw this bit:
For personality and drive and motivation the Exalted tend to be like Conan; the heroes of Three Kingdoms,Outlaws of the Marsh,The Iliad, or The Odyssey; Master Li or Number Ten Ox; Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad or Ezio Auditore; Genghis Khan, or Julie d'Aubigny; or for that matter Batman, but for power level they do tend toward the Lieutenants and Captains from Bleach.
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and the first thing that came to my mind was "I've never read Bleach. How strong are those guys? Has this benchmark been around throughout 3e's development? What's the deal?

So I went and read the first section of Bleach, bounced off of it, and decided to read Number None instead. :V Great story, but I still have no idea what SLS actually meant with this section.
 
KymmeSeventh said:
and the first thing that came to my mind was "I've never read Bleach. How strong are those guys? Has this benchmark been around throughout 3e's development? What's the deal?

So I went and read the first section of Bleach, bounced off of it, and decided to read Number None instead. :V Great story, but I still have no idea what SLS actually meant with this section.
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That's basically a comparison that only makes sense if you get a few arcs into Bleach and actually like... see this distinction in practice. It's not a terrible comparison to Exalted characters in terms of combat ability, honestly. Like, I've seen worse. You'd probably be best off just looking up fight scenes on youtube sometime if you're actually curious, though -- you even know a bunch of the characters from reading Number None.
 
Gazetteer said:
That's basically a comparison that only makes sense if you get a few arcs into Bleach and actually like... see this distinction in practice. It's not a terrible comparison to Exalted characters in terms of combat ability, honestly. Like, I've seen worse. You'd probably be best off just looking up fight scenes on youtube sometime if you're actually curious, though -- you even know a bunch of the characters from reading Number None.
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I did go watch some clips of the fight between Findorr and Hisagi on Youtube after Omicron mentioned them here, and that fight definitely has a lot of the dynamic movement, clever use of the environment, and overall flashy style that I like to see when two Exalts throw down, and both combatants demonstrate skills and powers that feel like things Exalts could do.

For what it's worth, my mental image of the power level of Exalts is pretty heavily informed by this fight scene:
 
Exalted power has always made the most sense to me as a conceptual thing that's as much decided by the milieu they exist in than some hard rule of their power. They do supernaturally heroic feats. What does that look like? Well, in the default setting, probably a lot like that Jubei fight, yeah. In something like Gunstar Autochthonia, I expect there's at least a couple of Exalted warriors who jump out into the void and leap between voidfighters, cutting them apart with daiklaves.
 
Imrix said:
Exalted power has always made the most sense to me as a conceptual thing that's as much decided by the milieu they exist in than some hard rule of their power. They do supernaturally heroic feats. What does that look like? Well, in the default setting, probably a lot like that Jubei fight, yeah. In something like Gunstar Autochthonia, I expect there's at least a couple of Exalted warriors who jump out into the void and leap between voidfighters, cutting them apart with daiklaves.
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I agree 100%. If you're not leaping out of your buddy's grappler ship to swordfight another spaceship, you're not Dawn Caste-ing hard enough. I haven't watched enough Outlaw Star to know if there's a scene like this, but I fully expect it.
 
I've always liked the idea that different Exalts, even using more or less the same Charms in the exact same milieu, have completely different levels of aesthetic flash. A guy with John Wick's "normal guy who just always wins" aesthetic might well be stronger than a guy who sets the sky on fire every time he throws a punch.

As for what SLS meant... captains and lieutenants from Bleach are ghostly swordsmen who can chop up buildings, shrug off attacks from anyone not similarly strong, flash step around, and generally fight on the level of an entire army. Some of them also know sorcery, and each has a semi-living magic sword with unique abilities. Evocations have always struck me as strongly Bleach-inspired.
 
Imrix said:
Exalted power has always made the most sense to me as a conceptual thing that's as much decided by the milieu they exist in than some hard rule of their power. They do supernaturally heroic feats. What does that look like? Well, in the default setting, probably a lot like that Jubei fight, yeah. In something like Gunstar Autochthonia, I expect there's at least a couple of Exalted warriors who jump out into the void and leap between voidfighters, cutting them apart with daiklaves.
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Something like that came up while running Heaven's reach, where a lot of charms, and especially spells, if kept the same are now so small as to no longer be especially noticeable. Our rough solution was to treat a planet as a city as far as effect scaling went.
 
So, most of you will know that over the last couple of years, OPP has been putting out piecemeal a number of short PDf beasts, demons and other monsters for your Exalted character to fight (for third edition). Some people bought it and others didn't want to buy things one monster at a time. From their most recent Monday Meeting Notes release on their website, the compiled book will be on sale on Thursday, alongside almost three times as many monsters that were not put out before. If you bought some of the short releases from DriveThurRPG, then a coupon in the male should be heading your way.
 
Bel said:
If you bought some of the short releases from DriveThurRPG, then a coupon in the male should be heading your way.
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Oh my. :o

Jokes aside, I'm still not a fan of how they've slowly, vaguely, wandered their way towards an actual book of monsters and the like. Sold them piece by piece, and is now reselling them in a full book. It feels far too...microtransaction-bullshit like to me.
 
asdx said:
Oh my. :o

Jokes aside, I'm still not a fan of how they've slowly, vaguely, wandered their way towards an actual book of monsters and the like. Sold them piece by piece, and is now reselling them in a full book. It feels far too...microtransaction-bullshit like to me.
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Yeah, I wasn't a real fan either. That being said, from looking at the notes they sold about 25 individual monsters, but the full book should have like 100.
 
Yeah, and every entry has full colour art, it sounds like. This is a considerably higher value than just a compilation of the 29 they already released.

Article:
We are so excited about Hundred Devils Night Parade going on sale as a full book this week! Every single QC (literally 100 of them) has gorgeous, full-color art, and is ready to use in your Exalted Third Edition game. Prior to this publication, we released 29 of the entries as small monthly PDFs, so here's a preview of a handful of the (71!) new monsters and creatures you'll be seeing in the final product.

Beginning with Chapter One: Strange Beasts, we have the beautiful-yet-horrifying Crystalmoth, which can slice with razor wings, along with its progenitor, Gajum-Un, the Living Manse. We also present the curious and enigmatic Scroll, as well as returning (and terrifying) favorite, the Thousand-Forged Dragon.

For Chapter Two: The Dead, the soul-collecting Ankou leads the way, followed by a host of other creepy delights, such as the helpful Grave Messengers and the giant, one-man army that is Keregost. Death-related beasts in this chapter include Festerwings and Scavengers, and many more besides!

In Chapter Three: Spirits, we've collected both elementals and demons for your game, from Ahesh the Forgotten and Charnavrix the Unyielding to Oldrasek, Audegar, and Stanewald. Excitingly, there is also an entry for Sibri, the Rampart of Serpents, a Third-Circle demon.

Chapter Four: Creatures of the Wyld has weirdness to fuel a Wyld-touched game, as the storytelling Epochine rises from Creation's birth, and Kian-Ji, the Heartmirror invites your Exalts to an otherworldly feast. Stumbling from the Wyld, Napaxu infect people and towns, while Siren Towers lure others to their doom.

Lastly, Chapter Five: Animals has creatures to use in your game as mounts, familiars, adversaries, and even Lunar spirit shapes! From Birds of Paradise, Camels, and Dolphins to the stranger Simhatas, Mospids, Siakas, and Sthenurines, we've presented a range of interesting animals for all sort of purposes.


The equivalent book of Adversaries of the Righteous has hit the manuscript approval stage, but apparently they're waiting on art and stuff for it so it should be a while.
 
Honestly, so long as the coupons to the people who bought the individual ones are fairly priced I don't see a problem.
 
Imrix said:
Exalted power has always made the most sense to me as a conceptual thing that's as much decided by the milieu they exist in than some hard rule of their power. They do supernaturally heroic feats. What does that look like? Well, in the default setting, probably a lot like that Jubei fight, yeah. In something like Gunstar Autochthonia, I expect there's at least a couple of Exalted warriors who jump out into the void and leap between voidfighters, cutting them apart with daiklaves.
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This. I've always house ruled that Magnitude for instance goes up with population (as in, in a modern setting with greater population density Mag 1 is significantly larger than Mag 1 on creation) and I feel like most charms should be upgraded in a similar manner.
 
That does sound reasonable, though on the other hand it might at some point escalate things into the ludicrous? It is not as though modern warfare consists of formations eclipsing Roman Legions. Obviously the scaling of social and infrastructure based charms must be scaled up significantly, and modified for differing means of communication, but destructive effects?

It obviously depends on the particular sub-genre you are trying to emulate. There is a scale between having the Exalted be John Wick, to Jedi/Sith equivalents, to them being Primarchs, God-Emperors and Demon Princes, to flat out late-stage Dragon Ball casual planet-busting and beyond.

I feel there is a point at which the tools should out-scale the Exalted. Cutting TIE-fighter equivalents in half feels appropriate, but doing the same to 40k style capital ships feels like potentially too much, no matter how much higher population numbers are.

I worry that at some level of scale places and characters would start losing their meaning? At which point does one have to regard all mortals as pure numbers and only care about other Exalts, because Abyssal Frieza keeps destroying planets as a rhetoric device? At what point does a modern setting break down because every single Exalt is narratively no longer person- but rather Kaiju-shaped? To me it feels like population numbers and societal resilience do not scale proportionally.

And is that actually a problem? I genuinely don't know. Only game I played set in a semi-modern setting is Shadowrun, which is rather low player-power, and i was also like, 14.
 
This is why I think the Zone and Range Band mechanics are very useful in some scenarios because ultimately you're the only arbiter of how the map is divided, and you can decide to expand or shrink the size of range bands as needed.

So in a map that's being used for a tavern brawl, Heaven Thunder Hammer uppercuts my foe out the roof.

In a map covering a decent-sized town, it knocks my enemy out of the marketplace, over a residential area, and into the harbor waters.

In a map covering an entire nation (presumably for higher essence games where creation-wide stakes are on the line), it represents my smacking that Raksha so hard it flies straight through a forest and craters into the side of a mountain.

It makes power levels a bit inconsistent, but does it really matter for such a mythical setting? Hercules could sunder the mountains themselves and still had to put in the effort to wrestle a big lion.
 
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