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General Exalted Thread

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greensun said:
Bluntly, then what is the damned point?

Just let them get huge, they aren't Solars who are constrainted by their themes of super human excellence and therefore can't shapeshift, these Chosen should be able to swell to massive size as their flesh turns to brick and mortar and their eyes glow with the fire of every forge and furnace.
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I feel like "they aren't Solars" is a good point except for the part where they explicitly have other themes that constrain them much more tightly instead. Growing to legendary size and trampling your own city seems kinda stupid and dumb in the context of being Exalted to protect and defend a specific city, y'know? :V
 
Chehrazad said:
I feel like "they aren't Solars" is a good point except for the part where they explicitly have other themes that constrain them much more tightly instead. Growing to legendary size and trampling your own city seems kinda stupid and dumb in the context of being Exalted to protect and defend a specific city, y'know? :V
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If you're coming at it with the intent of having the correct answer, then yes, growing to large size and trampling the city you need to defend is bad.

But giant robot cartoons, Powerpuff Girls cartoons, and the episode of the Powerpuff Girls where they pilot a giant robot teaches us that trampling the city you're ostensibly protecting in the act of defending it is cool. And in the end, isn't the more important than being correct?
 
we already have lunars to be ultraman with mountainous spirit expression but i have no problem with another kind of terrestrial exigent finding a way to henshin up for (Essence + 1) rounds with her magical artifact belt that's part of her exaltation
 
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Chehrazad said:
I feel like "they aren't Solars" is a good point except for the part where they explicitly have other themes that constrain them much more tightly instead. Growing to legendary size and trampling your own city seems kinda stupid and dumb in the context of being Exalted to protect and defend a specific city, y'know? :V
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Look it's creating new jobs for Lowercase A architects, carpenters, stonemasons, etc; keeping currency in circulation instead of being hoarded, and if by strange coincidences what usually gets trampled are slums of poor people or unsightly Mcmansion palaces that the Uppercase Architect politely asked the nouveau rich not to build like that, serendipity!
 
Chehrazad said:
I feel like "they aren't Solars" is a good point except for the part where they explicitly have other themes that constrain them much more tightly instead. Growing to legendary size and trampling your own city seems kinda stupid and dumb in the context of being Exalted to protect and defend a specific city, y'know? :V
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I like Exalts having abilities that force them to consider if using them is worth the costs that aren't on the sheet. "You get all the benefits and none of the drawbacks" is boring. Let me play Godzilla.

Especially since, as far as I can tell, Legendary Size doesn't actually say how big you are, so it could be anywhere from 15 feet to 40 feet tall (the range is broader, really, but I figured I'd make it semi-bounded by thing I could actually find) and the risk of collateral damage is just stunt fodder (and don't try to convince me a character deciding "a city is its people" and then using the buildings of a city as weapons isn't a cool idea, it won't work).
 
I'd say that a cool charm would be "just straight up become a walking city" but then I feel like we'd be getting cease and desists from Alchemical Patropoli.

As a second, I would propose some form of "Genius Locus" charm, where the Character effectively uses the city as their body, ala Castle Heterodyne and Mechanicsburg. Statues standing up and attacking, gates opening and closing on their own, walls collapsing to bar the passage of intruders, sewers overflowing to flood the streets - A sort of "you and the city are one and the same" thing.
 
azoicennead said:
I like Exalts having abilities that force them to consider if using them is worth the costs that aren't on the sheet. "You get all the benefits and none of the drawbacks" is boring. Let me play Godzilla.
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Lunars, Liminals, Alchemicals, Infernals, and presumably any given random Exigent you might want to make where this actually fits its themes have ways of turning giant. They are notably not identical ways. Janest's Essence writeup lets her turn giant as a Paul Bunyan reference.

At the same time, Dragon-Blooded, Getimians, Solars, Abyssals and Sidereals cannot turn giant with their own charms that we know of. Why is it important that this one variety of Exigent that is given their powers to defend a city should be able to turn into a Kaiju, when that isn't any more thematic for them than it is for the half of the Exalt types who just don't get charms like that?

My strongest, gut level response to the argument that an Architect should have to smash up their own city in order to use their high essence charms is just "fuck that". Don't make them mechanically bad at their job just because knocking over a building would theoretically be cool.
 
I honestly feel like people's obsession with Exalted's ability to feed into their Rule of Cool fantasies ends up completely overshadowing all the parts that actually makes Exalted interesting.
 
Gazetteer said:
Lunars, Liminals, Alchemicals, Infernals, and presumably any given random Exigent you might want to make where this actually fits its themes have ways of turning giant. They are notably not identical ways. Janest's Essence writeup lets her turn giant as a Paul Bunyan reference.

At the same time, Dragon-Blooded, Getimians, Solars, Abyssals and Sidereals cannot turn giant with their own charms that we know of. Why is it important that this one variety of Exigent that is given their powers to defend a city should be able to turn into a Kaiju, when that isn't any more thematic for them than it is for the half of the Exalt types who just don't get charms like that?

My strongest, gut level response to the argument that an Architect should have to smash up their own city in order to use their high essence charms is just "fuck that". Don't make them mechanically bad at their job just because knocking over a building would theoretically be cool.
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Uh, I didn't make the charm giving them Legendary Size. Don't demand I defend the official developers' choices, please. I'm just arguing that making the charm that gives them Legendary Size let them grow doesn't actually, mechanically impact their ability to defend a city and that "damaging buildings is anathema to protecting the city" is a pretty weak argument (it is also wholly a consequence of how the players choose to stunt, unless they specifically act to do the damage), and the claims about it being out-of-theme for a city protector to risk damage to the city they're protecting are extremely weak.

... Also, Legendary Size specifically works against "smaller opponents/smaller enemies" so actually, y'know, being large is mechanically important to its function. Now, it's a valid approach to say it defends against anything that doesn't have Legendary Size, but that's not how it's written to function (I also don't like using something called "Legendary Size" to represent every large thing, but that's something I'm willing to ignore), but "if you houserule it this way it actually does something" isn't exactly an argument I respect.
 
So, I went to the movies today to see the new Exalted movie about a threshold clan of Dragonblooded whose matriarch almost breaks the family by pushing them too hard Encanto...
 
Out of curiosity does Hundred Devils Parade have any familara that are as gonzo/fun as a tyrant lizard?
 
Sucal said:
Out of curiosity does Hundred Devils Parade have any familara that are as gonzo/fun as a tyrant lizard?
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I'll be honest with you, the fact that everyone immediately leaps for "tyrant lizard" for this sort of thing makes them feel... not particularly gonzo, at this point. It's an extremely popular choice. If you're specifically looking for large and conspicuous, HDNP also has sky titans (quetzalcoatlus), giant constrictors (titanoboa), and armoured krakens (not a real prehistoric animal, just an absurd one). You've also got like... barrow hounds, which are tiger-sized mastiffs that eat ghosts, unicorns, and a weird kangaroo thing you can train to box.
 
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Gazetteer said:
I'll be honest with you, the fact that everyone immediately leaps for "tyrant lizard" for this sort of thing makes them feel... not particularly gonzo, at this point. It's an extremely popular choice. If you're specifically looking for large and conspicuous, HDNP also has sky titans (quetzalcoatlus), giant constrictors (titan boa), and armoured krakens (not a real prehistoric animal, just an absurd one). You've also got like... barrow hounds, which are tiger-sized mastiffs that eat ghosts, unicorns, and a weird kangaroo thing you can train to box.
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That's part of the reasons why I was curious if it had more fun options or not, didn't really follow the book in its individual release state, and more options for supernal survival is always great.

Like, Kangeroos you can to the box are awesome and make me tempted to buy the book, and who doesn't love a Kraken.
 
For Solars, I can easily suggest the Mice of the Sun.

I dunno I just like how one of the Sun's sacred animals is a plague rat. Not quite as chompy as a tyrant lizard, but they spread plagues that fell the unrighteous!
 
Mice of the Sun are weird to me.

I mean they are awesome, and I love the little guys, I've just always thought it was 'weird' as such to use the survival charms on them. Well that and a lot of my Solars might end up weirded out by having a familar/friend that is much more righteous then them.

(Also a lunar whose totem is a mouse of the sun would be fun)
 
Honestly, the thing I like best from the book is likely the Tigers Eye, Lava Moth or Moonsilver Shadow. Something more overtly weird and unusual, even if the moth in particular would cause too much trouble for a circle.
 
No, that's 3e -- outright supernatural animals aren't viable for shapeshifting at all. That's why HDNP separates out "strange beasts" from "animals" as separate chapters. The line there is more of an art than a science, though, you can have some weird fucking spirit shapes.
 
On the topic of familiars, I completely overlooked them on my first glance through EXvsWoD, but the section is definitely worth a look.

Notably, anyone interested in doing Infernal soul-hierarchy stuff should read the Spirit-Shaped Companion enhancement. It's not explicitly that, but it's within throwing distance.
 
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To this day I still don't know why the design paradigm of Exalted is still focused around adding way more dice/rerolling dice instead of lowering total successes needed to succeed on tasks or other less fiddly mechanics. Even Essence does this, although in a more restrained manner (less dice overall, and dice added by excellencies is at least consistent). I feel like its a real barrier to entry for new players when Exalted makes you constantly reconsider your dice pool more so than any other game in the Storyteller/Storypath family.

From personal experience in running games in this franchise, the dice pool wonkiness has been the single biggest turn-off for new players. It really does not do wonders to introduce people to Exalted when they realize that they are going to be wed to their calculators for the entirety of the chronicle due to the various bonuses you can assemble, dice caps you need to remember, penalties that may be incurred through player action and/or GM fiat, stunt bonuses, and so on.
 
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SunnySprings said:
To this day I still don't know why the design paradigm of Exalted is still focused around adding way more dice/rerolling dice instead of lowering total successes needed to succeed on tasks or other less fiddly mechanics. Even Essence does this, although in a more restrained manner (less dice overall, and dice added by excellencies is at least consistent). I feel like its a real barrier to entry for new players when Exalted makes you constantly reconsider your dice pool more so than any other game in the Storyteller/Storypath family.

From personal experience in running games in this franchise, the dice pool wonkiness has been the single biggest turn-off for new players. It really does not do wonders to introduce people to Exalted when they realize that they are going to be wed to their calculators for the entirety of the chronicle due to the various bonuses you can assemble, dice caps you need to remember, penalties that may be incurred through player action and/or GM fiat, stunt bonuses, and so on.
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What you describe is by no means an Exalted issue. Goodness only knows how many exotic bonuses and modifiers you have to keep track of past the early levels in most editions of the Worlds Most Popular Roleplaying Game (seriously, is calling it that mandated in the use agreement? It's weird how many products and reviews use that exact phrase)
 
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Exthalion said:
What you describe is by no means an Exalted issue. Goodness only knows how many exotic bonuses and modifiers you have to keep track of past the early levels in most editions of the Worlds Most Popular Roleplaying Game (seriously, is calling it that mandated in the use agreement? It's weird how many products and reviews use that exact phrase)
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Yup, third-party devs can't actually say outright that it's meant for the D&D 5e rule set, so they have to refer to it by that euphemism.
 
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