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General Exalted Thread

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Chloe Sullivan said:
A lot of DB charms are "this fails against magical opposition". In other words, DBs are fantastic at handling mortals/extras, but had a much harder time with serious opposition. Which is actually in some ways a neat thematic niche. They are, in many ways, actually better at dealing with mortals and mortal societies than Sidereals or even Lunars. But they can't beat off BBEG's very well except by weight of numbers.

The problem lies with the absurdity that occurs when they don't think about the actual utility of the "this fails vs magic" charms. Such as PCDM, or the supernatural stealth/tracking charms that divide by zero when used against each other.
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No, it's just fucking retarded for the footsoldiers made for a war against armies of demons, and who are expected to be the ones who on a day to day basis are the ones who fight petty gods in Creation and, you know, other small things like that.
 
DB's fight low essence gods and demons just fine for the most part, afaict. aside from PCDM, the "fail vs magic" charms usually aren't combat, anyway.

solars get to auto-succeed on things unless opposed by magic, in which Case they still add essence in bonus successes on a roll off. DB's get to auto-suceed on less things of smaller scope, and the charms simply fail vs magic rather than giving you a roll-off. This isn't really great game design, but I'm not sure it's "dragonblooded can't do their jobs" either. they can still do mundane things (boosted with excellencies ) to try and get somewhere after their "just fix it" charm fails.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
DB's fight low essence gods and demons just fine for the most part, afaict. aside from PCDM, the "fail vs magic" charms usually aren't combat, anyway.

solars get to auto-succeed on things unless opposed by magic, in which Case they still add essence in bonus successes on a roll off. DB's get to auto-suceed on less things of smaller scope, and the charms simply fail vs magic rather than giving you a roll-off. This isn't really great game design, but I'm not sure it's "dragonblooded can't do their jobs" either. they can still do mundane things (boosted with excellencies ) to try and get somewhere after their "just fix it" charm fails.
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Here's the thing: low essence demons (aka, 1st circles)? Current DBs curb stomp them if they are even slightly combat optimized. 1CD can be taken by sufficiently baddass mortals (ok, Tiger Warrior types) for crying out loud. That's not what DB's were meant to face.

DB's were meant to face Second Circle Demons, while the Celestial types handled the Third Circles, and buffed Tiger Warriors took apart 1CDs. Whilst calling DB's 'army exalts' is accurate, it's also a simplified version of their actual role: the officer corps of the Exalted host (seriously, look at all those Leader keyword Charms). At that point, 'fail vs magic' is a major design flaw.

Really, the DB book was written from a view point of '(failing) antagonists to Solars' as their major point, which was fuckstupid. Well, then again, that describes a lot of 2e DBs, including such gems as the core system not being finalized when they were writing the book.

And finally, the whole point of the Exalted was to take down BBEGs. Therefore, DBs need to be able to do that. You want 'murderizes most non-high power things, but is stumped by those' play a Jadeborn or a Dragon King.
 
Outside of PCDM, which is just inexcusably awful by any standard, I don't recall too many combat charms that were 'fail vs magic'. Yes, fail vs magic was terrible design, but either I'm misremembering horribly or like maybe 3 charms tops are both combat relevant at all and suffer from fail vs magic.

II don't really see a huge problem with, say, Revelations of Associates Hunch having an auto-fail condition)

I mean, i'm not disagreeing with the mechanics being awful, but is it actually really 'fail vs magic' that is making DB's not be able to do their job of killing 2CDs?
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Outside of PCDM, which is just inexcusably awful by any standard, I don't recall too many combat charms that were 'fail vs magic'. Yes, fail vs magic was terrible design, but either I'm misremembering horribly or like maybe 3 charms tops are both combat relevant at all and suffer from fail vs magic.

II don't really see a huge problem with, say, Revelations of Associates Hunch having an auto-fail condition)

I mean, i'm not disagreeing with the mechanics being awful, but is it actually really 'fail vs magic' that is making DB's not be able to do their job of killing 2CDs?
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Well, as I recall, it's only part of the problem, but particularly defenses: if defenses fail versus magic, most 2CDs are autobypassing them. If three major defenses fail versus magic, well. What then do you do when Sondok or whoever comes a calling? Unfortunately, I don't know the DBs Charmset well enough to comment much more in depth.
 
PCDM is the only defense charm in the DB arsenal that fails vs magic. They might have, I think a stealth charm that also does?

the other pseudo perfect the DB's have is the dodge one, and it fails vs undodgeble attacks and opposed element attacks.

DB's lack real perfects by design, and while that might be terrible and make them not stand up to 2CDs, "no perfects" is an entirely different issue from "fail vs magic charms". which iirc have to do with things like tracking and investigation.

So DB's can only play Sherlock Holmes vs mortals, which is again, kinda a seperate issue from being able to fight 2CDs or not.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
DB's lack real perfects by design, and while that might be terrible and make them not stand up to 2CDs, "no perfects" is an entirely different issue from "fail vs magic charms". which iirc have to do with things like tracking and investigation.
So DB's can only play Sherlock Holmes vs mortals, which is again, kinda a seperate issue from being able to fight 2CDs or not.
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Yes. Which is also terrible and stupid, because DBs have excellencies and can kick in the teeth of mortals with "Iawl I have more dice than you". On the other hand, investigating things like, oh, say, a god's illegal cult when you're an Immaculate monk? Or maybe looking into a demonic cult?

Yeah. Kind of the time when "fails against magical opponents" is stupid bullshit made to try to make Celestials look good without any thought to how it affects DBs and how it makes no sense in-setting.

When "your charms fail against the people you need them to help you against and only work against the people who you could beat anyway" is a thing, it's a sign you fucked up your design.
 
Not that I disagree ensign you about the terrible design, but aren't those cults largely made up of mortals your DB charms totally work on?
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Not that I disagree ensign you about the terrible design, but aren't those cults largely made up of mortals your DB charms totally work on?
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... yes, but it's the god that needs punching in the face. Or else they'll, uh. Just go and make another cult. Possibly after killing you because your magic can't defend against them.
 
Ridiculously Average Guy said:
canon?
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No, not really.

Canon has spent a much greater amount of time dedicated to the difficulties of a slave rebellion and where such things are likely/possible (because PC plot bait). See: the entire chapter on slavery in the Manacle and Coin, which is a pretty no nonsense look at how the slave trade works in Creation, and why it works.

The closest your going to get is the Swaying Grass Dance Style in Ink Monks.
 
Righteousness said:
What were the Primordials and their souls (before capture/death) like?
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Malfeas was Theion. Adorjan was Adrian. Theion was basically Yahweh, as I understand him. Adrian was like, a little girl ripping the wings off of flies because it's funny, except the flies are fairies/sometimes creation. Theion was this infinite cloud of green energy, and Adrian was a river of blades and fire and lightning.

A few others were Fetiched death, I think Elloge was something else, but I'm not sure *what.* In general, the ones who weren't Fetich Death'd were basically the same, except way less pissed off and furious. An important thing to remember is that the Yozi are still Primordials. Lessened, but not so much that they are no longer the Titans. What they are is imprisoned. That's the big change. Psychologically, they went from the unquestioned rulers of the world to losers and prisoners.
 
Kylar said:
No, not really.

Canon has spent a much greater amount of time dedicated to the difficulties of a slave rebellion and where such things are likely/possible (because PC plot bait). See: the entire chapter on slavery in the Manacle and Coin, which is a pretty no nonsense look at how the slave trade works in Creation, and why it works.

The closest your going to get is the Swaying Grass Dance Style in Ink Monks.
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I think he was making a joking reference to the primordial war. You could sorta frame it as the gods starting a slave rebellion against the primordials.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
PCDM is the only defense charm in the DB arsenal that fails vs magic. They might have, I think a stealth charm that also does?
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Don't have the books in question, but I seem to recall someone ranting about how their only reflexive surprise negator fails against magic, leaving them with a gaping hole in their defensive options.
 
As stated earlier, their Soak charms failed versus magic, and at least one of their Mental defense charms failed vs characters with high essences, which includes most spirits.
 
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