General Exalted Thread

[horngeek]

*starts reading Kerisgame*

Holy shit. Two and a half meters in a day.

Suddenly, the idea that you could tie someone over bamboo as a torture/nasty execution method makes a lot more sense, and became a lot more terrifying.

 

[SerGregness]

*snip*

I used to feel that way; I still regret that mortals can't have their own set of quirky "mortal powers" through martial arts, and might end up homebrewing Techniques if I find a way to do it that doesn't do bad things to the game.

I eventually came to the conclusion that removing a tier of supernatural Martial Arts from mortals was a necessary casualty of killing the concept of "enlightened mortals," which I used to love and eventually came to really, really hate, and which I now see as badly needing to go away forever.

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If you don't mind going into this some more, why is that?

 

[Sunder the Gold]

Five Dragon Charms are too boring for native Dragon-Blood Charms (for anyone's Charms, really). They don't emulate, evoke or control the elements, nor do they have anything to do with cooperation or following higher orders, or otherwise arise out of soldiering.

It's all just "Five Dragons hit harder because Five Dragons hits harder." It's tautological.

Compare Five Dragon Fist to Currents Sweep Out To See, or Five-Dragon Force Blow to Trieme Breaks Upon The Rocks. The difference is disgustingly stark.

 

[Ishem]

Now I'm curious to see what mastery keyword end effects will be in the immaculate styles. I've always wanted to play a solar former immaculate who keeps training and becomes a grandmaster.

 

[Omicron]

If you don't mind going into this some more, why is that?

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It's a complicated topic and I wouldn't want to launch into a huge debate about it, but basically...

It contributed to a "stratification" of humanity. There weren't "mortals" and "the Exalted;" there were extras < mortals < heroic mortals < enlightened mortals. This in turn contributed to a warped perception of how characters "mattered;" being an enlightened mortal with supernatural martial arts, ideally Artifacts, possibly sorcery, was the ideal endpoint for any mortal, their potential achieved; any mortal below that was underachieving. This in turn contributed to a climate in which it was okay to dismiss mortals as irrelevant, because there was an upper tier of super-mortals who could serve as mooks for your Exalts.

Enlightenment looked very mechanical, very rational; it was possible to systematically enlighten mortals en masse through the proper channels. This led to a surge of schemes designed by players to mass-produced enlightened mortals, as they were the best mooks you could get; this turned the setting into a parody of itself, where instead of having a wuxia world of supernaturally endowed martial artist you had social (and literal) engineering aiming at fielding armies of Artifact-equipped, TMA-using faceless mooks. From this came the idea that enlightening all humans was a reasonable - in time, even standard - goal for a Solar/Infernal character, that this was helping humanity achieving its true potential.

There were other details. For instance, it made the gunzosha warriors of Lookshy into a joke; they were not heroic super-soldiers making a sacrifice of half their lifespan to use their Artifact armor, they were a bunch of chumps that no one had bothered to enlighten, as that would have removed all drawbacks of their armor. @Fenrir666 is a friend and a swell person and this is not at all a blame I put on him but merely a natural consequence of the system as it exists, but the way he designed his Followers by going "oh, and I'll bump them 2 dots so they're all heroic enlightened gunzosha warriors" trivialized so many things at once, I still haven't gotten over it.

Ultimately, "enlightened mortals" weren't impressive, mythical, or inspiring; as NPCs, they were a color swap you made to turn your slime into a metal slime +1; as PCs, they were a mandatory box to check to actually matter. They did bad things to both setting and mechanics, and I'm glad to see them go away.

 

[Sunder the Gold]

There was also the creeping idea that Exaltation was just an unfair cheat, and that a real hero would be a mortal who enlightened himself, learned a ton of Terrestrial Martial Arts Styles, initiated into Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, and got himself Brigid's Mantle or that thimble thing of Mnemon's or a similar artifact that would let them transcend their limits. Along with a daiklaive and warstrider made from yellow jade.

You know, a hard man who became a self-made hero through hard work without relying on anyone else or their divine hand-outs.

This idea was popular with the people who thought The Perfect of Paragon was an awesome dude.

 

[notthepenguins]

Ultimately, "enlightened mortals" weren't impressive, mythical, or inspiring; as NPCs, they were a color swap you made to turn your slime into a metal slime +1; as PCs, they were a mandatory box to check to actually matter. They did bad things to both setting and mechanics, and I'm glad to see them go away.

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It feels like this response is kinda just... throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Assuming you dislike all those things (and not everyone does, but for the sake of argument here)... mortals not mattering in fanbase perception is solved by narrowing the power gap (or isn't solveable at all, we'll see). Systematic enlightenment of all mortals is solved by making that not possible. Gunzoshas being unenlightened chumps is easily solveable by axing the "if you're enlightened you just attune normally" clause. Everything wrong with enlightened mortals in 2E seems to be a problem of implementation, not of baseline concept.

There was also the creeping idea that Exaltation was just an unfair cheat, and that a real hero would be a mortal who enlightened himself, learned a ton of Terrestrial Martial Arts Styles, initiated into Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, and got himself Brigid's Mantle or that thimble thing of Mnemon's or a similar artifact that would let them transcend their limits. Along with a daiklaive and warstrider made from yellow jade.

You know, a hard man who became a self-made hero through hard work without relying on anyone else or their divine hand-outs.

This idea was popular with the people who thought The Perfect of Paragon was an awesome dude.

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This idea will exist as long as Exaltation is a thing.

 

[Omicron]

There was also the creeping idea that Exaltation was just an unfair cheat, and that a real hero would be a mortal who enlightened himself, learned a ton of Terrestrial Martial Arts Styles, initiated into Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, and got himself Brigid's Mantle or that thimble thing of Mnemon's or a similar artifact that would let them transcend their limits. Along with a daiklaive and warstrider made from yellow jade.

You know, a hard man who became a self-made hero through hard work without relying on anyone else or their divine hand-outs.

This idea was popular with the people who thought The Perfect of Paragon was an awesome dude.

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Right, that.

Goooood I hated that.

Though I find an amusing solace in that it's a completely misguided point of view - a mortal can only initiate into sorcery because some Solar made it so out of the goodness of her heart, high-end Artifacts are creations of other supernatural beings, Terrestrial Martial Arts cannot be created by mortals even enlightened... The idea is self-defeating, but it still persists.

 

[Giygas]

@Omicron : interesting. But i have a question: would have been better if enlightment was limited to thaumaturgy(And only the "Five Years of meditation" style thaumaturgy) and to demon/god/elemental/ghost pact(Maybe also with an alteration of the target into a half blood and with a failure rate/investiment for the one awakening the mortal)?(Basically like the Exalted 3 style Sorcery)

Also i need to ask you a question: you keep creating those totaly cool custom creatures/civilizations with custom powers for the third edition, can you please reveal to me your secrets? I am slowly inventing new charms for a splat i promised to convert to the third edition(The Discordians), but writing them down with the crunch has reveled to be more difficult than expected: any suggestion on how to do it?

Furthermore i could need some help in writing a demon: who could invent a tar-dripping flightless starbeaked(By starbeaked i mean that the "face" will jut from a strange starshaped thing connected to the neck)(I could use a better word for it) flamingo, with the MIGHTY POWERS of........ being a modern doorbell plus a antitheft allarm?(Plus some other powers, like being selectively audible by the summoner)(I got randomly the idea after doing the groceries roughly two weeks ago, still don't know why i tought about it)

 

[Aaron Peori]

It's a complicated topic and I wouldn't want to launch into a huge debate about it, but basically...

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Too late!

It contributed to a "stratification" of humanity. There weren't "mortals" and "the Exalted;" there were extras < mortals < heroic mortals < enlightened mortals. This in turn contributed to a warped perception of how characters "mattered;" being an enlightened mortal with supernatural martial arts, ideally Artifacts, possibly sorcery, was the ideal endpoint for any mortal, their potential achieved; any mortal below that was underachieving. This in turn contributed to a climate in which it was okay to dismiss mortals as irrelevant, because there was an upper tier of super-mortals who could serve as mooks for your Exalts.

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This is because you completely misunderstood how the distinctions worked. Extras were not below enlightened mortals. It was, in fact, possible to be both at the same time. Merely having access to Essence channeling was not enough to make you a Not Extra. A pack of Blood Apes attacking your party were just as much Extras as a pack of brigands, just with higher base stats. A group of Enlightened Grass Ninja may be elite mooks, but they were still mooks and the rules would treat them as such regardless of how many Charms they could use.

Heroic was not a distinction of power level but a distinction of importance. A heroic character was a Named Character, one whose personality and choices mattered and who would get a speaking part. Again, this was unrelated to their ability to use or not use Essence.

Vanilla mortal was a third kind of distinction, one that meant the character wasn't unimportant enough to be considered an extra but also not important enough to be considered heroic. Thus while they got full health levels, they couldn't stunt since they were Gm controlled characters not meant to stunt or gain an benefit. They are recurring characters the players may care about enough that you want to apply the full rules of the setting to, but not important enough to justify fleshing them out that much.

Characters could even change roles between these three states as the game progressed. In the early game you might consider a Blood Ape a fully heroic character, especially if you are playing a game with a prelude pre-Exaltation or a low tier Dragonblooded campaign but as the game (and the PCs) progressed in power most you would encounter would become Extras.

Later into 2nd edition some of the rules began to treat these as proper distinction rather than storytelling tools for the GM. Charms and effects began to differentiate between them and suddenly the difference between them mattered a hell of a lot more. This was a problem with those mechanics being terrible, not with the rules for extras and heroic characters being broken. You suddenly had magical abilities which were explicitly in setting effecting people in a way that was meta-narrative level. It's like Charms that keyed off of Stunts, which was and remains a terrible idea. Stunts (and extras and heroic characters) are gameplay level concepts that should not be incorporated into the narrative level as things characters can consciously choose to be.

Enlightenment looked very mechanical, very rational; it was possible to systematically enlighten mortals en masse through the proper channels. This led to a surge of schemes designed by players to mass-produced enlightened mortals, as they were the best mooks you could get; this turned the setting into a parody of itself, where instead of having a wuxia world of supernaturally endowed martial artist you had social (and literal) engineering aiming at fielding armies of Artifact-equipped, TMA-using faceless mooks. From this came the idea that enlightening all humans was a reasonable - in time, even standard - goal for a Solar/Infernal character, that this was helping humanity achieving its true potential.

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See I have no problem with this because mass Enlightenment should sound like a good idea... until you begin to realize how terrible an idea it is.

For example, the difficulty to weave Fate for a section of Creation is based on the Magnitude of the people that live in that area. So an area with a Magnitude of 10 had difficulty 10 to weave Fate for it. But this only counted for Unenlightened Mortals. Every being with Essence 2 plus was not counted as part of this Magnitude but instead added their Essence score to the difficulty. So, for example, a 10,000 person town would go from Difficulty 10 to Difficulty 20,000 if you Enlightened everyone.

Basically, the only beings capable of maintaining the Loom of Fate at that point would be the Maidens. And they're occupied.

So yeah, go ahead and turn six billion people into Enlightened mortals. Heck, the Fair Folk will help you for free.

There were other details. For instance, it made the gunzosha warriors of Lookshy into a joke; they were not heroic super-soldiers making a sacrifice of half their lifespan to use their Artifact armor, they were a bunch of chumps that no one had bothered to enlighten, as that would have removed all drawbacks of their armor. @Fenrir666 is a friend and a swell person and this is not at all a blame I put on him but merely a natural consequence of the system as it exists, but the way he designed his Followers by going "oh, and I'll bump them 2 dots so they're all heroic enlightened gunzosha warriors" trivialized so many things at once, I still haven't gotten over it.

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Well, even setting aside the stuff I pointed out up above as to why Dragonblooded would be encouraged in no uncertain terms not to allow Enlightened mortals to become too big a problem the trick to understand here is that Enlightenment wasn't supposed to be something easy and safe. The problem here was Solar Charms that we're basically "pay x to enlighten" which allowed you to set up factories to produce the buggers.

All you need to preserve stuff like Gunzosha is to introduce dangers and drawbacks to Enlightenment. Thaumaturgic enlightenment should be either incredibly dangerous and likely to kill you outright, or take so long that using it to produce viable soldiers is useless. Or it should have required dangerous vision quests in the Wyld, with all the dangers involved in that. Or careful breeding programs involving demons and elementals and forbidden gods, with all the dangers of that.

Your problem is with the ease of acquiring the benefits, not the benefits themselves. So long as the costs are prohibitive enough, you won't see them used overwhelmingly.

 

[Omicron]

This is because you completely misunderstood how the distinctions worked.

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Oh my fucking god.

See, this is what I'm talking about when I repeatedly complain about the general attitude of this thread - the kind of bullshit we get dragged into because people insist on assuming others are morons.

Aaron, take a step back. Consider how much I have written about and for Exalted, and consider your monumental wall of wasted text.

You are not teaching me anything. I know everything you say. The distinction between extras and not-extras? I do! I know how this fucking game works.

The way extra/not-extra works on paper has very little relevance to the way the "tiers" of mortalhood ended up applying in actual play and (mostly) in pervasive online discussions - and that's what my post was about; the consequences of what looked fine on paper when applied in actual game. I don't care that an enlightened mortal or a blood ape can be an extra. I know that. It's irrelevant to my point.

You do have other, interesting points! As does Penguins! As I said though, I don't want this to be a debate. Y'all can have the last word, it's not a subject I care to discuss beyond the summary of my opinion someone wanted. Enlightened mortals are dead and buried and I'm fine with it.

 

[azoicennead]

You are not teaching me anything. I know everything you say.

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I didn't!

Would making mortals enlightened by others (e.g. Solar charm, thaumaturgy) age at an increased rate (along the lines of gunzosha armor) be an acceptable (additional) cost? It still lets you pull some bullshit, but now your super-soldiers will die at like 45 years old (enlightened at 15, +30*2=60 makes them effectively 75 years old).

 

[Anasurimbor]

Enlightened mortals may be dead as a category, but unexalted essence wielding humans certainly are not. Ignoring the continued existence of godbloods, the antagonists section has Mist, the Eternal Revolutionary, who gained great power questing in the Wyld to save his people. While apparently still human, he is clearly no longer mortal.

 

[Omicron]

Would making mortals enlightened by others (e.g. Solar charm, thaumaturgy) age at an increased rate (along the lines of gunzosha armor) be an acceptable (additional) cost? It still lets you pull some bullshit, but now your super-soldiers will die at like 45 years old (enlightened at 15, +30*2=60 makes them effectively 75 years old).

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Enlightened mortals may be dead as a category, but unexalted essence wielding humans certainly are not. Ignoring the continued existence of godbloods, the antagonists section has Mist, the Eternal Revolutionary, who gained great power questing in the Wyld to save his people. While apparently still human, he is clearly no longer mortal.

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I have a certain affection for candle-people - "burning twice as bright, half as long" - but the notion of "enlightened mortals" as a specific category the way they work in 2e would still rub me the wrong way; gunzosha pay in lifespan the ability to equip First Age power armor, which is great, but we're talking about mortals paying in lifespan the ability to acquire entire combat Charmsets; it's not a deal everyone would make, but... The disproportionate amount of power gained still makes the whole thing weird to me.

I like my Essence-using humans to be weird anomalies born from power that elude strict codification and harnessing; the sorcerers of Ysir were once mortal, but you would be hard-pressed to take their notes and use them in a campaign of widespread sorcerous education throughout Creation. And good luck becoming the new Mist without losing your body and soul to the Wyld. Mist is really, really cool, and derives his coolness in part from how weirdly out there and anomalous he is.

In Ex3 though, I could definitely see complex sorcerous or thaumaturgical processes endowing mortals with supernatural power at the cost of their lifespan. I would rather model that as unique, powerful Merits than as a specific subset of supernatural martial arts, though.

 

[notanautomaton]

Enlightened mortals may be dead as a category, but unexalted essence wielding humans certainly are not. Ignoring the continued existence of godbloods, the antagonists section has Mist, the Eternal Revolutionary, who gained great power questing in the Wyld to save his people. While apparently still human, he is clearly no longer mortal.

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Yes, but he's an edge case, as he's not really human, what with how he doesn't age and has native charms.

The problem that I have with the lack of enlightened mortals is that it doesn't really fix the problems that have been outlined. Now the one true build for 3e mortals has just moved to Sorcerers, rather than martial artists. It isn't much better if your players end up creating a factory for making mortal sorcerers rather than martial artists/artifact users, or alternatly just doing the same thing but with spirit-blooded mortals instead. Also, it makes martial arts useless for mortal pcs compared to the other options, and makes mortal martial artist npcs just as dangerous as a swordsman, which doesn't fit with the Wuxila parts of the setting at all. All in all I think that it was a pretty bad choice that lessens the setting as a whole.

 

[FaeGlade Plural]

I'm fine with mortals turning into something weirder by other means than Exaltation.
But that should never be a large-scale, reproducible process.

Wyld-questing is fine, it's something inherently unpredictable and dangerous.
Sorcery is fine because it's a very individual journey. Teaching helps but doesn't replace it.
Getting blessed by a god is fine, though of course edging into Exigence - but there is definitely a place for a god choosing a champion each generation and making him a mighty warrior or the like.

Thaumaturgy in 3E is clearly not powerful enough to do any of this. Sorcerous Projects are actually a decent candidate since they come with a large inherent cost and arguably needs Celestial Circle Workings.

 

[azoicennead]

I have a certain affection for candle-people - "burning twice as bright, half as long" - but the notion of "enlightened mortals" as a specific category the way they work in 2e would still rub me the wrong way; gunzosha pay in lifespan the ability to equip First Age power armor, which is great, but we're talking about mortals paying in lifespan the ability to acquire entire combat Charmsets; it's not a deal everyone would make, but... The disproportionate amount of power gained still makes the whole thing weird to me.

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Obviously, the solution is to make gunzosha commandos enlightened mortals, and combine that with the revision suggested by @notthepenguins to make enlightened mortals unable to avoid the life-span reduction of aegis-inset amulets. This lets you have enlightened mortals filling in the elite units on merits reflected by mechanics, and still keeps the "holy shit, you guys are hard-core" element of gunzosha commandos - because they now age at either triple or quadruple (depending on how you stack the aging increases from enlightening and the amulets).

It also gives mortals a chance to be meaningful opposition to an Exalt, which was always the biggest appeal to me about enlightened mortals. It wasn't that they could rise above their station, or it was somehow superior to be an enlightened mortal instead of an Exalt, but that it provided a way for mortals to be more than the tools used by supernatural beings.

 

[notthepenguins]

Also, it makes martial arts useless for mortal pcs compared to the other options, and makes mortal martial artist npcs just as dangerous as a swordsman, which doesn't fit with the Wuxila parts of the setting at all. All in all I think that it was a pretty bad choice that lessens the setting as a whole.

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Quibble: wuxia doesn't tend to make the distinction you're making. A superlatively skilled swordsman is extremely potent, as is a superlatively skilled unarmed combatant. Both might be called martial artists.

 

[azoicennead]

Quibble: wuxia doesn't tend to make the distinction you're making. A superlatively skilled swordsman is extremely potent, as is a superlatively skilled unarmed combatant. Both might be called martial artists.

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Oh, damn, I missed that.
Yeah, wuxia doesn't really care about how you beat things up, thought swords and fists are both really popular.

Also, @notanautomaton, the wuxia genre is focused on martial arts. "Martial artists shouldn't be among the most dangerous people in a wuxia-themed game" is like saying "an action movie shouldn't involve action sequences".

 

[Sunder the Gold]

the wuxia genre is focused on martial arts. "Martial artists shouldn't be among the most dangerous people in a wuxia-themed game" is like saying "an action movie shouldn't involve action sequences".

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The definition and reality of martial arts in Exalted is at least slightly different than in straight wuxia.

Straight wuxia would not have martial arts as a separate system from Brawl and Melee, because Charms would not exist, because Exalts wouldn't exist.

You'd have something more like Weapons of the Gods or Legend of Five Rings, I think.

 

[azoicennead]

The definition and reality of martial arts in Exalted is at least slightly different than in straight wuxia.

Straight wuxia would not have martial arts as a separate system from Brawl and Melee, because Charms would not exist, because Exalts wouldn't exist.

You'd have something more like Weapons of the Gods or Legend of Five Rings, I think.

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The difference in-setting is mostly that Exalted Martial Arts are a subset of Wuxia Martial Arts, and Brawl, Melee, Thrown, and Archery fill out the rest.

Exalts can fit into straight wuxia just fine. It's not that strict of a definition.

 

[ryuan]

what's the difference between brawl and martial arts in 3e?

Also, does the Solar brawl sucks like in 2e? I mean, they didn't even had a perfect defense for shame!

 

[notanautomaton]

Quibble: wuxia doesn't tend to make the distinction you're making. A superlatively skilled swordsman is extremely potent, as is a superlatively skilled unarmed combatant. Both might be called martial artists.

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Also, @notanautomaton, the wuxia genre is focused on martial arts. "Martial artists shouldn't be among the most dangerous people in a wuxia-themed game" is like saying "an action movie shouldn't involve action sequences".

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But Exalted does, which is why you need to buy a four dot merit in order to buy martial arts. In fact, there are a whole bunch of swords using martial arts in the corebook. I think that a Single Shining Point in the Void user should usually beat a swordsman, even if they are of equal skill in every other way, unless the Swordsman has their own merit that they're using, like an army, an assassin, an extra fighter of equal strength, a Tyrant Lizard, an artifact, or whatever. As it stands, being a martial artist doesn't do anything for a mortal if they're an npc, or is a worse choice for combat if they're a pc, despite requiring a four dot merit. For refference, a Tyrant Lizard pet is only three dots.

 

[Vanigo]

what's the difference between brawl and martial arts in 3e?

Also, does the Solar brawl sucks like in 2e? I mean, they didn't even had a perfect defense for shame!

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Martial Arts is not only a separate ability from Brawl, there's a separate Martial Arts ability for each style. You also need a four-dot merit before you can put dots into them. As you can imagine, this is a huge experience sink if you want more than one style (although at least you only need the merit once). Brawl, by contrast, is a single ability with a much larger charmset. 2e's hero styles are out in favor of native Brawl charms.

As for Brawl sucking... it's super deadly, especially against a single foe, but its defensive options are kind of lackluster compared to Melee and Dodge.

 

[LastChronicler]

So I'm a newcomer to actually playing Exalted. I recently did up a character sheet for a 3E PC who's Martial Arts heavy, and I have to say that it's quite obvious that I'm sacrificing a lot to do so in comparison to a Brawl or Melee build. Each MA has a tiny amount of Charms compared to the aforementioned abilities, and require a lot of dots in each individual MA and 1 in Brawl.

Which is annoying, because Martial Arts just have a lot more flavour than sinking everything into a standard combat ability.