General Exalted Thread
I think the idea is that if you have Players A, B, C and Enemies D, E, F, and all the of the players are wailing on Opponent E, then Opponents D and F are able to rack up an impressive amount of initiative, which also ends up draining initiative from the players that they target. Not sure how that works in practice.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hmmm. How could one organize such a case study? The problem with running test fights is that they're time-consuming, and depending on variance in tactics, builds on each side and rolled outcomes there can be a wide variety of results.
What would be an example case of where you expect the system to break down from multiple opponents?
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Note that the primary benefit of Earth Dragon Style in that example was making the damage Lethal instead of Bashing. Removing that just shifts it to 30B, which is still fucking terrifying.
It seem obvious, but people don't really do that. Also, it's expected damage; each die has a 40% chance of being a success, so multiplying the dice of post-soak damage by .4 gives you an idea of how much damage you should expect the hit to do. If you rely on this and roll high on the damage... splat.
When I said "will probably die in 4 ticks" I meant "is at a massive penalty and will probably die if attacked". Because there's a very good chance of that putting them on their -4 penalty, meaning their DVs are completely fucked. Also, anyone who pulls this tactic on someone to steal shit should expect them to use the same kind of tactics, in which case (sans any weird societal rules about honor or w/e) they will want to finish off the PC, because leaving the PC alive would put them at risk.
Relying on the other PCs to injure them is terrible planning, because it relies on chance (and them not having prepared so that doesn't happen).
Finally, no, the heavily injured PC escaping is almost guaranteed not to happen. Without movement-boosting charms, someone with a -4 wound penalty can move 1 yard/tick. It's incredibly crippling for many things.
Also, note that the generic motivation for an Earth Dragon stylist will be "I'm part of a Wyld Hunt here to murder your face", in which case either an Air or Wood Dragon Stylist (or a pretty lucky mortal, because there will be mortals) can pick off the heavily injured PC.
As mentioned, Wyld Hunt. Or just a good Immaculate taking the opportunity to kill Anathema. Or some dickbag DB who thinks splattering people across the road with his hammer is fun. Or "I want your stuff".
And, just to remind you, this is not me optimizing this character for ALL THE DAMAGE. This is me using less than half a dozen charms - including prereqs - to demonstrate how lethal the system actually is when you use basic tactics.
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vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
Kinda the example of a hateful hater who hates the hated, isn't it?
More seriously, a Wyld Hunt actually sounds like something the party should normally encounter once the party is not straight out of chargen, but rather spent some time adventuring and getting into trouble. There are exceptions, of course. But even if capture-alive is not an option, there are still other reasons and ways of toning down the lethality in case of a major solid hit, some of which have been mentioned.
I don't get it:
One day people rant that players treat artifacts too frivolously, just like extra plusses on the weapon stats, and that players forget that each artifact has a unique legend attached, and that Evocations seem like a half-decent way of reminding people to treat Greater Wonders as Wondrous . . . and the other day people tell me that one of the most damaging artifacts is nothing special, just a big hämmer. So which one is it?
True about chance being a factor (this is where Walkaways are of use, BTW, but so far I couldn't afford one).
But regarding the massive -4 penalty, I'd still say that a GM should have a way out of the combat in case he overshoots the desired lethality level.
To me, an ambush involving a Grand Goremaul (let alone a whole Wyld Hunt of Goremauls) still looks like a GM very non-accidentally intent on killing the party, not challenging it (unless the party is toughened out with Perfects and/or good damage soak/mitigation). Probably because I came here from GURPS, where in ambushes the question is easily not 'will I kill him with my little machete and barely-above-average Strength', but rather 'will the kill be one-shot so that he cannot scream and warn the others'.
----
Anyway, this whole topic reminded me of something totally uncanonical that I'm curious about:
Do any of the people around here use the/an occasionally-mentioned FATE rework(s) of Exalted?
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- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
... you know, with that in mind, Wind-Born Stride is incredible and basically a no-brainer pick for any Infernal even if they don't invest in Adorjan. Not for the the negation of DV penalties from Dashing, or the automatic success at crossing treacherous terrain, or even the increase to your Dash speed. But because it means holy shit you don't subtract wound penalties from Dash; you can run away at full speed even when at -4 wound penalty. That alone is worth a Charm purchase if you're at all worried about combat.
Romantic_Kaiju
Romantic Kaiju
- Location
- National Battlefield
Technically? Both
Because the the Mainline game treats artifact weapons as +1 swords and things like that, not wondrous items of power as most every written up character has some sort of Weapon and armor artifact, and they feel like their just +1 swords and that ilk.
None of the Core Book Artifact Weapons and Armor in 2e feel like wondrous Items, just better gear with a high price tag
If you jump back and look for references to lesser Artifacts in this thread (or the SB one) you'll find posts for that, that the "common" artifacts that every DB and his brother have are simply Damn good items. (Jade-Steel Alloy, nigh unbreakable, but still common), while relegating the actual Artifact background artifacts into items of wondrous power.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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- He/They
A "tolerable" soak of 10-20 still leaves you at risk to a chargen Dragon-blooded with a tetsubo. Not even a well-made tetsubo, just one they pick up from wherever because it's cheap.
I took the most generic version, gave it to an Earth Dragon Stylist (who will be expected to have one), and explained what it does with minimal effort. Using a mundane, completely generic version of the non-artifact equivalent (sledge/tetsubo) retains the same problem, but to a slightly lesser degree.
(I haven't even touched coordinated attacks, Threshing Floor Technique, or Ringing Anvil Onslaught yet. Or used multiple DGWs. Or Refining the Inner Blade. Do you see where I'm going with this?)
While we're on the topic of Artifacts, I've been trying to figure out what kind of effects would be appropriate for an Artifact 1 or 2 weapon - not a daiklave or grimcleaver or anything, just a sword or axe or whatever. The general idea was to encourage bravery, at the cost of making any kind of retreat more difficult. I was thinking something reminiscent of Heroism-Encouraging Presence; my initial idea was to make Valor channels no longer cost the actual channels (just willpower), and maybe a bonus to Valor checks, but I wasn't sure if that was a good idea.
Basically, you commit extra motes, the sword lights on fire (which is just cosmetic), and you and your buddies are brave and slightly berserk.
EDIT:
There's a reason Wind-Born Stride is one of the charms I basically always take for Infernals.
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Basically? 'Extra dice' is boring for an artifact. I mean, sure, lots of damage, yay, but... that's it. One Grand Goremaul could be swapped for any other, and the character would be unchanged.
Evocations, meanwhile, make each weapon feel unique. Like, sure, at the moment, there aren't many of them, but as that changes, both through Arms of the Chosen and homebrew, you'll see more and more variety.
FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
- Location
- Land of Bureaucracy
- Pronouns
- Plural/They
This fits my experience.
Just in a two vs. two fight, my players tried to take out the weaker enemy out of the combat first. Which worked fine - initiative crash, initiative break and easily landed withering attacks built up a lot of initiative. At which point both players noticed that if they now launched a decisive attack, they'd be 3 withering damage away from Initiative crash, and the stronger enemy had a good chunk of initiative on her own.
Which put them (both beginners at Exalted, mind) into a much more defensive posture. With a decisive attack being launched at the stronger enemy, but that only got through the -0 health levels into the -1s (Raksha Noble, so tons of health) and granted them even more initiative (again, Raksha Noble from the leak, they have a charm for that). With the attacking exalt promptly being pummeled into initiative crash.
Having an enemy with a ton of initiative on the battlefield will definitely happen if you focus on the weaker enemies first. Sure, it removes onslaught penalties and (more importantly) distract-gambits if they're out of the fight. But you're left with an enemy that can definitely hurt you badly - or use their huge buffer of initiative to execute a bunch of gambits (which don't reset you to base initiative).
Jon Chung
=][=
Uh, what. It's an extremely large conceptual jump from "I can get a +2 dice bonus and resources if I make a description involving the scene or actors in a scene and do not repeat myself" to "Nothing at all needs to make sense, we shall completely throw out any pretense of making a working state of suspension of disbelief, despite how actually important this concept is to an immersive fiction experience."
The stunt rule is there to encourage players to get involved in a scene and interact/riff off stuff the other players and the GM are describing by providing extremely strong incentives to do so on the system mechanical layer, not an instruction to reject logic.
Yes, that works if the details aren't inherently contradictory. It doesn't work if the details provided by the setting are completely incoherent, as this form of deduction only applies if the information is actually sound and all participants agree that published information is true and can be acted upon in game.
For example, the "places of sin" shit in Scroll of Heroes, being incompatible with the operation of Exalted demons in all other sources. If you act upon that and assume it to be true, and your GM has thrown it out because it's incompatible with Games of Divinity's core concept of Exalted demons (and was written by a dude who wrote things for the wrong bloody edition and had them published...), you're going to have a problem interacting with demons.
Similarly, if you read Scroll of the Monk and come to the obvious conclusion that elder Exalts can teleport across Creation for one mote, tank infinite attacks with infinite motes and kick every living thing to death in one tick from the peak of the Imperial Mountain, which is inescapable if you actually treat Scroll of the Monk seriously, you're going to have a problem if you get into a game and attempt to acquire those capabilities when the GM has tossed the book in the closest available incinerator because said capabilities are incompatible with the entire setting's continued existence.
This is the sort of situation that has produced the group-by-group "this set of material is what exists and this is what does not" approach that has evolved to work around this problem, and the reason why nobody takes everything published as true. You can still do what you do with regard to setting details, but usually, this is done after the banlist is set so everyone is on the same page, and every group has a different list.
Yeah, no. Did you even read my examples when I told you about this before?
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
I'm really only looking for something on the order of what Serafina posted above, which is enough to spell out the implications of how this works in a simple face-off.
My two remaining concern are somewhat more niche cases, but they still seem like the kind of thing that could come up easily in play.
Example 1
Iron-Eyed Raiton and Unfolding Dawnflower are two powerful heroes embroiled in a personal feud which has ravaged the countryside. A Dawn Caste, Nine Scarlet Blossoms, decides to intervene and put a stop to the squabble before the duelling heroes completely ruin the locals lives. At first she approaches each of the two alone and offers to help them gain victory over the other, but both Raiton and Dawnflower see it as a matter of honour that they alone must bring their opponent low. Nonplussed, Nine Scarlet Blossoms withdraws to consider a new tactic, but before she can come up with anything she receives word that Raiton and Dawnflower have begun clashing again - right in the town square of nearby Shen Lung! On market day no less! Acting quickly, Blossoms intervenes and launches her own attack against Dawnflower, who probably regrets insulting the craftsmanship of her armour in their previous meeting. Unfortunately, Iron-Eyed Raiton objects to this interloper trying to steal his honourable victory, and a three-way battle begins!
Or, without the flavour text; three or more combatants fight a free-for-all.
From my perspective, the optimal course for her would be to Wither whichever of the other combatants she'd have the easier time hitting, thus Crashing them or putting them near to it, then launch a Decisive attack against the other, hopefully either putting them down entirely or at least crippling (although not necessarily Crippling) them with wound penalties. Apart from the mechanical oddity I have a hard time imagining what that kind of approach to the battle would look like.
Example 2
Gleaming Moonrise is an Exigent, a seasoned mercenary warlord, and the bodyguard of a local Guild factor who has recently made an enemy of Sudden Lightning by enslaving her younger brother. The factor sends Gleaming Moonrise out to find Sudden Lightning and try to cut a deal with her, but after scouring the city he can find no trace of the enraged Dawn. Returning to his masters compound, Moonrise finds the mansion in flames and bodies strewn all over - Sudden Lightning has gathered a ragtag band of misfits to her side and stormed the compound while he was away, defeated two of his God-Blooded lieutenants and are sorely pressing the third. Spitting curses, Moonrise draws his weapon and charges into battle, fresh and ready to... run right into Sudden Lightning's fist, apparently.
Or, without the flavour text; the Circle fights a miniboss squad, then the stakes rise as they encounter the real boss partway through the fight... Or at least, the stakes would rise if somebody didn't promptly flattens the boss (or at least puts him at a serious disadvantage), because he enters with only his Join Battle Initiative while at least one of the Circle is riding the Initiative high from the fight up to that point.
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Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
There was a similar case earlier in the thread, with a group of Solars steamrolling a Fae Lord cause of the Initiative they got from his Buck Ogre Miniboss. The general consensus is that the Boss Fight should be a separate battle from the previous fight, starting everyone at JB initiative.
- Location
- The end of all things
Honestly, I think you pretty much have to write a combat simulator, or at least a simplified one. I mean, how hard could it be?
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I really want to say Roman Reins vs Seth Rollins vs Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 31.
More seriously, "I draw Init from the easier-to-hit opponent then launch a decisive against the other" is going to look, in-setting, like your character was focusing on killing the weaker opponent but ended up turning against the stronger one in the last quarter. Withering attacks are, in-character, fully intended to win the fight, they just don't succeed on their own.
Hmm, I think the Star Wars prequels are a good example here, even if both cases I am thinking of are 2v1 rather than 1v1v1. In the Phantom Menace, Obi-Wan is a lesser fighter, and suffers more at the hands of Darth Maul, until he finds himself locked out of the fight and Maul slays Qi-Gon. In Revenge of the Sith, there is an early fight in which Obi-Wan and Anakin both face Dooku; Dooku first focuses on disabling Obi-Wan, knocking him out temporarily (which for the purposes of this example represents Initiative crash) before turning on Anakin now that he has the advantage.
In both cases this doesn't work out for the bad guy, and I think it wouldn't work out in Ex3 either. The problem, as always, is that while you are focusing on beating up the opponent with the lesser defense, the other is free to either do the same and gain as much Initiative as you do (effectively making this a 2v1), or he is attacking you without return, leeching off Initiative and setting himself up for his own decisive; when you turn to use your Initiative against him, he is the opponent with the highest defense so you might well fail, and if you don't then you disable him, are reset to base Init, and the guy you just crashed but did not actually wound can come back and gain an Initiative Shift with only a middling damage roll.
If you're "riding the Initiative high," it means you haven't reset, which means you have not yet finished off your opponent with a decisive attack, so they're still alive. Now, sure, it's possible to have a situation in which Sudden Lightning has 30 Init, her last opponent is in his -2 or -4 HLs and so is hard-pressed to make a comeback, and walking into this is disadvantageous for Moonrise... If Lightning has somehow managed to maintain a positive mote balance for this whole fight. Otherwise, Moonrise still has the considerable advantage of having much more Essence than Lightning, and has at the very least one minion left even if they're wounded. I wouldn't say that this situation is advantageous to Lightning: she has one chance to open up with an alpha strike, but this isn't a very different situation from all those Solar builds that can get crazy-ass successes on Join Battle and do the same in a standard fight. (I'm playing one right now)
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
This makes a certain amount of sense, and I thank you for walking me through the mechanical flow of it, but I think there's a qualitative difference between a 2v1 and a 1v1v1.
In a 2v1, a character Withering one of their opponents then launching a Decisive attack against the other makes a certain amount of sense; two of the combatants are working together, and presumably cooperating to some degree so that pummelling one of them causes the other to try and intervene in a way that creates an opportunity to knock them out of the fight. With a free-for-all, none of the fighters have any particular reason to come to each others aid, so for me at least there's a visceral sense of screwyness in the idea of gaining a combat advantage against Iron-Eyed Raiton by getting Unfolding Dawnflower on the ropes - logically, Raiton would be the one with the advantage here, since he'd be able to assault Nine Scarlet Blossom's relatively undefended flank, but unless the fight has been going long enough that Raiton has built up a store of initiative of his own, that's not the case.
Hn. So, even if Sudden Lightning can trust her Circlemates to dispatch the remaining lieutenants while she alpha-strikes the incoming boss, that's not qualitatively different from beginning a fight with a JB-focused build. That does put a more reasonable face on things. Presumably a mortal can't acquire anything like as much Initiative on a Join Battle roll, but by the same token they wouldn't get as much initiative from appropriate minibosses either, so this isn't charms patching system flaws either.
... It still feels a little odd to me, but I think that's more to do with unfamiliarity at this point. This case seems to work.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Another thing to keep in mind is that while it's very common for people who are new to the system to bank massive amounts of Initiative and try to One-Hit Kill their opponents, this is a tendency that somewhat fades as you learn the ropes of the system; it's often better to attack at low- or mid-Initiative to inflict wound penalties and kick your opponents into a death spiral. While it's possible for Sudden Lightning and her circle to have played out the fight entirely in OHKs, it's more likely that a few of them have racked up wound penalties on top of having had to spend Essence.
As for the 1v1v1, I have trouble providing a satisfactory answer because it's not all that common in fiction and so I am lacking in references. The one that comes to mind readily is that fight from Pirates of the Caribbean 2, but it's heavy on the Eroll Flynn and there isn't a strong sense of Initiative going either way.
Let's look at it this way - for Blossom's strategy to be successful, she must both drain Initiative from Dawnflower while preventing Raiton from draining Initiative from herself. If she can manage this, then she can capitalize on her momentum against Raiton not because she gained an advantage against him, but because she is the dominant fighter. She carried out a series of successful attack while maintaining a solid defense, and so within the narrative of "momentum of battle" represented by the Initiative system, she is dominating both her opponents. Dawnflower is crashed and appears relatively helpless, and Raiton has a minimum advantage of his own, but he still comes off as dominated. Then Blossom turns on him, they have a brief engagement, and being the superior fighter she stabs him while Dawnflower is sprawled on the ground and standing up from a blow that nearly knocked her out and going "no!"
I will note, he's very right here. I have had this trouble for awhile, and it's gotten me killed like five times now by opponents who were bleeding me out. Saving up for big haymakers is a bad idea, there are lots of tricks that can let you endure or survive, and believe me, you do not want to land eight decisive damage, only for your opponent to grow five -0 HLs and now they have way more initiative and are about to crash you as you reset to base (this happened to me just the other day).
This is also a big part of the reason that Ox-Body is actually pretty good now too, since each purchase means another ~6-7 initiative you need to build up in order to one shot someone AND means that it's harder to put them into wound penalties with smaller hits.
Roadie
A plate full of blins and a cat nearby.
This idea intrigues me.
I honestly wonder how long before there are 'everybody gets X free Ox-Bodies based on Essence and can't purchase any more' houserules as a common thing.
Having a distinct disparity in character health - and, worse, one that means that combat-focused characters are likely to have dramatically more health than characters who only wants to have some basic competence in combat - seems like a nigh-inevitable recipe for Bad Stuff sooner or later.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
But as a counterpoint, what if her approach isn't successful? That means she's focusing on Dawnflower while Raiton sidles up on her flank and... Makes a normal Withering attack. Sure, maybe that means Blossoms is losing the Initiative race in the long run, but in the moment she's safe from Initiative Crash. That's the weird part, to me; despite opening up her flank she still strengthens her defenses against somebody she isn't focusing her efforts on, when logically Raiton should be the one enjoying an advantageous position from which to launch his assault. Sure, I can see the Exalted having the skills and magic to overcome that, but as a default, it feels distinctly off-kilter.
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azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
He is.
He's enjoying the advantageous position of "getting initiative without losing any".
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The thing about this situation is that Blossom is only at a serious advantage for as long as the fight remains 1v1v1 and her enemies don't gang up on her. But the more she is dominant, the more likely it is that both opponents see her as the main threat and gang up on her, which changes the dynamics in her defavor. You focus on the fact that whatever happens Blossom keeps building up Initiative; but Initiative doesn't protect you against decisive attacks. As long as Raiton is able to get some withering attacks off, he has Init, and he can meaningfully hurt Blossom even though she is building up massive Init. Blossom has incentive to draw upon Dawnflower, but she can't linger too long or Raiton will attack first and inflict actual wounds on her, and if Dawnflower and Raiton decide to both attack her then she's in for a rough ride.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Off the top of my head, you'd do it by setting a sharp limit on how much Initiative you can stock at any one time, reduce Initiative gains to small, flat chunks instead of scaling with your attacks, set the dicepool for decisive attacks at the targets negative Initiative, and treat resetting Initiative more like a pseudo-perfect. There would be all sorts of domino effects though, I've no doubt.
Hn. I suspect this is one of the less-obvious consequences of the cinematic combat model that requires buildup before dealing meaningful damage. In a 1v1 face-off it makes sense that you must create an opening in a significant opponents defenses first, but shunting the advantage of "one of my enemies is distracted with the other" to the long-term strategic realm... I guess it works, but it feels odd when the natural expectation is that something like that would create an opportunity for an immediate Decisive.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Basically, you "create an opportunity for an immediate decisive" when you, yourself, perform a decisive attack. As long as you're pushing on the weaker opponent to gain Initiative, you are in a strong position with no defensive opening, but that's because, well, you're not opening yourself - and similarly you aren't really making any lasting impact either. But the moment you throw a decisive strike at either opponent and succeed, you reset to base Initiative and become very vulnerable to the other one, who may immediately crash you.
It's not perfect and it does raise the "gaining my momentum by pushing someone but capitalizing on it against someone else entirely" issue you're talking about, but I find it works intuitively enough for me in practice.