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General Exalted Thread

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SerGregness said:
So, what does Pure Chaos look like?
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It looks like laughter. It smells like hunger. It sounds like indigo.

More seriously, it depends on the observer. For most people, it's a riot of conflicting sensations as their mind rebels at a world they were never meant to understand, but for a mercy it lasts only a few moments before they discorporate. Pure Chaos is fundamentally inimical to most forms of life.

On the other hand, for the Exalted and certain other powerful entities with the appropriate magical reinforcements to their sense of self, the Wyld is... Reactive. It looks like the observer believes it should look like, their subconscious mind imposing an idea of Shape and substance in order to navigate a Shapeless world.
 
Mm. There has to be a cliff at some point, though, because you have a finite distance in which to fall an infinite distance.

Maybe it's asymptotic, and only truly infinite at the Poles?
 
SerGregness said:
So, what does Pure Chaos look like?
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Madness.

To look into Pure Chaos is to have your mind shattered, your clarity destroyed, your sense of self dissolved, your memories evaporated and your very soul unmade.

To survive it you must impose shape on it, because it is without shape, without form, without perspective. If you don't have some sort of anti-shaping protection you will be instantly unmade into an incoherence upon exposure. If you do have shaping defenses than you're not really experiencing Pure Chaos, you are experiencing some 'safe' filtered level of Wyld which (lacking any other perspectives) will probably reflect your perspective and memories. The very fact you exist as an unchanging point in the Chaos will define the chaos around you in relation to you and thus, it will cease to be everything and become a reflection of your perspective; ie it will become a universe where you are the most important thing in all existence.

Did you ever read that scene in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Zaphod Beeblebrox is placed into the Total Perspective Vortex which is supposed to utterly shatter your sanity by showing you exactly how important you are but he comes out fine because he's actually in an alternate reality designed entirely for him and he was the most important being in existence? If you have no shaping protection in pure chaos you are everyone else, if you have it, you are Zaphod and the universe reflects you. Unless you have active Wyld Shaping technology this process is entirely unconscious and not controllable.

Most often, however, when you are in Pure Chaos you will not actually be in Pure Chaos. This is because there really isn't anything in Pure Chaos you would want in the first place. Instead, you are almost certainly in an Unshaped of some description when you travel past the edge of the Deep Wyld. The perspective of the Unshaped you have entered will determine what, exactly, the locale you have entered is like in that respect. Unless you start using Wyld Shaping to start reformating it to reflect you. That will probably piss of the Unshaped you have just started mutilating into a automated golem factory or whatever.
 
Imrix said:
Personally, I would presume you instead reach a point where the seabed begins to dissolve into the Elemental Pole of Water. There is no further 'down' to go, nor is there an 'underneath' - the seabed only exists from one direction. There's just Water, and further out from that, Pure Chaos.
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Perhaps I picked a confusing wording. I do mean going along the 'edge' of dissolution in whatever High First Age vehicle that would be suitable to such exploration (or just with a set of environment- and chaos-surviving Charms). In a way, this is an attempt to figure out the size and shape of Creation along all the 'edges'.
 
Yes, exactly.

I created that Charm because I wanted it to be a non-stupid idea to use a phantom steed as your primary mount. Which means it can't massively shrink your mote pool.

Not sure how to make that clearer.
 
Sanctaphrax said:
Immortal Soul-Mount
Cost: 20m, 2wp; Mins: Ride 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Phantom Steed

The Lawgiver pulls out a piece of her heart and forges it into a loyal mount.

This Charm is an hour-long action in which the Solar summons their soul-mount. A soul-mount may be a horse, a simhata, a claw strider, or any other ride-able animal that could serve as a two-dot familiar. A Solar's soul-mount is a unique being with a personality that reflects that of its creator, but it's always completely loyal and fearless. Its creator may dismiss it into raw essence with a thought, and it retains memories if dismissed or killed and re-summoned.

A Solar may enhance their soul-mount with Familiar-enhancing Survival Charms; if they do, the enhancements linger even after the soul-mount is dismissed or killed and re-summoned.
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Still feels inferior to the Cirrus Skiff. -_-

Edit: sorry, was thinking 2e Skiff comparison for some reason.
 
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vicky_molokh said:
Still feels inferior to the Cirrus Skiff. -_-
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Solar Survival Charms are REALLY bloody powerful in third edition.

While people joke about the batman crater who can defeat anyone with prep-time, the true person you should fear is the Supernal Survival Solar with access to a large number of wild animals to tame and train. They aren't going to be soloing a dawn with little effort (unless its a Tyrant Lizard being enhanced at low levels), but even with Mice of the Sun not being available outside of the leak, there is a wide array of polite little beasties that will make your trip through the jungle miserable.
 
Bursting Eagerness Soul said:
Nah. The East turns into an endless forest where the canopy replaces the sky and there are just endlessly overlapping roots instead of actual ground.
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Ffff... I wanted to say far West.

Even if what has been discussed has satified my curiosity enough.
Sucal said:
but even with Mice of the Sun not being available outside of the leak,
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... No, please tell me they didn't.
*Checks*
Mice of the Sun noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Well, that's it. Exalted 3rd edition has reached negative leves of playability. Now even the Character creation minigame of deadEarth is more playable than Exalted 3rd edition.
 
vicky_molokh said:
Perhaps I picked a confusing wording. I do mean going along the 'edge' of dissolution in whatever High First Age vehicle that would be suitable to such exploration (or just with a set of environment- and chaos-surviving Charms). In a way, this is an attempt to figure out the size and shape of Creation along all the 'edges'.
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No, I got that. I'm saying that, to me, Creation's shape does not work according to our own ideas of purely physical dimensions. If you follow the edges into an elemental pole, Creation simply fades away. If you try to hook yourself around the edge and explore the 'underside' of Creation, you find that there isn't one. It's like if you clip through a wall in a computer game and when you look back, you find that the image of the wall only exists from the other side.
 
Imrix said:
No, I got that. I'm saying that, to me, Creation's shape does not work according to our own ideas of purely physical dimensions. If you follow the edges into an elemental pole, Creation simply fades away. If you try to hook yourself around the edge and explore the 'underside' of Creation, you find that there isn't one. It's like if you clip through a wall in a computer game and when you look back, you find that the image of the wall only exists from the other side.
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Either that or a Sidereal shows up and drags you back across and starts berating you for exploiting bugs outside of approved Calibration hours and says if you really want to beta test reality code so badly he can arrange for five years of Advanced Applied Loom Mathematics and get you a job in the Bureau.
 
Aaron Peori said:
Either that or a Sidereal shows up and drags you back across and starts berating you for exploiting bugs outside of approved Calibration hours and says if you really want to beta test reality code so badly he can arrange for five years of Advanced Applied Loom Mathematics and get you a job in the Bureau.
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pretty sure people trying to make solars deal with the consequences of their actions is why the HFA kept manufacturing better and better daiklaves.
 
Sucal said:
Solar Survival Charms are REALLY bloody powerful in third edition.
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I think Ride might be stronger. Possibly even broken.

Supernal Lash Discipline on a horse or simhata raises your speed bonus to +8. Immortal Charger's Gallop converts those dice into successes for 1m. Speed-Fury Focus lets you apply them as successes to a Join Battle roll for 3m. Seasoned Beast-Rider's Approach lets your mount share your Join Battle result. And Elusive Mount Technique lets you disengage reflexively.

So basically you start the fight with three times as much Initiative as anybody else and nobody can ever force you into melee.

Buying all those takes eight Charm purchases with Essence 2 or Supernal Ride. And the prereqs are pretty useful. So this isn't some kind of weird corner case, this is a practical character design that works at chargen.

That aside, anyone have any comments on the other Charms?
 
Note that you'll be still limited by charm limitations on that tactic.
So your +8 successes would count as 16 dice added by a charm. That's actually more than you can add in any way, since you really only add 10 at most.

So Speed-Fury Focus is a pretty good join-battle enhancer, no doubt about it. But it doesn't actually break any dice limits, and will not give you a higher join-battle than an average maximum-excellency join battle would. And it's only 2 motes cheaper too.
If you really want good join battle, you're better off with an effect that gives double 9's, or some other dice trick, while using as many dice as possible.

As for reflexively disengaging:
Yes, it's quite strong against melee. And you're likely to win on the opposed roll to disengage too. But it still costs you some four motes and the 2 Imitative you lose for disengaging, so it's not a free I-win button against melee either.
 
I'm not sure about that, actually. Speed bonuses aren't Charm dice. So if I use Charms to turn a speed bonus of +4 dice into a speed bonus of +8 successes, how many dice does that count as? 0? 4? 8? 12? 16?

My personal ruling would probably be 12, so you'd actually add 2 dice and 6 successes instead of 8 successes, but I could defend any of those numbers. My guess for the rules as intended is 4.

And I really don't see how melee can beat 5m for a reflexive disengage with such a massive roll bonus. Anything that would let you catch them is going to cost more motes. And they get to attack every round while you're chasing them, maybe while gaining initiative from Wrathful Mount Invigoration with Immortal Rider's Advantage. So I really doubt that they'll run out of initiative.

I've never actually played this out. Maybe I'm missing something. But it seems overpowered.
 
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But you can't normally add your speed bonus to Join Battle.
You instead take Speed-Fury Focus to add the automatic successes you can get on account of Immortal Chargers Gallop to your Join Battle.
That's pretty clearly successes added by a charm. You can't even add the plain speed bonus, just a number of successes based on it.
 
Yeah, that's a plausible argument.

That would make the cap hit different for movement rolls than for Join Battle rolls, though. Where would you put the cap on a movement roll?
 
The movement-use of the charm isn't affected, since it goes like this:
You roll Dexterity+Ride+Speed Bonus.
Dice Cap is determined by Dexterity+Ride.
Speed Bonus acts like a specialty or environmental bonus, not affecting the dice cap in any way.
The charm simply converts the dice you get from the speed bonus to successes. It doesn't add successes per se, it's similar to an effect that'd make a stunt count as automatic successes.

Effectively, that's a doubling of the value of the speed bonus, and more reliable too. No doubt riding on a mount actually makes you really fast and agile.

The equation is different for Join Battle:
You roll Wits + Awareness. There is a charm (Grizzled Cataphracts Way, Essence 3) that allows you to replace Awareness with Ride, but it doesn't say anything about the speed bonus, and the speed bonus itself states that it only applies to movement actions.
Speed-Fury Focus allows the "effect of (Immortal Chargers Gallop) to be used in a Join Battle roll. Now that effect is "convert the mounts speed bonus to automatic successes on a single movement action". Simply replace "movement action" with join battle and you get this:
"Convert the mounts speed bonus to automatic successes on a single join battle roll".
Thus, you add successes to your join battle roll. They're provided by a charm. Nothing says that they don't count against the limit.
 
Would seduction fall under ether Socialize or Presence, because its come up and we're a bit confused as of now.
 
Is there anywhere in the Exalted 1e/2e/3e books that describes what an Immaculate Order Temple would look like? Or what a typical service at a Temple would be like?
 
greensun said:
Would seduction fall under ether Socialize or Presence, because its come up and we're a bit confused as of now.
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I'd say it could be under Presence, Performance, or Socialize depending on the situation.

Presence would be always applicable, it's the most straightforward in these regards; Performance would be inspiring lust in your general direction, but might hit other people as well; and Socialize would be to court someone according to the particulars of their culture, much more easily recognized by those in the same culture.
 
So, I have managed to convince my IRL gaming group to allow me to run a taster session of Ex3 for them to see whether they like it, using pre-generated characters and a quick one-shot game session of my own design. None of them have played Exalted before, though they've heard of it and are somewhat wary of the weirder stuff they've picked up from around the web.

I'm thinking of doing a session set in the South for this one. The PCs arrive in a trading town to discover that the local river God has grown corrupt and is attempt to extort the populace for prayer in exchange for access to his water. The local merchant-Prince is attempting to hire champions to confront the god, but the people are already muttering that this is a bad sign, because needing to rely on outsiders to fix this sort of thing is a sign of weakness the other nearby tribes will exploit.

The PCs would presumably offer to solve the problem for the prince (I'd pre-gen them to each have their own motivations for doing so, from ideology to greed), allowing them to negotiate with him on price. Then they travel to confront the god, possibly with a few local soldiers along as backup depending on how the negotiations go, and then resolve the problem either with words or violence depending on what they prefer. They might also be able to engineer some other way to get the town water, which the river God would attempt to stop as it risked his monopoly.

Does that sound like a decent sort of session idea for introducing three people to Exalted in both mechanics and themes? Likewise, do people have suggestions for what would make decent pre-generated characters and/or opponents for them to face?
 
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