Exalted 3E Discussion

I can already make glorious Solar babies with Ex2, and even weirder Lunar babies

Also, found this interesting little element on the Onyx Path Schedule:

 

I kinda liked the art with Her Redness. But other than that? I'll see and judge accordingly WHEN it is finally out. From the snippets there are parts I dislike and found boring. Like "Law" of Dimnishment.
Because it's not like dudes can just use common logic and perhaps Exalt mortals, who aren't trusworthy in general, outside of dramatic circumstances. No, it have to be PERMAMENT Essence loss or something equally grimderp.

 

You mean the art they stole?
Because yeah, they just randomly grabbed that off the net and recolored it.
(or was that a different pic... it was definitely one of "official art" bits of 3rd edition )

 

I'm not quite sure exactly what you are referring to here. Do you mean the reduced scale and/or "power levels"? Solars are still terrifyingly strong, but they do have weaknesses and don't get to win just for showing up.

 

Dunno wich, saw by accident. One where she sits on the jade, Tiamat-themed, throne and some dude kow tows.

But still, from Heroic Fantasy ... the authors try bit too hard to hammer in the grimderp. Shouldn't the protagonistic nature of the game be so grimderp is only IF heroes fail?

 

Same.

Also not a fan of what they did to poor Thaumaturgy-kun.

He got outright lobotomized.

 

I contributed to the kickstarter. I put my trust in the developers, because I thought they understood the issues the game was facing.

So they added more kinds of charms to an already bloated system, made a worthless wreck of a craft system, and took out virtues.

The art, something hyped for almost the entire development of E, was of average to poor overall quality in the Backer PDF.
The combat system is somehow worse to manage.
Solar Primacy has, if anything, been reinforced with the new Evocation system, making yet another system that the Solars are unquestioned masters of.
Martial Arts have been subjected to nonsensical stupidity that leaves them in roughly the same spot that they were in, only with extra hoops to jump through.

And the setting...

...That's not even slightly the worst problem with Exigents.

No, not at all. Exalted has always been a game where glorious shining heroes dwell in a gritty, broken world.

Setting that aside, you're overusing "Grimderp" if you think it applies to the Exalted setting. Grim, yes. Derp, no.

Look at Warhammer if you want to see the difference.

 

We can always use an Ambition 3 Solar Sorcerous Working if we feel like doing some retcons

 

The standard special snowflake "I get the unique privilege to be more disappointed than anyone" opener. Yawn.

I'm not sure you know what the issues were given that you're complaining that they took out virtues of all things.

Basically Val, as far as I'm concerned you don't have a single right to complain about anything until you've actually played the game and can confirm with personal experience that these things are actually broken, and I'm willing to bet that you haven't given that your complaints haven't changed at all since the beta leak. Consensus from people who have played the game is that the new system is, if not 100% perfect, then at least functional which automatically puts it several steps over the old system which emphatically wasn't.

 

*gives internet cookie*

Maybe if you voice it off, it'll crystallize into something you can tackle?

Truthfully speaking, this ... despite flavor text supporting it, bothered me always. Different set of mechanics for Solars and everyone else.

When things are so easy for you, when you are Solar ... why the fuck everything stinks?

Where is glory and shining when Solars are RESPONSIBLE for most of the gritty, broken state of the world? When you can steamroll over EVERYTHING and basically punch troublesome things till they "arlight" your responsibility for your own actions shines in the results.

Creation is doomed by local movers and shakers, aka Exalted, own hands because their personal flaws are MORE important.

Chaos at least have "excuse" of being bunch of alien energies intermixed with evil feelings to be always dicks, but so-called "best humanity have to offer"? In Exalted it usual boils down to hot-headed and short sightedness.

Lets politely disagree. As far as I know, in Warhammer ... there are some people who try acting like shining heroes of myth. And despite being unable to, make a difference. In Exalted? There is suposed to be people who ARE so ... yet one finds it to be no more than "average Joes with BIGGER sticks acting all crazy monkey".

 

Lol.

 

Bah. I reject the idea that fleshy beings who can be killed through mere magically-enhanced physical violence can rightfully be called more powerful than 3e Solars.

The largest part of this change is simply what's emphasized in the fluff. Less Daystars, more sun-scorched villages. There's nothing stopping you from running an extremely high power campaign, it's just not the baseline. I mean, Rihaku ran his last Exalted quest under it and it was not exactly low end, even discounting the rather over the top backstory.

Mechanically, the single biggest difference(besides Perfect Defenses no longer being the default answer to everything) is that Solars don't have high persistent dice pools. A fairly huge change, though I think it makes combat a lot more interesting. On the other hand, charms like Worshipful Lackey Acquisition or Prophet of Seventeen Cycles would be bullshit even in 2e.

That's not to say that 3e is without flaws(natural language oh god why? )

 

Exactly. And this is where the so-called "charm bloat" plays into things -- in the old system you could be Hercules in addition to whatever your core character concept was just by picking up one or two charms. In the new system there's an entire tree of stuff for that. Complaining about having too many charms is the same as complaining that you have too many options for fun things to do and character concepts to run. My heart bleeds for you, honest.

 

I'm curious what it is that you dislike about them. I really like the idea, as I feel like they fill a huge hole. That said, I'm I'm skeptical they'll actually manage to make creating your own viable for the average player.

That's not an entirely new thing. Even in previous editions, the first time the Sun set was a terrifying experience. Still, it's not quite as bad as you describe:

So it's more like taking out an utterly ruinous loan. Even a completely corrupt and amoral god might find it profitable in the long run, though they're unlikely to get their request approved if they don't have a good cover justification.

 

And I would be considerably more interested if all those Charms didn't mostly amount to a bunch of dice tricks that will make any game slow to a crawl the moment you bust out the dice.

To say nothing of what a play by post would be like.

 

That which can be spoken, has been.
Since humans argue primarily as an instinctual method to enforce dominance, rather than to attempt to see the stronger argument win, and since these things are all very subjective...there's little to be nothing anyone can gain out of this argument, other than the satisfaction of not being first to walk away.

Nobody's going to convert anyone to their way of thinking, that's only on the table in like... .1% of all arguments or debates between two people.
(Fabricated statistics are made on sight from potato starch and high fructose corn syrup!)

 

...

Y'think you can maybe not bitch like some more-detached-than-thou prat, here? You comment on my emotional investment, you get my reasoning. Maybe a hundred pounds is spare change to you, but it wasn't to me. Not then.

Virtues were solid. They worked.

Social combat, actual combat, mass combat, crafting, and character creation, however, did not work so well. Not without an experienced storyteller and players willing to not break the game in fifty EXP.

Well it's a good thing that you've got no authority.
I've looked the system over. I've thoroughly checked it, because I was planning to switch over.
Let me be quite clear. I understand tabletop gaming systems to the point that I can make Ex2 work. This is flat out worse, and it will grow even more terrible with every book they release.

The combat system is more complex. It will take longer to run a single encounter, every time, because there are more resources to track.
The crafting system is a broken mess.
Character Creation will take longer, and require more explanation. Merits, of all things.

I have my fixes for Ex2. I'm not going to waste time making some for E. Not when it's abandoned many of the things that made Ex1 and Ex2 worth using.

For one, not everything stinks. Creation is big, and there are many glorious wonders that don't care about the Realm or Yu Shan.

That which has rotted, however, is rotten because while the Exalted have great power, they do not have any magic that makes them use it wisely.

Solars cannot steamroll over each other. Nor can they effortlessly defeat the Realm, not if the system functions correctly. For that matter, Elder Lunars should also be somewhat dangerous.

As for Responsibility, in the Canon setting the Solar Exalted haven't been responsible for anything major in 1500 years. Most of that falls on the Realm and the Sidereal Exalted.

That is also true in the real world. Given power, people will try and make the world more to their liking. More power and fewer checks on using it lead to more extreme actions.

Excellence is not always linked to a moral code you share. The Solar Exaltation is not, and has never been, linked to omniversal benevolence.

That said, from certain points of view most Solars do good. It's simply that from another perspective that's evil.
You might say that murdering a queen on her throne and seizing control of her nation through violence is wrong, but it becomes more disputable if she was a slaver.

Have you ever heard of Achillies? Of Heracles? What of Sun Wukong, or Lu Bu? Of Lancelot Du Lac? Of Cerce, and Odysseus?

Those are the Heroes that the Exalted are supposed to be like, and if you think they're Average Joes, then I honestly want to know where you live. It sounds like a frighting place.

You remember when we decided that speedbump charms were a fun thing that improved the game, and that balancing a charm by hiding it behind others worked?

'Cause that was way back never. I'm quite sick and tired of printing out ten third-party charm sheets for a game with three players.

Also, being Heracles would involve dips into Martial Arts, Archery, and Athletics at a minimum.

Because we already had Godblooded, and calling them Exalted feels cheap. They're being shilled as if they're new.
I can't see any hole at all that they fill, and they're eating wordcount that could go towards Infernals or Alchemicals.

 

Your one hundred pounds bought you whatever benefits were promised you for your reward tier, not the right to be supremely asspained about the final product not being every single thing you hoped for. That's a risk you take on knowingly with any sort of preorder, whether it's kickstarter or the latest video game or whatever.

"Planning to" implies you didn't, which means you haven't played it, which means you have no authority to say anything about the game's quality. Saying you know E because you know Ex2 is like saying you can judge the latest WoD supplement because you played Scion.

 

Initiative is at least really easy to keep track off with some tokens. Just have one kind for 1 point of Initiative, and another for 5i and you can just quickly slide them across whenever someone gets hit.

I've used that in actual play, and it's really nice to see how a hit from Varu Wind-Snake takes off 8 initiative from the Raksha "Lady of Winters War" (slide 1 red and 3 white tokens over to Varu, and also give them 1 white token). Who then hits Varu back for 4 withering damage (slide over 4 tokens, add 1 more to the Rakshas pool). Cue attack from Gideon taking off 5 Initiative (slide over 1 red token to him, add 1 white token).

You can even very nicely assign dice to those tokens when someone launches a decisive attack.
So when Varu makes one and currently has two red and four white tokens, they get x2 5 dice and four dice. No counting required so it's really quick too.


Granted, you still have keep track of Motes and Willpower too. Motes can really use something else to easily keep track off, some sort of slider would probably be ideal if you want to get into that. Willpower (oh and health levels) are easy though, just cross it off a list - they regenerate rarely enough that you can get away with that.


The dice tricks - yeah, those can easily be annoying. It hasn't come up in actual play yet, but keeping tracks of such things with Yet Another Set of Markers....well, it could be done and probably be easier. It'd require the storyteller to remember "oh, so she rolled three 1s here, and that might matter due to Charm X - better put three markers on that".
Of course, by that point you have to keep track of initiative tokens, motes, health levels, willpower and possibly two or three kinds of dice rolls. That's definitely not an easy game to play and I can see how it'd be disruptive to some people.

 

This is going to be a kind of unpopular opinion but technically, the Core of the Craft system does work.

The only problem is when you want to craft a lot of things or craft different things. Since even broad things like Blacksmithing is not allowed and with how F***ing vague and useless the examples of the different tiers of crafting, major, minor etc are, I gave it up initially.

But since I was pretty much forced to play the system as it is, I tried it out reluctantly and found that surprisingly it works and does so quite well. It does what it advertises, provided you do some research on the whole minor project thing.

The only "Defect" is that

1. Broad things like Craft Blacksmithing are not allowed and turn Craft into an inescapable xp sink even with the boring BS charms that "help" negate it, unless you want to keep building a handful of things for the entire game. (Or maybe it is just our interpretation of the rules that was flawed?) [Which is apparently Intentional]
2. The Examples for projects are woefully lacking. It took a Dev blog before I was willing to give it a try.
3. The whole "run out of craft xp, so no craft for you" leading to nonsensical situations.
4. This is not user friendly and has a Horrible presentation. Nor is it New Player Friendly as it just adds more stuff for him to memorize.

But once you get it going, it ties in with the intimacy system. It generally forces you to engineer certain situations to get your resources and is fairly fun. (Though this is because I enjoy a Craft focused character and this system was apparently aimed at people like me. It also helped that I got bonuses for looking up how people actually built stuff IRL and used those as stunts and minor projects.)

Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of taste, that it is not for everyone. Kinda like the rest of 3E. Huge book keeping issues aside, it does work, though it needs houseruling if you want to remove the parts you don't like.

 

I'm sorry, but Craft in its current state is indefensible.

The core idea? That's actually decent.
It does a good job of representing the traveling craftsman, the mad scientist, the inspired genius.
With proper interpretation, it even does "building a large project out of parts" well. (You simply break down a large project into smaller steps, and use those smaller steps as the basic projects. That can be the crafting of parts, the drawing of blueprints, the preparation of a forge or something like that).
And then the rules go over that and turn it into an utterly messed-up bloat.

60+ charms?
Even an Essence 5 Solar can not POSSIBLY have all of them. You're Essence 5 at 300 XP. Thats 37 charms, plus the ones you start out with. Even if you focus your character fully on Craft, you won't even have most of the Craftcharms by the time you're Essence 5.

And then there's how those Charms work.
A large amount of them are just "gain more craft-XP". Yes, that's a valid function for a Charm - but we don't need 15+ of them. There's one charm that gives you Craft-XP each Season - oh, and then there's another that gives you Craft-XP each day, and each narrated downtime. And oh wait, there's another one that grants Craft-XP per story.
And then you have a ton of dice-adders and limit-breakers that are about equally redundant.
All of which boils down to "Solars craft really really effortlessly". It just games the basic rules very very elaborately. The basic statement of most of those charms could have been boiled down to less than 10 charms.

But the worst part are probably the loops that just bypass the whole basic system. What's the point of the system if I have charms that just allow me a ton of basic Craft-XP, and then convert it instantly into advanced Craft-XP? Yeah, those charms just destroyed the whole thematic that the core rules were trying to convey.

And if Craft-charms convey the idea that most of them are there for converting my character into what basically amounts of a hyper-efficient factory, instead of teaching the character anything interesting...then I'm just not interested in playing a crafter.

Now yes, that's clearly a statement of personal preference etc. and there may be people who like it. But even for those people, forcing any dedicated crafter to spend most of their XP on craft is just boring because it produces one-trick ponies.



Oh, and what's really sad:
3E has a perfectly functional system to make crafting artifacts interesting. It's just not called the Craft-system. It's Sorcerous Workings.
Those function perfectly for crafting artifacts. Assign each Artifact Rating a Goal Number and a XP-cost. Use Means very much as they're written. Finesse is perfect for differentiating - Finesse 1 is "a red Jade Daiklave", Finesse 2 is "a red jade Daiklave that exhausts enemies via heat, but has some quirks" and Finesse 3 removes those quirks.
There. It's interesting, it's quick, it can be applied to tons of things. It just doesn't have any charm-support.

But even that isn't that hard to get ideas for. Heck, we can even fuse it with the current craft-system to a degree.
First, mundane craft is just mundane. Single dice rolls, using one ability. Big projects just take a lot longer and need more resources.
Then we add a statement that if a mundane craft project significantly furthers an Intimacy, the storyteller can award XP that can only be used to pay for the cost of an "artifact working". Can, it doesn't happen automatically (though that's already the case with everything involving intimacies).
Solars get better at that. We give them a charm that allows them to use mundane crafting as dedicated research - put in X time crafting mundane stuff, get out CraftXP. A solar can accumulate experience over lots of small projects, it doesn't have to be a big one, their very essence resonates with such basic tasks etc.
Then we throw in a few charms that give the Solar additional means. Craftman Needs no Tools can do that obviously, along with speeding up mundane projects. Maybe allow the Solar to gain an additional Means when working according to a Principle. Or another one if inspired by a Muse (a Defining Tie, Major if Essence 3+ or Supernal Craft).
Maybe a charm to speed the whole thing up, and as a capstone charm we include one that makes it easier to gain higher Finesse.

As side-charms we could have a charm that gives CraftXP from repairing ancient things (build your palace on the ruins of the first age), and reduces the cost for repairing artifacts.

Together with dice-adders and other basic stuff, that's maybe a dozen charms. Slightly more if you want to evoke the current system more. But it really does the same evocative job, and just as well, as the current system.

 

Until Exalt comes over and murderhobos it for XP. There is no thing sacred in Exalted. Everything exists to be butchered by Exalt for his newest wanking scheme.

More skilled/lucky Solar will kill the less skilled/lucky one. It's flawed mechanical system when the only risk comes from fighting other Solar. It isn't heroic if you slaughter cows.

Or maybe beating up those weaker than yourself is somewhat challenging? Last time I checked it is just bullying. Mechanical superiority of Solars ensures that unless they fight other Solars it's just it. Bullying the weak.

Since when Sids and Dragon-Blooded stopped being also Exalted? I blame all of the Exalted Host, Valette. After all they usurped Primordials and thus took the reins of Creation, and responsibility for it as well.

Truthfully? Depends on people with power. Average Joe with super-powers will remain average and you know where it leads. Great person given power? Have a chance to know the pitfalls of absolute power.

When do I claimed so? If I remove Exalt Power from 99%, since I don't know all of them, Exalted? I get your Average Joe/Jane.

If without powers they aren't special in any way ... and only lucked out on Exalted Roulette ... why, suddenly, it makes them heroic?

Good and evil is simple, it's humans who muddy it to fit their delusions. You need not superpowers to be good or evil. Just make your choices.

One hero fights with all he have, defending what he believes is worth giving up his life for ... and kills many people in doomed defense of a mountain path.

Solar slaughters them with bored expression, while yawning. Then kills anyone not gushing over him/her being the most heroic hero ever!

How queen being a slaver have a fucking influence of good/evil ratio of your hypotetical personage's choices?

It leads to nonsense like :"They weren't nobles like us, but heathen barbarians, so cheating, lying and basically anything that normally would be immoral that you do to them is ok."

I also heard of Leonidas. And many hailed as heroes in my home country and cursed by our neighbors, who had then their asses kicked.
Though my personal standards for heroism are simple. Beat overwhelming odds. While risky prospect, not insurmountable.
Respectable hero? Someone you admire even if he's your bitter enemy. Now ... there is few, even among the mythological ones. Leonidas is one.

The "heroic" Exalted are the Average Joes with super-powers attached. It is not the power that defines a hero, even in Iron Age understanding of the term, but what said Hero does. His or her deeds.
Power is just a nice perk to have.

 

The little mote of interest I hold in 3e is mostly because my favorite homebrew project, the Stonebearers, is getting updated to 3e.
...and I've been called on for proofreading help from time to time, and for a perspective on what sections might look a little anemic in their current states.

And it's getting a supplement dedicated entirely to guiding useful speculation and thinking about the various methods that could exist in your game for them to escape (in most games, Autocthonia, but not SPECIFICALLY Autocthonia anymore) the Iron Kingdom into creation, and the implications it would have on various levels for them to do so.

And even that...the fluff is what matters to me, with regards to that. I know well that the people I've played 2.5e with aren't actually interested in the Stonebearers.

 

Okay, seriously?

When someone spends money on something and it turns out not to be what they want, no shit they're gonna be upset when it's not what they wanted. That's sorta fucking common sense.

And that's not even getting into how goddamn late the game is.

Again, seriously?

So what, in your eyes people cannot read through a system, see what it does and what it says to do and then not recognize the flaws in it?

I mean really, this isn't even stuff like how depending on how you spend your BP in charagen you can walk out with close to a hundred more xp than the other guy.

This is stuff like Craft being made objectively worse. People complained about Craft bloat for years, and the response was to make it even worse?

 

...I am a person, and can have feelings about things I was emotionally and financially invested in.

Why the fuck are you arguing against that?

I'm fairly sure I was quite clear about why I didn't switch.

Let's look at the resources each player and I, the storyteller, need to keep track of in a combat encounter.

In Ex2, that's Motes, WP, Health Levels, and sometimes Virtue Channels. If my players are being silly buggers, Banked Attacks. And Speed, before I houseruled that away.

In E, that's Motes, WP, Anima level, Health Levels, Charm Reset status, and Initiative. Looks about the same? It's not, given that nearly every bloody charm has a different reset condition, Initiative is bouncing around everywhere by design, and I only have so many tokens for NPCs.

I am one person. How the flying fuck am I supposed to run a full Wyld Hunt like this? I'm sure it's wonderful for PvP, or a situation where the players fully understand how their charms work, but I run games in the real world.

Now let's look at other stuff. Like the provided Character Sheets.

We will need four pages at least. Did we get four pages? No, we did not. We got two.

We got the E craft system, as well. Go on, defend that! If you're so sure that playing with it will reveal how it works better than I think, tell me how so! Because otherwise, that's a core concept that one of the few characters I've had the opportunity to play cannot use in E.

I did not switch over because I can see the problems I'll have to deal with. They start at character creation.

...That's not how EXP works in Exalted.

Also, if you're playing with murderhobos, that's the problem. Stop doing that.

I'll not argue that the system doesn't have flaws, but a more powerful and skilled Exalt having an advantage against a less powerful and skilled one is not among them.

As for threats, you're quite simply wrong there.

Three Dragonblooded, and a large squad of mortal Archers. That's what it takes to kill most Solars. If the Solar is combat-focused and using Artifact equipment, the requirement is somewhat higher.

But there are a lot of Dragonblooded.

Then perhaps you should say Exalted rather than Solars. Look at the part I quoted.

...You have completely misunderstood how Exaltation works. Each and every Exalt is an outstanding person.
Yes, even the Dragonblooded.

Good and Evil are subjective. That is the understanding that Exalted is written with.

...

I see what your problem with Exalted is. It's you.

Most people think that Slavery is wrong. Don't you?

Indeed. And what they do with their power is what defines the Exalted.

None of them are Average.

 

Right, I forgot about charm-resets.
Let's see how many there are - not counting any non-combat charms, since you won't have to keep track of those during combat (rendering it much easier).

Archery has 1 (Solar Spike)
Athletics has 1 (Foe-Vaulting Method)
Brawl has 5 (Dancing with Strive Technique, Knockout Blow, Shockwave Technique, Lightning Strikes Twice, Rampage-Berserker Attack, Supremacy of War Meditation)
Dodge has 1 (Seven-Shadow Evasion)
Larceny as 1 (Null Anima Gloves - Seize the Day)
Lore has 1 (Force-Draining Whisper)
Melee has 2 (Perfect Strike Discipline, Blazing Solar Bolt)
Occult has 1 (Supernal Control Method)
Resistance has 3 (Tiger Warriors Endurance, Willpower-Enhancing Spirit, Ruin-Abrasing Shrug)
Thrown has 5 (Cascade of Cutting Terror, Empty Palm Technique, Shadow Wind Slash, Savage Wolf Attack, Fiery Solar Chakram)

So we have a total of 21 combat-relevant Solar charms that can only be used once per scene, but can be reset under some condition.
Yep, that's a lot. Even considering that any given character will likely only have a few, if any. And that's a pain in the ass to keep track off - for one person.

The best way to deal with this is most likely to put the onus on the players. If I'm the storyteller, you, the player, keep track of when your charm resets. You tell me when it happens, and I scribble a note somewhere (likely, I write down your resetable charms and make and O behind them, crossing them out when used and making a new one when reset).


But yes, this is additional work and I can very much see how one would not be happy with that, Valette-Serafina.



Oh, and incidentally - "tons of mortal archers" can still work if done properly, but funnily enough if you invest a bit into dodge you can actually get momentum (=initiative) from dodging all those attacks. Searing Quicksilver Flight will drain their initiative, and if you have Essence 2 and Force-Stealing Feint it'll actually increase your initiative.
Mind you, I do like this - most epic heroes are not slain by tons of ordinary soldiers. Some are, but those obviously don't have the applicable defense because not all heroes are equal.

 

In core. More will be released, and I daresay that evocations will have some. This is an unacceptable level of bloat in Core.

 

I get my jollies off Evocations and Sorcerous Workings.