>What is Exalted?An epic high-flying role-playing game about reborn god-heroes in a world that turned on them.Start here:http://theonyxpath.com/category/worlds/exalted/>That sounds cool, how can I get into it?Read the 3e core book (link below). For mechanics of the old edition, play this tutorial:http://mengtzu.github.io/exalted/sakuya.htmlIt’ll get you familiar with most of the mechanics.>Gosh that was fun. How do I find a group?Roll20 and the Game Finder General here on /tg/. good luck>Resources for Third Edition>3E Core and Splatshttps://www.mediafire.com/folder/b54o6teut3fx6/Exalted_3e>Errata for Third Editionhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1n3ooTmopm3CBxW5jwPp1761xsaIccea-5XIhVM_PQEc/edit>Other Ex3 Resourceshttps://pastebin.com/fG1mLMdu>Resources for Older Editionshttps://pastebin.com/BXSGuFdQ>Current Quixalted Extended QE Version (Fanmade Supplement)https://files.catbox.moe/rjgmo5.pdf>Optional Quixalted Exaltshttps://www.mediafire.com/file/jg86yrewnhx2ov3/QE_Reject3eExaltHomebrew.pdf/file>4thchan Edition (4.2E)https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XqjkwQIR38ov7uZVSZGpcjI0QCPIiFaQkVosZVlhGH8/>Exalted Demake/Black Vault (Now with updates):https://pastebin.com/Tt1PjuYthttps://pastebin.com/qHRW9N51>collection of Exalted Hackshttps://pastebin.com/gtZnycJs>stuff that might be interestinghttps://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-exalted-thread-with-no-original-ideas.317216/Last thread: >>93204618TQ: Tell us about your chariots, did your character ever use one?
How good is Breath Draining Prana in the abyssal 2E book?
>>93246736Saw this picture in a different thread and it got me thinking, kind of abilities might Exigents of the seasonal gods have? Or an Exigent of Five Days Darkness, assuming that he’s officially considered the god of Calibration.
>>93247509You should check changeling the lost, their have seasonal based "castes" and powers.http://nwod.org/wiki/index.php/Contracts
>>93247509I've sometimes thought about how I'd make something like Exigents palatable for me, and this kind of relates. I thought using something like slightly modified Umbrals for 5DD Exalts, because while I don't like Exigents for the most part, I wouldn't mind if powerful gods from the time of the Primordial War also had Exalts, even if it was only like 1-10. One Exalt for each season could potentially exist in such an instance. It lets you add a bit of room for custom stuff, but it doesn't feel disconnected and disposable like current ones. More customizable Exigents could exist too, but they would all be terrestrial Exalted, limited in number, and would essentially be agents of the terrestrial courts. Officially, the terrestrial courts are supposed to give it to gods in times of dire need, but in practice they're bought and sold for political favors. This of course means by default terrestrial Exigents would have ties to their patrons, rather than it just being paid lip service but not seeming to be true in practice.
>>93247580What about 5DD then, do you have any ideas on him?
Who are the best assassins in the setting that could theoretically be hired by my high resource PC? >a solar night caste xdactual characters or organizations in the setting please.
>>93247692Not him, but rip off Umbrals. It'd take a bit of work to modify them to fit perfectly, but it'd be a lot easier than starting from scratch.
>>932476925DD is a god that is hard to conceptualize Exigents for.Night castes and Abyssals already took the "sun's shadow" conceptual space.The second best option is use Umbrals as a base.When they reach Penumbra 10, make them lose all Penumbra in the end of the sceneAnd turn the shadow hands in an inherent power, to fix their power budget.
>>93247455Easily the best charm in the book, you're handicapping yourself if you don't take it.
Are there any artifact that enhance the lunar's bestial forms?
Is Creation getting smaller even that bad of a thing? The #1 problem Creation faces is that there's not enough exalts to go around compared to how many mortals there are. The ideal ratio is roughly 1 exalt for every 50 to 100 mortals, but instead we have 1 exalted for every 20,000. Its much more difficult for us to create more exalts than it is to just decrease the number of mortals.
>>93248595>Is Creation getting smaller even that bad of a thing?Yes, because it leaves the pillars more vulnerable to fae/wyld bullshit and mundane failures.
>>93248595With how powerful they are, I feel that would make them too common. You would literally have small neighborhoods made up of Exalted in large cities.
>>93248630That's the point. Exalts should be common enough that you have one as your neighbor. If one out of every 20,000 people is an exalt you can go your entire life without ever meeting one.
>>93248636>Exalts should be common enough that you have one as your neighbor.For what reason? there are better supernatural creatures to act as middle management and something you could see as ''just your neighbor''. These guys were made to kill primordials for fuck sake.
>>93248766They weren't just made to kill primordials, they were made to steward Creation afterward, and Creation is best stewarded when the people living in it get to enjoy the benefits of the exalts on a daily basis.
Are you allowed to use Hybrid Body Rearrangement to bypass the normal restrictions on applying Large (or bigger) mutations to your warform? I don't see anything that says you can't use it that way.
>>93248784They were made to guard it against all threats so that the gods could button themselves in heaven for the rest of eternity.
>>93248946If they were just made to guard it the Zeniths and Eclipse exalts wouldn't exist.
>>93248962Zeniths are priests in charge of feeding the gods and spirits their share of essence and Eclipses were responsible for keeping useful alliances and pacts with various creatures on top of logistic duties.There is more to war than killing, there is the thousands things you need to manage so that you have the means to kill.The Exalted are extensions of the gods with more independence to bypass the restrictions the primordials imposed on them.
>>93249024don't care, primordial war doesn't matter in the current day
>>93249056Ok, the point still stands that you would be better off using other supernatural creatures as middle management. Beings like the Dragon Kings, Sorcerers and Spirits of whatever would fill that role better than an Exalted when you look at the whole of creation because it leaves them free to specialize in whatever they do best rather than acting as a local lord.Even if you wanted to use the Exalted as the local leaders, the Dragon Blooded are the ones who can grow in numbers, so instead of leaving continent sized chunks of creation to fall into the Wyld, creation needs breeding camps to raise the numbers of Dragon Blooded.Bring out the eugenics charms its not like those aren't a thing.
>>93248962Logistics and NCO.
When "Spirit-Form" is referred to, does the war-form from Deadly Beastmen Transformation count?
>>93249130The celestial gods largely don't want to rule Creation. It's a backwater. Prayer is useful, but actually getting involved? Down there in the muck? Sure, they go down and larp as heroes to gather prayer occasionally, but even the most petty spirits rarely seem interested in actually ruling or improving places in Creation for any reasons other than transactional. The only reason they're doing their jobs is because of the benefits, and they generally do their absolute best to turn their jobs away from value-adding and into political leverage. Even jobs like weather-working in the Court of Seasons are still that way.I guess it's probably similar to the way Dynasts aren't often trying to make the Threshold better, and Thresholders are rarely trying to go out into the wild and rampant outback to improve the lives of barbaric muck-grubbers, and honorable roving barbarian tribes aren't trying to improve the lives of Wyld barbarians. Everybody sees the people below them on the heirarchy of civilization and power as... well, 'below' them. It takes very compassionate heroes to go out there and improve things for others, and even then it's usually as much out of arrogance as compassion, and then it also takes the people they're going out to help not being backstabbing murderous assholes, which is also rare.
>>93249577No, your spirit form is your animal totem, the first animal you turn into. It's usually not called a spirit form, it's officially and often called the 'spirit shape'.
>first exalted game was introducing it to some free-form rp friends online >we talked about the characters from that first, beautiful campaign for almost 7 years. Wrote fics. Made fanart. >lost contact with all those friends but one, then she killed herself>literally see this image in my mind of all that passing away when I got the news>taste in the game sours after years of EXG vitriol and forum identity politics>can't even home-brew for myself without anxiety, terrified of what people might think if I repeat some obscure mistake>start idly chatting with my bro during dishes one time, mention one or two of the old OCs premises, explain artifacts>he's 100 percent down to play>I give him the goofy, gonzo versions of all the lore and he loves almost all of it>we bought dice, metal coins, I'm working on a DB campaign >magic is backTreat games as games. Break out of your old habits and circles. Walk away from tired obsessions. Get a fresh view. Pray to God and touch grass. There's a beautiful world out there and you make it better when you don't hate everything.
Being an exalted is fucking awesome. It's what the game is about after all, and what the mechanics are built around. But of course, being an exalt is only cool so long as you're surrounded by uncool lesser people to be cool in comparison too. If everyone was exalted, it wouldn't be so fucking awesome anymore and you'd just be some regular shlub again, like you are in the real world. But at the same time, nobody wants to be the regular shlub walking around all boring when other people get to be exalts.So what would be the ideal utopia? Ignore the limitations that inherently bind the setting for a second, how would you design a world where everybody gets to feel special and awesome and powerful?
>>93249984Well 'powerful' isn't necessary for utopia imo, 'capable' maybe. I personally think the New Heavens and the New Earth after Judgement Day will leave exalted in the dust for how crazy things will be. But eternity with an immortal body free of suffering and illness and testicular cancer and asthma and under Perfect eternal governance is something Exalted has helped me imagine. Just an eternity where every screw up a historical person would make just. Doesn't happen. Where accidents don't kill. Where science only advances. Where no critics are biased, no game devs have hidden agendas, no secret cabals, no child sexual assault. Just. Peace. Justice.
>>93249984>But of course, being an exalt is only cool so long as you're surrounded by uncool lesser people to be cool in comparison too. Couldn't be more wrong. MANY hundreds of millions of people suffer from health disorders that keep them from doing countless exciting or even normal things. If, for example you were wheelchair-bound then you suddenly gained a body in perfect health, strong enough to surf, ski, sprint, climb, dance and with the energy to jog daily, laugh without gasping etc. and flawless erectile function along with a total lack of depression and addiction, do you think you'd whine and seethe if every other man got the same? Only if you were a truly hate-filled soul.Otherwise you'd weep with gratitude.
>>93250170One look at the modern dating scene is all I need to see to know that there's plenty of people who would appreciate it if 99% of men other than themselves were cripples.
>>93249984>So what would be the ideal utopia?Everybody raised to a minimum standard where they can deal with every mundane problem they will face, even if it's hard. The ability for every person to develop in unique ways and fit themselves into society and the lives of others in ways that are productive but wholly their own, even if it's something they've copied from someone else.Exalted under some interpretations can come close to hitting this, in my opinion. The high power mortal interpretation hits the first check mark of everybody being able to solve their own problems, especially if everybody gets to be a heroic mortal who can use stunt mechanics. The latter point, that everybody is able to develop in ways that are unique to them and still slotting into their groups in useful ways, can be fulfilled through custom charms. In a world where everybody has the PC-heroic mortal baseline and the ability to develop custom charms of some kind - even if the themes are limited to a particular splat or whatever - I think a utopia arises naturally, even if technology does not progress or even degrades. It doesn't necessarily need to be worldwide, even - the existence of a world that needs heroes for people to go to could actually add to the utopia.In Exalted, there are a few ways to hit it. In 2e, You Can Be More could be carved in stone to trigger on everybody who read the runes, and terrestrial martial arts could be broadened and innovated until they aren't martial arts, they're just arts. If you took a bunch of Legendary Breeding Dragonblood of some particular Aspect and slapped them all in an isolated location with no mortals, that could lead to what I see as a utopia. Everybody might eventually be a half-caste with True Breeding and a mote pool. Etc.Problem is that a utopia is fragile. It's easy for an outside force to break the ideal, even if every inhabitant is a supergod. It can self-destruct. My only solution to that is praying to Sidereals.
I'm glad that the Hearteaters aren't canon because they are not real exalts like Alchemicals, but Aurora should have never been canon at all.He is bloat and a femboy god is cringe. Venus already covers his niche and is far more better than him like how Sidereals are better tricksters and deceivers than Lunars.
>>93251234>the guy who posts controversial opinions but has no way of engaging in interesting discussions over them is backyep, now this thread can really get started.
>>93251234>a femboy godwhat
>>93251330They made Aurora a man and is considered the most beautiful among the Incana.It's stupid like how the 3e deathlords have agendas of their own instead of trying to destroy Creation for the sake of the Neverborn.
>>93251381what
>>93251381>It's stupid like how the 3e deathlords have agendas of their own instead of trying to destroy Creation for the sake of the Neverborn.That sounds fine, what's the problem with ghostly generals having their own sub plots?
Exposing an old ruling I made again:The player wanted to use a sorcerous working to kill a particularly annoying bureaucrat, who was a mortal. They said Finesse 5, he's dead on the spot, and wanted there to be nothing to contest - for it to not even be fate-weaving or reality shaping, in case the guy was secretly a Solar. I said that wasn't clever, engaging, or interesting, and that I thought even workings should have to have a vector through which to act (and offered some methods I thought should work, like the sorcerous working tying destiny into a knot, or having an arcane link and voodoo'ing it), and applied my veto out of personal opinion. I figured, hey, it would be really fucky for people to be able to do that to the player character, and the idea that only player characters get access to sorcerous workings is both explicitly not the case in the books and shitting on verisimilitude besides. I did, however, judge that it would be Ambition 2 Celestial against a mortal or Ambition 2 Solar against a supernatural being (including an Exalt), because you are either utterly transforming a supernatural being into a ghost, or you are upgrading a mortal into a supernatural being (ghost).It feels like I'm using veto to negotiate, which is what Finesse 3 is for, and that feels scummy even if I need it occasionally. Also, how do you feel about using the broad wording of sorcerous workings as a no-contest (well, no contest in the moment, people can still notice and try to interrupt) win button? Separately from that, I feel like sorcerous workings should be the kind of thing you have a lot of access to the site or person you're interacting with for, or at least to have part of it or a link or something; how do you feel about workings acting at range?
What edition do most people play? 3e seems kind of intimidating to get into.
>>93251588Nobody plays anything here, but the easiest game to find a group for is 3e.
>>93251498Even Finesse 5 Workings, and for that matter even Ambition 3 Solar Circle Workings, have limits, and I don't think there's anything scummy or going against RAI in what you did. I don't like the idea of a no-contest effect - I'd say that a Working could, for example, create a disease or a poison and inflict it on someone through an arcane link, but it'd still be resisted like diseases or poisons in general. Or it could be something other than disease or poison, point is that Workings shouldn't just bypass normal defenses. I think sorcerers should interact with things they want to affect through a Working one way or another, simply because it's not terribly interesting if a sorcerer just sits in a hideout somewhere without interacting with the world. Also, as you say, people aside from PCs can do Workings, too, and whether a given Working would be game-ruining nonsense when used by an NPC against the PCs should be a consideration when deciding whether it's an appropriate Working in the first place. Also a Working seems like a ridiculously high-effort and time-consuming way of assassinating a mortal.
>>93251588I play 3E. It,s a heavily flawed game, but still very much playable. I've been thinking about trying Demake for my next game, though.
>>93251632>Also a Working seems like a ridiculously high-effort and time-consuming way of assassinating a mortal.They'd left the city the mortal was in behind like two story arcs ago and the sorcerer had recently picked up Celestial Circle Sorcery and just been reminded he existed. It wasn't even really something significant, more of a fuck-you off-the-cuff question to the Storyteller as part of ooc banter that diverted into the what-cans and what-can'ts of how I felt about sorcery for a while before moving on.
>>93251588Essence is definitely the best edition to get into right now, I think. Plenty of people playing it, the developers are responsive, it's pretty damn mechanically sound, and it's very easy to pick up. It doesn't even really have the problem it used to have of devolving into a single optimal playstyle, which is something 1e/2e didn't manage and 3e still struggles with sometimes. Many of the problems people have with it are also things that will only sound like problems if you come from elsewhere in Exalted.The only real downsides are that it starts you off pretty low-power, has a pretty low cap on how far you go until you stop being able to get stronger compared to other editions of Exalted, and progression is very fast so you'll get there quickly. Session 1 is often the hardest because of the low default starting point, session-by-session it's incredible, and then after about a year's worth of play you find that you've run out of canon options and need to start homebrewing if you want to progress.
>>93249793Sorry for your friend. >>93251617There are a few, like ExVsWoD anon.
>>932515882E for me and my group
>>93252458I tried making a character for 2E and sew why people complain about the Dawn caste. I had an easier time making my character concept as a night cast and only slightly dipped into stealth larceny.
>>93252595Combat castes really hurt in a game where the primary benefit of being in a caste is that it discounts lots of core competency abilities and combat always has and always will be about specialising in one specific combat ability and disregarding all the rest. Feels like you're wasting half a caste slot. Even in 3e where you get to pick it still feels like Dawns only get one option (1 combat ability + the four that aren't overlapping combat abilities) where everybody else gets to choose between a bunch of ability layouts.Lunars and Abyssals have the same issue. Sidereals too, actually, in 1e/2e, since Endings and Serenity Abilities were so much better (with Secrets in the middle of ability quality and Journeys/Battles way behind).
>>93252682The entire idea I wanted was wandering warrior who's also a teacher for young heroes. But I basically had to go night just for all the combat style I want and a little bit of stealth and then use favoured abilities to round everything out.
>>93252595Yeah, I've found I have more luck if I pick out abilities and charms first, then go back and choose what caste is best for that build and adjust things accordingly, so unless it looks like I'm going to invest heavily into combat I avoid Dawns or their equivalents
Combat is all that matters though. Nothing in Creation has ever been resolved peacefully.
>>93252767Oh hey, it's this shit again.
What kind of Defining Intimacy am I supposed to give to a normal person who isn't defined by a single cool phrase or by any particular relationship?
>>93253674Just sum up the guy's philosophy on life and make it a Principle. Most people probably couldn't clearly express their life philosophy on life, but they still probably have one, some kind of an unspoken but deeply held belief about what their lot in life is. Alternatively, just give them a vague Intimacy towards their own lives, like "Please let me live"; that'd at least ve simple and easy for players to make use of.
So what’s 2e sorcery good for?
>>93253788Demon summoning and a toolbox.
>>93253674What is their profession, do they care about it?"I will be the premier cobbler of this village."So they have a variety of friends and family they care about in total?"Friends and family (loyalty)"Are they just trying to get through the day alive in a world full of supernatural creatures that don't care about them?"Keeping your head down is the best way to stay alive"You need to provide more detail to say for sure.Most people honestly probably have intimacies about loving their family. If not they probably have intimacies about being self reliant because their family got murdered by a Raksha or a bandit, or they're an asshole, or their family is made of assholes.
>>93251712So in terms of starting you off lower power, I've been thinking about this.You start with 1/3 the charms as in 3e or 1/2 of 2e.The flip side of that is that the charms are supposed to be more straightforward and powerful, and they did eliminate a lot of fiddly dice trick charms, but the stuff that remains is pretty clearly NOT packed into a smaller number of charms per effect right?Like you need a second charm effectively just to use an excelleny for defense.Not worrying about dice tricks helps, but I'm wondering how many charms before a PC feels about as confident as a 3e solar starts. 8? 10? A whole 15?Anyone here play both and have thoughts.
>>93251234well he's canon now anyway, just dead. it's just a matter of whether or not her had chosen whichstill exist somehow
>>93246736It kinda sucks that they erase mortals memories when they're reincarnated, imagine all the OP bullshit meta-knowledge you could accumulate over time otherwise.
>>93254924Humans tend to go a bit crazy if they have too many past life memories IIRC
>>93254934Infernals sometimes go crazy and think they're their First Age incarnation.
>>93254934Counterpoint: Being crazy isn't really all that crazy in Exalted. In fact, you would have to be certifiably insane to live in such a world and still think like a regular modern person.
