>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: >>93951442TQ: How much prep do you do?
What is your favorite Dodge charm?
>>94031264>TQNot enough.Looking for PlayersGame: ExaltedMethod: Discord, in a scheduled PbP - aka a text game with a weekly timeslot where we all show up and play for a couple of hours. If we get an absolute flood of players that don't have a timeslot they can all fit in then I may look into going sessionless PbP, though I've been informed calling it PbP at all is also an incorrect way to describe this regardless because it's over Discord instead of email.Time: Starting 8PM EST / 8AM AWST, day is yet to be discussed.Description: I am very likely going to split this into two games. >Game 1: The Anathema Strike Back In Exalted 3e, a mixed circle of Celestial Exalted in the North, with the vague idea being present that the group will be instigating a rebellion against the Realm. Because this group right now is full of Abyssals, this may also involve marching legions of the dead against the world of the living.>Game 2: The Return of the ExaltedThis one is for the 1e/2e enjoyers, if any of you still exist in this desolate time. We don't know exactly kind of game or themes we're playing around with yet, but so far the only other game idea that was brought up was playing pirates in the West, so that might be what this turns into. I'd prefer to play 1e here, but if we're full of 2e players I understand. Server Invite: https://discord.gg/pQmmF6KB
>>94031381Duck Fate, obviously.
Have the abyssals done anything besides taking over Thorns? because it seems they all just scheme and barely take any action at all
>>94032018Have the Solars done anything besides defeat Tepet? Because it seems they're all just hopes and dreams, and barely take any action at all.
>>94032018>pic>Nyahahaha!
>>94032018Blame 3e for focusing on Dragon-blooded. Fuck the Realm
>>94032710Is the 3e version of the realm at least good?
>>94032018>>94032060Retarded nogame questions.>>94032855In some ways. It certainly feels more like a place you could run more types of games than just Realm politics into Realm civil war.
>>94032941>It certainly feels more like a place you could run more types of games than just Realm politics into Realm civil war.Does it, really? That wasn't the impression I had reading it at all. Mostly it felt like they were just trying to hype up the stakes of the civil war so that it wouldn't seem so irrelevant.
>>94032855No.
>>94032855It's pretty good, all in all. There's some dumb stuff there, too, but I'd still say that it's the best take we have on the Realm.
Someone was asking me last thread how I statted up powerful spirits in my ExWoD campaign, so here's the Supreme Demonic Tyrant, the boss the Infernal is fighting.The Supreme Demonic TyrantACC 13DMG 14L [Punch] 18B [Essence Blast]Soak: 21B/14L/14AHealth: 18+DeadEssence 7Essence Pool: 20 [2/Turn]Charms:Divine Potence 6: Permanently add six automatic successes to the damage of all Strength and Strength-based Damage rolls. The Essence Blast is Strength-based.Divine Celerity 4: Reflexively spend 1 Essence to gain four Extra Actions this Turn.Divine Fortitude 7: Increase all forms of Soak by 7. Already present in above calculation.Blast Charm: As a Simple Action spend 1 Essence and declare a single target. That target suffers 14 dice of Aggravated Damage. This is Undodgable.Essence Eruption: Reflexively spend 1 Essence before declaring an Essence Blast Attack or using the Blast Charm. The attack encompasses a sphere with a diameter of 45 feet, a line 100 feet long, 10 wide, and 10 tall; or is rapid fired upon up to four distinct targets the Tyrant can see.Healing: As a Simple Action spend 1 Essence and declare a target. That target heals 12 dice in Health Levels. A given target can only benefit from this once per Scene.City-in-Ashes Permission: After successfully attacking and damaging a target reflexively spend 1 Essence. The target soaks the attack at DC+2.Supreme Tyrant Exultation: After being struck by an attack but before rolling Soak reflexively spend 1 Essence. Roll Soak at DC-2.Eon Crown Emulation: Once per Scene at no cost after being damaged by a damaging weapon or power, the Tyrant may activate this Charm. The Tyrant is perfectly immune to that weapon or power for the rest of the Scene. Essence Movement: The Tyrant can fly and run at 100 MPH.Essence Sight: The Tyrant can detect the Power Stat and current and maximum supernatural energy pool of all targets he is aware of. This functions identically to the Essence Scope Talisman.
>>94033275>>94033275Essence Scope [Talisman 2]The Essence Scope is a device worn over one eye with a head's up display for measuring latent Essence.System: The Scope allows the user to determine the following of any target the user is aware of through his senses and within a mile of his location: whether the target possesses a pool of supernatural energy, if so its current and maximum capacity, and the 'Power Stat' of a character and the maximum for his type. This measures Essence for Exalts and Spirits, Glamour for Changelings, Dharma for Kuei-Jin, Arete for Mages, and Rank for werecreatures. It measures Kindred on a 1-10 scale by Generation [Third or lower is 10, Twelve or higher is 1]. Notably it does not tell one the *type* of stat.Example: A member of the Demon Force notices a previously stealthed character. She immediately becomes aware the user has 4 Energy out of 6 and a Power Level of 6 out of 10. She does *not* learn the target is specifically a Kithain with Glamour 6 of 10 and a Glamour Pool of 4/6.Drawback: If an Essence Scope is used in the presence of a character with the highest Power Stat for their type [EG: A Rank 6 Garou, Arete 10 Mage, or Essence 5 Solar] using a nontrivial amount of energy as determined by the Storyteller, the Scope harmlessly but permanently short-circuits and explodes.
Advice for giving a player character intimacies at chargen? How many is optimal? What are some intimacies you'd say are must-haves?
>>94034069>Advice for giving a player character intimacies at chargen? How many is optimal? 3e, I assume. A defining Intimacy, two Major Intimacies, and a minor Intimacy are the best array that meets minimum requirements and honestly you're pretty well off stopping there. More Intimacies are a weakness to be targetted as much as they can be used as a strength against people targetting them. Persuade is the easiest social influence to reset and it does so whenever they target a new Intimacy of equal or greater strength. There's also the opposite opinion which is that having as many intimacies as possible is best because it means you always have one open to put into a decision point. I think this is foolish personally, because you can declare a new Intimacy reflexively to defend with in that way if you really need to anyway. Also, it clutters the sheet.>What are some intimacies you'd say are must-haves?There aren't any in particular, but I would in particular mention that very self-facing intimacies are not the win button that some players seem to think they are. You aren't always the one interpreting your Intimacies - it's the Storyteller's call if it counts or not. A Tie like Circlemates (Loyalty) is almost always trivial to exploit, just like a Principle like "I must stay true to myself". Your circlemates are almost always around, so an NPC can almost always point to them and say 'do it for them', while you are always around yourself, so an NPC can always point at you and say 'do it for yourself'. Very vulnerable to Manipulation, not very vulnerable to Charisma sort of thing.Instead, my recommendation is to actually have goals (ideals if you have to) set in the world and a plan on how to follow them which is pretty easy to grok for anybody looking at you. It's often much harder to manipulate you when your core driving motive is based on a desire for justice for your parent's killer, or if your love of money is what drives you on.
>>94034069Wait, ignore last really quick. It's mostly right, except you always need to be sure to have at least two Defining Intimacies, or zero. This is key and vital, because without two Defining Intimacies you can't use a Decision Point to deflect any influence targetting your single defining intimacy at all. Having zero Defining Intimacies does also work if you can swing it because they can't even try the influence in the first place, but Storytellers like it less.
>>94034422>>94034475Are you giving anon the worst possible advice for a laugh or are you just that much of a daft munchkin?
>>94034531I'm dressing up what I like to see as a Storyteller, small and focussed Intimacy pools with firm in-game goals to work towards, in plausible-ish sounding justification and munchkin talk.Anon saying 'how many is optimal' and 'what are some intimacies you'd say are must-haves' made it sound like he wanted munchkin talk.
>>94032941>>94033076Cope. The Realm is about to enter its romance of the three kingdom phase and there's nothing that can be done about it
>>94034752I run games so I can do whatever I want about it.
>>94032855No, they're basically the evil empire that's in every fantasy setting, however it's justified by saying it's necessary because of their enemies. Totally not all similar to the Imperium of Man.
>>94035169No edition of Exalted has ever tried to justify the Realm, and 3E's probably the edition most into anti-imperialism.
>>94035176Justified in-universe.
>>94035180It's definitely not.
>>94035176The Realm as a imperialistic force loses its teeth once you see 1e Lunars or just the Deathlords.
>>940330243e hypes up the Realm Civil War a lot but it also makes a big effort to to portray the Realm as a place with story hooks for running many campaigns.
>>94035204Says in 3e sids that sids serve creation as their ultimate goal, and the realm's stability is secondary to that. However, they support the realm because it keeps creation safe.So yes...yes it is justified in universe.
>>94035229That's only the bronze faction's opinion
>>94035239can you just admit you were wrong and stop this pointless argument. jesus.
What are the other Directions' equivalent to flame wands?
>>94035229Devs and wroters would either laugh at you or get angry at you if you went to them with that interpretation of the text. Again, no edition of Exalted has ever tried to justify the Realm.
>>94035282It is kind of bipolar, take what they say with a grain of salt.Specially with "walk with them until you walk like them" from 1e, or "the Realm isn't monolithic it is full of complex figures!! Why are you liking these figures? They serve the evil realm".
CONAN! What is best in life? To have a sheet full of 5s and 1s at the beginning, or to have 2s and 3s spread across a broad range of skills with a couple 5s for your area of expertise?
>>94035977The system punishes generalists.
>Rescue a child from a Death Knight's attack>Bring them back to health>Raise them to be an upstanding person>Love them with all your heart>Ritualistically sacrifice them to unlock Adamant SorceryHow can one get away with this in a group?
>>94037881Don't.
>>94037881Find a st who is into dissection.>>94038879What?
>>94035977Just get the 5s at the start of the game, it's simply not worth waiting for the time waiting multiple sessions for an overpriced upgrade.
>>94035255idk, just call them shit like.>Hale Howlers>Thunder Thorns>Earth Shakers>Liquid LightningYou have options for reskinning those mechanics.
>>94035977>CONAN! What is best in life? To have a sheet full of 5s and 1s at the beginning, or to have 2s and 3s spread across a broad range of skills with a couple 5s for your area of expertise?Hot water, good dentistry, and soft lavatory paper.
>>94035282>Anon can't readPity...pity
>>94031407What's the deadline for applying to the game, Storyteller-kun?
>>94044884End of the weekend is when the invite expires. If someone asks after that it'll depend on how many people we already have.
>>94032018Would he be an Abyssal or a Deathlord?
>>94045974The line between Abyssal and Deathlord is pretty thin, but his role in story doesn't fit the former.He is more like one of those redeemed FA Solar ghosts, or the st decided to say fuck it and wrote a Deathlord who decided to stop being a self-indulgent shithead.
Time for one of the classic eternal questions. Autochton: Champion of the little guy or overly glorified school shooter by proxy?
>>94047308Yes
>>94047308It is more "the revenge plot went a bit too well".
>>94031381avoidance kata
>Be Solar>Learn you have a lunar mate>He's already married to a mortal and won't cheat on herWhat do?
>>94048213Just wait for the mortal to die a natural death. Easy.
>>94048213Sounds like you have a new husband AND a new wife to me, go seduce 'em both
How do we fix Lunars................
>>94049719The joke is, you can't.
>>94049719What's your problem with them?
>>94031264Weekly/Monthly Updatea conjoined update for both as aforesaid>PredevelopmentSidereal JumpstartAbyssal CompanionInfernals>First DraftExalted Essay Collection lol>DevelopmentChampions of the Divine FlameEssence Player’s GuideSidereals CompanionAlchemicals>EditingExigents Jumpstart>Art Notes PrepExigents VTT Tokens>Art DirectionMiracles of Divine Flame (Exigents Companion)Abyssals: Sworn to the GraveAlchemicals (Crowdfunding) – Sending sketch feedback back over to Gong… they still owe us a few more pieces but moving right along>LayoutEssence: Pillars of Creation (Essence Companion) – Approved Sketches for the three DAC redos… and sent Gong’s sketches for the cover offEssence: Deeds Yet Undone (Adventure Trilogy) – Sent feedback to Maria for the artists… so hopefully we’ll have finals in soon>PressExigents: Out of the Ashes: Reviewing quotesExigents Storyteller Screen: Looking at proofsEssence: Tomb of Memory Jumpstart: Errata inputEssence Charm Cards: Got about half the PoDs set up...Sidereals: Charting Fate’s Course: Index in. Awaiting Page XXsSidereals novella: Errata shut down this weekif you have the novella advance pdfs, get your errata in
>>94050537They're thematically anemic, have little place in the setting and have become little more than a vehicle for pandering to furry fuckwits.
>>94050947Despite Lunars being called furry bait, furfags prefer to play Sola or Infernal beastmen.
>>94051069Anoyher testament to how lame and irrelevant they are.
>>94049719Reskin Alchemical Charms, use Gifts as something of a cut above mutations so that the Lunars' hybrid forms aren't exactly identical to just turning into one of the beastfolk.(3e Alchemicals will be dropping soon-ish, incidentally)
>>94051295This is because Lunars are a very specific form of shapeshifters.And furfag ocs don't shapeshift.>>94051368Cursed born is currently up.
>>94051368>(3e Alchemicals will be dropping soon-ish, incidentally)Oh cool, I'll live long enough to see my favorite splat assraped beyond recognition by the team of incompetents in charge of this edition.In theory, at least, unless they develop comercially accessible cryonics.
>>94049719Let them shapeshift more broadly and focus less on the Silver Pact and the war of the Realm and more on individual Lunars doing cool things. It's as easy and that, and anyone telling you differently is just overreacting to the way Lunars have been historically mishandled.
>>94049719Disregard balance limitations and let their shapeshifting actually work to duplicate at least the innate abilities of the things in their library instead of putting limits on it that make it less like turning into something and more like putting on something's flesh suit. Let them scale their abilities based on the characteristics of the beings whose forms they take - let 'i have transformed into a strength 10 tyrant lizard' count as a prerequisite for Strength 10 minimum charms while they're in that form, and make a bunch of charms for them that have high attribute prerequisites but low essence prerequisites to show how the Lunars have developed their skills to take advantage of their innate shapeshifting. Let the Wyld Hunt take them seriously and talk more about the sometimes-invasive procedures and second guessing they constantly have to perform to avoid shifters in their midst, rather than have them relying on the Lunars being fucking dumbasses who let their big fucking blinking arrows pointing at their heads saying 'lunar here' give them away. Incidentally, please remove the Tell's ability to give you away in any form, or better, just remove the Tell. Etc.
>>94052461The Charm idea is pretty good. What I'd do with the tell is turn it into a strength rather than a weakness by making it so it gives you a last-ditch save from powers that pierce through disguises. Like, Lunars are so good at shapeshifting that even under magical scrutiny, they still look like the form they're currently taking, but the person trying to see through their disguise now gets a chance to notice the Tell. Personally, I think Lunars should have more ties to the Underworld since they were the premier necromancers of the First Age. Like, they should know more than Sidereals do.
>>94053234>Personally, I think Lunars should have more ties to the Underworld since they were the premier necromancers of the First Age.>premier necromancers of the First AgeThat's a joke, right? They spent 1e and 2e stuck capped out at shadowlands circle sorcery.
>>94053234>What I'd do with the tell is turn it into a strength rather than a weakness by making it so it gives you a last-ditch save from powers that pierce through disguises. Like, Lunars are so good at shapeshifting that even under magical scrutiny, they still look like the form they're currently taking, but the person trying to see through their disguise now gets a chance to notice the Tell.You'll have to elaborate because this reads like gibberish to me.
>>94054371To me it sounds like 'the Tell is something that nobody can normally percieve, but deception defeating magic sees it on your shapeshifted form instead of seeing your true self'. So, if you had a fox tail, it's only show up under something like Eye of the Unconquered Sun or Fugue of Truth if you weren't in a true form, so like if you were shapeshifted into a fish it'd only show up under those charms instead of at any point somebody with mental defenses looks at you funny.To me it sounds like 'what's the point' and 'why bother' when those charms are so incredibly limited and rare anyway, you might as well just make it a knack or a charm or something and be rid of the Tell altogether. It is an active curse hampering the Lunar Exalted for no in-character reason (no other shapeshifters have it, and it doesn't fit Luna's themes), it has absolutely zero benefit to the Lunar Exalted and out of character purely exists to shit on their main gimmick and make it weaker so that other characters 'have a chance' despite multiple editions of Lunars being dogwater, and because it's a furry thing. Just make something similar an easy access charm and you're done.
>>94054435To me it sounds like it should be an optional Flaw taken at character creation if the player wants to hamstring themselves so badly. Otherwise yeah, it's pointless other than serving as furrybait.
>>94054454I guess it's one of those things the developers thought necessary so that the demigods wouldn't feel overpowered despite that being the point of the game.How the fuck are they supposed to play an infiltrator with those dog shit limitations is beyond me.
>>94054563To this day I'm of the belief they haven't caught enough shit for openly stating you're not gonna get to play Alex Mercer as a Lunar.
>>94054563>>94054435Can you increase Tell Difficulty? I feel like it's weird that Disguises after a certain point might be better than Shapeshifting.
>>94055180>Can you increase Tell Difficulty? Subtle Silver Declaration is an entry level appearance charm that no-roll conceals it from people that've never seen it before if you're not glowing and generally makes it harder to perceive otherwise. It's beaten by magic. After that, no. Subtle Silver Declaration is also a permanent charm with no cost, acting as a prerequisite for a whole tree. A charm tax in the truest sense of the word.>I feel like it's weird that Disguises after a certain point might be better than Shapeshifting.Disguises will never be better than shapeshifting for Lunars because your Tell is still there when you assume a disguise and people can still see through your disguise by spotting it. All the weaknesses with none of the benefits of quickly swapping shape around regardless of similarity to your base form.
>>94054697They quite literally have the powers to eat people to assume their forms and take their memories what the hell are they even talking about.>>94055180>Can you increase Tell Difficulty?1e had a charm that for that. If you didn't have the beast man transformation charm the tell became obscenely hard to detect even if it should be obvious, I don't remember the details but if that charm could be purchased multiple times no one would bitch about the tell.
>>94055316>I don't remember the details but if that charm could be purchased multiple times no one would bitch about the tell.Yeah, they would. Increasing the difficulty on detecting it doesn't change any of the reasons it's bad.
>>94055316>all this wordcount to propose a Charm tax (big no-no) as a solution for a game mechanic that shouldn't be in place because it serves no good purposeI applaud your diligence anon, but you gotta know when to throw the towel on a lost cause.
>>94055417I'm just guessing what the devs would probably do. At the table it's better off to ignore the tell for obvious reasons or make a 5 dot flaw out of it.
All I got on the devs mentioning Alex Mercer and Lunars is this: https://ericminton.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/lunar-exalted-what-are-they-to-you-thread-summary/
>>94055417>>94055437Odds are the Tell would be better off as a merit and/or flaw you get prestige amongst Kumar's for dealing with that shit or people have a hard time imitating your true form.
Any Exalted names characters that *haven't* been fuglified and are still hot? Any at all?
>>94055611Christ, even back then Holden was such an insufferable twat
>>94054697"Alex Mercer" wasn't even Alex Mercer. Enjoy your Liminals and fuck off.
>>94049719Throw out most of their precedent and start from first principles.They're the enkidu to the solar gilgamesh, the hanuman to the solar rama, they have been active since the usurpation but haven't steamrolled the realm, and they're shapechanger/tricksters.I'd rewire their mechanics so that they occasionally hit at a level that impresses even solars, but can't do consistency for shit - in 3d paradigm, say effects that make 10s count as 3,4,5 succesess instead of double 8s, etc. Sorcery charms that give them access to a bunch of spells, but randomly shifting as time passes. So any lunar sorceror may become able to summon demons or cast cloud trapeze even if they nominally don't know that spell, but just because they were able to do it last week doesn't mean they can do it today. Things like that, they're rewarded for leaning into it and improvising and acting unpredictably but punished for attempting consistency.I'd change their great curse to be more like the sidereal curse than the solar one - they can't stay on the same project, they get antsy, they give in to impulses. Lunars can build up solar-tier things, but they can't effectively coordinate logistics or maintenance long enough to build. They work best as the troubleshooter in someone else's plan, or the fickle visionary who relies on others to keep things working.
>>94058914ctdI'd change the lore, they also (mostly) turned on the solars at the usurpation. They built new wonders that were handed off to the dragon blooded during the shogunate, which steadily marginalized them for being unreliable. They policed the fair folk. When the balorian crusade and the great contagion hit, they were blamed and the dragon blooded and sidereals turned on them as traitors.I'd expand the map again, with the borders including a bunch of islands of creation cut off by stretches of the wyld, and the lunars would still rule empires there beyond the reach of the realm, the monsters of legend that dwell beyond the Threshold. The threshold itself would have a bunch of locations defined by massive lunar creations centuries or millennia old that have been taken over by mortals, dragon-blooded, or stranger things after their creators moved on. The realm would hunt lunars, but also have sort of an SCP thing to find, capture, contain, and either figure out how to use lunar creations or destroy them. The further you got from the blessed isle the more of the setting would be defined by lunar relics, as well as even more ancient workings the locals misinterpret as the work of the lunars because hardly anyone has ever heard of their true solar creators.
>>94058914>Sorcery charms that give them access to a bunch of spells, but randomly shifting as time passes. So any lunar sorceror may become able to summon demons or cast cloud trapeze even if they nominally don't know that spell, but just because they were able to do it last week doesn't mean they can do it today.This seems like it'd be a huge pain desu
>>94059059Just stick with your pointless catgirls then, idk.
>>94059174Anon was talking about the random spell slots, it is really hard to implement.Similar to blue magic.
>>94059183Nah, just have the GM keep spell cards, like charm cards, shuffle and deal one with each moon phase. (or "story") that's the one you get.
>>94054563>I guess it's one of those things the developers thought necessary so that the demigods wouldn't feel overpowered despite that being the point of the game.The Tell exists to solve two problems that massively conflict with each other:>Lunars are engaged in a nigh-endless war against the Realm and Immaculate Philosophy >Lunars, however, also, are Animal Exalted and need to have animalistic traits or they just look like Silver SolarsSo now we have this awkward mechanic kludged onto them so you can roleplay as a catgirl but also not immediately get stabbed by a monk the moment you go into civilization at all. Except as >>94051069 shows if you want to play a catgirl you just play a Solar from some backwater tribe where everyone's got cat ears instead of dealing with all the Lunar bullshit.
>>94056532V’Neef
For QE quick characters, when do you use the good trait and bad trait dice?
>>94055611>>94057971>>94054697Looking at more of the blogposts. I have no words.
>>94061521is this fucking insane clown arguing a dragon, crocodile, and literal fucking army should all have the same level of lethality?
>>94061770No he’s arguing that fighting a lion is a different kind of fight then fighting 50 men and therefore that it should take different Charms to do because someone capable of one is not necessarily capable of the other. A position that is no less asinine and ridiculous for that clarification.
>>94061770He's arguing that abstraction removes the ability for characters to have niche, specialty power. He then builds on that principle by saying that he'd like to make 3e a game where a dragon's basic attacks should not necessarily be strictly more powerful than a crocodile pulling off it's specialty bite-deathroll attack, and that an army (let's say of unarmed peasants) rushing you shouldn't be the same kind of threat as a lion pouncing on you from ambush, and that within their niches they may be equally dangerous in ways that more highly abstracted combat would not allow.It's like... mosquitos are small and squishy, right? In an extremely abstracted combat scenario, you might have a Body stat of five while the mosquito has a Body stat of 0. The mosquito attacks you and does no damage. You attack the mosquito and oneshot it. That's the end of the combat encounter. In a more granular and less abstract game, they hide, they dodge, they poison you, and they retreat. It's possible for the mosquito to win. If you are, hypothetically, an extremely powerful hero in an extremely granular game, it might be possible for you to kill the city-destroying giant bug-man hybrid monster and still have trouble catching a mosquito.
How do you usually keep track of range bands? I remember there being some sort of circle or do you just say screw it?
>>94061521Why is SLS in the position he's in? I can understand Holden, Morke, Minton and Vance becoming devs, even if I disagree with and dislike some of what they say or write. They've all come up with some cool stuff. What has Sheppard contributed, though? I know he's not a dev but he's obviously influential in 3E circles, and I just don't understand why.
>>94062005I prefer to use zones, which can be summed up as saying that every easily distinguishable area is in it's own zone. So, if you're roof hopping, you might have a roof as a zone, then the washing lines over the street as a zone, then the other roof, then empty air as a zone (and below it is a street zone) with another roof zone on the other side of it, and so on and so forth.When I have to use rangebands, I use them as-written. Which is to say that how fast you go increases as you get further from where the scene started, and you think of a circle and put people in the circle. It can get pretty advanced when people go in different directions in the circle, and at that point I usually throw my hands up and go fuck it and keep reiterating ad-hoc over where everybody is in relation to each other every time someone moves.
>>94062029Dreams of the first age? He still is in because of seniority. I think he is working for decades at this point.
>>94061521>>94061770>>94061813>>94061925What does this have to do with Lunars and Alex Mercer though?
>>94062380Different conversation, anons were talking about weird shit they also found in that blog.
>>94062380The original poster bringing up the developers responding to people talking about Mercer was about the devs being shitters. Then we continued talking about the devs being shitters.
>>94062380>What does this have to do with Lunars and Alex Mercer though?At some point people compared the Prototype protagonist with the Lunar because of their similar powers. The developers apparently didn't enjoy the comparison and said that Alex Mercer doesn't fit their vision of what a Lunar should be.
>>94062005>How do you usually keep track of range bands?I grab a scrap of paper and put the initials of the PCs on them because doing so on a laptop is just a little jankier than I would accept.
>>94062438>Alex Mercer doesn't fit their vision of what a Lunar should be.>consume people to get their shapes and memories.>regeneration.>hunted down by the government/WH.>carapace.>general super human stuff.>minor qol transformations.>super natural weapons.Is it because he doesn't turn in an animal?
>>94062481I don't get it either. I guess the tone was off or something vague along those lines.
>>94062481Don't forget the midgame ability that lets you get someone killed on the spot simply by accusing them of being you. Like >>94052461 said, the paranoia that Lunars would cause to in any group that knows anything about their abilities isn't represented in the writing at all. Hell, they should terrify civilians, imagine knowing there's shapeshifting demonic horrors out there that can steal your face and kill crowds of people without breaking a sweat.
>>94062613>>94062481No, they aren't saying that he doesn't fit as a Lunar. They just said his name offhand when discussing what powers q lunar should be able to emulate while transforming into weirder things or pretending to be ghosts.
>>94062743To be fair, the devs were claiming that turning in an animal is the core of the lunar identity.>John:>Excuse me? I understand you are disappointed at what you perceive to be a slight against yourself through our goal of upholding the core design elements of the Lunar Exalted, but we have never mocked the idea of Lunars turning into things other than animals. When we talk about them shifting into bestial battle forms and chimeric fusions of different beasts and you call that “zoo Exalted” you are the one who is mocking them turning into things “other than animals.” Every post from you in some way mocks Lunar players and what we plan to do for them. What you don’t seem to understand is that we have constituents other than yourself, and they form a majority of the fanbase, and we are not going to screw all of our customers just to make a few new customers, customers who hate the Lunars at their core and want them to be something else. So if you feel that your cries are falling on deaf ears, it’s because we’re not going to ruin the splat on your behalf by negating what they are through some horribly poor decision just to make you happy.This gets really ironic considering what happened to Infernals.
>>94062743Any of our moles in enemy territory (the Discord server) can confirm if there was any official statement on the parallels and whether or not they rejected him as an inspiration?
Exigents may have broken the game design, and Holdorke need to learn how to talk with people. >John:>The Chosen of Hydra would have no Charms that are not somehow impelling the Exalt toward a state of perfect hydra-like being. Ergo, the Lunars are not based on Greek monsters. There’s some intersection, though.>Holden:>Solars are able to conjure a sword out of their anima. Is conjuring things out of their anima a major Solar theme? Is their Charmset largely structured around pulling things out of thin air? If not, why can they conjure a sword out of their anima?Also, foreshadowing.>squidheadjax:>And the strength of whatever, speed of whatever, charms they talk about sound like just plain old dice adders. Yaaaaaay.>John:>Just as an FYI, every Charm that can be mapped to a roll is a dice adder.
>>94063247What the fuck is up with those people?
>>94031264Isn't it kind of sad that the best representation Exalted has in media is some Chinese puppet show?
>>94063593Self-indulgent, having they head up inside their own asses>Tokezo Tenken:>I’m not hatewheel, but my interpretation is that a Lunar that is aligned with the hydra would attack problems (often metaphorically) in the manner a hydra would. So if a Lunar emulating the hydra faces an obstacle and a solution is closed off, they would attack the problem with three more solutions.Basically, despite they core not being "Greek monsters", Lunars can emulate them.
>>94063776>Isn't it kind of sadNot really.And TBF is in many ways an antithesis of exalted as intended.
>>94063842>Brawl Supernal Solar dot webm
>>94063593Pathetic autists who have staked out a territory they think they're entitled to rule like tyrants.They're basically the precursors of the modern internet tranny janny stereotype.
>>94062029>>94062327He's an editor and he's not good at his job.
>>94062481Yes. Lunars are just furries to the Devs even though furries prefer to play as non-lunar beast folk.
>>94064435I know he's an editor and I know he's not good at his job, that's why I wonder why he has it. Well, that and I wonder about the sort of unofficial status he seems to have. Like, people seem to put a whole lot more stock on what he says than what he says actually merits.
>>94064482I think he's been there since like 1e and he's probably willing to work for cheap.
>>94064482Congratulations, you have discovered the concept of nepotism and connections.
>>94064435From his comments, Holdorke didn't let him do his job.>>94064482Seniority, he is pretty influential but the devs can walk over him.
>>94062902>and they form a majority of the fanbase,Narrator: “They did not form the majority of the fanbase”>>94063593Idk it’s a little sad. Holden comes up with some good ideas at times but damn he cannot take criticisms at all and will die on the dumbest of hills.
Prrrrrrrrrrobably a "Storyteller's ruling" kinda question, but can the "attitude" Charms be combined or it's only one attitude period even if you have all the relevant Charms?
>>94064861He wouldn't have fixed anything. Morke was a noose around holden's neck. He was horrible with mechanics but they couldn't kick him out. Not every bad charm but most of them were his.
>>94065321Do you mean attribute charms? Usually only combine if they are similar enough in nature. Simple charms are limited to one per turn. Supplemental only work if they supplement specific action. Reflexive can in theory combine with anything. But it depends on what the dice pool is.
>>94067216I should clarify I'm talking about Abyssal Charms. Calculated Avarice Understanding, Master Criminal Panache and Bleak Veteran Method. Can they be used in conjunction since they don't quite intersect or can I only affect one Charm at a time?
What are you looking forward to from 3e right now, if anything? Trying to look past my own doom and gloom mindset to see if, I don't know, there's any signs of anything being at least worth pirating.>>94063776>>94063842See also: Asura's Wrath (scales the game shies away from, resurrection), Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (modern setting) and Hades (resurrection spam). All the best representations of Exalted in media I can think of, have shit all to do with "Exalted as intended"And to be fair, I'm not sure even the developers ever had a coherent vision of "Exalted as intended" as opposed to "Exalted as we'd like to sell to new players" and "Exalted as we insist you actually play the game as, because designing rules for high-level enemies in a game where you're supposed to feel powerful is hard, and we're trying not to be D&D"
>>94068455Speaking of Ashura, are there any brawl builds centered around multiple arms?
>>94068492I think Lunars have it.
>>94068455>And to be fair, I'm not sure even the developers ever had a coherent vision of "Exalted as intended".Considered what I read from 1e, "WoD, the dark ages 2: fantasy world edition.It varies with the sub-gameline, but it follows similar beats to WoD.>"Exalted as we insist you actually play the game as, because designing rules for high-level enemies in a game where you're supposed to feel powerful is hard, and we're trying not to be D&D"Despite whatever Borgstrom said, the high conceptual/power stuff reads as background noise.Something the writers can point at to claim they are contrarians.
>>94068705It's particularly weird to me that 3e, the edition trying to make a clean break from previous editions' concepts, is also touted as a "return to form in 1e" to the extent that they put Grand Maw in Abyssals as a sorcery initiation patron. That's a deep fucking cut for anyone who hasn't played both Exalted and Orpheus
>>94068705>Considered what I read from 1e, "WoD, the dark ages 2: fantasy world edition.Pretty much, as enjoyable as exalted is to read about it is rough.
>>94053549If I recall correctly, Lunars get Shadowlands Circle Necromancy, which even the best Twilight Solar is ALSO capped at. ONLY Abyssals (and some Deathlords but not even all of them) get Void Circle, and the Abyssals have only existed for five years.
>>94067305I mean they do different things and they can interact with people in beneficial ways if you finesse it.
>>94049719You have to change THE LORE. Sadly THE LORE Is unchangeable in this context because making the lunars bigger causes them to intrude on the territory of other factions. Lunars don't fit anywhere. They have no space left for them
>>94070642I keep telling people, the way to make Lunars fit somewhere without breaking THE LORE is to give them Ws in parts of the LORE that most of the other Exalts have difficulty interacting with like >the bottom of the sea, or a theoretically manse-terraformed sky kingdom>the darkbroods' underground depths>the fringes of the Underworld, away from the Deathlords' powerbase>the more disreputable, impoverished parts of Yu-Shan>conceptual spaces between dream and reality (where Lunars can fight Raksha for human dreams)You want the setting to stay the same. Fine. The way to do it is to expand THE LORE beyond the established/known locales of Creation so you can point to strange, foreign places where Lunars have carved out a non-Realm-fighting niche for themselves
>>94070655Those all work, but only if Lunars are made weaker, more on the level of sidereals.
>>94070675I thought that was the level they were already at as Celestials?
>>94070675...Lunars are already supposed to be on the level of Sidereals dude, they just have different problems than office politics.
>>94070686>>94070700Lunars are basically solaroids in 3e. Check their charms. They can toss out dicepool in comparable size to solars. Solars are still ahead but the gap is small
>>94070717I mean, is the problem really that Lunars are too strong, or that Solars are too weak (rather, have too many meaningless filler Charms) in 3e?
>>94070642What a lot of writers (and people in general, honestly) don't understand is that war and indeed high-scale conflicts are a constant back-and-forth where territory is gained and lost in increments and is always hotly contested. It's not a one-sided stompfest unless one side is hopelessly outmatched in every way possible, and it doesn't magically reverse course on a dime (though allowances can be made for that, given the setting). Maybe some of them do understand but struggle to represent it properly in the writing. A better way of conveying this and giving plot hooks would be to give a rundown of each major faction's victories and losses in various arenas of a given region.For example, let's say that Prasad is still under Dynastic control but they had to divest resources into putting down an attempted uprising aided by Lunar-suborned mercantile companies, and the Sidereals are making inroads into investigating the presence of Lunar agents in those companies but also face difficulties because an important regional trading god is stonewalling the investigation as petty revenge for a past slight. Meanwhile the inquisitorial proceedings and preemptive embargoes are worsening relations with said mercantile concerns and not just worsening the economy but brewing unrest that the Realm's enemies may take advantage of. Add inter-Great House politics and attempts at power grabs by the PRasadi Cadet Houses and you have a firedust keg ready for the PCs to ignite, no matter what splat they play.
>>94069741You remember correctly that Lunars are capped at shadowlands circle necromancy, or first circle necromancy, but not that Solars are also capped there. Solars instead get capped at labyrinth circle necromancy, which is the second circle.>>94070675Sidereals are historically Solar tier within their limited charm pool.
>>94071590>war and indeed high-scale conflicts are a constant back-and-forth where territory is gained and lost in increments and is always hotly contestedNot really in the kind of genre Exalted is trying to fit into, and not really in the kind of historical periods it's trying emulate. Alexander the Great's campaign was defined by decisive battles, the Romance of Three Kingdoms is all about key defining moments, and Dynasty Warriors depicts the clash of heroes as very much able to cut through the struggle of armies. Mechanically, it also seems very unlikely that warfare will devolve into grueling back-and-forth struggle over territory in Exalted, and we don't really see that happening in the lore either. Instead, we see the Empress taking over most of the world in grand sweeping conquest in the first century of her reign, the Realm+Thorns being rebuffed by the Confederation of Rivers a handful of times - not partial victories and no counter-conquest - and we see in the north that the failed crusades were failures in full, not making creeping progress, and also not ceding territory to the Haslanti League.
>>94072228The Empress had a nuke, and Yurgen had a fair number of setbacks in CB: Dawn
>mfw I realize I keep making every character I play a sorcerer of some sortIs it bad? Is it wrong? I mean, it opens so many possibilities and story hooks, and I never make big enough uses that it busts the campaign or the setting.
>>94072557>Yurgen had a fair number of setbacks in CB: DawnNot in any way similar to what you described.
>>94072649>Is it bad? Is it wrong?Not if you keep wanting to play a sorcerer.>>94072649>I mean, it opens so many possibilities and story hooks, and I never make big enough uses that it busts the campaign or the setting.Then you're probably playing Exalted right, sorcerer or no.
>>94072150Hm. Maybe 3e bumped Lunars up to Labyrinth, then? I dunno. Unless way back in the First Age Lunars were the ones who CARED more about Necromancy despite being worse at it? Doesn't 3e give them Charms that make zombies even without Necromancy?I'm confused.
>>94073225>Maybe 3e bumped Lunars up to Labyrinth, then? I dunno.Yes, they did that.>Unless way back in the First Age Lunars were the ones who CARED more about Necromancy despite being worse at it?A Lunar discovered it first, debatably, in 2e. Then they were quickly overtaken in skill, power, and interest by Solars. 1e doesn't discuss necromancy's origins in much detail.
>>94072228>the Romance of Three Kingdoms is all about key defining moments>The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is set during the final years of the Han dynasty, which lasted from 168–220 AD. The novel covers a period of almost 100 years, from the time when China broke into three competing kingdoms. The Three Kingdoms period was from 220–280 CE, and the three warring states were Wei, Shu-Han, and Wu. >Time period>Han dynasty>168–220 AD>Three Kingdoms period>220–280 CEThis is a bigger time span than 99% of exalted campaigns.
>>94075438112 years total, yeah it also sucks because the Realm Civil War doesn't really matter in the end due to the Infernal machinations and Deathlord shenanigans. And some other nonsense I'm not including
>>94075438Side note, as a Roman fan. I find it fascinating that the Three Kingdoms period happened at the same time as the Crisis of the Third Century
>>94076317It is fascinating. >Yes, ancient China was aware of the Roman Empire, though mutual awareness was low and direct contact was limited:>Awareness>The Chinese likely became aware of the Roman Empire through merchants traveling the Silk Road.Han reports described the Roman Empire as a powerful state, and called it "Da Qin" (Great China).>Attempts at contact>There are records of a few attempts at direct contact between the two empires:>In 97 AD, Chinese general Ban Chao tried to send his envoy Gan Ying to Rome, but the Parthians stopped him from going past the Persian Gulf.>Beginning in 166 AD, Chinese sources describe several Roman embassies arriving in China, likely via the South China Sea in the Jiaozhi province (now northern Vietnam).Other embassies are recorded in 226 and 284 AD, and the first recorded Byzantine embassy arrived in 643 AD.>The Roman and Han empires were roughly contemporaneous, and both controlled up to half of the world's population at their peaks.Comparative studies of the two empires focus on their similar scale, and how they rose and declined around the same time.
>>940762761e outright said to ignore the Solar return to make it work.
>>94076865I believe it's more accurate to say that it's a good idea to mostly ignore the Solar return because they don't directly effect the Blessed Isle. That it's best to assume they don't cross the sea. Which is fair, because it's kind of hard for them to do that on a large scale and the occasional Solar popping up to infiltrate and/or murder some people even on the Blessed Isle is, while not business as usual or normal in any way and definitely something that gets spoken of as a spooky story and amped up as one of the reasons the Wyld Hunt is needed and Immaculate philosophy is right, still something that happened pre-return on occasion.
>>94070655The problem is that Exalts like humans. The number of Exalts who abandon humanity entirely is roughly equal to the number of Exalts who cannot live among humans (Abyssals and Sidereals). So either Lunars are completely incompatible with human society on the level of Resonance or Arcane Fate, the most human Lunar is even more of a transhuman alien than the least human Infernal, or Lunars start moving humans into these other lands. If Lunars live among humans, than either these 300/400 societies are really small (in which case Lunars suck because they can't support people in their alleged areas of specialty as well as mortals can do in Creation) or Solars are going to start popping up in Lunar societies in large numbers, at which point Lunars and Solars are back to filling the same niche with one of them doing it much worse.
>>94061447Simply, when you think appropriate.A gorilla would use the Good trait for things like Athletics or Brawl, but might use the bad trait for things like Stealth. Or in some cases, like Bureaucracy, it might have 0...or 1They're meant to save time for you statting them out fully.
Was sunflower imagery ever used for solars and/or Conky?
>>94048261>>94048261Have that situation in our game (except it's a Lunar and Abyssal). Mortal wife was suspected dead, but instead she's a Liminal now. Now the Abyssal is figuring how to share.
>>94059059Just tie it into phases of the moon corresponding to the three castes and depending on the phase you get one of three sets of spells. Alternatively, you have to evenly distribute your spells between phases and during the corresponding phase you waive the Willpower costs or maybe even get to cast those spells as if they were your Control Spell.
>>94079168No?>>94079125>Exalts like humans2e Ma-Ha-Suchi. Checkmate, humanists.
>>94079125>If Lunars live among humans, than either these 300/400 societies are really smalNah, those human societies are just magically supported to live underwater. Or on the fringes of the underworld. Or in dreams. They're beeg, they've just nothing to do with the standard Directions.It's Ghibli logic nigga, the community lives not in a terrain hotly contested for by (relatively) conventional military forces but in some sort of sacred grove-equivalent guarded by the Lunar.
>>94079746That doesn't help you from getting trapped by the other half of the dilemma. If Lunar societies are numerous and not small, then a huge fraction of Solars wind up Exalting there.
>>94079736>2e Ma-Ha-Suchi. Checkmate, humanistsWasn't it more "hate civilization"?
>>94079798You see any humans among his forces?No?It's almost like humanity is synonymous with civilisation in the Age of Sorrow or something
>>94079772Yes, but there are hundreds of millions in Creation, and 300 SolarsInstead of waiting for the worst gacha rate, Lunars just do their own stuff.
>>94079813Despite what Dace claims, beastmen and wyld mutants are humans.And Lunars employed an overweight number of humans in 1e.
>>94079772See >>94079817, honestly you're starting to come across like you're splitting hairs trying to make up a problem that even mainline Exalted doesn't try to pretend exists. You see any Abyssal book complaining that Solars keep Exalting in Deathlord-worshiping territory and completely overturning their plans?
>>94079844>beastmen and wyld mutants are humans.Yeah no I'm with Dace on this one, if I see some ungodly half-leech half-man thing singing the praises of his silver moon monster as the rest of his brood eats people alive I'm not identifying it as my kind
>>94079772That doesn't really seem like a problem to me, at all.>>94079813If there are beastmen in his forcers, there are humans in his forces.
>>94079858It's not a matter of opinion, though. Beastmen have human souls, they're humans with extra bits rather than anthropomorphic animals, they're objectively human.
>>94079858The cannibals were made by the Solars, and their only difference from the standard human, is their albinism.
>>94079817I'm not saying that Lunars would create huge societies for the purpose of trying to catch Solar Exaltations in the event that the Solars ever got freed. I'm saying that, when X% of the human population winds up in Lunar territory, then ~1.5*X% of the Solars wind up coming from Lunar territory, which is quite different than the situation that people like for the setting, where Solars are mostly from societies that are run by regular people with a hostile empire that wants to kill them off in the distance.>>94079850>>94079858It isn't a problem as long as you're willing to make the majority of Lunars into insane elder tyrants who oppose Solars and you can only really play a Lunar who is rebelling against the rest of their splat.
>>94079889Yes, but there were only a dozen or so Solars around.Statistics were against it happening outside of st wanting so.
>>94079889>It isn't a problem as long as you're willing to make the majority of Lunars into insane elder tyrants who oppose Solars and you can only really play a Lunar who is rebelling against the rest of their splat.It's also not a problem if you just, you know, don't make the majority of Lunars into insane elder tyrants who oppose Solars. Other Exalts have their established societies, Solars don't. Other Exalts are part of the status qui one way or another, Solars come to break that status quo. There's plenty to distinguish the roles of Solars and Lunars in the setting right there, without needing to come up with any convoluted bullshit. Beyond that, what every Exalt type really needs is just cool aesthetics and powers that are both distinct and fun in play.
>>94079904And that's fine in the backstory. But as of five years ago, there's now 150 Solars appearing randomly among non-Autochtonian humans. When your circle tries to restart the Solar Deliberative, how many Lunar loyalists show up?>>94079916If they don't oppose Solars and aren't insane enough to make Solars oppose them, then Solars who wound up in the territory of the friendly Lunar elders.would vastly outperform the ones who didn't, due to the support of networks of elder Celestials, and even they would be overshadowed by the friendly elder Lunars who would be better off saving Creation on their own.>Beyond that, what every Exalt type really needs is just cool aesthetics and powers that are both distinct and fun in play.Literally the philosophy that went into designing Exigents.
>>94079951So Lunars can't colonize the underworld because some Lunars want to ally themselves with Solars?
>>94080015If Lunars want to colonize the Underworld with humans, and the Lunars don't absolutely suck at colonizing the Underworld with humans, then five years ago those Lunars got some Solars in their Underworld human colonies.
>>94079951>When your circle tries to restart the Solar Deliberative, how many Lunar loyalists show up?Depends on how many the ST wants to show up. It's fine if some do show up, it's even fine if plenty of them show up. It's just one more case of differences between Solars PCs have to account for and deal with if they want to get a new Solar Deliberative going.>>94079951>they don't oppose Solars and aren't insane enough to make Solars oppose them, then Solars who wound up in the territory of the friendly Lunar elders.would vastly outperform the ones who didn't, due to the support of networks of elder Celestials, and even they would be overshadowed by the friendly elder Lunars who would be better off saving Creation on their own.Not necessarily, because, get this: Solars are going to be disruptive in places where they appear. Lunar rulers don't have to be anti-Solar for the appearance of a bunch of new Solars with ideas of their own to mess with their plans. Solars Exalting in Lunar-run nations will have a lot more complicated and challenging domestic politics to navigate compared to Solars Exalting in mortal-run societies.>Literally the philosophy that went into designing Exigents.Pretty much the opposite of that, as Exigents, by their very nature, don't have either splat-wide aesthetics or splat-wide powerset. Besides, Exigents are fine in concept, and as is the case with so many things in Exalted, the problem lies in execution.
>>94080044Alright, sounds like both a cool possible origin for a Solar and an interesting plot hook for Lunars.
>>94080063What percentage of Lunars colonized the Underworld? How large is the average Lunar Underworld colony? I hope it's no smaller than Gem, which is an example of mortals thriving in a hostile environment on their own. I also hope the other Lunars were colonizing other places instead of dying like losers.And once you follow all that logic, the Lunar controlled otherworld colonies aren't a "plot hook", they're bigger than a Direction.
>>94080104Rolling my eyes here, anon. What if not all Lunars stary colonies, what if a Gem-tier city in the Underworld has more than one Lunar behind it, what if the Underworld is a significantly more hostile and challenging environment than the part if the South where Gem's located? Your logic is just silly.
>>94080140>What if not all Lunars stary coloniesThe percentage of Lunars who didn't colonize places outside of Creation is the percentage of Lunars who are total losers who never accomplished anything.>what if a Gem-tier city in the Underworld has more than one Lunar behind itA Gem tier city state is what people without Exaltations can achieve even in areas that are terrible to live in. It is the lower bound below which Lunars are worse than the heroic mortals they Exalted from. If Lunars can neither make territory as livable as a desert, help their people live in a land as harsh as a desert, nor seize land more valuable than a desert, then they're losers instead of worthy contestants for the control of the world.>what if the Underworld is a significantly more hostile and challenging environment than the part if the South where Gem's located?Then the Lunars are losers for being unable to conquer better territory for their people to live in.
>>94080248>The percentage of Lunars who didn't colonize places outside of Creation is the percentage of Lunars who are total losers who never accomplished anything.Oh, so you think that starting a nation is the only worthwhile goal and only noteworthy achievement an Exalt could have? Why do you think that, anon? I mean, I don't think that's the case, personally.>Then the Lunars are losers for being unable to conquer better territory for their people to live in.Uh-huh. That's one odd way of thinking. If seeing someone make literal fucking land of the dead a place where the living can thrive doesn't make you think "holy fuck the guy doing that is cool and powerful as hell" but "lol what a loser, why didn't he just settle somewhere else", I legitimately, not as an insult but as a genuine opinion, think you might be more at home with some other game than Exalted.
>>94080347>Why do you think that, anon?1e was very diverse in how it presented what Exalts could accomplish or how they acted. Terrestrials might rule the largest and most powerful empire in the world, or they could be weird bandits whose leader owned a magic cloak. Sidereals could be the secret conspiracy behind the largest religion in the world or they could be minor trouble shooters who went on missions to make sure that individual humans died at the right time and place in exchange for a middle class salary by the standards of the city they live in. An individual Solar could carve out a new nation large enough to view on a map within 10 years, or they could spend 100 years trying and failing to conquer a single empty set of ruins.People overwhelmingly liked the former, where Exalts are fighting each other for the fate of the world, no matter how much the writers wrung their hands and said players secretly wanted lower powered and more down to Earth Exalts.>I legitimately, not as an insult but as a genuine opinion, think you might be more at home with some other game than Exalted.No other Exalt splat (not counting nuExalts) has their entire population unanimously waste their time on "cool" but impractical bullshit. And if the Lunar can't even do as well as mortals in a desert, I'd question to what extent he can be said to be making "a place where the living can thrive".
>>94080104>Gem>large than a direction.Is this shitposting filler? so the thread doesn't hit the time limit sub 200 posts?
>>94080140>Your logic is just silly.It reminds me of Holden's hydra talk.
>>94080522>No other Exalt splat (not counting nuExalts) has their entire population unanimously waste their time on "cool" but impractical bullshit.>unanimouslyIs this some kind of a bit where you pretend to not have read the posts you reply to and avoid addressing what's actually said in them? Because that has no relevance whatsoever to anything I said.>And if the Lunar can't even do as well as mortals in a desert, I'd question to what extent he can be said to be making "a place where the living can thrive".Gem's in Creation, anon. It has access to Creation trade routes. It works because it can use its vast wealth to import all kinds of shit it needs. Underworld is a whole different level of difficult, and being able to maintain any kind of permanent mortal population of a respectable size there is important. Saying that being able to rival one of the largest mortal cities in Creation is the absolute minimum standard a colony in another realm inherently inhospitable to life has to meet to be at all impressive is, honestly, insane, especially considering that you apparently think that maintaining a colony that size should be something for a single Lunar rather than a group of Lunars should achieve. I mean, every Solar definitely couldn't start a Gem-sized Underworld colony, so is the lesson here that Solars, too, are mostly losers?
>>94080597Now that you mention in, there is something similar in that anon's logic.
>>94080522This is my problem with exigents. They make the world look smaller. Instead of having a bunch of races or creatures that have naturally low numbers to make the world seem bigger. We just have a bunch of exigents everywhere which reduces all threats to exalts versus exalts.
>>94080555If a Lunar can do as well as a mortal ruler in 700, then 300 Lunars can do 300 times that well. Gem has "about a million people" (CoTD: South, p. 68) and is also a new city from the Second Age. That means that there should be about 300 million people in Lunar territories, minimum. Mortals need to be at least 3 times as good as Lunars at leading mortals in life in harsh conditions for the Lunar territories to have less than an average Direction's worth of people.>>94080620>Is this some kind of a bit where you pretend to not have read the posts you reply to and avoid addressing what's actually said in them? Because that has no relevance whatsoever to anything I said.If it's not better than living in Creation, why do it then?>Gem's in Creation, anon.Lunars start in Creation. If their homeland is so much less deadly, why move?
>>94080623It is a form of "all or nothing" and zero-sum game.
>>94080638Building a colony in the underworld takes time, it is possible for one to do it over the course if centuries, or a group in a fraction of the time.The underworld itself is more inhospitable than the south, specially with the essence respiration problems from the previous editions.
>>94080638>If a Lunar can do as well as a mortal ruler in 700, then 300 Lunars can do 300 times that well. Gem has "about a million people" (CoTD: South, p. 68) and is also a new city from the Second Age. That means that there should be about 300 million people in Lunar territories, minimum. Mortals need to be at least 3 times as good as Lunars at leading mortals in life in harsh conditions for the Lunar territories to have less than an average Direction's worth of people.Now this has to be a bit. The idea that rulership is something that can be quantified in such a way that saying that someone does rulership "300 times as well" as a mortal is completely ridiculous, as is the idea that Gem's success is entirely down to the abilities of its ruler, as is the downplaying of the challenges of settling the Underworld - again, the literal land of the dead - as is the idea that every Lunar nation should be a single Lunar's project rather than that of a group of Lunars, as is the idea that every Lunar would strive to rule, as is the idea that rulership is literally the only worthy goal for an Exalt. Surely no one could fit so many so stupid ideas in so few sentences without actively trying to do so.>Lunars start in Creation. If their homeland is so much less deadly, why move?Good point, why wouldn't every Exalt just stay in their home village, plowing the fields and the local maidens?
>>94080654Then you give me a number. "Lunars are a powerful and noteworthy force on the map of world politics, as proven by the fact that X million people live in lands with a Lunar king or worship under a Lunar high priest or work for a Lunar led trading company.">>94080684Then why do it?>>94080689>Good point, why wouldn't every Exalt just stay in their home village, plowing the fields and the local maidens?Because they're trying to conquer/protect/destroy the world, not because they decide to do something difficult for no reason. This whole thing started with someone saying that Lunars could easily live in places other than Creation. If, in fact, it is super difficult for them to have their people live outside of Creation that undermines the whole premise.
>>94080522>No other Exalt splat (not counting nuExalts) has their entire population unanimously waste their time on "cool" but impractical bullshit.They don't do anything, really.>>94080709Isn't conquer/destroy also "doing difficult stuff for no reason"?
>>94080751Conquering the world has numerous advantages. Destroying it does too, assuming you think existence is bad.Nobody has given a reason why the Lunars should all want to move to other worlds beyond it being easier than staying and fighting the Realm. But once it's pointed out that, if it's so easy, there should be tons of people living under the Lunars there suddenly it's this huge epic accomplishment that the Lunars can barely pull off, meaning that they no longer have a reason to bother.
>>94080811>Nobody has given a reason why the Lunars should all want to move to other worlds beyond it being easier than staying and fighting the Realm. BNot really, specially with the pre-3e Deathlords around.
>>94080709>Then you give me a number. "Lunars are a powerful and noteworthy force on the map of world politics, as proven by the fact that X million people live in lands with a Lunar king or worship under a Lunar high priest or work for a Lunar led trading company."In terms of how impressive things are, the locations of Lunar nations are at least as important as those numbers you're asking for. Mortals can run fuckhuge empires. Mortals can't run even a moderately-sized kingdom in the Underworld. Latter is more inherently superhuman than former.>Because they're trying to conquer/protect/destroy the worldWhy?>If, in fact, it is super difficult for them to have their people live outside of Creation that undermines the whole premise.Nah, if kingdom-building rather than just safe, comfortable living is on the agenda, then it should be easily understandable why some Lunar might take a look at everyone competing to get a piece of Creation, then take a look at Underworld or the Wyld, with more native dangers but with fewer Exalts to compete with, with no Wyld Hunt and with all kinds of exotic resources, and then decide to go for some otherworldly colonization.
>>94080811>Nobody has given a reason why the Lunars should all want to move to other worlds>allWhat is this "all" bullshit you keep trying to push, anon?
>>94080838>In terms of how impressive things are, the locations of Lunar nations are at least as important as those numbers you're asking for. Mortals can run fuckhuge empires. Mortals can't run even a moderately-sized kingdom in the Underworld. Latter is more inherently superhuman than former.People don't just decide to do "impressive" things for no reason. That just makes Lunars look dumb.>Why?Because it was more interesting to players than having the books point out a bunch of tombs of ancient Solars for them to raid, so the writers made it a rule that Exaltations went to people who would have epic ambitions.>with all kinds of exotic resourcesBut no resources that are useful for raising human life expectancy or lowering the infant mortality rate, apparently.
>>94080811>Conquering the world has numerous advantagesDoesn't conquering the underworld falls under this? Since it is also part of the world.
>>94080903Sure, but then you've replaced Lunars all getting killed by the Realm with no noticeable gain only for the Solars to sweep in and deal with the Realm during the campaign with Lunars all getting killed by the Deathlords with no noticeable gain only for the Solars to sweep in and deal with the Deathlords during the campaign. But this conversation was about colonizing other places with existing people, not abandoning your people to go live with ghosts forever.
>>94080882>But no resources that are useful for raising human life expectancy or lowering the infant mortality rate, apparently.Yeah, resources to be found in the Underworld are, obviously, not likely to do either, which says nothing about how valuable they'd be to the Lunar ruler(s). This should go without saying, anon.
>>94080989What value are the Lunars getting out of it, then? If all you want is the resources, why even move there entirely? Let most of your people stay in Creation and only move enough to keep the ghost mine or whatever going.
>>94081012Are you incapable or unwilling to read? Because you're obviously not reading what people are saying. Place with less competition, no Wyld Hunt and exotic resources, that's what Lunar are getting. This is starting to get pretty frustrating, anon. You either don't read or don't understand what people say to you, you make weird leaps of logic, and you're obviously desperately reaching to dismiss the ideas presented instead of genuinely, calmly and critically thinking about them..
>>94081073What's your opinion, then? How few people do you think can live in societies that are politically or religiously or economically dominated by at least one Lunar before they look irrelevant? What's the limit below which you can say "Lunars might not be as strong as the Realm, but you can tell they're still a relevant global force because the 3/400 Lunars lead ___ million people between them" and not feel like an idiot because they're being outcompeted by purely mortal societies?
>>94081073The underworld isn't without it's hazards. Territory charms can only do so much. I wish lunars had Void sorcery to reflect solars with more loopholes to make it less common but as written they aren't all too suited towards the underworld. Lunars being tied to shapeshifting has kneecapped them.
>>94081302>What's your opinion, then? How few people do you think can live in societies that are politically or religiously or economically dominated by at least one Lunar before they look irrelevant?Depends on what else Lunars do. How many behemoths have they slain, how many Dynasts have they assassinated, how many priceless Artifacts some Lunar thief has stolen, how many high-tier Manses or First Age ruins or locales rarer and more valuable yet are denied to others because some Lunar has decided to claim it as their own, and so on. How many people live under Lunars is not the question to define how relevant they are - it's a part of it, to be sure, but not all of it.
>>94081339> Lunars being tied to animals has kneecapped them.FTFY
>>94081563Sidereals manage to fight demons and assassinate Dynasts and shit while also secretly controlling over half the world. I would estimate that Solars, in only five years, already control over 7 million people all purely thanks to the Bull's circle while everyone else runs around stealing Artifacts and fighting Behemoths.So how many million people do the Lunars lead? I'm asking you, in your headcanon. What's the cutoff point below which them all stealing a thousand Artifacts they can't afford to attune at once isn't enough to stop them from looking like a joke?
>>94081680>So how many million people do the Lunars lead? I'm asking you, in your headcanon. What's the cutoff point below which them all stealing a thousand Artifacts they can't afford to attune at once isn't enough to stop them from looking like a joke?I already answered you. It depends on what else they do. There is no specific number of people a type of Exalted absolutely has to lead to be relevant, anon, and asking for such a number shows a profound misunderstanding of not only the game and the setting but just basic logic.
>>94081970And that's why canon Lunars belong in the dust bin of irrelevancy alongside the Liminals, the splat that fights ghosts. Who gives a shit about politics or religion or trade when there's GHOSTS to fight! That's where the focus really ought to be.
>>94082065>Who gives a shit about politics or religion or trade You can do all this in the underworld, specially religion.
>>94081339At least they got the second circle necromancy.
Is the Abyssal Opposite of the Zenith Caste called the Nadir yet?
>>94083025Abyssals counterpart are named Midnight, nadir is the nu!Infernals night analog.
The dub for the first episode of Thunderbolt Fantasy is out, what it for inspiration.
>>94082543I feel like Void with a bunch of hoops would have been more appropriate. But my ideal version of celestials is one in which Solars, Lunars, and Sidereals are only good a specific niches like a rock paper scissors chart. Rather than this 100 versus 80 versus 70.
>ITT: The only relevant or important thing an Exalt can do is conquer the world and rebuild magitech civilization I love this episode.
>>94084422Remove magitec and you get 3e, and 1e circle too.
>>94084422The real reason why Exalted is unfixable is because both the fanbase and the writer team is full of autistic spastics who insists there is only one truth and they know it. Exalted would unironically be in a better condition if it was full of the kind of casuals that enjoy Critical Role and just want to roleplay a funny sun king/shapeshifter/fate ninja who shoots arrows into Chejop's office that turn into pigs without getting into heated 3 hours arguments about muh logistics.
>>94085305The fanbase/writers is too serious and self-righteous/indulgent for it.And 3e art style wouldn't attract vox machina fans.
>>94085485Exactly. There's also the fact that Vox Machina is, from what little I know of it, better at accomplishing what it purports to deliver than Exalted. Also Arcane got a second season so it's not like they're starving for gorgeous animation.
>>94085305If exalted wasn't trying to sell a specific narrative then it wouldn't even have the legs that it does because the ruleset is irredeemable dogshit and both the writers and the fans don't really understand how that undermines any possible attempts at worldbuilding.
>>94085550It doesn't help that it spent 2 editions trying to sell that narrative using a system that plainly wasn't adequate for it, and somehow simultaneously overdesigned and underdelivered for the new system they used for 3e while meanwhile nWoD was showing with Mummy, Demon and (work with me here, I'm just speaking on a strictly mechanical level) Beast how to into high level supernatural gameplay without going full Nobilis. I maintain there are ways to depict the scope of Exalted without engaging in rangebands, giving Legendary Size undeserved super armour, turning the social system into a game of picking one sentence about someone and negging them about it, using "gold points" to represent progress in craft or worst of all writing Craft Charms that retroactively create artifacts. And that the greatest failing of 3e was not pursuing any of them, and making more work for itself than it needed, all because Holdenmorke were arrogant enough to think they didn't need to playtest.
>>94085550It is possible to have world building and lore despite bad mechanics.I think the real problem is that the writing is too trope based.WW copied and referenced tropes/works without understanding their context, both in the original source and in exalted itself.A notorious example is Raksi, she is based on the pulp savage queen archetype like Nakari, but it absolutely doesn't work as a mentor figure.
>>94085625I maintain this is the case with the Dowager and the Eye and Seven Despairs in 3e too. The only way they can function as mentors is to make them too conked out on Oblivion influence to meaningfully advance their own plans. They're mentoring less through deliberate effort and more inadvertently, every attempt to portray them as genuinely invested in their deathknights feels like the writing is stretching the basis of their character concept.Also lmao they made Falafal a they/them for literally no reason in 3e
>>94085657Same thing happened to the great houses when they introduced the "matriarch" concept, despite certain houses not having a head beforehand.
>>94084422If FFA wasn't so all important it wouldn't have this problem. Instead of making it an aesthetic like they claimed they were doing, they decided to make it's own fucking system. The devs should have used N/A as the limit. And just said portals that connect people work whether it's made out of a metal stargate or one out of stone blocks.
>>94085305This is true of all the White Wolf games, but a lot of it comes down to their making games where the narrative makes logistics extremely important. Whether you're playing Vampire, Mage, Exalted, or any other game their basic writing structure includes tropes like>The world is going to end soon/multiple apocalyptic threats>Elder NPCs are much stronger then PCs even PCs after a long campaign.>The world is filled with massive policing institutions with global reach with a vested interest in controlling or disliking your character.Then you add onto this rules that even in Exalted had fuck-all for two full editions in support of larger scale play and writers who are some mix of incapable and unwilling to balance high level characters who; again, canonically exist and dislike you. This is why crossovers instantly fix most Exalted issues. You put Exalts into the World of Darkness or 40k or Mass Effect and just let them be powerful disrupting influences without all that horrible writing baggage and suddenly the river flows clean. It was stupid to write a game about being a wuxia hero who can challenge his region at low levels and the world at high, then build the world where any significant stepping out of line should logically result in push-back you have no ability to oppose. To its credit Exalted at least sets out to mitigate these factors by making the policing organizations weaker then you are, logistically strained and widely separated by geography. But there was no reason to write all this crap into the game in the first place.>>94085773This is true, but I don't think its to blame for this. There is a very vocal part of the fanbase who thinks that Exalts doing actual Exalt shit are wasting their time if they aren't holding territory or advancing the tech level. Becoming King of the Pirates is an altogether appropriate thing for a Solar or Lunar to do that will result in exactly fuck-all change to the broader status quo .
>>94085773>FFAIt's a bit late and the acronym is escaping me.So I read a bit about the 3e Sidereal book, but... Is there any way for a 3e Solar without a relevant Defining Intimacy to not eventually run terrified from a Charcoal March of Spiders practitioner just having full defense and moving? The problematic charms:Unnatural Many-Step Stride: Every movement action is an intimidate attempt, affected enemies flee.Dance of the Hungry Spider: Bla..bla blaa... Can move twice per turn.Without using willpower btw.I was not expecting much from the eternally broken Sidereals but come on...
>>94055180Do what TAW did and do away with Tells entirely. Truth is the Tell makes a Lunar a worse shapeshifter than a mortal Sorcerer (at least when it comes to changing between human forms). >>94052461NTA but adding to what this guy said. Lorewise what if the Usurpation war never went cold. Maybe there were billions of dragonblooded in the First Age and hundreds of millions survived, the Lunars have since slowly been killing most of them. In the Age of Sorrows there are just about a few dozen thousands.As to why they weren't sealed like the Solars? Luna saw what the Siddies did. She then took Carjack to the side and told him, you don't fucking dare.
>>94086225>Lorewise what if the Usurpation war never went coldThis is my preference, but rather than it being a constant drain on the world, it's that the Lunars were trapped outside the world until they could finally make it back in with the Balorian Crusade breaking down the borders. The elders who were stuck outside are basically chimaera and instead of being political entities, are actually crazy. The legacy elders you feel the absolute need to keep are either actually insane or post-Usurpation elders, and their entire lives have been tracked by the Wyld Hunt. That post-Usurpation crop of elders developed the moonsilver tattoos.
>>94083517>nadir is the nu!Infernals night analog.That's even worse.
>>94086434Yeah, they decided that Infernals having castes that were very clearly divergent from Solar castes was a bad idea. The completely different iconography that wasn't even taking inspiration from the Solar versions, different excellencies, not even having ability trees, all of that? Yeah, junk. A sign of 2e's excess. Throw it out, not worth salvaging. It's time for more Solar mirrors.
>>94086137>Exalts >Crossover>40k or Mass EffectWait anon this exists?
>>94080015>So Lunars can't colonize the underworld because some Lunars want to ally themselves with Solars?No anon, the answer in all editions has always and obviously been Solar Cock. Solar Cock is the most exquisite pleasure in Creation and never stops improving. Lunars would do whatever for it.
>>94086717Well there's a few exalted crossover Fics with the mass effect one being one of the more popular ones.
>>94086137>You put Exalts into the World of Darkness or 40k or Mass Effect and just let them be powerful disrupting influences without all that horrible writing baggage and suddenly the river flows cleanSolars in 40k is kino to me and I don't see why people don't get it. To me they're a great match. 40k is the grimmest of darks and solars are to represent the noblest of brights. 40k is a world where everything is destined to be fucked. Dark and cruel gods spin fate behind the scenes, and even the greatest fell to pessimism, and the rest to despair and death. "Rage against the dying of the light" is the rule. The world is doomed, and to eek out one day more is the best you can hope for in a world where the personification of rape, murder, hatred, and sickness have trillions of worshipers.Solars represent the total opposite. The world is fucked? I'll UNFUCK it. Hope doesn't exist? I AM hope. The gods hate me? I SLAY gods. I'll break the world in two and smush the pieces back together until it works again. Who doesn't want to be a goddamn hero?
>>94086717Crossover with 40k is pretty common.>>94088449Yes, it allows the Exalted to be disruptive elements they were meant to be.
>>94088482Now that I think about it, I do not remember seeing any at all in the material sense with 40k
>>94086628And they couldn't even do the Solar Mirroring properly!
>>94086628>It's time for more Solar mirrors.What dumb names do the rest of the Infernal Castes have and how much don't they match to the Solar Caste they're Mirroring?
>>94086628Yu-Shan fucking forbid someone try doing something original and innovative rather than yet more endless Solarwank.
>>94088711Azimuth = Dawn/DuskAscendant = Zenith/MidnightHorizon = Twilight/DaybreakNadir = Night/DayPenumbra = Eclipse/MoonshadowPicrel. I've heard the nadir be referred to as the cockring castemark, but even beyond the general 'how good are they objectively', they're very much more like the standard Solar marks than 2e Infernals showed they could have been. They've gone for spiky riffs on Solar design instead of caste marks for Infernals.>>94088667>And they couldn't even do the Solar Mirroring properly!...is there a proper way? That is to say, a good way?
>>94089062The other design looks even more like a prince Albert.
>>94089062NGL I would pick the TwilightInfernal caste mark turn it gold and use it instead of the actual Twilight caste mark.Mostly to avoid this.
>>94089688I don't like any of the Twilight-equivalent caste marks other than Defiler, to be honest. Something about castemarks with only vertical symmetry looks wrong to me, when I put them or picture them on a forehead. Like someone's drawn a penis on your head or something. Harbingers and Joybringers feel weird for the same reason.
>>94089688It looks like weed.
>>94086151I meant FAA. First Age artifice. Unnatural Many-Step Stride is still a roll. High integrity still beats it. Dance of the Hungry spider is kind of busted but there are other movement options. It also has to deal with disengage. They made Unnatural Many-Step Stride only last a turn in the original revision which was absurd since it's a charm designed to let you fly. However, Dance of the hungry spider probably should be something like 5m per turn to balance out everything it does. They're still doing errata so maybe they'll fix it.
>>94089062>They've gone for spiky riffs on Solar design instead of caste marks for Infernals.Honeslly I feel like going with more than just Green would have worked for some of them. I mean there's got be a Fetich Soul for one of the Yozi which serve a similar function to the Moon within Creation. But giving Malfeas a Moon that was a giant ball of Cinnabar that occasionally obscures Ligier depending on the Layer you're hanging out on would likely have been too well thought out...and it would also require they come up with decent lore for what happened to the Lunar Exaltations connected to the Abyssals and Infernals.
>>94090374I think Kimberly has it, and TeD obscure Ligier from time to time.
>>94090585>KimberlyThe Valley Girl Primordial?
>>94089970Anon I think you didn't notice but. It's not just a normal movement roll. Dance of the Hungry spider adds 3 dice (the Major Intimacy supporting the influence added as the last section).So by default it would be a Resolve 5 +1(Specialty) vs 10 + 3 dice + (A specialty).
>>94091496Reminds me of a joke Yozi Charmset I saw back in the 2E days, for the Yozi Kimberly, Shopper that Marched to the Mall. IIRC it was written by The Demented One, which was Robert Vance's handle in the old White Wolf forum.>>94090585The actual Yozi's Kimbery, however.
>>94091507You're right. Dance of the Hungry spider does a lot. There are ways to ignore it. Solars have an easier chance of resisting it compared to Sidereals but you'd need to invest integrity charms if you aren't a dawn. Since the threatening action isn't really changing how it's making a character scared, you only need to beat it or resist it once to be immune for the scene.
>>94091496>>94091562Do you have a link?
>>94091562>Reminds me of a joke Yozi Charmset I saw back in the 2E days, for the Yozi Kimberly, Shopper that Marched to the MallThat's the one I was referring to, yep. Glad to see someone else remembers.>it was written by The Demented One, which was Robert Vance's handle in the old White Wolf forumYou die a hero, or you live long enough to become a cringy retard.
>>94091824Oh, you are right I forgot about that rule.
>>94089062I hate the new Infernal castemarks because they're just plain cartoonish.
What is your favorite familiar build?
Some questions about the Celestial Bureaucracy, mostly involving what went in each Bureau before all the corruption set in and Heaven started poaching Humanity's top earners.>Gods of mathematics (God of Algebra, God of Geometry, God of Calculus) probably go under the Bureau of Humanity, but would gods of numbers (God of One, Goddess of Two, God of Seven, Goddess of Three-Thousand Eight-Hundred And Twenty-Four) go under Humanity with them or under Heaven in Abstract Matters?>Would gods of colors (Goddess of Blue, God of Pink, Goddess of Green, God of Black, Goddess of Ecru) go under Nature (with the gods of things that are naturally those colors), Seasons (with the gods of rainbows), Humanity (with the gods of dyes, inks, and paints), or Heaven (in Abstract Matters for the concepts of the colors themselves)?>Would gods of time (seconds, minutes, hours, et cetera in and of themselves rather than for their divine significances) go under Heaven (again, in Abstract Matters), Seasons (because of the passing of the seasons), or Destiny (fate and time are heavily linked)?>Do all positive emotions fall under Serenity (and therefore Destiny), or does Abstract Matters hold things like the God of The Thrill of Victory, the God of Schadenfreude, and the God of Realizing You Did In Fact Turn The Oven Off?
>>94095410>Some questions about the Celestial Bureaucracy, mostly involving what went in each Bureau before all the corruption set in and Heaven started poaching Humanity's top earners.The answer for all of these is that domains get replicated across bureaus, then collapsed back together or stolen, then split up again, and that gods positions often mean they need to liaison with other Bureaus. Also, often the gods who hold replicated positions are the same person, either because they need authority in both Bureaus to work or because there was a liaison role coming the other way that they ended up holding both ends of. So, you might have the God of Geomancy in Abstract Matters, who is also the God of Geometry in the Bureau of Humanity (a lower position), and is the person coordinating between Bureaus to manage all the little number-gods with bit positions in Abstract Matters who are either fueding with or allied with (depending on how high or low their number is) Geometry/Geomancy's immediate underlings in Humanity, the gods of Calculus and Algebra. It's also entirely possible that the entire field got pinched over by Abstract Matters, or pulled in by Humanity, and the answer to how the bureaucracy was arranged is usually whichever way works best for the game you're playing, the story you're telling. The only one of your examples I think that isn't some cross-departmental thing like that is the gods of colors, who would be in Abstract Matters, because they represent colors, and colors would be a position that was there before Nature, Humanity, or Seasons became a thing. The assumption though is that they, like everybody else in Heaven, is likely to have a somewhat fuzzy and complicated bureaucratic situation beyond that - at the least, they'd want to be collecting reports on new colors and how they're used from a lot of other departments, test samples, determine what color falls where under their joint domains, hand down directives, and so on.
So in quixalted a solar can slap ignoring(1) on their attacks and just annihilate all mortal resistance? That sounds OP.
>>94096864I don't know much about Quoxalted, but annihilating mortal opposition isn't really as OP as it sounds in the context of Exalted.
>>94096912I don't like the idea that an exalt is immune to mortals by solar fiat. A twilight with melee 3 shouldn't be a god of war.
>>94096912>Northern bandit gang blocks your path
>>94096943Then they would be useless as weapins against Primordials.
>>94097148We don't really know how useful combat stats are against the Primordials. For all we know, nothing could beat the kilomote and they resorted to social combat since none of the Primordials had more than 10 Willpower, or possibly the entire Primordial War depended on how quickly Solars could design manses and whether Dragonblood could move terrain to throw them together fast enough to pin down their world bodies.
>>94097214There was an answer given in 1e, just saying. Also the question "is a Primordial powerful enough to spawn in 100,000+ mortals at once?" cannot be answered with "no" without devaluing Primordials considerably
>>94097214This mudcore mentality is the exact opposite of the feel and intention behind Exalted.
>>94097932It is more "the ordering of the stick".
>>94097975Wrong, needs a few thousand more words per thought conveyed to truly qualify.
>>94096248Just woke up, thank you. From that, I imagine the color gods would have to be at least Third Rank, if not Fourth, depending on their color. Maybe REALLY specific shades like neon green could get away with going to Second Rank gods since it's not a naturally occurring shade, but Pink would have to have enough clout to meet with the Goddess of Cherry Blossoms, the God of Terrestrial Peaches, the God/Goddess of Artificial Strawberry Flavor (who may or may not be the same as the God/Goddess of Strawberries, holding seats in both Nature and Humanity), the God of Tongues, the Goddess of Flamingoes, as well as all the gemstone gods that have pink variations. Maybe colors like Green and Blue have to go to a Fifth Rank just to handle all the natural shades of both, all the things that humans make in those colors, and also being signature Maiden colors they cultivate some friendships among the Bureau of Destiny just to be safe.Thanks again.
>>94086717People talk about them but no one ever posts stats of game drafts for that type of stuff because most of the time you would be better off updating and using the Star Child and Sensei rules from Rogue Trader.
>>94099503Some anon was homebrewing space mariners a few threads ago.
>>94084422Is it wrong in the grand scheme of things? Sure there are plenty of other things you can center your game around but those things are what make them exceptional when looking at whole game world.
>>94099536Yeah I remember saying that an SM should be throwing something like 30 dice at their specialties because of how retarded they are supposed to feel.The thing is that you could just dress an alchemical exalt as one of them and for the most part it would work.Idk why 40k feels that clunky to translate given the similarities.
>>94099680If you wanna do 40k you probably do Exvs40k in that you put exalts into the Fantasy Flight rpgs.
>>94099721Like I said before, it is easier to translate the Star Child as a Black Crusade patron god. I'm not saying that you shouldn't or couldn't do something else but this path seems like the best way to achieve a game who's deal is "We are the humanity's hope in this grim dark galaxy".
The WoD splats reach Creation, which ones would make for the more interesting chronicle to fight or be them?
>>94099897None of them really, because crossovers are by their nature boring.
>>94100210I'm sure there are enough interactions to make that interesting. Like vampires providing anti aging drugs and super powers to mortals or twisting the places around them to protect themselves.
>>94099897Non!garou fera in 1e!exalted.Antedeluvians + Cain vs Deathlords, bonus points if Set is his crossover version.Dreamlings and the imbued interacting with the Wyld Hunt.Dynasts finding out about the Scarlet Phoenix and the Ebon Dragon.Abyssals meeting Charon.The technocrats opening a portal to exalted!Autochthon.>>94100210Crossovers being good or bad depends on what is being crossing out.In a rpg, you are only giving the st more tools to have fun with.
>>94099897Vampires fit into Exalted seamlessly. You could say they've already been there since forever ago and run some really good campaigns about the how in the course of taking over a city or whatever the PCs need to pierce the vampire's masquerade and uncover the true rulers of the city, who have some supernatural powers that let them put up a fight but have loads of weaknesses and still probably don't win even if you don't use them. Garou also work. Mummy could be workable as a localized thing in the South.Mage isn't good in the crossover, nor is Changeling, nor is Demon, nor is Wraith.
>>94100422>The technocrats opening a portal to exalted!Autochthon.I can imagine someone just realizing that they got another moon landing situation. As if the fairies weren't bad enough.>Non!garou fera in 1e!exaltedNah let the Garou get their shit pushed in. The Beast Courts would integrate about too smoothly.
>>94100657>Mage isn't good in the crossover, nor is Changeling, nor is Demon, nor is Wraith.Demon can be used for parts and mechanics but the rest really don't have a niche.
>>94100657>nor is ChangelingThis one requires more detailed informations about dreams.>WraithThey are already in.>>94100668Garou are redundant with 1e Lunars around.
>>94100719>Garou are redundant with 1e Lunars aroundThey are inferior, that's why they are inclusion. Did your Wyld Hunt actually managed to kill a lunar or is that just a knock off?
>>94097214It's canon that a Solar choked a Primordial to death with her bare hands, I think we know combat stats matter
>>94101901Imagine being a primordial Deity and getting chocked like a bitch.
>>94097504>"is a Primordial powerful enough to spawn in 100,000+ mortals at once?" cannot be answered with "no" without devaluing Primordials considerablyPrimordials need to be devalued considerably if we want to include them as statted opposition rather then inconveniently negated mudcore like this >>94097214This is the point of irresolvable contradiction. There’s been three main ways the War has been written->1E version: The Exalted were all elders of a power level we aren’t going to write any Charms for and physically manhandled the Primordials and their souls to death.>2E version: Per 1E but they did it at E4-5. We will provide rules that do not remotely support this being the case.>3E: The Primordials were not fought. They were invaded. The war was with their souls, the Titans were the terrain.If you want anything like the 2E model the Titans need to be radically dewanked in ways that will definitely rustle some feathers for those who want to imagine them as their awe-inducing cosmic entities like those depicted in Gunstar who can burn galaxies [plural] to ash with individual attacks. Perfects be damned, the Exalted Host isn’t winning that fight.
>>94102808>>2E version: Per 1E but they did it at E4-5. We will provide rules that do not remotely support this being the caseDidn't they publish a bunch of "pseudo elder" charms? Those that allowed you to get elder stuff earlier on.
>>941028082e added physically manhandling the primordials. 1e went with they worked as a unit to take them down. Unless you mean they stabbed the primordials with spears because they did do that but it wasn't until 2e that you got that wank about a solar 1v1ing a primordial.
>>94079557>Now the Abyssal is figuring how to share.More like trying to find a dedicated healer.
>>94102808>>1E version: The Exalted were all elders of a power level we aren’t going to write any Charms for and physically manhandled the Primordials and their souls to death.1E didn't write Primordial War that way, or any other way. Grabowski said that the War might've looked like that, while also saying that he didn't know for sure and had no interest in coming up with any canon answer to how the Primordials were fought.
>>94102808>If you want anything like the 2E model the Titans need to be radically dewanked in ways that will definitely rustle some feathers for those who want to imagine them as their awe-inducing cosmic entities like those depicted in Gunstar who can burn galaxies [plural] to ash with individual attacks. Perfects be damned, the Exalted Host isn’t winning that fight.>Catch SWLiHN by surprise or put her in a situation where she can't put her autism to work and her dice pool drops to 02E Yozi are only beyond E5 Solars if you white room them
>>94099721NTAI'm actually working on a Exalted vs 40k game. I'll be using mix of Shard from 2E Heaven's Reach. In short, Incarnae and Yu-Shan/Grand Celestial Moutain are creaction from Dark Age of Technology that dabbled into combining technology of Realspace with Immaterium that hid deep inside Warp to develop Exaltations away from trying eyes of potential spies, to assist humanity in fight against Men of Iron and other future threads but once they hid they were never seen again. Turns out Chas Gods trapped them. When Cicatrix Maledictum happened seal on its prison broke. And while Icarnae and Yu-Shan are shocked at the state of the Galaxy and how much time has passed their goal hasn't changed and can start assisting mankind by seeking suitable hosts for Exalataions.>>94101901And Primordials are a step above Chaos Gods. Primordials created concepts, worlds, races etc. while Chaos Gods only metaphysically represent and embody those things. Demon Princes would be at best 3rd circle demons. Tho IMHO they are more a 2.5 Circle at the strongest and 1.5 when we see into more weaker examples.And once any of them get hit by Ghost Eating Technique. Who boy. The amount of pants-pissing terror they will feel.
>>94103966It strains my suspension of disbelief for me if the Dark Age of Technology federation somehow created significantly better gods than the millions of years old Eldar empire, especially when power over the warp was the Eldar's specialty.
>>94103966>And Primordials are a step above Chaos Gods.I'd actually argue that'd more due to differences in how the setting's metaphysics workI actually think the Chaos gods could rain down bigger number effects but the Primordials would have more conceptual bullshit on their side, who wins would depend on the game they're playing
>>94101901You can choke out the Brass Dancer, but you can't choke out the City of Brass and Basalt. Against some jouten, combat stats matter, and against others they don't. It's difficult to guarantee that jouten which could be defeated like that were always available to fight during the war, at which point combat stats become irrelevant and they're forced to turn to other methods.>>94102844>Didn't they publish a bunch of "pseudo elder" charms? Those that allowed you to get elder stuff earlier on.They did, but they could only push Solars up to Essence 7 effects and everybody else to Essence 6. 2e Primordial War Solars capped out prior to things near-essential to beat worlds, like infinite damage or tick-long perfect defenses.>>94103996DAoT was up to some belief-straining shit on the regular. That anon's reasons don't jive for me more because at the point where they can make the Incarnae, Slaanesh should never have become a problem because the Unconquered Sun solos, and the DAoT wouldn't have built in a geas for the UCS not to slap her down.
>>94103996>Dark Age of Technology FederationHere is the thing. We know nothing about how Humanity was organized during that time. And In my headcanon, Humanity was divided into various nations, governments, and organizations. Humanity expanded but they it's also in human nature to have tribalistic mindsets and sometimes those tribes fought each other.You don't develop really horrific and devastating weapons during that time period because you don't need them not don't plan to use them.It was one of those faction that developed Incarnae.The other one came up with Men of Iron.In my canon, DAoT was time of great advancements in science but it was not a time of utopian peace and unity among mankind that some in 40k might idealize it as being one.
>>94104082My point was that it's silly for humanity to have a bunch of gods who were significantly better than Khaine. But if the Incarnae aren't better than Khaine, then Exalts should be at best the equivalent of the shards of Khaine that already exist and which aren't strong enough to make a big difference. It was the Dark Age of TECHNOLOGY, not Dark Age of Psykers.
>>94104039>You can choke out the Brass Dancer, but you can't choke out the City of Brass and Basalt. Against some jouten, combat stats matter, and against others they don't. It's difficult to guarantee that jouten which could be defeated like that were always available to fight during the war, at which point combat stats become irrelevant and they're forced to turn to other methods.I should note, the feat where said Solar choked out a Jouten, it was noted that particular Jouten didn't need to breath
>>94104245That's fanon. All that's said is that Merala killed Mardukth with her bare hands. Not even the choking part is canon, much less that she somehow imposed the need for breath on him
>>94104269Basically she might just metaphorically choke to death the concept by using other concept she somehow grasped with her bare hand.
>>94104245>>94104269>>94104299Strictly speaking, according to (Yozi)-Body Unity NO Primordial needs to breathe. Not that "imposing the need for breath" really matters when Ghost-Eating Technique exists
>>94102808>3E: The Primordials were not fought. They were invaded. The war was with their souls, the Titans were the terrain.Wait, what? Source? Far as I know 3e has avoided talking too directly about the Primordial War (I'm not using Divine Revolution, fuck you Vance it's less cool) specifically. >galaxies [plural]As an opening salvo yes, the 2e Primordials explicitly have the capacity to total entire universes.>the Titans need to be radically dewanked>Perfects be damnedNo they don't, you have to stop thinking like a minmaxer and start thinking like a Hindu mythologist. The Primordials are cosmic forces but they are cosmic forces driven by specific themes, while the Exalted host 1. had both divine and prehuman but successful allies, including some extremely substantive deities whose only ban on intervening in the war was "don't attack the titans" and 2. aren't limited to the themes the Primordials were while wielding power capable of attacking their weaknesses.QE accomplished it. Stop using pessimism as an excuse not to do better, and to demand better than White Wolf level mechanics.
>>94104112>It was the Dark Age of TECHNOLOGY, not Dark Age of Psykers.And what is technology if not aplication of knowlede for praticulat purposes. Psykers implants, Null gene, Warp Travel and many other knew about and researched. So even metaphysical aspects of existence of the universe were subject of laws that humanity can use to harvest power or use for other utilititarian purposes. Meaning it is also a technology.
>exalted general>looks inside>its more 40koprophiles arguing about the dungheap of a franchiseYou niggers own half the board you can go literally anywhere else
>>94104365>aren't limited to the themesI hate it when people say this. Nobody's limited by themes in Exalted, not Exalted, not Primordials, not gods. You are empowered by your themes, not reduced from some greater potential to match them. The only thing even close are flaws of invulnerability. Just because the Ebon Dragon's themes indicate cowardly wickedness does not mean that he can't put up hands and fight someone, and Adorjan is very much able to make her longer-term plans work out despite her themes leaning to chaos and the rush of the moment. At worst they're just a bit circuitous about it to get their themes to fit - and anyway, Yozi can duplicate charms from other Yozi into their own style to break out of any thematically limited boxes you might think they're in.
>>94104365I disagree. I want the Primordials statted, but no they cannot be statted like that and still expect a fight in which the Exalted as written can win, unless you reduce the entire war to a binary resolution and assume narrative fiat pushed the Exalts into scenarios where they could bring about said resolutions, which isn't very usable in a game. The logic of the 2E War where the Primordials were infinitely stronger then the Exalts except if you hit their perfect flaw and did infinite damage and/or pinged them to death does not make me feel like Asura or a Hindu demigod. It makes me feel like I'm playing out somebody's autistic thought exercise. QE's method doesn't impress me, it has a radically different power level then any other edition or fanwork so its very much its own beast.
>>94103966Personally the way I would go about it is again the Creation in some sense as the Old World. The War in Heaven was literally in Yu-Shan in part and was what in great part broke the Realm of Souls (since the City was kind of needed to keep everything in order). Humans had already been great and declined at that time but as it went got Arked to be put into repose until awakening during what we would understand as the age of the Patriarchs. (it would be the source of the deluge myth). After fucking up trying to stabilize the surrounding warp by themselves(Tower of Babel), they attract the attention of warp predators creating the situation where Big E needs to be created.As for the Exaltations, Sids, Lunars and Infernals would get grabbed by Tzeentch, Khorne and Nurgle respectively, while Solars and Abyssals would be held back by the Eldar pantheon, up until they weaken so much during the DaoT that they can't hold the Solars and thus Men of Gold happen, but as that falls, proto-Slaanesh seeking perfection holds them back and later Slaanesh proper.Then, when the Cicatrix happens, they actually smash at least the part of the dome where the UCS is and wake him and he goes to beat the shit out the four (which he can do because he is the God of Virtue, ala what should be vs what is), which he succeeds and that is why there are exalts now.
>>94103996Incarne of Heaven's Reach aren't gods. They are Stelar Intelligences. An advanced form of AI that have metaphysical form of Spirit Program, are sapient and seitient and thier physical bodies are giantic spaceships. Maybe only half way bigger than Blackstone Fortress.And Yu-Shan is called Grand Celestial Moutain which is massive non-physical internet and super ultra mega powerful computer in one and it inhabitants are Spirit Programs serve as administrators, assistants or consultants in thier field of expertise. So city spirits watch over cities, or things like weather prediction, agriculture, socio economics, while others oversee security of GCM or that it day to day operations run smoothly etc. and just like Incarne they are sapient and sentient.
>>94104979Well, I disagree with your disagreement.>>94104489If they go anywhere else they have to be reminded AoS exists, I guess
>>94105600>If they go anywhere else they have to be reminded AoS exists, I guessShame I'm not familiar with WHFB as I am with 40k. Might have try doing Exalted in FB instead. Oh well. Still I got couple of usefull notes for my 40k crossover game.But while on this topic.What other settings Exalted could be crossed with for some potentially interesting scenarios?
It feels like the Solars missed a great opportunity when ditching She Who Lives in Her Name. This poor flame lives to enforce a hierarchy, and as the recognized the Solars as the new top dogs, she would have made sure that no uppity Siderals or Dragonblooded could ever usurp the rightful masters of Creation. She also was a genius artificer, and probably wouldn't have minded that she was given the same treatment as Autokun in Gunstar to make her a living weapon for the order of the Solars.Instead they just threw this perfectly fine gal into Hell, and let Hell kept a hierarchy.
>>94107411Pyrian mind-hands typed this post.
>>94107411>the Solars missed a great opportunityWhat, to go full cultist / Akuma and turn on the rest of the Exalted Host? Please remember, kind anon, that the Solar Exalted did not come out of the Primordial as peerless masters of the universe. They spent several thousand years working at it before that came anywhere close to being true. Trying to enforce Solar > everyone heirarchy through SWLiHN mindfuckery (which is what it is even if it's being done through reality warping and conceptual nonsense) just gets the Solar Exalted killed by everybody else turning on them, including the gods.
Will OPP be able to finish all the splats before they lose the license?
>>94107627The post-war Solars were able to bind the Yozi into the Surrender Oaths. They surely can bind a single Primordial. They also still had Gaia and Auto-kun around.
>>94107724Probably, they are still working on some legally bound Ascension products.
>>94107970Mage 5?
>>94107977No, 20th. >M20 Victorian Bizarre Tales and Unusual Characters>M20 Faces of Magick – Notes are with Gaydos and KMJ
>>94108017That didn't prevent Paradox from no longer allowing more CoD books.Earthbane could be seen as a replacement for Exalted, similar to how Curseborne is for the WoD/CoD.
>>94108041It is a different scenario, those books are from before 20th and NWoD were killed.
>>94105154I would make this crossover into ERP set in the Pre-Heresy era with Primarch AU were they all females.
>>94108065safe horny cringe
>>94108065Can 40kfags fuck off already
>>94108065Better idea, ditch the crossover and make it so 9 out of every 10 Exalt is female
>>94107724Forget about the license, will they finish all the splats before the Sun goes supernova and turns into a White Dwarf?
Rereading the Abyssals manuscript has helped me put some context to why I dislike the 3e Deathlords so much other than the fact that many of them are lamer or lobotomised or just plain boring. Which isn't to say any of that is untrue, but it's not the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that instead of playing up their spiteful, petty, human evil the game tries to marry two incompatible concepts: The reverence of the Deathlords for the Chivalry of Death, and the lack of agency by the Neverborn. There is an attempt to justify this by the Neverborn leashing the Lion but even then in 3e's history it was the DEATHLORDS who initiated the pact with the Neverborn as dead but opportunistic Exalts. Why the fuck should any of them be as invested in ending the world when they lack any sort of emotional context for their patrons except ways to stave off oblivion? This is Mnemon being a genuine adherent of the Immaculate Faith in 3e all over again. Many of the Deathlords being given "muh Chivalry of Death/muh reverence for death as a concept" as a defining motivation in a way that feels artificial.>>94108892God, I hope they implode before tarnishing MUH Infernals at this point.>>94107627Yeah I'm with >>94107952 honestly, the Solars/gods/whoever was left alive didn't give a single shit about Gaia herself, they absolutely WERE vested in establishing a hierarchy with Solars at the top and everyone else stuck in their place (in 2e at least where there was a coherent description of the First Age), and Auto only ran of his own volition. SWLIHN would've fit in nicely. I assume she got imprisoned because of war grudges more than anything. As Infernals said, ironically the Solars themselves reversed much of the progress made to spread free will. >>94108041>EarthbaneThanks for telling me about this. Fuck I want to be interested but it's just so hard to have faith in anything OPP these days.
