>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>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/Previous thread: >>97335135>TQs:How ridiculously gaudy, but effective should artifact armor be? What are some good inspirations to use to describe artifact armor?
>>97373755>TQI think Artifacts should be a pretty varied bunch, but I don't think you can go too gaudy with them. Japanese samurai armor with a bit of bling added is a good inspiration, I think. Some late Medieval/early modern plate armor is pretty cool, too, already intricate and aesthetic, just make it out of orichalcum or jade at it's already a fine Artifact. I'd also say that it's fine to look for inspiration from things that aren't armor. I'm talking about stuff like voluminous courtly robes made out of blue jade chainmail, supernaturally light and moving like clothe would but as sturdy as any Artifact armor is, or a dress of cloth-of-moonsilver, or something like that. Not Silken Armor, but clothing-inspired armor made of magical materials, obviously impossible to make out of mundane materials.
How would you fix the imbalance between Linowans and Haltans?Overdoing nerfs to the Haltans would be boring, I think: The Linowans have their "first age solar's eugenics project" going on to make them kinda like space marines without power armour sure, but other than that they're extremely one note canoe Indians.
>>97373755>How ridiculously gaudy, but effective should artifact armor be?Should be vs is - a difficult conundrum here, since I think armor should be way better than it is. In terms of gaudiness it's probably about right - color and shine everywhere, artisanal work that changes style with the eras as the default, but with the grit and practicality of functional work underlining all of it. I don't think chainmail bikinis or other plainly bad impractical designs should be a thing in Exalted without further justification.I think artifact armor should be fairly damn ridiculously effective, in that I think stapling indestructible plates to your skin should mean you're the next best thing to indestructible. At the very least you should be taking bruises from being pushed around, instead of cuts from having things pushed through you. I would not complain if, instead of adding soak and hardness to the player, armor used the object destruction rules from 2e, wherein you have to 'break/damage' armor before you can hit the person underneath it. In this way it would act sort of like 3e's Warstriders with their ablative health levels, which I think were an excellent way to present artifact armor if only they weren't attached to the literal peak of artificing in the setting instead of the basic armors.If this doesn't sound balanced, then in the name of fairness, I'll point out that I don't think artifact weapons do enough over their mundane cousins either. They're hunks of super-heavy metal that've been lightened only for their wielder. A daiklave should hit like a loader's scoop and a dire goremaul's love tap should be compared to buses. All weapons should have some kind of bonus beyond direct statistical advantages, along the lines of Death at the Root or the Daiklave of Conquest.
>>97373927I've been trying to rework the Exalted combat system as a little side project into something that more represents what superhuman combat should be like, and one of the things I've considered is that artifact armor should be much like artifact weapons, near indestructible. Which means that if your weapon deals Lethal damage, it now deals Bashing damage and gets halved because it's the impact of your armor smashing into you and not a blade or sharp point. Lighter armor has more spots it can be avoided, but the heavier your armor is the more of walking fortress you become. Maybe include a mechanic where you can slide a weapon into a chink in the armor to remove the halving and Blunting of Lethal damage, with it being easier the less coverage the armor has.A mortal weapon against artifact armor might just shatter if it's not a masterwork, and any artifact weapon against mortal armor is likely to ruin even the heaviest with a single blow.
I don't understand the complaints about "overpowered NPCs" in most of these threads. I've always considered seeing an elder Exalt to be an aspirational thing ("oh, if I'm clever enough, I'll be this strong too someday") and I like having powerful enemies that can stand up to the Solar Exalted, but other posters in these threads say they can't stand either of those. Is this rooted in fears that a bad ST might randomly kill you with someone like Anys Syn or the Mask of Winters? That seems more like a problem with bad gamemasters in general than having accomplished heroes and entrenched villains.
>>97374037Is this some kind of bait? You can't be so out of touch
>>97374070He might be baiting by bringing it up so early in a thread unprompted but it is kinda infuriating to see people going "the appeal of exalted is I get to act like an edgy teens first fanfic where they go super sayian 5 and chaos emerald super at the same time and kill the warp gods from 40k with a kamehameha"Yeah it's a fucking setting, your accomplishments as a god king will be all the better for having worked for them.
>>97374037>Is this rooted in fears that a bad ST might randomly kill you with someone like Anys Syn or the Mask of Winters? That seems more like a problem with bad gamemasters in general than having accomplished heroes and entrenched villains.I like having strong adversaries to build up against, but having Deathlords or whoever be too ultra-competent means that your ST either has to justify why they aren't fucking your shit up when they the abilities to know where you are and how big of a threat you are to their plans, or have them show up and not murder you but just kick you around, which can feel frustrating if done poorly.The easy answer to "why doesn't Mask of Winters slaughter me and my Circle with his big toe" is probably because he's a busy super-ghost running an empire, and instead of going himself he can send conveniently appropriately challenging Abyssals to fight you instead.
>>97374037>I like having powerful enemies that can stand up to the Solar Exalted,Me too. I've seen it done well and I personally have done it in ways I consider well.>I've always considered seeing an elder Exalt to be an aspirational thing ("oh, if I'm clever enough, I'll be this strong too someday")This, on the other hand, just gives me reflexive disgust, because I have seen it go wrong in a couple of ways too many times. I've never seen elder Exalted going well. There are a lot of elders in the canon books that are just so far above PCs that they will never - and I do mean NEVER - approach them in power, regardless of how long you play. There are also elders who are more achievable... but who you will never grow beyond. Bad interactions are common here. The other common thing is that social dynamics trend strongly towards hierarchies where the PCs are being placed at the bottom and being told what to do instead of having personal agency, whenever elders come into the room. The more rare variant is that the elder NPC starts throwing social dice and the players are suddenly in combat with someone they can't fight and who can deal persistent injuries (because that's how social combat is).>Is this rooted in fears that a bad ST might randomly kill you with someone like Anys Syn or the Mask of Winters? That seems more like a problem with bad gamemasters in general than having accomplished heroes and entrenched villains.Many players are arrogant. Many player characters they create are intentionally arrogant, so as to play out their fantasies of being arrogant and making it work regardless. Putting them in the room with elders they have to acknowledge are them but better ruins the fantasy.
>>97374078Nobody ever says anything remotely like that. Feels like you're swinging at ghosts
>>97374079>The easy answer to "why doesn't Mask of Winters slaughter me and my Circle with his big toe" is probably because he's a busy super-ghost running an empireThe problem with the easy answer is always that it doesn't make any sense once you look deeper into it though. In this case, we know that running an empire doesn't take all your time because this isn't D&D, and running a nation is a pretty common pasttime for PC Exalted. It doesn't take up the majority of their energies unless they're actively doing shit beyond that like war or massive infrastructure projects, especially Solar PCs who have Speed the Wheels and similar bureaucratic magic.
>>97374037The complaint about these powerful characters is that they are stifling to new characters and are really good at enforcing the status quo in a game that is ostensibly about shaking that up.
>>97374082The time skip EXP in 2nd edition is actually surprisingly generous. If your storyteller opts to run a game where your characters can become elders they'll have to skip a few centuries sooner or later and then you suddenly have ludicrous power.
>>97374101Well yeah, that's why the game happens when the Realm is collapsing, Solars are returning, corrupted Solars are arising and maybe Autocthon's return too.It's a tipping point without a status quo. You use the early campaign to solve some relatively local issues and insert yourself as a god king, you build up allies, then if things last till well rounded essence 5 you're all set up for a suitable final boss such as a Deathlord or a Yozi or something.
>>97373924Well, I'd make Halta smaller, of course, but I would prefer it to remain one of the strongest countries in the setting. One possibility is the Haltan army is really specialized. The fact they rarely leave the trees would effect how they're trained and fight. Because of this, they aren't used to operating on normal terrain. Another is to think up some excuse for them to have a decent amount of artifacts. One possibility is they have access to some resource the mountain folk value, so they're able to trade it. Since they don't follow the Immaculate Order, maybe they have a corrupt war god favoring them who heaps blessings on them. Maybe Halta has some other threat they have to keep an eye on. Finally, if Halta is ruled by Lunars in secret like in 2e, there could be a Sidereal that hates them for whatever reason and he's altering fate to screw them over. Hell, you could have it so the Cult of the Illuminated is big in Linowan.
>>97374082>Many players are arrogant. Many player characters they create are intentionally arrogant, so as to play out their fantasies of being arrogant and making it work regardless. Putting them in the room with elders they have to acknowledge are them but better ruins the fantasy.This but as a legitimate problem. There is nothing wrong with challenges, but the implicit purpose of a lot of these powerful characters is to beat you down (or the threat thereof) so that you respect the hierarchy.
>>97373924I would definitely nerf Haltans a bit, though I agree that it shouldn't be overdone. Still, you could divide pretty much all Haltan numbers by ten and still be left witj something extremely impressive for an arboreal civilization. As for buffing up the Linowan, I'd expand their skill with magical masks into a wider skill in the making of genuinely useful talismans, maybe adding some readon for Linowan materials being particularly suited for such creations. That'd let the Linowan have an abundance of individually fairly subtle and low-level magical effects that are still powerful when considered all together.
>>97374115Look bro, nobody is asking you to explain away how they feel about the game. Your "solution" doesn't sound fun and shows an unwillingness to see their point of view
>>97374094I mean, he could just be really arrogant and think he doesn't need to get involved. Personally, I believe Deathlords should be retooled so they're only superhuman in the things they were good at in life, so he'd basically be a powerful ghost in combat. Him being an Oblivion Circle necromancer would still be rough though. One possibility is to have it so Deathlords are heavily constrained outside the Underworld/Shadowlands, or even just direct sunlight, meaning he'd have to catch you first.
>>97374140Or you could just get rid of them and have a variety of challenges that are approachable at every level of play.
>>97374079>>97374101>>97374122>>97374126My opinion is that just removing Essence requirements from Exalted Charms would help a lot. Just let fresh Exalts and elder Exalts use the same Charms. Elders would obviously have more of them and be more powerful through broader and more versatile powersets, but they'd no longer be unstoppable. An elder being a match for a whole Circle of young Exalts by his lonesome is fine, but a whole Circle not being a match for a single elder is not. Also non-Exalts should not have Exalted Charms, and that includes the Deathlords.
I have a different approach in that making a fight that's satisfying in exalted where the players can lose is not very easy to judge. It's a big flaw with the system imo that exalted vs exalted combat has the most mechanical complexity.
>>97374140>Personally, I believe Deathlords should be retooled so they're only superhuman in the things they were good at in life, so he'd basically be a powerful ghost in combat. Him being an Oblivion Circle necromancer would still be rough though. One possibility is to have it so Deathlords are heavily constrained outside the Underworld/Shadowlands, or even just direct sunlight, meaning he'd have to catch you first.I just remove the part that says they have Solar / Abyssal charms. They've got a wide array of strange and esoteric elder arcanoi, and third circle necromancy that punches higher than that. They have hekatonkhire allies. If they absolutely need Solar/Abyssal charms for some reason they can go recruit Loras. The idea that the forces of death have been using Speed the Wheels for the last thousand and a half years and the Underworld is still in the state it is in is just not workable to me.
>>97374120Well, I think the size makes a certain level of sense?Yes they're the size of China, but most of their territory is pretty sparse, criss crossed by long rope bridge roads between isolated treetop towns. They have three Fae kingdoms beneath them representing the three main Fae attitudes to humans (actually liking them, viewing them as resources, and actively hating them), and the further east you go the closer to the bordermarches, where it's increasingly unlikely the barbarian tribes out there actually answer to the Haltan crown even if they share their habit of treetop living.China sized but defacto much smaller.
>>97374176I chop all attributes and abilities off at 5 for NPCs. Furthermore I've reduced their flexibility, so they tend to be specialized or even a little bit gimmicky instead of having everything
>>97374156Nah. I hate the way the Deathlords are handled, but I like this as figures in the setting.>>97374242I think it'd be cool for them to have a couple of unique Charms reflecting who they were in life.
>>97374285Really? I also think their story is really bad.
>>97374266That sounds reasonable. For non-Exalted NPCs, specifically, I think it's fine for them to have a few big, impactful powers, maybe more powerful in a specific way than what Exalts can do, as long as they have a clear theme going on and less flexibility and versatility than Exalts have.>>97374285I'm also pretty fond of Deathlords, though there's a bunch of details about them I'd change.>>97374296What do you dislike about it?
>>97374285>I think it'd be cool for them to have a couple of unique Charms reflecting who they were in life.Use arcanoi.
