>>98780115
Demon invocation

>>98780241
What's your favorite demon and how have you used it?

>four different Deathlords have Void Circle Necromancy
>Solar Circle Sorcery cannot be practiced by any spirit even the Incarna, they could only get a spell at most
huh?

>>98780368
Rules never stopped WW or OP from wanking their villain sues

>>98780368
Deathlords are mainlining Neverborn Essence, so it's fine.

>>98780368
>>98780513
>>98780632
It helps that Necromancy sucks, is garbage, and will forever be relegated to "Sorcery's loser younger brother who wears lots of skulls and eyeliner".

>>98780699
So it goes for all things that try to be wider, instead of balancing around well... being as powerful. I bet a ton of neat effects are blocked off by it not being allowed to be as powerful as normal sorcery.

>>98780886
But Necromancy isn't wider, quite the opposite in fact.

>>98780896
Well I got nothing then lol. I swear I heard it described once as "Sorcery, but not as powerful, but specific effects can match sorcery and other can be more general". Never hear much good about necromancy desu

One thing I am curious about for some time, was street fighter the storytelling game a predecessor for exalted? Could someone who is familiar to both answer me this? Are they connected through WoD: Combat?

>>98780115
>OP
She looks stoned out of her mind but she was freaky in the sheets.
>TQ
I dislike 3e in general, but the Ifrit Lord shaping ritual is cool as hell.

As for spells, I'm a big fan of Unbreakable Bones of Stone as a simple buff. God-Forged Champion of War is another one I like; warstriders are a pain in the ass most of the time, but you can optimize most of their flaws away if it's a spell instead.

>>98780910
Necromancy CLAIMS to be sorcery but more focused, but most of that focus runs headlong into the setting conceits of no time travel, no resurrection, no takebacks. For everything else Solar Circle Sorcery does well enough. All necromancy does for the most part is sorcery shit with different flavor.

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>>98780296
ipithymia
sexually

>>98781187
Considering Mask of Winters' sheet from "The Making of Exalted", necromancy was a very last minute addition that the devs don't know what to do with.

MECHANICALLY, which is the smoother experience;
2e or Ex3?

>>98780115
>Thread Question
>favorite spell
Spy Who Walks in Darkness (1e/2e)
>favorite shaping ritual
It would be Raksi's first two rituals if not for them being associated with Raksi. It's probably the Soul-Perfecting Elixir as my number one, then the Witch-Beast Pact as my number two, then Raksi's Tuteledge as #3.

>>98780368
>huh?
That's just leftover 2e Solar wank. They get niche protection even if it doesn't make sense for them to. It might not even be true in 3e, the UCS or top level gods doing Solar sorcery could be a thing and they just haven't told us.

>>98781187
The problem is actually that it claims to be more focused, but doesn't buck the power levels set down by sorcery within it's own circles even for it's specialties - a demon of equivalent circle is always on par with or better than an undead of the equivalent circle, attack spells aren't any better in necromancy than sorcery, etc - and that it basically just lies about it's focus in those areas compared to sorcery, because sorcery does stuff that should absolutely be necromancy like Soul Seal and does it better at equal levels than anything in necromancy.

>>98782282
>MECHANICALLY, which is the smoother experience;
>2e or Ex3?
Smoother? 3e. I'm normally a 1e/2e fan and recommender but if your aim is to have a game move smoothly along then 3e is definitely doing that better. Essence is even more so and what I'd actually recommend for a smooth mechanical experience since it's also more robust and freeform but of 2e/3e then 3e.

>>98782309
yup, pretty much. It's true that necromancy is the ritualized art of manipulating underworld essence but that is horribly limited in scope compared to sorcery and they're not allowed to have better effects to compensate.

>>98782328
>It's true that necromancy is the ritualized art of manipulating underworld essence
Is that even true? Living characters who use non-underworld essence can use it just fine, and it's not like it gets stronger or weaker in the Underworld beyond the context of there being more ghosts around. If I understand correctly, it's not even like ghosts or spectres get to use necromancy, it's just mortals and deathlords and Exalted. The number of Underworld affiliated necromancy users are outweighed by the living.

>>98782286
In 3e no spirit knows 3CS.

>>98782351
That's the lore in 2e at least. Necromancy is manipulating death/underworld Essence. Of course, fuck all people get to actually do it. Ghosts and whatnot have Arcanoi instead which are shit.

>>98782508
Cite source?

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>>98783566
pic related from sidereals
also let's not play "well it's only implied"...if them having 3cs was meant to be a thing, it'd be said outright.

>>98783678
It outright states that high level spirits have Solar circle spells. With the way sorcery is described in lore, that's about where most master Solar sorcerers sit too.

>>98780115
What should one remember if they want to get their PC into Sorcery in 3e? And what is the total spell list your PC uses?

>>98783702
Refer to >>98780368 that already mentioned that.

>>98783702
>It outright states that high level spirits can have limited access to a single Solar circle spell.
FTFY

I hate Exalted. -t. been neck-deep in Exalted since 1e.

>>98784427
hate and love are two sides of passion

>>98784952
It is because of the the lack of internal logic, trying to make sense of Exalted will lead to frustration, that will lead to anger, that in turn lead to hate.

We love what we hate. The exalted fandom was the Ebon Dragon the ENTIRE time. His masterplan isn't to become a part of the shinma but instead to homebrew his own setting.

I am increasingly convinced that nobody has actually played Exalted, not even its own devs.

>>98786858
I have played a single fucking game and it was probably the most mid game I have ever ran.

>>98783702
Even in 2e Sol and the Incarnae didn't have actual SCS, it was just Charms imitating SCS. Seems pretty consistent across the editions.

>>98784427
For me Exalted seems better to theorycraft about than actually play.

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>>98780115
>Solars low-diff basically everything
What's the point of even trying to play anything else?

>>98787117
because RPGs aren't just about winning.

>>98786926
>For me Exalted seems better to theorycraft about than actually play.
For me it's that Exalted is better to play the smaller the group. One player one Storyteller gaming is the best play I've had. Two player is the next best, and three player is the next best after that, then four and then five and then six. The only one to buck the trend is solo rpg storytelling for yourself, which is really just writing a book when it comes down to it.

>>98787117
I think Abyssals should be the best fighters.

What is Exalted's official setting like? How mapped out is it for hexcrawling?

>>98788653
In 1e/2e, Exalts move so fast mapping it is impractical and even without true flight they have wuxia level mobility.

In 3e everything is abstracted into range band bullshit.

>>98788653
>What is Exalted's official setting like? How mapped out is it for hexcrawling?
It's pretty great. It's fully mapped out but explicitly not in the detail you'd want for proper hexcrawling. If you're moving around on the scale of miles then the expectation is basically that you take that part of the world map and add details at your scale. Don't listen to >>98788781 claiming that Exalted move too fast for travel times to be a problem, it's very much not the case unless you build into it, have access to extremely rare artifacts, or assume you can scale up combat movement into overland travel (i.e. 'i can run at 60 yards per second therefore I travel overland at 120mph'). For many splats it's difficult to build into well enough to trivialize travel, as well.

>>98786858
My biggest issue with Exalted games, 2e and 3e, is that the games take too dang long. This is the same issue I have with PnP games in general. A whole fucking campaign is such a huge investment and I'm more into shorter games that quickly 'get to the point'.

Say what you will about the dungeon crawl mindset but at least it has a set end point, you know? You finished the crawl. Yay. Even as an ST running long games instead of just a few meetups is a pretty big task.

>>98788609
It is a poor idea, the mechanics already struggle to accommodate solars

>>98789477
i want an exalted hardcore and an exalted video game so bad bro.

>>98789311
So run (or play) shorter games? It's not like the developers are out here recommending game lengths, that's all up to you. If you're experiencing long games all the time it's much more likely that you have your GMs or yourself to blame. Learning to finish games, build tight plotlines, and keep pacing quick are all things that take skill that's not easy to come by and often needs team effort that also has a not-insignificant skill requirement. You can get better at proper pacing as a player, you can encourage players to spend less time on their turns or on their squabbling, and most importantly you can talk to your GMs about what you fucking want out of the game. If what you want is a game that goes quick then let them know. Using your words.

>>98789591
Before we can proceed, which parts of the setting do you want translated to a game?

>>98789647
nta but I've thought about it before. I think mote mechanics, excellencies, perfect defenses, and multiattacks would work well together in an isometric kung-fu beat-em-up rpg. Think Don't Starve or Vampire Survivors but a bit more punch-and-bounce-y, and we slap it into a classic RPGMaker/pokemon style map where you can go talk to people and do stuff that pushes some kind of linear plot along. If I were making it I'd go with the Bull of the North as the protagonist, run through his origins in a prologue and then start the game in Nexus, cap off the end of the game with breaking the Tepet Legions and frame it as winning a grand victory over the Scarlet Empire that proves you've returned and will take back the world from their evil grasp.

>>98789647
I like the withering and decisive for 3e and the way it feels. I just want the system to be more interconnected then what it is. Be nice to see someone sailing something while someone else uses an army. I could write a list of all changes I think individually would be cool, that might be fun. Gimme a bit.

>>98789647
Wait, you mean a video game. Honestly anything. I'd be sad if we didn't visit Malfeas but that's about it. There is a ton to use for a game. For a specific type of game, something like Dominions 6 or whatever would work best for maxing that JRPG weeb vibe.

>>98789761
>I like the withering and decisive for 3e and the way it feels
play final fantasy dissidia

>>98789832
I know final fantasy has been a multiverse for like forty years now but dissidia just doesn't seem like my thing.

>>98780115
Are there any demons that haven’t gotten a proper 3e write-up yet?

I can't figure out Sidereals 2e. It seems like despite these guys being the martial arts masters of the setting it seems to be largely not worth it to invest in martial arts until you have like 200+ experience.

Or I guess you could ignore bonus point efficient and just buy essence to have essence four to try to get a couple of sidereal martial arts charm at the start. Is there some obvious strategy behind sidereals i'm missing or what?

>>98791171
Sidereals was so badly done that it caused a new edition to be created.

>>98791171
It was made by literal fucking retards who simultaneously didn't understand Sidereal 1e and yet copy pasted a bunch of shit from it.

You know how Sidereals has a Fate Keyword that makes most of their charms non functional on Outsiders to Fate? Totally invented and an utter misunderstanding of the limitations in Sidereal 1e, which only said that charms that controlled compulsions, transportation from one place to the other and willpower manipulation.

>>98791851
>only
>like three different things and you're probably missing stuff.

Mechanically IIRC 2e sidereals were not very function. Tons of good fluff and writing tho.

sidereal were doomed anyways when the only charms you could homebrew for them were martial arts charm. anything else breaks the canon, which is fine, but some people went hard on the "No, sidereals have a limited charm set no matter how shit it makes them to play."

>>98792974
It was more of karma for the 1e power creep.

>Sidereals only and always will have those charms, because of it we had to power creep solars.
>the Sidereal charmset was tied to the scriptures to make them extra locked.
>the real solar charmset is the homebrew we made along the way.
>*cue 2e*
>The Sidereal charmset was turned nonsensical by the changes in the system.
>and the devs couldn't really change it, since the Sidereal's fans would throw a bitch fit for them not following the scriptures.

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>>98791122
Yes, many. Most, probably.

>>98792967
>like three different things and you're probably missing stuff.
nta they're not

>Mechanically IIRC 2e sidereals were not very function. Tons of good fluff and writing tho.
The problem was actually that their writing was dogshit and their fluff was worse. The writing was a hackjob of copypaste and thinking they were smarter than they were, and the original fluff was nine flavors of ruining the playstyle Sidereal players wanted. The mechanics were mostly fine except a bunch of people got their nuts twisted over them being powerful, which was why their part of scroll of errata was 9/10ths making them unplayably bad.

>>98793099
>and the devs couldn't really change it, since the Sidereal's fans would throw a bitch fit for them not following the scriptures.
The fuck do you mean? They didn't follow the scriptures in 2e anyway. They didn't give a fuck.

>>98793265
>twisted over them being powerful
A ton of sidereal stuff was literally broken and errata didn't really make them any funner or cooler. For play style sidereal players wanted, I don't know how to decipher what sidereal players want and what vocal retards who've never played them say they should be.

Sidereals were always shit so who cares desu . oh wow fantasy cia boot lickers, adds so much to the game line. just garbage
>nta they're not
That's still pretty limiting. No way to effect willpower and no way to influence them besides lowering dice pools, no way to move them or use your move powers in response to them. Seems nasty.

>>98793304
>oh wow fantasy cia boot lickers, adds so much to the game line. just garbage
They are the mysterious strangers found in certain fantasy series, but since we know their deal, they lost most of their mystical aura.
It is just a concept that doesn't translate well to tabletop games.

>>98793362
I mean you're right, I'm just being a dick to a splat that I'm not too interested in. It's weird, they have some of my favorite charms fluff wise but apparently their coolest options are super broken.

I love their super cool shintai like abilities that are found in SMA.

>>98793476
>I love their super cool shintai like abilities that are found in SMA.
It's more like shintai are form-like, to the point you can't use shintai at the same time as form charms just like you can't use forms together.

>>98793285
Sids 2e crunch was a lazy port of 1e stuff.

>>98793774
Dragonblood were lazier and don't get half the shit for it. My experience was that base 2e Sidereals were more playable than 2.5e Sidereals too.

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>>98793304
>That's still pretty limiting
original anon here, you were pretty wrong and backpedaling now. Sidereals in 1e were strong as fuck even before SMA were brought into the equation, 2e made them dogshit because it misunderstood those three limitations you are now severely upplaying.

>>98791851
>>98792967

So basically the answer to the sidereal question is more or less "The game was rigged from the start" and 1e to 2e sidereals are a wash? I guess I'll deal with being screwed no matter how I spend experience or bonus points.

>>98794528
SMA is deliciously broken if that's what you want.

Great news lunarfags, new training, familias, war, bureaucracy and brawl charm patch dropped.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ou-tbidf5GY

Can Stomach Bottle Bugs fix paralysis? Since they can fix sickness and 'got stabbed'

>>98780115
Weekly Update
relatively big week for it's size
>Art Direction
Infernals – Sketches approved and moving onto finals
Champions of the Divine Flame – Splats approved moving on to the rest of the book
Liminals – Finals in for approval
Sidereals Companion – Sending over to Gong this week
>Proofing
Alchemicals – Fixing the PoD Issue yet again
Essence PG – Off to Paradox for approval
some more middling art progress, but 3 important things to not
the alchemicals proofing thing resulted in it's removal of print on demand for awhile, apparently coming down to an internal ink layering that was creating a compounded issue at high expense, so they're correcting that
there have also been 3 released previews of the alchemicals companion book, linked here
https://theonyxpath.com/locusts-and-grasshoppers-alchemicals-companion-preview-1/
https://theonyxpath.com/charms-alchemicals-companion-preview-2/
https://theonyxpath.com/quick-characters-alchemicals-companion-preview-3/
and most interestingly, contrary to the note above, the essence player's guide has now been released to backers as a backer pdf. if anyone happens to have a copy they can upload in a shareable form, we'd all appreciate it
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/onyx-path/exalted-essence-players-guide/updates/53828

>>98791122
the majority. infernals amends some of this but not a lot and adds new ones besides

>>98780115
I'm partial to Shadows of the Ancient Past for Introducing Facts. And in 3e Lightning Spider is cool.

>>98783782
Pick it at char-gen, take spells only with splat XP

>>98794244
>Has the most broken charms.
>literally I win powers.

Stop assuming errata is canon and quit being mad that errata ruined your sids. Or that 2e sids are stronger then 1e sids because of SMA. No one cares.

>>98780115
What is the appeal for Exalted? I want to try it out.

>>98780296
perroneles, translation. (not kidding)

>>98789311
feels like video games are more your thing than pnp. whats the point if theres no roleplaying in your roleplaying game.

>>98791171
siderals cannot have essence 4 at character generation without taking flaws (which are an optional mechanic that few gm i know use.)

but yes, siddies with starting "prismatic arrangement" and "scarlet pattern battlefield" styles charms would be crazy strong.

solars CAN do it by the way. which is retarded.

>>98795725
no (in 2nd ed at least), sickness effects are not crippling effects (normally).

>>98795963
nigga talking about errata when the base 2e sidereals had all that stupid shit in it.

>>98796807
power. fantasy.

you are a person blessed by a supernatural being and are now way WAYYYYY more powerful than a normal human. the point of the game is to build a power base (wealth, land, equipment) and use those to change creation like you want. want to make a kingdom that allies itself with the robot communists of autochtonia? go for it! Want to create a mercenary company selling your services to fight the aristocratic realm? do that too!

challenge is not REALLY the point of exalted, no matter what the mechanics says. its about how you use the power you easily come about.

>>98796988
what? don't project anon
>>98797040
a ton of the base side real and stuff from the books is just insane and OP. if you don't use a lot of their OP stuff then their pretty weak. that goes for every single game ever.

>>98797098
2e completely overnerfed them PRE errata. They were conceived in 2e as nerfed retards.

>>98797200
SMA, a sidereal only thing, is some of the most broken stuff in base Exalted 2e. Duck Fate from what I recall is one of the most powerful defense charms. So eh. Pretty sure a few of the other sidereal charms might also be OP, can't recall, but I know most of the power comes from SMA's so whatever.

>>98795725
They're also superlative mundane doctors on the side with their superpowers supporting it, so it depends on how you got paralyzed. Evil nasty curse, pressure point fuckery, someone cut your head off, you're shit out of luck. Spine misalignment, concussion side effects, thunderstruck, good chance they can do something about it.

>>98797215
>SMA, a sidereal only thing, is some of the most broken stuff in base Exalted 2e
A: it's not Sidereal-only. B: it's not in the Sidereals book, which is what people are complaining about with Sidereals - they separate Scroll of the Monk being bad from Sidereals being bad because the reasons they were mishandled are different. C: It's supposed to be equivalent to the Solar power level in the elder essence range, of course it's some of the most broken stuff in base Exalted 2e; elder Solaroid stuff is equally broken, and you're better off complaining about elder essence than assigning it to SMA.

>Duck Fate from what I recall is one of the most powerful defense charms
In base 2e it also has the most reliable Flaws of Invulnerability of any perfect (wide-scale attacks and needing a roll to take effect) AND double or more the mote cost perfect defenses with more focus. It wasn't OP.

>>98798303
It was the Sidereals who started the power creep arms race, the Solar broken stuff was published later to compensate

>>98798303
Ah. Well, if we're not counting the stuff from Scroll of the Monk and only base Sidereal charms then I suppose they are underpowered. I also don't like how they're limited in number with no real way to go over without breaking the canon. Base Duck Fate, before errata (whatever that changed) I've only heard about how strong it is so... OP or not it's at least good.

>>98798410
...Yes? You're more likely to meet an elder Sidereal than an elder Solar or even an elder Lunar. Of course Sidereal stuff frontran elder content.

>>98798486
>I also don't like how they're limited in number with no real way to go over without breaking the canon.
Martial arts are the answer. Throne Shadow Style / Fate's Guardian Style when used by a Sidereal is basically an Infernal's tree of Primordial charms with 'being a Sidereal' as the Primordial's themes.

>>98798284
Aren't pressure points part of the body?

>>98799640
I think you can sub chakra for pressure point, with the meaning being they can fix fucked up by natural causes but not fucked up by magic

>>98799640
I was thinking Snake Style / Monkey Style pressure point attacks, which are more a thinly veiled way to apply a magical negative effect to someone with wibbly words that make it sounds like something other than an evil nasty curse. Yes, when the Blissful Sage hits you in the root chakra he is kicking you in the dick, no the superlative but mundane doctor cannot do shit about it.

>>98798851
Contrary of Sidereals, Solar elders didn't exist both in (characters) and out (mechanics) of universe.

>>98800265
When Scroll of the Monk was written, sure. Their content started to be introduced at the same time they became a reasonable thing for you to run into, which was when DotFA came out and First Age games became possible. This all seems reasonable to me.

>>98800290
Not really, Sidereals elder wank was introduced in 1e in their book.
The dev's answer for the complaint was just "just homebrew better solar charms".

>>98800254
Root chakra's the ass isn't it? Sacral is the dick chakra

>>98800402
The Root of Valor is in the dick, assuming you're referring to Monkey Style.

>>98800471
I always found Four Halo Golden Monkey Realignment funny because moving the chakras around strongly implied you were also moving the physical features. You could shove your head up your ass and have a dick for a nose.

>>98800534
Could you post its write up? Irl chakra realignment is just harmonizing them.

>>98787117
Playing characters that are actually fun

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>>98800534
Note Four Halo Golden Monkey Palm and Four Halo Golden Realignment.

>>98802542
I could never figure out if capstone charm for celestial godbody understanding applied to all martial arts charms or just celestial monkey tree. It seem worth it to complete if it was all martial arts with being unable to get to high virtues.

>>98803113
It only applies to Celestial Monkey, but with PAOC you can use two Forms at once and they all share the expanded armor and weapon restrictions if Celestial Monkey is one of the active forms. Not having high virtues is a major killer though. Ironically enough TED would love this style since he likes low Virtues.

>>98803113
celestial monkey only. kinda useless when you already made your whole build with being unarmored/unarmed.

>>98803156
I hadn't thought about that with PAOC although at the point if you're able to get the capstone for that, you've likely completed the campaign unless the gm lets you get sidereal martial arts at chargen pass the limit.

>>98803200
That's fair. I think the main benefit is that you can now give yourself aggravated soak with martial arts, but it's so rare to the point it's unnecessary. You can also give yourself the ability to do range martial arts attack but even then the range won't be large enough to justify it. It's kinda okay mechanically but I feel it's pretty stylish for martial arts. I forget how busted Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style can be in comparison and still be pretty stylish.

>>98803534
PAOC isn't much of a reach to finish actually, it's only E5. Yes its a lot of charms but i mean you're going to buy a lot of charms most games.

>>98803534
>aggravated soak
lethal soak also soaks aggravated damage in 2e.

>>98803608
It is listed separately in some charms, even post errata

>>98803698
It has never to my knowledge been claimed that freelancers or Ink Monkeys were perfect creatures.

Does anyone else just think PAOC is really gay? I make an exercise every once in a while to read it, and it really is just the most homosexual SMA. All that complexity for literally WHAT.

>>98804466
Do you mean actually gay, or are you using it as a slur to mean it's shit?

>>98803608
lethal soak from armor soaks agg damage by default. Agg damage is lethal damage with "can't be naturally soaked" and "is really hard to heal" as tags. That's part of the reason why Armor Piercing Fang Strike (ignores armor soak) and Essence Venom Strike (ignores natural soak) is so nasty.

>>98803603
fun fact, ive been playing second ed for like 20 years at this point and never once did we reach essence 5. circumstances i guess but to me its a distant dream.

>>98803608
only lethal soak "from armor" work against aggravated. anyway, at this point i have a silken armor+discreet essence armor+a perroneles demon for soak (witohut counting all the soak charms). pretty much all i need.

>>98804466
its one of the best because it does a bit of everything very good and you can finish it fairly quickly. 4 material form is a 1 stop for combat charms.

>>98804466
It has a lot of word count and widgits for something that ultimately I didn't find cool or interesting. Conceptually it and Ablicant are the least interesting SMAs regardless of their mechanical efficiency.

>>98781187
>>98781266
>>98782309
>>98782328
I find it really funny how after multiple decades and changes of developers, nobody fucking knows how to fix Necromancy with the consensus by 3e seeming to be

>Well, in addition to being an objectively worse version of sorcery in every single way relevant to gameplay, it ruins the world even when you do it right
>This is a feature

as its truly unique selling point.

Lunars got more fixes. LUNARS.

>>98808036
With the huge glow-up sorcery got in Ex3 I don't know how sorcery could ever compete with it. There's a few neat tricks that necromancy has, but I'd easily rather get sorcery.

>>98808036
ive always seen necromancy as "the thing you do if you cant do sorcrey".

there's some good spell but they are so costly you gotta be strategic about it.

"bone puppet dance" is a neat debuff,
"flesh-sloughing wave" is surprisingly good against fairfolk and "shattering void mirror" is a boss killer.

"master puppeteer's knife" and "iron countermagic" are good if you are fighting other necromancer. the team will appreciate.

>>98806176
>fun fact, ive been playing second ed for like 20 years at this point and never once did we reach essence 5. circumstances i guess but to me its a distant dream.
You're either working with some kind of synchronized essence levels, milestone leveling like with 3e, or have some other circumstances that've set you back a lot because you're pretty close to Essence 5 in chargen if you want to be.

>>98808036
the issue with Necromancy is that even if it's meant to be less versatile than Sorcery, it all needs to be balanced when Sorcery is invented.

To mind, one of the few things Necromancy does objectively better than Sorcery is transforming creatures...into ghosts/death creatures, at 2nd circle rather than at 3rd circle.

Sorcery has the same amount if not MORE spells for summoning things and is so diverse that the only thing Necromancy gets is that their stuff has skulls and "only usable on ghosts" addendums.

In a new edition they should just scrap that shit and make it the same. Necromancy should be what it's called when you use Sorcery for dark magics and messing with undead. Demons will always be better summons than Undead and the game hasn't rectified that.

inb4 "dont reinvent the wheel" nigger it never was a wheel.

>>98809838
Pretty much. Maybe give Abyssals/Deathlords/whatever a special Black Miracle Theurgy Charm that represents them being able to handle necromantic spells better and lock special necromantic spells behind it. Since there are only a few interesting necromancy spells anyway it's better than having to re-initiate through an entire tree of not-sorcery Charms just to be worse than an actual sorcerer instead. Plus, if I'm not wrong a lot of necromancy spells are just direct copies of sorcerous spells anyway.

>>98809838
>In a new edition they should just scrap that shit and make it the same. Necromancy should be what it's called when you use Sorcery for dark magics and messing with undead.
Agreed, but they should go a step further and make necromancy an acknowledged field of sorcery which abyssals/deathlords have advantages in that've made it better explored and more refined than the rest of sorcery. Basically, necromancy is a subset of sorcery that the Deathlords have made improved spells for, which they have a monopoly on, and which they+abyssals have charms that make them better at.

Astrology should be the same incidentally, but for Sidereals.

>>98809838
>Necromancy should be what it's called when you use Sorcery for dark magics and messing with undead.
I like this idea myself.

>>98809838
I'm also down with necromancy just being as strong as sorcery. I do like your idea tho, it's simple and clean. Demon level undead isn't exactly an impossible ask. Just turn demons into the undead, whambam thank you mam.

>>98809838
Here's an idea: Necromancy is a part of sorcery. So is Astrology. Solars are the only characters that can learn third circle sorcery.

Abyssals always have access to one circle higher of sorcery than they should, but only for necromancy-type effects. All Abyssals start with a first circle necromancy spell and the ability to learn more, as well as to use sorcerous workings as if they were a first circle sorcerer so long as they have necromancy type vibes. When they actually learn first circle sorcery they get a necromancy spell and access to second circle spells from the necromancy part of sorcery, and when they learn second circle sorcery they get third circle necromancy stuff. The trick is that they get early access - they're into second circle necromancy stuff when Solars are still stuck on first circle spells. The trade-off is that their only access to the third circle is for necromancy.

Same goes for Sidereals. They're a step ahead for anything that manipulates fate (Whirlwind of Fate, etc), divines information (Coin of Distant Vision), manipulates the weather (Beckon That Which Stirs the Sky, Rain of Doom, etc), and does similar stuff that's relevant to astrology. They only have access to third circle spells for astrology.

Infernals could be similar too, having access to spells a step ahead based on whichever Yozi they initiated under.

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How do you handle the departing of a familiar?

>>98809186
i rarely play solaroids so starting essence 4 is a luxury i dont have a lot and also the campaigns never last long enough (exp is used to buy wide(versatility) instead of tall(power))

>>98811407
in my game based on zelda, necromancy is just the part of sorcery that is forbidden by the gods for being evil and unnatural. the iron necromancy charm is used to "break" through the magical lock but its still fundamentally sorcery.

>>98813017
massive amount of crying and a tub of ice cream.

Exalt types by who would make the best maid:
>Sidereal (you forget they’re even there)
>Alchemical (is the house, and installed a cleaning protocol everywhere)
>Solar (always perfect)
>Dragon-blood, Liminal (unremarkable)
>Lunar (gets fur everywhere)
>Abyssal (cleans the physical world well, but gets immaterial ghosts everywhere)
>Getimian (turns your house into a different house)
>Infernal (turns your house into a portal to Hell)

>>98812520
>Abyssals always have access to one circle higher of sorcery than they should, but only for necromancy-type effects. All Abyssals start with a first circle necromancy spell and the ability to learn more, as well as to use sorcerous workings as if they were a first circle sorcerer so long as they have necromancy type vibes. When they actually learn first circle sorcery they get a necromancy spell and access to second circle spells from the necromancy part of sorcery, and when they learn second circle sorcery they get third circle necromancy stuff. The trick is that they get early access - they're into second circle necromancy stuff when Solars are still stuck on first circle spells. The trade-off is that their only access to the third circle is for necromancy.

Wow, I think you somehow managed to make Necromancy as used by Abyssals EVEN WORSE.

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>>98813253
I always thought of Sayoko from Code Geass as a Sidereal.

>>98808480
At a certain point I feel necromancy needs unique submodules to compete because of how comprehensive sorcery already is. I'm talking something on the level of Sidereal prophecy or Infernal Devil-Bodies, not the same concept but an advantageous subsystems that offers comparable unique advantages.

The Abyssals companion preview mentioned something about summoning/invoking the rivers of the Underworld. It's seemingly meant to be something completely different, but I feel the idea of incarnating/controlling facets of the Underworld/Labyrinth/the Neverborn's dreams could be a good starting point: Do a ritual to make the idea of the Labyrinth transfigure parts of Creation, curse or bless a place so time flows as dictated by the Calendar of Setesh (as interpreted by the Abyssal or Deathlord, of course), slowly replace forests of wood with forests of bone or spread wildfires of pyreflame.

Make it unique from sorcery for the same reason Summon Hekatonkhiere is: Lorewise, the stuff it fucks with wasn't around to be integrated in the "infrastructure" of sorcery when it was created and codified

>>98808576
The thing is in practice, sorcery is generally preferable to use instead of necromancy AND has similar levels of investment so it's not even easier as a stopgap, it's just flat out worse with no unique selling point

>>98809838
Despite what I said, at this point necromancy has been such a failed experiment I wouldn't even care if someone did this. Just keep BoSS and the corpse-engine builder spells around, I suppose.

>>98813792
>Wow, I think you somehow managed to make Necromancy as used by Abyssals EVEN WORSE
It's actually exactly the same as it is now, except they get early access and automatic initiation at chargen. For Abyssals directly, it's a strict upgrade.

The main difference is that Solars and sorcery stop fucking about pretending that they can't do soul magic or interact with the dead.

>>98813858
My first instinct was to come up with a counterargument, and then I realised you were correct, and that's very sad. All I have to say in response is that I'm not sure "just accept Solars and only Solars get to master this entire power system" is an appropriate solution to the sorcery debacle.

I mean, 3e already has Mastery effects/easy Evocation access for that in other areas.

>>98813869
>All I have to say in response is that I'm not sure "just accept Solars and only Solars get to master this entire power system" is an appropriate solution to the sorcery debacle.
It is the classic solution. And it is called 'Solar' Circle Sorcery. Sidereals got to do it for martial arts for four editions straight. It's also not like sorcery itself is particularly exceptional compared to native charms.

I know this must be a recurrent topic but

> Got the 2nd ed Core back when it was out
> Kept loosely updated with the state of the game and lore/metaplot
> After DECADES of D&DMAINS I finally found a group willing to try out Exalted
> I went with 2nd ed because having a physical book at the table is often quicker
> 2.5 THO
> So we're file-dependent anyway, might as well go with 3rd if it's better/friendlier to a new group (who admittedly has a good chunk of it made from D&D 3+ / OWoD veterans so I think they'll be okay with dice pools and situational +/- to DV and such)
> Which honestly I get the sense neither of them is. From what I'm reading, 2.5 has basically one single working meta, and 3 has a separate system for anything you do

What do?
Also I'm curious about what changed in the lore/plot (if anything)

>>98813935
Once again, I feel I should be able to muster up some kind of argument against exceptionalism but honestly, yeah sorcery is so shite even with Workings and Infernals got so much extra shit that I can't really bring myself to care. Let Solars keep sorcery. You're absolutely right, it's kind of dogshit next to Solaroid Charms anyway.

>>98814243
>What do?
Just play 2e. It's more hype than 3e, and 3e changed the lore so much that you'll probably find it unrecognizable, so it's more likely to get players who're new to the game invested, and you personally seem to like it more. 2e is easy to break, but 2.5e is also broken easily - as much as people can say that it fixed some things, it boiled down to the exact same problems at the end of the day, and if you actually have physical books and prefer using them then obviously that's the way to go. Ultimately it comes down to what you're likely to enjoy, and you seem likely to enjoy 2e regardless of whether there's a slightly better system out there (and the jury's out on whether that's the case - if there is such a better system, it's not definitively 3e).

>>98814243
>What do?
Okay so, I'm assuming you enjoy playing the game based on things you enjoyed in 2e. 2.5e made an attempt to solve rocket tag that also fundamentally broke the game for everyone except Solars

3e is a fundamentally different game. In combat: An alpha strike with maxed JB is highly rewarded, Excellencies are more important than ever, Ambushes are godlike, being T-rex sized or above grants arbitrary super armor, fall damage bypasses almost all conventional damage resistance because ??? and perfect defences are much harder to spam. The end result is that you are incentivised to win fights before they begin. Social combat is about picking a basic opinion someone has like "I like white rice" or "Death to the Realm!" and negging them about it up 2 more tiers of importance to their entire worldview until you can convince them to go fuck a goat. Craft is an incomprehensible abstraction of points and craft-specific XP that, persistently, the game has attempted to demonstrate Exalt/Ligier-specific mastery of by simply bypassing the bloody mess of Skyrim-like dagger-grinding. Sail is a comedy of errors in which two mortal captains are incapable of actually interacting with each other on the open seas.

There are valid uses cases for attempting 3e. It includes sorcerous workings, which are freeform rituals that make sorcery (and to a lesser extent, necromancy) a shitton more useful before E8. Solaroids specifically can buy high-Essence Charms at chargen through a variably named mechanic. If you like riding, mounted combat is comically good this edition. This is technically the most comprehensive social system the game has ever had. Likewise, combat TECHNICALLY solves rocket tag even if it creates whole new problems.

It is not wholly bad. But the development of 3e being troubled aside, I just think it's such a fundamentally different experience you might enjoy homebrewing an older edition into something functional more.

>>98814243
>lore/plot
It's fucking shit is what it is, and the main reason why I genuinely think you're better off with 2.5e. The long and short of it is that there is no longer any meaningful plot beyond the Realm Civil War and the Silver Pact's comically unproductive assault on the Realm, and in the name of being "player facing" every interesting thing about the lore has been shot in the head and replaced with vagueposts the writers think sound cool. The complete lack of passion every splat is written about except Infernals and Sidereals is very noticeable.

>The Scarlet Empress is just missing, end of discussion
>The Realm is now explicitly a matriarchy rather than just being pro-Scarlet Empress but attempts to keep high ranking Dragonblooded in their older ed positions of power despite asserting men are stereotyped into house husbands anyway, also neomah are now a tacitly accepted way for gays/lesbians to fulfil their duties to reproduce
>The Silver Pact has multiple sorcerers in an edition where sorcery can create freeform changes over vast swathes of territory even at the Celestial level, and Lunars can infiltrate Realm cities, yet somehow the Silver Pact seems to be on the backfoot against the Realm's military might. "Elder" is now an extremely loosely defined term no longer limited to the First Age survivors. Ma-Ha-Suchi and Raksi had almost all their edge sanded off and the most negative things about their settlements retconned. Lilith is fundamentally a different character who never met Desus
>Sidereals are all rockstars of Heaven and the gods think it's heckin' wholesome and cute to see mortals prancing around with the power of Fate at their fingertips. The Bronze Faction somehow has less overt control over the Realm; it's not clear how, but implied to be because of the Getimian (Isekai Exalted) terrorism campaign against Heaven which has yet to be elaborated because production is slow as FUCK.

>>98814441
>The conflict between the Bronze and Gold Factions is framed more as a philosophical/political disagreement stalemated by the Bronze Faction's grip on power being increasingly shaky and the Gold Faction having lots of rifts within itself. Someone basically wanted the entire fate ninja conflict to be more "realistic"
>Gods in general are a lot nicer than in previous editions, Ryzala actually has friends
>Also, Fate is no longer the absolute arbiter of causality in Creation. It's basically just a voting system for gods to exercise influence over destiny
>Rare positive: The Usurpation required alliances with everyone from Lunars to enemies of the Exalted to some guilty Solars themselves, went awry, and resulted in a prolonged fallout of devastating war. Instead of the Solars all just being jumped at dinnertime
>There are also nonhuman Exalted called the Spoken; they are not elaborated on outside of Exalted Essence (did I mention development of 3e took so long they made A DIFFERENT GAME to try to satisfy players in the interim?)
>The Neverborn are completely quiescent and the Abyssal Exaltations are solely the work of the Deathlords. Despite this, they are JUST aware enough to do plot relevant things like resurrect the Deathlords and punish the Lion for going off-script. The Abyssals are bound to obey something called the Chivalry of Death, which is essentially the writers trying to have their cake and eat it by preserving the older editions' commandments but reframing them as "interpretations" by the Deathlords

>>98814454
>The Deathlords themselves have been thoroughly whitewashed in an attempt by the writers to make them appealing bosses to at least consider working for. The Bodhisattva is now HONEST about wanting to build the perfect society, the Eye is just an eccentric mad scientist, the Dowager was literally lobotomised by her resurrection (and the Shoat unironically loves her, no need for torture). This is widely speculated to have resulted from Holden's ardent defence of the Lover granting Rape Ghost Charms, resulting in such an intense overcorrection that in 3e the Lover is a pointless caricature of a character who hates love for no reason and seeks its philosophical reason despite most of the Deathlords having largely human motivations even after being whitewashed
>There is a plot device called the Flame of Exigence that can let ANY god create their own Exalted, called Exigents. Exigents can have extremely variable traits like not naturally passing on or utterly consuming the god to result in a Solar-level combatant. Conveniently this is of NO CONCERN to the Immaculate Faith.
>Exaltation itself is no longer something as simple as an indestructible soul. It has been defined as some kind of ultra esoteric miracle that weakened the Incarnae permanently when they first performed it, and now they are as addicted/preordained to perform Exaltation personally as they are to play the Games. Apparently, even if an Incarnae were to DIE they would still continue Exalting people. Some fucking how. I genuinely don't know why this exists, I suspect it was a weird intersection of Holden and Morke wanting to introduce new lore and some fans feeling Exaltation wasn't special enough
>Getting around what's called the Law of Diminishment is as simple as corrupting an existing Exaltation instead of making your own wholesale, by the way

>>98814464
>Nothing meaningful has changed for Alchemicals, there has been a little more lore on how Metropoli remain active politically and strategically throughout the Eight Nations' history
>Infernals and Hell have changed a lot, and not wholly for the worse. The Yozis are too bitter and defeatist to head a Reclamation; they literally started fighting each other right after imprisonment, and their souls fought each other AGAIN when the Deathlords approached them for collaboration to make the Abyssal/Infernal Exaltations. While still toned down compared to 2e, demons generally have the predatory/inhumanly passionate vibe preserved. Ligier explicitly LOVES Malfeas, the state of Hell, and the idea of forging beauty from suffering in this edition as a kind of extended copium for what has happened to the Yozis
>Infernals are Ability-based and do not use Yozi Charms...because they use the Essence of Hell which lets them mix and match Yozi themes within those abilities with less than no restrictions. Infernals cannot turn into Devil-Tigers...because they are already capable of generating inner worlds that can be partially externalised and sprouting subsouls before E5. Infernals do not have most of their Shintai Charms as recognised in 2e...because every Infernal intrinsically has a freeform god-monster transformation with a separate health track called a Devil-Body. Infernals explicitly have no masters even though 3CDs court them or entangle them in politics and the Yozis reward those who commune with them; having given up on escape, the Yozis' plan is to simply lovebomb the Infernals in Hell and tell them it's a pittance compared to what they CAN and SHOULD SEIZE FOR THEMSELVES in Creation...then let human nature take its course
>Did I mention Infernals can learn SMAs in 3e? The Perfect Lotus is no longer a thing; in fact Sidereal Essence can passively teach people SMAs from fighting Sidereals

And yeah, might as well end on a silly note.

>>98814464
>The Deathlords
Almost forgot, one notable change is that the Lion is now a they/them instead of a him for some reason (probably because some writer got a funny idea from the realisation the Lion's always seen in armor) and also instead of actively stopping the Contagion, as far as anyone can tell the Lion was punished for putting zero effort into fulfilling the Deathlords' promise to end Creation and just trying to carve out an empire in the Underworld instead.

Notably, there is no hint that Abyssals are subject to any kind of similar punishment.

>>98814432
>I'm assuming you enjoy playing the game based on things you enjoyed in 2e

I never activelly enjoyed anything in 2e.
Never played, just browsed through the core - never to the point of actually put anything it in practice.

Loosely followed the lore, mostly through memes of Desus (who IIRC re-exalted into the iconic Dawn?) turboabusing Lilith, demons diddling a kid as an incubator for Infernal Exaltations, the Scarlet Empress swallowing ED's darkness until her overarching meta-plot return in the appropriate module, and the such.

>>98814428
So you say, just play with what you have (and the huge backlog of published material as a resource), you'll solve broken when you get to it which might actually never happen because your table will manage?

>>98814503
Not him, but based on all that you've said yeah that seems like the best solution for you. Apart from the sheer density of the 3e system, the meme scene is completely different and far more obscure.

>>98814503
>So you say, just play with what you have (and the huge backlog of published material as a resource), you'll solve broken when you get to it which might actually never happen because your table will manage?
Yes. Exactly that. You might even not have a better solution for broken combat than choosing not to fight as much, and that'd still be okay as these things go. More likely you'll work out something that seems reasonable to you, like slapping 3wp surcharges on all perfect defenses or something, and unbreak it into a configuration good enough for you. The upside of 2e is that when you run into something that's broken you will very quickly realise that it is, in fact, broken, and how and why that is. It's not the kind of game to obfuscate bullshit behind complexity, which is another reason to go with 2e over 3e.

>>98814505
>>98814514

So specifically 2e and not 2.5, got it

>>98814503
>memes of Desus (who IIRC re-exalted into the iconic Dawn?) turboabusing Lilith
He's Eclipse, but otherwise yeah.

>demons diddling a kid as an incubator for Infernal Exaltations
2e's least proud moment.

>the Scarlet Empress swallowing ED's darkness until her overarching meta-plot return in the appropriate module, and the such.
Scroll of Swallowed Darkness is canon (don't believe what the deniers say). The Ebon Dragon double penetrates her with dick and tail.

>>98814526
>Scroll of Swallowed Darkness is canon
Based. Solars fucked mountains, by the way. Not the gods of mountains. The actual mountains.

>>98814503
>>98814514
Ex2 is broken. So is 2.5. The best solution is to just talk to your players about expectations and fudge. Making houserules is basically that without the talking to players part.

Running my first ever Exalted campaign. Last session the Eclipse caste summoned Agata. My circle drains enemies of their willpower very quickly.

How should I RP characters with zero temp willpower? Should I give enemies some penalties for having their wp drained?

>>98814526
>2e's least proud moment.

Eh.
Honestly, if your Solar doesn't Limit Break into disappearing in the night to go mass-rape a nunnery because for whatever combination of Virtues, intimacies and motivations they can't comprehend mortals not loving them (fully in body and mind), no matter their willingness as it's okay to make them love you either by force or social fuckery, you're playing Exalted wrong.

No "you are somewhat less effective for this single combat scene in which your Circle will cover for you anyway" bullshit at my table.

So yeah, Lilun be welcome. You don't need to have spiked demon dicks fuck an infant-minded abomination's pus-ridden sores (btw I honestly don't think was ever the intended concept anyway, I figure something more Hellraiser-y) on screen for the general concept of child-thrown-into-hell-to-be-the-vessel-of-infernal-powers to be part of your game.

>>98814682
>The best solution is to just talk to your players about expectations and fudge. Making houserules is basically that without the talking to players part.
Houserules introduced mid-game done right involves talking to your players and is essentially an agreement to fudge the rules in the favour of making the game meet your expectations. Houserules introduced before the game starts would be best to talk about still, obviously, but as the Storyteller setting up the game it's also more reasonable to set up rules leading the game in a direction you'd prefer to run.

>>98814702
>How should I RP characters with zero temp willpower?
They're browbeaten and having trouble with focus. They're not exactly timid, but they're not at the end of their rope and about to burst into anger either - they've burned all the way down the rope and are running out of ideas. They're unable to summon up that righteous spark of defiance you see so much, not because they don't have it, but because they've already pushed it too hard. They're exhausted.

>Should I give enemies some penalties for having their wp drained?
While it's not necessarily correct to give penalties for having willpower drained directly, in situations where someone's out of willpower they are usually also in a situation where they are either mentally or physically exhausted. Willpower represents effort and they've given a lot of it. It would usually be reasonable to talk about a -1 to -3 exhaustion penalty. That said, usually, running out of Willpower is enough of a penalty.

>>98814712
>Eh.
I'm not saying it didn't fit the game or that people don't do worse in-game, especially with Limit Break, I'm saying that it's the part most people shy away from when they're trying to sell the game. If someone new is coming up and going 'wow what's this game all about i hear it's pretty cool' people usually don't want to talk about Lilun.

>>98814702
RPwise you can just have them acting frustrated and anxious and possibly more inclined to violence because they just don't want to bother ignoring what you're saying and Join Battle is one of the most powerful (if boorish) answers to social combat. Of course this will have massive consequences in a proper social setting and is generally suicide if they're not already stronger than everyone else around.

It's kind of like the annoying little groupie who mocks and taunts and contradicts you and you want to squish him but you can't because he's the groupie for Big Digger, who got his name because he puts people in graves.

Also, going into combat without willpower means being locked out of your best Charms so they'll probably not want to invoke that option too.

>>98814702
>How should I RP characters with zero temp willpower?
They stop caring as much. They're so done with it that anything that's not completely ridiculous sounds like a good idea. They don't put in as much effort as they were. They want to get out of that awful situation and go lie down to sleep for a week. They probably prioritize quick solutions even if they've got long-term consequences, because the way someone with willpower is trained by life is to think that the shit they're in is so bad that stuff happening later is something they'll be more able to handle, and it can't hurt them if they die right now. If they've been willpower drained by people in the room they almost certainly want to leave the room, and in fact probably already wanted to leave the room for a while. If they can't see the source of the willpower drain then most people would consider the location cursed and get the fuck out of there.

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>>98814526
>Scroll of Swallowed Darkness is canon (don't believe what the deniers say). The Ebon Dragon double penetrates her with dick and tail.
They were fucking even earlier.

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Don't Necromancers not even have an equivalent of summon 2cd outside of Essence? In 3e they have to physically go and hunt down ghosts up to Essence 6, and barely any Essence 6 ghosts match up to a 2CD. And the Hekatonkhires we have are all weak sauce tards. There's no Hekatonkhire that could ever match with Ligier or Ululuya

>>98780115
How have you used the Scarlet Empress?

>>98816889
isn't it funny how
>great contagion killed 90 percent of all life
>raksha were going to crusade but were single handedly stopped by the empress
just reads as total propaganda to prop up the Realm but literally no book ever tries to discredit these absurdities except the deepest darkest recesses of the Raksha book where they said Balor was felled because he was betrayed by his two companions.

>>98816889
sexually
But yeah, she probably had young Solars and Lunars brought to her chambers, I'm pretty sure she tried to fuck them at some point, if only to try and give her better control over the Imperial Manse.

>>98816862
depends on edition, in 2e the sample hekatonkhire Loras is an Essence 6 Solar (all Solar and Abyssal Charms, iirc)

Also you really shouldn't be using fetich souls as the power benchmark.

>>98814432
"Sail is a comedy of errors in which two mortal captains are incapable of actually interacting with each other on the open seas."

that sounds hilarious, explain more!

>>98814441
even the DB knew not to fuck with demons too much in 2nd ed. (literally and figuratively). damn, things changed.

>>98814464
exigent just sound like snowflake god-blooded, very meh.

>>98817593
They fucked the lore for DEI bullshit. Used to be same sex relationships were okay but you NEEDED to produce heirs or give the appearance that you were trying. You could have same sex lovers on the side, nobody cares who you fuck as long as you pop out kids every now and then, but 3e basically tried to make it so you could use sex change magic or demons to produce guaranteed DBs. I'm sure tainting the entire Scarlet Dynasty with demonic influence (with sorcerers also being persona non grata in polite society) will go over swimmingly.

The other change that pissed me off was progenitive essence. Basically in 3E, once DBs conceive a child, they cannot conceive another DB child who will Exalt until five years pass, because the "progenitive essence" was depleted. Supposedly it was invented to counteract DB rape camps or something where DBs would be used as baby factories to produce supersoldiers.

>>98817602
They are. They fill no narrative role godblooded do not already cover and they cheapen all other Exalted by existing.

>>98817602
At some point, people forgot how rare and special the Exalted are, so they started making "the second chosen one" kind of fanfics.

>>98817661
>They are. They fill no narrative role godblooded do not already cover and they cheapen all other Exalted by existing
God blooded don't fulfill be deviantart oc spread sheets like exigents do.

Anyone want to post necromancy homebrew ideas? I don't mean mechanics or anything but just as a writing exercise. Doesn't even have to be super Exalted, just a kicks thing. I've been trying to write something fun and I've been having, I dunno, some issues. Here are some ramblings I got so far.

Neverborn are "floating" over the Void like a bottle that can't sink. Detritus gathers on them. This is corrupting and part of undeath. Imparting "momentum to death".
Undeath isn't a lessening, it's not an empowerment and Neverborn aren't too big to die. They are instead like corrupt code, data that simply can't be deleted because of its nature. All undeath is like this, imprinting yourself onto Creation in a way where creation can never use its "If this dies, run this" stuff on you.
Undeath is power - literally. Like a whirlpool that you use to gather speed Necromancy use these 3D currents to empower their spells. The closer you can get to the void, the closer to the Neverborn, ectect the more power you can pull from.
The Neverborn are basically an Anti-Shinma. It's here, defines itself and can not be removed. It's younger but no less capable of defining everything - this would be bad. Like Solars with sorcery an Abyssal/Necromancer could change the nature of reality using them, there is no power gap even if the natures are different.

I don't really like any of these and they don't really help define a cooler necromancy but there has to be something that tickles my brain the right way. Also not sure how well that even match Exalted desu lol.

>>98817691
>be deviantart oc spread sheets
That's not a narrative role, that's a "needs corrective bullying" role

Honestly I like the secret fire lore and the whole "gods making custom champions" thing because I love the vibe of something lessening itself to create something bigger then itself.

Just, you know, why would I want to make my own exalted. That's a ton of work.

>>98816905
No book tries to discredit it because it's more or less how things actually went down.

>>98817602
I dislike the other new Exalts 3E adds, but Exigents I actually quite like. Their biggest problem is that they're a pain in the ass to actually use due to the amount of homebrewing needed.

>>98817540
considering that sorcery gets to just summon fetich souls and meanwhile necromancers don't even KNOW what a 'fetich soul' tier hekatonkhire looks like, it's more than fair.

>>98817917
>No book tries to discredit it because it's more or less how things actually went down.
This is the problem, that the game just creates this scenario and we have to take it at face value.

>>98817593
People posting here actually defended it, for a good long while, on the basis it was just an unsavoury last resort. But I have always held the stance that (assuming the Immaculate Faith hasn't been similarly bastardised behind the scenes) if ANYTHING written about Realm ideas of spiritual purity and civilisation itself being predicated on the divine order that they (supposedly) uphold.

Then being willing to consider using a neomah as a babymomma at all is literally more heretical than practicing necromancy openly.

>>98817602
They are. Strawmaiden Janest was blatantly the character they wanted to be the new designated Exalted MC at one point, she even has red hair!

>>98818947
Technically we have one (1) example of a Hekatonkhiere that was explicitly He Who Holds In Thrall's former fetich: The Infinite Prison. It's in Compass: The Underworld.

It's a shapeshfting spooky prison (although its preferred form is still a big basalt cube) that teleports you into a spooky labyrinth you're stuck in forever, unless you can punch your way through 1000 -0 health levels with 12/A/12L/18B soak. It spends all its time manifesting torture implements and demanding the ghosts inside it take the role of prisoner and warden as it demands. Strangely it has no power to compel them to engage in this social experiment, it simply rearranges itself so there's nowhere else to go and nothing to do.

It's...not very fun.

>>98817578
Okay so, you know those toy boats kids play with using remote controls that can steer (badly), catch up to each other if they have enough time to accelerate, but can never actually interact other than vaguely bump into each other? If the 3e combat system is like Dissidia Final Fantasy where people whack each other really hard and fast until they break through their super armor, then sailing in 3e tried to overtune a simulationist experience of captaining boats so much it turns into playing with toy boats.

You're supposed to make Strategic Maneuvers and roll Sail which scales off your ship's Momentum in way Holdenmorke tried to pace on par with Exalt-level personal combat. This doesn't fucking work because it means failing rolls /glues the ship in place and prevents it from going anywhere/ meaning that mathematically,

>The ship with the bigger Momentum will always get away and hunt you down infallibly, assuming calm seas
>It is literally impossible for mortal captains to get close enough to fight because you need Excellencies to get your ship anywhere in a reasonable time during combat

It gets worse. Tracking Hull health to gauge when the damn ship stops moving (which as mentioned above, it may well have already) and actually starts sinking is a pain in the ass for everyone involved. Mechanically, crew are just equipment bonuses. The difference between a demon crew and a crew of random hobos is like a +1-2 difference, which is weird in a system otherwise dedicated to being painfully autistic. Nobody can seem to agree if the vague ranges used for ships ALSO apply to combat Charm effects (which often refer to close, short, medium etc range instead of strict measurements) which can potentially result in a Dragonblooded poking holes in a galleon from within their own cabin because "they're technically at short range lmao". Did I mention that one (1) failed sailing roll against an environment hazard can heavily damage a vessel?

1/2

>>98818952
It is a case of the game writing its lore as game instead of a novel.

>>98814464
>Getting around what's called the Law of Diminishment is as simple as corrupting an existing Exaltation instead of making your own wholesale, by the way
So. Infeenals and Abyssals?

>>98814702
Eyes rolled up and slightly crossed, tongue lolling out. Hold out both hands in a double peace sign.

>>98817578
TLDR, Holdenmorke got a bizarre OSR-like kick out of writing an arbitrarily simulationist system for sailing, specifically, for some ineffable reason. And this has both meant that Solar Sailing Charms do incredibly niche, often pointless things. Boats are, unironically, liabilities to Exalts. Especially the mobile ones.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk about how like for virtually everything else, Infernals have the best Sail Charms in the setting. Not because you can conjure up a jolly yarr harr atmosphere for your crew (remember, mechanically crew are just equipment for the duration of the voyage), because you can lure people around with rumours of treasure (social actions have limited applicability in a subsystem where CAPTAINS CANNOT FUCKING MOVE WITHOUT EXCELLENCIES) or because you can just turn the nearby ocean into acid and set it on hellfire (even though that is pretty fucking rough for every non-artifact vessel).

NO, it's the fact that Infernals have Charms to

>Breathe underwater, and reset their cooldown-having Charms after a few seconds underwater once per day
>Once per story, transform into their Devil-Body (think Neon Genesis Evangelion-style solipsistic kaiju; yes it's the replacement for shintais. They come with a shitload of powers that don't cost Essence which include limited terraforming, inhuman mobility and short ranged teleportation) simply by diving down 4 rangebands below

So you see, MATHEMATICALLY the best way to sail in 3e is to be an Infernal captain, proclaim your dominion over the world's waters (thus transforming them to be like Kimbery's), chain anchors to your boots and fucking sink into the ocean. Several fathoms below, you will erupt into either a sea monster or BECOME ONE WITH THE SEA at which point you will be infinitely more mobile than the retard mortal captain paddling his galleon in circles because he doesn't have enough fucking dice to leave harbour.

2/2

>>98816905
The Empress had access to a broadcast system that made miles-high images of herself from which to proclaim her victory and triumphs and I do not think she would have been slow to use it while obliterating the faerie crusade. She could be seen and heard from anywhere in the Blessed Isle as a grand divine being smiting the armies of un-reality. We found out about the projections when she used them to declare her return in Return of the Scarlet Empress, but nobody was particularly surprised that they existed, and even if that timeline is non-canon the history it introduces isn't. Her possession of the Sword of Creation and victory over the fae was not subtle.

>>98819490
Yep. Re: Abyssals, in 3e the Monstrances of Celestial Portion let Deathlords select Abyssals for Exaltation and perform a plot device necromancy that kickstarts the Last Breath. Otherwise, it's just a cage that wrests control of the Exaltation from the Sun's will. In an attempt to avoid the sheer grimdark of 2e, Monstrances cannot grant Deathlords inherent control over Abyssals and Deathlords are characterised as VERY, VERY, VERY PATIENT AND UNDERSTANDING to Abyssals even when it seemingly breaks character (one of the two Deathlords I dislike the least in 3e, the Lion, I like because at least he acts relatively like an asshole and working for him is kind of like working for Darth Vader unlike some of the pretentiousness or contrived flattery the others give. The other, the Heron, would be a case of character assassination if she had any dignity left from the old editions but what they did to her is just fucking funny) from the otherwise callous, ambitious and sometimes ideologically world-destroying Exalted ghosts (oh yeah, not all of them were Solars this edition)

HOW they corrupted the Exaltations is unclear, other than it was a secret taught to them by the Yozis. The Yozis themselves apparently just transformed the Sun's Essence into Hell's Essence (not any one Yozi's, Hell as a whole's) through cosmic power, just sitting on them and sheer seething.

I think the Law of Diminishment was an attempt by Holden to dissuade players from making their own Exaltations, because all subsequent writers have kinda dodged acknowledging it at all.

>>98819522
>writing an arbitrarily simulationist system for sailing
It's not even simulationist. It doesn't work to simulate ship movement, life, or combat anywhere close to realistically. If anything it's major flaw is that it fails to simulate in pursuit of the idea of Exalted supersailing. Instead of being too simulationist or narrativist, the real problem is that it's just bad. Catching up to people is about as annoying as real life, but the truth is that if people in the real life age of sail could conjure wind or hit shots from miles away then they would immediately win ship combat every time.

>>98814464
>Getting around what's called the Law of Diminishment is as simple as corrupting an existing Exaltation instead of making your own wholesale, by the way
Especially funny because the Neverborn are the ones who're supposed to be trying to kill themselves, and instead of committing suicide by Exaltation they actively avoid it with this whole corruption gambit instead.

>>98819570
>In an attempt to avoid the sheer grimdark of 2e, Monstrances cannot grant Deathlords inherent control over Abyssals
...conveniently forgetting their thousand other abilities that'd let them control Abyssals...
I mean for fucks sake they forgot about moonshadow oaths. That's like the basics of the basics!

>>98819573
Yeah, that's a better way of putting it. I feel it was meant to be simulationist at one point but Holden wanted it to mesh with his rangebands idea, so it ended up being a wonky attempt at porting 3e combat into something that really wasn't suited for 3e combat, to fulfil a purpose that 3e combat wasn't good at expressing in the first place. And that's how we got a strange phenomena in Creation's wasters where it takes skill to get a ship lost, most unskilled captains just get stuck in place waiting to die from exhaustion.

>>98819579
It doesn't help that the Neverborn in 3e apparently never fucking ever woke up from their slumber (except whenever it's narratively convenient for them to), so the Deathlords were basically "bargaining" with mumbling coma patients before running off to declare THEMSELVES the supreme lords of the Underworld.

You know, if 3e's writing team had more gumption, you might be able to do more with the idea that the Chivalry of Death is just the Deathlords' "interpretation" of the Neverborn's will conveniently filtered through whatever suits their own ambitions at any given moment. But no, like so many other things in 3e the writers are averse to any kind of nuance in their setting, so you are apparently supposed to believe that with no explicit enforcement mechanism the Deathlords are being 100% honest in conveying the Neverborn's will. You can't even use the threat of what the Neverborn did to the Lion as a justification, some Deathlords openly continue to not give a shit about the Chivalry while others like the Eye are scheming to hijack the Neverborn.

>>98819584
>they forgot about moonshadow oaths
For emphasis, the Lion didn't cause the Balorian Crusade to happen in 3e. They REALLY forgot A LOT. Probably doesn't help that like 3e Deathlords don't have all Solar/Abyssal Charms ever, just shitty generic NPC abstractions.

>>98818952
Sure, the game creates "this scenario", ie. a fictitious setting with an established history, and we do have to take it at face value because it is, in-setting, actually the truth. Why is that a problem, exactly?

>>98819622
>Yeah, that's a better way of putting it. I feel it was meant to be simulationist at one point but Holden wanted it to mesh with his rangebands idea, so it ended up being a wonky attempt at porting 3e combat into something that really wasn't suited for 3e combat, to fulfil a purpose that 3e combat wasn't good at expressing in the first place.
It turns out the normal combat system works pretty well with naval combat, so long as you don't use the naval combat system. If you just treat boats the same way you would houses moving in a landslide that you're fighting on the rooves of, or any other kind of mixed hazardous/difficult/dynamic terrain, the combat system just works. It can do naval combat without any mechanical changes, and is actually better at it that it is white room fights. Insomuch as 3e's combat system is worth a damn in the first place, it can do it.

Sail turns out to be extraneous and unnecessary. It's been known for a quarter decade at this point.

>>98819737
The real mystery is what kind of cost-benefit analysis is going through OPP's head to not simply issue a single sentence of errata, in a book of their choice that reads

>Please ignore the Sail rules from core, assume normal combat rules with environmental hazards apply

to save a few bucks, instead of just refusing to address it at all. God forbid the POOR, STARVING COMPANY that is OPP stop guzzling those backerkit dollars for a split second to edit a single fucking egregious problem with 3e core. God forbid they make a product worth paying money for.

>>98819807
To them, errata takes time away from product that actually makes money to make a fix that players and STs will invent themselves if it bothers them enough.

>>98819677
It's better for things to be concrete history wise honestly. The Scarlet Empress won, flat out. That's a very charming part of the setting - you don't need a second story for it. What I hate is all the first age bullshit that the game pulls. "Oh Creation and the First Age was so long and so much incredible one time stuff happened" fuck you. A dragon blooded took over Creation, take that first age and you're failing fuckery.
>>98820197
3d does have errata. They just change how the systems work in later books and say that it always worked that way. You can see the wording of things slowly being changed each edition till it means something totally different. I call it the "2eification of 3e".

Also lmao at sail. 2e or 3e or 1e it doesn't matter. Just lmao at it.

>>98820760
tl:dr it's not 2010 and you don't need to subvert your own settings anymore. that times has past.

>>98819677
>>98820760
It's basically just making the Realm Defence Grid unnecessarily powerful that it took one bitch activating it to 1 shot a billion Raksha.

>>98821592
nta but it's kind of weird how the Primordials were getting fed up with the Raksha problem and made Creation to be away from them, and yet Raksha literally never pose a threat to anyone outside of Balor or the later invented Ishvarra.

>>98780115
Has anyone here created custom shaping rituals?

>>98821592
The RDG really should be THE ultimate weapon in the setting. I mean, it is, but like. Still.

>>98821614
Thousands dooms, the devs ported 3 big bad evil factions to the setting, one would end up irrelevant compared to the others.

And the raksha also have to dispute the "dangers from the untamed chaos" niche with lunars.

>>98820760
So later 3e books changed how things work? I stopped caring about 3e after abyssals, I'm mainly in these threads for 2e and 1e.

>>98823255
Not exactly, it's just later editions have different wording for the exact same stuff. The wording not matching and it being easy to misunderstand a rule just because you picked one book over the other bugs me.

It sure as heck feels like errata to me but bleh.

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Finally!!!
Once I have it I'll share it.

>>98781194
Mah waifu alongside Lyta.
Both are peak.

>>98823842
What will be in it?

>>98821614
It's not like the Fair Folk were a threat to Primordials, either. They just wanted a stabler and more peaceful place to hang out in.

>>98823921
Draft manuscript is in the OP and should have everything minus errata and images/formatting/backgrounds/etc.

Mostly, Essence Players Guide has a hell of a lot more Exalt charms for each Exalt type. More than they get in core and Pillars of Creation combined if I'm looking at it right. No Universal Charms. It has some errata / new rules which do some VERY nice things like fixing withering attacks to do something meaningfully useful (after succeeding on a withering attack you can immediately apply Power from that attack to create a gambit. Fucking hell did withering attacks need this.), plus Wyld exposure rules.

The other thing it has is extra Exalt Milestones for each caste/aspect. I think they got the vibe that Exalts were being pidgeonholed too hard into their caste/aspect and wanted to spread the options out so players could live their lives a bit.

>>98823842
thank you. as a reminder >>98780115 anyone who does have it and cares about submitting errata, you have till wednesday as pictured above

>>98824315
here's the link
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc4GcFaGALKWODU8SEE7MpMEFz7AlE7gYgqwyXnEi0aQqC5kw/viewform

>>98821983
I don't agree, it's a gay sci fi turret. Strongest weapon in the setting should be a big nigga. Maybe he's a dragon.

>>98824096
Do you know if they made any changes from the manuscript to now?

>>98825016
Probably a bunch, the Essence devs have been really good about feedback historically. I don't have any kind of inside feed no.

Which backstories can justify having Craft (Artifacts)? And how do you justify it on backgrounds that can't

>>98826592
>Which backstories can justify having Craft (Artifacts)?
Lookshy citizens. Mortals studying at the Heptagram who never Exalted. People who grew up in old ruins with access to First Age miracles studying the mad stuff around them as a hobby (actually quite common: see Chiaroscuro, Nexus, etc). Scavenger Lords. Some roles that work closely with Exalted or spirits and their arsenals might work, like if you're an outcaste's aide de camp or batman/butler polishing his daiklave. Anyone who gets interested in crafting artifacts shortly post-Exaltation, since your backstory covers several months worth of getting used to being Exalted prior to chargen.

>And how do you justify it on backgrounds that can't
Got interested post-Exaltation. Passing tutelage from a spirit/Sidereal aka divine inspiration. Past life memories. Found an artifact and wanted more. Learned to read and had access to a lot of books with the willingness to learn, when they couldn't read before. Made a friend who's also into artifacts, whether as a crafter or as someone with an arsenal of the things. Random encounter with a Theft of Memories gem golem using the memories of Exalted crafters to stun people. Possessed by the ghost of a crafter / craftgod Wyld power questing.

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Solars eating good for once.

>>98825012
You know, I almost agree. I think I might have a soft spot for the giant fuck-all super weapon like some people do for robots. I want the thing to be strong enough to put out the Sun but no one else seems to agree.

We all have our weaknesses.

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>>98780115
What would an Exigent of a god of sorcery look like, or at least the god of a school of sorcery like the Heptagram?

>>98827771
A Solar twilight.
(This is why I hate exigents.)

>>98827771
A charm set that emulates sorcery instead of just giving boosts to it. Maybe some kind of on demand spell crafting. Magical wands and staves, things to channel. Bonuses to normal sorcery if you can get a cult.

>>98827991
Weird how exigents warped the player-game relationship for the worse.
Now new players are suggested to homebrew entire splats to play their character concepts, even if they are basic such as sorcerer, sailors or martial artists

>>98828623
what the fuck are you talking about.
>>98827771
Besides a charm set that's on demand spellcrafting I could also see some kind of point system. If you want something more specific like blood magic I can see a lot of options open up as well. Bonus with workings and such is also obvious. It really depends on how homebrewy you want to get.

>>98828697
>what the fuck are you talking about.
NTA
But plenty of exigents boiled down to "I want to play a different color Solar"
For example the exigent of sorcerery makes no sense because one of the whole points of Solars is that they are the best at sorcery.

>>98827637
>Solars eating good for once.
As if Essence's progression system wasn't fast enough, now Solars get 1/story 'learn a charm for free, twice for Twilights - also, charmshare :)'. At least it's E4.

>>98827771
A core charmset that is only the three circles of sorcery and sorcery-relevant charms stolen freely from every other splat.

Their actual charmset is all charms that have spells as prerequisites, building on their base capability. A charm based on Flight of the Brilliant Raptor that lets the Raptor stick around to keep attacking for longer rather than dying in it's suicide bombing, a charm that makes Travel Without Distance apply to a battlegroup up to (Essence) Size, a charm that lets you attack with Rain of Doom's lightning bolts or summon it's winds to smash fortifications while it's up.

Possible alternative might be spells with other spells as prerequisites as the native charmset. Flight of the Brilliant Raptor + Death of Obsidian Butterflies = deadly spray of brilliant raptors. These mixed spells can only be taught directly by the Exigent, kind of like how Sidereals can teach Solars SMA but then they can't teach it to others.

>>98829802
We literally already have the sidereals of sorcery.
They are called Solars they get a whole level of spells unique to them.

>>98830004
Sorcery's nowhere near as central to
Solars as SMAs are to Sidereals. They can master sorcery as a part of their general excellence, not due to a special affinity or sorcery specifically.

>>98830004
>They are called Solars they get a whole level of spells unique to them.
They only get access at Essence 5, which is so far beyond most games it's barely worth discussing. Before that they're only as good as everybody else, and usually worse in 3e since they didn't get sorcery support as good as the other celestials.

>>98830147
IN First and Second Edition you can start at Essence 4, get Essence 5 for 32 EXP then start picking up Solar spells for 8-10 EXP a pop. Its really not as out there as you're saying.

>>98830174
Given that we're talking about the merits of a particular Exigent idea I think you might be in the wrong edition, anon.