Exalted 3E Discussion

[Smuthunter]

So as some of you may have heard, the complete text for the core rulebook of Exalted Third Edition got leaked onto the web the night before last. You will not find links to a copy in this thread because I'm pretty sure QQ has anti-piracy rules, but we may as well have a thread to talk about it and maybe answer questions for anybody who can't find a copy or wants to keep waiting for the official release.

I spent most of last night poring over my copy of the PDF and for the most part I'm very satisfied with what I've seen so far. The only big hang-up that showed up so far was in the crafting rules -- where I think the dev team is going for a specific approach that might not make sense at first glance -- and the continued existence of limit break as a mechanic, which has always been one of my number one peeves with the system. I'm just starting on the charms chapter now and it looks like there's a super-huge variety of effects to customize your character with, which I'm massively thrilled about.

One neat mechanic that I didn't see coming was the ability of characters with high Lore to "introduce facts" to a story; subject to the ST's approval, a scholar can input some of his own knowledge (made up by the player, much like stunting) into the game to provide plot hooks and advance the story. While searching for a Solar superweapon, for example, a scholar might make a lore roll to be able to say "Hey, legend says the king who wielded this weapon is buried somewhere around here, let's go find his tomb and search it for clues."

 

[Princess Magnificent]

I gave it a very, very quick look, in fact I just looked at screenshots of it, and I'm kinda sad we no longer have the descriptions of what various dot-amounts of skills can do.

You know, something like,

"At one dot of Tracking, you can tell a footprint in the snow from a paw print. At five dots, you can write entire novels just by bending a few twigs in your way, although only someone with five dots of tracking will be able to read all the nuances of the train sign you left behind."

EDIT: I enjoyed them because the description of the five-dot skill was always something that made you want to invest in that skill. You might think that flower arranging is a dumb skill, until you read that five dots of flower arranging can end a generations-spanning war with a carefully selected bouquet. Or start one.

Man.

Now I want a character specializing in flower arranging.

 

[tehelgee]

Skimming the section on Lunars... there's no mention of the Solar/Lunar bond.

 

[Smuthunter]

Found some interesting observations about the new Craft system on /tg/.

Actually... There is a point to the craft split. It's an incredibly contrived point, but there IS a point. There is a charm that generates silver and gold xp on it's own, for every craft skill you have at 5. Then there is a charm that lets you turn your craft points... Into experience points.

So bascially, the system is a semi-trap. It's a huge xp sink to be sure, but if you can just hold on tight and get the pumping machine going... You can turn into an infinite xp generator!

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>You can turn into an infinite xp generator!

And this is meant to be a good thing? Are you suggesting it was intentional?

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It has to be. The design is so intricate it had to be done on purpose. Thw whole thing is actually specifically designed so that you WANT to have a lot of Crafts at 5, which would normally be useless, because each one generates more and more silver and gold points for you. You then use those to create arttifacts and use white points to get your experience back. It takes a lot to get it going and I do mean A LOT, but once you do, you can replenish all your spent experience on top of having a huge load of artifacts.

This is so devilishly clever it can't be accidental.

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Exegesis of the Distilled Form says nothing of the sort, at it's current form. You have to spend 25 silver xp 15 gold xp and 1- white xp to roll the amount of white points you have left and spend those to. Then you get the amount of xp equal to the number of successes rolled. No restriction on how you use them.

Granted, that's a RIDICULOUSLY large amount of points. But that's where Supreme Perfection of Craft and Divine Transcendence of Craft come in. These babies generate points for you and the more active you are the better, because they give you points every time you sleep OR once during downtime. So you WANT to be active. So you just keep on churning those points. Once you have a lot of them, you begin working on artfiacts. You quickly finish those projects to get a lot of white points and then hit Exegesis to get your investment back.

It's sooooo clever. It's the saving grace of crafters.

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Thoughts, Darkened?

 

[tehelgee]

Well, I'm not Darkened, but hasn't it always been that crafting abilities were primarily an NPC thing? Not just Exalted, I mean in most RPGs. By investing in those abilities, you were not investing in more directly useful abilities like combat, magic, or social fu.

But as with the 3.5 Eberron Artificer, doesn't this make crafting a viable concept for a PC? Outfit all the things, as it were.

 

[Bre Karn]

Does the anti-piracy rule apply to PMs?

Well, I'm a Kickstarter backer so I'm supposed to get it as soon as it becomes available, but after almost two years I'm starting to get impatient

 

[Smuthunter]

Well, I'm not Darkened, but hasn't it always been that crafting abilities were primarily an NPC thing? Not just Exalted, I mean in most RPGs. By investing in those abilities, you were not investing in more directly useful abilities like combat, magic, or social fu.

But as with the 3.5 Eberron Artificer, doesn't this make crafting a viable concept for a PC? Outfit all the things, as it were.

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Crafting has always been, at least theoretically, a thing that PCs could do just as well as fighting and socializing. In practice it's been kind of a pain in the ass instead.

The big complaint with crafting in the past has been that you needed to invest in multiple fields of crafting in order to be able to craft anything good. In 2e you had, for example, Craft (Water) as an ability which lets you work with chemistry and cooking and things like that, but to be a blacksmith you would need to invest in Craft (Fire), which is its own ability track, and to create artifacts and manses and things you would need all five elements plus a separate Craft (Magitech) ability, and so on. It was a very big EXP sink if you wanted to craft anything really significant, and in this edition it looks like the problem is much worse because Craft (Fire) has been split up into even more individual crafting specialties. Other abilities don't have this problem; Melee, for example, gives you proficiency with all melee weapons by default rather than just one at a time.

The trick appears to be that if you slog through the tree and pick up as much crafting as you can get, eventually you start recouping your investment by turning crafting points into EXP, and having more Craft abilities at 5 dots gets you that much more EXP.

 

[Guile]

Well, I'm not Darkened, but hasn't it always been that crafting abilities were primarily an NPC thing? Not just Exalted, I mean in most RPGs. By investing in those abilities, you were not investing in more directly useful abilities like combat, magic, or social fu.

But as with the 3.5 Eberron Artificer, doesn't this make crafting a viable concept for a PC? Outfit all the things, as it were.

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It does sound kind of like the artifacts you create can be used to buff up a very subpar character (because he spent all his points on craft stuff) into Exalted Batman. Which is what you'd want for an actual crafter character, because only a bad DM would let you sit out group activities in favor of crafting forever, and you need to be able to do stuff.

If it actually works that way, then more power to them. Not an elegant solution maybe, but it is a solution.

 

[Biigoh]

The Bii is just looking at the craft rules and going AUUUUUU in horror.

On the other hand, essence/mote calculation has been simplified.

 

[tehelgee]

There is a lot of Charms to be had in any track, but due to a character's supernal ability plus a guarantee of 5 xp every session, characters should be able to get a new Charm every other session(10xp for non-Caste, non-Favored Charms, 8 otherwise).

Add in Solar XP and how easy it is to get, and players should just about be buying something every session.

That's not considering training time, of course, but I tend to ignore that... they're Solars. Insane growth is just another aspect of their excellence.

 

[Jiven]

I don't want to read the leak, but I am impatient to get the release...

I might have to redo my players' sheets because of that, aaaaaaaah!

 

[Stroth]

Oh for fucks sake there's a Doctor Doom charm? "No it wasn't me that you defeated! It was actually a secret Solarbot!"

 

[tehelgee]

Oh for fucks sake there's a Doctor Doom charm? "No it wasn't me that you defeated! It was actually a secret Solarbot!"

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It requires you to have Essence 5... unless you have Craft as a supernal ability.

Still costs 30 white xp, which isn't exactly easy to get, or spam.

 

[Stroth]

It requires you to have Essence 5... unless you have Craft as a supernal ability.

Still costs 30 white xp, which isn't exactly easy to get, or spam.

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I'm more worried about antagonists using it than players. "Okay, we've fought through the shadowlands and his army and his fortress and all his summoned demons. Good work guys, it was tough as hell and it cost us a lot but we've finally managed to kill this moonshadow bastard." "Nope, Abyssalbot." "MOTHERFUCKER!" cue tableflipping and strangling the storyteller.

 

[Robotninja]

I don't see it anywhere. Are you sure about this?

 

[Smuthunter]

I'm more worried about antagonists using it than players. "Okay, we've fought through the shadowlands and his army and his fortress and all his summoned demons. Good work guys, it was tough as hell and it cost us a lot but we've finally managed to kill this moonshadow bastard." "Nope, Abyssalbot." "MOTHERFUCKER!" cue tableflipping and strangling the storyteller.

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I'm pretty sure there's no chance of Abyssals getting Solar charms in 3e.

 

[tehelgee]

I don't see it anywhere. Are you sure about this?

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Dual Magnus Prana is the charm we're talking about.

 

[Stroth]

I'm pretty sure there's no chance of Abyssals getting Solar charms in 3e.

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Eclipses still have learn other Exalted's charms as a caste ability, no reason to think that Moonshadows have lost it. Besides, Abyssals have mirror charms for damn near everything Solas can do and if you replace robot with zombie this is perfectly in character for them. More so than Solar's really, most Solars wouldn't bother using a body double.

 

[Smuthunter]

Eclipses still have learn other Exalted's charms as a caste ability, no reason to think that Moonshadows have lost it. Besides, Abyssals have mirror charms for damn near everything Solas can do and if you replace robot with zombie this is perfectly in character for them. More so than Solar's really, most Solars wouldn't bother using a body double.

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No, I'm really certain that Holden or someone said that mirror charms are in the garbage. Moonshadows might have the same anima power, but maybe not, it's too early to say for sure.

 

[Stroth]

No, I'm really certain that Holden or someone said that mirror charms are in the garbage. Moonshadows might have the same anima power, but maybe not, it's too early to say for sure.

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Alright fair enough. But I still dislike anything that smacks of extra lives. One of the most interesting parts of Exalted is that if you're dead then you're dead. The book makes a point of mentioning the the no resurrections rule still holds and then does this anyway? That's crap. I disliked Final Ray of Light as well, but at least that required Elder essence (or shenanigans) and had serious consequences to its use.

 

[Smuthunter]

Alright fair enough. But I still dislike anything that smacks of extra lives. One of the most interesting parts of Exalted is that if you're dead then you're dead. The book makes a point of mentioning the the no resurrections rule still holds and then does this anyway? That's crap. I disliked Final Ray of Light as well, but at least that required Elder essence (or shenanigans) and had serious consequences to its use.

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This one does too. White EXP is not cheap or easy to come by. It might look like it, but consider all the exotic ingredients you need to gather to forge one artifact, much less dozens and dozens of NA-tier artifacts. Being able to make the rolls in XYZ time is only half of the challenge.

For all that the crafting system looks like garbage, I'm not entirely willing to write it off until people have actually used it in-game and can confirm that the system is whacked. And on the subject of extra lives, I question how this is different from that one Sidereal charm in 2e that did essentially the same thing.

 

[Stroth]

This one does too. White EXP is not cheap or easy to come by. It might look like it, but consider all the exotic ingredients you need to gather to forge one artifact, much less dozens and dozens of NA-tier artifacts. Being able to make the rolls in XYZ time is only half of the challenge.

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Or you could just get Sublime Transference and transfer silver to gold to white at a two to one ratio for six essence and a five minute action that can be done even when you're unconscious. Add that to the experience reactor chain you mentioned and you can turn it into quite a few extra lives with a little lead time.

 

[tehelgee]

The charm relies on ST approval.

If your ST is willing to let you play a Golden Doom, then they can. If they don't, then they don't have to let you use it.

 

[Anasurimbor]

Eclipses still have learn other Exalted's charms as a caste ability, no reason to think that Moonshadows have lost it.

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They cannot. The only foreign charms they can learn are spirit charms with the Eclipse keyword.

 

[Stroth]

They cannot. The only foreign charms they can learn are spirit charms with the Eclipse keyword.

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"spirits, fair folk and similar supernatural beings".That's open ended. And the two points given aren't exactly very similar to each other.

 

[Smuthunter]

"spirits, fair folk and similar supernatural beings".That's open ended. And the two points given aren't exactly very similar to each other.

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The entire point of the Eclipse keyword is "only these charms can be taken by an Eclipse." Dual Magnus Prana doesn't have it, so nobody except a Solar can take it.

 

[tehelgee]

"spirits, fair folk and similar supernatural beings".That's open ended. And the two points given aren't exactly very similar to each other.

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Yeah, but it also says they can only learn things with the Eclipse keyword. I checked the antagonist chapter... there were a few charms with the keyword. None of the Exalted or the Fair Folk had charms with those keywords, just spirits and demons.

 

[Valette-Serafina]

Dual Magnus Prana is the charm we're talking about.

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Fucking what.
That... Have the devs forgotten that Roleplaying is a thing, huh?

That's a fucking stunt. Not a bloody Charm, Charms are the magic that Exalts use. Cunning tricks are stunts, planning.

Feh. I bloody hope the combat system makes up for this sillyness.
(Well, Infernal Charms need to be changed, so they work on ability trees now, 'cause we didn't have enough ability using exalts. Oh, and we know y'all hate Mirror Charms, so Abysals now have black Infernal Charms.)

Ka. I hope the book's pretty, at least.

 

[Nekraa]

The devs have said that Mirror charms was cool in concept, but didn't work in practice, so they won't return. IIRC.

 

[tehelgee]

Fucking what.
That... Have the devs forgotten that Roleplaying is a thing, huh?

That's a fucking stunt. Not a bloody Charm, Charms are the magic that Exalts use. Cunning tricks are stunts, planning.

Feh. I bloody hope the combat system makes up for this sillyness.
(Well, Infernal Charms need to be changed, so they work on ability trees now, 'cause we didn't have enough ability using exalts. Oh, and we know y'all hate Mirror Charms, so Abysals now have black Infernal Charms.)

Ka. I hope the book's pretty, at least.

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No, the Charm is the creation of the body double - something that can mimic the Solar's powers, which is why it requires Occult(for sorcery) in addition to Craft.

The stunt is the description the player needs to provide.