Exalted 3E Discussion

[tehelgee]

I've always held that at some point, a long-running Exalted game needs a timeskip. Those decades are when the Dawn General forges an Invincible Army of Shininess, and the Night Spymaster creates a network of contacts spanning the world while stealing Kejack's inbox. They're part of the Ruling period, when the circle hold a kingdom.

Click to shrink...

Sure, if the entire party can use a timeskip, then it makes sense. But not one just for the crafter while everyone else just sits around.

Huh. I'm not sure that I like the Crafting System being even more complicated.

I suppose I should probably wait until I can run a Game using it, huh.

Click to shrink...

I think the crafting system is less complicated now, because it's streamlined. Before, you had to damn near do algebra to determine difficulty of things to craft, and now it's mostly uniform.

 

[Darkened]

Thoughts, Darkened?

Click to shrink...

Didn't see this before. Sorry, essay incoming.

So, while craft profusion annoys me, the specific charm you mention doesn't help. The number of projects you can make at once is dependent primarily on how much XP you have.

In theory the rule is established this way to give the party reason to travel around. You play the game to earn Craft XP which then allows you to build cool stuff. This I like, however I wish it was the default method of getting craft XP.

Instead you get 'inspiration' by working on small non-artifact projects and selling them. So you make 40 swords and then use that 'inspiration' to make one daiklave at the start. Not only is this painfully slow, but it requires you to sit down and make 40 swords (Not actually mathed out there, but a good deal.)

And you still need to work on projects full time to roll.

But you can't just hand out craft XP to anyone, so you make the craft-XP for story charms low investment works. This is fine.

I'd much rather one craft skill with better, more consistent rewards, or a charm that gave you XP for craft specialties to get the same results.

The fact that it doesn't cap means you can always raise another craft skill to be better, though declining returns make this a problem. In practice, you need 2+ and then want to work every single project you do into the axioms of those two crafts outside of that one charm (Or 3 if you want first age tech)

But craft profusion is something I can and will houserule away with a single penstroke. Delete 1-2 charms (like Supreme Celestial Focus which lets you buy new craft skills with your excess craft XP.)

It's annoying and saddening but something easily fixed.

What's bad is how actual crafting looks.


With no charms you have 3 major project slots, and need to fuse them together to make one superior slot which can make an artifact rated however many major slots you used (2 slots is one artifact 2, etc) This costs a small amount of gold XP and you can create temporary major slots with more gold XP, a bit complicated, but manageable.

You then have to spend a certain amount of time working, after which you can roll to 'finish' the artifact whenever. This is a series of extended rolls, and my first major issue.

You get 6. Each roll costs 10gxp to try and if you don't finish in six that artifact is failed. YOu can never attempt to remake it, and all your 60+XP spent on it is down the drain. It's punishingly expensive and means you need to really slam heavy craft boosters just to really attempt to make an artifact.


So, how will this work?

Well first you by Tireless Workhorse Method. This gives you 2 major slots for each point of essence, meaning you probably won't ever need to make temporary slots again unless you want to do a lot at once. You then grab Ages-Echoing Wisdom which gives you 1gxp/major slot every story. This rapidly builds up to about 10+ every story.

Dragon Soul Emergence gives you a free superior slot so you never need to use your major ones. Useful since you now keep your 10+gxp/story without issue.

Spirit-Gathering Industry decreases the GXP/roll by essence (minimum 3).

And now we get the big one. Unwinding Gyre Meditation lets you skip out on getting XP from completing projects (but you get more from breathing anyway at this point) in return your next project is a bit easier, decreasing the number of successes you need and adding 1 to the project's terminus (so you get 7 rolls instead of 6) Cool! It also gives you more gold XP each project.

And it stacks. Forever, without wearing off with no cap. Eventually you don't actually need any successes to craft an artifact. You'll roll once at difficulty 5 and auto-succeed. How long this takes varies by artifact rank. For 5s this means each craft project requires precisely 5gxp.

Eventually you might cash in your bonus for Completed conditions (max 3)X(# of projects+2) goldXP (easily hundreds or thousands given how fast you can make stuff with Gyre) Since this can be converted to white which can be converted to real XP, you can easily use this build to give yourself tens of XP on the party. In short games this looks fine, but the longer you play the more that huge Craft-XP costs suddenly refunds itself.

What it does mean is that your elders can go rebuild the first age in a few months of work.

Think of this as a gas stove. You need that pilot light to get it started. That's a lot of resources and work and charms, after which it perpetuates itself forever with minimal costs. All your craft booster charms? Kinda useless for anything but artifact NAs.

And you'll rapidly reach the point where you're crafting 4-5 artifact 5s at once, meaning that the time it takes to get this fire burning is pretty easy.

And then there's a ton of craft charms that give you small benefits to building 2 dot artifacts that no serious crafter would ever reasonably want because Unwinding Gyre Meditation is so good, and you never need to worry about slots in the long run.


Design-wise the trees are full of speed-bumps. Silver XP has 0 value in the long run, unless converted into gold, but there's a ton of charms that give you small increases in silver XP periodically.

Or rather, high ranking artifacts start out really hard and then get extraordinarily easy as you make a half dozen every month of gametime. (less during timeskips)

If you play a crafter I'd preliminarily recommend (For 5s, not NAs):

Ages-Echoing Wisdom, Tireless Workhorse Method, Unwinding Gyre Meditation, Supreme Perfection of Craft, Thousand-Forge Hands, and some craft roll boosters at first that you'll never use outside of NAs in the long run.

No clue which craft boosters (See part 2 below!) are useful because the math is kind of crazy.

I think the crafting system is less complicated now, because it's streamlined. Before, you had to damn near do algebra to determine difficulty of things to craft, and now it's mostly uniform.

Click to shrink...

Err, less complicated? You need actual algebra to figure out if you can craft things in 3E.

In 2E rolls were simple enough that I could write stuff down (X successes+Y dice in Z interval) and then roll that every interval and mark the motes/wp if it was relevant. I did the math once and then it took 3 seconds forevermore.


Let's look at a sample craft roll in 3E. This uses a few (maybe more than necessary) craft boosters and I'm not sure I'm interpreting every charm interaction properly (it's vague).

You might have 10 dice+3 specialty+10 excellency dice. 23.

First you use a charm to raise your dice cap by 5 or so, so 28 dice. Simple enough.

Now roll. Mark down your successes (all dice 7-10, 10s and 9s count as two successes)

Now you'll reroll every 10 and every 6.

Now, look for every 3 of a kind success (counting both the rerolled 10s and 6s) for each of these, turn 1 non-success die into a 10 and reroll it, looking for 3s again. Do this until you've rerolled as many 3 of a kinds as you have.

Add one success for every three you have (1.33333X your current successes)

Now roll essence dice+ one more die for every 3 successes (before adding the ones in the last step) roll them, rerolling if 10s or 6s appear and go through the 3 of a kind thing again.

Now add up to essence+successes successes to the total.

How many successes do you have from those 28 dice?



This still isn't near every possible craft booster. I tried it. It took several minutes to work out the total and I have no clue how to guess averages or deviations (though it looks to smash what you need to reliably craft artifact 5s). I'd probably need a calculator to figure this out, and a fair bit of algebra/coding to write a program to do it for me.

Except this costs a lot of craft XP, so I want to find the cheapest way to get enough. The function for that is hideously complex, and then utterly predictable but time consuming once I know what combos are best at every essence level. I now need to find the most optimal combination relative to resource/charm XP cost. (Because "do better at craft rolls" is a boring way to spend XP and I don't want to keep doing it if I don't need to)


Anyway I look at it, this is hideously more complicated every roll than 2e.

 

[tehelgee]

Err, less complicated?

Click to shrink...

Yes, less complicated. It feels awkward to you because its new, you have keep looking at the book and checking everything. Once you get used to it, once you start memorizing it, I think it will come a lot quicker.

 

[Darkened]

Yes, less complicated. It feels awkward to you because its new, you have keep looking at the book and checking everything. Once you get used to it, once you start memorizing it, I think it will come a lot quicker.

Click to shrink...

It feels awkward because the number of operations and steps has increased by a factor of 5-10, many of which (3 of a kind successes?) are going to vary wildly and make calculating odds very very difficult.

Unless you can tell me anything resembling an optimal combo besides (Whatever until unwinding gyre meditation is far enough along.)

If so, show your work, I'll do the same for 2e and we can see which is simpler.

Edit: Hell I haven't even looked much at the craft possibilities in sorcery, lore, etc yet and I know there are a few. Forget artifacts or assistants or anything that would already be factored in in 2e.

 

[Stroth]

Edit: Hell I haven't even looked much at the craft possibilities in sorcery, lore, etc yet and I know there are a few. Forget artifacts or assistants or anything that would already be factored in in 2e.

Click to shrink...

Sorcery got its own entirely separate crafting system.

 

[Smuthunter]

And now we get the big one. Unwinding Gyre Meditation lets you skip out on getting XP from completing projects (but you get more from breathing anyway at this point) in return your next project is a bit easier, decreasing the number of successes you need and adding 1 to the project's terminus (so you get 7 rolls instead of 6) Cool! It also gives you more gold XP each project.

And it stacks. Forever, without wearing off with no cap. Eventually you don't actually need any successes to craft an artifact. You'll roll once at difficulty 5 and auto-succeed. How long this takes varies by artifact rank. For 5s this means each craft project requires precisely 5gxp.

Click to shrink...

I can't do math for shit so I'll skip most of this, but on this subject you're forgetting one major limitation -- if you want to craft artifact NAs, any reasonable storyteller is going to make you work your ass off to find the necessary materials.

"Oh, so you want to make the Eye of Autocthon Version 2.0? Great! Step one, go fetch one of SWLIHN's remaining spheres. Intact. Next you're going to need the blood of the Scarlet Empress..."

 

[tehelgee]

I'm not Jon Chung. I'm not going to get into an argument over white room theorycrafting that will likely never happen in play.

if you want to craft artifact NAs, any reasonable storyteller is going to make you work your ass off to find the necessary materials.

Click to shrink...

Unwinding Gyre Meditation is only for superior projects, not legendary ones. Artifact 1-5, not N/A. But you are right that the ST is going to be putting the brakes on any attempted minmax exploitation of the system.

 

[Darkened]

I'm not Jon Chung. I'm not going to get into an argument over white room theorycrafting that will likely never happen in play.

Click to shrink...

Okay sure, show how you'd use 3E's charms on crafting an actual daiklaive in play. I'll do the same scenario with 2e. No need whatsoever for a white room since you're claiming that 3e is simpler and more streamlined. Fiat whatever particulars you want for whatever you'd deem a reasonably likely situation to happen in a game and I'll happily use the same particulars with 2e mechanics.

There's no need to work in a white room at all.

 

[EnderofWorlds]

So; I'll admit to never playing Exalted before and that I was waiting for 3E to come out so I could dive into it blind and with an unbiased perspective. That being said, with the leak happening and from people's reactions; I think I'm probably in the minority here in thinking that none of what's being bandied about as bad is actually...well, bad.

The crafting stuff sounds really cool; a completely dedicated system that I personally feel makes the player feel like an artisan IC. I can already see myself loving the system because it's intricacies just scream 'RP foundations galore' to me. I tried being an artificer in D&D and got bored because of how stupidly simplistic it was OOC and how time consuming it was IC; wait hella days, make rolls each day, end up with item. At least with the heavily dedicated charm tree and system I can get into crafting and not get bored, something I've been wanting from an RPG for a real long time now.

Everything else I've heard also doesn't really sound that bad either, combat sounds to be simple in application though complex when written; one of those 'easier to do than explain' sorta things from what I've heard. It also doesn't look like any of the inherent brokenness that I hear of 2E isn't around either, and by broken I mean unplayable and hard to get into. Frankly, I just wanna get a copy of the leak and give it a go with my own playgroup. So, if anyone can shoot me a PM with it; that'd be greatly appreciated.

 

[Anondylar]

I haven't read the crafting rules yet, but I expect to be hit with how utterly stupid it is.

I mean, all I've heard about it is that it's a waste of XP until you hit that critical mass of useless crafts and then Craft becomes an XP generating machine. Oh you can also clone Exaltations.

 

[tehelgee]

I mean, all I've heard about it is that it's a waste of XP until you hit that critical mass of useless crafts and then Craft becomes an XP generating machine.

Click to shrink...

You can buy new Crafts with it. Nothing else.

EDIT: Was thinking of the wrong Charm. You can get general XP for crafting... a max of 20xp per story. 4 sessions worth of default rewarded XP, in exchange for 25sxp, 15gxp, 10wxp + all remaining white xp(and you better have enough left over to roll 20 successes - so about a minimum of 40 extra). In other words, you will spend the entire story crafting instead of actually doing anything else in order to gain a little more XP.

Oh you can also clone Exaltations.

Click to shrink...

Wrong. You can make a doombot, which if you actually bothered to read this thread, you'd see we've been discussing it.

 

[Swingline#57]

Wrong. You can make a doombot, which if you actually bothered to read this thread, you'd see we've been discussing it.

Click to shrink...

Given that said doombot appears to be able to do everything the genuine article can do, it's at the very least deceiving the Exaltation if not cloning it. Which raises more questions: An Exaltation at least momentarily connecting to two individuals at once makes no sense to me. They aren't like Shards/Passengers/Agents/etc. in Worm.

 

[Nekraa]

Given that said doombot appears to be able to do everything the genuine article can do, it's at the very least deceiving the Exaltation if not cloning it. Which raises more questions: An Exaltation at least momentarily connecting to two individuals at once makes no sense to me. They aren't like Shards/Passengers/Agents/etc. in Worm.

Click to shrink...

Think of the "doombot" as a projection?

 

[tehelgee]

Given that said doombot appears to be able to do everything the genuine article can do, it's at the very least deceiving the Exaltation if not cloning it. Which raises more questions: An Exaltation at least momentarily connecting to two individuals at once makes no sense to me. They aren't like Shards/Passengers/Agents/etc. in Worm.

Click to shrink...

Consider it an elemental, as it functions similarly.

Or, as Nekraa suggests, a projection works too.

 

[nick012000]

Hey Darkened, you forgot something else about Craft: Craftsman Needs No Tools. It allows you to complete Basic and Major Projects in seconds or minutes, while costing 4m if you have access to actual tools, while mote regen is 5m per hour. This means that you can spam Major projects to generate the Gold XP you need to build artifacts, completing one every hour while still being able to work on other projects and remaining mote-positive.

Also, for the people complaining about Dual Magnus Prana, there's another "Actually, I don't die" charm in the Solar charmset, in Occult called Uncanny Shroud Defense, and it's Essence 1. It's not quite as strong as Dual Magnus Prana, but it fills much the same function, and it's a lot cheaper to use.

 

[tehelgee]

Hey Darkened, you forgot something else about Craft: Craftsman Needs No Tools. It allows you to complete Basic and Major Projects in seconds or minutes, while costing 4m if you have access to actual tools, while mote regen is 5m per hour. This means that you can spam Major projects to generate the Gold XP you need to build artifacts, completing one every hour while still being able to work on other projects and remaining mote-positive.

Click to shrink...

Then you run out of resources. Too bad, go spend actual time playing and acquiring more.

This is what I mean by white room theorycrafting. IF you have the workers, IF you have the resources, IF you have the time, IF you don't get ganked by fateninjas, THEN you can try to build artifacts.

Also, for the people complaining about Dual Magnus Prana, there's another "Actually, I don't die" charm in the Solar charmset, in Occult called Uncanny Shroud Defense, and it's Essence 1. It's not quite as strong as Dual Magnus Prana, but it fills much the same function, and it's a lot cheaper to use.

Click to shrink...

That charm prevents you from losing your last health level, assuming you weren't already at it. Still leaves you incapacitated.

 

[BFldyq]

Honestly, my criteria is simple: is it better then the previous Edition?

If yes, then I'm happy.

 

[tehelgee]

Honestly, my criteria is simple: is it better then the previous Edition?

If yes, then I'm happy.

Click to shrink...

I think it is, yes. It's not a flawless system, as that doesn't exist, but it's also not as flawed as many like to paint it.

 

[Smuthunter]

I just found the description of the Death Ray spell. Lina Inverse confirmed for Solar Circle Sorcerer!

 

[nick012000]

Then you run out of resources. Too bad, go spend actual time playing and acquiring more.

This is what I mean by white room theorycrafting. IF you have the workers, IF you have the resources, IF you have the time, IF you don't get ganked by fateninjas, THEN you can try to build artifacts.

Click to shrink...

That's what the Resources merit is for.

That charm prevents you from losing your last health level, assuming you weren't already at it. Still leaves you incapacitated.

Click to shrink...

The Incapacitated Health Level is your last Health Level. Basically, you can go "no, thanks" to the first person to kill you in a fight, as long as you've had some time to heal.

 

[tehelgee]

That's what the Resources merit is for.

Click to shrink...

They're not eternal and can run out. You also can't buy story merits with XP, gotta earn them the hard way.

The Incapacitated Health Level is your last Health Level. Basically, you can go "no, thanks" to the first person to kill you in a fight, as long as you've had some time to heal.

Click to shrink...

...but you're still incapacitated. In a fight. With the person that just dropped you. Barring external circumstances, the Charm delayed your death one turn or less, if there's another enemy ready to act in the same turn. It doesn't get you out of harm's way like Dual Magnus Prana does.

 

[nick012000]

They're not eternal and can run out. You also can't buy story merits with XP, gotta earn them the hard way.

Click to shrink...

You can make as many purchases below your Resources level as you want to. You're pretty much not going to run out of the iron, wood, and leather to make swords out of any time soon.

...but you're still incapacitated. In a fight. With the person that just dropped you. Barring external circumstances, the Charm delayed your death one turn or less, if there's another enemy ready to act in the same turn. It doesn't get you out of harm's way like Dual Magnus Prana does.

Click to shrink...

Why would you be Incapacitated, when your Incapacitated Health Level has not been filled? You'll be on a -4 Wound Penalty, but you won't be Incapacitated.

 

[Plotvitalnpc]

You can make as many purchases below your Resources level as you want to. You're pretty much not going to run out of the iron, wood, and leather to make swords out of any time soon.


Why would you be Incapacitated, when your Incapacitated Health Level has not been filled? You'll be on a -4 Wound Penalty, but you won't be Incapacitated.

Click to shrink...

You might not be able to run out of the capital to buy the materials, but who's selling those materials to you? How much do they have?
If Resources were a charm, it'd have Chicanery-No.

 

[tehelgee]

You can make as many purchases below your Resources level as you want to. You're pretty much not going to run out of the iron, wood, and leather to make swords out of any time soon.

Click to shrink...

Buying enough of anything is sufficient to lower your Resources. How much that enough actual is depends on what you're buying and what Resource levels you have.

Making artifacts? Those require special ingredients and would make Resources drop in points much more quickly than mundane goods. Like, your Resources merit could provide for its rating in artifacts before it dropped in rating itself. Resources 5 could build five Artifact 1, one Artifact 3 and one 2, or one Artifact 5 before it dropped to Resources 4. An Artifact N/A would consume an entire Resources 5 merit in one go - better hope you succeed.

Why would you be Incapacitated, when your Incapacitated Health Level has not been filled? You'll be on a -4 Wound Penalty, but you won't be Incapacitated.

Click to shrink...

Hmm. I was under the impression that reaching the Incapacitated level dropped you and filling it killed you.

 

[tehelgee]

You might not be able to run out of the capital to buy the materials, but who's selling those materials to you? How much do they have?
If Resources were a charm, it'd have Chicanery-No.

Click to shrink...

That's good point too. Market may not have enough of what you need.

 

[Darkened]

Hey Darkened, you forgot something else about Craft: Craftsman Needs No Tools. It allows you to complete Basic and Major Projects in seconds or minutes, while costing 4m if you have access to actual tools, while mote regen is 5m per hour. This means that you can spam Major projects to generate the Gold XP you need to build artifacts, completing one every hour while still being able to work on other projects and remaining mote-positive.

Click to shrink...

You only get XP if you meet conditions. Crafting this way probably won't meet conditions, ergo probably won't earn you gxp.

If you can find a way to meet any of the 3 conditions over and over and over again (earning money works but adds some abstractions that get a little iffy and let the ST restrict you fairly easily) things work out pretty well with CNNT.

Ultimately you'll still want to get to the point where you can work full time on crafting superior projects rather than spending that craft time on earning gxp.

Eventually your gains for doing nothing will simply be more than you'd ever need to use.

Honestly, my criteria is simple: is it better then the previous Edition?

If yes, then I'm happy.

Click to shrink...

Craft's a broken mess. Sorcery is interesting, the combat engine is deliberately as far from transparent as possible which makes any balance or theorycrafting (To figure out if it works well) fairly useless. There are more than a few charms that are just painful to look at.

2e also seemed to work fine out of the gate. Look at early comments and see how everyone really liked it, until people played it in long campaigns and saw more and more problems creep up and supplements added issues and books, etc, etc, etc.

The bottom line is: Exalted 2e worked, but wasn't fun at the metagame. 3E is still completely (and deliberately) obscure regarding how well the game will actually balance but already has obvious flaws.

It's probably not Scion bad is about the best I can say right now.

I think it is, yes. It's not a flawless system, as that doesn't exist, but it's also not as flawed as many like to paint it.

Click to shrink...

Where? How? Show me the metagame and the charm interactions that show that things tend to work. Please go into actual mechanics rather than just making blanket vague generalizations.

Because resources and exotic materials and the like were just as much an impediment in 2e.

 

[tehelgee]

Where? How? Show me the metagame and the charm interactions that show that things tend to work. Please go into actual mechanics rather than just making blanket vague generalizations.

Because resources and exotic materials and the like were just as much an impediment in 2e.

Click to shrink...

Show me the metagame and the charm interactions that show that things tend to break. Two can play that game.

If you want a system that absolutely cannot be broken, then quit playing Exalted, TT games, video games, and start concerning yourself with solely narrative novels. That's the only way you are going to escape system flaws.

 

[nick012000]

You only get XP if you meet conditions. Crafting this way probably won't meet conditions, ergo probably won't earn you gxp.

If you can find a way to meet any of the 3 conditions over and over and over again (earning money works but adds some abstractions that get a little iffy and let the ST restrict you fairly easily) things work out pretty well with CNNT.

Ultimately you'll still want to get to the point where you can work full time on crafting superior projects rather than spending that craft time on earning gxp.

Eventually your gains for doing nothing will simply be more than you'd ever need to use.

Click to shrink...

Have a Tie to your personal army. Craft a pile of shit for them. It'll definitely fulfill criterion three, probably meet criterion two since helping your army helps you, and maybe meet criterion one as well.

 

[Darkened]

Except a single sword (what each project is) definitely isn't going to measurably advance your army or make them measurably safer. Likewise you're not really gaining anything measurable from giving one soldier a better sword.

You can maybe argue that working on the project at all helps uphold your connection there, but that's not finishing it. As an ST I may be talked into granting a few silver XP for a set of projects, but there's no benefit to completing a project that's, alone, insufficient to actually help anything.

Criterion 1, simply making really beautiful artwork over and over again, will be easy at first, but will have rapidly diminishing returns without a broad ability to send your work out.

Show me the metagame and the charm interactions that show that things tend to break. Two can play that game.

Click to shrink...

I literally wrote an essay on charm interactions in craft. You said I'm wrong to assume that they're more complicated and I asked you to back up this assertion.

So far I haven't said whether anything is broken or not (besides craft which looks to break for the reasons above). I have actually said that I don't know how the metagame works.

You have made a positive claim. I have not, outside of the one at craft which was defended at length. If you disagree, show the evidence.

If you feel that I've made a single unsupported claim, quote it and I'll be happy to either retract or offer supporting evidence. Beyond the relatively transparent craft, I don't know.

The system is intentionally obscure (as evidenced by the profusion of different mechanisms to enhance rolls, making simple success hard to calculate) which makes any comment on the meta-game or theory very difficult. That's about all I've said. If you want me to show specific poorly designed charms I can, but they're not really going to be charms that interact with the core systems.

 

[BFldyq]

How about we all stop arguing, and see how it turns out.

It might be that it turns out to play really well, balanced, easy and intuitive, once you have some experience under your belt. It might turn out to be a broken mess, that just get worse as things go on.

We don't know yet. And until a lot of games of various length end up being played and reported, we can't know.

So let's just sit back, relax, and let things come as they come.