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Exalted 3E Discussion

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Isn't there stuff unique to each type of Exalted? I can understand that the Solars are generally perfect and awesome at everything, but I can also see why some People are worried. If one character is just straight up better at everything he would try if he put some work into it, why Play something else?

For example, I remember about someone explaining the different types of Martial Arts once. There was Terrestrial for Dragon Blooded, Celestial for Solars and other Exalted and Sidereal for the Sids.

Like, from what I get of a Exalted wiki, only Sids can really use their own type of Martial Arts to the full Level and even Solars Need a Sidereal to teach them and Terrestrial Martial Arts Needs specific abilities limited to Dragonblooded to be truly at their best.

Like, Solar = Perfect at Anything, but not at Everything at once, Needs to specialize to truly be the best....
Lunar = Has great versatility with extreme ease...
Sidereal = Has the most bullshit Martial Arts and General crazy powers like the Retroactive Transformation Punch, also passive stealth I think...
Infernal = Can defeat Solars when they are working inside their theme, but are otherwise just below them I think?...
Dragonborn = They seem the best at... working together, not leading, not being the big guy, but working in Groups. They are the soldiers, the guys who make things work and Keep them working.
Abyssal = No clue....
 
Abyssals used to have the niche of shadows and darkness before Ebby stole it. Now all we have left is Death and Ruin, I guess.

This isn't official, but I'm of the opinion that if a Solar are the best at building infrastructure (and Abyssals can't do that all, since everything they touch diiiiiieeee), then Abyssals need to be equally good at tearing that infrastructure down.

EDIT: Is it intended that any random person can create threadmarks for anyone?
 
Firstly the solaroids.
Solars are excellence and virtue and light and rulers. They are the best at any area of mortal competence. Design-wise they tend to get short, direct trees that approach tasks via simply making you better (at least in 2e). They're the easiest and simplest to play, but still fun.
Abyssals are the dark mirrors of solars. Death is their core theme, not darkness, which in 2e kinda sucked since you being the best killer meant precisely nothing to anything that mattered. From a design perspective, their foci mirror the solars almost entirely, to their detriment in 2e, but not necessarilys o.

Infernals are monsters first and foremost. They are strange and alien and become only moreso as they progress, trading away their humanity for power. They are also built around complex themes rather than skills, crafting ideals of themselves. They won't pass solar competence, but they're going to equal it along different paradigms. From a design perspective solars are likely to get a bunch of discrete tricks in shallow trees. Infernals get a very small number of tricks and then a lot of charms to make those tricks far far better and more widely applicable.


Now the other exalts:

Lunars are wyld and chaos and animalistic or 'instinctive' the attribute and raw talent to solars' polished skill, as well as shapeshifters. Ultimately these things are secondary to their core theme. Mirroring Luna Lunars are, or should be, adaptable first and foremost, and impossible as well. If the solar is the best there could possibly be, the lunar simply reaches excellence by becoming impossible. 1E Lunars had issues (Hello Pia!) and 2e did a lot better, but still nowhere near as good as could be.

Sidereals are the wise masters, the teachers and instructors and the man behind the man. They are the backstage actors and the invisible hand in action. Their power is tied to fate and destiny and tends to focus on making the most of a very limited set of abilities. They're also the masters of martial arts. From a design perspective this is chiefly so that the old sidereal can go around mentoring young solars.

Alchemicals are modular. They are also champions of the people rather than entities in their own right, servants rather than rulers. While the DB are tied to each other, the alchemicals are tied to civilization. They depend on infrastructure and technology and cannot function by themselves. They lead from the front or work in shadows behind, but never can nor should stand on top.

And Dragon-Blooded are the soldiers, comrades and brothers. They support each other and grow stronger from it. The weakest of exalts, they are also the most numerous, and the best posed to work with each other rather than against. When their charmset functions well it makes them strongest in concert rather than axioms unto themselves.
 
Alchemicals are, in fact, civilization. Literally. Elder Alchemicals become cities.

I just wish they had more charms to really make the most of their modularity, or that we got more info on their kaiju and city forms.
 
It seems to me that the Lunars and the Alchemicals are kinda stumbling over each other's toolsets.

Both emphasize adaptation. The Lunars can adapt to the situation as it is, while the Alchemicals can adapt to foreseen situations. This comes with a cost, though. Lunars are probably never going to be at their best in any situation since they tend to have a generalist approach. Alchemicals are going to absolutely suck at any situation that comes as a surprise. Two paradigms of adaptation, almost opposites of each other. One always able to meet a situation but never great, the other can be great but only with prep time.

It just feels redundant to me.
 
tehelgee said:
It seems to me that the Lunars and the Alchemicals are kinda stumbling over each other's toolsets.

Both emphasize adaptation. The Lunars can adapt to the situation as it is, while the Alchemicals can adapt to foreseen situations. This comes with a cost, though. Lunars are probably never going to be at their best in any situation since they tend to have a generalist approach. Alchemicals are going to absolutely suck at any situation that comes as a surprise. Two paradigms of adaptation, almost opposites of each other. One always able to meet a situation but never great, the other can be great but only with prep time.

It just feels redundant to me.
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Alchemicals are supposed to be a bit redundant. They're prototypes, the originals that everything else was based off of.
 
Twilights are now Pokemon trainers due to their anima power, except they're more like that Professor Oak Rape Train image than anything.

They can summon a first circle demon and an elemental every day, and if they can bind it, they can then turn it into a familiar with their anima power and store it away. The demon/elemental also becomes eligible for the line of familiar Charms in the Survival tree.

Here's the rape train part. They can bring one out, reflexively, for 3m at at time, and send them back for free, also reflexively. They regen 5m a round. Demon or elemental coming out, every turn.

Fuck you, Wyld Hunt, my army is better than yours! Here, have a fucking flood of Blood Apes!
 
I can see the logic behind the Twilight Pokemon trainers.

They're not designed for combat at all. They get no combat abilities as Caste abilities, not even purely defensive abilities like Dodge or Resistance. They have no ability to hide via Stealth or run away via Athletics.

What they do have is Sorcery. Sorcery isn't really a combat ability either, as it takes multiple rounds to do anything with it. So, the Pokemon method allows them to contribute to a fight via minions and protect themselves via minions so they can use sorcery in battle.

Where the other Castes have equipment, Twilights have minions.
 
tehelgee said:
Twilights are now Pokemon trainers due to their anima power, except they're more like that Professor Oak Rape Train image than anything.

They can summon a first circle demon and an elemental every day, and if they can bind it, they can then turn it into a familiar with their anima power and store it away. The demon/elemental also becomes eligible for the line of familiar Charms in the Survival tree.

Here's the rape train part. They can bring one out, reflexively, for 3m at at time, and send them back for free, also reflexively. They regen 5m a round. Demon or elemental coming out, every turn.

Fuck you, Wyld Hunt, my army is better than yours! Here, have a fucking flood of Blood Apes!
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That's a little bit awesome. Though it only lets you summon one per turn... unless you're the one pulling a Blood Ape ambush. Does it cost anything to keep them out?
 
Guile said:
That's a little bit awesome. Though it only lets you summon one per turn... unless you're the one pulling a Blood Ape ambush. Does it cost anything to keep them out?
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You can summon as many at once as you can pay for. Doing it one per turn means you never run out of motes. You could whip out 10 at once if you wanted to pay 30m.

And no, it costs nothing to keep them out. Nor are the motes used to bring them out committed.
 
......

I.... what? So t wilights are now the mass combat Solars? :(
 
Biigoh said:
......

I.... what? So t wilights are now the mass combat Solars? :(
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Well, not really. Like I said, they can only add 2 per day to their army. Others can use stuff like Performance to add hundreds at a time, then use War charms to train them all up. So, the Twilight will always lose the number game to users of the actual War ability.

And it only works on first circle demons and Essence 1-3 elementals.

Combined with the ability to use Survival charms on their familiars, Twilights are very much the 'few but powerful minions' paradigm over War's 'hordes of elite mortals' paradigm. Of course, they could(and probably should - prep is key for Twilights) still keep stowing away a couple spirits a day in case they need them in the future for whatever reason, but they're not going to be popping out an army of familiars every time there's a fight, just a few.
 
Yay, the Lunar castes weren't broken in the Wyld this time!

Instead they "shed those narrow definitions" and crafted their own castes.

Yay for exaltations not breaking in the Wyld~
 
Abyssals should have the power to destroy buildings so that they leave pretty ruins. Not just a few tumbled stones in a field, but halves of arches hanging in mid air, cracks and holes everywhere but the entire thing still somehow standing upright as a mute testament of just how impressive this thing was before it was abandoned.

They ought to have Ruin Value as a superpower.
 
Princess Magnificent said:
Abyssals should have the power to destroy buildings so that they leave pretty ruins. Not just a few tumbled stones in a field, but halves of arches hanging in mid air, cracks and holes everywhere but the entire thing still somehow standing upright as a mute testament of just how impressive this thing was before it was abandoned.

They ought to have Ruin Value as a superpower.
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That's a fairly good aesthetic for an Abyssal aligned manse.
 
Hm, Carnal Spirit Rending is something I'd think is more Abyssal than Solar...
 
I have the urge to finally do something stupid, but meaningful here on the forum: Running Exalted here. The problem is my inexperience, but that hasn't stopped me before. Not sure though if I 2.5e or 3e though.

Out of curiosity, how would this idea work?
Remove the Martial Arts Ability, and instead have the MA Charms have prerequisite abilities be whatever it is they are supposed to do (Melee for the swording ones, Brawl for punch ones, and Performance for Nightingale). Remove the restriction that MA charms can't be used with Brawl/Melee. Finally, increase the cost of the MA charms by 50% to compensate.
 
Kiriel said:
I have the urge to finally do something stupid, but meaningful here on the forum: Running Exalted here. The problem is my inexperience, but that hasn't stopped me before. Not sure though if I 2.5e or 3e though.

Out of curiosity, how would this idea work?
Remove the Martial Arts Ability, and instead have the MA Charms have prerequisite abilities be whatever it is they are supposed to do (Melee for the swording ones, Brawl for punch ones, and Performance for Nightingale). Remove the restriction that MA charms can't be used with Brawl/Melee. Finally, increase the cost of the MA charms by 50% to compensate.
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The hack that I was thinking of was scraping the Martial Artist perk as is, and adding a 2 dot perk for each style.
Ditch the Martial arts ability, have each style use the right abilities.

No need to boost the cost.
 
I'd be more than willing to join a 3e game here.

I'm still not convinced that MA needs to be hacked. Each MA is based around more than punching things, it feels more like it's based around a character concept. Shining Point Into the Void and Ebon Shadow are two very different styles, and I find it almost incomprehensible that one character would learn both. They have such different methods and aims.

If you want to make it easier... just get rid of the MA perk for Exalts. Each MA then is its own ability, like Crafts, without the gatekeeper.
 
Kiriel said:
Remove the Martial Arts Ability, and instead have the MA Charms have prerequisite abilities be whatever it is they are supposed to do (Melee for the swording ones, Brawl for punch ones, and Performance for Nightingale
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This can be done, though it will greatly incentivize the use of Martial Arts.

Kiriel said:
Remove the restriction that MA charms can't be used with Brawl/Melee.
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No. This will break the system horribly. Martial Arts charms were balanced under the assumption that they cannot be combined charms for abilities. Even other Martial Arts can only be combined if they use the same form weapon.

Kiriel said:
Finally, increase the cost of the MA charms by 50% to compensate.
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See the 2E Eclipse anima for why increasing costs doesn't help balance.
 
Lunars have more of an Impact in 3e, see the Caul. They are best described as the Generalists with the ability to adapt and change.

Regarding the whole bond, it is different. While it still has an impact, no mental slavery is happening. What I mean is the Solar will help to shape how the Lunar will react.
 
Summoning anything resembling an army is going to pretty difficult. Having reinfocements in your pocket is nice, but most would get a better army via just summoning in the first place and no anima shenanigans. What the anime effect does allow you to have is a perfect swiss army... army.

Need a door opened? 3 motes to summon a great larceny demon, need a ride, go summon your agatae, need back-up? Blood ape is right there,

Kiriel said:
Out of curiosity, how would this idea work?
Remove the Martial Arts Ability, and instead have the MA Charms have prerequisite abilities be whatever it is they are supposed to do (Melee for the swording ones, Brawl for punch ones, and Performance for Nightingale). Remove the restriction that MA charms can't be used with Brawl/Melee. Finally, increase the cost of the MA charms by 50% to compensate.
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Badly.

To clarify, martial arts charms are meant to be seperate. While I'm not a huge fan of the ability as it is, the cost of raising an MA ability to 5 is... Likewise, if you're going into MA you probably want the ability favored.

So, the cost to raise Martial Arts (Black Claw Style) to 5 is: 3 (new ability!) +1(2*1-2)+3 +5+7=19XP (favored)

The style is 9 charms, and each charm is 8xp. A 50% increase on each charm is 4xp/charm

9*4=36

36-19=17

Or rather, you'd make black claw style 17xp more expensive trying to simplify abilities.

More fundamentally, we know that the original design of 3E included:

http://theonyxpath.com/exalted-third-edition-mechanics-overview/ said:
Martial arts styles now contain Techniques in addition to Charms. All characters, including mortal heroes, can use Techniques. Techniques can be quite powerful, but often have particular tactical requirements to make use of them.
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These do not seem to be in the current draft that was leaked as far as I can tell. What this suggests is that there's either material missing, they were cut for some reason or that they'll be pushed into a later book.

IE: I strongly suspect that either the martial arts being as split up as craft is either because originally techniques were there to validate that purchase of dots and it's badly patched, because techniques will be there and they're going to validate those dots, or because they did this in place of techniques as an odd last minute fix.

As is, I'd hold off on patching it at all until 3e drops and the devs can be asked.

If you must patch it, count the number of charms in each style and then figure out a rough equivalency in XP, or just cut out the ability, keep the merit and make it a bit cheaper to invest in MA.

I can't yet tell how the actual charms hold up balance-wise.
 
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