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Talya
2008-05-08, 05:04 PM
I have no fricken idea what I'm doing with this game.

I'm playing a Night Caste Solar Exalt.
So far I have this:

Strength ***
Dexterity *****
Stamina ***

Charisma **
Manipulation **
Appearance *****

Perception ***
Intelligence **
Wits **

For skills, I've got all Caste Skills at 3, martial arts, melee, and thrown at 3, integrity at 1, resistance at 3. (These are changeable.)

My concept is an atheletic, stealth-oriented thief. who can hold her own in a brawl. She was actually a dynastic scion, who exalted unexpectedly as a Solar, much to everyone's shock. She's got to be a superlative sneak, super
thief, and dextrous fighter and acrobat.

I don't like how few skills she actually seems to have, but I don't know what to cannibalize to spread them out, or what to take if I did. I don't understand the charms or what I should take either.

Kyeudo
2008-05-08, 05:10 PM
I'm new to 2nd as well, but if you want to be a sneak thief put Stealth at 5 dots and take either the First or Second Excellency for stealth at the very least.

I would recomend either going with just Martial Arts or just Melee instead of both and sticking the points you save in something else.

Talya
2008-05-08, 05:17 PM
I'm new to 2nd as well, but if you want to be a sneak thief put Stealth at 5 dots and take either the First or Second Excellency for stealth at the very least.

I don't think I can put more than 3 dots in it right now, can I?



I would recomend either going with just Martial Arts or just Melee instead of both and sticking the points you save in something else.

I thought about that, but it doesn't fit what I want her to be. I know that usually in games you specialize in one form of combat, but I want her to be good at lots of them, with or without a weapon.

Terraoblivion
2008-05-08, 05:21 PM
Don't go with high levels in multiple combat abilities, the only one you will ever get to use much is the one you have the bulk of your charms in. That is by far the most important piece of advice i can give.

Next to that i would advice that you get at least a single dot of lore as you will not only be illiterate, but largely ignorant of the world otherwise. Some social abilities are also generally expected as you were basically a rude, obnoxious and annoying person as a mortal without them and they are an important part of the upbringing of any dynast.

As for charms. Get an excellency in stealth and in your primary combat ability at the very least. Beyond that it largely depends on where exactly you want your focus to be. Athletics have great charms that will make pretty much anything you could conceivably want to do easier as they can do things such as allowing you to walk on anything wider than a human hair and even more impressive acts. You might also want to pick up the entry-level stealth charm and some additional combat charms, though which depends on what fighting style you settle on.

Kyeudo
2008-05-08, 05:31 PM
I don't think I can put more than 3 dots in it right now, can I?


If you use your Bonus Points for it, you can have your Abillities at 4 or 5 dots. I recomend it for the skill you want to specialize in.



I thought about that, but it doesn't fit what I want her to be. I know that usually in games you specialize in one form of combat, but I want her to be good at lots of them, with or without a weapon.

You can use both Melee and Martial Arts armed or unarmed. It's just a matter of what charms you have whether it is better for you to be armed or not, and sometimes that doesn't even matter.

Terraoblivion
2008-05-08, 05:41 PM
Melee requires the use of a weapon, however said weapon can be a martial arts weapon which includes steel-toed boots and reinforced gauntlets. Martial arts on the other hand can indeed be used armed, there are even martial arts styles focused on using a specific weapon though the two most obvious of those are both terrestrial.

Kyeudo
2008-05-08, 05:47 PM
Melee requires the use of a weapon,

Unarmed attacks are listed with the Martial Arts weapons, which can be used with either Melee or Martial Arts. Ergo, you don't need a weapon to use Melee, but it helps.

Terraoblivion
2008-05-08, 05:58 PM
Nuh uh. Unarmed is its own heading immediately following martial arts weapons. It is not made very clear, but the headline above the description and statblock for unarmed fighting does show that they are not under the heading of martial arts weapons. It is really splitting hairs though.

Kantolin
2008-05-08, 06:05 PM
I'd analyze the caste abilities that you've set to 3 apiece - remember, a competent mortal as a skill is a 2, while a 3 is a masterful mortal. If your character as a mortal was a masterful (let's say) larceny expert, then a stat of 2 may be enough to represent it - a talented mortal thief would likely have a 2, as it takes a very talented one to have a 3. Same with martial arts, melee, and thrown - currently, she was very very good at them as a mortal (If they're being used to represent skill while she was a mortal), not simply good.

Also, if you're looking at 'can hold her own in a brawl', you may not necessarily want all three physical things quite so high. Conversely, if your idea was a scrapper who was also a talented thief, you could shift away from having such high thievery skills (and possibly, even, shift to dawn to represent this).

As-is, however, your character is very competent at both assorted types of combat and stealth, which can be fine as well.

If she was a scion, you may want to consider a little bit more of a nod in social events - a little socialize may help. Regardless, if you're happy with your character, just move onto picking charms.

(Conversely, you may wish to speak to your prospective DM, and ensure that your group as a whole is somewhere around similar ability, but that goes without saying regardless)

Talya
2008-05-08, 06:15 PM
Okay, I misunderstood the combat system. I figured melee was weapon combat, and martial arts was unarmed combat.

I can pull ALL the points out of melee then.

Where can I find more gear? I can get 2 or three points worth of artifacts, and I like that Infinite Jade Chakram artifact, but Jade is terrestrial. An infinite Orricalum chakram would be far better....

Kyeudo
2008-05-08, 07:05 PM
I would recomend against the Infinite Jade Chakram. You would have to fully attune to it, which is a realy tough roll with your point spread, and the fluff on it doesn't allow for versions that arn't blue jade. Grab an Orihalcum Skycuter instead. Making a difficulty 2 roll with a 5 dex and a good score in Thrown is easy enough that it will be rare for the thing not to return.

For stealth charms, I recomend grabbing at least Easily Overlooked Presence Method and either Mental Invisibility Technique or Invisible Statue Spirit. Those should get you anywhere you need to go if used well enough, I think.

Terraoblivion
2008-05-08, 07:10 PM
Or grab the Sling of Deadly Prowess. It has three times the range of the Skycutter, gains range like a bow and is one dot cheaper all at the cost of needing to find something to use as ammunition and a one less damage. Seems to be the best choice for a thrown weapon. You don't risk losing it in the same way you do most other thrown weapons.

The Valiant Turtle
2008-05-09, 11:51 AM
The sling is great.

If your Storyteller will allow it you might want to look up Gauntlets of the Distant Claw. They were in the First Edition Night Caste book and I believe an unofficial 2E conversion was posted online. They are basically gauntlets which have retractable claws that can be fired out on grappling chains. The range is limited and the damage is slightly low (compared to something like a Daiklave) but they are incredibly fun and quite possibly the easiest weapon in the word to stunt with. The book never actually specified what skill was used for ranged attacks with them, but my Storyteller decided since the sling used Thrown he would let me use the ranged claws as thrown as well. I believe I did slightly better damage with a javelin though.

Talya
2008-05-09, 03:15 PM
I would recomend against the Infinite Jade Chakram. You would have to fully attune to it, which is a realy tough roll with your point spread, and the fluff on it doesn't allow for versions that arn't blue jade. Grab an Orihalcum Skycuter instead. Making a difficulty 2 roll with a 5 dex and a good score in Thrown is easy enough that it will be rare for the thing not to return.

For stealth charms, I recomend grabbing at least Easily Overlooked Presence Method and either Mental Invisibility Technique or Invisible Statue Spirit. Those should get you anywhere you need to go if used well enough, I think.

I tend to agree...but there's no reason one can't change an oricallum weapon to a chakram, or make an existing weapon out of a different material, is there?

I don't like the sling, stylisticly. I'm pretty set on a chakram.

Ravyn
2008-05-09, 04:57 PM
The IJC is rather explicitly jade due to its means of creation; as it was originally built, even its jade bonus was subsumed by its power (though that might have changed between editions). However, if you want a chakram, and your ST doesn't mind someone playing around with custom artifacts, I might be able to assist you; chakram-mods are fun. How many dots are you willing to spend on it?

Corolinth
2008-05-10, 07:55 PM
How many dots are you willing to spend on it?No single artifact can be more than two dots. Anything they have will be made out of orichalcum. I'm trying to keep things mostly limited to the core rulebook, but I'm I'm okay with some custom artifacts.

Ravyn
2008-05-10, 08:36 PM
All right, I can do two. Talya: Tell me a little bit more about the fighting style you're seeing with this character. Is there any particular strength you want to play to, or weakness that could do with shoring up?

Talya
2008-05-12, 10:57 AM
I'm going to just use a Sky-cutter boomerang, but reflavored as a chakram (same stats.)

Also using a Dire chain.

I'm going to go deep into the "Ebon Shadow Style" martial art charm tree (From Scroll of the Monk), which fits her stealthy, thieving style, and also her caste, and lets me use the dire chain as part of the art.

I've done a lot of editing of this character...her biggest weaknesses are social combat (and social is even her secondary attribute list.)

For virtues I'm going compassion 1, conviction 2, temperance 4, valor 2.

BrainFreeze
2008-05-13, 11:39 AM
Since your just starting the game the first thing I would do is get 4 Dodge and pick up Shadow over Water and Seven Shadow Evasion. This will give you an Auto Dodge.

For 3 motes you will be able to dodge almost any attack. Without this you run a very high risk of being minimum damaged to death even with heavy armor.

Corolinth
2008-05-13, 03:34 PM
On that note, the minimum damage rules make even the celestial Exalts seem a bit squishy (at least without a generous sprinkling of Ox-Body Technique). I've considered changing, or outright nixing, minimum damage, but I'm not familiar enough with all the charms to really appreciate what long-term effects that might have. Although it's only a short game to get a feel for how it's played, so any long-term problems wouldn't pop up before we're done and go back to D&D.

Thoughts?

Terraoblivion
2008-05-13, 04:09 PM
Removing it appears to be a bad idea to me, without it good armor and resistance charms can easily make a solar completely invincible to health level damage. It would skewer the game even more towards favoring defense and with the price of perfect defenses i am just not sure anybody would want that.

Also the way the game is set up the idea is that you avoid getting hit as each hit matters, unless you have resistance charms or godlike armor. A defense optimized starting solar will be almost impossible to scratch even without using ox-body technique. The focus is more along the lines of an action movie than D&D. People don't hit each other over and over until one collapses from the strain, instead they either avoid the hit or are just tough enough that it didn't affect them, which of them is based on whether they focus on avoiding getting hit or on resistance charms. Also remember that mortals don't get to roll minimum damage, their damage pools can be reduced to 0 dice with soak.

Ravyn
2008-05-13, 04:23 PM
You could take the 1E route and bring the minimum damage back down to one. The only real issue there is the fact that starmetal armor and any other effect that decreases damage taken would make one ping-proof, but really, there aren't that many people who wear starmetal armor, and most of the other effects can be worked around one way or another.

BrainFreeze
2008-05-14, 10:47 AM
Though by reducing it to 1 you effectivly make starting Twilight characters immune to it. Though they are pretty much immune to minimum damage as it is. So that might not be that big of a deal.

Ravyn
2008-05-14, 03:25 PM
Point; that was before the Twilight anima was always-active once shiny enough (I sometimes wonder if that particular rewrite was such a good idea, as it means that combat has to be that much more lethal to make them not broken).

I'll keep thinking about it, too.

BrainFreeze
2008-05-14, 03:35 PM
To be fair though combat isnt where the game was designed to be balanced though. The combat system pretty much tells the players to "feel free to go overboard, you are the princes of the world" (que Highlander music here). The actual balancing point of the game are the virtue flaws, though in most games i've played the storytellers just ignore them and wonder why they cant throw challenging encounters at you.

Artanis
2008-05-14, 04:06 PM
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the stats. Your social skills are pretty high for a "sneak thief" and way way WAY too high for somebody whose weakness is supposed to be social combat. Make Social your Tertiary with the other two as your Primary and Secondary (which one is which is up to you).


Like the others, I cannot stress enough that if you can get a Perfect Defense without crippling your other capabilities, you should do so. Seven Shadow Evasion is the most obvious one with all the Dodge you're liable to have. Also, make sure you have a combo with SSE in it so that you can actually use other charms without leaving yourself open to being instagibbed by an enemy with a mega-damage combo*.





*Seriously, one time I made the Storyteller start swearing uncontrollably by using a Peony Blossom Attack + Hungry Tiger Technique combo with a Grand Daiklave. It did something like 35 health levels of damage...with only half the swings hitting. He made DAMNED sure to give all the bad guys Perfects after that.