Quote Originally Posted by SurlySeraph View Post
Fixalted probably counts as a think tank, it might be worth discussing things with the people there. There are also plenty of people on rpg.net who are intimately familiar with the mechanics, but they generally seem to think that any attempt at a fix either creates bigger problems or doesn't really fix anything.
I've looked at Fixalted several times. The problem is that most of what Fixalted contains are patches for existing pieces of the system or complete rewrites to systems other than the Storyteller framework. What I was talking about is examining the very underpinnings of the system, looking over each piece of mechanics to see if maybe some of the problems Exalted has actually start deeper than just the subsystem where the problems are observed.

IMO, the root of Exalted's combat problems is lethality. It's too easy to create a situation where any hit is instant death. So there are lots of defenses that make you impossible to harm. So there are lots of ways to get around those defenses so fights can actually happen. And so the combat system is like an onion, where every layer is labeled either "You're invincible" or "You're dead." I think it'd starting fresh would be easier and more likely to get a functional final result than trying to peel back through "If we get rid of ping and piercing soak-monster builds are hard to beat, if we remove the DV caps you'll need to spam perfect attacks to hit enemies with high DVs..." and so on until you get to a place where a wide variety of builds can survive and fight just fine and not too many are unstoppable.
I agree entirely. If you want to get combat that works, you have to start by looking over the base engine, getting the crap cleaned out, and then redesigning every combat Charm ever written so that they fit within a new paradigm.