General Exalted Discussion II: No Longer Mortal

[The-Mage-King]

Got it. And I won't be technical about it, either.



So, any PBP games recruiting here?

[Tael]

Read this. Now. It is invaluable in learning Exalted without a teacher. (specifically read 201, it's essential, but the others are good too)

[Lochar]

Uh... Will... Master swordsman, able to cleave tall buildings in twain with a single strike do?

Building this as simply as I can, yes I realize he would probably get owned in anything but combat. But we're building a glass nuclear reactor here.

A Solar Exalt, Dawn caste straight out of the box. All attributes are minimum 1, and then you add points up to five, depending on your primary focus. Here, we're going to focus on your melee. We're going to set Strength to 5 and Dex to 5. Also get Perception as high as you can.

There are 25 abilities. At the moment, we want Dodge 5, Melee 5, and Awareness 5.

We're going to spend most of the rest of our bonus points getting Essence 3.

Ten charms to start with.

3 will go into Dodge so that you can dodge any attack at you. (We want Seven Shadows Evasion)

The other seven will go into Melee charms. We're going to get First Melee Excellency, Infinite Melee Mastery, Hungry Tiger Technique, One Weapon-Two Blows, Peony Blossom Attack, and Iron Whirlwind Attack.

Combos in starting game are created by spending one bonus point per Charm in the combo.

We're going to put Seven Shadows, Iron Whirlwind, First Melee and Hungry Tiger into a combo for four bonus points.

Background points are going to go 3 dots to a Grand Daiklave which will give us 3 accuracy and +12 lethal damage.

So we've spent 18 bonus points and 9 out of ten charms. What can we do with this?

Before we do anything else, we commit 6 motes to Infinite Melee Mastery to reduce all costs of First Melee Excellency by 3 motes when we use it.

Then in the same scene, our Combo costs the total cost of all the charms we use inside it, plus an additional 1 willpower to activate it.

Iron Whirlwind is 5m, 1 willpower. Hungry Tiger is 1m. We have Dexterity of 5 and Melee of 5, so First Melee Excellency is 10m, minus the 3 we put into the Mastery above, so 7m.

So 6m, 1wp, and then an additional 1wp to activate the combo. We get Dexterity+1 attacks, so 6 attacks. We have a base of 13 dice, and we can add up to 10 more dice with the first excellency, at a cost of 0-7m.

So if we want to go insane all out, we could spend 42m for the excellency, 6m, 1wp for the other charms, and then 1wp for the combo activation.

You would roll 23 dice and compare it to the enemy's Defense Value(DV). And then do that 5 more times.

The enemy DV is the number of successes on a roll. A success on any one particular die is rolling 7-10, and 10s are counted twice. Most enemies have a DV of about 8-10 if they're fairly serious enemies.

Damage on our hypothetical glass reactor here is 12L from the weapon plus the Solar's 5 strength, plus any extra successes over the enemies DV. At 23 dice, we're looking at about 12-13 successes.

So let's say the enemy has 10 DV and we roll 12 successes each time. That's 2 successes over the DV, and Hungry Tiger says we count them twice.

Add the Solar's 12L from his sword and 5 Str. That's 21 dice of damage. Roll those 21 dice. Each success is a level of damage. 10s are not counted twice here.



And we do this five more times.




Now remember, this is a theoretical build that is all damage output, no real safety minus his Seven Shadows Evasion that he hopefully still has the motes of Essence to use if something attacks him.

[TheCountAlucard]

So, any PBP games recruiting here?

(begins sizzling from the constrained radiance of the Solar within)

I SHALL DO THIS, IF YOU DESIRE.

Sound good?

I kinda want to keep it small, though, so just you and maybe another dude, 'kay?

Let's just say I've got something interesting in mind, 'kay?

[knightMARE]

I wouldn't mind being the other dude. I've been interested in Exalted for ages, but haven't found an appropriate PBP to try it out in.

[TheCountAlucard]

I wouldn't mind being the other dude. I've been interested in Exalted for ages, but haven't found an appropriate PBP to try it out in.

(invokes Thread-Linking Playground Atemi)

[Tael]

Alright, new question: How the hell does Striking Serpent Speed work? It says it's a magical flurry, but doesn't say anything about multiple action penalties or DVs. Let's say I get 3 actions with my roll. Can I activate different charms on those actions? Can I Flurry 3 attacks on the first, activate a form type charm, and then activate some other charm? Do my DVs refesh in between my actions? Is it just a really bad Extra action charm, with the one exception that you can use non-attack actions?

[Lochar]

It's a standard extra action charm, but yes you can do non-combat stuff with it.

Since it doesn't say, if I were the ST I'd say you take normal DV penalties. Since they are standard actions you get, yes you can activate more than one charm, but they have to be in a Combo with the charm.

[Tael]

It's a standard extra action charm, but yes you can do non-combat stuff with it.

Since it doesn't say, if I were the ST I'd say you take normal DV penalties. Since they are standard actions you get, yes you can activate more than one charm, but they have to be in a Combo with the charm.

So you take the extra action penalties as well? So there is no real benefit of using the charm?

[Lochar]

As written, not so much. You'd have to get clarification on it from your own ST. I'd have to sit down and reread the entire thing as well to come up with a ruling for it.

[Tavar]

Buh...that's entirely against the keyword.

Spoiler

Show

Extra Action—Extra action Charms are Charm-based flurries
(see p. 143). Each functions as a normal flurry but has no multiple
action penalties. In addition, only the action with the highest
DV penalty imposes a DV penalty. The others do not. This magical
flurry is the character’s action. Therefore, if a flurry gives the
character two attacks, those two attacks are her complete action.The character can use the Charm only once per action and cannot
add multiple actions by mundane means.

[Lochar]

Then I stand corrected against it, and note that it still allows non-combat related things to be done, so you'd still have to arbitrate what happens with those.

[Jokasti]

Building this as simply as I can, yes I realize he would probably get owned in anything but combat. But we're building a glass nuclear reactor here.

A Solar Exalt, Dawn caste straight out of the box. All attributes are minimum 1, and then you add points up to five, depending on your primary focus. Here, we're going to focus on your melee. We're going to set Strength to 5 and Dex to 5. Also get Perception as high as you can.

There are 25 abilities. At the moment, we want Dodge 5, Melee 5, and Awareness 5.

We're going to spend most of the rest of our bonus points getting Essence 3.

Ten charms to start with.

3 will go into Dodge so that you can dodge any attack at you. (We want Seven Shadows Evasion)

The other seven will go into Melee charms. We're going to get First Melee Excellency, Infinite Melee Mastery, Hungry Tiger Technique, One Weapon-Two Blows, Peony Blossom Attack, and Iron Whirlwind Attack.

Combos in starting game are created by spending one bonus point per Charm in the combo.

We're going to put Seven Shadows, Iron Whirlwind, First Melee and Hungry Tiger into a combo for four bonus points.

Background points are going to go 3 dots to a Grand Daiklave which will give us 3 accuracy and +12 lethal damage.

So we've spent 18 bonus points and 9 out of ten charms. What can we do with this?

Before we do anything else, we commit 6 motes to Infinite Melee Mastery to reduce all costs of First Melee Excellency by 3 motes when we use it.

Then in the same scene, our Combo costs the total cost of all the charms we use inside it, plus an additional 1 willpower to activate it.

Iron Whirlwind is 5m, 1 willpower. Hungry Tiger is 1m. We have Dexterity of 5 and Melee of 5, so First Melee Excellency is 10m, minus the 3 we put into the Mastery above, so 7m.

So 6m, 1wp, and then an additional 1wp to activate the combo. We get Dexterity+1 attacks, so 6 attacks. We have a base of 13 dice, and we can add up to 10 more dice with the first excellency, at a cost of 0-7m.

So if we want to go insane all out, we could spend 42m for the excellency, 6m, 1wp for the other charms, and then 1wp for the combo activation.

You would roll 23 dice and compare it to the enemy's Defense Value(DV). And then do that 5 more times.

The enemy DV is the number of successes on a roll. A success on any one particular die is rolling 7-10, and 10s are counted twice. Most enemies have a DV of about 8-10 if they're fairly serious enemies.

Damage on our hypothetical glass reactor here is 12L from the weapon plus the Solar's 5 strength, plus any extra successes over the enemies DV. At 23 dice, we're looking at about 12-13 successes.

So let's say the enemy has 10 DV and we roll 12 successes each time. That's 2 successes over the DV, and Hungry Tiger says we count them twice.

Add the Solar's 12L from his sword and 5 Str. That's 21 dice of damage. Roll those 21 dice. Each success is a level of damage. 10s are not counted twice here.



And we do this five more times.




Now remember, this is a theoretical build that is all damage output, no real safety minus his Seven Shadows Evasion that he hopefully still has the motes of Essence to use if something attacks him.

But no one actually plays this type of character, just like no one plays a Twilight Essence Reactor or Pun-Pun, (1) because characters don't have perfect knowledge of game abstracts and all charms and (2) it wouldn't be fun at all, because things are either too easy to worry about or too hard to worry about.
Good thought experiment though, and is that without Dawn Fix charms? Nice.

[Volthawk]

Twilight Essence Reactor.

What's that?

[Tavar]

From what I remember, pre-errata, a Twilights anima could interact with Essence Gathering Temper to give them unlimited motes and evade all damage.

[Lochar]

Of course, defense wins over offense in most situations, because the only person you'd turn a combo like that on is likely to have some form of perfect defense.

But it is a fun thought experiment.

[Teln]

But no one actually plays this type of character, just like no one plays a Twilight Essence Reactor or Pun-Pun, (1) because characters don't have perfect knowledge of game abstracts and all charms and (2) it wouldn't be fun at all, because things are either too easy to worry about or too hard to worry about.

Good luck convincing the people on the official forum about that. I swear, they actually WOULD.

[Lochar]

As I've said to other people. Exalted is more collaborative storytelling than it is hard mechanics, if you play it right. Doing otherwise you bring it down and it isn't Exalted anymore.

[Tavar]

So, I've been thinking. I like robot anime, both of the 'real' and super varieties. I like exalted. Exalted has robots, and with a bit of work they can be anything from real to super. So, why not combine them. Would anyone else like to try this? I'd willing to run it, and I already have a couple ideas of how to do so.

[TheCountAlucard]

Oh, Sol, I just realized something...

WE CAN STAT OUT THE NOSTALGIA CRITIC!

My guess is he has some Archery Charms, seeing how often he uses that gun... some Martial Arts Charms seem to be in order after his bout of fisticuffs with the Nerd... Obviously he's using Golden Years Tarnished Black and its expansions when he's doing his reviews, so he's probably an akuma of the Ebon Dragon, with an Urge related to tarnishing our nostalgic memories...

[Tavar]

I don't think so. I haven't really watched much, but he really only goes full throttle at the really bad stuff. Like, Neverending Story 3.

[Drascin]

So, I've been thinking. I like robot anime, both of the 'real' and super varieties. I like exalted. Exalted has robots, and with a bit of work they can be anything from real to super. So, why not combine them. Would anyone else like to try this? I'd willing to run it, and I already have a couple ideas of how to do so.

Well, some people have tried before. It's problematic because warstriders suck, but if we fix warstriders it could certainly work.

[Tavar]

At the very least, I'd be using Kyendo's fix for them. Not sure what else; I need to look into the rules more.

[Kris Strife]

Will this be real or Super robots?

[Tavar]

Bit of both. The idea is slightly based of a game I saw once. In that game, making warstriders was much faster, plus mortals could use them. Essentially, it was like gundam, with exalts as super robots, and mortals as real ones. Not sure which I want to do, though.

[Kyeudo]

Well, some people have tried before. It's problematic because warstriders suck, but if we fix warstriders it could certainly work.

*Obligatory plug*

[Tavar]

Hmm... just to be sure; what's wrong with warstriders as written in Wonders of the Lost age? From my short glances through it, I'd assume high attune costs/overall resources to use them, and overall weakness of options it gives you, but I'd like to know a bit more.

[Kris Strife]

I'm interested either way, but it'll affect where I get the inspiration for my character and warstrider from.

[Rikandur Azebol]

Warstrider problem boils down to be not a real robot, but just expensive armor. More like show-off case, and their rules are near identical to the rules of the Power Armors ... while PA's have less shortcomings while in use.

It was said that Warstrider was a powerful tool of war, right ? Not really so, since it have to be protected from small enemies pulling out these ... small parts, so it won't fall apart like so many modern cars left for a night in the rain, instead of spotlessly clean garage.

Warstirders are good for one thing, and this thing isn't war. It's parade of a victorious army. They just look impressive.

[Drascin]

Hmm... just to be sure; what's wrong with warstriders as written in Wonders of the Lost age? From my short glances through it, I'd assume high attune costs/overall resources to use them, and overall weakness of options it gives you, but I'd like to know a bit more.

Well, biggest one is that, generally speaking, you're better off on foot than in a warstrider. Warstriders are clumsy, huge, have huge mobility penalties (this is a big point. -6 DV is much more hurtful than the little extra soak Warstriders give especially with Essence ping rules), require hideous mote attunements and maintenance, and barely give you any actual bonuses... they're just big, clumsy, handicapping power armors, except without the power armors' cool powers unless you pay extra for an animating intelligence. Between a Celestial battle armor and a warstrider, the armor is better in every way, easier to maintain, less obvious, and more powerful.

And honestly, Exalts or no, the idea that super robots are worse than slogging it on foot just doesn't sit right with me .