General Exalted Discussion IV: Roll Join Debate

[meschlum]

Mainly, I'm looking at trying to create some of the iconic creatures of the Zerg:
- Zerglings
- Hydralisks
- Ultralisks
- Lurkers

Maybe even add Banelings and Changelings.

Zerglings are easy. You have access to Poppets, Manikins, and Homunculi, all of which are small, vicious, and unspeakably deadly in large numbers.

For extra fun, a Behemoth with Shuffling the Pieces, an area of effect Assumption, and some means of causing damage over a large area (Luminous Exhalation or Endless Yawning Void are good) will transform all the people it kills (lots of extras) into more Manikins.

Banelings are relatively simple too, though self-destruction isn't that easy to replicate. Use Shape-forged Servant when spawning a Homunculus, and give it the Dragon's Breath and Wracking mutations - it'll toss blasts of destructive acid around, and be slowly consumed as it does so.

Hydralisks don't call for much effort. Get all the Monsters you want (cost 2, so gossamer background 3 gives you as many as you want), toss on the Quills mutation, and you're set. If you want them to be a bit more lethal, use Horrors (available in large quantities at gossamer background 4) to add a Claws mutation to the mix, and make them smarter. If you can take the time to assemble each one, Shape forged Servant lets you add claws, scales, quills, and more to claw strider frame.

Lurkers are barely harder. Go the Shape Forged Servant route, adding a mutation to enable burrowing, and you're set. For maximum impact, use an Oneiromancy with Fall of Night Shadows the Truth on the battlefield: anyone seeing a burrowed Lurker will forget it. Period.

Ultralisks barely require any thought. Shape Forged Servant + tyrant lizard = pain. If you want to create uniques with even more excessive pain potential, take a high dot behemoth and go to town - somewhat less strength, but crazy good soak and damage options.

Changelings are feasible, but call for trickery to create in large amounts. Fall of Night Shadows the Truth lets you make people forget they saw the changeling (or remember seeing someone normal instead) over a battlefield, so that's a good starting point. Then you take a Manikin, Shape Forge Servant it until it's tiny (and very fragile) so as to maximize stealth. Done.


If you want to go around infesting people, Behemoths with Assumption of the Person's Heart are made for that purpose (albeit hard to create in unlimited numbers at character creation), and Behemoth Forging Meditation (in an Oneiromancy) can transform boring extras into warped creatures with terrifying power - those with shorter lifespans get Dragon's Breath and claws, those you want to keep around pick up Awakened Essence as well...


Edit

Creep is painfully easy. Principle of Worlds, and done! Oh, you want mechanical effects? Fine. Translucent Dream Sheathing Technology, stating that 'zerg on creep are more powerful' gives you exactly that. Wait, you need your creep to actually do something? Remember that Behemoth I mentioned earlier? Any non-zerg in the battlefield (limited to creep coverage, of course) are being slowly consumed (taking damage) and when they die of creep, they become zerglings. What? You mean you want your creep to empower your best units? Give the Behemoth Assumption of the Wyld Tainted Land, and the battlefield is suddenly infused with Wyld energies, letting you perform Shaping actions.

Structures barely require any thought. Your creep generating Behemoth is a living, mobile creature until it finds the right spot, then it freezes into its large area creep causing Assumption - with its 'heart' at the core. So you have buildings popping out of creatures by default, and raising all kinds of havoc once they are in place.

Spawning is simple. Get a Chancel. Get mortals (i.e. non-zerg). Bring them into the Chancel alive - if you're feeling vicious, Translucent Dream Sheathing Technology can explicitly state that people killed in areas of creep don't fully die, so you can collect them later on. Eat their virtues and willpower to generate motes and gossamer. Use motes and gossamer to spawn more dangerous beasts, and more Fair Folk - who in turn can create more... When you have an empty soulless husk of a mortal, send them out to fight for you - or infect them with Assumption of the Person's Heart and Assumption of Dreams and Passion, to get a perfect infiltra(i)tor.

This gives you a (or many) portals from which countless zerg emerge, and into which your zerglings bring all the tasty non-zerg for deconstruction and reuse.

[Turalisj]

*notes that he doesn't have the Fae book, though does plan on getting it sometime in the future*

I foresee being able to stat up the Queen of Blades launching an invasion of Creation...

[Qaera]

I think GWM is the book that has so much errata you can essentially play it off the errata.

[meschlum]

I think GWM is the book that has so much errata you can essentially play it off the errata.

Not quite.

You don't get the Charm trees (though the wiki may help), and you get (almost) nothing about the Shaping side of the Charms. Plus, the Charms with the least errata can be prone to the most abuse... And not much fluff either, of course.

But that aside, if all you want to do is turn the setting into StarCraft, or My Little Pony, or I Love Lucy, you are pretty much set.

[Turalisj]

Is there a way to make them with only using the mutations in the Core book and Infernals? That's pretty much all I got for mutations to go off of.

[meschlum]

You can make them however you like. Being a GM has its advantages. The GWM errata is available for free online, so that might help.

Quills is a core mutation, as are claws, wings, and scales, as well as large and small. So you can use those to 'reskin' mortals or creatures and create 'basic' zerg. You won't have mechanics for spawning new critters, creep, and the like. Area attacks are harder to get, look at firewands and improvise, perhaps? Or helltech.

[Turalisj]

I'm not very good at balancing though, critter balancing especially. Chances are, with me, I would either make them too strong (and thus have a tpk) or too weak.

[Kylarra]

It's kind of hard to have a non-essence using critter be "too strong" accidentally. As long as you know your party's approximate combat values and so on, you can easily gauge critters since they lack special abilities.

[meschlum]

Most critters are fragile. Potentially lots of damage, but poor attack pools - so Exalts facing them will usually not get hit (or, with Charms, dodge / parry). Avoid mass combat (the system is wonky), and it takes 2-3 strong hits to drop even the bigger ones.

Fighters who rely on ping damage (flurries) will have a somewhat harder time, as the critters can have a lot of health - it takes twice as long to kill a creature with 14 HL as it does a heroic mortal when you rely on Essence ping - but they're still not that dangerous.


Now if you have an Overmind behemoth with Imposition of Law coordinating the attacks of a few score Poppets (if you take damage from their darts, you get a Crippling -1 penalty to Dex. Which stacks.), then things get interesting.


As far as mechanics and combat go, this is Exalted. Your characters shouldn't be worrying about the rank and file, except as a means to provide props for stunting, or a reason they are a bit tired when reaching the Big Bad. Of course, the magnitude of the Big Bad can vary - the captain directing the troops on one wing of the army at Essence 2, the general at Essence 3...

If you want the party to need an army of its own to hold back the swarm, you can - AoE attacks on the size of battlefields are hard to get (unless you're Fair Folk, when chargen and creativity is enough), so a horde of zerg threatening their home works fine - they can kill any pack that comes their way, but for every ten zerg slain, a hundred slip by. Thus, they need armies.

[Turalisj]

Honestly, a step by step guide to creating custom critters for Exalted would be great...... I'm that bad at balancing stuff

[Cyborg Mage]

Thus, they need armies.

Or this. For some reason, I think most zerg would have really low willpower. Unless you guys decide to let them use the Overmind's will. Then things get interesting. ABYSSAL PRIDE!

[Drascin]

Problem is, there's a spell for that, and the Cecelyne version would probably do exactly that.

Oh? Didn't know that spell. Well, there are Charms that do stuff similar to spells but easier and faster, so it wouldn't be impossible... but, yeah, would be completely unneeded.

Honestly, a step by step guide to creating custom critters for Exalted would be great...... I'm that bad at balancing stuff

Indeed it would. As would a decent collection of sample antagonists, or a number of other ST aids. But we're not getting any of that. Remember, Exalted hates its STs .

[Volthawk]

Yeah, Sorcery/Necromancy has the mass destruction stuff. Solar Circle Sorcery, in particular has a choice of spells. Apocalyptic supernatural rainstorms, or a simple huge explosion.

[Turalisj]

Say, Mesch... Could you perhaps make such a creature creation guide, with challenge approximations for each Exalt type?

Comparing DnD, Mutants and Masterminds, and Exalted (three game systems I have), I would have to say that Dnd is easiest to run, Exalted the hardest, but MnM the most fun.

[TheCountAlucard]

Say, Mesch... Could you perhaps make such a creature creation guide, with challenge approximations for each Exalt type?

There's a bit of a problem with that.

Assuming the critter is a mundane one, the Exalts have even a modicum of defensive Charms, it will be a Curb Stomp Battle, pretty much every time. If the creature is magical somehow, it might be able to challenge the Exalted, but even then, its chances are slim.

I'd also like to point out that there are guidelines, of sorts, in the Core Book itself, page 247.

[Drascin]

Say, Mesch... Could you perhaps make such a creature creation guide, with challenge approximations for each Exalt type?

Problem with that last bit is the variability in Exalted power level depending on optimization. A chargen character can be anything from "a mortal with a stick beats you" to "literally untouchable until he runs out of motes". In D&D, barring huge cheese, you can get a decent feel for optimization tiers - but in Exalted... well.

[meschlum]

I do Fair Folk, mostly.

I have read good things about the system here, and it looks reasonable in all as a guideline. If you want to create specific NPCs and opponents, the guidelines on dice pools should be helpful too - in terms of knowing what threat levels are posed.

[Xefas]

I have made a Zerg Overmind Behemoth. It's Malfeas' answer to the Scarlet Bride =P .

[Xefas]

So, do you think a Sidereal could get Sol's ass in gear by going down to Malfeas and bargaining with Ligier, a free visa out of Hell via "An End To Darkness", in exchange for him taking up a domain of guardianship towards Creation?

Would there be epic jealousy? I want there to be epic jealousy.

(I also wonder how the Green Sun would act without the bitterness and shame imposed upon him by being linked with Malfeas. IIRC, he protected Creation in the days before the Unconquered Sun, right?)

[Yuki Akuma]

I don't think using An End To Darkness on Ligier is a good idea at all.

Considering Malfaes would react as though Ligier was killed - that is, he'd implode due to Fetich Death.

Which would mean every other Yozi would be free of him.

[Guancyto]

I think if freeing the Yozis were as simple as killing Ligier, they would have done it already.

Of course, it's possible they don't know what will happen and are afraid to try.

[Yuki Akuma]

Spirits and Yozis don't have charms that can permanently kill spirits. That's a Solar thing.

[Qaera]

Can't the Yozis not hurt each other or something?

[Turalisj]

Spirits and Yozis don't have charms that can permanently kill spirits. That's a Exalt thing.

Fixed for you.

[Yuki Akuma]

Can't the Yozis not hurt each other or something?

They can and do. They just can't kill each other.

Fixed for you.

*an

"Fixed that for you" is the most ****ing annoying Internet meme ever. Ugh.

[Xefas]

Spirits and Yozis don't have charms that can permanently kill spirits. That's a Solar thing.

I imagine they could have, however, beaten Ligier down to a single health level, Crippled his limbs off, gagged him, thrown a sheet over him, and promised an enterprising Solar a million billion hookers if he just blindly stabs at whatever is underneath.

[Yuki Akuma]

I imagine they could have, however, beaten Ligier down to a single health level, Crippled his limbs off, gagged him, thrown a sheet over him, and promised an enterprising Solar a million billion hookers if he just blindly stabs at whatever is underneath.

Wouldn't work - he'd have to activate Ghost-Eating Technique to kill him.

[Lochar]

Yeah, but if they did that I assume Malfeas would have pulled the trick of assuming his feitch soul and then beat the crap out of them back.

Also, recall that for the low low price of a permanent dot of Will, a feitch soul can get access to their Yozi Charms for a scene.

[Yuki Akuma]

Also, recall that for the low low price of a permanent dot of Will, a feitch soul can get access to their Yozi Charms for a scene.

Which, in Ligier's case, would mean he'd suddenly have a metric crap-ton of health levels and ludicrously high soak and hardness.

[Xefas]

Wouldn't work - he'd have to activate Ghost-Eating Technique to kill him.

Well, they'd've had him do that too. <.<

I also agree about the "fixed that for you" meme.

Yeah, but if they did that I assume Malfeas would have pulled the trick of assuming his feitch soul and then beat the crap out of them back.

Also, recall that for the low low price of a permanent dot of Will, a feitch soul can get access to their Yozi Charms for a scene.

That's true. But I still don't think he, plus a few assisting Malfean Jouten, could beat, say, a dozen or so Yozi all working in concert. Swilly would probably side with Malfeas, and there might be others, but...

...well, there's no record of a huge Primordial War 2.0 raging in Malfeas, with one side stalking Ligier with a pair of hedge clippers and a bedsheet, so I think we can safely assume that one fetich death will not completely undo the surrender oaths.