General Exalted Discussion IV: Roll Join Debate

[meschlum]

See, this is what I was getting at. Anyway, I dunno if I'm missing something, reading graceful wicked masues always gets me confused, but how does one construct an oneiromancy/adjuration/behemoth in actual play, post-chargen, as opposed to spending bp?

Easy!

1-dot Grace Magic:

1) Create a minion via Awakened Dream Manufacture.
2) Give it a Grace of the type you want via Forging the (whatever) Grace
3) Take the Grace
4) Use Great Works of the (whatever) on the Grace
5) Done!

Optionally, if you have Retinue, or own a Commoner by other means (vexing one, creating one, etc.), or made a Grace for a passing non-Exalt, use that instead in step 4).

2-dot Grace Magic:

1) Use Ecstatic Reproduction Style to create a Noble Fair Folk.
2) They probably hate you.
3) Vex their (whatever) grace away from them.
3.1) If you're a good crafter, you own their Heart, so they love you instead. Take their (whatever) Grace anyway.
4) Use Great Works of the (whatever) on the Grace
5) Done!

If you don't have a Noble at hand, make a Grace for an Exalt and use that. Or use one of your own. Or spend a few centuries cultivating Commoners into Heroic Commoners and then into Nobles.

3-dot Grace Magic:

1) Write your will and last testament
1.1) Donations to the GM will get you killed faster. Avoid this.
1.2) Prayers to Meschlum will bounce off the fourth wall and interfere with his retirement options.
2) Go into the Deep Wyld
3) Be found by an Unshaped
4) Face off against the Unshaped and win a contest of (whatever).
5) Get a shiny bit of (whatever) metaphor
5.1) Even if it isn't shiny, take it.
6) GTFO
7) Use Great Works of the (whatever) on the Grace
8) Done!

If you don't have a convenient Unshaped, have your Heroic Commoner (you have a Heroic Commoner, right? From Vexation, Retinue 4, or Ecstatic Reproduction Style) become an Unshaped inside your 2-dot Chancel. 2-dot Chancels are tiny, barely over a thousand square miles, so the resulting Unshaped will be weak. Then proceed from 4) onwards.

4+ Dot Grace Magic:

Do the same thing as for 3-Dot Grace Magic, but with the following steps and changes:

0) Own a 3-dot (or 4-dot, if you want 5-dot Grace Magic) bit of (whatever) Grace Magic you don't like anymore.

7') Consume your old 3 (or 4) dot artifact in creating your new 4 (or 5) dot Grace Magic.

N/A Grace Magic:

Take a 5-dot Grace Magic, go into Pure Chaos, start yelling as loud as you can to attract all the Hannya in your Direction. One you've beaten them all, go deeper until you can find a sufficiently powerful Unshaped. Beat it too. Then perform step 7). While dancing on an ocean made of custard. Flesh eating custard which wants to tell you about the Truth of the Holy Houseplants.


Backup plan!

Any level of Grace Magic

1) Own an artifact of (whatever) Grace Magic that a) you don't like, and b) is of the same level as the item you want.
2) Use Unshaped (whatever) Transformation to convert the old into the new.

Remember to take advantage of any and all time hacking tricks you can come up with.

[Ganurath]

Meschlum, that's uncharacteristically sloppy of you: The dancing is only if you're trying to get a NA level Oneiromancy. For Adjurations, Treasures, Behemoths, and Chancels, you'd be either...

A. gossiping with the custard while lounging on a fog made of lies...
B. shuffling the constellations to crack the code on the back of a cereal box...
C. lassoing a tornado and flinging it at the nearest shinma...
D. or running a lap around the Wylder side of the Deep Wyld (Pure Chaos) to make a set of footprints that surround the outer edge of Creation's greatest potential to expand...

...Respectively, of course.

[Indon]

Thoughts, besides "That's not how Exaltations work", because I know that?

A series of otherwise insignificant mortal empowerment projects on the Threshold, once a part of the Thousand Streams River but no longer under clever Exalt micromanagement, may well just become big players in Creation.

With so much less supernatural guidance, mankind may find themselves actually self-empowering to a degree. Some mortal technologies found on Earth may get developed, for example. For example, the Flamewand is essentially a very low-tech firearm (similar to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-lance ), and Southerners when left to their own devices and much stronger enemies might hammer out something better, like basic cannons or shotguns.

Also, the Salinian Society and other Thaumaturgical societies can stop being secret societies and come out as more "mage guild"-like organizations as few can now stand in the way of an enlightened mortal in terms of supernatural power. Expect big conflicts between these folk and cult-accruing gods.

[a_humble_lich]

Stuff

I like this. One thing that has always bothered me with Exalted is that there are al these mortals doing awesome stuff (like the Haslanti), who end up getting completely overshadowed by the Exalted.

Also, Great Forks would suddenly become a major power with all the gods and god-blooded they have hanging around.

[ShadowFighter15]

Okay, quick question. If I were to run a short, introductory game of Exalted for some people, are there any pre-made adventures (I don't care if they're official White Wolf ones or fan-made) that would work well?

I can't come up with an adventure of my own (and my own knowledge of the setting could use some work) so does anyone know of a good one? I was looking at Daughter of Nexus, but one of the reviews mentioned that it uses Mass Combat (and I know enough about Exalted to know not to even look at Mass Combat) so now I'm a bit wary. Even if it's only five bucks, I don't want to go spending money on something I probably won't use if the Mass Combat section can't be neatly removed.

[The Rose Dragon]

Okay, quick question. If I were to run a short, introductory game of Exalted for some people, are there any pre-made adventures (I don't care if they're official White Wolf ones or fan-made) that would work well?

There is Return to the Tomb of Five Corners, but it does remove the character generation part out of the equation. You can play it with player-generated characters, but you would have to modify a lot of things.

[Kylarra]

I did a modified Return to the Tomb for my players. It is kind of awkward without the pregens. It's not impossible, but some of the fluff and things, particularly the Agg Trap, are quite difficult if no one has the appropriate charm to get past it easily.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Hey, guys.

[Yuki Akuma]

...Part 1?

[Mr.Bookworm]

They're releasing it in three parts to test a new business model, similar to Glories. Drivethru has a subscription you can get for 12.50, that will let you download each part individually as they come out, and then got the whole PDF when it comes out.

Also love the Estasia chapter title. "We Have Always Been at War".

[Sanguine]

For example, the Flamewand is essentially a very low-tech firearm (similar to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-lance ),

Okay I only looked briefly at that wikipedia page but that seems nothing like a Firewand/Flamepiece. They shoot actual fire at the enemy, not a spear.

Edit: As for the Compass Autochthonia I must now buy that.

[Tavar]

Thoughts, besides "That's not how Exaltations work", because I know that?

Main problem; without the Exalted the setting really, really sucks. Getting the Incarnae active again is probably the ultimate quest for exalts, for regular joe mortals it's decidedly more than that.

Also, doing something like that seems a very bad idea for Autobot. First off, he just killed off most of Gaia's first circle souls. Yeah, that's not really bad for her, but she's going to notice. Plus, isn't it true that every 'creator' of a type of exalted has a positive intimacy towards that type? Seems like a pretty poor idea to get them angry at you.

Some setting consequences; First off, the Realm implodes. Their society is literally built on the foundation of dragon-blooded rule. I'd think they'd splinter, first along house lines, and then a bit further. Charismatic leaders, whether noble or not, would seize their own kingdoms. This is pretty bad, because for all that the realm is horrible, it does keep relative peace, especially out in the threshold. Remember, we don't here about many places because they're dutiful little Realm tributaries. Now none of that holds. Likely lots of small and not so small wars break out. This likely cause more shadowlands to form, which gives many opportunities to deathlords. Especially since mortal armies are inferior to undead ones.

Also, spirits become much, much worse. There are no exalts running herd on them, which essentially means no one is anymore. Oh, there are probably still mortal immaculate monks, but they're not much of a threat to a spirit. This isn't totally bad. After all, some places are going to find themselves under the protection/rule of something like the Great Forks Deities. Others are going to find themselves under stuff like Amon City smasher, though, which is going to screw them over something fierce.

Also, speaking of Amon, let't talk about Ma-ha-suchi. Well, not him, because he's dead. But his hordes of followers are going to be something of a problem. Yeah, they aren't the most effective fighting force, but with all the minor wars that are going to break out, you don't need to be that effective. Just large, and aggressive. Which they are.

So, unless there are some major changes to the setting, I don't think there's any hope left. Besides blatant plot devices.

[Sanguine]

Okay so I'm reading through the sample for Autochthonia and something immediately caught my notice. In the Credits section it says "World of Darkness created by Mark Rein•Hagen". As far as I know they don't usually mention World of Darkness in the Credits for Exalted books. Seems a little interesting, unless I'm just remembering wrong and this is totally normal.

[Weimann]

They're releasing it in three parts to test a new business model, similar to Glories.

Four parts, as it were.

[vegetalss4]

Four parts, as it were.

the first of which just have been realesed and which can be found here
you can also buy all four as a subscribtion and if you do you will appearently save some money, the subscribtion can be found here
in case anyone is interested.

[Yuki Akuma]

They're releasing it in three parts to test a new business model, similar to Glories. Drivethru has a subscription you can get for 12.50, that will let you download each part individually as they come out, and then got the whole PDF when it comes out.

Also love the Estasia chapter title. "We Have Always Been at War".

Five freaking posts above yours.

[vegetalss4]

Five freaking posts above yours.

whoops, I missed that

[DragonSinged]

@Tavar: I don't suppose you could put a few more links into the intro post to the thread, such as Kyeudo's Warstrider fix, that list of common chargen houserules, things like that? If it's not a problem, that is.

Thanks.

[Xefas]

Don't forget that one common houserule where everyone starts with a dot of Backing in a secret society, an easily concealable one point mutation, and is, unbeknownst to everyone else in the group, secretly a communist, and everyone gets bonus XP for killing anything in the game world that happens to belong to a secret society, is a mutant, or is a communist.

And, obviously, the Daystar was told by Sol, prior to his retreat into the Jade Pleasure Dome, to fire the Apollyon Cannon at anyone in Creation discovered to be a communist.

And everyone has Final Ray of Light.

[Qaera]

Don't forget that one common houserule where everyone starts with a dot of Backing in a secret society, an easily concealable one point mutation, and is, unbeknownst to everyone else in the group, secretly a communist, and everyone gets bonus XP for killing anything in the game world that happens to belong to a secret society, is a mutant, or is a communist.

And, obviously, the Daystar was told by Sol, prior to his retreat into the Jade Pleasure Dome, to fire the Apollyon Cannon at anyone in Creation discovered to be a communist.

And everyone has Final Ray of Light.

And all communists loyal Autochthonian citizens receive Zeal and VAP as innate abilities.

[a_humble_lich]

Don't forget that one common houserule where everyone starts with a dot of Backing in a secret society, an easily concealable one point mutation, and is, unbeknownst to everyone else in the group, secretly a communist, and everyone gets bonus XP for killing anything in the game world that happens to belong to a secret society, is a mutant, or is a communist.

And, obviously, the Daystar was told by Sol, prior to his retreat into the Jade Pleasure Dome, to fire the Apollyon Cannon at anyone in Creation discovered to be a communist.

And everyone has Final Ray of Light.

I want to play this game now!

[DragonSinged]

I want to play this game now!

Look up Paranoia.

[a_humble_lich]

Look up Paranoia.

The problem with Paranoia is a noticeable lack of Exalted. If only there were some way to combine the two....

Or wait, were you not talking about the game, but rather implying that I suffer from paranoia? Are you out to get me too? Why is everyone looking at me? I just hope the tinfoil keeps out the mind-control rays.

[DragonSinged]

Although, the problem with Paranoia Exalted is that Paranoia wouldn't work with the paranoia that's present in Exalted, so when you got to paranoia Paranoia Exalted combat, the paranoid Exalts would screw up the paranoia in Paranoia.



EDIT: @Lochar: That's pretty awesome, although I think Malfeas would a much more hilarious "friendly" computer. (Aside from the obvious Autobot = computer thing)
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOUR COMPANION IS A TRAITOR?! YOU SHALL BE REWARDED WITH HOOKERS AND BLOW FOR THIS REVELATION. NOW KILL THE TRAITOR OR YOU SHALL BE EXECUTED AS A TRAITOR!

[Lochar]

I keep thinking of the Primordials playing Paranoia, with Autobot playing the Friendly Computer.

[Tael]

Got a bit of a plot conundrum in my current game (Chris & Will, please do not peak.)
I'd appreciate any insights that you can offer in This thread.

[Tavar]

First post edited with links to fixes/homebrews. Comments regarding them are always welcome.

[ShadowFighter15]

There is Return to the Tomb of Five Corners, but it does remove the character generation part out of the equation. You can play it with player-generated characters, but you would have to modify a lot of things.

I did a modified Return to the Tomb for my players. It is kind of awkward without the pregens. It's not impossible, but some of the fluff and things, particularly the Agg Trap, are quite difficult if no one has the appropriate charm to get past it easily.

I'll see if I can't find an overview of it or if someone's got a copy I can borrow. Worst-case is that I might have to drop money on a copy from DriveThruRPG which I'll be doing anyway to get the new Compass book (didn't think that was going to start coming out til next month or so).

[Kylarra]

I'll see if I can't find an overview of it or if someone's got a copy I can borrow. Worst-case is that I might have to drop money on a copy from DriveThruRPG which I'll be doing anyway to get the new Compass book (didn't think that was going to start coming out til next month or so).

I've got good news for you. It's free.

[havocfett]

Hey, guys.

On the one hand: If I get this I may stay up far to late, screw up on my IB exams and not go to UCDavis due to screwed up grades.

On the other hand: Compass of Celestial Directions: Autochthon

CURSE YOU DILEMMA!