General Exalted Discussion V: Our Armies are Pants

[Xefas]

I propose Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, and Loyalty Squadron. Y'know, one after each of the five virtues the Unconquered Sun embodies.

[Yuki Akuma]

And then of course, Magic Squadron.

[Lix Lorn]

Originally Posted by Xefas

I propose Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, and Loyalty Squadron. Y'know, one after each of the five virtues the Unconquered Sun embodies.

Originally Posted by Yuki Akuma

And then of course, Magic Squadron.

♥ this chat.

[Kiero]

Does anyone have any experiences of playing/running genuine Heroic Mortal games? Specifically ones which aren't just a prelude to Exaltation, but are intended to actually be for the "little people"?

[knightMARE]

Can someone give me a page reference for Throne Shadow style? Please and thankyou

[The Rose Dragon]

Originally Posted by knightMARE

Can someone give me a page reference for Throne Shadow style? Please and thankyou

Lords of Creation, page 95-97. Make sure you bought the latest .pdf, though.

[knightMARE]

Originally Posted by The Rose Dragon

Lords of Creation, page 95-97. Make sure you bought the latest .pdf, though.

That.. would explain why I could not find it

While I'm asking innane questions, does your spirit shape's physical attributes have any affect on your Lunar's War-Form's stats? Or is it based only on your natural form?

[Lix Lorn]

Originally Posted by knightMARE

While I'm asking inane questions, does your spirit shape's physical attributes have any affect on your Lunar's War-Form's stats? Or is it based only on your natural form?

I'm 99% sure that it's just your natural form, plus the +1 dot per physical attribute that it gives you.

[The Rose Dragon]

Originally Posted by knightMARE

That.. would explain why I could not find it

They should also be in the latest scroll of errata, since they are not modifying anything, but a lot of things in the same chapter are. Lords of Creation is a cool book to buy (in .pdf format) regardless.

Deadly Beastman Transformation only modifies your basic shape. Barring other knacks, however, you can only choose mutations appropriate to your spirit shape, so it does affect the end result somewhat.

[golentan]

So... DB question. I know the guidelines for starting as an immaculate say "5 celestial martial arts charms." Does that include the enlightenment charms and if so, is it together or separately? (I.E. is it Enlightenment + 5 or Enlightenment + 3 or somehow bypassing enlightenment)

I thought it was Enlightenment + 5 because that's how it would seem to work simply buying your way in with the 7 DB charms, but my friend disagreed, and I'd like some clarification...

[Yuki Akuma]

Immaculate DBs start with exactly the same number of charms as any other DB - it's just that the book forgets to mention that two of them have to be enlightenment charms.

The hint is in the fact that Enlightenment charms are not Celestial Martial Arts charms. Immaculate DBs start with 5 CMA charms. (The fact that all five Immaculate Dragon styles are designed purposefully to have the Form charm as the fifth charm also kinda points towards this...)

[The Rose Dragon]

Originally Posted by golentan

So... DB question. I know the guidelines for starting as an immaculate say "5 celestial martial arts charms." Does that include the enlightenment charms and if so, is it together or separately? (I.E. is it Enlightenment + 5 or Enlightenment + 3 or somehow bypassing enlightenment)

I thought it was Enlightenment + 5 because that's how it would seem to work simply buying your way in with the 7 DB charms, but my friend disagreed, and I'd like some clarification...

No one knows! At one point, errata had two conflicting answers on the subject, but both were removed before the scroll was first released. It stands to reason that, since those five Charms are Celestial Martial Arts Charms and thus (ostensibly) stronger and more expensive than Terrestrial Charms, the Enlightenment Charms have to be bought using those five Charms. However, as far as I am aware, there is no official answer at the moment.

A bigger problem is the minimum Essence requirement of 3 for the Enlightenment Charm, which means that 10 of your 15 bonus points go towards Essence, which is highly inefficient compared to buying it with XP.

[jindra34]

Because trying to figure this somethings out (travel times/speeds) is bugging me, is there any word on how long the sun is up in creation?

[golentan]

Isn't it 12 and a half hours? I seem to remember creation's day is 25 hours, and that the sun is up for exactly half, but I don't remember if some of the poles get longer or shorter days (I don't think so).

[The Rose Dragon]

You know, you'd think they'd explain it in one of the various sections dedicated to the passage of time in Creation, but I can't find any references to it. Maybe I am just missing where it is.

[jindra34]

Originally Posted by The Rose Dragon

You know, you'd think they'd explain it in one of the various sections dedicated to the passage of time in Creation, but I can't find any references to it. Maybe I am just missing where it is.

I'm asking because I couldn't find it. Maybe they thought it was so obvious that they didn't have to include it (it isn't as the varience on earth is over 24 hours).

[DragonSinged]

Originally Posted by golentan

Isn't it 12 and a half hours? I seem to remember creation's day is 25 hours, and that the sun is up for exactly half, but I don't remember if some of the poles get longer or shorter days (I don't think so).

What with Creation being flat, I would guess that, unless it's blocked by mountains, the sun would be up for the same amount of time mostly anywhere in Creation.

EDIT: Although, something I've always wondered about Creation is (and I haven't really read about the Daystar, so maybe this is answered somewhere), does the Sun rise in the east and set in the west? And if so, where does it go at night?

[jindra34]

Originally Posted by DragonSinged

What with Creation being flat, I would guess that, unless it's blocked by mountains, the sun would be up for the same amount of time mostly anywhere in Creation.

EDIT: Although, something I've always wondered about Creation is (and I haven't really read about the Daystar, so maybe this is answered somewhere), does the Sun rise in the east and set in the west? And if so, where does it go at night?

It goes on the same-ish course as in real life. And it goes Elsewhere.

[The Rose Dragon]

The sun is closer to the South than the North at its zenith, but otherwise, it mostly travels from the Wood pole to the Water pole in a straight curve.

[DragonSinged]

Originally Posted by jindra34

It goes on the same-ish course as in real life. And it goes Elsewhere.

It goes Elsewhere? So, can it travel in Elsewhere or something? Or does it just teleport back to the pole of Wood in the mornings?

EDIT: @ Mr. Bookworm
I thought Elsewhere was sort of an extra-dimensional space sorta deal that things could be sent to or summoned from. Does the Sun summon itself back from Elsewhere? Maybe I should just read up on the Daystar.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Originally Posted by DragonSinged

It goes Elsewhere? So, can it travel in Elsewhere or something? Or does it just teleport back to the pole of Wood in the mornings?

Elsewhere is by definition, nowhere.

It just pops back into a place different from where it left.

[The Rose Dragon]

All points in Elsewhere are equidistant from all points in elsewhere. So, it doesn't travel in Elsewhere - it cannot, really - to get to another point in Creation.

[Yuki Akuma]

A Solar can banish his daiklave to Elsewhere while in Pure Chaos and then summon it bake while standing atop Mount Meru, so I don't know why the Daystar wouldn't be able to teleport by going Elsewhere and then coming out somewhere else.

[Geigan]

I've been wanting to try out Exalted for awhile and I've got some interested people. So a few questions from a newbie:

1) I think I like the houserules on the first page, but would like to ask why they are common? Things they fixed, why they're better than the normal rules, etc.

2)How do you typically handle movement in combat? My understanding is that as long as you have joined the battle you can move, even if it's not your tick(though not if they haven't acted yet in that combat). So I'm thinking I'm going to be doing a lot of refereeing, and advocacy of common sense to avoid arguments of what moved where. Any tips?

3)Any general ideas on a good starting adventure for a bunch of Solars whose players have only played D&D before?

[DragonSinged]

Originally Posted by Yuki Akuma

A Solar can banish his daiklave to Elsewhere while in Pure Chaos and then summon it bake while standing atop Mount Meru, so I don't know why the Daystar wouldn't be able to teleport by going Elsewhere and then coming out somewhere else.

The only difference there is that the Solar is banishing the daiklave, then moving, then summoning it back to himself, so that the daiklave is moving to and from Elsewhere based on the Solar's position, whereas the Daystar would be moving, then banishing itself to Elsewhere, then.. Summoning itself? back to a different location. And while the comics aren't the best thing to refer to on these matters, there is that dude with the belt who's all "I can't move?!", which indicates to me that taking actions while in Elsewhere might be difficult. Although, that's just physical movement, so maybe charm activations and whatnot are still possible? Or maybe that comic's just dumb. Either way.

[The Rose Dragon]

1) They don't fix much. Aside from the Warstrider fix, which I never used or read, all of them have an intended purpose, but none of them are solutions to a problem. The Lunar chargen rules are the originally intended rules before they were edited to be the current ones, and they bring Lunars closer to Solars during character generation. It doesn't fix anything with Lunars, just makes them slightly more powerful before the Solar XP costs kick in. The Excellency rule was my own creation, and the reasons for it were allowing niche definition (aside from the almost obligatory combat Excellency, where you spend the other Excellencies helps define what matters to your character), allowing people to spend their Charms on flashier things that are not as universally applicable as larger dice pools, and reinforcing the Exalted superiority right out of the box.

2) Vaguely. Absolute locations rarely matter in the face of frequent stunting small objects and landscape into existence, so it doesn't matter where the tables in the tavern are during a fight - just that there are tables in the first place. In practice, movement allows for changing distance between characters rather than their location. In some cases, it might matter where they are in relative to an important object, but those are rarely different from having a character in place of the object. As long as the sum of the distance between A and B and the distance between B and C is not smaller than the distance between A and C, you should be fine.

3) Return to the Tomb of Five Corners is always fun. You hunt for artifacts and you fight some minor monsters before facing a slightly powerful Exalt.

[ShadowFighter15]

One thing I meant to ask about Return to the Temple of Five Corners was about Barrow Black.

Before the adventure starts, the Circle and Kade's mercenary company were all hired by Nexus' Council to deal with the army of bandits Barrow Black was forming. Now I may be assuming too much that the Council of Entities knew Kade and co. were Solars, but if they did know then wouldn't that be a bit of overkill for an upstart bandit prince? Or am I just underestimating how big Barrow Black's army was?

Any ideas on how to make him a bit more interesting, that the final fight between him and the Circle wasn't finished as quickly as you'd expect a mortal vs Exalt fight to go? Maybe make him a God-Blooded or a Half-Caste? Maybe an Outcaste Dragon-Blooded?

[Kylarra]

Technically the Ox-body one is a mitigation of a problem, but I agree that it isn't a fix. Alternative variants on the Ox-body houserule involve the stamina of the character involved rather than the Ess score, although that produces more fluctuations of relative uh toughness among characters since it is a lot easier to vary Sta than Ess in the same playgroup.

[Geigan]

I suppose a more accurate question is, "What do they do that the current rules didn't do already?" then. I think Rose answered that for me, thanks.

[Yuki Akuma]

Originally Posted by DragonSinged

The only difference there is that the Solar is banishing the daiklave, then moving, then summoning it back to himself, so that the daiklave is moving to and from Elsewhere based on the Solar's position, whereas the Daystar would be moving, then banishing itself to Elsewhere, then.. Summoning itself? back to a different location. And while the comics aren't the best thing to refer to on these matters, there is that dude with the belt who's all "I can't move?!", which indicates to me that taking actions while in Elsewhere might be difficult. Although, that's just physical movement, so maybe charm activations and whatnot are still possible? Or maybe that comic's just dumb. Either way.

He could still move his eyes. And talk. That comic is pretty stupid if you actually think about it. (How was he breathing? There's no air there...)