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A_Raving_Loon posted:Volfer's sword more resembles a piece of candy than a weapon. It's been corrupted by a demon. There are demons of lots of different things. It's not just darkness and blood and skin-flaying wind. Maybe some Defining Soul once represented Yummy Sweets, before Volfer's previous incarnation hacked it to pieces in a Limit Break-inspired hunger for candy.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:04
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I'm fine with Volfer's sword because you can also have stuff like Prince Diamond's snazzy blade and Janest's scythe.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:06
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Dude Volfer's sword has a demon inside, it's a demon deployment device, calling it a "sword" is just colorful metaphor, does everything have to be spelled out for you idiots.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:08
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A_Raving_Loon posted:Volfer's sword more resembles a piece of candy than a weapon. Only insofar as it's freakin' sweet!!
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Jun 9, 2013 21:10
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Yah I have always loved the aesthetics of Exalted. It all looks cool to me.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:24
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I honestly don't give that much of a poo poo what the sig chars' weapons look like because I'm just going to lovingly detail the signature weapon of every character I create. Even if it's their fists. Especially if it's their fists. Yo, StephenLS, do you think I could reskin an artifact weapon as a legendary kung fu sutra in the 3e system? Like, instead of being a physical heavy weapon, meditating on it makes my fists break through iron bars and hit like they have a mass that would make no sense in our world. As I come to understand the true meaning of the sutra, I unlock evocations. I get you guys would maybe not publish this kind of thing because it competes with your actual martial art styles for design space and people on the 'official forums' would probably find some reason to hate it, but if it's doable I'm going to do it.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:28
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:I honestly don't give that much of a poo poo what the sig chars' weapons look like because I'm just going to lovingly detail the signature weapon of every character I create. Even if it's their fists. Especially if it's their fists.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:31
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Oligopsony posted:I don't see why this shouldn't be doable - the relevant balance feature (if there's going to be any balance between armed/unarmed in the first place) would be that you pay for artifacts and can be disarmed of weapons. So someone hits your pressure points and the sutras become unavailable, or Delilah cuts your hair and your strength flees from you. Maybe Evocations can be put in non-disarmable Artifacts? Like a Smashfist, or a God-Stomping Boot. If so, no need to even have the disarm parity.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:35
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:Yo, StephenLS, do you think I could reskin an artifact weapon as a legendary kung fu sutra in the 3e system? Like, instead of being a physical heavy weapon, meditating on it makes my fists break through iron bars and hit like they have a mass that would make no sense in our world. As I come to understand the true meaning of the sutra, I unlock evocations. I seem to recall the devs being adamant that not using a weapon should always be inferior to using a weapon. I'm having a hard time imagining a system where you couldn't cross out 'daiklave' and write in 'magic fists' as a house rule / homebrew situation though.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:36
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Oligopsony posted:I don't see why this shouldn't be doable - the relevant balance feature (if there's going to be any balance between armed/unarmed in the first place) would be that you pay for artifacts and can be disarmed of weapons. So someone hits your pressure points and the sutras become unavailable, or Delilah cuts your hair and your strength flees from you. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. If you have to draw a weapon in Ex3 (though you probably shouldn't, honestly; I've never found rules for how long it takes to draw a weapon be anything other than an unnecessary annoyance for anyone who didn't buy Quick Draw/Iaijutsu/Whatever the mechanical item which eliminates wasting time readying a weapon), you could just require a Meditate on Sutra action to get pumped. It can't be stolen from you, but the rule for Artifacts was always that if you pay for it, it should only be stolen temporarily from you unless you consent and get XP back. So, you could get punched in the kidney and be unable to do your breathing correctly for a scene and get the same effect. Heart Attacks posted:I seem to recall the devs being adamant that not using a weapon should always be inferior to using a weapon. Eh, that was Stephenls on RPGnet, and I think people were being uncharitable with him. He was saying "If you buy a weapon, you should get an advantage out of that." So, if someone gets a weapon, they get some improvement in combat stats. I don't recall them ever saying that you couldn't get a different but comparable advantage by investing in your own fists. The fists of a champion have special powers.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:38
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Heart Attacks posted:I seem to recall the devs being adamant that not using a weapon should always be inferior to using a weapon. Sounds like a deep and saddening lack of imagination on their parts.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:38
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Punting posted:Sounds like a deep and saddening lack of imagination on their parts. Yeah, that can't be right. At the end of the day equipment shouldn't matter that much unless it's significant to the story.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:41
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Punting posted:Sounds like a deep and saddening lack of imagination on their parts. Yeah I don't really get it either. I think the justification (throughout 2e as into the 3e development, but I'm probably crossing the fandom wiere here -- dev commentary on Exalted is so pervasive and disorganized it's easy to say "I'm pretty sure a dev said..." and then never be able to dig it up!) has been, "People need tools, so people with tools do better than people without them." It's never been abundantly clear to me why magic + tool trumps magic + more magic, though. You might be able to trawl Nishkriya for the official forum thread about martial art vs melee balance, which is I think where Holden kept to the party line with "Even in Wushu the martial artists use swords!"
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Jun 9, 2013 21:43
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carborexic posted:Yeah, that can't be right. At the end of the day equipment shouldn't matter that much unless it's significant to the story. Well, that's not the kind of game that Exalted is, as suggested by the expanded list of weapon keywords in Ex3. If I were to make a guess, in Ex3, fists and feet are Light weapons that deal Bashing damage, and would have keywords that relate to grappling and building up Heat a bit faster than other weapons might. Which would make sense. But if there's not a merit that represents the fact that I hit a wooden pole for twenty years until my legs and fists have become like unto a thing of iron, then gently caress this game forever.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:45
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Bedlamdan posted:Shen was apparently modeled after Dr. Strange, which isn't too surprising given that Melissa Uran is also running a Dr. Strange fangroup. I would have preferred if they had gone a bit farther with the sig characters. I appreciate their inclusion of various sexes, genders, and skin colors, but shirtless muscle dude and robed white guy wizard are underwhelming. Have a woman dawn caste, maybe with some actual muscles. A male twilight with a loincloth as a counterpoint to the bikini witches. I guess they have to put some dumb stereotypes out there to attract customers.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:48
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I'm okay with most guys getting an advantage from going armed rather than unarmed. It doesn't bother me so long as there is unarmed kung fu out there such that, if you specialize in it, it becomes better for you to go unarmed so you can use your Nine-Fisted Lunar Boxing or Oblivion In One Finger Dim Mak or House V'neef Foot-Bending or whatever the gently caress you have, and those guys who picked to invest in that unarmed kung fu are on equal footing with the guy who bought a daiklave and learned sword kung fu. Also, yeah, I'm 99% certain they will include merits for Fists of Iron and poo poo like that.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:49
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Punting posted:Sounds like a deep and saddening lack of imagination on their parts. Specifically my position here is that Exalted is not a game where infrastructure is an aesthetic choice. Making poo poo is a pain in the rear end, as is using it -- learning to craft or finding a guy who knows how to craft already, getting supplies together, engaging in craft, and then tying your competence to an external thing that you have to go to the trouble of lugging around, and which you will be at a disadvantage without, gives you an advantage in conflict against someone who doesn't bother to deal with all those things. Exalted provides methods by which unarmed people might become highly effective combatants, but all else being equal, in a conflict between a tool-specialist and an unarmed specialist, the tool-specialist will be at an advantage when his tools are at hand, and the unarmed specialist will be at an advantage when the tools are unavailable. This is because Exalted is to a great extent a game about process and infrastructure and economics and the interaction between those things, as well as the interaction between those things and things like morals and ethics. We aggressively design the game so you can ignore that stuff with relative ease if you just want to play a character with a cool sword who hunts monsters or knocks over kingdoms or gets involved in a lot of steamy scandal-laden courtly politics, but all the process/infrastructure/economics elements are there. And it's important to make sure they're down in the game's foundations, propping up the fights against tyrant lizards, because it's almost impossible to renovate a foundation once it's set and you've put a structure on it. Lots of other games can be like "Spend ten build points for an attack with accuracy 5 and damage 6, then skin it however you want," but Exalted isn't. EDIT: We are making the tool/unarmed disparity more narrow this edition, though. Stephenls fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 21:52
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Stephenls posted:Exalted provides methods by which unarmed people might become highly effective combatants, but all else being equal, in a conflict between a tool-specialist and an unarmed specialist, the tool-specialist will be at an advantage when his tools are at hand, and the unarmed specialist will be at an advantage when the tools are unavailable. I'm interested to see how you're handling Craftsman Needs No Tools in the new edition, then. If it still exists, that is.
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Jun 9, 2013 21:55
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Stephenls posted:Specifically my position here is that Exalted is not a game where infrastructure is an aesthetic choice. Making poo poo is a pain in the rear end, as is using it -- learning to craft or finding a guy who knows how to craft already, getting supplies together, engaging in craft, and then tying your competence to an external thing that you have to go to the trouble of lugging around, and which you will be at a disadvantage without, gives you an advantage in conflict against someone who doesn't bother to deal with all those things. Exalted provides methods by which unarmed people might become highly effective combatants, but all else being equal, in a conflict between a tool-specialist and an unarmed specialist, the tool-specialist will be at an advantage when his tools are at hand, and the unarmed specialist will be at an advantage when the tools are unavailable.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:02
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Oligopsony posted:I hope this doesn't mean helmets are going to start providing a bonus. Nah. All of this will only remain in effect to the extent that it was in effect before, with maybe some more attention paid to consistency in a few places but maybe not.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:04
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Stephenls posted:
So if I preferred to run a game (Perhaps, say, a game where the players open a Kung Fu Monastery), where they were equal, I should stat out Kung Fu secrets, whether merits, techniques, or artifacts, that are on par in terms of price and efficacy with the tools weapon-users have. Make sure both are equally difficult to acquire and take away/mess with both an equal amount. I understand the design choice, and I think I understand how I would change it if I wanted to do things differently, or wanted to make special poo poo for a particular player to put their build on par with the guy using the Grand Dongsword. I would probably not mess with it in every game, but think I will find myself changing it up for some. BryanChavez posted:I'm interested to see how you're handling Craftsman Needs No Tools in the new edition, then. If it still exists, that is. I'm trying really hard not to laugh out loud at the idea of using Craftsman Needs No Tools to make one's fist act as whatever mundane weapon would be most useful. Fist Needs No Gauntlet. MiltonSlavemasta fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 22:04
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What kind of infrastructure does it take to make Janest's wickedsick scythe? Like I've never really appreciated how 'infrastructure!' is a good justification for 'Your magic is inferior unless you have a metal pole.'
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Jun 9, 2013 22:04
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"Magic weapon trumps weapon trumps empty-hand" goes all the way back to 1e and Geoff: http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/Thus_Spake_Zargrabowski/ArmedVsUnarmedCombatquote:"The seed of the discussion was someone's complaint that an all Brawl character didn't seem able to keep up with the Daiklaive bearing Melee guy." I want to support the "weapons > fists" argument, and was hoping to find something in Geoff's commentary, but that bit I bolded at the end shits all over everything.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:06
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:So if I preferred to run a game (Perhaps, say, a game where the players open a Kung Fu Monastery), where they were equal, I should stat out Kung Fu secrets, whether merits, techniques, or artifacts, that are on par in terms of price and efficacy with the tools weapon-users have. Make sure both are equally difficult to acquire and take away/mess with both an equal amount. Offhand I might suggest some sort of kung-fu secret thing that involves maintaining an internal energy flow balance dependent on regularly engaging in the right sort of meditaton, and which can be disrupted by hitting the wrong pressure point -- which would be about as difficult as making a successful disarm. (You can reskin the "grab weapon off the ground" action, assuming there is one, as "realign internal Essence flows.")
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Jun 9, 2013 22:06
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Heart Attacks posted:What kind of infrastructure does it take to make Janest's wickedsick scythe? Well, the sort necessary to mine green jade, for one. Also probably Janest's grimscythe was made in Heaven as Ten Sheaves' symbol of office or something? That'd probably take ambrosia and a smith-god. Honestly I don't know the story behind that scythe and I don't want to speculate too hard, as it looks like I'm stepping on the toes of whoever might actually be writing it, assuming it gets written later for Arms of the Chosen or the Exigents book or whatever. To some extent whatever you want to start your character off with is a gimme. "I spend three merit points to start with an artifact," fine, that's three fewer merit points to put into an awesome spy network at your beck and call. The infrastructure factor comes into it when you're deciding whether it would be a better option to outfit your elite Tiger Warrior bodyguards with magic swords you'll have to make/find, or whether you'd be better off teaching them martial arts so they're never without the ability to come to your aid.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:14
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Stephenls posted:Offhand I might suggest some sort of kung-fu secret thing that involves maintaining an internal energy flow balance dependent on regularly engaging in the right sort of meditaton, and which can be disrupted by hitting the wrong pressure point -- which would be about as difficult as making a successful disarm. My first idea after reading this is two Immaculate Monkbros look at each other and have their eyes grow wide as saucers when they hear they're to make an assault today against Mnemon's couping military forces. Meditate last night? They weren't even "holding to their vows" last night. Also, I can put in an invincible martial artist who needs to be kept from meditating for six hours in order for the players to have any hope of surviving breaking in and stealing his Kung Fu secrets. That'd be like a Burn Notice episode and it would own. But yeah, I considered the pressure point instead of disarm idea and found it important for balancing if I hand that stuff out to unarmed-users, and regularly engaging in some task would probably be as difficult or more in comparison to lugging around a large object in most of the games I run, so those are good suggestions, thanks.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:14
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e: this post is stupid
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Jun 9, 2013 22:17
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cenotaph posted:I would have preferred if they had gone a bit farther with the sig characters. I appreciate their inclusion of various sexes, genders, and skin colors, but shirtless muscle dude and robed white guy wizard are underwhelming. Have a woman dawn caste, maybe with some actual muscles. A male twilight with a loincloth as a counterpoint to the bikini witches. I guess they have to put some dumb stereotypes out there to attract customers. On the other hand, the other three signature characters are all pretty great, and the worst you can say about Volfer and Shen is that they are boring/conservative, rather than anything daring. At the end of the day, it's still a male character that's the most underdressed, even if a kilt and a pair of boots isn't terribly daring. I certainly like the depictions of Novia and Perfect Soul a hell of a lot better than Arianna or Harmonious Jade. But seriously, they ought to go all-out Namor on a male character. Melissa Uran loves Namor, too.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:18
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It actually occurs to me that in some ways Samson's hair and the ki fist are more ideal than normal weaponry for balance purposes, because you can be disarmed or caught unawares or lose them in the medium term, but there's no implicit balancing for "well maybe you'll lose it entirely, up to the GM."
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Jun 9, 2013 22:26
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"The GM can be a dick and take it away" has never really been a good way of balancing things. It creates a dynamic wherein people take the super strong, take-away-able thing, go "Oh yeah no this is totally balanced since I could lose it any moment, scout's oath, I'm totally okay with this" but then when they actually DO lose it it breeds resentment and a general lack of fun. Edition after edition of Dungeons and Dragons have been designed on these principles, and have all sucked accordingly. The read I got from dev commentary about swords beating fists was that swords would beat fists in a straight out "hit the other guy over and over until he falls" fight, because that's what weapons are for, but that fists would have some orthogonal rock-paper-scissors style utility that swords can't replicate. If that utility is, literally, "the book doesn't suggest that the GM be a dick and take them away from you sometimes" I'll be extremely disappointed - I want to see a system where swords are great for finishing blows while fists are great for knocking away an enemy's momentum, or something. Incidentally, "quick draw" merits/feats/charms/whatever have always, always, always been an insulting waste of time and it'd be nice if Exalted didn't have any in it. Edit: Well, I should say that "you have to spend your entire turn to draw your weapon, so here's a mandatory character trait for you to buy" has always been an insulting waste of time - it could work out if being surprised without your sword in hand didn't translate to you just skipping a turn.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:34
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quote:Exalted provides methods by which unarmed people might become highly effective combatants, but all else being equal, in a conflict between a tool-specialist and an unarmed specialist, the tool-specialist will be at an advantage when his tools are at hand, and the unarmed specialist will be at an advantage when the tools are unavailable. This is a terrible design decision, and I'm always so happy when it gets repeated again and again.  As pointed out, there are ways to make innate/'chakra'/whatever weapons ineffective just as easily as 'you forgot your sword at home'; disarm can be replicated, lack of access to the tool can be replicated, and in very interesting ways! Disarming an enemy isn't just forcing them to check their giant swords at the door, it's also unbalancing their chakras through seductive influences and agents. Why in the world would you take the time to bake in this limitation to Exalted of all systems? I mean, sure, it can be worked around and stripped out in play, but it's a stunning lack of vision from the development side to try and implement it at all. quote:My first idea after reading this is two Immaculate Monkbros look at each other and have their eyes grow wide as saucers when they hear they're to make an assault today against Mnemon's couping military forces. Meditate last night? They weren't even "holding to their vows" last night. Basically this.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:39
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Oligopsony posted:I hope this doesn't mean helmets are going to start providing a bonus. They should provide a bonus but only for unnamed characters. Named characters get a penalty for helmets.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:40
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Ferrinus posted:"The GM can be a dick and take it away" has never really been a good way of balancing things. Hell, "The GM can be a dick and take it away" isn't even true for artifact weapons in Exalted. It takes one charm purchase for a Solar to be able to call their weapon reflexively from anywhere on the battlefield, and another so they can just store it in Elsewhere to render it immune to confiscation. You can't even break a Grand Daiklave without a dedicated toolset or artifact-breaking charm, many of which were errata'd to just de-attune the wielder. Even then, saying Unarmed has an advantage is false, since it takes a lot less effort to hack someone's arms off than to destroy an artifact.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:43
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Even then, saying Unarmed has an advantage is false, since it takes a lot less effort to hack someone's arms off than to destroy an artifact. Pretty much. The only reason to focus on unarmed combat in prior editions was to take advantage of Martial Arts, and mixing a whole bunch of moves together in a single attack. And even then, you always had to throw a player a bone and say "smashfists are giant metal fists, and therefore always count as unarmed too." Bedlamdan fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 22:49
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Argas posted:I'm fine with Volfer's sword because you can also have stuff like Prince Diamond's snazzy blade and Janest's scythe. In fairness I should say that Prince Diamond's glass sword is actually pretty nice. Janest's scythe is still ehhhhhhh. Like seriously, that's supposed to be green jade? The black fangly collection of spikes and slashedy edges glowing with some sort of hellish vapor?
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Jun 9, 2013 22:55
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Based on my experience with Legends of the Wulin, switching to a tag-based weapons system (and this is even more tag-based than theirs, I suspect) makes it pretty easy to have your fists do stuff by using things to give them various tags. They actually, though, have a special unarmed tag which gives you a bonus to mobility and dodging in combat. I wonder if the Tag system will allow for such a thing. I would probably have something like "Weapons with the unarmed tag make it easier to change range and dodge," then allow for fists to get other tags and abilities if players buy into various things like merits, charms, techniques, "artifacts," et cetera. That also lets you put in ways for people to get the Unarmed tag on their sword or whatever, once they use Kung Fu Training to get to the point where it's a part of them.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:56
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RPZip posted:As pointed out, there are ways to make innate/'chakra'/whatever weapons ineffective just as easily as 'you forgot your sword at home'; disarm can be replicated, lack of access to the tool can be replicated, and in very interesting ways! Disarming an enemy isn't just forcing them to check their giant swords at the door, it's also unbalancing their chakras through seductive influences and agents. Why in the world would you take the time to bake in this limitation to Exalted of all systems? I mean, sure, it can be worked around and stripped out in play, but it's a stunning lack of vision from the development side to try and implement it at all. The predictable response is that I shouldn't care if my unarmed fighter is useless next to her sword-wielding counterpart, because roleplay not rollplay, but eh.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:04
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I'd think the balancing would be that (generally speaking) kungfu will lead to less raw damage but more tricks and schemes than swordaxe. Surely, the infrastructure needed to create giant oiled pillars to climb with your developing ripple magics is broadly comparable to the infrastructure needed to make a magic sword! Now that said I can see how this could go a bit far in the other direction, and make it so that 'having a cool sword' is actually a disadvantage compared to 'having a cool secret style,' when ideally they will be equivalent if equivalent points/mojos are invested in them.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:06
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Nessus posted:I'd think the balancing would be that (generally speaking) kungfu will lead to less raw damage but more tricks and schemes than swordaxe. Surely, the infrastructure needed to create giant oiled pillars to climb with your developing ripple magics is broadly comparable to the infrastructure needed to make a magic sword! If nothing else, if that's still insufficient the weapon-category/tags thing they have going on makes it really easy to fix. "Your hands now count as swords."
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Jun 9, 2013 23:10
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Bedlamdan posted:If nothing else, if that's still insufficient the weapon-category/tags thing they have going on makes it really easy to fix. "Your hands now count as swords." And then every ST in history disallows anyone that isn't a Sidereal from learning any of Violet Bier of Sorrows, which as best I can tell is the Martial Art whose driving theme is "make Martial Arts not suck."
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Jun 9, 2013 23:12
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