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Are people just ignoring the fact that Smash Fists are a thing? That counts as a tool and can be used with brawling. Not to mention that the statement of armed > unarmed is not taking charms into account. I expect that with there being a large number of MA styles that each style will be able to deal well with a given situation (this could be reflected by tags or simply by the effects granted). Maybe there is a style that allows a person to deal with ranged attacks really well by emphasizing the fluidity of motion or something. The point is that straight up damage dealing capability being less than that of a melee person does not mean that the Unarmed character can't be far more versatile and able to handle any given situation with enough investment. And again, Smash Fists are one of those tools that make you stronger than an unequipped unarmed character.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:13
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I'm reading a lot of overreaction here. Unarmed and unarmored characters were viable in Exalted 2E, and not in the "you can't be a hero on your own so be the Meleeist's grapple bitch" sense of the word. There was specialized magic to benefit people who wanted to fight unarmed and unarmored, and there were also specialized artifacts for the same purpose. You don't need to make up magical sutra things—the Perfected Kata Bracers (unbalanced as they are) already are precisely that. There's magical spider silk that can act like armor and that stacks with Charms like Iron Kettle Body. What Stephenls is saying is that Exalted is based around the idea that Making Things Matters. Gear and magic that makes your fists stronger and your body harder have always been part of Exalted. If you have those tools, you shouldn't be at a disadvantage against someone who has tools that look like a sword and armor instead.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:14
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I don't understand why people get so indignant about the whole sword > fist thing. Exalted has always been a game about infrastructure and craftsmanship being really important for the advancement of society. You can argue that the amount of effort put into making a daiklave can be equal to the amount of effort put into meditation, but you can't meditate and then give your special powers to someone else. You can make a sword for someone else. You can make enough swords for a whole army! It's always been a game about showing the differences between things mechanically, like having charms and different healing rules for Exalts rather just bigger numbers and fate points. It's also not out of place in the source material. I guess there are a lot of kung fu movies and myths where people punch things pretty hard, but when Gilgamesh and Enkidu armed themselves they build the biggest, baddest swords they could wield. You get crazy magic weapons that only heroes can wield in Arthurian legend and more modern stories like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And it even fits perfectly well with the pulp fantasy and pulp revival, where Conan chides a man for not wearing armor, or where Elric's sword is a huge loving deal. Basically it's kind of silly to call the philosophy of tools being better than no tools bad design when it's just design for effect. You don't like the effect, and it's been that way for a decade. Exalted is never going to be that game. Even the gods have to build tools in Exalted, it's huge recurring theme.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:14
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Heart Attacks posted:Wasn't this like the first Charm of Violet Bier of Sorrows? Even the Sid splatbook gets in on it by making teaching Violet Bier of Sorrows to a non-Sid a crime more severe than murdering a co-worker.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:15
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Generally speaking, the theme has been, "With equal investment, unarmed loses to armed." Also, "You can use smashfists!" is not any better than "You can use a sword!" for addressing people who want to play unarmed fighters!
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Jun 9, 2013 23:16
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kthegreat posted:Are people just ignoring the fact that Smash Fists are a thing? That counts as a tool and can be used with brawling. Not to mention that the statement of armed > unarmed is not taking charms into account. I expect that with there being a large number of MA styles that each style will be able to deal well with a given situation (this could be reflected by tags or simply by the effects granted). Maybe there is a style that allows a person to deal with ranged attacks really well by emphasizing the fluidity of motion or something. The point is that straight up damage dealing capability being less than that of a melee person does not mean that the Unarmed character can't be far more versatile and able to handle any given situation with enough investment. And again, Smash Fists are one of those tools that make you stronger than an unequipped unarmed character. This isn't to say you shouldn't have to make some kind of investment comparable to 'the cost of a daiklave' in order to have combat outputs comparable to 'a guy with a daiklave' of course, but punchfists lock you into the punchfist style. What if I'm a judo-style master, or a Lisa Lisa-style scarf-and-magic user, or, God save us, a grappler?? e: To vaguely repeat myself I think it's OK if kung fu tends to be less damageload, more tricks - or perhaps to use the new lingo, it's easier to build momentum with karate, at the cost of (say) if the other guy with the giant axe does get the drop on you, you may have a harder time parrying the blow than you would with a sword.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:17
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Heart Attacks posted:Wasn't this like the first Charm of Violet Bier of Sorrows? Violet Bier of Sorrows had its own problems. Suffice it to say, it sucked too, but in the other direction: it was powerful, but also pretty weird, nonsensical, and poorly written. I know a lot of people had problems with Blade of the Battle Maiden specifically. kthegreat posted:Are people just ignoring the fact that Smash Fists are a thing? That counts as a tool and can be used with brawling. Not to mention that the statement of armed > unarmed is not taking charms into account. I expect that with there being a large number of MA styles that each style will be able to deal well with a given situation (this could be reflected by tags or simply by the effects granted). Maybe there is a style that allows a person to deal with ranged attacks really well by emphasizing the fluidity of motion or something. The point is that straight up damage dealing capability being less than that of a melee person does not mean that the Unarmed character can't be far more versatile and able to handle any given situation with enough investment. And again, Smash Fists are one of those tools that make you stronger than an unequipped unarmed character. The question as to whether smashfists really count as unarmed weapons is something that gets thrown around back and forth (by stupid people who don't want to let MA be useful in 2E). And yeah, that's how I always handled it: smashfists and god-kicking boots are nothing more than extensions of your fists and legs, just with an extra layer of metal on top. I think that's what they're going for with Volfer as well, given that he's a martial artist that's always wearing a semi-retarded looking metal gauntlet.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:18
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cenotaph posted:Basically it's kind of silly to call the philosophy of tools being better than no tools bad design when it's just design for effect. You don't like the effect, and it's been that way for a decade. Exalted is never going to be that game. Even the gods have to build tools in Exalted, it's huge recurring theme. 
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Jun 9, 2013 23:20
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Thesaurasaurus posted:Even the Sid splatbook gets in on it by making teaching Violet Bier of Sorrows to a non-Sid a crime more severe than murdering a co-worker. In their defense, it really was that broken on release. I should know, a player talked me into letting him learn the first few Charms.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:22
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cenotaph posted:but you can't meditate and then give your special powers to someone else. You can teach them how you do it. Then they can do it. It's how you learned to do it in the first place.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:23
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Heart Attacks posted:Generally speaking, the theme has been, "With equal investment, unarmed loses to armed." Nessus posted:Stylistically speaking, I should be able to learn how to kick rear end with my bare hands in a manner which is competitive with swording, axeing, arrowing, and batcatting. Smash fists are cool but kind of make it so you are not using your bare hands/feet/forehead. You can do unarmed with your drat forehead if you want to. Don't pretend that Exalted doesn't have tools for people who like the barehanded / unarmored aesthetic, because it does.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:25
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Lymond posted:You can do unarmed with your drat forehead if you want to. Don't pretend that Exalted doesn't have tools for people who like the barehanded / unarmored aesthetic, because it does. Okay man.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:26
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Lymond posted:You can do unarmed with your drat forehead if you want to. Don't pretend that Exalted doesn't have tools for people who like the barehanded / unarmored aesthetic, because it does. Like, to put it in different terms, 'a 2-dot set of smashfists is equivalent to a 2-dot daiklave' is well and good but not equal to 'a 2-dot thinger makes your kungfu comparable in power and scope to a guy with a 2-dot daiklave.' The nature of that two-dot thinger can be quite different, of course. It's also sort of lame if martial arts has to basically lead in every style tree with 'this Charm lets you fight like you have a weapon with your bare hands!' because that's kind of a waste of a Charm. If it's that universal make some kind of 'Gravity Training' merit which (say) at a 2 dot level gives you the ability to punch for lethal damage or what have you (I obviously am using the potentially obsolete 2E concepts). If you're practicing subtle assassin arts you don't necesarily need it; if you're practicing Bear Wrestling Style, maybe you do. Nessus fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 23:30
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I've been playing an unarmored/unarmed character in a regular campaign for about a year now. I am sure it helps that our party is low essence still and not especially optimized, but I've had zero problems keeping up-- probably helps that I took the most direct combat charms in a group without a dawn, but uh, that happens. I'm sure faced off against a melee-ing dawn who XP for XP spent the same kind of focus on combat I did, I'd feel inferior, but it's not a situation that's going to come up at every table, and I certainly don't feel incapable of keeping up with your average antagonist. Like so many things, this is feeling a little overstated.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:30
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Heart Attacks posted:"You can get the barehanded aesthetic by covering your hands!" *facepalm* 
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Jun 9, 2013 23:31
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kthegreat posted:Not to mention that the statement of armed > unarmed is not taking charms into account. I expect that with there being a large number of MA styles that each style will be able to deal well with a given situation (this could be reflected by tags or simply by the effects granted). Maybe there is a style that allows a person to deal with ranged attacks really well by emphasizing the fluidity of motion or something. The point is that straight up damage dealing capability being less than that of a melee person does not mean that the Unarmed character can't be far more versatile and able to handle any given situation with enough investment. Heart Attacks posted:Generally speaking, the theme has been, "With equal investment, unarmed loses to armed." A MA user can invest potentially infinitely, and past a certain point their combat ability will exceed that of a tool user. This point is past the point where the tool user plateaus. MA requires more investment, but it ultimately is the stronger option in the end because of its versatility. Now this is technically speculation, but it seems like it is going in this direction.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:35
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Perfected Kata Bracers are a terrible example, given that they're a 4-dot artifact whose primary benefit is already attached to like 80% of Form Charms. They vary between 'useless' and 'way more powerful than is justifiable'; "agg on CoD!" isn't even on the same page as "Blanket 2m reduction to Style charms"quote:Now this is technically speculation, but it seems like it is going in this direction. The rest of the point doesn't really stand up in light of MA not being limited to unarmed fighting; the guy with the sword can learn all the native Sword Charms and then move on to all the Sword MAs, too. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 23:35
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There's a pretty big difference between "you will lose" and "you will be at a disadvantage". If they said the first that's stupid and should be rightfully condemned, but I'm mostly hearing the second. edit: I'm pretty sure that the reason we keep having these arguments about weapon vs. unarmed is because 2nd ed. decided that unarmed would have greater 'width' and armed would have greater 'height' and due to a broken combat system one of those was obviously superior to the other. Ithle01 fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 23:43
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Kai Tave posted:Honestly, I think it'd be quicker to list the artifact weapons that have been illustrated throughout Exalted's existence that don't look kinda dumb. That's something I don't think anyone has ever really nailed, in my opinion. I always really liked the dumb sword from the cover of Ruins of Rathess - 
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Jun 9, 2013 23:52
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cenotaph posted:Basically it's kind of silly to call the philosophy of tools being better than no tools bad design when it's just design for effect. You don't like the effect, and it's been that way for a decade. Exalted is never going to be that game. Even the gods have to build tools in Exalted, it's huge recurring theme. No, the bad design part is "it's balanced because sometimes the tool user doesn't have access to their tools, and the unarmed man can go punching things all day!". This never, ever works well in play. It's been tried - good god has it been tried - in dozens of different systems. "Ineffective but for that one shining moment after you're captured until you break out and go back to being ineffective" is just awful, awful game design. There was discussion earlier about how bonuses to fights on certain types of terrain can become tiresome in play, how water-aspected characters may always try to force fights next to lakes, and the game becomes dull. "Unarmed is only good in a situation where you'd be disarmed otherwise" is like that but worse.
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Jun 9, 2013 23:59
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The thing that gets me about this debate? Hatewheel has said that you should be able to play the character you want to and that mechanics should not dictate your character choices. Then he says that he's building the game so that CharOp is still a thing.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:00
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Heart Attacks posted:Perfected Kata Bracers are a terrible example, given that they're a 4-dot artifact whose primary benefit is already attached to like 80% of Form Charms. They vary between 'useless' and 'way more powerful than is justifiable'; "agg on CoD!" isn't even on the same page as "Blanket 2m reduction to Style charms" Perfected Kata Bracers posted:She adds her Essence to the accuracy, damage and defense of her unarmed attacks  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 10, 2013 00:00
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So... yes, varies between useless (at the low end) and way more powerful than is justifiable at the high end, especially with the errata limiting sources of Accuracy benefits and reducing damage and defense in general.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:04
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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." What, you also read the Heaven's Sword Loresheet from Legends of the Wulin? That game is a cornucopia of good design decisions. In all fairness, the opposite alternative where there was no difference whatsoever between weapons and unarmed fighting besides an aesthetic one would be loving boring. Going unarmed should involve foregoing some combat advantages in order to get others. Unfortunately, last edition Essence Locks were placed on charms that give you artifact fists and unarmed-only MA charms really worth salivating over, so unarmed was mostly kind of a trash option except in the narrow scenario where you're in a high-essence Solars or Sid game and the GM has banned Obsidian Shards of Infinity. That reminds me: More charms like One Hand Fury. If what one has to do to get on par with a weapon-user is to turn their body into a weapon permanently, so be it. I much prefer that to external poo poo like Smashfists or Perfected Kata Bracers which de-emphasize the internal vs. external dichotomy I want to have going on when I make an Unarmed character. I like infrastructure being a thing, but I also like emphasizing that infrastructure is as important for information as it is for material goods. Edit: I need to point out that you dorks fail to realize that Perfected Kata Bracers work just as well for a weapon-using martial artist. MiltonSlavemasta fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 00:20
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Heart Attacks posted:So... yes, varies between useless (at the low end) and way more powerful than is justifiable at the high end, especially with the errata limiting sources of Accuracy benefits and reducing damage and defense in general. I think the point is that there is literally an item that was made to help bring unarmed people onto par with armed ones. Just because Exalted 2e's lovely rules writing and errata'ing ended up screwing it up doesn't mean that the intent wasn't there. You're making a huge loving deal over basically nothing, dude. They're already changing combat pretty massively as far as we can tell (taken on faith, granted, but still) so there's not much of an argument in saying that just because poo poo sucked last edition, it must still suck in 3e. Edit: Also concrete evidence points out that in the entirety of all 2nd Ed Exalted games played the world over, there were no fights in which an unarmed MA PC ever won a single fight with an armed enemy. Ughhhhhhh, so suboptimal. 
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Jun 10, 2013 00:31
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:What, you also read the Heaven's Sword Loresheet from Legends of the Wulin? That game is a cornucopia of good design decisions. I'm friends with one of the writers and he told me to read everything.  MiltonSlavemasta posted:In all fairness, the opposite alternative where there was no difference whatsoever between weapons and unarmed fighting besides an aesthetic one would be loving boring. Going unarmed should involve foregoing some combat advantages in order to get others. Unfortunately, last edition Essence Locks were placed on charms that give you artifact fists and unarmed-only MA charms really worth salivating over, so unarmed was mostly kind of a trash option except in the narrow scenario where you're in a high-essence Solars or Sid game and the GM has banned Obsidian Shards of Infinity. I think that the problem with the design ethos of 2E Exalted was its focus on realism (for mortals) and thing giving you all sorts of neat abilities to ignore realism (for exalts). So, yes, while a Solar is playing Dynasty Warriors, your average human being is playing a different game entirely. So of course, in the real world a guy who is bare handed is going to have a very ugly time fighting someone armed with a knife. It's only when you Exalt that 'realism' becomes irrelevant and fun shenanigans take precedent, which while thematically appropriate still gives you a system where you need magic to make empty fists worth a drat.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:33
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Bedlamdan posted:I think that the problem with the design ethos of 2E Exalted was its focus on realism (for mortals) and thing giving you all sorts of neat abilities to ignore realism (for exalts). So, yes, while a Solar is playing Dynasty Warriors, your average human being is playing a different game entirely. So of course, in the real world a guy who is bare handed is going to have a very ugly time fighting someone armed with a knife. It's only when you Exalt that 'realism' becomes irrelevant and fun shenanigans take precedent, which while thematically appropriate still gives you a system where you need magic to make empty fists worth a drat. I think a huge problem with 2e was that almost every charm that let you turn your fists into badass, worthwhile weapons, either (A) required a willpower and motes for temporary use and was too expensive, like in errata'ed Violet Bier, (B) was too high essence for people to use (Adamantine Fists of Battle, One Hand Fury), or (C) was in a busted-rear end martial art that no one allowed at their table despite it being thematically awesome (Cobra Style). The effects to make your fist on par with a daiklave or even better than a grand daiklave were in the system. Ink Monkeys even had the loving awesome idea of an intro charm that gives you fists on par with a starting artifact weapon, and then the capstone charm of the same MA gives you fists on par with a more powerful artifact weapon. If they stopped trying to do cool poo poo where you combine magic and esoteric magic you have to hustle to get in order to get fists on par with a daiklave, that would be a weird change of pace, because all the charms to do it were there. They were just badly costed or badly placed.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:39
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Ego Trip posted:The thing that gets me about this debate? Hatewheel has said that you should be able to play the character you want to and that mechanics should not dictate your character choices. In any game where different traits do different things, CharOp is never not going to be a thing. There really is no perfect solution to this -- we can make all characters mechanically identical, in which case what's the point of mechanics, or we can make characters mechanically different in which case some things will be more optimal than others; we can make characters who are optimal in different contexts, in which case it's up to the ST to determine when to let the players succeed at choosing their context and therefore it's all just GM fiat; we can make the system sufficiently forgiving or tactically deep that system mastery can make up for suboptimal stats in which case a) some people would argue that's the point of stats if they don't accurately reflect character competence, while b) other people would still argue that given equal system mastery, it's unfair that some builds are more effective than others. 'Round and 'round we go. I see a lot of calls here for some sort of ideal perfect balance between all the different factors in question, but there's no perfect solution when nobody can agree on the significance of all the factors. People value verisimilitude to different degrees; they value engaging tactical play to different degrees, they value freedom of aesthetic choice in chargen to different degrees. Everyone in the debate has some viewpoint counter to their own they find particularly odious, and probably read it into someone else's arguments. No matter what design philosophy or imperative I admit to here, someone, somewhere thinks it's a loving stupid design philosophy or imperative, and whenever I discuss any given design imperative there's someone who takes it to mean we value whatever design imperative I'm discussing right now over other design imperatives that may be equally important but which are not topical to the current discussion. Ultimately Exalted 3rd Edition will be judged on what hits print. We feel we've found a great balance between aesthetic freedom, tactical play, and verisimilitude, and we hope you agree when you see it.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:40
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:That reminds me: More charms like One Hand Fury. If what one has to do to get on par with a weapon-user is to turn their body into a weapon permanently, so be it. I much prefer that to external poo poo like Smashfists or Perfected Kata Bracers which de-emphasize the internal vs. external dichotomy I want to have going on when I make an Unarmed character. It's not hard to create Artifacts that boost unarmed / unarmored characters. I cite Perfected Kata Bracers as an example of things that are already there, even as I acknowledge that the numbers and mechanics that it was given are badly-designed. If the reason you want to play an unarmed / unarmored character is to emphasize internal v. external sources of power, that's something else. For that you'll need to create custom content that works differently.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:40
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Lymond posted:If the reason you want to play an unarmed / unarmored character is to emphasize internal v. external sources of power, that's something else. For that you'll need to create custom content that works differently. Well, I could, or the people making the book could. Up to them.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:48
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:Well, I could, or the people making the book could. Up to them. Better to design to a goal while making the system sufficiently solid that homebrew is easy.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:49
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:Well, I could, or the people making the book could. Up to them. Why, if someone put in a solid enough effort into writing such a book, I may well offer them a healthy goat in trade for it.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:55
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The Gate posted:I think the point is that there is literally an item that was made to help bring unarmed people onto par with armed ones. Just because Exalted 2e's lovely rules writing and errata'ing ended up screwing it up doesn't mean that the intent wasn't there. You're making a huge loving deal over basically nothing, dude. They're already changing combat pretty massively as far as we can tell (taken on faith, granted, but still) so there's not much of an argument in saying that just because poo poo sucked last edition, it must still suck in 3e. It's not that it's impossible, or even terribly hard if you've got an afternoon to spend combing over rulebooks for options. Rather, it's that we'd prefer not to have that philosophy guiding game development so that someone playing an unarmed fighter has to do extra legwork to be as effective as a swordfighter.
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Jun 10, 2013 01:01
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Stephenls posted:In any game where different traits do different things, CharOp is never not going to be a thing. There really is no perfect solution to this -- we can make all characters mechanically identical, in which case what's the point of mechanics, or we can make characters mechanically different in which case some things will be more optimal than others; we can make characters who are optimal in different contexts, in which case it's up to the ST to determine when to let the players succeed at choosing their context and therefore it's all just GM fiat; The thing to do is to make different traits do different, non-competing things, and make the utility of those traits not depend on contexts like "are you standing in a field of wheat*" but rather contexts like "what move did your opponent do last turn". For instance, if melee weapons are really great when you have high momentum because they're immensely likely to land killing blows, but unarmed attacks are really great when you have low momentum because they do crap damage but are great at knocking your enemy off their game, then there's no sense in talking about "imbalance" between Melee and Unarmed. The ideal warrior (like, gosh, a Dawn caste!) would have both, and would lead with Unarmed and finish with Melee, whereas a dedicated Unarmed character and a dedicated Melee character would happen to perform different roles in combat, where the former's good at tying up and interfering with powerful enemies and the latter is great at finishing off disadvantaged powerful enemies and clearing away minions. There could be an "disarmed" status effect that represents your ability to launch effective attacks being interfered with somehow - maybe someone hit a pressure point and hosed your chakras up, maybe you were just disarmed and you're scrambling to pick your daiklave back up, who cares. This status effect could, innately, impose a higher (but still mangeable) penalty on Melee characters than it does on Unarmed characters. That way the "well you can't get disarmed" strength of Unarmed exists in the game, but in a form that's actually likely to come up in a fair and satisfying way rather than it never existing ever until one day the ST sighs and, with the attitude of someone who's decided to finally clean their garage out, starts narrating that your character was attacked by ninjas while sleeping and no your sword isn't there for some reason. This isn't actually something anyone needs to helplessly shrug at. Incidentally, this is a great time to come clean about the game's combat system and balance philosophy because you've already gotten away with all our money. * Here is how Janest's field of wheat bonus should work: some aspect of her character (a charm, an anima power, whatever) should give her a passive benefit that applies whenever she's standing in a field of wheat and simultaneously allow her to spend resources to cause a field of wheat to magically bloom around her, wherever she is. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 01:09
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Ferrinus posted:The ideal warrior (like, gosh, a Dawn caste!) would have both, and would lead with Unarmed and finish with Melee The flavor of this feels really unappealing/gamey to me, though, and in a system where "well they're good at different things!" is the baseline, embracing unsatisfactory flavor is just another road to CharOp.
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Jun 10, 2013 01:12
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Nightskye posted:The flavor of this feels really unappealing/gamey to me, though, and in a system where "well they're good at different things!" is the baseline, embracing unsatisfactory flavor is just another road to CharOp. How's that? Would you prefer that unarmed and armed combat were functionally identical? Or that like, they were functionally identical after a brawler spends two charms to get sword-quality fists and a fencer spends two charms to become impossible to disarm? It seems like if you're going to put A) punches and B) buster swords into the game, you want punches to be different from buster swords, and that if you're going to put steadily-building combat advantage into the game, you want punches to be easy to land but easy to survive while buster swords are hard to land but insanely lethal.
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Jun 10, 2013 01:15
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Nightskye posted:The flavor of this feels really unappealing/gamey to me, though, and in a system where "well they're good at different things!" is the baseline, embracing unsatisfactory flavor is just another road to CharOp. I don't know, a system that rewards mixing up weapons and fighting styles to fit the situation as you go, a la the Devil May Cry games, sounds to me a lot more interesting than forcing you to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else or suck. Edit: to summarize my thoughts into a pithy little soundbite, they are that while some degree of CharOp is unavoidable, the game shouldn't actively try to punish you for playing the character you want to play. Thesaurasaurus fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 01:16
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Also, it feels like someone who lands a couple brawl attacks and then finishes with melee is a perfect representation of a lot of cinematic combat that we actually see in movies or comic books or whatever. Like, if two characters have a sword fight that isn't over instantly, usually they'll clash blades and growl at each other for a bit and then one kicks the other but then gets headbutted by the first right before they can manage an actual slash, etc.
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Jun 10, 2013 01:18
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Stephenls posted:In any game where different traits do different things, CharOp is never not going to be a thing. There really is no perfect solution to this -- we can make all characters mechanically identical, in which case what's the point of mechanics, or we can make characters mechanically different in which case some things will be more optimal than others; we can make characters who are optimal in different contexts, in which case it's up to the ST to determine when to let the players succeed at choosing their context and therefore it's all just GM fiat; we can make the system sufficiently forgiving or tactically deep that system mastery can make up for suboptimal stats in which case a) some people would argue that's the point of stats if they don't accurately reflect character competence, while b) other people would still argue that given equal system mastery, it's unfair that some builds are more effective than others. 'Round and 'round we go. The idea of suboptimal combat stats for a game like Exalted doesn't appeal to me. If Exalted is indeed a kung fu movie and characters are expected to regularly have to fight for their lives / punch faces for justice, you may as well save players and the Storyteller a lot of effort and do away with all the fiddly I'll scrounge points from here and here and buy specialties for Melee: In Combat +3 crap. Legends of the Wulin does a good job of it and allows for mechanical differentiation in weapon choice, external styles, internal styles and conditions. When you put yourself in the Storyteller's shoes and realize that: (a) In opposed checks a 2 dice difference means a ~50% advantage in the Storyteller system; (b) Achieving a 2 dice difference in base stats—let alone after combat buffs—requires an amazingly stringent play contract that few groups can pull off; (c) Encounter design becomes harder the larger the difference in capability between your players... ... it's hard for me to see any benefit to allowing for gross disparities in player stats. You're talking about tradeoffs, but I don't see what you're gaining by allowing the Dawn with overwhelming dice take over the combat encounters while the Zenith with moderate numbers falls asleep, or the Zenith to dominate social scenes while the Dawn snores. Allowing for mechanical differentiation is great, but the degree of disparity in capabilities that Exalted's traditional chargen process encourages is undesirable. I'd be interested in seeing what you've built as a combat engine, but I don't think you can get away from this particular problem while also keeping the same traits and dice resolution mechanics. Lymond fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 01:25
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The Gate posted:Edit: Also concrete evidence points out that in the entirety of all 2nd Ed Exalted games played the world over, there were no fights in which an unarmed MA PC ever won a single fight with an armed enemy. Ughhhhhhh, so suboptimal. Is it your firmly held opinion that it is good game design for one popular character aesthetic to be inferior to another popular aesthetic by design (say, the way that a Dawn with a sword was inferior to a Dawn with a goremaul was inferior to Dawn with a powerbow and movement charms?)
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Jun 10, 2013 01:45
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