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axelsoar posted:Solars have to be 'the best', that means so many other charms can't be good because 'oh no! that is almost as good as a solar charm, better make it awful!' Look at the lunar charm tree from 2e, half that poo poo is essentially a worse version of a solar charm. DBs are even worse off since they need to be worse than lunars, so they were loaded with tons of charms that were barely functioning or painfully specific. You shouldn't blame poorly-designed non-Solar charms on the Solars. Personally, I think that all charms should be about the same strength and have about the same XP cost, and that the superiority of one Exalt type over another should flow out of a combination of intrinsic characteristics and access to certain special kinds of charms that no one else gets. For instance, imagine if DB Melee charms were pound for pound as good as Solar Melee charms, BUT A) Solars had bigger essence pools, B) Solars could buy more total dice with Excellencies, C) Solars got Heavenly Guardian Defense and DBs just didn't, or got some elemental trick in its place that allowed you to do cool environment manipulation but not survive meteor strikes.
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Jul 21, 2013 17:47
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Ferrinus, why do you have this bizarre obsession with Solars having more overall power than the other splats? I mean, ignoring for a second that several of the other splats are corrupted Solars and should therefore be identical in power level, Lunars and Sidereals should be on even level with them at the very least. The only splat that might need to be the little brother just based on history is the Dragonbloods, but they should make up for that by having really ridiculous synergy within their Circles.
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Jul 21, 2013 19:44
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Oh, yeah, Abyssals and Infernals get to be as strong as Solars, obviously. That's the whole point, they're corrupted Solars. Why do you have a bizarre obsession for using the words "bizarre obsession" to describe someone who happens to like the basic premises of the Exalted setting as written?
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Jul 21, 2013 19:49
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Yeah, that's not really "a weird obsession," that's "doesn't want to see a core tenet of the game changed." If you wanted to make the Solars not the mightiest Exalts, you would have to rewrite pretty much the entire game setting.
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Jul 21, 2013 20:08
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axelsoar posted:Solars have to be 'the best', that means so many other charms can't be good because 'oh no! that is almost as good as a solar charm, better make it awful!' Look at the lunar charm tree from 2e, half that poo poo is essentially a worse version of a solar charm. DBs are even worse off since they need to be worse than lunars, so they were loaded with tons of charms that were barely functioning or painfully specific. This is explicitly not what they're going for and never has been. The power difference is actually a draw for several of the people I know and I doubt I'm alone in this regard. Those problems you're pointing out aren't problems with Solars, those are problems with Lunars and Dragon-Blooded. Blaming other splats problems on Solar charms is nonsense. The Dragon-Blooded 2nd ed. charm set was garbage because it was hastily cobbled together from the remnants of 1st ed. with little knowledge of how the rules were going to change going into 2nd ed. and Lunars were bland, but not bad, because of their absolutely awful first edition charms and being relatively new to the 2nd ed. scene. And both of them had powerful unique charms that fit their splats aesthetic and that Solars did not have.
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Jul 21, 2013 20:10
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To some extent splats have always had access to powers that were superior to solar ones. Just flipping open the charms chapter in the first edition DB book shows With One Mind, Wind Carried Words and Invisibly Hidden Chakram Method all being substantially superior to solar charms. Wind Carried Words alone makes DBs the best battlefield commodity in the world.
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Jul 21, 2013 20:21
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Why is it so important that Solars must be the best at everything? That attitude devalues the rest of the Exalted Host - similar to Holden Shearer saying "Yes, 700 Solars would have been better for winning the Primordial War than 300 Solars, 300 Lunars and 100 Sidereals were, duh." That attitude and conceit is harmful to the setting and the franchise as a whole, making everything revolve around one Exalt type and the others being complementary at best or frivolous at worst. And it's hardly some core tenet that mustn't be touched - it's not difficult to replace Solar Supremacy as a theme with Synergy of the Exalted Host and still have a coherent setting. Hey, Solars are still great (but not head-and-shoulders above Lunars and Sidereals great), but the world falling apart isn't because they're specifically missing, it's because the Host is at odds with itself.
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Jul 21, 2013 20:43
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AdjectiveNoun posted:Why is it so important that Solars must be the best at everything? That attitude devalues the rest of the Exalted Host - similar to Holden Shearer saying "Yes, 700 Solars would have been better for winning the Primordial War than 300 Solars, 300 Lunars and 100 Sidereals were, duh." Solars as the greatest of the Exalted puts human action and achievement at the center of the setting. In Exalted, heroism and determination triumph over fate, chaos, and the elements, but unfortunately leave death and corruption in their wake. quote:That attitude and conceit is harmful to the setting and the franchise as a whole, making everything revolve around one Exalt type and the others being complementary at best or frivolous at worst. That just isn't true. In fact, I would put it to you that Solars as just another kind of Exalt - with the underlying premise that all Exalted are weird aliens rather than people writ large - is what did the most damage to the setting.
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Jul 21, 2013 20:55
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Ferrinus posted:Personally, I think that all charms should be about the same strength and have about the same XP cost, and that the superiority of one Exalt type over another should flow out of a combination of intrinsic characteristics and access to certain special kinds of charms that no one else gets. For instance, imagine if DB Melee charms were pound for pound as good as Solar Melee charms, BUT A) Solars had bigger essence pools, B) Solars could buy more total dice with Excellencies, C) Solars got Heavenly Guardian Defense and DBs just didn't, or got some elemental trick in its place that allowed you to do cool environment manipulation but not survive meteor strikes. Also, Solars shouldn't really be 'anything you can do, I can do better', that's not really the purpose of the excellence angle. That it has become so is aggressively stupid.
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Jul 21, 2013 20:56
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Then it would paradoxically make mixed groups suck even more, whereas even now in 2e you can sort of wrangle unique quirks out of the dissimilar skillsets. No, I think you're wrong, since the situation in 2e was exactly what I described except that DB Melee Charms weren't pound for pound as good as Solar Melee charms through and through.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:05
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Ferrinus posted:No, I think you're wrong, since the situation in 2e was exactly what I described except that DB Melee Charms weren't pound for pound as good as Solar Melee charms through and through. E: Also, it's not like 2e is some kind of 'ideal setting' either - but making things even more homogenized is like, the opposite of what anyone should want, aside from having your standard toolkit to placate the basic needs for survival and the terminally boring.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:07
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Okay, but, the entire game is not combat. Thank mercy for that, since combat in Exalted is basically its weakest point. Wow, I sure feel stupid for saying the entire game should be combat rather than happening to use the Melee charm three as an example to demonstrate a broader idea... on opposite day.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:09
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Ferrinus posted:Wow, I sure feel stupid for saying the entire game should be combat rather than happening to use the Melee charm three as an example to demonstrate a broader idea... on opposite day.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:09
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Using the boring rear end Melee trees as some kind of litmus test is really, really not a bright idea. You're better than that. Hey, you don't need to get all salty just because you wrote a combative response to a post that it turned out you hadn't actually read. Would you like me to actually explain what I meant in more depth or do you get it now?
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Jul 21, 2013 21:13
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Ferrinus posted:Solars as the greatest of the Exalted puts human action and achievement at the center of the setting. In Exalted, heroism and determination triumph over fate, chaos, and the elements, but unfortunately leave death and corruption in their wake. Solars as-written don't exemplify human action and achievement at all. Their powers are just as godlike as any other Exalt's, just more neutral in tone, whilst their motivations and drives are no less human than any other Exalt. quote:That just isn't true. In fact, I would put it to you that Solars as just another kind of Exalt - with the underlying premise that all Exalted are weird aliens rather than people writ large - is what did the most damage to the setting. I would agree that Exalted Transhumanism is a bad thing (perhaps with a /few/ exceptions, but Exalted Transhumanism appearing to the extent it did in 2E is definitely too much), but Solar Supremacy is no less damaging to the setting - unless you're playing as a Solar.  They're damaging in different ways - the first by damaging the Human aspect of Exalts, the second by diminishing the worth of non-Solar Exalts.Solars are only damaged by being 'just another kind of Exalt' if they lack any themes of their own to draw upon that aren't just 'being better than everyone else'. The Solar-as-human-virtue ideas MiltonSlavemasta and A_Raving_Loon posted a page or so ago easily make Solars more interesting than just "We are the Best and separate from the rest because"
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Jul 21, 2013 21:19
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Ferrinus posted:Hey, you don't need to get all salty just because you wrote a combative response to a post that it turned out you hadn't actually read. Would you like me to actually explain what I meant in more depth or do you get it now? Which, I mean, if that was your actual point, I will accept my wrong as having read a response to a legit post as if it was also legit.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:21
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This is such a weird debate. As written, every Exalt type does have something that Solars can't, inside and outside combat. Lunars can do wacky shapeshifting things. While a Solar probably makes the best handmade disguises, she can't literally become another person like a Lunar can. The Sidereals have astrology (which might actually work this edition), as well as a weird charmset that allow lateral problem solving in a way that mere human excellence couldn't. While a Chosen of Mars may not be able to go full out super for as long or as well as a Solar, she still can do things with a sword that are beyond the possible. Infernals have their transhumanist thing going for them, but that's changing so whatever. The only splats with the problems you're talking about are the Abyssals and the Dragon Blooded. Dragon-Blooded are supposed to be weaker than the Celestials, but they're not supposed to be lovely. But, as cenotaph mentioned, a lot of their charms do offer capabilities that the Solars just plain don't have. Abyssals are Solars but spooky and with tons of baggage that makes them really pathetic compared to the Solars. Abyssals should be plenty easy to fix (I hope), but the Terrestrials need to be rebuilt from the ground up. No word yet on how those are going, though! Really, anything a regular person can do, a Solar Exalted should do the best (although that's not to say that any given Solar Exalted should be good at everything!). The other splats should offer crazy powers that regular people don't have. As far as really supernatural things go, Solars should get hadokens maybe. Giving every splat weird magic powers and the Solars things that are "shiny" is just odd. edit: Just so that we know what we're talking about, in what ways are the Solars "the best at everything"? Like, do they have perpetual access to flight (like a starting Lunar does)? Can they teleport at will? (Like a starting Sidereal can)? Are they immune to fire, drowning, or the most lethal poisons (like a starting Fire, Water, and Wood exalted are, respectively)? pospysyl fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jul 21, 2013 |
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Jul 21, 2013 21:32
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AdjectiveNoun posted:Solars as-written don't exemplify human action and achievement at all. Their powers are just as godlike as any other Exalt's, just more neutral in tone, whilst their motivations and drives are no less human than any other Exalt. They're not more "neutral" in tone. Shapeshifting isn't more or less "neutral" than perfect aim. I actually have no idea what neutral would even mean here. Solar powers flow out of the human condition, whereas the powers of other Exalted augment and transform the human condition. quote:I would agree that Exalted Transhumanism is a bad thing (perhaps with a /few/ exceptions, but Exalted Transhumanism appearing to the extent it did in 2E is definitely too much), but Solar Supremacy is no less damaging to the setting - unless you're playing as a Solar. They're damaging in different ways - the first by damaging the Human aspect of Exalts, the second by diminishing the worth of non-Solar Exalts. You're still not actually supporting this. What's wrong with Solars being more powerful than other Exalts? Solars are the best and separate from the rest because they partake of the power of the highest, greatest divinity, either the God or the Lucifer of the Exalted setting depending on how you spin it. They're also the best and separate from the rest because human achievement trumps inhuman power in the Exalted setting. Chaotic Neutral posted:Except your example didn't really support that? Like, at all? In large part because it supported exactly the shittiest parts of what already exists, except with a thin veneer of number tweaking. Here's what I meant: all charms should be about the same strength and have about the same XP cost, and that the superiority of one Exalt type over another should flow out of a combination of intrinsic characteristics and access to certain special kinds of charms that no one else gets.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:35
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Ferrinus posted:Here's what I meant: all charms should be about the same strength and have about the same XP cost, and that the superiority of one Exalt type over another should flow out of a combination of intrinsic characteristics and access to certain special kinds of charms that no one else gets.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:42
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Yes, Ferrinus, I read it the first time. This would be: the shittiest parts of what already exists, except with a thin veneer of number tweaking. In an ideal world, I can only imagine that the toolkit approach to charm trees would be dead and long gone, replaced with unique and thematic powers that diverge wildly and accomplish things, often different things, in a variety of different and unique methods. Most of the social trees are decent about this. Nice try, friend, but not only did you not read it the first time, you didn't read it this time, either! Here are hallucinations you appear to have had about my post's contents:
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Jul 21, 2013 21:47
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pospysyl posted:Really, anything a regular person can do, a Solar Exalted should do the best For example, a regular person can hide. Therefore, a Solar can hide best! But a regular person can't turn into a rat, so the Lunar has a niche, right? BUT, and herein lies the rub, the Lunar-as-rat still cannot hide better than the Solar, because the Solar can hide best. From what I can tell, that's the toxic thing. The Lunar can turn into a rat, fine, but as soon as the Lunar-as-rat tries to engage the mechanics of 2e's system, it's shafted by the fact that Solars can do all the mechanical rat-themed things better than the Lunar, except for the part where they grow whiskers and hanker for a hunk of cheese. Giving the Solars some better themes could help fix this. "Better themes" means the themes must restrict their power-set in some way, to leave room for other splats to be best at something. IMHO the returning Solars need to be setting-scale game-changers. They must have some kind of power which nobody else in the setting has, and they certainly must be allowed to kick all kinds of rear end in various directions. BUT, they don't need to be the best at everything. The corrupted shard splats should also be setting-scale game-changers, but with different powers and restrictions, which is actually kind of how they were in 2e.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:48
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Ferrinus posted:Solars as the greatest of the Exalted puts human action and achievement at the center of the setting. In Exalted, heroism and determination triumph over fate, chaos, and the elements, but unfortunately leave death and corruption in their wake. Mandatory Solar Supremacy in All Things has been extremely corrosive to both the setting and rules development. From a setting perspective makes all of the other supposedly heroic Exalted bit players in the ongoing Solar (and Solar-derivative) drama. And from a rules perspective it doesn't give you much to go on beyond saying "all splats after the first one must essentially be worse at all things" which leads to lovely rules and endless arguing from obnoxious Solar Supremacists when it turns out other Exalted can Do Things. Solars and everyone else would greatly benefit from having a more defined purview of things they are unambiguously the best at. The change to being Lawgivers in 2nd edition was a good step in that direction. quote:That just isn't true. In fact, I would put it to you that Solars as just another kind of Exalt - with the underlying premise that all Exalted are weird aliens rather than people writ large - is what did the most damage to the setting.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:54
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Ferrinus posted:Nice try, friend, but not only did you not read it the first time, you didn't read it this time, either! Here are hallucinations you appear to have had about my post's contents: I mean I get the impression we aren't in total disagreement here, but your posting is not exactly supporting whatever conclusion you're actually trying to make.
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Jul 21, 2013 21:57
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While Solars should be kickin' rad, it seems to me that you could easily 'knock them down' to parity with the Sidereals and Lunars in a cosmological sense in a simple way: It wasn't that Solars had the "best" powers (though they might have had the specialities best suited for the conditions at the time), it was that the Solars got the Mandate of Heaven, Crown of Thunders, and McGuffin of Metaplottery back in the day. Indeed if you want to delve into the metaplot, you could say having the Solars get access to the 'best' sorcery is a 'cunning trick of the imprisoned devils,' whether to try and get out or to just see everyone suffer.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:04
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Dodge Charms posted:Giving the Solars some better themes could help fix this. "Better themes" means the themes must restrict their power-set in some way, to leave room for other splats to be best at something. I don't think you actually have to be the best at anything to be a fun splat, even in mixed games. You just have to be unique. In support of this, I note that people mostly make these complaints about Lunars and Dragon-Blooded. They don't often make them about Sidereals, because even in the broken state 2e left them in, they were appreciably different from the other splats, even the other Ability-based splats and had their own tricks. If you were playing in the West, one player could be a Sail-using Solar and another could be a Sail-using Sidereal, and both of them would have the opportunity to contribute and would feel meaningfully distinct. You don't need to change Solars to fix this problem; you just need to make it so that the other splats aren't trying to chase after them by using Charms that are trying to accomplish the same things using a bit less raw dice and a coat of silver paint.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:08
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LGD posted:That isn't actually a response to the complaint. AdjectiveNoun is saying that insisting Solars are Always The Best at Everything and designing the game through that lens necessarily deprotagonizes the other Celestial Exalted because outside of their niches they're not competitive, and their niches must be constrained and limited because if they were actually good you'd (omg) have other Exalted that were better than Solars who Must Always Be The Best. You're responding to this by just repeating "Solars Must Be the Best" for nebulous thematic reasons that don't really stand up to inspection. Solars aren't the Exalted of The Human Condition- they're Exalted who have been chosen by the Sun God who epitomizes impossible levels of perfection in all things. You can go ahead and claim that "the strongest force in creation is human prowess, not transhuman/inhuman supernatural power" is somehow nebulous, but honestly it just makes it sound like you haven't understood it rather than have formulated some kind of response to it. Generally, I'm seeing two arguments against Solars being the greatest of the Exalted: 1) Solars being the best does a disservice to non-Solars 2) Exalted's bad rules are a consequence of the mandate that Solars be the best However, no one's actually explained what disservice is done to a Lunar if that Lunar is more likely to lose to a Solar in a fight or whatever. Since the MOs of the other Exalted aren't "Best at ____", their thematics aren't undercut by them not being the best at stuff. And, Exalted has had plenty of good rules. The 1e charmsets for the Dragon-Blooded, Sidereals, Alchemicals, etc. were excellent. The Solars aren't actually a barrier to good mechanics. Chaotic Neutral posted:Do you even remember the contents of the post you originally wrote? The one that said something like 'all charms should be about the same strength and have about the same XP cost', which is a very different step - and, yes, a number tweak - from both existing editions? The one that said something like 'special kinds of charms that no one else gets', which implies that they are special because they are unique, which sounds very much like it would be opposed to, say, generalist kinds of charms that everyone would have? Are you somehow simultaneously complaining that my idea would make everyone's charms palette-swapped math clones and that my idea would give everyone unique charms that no one else gets? Can you explain what wasn't clear about "all charms should be about the same strength"? Isn't a system in which DB charms aren't just Solar Charms but multiplied by 0.5 something you want?
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Jul 21, 2013 22:10
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Why is everyone so keen on making cross-splat play work? Just treat it like the various supernatural splats in WoD, sure you can try and you might even be able to make it work, but I'd rather all the splats be fun then trying to shoehorn them into one another.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:13
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Valhawk posted:Why is everyone so keen on making cross-splat play work? Just treat it like the various supernatural splats in WoD, sure you can try and you might even be able to make it work, but I'd rather all the splats be fun then trying to shoehorn them into one another. Well, in theory, they should be able to work together because their entire purpose in being created was to work together for a purpose (killing the Primordials). The supernaturals in WoD have no such communal origin story.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:16
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Ferrinus posted:Are you somehow simultaneously complaining that my idea would make everyone's charms palette-swapped math clones and that my idea would give everyone unique charms that no one else gets? Can you explain what wasn't clear about "all charms should be about the same strength"? Isn't a system in which DB charms aren't just Solar Charms but multiplied by 0.5 something you want? Valhawk posted:Why is everyone so keen on making cross-splat play work? Just treat it like the various supernatural splats in WoD, sure you can try and you might even be able to make it work, but I'd rather all the splats be fun then trying to shoehorn them into one another.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:17
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Rand Brittain posted:If you wanted to make the Solars not the mightiest Exalts, you would have to rewrite pretty much the entire game setting. This is false. Explain to me what part of the history must be completely rewritten without the assumption that Solars are better than everyone else at everything: -Exalted Host is created, fights at defeats the Primordials. -Exalted Host is given mandate to rule Creation as the Incarnae withdraw from the world. -First Golden Age of Man follows. The Exalted host lead mankind to grow and prosper, building a vibrant civilization full of wondrous things. -The Old Realm grows decadent and corrupt over time, its rulers slowly going mad with power. -The Exalt Host beings to turn on itself, culminating in the Usurpation and the fall of the Old Realm. -Solars are Sealed, Lunars fight on from the Borderlands, Siderials flee into the shadows of fate to let the Terrestrial soldiers do the heavy lifting of running Creation. -Era of Elemental Warlords follows, marked with gradual decline as those wonders of the Old Realm which depended on Solars or Lunars inevitably fall into disrepair, leaving only that with can be made and maintained by the Terrestrials and Siderials. -The Death Lords, operating from beyond fate's eyes in the underworld, engineer a series of disasters which topple and shogunate and nearly exterminate mankind. -The Empress Saves the World, The Second Age begins as she and others like her fight to rebuild. -A good while later, the world is recovering but remains in many kinds of Peril. -The Solars return. Returning after ages in exile, they bring a power to the field unseen for thousands of years which is sure to tip all kinds of scales and change the face of Creation. What part of any of these demands that each Solar be in all ways superior to all other creatures which have or shall ever exist?
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Jul 21, 2013 22:17
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pospysyl posted:This is such a weird debate. As written, every Exalt type does have something that Solars can't, inside and outside combat. Lunars can do wacky shapeshifting things. While a Solar probably makes the best handmade disguises, she can't literally become another person like a Lunar can. Shapeshifting is, barring a few niche situations, inferior to Solar capabilities. Whoop-de-doo, a Lunar shapeshifts into a small animal to sneak. They still can't sneak better than a Solar with a few Stealth charms. A Lunar turns into a Tyrant Lizard or Yeddim to move a large weight? A Solar can do that with a few Athletic Charms. Heck, there's even Athletic charms to make Lunars shapeshifting into flying creatures not particularly special. And let's not forget that a Lunar has to do the Sacred Hunt (or invest in a few knacks to get that temporary human-shapeshifting knack) to be capable of what a Solar with a single easily-accessible charm in Larceny can do off the bat. quote:The Sidereals have astrology (which might actually work this edition), as well as a weird charmset that allow lateral problem solving in a way that mere human excellence couldn't. While a Chosen of Mars may not be able to go full out super for as long or as well as a Solar, she still can do things with a sword that are beyond the possible. Until Astrology is made to work it's not worth discussing, and other Sidereal charms are gimped by design to make players have to manipulate situations into ways where they can be useful. Hardly worth comparing to Solar charms that are more powerful and versatile. I'm not saying "other Exalts don't have anything unique", they do - even if many times their unique factor is inconsequential compared to Solar power - I'm saying that Solars being indisputably better is a bad thing. quote:Really, anything a regular person can do, a Solar Exalted should do the best (although that's not to say that any given Solar Exalted should be good at everything!). The other splats should offer crazy powers that regular people don't have. As far as really supernatural things go, Solars should get hadokens maybe. Giving every splat weird magic powers and the Solars things that are "shiny" is just odd. This ties into the big problem I have with Solars - there's not much to them other than being the best - not just best at regular people things, but flat out better than other Exalts in all but niche situations. quote:edit: Just so that we know what we're talking about, in what ways are the Solars "the best at everything"? Like, do they have perpetual access to flight (like a starting Lunar does)? Can they teleport at will? (Like a starting Sidereal can)? Are they immune to fire, drowning, or the most lethal poisons (like a starting Fire, Water, and Wood exalted are, respectively)? Look at their basic charms in the 2E corebook - Soaring Crane Leap is as useful as Lunar flight in most situations (and the Lunar is inferior to the Solar in almost every other situation) Element Resisting Prana (not necessarily a starting Solar's pick, but one that's fairly easy for them to take) makes them immune to fire, drowning or poison whilst being manifestly superior to an individual DB. Not sure about the Sidereal teleporting charm - which charm is that? Solars are the best at everything in general - there might be some niche applications where other Exalts are - temporarily or very rarely permanently - superior, but even then they are inferior to Solars in most other applications - that is stupid. Ferrinus posted:They're not more "neutral" in tone. Shapeshifting isn't more or less "neutral" than perfect aim. I actually have no idea what neutral would even mean here. Solar powers flow out of the human condition, whereas the powers of other Exalted augment and transform the human condition. They're neutral in that they lack themes beyond simply being excellent. That does not make them human powers, they're powers based on attributes beyond human ken. They're no more human than the Flash's speed is because "humans can run fast but Flash can run faster". quote:You're still not actually supporting this. What's wrong with Solars being more powerful than other Exalts? What kind of support are you looking for? I can't concretely prove this with statistics, I'm offering my opinion and my reasons for holding that opinion. I believe Solars being more powerful than other Exalts is wrong because it makes other Exalts lesser. quote:Solars are the best and separate from the rest because they partake of the power of the highest, greatest divinity, either the God or the Lucifer of the Exalted setting depending on how you spin it. They are not human achievement, their power is inhuman - far beyond the capabilities of humans. Just because it lacks the themes of other Exalted power doesn't make it human, it just makes it a bland power fantasy. FakeEdit: Also what LGD said. Ferrinus, this argument of yours is somewhat circular - "Solars are the best because they are the best. It's okay for other Exalts to be lesser because they're not the best."
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Jul 21, 2013 22:17
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Valhawk posted:Why is everyone so keen on making cross-splat play work? Just treat it like the various supernatural splats in WoD, sure you can try and you might even be able to make it work, but I'd rather all the splats be fun then trying to shoehorn them into one another.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:19
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Rand Brittain posted:I don't think you actually have to be the best at anything to be a fun splat, even in mixed games. You just have to be unique. Valhawk posted:Why is everyone so keen on making cross-splat play work?
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Jul 21, 2013 22:21
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Dodge Charms posted:Hmm. I'm not a Sidereal expert, so I may be wrong about this, but I think it could be argued that the Sids were actually the best at doing their weird and narrow niche things. The fact that they were the best at specific things kept them competitive; the fact that they were only best at niche and weird things kept them from being toxic. As someone whose favourite splat was Sidereals, I can safely say that I had nine million complaints about the state of the sid charmset, and the only reason I kept playing one was for the fluff. As soon as mechanics entered the equation I rolled over and started wailing pathetically.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:25
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Chaotic Neutral posted:No, I'm saying it read like the intent is generalizing it down to palette swapped math clones with the occasional 'this is different depending on who you are' breakout. If you meant the exact opposite of that, then I am totally on board, but you need a better way to articulate it in the future if so. Why would you read "same strength" as "same?" Why would you do that? That's just rude and insulting. What I literally, actually said was that Solar Charms don't need to be categorically superior to non-Solar Charms - that, in fact, it'd be fine if an average Dragon-Blooded charm was just as powerful and just as big a deal as the average Solar Charm. Dragon-Blooded don't need to do less damage per hit than Solars do or forge Daiklaves more slowly than Solars do - but they should be weaker in terms of essence/health/excellency dice/other core, salient traits and they simply shouldn't have access to things like perfect defenses (3E style perfect defenses, of course, where you forfeit all accumulated momentum or whatever), third circle sorcery, the highest-rated evocations, etc. AdjectiveNoun posted:What kind of support are you looking for? I can't concretely prove this with statistics, I'm offering my opinion and my reasons for holding that opinion. I believe Solars being more powerful than other Exalts is wrong because it makes other Exalts lesser. That's a tautology. If Solars are the strongest, then non-Solars aren't the strongest! So?
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Jul 21, 2013 22:25
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I don't know why people always play cross-splat, but I do know that they do. A very large percentage of games are either all-Solar, all-Terrestrial, or Solars-plus-some-other-things. A game of everybody-is-the-same-splat-and-they-aren't-Solars-or-Dynasts is quite rare!
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Jul 21, 2013 22:27
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Rand Brittain posted:I don't know why people always play cross-splat, but I do know that they do. A very large percentage of games are either all-Solar, all-Terrestrial, or Solars-plus-some-other-things. A game of everybody-is-the-same-splat-and-they-aren't-Solars-or-Dynasts is quite rare! As for what you're saying, Ferrinus, why do other Celestials need to top out below Solars? (I can accept a bit of this on Terrestrials much more easily, since they're much more 'mortal' relative when they're much older.)
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Jul 21, 2013 22:30
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I think comparing how trivial it is for a Solar to do a full body impersonation of someone with a single easy to get larceny charm, VS. a Lunar who out of the box would have to murder the guy to get his skin after "hunting" him for a few days... If you get the non-murder knack, you end up having a short term disguise that's easier to penetrate than the Solar version and you've spent twice as much exp buying it. This is for explicit shapeshifting. Which is the Lunar's entire shtick. And really the bit I took issue with wasn't "Let's equalize the charms" it was "Let's equalize the charms, but give Solars access to excellency-style stat boosts that make them mechanically better anyway." What is the point of equal charms and inequal base mechanics, that doesn't make any sense.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:31
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Ferrinus posted:You can go ahead and claim that "the strongest force in creation is human prowess, not transhuman/inhuman supernatural power" is somehow nebulous, but honestly it just makes it sound like you haven't understood it rather than have formulated some kind of response to it. quote:Generally, I'm seeing two arguments against Solars being the greatest of the Exalted: And what the gently caress is a Lunar for if they can't be competitive with a Solar in a fight? Their whole thing is changing themselves to surpass the limits of their form plus the general Exalted thing of being a magically empowered superweapon designed to slay concepts of reality (and their minions). What is shapeshifting giving the Lunar if they can't even be competitive in a purely physical contest? This is exactly the problem- the Solars purview is too broad and steps all over the other niches because it's essentially "anything your character might want to do" and any time other Celestial niches infringe on that totally reasonable purview of "doing anything" they get slapped down because they Must Be Worse. quote:And, Exalted has had plenty of good rules. The 1e charmsets for the Dragon-Blooded, Sidereals, Alchemicals, etc. were excellent. The Solars aren't actually a barrier to good mechanics.
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Jul 21, 2013 22:32
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Did the Solars ever really need to be the best at everything? Wasn't there schtick supposed to be leadership and "bringing everyone together". I really don't see why they need to be ubermensch if they are just supposed to be the glue. And it doesn't seem like it's ever been addressed that a Solar can absolutely beat any other splat at whatever there "role" is supposed to be with a bare minimum of effort. Cause if they could surpass the other splats as easily as they do mechanically, it seems like it would have been a much better choice for the other gods to sacrifice some of themselves to the Unconquered Son so he could make more Solars than even try to match their power. PrinceRandom fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jul 21, 2013 |
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Jul 21, 2013 22:34
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