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Whitenoise Poster posted:As someone who only very recently got interested in Exalted thanks to the kickstarter, Ferrinus is doing a really good job in making the game seem like the least fun and interesting game ever designed from a fluff and mechanics perspective. What? I've been interested in Exalted for years, what are you talking about? Hah! Just a little humor for you, there. Seriously, though, the intense reaction people have to the implicit Exalted hierarchy is proof in and of itself of the power of the setting. Solars in charge thanks to their administrative skills utterly lack the punch that Solars in charge thanks to their unmatched power have, and the imbalance in the Exalted host adds flavor and drama to the other Celestials and Terrestrials just as it does the Solars. Exalted in the setting in which the most cosmically powerful and terrifying villain the world could produce is not a Cthulhu or a Godzilla but a General Zod or a John Galt.
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Jul 23, 2013 06:20
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Whitenoise Poster posted:As someone who only very recently got interested in Exalted thanks to the kickstarter, Ferrinus is doing a really good job in making the game seem like the least fun and interesting game ever designed from a fluff and mechanics perspective. Take heart. He's wrong.
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Jul 23, 2013 06:21
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, dude, duh. Solars remain the most powerful of the Exalted even when they're capable of losing a fight through poor planning, bad luck, inexperience, or being deliberately countered or thrust into inopportune circumstances. But they are and should be the most powerful - Solars as administrators and technologists of the Exalted hosts absolutely fail to cut the mustard compared to the standard already set up. Why? If you kill your 300 administrators and technologists your society utterly collapses. If they come back, and they're also merely capable of fighting Celestials to a standstill, and the mechanism to prevent this from being apocalyptic is shattered, well then. Remember, the big thing isn't 'Solars coming back in ones and twos'. It's One Hundred Fifty Solars and another 150 Solaroids, simultaneously while the Realm Civil War makes the Wyld Hunt anomalously ineffectual. Travel times in Creation are long, a Solar that doesn't get caught early can have a ton of time to prepare and find friends and then they're capable of Changing The World. As to why the Wyld Hunt still existed? Well, because if you don't get a Solar fast, they have time to build up. And building up, leading, is what they do best. Not to mention that a Solar who you don't kill, even if you can fight him to a standstill, is a huge crimp in all of your plans in that region because you now have to take into account a possibly hostile dude who can fight as well as you do, which, given that you already have to take into account 300 angry shapeshifters, is huge. (Also the shapeshifters are bonded to the Solars and thus make natural potential allies). And no, what I'm saying is that Solars should be capable of winning fights via good planning and shaping the battlefield. There is a slight difference. Because one of them implies that a Solar can just charge in and punch every problem into being fixed, and the other implies that they're not that lame and in fact, have to take advantage of their thematic being sheer excellence in every human endeavor. They have to make tools. Like humans do. They have to plan, like humans do, which is something humans do better than any animal. They have to think ahead. Which they're good at. This is actually closer to the 'human effort beats inhuman mutation' thing than your claim is, because it has human effort, as defined by traits associated with humans (tool usage, forward planning, anticipating the future) beating raw power. If a Solar wants to charge in yelling LEEEEROY JENKINS? He can and probably will lose, because he can invest a ton into straightforward fighting but he's simply not any better at it than other Celestials, and because a lot of their shticks are more directly applicable to charging into a fight unprepared they have an advantage. Sidereals can vanish from losing fights, Lunars can heal or shapeshift or whatever. Alchemicals can reenact the Terminator. But if he acts like a man instead of a moronic beast, he can win. The Dawns are the best soldiers in all of Creation, but not inherently the best warriors. Why? A soldier knows how to work in a team, knows when to lead and when to listen. (I didn't say best footsoldiers, mind you). And I think this is not only not damaging to Exalted, or even your narrative of 'human effort beats inhuman mutation', but also benefits it and the game at the same time.
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Jul 23, 2013 06:25
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Ferrinus posted:I don't care about your feelings - if you think there's something wrong with my explanation for Solar superiority, tell me what it is. I think that your particular vision makes the setting less fun for people who don't want to play Solars. I don't think this contributes much. If you want to run Solar games, "right on," of course.
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Jul 23, 2013 06:29
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Ferrinus posted:No, they're not, because in D&D classes aren't supposed to lead to power differentials but levels are supposed to lead to power differentials. Why are you having trouble with this? quote:Interesting theory. I think the evidence supports that I did make a good case, though, because thus far you've refused to even attempt to rebut it. quote:Support "inhuman standard of perfection". I mean what is your standard? "I wouldn't describe it as spooky or unnerving or inhuman because it would counteract my thematic ideas?" That seems to be what you're going with. quote:-You just made up "force you into a single (bad) pseudo-Greek narrative". I know why you made it up, but you shouldn't delude yourself about being able to get away with it. quote:-Impersonal cosmic forces are embodied in other types of Exalted and I've explained why. Actually rebut me or admit that you can't. quote:-I never said the other types of Exalted are in eternal opposition of the Solars, so you made that one up, too. quote:So, here's the thing, I mentioned that the hydra can sink ships, ignore mortal weapons, poison fields, etc. You said a Solar could use super attacks to sink ships, use super defenses to ignore mortal weapons, use medicine or sorcery to poison fields - all of these were correct! LGD fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 06:44
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LGD posted:Take heart. He's wrong. Yeah don't worry I'm still hype for 3rd edition I was just kinda bummed of seeing this thread dead for so long and stalking the devs for the slightest scraps of 3e information I see this thread had exploded to like 180 posts and thought something leaked and what I found was all this. DnD got me into this whole hobby by showing me cool 4e things before release come on Exalted show me a spoiler.
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Jul 23, 2013 06:54
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The last 6+ pages of this thread help me understand why the Exalted dev team is so adamant about saying that "power tiers" for the Exalted as illustrated by 2E are dumb and they're using another approach now. How well they pull that off is still up in the air, but at least I doubt that we'll have to deal with "Solars are the best at everything always". I also wanted to point out that the setting only needs that Solars be the strongest... at the end. Creation is lessened without Solars because other Exalted couldn't replicate the height of Solar genius, but there's no reason why Lunars and Sidereals can't match them during the long journey to get there. The greatest threat that a Dawn poses is not that he can always beat you in a straight fight, but that if you make the mistake of leaving him alone for a few decades he will have produced an aggressively-expanding militaristic dystopia with the world's most fearsome professional armies marching down your land. That alone is enough for everyone to get really nervous about them coming back, and making plans that involve seducing / controlling / allying / beheading them. People can't afford to ignore the Solars because of their long-term potential, not because they have a larger mote pool / cheaper Charms / more effective tricks / higher dice caps. The game works fine if Solars are about as strong as the other Celestials during play: as far as we're concerned, that long-term potential can be narrative stuff that is beyond the scope of most campaigns.
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Jul 23, 2013 07:00
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The reason solars are "the best" at things is because they're the first and flagship splat. Initially PCs could only be Solars, so Solars had to be able to cover every type of game people might want to play in the setting from high politics to swordfights to murder investigations, and they needed to be great at them because the entire mainstream P&P industry is based on power fantasy. The fact that the Exalt types are released one book at a time with a six month to one year lead time between releases means that this will never change, because it's an artifact of the structure of their publishing schedule. People who want Solars to just be leaders or admins need to recall that new people to the franchise are just going to want to buy the Core Book to play different types of games, so as long as the core book is the Solar book, Solars will be good at everything. Now, if people really wanted meaningful niches carved out for the various exalt types, then they should be getting on the developers to alter the layout for the next edition(4th) and have the core contain the rules for a set of Exalt types and not just Solars. The way it is now, Solars will always be the generalist set and they will always be really good at most everything, with the other add-on splats generally having a niche area that they're really good at because they are the expansion packs to Solar main game. Also, people expecting a radical change to the structure of the franchise, like what you'd need for actual power parity should remember that the kickstarter had no concrete mechanics on display at all, they sold it entire on nostalgia, so you can bet good money they're not gonna made any daring changes to the thing that made them a poo poo-ton of cash. Valhawk fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 07:03
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So the takeaway from this argument seems to be: people who don't think Solars are as cool as other splats resent that they're abstractly the strongest as a setting conceit, whereas people who enjoy that setting conceit are unimaginably tedious and lame.
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Jul 23, 2013 07:11
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Whitenoise Poster posted:Yeah don't worry I'm still hype for 3rd edition I was just kinda bummed of seeing this thread dead for so long and stalking the devs for the slightest scraps of 3e information I see this thread had exploded to like 180 posts and thought something leaked and what I found was all this. Maaaan, I don't get why people think this. I'm in the same boat---always a little interested in Exalted, never played it, scared off by the mechanics but vaguely intrigued by the setting. And nothing could be more interesting than a several-page argument about the game's thematic content. I mean, we all know the mechanics are going to be mediocre at best, so what could be more interesting than the game's settings and themes, the sense it evokes?
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Jul 23, 2013 07:16
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Remember when this thread was scoffing and guffawing over the utter unimportance of the Bureaucracy stat? And now that Ferrinus has reminded everyone of Solar Supremacy being a setting conceit, suddenly it's vital (to people who openly dislike the splat) that actually Solars should only be Supreme Bureaucrats? Ah, good times.
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Jul 23, 2013 07:17
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Dammit Who? posted:Remember when this thread was scoffing and guffawing over the utter unimportance of the Bureaucracy stat? And now that Ferrinus has reminded everyone of Solar Supremacy being a setting conceit, suddenly it's vital (to people who openly dislike the splat) that actually Solars should only be Supreme Bureaucrats? Ah, good times. See what I mean, about the tedium?
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Jul 23, 2013 07:18
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I do see the merit of having a problem with the mechanics if they mess with the narrative, but as for the narrative itself... I tend to find it remarkably easy to understand. To wit: My Character Is the Best at X because He's MY CHARACTER. My new solar can out-sword fight that experienced Dragonblooded because he's my character. My dragonblooded can kill that Lunar because he's my character. My Lunar can drop a mountain on that unstoppable alchemical death machine because, dammit, he's my character. The only restriction? Make It Awesome. (As for your party... well, as it tends to happen with other games, its nice if the roles don't overlap, or at least don't overlap entirely). As for the NPCs? They exist to provide challenges and objectives. The master of that experienced dragonblooded can actually kick your rear end, but you leave a scar on his face before you are forced to retreat. I tend to speak about it in combat terms, but that's mostly because I like to play beatsticks. I wish I could offers suggestions on mechanics themselves... but I'm afraid those tend to be beyond me.
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Jul 23, 2013 07:48
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Lymond posted:The last 6+ pages of this thread help me understand why the Exalted dev team is so adamant about saying that "power tiers" for the Exalted as illustrated by 2E are dumb and they're using another approach now. How well they pull that off is still up in the air, but at least I doubt that we'll have to deal with "Solars are the best at everything always". Yeah, at the very least I don't think it's going to be an open and shut thing when a Solar fights a Lunar anymore, which I like. Ideally, I'd like to see a Solar Blademaster looks at a Lunar in its giant Kaiju form, and think to himself "I could really die here." Given that Hatewheel said earlier that a farmboy with a knife might be able to kill a trained swordsman, or that a Solar might have a tough time against five heroic mortals, I think that a Lunar might have better odds when squaring off mono-a-mono with a Solar in 3E. Lymond posted:I also wanted to point out that the setting only needs that Solars be the strongest... at the end. Creation is lessened without Solars because other Exalted couldn't replicate the height of Solar genius, but there's no reason why Lunars and Sidereals can't match them during the long journey to get there. The greatest threat that a Dawn poses is not that he can always beat you in a straight fight, but that if you make the mistake of leaving him alone for a few decades he will have produced an aggressively-expanding militaristic dystopia with the world's most fearsome professional armies marching down your land. That alone is enough for everyone to get really nervous about them coming back, and making plans that involve seducing / controlling / allying / beheading them. What was once a pleasant farming village is now a fortress staffed by the most elite team of soldiers short of the Empress's Imperial Guard. Though, I think the way to handle things in terms of Solars being the strongest in combat ability, is to leave combat variable enough that a Lunar can win in a fight. Certainly the Lunar might lose a little more often than it might win, but it's still not a situation where a Solar is absolutely confident of victory. To use that metaphor again, Hercules tends to kill the hydra, but without the Hydra having a fairly good shot at making Hercules into a meal it doesn't make for a very interesting fight.
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Jul 23, 2013 08:24
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Ferrinus posted:In fact, the books make it clear that this isn't the case, and primarily enable single-exalt-type games. And as we all know, nothing in the Exalted books has ever been stupid. Edit: In case it wasn't clear, treating the content of the books as holy writ is not a good way to back up a point against changing the content of the game. If your opposition's point is "We should do something different from what the books are saying to do," then "But the books say you're wrong!" is ... empty? I think what the books have to say on the matter is stupid and at times self-contradictory; I want the new books to be better than the old ones, not rehash the same things because "Well, the books say..." Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 09:28
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Whitenoise Poster posted:As someone who only very recently got interested in Exalted thanks to the kickstarter, Ferrinus is doing a really good job in making the game seem like the least fun and interesting game ever designed from a fluff and mechanics perspective. LGD posted:Take heart. He's wrong. Dammit Who? posted:Remember when this thread was scoffing and guffawing over the utter unimportance of the Bureaucracy stat? And now that Ferrinus has reminded everyone of Solar Supremacy being a setting conceit, suddenly it's vital (to people who openly dislike the splat) that actually Solars should only be Supreme Bureaucrats? Ah, good times. The sniping at other posters ends here. If you want to talk about Exalted, talk about Exalted. Ferrinus is in fact, doing exactly that with gusto. If he is saying things you don't like, refute them. Disagree with him. Report him if you feel he is breaking some rule. Defend your position. Discuss things. Stop bitching with third person addresses that someone disagrees with you about an elfgame and how terrible they are. If it turns out you can't do anything to disagree with someone other than complaining they exist at all, perhaps you should reconsider your position on the subject or find a way to articulate something. If you dislike the course of a discussion in a discussion thread where the object of your disdain is discussing the game, bring up some other subject. Discuss the game.
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Jul 23, 2013 13:59
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Lymond posted:The last 6+ pages of this thread help me understand why the Exalted dev team is so adamant about saying that "power tiers" for the Exalted as illustrated by 2E are dumb and they're using another approach now. How well they pull that off is still up in the air, but at least I doubt that we'll have to deal with "Solars are the best at everything always". I said pretty much exactly this like 2 pages ago. Exalted fans carry around a lot of baggage about the superiority of Solars. Some people hate the 'blandness' of Solar perfection too, but I think that's a separate case. Regardless, when you say a given splat is 'the best', it needn't mean that in the scope of actual play, that the superiority is noted in any mechanized fashion. Or if it is, it can be compensated for in other ways, while at the same time, hinting that high-Essence play might eventually result in Solar dominance. I will say though that I am against the idea that the Solar return is only a big deal in aggregate. I don't like the notion that the Solar return is only impactful if those 150 dudes get together. They should be a threat to the status quo of Creation without a lot of back-bending to justify it. At the same time I don't want to see massive, mechanized superiority either. Lunars should be nervous about making Solar allies, Sidereals should view Solars as a threat to Creation, and not just because Solars are the best administrators. I'm pro-parity, but I'm against the idea that Solars should be, for instance, The Leadership Splat, and Lunars should be the Warrior Splat. That's where I draw the line at dull. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 14:05
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Gonna follow my own advice here. Solar supremacy should be a thing in the game, because at least by my reading of the 1e and 2e stuff they are the big cheeses and they are the real threat and it took ten thousand dragonblooded and the siddies to bring down 300 solars and yadda yadda yadda. That said, there are all kinds of ways to reflect that mechanically. Hell, and I realize that this is something WW would never do, you could have separate XP tracks for mixed games and multi-exalt games. So if you are in an all solar game competing with other solars and one of the themes is rocking on DBs, that is what happens in terms of your progression. If you are in a multi-exalt game your progress gets slowed so you are not lording over your fellow PCs. This is not a super difficult thing, and accommodating more than one view of how the game world works or how it ought to be played is not an unreasonable request.
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Jul 23, 2013 14:16
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I think the Solars coming back should be a big deal, but I can't bring myself to agree that they should be the Best at everything. I think it just makes them really boring. I've heard at least one guy in a game I've been in go off about how you shouldn't even need other Exalts, since you should just get a Solar to do it, and one guy (though he got a lot better about this) managing to completely outrank everyone at combat and making it way more difficult for the GM to make combat encounters that were challenging for him, but also wouldn't just wipe out the rest of the party, and the idea of continuing and supporting that line of thinking just bothers me. EDIT: The guy that made the combat monster ended up just making Lunar or mortal characters since otherwise combat became a joke. EDIT: There was also the person who FLIPPED THEIR poo poo when my friends Lunar beat their solar in combat, that was hilarious. PrinnySquadron fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 14:33
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Winson_Paine posted:Hell, and I realize that this is something WW would never do, you could have separate XP tracks for mixed games and multi-exalt games.
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Jul 23, 2013 14:33
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Speaking of mechanical reflections of Solar Supremacy, what I'd like to see - and i think a few people might have touched on those point already - is that Solar's being the most powerful doesn't necessarily mean them being The Best. What I'd like to see modelled in their Charms is power at the expense of variability. A little less expense in motes, a few more bonus dice, a slightly greater decrease in TNs (for charms that affect those), and so on...but in exchange, their Charms simply can't cover the same breadth of situations that other Exalts can handle. For example, swordplay: A Solar Charm that grants extra attacks as a flurry might be a reflection of unparalleled skill, letting the warrior strike with such speed that his blade moves faster than the human eye can handle, granting the strongest direct bonuses to Accuracy and Damage amongst the various Charms. A Lunar Charm for the same thing might grant another set of limbs, equal in skill and strength to the originals; the Lunar doesn't get the Accuracy and Damage bonuses to his attacks that the Solar does, since his attacks don't move any faster or hit any harder, but now he can strike, block, and parry from multiple angles, and gains the benefit of wearing a shield in addition to making extra attacks, which the Solar's charm doesn't grant. A Sidereal Charm for this situation may let the warrior follow the lines of Fate to ignore any paths of motion that are sub-optimally destined to land, letting him choose only the most accurate paths to his opponent; he gains an increased ability to ignore Soak and raise his Accuracy; similar to but not quite identical to the Solar's Charm. A Dragon-Blooded Charm might use elemental phenomena to distract opponents and lower DVs, not gaining any direct bonuses to their own flurries, but weakening their opponents to set them up for a strike from their squadmates, playing into their themes of unity. I say this after going several hours past a reasonable sleeping time, so I may simply be rambling mindlessly about stuff I do not understand, please take all of this with a grain of salt.
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Jul 23, 2013 14:50
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PrinnySquadron posted:I think the Solars coming back should be a big deal, but I can't bring myself to agree that they should be the Best at everything. I think it just makes them really boring. I've heard at least one guy in a game I've been in go off about how you shouldn't even need other Exalts, since you should just get a Solar to do it, and one guy (though he got a lot better about this) managing to completely outrank everyone at combat and making it way more difficult for the GM to make combat encounters that were challenging for him, but also wouldn't just wipe out the rest of the party, and the idea of continuing and supporting that line of thinking just bothers me. This guy sounds ridiculous, and I do think that Solars should be best-- potentially. It's just that that doesn't mean "this person will win all encounters, no matter what." It means they have the highest ceiling, the fewest ultimate limitations, and no, that doesn't just mean they're really good at training soldiers or at organizing a fortress. That is like, one tiny niche that you can play as a Solar. It's a cool one, but it is sort of limiting to propose that be the only "thing" a Solar should be awesome at. Solars should have the potential to be basically the pinnacle of any human concept, with the conceit that this doesn't mean "they should be that way RIGHT NOW." It's an aspiration, not a living reality. It's why the Solars are dangerous, because while the Terrestrials and other celestials are eventually going to plateau, the Solars will just keep on climbing that ladder. Think that's reflected in the lore in them being vastly longer-lived than some of the other types, too.
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Jul 23, 2013 14:58
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Whitenoise Poster posted:As someone who only very recently got interested in Exalted thanks to the kickstarter, Ferrinus is doing a really good job in making the game seem like the least fun and interesting game ever designed from a fluff and mechanics perspective. That's Ferrinus' charm, making everything seem unfun. He has literally gone on record as being anti-fun. Anyways, the Solars might be the mightiest of all Exalts (I'm fine with this), but there's one single hard cap on their power in the setting: They've just returned. Young, inexperienced, and possibly unprepared Solars (i.e. the vast majority of Solars, in fact the only Solars that actually work in the game's stated premise)should be about equal with middling Exalts. I think its interesting that Ferrinus et. al. with their white room Exalted playtests always seem to forget the actual setting of the game and instead go for some convoluted optimization arguments. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 23, 2013 15:42
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Thought we were going to stop sniping :\ And whether or not the potential exists mechanically actually matters to the narrative, not just to a convoluted optimization argument. Otherwise you get into some weird "well, Solars USED to be the best, but you guys will never reach those heights" story that Exalted doesn't really tell. Adept Nightingale fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 16:10
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Mexcillent posted:That's Ferrinus' charm, making everything seem unfun. He has literally gone on record as being anti-fun. I dont agree with a lot of what Ferrinus has said but he has almost exclusively formed his argument with the setting in mind. I'm in the camp that each type of Exalted should have a niche where they excel. However, I find it hard to argue that a hyper specialized Solar isn't going to be the best at whatever their chosen specialty is. A Solar who put all their effort into killing will always be able to outkill a Lunar who puts an equal amount of effort into it. The Lunar, however, also has access to shape shifting and all the potential benefits that it provides.
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Jul 23, 2013 16:15
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Mexcillent posted:That's Ferrinus' charm, making everything seem unfun. He has literally gone on record as being anti-fun. I've played Exalted with Ferrinus twice and both times it was fun as hell. This is pretty juvenile of you, in my opinion. (He played a Sidereal in one of them, even, so it's not like he's arguing this point because he only likes Solars or something.) I don't know why everyone is misrepresenting his argument by acting like it was said that Essence 1 Solars freshly Exalted should beat Chejop Kejak in a fistfight. The point made is that a Solar who has as much experience and training as another Celestial Exalt should be stronger than them. I think that's fair, and true to the setting. Punting's examples of how Solar stuff works are a good example, I think. A Solar using Awareness charms should be able to be nearly flawlessly aware of his surroundings... but a Sidereal might literally be able to be in two places at once by stepping outside Fate for a moment. Saying that experienced and powerful Solars don't work in the game's setting is pretty silly since that is pretty much the whole point of playing a Solar -- you start as a mortal in exceptional circumstances, you Exalt, then you have to stay alive long enough to grow into your legendary hero's soul. If you say that it's impossible for them to reach the power their previous incarnations held, then what's the point?
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Jul 23, 2013 16:20
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If ex3 delivers on both its promises of "Solars can't punk heroic mortals" and "Deathlords can't punk Solars," then wouldn't the power curve flat enough that this argument becomes moot?
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Jul 23, 2013 16:42
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There is already a class level mechanic in Exalted, it's called Essence Level. An Essence 2 character in any splat will be significantly inferior to an Essence 3 character, because that's the main gatekeeper for charm power. Many charms gain additional benefits as the character gains essence levels or are simply not offered until Essence X is reached. Why does it need to be more complicated than that? Why does an Essence 2 Solar need to be mechanically superior (larger dice pools, etc) than an Essence 2 Lunar? The answers we've been given aren't compelling, and I'm sorry, "Yes they are!" isn't a rebuttal to that. Solars being generalists as they are the Core book is fine, Solars being the best at doing the most "human" things, like making the coolest artifacts or having the strongest sorcery, is also fine. Solars just flat out having more dice than the others, is NOT fine. This feels a bit like arguing with someone who takes the Bible literally, because the justification is always "The Book Says So". (Even if the book isn't all that coherent or contradicts itself or was heavily flawed to begin with.) And in any case, the Solars reappearing at this point in history is destined to make huge waves regardless of if they are mechanically superior simply because the current world-state is a cold war with hot flashes. Both sides on the Lunar/Sidereal conflict are going to be looking to either mass recruit or mass murder the Solars because they're a powerful new piece being added to the board. The US entering WWII. (Not taking that analogy a single step further, but it's the best one I can think of.) The fact that the Solars have the potential to be the King poo poo of Everything again has to be terrifying to the others! That's the whole interesting drama bit. They don't need to superior right now to have that effect. If your Exalted last week Solar has to go significantly up the food chain of the other splats to find an equal sparring partner then something's just wrong. bartkusa posted:If ex3 delivers on both its promises of "Solars can't punk heroic mortals" and "Deathlords can't punk Solars," then wouldn't the power curve flat enough that this argument becomes moot? One can hope.
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Jul 23, 2013 16:49
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Nightskye posted:Thought we were going to stop sniping :/ No fear, one way or the other it is gonna stop.
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Jul 23, 2013 17:05
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Winson_Paine posted:Gonna follow my own advice here. Solar supremacy should be a thing in the game, because at least by my reading of the 1e and 2e stuff they are the big cheeses and they are the real threat and it took ten thousand dragonblooded and the siddies to bring down 300 solars and yadda yadda yadda. That said, there are all kinds of ways to reflect that mechanically. Hell, and I realize that this is something WW would never do, you could have separate XP tracks for mixed games and multi-exalt games. So if you are in an all solar game competing with other solars and one of the themes is rocking on DBs, that is what happens in terms of your progression. If you are in a multi-exalt game your progress gets slowed so you are not lording over your fellow PCs. This is not a super difficult thing, and accommodating more than one view of how the game world works or how it ought to be played is not an unreasonable request. e: To be clear my ideal for that poo poo would be that in the early levels poo poo is either equivalent or much more marginally disparate, and possibly at the end the gulf looks a little less like 'forge a county out of the raw stuff of the Wyld' vs. 'get a quasi-perfect defense, maybe.'. Nessus fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 17:05
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Zarick posted:I don't know why everyone is misrepresenting his argument by acting like it was said that Essence 1 Solars freshly Exalted should beat Chejop Kejak in a fistfight. The point made is that a Solar who has as much experience and training as another Celestial Exalt should be stronger than them. I think that's fair, and true to the setting.
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Jul 23, 2013 17:13
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Nessus posted:What I think got a lot of folks het up is also the way in which the charms seemed to get written for Lunars, DBs and Sidereals, where it was in many cases 'spend more XP to get a power kind of like a similar Solar Charm, but it costs more and isn't as good.' This seemed to start from the very beginning of the Charm trees in 3E and I know I'm hoping it isn't as baked in from Day One, Essence 1. Haven't they said that in terms of direct power comparisons, a Solar and non-Solar charm that does the same thing will either have the non-Solar charm as weaker or costs more, but no both?
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Jul 23, 2013 17:29
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Ferrinus definitely has the right of the argument, I think. The Solars, collectively, are the best at what they do. What the Solars did, collectively, was everything. How the Solars did it was through diligence, discipline, and daring. That Solars are "the strongest", "the best", "the greatest" doesn't matter. It doesn't mean they will always win against some other opponent, given equal levels of commitment, but it means they will always have the advantage. Surmounting the Solar with any degree of certainty requires lateral thinking, unconventional (what maybe we could call "unhuman") methods, deception, or otherwise stacking the deck. Solars win in fair fights because Sol Invictus is the ultimate fair fighter and that is who empowers the Solars. Beating Solars should require even other Celestial Exalted to act in a way that is not what a six-year-old would describe as "fair", whether that be using shapeshifting to gain an advantage, gang up on him, or just straight out use the five-point palm exploding heart technique.
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Jul 23, 2013 17:37
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MJ12 posted:The Dawns are the best soldiers in all of Creation, but not inherently the best warriors. That's wrong. Dragon-Blooded are the best soldiers in creation. There's lots of them and they support each other well. (It's worth noting that the 3E team says it's playing down the cooperation aspect of Dragon-Blooded, which I think is a good thing because it means there's more room for individual Dragon-Blooded to be impressive and powerful). The Dawns are the greatest warriors in creation. They fight guys and beat them. A Dawn Caste duelist is and should be exactly as frightening to the powers that be as a Dawn Caste general, or a Zenith Caste demagogue, or Twilight Caste artificer. It'd be absurd to have someone Exalt with a sunburst on their brow and then Chejop Kejak's like "...hmm, looks like he's got Melee 5 War 0 instead of Melee 0 War 5. Great, just dispatch some guys to beat him up." LGD posted:Why are you having trouble with what I'm saying? I get that you're saying that there are immutable power differences for "setting reasons." I'm telling you that those setting reasons don't mandate making the split the way you're making it and pretending it is some sort of immutable law because you have certain ideas about the themes of Exalted that everyone else is just supposed to accept is... not good. All right, so, what you're missing here is that if I actually cared about changing your interpretation of the Exalted setting I would be private messaging you. I am not bearing witness here, I am engaging in performance art. When I die, my heart will be weighed on the scales against a scroll on which is written the name of every lurker who has supported me in PMs, and only if the scroll is heavier will I be allowed to enter the afterlife. If you don't start making affirmative statements about the themes and meaning of the Exalted setting you're going to get your soul eaten or wind up my slave in the next world or something. Thus far, you've basically invoked reductionist Wookieepedian 2E logic in defense of the idea that all Exalted are equally alien/foreign to the human condition and that it's wrong to claim that one of the Exalt types represents human power rather than inhuman/nonhuman/transhuman power. Your problem is that you've been making this claim from a totally in-character perspective: Solars spend motes of essence to activate magical charms just like Sidereals spend motes of essence to activate magical charms! Solars have glowing animas just like Lunars have glowing animas! Therefore they're all just, you know, magical, and attempts to distinguish between them on a thematic level are a wash! That's not analysis, that's roleplaying. If you're literally a human being in Creation, you could rightly find a Solar as scary or scarier than a Lunar, since from your experience they're both titanically powerful, potentially lethal, and totally beyond your capabilities and understanding. But you're not a human being in Creation, you're a human being on earth, and the Solars are characters in a series of books you have read. So, when I tell you that Solar power represents human skill and effort, and Sidereal power represents fate and destiny, and Solar power trumps Sidereal power because in Exalted human effort trumps fate and destiny, the correct response is not to point out that Solars and Sidereals both activate charms to produce magical effects. That's true in the trivial sense, but the reason that's true is that both Solars and Sidereals are hyper-magnified representatives of their respective animating forces. It's an astounding feat of impossible magic to parry a meteor with a greatsword, but it's also an astounding feat of impossible magic to drag a city ten miles sideways by running really fast. Humans can't do what Solars do, and fate can't do what Sidereals do, because Solars and Sidereals are superheroic representatives of humans and fate respectively. It seems to me that someone in your position should be making the argument that it runs counter to Creation's themes for human effort to trump predestination. I don't think you can do that, but you've got better odds of doing that than you have of making the argument that Gilgamesh and Humbaba are equally inhuman in the narrative sense. quote:That's a specific Lunar Hydra build. You've gotta take charms and Knacks to do that, you're not just "rarrr I'm a Hydra." It has similar opportunity costs to the Solar. You don't have a point other than that characters have limited resources and will be constrained in what they can do. That doesn't change the fact that in your head anything another Celestial can do can be done better by a Solar who puts their mind to it. There's a wide gulf between goal-oriented quest completion and "anything". A Solar can't prophecy better than a Sidereal or tap into primal instincts better than a Lunar. It's only when you zoom out to broad goals describable in an RPG quest log - i.e. obtain the MacGuffin, slay the villain - that Solars are unquestionably the best. Even so, any of those objects that don't happen on the personal scale require prep work, resources, and external tools. mistaya posted:There is already a class level mechanic in Exalted, it's called Essence Level. An Essence 2 character in any splat will be significantly inferior to an Essence 3 character, because that's the main gatekeeper for charm power. Many charms gain additional benefits as the character gains essence levels or are simply not offered until Essence X is reached. I referenced the idea of "level" because it was a fundamental concept in Dungeons and Dragons, a source of deliberate and required character disparity. It's not perfectly homologous to Exalt type or to permanent Essence dots. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 17:39
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Argas posted:Haven't they said that in terms of direct power comparisons, a Solar and non-Solar charm that does the same thing will either have the non-Solar charm as weaker or costs more, but no both?
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Jul 23, 2013 17:43
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Here's what I think: Lunar Excellencies should have Duration: Indefinite rather than Duration: Instant.
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Jul 23, 2013 17:46
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Solars win in fair fights because Sol Invictus is the ultimate fair fighter and that is who empowers the Solars. Beating Solars should require even other Celestial Exalted to act in a way that is not what a six-year-old would describe as "fair", whether that be using shapeshifting to gain an advantage, gang up on him, or just straight out use the five-point palm exploding heart technique. Then the rules of the game need to give those crafty options the teeth they need to be relevant in play.
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Jul 23, 2013 18:19
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Ferrinus posted:That's wrong. Dragon-Blooded are the best soldiers in creation. There's lots of them and they support each other well. (It's worth noting that the 3E team says it's playing down the cooperation aspect of Dragon-Blooded, which I think is a good thing because it means there's more room for individual Dragon-Blooded to be impressive and powerful). Generals are also soldiers in this setup, I don't mean just 'footsoldiers'. And yeah, if you had 10,000 Dawns they'd be better than 10,000 angry Dragonbloods, but you don't. So it still works! quote:The Dawns are the greatest warriors in creation. They fight guys and beat them. A Dawn Caste duelist is and should be exactly as frightening to the powers that be as a Dawn Caste general, or a Zenith Caste demagogue, or Twilight Caste artificer. It'd be absurd to have someone Exalt with a sunburst on their brow and then Chejop Kejak's like "...hmm, looks like he's got Melee 5 War 0 instead of Melee 0 War 5. Great, just dispatch some guys to beat him up." I think that's getting away from your whole 'human effort beats inhuman mutation' thing. Why? Because Leeroy Jenkinsing into a fight is not a human thing to do. We plan, we make allies, we use tools. There are no Dawn Caste duelists, because to be a Dawn you are an unparalleled master of war. Every Dawn is a general, a strategist, a tactician, a drill instructor, a duelist, an archer, and a martial artist. But you know, Sun Zi wouldn't beat a grizzly bear in a fistfight. The thing is, the Dawn's toolbox is way broader than the Lunar killhydra or grizzly-werebear and can force them, should force them, and will (if he's not dumb) force them into fights where his excellence in all aspects of war instead of just face-stabbings overwhelms them. And there are very few dumb Dawns. The dumb ones tend to die from Wyld Hunts very fast, it's like Darwinian evolution in that manner. A mage in oWoD couldn't beat a werewolf in a white room fistfight. The mage is still by far the most powerful splat. (Of course I still reject that Exalted's themes involve "human effort beats inhuman mutation" instead of "the strong do as they wish, the weak suffer as they must").
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Jul 23, 2013 18:55
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Leeroy Jenkins was a human, so there goes that argument. Eventually a Dawn IS an unparalleled master of all combat. That includes both military strategy and bare-knuckles brawling. You keep speakin as though the organizational "macro" abilities are necessarily more important to the Solar aesthetic than the personal scale "micro" abitilities, but it just ain't so - that four out of five Dawn abilities win duels means that in addition to outmaneuvering you a Dawn caste is ALSO going to give you a swirly when you actually engage them personally. The theme you mention in your last line in no way contradicts mine. There's a lot of material in Exalted; I've just been explaining what it means that the Solars are top dog, while you've just explained why (for instance) the Deliberative was monstrous. Incidentally, Liminals really strengthen my reading of the game. Why do we have them? Well, Exalts of natural death help to emphasize that Abyssals are NOT Exalts of death, but rather of the meaning humans invest into death and the terror and fascination death engenders in humans.
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Jul 23, 2013 19:21
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Ferrinus posted:Leeroy Jenkins was a human, so there goes that argument. Yes, but he wasn't acting in accordance to human virtues such as 'foresight'. If you want to read Solars as demonstrating human excellence beats inhuman ability, they should beat their enemies in human ways. This is important. If you assume that human effort beats inhuman mutation, a Dawn beats a Lunar in combat the same way a human beats a monster. By making tools, creating a hunting party (or an army), training them to their peak, and stabbing it to death from a million different directions. Most of the legendary heroes you cite didn't actually defeat the monsters they fought by punching them to death, they beat them with tools, strategy, allies, and planning. If, alternately, you assume that Solars are awesome because gently caress You I'm The Unconquered Sun And I Say They're Awesome That's Why, then they're allowed to be more awesome in single combat than anything else. Because gently caress You That's Why. But simultaneously there's no longer a good reason to keep them that way. quote:The theme you mention in your last line in no way contradicts mine. There's a lot of material in Exalted; I've just been explaining what it means that the Solars are top dog, while you've just explained why (for instance) the Deliberative was monstrous. Except... Solars are top dog because Solars are top dog. That's the point. They can claim it's because they're more human all they want, they're just as inhuman as the rest of the Exalted. They just express it in comparatively more subtle ways. quote:Incidentally, Liminals really strengthen my reading of the game. Why do we have them? Well, Exalts of natural death help to emphasize that Abyssals are NOT Exalts of death, but rather of the meaning humans invest into death and the terror and fascination death engenders in humans. Except that isn't what Abyssals are. The line devs are on record as saying that Abyssals aren't Exalts of death. They're Exalts of killing. It's not "of the meaning humans invest in death", they're the Exalted of killing things instead of the Exalts of 'death'. I don't think your reading is actually supported by anything but the Solars being top dog, and the Solars are the most powerful because they're the most powerful Exalts made by the most powerful god, not because they're human. If it was The Unconquered Moon and his/her husband, Sol, the Lunars would be the most powerful Exalts. Would that make the Exalted thematic "inhuman transcendence beats human frailty"? No, I don't think so. It wouldn't have changed anything, because at its core, Exalted is a game about the tragedy of power and heroism, and that heroism needing to be 'human' is irrelevant. MJ12 fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 19:31
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