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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. As we've said, Best at Everything is not actually what people in favor of solar supremacy usually want. Unless those people are jerks. Those guys you mention, they sound like jerks. What most of us want is for Solars to be the best at what they choose to specialize in and for the list of potential specialties to encompass all twenty five of the abilities on the character sheet. And also sorcery.
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Jul 23, 2013 20:23
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MJ12, you are (and others have been) just plain describing Sidereals. Sidereals are largely weaker than their opponents so hey have to rely on circumstance, contingency, forethought, planning, and thousands of organized spearpoints. Sidereals who act on impulse or bravery are loving dead, so they simply can't charge headlong into a monster's waiting jaws and if you see one try you are watching a last stand. Solars are NOT necessarily planners. The famed warrior Jenkins was not exhibiting the virtue of temperance but WAS exhibiting the virtue of valor. The two-fisted adventurer is as vital a Solar archetype as the civil engineer for both narrative and gameplay reasons. Neither one is failing to exhibit archetypical human excellence. Abyssals as Exalts of murder was a 2e convention that pigeonholed and simplified them, which is why the developers have disavowed it. If you look at the 1e corebook you find a lot more material about poets, heralds of the ancestors, etc than you do about killing Creation. That's just me telling you incidental facts of interest, though. "Killing" IS an expression of mankind's relationship to death.
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Jul 23, 2013 20:28
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Ferrinus posted:Solars are NOT necessarily planners. The famed warrior Jenkins was not exhibiting the virtue of temperance but WAS exhibiting the virtue of valor. The two-fisted adventurer is as vital a Solar archetype as the civil engineer for both narrative and gameplay reasons. Neither one is failing to exhibit archetypical human excellence. It's a poor theme because it's overly applicable, so it ends up washing over everything. A good theme needs to be able to say "no", to restrict as well as support.
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Jul 23, 2013 20:44
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It does restrict, though. It just doesn't restrict what you want. A Solar can't merge with a forest and lash at you with a thousand branches, for instance. What the Solar MO doesn't restrict and in fact expressly supports is: questing. Solars are top tier at updating their journals and the sallying off to check the empty boxes. They beat enemies, unearth secrets, foment revolutions, etc. This is good because they're the default characters in a game of epic fantasy. As the devs have recently said, other Exalts explore narrower themes and imply more specific play experiences. Edit: typos Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 21:00
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I think Human Excellence says 'no' way more than other kinds of power, even. Consider, as has been brought up a bunch of times, that Solars are forced to specialize. If a Solar wants to be the best at Melee, he has to buy more Melee poo poo, which means he's getting better at Melee and nothing else. Lunars get around this problem a couple of ways. Attribute focus is one of those ways, and shapeshifting is another. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see both of those things expanded. I think that if a Lunar is going to defeat a Solar in single combat, he should have to exploit his Attribute magic sufficiently to take a Solar out of his element. Sidereals get around this problem by having some really crazy powerful Charms... but if a Sidereal wants to get better a Melee, he needs to buy Melee, Dodge, and for some reason, Sail. In a white room, using only his specialty, [I think] a Solar should always defeat a precisely equally invested Lunar or Sidereal. I think however most real world engagements involve more nuance than that, something a clever Lunar or resourceful Sidereal could probably exploit to gain victory. A lot of this baggage is also underscored by the extremely unadroit manner that combat skills were handled in 2e. I don't think a Solar should be able to stop a wall of lava with a Daiklaive, for instance, or if he can it ought to be of sufficient cost to express using a Skill in a way it would not normally be used. The Lunar, by contrast, uses Dexterity for both Dodge and Attack, so he has the advantage there. Since he probably has Charms for both occasions. But of course now we're talking about such fine differences in power that it probably won't measure out what with the RNG under the whole system. Which again shows that differences in personal power should probably become more pronounced near the end-game, not in the bulk. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 21:09
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Ferrinus posted:It does restrict, though. It just doesn't restrict what you want. Ferrinus posted:A Solar can't merge with a forest and lash at you with a thousand branches, for instance. Just like all of the 25 Abilities. Thus, in the system you are arguing for, a non-Solar can do all sorts of stuff if and only if that stuff has zero mechanical impact. Ferrinus posted:What the Solar MO doesn't restrict and in fact expressly supports is: questing. Solars are top tier at updating their joirnals and the sallyin off to check the empty boxes. They beat enemies, unearth secrets, foment revolutions, etc. Other splat types will beat enemies and unearth secrets. Again, what you're proposing is over-broad to the point of being meaningless, and that's the current problem with Solars: their thematic mandate is over-broad, and it's bad for the game.
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Jul 23, 2013 21:14
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Mendrian posted:I think Human Excellence says 'no' way more than other kinds of power, even. My entire argument is that things which are represented in the system (specifically things which require Attribute + Ability rolls) overlap with things humans can be excellent at, so this is where you can refute that explicitly. I honestly can't think of a whole lot.
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Jul 23, 2013 21:18
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quote:A Solar can't merge with a forest and lash at you with a thousand branches, for instance. If a Solar's toolkit includes a multitool that can fix any problem that is presented to them, saying, "Yeah, but they don't have a MALLET," doesn't mean anything, because their multitool has a hammer that can do anything a mallet can do and better anyway. They don't need a mallet, the mallet is inferior to their other tools, and so this is not a restriction on them. Edit: A mallet's not a great example because it's a pretty useful tool. Pretend instead of using a mallet to pound in nails, our Lunar gets to use a GIANT SQUID. "The Solar can't use a GIANT SQUID to pound in nails, so their toolbox IS limited!" Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 21:38
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Dodge Charms posted:Talk to me about things that will require an Attribute + Ability roll, thus things which are mechanically represented by the system, but to which Human Excellence says 'no'. My argument is slightly different than Ferrinus though. You're arguing about all Solars.That Solars, in aggregate, could do everything better than everyone else. I'm arguing that an individual Solar is limited by his specialty. It doesn't matter if something falls outside the scope of Attribute+Ability or not. Human ability is defined by, well, Abilities. So Solars who want to use their magic are chained to the use of those Abilities. Lore-Guy is really great at Lore, supreme Lore-ist. Meanwhile, an Intelligence-based Lunar brings a hell of a lot more to the table than a Solar. 2e tried this, but was hamstrung by constantly limiting the power of Lunar Charms any time they got anywhere near Solar level. And also general shittiness. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 21:39
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If Solar Supremacy is a thing to be preserved: What if the Solars just had an edge in terms of potential? Your general Solar charms, essence pools, dice pools, et cetera don't by themselves give you a significant leg up over the other Celestials or even experienced Terrestrials, and the real danger lies in letting Solars climb back up to the height of their power. For an individual Solar, that could mean securing the old Warstrider, raising an army of Gods, learning Sidereal Martial Arts, finding that one Solar Circle Sorcery spell that lets them change everything, becoming Governor-General of a Kingdom, et cetera. The Solars are absolutely terrifying because the last thing anyone remembers of them is them at the height of their power. The Cult of the Illuminated recognizes, though, that the Solars are not yet unrivaled God-Kings and attempts to shepherd them to power in turn for encouraging them to push for the aims of its Gold Faction backers. There are other options and organizations for getting the aid needed to become ascendant, like building up your own kingdom or dojo in the wilderness, or even working for the Guild or one of the Dragonblooded houses secretly. This would have some advantages for mixed-splat games in that you can start out progressing along the same curve, and if the Solars acquire some of those force multipliers that make them the Ultimate God-Kings, you can see just how and where and by how much they're exceeding what other Celestials can do. Then, if you want to keep the party balanced, have some optional and unique ways of other Exalts breaking the normal limits of their type. Maybe to keep up with the returning God-Kings, a Sidereal would need to start delving into Greater Astrology, a Lunar would need to slay a powerful deity in single combat and eat it, and a Dragonblooded would need to subject themselves to brutal purification rituals. Basically, Solars have a huge array of options allowing them to reach the pinnacle of Exalted power and a rare few of the other Celestial Exalts might have the disposition, the desire, and the ability to attain that level of power as well. It also leaves the amount of Solar Supremacy backed into the game as the ST's decision, as whether Solars have more access to the things that take them over the top than the other splats is determined by how available those things are made in the game. They don't even have to be necessarily possible in the setting, just sections written up in each PC splatbook about how those Exalts might one day break the supposed limitations governing their type. poo poo, I imagine it would be quite easy to give any other Exalt type Solar-level evocations, Sorcery, Sidereal Kung Fu, or most things of that nature in addition to those types having their own just-a-rumor-for-now crazy high level options. The other advantage this way of handling things would give, at least for me, is that it would make me more excited to play a Solar because if the character became someone with whom only the scariest of Elders could compete, it would feel more rewarding to have that situation be a result of the quests and actions undertaken in the game to get to that point, not just the XP total on its own. Similarly, it reinforces an interesting version of Solar Supremacy (as opposed to an uninteresting version) in that if another splat is on the level with a Solar who has their poo poo together, you know you are dealing with a truly exceptional example of that sort of Exaltation, one who shits on all the expectations of their capabilities and leaves everyone guessing.
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Jul 23, 2013 21:49
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Heart Attacks posted:This is kind of like saying that the Solar thematic is okay because a Solar can't glow silver instead of gold. The problem is not that Solar methods aren't thematically limited; the problem is that the Solars ability to achieve a goal is always better than everyone else. That's not a problem. See, you've change the language here. Instead of things that Solars can't, like, directly and immediately do (of which there are limitless examples), you want goals Solars can't achieve. This is Exalted, there isn't a goal the Solars can't achieve. That's the point! Edit: It's important to note that there's also, obviously, nothing that other Exalted can't achieve. For instance, the Sidereals and Dragon-Blooded were able to achieve the total overthrow of the Solar Deliberative at the height of its power. But for them it's slower, messier, and more dangerous. Dodge Charms posted:I'd prefer if you responded to my arguments rather than trying to characterize who I am or what I want. But, as you can see, I did respond to your arguments. I just named something that a Solar can't do! But it's not what you want Solars to be unable to do. quote:"Beating enemies" and "unearthing secrets" are things which, so far as I've experienced, every character does in every RPG. MiltonSlavemasta posted:If Solar Supremacy is a thing to be preserved: What if the Solars just had an edge in terms of potential? Your general Solar charms, essence pools, dice pools, et cetera don't by themselves give you a significant leg up over the other Celestials or even experienced Terrestrials, and the real danger lies in letting Solars climb back up to the height of their power. For an individual Solar, that could mean securing the old Warstrider, raising an army of Gods, learning Sidereal Martial Arts, finding that one Solar Circle Sorcery spell that lets them change everything, becoming Governor-General of a Kingdom, et cetera. The Solars are absolutely terrifying because the last thing anyone remembers of them is them at the height of their power. It's lame. It leaches the immediate rhetorical impact of playing a Solar out of the game. When you choose five favored abilities and ten Charms you aren't making someone who's scary because they might one day discover a giant spell or something, you're making someone who is immediately and innately the mightiest and most fearsome of the Chosen. I keep saying: the attitudes displayed in this thread are, themselves, evidence of the amazing dramatic weight that the Solars have thanks to their status as the greatest of the Exalted. Gosh, wouldn't everyone just feel better about the Solars if they weren't personally dangerous but just happened to know the nuclear launch codes or whatever? That'd make them much more palatable, much easier to accept. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 21:59
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Here's what I think Solar versus Lunar combat balance should look like, incidentally: Lunars have the highest native attributes and therefore highest at-will dicepools. They've got the biggest health tracks and a bunch of tools for either undoing the consequences of taking hits or adapting to the negative consequences of taking hits such that those consequences become neutral or even positive. Solars have the highest Excellency-boosted dicepools and a number of ways to mitigate or cancel a hit at the last second, but anything they're actually tagged with sticks. Maybe they can buy down wound penalties or something. In any individual, atomic contest - both people scramble to grab a fallen artifact, one character launches a limited-use special attack, etc. - the Solar can buy themselves the best chance of success. But, each time they do that they're expending essence or other resources, and even winning a couple of critical exchanges only begins to put a dent into the Lunar because now regeneration is kicking in. If the Solar doesn't get lucky enough times in a short enough span, they'll have exhausted themselves against an opponent with literally inhuman stamina and had better hope they've left themselves enough essence/willpower/virtue channels/w.e to get out alive. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 22:06
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Ferrinus posted:MJ12, you are (and others have been) just plain describing Sidereals. Sidereals are largely weaker than their opponents so hey have to rely on circumstance, contingency, forethought, planning, and thousands of organized spearpoints. Sidereals who act on impulse or bravery are loving dead, so they simply can't charge headlong into a monster's waiting jaws and if you see one try you are watching a last stand. And interestingly enough, I'm of the opinion that Sidereals are far more interesting than Solars and are actually better at exhibiting human excellence than Solars, who actually exhibit the theme of gently caress You I'm Right Because I Say So. In fact, their great curse, which is basically the Dunning-Kruger effect writ large, is far more 'human' than the great curse of Solars which is "I randomly go crazy for no reason". quote:Solars are NOT necessarily planners. The famed warrior Jenkins was not exhibiting the virtue of temperance but WAS exhibiting the virtue of valor. The two-fisted adventurer is as vital a Solar archetype as the civil engineer for both narrative and gameplay reasons. Neither one is failing to exhibit archetypical human excellence. Except I'm not talking about the four virtues as in virtues of character sheets. What are the abilities that separate man from beast? The ability to plan. The ability to use tools. The ability to think. Foresight. Hindsight. The ability to learn. If your argument is that Solars represent human excellence, this is how Solars beat a Lunar in this alternate setup. A Solar, unprepared, probably gets eaten, but he can even the odds. Humanity's advantage is that we're not the strongest, fastest, deadliest, or anything-est. But we have the tools and the flexibility to use them all. Note that 'preparation' in this case can be something as simple as "I have a suit of armor and a sword that I begged to borrow from a crippled soldier, invested with the magic of that soldier's determination which I can call on and turn into something powerful enough to change the odds'. Or something. Something that makes them dependent on more than just Glowing Golden gently caress You Power. Right now, you claim Solars are the best because human effort is best, but you emphasize the Total Perfection that is the most inhuman attribute of Solars, coming directly from an inhuman god created to be Perfect with a capital P. quote:Abyssals as Exalts of murder was a 2e convention that pigeonholed and simplified them, which is why the developers have disavowed it. If you look at the 1e corebook you find a lot more material about poets, heralds of the ancestors, etc than you do about killing Creation. That's just me telling you incidental facts of interest, though. "Killing" IS an expression of mankind's relationship to death. Except... it isn't a expression of mankind's relationship to death? Killing is something everything does. Animals do it too, to survive, and sometimes just for fun's sake (cats can be pretty sadistic). It means Abyssals are about the relation between life and death, as partially expressed by the Neverborn, which are things which desperately want to die but cannot. Abyssals themselves all made a choice which symbolizes humanity's relationship to death, yes. But that doesn't make it about human effort beating inhuman mutation anymore than the fact that Infernals make choices that can symbolize humanity's relationship to dehumanizing tools, or Alchemicals being built by men can symbolize humanity's relationship to technology, make Exalted about 'human effort beating inhuman mutation'.
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Jul 23, 2013 22:06
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Meanwhile, in an effort to leave this hopeless, unresolvable tangent behind forever, I will note that the quickstarter adventure has been revealed to be called Tomb of Dreams.
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Jul 23, 2013 22:15
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MJ12 posted:And interestingly enough, I'm of the opinion that Sidereals are far more interesting than Solars and are actually better at exhibiting human excellence than Solars, who actually exhibit the theme of gently caress You I'm Right Because I Say So. In fact, their great curse, which is basically the Dunning-Kruger effect writ large, is far more 'human' than the great curse of Solars which is "I randomly go crazy for no reason". If you think Sidereals are more interesting than Solars, play a Sidereal. That's the entire point of playing a Sidereal - a limited, planning-intensive powerset and extreme personal fragility, such that you can't just leap headlong into danger and instead always approach things sidelong. That's not the human heroic ideal, though, so it doesn't fit Solars. You seem to be confusing a subset of human behavior for all human behavior. There are Solar limit breaks involving blinding arrogance, but there are also Solar limit breaks involving blinding rage or icy sociopathy and those are just as "human" as poor self-evaluation. quote:Right now, you claim Solars are the best because human effort is best, but you emphasize the Total Perfection that is the most inhuman attribute of Solars, coming directly from an inhuman god created to be Perfect with a capital P. So, that isn't true. I don't emphasize the total perfection that is the most inhuman attribute of Solars. It looks like you've been confusing my posts with the posts of people who believe the exact opposite of what I do, perhaps your own? quote:Except... it isn't a expression of mankind's relationship to death? Killing is something everything does. Animals do it too, to survive, and sometimes just for fun's sake (cats can be pretty sadistic). It means Abyssals are about the relation between life and death, as partially expressed by the Neverborn, which are things which desperately want to die but cannot. Abyssals themselves all made a choice which symbolizes humanity's relationship to death, yes. Liminals are about the relationship between life and death (which is, "live naturally gives way to death, and it's a one way trip"). Abyssals glamorize, pervert, and dispense death - they're everything wrong with how we, as people, think about death, all the fantasies we invent about conquering it or reversing it or mastering it.
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Jul 23, 2013 22:17
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Ferrinus posted:That's not a problem. You're mis-representing his point. He's not calling for Solars to not be able to achieve goals, he's calling for Solars to not be able to always achieve goals better than anyone else. You can see that when he states "the problem is that the Solars ability to achieve a goal is always better than everyone else." quote:But, as you can see, I did respond to your arguments. I just named something that a Solar can't do! But it's not what you want Solars to be unable to do. You named something that is meaningless outside of aesthetics. Touting the specialness of a Lunar merging with a forest and lashing you with a thousand branches is meaningless if all that specialness amounts to is still "worse than a Solar's basic capabilities but it looks different" quote:See, you say that, but you can't sustain it. Your own use of the word "meaningless" is, in fact, meaningless - everyone here understands quite clearly what Solars can do and what they are, it's just that some people don't like it. What Solars are/can do is different from what you have proposed, because you propose Solars that tacitly make other splats irrelevant. When you say that the basic RPG elements are within the Solar purview, you ar tacitly denying that those elements are within the purview of other Exalts. quote:Neither has anyone actually shown how it's bad for the game - every example of a poor Lunar's mouse form being trivialized would work equally well with a Sidereal bully rather than a Solar one, for instance. It has been shown how it's bad for the game, but you refuse to even engage with the concept it might be bad, and simply dismiss that concern. No doubt the ardent defenders of Fall mechanics for Paladins would also reject any arguments that Fall mechanics are bad for the game, that hardly makes them good. quote:It's lame. It leaches the immediate rhetorical impact of playing a Solar out of the game. When you choose five favored abilities and ten Charms you aren't making someone who's scary because they might one day discover a giant spell or something, you're making someone who is immediately and innately the mightiest and most fearsome of the Chosen. That is outright false, and not even the line Devs would agree with you on that - see for instance Masters of Jade for the views of mortals in Creation on the various Exalts (and how Solars are not immediately and automatically considered the mightiest and most fearsome of the Exalted Host.)
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Jul 23, 2013 22:17
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Rand Brittain posted:Meanwhile, in an effort to leave this hopeless, unresolvable tangent behind forever, I will note that the quickstarter adventure has been revealed to be called Tomb of Dreams. Hahahaha is it seriously a Tomb of Horrors joke? Awesome. So any other news from the quickstarter front? Great art? Enlightening statements? Charm previews? Mankini Warlocks?
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Jul 23, 2013 22:24
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MJ12 posted:Hahahaha is it seriously a Tomb of Horrors joke? The name also makes me think that it could involve Fair Folk. Not sure how keen on tombs the Fae are though!
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Jul 23, 2013 22:25
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AdjectiveNoun posted:You're mis-representing his point. He's not calling for Solars to not be able to achieve goals, he's calling for Solars to not be able to always achieve goals better than anyone else. You can see that when he states "the problem is that the Solars ability to achieve a goal is always better than everyone else." That's not a problem. quote:You named something that is meaningless outside of aesthetics. Touting the specialness of a Lunar merging with a forest and lashing you with a thousand branches is meaningless if all that specialness amounts to is still "worse than a Solar's basic capabilities but it looks different" I'm not touting the specialness of anything. I'm pointing out that you're just claiming something factually untrue. Attacking an entire forest through the landscape itself is not a trick in the Solar playbook, and nor is dematerializing or teleporting or moving things telekinetically. These tricks have obvious salient advantages when compared to unfailing, superhuman skill + a pinch of solar fire. If you're incapable of distinguishing between the achievement of abstract goals like "win a war" and the actual dynamics of deploying various powers at a roleplaying game table, that's your problem. quote:What Solars are/can do is different from what you have proposed, because you propose Solars that tacitly make other splats irrelevant. When you say that the basic RPG elements are within the Solar purview, you ar tacitly denying that those elements are within the purview of other Exalts. Those are both false. quote:It has been shown how it's bad for the game, but you refuse to even engage with the concept it might be bad, and simply dismiss that concern. No doubt the ardent defenders of Fall mechanics for Paladins would also reject any arguments that Fall mechanics are bad for the game, that hardly makes them good. Where? Where has it been shown? What is the argument? Can you quote it? Is it earlier in your post? All I hear is "that means Solars are better at achieving goals than all the other Exalted!", to which the correct answer is, obviously, "Working as intended." quote:That is outright false, and not even the line Devs would agree with you on that - see for instance Masters of Jade for the views of mortals in Creation on the various Exalts (and how Solars are not immediately and automatically considered the mightiest and most fearsome of the Exalted Host.)
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Jul 23, 2013 22:30
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quote:unfailing, superhuman skill + a pinch of solar fire These are all things that Solars can do. So, let's get back to it: the Solar can turn into a forest and kill you with vines, and it will have a better dicepool to do it, too. They might be demonic vines, but vines nonetheless. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 22:36
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Heart Attacks posted:On the other hand, Solar's "pinch of solar fire" tends to be things like "can rewrite the laws of physics" and "can create new reality wholecloth out of nothing" and yeah, a little bit of "can teach themselves to dematerialize" and also "yep it's part of being a Solar that you can learn to move things telekinetically." Let's not forget that "every Infernal Charm (and also every Yozi Charm, even the ones that Infernals don't get)" and "every Abyssal Charm" is part of the Solar Charmset. Solars don't rewrite the laws of physics or create new reality wholecloth from nothing (they create it from raw Wyld; a Solar in Nexus can't just conjure a building). Eclipse Caste solars aren't going to be able to learn foreign powers except those foreign powers expressly designated as Eclipse Caste learnable. I don't really remember what mechanisms existed to allow Solars to learn Abyssal or Infernal charms without literally becoming one of those two things but I also don't care because I'm pretty sure it was wacky Essence 6+ crap that 3E isn't going to be retreading. So, no. I mean, come on, man. I think "A Solar's sword technique is BETTER than lashing vines!!!" is wrongheaded but it's at least understandable, we don't need to start pretending that all Solars can learn all non-Solar powers.
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Jul 23, 2013 22:41
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I don't think you can cut out game content because "I don't think it will be in 3e, the game that the developers refuse to talk about because they don't trust their fans." 2e is the most recent take on the setting we have, and in 2e, Solars -- any of them -- can learn Yozi Charms and Abyssal Charms. Rewriting the laws of physics is also magic that Solars have. The Salinan Working is one example of just that: a Solar using Solar Charms to rewrite the (meta)physical laws of Creation, permanently, for everyone. Is it stupid? Yes. Did "Solars are the best at everything!!!" result in "Solars can learn all Solar-tier magic, and also rewrite the laws of the universe!" by the end of 2e? Yes, it did. Heart Attacks fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 22:43
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Maybe if Lunars got to be the kings of the Wyld, Sidereels kings(not literal) of Heaven, and Solars king of Creation? They get thematic "help" from their respective area. Edit: One thing that bothered me in 2E was how it was the Solars that hosed around with the Wyld in the First Age, while the Lunars, who get access to the powers of the Fae World, Just sat about loving dogs or being the furry window dressings. In the ideal, I seems like ruling over boundaries of the Wyldshould have at least required the input of the splat whose whole schtick was "Like the Fae, but not". Edit x 2: If they are removing the Chimera concept from 2E, it would also be nice if Lunars were able to go Alex Mercer on Solars (if need be). Being able to spontaneous generate a wide variety of weaponry would suit the "generalist" aspect and would hopefully cover the "specialist" Solars. Last Edit: Thinking about it in terms of "Kings of..." it would kinda be nice to Lunars having the ability to "corrupt" or alter the "Perfection" of the Solars, as befits the ability to draw on pure Chaos. Sorta like being able to import some Wyld to counter-act Solars. It makes sense from the sense of the Trickster Gods who force the hero to go about their plans in different ways, while not being directly antagonistic. It's probably obvious by now that I'm kinda fond of Lunars... Luna as written in fluff is such an interesting character, shame her chosen can't match her. PrinceRandom fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 22:49
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2e is dumb as hell, man, and I completely agree that something like "The Salinian Working" has no business being a Solar charm - it should be a Solar campaign. Back when Exalted devs were still posting here I'd wheedle at them every so often to try to figure out what they did see as the maximum scope/ridiculousness of playable Solar power, since they've said they're going to chop off the whole Essence 6+ ExaltedExalted thing and focus things on the Essence 1-5 spectrum that actual player characters live. So, I'm actually really curious as to what kind of absurdity a Solar using nothing but the clothes on their back, the tool or weapon in their hands, and a single turn of action is supposed to be able to do. Personally, I don't think they should be able to fell an army in a single swipe, stomp the ground so hard a city crumbles, etc. I think that if an Essence 5 Wood Aspect animates an entire forest and has that entire forest start lashing out at the army moving through the forest, that should actually be a more immediately effective way to fight an army than, like, picking up a sword and chopping down soldiers one at a time like a Solar would - I don't want to see some kind of "blur into a streak of anime, one combat round later ten thousand men are dead" thing. Maybe if the ten thousand men were dead at the end of a hard day's work of backbreaking labor. I don't think we're going to see something like that because the devs have said they're tightening and reining in the personal power scale, but it could be that they renege on that or just have something wildly different in mind than I do. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 22:53
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Ferrinus, I think we attach different weights to the dramatic impact of Solars returning/being a Solar and mechanics facilitating balanced mixed-splat play. I don't think we will reach an understanding on this issue, but your example of a Solar/Lunar fight is basically what I'd like to see, versus the common 2e event of "Lunar wastes all motes trying to hit Solar, Solar perfects a couple times, Lunar dies." Heart Attacks posted:
Solars in 3e shouldn't have access to Infernal Charms or Abyssal Charms and shouldn't have dematerialization or telekinesis without sorcery. I know they had these things in 2e, but as far as I understand it, the developers think that level of charm-sharing is bullshit. I tend to agree with them. Separate from the whole "mightiest of the Exalted" debate, any charm-sharing stuff should be highly limited to prevent making other splats redundant. Ferrinus posted:Personally, I don't think they should be able to fell an army in a single swipe, stomp the ground so hard a city crumbles, etc. I think that if an Essence 5 Wood Aspect animates an entire forest and has that entire forest start lashing out at the army moving through the forest, that should actually be a more immediately effective way to fight an army than, like, picking up a sword and chopping down soldiers one at a time like a Solar would - I don't want to see some kind of "blur into a streak of anime, one combat round later ten thousand men are dead" thing. Maybe if the ten thousand men were dead at the end of a hard day's work of backbreaking labor. I agree with this.
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Jul 23, 2013 22:54
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Ferrinus posted:It's lame. It leaches the immediate rhetorical impact of playing a Solar out of the game. When you choose five favored abilities and ten Charms you aren't making someone who's scary because they might one day discover a giant spell or something, you're making someone who is immediately and innately the mightiest and most fearsome of the Chosen. This is where you lose me. I think Milton's idea is outstanding and thematically appropriate. I also find the attempt to psychoanalyze people in the thread to be rather off the wall. Game balance between classes/character types is always a hot topic and I doubt it's ever rooted in fear of imaginary Demi-Gods.
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Jul 23, 2013 22:59
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Ferrinus posted:Personally, I don't think they should be able to fell an army in a single swipe, stomp the ground so hard a city crumbles, etc. I think that if an Essence 5 Wood Aspect animates an entire forest and has that entire forest start lashing out at the army moving through the forest, that should actually be a more immediately effective way to fight an army than, like, picking up a sword and chopping down soldiers one at a time like a Solar would - I don't want to see some kind of "blur into a streak of anime, one combat round later ten thousand men are dead" thing. Maybe if the ten thousand men were dead at the end of a hard day's work of backbreaking labor. That would be ideal. That is what would be excellent. The approach that the Exalted developers have taken in the past, though, has been to look at that Charm and say, "Well, if a Dragonblood can kill an army in two rounds, then a Solar should be able to do it one," even if the method they come up with to do that is to give Solars a Charm that says, "You attack everyone in a five-mile radius in one second."
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Jul 23, 2013 23:02
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Bosushi! posted:This is where you lose me. I think Milton's idea is outstanding and thematically appropriate. 
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Jul 23, 2013 23:04
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Heart Attacks posted:That would be ideal. That is what would be excellent. The approach that the Exalted developers have taken in the past, though, has been to look at that Charm and say, "Well, if a Dragonblood can kill an army in two rounds, then a Solar should be able to do it one," even if the method they come up with to do that is to give Solars a Charm that says, "You attack everyone in a five-mile radius in one second." Yeah, that stuff's dumb. Even if the other Exalted didn't exist, it's bad for the Solars themselves - what the hell's the point of becoming a Solar circle sorcerer and finally learning Total Annihilation if you could've just destroyed everything in line of sight anyway by casting Even More Blazing Solar Bolt (Essence 5 version)?
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Jul 23, 2013 23:06
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I don't know man. But I try to keep in mind that these are the things that the new devs have given us (Sharp Light of Judgment Stance, or "Attack everyone within 300 feet of you every tick for as long as you spam motes", for example, is one of the "completely replace an old Charm with this new one" errata), and I don't give much weight to them when they say they are or are not going to do something until they actually do it because what they say they'll do and what they actually don't always match up very well. I think you hit on the point, though: People who want an end to Solars Always Win want it to matter when a Lunar turns into a behemoth that can fall on top of your army and crush everyone in it; they don't want it to be a thematic reskin of a Solar Charm, except with less dice, as has been the case in so much of 2e.
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Jul 23, 2013 23:12
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Ferrinus posted:It's lame. It leaches the immediate rhetorical impact of playing a Solar out of the game. When you choose five favored abilities and ten Charms you aren't making someone who's scary because they might one day discover a giant spell or something, you're making someone who is immediately and innately the mightiest and most fearsome of the Chosen. Having a significant edge over equal-XP opponents does not make you immediately and innately the mightiest and most fearsome of the Chosen. Levelling the power curve so that your starting E2 Solar Circle can take on the tyrants that are slowly choking Creation would do that, and that would be a pretty poor story. A good story is about the journey to get what you want, and how you change and grow throughout it. Solars do not need to be the unquestioned top dog at every step of that journey for the world to quake when the Jade Prison is ruptured.
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Jul 23, 2013 23:20
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Bosushi! posted:This is where you lose me. I think Milton's idea is outstanding and thematically appropriate. It's often rooted in the fear of being outdone or defeated, though. I can say this with confidence because, as anyone who's played roleplaying games with me will tell you, I myself am incredibly wienery about game balance, inter-player parity, trap options, etc etc. I have to restrain myself not to crank out balance house rules and, for example, am probably going to implement an XP-conserving chargen system in Exalted 3E the very minute the book comes out. Making Solars share the Sidereal problem, i.e. making them planners and tool-users who are only really powerful when they've got a master plan coming together, or making Solar potential a completely descriptive/story-driven thing (i.e. they're not more powerful from moment to moment but only they can make a factory cathedral turn on), is a means of defanging and normalizing Solars. It's a compromise - okay, you guys are allowed to be the mightiest Exalted in theory, just never in my presence or during actual gameplay because I find it kind of offensive. But, it's a really important thing that the returning Solars are The New poo poo from the word go, not eventually or when they've amassed some followers or when they've crafted up some artifacts. The famous opening fiction from Exalted 1e features a Solar with nothing but the clothes on her back engage two trained, experienced, and artifact-equipped Dragon-Blooded and kill one of them dead right before the other gives up and flees. Sure, she was fleeing first, and had to take pains to separate the Terrestrials from their squad of mortal soldiers and lead them into some hungry ghosts to tire them out a bit, but it was Solar Nessus posted:Yeah, I'm not 'afraid' of Solars, at most I'd say 'I want the game out of the box to permit Lunars et al. to be about even with the Solars.' FWIW the outlines you present are pretty awesome, Ferrinus, even if I'd derive THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE lesson from half of them. For you see, the Solar acts with determination, but the Lunar... is determination I'm a big WoD fan and if I had my way Lunar powers would look a lot like the kind of powers WoD PCs tend to pick up - stupid long health bars, rapid regeneration, stone-crushing strength, hypnotic gazes, auras of terror, echolocation or heat vision, etc. Attribute magic has looked way too much like Ability magic in the past, which of course meant that tons of Lunar powers were just Solar powers -2 or whatever. IMO, losing to a Lunar should feel very, for lack of a better word, "realistic" - look at how big that thing is! It's using a tree trunk as a club! Arrowheads are just pushing their way back out of its flesh! What the hell were we expecting?! Lymond posted:Having a significant edge over equal-XP opponents does not make you immediately and innately the mightiest and most fearsome of the Chosen. I think you're underestimating the rhetorical weight of intrinsic and tangible game-mechanical edges. Being able to buy 10 dice with an Excellency rather than 5 - even if the other guy actually, at the moment, has more Ability dots and a higher Essence score and so on - says a lot about who the Solars are and what they mean for the world. When I'm working on designing or house ruling a game I'm absolutely ruthless about paring down, shaving away, and normalizing that stuff for any characters or character types that are supposed to be on even ground - so putting that stuff in deliberately is a powerful way to send the opposite message. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 23:28
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Ferrinus posted:That's not a problem. Yes, we know it's not a problem for you, but do you understand why it's a problem for the people that are arguing this with you? If not, there's really no point in this conversation continuing. I'm not going to address the rest of your post until we get this clear, because if the opinions and arguments of other people are just going to be met responses like this from you, there's no reason to keep wasting time conversing about it.
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Jul 23, 2013 23:31
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Ferrinus posted:IMO, losing to a Lunar should feel very, for lack of a better word, "realistic" - look at how big that thing is! It's using a tree trunk as a club! Arrowheads are just pushing their way back out of its flesh! What the hell were we expecting?!
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Jul 23, 2013 23:39
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Considering Lunars have never been able to really have a thematic core of their own, and have been mechanical messes for multiple editions with no clear way out of that trap in sight, why not just not have them as a playable splat? There are too many splats already when it comes to achieving any sort of meaningful balance between them and Lunars are thematically the weakest. If Lunars only work as solar companions then make them exclusively NPCs rather than trying to shoehorn a full splat out of an idea that doesn't have the capacity for it?
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Jul 23, 2013 23:43
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Valhawk posted:Considering Lunars have never been able to really have a thematic core of their own, and have been mechanical messes for multiple editions with no clear way out of that trap in sight, why not just not have them as a playable splat? There are too many splats already when it comes to achieving any sort of meaningful balance between them and Lunars are thematically the weakest. If Lunars only work as solar companions then make them exclusively NPCs rather than trying to shoehorn a full splat out of an idea that doesn't have the capacity for it? I think the problem with Lunars is that they have a theme which is harder to nail down than 'weird fate poo poo' or 'element magic.' Almost as if it were fluid and protean. 2E, while it has been criticized with valid grounds, made Lunars way, way better than the "uhh... barbarians... uh... you liked Werewolf, right??" of 1E. I at least find Lunars more compelling conceptually than Sidereals or Alchemicals, I just don't post screeds about 'em on the White Wolf forums.
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Jul 23, 2013 23:47
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I definitely like Lunars as super/in/trans/post-human monsters better than I like Lunars as illusionists or Lunars as specifically shapeshifters. One of the devs once broke the Exalted host down into "leader, soldier, seer, and werewolf", which I take as a good sign.AdjectiveNoun posted:Yes, we know it's not a problem for you, but do you understand why it's a problem for the people that are arguing this with you? If not, there's really no point in this conversation continuing. Well, I think a lot more people are on the same page at this point in the discussion rather than yesterday, so there are two senses in which it might be read as a problem, one which I agree with and one which I don't: (For clarity's sake, "it" here refers to "that the Solars ability to achieve a goal is always better than everyone else.") 1. When the "goal" being achieved is an immediate, cinematic action with immediate cinematic consequences, a lot of 2E's late design + a lot of rhetoric in the online Exalted community has tended to assume that there's literally no atomic physical effect that a non-Solar can outdo a Solar in. I.e., a sunlight kamehameha always beats an elemental bolt attack, a Lunar entering kaiju form to crush an entire army does worse than a Solar who just zips back and forth slashing madly, etc. I think that stuff's dumb, and that infinite Hulk-like strength, instant Flash-like footspeed, etc, really undercuts what the splat's about. "Strike everything in a five mile radius with your sword simultaneously" is a fun theoretical exercise about Essence 7 or something stupid like that, but shouldn't be a real, serious game concept. It turns Solars into a joke or a theological argument ("yes, of course a Solar can draw a square circle, using the rock they made that's too heavy for them to lift as their stylus") rather than a setting element. 2. When the "goal" being achieved is quest log abstraction approachable in a variety of ways, like defeating an enemy in combat or retrieving a fabled treasure, Solars should have a better way to achieve that goal than anyone else, since that's their schtick. Obviously, the salient qualities of non-Solar magic might actually mean that non-Solars do better in certain circumstances than Solars (suppose you want to assassinate one of the gods in Yu-Shan, or dive down into the lightless depths to capture a giant squid), but in the classic action RPG activities of fighting, leading, investigating, etc. Solars rightly come out on top. It's important to preserving the dynamic of both Solar and non-Solar games. I don't think people who see this as a problem really have a good argument for why it is one, and as I've written I think proper charm design can leave this setting element in place while making mixed games interesting rather than frustrating.
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Jul 23, 2013 23:53
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Valhawk posted:Considering Lunars have never been able to really have a thematic core of their own, and have been mechanical messes for multiple editions with no clear way out of that trap in sight, why not just not have them as a playable splat? There are too many splats already when it comes to achieving any sort of meaningful balance between them and Lunars are thematically the weakest. If Lunars only work as solar companions then make them exclusively NPCs rather than trying to shoehorn a full splat out of an idea that doesn't have the capacity for it? There's plenty of thematic material for Lunars, the problem there lies in the developers not exploring any beyond "vaguely Shamanistic shapeshifting", "Barbarians" and the cringiest possible interpretation of "Solar Soulmates". There's plenty of potential with the Moon, Tricksters, Outsiders, etc. that has been referenced in past White Wolf works but not given a decent focus.
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Jul 23, 2013 23:54
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Ferrinus posted:When the "goal" being achieved is quest log abstraction approachable in a variety of ways, like defeating an enemy in combat or retrieving a fabled treasure, Solars should have a better way to achieve that goal than anyone else, since that's their schtick. Obviously, the salient qualities of non-Solar magic might actually mean that non-Solars do better in certain circumstances than Solars (suppose you want to assassinate one of the gods in Yu-Shan, or dive down into the lightless depths to capture a giant squid), but in the classic action RPG activities of fighting, leading, investigating, etc. Solars rightly come out on top. It's important to preserving the dynamic of both Solar and non-Solar games. I don't think people who see this as a problem really have a good argument for why it is one, and as I've written I think proper charm design can leave this setting element in place while making mixed games interesting rather than frustrating. Okay. I'm not sure I can convince you or you can convince me, but my problems with this are (all in my opinion, of course): 1: It is boring and unexciting for one Exalt type to have "Is just better" as their schtick. 2: It is boring and unexciting for anyone playing another Exalt type to be flat out /worse/, even if their ability is dressed up with a thematic aesthetic whilst being worse. 3: A good dynamic can be preserved without Solars having the "Is just better" at everything schtick - I would argue that the dynamic is enhanced by this. To be constructive, things I would suggest (obviously would have to be houseruled/hacked at this point, I doubt the Devs are going to make these changes for 3E): 1: Solars having a theme that rewards excellence but not by default - perhaps something based on Virtues, as MiltonSlavemasta and A Raving Loon suggested, as that would be justifiable in-setting since the Unconquered Sun is defined by his virtues more than any other being; allow for Solars to excel at things but not automatically; and provide a nice (and undeniably Human) theme for them. 2: non-Solar Exalts have ways to achieve what Solars can but which require more complicated and/or "consequential" (as in the Apocalypse World-style "you can do this, but as a result [x] happens") means - they're not automatically as good as Solars, but neither are they doomed to second-fiddle status outside of niches. Do either of these suggestions sound even remotely agreeable to you?
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Jul 24, 2013 00:11
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Ferrinus posted:1. When the "goal" being achieved is an immediate, cinematic action with immediate cinematic consequences, a lot of 2E's late design + a lot of rhetoric in the online Exalted community has tended to assume that there's literally no atomic physical effect that a non-Solar can outdo a Solar in. I.e., a sunlight kamehameha always beats an elemental bolt attack, a Lunar entering kaiju form to crush an entire army does worse than a Solar who just zips back and forth slashing madly, etc. Thank you for this side of the clarification. Rejecting that stuff is the main reason behind a lot of people who want Solars reigned back and put in a place. It get traced back to the stuff about excellence and supremacy, and some decide that means that it needs to change. Something which, to you, is evidently throwing out babies with bathwater. Getting it out of the way does a lot for this discussion. Can you see how someone would associate it with you when you go on about how the Human must and will always trump the inhuman? Or when you balk at people saying that a character in this game should start out small (for a superhuman) and work their way up the ladder? Or when you say that for any given goal one type can always achieve it better than all the rest? Stupid moves like those are a direct consequence of this line of thought.
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Jul 24, 2013 00:25
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