|
The idea that there will still be big setting-threatening bads is fine, as long as the timetables are moved back. In 2e, the world was going to end in about a week if the PCs weren't everywhere at once. From what it sounds like, the Big Threats from 2e are still largely there, but are much more long-term or spread out. Yes, unopposed the Deathlords will eventually destroy Creation or Malfeas might break free or the Fair Folk could consume reality, but that's all a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years off. In the mean time, there are the political and military machinations of the underworld, spreading secretive demon cults, nibbling raids at the borders of the Wyld and a thousand other localized issues to deal with. The world will not end if Mask of Winters is allowed to establish a spy network in the Golden Mountain Principality, but some people you care about will get hurt so you'll still try to stop him. Even among heroes, it's hard to care about Saving The World (from a doom three hundred years in the future), but it's easy to care about protecting your home from the fae, or taking revenge against the death cult that killed your husband, or keeping your favorite nephew safe.
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2014 19:50
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 22:16 |
|
|
If the stunts haven't changed much since the leak, all stunts give a flat +2 dice, while higher levels also give successes. I plan to have people roll first with the plus 2 dice, then stunt based on the result and apply the automatic successes after. If you're going to fail either way, you can stunt your failure. If you succeed, you stunt your success and try to get more threshold successes. If you're only 1 or 2 away, you stunt your heroic attempt to turn failure into success and hope you get a good enough stunt to win. Also, this way people can know how many dice to roll before the stunt, and the next person can set up their action while the first person is stunting. Of course it assumes everyone will get at least a 1 die stunt, but I hope that's not an unreasonable expectation
|
|
#
¿
Dec 28, 2014 19:35
|
|
|
LatwPIAT posted:Obvious problems:
|
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2014 08:08
|
|
|
Fans posted:I haven't dipped into the rules, what exactly does War do now? Okay, I'll start with the new "mass combat" system, now called Battle Groups. A Battle Group is a collection of near-identical, usually minor, enemies. In addition to the base stats of the average soldier in the group, they have Size, Magnitude, Drill and Might. Size is a 1-5 scale of how many dudes there are, with 5 being around 1000. You add your Size to Magnitude, Attack, Damage and Soak Magnitude is your health track. It starts at the average health of the people in the group (almost always 10) and adds current Size. When magnitude reaches 0, the battle group makes a morale check (willpower). If it fails, they run away. If it succeeds, they lose a point of Size and their magnitude resets. Drill is their training. It provides a modifier to Defense and to any orders they are issued. Might is the measure of magical power behind a unit, whether its innate powers (a unit of demons) or thaumaturgical blessing or whatever. It provides bonuses to accuracy damage and defense. Attacks against battle groups don't damage initiative. Instead, any withering damage a battle group would take is applied directly to their magnitude, and doesn't give you any initiative. Battle groups only launch withering attacks, but don't steal initiative from them. Instead, once their target is reduced to 0 initiative, any remaining damage applies to their health levels. Now for War. There are four big things you can do with War, with regards to battle groups: First, you can issue orders. This is an (Intelligence, Charisma or Appearance)+War check, and boosts the battle group's next action by your successes. Second, you can Rally. If a Battle Group fails a morale check, you can roll Rally and let them treat the roll as passed. Third, you can Rally for Numbers, which directly heals magnitude damage (but not Size loss) for 1 point per 2 successes. Finally (and the coolest) is Strategic Warfare. Before the battle starts, each Strategist (usually but not always the military leader) picks a stratagem from a list and rolls Int+War+A bunch of modifiers. Whoever wins the rolls gets to pull off their sneaky maneuver, as long as they win by enough. This includes stuff like ambushes, forcing your enemy to attack your fortifications, pincer maneuvers etc. While there are only six in the book, it's pretty easy to come up with more if you have cool ideas. War charms mostly modify one of those four actions, but can also train your troops to increase their stats (Tiger Warrior Training boosts Drill, for instance). While War is one of the smallest trees, it's mostly free of boring roll-tweaking charms (I counted two, but one of them lets you steal your enemy's running soldiers, so it gets a pass from me)
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2015 17:21
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:And I'd be legitimately curious to see the breakdown of how many of these let you do new things, and how many of them are just straight up +dice/+successes/+rerolls or something of the sort(albeit sometimes probably conditional). I'm going through and tallying up some quick numbers for this. I'm splitting charms into three categories: dice (including dice bonuses, rerolls, double-X, difficulty modifiers etc), mixed (adds significant bonuses to your roll while also allowing some small or added on new power), and new (entirely new ability that was either impossible or difficult before). Here's what I have so far: Dice/Mixed/New Archery 4/5/17 Athletics 12/2/17 Awareness 11/3/8 Brawl 12/11/24 Bureaucracy 5/3/18 Craft 14/2/38 (nearly all of the dice charms come from the Power tree here, although a lot of the other ones manipulate crafting XP and aren't all that exciting)
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2015 20:36
|
|
|
So, why does Martial Arts require you to take a 4-dot merit? Martial Arts don't seem to be more powerful than native solar charms, and the separate-ability buy in already limits people picking it up on a whim. Four merit dots could get you a Terrestrial Alfred, or a thousand elite soldiers, or a nation-wide cult honoring you, or lets you be the Not-Evil Vizier or a powerful nation. I mean, Evocations require you to take a 3-4 dot merit (artifact) too, but you don't ALSO have to buy up an ability just to use them. I'm just not seeing how it's worth it.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2015 05:48
|
|
|
I've never really liked the idea that only two eclipses have happened in the past two thousand years or so. It means that most people in Creation would have NO IDEA what an eclipse even is. Sure, most of them saw the one a few years back when the Jade Prison broke, but they'd probably just think it was a one-off weird event that doesn't have a specific name. So while every other caste has some sort of evocative image from their caste name that the people of Creation would understand, Eclipses don't get that, making the potentially cool scene where they rediscover the actual name of their caste a lot less epic. Dawn: "Ah, I am a Dawn! I drive back the night and bring the light of the sun to the world!" Zenith: "I am a Zenith! I embody the height of the sun's power, the unassailable bastion of right and glory!" Twilight: "I am a Twilight! I am the line between day and night, the walker between worlds and the last defense against darkness!" Night: "I am a Night! I go forth into the lands of evil and remind them that even darkness is no barrier to light!" Eclipse: "I am an Eclipse! That's... cool I guess?"
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2015 18:00
|
|
|
The Essence 7 NPC listed in the book is Ahlat, Southern God of War and Cattle. He is one of the most powerful gods in the setting, and his Essence and charms reflect this. However, his charms are notably NOT "yours but higher numbers", they are pretty unique Ahlat-Trick Stuff. His base die pools are about the same as a combat Solar's, and his excellency cap is 10 at best (which is also the same as a combat solar). He has quite a few charms that allows him specifically to be a threat to a group of slightly-weaker enemies. He's also got the ability to bless a warrior or army with his divine power. He's basically perfectly set up to either be a Boss Fight for a group of mid-level Solars, an epic duel for a single high-power Solar, or as a mentor/ally for the PC Circle. Other than having an Essence of 7, what do you actually object to about him? What about his stats, charms or story role is problematic for the game, or forces things to escalate?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2015 22:11
|
|
|
I house ruled XP to be static and just gave everyone 50xp instead of 15BP. It gives starting characters more to work with (a personal preference rather than a wider suggestion), and is slightly more work, but I like the granularity of xp more then bp. Still, basically the same I also house ruled that Strength can be used for attack accuracy and that you get two Supernal abilities (giving +2 essence rather than setting it to 5), only one of which must be Caste. I'm setting my game around the Dreaming Sea, and I've been writing up a lot more detail for the region. Here's some of the mechanics, merits, artifacts etc. I've written if anyone has any feedback YSYR Sorcerous Archetype: Sorcerer-King of Ysyr You were born and trained on Ysyr, gifted with the power of sorcery and welcomed into their ranks as a Sorcerer-King. Your body is perfectly formed, you may command legions of slaves and lesser thaumaturges according to your whims, and you cloak yourself in Wyld energies. Few may place themselves above you, for your blood is Sorcery itself. Shaping Rituals: *Your fingernails are painted with a Wyld-born solution, one for every spell you have mastered, to a maximum of ten. Each fingernail painted in this way grants you a single sorcerous mote per day that can be applied to any spell. Motes applied to your control spell refresh at the end of the scene rather than the day. *Your slaves worship you alone, granting you exceptional magical power. You may add your Cult rating to all shape sorcery rolls. The first time you cast your control spell per scene, you add your Cult rating in successes rather than dice. *You have made a pact with the Fair Folk for greater power. Once per scene you may consume one of your Intimacies, gaining sorcerous motes equal to its rating, but reducing its rating by one step. Intimacies weakened in this way recover at a rate of one step per week. Casting your control spell does not count against the once per scene limit Other Benefits Perfect Body (Merit ****) Your body is shaped by sorcery, perfect in every way. You gain two successes on all rolls to resist disease and poison, and your Appearance is treated as one higher when comparing against Resolve. Finally, you become immune to Wyld mutation. The Lesser Fuel (Merit ****) You have learned how to divert the cost of Sorcerous Workings onto your lessers. By sacrificing sentient beings and draining their power, you can reduce the xp cost of Workings. For every 50 being sacrificed, you may reduce the xp cost by 1. Each circle above Terrestrial doubles the required number. PRASAD Prasadi Code (Merit **) You display your emotions and station through your clothing in a complex color-language unique to Prasad. Increase your Guile by 1 against anyone without this merit, but decrease your Guile by 1 against those who have it. Line of the Founders (Merit ***) Your connection to the Founders is stronger than most, granting you social standing and value in Prasad. You gain a bonus die on all social influence rolls against Prasadi and you are perceived as being higher status. You are considered a good catch for marriage prospects, and a solid foundation for an alliance. Dragon Helm (Artifact ***) The twenty Dragon Helms of Prasad are iconic artifacts forged nearly four hundred years ago by the great crafter Ophris Julianus, last of his line. They are each attuned to one of the elemental Aspects, and are carved to resemble the Immaculate Dragon associated with each. When attuned for 5m, each helm has the following two abilities, as well as a set of evocations tied to its element: *The anima flux of the wearer either doubles in radius, or doubles in damage. Switching between these is a reflexive action that can be performed once per turn. *The bearer can consume three levels of Anima to launch a decisive attack out to short range, with an attack pool equal to (Perception + [Thrown or Awareness]) and a base damage of Essence + Initiative. VOLIVAT Ancestor’s Bulwark (Artifact ***) This artifact shield is a medium artifact weapon forged from bronze and blessed by the last breath of an ancestor spirit before it passes to lethe, and frequently bears some mark or image of that ancestor. It has the tags “Bashing, Shield, Thrown(Short), Melee”. As long as the bearer wears no armor, they gain Hardness equal to their current Initiative, to a maximum of 7 (5 outside of combat, or in other situations where they have no initiative score). As usual, this does not stack with other sources of Hardness, and does not function during initiative crash. Evocations from this artifact tend to focus on fighting alone, impressive displays of strength, or drawing on the strength of one’s ancestors.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2015 18:56
|
|
|
So, Saga Beast Virtue gives your familiar (Essence) mutations, chosen upon purchase of the charm. The question is, does this let you take (Essence) DOTS of mutations, or (Essence) mutations at any rating you like? Full five-dot mutations per essence seems a bit much for a single charm, since +3 soak as a permanent upgrade is another charm you can buy while a 5-dot mutation gives +5 soak, but a handful of mutation dots seem too weak for a Solar charm. Any idea which it's supposed to be? Dots or Mutations?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2015 20:55
|
|
|
I'm going to just use these animal statblocks as "Familiar-Quality Animal", and cut everything in half for random wild beasts edit: Beaten like a soldier fighting an eagle
|
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2015 22:58
|
|
|
Have them roll immediately after stunting with a 2 die bonus, because you get that no matter what level of stunt it is. When you finish reading the stunt and decide, you can retroactively give the bonus successes for a 2 or 3 die stunt if needed
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2015 17:02
|
|
|
So, I've been running an Exalted game for the past few weeks now and thought I'd share a few things I've found from Actual Play Artifacts: Evocations are really fun, and I love them 5-dot artifacts are worse than 4-dot ones, because they have way too many Evocations so it takes too many charm buys to get to the cool stuff you wanted. Sure, they can do more cool stuff but you have a finite number of charms to play around with. Better to get a 3 or 4 dot artifact focused on the one or two things you really want it to do rather than a 5 dot which can do ten things but you only really want one or two. I am seriously addicted to writing up Evocation trees. Send Help. Combat: Get some sort of combat tracker, or else you will lose track of whose turn it is when initiative starts hopping around everywhere. I ended up coding my own after one combat Join Battle pools are very powerful, but not big enough for a huge alpha strike to become easy. Never forget the +3 successes everyone gets. Onslaught is nasty, but managing enemy initiative pools means people tend to pair off in combat rather than ganging up one at a time Social Influence: It is way easier to boost "attack" rolls than "defense" I like how intimacies provide a hard cap on what you can get people to do. It stops social influence from being a Mind Control button, and gives players incentives to actually find out and care about npc motivations Crafting: Too many craft skills, but several craft charms get stronger based on how many you have. Definitely need to find a good house rule for this Craft-XP counting minigame... gah, still not sure how I feel about this. Makes people feel more like actual crafters, but also stops some good ideas when they realize they don't have the silver xp to do a major project right now WAY too many craft charms that are all handy but not impressive. Supernal Craft + 10 charm buy-in at chargen or go home. Only exception to this is if you take CNNT and just just crafting as a sort of flavor extra Sorcery: Sorcerous workings are actually really neat and play out well in practice. I find it's good to be lenient with the XP cost, if the working won't actually affect the game much but is still cool (like enchanting their home. Yeah, it's technically a benefit but I don't want to discourage sorcerers from having strange partially-alive abodes) Combat sorcery isn't all that good, but provides a cheap way for non-combat mental characters to participate in combat. Death of Obsidian Butterflies is mediocre on its own, but can destroy Battle Groups once a combat character weakens them. Provides some nice teamwork effects. Technically have a martial artist in the group, but he's not really a combat focused character so I can't say much about how they work out
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2015 16:26
|
|
|
The fluid combat initiative is a bad part of the system. The rest of combat is actually quite fun, but the fluid initiative stands out as "I see what you're trying to do, but you REALLY need to find a better way". In the end, Exalted 3e is fun despite its flaws, not because of them. Perfect? Not by a very long shot. Fun? Certainly.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2015 15:55
|
|
|
Crion posted:There are no situations in Exalted where you need a computer to "help you do math." The only math involved in tracking initiative is basic addition and subtraction. What an initiative tracker helps you do is track a sequence for ease of reference. I've been in a couple 3E combats with an IRC group and we got by just fine with the ST posting the updated init list in our OOC channel as it changed. One imagines a whiteboard would be sufficient for a tabletop group. Yeah, this is much closer to the reality than what I posted earlier. The math itself is very simple and I imagine that you quickly get used to tracking the fluid initiative. I only wrote the script because "Write a script to track it for me" is my first-choice fallback whenever something is fiddly, it's absolutely possible for people to just do it themselves. Didn't mean to say/imply "you must have computer or everything will end in disaster"
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2015 17:09
|
|
|
Transient People posted:Fivefold Fury Onslaught + Ferocious Jab? That's it, really. If there's some rule interaction I missed that doesn't make it work the way I think it does, go ahead and point it out. Turn in turn out, so I assume you're using this combo at init 1-6. So using the charm is 11m 1wp, plus any excellencies you use to enhance your attack. Strength or Stamina 5 gives you 6 attacks, so base damage of 1+2+3+4+5+6=21, and you're probably getting 1-2 10s per roll. Call it 1.5, so add another 7.5 damage on top. 28.5 damage dice per round at 0 initiative if you've maxed out strength or stamina and every attack hits. Unfortunately, in order to make the attacks hit you're spending all of your motes, and you better hope they don't have any onslaught negators or else your combo suddenly does 13.5 (still respectable, but probably not worth your entire mote pool). So the combo does mostly what you say, except you can't really use it over and over and expect any sort of decent results. So basically a supernal brawl combat character (5 charm investment for that combo, plus you're going to need Dex and Str/Sta of 5) can, once or twice per combat, inflict a lot of damage against enemies without some of the most basic defensive charms (penalty negators to defense values). Certainly powerful, especially against spirits and other specialized or nonmagical enemies, but hardly going to break the game.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2015 22:55
|
|
|
As long as the difficulty is greater than 1, higher skill is still a higher chance to succeed. It would be strange that your skill makes no difference on the most basic of tasks though.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2015 22:03
|
|
|
code:Side is Attribute+Attribute Assuming Exalted TNs and 1-5 stats It's not a terrible system, and I don't see any obviously counterintuitive differences, but I don't know that it's actually better than just normal Attribute+ability. It's also harder to intuitively calculate probability for
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2015 22:51
|
|
|
The most recent update included a tiny, tiny map. Since I didn't see any obvious changes, I shrunk down the one we've had for ages and ran a comparison. Other than minor coastline differences that are most likely due to antialiasing from reducing the dimensions, the only difference I found was the forest in the East changing shades slightly. Progress!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2015 15:20
|
|
|
Also, I've found that it's a good idea to be very generous with giving refunds on sorcerous workings at the end of stories. Just ask if they are still getting a noticeable benefit from having this working in place. If not, give them the xp back. If so, the xp is still worth it. Examples include: Creating creatures for short-term purposes, even if the creature survives; warding a location against spying, if they then move on and don't use it any more; giving a minor enchantment to an item that they give away, especially to an ally who won't be available all the time This encourage people to do awesome stuff with Sorcerous Workings, and also doesn't permanently punish them for doing minor sorcerer-stuff. I really like the idea of Sorcerous XP, may find some way to work it in. Maybe call it Workings XP and use that General Project Management adaptation of sorcerous workings someone put together.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 16, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
So, there was supposed to be a 3rd edition playtest run at Gencon, and the spots for it filled up basically instantly with a great deal of hype and excitement surrounding it. It turns out, however, that Onyx Path never gave the group organizing the playtest the rules, so a 2.5 edition game happened instead. Bear in mind that this was an officially approved event (it's not like a fan group was running it without OP's permission), and that people paid $6 per ticket for the opportunity. It's a shame that they aren't totally unrelated to OP, it would have been amazing if they had just run the leak instead of the official rules they were promised.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2015 22:09
|
|
|
You know, a lot of people have some pretty good complaints about magitech in Exalted. However, magitech gave us the Soulsteel Windblade, a flying skateboard that you can use as a weapon, which more than makes up for any other stupid or bad stuff magitech has done. Skating through the air in a battlefield and attacking people through ridiculous skate park tricks and combos will never not be awesome.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2015 19:32
|
|
|
You can't effectively map the MTG colors onto Exalted (I guess if you wait for the terrestrial book to come out you could, but even though terrestrials are white-blue-black-red-green those colors don't share all the same themes), but it can handle "demigods with unique and awesome powers" angle quite well. Since Solars don't tie into stuff like heaven or the underworld directly, they should be easily portable to other settings. Other Ideas: Ars Magica has spontaneous magic rules. You could write your own (Hedge) Magic system if you want to keep to the colors, or you can just use Hermetic Magic Mutants and Masterminds can be built to a very high power level, and lets you build a few custom powers per Planeswalker to represent their unique traits Maybe Reign, for its large-scale action and management rules. Haven't actually played it, but I hear good things in this direction
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2015 15:37
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:So the accuracy penalty compounded with the parry loss means that heavy weapons, even heavy artifact weapons, are a newbie trap, right? Not really, no. Since Hungry Tiger only works against crashed enemies now, your threshold successes are 1:1 bonus damage. So if you are guaranteed to hit, weapons (I'l use the numbers for artifacts for this, but it works out the same) have an effective damage of (accuracy/2)+base damage. A Light Artifact Weapon has accuracy 5 and damage 10, for an effective damage of 12.5. Heavy weapons have accuracy 1 and damage 14, for a 14.5 effective. From my in-play experience (standard disclaimers about different groups building differently and anecdotes not being data), most attacks hit regardless of weapon weight. I personally feel that the defense bonus and higher reliability make light weapons better, but if so it's a pretty marginal difference. I certainly wouldn't call any of them a Newbie Trap, since there is a difference between a trap option and a slightly less optimal option.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2015 21:39
|
|
|
Relentless would lead to the unusual case of hitting and only dealing 0-1 damage, and realizing you would have gained more initiative on a miss. I like the idea, but could use a tweak. Either lower the automatic initiative on a miss, or add a minimum initiative gain on a hit maybe?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2015 23:00
|
|
|
Falling damage remains completely unchanged, by the way. This being one of the things we were explicitly told was getting reduced. Heaven Thunder Hammer is also the same.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2015 20:44
|
|
|
There is a new Integrity Charm, Soul-Nourishing Technique, that costs 4m 1wp as an Essence 2 charm. It lets you give an hour long sermon or speech about one of your defining principles and, at the end, everyone who heard you is aware you have that principle. Like... that's... that's not a charm. That's literally telling people one of your intimacies. It doesn't help you persuade them, or enforce it on them, it just makes them aware you have it. "Thanks, dude who gave an hour long speech about how Lookshy Is Awesome. Due to your amazing cosmic power, I know realize that you think Lookshy Is Awesome. I respectfully disagree, but whatever" There's a line about how the sermon feeds them like a meal and hydrates them like water. Is that fluff or mechanics? I'm not sure, but still.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2015 21:03
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:No, because it's written into the system in such a way that you are charged XP for the privilege of being allowed to collaborate and in such a way that replaces what could have been actual rules for acquiring and promulgating knowledge. It could've been explicitly written into the rules in the section about general scene framing or the storytelling chapter or whatever, but instead it ensures that the competence of a character who has Lore is forever faker and more nebulous than the competence of a character who has Craft or Occult or even Bureaucracy. How is Lore "faker" than any other system? Exalted Lore: Lore Player: "I roll to introduce a fact, that this kingdom just finished a long war with Neighboria. 6 successes" ST: "Okay, that does it. You remember reading about the war, and the bitterness felt by both sides that persists even after the conflict has ended" How You Want It: Lore Player: "I roll Lore to see what I know about the kingdom. 6 successes" ST: "Okay, that does it. You remember reading about a long war with Neighboria that just finished, and the bitterness felt by both sides that persists even after the conflict has ended" Neither requires any charms, both ends with "Lore player knows useful information about this kingdom". Just because something wasn't planned out by the all-powerful ST in accordance with the Perfect Plan and Setting doesn't make it faker or less fun. Players can contribute and collaborate in shaping the world and story, rather than just being passive observer to the One True Vision of the ST.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2015 22:08
|
|
|
UberJew posted:I'm pretty sure CCP has been trying to offload white wolf for anything they can possibly get considering that it turned out to be basically a 100% loss The figure I heard was "tens of millions". 10 million converts to about 1.2 million USD, so my guess would be about 5 million USD for white wolf? Possibly less, but I doubt it's much more.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2015 19:39
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 22:16 |
|
|
Why does the lowest level of crippling damage negate up to 0 health levels of damage? Should it be 1, giving it a 1-2-3 progression, or do you want losing an eye to only save your life rather than reducing damage?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2015 21:40
|
|