Exalted for someone who doesn't like the d10 system

[Vayden]

So I just picked up Exalted 2e yesterday from the bookstore. I'm loving the flavor and setting, and I'm trying to decide whether to steal the world for a 4e game or to run it straight up. Obviously I'll need to spend some time absorbing the rules and make the decision for myself in the end, but I was looking for some feedback from those who've played on how well this particular permutation of the d10 systems works.

For background, the first pen and paper rpg I ever played was the old d10 Aberrant system from White Wolf, and we played that for 2-3 years before switching to d20 systems of various sorts. I love the settings and quality of writing that White Wolf brings to their products, but the point-buy nature of the d10 system makes me cry when it comes to adjudicating combats, since it's so easy to have one player who's an invincible god of war while another player folds over the first time anyone lands a hit on them. Obviously you can mitigate a lot of that by very carefully governing the players during character creation to make sure they're in the same range, but even so the system has (for better or worse) very little of the balance that D&D strives for.

So my question is, given that I have a lot of these reservations about the d10 system, from someone who's played Exalted, how would you rate its performance in this regard? Is the combat hideously unbalanced, or is it reasonable by d10 standards? What are your general impressions of the system? Pros, cons, any modifications you've made?

 

[Nightchilde-2]

It kinda depends on your definition of "unbalanced."

The Solar Exalted are pretty much demigods. They'll wipe the floor with just about every mortal-level threat, even as starting characters. With the exception of the Abyssals (which are essentially death-corrupted Solars), the Solars are the single most powerful type of character you can play in Exalted.

Sure, the other types of Exalted might be better in specific areas, but all around (and especially in a toe-to-toe fight), Solars are going to rule.

However, that's a conceit of the game system. The Solars are SUPPOSED to be scary-powerful. I mean, they can feasibly parry a mountain and dodge an attack that could destroy a planet with the right Charms (which aren't so hard to get, even as starting characters, I might add).

Even many gods are less powerful than a Solar.

Against other Solars (and Abyssals), there's a bit more balance.

My greatest piece of advice is to get out of a D&D mindset if you're going to run Exalted as-is. Solar Exalted start near the top of the power range, you have to be able to adjust to that. You have to be able to say "Yes" to things that, in D&D, would make your head explode. Don't be afraid to throw challenges at the PCs that are world-shattering, Creation-destroying even at starting power levels. When my Exalted game starts back up (in July), my PCs (which have around 200XP under their belts) are going to be taking on Mask of Winters and are fighting for nothing less than the salvation of all of Creation itself.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I played Exalted 1E and 2E exclusively for 4 years. I'll never say anything bad about the game. But I do have some comments from my experience with the game.

Don't game with Belkar: Unless everyone at the table prefers a hack and slash, the hackers tend to ruin the game for everyone else. (But this is true for every game out there. Mind you, I'm referring to the Belkar who just killed NPCs for no reason other then he was outside of a city and Roy was dead, not the Belkar who is faking character development.)

Build Encounters with Everyone Inmind: If someone is more combat focused, send them a combat character that is their equal. But then send along a bunch of extra mortals, 1 hit and dead city guards, and others of equal worthlessness for the less combat oriented characters to 'pawn' as the kids say.

Exalted is not D&D Assuming that everyone can handle an equal type of encounter is not how the game is designed. A night caste is not a rogue, even if they perform similar functions in their own world. An eclipse is not a bard. Some characters are designed for combat, some were designed for socializing, some for sneaking around, some for making stuff and casting spells, etc. The game is not built around the concept of "kicking in the door, killing monsters and taking their stuff." It was designed for telling a story of changing the world, bringing justice to the downtrodden, and doing the right thing when no one else will. As such, you need those that are not as good at combat but can deliver your message to mass numbers of people, convince one hardended heart to change their ways, making the gods accountable for their inactions, etc. While D&D can do all this, it was not at the core of its design philosophy.

Does this help?

 

[Sanzuo]

I will say my favorite thing about Exalted is the setting. I don't think there is another pre-generated gaming setting out there that I like more. It's unique "Journey to the West"-style eastern influences and emphasis on flavor and coolness just mesh well with me and I never have problems coming up with plot ideas for the system.

That being said, the d10 system is broken as hell. There's very little moderation that keeps players from making their characters the most powerful beings in existence right from the get-go. In my first Exalted game I ran each one of my players created characters that had maximized melee combat pools. Each one of these characters were the best swordsmen in Creation... and they all just happened to meet up and go on wacky adventures together.

Now, actually, that does sound like the classic wuxia setup. So no complaints there. If you are concerned with things like game balance and if your players are the kind to min/max to the extreme like most people are when they play D&D, then prepare for a bunch of Olympian Gods to do stuff like rending through cities with swords as big as they are and bicycle kicking airships into mountains.

On the other hand, I did play with a completely different group that seemed to have no interest in min-maxing whatsoever. It was a completely different experience! We were able to mix Solar Exalted with Lunars, Dragon-Blooded, Alchemical and Spirit-Blooded all in the same party! There was never any consideration for who was "more powerful" because everyone had their own skills, specialties and unique stories to contribute to the game. In fact I was guilty of minmaxing in that particular group and I quickly got bored of my character because, even though he could have probably taken the rest of the party all at once with his hand tied behind his back I simply hadn't developed a very interesting background for him. So I ended up retiring the character and taking over as Storyteller.

Neither style is "correct." They're both fun because Exalted kicks major ass as a setting. I try not to let the system get in the way of the game, but there can be some unfortunate hang-ups with fairness and other things.

Also, we've played most of our Exalted in 1e which was much less balanced than 2e but considerably more fun.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

It's about campaign styles:

The Exalted system is about supernatural duels. And possibly apocalyptic supernatural disaster scenes. It rocks out at that. Characters are as unique and powerful as superheroes.

The 4E system is about adventuring. And taking about supernatural plots and organizations piece by piece. Your characters all belong to a party and that party is the focus of the game. It's about you and your friends solving problems and overcoming great adversity. It's about gain and loss. Characters tend not to have origin stories but will develop history. Genre wise they're like the main characters in a military SF or Fantasy novel.


The Exalted setting can work very well for either style, but depending on which system you use you may find yourself ignoring certain aspects of the setting.

Option A: The grim sense of threat and struggle is going to transform into a world of insult and melodrama. That's ok Exalted characters are supposed to do that.

Option B: The sense of all powerful supernatural gods totally changing the landscapes and making the world their private theatre is going to go away. That's ok the setting is honestly cooler that way, and DnD is still fun to play even if you aren't blocking mountains with your Daiklave.

On the other hand, statting up an exalted for your party to destroy sounds like a fun fun time. Kind of a like a paragon level deity killing scenario.

If you use 4E and want to play out either the sense from Exalted of lost souls returning to a mad world or the sense from 4E that you will eventually become immortal legends you are going to have adapt the fluff from either Exalted in the former case or DnD in the later case.

 

[jdrakeh]

I am going to give you an alternate solution to your problem, one that I have actually used myself. Incidentally, this came about because I didn't feel like buying a bucket full of d10s that I'd only use for playing Exalted. Dice are expensive and it seemed a silly investment when I already has a bucket full of d6s sitting around. So, without further ado, I present to you the world's quickest d6 Exalted conversion:

[sblock]Six-Sided Exalted

All references to "d10" are replaced with "d6". Results of 5 are counted as successes. Results of 6 are counted as 'exploding' successes. The end.[/sblock]

Now, granted, this won't help you with the point-buy aspect. If the freedom of point-buy character creation or the seeming* lack of balance inherent to such systems bothers you, you're just going to need to go with something else altogether.

The one thing that a die pool system will provide that a single die roll system will not is a true average roll outcome (rolling a single die eliminates this). This, in theory, makes it easier to gauge die roll results and build encounters.

As for the d10 Storyteller system? I'm not a fan of it, though I do think it's worth pointing out that Solar Exalted aren't mere heroes of the D&D variety — such heroes are represented in the game by Heroic Mortals.

Solar Exalted are gods that have been rebirthed. As such, that are supposed to be able to do things that 'normal' people can never do. Their being able to do things like walk on water and such isn't a sign of a broken system but, rather, of a system accomplishing exactly what it was designed to do.

*I say "seeming" because many such systems are actually far more balanced than class/level based systems, IME.

 

[Vayden]

Thanks for all the responses guys. Most of what you're saying I'm familiar with - like I said in the OP, I got my start in RPGs DMing Aberrant, which is the d10 superhero game. I'm used to characters rolling over mortals without noticing them, and the fact that balance is completely different from the d20 ideals. I guess what I'm specifically looking for is people's perceptions of how Exalted 2e compares to other storyteller games (specifically Aberrant, since that's what I have the most experience with) in the sense of how hard you have to work to NOT break the system.

A couple of days of absorbing the rules leads me to believe that it's slightly more balanced than Aberrant at least - the "perfect defenses" all having flaws, etc.

I also have a new question - how on earth do you handle the iniative system? The system as written seems insanely book-keeping heavy - the best idea I've come up with so far just from reading it is to give everyone two stacks of poker chips - one to count down their speed, one to track their DV penalties.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I also have a new question - how on earth do you handle the iniative system? The system as written seems insanely book-keeping heavy - the best idea I've come up with so far just from reading it is to give everyone two stacks of poker chips - one to count down their speed, one to track their DV penalties.

I've heard that folks have a lot of success with an initiative wheel. Whenever someone takes an action, move their marker that many ticks ahead on the wheel. Then go back and start moving tick by tick until the next person's marker comes up.

 

[maddman75]

On White Wolf's site (and many fan sites) you can find an innovation known as the Initiative Wheel.

It sort of looks like a clock, with say 10 or 12 wedges. When you roll initiative, put a mini or marker at that spot. So one PC gets a three, one gets a four, and the bad guys get a six. You go around the clock to the first PC, at 3 o'clock. He takes his turn, say he does something with a speed of 5. So after his turn his mini goes up five spaces to 8 o'clock. Now its PC #2's turn, and so on. Makes tracking initiative very quick and easy, and everyone can see who goes next.

Another tip is you know the Power Cards everyone is nuts for in 4e? They have them for exalted as well on WW's site. Print them out for your players, makes it easy for them to see what they can do.

The biggest thing to remember is that Exalted is not D&D. Leave those sensibilities behind. D&D is very much a 'coming of age' game, where the PCs begin as little more than nobodies, and as they adventure they gain in power and stature. Exalted PCs start the game as demigods. They were already exceptional people who were chosen to be the incarnations of the Unconquered Sun. A starting Exalt is more powerful than any mortal, no matter how skilled or experienced, can ever hope to become.

The key is to go with this. Writing plots D&D style will not work. The players will take your plot, wad it into a little ball, and stick it where you'd like it least. Being able to kill things? Bah. The combat monkeys are the least of your concerns. Its the social and bureaucracy characters you have to watch for. With the right charms they can convince the enemy army to work for them, found a religion based on themselves, and sweet talk the gods into letting them rework creation. Magic items exist but are much less of a concern. The PCs can start with powerful items if they wish, and the items that villians have are probably not as powerful or ill suited to the PCs. Money? A Bureacracy built PC can become an economic powerhouse in short order, if that's what they wish. Fame? Get the right charms and make some speeches and you'll have kingdoms hanging on your every word.

D&D is built on exploration and skirmish combat. Exalted is made to have single fights against superpowered foes extremely exciting. The stunt dice are an essential part of this. What you figure out in play is that the extra dice aren't the real benefit, the extra motes are. So what happens in these epic fights is characters throw attacks at each other and block them with perfect defenses. This goes on until people start running out of motes. At this point, everyone will start stunting like crazy, hoping to do enough cool stuff to get their super-attack off while they opponent is tapped out. Makes them really, really exciting.

The setting as well is built for this. One of the central conceits of Exalted is that the storyline will never progress. They will *never* (and have kept to this very well) come out and say "Oh, by the way here's the deal with the Scarlet Empress" or "Here's how the Mask of Winters got taken care of" or "This is what happened with the Dragonblooded civil war". All of that is for YOUR PCs to resolve. The setting is beautiful, but made with the assumption that the PCs will tear it into little bitty pieces and recast it as they please.

As for the point buy, yes it is possible to make an Exalt that dies at the first sign of combat. The best way to fix this is to insist that half the charms the PCs take are combat related, including at least one Ox-Body Technique and one Perfect Defense. Your Invincible Sword Princess will probably take all combat charms, but even the Sorcerer type and socialite will know kung fu, because this is a kung fu game.

The best way to sum it up is that Exalted is not a fantasy adventure game, but a fantasy supers game. The plots should have more in common with M&M than D&D.

A really fun game.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The best way to sum it up is that Exalted is not a fantasy adventure game, but a fantasy supers game.

Only if the supers group in question is The Authority.

In too many supers settings one of the central rules is that Status Quo Is God. In Exalted, on the other hand, the player characters - at least, if they are Solars - are expected to make vast changes to the world.

One of the first things the players have to decide upon is their Motivation. This is some sort of truly epic goal which they pursue. For example, one of the characters in my campaign has the motivation "Defeat Death". Apart from fighting the minions of the Deathlord in her spare time, she is currently trying to change the way reincarnation works in the world so that people remember their previous incarnations after they have been reborn - and she doesn't care that this will potentially upset much of the Celestial Bureaucracy. Now that's epic!