Exalted Conversion; d20? Coda? Feng Shui?

[Apok]

I absolutely, positively love the whole concept behind Exalted. After playing a few sessions of it, I came to love it even more. My only gripe is with the overall mechanics of the game, which weren't bad except for the fact that the dicepools started getting ridiculous early on in the game (especially the combat dice, yowza...). To fix this, I was thinking about converting Exalted over to d20. Does anyone here who is familiar with Exalted think that this is feasable? Or am I just deluding myself? If doing a full-blown d20 conversion is too out-there, then maybe just reworking the mechanics to a Target Number (DC) system where you roll maybe 1 or 2 d10's and then add some mods.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I just bought Exalted and I love the concepts, too, but I'm not so sure on the mechanics. If this goes anywhere, let me know, because I'd be interested in where it goes. I could really see using the setting for a 3e game and having a lot of fun with it.

Best,
tKL

 

[EarthsShadow]

help

want any help?

 

[Michael Tree]

I don't know if it could be done feasably with D&D. You might want to check out Mutants and Masterminds, a superhero game based on D20, which is much more customizable and fast-paced than D&D.

 

[tetsujin28]

Exalted ports extremely well to Big Eyes Small Mouth, which is a great game. Not sure how well it would work in d20...seems like an awful lot of trouble, to me.

 

[EarthsShadow]

I think that if it was converted over to d20/OGL, going OGL would be the way to go.

At least this way you wouldn't be restricted by the d20 gaming license and you wouldn't need a PHB to help with character creation.

 

[teitan]

My suggestion is making the Castes a template or race. No multiclassing restrictions, then develop a mechanic where players are rewarded with bonuses for over the top action. Create a feat chain for different sorts of powers to emulate the charms of the Exalted. More skills points would probably bring the skills in line with the way they are in WW games. Ditch alignment and use the Nature/Demeanor system. Give the players Action points for acting within their Nature that they can then use to add to their die rolls like Force Points or Action Points.

Jason

 

[Apok]

One of the major hang-ups I keep running into is how to fit class in there. If I use the various Castes as the races, what kind of classes should I start producing? Obviously, an Exalt is defined as much by his powers as his caste and the powers are based off of skills. I could attempt a classless system, where everyone has a set number of skill points and available feats.

The Charms as Feat Chains idea works well and it was the approach I was going to take. Man, this would be so much easier if I had my Exalted book handy. Loaned it out to a friend who has yet to return it. Another concern of mine was BAB and AC. My initial plan was to swipe the SW system of a class Defense Bonus and have armor work like DR, but how to negotiate an Exalts amazing number of actions in a round? One radical thought was to make the various forms of combat (armed, ranged, unarmed, etc.) into skills but that's really straying from the d20 norm.

Keep the ideas coming, guys. For right now, I'm just kicking ideas around in my head and trying to move from the area of nebulous thought to concrete words on paper.

 

[Synicism]

The problem with doing Exalted as a d20 game is that (1) the Storyteller system places a lot of emphasis on organic character development (learning a bit of this, a bit of that, without restrictions of class) and (2) the system uses a lot of defense options that d20 simply lacks because of the simplistic AC mechanic.

That being said, you could play Exalted d20 without TOO much difficulty. I would suggest designing a racial template for the Exalted and then doing the various power trees as fighting schools ala Path of the Sword (Fantasy Flight). That way it separates your special powers, which you spend experience on, from your skills, which are defined by your class and level.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

hmm, difficult, I thought vaguely about it for a long time and couldn't find much of a solution.

I think you should be warned to incorporate the type of exalted as a mechanic in addition to the caste.

My sticking point is that charms don't seem to be analagous to anything and character creation is way to flexible in terms of interest.

I actually think dragon blooded could work pretty well. Their types are much more class like.

Also, I would start the exalted as something adavanced. They are none of them starting level characters. That's what heroic mortals are for.

I think aiming for a seventh level mechanic works out very well.

I like the template idea pretty well.

I ended up using a bastardized Exalted mechanic, ported in more of Adventure!, but I thought a Feng Shui version would work very well. The coriolis Feng-Shui/d20 crossover has lots of good information on how this sort of thing should work.