Sell me on Exalted!

[Darkness]

Have you ever seen an anime or martial arts flick and said "wow. I wish my character could do that!!"

Have you ever played a game like Final Fantasy and said "Wow. I wish my character could do that!!" or "Wow. I wish I could have one of those in the game!!"

Chances are, you can do that in Exalted.

Oh yeah.

Plus, anime and Japanese video games aren't the only things you can have with Exalted. You can also have Chinese myths (and/or Wuxia), ancient Greek style heroes, and so on.

 

[Saeviomagy]

OK.

So it's over-the-top, without making the players too powerful.

Is the over-the-top ness anything other than the descriptions of how powers work?

Like - is raising the sun and causing it to blast your opponent with a ray of light the equivalent of casting 'fireball' in D&D for effectiveness against the typical foe?

 

[Sarellion]

I don´t know the exact spell he used but as far as I know celestial bodies like the sun can only be influenced by the sorcerer with the consent of the governing god. In this case the Unconquered Sun first god of the world.

I think someone went over the top with the description of the spell. At least it is not the standard fireball. The standard fireball is more a summoning of hundred of butterflies out of obsidian which shred everything in the area of effect.

 

[neoweasel]

So, why do I like Exalted?

In Exalted, I play a guy who was so incredibly cool, so much more hip than anyone else in the world, that God Himself showed up and said, "Hey, I thought this world was pretty dumb, but I saw how awesome you were just then, so maybe I was wrong. Go forth and kick much ass in my name." And I turned unto God and said, "Rock."

It's pretty simple. Exalted wants me to be totally sweet, and I'm happy to comply. All the rest is just detail.

This is the best explanation as to why Exalted is fun I've ever seen. You get to be totally over-the-top in an fun way.

 

[Tokiwong]

OK.

So it's over-the-top, without making the players too powerful.

Is the over-the-top ness anything other than the descriptions of how powers work?

Like - is raising the sun and causing it to blast your opponent with a ray of light the equivalent of casting 'fireball' in D&D for effectiveness against the typical foe?

It is in gneral a setting that lends itself to great and epic deeds, the characters are demigods, at least they have the potential to be such, but they are personally powerful nd cn mow through normals without breaking a sweat... other types of exalted present a challenge but the Solars the default Exalted stand at the top of the apex

But the setting lends itself to the kinds of things you see in Myth, in Japanese anime, chinese wuxia, just action so beyond the pale of normal that its just either cool, or just makes you go,"how'd he do that" kind of thing

Magic is pretty epic but only on the Solar side of things, but Magic is also in many ways much slower and very expensive you will be hard pressed to get many spells off in a combat

 

[neoweasel]

Magic is pretty epic but only on the Solar side of things, but Magic is also in many ways much slower and very expensive you will be hard pressed to get many spells off in a combat

See, I look at Charms as being a form of spell. Sorcery is what you use when there's a need for something REALLY big and impressive and you have a bit of time to prepare it. Charms are the things you toss around a couple times a round to keep your skin intact and your enemies' not.

 

[Tokiwong]

See, I look at Charms as being a form of spell. Sorcery is what you use when there's a need for something REALLY big and impressive and you have a bit of time to prepare it. Charms are the things you toss around a couple times a round to keep your skin intact and your enemies' not.

Yeah charms are your mainstay but some of the magic is meant to be used in combat its just a little slow it takes a full round per Circle I believe... that is really slow in Exalted, better have some high defenses

 

[neoweasel]

Yeah charms are your mainstay but some of the magic is meant to be used in combat its just a little slow it takes a full round per Circle I believe... that is really slow in Exalted, better have some high defenses

True.

On the flip side, I wouldn't mind being a tank holding off the Ravening Hordes for two rounds so our spell slinger could get Magma Kraken off.

Celestial and Solar Circle Sorcery spells are grotesque.

 

[Tokiwong]

True.

On the flip side, I wouldn't mind being a tank holding off the Ravening Hordes for two rounds so our spell slinger could get Magma Kraken off.

Celestial and Solar Circle Sorcery spells are grotesque.

Yeah they are... but me I am a wuxia fan.. I would be buying the time... and parrying everything and anything to come at us plus you have to give it up, because stunts are cool, the exalted are cool, and the charms have wacky names but they rock, and they have charms for everything

 

[Abisashi]

You don't roll soak in Exalted, silly.

(You just subtract the soak dice from the damage dice and then roll damage with what remains.)

oops. Still, it is more time-consuming than in D20, I feel. If you made dice that weren't numbered, but instead had all of its sides painted in one of 3 colors (red for no, green for yes, black for a 1) it would speed it up a lot, I think (as I recall, in exalted, the number you need to roll on a d10 is always the same (except for 1 type of exalted)).

To elaborate on my earlier points:

Their are 2 differences going on:
--Core Mechanic: as I said above, the only difference here is the probablility distribution and the time it takes to process an action.
--"Feel" of the systems/settings: this is largely independant of the system (it is affected by the specific implementation, but is generally not going to be affected by the core mechanic itself). While you could accomplish this feel with pretty much any robust core rules system (D20, D10, FUDGE, etc), all the work has been done for the d10 system. You could get relatively close with ease from D&D, but to do as well as Exalted does would take quite a bit more work.

And incidentally, Exalted felt to me a lot more like D&D than WoD does; charms are a lot like feats/class abilities, the combat was sped up from WoD, and you play characters who are very similar to D&D characters. I think a conversion between the two would be rather simple, and I might do that as I prefer the D20 mechanic, but otherwise like Exalted a lot.