The Enworld Exalted Discussion Thread
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I found this on rpg.net, It's a combat example for the Mail & Steel mass combat rules: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?threadid=113890
I found it very enlightening
I found it very enlightening
The Goblin King
First Post
Apok said:
Depends on your view of Paradox. Certainly, Unbelief plays a part in it but some theorize that the mage himself generates some paradox. No one has 100% confidence in thier abilities. Its that little shadow of a doubt in the mages mind that sometimes causes things to go awry.
The only Mages who could get away with no paradox would be Verbena and some Hermetics. Because that is how magic works in this setting. Any other paradigm, especially anyone with a technological focus, would be much worse off in the Age of Sorrows.
Even without Paradox I think things would be an even fight. Some Charms would need to be clarified. For example, how does Adamant Countermagic interact with sphere magic?
Apok said:
Each Mages carries a tiny sliver of spark they call the Avatar. These Avatars were formed from the Exalted Essences of the Sidereals that somehow became shattered. So, a Mage from the future transported to the past would have a copy of a piece of a living Sidereals soul. It might not be recognizable for what it is because it has been through like 10,000 lifetimes. The Avatar might not even remember what happened any more. It could be that knowledge of future events sets up the causality to make it happen. Who knows?
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I really like exalted. I've played several of the WoD games, and read the rest, but Exalted takes the d10 pool ruleset and some of the types from the WoD (shapeshifters, mages, vampires, etc) and makes them do cool and funky things. The world is neat, with the five elemental pillars and such, the backstory is engaging, and stunts are a neat mechanic that I would add to any game.
The odds of getting my game group to learn yet another rule set are low, though. We already play Hunter:tR, but the charm and essence system on top of that adds a tough initial learning curve to the rules.
I'd like to use Exaltedish rules in a d20 game. I've done some pondering, here's what I've come up with.
Key differences between the rule sets include active defense (dodge and parrying) and soak. Attack successes add to damage.
In D&D, active defense would be like giving people a dodge skill or class-based defense bonus of some kind, and rolling AC versus every attack instead of 'taking 10'. If you want to ignore that part, you can pretty easily. AC = (1d20 + Dex + BDB + shield bonus), probably.
There are good parrying rules in one of the Dragon mags, basically you give up an AoO to roll your attack roll versus theirs, if you beat it you've parried the attack. I'd probably allow everyone to have the effect of Combat Reflexes for free, ie extra AoOs equal to Dex bonus.
Soak would involve using some form of "armor as DR", maybe the rules from UA. You wouldn't need to worry about soaking using Stamina, because hps effectively replace that.
Attack successes add to damage: use exploding dice (when rolling a d20, if you roll a 20, count it as a 20 and roll again). If you beat the defender by 20, it's a critical. Beat him by 40, critical again, using normal d20 multiplying rules. For example, if you were using a battleaxe and beat the defender by 40, you'd do 5d8 damage + 5x modifiers (each critical adds 2 dice damage basically).
Weapons with higher threat ranges have that reflected by only needing to beat the defense by the low end of their threat range, instead of 20. So a longsword would crit if it hit by at least 19.
The exploding-dice critical thing works almost exactly like the normal critical hit system would if you let multiple threats happen, ie if you get a threat on your confirm roll, you've confirmed the first critical and threated for another. However, there's a side interaction with Exalted essence expenditure which I like so I'm stating it that way.
Essence: exalted have it. Assign a number somehow, or use the numbers from the rulebook, ie normal people have it at 1, exalted start at 2 and go up, 6 is godlike. Not sure how much I'd end up referring to it.
Exalted also have a mote pool, which could differ by type (Dragonblooded= Charisma, Abyssal and Solar= Wisdom), or you could use Wisdom for everybody. This could be tuned to get the right feel, maybe for Solars it should be Int+Wis+Cha. You can have two pools (personal and peripheral) if you feel like it.
Motes can be spent like action dice for any d20 roll you make, including attack, defense, skills, saves, whatever. They recover at some rate TBD, maybe 1/hour or Con modifier/hour. They work like the modifier dice from Alternity, as so: 1 mote adds +1d4, 2 adds +1d6, 3 adds +1d8, 4 adds +1d12, 5 adds +1d20. If you want to allow more than 5 to be spent, each additional step adds another d20. Even if you've spent enough essense to be rolling additional d20s, these aren't "exploding" dice. Or they could be, but limit it to 5 motes for +1d20, which can explode.
Stunt dice add +1d6, +2d6, or +3d6, by DM's call.
These extra dice work well with the "crit if you hit by 20" rule, so that you don't have to actually roll a threat to critical if you have a big stunt or action die bonus.
You can model additional things pretty well with D&D rules, for instance, Lunar DBT would be like a combination of wildshaping and barbarian raging. Sidereals are masters of fate, maybe let them spend a mote to reroll a d20 if they don't like the first roll. You can put limits on action adders to mimic dice adder limits from exalted; Lunars might limit to a number of steps equal to the appropriate stat mod, and solars to character level, for instance. Abyssals might spend motes to move their oponents down steps on the action die scale, the negative end is the mirror of the positive end.
I think it could work.
The odds of getting my game group to learn yet another rule set are low, though. We already play Hunter:tR, but the charm and essence system on top of that adds a tough initial learning curve to the rules.
I'd like to use Exaltedish rules in a d20 game. I've done some pondering, here's what I've come up with.
Key differences between the rule sets include active defense (dodge and parrying) and soak. Attack successes add to damage.
In D&D, active defense would be like giving people a dodge skill or class-based defense bonus of some kind, and rolling AC versus every attack instead of 'taking 10'. If you want to ignore that part, you can pretty easily. AC = (1d20 + Dex + BDB + shield bonus), probably.
There are good parrying rules in one of the Dragon mags, basically you give up an AoO to roll your attack roll versus theirs, if you beat it you've parried the attack. I'd probably allow everyone to have the effect of Combat Reflexes for free, ie extra AoOs equal to Dex bonus.
Soak would involve using some form of "armor as DR", maybe the rules from UA. You wouldn't need to worry about soaking using Stamina, because hps effectively replace that.
Attack successes add to damage: use exploding dice (when rolling a d20, if you roll a 20, count it as a 20 and roll again). If you beat the defender by 20, it's a critical. Beat him by 40, critical again, using normal d20 multiplying rules. For example, if you were using a battleaxe and beat the defender by 40, you'd do 5d8 damage + 5x modifiers (each critical adds 2 dice damage basically).
Weapons with higher threat ranges have that reflected by only needing to beat the defense by the low end of their threat range, instead of 20. So a longsword would crit if it hit by at least 19.
The exploding-dice critical thing works almost exactly like the normal critical hit system would if you let multiple threats happen, ie if you get a threat on your confirm roll, you've confirmed the first critical and threated for another. However, there's a side interaction with Exalted essence expenditure which I like so I'm stating it that way.
Essence: exalted have it. Assign a number somehow, or use the numbers from the rulebook, ie normal people have it at 1, exalted start at 2 and go up, 6 is godlike. Not sure how much I'd end up referring to it.
Exalted also have a mote pool, which could differ by type (Dragonblooded= Charisma, Abyssal and Solar= Wisdom), or you could use Wisdom for everybody. This could be tuned to get the right feel, maybe for Solars it should be Int+Wis+Cha. You can have two pools (personal and peripheral) if you feel like it.
Motes can be spent like action dice for any d20 roll you make, including attack, defense, skills, saves, whatever. They recover at some rate TBD, maybe 1/hour or Con modifier/hour. They work like the modifier dice from Alternity, as so: 1 mote adds +1d4, 2 adds +1d6, 3 adds +1d8, 4 adds +1d12, 5 adds +1d20. If you want to allow more than 5 to be spent, each additional step adds another d20. Even if you've spent enough essense to be rolling additional d20s, these aren't "exploding" dice. Or they could be, but limit it to 5 motes for +1d20, which can explode.
Stunt dice add +1d6, +2d6, or +3d6, by DM's call.
These extra dice work well with the "crit if you hit by 20" rule, so that you don't have to actually roll a threat to critical if you have a big stunt or action die bonus.
You can model additional things pretty well with D&D rules, for instance, Lunar DBT would be like a combination of wildshaping and barbarian raging. Sidereals are masters of fate, maybe let them spend a mote to reroll a d20 if they don't like the first roll. You can put limits on action adders to mimic dice adder limits from exalted; Lunars might limit to a number of steps equal to the appropriate stat mod, and solars to character level, for instance. Abyssals might spend motes to move their oponents down steps on the action die scale, the negative end is the mirror of the positive end.
I think it could work.
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Welverin
First Post
DanMcS said:
'Force' a one shot on them some time, say you need a break from the normal game for a week or something. After that you shouldn't have to do any converting, they'll be begging to play.
Of course this will only work if you getting stuck running games all the time.
Tiberius
Explorer
DanMcS said:
I'm not sure you'd have the trouble you think you would. As it happens, it seems many people try to argue that the Imbued are, in fact, the newest incarnation of the Solar Exalted.
Anyway, I think experience with Hunter, more than any other WoD game except Werewolf, would ease the transition to the Exalted ruleset. I've only a passing familiarity with the Hunter Edge rules, but IIRC you buy individual powers, rather than chains of them bundled together like the Disciplines, Arcanoi, or Spheres. If true, then the concept of buying up bunches of possibly entirely unrelated Charms will prove a low barrier to entry. Further, if they've played D&D, then the fact that the Charms are organized in chains should make it easy to relate them to feats, if need be. Essence management is really pretty trivial, especially if you use the bead system advocated in the core rules. I have no doubts that you and your group would be able to master it with ease.The biggest problem, I think, would be adjusting to the static target number, rule of 10, non-rolled soak, and the fact that "1"s no longer subtract from successes. Those were my biggest hangups, coming from the WoD 1.0 system. While not an insubstantial list, these are confusing for a session or two, but that's about it. I say give it a shot. Anyone who dislikes it is clearly broken, and needs to be sent in for repairs.
Exalted's learning curve can be overcome without too much difficulty by simply easing into the rules. The Storyteller system is pretty forgiving when it comes to adhering to the exact text of the rules, literally stating in the Exalted Core that you are to ignore/overlook/cut out any rules that don't suit what you want in the game.
So, start with the basics: dice pools, motes, anima flare, virtues, and a story. As the campaign proceeds, expand upon your use of the system to include elements that you find important. If eventually you are using all of it- great. The key is to initially focus, however, upon what you need and what your players need in the short term.
If the setting is a hit, great- but adhering to everything in there as law isn't needed to make it such. Start small, addressing and acknowledging the learning curve.
So, start with the basics: dice pools, motes, anima flare, virtues, and a story. As the campaign proceeds, expand upon your use of the system to include elements that you find important. If eventually you are using all of it- great. The key is to initially focus, however, upon what you need and what your players need in the short term.
If the setting is a hit, great- but adhering to everything in there as law isn't needed to make it such. Start small, addressing and acknowledging the learning curve.
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Tiberius
Explorer
That's cool. I'll be interested to see what they do with the spells and things like Manse creation/Demense shaping. I really don't like what they've done with the cover, though. The top half of the thing looks great. The bottom half doesn't exactly reinforce the idea that gaming is a hobby for well-adjusted people. :\
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