>What is Exalted?
An epic high-flying role-playing game about reborn god-heroes in a world that turned on them.
Start here: http://theonyxpath.com/category/worlds/exalted/
>That sounds cool, how can I get into it?
Read the 3e core book (link below). For mechanics of the old edition, play this tutorial: http://jyenicolson.net/exalted/. It'll get you familiar with most of the mechanics.
>Gosh that was fun. How do I find a group?
Roll20 and the Game Finder General here on /tg/. With the new edition, though, chances are more games will crop up.
Resources for Third Edition
>3E Backer Core https://mega.nz/#!E1dRBBIa!ZbQG4IasYCJRli2bhgE2MOdWeFAeV3N1rqL9kAIGbNE
>Character Sheet & Init tracker: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByD2BL6J89Nick41YUk0RUt3YlU
>Online charsheet:
http://howsfamily.net/Exalted
>General Homebrew dumping folder: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0ByD2BL6J89NiQzdCWWFaY0c5Mkk&usp=sharing
>Collection of old 3e Materials, including comics and fiction anthologies https://www.mediafire.com/folder/t2arqtqtyyt28/Exalted_3Leak
>Charm Trees:
>Solar Charms: https://imgur.com/a/q6Vbc
>Martial Arts: https://imgur.com/a/mnQDe
>Evocations: https://imgur.com/a/TYKE4
Resources for 2.5 Edition:
>All books with embedded errata notes, as well as some extras: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/253ulzik1j9s5/Exalted
>Chargen software: http://anathema.github.io/
>Anathema homebrew charm files: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/pka3nz3vqbqda/Anathema_Files
>MA form weapon guide: http://www.brilliantdisaster.net/dif/ExaltedMA.html
>http://www.mediafire.com/view/ua7tanepy2jfkdp/Exalted_2nd_Ed_-_Return_of_the_Scarlet_Empress.pdf
Resources for 1e:
>https://www.mediafire.com/folder/9vp0e9id3by6m/Exalted_1e
Do you like swords? Because I like swords. What swords have your characters crafted lately? What evocations have they come up with? Other weapons are fine too.
Never done any in game Crafting, but I tried writing up a Grand Grimcleaver that was going to have a number of Alpha Strike charms, but mostly just ended up taking some Evocations off of Hearthflame. One thought I had was for the axe to split into a spear and shield in case I needed extra defence, a throwing weapon, or if I simply felt like branching into White Reaper.
For those unaware, Smite has recently added a literal Dawn Caste character.
I just started checking out 3e. What do you guys think of the combat mechanics so far?
>>44650956
Well unfortunately playing my crafter, I never got the chance to craft much in the way of weapons. She was much more focused on become the single greatest chef in existence.
As for writing up weapons though I did write up a Soulsteel Reaper Daiklaive for my 2.5e game that me and my players started before the backer copy came out and such. (Yes the mechanics are suffering. But we still all have fun.) It basically worked off storing blood made off wounding opponents which could be used to reduce the costs of charms (that weren't Perfect Defenses). It could store up to 7 wounds on it. 1 point would reduce the cost of a charm by essence/2 motes to a minimum of 1m. 2 points could be spent as a substitution of willpower. 3 points would apply both the effects to a minimum of 1/2 the charms cost and 0wp. It also lets the user attune 2 'Favored' melee charms and gave them different effects.
>>44651847
Whats smite?
>>44651871
A lot better than what we used to have.
>>44651871
Combat is solid, but those who like simulationism too much may not like the withering decisive divide. A lot also dont like the dice tricks, as it takes reading the entire book to figure out just how they're valuable.
>>44653188
>as it takes reading the entire book to figure out just how they're valuable.
lol wut
It takes a rudimentary understanding of math and knowledge of the Excellency's existence (which you have, because you saw it before your first dice trick) to understand the value of the dice tricks.
>>44653105
An MMO where you play gods.
I've got an important question. How would one port 3e's actually mass combat system to an ongoing 2.5 game?
>>44654023
*actually functional
woops
>>44654023
Pretty much as-is? 3e's BG system is the lighter one, and most of its mechanics were the ones most-often referenced in 2.5 mass combat influences (Magnitude, perfect morale, etc.)
>>44651871
They're solid once you get the hang of them. Tracking Initiative is like tracking HP.
Gambits are a useful way to take a whole class of exceptions and distill them into a single set of rules.
Battle groups are both easy to run and fairly effective, since they hit all targets in their reach, so you should basically never run an important encounter in which the enemy lacks a battle group of disposable minions.
>>44654023
You ditch hero/sorceror slots, basically. No one gets to be part of the unit.
SO how many of you guys are actually in a game? Where did you find it and what's happened so far?
>>44655903
I'm GMing one. They started in the north, impersonated dynasts, stole a airship from Luthe after raising it, and are now thinking of unflooding the White valley after they finish genociding these cannibals.
>>44656718
Sounds interesting. What's the party dynamic like?
>>44655903
I'm running one set in Great Forks. Mentioned in here a handful of times; Zenith is a lieutenant in the Great Forks Irregulars with a 3-dot winged daiklave named Seraph, Dawn is a blind, one-armed Single Point stylist with a 5-dot starmetal reaper daiklave he's only used once in the 6 or 7 sessions we've had, if even, Night is a gambler/sneakthief who stole a 4-dot artifact airship after killing his old boss.
So far, they've dug a bit into the slightly suspicious guards of a forest goddess's manor, retrieved the Zenith's sword from a Sidereal who stole it, and slaughtered Typhon and a caravan of war ghosts and zombies he brought with him on a diplomatic mission to the city.
Last session the woman the Night's airship belonged to before him and a bounty hunter out to collect on him for killing someone else in his boss's office when he exalted showed up on his airship while it was floating at Long range off the ground.
He turned it upside down and dropped it, then stopped it right before it hit the ground and flipped it back over, then got wrecked(non-lethally) by the bounty hunter.
Then the Dawn and Zenith showed up and started to wreck the airship's owner, but they called a truce because what the fuck are an exigent(airship's old owner) and a liminal(bounty hunter) supposed to do against 2 solar swordsmen.
>>44655903
Playing in a Roll20 game. We're in the South, building a coalition against a Deathlord called the Reclaimer, which sacked Chiaroscuro. We just got the Delzhan on board, and now we're aiding a revolt in the Lap so it can get back to feeding the entire Direction asap.
Which charms would you erase or merge because they're too weak/specific alone or dull dice tricks?
>>44661396
All "Reroll Xs until they no longer appear"
Literal fucking trash. Charms should do cool things. If I wanted to add more dice, I'd fucking use excellencies.
>>44661936
Dice tricks: The Edition. It is unfortunate because I agree with you.
>>44661936
Agreed. Dice tricks can be useful, but they certainly are boring as hell. Rerolls and double-whatevers and such have their place, but I'd prefer them to be combined with actually cool effects. "Do this awesome thing you couldn't do before, and also take double-9s while you do it" is a lot neater than just getting double-9s. Actually I'd also prefer it of the dice tricks were mostly about something else than rerolls, because rerolls make the game run slower than it otherwise does.
>>44661936
Like many things in 3E, it was originally a good idea, but implemented poorly.
The idea is to give maximum successes to Solars, above and beyond what they could do in 2E, in the form of many situational rerolls and double dices. That's how a Solar can now, say, sports 30 success on a Medicine roll.
The implementation is shit, but hey, not worse than Craft, and some people even force themselves to like Craft. The ability of the human mind for self deception is beautiful.
So my GM suggested I take a look at the White Reaper martial art tree. Haven't had time to look in my book, but what's the gist of what the style does? Is it good?
>>44662448
>Haven't had time to look in my book, but what's the gist of what the style does?
1) Turns battle groups into screaming piles of viscera and pain.
2) Takes the combo points you got for #1 and unloads it into the non-BGs left standing.
>Is it good?
At slaughtering BGs? Very yes. #2 it's not the bestest, but definitely good.
>>44657085
We've got a Female Twilight from the Haslanti League, who's the main party sorcerer, team mom, and banging the Eclipse on the side. Likes demon summoning and fighting. Worries the other circle members how much she likes them.
Male Zenith from the slave coast who led a revolt, and then led the survivors into the frozen wastes of the north to escape pursuit, eventually finding the manse of one of the circle members. Also a sorcerer, much less interested in drowning every problem in demons.
Male Dawn, Legionary deserter. Saw some weird shit going on at his last posting, decided "Fuck this I'm out." Met up with the group and was the beat stick. Then he ended up getting the memories of his first age incarnation jammed into his head by a crazy killer whale as part one of a Flawless Plan™ to resurrect his first age incarnation.
Female Night from Chiaroscuro. Part of an assassin cult there, sorely mistreated by the higher-ups, snapped and killed them all. Basically almost as potent in combat as the Dawn caste, but she's still got pretty severe trauma from her time in the Cult.
Female Eclipse from the Realm, dynastic scion of House Iselei who failed to exalt as a Terrestrial, ran away from an arranged marriage, and took over the crime scene in the Imperial City, via a triple cross that basically caused the dragonblooded crime lords to chop one another up and then she put a sword into the back of the last one. Prime driver of the "We're worried about all these demons you've got" movement in the Circle.
>>44663356
>drowning every problem in demons
Given enough time that could work... I mean, there is more where they come from! Always at that!
>>44662435
>The ability of the human mind for self deception is beautiful.
The human ability to be pretentious prick is also magnificent.
Looking over the fiction anthology from the KS again, I could probably write better Exalted fiction on my own. Does anyone else feel the same way about themselves?
>>44666589
You could write more mechanically accurate, but probably not better
>>44666606
Eh, I'd say that some of the stories, at least, were mediocre enough in terms of style and plot that there probably are amateur writers in the Exalted fandom who could do significantly better. Obviously I have no idea whether the anon in question is one of these people.
>>44666589
I don't think anyone's written good Exalted fanfiction. Unless you count webcomics.
>>44666707
Keychain of Creation is never coming back, is it?
>>44666825
Nope, and I'm still buthurt they wasted te final comic on a filler strip instead of this
>>44666825
There's always Chorus of the Neverborn and God-Kicking Boot.
>>44666589
People seemed to like my Exalted fiction, but it was very pornographic.
>>44666589
I definitely could yes.
>>44667405
Yeah, this.
>>44668261
>>44667405
Go on...
Anyone make a Lunar homebrew for 3e yet?
>>44668522
Someone is working on it, but that's all we know.
>>44667405
>>44668292
There is definitely not enough Exalted entries in the /tg/ smut page on 1d4 chan.
>>44668522
There's one on the OPP forums I think.
>>44668602
What type of smut would people be interested in?
>>44668896
/h/ and /u/, mostly.Maybe a bit of /d/ as well?
>>44668943
I mean as in, scenarios.
>>44668977
Mnemon or Scarlet getting what they deserveA hard anathema dicking
>>44668977
Elder Lunar dominating her Solar mate.
Our ST is going to use the Mandate of Heaven system. I've heard it's not good, but never explained why. Can you clear this up for me?
>>44669324
>Mandate of Heaven
Pirate Masters of Jade and use that instead
>>44667405
Cough up the title and a link, you cocktease.
>>44655903
After about a year of trying, I managed to convince some friends to play. We're currently sort of a "godbusters" squad with two sidereals and two dragon-blooded. The sidereals do most of the fighting while the dragon-blooded do most of the talking. The sidereals for the most part pretend to be mortal retainers to the two dragon-blooded, who leverage their status to get us more support, entrance into places, etc.
Recently, the roleplaying has gotten kind of awkward, since the players for one of the sidereals and one of the dragon-blooded are a couple IRL, and that's starting to bleed into the game.Though I will admit, it's sometimes a little bit adorable.
>>44668896
Shame the wst died out, I did a few for that.
Alas
Will the whisper rating still be there in 3E? I absolutely loved it, thematically as well as mechanically. Nothing like supplementing a Medicine roll with the whispers of long-dead Creators divinity from the Underworld.
>>44663404
To be fair, a lot of problems can be solved if you get the right demon. Katrana, the Twilight, started with a pill bottle bug in an attempt to wean the Zenith's freed followers off their drug addiction and eventually had at least one or two of most published types, maybe fifty or sixty total. save the Teodozjia. Mostly because the only time she tried summoning one her player passed over the whole "Will instantly try to kill any nearby Zeniths in a fight to the Death" thing. She hasn't tried again since.
>>44669350
>Pirate Masters of Jade and use that instead
Yes, but why?
>>44670089
Because Mandate of Heaven is a clusterfuck
>>44669985
Whispers'll probably be around; it's kind of a thing. I hope it's more interesting than a "fifth Virtue," but we'll see.
>>44669985
Nobody knows yet.
>>44670097
What problems does it have?
>>44670133
It's shit
>>44670133
It tries to make city-states into literal characters, including having Virtues, a Limit Break, Willpower scores, etc.
You could spend motes and willpower to turn a city-state "stunt" into an actual Exalted session, like some kind of fucked up Sharaharhararhazad shit.
Mostly it's just overcomplicated and tried waaay too hard to do the "they're just like big characters!" thing in too much detail; MoJ is the same basic idea but sharply refined.
>>44655903
I have been in two games so far. One has been running since the leak happened and is still going strong with us just reaching Essence 3. The other one was with different group which we played during summer when I spent my summer in my home city.
In the summer game we started up in Chiaroscuro doing political fudgery and gathering support for an attack on Varangia. Campaign ended with us taking control of Varangia, altho that was mostly because of time restraints due to herpty derpty management of in-game time with most of players micromanaging a lot of things, since they were more used to much more low power systems/campaigns.
The other one started with us traveling from the South/Southeast towards Nexus through Great Forks. Near Forks we met a princess on her way to the Gathering of Kingdoms or whatever (cant remember whats it in English) to set her queendom in stone after her father died to assassins. She hired us to defend her from an assassin organisation set after her by her uncle, who wanted the throne for himself. We ended up dismantling the organisation and banishing the uncle to work a nonsense job on the borders of the kingdom. After that we went to retake control of our Night's kingdom from some usurpers, during which he revealed he was the last surviving heir to the throne, even tho basically the nobles in the kingdom are made of the old queen's bastards (she was quite a promiscuous Wood aspect DB with a fertility artifact).
Currently that campaign is about us dealing with the aftermath of having a kingdom which is pretty much been thrown around by bad rulership under the usurpers and some hardcore Scavenger lands wide Deathlord conspiracy shenanigans. Among those the neighbouring kingdom (which is an old enemy of ours) was manipulated into consuming tons ghost flower tea and set to incite war with all the surrounding kingdoms.
My Twilight is set on fixing that whole wtf situation shortly.
What do you do when two Abyssals have too-similar-sounding titles?
>>44672638
Refer to them by two dissimilar abbreviations.
>>44666849
Man, I honestly liked the old art style better. The one where they actually had arms and legs, but their eyes were still the same as they originally were.
But yeah, I doubt it's coming back. The creator messed up his hand somehow, can't remember what specifically was wrong, so new content is highly unlikely.
>>44672851
Tendonitis, he still updates Other Shit on /tg/chan, IIRC.
>>44672851
>The creator messed up his hand somehow
What is it with webcomic authors and hand injuries?
>>44673187
Mostly because they're constantly drawing which means repeated motion, which causes strain on the hand, wrist, and tendons. Ever come out of an exam with your hand a mess because you wrote so much?It's also because some of them are talentless hacks who are prone to self harm when they realise that their fans want them t draw their characters fatter.
>>44672638
>What do you do when two Abyssals have too-similar-sounding titles?
Refer to them as "Thing 1" and "Thing 2."
What suddenly happened to Exalted General? A week or so ago we were burning each thread to its end, like we had been for the past year or so and now every thread is in danger of dying on its own after 100ish posts.
Did a whole bunch of anons die due to christmas related overeating or something just recently?
>>44673187
>>44673397
Also likely cause most of them are self-taught and so nobody has told them "take care of your hands with therapeutic excercise and such, you idiot" and they might have problems like shitty drawing postures and such.
>>44674756
I agree anon. I'd like to post more myself, but I don't really get to play 3e. Got a 2.5e campaign going from before the backer released and I have a player RATHER attached to both his character and others. As well as other people playing other Exalt types. It's bittersweet because I like when players enjoy the story, but really want to just move on to 3e. It also wouldn't be fair to other players to just force changing to all solars and killing the campaign. At least I still have some fun in the current game.
>>44674756
Same thing happened a bit before the leaks hit; we've exhausted nearly all forms of dialogue, and probably won't have much to discuss until we see the changes made to the main release. Until then, you'll need to make some discussion if you want to have any.
On that note, let's talk a bit about Martial Arts. I know that we've mostly discussed these to death, particularly aosting them into tiers and going on about how great Single Point is, but how do they fare when you take DBs and Lunars into account? Martial Arts are uniquely splat agnostic, so they're the go to charms to spice up the rather barren Antagonists section of the Core. How powerful are they when they're being used by practitioners who lack access to the Mastery keyword or are restricted to the Terrestrial kiddie pool?
>>44674926
I kinda feel your pain, bro. Luckily, our campaign was basically with everyone playing a Solar so we didn't really have many scrubles changing system, in that regard. It also helped that we had lately been doing a lot of mass combat due to the Realm civil war, so everyone was really system fatigued due to mass combat's shittiness and kinda wanted to also change characters.
I still do want to play a Lunar, tho. Was planning on playing one if my Dawn beatstickman would have ended dead. Now I'm playing a Twilight aspiring Sorcerer-king so I can scratch a different kind of itch with the new sorcery systems and all.
>>44675030
Depends kinda on the MA, I guess. Some styles take heavier hits than the others, tho. But generally, its a nice way to spice up the barren Antagonists section.
Which demon is better to spy on the general populace and root out dissidents and conspirators? Decanthropes or chrysogonae?
>>44675133
Decanthropes, although neither one is really ideal.
Nearly any demon can make a passable spy, since they can choose not to manifest and be imperceivable to mundane mortals. Decanthropes are useful if you want your demon to disguise itself as a specific person, since the Decanthrope can kill that person and inhabit their body. Unfortunately, they also tend to kill people and collect their bodies rather indiscriminately, and this can occasionally cause problems.
Chrysogonae actively cultivate sedition and can encourage the ambitions of your enemies. They are absolutely not who you want to root out conspiritors--unless you're hoping to bait your enemies into revealing themselves.
>>44674756
>What suddenly happened to Exalted General? A week or so ago we were burning each thread to its end, like we had been for the past year or so and now every thread is in danger of dying on its own after 100ish posts.
Everyone has played the game now and realizes it's just not going to have legs.
So we're in the grief stage.of Denial. We'll get to Acceptance soon.
What does the Wyld Hunt do with an Anathema they're told not to kill? Is there a prison purposely built to house Anathema?
>>44678763
>Anathema
>not to kill
Does not compute.
So, I had thoughts on how/why Getimians work.
Normally, nobody is fully disconnected from Fate, even Exalts have a connection to it, though they have a lot more freedom within it. But Getimians were completely severed from it, so the internal fate spiders may be an automatic effect their physical essence generates as a defense mechanism, which turns them into an Exalt and as they have a localized personal fate field it grants power.
>>44678763
There's a place described in the 3e book like that.
>>44662448
>>44662528
Here you go.
>>44678804
>Does not compute.
In 2e lore, the Scarlet Empress had certain Solars captured alive.
>>44650956
okay so i read a lot of internet fan stories and poke my head into exalted threads every once in a while off of /tg/ and there's this thing i just don't get and the guys i see when i poke my head in are obsessed with.
wtf are this devil tiger roar shit?
>>44681096
Roar of the Devil Tiger is a high Essence Infernal Charm from 2E that let them start down the path towards becoming a "devil tiger," a creature that is neither primordial nor exalt but a being somewhere between.
They're one of those things that's a lot more popular with the discussion-and-fanfiction fanbase than the actually-plays-games fanbase, for much the same reason more builds posted to D&D CharOp forums are for higher levels than most games ever actually reach.
>>44681171
oh. so its a neat flavor thing?
>>44681191
I actually had a Devil Tiger howl in one of my games. Though he made that the thing he wanted to do more than anything, so it made his character concept revolve around howling, rather than making an interesting character who wants to howl. It was unfortunate. I also have plans to have one of the infernal NPC's in my game Howl, if the PC's choose to ally with them anyway. I've hinted at the possibility to one of my players and they certainly seem VERY interested. It's a lot of work to be done though and the charmset gets to essence levels you can't generally get to in a game. Generating an entire charmset takes a good amount of work too.
>>44681191
It's one of those things that's fun to wank about in your off-time, but masturbatory and largely imaginary in the context of an actual game, as >>44681258 mentions with his PC.
>>44681191
No, it basically lets you turn your character into your own unique type of Exalt. You design a new Yozi, based around your character and their personality/actions up to the point of taking the charm, and you get this new Yozi, yourself, as a third favored yozi. Later, there's a charm that lets you create your own you-specific caste, too. When you die, the next person to get your exaltation also has access to your charms/caste.
The bottom end of the tree lets you make your own third circle demons, too.
It's not just a neat flavor thing, it's an entirely new game for Infernal players.
>>44681258
>>44681285
huh. thanks for clearing that up then /tg/. a theoretical neat thing that could happen but prolly wont
So, how would a Wyld Hunt from Lookshy differ from a Wyld Hunt from the Realm? Would it be less "five monks beat an Anathema to death with kung fu" and more "five trained soldiers beat an Anathema to death with their maces"?
>>44681339
is >>44681359. i can see why obsessed with now. is notable thing.
maybe good for backstory, have exalt with dead devil tiger and now everyone want kill slave you
thanks again /tg/
>>44681475
Devil Tigers have never yet existed according to Canon. I don't know if having one in your backstory is a great idea.
>>44681580
is interesting idea
also i dont know shit about canon or whatever
also its like dark o clock and i should be slep
fark
>>44675030
MA period is powerful, doesn't really matter what exalt uses them. Each MA charm is like 2-3 charms worth of power in one.
So I'm reading up on Exalted for the first time, and for the most part I'm liking it, but I got to one bit that kind of sticks out for me.
The Perfect of Paragon seems really out of place in the setting. I mean, a big theme in the setting seems to be how immense power can end up corrupting even well-meaning people. But here we've got someone that the book on the south says is this great if stern ruler and talks at length about how awesome he and his city are. Of course, the chapter on Paragon also starts with a comic where he tortures his pet solar before even giving her a chance to explain. So on top of the fact that the text description sticks out compared to the rest of the setting, it also doesn't doesn't seem to jive with his portrayal in the comic.
Anyway, I'm new to Exalted and I'm still reading through the fluff, so I don't know if this gets touched on more, but it just seemed weird to me.
>>44682158
Perfect of Paragon has always been a place which annoyed me in the setting. A hard wall to be responded to by force, and upon his death the PC's potentially have access to one of the most gamebreaking artifacts in the entire game.
>>44682158
Oh, he's definitely a tyrant. But because he's codified the law so strictly and with reasonable means for offenders to be processed, there isn't really any room for anyone, other than him, to abuse power in Paragon.
>>44682158
Ah yes. The Perfect. He's pretty sour about not exalting as a Solar and tends to be really obsessed about finding his scepters mate. He does tend to be a dick. In a south game me and the party I was playing in got control of the Last Supplicant of Endless Power. We made it snow in paragon. He didn't like us much, nor did his diplomat.
>>44682228
Especially not when your Zenith tried to mind-rape ol' Scarlet.
>>44650956
>Do you like swords? Because I like swords. What swords have your characters crafted lately? What evocations have they come up with? Other weapons are fine too.
I have an idea for an Artifact: 5 Reaper Daiklaive.
The Apocalypse Terminator is a long, narrow, straight blade wrought with a body of starmetal and a blade edge of orihalcum. It was the last work of a Twilight Caste, forged with his hate and his love behind every hammer strike as he was hounded during the ending days of the ursurpation.
The Twilight knew that with the might of the Solars culled from the world, the power to preserve it would thusly be extinguished. Knowing that his and all other lawgivers lives on a timer, he crafted a blade that could be used by the Sidereals to face whatever nightmares may rise from beyond Creation.
When a Chosen of Endings finally tracked him down, he refused to fight. He saw no point of it. He only gave his assassin the sword and asked for his promise - that at the end of the world, this would be the blade he drew.
I haven't worked out evocations but the idea I have for the big Essence 5 power is that the starmetal collapses into a black hole and the orihalcum turns into an accretion disk, making the sword slice through and devour into a singularity anything it touches.
>>44682158
I know this is an inherently ridiculous thing to say in a discussion about Exalted, but honestly I think he's an author surrogate. Things like the description of Paragon reading like a sales pitch or the repeated mentions of how everyone loves it in Paragon, to the fact that he's got a hot eclipse willing enslaved to him (twice, she came back to be bound again after she exalted) that he can abuse, make it sound like someone went "Oh, but if I were ruling a kingdom in Creation, here's how it would go..." Yes, I realize that part of Exalted's charge is the wish fulfillment fantasy, but at least the players might have at least some opposition to deal with. The author really doesn't.
>>44682158
>I mean, a big theme in the setting seems to be how immense power can end up corrupting even well-meaning people.
Well, for the last two generations of Creation's rulers, that was because of the Great Curse. As a mortal, the Perfect doesn't have that.
>>44682532
But he does seem kind of insecure. Hard to believe that some like this supposedly has temperance 5.
>>44650956
>Do you like swords?
No, I hate swords. Swords are for rich princely faggots who never were in a real battle. Swords are boring slabs of easily snapped metal that overshadow other, cooler weapons for no fucking reason. Swords are the retarded cousin of spears, battle axes, war hammers and maces. Why don't we talk about those instead?
>>44682648
> Dude gets upset that his female Eclipse minion is using sex appeal to get info
Seriously, what does he think her job entails? Seducing people is like half of what her caste exists for.
>>44682648
>>44682744
In his defense, giving a solar the chance to talk is generally a bad idea.
>>44682891
> In his defense, giving a solar the chance to talk is generally a bad idea.
The mark on her hand and the oath she swore means that doing anything bad to him would kill her. She also can't lie to him (lies of omission still count as lies) or act against his interests.
>>44683004
You would be amazed what you can do to a guy while still acting within his interests.
>>44682504
It's not so much author surrogacy so much as author too-clever-for-his-britches-acy. Basically the same process that turned 2E Creation into an irredeemable shithole not even worth the effort to save also flanderized Lookshy and Paragon,
Paragon is absolutely the kind of place where an ill-considered economic law results in a hundred people dying before it's corrected (as opposed to the normal process of "everyone ignores the obviously facile law until it gets corrected into something enforcable); basically every law on Paragon's books should have a mile of corpses behind it for every draft and revision it went through. But that gets overlooked by authors who think they're being clever and subversive by having THEIR presentation of an authoritarian shithole be kind of an OK place, just like authors think they're being clever and edgy by having THEIR corner of Creation be the one with all the murderrapes in it.
>>44683484
Except that severity of punishment isn't "everyone's dead on the spot."
Even for the most extreme crimes if you don't turn yourself in it causes torturous pain, not death.
>>44683484
I'd let her act in my interests, if you know what I mean.
>>44683514
No, it says in the book that some crimes will kill you as soon as you're indoors.
>>44683514
It's not just through the magic mark that people would die.
Consider a law that, through whatever odd error, makes it illegal to buy food. Your options are: get tortured so hard you bite your tongue off or snap your own bones, or starve. Will this law kill many people before it gets corrected? Dunno; probably not, but if the affected is a small group, they might just all get wiped out before anyone brings it up. Will it cause provably more suffering than it would if this were any other city? Definitely.
Paragon's laws are enforced by a context-blind stick, and literally every zero tolerance policy ever implemented should show why context-blindness is going to result in people dying or suffering.
Man, now I want to have my twilight find a way to make the Perfect, as beholden to his laws as his people are.
>>44683484
> authors who think they're being clever and subversive by having THEIR presentation of an authoritarian shithole be kind of an OK place
This bothers me too. Nations ruled by a single, immensely powerful dictator rarely turn out well. Now imagine that dictator has the power to force anyone to do anything, hijack their own sense to spy on them, and kill them with a thought.
And for whatever reason, the author seems to think that such a dictator would allow freedom of speech (seriously, there's a part in the description where it says the Perfect actually rewards people for insulting or criticizing him). When has that ever happened? Dictators pretty much never tolerate criticism of their rule. And remember, this guy is supposedly just a mortal human, so where is the totally inhuman level of perfection coming from?
>>44683637
His character description says he's a hero who will save Creation precisely because he doesn't follow his own laws.
>>44683697
My bad, not his character description, it's in the description of Paragon.
>>44683697
What does that even mean, and how does it make any sense? I legitimately cannot follow the logic there.
>>44683731
I think he's referring to this bit. Could be wrong though.
>>44683971
>that pic of text
>>44683484
> But that gets overlooked by authors who think they're being clever and subversive by having THEIR presentation of an authoritarian shithole be kind of an OK place, just like authors think they're being clever and edgy by having THEIR corner of Creation be the one with all the murderrapes in it.
You are literally everything that is wrong with the exalted community, in a nutshell. You seem underage, kind of stupid, with a low attention span, and a complete inability to frame things in their own context.
So, how low would a solars blood presure need to be in order to faint...?
>>44684331
Solars don't generally lose enough blood to matter (see: the part where they don't 'bleed out' like mortals do after suffering sufficient lethal damage), but if it does come up (e.g. a spear that creates magically-bleeding wounds), they lose blood and pass out just like a normal human unless they've got magic (a Resistance Charm, probably) that expressly or implicitly helps them out.
>>44684202
Ok, Holden.
>>44682126
It seems like it still has it's limitations compared to Brawl. Though it makes up for being readily more purchasable.
>>44684457
Yeah, I'm aware of enlightened beings ability to close their wounds enough to make them stop bleeding.
The question was more of a ¨how much internal stress does a solar need to drop¨
>>44684598
That's where the "They're human until they spend motes" line comes in, yes.
>>44683484
>But that gets overlooked by authors who think they're being clever and subversive by having THEIR presentation of an authoritarian shithole be kind of an OK place
The people actually writing shit haven't generally considered Paragon an okay place. I mean, Grabowski compared Paragon to North Korea one time, which obviously is retarded in its own way, but also a sign of a guy who presumably had some say on how the place originally turned out not idealizing Paragon or its ruler.
>Consider a law that, through whatever odd error, makes it illegal to buy food.
Consider this: the Perfect has had centuries to get his act together. There may well be disasters like what you describe in the history of Paragon, but they are history, most likely history largely forgotten by the people of Paragon because that's the kind of shit the Perfect would want them to forget. At the moment the laws of Paragon probably are in a reasonably satisfactory state as far as the Perfect is concerned and don't really require any drastic changes, and if they did, the P of P would have enough experience and understanding of how things work to avoid the worst possible problems.
>Your options are: get tortured so hard you bite your tongue off or snap your own bones, or starve.
Or report to an official, at which point the pain stops, and the government learns about the problem and can do something about it.
>>44683671
>And for whatever reason, the author seems to think that such a dictator would allow freedom of speech
Why wouldn't he? Seriously, do you think that tyrants and dictators oppose free speech just because? No, a certain insecurity about one's power and its continuation is an important reason behind such restrictions. The Perfect has no reason whatsoever for such insecurity. His power is secure in a way any real life ruler could've only dreamed about. Obviously he won't behave quite like most real life dictators, because he lives and rules in a very different situation.
>>44684915
> Seriously, do you think that tyrants and dictators oppose free speech just because?
No, they oppose it because people don't like being criticized. This is as true for the man on the street as much as a powerful dictator. And once you give a person the power to stop that by crushing it, they will stop that by crushing it. It's not simply a problem with tyrants and dictators, it's a problem with people in general. The dictator just happens to also have the power to act on it.
> No, a certain insecurity about one's power and its continuation is an important reason behind such restrictions. The Perfect has no reason whatsoever for such insecurity. His power is secure in a way any real life ruler could've only dreamed about.
His entire motivation revolves around insecurity over his ability to go on ruling. And then there's his insecurity over the fact that he didn't exalt. And his insecurity about his pet solar cozying up with divine men. Dude is plenty insecure.
>>44685312
>No, they oppose it because people don't like being criticized. This is as true for the man on the street as much as a powerful dictator. And once you give a person the power to stop that by crushing it, they will stop that by crushing it. It's not simply a problem with tyrants and dictators, it's a problem with people in general. The dictator just happens to also have the power to act on it.
No, fuck that noise. People aren't that simple or that similar to each other. Nobody likes being criticized, sure, but the extent to which that is true varies a lot. Having the power to stop criticism doesn't automatically lead to actually stopping the criticism.
>His entire motivation revolves around insecurity over his ability to go on ruling.
It...doesn't? That is absolutely not true. Insofar as he is insecure about that, it's because of all the shit that's going on in the world, what with the Solars returning and all that. External problems, not internal ones.
>And then there's his insecurity over the fact that he didn't exalt.
He seems pissed of about that, and disappointed, but not really insecure.
>>44685386
> Having the power to stop criticism doesn't automatically lead to actually stopping the criticism.
Show me a case where it doesn't. Because if history is any guide to human behavior, it shows that when people amass enough power to crush criticism, that is exactly what they do.
> It...doesn't? That is absolutely not true.
Maintaining his rule is his motivation. Says it right there in his character blurb. It's the reason why he's gearing up to renege on the deal that his whole kingdom is founded on.
> He seems pissed of about that, and disappointed, but not really insecure.
See pic. Seems pretty insecure about it to me.
