Exalted General - /exg/

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Sandact is back edition!

Discuss Infernals in 3e!

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By what the devs have said, Infernals and Dragonblooded apparently will have very similar charmset layouts: ability based, with each individual charm having its own Yozi or elemental association respectively...

Perhaps I should recruit exalted players in the gamefinder thread

>>47870455
Here is fine too.

Just be aware that online randoms can have a vastly different ideas of what the tone of Exalted should be, so you can get an Odysseus and some super anime loli in the same party if you don't manage the character creation well.

>>47870533
>an Odysseus and some super anime loli in the same party

Sounds about right to me.

>>47870839
The clash of tone ruins games.

>>47870893

sometimes I just don't understand you, /tg/.

>>47870893
The devs ruin games.
Abortion Punch ruins games. (3e: Ravish Ghosts, which are totally not Rape Ghosts, ruin games.)
Massive faggotry ruins games.
Lunars ruin games.
XP sinks and bean trading ruin games.
Charm bloat ruins games.
Lack of support due to product cannibalization and vaporware ruins games.
The Storyteller dice mechanic ruins games.
Really, clash of tone is way down on the list of potential gameruiners for Exalted.

>>47871018

I havn't been following 3e development super closely, but,
>(3e: Ravish Ghosts, which are totally not Rape Ghosts, ruin games.)
really? I thought the 3e devs were against that sort of thing...

>>47870972
I'm speaking from personal experience. When the GM has not established and discussed the tone of the campaign with the players, they make characters according to their expectations and ideas of the setting and system. This is a problem when one player shows up with a grizzled warrior with aims to dethrone some local tyrant, and another shows up with an incredibly animoo loli with the goal of having a harem with one exalt of each type. yeah?

>>47871018
You are confusing ruining systems and ruining campaigns with some of those.

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>>47871018
>Lunars ruin games.

No.

Lunars are certainly bait for a) furfags who get off on being the little monstergirl, b) commissar fuklaws who get off on purging furfags and heresy.

But if you have either of these people doing their shit in your game, *those people* are what's ruining it, and they'd be ruining it with or without Lunars. Blame the That Guy, not the splatbook That Guy is using.

>>47871050
>I thought the 3e devs were against that sort of thing...
The 3e devs thought it would be a good use of their time recently to issue a statement on a bunch of stuff in 3e where among other things they confirm that The Deathlord Of Many Penes is still in 3e and still has many penes. Then they disclaim it with a rhetorical "can we focus on what's important, guys?" as though it were something out of a comment thread rather than their own announcement.

I don't know what the 3e devs are for or against, but they sure act retarded sometimes.

I like lunars and I play them responsibly.

>>47871158

lel. Where do they make these announcements anyway? Watching stupidity happen in person is always good for a larf.

>>47871189
Nice.

>>47871051
>When the GM has not established and discussed the tone of the campaign with the players...

pretty much this. This isn't a problem that happens only in exalted. It happens in all rpgs.

I made a nomad caravan guard with a simple dream of getting enough money to buy a camel herd for his dowry. He became a Judge Dredd paladin.

Second guy made a barbarian from distant lands. He had no problems making deals with evil spirits and stygian snake people (known goal is to rule all the humans as slaves). No compromises with giants (also have a known goal to rule all the humans as slaves) but snake people are okay.

Third dude made a cleric because hell yeah spellcaster. Making heresy on every step of the way. Teaching other higher ranking priests and angels what the real dogma is. Also calling them evil spirits if they don't agree with his way of thinking when they warm him he is going toward heresy.

Fourth guy made a wizard from the southern mage cities. Became a member of the Mage council in the rival mage city (which are in league with djinns. Which are also into ruling all humans as slaves).

All this happened because gm didn't establish what is okay and what isn't.
That being said it was fun campaign.

>>47871018
>rape ghosts
Stop this meme.

>>47871189
I like the idea of lunars but their two implementations have been poor so far

>>47870377
The only thing that seems weird to me about this is where theyll fit the more odd affects infernals have. The whole faustian bargin tree could probably fit in presence, but what about the telekenisis tree?

>>47871930
Faustian bargains are bureaucracy. I can see Mind Hand being Lore.

>>47871930
>Similar to the previous edition, shintais are blasphemous
>manifestations of Yozi might. Each Charm in the Infernal set
>will contain an occult detail attached to the end of the Charm
>that represents spiritual or physical growth in the Infernal’s
>being. Once she has collected a number of specific, matching
>elements (by learning Infernal Charms) she will be capable of
>manifesting a shintai. Shintais are terrible forms of dark power
>that transform the Infernal into a monster and lend her great
>power. As the Infernal collects more and more pieces of shintais
>from mastery of her Charm set, the player can use them to build
>more complex and powerful custom shintais using a point-build
>system.

>Each shintai will feature a number of signature powers it can
>unleash. When an Infernal invokes a shintai, she changes into
>its form, gaining a new health track (and potentially, a new
>mote pool). Losses from her health track (and mote pool) do
>not carry over when her shintai ends. Shintais offer the Infernal
>a number of powerful, variable options for dealing with threats
>that bring exceptional expansion to the normal functions of
>her Charm set. However, shintais suffer a few limitations: many
>natural Infernal Charms do not work while the Infernal is in
>shintai. Meanwhile, some shintais may dissolve after a certain
>period of time, reverting the Infernal to her true, more vulner-
>able form. All shintais are automatically released when their
>health track is depleted completely, returning the Exalt to her
>true form. Players will be able to build custom shintais by mix-
>ing and matching powers unique to various shintais. They will
>also gain access to shintais which are avatars of the Yozis, such
>as Glasiphane, the Eye of the Mind, a shining woman nested in
>a spiral of ten thousand winged cobras, each of their eyes shin-
>ing with a soft crystal flame.

>>47871930
>>47872022
>In addition, shintais form a gateway to Charms and muta-
>tions the Infernal can access in her regular form.

>An Infernal who can transform into Glasiphane has access to
>a mutation that grows a tumor in her brain that allows her to
>learn the Charm Mind Hand Manipulation

>>47871051
>insert anecdotal logical fallacy here

Shintai are the Infernals' Special Thing, like the Solars have Supernal and Lunars have Shapeshifting.

>>47872035
>>47872022
The devs have retracted that whole brain tumor shit. Infernals are ability based.

>>47872076
They have?

>>47870455

Nearly all players I had in the recruitment player thread have died off in my games after two months.

Ironically, all players I've gotten from the ERP threads have paid close attention to their PC's, player actions, and have been in the game a year and a half even in a game without porn.

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>>47872083
IIRC, yes to the detraction bit.

But they are DEFINITELY Ability based. And yes, it is unfortunate.

>>47872125
I'm pretty sure they were stated to be Ability-based in the very same preview with the whole tumor thing, as well. And I don't see anything unfortunate about it.

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>>47871930
>>47871974

MHM might be Occult due to having the Sorcerous tag. I'm interested in the new ability based trees. When Infernals first dropped, you got the choice of favouring 2 of 5 Yozi charmsets, roughly in line with Solars favouring 10 of 25 abilities. The both worked out to about 40%. But the Introduction of Kimbery quickly established that favouring 2 of about 12 Yozi would be shit. Ability based trees would allow the devs to use as many Yozi as they wish without fucking with XP costs. Interestingly, there'd still be room for heretical charms, they could tie together different Yozi trees in a set in the same way Flashing Edge of Dawn ties together multiattacks and counterattacks in Melee or how Triumph Forged God Body ties together strength, speed, and leaping movements in Athletics.

Also, Shintais. Looking forward to those.

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>>47872121
>tfw /trash/ has better roleplayers than /tg/

>>47871858
It doesn't matter if it's accurate or even reasonable criticism; it provides a sound-byte to easily dunk on a thing.

Sort of like how people keep bringing up Aatrek in relation to SomethingAwful, Beast in relation to WoD, sex moves in Apoacalypse World or Monsterhearts, and so on.

Context only detracts from the overall intent, which is to poison the well for people who only heard the one thing and aren't invested enough to look into it beyond that.

>>47872171
They didn't retract the whole thing, of course.

People liked the charmset being divided by Yozi. It made it easier to create weird charms that don't really fit any ability, have multi-purpose charms (like combat charms that work using any ranged non-Sorcery form of attack instead of just bows) and have charms have more thematic connections instead of mechanical ones (Malfeas tree that's all about his green flames used for a variety of purposes to contrast throw charm tree where thrown charms lead into more thrown charms).

Not saying it's better, but it was a breath of fresh air, and it was interesting. People didn't like potentially losing that.

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So...what is the consensus about 3e's rules? Good, bad, worse, better than before?

>>47872401
Better than before without a doubt. Whether it's 'actually pretty good' or just 'pretty good compared to 2E' is a matter of debate, but I think it's actually pretty good.

>>47872401
Much better than 2e, but still has big problems, like the entire craft system.

>>47872401
>it'd be funny if her left leg tattoo said STOP and her right-leg tattoo said DON'T STOP

>>47872487
>her

>>47872401

strictly inferior to 2.5e, people are just blinded by the novelty of it all.

>>47872544
Behold: a new breed of trolling.

>>47872579
I think that's just the old fashioned SV brand of idiocy.

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>>47872612
I'm not up to date on the current trends of SV Exalted generals, I just read fanfiction there. Can you enlighten me what it is that they do there?

>>47872401
Better than before, and has legitimately good qualities in and of itself now.

The combat system is especially one of the better ones out there now.

>>47872579

I am Topaz Eyed Troll Whose Shitposts Are 10,000 Characters Of Shit In A 1,000 Character Textbox, but I do sometimes express honest opinions.

>>47872678
Gather in a circle around EarthScorpion and Aleph and circlejerk while staring at them in admiration, mostly.

>>47872697
So, what you're saying is that behind that pretend retardation hides real retardation?

>>47872401
It's more like a sideways move. It fixes a lot of problems that 2e had but introduces a lot of new ones. The book does a poor job of introducing the setting coherently, the mechanics require a lot of study to get a firm grasp on, and the charms take up like half the book and most of them intertwine the mechanics and fluff in such a way that it's physically painful to read through, in addition to being organized in the most unintuitive way possible.

There might be a playable game in there, but it's got such a high barrier for entry that it'll drive away anyone who's not already a huge fan of exalted.

>>47872678
It's not much, it's just that they really hate the devs while fellating posters like Earthscorpion, so they tend to buy into Earthscorpion saying his houseruled 2E is better. And jerking off Aleph and Earthscorpion whenever they talk about their Infernals game. There's just as many posts about "Kerisgame" as there is about the actual game

And then there's posters like Shyft, who outright admit that they're giving inaccurate or misleading criticism of 3E because he's angry at the people who support it on SV.

And NotAnAutomaton, who insists on talking about how his own Exalted heartbreaker is going to be awesome, while providing absolutely nothing coherent.

Or HavocFett, who felt the need to shill for D&D 5E ad nauseum in the Exalted thread because he felt Exalted was too problematic, and insisting that you can totes run Exalted's setting in D&D.

Basically, while these people are not representative of every poster on SV, they are the loudest, most irritating, and most noticeable. Interacting with them is unavoidable.

>>47872787
I've ran 3E for people new to Exalted. It went just fine. Insofar as there was dissatisfaction, it was about the setting and concept of the game not being everyone's cup of tea, not about mechanics.

>>47872764

Isn't that what life really is?

>>47872740
I gathered, but which direction are they circlejerking right now?

>>47872818
Nice analysis m8. Thanks.
I don't plan on ever visiting that thread unless someone links something from it here, but nice to know.

>>47872787
>but introduces a lot of new ones

The fact that one can run 3E RAW without running into things like Paranoia Combat or Rocket Tag lethality really makes this more than a sideways move.

>the mechanics require a lot of study to get a firm grasp on

Again, still better than 2E in this regard.

Whether or not you want to argue about 3E's merits in and of itself, the argument that it isn't an improvement from 2E is nonsense.

And speaking anecdotally, I /was/ able to run Ex3 just fine for a group who never played a roleplaying game before.

How is combat in 3rd edition? Does the idea of cinematic battles still stand where enemies are clashing swords waiting for right time to strike? Or does it go into 100 dice, one-hit-kill?

>>47872982

I meant high-level combat. Does it go into same problem as many rpgs when it starts breaking on high level when you just obliterate your opposition in 1-2 rounds tops?

>>47872872
>I gathered, but which direction are they circlejerking right now?
Against 3E, for 2.5 and their own homebrews.

>>47873006
Generally speaking, it's pretty challenging to one-shot anybody now, and the high essence effects are a good deal more restrained.

>>47873064

circlejerking is always the same no matter the product line.

1st edition - idea of pure idea.
2nd edition - better product. We have Infernals
3rd edition - 2ed sucks. Buy 3rd edition. We need your money (I undestand the logic behind it. They need to earn the money so they can produce more products.
homebrew - guys. check my personal, better vision of Exalted. It has xyz and one day I'm gonna publish my own book

>>47873064
Honestly I have no idea what is being discussed right now, but I liked DaveB's Twitter post where he said "never assume people on SV have actually read the book"

>>47873253
2ed really does suck though. Pretty much everyone acknowledged its issues but they liked the setting enough to let it go.

I'd have been happy with 3E if they just fixed Paranoia Combat, and they definitely did that, and more besides.

>>47873308
>DaveB
Who?

>>47873410
One of the writers for Mage 2E.

Is it just me or is Exalted weirdly fatalist for its tone?

Fatalism is literally written into the metaphysics of the setting with the Loom. Only Essence-users can hope to change their fate. But besides that, there's a fatalist veneer to many things. A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial. No matter how hard they push themselves, they just can't. I'm fine with them being weaker, but they don't even have the chance to barely touch the Celestials. Likewise, mortals cannot hope to command even the smallest bit of Essence and grasp even a sliver of the Exalted's puissance. They can't even learn TMA now!

You can counter this by saying that Creation is not a Noblebright setting, but it isn't Grimdark for that matter either. It's..."Grimbright"--the world sucks, yeah, but it CAN be better. The Solars really ARE glorious god-kings that can uplift humanity into near-paradise, they just have to get their shit together.

I dunno. I like settings where a person can break their limitations and ROW ROW FIGHT THA POWAA and all that. The idea of, say, a mortal training for years and years and finally being able to use Essence is cool as hell to me, as is the idea of a Dragon-Blooded pushing themselves as hard as conceivably possible and actually managing to beat a Celestial at their own game. And Exalted is ACTIVELY antagonistic to that kind of thing, which seems really weird given the Grimbright tone of the setting.

Hell, to even BE an Exalt you pretty much have to win a glorified lottery. There are probably thousands of people fit to be Solars, but only 150 of them actually Exalt.

>>47871158

>I don't know what the 3e devs are for or against, but they sure act retarded sometimes.

Jesus.

>>47871201

Seriously, help an anon out and drop a link?

>>47874273
>caring about e2 Fluff
well, there's your problem, buddy

>>47874343
Everything I was talking about applies to 3e. Hell, mortals in 2e could at least command Essence--now they can't! DB's still are unable to even get close to Celestials, and I'm pretty sure the Loom functions the same.

>>47874273
>Fatalism is literally written into the metaphysics of the setting with the Loom. Only Essence-users can hope to change their fate.
I don't think the Loom is portrayed as determining everything. There is Fate, there are things that will come to pass, but there is also room for choice and free will.

>But besides that, there's a fatalist veneer to many things. A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial. No matter how hard they push themselves, they just can't. I'm fine with them being weaker, but they don't even have the chance to barely touch the Celestials. Likewise, mortals cannot hope to command even the smallest bit of Essence and grasp even a sliver of the Exalted's puissance. They can't even learn TMA now!
I don't think that's actually fatalism. Both mortals and especially Dragon-Blooded can do impressive, meaningful things, they can make choices, they can and do matter. That they can't match a Celestial in his particular area of expertise is not all that important, I'd say.

>I dunno. I like settings where a person can break their limitations and ROW ROW FIGHT THA POWAA and all that. The idea of, say, a mortal training for years and years and finally being able to use Essence is cool as hell to me, as is the idea of a Dragon-Blooded pushing themselves as hard as conceivably possible and actually managing to beat a Celestial at their own game. And Exalted is ACTIVELY antagonistic to that kind of thing, which seems really weird given the Grimbright tone of the setting.
Stuff like that just isn't what Exalted is about. Shit's unfair, some people just are overwhelmingly more powerful than others. The weaker guys can still matter. They can even triumph over their 'betters', in the right circumstances.

>>47872401
Much better. 3rd edition has problems, but they're not major and won't bring your game to a grinding halt like 1st and 2nd edition.

The biggest problem with 3rd edition is that some of the subsystems are too intricate, but if you don't like them it's easy to chop them down into a more manageable size.

>>47874402
>Only Essence-users can hope to change their fate.
Give me a quote from e3
>but they don't even have the chance to barely touch the Celestials.
Wrong
>mortals cannot hope to command even the smallest bit of Essence
It's called being a sorcerer
>Hell, to even BE an Exalt you pretty much have to win a glorified lottery. There are probably thousands of people fit to be Solars, but only 150 of them actually Exalt.
More e2 lore you straight-up copied

It's only as grimdark if you include your retarded lore, stupid

>>47874460
To continue:

>>47874273
>Hell, to even BE an Exalt you pretty much have to win a glorified lottery. There are probably thousands of people fit to be Solars, but only 150 of them actually Exalt.
I think it's more like winning gold in some really high-level sports event, like the Olympic games. I mean, the top contestants are probably reasonaböy close to each other in ability. The guys who got silver and bronze *could* have won: the guy who got gold isn't necessarily *better* than them. He still did better in that particular situation. He still deserved his victory through his own talent and effort. I see Exaltation as being something similar to that rather than being comparable to a guy just happening to buy a winning lottery ticket.

>>47874273
>>47874402

>A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial. No matter how hard they push themselves, they just can't.
>DB's still are unable to even get close to Celestials, and I'm pretty sure the Loom functions the same.

This isn't actually true. The Immaculate QC's from the antagonists chapter are pretty damn scary for basically anyone who isn't a Dawn, and they're just essence 2.

>>47874317
It's the Abyssals preview from the Kickstarter, guy.

>>47874475
>Wrong

Name one situation where a DB could take on a Dawn 1v1 and not die horrible. Or one where a DB could out-think a Twilight.

Even if they have the same stats, Solar Charms are so ludicrously powerful that it doesn't matter. Even if several DB's work together, a Solar could outdo all of them.

>It's called being a sorcerer

I thought becoming a sorcerer changes a mortal into something else. Pretty sure the devs said that somewhere.

>More e2 lore you straight-up copied

What? There are only a limited number of Solar Exaltations. Even during the Primordial War and First Age, there was but 300. Creation is fucking huge.

>>47874669

Oh, for some reason that phrasing made me think there was some new clusterfuck that happened.

>>47871158
>Lunars are certainly bait for a) furfags who get off on being the little monstergirl, b) commissar fuklaws who get off on purging furfags and heresy.

In my experience Lunars are bait for weeaboos who want to play a moekawaii catgirl/foxgirl/whatever. The guys who ALWAYS choose animal ears and tails for their Tells like Marena in Keychain of Creation.

>>47874697
>Name one situation where a DB could take on a Dawn 1v1 and not die horrible. Or one where a DB could out-think a Twilight.
Rolling really well. I mean, if DBs could reliably match Solars by trying realy hard, their power difference, which matters for the setting and themes of the game, wouldn't matter much. And besides, what would happen when Solars also try their hardest to push themselves past their limits?

>>47874273
>Fatalism is literally written into the metaphysics of the setting with the Loom. Only Essence-users can hope to change their fate.

Stop.

>>47874697
>Name one situation where a DB could take on a Dawn 1v1 and not die horrible.
E3 Immaculate Master against non-optimised Dawn
Jeez, that was easy. Let's try another one
Mnemon against starting Dawn.
Wow, another easy one. How about a third one:
100 year old Veteran against non-optimised Dawn/War supernal Dawn/Atheltics supernal Dawn/....

>>47870311
Would Punished Snake be a GSP?

>>47874789
>Mnemon against starting Dawn.
Eh, Mnemon isn't all that when it comes to straight-up combat. Otherwise I agree with you.

>>47874697
>Solar Charms are so ludicrously powerful that it doesn't matter.
Did you even bother reading e3 at all? Solar charms are good, great even. But they're not remotely good enough to win when not playing to your strengths, or against a character that's older and has more charms even though they're individually weaker, or when put at a disadvantage, or when you just have a bad match-up, or...

>>47874789
so basically if you give a DB hundreds of xp and hyper focus it on combat it can take out a dawn with no xp that has been purposely built to not be good at combat? got any other brilliant insights?

>>47874814
Yeah, but Memnon can literally bring Octavian to the fight.

>>47874821
Moving goalposts.

For a solo 2e Infenals story, should I give the player any extra benefits in-game/at character creation to make up for them having no coven to support them? If so, what should the rough ballpark be?

>>47874821
>so basically if you give a DB hundreds of xp and hyper focus it on combat it can take out a dawn with no xp that has been purposely built to not be good at combat? got any other brilliant insights?

I was disputing:
>A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial. No matter how hard they push themselves, they just can't. I'm fine with them being weaker, but they don't even have the chance to barely touch the Celestials.

which my examples undeniably disprove. A case can be made for less extreme xp differences, but there things are less clear so I decided to go with clear counter-points.

>>47874821
>purposely built to not be good at combat?
Or, you know, was built as an organic character rather than an exercise in optimisation that will fold to any challenge outside his extremely narrow range of specialisation.

>>47874273
It's just not the kind of game that celebrates the self-made man. It's not about fighting the power; it's about BEING the power. It's an older sort of story than the rags-to-riches scrappy-underdog flavor of narrative that we're most familiar with. You're the best and the strongest and the rightful rulers of everything, and your enemies are jealous weaklings trying to keep you down. Exalted are unapologetic power fantasies; they're overdog heroes.

>>47874697
>I thought becoming a sorcerer changes a mortal into something else. Pretty sure the devs said that somewhere.
So? That still means it should qualify for
> The idea of, say, a mortal training for years and years and finally being able to use Essence is cool as hell to me

>>47874805
If the reveals are any indication, he's a Sidereal

>>47875202
the idea of him being a Siddie who has convinced everyone that he is in fact a GSP makes me laugh.

>>47875256
Punished Snake is using a Resplendent Destiny of Big Boss the whole time.

>>47872173

I kinda think it makes more sense for them to be attribute based

Any hope the Sourcebooks will come faster?

>>47872818

Its funny as their 2.75e is shit. Its more complicated for literally no gain.

And Shyft, oh boy shyft. Hes still assblasted after the devs smacked him down. He's reasonable, but trying to convince him of things like the hero keyword for native charms is nuts.

>>47873253

As the Alchemical guy, if the last ever happens to me, punch me.

>>47876178
Hopefully, but they mentioned redoing Dragonblooded once already.

>>47876251
Shyft freaked out enough that even the people who disliked 3E were saying his arguments were terrible.

>>47874273
>A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial.
They can, just not in their speciality. But yes, DBs are weaker because they were created as troops and officers, not generals. Numbers are their advantage and they once used them to overthrow the presumably "untouchable" Celestials.

>Likewise, mortals cannot hope to command even the smallest bit of Essence
They can. You can become Sorcerer, get mutated by Wyld, blessed by a god or whatever. But merely trying very hard is not enough, you have to change your nature in some way. Being mortal by definition means that you can't channel Essence.

>I dunno. I like settings where a person can break their limitations
Creation isn't one of those. Each splat has clear limitations. You can sometimes rise above your station but it's not something common or done by merely shouting very loud. But that doesn't mean that beings from higher tiers of power are untouchable and being from lower colpetely irrelevant. Mortals and DBs ARE relevant, just in ways mortal and DBs can be. If your only measure of comptence is "can punch Ligier in the face" then you should change that.

>Hell, to even BE an Exalt you pretty much have to win a glorified lottery.
No, that's not how this works. Only worthy people are given Exaltations. There is limit of AROUND 300 (no hard number given in 3E IIRC) and I think >>47874559 has the right idea with the gold medal analogy.

Any writers/homebrewers here who have Exalted influences in your work? Creation, Malfeas, Autochthonia, etc. are such amazing places and have such cool stuff it's hard not to take stuff from them.

I'm currently working on a Homebrew setting whose backstory follows the same basic narrative as Exalted's (a bunch of chthonic gods create humanity to extract prayer from them; they made us weak but gave us potential, causing us to beg for anything to assuage the suffering of living; eventually a few come to cherish us and humanity eventually fights and kills their creators, who are now trapped in an fucked-up corpse-dimension and REALLY fucking mad about it). There's nothing like Exalts though.

Sometimes it sucks though: it's like Exalted did ALL the cool stuff before. Maybe I'm just not original enough.

>>47876862
So yeah, mortals can only do anything if they stop being mortals.

>>47876989
Yes, but that's semantics. Mortals were created unable to channel their Essence and can't do so without changing their nature. Alternatively they can become Sorcerers and channel the Essence of Creation, which is external to them.

>>47877142
>Yes, but that's semantics.
Nah, it's literally what the devs said. Any discussion that concerns mortals excludes sorcerers, moving goalposts and all that.

>>47877225
Either way, mortals can still do heroic things. Seduce princessess, create their own kingdoms, lead the Guild. Even the most heroic mortal warrior won't be able to defeat optimized Dawn but that's not something he should be ashamed of.

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>>47877540
True facts.

>>47872302
While I understand and sympathize with the general form of this criticism, I think context cuts both ways here: Exalted is a gameline that KEEPS DOING STUPID SEX SHIT.
For Abyssals, they did it with the 2e donglord, and found it worth putting into their preview that he's still a donglord in 3e, along with the sex ghosts.
For Infernals, they go into graphic detail about the atrocity that is Lillun and how she has orifices crawling across her flesh and demons crawling out of her orifices, and follow up by saying that every infernal's exaltation starts with a demon fucking Lillun some more, and then they top it off by saying Infernals sometimes settle their disputes by seeing who can fuck Lillun the longest. And Hero-Sundering Hands ("abortion punch") which was mentioned already.
For Lunars, they write Changing Plumage Mastery which lets you adjust minor details of your form, giving examples like your hair length, your skin color, your birthmarks and your clothes; and then they retro-nerf it with the completely unnecessary Preening the Gaudy Tail charging you more xp to perform minor form adjustments to sexual characteristics because apparently CPM's ability to adjust skin color doesn't suffice if a colorful butt is a sexual characteristic of your monkey form. And then PtGT gets really unnecessarily specific detail about exactly what it can do:
>As a human male, he might extend his penis to impressive length and girth, and grow more chest hair. A female shape might tighten her vagina, widen her hips and enlarge her breasts.
(And that's not getting into how bad an idea Scroll of Swallowed Darkness was in general)

So while the rape ghosts meme in particular is inaccurate and should arguably die, I think it's filling a niche that's hard to keep empty. Exalted appears to have a That Guy on the dev team, and people will want some way to communicate briefly that the Exalted books are prone to containing That Guy's sex shit.

>>47878436
>citing the sex joke book that wasn't a real book

The mythologies Exalted draws from are full of weird and frequently rape-y sex shit, and you can bet your ass that if several hundred people on earth suddenly got god-king powers tomorrow there would be a hell of a lot of weird and frequently rape-y sex shit going on.

Hell, basic social charms are going to me hugely more efficient rape engines than any rape ghost, just by their nature.

Better to just slap a warning label on the front and hand players an x-card than to just pretend that stuff isn't part of the package

>>47878436
>Swallowed Darkness

>Literally an April Fool's Day joke.

>>47878552
What work is "real" doing in this sentence? Someone wrote Preening the Gaudy Tail and wrote it badly on multiple levels. If it was a joke, it was a poorly executed one.

>>47878753

It was a joke charm written in a joke book and released on April Fools. If you're taking it seriously, that's your problem right there.

I'm currently reading through the book, and the Black Claw Style looks totally what I'd want for my character, but I'm not sure of it's efficiency. Is it viable as a sole mean of offense for a more social character ?

>>47878869
Yes. Having minions do the fighting is also a viable means of combat for a social character.

>>47878869
It's decent for offense, but I would recommend picking up Dodge and a little Resistance (at least for Ox Bodies) to flesh your character out defensively.

Obviously you'll never be as strong in combat as someone who builds their character to excel in direct combat, but when your character does engage in combat, you'll be approaching it from a slightly different angle than most people.

You'll still be able to contribute and when you manage to bring your Style together you'll be doing things that make other players go, "Wow, neat!"

>>47878896
>>47878917
Perfect, thanks a lot.

>>47874814
>Eh, Mnemon isn't all that when it comes to straight-up combat. Otherwise I agree with you.
You only say that because you haven't seen her True Form.

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Post the sunniest Solars that ever Solared.

>>47878436
Swallowed Darkness is just an April Fool's Supplement

And you're missing the point: it's shitty to ignore the larger context for cheap points, or to boil an entire work down to x or y bad thing and then say 'this is representative of the entire work, and the people who enjoy it.'

Which keeps fucking happening, regardless of what the work in question is. At this point shitting on the communities that engage in this by mentioning the problematic things they're up to, while hypocritical, is at least pretty satisfying.

>>47878436
The current devs haven't wrote Scroll of Swallowed Darkness or Infernals though. The writing team has changed.

>>47876862
To be technical, Exalting as many of the splats it the way mortals break their limitations.

Only mortals can Exalt and and whole point of it was that they were still human, just with the power of a god. That's how the gods beat the Primordial by giving mortals an avenue to break their inborn limitations.

That's literally the whole point of Exaltations.

>>47876251
When did Shyft get blasted by the devs?

>>47880584
Exalted are human but they aren't mortal. Or rather Mortal, capital "M". This is not the same thing in Creation, at least in my understanding. The guy I was responding to was upset that Exalted doesn't let people rise above their station without changing who you are. And that's true, you can't become something more than mortal and stay mortal. Power of friendship won't give you a sudden powerup so that your Fire Aspect can roflstomp distraught Dawn with obligatory HE'S FAST and WHAT IS THIS POWER playing in the backgtround.

>>47881475
>Power of friendship won't give you a sudden powerup so that your Fire Aspect can roflstomp distraught Dawn with obligatory HE'S FAST and WHAT IS THIS POWER playing in the backgtround.

To be fair, in the case of a Dragon-Blood in particular, that might actually happen, depending on the Sworn Brotherhood mechanics. In 2e they were a Virtue that could go to 10, effectively.

>>47881399

Around when Alchemicals came out. Him and Dif had this Alchemical homebrew they were super proud of, new fluff to make them more towards 1e and so forth. When called out on what they'd like Alchemicals to be they posted that.

Chambers came out and then said that isn't the direction he wanted 2e nor Alchemicals to have anymore and would never accept such a thing.

To be fair I could tell love went into the project and it had some fair bit of polish in terms of crunch, but definately needed some revision. Then again I only saw it a long time ago, so it might've changed. They saw Alchemicals far too strong and too solar like in 2e, so they wanted to fix that.

>>47877225
Just because the devs said it, doesn't mean it's not a semantic argument.

>>47870377
that sounds mechanically boring vs the old infernals. :(

>>47872401
the only consistent complaint ive heard of is craft. Never actually been around when those particular shitstorms happened and i like the craft system myself so i guess thats more word of mouth though

Does doing a gambit end Liquid Steel Flow?

>>47883935
yes

>>47874697
>Name one situation where a DB could take on a Dawn 1v1
a better DB. chargen essence 1 dawn vs essence 3 db is going to be pretty one sided

So let me see if I understand the elemental dragons thing
Lesser elemental dragons are elementals who have advanced into high essence to become super powerful
Greater elemental dragons are one step beyond that, and are stuff like kulka
THE elemental dragons are the things sleeping in the elemental poles.
Right?

>>47884264

>THE elemental dragons are the things sleeping in the elemental poles.

Yes. They are also 3rd circle souls of the Primordial Gaia and have no real connection to Elementals. Although that could change in 3e,

>>47883776
The devs got their shitters shattered over how many people found Infernals to be the most unique and innovative thing to come out of 2nd edition.

Solution? Make them Green Solars. Solar cock must get sucked, therefore all cocks must become Solar cock.

>>47883879

There's other ones that crop up regularly: BP/XP, Naval (although not many people have actually used it, anyone who does hates it), the lack of a real Project system.

Charm-bloat/so-many-dice-tricks is also a common complaint, but people are divided on that one.

>>47884862
>BP/XP
ah right, guess that its just so all over that i kind of filter it out at this point
> Naval
first ive actually heard of this. Do people not like the sailing rules? Why exactly?

>>47885094

>first ive actually heard of this. Do people not like the sailing rules? Why exactly?

Only complaints I have ever seen on it is that the Sail user and the ST have to roll at each other while everybody else does nothing. But its hard to make a system where you include everyone. And at the same time you need to have sail rules since Creation has so much water.

>>47885094

The naval combat system, rather.

The way it works in the books is that the whole group does nothing, while the pilot performs roll after roll against the Storyteller, until they get enough to perform a boarding action, at which point everyone except the pilot drops into combat mode, until the boarding action is over, whereupon the pilot resumes rolling until they can board the next ship, etc.

That's assuming the pilot actually attempts a boarding action - if they don't, and go for bombardment or something instead, the whole group just sits there while the pilot makes roll after roll.

>>47885145
>>47885123
>Not running across the water to board enemy ships on your own while your pilot bombards other enemy ships
Plebs, the lot of you

>>47885123

Nah, they just need to integrate it into mainline combat, the same way they did social actions, and mass combat. In 2E, these all happened on different timescales, and were incompatible - in 3E, you can have people swording, talking and generaling all at the same time. They just needed to tack "sailing" in there, too.

The pilot should be able to take sail actions to give situational modifiers everyone on board - ram other ships to knock people prone, or give them penalties for being off-balance, position his ship for raking fire to enhance the effect of the Twilight's Burning Raptor, all sorts of stuff could be done.

The basics of it (opposed rolls giving points which can be spent on manoeuvres) is fine; the fact that it happens out-of-sync with the rest of the combat is not.

>>47884728
>The devs got their shitters shattered over how many people found Infernals to be the most unique and innovative thing to come out of 2nd edition.
>Solution? Make them Green Solars. Solar cock must get sucked, therefore all cocks must become Solar cock.

It's a shame they decided to make Infernals into Green Solars. That's the reason Neph stepped away from 3rd edition - he didn't want to have any part of them ruining what he made.

Had he still been on the project, we would have had a much tighter rules set and mechanics.

>>47885188

"Running across the water to board enemy ships" would be a boarding action. Hope your pilot's accrued enough momentum points to give your character permission to do that, Jack.

>>47885293
>we would have had a much tighter rules set and mechanics.

You remember he did the panoply chapter in 2e, right?

Grand Goremauls and all?

>>47885366
Yeah, and he admitted that there were mistakes. He was given 3 weeks to put the entire core combat system together, he didn't have a chance to work with Moran who was writing most of the Charms, and he had to conjure up a social and mass combat system out of thin air. Considering he was only given a few weeks to do all of that, it honestly could have been a lot worse.

Regardless, when it came to Charm design, the guy's Charms were fucking great. They were mechanically sound, clear in their functionality and flavorful as hell. Much better than the "casual language" bullshit we got in 3rd edition.

>>47884348
The Elemental Dragons are explicitly mentioned to be not Gaia's Deavas but just beings she "created" somehow

Which is dumb because them just being her Deavas would make more sense and be less confusing. But what do I know about worldbuilding that Morke and Holden don't?

>>47884728
we're still have straight up telekenisis in the preview. I doubt any of the weird shit they could do is going anywhere. Abyssal preview also showed they can do ability based stuff without just having it be boring re runs of the solar charmset

>>47885495
>Yeah, and he admitted that there were mistakes.
Oh, good, glad to know he did that. Good thing he admits they were mistakes, after having the game get eviscerated in a matter of hours after release.

I said he was a bad game designer, not that he's fucking delusional.

>He was given 3 weeks to put the entire core combat system together, he didn't have a chance to work with Moran who was writing most of the Charms, and he had to conjure up a social and mass combat system out of thin air. Considering he was only given a few weeks to do all of that, it honestly could have been a lot worse.
Grading on a curve is how you get shit like D&D eating its own shit for 30 years. I don't care that it "could have been worse," I care that it was bad.

If you're given less time, you go with simple, not more complex. Neph went for bloat every single time, as the exact same systems you mention illustrate. His Charms also went for bloat, every single time. They were "clear" because they were half-page bulletpoints of every possible corner case.

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>>47881774
>Alchemicals

By the way, I was very disappointed than they wasted a perfectly valid plot. All throughout the Alchemical sourcebook they talk how Autochtonia is a fount of unlimited but slightly mad knowledge, how mortals taps into this fount to create alchemicals, how alchemicals are created when several mortals touched by Autochton gather together, etc. I was expecting some mad scientism very, very hard. People with the spark that can connect with Autochton and get mad knowledge and mad thoughts who should be carefully monitored by the Tripartite, but are absolutely necessary for the creation of Alchemicals. This shit writes itself.

>>47885595

>The Elemental Dragons are explicitly mentioned to be not Gaia's Deavas

Where?

>>47885595
Its unlikely that metaphysical shit like that will be getting any coverage so you can just swap it out if you don't like it.

>>47872818

Eh. There are a fair amount of posters that call out Earthscorpion and Aleph when they get intolerablely full of shit.

>Shyft saying he gives inaccurate citicism of 3e


Link pls

>>47874273
Exalted ain't a fair world m8. Some people just win the lottery and some people die in a ditch.

The majority are the latter.

>>47874559
But due to the sheer size of Creation, there's probably tens of thousands of guys that deserve Exaltation, yet won't recieve them because there wasn't one available at the time.

It's like a lottery open to specific people, it takes effort to qualify but it's still luck in the end.

>>47871158

In the game I played for about 2 years lunars were the loophole to everything the GM disliked about exalted and had banned, but literally almost every fucking notable npc and our most potent pcs were all lunar...

After like 700xp over the course of a 2 year long weekly game the only thing my extremely dedicated twilight craftsman ever got to make was a factory cathedral, granted it was a factory cathedral which we used to outfit our army of bearmen with power armor and plasma guns. but still.... Right from character gen I knew I was going to build something ridiculous, I made note of everything and anything that could help me do the impossible. After two years of having collected resources, connections, abilities, charms, and the materials the DM couldn't say no to any of it especially due to where the plot was headed.

The character was so potent at crafting he could turn a popsicle stick into an m1 Abrams forged from orricalcum in a matter of seconds. The character was ridiculous at crafting.

Fuck that DM though, they had an absolute hate for artisan type characters so naturally they let me play an artisan? How asinine.

>>47880201

Things summerized to an easily digestible buzzword is all the rage in media though.

>>47885293

They keyword to give abyssals a 1wp surcharge on their PD's outside of shadowlands was his idea that he didn't want changed.

Don't pretend the man was a god, he also had shitty ideas.

>>47878917
>It's decent for offense, but I would recommend picking up Dodge and a little Resistance (at least for Ox Bodies) to flesh your character out defensively.
Black Claw is fairly defensively focused, but you'll still want Dodge, as its defense is Evasion-based and depends on native Dodge charms.

>>47883776
Probably because 2e Infernals were mechanically a mess. http://nobilis.me/quotes:infernals-ruined-2e

>>47884197
Not really, because Solars have this Supernal mechanic.

>>47887971
Only because they were completely shafted by errata.
And that link is full of bullshit.

>>47885293
>It's a shame they decided to make Infernals into Green Solars. That's the reason Neph stepped away from 3rd edition - he didn't want to have any part of them ruining what he made.

No it isn't.

>>47884862
The projects system is fine, they just need to give more info on what things like establishing a spy network, curing a plague, or changing a set of laws entail for STs who can't think of anything.

>>47872022
Shintais are DBT, but strictly better, confirmed. Because solaroids gotta solaroid, and that means shitting all over lunars as a matter of course.

>>47886624
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/general-exalted-thread.44/page-990#post-6195150

>I have to call the changes trivial, because if I didn't, you wouldn't stand up and try to argue with me, or look at things with a critical eye.

>>47887971

As the alchemical guy he is somewhat right on each yozi needing to be a lot of things. When I started Infernals I seriously underestimated how big they'd actually be.

Charms by theme is cool and workable, but oh boy do you need a lot of charms. Cecelyne war will be different than malfeas war or SWL war. They're each their own effective sets.

>>47889502
Some Yozis should not get certain kinds of charms at all, both to keep in their theme and to reduce workload.

>>47889562
That does make generating a warlord Infernal difficult, as they need to know the themes of each charm set and what concepts are and are not covered

>>47889613

This basically.

They'd all work, but in different ways with deliberate holes.

>>47872121
I call BS.

Online games don't last like that.

>>47889916
The online game I'm in does, but to be fair I play with actual friends.

>>47889916
>>47890140
And sometimes you become actual friends with the other players, which would make the campaign last longer.

>>47887971
1 the link is bullshit, lol.

2 and they were one of the best made 2e splats until the rules of 2e got changed on them and infernals were screwed out of being updated to match

Has anyone written natural language-free version of the charm chapter? Because I desperately such a thing. As it stands, right now I can barely read a couple of pages before my eyes glaze over and my brain tries escape my skull, and I'm afraid I won't be able restrain myself from flinging my laptop across the room if I have to read another hundred pages of sligth variations of "the solar is awesome, therefore (X)".

>>47890238
Irked on the forums. Beware, it comes with some interpretation.

>>47890201
reading through, roling my eyes about how he sounds like a sv autist bitching about non earthscorp deviltigers ;)


wasn't til the end i noticed it was holden ;)

>>47890252
It's literally impossible to make a technical language Solar Charmset without some interpretation because Morke is a fucking retard.

What's the news on Anathema 3e?

>>47890201
>they were one of the best made 2e splats until the rules of 2e got changed on them

Which that link featured heavily as one of the reasons they fucked shit up...

>>47890428

Hasn't updated in quite a while, but you can download what's done from github. If you can get it to compile, tell us how.

>>47885934
Because it would run completely counter to the themes of the setting. In Autochthonia, no individual, even an Exalted one, has value. Everyone has to work together in a totalitarian collective because if too many people fail to cooperate, everyone starves and also you get Gremlin Syndrome and become a monster. Is it fair? Of course not. Is there any other option? No.

There are mad scientists, but they're evil products of the Void.

>>47885934
Autochthonia has always been inspired more by Metropolis, 1984, and other dystopian literature, but given a sympathetic twist. It sucks to live there, but it's not their fault, they're in a place simply not meant for human life and the long grinding toil and tight social controls are vital.

>>47886624
>But due to the sheer size of Creation
I'm with the guy saying that Creation probably isn't as populous as most people imagine. Few hundred millions people but less than billion. Most of that is prettty average, living simple life without great ambition. Of those ambitious, only a sliver possess actual potential and the means to realize it. We've got 7 billions people but only a little fraction of that becomes rich, famous or accomplished in any really significant way.

>>47890323
That link makes me sad. :( This is the guy in charge of rewriting them? We're gonna get green solars to go with 2e's black solars aren't we...

>>47889916

Mine's been going on for two. Longest I've had was seven years.

Git gud

So did we ever get a proper release of the backer charms? The OP only has a plaintext version.

>>47892521
It's still not for open sale and nobody's supplied the full PDF

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What is the best place for "Knight Kingdom struggling to survive"? (PCs are mortals and part of the Kingdom)

>>47892635
How do you define the "knight" part? Reminiscent of medieval Europe, or some fantastic, romanticized version of it? Anyways, the Hundred Kingdoms would work for something like that, as would one of the more hospitable parts of the North.

>>47891405
But he's mostly right.

>>47892635
The Hundred Kingdoms region of the Scavenger Lands or the far western part of the Near North peninsula.

>>47874273
The default assumption of the game is that you're playing as Solar Exalted. The setting is deigned around that viewpoint. The world is full of injustice and hopelessness so that your characters are never lacking for chances to be big goddamn heroes. If normal people could fix their own problems, what would be the point of the exalted?

As for Dragon-Blooded, they might not be able to match a Solar one-on-one, but collectively they rule the world. So I wouldn't feel too sorry for them.

>>47890201
>2 and they were one of the best made 2e splats
Best piece of shit in this enormous mound of shit isn't exactly high praise

>>47890238
try getting a reading comprehension above elementary school

>>47891405
>We're gonna get green solars to go with 2e's black solars aren't we...
this is going to be the hot new meme isn't it
no we aren't. transforming into a giant demon monster and straight up telekinesis were both things confirmed the devs have interest in doing since the preview. none of the infernals cool shit is going anywhere

>>47891126

It certainly doesn't seem very possible that Creation could have teeming bIllions. Not when they have to feed everyone with back breaking labor intensive agriculture. Not with the medical infrastructure mortals appear to have. Not with how often magical disasters cause wars and die backs.

>>47892881
I guess some people thought Yozi charms were literally the only interesting thing about Infernals.

>>47886624
we live in a world of seven billion and you can count the number of bruce lee's or ceasers out there on your hands.

>>47892922
Essence based Yozi Charms, of course, as ability based Yozi Charms are not acceptable!

>>47892667
>>47892766
Reminiscent of medieval Europe

Thanks for the suggestions.

>>47893083
Well that goes without saying.

>>47893103
Then yeah, the Hundred Kingdoms has everything from Chinese warring states to European kingdoms and citystates, while the near North (that peninsula between the Blessed Isle and the endless tundra) goes from European in the west (where Fortitude and Grieve are), to mongolian/central Asian in the center (especially in the plains east of the line formed by Pneuma, Whitewall, and Gethamane), to native american/Inuit/Ainu in the northeast (Halta, Linowa).

That near-North peninsula is the cool-but-temperate part of the north, where it snows in the winter and has farming in the summer. A central/northern European climate.

>>47891126
>I'm with the guy saying that Creation probably isn't as populous as most people imagine. Few hundred millions people but less than billion. Most of that is prettty average, living simple life without great ambition.
Agreed.

>>47892922

Not the only thing, but they were pretty cool. I particular, I liked the concept of any custom charms your character invented being immediately learned by the relevant yozi and subtly influencing their nature.

A cool and worthwhile Infernals splat could definitely exist without that stuff, but I'll be sad to see it go.

I'm more troubled about the wholesale abandoning of the reclamation as an idea, to be honest.

I still want to give whatever they do eventually produce for Infernals a chance though. They've talked a lot about what Infernals aren't, or aren't any more, which hopefully means they've got really strong and clear and good ideas about what they ARE.

>>47893362
>I'm more troubled about the wholesale abandoning of the reclamation as an idea, to be honest.
The Reclamation was explicitly rejected as possible in 1e and it was *incredibly* toxic to the line because it made the Yozis into an attention black hole from which nothing can escape.

>>47889039

Remember, it's okay for Solars and their derivatives to infringe on other splats' themes and unique mechanics, but the opposite happening is a fucking sin against Nature and All That Is Holy! So sayeth Holden and Morke.

>>47893362

After the backlash they got from Infernal's, they'll probably be retooling them. Abyssals seemed to have been overhauled quite a bit by comparison.

Learning new charms to influence Yozi's was a thing, but honestly I think the "learn carbon copy of Yozi charms" thing was also a bad idea and like charms roughly based off of the themes of yozi's. While I do think a Reclaimation plot should be possible (It's Exalted, play what you want) I do think it should be kept as a hypothetical one. I mean the Reclaimation was 2e's big thing and I feel exploring another doom scenario would be cool. If you want to do the Reclaimation, I nothing forbidding this. All you'd need to do is just wipe away the "THE YOZI'S CAN NEVER EVER EVER *EVER* BREAK OUT!!!1" bit for 3e and you're golden.

>>47889502

To expand on this point I feel the need to say that while each Yozi does things differently and is their own self contained set, each one specializes in a roughly different area better than others. Malfeas government charms and Cecelyne government charms are better for running things, while Adorjan is less suited for running them for any major length of time and more suited to blowing them all up.

As for needing favored sections, true the Yozi charm structure means that if a new yozi charm set comes out you'd technically get shafted in the favored section, but I think people miss the point of each Yozi being their own set. If you need Government charms, make some for Malfeas. Such a thing should be possible for almost any Yozi and if it's not, then you have a backup. This is why I'm making it to three favored Yozi's of your choice period, as this seems to give players ample room to do whatever they want. The only con is that you need to navigate charms by theme and not by things like "Melee, Occult, etc..." Meaning there is possibly some crap you'll be forced to take and don't really want to take, but I want to try and cut down on that.

>>47893528
>Learning new charms to influence Yozi's was a thing
It wasn't. Its a common thing alot of people talked about but I remember the devs commenting on it somewhere. You straight up can't invent new charms that go against a yozi's theme. Like you can't make a ebon dragon charm that makes you really good at telling the truth.

Has the lore changed much in the new edition? I know they've added things, like Exigents and some new cities. But how much (if any) of the existing 2e lore has been contradicted/retconned?

>>47893586
Clean slate. Nothing is canon, but is a good guideline.

>>47893083
Damn, now I want to play a Lemongrab Infernal whose patron Yozi is Oramus. Unsurprisingly, he's mad as a bucket of slugs.

>>47893586
As 2e unless told otherwise

Same way that 2e was - 1e unless told otherwise

R.I.P. Lytek

>>47893639
>R.I.P. Lytek
Is it confirmed he's out? Good.

>>47893586
the sun isn't a gundam that knows kung fu anymore.

>>47893673
>The Celestial Exalted often experience past lives.

>When a Solar dies, the Exaltation unbinds itself from the soul and flows back into the cycles of heaven. From there it is directed by the Essence of the Unconquered Sun - which carries his energic will - to seek out a new hero.

Confirmed in Miracles of the Solar Exalted. Sol's will picks out new Exalts, not a God of Exaltation.

>>47893439
>because it made the Yozis into an attention black hole from which nothing can escape.

This is a fact about the attention, not the yozis. There are other creation eradicating threats lying around. NONE of them turned into black holes. Abyssals, Deathlords, and Neverborn didn't have this problem despite having a comperably hostile to existence goal.

>>47893558

I know that. Directly countering a theme isn't a thing, but people learning charms to try and lure the Yozi's in other directions were.

I thought it was a terrible idea anyways, as the Yozi's basically have "Charms: Yes" and whatever custom ones you make is like throwing a single dot of paint on a Jackson Pollock painting.

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>>47893192
I think I take near north.

How big is the west? (Red circled.)

>>47893713
The Neverborn aren't actually accomplishing anything. The Bodhisattva Anointed by Dark Water in the West and the Bull of the North were both attention black holes for their respective Directions.

>>47893713
Abyssals didn't because there are only a hundred of them and there of mild power. Deathlords actually totally did do this. It was hard to do anything else in the west when the silver prince is building the giant doom fleet that is going to wipe out everyone. The neverborn didnt because they were dead. There was no talk about them coming back to life or anything, they just acted through deathlords and deathknights. The problem the reclamation has it it utterly eclipses all of these in scope. If malfeas gets out hes going to steam roll through every deathlord in his way

>>47893558
>. Like you can't make a ebon dragon charm that makes you really good at telling the truth.

Well obviously not, that would fuck everything up. You bend them withing the context of their theme, not slam head first into it.

>>47893702

Lytek never picked people though, it was always the exaltation itself. He just cleaned them so that they weren't carrying to much bits of old solar souls to the new guys.

>>47893800
Gold faction pls

>>47893800
This. So it's less like "RIP Lytek" and more like "RIP a non-existent part of Lytek's role I imagined".

>>47893758

And if a Deathlords shook off the crushing ennui alternated with petty ambition for a while and took their job seriously, creation would die within a decade. So what?

The reclamation can be an end game goal for Infernals without needing to dominate attention. The GSPs are inherently unreliable tools, being forged from people who failed their destiny, made worse by having power and knowledge from literally and figuratively mad gods jammed in their souls. You just make the conditionals appropriately huge(reforge all of creation into a hell so that the yozis are technically allowed to tread there was an appropriate one). Then no one ever has to pay it any attention at all. If you don't want your game to me about that just shrug and sa "well the princes never got their shit together to go about this in an organized way, they're all off betraying each other and burning small villages" If you do want to cover it in your game then do have them have their shit together, have them making obvious progress towards the conquer enough of creation to start conceptually twisting it plan.

The infra exalted conquering the whole fucking map and putting everything they don't like to the sword can happen with or without that actually shattering the chains of the titans prison and it doesn't seem meaningfully less important to stop.

>>47893702
So in 3e the Incarnae were no longer Geased into servility by the Primordials? Because that was explicitly why the Celestial Exaltations were self guided in picking new hosts in 2e, so the Primordials couldn't just tell the Incarnae to "Cut that shit out" and thereby stop the flow of new exalts.

>>47894256
In 3e nothing is known about the enemies of the Gods, except that they were enemies of the Gods

>>47894256
I'd imagine ti works how it did in 2e. The exaltations are essentially cutting off a piece of your soul so it naturally seeks out people like itself. Thats always how the game has been able to say 'chosen by x' when x didnt actually have any conscious part in it.

>>47894256
It's not Sol literally picking every single Solar. It's more that every Exaltation is filled with his will and Essence. I imagine that he couldn't stop them even if he wanted to. Basically what >>47894364 said.

>>47890201
Nice how you don't bother to address any points in the link, infernal fanboy

>>47891405
You're a fucking retard.

>>47892881
excepting of course their overall structure and about 2/3 of their fluff.

may as well make alchemical charm trees function mechanically like dragonbloods and refluff them into living in vault-tech vaults

>>47893491
Hurr

>>47893639
This is wrong, nothing in previous editions should be assumed to be canon.

>>47894256
The geas never enabled the Primordials to order around the Incarnae. Everything in your post is fanfiction.

>>47894802
What are you even talking about? The only changes we know of mechanically are charm sets becoming ability based. The fluff also sort of needs to be changed, unless you rather enjoy the first two chapters we have right now

>>47884264
Do all greater dragons go nuts or is kulka sort of the only one?

>>47893491
I'll admit that the whole "totally not astrology guys!" Charm cascade in Lore really rustles my jimmies.

>>47894867
Only the kukla sort.

>>47889039
>Shintais are DBT, but strictly better
gee whiz anon i didnt know you came from the future and had already read both the lunar and infernal books

>>47894867

Go nuts? Wasn't the Kukla designed to be a apocalyptic beast to be released as a sort of reset button.

>>47894965
He is, but he was originally a Lesser Elemental Dragon who reached Essence 10 and lost his mind.

>>47894851
He's probably the same guy who's been posting for the last hour throwing minor tantrums about nothing at all.

>>47894905
I think its inoffensive enough. I mean Sids get unlimited postcognition, a bunch of their native charms allow them to do stuff like just figure out how to solve a problem or summon items that may be useful in the future or just arrange for things to happen. Plus then fate crafting on top of that lets them do all sorts of stuff. I think solars having one 'i make a prediction and it most likely happens' charm is fairly tame, plus something a super smart person would reasonably be able to do. The capstone after that fits their moses thing

>>47894992
>and lost his mind.
Along with his common sense and his dignity, apparently.

>>47895139
Who the hell needs dignity when you're a giant rock dragon?

>>47894905
But it's not astrology. It's being biblical prophet or Just As Planned Guy.

>>47894851
>The only changes we know of mechanically are charm sets becoming ability based.

so yeah, entirely new mechanics for how charmtrees work. that happen to be the same general sort solars have. as in the loss of a previously interesting/unique setup

>parts of the first two chapters

which obviously necessitated throwing out *everything*

>>47895729
>the charm trees have the same structure
>this obviously means that all the charms are going to be the same and also all the things infernals could do are going away
alright man whatever floats your boat

>>47895729
>loss of a previously interesting/unique setup
The setup was interesting and unique but also problematic and demanding lots and lots of Charms.

>>47896018
Excuse me if I laugh at that while looking at the charms chapter of the new corebook.

Charm count clearly isn't a problem the devs are preocupied sith.

>>47896164
Just read the link from earlier in the thread. Infernal's charmset was very gluttonous even in the 2E. Making it with 3E paradigm would probably either consume an obscene amount of space as you effectively make each Yozi a complete charmset or screw Infernals with huge gaps in their competence.

>>47895729
1e Sidereals were also ability based, but they happened to have the most unique charms out there. You're reading far too much into what 3e infernals will look like.

>>47896274
I read that and in light of the number of charms written in the new corebook I see how much weight that objection has. None, because if that was a problem the corebook whould have never been allowed to see the light of day.

>>47895515
No, Just As Planned is over in larceny.

Does 3E have Halfcastes or something to replace them?

Why did they make range abstract? Do they hate tactical combat? With games that have quantified weapon ranges, you still dont need a virtual tabletop or battlemat to play if you dont want to.

>>47896848
Halfcastes were dumb as fuck.

>>47896848
>Does 3E have Halfcastes or something to replace them?
We can hope not. If they do exist, they'll probably just be like other Xbloods: humans who express minor supernatural powers, not "literally buys Exalt Charms."

>Why did they make range abstract? Do they hate tactical combat?
More that it doesn't fit Exalted's genre, really. Any positional tactics your characters would be engaging in are at a level way above any mere nerd's ability to represent, with dozens of leaps and bounds and feints and sprints per round of action, so it's best to abstract them where able.

>>47896867
Its like you hate eugenics and transhumanism

>>47896890
>More that it doesn't fit Exalted's genre, really.

You must be one of those faggots who think that any high-powered adaptations should be semi-freeform or "narrative"

>>47896848
>Does 3E have Halfcastes or something to replace them?
They're coming. Sadly.

>Why did they make range abstract? Do they hate tactical combat? With games that have quantified weapon ranges, you still dont need a virtual tabletop or battlemat to play if you dont want to.
Range bands are abstract because it makes things easier to manage and keep track of. Combat in 3e is more tactical than a lot of TTRPGs, exact granularity in ranges doesn't really add much tactical depth. Exalted's range bands pretty easily can be turned into zones ala Fate, too.

>>47896930
>Range bands are abstract because it makes things easier to manage and keep track of. Combat in 3e is more tactical than a lot of TTRPGs, exact granularity in ranges doesn't really add much tactical depth.

You can just do the same thing in 2e. It's called fudging. You have to rewrite weapons in 3e if you want actual ranges for weapons though.

>>47896920

Any? No. If you want tactical movement and high-powered characters, I should hope there's a system out there for you, with a suitable genre. X-COM: Supers or somesuch.

But positioning and movement are abstract in both wuxia and mythology, to the point that a lot of the classics don't even describe LOGICAL fights, let alone easily-trackable ones, and so Exalted follows suit.

Moreover, it's not like it's difficult to convert an abstract range system to a tactical one; easier than doing the reverse, really.

>>47896954
>You can just do the same thing in 2e. It's called fudging. You have to rewrite weapons in 3e if you want actual ranges for weapons though.
So? What do "actual ranges" for weapons do?

>>47896848
>Does 3E have Halfcastes or something to replace them?
if they do i assume that just like 2e it'll be a bit before we get any mechanics. Not exactly the most popular play style there is

>>47872076

Shintai?

>>47893743
The combined land on those regions - the tip of that peninsula and the nearby massive islands - are collectively about the size of Australia, based on that map's scale.

So what do you imagine the capstone evocation for an N/A daiklave would look like

>>47896867
>>47896930
>>47896890

If gods kid's have weird powers it follows that exalts' ought to at least occasionally. They are supercharged with god stuff.

I agree that literally buying exalt charms is taking it way too far though. Heritable full-bore exaltation is the special thing about terrestrials. Celestials shouldn't be doing that.

>>47898247

DEPENDS
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P
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ON
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THE
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SWORD
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>>47898247
More intense than Volcano Cutter, which can do something like 80 damage dice?

An attack which does Uncountable Damage.

>>47898247
ultimate bepis

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Is the Dreaming Sea salt water or freshwater?

>>47898433
Dunno, but I guess the vicinity of the Wyld makes it taste purple in some areas.

Where exactly are specialties explained in the 3e core book? I can't find anything on them except a brief mention in character creation.

>>47898813

Page 123. The "brief mention" is a half-page sidebar that explains the entire concept.

>>47898813
A sidebar on p.123.

>>47898863
>>47898866
Thank you. I feel like an idiot for missing that (I was just looking at the paragraph in the text).

Going by these rules, you can't double/triple up on specialties anymore, correct? Like no buying Melee (swords) twice? And there's no cap on number of specialties for a particular ability?

Trying to get the stupid 2e rules out of my head.

>>47898940
If you have Melee (Swords), you can also buy Melee (Axes) or Melee (Urban Environments). But even if both Melee (Swords) and Melee (Urban Environments) apply, you only receive a +1 bonus.

>>47898940

No, specialities no longer have a dot-rating - they're just yes/no, and only give 1 die. IMO, specialties are mostly useless this addition. 1 die is just too little to really be bothered with, and its just one more detail for those players who take ages to figure out their dicepools to struggle with. Mostly they're just away to exploit static value rounding.

>>47898253
I don't necessarily agree with that logic. A god's spiritual essence is its inherent, fundamental nature, some of which passes to their child alongside the mortality of the other parent.

An exalt, though, is fundamentally human. When you strip away the charms and motes, they're mostly-normal humans who live a long time and heal easily. And in the same way that a human doesn't pass their tattoos or Kung Fu skills or other acquired traits on to their children, exalts' magic shouldn't either. If half-castes were to inherit anything from their exalted parent - and I very much think they shouldn't - it should be, at absolute most, the Exalted Healing merit, since that at least resembles a heritable mutation.

If your want super-powered babies, fuck a Dragon-blooded or a demon or something.

>>47898433
It doesn't specify anywhere, which is a shame, because it would affect the salt trade one way or the other. In the game I'm playing in, though, the GM ruled it freshwater with strange, Wyld currents flowing erratically through it, making much of the travel across it fraught with supernatural hazards.

How does disengaging interact with range-closing Charms like Thunderclap Rush Attack?

>>47900235

If you mean "do I need to disengage to use TRA on someone else," the answer is no, for the same reason you don't need to disengage to use Leaping Dodge Method.

>>47900312
No, I mean, they successfully disengage from me, I TRA them (or use Void-Slicing Wind, or Thunderbolt Attack Prana, or whatever else). Do they immediately break out of melee (after the attack is resolved?) because "if one of the opponents he disengaged moves toward him on her next turn, the character immediately and reflexively retreats one further range band away from her, even if this means he would move outside of his turn."?

>>47900364

The "on her next turn" and "immediately and reflexively" clauses seem relevant here.

If you use a Charm on your turn that moves you one band closer, the disengaging character immediately moves back one, which probably means the attack at the end whiffs.

On the other hand, if your Charm could have charged them from that distance anyway, you still rush in and bonk them. (e.g. "close into melee from up to 3 range bands away" or whatever; the extra range band from their disengage doesn't help them)

And in the final example, if your Charm isn't activated on your turn, disengage doesn't help at all.

>>47900168

If that's the case their ghosts shouldn't have been anything special either and we can toss the whole deathlord concept. I mean, its a human soul, right? why should it be uniquely capable of receiving neverborn empowerment?

Well, because exaltations bend everything they touch towards greatness, that's why. Spending years/decades/centuries bathed in exalted essence left the soul something fundamentally a little bit *more* than it was. Why shouldn't that go just as much for the flesh(and therefore eggs/sperm)? A babby exalt from a week ago should still be just a human with weeaboo fightan magic, sure, but essence 4 is a long way up the ladder.

Its a controversial element that isn't central to typical play though, so I'm down for it just getting tossed into a small supplement and never showing up in a main line book so people that don't like it can ignore it.

>>47900626
I mean, the people I hang with are also bathed in my greatness, but they don't get anything special unless I use specific magic on them to do so.

>>47900626
>If that's the case their ghosts shouldn't have been anything special either and we can toss the whole deathlord concept. I mean, its a human soul, right? why should it be uniquely capable of receiving neverborn empowerment?

Considering that one of the original concepts for deathlords was to make it a title, not a type of entity, and to refer to *all* the oldest and most powerful ghosts in the Underworld, why not?

Is lost zarlath a new place? The only reference i can find of it in 2e is one book saying some magical bees sometimes fly out from it, but in that book its in the wyld

>>47900650

They aren't plugged into the line like you are.

>>47900669
Seems like a neat change to me, actually. But i bet a lot of fans of the current version would get super salty.

>>47900669

The thing that makes Deathlords so powerful isn't the fact that they're Solar ghosts though - when they died, they lost all their charms and magical oompf. They still had their memories and knowledge, but they didn't become powerhouses until they bargained with the Neverborn for replacement oompf. Otherwise, all the ghosts of the *other* First Age Solars would be dancing around being badasses, and outnumbering the Deathlords 30:1

>>47900626
If there was a Solar Charm called Optimal Child-Rearing Method that ensured the kid would grow up to be a heroic mortal and get a tiny Essence pool like that one prophet Charm, that'd be cool.

But frankly, I got knocked up by a DB one time and my group immediately began discussing how to turn me into an optimized baby factory pumping out as many DB babies as possible. People act like the best way for Lunars to build up an army is to fuck a bunch of animals (rather than to find a bunch of tribes and use your godlike powers to convince them to follow you). That kind of thing is irritatingly common in Exalted, and half-Castes play directly into it.

>>47900943

Group sounds douchy

This relentless drive to optimization married to magical realming is a problem with the players who do it. Taking away one of their tools isn't going to stop them, they'll just go be problematic in some new and exciting way(as you point out, they've always got dragonbloods). All that's been accomplished is a class of stories/flavor of character has been purged.

>>47900626
>>>47900168 (You)
>If that's the case their ghosts shouldn't have been anything special either and we can toss the whole deathlord concept. I mean, its a human soul, right? why should it be uniquely capable of receiving neverborn empowerment?
See, I don't agree with this logic either. Ghosts are way more fundamentally altered from humanity than exalts are.

Ignoring charms/arcanoi, exalts stew just humans who live a long time and heal easily. They still eat, they still sleep, they have a human form, they can die.

Ghosts, on the other hand, are fundamentally changed. They don't eat or sleep. They're immaterial. They reform eventually when destroyed. They can't even produce children without a charm that specifically lets them father (and only father) children with living women.

They're spirits who also have a human soul, rather than humans who also have powers.

I continue to strongly disagree with the idea that the children of Celestial exalts should be something inherently remarkable just by virtue of their parent's exalted nature.

>>47900828
That's not quite true. Beings retain their Essence rating when they become ghosts, as well as access to things like TMAs. While they don't keep their Solar charms, they were still serious badasses of ghosts. Canonically, during the early Shogunate period, the ghost-Solars rolled around the Underworld forging ghostly empires, righting wrongs, passing on last messages and wisdoms, and then passing on to Lethe.

The Deathlords, then, are some of those exalts who bargained for more deathly power rather than passing on like their peers.

Having the non-Deathlord ghost of your First Age predecessor would be a rad sifu/mentor, though. Alternatively, so would having a sword made out of their soul. Even more alternatively, have said sentient sword be said sifu.

>>47901772
>That's not quite true. Beings retain their Essence rating when they become ghosts, as well as access to things like TMAs. While they don't keep their Solar charms, they were still serious badasses of ghosts. Canonically, during the early Shogunate period, the ghost-Solars rolled around the Underworld forging ghostly empires, righting wrongs, passing on last messages and wisdoms, and then passing on to Lethe

Still, the thing that make the Deathlords Deathlords isn't the fact that they were Solar ghosts - it's the fact that they were invested with power by the Neverborn. Sure they were badass ghosts, but that's because their lives were long, they had many, varied, and powerful experiences, they learned many things, and they developed their human abilities to peak condition.

There wasn't some sort of lingering Solar-ness left on their souls after death that made them special, just as there's no lingering Solar-ness left on children born of Solars. Ghosts of Solars are likely to be badass because they've had the benefits of extraordinary lives, just like children of Solars are likely to be exceptional because they've grown up with all the advantages of having a super-powered parent, but it's not because their parents metaphysical power rubbed off on them.

Solar Exaltations (and all Celestial Exaltations) are discrete things - you either have one, or you don't, you don't have a bit of one, or one's leftovers.

>>47902049
>There wasn't some sort of lingering Solar-ness left on their souls after death that made them special, just as there's no lingering Solar-ness left on children born of Solars.
>Solar Exaltations (and all Celestial Exaltations) are discrete things - you either have one, or you don't, you don't have a bit of one, or one's leftovers.
That much I certainly agree with. I was just wanting to clarify that they weren't just ordinary ghosts - they were exceptional, without exception.

>>47900755
yeah it was mentioned vaguely in 2e so now they decided to flesh it out

>>47898750
>makes it taste purple
What does purple taste like?

>>47903960
Purpley

>>47903960
Like red and blue mixed together

>>47904030
and how do Red and Blue taste?

>>47904063
Primary

>>47904063
Yes.

Time for the best Crackship.
>Mother BogXMetagaos.

Or failing that, just pair the divine monorail with the first of the Mountainfolk

>>47900943
>People act like the best way for Lunars to build up an army is to fuck a bunch of animals (rather than to find a bunch of tribes and use your godlike powers to convince them to follow you).

Nono, the best way for Lunars to build up an army is to repeatedly fuck a Terrestrial chick, and learn her shape every time she goes into labor, until you've got "shape of a Terrestrial pregnant with your Terrestrial child".

Then find a bunch of tribes, use your godlike powers to convince them to follow you, and use your godlike powers to convince them all to be briefly turned into that shape long enough to birth another instance of that child.

You now have a vast amount of Terrestrial children. Just watch out for the original chick (or her ancestors) turning hostile to you and using Dynasty charms.

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>>47905651
>inb4 this is theoretically possible in 3e
>inb4 it's because of N A T U R A L L A N G U A G E

mfw

>>47905651
If I was the ST I would veto that.

>>47905706

I might allow it in certain types of games. like, ones where we weren't taking things seriously and were deliberately trying to break the setting's weak spots, or ones that were explicitly erp.

Not in more standard games.

>>47905681
As I see it, it's nothing to do with natural language. Rather, I'm drawing on the following setting elements as I've understood them:
1) Terrestrial Exaltation is reproduced in the blood. There's no finite fixed quantity of Exaltations reserved for them the way there is for most other Exalts, rather, any child of a Terrestrial can become a new Terrestrial.
2) Lunar shapeshifting and shape-taking is a matter of copy-by-blood (there was one 2e knack to copy-by-sex, which I feel doesn't materially affect this point) that turns the Lunar into another instance of what's being copied, warts and all.
3) Exaltation is called the Second Breath because like the First Breath that a child draws as it's born, it's when you get a(nother) soul. Unborn children are part of the mother, not separate people with their own souls, and copying a pregnant woman will make you a pregnant woman.

>>47905706
I probably wouldn't allow myself to do it, either. It's a very silly idea presented mostly as a thought exercise in the sort of things you can do with Exalted, along the same lines as most Invincible Sword Princess builds that people never actually play because their Dawn Castes are people, not combat mathematicians.
But it would be the sort of ban that involves me telling the player "Stop that, asshat". If you have a veto with in-setting reason for it to work, I'd be interested in hearing which of the above points you'd veto it on. Because it seems to me like altering the first implies changing the nature of Terrestrial Exaltation heavily, altering the second turns Lunar shapeshifting into self-deformation/magical disguise rather than taking the form of a creature whose blood you drank, and altering the third gets you an abortion debate.

>>47905864
>But it would be the sort of ban that involves me telling the player "Stop that, asshat".
This

>>47905681
You know whatis the best cure for the natural language? Good ST. The kind that can just rule stupid shit out midgame.

>>47905897
True. I'd just rather not have to deal with that at all and have the text be clear from the get go. Too much to ask from these devs, it seems.

>>47904063
Like separated purple.

>>47905864
Your problem is an unstated premise 4 that goes something like "if I can do something once, I can do it an arbitrary number of times" which is not true in Exalted. Especially where Exalts are concerned: Law of Diminishment and all.

I'd say you could do it once per child as a longer process - be Lunar, find Terrestrial waifu, get her pregnant, learn her shape at that same point, change into her shape, stay in her shape through year of pregnancy, the two of you give birth to one each of a pair of twins. There, now it's interesting, requires personal commitment, doesn't spam armies, and has cool mythological resonance.

>>47905920
Yeah, there will always be stupid interpretations and corner cases, especially when that ony guy acitvely wants to abuse the game. Devs said "screw that, refering to the book mid-game is stupid and you should rely on your ST" and now we have natural language. It's not a real problem for me because I'm accustomed to treating the rules lightly and relying on ST anyway but they could be a little more clear with their intent or design philosophy sometimes.

>>47905948
Law of Diniminininizzle doesn't stop the Terrestrials spawning unlimited numbers of Terrestrials, though.

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>>47906276
Untrue. The entire Point of the Realm is that here are a limited amount of DBs (they just can't give birth often enough, people need time to mature, diminished bloodlines, etc.).

There are a lot of them, but never enough.

>>47890675
>Because it would run completely counter to the themes of the setting.

That's how you do interesting settings, the friction between some thematics and some others. Like how deadly and hopeless Creation is for mortal against what Exalts are able to do. The first contrast with the second.

There is many, many, many good ideas and interesting scenarios to create from the friction between *necessary* mad scientists (they create the Alchemicals) and a totalitarian state that suppress freedom and individuality.

It is writing itself. If you don't see how it writes itself, then I guess you're hopeless.

>>47894867
>Do all greater dragons go nuts

Yes. Once getting past a certain level of essence, lesser elemental dragons transform into greater elemental dragons, and they are all insane.

To be more precise, the only example of a lesser elemental dragon having ascended is the Kukla, and it went so badly *every* lesser elemental dragons are now forbidden from ascending, ever. Too dangerous.

There is a lot of resentment from lesser elemental dragons for that, and some 1st age Solars though they could somehow catalyze the transformation in a safe way, but Heaven said 'NOPE NOPE NOPE'. On the one hand, it could be possible to create a sane greater elemental dragon. On the other hand, Kukla.

>>47906504
>sane greater elemental dragon.
Maybe they would only be "sane" as they understand it, but to everyone else they appear to be completely bonkers. Also they probably cause immense destruction just by moving.

>>47905864
>1) Terrestrial Exaltation is reproduced in the blood. There's no finite fixed quantity of Exaltations reserved for them the way there is for most other Exalts, rather, any child of a Terrestrial can become a new Terrestrial.
Here's where you fucked up: Terrestrial Exaltation is hereditary, but that doesn't mean it's in the blood. A Lunar can't mimic a Terrestrial's Exaltation any more than he can mimic a Solar's.

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>>47906552
>A Lunar can't mimic a Terrestrial's Exaltation any more than he can mimic a Solar's.
Welp, case closed.

>>47906552
Please explain where heredity is carried if not in the blood. Are we going back to 2e with little gods doing manual inheritance management or something?

>>47906710
Aside from his argument about blood, he's right. If you copy a Dragon-blooded you don't copy the Exaltation. Otherwise you'd get charms when you turned into one.

>>47906710
Here are some things that are inherited from one or both parents but not in the blood, in real life:
* The position of monarch.
* Nobility and one's position in caste systems.
* The blessing of God carried down through Abraham's descendants.
* Vertically transmitted infections which don't operate via blood, such as chickenpox.

It's not like getting a blood transfusion from a Dragon-Blooded gives you Aspect powers, so why would you expect biological mimicry to do so?

I think the real question here is how magical shapeshifting interacts with magical genetics, assuming there's any specific answer to be found other than "however you want in your game".

And let me propose a non-abusive application: if a Lunar takes on the shape of a high-breeding Dragon-blooded, can he then sire or bear Dragon-blooded by mortals while in that shape at a rate greater than the trivial background rate of two mortals?

>>47906777
All those you mentioned can be inherited by adopted children, though. Pretty sure DB exaltation is right out on that score.

>>47906815
I'm pretty sure if a white dude in pre-revolutionary Haiti adopts a colored kid, that kid still gets to suffer under the racial caste system.

>>47906813
No. It's not "genetics" but "magical blessings given by magical dragons". It's hereditary and "in blood" but just shapeshifting into DB doesn't metaphysically change you into one.

>>47906826
Sure. But under other systems, adopted children can inherit the mentioned things. Say, do we have a linguist here? I think we could use some better to distinguish "property" inheritance of objects and titles, which might be confiscated from Mom or Dad in the time between you are born and you actually inheriting them, from "genetic" inheritance, which you have or will get no matter what the status of Mom or Dad is at any given time.

>>47906841
How about shapeshifting into the mortal child of two low-breeding Dragon-blood? That mortal isn't metaphysically a Draon-blood either but still produces Dragon-blooded kids at higher-than-background rates. Can a Lunar in their shape do the same?

Pretty sure the "breeding" qualities, just like the Exaltation, lie in the soul. It is the simplest explanation.

>>47905681
Given we don't even have Lunars rules yet, no, not even remotely.

>>47906935
>what is inb4

>>47906841
>shapeshifting into DB doesn't metaphysically change you into one

Original mad breeding scientist here, it doesn't really stop my plans to declare Terrestrialhood a metaphysical quality unaffected by shapeshifting.

It just means I have to run the trick in reverse: instead of bestowing my shapeshifting on cooperative mortals to turn them into pregnant pseudo-Terrestrials, I find cooperative Terrestrials and lend *them* the shapes of pregnant women in labor. Admittedly this is slower since there's a shortage of cooperative Terrestrials relative to mortals, but I think I could still get some interest from DBs who want to go directly to childbirth, do not spend fifteen months pregnant, do not get stretchmarks.

>>47907044
That may actually.

>>47907044
>do not spend fifteen months pregnant
*40 weeks

>>47906913
No. He ist still metaphysically Lunar with a Tell and everything. He can't produce DBs.

>>47907117
*15 months
That's how long Exalted pregnancies last, canonically. No, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

>>47907149
Specifically, by "Exalted pregnancies" I mean that the pregnancies *of Exalts* last a year, not "all pregnancies in the Exalted gameline". Mortal women still go 9 months.

>>47907149
Maybe in 2e. Show me a place in 3e they say that, or dev comments that they're keeping that in.

>>47907166
Not gonna go look for the comment, but I'm pretty sure Holden said it's gone.

>>47907149
>No, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

It's magic. Ain't gotta explain no shit.

>>47907364
Of course it's gone. It was a well loved tidbit of lore shat on by the circlejerking.

>>47907787
>It was a well loved tidbit of lore
It's a retarded tidbit of lore.

>>47907787
>It was a well loved tidbit of lore shat on by the circlejerking.
Are we going to call any complaint the devs and fanbanse have about previous edition a result of circlejerking? Because Exalted's pregnancies lasting longer than normal really doesn't make any sense.

>>47907843
Yeah. I'd understand long pregnancies for guaranteed exalts (whether from birth or like normal), but not this chance to eventually exalt.

>>47907787
Have you never considered that maybe 2E was the circle jerk? Look at SV. Most of the people here aren't the ones who were here when 2e was the edition of choice.

Would you waive the 3 dot minimum virtue requirement for the virtue specialty merit?(when transferring that merit to 3e)

it seems like it'd be interesting to let somebody have only 1 point in compassion except when it comes to children for example.
I can't think of anything that should break, but thought you might.(cause then again I'd have allowed a specialty in something with zero dots too, let the character know how to do exactly one thing. so yeah, maybe I just don't 'get' specialties)