Exalted Third Edition

[ShelBeast]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this, but...

Exalted Third Edition is finally out! After like 7 years of waiting or some ridiculous nonsense!

So, has anyone gotten the book yet? Are there any plans on maybe setting up a game with it? I know I'm really excited to see the new edition. It's so much power gamey fun.

[Lithium]

@ShelBeast Initial impressions have been lackluster from what I understand. I haven't had a chance to take a look at it yet so can't give one of my own.

[Packrat]

I ran a tabletop campaign that went well (albeit currently on hiatus), some parts of the system are plain dumb (character generation, crafting) but the social influence and combat system are, whilst crunchy, legitimately good.

[ShelBeast]

I've gotten my hands on the pdf, now but I haven't had a chance to really dig into it. I did take a quick glance at the combat system.

Likes: Withering and Decisive attacks are a neat concept.

Dislikes: It's more oWoD than nWoD in mechanics, it seems like. Damage soak and all of that... Give me less rolls and less stages to roll resolution, please. nWoD/CoD is a flawed system, but man, it's light years beyond oWoD systems.

But literally that's all I've even looked at, and didn't even read the full system yet. So, we'll see. I haven't even peeked at charms or character generation. I just wanted to see how they might have updated the core systems first.

[Coin]

Holden is a big proponent of rolled Soak because he likes the idea of "surprise" survival wherein you roll massive damage and then go "oh shit" when the other guy rolls massive soak.

[Jennkryst]

There is an Exalted MU out there somewhere, but it's wiki has all of the ads/popups/LAAAAG. I haven't done anything past Guest checkins.

[Coin]

I'm just gonna leave this here.

THE RED RULE
In almost all aspects, Exalted doesn’t mechanically distinguish between Storyteller characters and those the players control. Here’s the exception: A player-controlled character can only be seduced or otherwise put in a sexual situation if the player is okay with it.
Otherwise, any such attempt fails automatically. This is completely up to the player’s discretion, and they can waive this rule’s protection if they want their character to be seduced, if they think it would improve the story, or for whatever other reason. This is entirely up to the player, and on an attempt-by-attempt basis—waiving the rule once doesn’t void your ability to call on it later against the same character, or even in the same scene. If no one in your group ever invokes this rule, that’s also fine—but players don’t have to watch their character put into a sexual situation they’re not comfortable with.
Groups that feel comfortable in doing so should allow player characters the full range of their seductive prowess when entangled with Storyteller-controlled characters… although remember that the Storyteller is also a player and their boundaries should be respected.

[Derp]

@Coin said in Exalted Third Edition:

I'm just gonna leave this here.

THE RED RULE
In almost all aspects, Exalted doesn’t mechanically distinguish between Storyteller characters and those the players control. Here’s the exception: A player-controlled character can only be seduced or otherwise put in a sexual situation if the player is okay with it.
Otherwise, any such attempt fails automatically. This is completely up to the player’s discretion, and they can waive this rule’s protection if they want their character to be seduced, if they think it would improve the story, or for whatever other reason. This is entirely up to the player, and on an attempt-by-attempt basis—waiving the rule once doesn’t void your ability to call on it later against the same character, or even in the same scene. If no one in your group ever invokes this rule, that’s also fine—but players don’t have to watch their character put into a sexual situation they’re not comfortable with.
Groups that feel comfortable in doing so should allow player characters the full range of their seductive prowess when entangled with Storyteller-controlled characters… although remember that the Storyteller is also a player and their boundaries should be respected.

Does it say anything about any other sort of social persuasion / leverage? Does Exalted have a system that even covers that? I'm not familiar with the game system, but this rule seems sensible if you're still allowed to try and persuade them to do basically anything else that isn't related to sex. Otherwise, I see this rule devolving into a lot of the same arguments we see here about whether a character can get persuaded to do basically anything at all.

[Jennkryst]

@Derp - Exalted has many varied mind control/social persuasion/I win buttons, and a kind of social combat system? I haven't familiarized myself with 3e yet, mostly out of protest because of how craft/martial arts/performance is broken up... but I do know there is a persuasion-style skill.

[Coin]

@Derp said in Exalted Third Edition:

@Coin said in Exalted Third Edition:

I'm just gonna leave this here.

THE RED RULE
In almost all aspects, Exalted doesn’t mechanically distinguish between Storyteller characters and those the players control. Here’s the exception: A player-controlled character can only be seduced or otherwise put in a sexual situation if the player is okay with it.
Otherwise, any such attempt fails automatically. This is completely up to the player’s discretion, and they can waive this rule’s protection if they want their character to be seduced, if they think it would improve the story, or for whatever other reason. This is entirely up to the player, and on an attempt-by-attempt basis—waiving the rule once doesn’t void your ability to call on it later against the same character, or even in the same scene. If no one in your group ever invokes this rule, that’s also fine—but players don’t have to watch their character put into a sexual situation they’re not comfortable with.
Groups that feel comfortable in doing so should allow player characters the full range of their seductive prowess when entangled with Storyteller-controlled characters… although remember that the Storyteller is also a player and their boundaries should be respected.

Does it say anything about any other sort of social persuasion / leverage? Does Exalted have a system that even covers that? I'm not familiar with the game system, but this rule seems sensible if you're still allowed to try and persuade them to do basically anything else that isn't related to sex. Otherwise, I see this rule devolving into a lot of the same arguments we see here about whether a character can get persuaded to do basically anything at all.

It has a very intricate system, which also lets you straight up refuse things that are antithetical to your core emotional ties and motivations (called Intimacies).

[Derp]

@Coin

Oooh. This sounds like a system worth reading, then. Especially if it can be adapted to WoD in some kind of sensible way.

[tragedyjones]

The Red Rule, ahem, rules.

Also, chewing through more of the book, here are my thoughts:

• Decisive/WIthering Combat: I am just going to have to play test this myself to get a feel for it, honestly
• Social Influence/Intimacies - I like these a lot, including the fact that you can only push people so far
• Crafting - Uh... huh. This seems to be a whole thing, I must say. I am just starting it, but crafting XP and project slots oh my

[Jennkryst]

The bonus part about intimacies is they don't change all that often, so you can't just up and go 'I have an intimacy against the thing you just told me about'... unless you have a power that lets you.

Crafting in Exalted has always been weird. It bothers my that Melee is used for every kind of combat with a weapon, medicine is used for not only healing and bioengineering but also psychology (kind of), and sail is used for not only using boats of every kind but also flying vessels... but craft? You need a different skill to craft different items. See also: martial arts being broken down into different forms, and performance now being broken down into different things (dance, oratory, instrument)

[Packrat]

Craft is just... Weird, but oddly Martial Arts works out in play, the thing is that Martial Arts charms are actually extremely powerful in concert. A solar with a fully mastered style has a whole suite of cool as hell abilities which are quite different in style and flavour to regular charms and will basically rock the house when it comes to fighting in a particular, well, style.

It actually ends up well worth the investment and while I am not a fan of the weirdness of character generation/xp split in general, some way to make learning a particular martial art a major investment is kind of needed. Sorcery is an odd one though, it is well worth almost any character dipping into sorcery and there is almost nothing to stop people doing so.

[Roadie]

The best part of Ex3 is that it has a combat system that works pretty well and uses concepts fairly new to the world of tabletop RPGs (for example, your turn order Initiative is also your combat momentum, changing as you attack or get attacked), and a social conflict system that's mechanically engaging without just being a mirror of the combat system (you have to discover the Intimacies of people and use them as leverage to persuade them to do things).

The worst part of Ex3 is that it's got a lot of "natural language" that never went through the hands of a competent editor, so there's lot of fundamental stuff that any game using it would need to houserule in short order, like "what's the exact order of resolution for attacks" (important for some effects), "how does a counterattack resolve" (there are literally no rules given for it), "can Dogstar Ruminations be defended against in any way" (as written it's just 'rocks fall and a city dies'), and so on.

It's also worth noting that it implicitly changes the setting at the ground level a fair bit from previous editions by getting rid of mortal magical martial artists, while at the same time making mortal sorcerers much more powerful than they were, as they can now control demons (previously restricted only to Exalts). It's a tilt away from wuxia and in the direction of Conan.

[Packrat]

Arise thread, from the grave!

So post release, Exalted 3rd Edition languished and the books that were supposed to immediately follow it never materialised. Some time ago however the two head developers were sacked (thankfully, I have seen pretty convincing evidence one of them was sexually abusive toward fans). The new development leads seem to be both better people and rather better at actually releasing things.

Some time ago there was a 'gear book' Arms of the Chosen that featured a whole array of incredibly cool magical things from a bow that help you be magical Genghis Khan (with magical mongol armies on special occasions) , to a magical brush/spear that lets you declare things as scholarly facts whilst murdering people. Also a suit of armour that lets you turn into a dragon but also gives you the Principle of 'I am the storm, raining destruction on my enemies', its intensity building the more you use your armour to turn into a dragon.

There is also a kickstarter just begun for the Terrestrial Exalted, the inherited by bloodline, weaker but much more numerous Exalted who run most of the largest and most powerful societies in the setting. Apparently this time they have the manuscript actually written and are releasing it during the kickstarter campaign with things looking good so far.

[Packrat]

So I finally bit the bullet and paid into the new kickstarter, meaning that I now have roughly the first 3/5 of the manuscript to read.

I have not really gotten into the rules portions of this yet but the setting information and general writeups of Dragon Blooded society? This is really, really good stuff and I am seriously intrigued by it. They have actually bitten the bullet on the implications of a matriarchal society for example, along with the whole thing being surprisingly inclusive yet stodgy and strict in other areas.

Transgendered? Marrying a same sex partner? Both fine! Not having kids? Wanting a divorce? Nope. You need to stick with your spouse and summon demons or grow children using magical plants fed by blood or something. Though you get a few decades to jump into having heirs given that your lifespan is a few hundred years.

[Jennkryst]

Minor necro!

The Exalted MU is in the process of rebooting, since the Dragon Blooded stuff exists. It looks like it'll be set in the Scavenger Lands (unless I can convince all of the people to vote to set it in the West, because BOATS... or, we can hold off for the eventual reboot that will come when the Lunar book comes out.)

ETA: I've been trying to review their wiki here and there, and zomg all the embedded ads keep making my computer shit itself.

[Packrat]

@jennkryst Hardly a minor necro.

I just decided to take a look and would note for people's benefit that the game apparently moved, it is now at

mushhaven.com Port: 2526

No idea what it is like yet but somebody has said hello after I logged in as a guest? Which is a plus.