Guys, I hate to write this but actually I agree with AsenG. The Wyld Hunt and the Bronze Faction of the Siderals do not longer have the ressources (and the commitment) to hunt down Solars with the efficiency they had before.

The Wyld Hunt is not longer properly funded and maintain by the Dragon Blooded who divert their ressources for their petty civil wars, since the Empress is longer there to keep them focus. The Dragon Blooded also not longer sent their best members there, and view this tasks only suitable to failure of unwanted exalted.

The Bronze Faction lose its main asset (the Empress) and must divert attention and ressource in keeping the Empire's existence. I also remember reading that many key members of the Bronze Faction died some before the beginning of the game, leaving only less experimented members to do their works.

I also think there is a little problem with the plan "fuck Creation, let's go to the Wyld" since it is full of beings who are not fond of the Solar Exalted. Morever, the instinct of the Solar Exalted (and the memories of their previous lives) drive them to become leaders of the Creation.

The threats to the Solar Exalted are being somewhat overstated, at least in terms of 1st edition which I ran several long term successful campaigns in. Those campaigns only ended when the PC's became so completely unstoppable that nothing I could throw at them would actually be a challenge anymore, and NPC's needed pages and pages of charms (Which I just started short handing).

At least in terms of 1st edition... It was emphasized the Wyld Hunt was really fucked up... it was relying on more mortal support than Dragon Blooded, and god no they couldn't afford any Sidherals to be leading it either. All the important Dragon Blooded were to busy back in the realm dealing with the up coming civil war..

So that meant it was only the religious fanatics and young untested Dragon Blooded going after the Exalted... which meant getting slaughtered by a circle of even starting Solars... and that's something to remember, it's not suppose to be 1 starting Solar, it's typically 4 to 5... 3 newbie Dragon Blooded, 1 experienced monk and 20 mortals are going to get utterly destroyed by that group..

Of course the realm could throw more... but that's where the original genius of the setting comes into play. The Scavenger Lands are fucking huge, and NOT directly under control of the Realm. The Wyld hunt has an even harder time sending agents there, because of the sheer size and complete lack of back up... And, in 1st edition, Lookshy didn't give a flying fuck about Solars either. They were far more focused on keeping the Scavenger lands free of the Realm.

You also have the sheer size of creation, and this cannot be stated enough... Creation is fucking huge... there are hundreds of miles between the city states, and the blessed isle itself is bigger than Asia... There were huge empty spaces on the map where you could plop down and create your own entire kingdoms..

Sure, the Solars should be sticking away from experienced elder Lunars they don't have alliance with, or the stronghold of a Deathlord, and there's more than enough space for them to do so, and get stronger. Solars are typically on the move because of being hunted, but there's nothing stopping them from setting up shop in a GM created Kingdom which is ruled by a handful of outcaste Dragon Blooded, kicking it over and taking it as their own...

And again, because of the sheer size of creation (And the fact there'a also like 200 other Solars running around, so the Wyld Hunt can't focus on all of them at once) they'll have plenty of time to do their own thing..

Then we get to a city like Nexus... for pete sake here guys, Nexus was the home base of Dace and his Mercenaris.. his entire circle lived in Nexus... openly, and nobody fucked with Nexus because a god protected the place, and it was part of the river compact...

Now this is all from a 1st edition perspective... I didn't like the changes to 2nd and I like the ones of 3rd even less... But this whole argument that Solars were dead the moment they hit the ground, is dumb and false.

Exalted's problem has always been it's system, and fans who became writers who decided to twist the core setting to their own vision rather than sticking with what made it work.

Quote from: yabaziou;900793Guys, I hate to write this but actually I agree with AsenG. The Wyld Hunt and the Bronze Faction of the Siderals do not longer have the ressources (and the commitment) to hunt down Solars with the efficiency they had before.

The Wyld Hunt is not longer properly funded and maintain by the Dragon Blooded who divert their ressources for their petty civil wars, since the Empress is longer there to keep them focus. The Dragon Blooded also not longer sent their best members there, and view this tasks only suitable to failure of unwanted exalted.

It doesn't take their best. "Typical" Dragonblooded will do particularly when they can outnumber a Solar Circle 2-3 to 1. With the difference between Celestial and Terrestrial power narrowed and most of the Terrestrials likely being more experienced (particularly given the stats in the book) and it becomes more lopasided.

The "underfunded" Wyld Hunt just means they must prioritize their targets more instead of playing Wack-a-mole anytime a Solar pops up. They don't show up on your door step the day after you Exalt. The problem being that the moment you start to do the things the game bills itself as being about you ping and here comes the hammer. Particularly building a power base since that' allegedly something Solars are good at (though there little mechanical support for leadership and kingdom building but that's another issue.)

Also its been stated the Realm isn't as "weak and staggering" as it was before...

QuoteThe Bronze Faction lose its main asset (the Empress) and must divert attention and ressource in keeping the Empire's existence. I also remember reading that many key members of the Bronze Faction died some before the beginning of the game, leaving only less experimented members to do their works.

The Empress and her access to the Realm Defense grid never was the Bronze';s primary weapon against the Solars and other "anathema". It was the Immaculate Order, it military and its spiritual grip on most of Creation. It provides resources, information and slows Solar power build up. Their warriors are exceptionally powerful and they have to pull to draw in mortals for backup.

The Sids other best resources is Heaven and the Bureau of Fate: information, supernatural resources and comparatively lightning fast transport around Creation via Celestial Gates among other things. Again, it doesn't a hit squad of Sids just one with moderate Essence that gets surprise. And they're very good at that or they can just sic other opponents on you,.

QuoteAnd then there's a rest of the things out to get you or put you under their thumb.
I also think there is a little problem with the plan "fuck Creation, let's go to the Wyld" since it is full of beings who are not fond of the Solar Exalted. Morever, the instinct of the Solar Exalted (and the memories of their previous lives) drive them to become leaders of the Creation.

So is Creation and, unless they've been severely nerfed Solars have appreciable power against the Wyld. And there is a drive to greatness in Solars but its the same as in all Exalted. That doesn't mean leadership. Several of the canon Solars sigs have no great drive to be leaders of anything.

The game isn't "unplayable" but it provides a different play experience from what most expect, IME. Yes, you can change it like any other game but its work. You're fighting the system and the setting. It feels like another White Wolf/Storyteller bait and switch and yet again they're wagging their fingers like it was "obvious" all the time. They handwave their own setting to make it work but its like allot of their other games made like a cheap sweater Looks nice at first but as soon as you tug at loose thread the whole thing starts to unravel.

1st Edition wasn't really that much better given that many of PC stompers like SMA were introduced later in 1st and just got ramped over the course of the line.

Quote from: Orphan81;900796The threats to the Solar Exalted are being somewhat overstated, at least in terms of 1st edition which I ran several long term successful campaigns in. Those campaigns only ended when the PC's became so completely unstoppable that nothing I could throw at them would actually be a challenge anymore, and NPC's needed pages and pages of charms (Which I just started short handing).

Your experiences with the game have been much different from mine. I was nerfing the Hell out of NPCs to give my players a chance. And it was the same for other gms and players I talked too. I never ran into the invincible Solars that kept getting talked up. Solars didn't even rule the roost in the combat arenas I participated in adn ran. 2ed just took those problems and made them a little worse. Again, IME

There is a big difference in reported experiences with Exalted mechanics though. I'm not sure why. Its almost as if there are a few different versions of the game floating around.

But its probably best to let it go at this point. No one is going to be convinced either way.

Quote from: Nexus;900813Your experiences with the game have been much different from mine. I was nerfing the Hell out of NPCs to give my players a chance. And it was the same for other gms and players I talked too. I never ran into the invincible Solars that kept getting talked up. Solars didn't even rule the roost in the combat arenas I participated in adn ran. 2ed just took those problems and made them a little worse. Again, IME

There is a big difference in reported experiences with Exalted mechanics though. I'm not sure why. Its almost as if there are a few different versions of the game floating around.

But its probably best to let it go at this point. No one is going to be convinced either way.

I remember when my bud ran the Daughter of Nexus adventure.  Against two combat twinked Solars, one a Dawn and a super strong wrestling Twilight, the NPC Abyssal murdered us in about 4 rounds, and that was after we nerfed the shit out of Zeal I think it was called.  Which ever one gave you a unblockable piercing attack midcombat.

The big equalizer in combat between Dragon Blooded and Solars, is Dragon Blooded don't have perfect defenses. They have Perfect Defenses against mortals, but they're undodgable hits don't work on Celestial Exalted, and they're perfect blocks just shatter against Solar charm backed attacks..

My PC's slaughtered Dragon Blooded by the bucketful. An Alpha Strike just using the dice adder of starting charms could give more successes than the DB could conceivably dodge or parry...We also used Exalted Power Combat from the player's guide which made combat even more deadly... and this actually helped me in making DB's be more of a threat since minimum damage became your Essence rating..

It allowed me to throw older Essence 6 and 7 Dragon Blooded who could give the younger Solars an actual fight..

But again, it was the perfect defenses which really pushed Solars above all the other threats (except for Abyssals who were their equal, and fuck Infernals they didn't exist until late first edition and they're stupid.. fuck em). The biggest baddest attack of any other creature could be completely negated by heavenly guardian defense, Iron Kettle body, or Seven Shadow Evasion... it was more than easy for starting Solars to have one of these... and 1st edition even had a sidebar which encouraged players to take some of those survival charms..

This doesn't even get into the Charms which allowed a free dodge/parry against any and all attacks made against them. Once the PC's got these numbers no longer mattered... No need to split dice pools, no Onslaught penalties...A Dawn with Solar counter attack and Five fold Bulwark defense could kill an entire party of Essence 2 Dragon blooded in one round, if they all made the mistake of attacking him at once. Thrown in PC stunts and they should be getting essence back on every action as well.

If your Solars were getting slaughtered by your average Dragon blooded, then I can only assume your ST was cheating, or you built crappy Solars. In 1st edition Dragon Blooded got double artifact points because they NEEDED them in order to have any hope of a starting Dragon Blooded being some kind of fight for a starting solar, rather than just a speed bump.

Within about 5 sessions, parties of Dragon Blooded against my PC's had to be 2 to 1 in order to make it a real fight... Or 1 Elder Dragon blooded leading a party of younger ones.. Eventually, Dragon Blooded just weren't an issue unless they were 6 or 7 essence level... 1st edition Exalted just had to many hard brakes on Dragon Blooded. Their charms were only about half as effective against Celestial Exalted... My PC's moved quickly to challenging Lunars and Abyssals who were a much stronger and worthy series of opponents... Abyssals being the complete equals of Solars helped, and I just had to front load a Lunar with far more XP than them and they were a good challenge.

In the end, I'm honestly curious to hear stories of your PC's getting killed by a group of Dragon Blooded. How many were there? How many Solars were in your party?

Because once my PC's hit Essence 5, they had access to Solar Level Sorcery, Multiple Martial Arts styles, and Top Tier Solar combat charms capable of completely decimating any other Exalted type not a Deathlord or Abyssal of equal level, or a Siderhal whose mastered a Sidheral martial arts style.

Quote from: yabaziou;900793Guys, I hate to write this but actually I agree with AsenG. The Wyld Hunt and the Bronze Faction of the Siderals do not longer have the ressources (and the commitment) to hunt down Solars with the efficiency they had before.

The Wyld Hunt is not longer properly funded and maintain by the Dragon Blooded who divert their ressources for their petty civil wars, since the Empress is longer there to keep them focus. The Dragon Blooded also not longer sent their best members there, and view this tasks only suitable to failure of unwanted exalted.

The Bronze Faction lose its main asset (the Empress) and must divert attention and ressource in keeping the Empire's existence. I also remember reading that many key members of the Bronze Faction died some before the beginning of the game, leaving only less experimented members to do their works.

I also think there is a little problem with the plan "fuck Creation, let's go to the Wyld" since it is full of beings who are not fond of the Solar Exalted. Morever, the instinct of the Solar Exalted (and the memories of their previous lives) drive them to become leaders of the Creation.

Quote from: Orphan81;900796The threats to the Solar Exalted are being somewhat overstated, at least in terms of 1st edition which I ran several long term successful campaigns in. Those campaigns only ended when the PC's became so completely unstoppable that nothing I could throw at them would actually be a challenge anymore, and NPC's needed pages and pages of charms (Which I just started short handing).

At least in terms of 1st edition... It was emphasized the Wyld Hunt was really fucked up... it was relying on more mortal support than Dragon Blooded, and god no they couldn't afford any Sidherals to be leading it either. All the important Dragon Blooded were to busy back in the realm dealing with the up coming civil war..

So that meant it was only the religious fanatics and young untested Dragon Blooded going after the Exalted... which meant getting slaughtered by a circle of even starting Solars... and that's something to remember, it's not suppose to be 1 starting Solar, it's typically 4 to 5... 3 newbie Dragon Blooded, 1 experienced monk and 20 mortals are going to get utterly destroyed by that group..

Of course the realm could throw more... but that's where the original genius of the setting comes into play. The Scavenger Lands are fucking huge, and NOT directly under control of the Realm. The Wyld hunt has an even harder time sending agents there, because of the sheer size and complete lack of back up... And, in 1st edition, Lookshy didn't give a flying fuck about Solars either. They were far more focused on keeping the Scavenger lands free of the Realm.

You also have the sheer size of creation, and this cannot be stated enough... Creation is fucking huge... there are hundreds of miles between the city states, and the blessed isle itself is bigger than Asia... There were huge empty spaces on the map where you could plop down and create your own entire kingdoms..

Sure, the Solars should be sticking away from experienced elder Lunars they don't have alliance with, or the stronghold of a Deathlord, and there's more than enough space for them to do so, and get stronger. Solars are typically on the move because of being hunted, but there's nothing stopping them from setting up shop in a GM created Kingdom which is ruled by a handful of outcaste Dragon Blooded, kicking it over and taking it as their own...

And again, because of the sheer size of creation (And the fact there'a also like 200 other Solars running around, so the Wyld Hunt can't focus on all of them at once) they'll have plenty of time to do their own thing..

Then we get to a city like Nexus... for pete sake here guys, Nexus was the home base of Dace and his Mercenaris.. his entire circle lived in Nexus... openly, and nobody fucked with Nexus because a god protected the place, and it was part of the river compact...

Now this is all from a 1st edition perspective... I didn't like the changes to 2nd and I like the ones of 3rd even less... But this whole argument that Solars were dead the moment they hit the ground, is dumb and false.

Exalted's problem has always been it's system, and fans who became writers who decided to twist the core setting to their own vision rather than sticking with what made it work.

Guys, thank you for writing this. I was starting to get tired repeating the same thing to people that wouldn't even listen to the corebook...
Special thanks to yabaziou for overcoming his or her* personal dislike for me;).

*Sorry if your gender is supposed to be obvious, the name doesn't help me at all!

Quote from: Orphan81;900818The big equalizer in combat between Dragon Blooded and Solars, is Dragon Blooded don't have perfect defenses. They have Perfect Defenses against mortals, but they're undodgable hits don't work on Celestial Exalted, and they're perfect blocks just shatter against Solar charm backed attacks..

My PC's slaughtered Dragon Blooded by the bucketful. An Alpha Strike just using the dice adder of starting charms could give more successes than the DB could conceivably dodge or parry...We also used Exalted Power Combat from the player's guide which made combat even more deadly... and this actually helped me in making DB's be more of a threat since minimum damage became your Essence rating..

It allowed me to throw older Essence 6 and 7 Dragon Blooded who could give the younger Solars an actual fight..

But again, it was the perfect defenses which really pushed Solars above all the other threats (except for Abyssals who were their equal, and fuck Infernals they didn't exist until late first edition and they're stupid.. fuck em). The biggest baddest attack of any other creature could be completely negated by heavenly guardian defense, Iron Kettle body, or Seven Shadow Evasion... it was more than easy for starting Solars to have one of these... and 1st edition even had a sidebar which encouraged players to take some of those survival charms..

This doesn't even get into the Charms which allowed a free dodge/parry against any and all attacks made against them. Once the PC's got these numbers no longer mattered... No need to split dice pools, no Onslaught penalties...A Dawn with Solar counter attack and Five fold Bulwark defense could kill an entire party of Essence 2 Dragon blooded in one round, if they all made the mistake of attacking him at once. Thrown in PC stunts and they should be getting essence back on every action as well.

If your Solars were getting slaughtered by your average Dragon blooded, then I can only assume your ST was cheating, or you built crappy Solars. In 1st edition Dragon Blooded got double artifact points because they NEEDED them in order to have any hope of a starting Dragon Blooded being some kind of fight for a starting solar, rather than just a speed bump.

Within about 5 sessions, parties of Dragon Blooded against my PC's had to be 2 to 1 in order to make it a real fight... Or 1 Elder Dragon blooded leading a party of younger ones.. Eventually, Dragon Blooded just weren't an issue unless they were 6 or 7 essence level... 1st edition Exalted just had to many hard brakes on Dragon Blooded. Their charms were only about half as effective against Celestial Exalted... My PC's moved quickly to challenging Lunars and Abyssals who were a much stronger and worthy series of opponents... Abyssals being the complete equals of Solars helped, and I just had to front load a Lunar with far more XP than them and they were a good challenge.

In the end, I'm honestly curious to hear stories of your PC's getting killed by a group of Dragon Blooded. How many were there? How many Solars were in your party?

Because once my PC's hit Essence 5, they had access to Solar Level Sorcery, Multiple Martial Arts styles, and Top Tier Solar combat charms capable of completely decimating any other Exalted type not a Deathlord or Abyssal of equal level, or a Siderhal whose mastered a Sidheral martial arts style.

Yeah, that's exactly my experience of 2e and now, it's not really different in 3e.
And these are my conclusions about Nexus' Storyteller as well. That, or I'd like to hear that tale, too...

The only part where I disagree with you is where you say "fuck Infernals". No, no, no! Don't stick it to the crazies, man:D!
And if any splat ever merited this reaction, it's gotta be Infernals;).

Quote from: Warboss Squee;900814I remember when my bud ran the Daughter of Nexus adventure.  Against two combat twinked Solars, one a Dawn and a super strong wrestling Twilight, the NPC Abyssal murdered us in about 4 rounds, and that was after we nerfed the shit out of Zeal I think it was called.  Which ever one gave you a unblockable piercing attack midcombat.

The messiest tpk I had was 2 Night, a Zenith and Full Moon Lunar NPC who were slaughtered a single Immaculate Monk (water stylist) and  around a half dozen mortal soldiers. Either they were using their charm for the turn for a Perfect (because you did not want to get hit with Death spiral and Bad Touch effects the Immaculate could dish out) or they were throwing combo and burning WP. The DB had some nice "I can't believe its not Perfect" effects and could keep their defenses pretty high. Safety Among Enemies was a bitch particularly in that fight along with Bottomless Depths Defense and Drowning in Blood. All the PCs died. IIRC, the Monk lost 3 HL and almost all the mortals were fine.

That was the worst but a typical example of how combats went. Frustrated the Hell out of my players. In the end I had to simply let them start at Ess 4 or 5 and hand out charms like Halloween candy to balance them against the setting. Or ignore the published material. Or both.

Water Style is almost broken and I say almost because it's got some WP costs attached to it's best charms if I recall.

Dragonblooded have always been my favorite and I'm going to take another look at 3rd when their book comes out in a couple of years.

On a different subject, I often wonder why Solar Exalted seem to unpopular with the online Exalted fan community when allegedly their one of the most frequently and consistently played character types. I remember there being more vocal fans before but most of them seem to have drifted off for various reasons.

And yeah Water Dragon was nasty. The other IO styles were pretty potent to.

I left the Exalted Train before it pulled from the station and had it's glorious seventeen car and caboose pile up when I found out that the 'best combat' caste of Solars was actually kind like D&D has had most of it's Fighters, second fiddle to a properly built Essence Reactor.

So, I decided to get down my old 1e Exalted Core, Dragon Blooded Core, and 1e Player's guide to make some comparisons. Let's take a look.

Let's start with the Dragon Blooded and their "I can't believe it's not Perfect" Defenses. This isn't to insult anyone, I literally want to take a look at the Hard Data and see what was going on in our campaigns to find out why things were so different..

So in terms of combat ability, the Dragon Blooded have a few neat charms..

Thrown has Persistent Hornet Attack which was one of my favorite to use against my PC's... It's an annoying distraction, but that's all it is.. an annoying distraction... A single strike takes it out of the sky. Of course when used by an Essence 6 or 7 Dragon blooded that's hard as hell without charms, but your common dragon blooded it's going to be a 2 or 3 difficulty.

Wind Weapon is also pretty good, but the character needs a Thrown of 5, and at base, they only do 3 damage (min essence required) and you can throw 3 of them. They can be split between multiple targets or all thrown at one target... But if a Solar uses a perfect, well they're all wasted. Still, if you can get about 5 successes per attack, you can get around a base 8 damage for each one... Again though, if the Solar is wearing a Chain Shirt with a Stamina 2, you're looking at rolling 4 dice at difficulty 7.. about one damage... If they're wearing medium armor of Lamelear... you're rolling 1 dice of damage for each attack...If using power combat, that DB will get at least 3 dice... a decent attack, but unless you're rolling all 7s, it's still pinging a target.

Elemental Bolt attack does a base 2L for every essence point spent, limited by the character's stamina.. You're average DB is going to do about 6L which is shit damage in Exalted. They also still have to hit the target.  Elemental Blast does 1L per essence and is an area attack but is stlll limited... Also, both of these attacks can be parried...PARRIED...

Dragon Vortex Attack is actually a scary attack, but it Requires an Essence 4, Lore 5 Dragon Blooded... Which means a Veteran of about 100+ years... Most Dragon Blooded don't ever achieve Essence level 4 or 5, and it's important to remember that.

Five Dragon Invulnerability is a perfect defense.....unless the attack is made with a weapon of the 5 magical materials, backed by a charm, or is socrery...than it just gives you extra soak equal to your Essence... 3 extra soak for 1 attack, and all it cost was 5 motes and a willpower!

Five Dragon Wrath lets them do multiple attacks equal to their essence, against 1 target, for 1 essence per attack and 1 Health level of damage. However, the defender only has to make 1 parry roll to block all of them..

Impervious Skin of Stone is good... except again, any attack backed by a charm completely ignores it..

Defense from Anthema is actually a good charm to fight Solars.. it cost  6 motes and 1 willpower and requires a minimum essence of 4 Resistance 5... But you add +4 difficulty to all attacks backed by charms against you. Not something your average DB is going to have, but awesome if you're making an Elder DB and making him fucking dangerous.

Falling Star Method is a nice little adder for DB's, you can double your essence as extra damage before soak is applied.  Nice to use if you don't do anything else for an attack.

Safety among enemies is nasty....If the attacks are grouped together. If the PC's are standing in a cluster around one another, they deserve to get hit by this attack. Otherwise this is very situational, in closed quarters it's good...

Arrow Consuming Method is also a nice one... but again, if the weapon is five magical materials, or stone... they completely ignore the charm.

Portentious Comet Deflecting attack is a perfect defense costing 3 motes and 1 willpower.... and it automatically fails against any attack powered by a charm or made of magic materials.

Threshing Floor Technique is perfect if 10 Dragon Blooded get to 1 Solar by themselves... and is completely useless if it's against an entire circle (Unless the number of DB's multiplies by a factor of 5 for each 1) and the moment the Solar has a scene long defense, it's less than useful.

Rising Anvil Onslaught cost 8 motes, and lets you roll base melee alone. Each success gives you 1 extra attack against a single target. Extra attacks become less of an issue when Solars have scene long defenses.

Anyways, that's enough for the base Terrestrial Charms, the big thing to come away with from them is the following..

1.) Dragon Blooded have Zero perfect defenses effective against a Solar, and Zero scene long Defensive abilities.
A Solar circle who simply attacks a single Dragon blooded together is going to kill them in 1 round. The poor bastard just doesn't have anything they can do beyond use a shit load of soak charms, hope and pray...

Which leads into two..

2.) Their dice adders can only spend essence equal to their ability score.

3.) Their best Charms are behind a Essence 4 minimum wall..
 
Unless you're a cruel GM, most of the Dragon Blooded your characters encounter at the beginning of the game are going to be Essence 2, and are going to be about 3 in their chosen attributes. Your Solars should not be running into Essence 4/5 Ability 5 Dragon Blooded every where they go. On equal terms, 4 v 4 the Solars should completely and utterly mop the floor with average Dragon blooded. It shouldn't even be a contest, the Solars just have so much advantage..

Bigger Essence Pools, Bigger dice adder charms, Better Ox-Body, Better Charms overall.

By Comparison let's briefly go over some of the common 1e Solar Charms..

One Weapon two blows is a double attack against one opponent right out the gate, for only 2 essence(PG errated it down from 3). Peony Blossom is 1 extra attack up to your permanent essence for 3 motes. These are early level charms...

Dipping Swallow Defense gives you an immediate defense against any attack for 2 essence. The Dragon Blooded have nothing like it. It's a very early charm.  Five Fold Bulwark is a scene long defense, and of course Heavenly Guardian is a perfect, it's also cheaper than the Dragon blooded version 3 motes to 5.

Solar Counterattack just makes things worse when combined with a scene long defense.. Not only do they get to roll to defense against the Dragon blooded attack, but they also get a free attack on the Dragon Blooded... which if successful and kills them, negates the DB's attack entirely..

God forbid the Dragon Blooded is stupid enough to use threshing floor technique and the Solar activates "Ready in 8 directions" in response... that is a shit ton of dead dragon blooded.

Blazing Solar Bolt is an autohit on a Dragon blooded. They literally cannot defend against it in any single way.

Accuracy without Distance is also an automatic successful hit against a DB target, they have no way to negate it.

Trance of Unhesitating Speed, again 3 motes per extra attack..

Arrow Storm Technique lets a Solar hit every single target in an area in one round. If the Dragon Blooded Wyld hunt brings a contingent of 20 mortals with them. This charm will kill every single one of them in a single round. (Remember as Extras they only have 3 health levels, 9 raw damage is an automatic kill)

For 5 motes, Cascade of Cutting Terror can give a PC 20 to 26 dice for an attack (Depending on if you allow specialties to +3) against a single target. Once more, the Dragon Blooded cannot use any defenses against this. The only thing they can do is pump up their base dice pool and hope they can parry.

Blood Thirsty Sword Dancer Spirit gives +3 to all of the Exalted dice pools and lets them completely ignore all wound penalties for the scene..

Iron Skin reduces any attack made against the character to minimum damage (Typically essence) and is Compatiable with armor, which brings hardness into play and can reduce the damage to 0 then.


Anyway, that's enough with the Solar charms. There are just so many ways the Solars can no sell a Dragon Blooded attack while also turning them into a fine red mist. 1st edition Exalted fit the setting... It took hundreds of Dragon blooded and thousands of mortal troops to take down a single experienced Solar. A group of 5 Solars with 3-4 sessions under their belt, are going to steam roll 5 competent Dragon blooded.

Now if you're using a Dragon Blooded whose a Master of an elemental style... that's 12 charms and a minimum essence of 4. This is not a starting Dragon Blooded. This is a Dragon Blooded Elder. Given their charms are equivalent to Celestial level, the character is no longer fighting a typical "Dragon Blooded", they are fighting something that's almost a Celestial Exalted... they should expect a tougher fight..

But 5 Solars against 1 Master? They're going to kill that master good..

If your PC's were falling before the might of Dragon Blooded, they either made incompetent characters, or the enemies you were throwing at them had gobs more experience points than them.

Quote from: Orphan81;900849If your PC's were falling before the might of Dragon Blooded, they either made incompetent characters, or the enemies you were throwing at them had gobs more experience points than them.

They weren't starting PCs but were fairly experienced and I don't recall exactly how much experience. The Monk in question hasn't completed the Style yet and not "gobs" of exp ahead of them.  As far "incompetent" no, they weren't ruthlessly optimized but hardly "incompetent". None of us thought they'd have to be a 3 to 1 numbers advantage. If it had only happened once I'd have though it a fluke but similar things happened for the length of the games I ran, played and directly observed. I heard allot White Room disvcussions online of invincible solars, never saw them in play.

Believe me, it added to the frustration I and other players felt. Some jumped ship. The results were similar in combat arenas and there were truly min max out builds. Lunars tended to dominate those or Sids with SMA. Nasty stuff.

That particular battle was a long time ago I can't give you a blow by blow and frankly I don't want to rehash an argument that it feels like I've been having for the last 10 yrs.  May have been 2ed edition (I  recall DVs coming into play but it was a long time ago) for that matter but the results were as I described them and were pretty common across both editions. So there you go.

Why are we looking at first edition rules?  Is there any example dragon bloods in the third edition?  We should look at that since this forum is about the third edition.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;900814I remember when my bud ran the Daughter of Nexus adventure.  Against two combat twinked Solars, one a Dawn and a super strong wrestling Twilight, the NPC Abyssal murdered us in about 4 rounds, and that was after we nerfed the shit out of Zeal I think it was called.  Which ever one gave you a unblockable piercing attack midcombat.

Not to mention the frequent, "Hold on guys, I need to read this Charm again...". The theory of Exalted has always been awesome and it was so different and cool when it was released. The practice has blown screaming chunks at the moon for a very long time.