Quote from: bartkusa;18684655My point is the Exalted fight against people and for people, and it'd be sad if the only characters that matter are essence-users, and the only interesting stories are about fighting essence-users.

It seems arbitrary to say that mechanical bonuses can only come from equipment or essence, but not from anything else, because then mortals might get ideas too high for their station, and that would be deprotagonizing.

God, I think there seems to be "social justice" creeping into it too.

Ideas "above their station"? Really? Yeah, if you don't think Exalts should be challenged by local yokels you're obviously worried abot them getting "uppity" or whatever.

Quote from: Nexus;812574Ideas "above their station"? Really? Yeah, if you don't think Exalts should be challenged by local yokels you're obviously worried abot them getting "uppity" or whatever.

"Ideas above their station" I really think someone has been watching too much Downton Abbey.

I really don't know why I bother anymore (nerd obsessiveness I guess?). I barely recognize the game anymore. And the fanbase (at least of TBP) is one of the most unpleasant ones to deal with. And the game itself has yet to actually work or provide what was promised (as many times as that promise has changed).

and apparently I've been "doing it wrong" for 10 yr according the Great Grabowski which I recall a few of the current team throwing under the bus during 2ed... But its a bold new day.

Quote from: Nexus;812605I really don't know why I bother anymore (nerd obsessiveness I guess?). I barely recognize the game anymore. And the fanbase (at least of TBP) is one of the most unpleasant ones to deal with. And the game itself has yet to actually work or provide what was promised (as many times as that promise has changed).

and apparently I've been "doing it wrong" for 10 yr according the Great Grabowski which I recall a few of the current team throwing under the bus during 2ed... But its a bold new day.

I think a lot of the issue comes down to the developers and how they are approaching the game. They are approaching it less as developers and more as fan boys. Most developers are fans but there is a huge difference in the approach and style of interaction.

If Exalts are "supposed" to just be pulp fantasy characters that glow then I can play that in a system that doesn't involved memorizing 700+ little rules packets or buying largely the same books for the next decade.

Quote from: Nexus;812612If Exalts are "supposed" to just be pulp fantasy characters that glow then I can play that in a system that doesn't involved memorizing 700+ little rules packets or buying largely the same books for the next decade.

Well if you want pulpy heroes with a few powers. I would suggest Unisystem.

Still that raises the question of "whats the point of being Exalted if you don't cool world changing powers?" And the fiction of the Exalted killing the Primordials seems even weirder. How do pulply fantasy characters kill inhuman insane gods?

Or for that matter how do they kill the normal kinda god?

Quote from: DisgruntleFairy;812614Well if you want pulpy heroes with a few powers. I would suggest Unisystem.

Still that raises the question of "whats the point of being Exalted if you don't cool world changing powers?" And the fiction of the Exalted killing the Primordials seems even weirder. How do pulply fantasy characters kill inhuman insane gods?

Or for that matter how do they kill the normal kinda god?

Yep. But apparently unless Tito and Johnny "Two Fingers" Wu can make your Exalts crap their pants the setting is reduced to uselessness.

But I'm just bitter and ate up with nerdrage over my recent education in how Exalted is supposed to be.

Quote from: Nexus;812615Yep. But apparently unless Tito and Johnny "Two Fingers" Wu can make your Exalts crap their pants the setting is reduced to uselessness.

But I'm just bitter and ate up with nerdrage over my recent education in how Exalted is supposed to be.

When they first talked about this way back, as I remeber. They just wanted a group of trained and prepared mortals to be able to confront a fairly new Exalted and that be a challenge. I could get behind that.

You fighting the gang of experienced bandits (somewhere between 12 and lets say 35) that took over a town as a new Exalted makes sense. That is reasonable and kind of thing for a new Exalt to go against and it be challenging. Now for an experienced Exalt that shouldn't be a challenge an army that should be a challenge.

But reading the threat that doesn't seem to be what they are talking about. They seem to be talking about individual mortals being a challenge to an exalt and that's just weird to me.

Exalted is a game about being a Exalt. The stories focus on Exalts both as protagonists and antagonists. Otherwise large parts of the setting that have been long established don't make a ton of sense.

I have a feeling that 3rd edition is going to be known as the edition that killed exalted.  When a mortal can kick your ass the whole point of being exalted had died.

Quote from: DisgruntleFairy;812617When they first talked about this way back, as I remeber. They just wanted a group of trained and prepared mortals to be able to confront a fairly new Exalted and that be a challenge. I could get behind that.

You fighting the gang of experienced bandits (somewhere between 12 and lets say 35) that took over a town as a new Exalted makes sense. That is reasonable and kind of thing for a new Exalt to go against and it be challenging. Now for an experienced Exalt that shouldn't be a challenge an army that should be a challenge.

But reading the threat that doesn't seem to be what they are talking about. They seem to be talking about individual mortals being a challenge to an exalt and that's just weird to me.

Exalted is a game about being a Exalt. The stories focus on Exalts both as protagonists and antagonists. Otherwise large parts of the setting that have been long established don't make a ton of sense.

From what I gather, at least from that thread they're giving the people what they want. And as a commercial enterprise I can't fault them that as disappointing at it is.

Quote from: theliel;18685713Mortals can never bring sufficient numbers to bear to take down even a Dragonblooded removes mortals as possible antagonists. You are now in full on D&D territory where anyone of any importance has to be This Strong to avoid utterly being squished and replaced with a functionary.

Because if no one can hurt you, and I take "if a mortal defeats a PC exalt then the Player screwed up" as "mortals are not a threat" then mortals are, effectively, window dressing. The Guild won't exist for very long - mortals are not a threat to exalted and it's trivially easy to murder your way into controlling it.

Armies are a pointless waste - the 100 dragonblooded are enough to scour an area clean of life as they move through. You don't even need the support structure with the proper survival charms.

You wind up with mortals, who are supposed to be 99% of the population, utterly pointless. They exist for no reason the PCs can fathom and exist to be objects of affection - toys to keep around to have something to talk to because they are as much a threat as your pet cricket.

This also means anything that can threaten an exalt, like say, a beastman horde or rakasha invasion is utterly unstoppable except by dragon blooded.

You now have a world full of utterly helpless individuals who will be squished by anything that can threaten an exalt. When the world is filled with Supermen don't expect Metropolis to last long.

There really isn't even a reason to form armies, they won't do anything. It means the first Solar who exalts to Halta or Linowan wins the war. Because mortals can't stop them and if there are Solars on both sides everyone loses because the Solars just lay waste to both countries because there is no defense against a Solar that isn't a Wyld Hunt or another Solar. This, again much like mid-high level D&D, becomes a game of rocket tag - whoever strikes first and hardest wins. Got kids? Dead. Got Wives? Dead. Because there's nothing to stop them dying. You can't be everywhere at once because force projection, but the normal method of force projection doesn't work (armies) because anything that isn't an exalted gets pwn'd by exalted.

This is not a good thing for a setting to have.

Of course, what the people want is largely based on bullshit gamer think. There are what, about 40,000 Exalts spread across Creation (with more land area than the Earth last I heard and the 2ed. They made 3rd larger). If mortals don't pose a threat to Exalts there is no need for armies... because I guess an Exalt is going to teleport anywhere something interesting is happening. Because they can't they can ever do. No mortal kings start wars or invasion.

There are no insurrections and other actions if there is not an Exalt involved. Otherwise mortal in Creation just sit around, bemoaning their lack of agency because they can't off a few selected people they're probably never encounter except as tall tales. No town guards because no one fears crime because its never committed because everyone fears a one in a million shot that a sympathetic exalt is going to show and kick their asses.

And Exalted have noting to do wander around, randomly killing kings for shits and giggles. Except for Dragonblooded who like to gather in group and roam the land, killing everything that moves.


For similar reason, any superhero settings with superhumans that can stand up to military level force must not have any armies or cops, right?

There aren't enough Exalts for the game to focus on Essence users but apparently there are enough for them to be present at every single possible interesting thing that occurs in Creation. Ever.

And, here's a hint: The Rakasha invasion -was- unstoppable until the Empress literally pulled out the big guns. Thaounds of DB with magical weapons and warstriders couldn't stop them, a bunch of mortals armed with steel and gumption sure as Hell wasn't. That's why huge chunks of Creation kinda vanished.  

Beast men aren't "things that need an Exalt to stop". They're non essence using Mooks. Horrid mooks, but mooks non the less.


Not to mention just fucked up it is to think people only have value, agency and a reason to exist if they can kill you. Otherwise you can only care for them as "pets" because they're not important unless they can kick your ass. Seriously what kind of shit is that? And they've got the gall to look down their noses at D and D.

theliel is completely ignoring the fact that the exalted are opposed to each other.  You think the dragon blooded of the realm want solars to change the world.  Fuck no!  Not even the siderials want that other than the gold faction and that faction is tiny compared to the bronze faction.  That is only side one.

The solar side are broken up and hunted down.  Yes while they are the most powerful exalted they are also the most limited due to the fact they start off with next to nothing.  A solar would have peasant armies against real armies from real nations.  Solars are powerful, but a full army of mortals can kill a solar easily.  Mainly it will be hard for a solar, especially a beginning one, to fight off ten thousand well armed soldiers.

Third side are the lunars and half of them are mutated chaos beasts that lost their higher thoughts.  They are no more than mere monsters of legend.  Those lunars who stay sane and mutation free are spread out.  Sure their beast men are powerful, but they are the second most powerful exalted.  Not to mention the fae of the wyld are a constant threat.

Speaking about the wyld we don't know what they can do next.  Right now they have the advantage and the element of surprise.  There is millions of them and each one of them is more powerful than a mortal.  Hell while in the wyld their princes are more powerful than dragon blooded.  The only weakness they have is creation's ability to weaken them and if they stay too long the ability to kill the fae.

Finally the abyssals.  The vast armies of the neverborn are powerful as they filled with insane oblivion ghosts, flesh golems, and whatever horrors they can produce.  The abyssal exalted themselves are only equal to the solars since they are the dark reflection of solars.  New magics and technology are being forged.  The fact that creation is falling apart the question is why hasn't creation been destroyed yet.  This leads to their weakness the deathlords themselves.  Sure they are the ghosts of first age solars and have incredible knowledge that only the siderials would have.  They, however, fight each other as much as they destroy their real enemy.  The abuse of the deathlords had also convince many abyssals to betray their masters and aid the other side as well.

Five huge factions right there.  The exalted do not have it easy as it is a five man wrestling match.  Then again the billions of humans could get fed up and just end the exalted once and for all.  There is maybe 10,000 to 11,000 exalted in the world.  The mere mortals with numbers alone could destroy the exalted.

Not to mention that the world of Exalted is BIG really really big. Bigger than the real world which is itself MASSIVE far bigger than most people are really able to conceptualize.

Then we have the issue of groups of mortals. I'm actually ok with the idea of groups of mortals being able to challenge an Exalt. But that doesn't seem to be what they are talking about. They seem to want a mortal to be a challenge to a Exalt, which is very odd to me.

Notably if you read Mengtzu's posts (1782) you notice that despite all the talk it seems like the changes actually don't amount to much and you end up with things being pretty close how they were with 2e. So a lot of this seem to be the Developers and fans blowing smoke.

The responses about limiting the power of the Exalted just makes me even more convinced that it was a good thing I couldn't back the Kickstarter. I have lots of games on my shelf that let me play people a bit above the norm. Exalted doesn't need to be another of those.

Oh, well. If I ever decide to run another campaign in Creation, I still have all of my 1st and 2nd edition books to draw on for setting, and I can always use another (better) system. I looked at the example fight from earlier and, while it looks okay for a one-on-one, running a combat is going to be a nightmare when you scale up to five Exalted plus the opposition.

Quote from: DisgruntleFairy;812659Then we have the issue of groups of mortals. I'm actually ok with the idea of groups of mortals being able to challenge an Exalt. But that doesn't seem to be what they are talking about.

I ran a two-year campaign in 2nd edition, and that's how it was early on. I had five starting Solars and mortals were a threat for some time, though they always had to have a numbers advantage to pose any danger. And they worked well as backups for the real threats like DBs, too. But after the group started accumulating XP and Charms, they were completely outclassed. After 100 or so XP, the group's Dawn could tear through a dozen elite mortals without breaking a sweat (or wasting Essence). That didn't mean really large groups still didn't pose a threat or that mortals couldn't oppose the party in other ways, particularly through behind-the-scenes shenanigans that caused them trouble.

That, to me, just seems like a more fitting power level for the beings who kicked the crap out of the Primordials.

Groups of mortals posing a threat to beginning solars is okay.  Mortals doing sneaky back stabby, or political changing things that can fuck solars late in the game is fine.  I just have a issue that a single mere mortal poses a deadly threat to a solar as it destroys the fluff about solars.