I know it does, obviously.  For me, it is enough to say that is a gigantic mass of little powers and abilities and attacks and requires rolling a dice pool.  That tells me already that its bad for me.
But it also seems to be objectively broken as a game, to the point that even exalted fans themselves constantly bitch about it.  I've read a term "paranoia-combat" being bandied about as an example of badness on rpg.net... what is that?

I want to hear delicious details of exactly how Exalted sucks.

RPGPundit

If you could summon Jon Chung, he would rip apart mechanically, but I don't know if he has an account here.

Suffice it to say that there are points where using the system becomes pointless.  Wounds don't matter because most attacks can knock all of them out in one hit if they get through defenses, so combat focuses on making sure no one breaks through.  Defenses mainly use Essence, and so Essence becomes the de-facto "HP" system for when a combat is about to get ended.  Unfortunately that fact is tied to a system that uses the concept of "Perfect Defenses" and "Perfect Attacks" -- you spend the Essence, the attack/defense auto-succeeds.  What happens here is that whoever can pull off the most Perfect Defenses is usually the winner.  And so mechanically savvy players focus on building monstrosities that are focused solely on assuming everything is out to kill them in one hit -- Paranoia Combat builds -- a lot of them using loopholes or specific powers to regenerate Essence as quickly as possible in combat.  If played by knowledgeable players, the better mechanical build will almost always win.

It could've been much better represented/abstracted if it wasn't relying on the base assumptions of the d10 system, and if more than half the powers out there weren't written by people who didn't understand the fundamentals of the system.  They're trying to "patch" some of the more broken bits now, but it seems like too little, too late.

Amusingly, the combat system works pretty well for heroic mortals who don't use charms/magic, but once you get past a certain power-level, it just breaks down.

The power level demands a level of detail that, in the way the system operates, seems commensurate with more information - crunch - than I can usually bear. I gave up when it became clear that i needed a PhD in Charms to play the fucking thing.

Exalted could be awesome, but everything that got added beyond the first couple of books in the first edition just added and added and bloated it to the point of stupidity. More setting craziness, more gods, demons, spirits, and various options of power/exalts leads to yet more crunch.

Is there anything cool about Exalted to begin with?

I looked at the core book once at a gaming store.  It didn't catch my attention at all.

Originally I wasn't interested but lately I've been thinking there's some cool stuff in there... if only the system wasn't so kludged up with mountains of crunch.
I've seen people mention playing it with the introductory/lite version of the rules as being the way to go.

Quote from: RPGPundit;457778I want to hear delicious details of exactly how Exalted sucks.

RPGPundit

There are two ways to win at Exalted combat:

1) The war of attrition.  Straight-up combat will always be won by the guy who has the most "motes" (or the most efficient way of generating motes) to power Charms for attacks and perfect defenses.  In practice, this means that combat is a boring slog and the winner is already a foregone conclusion.  Chance--which is what makes combat interesting--doesn't even enter into the picture.

2) The war of paranoia.  These combats will be won by the character who is built with an eye toward covering their asses in every possible situation, which effectively means that any drama of combat is lost in the shuffle of Charms that prevent sneak attacks, debilitating effects, etc.

In both cases, what this boils down to is that "character building" is a winnable mini-game that takes place prior to the game itself.  And that sucks.

Quote from: ggroy;457802Is there anything cool about Exalted to begin with?

I looked at the core book once at a gaming store.  It didn't catch my attention at all.

If you care to look past the anime/manga aesthetics and the messy system, I feel there's an interesting, wide open, kitchen-sink high fantasy setting, which could make for a great epic fantasy game with a sandbox feel. Circles of Exalted travelling the land, setting things right in the fringes of the Realm, keeping petty gods and spirits in line, evading capture by Dragon-Blooded forces, or even setting themselves up as kings.

Not to threadcrap, but I prefer Scion's take on the system.  It has less power creep from a lack of supplements.  I really enjoyed Scion...but then again, I actually like dice pools because of the tactile component.  I don't care about game balance.  However, much of Exalted apparently does, which is the killer for me.

Especially since there's just way too much of it.

Quote from: The Butcher;457806If you care to look past the anime/manga aesthetics and the messy system, I feel there's an interesting, wide open, kitchen-sink high fantasy setting, which could make for a great epic fantasy game with a sandbox feel. Circles of Exalted travelling the land, setting things right in the fringes of the Realm, keeping petty gods and spirits in line, evading capture by Dragon-Blooded forces, or even setting themselves up as kings.

Could this be similar to epic tier of 4E D&D?

Quote from: ggroy;457813Could this be similar to epic tier of 4E D&D?

Not sure. In D&D, even at very high levels, the gods are still distanced from the world and living in distant planes.

Exalted takes a more animistic approach, best exemplified by the comic in the beginning of the book; when the river dries up, you can walk up to it, call the river god/spirit a cunt, slap him around a bit, and tells him to give the good folk of Podunkville their water back, or else.

Also in Exalted, the crazy, over-the-top stuff starts happening right from the get-go. Like a supers game, you wake up one day and bam! you're a demigod.

D&D 4e = d20 Exalted.

Quote from: Benoist;457819D&D 4e = d20 Exalted.

Except without:

- starting characters already possessing the power of demigods

- a fully developed setting full of canon and lore

- a conceptual basis in East Asian-flavored fantasy and Greek myth

- a system based on die pools and spending "points" of power as resource management

- or much of anything, really.

But yeah, aside from all that, exactly the same!  

Quote from: The Butcher;457817Exalted takes a more animistic approach, best exemplified by the comic in the beginning of the book; when the river dries up, you can walk up to it, call the river god/spirit a cunt, slap him around a bit, and tells him to give the good folk of Podunkville their water back, or else.

Also in Exalted, the crazy, over-the-top stuff starts happening right from the get-go. Like a supers game, you wake up one day and bam! you're a demigod.

Heh.  This sorta sounds like the "joke" 1E AD&D games we use to play back in the day, where we started all the characters at some ridiculously high level (ie. level 30+, level 40, level 50, etc ...).  Essentially it became a "kill fest" where the magic users repeatedly used and abused all their wish spells.  

Its not broken, at all. Its just a story telling game and the dice barely matter.

Your characters, in my opinion, are barely suppose to be challenged. They are the Solar Exalted, the most powerful godlike breed. If you figure out how to break the system, one of the 20 ways our group managed it, that just means you are playing the game right. It's not D&D. The challenge is RPing the right social decisions, not dealing damage in combat.

That said, I don't like rolling that many dice. More than once I'd roll 8 dice for initiative and tie someone, or roll 22 dice to strike, 15 to damage, and only deal 1 point due to powers or armor. It is a little silly, and it is meant to be silly. Its making fun of itself.

Quote from: misterguignol;457820Except without:

- starting characters already possessing the power of demigods

- a fully developed setting full of canon and lore

- a conceptual basis in East Asian-flavored fantasy and Greek myth

- a system based on die pools and spending "points" of power as resource management

- or much of anything, really.

But yeah, aside from all that, exactly the same!  

You could, for the most part, emulate everything done in an Exalted game by making 5th level D&D characters, level them only to 10th, and not let NPCs have ANY LEVELS AT ALL unless they to are some kind of Exalted.