Exalted 1e : Anything I should keep an eye out for?

[Rob_Knotts]

A local used-book store at which I have a lot of credit recently got a large collection of Exalted 1e books. Seeing it as a way to avoid the endless preperations that have allowed me to put off other games, I'm going to get my group together to play a by-the-book Exalted 1e game until I get I can finally get one of my homebrew settings ready.

The books I have are the core Exalted 1e book and several adventure/location supplements, no splatbooks, so I just wanted to ask around to see if there are any problems I should be on the lookout for from in the basic book?

[angelfromanotherpin]

From my experiences, there are some imbalances, and optimization issues, but nothing truly absurd like Balor mining. What bugs me the most is the character generation/experience interaction, which is typical White Wolf and heavily favors min-maxing early and rounding out later.

A particular trap is that it is easy for players to fall behind in either the combat or the noncombat arena and wind up unable to contribute.

Oh, and Ride Charms are useless. Sorcery is how to get rapid overland movement.

[endersdouble]

Well, I'd recommend getting 2nd edition. It's Just Better, and the corebook is all you *really* need and not very expensive.

I agree about Ride Charms: really, though, their problem is the same thing with anything that lets you move really fast--the party moves at the speed of the slowest guy 95% of the time, so non-group transport magic is kind of useless.

Seriously, play 2nd though.

[shirak]

Ride and Sail are useless. They are seriously weaker than the equivalent Dragon-blooded Charms.

Archery and Melee rule. Thrown is pretty good. MA is awesome while Brawl is meh.

The best Charm ever is Respect Commanding Attitude. People can do literally nothing but listen to you except maybe leave the scene (it says they can't leave in large numbers).

About the biggest problem is that fluff and crunch were written by different people. It's like how WotC expects you to play an Evoker when everyone is playing Conjurers. Solars are supposed to be the win but all they are is relatively good.

If at all possible, get Games of Divinity (which is an awesome book) and the Player's Guide (Exalted is so much better with Power Combat).

As mentioned above, either focus on combat or on social. Very few Exalted can do both without expending vast amounts of XP (Twilight or Eclipse Martial Artists basically).

I'll second the suggestion to buy 2nd Edition Exalted. It's in all ways better.

[Rob_Knotts]

Right now I'm planning this as a test-run before I consider buying into 2nd edition. If the players really enjoy it, I'll start looking into buying the new books.

Personally, I was sold as soon as I saw the fullblades.

I mean buster swords.

Or is it keyblades?

Daiklaves! That was it!

[Voss]

Be sure to convince your players to increase their offensive and defensive abilities. Its hard, because of WW's obnoxious XP system, but if they don't, they're going to suck hard. On the other hand, all the good shit (except in sorcery) requires dedicated focus of XP.

Its also worth checking over the characters and make sure they didn't create something absolutely craptastic, which is very easy.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I have to disagree about making sure your players optimize sufficiently. All the printed example opposition is supremely unoptimized, and the setting really has opposition on all scales. If they can't take on optimized exalted opposition, fine. They can kick the crap out of mortals/lesser gods and flee when the Wyld Hunt shows up, prompting travel to their next 'town in trouble.'

It is far more important to make sure that all the characters have something to do all of the time. i.e. combat and non-combat.

[Koumei]

I have found that White Wolf in general doesn't give enough starting points to be good at both combat and anything else. Is Exalted even worse in that respect?

[Voss]

1189777883[/unixtime]]I have to disagree about making sure your players optimize sufficiently. All the printed example opposition is supremely unoptimized, and the setting really has opposition on all scales. If they can't take on optimized exalted opposition, fine. They can kick the crap out of mortals/lesser gods and flee when the Wyld Hunt shows up, prompting travel to their next 'town in trouble.'

I suppose you can use the printed crap. However, because of the limited amount of XP you get, you pretty much do that forever. Kicking mortals around gets fvcking dull rather quickly. Its the functional equivalent a beating the shit out of small children.

But really all it takes is one NPC with an 'unstoppable attack' charm attacking a PC without an 'ultimate defense' charm and thats the end of that character. The NPC doesn't have to be optimized at all- just have the bucket o' dice in that one area.

It is far more important to make sure that all the characters have something to do all of the time. i.e. combat and non-combat.

Possibly. If that is even a concern for a campaign. The setting lends itself really well to constant combat. And botching social situations is a decent way of keeping that coming.


@Koumei- I wouldn't say worse. I'd say pretty much the same.

[Koumei]

1189789938[/unixtime]]
I suppose you can use the printed crap. However, because of the limited amount of XP you get, you pretty much do that forever. Kicking mortals around gets fvcking dull rather quickly. Its the functional equivalent a beating the shit out of small children.

Doesn't sound right. I've only played a "You have the sheets but we won't use dicerolls or anything" one-off at a con, but isn't Exalted all about being more awesome than the rest of the cosmos combined, and slapping gods about?

[Voss]

Well. Sorta. But in Exalted, 'gods' = spirits. Werewolf style spirits, if you're familiar with that. The lesser ones aren't that much better than mortals, and the greater ones auto win against just about anything.

But there are a horde of enemies below (dragonblooded) or at (various other exalted, Fey) your power level. Plus various beasties and spirits that work their way around the scale. Mortals are way below everyone else. On the other hand, an experienced dragonblooded, despite being lower on the power scale than Solar Exalted, can one-shot an starting Solar that lacks significant defensive abilities.

I actually like the Dragon-blooded campaigns the best. You've still got loads of people you're better than, but there is actually a reason for the 'adventuring group' with all the threats that a single DB can't handle. Plus it has some serious social angles, as opposed to the Solar or Lunar exalted, who are essentially pariahs to anyone they meet in the civilized areas.