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Ithle01 posted:Considering the ridiculous size of the charm trees this is just sounding like an argument for me to completely eliminate Essence as a prerequisite entirely for all abilities. I feel like people are really underestimating how powerful a Circle of five Essence 1 Solars with Essence 1 Charms actually are. My group eliminated Supernal entirely and fought Octavian to a standstill in our second session, forcing him to burn through his entire mote pool before grudgingly being convinced he wasn't going to win. The only damage we took was...the 0-health level of our sorcerer, who accidentally stepped into the blaze leftover from his own fireball.
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Jan 26, 2016 16:41
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Thanatosian posted:Oh, for gently caress's sake. Sometimes, you want to be hella good at what you're good at, instead of merely good. Im coming in with a new player perspective and Supernal is really, really easy to understand. Instead of having to look at 75 pages worth of charms I can just say "I want to be the best speaker in the world" or "I want to be able to sing and have people weep". I can understand the frustration over how it unbalances the game, but with my limited experience exalted doesn't seem to be very balanced.
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Jan 26, 2016 16:49
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Supernal is bad because it's a "trap or max" choice, but that's true of a lot of the charm system anyway. It just amplifies it.
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Jan 26, 2016 17:06
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I made a dumb house rule for the game I'm playing where you can count as having a Supernal in a MA if it is supported by your actual supernal. Not all MA, just a single one. I also removed the MA merit though. I did this because everyone playing basically wanted to play wuxia and have MAs anyways. So the Night Caste with Supernal Stealth has the ability to buy up Ebon Shadow, the Twilight with Supernal Lore teaches people lessons with Crane, and the Eclipse with Supernal Socialize is a master of Black Claw.
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Jan 26, 2016 17:58
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Crion posted:I feel like people are really underestimating how powerful a Circle of five Essence 1 Solars with Essence 1 Charms actually are. My group eliminated Supernal entirely and fought Octavian to a standstill in our second session, forcing him to burn through his entire mote pool before grudgingly being convinced he wasn't going to win. The only damage we took was...the 0-health level of our sorcerer, who accidentally stepped into the blaze leftover from his own fireball. I bet he meant to do that.
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Jan 26, 2016 18:06
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KittyEmpress posted:I made a dumb house rule for the game I'm playing where you can count as having a Supernal in a MA if it is supported by your actual supernal. Not all MA, just a single one. I also removed the MA merit though. I did this because everyone playing basically wanted to play wuxia and have MAs anyways. So the Night Caste with Supernal Stealth has the ability to buy up Ebon Shadow, the Twilight with Supernal Lore teaches people lessons with Crane, and the Eclipse with Supernal Socialize is a master of Black Claw. This is a good idea for your table, and probably for many other tables as well. kudos kudos kudos
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Jan 26, 2016 18:49
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:This is a good idea for your table, and probably for many other tables as well. kudos kudos kudos Having a barrier to entry to learn kung fu in a game where kung fu is one the central themes is super dumb, so this is definitely a good idea.
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Jan 26, 2016 20:04
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It has helped them be more combat capable - they are mostly buying stuff from their actual supernal skill, but Solar XP means they are buying up MA charms and getting stronger about on pace with each other. It probably wouldn't work in a larger group [until we have more MA] but it has worked great so far.
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Jan 26, 2016 20:08
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Crion posted:I feel like people are really underestimating how powerful a Circle of five Essence 1 Solars with Essence 1 Charms actually are. My group eliminated Supernal entirely and fought Octavian to a standstill in our second session, forcing him to burn through his entire mote pool before grudgingly being convinced he wasn't going to win. The only damage we took was...the 0-health level of our sorcerer, who accidentally stepped into the blaze leftover from his own fireball. Ganging up on one guy is a pretty good way to beat them because the combat system really doesn't handle it these days. And back in 2nd edition I've seen a DB with about 50 xp solo Octavian without even having to resort to broken artifacts so hearing that a circle of solars can do it isn't really going to convince me of much. I just don't feel that essence minimums are really necessary given the volume of charms in the game. If you want to be 'guy who does two things' rather than 'guy who does one thing' you likely won't even get past the essence 2 charms in one of both of the two abilities you take. I've made plenty of characters where I didn't even get past essence 2 for my one supernal ability so I don't really feel like it matters. I agree with Ferrinius when he says that favored/caste was the better way to do things because then you were equally good at 10 different things instead of one (which lets you build a more developed character than Melee Guy or Lore Guy) and I agree with him that supernal is a bad idea. I just think the solution here is a little bit different.
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Jan 26, 2016 20:23
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Ithle01 posted:Ganging up on one guy is a pretty good way to beat them because the combat system really doesn't handle it these days. I'm pretty sure that getting a stacking Defense penalty for being ganged up on without onslaught negators is an intended factor, given that 2E specified that onslaught penalties didn't stack past someone's action.
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Jan 26, 2016 20:57
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I used to share Ferrinus' dislike of supernals, but I've played in three different Exalted 3e games so far, one without supernals and two with them. The (mostly same) group of players preferred playing with supernals. They just want to be strong as gently caress in a world full of poo poo; supernals help you buy into the power fantasy of playing as a Solar. I like them. I'm also interested in the unique mechanics planned for the other Exalts, since they will all get something analogous but not the same as supernals.
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Jan 26, 2016 21:00
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Bedlamdan posted:I'm pretty sure that getting a stacking Defense penalty for being ganged up on without onslaught negators is an intended factor, given that 2E specified that onslaught penalties didn't stack past someone's action. I'm absolutely certain it's intended and Octavian's defense probably dropped like a stone during that fight which would let even weaker members of the circle ping him to pieces. Between that and the way initiative works it's pretty easy to dog-pile a stronger opponent without much trouble unless that enemy has some sort of very powerful initiative reset ability because once you wear someone down to <6 initiative and keep them there that opponent is basically finished. On top of that Octavian is only getting 5m per round back while the circle is getting 5m per person, a very important factor when dice pool buffs are limited to instant. Plus, a few other tricks you can pull to take down the stronger foe.
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Jan 26, 2016 22:10
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Only three members of the party were ever attacking him at a time. He had some freaking wasp thing also attacking us that my character dealt with, and the fifth character was off doing plot stuff in another room. Most of our success revolved around Ebon Shadow Style from our Night and our beefiest Dawn getting decent rolls against him during some grappling stuff.
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Jan 26, 2016 22:28
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virgindick posted:I used to share Ferrinus' dislike of supernals, but I've played in three different Exalted 3e games so far, one without supernals and two with them. The (mostly same) group of players preferred playing with supernals. They just want to be strong as gently caress in a world full of poo poo; supernals help you buy into the power fantasy of playing as a Solar. That's because they've been tricked. In fact, supernal abilities undercut the power fantasy of being a Solar, because they mean you're suddenly an unchallenged, world-class master of 10% of the abilities you would have been one edition ago, and also that you'll gain much less power from leveling up than you would have otherwise.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:32
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It's good to know that they only thought they were having fun!
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Jan 27, 2016 00:34
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, he said, indignantly defending Cookie Clicker.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:39
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I'm looking forward to getting the chance to use the tailor character I built. ^_^
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Jan 27, 2016 00:44
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Ferrinus posted:, he said, indignantly defending Cookie Clicker. jeez i didn't know people like you still existed carry on, gentle goon
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Jan 27, 2016 00:47
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Man, I'm not sure I can imagine any sadder Exalted-related thing than someone excitedly choosing supernal Craft.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:50
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I mean you can imagine yourself, can't you? Supernal is cool, being able to actually use Ess 5 charms is cool, because you know what? Most exalted games ended, even in 2e, before people hit 3 essence. Those cool looking charms at the top end would never get played with. And now they can be! That's fun!
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Jan 27, 2016 00:58
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Ferrinus posted:Man, I'm not sure I can imagine any sadder Exalted-related thing than someone excitedly choosing supernal Craft. i dunno, have you looked at... your posting? XDDDD
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Jan 27, 2016 00:58
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uh oh, two people brought the same burn to the club but who wore it better??
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Jan 27, 2016 00:58
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KittyEmpress posted:I mean you can imagine yourself, can't you? Yeah, but arguably this just means high-essence charms aren't necessary and you could squash everything down into a smaller bracket. Or, indeed, remove essence minimums. Plus, high essence play never worked for a reason, there was just way too much stuff to track.
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Jan 27, 2016 01:01
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You can have fun doing a lot of things. You can have fun playing Exalted 2E. "Can be fun" is a weird system defense. Though I will say I felt a huge mechanical burden lifted off my shoulders when we got rid of Supernal, because I no longer felt like a moron for not immediately rushing to the top of the Melee charm tree.
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Jan 27, 2016 01:06
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KittyEmpress posted:Supernal is cool, being able to actually use Ess 5 charms is cool, because you know what? Most exalted games ended, even in 2e, before people hit 3 essence. Those cool looking charms at the top end would never get played with. And now they can be! That's fun! The most immediate problem there is that it comes at direct cost to actual, functional, ongoing games that don't fizzle out after three sessions. Time was, you'd make an archer or whatever and actually look forward to getting all the crazy high-essence archery charms, and then you would and could suddenly lay waste to small armies in one combat turn. Comparing your performance once you finally got the charm to your performance prior to having the charm was rewarding, because you could see you've played through an entire power-gaining arc, had to cleverly make do with more modest powers early in your career, could now stomp around like Godzilla later in your career, etc. The reason so many games contain prereqs for new capabilities in general, and are paced such that you can't start with everything at once, is that prereqs are actually good. It's fun both to be a just-starting newbie and an accomplished master; each experience enhances the other. But hey, maybe you can't count on your game lasting more than three weeks. Maybe you just really, really want to try out that Brawl build that throws 40 dice of decisive damage per turn, every turn, completely irrespective of its actual initiative pool. Just start the game at a higher Essence rating. You basically have to do that anyway or else no one ever gets to play a celestial or solar circle sorcerer.
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Jan 27, 2016 01:10
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Ferrinus posted:You basically have to do that anyway or else no one ever gets to play a celestial or solar circle sorcerer. They'd better.
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Jan 27, 2016 02:17
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Ferrinus posted:The most immediate problem there is that it comes at direct cost to actual, functional, ongoing games that don't fizzle out after three sessions. Time was, you'd make an archer or whatever and actually look forward to getting all the crazy high-essence archery charms, and then you would and could suddenly lay waste to small armies in one combat turn. Comparing your performance once you finally got the charm to your performance prior to having the charm was rewarding, because you could see you've played through an entire power-gaining arc, had to cleverly make do with more modest powers early in your career, could now stomp around like Godzilla later in your career, etc. The reason so many games contain prereqs for new capabilities in general, and are paced such that you can't start with everything at once, is that prereqs are actually good. It's fun both to be a just-starting newbie and an accomplished master; each experience enhances the other. God drat dood, realize that people like Supernal and some people don't.
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Jan 27, 2016 02:39
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Exmond posted:God drat dood, realize that people like Supernal and some people don't. In other news: The loving Index Still Needs To Be Written, Burn In Hell Holden Shearer
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Jan 27, 2016 02:48
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In summary it's fine if you enjoy supernal in your game but in a rulebook it's encouraged a kind of weird design where it's better there's 24 abilities that will never see play because legacy design would've meant 25 of them never see proper use, rather than just scrapping the legacy design logic that means you can't, or compressing the essence scale so people get to use all their powers, or doing something else. It just feels like it was taped over rather than properly redone.
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Jan 27, 2016 02:52
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It's not taped over anything - it's just wholly redundant. Like, if you were playing 1e and had to start at Essence 1 I could see the need for supernal abilities because otherwise there might literally not be enough E1 charms in the game for you to spend even half your starting set on stuff you actually want, but there's not exactly a charm shortage in 3E.
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Jan 27, 2016 02:56
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spectralent posted:In summary it's fine if you enjoy supernal in your game but in a rulebook it's encouraged a kind of weird design where it's better there's 24 abilities that will never see play because legacy design would've meant 25 of them never see proper use, rather than just scrapping the legacy design logic that means you can't, or compressing the essence scale so people get to use all their powers, or doing something else. It just feels like it was taped over rather than properly redone. I mean "probably bad mechanics somewhere that people are welcome to go to bat for because they had fun with them" is the free space in WW/OP Book Bingo but it does not mean we cannot aspire to greater things.
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Jan 27, 2016 02:57
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spectralent posted:In summary it's fine if you enjoy supernal in your game but in a rulebook it's encouraged a kind of weird design where it's better there's 24 abilities that will never see play because legacy design would've meant 25 of them never see proper use, rather than just scrapping the legacy design logic that means you can't, or compressing the essence scale so people get to use all their powers, or doing something else. It just feels like it was taped over rather than properly redone. I just don't follow the logic where having one Supernal ability somehow makes the 24 other ones completely redundant.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:00
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Bedlamdan posted:I just don't follow the logic where having one Supernal ability somehow makes the 24 other ones completely redundant. I think the logic is that E5 Charms are better than E1 Charms, so if you can buy E5 Charms it's stupid to buy E1 Charms. Really, this is the same debate as the BP/XP debate we all got tired of, because in both cases Ferrinus is basically upset because his alternate universe selves may somehow be getting more for their money than he is, and the Ex3 dev philosophy absolutely does not give a poo poo about balancing you against your alternate universe self.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:16
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I'm just saying that having an E5 Socialize charm doesn't make me any better at fighting, and an E5 Melee charm is useless at making sure I'm not poisoned. I mean unless I just apply the melee charm super-liberally but that causes as many, if not more, problems as it solves.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:19
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Bedlamdan posted:I just don't follow the logic where having one Supernal ability somehow makes the 24 other ones completely redundant. It didn't use to be true that a Zenith would always be inherent worse at Melee than a Dawn, or that a Dawn would have to choose whether their Archery was inherently worse than their Melee or their Melee inherently worse than their Archery. Back when simply having a skill caste/favored represented the absolute pinnacle of conceivable mastery, individual characters were more flexible and less typecast. Now instead of being the absolute best at ten things you're the absolute best at one. Rand Brittain posted:I think the logic is that E5 Charms are better than E1 Charms, so if you can buy E5 Charms it's stupid to buy E1 Charms. Cool, you don't understand the problem at all.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:23
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Bedlamdan posted:I just don't follow the logic where having one Supernal ability somehow makes the 24 other ones completely redundant. Problem: People never use abilities over essence 2-3 because games never go that long. Solution: You can ignore that cap for one of them, from a limited selection. This is a weird solution when you could just not cap any of them, compress essence down to a 1-3 band that would see play, or other potential solutions I'm not actually paid to come up with (personally I'd be happy with a design where trees were the balancing mechanic, so more potent effects were further down the tree). The net effect is that instead of having 25 abilities where you never see any of "the good stuff", there's 24 of them, which seems like a marginal perk to me. This also factors in a bit with the fact 3e's gone with numerous, discrete effects, and more of them, so there's more stuff stretched over a wider essence band, which means stuff that might well have been in core-competency tier in 1e or 2e is now further up the tree, or the fact Exalted start at E1 now, which is sensible on one hand because why does the scale start at 2 in 2e, but on the other hand also means there's now essence 2 charms which you might not see. It's just the weird refusal to gut bits that aren't in service to the game that's in other areas of the book, but for charms. Oh! Also this hyper-accelerates the "everyone is playing five different games" thing because if a Dawn is doing his thing and Twilight is crafting up his thing and they're limited to E1, there's a point where they just straight-up run out of charms, so you don't get someone super good, "why are we even here" good, at one thing and incapable at other things. Whereas going full melee is entirely possible due to supernal.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:28
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Ferrinus posted:It didn't use to be true that a Zenith would always be inherent worse at Melee than a Dawn, or that a Dawn would have to choose whether their Archery was inherently worse than their Melee or their Melee inherently worse than their Archery. Back when simply having a skill caste/favored represented the absolute pinnacle of conceivable mastery, individual characters were more flexible and less typecast. Now instead of being the absolute best at ten things you're the absolute best at one. Why? Because the bar for mastery was raised further? Favored still exists as a concept that was unchanged from 2E. Specializing in one skill exclusively is still a significant opportunity cost because focusing exclusively on a single ability means that you're pretty worthless outside that singular niche. Which is more or less solved by realizing that you'd want to put charms into abilities that aren't your Supernal. spectralent posted:Problem: People never use abilities over essence 2-3 because games never go that long. In 2E? No, game length was never the problem, the problem was that unlike the jump from Essence 2 to 3, which was instant, the jump from Essence 3 to 4 required four months of downtime, making it a pain in the rear end unless your GM just institutes a time skip. Making it automatic based on accumulating a certain amount of xp or having the GM arbitrarily handwave essence levels already overcomes that issue. Bedlamdan fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Jan 27, 2016 |
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Jan 27, 2016 03:28
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Bedlamdan posted:Why? Because the bar for mastery was raised further? Favored still exists as a concept that was unchanged from 2E. Specializing in one skill exclusively is still a significant opportunity cost because focusing exclusively on a single ability means that you're pretty worthless outside that singular niche. Which is more or less solved by realizing that you'd want to put charms into abilities that aren't your Supernal. Why would you want to make a permanent choice at chargen as to whether your Dawn is better at fencing or strategy, or whether your Twilight is better at sorcery or artifice, or whether your Eclipse is better at administration or negotiation?
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Jan 27, 2016 03:31
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Crion posted:Only three members of the party were ever attacking him at a time. He had some freaking wasp thing also attacking us that my character dealt with, and the fifth character was off doing plot stuff in another room. I think this is one of those things where we're getting sidetracked and talking past each other. I consider Octavian to be more or less a good benchmark for a starting Dawn (or Night or Zenith or...) to go head to head with in a one-on-one fight and don't like the narrow focus that supernal encourages in character creation. I'd rather players were able to make exactly the character they want at creation or shortly there after. I'm running Exalted games to get away from the start-small -get-big stuff that I'm not excited about anymore because I've mined it out. edit: Spectralent basically sums up my thoughts on the matter in a way much better than I am able to. Ithle01 fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Jan 27, 2016 |
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Jan 27, 2016 03:32
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I'm pretty sure Octavian isn't a good benchmark for a starting Dawn to go head to head with. He has like a million health levels, a hundred motes of essence, and a few really bullshit gotcha charms.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:36
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