Revision as of 16:24, 21 January 2010

Exalted: Exquisite Edition

Exalted: Exquisite Edition, or EEE, is an attempt to create a complete unified rules that
meet what I want in my Exalted game and pull together various attempts I and many other, better
writers have done before. Heavy draws for influence come from One Roll Exalted by Democritus
and A Fallen Age by Bazzalisk. I have received no permission from either of them to use their ideas
let alone Exalted or the ORE system. So this isn't really meant to be read but to be for my personal
use only, so if you found it CONGRATULATIONS!, please stop to tell me what you think.

Setting

A word on setting, while the normal Exalted setting would work fine with any such Exalted rules,
I find myself drawn to tweak the setting when I am so vastly changing the rules. The new setting
is basically adapted the Earthdawn Setting to match Exalted.

[StarJaunter/ExaltedRewriteSetting|The Setting for Exalted: Exquisite Edition]

One Thousand Years ago, during what is now called the First Age, or even High First Age, Exalted,
Heroes Chosen by the gods of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, ruled powerful city-states in a time of
high essence. A prophecy arose that in 500 years the height of Essence would be reached and it would
release a horde of evil, tainted beings, which would forever more be known generally as Horrors.
The Chosen despaired, for while they may be able to best individual Horrors, the rare Exalted would
be overrun by the Multitude of monsters that were coming. In order to save their peoples the Chosen
agreed to lock them with magically protected Kaers and Fortress Cities. However capable the Exalts
were though building and enchanted enough Kaers to protect their entire civilization in time would
be outside their reach. As the Exalts struggled for a solution, and they might have even found it,
they were chosen after all, a group of the hated Dragonblood race came before them. Dragonbloods were
a non-human, magical race. They lacked the power of the Chosen, but had some power and could breed
true. They were hated due to practiced of slavery and experiments on those they considered lesser,
normal humans. The Exalted had kept their numbers trimmed back to appease their populace. Now the
Dragonblooded proposed a solution. Let us breed an increase our numbers, with a few centuries of
population growth their would be hundreds of thousands of Essence Wielders, compared to the less than
a thousand Exalted there were. The Exalted accepted and over the next few centuries the Dragonblooded
grew into a vast Slave Empire. Always they slavery was well justified as helping to build a Kaer or to
free a Dragonblood for important enchanting work, but slavery it was. Just as the monstrosity they had
allowed reached its height and the Exalted would be forced to act, the time limit was reached, all had
to enter their Kaers and Fortress Cities for 1000 years.

400 years later, and 100 years ago the first of the Kaers risked opening there doors early, or at least
those are the earliest that are still around now. This far past the peak, Horrors still walk the land,
but they are few enough that the Exalted heroes can challenge them in hope of Victory. The world has
scarred by the time spend with Horrors but the Races of man learn to accept that as part of the challenge
of harvesting those resources and rebuilding their world. A new threat has emerged from the emerging
Dragonblooded. They have spent their time in captivity breading up a Army of Dragonblooded who will
sweep the land conquer the world before the Chosen can adequately respond. Already new generations of
Soldier far exceeding the numbers that survived in the Kaers are being raised. When they are mature no
force on the world will be able to stop them.

System Terms

Action: An action is what the character hopes to achieve in a turn through their efforts and dice
rolls. A multiple action would be attempting two thing in one turn, if multiple sets are achieved.
Charm: A generic name for any effect for which Excellency Dice can be paid to provide.
Excellency Dice (or ExD): Exalted of EEE achieve power by super-charging an ability or stat, turning
the dot the would provide a normal die into one that provides an Excellency Die, which provide many effects.
Height: Describes the number showing on the die, a larger number is said to be higher.
Reflexive: A reflexive charm is one that can be chosen and paid for at any time, usually right after
the roll.
Set: A set is multiple dice that show the same number and provides and describes a success in ORE.
Simple: A Simple charm is one that requires its own action and roll to have its effect.
Supplemental: A supplemental charm is one that requires its ExD to be spent right before the action
it is effecting.
Width: Describes the amount of dice that show the same number in a set.

Mechanics

This system uses the ORE resolution mechanic, specifically the version found in Reign, although I add the Fluid Combat supplement

Here is a description pulled from the Wikipedia entry, the Nemisis Ruleset is available online for free and can help get you started.

The O.R.E. system uses a dice pool of d10s equal to the character's Stat and Skill similar to that used by Storyteller system, but the method to determine success
is different. In the O.R.E. system, success is determined by die result matches, such as a pair of 8s. The Width of a roll, the number of matching dice, determines
the speed (and damage, if in combat) of a roll, while the Height of a roll, the face up result on the matched dice, determines how successful an action was and
location of a hit in combat. Shorthand notation for writing results is Width x Height, so a pair of 8s would be written 2x8 and three 2s would be written, 3x2.

Exalted gain access to the ability to channel Essence into their stats or skills, usually skills, improving a normal die into what are called Excellency Dice.
Excellency Dice enable a variety of dice manipulating capabilities, depending on the type of Chosen. The also enable the weirder powers that Exalted can
call on.

Their are two ways to use an Excellency Die. They may be "Spent," which means that it is used for a purpose and is not available for another purpose in that
round, but next round will be available for the same or another purpose. Dice may also be committed which means they are providing an ongoing effect and
will not be available to be spent or committed until the effect ends. Every exalt type have differences in Dice use, especially in how commitment works.
Excellency Dice are frequently described as having a power level, this is a number that changes with Exalt types and used to determine some effects.

Every Excellency dice spent before the round's roll can have these effects:
Use to add two normal dice to the roll per Excellency Die
An Excellency Die may be set to any number (only one Excellency dice may be set to a given number)
Two dice of penalty or two levels of difficulty may be ignored
May add the Excellency Die's power level to another Excellency Die
May ignore a number of Wound Levels equal to the Excellency Die's Power Level
May allow the action the roll describes to be a Supernatural Effect rather than a normal action
May be used to buy 2 damage worth of effect from Fluid Combat, if effect is chosen before roll

Every Excellency Dice spent after the round's roll can have these effects (some of these are per Exalted Type):
Solars may set to be equal to the highest number rolled with normal dice
Lunars may set to be any number as long as no Excellency Die equals another Excellency Die
Sidereals may be set to any number as long as they can remove a normally rolled die
Dragonblooded may be set to match any naturally rolled set
May increase the height of an existent set by Die's Power Level
May allow the normal dice of the roll to be re-rolled
May be used to increase the width of any set but only for purposes of timing
May be used to increase the width of any set but only for purposes of damage/effect
May be used to increase the width of any set but only for purposes of resisting gobble dice

Supernatural effects cost a number of dice spent on them to implement. If using the Exalted book the rule of thumb is an
effect costs a number of dice equal to Essence of Charm minus one.

In standard Exalted, many charms provide actions outside of your primary action, letting your react
to another's action. Since both dice pools are rolled at the same time this is meaningless and most
reflexive style effects are generated through multiple actions and simple dice manipulations.
The the Core Exalted Melee charm tree the branch that starts with Call the Blade and ends with
Blazing Solar Bolt, is are all examples of Supernatural effects.