DariusSolluman/BasicExplanation

Armies as Weapons, Morale as Health, Clashes as Scenes- Basic Explanation

One of my primary design goals is to make fighting in the unit scale as intuitive and as simple as possible, while keeping it as exciting and energetic as fighting the Extras one at a time. To that end, Unit scale combat is closely modeled after normal Exalted combat. Armies are weapons weilded by their commanders, who strike and parry as much as Exalts do in a dual.

The major mental gear shifts are as follows.

Armies are Weapons. They are stated out exactly the same as a weapon. They have Speed, Accuracy, Damage and Defense- although these are renamed to Communication, Training, Equipment and Spirit, they retain the same function as ever. Armies are used on the field of battle with a new Ability, Tactics, which replaces Brawl. Armies are built with Presence, trained with Lore, and maintained with Bureaucracy.

The Weapons absorb the damage. Armies have a Soak value (equal to their Equipment), and Health Levels. These Health levels represent both actual casualities suffered, and morale damage as the men get closer to routing. Few battles are ever fought to the last man- armies rarely suffer more than a third of their number in wounded or dead. Nonetheless, morale is crucial, and the perception of losing can be as vital as the actual conditions on the field. Wound penelties reflect the growing breakdown of communications, planning and coordination, as well as the growing panic of the troops.

Clashes are Scenes. An exchange of blows between two armies or between an army and an Exalted lasts a full scene, although it's only a single roll of the dice. These Clashes are the condensed form of what has been happening over dozen and hundreds of individual events. This has implications for both Charm use and Stunting, which will be detailed below.

Commanders are the people directly giving out orders to a single, recognized force that is actively fighting on the battlefield. Although the Commander of a Dragon doubtless has a chain of command for relaying battlefield orders, only the highest levels of command are considered for these purposes. The leading of Commanders is beyond the scope of this document, and better left to roleplaying.

Commanders, and by extension Armies, are never Extras- even if composed purely of individual Extras. They always get double successes on 10s.

Tactical Leadership vs Physical Superiority. A Commander doesn't need to be strong or fast, and their Stamina has nothing to do with how well the army holds together. Use the following substitutions

• The Brawl Ability is replaced with the Tactics ability, as I feel that Brawl is too mechanically similiar to Martial Arts to need a distinctive Ability. Brawl Charms are subsumed under Martial Arts.

• Wits replaces Dexterity for combat pool size. The basic pool is Wits+Tactics+Training for attack, and Wits+Tactics+Spirit for defense.

• Manipulation replaces Strength for base damage. Base damage dealt is Manipulation+Equipment.

• Charisma replaces Stamina for Soak. Basic soak is Charisma+Equipment.

• Wits + Perception replace Wits + Dexterity as the base initative value. Although quick thinking is needed, so is a keen awareness of details- the winning commander is often the one who misses the fewest details.

• Intelligence limits the size of an army a Commander can lead. A vast array of details goes into organizing even a small unit- incompetent leaders are simply incapable of managing them all. The maximum unit size, as measured by the Commander background, a Commander can effectively use is equal to their Intelligence. Each point of difference between the two subtracts one from the Army's Communication, Training, Equipment and Spirit.

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