ExaltedSecond

Quoting the Wyrm over at RPG.net...

First of all, Brawl and Martial Arts have been combined, as have Endurance and Resistance. There are two new abilities: War, which is all about strategy and tactics and sees use in the mass combat system; and Integrity, which is about resisting persuasion and is important to the new social interaction system.
Social interaction has been revised to quantify exactly how hard it is to convince somebody to sell you their firstborn, and how much of a fight they can put up. (Geoff fully expects some people to hate this, but says it had to be done.)
Combat has seen some big changes. Turns are gone; they've been replaced with a system of "ticks," where different maneuvers take slightly different lengths of time to complete. (Another effect of this is that you only have to roll for initiative once, at the beginning of combat.) Instead of rolling Dodge, you get a fixed Defense Value -- when using a charm, however, you roll dice and add successes to this.
Some charms have been changed or added -- there are now dice adder, extra success, and reroll charms for every ability. There are also a few more higher-tier Solar charms in the corebook, mostly from the castebooks. Oh, and the Dawn anima ability doesn't suck anymore.
The core book is going to be in color, and will probably have an introductory comic instead of introductory fiction. Both of these may be carried over to supplements as well, but they're not sure yet.
The setting is pretty much the same. They have a slightly tighter thematic focus for the Solars -- it'll be easier to tell that they were originally lawgivers and god-kings and things of that nature.
Supplements coming in the first year:

ST Companion, with a lot more detail on antagonists and their abilities than the first one

Magitech book, which will concentrate all that stuff so you don't have to use it if you don't want to

Direction Book on the Scavenger Lands

New DB book

Direction Book on the Realm, seperate from the DB book

And yes, they are going to revise Lunars.

My thoughts :

Great, especially regarding Endurance and Resistance. We'll have to wait and see how well Integrity works in practice.
Excellent idea, hope they pull it off.
Not sure about this. The ticks system could make for more time-consuming battles, and generally sounds more trouble than it's worth - but it could work.
Gah! I hope they don't mean that each type of Exalt gets a dice adder, a success buyer and a re-roll for every ability! That takes away much of the flavor of the various sorts of Exalted, and seems very gameist indeed. New high-Essence charms is great, though.
Nice.
Yay. I can't wait to see the new take on Solars.

-- Xarak

Let me also say yay to combining superflous abilities (and I hope they help out craft), though I wonder about what will happen to MA styles .... Yay for social combat, it's about darn time. Roll for init once = nifty. Not sure about ticks. Especially concerning charm timing issues (1 per turn = 1 per how many ticks?) However, it seems like rate will actually be integrated into the system better, especially in regards, to say, some charms or spellcsting. Yay for a dice adder in say, occult. Or lore. I also hope they keep some of the exalt flavor. I like shiny colors. Giving the Solar more focus and direction is good! - Scrollreader

Fine, this could work.
This is great!
This remembers me of the ATB-System of the various Final Fantasy Games (it sounds like it was stolen from FF Tactics for crying out loud). I bet I'll not like it; the Combat System works fine, I think.
No, I oppose this! I liked the idea of Solars getting automatic successes, Abyssal reducing Dice-Pools and Sidereals manipulating fate in order to make their rolls easier. The system worked fine, why revise it? It made the differences between the various Exalted more clear.
Don't like the idea about the comic (reminds me of introductions in various old Werewolf Sourcebooks; I prefered the fictions "Legends of the Garou". But colour is nice. Everyone, who has had the 3rd Edition of "Legend of the Five Rings" in his hands knows how great full-coloured Rulebooks look!
Hmm, I have no idea what to say about that yet.

And something I don't like about the new edition... ... I have to buy all the stuff again! I hope the new rules are at least slightly compatible with the old ones. ---Jiba

I like #1 and #2. Regarding #3, it's funny - I also immediately thought of FFT when I heard about the initiative system. I am hopeful, but it sounds like a lot of book-keeping, I admit. #4 - I think that they just mean that every ability will have the same trick (i.e. all Solar Abilities will have dice and success adders, all DB abilities will have die adders and rerollers, all Sidereal abilities will have die adders and target number modifiers, etc.) Could be wrong - hope I'm not. #5 - I like comics. :) #6 - Cool, I think.

Overall, I think this sounds good, but we'll have to wait and see for sure. FrivYeti

At some level I’m divinely happy with the news of the 2nd Edition. But then I looks out over my near perfect 1st Edition collection and all I can do is laugh. In about 2-3 years they’re going to invalidate/update 75% of my collection. Will I buy it? Yes. Why? Because the most fun I had with Exalted was just having the main book and ST Companion back in the day and I could dream up most the world myself. WW has a nasty habit of over populating their worlds. Would help if they pruned the defined stuff down a bit. ParitySoul

Wow, sounds like it just about the right amount change. Heres hoping, they do that! -HeWhoSpeaksOfDarkness

Is it just me who thinks Integrity as a an Ability is pointless? It should've been based on Virtues or Willpower, IMO, but eh. Otherwise my only complaint is having to buy the books all over again, and selling the old. Resplendence

Integrity as a stat I don't htink is any mor eredudnent then say, Endurance and Resistance were and their combo are (Since all they do is expand on WIllpower), or Awareness (Which is the PErception Attribute +). My main two cent son that one. Its n Ability to bring the thing above the five you get with Virtues, and you can make Charms based off of.

Stuff. Blaque

I like the way they use raw talent plus learned skill, but come on, with only 25 Ability slots available and three of those dedicated to interaction already, I'm just surprised that was the most urgent addition they could think of. Of course I will reserve my final judgement until reading the finished book. WW rarely disappoints me. Resplendence

It's social Dodge. - willows

Of course, but a whole Ability for that? Why not make it part of one of the other three interaction Abilities? Resplendence

If you can afford to devote five abilities to combat alone - six if you count dodge - I think that one could easily justify another ability for an activity which makes up such a great deal of existence, interpersonal interaction. Or, from another perspective, each attribute group deserves an equal number of abilities. Vizzeroth

I'm guessing Integrity is more like social soak. You can 'parry' Socialize with Socialize, but you can't attempt to ignore the results. Integrity will have perfect social soak, just like Argument Slaying Remark is a semi-perfect social parry. Flymolo

I like this, on the whole, though I'm not certain about the combat system changes. In fact, I'm tempted to institute the Ability changes as house rules today. But let's look at how they might affect Caste Ability assignments:

Solars we already know (War falls under Dawn, replacing either MA or Brawl; Integrity falls under Zenith, replacing either Endurance or Resistance). Abyssals follow trivially.
Lunars and Alchemicals don't care.
Fair Folk can put War in place of Brawl under the Warrior Caste, and Integrity replaces Endurance pretty well under the Worker Caste (it fits with the Ring Grace quite nicely).
Dragon-Blooded can readily slot Integrity into Earth Aspect, replacing either Endurance or Resistance, but where does War go? It seems like it ought to fall under Fire or Air, but there's no room in either. And either Water or Earth is going to lose something that can't readily be replaced by War.
Sidereals are also a problem. War is obviously going to fall under Battles, replacing either Brawl or Resistance. Where does Integrity go, though? Endings fits better than Journeys, I guess, but it seems like it really ought to go to Serenity. And what happens to the constellations and the scriptures?

Hopefully the new screen-book will address these issues, so we don't have to wait until 2008 for replacement fatsplats. --MF

Integrity goes to the yellow caste, replacing Endurance there (the Charms are very nearly appropriate, too); punching to Water and War to Earth - look at the Aspect archetype characters. - willows

Um, I have—Mnemon = War? --MF

If I had to rearrange it, War goes under Fire and Water gets Dodge instead of Brawl. Of course, then Water has no direct combat ability... -braincraft

I am personally mortified at the thought of an Exalted 2nd edition. And I can't quite put my finger on why. I really don't like the talk of fixed defense values (I enjoy rolling to attack, rolling to dodge/parry, rolling for damage, and then rolling soak, if we were playing oWoD). Endurance and Resistance always struck me as kind of silly abilities, and I assume Martial Arts styles will just be seperate Brawl trees, which means we can get some Brawl styles too. Regarding the Charms... I don't know. I really liked the different ways the Charms of different exalts affected their dice pools. Solars buy huge numbers of extra dice, giving them super-capability for greatness; Lunars convert dice into automatic successes, meaning they're less super-awesome but more reliable; DBs add smaller amounts of dice but can reroll things because, well, that's what the footsoldiers do, I guess; Sidereals alter the target numbers because they're Fate-y and get to mess around with probability; and Abyssals are nasty and mean, so they take dice away from other people. Social interaction rules don't strike me as being all that necessary, since (in my opinion) socializing is necessarily "fuzzier" than combat. And finally, the thought of shelling out even more money is disenheartening, though I know I will because WW is my pusha and ya gotta keep ya pusha happy.

But I guess it'll be pretty. -- OhJames

I strongly suspect that the sentence "there are now dice adder, extra success, and reroll charms for every ability" is not intended to imply that every type of Exalt has all of those Charms, or even that Solars have all of those Charms--just that the Solar Occult tree (for example) will now have a dice adder, and the DB Craft tree (for another) will have a reroll, and so on. Filling in the gaps, as it were. --MF

Maybe, or maybe not. I don't know what GCG plans, up there in his floating ivory fortress of destruction while reclining on the backs of carefully-trained seraphim. -- OhJames

I am really excited about both the new social rules as well as the change in combat. When you have two verbal masters throwing 15 die rolls at diff 4 contests, whoever has the most willpower always won. And then it took ~5 days to recover from an energetic arguement. Good riddance to that.

The combat system reminds me of the game Feng Shui, or Hong Kong Action Theater. Nothing at all like FFT. It will take some getting used to, but I have a feeling that fast characters will FEEL fast, and heavy characters will feel like steamrollers. Yay! -DODurden

As was said earlier, I don't think the sentence on Charm changes was meant to be "Every Exalt will have.." They said, "Every Ability will have.." Which is.. totally.. different.

Also, War is (Don't kill me for copywrite infringement Blizzard..) War Craft.. Or the Art of War, you know? Strategy in battle.. It doesn't seem to be Martial Arts AND Brawl combined. In fact, it's neither.. it's the logistics of moving troops, and knowing how to arrange defenses, and organizing the archers to fire or the cavalry to charge.. It's Mail and Steel shite. And lastly, I like the idea of a social resistance! Long time coming, that one was.. now I won't be able to mind-rape other players characters anymore! -Ashen

I don't think anyone suggested that War would be MA+Brawl. Brawl (or possibly MA) will be MA+Brawl. --MF

Oops! Got confused by somone's post! My bad! -Ashen

I've been thinking they'll prolly call it Brawl or Unarmed actually, and have supernatrual Martial Arts be a system attached to the combat Abilities. Brawl or Unarmed are better for a broader term for unarmed stuff overall It hink.

Stuff. Blaque

If Martial Arts gets attached to (Brawl) the same way sorcery's attached to Occult, does that imply we'll have to go through some kind of Root of the Lotus initiation before we get to the Celestial styles? Or will Celestials be able to skip that part, do you think? -- Hapushet

Well, according to the EPG, Celestials do have to be initiated into the Root of the Celestial Lotus before they can achieve the Bulb of the Celestial Lotus--they just don't pay points for it. --MF

Well, it will be interesting.

I'm hoping what they did was turn MA into a set of Tree's under the Various abilities. (So a sword art is under Melee, possibly with some tree's under multiple abilites. Rightious Devil would be archer. Most martial arts would be Brawl).
As for their being dice/succ adders per ability...I'm hoping that means that concentrated more on haveing basic capabilties everywhere with each ability having more speical tricks. Hopefully this points to better custom guidelines also.
Ticks are weird. Hopefully this will alleviate the one-charm-per-turn thing a bit. Depends on how fast charms are.
Social combat will be interesting. Needed, but I expect this is gonna make Integrity mandatory...
Personally, I prefer fiction over comics, but that's just me. Oh well.
Tighter solar focus could be good. I kinda liked that they could do anything with out being biased in one direction. We'll see how it goes.
Books are good, although I wish they'd reprint GoD...:)

-FlowsLikeBits

Please please PLEASE tell me I'm not going to need to buy every book again... tell me that I'll need *only* a few books, like the core and one or another supplement. Please tell me I'll be able to use the books I already have... or I'll just stick with the 1st edition.

All the changes seem to be very good (though I like the current combat system very much), but if I'm going to need to buy the books again, I just won't do it. I can't. -Nabeshin

They've said that they are redoing the phatsplats. Not all at once, mind you, but they are going to redo them. So it probably won't be a one or two book deal. That's how second editions tend to go over at WW nowadays I suppose. ANd stuff. Blaque

Sounds bad, anyway. Besides that, I'm pretty much satisfied with 1st edition. I can wait a while before doing the change to 2nd, ya know. Fortunately Exalted's only got one core rulebook, differently from OWoD. And stuff ;) -Nabeshin

Wouldn't it be nice for WW to release a conversion guide/supplement for those of us who cannot afford to buy to new edition, but want to convert to the new rules? If they don't, I am sure some Wikian or other hyped-up ambitious fan will make the conversion rules for us. - kakitashinsumi

That surely would be pretty neat. If they don't release and official one, I'd be more than happy to participate in a Wikian conversion set. --Nabeshin

Personally, things that I'm worried about

Making Integrity-based charms necessary. Say a survivable build now requires 3-4 combat charms. Now I need a couple social defense charms. That leaves me little room to build my character.
What replaces resistance? Making prayer a skill seems overly-specialized, which brings up my next point.
If the Tiger-Warrior tree goes into tactics, performance gets to be a rather small set of charms. Why not just split it up among presence and socialize at that point? Now Zeniths are down two abilities...
I hope that they don't do away with backgrounds and make everything generic merits like new World of Darkness. Exalts need the bonus points to buy up their abilities for the decent charms in character generation!

StalkerofShadows

1. This is a valid fear, to be honest. Though, I have found it doesn't take more then two or three Charms to be good at defene. Hopefully, the rules might be done in a way now to make it so that its not as much a worry if you only have one or two such Charms. We don't know really.
2. Brawl + Martial arts gets Tactics to fill in. Endurance + Resistance gets Integrity. There isn't a gap. Zeniths probably will just get Integrity to fill in for the merged Abilities.
3. They are probably expanding all the trees. Some of Performance's stuff from the Castebooks probably are going to make their way into here.
4. Agree. I don't think they're going to go fully NWoD on this, so I don't see it too much as an issue myself.

And stuff. Blaque

This just in: Check out Alabrax's place (http://alabrax.com/exalted) and see the cover shot of Second Ed. According to this, it will not make the first ed splats entirely redundant! Looks more like an update: Might even need the first ed corebook for full data, for all I can tell. Good news, nonetheless. - Alaron

I doubt the 1e corebook will be needed, WW is trying to update the line not make it harder to get into. Also, the ad comes from the new Quarterly. I must say though, seeing that ad made me excited about 2nd edition.
--DarkWolff

I don't see the Merits system in NWoD as "generic." Then again, I do hope they make sure they don't leave any loose ends if they do implement such a sweeping change. - IanPrice

Reading all this makes me both excited and sad. I was fairly psyched about the new book and glad that the ad I read claimed that it would not invalidate past supplements. But now reading about some of the clearly major changes to be made to the system it was clear to me that they would pretty much HAVE to redo the fatsplats... the of course, someone's post confirmed that. I'm excited about the changes, I think they sound interesting... I'm not so excited about needing to buy all the books (especially the fatsplats) again. On the other hand, I realize that WW needs to keep people buying their stuff and get new people into it in order to stay in business... and I do love Exalted. In the past I felt there was no way I could afford all the fatsplats, but I ended up buying them anyway. I'm sure the same will happen again. Skip a video game, buy a fatsplat. But anyway, some people seem concerned that they are going to lessen the differences between exalted types, or that the new types of abilities and accompanying charms will make things unbalanced. I have faith in the developers that this won't be the case. The way that different exalted types feel different while using the same core rules is one of the things I've consistently seen praised when reading reviews, and they've had all these years to work on balance issues. I expect that at least most of the changes will improve on those aspects, not make them worse. But maybe I'm just not cynical enough. :) --Krendal

Oh, I was also going to say. I know suspect that when they claim that the new edition won't invalidate past supplements, they are probably primarily referring to fluff and setting. And, I suppose some of the charms and crunchy bits may be reusable with minor tweaking. But I imagine a lot of the rules bits won't function too well with 2ed, not with that level of change coming. --Krendal

It would seem that Exalted #1 (the comic) includes a stat-up of the comic's central character - as a Second Edition PC.

Salient points: the Attribute spread is still the same, Brawl/MA became Martial Arts, Endurance/Resistance became Resistance, "Initiative" appears to have been replaced by "Join Combat," Dodge has a DV (Defense Value?) listed, and there are apparently "First (Ability) Excellency" and "Second (Ability) Excellency" generic Charms, which presumably correspond to the dice-adder and success-buyer Charms we were promised. It is worth noting that the character has Second Presence Excellency without First Presence Excellency. Also, Hungry Tiger Technique and Dipping Swallow Defense are on the sheet without any sign of Excellent Strike or Golden Essence Block, which suggests that First Melee Excellency serves as prereq for them both, and that it can therefore be used on either attack or defense... - Hapushet, summarizing much discussion from RPG.net

Man you got that up fast. I were coming here to put it up. So, what do people think of stuff like "First Presence Excellency" ? I think the name is cool, but I'm not sure if I like the implementation. Still buying the book, though ;) - SRNissen

I'm not too sure on those names. I love the flamboyant naming style that characterises Exalted, and "First Integrity Excellency" and "Second Integrity Excellency" don't quite float my boat. -- Trithne

From [Second Edition Preview]:

<quote>Another tweaking of Charms that affects more than just the Solar Exalted is the definition of three Excellencies for each Ability. The Excellencies are three generalized Charms that augment each Ability. The First Excellency is known as Essence Overwhelming. It allows a character to spend motes of Essence to buy additional dice for an action. The Second Excellency is known as Essence Triumphant. It allows one to spend motes of Essence directly for successes in an action. Finally, the Third Excellency is known as Essence Resurgent. It allows one to spend motes of Essence in order to reroll a failed action. These Charms replace similar Charms that existed for certain Abilities in first edition, and they offer their benefit to each Ability in the second edition.</quote>

--Somori

Teaser Article up at White Wolf

[Second Edition Preview]

Key points include some of the mechanical changes, including some examples of new charms. One of the things I am happiest to see is a new keyword system. A new property of all charms which has things like Combo-OK, Obvious, Stackable, Social to give some more information about how a charm can be used.

What else... War is going to be an ability cap for all abilities while in mass combat. There *will* be a mass combat system in the core rules... Dodge and Parry are going to be static values and act similar to shields. Umm... go read it :)

Oh, and it's been delayed till March :(

If you take a look at the Article or the comment above, you can see something not immediately obvious among on of the sample charms:

Shipwreck-Surviving Stamina Cost: 4m; Mins: Sail 5, Essence 3; Type: Reflexive (Stage 10) Keywords: Combo-OK, OBVIOUS, Stackable, Touch Duration: Indefinite Prerequisite Charms: Hull-Preserving Technique

Take a really close look! Did you find it?

This should obliviate on of our current (or past) discussion topics regarding the possibility of countering Charms that you don't even know about, don't you think?

DogSkull

New data from the [Second Edition Character Sheet] preview at the WW website: in addition to the other changes, Nature appears to be gone, replaced with Motivation. Also, Limit and Virtue Flaws are still around, despite their absence from the comic book sample characters. - Hapushet

Be a lot better if it would actually let me download it. - Trithne

What about the backgrounds? The preview article doesn't say a word about them, if they remain as before or if they become "generic" merits. - Nabeshin

All of the sample characters printed thus far in the Exalted comics have ordinary, recognizable Backgrounds, and in the right allotment (in Kidale's case, anyway) to be a beginning level character. -- Hapushet