RedMegaman

RedMegaman discovered Exalted barely two years ago after wrapping up a high level D&D game. He promptly began pondering how to modify the Exalted rules to replace the less-than-satisfying D&D rules.

Exalted Sterich

My current project is to modify the Exalted rules for use with the Greyhawk setting, my one true love among RPG settings. As I'm currently playing in a really good dragonblood game (Trueform's) I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to ST and whatever material gets posted on this page will most probably be random design notes mostly for my own benefit.

Project goal

The goal of the project is to simulate the good parts of D&D while tossing the bad parts. Greyhawk Exalts (prosaically renamed Heroes) will start out significantly weaker than starting dragonbloods, I figure Essence 1 and two or three charms. This is to simulate the D&D paradigm of working your way up from low levels while avoiding the problems of 1st level D&D characters killed by house cats.

Necessary modifications

Major modifications will include rewritten charm trees combining dragonblooded and solar charms with several charms pruned and increased essence requirements on most of the solar charms. Rebalancing issues will have to be addressed as will comboability issues.

Other modifications will be statting out the Monster Manual mainstays.

Shoehorned inclusions

I really like several elements of Exalted better than the D&D equivalents. I'll probably use Abyssals and Shadowlands pretty much as is to represents undeads and necromancers et al. The underworld does not have a D&D equivalent, so I probably won't use it. The World of Greyhawk has a secret order of high level druids, the Hierophants, who work closely with several (semi-)divine beings and hierarchies. I can probably use Sidereals to represent these. I could even use the Loom of Fate. I could even fit the Alchemicals in the County of Blackmoor, though that might be a stretch, and the game will probably never move that far north anyway.

The D&D metaphysics will be completely scrapped, I never really liked them anyway. Using Games of Divinity's take on demons and spirits will only improve the D&D setting as far as I'm concerned, and that's pretty much what I will do. Change the Name of Malfeas to the Abyss or Hell, and there it is. There was never a good reason to have 16 different planes with 16 different versions of the afterlife. There's Hell and maybe Heaven, though an even better idea would be to have each deity have his own Sanctum, a Sanctum large enough to accomodate the worshippers souls upon death. And we'll keep reincarnation, it's just the most practical way to do things. Elsewhere is also a keeper, we'll rename it the Ethereal Plane or something. The Astral Plane would be another Elsewhere and the only difference would be that only the Gods named in the setting would make their sancta in the Astral plane, while smaller spirits and mages would make sancta and demiplanes in the Ethereal Plane.

Obviously my version of the World of Greyhawk will differ significantly from the published version.

Why don't you just use the Exalted setting?

I'm obviously very fond of many of the elements which make up Exalted. In fact I'm pretty sure it is the best RPG setting I have ever seen. Still, I love Greyhawk, I know it like the back of my hand, I've spent countless hours making it my own, and some of my best games have taken place there. The Exalted Sterich game will be a continuation of my last D&D game, featuring "the next generation" and a change of setting is right out. Altering the setting is another thing entirely, however.

Another thing is that I'm already playing in a DB game set in Creation and I'm also running a relief solar game. Creation is a cool setting, but I know Greyhawk far better.

Other shtuff

• My Roleplaying page
• A dragonblood diary Norwegian only
• A dice pool result generator
• Trueform's Wiki page

This experimental Wiki page created by RedMegaman

Comments

Welcome! I'm curious why - if what motivates this project is merely your knowledge/enjoyment of the Greyhawk setting - you are also embracing the D&D paradigm of working up from low level? Why not have PCs start off as forces to be reckoned with? Also, what is motivating your lumping of Dragonbloods and Solars together into a generic "hero" type? - szilard