Thus Spake Zargrabowski/TheErrataMaybe
Originally posted by Mock
Well, other people go here before I could to answer the parry question, so I'll just hit the good technical stuff.
>>>Defense was a bit stronger than I liked, but overall, however, it went fairly well.<<< >>>As for the extras rule in Exalted, they're about as hard to kill as Solars, in my experience*.<<<
The defensive advantage is not as strong as it may seem. For example, I'm Joe Blow, an average newly exalted Solar with a 4 Strength, 4 Dex, 4 Melee, and +3 Melee speciality in Daiklaves. I use an orichalcum daiklave, which is not the best weapon in the world, but it compensates for my lack of skill with its +3 Accuracy and +3 Parry bonus. My total attack pool is 14 dice.
My opponent is the best of the best, an elite imperial soldier dressed in articulated plate and carrying a shield and axe. He rolls 6 dice to attack, 3 dice to dodge, and 5 dice to parry. I hit him with my magic golden sword, and he aborts to a parry, as there's no way he'll dodge this with a mobility penalty. He rolls the statistically average 3 successes, I roll 6 (7 for the statistical average, -1 because as Imperial heavy infantry, he has a shield). That's +3 to my damage, for a total of 12, so I can either do an automatic health level to him, or roll 3 dice of damage. Personally, I'd roll the damage, but either way, with a single blow, I've just knocked aside the defense of the most heavily armed and extensively trained soldier on the face of Creation, and I probably injured him badly enough he's going to retire from the engagement so as to not bleed out from the chest wound I just punched through his exquisite armor. Other than my sword, I didn't even use magic, and I did this through a full defense action.
Obviously, I can get killed here if I'm careless. If I'm not wearing good armor or paying attention to defense properly, several of these guys can overwhelm me. But I'm not actually all that combative a character. I'm physically okay, but by no means am I the deadliest thing on two legs.
Let's say I'm Invincible Sword Princess, an experienced Solar. I have a 4 Essence, 4 Dex, 5 Strength, 5 Melee, +3 speciality in my weapon, and my Charm choices have both depth and bredth. I wield an Orichalcum Grand Daiklave. I see the heavy infantry coming at least 6 seconds before they hit, and over the next 2 turns, I activate Strength Increasing Exercise and Fivefold Bulwark Stance, for a total cost of 17 and a Willpower. My strength is now 9, I have a 13 die autoparry against all attacks that aren't blindsides, and I display no anima banner, so you don't even know you're dead yet. If I hit you, that's 20L base damage. The question is now "how many ways can I split my dice pool and still be pretty sure of getting past a 5 die parry?" That's how many imperial heavy infantry I can kill per turn. I unfailingly cut guys in articulated plate armor in half with /every blow/.
Invincible Sword Princess or something equally horrifying is what you can expect out of seriously combat-centered starting character, or from almost any experienced (100-200xp) PC. There's a scale of PC power, and "kill any mortal with a single blow, no matter how armored" isn't at the bottom of it, it's a fair way up.
On the mortal scale, the the reason the defense is fairly strong is because historically it is, and while Exalted is about anime fantasy heroes, they're in a pretty "realistic" world. Armor generally protects the vitals quite effectively, meaning most battlefield injuries are light, bleeding wounds that sap strength and morale, with the vast majority of casualties occuring during the cavalry pursuit following a rout. Mortal combat is bludgeoning one-another to death with occasional lucky blows because that's how it was in the good old days. Getting past that and into the realms of pure heroic bloodbath is a major point for characters. Some Chosen are merely superlative, others are transcendant.
On an Exalted scale, the defense is relatively strong so that people like Invincible Sword Princess can fight one-another.
Also, keep in mind that while elite troops are often used to attack the Exalted, they are still rare. People ship them in from across the world because they're the only folks that can stand against the Chosen. Even Joe Blow, who by Exalted standards is just "okay" at combat, is still cutting regular infantry apart pretty handily -- 1 automatic level and several dice of damage, minimum.
Elite troops are experienced, long-service military professionals. the number of places with troops like that available in any number is fairly small -- the bodyguard of the Tri-Khan, the Virgin Brides of Ahlat, the Imperial Heavy Foot, career-service helots and citizens of Lookshy, some Nexus mercenary formations and not too many other folks in the "detailed" world of the game field formed units of elite troops. Their gear and salaries are just too expensive for most states to maintain more than a few hundred of them, and they'll either be dispersed at their estates as landed nobility or concentrated on the palace as the guys who keep the local ruler on his throne.
>>>We've opted for the "declare actions in reverse order of initiative" which is a little slower, but it takes away the "guess how many dodges you might have to make!" situation.<<<
Be careful about this, as the timing element of the combat engine is pretty important. The element of suspense -- the massive gamble you take if you don't defer use of Charms to keep a Reflexive open for defense -- if you aren't living in fear that somewhere low in the turn Invincible Sword Princess will drop a 28 die melee attack on you, the strategy of Exalt-Exalt combat changes dramatically. It also makes the turn take almost twice as long.
>>>My player couldn't land a goddamn hit on these soldiers, and then couldn't do enough damage to take them down fast. It was probably more of a case of bad rolling. In fact, later on he managed to kill a Solar Exalted in a single hit (excellent strike plus a 10L sledgehammer is a DANGEROUS combination).<<<
Wait until they discover Hungry Tiger Cut, if they haven't already. *looks at work* Gads, I did not intend this post to run this long. Apologies for going on!
>>>-Mock<<<
Geoffrey C. Grabowski\\ Exalted Developer, WWGS\\ raindog@white-wolf.com
__________________\\ Geoffrey C. Grabowski\\ Exalted Developer, WWGS\\ raindog@white-wolf.com\\
>>>EDIT: I'm still not sure that I like having to estimate how many actions I'll need, but it does make it more of a gamble<<<
The penalty for the last action is -(2x-1), where x is the number of extra actions you're taking. Making this decision for most mortals is easy. Mortals who get beat on their initiative go full defense. It doesn't matter if they dodge or parry, whichever is better. They probably have shields, and most mortals are going to have trouble getting 2 successes on second and subsequent attacks to get past the shield. Obviously, dodging is better, but most mortals are armored, and the mobility penalty and their low dice pools generally make dodging not-very-attractive.
Exalted and legendary-level mortals have more choices available. The last-action penalty for the different splits is:
2 actions: -3 dice
3 actions: -5 dice
4 actions: -7 dice
5 actions: -9 dice
6 actions: -11 dice
7 actions: -13 dice
8 actions: -15 dice
I'd advise taking actions until your last action is at about 3-5 dice, whichever you're more comfortable with. Obviously, if someone good is resisting, err on the side of larger pools. Winning the initiative gives you the luxury of both attacking and defending, so don't forget to defend. I'd recommend taking half your total actions as defenses. Remember that actions are rolled in chronological order of occurance, so your defenses will be of lower dice pool than your attacks. You may wish to forego one of your attacks and just take one less action to bring up your defense pools. You can win on initiative, split and go all out, but this is only really good in one-on-one engagements. Even in a one-on-one, an armored foe with a shield may just trust the shield and armor and let you throw your 5 attacks, then drop a few back on defenseless old you.
Most higher-pool mortals who lose initiative will parry, though a few may dodge. The necessity of armor among mortals makes dodging hard, because few people are going to learn to dodge at all. Really heroically gifted guys may jump around in a reinforced buff jacket, but that's just heroes. People who don't have four or five skills at a professional level generally aren't gifted enough to be a nimble armored warrior. Also, there's a variety of dodge character that's the no-armor speed queen. They use a fast weapon and have a high wits, they hit you with 3 attacks and reserve 2 defenses, giving them a roughly 7 and 6 die parry against you, andon the rare occasions they lose initiative, they full dodge with like 11 dice.
Nimble armored warriors and speed queens can kill careless Exalts, and they should be able to. They're people who walk the edge of human capability. A mortal with a 15 dice melee pool is easily Miyamoto Musashi's equal. People like this are the kind of folks who become Dawn Caste Solar Exalted. Of course they can drain a non-combat Solar of Essence or kill a Terrestrial. They won't last long, but they may not have to if the Exalt got cocky and didn't fight properly.
Exalts and split dice pools gets weird, because of the different levels of combat performance within Exaltedness. I'd strongly recommend developing a Combo of Surprise Anticipation Method and Fivefold Bulwark Stance or Surprise Anticipation Method, Shadow Over Water and Flow Like Blood. Persistent defense effects make the Exalted incredibly powerful in battle. Below that, they have to react on an attack-by-attack basis. In general, if I didn't have a persistent defense, I'd fight very defensively. Keep the fights one on one so you're not put in a position where you have to spend Essence on a case by case basis to parry every fighter in a press.
Without Essence, you'll probably win intiative, but just make a single attack per turn against the mortal, even if you split into 4 or 5 or 6 actions, and reserve the rest as defensive actions. He'll have a very hard time blocking your primary attack even at -6 dice. If you lose initiative, throw Shadow Over Water or Dipping Swallow Defense, stunt out to get the Essence back, and kill the guy with a full-dicepool attack. As long as you keep the fights one-on-one and have a good stunt sense, you can probably keep your Essence flow neutral or positive while dropping a foe every turn or two. As long as you keep the flow neutral or better, you can do it without displaying your anima banner, by spending and regaining just Personal Essence.
Keep in mind that very few troops are going to be trained for fighting Exalts. Most of them won't know to try to flurry the Exalted to wear down his Essence, or that giving an Exalt even a few seconds to catch their breath can mean the difference between a Chosen spending to defend against each attack and one who's automatically defending. This is the kind of stuff they teach Immaculate Monks and elite military formations. Non-elite ones probably spend too much time working the unit farm or impressed as a national labor force to get much beyond regular drill practice. Their NCOs are happy if they get to the point where they don't flinch when shouted at, assuming that their NCOs are skilled in anything but maintaining dressage and administering beatings. Wolfpack tactics for fighting demigods are straight out.
Still, if you want to fight a whole army, you really need a persistent defense. Otherwise, they just offer too many threats for you to hope to magically intercept each of them. Automatic defenses are good, but there are others. Several stacked awe / terror effects or invulnerable skin of bronze and reinforced breastplate together work too.
Geoffrey C. Grabowski\\ Exalted Developer, WWGS\\ raindog@white-wolf.com
"I'd strongly recommend developing a Combo of Surprise Anticipation Method and Fivefold Bulwark Stance or Surprise Anticipation Method, Shadow Over Water and Flow Like Blood. " - How does this work when non-instant duration charms can never be in a combo? - Myrlan
It doesn't work. If I had to guess, I'd say the quote is from /very/ early in the game's history, when stuff like that was a bit more fuzzy. -Fifth
Fuzzy? The combo rules are from the core (first) book and (as far as I know) have never changed. I just wanted to make sure there hadn't been a change or exception I missed. If it's just a mistake, that's fine. - Myrlan
I think he's talking about pre-Core Book days, when Exalted was just a vague idea - Kraken
Then who's his reply written to, a playtester before this first book came out? - Myrlan
I dont believe so, no. Just very soon after the book was released. - Kraken incidentally, the suggested combo would be useable for Abyssals, as their SAM-equivalent doesnt count as charm use, so they could still fire off their persistant Melee defence.
