More 2nd Edition

I've never got the WW quarterly mags, so tis is the first time i've seen it.  Its pretty cool though, especially the mental DV.


~FC.
 
Done.


And I must say, I'm rather excited to see the new edition. All of the changes sound (to me) like they're for the better. I just hope they serve to simplify, rather than compicate, the existing rules.


-S
 
I was happy about the changes until I reached the bottom of the page, and read about "skipping introduction texts" and putting in "introduction manga" instead.


Ew ew ewww...


I hate the idea about Exalted characters being drawn characters running around doing manga-stuns and walking around in gigantic mechas ( no, I will never ever use a mechanostrider or a mecha-combat suit in my games ). I always have a high level of realism around my characters and try to skip all the creatures and stuff that shouts manga.


I am much more inspired by movies like Hero, Crouching Tiger, House of Flying Daggers and other less known asian fantasy movies. Putting more manga into the game would ruin it completely for me.. and introduction texts were always my favorites :(


Edit: Dont get me wrong, I love manga and anime and such, I just don't think they fit with Exalted.
 
I personally could give a fuck about intro texts AND manga. I'm interested in a detailed, compelling setting and smooth game mechanics.


-S
 
Well, I find that the book and it's design impacts on the setting and the feeling of the game.


ALthough it's a good thing they said that they wouldn't alter the setting to be more manga, so it's probably still a great game.


I also took a look at the book cover again, and judging from those pictures, it isn't very extreme-mana in drawing style. Those characters look pretty nice
 
Thanks for the link.  I hadn't seen the quarterly info when i downladed the PDF. BTW FC you can download the quarterlies form WW home page anytime you want no need to stop into a gamestore they got it in pdf.


I like the changes, sounds liek they are modifying alot of areas that i have read complaints about and had myself.


Although I am positive now that means they are going to at least retool all the core books.  You can't add two new abilities and remove two old ones without having to redo all of the major books, which also means to me probably the caste books and elemnt books as well.


It looks like the setting books will work fine with the new changes, they will probably be able to come out with a conversion system for monsters that woudl have integrtity and war, but either they have to rewrtite all the corebooks or come up with a conversion method to take all the other exalteds to having the new abilities.  


Brawl seems easy you jus tmove brawl charms under martial arts, which I know I have seen done already, but no other exalted will have integrity charms, which is kind of exciting as st's and players will have to make up their own for now.


Noticed they pushed back release from February to March too.
 
A small something I noticed.


I'm intrigued, and a bit concerned, with the three Excellencies for each ability.  In my eyes, the Second Excellency looks like it treads on the toes of current Lunar Charms and the Third Excellency on the Dragon-Bloods current re-roll Charms.


Any thoughts?


~FC.
 
I didn't really like the Excellencies... but I guess WW has something unique for other Exalts now. Hopefully they don't think Solars should be able to do everything better than everybody in their fields because they are uber leet.
 
It seems to me like they're totally re-vamping the Charm trees for ALL Exalts, so it will probably balance out.


-S
 
Yeah, probably.


Am I right in thinking that WW are still going to be releasing 1st edition material, or will they be focusing primarily on 2nd edition?


~FC.
 
I would guess second ed is their new focus.  Economically unless 2nd ed sales bomb they have no reason to release stuff for 1st ed.  


Their gold business wise I would imagine is to convince all the Exalted players they can to convert and buy the 2nd edition rules.  


It seems to be their MO to release a new version and rewrite most of the books from the old version, this may have changed slightly with WOD release, but I doubt it.  It seems to be the business model for much of the industry and the only way they are going to sustain profits into the future.
 
Zaramis said:
Well, I find that the book and it's design impacts on the setting and the feeling of the game.
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I think this fact ultimately shapes the kind of player that plays the game. Hard-core gamers (like us) aside, I suspect that the manga type stuff will mean that your average Exalted player will become much younger once Second Edition is out for a while.
 
I think I'll stick with 1st edition.  The chages I've seen seem to bite.
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I think the redundancy between Brawl and MA bites. I think the fact that the Dawn Caste's favored abilities do not include any ability to actually command troops bites. I think the fact that there are very few Solar Sail and Ride Charms that anyone would actually want to use bites (look at fucking Master Horseman's Eye -- THAT is godly magic? Please). I think the fact that even small combats take forever to resolve bites.


All in all, it seems that the changes they've made are actually addressing weaknesses in the original product. If only they'd gotten rid of Dodge when they did the fat-trimming, it would sound nearly perfect to me.


-S
 
I will for the most part ignor the rules changes in 2ed since most of the ones listed offend me I like the old system this new one sounds stupid
 
I read that article and got that tingly "must have this RPG" feeling that I haven't got since... well, reading Exalted 1st ed. Looks good to me. The keywords are a good idea, especially the "obvious" one. Hope it doesn't get bogged down D20 style in a bazillion keywords though.
 
Just out of interest' date=' what's your beef with dodge?[/quote']
Briefly:


As broad as all of the other Abilities are, I feel that Dodge is somewhat narrow and limited. It's a whole Ability, out of a fairly restrictive set, that does nothing but allow you to avoid attacks. It does nothing else. Melee, MA, and Brawl all let you avoid attack AND do something else. This makes the Dodge Ability somewhat weak.


Secondly. I've always felt that it was odd that a character with Athletics 5, the equivalent of an olympic gymnast, or world-class acrobat, would have NO ability to duck a punch unless they also had Dodge. That seems stupid and silly to me.


To correct this, I've done the following: All of the Strength-based applications of Athletics have been separated out into Might, an Ability I borrowed from Abberant. Dodge, and all of its Charms have been rolled into what remains of Athletics.


Now, Athletics covers all acts of nimbleness, agility, and dodging. Might covers feats of strength, jumping, and other forms of muscular extertion.


It's fairly clean, and it makes a lot more sense to me.


-S
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I kind of like that idea, Still.


My problem is that I don't see the use in dumping Endurance into resistance.  Endurance is physical durability, while Resistance is versus alcohol, diseases, poisons, and toxins.


A durable human can still be taken down by the flu, bed-ridden for day, or if they get pneumonia, weeks or more.  A golden glove boxer can be dropped by a snake-bite, where Jeff Corwin ( a fairly scrawny man) could take most snakebites with decent ease.


And Integrity is something that goes with Virtues, Performance, Presence, and Socialize.  There's no need for this Ability.


I do however, like the Hazard Rating System.  It clarifies what is too badass for your PCs to handle, as well as what is too weak.  I'm not sure I heard correctly about it though.  I aws informed that there was a rating for your PCs, by their power level on the Hazard Rating Scale.


It was something like:


2 Hazard-1 creatures makes a Hazard-2, 2 Hazard-2s makes a Hazard-3, and so on.  If the Team is 4 players at a Hazar-1 each, they are a Hazard-3 team, so, if they encounter a Hazard-3 creature it gives 1 XP each.  If they encounter a Hazard 4, it is one level above them, so double it for 2 XP, a Hazard-5 is 2 levels above them, so if they live through it, give them 4 XP.  Anything less than a Hazard-3 challenge nets no extra XP for the session.


I'm really unsure of this, since I can't find the source of my information, even looking through EM's books.


So, in closing:


Endurance being dropped doesn't work for me.


Brawl being dropped is ok, if they do War or Tactics or whatever right.


Integrity is pointless to me.


But what I've heard of the Hazard Rating seems pretty cool overall.
 
Wow, that Hazard Rating things smacks of D20, so bad it offends me. Very much so. I will NEVER EVER give XP because my players killed something. This is something that I HATE about D&D, it just ends up being a slaughter-fest.


Incidently as being in the industry, new gamers are getting younger, the gaming industry isn't very old (comparitively) so the vast of majority of newcomers will be younger.


Still, I can see your argument about Dodge, but what I don't like is the new Defensive Value, but that's because when I'm being attacked, I want to have an active roll in my defense.


My problem with the excellencys is that a given exalt's excellencys should be different from any other exalts excellencys. A Solar with Dex 5, Melee 5, and a straight sword should be different from a Dragon Blooded with the same stats when comparing basic dice pools.
 
Wow, that Hazard Rating things smacks of D20, so bad it offends me. Very much so. I will NEVER EVER give XP because my players killed something. This is something that I HATE about D&D, it just ends up being a slaughter-fest.
quote]


Go Cheetah. :D  That is what I said to Ker'ion I will never ever give XP for making something dead therefore I will never run a D20 game. :evil:
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I think you guys are also missing something here.  "I give XP based on Hazard Rating" is a step up for some people, who work on a "I give arbitrary XP because I don't know any better" basis.  One of the traditional problems with White Wolf games has been a tendency to come into the game with assumptions about how gaming works already - not a newbie-friendly attitude.  For those of you who already know how to assign XP, do so.  The book is not forcing you to do anything else.


The other thing to keep in mind is that it is nice to have SOME sort of metric, however loose, for judging how tough something is compared to your players.  D&D is the finely-tuned balancing act from hell, and even its CR system is a rough guess.  Exalted is much more freeform, and correspondingly harder to estimate.


What you are looking at are changes meant not for the veteran ST or player, but for newcomers to the system.  Accept them as such and get off your fucking high horse.
 
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