<b>Exalted</b> has gotten a lot of press regarding its concentration on \"epic\" fantasy, and nowhere is this concentration more apparent than in <i>The Book of 3 Circles</i> and the Exalted sorceries within.
Post originally by Adam at 2003-04-14 11:47:01
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I checked out the Book of Three Circles a while back and while I was impressed by the creative and diverse list spells, I think the Exalted magic system has the potential to create a lot of unhappy players.
First off, anyone who plans on making a D&D style fireball slinger is out of luck. Although there are a few flashy spells that seem like they should be pretty potent in combat a close reading of the mechanics show that they are much, much weaker than charm powered attacks. Some may applaud the fact that WW is tring to break the standard fantasy wizard mold but shouldn't the rules be broad enough to accomadate different approaches to the genre? Furthermore, unless a player is familiar with the rules they might not realize how weak their spells are and could become discouraged when they're ineffectual in combat.
Secondly, the sneaky enchantment and illusion type spells seem way too powerful. There is a celestial level spell (don't have the book with me so I can't give you the name) that can potentially turn any mortal or exalted into your willing slave. To resist this the target must score as many successes on a willpower role as the spellcaster's charisma. If you start out with charisma 5 you'll be able to ensare almost anyone with relative ease and before long you'll have small army. That spell seems to be the likeliest game breaker but there are pleanty of spells potent enough to outclass many charms for Eclpise or Night caste abilities.
Lastly, it seems like the most interesting, useful, flavorful and balanced spells are best suited to NPCs. For instance, my favorite spell allows the caster to impregnate a womman with any sort of creature and produce a hybrid offspring if the "father" is nonhuman. There are a lot of characters that you could build around this spell but all of them are best as antagonists. The same holds for the various summoning/creating/super-enhancing spells. A hero should be in actively involved in every battle -not just a cheerleader for his minions.
I know WW really wanted to make magic users who felt differant from standard D&D wizards but it seems like playablility was ignored in favor of their love of oriental fantasy. It's no surprise that these spells are unsuitable for PCs since heros are rarely sorcerers in most wuxia.
Post originally by Paradoxdruid at 2003-04-14 12:56:41
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Regarding fireball slingers-
Solars have a charm that shoots bolts of Solar fire.
Dragon-blooded have a charm that (if fire-aspected) shoots a ball of fire.
Little spells like Fireball aren't what sorcery is about, and you can make your fireball slinger without sorcery.
Most sorcery isn't about magic missiles in the middle of combat... it's about levelling cities (Magna Kraken, a celestial spell, could EASILY destroy an entire castle).
If your players want to emulate the in-combat magic, use charms, not sorcery- this works really well with dragon-blooded, who get "spells" ike Armor of Wind, firebolts, etc.
That's because exalted is WAY more over the top than DnD- "wizards", ala DnD, have abilities than practically any Exalted can learn.
Sorcerors are wizards with a few orders of magnitude stacked on.
Post originally by drh at 2003-04-14 13:00:30
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While I agree that the Black Treatise was a cool in-game way to explain why all the sorcerers up to the Bo3C's release had the same spell list, you're wrong in that it contains all the Terrestrial Circle spells in the main book. It doesn't. It includes some good ones, but is missing some useful ones as well (such as Summon Elemental).
Post originally by ~BA at 2003-04-14 14:32:24
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Seems to me that this is generally a good thing. One of the problems with Ars Magica is that it is essentially a DnD clone, complete with fire ball.
That White Wolf has departed the DnD trope of incredibly combat-capable uninteresting magic and finally given it some class is an indication of just how much Exalted innovates.
Furthermore, with more non-combat options for spells, sorcerer PCs are more likely to take advantage of other avenues to power or glory. Why bother with a combat effective 26d6 fire ball when you can summon a magma kraken whose tentacles devestate all around it?
Post originally by Aliasi at 2003-04-14 16:15:23
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Exactly my feeling. Your typical D&D magic is handled by the charms - even the lesser sorceries are intended to be impressive. My favorite example is The Sacred Tongue - it's one of the cheapest and least impressive Terrestrial spells at 10 motes, but it is both useful and problematic. You can speak to anyone, you get a bonus to most kinds of social rolls, and a great big neon sign that says "I'M A POWERFUL SORCERER!". The other spell that allows you to speak other languages - I misremember the name, but it creates a tongue of one of the five elements that enhances a certain skill - is somewhat more subtle and versatile, but you've still got this ball of flame, water, or what not over your head...
Post originally by Jean-Paul Cardier at 2003-04-14 17:09:50
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"First off, anyone who plans on making a D&D style fireball slinger is out of luck. Although there are a few flashy spells that seem like they should be pretty potent in combat a close reading of the mechanics show that they are much, much weaker than charm powered attacks. Some may applaud the fact that WW is tring to break the standard fantasy wizard mold but shouldn't the rules be broad enough to accomadate different approaches to the genre? Furthermore, unless a player is familiar with the rules they might not realize how weak their spells are and could become discouraged when they're ineffectual in combat. "
Not at all, in my experience. I have been ST'ing my group in Exalted for over a year now, and the two Twilight Sorcerers have more than kept up their end of combat.
You have to match the spell to the job. Death of Obsidian Butterflies is a great Extra Killer, but it doesn't do incredibly well against 1 single powerful villain. If the villian has only OK dodge/parry use Flying Guillotine. The base damage is 18L! If you hit, you'll get some off of the base. If the bad guy has great dodge or parry, use Titan's Icy Breath or Thunder Wolf Howl, neither of which allow for dodge or parry, per the Bo3C Errata. That means that BG will need HGD to parry them, because of the inapplicability of Seven Shadow Evasion. Soak too high? Use Internal Flame, which paralyses all that cannot completely cancel all wound penalties.
The main problem with running a spell caster in Exalted is that they are slow. 1 turn to cast, 1 to release for the Terrestrial Circle. 3 total turns for Celestial, and forget about casting Solar spells with a 4 turn cast time.
The work arounds are three: 1. Play a Twilight. The after damage ability helps quite a lot if you get hit. 2. Use a persistent defense, and high soak. You can get a very long lasting persistent with Virtuous Guardian of Flame, though it is expensive, and Invulnerable Skin of Bronze is great, particularly stacked with armor and/or Gem of Adamant Skin. 3. Use an Artifact that helps your cast time, like the Crucible of Tarim or Spell Capturing cords from Castebook Twilight. If you can store a spell for later, get that artifact, or make it if you need to.
Post originally by Dasmen at 2003-04-14 23:54:15
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Hmm... I think your being a bit harsh on Adam. While the magic of Exalted is quite fun and unique, it doen't map that well to most High Fanasy Anime. Creating either Lina Inverse or Dark Schneider would be a hopeless undertaking - at least it would be without creating some new spells.
Not that I'm complaining, the feel the magic gives the world is quite nice - but his complant is legitament. It's one of the few good complants about Exalted that you can find, really.
Post originally by Eliot Lefebvre at 2003-04-15 04:37:21
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> Creating either Lina Inverse or Dark
> Schneider would be a hopeless undertaking -
> at least it would be without creating some
> new spells.
Not at all. Lina and company would probably be pretty easy - most of the spells that they cast in combat are closer to being Charms by the game's definition. Pump up her Essence, give her a metric assload of charms to simulate her various attack spells (inverse.org is quite helpful in this case), and give her a few sorceries to simulate some of the bigger and slower things that she pulls off. Most of her magic could be argued away as charms... you could probably even make the case for the Dragu Slave, although that's more likely a spell. The one thing you probably -would- have to fudge is the Giga Slave, but I don't think it's something that would come up that often anyways... ;>
As for Dark Schneider, doing anything related to him is a hopeless undertaking. Or at least a poorly-informed one.
-Eliot "The insanely high power level of most fantasy anime notwithstanding" Lefebvre
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