First time playing exalted

[Delusion]

Hello I am a new person to this forum and to the game of exalted (bought the the rulebook last weekend).


I have already read trhough most of the rules (keyword being most) but since I have never really played it I have no idea of how experienced I should make the npcs for them to challenge the party. There will most likely be 4-6 players so I need something to challenge that amount without being an overkill.


The first adventure in nutshell.


One of the players gets a letter from his/her ally/lunar mate/ something similar asking for assistance with something urgent and important and asking the player's to come to meet him/her in a small mining town north of nexus (place undecided, may yet change). The problem the ally has is that he/she needs help to destroy an undecover abyssal exalted that has created a void cult in the town, but the players don't know this since by the time they arrive the ally has either been killed or captured (depends on wether anyone has ally background, if so he/she lives if not s/he is dead.


To make matters more complicated a mysterious sworn brotherhood of terrestials arrives at the town either to hunt down the nascent void cult or anathema...


The problems I have is that I have no idea of how powerful I should make each of the npcs. Especially the abyssal might end up being either steamrolled or steamroller.


Ps. I skimmed through the book but didn't find any mention of any advantage from dualwielding. Did I miss something?

 

[Plague of Hats]

There's no easy way to balance encounters in Exalted until you're just really experienced, and even then you just might not be able to get it right. It depends a great deal on how your players build and play their characters. I think it's generally best to start a brand new, never-played-before group off with some minor foes and build up from there. Fight some cultists, then maybe a minor god or demon, then maybe a moderately experienced Terrestrial, then maybe a few Terrestrials or a Celestial, etc. Get a feel for how savvy your players will be with Combos and perfect defenses.

Ps. I skimmed through the book but didn't find any mention of any advantage from dualwielding. Did I miss something?

The rules for it are fairly oblique. With each weapon at your disposal, you can attack up to (its Rate) times during a single normal flurry. So, if you have a Rate 3 weapon and Rate 2 weapon, you can attack three times with the first and two times with the second in one flurry. You also get to use the best Parry available to you, so if one weapon has a higher Defense than another, you should use that one to parry. Don't forget the standard -1 internal penalty for doing stuff with your off hand.

 

[cyl]

Well, they could pose as mortal heroes and ally themselves with the sworn brotherhood to fight the deathknight.


I mean it's not like they have "anathema" written on their face. It's only when they start to have a caste mark shining that they're gonna be in trouble.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Well let's see, if you worried about difficulty:


Did all your players buy armor or take armor-replacing charms from the resistance tree?


If not tell them to buy armor. Seriously. It's stupidly easy to kill even an exalt with a lucky roll if he doesn't have some armor on. Players who want to skip armor should get the right charms to do that, not just try to survive without. If they're all wearing relatively thin armor, be careful about how damaging the attacks are. Despite what the book says, armor is about 10 times more important than taking Ox-Body technique in terms of survival.


How high are their DVs?


DVs of less than 5 are a warning that your Players are very vulnerable to getting killed in short order. DVs of around 8-9 at chargen are quite high, and anything above 10 is going to be practically untouchable without charms.


Did all your players get a perfect defense?


If so you can pile on the difficulty pretty deeply. A perfect defense can negate any attack unless the player's already used up his charm, and even less experienced players will probably realize how bad an idea that is if there's an abyssal smashing trees with one blow next to him.


If so, did they get a paranoia combo?


(A paranoia combo is a perfect defense comboed with a surprise negator + whatever the character's favored attack charm is. Experienced players tend to keep making better paranoia combos as they progress.


If they have Paranoia combos you can crank the opposition to 11, and probably should because players spamming those will scythe through any normal enemy like so much ripe wheat. Give your Abyssal his own Paranoia Combo to match.


I'd suggest sending a group of mortals that will be easy to kill against your players first. A band of murderous robbers or a gang of muggers/rapists dumb enough to take them on in a dark alley, for instance. It will make them feel awesome to cut through such enemies in just a round or two, and you can get a better feel for how they're going to fight, so you can calibrate your next encounter more readily.


Things to watch out for:


Piercing Damage. Yeah, anything piercing is trouble. Armor really is key to staying alive (at low levels, at high levels paranoia combos are the key) and piercing negates a lot of armor.


Big Ping damage/massive damage weapons. Goremauls are the biggest offenders. Again same reason, when it will do at least 4 dice of damage no matter your armor won't help. Ditto attacks that just do so much damage your poor breastplate is helpless and 10 dice spill over.


Flurries/Mass Attacks This one is just a function of DV. Lots of attacks will wear down any defense eventually, and eventually here can mean the first round. The big offender will be dual-wielded short daiklaves or a lot of mooks with a commander using War to coordinate archery attacks.

 

[cyl]

Nice 8)

 

[Delusion]

Thank you all!

 

[chalicier]

One thing you'll have to work out is how to deal with a non-homogenous party in terms of the above. Most parties (especially at the start of the game) have a mix of the states Moonstone mentions.


To give you an example, this was the makeup of my party at the beginning of my game:


Dawn: Perfect Parry, ungodly damage outlay (Grand Daiklaive + Hungry Tiger + Str 5, Melee 5, Specialised in Daiklaive)


Night: Perfect Dodge, excellent Awareness but not automatic surprise negation, flurry-based Melee


Zenith: Semiperfect Soak, very very fast in movement and initiative, good DVs


Medical Twilight: Excellent Dodge DV, no armour


Crafting Twilight: poor DVs, good armour


Essentially what this means is that the Dawn spent a lot of the early time using Defend Other and Blockade Movement, much to his annoyance as he had thought he was going to be the primary damage dealer. But as people mentioned, this does tend to gradually resolve itself over time; the Dawn has moved into War and the Zenith now has a perfect Soak, awesome MA Parry and a set of Gauntlets of Distant Touch that mean he's now the primary defender.


What I'm basically trying to put across is that although to begin with there will be definite issues with builds that don't quite work and gauging the enemy power level across the combat range you have up there - any serious DB could tear either Twilight in half without trying, tbh, and a specialised shikari could probably take down the Night or Zenith - as long as the party understands how the game is progressing, they'll naturally shift themselves towards survivability.


Just hold off on the Abyssal Perfect Circle with Bonestriders supported by necrotech horrors for the first half a dozen sessions or so

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Well to be sure, the easiest solution is to make sure enemies concentrate on the tougher player. It's not hard to justify in-character.


Wyld Hunt Flunkie: "Which one do we attack? The glowing golden guy with the sword nine feet long and armor covered in spikes or the petite woman who's holding the dagger wrong and trying to hide behind a tree?"


Wyld Hunt Leader: ". . ."

 

[wordman]

Something that is hard to do, but sort of satisfying, is if you can use your opposition to teach the characters about what they can do. Naturally, this educates the players as well, but if you roll it into the game, you can really explore the "mortals suddenly given great powers without a lot of guidance in how to use them" angle that should really be the cornerstone of the early bits of a solar exalted story, but rarely is.


Example: suppose your circle doesn't do many of the things Moonstone Spider mentions, but your Abyssal does (particularly the paranoia combo). One likely result of this is that the circle will find themselves unable to do much against the Abyssal. Now, such a situation can be (and usually is) handled badly, so that it feels like "Storyteller fucking with the players for a big pile of un-fun". But... it can also be handled differently, so that the point of the encounter is not "abyssal stomps circle" but "circle learns a bunch about themselves by failing, even though the abyssal gets away".


One trick is avoid having the Abyssal slaughter the circle. Maybe he is obviously just toying with them. Maybe he is trying to manipulate them in some way (for example, maybe he has some sort of artifact that requires a bunch of solar essence to be expended nearby to activate, or some such). The point is, he doesn't necessarily need to defeat the solars to "win". Should he wind up escaping, you will have a nice recurring villain on your hands that the circle will really hate.


The second trick is to play up the mystery in the characters' minds about why they are not being effective. "He blocks your powerful attack like it was not there, using magic you've never seen before, but yet seems oddly familiar. You think if you studied it a bit more, you might be able to replicate it." Maybe someone in the circle will think to bargain with the abyssal for knowledge. If you are lucky, you might end up with a combat where the players change tactics and start making probing attacks, just to see what they can learn. Require some rolls in "softer" skills, like Perception+Lore or Intelligence+Occult to figure out what the Abyssal is doing. Also, very important, share some of the mechanical details the Abyssal is using when the circle starts figuring out his magic. That is, slowly reveal the charms he is using. Then reveal similar solar charms that might do the same thing. This will go a long way towards dispelling the "evil GM is just being a jerk" feeling when it is clear that a) you're following "the rules" and b) similar effects for the circle are not that far out of their reach.


In general, because it is difficult to calibrate opposition to a circle in Exalted, you should have equally viable plans in place for if a) the PCs stomp your NPCs and b) the NPCs stomp your PCs, and then roll the story into one or the other depending on what actually happens. That is, rolling into a combat, you should have at least a hazy notion of both "what if the PCs win?" and "what if the NPCs win?".

 

[Flagg]

Well said, sir.

 

[cyl]

A few additional tips:


1/control your dice and your NPCs. Don't build them to kill but to wound... so no heavy weapon like grand klave / schyte / cleaver / maul... you take the risk of cutting them in half in two blows. Don't use magical extra attacks in large number unless you want to wound in the end, you'll take the risk of killing the pc (5 blows at full normal dicepool around 13-15 is VERY risky).


2/ use smoke, fire, nets, clinches and make them sweat and bleed for their life / cause


3/ use coordinated attacks and division, but don't abuse it.


4/ use non human goons as demons / elementals / undead (the player won't feel bad about beating the crap out of them)


5/ be fair: most ennemies won't know them so don't pretend that "they adapted to each of your fighting style". Sometimes they'll be swordsmen, sometimes archers, sometimes both...


6/ be just: if they have ennemies they have already fought, well those might have some insight about the circle and its tactics, so those guys may actually design a real strategy to mess with them.

 

[Virjigorm]

There's a lot of good stuff in these last several posts. I've used a lot of these strategies (many learned by trial and horrible error) to great effect.


One other option I haven't seen mentioned is the Fudge. I hate to use it anymore, but as a starting ST it was a strategy I kept in my pocket to save the story from the dice or my poor planning. Keeping relevant info about NPCs hidden from the players allows the ST to alter enemy or ally stats on the fly to steer the course of a fight. If the party is having a really terrible time against a band of Wyld Hunters, you can always knock an ox-body off each of them or have them run low of motes a little early. You can even alter rolls if you make them behind a screen, like in other games, but beware, fudging rolls or stats will cheapen the experience if the players know you're doing it, so be subtle.


Along the same lines, but a bit less underhanded is the strategy of having your NPCs make stupid decisions from time to time. Why did that guy start casting a spell when he could have flurried me to death? Because he can't see your character sheet. The bad guys do not know as much as the ST, so let them screw up from time to time. Your players certainly will, so it's only fair.

 

[Delusion]

All helpful advice, though I have GMed alot in DnD and Praedor so I know the basics like when to fudge etc (which I prefer to avoid if at all possible).


At the moment I am planning for the abyssal to try to capture the players (since most, if not all will be solars) for turning into abyssals if he proves to be too powerful. Also since he is going against full circle I might give him Moonsilver Reaper Daiklave so that action economy isn't too one sided. This idea good, bad?


Another question about the DBs: How should a group of DBs of mixed castes protect themselves from eachother anima? Just spread out or avoid flaring their anima that high? Or is there some other way of protection I just don't know about?

 

[wordman]

Also since he is going against full circle I might give him Moonsilver Reaper Daiklave so that action economy isn't too one sided. This idea good, bad?

Are you prepared to have this weapon in the hands of your PCs, once they defeat the guy and capture it?


(Side note: hearthstones are the GM's friend. They buff opposition, but generally are fairly useless to the PCs if they are captured when the opposition is defeated. Without being attuned to the manse connected to the hearthstone, it's just a pretty chunk of rock.)

How should a group of DBs of mixed castes protect themselves from eachother anima? Just spread out or avoid flaring their anima that high? Or is there some other way of protection I just don't know about?

IIRC, most of the db anima's deal environmental damage. Hardness from armor usually handles that just fine.

 

[Persell]

A fun trick I've been using lately is to have Abyssals just keep coming back, even after they've been killed. My PCs have killed one particular Moonshadow twice now, and its driving them crazy not knowing how he keeps coming back. If you over use this, or have the Abyssal come back too quickly, it will just frustrate your players, but used very sparingly it just creates a mystery neither the PCs or the players can easily solve.

 

[Delusion]

Well, I have pretty much decided that lunar ally has been taken captive and not killed and that daiklave was his/her and once they release him/her s/he will as to have it back.

 

[Dracogryff]

A fun trick I've been using lately is to have Abyssals just keep coming back' date=' even after they've been killed. My PCs have killed one particular Moonshadow twice now, and its driving them crazy not knowing how he keeps coming back. If you over use this, or have the Abyssal come back too quickly, it will just frustrate your players, but used very sparingly it just creates a mystery neither the PCs or the players can easily solve.[/quote']
There's a Resistance Charm for that, isn't there?

 

[Plague of Hats]

There's a Resistance Charm for that, isn't there?

Integrity.

 

[Persell]

Yeah, there is, but that's not what I've been using. Immortal Malevolence Enslavement makes the Abyssal more the Neverborns' creature than the Deathlord's, and I wanted the Abyssal to remain a loyal servant of Mask of Winters.

 

[MorkaisChosen]

There's a Resistance option too- Cadaverous Torpor Technique. Gives you some extra Incapacitated levels and makes you look dead (and immune to disease and suffocation) while Incapacitated.