Rethinking the core mechanic

[wordman]

After playing Exalted a while, one of the things you notice (as a minor point usually) is that the Difficulty Chart (ex2e.120), which lists 4 successes as "nearly impossible" and 5+ successes as "legendary" is just way off. The usual fix for this, if you bother with it at all, is to change the chart in one way or another.


I'm wondering, instead, if you might be able to change the core dice mechanic instead, and how doing so might open more differences between the various types of exalted by adding some additional ways to tweak rolls. The idea would be to make pools a bit smaller and results a bit less over the top.


Yeah, this is sort of out there, but I'm just interested in seeing where it goes. Consider the following change. Everything about Exalted stays the same, except when you make tests. Where in canon you make an Attribute + Ability + Specialty test, under this system, you do the following:

• Base pool is equal to Ability + Specialty + Essence.
  
• After rolling, you can only keep Attribute of the dice.

Three things need to be changed immediately if you do this: 1) you need to change the DV calculation. The mathematically "proper" way to do this, I think, would be to take cut the pool in half as usual, but then say that this value cannot exceed the Attribute. 2) you need to change how excellencies work. I have ideas in this area, but I'm still thinking about it. 3) You need to change how pool limits work.


There are some obvious ramifications of this change (specialties get a bit stronger, for one), but I'm not going to mention them yet. I also haven't run the math, so what I think this does to the game may not be what it really does.


What do you think it would do?

 

[Toloran]

After rolling, you can only keep Attribute of the dice.

I'm assuming you ment "you can only keep Attribute of the successes."


My gut reactions, will modify later after I've had a chance to use my IRL Lore charm "Greater Mathematical Insight" and given some more thought on the rules change:


- If this kind of change was implemented, it would entail a HUGE rewrite of basically everything since it all hinges on certain assumptions (revolving around the current dice pool system). This isn't a for or against type comment, just that I wouldn't bother trying to do all that work unless I was pretty sure you'd be getting a major improvement out of it.


- It places an over emphasis on your attributes since they are the final cap.


- Excellencies (and other charms that add successes/dice) lose some of their charm (pun intended): Right now, excellencies are linear in their essence to successes value. With the suggested change, they suffer a sort of diminishing returns. Assuming the max in an attribute (for a non-elder exalt) of 5, after your dice pool reaches double that (10 dice) each subsequent die added is less valuable since you are already getting reaching the attribute cap on average. This leads to the next point:


- A starting exalt can easily have Ability 5 + Specialty 3 + Essence 2 for a total pool of 10. That means you on average hit that success cap. To counter this, you'd likely have to change the bonus/xp cost of increasing all attributes, abilities, specialties, and essence or else people will reach that cap without charms.


- Because it is a hard cap, it makes things almost impossible to do things you don't specialize in. Example: To gain access to the enemy's secret lair via a sealed door requires a difficulty 3 athletics check. That means that anyone with 1 or 2 strength can't even attempt to try it because they can NEVER succeed. With the current system, a non-specialist can attempt difficult actions and (with a combination of charms and luck) can possibly make it. With a hard cap, you are out of luck if your attribute is even one point too low.


In all, I think this suggestion makes more problems then it fixes. Especially since it MASSIVELY penalizes people who don't max out their attributes and instead of go for a more even spread.

 

[Thanqol]

I disagree... violently... with those expanded difficulty charts. And the principle of this thread.


5 successes IS legendary. With 5 successes or more, I'll let a PC do whatever the sam hill they like. You do not need 14 successes to hang upside-down from an ice pillar. You do NOT need 12 successes to out-swim a frucking mortal shark.


What I like about Exalted is that you can be good at multiple things. You've got a few things you really specialize in, but your abilities are more spread out. Those expanded difficulty charts say, if you don't have this thing maxxed out, you can't do anything cool. Which is hogwash. Half ALL the stuff on those charts is 5-successes-and-a-stunt territory for me.

 

[wordman]

I'm assuming you meant "you can only keep Attribute of the successes."

No. I meant you can only keep Attribute of the dice. This places a maximum on the number of successes for any roll at twice your Attribute (i.e. if all the dice you keep are 10s).
One of the things this would allow, for example, would be a change in excellencies that lets some (say, solars) buy extra successes and others (say, dragon blooded) not. I would, in fact, change excellencies to give each type of exalt exactly one excellency mechanic, like so:

• Solars, Abyssals, Infernals: 2m buys 1 sux, adding no more than Ability sux.
  
• Lunars: pre-roll, 1m converts one die into a success. Since these are now sux, not dice, they don't count against the Attribute cap on dice used. Limit of Essence motes spent like this for any given test. (Attribute based)
  
• Sidereals: 3m allows 9s to generate two sucesses instead of one on the roll.
  
• Terrestrials: 1m adds two dice to the pool, max of Ability + Specialty
  
• Alchemicals: 1m raises the Attribute cap by two, only 1m per test. (Attribute based)
  
• Spirits, Ghosts, Mortals: 1m adds one die, up to Ability extra dice.

 

[wordman]

Those expanded difficulty charts say, if you don't have this thing maxxed out, you can't do anything cool. Which is hogwash.

If you take this stance, then you must assume that the difficulties in the game should be tuned such that the "5-sux-and-a-stunt" is at least possible without being "maxed out". And it is. The problem is that it is not only possible, it is trivial. In other words, with say a 3 in the Ability and a 3 in the Attribute, you have a pool of six. A decent stunt makes it eight dice. Average result for this pool without any magic at all is 4 sux, a "nearly impossible" result. With solar magic, the base pool trivially doubles to 12, plus the two stunt die, giving an average result of seven successes. An off the chart "legendary" result. The maximum result would be 28 successes. This is mathematically nearly impossible to achieve, but a "one sux per die" result of 14 successes is easily seen at least once every few sessions. With a "maxed out" character, the divergence is even worse. (A 5+5 character, for example, will get five successes without even stunting, on average.)


So, what to you tune for? Do you assume that no one uses magic, and base the scale of difficulty on that? Or do you assume that most actors in the game will be using magic and base the scale there? Do you tune to the maxed out character, or to the "threes in everything" characters? Basically, you have a choice of tuning the scale to the well-rounded character and the game not being challenging for those using magic or min/maxing (or both), or setting the scale to the "more capable" character and making life impossible for the well-rounded guy.


I think that one of the things the change I'm exploring here does is avoid this, because it corrects the main problem: the vast range of result scales. No matter how many dice you have or how well you roll, your result is capped at twice Attribute successes (without solar or lunar magic). Even with solar magic, you'll never do better than Ability + twice Attribute successes.


Unfortunately, the math is harder to analyze. My gut tells me that the average result would be something at or near Attribute successes. What stunting and magic do is get you closer to the twice Attribute result; however, this maximal result is still totally possible without stunts and magic (something the canonical system cannot claim).

 

[Thanqol]

My approach to Exalted is extremely rules lite, and I'm bad at math, so I'm not going to argue this on crunch lines because I'll fail. I'm not going to overtly defend the system because I've cut so much of it from my own games.


Instead, I'll take a thematic approach. What's wrong with the characters doing that stuff? If a character rolls 5 successes off his dice pool of six, well heck. This is Exalted. You gave me a two dice stunt. It works, whatever it was. You're meant to do kickass stuff.


And when you break out the magic? Then you're downright terrifying. And if you're maxxed out? Then you're friggin' maxxed out. You're a legend. You're an Exalt. Read the skill descriptions - having Archery 5 means you can 'shoot a mouse out of the claws of a flying hawk without harming the mouse'. And I'm cool with that.


You want to convince the Immaculate Monk that Solars are awesome while the two of you are engaged in an epic kung fu duel on the top of a collapsing skyscraper and your cha+presence pool is only 6? Well, fine.


And if you surpass 5 with your roll? Then that's just how damn terrifying you are. That means you can bite internal and external penalties and succeed anyway. I'll let the PCs make the Yozis weep for 10 successes.


I'm afraid I've gone fairly off topic here, and am not contributing to your mechanical dissertation in any sort of constructive way - I'm just glaring angrily at the first article you linked to.

 

[Ker'ion]

I prefer to just up the successes.


The book says the following:


1 - Hit a stationary target


2 - Convince the local gang to make you their leader


3 - Run ten miles without stopping


4 - Steal the weapons off of a Dragon-blooded watchman


5 - Cure cancer


I think this should be altered to the following:


1 success stays as 1 success.


2 successes becomes 3.


3 successes becomes 5.


4 successes becomes 7.


5 successes becomes 10.


6 becomes 12.


7 becomes 14.


8 becomes 16.


9 becomes 18.


10 becomes 20.

 

[wordman]

What's wrong with the characters doing that stuff? If a character rolls 5 successes off his dice pool of six, well heck. This is Exalted. You gave me a two dice stunt. It works, whatever it was. You're meant to do kickass stuff.

Are mortals? Because they can and do, at least the way exalted is set up canonically. If you go with the setting as written, pretty much anyone can 'shoot a mouse out of the claws of a flying hawk without harming the mouse', on a regular basis, without that much effort. It could be a cool game where everyone on the planet is superhuman, but that game isn't Exalted.


To the point of your question, what's wrong with it, as written, is that it doesn't take long for a game to reach a point where "Legendary" tasks are not only simple and commonplace, but are so trivial that you might as well not even have a skill system at all. Again, a game that actually did this (that is, just says "yes" any time a character says "can I do that") could be quite interesting, but Exalted isn't really set up that way. It is set up such that success is measured on a mortal scale, but yet few of the actors in a game are mortal.


In any case, it was probably a mistake to introduce this topic as I did. I'm more interested in the ramifications of the mechanical change and what it does than the notion of "how much difficulty is enough". Once I understand what this change actually does, I can more directly think about why such a change might be useful.

 

[wordman]

One thing that occurs to me is that anything that adds dice, particularly equipment, isn't as much of an advantage as it used to be. After a certain minimum number of dice, the only point in adding any more is that it increases your chance of rolling 10s (and, thus, cramming an extra success into the Attribute cap on dice). That strikes me as a good thing.


As a consequence of this, virtue channeling, which is already on the weaker side because of its willpower cost, gets even weaker. I wonder if a way to make virtue channeling more important under this system would be that channeling adds the Virtue to the Attribute cap. This is significantly stronger, but I think appropriately so.

 

[Kyeudo]

Something to recall: Most people don't get to count 10s as 2 successes. That means that a maxed out character with 13 dice only averages 4 successes, not 6. Most people have only 6 dice in a pool and so only average 2 successes on their rolls. The success table works for ordinary mortals. Now, Heroic Mortals, on the other hand, make things look easy and Exalts do the impossible on a daily basis.

 

[cyl]

One thing you could simply do is to set a second level of difficulty with a serious impact over the success of any action.


We already got a difficulty to succeed to a roll, but there is also the threshold.


Just put in place that to get a 100% success you need a "level of success" over a "difficulty".


Like instead of stating that you need to beat a difficulty of 5 (legendary), just state that this task if to be properly achieved needs at the very least a "difficult success" (+2) over the legendary difficulty (5).


You will have free interpretation of the consequences of failing and succeeding.


That's a cheap trick, I'll admit, but it could work.


This way mortals are limited by the width of any of their enterprises, and exalts and gods keep their "legendary" level well protected.


I hear you when you say the game is set up in such fashion so that success is measured on a mortal scale, that was exactly my point in the mass combat thread... exalts remain at least partially mortals sometimes and still have weaknesses.


I can tell you already that this proposition you made will not only screw exalts completely over other characters like spirits whose attributes are much higher and mortal heroes whose are not that far from theirs, but also make it a hell to run since the only true way to achieve more power will become to boost your attributes, and doing so cost xp and time.


Though your idea of compensating this with virtue channelling adding to k might be a good lead to correct this but... most foes can also do it so.


You could also adapt the system for L5R with the R&K, and set difficulty in multiple of 7 instead of counting results of 7 and +.


Like you got 15k5 on your dex(5)+melee(5)+specialty(3)+acc bonus of the weapon (2), your opponent has a DV of 8, you need to gather a total number of 56 with your 4 dice. (10 are open dice)...


Anything adding to dice rolled or dice kept become significantly more powerful and the beauty of it all is: you haven't got to change anything about the stats used for the game.

 

[Jukashi]

I would just say it's up to the Storyteller to judge what level of difficulty they assign to a task.


I think part of the problem is that, playing as heroic characters, most of the characters you meet are also heroes - just to be a challenge to you, as a player. The impression I get is that, for your average joe, it's uncommon to have anything rated higher than two - if you even have one thing rated above 3, you're a cut above most of humanity. Yes, the standard mortal generation gives you more, but that's because even in the grittiest of mortal games you play as a skilled, exceptional individual.


The idea of everyone routinely being able to carve their name on their enemies' clothes with no sweat is, I think, a false impression that results from the natural way a game is played. You never meet the people who can't do that, because they're boring. And if you upped the requirements in difficulty, STs would just end up making their NPCs more powerful to get the same effect they always go for, resulting in the same problem again.


Plus... well, the Age of Sorrows, for all its troubles, is still supposed to be a period when everything was greater, more colourful, more vital than it is in the modern, unmagical, grey, drab age. Perhaps your muddy peasants or bespectacled shipping clerks should be able punch through a wall now and then.

 

[Thanqol]

Something to recall: Most people don't get to count 10s as 2 successes. That means that a maxed out character with 13 dice only averages 4 successes, not 6. Most people have only 6 dice in a pool and so only average 2 successes on their rolls. The success table works for ordinary mortals. Now, Heroic Mortals, on the other hand, make things look easy and Exalts do the impossible on a daily basis.

Exactly. You get 6 dice in a pool if that's your dedicated area of expertise. A mortal soldier is 4 dice; an elite Realm Legionnaire veteran is 6 dice, and the badass survivors of the 85th, the Last First Age Legion are 8 dice. The greatest, most legendary heroic mortal swordsman of the age is 11 dice (mortals can't have anything higher than 4), and they'll sing songs about him. He can even get to 15 dice if he channels a (also unbelievably high!) virtue at a critical moment!


But that's, again, the thing. He's a grandmaster swordsman in a Wuxia setting at 15 dice. And an Exalt can walk right over him. Not because he can't do the impossible - because they can do it better. A Heroic Mortal is a Heroic Mortal. An eight dice army is made up of stupidly elite badass ninja death squads. 99% of humanity is made up of 2's.


And now I'll try to stop derailing this thread and let you get on with your mechanicing

 

[Ker'ion]

I'm more interested in the ramifications of the mechanical change and what it does than the notion of "how much difficulty is enough". Once I understand what this change actually does, I can more directly think about why such a change might be useful.

Do you work in a lab*? I personally believe there should always be a why to the experiment before proposing said experiment.
And I thought you stated "characters were getting too high of a number of successes" as the reason for your experiment.


*This is not meant as derogatory, I'm merely curious.

And now I'll try to stop derailing this thread and let you get on with your mechanicing

Oh, you didn't derail the thread. In fact, I find your information quite pertinant to the subject at hand.

 

[Kyeudo]

(mortals can't have anything higher than 4),

Wait, where is that rule printed? Have I been playing wrong for years?

 

[Thanqol]

(mortals can't have anything higher than 4),

Wait, where is that rule printed? Have I been playing wrong for years?

I'm sure I've seen it somewhere, I'll skim my core book for you.


...


Huh, looks like I'm wrong - contradicted, in fact, by the mortal hero statblock. Still, it's staying on in my Exalted as a houserule.

 

[Ker'ion]

Does this "4" thing include Essence users, God-blooded and Half-Castes?


By the W.W.wiki's definition of mortal, Essence users are explicitly not mortal.

 

[Thanqol]

Does this "4" thing include Essence users, God-blooded and Half-Castes?
By the W.W.wiki's definition of mortal, Essence users are explicitly not mortal.

The moment you get Essence 2 from any source you can increase things to 5. I just rule that 5's beyond the realm of what's possible for a mortal. Even 4 is seriously pushing it in my opinion; you have to be Heroic or an uber ninja deathsquad to get 4's.

 

[Kyeudo]

You do realize that by preventing mortals from getting 5 in an Ability, you are closing off the Master circle of Thamaturgy, don't you?

 

[Thanqol]

You do realize that by preventing mortals from getting 5 in an Ability, you are closing off the Master circle of Thamaturgy, don't you?

I realize now where I got this from; the Tiger-Warrior Training description. I assumed that because Solar level magic could only train mortals up to 4, mortals could only go up to 4.


And I'm fine with master-level Thaumaturges having to be Enlightened.

 

[Jukashi]

Wouldn't it make a bit more sense to limit ratings of 5 to heroic characters, rather than essence-wielding onces? Even our boring reality has had a few Ability 5 people.

 

[Thanqol]

Wouldn't it make a bit more sense to limit ratings of 5 to heroic characters, rather than essence-wielding onces? Even our boring reality has had a few Ability 5 people.

I'd contest that those people are ability 5 or that they're not Essence wielders.


If a mortal does have a 5, he's taken the Legendary Ability merit. Which makes him a genuine, focused, champion. And one of a kind.

 

[wordman]

I'm more interested in the ramifications of the mechanical change and what it does than the notion of "how much difficulty is enough". Once I understand what this change actually does' date=' I can more directly think about [i']why[/i] such a change might be useful.

Do you work in a lab*? I personally believe there should always be a why to the experiment before proposing said experiment.

That's only in experimental science. I work with a bunch of mathematical theoreticians. They're more about "what happens to the model when the rules change like this".

And I thought you stated "characters were getting too high of a number of successes" as the reason for your experiment.

It indeed reads that way, but it was a mistake for me to have written it like that. It has distracted the whole thread into a discussion about difficulty scale, when what I'm really after is "what happens to the game when the rules change like this"?

 

[cyl]

Well, it becomes a much darker place where mortals have a really low lifespan and can't do much on their own...


Would be kind of an explaination why the world has fallen from the glory of the first age to now though...


I mean: if 4 successes is the total limit that any mortal can reach, then the legendary business is forever beyond their grasp.


But you have to be careful, because... most exalts do not have 5 in all their attributes, so this limit will also apply to them and on most common rolls, they will be heavily penalized.

 

[Gylthinel]

Let me outline the idea, as I understand it. Tell me where I'm wrong.


Bill, the exalted, wants to climb a wall. He has strength 3, athletics 3, essence 3, and no specialty, but he does use ninja climbing claws that give him +1.


So... he rolls 7 dice (ath 3, ess 3, claws 1). On those dice he rolls 10, 7, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1. Of those dice, he keeps the 10, 7, and 2, for a total of 3 successes.


He then rolls again, rolling 10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 7, 7. He would keep the 10, 10, and 9, for a total of 5 successes.


Sounds like the Legends of the 5 Rings "Roll and keep" system.


As mentioned, the implications of this system is that it would seriously over-emphasize attributes, IMO. Personally, I LIKE making characters that have only 1 in at least 1 of their attributes, this gives them a built-in "flaw" of sorts. This would make such a character mechanically impossible in that area, even if they had a massive array of benefits. Like a character with Dex 1, a "clutz" could function OK in the RAW if he had melee 5 with a specialty. But, in this system, he couldn't hit a farmer with a shield.


Of course, you don't make house-rules so that the system remains the same, so I wouldn't shoot the idea down entirely.


I like the idea of channeling a virtue allowing you to keep more dice. I want virtues to be more potent and important. Using this system, even spending a WP for a single success would be quite a bit more powerful than RAW. I further like the idea of de-emphasizing the importance of the # of dice you throw... I get rather weary of people concocting dice pool monsters that throw 20 dice in everything they want to be good in. So, mitigating the usefulness of those extra dice, whatever their source, is pretty cool. And I love having things to modify, so having a dice-keep modification system would be fun. Lastly, I like attributes being the cap because, in many cases, a person's innate talent should indicate their ceiling. It's always bugged me that a guy with STR 5 is not as "strong" as a guy with STR 1, athletics 5 (yes yes, he can hit harder and whatnot, but he can't bench as much). It seems like there's a point where strength-training would meet its limit, and this system would introduce that. The same logical progression would function for any other attribute.


The flipside, though, is that you may end up in a situation where you have somebody with a fat ton of innate skill, which could do very little for him. Example: you have a mortal with Dex 5 that wants to sneak into a castle. He rolls his 1 essence, his 0 stealth, for a total of 1 kept die. So, the fact that he's lithe as a serpent means nothing since he's not trained.


But, this is all predicated on the idea that you want to really emphasize attributes.


Another system with a similar "success ceiling" is the Silhouette system. We recentlly played a game using this system, and the results were disheartening. Once you have a character with a lot of skill, they will roll pretty close to their maximum with an "average" roll. Thus, two characters w/ a similar level of ability would constantly tie. And constant ties = long, drawn out battles where both sides have a roll-off until one finally is LUCKY enough to out-roll the other, as opposed to skilled enough to out-fight the other. I see this potential for this system. If two Charisma 5 professional negotiators hit the table and roll 5 successes almost every time, then they'd be constantly at stalemate.