Threat and Encounter levels

[Aasharu]

It recently struck me that, given that I'm the only person in my area who has ever heard of Exalted, even if I get people interested in playing, I'd pretty much have to be the storyteller. As I've never had a chance to play before, the problem then crops up where I have no idea what sort of enemies and encounters can be construed as threats at different levels of gameplay. As such, as a bit of preemptive action, I figured I'd ask here. Basically, what I'm looking for is, what sort of things could be considered valid threats at low, mid, and high essence, (Essence 2-3, 4-5, and 6-7,) and for each different Exalt type? If I get some valid ideas for what constitutes a threat now, then if I actually get people interested, I won't be caught flat footed.

 

[cyl]

Heh, if you got the corebook, you have a nice chapter all about antagonists and just before that you got 3-4 pages on "dealing with the opposition".


Your guess is as good as any... your way of handling the opposition will vary according to your group of players, their combat capabilities, and how they use them.


There are no magic formulas here IMO. You've got a large "bestiary" and total freedom, so, run some tests, and when the players bleed, pant, but are happy to have won the day, you're doing things well !

 

[terrormortus]

Heh, if you got the corebook, you have a nice chapter all about antagonists and just before that you got 3-4 pages on "dealing with the opposition".
Your guess is as good as any... your way of handling the opposition will vary according to your group of players, their combat capabilities, and how they use them.


There are no magic formulas here IMO. You've got a large "bestiary" and total freedom, so, run some tests, and when the players bleed, pant, but are happy to have won the day, you're doing things well !

I have to agree with Cyl there is no real equation. A socially focused solar might have a problem with a few bandits while a combat focused dragon-blood could take a few of blood apes. My advice is to test the waters with some weaker enemies if you're not sure what to use. A bar fight with random villager number six can really save you trouble later. Or my favorite technique is to use enemies that are weaker then the PCs, but so amazing that they think they just fought off a demi-god and have a great time.


Ex. My PCs' party consisted of two solars and a infernal who were all so combat focused they were almost broken. I brought out a essence 3 dragon blood who knew the terrestrial hero style, had four instances of ox-body, a jade chain shirt, and gloves of martial readiness. He did a grand total of three damage to the entire party. Everyone pretty much creamed themselves during the fight because i stunted everything so well.


Trust me, don't worry about threat level so much as the "holy shit" level.

 

[Greenstalker]

If you can, I suggest to find a published scenerio like Daughter of Nexus and run it ( afew times if you have enough player, different exalteds with each time). It will give you some good ideas for what is really important when creating opposition.

 

[strawberryleaves]

The Storyteller's Companion does have a few sample characters of varying essence and power.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

The Storyteller's Companion does have a few sample characters of varying essence and power.

*shudder* Kill it with fire.


More seriously, those are some...poorly put together masses of stats. They also don't match up well with the actually published rules for any of the splats except Solars. The ability and attribute spreads may be usable, but you'll need to assign charms of your own. Personally, I loath most of that book. It, just as in the previous edition, is a stop gap book until other books came out, and...really, not anything more than that.

 

[cyl]

Considering the great job the authors have been doing with building npcs in the exalted setting so far... I never even bothered to look at them.


Are they any good ?

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

The most awesome thing since page XX.


I.e. Not.

 

[Persell]

The ST Companion is useful if say....you've recently moved and lost all your previously made NPCs, and you only realize this 5 mins before the game starts.


ie You're desperate and pinched for time.

 

[Kyeudo]

The ST Companion is useful if say....you've recently moved and lost all your previously made NPCs, and you only realize this 5 mins before the game starts.
ie You're desperate and pinched for time.

That's why I backup all my NPCs online. That way I have something if the hard copy ever gets ruined.

 

[Persell]

I'm backing all my stuff up now, but the previous collection was basically a mix matched collection of 3x5 notecards, scraps of paper and a few old character sheets. No organization at all, so it was kinda a good thing, if only because everything is organized now.


As to the OP, best thing I can say is start small and build up to test your players' capabilities. And don't be afraid to fudge the dice to keep from killing your players as this process is evolving. No need to punish your players during your own learning curve.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Unless it's an appropriately epic death, anyhow. Sometimes, a death is so cool that it's just insulting to pull someone out of the fire. Best one of those I've seen in my group was a single combat between a Dawn and the Bull of the North, as the two fought a duel to avoid getting their respective armies slaughtered needlessly when they could come to terms otherwise. Simultaneous death from the Bull's strike killing our Dawn and the Dawn using counter attack charms. Ended up entombing the pair together as a tribute to them both. And then promptly going back to a second challenge, since, well, that didn't decide the matter effectively. But in front of their mutual grave.

 

[Persell]

Yes, but I doubt that occurred as you were learning how to balance challenges properly. Don't kill the PCs if you, the ST, fuck up. If the players do something foolish though.....

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Hmm, first game I played in, and first encounter, a group of three bandits did a coordinated attack against the Eclipse, rolled impressively well, and hit him with about twenty levels of lethal damage.


Fortunately the DM agreed my heavy-armor Dawn caste could stunt to jump in the way and take the hit instead, which turned it into 2L. From that lesson we all learned: Either buy armor or armor-replacing charms, no going bareskin even if it does fit your concept. Also: It's really hard to predict damage even from a handful of mooks.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Or if it's all the blame of one character, don't kill everyone else off just because one character did something immensely stupid. At least, not unless the others join in their stupidity.


Like, say, throwing off Celestial Circle Sorcery in town when you already know the Wyld Hunt is in the area...looking for one of your circle's enemies...


As for no unarmored...well. I've gotten by with a few armor free characters. But you can be sure they were pretty happy to get their hands on things like Silken Armor, or soak charms...or more often...Silken Armor and Perfect or Semi-Perfect defenses.


For some reason, my Heroic or Enlightened Mortals tend to encase themself in at least some steel, Jade or Magitech to keep death at bay.

 

[terrormortus]

I use the idiot clause in my games.


"I'll do my best to make sure that you don't die from random chance, unless you're an idiot, then you die."

 

[Aasharu]

I've DM'ed for D&D before, and I used much the same clause: "If you do something that will get you killed, I'll first try and talk you out of it. Insist, and I'll let you, and then you'll die."

 

[cyl]

IMO STing Exalted is more along the lines of letting them achieve the stupid suicidal thing (provided it's cool/awesome/world shaking), give them hell for it (in the short and long run... curses, diseases, amputations, mutations, torture, imprisonment... there are so many ways to inflict a combat scar on a pc), but let them achieve / fail without dying, unless one's death is heroic.


Exalted are born to do stupid suicidal things, that's what the world needs... so it's your job to make them live through it and deal with the consequences for your game.