What's your favorite Exalt type (and why)?

Which Chosen do you choose?

  • Solars

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Lunars

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Sidereals

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Abyssals

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Terrestrials

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Alchemicals

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Infernals

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
My Favorite Night is a Solar circle Sorcerer with Total Annihlation


He has all three demon summoning spells and his personal body guard consists of Ligier, Octavian, and Zsofika.
yes andgive me a few hundred xp and i will do better thn that
 
I find myself enjoying role playing Lunars the most. I, as a person, like Creation enough that RPing a Sword of Luna is very natural.


Roll playing, Solars win, gogo mad crazy powerful charms/dicecaps. But that very rarely influences my character choice.
 
I don't know, at really high experience the eclipse ability to learn any charm seems like it would be a major factor.
 
Indeed it is, but since it's here...


I like all the Exalted in different ways (frankly my least favourite are Solars, they sort of bore me.)


My favourites, however, are the Lunar Exalted. Mechanically speaking, they appear to be the tightest of the exalt types so far, and while they lack the direct power of the Solar Exalted their versatility and adaptiveness is far more interesting to my mind. Attribute combat charms make having a multi-combat specialist a viable option, since all their charms can be used with any combat ability. Attribute excellencies free up an awful lot of charm prerequisites, since nine charms open up any tree in the game instead of 25. Lunar shapeshifting is mind-blowingly useful when used correctly, and someone playing smart with a lunar can outstealth even a Night Caste if they're being careful. They're just a lot of fun to play with, because you need to think around corners with them, but they're still adaptable enough to rapidly changing situations that you don't need to plan EVERYTHING in advance (a problem with sidereals, who tend to be fucked when they're taken unawares.) Lunar charisma and appearance excellencies can give a certain edge in social combat, and some of their social combat charms are an absolute joy to use (ah, Mask of White Jade, how I love you.) And let's not forget that there are few forces that can stand against a combat-optimised Full Moon in DBT who's Furying with the right Gift and Fury-OK charms active. Sure you blow through a good chunk of your mote pool in one go, but fortunately lunars tend to have larger pools than other exalted at low to mid-level, and you don't need to pay for most of those effects again once they're up. Lunars are perfectly capable in many areas, but it is still as raw killing machines that they excel, and I would argue that aforementioned combat-optimised mid-level Full Moon, built correctly, will tear ANY other exalt of equal or even slgihtly superior power level a new one in a 1on1 situation, and hold their own perfectly against literal armies of extras. With their bare hands (oh, Claws of the Silver Moon, how I love you...)


Thematically, the Lunars shtick of stewardship and protection appeals to me. They're also the only Exalted group whose plan to save Creation could theoretically work, though that's an optimistic viewpoint on it. The most numerous of the Celestial Exalted currently in existence, they're the ones who stand a real chance of saving the day. The addition of the Solar Bond background is a godsend to GMs, and creates wonderfully tense roleplaying situations. Tattoo artifacts are similarly awesome ideas.


That's my €0.02, at any rate.
 
But...I can't choose a favorite! They're like my children!


Heh, okay, maybe not, but I do like them all. If I had to pick one...


I like Lunars...I don't know why. I just do.
 
Dragon-Bloods.


For the culture, the versatility, the lower strength and yet more powerful culture.


Frankly, I LOVE running Dragon-Blooded games (and would DEVOUR a Shogunate Era setting Boxed Set), for so many reasons.


But, Alchemicals are right there, lurking behind rubbing their metallic hands together. For many of the same reasons actually.
 
Holy Thread Ressurrection Technique Batman!


Though you should have waited 3 more days for the whole year and a day thing....


I vote for Lunars, just because I like their feel and the whole shapeshifting thing. I love the 2E treatment, which has moved away from the "Yaargh! Barbarians!!" theme.


Solars are a close second, just because being such a blank slate I can use them for almost any concept.


Despite not being a big Dragonblooded fan (though I love the sound DBs make when crunched by Celestial PCs) I have to say I'd love a Shogunate supplement too. No box sets, if only to avoid the problems DoFA had.
 
I originally voted for Abyssals, but since Infernals came out, I've been torn. On the one hand, Abyssals get more undead, and stranger, as they grow in power. That's fun, since I love the undead, no matter the game. On the other hand, the Infernals have the potential, at their highest levels of power, to not only match a Yozi, but to gain the power of all the Primordials. A fully realized Green Sun Prince is essentially an artificial Primordial, with all their powers, but driven by a (somewhat) human mind. An Avatar of Oblivion, or a Shaper of Reality... it's a difficult question.
 
I love playing a Dynast. I love the epic heroism, the duty, the politics, the role as 'under-dog fighting to save the world', the fact that they are the weakest of Exalts and yet still awesome, and the irony of the fact that most of what they believe is based on a lie. But, for some reason, Terrestrials that aren't Dynasts, or working to uphold the Scarlet Dynasty and Immaculate Philosophy don't hold the same appeal to me.


From a purely blank-slate point of view, just looking at all the splats, I prefer Solars to the rest. The fact that they are the top-dogs when it comes to awesomeness is, in an odd way, a knock against them. But then again, they are awesome.
 
I don't think I actually have a favorite type. Each has something in their capabilities or theme that I really enjoy. I'm a sucker for magic, so I love the Solars for being able to pull out Solar Circle Sorcery, along with the nature of their side of the Great Curse, the kind of heroic depravity it can lead them into. I really want to play with the shapeshifting stuff with Lunars, I like how DBs are easily built to work together, and the whole Sidereal fate-ninja shtick. Abyssals poke that special place in my brain that caused me to play a necromancer the first time I got into RPGs, and Infernals lean on my shoulder and say, "Just admit it, evil is cool." And Alchemicals... they're Alchemicals. I don't know what else to say about them.
 
I've always been a fan of Lunars. I'm a shapeshifting fanatic and have found that a good heart's blood library and Hybrid body Rearrangement makes you a mster of any situation (it's cold out? elemental adaption air. I'm going to drown! Oh wait, I can grow gills.). Not to mention I'm a fan of martial arts and just pure combat so the protean nature of the lunars fighting abilities and being able to turn your entire body into a weapon is very appealing.


That said I do prefer solars when using a more specialized concept, DB for a more political game or just to have to use good role-playing, and infernals for a good bad guy. Abyssals play into my fear of zombies so I avoid them and syderials just have to many responsibilities/superiors, I'm very much a lone ranger.
 
I like all of them, but I think Solars are my favorites...possibly because they play upon my personal Paladin complex.
 
1.- Alchemicals


2.- Sidereals


3.- Lunars


4.- Dragon Blooded


5.- Abyssals


6.- Solars


7.- Infernals.


I really like the concept behind Alchemicals, the Cyber-steampunk communist setting they have, and how they clash with the creation's feudal middle-ages setting(with a bit of steampunk in Lookshy, the Haslanti League and the Realm). The next type of exalted type I like are the Sidereals for the political intrigues they have (and the sad thing that they can't have a true identity because the arcane fate thing). Curiously, the exalted type I like the least are... the Solars.


Why?. Because the Solars are a little bit so "Excellent". And they had their time (the First Age) and screwed it.


But one of my favorite NPC's are a Solar Exalted of the Twilight caste... :D


Ultimately, I like them all.
 
((RANT TIME!!! w00ts!!11!))


I'm voting Solars, but not for the reasons stated.


I like them because they are simultaneously the most human of the Exalted, yet the least.


A Dragon-Blooded of any significant power is likely to appear slightly... draconic. Or tinted in colors that aren't natural for humans. They can turn into fire or air when struck, they can run along water or breath it as if it was air, they can be as strong as stone, literally. But as their power increases, they become less human to those that look at them. Much of the time, they're raised to become an Exalt. They're raised with the hope that they will become one of these beings of the elements, children of the elemental dragons. Generally, it's expected that they will stop being human, and start reaching towards becoming their elemental aspect. They are not human, they are the elements themselves given physical shape and form, they are mobile and sentient, they are alive, but they are not human.


Lunars are almost the least human of any of the exalted. The power they are best known for is quite litterally 'Stop being human and start being something else'. Their whole trick is becoming an animal, a beast, a creature of feral and unmatched power and speed. This is the Lunar strength. Gender, shape, form, these mean little to the Lunar. They are not human, they are animal and beast and the fury of nature itself given mind and heart and soul... but not form.


Sidereals, as human as they seem, aren't. They are stolen away when they are young and trained, raised, to be something above fate. A being that weaves the strings of fate and destiny and chance, something that controls and is beyond such things as mortals and Creation and Dragon-Blooded. They are not humans. They are Sidereals, keepers of the Loom and masters of Fate itself. They are not, and never were, human.


Abyssals are dead. Straight up. Whether they wish for redemption or not. They're a walking, talking, and (usually) breathing corpse. They are under no illusions of what they are. They are the dead walking, with power unheard of and able to kill mortals with little more than a stern look. They are pale, death clings to their very steps, they can be hauntingly beautiful, or a rotting corpse. They are not human, they are the end of things given a humans form.


Infernals are monsters. Pure and simple. No matter what they are inside, they are monsters, creatures, things 'tainted' by the Yozi's and children of the Demons beyond Creation. No Infernal should ever be under any illusion that they are still connected to that mortal there or here. They are the monsters.


But what about the Solars? They look completely human. Their powers are not inhuman shapechanging, elemental fury, death magic, primordeal rage, or loading the dice and seeing fate. They just do things better. Look at it like this, a starting Solar who has favored Martial Arts and has a reasonable strength/dexterity score can throw almost ten dice at any attack and then probably 8 or more at the damage, this is enough to gib an Extra.


The vast majority of people in Creation are Extra's. You and me, we're Extra's buddy, George Washington, Napoleon, Ghengis Khan, Bruce Lee, Ghandi, these people are Heroic Mortals. We, my friends, are Extras.


Now let me point this out: A Solar's basic punch, without using up the slightest bit of Essence, can turn you or me into conffetti.


Five dots in Martial Arts means I'm on the same level as Bruce Lee.


Five dots in a Lore means I'm on the same level as Einstien or Steven Hawkings.


Five dots in Athletics means I'm Olympic level awesome in everything.


Five dots in Performance means I can play like Motzart, Michael Jackson, or the Beetles.


And that's ignoring even the simple Excellencies, which pretty much say: "I add a dolop of my power and do this even better."


And a starting Solar can be able to do all of this at once.


Legendary Successes is defined as a Threshold of 7 on a roll. The Mona Lisa is an example of Legendary Successes in Craft. The Declaration of Independance is an example of Legendary Successes in Lore and/or linguistics. Hitler convincing a considerable portion of Germany to follow him almost fanatically is an example of Legendary Successes in Pressence/Socialize.


A starting Solar can roll Legendary Successes in several categories routinely.


And they only get better.


They look human, they seem human, yet they are so far beyond human capacity in anything they try that they can't be human.


Imagine that one day, after you've Exalted and struggled to survive, you settle down for a bit. Your every word sways peoples thoughts, people agree with everything you say, you win every game you play, by yourself you can beat an entire football team, everyone seems so slow and stupid and not thinking for themselves in the least, always looking to you for leadership... and you haven't done a thing to ask for it.


You are beyond your friends and family, beyond their ability to ever reach, and yet, you don't feel different. You don't seem any different. Everything just seems... easier. Nothing's challenging anymore, no one even seems to fight you when you ask them to do something. Everything's too easy.


Treat those Extra's as people, not just scenery or props, people. They don't have to be a heroic mortal to be a person. Remember that the person you use that Pressence Excellency on to learn the King's dark secret, that person is just that, a normal person, with their own wants, desires, goals, and plans, and you just told them to tell you where the King keeps his dirty laundry, and they did. Stop and think about that for a second. How many Extra's do you steamroll in your games on average? How many peoples lives do you play with like puppets on strings? Numbers on the computer? Dolls? How many people get swept up in your Exalted's games?


Solar's seem the most human of the Exalted... until you realize that really, they're the least human of them all. Anything a human can do, a Solar will do better, faster, sooner, and if they can't do it now, they'll learn how to do it better than the best within weeks, and then they'll get even better.


---------------------------------------------------


Okay, rant done. I'll sum up my views on the groups more succinctly now.


Dragon-Blooded: Cool, inherently so. Pulling off an Ace or Crocodile from One Piece is part of their shtick, which is awesome. That and they have a more developed society/culture/livelihood than any of the other exalted types. Lunars have society/culture, and the Siddies can argue that they do. But no one really has a culture like the Terrestrials. Not something I'd play, but cool all the same.


Sidereals: Mmm, mixed bag here. I don't know enough about their charms to make a judgement there, and I don't know whether I like their background stuff or not, but I do know my feeling on them as a whole is more of a 'Better as Antagonists' kind of thing. Meh.


Lunars: Now these, I like. Shapeshifting is a wonderful ability, and I like the thematic 'Ultimate Survivor' thing as well as the general feral power they're supposed to have. There's also the fact that a Soak/Regen monster is totally my kind of thing. Do I think they need more/better charms? Yes. Do I still think they're WINfull? Yes.


Abyssals: Meh. A very solid Meh. I just... meh. They're either Emo-Boy! or Slaughter Everyone Man! That's... their whole shtick. Either emo-redemption or gleefully embracing their kill-it-all nature. One or the other. That said, both can be absurdly well done, fun, interesting characters and most of their charms just give me pleasant tingles at the visual effects... it's just.. they don't appeal to me in the least. To me, their just a whole lot of... meh.


Infernals: When I first looked at these I had a similar reaction as what I did to the Abyssals, a whole lot of meh.


...


Then I heard they could eventually become Primordeals (or something like them) and I started to like them. Not a lot mind you, but they are cooler now. At least to me. They're still mostly a 'meh' to me, I still don't know much about them and I still probably won't play one... but they're better to me than Abyssals.


Alchemicals: Basically, all I really know about these guys is that their basically cyborg/robo-exalted with high-tech gizmos/charms and a really rigid society, and they turn into cities at high essence. That's about it. Cool, but I'd need to know more before making a real judgement.


Solars: There's this seemingly unexplored dynamic here that I love. Solars are so far beyond a normal person... yet they're also the most human of the exalted... how do you reconcile that?


I also like the relatively large power-pool and straightforward WIN charms that they have so many of. The fact that a Solar can basically say "This is my goal, regardless of whaever the laws of physics and magic say contrary to that, I will complete it" and then follow through with it, is something I really like. The fact that the very setting assumes that they can do this kind of stuff amuses me.


But mostly, it's probably the fact that I feel a kinship with them that I don't have with anything except maybe Lunars. The ability to do several things really good is something I can kind of relate to, and even before I found Exalted I found myself daydreaming up characters not very different from Solars.


If I Exalted, I'd want to be a Solar.
 
I like'm all, but that'd be a cop out, and honestly I prefer Heroic Mortals when I can play them, but that's not the question.


Out of the Exalted it has to be Solars.


Why? I know how to put a good Solar together, so that's part of it, but mostly it's due to how a Solar Exaltation chooses its next bearer. I've always thought it was cool that all Solars are faced with a "do and die, or run and live" moment and they chose to do and die, and because of that choice they Exalt as a Bronze Tiger, Golden Bull, Copper Spider, Iron Wolf, or a Quicksilver Falcon (Dawn, Zenith, Twilight, Night, and Eclipse by other names). It's also very cool when those opposing the newly Exalted Solar wet themselves.


Or at least that's how I see it.
 
Lunars, by far. Which is saying a lot, given how much I love Sidereals and Infernals as well.


Though despite my minor Marena obsession, I think there's more to it than that. I've always loved shapeshifting, for one, and that's one thing Lunars do best... the whole "Stewards of Creation" role appeals to me as well, as well as their Charms that focus on defending and supporting others, for one reason or another. I also have a soft spot for sappy romanticism, so I like some aspects of the Solar Bond as well.
 

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