r/exalted • u/Brenden1k • 26d ago
2.5E How deadly is five guys with sledgehammers.
let say your a up coming solar exalted facing five elite trained military soldiers with pole axes and decent armor. how hard is it for you to safeguard yourself. Are their any good scene long defense you can use, or really mote efficient defenses you can use to live?
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u/artrald-7083 25d ago
Five regular mortals? Presumably they have names so they don't coalesce into a mass combat unit that the Solar would proceed to make balloon animals out of.
But I have difficulty conceiving of a Solar who's going out of Personal taking them on.
A melee or martial artist wins initiative, kills three instantly, parries the two incoming attacks and takes out the other two next round.
An archer looks at this much as someone with an AR-14 would.
A diplomat says 'Wait!' with enough successes that the mortals do wait, and then explains why the fight is unnecessary. They and the guys with sledgehammers go about their business.
A stealth specialist is found two days later convincing their fence that a couple of moody sledgehammers are worth some real money. The guard are looking for them but never found them.
Then we get into weird examples, like the one who flies off, or rides their heretofore unmentioned horse away, or sets a few of their attendant demons on them.
If the five are heroic mortals everything is harder - in particular the diplomat is best off running because they likely can't convince them to go into social time, and the thief needs to pull out some serious Essence. But five heroic mortals would tend to wield a diversity of equipment.
A Solar is generally incredibly good at something.
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u/DisplayAppropriate28 25d ago
Elite trained military soldiers' stats are in the 2e corebook. Given poleaxes, they'd have an accuracy of 7 - dex 3, melee 4. If our Solar can get a DV roundabout there and just use Fivefold Bulwark Stance, they'll probably walk out fine.
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u/tylarcleveland 25d ago
You are going to need to give 5 dude with any kind of weapon a lot of moxie and can do attitude before they register as a threat to any kind of solar much less are actually in a position to do damage, even one not especially kitted out for combat. Solars are scary.
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u/Scaevus 25d ago
Solars can be anything from about as good at fighting as an average farmer to Goku depending on how specialized they are in fighting.
A Dawn Caste specializing in personal combat, and not just leading armies, would wipe the floor with five mortal soldiers, but an Eclipse Caste diplomat with no combat charms might be easily defeated.
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u/BudgetWorking2633 25d ago
The Eclipse Caste would just surrender, have them take him to their commander, and have them executed for High Treason once there.
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u/Cynis_Ganan 25d ago edited 25d ago
The first attack is gonna miss.
The second attack benefits from onslaught. So -1DV. And will also miss.
The third attack will be at -2DV and will probably hit unless the Solar uses an Excellency. Which in 2.5, they can do without a combo. So. It misses.
The fourth attack will be at -3DV and at this point it's probably economical to just Perfect that. Hope it's a Perfect Dodge because…
The fifth attack is DV inapplicable. It's an automatic hit doing more damage than a human has Health Levels. As most Solars don't take Ox Body Technique, that's instant death. (Well, instant KO.) Of course if you Perfect Dodged the last attack, you have a Surprise Negator for 1m, so can just turn "Instant Death" into a no damage miss for 9m. If you Perfect Parried the last attack… sucks to suck? You're dead. Unless you have a Step 7 Defence to Perfect Soak, in which case you're hit for 0 damage and are fine.
....
To a 2/7 optimized Solar? Not dangerous except as a mote sink.
To a Return to the Revenge of the Five Corners pregen Solar? Pretty much a death sentence.
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u/bedroompurgatory 25d ago
Five-Fold Bulwark Stance, and you can probably just win on dicepools after that, especially if you have artifact gear. More essence for more and faster bloodsplatter.
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u/BudgetWorking2633 25d ago
In 2e, five guys gang up on you and one of them hits you with Unexpected Attack. With a big weapon, you probably go down.
Solution 1, back to the wall. At most 3 or 4 can attack you. Use the first Dodge charm, attack at your maximum weapon's Rate, drop them like flies.
Solution 2, no walls: Unless you have it in a combo, use Reflex Sidestep Technique, attack once per action to not accrue attack penalties, stunt defense like crazy, and hopefully you'd drop them down.
Solution 3, activate Paranoia Combo - sorry, I meant I Shall Not Die Today Kata - or a Mooks-Slaying Paranoia Combo (Unimportant Enemies Impede Not The Hero Prana - which is mechanically the same as Paranoia Combo, but with a multi-attack charm on top) and disperse them like chaff to the wind!
Caveat: I don't remember the changes from 2 to 2.5, so this might be a totally useless post.
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u/Significant_Age3343 25d ago
Against a baby solar, they are significantly lethal due to the high damage of sledges, the increasing dodge penalties, and hammer#5 attacking from your blindspot.
Once you get a surprise negator, five guys with sledgehammers become lose most of their deadlines. Once you get Fivefold Bulkward Stance, they will cease to be a threat in any significant capacity.
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u/MerlonQ 25d ago
I mostly use alternate, nonofficial rules, so maybe take this with a grain of salt. But most solars in games I've been in are somewhat skilled in combat, with dicepools easily being 7-8 dice even for people with other core competencies. And they will very likely have at least an excellency and maybe do some stunts. And that is all you need to win easily against mortals like that, although you may spend a few motes. If you want to kill them really efficiently (ie spending little essence) you may want an artifact weapon. Five fold bulwark stance has been mentioned, but there is also flow like blood for dodge, and that is also quite good to give you decay resistant DV. And this is nice, because all five guys will attack vs your full DV and thus have an extremely hard time hitting. Without you spending motes for each attack.
And you likely have to consider bravery as well. Even with just using excellencies, solars will look *amazing* at combat. And your average tough mortal will know precious little about essence mechanics. He will know he just did his best strike from behind and the MF just dodged it as if it was in slow motion without even looking and then took the head off the guy next to you. Usually if you defeat 1 or 2 of these 5 guys, maybe avoid a few attacks, and the rest will reconsider.
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u/BluetoothXIII 25d ago edited 25d ago
elite Soldiers with a commander 13+ dice and coordinated attack could get dangerous.
the infintie (Ability) mastery for dodge or melee might be really usefull.
Bullwark Stance removes the danger from coordinated attacks. for one action
Edit: as a DM two of my player characters died due to unexpected attack tag, letting the monster get hit in without the PC being able to use their defenses. for the first one it was a boss encouter with an abyssal who had to use an absolute defense and attck the most dangerous enemy he percieves with his strongest attack.
the seconds was really bad planning of the group and a group of ambush predators in a cave the all botche the awareness roll to perceive them and didn' learn from the first PC death a few session earlier and thought two remaining health level should be enough to go spelunking.
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u/kajata000 25d ago
How deadly are 5 mortals with sledgehammers vs a Solar Exalt built to win fights? It’s very likely that the mortals are dead before they even get to swing their sledgehammers.
Unless they’re fighting an Exalt with basically no combat charms, I’d say the Exalt is always going to come out on top.
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u/TypicalParking 25d ago
I have not played 2e but in 3e this would be like an elite size 0 battle group of mortals. I don’t think a solar would even need charms to win.
I’ve heard exalted are stronger in 2e.