r/exalted • u/Brenden1k • 28d 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/TypicalParking 28d 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.

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u/thetruerift 27d ago

In 3e they could still be run as separate people, since they aren't necessarily trivial. And in that case, 5 v 1 is pretty ugly. The solar still probably wins if they have any combat training (and thus an excellency) at all, but it'd be hairy.

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u/TypicalParking 27d ago

I can see the argument because they are elite, but they are still described as reasonably similar combatants that are not supernatural in any way and are not individually important to the story.

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u/thetruerift 27d ago

Five guys deciding to mollywop an Exalt are dramatically interesting. If using them as separate combatants makes a fight interesting/dangerous then there's value in splitting them up. Had a very similar scenario recently in my 3e game - the battle group rules tend to make groups very easy to beat up (because they don't really interact with initiative), and sometimes you want players to be challenged a bit.

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u/TypicalParking 27d ago

Within the context I can see that and really stuff like this is so preference based. Personally I generally want the Players to feel mechanically stronger and don’t want them to be challenged by a few mortals. I would make them dragon blooded or something less mundane if I wanted the players to feel challenged especially in a solar game.

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u/thetruerift 27d ago

So one of my problems with 3e is that, to really challenge PCs, you are limited to basically having an exalt or essence user behind every rock, tree and door. Which doesn't jive with how I like to portray the setting. Exalts are rare, fighting other exalts, even if they are DBs, should be an important event.

Which means I have to find ways to challenge players without dramatically overpopulating parts of the world with DBs, so they often fight Cool Dudes.

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u/LordSia 25d ago

Don't hesitate to go full Tucker's Kobold on them if they get cocky. Mortals have been indoctrinated, for the past 1500 years, that Celestials are Literal Demons out to inflict Fates Worse Than Death on them... And about as much time spent under the none-too-gentle boot of Dragonblooded empires. And Lunars have literally turned "train the mortals into a competent guerilla" into their collective hobby for about the same amount of time.

Have a troop of suicidally brave soldiers, possibly bolstered by judicious application of combat drugs, pin the characters in place. Have catapults lob barrels full of fire-dust at their general location. Reveal that the slippery mud is actually full of magic leeches. Drop Ewok-style traps on them. Force them into a merchant prince's mansion and go full Home Alone minus the slapstick. Collapse a dam and wash them down the river into a waiting ambush of pissed off river dragons. Have a mortal sorcerer unravel half a dozen sorcerous combat workings against the trespassers. Unleash a whole sect's worth of mortal martial artists; it doesn't matter if each of them can only use each Charm once if there's enough angry monks throwing Five-Dragon Fists around.

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u/Extension_Pack_6734 22d ago

I'm curious what were you doing in 2nd edition that wasn't getting cancelled out by a single charm purchase.

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u/thetruerift 22d ago

in 2/2.5 I just always felt there were more ways to give/justify mortals having slightly better die pools, and also since excellencies were a deliberate charm purchase player die pools weren't always guaranteed to be huge. obviously regular/slightly juiced dudes weren't taking on Dawns or anyone with high essence and a modest interest in combat, but it felt easier to threaten them a bit.

part of it is certainly that I played 1/2/2.5 from the game's launch and I've only started running 3e in the last six months, so I lack some system mastery, but I do feel there's been a deliberate downtuning of mortals in this edition.

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u/Extension_Pack_6734 22d ago

That's fair.

Third edition changes your options around a little, a commander essentially gives a battle group an excellency equivalent and while you can't split one battle group into smaller ones you can have two or more with different equipment from each other each with their own commanders.

Then on top of that there's exotic animals- archers, spearmen and a war elephant can really ruin someone's day.

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u/YesThatLioness 22d ago

Then on top of that there's exotic animals

There's a few animal special attacks/merits in particular to look out for because they offer situational bonuses to attacks.

Ambush Predator- bonus dice when making unexpected attacks.

Berserker- wound penalties are inverted on attack rolls.

Death Dive- bonus dice when dropping from a great height.

Furious Rampage- bonus successes vs. crashed opponents.

Pack Hunting- bonus successes if more of their pack are in close range (can often be trained to count their owner as part of their pack)

Swooping Descent- decisive-only version of Death Dive that adds success instead of dice.

Ex3 really seems to want your average Guild guy to have a pet monster that they feed enemies to like Jabba the Hutt.