Basic Mechanics
Time
The world inside a story does not follow the same clock as the real world. Some events might take an hour to play, yet only encompass a few minutes within the game. Conversely, an uneventful journey of several months can pass by with only the briefest description. Owing to the narrative structure of the game, time is broken down into the following units:
Series
This refers to the ongoing game as a whole, a succession of stories revolving around the players' characters and their heroic exploits. For particularly long-running series, the cast can change, with only the Storyteller and the established chronology of the world holding constant.
Story
A complete narrative arc, usually with a primary goal and the possible inclusion of subplots. Most stories are broken into episodes, largely because they are too long to play in a single session or link a set of plot developments.
Episode
An independent section of a story, either containing its own subplot or categorized as the part of the story covered in a single session of play. Each episode strings together a sequence of scenes, possibly linked by downtime.
Scene
A segment of narrative action and events played out as the protagonists interact with the setting and supporting characters of the game. Theatrically, this is the action that happens "onstage." A scene encompasses the time necessary to play it, which can be a three-minute fight or 10 hours spent mingling at a party.
Downtime
The abstract passage of "unimportant" events between scenes or episodes, which isn't actually played. Instead, downtime uses simple narration to explain what happened. Characters use downtime to recuperate or train, or for players to get through "boring" matters so they can get to something more exciting. Theatrically, this is what happens "offstage" or in a voiceover sequence.
Long Tick
One long tick lasts about one minute. For example, a character who uses a Charm with a Speed of six long ticks cannot take another action for six minutes.
Units in Mass Combat track time in long ticks that last approximately one minute each.
Tick
Only relevant in combat or similarly tense situations, this is the smallest measurable unit of time in the game, approximately one second long. See Combat for more information.
Dice and Props
"Ten dice per player works"? NOT. Have 30 or more dice at hand when you're playing a Solar Exalted!
Exalted requires 10-sided dice to simulate the effects of chance, which are available in any game store. Players may share dice, but this will slow game-play considerably. Ten dice per player works, but 15 to 20 is better. The Storyteller should definitely have her own set.
Besides dice, players might also wish to obtain small glass beads or some other form of token in at least two colors to keep track of Essence motes and other fluctuating values. White Wolf produces glass beads for just this purpose, available through its catalog.
Otherwise, the only props needed for play include character sheets, pencils, this book and any other Exalted products used for reference. The Exalted Second Edition Screen, for instance contains many useful tables summarizing key rules from this chapter. The screen also works well for hiding notes and dice rolls.
Actions
Whenever a player has her character attempt anything, the Storyteller can resolve the action in one of two ways. In the first, he can accept the action and simply allow it to happen as described. This works well for trivial matters, such as walking across a room or changing into an outfit—tasks of such simplicity that there is no reason the character should fail. Similarly, when a character engages in conversation, the player speaks as the character.
In many cases, however, characters aren’t assured of success. Uncertainty creates tension, which facilitates the drama that drives stories forward and makes scenes interesting. Properly used, every uncertain action becomes a cliffhanger in miniature. Will the character make it across the narrow bridge over the pit of lava or fall in? Will she rally the ragtag militia against the slavering ghouls shambling from the shadowland, or will her soldiers flee in terror? Wherever the chance of failure exists, traits and dice come into play.
Traits
Every character has strengths and weaknesses, based in large part on her innate aptitudes, learned skills or the mettle of her soul. Within the game, such qualities are measured using traits, each of which has a name and a numerical rating in dots. Most traits range from 1 to 5, although some can have a rating as low as 0 or even in excess of 5. Players record traits on their character sheet by filling in the appropriate number of dots.
Innate competence is expressed through nine Attributes, grouped into three broad categories. The Physical Attributes of Strength, Dexterity and Stamina govern the power, speed and health of the body, respectively. Social Attributes represent a character's force of personality, cunning and looks, through the Charisma, Manipulation and Appearance traits. Mental Attributes measure the acumen, discernment and quickness of the mind, using Perception, Intelligence and Wits. A rating of 1 in an Attribute signifies below-average competence, whereas 5 marks the absolute peak of human accomplishment. See Attributes for more information.
A character's learned skills and knowledge form the basis of her Abilities, of which 25 exist. Without any dots in an Ability, a character has no training in that task. She is not fundamentally deficient without it, but simply ignorant. Even among the greatest gods and Exalted, very few have dots in every Ability. Most characters specialize according to their interests and background. With 1 in an Ability, a character is a novice. With 5, he is one of the world's foremost experts in that field—at least among mortals.
The qualities of a character's soul and personality are a function of several traits. First, the four Virtues of Compassion, Conviction, Temperance and Valor establish a character’s personality and mores. As with Attributes, 1 marks a character as deficient. At the upper end, 5 is the realm of saints and heroes. In addition, every character has a Willpower rating, expressing the raw force of her mind and passion. Finally, Essence gauges the overall magic of a being and the power of her soul, with non-magical beings having 1 simply for being animate and higher ratings reserved for spirits, the Chosen and the other supernatural beings. Unlike most other traits, Willpower and Essence follow a 1–10 scale instead of 1–5.
Finally, Backgrounds cover a character's social ties, possessions and other unique advantages specific to her upbringing or nature. The degree of privilege and accomplishment follows the usual 1 to 5 scale as explained for the specific Background.
Pools and Dice
Whenever a character attempts an action where success and failure are both possible, her player rolls a number of dice equal to the dots the character has in the appropriate trait or traits. Most rolls couple an Attribute with an Ability, representing the combination of innate potential and learned skill that best applies to the situation. Unless otherwise stated, no roll pairs two Attributes or two Abilities. The Storyteller selects this combination when he asks for the roll. For instance, crossing a narrow bridge over lava would require a roll of (Dexterity + Athletics). The sum of all the traits used for a roll is called a dice pool.
When rolling a dice pool, the player considers each die separately to see if it contributes to the success of the action. By default, every die always has a target number of 7. If the number rolled is equal to the target number or greater—7, 8, 9 or 0 (10)—that die adds to the overall success of the roll. Certain rare magical effects can occasionally raise or lower the target number of a roll, changing the likelihood that dice will succeed. For instance, at target number 5, a die succeeds on a roll of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 0. The total number of successes generated on a roll determines the overall success of the action.
Difficulty and Success
The difficulty of a task equals the number of successes required to achieve it. Many tasks have difficulty 1, succeeding if even one die in the dice pool rolls a success. Because this is the norm, difficulty 1 is also called standard difficulty. (Rolls without a listed difficulty are always assumed to be difficulty 1.) The harder the task is, the higher the difficulty is. On average, characters have a reasonable chance of success when they have a number of dice in a pool at least double the required difficulty (so two dice for difficulty 1, eight for difficulty 4, etc.). A difficulty above 5 is possible, but such Herculean feats are usually beyond the reach of mere mortals (who seldom have dice pools larger than 10).
Often, the difficulty of a task is immediately evident to the character. In such cases, the Storyteller should provide the difficulty along with the required dice pool for the action. In other situations, the difficulty is not apparent. Perhaps the character is under stress or has never attempted anything remotely like the action in question before. Maybe revealing the difficulty could give too much away (such as alerting players to the presence of something well-hidden by calling for a high-difficulty [Perception + Awareness] roll). In these cases, the Storyteller calls for a roll without providing the difficulty and has the player state the number of successes rolled. He then compares the successes to the secret difficulty. On hidden-difficulty rolls where failure could result in a character's injury or some other unpleasant fate, cautious players can usually take a moment to "look before they leap." Doing so requires a successful roll of (Perception + the Ability used for the task). Obviously, common sense applies. Characters cannot try to look ahead to figure out how far they might have to look ahead (i.e., no guessing the difficulty of basic [Perception + Awareness] checks).
| Difficulty Rating | Degree of Difficulty |
|---|---|
| 1 | Standard |
| 2 | Difficult |
| 3 | Challenging |
| 4 | Nearly Impossible |
| 5+ | Legendary |
If the number of successes generated by a dice pool is less than its difficulty, the action as a whole fails. If the number of successes matches the difficulty, the action succeeds. Should the number of successes exceed the difficulty, the character succeeds in a more thorough or dramatic fashion, with the size of the excess (called the threshold) governing the overall impressiveness of the feat. For some tasks, the number of bonus successes has a measurable effect built into the rules of the game. For instance, the more skillfully a character throws a punch, the harder it is to avoid the blow and the more damage inflicted if the strike connects. In other cases, bonus successes are simply cosmetic, rewarding players with better descriptions of their triumph.
Failure and Botches
If a roll does not generate enough successes to meet its difficulty, the action fails. Depending on the nature of the action, failure can have a wide range of consequences. If a character cannot decipher a set of ancient glyphs, he can always try again later. Of course, if he has to translate those runes to find the secret weakness of the Deathlord advancing on him with her soulsteel grand daiklave, later might not be a luxury he can afford. In a similar vein, some failures have immediate consequences. Failing to climb a cliff probably means the character can't find a handhold, but failing to hold on to the handholds at 100 yards up in the face of a sudden gust of wind means something altogether different.
| Threshold | Degree of Success |
|---|---|
| 0 | Adequate |
| 1 | Competent |
| 2 | Superior |
| 3 | Remarkable |
| 4 | Astonishing |
| 5+ | Phenomenal |
Simple Failure
In most cases, simple failure should not lead to inescapable ruin, at least not for protagonists and major Storyteller characters. If the character falls from a great height, she might only scrape 50 feet down the cliff before receiving another roll to snag a protruding ledge.
Botch
Real catastrophes are reserved for when none of the dice in a pool show successes and at least die has a result of 1—called a botch. While every botch is bad, sadistic Storytellers might opt to increase the severity of a botch according to the number of 1s rolled (much as a threshold determines gradations of success). Storytellers can also make botches worse for characters unskilled at the task at hand, so that a skilled character with an eight-dice pool doesn't theoretically suffer a worse botch than a character with two dice in a pool (who cannot roll more than two 1s).
The Rule of 10
By luck, divine providence or dogged determination, heroes can sometimes achieve the impossible. Unless specified otherwise, every time a die shows a result of 10, that die counts as two successes rather than one. This benefit applies to all magical beings and to heroic mortals.
Penalties
Selvennys
Internal Penalty = nopanheitosta vähennetään noppia ennen heittämistä. Esim. Fatigue
External Penalty = vähentää onnistumisia heitosta. Esim. Retry Penalty, tai ympäristön vaikutus.
Bonus = noppia lisätään ennen heittämistä. Esim. Accuracy tai Stunt.
Using Willpower = lisää yhden onnistumisen heittoon, ei noppaa.
Nopan tavoitenumero = 7.
In an ideal world, a character would act without any sort of hindrance. If she sought to climb a mountain, it would be a clear, sunny day after she had a good night's sleep and a balanced breakfast to boot. Of course, such conditions seldom manifest in the high-action epic setting of Exalted. Heroes climb sheer cliffs in the middle of raging typhoons with lightning exploding around them, chipping handholds with their fingertips while shrugging off the pain of seven critical wounds to reach the summit. In short, adversity allows heroes to prove themselves. From a rules perspective, any circumstance or obstacle that interferes with a character's ability to perform an action is called a penalty. Every penalty falls into one of two broad categories based on how it provides a hindrance.
Internal Penalties
Anything that directly impairs a character's ability to perform a task is called an internal penalty. Most often, these penalties involve some sort of adverse state within the character's own mind or body, caused by pain, fear, drugs, poisons, exhaustion, entropic magic and the like. Lacking appropriate tools also counts.
One common penalty is for acting without the proper Ability. The player of anyone who is not Exalted loses two dice from any roll based on an Ability in which she does not have any dots. Sensory deprivation is always internal regardless of source, so impaired vision qualifies, be it a result of congenital defect, injury, darkness or fog. Internal penalties remove dice from a character's pool before a roll, effectively reducing her competence. The number of dice removed depends on the specific penalty, and most of these conditions stack with one another for cumulative effect. The total penalties afflicting an Exalt or other magical being with Essence 2+ cannot reduce a dice pool below her Essence rating, but this benefit can only offset internal penalties. It does not provide bonus dice in situations where a character's Essence rating exceeds her actual dice pool.
Wound penalties and multiple action penalties are the explicit exceptions to this rule. If a character ever has a dice pool of zero dice or less after applying all bonuses and does not benefit from bonus successes, she cannot even attempt that action.
See also: Fatigue.
External Penalties
While internal penalties make a character less capable in some fashion, external penalties are conditions that make a task more difficult. Most often, these conditions are environmental factors of some kind, such as slick terrain interfering with acrobatics, knee-high muck inhibiting dodges, cover protecting opponents and so on. In other cases, external penalties arise from a deliberate choice of the character. If she wishes to slice her initials into a rival's face with her sword during a duel instead of simply slashing at him, a penalty applies. External penalties do not subtract dice from a character's pool. Instead, they subtract directly from the number of successes generated by a roll.
One notable penalty is the retry penalty. Every time a character attempts to perform an action at which she has already failed, she generally accrues a -1 success external penalty to the attempt due to frustration, and to simulate the fact that the character has already tried the obvious solutions.
In some cases, the same condition may create both types of penalty:
- Example: Lorn sits astride his mount as a raging maelstrom buffets him from every side. He hears a roar over the thunder and turns to see a claw strider rise from the grass and charge him. Without hesitation, he draws his bow and fires into the gaping maw of the beast. The winds and rain do not make him any less effective of an archer, but instead, make the task itself more difficult as an external penalty. However, the thick rain also impairs visibility, which counts as an internal penalty. The Storyteller increases the difficulty by one and imposes a -2 penalty.
Storytellers should remember that keeping the game moving is more important than wasting time agonizing over the nature of a penalty. If a condition could belong to either category, pick one and apply it. Generally, every point of difficulty increase is equivalent to losing two dice.
Resisted Rolls
Sometimes, two characters compete directly with one another, as in a game, a battle of wits or some form of race. In these cases, both characters' players roll what's called a resisted roll at the same difficulty using the dice pool appropriate to the contest (assigned by the Storyteller). The character with the most successes wins the contest, with a threshold equal to the number of successes by which her player's roll exceeded her opponent's. Of course, not all contests are evenly balanced, and each party can suffer different penalties depending on the situation. If a visiting Immaculate monk chases a street urchin pickpocket through the back alleys of Nexus, his unfamiliarity with the area would almost certainly cost him a die or two. Moreover, some resisted rolls involve each character acting at a different difficulty, in which case the thresholds of each roll are compared to determine the victor and the gradation of victory.
Static Values
Some kinds of resisted rolls are opposed without an actual roll on the target's part. Some condition of the target sets an inherent difficulty. The most common of these are Defense Value (DV) and Mental Defense Value (MDV). In each case, the target character adds a number of traits together and divides the result by two. This is the difficulty of the acting character's roll—usually the roll to hit. Static values are used to speed up the game and protect characters from death via random results.
Rounding Static Values
Characters often have to round numbers off if they are computing static values or otherwise dividing something in half. When rounding for static values such as DVs, Exalted and other magic beings round upward, while mortals and heroic mortals round downward. This does not include dividing Stamina for the purposes of determining base lethal soak, as everyone rounds down for that.
Extended Rolls
While many actions can be accomplished with a single roll, some tasks are more complicated or require prolonged effort to accomplish. Scrambling up a tree might require only a single (Dexterity + Athletics) roll, but a sheer cliff takes longer to surmount and affords more opportunities for something to go wrong. The Storyteller could certainly reduce the climb to a single roll to speed up play, using a threshold to determine how long it takes the character to ascend and interpreting failure or botch accordingly. Alternatively, however, the Storyteller can define the climb, or any task of this nature, as an extended roll. In doing so, he sets a number of total successes the player needs to garner in order to succeed (called the cumulative difficulty) and the time that passes in game between each roll (called the roll interval). Climbing a cliff might have a cumulative difficulty of 20 and a roll interval of five minutes, meaning that the player rolls (Dexterity + Athletics) once for every five minutes the character spends climbing, and he adds the successes from each roll together. Once the player has amassed 20 successes, the character reaches the top. Like normal actions, an extended roll can also have a difficulty as well as a cumulative difficulty, in which case each roll is made at the appropriate difficulty and only adds the threshold to the amassed total (or one success added for threshold zero).
A failure on any part of an extended roll has no effect beyond contributing nothing to the accumulated successes. A botch, on the other hand, can have a range of unpleasant consequences selected by the Storyteller. Sometimes, a botch costs the player a set number of accumulated successes (or perhaps all accumulated successes). In a worst case scenario, the botch spoils the entire effort, resulting in automatic failure for the action as a whole.
Some rolls may be extended and resisted, with victory going to the player who reaches the cumulative difficulty first:
- Example: Lorn's arrow found its mark, but the claw strider didn't slow down. The Marukani horseman thumps his heels into his horse's flanks, launching forward at a gallop across the plains. If he pulls far enough ahead, the dinosaur won't have a chance of catching him. His player rolls (Charisma + Ride) in an extended, resisted roll against the claw strider’s (Strength + Athletics), with a cumulative difficulty of 5 and a roll interval of one minute. With each roll, the threshold of (victor's successes – the successes of the loser) adds to the victor's total. If the claw strider gets to five before Lorn, it will catch him and engage in close combat in an attempt to devour him. If Lorn gets to five, he escapes.
Bonuses
Selvennys
Internal Penalty = nopanheitosta vähennetään noppia ennen heittämistä. Esim. Fatigue
External Penalty = vähentää onnistumisia heitosta. Esim. Retry Penalty, tai ympäristön vaikutus.
Bonus = noppia lisätään ennen heittämistä. Esim. Accuracy tai Stunt.
Using Willpower = lisää yhden onnistumisen heittoon, ei noppaa.
Nopan tavoitenumero = 7.
Just as conditions can impede a character's actions by imposing various forms of penalties, other conditions can aid a character's efforts by adding additional dice to his pool or even bonus successes. Most such bonuses come from one of the following sources:
Willpower
Outside of combat, a player may spend one Willpower point to add one bonus success to a roll (as if an additional die had been rolled and succeeded). Alternatively, the character may spend one Willpower point to channel a Virtue for a particular action. Doing so adds to one roll a number of bonus dice equal to the appropriate Virtue rating. Channeling can aid only those rolls for actions that are, themselves, appropriate to the Virtue in question. Players cannot use Willpower to provide both benefits to the same roll. In combat, timing rules limit Willpower expenditure.
Specialties
Characters with a specialty in an Ability add a bonus die or dice to pertinent rolls. Unless specified otherwise, specialties cannot add more than three dice to a roll.
Equipment
Particularly good tools can help with certain rolls, such as lockpicks aiding Larceny or surgical instruments helping Medicine. All weapons have an Accuracy rating, which is almost always positive, indicating the bonus dice granted when wielding them.
Magic
Many Charms provide bonus dice, especially Essence Overwhelming.
Stunts
The rules of Exalted reward players with additional dice for describing their characters' actions in an evocative manner. The out-of-game rationale for a stunt bonus is that well-described actions keep the game interesting for everyone and help the Storyteller set the scene. In game, stunts represent the capacity of epic heroes to be truly spectacular when they take risks and act like heroes.
At the lowest level, one-die stunts require a good description of an action, adjudicated by the Storyteller. In return, the player gains one additional die, and the character may perform feats that border on impossible (such as running across the heads of people in a crowd, deflecting a blade or arrow barehanded and so on).
- Example: Anoria snaps her razor-fan open with a soft click across the guard's throat. She then watches over its bloody edge as he collapses in a gurgling heap at her feet.
Two-die stunts require that the character interact with the environment in some notable fashion, taking advantage of the scenery that the Storyteller has provided. This can be physical environment or things the character knows about the world, like an enemy's phobias or a lover's favorite flower. The player gets two bonus dice and may perform limited dramatic editing. No detail of the scene may be contradicted, but minor details may be "revealed" in the context of the character's actions. For instance, a character might leap off a parapet to escape a hail of arrows, and the player could use a two-die stunt to reveal a banner fortuitously hung on the wall, which the character grabs to save himself. The Storyteller may veto any editing that he feels strains belief or is otherwise inappropriate (such as an edit that contradicts a major detail he has not yet revealed). Players cannot generally use a stunt to draw a "hidden" weapon from nowhere, although some assassins might well have shuriken or throwing needles hidden all over their person, leaving exact placement vague until a good stunt opportunity arises.
- Anoria watches the two guards charging her from each side, intending to pin her between them. At the last moment, she crouches and flips back against the wall. In the instant she stands horizontal, her fans flash out, catching both men in the face. She then falls through the double arterial spray, landing catlike as her two attackers crash blindly into one another.
Three-die stunts are singular acts of greatness, stunning bravado and visual poetry, defined by their capacity to leave the other players slack-jawed in astonishment. If any doubt exists as to whether a stunt merits three dice, it isn't a three-die stunt. In addition to providing three bonus dice, these feats allow for the same measure of dramatic editing as two-die stunts.
- The demon swings his burning fist at Anoria, and she leaps straight up in a somersault, balancing in a tentative handstand on his massive hand. Her feet connect with the chandelier above, tilting it to pour oil on top of the spirit's head. As she hoped, the glittering drops burst alight as they land on the creature's superheated flesh. The flames do not hurt him, but distract him long enough for her to release a hand and grab a fan from her belt. Still balanced on the monster's swinging arm, Anoria shoves her folded razor into the demon's mouth, twisting it up through his brain.
Players should note that the preceding examples set the scene as well as providing the action. In the first, the stunt is the description of the attack as something more than "I hit him." In the second, the stunt is Anoria's use of the wall as a springboard and arranging for her opponents to crash together. In the final, it is her audacity to perform acrobatic feats while perched on her enemy as she sets him up to expose his one point of vulnerability. During play, the Storyteller should have already set the scene by the time a character acts, so a stunt does not need to be a five-minute narrative. Without exception, short and flowing is always better than long and clunky. Merely stringing adjectives and adverbs together isn't good enough. The description must be interesting, without interrupting the flow of play.
If the Storyteller deems that a particular stunt also resonates with a character's Motivation in a particularly obvious and dramatically appropriate manner, she may raise the rating of a stunt by one category. In order for this bonus to apply, the action must already merit a stunt and cannot already be a three-die stunt (which is the absolute maximum classification of stunt). However, a character who performs a three-die stunt in conjunction with his Motivation should almost certainly receive the option to gain an experience point from doing so. Moreover, an action building on Motivation must directly further the character's goals in a way that requires real effort or risk for the character. A powerful Solar might not gain a stunt bonus for confronting back-alley muggers he could dispatch with both eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back, but his commitment to righteousness might net him a superior bonus when he gives a speech adjuring a deathknight to abandon her liege and the side of darkness to join his righteous quest to restore Creation.
Stunt rewards are granted regardless of whether the stunted action succeeds or fails (Latest errata). The character receives a number of motes of Essence equal to twice the stunt's rating. For two- or three-die stunts, the player may choose to have the character recover a point of Willpower instead of Essence. In games where three-die stunts are rare, Storytellers should consider offering players the choice of receiving one experience point for such feats (as an alternative to recovering Willpower or Essence). This option should be available only if the stunt is a natural three-die stunt, not counting a bonus for fulfilling Motivation.
Stunts can be used to enhance static values like DV. When stunts aid a static value, treat the bonus dice as if they had been awarded by successes rolled with the First Excellency. That is, add the stunt bonus directly to the character's DV, without dividing by two. Thus, a character with a Parry DV of 4 who described his defense spectacularly and received the three-die stunt bonus would have a DV of 7. Characters don't have to stunt their dodge for every attack in a flurry. Just have them make one stunt out of their defensive antics and apply the bonus to the DV before the first attack.
Mortals, NPCs, Extras, and Stunts
Heroic mortals receive less benefit from stunts than magical beings do, reducing the bonus and rewards by one rating category (one die for a two-die stunt and two dice for a three-die stunt). Unless they have somehow obtained an Essence pool, mortals cannot regain motes at all, but they may recover one point of Willpower from a successful three-die stunt. If a three-die stunt also resonates with a character's Motivation, the Storyteller may give the player the choice to receive an experience point instead of a Willpower point. Players of mortals can still use stunts to perform dramatic editing or to have their characters defy plausibility.
Important Storyteller characters may use stunts to benefit their actions but they should only do so sparingly since the Storyteller is the final authority on all stunts. Unimportant characters should never gain the advantage of stunts, no matter how well the Storyteller narrates their actions. In gritty games, Storytellers may limit the effects of stunts for all characters.
Multiple Stunts
A player may stunt as many of his character's discrete actions as he wishes, including automatically successful actions such as perfect defenses. For example, a character that launched four attacks in a flurry while leaping through a window and parrying three incoming attacks could stunt each individual attack, the acrobatic leap through the window, and each particular defense. Each stunted action gains an appropriate dice bonus, as normal.
However, regardless of the number of times a character stunts per action, he is only granted stunt-based motes or Willpower once, based on the single highest-value stunt performed. In combat, this reward is granted when the character's DV refreshes.
For example, a Solar stunts three attacks in a flurry—a pair of one-die stunts followed by a two-die stunt. When his DV refreshes, he gains either four motes or one point of Willpower.
Diminishing Stunt Returns
Stunts are granted as rewards for descriptions and actions which make the game more exciting and interesting. As such, stunts fail to provide rewards as soon as the Storyteller judges them to be repetitive or uninteresting—kicking off of the wall to impart extra force to a blow directed at the opponent is cool. Doing it five times in a row probably isn't.
Stunting Perfect Effects
Even when there is no chance for failure, a character may perform a stunt normally to enhance any valid action or roll, such as a use of Heavenly Guardian Defense to parry.
Automatic Success
As stated previously, Storytellers should call for rolls only when a chance of failure exists and the possibility of failure adds to the drama of the scene. Requiring a roll to walk across a room is absurd, though crossing a floor covered in a spilled oil to put out a wobbling lantern before it crashes to the ground and sets the building ablaze is another matter altogether. In some situations, a task might normally require a roll, but the character is so skilled that failure is almost impossible. Automatic success occurs when a character has a sufficient number of dice in her pool (including all bonuses) to make a dice roll moot. Difficulty 1 tasks require dice equal to the target number, then three additional dice are required per difficulty point above one. Therefore, seven dice achieves automatic success on most difficulty 1 rolls, 10 dice at difficulty 2, 13 at difficulty 3, et cetera. Resisted rolls never benefit from automatic success as a result of high dice pools, although rolls made in the context of an extended action might. Any time a character is under great stress (such as in combat), automatic success shouldn't apply. Furthermore, automatic success shouldn't apply to dramatically critical rolls. Yes, it's phenomenally unlikely that the mighty Solar sorceress Anoria will misunderstand the occult formulae recorded in her spell primer, but if she does fail—or worse yet, botch—such failure could have dramatic consequences for the story when she tries to cast the spell she thinks she has mastered. With the aid of Charms or other magical bonuses, characters might have a sufficient number of dice in their pools to automatically succeed on tasks of difficulty 4+. However, actions of that complexity are often dramatically important enough that Storytellers will actually require a roll. Note that automatic success generates threshold zero—the success is sufficient to the task at hand, but no more. If players desire a higher threshold, they may forfeit automatic success in favor of a roll.
Order of Modifiers
Many effects can modify a character's dice pool in Exalted, and most of these effects are cumulative with one another. Whenever a pool has multiple modifiers applying to it, refer to the following checklist to avoid confusion:
- Step 1: Apply Non-Magical Bonuses: Add dice granted by stunts, specialties, equipment, Virtue channeling and anything else that applies.
- Step 2: Apply Non-Magical Penalties: Subtract dice for any internal penalties that apply. If the character has Essence 2+, note the total value of (wound penalties + multiple action penalties) for use in Step 5. This may reduce a pool to zero or even negative dice.
- Step 3: Apply Magical Bonuses: Add dice granted by Charms (such as Essence Overwhelming) or spells.
- Step 4: Apply Magical Penalties: Subtract dice removed by Charms or spells, such as the entropic magic of the Abyssal Exalted. This may reduce a pool to zero or even negative dice. If the character has Essence 1, use this pool.
- Step 5: Determine Minimum Dice: If the character has Essence 2+ and the modified pool is less than her Essence rating, the pool has a value of (Essence – the sum of wound penalties and multiple action penalties). This value cannot exceed the original unmodified pool, but it may be zero or negative.
- Step 6: Apply Bonus Successes: Add any successes gained from Charms, Willpower expenditure or other sources. If no such effects apply and the character has zero or negative dice remaining, the roll automatically fails.
Example: An Exalt has a unmodified dice pool of 5 and Essence 3. First, her player adds the one stunt die awarded by the Storyteller (dice pool 6). Next, she takes out one die for wounds and another four for fighting blind in pitch darkness (1). She adds no dice with magic (1), nor does she suffer any magical penalties (1). Because she is a magical being, her minimum dice pool is [(Essence 3) – (1 die of wound penalties)], for a final result of two dice.
Dealing with Interruptions
Characters engaged in an extended or dramatic action only "check in" with the plot at their intervals. When a character must spend 15 minutes investigating a murder scene and gathering clues, the success or failure of that investigation isn't apparent until the full 15 minutes are up. For the majority of these actions, the Storyteller can just skip ahead to the resolution rather than playing out the tedium of the task, unless of course the player wants to net a stunt award by describing various bits of the clue-gathering process. On the other hand, some scenes are more complicated. Suppose the sleuth proceeds five minutes into her investigation when the murderer returns and attacks her. Only a third of the way complete, her task is far from done. If she drives the masked murderer off, she can steady herself and resume her investigation where she left off, putting the clues together (or not) in another 10 minutes. If the murderer drives her off instead, she only has her incomplete data to go on. In these cases, the Storyteller may exercise either of the following options based on what best fits the situation:
- Automatic Failure: Without the requisite effort or time, the character automatically fails in the action. She can always try again, picking up where she left off (if possible) or starting over from scratch. This option can be frustrating for players, however.
- Partial Action: The Storyteller can allow the action's roll to go forward at some appropriate dice penalty, interpreting success at reduced effect. For example, a character might lose three dice from a six-die pool if she got only halfway through. Then, even if the player succeeds, the character achieves/learns only half as much. For another variant, the player can roll the pool normally without penalty, but the effects of success are proportionately limited to the effort achieved. In the case of an extended action, compare the successes accumulated to the successes required to determine overall progress, so a character interrupted in the middle of scaling a cliff with half the number of needed successes would be halfway up the cliff at the time of the interruption. Storytellers should keep in mind that players can abuse partial actions by intentionally creating distractions for themselves just to roll high pools without actually finishing dramatic actions.
Multiple Actions
In most non-combat scenes, the loose timing of events allows characters to apply their full concentration to every effort. Occasionally, however, events require characters to multitask or to perform a string of actions in extremely close succession. For example, a rider must keep control of his mount at all times in addition to anything else he wishes to do. Or perhaps, a character has to run across a stone bridge over a lava pit, dodging the spatters of molten rock rising from below. Whatever the situation, characters who take multiple actions suffer a special form of internal penalty. The first action loses dice equal to the number of actions attempted, with each successive action cumulatively increasing the penalty by one die. Therefore, a character taking three actions would be at -3 dice to the first action, -4 to the second and -5 to the third. In combat, multiple actions are extremely common and known as flurries. See Flurry.
Reflexive Actions
Some actions are reflexive, meaning they do not require any deliberate attention from the character to perform, nor do they cause or suffer from multiple-action penalties. If a character approaches an ambush, his player could certainly make regular (Perception + Awareness) rolls if the character was feeling paranoid. However, even if the character is not actively looking out for an ambush, he might notice the glint of moonlight on a crouched assassin's knife with just enough time to shout a warning and respond. The latter sort of check would be reflexive. Resisting poison and disease also count as reflexive actions (as do any action where the character has an innate defense that is rolled, rather than modifying the difficulty of a roll as most defenses do). Of particular note, the activation of a reflexive-type Charm is always a reflexive action.
Diceless Actions
When an action does not require a roll but takes time and effort to perform, it is called a diceless action. The most common example is automatic success, as explained previously. Diceless actions also crop up during combat, representing those tasks too routine for a roll but too important for timing purposes to make refl exive.
Dramatic Actions
Some actions, such as swinging a sword or leaping a chasm, take only moments to perform. Other actions take considerably longer, such as socializing at a party or roaming a city and pumping contacts for information. If an action operates on a longer time scale, requiring minutes of work and possibly a good deal more, the task is called a dramatic action. In many respects, dramatic actions are like extended actions in that they have an interval. However, unlike an extended action, a dramatic action is not a recurring accumulation of effort. Rather, the player cannot even make a roll on behalf of the action until the character has spent the requisite interval of time working.
In some cases, an entire extended effort can be condensed into a dramatic action, abstractly representing a series of possible successes and failures as a single test. Most often, this is done to speed play when the Storyteller deems that the action isn't important enough to require additional time.
Teamwork
Characters will occasionally cooperate on tasks. Depending on the situation, teamwork provides one of two forms of benefit. Whenever characters can apply their full effort to a task without any redundancy, such as a group trying to lift a portcullis, each player rolls (or applies a rating) for her character, and the group pools the successes. Most of the time, however, characters cannot cooperate perfectly. If two characters wish to perform surgery on a wounded patient, they cannot expect to geometrically increase their chances of success just because they are working together. Similarly, in any roll based on knowing facts, characters typically draw on a common (and thus redundant) education. Regardless, whenever an action doesn't allow for total pooling of effort, but teamwork still provides some benefit, use the following system.
Roll the highest dice pool among the collaborating characters, adding bonus dice equal to the number of characters with at least one dot in the required Ability who are providing aid. The cooperation bonus cannot exceed the Ability rating of the character making the roll. As always, the Storyteller remains the final arbiter of what method of teamwork (if any) applies to a task.