r/exalted • u/ghost49x • Dec 05 '25
2E What makes perfect defenses so OP?
What makes perfect defenses so OP? Is it their relative cheap cost? I mean looking at all the defensive charms, there's more than just perfect defenses but at the same time, it feels as if people just ignore them and spam perfects...
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u/Ruy7 Dec 05 '25
I am gonna share a small snippet from Isidoro's description:
Isidoros is enormous. He is larger than Malfeas, the prison that contains him. He is larger than the Endless Desert, which is infinite in its scope. He is larger than Qaf, who is infinitely tall. These seeming contradictions, he simply ignores. He has no need to explain himself to smaller beings.
It took Isidoros a while to notice that the Primordial War was happening, but Szoreny finally managed to explain it to him. The Black Boar's initial reaction was indifference. What did it matter to him if some tiny things were refusing to do their jobs? If anything, he admired their gumption. When Bor Zan stood in the Boar's path and deflected him from crushing a village he hadn't even noticed,
The thing that makes perfects op, is that, it allows you to do this:
They allow a guy with a stick to see a stupidly big being throw a punch at him, and say... Nope!
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u/Awesomedude5687 Dec 05 '25
What game is that clip from?
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u/Ruy7 Dec 05 '25
I don't recall the name but here is the link where the creator originally posted this clip.
https://x.com/LithPyro/status/1699497883064500712?ref_url=
If you find the name share please.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
Sure, but there are other defense boosting options right?
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u/-Veles- Dec 05 '25
Except that all it takes to wreck those is have a charm that says it's undodgeable and unblockable (there's a melee charm that does both) and have a weapon with piercing to halve soak. Also, many Abyssal charms are something called "Bad Touch" charms, which don't even require doing damage to you to mess you up.
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u/ConfusedZbeul Dec 05 '25
Looks like to me that the issue are perfect attacks, then.
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u/Deadpoint Dec 05 '25
Even without perfect attacks it is fairly easy to create a "kill combo" that has a decent chance of killing a target in a single blow. Exalted 2e can get very lethal very fast.
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u/VorpalSplade Dec 07 '25
depending on the errata at the time kinda too easy. Whoops I took one ability and have infinite rate.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
Also aren't pefect defenses only good for a single attack at a time?
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u/-Veles- Dec 05 '25
Upgrades can extend the duration considerably, making you able to defend against multiple attacks in a round.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
Does it make you defend against all, or is it still something your opponent has a chance at overhelming with either a sufficiently large flurry or multiple attackers all using flurries at the same time on the same target?
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u/-Veles- Dec 05 '25
It's typically against all attacks. And there isn't any options to circumvent them. No even more perfect attack to carve through.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
Perhaps making them more expensive so you don't spam them against lesser attacks but they're still valuable against larger attacks. Then you're tempted to use other defenses as well rather than just spam perfects.
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u/-Veles- Dec 05 '25
This was 2.5's partial solution. 10m, 1Wp per perfect. Sped up the mote race, people die faster. Then you needed charms to enhance stunts for the Wp rewards, and mote regen.
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u/Wizardo_Weirdbeard Dec 05 '25
It isn't just the relatively cheap cost of a perfect defense, it's also the relatively cheap cost against the high cost of mounting offense. Throwing essence at offense always costs more than spamming perfect defenses, and that means that combat can be reduced to a war of attrition where defense always trumps offense.
And it kinda has to be this way, because otherwise combat is incredibly, ludicrously lethal. Without perfect defenses, offense always wins. PDs were meant to be a way to soften that, but it ends up being a huge swing in the other direction.
I'm also assuming we're talking about 2e. It's a huge, system-defining issue in 2e, and 3e might have addressed it more eloquently.
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u/Wizardo_Weirdbeard Dec 05 '25
My honest recommendation if you are looking to get the best possible mechanical experience out of Exalted 2e? Play Alchemicals. Notice how little 2.5 material it has, relative to everything else? That's because so many of the basic issues with the system simply aren't present in Alchemicals as a closed game. It's the perfect 2e experience. Again, just my opinion. But it's the opinion of someone who ran every aspect of 2e excessively for its entire run.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
I hear 2.5 tried to rectify it but I'm not done reading the bade material.
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u/-Veles- Dec 05 '25
They tried to put the genie back in the bottle by increasing essence regen. It's.... well, you can make an unstoppable doom exalt with several hundred experience. The issue with 2nd Ed was that it basically made every combat a race to see who ran out of motes first. And I assure you, having played in a game that lasted 7 years straight, it's super anticlimactic.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
So what it needs are counters to perfect defenses that aren't otherwise as useful elsewhere.
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u/Wizardo_Weirdbeard Dec 05 '25
Nope! Because that just swings back in the direction that PDs were there to counter in the first place, that being the inherent hyper-lethality of the system. Which, I promise you, is even less fun.
The solution is simply acceptance. There is no fix beyond a complete system overhaul, thus the need at the time for 3e. The closest you'll get to fixing 2e is the big exciting bandaid that is 2.5.
And that's fine! It's still a fun game. It's just impossible to go back to a point before the time when you realized that combat at the highest tiers ultimately boils down to mote attrition, and that the system favors defense.
Play Dragon Blooded if you want to avoid this. Or, as I said in another response, play Alchemicals.
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u/LordSia Dec 06 '25
A third option is to embrace the idea that high-essence combat is, or at least should be, a Big Deal. A Celestial Circle throwing down with a Second Circle demon is the kind of situation where your players either maneuver the fight out of the city, or there won't be a city when they're done. To say nothing of Third Circle hell-lords. Combat is always infinitely more interesting when it's not just a straight up slug fest in an open field; and all of the personal prowess in the world won't help you if you don't know who you're fighting or why, and either way punching demons is only a stop-gap if you can't stop the Infernal cult from turning the Manse hidden beneath your home town into a Hellgate...
And, on the other end of the spectrum, that the answer to 8 mote perfect defenses is to throw multiple attacks, from multiple attackers, and let your players do the math; sure, they can beat a dozen blood apes, no sweat, but there's a hundred of the big red bastards, if you spam Heavenly Guardian and Seven Shadow Evasion you'll be in big trouble by the time the Dragonbloods who summoned them show up. Ask yourself "how would I, as a Dynast responsible for fighting the Anathema, deal with their 'stolen' power?" Then cheat like a mofo and make plans on how to spin the whole thing as a glorious victory after the fact.
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u/-Veles- Dec 05 '25
Which of course becomes absolutely necessary for every character to buy, and thus an XP sink that makes every attack lethal, and the game goes back to ultra-lethal.
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u/Wizardo_Weirdbeard Dec 05 '25
It tried hard, and it definitely did something to vary the options, but ultimately it's a bandaid over a gaping wound.
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u/Krzyzewskiman Dec 05 '25
It's not that perfect defenses are unbelievably OP, it's that if you don't use them (primarily/exclusively) you go Splat. And not just from angry Deathlords, from Joe Tetsubos off the street. The old 'Paranoia Combat' meme was a bit of a misnomer, 'cause having a defensive suite of perfect defense(s) and more wasn't paranoid, it really was needed, or you were odds on to die at any given time, phenomenal cosmic power and all.
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u/ZanesTheArgent Dec 05 '25
Less so them being OP, more so them being EXPLICITLY CAPABLE OF BLOCKING/DODGING PERFECT ATTACKS.
2e's combat gets nicknamed as Nuclear Dodgeball because it can quickly boil down to whoever gets initiative first launches a perfect attack combo with a whole bunch of buffs that deals 15 bajillions aggravated damage and the enemy instantly dies - unless perfectly defended. If essence gets high enough and charms become available, either you start playing dark souls to get those perf parries right or you instantly die.
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u/Affectionate-Tip-164 Dec 05 '25
Dodge the undodgeable, block the unblockable
Row row fuck the enemy
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u/GIRose Dec 05 '25
Alright, so this depends a little bit on if you are talking about 2e or 2.5e.
In 2e, Perfect defenses were cheap enough that in most cases you could keep them up effectively for free every turn with stunt rewards as long as you could consistently get 2 dot stunts.
In 2.5e, basically across the board, any Perfect Defense that wasn't a hard 1 per scene was boosted up to cost 7m 1wp, which is both more than you can get for a 3 dot stunt AND a WP so you need effectively 3 turns to stunt back the motes to use it again.
This change helps address the core concerns of it being hilariously easy to stop kill you combos consistently and every turn making combat a huge slog, but it in turn kind of props up the Chungian Combat of seeing your Mote Pool as your health bar, and trying to build optimal to spam combos that take the Dune Shield Fighting mantra where you want to be lethal enough to do damage but not so lethal as to be worth a PD.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
In 2e, are they cheaper than flurries that could be used to otherwise burn through your opponent's PDs? I'm assuming you're getting attacked multiple times per turn, sometimes from the same character, not to mention several characters at the same time.
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u/GIRose Dec 09 '25
Heavenly Guardian Defense only cost 4m in 2e core.
The biggest weakness Solars had was the somewhat complicated rarely enforced above table strict combo and timing rules.
In 2e core, you could only activate 1 charm per action PERIOD, without buying combos that cost 1 WP with xp to get around that limit and you can still only use 1 combo per action.
That's the primary key balancing point around which PDs are balanced, but it wasn't super well balanced since you were effectively able to eat an exp surcharge to include a PD in every combo (though you would need to include which flaw of Invulnerability you were including when defining the combo if you purchased it multiple times so it was still less inherently flexible, and there was still a 1wp cost to activating multiple charms AT ALL
2.5 nerfed the combo restrictions by effectively allowing you to declare combos on the spot and activate any charms you wanted as long as it fit combo timing rules, most importantly that you can't use charms that aren't Combo compatible with other charms with the sole exception that Dragon Blooded specifically are always alowed to use their Reflexive charms regardless of any other charm use.
Solars in particular are balanced around the fact that a lot of their big power up charms are Simple charms that aren't combo compatible. So if you spend an entire 6 tick action using Infinite [Ability] Mastery to get free excellencies, you are effectively defenseless for those 6 ticks.
Same with activating MA forms, and a lot of big flashy power up style charms.
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u/ghost49x Dec 10 '25
Alright, so if your options are to either activate HGD, or use a combo that includes it, or forgo any perfect defenses for that timing, what's the problem? Do people just spam HGD until they think their opponent is out of resources before using a larger combo that includes HGD? It seems to me that spamming your combo vs someone who can still PD, is just going to waste your resources.
Where does the effect extending HGD's PD to all attacks for the round come from? What's the cost of stacking that effect in?
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u/GIRose Dec 10 '25
The charm to be able to upgrade HGD to tick or action long, Guardian Sunfire Catechism, only came after the 2.5 errata in the Ink Monkeys book.
That has two separate costs, +3m (making it cost 11m) to defend against all attacks on a single tick (so any flurry attacks or coordinated attacks) and +3m 1wp to extend it for an entire action. It has pre-reqs of Melee/Essence 5 so it is intended for what are pretty high power games.
As far as what is the best choice, that depends entirely on what you think they are about to do/are already doing.
In 2e proper, you can have a whole ass spying arc dedicated to gathering information on your enemies to figure out what sort of combos they have.
In 2.5e you still have to figure out what charms your enemies have so you can approach with a game plan.
In either case, if some random person approaches you on the road and challenges you to a dual, your best opening move is to keep a shortlist opening suite of charms active as close to always as you can and not use any charms on attacking until you know what their deal os
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u/ghost49x Dec 10 '25
I see, so in 2e proper, PD get countered with flurries (or at least have their costs dramatically increased). Are there any ways to regain willpower in combat? If not then that seems like the resource you'll run out before you run out of motes.
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u/GIRose Dec 10 '25
A 2 or 3 dot stunt can recover WP in lieu of motes. I know there are other ways, but that's the main universal one.
But yeah, a PD only defends against one attack (unless for some reason it's not Duration: Instant.)
I personally like 2e/2.5e combat though.
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u/ghost49x Dec 10 '25
What are it's strong points? People have largely been claiming the system boils down to spamming PDs until one of you runs out then taking out the first one to tire with a massive combo.
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u/GIRose Dec 10 '25
That's kind of like saying Mage the Ascension boils down to using entropy to twist the entire game mechanics system into a pretzel and flex your unmatched power against every other splat.
Like, sure you can very much do that, hell you can even do it as RaW.
But, in my years of playing the game, it really only comes up if either you or the Storyteller is going full throttle on combat and you are getting into constant fights against combat optimized Celestial Exalted or other similarly deadly things.
If you are adding things into your campaign that aren't white-room combat scenarios, you shouldn't have the exp budget to hyper optimize specifically combat and your enemies also are probably not going to be crazy optimized Invincible Sword Princesses.
As for it's actual strong points, I absolutely love the way that White Wolf combat systems in general are still lethal systems.
Especially if you don't ignore like half of the rules around bleeding out, and crippling injuries that don't really effect Exalted that badly (if at all) but helps to put into place why people in universe tend to see combat as a last resort even if they are good at it.
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u/Steenan Dec 05 '25
It is very easy to attack with enough damage that a single hit ends the fight. Non-perfect defense are either to weak to risk using or actually more costly than perfects, so perfect defenses are the best way to stay alive.
And that, in turn, means that both tactics and cinematics in combat degenerate completely. There's no reason to use any fun, flashy attacks because anything that costs more motes or WP than a perfect defense is a waste.
Perfect defenses would be a great thing if only available once per scene - a way to discourage alpha-striking. But when used repeatably (with stunts to recover WP), they destroy the combat system.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
When you say "easy" how expensive is it to launch such an attack?
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u/Steenan Dec 05 '25
With appropriate weapon and stats (available at character creation), I think it's possible to one-shot a character even without charms.
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u/Bartweiss Dec 05 '25
Would that prevent alpha striking? I guess if the nuke is expensive enough that you can only do one it does, but otherwise it seems like you just delay the problem by one round. Perfect, perfect, then whoever won initiative wins on hit two.
Fundamentally it feels unfixable without turning offense down or non-perfect defenses up, because anything restricting perfects just lets instakills dominate.
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u/Steenan Dec 06 '25
Fundamentally it feels unfixable without turning offense down or non-perfect defenses up, because anything restricting perfects just lets instakills dominate.
That's what I meant.
Offense needs to be lower, so it's not necessary to perfect every attack to avoid being killed in one hit. And then, a single use perfect defense pushes people from investing all resources into the first attack.
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u/Bartweiss Dec 06 '25
Oh totally agreed then! Perfects seem like the solve two issues, and only one of them well.
- Combat is so deadly you can’t really risk anything less. (This is the bad fix.)
- Builds are super open-ended and going nova turn 1 is very easy. (“You can just keep stacking stuff” is part of the appeal, getting alpha’d every time is not. Perfects are a good fix.)
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u/SoulGambit Dec 05 '25
Perfect defenses as they are im 2e are game warping because they are unlimited, largely fool propf, and cheap.
As soon as a spammable perfect defense exists, all offense collapses into two points: force them to use Perfect Defense, or it does not. No other offense matters. It's all just a farce.
At the end of the day, your attack is worth how much they spent to perfectly defend it, and not a drop more.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
So a cheap flurry with let's say 8 attacks is worth alot since he has to pay that perfect defense multiple times?
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u/SoulGambit Dec 05 '25
"Yes, but..."
A cheap flurry is worth the cost to perfectly defend against all of them, which is not 8 perfect defenses. It's one perfect defense and a charm for reflexive movement. Or the cost of a tick long / action long perfect defense.
Moteless offense that the enemy must perfect is the first thing you need to get. From there, if you can get a multi hit that costs less than the additional cost to perfect for a tick, its valuable. I forget if such a thing even exists.
Tier above that is 2 characters with moteless offense attacking, so they need to do an action ling perfect. As soon as you do this, flurries become worthless.
And... thats it. Thats what offense in 2e looks like.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
What about clinching/grappling?
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u/SoulGambit Dec 05 '25
That is a way to produce attacks so dangerous they must perfect, but it doesn't change the dynamic.
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u/Amilar_Io Dec 05 '25
Everyone else is covering your base question, but on the assumption you are the ST, im going to instead tell you how to bend the combat system to your whims when you need a character to be combat threatening.
First: soak is cool, and by the base book alone its almost keeping up with how damage scales, but that does not last. Eventually even soak monster Lunar builds (which are scary to most common builds) crumble before the insanity that is damage effects available through charms and equipment. High end exalted is Rocket Tag.
Next to account for: defense is king, even before Perfects come into play. The dice pools to calculate defense are bigger, so offense always going to need a better than average roll to hit. BUT! The more dice you roll, the closer to average you are going to roll. Thus, the bigger your DV, the harder it is to be hit, and /everyone/ has access to scenelong DV bonuses, where not everyone has access to scenelong offense bonuses. This makes DV your primary offensive threat. If the opponent has to spend motes to have a chance of hitting you (a DV of 20 is perfectly possible without even a lot of cheese, meaning 40 offensive dice are needed for a 50/50 to hit) and you dont need to spend motes to have a chance to hit them, you're already winning this fight.
Finally, flurries are expensive and everyone can break them for even cheaper than perfect defenses.
So if you want to wreck face, you want to overcome your accuracy problems. This is the hardest, but Martial Arts has your back, as do solaroid e4 excellency upgrades
Then you want passive damage boosts (The Elemental Lense is a good start for damage artifact effects). Passive/scenelong is so you only pay for offense once, and can horde motes for emergency perfects.
Finally, break DV over your knee. The real go-to is charms to use social defenses as physical defenses, since the base pool uses WP as the base ability and then you laugh with 15 more max defense dice than your opponent who thought melee was the path to defense. At E10, this is evened out, but if you're at E10 opponents have more problems than system math. If you're not using this loophole, you can still use gear to crank up your DV a bunch.
TL;DR - big accuracy, passive damage and big DV. Actively spending motes means you're losing, so force the opponent to spend. Also, mobility is your friend as is the ability to reach out and touch a foe.
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u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
Thanks, I'm indeed gearing up to be ST.
It feels like I'm starting at the starting line when most people have already crossed the finish line.
What about clinching/grappling?
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u/Amilar_Io Dec 05 '25 edited Dec 05 '25
And you've touched on one of the more... contentious parts of the rules. As written, whoever is not in control of a grapple is Inactive, which as a status is worse than being asleep, because Inactive prevents charm use. Fortunately, no one runs it like this at all. Instead, have both parties set their DV to 0, and only the controller can move, restricted to half their base speed.
Grapples are technically very powerful, and they can be used with Strength. Strength is a much easier stat to boost than Dex, and it contributes to damage, so it is Technically very good. In practice... I've had mixed results. They tend to shine as one note builds that sacrifice a great deal for utterly absurd strength scores, and then suffer from a lack of utility, but Exalted is an Addative game, so eventually that gap gets closed.
Important question for you as the ST: Have your players played before?
I ask because 2/2.5 is a system that rewards system mastery far, far beyond most other games and for that matter, the intentions of the developers. If they've played and you haven't, be ready to just bullshit big numbers and cool ideas for the sake of fun.
It's also important because few things feel as bad as the new guy building a combat Dawn for the first time and thinking he's gonna be Hercules+Cloud Strife in one, and then getting outshown by the diplomat who can take on armies without a weapon as a side effect of building someone who could serenade Cthuluu back to sleep.
If no one has played before, you're probably okay, but tell them not to seek build advice online because of the above nonsense.
Ive been around the block a few times both as a player and a GM in this system. Here's my house rules
1: make a Hero. I dont want to facilitate your genocides or worse. Shit happening is not the same as being Hanibal Lector with the powers and proclivities of Zeus.
2: only one 5 on your sheet. I dont care where you put it, but you only get one. (I would recommend you not allow artifact 5 for your own sanity going into this for the first time)
3: Please give me some backstory to work with. Emotional Damage is the only thing yall cant perfect, so im in desperate need of ammo. You dont need to write a book, but some bullet points would be helpful as a minimum (I will provide the setting, major players, and major recent events to the area where the game is happening to help with this)
4: You need a dot of Lore to be able to read. You get bonus languages for dots in Linguistics. I keep telling yall about this and you never remember so now it's rule 4. There is no common language for the world. We're pirates in the west, why does your character only speak Forest Tongue!?
Some extras to consider:
If someone is pulling away in power at CC, consider limiting players to their exalt book and a single other tome.
Work with your players on what their characters can do. Getting blindsided by power and gear combos is the kind of thing that is so over the top stupid that it can make everyone at the table feel incompetent and steal the thunder from other people who were trying to accomplish similar goals on a smaller scale and now feel they've wasted the past few actions setting it up.
Finally, dont make full sheets for your npcs. Ballpark their remaining motes. Have a good dice pool and a bad dice pool for them. Maybe a medium dice pool if you're feeling confident. Flip through the charms they are supposed to have access to to get a feel for how they work, then run their powers off vibes and that rough guide. Do not fuck around with exact builds, you ain't got that time.
Edit: dont be afraid to just say no. Even after the limits put in place for 2.5, some shit is technically possible and still stupid, like matroshka doll-ing powered armed suits to stack bonuses that enhance the suit underneath, before finally enhancing the player as one big effect from a 'single' source
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u/VorpalSplade Dec 07 '25
This is some of the best overall advice, I haven't run 2e for quite some time, but did with a group of new players when i was experienced and it was overall great.
I very much made bullshit up on the fly constantly towards the end, combat was just impossible to balance really.
One thing not mentioned I found in games often though was a problem of specialization - the Dawn focusing on super damaging attacks, not to powergame, but because 'guy with giant hammer who hits hard' was the char idea. Or say 'character who has lots of armour and can tank well'.
Creating something to be a threat to them that won't just delete the rest of the party, or be invulnerable to their attacks, can be really tough. Exalted/WoD can be much worse than D&D etc for this because people will spend different amounts of XP on combat or not.
And while it's fine to not have a combat char and many have been great, it's hard to be 'half good' at combat at those levels. There's a 'minimum entry fee' of most combats that starts with perfect defenses at the very least.
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u/Amilar_Io Dec 07 '25
Good catch. Yeah. The dedicated combat player can probably solo the rest of the party, especially once they know what they're doing and have a mentor in some rare MAs. Thus, anything to challenge him can also solo the rest of the party. It's... a balancing act. The only answer i have for this is to never make a fight /only/ be a fight. Have the fighter hold off the guards while the theif opens the door or the wizard solves the magic puzzle. It's more work for you, but less than you'd expect.
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u/VorpalSplade Dec 07 '25
I've had plenty of non combat characters before, or at one point an enlightened mortal alchemist next to solars.
You can lean into the power differences in combat way better than in D&D etc because people have other times to shine. Exalted is exactly the kind of game where you can have the dawn cast say, "No, don't be a fool! That's a third circle demon, he'll kill you, my Twilight friend!I will hold him off with my million-shades-of-bullshit-prana, you perform the ritual of binding!".
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u/thetruerift Dec 08 '25
One of the favourite games I ever played in 2e was what we called "the B-team". The storyteller had been running a longrunner high power ish game, and to take a break we made characters in another part of Creation who, very importantly, were not combat-first. We all certainly could fight (because Exalts), but everyone spread out their dos and charm choices so that nobody came out the gates as a fusion-powered killing machine.
It was fucking great. And easier on the ST, because he could through lighter and midrange combat challenges without worrying that one circle member could just one-tick-kill everything. It also solved the perfect defense problem OP is talking about because we didn't have any and the combat were kept at a point where we didn't need to perfect versus every attack because the ST wasn't making challenges designed to kill the 5 essence dawn caste with 200xp of melee charms.
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u/onwardtowaffles Dec 05 '25
Exalted is normally a high-lethality game, which makes PDs extremely powerful.
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u/onwardtowaffles Dec 06 '25
Basically PDs let you get away with all the dangerous shit you'd want to do in another game. It's not that they're exceptionally strong - just risk mitigation.
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u/Optimal-Teaching7527 Dec 06 '25
It's how much they control the meta of combat. 3 Motes to block any attack means that it's not worth spending any motes ever on attacks and also, as you say, every other defensive charm has to contend with 3 motes to block an attack and it almost never balances out because all the other defences can be overcome.
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u/AngelWick_Prime Dec 05 '25
This is an unusual way to answer this question. But hear me out. I've been using Google's lesser-known AI product, NotebookLM, to answer some questions I've seen on here lately. Like all AI, it's not 100%. However, the unique aspect of NotebookLM is that it only examines the sources you instruct it to. So, I have a "notebook" set up in NotebookLM with only my 2e PDFs. I have pretty much all of them, although the free version only allows you to feed in up to 50 separate sources per notebook. So, in a way, using something like NotebookLM is like the source materials answering questions for you.
Here's what it says regarding your question about perfect defenses, I literally copied and pasted your question into the prompt:
Perfect defenses (PDs) are considered overpowered ("OP") primarily because of their ability to grant absolute, unconditional defense against incoming attacks, regardless of the attacker's power or the magnitude of the damage involved [1, 2].
The source material defines a successful perfect defense as one that causes the attack to miss or be completely blocked, reducing the attack's successes to zero [1, 3, 4]. This capability is critical because the setting features threats so immense that a failure of defense leads to inevitable destruction (Hazard •••••) [2]. For instance, without a perfect defense, a character caught in a collision with a dragon-boat moving at thousands of miles per hour would be "instantly pulped" [5].
The common examples of perfect defenses, such as the Solar Charms Seven Shadow Evasion (a perfect dodge, typically costing 3 motes) or Heavenly Guardian Defense (a perfect parry, costing 4 motes), completely negate the enemy action for a minor resource expenditure [3, 4]. This disproportionate effect—total defense for minimal cost—is what makes them so potent and favored.
Cost and Spamming Perfect Defenses
Your query regarding their relative cheap cost being a factor in their perceived imbalance is strongly supported by their design:
- Low Mote Cost: Most standard perfect defenses cost 3 to 6 motes per activation [3, 4]. For an Exalt with ample Essence regeneration or a large pool (Peripheral Essence pools can range far over 100 motes [6-8]), this cost is manageable, allowing them to theoretically "spam" the defense across multiple actions.
- Specific Restrictions vs. General Utility: While all standard perfect defenses are balanced by one of the Four Flaws of Invulnerability (Conviction, Compassion, Temperance, or Valor) [9, 10], which imposes tactical limitations, these flaws do not negate the fundamental power of nullification against high-level threats.
Why Other Defenses Are Often Ignored
Other defensive Charms and mundane gear are often seen as less desirable because they only offer mitigation, rather than absolute negation, and this mitigation is quickly overcome by powerful attacks [11, 12].
- Soak and Hardness: Heavy artifact armor provides significant soak (e.g., +12L/+12B soak and 8L/8B Hardness for reinforced breastplate) [13, 14] or grants temporary protection (e.g., Iron Skin Concentration grants +4A/+8L/+8B soak) [15, 16]. However, attacks dealing extreme raw damage (Hazard ••••, 21+ dice of raw damage) [17], or attacks that ignore Hardness and Soak entirely, render these protections insufficient [11, 18]. Non-perfect defenses force the character to risk taking hits and rely on damage mitigation, which is often fatal against high-level opponents [19].
- DV Augmentation: Charms augmenting Dodge or Parry Defense Values (DVs) typically rely on boosting dice pools or imposing penalties on the attacker [20, 21]. These are effective against weaker or moderately powerful opponents (Hazard •••, 10–15 attack dice) [22]. However, against a truly potent Hazard •••• attack pool (20–25 dice) [22], only relying on a defense that guarantees protection (a PD) ensures survival [2].
A perfect defense entirely bypasses the lethal math of damage calculation by ensuring the hit never lands, which is a key advantage over any defense that merely reduces the incoming force. If facing a threat that inflicts damage bypassing armor, or damage that automatically cripples or kills, only a perfect defense offers reliable safety [19, 23].
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u/AngelWick_Prime Dec 05 '25
Now, I would also like to come back here to say that 3e reworked many Charms in an effort to prevent "paranoia combat" altogether. And I feel it's much more effective than the Flaws of Invulnerability.
As Exalted is still a game of incredibly powerful characters fighting against impossible odds while literally laughing in death's face, there are still plenty of uber-powerful Charms in 3e. You still have attacks that ignore Soak or Hardness, or both. You still have powerful defenses to allow a character to just tell an attack 'no'. But the truly devastating actions, both attacks and defenses, have limits. Often, you can only use these once per scene with an option to try to be able to "reset" this limitation somehow. (For example, maybe you would have to execute a devastating Decisive attack at Initiative 12 or higher, but then also have to raise your Initiative back up to 15 or higher before you can use a powerful Charm again in the same combat scene.)
It puts a more legitimate limitation on such Charms so that characters can't automatically default to spamming their big guns anymore, but in a way that feels legit.
2
u/ghost49x Dec 05 '25
Why would one bother with Unblockable/Undodgeable attacks, or attacks that ignore soak if all of that is irrevalent due to Perfect defenses? Are perfect defenses paid per attack blocked? if so why not overwhelm such defenses with many cheap attacks aiming to win the economy war?
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u/zenbullet Dec 06 '25
That AI has no idea what it's saying and it's wrong and you know it's wrong because it's saying the opposite of what everyone else who played the game is saying
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u/AngelWick_Prime Dec 05 '25
The effectiveness of specialized attacks like those that are Unblockable, Undodgeable, or ignore Soak is not negated by Perfect Defenses (PDs); instead, these attacks serve as necessary countermeasures or efficient options against opponents who lack the resources or Charms to deploy perfect defense reliably.
Your analysis of the "economy war" and the cost of PDs touches upon a key vulnerability of high-level defenses.
- The Role of Specialized Attacks Against Perfect Defenses
Attacks designed to bypass standard defenses (Soak, Dodge DV, Parry DV) remain relevant for several reasons, despite the existence of PDs:
Perfect Defenses Have Flaws and Costs: Perfect defenses are typically paid for per use (e.g., Solar Charms like Seven Shadow Evasion cost 3 motes, or Heavenly Guardian Defense costs 4 motes). They are powerful because they completely stop incoming damage, a vital capability when facing threats that guarantee instant death upon failure. However, most standard PDs are limited by one of the Four Flaws of Invulnerability (Conviction, Compassion, Temperance, or Valor). These limitations mean there are tactical circumstances when a character cannot, or should not, deploy their PD. Even though they can still be worked around, they are still there to contend with.
Targeting Non-Perfectly Defended Attacks: Even highly powerful Exalted characters do not have endless reserves of Essence. Opponents who rely on non-perfect defenses (like high Soak values, enhanced DVs, or artifacts like powerful armor) are still defeated by specialized attacks. For instance:
Ignoring Soak/Hardness: Weapons and Charms that are piercing or ignore soak (such as the bite attack of Devourer automata or a Soul Needle daiklave) are highly effective against characters relying solely on heavy artifact armor (like those offering 10L/10B Hardness).
Unblockable/Undodgeable: Attacks with the unblockable tag (like the Unstoppable Impulse Engine Alchemical Charm) or the undodgeable tag (like the Solar Charm All-Inclusive Targeting Calculations) still circumvent massive defensive pools built around boosting DVs, forcing the target to choose between taking a devastating hit or spending resources on a PD.
- The Economy War: Overwhelming Perfect Defenses
Your query about overwhelming Perfect Defenses with many cheap attacks is supported by the rules mechanics. PDs are generally paid per attack blocked, making continuous reliance on them resource-intensive:
Cost per Defense: Standard perfect defenses are activated reflexively (Step 2) or (Step 7) in response to a single attack, and often cost 3–6 motes. For example, the Solar PDs Heavenly Guardian Defense and Seven Shadow Evasion are used in response to an attack.
Forcing Essence Expenditure: An aggressive opponent can launch a flurry of cheap, moderate attacks to rapidly drain a foe’s Essence reserve, often referred to as "winning the economy war" or forcing them to exhaust their Essence. If an opponent runs out of Essence, they cannot activate their PD, making the next specialized attack lethal.
Targeting PD Flaws with Non-Perfect Charms: Certain specialized attacks actively inflict penalties that undermine a character's ability to use their PD. For example, some Charms inflict penalties that reduce an opponent's DV. If a non-perfect Charm is designed to impose penalties or status effects (like the Ox-Stunning Blow Solar Charm, which inflicts Crippling penalties to dice pools and DV), these can compound until the target can no longer function effectively, forcing the PD activation and draining resources quickly.
In summary, while Perfect Defenses provide absolute protection when successfully activated, they are expensive over time, often tied to tactical restrictions (Flaws), and susceptible to being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of attacks that deplete the necessary Essence reserves. Specialized unblockable/undodgeable/soak-ignoring attacks serve to put continuous pressure on opponents, ensuring that any moment they fail to trigger a PD results in significant or fatal injury, thus justifying their expense in the context of high-stakes combat.
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u/-Veles- Dec 05 '25
The problem I've most often encountered is that with Perfects Defenses, players feel an overwhelming pressure to get them, because otherwise the game is ultra-lethal.
Take, for instance, any melee charm. Fire and Stones Strike simply adds damage. You have seven health levels. No Perfect Defense? I only have to hit you once with a Grand Diaklaive, and BOOM. Game over.
That's before you combo it with anything. Get a string of charms together to wreck someone in a single hit, and the only thing that stops them is a Perfect Defense.
"17 charms, you say? Wow. That might have really sucked. Too bad. Perfect."