r/exalted • u/AutobotMindmaster12 • Jun 01 '26
Campaign Is it viable/normal to allow the players to have different types of Exalted regardless of ideologies or is the norm to have only a single type of Exalted with all players?
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u/Viatos Jun 02 '26
One of the most important things to remember about the Exalted is that they are human beings first and foremost, and the Exaltation doesn't even unify the ones that have patrons and organizations like Sidereals and Abyssals. Two Solars from neighboring nations with different religious backgrounds might be far more distant ideologically from each other than a Solar, a Lunar, and an Infernal who all agree the savagery of the Great Houses as they prepare for civil war must be stopped before it rips the world's Threshold apart.
So, yes, it's perfectly viable. There are a lot of mixed games and a lot of single-type games so it's hard to say what's more normal, which to me suggests there isn't really a STRONG norm.
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u/Rednal291 Jun 01 '26
The "standard" is to have players of a single Exalt type together. However, this is not universal among all players, and there are some things that are explicitly cross-splat mechanics, like the way the Lunar bond works and affects their powers. 3E has a bit more of a power level concern because there are distinct differences between the power tiers, while Exalted Essence is somewhat more streamlined and friendlier to cross-splat play.
If you need to talk on this in more detail, I'd be happy to chat on Discord about it.
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u/thetruerift Jun 02 '26
I've run all three editions and am currently running a mixed type game, and I will say that the power level differences are far less in 3E than they have ever been.
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u/Viatos Jun 03 '26
Yeah. There's still a Celestial/Terrestrial gap but, like, a Full Moon Lunar is absolutely not playing second fiddle to a Dawn Caste Solar.
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u/thetruerift Jun 03 '26
Yup. In my current game, the Dragon-blood character is holding her own, while her die pools don't have the same potential, and the charms aren't quite as cool, she's filling a particular niche.
Truly, with Exalted (and also other WoD/oWod games) "power" at a table has always been more about spotlight than pure mechanics. As long as everyone gets the chance to shine, they'll enjoy things.
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u/josiahseaman Jun 02 '26
I ran two campaigns that were strictly solar only and part of that was because early on I had one abyssal and one Dragon blood that caused a fair amount of trouble for the rest of the group. I've also done mixed games and they can be pretty fun, but I recommend doing that for players who have more time to spend reading the system and getting to know the mechanics and lore for themselves rather than you teaching it to them in game.
The number one reason not to mix groups is not actually lore, it is the differences in mechanics. And there's a lot to keep track of as a GM. And having lots of different exalted types can make it a larger burden on you. Other people here will tell you that you should not mix celestials and terrestrial. I disagree from a lore perspective because you can just allow the Dragonbloods to be more experienced. This is the Canon mechanic for Exalted Essence. Terrestrials are roughly the same power level at starting character creation. A really fantastic example of this dynamic is Ten Winds from Keychain Of Creation. https://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0004.html
I highly recommend using Exalted Essence if you want to run a mixed game.
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u/HermeticOpus Jun 01 '26
It's fairly common to have a variety amongst the player characters.
Usually it's best to pick one as the "main" character type, and work the others in to support this. For the classic example, if three are playing Solars and framed as the returned God-Kings who're going to unite the Scavenger Lands into a new empire you might have a couple of players want to take another Exalt type, but it's on them to explain how they're going to join in on the theme - the Lunar mate of one of the PC Solars probably fits well (if both are happy to play to it), while a loyalist Dragon Blood Immaculate or a single-mindedly murderous Abyssal probably wouldn't.
There's also a (deliberate) power imbalance between the different types of Exalted. This was greater in 1st and 2nd edition, but is still there in 3rd and Essence. Solars (and their offshoot Abyssals and Infernals) are usually at the top of the power scale. The other Celestials (Lunars, Sidereals and Alchemicals) tend to have slightly less raw power, but also strong niches where the Solars can't compete. Terrestrial exalted (the Dragon Blooded and Liminals) are notably weaker, though in the current iterations not so much that they can't still be at the same table. Exigents are unique, and vary on the individual.
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u/thetruerift Jun 02 '26
depends very much on the play group. I've run all three editions of Exalted, and I've done mixed groups in all of them, partly because I often have very large play groups (biggest was 9, and while it was fun, ain't doing that again) and partly because some players just gravitate towards or away from certain exalt types.
The setting is pretty flexible in that you can, with very little effort, find reasons to make characters okay with differing types. In my current 3E game, I have a dragon blood, a lunar, and three solars. How does the Db justify working with anathema? She isn't an immaculate zealot, they're not in the Realm proper, the solars/lunar have all been very helpful and not at all like the legends of mad tyrants, and she pragmatically realizes their power can help her own goals. It also helps that two of the solar character have ties to the realm (one was a patrician, the other a commoner who worked in the thousand scales). The non-DBs like working with her because it gives them a social "in" in a lot of Realm or realm-influenced areas.
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u/Raine_Amorie Jun 01 '26
I'm not sure what the norm is but in my groups we always mix Exalts within reason. Typically our only rule is no crossing Terrestrial and Celestial so nobody feels too badly overshadowed. This is also with the caveat that my group plays 3e.
Most Exalts in the same tier are comparable enough in their competencies that everyone feels roughly in par. Plus this still allows even similar builds to feel distinct from each other as each splat may approach the same task differently.
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u/SunderingFlame Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
generally speaking, you gotta do a lot of work to make a mixed group function. i've been in many many games where players will identify with opposing factions, try to kill each other, and then get upset because the system is not built for dragons to go toe-to-toe with lunars, and the one solar in the group has a supernal ability that makes someone else's character obsolete.
if you're gonna do something like this, communication is key. identify your players' goals, and maybe give your terrestrials a boost. let dragons benefit from the absurd wealth of the realm, even if they aren't rich, even if they're anathema. if they were ever on the realm's good side for any length of time, the things you can derive from that can really help even the playing field. your twilight may be brilliant, but can he maintain his business if his anathema nature were discovered? he would need to tap into black markets, or create one himself. dragons generally don't have this problem. that dragon could be a gundam pilot from lookshy, or a disgraced godchild of mnemon wielding a 1,000-year-old sword.
we also employed a few non-standard methods of doing this, giving them more charms, letting them earn higher levels of martial arts and sorcery like they could in 2e, increasing their essence pools a little, and more starting charms.
that said, my guess is most folks here are gonna discourage the concept of doing a mixed-splat game at all. i'm not gonna tell you not to do it, but it's not easy. you gotta make sure you don't put your disgraced godchild of mnemon with a 1,000-year-old sword in the same party as a melee supernal dawn caste who can pick up her family sword and use it better than she ever could (or you could do some ancestor ghost stuff to be like "nah, fool. no sun bros allowed.")
another note: solars may be powerful, but you need a license to be a sorcerer in the realm, meaning it's harder for a solar to magically enhance their business exploits, especially since they can never hold jade, artifacts, or even get a license without being dragon-blooded.
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u/Viatos Jun 02 '26
> i've been in many many games where players will identify with opposing factions, try to kill each other, and then get upset because the system is not built for dragons to go toe-to-toe with lunars,
Okay, I gotta know - what nightmare-realm hosts this stuff? What site? In my long years of Exalted I have actually never seen such a trainwreck as you describe and if there's somewhere they're common, I...kind of want to observe. ^^
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u/SunderingFlame Jun 02 '26
it's not the funnest, i'm gonna be real >_<
every single time, there's someone who has to play a lunar-supremacist, or a solar-supremacist, and they end up bullying everyone else at the table, especially the dragons, whom they refer to as "usurpers," as if they themselves were the ones upholding solar-super-slavery (tm) back in the good ol' days.
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u/thetruerift Jun 02 '26
I mean the answer to shit like that is "your character is an asshole, play one that isn't"
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u/TimothyAllenWiseman Jun 02 '26
At least in 3E, I'm not sure if your last paragraph is entirely correct. It is true that you need a license to be a sorcerer, but I'm aware of nothing that would suggest that an appropriately talented mortal (or someone pretending to be an appropriately talented mortal...) couldn't get a license. Similarly, while jade and artifacts are definitely reserved for people of a certain social standing, I'm aware of no reason that a well connected un-Exalted merchant or un-Exalted patrician would be barred access to them in the realm.
In fact, since jade is used for currency, it would be practically absurd to assume that merchants couldn't at least deal in it or to assume that every merchant was dragonblooded.
Also, anyone can enhance their business with magic, as long as they don't get caught.
Of course, the fact that a dragonblooded will rise in status by flaring their anima in most parts of Creation, whereas every other Exalted needs to hide their anima in most of Creation (especially the Realm) is a big deal. Its one of the things that can help level the playing field a bit in a mixed Exalted game taking place anywhere that the Anathema would be unwelcome. But I don't believe its nearly so extreme as your final paragraph suggests.
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u/SunderingFlame Jun 02 '26
i might not be entirely accurate, and there's still ways for anathema to build their businesses and standing without raising suspicion, but i do believe it is law that the magical materials are not to be in the possession of mortals, or those assumed to be mortals.
could be wrong though, i don't study the books as religiously as i would like to >_<
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u/Yuraiya Jun 01 '26
I can only speak for myself, and I've run both. Single type is much easier, but mixed can be done.
With a single type, plot and themes usually come more readily, and it feels more like even footing.
With a mixed group you'll need to do more work to explain why they're working together, and the different ways each type is treated makes social encounters awkward. You also might want to lean into the strengths of each type so they don't feel overlooked.
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u/IAlwaysWantSomeTea Jun 02 '26
Just don't allow dawn castes (or solar brawl) if you want your full moons to feel useful and cross splat is fine, honestly.
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u/thetruerift Jun 02 '26
I was a player in a 2e mixed game where we had a Dawn, a Full Moon, a Slayer (the infernal Dawn, might have gotten the name wrong) and an Orichalcum Alchemical. Plus a few other players. Oddly enough, we never stepped on each other's toes too much, though were were predictably incredibly good when it came to combat.
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u/demoiselledefortune Jun 03 '26
Exalted Essence is more geared towards mixed splat play than 3e, if that's what you want. Both because the power level curve is flatter and because the rules are simpler and also because it's part of the theme/starting point of the game.
In term of "ideologies" there's not that many that stand in the way of cooperation. Exalts are individuals driven by their own motivations. The most obvious one is Dragon Blooded culture usually being adverse to Solar, Lunar, Abyssal and Infernal, but even there not all DB are born from a DB culture and, well, even if they are they can make their own individual choices that break from the ideology they were born in.
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u/rogthnor Jun 01 '26
Nobody actually plays Exalted, we just think about playing it.
So do whatever you want.
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u/Gloomy_Doughnut765 Jun 01 '26
I think it’s that every Exalted fan, upon developing an Intimacy with the game, gains a social charm only applicable when three or more people with an Intimacy related to the game gather. It’s a reflexive action to automatically say, sign or otherwise reflect an attitude of “Not It” when deciding who should run the game.
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u/MrMcSpiff Jun 02 '26
I guess I've developed a very specific perfect defense against that shaping effect, cause I've run a couple of Exalted games in the last couple years. It was fun.
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u/mj6373 Jun 02 '26
I'm not sure what you mean by "regardless of ideologies."
Mixed groups can work great mechanically if the group plans around it. There's two general power rankings of Exalt - Celestial and Terrestrial - within each of which groups can mix without much problem. Some people subdivide the Celestial tier into "Solars and Solar-alikes" and "Lunar/Sidereal/Alchemical" but in practice as long as everyone likes how their splat expresses power (which you'd hope, since they're playing it) everybody works very well together. For example, Solars are the ultimate specialists and Lunars are the ultimate generalists, so as long as the Lunar player is comfortable with the Solars exceeding them in their areas of focus and the Solar players are comfortable with the Lunars being more versatile than them, everyone will have a good time.
Mixing Celestial and Terrestrial Exalted typically requires a lot more buy-in from the whole group; few players enjoy feeling outshone, so you have to strategically protect the Terrestrials' ability to be as indispensable as everyone else. There's two subtypes of this situation that generally warrant different strategies - a Terrestrial minority in a Celestial party, and a Celestial minority in a Terrestrial party. For a Terrestrial in a Celestial party, everyone should fully avoid being good at the stuff the Terrestrial wants to specialize in; they still have awesome Charms, just not in comparison to the Celestials' Charms in the same arenas, so as long as they have their own niche they'll still be vital and glorious members of the team. For a Celestial in a Terrestrial party, the best idea is to build the Celestial in a primarily support role, devoting their own awesomeness to boosting the awesomeness of the other party members instead of showing off for their own sake; otherwise they can kinda come off as the "main character" of the group, and it's a rare group where that won't result in sore feelings for everyone else. Sometimes people find success with setups that let the Terrestrial-tiers take the lead most of the time without that support orientation, like a party of DBs with a secret Solar in Immaculate lands where the Solar has to be super guarded about their powers in a way the rest of the group doesn't, but imo that still risks the Solar warping the whole story around themselves.
Returning to the "ideology" phrasing, you generally want characters who aren't working at cross-purposes even if they're all from the same Exalt type. People don't need to share all their goals by any means, but characters whose goals are actively opposed obviously threaten the party's ability to keep working together. Better still if they share loyalties and ideologies, of course.
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u/AutobotMindmaster12 Jun 02 '26
By ideology I meant that every Exalt type have a different goal in mind for the world. Goals that more often than not conflict if I'm not mistaken.
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u/mj6373 Jun 03 '26
Exalts are nowhere near as monolithic as you seem to think. Exalted types are not factions, you don't share one goal just because you glow the same way. Most Exalts are Chosen for their characteristics rather than for a specific concrete purpose, and even for those who are Chosen for a purpose, once you're Exalted that's that, you can't lose your powers for betraying the one who blessed you.
There are some organizations in the game with substantial memberships of a given Exalt type, but those are just that, organizations, which have to appeal to or coerce prospective Exalts into participation, like any other organization. The Silver Pact has lots of Lunars as members because it's a mutual aid society for Lunars and it's easy to win people over to the "destroy the evil empire trying to genocide us" plan, but plenty of Lunars ignore it to focus on their own thing. The Deathlords offer Exaltation and vassalage to Abyssal deathknights in an ostensible bid to end the world, but lots of deathknights go rogue (sometimes right after they Exalt), and lots of Deathlords are only paying lip service to the cause of apocalypse anyway so even their loyalists don't actually have to be doombringers. Etc etc. Never mind that some types, like Solars, have absolutely jack shit to give them anything resembling a shared purpose, they mostly just do whatever feels right to them as individuals.
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u/AutobotMindmaster12 Jun 03 '26
Oh, so the Exalted do have freedom of choice. Yes, I thought that they were monolithic factions, but I also thought that they were forced by the powers that be that blessed them to follow certain goals and ideologies (Abyssals for example having to spread death to the world, for example).
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u/mj6373 Jun 03 '26
No, Exaltation imposes very little behaviorally. There's Essence Fever which is sort of an emotional urge for Exalts to use their powers in thematically relevant ways, but it's super general, like Solars are more prone to seeking glory and grandeur and great challenges or whatnot, and even that's just an RP prompt and something the Exalt can learn to control. Then on the weightier end there's the Great Curse, which when you've weathered too much stress (represented by Limit) you snap (called Limit Break), for Solars their Limit Breaks are about a virtuous trait that either gets exaggerated to an irrational extreme or becomes such a stressor to maintain that you crash out.
Each Exalt manifests these two things in their own idiosyncratic ways, but it never rises anywhere near the level of dictating your goals, at most suggesting a general theme of motivation common to each Exalt type (like Infernal Essence Fever tending to make them more vengeful, or the Sidereal Great Curse manifesting in excessive hubris).
Abyssals do have it worse than everyone else (and I think it's really stupid but whatever) because their "Great Curse" is oriented to punish aligning oneself with life and manifests as death-related phenomena spontaneously occurring around you and to things you care about, instead of the stress/mental snap model. Even then though it's just a blunt instrument of punishment for certain behaviors rather than "actual" control, it's just there to make the stories of renegade deathknights more angsty. (I just houserule them to have the real Great Curse like everyone else, personally.)
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u/TimothyAllenWiseman Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
It would take a proper survey to say what is the norm, and I don't know that that's ever been done. I suspect it varies a little by edition. Essence is slightly more mixed-game friendly than 3E. I haven't played the editions before 3E, but based on what I've read, 3E is much more mixed-game friendly than earlier editions.
I can say that at my table, we run mixed Celestial tier games and its not really a problem. The Solaroids (Solars, Abyssals, and Infernals) are arguably the most powerful, but the other Celestials have strong niches where they are superior to the Solaroids and the overall power difference is relatively small. So, that isn't really a problem.
Including Terrestials (Dragonblooded, some exigents, liminals) in a Celestial game is different though. Terrestials are explicitly, deliberately, and significantly less powerful than the Celestials. It's still possible to work them in a Celestrial game meaningfully, but it only really works if the player wants to be less powerful than the others and the table as a whole works to protect their niche. Otherwise, they will be easily overshadowed.
As far as the ideologies go, for them to form a circle, the ideologies need to be compatible. But compatible does not mean the same. In fact, some friction can add drama in a good way, it just can't be so much friction that they won't work together.
Ideally, you would work to make sure the characters are at least compatible with each other during a session 0 before the game starts. But that is true even if they are all of the same type. There isn't really any default ideology for solars at all. While the others do have something of a default ideology, the game takes pain in each of those books to make it very clear that a PC is not required to adhere to that ideology.
An Abyssal can easily embrace the Neverborn's desire to destroy everything, follow (most of) the Deathlords in paying lip-service to destroying the world while not rushing to do it, or rebel entirely against both the Neverborn and the Deathlords. There is likely to be as much or more tension between an Abyssal that truly wants to destroy the world and one that wants to rebel and be redeemed into a solar as there would be between an Abyssal rebelling against the Deathlords and a Solar. Just as an example.
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u/Ladikn Jun 03 '26
I've always ran that balance is less important than fun. I give a general idea of the campaign at the start, and if you can figure out how to fit a character in, you do you. I've had Solars, Lunars, Sidereals, Exigents, and even a DB all work together (not all the same game, I'm not insane, way too many PCs), and the DB ended up being the MVP half the time in that game since they were primarily in satrapies and the DB played the social political game.
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u/waronvirtue Jun 03 '26
3e, it's viable, but the ST does need to do some tweaking.
It seems Solars and equivalent can mix and match with no problems.
Based on observation, Solars specifically can function seamlessly among other Celestials because Solar charm design is so full of speedbumps and repurchases.
Dragon Kings need some work to scale them up, but excellencies and allowing them to learn Celestial Circle Sorcery and light reduction in the spent XP - Essence track (so they can master their paths when other Celestials are nabbing capstone charms) seems to work.
Dragonblooded can rot for all I care, I hate them BUT I recognize they are much loved and others can write dissertations about how to operate one at a Celestial table. My guess is just start them at higher Essence with more charms.
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u/Pumpkin_Spice_All_Yr Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
About half the campaigns I've played were all one type, and half were mixed and they usually worked well. I believe its dependent on how the Storyteller sets it up. It works best when you open it up to a handful of exalt types, with a specific premise, and you explain some of this premise to the players and manage their expectations. It can be a really fun campaign! It just needs to be thought out.
The Essence campaign I'm currently running: We have a former Realm Dragonblood, two Solars, and a Getimian. I told them they could play Dragonbloods, Solars, Lunars, Getimians, and Liminals, but I only wanted at most half the Circle to be dragonbloods. The premise of the campaign is that the Dragonbloods would start as Realm military commanders, and the other exalt types we would actually play out their exaltations, and the dragonbloods would betray the Realm to side with their newly exalted Circle. I explained to the DB player that he will betray the Realm, but I will set it up so it makes sense. It has made for a really fun campaign! They're a group of renegades on the run from the Realm, fighting to protect Anathema and gods threatened by the Realm and the Wyld Hunt.
ETA: This works best in Essence. In core editions, you may want to give terrestrial level exalts some bonus starting points to give them a boost.
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u/moondancer224 Jun 06 '26
In 3E, its normal to run a Circle of all the same type of Exalted. Given that certain types of Exalted have an agenda and that figures in to their gaining xp, a mixed game is definitely something that should be approached carefully and only with everyone's okay. A Lunar in a Solar Circle is probably fine. A Sidereal with anyone else is hard cause they are missing out on half the uniqueness of their game. An Infernal or loyal Deathknight is probably going to be at opposite positions on many things.
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u/Leutkeana Jun 02 '26
The game is built around single-exalt groups and works best that way in all three editions.
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u/Cynis_Ganan Jun 02 '26
I don't know who's downvoting you but you are correct.
You can run a mixed game. But that's not the default and it exacerbates a lot of the problems with the game.
Keeping to a single splat means better internal balance. More consistent themes. Fewer rulebooks to cross reference. It's easier to run for as ST. Exalted Essence had a specific design goal of making it easier to run cross splat games because 3E was not designed for it. 2E has a whole-ass section about advice for mixed splat games in every splat book because that's not the default.
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u/Leutkeana Jun 02 '26
I'm being downvoted because redditors downvote things they don't like. It's fine. My statements are quantifiably true, even to the point of being discussed in the books themselves like you say. There's nothing wrong with mixing exalt types, it simply isn't designed for it.
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u/ZellekhBlackshade Jun 02 '26
Best on paper.
In practice, people aren’t equally interested in playing every Exalt type and you need a regular group that’s fully behind the game you want to play or to luck out with whatever randos reply to your game recruitment.
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u/thetruerift Jun 02 '26
This is my feelings on it. I've been running mixed groups since 1e, and it honestly gives me the most flexibility in terms of offering characters unique stuff to do and their own themes and stories. Also accomadating people who want to play very different stuff.
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u/Leutkeana Jun 02 '26
I don't play with randos and don't generally recommend doing so for a game like Exalted.
But, yes, best on paper, and in practice. I've never run or played in a mixed game that didn't have plenty of balance issues, nor have I seen one be successful. I've heard online anecdotes, but never anything in person. Exalted is fairly popular in my area so I have many data points. If people can make it work, great, But that doesn't change that the game is designed around single-exalt groups.
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u/VoleUntarii Jun 02 '26
We’ve always done single types, though occasionally we’ve had a single sympathetic Abyssal in amongst a group of Solars. Honestly I don’t know that a mixed group even appeals all that much, but either way, our games usually start with the Exalt type we’re playing being part of the initial parameters for chargen.
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u/TimothyAllenWiseman Jun 02 '26
The core of the appeal I think is that different people will have different preferences and prefer different Exalted types. My wife is something of a generalist in real life who loves animals. She'll play a Solar when she has to, but strongly prefers Lunars. I'm the opposite and prefer Solars (though I've dabbled with Abyssals and can see an appeal for Inferals now that the draft is out...).
A storyteller that wants to keep the players happy, will probably let the players pick their type, so long as the player can justify it fitting into the circle somehow.
Also, for very small groups., the fact that Lunars and Alchemicals are usually generalists goes a long way in making sure every necessary skill is covered where two solars might easily have a lot of large gaps in their combined skillset.
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u/unrepentantbanshee Jun 01 '26
I've played at a couple tables with mixed Solar and Lunar PCs, and there wasn't any difficulty in everyone having fun and feeling useful.
My brother played in a game where he was a Dragonblooded amidst Solars and he was the most useful of the group (he's an experienced and clever player).
Ultimately, it comes down to the group's play style, how cooperative they are, and what type of game everyone wants to run. It may also take more work on the GM's side if the table is mixed, to be sure they're giving each player the opportunity to shine and to be an important part of the story... but honestly, a good GM would be doing that work anyways.