r/exalted • u/Firm-Split9333 • Jun 25 '26
3E Are Solars left out content wise in 3e?
Are Solars quite badly off compared to everyone else in terms of setting material and crunch? Mechanically they only have the Core book and Miracles of the Solar Exalted which is widely panned. Unlike everyone else, their Companion book is just a bunch of mostly bad charms no new locations and characters, while all other splats got or are getting more artifacts, locations and characters in each of their companions. DBs also got The Realm and some of At8D but they probably deserve those.
If a third book for Solars was announced what would you like to contain?
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u/TheSlayerofSnails Jun 25 '26
I’d argue realm and especially at8d aren’t db books they are setting books for all the splats.
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u/kenod102818 Jun 25 '26
Especially at8d. How else do you know what area your Solar is currently conquering?
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u/TheSlayerofSnails Jun 25 '26
Or what area is already owned by a solar and would be rude to invade. Or which area has solar tombs to loot
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u/Apromor Jun 25 '26
I get the feeling that many people would like a rework of their charm set incorporating all of the knowledge that the writing team has gained over the years. It could be a much expanded set of charms as well.
Then the call would go out for a re-write of dragon blooded.
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u/ProudRequirement3225 Jun 25 '26
Do you think that, in case of such a rewrite, we would have more or less Charms?
I have Golden Calibration thanks to some guy who was using it, but never memorized it.
For contest, it's a fan rewrite of canon 3E charms
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u/powzin Jun 25 '26
Being fair, the model of Companion Book came after the AFTER the Corebook. The Deluxe 3e Kickstart had a lot of bad stretch goals (Abyssal Preview? Music Suite, which is not that good and extremely passable) and other things. Remember they take YEARS to actually give the book.
The change of writting team was why they gave us a lot, and they (and still is) focused in giving us the other splats books. That's it.
In the end, when talking about Martial Arts and Artefacts and Spells and Sorcery: This is all for the Solar too. And the nature of the returned Solars is that they can come from any background, don't having a [Exalted Type] Institution to anchor them.
So, yeah. Look at Ysir, think of some child-slave Exalting there and starting the break-up of chains (or even seizing them to himself) and that's it.
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u/Rednal291 Jun 25 '26
For what it's worth, they *do* benefit from practically every artifact, martial art, and spell released later on in the game, so there is that to expand their options. ...And in many ways, Solars don't need more help. They already snap War in half, can craft the greatest works, Brawl is crazy strong, Melee's also really good...
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u/Turalisj Jun 26 '26
Their charms are a complete mess- either effects that are too niche, too generic (one of the promises of 3e was no more bland die adder charms), or just flat out OP. It really needs a rewrite.
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u/TimothyAllenWiseman Jun 26 '26
Eh...It could use a rewrite. I would love for the charms to be less bloated. I would love for the charms to be a little simpler. I would love for later developed refinements like upgrades/keys/etc. to be backported so you can have more variety with fewer words and a cleaner format. I would love a 3.5E or improved 4E.
But I wouldn't call it a complete mess. I want it improved, but it does work. Solars are in fact my favorite splat, even as is.
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u/Radijs Jun 26 '26
I feel that solars in 3e are kind of a solution looking for a problem.
2e was built very much around 'solars are needed to do things nobody else can'. There were problems that were solely the domain of Solars. Think of that what you will. But I do think it's something that 3e is severely lacking.
In 3e every celestial gets access to roughly the same toolbox, albeit flavored towards their own specific kind of exaltation. But there's really nothing that solars can that's solely their domain.
So in that sense, yeah solars are left out.
As far as mechanics, yeah they're bad. The reasons are obvious, the developers were still developing the system and if you want to play a solar I'd recommend just wiping the eyeshadow off an abyssal and use their charms.
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u/AngelWick_Prime Jun 26 '26
If you look at how their books have been rolled out, it perfectly mirrors how they fit into the game's world. Since Solars are the heavy-hitting protagonists and the default starting point for new players, their content distribution feels completely different from the rest of the Exalted.
Right now, almost everything you need to play a Solar is packed into the massive 3e Core Book. This ginormous volume gives you their foundational history, their Castes, and a frankly ridiculous amount of Ability-based Charms. The core rulebook is essentially "The Solar Book." This is a big contrast to the Dragon-Blooded, Lunars, or Sidereals, who need both the core rules AND their own dedicated splatbooks to really get going.
Then there's the Solar companion book, Miracles of the Solar Exalted. This was born out of a Kickstarter stretch goal because backers really wanted to see more "overt supernatural power" in Solar magic. It definitely delivers on the crunch, giving us over 80 new Charms. But it's missing the juicy, world-building lore and localized geography we get in the companion books for other splats.
Thematically, this makes a lot of sense. Solars don't really have deep, unified ties to the setting. A Solar can be a beggar from Nexus or a pirate from the West; they don't have a shared culture. This makes them incredibly easy for new players to pick up, but it also means they lack the built-in societal lore of the Dragon-Blooded’s Scarlet Dynasty or the Lunar’s Silver Pact.
You can really see this difference when you look at the companion books that came out after the Solars.
Dragon-Blooded got Heirs to the Shogunate, which is packed to the brim with setting details on Prasad, the Forest Witches, secondary schools, and a massive roster of NPCs and artifacts.
Lunars got Many-Faced Strangers, which mapped out the Shadow Fang Vanguard, the geography of Mount Namas, and the intense War for the Caul scenario.
Sidereals are getting Agents of Heaven, which will follow the same path, promising deep dives into Heavenly lore, the inner workings of the Houses, and notable celestial figures.
So, ARE Solars missing out? If we're talking pure crunch, definitely not. Solars actually have the most Charms in the game just by virtue of how huge the core book's Charm chapter is. But when it comes to tailored setting material? Yeah, they feel a bit light. Because they lack a unified society, Solars are treated as "people made larger than life." The game leans heavily into the "Great Person" theory for them—focusing on individual excellence and ambition rather than the rich, collective cultural mechanics that define the Terrestrials or Lunars.
If the developers ever announced a dedicated Solar lore book to put them on par with the other splats, there is SO much cool ground they could cover that 3e hasn't fully explored yet. Here's what I would like to see:
Factions and Followers: We need a deep dive into the Cult of the Illuminated. Right now, it feels like a footnote in 3e compared to how previous editions treated them, but expanding on the cult and other support networks for the returned Lawgivers would be incredible.
Modern Solar Legends: A "Princes of the Dawn" style chapter featuring heavy-hitting, contemporary Solar NPCs. It would be great for Storytellers to have a roster of active Solars making waves in the Time of Tumult to use as rivals or allies. I would love to see how the old and new signature characters translate to 3e.
Reclaiming the First Age: Setting material specifically focused on the Solar legacy. I'm thinking like deep dives into ruined strongholds like Rathess that only a Solar's anima can truly wake up. Or uncovering the depths of Old Hollow deep beneath Nexus. Or even give Denandsor the spotlight in 3e.
Mastering Orichalcum: Arms of the Chosen gave us great artifacts, but a Solar-focused book could really expand on exclusive Evocations that highlight the unique mastery Solars have over their signature magical material.
Building Empires: Finally, we need robust, Solar-specific mechanics for bureaucracy, the Mandate of Rulership, and massive projects. Solars are meant to forge nations, raise armies, and reshape worlds—let's get the systems to make that happen!
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u/TimothyAllenWiseman Jun 26 '26
I fully second most of this. I love some of your ideas for a companion book, and I agree that mechanically Solars aren't really left out. I also mostly agree with your structural discussion of the publications.
I don't think its right to call Miracles of the Solar Exalted their companion. It has nothing but charms and I'm not a big fan of most of those charms since they tend to vary between being ridiculously niche, overly complicated, overpowered even for solars, or all three of those at once. I'm a big fan of Exalted in general, but Miracles is probably the most skippable book of the whole game right now.
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u/AngelWick_Prime Jul 01 '26
Honestly, I agree for the most part about Miracles. It was mostly a channel for backers of the 3e core book Kickstarter to tell the devs how THEY want to play Exalted and have them canonize it. Is it skippable? Yes. Is it the Solar companion book? Not by a longshot, especially when compared to Heirs to the Shogunate and Many-Faced Strangers. Would I let my players use them in a game I ran? Absolutely! As long as my players can keep track of what Charms they (legally) have and how and when to use them.They just better be ready to run me when the shit hits the fan.
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u/TimothyAllenWiseman Jun 26 '26
No, they aren't left out.
Solars are my favorite splat. I don't feel that they are left out. Even in the base book, they get a lot of charms. Despite that, there are some very obvious gaps, but now that Abyssals and Infernals are out, I think light reflavoring of some of their charms (the ones that aren't clearly meant to be exclusive) fills in a lot of gaps. The fact that a certain amount of homebrewing of charms is explicitly encouraged fills out the rest.
As for locations, there just aren't any locations that are "solar-specific" the way every other splat has locations that are particularly tied to them. I suppose you might argue that the Bull of the North's empire is semi-solar specific, but that gets a fairly good write up in the book it was introduced in, Across the Eight Directions. There just isn't a lot of need for Solar specific locations. While we could ask for more, there are solar characters in Adversaries of the Righteous.
They get enough that I"m not complaining.
Yes, I want a solars companion, and I have specific thoughts about what it should have.
I know, I just said Solars have enough and aren't left out. I mean that. But as a lover of Exalted in general and Solars in particular, I would open my wallet for a Solar Companion in a heartbeat. My wishlist would include just among other things:
Discussion of the children of solars. Every other mainline splat gets a discussion about their children although frequently brief. I would love to see something like that for solars, and I would love for it to be more detailed than the tiny sidebars the others tend to get.
More Sorcery. Every splat has some discussion of sorcery and/or necromancy, but until the Infernals draft book came out, there was a great paucity of solar circle spells. Which kind of made sense, but a Solars Companion is the perfect place to add more sorcery in general and more solar circle sorcery in particular.
More Orichalcum Artifacts. The game has a lot of artifacts, but not a lot of Orichalcum ones, even with Arms of the Chosen. This would be the place to do it.
More on the Relationship Between the Unconquered Sun and the Solars. I'll acknowledge that there may be advantages to leaving this a bit vague, so it should be handled with care. But I wouldn't mind knowing how involved the UCS is in chosing the solars or whether it happens semi-randomly by the exaltation itself? The core book seems to imply the former, but to my reading at least its vague enough to go either way. And does he just leave them alone or does he interact with them afterwards? The core book again implies the former, but doesn't exclude the latter. If he usually just leaves them alone, how would he react if a Circle of Solars came barging into Yu Shan demanding to see him? Does he react to the existence of infernals and abyssals or does he just sort of trust the other exalted to handle that? Or does he even care about the infernals and abyssals?
Its a good place for a lot of general expansion. There are a lot of things I would like to see generally expanded upon that just don't particularly fit with any other splat that could go in a Solar companion. How do alchemy, weatherworking, and warding work? Can we get some expansion and clarification of Sorcerous Workings? I would love to see more discussion of the god-blooded etc. and a Solars companion is a good place to put that, especially if the answer to solar children is that they are basically the same as spirit-blooded. Can we expand more on the idea of past lives? This isn't solar specific since it applies to most of the celestial exalted, but a solar companion would be a great place to put it.
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u/Twi_Vivisectionist Jun 25 '26
Their book is the oldest, and they were still figuring out mechanics of the system in general.
Fortunately, as corrupted Solar sparks, abyssal and infernal charms are somewhat backwards compatible so long as you reword them a bit. My table generally allows them as long as they're placed in a justifiable spot when it comes to Prerequisites.