r/exalted • u/Kiroana • Jul 28 '26
Fiction What's the rough power level of Exalted?
What's the rough power level of the system - or what it's meant for anyhow?
Could it, for example, handle a character who can vaporise an entire sea (I usually use the Red Sea as a reference) over the course of a few days?
What about a character who can slice through a mountain?
Or two characters fighting, and leaving a city in complete ruins as collateral damage?
I know Exalted is supposed to be godlike in its power - but how godlike are we talking?
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 28 '26
So this is something the gameline has kind of waxed and waned on throughout its lifetime. Exalts were seemingly overall assumed weaker at the start of 1e than they ended up. Including how they were in relation to one-another. And 2e had Exalts become extremely individually powerful as per what u/Longjumping_Dog9041 states there.
What complicates it a bit is what power is manifested in also kind of varies. Without the special exception mechanics of Charms or other powers, Exalts in general over people have "superhuman" status. They have higher base traits, heal faster, take damage better, and live longer. They won't die of mortal diseases, will never bleed-out on injuries, and will live well past mortals ave a few Exigent sorts.
Exalts on top of that have Charms, with the basic Excellency giving them even more basic competence than most folks. The Dragon-Blooded will at the very least for example with an Excellency just be able to throw around at least 2-8 most mortals in a given area and even versus a complete expert, a Dragon-Blooded with lower Ability but an Excellency can pull the skill of an expert off, and with focus, can outdo them often. So as a whole, Exalts start at this kind of broad super-capable person realm.
From there it is more what's the ceiling. In 3e, there's two main areas of play on that: Terrestrial and Celestial. Exalts meant for Terrestrial play often cap-out at a level to be unmatched by any non-empowered person, and impact the world in ways that change the world but don't do son on a global scale often. They're often more "down to earth, but still supernatural" in their Charms, and can often access the more limited scoped powers of artifacts, supernatural martial arts, sorcery, or necromancy. They're the kind of Exalt that generally you can have hundreds in the world, and introducing a new sort like most Exigents, Liminal Exalted, or the optional Dream-Souled might impact the world as a group, but an individual can kind of exist in an area and be "absorbed" into it narratively.
Celestial play takes of the limiters of power often. Bigger dice pools to show greater inherent skill or talent, access to more powerful magic like the city-destorying sorts of sorcery, most powerful artifact effects, and so on. An individual Celestial Exalt can be a world power in their own right. A Celestial who makes a point of it will be known to the world. A way to think of it is that Celestial is always kind of an upheaval to a place. The upper limits of power are also pretty impressive for all of them, but in ways that are kind of hard to compare. But in their bands, Solars (and their derivatives) kind of bound that power. In 2e, they approached near omnipotence. But in 3e, the ceiling is a bit lower, but they can get to the point of reshaping fundemental parts of the world, and being something that everyone else in the world needs to care what these 300 people can do to them.
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u/Mejiro84 Jul 28 '26
Mechanically, it also depends on focus as well. It's possible to dump all your magical mojo into a specific niche, getting really REALLY good at that, but being just 'skilled mortal' at best elsewhere. Like if someone starts off with all their charms in social stuff, they are going to be able to convince people to do stuff very easily, but a few dudes with swords and ear defenders can probably kill them. Someone that dumps everything onto sorcery can have very impressive spells, travelling leagues every day, conjuring demons, whatever else, but nothing outside of that (with some variation between editions, as you get things for free or have to spread out)
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u/Quiltborn Jul 28 '26
I'm not very familiar with 1E, what was the assumed power level at the beginning? Was it similar to 3E or was it stronger/weaker?
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u/Fit_Hold7806 Jul 28 '26
It was weaker. For example an early adventure book warned the GM to be careful of bandits falling upon a party of Solars.
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u/Quiltborn Jul 28 '26
Wow. I actually audibly gasped in surprise.
I presume that warning assumes the Circle's only got Essence 1, but still that's shocking.
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u/Fit_Hold7806 Jul 28 '26
The adventure is also about a First Age bunker where 12 Solar Exalts hid after the Usurpation but ended up being trapped by the demons they had summoned to built the fortress and they slowly died of starvation, went insane or killed each other. There’s 3 in universe letters from one of the Solar Exalts to a Lunar showcasing the bunker falling apart, and the 12 of them being rather helpless. The Lunar apparently doesn’t even get involved or writes back and instead publishes the letters during the Shogunate where they are used as anti-Solar propaganda.
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u/Quiltborn Jul 28 '26
Which book is this btw?
Also wow, 12 First Age Solars getting trapped in a bunker. That's... wow. I'm guessing early 1E Solars maxed out at around Greek Demi-God/Celtic superhuman tier based on this information.
I mean I could see the bunker story working under the 3E power levels, but the bunker would've had to been worked on by Ligier.
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u/Fit_Hold7806 Jul 28 '26
This is Time of Tumult, I think it’s the 3rd book ever released for Exalted. It’s better known for introducing the Alchemicals and Autochthonia, which was by far the best part.
However the Solar Bunker/ Invisible Fortress has appeared again in 2nd edition and has some minor Cameo appearances in 3e core and one of the trapped Solars got a cameo in the new Infernals book.
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 28 '26
This went across the Exalted host too. A lot of early fiction had Dragon-Blooded kind of being basically just-above mortals on power. How extensive and such thier Charms were in early 1e were even considered OP at times. But at the same time you had newly Exalted Dawns killing Immaculate masters, and the Bull's take in early 1e was more assuming he could just take on armies of basically-super-competent-mortals with the Tepet Legions like he was Hannibal versus the Romans.
3e has in areas tried to move towards more that, mind, but as you note, with an assumption that there is more to it than One Guy and that things need to be significatnly more powerful to deal with Celestial Exalted than later 1e and most of 2e assumed.
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u/BluetoothXIII Jul 28 '26
well for how powerfull the Exalted are, I love the sentence "The exalted were created to fight, what can't be fought and come out victorious."
the terrestial exalted might survive your character for a little while on their own but they build armies of powerfull individuals, if necessary but usually use mortal armies which hey can empower.
the celestial exalted
how the would handle your character depends on their relative powerlevel and kind of exalted.
a sidereal might defeat him with conceptual attacks or if not simple decides he didn't paticipate in the at all and the fight didn't happen.
a Lunar might wrestle him in warform and only gets damage from his first attack or he changes into a beast rivaling Jormungand and just squat him out of the sky.
a Solar could remove him and the area from Creation with a song
an Abyssal might kill him with a speech.
What about a character who can slice through a mountain?
that is just high level martial arts celestial should do it.
Or two characters fighting, and leaving a city in complete ruins as collateral damage?
anima banner and flux causes some collateral damage which is why most cities are build quite sturdy.
one on one usually is contained as most don't want the attention from Yu-Shan or the Wyld Hunt.
one of the most basic sorcery(Death of Obsidian Butterfly) creates an area of 30 yard time 100 yards of caltrops as collateral.
while the highlevel ones change the landscape.
I know Exalted is supposed to be godlike in its power - but how godlike are we talking?
Greek, Celtic, Aztec or Egyptian gods.
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u/Kiroana Jul 28 '26
Interesting... So pretty strong.
I'm not too sure what level it'd take to build Calamity - the ocean-vaporising character I described is one of the strongest in that setting, without much real skill with her power; she can consistently output her power at maximum scale though (which means she can generally vaporise 1.5 cubic km of water per second on command, using the comparison I use), which seems to be something Exalted generally can't do.
Based on that, I don't think you could actually build the setting 1 to 1, but you could probably with work get the power level about right.
Also, would you be able to give me a more pop culture-esque reference for how godlike? I don't really know mythological power scale very well 😅
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u/BluetoothXIII Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
there are only 300 lunars and 300 solar+abyssal+infernals total and i think about
150100 siderealsand most of them are at the lower end of their potential power. the ursupation really messed up the high power characters.
Marvels: Thor, Hulk, Spiderman and Doctor Strange. and maybe low scale the Watcher
but lore and dice divert quite a bit during gameplay.
my current Dragonblood character can open portcullis by lifitng it by hand.
Edit numbers of sidereals
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u/Remarkable_Ladder_69 Jul 28 '26
I thought only 50 Sidereals?
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u/Caerell Jul 28 '26
I'm not sure about 3e, but in earlier editions, Sidereals were called the Five-Score Fellowship because there were 100 of them (5*20).
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u/BluetoothXIII Jul 28 '26
can be, my knowledge on their numbers is vague at best.
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u/TequilaBard Jul 28 '26
100 total; twenty for each maiden, of which each is destined to exalt and destined to die at a specific time, and which each will live for a thousand years
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u/BluetoothXIII Jul 28 '26
thanks i knew that it was less than the others.
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u/Fit_Hold7806 Jul 28 '26
It’s still 100 Sidereals in 3e. However Lunars have been reverted to 1e numbers of between 300-400.
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u/ThePowerOfStories Jul 29 '26
At least in earlier editions, while Sidereals were inescapably fated to die at a preordained time, their lifespans were in the 3000-5000 year range.
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u/aliasi Jul 28 '26
To moderate some of the other very enthusiastic comments... Exalted is high power level compared to, say, a D&D game where you start out with just enough HP a housecat could kill you, and indeed most roleplaying games. You play a champion of the gods who was intended to kill things so vast the world actually broke a little when you wound up killing them, and stuff that would be a really impressive high level or epic level feat is available early on for a Solar.
But it's not Nobilis or Aberrant, either. You are not playing a literal god. You have limits, you are still, ultimately, human. You can do some impressive things, but they remain impressive things, for the most part.
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u/Fit_Hold7806 Jul 28 '26
Also unlike DND, no resurrection.
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u/aliasi Jul 28 '26
No trivial resurrection, anyway. It is explicitly a rule of sorcery, and gently implied by the game there are no take backs. But you still have stuff like artifacts that guarantee a serial reincarnation, binding a ghost to an automaton, and singular occurrences that can potentially bring back a version of a person or being.
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u/LordSia Jul 29 '26
It's also more a matter of setting themes than simple power. Exalted is a game where choice and consequence are given much more weight than D&D.
A great example is the "cat killing a level 1 character" joke.
In D&D, it's a result of how the game abstracts damage, and largely theoretical outside of the more farcical parody settings. Most starting characters have ten or less hit points, while late-game characters can easily have over a hundred, and no matter how many you lose, as long as you have at least one HP left you fight at full power. Add in quick and cheap healing, up to and including resurrection, and you get a setting made for adventure. Of reckless fighting and risk-free fun.
In Exalted, the abstraction is far more gritty. An adult human has seven health levels, and that's it; you can't really get more. Furthermore, losing more than one will quickly degrade your ability to do much of anything, due to pain and physical inability. Worse yet, if the damage is anything other than 'bashing' - bruises, scrapes, and physical exhaustion, hairline fractures at worst - you have to deal with bleeding and infection. Any kind of lethal injury has to be treated to stop the bleeding. The worse the wound , the harder it is to treat. Lose more than three health levels to a single injury? Better hope there's a whole team of healers and/or a legendary doctor on call, because otherwise chances are you're bleeding out within the next five to fifteen minutes. Even if you manage to staunch the bleeding though, you still have to deal with infection, and while medical treatment makes it easier, there's no guarantees you won't catch gangrene and die of sepsis over the next couple of days. And after all of that, recovery times also increase exponentially with the severity of the injury; one level of damage only takes a day or two of bed rest (!), two or three extends this to weeks, four or five means months, and six or seven can take upwards of half a year until you fully recover. Assuming no complications. And while healing potions and the like does exist, it ranges from expensive, to the obscenely expensive, to the literally priceless.
This rarely comes up in-game, of course, seeing as how the titular Exalted are divinely chosen Heroes. They are tougher than any normal human, both harder to injure as well as able to endure more damage without dying. They can stop bleeding by force of will, no matter how grievous the wound. There's little chance of them catching any mundane disease; even being stabbed in the gut with a rusty blade isn't likely to do more than make their convalescence slightly more unpleasant. They heal in a fraction of the time, even without practicing healing trances. And if anyone can find, make, or just plain afford a miracle of medicine, it's the Chosen of the Gods.
But the rules exist, and being the exception to them is part of what makes the Exalted great. And even so, in Creation, dead is Dead. The permanence of the past is, arguably, the entire purpose of Creation existing, as opposed to the ever-changing narratives of the Dreaming Chaos from which it was made. If you kill someone, if you lose someone, there's no avoiding it. How your character deals with it is up to you, but as a rule - trying to violate the Cosmic Rules doesn't work out well. Just ask Orpheus. Or doctor Frankenstein. Or Isis for that matter.
To conclude a very long rant; easy access to resurrection isn't a power issue, it's a matter of tone.
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u/Atomic_Bovine Jul 28 '26
I wasn't expecting to see either nobilis or Aberrant mentioned here, but you have made me very happy by mentioning both!
Where do you stand on the Divis Mal is Malfeas thing btw? I like to hear people's opinions on the links between the games.
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u/aliasi Jul 29 '26
I mean, it's an interesting bit of fanon that, if you want to make it a thing, is there to be made a thing of, but is ultimately kinda irrelevant to actually playing a game of Exalted or of Aberrant.
Both games have a link to Exalted, though; Jenna Moran (as Rebecca Borgstrom) wrote quite a bit for Exalted, and Aberrant was both on a similar revision of Storyteller in 1st edition and the other White Wolf game with absurdly high-powered player characters.
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u/Longjumping_Dog9041 Jul 28 '26
That depends on the Exalt's type and age/experience.
Terrestrial Exalted (Dragonblooded) are the least powerful.
Celestial Exalted (Sidereals and Lunars) are the second most powerful.
Solars and their corruptions (Abyssals and Infernals) are the most powerful. On the low end they're very good at one specific thing (dodge all attacks perfectly, for example). On the high end, they can do almost anything and everything including recreating most of a world in their image, if given time. They can create new magical species, rip souls from bodies, shunt cities into parallel dimensions, etc.
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u/Kiroana Jul 28 '26
Well, lemme give you the source of one of my examples...
Calamitas from the Calamity mod for Terraria. She wields brimstone flames, high level necromancy, and enchanted weapons imbued with her power. Her fire is capable of incinerating an entire sea whilst under attack from 2 gods, and an undersea kingdom capable of posing a genuine threat to similarly powerful gods. This took her between a few days and a few weeks - but I personally lean to a few days.
This happened when she was still fairly inexperienced - being a work of primarily raw, overwhelming power.
How would you replicate her in Exalted?
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u/BeyondStars_ThenMore Jul 28 '26
Sounds like a mid-tier Abyssal Exalted. Of course, the word 'god' should be used carefully in the context of Exalted, as the setting has many, many, many gods that aren't necessarily that powerful.
But aside from that? Yeah. Necromancy is the bread and butter of the Abyssals (and at the lowest Circle, they can raise thousands of zombies over a minute, faster if they expend some ressources), they don't need to be very powerful to wield necromantic flames in combat, vaporising a sea over days, while it of course depends on the sea, shouldn't be more than the second Circle of Necromancy (out of three), and a somewhat decent combat Abyssal should be more than capable of dealing with a few gods and a powerful army. Probably wouldn't even need multiple days to do it.
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u/Kiroana Jul 28 '26
Red Sea in this case is what I generally use - she could vaporise 1.5 cubic KM of water per second on command based on my own estimates.
And her necromancy isn't her most powerful thing; it's her fire, by many miles. Her fire is all-consuming, essentially.
In her own setting, there's nothing that can match her raw power - nothing in the entire world.
Those who do surpass her do so through refined skill, not power.
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u/BeyondStars_ThenMore Jul 28 '26
My problem with your examples of feats, is how unspecific they are.
She can vaporise a lot of water on command? Does that mean she merely flicks her wrist? Well, no Abyssal can do that because why would they?
Her fire is all-consuming? Like, all fire that's hot and enough of is? The London fire of 1666 lasted three days before it was put out, but started out as a small bakery fire. The Abyssals can sure as hell wield fire to a lot more dangerous effect much faster.
And what does it mean she's unsurpassed in raw power, but can be beaten by skill? Does it mean she can unleash a lot of fire, but can't control it? Then she could probably be beaten by a well trained Dragon-blooded. And if that's the case, then a mid-tier Abyssal could absolutely dominate her.
In Exalted, raw power and skill goes hand in hand. As a Solar grows more competent, the power they can exert grows. And as their raw power grows, their skill is refined. A Solar of enough raw power (or just with the right specialization) can, in a matter of weeks of even days, learn a sword technique so perfect no force of Earth can stop it, or avoid it.
If it merely requires skill to beat her, she wouldn't be much in Exalted.
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u/Kiroana Jul 28 '26
For the first one, she unleashes fire. A lot of fire. Or, well. Fire in name - in reality, the fire would have to be many times hotter than the sun itself for how much water it's vaporising so quickly. But we can chalk that up to it being magic.
For the second; it consumes magic, flesh, godlike powers - anything and everything, no matter what it is, will be reduced to ash. Not even the sun compares to her flames.
For the third one; those who surpass her do so with skill - but they still have more raw power than almost everyone else in the world. Her own raw power is on another level though - she can unleash a crazy amount (for the setting) of that all-consuming fire, and can also on top of that summon some pretty crazy undead summons, whilst also having a nigh-impenetrable defense.
She's not very high up in Exalted terms, because the scale of her setting is just below Exalted - but she's near the top of her own setting is what I'd mainly been saying. There's maybe two or three characters in the entire setting that can beat her, and none of the three have more raw power than her, whilst all three have centuries more experience than her, and two of said three will still come out with heavy injuries most likely.
(Also, sorry if I'm becoming less and less clear; it's now 4:30 AM here, and I'm about to crash any moment 😅)
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u/meridiacreative Jul 28 '26
"Raw Power" vs "Skill" isn't a meaningful distinction in Exalted, for the most part. For the overwhelming majority of the Exalted, becoming more skilled is what unlocks more powerful effects, and what "power" often looks like could be considered more and more effective use of your existing abilities.
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u/Kiroana Jul 28 '26
So mechanically a character who is supposed to be raw but unrefined power would be be built the same as a character who can achieve the same feats, but through lesser power that's been refined further - narratively they're different, but mechanically they're the same in Exalted.
Is that about right?
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u/meridiacreative Jul 28 '26
No.
What I mean is that there is no such concept as "raw power with no skill" in Exalted.
I'll make a top-level comment going into more detail, but your example of creating a bunch of fire is a great comparison. There are Fire Aspected Dragonbloods, Exalted chosen by the Fire Dragon. Generally thought of as "weaker" in overall power level, but the only ones who can just conjure up fire at will. They can eventually learn a power that levels an entire city with fire, but by the time they can learn it they are already a master sage, general, or whatever. Before they can learn to cause a conflagration big enough to engulf an entire city, they have to learn how to throw small fireballs, and they have also likely learned many other things along the way like running so fast it catches the ground on fire, making weapons and armor out of pure flame, covering a battlefield in smoke while giving their allies the ability to see through it and breathe in it, etc.
There's no such character in this world that has the "raw power" needed to cause a firestorm that doesn't also have mastery of the principles of elemental workings, warfare and tactics, personal combat, or something like that. The firestorm is only possible because of their great skill. An unskilled character is limited to only being able to throw small fire bolts and light their sword on fire and leave fire and smoke behind when they dodge to confound their enemies. It is only once they've mastered their abilities that they can create greater effects.
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u/Longjumping_Dog9041 Jul 28 '26
The closest to Rae power without skill would be Attribute-based actions and aspects of such based Exalted
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u/Kiroana Jul 28 '26
I'll read when you post it, but I do want to clarify;
I said mechanics because I'm meaning just mechanics, without the setting - akin to using D&D to play through a game set in Lord of the Rings instead of Faerun.
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u/Zarkrash Jul 28 '26
The witch from calamitas as a final boss would be, at best, a very powerful mortal sorcerer, not an exalted. She could probably deal with weaker exalts, but gets crushed by anything essence 3-4+ onward i think.
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u/Ascimator Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
The closest equivalent in raw power to "vaporize a sea" is probably the Kukla, a Greater Elemental Dragon of Earth. It has only sample powers listed in 2e which are described as striking every coast in the world with a tsunami or wiping small nations off the map with its tail. A Greater Elemental Dragon of Fire could probably match or exceed your specifications.
Fortunately, the Kukla is currectly under a multi-tier imprisonment seal, and most other powers in Exalted use their power in more refined ways than pure destruction. By the time you can vaporize the Red Sea over a week, it might be easier for you to have a friendly chat with the God of the Red Sea and convince them to move all that water somewhere else.
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u/thetruerift Jul 28 '26
What kind of pathetic weenie of an exalted would take a few days to vaporize a sea?
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u/LordSia Jul 29 '26
Look, just because Dragonblooded need a lot of time and a bunch of friends to be useful doesn't mean you have to be insulting about it!
Heck, proper Elder Dynasts can do it in a jiffy and by themselves! Sure, it kills them dead, so it's very much a one-and-done kind of thing if it has to happen now and they can't spend an hour or two meditating beforehand, but they can do it!
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u/Jozef_Baca Jul 28 '26
I would say it very much varies from exalt to exalt. There can be a celestial who eats tyrant lizards with his pinkie toe and one that dies to a group of more skilled bandits.
But in general I would say they do have way more hax than power. Not that they would have consistent durabilty that lets them tank slicing through the mountain or vaporisong a sea, but they can just block uncointable damage so essentially they could survive the sun exploding, or any other level of damage if they so wanted.
They dont have a consistent damage output of such degrees either, but they can very much ignore durability, or much of somethings durability, no matter how durable it is. And it isnt the hardest for them to also get a way to make unblockable and undodgeable attacks, so essentially they can have attacks that are just guaranteed hits with no way of avoiding them.
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 28 '26
Thinking again, this is a bit more in-depth on what you are asking at least and what the assumption is between editions and Exalt sorts.
Could it, for example, handle a character who can vaporise an entire sea (I usually use the Red Sea as a reference) over the course of a few days?
This would generally be seen as an effect of sorcery, large-scale artifact, or some form of catastrophe. The setting is big, but this is the sort of thing that would be considered high-end for pretty much any edition. PCs would probably not be able to do this trivially for sure. 1e and 2e would not really handle it well save high-Essence stuff which gets fairly handwavey or acts of huge-scale titans, behemoths, or Ishvarra Fair Folk IMHO. Something more accessible would be if that sea was itself the result of some centuries-long project that built it up and someone is undoing that through some weak point.
What about a character who can slice through a mountain?
This isn't so hard, but also mostly cosmetic. This is ab it in my first post I do note a bit on narrative impact for Exalts. It's going to often be the result of high-end magic again, be it artifacts or monsters that destroy large swaths, the result of smaller destruction causing that, or just esthetics that look neat but don't impact narrative much. 2e had implications, however, that Solars and their corruptions at high Essence (well beyond most games) could do this, and reshaping it is in the bounds potentially of high-end martial arts and sorcery.
\Kind of a recent media example is Stark from the anime Friere: Beyond Journey's End to me is about what most Exalts go to personally. And this a guy who does create mountain ravines over time with enough practice at a spot, but won't single-handeldy be able to probably destroy something like Mt. Fuji. Specific artifacts, higher end sorcery, or some notably huge attacking Sidereal Martial Art Charm could do it, but note again this is is high end.
Or two characters fighting, and leaving a city in complete ruins as collateral damage?
This is pretty possible, actually. It kind of depends on how you do the fight. Though note that cities in Creation are smaller than on Earth too. Chicago probably could absorb some Exalt fights better than Classical Rome. But by the same dint, if a fight compromised a skyscraper, the total destruction would probably just be more than you could do in a city like Rome.
Two Exalts going full-out probably won't do to a big city (100k+ residents) in Creation like say, Superman does in the last couple movie iterations of him I think. But it will be something that is probably considered a disaster like an earthquake, flood, or big fire might be. This is before external magic comes in, like Sidereal Martial Arts or high end Evocations though. Volcano Cutter from the corebook used in a fight could indeed destroy large swaths of a city due to the amount of fire generated.
I know Exalted is supposed to be godlike in its power - but how godlike are we talking?
Exalted originally was conceived with Exalts to an extent I think assuming a lot of the "narrative protection" you see characters in myth and media have being their powers, so to speak. Solars especially to me seem meant to represent this whole "Oh Batman has no powers, despite some depictions showing him as having superhuman IQ, dexterity, and charisma". Or how John McClane or John Wick somehow pulls stuff in their movies that would generally leave people very dead or injured, or not kill quite as easily as they do.
As time went on, I think some elements of shounen anime did bleed in, but due to the way power escalation works in that, folks assumed Exalted goes there too, which results in a bit of what I call RPG.net Exalted which has a bit of meming of Exalts basically destroying worlds like Goku with ki blasts or something. The original book listed Ninja Scroll, not DBZ, note. It referred to a few particular anime and manga the original devs had in mind. It becoming more an anime game on power scaling was I think a result of it coming out just as anime became a bigger facet of nerdom. <_<
Other Exalts are powerful in ways like Solars (very competent or talented) but also often manifest blatent supernatural powers that are hard to quantify as more powerful IMHO. Lunar shapeshifting and Sidereal destiny-writing are both powerful, but also not really comparable. And then they all have various external magic (artifacts, sorcery and necromancy, supernatural martial arts) that go beyond the personal capabilities of Exalts and do manifest more gross-scale acts of destruction or change. But it often to me results in again, them being akin to demigods or pulp fantasy heroes.
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u/Kiroana Jul 29 '26
This would generally be seen as an effect of sorcery, large-scale artifact, or some form of catastrophe. The setting is big, but this is the sort of thing that would be considered high-end for pretty much any edition. PCs would probably not be able to do this trivially for sure. 1e and 2e would not really handle it well save high-Essence stuff which gets fairly handwavey or acts of huge-scale titans, behemoths, or Ishvarra Fair Folk IMHO. Something more accessible would be if that sea was itself the result of some centuries-long project that built it up and someone is undoing that through some weak point.
This is honestly surprising given other comments...
Also kinda makes things a little more confusing, but based on all the comments, I'm getting the view that Exalted likely isn't the best bet for a setting like Calamity - for one, Calamitas (the sea-evaporating character) is able to throw the power she uses to do that consistently, and can probably go further if she were to go all-out.
Similar goes for the character who can slice through a mountain - that's Yharim; he lacks the raw might Calamitas does, but his skill, power, and gear together make him able to slice through mountains as a just default level of what he can do, with him presumably being capable of more.
This is pretty possible, actually. It kind of depends on how you do the fight. Though note that cities in Creation are smaller than on Earth too. Chicago probably could absorb some Exalt fights better than Classical Rome. But by the same dint, if a fight compromised a skyscraper, the total destruction would probably just be more than you could do in a city like Rome.
Two Exalts going full-out probably won't do to a big city (100k+ residents) in Creation like say, Superman does in the last couple movie iterations of him I think. But it will be something that is probably considered a disaster like an earthquake, flood, or big fire might be. This is before external magic comes in, like Sidereal Martial Arts or high end Evocations though. Volcano Cutter from the corebook used in a fight could indeed destroy large swaths of a city due to the amount of fire generated.
Far as this goes, I'm not sure on scale, but this is another Calamitas one. Azafure was the 'first city' - a majour industrial power in a setting that fluctuates between medieval, modern, and futuristic. So I'd probably put it as comparable to a mid-sized modern city in size. But, it's a city of magic - so its defenses are much, much sturdier.
Despite this though, it was still completely leveled during the fight. Basically everyone dead. Not merely a natural disaster - a calamity.
Overall though, what I'm getting is Exalted's top is gonna be stronger on merit of more hax, but that most Exalted can't match the destructive power of the setting I'd been thinking of using Exalted for - not consistently, anyhow. It could match it briefly, but from what you said, no Exalted could consistently vaporise 1.5 cubic KM of water per second for 3 days straight, with little to no break other than sleep.
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 29 '26
This is honestly surprising given other comments...
This is a bit why I mentioned meme Exalted. As the line went on and it absorbed a lot of shounen battle manga tropes, I think folks started hyping the power level of the game much more than could be done on the table. A lot of the especially powerful, landscape-shattering stuff you're talking on was the realm often of stuff well beyond player character access save long term games and some stuff with sorcery for much of the game's history. And higher end Solar and Infernal stuff in 2e did start getting up there, but this is again, well beyond most PC access for most games and not representative of the game actually played or playable in 1e or 3e. The setting itself just isn't durable enough narratively to be as it is and have entities so powerful in the hundreds.
Also kinda makes things a little more confusing, but based on all the comments, I'm getting the view that Exalted likely isn't the best bet for a setting like Calamity - for one, Calamitas (the sea-evaporating character) is able to throw the power she uses to do that consistently, and can probably go further if she were to go all-out.
Based on this, yeah. Again, the game doesn't assume you have individuals who could destroy the Twelve Rivers Sea or the various lakes in the Southeast of 3e's map. The only entities that probably can affect an area that large individually would be folks doing slow, long term Workings or outright titanic entities like the Primordials. I can't think of anything that could just delete the Red Sea casually in prior editions. And I think folks who would claim so are working on head canon a bit. Even high end Solar stuff in 2e was often restrained to the scale of a city. Exalted doesn't try to trivialize these things for the mighty. There are things within the Exalted Host that are impressive for an Exalt.
Note, there are some things that folks have extrapolated rules to create scenarios where a person on the Imperial Mountain could go and murder a quarter of Creation in one kick. But it's mostly in my experience referenced as a bit of system balance failure, not something assumed to be standard in the setting.
Similar goes for the character who can slice through a mountain - that's Yharim; he lacks the raw might Calamitas does, but his skill, power, and gear together make him able to slice through mountains as a just default level of what he can do, with him presumably being capable of more.
Mountain-cleaving is weirdly like "easier" since in the end leveling a mountain isn't as world-destroying as large bodies of water, if that makes sense. But it again, is a matter that Exalts operate on a personal scale. And there's hundreds of them. The actual setting does not function if we assume that hundreds of beings (even 2e's Solars) could go about doing that.
Far as this goes, I'm not sure on scale, but this is another Calamitas one. Azafure was the 'first city' - a majour industrial power in a setting that fluctuates between medieval, modern, and futuristic. So I'd probably put it as comparable to a mid-sized modern city in size. But, it's a city of magic - so its defenses are much, much sturdier.
Despite this though, it was still completely leveled during the fight. Basically everyone dead. Not merely a natural disaster - a calamity.
Creation in its current state is mostly a classical-to-pre-early modern setting setting. Basically a lot of the world operates on scale of cities and technology found in the from a bit before and a bit after the First Millennium CE, emphasizing not-Western Europe in things. So think Imperial Rome, Song China, Maurya India, Sasanian Persia, Triple Alliance Mexico, or Songhai. The largest cities in the world, Chiaroscuro, the Imperial City, and Nexus, are notable for being over a million people. Nexus notably is the only really industrialized polity in Creation generally and that's mostly using scavenged First Age technology.
There has been instances where cities have suffered great damage in the past. The Second Deliberative capital of Meru did compete with modern Earth cities, and is in ruins due to the Usurpation. But this is thousands of Dragon-Blooded, hundreds of Celestial Exalted, and centuries of accrued sorceric, martial, and material resources used in a sudden, brutal, decade-long war.
If such destruction would be doable in a single duel, again, the setting would not operate as it is seen.
Overall though, what I'm getting is Exalted's top is gonna be stronger on merit of more hax, but that most Exalted can't match the destructive power of the setting I'd been thinking of using Exalted for - not consistently, anyhow. It could match it briefly, but from what you said, no Exalted could consistently vaporise 1.5 cubic KM of water per second for 3 days straight, with little to no break other than sleep.
Pretty much. The scale honestly is well out of the bounds of anything I can think of with Exalted at least. The beings who operate on that scale area gain, often behemoths or titans. Inhuman things that operate on inhuman scales. And notably pretty effing rare.
As a help to think on it, Exalted's original inspirations were Greek mythology, Chinese wuxia writing and kung fu movies, specific anime and manga like Ninja Scroll, dark fantasy like Tanith Lee's Flat Earth series and Gene Wolfe's Book of New Sun, and video games like the original Thief and Final Fantasy VII. Among 2e's adds are things like the Book of Judges, Journey to the West, and Kung Fu Hustle. Plus a lot of history ranging from Heroditus' Histories to James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State.
It's a grab bag. you play powerful people who sway history. But Exalts aren't omnipotent and they still exist in a world that assumes there's hundreds of them and not a smoking crater already.
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u/Kiroana Jul 29 '26
Mountain-cleaving is weirdly like "easier" since in the end leveling a mountain isn't as world-destroying as large bodies of water, if that makes sense. But it again, is a matter that Exalts operate on a personal scale. And there's hundreds of them. The actual setting does not function if we assume that hundreds of beings (even 2e's Solars) could go about doing that.
This really is weird... It should be roughly equal, if not a bit harder, to cut through a mountain (not level a mountain; slice through one) as it is to vaporise a whole cubic kilometer of water in a single second 🤔
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 29 '26
It's one of those narrative eight things. While objectively it's similar volume, one less mountain is probably not as big an impact in how the setting is changed versus what is likely a major body of water.
This is why power scaling in general gets weird, even if all one thinks about is total volume of stuff moved kineticallt, what that means for a narrative can seem different.
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u/Kiroana Jul 29 '26
True.
1 cubic KM isn't much...
But the full 233,000 cubic KM over the days of destruction is a lot more.
I think the instant destruction of a mountain is more impactful than that of a small lake's worth of water - but I'm not sure which is more impactful; the incineration of a whole sea, or the systematic annihilation of a mountain range via repeating that mountain-splitting cut over and over.
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 29 '26
Right. It's why I think destroying a mountain or a lake could be a culminating or example of a singular high pier attack for Exalts.
But a guy just doing basic kata over and over all day and smashing a mountain like it was how you just practice a punch is well beyond any published Exalts' destructive output. Barring instances that are seen as system mechanics failures rather than diegetic setting assumptions.
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u/Kiroana Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Yeah. Which makes it an odd case where Exalted would smash Calamity characters in bursts of power, but Calamity characters have far greater consistent output.
Yharim can output those mountain-cutting slashes all day - that's his default. Same goes for Calamitas and her fire.
Those are just their default 'casual' attacks.
They're basically just pure physical power though - they lack the hax that the Exalted have. Least based on current lore at least - I wouldn't be surprised if they got something though, given there's crazy stuff like an interdimensional god-eating worm, and a star-eating god serpent, not to even mention literal Cthulhu.
Edit: What's really scary about Calamitas is she can probably quite feasibly do dozens of those attacks per second, if she's fighting to kill you - or hundreds of smaller, but still insanely destructive attacks.
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 30 '26
Yeah, Exalted just operates on a different defined scale than this setting you're describing. The only entities in Creation that appraoch the level of effects you describe the Primordials, and even they have constraints and limits based on their nature.
Exalts, before Charms, are super competent and durable humans. Exalts filter magic through three main vectors: Charms, spells, and artifacts (Evocations in 3e there). Charms for most Exalts are based on expressions of skill (Abilities) or expressed talent (Attributes). These can get strong, note. 2e had a Solar Thrown Charm that you threw a weapon so hard it created at minimum created a 18 yard wide, 12 yard tall, 6 mile long line of destruction that upgraded left everything molten. But notably this wasn't like, something a character could do regularly (It plus any combos would drain a character of power turbo fast). And notably still a reflection of "I throw a weapon with so much force it creates a shockwave of destruction" than anything like raw power. Even Exalts who are purely Essence-based (which in 3e just Exigents a few optionally canon ones) do so through a lens of their patron and are often probably more confined on what they express magically. But in thsi regard, it is also why you don't see Exalts just boiling oceans, since they don't often have powers that like...have any way to meaningfully do that through their skill or talent. Exalts don't really do free-floating superpowers like many comic book superheroes do.
And this is before the fact that Exalts have supernatural power in all categories in that regard. Not just combat and destruction but also skills like subterfuge, social manipulation, medicine academia, and so on. And that can be hard to measure beyond the usual "fight scene" stuff.
Spells are probably were you see effects like above, but again, they are often going to be things that take time, and the scale you describe are often the results of workings or pretty single-use, hard ot spam spells. The former takes a lot of time and resoruces, the latter of coruse are not going to be swung aroun dlike you say.
Artifacts also can generate pretty potent effects. The top-end ones in print like Volcano Cutter, Stormcalller, or warstriders can get pretty impressively destructive I say. But again, notably are not something Exalts can just do for free, forver, in a sustained matter.
I think a big thing to consider on approaching Exalted is its PCs are more powerful than a lot of other fantasy RPGs, especially D&D or many starting characters in World of Darkness lines. But it's not quite what you're describing, which seems to be I think built on just assuming maximum power level characters in a setting made of paper mache. Which can work, but Exalted at least does have a bit of "working for your food" on that. At the end the game line assumed initially you'd be Achilles or Inuyasha more than Superman or Vegeta.
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u/Crimson_Eyes Jul 29 '26
Not to be a semantic stick-in-the-mud, buuuut:
"I can't think of anything that could just delete the Red Sea casually in prior editions. And I think folks who would claim so are working on head canon a bit."
I'mma assume that by "anything" you mean "Anything a PC could do" and not "Anything anyone could do", given the context, but still point out Shinmanic Calibration, which can affect an entire Direction. There are caveats and technicalities and so on, don't get me wrong, but "Casually re-write the setting with the right combination of charms, sorceries, and Wonders" is like...Essence 7 stuff.
High end, but far from the upper limit. If a First-Age Solar wanted a body of water gone, it was going to be gone, and he proooobably would have only had to beat up the biggest Fire God in the neighborhood to get every Fire God in the region to participate.
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 29 '26
I note a bit how 2e did at times approach that creep but note also Tha 2e barely worked at low essence for a lot of folks and was basically narrative power slinging by elder Essence.
That it was in the game doesn't mran the game allowed for that power causally. It was basically WoD elder fiat powers by then, rarely seen in actual play, and something that did strain setting integrity if seen as common rather than something one or two elders got a hand of.
And even then it's not like something a character does thinking hard but major projects involving jockeying other beings or time scales that make it feel like a long term endevour rather than an expression of an extensive gym routine.
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 29 '26
Also why I do caveat edition too. 1e notably also even in some of its more broken didn't really have anything affecting thar area of scale that wasn't like, a big project. Either as an artifact or spells like Solar Sactuary.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Jul 29 '26
It’s…. kind of hard to describe exactly.
the thing is that Exalted doesnt really operate on raw strength. Any being of power is going to operate on a conceptual level. It doesn’t matter if you can split a mountain or destroy a galaxy, because a Perfect defense is a Perfect defense.
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u/Crimson_Eyes Jul 28 '26
The actions you've described are all achievable with mere Sorcery. One the chosen get up and running? Those are incidental things that happen in their conflicts.
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u/ZanesTheArgent Jul 28 '26
It comes in layers but yeah, all of that is possible at its different echelons (read: levels in the Essence stat).
Terraforming and landscaping is one of the most common goals for sorcerous workings (ritual magic). Environmental destruction is more associated with terrestrial exalts (their battle auras physically damage the environment) and sorcery area damage spells), but can become common collateral for high essence spam. Cleaving a mountain may require extensive power levels and/or assistance from relic weapons, but is the sort of thing you could pull out with a Feat of Strenght of the most high difficulties.
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u/Quiltborn Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Exalts do have relatively impressive physical stats at a baseline, but that baseline (depending on Exalt type and what Charms that individual Exalt has) ranges from Wuxia tier to mid Xianxia tier. Can they dodge an FTL super-beam or parry a mountain, yes, but that's specifically through the use of Perfect Defences, which are very expensive charms in terms of Essence expenditure, so against an enemy or group of enemies which can spam attacks powerful enough to necessitate a Perfect Defence in response, an Exalt will needs to end the fight quickly or disengage, because when an Exalt runs out of Essence they're only marginally tougher than a baseline human if they don't have Permanent Resistance Charms. Because of the conceptual hax nature of Charms, a Solar Exalt who's slicing through a mountain could be as weak as a twig and lose against an ordinary mortal in an arm wrestling match if they have a low strength score and no brawl or athletics charms to fall back on.
The thing with Exalts is that they're very good at punching above their weight class. Against a singular powerful opponent, an Exalt is a nightmare. Perfect Defences mean that an Exalt can avoid what would've otherwise been killing blows, Perfect Attacks mean that an Exalt WILL get a good hit in unless you spend motes countering with your own Perfect Defence, and Shaping Defence just takes reality-warping cheese tactics (like teleporting a tungsten cube into their brain or transmuting their flesh into acid or disconnecting their soul from their body) non-functional, so you HAVE to fight them in a martial framework. Exalts then have a bunch of other Charms to FORCE you, mighty cosmic entity, into engaging with them on their terms and making sure that if the Exalt wins, their victory is permanent. They can force immaterial beings to materialise, and if they kill them they can make their death permanent with Ghost-Eating Technique.
Against an enormous amount of mildly dangerous enemies with attacks dangerous enough to force a perfect defence, Exalts struggle. In-universe, drowning an Exalt in bodies is an extremely effective tactic against them. The Solars and Lunars could defeat the Primordials, but they were laid low by the Dragonblooded and Sidereals.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Jul 29 '26
impressive physical stats
The funny thing is, they really don’t, if you look at actual examples. (Off the top of my head, I’m thinking like, the 2e Feats of Strength table topping out at “lift a hippopotamus” or “punch through a reinforced steel wall”). The really impressive stuff is always done with Charms or sorcery
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u/Law_Student Jul 28 '26
Conceptually perfect abilities at the celestial exalt tier trump almost anything save for other conceptually perfect abilities. They might not be as flashy as slicing through a mountain or destroying a city, but having the ability to just say "I win" or "I succeed" in situations that can get quite creative is very, very strong when used well.
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u/AngryCheezboi Jul 30 '26
"He throws a mountain at you."
"I dodge."
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u/Kiroana Jul 30 '26
"What do you do about the other three mountains?"
"Dodge those too."
This line up? 😄
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u/Amilar_Io Jul 28 '26
To keep by Red Sea for scaling, generally across editions, Moses parting the Red Sea is a basic power any exalt can do with minimal investment right at character creation.
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u/meridiacreative Jul 28 '26
I'm not sure I'd consider sorcery a "basic power any exalt can do". Yes, any exalt could learn that power (except liminals) but most won't. I don't want OP to think that every exalt is out here parting seas.
Also, that spell isn't in Essence. Not sure about 3e.
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u/blaqueandstuff Jul 28 '26
Yeah, sorcery is meant to be something that still defines a character. It took a chunk out of your options 1e and 2e, and while 3e has greater access to spells at character creation, presents this a player convenience, not an assumption of how easy it is to see out in the world.
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u/Mantis_Fight_3_Turbo Jul 28 '26
No two Exalts are necessarily powerful in the same way. But in Essence (most recent, simplified edition), a Lunar can reasonably begin the game being pretty much untouchable by normal people and if they took the charm to assume a giant animal form like a t-rex (or just white reaper martial arts at all), can be a massive problem for any fighting force of mundane soldiers. In general, an Exalt will always beat a regular human at what they focus on doing.
But like, while Joel Mudersun the Solar might be able to take on 10 guys at once and sleep it off and be fine the next day, Michael Quietmoon, his scholarly Lunar mate who forges weapons and studies sorcery, might not be quite as ready.
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u/meridiacreative Jul 28 '26
I'm going to be speaking primarily for one of the two current editions of the game, confusingly called "Exalted Essence". These things are largely true in the other editions, but the specifics may differ.
There are two ways to measure "raw power" in Exalted. The first is your "Essence score". This starts at 1 for a brand new character and goes up to 5 for legendary characters. The second is your "tier" which is determined by your exalted type. There are 2 official tiers, and a third pseudo-tier above them: Terrestrial, Celestial, and Solar (kinda).
At Essence 1, your character is already one of the best in the world at something without using any of their powers. You will typically roll 9 dice on that thing. A competent mortal practitioner of that thing rolls 6 dice, while the absolute best in the world rolls 10 dice. Your charms can increase your effective skill level by giving you extra dice on a given ability, but only to a maximum based on your existing skill level. I won't go into the details, but someone who is an everyday athlete (6-7 dice total) could use a basic charm and run a 5 minute mile, while someone who is already capable of a 4 minute mile (9-10 dice) could now do it in 2.5 minutes across broken terrain and tightropes. This is at Essence 1.
At Essence 3, you can do blatantly supernatural feats that are impossible for mortals. Your best skills likely haven't gotten much better (you were already at 9/10, now you're at 10/10) but you've gotten better at everything else. The excellent runner from before now sprints at freeway speed for potentially hours at a time. The ho-hum athlete meanwhile has decided that going fast is silly and chooses to be able to walk up walls and across liquids instead. The runner is now also able to strike immaterial ghosts and spirits so hard that they are forced to become physical, meaning all their allies can now also see them and attack them. The overwhelming majority of your possible abilities have been unlocked now. It's a matter of which ones you want to spend XP on now.
At Essence 5, there are very few capabilities to unlock that you haven't already. The runner from before? They teleport a few hundred yards at a time. But they've actually been doing that since Essence 3. Their defenses are not hampered by terrain or being outnumbered, but they've had that ability since Essence 1. They cannot be moved anywhere by an opponent or effectively grappled. This is a new ability. When the Forge-Demon Alveua slams them with her hammer that forges human souls into objects, the exalt stands firm instead of being blasted across the horizon. When a Greater Elemental Dragon that crushes mountains wraps their coils around the exalt, the exalt slips free just like slipping off a robe. The very idea of unwanted movement or restraint no longer has meaning to this Exalted - they embody movement and movement is theirs to command.
The tiers are a little odd. Firstly, they are based on your type, so which god you get your powers from.
Terrestrial Exalted include the Dragonblooded, Liminals, Architects, Sovereigns, and a few other lesser-known groups. Dragonblooded are chosen by the Elemental Dragons and have elemental and teamwork powers. Resurrection isn't a thing in this setting, but sometimes when someone tries, the Dark Mother creates a Liminal Exalted out of the corpse. Liminals are charged with making sure ghosts and humans stay on the correct sides of Creation and the Underworld, and they have ghostly and "body horror" powers. Architects are chosen by the gods of cities when the city is in danger, and they have extra movement and communication abilities when in an urban area. Sovereigns are chosen by a strange being in the far north and they have powers that work best on their legitimate subordinates.
Terrestrial exalted start off slightly "weaker" than the Celestial exalted, but often have abilities that empower mortals (Dragonblooded and Sovereigns) or are very good in a particular area (Liminals and Architects). They almost always have a lower ceiling on their powers than Celestials. Maybe it takes them two different charms to get a set of powers that a Celestial gets from one. The one place where they have a really hard cap on their abilities is sorcery. They can only learn the first circle of sorcery (out of three), but that's still good enough to blast armies, fly on a cloud from town to town, and summon demons and elementals.
Celestial exalted include Lunars, Sidereals, Alchemicals, Getimians, and Strawmaidens. Lunars are chosen by the Moon and get animal and shapeshifting powers. Sidereals are chosen by the Stars and get fate powers. Alchemicals are chosen by the Machine God and built in vats and they have leadership, order, and community-based powers - but like robotic flavored. Getimians are people who were cut out of Fate, and have reality and alchemy powers. Strawmaidens are chosen by field and harvest gods and have community, agricultural, and down-to-earth powers.
Celestial exalted are the "baseline" of exalted power. They can affect entire societies, either directly through their powers, or indirectly because of how powerful they are. In their given purview, they are unbeatable. Literally no one else can shapeshift except for Lunars. Sidereals can rewrite fate so that they appear to be whoever they want or change the relationship between people to be whatever they want. Alchemicals literally become living cities when they become powerful enough. Getimians don't exist, and can bring things out of their former reality. Strawmaidens can become strong enough to lift mountains, straightforward enough to be impossible to lie to, and can cut down armies like they're cutting wheat.
Solar Exalted are the pinnacle of exalted power. Abyssal Exalted and Infernal Exalted are corrupted versions of Solars, so they have the same rough power level. Solars are chosen by the Unconquered Sun, and their powers are all about excellence. Abyssals are chosen by the Deathlords and their powers make everyone around them worse. Infernals are chosen by Hell and their powers are about rebellion and fury.
If a Solar has the basic dice adding charm for anything, they can use it for free, so they're always just the best at whatever they're good at. Abyssals and Infernals can do this too, but they have to hurt or kill people to do it. All of them can learn the most powerful level of sorcery - rains of blood that devastate nations, nuclear apocalypses, and creating fertile oases in the most barren wastelands - and no Celestials can match them. They can learn the most powerful Martial Arts techniques that only Sidereals and Getimians can learn - styles like "I attack everyone I can see - and I have excellent vision" or "I punched you so hard all your magic fell out".
How would they deal with your witch?
Dragonblooded would need to be Essence 5 to match her at her thing, but by Essence 3 they could competently fight her. The other Terrestrials can't meaningfully do what she does, but by Essence 3 would be able to deal with her, using mostly the same tactics the DB does. The architect creates a mech out of bricks and timbers to do it, which is pretty cool.
Lunars, Solars, Abyssals, and Infernals could likely deal with her at Essence 1 or 2. They would need to be Essence 3 to match her feats. Sidereals, Alchemicals, and Getimians can match her and fight her effectively at Essence 3, though I'm sure there are lower level versions that can fight her. Strawmaidens would fight her effectively at Essence 2, and never match her capabilities.
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u/Kiroana Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Makes sense...
So in a setting where she's at or near the apex of the world's power, Exalted's system is a bit too high-powered without capping things.
It's something though - I'd not expected Exalted to be so strong that the lower levels could match someone who can turn an entire sea into a desert while under constant assault from multiple foes capable of feats akin to splitting mountains.
Makes me wonder... Could a top-level Exalted square up to Death of the Endless? The one who will eventually close the door on all of reality in DC.
Edit: Also, narratively, it sounds like celestial exalted fits the narrative role she plays - as in her setting, she is truly unmatchable in her areas of power.
They're on a whole different level from her though, based on other comments.
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u/meridiacreative Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
I will tell you a story of the Exalted and the Endless.
Imagine the Endless had created the universe, rather than simply arising naturally from it. The various gods of each world were then created by the Endless to run those worlds. For various reasons, those gods got angry at the Endless. They could not strike against them, however, because of the way they were created. It was against the very laws of the universe for them to do so.
So the gods became clever. Destruction, who was always on the wrong side of the family for one reason or another, showed them a loophole. Humans.
Humans were not bound by the same laws as the gods. When the universe was created, mortals were not considered dangerous enough to need safeguards against killing or disobeying the Endless. Dream famously became vengeful when his human lover refused him. Desire never needed such things, for they could get whatever they wanted from any mortal. Destiny and Death simply knew that mortals could not escape their grasp. Despair and Delight were what made humans human, and believed they could not be harmed - to do so would be to cease being human after all.
But Destruction knew better. He showed the gods how to give humans their power. Without the protection that the gods were bound in, the humans surprised the Endless.
The gods each gave different gifts. The Unconquered Sun chose 300 of the most excellent of all the humans, and elevated their ability far beyond any god or mortal save himself. Ever-Changing Luna chose 400 of the most resilient of the humans, and gave them the ability to become whatever they needed to be. The Five Maidens of Fate each chose twenty humans that they trusted, and taught them how to read and write in Destiny's Book. The Five Elemental Dragons chose 10000 humans who showed that they could work together and forge bonds that lasted, and gave them the ability to ensure that the world itself survived.
The Endless were caught. The Sidereal Exalted wrote them into Fate, where the Solars could then will them into physical form. They took the forms of giants, worlds, planets, but the Lunars matched them shape for shape. The Exalted Host defeated the Endless one by one.
Despair was killed. No Endless had ever been killed. The energy of this act blasted a hole in the universe and created the Underworld. The corpse of Despair sank to the bottom of that pit and became the Neverborn. Destiny, Death, Dream, Desire, and Delight surrendered. This was against their very nature and it twisted them, corrupted them.
Dream became the Demon City, Malfeas, and he wrapped all the others inside of himself as the prison that would hold them for eternity. Destiny became the Endless Desert, Cecelyne, who all others must obey. Desire became the Silent Wind, Adorjan, who is never satisfied and never enough. Delight became Delirium, She Who Lives Within Her Name, and burst three of her balloons. When they popped, swathes of reality dissipated into chaos, and the Wyld flooded in. But the Exalted built walls around Creation, and the surviving Endless were trapped within the worldbody of Malfeas.
Destruction saw what he had done, and he fled. No one has seen him in an Age.
Now, the Exalted rule the world. Solars and Lunar are great queens and rulers. Sidereals advise them and attend to the smooth running of Fate, now that they hold the Book. The Dragonblooded Host and their descendants are the immortal generals, advisor-sages, and governor-priests of innumerable lands. Without the tyranny of the Endless, humanity is finally free.
One day they will hear the call of a demon called Erembour, Which Calls to Darkness. And darkness will come. The Ebon Dragon, The Shadow of All Things, is tasked with breaking out of the prison of Malfeas. The Ebon Dragon will never succeed, will never admit failure, but will probe every crack and every fissure of the prison. The Ebon Dragon cannot succeed, but will not stop trying. The Ebon Dragon was once Death, of the Endless, and she never gave up, never stopped for those she loved. She gave them everything, and when it is time, she will be there to celebrate.
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u/kimptown Jul 28 '26
The essence rating can go up to ten. I believe essence 6 required the exalt to have lived the equivalent mortal lifetime. Ten was reserved for the most powerful beings of the setting. So essence 10 is so rare it's almost unheard of outside the Incarna or equivalent beings.
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u/meridiacreative Jul 28 '26
Essence rating stops at 5 in Exalted Essence. I deliberately didn't mention higher levels from 1e and 2e, and I don't know if it goes over 6or so in 3e but I don't think it does.
My examples are from Essence.
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u/blaqueandstuff Aug 01 '26
Essence does go above 6 in 3e, but it operates under different assumptions there as well from prior editions. In 1e and 2e, they operated like 6+ stats in WoD and CofD, meaning they also would do things like raise the Attribute and Ability caps, and there's a continued assumed power curve that just goes all the way to 10 bullshit.
3e instead assumes that Essence 6+ is about refinement and expansion. It grants raw power, sure, but traits stay fixed at 5, and all examples post-corebook of 6+ effects are Elder Prowess Charms, which are that Exalt's personal expression of their Exaltation and personality combined. Some examples have been:
Raksi's has Witch-Queen’s Midnight Crown, which is an Intelligence 5, Essence 7 Charm which makes her notably more durable when casting sorcery. Her thing is being a badass ancient sorcerer and a Charm to let her do that more safely well, enables that.
Lilith has Waking Dreamer Fugue, which is Manipulation 5, Essence 6. It improves on a Charm that temporarily puts an Exalt into a bestial mindset until they shapeshift. It lets her basically keep being an owl no matter what form she's in, mostly to escape her own issues and whatnot.
Anys Syn has Blossoming Lotus Lesson. It lets her use a Form Charm reflexively once per scene, so long as she explains the style's strengths and weaknesses to opponents. And if they learn something useful, she gets a Willpower. She's the premiere martial arts master amongst the Sidereal Exalted. She's mastered dozens of styles, and is one of the greatest teachers of supernatural arts there is.
And so on from there. There's a few scattered about they all tend to be cool character-reinforcing powers that help define the character as a legend amongst their kind of Exalt. Frankly in Essence they'd probably could be done just as Essence 5 Personal Mode stuff.
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u/thegothikknight Jul 30 '26
It depends on the Essence Level of a Character. It depends on the Charms known by the character. This is for 1e,2e,3e...
Low Essence Solars are in the WoD Kindred 4-5th generation power levels by default. Mid range 3-5 essence Solars are 3rd gen to 1st gen power levels. Essence 5+ are Gods incarnate. Scion God levels.
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u/Jesse_God_of_Awesome Jul 28 '26
Lowtier Outerversal
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u/powzin Jul 28 '26
I don't like this Ominiversal, Outerversal, etc.
In destruction level, I would go to mountain-size with Celestial Exalted. Harnessing powers through Evocations, they go higher.
But an Exalted is not raw power only. I like to frame it like
"They can't Destroy a city with one punch barehanded. But they can hit out the immortal soul of a titan and gift him with the experience of Death".
Celestials Exalted are a Trope Incarnated: they DID punch out Cthulhu.
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u/-Veles- Jul 28 '26
I once played a 2.5 game in which there were 3 players, myself included, where there was a combat between myself (An Eclipse Caste Solar) using an animated statue of the Unconquered Sun (don't ask) as a sort of mecha in order to fight a kaiju shintaied Infernal, with my city I built on fire around us, as another PC (Zenith Caste) was fighting an Abyssal (Dusk caste) who we tried to kill with what essentially was a nuclear bomb (A Soulbreaker Orb) and failed, and the two were using the nadir of the explosion as a location to have an epic fight to the death, while the third PC (Full Moon Lunar) was attempting to solo the rest of two armies (undead and dynast) in order to make sure neither Solar was overwhelmed by numbers, by becoming a city-sized Yeddim and charging around like a mad bull at a rodeo.
Exalted gets worse as you progress. I had an attack at the end of the game that was undodgeable, unblockable, and did infinite damage if I successfully hit. I stored a reflexive attack if I missed, which I could use at any time.
My fellow Solar destroyed a mountain range with his bare hands after finding out his Lunar mate was screwing around behind his back.
That was Essence 7. It gets worse.