What combat builds have you found the most fun?

[Epitome]

Haven't played it myself, but a friend of mine played full Solar Grapple and judged it was basically auto-win in 1v1 (If I remember correctly, under normal circumstances you get to crash the target and then unleash 2 full Decisives against 0 DV on Turn 1). He had no qualms with the mechanics themselves, but then again he loves rules-heavy systems like Exalted's.

[The Wizard of Oz]

I was not specialized in grappling. I tried to grapple a bit with my Water Aspect Dynast however, in order to drown people.

It's fun but a bit "lengthy", you grapple someone, try to move to the bottom of the lake/river or whatever, and just do it again. It takes a bit too long for someone to actually drown si it's not "fun" past turn 4, and it makes you basically re-grapple the person once it ends because you didn't have enough turn of control to drown him, which is a bit repetitive and not extremely dynamic.

Ah, that's an interesting idea but yeah, I can see how it's not very dynamic.

[The Wizard of Oz]

As a matter of fact, I only gave Knight Raiton Socialize 5 (for persona access), and Investigation 5 (“World’s Greatest Detective” and all that). I had more 4s than 5s, and more 3s than 4s. I don’t even think I had an Attribute at 5 at character creation.

Sorry, I was just referring to you going "I want to play Batman". Besides (I assume) Supernal Socialise, I had no idea what your build was, it was just an example of how you can absolutely pick a concept and give it enormous Abilities if it fits the concept (and Batman is an example of a man with multiple high abilities).

[Chausse]

I was not specialized in grappling. I tried to grapple a bit with my Water Aspect Dynast however, in order to drown people.

It's fun but a bit "lengthy", you grapple someone, try to move to the bottom of the lake/river or whatever, and just do it again. It takes a bit too long for someone to actually drown si it's not "fun" past turn 4, and it makes you basically re-grapple the person once it ends because you didn't have enough turn of control to drown him, which is a bit repetitive and not extremely dynamic.

[TheCountAlucard]

If you go (as Alucard did) "I want to play Batman! Batman will be a lot of fun. Hmmm... so what does Batman need... hmmm, okay I'll give him Athletics 5 (+1 Jumping between buildings), Brawl 5, Dodge 5, Investigation 5, Presence 4 (+1 Intimidation), Thrown 5 (+1 Batarangs), Socialise 5 (+1 Pretending to be a wealthy socialite), Stealth 5. And then a few dots in Awareness, Bureaucracy, Lore, Resistance, etc."

As a matter of fact, I only gave Knight Raiton Socialize 5 (for persona access), and Investigation 5 (“World’s Greatest Detective” and all that). I had more 4s than 5s, and more 3s than 4s. I don’t even think I had an Attribute at 5 at character creation.

That’s what I’ve used most of Raiton’s Solar XP on since then. And yes, you could argue that Attribute dots are a suboptimal choice, but:
1) I like having some room to improve,
2) My Attribute purchases effectively count double, since my Carter Brus persona uses them as well, and
3) I didn’t feel like investing in Martial Arts or sorcery, and didn’t have any artifacts until just this last Story where we went tomb raiding.

So my choices were largely limited to Attribute/Ability increases, and buying up Willpower (which I’ve also been doing).

[The Wizard of Oz]

So, back to the main question.

Who's tried a grappling build? How did you find it?
I think there's a lot of fun stuff; restraining people, throwing them around, using them to parry other attacks. But it's a lot of rolls, and I think that can be annoying.

First you roll to hit, then to succeed at the gambit, then the control roll. If you're restraining, that's 3 rolls.
If you want to do decisive damage, you then do a fourth roll, for damage.
If you want to do withering (frequently the best option), then you roll to hit and damage. So 5 rolls total.

I tried out a bear the other day against one of my PCs, and their signature attack (a withering claw swipe that turns into a bear hug) is 5 or even 6 rolls. It got a bit much, the player thought I must have made a mistake with so many rolls! (I actually did, I rolled to hit for the decisive attack, when it should have auto-hit, but that's still 5 rolls.)

So I wondered how people who'd played a character specialised in grappling found it.

[The Wizard of Oz]

Yeah, if your concept is "greatest thief in the world" then having Dexterity 5 and Larceny 5 is absolutely fine. As is going "hmmm, my greatest thief should be really quick-witted, and amazingly stealthy, and really aware of her surroundings." The issue is when players go "huh, I've got Dex 5, why not take Melee 5 to be great at combat and have Parry 6, and I should take these 5 combat charms because they're really good". And that's not what the character is about.

[Synapse]

Just a friendly reminder that this isn't Vampire. As The Wizard of Oz is saying, if you think up a character that is really damn fucking good at a thing, throwing 5s at that thing is perfectly in character.
For example, the zenith of one of the games I STd once.
"He's a patrician general that stood out in the house of bells even against his exalted kin, but after one too many campaigns where he had to do something he saw as immoral in the name of the house he betrayed everyone and left to wander in the desert, where on the brink of death the sands whispered to him that his cause was just"
Bam. Int 5, War 5 at chargen. Survival 2, melee 2, Stamina 3.

[The Wizard of Oz]

I guess there's a sort of attitude thing.
If you go (as Alucard did) "I want to play Batman! Batman will be a lot of fun. Hmmm... so what does Batman need... hmmm, okay I'll give him Athletics 5 (+1 Jumping between buildings), Brawl 5, Dodge 5, Investigation 5, Presence 4 (+1 Intimidation), Thrown 5 (+1 Batarangs), Socialise 5 (+1 Pretending to be a wealthy socialite), Stealth 5. And then a few dots in Awareness, Bureaucracy, Lore, Resistance, etc."
That's a character the player will probably enjoy. And the fact he has enormous stats is fine.

Whereas if you try and make Batman and just have, like, 3 dots in everything, you'll get frustrated when you find your Batman isn't a master detective or whatever.
(I mentioned at the beginning that I found my snake-totem, poison-specialising, snake-style using build is not that good, and it's irritating when you realise some of your charms just can't be used together.)

But if someone thinks "Hmmm... these Stealth charms could combo really well with Brawl charms. I could take Supernal Brawl 5 dots, with a specialty in Unarmed, and 5 dots of Dex so my Parry is 6. And Stealth really goes well with Thrown. And I'll want Wits 5 for a high Join Battle... And these Resistance charms are really powerful so I'll take those as well."
If you think like this, in my experience, this character will end up being quite boring, even though it's not massively different from the first. Obviously it depends on the player, but I've seen a number of players (including myself) make characters that are really powerful, and then find the character is boring because they made it the wrong way round. The character has no personality, they're just a bunch of dots.


So, for example, if you think the idea of being a small cat that leaps around ripping out people's necks, Monty Python-style, is a lot of fun, then you'll love Deathkitty in combat. If you also have an idea for a personality and backstory for them, great. But, I find at least, that playing a character like that because of their enormous standing accuracy pool or whatever ends up being a bit dull. It's fun to build, but not that fun to play.

[The Wizard of Oz]

Considering the god-stat nature of Dexterity, I am pretty fine with people playing a character with Strength 5, Dexterity 2, Stamina 5.

Whereas I would be less happy if a player came to me with a character with Strength 5, Dexterity 5, Stamina 2.

But, as I said, one thing I found is that if you have a concept, making that in an optimised way is fine (ie my concept is amazing ninja, so I will take Dex 5, Melee 5, Thrown 5, Stealth 5, Athletics 5, Dodge 5... etc), and fun. And honestly, some people are not very good at making Exalted characters and shoot themselves in the foot a bit unless someone else comes and tweaks their character a bit.

Whereas as soon as you change your concept to fit more optimal stats, it's less fun. And most of all, characters you play because you discovered some awesome optimal combo... are pretty boring to play.

Of course, what exactly is optimal depends.
Having Strength 5, Dex 5 and Stamina 1 will allow you to reach 5/5/5 in 40xp, whereas if you start with 4/4/3 it'll cost you 60xp. Suboptimal.

But... what if you're never going to buy up to 5/5/5 anyway? What if you're going to spend all your xp on charms and spells and a little on abilities?

Underfoot's Lunar has Strength 4, Dexterity 4, and Stamina 4. If he was buying up to 5/5/5 that'd be suboptimal, but I don't think he will so it doesn't matter. His strength excellency adds 2 damage and his stamina excellency adds 2 soak whether he's got 4 or 5, so might as well have more 4s.

I've got to say, I was really happy with Lunar character creation. The lack of the option to buy 14xp worth of Ability dots if you buy 3 to 5 for 2 dots made all freebie options way more equal. Unlike with Solars, there were no characters I looked like and realised were built terribly compared to other characters. Also, the charms that let you use different stats means that this is the first game of Exalted I have ever run where no-one has Dexterity 5.
I also like the way you get 9 dots for your primary attributes, meaning it's impossible to take 5/5/1.

Essentially, I feel that Lunar character actually gives fairly balanced choices, rather than correct choices (buy Abilities up to 5) and wrong choices. Thus, as long as players weren't spending their freebies on the first dot of an Ability or something, whatever they bought was fine, so they could just buy what made sense for the character without being punished.

[Beast of Bitter Oblivion]

Well you can do whatever you like with your character I’m just giving my 2c on the subject.

[prototype00]

Much more realistic stat allocation for the Mountain would be str 5 dex 3 stamina 4 , would it kill you to only have one physical attribute at 5?

If you have problems with the math involved in Character Creation, please take it up with Vance and Eric not me. We’re not at fault who make the choice not to spend Xp unwisely.

I’m also not especially interested in splitting the Dex 2 vs Dex 3 hair, especially when it concerns getting key charms for character concept at character creation.

I completely accept however, your deep desire to model almost, but not, perfect stats in play, even if it isn’t my preferred mode of character building.

[Beast of Bitter Oblivion]

At this point you are calling for a level of versimilitude to reality that I don’t require for my game of superhuman demigods and I am afraid our respective discussions have parted company.

Parting words: I wholeheartedly accept your right to play PCs modelled on however you’d like to build them. All that I ask is the same consideration from my fellow players.

Edit: Can the Mountain do backflips? Thats what I would expect if his representative Dex was on tier with his Str. Not seen them yet, so he has normal Dex as far as Exalted defines it.

Much more realistic stat allocation for the Mountain would be str 5 dex 3 stamina 4 , would it kill you to only have one physical attribute at 5?

[prototype00]

That’s not how physical fitness works in reality you don’t really think the mountain only has dex 2 like an average shmo out there just because he is large . It’s a stupid stereotype you can be both big and fast otherwise your bulk is probably just fat not muscle. The physical regimen you’d go through to achieve those super human stats would mean that your all round physical attributes are in no way average. I removed the stats because it’s true for any 2 out of 3.

At this point you are calling for a level of versimilitude to reality that I don’t require for my game of superhuman demigods and I am afraid our respective discussions have parted company.

Parting words: I wholeheartedly accept your right to play PCs modelled on however you’d like to build them. All that I ask is the same consideration from my fellow players.

Edit: Can the Mountain do backflips? Thats what I would expect if his representative Dex was on tier with his Str. Not seen them yet, so he has normal Dex as far as Exalted defines it.

[Beast of Bitter Oblivion]

That’s not how physical fitness works in reality you don’t really think the mountain only has dex 2 like an average shmo out there just because he is large . It’s a stupid stereotype you can be both big and fast otherwise your bulk is probably just fat not muscle. The physical regimen you’d go through to achieve those super human stats would mean that your all round physical attributes are in no way average. I removed the stats because it’s true for any 2 out of 3.
P.S: also lunars have more attributes to spend it doesn’t stop other splats from making silly “ optimised “ unrealistic builds at character creation. Just because the system allows something doesn’t mean you should do it.