Ask a question, get an answer 2

[Elkovash]

I don't allow defend other chains. If A>B>C>D and D is attacked, C is the one who declared 'defend other' on D and intercepts the blow, A and B don't interact with it at all.

I'm leery of allowing an attacking character to get the benefits of a successful clash against someone they aren't actually clashing with. I would resolve an attack against the defender as it's own separate attack that is resolved normally and only reverts to clash rules if they opt to continue past the defender and strike the ward who is also attacking them in the same instant.

In this case; X declares an attack on A, and A Declares attack on X. B declares 'defend other' on A. C declares 'defend other' on B.
B intercepts X's attack with a defend other, C's Defend Other is ignored.
X resolves their attack against B as a normal attack.
- If X fails, B takes no damage and A strikes X as a regular attack against X's Defence.
- If X succeeds, X can choose to damage B as a normal attack, or press on to continue attacking A, in which case resolve a clash between X and A with X's remaining successes.

The question is; do things get spicy if you have A, B, C and D all defending someone else in the chain, and then they are attacked by a battlegroup... :P

[Beast of Bitter Oblivion]

I don't think there are any rules outside charms.
I would suggest maybe something like a month of training and a Charisma+War roll to give a group average drill.

is there a consensus on that ? I was told 6 months to a year.

[JohnDoe244]

is there a consensus on that ? I was told 6 months to a year.

I would do this (spoiler for length):

A new battlegroup starts with the traits of Conscripts and Poor Drill.

Training troops to Average Drill requires War 1 and that the troops live in close proximity to each other, drilling no fewer than five days in a week together.

The trainer makes an extended roll with an interval of one month and a goal of 10, with a difficulty determined by the solider’s attitude—eager and healthy fighters would be difficulty 1, standard conscripts would be difficulty 2, while annexed enemy nationals would be difficulty 5.

After successful training they advance to Average Drill.

(Tiger Warrior Training is at least four times faster and doesn't require a roll.)

Average Drill conscripts can be given the traits of Battle Ready Troops. The trainer now needs a War Specialty in training troops and the interval of this roll is six weeks. This training may be undertaken during campaign as the troops learn from experience.

(A mortal trainer would likely need two rolls here, giving us a four month training time to turn farmers into legionnaires - broadly comparable with the legions of the Roman Empire. Tiger Warrior training doesn't need the specialty and does it in a week for free alongside average drill).

Advaning to Elite Drill is rare. A trainer requires two War Specialties - one training troops and the other in the culture the troops are drawn from ("Lookshy Helots" or "Harbored Farmers" for example). A trainer may only train a battlegroup whose Size is equal to or lower than the trainer's War ability. Only willing, capable, and eager soldiers who already have Average Drill may be trained to Elite Drill. Conscripts may be trained to Elite Drill, but typically this training is reserved for Battle Ready Troops or new groupings of Elite Troops.

Elite drill training has a Goal Number of 20 and a Difficulty equal to the unit's (Size + Might + 1). The Interval is three months and will almost always consist of rigorous drilling and real combat.

Raising your soldiers from birth and the like may provide a Situational Bonus.

Likewise, advancing to the statline of Elite troops uses the same rules as advancing to Elite Drill with the following exceptions: the training requires that the troops be trained to at least the Battle Ready Soldier level; training a group of soldiers to Elite level requires they have at least Average Drill, but one or two individuals (Size 0) may be trained at a time even if they have no experience fighting together; Elite soldiers require the best equipment -- it is a (Size + 1) Resources expenditure to gear a battlegroup of elite soldiers.

Training both Elite Stats and Elite Drill at the same time is possible, but imposes a -3 Flurry penalty to the rolls.

TL: DR

A month just to raise Drill to average is probably fine for PCs.
Four months to turn raw farmers into real soldiers.
One year to turn full soldiers into elite soldiers.

The Leadership Projects system would probably be how I'd handle this if I didn't have a PC interested in handling the training themselves.

[Isator Levi]

you'd think there'd be rules for chariots.

I don't think they've ever been very prominent in the setting.

As a feature of war, chariots become quite obsolete once you can breed horses large enough to ride.

[Zardoz]

The question is; do things get spicy if you have A, B, C and D all defending someone else in the chain, and then they are attacked by a battlegroup... :P

Under your 'don't allow chains' system, it all comes out in the wash, surely? IE A-> B -> C -> D -> A, battle groups attack A,B,C,D; defend other redirect the attacks to target D,A,B,C. Under the rulling in Ask the Devs you'd just end up with the person with the highest parry taking all the attacks not targeting them. I suspect the PCs could choose the order the attacks are resolved in, and that the warden is allowed to be swapped should onslaught cause their parry to drop below that of someone else in the chain.

[The Wizard of Oz]

Thanks for your answers guys. I think I'll just run chariots as steeds with barding, that seems easiest.

I was quite surprised that War doesn't seem to have anything to protect your troops so I wondered if I'd missed it? Seems like the answer is no though.

Still, by the time Dragonblood are flaring, most of their troops will probably have been mauled by a giant walrus glowing silver so it doesn't matter too much. And if they get into melee with centaurs or PCs they can always jump off their chariots I guess.

[The Wizard of Oz]

I don't think they've ever been very prominent in the setting.

There was the 2nd ed comic where the Realm Wyld Hunt chase a Solar on chariots to Lookshy (famed friends of Solars, as we all know). I don't remember ever really seeing/reading chariots anywhere else.

As a feature of war, chariots become quite obsolete once you can breed horses large enough to ride.

Yeah, generally true. My game is set in c2500BC WoD, after the end of Exalted's world, so it's really just one PC who has an enormous horse familiar that rides a steed. Everyone else uses chariots because the horses are too small.

[The Wizard of Oz]

A month just to raise Drill to average is probably fine for PCs.
Four months to turn raw farmers into real soldiers.
One year to turn full soldiers into elite soldiers.

I'd do something like a difficulty 3 Cha+War roll once per month to give Average Drill to 50 or so people. No improvement in stats, just Drill. Harder if the Battle Group is bigger.

A season or so for a roll to turn raw farmers into professional seems okay, with a decent difficulty roll.

I'm hesitant to let people become Elite Soldiers without extensive real battle experience, but a PC probably should be able to do it with a good roll and plenty of time.

This is just how I might run it, there's no rules of course.

[JohnDoe244]

I was quite surprised that War doesn't seem to have anything to protect your troops so I wondered if I'd missed it? Seems like the answer is no though.

Enfolded in the Dragon's Wings used to do this (badly). Doesn't anymore.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Elemental Halo's Mercy
Cost: 3m, 1m+; Mins: War 2, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Balanced, Wood
Duration: Scene
Prerequisite Charms: None

A dragon safeguards her children from her own fury, as well as enemies without. For 3 motes the Dragonblood may protect one creature from the damaging effects of her anima banner for the duration of the scene. For each additional mote spent she may protect one other creature, or one size of battlegroup. For example a character may spend 3m to protect their mount, and an additional 2m to protect a group of 25 refugees.

If the character has an intimacy towards the original target of this charm, discount the base cost by the level of the intimacy. For example 0m to protect a horse that the character has a defining intimacy for.


EDIT: I know the wording of the charm isn't perfect, like you can't just target a BG with it, but the gist is there and should be okay.

[light-hero]

So for fun I tried making a Lunar Full Moon Viking Berserker/ Fury Warrior but could only find two animals with the berserker trait. What gives?

And why does the bear has the berserker trait when the Northren Ursia does not? And why not dinos or sea animals? Any ideas?

[Moss Reynholm]

Zardoz and Elkovash – big thank you both!

Zardoz, I’ve singularly failed to find the earlier ruling (on higher parry) you mention, I’d love to see it if you’ve got it easily to hand but really don’t worry if it’s a pain to dig out.

Digging around some more, I’ve seen that the (later) answer Chronos12 got here on Defend Other/Clashes seems to contradict the answer Limaxophobic got here that I referenced earlier.

(Chejop Kejak mentioned in the Arena thread that Vance has said elsewhere that ‘two people Defend Othering each other causes the universe to unravel’, so it seems plausible that there just isn’t much of an answer to this – I’m sorry to have lumbered the Devs with the question if so.)

Think Vance’s later take pretty much could align with Elkovash’s solution though – and it might work with the ruling you mention Zardoz if ‘switch to highest parry’ is (now) only a thing if you have multiple people defending one specific ward, rather than any sort of chain. But I’m guessing/projecting entirely there, which isn’t very helpful.

Urgh. Considering how many charms there are now across the game that interact with Defend Other (FatG alone has loads…) feel like this is going to keep coming up.

Thanks again.

[Moss Reynholm]

There was the 2nd ed comic where the Realm Wyld Hunt chase a Solar on chariots to Lookshy (famed friends of Solars, as we all know). I don't remember ever really seeing/reading chariots anywhere else.

Think they were supposed to be a little more common than collective memory now recalls, at least in 2e – you got stats for them in Scroll of Kings, they’re called out specifically as ‘often’ used by DBs in the Core and Paragon had them (fitted with Implosion Bows of all things – ahhh, 2e). The Arczeckh(?) Horde from Compass: The East were also big on them if I remember right.

Yeah, generally true. My game is set in c2500BC WoD, after the end of Exalted's world, so it's really just one PC who has an enormous horse familiar that rides a steed. Everyone else uses chariots because the horses are too small.

I initially parsed this as it being the horse familiar that rode the steed, which would be fun but also implies I've lost the ability to read....

[Elkovash]

and it might work with the ruling you mention Zardoz if ‘switch to highest parry’ is (now) only a thing if you have multiple people defending one specific ward, rather than any sort of chain. But I’m guessing/projecting entirely there, which isn’t very helpful.

Urgh. Considering how many charms there are now across the game that interact with Defend Other (FatG alone has loads…) feel like this is going to keep coming up.

Yeah, if a team of guards were all protecting the one person, I'd have the highest defence take each individual hit (which makes sense when you start racking up the onslaught penalties). Which I think is probably an important thing to establish. A king being protected by a cadre of expert swordsmen revolving through who takes each hit as the members become beleaguered from overextending themselves would be impressed by a single Exalted Yojimbo able to mitigate their onslaught penalty and provide the same manner of protection as the 5 other guys.

I think it's also important to remember that when Vance/Minton answer questions in the Dev thread, they are explicitly not handing out new canon pronouncements (as they have said themselves). They are trying their best to answer questions based on what they know- which is especially harder when they are asked to interpret text from the Core which they didn't personally write or develop. This is why you sometimes get conflicting quotes- maybe they've changed their mind, or have a different understanding after working on some new content or charms or some such.

[The Wizard of Oz]

they’re called out specifically as ‘often’ used by DBs

That would make sense, if you ruled that chariots mean the horses don't take Anima Flux.