Encounter Design in Exalted: How do I do that?

[Karpattata]

Mr. Freedman, do NOT read this thread.
Ok, so. Here's the deal: I've recently started an Exalted campaign. It's currently a solo game for a friend, but will (probably) hatch out of that shell in a few weeks, when I'm done preluding some more players. I've been having a great deal of fun doing this (It's the first thing I GM'd in years), but there are some tiny little problems I've been having.
First, combat. I get a bit confused by the rules at times, but that's getting better, so there's probably no point in worrying about it. However, one problem I can't seem to get over (so far), is designing combat scenes.
And before I go on, just in case it matters, the player is playing an Eclipse Caste with a focus on social abilities, but also has two MA Charms (Fists of Iron and First Excellency), and several modified soak Charms.
Ok, on with the problem. These scenes drag on. For example, in the first combat scene I ran for that character, he was up against a very young member of the Wyld Hunt, who exhausted most of his motes on the first round, only to find out that the PC can soak his attacks. Easily. The problem is what came next: Both parties missing. A lot. The PC won EVENTUALLY, but that took a significant amount of time. Later on, he fought a Hound of the Unbroken Earth. The fight went on for about 15 or so ticks, the hound chipped a tooth on the PC, doing no damage whatsoever, and the PC inflicted a single level of damage. Eventually, the PCs Ally came in, and together they wiped the floor with the poor puppy, but I do believe the PC could have won. It just would have taken a REALLY long time.
What I'm trying to ask is: Do any of you guys have some tips for me on how to design encounters that don't drag, and are not repetitive? For the record, that PC is taking some more MA Charms, probably up to Solar Hero Form, so that might help make things more decisive.

[Kyeudo]

What I'm trying to ask is: Do any of you guys have some tips for me on how to design encounters that don't drag, and are not repetitive? For the record, that PC is taking some more MA Charms, probably up to Solar Hero Form, so that might help make things more decisive.

I believe the answer you are looking for is to upgrade to Exalted 3e.

Sadly, that solution is currently looking to arive about January or February, so for the interim, here's my advice:

First, feel glad that your player is having a problem with combat taking too long. Most fights in Exalted are over as soon as one side runs out of motes.
Second, focus on goals instead of killing. If neither side is able to hurt the other, why do they keep trying? Is there a goal in the scene? Do the PCs need to defend something? Get somewhere? Exalted doesn't reward murdering everything in the same way that D&D does, so you should stop thinking that the point of combat is for the PCs to kill everyone in their way.
Third, throw your PC an artifact weapon. That will boost his damage output.

[Ithle]

So, welcome to Exalted. Here's the bad news, encounter design is really variable. You can have wildly varying degrees of PC competence and player competence layered on top of that so giving any advice is going to be a crap shoot. However, 15 ticks is not a long fight, not even remotely. Missing a lot is intended because connecting with a solid hit can take out over half your health levels with trivial ease. Or it could do absolutely nothing. Depends on the who's doing the hitting and who's getting hit. Wildly variable, like I said.

Are you using the 2.5 errata?

I guess the only advice I can offer at this juncture is to start small and build up gradually. By small I don't mean young DB, I mean a few Fair Folk commoners or a half-dozen elite mortal troops. Then maybe something a little bigger and so on until you get to where you want.

[Joshua]

This is really where extras come in. Low-end combat, especially for non-combat character builds, should heavily use those rules. Also, as was noted earlier, focus on the goal of the scene, rather than the fight - the fight is a means to an end, and you should encourage the player to work toward those ends, rather than just slugging it out. This sort of character should not be running into "random" fights very often - as a social build, he should usually be able to find other ways to deal with problems. Of course, some social players still like to hit things. Good luck!

[Karpattata]

Alright. cool. I wasn't *really* planning on throwing random encounters at him anyhow. And, yes, we are using the 2.5 Errata. Annoying as cross-referencing Charms may be, it's a bit too good to ignore.

[James McMurray]

Throw a little math in the mix. It sounds like you had a high defense / low offense PC up against a mid/high defense low/mid offense NPC. Anything where neither side has a clear advantage is going to drag out.

This is what I use. It's an excel spreadsheet with the offense and defense of each character factored in, then used to compute baseline values for NPC opponents.

Edit: the link didn't work. Try this: http://rpg-tools.org/dnd-epic-win/ex...npc-gauge.xlsx

[wastevens]

This was a reply I posted on reddit for a similar request a while ago:
Avoid Exalted Antagonists.
Let me repeat: Avoid Exalted Antagonists.
Exalted Antagonists take a lot of prep-time, are fiddly and hard to manage, and can vary wildly between 'chump' to 'TPK' with a marginal happy space only slighlty larger than the habitable zone around a neutron star. They should be reserved for major, major set piece battles, and for when you're more comfortable with the system.
That said, I've found two or three good approaches to antagonists in Exalted. They can basically be broken into two categories- essence using vs not-essence-using.

• Non-Essence Using Antagonists are things like beastmen and zombie barbarian hoards, behemoths and Wyld abberations, and the like.
• Essence Using antagonists are things like spirits (ghosts, gods and demons), Noble Fair Folk, and potent God-Blooded.

So, let's start by building a singular, non-essence-using antagonist that should be a challenge, but relatively overcomeable for the Circle.
(Note: I'm assuming Exalted 2.5 Errata is being used here)

• Find the highest passive DV amongst your players, and double it. This is your antagonists's dice-pool-to-hit-people-with.
• Find the highest passive accuracy amongst your players, and half it. This is your antagonist's DV.
• Find the highest passive soak amongst your players, and add +3 to it. This is yoru antagonist's base damage.
• Find the highest passive damage amongst your players, and subtract 3 from it. This is your antagonist's Lethal soak. +3 is your antagonist's Bashing soak. -6 is your Antagonist's Aggravated Soak.
• Your Antagonist has 10 health levels. -0 x3, -1 x2, -2 x2, -4 x3, Inc

This is a monster that can pose a challenge one on one to the Circle's best warrior- until Essence starts being spent, at which point it will likely go down quickly. It's powerful enough to be threatening, but unlikely to actually kill anyone.

• For a challenge that will be dangerous even when Essence is flying, increase all these values by between 50% to 100%. At 100% or beyond, this is an opponent that is more than a little likely to kill at least one of your characters, and almost certainly can't be defeated solo- deploy with caution!
• For a hoarde, reduce each of these values to 75% of the original, and make them Extras. Best served in groups of ten to twenty.
• For Essence users, build a singular antagonist as a above, then flip through the Roll of Glorious Divinity I's spirit charms, and find two or three cool, signature tricks. Build all non-Exalted Essence using Antagonists in this fashion, themeing the charms with the antagonist. Building a powerful Fair Folk warrior? His tricks are about inspiring terror, confusing the opposition with illusions and the like, and fail when touched with iron. /Done/. It's not the same as Graceful Wicked Masque's Raksha? Honestly, that's a bonus.

Finally, a general piece of advice- have antagonists that don't want to kill your player's characters. They want to defeat them, to capture them, to kidnap them and force them to deal with some other problem, or to drive them away.

[James McMurray]

I didn't go back and check the formula, but wastevans's reply looks to be exactly what my spreadsheet does, or at least pretty close. At least as far as numbers go.

I don't have a problem with exalted foes being too much work. I give them at most one or two offensive charms, one or two defensive charms, and a miscellaneous charm or two if the situation warrants it. Ignore prereqs when building NPCs. Just because the charm you want to give them requires two entire trees doesn't mean you have to list, let alone use, both of those charm trees. Keeping things simple when you prep keeps it simple when the fight happens, and they're probably not going to be around long enough to use all of their charms anyway (unless you're building them as a repeat antagonist).

[Karpattata]

Well, I didn't quite expect anything this specific. Thanks! But, since I'm mostly fine with the extra preps required to make Exalted antagonists, I have to ask how they fit into the above formula (wasteven's). I don't necessarily expect to be tossing Celestials at PCs left and right, but 90% of what happens (or doesn't) depends on the players, and I want to be ready. James' reply definitely did help there (Ignoring prerequisites, that is, by god I don't want to deal with dozens of charm options for my NPCs yet).

[James McMurray]

They fit in just like a non-exalted would. One thing to be careful of is breaking the formulae with die-adder charms. If an NPC should have an attack pool of 10 dice to have a 50/50 shot of hitting a PC, but you give him a first or second excellency, suddenly his pool has skyrocketed and he can never miss unless you choose for him to.

I tend to follow Epsilon's advice here (http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/i...lon/NPC_System) if not his exact system. The basic idea is to inflate the default numbers as needed then assume that how those numbers go up is done in the background. In other words, instead of a 16 die base pool they've got 10 dice base and they're comboing, valor channeling, etc. in order to get to 16 every action. Lower their base essence pools to reflect it and then just describe it happening rather than worrying about counting exact motes spent round per round.

Also, if you do give them just a basic set of charms, go ahead and assume they can combo any of them. Pay the costs when comboing, and follow all of the combo rules, but IMO building combos is too much trouble for NPCs that aren't going to be around for more than half a combat scene anyway.

[Karpattata]

Regarding Combos- they're not REALLY much of a factor now, with the 2.5 Errata and all. I mean, they ARE, but you don't buy them with exp and/or pay Willpower.

[James McMurray]

Regarding Combos- they're not REALLY much of a factor now, with the 2.5 Errata and all. I mean, they ARE, but you don't buy them with exp and/or pay Willpower.

Sorry, I haven't played with the new errata. Ignore that part then.