I know it's been quiet here on the Exalted front, but that's because the Battle for Salt-Founded Glory took a few sessions and I wanted to write all that up as a single post. We've finished that battle and I still need to finish the post, but it's getting there.
In the meantime, just wanted to remind everyone that the Indiegogo campaign for Abyssals: Sworn to the Grave is still going, though in the home stretch.
And for the heck of it, I thought I'd share some behind the scenes planning and some mechanical things I came up with. I mean, yes, it's to show off just a little bit but I feel like unless it's stepping on published or yet-to-be-published material, it's always good to share these things (including what worked and what didn't) in the hopes that someone else might get something out of it. Note that this does assume some familiarity with Exalted's system.
BTW, I'm not necessarily going to directly refer back to this post when I put together the actual battle write-up, so feel free to come back and read it afterwards. But if you wanna see and comment on my ideas for running this whole thing, here it is. If you've got any questions about details or anything like that, just ask.
So, first off, I established some baseline enemy forces -- I'm not going to detail all of them and spoil the actual write-up, but in addition to some NPCs and special units, much of the enemy forces were represented as a single massive battle group made up of zombies and things that are indistinguishable from zombies (which I just called the Horde). There were also some options for siege engine support from enemy ships as well, like catapults and ballistae, which would also attack every other round alongside the Horde.
The PCs had on their side a massive battle group of living defenders of An-Teng (labeled the Army), enhanced by the Masked Commanders of the Animals, which I just now realize I completely forgot to describe in the session itself and am going to have to slip in here and there during the write-up. Whoops.
Anyhow, because the characters weren't leading a battle and I didn't want to bust out the detailed mass combat rules, I basically devoted an initiative slot to 'Clashing Armies.' During that round, I rolled simultaneous attacks for the Horde and the Army. The Horde's attack applied to any Lunars they could reach for the purposes of onslaught penalties and if they got a high enough roll to do some damage. The Army's attack, similarly, applied to every enemy they could reach. But the Horde and the Army's attack rolls opposed each other much like a clash, with the winner doing normal damage to the loser -- but the winner would also take a single die of damage to represent churn. In theory, if the Army got taken out, it would have longer-term repercussions for An-Teng.
This was intended to cut down on how many dice I'd have to roll (for instance, if the Horde failed all of their rolls, I wouldn't have to roll their damage against everyone), but in practice it became a little more winner-take-all than I'd intended, and once one side started doing better than the other, the mechanics for shrinking battle groups became something of a snowball effect. If I'd had it to do over again, I'd have probably gone with the initial idea I had, which was doing some math and setting a default number of auto-successes each side would 'roll' for attack and damage, modified by soak and any external modifiers. It's quicker, but I do feel like it takes some of the unpredictability out of the scenario.
(Though maybe setting it up so the zombies are slowly whittling down the living army and turning it into a countdown that the players can interfere with might be the better idea.)
Now, that obviously isn't interesting on its own. But where some of my ideas came in was in changing the circumstances. The group had their sort of usual 'home base' of Salt-Founded Glory, one of the three port cities of An-Teng's Dragon's Mouth Bay. It's also on an island right in the middle of a river delta (I'm certain there's a term for that but don't feel like looking it up right this moment), in between the cities of Dragon's Jaw (further out on the coast) and City of the Steel Lotus (further inward). For clarity's sake, I've been using the map from Compass of Celestial Directions, Vol. 2: The South, and while I think the first edition book Blood and Salt is a slightly better resource and probably closer to what 3e is going to go with if they flesh out An-Teng, I prefer the detail of the 2e map.
So they were starting in Salt-Founded Glory, though I gave them opportunities to move the focal point of the attack (namely via relocating the box and/or the ritual site) to either Dragon's Jaw or City of the Steel Lotus. And I was going to alter the stats of the enemy forces accordingly if they'd done so -- more siege engines and less zombies at the more directly-coastal city of Dragon's Jaw, or less ranged support but more zombies and living cultists if they were a little further inland at City of the Steel Lotus.
And the issue of the Three Princes was going to modify things further. Whichever Prince they allied with was going to further enhance the Army. Because they went with Prince Josei, that gave them the benefits of the Masked Commanders of the Animals, which (in theory, because I forgot to describe it) helped with coordination and the like by carrying messages and sending signals, boosting the battle group's Drill. In addition to boosting the Army's Defense rating, this would help the characters inspire or direct the troops -- while the Lunars weren't leading the army, they were going to be recognized as at least temporary allies and follow their lead.
If they'd gone with Prince Kiotaran of the Middle Lands, he'd have been easier to get on their side and would have instead offered some minor magical enhancements via resources he had available and the Ancestor Sashes that would enhance the lieutenants, giving the Army a boost to Might -- a smaller boost to Defense, but also to their attack rolls -- and still let the characters make rolls to boost them though without the bonuses that would accompany better Drill. He'd have also cancelled out a buff the Horde was receiving from one of the Abyssals.
If they'd tried to work with Prince Laxhander, the best they could have done would have been to grudgingly get him to accept their presence -- he's a real toady for the Dragon-Blooded. But that would have meant their chunk of the Army would have Exalted support as well, boosting their Might and Drill considerably for the best enhancements but the characters wouldn't be seen with the authority to boost the Army if things went badly.
So those two choices -- location and ally -- set the baseline for what they had to work with, both as enemies and allies. Then came the preparatory actions, described in the linked post. Each was a roll at Difficulty 5 to represent their efforts. Xương's success cut down on the number of siege engines they had to worry about shooting at them. Hǎifēng's success weakened a unit of living cultists fighting alongside the Abyssals, by disrupting their intelligence and communication efforts prior to the battle (namely, affecting their Drill), and if the battle had been at the City of the Steel Lotus, Hǎifēng's efforts would have also counteracted an increase to Size they'd have otherwise received. Gou's scouting and defensive coordinations granted a small Might bonus to the Army (which would have been a Drill bonus if they'd gone with the Middle Prince instead, just sort of evening out the benefits). Optionally, either Hǎifēng or Gou could have gone out and harried enemy agents (necromancers, mostly) making their way up along the coast, which would have weakened the Horde.
Now, by succeeding these preparatory rolls, they received Cameo Tokens. They each got one for succeeding, and then another for every three successes they acquired on the roll. All in all, they got 10 Cameo Tokens. And what could they spend these on?
Namely, once per player per turn, either before or after their action I'd let them cash in a token to have someone they've met over the course of this season come in and provide some benefit. They could Attack the Hordes (auto-hitting the zombies with an attack), Bolster the Army (restore lost Magnitude by adding more troops), Attack a Major Enemy (the Abyssals or their sidekicks), or Disable a Siege Engine (disable a siege engine). I didn't announce who the NPCs would be ahead of time, though in the post (and during the session) I allude to some of the ones that could have shown up.
Namely, I liked the little between-round cut-scenes I did back in the Battle of Talipan Beach during their first visit to Smolder, and wanted to do that again, but wanted it to be something that would actively contribute to the battle without overly-scripting things. So I came up with benefits that the group could pick from, and a list of Cameos who could show up (not every character could do every benefit). I think I could have handled the presentation of the Cameo Tokens to my players a little better (I was a little too transparent with the mechanics involved and I think their eyes glazed over a bit), but I still like the idea and think it has potential, as a way of helping them feel like they're part of a larger setting by having certain friends and allies turn up in a dramatic moment.
They also had a buff from Hollow Thunder that they didn't need (which I probably should have been better about reminding them of, just in case), but that was less planned ahead of time and more 'I was writing some notes and realized that perhaps a Chosen of Battles could have done something to help them and checked and was right.' Long story short, there's a Sidereal Charm that lets a Chosen of Battles give someone advice on a battle (like, say, seeking out the Princes to combine resources and efforts) and if they take it, the Chosen of Battles senses it and can spend Essence to let them reduce the target number of a roll by one.
But anyhow, that's the mechanical addendum to the Battle for Salt-Founded Glory, here for posterity. If you've got any questions, ask, and I hope you appreciated this peek behind the curtain.
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