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Welcome to the Exalted 3e Homebrew Bestiary! By: An idiot with too much time on his hands Sandact6 Hello everyone, and welcome to the unfiltered madness of my mind when I am left unchained and untethered to vomit forth words as I please. If you’re reading this, you are no doubt left wanting some monsters for your game. If that is the case feel free to scroll down and use them if you’re impatient. This introduction section will be short and sweet. We’ll be going over two optional components to this monster guide: Enemy Types and EX-Hard enemies. I also decided that this project would happen upon my 666th post on the OPP forums. So as you enjoy this document, settle in with those you truly care about while reading this manual. Having knowledge and comfort in that as the sky turns red on Christmas, my horrible form which cannot be described with any words shall make your death mercifully quick. Enemy Design Philosophy My goal for this monster manual, aside from just giving a wide array of baddies, is to make enemy design even more interesting in combat. Each enemy I’ll try to give some reason why you want that specific enemy dead the most in combat. Going beyond just mere filler enemies to make encounters interesting, and trying to make each monster interesting in a sense beyond that it's just a bag of numbers to overcome. New Enemy Classification Types People like to jump to conclusions. Did you know this section is optional and that you can totally ignore it and have this monster guide still work strictly RAW? Yes? Good. One of the things I noticed about Exalted 3e is that it tends to simulate duels and Dynasty Warriors-esque fights very well. However, I feel that sometimes this led to an annoying lack of middle ground between extras and strong opponents. Full single fights against people with activate initiative tracks, especially if there are multiple of them in the scene, takes too long. Using a battle group either makes the enemy trivially easy and blown past on the first turn by most people, but buffing them up with larger Sizes comes with the problem that you’re trying to run Dynasty Warriors in a teahouse or cramped area, which may not be possible given the size of the area. To solve this I expanded upon the insignificant opponent rule mentioned in 3e, giving Storytellers the option to turn Exalted from a dueling simulator into a beat-em-up/Devil May Cry style action game. For this to function, enemies are split into three different types: Weak, Strong, Special. ● Weak - These are the enemies that are so far below your skill level that they’re practically irrelevant. An Essence 1 Twilight who has a 5 in Brawl with assorted charms getting into a fight with a sailor with brawl 2 at most? Don’t even bother running this, let the Twilight jam his thumbs in the guys head and watch it explode. In video game terms these are the enemies which require one hit from nearly anything to kill, while in DnD 4e rules these are basically lesser Minions. The danger of these opponents however is that in larger numbers these are usually battle groups which can pose a danger to people. ● Strong - Strong in this sense is what is regarded as ‘Strong opponent for the players at this particular stage.” They are meant to be threatening enough to be individuals, but at the same time nothing a PC couldn’t reasonably beat in time as if they were Special opponents (see below). Strong characters tend to include the highly trained swordsman prodigy, First Circle Demons, and other things that are meant to be cut through quickly in order to move onto something more interesting. In video game logic, these are the enemies that require a few hits to take down but are not the main boss, or in 4e terms standard opponents. ● Special - Special opponents are the badasses of the Exalted world. They kick ass, chew bubblegum, then head to Red Light District with a pillow full of drugs. These are the people with active initiative tracks, including things like Second Circle Demons, Stronger gods, and any Exalted. In video game logic, these guys are bosses, or in DnD 4e terms Elites/Solo enemies. Player characters are always Special characters. What’s important here is that these distinctions are all relative. Some ST’s hate the idea of Weak opponents and may not have such a thing in their games. Which is fine, but part of this enemy classification is introducing a new opponent type that is both dangerous to careless players but at the same time can be cut apart like wet tissue paper in order to make them look and feel more badass. Sidebar: What about Battle Groups? Battle Groups are generally composed of either large numbers of insignificant opponents or simply too many Strong opponents that one is capable of feasibly tracking in combat. Strong characters are supposed to be the tough badasses that are still potent in their own right and can easily beat an Insignificant opponent. Mechanics of the Three Enemy Types To keep things short and sweet, Insignificant opponents are the same as in Exalted 3e and Special opponents are just people who have an active initiative track and fight like people normally do. So let’s just get into the differences that Strong opponents have. ● Like a battle group, Strong opponents have inert initiative. They cannot gain any initiative nor lose any initiative from their initiative tracks. ○ EX-Mode: Strong opponents have semi-active initiative tracks. They increases depending on the amount of initiative/damage they take from their opponents and lower it by 1 for each health level of damage they take. Only do this if you don’t mind bookkeeping and want the extra challenge. ● Strong opponents take damage differently. A withering attack roll made against them subtracts one health level per success on the roll and if the attacker is a Special character, rewards one initiative per health level damage, you cannot gain more initiative than a Strong opponent has health levels (Except the break bonus). A decisive damage roll made against a Strong character is just like that made against a Special character, only after attack resolution a Special Character does not reset their initiative but rather reduces it by an amount equal to the damage dealt to the Strong character, but no initiative can be gained by damaging the Strong opponent this way (Except KO’ing them). If a Special character KO’s a Strong character (By either withering or decisive) than it counts as an initiative break, gaining +5 initiative and fueling charms that normally use initiative break mechanics.1 ○ Charms that let the user make multiple attacks (EX: Trance of Unhesitating Speed) or deal AoE effects (EX: Dancing Devil Trigger Finger) will reset initiative as per Strong after they are completed. ○ EX-Mode: Downing a Strong opponent will not grant the +5 initiative related to a break bonus, however any abilities or charm effects that rely off of initiative break still function as normally. ● Damage inflicted by Strong opponents is like that of a battle group. They can only make withering attacks and do not directly gain any of the initiative they steal and is rather lost. Against an opponent in a crash this damage is directly applied to one’s health track. Like Battle Groups, Strong characters do not double 10s on damage rolls. ● Strong opponents may perform gambits like Special characters, each gambit subtracting initiative as per normal. If they use a gambit on a target in a crash, they add +5 dice to the gambit roll and the gambit costs no initiative for them. ● Animals can easily be Strong opponents, but Familiars are NEVER Strong opponents. Your PC paid for those, so let him get his investment back! ● EX-Mode: Commanders can issue orders to Strong characters like battle groups, granting them an amount of bonus dice equal to the amount of successes the commander has on the command roll. ○ Be very careful with dice adders. Only use these if your group has shredded most other encounters like paper up until now, and be VERY careful on using this if your Strong character has some form of excellency. 1 Why on earth would you want to waste a decisive attack on this you say? Remember that decisive attacks will straight up ignore the soak of Strong opponents, so if you want to finish them off quickly this’ll be your best bet. EX-Mode Many Exalted 3e opponents are not as extreme in skill as the 2e counterparts. This is mainly done so that everyone has a chance shine against someone without demanding a Attribute 5 Ability 5 character or not bothering to try in the first place. However there are times that sometimes players need a little bit of kick to their enemies in order to not become bored. This isn’t me trying to say that some groups are better than others, just that different people like different things. So for this Guide I’m first stating up enemies as what I would consider to be a ‘normal’ difficulty, underneath all enemy powers there may be an EX-Mode. EX-Mode enemies are harder than normal enemies. Not only can such enemies be more accurate, hit harder, and take less damage; they also have alterations to their skills or brand new skills! These enemies are for players who want extra difficulty and the Storytellers who think they can handle it.

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