How to Beat a Perfect Defense?

Nemal:

.. this exception seems silly to me, could someone reference where this is from please? :/

Roll II.

I once almost killed my players by accident.

First they bravely saved caravan from the bandits, but to do that they shined brightly.

Unfortunately for them caravans are slow so in the next oasis they were prepared and let them drink from poisoned well. That got them to -2 health levels, just above their -4.

The night attack with rain of arrows almost killed them ...

And all that done by mere mortals.

Everybody else here has made most of the good points, and I +1 them.  I've got a few to throw in here.

Defense in depth:  Have them each burn their 12 motes getting through that room, then another 12 on the next room, and then spring the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) on them.  Now they are mote tapped before they even walk in the door.  You don't have to kill them, or even actually injure them.  Do that sort of thing to them once or twice and pretty soon they will start buying abilities like Athletics and investing in multiple Excellencies to reduce the mote cost.

Time Limit:  If they instead respond by waiting an hour every time they spend essence, throw a time limit at them.  Maybe the ritual of the necromancers will finish at midnight and they must be there in time to not only stop them, but kill them and undo the ritual.  Don't make it like an episode of 24 where they know how much time they have.  Leave it murky so they are racing against the clock because they don't know how long it will take, but damnit they have to undo the whole ritual by midnight.  Do that a couple times and all of a sudden they won't be acting like Wolverine in old video games.

Quantity has a Quality all its Own:  The Wyld Hunt has numbers if it really needs it.  If they use perfect defenses in bar brawls too often, the Hunt comes after them with a wing of troops plus 5 dragon-bloods.  The Dynasts are canny and do their homework.  Nobody can hit them.  So, the Dynasts send 50 troops at them.  When that doesn't work, they do 250, plus one of the DB's.  Are they really going to perfect all of them?  If they manage to slaughter most of the troops, the DB's withdraw but then hound them with a dragon of elite troops across Creation.  The PC's fight grueling endurance battles that don't allow them time to regenerate.  Even if they all have hearthstones, the DB's have more hearthstones and waves of well-equipped troops.

Understand the system:  Perfect attacks and defense in Exalted exist to create awesome battles.  The defense is slightly stronger, and cheaper, than the offense.  The game is designed to create those climatic fight scenes at the end of movies where everyone goes all out, but the hero wins.  Expect them to effortlessly ignore mortal threats: they are Exalted.

Fight fire with fire:  Throw Abyssals or even other Solars at them that play with the same system.  If they always whip out their Radiant Shard of Absolute Ass-Whooping combo in the first few rounds, plan for that and have that blocked by a perfect defense.  The point here is not to be simply vindictive by out-perfecting them, it's to help them realize the power their characters have and emphasize strategy.  You want them to care, right?  If the Abyssal loses, but still manages to kill the whole village, did they really win?

Finally, I will repeat and rephrase some advice others have already given.  Exalted is about epic heroes doing epic things.  Use epic challenges.  Don't expect things like boulders to challenge them, at least not physically.  A heroic mortal could sprint through a bunch of boulders with good dice rolls.  Use molten boulders made from the forceable fusion of kidnapped elementals in a room full of poisoned spikes.  The enchanted nature of the boulders means that even if they resist the damage they will be hurled onto the spikes, requiring rolls to get unimpaled.  Then there are multiple types of environmental damge.  On top of that, shouldn't they try to free the agonized elementals from their slavery?  That kind of thing will engage them by making them think of the best way to get around the problem.  Use heroic mortal threats to emphasize their superiority, which you should do from time to time.  Use epic threats to make them think.

WhirlwindMonk:

Aquillion:

Essence Disruption Attack is broken as printed; it inflicts what is, if used intelligently, a game-ending restriction in any fight that would have been even without it, and provides no way to defend or negate it.

I had house ruled that it's a Shaping effect, but the character in question had not yet picked up IPP. He did pick it up halfway through the fight using the houserule I have that if you pull off a 3 die stunt, you can make any single purchase that fits the situation you're in, that's isn't Essence. As for the "game ending restriction", the fact that my player won the fight seems to disagree with that assertion. Powerful? Very. Overpowered? Maybe. The end of the world? No.

I said "in any fight that would have been even without it".  The fact that a group of multiple Solars almost got splattered by a handful of mortals and one DB solely because of it shows, I think, how badly-broken that charm is.

If it had been an even fight, without IPP -- if, say, you'd had two Solar-DB pairs, and one of the DB uses Essence Disruption Attack while the other doesn't -- the side without that charm would have gotten splattered all over the walls, easily.

And relying on immunity to shaping for the only solid defense against such a crippling effect is absolutely unacceptable for a DB charm.  IPP is not supposed to be mandatory for fighting Ess 4 DBs.  It should require that you score a hit after activating the charm in Step 1, and maybe even that you score a hit and do damage.

Increasing charm costs by a significant amount is, in fact, game-endingly crippling against anything that can force you into a war of attrition; nothing should be able to inflict that without substantial limitations, at least equivalent to a successful attack roll.  I would say that -- even as Shaping -- the charm, as printed, would be too powerful for a Solar-level charm; it'd be an "I automatically cut your hamstrings if you lack Shaping defenses" effect, which is not something that ought to exist at any Essence level.

"IPP or die" is bad design space, except in the most extreme cases (ultra-high-level charms that define their users, or Sorcery which you can keep someone from casting at all.)  IPP should provide you with great defense, sure, but ultimately Essence Disruption Attack has to require an attack roll, or something else that gives everyone a reasonable way to avoid it.

Aquillion:

I said "in any fight that would have been even without it".  The fact that a group of multiple Solars almost got splattered by a handful of mortals and one DB solely because of it shows, I think, how badly-broken that charm is.

No, actually it was just my one Solar.  Who started off bare-handed (and is not a bare-handed fighter) against mortals with maxed-out offensive pools plus this DB, and still managed to beat them all unconscious by the end.

So this, at least, was not a proof of how badly broken EDA is.  Given its brief duration and its houseruled vulnerability to Shaping defenses, I'm not really bothered by it.

Glories explored an interesting option which I've been trying to perfect in my own games to prevent my PCs from just using perfects.  The answer is making other options more efficient.

Black Paper Moon:

I take issue with this! Blood Apes may be violent and proud, but that doesn't make them any less intelligent. In fact, once you recognize that each has its own distinct personality and that they form societies in Malfeas, you can conceive of educated and intelligent Erymanthoi. Picture a monocle-wearing Blood Ape in bloody evening wear chewing on the thigh-bone of a Dragon-Blooded: "Ahh, vintage 820. And vegetarian, I do believe."

Erymanthoi Grodd  !

Helter Skelter:

The question was once posed why the high Essence Solars did not have combos in DotFA, I believe this is the beginning of that explanation.

nonononono
Don't do that, that way lies madness. DSD <-> HGD fusion is OK, as HGD  is a follow up to DSD. The point isn't to allow total combo-less perfect usage (Charnel Emperor Stance should tell you what Holden thinks of that) but to make a shunned charm useful. The "DSD Zombie, sudden bad touch abyssal" was a problem that made people refuse to ever use DSD, because it put their life in mortal danger, and its limited usefulness made it an inefficient choice to add to combos. This fixs both problems. 1) You can happily throw DSDs at weaker opponents without fear of being left wide open. 2) It not only is in the same combos as the HGD, it's placed in vombo instead of HGD. And now you can use it in combos when it's cheaper.

Sojko:

The point isn't to allow total combo-less perfect usage

I'm going to exercise my 4 dots in Temperance to NOT talk about how I think you can/should be able to "beat" a perfect defense.

See what a good person I am?

deathmatchfm:

I'm going to exercise my 4 dots in Temperance to NOT talk about how I think you can/should be able to "beat" a perfect defense.

See what a good person I am?

All you need is the right artifacts, like my rating 5 shield of ultimate apathy and my rating 4 stick of shit-stirring.

Now if you excuse me, I have a Solar that only has a perfect dodge I need to lock in a tiny cage with a Soulbreaker orb...

Octopoid:

Nemal:

Why can't a Mortal Sorcerer bind and control demons?

Someone somewhere (I know that's not real helpful) clarified First Circle Demon for users: the binding and controlling aspects are reserved for the victors of the Primordial War, a.k.a. the Exalted.  No one else can bind demons, though they can summon them (at their own risk).

No.

This is how it worked in Exalted 1e.

But not in 2e.

Holden:

No.

This is how it worked in Exalted 1e.

But not in 2e.

Umm... nope. We wish 2e had changed that, but it didn't. Or, if it did, the Divinininininity II authors changed it back. Go check out the Mortal Demonologists section, RoGD II, p. 24-25.

Rafilar:

Holden:

No.

This is how it worked in Exalted 1e.

But not in 2e.

Umm... nope. We wish 2e had changed that, but it didn't. Or, if it did, the Divinininininity II authors changed it back. Go check out the Mortal Demonologists section, RoGD II, p. 24-25.

Huh.

Right you are!

Holden:

Huh.

Right you are!

Don't remind me. *booze*