Allright. I'm reasonably confident now that you're not going to die. This is good, because as much as I loathe you all, let me assure you that I find some Peleps, Cathak or Ledaal that won't shut up about their successful Wyld Hunt infinitely worse.
Now we're going to get onto the topic nearest and dearest to my heart - killing people. Pay attention, and you'll do a lot of it (and while you're at it, why not polish off the last of the Tepet for practice?).
Let's talk some general principles.
Do not, for the love of Gaia, blow your big attack in the first turn
Defence in this game is good. It's very good. It's so good, that the first time you fire up a huge attack against a Dragon Blood, it won't work. Honestly, if you pour 10 motes into Excellent Strike and have a swing, he'll Full Dodge, buy some Dodge dice on the cheap, you'll hit him with a couple of extra successes, and he'll soak the damage down to the minimum 1 die with his heavy jade armour that he got cheap with his superior Artifact background. Then, if your defence isn't well set up, his buddies will slam you into the ground. This is how Wyld Hunts operate. Don't play into their hands.
Instead, start with probing attacks. Make them spend essence on defence when your attacks are free. Learn how they defend, and the moment they're weak, punish them. Why do you think battle-poetry always describes a decent exchange of blows before any serious wounding is done? Because that's the way combat works, it's naturally dramatic.
That's not to say be too miserly with your essence, however. I strongly recommend that you spend (as opposed to commit) at least some motes as soon as you can - after all, you're going to be earning 2-4 motes a turn back from stunting, right?
NB: As a general rule, don't spend essence if your GM doesn't award stunts according to the rules. Commit it all away on scene-length charms, and only spend it when a REALLY juicy opportunity comes up, or when you need it for defence. It's boring, but it's tactically a much better idea. Conversely, if your GM awards stunts normally, make sure to NOT commit too much essence - leave yourself some room to regain motes from stunts!
The immortal question...death of a thousand cuts, or death of instant obliteration?
A frank look at combat tactics for Exalted (like, for instance, this one) might conclude that Damage is disadvantaged compared to Accuracy. After all, without a high attack pool, you'll never get to apply your base damage in the first place, attack successes convert to damage anyway, and no matter how pathetic your damage, you'll always do the minimum 1 damage, so you'll always be able to just wear an opponent down.
This is all true, but like the idea that you don't need Soak if you have a good enough Defence, overlooks just how useful Damage can be. In fact, damage is even more useful than soak because it doesn't really suffer diminishing returns in the same way; more damage is almost always more useful.
The principal advantage high damage gives you is time - less attacks to disable an opponent. While it is certainly very possible to kill virtually anyone with a long series of minimum damage attacks, it is rather time consuming. In a duel, this may not be a problem, but in the far more common situation of two or more groups engaging in battle, being able to swiftly slay an opponent - even a lesser one - takes pressure off your Circlemates and allows them to concentrate their abilities against the most formidable foes. Furthermore, it is extremely likely that you will increasingly find yourself in the position of having objectives other than killing your foes (as will they), and as such you may simply not have time for a full-length heroic duel. Being able to score a quick wound, or slay a foe's escorts and move on could be decisive.
The first critical damage threshold is 8L base damage (conveniently accessible to anyone with a Str of 3 and a daiklaive). This will allow you to automatically kill an unarmoured extra with only 1 success on the attack roll. Not only does this avoid the humiliating spectacle of having to attack an extra more than once, it allows you to guess how many successes you'll need to automatically kill an extra based upon their armour (usually the only lethal soak they'll have), and take multiple actions accordingly. For instance, if you're attacking extras with a lethal soak of 4, you'll need to do 13L to automatically kill them - 5 successes if you have 8L base damage. With an attack pool of 16, you'd want your last attack to have 10 dice (which has an expected 5 successes). 4 actions and a +1 stunt gets you 13, 12, 11 and 10 dice, meaning you're almost certain to kill 4 extras without needing to roll damage. If you're confident of getting a +2 stunt you could take the risk and make 5 attacks at 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 dice, and probably kill 5 extras. Against unarmoured extras, you'd only need 1 success, so with a +1 stunt you could take seven actions at 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 dice. In general, however, you probably want to avoid rolling less than 5 dice when you can, owing to the risk of botching.
14L base damage is another fairly crucial threshold, though more difficult to obtain (Grand Daiklave + Str 3 being the easiest method, though a Str 4 character with a daiklave, Essence 3, Increasing Strength Exercise and orichalcum hearthstone bracers can also do so). At this level of base damage, you can automatically kill any Elite Troop extra (usually clad in Lamellar) with a single success. Crucially, a single attack success will allow you to do two damage dice after soak to your average Dragon Blood clad in articulated jade plate - the heaviest armour we commonly send out into the field on our ungrateful children. It will also allow you to do four dice damage on a single success against the extremely common reinforced jade breastplate (Dragon-Blooded get six total dots of artifact (split 3, 2, 1) for Artifact 3 - a reinforced breastplate, daiklave and a minor wonder being a very common assortment). When doing this much damage, it is usually possible to swiftly kill a young Dragonbloooded either by overwhelming them with a rapid series of attacks, or by striking ruthlessly with offensive charms when their defence is weak.
Furthermore, being in the region of 14L base damage helps against certain powerful beings, such as gods and some Lunars, that can ignore attacks doing damage beneath a certain threshold (much as with Invulnerable Skin of Bronze). Powerful Gods can ignore attacks doing less damage than half their soak - so Ahlat, with a soak of 35L, can ignore any attack doing 17L damage or less. Hence, you need to do 18L just to do minimum damage against him! Such protection is extended to those wearing Warstrider armour as well, so if you plan to quarrel with powerful gods or Warstrider pilots, make sure someone in the circle can exceed 15L damage with relative ease!
Doing decent damage also tends to stun enemies, since the health levels inflicted needs to exceed their stamina in order to stun, and becomes the difficulty of the Stamina + Resistance roll to avoid stun (remember waaaay up at the top I told you good Stamina + Resistance was useful? This is why).
Now, I know what you're thinking - "But Mnemon, why do I need high base damage? Surely I can get all the damage I need with my Excellent Strike + Hungry Tiger Technique + Leaping Tiger Attack combo!"
Well, I have two answers for you. Firstly, as a domineering matriarch, I don't actually care what you think. Secondly, you're right, each Dawn ability and the Athletics ability have charms that increase damage - sometimes spectacularly. However, ALL of these charms are more effective when enhancing a high base damage than a low one, because you want as many points of damage pushing past soak to become damage as possible - you don't want to be spending lots of essence just to get past the soak. Having a high base damage might mean you only need to activate your offence combo once to kill a powerful foe, or only need a single charm rather than a combo to slay a lesser foe. It's just more efficient.
Finally, having a good base damage is less demanding tactically. You're pretty much guaranteed to do something significant so long as you can hit, meaning that if you can keep your defence up and keep attacking, you'll probably do all right. This makes it rather helpful for beginners, since it's less frustrating while you're learning to look for openings.
Defence and attack pools are more potent in combat, but damage is always useful - grab it if you can.
So how do I get decent damage?
Generally damage is a function of the combat ability you choose to fight with, as that dictates the weapons and charms available to you. However, there are a number of more generic means to increase the damage you deal.
* Strength. Not only through giving the Attribute a decent rating, but the charm Increasing Strength Exercise. ISE is fairly expensive in terms of essence (especially since it's committed essence), but those extra few points of damage can make a great deal of difference over the scene if you're skilful enough to hit consistently.
* Orichalcum Hearthstone bracers. While 2 artifact dots for an extra 2 damage might seem a bit much, the two damage applies to all attacks - including unarmed or ranged attacks, particularly helpful for non-Melee fighters who might otherwise struggle to reach higher base damages. Power Combat also upgrades Hearthstone Bracers of all kinds to provide 3 bonus dice to all dodges, and your GM may use this change even if not using Power Combat.
* Athletics charms. Leaping Tiger Attack and Thunderbolt Attack Prana both double damage - after soak and after it is rolled respectively. Usually Leaping Tiger Attack is more useful, as it is slightly cheaper and allows a full sprinting move, wheras Thunderbolt Attack Prana prevents movement. However, TAP is more useful for meleeists, as when put in combo with Fire and Stones Strike it results in more damage (F&S converts damage dice to automatic successes, which TAP will then double).
Mobility and Target Selection - offensive movement
Almost every time your initiative arrives, one of your opponents will be more vulnerable than the others, by virtue of poor position, having failed to reserve sufficient defence, being forced to spend a great deal of essence or simply being weaker. Circumstance can bring even very powerful opponents into this position.
Fall upon these foes and kill them without hesitation or mercy.
If no such foe presents themselves, hold your action until they do, or pick a foe likely to be vulnerable to the tactics of a Circlemate who is yet to act, and attack them furiously in order to divert their defensive resources.
Unless you plan to use social abilities to force a relatively bloodless surrender, there is no use in wounding many enemies rather than killing a few. A wounded enemy can still take actions, and can still get a lucky roll, even if down a few dice. An incapacitated foe can do nothing. Every foe you kill is one less drain upon your Circle's defensive resources, and becoming outnumbered by Solars is certain doom for nearly any foe. This does not mean you must commit to a single foe once you have wounded them; do not hesitate to abandon a foe that you have wounded if there is a target within your range that you have a better chance of killing.
In short, on your turn, identify the most vulnerable enemy within your range (movement range for Melee, Brawl and Martial Arts, movement range + weapon range for Archery and Thrown), and attack them. For hand-to-hand fighters, this usually means moving.
Moving in battle nearly always helps. Not only does it allow you to attack the foe least able to defend against you, but crossing scenery makes it easy and natural to incorporate that scenery into your descriptions - allowing easy stunt bonuses. Furthermore, it allows you to seize the most tactically viable ground for your attack - if you have the high ground, your opponents lose dice from all actions against you - especially useful against opponents who dodge and parry, as both actions will be penalised. This is even easier on attack than defence, for an attacker only needs relatively higher ground than whoever they're attacking, rather than needing to grab the highest ground in the area (since an attacker could otherwise simply move to higher ground still).
How do you know when a target is vulnerable?
* An unarmoured target is almost always vulnerable, since even with good defences they're likely to be badly wounded by a lucky hit. Even targets using charms for soak are usually worse off than armoured targets, since they usually need to spend essence - often a great deal - to bolster their soak, and can be quickly ran out of essence in this fashion. There are exceptions, particularly some Lunars, Solars and Earth Immaculates, but even these tend to be vulnerable while putting up their scene-length soak charms, and thus can be killed swiftly if caught unawares.
* Virtually any target other than a Celestial Exalt who has already been attacked that turn will have been forced to use defence actions, and will have few if any actions left to defend (and at reduced dice to boot). This goes doubly if they've also attacked. As a bonus, you'll almost certainly have been able to tell how skilful they were when they were attacked, and you'll have an excellent idea of how badly you'll maul them. Even if they spent essence to defend against or survive the earlier attacks, they're still an excellent target, since you can force them to spend more, moving them quickly towards being exhausted.
* Any enemy who uses an offensive charm without a combo signature is vulnerable, since you know they can't use any defence charms. The exception to this is Dragon-Blooded, who can still use reflexive charms, but don't hesitate to fall upon them like hungry wolves if they've used a Simple or Extra Action charm, since their reflexive charms simply aren't good enough without actions to back them up, or so expensive that it's almost as good as wounding them anyway. In my opinion, if they're stupid enough to not make me Empress, and then compound it by using a Simple charm in front of a Solar, they deserve to be spitted on an eight foot golden razor. Useless inbred leeches. Watch out against Earth or Water Immaculates, though, since they actually have some rather nice Reflexive defence charms.
* Enemies in difficult conditions. Prone enemies, those thigh or waist deep in water or mud, on the wrong side of scree or abatis - they'll all have defence penalties against you. Wounded enemies also count, and will be quicker to finish off to boot.
* A sorcerer casting a spell is exceptionally vulnerable. On the downside, they may explode when you gut them, so don't try this unless you have decent soak or are feeling lucky.
* Any enemy in a clinch is extremely vulnerable. Kill them swiftly.
* An enemy unable to defend against your attack mode is vulnerable. For instance, if your enemy is relying on reflexive dodges, hit them Cascade of Cutting Terror, an undodgeable attack. If they are unable to use perfect defences, use Accuracy Without Distance, which is a perfect attack - even if they get more defence successes than your attack successes, the attack will hit for base damage. As an extension of this, anyone relying on their Soak to defend is deeply vulnerable to non-damage deleterious effects of a hit (Ox-Stunning Blow, anyone?).
* An opponent who has not acted is not vulnerable, but by attacking them and forcing them to abort to a defence, you may consume enough of their defensive resources to make them vulnerable to a Circlemate.
Concentrating your Circle's attacks on a single target is usually a good way to go, since that will overwhelm and quickly kill most enemies. There's no need to concentrate on this, however, since it's quite likely that the most vulnerable target available to you will be the one just attacked by a Circlemate.
These tactics are exceptionally effective, but there are occasions where you should not use them relentlessly. When facing a group of enemies, some who you could easily kill, and some who would be difficult foes for you, but impossible for some of your Circlemates, you should probably ensure that you leave enough lesser foes for your Circlemates to fight, and engage the greater foes. Otherwise, your Circlemates will probably whine because they have nothing to do, and I think all of us hear enough whining as it is, don't you? Wishy-washy types like Arianna would probably say you're hogging the spotlight and not being a good player too. Of course, if there's plenty in the field for your less-combatitive friends to do, you won't need to worry about this too much.
Whether or not Extras (who are always vulnerable by their nature) can be safely ignored depends on your circlemates - if their defences are poor enough that massed extras (particularly archers, where more than five can attack an individual at once) pose a threat, you may want to kill the extras swiftly. Some situations somehow manage to produce limitless streams of extras, however (filthy Pattern Spiders), and if you suspect such is the case, ignore them.
Initiative
Inititiative's importance is largely dictated by your defences. For you horrible Anathema, that means it's often almost entirely safe to ignore, because you can manage your defences Reflexively. If you're planning on using actions rather than just charms to defend, however, having a high initiative can be quite important, since the only way you can use your dice action to both attack and defend is if you haven't been forced to abort to a Full Dodge or parry before your initiative.
Initiative is always useful, though, for two reasons. One is that a good initiative will allow you to get those crucial scene-length charms up that little bit earlier, which is helpful on those occasions where you can't put them up before the fight (when you're ambushed, for instance). The second is that it gives the option to attack foes before their initiative, which against most enemies will result in them aborting to a defence, and losing their attack.
You might note that forcing opponents to abort to a defence is actually an argument for attacking as many foes as possible, forcing as many aborts as you can and preventing their attacks. This is actually a viable strategy, ESPECIALLY if your defences are poor, but it is time consuming and a bit tedious. Solars with their excellent defences are often better served by allowing their enemies to expend their resources in useless attacks, and then counterattacking ferociously. With good initiative, however, you can simply delay your action if you wish, and thus choose whichever of these tactics best suits your fancy.
To get a decent initiative, you're best off having a good Dexterity and Wits, and then go for a weapon with a high speed. If you're particularly keen, go for Jade equipment and pay the full attunement cost (not recommended in terms of value-for-essence, but it's extremely difficult to compete in initiative with Dragon Blooded otherwise). Brawl's Thunderclap Rush Attack and Snake Style's Striking Cobra Technique are both useable with other abilities, in or out of combo, and are thus useful for all characters.
In summary, Initiative is useful, but not crucial for any Solar with good reflexive defences. Unless you're particularly fond of forcing opponents to abort, or you plan to use actions to defend, you'll probably find your resources better spent elsewhere. Many of your opponents (such as Dragon-Blooded) find Initiative to be crucial, and will likely have invested in it - let them have the victory there and invest where they are weaker.
Universal Offence - Use EVERYTHING at your disposal
Listen to the tales of the most glorious of your kind, Anathema. Do you hear of how they stood still in a blank stone corridor, trading blows with their enemy until one fell?
No - their voices rung out over their battles. They fought in places fascinating in their own right, and with their hands changed them. They used allies, tools, vehicles, and every other thing Fate put in their path.
Listen to the tales of the failures amongst the Solars - how they stood still, or ran a little, how they treated battle grounds as if they were dojos, how they thought only of their daiklaves, and how the Wyld Hunt killed them.
These Solars died with their best weapons rusting in their sheaths, wondering how they were defeated when their essence remained unspent, their most powerful charms unused.
Look to your charms. Apart from the perplexing impotence of your horsemen and sailors, your non-combat charms are far mightier than your Dawn powers. Compare Masterful Performance Exercise to Excellent Strike. Speed the Wheels to Reflex Sidestep Technique. I'd strangle every living person on the Isle for such charms, and you would put them aside just because someone draws a knife?
"But Mnemon, the Wyld Hunt is warned about our powers. They're told we're silver-tongued manipulators, so how can we usefully use social charms on them?"
Rubbish! Are they not told you are powerful warriors? Do they not attempt to parry your blows? Do you not cleave their heads from their shoulders regardless?
Is there a third party on the field? Bring them into the battle on your side. Does your enemy have followers? Shatter their morale or win them over. Impressed by an honourable foe? Show them mercy and bring them under your banner. An opponent's defences too good? Taunt him into a rage. Either side using large bodies of troops? Use Bureaucracy charms to speed or slow the passage of orders. Enemy's daiklave not yet in his hands? Larceny charm. Kill an opponent out of sight? Use Perfect Mirror and infiltrate their ranks. Trying to discern the enemy's plan based on their actions? Ten Magistrate Eyes.
Have you been forced to fight in a location without interesting, useful terrain, or does the terrain favour the enemy? Change it. Smash a hole in the earth and push enemies in - you now have high ground. Enemy fortresses are there to be torn down. A river is a weapon waiting to be diverted onto foes. Towers can be toppled to make bridges or to crush foes. If the enemy is on flammable ground, burn it. Use your Craft and Athletics to make the field just the way you want it. Scenery doesn't dodge, and how can any action changing it not be a +2 stunt?
All of these abilities can be used before the battle to disadvantage the enemy, but they do not stop being useful when swords are drawn - and not only that, but when everyone's using combat magic anyway, who's to say whether the anima glow came from defence or a social time? Etiquette demands a time and a place for everything - battle is always a good time, and if the place isn't good enough, make it so with your fists.
Use everything on your character sheet. No character with ten Solar charms is useless in battle.
Offence By Ability
Archery
Ah...Solar Archery. Really, in my position, I should hate it, but I can't help but smile when I think of all those Tepet boys and girls lying under the Haltan redwoods, riddled with the arrows of the Bull of the North. I sent him a big box of thank-you chocolate (anonymously, of course).
Archery is the pre-eminent offence ability for the Solar Exalted. It is both the tool for punching holes in a single foe, and for killing extras en masse (I do so love the bit where you make armies evaporate. Just don't do it to mine, or I'll have Octavian eat your gizzard).
Firstly, get a Short Powerbow. Long Powerbows aren't worth the extra artifact dot, and mortal bows are totally inferior - they don't add any extra damage, and they cap your effective strength. Powerbows are fine for any strength (hello, Increasing Strength Exercise!), and have enormous range. However, their Rate is quite low - 2 - and hence this is one of the rare times you might consider a Jade version, for the extra point of rate. The accuracy and damage for orichalcum is excellent, however, so either choice is viable. Orichalcum Hearthstone bracers are also an excellent pick, allowing an easy 11L base damage before ammunition for a Str 3, Essence 3 character with Increasing Strength Exercise and an Orichalcum powerbow.
The reason why it's worth focusing on damage with archery is because in general, ranged attacks are assumed to do less damage, and tend to have charms balanced accordingly, so doing lots of damage tends to get a lot of effectiveness out of those charms. Arrow Storm Technique allows you to continue attacking so long as you don't miss or repeat a target, and hence is excellent for killing extras - automatic kills are extremely useful there. Furthermore, with Accuracy Without Distance, you have an attack that can be relied on to do at least base damage against anyone without a perfect defence - so making that base damage HURT can ruin someone's day, career, chance of inheriting the throne etc etc.
Choose your ammunition on a per-target basis, but expect to overwhelmingly use target arrows. Most of your enemies will rely on armour for their soak, so halving the benefit of their armour can drastically reduce their soak. For instance, if you did 11L base damage and hit an average Dragon Blood wearing Articulated Plate (normally a 13L soak assuming Sta 2-3), you would do 5 dice damage with a single success, since the armour's 12L soak would be cut to 6L.
Against targets with less than 6L but more than 1L armour soak, generally you'll want to use a broadhead, as it will give a slight advantage in damage over a target or frogcrotch arrow. Broadheads are also a safe bet if you're not sure of the soak situation - they don't mess with armour soak at all, and hence aren't actually a risk.
Frog Crotch arrows are best against armour soaks of 1L or less. They add +4 base damage, but double armour soak.
Nearly all the charms for Archery are excellent, though you may find There Is No Wind only particularly useful if you fight in poor conditions relatively often (or wish to lure foes into such poor conditions) and Immaculate Golden Bow only useful if carrying around your powerbow is problematic. Solar Spike does too little damage to be useful. Trance of Unhesitating Speed is worthlessly expensive, but required for Arrow Storm Technique (the Player's Guide corrects Trance of Unhesitating Speed to cost 3 motes per attack - try asking your GM to use this ruling).
Accuracy Without Distance is a perfect attack, and the most powerful offence charm available to Solars. Only perfect defences can prevent it from hitting, though some special defences can interfere with it (for instance, Dragon Blooded have a charm that burns all physical arrows that come near them - which can be defeated by Phantom Arrow - and a charm that redirects attacks to nearby targets). Generally, if you use this charm on a target, you can assume you'll do at least base damage, or force them to use a more expensive charm to defend. Use it on a foe who can't use a Perfect defence, and you're set.
Arrow Storm Technique is the best multiple action charm in the game, allowing shoot every single target within range so long as you hit each target. The key (apart from either having Inexhaustible Bolts of Solar Fire from the Dawn castebook, or be sitting on a wagon full of arrows) is the order in which you attack your foes. If your first shot is directed at an enemy Abyssal, she will certainly defend, and your charm will be over. However, if you start with the easiest targets and work up, you'll get many, many attacks - shooting first her zombies, then her war ghosts, then her nemissaries, then her horse, and then finally the Abyssal herself. She'll still defend, but she'll be down an army.
Dazzling Flare Attack is a great little damage adder, letting you add up to 2xEssence damage for Essence motes to an attack. It also throws in an extra attack die for good measure. Usually more useful than Firey Arrow Attack, but they work well together in combo.
Rain of Feathered Death is an excellent substitute for an Extra Action charm, as it's supplemental, allowing you to still take multiple actions, multiplying the damage on each one. Because each volley is defended against together, don't use this charm against opponents with excellent defence, as they'll be able to defend far more cheaply than the cost of this charm. Instead, use it to punish and swiftly kill enemies with poor defence.
Phantom Arrow Technique isn't particularly useful as a substitute for normal arrows (unless you're quite short, or don't have the right type for a particular target), but it's excellent for defeating defences that target normal arrows, such as Arrow Consuming Flame Defence for Dragon Blooded.
Sample Combo: Perfected Scourging Sunlight Accuracy Without Distance + Firey Arrow Attack + Rain of Feathered Death + Seven Shadow Evasion, 15XP. For (3+Essence) motes + 1wp per attack, perfectly does base damage + extra successes + 3xEssence damage, and may perfectly dodge any attack for 6 motes.
Brawl
Often considered the weakest Dawn ability, as it lacks a dice adder or any kind of defence, Brawl still has some significant advantages, and is capable of its own brand of mayhem. It's an excellent ability for those want to help out rather than be the frontline warrior (being the king of the "I hold him, you hit him" style of combat), or as a sneaky backup to Melee, Archery or Thrown. Archers will of course be kicking rather than punching.
Brawl is also recommended for social characters, since someone in a clinch has little choice about listening to you.
Firstly, get a weapon, whether it's a fighting gauntlet, a Smashfist, or whatever you find lying around. This lets you do lethal damage easily, and defend, whether by simply using Melee defence charms with the weapon (recommended), or by being able to parry lethal using Brawl without a stunt (if you insist).
Secondly, it's essential to have a good soak when using Brawl, as you simply can't defend any other way while clinching, and many of the better Brawl offence charms are Simple, meaning you won't be able to use actions to defend. Flow Like Blood is recommended.
Clinching is best done by picking an opponent whose defences aren't great, and then taking multiple clinch actions against them. You only need one to hit, and they're clinched - it doesn't matter whether it's a good hit or not, so unless you're dealing with persistent defences, wear them down in order to get a grip on them. Many enemies will be paranoid about being clinched, and may go to excessive measures to avoid it; so even if you're not successful, you can be a terrible drain on their resources. Just be careful - when in a clinch, you have no defences other than soak, and well, we've discussed relying on soak, haven't we? It's best to team up with a friend, and have them kill whoever you're clinching before THEIR friends can attack you. Voila, out of clinch and ready to defend.
Brawl's charms are split into two main trees - the general use tree, and the hurling people tree. A clinching character will want Dragon Coil Technique, and thus needs the first tree. A character meaning to rely on striking will want the second tree, as it allows unparryable attacks, while grabbing some useful charms from the first tree for comboing. Expect to make combos with Brawl, as its charms are highly synergistic.
Ferocious Jab is a must for all Brawlers, allowing extremely punishing hits against opponents with poor defences, and being extremely cheap besides! A must for a striking Brawl combo.
Fist of Iron Technique is useless, but required to progress through the tree. Move on.
Ox-Stunning Blow is an exceptionally good way to cut down an opponent relying on Soak to size. Pick a vulnerable target and hit them as hard as you can with this, and they'll be wearing huge penalties for several turns. Expect your friends to execute them during this time.
Thunderclap Rush automatically wins initiative against one opponent; it's best saved for combos designed to screw over opponents who REALLY don't like losing initiative - great for ambushing Martial Artists, fellow Celestials and others who rely on power-up time before a fight.
Hammer on Iron Technique is a bit expensive, and only worth doing when Flow Like Blood is up, as it cannot be combo'd with dodge charms.
Dragon Coil Technique is a great help in clinches - get the opponent in the clinch first, then activate it on subsequent turns.
Crashing Wave Throw is the key to the striking strategy - because it cannot be parried, target a foe with poor dodge or no perfect defences, preferably standing near a wall, and hammer them. A combo with Ferocious Jab and Heaven Thunder Hammer will maul most targets, especially if you can smash them *through* something.
Sample Combo: Gleeful Dawn Demolition Shot Crashing Wave Throw + Heaven Thunder Hammer + Ferocious Jab + Seven Shadow Evasion, 11xp. For 6 motes, make an unparryable attack, doubling successes for damage, and hurling foe Str + Successes + Total Raw Damage yards. Foe takes damage equal to yards of flight remaining if they hit an object.
Martial Arts - the Odd Man Out
"So" you say, looking at the charms available to you "What's up with Martial Arts?"
Well, MA is quite different. For a start, for mortals, there's no real difference between Martial Arts and Brawl, other than choice of weapons. They do exactly the same things. So why is there two abilities where one would do? Why are they separate charms?
The answer is - they're not really Solar charms at all. Martial Arts styles are shared amongst the Exalted. I could learn Snake Style if I felt like it. You could learn Air Dragon Style.
What does this mean? Well, for Dragon Blooded, it generally means Celestial Martial Arts charms are much better than our normal charms - that's why we get the Immaculates to fight you, since those crazy Sidereals cooked up a bunch of Celestial styles for them. For you, however, with your glorious combat charms, it generally means that Martial Arts charms just aren't as good as your normal charms.
If you wanted me to tell you how to use Martial Arts to be just as good as the Dawn with Melee and the Night with Archery, well, sorry Swan, but I'm not going to. An investment in Martial Arts just isn't as worthwhile as one in one of the other Dawn abilities. I without hesitation recommend against it for beginning players.
Still, it has its uses. For a start, Martial Arts often provides a lot of eclectic benefits that can be used well with other combat modes. For instance, Snake Style subtracts dice equal to your essence from opponents' attacks against you. There's no reason why you couldn't be using that while fighting with Melee, for instance (use one of Snake's form weapons, as clarified by the Player's Guide to be seven section staves and hook swords, and you can switch abilities seamlessly). Martial Arts also has by far the most charms for any one ability, and thus some insanely wicked combos can be constructed across styles (if you buy enough supplements to have a nice library of styles). Finally, if your GM is hostile or eccentric about custom charms, Martial Arts might be the only way to get a certain effect, since there's a published Martial Arts charm for just about everything. Indeed, without custom charms, then the most powerful charms available are the Sidereal Martial Arts.
In general, the best advice for Solars using Martial Arts is to not forget to build a bedrock of might with normal Solar charms, and then pick Martial Arts charms that exploit it. Armour Penetrating Fang Strike + Essence Venom Strike is nasty, sure, but any Sidereal can do that. Add Leaping Tiger Attack to the mix and you have something special.
The main problem with Martial Arts, however, is you need supplements. Snake Style badly needs the fixes from the Player's Guide. Then you need more books to get more styles (Violet Bier of Sorrows from the Sidereal book is particularly wicked in Solar hands). As you start, learn combat with another ability, and then you should be able to select a Martial Arts strategy that will work for you later when you understand the implications, and are resigned to paying for a few useless pre-form charms for every style you pick up.
Melee
Solar Melee. Well.
More Wyld Hunts than even I care to admit have ended badly when the newly-exalted child picks up, oh, I dunno, a shovel, declares "I am the Invincible Spear Princess", and proceeds to kill everyone. It's terribly humiliating when your own nephew is decapitated by a prancing thirteen year old with a garden implement.
Solar Archery is the supreme offensive ability, but overall, Melee is peerless. You have no idea how jealous the Cathak are of your charms. I've already covered the sheer excellence of the thing at defence, so let's talk a bit about using it to kill people.
For a start, Melee is where the biggest base damages are. Reaver Daikave. Grand Daiklave. Yet if you want, you have weapons of greater finesse at your disposal, such as the Direlance, or, well, virtually anything other than a bow or a chakram. Even if a weapon is nominally for another ability, you can almost always use it with Melee. The flexibility of choice is enormous.
That being said, I recommend the Reaver Daiklave, for its value on the accuracy and damage front, and because it leaves an off-hand free for Brawl or Thrown. You're Solars, you don't need the extra Speed or Defence, really. Cleave our mutual foes up and feed them to the Panic Monkeys.
Your strategy is really quite simple. Have stacked reflexive defences, dodge and parry, and then attack as many times as you have dice for. When your opponent is vulnerable, assault them with an offence charm or combo and destroy them.
Let's look at the charms.
The Excellent Strike tree is the core offence tree. Excellent Strike itself is a very basic dice-adder. It's too expensive and inefficient for sustained use, but it's a key part of combos.
Hungry Tiger Technique is an excellent charm, exactly like Ferocious Jab for Brawl. It doubles your successes for the purpose of damage, and hence can wickedly punish those with poor defences, and will never add less than 1 damage. If you're doing nothing else with the essence, put Hungry Tiger on each attack and stunt the motes back.
Fire & Stones Strike is an exceptionally good charm, especially for anyone relying on doing minimum damage. Because it converts damage dice to automatic successes, spending one mote on each attack guarantees a health level damage with any successful attack, allowing virtually any foe to be swiftly whittled down.
Of the multi-attack charms, only Iron Whirlwind is really any good. One Weapon Two Blows is too easily defended against, while Peony Blossom is too expensive. Only buy this tree if using the Player's Guide fixes (Peony Blossom 3m/attack, OWTB reduced to 2 motes).
The Retrieve the Fallen Weapon tree has some great charms buried behind some fairly useless ones. Retrieve the Fallen Weapon and Call the Blade simply aren't worthwhile - disarms are extremely difficult in Exalted, and if you don't have your weapon in reach, grab an improvised weapon, and defend with that while running over to pick up your primary weapon. Summon the Loyal Steel is very useful, however. Glorious Solar Saber is only really useful when facing an enemy who can break weapons (like an Earth Immaculate). Iron Raptor Technique and Sandstorm Wind Attack are not particularly useful - better to use Cascade of Cutting Terror with a javelin in the off hand. However, Blazing Solar Bolt and Corona of Radiance are excellent for fighting against the dead.
For offence, the Golden Essence Block tree offers access to counterattacks, with both Solar Counterattack and Ready in Eight Directions Stance. Solar Counterattack is great either in combo, or against enemies you're fairly certain you don't need to use a charm to defend against - it's an easy way to drain an enemy's defensive resources, especially if their attack makes them vulnerable. Ready in Eight Directions Stance's key weakness is its duration - it can't be put in combo - but it's a bargain at five motes, and can greatly discourage attacks against you. It's perfect for when you're ambushed - Full Dodge and Fivefold Bulwark the first turn, then Full Dodge and RI8DS each turn after that.
Counterattacks are almost always better than extra action charms, because they are similarly priced or cheaper, and as Reflexive charms, let you do whatever you like with your dice action. Iron Whirlwind won't give you more than about 5 attacks, but Ready In Eight Directions Stance lets you attack as many times as you like with your dice action, and then counterattack every single attack - you could easily get 10 attacks or more from such a strategy. Neither charm needs to be declared until you are actually attacked, so you'll never waste Solar Counterattack, and will always get at least one counter from Ready In Eight Directions. Using Ready In Eight Directions to dramatically counter and kill a lesser foe may also discourage later attackers, which could be extremely useful if you're relying on Full Dodge or Shadow Over Water rather than Flow Like Blood.
The downside to counterattacks is that your enemy chooses when you can use them. You may want to invest in Presence and taunt the enemy.
Sample Combo: Crushingly Overpowered Smite Excellent Strike + Hungry Tiger Technique + Fire & Stones Strike + Thunderbolt Attack Prana + Heavenly Guardian Defence, 13xp. Assuming Strength 3, for 19 motes + 1wp attack with +10 dice, successes doubled for damage, 3 damage dice auto succeed, total HL damage doubled.
Thrown
Much like archery, the key to this one is getting a high base damage. Increasing Strength Exercise and orichalcum Hearthstone Bracers highly recommended. Javelins are cheap, disposable, and provide some accuracy and 3L damage - try grabbing Flawless Handiwork Method from Craft in order to knock out piles of exceptional javelins easily.
When talking the charms, there is one that must be picked out over all. Cascade of Cutting Terror is an absolutely superlative charm. It has only one prerequisite, doubles your total Thrown pool (easily allowing 30 dice attacks), is undodgeable and supplemental. This is sheer murder against anyone lacking a perfect defence. It will fairly consistently butcher Fire Immaculates and anyone else relying on dodging, and will penetrate just about any parry pool. It's almost unfair. The doubled pool doesn't even count as being added dice, meaning you can still combo it with Precision of the Striking Raptor. This is the charm you'll use the most - just make sure your opponent can't pull out a perfect parry, and go to town.
Joint Wounding Attack isn't as reliable as Ox-Stunning Blow, but it's very useful, as its penalty is inflicted in addition to damage, making it perfect to combo with Cascade of Cutting Terror.
Falling Icicle Strike is overpriced, and only useful once a combat; however, it could be decisive, as it is MURDEROUS when in combo with Cascade of Cutting Terror.
Most of the other charms do have tactical uses for lone assassins or in combination with clever stunts, but in general, none of them pose a convincing argument for their use compared to Cascade of Cutting Terror. Bolster your base damage as much as you can and exploit that charm.
Sample Combo: Agonising Javelin-Barred Prison Cascade of Cutting Terror + Joint Wounding Attack + Seven Shadow Evasion, 11XP. For 8 Motes per attack, double thrown pool, undodgeable, adding -1 cumulative penalty per HL inflicted.
Combined Strategies
Melee/Thrown
With a one-handed weapon in your good hand, and a javelin in your off hand, you can maintain Melee's trademark iron-clad defence while retaining access to all the power of Cascade of Cutting Terror. Try attacking foes before their initiative with say one or two Melee attacks - this will force most non-Celestial foes to abort to a defence. At this point, unleash Cascade of Cutting Terror on them, as they will be unable to defend against it, since aborting to dodge does them no good against the undodgeable attack, and aborting to parry would have supplied them only one parry, which would have defended against the Melee attack. This strategy also works wonders against those using hopping defences (such as the Dragon Blooded's Hopping Firecracker Technique), defences that allow the user to leap away after a successful dodge, since they will discover to their extreme discomfort that they are WELL within the range of Cascade of Cutting Terror.
Melee/Thrown/Brawl
This stack of abilities is obviously somewhat more expensive to invest in, but leaves you perfectly comfortable in a clinch, and able, after using Melee attacks to probe the enemy's defences, choose either Crashing Wave Throw or Cascade of Cutting Terror to attack with, depending on the favoured defence mode of the enemy.
Archery/Brawl
Archery weapons require two hands, and thus preclude Melee. However, they don't particularly restrict the use of your feet. Since powerbows have a low Rate, try shooting close by enemies twice, and then kicking them another two times - or vice versa. Use one mode to strip defences away from a non-Celestial target, and then deliver powerful charm-enhanced blows (I recommend targeting the nether regions. Most of your foes don't deserve to breed, particularly the erstwhile spawn of my siblings).
Archery/Martial Arts
Similarly to Archery/Brawl, but with the added benefit of being able to assume and gain the benefits of defensive Form charms like Snake or Ebon Shadow, this is actually an excellent use of Martial Arts, particularly useful to archers who by hanging up the back can go a little lighter on soak. However, if you suspect your game may at any point use the Player's Guide rules (Power Combat/Form Weapons), avoid this strategy, since it's likely you'll be unable to use your chosen Form with a bow.
A Quick Note on Dice Adders and Extra Action Charms
Many people consider raw number of dice to be a decisive advantage in combat. It most certainly is not. While having large pools is extremely useful, having excellent charm technology that makes good use of those pools is more important - for example the size of a Solar's parry and dodge pools is less important than his ability to use both reflexively against all attacks.
Furthermore, the Solar dice advantage is not great. Lunars can add less dice, but usually have bloated pools owing to their warforms that are much larger even without dice adders. Sidereals can add extremely few dice, but can alter the probability of gaining a success. Dragon Blooded can add only a few less dice than Solars, and often more cheaply.
Do not be fooled into thinking Excellent Strike, Wise Arrow and Precision of the Striking Raptor are decisive advantages; they are not. They are inefficient, and unless your base damage is considerable, may not result in much damage at all. They are useful to brute-force past large defences, and in combo with charms that amplify their effects (such as Hungry Tiger Technique). Otherwise, however, it is usually better to attack a more vulnerable target with another offence charm that will have greater effect, such as Fire and Stones Strike or Cascade of Cutting Terror.
Similarly, Extra Action charms provide more dice than simply taking multiple action penalties to act multiple times, but consider whether those dice are necessary, for they come at two prices. The first is their mote and willpower cost, which might be better spent elsewhere. The other is their locking you into a specific type of action - almost always multiple attacks in the same ability - preventing you from mixing combat styles in the turn, or mixing in non-combat actions. Once again, a high base damage is more likely to make this worthwhile.
How much essence and willpower should I spend?
This is more than a little contextual. Minor skirmish with scouts just ahead of the Wyld Hunt? Go cheap. Desperate final battle with your Deathlord nemesis? Spend at every good opportunity.
In general, it's silly to die with motes left unspent, but being out of motes is a common cause of death.
If you have a Hearthstone, you can safely spend more, assuming you'll have any time at all between battles (and if you don't have time, why, it's going to be the same Scene, so rely on your persistent charms!). Likewise if the time between battles will be peaceful enough to rest, or include social scenes where you can safely stunt back essence.
If you're trying to remain roughly mote-neutral, you should be able to spend 4 motes a turn, and stunt it back with two +2 stunts. If you're under an unfriendly stunting regieme, or if you feel bland or uninspired, cut that back somewhat.
Let's look at Invincible Sword Princess, early in her career. She has Essence 3, Willpower 6, and virtues totalling 9. She has a Reaver Daiklave and an orichalcum reinforced buff jacket, for a total commitment of 8 motes. She has 15 personal essence, and 36 peripheral, cut to 28 after commitment, for a total of 43 motes.
If she's in a battle where she needs to conceal her Solar nature, she'll only have Personal essence at her disposal. After activating Flow Like Blood and Fivefold Bulwark Stance, she's committed 10 of those 15 motes, and is down 2wp. She has a total budget of 5 motes, but feels confident that she won't need to use Heavenly Guardian Defence, so she can spend and regain that fairly freely. In the first two turns of combat, she spends 3 motes using Fire & Stones Strike for 1 mote on each of three attacks, and does two +2 stunts, gaining 1 wp and 2 motes between them. She keeps this pattern up for two more turns, but takes essence from her stunts at 4 motes per turn, showing a slight profit. Finally, with 5 motes back in the bank, she makes 4 Fire & Stones attacks each turn, and stays roughly mote-neutral with stunts. After the battle, she just needs to regain the ten committed motes with some light rest and her Hearthstone.
In open pitched battle against the Wyld Hunt, she has no such concerns. In addition to Fivefold Bulwark and Flow Like Blood, she commits nine motes to Increasing Strength Exercise for a total of nineteen motes, leaving her with 24 motes. She decides she needs to reserve twelve motes spare for emergency Heavenly Guardian Defence, but is happy to fluctuate between 12-24 motes through stunting and offence charms. After holding her action in the first turn in order to act last, she knows she won't need a charm for defence in the first turn. She attacks a Dynast who foolishly used a Simple charm in front of her, spending 3 motes on Fire & Stones Strike on each of four attacks, easily killing him. She takes 2 wp for her two +2 stunts for the turn. The next two turns she uses no essence, and regains 8 motes instead. Happy with that, she spends motes when the opportunity comes from then on, usually no more than 6 or less than 2, gaining four essence from stunts per turn. When the Hunt is substantially broken, an Air Immaculate seeks to flee, and goes within sprinting distance of Invincible Sword Princess. Seeing an opportunity, and feeling fairly safe, she dips into her 12 mote reserve, and fires off a Leaping Tiger Attack + Hungry Tiger Technique + Fire & Stones Strike combo.
For a situation between a quiet "No-one here but us mortals, officer" brawl and a pitched battle, try letting your essence gradually degrade. Spend, say, 6 motes every turn, regaining four motes with stunts. You'll have a good reserve for defences or opportunities for combos, but will still be getting good use out of your offence charms. If you like to use a combo every turn, you'll probably need to make sure you regain 1wp per turn, and will likely be using much more essence, so expect this to be a sharper decline, suitable for faster battles.
In general, spend when you feel safe. Try not to spend too much willpower, and if you do, stunt it back as a priority - essence is much easier to regain between battles. Spend some essence up front to free up space for stunt essence, but otherwise look for good opportunities rather than brute-forcing the situation with big essence spends.
Archery
Ah...Solar Archery. Really, in my position, I should hate it, but I can't help but smile when I think of all those Tepet boys and girls lying under the Haltan redwoods, riddled with the arrows of the Bull of the North. I sent him a big box of thank-you chocolate (anonymously, of course).
Archery is the pre-eminent offence ability for the Solar Exalted. It is both the tool for punching holes in a single foe, and for killing extras en masse (I do so love the bit where you make armies evaporate. Just don't do it to mine, or I'll have Octavian eat your gizzard).
Firstly, get a Short Powerbow. Long Powerbows aren't worth the extra artifact dot, and mortal bows are totally inferior - they don't add any extra damage, and they cap your effective strength. Powerbows are fine for any strength (hello, Increasing Strength Exercise!), and have enormous range. However, their Rate is quite low - 2 - and hence this is one of the rare times you might consider a Jade version, for the extra point of rate. The accuracy and damage for orichalcum is excellent, however, so either choice is viable. Orichalcum Hearthstone bracers are also an excellent pick, allowing an easy 11L base damage before ammunition for a Str 3, Essence 3 character with Increasing Strength Exercise and an Orichalcum powerbow.
The reason why it's worth focusing on damage with archery is because in general, ranged attacks are assumed to do less damage, and tend to have charms balanced accordingly, so doing lots of damage tends to get a lot of effectiveness out of those charms. Arrow Storm Technique allows you to continue attacking so long as you don't miss or repeat a target, and hence is excellent for killing extras - automatic kills are extremely useful there. Furthermore, with Accuracy Without Distance, you have an attack that can be relied on to do at least base damage against anyone without a perfect defence - so making that base damage HURT can ruin someone's day, career, chance of inheriting the throne etc etc.
Choose your ammunition on a per-target basis, but expect to overwhelmingly use target arrows. Most of your enemies will rely on armour for their soak, so halving the benefit of their armour can drastically reduce their soak. For instance, if you did 11L base damage and hit an average Dragon Blood wearing Articulated Plate (normally a 13L soak assuming Sta 2-3), you would do 5 dice damage with a single success, since the armour's 12L soak would be cut to 6L.
Against targets with less than 6L but more than 1L armour soak, generally you'll want to use a broadhead, as it will give a slight advantage in damage over a target or frogcrotch arrow. Broadheads are also a safe bet if you're not sure of the soak situation - they don't mess with armour soak at all, and hence aren't actually a risk.
Frog Crotch arrows are best against armour soaks of 1L or less. They add +4 base damage, but double armour soak.
Nearly all the charms for Archery are excellent, though you may find There Is No Wind only particularly useful if you fight in poor conditions relatively often (or wish to lure foes into such poor conditions) and Immaculate Golden Bow only useful if carrying around your powerbow is problematic. Solar Spike does too little damage to be useful. Trance of Unhesitating Speed is worthlessly expensive, but required for Arrow Storm Technique (the Player's Guide corrects Trance of Unhesitating Speed to cost 3 motes per attack - try asking your GM to use this ruling).
Accuracy Without Distance is a perfect attack, and the most powerful offence charm available to Solars. Only perfect defences can prevent it from hitting, though some special defences can interfere with it (for instance, Dragon Blooded have a charm that burns all physical arrows that come near them - which can be defeated by Phantom Arrow - and a charm that redirects attacks to nearby targets). Generally, if you use this charm on a target, you can assume you'll do at least base damage, or force them to use a more expensive charm to defend. Use it on a foe who can't use a Perfect defence, and you're set.
Arrow Storm Technique is the best multiple action charm in the game, allowing shoot every single target within range so long as you hit each target. The key (apart from either having Inexhaustible Bolts of Solar Fire from the Dawn castebook, or be sitting on a wagon full of arrows) is the order in which you attack your foes. If your first shot is directed at an enemy Abyssal, she will certainly defend, and your charm will be over. However, if you start with the easiest targets and work up, you'll get many, many attacks - shooting first her zombies, then her war ghosts, then her nemissaries, then her horse, and then finally the Abyssal herself. She'll still defend, but she'll be down an army.
Dazzling Flare Attack is a great little damage adder, letting you add up to 2xEssence damage for Essence motes to an attack. It also throws in an extra attack die for good measure. Usually more useful than Firey Arrow Attack, but they work well together in combo.
Rain of Feathered Death is an excellent substitute for an Extra Action charm, as it's supplemental, allowing you to still take multiple actions, multiplying the damage on each one. Because each volley is defended against together, don't use this charm against opponents with excellent defence, as they'll be able to defend far more cheaply than the cost of this charm. Instead, use it to punish and swiftly kill enemies with poor defence.
Phantom Arrow Technique isn't particularly useful as a substitute for normal arrows (unless you're quite short, or don't have the right type for a particular target), but it's excellent for defeating defences that target normal arrows, such as Arrow Consuming Flame Defence for Dragon Blooded.
Sample Combo: Perfected Scourging Sunlight Accuracy Without Distance + Firey Arrow Attack + Rain of Feathered Death + Seven Shadow Evasion, 15XP. For (3+Essence) motes + 1wp per attack, perfectly does base damage + extra successes + 3xEssence damage, and may perfectly dodge any attack for 6 motes.
Brawl
Often considered the weakest Dawn ability, as it lacks a dice adder or any kind of defence, Brawl still has some significant advantages, and is capable of its own brand of mayhem. It's an excellent ability for those want to help out rather than be the frontline warrior (being the king of the "I hold him, you hit him" style of combat), or as a sneaky backup to Melee, Archery or Thrown. Archers will of course be kicking rather than punching.
Brawl is also recommended for social characters, since someone in a clinch has little choice about listening to you.
Firstly, get a weapon, whether it's a fighting gauntlet, a Smashfist, or whatever you find lying around. This lets you do lethal damage easily, and defend, whether by simply using Melee defence charms with the weapon (recommended), or by being able to parry lethal using Brawl without a stunt (if you insist).
Secondly, it's essential to have a good soak when using Brawl, as you simply can't defend any other way while clinching, and many of the better Brawl offence charms are Simple, meaning you won't be able to use actions to defend. Flow Like Blood is recommended.
Clinching is best done by picking an opponent whose defences aren't great, and then taking multiple clinch actions against them. You only need one to hit, and they're clinched - it doesn't matter whether it's a good hit or not, so unless you're dealing with persistent defences, wear them down in order to get a grip on them. Many enemies will be paranoid about being clinched, and may go to excessive measures to avoid it; so even if you're not successful, you can be a terrible drain on their resources. Just be careful - when in a clinch, you have no defences other than soak, and well, we've discussed relying on soak, haven't we? It's best to team up with a friend, and have them kill whoever you're clinching before THEIR friends can attack you. Voila, out of clinch and ready to defend.
Brawl's charms are split into two main trees - the general use tree, and the hurling people tree. A clinching character will want Dragon Coil Technique, and thus needs the first tree. A character meaning to rely on striking will want the second tree, as it allows unparryable attacks, while grabbing some useful charms from the first tree for comboing. Expect to make combos with Brawl, as its charms are highly synergistic.
Ferocious Jab is a must for all Brawlers, allowing extremely punishing hits against opponents with poor defences, and being extremely cheap besides! A must for a striking Brawl combo.
Fist of Iron Technique is useless, but required to progress through the tree. Move on.
Ox-Stunning Blow is an exceptionally good way to cut down an opponent relying on Soak to size. Pick a vulnerable target and hit them as hard as you can with this, and they'll be wearing huge penalties for several turns. Expect your friends to execute them during this time.
Thunderclap Rush automatically wins initiative against one opponent; it's best saved for combos designed to screw over opponents who REALLY don't like losing initiative - great for ambushing Martial Artists, fellow Celestials and others who rely on power-up time before a fight.
Hammer on Iron Technique is a bit expensive, and only worth doing when Flow Like Blood is up, as it cannot be combo'd with dodge charms.
Dragon Coil Technique is a great help in clinches - get the opponent in the clinch first, then activate it on subsequent turns.
Crashing Wave Throw is the key to the striking strategy - because it cannot be parried, target a foe with poor dodge or no perfect defences, preferably standing near a wall, and hammer them. A combo with Ferocious Jab and Heaven Thunder Hammer will maul most targets, especially if you can smash them *through* something.
Sample Combo: Gleeful Dawn Demolition Shot Crashing Wave Throw + Heaven Thunder Hammer + Ferocious Jab + Seven Shadow Evasion, 11xp. For 6 motes, make an unparryable attack, doubling successes for damage, and hurling foe Str + Successes + Total Raw Damage yards. Foe takes damage equal to yards of flight remaining if they hit an object.
Martial Arts - the Odd Man Out
"So" you say, looking at the charms available to you "What's up with Martial Arts?"
Well, MA is quite different. For a start, for mortals, there's no real difference between Martial Arts and Brawl, other than choice of weapons. They do exactly the same things. So why is there two abilities where one would do? Why are they separate charms?
The answer is - they're not really Solar charms at all. Martial Arts styles are shared amongst the Exalted. I could learn Snake Style if I felt like it. You could learn Air Dragon Style.
What does this mean? Well, for Dragon Blooded, it generally means Celestial Martial Arts charms are much better than our normal charms - that's why we get the Immaculates to fight you, since those crazy Sidereals cooked up a bunch of Celestial styles for them. For you, however, with your glorious combat charms, it generally means that Martial Arts charms just aren't as good as your normal charms.
If you wanted me to tell you how to use Martial Arts to be just as good as the Dawn with Melee and the Night with Archery, well, sorry Swan, but I'm not going to. An investment in Martial Arts just isn't as worthwhile as one in one of the other Dawn abilities. I without hesitation recommend against it for beginning players.
Still, it has its uses. For a start, Martial Arts often provides a lot of eclectic benefits that can be used well with other combat modes. For instance, Snake Style subtracts dice equal to your essence from opponents' attacks against you. There's no reason why you couldn't be using that while fighting with Melee, for instance (use one of Snake's form weapons, as clarified by the Player's Guide to be seven section staves and hook swords, and you can switch abilities seamlessly). Martial Arts also has by far the most charms for any one ability, and thus some insanely wicked combos can be constructed across styles (if you buy enough supplements to have a nice library of styles). Finally, if your GM is hostile or eccentric about custom charms, Martial Arts might be the only way to get a certain effect, since there's a published Martial Arts charm for just about everything. Indeed, without custom charms, then the most powerful charms available are the Sidereal Martial Arts.
In general, the best advice for Solars using Martial Arts is to not forget to build a bedrock of might with normal Solar charms, and then pick Martial Arts charms that exploit it. Armour Penetrating Fang Strike + Essence Venom Strike is nasty, sure, but any Sidereal can do that. Add Leaping Tiger Attack to the mix and you have something special.
The main problem with Martial Arts, however, is you need supplements. Snake Style badly needs the fixes from the Player's Guide. Then you need more books to get more styles (Violet Bier of Sorrows from the Sidereal book is particularly wicked in Solar hands). As you start, learn combat with another ability, and then you should be able to select a Martial Arts strategy that will work for you later when you understand the implications, and are resigned to paying for a few useless pre-form charms for every style you pick up.
Melee
Solar Melee. Well.
More Wyld Hunts than even I care to admit have ended badly when the newly-exalted child picks up, oh, I dunno, a shovel, declares "I am the Invincible Spear Princess", and proceeds to kill everyone. It's terribly humiliating when your own nephew is decapitated by a prancing thirteen year old with a garden implement.
Solar Archery is the supreme offensive ability, but overall, Melee is peerless. You have no idea how jealous the Cathak are of your charms. I've already covered the sheer excellence of the thing at defence, so let's talk a bit about using it to kill people.
For a start, Melee is where the biggest base damages are. Reaver Daikave. Grand Daiklave. Yet if you want, you have weapons of greater finesse at your disposal, such as the Direlance, or, well, virtually anything other than a bow or a chakram. Even if a weapon is nominally for another ability, you can almost always use it with Melee. The flexibility of choice is enormous.
That being said, I recommend the Reaver Daiklave, for its value on the accuracy and damage front, and because it leaves an off-hand free for Brawl or Thrown. You're Solars, you don't need the extra Speed or Defence, really. Cleave our mutual foes up and feed them to the Panic Monkeys.
Your strategy is really quite simple. Have stacked reflexive defences, dodge and parry, and then attack as many times as you have dice for. When your opponent is vulnerable, assault them with an offence charm or combo and destroy them.
Let's look at the charms.
The Excellent Strike tree is the core offence tree. Excellent Strike itself is a very basic dice-adder. It's too expensive and inefficient for sustained use, but it's a key part of combos.
Hungry Tiger Technique is an excellent charm, exactly like Ferocious Jab for Brawl. It doubles your successes for the purpose of damage, and hence can wickedly punish those with poor defences, and will never add less than 1 damage. If you're doing nothing else with the essence, put Hungry Tiger on each attack and stunt the motes back.
Fire & Stones Strike is an exceptionally good charm, especially for anyone relying on doing minimum damage. Because it converts damage dice to automatic successes, spending one mote on each attack guarantees a health level damage with any successful attack, allowing virtually any foe to be swiftly whittled down.
Of the multi-attack charms, only Iron Whirlwind is really any good. One Weapon Two Blows is too easily defended against, while Peony Blossom is too expensive. Only buy this tree if using the Player's Guide fixes (Peony Blossom 3m/attack, OWTB reduced to 2 motes).
The Retrieve the Fallen Weapon tree has some great charms buried behind some fairly useless ones. Retrieve the Fallen Weapon and Call the Blade simply aren't worthwhile - disarms are extremely difficult in Exalted, and if you don't have your weapon in reach, grab an improvised weapon, and defend with that while running over to pick up your primary weapon. Summon the Loyal Steel is very useful, however. Glorious Solar Saber is only really useful when facing an enemy who can break weapons (like an Earth Immaculate). Iron Raptor Technique and Sandstorm Wind Attack are not particularly useful - better to use Cascade of Cutting Terror with a javelin in the off hand. However, Blazing Solar Bolt and Corona of Radiance are excellent for fighting against the dead.
For offence, the Golden Essence Block tree offers access to counterattacks, with both Solar Counterattack and Ready in Eight Directions Stance. Solar Counterattack is great either in combo, or against enemies you're fairly certain you don't need to use a charm to defend against - it's an easy way to drain an enemy's defensive resources, especially if their attack makes them vulnerable. Ready in Eight Directions Stance's key weakness is its duration - it can't be put in combo - but it's a bargain at five motes, and can greatly discourage attacks against you. It's perfect for when you're ambushed - Full Dodge and Fivefold Bulwark the first turn, then Full Dodge and RI8DS each turn after that.
Counterattacks are almost always better than extra action charms, because they are similarly priced or cheaper, and as Reflexive charms, let you do whatever you like with your dice action. Iron Whirlwind won't give you more than about 5 attacks, but Ready In Eight Directions Stance lets you attack as many times as you like with your dice action, and then counterattack every single attack - you could easily get 10 attacks or more from such a strategy. Neither charm needs to be declared until you are actually attacked, so you'll never waste Solar Counterattack, and will always get at least one counter from Ready In Eight Directions. Using Ready In Eight Directions to dramatically counter and kill a lesser foe may also discourage later attackers, which could be extremely useful if you're relying on Full Dodge or Shadow Over Water rather than Flow Like Blood.
The downside to counterattacks is that your enemy chooses when you can use them. You may want to invest in Presence and taunt the enemy.
Sample Combo: Crushingly Overpowered Smite Excellent Strike + Hungry Tiger Technique + Fire & Stones Strike + Thunderbolt Attack Prana + Heavenly Guardian Defence, 13xp. Assuming Strength 3, for 19 motes + 1wp attack with +10 dice, successes doubled for damage, 3 damage dice auto succeed, total HL damage doubled.
Thrown
Much like archery, the key to this one is getting a high base damage. Increasing Strength Exercise and orichalcum Hearthstone Bracers highly recommended. Javelins are cheap, disposable, and provide some accuracy and 3L damage - try grabbing Flawless Handiwork Method from Craft in order to knock out piles of exceptional javelins easily.
When talking the charms, there is one that must be picked out over all. Cascade of Cutting Terror is an absolutely superlative charm. It has only one prerequisite, doubles your total Thrown pool (easily allowing 30 dice attacks), is undodgeable and supplemental. This is sheer murder against anyone lacking a perfect defence. It will fairly consistently butcher Fire Immaculates and anyone else relying on dodging, and will penetrate just about any parry pool. It's almost unfair. The doubled pool doesn't even count as being added dice, meaning you can still combo it with Precision of the Striking Raptor. This is the charm you'll use the most - just make sure your opponent can't pull out a perfect parry, and go to town.
Joint Wounding Attack isn't as reliable as Ox-Stunning Blow, but it's very useful, as its penalty is inflicted in addition to damage, making it perfect to combo with Cascade of Cutting Terror.
Falling Icicle Strike is overpriced, and only useful once a combat; however, it could be decisive, as it is MURDEROUS when in combo with Cascade of Cutting Terror.
Most of the other charms do have tactical uses for lone assassins or in combination with clever stunts, but in general, none of them pose a convincing argument for their use compared to Cascade of Cutting Terror. Bolster your base damage as much as you can and exploit that charm.
Sample Combo: Agonising Javelin-Barred Prison Cascade of Cutting Terror + Joint Wounding Attack + Seven Shadow Evasion, 11XP. For 8 Motes per attack, double thrown pool, undodgeable, adding -1 cumulative penalty per HL inflicted.
Combined Strategies
Melee/Thrown
With a one-handed weapon in your good hand, and a javelin in your off hand, you can maintain Melee's trademark iron-clad defence while retaining access to all the power of Cascade of Cutting Terror. Try attacking foes before their initiative with say one or two Melee attacks - this will force most non-Celestial foes to abort to a defence. At this point, unleash Cascade of Cutting Terror on them, as they will be unable to defend against it, since aborting to dodge does them no good against the undodgeable attack, and aborting to parry would have supplied them only one parry, which would have defended against the Melee attack. This strategy also works wonders against those using hopping defences (such as the Dragon Blooded's Hopping Firecracker Technique), defences that allow the user to leap away after a successful dodge, since they will discover to their extreme discomfort that they are WELL within the range of Cascade of Cutting Terror.
Melee/Thrown/Brawl
This stack of abilities is obviously somewhat more expensive to invest in, but leaves you perfectly comfortable in a clinch, and able, after using Melee attacks to probe the enemy's defences, choose either Crashing Wave Throw or Cascade of Cutting Terror to attack with, depending on the favoured defence mode of the enemy.
Archery/Brawl
Archery weapons require two hands, and thus preclude Melee. However, they don't particularly restrict the use of your feet. Since powerbows have a low Rate, try shooting close by enemies twice, and then kicking them another two times - or vice versa. Use one mode to strip defences away from a non-Celestial target, and then deliver powerful charm-enhanced blows (I recommend targeting the nether regions. Most of your foes don't deserve to breed, particularly the erstwhile spawn of my siblings).
Archery/Martial Arts
Similarly to Archery/Brawl, but with the added benefit of being able to assume and gain the benefits of defensive Form charms like Snake or Ebon Shadow, this is actually an excellent use of Martial Arts, particularly useful to archers who by hanging up the back can go a little lighter on soak. However, if you suspect your game may at any point use the Player's Guide rules (Power Combat/Form Weapons), avoid this strategy, since it's likely you'll be unable to use your chosen Form with a bow.
A Quick Note on Dice Adders and Extra Action Charms
Many people consider raw number of dice to be a decisive advantage in combat. It most certainly is not. While having large pools is extremely useful, having excellent charm technology that makes good use of those pools is more important - for example the size of a Solar's parry and dodge pools is less important than his ability to use both reflexively against all attacks.
Furthermore, the Solar dice advantage is not great. Lunars can add less dice, but usually have bloated pools owing to their warforms that are much larger even without dice adders. Sidereals can add extremely few dice, but can alter the probability of gaining a success. Dragon Blooded can add only a few less dice than Solars, and often more cheaply.
Do not be fooled into thinking Excellent Strike, Wise Arrow and Precision of the Striking Raptor are decisive advantages; they are not. They are inefficient, and unless your base damage is considerable, may not result in much damage at all. They are useful to brute-force past large defences, and in combo with charms that amplify their effects (such as Hungry Tiger Technique). Otherwise, however, it is usually better to attack a more vulnerable target with another offence charm that will have greater effect, such as Fire and Stones Strike or Cascade of Cutting Terror.
Similarly, Extra Action charms provide more dice than simply taking multiple action penalties to act multiple times, but consider whether those dice are necessary, for they come at two prices. The first is their mote and willpower cost, which might be better spent elsewhere. The other is their locking you into a specific type of action - almost always multiple attacks in the same ability - preventing you from mixing combat styles in the turn, or mixing in non-combat actions. Once again, a high base damage is more likely to make this worthwhile.
How much essence and willpower should I spend?
This is more than a little contextual. Minor skirmish with scouts just ahead of the Wyld Hunt? Go cheap. Desperate final battle with your Deathlord nemesis? Spend at every good opportunity.
In general, it's silly to die with motes left unspent, but being out of motes is a common cause of death.
If you have a Hearthstone, you can safely spend more, assuming you'll have any time at all between battles (and if you don't have time, why, it's going to be the same Scene, so rely on your persistent charms!). Likewise if the time between battles will be peaceful enough to rest, or include social scenes where you can safely stunt back essence.
If you're trying to remain roughly mote-neutral, you should be able to spend 4 motes a turn, and stunt it back with two +2 stunts. If you're under an unfriendly stunting regieme, or if you feel bland or uninspired, cut that back somewhat.
Let's look at Invincible Sword Princess, early in her career. She has Essence 3, Willpower 6, and virtues totalling 9. She has a Reaver Daiklave and an orichalcum reinforced buff jacket, for a total commitment of 8 motes. She has 15 personal essence, and 36 peripheral, cut to 28 after commitment, for a total of 43 motes.
If she's in a battle where she needs to conceal her Solar nature, she'll only have Personal essence at her disposal. After activating Flow Like Blood and Fivefold Bulwark Stance, she's committed 10 of those 15 motes, and is down 2wp. She has a total budget of 5 motes, but feels confident that she won't need to use Heavenly Guardian Defence, so she can spend and regain that fairly freely. In the first two turns of combat, she spends 3 motes using Fire & Stones Strike for 1 mote on each of three attacks, and does two +2 stunts, gaining 1 wp and 2 motes between them. She keeps this pattern up for two more turns, but takes essence from her stunts at 4 motes per turn, showing a slight profit. Finally, with 5 motes back in the bank, she makes 4 Fire & Stones attacks each turn, and stays roughly mote-neutral with stunts. After the battle, she just needs to regain the ten committed motes with some light rest and her Hearthstone.
In open pitched battle against the Wyld Hunt, she has no such concerns. In addition to Fivefold Bulwark and Flow Like Blood, she commits nine motes to Increasing Strength Exercise for a total of nineteen motes, leaving her with 24 motes. She decides she needs to reserve twelve motes spare for emergency Heavenly Guardian Defence, but is happy to fluctuate between 12-24 motes through stunting and offence charms. After holding her action in the first turn in order to act last, she knows she won't need a charm for defence in the first turn. She attacks a Dynast who foolishly used a Simple charm in front of her, spending 3 motes on Fire & Stones Strike on each of four attacks, easily killing him. She takes 2 wp for her two +2 stunts for the turn. The next two turns she uses no essence, and regains 8 motes instead. Happy with that, she spends motes when the opportunity comes from then on, usually no more than 6 or less than 2, gaining four essence from stunts per turn. When the Hunt is substantially broken, an Air Immaculate seeks to flee, and goes within sprinting distance of Invincible Sword Princess. Seeing an opportunity, and feeling fairly safe, she dips into her 12 mote reserve, and fires off a Leaping Tiger Attack + Hungry Tiger Technique + Fire & Stones Strike combo.
For a situation between a quiet "No-one here but us mortals, officer" brawl and a pitched battle, try letting your essence gradually degrade. Spend, say, 6 motes every turn, regaining four motes with stunts. You'll have a good reserve for defences or opportunities for combos, but will still be getting good use out of your offence charms. If you like to use a combo every turn, you'll probably need to make sure you regain 1wp per turn, and will likely be using much more essence, so expect this to be a sharper decline, suitable for faster battles.
In general, spend when you feel safe. Try not to spend too much willpower, and if you do, stunt it back as a priority - essence is much easier to regain between battles. Spend some essence up front to free up space for stunt essence, but otherwise look for good opportunities rather than brute-forcing the situation with big essence spends.
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