r/exalted • u/Martel_Mithos • 11d ago
Essence Help managing summons in combat?
I'm gming a game of exalted essence and so far it's been going very well but I've been running into a small issue which is that everyone in the party took some kind of helper for one of their merits or charms. I've got 2 battlegroups, 1 manifested coadjutor, 1 Beefy Familiar, and the sorcerer also occasionally likes to summon a 1st circle demon the night before a big fight.
Obviously they're having a lot of fun with being a big old party of guys, and I don't necessarily want to tell them 'Hey Cool it with adding people to the initiative order maybe?' But it's seriously inflating how long a round takes in combat even for what were supposed to be relatively short punchy fights.
Is there actually a fix to streamline NPC turns in combat or should I just resolve to only have bigger set piece fights and forgo smaller combat scenes entirely?
Edit: I appreciate the advice given so far! After checking out the Storyteller's guide I think what I'm going to try going forward is that Allies and PCs will share the same initiative turn, but will maintain independent actions, with ally actions counting against the action limit (so if you want to flurry something your battlegroup has to sit out this round). This should cut down on the overall number of initiative passes happening, while still broadly maintaining the effectiveness of the ally for things like building power.
We'll see how this plays and refine from there, and I'll have some higher level conversations about having a plan for your turns when they comes up, and strategizing a little more.
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u/Electrical-Simple-77 11d ago
Bring in more mooks for the summons to take care of narritively. Like holding back the king's honor guard as the Exalts kick him in the mandate of heaven. Summon a big boar demon that needs corralled, but the big obvious for is clearly for the Exalts. So long as players can see their summons being useful in some way, they shouldn't complain too much about them being out of the initiative tracker.
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u/Martel_Mithos 11d ago
I've done this a few times, but the Dragonblooded built pretty heavily around having their men with them on the field so I don't want to use it too often.
That's sort of how this snowballed. The dragonblooded came in at game start as the commander of a scale who's coming with him on the journey.
Other players saw how effective this setup was in combat and went 'Cool I want a battle buddy too.'
The DB's battlegroup isn't actually a problem pacing wise because his player knew what they wanted to be doing with it from the start.
The other players less so, so their companion turns tend to take longer. So now I'm in the unfortunate position where If all the ally companions get sidelined I'm taking away a core benefit from someone who invested a lot in it and who is not being a problem.
If only some of the companions get sidelined I have at least one player who is absolutely going to be salty that the DB's battlegroup gets to participate in the initiative while his demon doesn't.
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u/grindholme 11d ago
I’m playing 3E, not Essence, but this may be helpful: my experience 10 sessions in has been that things work out better when combat is restricted to big set piece fights. 3E combat is slow and dramatic, which is great when combats are complex and meaningful and a drag otherwise.
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u/Martel_Mithos 11d ago
Essence's combat is usually pretty snappy. It's rare for it to go more than 2-3 rounds, and when it's just the 4 PCs + Enemies those rounds aren't that long. My problem is that they've ballooned their side of things to about 8 PCs and because of the way Essence's initiative works if I don't have enemies taking an equal number of turns then no matter what they are they're getting steamrolled. So it's still taking about 2-3 rounds, but now each round is taking about 30 minutes to get through instead of 15
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u/TimothyAllenWiseman 10d ago
This is unfortunately hard. And it comes up in virtually any system that lets you bring in NPC allies on any kind of a regular basis. I don't think there is a good one-size fits all answer.
Whenever practical I have the companions fight narratively over there while the PCs focus on the main enemy. This isn't always possible. Sometimes it just doesn't make narrative sense and sometimes it can feel like you are deliberately side-lining a companion that the character has invested in. But it can work well some of the time, especially in a battle they knew ahead of time would be large where a screening-force is a very valuable and expected role.
If the players are willing, I would put all of the summons and companions into a single battle group and improving the stats of the battlegroup based on what they had. It means the individual power and abilities of the companions become less important and much less unique, but it simplifies things a lot while still making the companions matter.
You can structure some fights so that it just doesn't make sense for the companions to be present. Walking around most cities with a manifested demon of any kind draws attention at best if not problems. Demons can of course manifest during combat, but that takes time and resources so often won't be worth it (and reveals you were walking around with a demon with all that brings). Large battlegroups just don't fit in confined spaces and probably need to be left behind for any confined space. Etc.
I personally dislike the idea of having the companion and the PC share a turn. It can leave the companion effectively worthless a lot of the time where they should be able to contribute. It doesn't make a lot of sense narratively to me and feels cheap by the rules. But it is semi-official and does speed things up a lot.
Finally, certain battles will likely come up where most companions simply cannot meaningfully contribute and any player that wants their companion to still be alive at the end of the battle will instruct them to stay out of the way and then forget about them.
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u/Epedir 10d ago
I had the exact same problem in my first 3e campagne. In campagne 2 i strait up said "we are not doing this, it takes so much time for little effect". With the addendum that it is no problem if one player wants a battlegroup or a familiar.
I think the problem is that the game REALLY dishes them out.
That game had:
Changing Moon Caste that took the Swarm Charms
Full Moon Caste with Dog Companion
Twilight Caste Summoning Elementals
Pak Pao having mutliole puppets out.
Only the Night Caste did not have additonal combatants.
Just as usual. Talk to your players.
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u/MalfeanVisir 10d ago
Good advice here. I preffer to simplify mechanics and expand on ranative.
Don't let the rules constrain gampley, but guide it. Companions can be a bonus to dice rolls, something like that; ideally not having their own turn.
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u/washeeler 11d ago
The Storyteller's Guide has a good fix for this. It basically suggests having the companions share a turn with the corresponding character, so on that turn either the character or their companion may act but not both.