Blue Rose vs Exalted
Compare Blue Rose and Exalted side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Blue Rose | Exalted | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Character-Driven, Corruption, Tactical, Crunchy, Social Intrigue, Strong GM Support, High-Fantasy, Lore-Heavy, Heroic, Roleplay-Heavy | High-Power, Crunchy, Tactical, High-Fantasy, Martial Arts, Lore-Heavy, Character Building, Corruption |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d20 and add the relevant ability, skill, or arcanum modifier against a Difficulty set by the Narrator. Attacks use the same procedure against Defense. Successful damage forces a Toughness save that moves the target along an injury track instead of reducing hit points. | Roll a pool of d10s equal to an Attribute + Ability; each die showing 7–9 counts as one success and each 10 as two, measured against a target number of successes. Vivid descriptions of an action (stunts) add 1–3 bonus dice and can restore spent Essence, rewarding evocative narration on every roll. |
| Dice | d20 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | Very High |
| Availability | Paid | Paid |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | Open Game License Version 1.0a | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open Game License v1.0a | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Green Ronin Publishing, LLC | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2005 | 2016 |
| Languages | English, Italian | English |
| Best For | Groups who want hopeful romantic fantasy campaigns where personal motivations, political intrigue, and heroic service matter alongside tactical conflict. | Groups committed to a long campaign about demigod protagonists: mastering deep, individualized Charm builds, fighting Initiative-driven tactical battles, and navigating the political collapse of a mythic empire. |
| Highlights | Acting on a Calling and either nature restores Conviction, turning personal motives into a renewable resource. Reputation and Influence give past deeds and changing attitudes mechanical weight in social scenes. Sorcery risks Corruption that erodes abilities and can culminate in madness or unlife, making forbidden magic a sustained consequence rather than a binary choice. | Combat is a tug-of-war over momentum: withering attacks steal Initiative from enemies into the attacker's pool, and a decisive attack then spends that pool to deal actual harm, so the maneuvering before the killing blow matters as much as the blow itself. Each of the 25 Abilities has its own tree of Essence-fueled Charms gated by prerequisite chains, so heavy investment in one Ability yields a combat or social style a differently-built character cannot reproduce. Intimacies set hard limits on persuasion (social actions roll against a target's Resolve, attempts aligned with a Defining Intimacy are easier and those that violate one are impossible), so social conflict turns on stated stakes rather than GM fiat. |
| Considerations | Character creation combines a background and role with several layers of customization, requiring choices across multiple chapters. Combat tracks actions, modifiers, saving throws, and damage conditions instead of a single hit-point total. Sorcery's Corruption rules attach moral consequences to forbidden magic, so groups must engage with the setting's Light and Shadow framework. | The core rulebook supports only Solar Exalted as player characters: the other Exalt types (Dragon-Blooded, Lunar, Sidereal) appear here as antagonists rather than fully playable PCs. Solars so outmatch ordinary opposition that lone mortal or even Dragon-Blooded foes rarely threaten them, pushing the GM toward Charm-wielding antagonists or massed battle groups to mount a real challenge. Artifact crafting uses three separate experience currencies across four project tiers with long in-fiction time requirements, so a crafting-focused character's payoff arrives only over a sustained campaign. |