Exalted vs Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Compare Exalted and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Exalted | Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | High-Power, Crunchy, Tactical, High-Fantasy, Martial Arts, Lore-Heavy, Character Building, Corruption | Career-Based, Grimdark, Gritty, Deadly, Investigation, Corruption, Licensed Setting |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Roll d100 under skill or characteristic. Success Levels measure degree of success by comparing the tens digits of the target and the roll. Advantage accumulates during combat, adding +10 per point to attack tests. |
| Dice | d10 dice pool | d100 |
| Complexity | Very High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | High | High |
| License | Proprietary | No open license |
| Cost | $$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Onyx Path Publishing | Cubicle 7 |
| Year | 2016 | 2018 |
| Best For | 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. | Groups who want dark, gritty fantasy where ordinary people face extraordinary dangers in a richly detailed setting. The career system creates unique character arcs from rat catcher to witch hunter. |
| Highlights | 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. | Detailed grimdark setting, career system creates varied character arcs, combat carries real consequences |
| Considerations | 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. | Tightly bound to the Old World setting, Success Level math can slow play, expensive supplement line |