Difference between revisions of "MartialArts/NineTail"

 Cost: 4 motes
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Reflexive
 Min Martial Arts: 2
 Min Essence: 2
 Perquisites: Laughing Spirit's Light

As the Exalt darts back from an attack, she leaves behind a momentary illusion of herself to take the blow; throwing off her opponents balance and rhythm and leaving them open to a swift counter strike. After successfully dodging an attack, the Exalt may make an unarmed counter-attack at her full Martial Arts + Dexterity pool. However, if the opponent is making more than one consecutive attack against the Exalt, she may hold back the counter. Each successive dodge after the first she makes against the same opponent adds a number of dice equal to her Manipulation to the accuracy of her eventual counter-attack. Should she fail a dodge attempt before making her attack the counter is lost and the Charm is wasted.

 Cost: 10 motes, 1 willpower
 Duration: One Scene
 Type: Simple
 Min Martial Arts: 5
 Min Essence: 4
 Perquisites: Little White Lie

Those who follow the road of the Myobu family are never for want of sustenance on their journey. Focusing upon the simple manta “Providence Provides, I Provide Providence” the Exalt becomes surrounded by a faint light that ignites with sustaining energies when she actively affects the world around her. Whenever the martial artist succeeds in a dice roll that employs her Manipulation attribute, she regains 3 motes of Essence. The martial artist can also reflexively ‘eat’ any foxfire orbs currently surrounding her or ‘feed’ them to her allies. Each orb consumed adds one mote of Essence to the recipients current pool.

Kumiho Family Path: The Road of Grinning Knives

<b>Hajime Kumiho: Trail of Carmine Tears</b>

 Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower 
 Duration: One Scene
 Type: Reflexive
 Min Martial Arts: 5
 Min Essence: 3
 Perquisites: Path of Three Foxes

Upon activating this Charm, the foxfire orbs around the martial artist take on a decidedly crimson color and their bell-like laughter changes to the equally distracting sound of weeping. For the remainder of the scene, whenever the martial artist is attacked or a foxfire orb would normally expire due to the effects of Charms, one of the foxfire orbs floating in the air around the martial artist will fling itself forward with suicidal intent. In a burst of light, the orb will explode into the face of her attacker or the nearest foe. Each fox-fire orb deals a single point of unsoakable lethal damage. The foxfire orb may be dodged or parried and is considered to have a number of successes on it's attack equal to the martial artists Manipulation for this purpose. The damage reducing effect of Starmetal armor or similar effects can negate this damage, but it ignores any hardness gained from armor or Charms.

<b>Nidaime Kumiho: Chain of Fools</b>

 Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
 Duration: One Turn
 Type: Reflexive
 Min Martial Arts: 5
 Min Essence: 4
 Perquisites: Trail of Carmine Tears

The Exalt takes on stance lax unawareness or arrogant indifference and awaits her foes to come to her as if inviting them to kill her. For the remainder of the turn, whenever the Exalt successful dodges one attack, she may instantly make a number of counter-attacks equal to the number of opponents currently within her reach. Each attack must be employed on a different target and all are made with a pool equal to the Exalts full Manipulation + Martial Arts. Opponents can dodge or parry these attacks normally. This Charm can be explicitly placed in a combo despite it's non-instant duration.

Ten Names and Many Faces: Ultimate Technique

<b>Dance of the Nine Named Friends</b>

 Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower (+1 mote per orb)
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Simple
 Min Martial Arts: 5
 Min Essence: 5
 Perquisites: Chain of Fools, The Game of Foxes and Fools, A Portion for Foxes

Employing this Charm, the Exalt performs a slow kata, swinging her arms. As she moves them, the fox-fire orbs in orbit around her trail behind her hands or new ones flare into existence, until nine are arrayed in a half-circle around her. Fox-tails of Essence ignite from her back, each tip corresponding to an orb. Her awareness flows out into each as she mediates upon their secret names and becomes one with them. A creature of nine names, each able to act on it’s own.

Using this Charm, the Exalt gains a pool of nine extra actions. Actions in this pool can be expended for movement on the Exalts initiative or reflexively, to parry or dodge or to refresh the Exalts Dodge pool when using the full dodge maneuver. They can not be used for additional attacks on the Exalts initiative, but may explicitly be used to ‘follow up’ a counter-attack with additional attacks. Each time an action is use, a single fox-fire orb is consumed. There must be at least one orb available per extra action taken or else none may be employed. Activating this Charm allows the Exalt to purchase orbs as with Laughing Spirits Light.

The Exalt may never employ more actions from this pool each turn than her permanent Essence score. Once used, this Charm cannot be used again in a scene until all the actions have been expended. At the end of the scene, any extra actions remaining in this pool are lost.

Comments

The concept of this style incites me to glee. May I suggest that you call the Ultimate Technique section "Ten Names and Many Faces?" This would be a reference to the fact that each of a Kitsune's tails may have a name, a privelige granted by their god Inari. So, the most powerful kitsune is one with nine tails and ten names (such as Akomachi, head of the Myobu family in Japanese myth). I recommend something keyed off of the user's Essence score, since it so well reflects the levels of ability a Kitsune's tails also represent. - IanPrice

• Thanks a lot! I love the suggestion for the section title and the ultimate. Been having some trouble even getting a concept down for what they should be. Gotta admit that my own knowledge of the whole kitsune myth is based mostly on what I could learn off the web, popular entertainment, and then just filling in the rest. Nice to have a suggestion from someone who seems to know a bit more about it. Hopefully I'll get this thing finished in a useable fashion soon. As is, half the Charms are rough-drafts and don't actually work very well. First time out with MAs and all. - Greymane

• I actually think the charms of this style are all pretty much functional as is. I'll do a full analysis later, but this is pretty well balanced. - IanPrice

Another good martial art, and really nicely themed! I have found a couple of weird inconsistancies, though. The form means orbs don't dissipate when the enemy attacks, but they still (all) dissipate when you initiate an attack yourself. Thus, using the duration-extending function on Bliss of Blind Ignorance is really rather hard... Unless you get the orbs for stunts before you need to spend them on the charm, you'll never have any orbs unless it's a counterattack.

Also, the Trail of Carmine Tears seems a little overpowered... stating they may not activate any reflexive charms that can counter it simply because they're getting no roll is amazingly stringent. Even things like Blow-Concealing Gesture allows perfect ambush-awareness charms to negate it - specifically, the charms work because they don't need to perceive the danger (most of them). If you really want it to negate charms which specifically and <b>only</b> negate surprise, I would suggest making it cost a willpower in addition to the current cost. Aside from that, everything looks great, and I'm eagerly awaiting the pinnacle.
-- Darloth

A full analysis from me would be rather redundant, since Darloth just pointed out the only things I'd have mentioned. Mostly the Trail of Carmine Tears bit, since I think sticking exclusively to counterattacks is very thematic for Kitsune.

On that note, perhaps the pinnacle charm should be another counterattack charm, since there's only one of those in the style so far. Also, will the pinnacle require all three fox paths? I think it should.

On a final note, the correct way to say "second" in Japanese is "Nidaime," not "Daini." Daini = big two. If that's what you were going for, rock out. - IanPrice

Only reason I was pointing out the fact that you needed to counter to get the orb-bonus was simply -because- there is no counterattack in that sub-tree.
-- Darloth

Many thanks for the correction on my ghetto Japanese, IanPrice. "Second" was indeed what I was going for there. I blame the Japanese-English dictionary I was using (easier than admitting I was too lazy to just double-check). Anyway, I added a pre-form Charm that I had always intended to put in but lacked a name for, did a little minor fiddling with some other Charms just for additional clarity, and on someone else’s advice made some changes to how Laughing Spirit's Light and the Form worked, mainly for a bit more synergy with later Charms. I also reworked Trail of Carmine Tears to what is hopefully something a bit more employable in nature and not as overpowered. Still haven't added the ultimate, mostly because I'm still not sure exactly what to do with the thing. One more counter-attack of epic proportions couldn't hurt, just a matter of figuring out how to make it. - Greymane

Maybe make a not-a-counter effect? The lunars get a couple, and Mantis style has one... something that, if successfully triggered, doesn't really count as a counterattack, just does something nasty to the attacker. It's a powerful effect, so don't make the charm too nasty, because these sort of things -do- work on counterattacks themselves (unless you state it doesn't) and typically can't be defended against ever, because they're just not an attack of any sort. But anyway, it's a suggestion. There are lots of other things you can do.
-- Darloth

Hmm... one other question - why does Laughing Spirit's Light disallow subsequent activations? It caps at Manipulation, and with the form granting orbs as stunt bonii, it seems very hard to use this charm, since you're usually going to have one or two kicking around. It's hardly overpowered to allow them topups, is it? (Or, if you wanted it harder, only allow them to topup with the charm if the form is already active... Just seems weird that if you have 1 orb, you have to either lose it, or stunt, you can't just spend essence to get back to whatever your max is. Remember, it takes the charmslot for the turn.)
-- Darloth

Actually that was a very good point about Laughing Spirit's Light and I'm glad you mentioned it cause I would have missed it otherwise. I had that as part of the Charm in the original draft because the orbs worked differently. The Charm was sickeningly overpowered even with the restrictions imposed on it though, which is why it got changed. But now that it's no where near as bad as it once was, there isn't much reason to keep that restriction on it, so I went ahead and deleted it. - Greymane

Well, after half of forever I'm finally putting the last Charm up for this style. And, truth be told, I don't like it at all. Someone else came up with it (which of itself isn't why I dislike it) and I've ended up using it simply because I find myself able to think up better. A Charm which in most respects amounts to "Principle of Motion+" doesn't fell right as the pinnacle of this style - nothing about it particularly feels like the rest of the style was leading up to that. However, I am yielding to great duress and a desire to simply have this style finished and to play test. - Greymane