Difference between revisions of "MartialArtsRelay/GiantSlaying"
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Latest revision as of 01:16, 6 April 2010
Giant Slaying
DigitalSentience's Guidelines: This is Celestial-level, 10 Charms. Incompatible with armor and weapons.
Thoughts: Speed and power. No real emphasis on defense in the sense of soak or blocking; maybe one "stand and take it" block. Mostly being not-there when the big boys hit, and then either lightning fast chains of hits, or "Earth Sundering Blow!" No lethal damage, but I think I'd like to see more emphasis on doing lots of damage via some combination of charms. I was thinking, you don't see a lot of techniques that aim to just overwhelm soak with a ton of bashing dice; this might be the place to put one.
Quick thought on the "stand and take it" block - mayhaps make it an attack against the attack, i.e., "I punch his giant fist with my tiny one, and -he's- the one knocked back."
A time comes when an Exalt is called upon to defeat a foe much larger than him- or herself, be they Tyrant Lizards or 3rd Circle Demons. It is in times such as these that disciples of the Giant-Slaying Style take the forefront. With Charms and techniques designed to take advantage of their foe's ponderousness and large blindspots, and minimize the risk of being stepped on or otherwise overwhelmed by sheer size, these martial artists can singlehandedly defeat tremendous foes. The exploits of this style's practitioners make legendary tales, even among the Exalted.
Finding the Crack - Issaru
Cost:4Motes Duration:Instant Type: reflexive Minimum Martial Arts: 2 Minimum Essence: 1 Prerequisite Charms: None
Relying on the fact that a larger opponent's attacks are not optimised for smaller creatures, the Exalted expands his/her awareness so that they are in the right place to absorb or negate an attack from a larger being or object. In mechanical terms this Charm grants the user a soak bonus equal to their Martial Arts plus permanent Essence to attacks from larger beings or potentially-damaging objects (i.e. running on top of an avalanche or finding a clear spot in a collapsing building). A creature or object must be at least twice as large as the Exalt to be considered large for purposes of this Charm. As a side note, it is ineffective on energy-based attacks, but explosions with an area twice a large as the character allow this charm to be used normally.
Topple the Mountain - Issaru
Cost:3Motes Duration:Instant Type:supplemental Minimum Martial Arts: 2 Minimum Essence: 1 Prerequisite Charms: Finding the Crack
Another awareness-expanding ability of the Mountain-Slaying Gadfly Style. Topple the Mountain uses the force of one precisely-placed blow on a larger being's body to great effect, hurling it to the ground unless it is agile enough to compensate. In game terms the Exalt using this Charm makes a Martial Arts attack; if the attack is sucessful, the Exalt makes a reflexive Martial Arts + Perception roll, opposed by the targets Dexterity + Athletics. If the Exalt wins this contest the opponent is knocked down and thrown one yard per dot of Essence and Martial Arts.
Horse's Tail Misses the Gadfly - TedPro
Cost:5Motes Duration:Instant Type:supplemental Minimum Martial Arts: 3 Minimum Essence: 2 Prerequisite Charms: Topple the Mountain
Using this Charm, the martial artist moves quickly in response to a strong attack, with a subtle circular motion that directs the attack against itself. This Charm is used when making an unarmed Martial Arts parry against a close-range (hand-to-hand) attack. If the martial artist succeeds in the parry, the entire force of the attacker's blow is redirected into the ground. The attacker takes bashing damage equal to the attacker's own Strength and is knocked prone. For very large, strong opponents like giants, tyrant lizards, etc., this can be a substantial amount of damage. This technique was originally tested by pitting the student against an enraged yeddim unarmed and instructing the student to disable the yeddim without killing it.
Mountain Cracking Blow - Issaru
Cost:5Motes Duration:Instant Type:Supplemental Minimum Martial Arts:3 Minimum Essence:2 Prerequisite Charms:Horse's Tail Misses the Gadfly.
The Exalt strikes with the force of an avalanche by anchoring his anima to the fabric of Creation itself. Mechanically, the Exalt ignores natural soak and soak-adders (armor still applies normally) and forces a knockback check from the opponent with the difficulty equal to the Exalt's Essence. This Charm is incompatiable with any Charm that causes lethal damage.
Mountain Killing Gadfly Form - TedPro
Cost:8Motes Duration:One Scene Type:Simple Minimum Martial Arts:3 Minimum Essence:3 Prerequisite Charms:Mountain Killing Blow
The martial artist takes on the manner of a gadfly: constantly in motion, darting in and out of harm's way to deliver stinging blows. The user of this Form gains her Martial Arts score as a bonus to all Dodge attempts, and can make a free dodge if she takes no other defense, with a dice pool equal to her Martial Arts score. Her punches (but not kicks or any other strike) do extra bashing damage equal to her Martial Arts score. All punches do bashing damage, not lethal, but the Martial Artist can parry lethal attacks barehanded without a stunt. Also, the amount of distance the Martial Artist can cover in a turn is doubled.
Lastly, against larger opponents, she can perform a Punching Defense. This is a dice action and is considered both a parry and a counterattack. She punches aggressively at any large attacker, focusing forceful Essence into counteracting the blow. Treat this as a parry with a Dexterity + Martial Arts pool, but any successes over the attacker's attack successes are considered successes in a punch attack, which is then resolved as a normal Martial Arts punch.
This is a Form-type Charm and is not compatible with any other Form-type Charms, weapons or armor.
Unassailible Gadfly Technique</b> - Issaru
<b>Cost:6motes,1Willpower. Duration:one scene Type:Simple Minimum Martial Arts:4 Minimum Essence:3 Prereqs:Mountain Slaying Gadfly form
The Exalt begins zipping around to and fro at ridiculous speeds, darting in and out of an opponent's reach. Climbing sheer walls, leaping over giants, and sliding under small spaces becomes no more difficult than walking. In mechanical terms the Exalt adds his Martial Arts score to the difficulty to hit him. Also, the Exalt adds double their Essence to their dice pool when jumping, climbing, or traversing a narrow passage.
Climb the Mountain</b> - TedPro
<b>Cost:8 motes, 1 Willpower Duration:One Scene, or Until Removed Type:Simple Minimum Martial Arts:5 Minimum Essence:3 Prereqs:Unassailible Gadfly Technique
The Exalt climbs atop a larger creature, and remains on the body of that creature, feet clinging to the creature despite gravity or motion. Any blows the Martial Artist makes against the creature cannot be dodged, only parried. Furthermore, any attacks against the Martial Artist that miss, or are dodged (but not parried) hit the creature instead as if they hit with a single success. This includes attacks by the creature itself. The Martial Artist is able to dodge without penalty, and to move around on the body, but if the Martial Artist leaves the creature's surface or is pulled off, this Charm ends. This Charm will keep the Martial Artist atop the target, even if the target leaps, flies, flails about, and so forth - only pushing the Martial Artist off, or using an unusual form of movement that the Martial Artist can't follow (such as burrowing or teleportation) will remove the Martial Artist.
Unfettered Speed Meditation</b> - Issaru
<b>Cost :5 Motes Duration :one Turn Type :reflexive Min. Martial Arts :5 Min Essence :3 Prereqs :Mountain Killing Gadfly Form.
At this level of mastery the Exalt knows that it is sometimes better to yield than to stand one's ground against mighty opponents, if only to lure it into a disadvantageous position. With this knowledge the Exalt learns to harness his Essence to create bursts of movement, rocketing him across the landscape at frightening speeds. In game terms, the Exalt multiplies all running and jumping distances by his Essence for the duration of the round. Also, as a side-effect of his incredible velocity, the Exalt inflicts his Martial Arts in additional damage when making Martial Arts attacks. This damage is soaked separately from the main blow, but the damage of both blows are added together for the purposes of knockdown and knockback.
Terrible Sting</b> - TedPro
<b>Cost: 6 motes Duration :Instant Type :Supplemental Min. Martial Arts :5 Min Essence :4 Prereqs :Unfettered Speed Meditation
The Exalt focuses tremendous speed into a blow, while allowing his Essence and his mastery of Martial Arts to guide the blow to his opponent's weak points. Blows enhanced with Terrible Sting are more difficult to block, due to the speed of the blow - all attempts to parry or dodge have their difficulty increased by the Martial Artist's Essence. This charm is incompatible with lethal damage.
Inevitable Erosion Technique - Nikink
Cost:12 Motes, 1wp Duration:One Turn Type:Simple Minimum Martial Arts:5 Minimum Essence:4 Prerequisite Charms: Climb the Mountain, Terrible Sting
The master of Mountain Killing Gadfly Style knows how to turn an enemy's size to her advantage. By focusing Essence into her fists, in a pattern inverse to the flow within their foe, the Exalt gains a bonus to her attack proportional to her target's size. The Martial Artist may add her foe's Health Levels as bonus damage dice for one attack, as her opponent finds their Essence channels inverted, disrupted, dammed and flooded until their physical form withers under the assault. This damage may be soaked normally.
Comments
Not sure why, this idea just popped into my head. I'm envisioning a martial artist zipping all around the bulk of his much larger opponent, striking deeply-penetrating blows and then flitting away before being pulverized. (Invincible Gadfly Form?) I'm not sure if this will involve some sort of flying, some crazy sort of climbing ability, or hell, even teleportation. Ooo! Cool Ultimate Charm, perhaps? (Stop me if I get too DBZ with this thing.) - DigitalSentience
- I like the idea of naming the style after the Gadfly. -TedPro
why the hell not i think it's ok-Issaru
- RE: why don't we call it Mountain Killing Gadfly style on second thought anybody think thats cool?-Issaru
Maybe Mountain Cracking Blow should be Supplemental? Also, it doesn't need Topple the Mountain as a prereq - that's redundant. -TedPro
- RE:Ya know looking at it now you're right musta been really tired to have missed it thanx-Issaru
Ok... I suck at descriptive text... but I think you get the gist of the Charm? Might need to be further towards the capstone of the Cascade, as it is pretty powerful; but it is also expensive, un-comboable, and the target's normal soak applies... what do you all think? - Nikink Possibly also needs a higher Essence minimum...
RE:Inevitable Erosion Technique: yeah i think it should be a lil higher on the charm tree, like last charm higher,and even then a one turn is a long time for charm with that kind of power.Other than that the Charm is Awesome and I do think it should be the last charm on the tree it gives you something really kelw to shoot for - Issaru
- Ok, revised minimum MA to 5, Min Ess to 4, and left the prerequisites open... - Nikink
Edited Duration: Reflexive to Duration: Instant. -- Darloth
Added another Charm and reorganized. Also edited formatting of Unassailible Gadfly Technique slightly. There's two Charms left. Maybe one that requires the Form, and then one that requires that? The final Charm (Inevitable Erosion Technique) could then require that second form, nicely tying up the Relay. -- TedPro
Overall, a fun style. I'd like to see two of the Simple Charms (Mountain Cracking Blow and Inevitable Erosion Technique) changed to Supplemental, so they can be put into Combos. After it's all finished, this style definitely allows some combinations that allow great defenses and massive bashing damage against big enemies, but enough of the abilities can be used against smaller enemies that it's not totally useless. I like it. -- TedPro
- Changed Mountain Cracking Blow to supplemental now looking at it, it's combo limiter it enough of a drawback.And i do have to agree with you it shaped up into a really nice art not nearly as DBZish as it could have been. :P - Issaru
- Dude, Mountain Cracking Blow + Terrible String + Inevitable Erosion Technique is an ugly combo for any foe. 21 motes and a willpower, but it it's really hard to block, and does a ton of extra damage that ignores natural armor - powerful even against a regular-sized enemy.
- Inevitable Erosion Technique is a bit uber as it is, thus uncombo-able as written. It's an attack that, given 2 dice = ~ 1 success, will halve the target's health! Two of these and anything is dead (on average). Yes, armour still applies, but the extra attack successes and normal damage modifiers go towards mitigating soak as well... This will screw with regenerating Lunars quite nicely too, particularly those built around Ox-Body and regeneration. (Of course, you still have to hit them...). So, that's why I didn't make it useable in a combo. Feel free to alter as you wish for your games! B-) - Nikink So, say a Str of 3, the Form active for +MA (=5), and giant sized creatures being easier to hit (as per rules in Savage Seas? I think?) so let's say 5 successes on the attack, that's a soak of 13 negated right there, for an attack that will do about 1/2 health levels in damage.
Finished the relay. I'm thinking the next theme should either be First Age Warstrider Combat, or a Sidereal style related to astrology. Any takers? Also, anyone know how to archive a page change? I don't. --TedPro
- Or, if people are feeling really ambitious, a Sideral First Age Warstrider style related to Astrology. I'd love to see if we could pull that off. -- TedPro
Man, I'm commenting like crazy here. --TedPro
I love you all! Thank you for making my idea an actual, feasible Martial Art. - DigitalSentience
