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Panic Monkey Style

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Background

There are times when the martial arts are expressed as a sublime understanding of the whole, a fluid and awe-inspiring dance of destruction that leaves observers in awe at your prowess, wisdom, and finesse.

And then there are times when a fighter just flails around like a frightened child.

Panic Monkey Style was developed by a particularly odd Eclipse Caste Solar in the First Age, who wished to develop an entire fighting style that he could use without anyone guessing at his true potential. To all observers, the Style's practicioners appear to be screaming, running around, and making a general fool of themselves, but when the dust settles, only the fighter is left standing.

The Style has never been very popular, relying as it does on mildly humiliating its practicioner, but it continues to find favour with certain Sidereals and Lunars, who see the power in keeping their true abilities concealed. It is also a favoured style of actual cowards, who enjoy the ability to fight and flee in turns.

Form Weapons

Panic Monkey style favours only improvised weapons as Form weapons.

As an additional prerequisite, anyone learning Panic Moneky Style is requires to have at least two dots of Socialize.

Charms

Harmless Animal Approach

Cost: 2 motes
Minimums: Martial Arts 2, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None 

The first step along the path of the Panic Monkey is to ensure that you are not considered a challenge. This Charm allows the character to add her Martial Arts in dice to any roll made to convince someone that she is not a threat.

Panic Awareness Preparation

Cost: 3 motes
Minimums: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Harmless Animal Approach 

A true panic monkey may seem calm, but is always prepared to let its natural fear take hold. The character may add her Martial Arts to an Awareness roll to detect ambushes or unexpected attacks.

Avoiding Danger Understanding

Cost: 4 motes
Minimums: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisite Charms: Harmless Animal Approach 

When danger rears its head, the panic monkey is always prepared, and they spook instantly when threatened. While this Charm is active, a character's DVs may not be reduced below her Martial Arts score by external penalties.

Panic Monkey Form

Cost: 6 motes
Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple (Speed 4)
Keywords: Form
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisite Charms: Panic Awareness Preparation, Avoiding Danger Understanding 

As danger strikes, the panic monkey explodes into fright! The character appears, to all intents and purposes, to be screaming and flailing, running randomly about in a panic. However, she is actually under complete control. While this Charm is active, the character may use Dash instead of Move, applying only a -1 DV penalty per action and suffering no flurry penalties. In addition, she may add her Essence to any Valor rolls she makes, as she allows her panic to flow through her without touching her core. However, due to the volume of her screaming and obviousness of her flailing, stealth is impossible while this Charm is active, with the exception of rolls to re-establish surprise.

A character may choose to activate Panic Monkey Form instead of rolling Join Battle. If she does so, her Join Battle roll is considered to have 0 successes. This effect may not be combined with any effect that improves Join Battle results.

Accidental Enemy-Overcoming Blow

Cost: 4 motes
Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Panic Monkey Form 

No one quite expects a panicking fool to strike them, which can lead to a surprising turn of events. This Charm enhances an unarmed attack. The character rolls (Manipulation + Socialize), and the target rolls (Wits + Awareness). If the character wins, the attack is considered unexpected.

Fear Lends Power

Cost: 5 motes
Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Accidental Enemy-Overcoming Blow

When afraid, a character may deliver blows that they could never manage normally, shocking those who underestimate them. This Charm supplements an action. It reduces the Parry DV of the attack's target by the character's Essence, and adds one unsoakable health level of damage (of the appropriate type) after soak is applied and damage is rolled.

Weapon-Appropriating Frenzy

Cost: 4 motes
Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Panic Monkey Form 

While panicking, panic monkeys have been known to grab onto almost anything as a desperate manuever. The character does the same, grabbing something away from an opponent almost before either party realizes what is going on. This Charm supplements a Disarm attempt. Reduce the external penalty for the Disarm by 2 and add a number of dice equal to the character's Essence to the attempt.

Mobility-Ruining Collision

Cost: 3 motes
Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Knockback
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Panic Monkey Form 

As the panic monkey careens about, it sows increasing panic and confusion. This Charm may be activated in conjunction with a Dash action. The character must Dash into a target. This forces the target to make a Knockdown check at a -2 external penalty, and if they fail, they also suffer -1 die to all die pools for a number of actions equal to the character's Essence.

Wings of Panic Manuevering

Cost: 4 motes, 1 Willpower
Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-Basic
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisite Charms: Mobility-Ruining Collision, Fear Lends Power 

As the character runs about, her erratic movements make her difficult to strike. On any tick in which the character takes a Move action, she gains +1 DV. On any tick in which she takes a Dash action, she takes no DV penalty; instead, she applies her Essence as an external penalty to all attacks against her.

Comments

Panic monkeys are hillariously awesome, and this style equally so. Well done on making an amusing style with mechanics that back it up; there seems to be more than a couple partially-completed gag styles on the Wiki, it's nice to see a complete one. - DeadManSeven

Great work; made me come up with a new character concept, which is always the hallmark of a good Style. As a quick thought, PAP and ADU seem to make one another redundant; it seems excessive to have two Charms solely concerned with defence against surprise attacks. Perhaps you might wish to increase the minima for ADU, and make it applicable to all attacks instead? Also, FLP seems to be a big big speedbump...DeathBySurfeit

Yeah, there is a bit of doubling-up, isn't there? Hmm... alright, going to bump up the power of FLP a bit, and change Avoiding Danger Understanding to be better and different. - FrivYeti

Looks good. One last thought - the Form seems a little underpowered; it combines well with other Style Charms, but its standalone benefit is rather poor. Exalts seldom suffer much from Valor rolls, and it seems almost bizarre to give this Style protection from it; from the fluff attached to the other Charms, it seems it's based on the strength of panic as opposed to the bluff of false disarray. Add to this that running faster in combat is a very small benefit (I don't even keep track of distances in my game; that's what -stunts- are for) and the stealth penalty, and it seems a little... weak for a Celestial art? ...DeathBySurfeit

Interesting. I thought it might be too strong. Let me explain my reasons.

First, the movement thing. It will depend on how strict you are about this stuff, obviously, but while I don't pull out battle maps, I keep ideas of the distances between characters. With that, Dash is going to more than double your movement (Dexterity +6 instead of Dexterity), which is amazingly useful for hit and run tactics. People are basically forced to try and mesh to your Speed in order to fight you properly.

The Valor dice idea is because, although the character is running around panicked, she is still in complete control of the situation. Rather than running away from what scares you, which would make sense, she runs towards it; thematically, this is because the Style is about fighting with your fear, instead of letting your fear stop you fighting. It is mostly a secondary thing for Exalts, but it's generally going to be doubling your Valor die pool for those rolls.

Finally, PMF can be activated instead of rolling Join Battle, which means you can't be caught off-guard and unable to turn it on. This was the big reason I felt that the Form was valid and Celestial-level; it has two powers and a strange advantage to when it can be activated. - FrivYeti

In second ed, it seems like FLP would get you past Iron Skin or Adamant Skin - the extra damage is added on after their effects resolve, a step later. Is that intentional, or as an ST would you just say "It's a damn perfect defense. No damage"? - TheHoverpope

FLP is a perfect damage attack. Adamant Skin is a perfect defense. Defense always trumps offense. In much the same way that the post-soak dice added with Fire And Stones Strike aren't going to bypass 'take no damage', FLP won't either. :) - FrivYeti

I'm curious: would Panic Monkey Form allow you to add Essence to the dice used on Valor channels as well? My Channel-fu is a bit weak. ~TzalFlameforge

As a rule, no. Adding dice doesn't increase the base rating, and Valor channelling only adds the base rating to the roll. Otherwise, that effect would be brutally overpowered. - FrivYeti

I have to say I'm a real fan on this style! I'm planning to toss it on an NPC to go up against a Drunken Boxer in the campaign that I run. I like how you didn't make the form charm Obvious too, but offset it with an obvious (small o) drawback.
--DarkWolff

Weapon-Appropriating Frenzy should be a Supplemental instead of a general reflexive. It has no reason to be a general reflexive. Mobility-Ruining Collision, uh, is this some sort of weird perfect attack based off a tackle? If it is, it should be mentioned. How is the knockdown check forced? If it's by crashing against the opponent, can he perfect dodge it? Why not? What about if he's a porcupine and has sharp quills all over? Can it be counter-attacked? - TonyC

Yeah, Weapon-Appropriating should be Supplemental. Fixed. As for Mobility-Ruining Collision, it's not an attack at all, really. It's just a random 'opponent must check for knockdown' ability. *slaps forehead* It needs the Knockback keyword. Effects that resist Knockdown or Knockback can stop it. Everything else is just fluff. - FrivYeti