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Relentless Pursuit of Perfection Style [version 0.1]
Sidereal Level Martial Arts Style

The Relentless pursuit of Perfection style, strangely, has been independently developed by a number of Martial Artists over the millenia. Traditionally practiced by Solars, who have a natural affinity and expertise at the style, it is often stumbled upon by Sidereals wishing to approach the perfection of the Solars. Practitioners of this style are often driven people, seeking to improve themselves for some external reason, or perhaps to prevent the re-occurence of some past failure. By the time one has mastered the style, their purpose is clear, and their execution flawless.

As a style demanding only true perfection, with nothing less than success in any endeavour, charms in this style can only be used with fully attuned artifact weapons. If the practitioner is using a weapon composed of a different magical material than would best be used by his Exalted type, he must pay the full cost and receive the magical material bonus for a weapon to be considered a style weapon.

"A master of the relentless pursuit of perfection style is flawless and infallible in all of his actions. To attack such a warrior is to experience the certainty of failure. Surely, a master of this style is invincible!"

Major Themes: Perfection, Auto-successes, and "Trumping" effects

The charm tree is rather large, and contains two 'stages'. I have only listed the first stage here, as the second stage gets a bit 'overpowered' as it enters the realm of Essence 6+ effects. Completing the first stage counts as completing a full martial art. This style also makes use of a new term, "Masterful". A Masterful effect is one that acheives the 'penultimate' effect type of a given Exalted type. A Solar-level Masterful effect is perfect, and thus a Masterful Defense, when used by a Solar, is a Perfect Defense, in all respects. A Sideral-level Masterful effect is one in which the TN has been reduced below 4, and thus, all dice are assumed to be successes, however, it is /not/ a Perfect effect. It is noted that a truly perfect effect always supercedes a Sidereal-used Masterful effect.

The Sutra of the Style: (totally a work in progress, as I'm horrible at Sutras. Please help if you're into them) 1 Before there was a Maiden 2 There was a brilliance of Light 3 The light was the Sun, overseer of Creation 4 His actions flawless 5 He sought to overcome his progenitors 6 So that he might play first in the games 7 But things did not go as planned 8 And so he passed time idly, ignoring the world 9 Now he returns to creation 10 Redoubling his efforts 11 Exacting Revenge 12 His victory ensured

Before there was a Maiden...

Cost: 3 mote
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 2
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisites: None

As the Sun is before all others, so is the student of this style. In the turn this charm is activated, the practioner goes first in the initiative ordering. This effect explicitly trumps other "first-initiative" effects, such as Thunderclap rush attack, that have Essence requirements equal to or lower than the Essence of the practitioner.

There was a brilliance of Light...

Cost: 5 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3 
Prerequisites: Before there was a Maiden

Acting in a flash of light, with motion blurringly fast, the practitioner's attack strikes before it is even launched. An attack enhanced in such a fashion can be either unblockable or undodgeable, at the practitioner's choice. This attack cannot, under any circumstances, be both unblockable and undodgeable, even through the use of other charms. The choice of unblockable or undodgeable must be made before the attack is rolled.

The light was the Sun, overseer of Creation

Cost: 3 motes, 1 WP
Duration: Scene-Long
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3 
Prerequisites: None

With his anima flickering sublimnally to the surface of his skin, hints of power straining to get out, the practioner becomes at once awe-inspiring, and yet undiscernably so. This effect makes him at once a frightful target, and yet one to be feared. Anyone attacking either the practitioner or his allies finds the practitioner particularly distracting, increasing the difficulty of attacks against anyone other than the practitioner by his Essence/2 (rounded up). At the same time, the practitioner is to be feared as a target, resulting in the same difficulty increase. This effect does not necessarily mark the user as an Exalt, but does leave a distinct impression on those that face it.

His Actions Flawless (Relentless Pursuit of Perfection Form)

Cost: 8 motes, 1WP
Duration: While Committed
Type: Simple

Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4 
Prerequisites: All three lower-Essence charms in the tree

As the practioner first stumbles upon the low-hanging fruits of perfection, his natural abilities are increased, and the things he studies become flawless. While this form-type charm is activated, on any roll involving an attribute, that attribute is doubled. On any roll involving an ability, a number of dice equal to the ability are converted to automatic successes.

He sought to overcome his progenitors

Cost: 5 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4 
Prerequisites: The form charm 

Recognizing his superiority among all warriors, the wielder of this charm becomes an unstoppable force, his actions in every way superior to his opponent. The die pool of any attack enhanced by this charm is automatically increased (ignoring the die-adder limit) to one die greater than the total defensive pool of the defender. As such, if the defender uses both a parry and a dodge to defend against this attack, each with a 13-die pool, the attack pool of this attack is automatically increased to 27 dice. The defender must declare which defenses he is using, and the die pools of each, before the attack is rolled.

So that he might play first in the games

Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4 
Prerequisites: Form Charm

In the turn this charm is activated, the practioner may act when he chooses. He automatically receives any place in the initiative ordering he likes, and suffers no penalty for delaying or holding his actions. This is a Masterful effect.

But things did not go as planned

Cost: 2 motes, 1 WP
Duration: Until expended
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4 
Prerequisites: Form Charm

While the practioner of this style seeks perfection, he also knows the futility of truly acheiving it. At all times must he be cautious and ready to avoid failure. While this charm is active, the character may re-roll a number of failed rolls equal to their Essence. This re-rolled action has the same die pool as the original attempt, with all charms still in place, without having to pay the cost for the charms again. The charm ends whenever all possible 're-rolls' are used. This charm may be used multiple times, to increase the number of re-rolls possible, but this (obviously) increases the commitment required.

And so he passed time idly, ignoring the world

Cost: 3m, 1 HL
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4 
Prerequisites: Two other Essence 4 charms from this style

With his place in the heirarchy of creation firmly fixed, yet above all others, the practioner of this style is aloof, and ready to ignore the world around him. When activated, this charm allows the character to ignore one harmful effect or the effects of an attack, as if it had not occurred. This allows things such as attacks to strike him but yet allows him to ignore their effects, as if this was a soak-enhancing charm. This is not, however a perfect soak charm, meaning that any perfectly damaging effect will still cause it's intended effect. The character receives a 1-die penalty on all actions this turn for each time this charm is activated in a turn, due to their ignorance of the situation around them.

Now he returns to creation

Cost: 5m
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4 
Prerequisites: And so he passed time idly, ignoring the world ...

With his place in the hierarchy of Creation assured, the practioner can safely ignore his physical location. Transcending the normal laws of motion, the character shifts locations at will, leaving only flickering after images where he stood. The character instantaneously moves to any location in sight, up to 15 yards * Essence away per use of this charm. This charm can be used as a leaping Dodge effect. If activated after the attack is declared, the original attack may still hit, but the character moves before any successive hits succeed. If activated before the attack is rolled, the character's location immediately shifts, implying that any attacks declared on him must take his new position into account.

Redoubling his efforts

Cost: 10m, 1 WP
Duration: Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4 
Prerequisites: All previous listed charms in this style

At this level of mastery, the character's actions are not simply improved, but begin to transcend normal boundaries. The practitioner can accomplish more than any man, moving faster, acting quicker. While this charm is active, the character receives one additional independent action per turn (including the turn this charm is activated). This has the normal effects of allowing increased movement rates, increased working speeds, et cetera.

Exacting Revenge

Cost: 5m, 1 WP
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4 
Prerequisites: All previous listed charms in this style

In an instant, the practitioner lashes out at those who would wrong him, those who would dare to assault such a fortress of perfection. This charm can be activated in response to any incoming attack, and provides a counterattack that is resolved after the incoming attack's damage is rolled, but before damage is applied. This counterattack is Masterful, and counter attacks cannot be activated in response to it.

His victory ensured

Cost: 5m, 1 WP, 1 HL
Duration: One turn
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 5 
Prerequisites: All previous listed charms in this style

By truly mastering the concept of perfection, the practitioner has internalized it's action, and at a moment's notice, can draw upon it. By opening his inner self to the raw flow of energy that is perfection, the master burns himself in the process, but ensures his success. Until the end of the turn, all of the Master's martial arts actions are considered masterful.

Peanut Gallery

My second MA style to be posted to the Wiki, I'm actually working on this for ExMod, not just traditional Exalted. Not that it matters much, but hey, I figured I'd mention it. I'm also especially proud of the term "Masterful", inso much as it fixes the whole problem of giving out perfects to Exalt Types that can't or shouldn't have them. - GregLink

I'll have to be brutal on this one, so do forgive me; Sidereal Styles are a nightmare to make, and it is only through the ardent bitch-slapping of my fellow Wikizens that I learnt to avoid some of these pitfalls. I swore that I would be ready to administer such in turn should the situation require, and lo I have come.

Conceptual Problems

1. The prerequisites are shockingly low for a Sidereal martial art. All canon Styles have MA 5, Ess 4 for their entry level Charms, MA 5 Ess 5 for their Form and then up from there. MA 2, Ess 3 is what you'd expect for entering a Celestial level Style.
2. Martial arts Styles, as a consequence of their near-universality, tend to avoid perfect effects on principle. You might see one in a Style here, one over there, but they're very much the exception rather than the rule.
3. Better-than-perfect effects trample all over Solar's precious schtick, set a bad precedent (how long before better-than-better-than-perfect effects are designed?), and are generally naughty for significantly changing Exalted metaphysics through their very presence.
4. Sidereal martial arts Charms are named separately to their Sutras; naming them esoterically loses a lot of their flavour (it's much easier to envisage 'Rain of Unseen Threads' than 'She answered the arrow's flight with a storm of her own').
5. Sidereal martial arts, by convention, are named in the manner of [Colour] [Noun] of [Concept or Noun]. I'm guilty of violating this rule too, but not proud of it.
6. Sutras have to be of something - Consumption, Essence, Decay, etc.
7. Having 'any in-splat artifact' as a style weapon is well-intentioned, but makes baby Jesus cry.
8. Dice mechanics do not a good martial art concept make.
9. Solars require tuition just to learn Sidereal level martial arts; to have them independantly invent this Style in several different places and the Sidereals decide to just copy it seems rather far-fetched.
10. There's barely any flavour text in here, no stunt material - contrast with Righteous Devil Style. A martial art should have a feel beyond 'I'm good at stuff'.
11. What's the Lunar Masterful effect, then?

Charm Problems

1. BTWAM: Better-than-perfect is a bad idea. That poor Solar picked up a Brawl Charm, choosing the most useless of combat abilities to do so, and finds it doesn't count for anything because someone is even better than what they're the best at? Poor Solar.
2. TWABOL: Perhaps undercosted (Willpower would be nice), but otherwise fine.
3. TLWTSOOC: Weak; Moth And Bonfire Style accomplishes more than this at a Celestial level.
4. HAF: Does the doubling of the attributes count toward die-adder caps? If so, say so. If not, reconsider. Also note that this allows someone to boost any dicepool through the roof, not just combat-related ones; noncombat applications of MA sould be used sparingly, especially when their flavour text (wait, what flavour text?) says nothing to suggest this should be an exception.
5. HSTOHP: Ignoring die-adder caps? Requiring the defender to state defences before the attack? Is no metarule safe? Also, why are all these Charms so cheap? You have Sutras to help reduce their costs, y'know.
6. STHMPFITG: Having first established Masterful as a concept to avoid giving perfection to the Sidereals, you go on to use it as a perfect effect anyway. Or do they get autosuccesses on something that requires no roll?
7. BTDNGAP: Rerolls are really very unprecedented. Unlimited rerolls are even more so. Unlimited rerolls stored in advance are really pushing it.
8. ASHPTIITW: What's a perfectly damaging attack? If the only exception to its effects doesn't exist, this is more effective than a perfect-soak Charm (it ignores secondary effects too) at less Essence.
9. NHRTC: Perfect reflexive hopping dodge (where MA usually has issue with doing more than boosting existing dodges), and cheaper than a normal perfect dodge - when Sutras kick in, this would get mightily silly.
10. RHE: It's alright. Independant actions don't increase movement rates, though.
11. ER: Yep, works.
12. HVE: For an entire turn's worth of perfect attacks and parries (which you could split as many times as you like, seeing as how rolling is pretty unnecessary with a perfect effect), that seems awfully cheap.

I'd recommend you read Borgstrom's notes on creating Sidereal martial arts and this discussion on super-perfection in MA for future reference. Please, please take everything I've said with a pinch of salt; it's written because I thought it would help, because I'm tired and because difficulties in arranging digs have made me snappy...DeathBySurfeit

DeathBySurfeit - First off, let me reply before I even read your post, and say "Thank you". I threw this together in less than two hours, simply because my girlfriend is sick, and I wanted to see if I could do it. The complexity and size of your response is exactly what I was hoping for, so no, you won't hurt my feelings at all. In fact, if you want, head over the ExMod/LiteDramaDriveSystems and tear my changes/additions there apart as well. I'm a huge fan of criticism, so off to reading your post, and seeing what you have to say. - GregLink

Alrighty, after having read your thoughts, I've got to say I totally agree. With pretty much all of it. In particular, I apologize for the lack of flavor text. Normally, I spend weeks on my Exalted Wiki posts before anyone sees them, and this was an attempt to break that rule. While I succeeded in getting help early, I am slightly embarrased by the amount of 'help' this style needed, and apologize for the amount of time you must've spent commenting on it. So yeah. I'll try to hit your points, as best I can.

Charm Problems

1. BTWAM: Better-than-perfect is a bad idea. That poor Solar picked up a Brawl Charm, choosing the most useless of combat abilities to do so, and finds it doesn't count for anything because someone is even better than what they're the best at? Poor Solar.
   1. I'm gonna have to disagree here. I've got a charm with higher requirements, and higher use-cost. Thinking that Thunderclap rush attack is immune to being beaten is a trivial thought. Unlike HGD, which notes that it is, in fact, the end-all be-all of things, TRA really isn't noted as being superlative. It's not perfect (and neither is this!), implying that we'll eventually see something perfect later on. After all, with all the 'I win initiative' charms out there (and there are quite a few), there's got to be a way to handle who wins. In this case, I explicitly note in which cases this charm wins, and which ones it loses.
2. TWABOL: Perhaps undercosted (Willpower would be nice), but otherwise fine.
3. TLWTSOOC: Weak; Moth And Bonfire Style accomplishes more than this at a Celestial level.
   1. I also agree. I was trying to put something in here that wasn't totally uber. One of the problems of making a style based on perfection is that it gets out of hand really quickly. I had a tough time coming up with things that, while representing and characterizing perfection, weren't just "Oh, and this is a perfect effect".
4. HAF: Does the doubling of the attributes count toward die-adder caps? If so, say so. If not, reconsider. Also note that this allows someone to boost any dicepool through the roof, not just combat-related ones; noncombat applications of MA sould be used sparingly, especially when their flavour text (wait, what flavour text?) says nothing to suggest this should be an exception.
   1. Yeah, this, sadly, in my heart, should apply to pretty dang much everything. This is the one core of the style that I'd thought about beforehand, and really liked. While I'm happy to up the Essence requirement to 5, I'm hoping to keep that general "But Damn you've got a lot of dice+successes there" intact. So yeah. This is the only charm I've got "buy in" on, and would be willing to throw the rest of it out, just to keep this concept intact (Even if at a higher requirement or cost).
5. HSTOHP: Ignoring die-adder caps? Requiring the defender to state defences before the attack? Is no metarule safe? Also, why are all these Charms so cheap? You have Sutras to help reduce their costs, y'know.
   1. Sadly, they're cheap because I did a quick run-through. I had forgotten about Sutras, as while it is Sidereal level, I'm going for a Solar feel, and as the only Solars to use Sutras are Eclipses, and even that's contested, I really didn't want to assume such a thing.
6. STHMPFITG: Having first established Masterful as a concept to avoid giving perfection to the Sidereals, you go on to use it as a perfect effect anyway. Or do they get autosuccesses on something that requires no roll?
   1. Yeah, I wondered the same thing too. I wanted a near-perfect init charm, but couldn't make it work. Any advice (including "Stop trying to make an MA about perfection, you idiot) is valid here.
7. BTDNGAP: Rerolls are really very unprecedented. Unlimited rerolls are even more so. Unlimited rerolls stored in advance are really pushing it.
   1. Well, I was going with the Brawl charm from CotI as a base, which allows stored pre-rolls. Since you can keep using said charm until you get a ton of successes on the roll, I figured on-the-spot rerolls wouldn't be so bad, especially since re-rolls are really the domain of the Dragon Blooded, and are thus (in my opinion) low on the totem pole of power. I'm more than willing to re-work this charm to be supplemental, or perhaps reflexive, and not let you store the re-rolls in advance. The original wording of the charm, in fact, allowed only one re-roll, and was reflexive, and intended to be part of comboes.
8. ASHPTIITW: What's a perfectly damaging attack? If the only exception to its effects doesn't exist, this is more effective than a perfect-soak Charm (it ignores secondary effects too) at less Essence.
   1. Yeah, it's bad.
9. NHRTC: Perfect reflexive hopping dodge (where MA usually has issue with doing more than boosting existing dodges), and cheaper than a normal perfect dodge - when Sutras kick in, this would get mightily silly.
   1. Yeah, it would.
10. RHE: It's alright. Independant actions don't increase movement rates, though.
    1. Don't they? If you get two independent actions, don't you get the movement from each?
11. ER: Yep, works.
    1. Thank heavens, I got one right. At least it was an easy one - 5m + 1WP = perfect attack is about as canon as you can get. I must note, however, that this does not require the target to be in hand-to-hand range, which may change your opinion about it.
12. HVE: For an entire turn's worth of perfect attacks and parries (which you could split as many times as you like, seeing as how rolling is pretty unnecessary with a perfect effect), that seems awfully cheap.
    1. Yeah, I hadn't thought about the infinite splitting problem.

So yeah. Sadly, as you can see, I haven't had a chance to fix many of the glaring problems that even I notice exist. I'm more than interested in figuring out a better way to do a perfection-based art though. One of the things that I can claim (to save my bacon) is that I'm actually trying to write this up for ExaltedSecond, where Brawl and MA are the same ability. Hence some of the similarities to existing Solar Brawl charms. So yeah. - GregLink

Regarding independent actions, the only canon example we have doesn't give the character increased movement. Where extra actions are sort of akin to doing something very quickly (and repetetively), independent actions are more about doing several different things all at once (i.e., multitasking). Anyway, my main comments...

I can't find a very good way to say this, but I think making a martial arts tree based around perfection is a bad idea, and really just for one reason. Perfects are really boring and troublesome. Boring in that an outright tree of perfection is likely to rapidly spiral into dull iterations where you do one thing perfectly, then you do it perfectly more times in a row, and so on. The other route such trees have a tendency to take is far more venomous, being the tree of perfecter perfects. The latter creates an arms race - his perfect is better than my perfect! I gotta develop a perfect that outperfects his perfect! Oh noes! He overperfected me! I'd better develop a more perfecter than perfecter perfect! - that becomes pretty unfunny. I don't think high-Essence combat should start to center around perfects. I think it tends to do that already, and I see that as an annoying problem, and I really don't think it needs any help on that. Sorry to be so negative about it. On the upside, I kinda like your sutra :) - David.