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DragonBlooded Archery Charms by GoldenH

Orchard-Stripping Blossom Strafe</b>

 <b>Cost: 5m + WP
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Simple
 Minimum Archery: 5
 Minimum Essence: 3
 Prerequisite Charms:  Harvest of the Hunter

As the arrow flies through the air it remembers the plant of it's birth. As if in a new spring, the air around it explodes in a literal shower of spring blossoms or green leaves, obscuring the position of the arrow.

Because the arrow cannot be seen throught the petas or leaves, this attack cannot be parried, only dodged.

Firefly Withering Rainbow</b>

 <b>Cost: 8m + WP
 Duration: One Turn
 Type: Simple
 Minimum Archery: 5
 Minimum Essence: 4
 Prerequisite Charms:  Seven Year Swarm Valley, Orchard-Stripping Blossom Strafe

The wise archer knows that when shooting at a target accomplishes nothing, to set your aims a little bit higher. Here we find the epitomie of this advice. The archer draws her bow with a several arrows in had, and activating this charm, shoots them into the sky.

Like its sister charm Seven Year Storm Volley, only a few arrows are needed; the archer fires seven arrows into the sky, and magic takes care of all the rest. On the next turn, the arrows start multiplying until there are hundreds of broadhead arrows, filling the sky with darting pieces of wood. These are real, physical, wooden arrows, although the orignal seven can be any kind of arrow, as long as they are made of wood. This charm cannot be used to create frog crotch or target arrows, and the base damage of any recovered arrow is Strength + 2, just like any normal broadhead arrow.

Finally, on the third combat turn, the arrows crash into the target on the same initative that was rolled in the first turn, in the form of an Arrow Swarm (see page 118 in Savage Seas). The damage of the arrow swarm is the Dragon Blooded's Essence * Archery (+ spec).

Example: On the first turn, Chivelle Manslayer rolls a 20 on init and draws back her powerbow and shoots it into the sky with her Perception + Archery in the direction of the enemy ship. On the second turn the arrows multiply, reaching their maximum height. On the third turn, the attack hits at initative 20; they get no defense roll, so apply soak and figure damage as described on pages 96-97 in Savage Seas, with the damage of, in this case, 20L. If she had a +3 specialty in arrow swarms, and essence 5, it would do 40L. If she is allowed, she could do other things on these 2nd and 3rd turns - this charm only takes one action to activate, after that it does its own work.

Comments

I really like Orchard Stripping Blossom Strafe. (Except for the word "strafe", which really doesn't seem to fit.) Firefly Withering Rainbow confuses me; what do you mean by "on the third charm during the same initative it was fired on the first"? - Quendalon

Um. Idiotic question- why the hell would I ever use a 5m, 1W Charm with Archery 5 and Essence 3 instead of Accuracy Without Distance- which is cheaper, has much lower minimums and fewer pre-reqs and is a better Charm in absolute terms? OSBS is anti-broken.

On the other hand, I like FWR, although the name is a bit florid to my taste. You might want to reproduce the mechanics of an Arrow Swarm. Also, the duration should be either Instant (if the motes of essence aren't committed after firing the Charm) or 3 Turns (if they are committed until the arrows land). Additionally, are the created arrows physical objects that could be collected afterwards, or Essence constructs that go kerpoof? You may also want to have an example, and make the timing more explicitly clear as to What The Hell is going on.

- DariusSolluman

DariusSolluman makes some very good points about FWR. As to his question regarding OSBS: Accuracy Without Distance is a Solar Charm, and these are Dragon-Blooded Charms. Does that answer the question? :) - Quendalon

That doesn't hamstring his point utterly, though - OSBS is clearly overcosted for its effect, even for DB magic. I'd drop it to 3/3, tops. - FourWillowsWeeping

... Although it does help explain why it's not Perfect- I utterly missed the DB. So used to looking over Solar and Infernal Charms :) Still, 3m, 1W feels like a more appropriate price, to me, although the Prereqs now make more sense - DS

Yea, I need a better word than Strafe... however I am content that it was better than the name I had before that! *ack* and everyone will just call it OSBS anyhow. I don't think DBs should have cheap perfects, though maybe 3m + WP would be better... eh. it combos nicely with the other DB charms... since it can be SSE'd and HGD'd, I want to keep those options cheaper than this charm. Yes, it's a DB charm, so it should be cheaper, but undodgeable and unparriable attacks aren't generally in your bag of tricks. Does anybody know of any other DB charm that makes un unparraible attack? Is there one in Aspectbook Air? I don't think so.

As for FWR, it can't be instant because then you can combo it. EEEEWWWW! It's not 3 turns because.. well, what does the turn mean? Is it long turn? Is it one third of a long term? Is it a normal 3 seconds, and therefore doesn't mean anything? Just leave it at one turn, that will mean that it can't be comboed and that is all.

Obviously you'll need Savage Seas to make sense of this charm at all, because the damage is against the unit or something, I guess, which you need that whole chapter from Savage Seas to make sense of anyhow. It doesn't really work if you're not using those rules, so I guess it would be more of a dramatic rain of arrows if you used it outside of ship or unit combat.

So I'm not sure what to make of it. I looked at Savage Seas again - some of the things I remembered wrong, I guess, so I have tried to fix it. The rules are very vauge, though, mostly talked about on page 92 - basically you can do things a lot of ways, so it's kinda hard to tell you what is best in every situation. But as long as you have the image of the DB shooting arrows into the air, it taking some short time to multiply, and then hit the target, I'd say you're good and you can rule the timing of this charm however you want. - GoldenH