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Solar Melee Charms by Quendalon

Attack Tree

Radiant Kingfisher Blade

 Cost: 4 motes
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Supplemental
 Minimum Melee: 3
 Minimum Essence: 1
 Prerequisite Charms: Excellent Strike

The character’s blade moves with inhuman deftness, striking through even the tiniest gap in any defense with ease. This Charm enhances a single Melee attack, circumventing all difficulty penalties imposed by Charms, shields, cover and attempts to make called shots. Effects that remove successes are considered to increase difficulty for the purpose of this Charm. Attempts to block or dodge the attack are not affected in any way by the Radiant Kingfisher Blade.

The character may declare that she is only reducing the difficulty penalty of an attack by one. If so, this Charm only costs two motes of Essence to invoke.

Transcendent Phoenix Edge

 Cost: 1 mote, 1 Willpower
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Supplemental
 Minimum Melee: 5
 Minimum Essence: 2
 Prerequisite Charms: Radiant Kingfisher Blade

The character unites her weapon’s Essence with her enemy’s, making her strike as inescapable as the dawn. The Solar makes a Melee attack as normal, but if she doesn’t roll enough successes to hit the target, she still hits. If an attack hits solely because of this Charm, ignore the base weapon damage (including piercing damage effects); the attack deals damage equal to the attacker’s Strength.

Celestial Dragon Razor

 Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Supplemental
 Minimum Melee: 5
 Minimum Essence: 4
 Prerequisite Charms: Transcendent Phoenix Edge

Filaments of solar Essence blaze around the character’s weapon, writhing in elaborate patterns as they guide it inexorably to the target. The Solar makes a Melee attack as normal, but if she doesn’t roll enough successes to hit the target, she still hits, doing her weapon’s base damage.

Counter-Attack Tree

Parry-Riding Rebound Strike

 Cost: 6 motes
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Reflexive
 Minimum Melee: 4
 Minimum Essence: 2
 Prerequisite Charms: One Weapon Two Blows, Solar Counterattack

Relaxing into the flow of Essence, the character draws strength from her opponent’s defense and channels it against another. When one of her attacks is successfully parried, the character may invoke this Charm to immediately make another attack against a target within arm’s reach. This attack is made with her full Dexterity + Melee pool, plus additional dice equal to the original defender’s extra successes on his parry roll. Parries that do not require a roll, such as Heavenly Guardian Defense, do not grant any extra successes.

Parry-Riding Rebound Strike is not an action; it does not subtract from the character’s dice pools or use up her action for the turn. A character can make as many Parry-Riding Rebound Strikes in a given turn as she can afford to pay for.

Parry Tree

Expectant Blade Approach

 Cost: 1 mote, 1 Willpower
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Reflexive
 Minimum Melee: 5
 Minimum Essence: 3
 Prerequisite Charms: Dipping Swallow Defense, Call the Blade

The character’s attunement to her blade transcends the five senses; it knows where it must be, and it guides her hand without conscious cause. With this Charm, the character may parry attacks that she is not even aware of. Her dice pool for blocking such an attack equals her weapon’s Defense rating + her own Essence score. Although she must have a weapon or other blocking implement within arm’s reach, she need not have it in hand; she may pick up and/or draw a weapon as a part of this Charm’s effects.

Expectant Blade Approach may not be used in a Combo with other Melee Charms, although it may be Comboed with Reflex Sidestep Technique. Although the character is unaware of the impending attack, the player nonetheless has the choice of whether or not to employ this Charm, but she must choose before the attacker makes his roll.

Maidens Shield the Sun

 Cost: 7 motes, 1 Willpower
 Duration: Until next action
 Type: Reflexive
 Minimum Melee: 5
 Minimum Essence: 4
 Prerequisite Charms: Heavenly Guardian Defense, Fivefold Bulwark Stance

Essence flares out from the character’s weapon, guiding it from one defensive posture to another with impossible grace and speed. Until the character’s next action, she gains a number of perfect parries equal to her Essence rating. Each of these parries will automatically and perfectly block a single attack of which the character is aware, even if the attack is not normally blockable. If the character’s weapon is destroyed or disarmed, the remaining perfect parries are lost.

Empyrean Rampart Posture

 Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
 Duration: Until next action
 Type: Reflexive
 Minimum Melee: 5
 Minimum Essence: 5
 Prerequisite Charms: Maidens Shield the Sun

The character’s weapon moves of its own volition, forming an impervious bulwark against assault. Until the start of her next action, she automatically and perfectly blocks all attacks of which she is aware, even if those attacks are not normally blockable. Even if her weapon is destroyed, as a non-magical weapon would be if used to parry the attack of a Celestine or a demon prince, it persists as a pattern of shimmering golden Essence. This residuum retains the weapon’s original statistics, and may be used for parry or counterattack Charms. This weapon-pattern fades at the end of the turn.

Protection of Celestial Bliss

 Cost: 15 motes, 1 Willpower
 Duration: Special
 Type: Simple
 Minimum Melee: 6
 Minimum Essence: 6
 Prerequisite Charms: Empyrean Rampart Posture

Aside from the changes to its cost and prerequisites, this is the same Charm as presented in Caste Book: Dawn (page 74).

Comments

I suppose the ever-growing spam is useful for pointing out interesting pages I missed, at least. Just commenting that I like both charms, although the 2nd more than the 1st, and I think the second at least fills a needed and oft-forgotten hole in the parry tree.
-- Darloth

Thanks! There's no reason why Dodge monkeys should get all the fun. - Quendalon

Why would anyone want Protection of Celestial Bliss (particularly your gimped version here) if they have Empyrean Rampart Posture? ERP here seems to do the same thing as PoCB, but better, and cheaper, and it's easier to obtain, to boot. I mean, unless I'm mistaken, PoCB blocks a number of attacks up to your Melee score. And it has no Crap, My Weapon Broke contingency plan, either. What gives? ~ Grandmasta, not getting it

Unless I've always misread PoCB, it provides hanging defenses, in the same manner as the actions provided by Principle of Motion. - Quendalon

I'm wondering why you changed the duration of PoCB to "until next action," rather than special or instant. Either you mean the hanging defenses disappear when you take your next action, or the motes are only committed until your next action. Either way, why keep it from being "special"? - WaiyaddoNoDan (Meep! Saw you address this on the forum. Never mind! - WaiyaddoNoDan again)

Fixed. Thanks for bringing it up, I might have forgotten to fix it here. - Quendalon

Me and FluffySquirrel decided to adopt your perfect-accuracy tree, but we were unsatisfied with Transcendent Phoenix Edge as it stands there. Quite simply, for a willpower cost, it doesn't do enough guaranteed damage (basically, you're paying willpower to plink). As such, we decided that instead of only using strength, we're going to use a rework that caps post-soak damage to Essence if the opponent is struck only through the effects of the charm. After looking at the rest of the perfect-acc melee charms around, I think your set is the best, so I hope you don't mind us changing that one around a little so it seems to fit. If you're interested, a writeup for the varient can be found at FluffySquirrelSolarMelee/Quendalon/Melee
-- Darloth

Seems like a reasonable modification. I'm glad that you found the Charms useful! - Quendalon