MartialArts/EffortlessMasterStyle
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It's a Celestial Level focused on permanent charms, starting at Ess 3 and going up to Ess 5 at the pinnacles. It's a big deviation from traditional MA's due to the whole "all but one charm is a permanent no-cost charm", so I'm hoping for mad compliments. That, or, you know, criticism. Anyway, the pdf is available here Effortless Master Style, because it helps show the tree well.
Effortless Master Style v 0.1
Celestial Level Martial Art
The Effortless Master Style was developed by an elder Sidereal frustrated by the regularity with which his Solar students could best him during practice. Even though he was obviously a far superior martial artist, every now and then a blow would slip past his defenses. Even though his mastery of Essence was far beyond that of his Solar studens, he would still find himself exhausted at the end of the day, while the sheer magical endurance of those students kept them going strong. When sparring with his Dragon Blooded students, his frustration increased as his inability to activate multiple charms without a great expenditure of effort gave them an edge. After some months of practice, the Effortless Master Style was born. Now taught only to those who have graduated his school and are worthy to begin educating their own students, this style is slowly spreading across Creation due to its general utility. This style is incompatible with armor, and all of it's charms have no effect if armor is worn. It considers all in-style weapons for any martial art the character knows as unarmed and in-style, even if the Martial Arts ability isn't being rolled.
One who studies the Style of the Effortless Master has integrated his arts into himself, and no longer relies on Essence to fuel his actions. To fight with such a martial artist is to find one's self exhausted before an opponent who needs no preparation, and no rest. Surely, a master of this style is invincible!
This style consists of 11 charms, varying between Essence 3 and 5, and is intended to be learned after one has already studied another style extensively. None of the charms in the style can be learned until you have already learned another Celestial-Level form-type charm, and you must have completely mastered a style before you can learn the Effortless Master Style's form charm.
Controlled Master's Fury
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 1 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: One Martial Arts Form-Type Charm
Over the course of his training, the Master has made thousands of blows, each unique, but always striving to have the greatest effect. Finally surpassing his own frail limitations, the Master's strikes hit with greater force, and pure intent. Any unarmed attack the character makes does 2 additional damage, which may be lethal if he chooses.
Sneering Master's Resilience
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 1 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: One Martial Arts Form-Type Charm
As he has made thousands of attacks, a well-trained Martial Artist has absorbed thousands of blows. As he trains those lesser than him, he scoffs off their blows, mocking their weakness. His body ignorant of lesser damage, the character's natural soak is increased by +2 Bashing and +2 Lethal, and he may now parry lethal damage unarmed.
Laughing Master's Intuition
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 3 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: One Martial Arts Form-Type Charm
Many young students are quick. Quick to anger, quick to strike, and quick to assume their superiority over an old man. Age and physical condition, however, aren't necessarily a good measure of one's speed. Laughing at those who would attempt to gain the upper hand and control the situation, the Master's initiative is increased by 3 in any turn in which a Martial Arts or Dodge action is to be taken.
Overconfident Student Rebuke
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 2 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: Controlled Master's Fury
As the student trains, he too often grows arrogant. Under the tutelage of one such as the Master, his skills quickly increase, and eventually, his confidence will outstrip his wisdom, and he will require... re-education. This charm ensures that even those who are sure of themselves still have something to fear from their Master, as even the lightest of his blows sting. Anytime the character deals unarmed or in-style damage, he may choose to automatically convert one damage die to an automatic success.
Unfailing Master's Technique
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 4 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: Controlled Master's Fury, Sneering Master's Resilience, Laughing Master's Intuition
Even on a bad day, the Master's skills do not fail him. Even in the worst of moments can he block the haphazard blows of the uneducated and untrained. He adds one automatic success to any unarmed or in-style attack or parry attempt. This does not create a pool if none exists.
Superior Master's Confidence
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 3 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: Laughing Master's Intuition
As he sees the battle before his opponent acts, and as his skill far outreaches that of any opponent, how could the Master not be confident? His own skill pleases him and refreshes him, ensuring that a successful training session in the morning will only lead to a better one in the afternoon. The character gains 1m for every successful and meaningful Martial Arts action taken in a given turn, up to a maximum of the Master's MA motes per turn. An example of a meaningful action would be parrying a blow intended to harm him, while a non-meaningful action would be punching a wall with no intent to break it, and no real purpose to strike it.
Chosen Form of the Effortless Master
Cost: Varies Type: Simple Duration: Indefinite Min. Martial Arts: 4 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: One Complete Martial Art, Unfailing Master's Technique, Overconfident Student Rebuke
As the day wears on, the Master must train many students. He must assume many forms, and demonstrate many techniques. As he truly internalizes the way of the Effortless Master, he may shift back and forth between styles with ease, always ready to provide an example to all. When this form is activated, the character pays the activation cost for a given martial arts form-type charm he knows. He then gains all benefits and drawbacks of that form-type charm, as if it were activated. The essence spent activating this charm is not committed. The assumed form must have an Essence requirement of four or less. To switch between multiple known forms requires the re-activation of this charm.
Enduring Master's Ignorance
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 2 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: Chosen Form of the Effortless Master
Master though he may be, a proper Martial Artist continues his training, conditioning his body to ever greater heights. While normal sparring and training can sometimes be debilitating to others, the Effortless Master can continue for hours, never stopping to rest. With the purity of Essence flows through his body, the Master begins to heal wounds almost as they are received, and at the end of every turn, he heals a number of health levels of damage equal to the number of times he was successfully damaged in that turn. The type (s) of health level(s) healed correspond to the type(s) of damage that he received that turn.
Prepared Master's Effortless Action
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 4 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: Chosen Form of the Effortless Master, Superior Master's Confidence
The Effortless Master is ready to train at any time, ready to shift to the next student without pause. While other, lesser trainers reserve their Essence for only the best of students, or the most dire of situations, the Effortless Master is unimpressed by such things, as his abilities transcend such trivial limitations. When this charm is learned, the character gains a "Martial Arts Pool" containing (MA+Ess) motes of personal essence and (Ess-1) Willpower. These may only be spent activating MA charms or combos containing MA charms. This pool is automatically refreshed at the end of each scene, but may not be refilled through any other means, including stunts.
Unceasing Consistent Superiority
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min. Essence: 5 Prereqs: Enduring Master's Ignorance
Reaching the pinnacle of his training, the Effortless Master is a sight to behold. All motions perfect and practiced, he is without mistake, and absent of error. On any die roll involving MA dice, he may automatically convert (MA divided by 2, round up) of them to automatic successes.
Effortless Expenditure of Effort
Cost: N/A Type: Special Duration: Permanent Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min. Essence: 5 Prereqs: Prepared Master's Effortless Action
At comfort with himself and his surroundings, the concept of Effort is now foreign to a true Master. While others struggle to control the energies within, the Effortless Master simply acts, and accepts. At the end of any turn in which the character expends more than one Willpower, the character regains one Willpower. If the character expended only one Willpower, roll one die. If successful, the character regains one Willpower.
Comments
Archived old comments at GregLink/EffortlessMasterStyleOldComments. Is this the proper place/way to archive old comments, or am I mis-interpreting BestPractices? -- GregLink
Made some changes to the form, otherwise, I think it's ready to go for round 2 of evaluation. Comments welcomed! -- GregLink
Finished Wiki-fying, and tightened things up a bit. While not effective on its own, the Effortless Master Style makes sense for many Sensei and other Martial Arts masters, enhancing their already potent abilities.
Generally these look good and balanced, and I like them. I also like the basic concept. The only Charms I would be concerned about are Enduring Master's Ignorance and Effortless Expenditure of Essence. The first I have concerns about simply because it seems to heavily trample the Lunar schtick - currently, only Lunars get autohealing without committed Essence, and this seems to be a superior Charm in every way but Essence requirement to Wood Dragon Form. Most grievous, it appears to allow aggravated damage healing without Essence expenditure, and that really concerns me. Though it wouldn't make much practical difference, I'd be much more comfortable if it simply reduced the attacker's damage successes by one, as though the MAist were made from starmetal or something.
Effortless Expenditure of Essence makes me a little twitchy on its own - Willpower becomes the vital resource of high-Essence combat, and I'm not sure it's wise to cheapen so many costs so thoroughly - but what really begins to worry me is when you combine EEoE with Prepared Master's Effortless Action. Spend Willpower out of the PMEA pool, refresh it to your standard pool? Seems rather counter to the limiting factor you placed on PMEA to keep it in check, doesn't it? - Hapushet
Hapushet - You really hit the nail on the head in the first paragraph. The Enduring Master's Ignorance charm really is nothing more than a "Oh, and you're wearing Starmetal, by the way" charm. I color text-ed it up, and tried to give it some interesting characteristics, like that you can be knocked incap mid-round and thus not get to heal back up, so you're effectively reliant on not getting too low in the health level chain. For Sidereals, that can be a problem, and I thought it more interesting than just "Oh, like Starmetal". As for the Agg, I've got the same concern, but since Starmetal does it so simply, and that's really what I'm narfing, I didn't mind it too much. Still, I'd be interested if others felt the same way Hapushet does. If my theory of "It's just like starmetal, and the color text happening to imply that you're healing agg isn't really important" isn't solid, I can always change it. Heck, I might change it anyway - Agg is something one doesn't mess with. But then again, I tend not to change things, so I'd need some prodding.
As for the second paragraph, again, I agree. I've been struggling with high-end charms for the tree, as it's very easy to make them overpowered, or underuseful. For a simple fix, would it be poor form to simply point out that Effortless Expenditure of Effort (the "if you spend X willpower" one) doesn't kick in based off of the Prepared Master's pool? Or is that nowhere near the level of fix required? - GregLink, unable to fully grasp his own flaws.
- Oh, and one more thing, while I'm here. In another theory, you note that "Willpower becomes the vital resource of high-Essence combat". Having said that, and in the theory that there are a number of people who can make their own charms, it would seem reasonable that high-Essence characters are going to be making some serious Willpower-Regaining charms. Take things like Willpower Enhancing Spirit, things like Willpower-draining effects (I'm sure the Abyssals have one), and recognize that those are Ess 3 variants of such things. By Essence 5 and 6, there have got to be some serious Willpower boosters out there. I wouldn't be surprised to see a large number of them in the Lore and Endurance trees, actually, where these ancient guys are monsters of "I can burn 2 WP per round for the rest of the scene without touching my pool" and "Any time I take a dice action, I gain 1 WP!". Sure, in the canonical printed charms, we don't see this as much, but as you said - Willpower is the domain of High-essence combat - it's not as needed, nor as useful, at low Essence, where you're still figuring out how to pay for your Golden Essence Block, not your stacked super-perfect multi-action undodgeable combo. Having said that, I'm still not sure what I've got is Kosher, but to think that by Essence 5, you don't have characters developing purely Willpower boosting charms is a bit shortsighted. And given that Siddies can only make MA charms, Essence 4 and 5 MA charms that helps with WP, so that you're not nearly as far behind in the "all of your students have WP boosters" race seems perfectly sensible. The only question is if they're overly powerful. Anyway, I'll shut up. I think I just put my foot in my mouth, and I like Hapushet's comments, so I'll stop now. - GregLink
I think noting that the Prepared Master pool doesn't trigger the effect of the pinnacle charm is good. I'm not 100% sure it's good enough, though. Some of these charms I wonder a little bit about, just because you decided not to put any kind of cost on them. EEoE especially. Obviously, due to the nature of the style, the cost shouldn't be large, but I think it should be there. I don't think a Martial Arts charm at Essence 5 should eliminate half of all willpower costs permanently, is basically what I'm saying. Maybe if you made it cost something like 5 motes and 2 willpower to activate for a scene? Then, of course, its effect would give you one of those willpower back. I could certainly see making the charm Reflexive and specifically allowign it to be put in a Combo despite its duration.
Also, Chosen Form bothers me. Sidereal forms are excluded, but I can't think of a single Celestial form that is. While I like the idea of allowing the master to assume the form indefinitely, I don't like reducing the cost to only 1 mote. I think the master ought to have to pay the cost of the form he will be using when activating Chosen Form. - IanPrice, but other than those slight tweaks, this is totally wicked, and I must try to get permission to use it...
- On EEoE, I do note that it can only give you back one willpower per turn maximum. Seems lovely and balanced to me as it slows down your rate of Willpower use. Of course, it should only deal with the Willpower spent from the characters main pool and no other ones that can be created. Otherwise it can be far too useful for keeping your normal pool topped up, as others have noted.
- Now onto Chosen Form, I like it's flavour, but I think the whole point was to make it easier to shift between multiple forms. How about if it halved the cost of the form or was an Instant charm (so the essence was not committed and could be regained through stunting)? -- Somori who is now a little rushed and would love to do a deeper analysis.
- First off, let me say thank you to IanPrice, who, after an initial run-in with, I've really enjoyed reading his comments. As for Somori's comments on the form, I think (s)he's right on the money. I think I'd be willing to take a halved cost, rounded down, and still think it was pretty kick-butt. -- GregLink, original author. If anyone wants to archive the old comments, I think the style might be ready for a fresh look by some of the Wiki-Zens
- Why thank you. I'm glad that whole getting-off-on-the-wrong-foot thing is over with. I realized that at first, I was tooting my own horn, which is really poor form. Since then, I've switched to simply saying what there is to say, so really, I also have you to thank for calling me on my childishness at first.
- As for Chosen Form, I could be satisfied with a halved cost, if you reduce the duration to something like One Scene; or, if you think that's insufficient for training, perhaps Essence in hours. The point for me is that I think being able to wake up in the middle of the night when your Surprise Anticipation Method warns you of the assassin about to stab you and already be automatically in your Form Charm without action or expenditure is really awesome. So, to my mind, if the charm gives you another cost discount, the indefinite duration has to go, because the duration itself is a discount when you're dealing with a long stretch of time.
- For flavor reasons, I think that the indefinite duration fits with the idea of the "effortless master" better than a cost reduction, because other charms provide extra essence and such in this style already, but being able to go around in your form all the time takes away an action you would otherwise give up at the beginning of combat. For training, just wear a Hearthstone. Activate one form, train for an hour; oh look, you've regained the motes. Switch to the next one, train for another hour. Celestial forms are usually about 5 motes anyway, so the total expenditure we're talking about here is 6 motes. Even a level 3 Hearthstone gets you that back in an hour, and a master of this caliber ought to have a level 5, if not several Hearthstones. - IanPrice
