MartialArtsRelay/PhantomFireWarriorStyle

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Phantom Fire Warrior Style

Scrollreader's Guidelines: This is a Celestial level style, fire aspected. it encourages teamwork, and clever use of reflexives. It is 9 charms in length, with 4 below the form, and four above it.

Thoughts: This is a style based around fire, and multiplicity. It encourges teamwork, as well as, perhaps, false images on one or all of the practicioners. As a fire style, it is likely to be fast, and dodge, rather than parry or soak.

The form weapons of the Phantom Fire-Warrior Style are the spear and wind-fire wheel. Traditionalists hang long satin banners from their weapons, the fabrics bearing the mon of their masters and matched in colour to the adepts' anima displays. They believe that this pomp and circumstance benefits their use of the style.

This style is compatible with armor. It is considered Fire Aspected, in the same way as Fire Dragon Style(so non-fire aspected users pay the 1 mote surcharge).

A Phantom Fire-Warrior stylist

Charms

2. Burning Charge- by Scrollreader

Cost: 3 motes

Duration: One Turn

Type: Reflexive

Minimum Martial Arts: 1

Minimum Essence: 1

Prerequisite Charms: None

The exalts moves with the speed of a racing fire. If he charges into battle on the turn he activates this charm, he doubles his speed, as well as adding his MA (minus any mobility penalties he suffers) to his initiative. He may attack in the middle of this movement, if he wishes, at a penalty equal to the mobility penalty he suffers from. He may not attacka single enemy more than once, though he may split to save actions for defense, or to attack multiple enemies in his line of charge.

3. Concealed Smoke Fist- by Knightsyde

Cost: 3 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Supplemental

Minimum Martial Arts: 2

Minimum Essence: 1

Prerequisite Charms: None

Activating this Charm creates multiple smoky images of a blow, making it difficult to be intercepted. This forces a parrying opponent to roll parries twice, taking the worst of the two results. Dodges are unaffected by the use of this Charm. Alternately, the martial artist may use this Charm to aid an ally. His feint interferes with a hand-to-hand attack against the ally; both ally and attacker must be in hand-to-hand range of the martial artist. When this Charm is used to aid, it adds the martial artist's permanent Essence to the difficulty to hit the designated ally for one attack. This Charm, no matter the use, may only be used once on any attack.

5. Flame Screen - by FourWillowsWeeping

Cost: 3 motes

Duration: One Turn

Type: Reflexive

Minimum Martial Arts: 3

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: None

The martial artist performs the First Kata of Fire Division, twining his anima into a handful of fiery cables. He lashes these through the battlefield, obscuring the vision of his opponents. The martial artist rolls his Strength + Dodge. While this Charm is in effect, opponents suffer an environmental (vision) dicepool penalty equal to the adept's permanent Essence against parries made within the auspices of the artist's anima banner. Opponents with greater Perception than the successes rolled are unaffected. Multiple uses of this Charm do not stack, but rather, all the areas generated assess the maximum penalty.

||Appendix: Anima Banner Sizes|||||||||||| ||Type: || 1-3m || 4-7m || 8-10m || 11-15m || 16+ || ||Dragonblooded || - || - || Ess yards || Ess yards || Ess yards || ||Celestial || - || - || Ess yards || Ess * 3 yards || Ess * 5 yards || ||Lesser Signs || Ess * 10 yards |||||||||| ||Greater Signs || Ess miles ||||||||||

4. Flaming Phantom Fighters Feint- by FlowsLikeBits

Cost: 2 mote per phantom, 1 Willpower

Duration: One Turn

Type: Supplemental

Minimum Martial Arts: 3

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Burning Charge, Concealed Smoke Fist, Flame Screen

With a sly grin, the martial artist dissolves into a number of smokey phantoms that stream out and strike at multiple enemies. It is impossible to tell which strike is real, so all must defend against the possibility of attack! Each phantom simultaneously lashes out at it's target, but only one has an effect.

When this charm is activated, the exalt nominates a number of targets and pays 2 motes per target, to a maximum of her essence. At this time, she also secretly notes which is the real target. It is permissible for the exalt to move as part of this charm, each target must be within her movement distance, and after the action is resolved, the exalt has actually moved. Each target then defends against the Exalt's attack. The player then reveals which phantom was real and the attack is resolved normally. The other phantoms dissolve into smoke as their blows are dodged, blocked, or strike true, either way, they have no effect on their targets.

1. Phantom Fire-Warrior Form- by FourWillowsWeeping

Cost: 5 motes

Duration: One Scene

Type: Simple

Minimum Martial Arts: 4

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Flaming Phantom Fighters Feint

The martial artist using the Phantom Fire-Warrior Form cannot be found; he is too elusive to be defeatable! His billowing anima coalesces into several smoggy duplicates of his own image. By performing a subtle kata, these duplicates can, for a few instants, be refined into crisp and opaque mirages, which the warrior can use to befuddle attackers. They do not know whom to strike! He rolls his Charisma + Presence, subtracting the successes of that roll from the successes of an attack. This Presence roll explicitly suffers from the mobility penalty of armour. The adept can perform this deception as many times per turn as he has dots of Essence. Furthermore, the adept adds his Martial Arts to his initiative.

This is a Martial Arts Form-type Charm and is incompatible with other Forms.

6. Banked Flame Flares Outward- by OhJames

Cost: 4 motes

Duration: One Scene

Type: Reflexive

Minimum Martial Arts: 5

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Phantom Fire-Warrior Form

The Phantom Fire-Warrior steps lightly, the soles of her feet burning with the soft luminescence of banked embers. Lines of glimmering sparks shadow every movement of her form, flickering and fading in an intermittent halo. This warm and lovely expression adds the exalt’s Martial Arts rating to all seduction rolls for the duration of the scene. (Storytellers should keep in mind that the source of this extra prowess is painfully obvious; the martial artist woos like a warrior, not a concubine).

In combat, the quiet urgency pumping through the character’s veins adds her Essence in yards to all her movement rates. In addition, she may perform an assisted attack. Propelling herself from an ally’s blade or fists like a rising flame as the sparks that shadow her body flare into a bonfire, the martial artist may attack any enemy within (her ally’s Strength x 3) yards. In addition to the possible surprise factor (Storyteller discretion) the force of the martial artist’s momentum adds 2L to her damage, also making her unarmed attacks lethal. As a final benefit, if the exalt is utilizing a spear with a properly-coordinated banner, she may add an additional 1L to the attack’s damage, as the satin writhes and ignites around an opponent’s flesh.

7. Kung Fu of the Red Dust- by FourWillowsWeeping

Cost: 2 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Reflexive

Minimum Martial Arts: 5

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Phantom Fire-Warrior Form

Even this art of flying fire is rooted in earth. This Charm surrenders to that weakness; whatever motion the martial artist makes, it disturbs the ground and a plum of red dust arises. The martial artist adds 2 dice to a Martial Arts roll, plus 2 additional dice for each time this Charm was activated previously this turn. This cannot be used to build an attack pool from zero.

Alternatively, the Charm can be used to assist an attack made by a teammate; in this case, the martial artist subtly repositions himself to bolster his ally's pose, feints to open an avenue of attack, or enacts some other small movement. The ally must be within hand-to-hand range of his benefactor, and he gains a +2 bonus to his Martial Arts action.

8. Dusty Phantoms of Smoke and Flame- by FlowsLikeBits

Cost: 5 motes per phantom + 1 willpower + 1 lethal health level

Duration: Varies

Type: Extra Action

Minimum Martial Arts: 5

Minimum Essence: 3

Prerequisite Charms: Kung Fu of the Red Dust

The martial artist stomps her foot upon the ground. A red dust arises and assumes vaguely humanoid forms. These are not phantoms, but (semi)substancial foes! Some of these may evelope the martial artist or her allies, providing a smokey ally double, while others may attack on their own.

When this charm is invoked, the invoker makes a Dex + Martial Arts attack roll. The successes on this roll become the attack pool for the resulting phantoms. The martial artist may summon a number of phantoms up to her martial arts per invokation. She may not have more phantoms summoned than her martial arts, under any circumstances. Phantoms act normally on the turn they are summoned. They are considered allies of their summoner and have a dice adding cap equal to her martial arts for the purposes of charms that aid allies.

Each phantom may be used in one of two ways. The martial artist may reflexivly change which mode each phantom uses once at the start of any turn before iniative. It may envelope the martial artist or an ally, or it may act on it's own. A characther may only be enveloped by one phantom.

If a phantom envelopes the martial artist or one of her allies, it provides a bonus like Kung Fu of the Red Dust had been used by the martial artist herself, on all actions to which it would apply. It is possible to take advantage of this effect and that charm, but dice limits apply normally. A phantom aiding a characther is attacked individually, it has the stats given below.

A phantom acting on it's own or aiding another has these stats.

MA means the stat is the martial arts rating of the invoker.
Succ is the number of successes on the initial Dex+Martial Arts attack roll. || Phantom of Smoke and Flame || || Str/Dex/Sta || || MA/MA/MA || |||||||||||||| ||Skills:|| Athletics: MA || || Attack: || || Red Fist ||Speed: NA Acc: Succ Dmg: 2xMA Def:0 || ||Health Levels || Ess x -0 || ||Automata: Never has to make virtue rolls || Soak: MA ||

Once per turn, each Phantom will launch an attack against the nearest enemy on the martial artists initiative. The phantoms are simple minded extentions of the martial artists will, so they count 10's as two successes and have an awareness of their masters enemies. The phantoms do not parry, but are slighly insubstantial, so they dodge all attacks against them with a dice pool equal to the invokers martial arts. Additionally, these phantoms have several of the properties of fire dust, specificly, they will explode if the come in contact with open flame(but they are specificly immune to Terrestial anima flare). This explosion is an area effect with a radius equal to the anima banner of the martial artist(use the current level), it does a number of dice of fire damage equal to the martial artists essence and may be parried or dodged with a difficulty equal to the martial artists essence. Phantoms who envelope a characther are also effected by this. Enveloped charachters suffer a die pool penalty equal to the invokers martial arts vs the explosion of their enveloping phantom.

The martial artist may expend a die action to order the phantoms to perform more complicated actions using their stats and abilites. Phantoms may be ordered to envelope enemies. This is considered a clinch attack, but if the phantom wins the characther is enveloped. Enemies will gain the benfits of the phantom normaly while enveloped.

The phantoms are particuarly affected by wind. A strong wind may disperse them, and they double enviromental penalties from it.

If a phantom is destroyed, the motes spend powering it are decommited. This charm is explicitly allowed to be comboed, despite it's non-instant duration. If this charm is comboed, the other charms in the combo may affect either the Dex+MA roll to create the phantoms or the attacks done by the phantoms on their first turn as appropriate.

9. Soul Burns at Both Ends- by OhJames

Cost: 8 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Reflexive

Minimum Martial Arts: 5

Minimum Essence: 3

Prerequisite Charms: Banked Flame Flares Outward, Dusty Phantoms of Smoke and Flame

The final lesson of the Phantom Fire Warrior is this: no fire burns forever. Having internalized this lesson, the exalt rushes forward, her footfalls chiming like bells against the cold ground, arms outstretched.

This Charm allows a martial artist to extinguish the fire of her heart and passion, in exchange for a more powerful attack against her foe. Upon spending the requisite motes, the exalt may channel any Virtue for extra dice on her attack roll, regardless of the circumstances. However, the martial artist may then channel another Virtue, which must be different from the first Virtue, without spending Willpower. She may continue channeling Virtues until she has utilized all four, still without spending Willpower.

The intensity of the martial artist’s passion refuses to die. The extra dice granted by the channeled Virtues linger on, adding to the exalt’s damage pool for the original attack. The exalt may apply these dice to any subsequent dodge, parry, attack, or damage roll, reducing the total pool by three dice for each roll they are applied to.

When the Virtue pool is exhausted, the martial artist must make a reflexive roll of Essence + her highest Virtue, difficulty 4. Should she fail this roll, she suffers a –1 wound penalty for each channeled Virtue that lasts for the duration of the combat, as her soul burns low, deprived of courage, succor, prudence, or conviction.

Comments

Reformated a bit. Move the form weapon comments to the top. That form is pretty powerful, as it effectivly gives you a third layer of active defence that works against both unblockable and undodgeable attacks.(I'd up the cost to 6 motes at least, probably more) Given the comment about mobility penalties, the style seemed like it should allow armor. I went with just sheilds so one could have a mobile/fast style, and due to the power of the form. -FlowsLikeBits, might try to do a charm later

Yes, it's very sensical to add a no armor restriction when the initial designer of the style made his form variable depending on mobility penalties and explicitly did not add an armor restriction. This obviously means "I want someone to swoop in and say that I only want the style to be compatible with shields!". -- Will

Fine, changed. There is also a canon precedent for styles that are armor compatible as a whole, but but the form isn't, for some reason. -FlowsLikeBits

Um, let's not have a fight about this. You have a point about the potentially severe implications of the quadruple stacked defence, so consider the solution that the Form's text offers (extended to the remainder of the style): The style is compatible with armour, but not happy with it. It chafes. I could imagine a whole cascade of little flourishes in the rest of the Charms that make them work slightly less well for an armoured user. - willows

My bad, I was kinda tired, so I was thinking "how can you have a fire style with armor? That's silly". Later, I realized I was just being stupid, so I fixed it. Honestly, I like the form, although it is pretty powerful. (And I have this weird image of a stick figure charm tree that people would hate...:p ) -FlowsLikeBits

Don't worry about it, we all get tired now and then. I was hoping, with posting the Form first, to set up some hooks that people can riff off of, to help give the style some more of that interaction that appears in well-designed MA, and that we don't see in the Relays too often because it's so hard when you start at the introductory Charms and have to derive a Form that ties them together. It does look powerful, but I think that the availability of very large dice pools for parry and dodge offsets the usefulness of the Presence defence a good deal. - willows

Knightsyde, I edited your Charm text a little for grammar and clarity, hope you don't mind. I think its "aid another" effect is a little weak, for a 3-mote cost; you could maybe add Essence successes rather than just one.

FlowsLikeBits, I think your Charm is kinda strong; I suggest adding a Willpower cost and moving it into a post-Form position. It's a very, very powerful play in the resource game, and I think its cost shouldn't be able to recouped with just one stunt. Someone else suggested making it an Extra Actions Charm, which is a little dramatic in my head, but certainly the ability to Combo it and draw out perfects from a large group of people isn't a student's technique, not one that should be cheap. - willows

(Doh, it was supposed to have a wp cost). Agree. It was meant to be more of a draw out actions, rather than perfects type thing. I added the wp cost and make it uncombo-able. Yeah, the thing you mentioned would probably be a post-form charm. Could do that also, but I didn't want stick something in the nebulous post-form tree. -FlowsLikeBits, yeah, willows writes better charm flavor, oh well

Thank you! The wording just wasn't coming to me. Looks great now! Awesome suggestion about enhancing the power of the "aid another" effect. - Knightsyde

I guess the adjusted Flaming Phantom Fighters Feint was ok? Now Flame Screen looks a little wacky in that only Sidereals get enough area for it to be useful. I.e.it can't combod but is simple and only lasts a turn and makes parries difficult. However you can't attack when you use it, so they only point is to help your allies, but only Sidereles get enough area to useful. (Allies probably want to avoid being inside a Terrestial's anime flare...esp for a fire aspect). Maybe build the area into the charm? (NxEssence or something) -FlowsLikeBits

I don't actually know how big an anima flux is, but I assumed it was pretty big! Don't forget that Fire Aspects have a flaming anima power, but their flux damage is the same as that of other Terrestrials before they use it. The reason the area keys off animas is to make it fail utterly when used by mortals. - willows

What an odd design consideration. Far as I can tell, only Sidereals have an explicit size. Terrestial aura's only do damage when you touch them, anway, anime banners(other than Sidereals= Ess x 10), don't seem to have an radius of more than a few feet. Maybe say the charm cause anime flare and give it a radius equal the size of the Peripheral Essence pool?(IIRC mortals only get Personal Essence. DK do also, but they can't learn MA) -FlowsLikeBits

Cool charm, OhJames. Is anyone else going to throw something in here? If we're all stumped, I'll post something tomorrow. - willows

Kung Fu of the Red Dust: I like it, but is there any reason it can only aid allies Martial Arts actions? (I can see limiting it to martial actions, but martial arts?) -FlowsLikeBits

Yeah, it's a dastardly efficient atttack dice adder; I didn't want it overly applicable. - willows

Makes sense. Anyway, as far as I can tell, you can only ever give an ally a +2, they don't get the multiple uses per turn bonus. But yeah, it's a good charm.

Just wanted to say, I really like the way this one is coming out. I'd have put it up for the pdf if it had been finished. -FlowsLikeBits

Hey willows, what are the prereqs for Kung Fu of the Red Dust? -- OhJames

My bad. C/p error. Sorry bout that. Fixed- FLB

Hey OhJames (you can link to me with [[willows]], btw; redirects rule), theme? - willows

Well, it's up to OhJames to pick one. But I rather think it'd be cool to do Black Claw Style, a MA known by Mara, from GoD. - Scrollreader