MartialArts/MagpieStyle
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Work in Progress.
Weapons: War fan, Tiger claws, Sai - still not 100% decided
Magpie Style
Cunning Eye Technique</b>
<b>Cost: 2 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 3 Min Essence: 1 Prereqs: None
The character makes a reflexive Perception+Martial Arts, adding his Essence in dice. With a single success, the character can determine whether the target is armed, whether the target is under the effects of any Martial Arts charms and, if the character is familiar with the Martial Arts Style being used by the target, what Style that is. With three successes, the character can determine the types of weapons with which the target is armed, even if those weapons are concealed, and the specific Martial Arts Charms being used by the target. With five successes, the character can identify weapons hidden Elsewhere by the target and will gain the knowledge of which Martial Arts Styles the target knows at least to the level of the Form Charm, regardless of whether or not the target is using any such Charms, provided that the character is familiar with those styles. This Charm may also be used to reflexively add dice to Perception+Larceny rolls to determine whether a target is physically hiding something on his person.
Wing-Brandishing Threat</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 3 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: Cunning Eye Technique
The Martial Artist assumes a threatening posture and lashes out with a surprising motion, catching her opponent off-guard and rendering her off-center. The character rolls a die pool equal to her Manipulation+Martial Arts with a difficulty equal to her opponent's Valor. The number of successes is equal to the number of turns in which her opponent will be unable to take multiple actions if any of those actions are offensive in nature. This Charm may only be used once a turn against any given opponent.
Magpie's Theiving Grasp</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes Duration: Instant Type: Simple Min. Martial Arts: 3 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: Cunning Eye Technique
The Magpie is known for its acquisition of curiousities, and a clever Martial Artist who emulates the Magpie can utilize this in combat to deadly effect. A character who uses this Charm may grab an item up to one yard away per point of Permanent Essence possessed, provided that this item is visible to the character and is not currently being used, held, or restrained from moving. Items detected via the Cunning Eye Technique are considered visible. The theft of an item via this Charm is obvious to those in the immediate vicinity, as visible strands of Essence pull the object to the hand of the Martial Artist.
Magpie Form</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes Duration: One Scene Type: Simple Min. Martial Arts: 4 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: Wing-Brandishing Threat, Magpie's Theiving Grasp
The Martial Artist who adopts Magpie Form, becomes like a magpie in many ways, his step is lighter, he is preternaturally aware of his surroundings, and his hands become like grasping talons. His unarmed martial arts attacks do lethal damage. He adds his Martial Arts score to his Initiative totals and his Permanent Essence in dice to all rolls involving visual acuity, leaping, disarming, pickpocketing, and grabbing small items. The character is also aware whether or not there are any dematerialized spirits within Martial Arts + Essence yards for the duration of the Charm, though he cannot see those spirits without the use of other charms. This is a martial arts form charm and is incompatible with the use of armor.
Cloak of Feathers Technique</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes, 1 willpower Duration: One Scene Type: Simple Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: Magpie Form
The character wraps himself in a cloak of feathers, created from Essence, adding his Martial Arts score to his Bashing and Lethal Soak totals. He also gains a Bashing Hardness equal to his Essence. While this charm is in effect, the character may parry lethal attacks unarmed without the use of a stunt. This Charm is incompatible with the use of armor.
Swirling Feather Block</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: Cloak of Feathers Technique
The character may use his full Wits + Martial Arts pool to parry any one attack of which he is aware. The character blocks the attack with a swirling mass of feathery Essence, and does not utilize a weapon. As such, a character using this Charm does not gain the benefit of any defensive bonus his weapon might have when using this Charm.
Taunting Wing Escape</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min Essence: 3 Prereqs: Cloak of Feathers Technique
The character's body becomes light with Essence, lifting it aloft and out of harm's way. Using this Charm, a character may add a number of dice equal to his Martial Arts to a single dodge attempt. If the character successfully dodges, he may move up to (Martial Arts + Essence) x 2 yards away. Those who fail their attacks due to this charm tend to become inordinately frustrated and must succeed at a Temperance roll or unrelentingly pursue the fleeing martial artist as long as the terrain permits them to do so. The target may reflexively attempt to make a Temperance roll each round until he succeeds. This effect is often exacerbated by the tendency of Magpie stylists to taunt their opponents.
Magpie's Deceptive Talon</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes, 1 willpower Duration: Instant Type: Simple Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min Essence: 3 Prereqs: Magpie Form
With this deadly attack, a martial artist slips past his enemie's defenses, leaving him uncertain how he was struck. The attack itself is armor piercing and affects dematerialized spirits. It is a target's inability to defend against or counter the attack, however, that the enemies of the Magpie Stylist truly fear. All attempts to defend against the attack add the martial artist's Permanent Essence to their difficulty. Moreover, if the target is hit and takes damage from the attack, then the target will be unable to attack the martial artist (including via counterattacks) until the next turn. This last effect only does not apply to targets whose Permanent Essence is greater than the martial artist's Manipulation score.
Grasping the Ephemeral</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min Essence: 3 Prereqs: Magpie's Deceptive Talon
The martial artist can briefly pull objects from Elsewhere. These objects are often artifacts left Elsewhere by long-dead Exalts. This charm, however, does not allow the permanent removal of these items. Rather, it pulls them only part-way from their resting place, where they will almost immediately return by the end of the turn in which they are used. This charm may be used in a supplemental manner when making an attack or parrying. To do this, the character rolls their Essence. Each success is an extra success on the attack or parry roll that is a result of the added benefit of the item pulled from Elsewhere. The character may also use the charm to reflexively create cover. Each success on the Essence roll is one level of difficulty increase for ranged attacks aimed at the character and one-half that amount of difficulty increase for hand to hand attacks. Depending upon the nature of the object pulled from Elsewhere, there may be other effects. Characters using this Charm are encouraged to stunt heavily.
Essence-Stealing Strike</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes, 1 willpower Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min Essence:4 Prereqs: Swirling Feather Block, Taunting Wing Escape, Grasping the Ephemeral
The character's attack reaches into the very soul of her target. For each point of damage taken in the attack, the martial artist steals a number of motes of Essence equal to her Martial Arts rating from the target. These motes replenish the martial artist's pools and are placed first into her Personal Essence Pool. The target may choose whether these motes are taken from his Personal or Peripheral Pool, but they are treated as Essence committed by the target until spent by the martial artist. The martial artist may not exceed her normal Essence maximums, but may choose to release her own Essence to replace it with stolen Essence. If a target runs out of Essence or has no Essence pool, then no Essence is stolen, but the attack does Aggravated damage as it rends the target's soul. This Charm has no effect on targets with a Permanent Essence of 0, such as inanimate objects, even if they contain Essence.
comments
I'm not sure on the costs for some of these... thoughts? -szilard
There's something about Cunning Eye Technique that would make it sit better with me if it were always-on. Maybe the fact that we need a pretty decent amount of successes (3) and a decent essence cost just to know what the opponent is carrying. I can't see it costing much less than it does, and I can't see making it much more potent, but as it is it seems to sit *just* below my watermark for effectiveness. So, yeah, I think I'd kill the essence cost and make it always-on. Maybe the fact that it's one of those cool moves that Exalts must have, but is too weak in and of itself to justify the xp expenditure. - Miedvied
- I'd originally written Cunning Eye Technique as a no-cost permanent charm. I may revisit that thought. My reasoning was similar to yours, but I thought adding extra functionality to it would make it worthwhile. Also note that (1) if you are using the Form Charm, you add your Permanent Essence to the die pool - three successes is less of a problem... and (2) there is interplay between CET and Magpie's Thieving Grasp. -szilard
And I don't like Wind-Brandishing Threat's mechanics *at all*. Non-sidereal MA's don't make much of a deal of Virtues (I can imagine a MA that centers /around/ Virtues, but not as a casual diff. modifier), Valor as difficulty is too damn potent (even mortals will have a Valor of 2, which is a decent difficulty rating - that's equal to a dice pool of 4, and other Exalts will regularly have 3+), the duration of "roll dice to see how long it lasts" is clumsy (and though it appeared in the corebook, it was retconned out of most of the charms it appeared in, in the PG's power combat charm adjustments), and limiting it to "once per opponent per scene" isn't something I like. Either make the opponent unable to attack, or give them some sort of penalty to attack - but I dislike that high-difficulty iffy-duration one-use-only stuff that makes the charm crappy against mortals and useless against Exalts. - Miedvied
- I think you're off-base with the appropriateness of virtues in charm mechanics. Several Solar charms require virtue rolls (look at the Presence tree, for example). I'm essentially treating it like that but trying to minimize the number of unnecessary rolls. Any character who studies this style would, in my mind, need to have a high Manipulation, Perception, and Wits. So, let's say a minimum Manipulation of 3... and the Charm requires a Martial Arts of 3... that is a pool of 6 dice, minimum (for most people using the charm, though, I'd expect the pool to be 8-10). Is Valor really too high a difficulty? Maybe. I will think on it. I think I'll probably take out the one-use only stuff, though. - szilard
I think Wind-Brandishing Threat is too powerful, it should be simple. It has no use against 99% of mortals, but it's amazing against supernaturals (Exalts, Spirits, etc.) since it prevents them from splitting dice pools or using extra action charms to attack. It completely turns off the Air Immaculate of Doom (TM) and severely hampers other killing machines (like Foe Driving Attack, etc.) Maybe I'm totally off base with power levels, though, since one of the previous suggestions was to not let the target attack at all... - Myrlan
- I'm getting mixed messages here... -szilard
Since you're stuck using Wits, why not allow Essence dice added to Swirling Feather Block, and maybe raise the cost to 4 motes so it not as great for Lunars and DB. - Myrlan
- I don't see it as a 'stuck using Wits' - I see it as a 'if you have a really high Wits, this Style is for you.' The Form charm is low on defense, so I wanted to make sure I had a decent, relatively low-cost reflexive defense in there. -szilard
Taunting Wing Escape should be supplemental (comboable w/ other charms) and the target should only pursue their next action, and then only if there's no obvious danger (MAist floating over lava, etc.) - Myrlan
- Right-O. -szilard
Magpie's Deceptive Talon - hmmmm: no armor, -ess succ to all defenses, affect dematerialized, and cannot make attacks for a turn. I'd make it at least 10m 1w, no weapons allowed (or at least unarmed attacks only), maybe unarmored and Essence 4 or 5 Grasping the Ephemeral is pretty cool, maybe make it Instant or Special, and allow the user to spend 3 motes per turn to use tools for the special duration.
- Uh. It is just armor-piercing (like a target arrow). It doesn't ignore armor. It is also simple... and the only decent attack Charm in the tree. Do you really think it is that powerful? -szilard
Now the big one, there's really plenty of essence stealing charms already and I was really hoping the pinnacle would be closer to one of my favorite powers: Thieving Talons of the Magpie (Corax rank 5 gift (from WW's Werewolf system)), that would go something like this:
Magpie's Unwelcome Appropriation</b>
<b>Cost: 10 motes, 2 willpower, 2 health levels Duration: Instant Type: Simple Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min Essence: 5 Prereqs: Swirling Feather Block, Taunting Wing Escape, Grasping the Ephemeral
The user of this Charm must first touch the subject, requiring a successful unarmed attack if in combat. Then the character chooses any Charm that she can identify (either from seeing it's use, hearing about it's effect, etc.) of the target's with an essence requirement of 4 or less and that can be learned by an Eclipse. If there is no such Charm (the effect was not a charm, she was misinformed, the charm does not meet the requirements, etc.) then the target is instantly aware of the attempt, the location of the character, and feels extremely violated (will attempt to kill the offending character in the most effective and painful way possible). Otherwise, the character now has the chosen Charm and may use it regardless of prerequisites (although it never counts as a prerequisite), and the target may no longer activate it (though it still exists for meeting prerequisites) and doesn't realize anything has happened until he tries to use it. The stolen Charm remains until the character or target dies, the target pays the experience for the Charm again, or if at any time the character possesses more stolen charms than her essence, at which time the oldest (first stolen) Charm is lost. In all of these circumstances the stolen Charm is no longer usable by the character, and is possessed by the target again as before.
If this is too long or you don't like it, feel free to delete or ignore it. - Myrlan
- heh. There are some tricky issues with that one (like whether a Lunar should be able to steal shapechanging Charms with it). I'd actually expect it to be used more outside of combat than within it... which is something I generally try to stay away from when writing Martial Arts Charms. I might adopt to core of the idea, though... maybe limit it to Martial Arts Charms... must think on it - szilard
- I think the limits on what you can steal is fair, after all, even a Lunar using it still screws things up if he tries to steal another's DBT. I think the best use of it is in denying your enemy the use of his cooler charms (especially persistant defences) during or just before combat, but it certainly has other good applications. Appliying it only to MA charms would be cool, I'd make it cost 5 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 Health level, and Min Essence 4, can steal up to essence 5 MA charms excluding Sidereal. - Myrlan
- My thinking was that it could apply to any MA Charm that the target has that the martial artist knows the target has (either through seeing it in use or via CET) and that the martial artist has the ability/essence prerequisites for (which would, in general, be pretty much anything non-Sidereal and a few of the basic Sidereal ones). I was also thinking that the cost would be Min Essence of charm stolen x3 in motes and 2 Willpower... perhaps tacking this on as an 11th Charm in the tree... -szilard
