MartialArts/FlashGodStyle

Flash God Style is a Celestial MA style based on speed. It allows swords but no armor.
Made by Overshee

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Blistering Speed

   Cost: 2m
   Duration: Instant
   Type: Supplemental
   Keywords:
   Minima: MA 3, Essence 2
   Prereq. Charms: None

The practitioner of the style jumps into battle in a heartbeat, adding his MA of dice to his join battle roll.

Blinding Steps

   Cost: 2m
   Duration: One Scene
   Type: Reflexive
   Keywords: Stackable, Combo-OK
   Minima: MA 3, Essence 2
   Prereq. Charms: None

One who masters this charm moves so quickly that the space inbetween his steps disappears, flashing in and out of vision. Speed of the user is increased by 3x.

Torrential Blow

   Cost: 2m
   Duration: Instant
   Type: Supplemental
   Keywords: Combo-OK, Stackable
   Minima: MA 3, Essence 2
   Prereq. Charms: Blistering Speed, Blinding Steps

The Martial Artist blow leaves a spray of blood in its path. If the attack hits and deals at least 1L damage, an additional -1 penalty is applied to the victim. This can be done max of essence times.

Flash God Form

   Cost: 5m
   Duration: One Scene
   Type: Simple
   Keywords: Form
   Minima: MA 4 Essence 3
   Prereq. Charms: Torrential Blow

The Practitioner Starts by moving slowly, then gradually increases his speed. By the end of the kata his movements are a blur, then he stops, ready to fight. With activation of this charm, the character can increase his base movement speed by MA for the tick. This form also allows the user to dodge while surrounded, on difficult footing, and without describing his actions. Furthermore, all attacks against the character suffer a penalty equal to the character's essence. This is a form charm and as such using any other form charm will replace Flash God Form's benefits with the new form charm.

Blurring Slashes

   Cost: 1m per speed reduction
   Duration: One tick
   Type: Reflexive
   Keywords: Obvious, Combo-OK
   Minima: MA 4, Essence 3
   Prereq. Charms: Flash God Form

With this charm a martial artists sword moves like the summer wind. The practitioner can reduce the speed of his attacks for the tick by 1 per mote spent to a minimum of the speed of the weapon with the lowest speed in the flurry.

Fading Bat Evasion

   Cost: 4m
   Duration: Instant
   Type: Reflexive
   Keywords: Combo-OK
   Minima: MA 4, Essence 3
   Prereq. Charms: Flash God Form

The Martial Artist evades an attack so quickly that he is lost from his attacker's eyes. With a successful dodge roll the character's stealth roll versus the attackers spot roll, if successful suprise is reestablished.

Waterfall's Pounding Fall

   Cost: 3m
   Duration: Instant
   Type: Supplemental
   Keywords: Combo-OK
   Minima: MA 5, Essence 4
   Prereq. Charms: Blurring Slashes, Fading Bat Evasion

The practitioner's attacks come down on the victim mercilessly, pounding the victim until he is dazed and confused. While this attack deals bashing damage, the damage is doubled after soak, and with a successful attack, wound penalties are doubled.

Inertial Defense

   Cost: 3m
   Duration: Insant
   Type: Reflexive
   Keywords: Combo-OK
   Minima: MA 5, Essence 3
   Prereq. Charms: Blurring Slashes, Fading Bat Evasion

After successfully dodging an attack the practitioner can invoke this charm to make an unarmed counter attack at his normal dice pool, unmodified by weapons or armor. If you succeed with this test you immediately throw your opponent as though you had just won a clinch contest against him. The character is treated as prone and can make no further actions (besides reflexive charms) until his next tick. Furthermore, by spending one mote, the practitioner can flash step to the thrown individual on his next tick regardless of distance.

Dance of Flashing Blades

   Cost: 6m 1W
   Duration:Instant
   Type: Extra Action
   Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
   Minima: MA 5, Essence 5

The martial artist strikes from all directions, moving fast enough that he's only a blur between strikes. With this charm the Martial Artist makes six attacks at his full pool. The first tier consists of as many attacks as it would take to surround the target (for example, if the practitioner is the only person attacking there would be five attacks in the first tier, if there were two people surrounding the foe there would be four, three if there were three people surrounding the victim), these attacks are defended against normally. The second tier is the rest of the six attacks, these are counted as if unexpected and from behind (again, if the practitioner was attacking there would only be one, two if two people were surrounding, and so forth.).

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Comments and Questions

(You know you want to)

Now, I really do like the last charm. That being said... The rest of this style seems a bit "everything and everything a character would ever need", and feels overpowered. And it allows swords too. What level is this, hopefully celestial?

Fading Bat Evasion is extremely unclear, not sure what it's trying to do or what "success is re-established" means - detection is reestablished doesn't make sense, as it's stealth vs perception, as if you're trying to hide, so success would mean awareness is lost, wouldn't it? Anyway...

The form charm is extremely powerful. -MA dice (I assume it's -dice not +difficulty or -successes, but you should state) is pretty good on its own, being able to dodge while surrounded isn't bad, increasing speed by what ends up as quite a lot is another nice effect, and dodging on bad footing is a nice little finisher. In general, it's one of the nicer forms around - compare it to snake form, which adds MA to bashing soak and -Essence to all attacks, if they can see the practitioner.

Then we have blurring slashes, which is easily the best ma charm I've yet seen for second edition. Modifying the speed is a BIG thing. Modifying it for a whole flurry, for 1m per point, is a very big thing. It's combo okay, so you're free to use it with tons of nasty other MA charms, but the main thing is just how nasty speed 1 attacks are, they shouldn't be easy to get to.

As I said however, there are some nice ideas in here. Inertial defense is cool, and Dance of the Flashing Blades is just brilliant, and I think it's actually about right in powerscale terms, although anything essence 5 is always quite hard to judge.
-- Darloth

Yay! A response! Yes, it is celestial. That should say suprise is reestablished. I was running out of ideas so I based blurring slashes on flight of mercury, another MA charm. Do you have any ideas to replace it? Anyways, thanks for the input. Any other corrections you see? -- Overshee

A possible fix for Blurring Slashes - don't let it affect a whole flurry for one cost. Flurries have the Speed of the slowest action in them, so if this is to be allowed to affect flurries, perhaps it should have to buy down the speed of each action seperately. Alternately, simply put a stricter limit on how much the speed can be reduced. I would go with the second approach, myself, or possibly do both. For example: may only reduce by MA/2, round down, and must pay the cost for each action in a flurry. I'd also make it supplemental, to make sure it can only speed up MA attacks, not other actions included in a flurry with them. - IanPrice

Idea! How about it brings the speed of the flurry to the speed of the weapon with the lowest speed in the flurry. How much would that cost in motes and stuff? --Overshee

I'd still keep it at 1m/speed reduction, but that's a great idea for a limit. - IanPrice

Yay, I feel so... RPG mechanically good at life. --Overshee