Discussions/HundredRazorCircle

The Abyssal charm Hundred Razor Circle is oddly designed. It's a reflexive charm with a duration of 1 turn, but it is broken by actively dodging or attacking. As near as I can tell, that means that you can, at the beginning of the round, spend the essence to activate the charm and attack everyone within three yards of you, then declare a full dodge. As soon as someone attacks you, you can dodge, breaking the charm, and then immediately reactivate the charm to swing at everyone within reach once more. Or worse, you can split your die pool into four attacks, and declare "Razor Circle, swing, Razor Circle, swing, Razor Circle, swing" for a large number of attacks on a single target.

Is this the way the charm was intended? Does playing the charm this way make it overpowered? We house-ruled it so you can only attack someone once per, unless the exit your range and reenter it, but you can reactivate the charm as often as you need. Is that a good enough fix, or is there a better way?

Also, what does 'Actively dodging' mean? Can you keep this charm up and not break it using Incomperable Shadow Form, a 'passive' dodge? HOw about Fluttering Moth Defense?

This charm confuses me :{

--Reyemile

As an ST, I'd rule that using the charm the way you've described above, is an abuse of the system. It should probably either only be activated once per turn, or be unable to attack someone who never left the range once per turn. Unfortunately, I don't have my book on me right now, so I can't give a better explanation.
--DarkWolff

Reading the Charm, I would rule that it can only be used once per turn. I think it is a Reflexive charm because in order for it to be useful, you need to be able to put it up before your initiative. - szilard who thinks there ought to be a separate charm type for reflexive once-per-turn charms...

This Charm simply shows that Neph's Charm design is not all it is cracked up to be. - willows

I have no idea why it's Reflexive. However, I believe that 'actively' refers to 'attack;' in other words, this Charm does not break itself, nor do persistant damaging effects (if this Charm were activated while a character was under the duration of Heart-Stopping Mien, for instance). In theory, another Melee Charm that provided an automatic conditional attack (the condition on this one being 'moves within range') would likewise not break the Charm, but one that simply provides extra actions that the player may choose the effects of would. Any sort of dodge breaks the Charm- it's just a poorly written sentence. It's also pretty obvious that, as szilard says, the designer was on crack when s/he wrote it as Reflexive. I'd write it as Simple with the mechanical text, "The player may activate this Charm at any point during the turn, even before her initiative." If I wanted to be sneaky and allow really fast Abyssals to make a standard attack in the turn, I'd write it as Reflexive with the text, "This Charm may only be activated once per turn." And if I wanted to be uber and give Abyssals lots of free circle attacks, I'd make it an Ess 4 Charm with about five pre-reqs with original peony-blossom-ish text (8 motes, +1 mote per activation) or a Willpower cost. $.02 &Arafelis

Ah.. I run it another way. it's reflecive, because you cn kick it in /before/ your initiative: however, It lasts for the entire turn, which I read as meaning until your /next/ initiative. And as far as I'm concerned, you /can't/ attack, dodge, or move more than 1 yard per turn in that turn: not that doing so shuts the charm down.. You just /can't/ do it. What you /can/ do, though, is declare full parry. Used like /that/, it makes perfect sense. - Molikai

I agree, with a caveat. If memory serves correctly, there was no full parry when E:tA was written. I imagine the idea was that you would throw up persistent defenses and then activate hundred razor circle. I imagine the persistent dodge (Incomparable Phantom Form, was it?), or any other effect that did not require the character to make any physical effort, would be compatible with it. Of course, if you're using PG rules or have a full-parry-with-classic-combat rule, that's always dandy. ~ WaiyaddoNoDan

Dodges are explicitly forbidden by the Charm. Full dodge, therefore, wouldn't be an option; nor would some of the persistant defence charms. Full Parry is probably a minor exploitation of the Charm, but one that bothers me much less than n full-circle attacks per round. It is possible that Phantom Form (turning the character partially incorporeal) may still allow 'passive' persistant dodges if one's reading of the Charm indicates such are permissible. As cool as the idea of phantom form/flow like blood are, the mechanics of 'dodging *partly* by passing through' can be a real headache at times. - Arafelis notes that 'full turn' typically means 'till next Initiative roll' unless otherwise specified.