MartialArts/FerretStyle
Ferret Style
By Falcon
Background
Ferret Style martial arts were first developed as part of a Solar's Tiger-Warrior Training Technique - when faced with the challenge of teaching a group of children how to defend themselves from attack, the unnamed Solar spontaneously invented a style of fighting which focussed on speed and mobility for defence, and a combination of grapples and holds utilising pressure points for offence. He later developed the style more fully and pioneered a number of charms to increase its effects.
Users of Ferret Style may wield knives as martial arts weapons, representing the ferret's sharp teeth.
Charms
Slinking Ferret Escape</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 2 Min. Essence: 1 Prereqs: None
By moving with the energy of the ferret he seeks to emulate, the martial artist may more easily twist free of the grapples of his enemies.
When this charm is activated, the character may make a single attempt to break free of a clinch or hold, adding their martial arts in extra dice to the opposed roll. This charm may only be used once per turn.
Flashing Ferret Speed</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Duration: One turn Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 2 Min. Essence: 1 Prereqs: None
The ferret is known for its blinding speed. By studying the way a panicked (or frenzied) ferret moves, the martial artist may learn to increase his own speed and reaction time.
By activating this charm, the character adds their martial arts to their movement rate and half their martial arts (rounded down) to their initiative for the turn. This charm may only be activated once per turn.
Cornered Ferret Tenacity</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 3 Min. Essence: 1 Prereqs: None
A trapped and endangered ferret is a dangerous thing. After some time getting savaged by tormented ferrets, a martial artist may learn how to turn his panic into an advantage.
When this charm is activated, it boosts the character's bashing and lethal soaks by his Conviction score for the purposes of soaking a single attack. At the Storyteller's discretion, it may fail if the character's opponent is insufficiently threatening.
Savage Ferret's Grip</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 3 Min. Essence: 2 Prereqs: Slinking Ferret Escape, Cornered Ferret's Tenacity
The wild ferret has an almost supernatural sense of how to best apply its limited strength to create maximum grip. With further experience, the ferret style martial artist learns this useful technique.
You may activate this charm whenever someone successfully escapes from one of your clinches or holds. You may make an immediate Dexterity + Martial Arts roll to try and re-establish a clinch or hold.
Ferret Mauls Yeddim</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Martial Arts: 4 Min. Essence: 2 Prereqs: Savage Ferret's Grip
By combining his previous observations of ferret leverage when grappling and ferret tenacity when cornered, the more advanced student may successfully tackle much larger and stronger opponents than himself.
Any clinch or hold attack made using this charm may do lethal damage at the attacker's option. In addition, the attacker may sustain his grip with a single limb - one hand, one foot, even with his teeth - due to careful manipulation of essence and pressure points.
Nimble Ferret's Flight</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 4 Min. Essence: 1 Prereqs: Slinking Ferret Escape, Flashing Ferret Speed
Take your eyes off a ferret for one second and he's gone, never to be seen again until he's chewing on something you'd rather he didn't chew on. This technique can also be learned by the dedicated martial artist.
You may activate this charm to dodge an incoming attack using your full Dexterity + Martial Arts pool. If you successfully avoid the attack you may immediately move a number of yards equal to the extra successes you got on your dodge roll, to a maximum of your normal move.
Example: Mask Of Winters levels a ridiculous Underworld kung-fu move at Nine, but only gets two successes because my friend Alistair is rolling his attack. Nine uses Nimble Ferret's Flight and gets seventeen successes on his dodge. Deciding his luck might not hold, Nine uses his fifteen yards of free movement to run away, out the door, down the stairs and off of Juggernaught's pointy head. Sensible man.
Ferret Form</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes Duration: Scene Type: Simple Min. Martial Arts: 4 Min. Essence: 2 Prereqs: Ferret Mauls Yeddim, Nimble Ferret's Flight
The character adopts the stance of a combat-ready ferret, a hypertense ball of nerves and vicious edges, ready to snap into action or away from danger with supernatural speed.
The character may add their martial arts score to their initiative while using this form. In addition, once per turn they may add their martial arts to their Dexterity for a single roll. These count as bonus dice from charms, not natural Dex dice (so Lunars are out of luck).
Finally, whenever the character blocks an attack using his martial arts, he may immediately begin a hold or clinch using his extra successes as the base successes on the hold/clinch roll.
Biting Ferret Ferocity</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: Ferret Form
Few things are as feared as a frenzied ferret inside your clothes. Although not able to literally duplicate this feat, a potent martial artist may still learn from these principles and use essence manipulation to attack his opponent's vulnerable points regardless of anything they may use to cover them.
Any clinch attack enhanced with this charm gets the characters martial arts in additional dice to the damage roll, and this damage may not be soaked by armour.
Rabid Ferret Frenzy</b>
<b>Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower, probably some health levels Duration: Instant Type: Extra Action Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: Ferret Form
By briefly altering his essence to resonate with ferrets across Creation, the martial artist gains some measure of their speed and psychosis. While under the influence of this charm, a martial artist can display incredible speed and savagery, but they usually suffer as a result.
Roll Dexterity + Martial Arts. Each success is an action you must take this turn. Note that if you roll no successes you just stand there, twitching a bit. All actions you take must be devoted either entirely to attacking or entirely to fleeing.
If you take more actions using this charm than you have dots of Essence, each action costs you one bashing health level (paid after the action is completed) as you overtax your body.
Wily Ferret's Evasion</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min. Essence: 2 Prereqs: Ferret Form
Trying to catch a ferret who doesn't want to be caught is a nearly impossible task, and can lead to all sorts of injuries and collateral damage, not to mention making the catcher look ridiculous. Such is also the ability of the practicioner of ferret style.
When this charm is activated, the character may immediately dodge an incoming attack with his Dexterity + Dodge + Martial Arts. If the dodge is successful, the martial artist's anima lashes out and throws the attacker exactly as described under 'Throw' on p240 of the Exalted book.
Note that as the anima does the throwing, the martial artist need make no physical contact with his opponent, simply dodging aside and letting his attacker go flying into something solid.
Comments
This is way cool.\\ Should Cornered Ferret's Tenacity maybe add Valor instead though? Just a thought. VERY cool concept.\\ ~*~Braydz~*~
Falcon - I'll leave it for now, because I see the charm more as focussed panic than actual bravery, but it's certainly a thought.
Gotcha.\\ It was just a musing, and with that line of thinking you've got me sold on Conviction.\\ Seeing the new charms, man. I continue to really like this style.\\ ~*~Braydz~*~
Not done looking this over, but I'm amused. Yay for ferrets. (I told you I owned 7 when I was younger, right?)\\ Re: the Conviction thing, I'm not sure utilizing Virtues in this MA style is a good idea, but I haven't yet thought of a better thing to add. It's just that this style in particular doesn't really seem very Virtue-focused. And ferrets as animals aren't particularly Virtue-focused / Virtue-symbolic, either, so it sort of jars.\\
- Falcon - I know, but it's the most appropriate thing I can think of.
Re: Ferret Form: "These count as bonus dice from charms, not natural Dex dice (so Lunars are out of luck)." -- Characters using Martial Arts Charms are explicitly allowed to double their Dexterity + Martial Arts dice pools, no matter what type they are (unless they're DBs, I think). So ... I guess my question is, does that ruling apply to this Form? I mean obviously people wouldn't be able to double their other total dice pools, but what if they're adding to a Dexterity + MA roll?\\
- Falcon - As in... if you have a dice adder for martial arts somewhere, you can use it to get Dex + Dex + Martial Arts + Martial Arts, but you can't stack it with Ferret Form's power to get Dex + Dex + Dex + Martial Arts + Martial Arts. The rule about doubling dice pools applies to all dice from charms.
Also, why do you have Ferret Form so far up in the tree? Generally, animal styles have a lower Form-type Charm, don't they?\\
- F - I don't know, I wasn't looking.
I think you should add a Charm which duplicates the ferret's most dangerous attack, i.e. their ability to leap upon an opponent more than three times their size and seize its neck with their sharp little teeth and break it. That would be doomy. And exciting :)\\
- Well, you could combo Biting Ferret Ferocity with Ferret Mauls Yeddim and Savage Ferret's Grip. That's about 11 dice of lethal damage that bypasses armour, and any time your opponent tries to escape you can just reflexively start again - even easier if you're already doing the form. You'll run out of essence and willpower quite quickly, but it's a nasty attack. Or you can just use FMY to render someone helpless with your foot and then stab them to death or something.
~ Shataina\\ PS: Did I ever tell you about the time my mother put on her pants ... oh er <cough ahem stupid brits ahem> trousers ... in the morning and found a frenzied ferret in them? Hilarity ensued.
Very Nice Grapple-focused tree, my current character will be picking this up and comboing it heavily with Dawn Fist =) ~BrigandRansom
