MartialArts/DevilEyeStyle

Devil Eye Style

History

This martial art was the life long work of a Solar by the name of Anorak “Shield of the Sun” Bitrab during the glorious times of the First Age. Every Master of this martial art knows its origins and only teaches it to fellow Solar’s. During the second age, this has usually been restricted to one master at a time. But now that the Empress is gone, a Master of this style has brought it to a village where the Cult of the Illuminated reside. It is his hope that it will be revived fully in the Second Age and bring honor to the name of Anorak.

This martial art does not allow for any armor to be worn and has no favored weapon.

Student Charms

Intent Sensing Awareness

 Cost: Permanent
 Duration: Special
 Type: Special
 Min MA: 1
 Min Essence: 1
 Prereqs: None

The student is trained to become aware at all times for any attack from the people around him. His masters will randomly attack the student for no reason or provocation. All students are encouraged as well to randomly attack their fellow students. It makes the character intimately aware of someone’s body language and how to read it. The student that masters this charm can no longer be surprised without the use of charms from the people he is aware of.

Snap Devil Technique

 Cost: 3 motes
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Refexive
 Min MA: 2
 Min Essence: 2
 Prereqs: Intent Sensing Awareness

The students reactions are trained to become exceptionally faster than any other martial artists. Their masters expel those that cannot understand these teachings. However, those that do attain the understanding of the lesson and develop this technique are fearsome martial artists. The martial artists awareness of body language is heightened to supernatural levels. He is able to hold his declaration till all have declared what they are going to do. However, he still acts on his initiative turn.

Soft Hand Tap

 Cost: 3 motes
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Simple
 Min MA: 3
 Min Essence: 3
 Prereqs: None

Although this technique is simplistic in nature, it is taught last before the form style. Being able to read your opponent is important, but so is the ability to damage him. Devil Eye Style is all about the soft hits in the right areas of the body. The martial artist does not randomly target an open are of his victims body. He chooses where he wants to hit and he makes sure it is going to hurt. The Martial Artist ignores all the soak of his opponent and automatically does only one level of lethal damage that can not be soaked. Any other damage modifiers are ignore and only only that one level of lethal damage is inflicted.

Devil Eye Style

 Cost: 8 motes + 1 wp
 Duration: One Scene
 Type: Simple
 Min MA: 4
 Min Essence: 4
 Prereqs: Soft Hand Tap, Snap Devil Technique

Those lucky few who show the aptitude to gain the full understanding of the style undergo a profound change in both mentally, physically, and in awareness. The first notable change is the martial artist’s eyes. A Solar’s eyes become gold and radiate a small amount of light. A Sidereal’s eyes become an unsettling violet that makes one glance away from his stare. A Lunar’s eyes become a reflective silver. A Dragon Blooded should he be able to master his own essence to learn this martial art, their eyes become a shade of the greenest jade.

Following that, the world of essence opens up to the martial artist and they are able to see beyond the flesh and how it dictates the actions of their opponent. They are able to anticipate their opponents actions based on how the essence shifts in the body. The martial artist double their base initiative score. They also infuse their body and mind with essence allowing them half their essence rating in Independent actions (rounded down by standard white wolf rules). Each action happens at 2 ticks from his initial initiative score.

Note: This for is incompatible with any other form style including Prismatic Creation Style and any charm that allows extra actions.

Ten Devil Evasion

 Cost: 5 motes
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Reflexive
 Min MA: 5
 Min Essence: 4
 Prereqs: Devil Eye Style

The Master of Devil Eye Style is extremely hard to hit. With their intimate understanding of how the essence flows from attacks gives them an outlandish advantage. This charm has two options. If the attack does not have any essence enhancing the action, the Master doubles his dodge pool against the attack. If the attack is enhanced by essence then he doubles the number of success he had for the dodge.

Wound Avoiding Trick

 Cost: 5 motes + 1 wp
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Reflexive
 Min MA: 5
 Min Essence: 4
 Prereqs: Ten Devil Evasion

A Master of this style knows what he can do and when an attack is sure to hit. With this charm he is able to minimize the damage he takes to his body to one level of damage. He does this by using the essence in his body to turn the damage to nothing more than a glancing blow delivered by his opponent.

Devil Needle Attack

 Cost: 4 motes
 Duration: One turn
 Type: Supplement
 Min MA: 4
 Min Essence: 4
 Prereqs: Devil Eye Style

The Master is a deadly machine with his perception beyond flesh, he can damage an opponent internally. Using his own essence like a scalpel, he cuts the muscles under the skin with but a touch. If the attack lands, the Master rolls his martial art score and that becomes a dice penalty to physical actions. Heal time is the dice penalty in days and in weeks if the opponent was a mortal. There is no physical signs of damage being done since the damage is internal.

Breaking of Ones Dreams

 Cost: 10 motes
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Simple
 Min MA: 5
 Min Essence: 5
 Prereqs: Devil Needle Attack

The mobility and strength of an opponent is one of the targets of a Master of the Devil Eyes Style. This technique simply reverses the nerves that control the function of strength or mobility. The charm is disorients the victim and they need to spend at least 10 rounds minus their essence to relearn how to control their own body. Even after that they are clumsy in the use of their own body. Halve the victims die pool for a number of days equal to the Masters Essence.

Organ Suffocation Strike

 Cost: 8 motes + 1 wp
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Simple
 Min MA: 5
 Min Essence: 5
 Prereqs: Breaking of Ones Dreams

There is a rule that is handed down from Master to Master concerning the use of this charm. It is never to be used against a mortal opponent. Even still, a Master is reluctant to unleash this vicious attack on his opponent. With a simple strike, the Master snakes his own essence into the body of his victim and wraps it around his opponent and explodes doing 1 level of aggravated unsoakable damage to the opponent. The effects are immediate to any Exalt as they are paralyzed for a number of turns equal to the Masters Essence. Any mortal who falls victim to this charm is killed instantly as soon as the organ is destroyed.

Heaven Sealing Technique

 Cost: 20 motes + 1 wp
 Duration: Instant
 Type: Simple
 Min MA: 6
 Min Essence: 6
 Prereqs: Organ Suffocating Strike

This is the pinnacle of the Devil Eye Style and one of the most legendary abilities of the style. This dangerous charm was developed after much research into the very nature of the Exalted Shards. There is no recording of this charm ever being preformed, but every Master agrees that this charm does exist. Masters share their understanding of how this charm is suppose to work with other Masters even if they have never practiced using it.

Simply put, after a successful strike, a cocoon of essence embodies the victim. The Master concentrates on a complex series of hand gestures that vary depending on the type of Exalted Shard they are trying to seal. The Master and the opponent roll a contested Essence check. If the Master wins, then the shard is successfully sealed. If he loses, then he takes the number of successes that the opponent had in aggravated damage. The Master must commit a permanent Essence dot. So long as it stays committed, the victim may never channel essence to power charms or spells.

Comments

I've gotta say, this has some really cool effects in it. I'm guessing that yes, it may be a bit overpowered, but still, you've got ideas and effects in here that are quite nice, as they differ greatly from 'standard' Exalted mechanics, but still seem so natural. If anyone wanted to go over this style with a 'balance' comb, it's got some great ideas. - GregLink

I agree, very nice ideas :). And though I'm a *real* newb when it comes to balance in Exalted I'll give it a try ...

Intent Sensing Awareness - the description seems to imply that this charm workd mainly by understanding body language, but 'not being surprised' also includes ambushes, etc. Also does it count against the one charm per round? It should probably be compared to Surprise Anticipation Method, which is Ess 2.
Soft Hand Tap - this is really a bit too much. 'Armor Penetrating Fang Strike' in comparison costs 4m +1wp, requires MA 5, is a post-form charm and only ignores armor soak, not ALL soak. Maybe the attack could deal piercing damage instead, halving armor bonus?
Devil Eye Style - Mmhh, CMoS Form (MA 5, Ess 5) gives only three independant actions. True, they are are specified as *fully* independant, but if there's a difference it eludes me at the moment. Maybe increasing movement speed and toning down the number of available actions would help?
Wound Avoiding Trick - Comparing it to VBoS's Death Parrying Stroke I'd say that the wp cost is a little high in this case. Maybe up the mote cost a little in exchange.
Breaking of Ones Dreams - At Ess 5 this charm has a right to be powerful, but somehow the flat out 'you get hit, you are fucked' irritates me - maybe a difficult stamina+resistance roll or something like that to avoid being helpless?

Also Snap Devil Technique should be reflexive and Devil Eye Style should have a scenelong duration, going by the standards of MA forms, but that's details. I hope, I'm being constructive ... --Dakkareth

Hey, thanks for the replies and the encouragement. Below is some of my reasoning to the replies you made Dakkareth.

• Intent Sensing Awareness - The premise of this charm is that he is aware of the people he see's infront of him. He is still susceptable to ambushes. It is more like he is facing off someone and can not be caught flat footed. I added the conditional words that state that he has to be aware of the person.
• Soft Hand Tap - I thought that only specifying that dealing one level of damage would be an okay trade off of halve damage and minimum damage rules. Or should I change it to a piercing damage attack?
• Devil Eye Style - The idea that this form style only did an initative bonous and the independant actions that I could lower the MA requirement and limiting the use any other extra actions charms also helped justify the lower essence cost. But, Independant Actions verse Extra Actions comes down to being able to split your actions. Independant Actions can be split into multiple actions. And even at Essence 5 .. my version gives you 2 Independant Actions with the standard White Wolf rounding rules. I did change the duration. That was a typo from the standard cut and paste. Sorry. I should have edited better.
• Wound Avoiding Trick - The basis of this charm was Adament Skin Technique which is 5m+1wp+1HL to negate all damage and requires Ess 5 and Res 3. So all i did was increase the essence requirement for the charm. Honestly, probably need to increase the motes.
• Breaking Ones Dreams - mechanically, for 10 motes, I thought that having a hit and then an effects roll was a bit to risky for the player. Granted, you are right, you get hit and your screwed. However. I think that since I balanced this MA with no dice adders that most people have a good chance of dodging most attacks.

-- Savare

Intent Sensing Awareness - I thought so, but it wasn't clear in the first version. ;)

Soft Hand Tap - I interpreted your wording as 'ignores armor and does an automatic HL of damage IN ADDITION to the normal damage, which apparently was not at all what you meant. If it also implies, that ONLY 1 HL is dealt, it gets a lot better. It's essentially a smaller version of Life-Severing Blow and has great flavor. Of course it's more powerful in Classic than in Power Combat.

Devil Eye Style - As written it gives you *Essence* independant actions. I presume from your comment, that it should be Ess/2? And are 'fully independant actions' and 'independant actions' the same? There was an article about here on the wiki somewhere ...

Wound Avoiding Trick - Mmhh. On a second thought you're probably right. It is somewhat of a perfect effect, isn't it? And those can be costly ...

Breaking Ones Dreams - It's more of a philosophical thing, there should always be a way to partially evade an effect. If you made it 10-(Stamina+Resistance), minimum of 1 for example, it would still be very powerful, but mitigatable, if you channel a virtue, use special charms, etc. Or allow spending wp to act anyway. Or something like that.

And by the way, with a name like that Breaking Ones Dreams should have some special effect against Fair Folk ... ;) --Dakkareth

I went ahead and reworded Soft Hand Tap to signify that there is only one level of damage no matter what and that no other damage modifier is able to alter the effect of the charm. Also changed the form style to read as Essence divided by two. Also I had reworded Breaking Ones Dream. I think it is at an acceptable level now. I dont know about that Fair Folk effect. I do not exactly care for how Fair Folk work. But I couldnt think of another name for the charm. Originally I had written it up a version of the charm that eats away at the willpower of the opponent. But I had decided that it had gone against the theme of the style. But thank you Dakkareth for your comments and you help. -- Savare