Charms/AlecAustinSnakeForm
Revised Snake Style
By AlecAustin
Background
Maybe it's power creep, maybe it's just that so many of its charms are either overpriced or speed bumps, or maybe it's the fact that a soak-focused sorceror gets more out of it than a martial artist, but most of the people I play with can't stand Snake Form as written in the core book. This revision is our attempt to put it on par with Tiger Form, Ebon Shadow Form, and the other Celestial-level martial arts out there.
None of the Charms of Revised Snake Form are compatible with armor, and all charm-enhanced attacks or counterattacks must be made unarmed.
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Charms
Striking Cobra Technique</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Min. Martial Arts: 2
Min. Essence: 1
Prereqs: None
The character adds their Martial Arts to their initiative for the remainder of the scene. This Charm only confers its benefit if the character is unarmed, layers with Snake Form, and does not layer with its own effects.
Serpentine Evasion</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: One Scene
Type: Reflexive
Min. Martial Arts: 3
Min. Essence: 2
Prereqs: Striking Cobra Technique
By invoking this Charm, the character adds their Essence in dice to all dodge attempts for the remainder of the scene. These dice are reflexive, and grant the character a dodge pool equal to their Essence to evade any attack so long as they are aware of it.
Snake Form</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 4
Min. Essence: 2
Prereqs: Serpentine Evasion
The character adds their Martial Arts score to their initiative and their bashing soak. Enemies attacking the character or defending against their unarmed strikes subtract a number of dice from their pools equal to the Exalted’s Essence.
Characters cannot normally gain the benefits of more than a single Form-type Charm at a time.
Essence Fangs and Scales</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 2
Prereqs: Snake Form
The character’s unarmed attacks deal lethal damage for the remainder of the scene, and the character may soak lethal damage with her bashing soak. In addition, the character adds their Essence to their unarmed damage.
Armor-Penetrating Fang Strike</b>
Unchanged.
<b>Snake Strikes the Heel</b>
Unchanged.
<b>Crippling Pressure-Point Strike</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 2
Prereqs: Snake Strikes the Heel
The unarmed attack enhanced by this Charm bypasses armor and cannot harm its victim directly, though damage is rolled as normal. For every health level of damage the attack would have inflicted, the victim loses one die from all their pools, to a maximum of the Exalted’s Essence. These penalties last a number of turns equal to the character’s Martial Arts, but whenever they are about to expire, the character may spend 3 motes to extend the charm’s effects for another (Martial Arts) turns. Multiple applications of Crippling Pressure Point Strike do not stack.
Uncoiling Serpent Prana</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 3
Prereqs: Snake Form
Effects are as per the core book, but last for the scene.
Striking Serpent Speed</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Extra Action
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 3
Prereqs: Uncoiling Serpent Prana
If the character chooses to, they may roll twice their Essence in dice, gaining an additional action for every success they garner. If they choose not to roll, they gain a number of extra actions equal to their Essence. These actions are not restricted to unarmed attacks or even Martial Arts actions.
Essence Venom Strike</b>
<b>Cost: 10 motes, 2 willpower, 1 health level
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 4
Prereqs: Armor-Penetrating Fang Strike, Crippling Pressure-Point Strike, Striking Serpent Speed
The character infuses their fingers with a curl of poisonous Essence, tainting the Essence of whomever they strike. They make a Martial Arts attack as normal, save that the strike is silent and invisible, and cannot be avoided unless the victim is able to defend against attacks they are unaware of. If the character contacts their victim, they may choose to either deal damage immediately or to delay the attack’s effects by up to (Essence x 5) minutes. If they choose the latter option, their victim and those around them remain unaware of the attack until their essence curdles in their veins and they begin hemorraghing blood or other appropriate vital fluids from their pores.
The attack enhanced by Essence Venom Strike deals aggravated damage, and the character adds their Essence in dice to the damage roll.
Comments
Well, i only speak for myself, but i really like this version of the snake-style much better then the canon version. I do not think your version is vastly overpowered and definitly more on par with the other celestial lvl MAs Teddy-K
I think it still needs work. You've converted over half the style into scene-long Charms to stack atop eachother. That isn't bad, but it's not the best idea either. More instant Charms are a good idea. - Telgar
Actually, there were only 2 instant-to-scenelong conversions, and Striking Cobra Technique is still instant, it just has effects that last the scene. Only half the tree layers, and those parts that do were chosen deliberately to offset the advantages of armed & armored opponents. Speed a problem? SCT & the Form have you covered. Soak is the Form and Essence Fangs and Scales. Damage is EFaS and the various armor-avoiding charms. Range is Uncoiling Serpent Prana.
I'd be interested in hearing more about the rationale behind your argument, but a bald declaration that more instant charms would be good doesn't particularly move me. -AlecAustin
- Martial Arts are all about having hot Combos. You totally want to inflict White Sun Sickness and Jigsaw Organ Condition with your horrible Essence-bleeding Maw of Dripping Venom, don't you? Making Charms long makes this impossible, thus sucking down 'coolness factor'.
- Martial Arts combat is all about using your cool 'special moves' at appropriate times in combat. When you make long Charms, this becomes more difficult; each one commits more Essence, cutting away options and thus making you less cool.
- There's also a charming feeling to whipping out that ten-yards-distant attack that your opponent thinks you can't do (by the way, I think this is really the cornerstone of Snake Style's coolness) that is lost when you had to stand around for a turn meditating to uncoil your anima into loops of writhing Essence python several turns earlier (not that that isn't cool.) Losing surprise effects is bad.
In summation, long Charms are a thing for other types of combat - ritual combat and assassination, anything where you have time to prepare. When half the Charms of a Style are scenelong, there's much less opportunity to surprise your opponent with your cool kungfu, because you're so busy putting up Charms that you don't get o do any kungfu. Ew. - FourWillowsWeeping
Mm, I can see that argument. I still wouldn't change the bulk of the early charms, but of them, only 2 are really required for a Snake-Form martial artist (the form and Essence Fangs and Scales-- the initiative boost is comboable and Serpentine Evasion is just gravy). And then I'd offer an alternate Uncoiling Serpent Prana as per the core book, but priced at 1 or 2 motes, for those who wanted it.
Thoughts? -AlecAustin
I'm going to be more aggressive than is characteristic and say I think this style is a crutch style for people with poor tactics. Snake Style as it stands is pretty darn good if used properly. I see this as "Snake Style for Novices". While I do agree that Snake style could use some revision, I don't think these are the revisions I'd want to see. -- DaveFayram
Okay, that I'm just going to have to disagree with. Snake Style as it stands is grossly underpowered compared to the other trees in the core book; just because it _can_ be useful doesn't mean that it's not weak compared to other comparable trees. I am somewhat curious as to what changes you would suggest, but the purpose of the redesign, which I may not have stated explicitly enough above, was to allow the unarmored MA character to go toe to toe with armed and armored characters and have a fighting chance without tossing in a mountain of Resistance Charms or Invulnerable Skin of Bronze. -AlecAustin
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Celestial MA will always, always, ALWAYS be weaker than Solar charms. Congratulations, you've hit the Solar MAist dilemma on the head. For Solars, MA only makes sense as an investment for people who don't intend to spend much on combat, but still need to keep their heads above water. Celestial MA is kinda crappy, for Solars. It's great for Lunars and it's pretty nice for Sidereals. For DBs, the charms are stronger! But they in no way hit Solar/Abyssal levels. Check it out, every published MA charm in the celestial category is significantly weaker than the Solar equivalent. The advantage is you get a lot of variety in your charms without having to dig into several trees (and thusly spend more points on abilities).
The disadvantage is the charms suck in comparison to what Solars and Abyssals get from their natural ability charms. This is the case with all Celestial MA, not just Snake.
-- DaveFayram
Now I'm gonna have to disagree here. I think that if you look at Mantis, or Ebon Shadow, or Tiger, or Hungry Ghost or what have you, they're pretty much universally better than Snake Style. For instance, most of then don't rely on your having Dodge as heavily as Snake does. Ebon Shadow actually strikes me as just "Snake Form and then some, and tuned up a little too." I dunno, I'm really curious to hear exactly how Snake Style can stack up against Ebon Shadow or really any of the published Celestial styles. I'm open to convincing, though. I agree, however, that this revision has a few too many persistents for my tastes. - SilverMeerKat
One of the problems that white wolf runs into a lot is power creep. DaveFayram is right in that Celestial MA are supposed to be weaker than Solar/Abyssal charms because they're just Celestial. But WW keeps coming out with more powerful stuff. Compare Solar to Abyssal brawl. Abyssals got cooler stuff, hands down. Now take Martial Arts, which is the "weird" ability in this game. It's a unarmed combat ability. Cool. It's also got charms for soaking, increasing damage directly, dodging, leaping, and even making your fallen enemy's lower soul rise from the grave to serve your whim. If you let people take this strange ability and extrapolate from it you will end up with wonky shit. And, true to form, it's become wonkier and wonkier as time passed. Snake form was really cool when it came out. Mooks had no hope of hitting you. Flow like blood was even cooler, and you had a relatively cheap way to dodge with an ok pool even if you had no dodge ability. But, when everything got cooler over time, snake style came to be not as cool. So they changed it in the PG. Yeah, it's cooler, but Ebon Shadow vs Snake is still mostly a foregone conclusion. If snake had a die-remover other than the form it would be more likely to defeat other MAs. I think I've rambled far enough from the point, though, which is that MA are supposed to be weaker than Solar charms, but they're also supposed to be more versitile. because of WWs power creep, though, they often end up being as powerful or even more powerful. as well as more versitile. That's all for now -TzalFlameforge
