FrivYeti/PCECharcoalMarch
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Charcoal March of Spiders
The concepts and symbols of the Charcoal March of Spiders are as listed in Scroll of the Monk; as such, they will not be reprinted here.
Limitations
Characters must have an Athletics score of 3 and a Conviction score of 2 to learn Charcoal March of Spiders. They must have Conviction 3 to learn Charcoal March of Spiders Form, and Conviction 4 to learn Pattern Spider Bite.
Charcoal March of Spiders treats knives and seven-section staves as form weapons. It cannot be used in armor.
Charms
Student's Sutra of Consumption: Once there was a small maiden, whose skill was great enough to climb a whirlwind over water.
Unnatural Many-Step Stride</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower, Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4, Type: Simple (Speed 4) Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Emotion Duration: One Scene Prerequisites: None Arrows fell upon her, forcing her to descend...
The character's hunger drives her, and she takes the mantle of a scuttling creature that portends death for its victims. While under the effects of this Charm, the character moves on her hands and feet, elbows and knees splayed like a spider. Paradoxically, this gives her greater freedom of motion, allowing her to balance on the thinnest and most fragile surface (up to the density of quicksand or mud) and increasing her Move and Dash speeds by her Essence. In addition, the character's horrible mien inspires panic in its observers - anyone watching must succeed at a Valor roll each action, or else be able to do nothing except Guard or take movement actions away from the threat they face. Succeeding on a number of Valor rolls equal to the character's Essence rating ends the Emotion effect on that target.
Maw Of Dripping Venom</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes, Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4, Type: Supplemental Keywords: Combo-OK, Poison Duration: (Essence) actions Prerequisites: None ...but the Essence burning within her set the arrows afire.
The martial artist drives her fangs into her prey, tainting their Essence with deadly poison. This Charm supplements a normal Martial Arts attack. If the attack succeeds in dealing any dice of post-soak damage, the target's Essence is poisoned. At the end of every action in which they spend Personal Essence, they must succeed on a Stamina + Integrity roll at a difficulty of the character's Martial Arts. If they fail the roll, they lose Peripheral motes equal to the number of Personal motes spent (this does not cause their anima to grow). Furthermore, at the end of every action in which they spend Peripheral Essence, they must make the same roll, or else lose that many Personal motes. If either mote pool is reduced to 0, failing the roll costs the character a single point of Willpower; if she has no Willpower remaining, there is no further effect. If a target is hit by the Charm a second time, the duration is reset.
Nest of Living Strands</b>
<b>Cost: 12 motes, 1 Willpower, Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4, Type: Simple (Speed 5) Keywords: Obvious, Combo-Basic, Crippling Duration: One Scene Prerequisites: None She answered the arrows' flight with a storm of her own...
The character sends hundreds of thin strands of Essence from her hands and mouth, surrounding her in a nearly-invisible web of Essence that tangles those who dare to approach the character too closely.
Anyone who comes within (Essence x5) yards of the character becomes entangled in her webbing. Each action, they must roll a reflexive (Strength or Dexterity + Athletics) in order to tear through or avoid the strands, with a difficulty of the Sidereal's Essence rating. Every success that they fail the roll by becomes an external penalty to their physical actions and movement rates. These successes are cumulative. If a character leaves the webbed area, penalties drop at a rate of 2 per action spent outside of the web.
The character may choose to exempt anyone from being affected by this web. If so, the tiny strands weave apart to leave them room, as they do for the character herself.
Charcoal March of Spiders Form</b>
<b>Cost: 12 motes, 1 Willpower, Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5, Type: Simple Keywords: Obvious, Form Duration: One Scene Prerequisites: Unnatural Many-Step Stride, Maw of Dripping Venom, Nest of Living Strands ... and the maiden began to climb again.
The character learns the principles of consumption, and her elegant movements allow her to focus on many objectives at once as she moves with the grace of a master. The character may take three actions per turn. Each action may be flurried as usual, with penalties applying only to each flurry seperately, and the character suffers only the largest DV penalty from each. This effect may be combined with Extra Actions Charms, but it still only allows the character the use of a single Charm or Combo. Furthermore, if the character is gaining extra actions, they only apply once per activation (for example, a character with Hurricane Combat Method could only gain one extra attack per action, not three.)
Elder Sutra of Consumption: The maiden became a mother, and to one child she said, "I have many things to show you."
Cannabalistic Heritage Technique</b>
<b>Cost: 10 motes, Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5, Type: Reflexive (Step 5) Keywords: Obvious, Counterattack, Combo-OK Duration: Instant Prerequisites: Charcoal March of Spiders Form And to another she said, "You may rest within my home, no need to fly." And to a third she said, "How beautiful you are."
The character draws a vortex of Essence around herself, turning deadly energy against an attack before unleashing it against her aggressor. This Charm may be activated during Step 5 of resolution of an attack against the character. In a flash, as an attack strikes home, the character draws her hunger around herself and unleashes it. A hand-to-hand attacker automatically takes a number of dice of lethal damage equal to the character's (Martial Arts + Essence), while a ranged attack loses successes equal to the character's (Martial Arts). Nonmagical weapons used to attack are broken instantly, including ranged weapons. This can end an attack if the attacker's weapon no longer exists. An attacker can defend against this damage with any perfect dodge or parry, but doing so causes the attack to fail automatically, as the attacker is now focused on defense. A fraction of a second later, the character unleashes the force she gathered in a crippling counterstrike. This is a counterattack in Step 9 using the character's full attack pool, which may target ranged attackers by following the path their own attack left behind.
This Charm may be activated in response to a counter-attack, but only the Step 5 aspect of the Charm will trigger against such effects.
Thumbnail Spider March</b>
<b>Cost: 12 motes, 1 Willpower, Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5, Type: Reflexive Keywords: Obvious, Combo-OK Duration: (Essence) Actions Prerequisites: Charcoal March of Spiders Form And as each heard her words and came to the center of her web...
The character takes on the aspect of a swarm of spiders, devouring everything in her path as she sweeps towards victory. Upon activation of this Charm, the character becomes surrounded by a thousand shadowy figures of herself, each one moving to strike those who cross their paths. For the Charm's duration, the character may apply any attack she makes against every character within five yards of her. If the character enhances her primary attack with a Charm or Combo, she must spend 1 mote per additional target to apply it to her other attacks as well. Furthermore, any targets except for the one that the character attacks herself may not use counter-attack effects or other effects that damage attackers against her.
Grandmother Spider Mastery</b>
<b>Cost: 12 motes, 1 Willpower, Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5, Type: Simple (DV -1) Keywords: Obvious, Crippling, Combo-OK Duration: Instant Prerequisites: Cannabalistic Heritage Technique, Thumbnail Spider March ... she ate them.
The character takes on the pinnacle of Consumption, turning her victim's capabilities into her own powers. Upon activation of this Charm, the character strikes out at an enemy's soul, drawing it into herself. The character makes an unarmed Martial Arts attack as normal. If she succeeds, she may choose one of three effects, as follows:
- She may heal herself by tearing life from her target. In such a case, the character's damage is dealt as aggravated. Damage is then rolled as normal. For every health level of damage dealt, the character may recover one level of Bashing or Lethal damage. Alternately, the character may spend two health levels to recover one level of aggravated damage. The character may not recover from more damage than is required to kill the target, but if she recovers more health levels than she has injuries, she gains one additional health level per three extra levels of damage, which are damaged first and vanish at the end of the scene.
- She may gorge herself on the target's Essence. In this case, the character's raw damage can be soaked only by the target's Essence score. For every die of post-soak damage dealt, the target loses two motes of Essence and the character gains two motes of Essence. These motes may refill the character's Personal or Peripheral pool, as she chooses. She may not recover more motes than the target has available, but if she refills her pool entirely she may add half of the remaining stolen Essence to her peripheral pool. At the end of the scene, any extra Essence is lost.
- She may sap her target's will. In this case, the target applies her (Willpower + Essence) as soak. Damage is then rolled as usual. For every level of damage dealt, the target loses one Willpower point and the character gains one Willpower point. The character may not steal more Willpower than the target has, but every two dots of Willpower stolen after she refills her own Willpower pool are added in excess of her usual maximum. These dots are lost at the end of the scene.
Characters who have more than their maximum ratings in any category may not further increase them; use only the best result from an application of Grandmother Spider Mastery.
Design Notes
A lot of the changes to this tree were based on my opinion that Essence 4-5 should be additive, not changing the rules of the game. Existing Solar, Lunar, and Sidereal corebook Charms are powerful at this stage, but far from unstoppable.
As such, the effects of many of the Charms in this style were reduced, and their costs were lowered to match. Others were just plain weakened (I'm looking at you, one-hit-kill Maw of Dripping Venom). A few had to be dropped due to my decision to reduce the size of SMA trees - I frankly don't mind losing Dance of the Hungry Spider or Jumping Spider Strike, but I sort of miss Rain of Unseen Threads. Pattern Spider Touch is very cool, but while it has spider images I don't see it as very 'Consumption'y, so I'll probably sneak it into some other SMA I create. Maybe even Borders of Kaleidoscopic Knowledge (although probably not, that'll be another hard one to trim down).
Grandmother Spider Mastery is also totally different. Now it's a low-key, utility-upgraded Water Spider Bite, which seemed like the best endpoint of consumption for me. There was no good way to tone it down without losing what made it 'it', so instead I just boosted the duration on Thumbnail Spider March, which I think will cover the ability to tear through armies without letting you kill the entire population of Nexus with a single gesture.
