MartialArts/CharcoalMarchofSpiders2e

WTF?

Tired of waiting for the 2e Siddie Book to come out? Need your bronze faction assassins to lay Spider style smackdown on some unwitting PCs , right now? Then look no further, kids! This little beauty here can serve as a surrogate manual of Kung-fu goodness until the official release hits the stands.

The Meats

Unnatural Many-Step Stride</b>

<b>Cost: 6m, 1 wp;Mins:Martial Arts 5, Essence 4;Type: Simple
Keywords:Combo-Basic, Obvious
Duration: One Scene 
Prerequisite Charms:: None

The Character can run through or stand upon air as easily as solid ground. For the reflexive cost of 1m the character may dematerialize. This lasts until his next action and does not count as a charm use. Characters who can see the Martial Artist must succeed at a diff 1 valor roll or become inactive. This check is must be made before the character declares an action. Characters who possess this charm or are allies of the martial artist are exempt from this check.

Dance of the Hungry Spider</b>

<b>Cost: 8m;Mins:Martial Arts 5, Essence 4;Type: Reflexive
Keywords:Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: 15 ticks
Prerequisite Charms:: Unnatural many-Step Stride

Only the third of three seperate, successful attempts can sweep, knockdown, clinch, or target the character's lowerbody. This charm grants the character extra reflexive movements. Every tick the character may reflexively move up to his Dexterity x2 in yards, suffering no DV penalty, either as a response to being attacked or to assisst in making an attack of his own. The charcter may invoke this reflexive movement in response to each attack in a flurry used against him or to supplement each martial arts attack he makes against his opponents. When used in response to an attack, this movement is taken immediately. If this reflexive movemnt is enough to move the character out of the attacker's range, then the attacker suffers an nternal penalty. Furthermore, if the attack was part of a flurry, the attacker must be able to move back into range to execute the rest of the attacks. When used to supplement his attacks, the character always inflicts a penalty on the defender's DV.

The penalty:

• Option 1: (Dex+wits+essence)/2 as an internal penalty to someone attacking him, or (Dex+wits+essence)/4 as a PDV penalty against the defender.
• Option 2: (10-action speed)+(essence/2) as an internal penalty against someone attacking him or [(10-action speed)+(essence/2)]/2 as a PDV penalty against the defender

In either case, the character would be lowering the opponent's DDV by a rate of Essence/2 when attacking.

Maw of Dripping Venom</b>

<b>Cost: 5m;Mins:Martial Arts 5, Essence 4;Type: Supplemental
Keywords:Combo-OK, Stackable (possibly crippling?)
Duration: Instant 
Prerequisite Charms:: None

Make an unarmed martial arts attack as normal. In addition to inflicting damage, this attack causes the target to bleed essence over time. The target loses 1m per tick. This effect lasts for a number of ticks equal to the number of post soak damage dice multiplied by 5. Essence lost as a result of this charm counts exactly as if the character had spent it. Should the victim run out of essence as a result of this charm he becomes comatose for a number of days equal to the character's martial arts rating. Storyteller Characters may die outright as a result of this charm. If the character so chooses he may attempt to suck out the soul of a comatose target, killing it outright. The character needs to make 3 consecutive miscellaneous actions, each speed 5, DV -2. Thes actions disallow dodging without a stunt since contact with the victim must be maintained. If successful this replenishes all of the character's essence. If the character devours the soul of a celestial exalt he will grow sick and vomit forth the victim's Celestial Essence sometime over the next three days. This inflicts 6 dice of unsoakable, lethal damage against the character. Targets slain in this fashion will never become ghosts.

Rain of Unseen Threads</b>

<b>Cost: 8m;Mins:Martial Arts 5, Essence 4;Type: Reflexive
Keywords:Combo-OK
Duration: Instant 
Prerequisite Charms:: None

The character summons forth a number of hair fine threads equal to her permenant essence. These threads have a range equal to the exalt's essence x 10 in yards. The exalt may choose to perform one of the following actions with each thread at his full dice pool without suffering from external flurry penalties:

• Pick up an object. If the object is a weapon the character may attack with it.
• Make an unarmed martial arts attack. This attack inflicts lethal damage. (I've always thought,due to the nature of the attack and the charm's description, that the attack should also be piercing. Thoughts?)
• Make a Disarm attempt. (also sweep attempt, but i don't believe that maneuver exists any longer)
• Make a clinch attempt. (there's a whole big paragraph about how the threads may only clinch single limbs. Also, the threads are not capable of constricting to inflict damage. Should the charm just be simplified and allow the threads to clinch as per the rules?)

When clinching with the threads generated by this charm, the character may continue to participate in the clinch and act normally without expending his action to do so or flurrying so long as he continues to activate this charm every round.

The threads generated by this charm are difficult to see. Characters must succeed at a reflexive Perception +Awareness or Martial Arts roll at difficulty 4 in order to spot them. Failure indicates that the character is unware of attacks made by the threads. Character's automatically spot attacks made by threads wielding weapons.

Nest of Living Strands</b>

<b>Cost: 15m, 1wp;Mins:Martial Arts 5, Essence 4;Type: Reflexive
Keywords:Combo-Basic, Obvious, Stackable
Duration: One Scene 
Prerequisite Charms:: Rain of Unseen Threads

The Character generates a giant snarl of webbing that entangle all opponents within the character's essence x 10 yards. At the start of each of the character's actions he reflexively rolls his Dexterity+martial arts. Characters within the entangling field at the time of this roll suffer an internal penalty to all physical actions equal to one half the number of successes on this roll. In addition, the character's movement is reduced by a number of yards equal to 1/4 of that value, rounded up. Accrued penalties persist even if the victim leaves the entagling area. Penalties fade at the rate of 1 die/1yd of movement every 3 ticks. Penalties do not start fading until the victim remains outside of NoLS's radius for at least one of the charm's activation rolls. If the character remains still and unmoving for at least 30 ticks this charm becomes Obvious. If the character spends a dramatic action remaining stationary, the entangling field is replaced by a solid block of opaque webbing with the same characteristics as a stone wall. The character may choose to allow objects or persons to pass through this area unhindered.

Charcoal March of Spiders Form</b>

<b>Cost: 8m;Mins:Martial Arts 5, Essence 5;Type: Simple
Keywords:Form-Type, Obvious
Duration: One Scene 
Prerequisite Charms:: One full martial arts style, Nest of Living Strands, Maw of Dripping Venom, Dance of the Hungry Spider

The character gets three fully independant actions and is always under the effects of Unnatural Many Step Stride and Dance of the Hungry Spider. While benefitting from the independant actions the character cannot take non-reflexive social or mental actions, nor may he employ extra action charms or Combos which include extra action charms. The character may still only move once a tick. Each actions is resolved indpendantly of its fellows. One charm may be used with each action. The martial artist may choose which 'action's' DV's to use against incoming attacks. Examples:(provided by IanPrice)

• • DV example: I make 4 attacks on you. You parry the first, dodge the second, parry the third again, and dodge the fourth. The first attack, no penalties. The second attack, you would have had an onslaught penalty - but you use your second action's DVs instead, and so there is none. The third attack, you do this again. On the fourth attack, however, there would be an onslaught penalty no matter which DV set you used, since all three of your actions have been used to defend against one attack.
  • Second DV example: Using one of your independent actions, you Dash (Speed 3, DV -2, no parries allowed). Using another, you Guard (Speed 3, DV -0). Using the third, you make a flurry of four attacks (Let's say Speed 5, total DV -4). Using your Guard action's DVs, you could parry or dodge just fine, even though you're dashing. The Dash action only provides you a dodge DV though, and it starts at -2, so it's best to wait until your Guard's DV is getting low to switch to that. And you're probably not going to be switching to your attack flurry DVs anytime soon, what with that -4 penalty. Luckily, both your Guard and Dash DVs will refresh before your attacks do, and you could set up two Guards at once, for unpenalized DVs that you can switch off between at will.
  • Charm use example: Someone shoots you using Accuracy Without Distance. You're having none of that - Seven Shadow Evasion. That's one. You used an attack Combo on one of your actions, so that's two. If you decide to activate Shadow Over Water, that's three.
  • Charm use example #2: Let's say one of your charm actions is Shadow Over Water, and another is Serpentine Evasion. You can mix the two, on the Dodge DV of any of your three actions.
  • Charm use example #3: Take three actions, a sword swing, a simple charm activation, and a nose pick of speeds 5, 6, and 7 respectively: The speed 6 one is itself a Simple charm, and that charm use will obviously come back at the end of those 6 ticks. For the other two, it may be less obvious. If you supplement your sword attack with a charm, then that charm use would obviously be associated with the 5. Similarly if you had a charm-enhanced nose-picking (perhaps you are curing yourself of a disease in the nose using Instant Treatment Methodology).

Comments

Alright, that's what I got so far, I'll work on the rest later. Help for what I've already got done would be much appreciated- Ambisinister, who has no idea what he's doing when it comes to 2e and hopes he's doing alright

• Unnatural Many Step Stride: What defines the "round" when people without the charm must make their Valor checks? And how many ticks do they lose to inactivity? I recommend: Check on the tick they would have their next action, and they become inactive until the tick after the next action the Unnatural Many Step Stride user next acts.
• Dance of the Hungry Spider: I would say that in 2e, the (Dexterity x 2) yards granted should be alloted once per tick, so you would have only that much plus your normal reflexive movement distance to retreat from attacks and/or to move back in for your own. For the penalties, I believe the simplest method would be to change all of the penalties to Essence, just like the dodge one. Since the attack and parry penalties were supposed to be more severe than the dodge penalty, perhaps they could be Dexterity + Essence, or else still just Essence, but an External (success) penalty, rather than the internal (dice pool) penalty represented in the 1e version. If you want to stay truest to the original, then you could have it function based on one of two things: Speed or Join Battle. If Speed, I'd say it should use the Speed of the victim's current action as the penalty. If Join Battle, I'd say it should remember your successes from that roll, and apply half of those as an external penalty, or all of them as an internal penalty.
• I like your Maw of Dripping Venom mote drain mechanic. For the soul eating, it should probably require 3 miscellaneous actions, each speed 5, DV -2, disallowing dodging without a stunt since contact must be maintained. This would approximately reflect the 3 turns of soul sucking from 1e.
• Rain of Unseen Threads: There is indeed a trip maneuver, it's part of the Knockdown rules. It's rather weak, but you could specify that with the strands it acts like a tackle, stunning the opponent even if they keep their feet. The clinch thing is a bit sticky. I think it would be simplest to say this: one strand may be used to make an attack with the clinch statistics to hold a limb. Two strands initiates an actual full-blown clinch, but you can't choose to Crush. Four strands should allow you to do damage as if with a Crush maneuver, since you have control of all the limbs and can pull whatever way you want.
• Nest of Living Strands: You quadrupled the power of this charm. 1 point of external penalty is worth 2 or 3 points of dice penalties, and you increased it to all of the successes instead of half of them. I recommend you return it to an Internal penalty and tone it back down to half, since it's a penalty that can stack up. (See my fight versus TonyC that just ended to see how nasty External penalties are)
• The Form: The way it was treated in TrialByFire/ShunVersusMonkey was that each Independent Action had its own DVs, and they refreshed independently. Unlike Threefold Partition of the Soul, however, this charm gives you the actions without splitting bodies. Thus, you would get to choose which action's DV to apply. Your charm uses will be the tougher thing to track, since you will have one slot for a Charm or Combo from each of the three actions, and those will independently refresh as well.
  • DV example: I make 4 attacks on you. You parry the first, dodge the second, parry the third again, and dodge the fourth. The first attack, no penalties. The second attack, you would have had an onslaught penalty - but you use your second action's DVs instead, and so there is none. The third attack, you do this again. On the fourth attack, however, there would be an onslaught penalty no matter which DV set you used, since all three of your actions have been used to defend against one attack.
  • Second DV example: Using one of your independent actions, you Dash (Speed 3, DV -2, no parries allowed). Using another, you Guard (Speed 3, DV -0). Using the third, you make a flurry of four attacks (Let's say Speed 5, total DV -4). Using your Guard action's DVs, you could parry or dodge just fine, even though you're dashing. The Dash action only provides you a dodge DV though, and it starts at -2, so it's best to wait until your Guard's DV is getting low to switch to that. And you're probably not going to be switching to your attack flurry DVs anytime soon, what with that -4 penalty. Luckily, both your Guard and Dash DVs will refresh before your attacks do, and you could set up two Guards at once, for unpenalized DVs that you can switch off between at will.
  • Charm use example: Someone shoots you using Accuracy Without Distance. You're having none of that - Seven Shadow Evasion. That's one. You used an attack Combo on one of your actions, so that's two. If you decide to activate Shadow Over Water, that's three.
  • Charm use example #2: Let's say one of your charm actions is Shadow Over Water, and another is Serpentine Evasion. You can mix the two, on the Dodge DV of any of your three actions.
  • Charm use example #3: Taking your example actions of speed 5, 6, and 7 respectively: The speed 6 one was itself a Simple charm, and that charm use will obviously come back at the end of those 6 ticks. For the other two, it may be less obvious. If you supplement your sword attack with a charm, then that charm use would obviously be associated with the 5. Similarly if you had a charm-enhanced nose-picking (perhaps you are curing yourself of a disease in the nose using Instant Treatment Methodology). However, Reflexives are trickier. Those you actually have to declare which action they go with.
  • Since actions come on numbered ticks, it's probably best to use letters or some other symbol to represent which one is which. Such as Actions A, B, and C. You will probably want to not only note when each action comes up, but a seperate DV penalty for each, and what Charm or Combo (if any) has been used for that action.

Once again, hope to be helpful. - IanPrice

Your suggestions are just what I needed, actually. To address by point:

• When I say round, I am slipping into 1e jargon, which I'm going to do a lot since I'm currently running a 1e game. My intent was that whenever the character would next perfom an action, he'd make the valor check, as you suggested. As for duration, i'm glancing at pg. 143 of the core book and it notes Inactive as haveing a speed of 5, so I didn't realize a speed was neccessary. Is a straight 5 ticks too much/too little? It seems simpler to make it a flat rate.
• I spent a lot of time on Dance. Its mechanics really aren't 2e friendly. If I understand your move suggestion correctly, then every tick a character would recieve their normal reflexive move in addition to a pool of Dex X2 yards of movement that can only be spent to glide away when attacked, or move in to bring the character in attack range himself. That would make said pool effectively unaccessible on ticks where i'm not attacking or being attacked. Seems good. It makes the charm more flexible than in my initial revision, which isn't a bad thing. As for the penalty, some quick figure crunching indicated that a Dex5, wits 5 character with a speed 7 weapon would have an intiative between 18 and 27. This would make the die penalty range from 9-14. An unarmed, totally naked guy would be rocking the 11-21 spread, which would indicate a penalty of 6-11. Dex+wits+essence (4 being the minimum)/2 provides a penalty of 7 which is in keeping with mechanical balance of the charm. In keeping with the spirit, it would appear that the faster I am, the harder it will be for you to hit me. In this case I would say (10-action speed)+(essence/2). In this case quicker actions, like guards and aims make you harder to hit, and slower actions, stabbin and charm induced splodies, make the penalty less severe. I don't really think that relying on the join battle roll is the answer.
• You're happy with maw, I'm happy with maw. As for soul eating, I saw dramatic action mentioned a lot in the core book and it seemed appropriate. Your suggestion seems just as good though, and it's more clear, so I'll roll with that.
• Regarding Rain of Unseen threads and clinching, my original thought was keep the limb targeting, and add throat/head/torse as an additional 'limb' target. If throat/etx is clinched then crushing becomes an option. This would allow for a character to just target throat and crush to his hearts content. In this case, the victim would still need to flurry to deal with the strangulation, but would be totally able to run up and kick you inna pouch to make you stop. The one thing that gives me pause about doing this individiual targeting thing is the weirdness in the 2e clinch rules regarding inactivity. When do you become inactive from thread clinches? 1 limb? two? four? I think it may cause some bizarre timing issues.
• Ah, what you're seeing here is me saying 'external' when I meant to say 'internal'. I also missed the part in the charm's original text which stated the penalty was equal to 1/2 successes. You're totally right, as I have the charm written now it is revoltingly powerful. Consider it fixed
• Your explanation of independant action use seems sound and makes sense. I'm totally willing to run with it.

There we go, with Ian's help I have further refined the charm revisions. Close but not quite done. Charms still needing a good look: Unnatural Many Step Stride, Dance of the Hungry Spider, Rain of Unseen Threads. -Ambisinister

• Unnatural Many-Step Stride: A flat 5 should be fine. The Inactivity rules are just... ugh. That's the problem with clinching too. I like to avoid dealing with Inactivity if at all possible, but a flat 5 ticks is fine. At which point, a new test is made.
• Dance of the Hungry Spider: Remember that this would mean attacks with jade weapons and jade hearthstone bracers would become hard to parry and make you hard to hit too. Thunderclap Rush Attack would too. Let's say you have Jade HSB and TRA; that's speed 2. Essence 5 / 2 = (round up) 3. That makes a penalty of 11. A speed 6 (ie, unaugmented) clinch would be a penalty of 7. How's all that sound?
• Rain of Unseen Threads: Bah. I don't really care. I think mechanics for something like this ought to be worked out on the fly based on how cool the stunt is.

You can thank TonyC for the independent actions, since he worked them out so well in our battle. - IanPrice

Another Dance note, having re-read it again: Since the movement can only be made in response to attacks made by (if it would bring you in range only) or against you, it would be more faithful to the original to allow the movement each different time. Also, note that attacks which can still hit you at the range you retreat to (including hand to hand if the attacker can reflexively follow you) do not suffer the penalty. - IanPrice

Tweaked with Dance's mechanics again. I followed the precedent of Hopping Firecracker Evasion's mechanic as to the properties and timing of the reflexive move. I feel that's the truest to the orignal's mechanics. As for the penalty, still not sure which method to use. - Ambisinister

Let's try option 1 for our battle, since it is less math. Your (Dex + Wits + Essence) is 15, so you'll be applying an internal penalty of 7 dice to parries and applicable attacks. The internal penalty to Dodge is 5 for you. Since DVs are calculated as half (round up) of a pool, you'll reduce DVs based on odd pools by 4 and 3 respectively, and those based on even pools by 3 and 2 respectively. - IanPrice