MartialArts/FacilitatorofCalamitiesStyle
Facilitator of Calamities Style by garrisod
Background
This unusual and feared style of martial arts was most widely known during the last days of the First Age. The anathema Deceivers learned this style through dark compacts with demons and Yozis, transforming the mad linguistics and dark utterances of Malfeas into strange and terrifying attacks that coerce their victims into their own dooms. In baroque and perverse gladiatorial battles, a Deceiver would take Dragon-Blooded sworn brotherhoods and mock them with threats and temptations until the Exalts turned on each other in bloodshed. When only one Dragon-Blood remained, the Deceiver would offer the broken victim the chance to choose his own inevitable damnation.
Although rare in Creation since the First Age, this martial arts style is quite common in Malfeas and is recognized and highly regarded among the Infernals, where two practitioners will slip duels to the death within a conversation.
Training
This style can be practiced by Celestial and Infernal Exalted and Demons of the Second Circle and higher. It is typically taught by summoned demons, often in conjunction with Words of Power.
Weapons and Armor
Facilitators treat the attacks provided by the Spirit charm, Words of Power, as an in-form weapon. The style is not compatible with any other weapons, or armor.
Note - Facilitation Charms
Many of these charms in this tree are facilitation charms - providing the charm’s target with a choice in regards to the charm’s effects. If a PC is targeted by one of these charms, the player should know explicitly the consequences of the choice before they choose and the charm is resolved. In character, the character decides the outcome through their subconscious fears and desires rather than through a rational choice, so it is not necessary for the Facilitator to explicitly state the nature of his attacks in-game.
Charms
I Cut, You Pick Procedure
Cost: 3m Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Ability: 2 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: None
The Facilitator casts doubt on his opponent’s defenses: does he trust his armor or his constitution to stop the blow? The practitioner makes a martial arts attack. Before attack dice are rolled, the target of the attack must choose one of two effects to occur if the attack is successful: either the attack against him does piercing damage or it can only be soaked with armor. This is a facilitation charm.
Bringer of Lesser Evils
Cost: 3m Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Ability: 2 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: None
The Facilitator plays on his opponent’s fears: would he face a greater threat, but one that can be resisted, or would he rather that he suffer a small yet certain harm instead? The practitioner makes a martial arts attack. Before attack dice are rolled, the target of the attack must choose one of two effects to occur if the attack is successful: either the attack does double the post-soak damage, or it does a minimum number of health levels of damage equal to the practitioner’s permanent Essence. This is a facilitation charm.
Binary Strike Approach
Cost: 3m Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Ability: 2 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: None
The Facilitator preys upon his victim’s uncertainty by forcing him to commit to a defense. Will he depend on force of arms, or agile footwork? The practitioner makes a martial arts attack. Before attack dice are rolled, the target of the attack must choose whether the attack against him is unblockable, or undodgeable. This is a facilitation charm.
Scheduling of Sorrow Prana
Cost: 3m Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Ability: 3 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: I Cut, You Pick Procedure, Bringer of Lesser Evils, Binary Strike Approach
The Facilitator plays with his opponent’s sense of timing, making his victim choose between reckless attack and ponderous defense. Before initiative is rolled, the practitioner chooses a target. The target must choose one of two options. One, that the target automatically wins initiative this round, but is denied any defense actions this round not provided by charms; or two, that the practitioner automatically wins initiative this round, but is denied any defense actions this round not provided by charms, and the opponent is automatically last in regards to initiative this round. This is a facilitation charm.
Facilitator of Calamities Form
Cost: 6m Duration: Scene Type: Simple Min. Ability: 4 Min Essence: 2 Prereqs: Scheduling of Sorrow Prana
The martial artist takes the stance of the Facilitator of Calamities, making even his idle comments terrible weapons that sow distrust and disaster. A stream of semantics and pleasantries protects him, baffling and belittling his opponent’s attacks and adding his Linguistics rating to parry attempts and his Socialize rating to his dodge attempts. Due to his reliance on speech, the Facilitator can block lethal damage with martial arts parries and can perform any martial arts maneuver even while restrained or prone, as long as he can use his voice. If he knows the charm Words of Power, he has learned to damage through finesse instead of force, if he chooses, substituting his Martial Arts rating for Strength when calculating damage for Words of Power.
Weakest Link Exploit
Cost: 6m, 1w Duration: Instant Type: Simple Min. Ability: 4 Min Essence: 3 Prereqs: Facilitator of Calamities Form
The Facilitator can take advantage of the fragile ties of camaraderie, damaging a group by preying on their weakest member. The practitioner makes a martial arts attack; if the attack hits the target, the attack does no damage to the target. Instead, the Facilitator rolls dice equal to his Essence; for each success, each ally of the target within a range of three times the Facilitator’s Martial Arts rating in yards takes a level of bashing damage.
Hostage Taking Touch
Cost: 6m, 1w Duration: Scene Type: Simple Min. Ability: 4 Min Essence: 3 Prereqs: Facilitator of Calamities Form
The Facilitator muddles the lines between friend and foe by chaining an opponent’s well being to his own. The practitioner makes a martial arts attack. If the attack is successful, the practitioner does not roll damage dice but instead marks a rune on the target. For the remainder of the scene, whenever an attack successfully hits the practitioner, apply the same amount of pre-soak damage to the target, who may soak as if they were the recipient of the attack.
Accessory to Murder Meditation
Cost: 6m, 1w Duration: Instant Type: Simple Min. Ability: 4 Min Essence: 3 Prereqs: Facilitator of Calamities Form
The Facilitator makes his enemies complicit in the demise of their brethren by making them choose between their own welfare and that of their comrades. The Facilitator makes a martial arts attack; if it hits the target, treat all post-soak damage as automatic successes. However, if the target wishes, they may transfer the damage to another ally by spending a point of Willpower. Each new target also has the option to transfer it to another ally by spending a point of Willpower; however, with each transfer, the health levels of damage to be applied are increased by one. This is a facilitation charm.
Betrayal of the Fine Print
Cost: 1w Duration: Permanent Type: Permanent Min. Ability: 5 Min Essence: 3 Prereqs: Weakest Link Exploit, Hostage Taking Touch, Accessory to Murder Meditation
The Facilitator, normally so flexible and accommodating towards his victims, must sometimes explain that you can’t always get what you want.
Betrayal of the Fine Print is a permanent charm, granting a reflexive ability that does not count as charm use. Whenever the practitioner uses a facilitation charm, he may reflexively spend one willpower and deny his target the opportunity to choose an option, instead choosing the effects of the facilitation charm himself.
Dog-Eat-Dog Dilemma
Cost: 10m, 1w Duration: Instant Type: Simple Min. Ability: 5 Min Essence: 4 Prereqs: Betrayal of the Fine Print
The pinnacle charm of the Facilitator of Calamities is a vile one indeed, for it punishes the noble and base, the selfish and the self-sacrificing. The combatant who defends against it betrays his fellows, but the combatant who takes the blow is at the Facilitator’s mercy. The Facilitator makes a single martial arts attack that targets a number of opponents equal to, or fewer than, his permanent Essence; all targets must be in his line of sight, but only one needs to be within the range of his martial arts attacks. Each target must choose whether or not they wish to defend against this attack before the attack is rolled, and must simultaneously reveal whether they chose to defend. If some targets defend, and some do not, each target that defends treats their defense as perfect. However, if all targets choose to defend, then the attack is considered perfect, and always hits a target unless the target provides a perfect defense. For those struck by this attack, roll normal damage, then add a number of lethal health levels of damage equal to the number of targets who defended against this attack.
Comments
Because Infernals, Moonshadows and crazy first-age Eclipses need martial arts too. -garrisod
I want you to know that you are sick man, but this MA sounds cool. You are still sick though. DragoonDrake
On Bringer of Lesser Evils, you mention minimum damage being equal to Perm. Essence. In Power Combat, this is the case anyway, at least in terms of dice. Do you mean unsoakable damage, or is there a modification needed for PC? -Eustacio
Thanks! That was unclear - I meant health levels of damage equal to Essence, (making it approximately equal to twice ping damage), so I went back and changed it to make it more clear. -garrisod
No problem. Also, now that I'm not at work at the moment and able to take a closer look, one other query. The charm 'Words of Power', the in-form weapon as you put it, is Scene\Simple. How exactly would that work, given a Scene\Simple charm cannot be combo'd? Are your proposing it be changed to some other style (it always felt more like an Instant charm to me, if only because as an attack charm, it's pretty worthless as it stands)? -Eustacio
Oh, Words of Power are scene/simple, so they take one turn to activate, but then you can make those attacks for the rest of the scene - basically, giving you them as an attack option for the rest of the combat. So they don't need to be comboed, the MA charms are all you activate after that. -garrisod
I'm impressed, this is a very creative and unconventional MA style. It's totally an NPC style though, just for the experience of watching the PCs squirm. I'm not convinced as to the usefulness of Binary Strike Approach unless you combo it with Betrayal of the Fine Print, but maybe that's just me. --Prions
Damn fine stuff. Accessory to Murder Meditation seems a bit cheap for it's effects, and Betrayal of the Fine Print is a cool idea, but seems ... I dunno ... odd, or perhaps inelegant (though I hate that term)... I think it needs a definition of a new type of charm (e.g: Facilitation : Facilitation Charms work by offering the target a choice of two or more definite outcomes. This choice can be either conscious or subconscious, depending on the exact Charm.) and then for Accessory to Murder Meditation can be classified as a Facilitation Charm, despite it's name. Does that make sense? - I am so yoinking this style for my Akumas - nikink consistantly impressed and envious...
Ahh, I've just been misreading Words of Power for the last...few...years. Gah. Okay, carry on. Impressive style, though I admit not to being much of a MA fan myself. -Eustacio
Nikink - I agree with you regarding the awkwardness of the Betrayal of Fine Print. I went through and did a revision, labelling facilitation charms and adding their definition to the note to the reader at the beginning of the tree. I also rewrote Betrayal of the Fine Print - I didn't like having a charm that required buying a combo before it could even be used, but also didn't like the idea of someone paying three additional motes on the big Facilitation Combo and suddenly more than doubling its effectiveness. The willpower cost in the combo was supposed to be the balancer, but if you're going to combo them anyway (and one would,) I would rather that one willpower was spent each time the Betrayal was activated. In exchange for changing the cost from 1m to 1w, the Betrayal is now just a reflexive ability, so the Facilitator always has the choice of paying the additional 1w to make some of his lousy charms more powerful, rather than mucking around with combos. -garrisod
I just wanted to thank everyone who helped fine-tune this style - I really like how it's coming together. -garrisod
