MartialArts/MartialArtsGeneralRules

Purchasing Styles

• Elementals, Spirits, Demons - Learn Terrestrial up to Essence 5 (though not very common), and can learn Celestial styles at Essence 6+.

• Sidereals - Learn all levels of Martial Arts easily. They pay 8/10 for Terrestrial and Celestial Styles and 10/13 for their own Secret Styles. There die-adder cap for Martial Arts is Attribute + Ability, rather than their normal Essence.

• Solars and Abyssals - Learn all Martial Arts relatively easily. They pay 8/10 for Terrestrial and Celestial Styles and 13/15 for Sidereal Styles. Sideral Styles only require a teacher.

• Dragon-Blooded - Learn only Terrestrial Martial Arts easily, at 10/12. They can learn Celestial after hard training and for 12/15, but must dedicate themselves to one tree at a time. Dragon-Blooded can never learn Secret Styles.

• Lunars - Learn Terrestrial and Celestial Martial Arts with some specific complications. They may never learn Sidereal Styles. They always pay 15 for Martial Arts Charms, even if Martial Arts is a Favored Ability, and may only Combo such Charms with other Ability-based Charms,

• Ghosts - A character which becomes a ghost retains any Martial Arts trees they possess up to the Form. This only matters for Terrestrial Martial Arts, and they can never advance beyond it except for those who were Abyssals with Restless Revanant Technique. These ghosts can learn Celestial styles up to the Form and master Terrestrial styles.

• Mortals - May learn Terrestrial Martial Arts with arduous training. Or so I hear. (They need Essence 3, which obviously requires Essence Awareness and Essence Mastery, and Martial Arts at 5.)

Learning and Creating Styles

These guidelines are subject to Players' Guide clarification. As a disclaimer, it may be that Martial Arts learned as Unfavored Charms always require a tutor to instruct the character.

• Sidereals - May create any Terrestrial or Celestial Martial Arts and learn them without a tutor, but must have an Essence of greater than 6 to create Sidereal styles. If not, they require a tutor to learn Sidereal styles.

• Solars and Abyssals - May learn any Terrestrial or Celestial martial arts without a tutor, and create them with effort, but must always be taught Sidereal styles and cannot canonically create them.

• Dragon-Blooded - May learn only Terrestrial martial arts without a tutor, always require a tutor to learn Celestial martial arts, and cannot learn Sidereal Martial Arts at all. They may create new Terrestrial Martial Arts with some effort.

• Lunars - Can most likely create Terrestrial and Celestial Styles, though with more effort than other Celestials.

The Five Glorious Dragon Paths

• Terrestrials need years of training to practice any Celestial-level Martial Art. The most common method employed is that of the Immaculate Order, which teaches Spirit Sight and Spirit Walking. Other regimines exist (some are detailed in the Exalted Players' Guide), but they require a similar degree of dedication as the Immaculate teachings. Characters developing such a training technique probably require a greater-than-human comprehension of Martial Arts, such as elder Sidereal Exalted, capable of constructing Secret Styles. Without a similar grueling training, Dragon-Blooded can only learn Martial Arts forms of power similar to the Five-Dragon Form.
• Terrestrials learning any Celestial-level path must dedicate themselves to the path, and cannot learn Martial Arts Charms from other trees until they’ve mastered the path.
• Terrestrials don’t pay a one mote out-of-element surcharge on Celestial martial arts; other than the Dragon-Paths, Celestial supernatural martial arts do not have elements.
• Celestials don’t need to learn Spirit Sight and Spirit Walking to follow the Dragon Paths, but Immaculate instructors expect that all students possess them, making instruction without them difficult.
• Celestial Exalted tutored in the Immaculate Arts need not make the Dexterity + Martial Arts roll when activating the Dragon Forms -- only the Terrestrials with their uncertain grasp of Essence need worry about such matters. Likewise, if Terrestrials learn other Martial Arts styles, they must make a simple Dexterity + Martial Arts roll to invoke the Form-type Charm.
• Celestials are never elementally attuned to Dragon Path Charms. They must thus pay the 1 mote per turn out-of-element penalty when using any Dragon-Path Charm. This doesn’t go away even if the Celestial masters the path. The Dragon-Blooded can eventually come to harmony with a differing path because they and it are both inherently elemental; Celestials just can’t do that. Note: in 2ed, this is no longer the case. Celestials no longer pay surcharge for the Dragon-Paths
• In addition, a Celestial character cannot activate Reflexives any better than normal, so the Dragon Paths may not be not as effective as they are for Terrestrials.
• Likewise, the bonuses the Dragon-Paths give their practitioners when using the path signature weapons is based on the elemental harmony of the Terrestrials. Though Celestials can freely use the signature weapons of the path with it as Martial Arts weapons, they do not get the signature weapon bonuses to the path outlined on Dragon-Blooded, p.242-243. Note: This holds true for 2ed aswell.

Definitions and Related rules

• All Martial Arts trees may be Comboed amongst one another -- in fact, this is a principle strategy for intelligent higher-level Martial Arts combat.
• The Player's Guide introduces a new kind of Combo, the Protocol. This is a multi-person Combo that requires all participants to be there. They do not all need to have the Charms used in the Combo, as only one participant does need it. Also, with a 1 mote expenditure, they can "share" the use of longer duration Charms with the expenditure of 1 mote. (more is needed here.)
• At least one canon Style (Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style) has a pinnacle Charm which requires a Solar cross-ability prerequisite Charm to learn. Though equivilent Charms could (arguably) be substituted through the Golden Rule, this is precedent for Exalt-type-specific Martial Arts beyond the scope of the established Circles.
• Immaculate monks must buy the two spirit charms listed in the DB book before buying any Immaculate Martial Arts Charms, which requires them to purchase Essence 3 with bonus points.
• Members of the Eclipse and Moonshadow Castes do not pay double Motes for the use of supernatural Martial Arts Charms, because they’re not really “out of type.” Arguably, if they learnt Violet Bier of Sorrows as out-of-type Charms, they could use the Prayer Strip benefit of the final Charm.
• The definition of "mastery" of a MartialArts Charm tree (with regard to learning Sidereal Martial Arts forms) is learning all of the charms in that tree.
• Dual wielding rules are moot at best. Mechanical variants are available at Braydz/Dual or at Discussions/RulesQuestions

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Comments

Ho-hum. Revised from the work of Trueform, GoldenH, Telgar, various White Wolf posters, et al. Someone with the Players' Guide should confirm the logistics of everything. _Jabberwocky

Haha! Lunars are n3rfd! Solars pwn j00! It's always satisfying when rules revisions confirm what you always suspected. - willows, being immature

I have the player's guide, and it all looks okay to me. I've edited the bit about mortals, because it was vague... however, this is -not- a point by point checking, so don't blame me if something is still wrong. But something is better than nothing, neh?
-- Darloth

Could an Immaculate learn continue to learn non-Celestial MA charms without first mastering his Dragon Path? The inference of the information on the subject suggests that they can't learn ANY other MA until they master the first, but I wonder if it's possible for them to, for example, take a few Five-Dragon techniques. They do, after all, learn the style - just not the charms - as part of their pre-Celestial-MA-training. ~ BerserkSeraph

I would say yes, because it makes sense to me that they are only limited in their ability to persue that which is beyond them normally. As they can continue learning normal DB Charms, I see no reason they can't learn normal TMAs. Others, reading the errata very literally, say that ALL martial arts are banned until the Style is finished. - Telgar