MartialArts/WolverineStyle

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Wolverine Style

This style bases itself on the strength, ferocity, and endurance of the Wolverine, relying mainly on soak and many furious, powerful attacks.

Weapons and Armour

Wolverine Style is an unarmed and unarmoured Art.

Charms

Wolverines Endurance

Cost:  2 motes
Duration:  Instant
Type:  Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: 

The character draws upon the legendary endurance of the wolverine to enhance his ability to absorb a blow, increasing his natural bashing soak by his martial arts score. This charm is incompatible with armour.

Fierce Claw Attack

Cost:  1 motes
Duration:  Turn
Type:  Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 1
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: 

The character channels essence into his hands, shaping them into rudimentary claws. The character can deal lethal damage with an unarmed strike, and his claws will add +1 accuracy and +2L damage. The claws can also be used to parry lethal attacks.

Master of the Forest

Cost:  5 motes
Duration:  Instant
Type:  Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 2
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: 

The wolverine lives up to its fiercesome nature, and this charm allows the character to tap its sheer presence. The character appears incredibly fierce, and lesser creatures will know their place and leave her be. When she activates this charm, mortals and beings with an essence lower than the characters must make a valor roll at difficulty 1, or be completely unwilling to fight the character. They may fight other people with her, but will avoid combat with her if they can, but if pressed into unavoidable battle, they take no penalties. All but the fiercest of normal animals will usually automatically flee the characters presence. Note: Although this charm is basically an instantaneous effect that effects all who can see the character, the feelings and unwillingness to fight the character that the charm generates will last in the individual until they have left the battle, one way or another.

Wolverine Form

Cost:  5 motes
Duration:  Scene
Type:  Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Fierce Claw Attack, Wolverines Endurance, Master of the Forest

The character adopts the attitude and stance of the dangerous wolverine – teeth bared, claws ready, and growling a warning. While using the Wolverine form, the character add her essence to both lethal and bashing soak, her unarmed strikes do lethal damage and add her martial arts score to all damage. The character may not dodge any attacks while in this form, though she may parry if she wishes. The form is incompatible with armour, and cannot be used while another form charm is activated.

Durability of the Winter Pelt

Cost:  2 motes
Duration:  Instant
Type:  Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Wolverine Form

The character draws upon the durability of the wolverines fur, enabling him to brush aside damage with impunity. When the charm is activated, the character may add his martial arts score to his natural lethal soak. This soak bonus is doubled if the attack is purely cold based. This charm is incompatible with armour

Bone Crushing Bite

Cost:  2+ motes
Duration:  Instant
Type:  Supplemental
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Wolverine Form

The character draws upon the strength of the wolverine with his essence, granting massive strength to his hands. For every 2 motes he spends, he may add one die to both his martial arts attack, and one to the lethal damage he causes. He may only motes on this charm up to twice his martial arts score.

Ferocious Frenzy

Cost:  5 motes
Duration:  Instant
Type:  Extra Action
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Wolverine Form

The character draws upon the ferocity of the wolverine, launching himself in a frenzy at his opponents. When the character activates this charm, he must immediately make a number of martial arts attacks equal to his essence. He may not dodge or parry during this frenzy, and use of soak charms is recommended. This charm is incompatible with armour.

Invulnerable Celestial Hide

Cost:  5 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration:  Scene
Type:  Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Durability of the Winter Pelt

The character infuses her skin with the endurance and toughness of the wolverine, protecting herself in combat. For the rest of the scene, the character adds her martial arts score to both her natural lethal and bashing soak. Also, the character gains a hardness equal to her stamina + 1 against bashing and lethal damage. This charm is incompatible with armour.

Strength of the Wolverine

Cost:  5 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration:  Scene
Type:  Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Bone Crushing Bite

The character floods his body with essence, fusing the strength and power of the wolverine into his form. The character will appear to slightly increase in size and musculature, and for the rest of the scene may add his essence score to the damage of his unarmed strikes.

Angry Wolverines Rage

Cost:  5 motes, 1 willpower
Duration:  Scene
Type:  Extra Action
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Ferocious Frenzy

The character draws further upon the fierce nature of the wolverine, sending himself into a rage and furiously attacking all enemies before him, with no fear of size or numbers. Once the character activates this charm, she enters a terrible and frenzied rage, attacking any enemies present. Each turn, the character must use martial arts attacks equal to her essence, and make no other actions. She may not dodge or parry while this charm is in effect, and so soak charms are recommended. Once all enemies are dead or have fled, the rage may end. A point of willpower may be used to draw the character out of the rage and end the charm while enemies are still present, but otherwise the character will fight without fear of the consequences. This charm is incompatible with armour and other extra action charms may not be used while the character is in the rage.

Unleashed Hair-Trigger Temper

Cost:  10 motes, 2 willpower (Special)
Duration:  Special
Type:  Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 5
Prerequisite Charms: Angry Wolverines Rage, Invulnerable Celestial Hide, Strength of the Wolverine

The character can become one with the wolverine, bursting free in unrivalled ferocity. The characters anima display will take on a wolverine like shape, varying in its appearance from exalt to exalt. When this charm is activated, the character instantly activates ALL the scene long charms in this martial art, including the form. The following charms MUST be activated: Angry Wolverines Rage, Invulnerable Celestial Hide, Strength of the Wolverine, and Wolverine form, for a grand cost of 30 motes, 5 willpower. This charm is not compatible with weapons or armour.

Note: While this charm is in effect, the Wolverine Master will be unable to parry or dodge, must make essence*MA attacks per turn (and no other actions), has soak bonuses of his martial arts score + essence, he has a hardness equal to his stamina + 1, adds his martial arts score + essence to damage, and his claw like hands strike as lethal weapons. The 4 charms are considered to be activated seperately for the purposes of other charms, and must be negated seperately if tried, the trigger cannot be negated or redirected. This charm also cannot be comboed

Comments

Well, my ST seems to like the style.. so I'm happy :) .. .. I'm just having a problem trying to figure out the costs of the two multi attackers.. considering maybe 6 or 7 motes for first one, but not a clue for scene long.. bah, I'm pretty useless at costing :) If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful.. and also, anyone have any ideas for a potential ultimate charm? It doesn't really need one, but meh, would still be nice to have one ;) FluffySquirrel

There are several different ways to get bonuses for attacks, damage, and soak in this style. How do these bonuses stack? Presumably, attack bonuses are capped at Attribute + Ability for Solars, but this isn't clear. Is there a cap on damage bonuses? Can a character use Bone Crushing Bite while in Wolverine Form? Do all the various soak bonuses stack? My suggestions:

Fierce Claw Attack: explicitly treat the 'claws' as weapons and not as a die bonus

Bone Crushing Bite: Instead of, "He may only increase his attack pool and damage up to his martial arts score" say "He may only spend a number of motes on this Charm equal to 2 times his martial arts score."

Invulnerable Celestial Hide: I'd change the mechanic on this one totally. You already have a huge number of soak boosters. Let this give you Hardness equal to your Soak pools. Maybe let you soak Aggravated Damage with your Lethal Soak.

Strength of the Wolverine: Why not do a damage - autosuccess or something instead of just another damage boost?

Also, there is no pinnacle charm... -szilard

I think everything stacks up to die-adder limit. I think that was the idea. Actually, there's no stated die-limit for adding damage, and there is only a single way of gaining an attack bonus (bone crushing bite) which is already limited to +MA in dice. Everything seems to have (fairly tight) individual limits to me... And if someone stacks all of them togeather and then tops it off with resistance charms, so what? They havn't broken their die-pool adding limit, and that's a heck of a lot of essence and some willpower to stack the whole lot.

If Fierce Claw Attack is treated as a weapon instead of a bonus, then lunars cannot actually use the charm for any benefit. Since the charm is using the idea of claws to enhance the attack of someone who probably doesn't have claws... making it incompatible if you DO have claws seems kinda uncool and unnecessary. Fists of Iron (player's guide version) is functionally identical to this charm, this is just a Martial Arts version, with a different theme.

I agree with the bone-crushing bite reword.

Except the form, all of the soak-boosters before Invulnerable Celestial Hide are reflexive and instant. The Scene-long one seems to be increasing soak on a more lengthy basis.

Dunno about the autosuccess, but that seems a little -too- brutal. It's scene long afterall, so I think a scene-long damage adder is pretty useful on it's own. I don't think wolverine style was intended to have finess or fancy mechanics, I think it was just meant to make the stylists mean and nasty and hurt a lot. Which, imho, it does.

My idea for a pinnacle charm (and no, there isn't one. He said so, and asked for any suggestions.) is perhaps a charm (Unleashed Hair-Trigger Temper, or something) which reflexively allows activation of all of the previous scene-long charms (or maybe just all) including the form. It would of course cost willpower, probably 2, and would be hideously expensive to use, but you could then unleash a sickening spread of attacks with no-warmup time, the downside being you'd be lacking most of your willpower. It would probably have to be essence 5.
-- Darloth

No... if my idea for pinnacle is used, then it should NOT activate any non-scene longs... forcing you to combo it with them, thus costing you ANOTHER willpower for that game-breakingly nice ability to soak and unload a lot of hurt in one turn. Also... If activated, maybe you should be -forced- to activate all the scenelongs, and thus the cost would be very high. It's a thematically appropriate but unfortunately rather rule-bending idea.
-- Darloth

I know there isn't a die-capper for soak and damage. I just think that continuously adding to them in a straightforward way is kinda boring. The style as it stands has the form - a scene-length damage/soak adder... and then an additional scene-length damage adder and an additional scene-length soak adder. To me, a Martial Arts style is appealing if it has interesting synergies that may not be incredible on their own, but work well together (particularly with the form). Since the form is already a scene-length damage/soak adder, it seems better to build on those strengths interestingly rather than just repeat them. That's why I suggested the hardness perk - if you have a good soak and can boost it to great reflexively, then having a hardness equal to it is pretty darn cool. As far as having Strength of the Wolverine turning damage into autosuccesses, I'd limit it to your Essence in dice of damage. Nasty, yeah... but that's the point. - szilard

I quite liked the idea of the pinnacle charm there.. .. very expensive, but very cool :) You generally covered all what I was thinking with the dice adders and such though Darloth :) I've made a few changes to charms and such also, will see what he thinks about the current pinnacle charm tomorrow, and if he thinks it's usable. FluffySquirrel

Part of the reason there's a lot of stacking soak charms, is primarily because as you go further up the style, you're more and more limiting in what you can do defense-wise, until you fully enter a rage, and you can't really defend yourself at all.. that's when you NEED those soak charms.. that said, I think I'll have a look later and see if I can work a small amount of hardness in.. as it would kinda fit. FluffySquirrel

Another defensive option would be to build on the intimidation effect that is pre-form with a post-form, scene-length Charm that either (1) makes it difficult or impossible to attack the character without succeeding at a Valor check or (2) increases the difficulty of attacks (or removes dice from attacks) like Snake Form or Ebon Shadow Form, but due to the character's ferocious unpredictability. - szilard

Decided to go with that added bit of hardness, which was needed actually, otherwise the all soak, no defense would end up getting trumped by 30 peasants armed with rocks :)

You should probably clarify whether that is Lethal or Bashing Hardness (or both).