ParagonOfLightStyle
Contents
Paragon of Light Style
Dedication
This style is dedicated to former basketball star Eddie Griffin (May 30, 1982 – August 17, 2007). May your soul rest better now that the bottle no longer can reach you…
History
This celestial martial art was developed by Egniro of Ginares. Ginares is a small Kingdom somewhere in the Summer Mountains basically consisting of one major city and surroundings. Ginares is unique in the sense that the culture is based on the handling of the Griffin. They breed the noble Griffins and ride them as steeds of battle and scouting. The style is based on being stalwart, steadfast and strong. The practitioners are often brave and they all love the precious Griffin. They are trained to sacrifice their own lives if it means saving a Griffin. Lately, the city of Ginares has experienced a great revival with the appearance of Tagalar, GreenMage and attractor of Griffins (which also has raised questions whether a Griffin is more valuable than its rider). With his help, the entire crop of Griffins has increased exponentially. Of course, this has not affected the sacred status a Griffin presents. Furthermore, the style is prevalent among those God-Blooded whose spiritual or divine masters want courage, cunning and capability in conflict. In addition, it's a powerful celestial style that allows a God-Blooded or born mortals with Essence-induction later in life to master the form charm. Dragon-Blooded may learn this style provided that they learn two initiation charms as per usual for Celestial styles. However, mortals with a taint of any kind of enemy to Creation or Yu-Shan can never learn this style. Furthermore, Paragon of Light Style masters never actively recruit students.
These paragons are known for being exceptionally well-educated, disciplined and trained with the Griffin. Paragons of Light must therefore learn Athletics, Awareness, Lore, Ride and War to at least 2 before beginning the training of this style. Furthermore, cowards are not welcome to become protectors of the delicate things and initiates must have a Valor score of at least 3. Finally, paragons are true in heart and action. They never drink any alcohol under any circumstance. None of the style's charms work if the user is under the influence of alcohol. This applies even if the Paragon is involuntarily intoxicated.
Form weapons and Armor
Practitioners of Paragon of Light Style can use sticks, spears or swords (including their artifact equivalents) as form weapons. Light armor such as the Feathersteel scale armor (8B, 8L, Hardness 4, Mobility -0, Fatigue 1, Resources 4) can be used in this style. In some rare cases, these armors are enhanced by the Ritual of Elemental Empowerment.
Charms
Stalwart Guardian of Light</b>
<b>Cost: None Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. MA: 1 Min Essence: 1 Keywords: None Prereqs: None
Paragons of Light are never tired. They relentlessly persevere until the battle or campaign is over. The students of Light add their MA score to any fatigue roll.
Steadfast Protection of Light</b>
<b>Cost: 1 per 2 or 5 soak Duration: One action Type: Reflexive Min. MA: 2 Min Essence: 1 Keywords: Combo-OK, Holy Prereqs: None
The bodyguards of the shining light are impossible to break and to move. They can take beatings that would make even the most cynic torturer to raise his eye-brows. Only the Dragon Masters of Water and Earth can compare with the Paragons of Light. For every mote spent, the stylist can increase his soak by 2 (or 5 against attacks performed by a creature of darkness) for the rest of his action. The maximum amount of essence spent on this charm is capped at the practitioner's Martial Arts score. When maximum use of this charm is active, the paragon is immune to knockdown or knockback. If the Protection of Light charm is used and the stylist is successfully hit but not damaged (i.e., the Hardness of the Armor is greater than the raw damage or the rolled damage dice did not yield any successes), the charm's effects linger for the next action as well. This extension can be used as long as the conditions are upheld. If a creature of darkness uses minimum damage, the so called "ping damage", then the creature's Essence is halved, rounded down, for purposes of calculating final damage dice.
Blinding Blade/Spear Attack</b>
<b>Cost: 2 Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. MA: 3 Min Essence: 1 Keywords: Combo-OK, Holy, Obvious Prereqs: None
Paragons of Light always attack with the sun in their backs or its rays in the reflective blades. In some cases, they can bring the power of the sunlight from their blades or spears to blind their foes. By doing so, they can charge their opponents into a poor defensive stance for the next action. If the attack is successfully parried, the defender's DV do not refresh until after his or her next action. Should the attack be successfully avoided by the use of DDV or any other method, then the attack has no further effect. Only one attack in a flurry supplemented by this charm is necessary to halt the DV refreshment. Against a creature of darkness, the non-refreshment penalties occur even if DDV is used. A perfect dodge or parry protects from this charm completely. Finally, this charm cannot be used by an unarmed practitioner and blind opponents are unaffected.
Paragon of Light Form</b>
<b>Cost: 6 Duration: One scene Type: Simple (4, -1) Min. MA: 4 Min Essence: 2 Keywords: Form-type Prereqs: Stalwart Guardian of Light, Protection of Light, Blinding Blade/Spear Attack
Paragon of Light Masters are extremely difficult to defeat in single battle, regardless if she is riding a Griffin or not. They are fighting for the light, the truth and the Unconquered Sun himself when activating this charm. For the remainder of the scene, a Paragon adds their permanent Essence score to their Parry DV and Ride rolls. Finally, Masters of the Paragon of Light Form never fail Valor rolls against a creature of darkness, Malfeas or the Wyld while this charm is in effect. Furthermore, practitioners of Paragon of Light Style can smell the taint of Creation's enemies giving them a dice bonus equal to their permanent Essence score to any awareness rolls that includes the detection of the aforementioned creatures.
Breaching the Shroud of Darkness</b>
<b>Cost: 5 Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. MA: 5 Min Essence: 3 Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Holy Prereqs: Paragon of Light Form
Light always conquers darkness when the two clash in tales, stories and battles in Heaven. In Creation, however, this is not true. Paragons of Light refuse to let the darkness prevail. Any attack supplemented by this charm causes aggravated damage and adds Essence successes on the attack roll against any creature of darkness. Against other opponents, it merely adds Essence to raw damage.
Light Shields the Strong</b>
<b>Cost: 7, 1 WP Duration: One scene Type: Simple (4, -1) Min. MA: 5 Min Essence: 3 Keywords: Holy Prereqs: Paragon of Light Form
To be a strong Paragon of Light means to stand up against the foulest creatures ever imagined. They may never flinch, feel fear or flee. The paragon suffers no onslaught penalty whenever PDV is used and is immune to any essence draining effects. The latter protection is a perfect defense. If the paragon is wielding a form weapon against a creature of darkness, he or she may distribute weapon bonus points on speed, accuracy, damage, defense or rate equal to his or her strength. No bonus can be more than two, and speed cannot be lower than 3. The bonuses are set the first time the Paragon purchases this charm and applies to both spear and sword, and may only be changed once the Paragons strength is improved. Should the Paragon (for any reason) lose a point of strength, then all bonuses are removed until the Paragon's strength is restored.
Faster-than-Light</b>
<b>Cost: 4 per attack Duration: Instant Type: Extra Action Min. MA: 5 Min Essence: 3 Keywords: Combo-OK, Holy Prereqs: Paragon of Light Form
The blades of a Paragon always swing true and swift. Nothing can stop them and few things in nature are faster than the speed of light. One ray of light is identical to the other. You can stop one or two, but you cannot stop them all. This charm creates a magical flurry of attacks, where each attack costs 4 motes (including the first), to a maximum of Essence attacks with a DV penalty of only one attack. The flurry is not activated before the first attack roll but immediately after the first. This means that the Paragon's player may choose to active the flurry until after the attack roll. If he or she chooses to activate the flurry, then all remaining attacks have the same number of successes as the first attack. This charm cannot be activated inside a normal flurry. Against creatures of darkness, the flurry does not result in any DV penalty and two attacks are added to the flurry without cost regardless of number of attacks, which means that three attacks cost only 4 motes and six attacks cost 16 motes. If this charm is included in a combo that also contains one or more supplemental charm, the combo do not activate until after the attack roll and each supplemental charm must be paid for each attack as per standard combo rules.
Light Reflects Everything</b>
<b>Cost: 5, 1 WP Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. MA: 5 Min Essence: 3 Keywords: Combo-OK, Counterattack, Holy Prereqs: Paragon of Light Form
Attacking a Paragon of Light is a bad tactic. In many cases, both the Paragon and the opponent fall heavily from this technique. This charm creates a counterattack that is identical to the subsequent attack it counters. This includes any charm or combo that supplements the attack. Both attacks are resolved independently of each other. The counterattack may not be further enhanced by the Paragon. Even the paragon's scene-long, permanent and artifact effects cannot improve the counterstrike. On the other hand, all such effects created by the initial attacker are copied. This charm cannot be used against ranged attacks.
Poerty in Motion Style</b>
<b>Cost: 10, 1 WP Duration: One scene Type: Extra Action Min. MA: 5 Min Essence: 4 Keywords: Holy Prereqs: Light Reflects Everything, Faster-than-Light, Light Shields the Strong
A Paragon of Light usually fights for three things; the sun, the truth and the protection of Creation. Thus, three things are great and the magic number is three. Whenever a LightStyle GrandMaster performs a flurry with exactly three actions (no more or less), the flurry itself brings no internal penalties towards dice pools or DV. If more than three actions are performed, then full penalties are applied to all actions. Furthermore, this charm explicitly allows the grandmaster to once activate the Faster-than-Light charm per action. That is, a GrandMaster with this charm active may attack thrice freely. If any of these attacks happen to be a very strong attack, that particular attack may be subjected to the Faster-than-Light charm. If the opposing side is in any way tainted by the Underworld, Malfeas or the Wyld when the charm is activated, the cost of this charm is reduced by 5 motes. Flurries that use these benefits can only consist of actions based on Athletics, Martial Arts and Ride. Finally, a true master of the Paragon of Light Style understands not only how to protect the weak but how to train them. Provided that the student is wields essence (not demon-blooded or ghost-blooded), a master can teach her as far as her essence and ability allows.
Comments
Please comment!
Not bad. You followed your set theme well and by and large the style is decently balanced. Your mechanics lacks some clarity and the style could benefit from some cleaning up. Here are my notes:
To start, I notice in your fluff that apparently mortals, god blooded and spirits can learn this celestial level style with no initiation but DBs still have to be initiated. That makes very little sense to me. Is that your intent?
With that out of the way, on to charms:
- Stalwart Guardian of Light- Not overly powerful in and of itself. Slightly beyond what I feel the scope of an initial MA charm should be. I'd give it a duration of 1 day and a mote cost of 1 or 2, but it's not a big deal.
- Protection of the Light- Solid soak adder. I like the "if you don't break the soak it persists effect." You may want to clarify which soaks it effects (I'm assuming bashing and letahl, you don't tend to get agg soak boosters this early on in anything outside of solar charms), and whether or not the bonus is considered natural or an "armor" effect.
- Blinding (Weapon) Attack- Your text is very bulky here and you intent is not clear. It seems like the charm works thusly: It supplements and attack, should the character roll any successes on that attack, then the charm's effect occurs. This effect occurs even if the attack is successfully negated by PDV but not by DDV, unless the victim is a creature of darkness, in which case the effect occurs regardless. As for the effect itself, , it seems like it prevents the opponents DV from refreshing and delays the occurence of their next refresh by essence ticks. That is to say, your opponent attacks you with a speed 5 attack. Two ticks later you(with an essence of 4) attack him with an attack supplemented by this charm. The charm works, so your opponent, who would normally act again in 3 ticks now acts in 7. On top of that, his DV doesn't refresh when he acts (and by DV refresh I assume you're only referring to the removal of the DV penalty, not his ability to act or use charms) but waits until his next action after that to refresh. Does that seem right? If that is correct, then this charm is overpowered for a mere 2 motes. I'd bump the cost to the 4-5 range and make it a simple charm as well.
- Paragon of Light Form- Another charm that is slightly overpowered. 5 motes is on the lower end for a form charm and this one does a lot for that five motes in addition to being fast at speed 4. Let's start with the first power: permenant essence to ride is straightforward, although I'm not quite sure why it is there. In the fluff you mention the style is practiced almost exclusively by Griffon riders, but no other charm in this style has anything to do with mounts or mounted combat so the bonus seems a little out of theme mechanically. As for the PDV bonus, is it a straight "+essence to PDV" or is it a "factor essence into the calculation of PDV" similar to the way essence is added to DDV. The way you wrote it out it seems like you mean the former, and if that's the case, that's very powerful. If the form stopped there, it wouldn't be too bad, but you've got more yet to add: you throw in a modification to weapon statistics, and a fairly hefty one at that. The thing with altering weapon stats is that it is a way to add dice without coming into contention with the die cap. So in essence the charm persistantly provides three hefty die bonuses, one of which circumvents cap. To add icing to the cake, you get a perfect valor against creatures of darkness. So you've basically got the effects of three seperate charms and that's far too much for a five mote, speed 4 form charm. Personally, I'd ditch the ride bonus and the perfect valor, up the cost to the 7 or 8 mote range, clarify that the PDV bonus is calculated similarly to dodge, and create a fixed bonus to form weapon usage as opposed to the flexible effect you have now. I'd say one bonus to sword use which characterizes how such practitioners fight with them and a different bonus to spears reflecting the same thing.
- Breaching the Shroud of Darnkess- For a simple damage adder, this charm is overcosted. I'd drop it to two or three motes, i don't think the extra 'holy' effect neccessitates the increased cost. Holy is what the style does.
- Light Shields the Strong-A solid charm. I don't quite see how the sensing of evil fits into the flavor of the charm. It's a cool effect and worth keeping, just not here. You know, if you threw that effect into the Form and added the perfect valor effect from the form to this charm, things would fit a lot better I think.
- Faster-than-Light- This charm is terribly broken and the wording is unclear. As far as I can tell the charm works like so: I make an attack roll, if I like that attack roll then I activate the charm and buy additional copies of that particular attack. What this also apparently means is that if the charm is in a combo with other goodies, you only have to pay the cost of the other effects once, and then pay the cost of this charm to duplicate the attack. If that's true, then this charm utterly blows away the Melee Extra Action charm which is just 3 motes per extra attack, and MA should never out melee melee. You want to make this cool and funky for you MA, and that's alright, but it's incredibly broken at the moment. My sugggested fix: Regarding its activation time you've got two options: keep the cost at 3m and force the player to activate the charm and buy his attacks before he rolls (the gamble factor downpowers the charm for balance) or up the cost to 4 or even 5 motes and keep it the way it is. As far as the combo bonus goes, i'd treat this the same way all of the other extra action charms with one exception: when comboing charms from this style with this charm, the character need only pay an additional mote to apply the effects of charms from this style to additional attacks instead of paying the full cost again. That would go a long way to creating a proper balance to this thing. Like all the other charms in this style you've got some extra gravy for fighting creatures of darkness and that's cool, again, that seems to be what the style is about. Last nit pick, you need to get your math together, the charm's cost doesn't coincide with the example you give in the charm's text. It seems like you're using mulitples of 4 in the example and the cost indicates it should be in multiples of 3.
- Light Reflects Everything- The intent of the charm is clear, the wording is not. It seems like what you're going for is a "If you hit me, i'll hit you back with the exact same thing" kind of charm. To simplify things, I'd make it a true reflection. That is to say, in step nine, you return the exact same attack that hit you back at your attacker, no more no less. What this means practically is that any innate or persistant or whatever bonuses your opponent has on the attack you get, and at the same time, none of your own stuff comes into play. It's a much cleaner and simple effect and I don't think the charm would lose anything from it. As a side note, i don't know why this charm has a holy tag as it has no seperate effects against creatures of darkness.
- Light Shields the Strong- I don't know what this charm does. It is apparently a scene length exra action charm that allows you to make 3 action flurries with no penalties so long as the actions are athletics, martial arts, or ride based. You mention some relationship with the charm Faster Than Light but i'm not sure to what end.I'm guessing maybe it has something to do with compatibility? Namely, you can take a flurry of three actions and mulitply those actions with Faster Than Light even though would violate the charm's 3 action limit. Maybe it's compatibility going the other way, and that this charm works with Faster Than Light even though Faster Than Light mentions it can't be used with normal flurries. Maybe I'm missing the point entirely, your language is very unclear here. You also mention a mote reduction when fighting creatures of darkness. What exactly is being reduced? The cost to activate FtL? The cost to activate this charm (which doesn't make sense as this is a scene long charm and 'fighting creatures of darkness' is more a case by case sort of situation)? Finally, the charm shares a name with one of its prerequisite charms which must be a typographical error or some sort. I can't really speak to the balance of this guy since I don't know what it does, but I'll be happy to comment if you can clarify it.
That's all i've got for now. It's not my intent to be harsh, but to be thorough. I hope that my comments were constructive and helpful. I think the style has a lot of promise and it's almost there. With a little work I think you'll have a well put together and solid charm set on your hands.-Ambisinister
Hi there! First, I must thank you for being so thorough with the comments, Ambisinister. These are the comments I'm looking for. Clearly, the weakness of the entire work is wording. It appears that the clarity needs to be improved. In some cases, though, it appears that your confusing is based on too much thinking, but that's ok. Also, things tend to get quite wordy and hard to understand when you're trying to introduce some new mechanics. Furthermore, I think that the high requirements and fluff weakness (alcohol) allows for a little more power. So, if some charms are a little bit overpowered...I don't know. In addition, I wanted to make the style useful for fighting non-darkness as well.
I will try to discuss each comment and suggest improvements below. I would love to read your comments before changing the charms...
Fluff: You're absolutely right about the availability for Dragon-Blooded. Clearly, the style is celestial, and DBs need those two initation charms before learning CMA. However, I wanted to make it useful for GBs and mortals with Endowment (or other charm) to use it. I haven't really decided how to solve this problem. Either way, it looks wierd. You'd probably ask the same question if I'd allow DBs to learn it without initiation charms.
Stalwart Guardian of Light: No big deal for me either. My players would never use the charm unless it's permanent.
Protection of Light: I intended to increase bashing and lethal, and not make it count as armor. Just like most insta-soaks in MA. Sure, I could clarify.
Blinding Blade Attack: You're right about its power in relation to its cost. One major change in the charm is to remove the effect if the attack is successful, which is kinda cool to me. Furthermore, the charm's double effect is the key to its low intelligibility. How about removing the DV refreshment, and just let it increase the speed of the opponent's next action? More easy to understand, but copying another charm effect, which is less fun to me.
Paragon of Light Form: Form charms are very difficult to balance. In my opinion, there are superforms out there (i.e., Mantis Form) and there are really lousy Forms (e.g., Earth Dragon Form) as well. I agree that 6 motes is more standard and I should use that. Same goes for the speed to 6. I like the Ride bonus (and the pinnacle charm mentions Ride). PDV bonus is a straightforward bonus. I think you overdid that one a little bit in terms of clarification needs. Also, I think that all these bonuses look more powerful than they are, depending on how high Essence is in your games. In my games, we range from 3-5 (and strength is rarely above 3. As such, Essence 3 means +3 to PDV, Ride and weapon bonuses. The PDV is the main bonus to me, and the Valor thing is conditional and less applicable. By the time players reach Essence 5, this Martial Art style is probably not the worst problem in terms of power. I'll ditch the weapon bonus, lest some Lunar put a cramp to my style.
Breaching the Shroud of Darkness: Well, if it isn't to powerful, it lacks power. Sure, I'd let it cost three motes.
Light Shields the Strong: I'm not sure what to do about the switch you propose. It's a good idea though.
Faster-than-Light: Okay, calm down now :-)! First, the assumption you made about combos is wierd. Of course you have to pay for every charm you use, even in a combo. Nowhere in the charm's description does it imply that the charm gives free use of supplemental charms in the combo. However, I should have written a sentence of the effects inside a combo (even though it just states that "as usual for Extra Action charms"). Furthermore, there is an editing error. The cost should be 4 per attack, including the first - thanks for pointing it out. Finally, the main motivation for this charm is avoiding all these dice rolls for Extra Action charms.
Light Reflects Everything: The first version of this charm was just like you suggest. However, I wanted to avoid some questions about "Can I get my artifact bonus?" and stuff. I might take your advice though and explicitly write "no artifact bonuses". I'll go back after your comments though.
Light Shields the Strong II: Ooh, this is messed up in the cut and paste. Not everything though. It says "the cost of this charm" is reduced by 5 motes. Emphasis added. To clarify, the charm allows a flurry of 3 actions without penalties. One of these actions are allowed to be enhanced by FtL. FtL cannot be used in a normal flurry. This is perfectly consistent because a flurry without penalties (and limited to only three action types, MA, Ride or Athletics) can hardly be regarded as a normal flurry, no?
Thanks again! Please continue commenting. Clebo
I've changed the style after some of Ambisinister's very useful comments. Comments are very welcome, particularly by Ambisinister...Clebo
It's nice to see that you value my advice so highly. Good job cleaning things up and shifting stuff around. I've still got a few more nit picks, however:
- Paragon of Light Form- It's still a 5 mote speed 4 form and I still think that's too cheap for what it does even with your modifications. I will once again recomend bumping this to a 6 mote speed 6 charm.
- Breaching the Shroud of Darkness- I still think this costs too much.
- Light Shields the Strong - I think your weapon mod effects fits better here than in the form. That being said, I'm still a bigger fan of the effect granting a concrete bonus for spears and a different concrete bonus for swords in lieu of your customizable effect. As it's clear what you favor, I'd bump the cost to 6 motes. Using your "average strength of 3" as a baseline, bumping this charm up to 6 motes would give it a rough 2 mote per point of bonus ratio which brings it inline with the other similar effects such as with the Essence Mastery Excellency.
- Faster Than Light- The charm makes a lot more sense and seems a lot more balanced now that you've cleaned it up. I think that even when attacking creatures of darkness the charm shouldn't be able to beat its own limit of "Essence in number attacks." Especially considering it's Essence requirement is only three.
- Light Reflects Everything- When you simplified the charm you forgot to negate the line which reads "Even the paragon's scene-long, permanent and artifact effects can improve the counterstrike."
- Poetry in Motion- I'm not sure what I think of this charm now that I understand what it does. I'll get back to you.
Hi there again! Ambisinister, I've been waiting for your comments. I still do on the last charm. Of course I value your comments highly, you are a fellow gamer, one that cared for my MA style so much that you commented.
I'll comment your nitpicks.
Paragon of Light Form: Well, Ambisinister, you are aware that all the animal styles have a speed of 3? Also, I figure that people use these charms very differently. Some STs allows activation of scene-long combat charms before the join battle roll. In our group, we do not. This for simplicity. I like our way because it avoids the rather wierd tactic of fleeing the scene (so your prepared opponents' charms all are lost only to return, before their essence have returned). On the downside, some form charms with a bonus to join battle rolls are less powerful. However, those are not too common anyway. This makes it very sensitive with the speed of the form charm. I'll bump up the cost, but keeping the speed, ok?
Breaching the Shroud of Darkness: I cannot believe you think this charm costs too much! It adds Essence successes and makes the attack aggravated against dark foes. Against others, well, it's still somewhat useful.
Light Shields the Strong: You're right about the comparison of Infinite Mastery. However, this bonus is on top of any persistent dice adder, which should make it even more expensive I think. I'll change it to 7, 1 WP.
Faster-Than-Light: About the +2 attacks... I could go a more difficult route to only allow the bonus when one attack is made. This would make the most cost-efficient flurry consist of three attacks. That would be nice, because the theme is the number three in the style. I have to think about it though.
Poetry in Motion Style. I'm also thinking about it. I'd like to add yet another effect in the style somewhere, perhaps here. When the Paragon kills an enemy of creation who wields essence (hungry ghosts, abyssals, demons etc), she regains one willpower.
Light Reflects Everything: Negation added!
Some additions to the style: I've added sticks into the chosen form weapons (because three is the number in this style and stick begins with the same letter) and changed the Protection of Light into Steadfast Protection of Light and added a conditional immunity to knockdown and knockback. The latter addition is mostly there to aid riding which is not so present in the style than initially intended.
