SolarDodge/Ikselam
Ikselam's Dodge Charms
I'd wanted to do more Dodge Charms for a while, but couldn't get any good ideas until I started working on an iaijutsu tree forSolarDodge/SolarMelee. That project actually ended up producing far moreSolarDodge/SolarAwareness and Dodge powers than Melee.
- back to SolarDodge.
- back to Charms/Ikselam]]'s Charms.
Mob-Frustrating Movement</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes Duration: One turn Type: Reflexive Min. Dodge: 3 Min. Essence: 2 Prereqs: Reflex Sidestep Technique
An Exalted with this power can deny her opponents the advantage of numbers, exploiting terrain and her attackers' own positioning in order to keep them from ganging up on her. For each point of permanent Essence she has, the number of enemies who may attack her at the same time is reduced by one, to a minimum of one. This effect lasts until the end of the current turn.
Dancing Through the Storm</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes, 1 willpower Duration: One scene Type: Simple Min. Dodge: 5 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: Mob-Frustrating Movement, Flow Like Blood
Letting Essence guide him, the Exalted flows amidst his enemies, intuitively finding the positions and patterns of movement that will most inconvenience them. Those who try to attack him find themselves tripping over uneven terrain, blocked out by their own allies, and generally just one step behind the elusive Solar. Mechanically, the character using Dancing Through the Storm ignores any penalties incurred as a result of terrain or position, and anyone attacking him doubles such penalties. In addition, any attack against him is made at a cumulative +1 difficulty for every enemy beyond the first within (Dodge + Essence) yards of him.
Deceptive Distance Method</b>
<b>Cost: 2 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Dodge: 3 Min. Essence: 2 Prereqs: Shadow Over Water
Through precise timing and clever footwork, the Solar tricks her opponent into overextending himself. Whenever she successfully dodges an attack, the character may activate this Charm to impose a cumulative -1 penalty to all of her attacker's combat dice pools, to a maximum penalty of her Dodge score. This penalty lasts for a number of turns equal to the character's permanent Essence.
Deceptive Distance Method does not provide a dodge; it merely enhances an existing one.
Foe-Tripping Footwork</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Dodge: 5 Min. Essence: 3 Prereqs: Deceptive Distance Method
A Solar who learns this power can dart and weave about his foes with such bewildering speed and agility that they literally stumble over their own feet trying to follow his movements. The character may dodge, without rolling, a single hand-to-hand attack of which he is aware. The character who made the attack automatically falls down, and may not get back up until her next initiative. If the target has some power which prevents her from losing her balance or falling over (e.g., Graceful Crane Stance), she must still make a Dexterity + Athletics check at a difficulty equal to the character's Dexterity or stumble, incurring a -1 dice penalty to all physical actions until her next initiative.
Foe-Tripping Footwork cannot avoid magical attacks which explicitly disallow dodging.
Freedom of the Swift Wind</b>
<b>Cost: 1 mote Duration: One turn Type: Reflexive Min. Dodge: 2 Min. Essence: 1 Prereqs: Reed in the Wind
The Exalted can move and dodge at the same time, tumbling and zig-zagging toward her destination. This Charm may only be used when the character declares a full dodge. She may move up to her normal sprinting distance in any direction she wishes without losing the benefits of the dodge.
Elusive Liquid Motion Method</b>
<b>Cost: 10 motes, 1 willpower Duration: One scene Type: Simple Min. Dodge: 5 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: Deceptive Distance Method, Leaping Dodge Technique, Flow Like Blood
The Exalted moves like a ray of fading sunlight, flowing around and away from his attackers so that he is always just one step beyond their reach. For the remainder of the scene, no enemy may make more than one hand-to-hand attack against him in any given turn. This applies equally to split actions, Extra Action Charms, and undodgeable attacks. It does not prevent the attacker from assigning subsequent attacks to other targets (if she may legally do so).
In addition, the character has complete control over his movements; even if he is propelled through the air by a mighty blow, he can gracefully deflect his trajectory into any shape he desires. If he is subject to any effect which would force him to move, he may choose the direction in which he moves. This explicitly includes knockback, and any Charms which produce knockback-like effects. If the chosen path of motion would result in a collision, the character may opt to bounce off the obstruction at any angle he desires. He will never, under any circumstances, take damage from colliding with a solid object that is not bristling with spikes, heated red-hot, or the like.
This Charm applies even to multiple attacks of which the character is not aware, although it does not prevent him from being surprised by the first attack.
Cheetah Overtakes Gazelle</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Dodge: 3 Min. Essence: 2 Prereqs: Leaping Dodge Technique, Freedom of the Swift Wind
The Exalted avoids an attack by sprinting toward the attacker, rather than away. When the character makes a dodge attempt, she may move up to her normal sprinting distance toward her attacker. This may be activated multiple times in a single turn, and does not count against the character's normal movement allowance for the turn.
If the sprint takes the character past her attacker, any further attacks made against her by that enemy are wasted; this includes split actions and Extra Action Charms. In addition, if the character has any actions remaining with which to make an attack of her own, she gains the benefits of attacking from behind (See Exalted, p. 238).
Cheetah Overtakes Gazelle does not provide a dodge; it merely enhances an existing one.
- back to SolarDodge.
- back to Charms/Ikselam]]'s Charms.
Comments
How does Mob-Frustrating Movement interact with Threshing Floor Technique? Does Deceptive Distance Method create a global penalty on its victim, or does the penalty only benefit the Exalt who created it? - FourWillowsWeeping
TFT would be the way to beat MFM, since MFM just reduces the max number of attackers by Essence, and TFT can raise the max number of attackers to an arbitrarily high number. In effect, MFM only works against "normal" gang-up attacks, or effects which persistently increase the max number of attackers by a constant amount (for example, if TFT was scene-long and raised the number of max attackers by user's Essence, or something like that).
DDM's penalty represents the attacker overextending and going off-balance, so it makes sense for it to be global.
_Ikselam
Can you use Mob-Frustrating Movement in a perfectly flat, featureless open space? (Not that a good Exalted Storyteller would ever permit a combat to transpire in a perfectly flat, featureless open space...) I really like Dancing Through the Storm, though it looks like it involves a bit more number-crunching than I'd want to deal with in combat. Foe-Tripping Footwork is cool, but it seems a bit too effective at making otherwise supernaturally graceful opponents fall down; if my PC's schtick involved swashbuckling dexterity and my opponent kept making me trip over my own feet with this Charm, I'd be pissed. Overall, though, this is a great set of Charms. Excellent work! - Quendalon
The crowd-control Charms don't rely exclusively on terrain to produce their effects. The idea is that they also allow you to move such that you always keep one of your attackers in between yourself and the others. So, sure, they'd work on a featureless salt flat almost as well as in an overgrown jungle. DTS could probably use a more streamlined system, but I can't really think of how I'd work it. I guess you could do something like turning environmental penalties into bonuses (to steal an idea I saw on the WW boards a little while ago), but that would change the feel of the Charm.
I wouldn't say Foe-Tripping is any more obnoxious than running into a Lunar who can nail your saintly monk down to a wishy-washy 2 in every Virtue, or a ninja who can distract you with a frigging finger gesture, or a DB who has the thrice-accursed Defense From Anathema Method. If it makes you feel better, you could imagine that the dodger actually trips the attacker while he's zipping past her at the speed of thought.
_Ikselam
Actually that does make me feel better. :) And I think that Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack is just as obnoxious, which is why I designed a Charm specifically to counter it. Damn ninjas! - Quendalon
The Lunar Virtue-reduction powers are the ones that bother me most. What's next, a power that lets you alter a character's Nature for a scene? Anyways, FTF is supposed to be the Solar version of that Abyssal Charm that lets you pop up behind people, but I didn't want it to be that Charm with a new coat of paint. That would have been tacky.
_Ikselam
Yay! New Charms!
Yay, I figured out a bit more of Wikisms!
Okay, starting to look at Charms more closely. I like Mob Frustrating Movement. Ditto Dancing Through the Storm, although I don't see why Flow Like Blood is required- it's effects are so situation dependent, I'd drop the FLB prereqs, and bring the Dodge requirement to 4 and the Essence requirement to 2. The cost feels good, though. Deceptive Distance is a neat effect, but requires a bit much paperwork for my tastes- I'd increase the duration of the penelty to one scene, flat. I like Foe Tripping Footwork, but not so much the attempted work around of a 'Prevent you from being knocked over'. I'd knock the cost to 5 motes, lower the Essence requirement to 2, and remove the 'Attempt to knock over people that can't be knocked over.
Freedom of Swift Wind is wonderful :) Ditto Elusive Liquid Motion Method- I'd even question the cost of it. Maybe knock off the Willpower- given that you've already got Flow Like Blood, multiple attacks are as much a disadvantage as an advantage already. Cheetah Overtakes Gazelle... is odd. Until I noticed the attack from behind. Then it became wonderful :)
- DariusSolluman
The main purpose of Cheetah Overtakes Gazelle is to enable close-combat specialists to rapidly close distance with opponents who are attempting to wear them down with a barrage of ranged attacks. The backstab thing is just an afterthought.
_Ikselam
- For an afterthought, the backstab is very powerful. Compare it to the Athletic charm Foe Vaulting Style (CB: Night p. 73). As it is, you have a hopping defense (a multi-attack breaker) and a surprise attack charm for really cheap. Also, COG can achieve surprise multiple times while FVS only once per enemy. Are you sure that's balanced? You say you made the charm to enable close-combat specialist to close distance fast, which it does admirably, but have you looked at what happens if someone used it in a melee situation? My suggestion is to limit the surprise attack to once per enemy. Period. Another approach is to specifically say that the charm is effective only against ranged attacks. - TonyC
- COG does not provide a dodge. In order to use it as you describe, you would need to hold a lot of dodge actions -- causing your backstabs to be very weak -- or Combo it with a reflexive dodge Charm, which would be expensive. Granted, if you have Flow Like Blood or a similar persistent dodge up, it becomes a lot more useful. Compare to the Abyssal Charm, Flowing Evasion Assault. This Charm requires Dodge 5 and Essence 3, costs 6 motes, and is a perfect reflexive dodge which allows unlimited backstabs. Further note that for Cheetah Overtakes Gazelle to become as useful as this Charm, it (as noted above) needs to be coupled with Flow Like Blood, which requires Dodge 5 and Essence 3. (Also note that I think Foe-Vaulting Method is a very good example of bad Charm implementation, and thus ignore it.)
- The only thing I think might actually be an issue with COG is the large distance it allows you to move. The intent of the Charm is that you can't use it to dash way beyond your attacker, but that you skid to a stop just past him, which makes it less useful in close combat than it might otherwise be. _Ikselam
