SolarMelee/TheMyriadOfShades
Ever-Prepared Sentinel Stance</I>
Cost: 3 motes Duration: Scene Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 2 Min. Ess.: 1 Prereq.: None
A Solar's shield is always ready on the defense, impossible to circumvent. The character always benefits from the defensive bonus of his shield-- he turns to face an unexpected foe, and unusual attacks find that trickery will not turn aside the Solar's defense.
The Solar receives his shield's normal defense bonus when he normally would not, such as when attacked from behind or when attacked by an attack that ignores cover. This is a perfect effect. This effect does not include any additional, non-shield cover the user may have.
<I>Impenetrable Bulwark</I>
Cost: 3 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 3 Min. Ess.: 1 Prereq.: Ever-Prepared Sentinel Stance
For a time, the Solar who trusts in his shield will find himself unharmed. His reflexes are such that he can successfully interpose his shield between himself and any incoming hazard.
The Solar blocks a single attack without rolling. This is not a perfect defense. Note that mortal shields used to parry the stronger attacks of powerful beings, such as greater gods and elder Exalted, may break at the ST's discretion.
<I>Iron Maiden's Deflection</I>
Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 4 Min. Ess.: 2 Prereq.: Impenetrable Bulwark
The shields of the Solar Exalted do as much damage to the weapon that strikes them as they take themselves. The Solar, in a burst of power, slams his shield into an oncoming attack.
The Solar activates this Charm when attacked. He does not gain the benefit of his shield against the attack unless the Ever-Prepared Sentinel Stance is active. Instead, he rolls his Strength+Melee as an unblockable counterattack disarm attempt at difficulty 1. On a success, the rest of the disarm attempt continues normally.
<I>Sword-Shattering Wall Defense</I>
Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower Duration: Scene
Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 3 Prereq.: Iron Maiden's Deflection
The Solar's shield shines a soft golden light when under the effects of this Charm. The shield is both lightened and hardened by Essence, allowing the Solar to both more easily turn aside attacks and shattering the blades of lesser opponents.
The Solar adds his Essence to the shield's defense bonus. In addition, hand-to-hand attackers face consequences whenever they strike the shield full on. Whenever an unarmed attacker's attack fails to overcome the shield's defense bonus (that is, he rolls fewer attack successes than are neccessary to penetrate the shield's defense bonus), he suffers his own Strength in dice of unsoakable bashing damage. When an armed hand-to-hand attacker fails to overcome the shield's defense bonus, his weapon permanently loses a point of damage. Weapons reduced below zero damage shatter. Weapons of the Five Magical Materials are immune to damage-reduction and shattering.
<I>Immoveable Opposition</I>
Cost: 2 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 4 Min. Ess.: 2 Prereq.: Impregnable Bulwark
Though its weilder may be injured, a shield in the hands of the Solar will stand firm, deflecting the brute force beyond any attack.
This Charm is used against an incoming attack, and may be activated after the attack hits, but before damage is rolled. The Charm's user does not suffer knockdown/knockback from this attack. This is a perfect effect. This Charm does not function if the attacker somehow negates the shield's defensive bonus, though the Ever-Prepared Sentinel Stance guards against this.
<I>Shield Maiden's Virtue</I>
Cost: 2 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 3 Prereq.: Immoveable Opposition
When the Solar's first defense is compromised, the incoming attack does not escape untouched. This Charm is activated after an attack strikes the Solar, but before damage is rolled. This Charm removes the damage bonus from extra attack successes on the attack-- the incoming attack only does its base damage.
The attacks of greater gods and elder Exalted may shatter mortal shields.
<I>The Sun Still Shines</I>
Cost: 6 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 4 Prereq.: Shield Maiden's Virtue
No magic known to men or gods or even the Exalted can penetrate the Unconquered Sun's mighty shield, and it is this quality of their patron that the Solars attempt to emulate using this Charm.
The Solar may use this Charm whenever he is a direct target of a Charm-enhanced attack. The Solar's shield shines like a miniature sun, and its brilliant light turns aside hostile essence flows. The Solar rolls his Dexterity+Melee+Essence at a difficulty equal to the Essence of his attacker-- on a success, the Charms used to enhance the attack are all cancelled, though the attack continues as normal, unenhanced by any Charms. If used against a Combo, the roll to cancel the Combo with this Charm is at an additional +2 difficulty. The attack still must spend the essence to power the cancelled Charms as normal.
This Charm may not be activated in response to Charms that do not directly provide or enhance attacks against the character, or to Charm-enhaced attacks the character is not aware of. An attacker whose Extra Action Charm is cancelled still makes a single attack, but loses the extra actions. This Charm may destroy a mortal shield if it is used to turn aside the magical attacks of a being with an Essence of 5 of higher, though the Charm functions as normal against the attack that breaks the shield.
<I>A World Unconquered</I>
Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower (plus an extra 5 motes and 1 health level against area effects) Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 4 Prereq.: The Sun Still Shines
Where the Solar Exalted stand, the world stands firm under their protection. The Solar may reflexively parry, without rolling, any one attack against himself or against any target within the Solar's Melee in yards. This is a perfect parry, and does not function against unblockable attacks.
If faced with an attack that attacks an entire area, a Solar may sacrifice of himself to protect the world. The Solar spends an extra 5 motes and a health level. He forms a shield of essence and will, based on his own shield and spreading to protect an area around himself infalliably. The Solar may parry, without rolling, the effects of an area attack within (10 times the Solar's Essence) in yards of the Solar himself. This is a perfect parry, and specifically blocks even unblockable attacks. A mortal shield used for this version of the Charm shatters immediately afterwards.
<I>Hundred Blade Blossom</I>
Cost: 12 motes, 1 Willpower Duration: Instant Type: Extra Action Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 4 Prereq.: Iron Whirlwind Attack
The Solar bears down on a target, and though no more than a moment passes, he strikes more times than the eye can easily count.
The Solar must focus all of the attacks granted by this Charm on a single opponent. He may attack until he has either successfully struck his target a number of times equal to his Melee, or until he has missed a total number of attacks equal to his Melee.
<I>Perfected Blade Tsunami</I>
Cost: 15 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 health level Duration: Instant Type: Simple Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 5 Prereq.: Hundred Blade Blossom
The Solar surges forward, his weapon a supernatural force among his enemies. He moves among those he wishes to see the end of, and his ever-moving blade sees to the rest. He is any and everywhere, and only heroes can stand against his unstoppable onslaught. He can stand against any mortal army and wipe it from the face of the earth.
The Solar makes a single attack and applies it against every target within his movement radius-- if he cannot move, he can only attack those within the reach of his weapon. Extras are instantly slain by this attack-- others can only defend against it with the use of Charms. This Charm cannot be Comboed with Extra-Action Charms.
Used in Mail and Steel, this Charm converts all damage dice against a unit into automatic successes. Against units with no Might, the attack instead instantly destroys a level of Magnitude of the unit (a significant amount of mortal men slain instantly, and the rest scattered by rout and the flying bodies of their comrades), in addition to the normal effects of the attack.
<I>Infinite Retribution Kata</I>
Cost: 8 motes, 1 Willpower Duration: Scene Type: Simple Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 4 Prereq.: Ready in Eight Directions Stance
Without the slightest of effort, the Solar swings his sword at anything that comes within range-- to attack one of the Princes of the Earth so prepared is to invite one's own death.
The Solar adds his Melee in dice to all counterattacks he makes. This may explicitly build a counterattack pool from zero. These counterattacks are all resolved simutaneously with their incoming attacks, as per the rules for Solar Counterattack.
<I>Golden Sword Saint</I>
Cost: 8 motes per Independent Action, 1 Willpower Duration: Scene Type: Simple Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 5 Prereq.: Infinite Retribution Kata, Hundred Blade Blossom
The Solar adopts a mighty combat stance passed down through his Solar Essence from the first days of the Primordial War, when the first demons to face these strongest of the usurping Exalted learned that there is no limit to what a talented Solar can do with his weapon.
In addition to his normal action, the Solar may gain a number of Independent Actions, as defined by Charcoal March of Spiders Form, up to half his Essence, rounded down. These Indepedendent Actions must use his Melee ability.
<I>Thousand Blade Cascade</I>
Cost: 15 motes, 1 Willpower Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Melee: 6 Min. Ess.: 6 Prereq.: Golden Sword Saint
What normal men take minutes to do the Solar accomplishes in a single instant. This elder Charm was created by the First Age Night Caste Smiling Summer Jest, who once in a pique of anger shattered the thousand-yard-tall statue of herself that bestrode the countryside with the White Jade Grand Goremaul All Stones Shatter that she took from one of her Terrestrial bodyservants in a single flurry of enranged blows-- it had come to her attention that bats had come to roost in the structure's nostrils and the local peasantry had coined a bar song about dark dirty rodents infesting the Solar's body. All witnesses marveled how Smiling Summer Jest only seemed to strike once, but the instant result of the attack showed otherwise.
The Solar makes a normal Melee attack against an opponent. If the attack hits, apply the effects of the attack a number of times equal to the number of successes he rolled on the original attack, unreduced by defensive successes. If this Charm is Comboed with Simple or Supplemental Charms, the cost of those Charms must be paid for each application of the attack. If it is Comboed with Simple/Supplemental AND Extra-Action Charms, then the cost of the Simple/Supplemental Charms must be paid for each application of the attack, for every attack granted by the Extra-Action Charm-- this is prohibitively expensive, and historically most Solars with this Comboed it with both Simple/Supplemental and Extra Action Charms but not both simutaneously.
<I>Immaculate Strike</I>
Cost: 15 motes Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Melee: 6 Min. Ess.: 6 Prereq.: Golden Sword Saint
The Solar's sword strikes holy and true, infalliably striking down the foes of the Chosen of the Sun. Such is the power and authority of the Solar Exalted over the workings of essence that few in Creation or beyond can stand when one of the elder Solar Exalted moves to the offensive.
The attack supplemented by this Charm is perfect. In addition, no inferior defense can stand against it-- non-perfect defenses cannot reduce the number of successes on the Solar's attack. Unless he is faced with a perfect defense, his attack hits with the number of successes he rolled on his original attack. This attack will shatter any mortal weapon used to parry it.
<I>Silently Falling Forest</I>
Cost: 10 motes, 2 Willpower Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 6 Min. Ess.: 6 Prereq.: Golden Sword Saint
A Solar preparing for battle shocks the battlefield with the glory of his ascension to the forefront of violence. He draws his weapon and in a single moment has already stunned his opponents into disadvantage. None can safely face him if he can reveal his weapon.
When invoking this Charm, the Solar draws a weapon from its sheath or bindings and makes an attack outside of the normal initiative order. He rolls a single attack and applies it to every target within sight the Solar wishes to strike. This attack is invisible to the naked eye and difficult to anticipate due to the Solar's speed-- unless the target can perceive essence, he may only use those defenses that state they work against attacks the character is unaware of. The damage from this attack is bashing. This Charm only works as the Solar draws his weapon-- the Solar must re-sheath his weapon, requiring an unrolled Melee action, before he can use this Charm again. He may use this Charm no more than once per turn.
<I>Transcendant Principle of the Blade</I>
Cost: None Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. Melee: 7 Min. Ess.: 7 Prereq.: Three Essence 6 Charms, at least 15 Melee Charms total
The Solar unites himself with the whole of each universal property that may affect his weapon mastery. His understanding of the ways of using weapons far transcends any mortal boundaries, and he gains the ability to use weapons in ways no mortal could imagine-- his sword truly cuts the world at every point it interacts with it.
Whenever using a Melee weapon, the Solar boosts his initiative, accuracy, damage, defense, and rate all by his Essence at all times. He makes all Melee rolls at difficulty 1, and the only possibly penalty he can suffer to his Melee rolls is the extra action penalty. He may parry the use of any Ability to directly affect him as if it were a normal attack as long as he is aware of the attempt-- he may parry seduction attempts (Presence), audits (Investigation/Bureaucracy), attempts to deceive him (Socialize/Larceny), and so on and so forth. Though he may only gesture with his blade, the Solar literally cuts such attempts from the fabric of the world. Charms with unrolled effects are treated as perfect attacks, and so require Heavenly Guardian Defense or a similar Charm to parry.
Without this Charm (which certainly has similar versions lurking in most Solar high-Essence trees), the character cannot make effective direct Melee attacks against Primordials. He may defend against such beings as normal, but his attacks lack metaphysical authority and so fail to signficantly affect a being as multi-faceted as a Primordial. This Charm is not neccessary to make effective direct Melee attacks on Third Circle demons or Deathlords, however.
<I>Superb Swordsman Stance</I>
Cost: 5 motes Duration: Scene Type: Reflexive Min. Melee: 3 Min. Ess.: 2 Prereq.: Excellent Strike, Golden Essence Block
The Solar harmonizes his anima with his weapon, moving from stroke to counterstroke with effortless grace. The Solar adds his Essence to all Melee rolls.
<I>Overwhelming Prowess</I>
Cost: 2 motes per success Duration: Instant Type: Supplemental Min. Melee: 4 Min. Ess.: 3 Prereq.: Superb Swordsman Stance
If it can be defeated, a Solar's blade will defeat it. After a Melee roll, the Solar may buy a number of extra successes on the roll equal to (the number of successes originally rolled + the Solar's Essence).
<I>Bronze Tiger Mein</I>
Cost: None Duration: Permanent Type: Special Min. Melee: 5 Min. Ess.: 3 Prereq.: Overwhelming Prowess
The skill of the Solar Exalted is such that their warriors cannot be turned aside by those things that impede other men. The Solar lowers the base difficulty of all Melee rolls by his Essence, to a minimum of 1. Note that this does not affect the successes rolled on opposed rolls, such as attacks and parries, but only the base difficulty of the original roll, which may be raised by enviromental considerations such as blindness or cover or by magical considerations such as the Ebon Shadow Form.
Comments
Thought 1: Perfected Blade Tsunami makes me giggle with glee. Pow!
Thought 2: Silently Falling Forest can be cheerfully abused because a) it's Reflexive, and b) it requires a dice action with no roll. How many multiple actions can you take if the action you're multiplying has no base pool? The Solar draws and sheathes his sword eight billion times in one turn, and everyone in the world drops dead. :-) I'd make it Simple, or just limit it to once per turn.
Thought 3: I think Transcendental Mastery of the Blade might be a <i>little much. Maybe Essence 8? I don't know, though. My reason tends to recoil when I'm dealing with charms this powerful. :-P
I'll take the Thought 2 suggestion. - TheMyriadOfShades
First off, I love the number and scope of charms presented here. Mad props to anyone who can put up such a comprehensive and solid tree-sequence. Honestly, if this is all the extra melee charms that ExaltedSecond gives us, I'd be quite happy. There's only two things I've got to say that are negative (honestly, I love the vast majority of charms here, and think they're quite balanced and reasonable), and they're about the first two charms in the list. The first charm is a Melee 3, Essence 1 charm, that contains the word "perfect". I just don't like that, as it's a perfect defense, for Ess 1 and Melee 3. Make it anything short of perfect you'd like, but as a perfect defense, even an Essence 8 perfect super-thing explicitly designed to simply remove the shield from the equation doesn't work. The second charm is a reflexive, allowing you to 'block' any one attack. Is this merely the instant version of the first charm, so that you can combo it? Otherwise, the word 'block' to me implies a parry, which for 3m, is a lot cheap and low-requirement. I think some clarification on the wording might help it explain that it really means 'get the shield bonus, even if it isn't normally allowed'. Otherwise, again, great work. - GregLink
- Solars get perfect attacks at Archery 5/Ess 1, perfect parries at Melee 4/Ess 2, and perfect dodges at Dodge 5/Ess 1. This isn't as good as any of those-- it just allows you to get your shield bonus when you normally wouldn't, like when someone uses a cover-bypassing Charm. This strikes you as overpowering? An Essence 8 shield-bypassing effect would work no more than an Essence 8 parries-don't-work effect would work against Heavenly Guardian Defense-- that is, to say, it wouldn't.
- The second Charm is just Impeding the Flow with a shield and one Charm deeper in the tree. It being a Solar Charm, it's certainly allowed to be as powerful as a comparable Sidereal Charm for the same cost. It DOES mean that you block the attack, as in the attack fails (unless it's unblockable or perfect, of course), not 'get the shield bonus'. Especially since the first Charm already does that, all scene.
- Thanks for the comment. -TheMyriadOfShades
- Points well made, and I really can't argue. I suppose if you're comparing to ItF, then yeah, it's good, and same with the other examples. Good work all around then. My next question, then, is, since both ItF (and it's new equivalent) are nearly similar in level to things like DSD, and by going up a small bit, one gets a 'scene long' DSD in the form of FFBS, what level would you predict a scene-long ItF equivalent would be, and where would it be on the tree? After all, such a charm would make near invulnerable in terms of non-Solar combat, and at the same time, shouldn't be that much more than Ess 3 or so... - GregLink, wondering, and since you seem to be good at the rules-ing, asking
- Hmmm. Personally I've avoided making a Charm like that, because it makes you so invulnerable. I don't think you can generalize from 'DSD to FFBS' to 'ItF to Near-Invulnerability-For-The-Scene'-- the justification for Charm level isn't "that's how it works elsewhere", but "whether or not this is fun to play in-game". If it did exist, it would probably be elder-level, but I'm hardly a canon source. -TheMyriadOfShades
