Conversion: Violet Bier of Sorrows Style

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Mon May 04, 2009 11:10 pm

Another hack, cleaned up for general use. As far as possible, I have attempted to replicate the feel and theme of the 1E style.

Blade of the Battle Maiden is shifted from the role of accuracy booster to damage booster, to fit with the theme of the style and the general increased lethality of Exalted 2, as the Charm has to stay in to preserve the scripture flow and the role of scenelong pool booster is properly taken up by the Exalt type's own General Charms. Deliberately tried to replicate the "I WANT" feel the old one had. Did not, of course, include the Sidereal Brawl charms so unceremoniously spliced into the style in the 2E book.

The total commitment cost of the style is calibrated to be as close as possible to the commitment cost of the old style assuming a Sidereal is committing motes to my Propitious Sidereal Alignment Charm and using Sidereal Essence Overwhelming and Auspicious to the limit of the discount, to replicate the 1E trap of potentially committing too much Essence out of a small pool.

As usual, I'd appreciate it if anyone spotted anything missing or broken.

Quote:

Violet Bier of Sorrows Style

The Violet Bier of Sorrows Style is a Celestial Martial Art Style, created by the Maiden of Endings to arm her Chosen for the Primordial War. Its form weapons are the straight sword, the slashing sword, the short sword, the knife, the staff and their artifact equivalents. The style's Charms are incompatible with armour or shields. As one of the first and most honoured of Creation's martial arts styles, the Endings Form was widespread in the First Age. Non-Sidereal Exalted may learn it with sufficient justification, such as past-life memories or a suitable Mentor.

New Keyword: Prayer Strip - Prayer Strip effects are accessible only to Sidereal Exalted, or those who learn the Charm as a Sidereal Exalt. Invoking a Prayer Strip effect is a reflexive miscellaneous action which requires a physical prayer strip inscribed with the relevant Scripture, which is consumed in the process. Prayer Strip effects may have their own keywords, noted in brackets.

Scripture of the Expectant Maiden: Once, there was a maiden...

Secrets of Future Strife
Cost: None; Mins: Martial Arts 1, Essence 1; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None
...who was always looking forward to the way things would be.

The character trains herself for instant acceptance of the twists and turns of circumstance. This Charm doubles the character's successes on Join Battle rolls.

Flight of Mercury
Cost: 5m; Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 1; Type: Reflexive (Step 1)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Scene
Prerequisites: Secrets of Future Strife
She said, "Someday, I'm getting out of this place."

The character moves with the swift precision of one who knows her destiny. The Speed of her unarmed Martial Arts attacks is set to 3. Any effects that would further reduce Speed have no effect.

Blade of the Battle Maiden
Cost: 6m, 1w; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 1 offensive or Step 2 defensive)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Scene
Prerequisites: Secrets of Future Strife
"Someday, I'm going to kill that boy that put me here."

Essence shines around the character's hands (or weapons), tracing with their every movement crimson trails through the air. While this Charm is active, the character may replace the statistics of her natural Punch and Kick weapons with those of a starmetal daiklave (Speed 5, Accuracy +4, Damage +9L, Defense +1, Rate 3). She may parry lethal attacks unarmed. If she is wielding a form weapon instead, the weapon becomes unbreakable, may deal lethal damage if it deals bashing naturally and adds the starmetal Magical Material bonus (+1 Accuracy, +3 Damage) to its statline.

Joy in Adversity Stance
Cost: 5m; Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 1; Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Scene
Prerequisites: Secrets of Future Strife
"And while I wait, I don't much mind,

Those who routinely face terrible odds can learn to take some measure of happiness in each moment's survival. Having activated this Charm, when the character successfully uses her DV to parry or dodge an attack, she gains her Permanent Essence in motes. This Charm may not be used against attacks not truly intended to harm the character or attacks incapable of harming the character, nor may it be used in conjunction with effects that automatically defend against attacks or force them to fail. It may not increase the character's Essence pool beyond its normal maximum, and she may not gain more than 20 motes through any combination of Charms including Joy in Adversity Stance during a single one of her actions.

Violet Bier of Sorrows Form
Cost: 6m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2; Type: Simple (Speed 3, DV -1)
Keywords: Form-type, Crippling
Duration: Scene
Prerequisites: Flight of Mercury, Joy in Adversity Stance, Blade of the Battle Maiden
'cause it's better to dream tomorrow than to be there."

The Exalt adopts the cold detachment with which Saturn makes her Sign against those things whose time has passed. While she uses this Form, each successful attack also drains some of the victim's passion as a Crippling effect. After damaging an opponent with an unarmed Martial Arts attack, the Exalt can remove one point of the target's Virtues, to a minimum of 1. This cannot reduce a target's Virtues below the minimums required for the Great Curse. Each Virtue heals naturally at the rate of one point a day. In addition, the minimum damage and raw damage of unarmed Martial Arts attacks increases by 2.

Note: Gods and demons no longer have strict Virtue requirements for their Charms, so the bite of the Violet Bier of Sorrows Form when used against these entities is reduced in 2E. The Storyteller is encouraged to use the guidelines on page 296 of Exalted to reduce their capabilities when struck by Violet Bier of Sorrows stylists using the Form.

Death-Parrying Stroke
Cost: 2m per health level; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 8 )
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Violet Bier of Sorrows Form
"I'm holding at bay," she said, "what I know to be true."

In a blur of violet Essence, the character's blade catches an attack that might otherwise have killed her. If the character chose to use her PDV against an incoming attack and failed to parry it, she may decide to invoke this Charm after damage has been rolled, reducing damage by one level per 2 motes spent. This Charm, like all health level reduction effects, activates on the same instant as the Twilight anima power effect.

Life-Severing Blow
Cost: 2m per health level; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Reflexive (Step 8 )
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Violet Bier of Sorrows Form
"That I'll never get out. I won't let my dreams die!"

Drawing on the Essence of Endings, a character can add power to a blow that she realizes is about to pierce her enemy's defenses. If she hits with an unarmed Martial Arts attack, she may purchase automatic damage successes after damage has been rolled at a cost of 2 motes each. She cannot purchase more successes on any given attack than her permanent Essence rating.

Clarification: use of a automatic soak Charm like Iron Skin Concentration or Adamant Skin Technique nullifies all damage from this Charm.

Metal Storm
Cost: 2m per attack; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Extra Action
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Life-Severing Blow
"I'll hang on to hope," she said, "until Time itself ends. But-"

Not even the most cunning of opponents can evade a sword that strikes everywhere at once. This Charm is a magical flurry of two or more unarmed Martial Arts attacks. Each attack in the flurry costs two motes, including the first. The character may not make more attacks with this Charm than her Martial Arts rating +1. All attacks produced by this Charm must be directed at the same target. These attacks may be made regardless of Rate, do not suffer multiple action penalties, and only impose a DV penalty equal to the highest penalty for any one attack.

Conclusion-Pursuing Approach
Cost: 10m 1w 1hl; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Prayer Strip (Crippling, Obvious)
Duration: Scene
Prerequisites: Death-Parrying Stroke, Metal Storm
"There's always an ending," said Time.

At the pinnacle of the Violet Bier of Sorrows Style, a character learns to draw strength from the pain of others. Her attacks gain resolve as her enemy falters. She is trained to take full advantage of the weakness of the wounded, stalking failing prey as death hunts those whose time has come. Whenever she successfully strikes a hostile opponent with an unarmed Martial Arts attack, she gains one point of Willpower. In addition, an opponent's wound penalties are tripled when it comes to attacking her or defending against her unarmed Martial Arts attacks.

Prayer Strip: The character may fix the scripture of the Expectant Maiden to her weapon, wrapping the whole in radiant burgundy light. While the prayer strip survives, as a Crippling effect, each successful unarmed Martial Arts attack which inflicts damage causes the target to lose a Willpower point. Targets with no Willpower left to lose instead lose 10 motes of Essence. If the target does not have 10 motes of Essence to lose, convert that attack's post-soak damage dice to automatic successes instead.

If any rules-lawyers wish to help me correct my wording to tighten it up, please feel free!

lumber_of_the_beast · **Posted:** Tue May 05, 2009 12:57 am

Mmm.... delicious...

*licks the rewrite*

On a more serious note, Secrets of Future Strife still worries me - even more, in fact, now that it actually /works/. Six ticks is a long time - at least two attacks in before your enemies can act, and maybe a third at the same time as their action if you've hit Speed cap.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Tue May 05, 2009 2:22 am

Eh, if your JB pool is ~10 dice (generous assumption, I've found), it'll produce the same benefit as the Snake Style success adder, putting you on the same level as characters who have invested one charm into Joining Battle faster. If you buy the Snake Style success adder or use some other way to add to Join Battle which is then doubled, you probably go first, true, but I thought it appropriate. A hypothetical character build doing that did invest two charms into it, after all.

Asmodai · **Posted:** Tue May 05, 2009 3:01 am

Uh Jon, i always thought Sidereals made Blade of the Battle Maiden so they could circumvent their low dicepools in comparison to the other Celestials? Otherwise it seems pretty nice.

Tornado Wolf · **Posted:** Tue May 05, 2009 5:48 am

Pre-Form Solar and Lunar Hero Style Charms need to be as strong as those Pre-Form Charms.

What happens to the old Brawl Charms? Making a Crimson Panalopy of Victory Style?

As an interesting question, should the other four Sidereal Styles come up with new Charms reflecting the other Castes? Or would Crimson Victory Style still use Secrets of Future Strife, Flight of Mercury, and Defense of Shining Joy? Just replacing Blade of the Battle Maiden with an Endings-flavored Charm?

Dinosaur · **Posted:** Tue May 05, 2009 7:08 am

I like the damage target number reduction you gave BotBM here. Useful, but not a complete ARGH of being a repetitive Charm.

Asmodai wrote:

Uh Jon, i always thought Sidereals made Blade of the Battle Maiden so they could circumvent their low dicepools in comparison to the other Celestials? Otherwise it seems pretty nice.

That was 1e, when Sidereals didn't get a generic target number reducer for Martial Arts unless they dug into World-Shaping Artistic Vision. In 2e, they have no such restriction, and are free to buy Auspicious Successes when they use it.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Tue May 05, 2009 4:15 pm

Tornado Wolf wrote:

Pre-Form Solar and Lunar Hero Style Charms need to be as strong as those Pre-Form Charms.

Violet Bier was always bottom heavy. I think this makes it a cherrypicker Celestial's dream style and wouldn't have done it myself, but I didn't want to alter it too much - the purpose of this rebuild is so that people who want to use it in 2E don't have to do the conversion themselves, since the one in the Siddie book is clearly screwed up.

Tornado Wolf wrote:

What happens to the old Brawl Charms? Making a Crimson Panalopy of Victory Style?

As an interesting question, should the other four Sidereal Styles come up with new Charms reflecting the other Castes? Or would Crimson Victory Style still use Secrets of Future Strife, Flight of Mercury, and Defense of Shining Joy? Just replacing Blade of the Battle Maiden with an Endings-flavored Charm?

New Charms, I think.

edit: Shifted some ancillary benefits from Blade to the Form.
edit: Reverted change. Was not good idea.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 4:40 am

I would like to request the services of my fellow powergamer Exalted fans to go over this thing and pick out anything that might be unbalanced. I'm almost ready to call this finished, but I can't quite do that until a few people who are not me (and thus, not sharing my biases and known blind spots) give it a spin.

Particularly, I'm assuming Blade of the Battle Maiden's effect is OK because I'm also assuming a Solar could easily make a Melee version of the Abyssal Archery Charm Elegant Executioner Stance (scenelong Hungry Tiger effect), and/or a scenelong version of Fire and Stones Strike, in the vein of the 1E Whirlwind of Searing Blows, much like it was theoretically possible for a Solar to create a scenelong Melee dice-adder like the old Blade in 1E, the relative balance of CMA and Solar Charms being preserved either way.

edit: And for those who aren't powergamers, I'd like your input anyway, particularly on thematics.

Dinosaur · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 5:51 am

Jon Chung wrote:

I would like to request the services of my fellow powergamer Exalted fans to go over this thing and pick out anything that might be unbalanced. I'm almost ready to call this finished, but I can't quite do that until a few people who are not me (and thus, not sharing my biases and known blind spots) give it a spin.

Particularly, I'm assuming Blade of the Battle Maiden's effect is OK because I'm also assuming a Solar could easily make a Melee version of the Abyssal Archery Charm Elegant Executioner Stance (scenelong Hungry Tiger effect), and/or a scenelong version of Fire and Stones Strike, in the vein of the 1E Whirlwind of Searing Blows, much like it was theoretically possible for a Solar to create a scenelong Melee dice-adder like the old Blade in 1E, the relative balance of CMA and Solar Charms being preserved either way.

edit: And for those who aren't powergamers, I'd like your input anyway, particularly on thematics.

Thematics would normally be a very iffy area with BotBM as you have it - though the effect is much better than what we have now, and even with target numbers being something that Infernals can also use, their place in Martial Arts Charms is questionable. Being a scene long isn't quite as great a deal as that, I believe.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 6:05 am

Dinosaur wrote:

Thematics would normally be a very iffy area with BotBM as you have it - though the effect is much better than what we have now, and even with target numbers being something that Infernals can also use, their place in Martial Arts Charms is questionable. Being a scene long isn't quite as great a deal as that, I believe.

I chose target numbers because target number manipulation is no longer barred from Martial Arts with the Essence Auspicious Charm. Infernals being able to do it means this isn't a Sidereal-only trick, but something which any Primordial (or Primordial-derived entity with the right thematic keys) can apparently do. As an elegant way to get six motes worth of commitment to provide a significant damage increase function (roughly doubled average damage, no change to maximum damage), it seems to fit, particularly since the style was created by a Maiden, and it seems like the kind of thing they'd do.

Besides, Stephenls made the argument that to be an accurate recreation of Violet Bier, Blade had to look overpowered, and, not wanting to monkey with Accuracy-adding, "OMG TN 4 damage rolls!" seemed to be a good way to evoke that reaction.

NateDojo · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 6:16 am

You've strengthened Flight of Mercury significantly. I believe (I have NO books with me

) that it was only a one tick speed reducer before. As a scene-long charm, that potentially saves them three ticks with a Speed 6 weapon. I recommend that you lighten that up a bit.

I'd like to echo someone else's concern about something... But I forgot what it was.

Quote:

New Keyword: Prayer Strip - Prayer Strip effects are accessible only to Sidereal Exalted, or those who learn the Charm as a Sidereal Exalt. Invoking a Prayer Strip effect is a reflexive miscellaneous action which requires a physical prayer strip inscribed with the relevant Scripture, which is consumed in the process. Prayer Strip effects may have their own keywords, noted in brackets.

I believe that to use prayer strip Charms Eclipse and their derivatives have to learn the entire tree as a Sidereal. I know that this is true for SMAs, but I support that same rule for VBoS as well. Prayer Strips are what make Sidereals Special. Since Prayer Strips are the culmination of their enlightenment in the particular subject, it makes sense that any Eclipse would have to understand the pathway as a Sidereal, rather than a Celestial.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 6:26 am

NateDojo wrote:

You've strengthened Flight of Mercury significantly. I believe (I have NO books with me

) that it was only a one tick speed reducer before. As a scene-long charm, that potentially saves them three ticks with a Speed 6 weapon. I recommend that you lighten that up a bit.

You could already get a Speed 4 jade grand daiklave down to Speed 3 by wearing jade hearthstone bracers (6m commitment with a harmonic adapter), or a Lunar's Claws of Silver Moon down to Speed 3 by wearing the same jade hearthstone bracers and using Wasp-Sting Blur (Fury) for 2 committed motes. With that in mind, I decided to simply set Speed to 3 and forbid stacking. The Speed 3 cheese is going to happen anyway on an optimized build not relying on action-length effects that benefit from being extended as far as possible (like Ready in 8 Directions Stance), this way I can control the upper (well, lower, in this case) limit, and at least make it so that Sidereals will use starmetal weapons with it, not jade.

NateDojo wrote:

I believe that to use prayer strip Charms Eclipse and their derivatives have to learn the entire tree as a Sidereal. I know that this is true for SMAs, but I support that same rule for VBoS as well. Prayer Strips are what make Sidereals Special. Since Prayer Strips are the culmination of their enlightenment in the particular subject, it makes sense that any Eclipse would have to understand the pathway as a Sidereal, rather than a Celestial.

I don't think the prayer strip effect is powerful enough to charge a poor Eclipse double XP for the entire style, really. I can see that making sense for SMAs, since the sutra effect is exceptionally potent and applies a significant discount to any use of any charms of the style, but this is an extra power on one charm. For native Sidereal Charm trees, the Eclipse has to learn the whole tree at double cost anyway to get to the prayer strip charm, so I saw no need to call that out specifically.

This thing is Sidereal Hero Style (and thus has a prayer strip), but it's also just another martial arts tree.

edit: Hm, perhaps I will say that the prayer strip effect has to be purchased as a Sidereal Charm for Eclipses, with the prerequisite of the entire style. Inelegant, but I do get away with charging them triple for the benefit.

Dinosaur · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 6:34 am

Jon Chung wrote:

I chose target numbers because target number manipulation is no longer barred from Martial Arts with the Essence Auspicious Charm. Infernals being able to do it means this isn't a Sidereal-only trick, but something which any Primordial (or Primordial-derived entity with the right thematic keys) can apparently do. As an elegant way to get six motes worth of commitment to provide a significant damage increase function (roughly doubled average damage, no change to maximum damage), it seems to fit, particularly since the style was created by a Maiden, and it seems like the kind of thing they'd do.

Besides, Stephenls made the argument that to be an accurate recreation of Violet Bier, Blade had to look overpowered, and, not wanting to monkey with Accuracy-adding, "OMG TN 4 damage rolls!" seemed to be a good way to evoke that reaction.

It doesn't necessarily make it a Martial Arts trick, but it is a Sidereal and Infernal/Primordial trick as opposed to being only for Sidereals. One manipulates the universe, the other type created it. Martial Arts does have an open theme, but as with another topic, if you or I knew how things really lined up, we'd be unable to discuss it on a public venue.

Haku · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 6:34 am

I personally VERY much like this. It fits the style of OMG! overpowered look of 1e VBoS, but isn't really that scary beyond the fact that it's a combat effective style.

The main problem I have with your BotBM is that you allow everyone access to TN manipulation. Which opens up the possibility of people whining about why VBoS gets TN manipulation, but their splat type can't have it as a natural ability... despite the fact that it's a fancy CMA allegedly build by an Incarna. :pout:

To which I will point and laugh. :perv:

Otherwise, this is beautiful in the way that VBoS should have been. An elegant weapon for a more civilized age. :kitty:

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 6:42 am

Dinosaur wrote:

It doesn't necessarily make it a Martial Arts trick, but it is a Sidereal and Infernal/Primordial trick as opposed to being only for Sidereals. One manipulates the universe, the other type created it. Martial Arts does have an open theme, but as with another topic, if you or I knew how things really lined up, we'd be unable to discuss it on a public venue.

I largely agree, which is why I made this damage rolls only. If I had a way to slip in "Martial Arts cannot alter TNs on anything except damage rolls" to the wording of that Charm and not make it look too obvious, I would, hm. It does seem to be having the reaction I intended though - I still remember the massive "OMG scenelong diceadder!" reaction when the original Violet Bier was released, hee hee hee.

Haku wrote:

I personally VERY much like this. It fits the style of OMG! overpowered look of 1e VBoS, but isn't really that scary beyond the fact that it's a combat effective style.

Thanks.

Haku wrote:

The main problem I have with your BotBM is that you allow everyone access to TN manipulation. Which opens up the possibility of people whining about why VBoS gets TN manipulation, but their splat type can't have it as a natural ability... despite the fact that it's a fancy CMA allegedly build by an Incarna. :pout:

It's fundamentally equal to an "After rolling damage, automatically convert a number of remaining damage dice equal to half the original amount rolled to successes" charm, which would likely cause less issues. Just, doing it this way makes it look more overpowered at first glance. I admit to doing that on purpose. :p

1 2 3 4 5 6 [7 8 9 0] vs 1 2 3 [4 5 6 7 8 9 0] (no 10s doubling) is a shift of 4/10 to 7/10, which is close enough to 1.5.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 8:29 am

A challenge: If someone can find a way to word Blade of the Battle Maiden to imply that TN-alteration for non-damage purposes is impossible for Celestial Martial Arts, I will implement it directly into the Charm and be quite grateful. While I like to think I'm pretty good with rules, I am not so good at this.

edit: A helpful person pointed out Step resolution on LSB and DPS were off - corrected!

Prescient Stranger · **Posted:** Sun May 10, 2009 6:49 pm

Jon Chung wrote:

A challenge: If someone can find a way to word Blade of the Battle Maiden to imply that TN-alteration for non-damage purposes is impossible for Celestial Martial Arts, I will implement it directly into the Charm and be quite grateful. While I like to think I'm pretty good with rules, I am not so good at this.

edit: A helpful person pointed out Step resolution on LSB and DPS were off - corrected!

Oh, hey Jon, guess you've discovered the freedom stone. It's Englishman from RPG.net.

Anyway, work was boring so I decided to distract myself by having a go at this problem. I made the text a bit more flowery while I was at it, but couldn't find a way to include your clause without stretching the wordcount, though I've tried to be brief where possible. Anyway here's my attempt:

Quote:

Blade of the Battle Maiden
Cost: 2m per TN reduction, 2w; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Scene
Prerequisites: Secrets of Future Strife
"Someday, I'm going to kill that boy that put me here."

Streams of red stardust trail behind character's strikes, emanating from faint knots of red essence that pull at her hands, guiding them in battle. This charm reduces the target number of damage rolls from unarmed martial arts attacks at a rate of one for every two motes committed, to a minimum of four. In addition, the character inflicts lethal damage on unarmed Martial Arts attacks, and may parry lethal damage unarmed. Any wielded form weapons are considered unbreakable and may not be subject to Disarm effects. The effects of this charm cannot be combined with celestial martial arts charms that effect target numbers in any way, though such powers are generally beyond the scope of the bulb of the perfected lotus.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Tue May 12, 2009 4:09 am

Hmm. Sort of works. Incorporated version of such.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Fri May 29, 2009 10:25 am

Fixed LSM and DPS to Step 8.

Also, I've run a bunch of tests with this and it seems to work out fine, if pretty effective - however, this is operating by paranoia combo rules, in which no damage is ever rolled until the combatants are out of motes. Has anyone else used the altered style, and if so, what are the results?

I may need tighter wording on Joy in Adversity Stance.

Alazair · **Posted:** Sat May 30, 2009 2:33 pm

Jon Chung wrote:

Blade of the Battle Maiden
Cost: 2m per TN reduction, 2w; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Scene
Prerequisites: Secrets of Future Strife
"Someday, I'm going to kill that boy that put me here."

Essence shines around the character's hands (or weapons), tracing with their every movement crimson trails through the air. While this Charm is active, the character may lower the target number on damage rolls for her unarmed Martial Arts attacks by one for every two committed motes, to a minimum of 4. In addition, the character may inflict lethal damage instead of bashing on unarmed Martial Arts attacks, and she may parry lethal damage unarmed. Lastly, any wielded form weapons are considered unbreakable and may not be subject to Disarm effects. This Charm does not interact with effects that alter the target number of the attack roll. Such effects are beyond the purview of the Perfected Lotus.

The last two sentences should read something more like...

"This Charm cannot be combined with any effects that alter the target number of the attack roll as such effects are beyond the purview of the Bulb of the Perfected Lotus."

The Perfected Lotus describes supernatural martial arts in it's entirety. The Roots are TMAs, the Bulb encompasses CMAs, and the Blossom is SMAs.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Sat May 30, 2009 9:08 pm

Yes, I know that. I intend that sentence to apply to SMA too, the choice of wording is quite intentional. Martial Arts is not, despite what some think, the Uber-Ability That Does Everything even on the SMA level, TN 4 attack rolls should be limited to the Sidereals alone, who with that effect outperform everybody else even with their tiny dice-adder cap. (13d+10 = 11.5 sux, 13d+2 TN4 = 12 sux, for example, and it gets worse the more dice you stack on through Artifacts.)

Also, note the language of exclusion: interact and combine have separate meanings. Attacks that alter the TN of the attack roll technically have nothing to do with altering the TN of the damage roll, that line is there in case someone uses this style and has 1E-style World-Shaping Artistic Vision or Yozi Inevitability Technique or something: they would not interact, they would overlap, so you do not hit TN 3 or below damage rolls.

(The damage-adding function of the Charm is in fact intended to be a trap, hee: since the optimum in Exalted combat involves taking no damage until you are out of motes, and this Charm does nothing to accelerate the depletion of an enemy's motes, plus the fact that most true soak-reliant builds rely on pingless soak or health-level reduction greater than the possible maximum ping, it's usually six motes of wasted Essence if you're fighting Celestial Exalted or entities of similar power levels, though it lets you one-hit or pingspam kill weak opponents very quickly and stylishly. Much like how maxing out Blade of the Battle Maiden is probably not the wisest thing to do in 1E combat.)

Blaque · **Posted:** Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:56 am

On the Primordial Charm TN-reduction, note they are not cummulative with other stuff. So a Sidereal Akuma would hardly ever buy them, as her own TN-reduction is better. Also, said Charms cost 1wp per TN reduction per action, while this is a scene-long one for quite a lot less that seems to stack with Sidereal TN-reduction.

I think that while a neat idea, it should be seen more then in the vacumn of, "Because Infernals can do it." I talked with Neph on them before, it was done to show the shear overwhelming world-altering power a Primordial has by being a Primordial, but is not meant to do more then push that theme and was made restricted as noted above until very high Essence because it is very much the Sidereal thng adn while others can poke at it, they aren't going to be nearly as good as the Seers at it.

That said, I do like a lot of this write-up. I especially like how Flight of Mercury works (it feels a bit more efficent and less irritating to track.) I liked my Virtue-themed Charm base, but this seems well....better to me.

And stuff.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Thu Aug 06, 2009 2:05 am

Good point. Reverted BotBM. More boring now, but it'll save commitment cost on weapons, eh.

Blaque · **Posted:** Sun Aug 09, 2009 11:37 am

Did some other looking through and wanted to comment.

Flight of Mercury is probably the best speed-reducer in the game. If it only reduced it by one, I think it might be fine, but it really ahs a weird effect that its better on some things (grand daiklaves) then others (shorts daiklaves), so it has a weird economy issue to it. A flat -1 to Speed of unarmed attacks for the scene is still pretty good, but it is something I am kind of waffling on if its a bit much or not.

Blade of the Battle Maiden has a bit of redundent wording you may want to clean up just a tad bit. Besides that, I also will note that the "starmetal weapon" thing is a tad vague, as it is written now, I could make a starmetal grand daiklave with this Charm, whcih I don't think is th eintent. I would of worded it that it grants the starmetal magical material bonus ot your unarmed attacks, which is cumulative with any other material bonuses of weapons you are using. So you can double-up on say the starmetal bonus if you ue starmetal weapons, and it makes your hands to starmetal damage, ect. I think you are trying to balance it with Path of the Arbitor a bit, but I actually find that style a bit much myself and would rather it not be used as a baseline.

Joy in Adversery Stance, I would change to just grant your flat (Essence) in motes instead of rolling. This averages about the same, as you normally would roll half of your (Essence) in dice, and so end up with about your (Essence) in motes. This plays on my general dislike of adding rolls to every action though and its the same reason in my other houserules I tend to excise rolls from Charms like Duck Fate or Portentious Comet Defense Mode, as the point of DVs is to reduce rolls, not to let us introduce more of them.

Metal Storm, while I know the meaning (structuring it mor elike a Solar Extra Action Charm in wroding) it feels odd in how it is worded. I'll cite better later, but its mostly in the "including the first one" sentence. It could maybe be worded more smoothly.

Is it safe to assume that the Conclusion Persuing Approach tweak (only on eI Notice making it different) is that you have to just hit, not do damage, in order to drain the Willpower point? Also, why the need for aggrivated damage of this Charm, when Blade of the Battle Maiden covers that aveneue? It seems a tad redundent, to be hoenst.

And stuff for now.

Jon Chung · **Posted:** Mon Aug 10, 2009 6:05 pm

On Flight of Mercury: It was either set Speed to 3 or accept that everybody and their kid sister was going to be using jade bracers and/or jade grand daiklaves to get to Speed 3 regardless of what else I did. So it does produce a Speed 3 grand daiklave, but at least doing it this way is thematically appropriate rather than using off-type magical materials. The Charm costs 8-12ish XP, putting it in the powerup Combo costs another 2 XP, commitment cost 5 motes, technically, in terms of resource investment, it's a lot more expensive than looting jade stuff off dead Wyld Hunters and buying harmonic resonance adapters with Artifact.

On Blade of the Battle Maiden: That was a reversion from the damage-TN reducer I introduced before. I got enough negative feedback on that one that I decided to remove it, because the ideal of this hack is to allow anyone who was using the 1E style to use this style instead, as the one in Sidereals II is broken and unusable, and a controversial charm like that is likely to turn people off, unless published officially with the implied official imprimatur behind it. If you have any better ideas, that would be good.

On Joy in Adversity: Good change, implemented.

On Metal Storm: Good change, implemented.

On Conclusion Pursuing Approach: Good change, implemented.

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