[Exalted] [2E] [MA Style] Assemblage of Equations Style

[Indon]

The Assemblage of Equations Style
Level: Terrestrial

The Assemblage of Equations Style is built with the intent of mathematically perfecting attacks and defenses, focusing on strikes and parries.

As a Terrestrial style, its' approach is simplistic but thorough - a pratitioner of the style must internalize tens of thousands of almost indistinguishable attacks, and memorize the names of each, each described as an equation describing the angles of limb position, the direction and degree of leverage used for the strike, and the angle of attack and size of impact surface. Practitioners must similarly internalize and memorize intricate defensive movements, with an emphasis on parrying.

This style functions as a comprehensive theoretical framework for a martial artist wishing to pursue Terrestrial martial arts. As such, after learning the Form-type charm of this style, the martial artist halves the learning time for any subsequent Terrestrial martial arts charms, as they pick up successive techniques with greater ease.

This style is largely of academic interest and thus after the first age has fallen out of use. However, it remains a well-documented style as it is one favored heavily by scholars likely to document it, and some of the recently reborn Twilight Solars may remember charms from this style. Only the most sequestered Immaculates would care about or practice this style, as it is considered inferior to more elementally-aspected styles.

Air-aspected Dragon-Blooded can wield the Charms of this style without paying a mote surcharge. Additionally, any Dragon-Blooded with Lore as a favored ability may wield the Charms of this style without paying a mote surcharge.

Weapons and Armor:
This style is compatible only with weapons and armor that do not upset the precarious functioning of the equations and formulae that compose it. Only weapons that suppliment the body's movement and explicitly qualify as unarmed attacks (such as the God-kicking boot) function with this style, and only armor that both does not impede movement in any way (-0 movement penalty) and is weightless (such as armor created from Essence by a charm) is compatible with the style.

Complimentary Abilities:
The Assemblage of Equations would be infuriatingly impossible to understand without a foundation of mathematical knowledge. To learn this martial art, a character must possess at least two dots in Lore.


Execution of the Offensive Equation
Cost: 3m
Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

The martial artist enacts one of the countless attacks they have memorized, executing the attack with the flawless perfection of rote memorization.

This attack ignores any internal penalty to accuracy placed upon the martial artist, from wounds or other sources, so long as their body is not physically bound or restrained.



Execution of the Defensive Equation
Cost: 3m
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

The martial artist enacts a movement designed to precisely cancel out an incoming attack.

The martial artist may use this charm to parry weapon or ranged attacks with their bare hands, and their parry DV is unaffected by internal penalties placed upon them, so long as their body is not physically bound or restrained.


Assemblage of Equations Form
Cost: 5m
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form-Type
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisite Charms: Execution of the Offensive Equation, Execution of the Defensive Equation

The martial artist assumes the stance from which they have mastered all basic equations.

The form permits the martial artist to use the Execution of the Defensive Equation and Execution of the Offensive Equation charms at no mote cost. These executions do not count as charm activations for the purpose of charm activation limits.


Principle of Addition
Cost: 1m per action
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Assemblage of Equations Form

When the martial artist makes a flurry of attacks supplemented by the Assemblage of Equations Style, they endeavor to repeatedly strike the same location with each attack.

The martial artist pays a number of motes equal to the number of attacks they will be taking for their action. Each time they hit, they increase the damage of their successive attacks against that opponent by one, and reduce their opponents' DV against the next attack by one.

For example, if the martial artist hits with their first attack, their second attack is at +1 damage and -1 DV. If the second attack hits, their third attack is at +2 damage and -1 DV - the DV penalty does not increase, though the damage does.


Principle of Subtraction
Cost: 4m
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Principle of Addition

An attack that can not be dodged can still be made inefficient. The martial artist, when using this technique, resigns themselves to getting hit and instead shift to minimize the damage of the attack.

The martial artist makes a Dexterity+Dodge roll, adding their Essence in automatic successes. The martial artist's DV is reduced to zero for this attack, and successes on this roll subtract from successes rolled for damage. This damage reduction can reduce the damage of the attack to zero.

This is not a perfect technique, however - even if an attack's damage is reduced to zero, effects reliant on dealing damage (such as certain types of poison) will still fully effect the martial artist. A martial artist who uses this ability in combat can quickly be covered in inconsequential scratches and bruises.

Principle of Multiplication
Cost: 1 or 2m per action
Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3
Type: Extra Action
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Principle of Addition

If one attack is a threat, then multiple attacks must present many times that threat. The Principle of Multiplication allows a martial artist to make many attacks rapidly, up to their Essence. If those attacks are Offensive Equations, the cost is 1 mote per action. Otherwise, the cost is 2 motes per action.

The multiple attacks used in the Principle of Multiplication are all exceedingly similar - as such, attacks made with this charm do not impose Onslaught penalties.


Principle of Division
Cost: 3m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Principle of Multiplication, Principle of Subtraction

The martial artist endeavors to divide the opponent's force to weaken it, by executing both a parry and a shift of position simultaneously. Add the martial artist's parry and dodge DV's together for the purpose of this attack.

This charm only functions when the martial artist could either dodge or parry to defend against an attack. This charm does nothing if this is not the case.


Principle of Exponentiation
Cost: 4m per action
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Extra Action
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Principle of Division

As the step beyond addition is multiplication, so is exponentiation the step beyond multiplication, and the pinnacle of this style. When the martial artist invokes this Principle, their power surges forth and they move with clearly supernatural power.

The Principle of Exponentiation is an Extra Action charm which may be included in a combo only with other charms in the Assemblage of Equations Style - including the Principle of Multiplication, allowing for a flurry of flurries that can potentially lead to tens or hundreds of attacks as the martial artist expends immense essence to drive their movements to absurdly great speeds.

This charm can grant no more actions than the user's Essence score, ultimately limiting a combo of Multiplication and Exponentiation to a number of attacks equal to the user's Essence score squared (provided the martial artist doesn't become exhausted first!).

Like the Principle of Multiplication, attacks made using this charm do not impose DV penalties.

[The Demented One]

The Assemblage of Equations Style is built with the intent of mathematically perfecting attacks and defenses, focusing on strikes and parries.

As a Terrestrial style, its' approach is simplistic but thorough - a pratitioner of the style must internalize tens of thousands of almost indistinguishable attacks, and memorize the names of each, each described as an equation describing the angles of limb position, the direction and degree of leverage used for the strike, and the angle of attack and size of impact surface. Practitioners must similarly internalize and memorize intricate defensive movements, with an emphasis on parrying.
I really like this fluff. I don't think any of the existing styles really emphasize technical perfection the way this does; carving out new conceptual territory is always a good thing.


This style functions as a comprehensive theoretical framework for a martial artist wishing to pursue Terrestrial martial arts. As such, after learning the Form-type charm of this style, the martial artist halves the learning time for any subsequent Terrestrial martial arts charms, as they pick up successive techniques with greater ease.
Really like this, it's a neat perk that isn't too powerful. A bit like the signature weapons of the Immaculate Styles, but scaled down to fit a TMA. Nice.


Additionally, any Dragon-Blooded with Lore as a favored ability may wield the Charms of this style without paying a mote surcharge.
Not totally sure about this part...it makes sense, but it's a bit too arbitrary for my taste, and redundant-ish with Lore as a complementary ability.


Weapons and Armor:
This style is compatible only with weapons and armor that do not upset the precarious functioning of the equations and formulae that compose it. Only weapons that suppliment the body's movement and explicitly qualify as unarmed attacks (such as the God-kicking boot) function with this style, and only armor that both does not impede movement in any way (-0 movement penalty) and is weightless is compatible with the style.
The wording on this part is a bit confusing...for the weapons, are you basically saying that only gauntlets and iron boots qualify? You should probably explicitly state all the valid form weapons (and for what it's worth, it's typical to state the non-artifact form of each weapon, and then just specify that artifact versions also qualify). For armor, you could just say light armor–it means exactly what you said.


Execution of the Offensive Equation
Cost: 2m
Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

The martial artist enacts one of the countless attacks they have memorized, executing the attack with the flawless perfection of rote memorization.

This attack ignores any internal penalty to accuracy placed upon the martial artist, from wounds or other sources, so long as their body is not physically bound or restrained.
Comparing this to Accuracy Without Distance, I think this needs to be more expensive–yes, it's Simple instead of Supplemental, but a TMA charm should be much, much weaker than a Solar charm. I would make the cost based on the penalty it cancels out: 1 mote per -1 penalty canceled, up to a maximum of (Martial Art).


Execution of the Defensive Equation
Cost: 2m
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

The martial artist enacts a movement designed to precisely cancel out an incoming attack.

The martial artist may use this charm to parry weapon or ranged attacks with their bare hands, and their parry DV is unaffected by internal penalties placed upon them, so long as their body is not physically bound or restrained.
And this one is actually better than the Lunar charm, Golden Tiger Stance–same cost as yours, but it only cancels up to (Dexterity) worth of penalties for 2 motes. I'd do the same thing for the one above, make it one mote per -1 canceled out.


Assemblage of Equations Form
Cost: 5m
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form-Type
Duration: One Scene

The martial artist assumes the stance from which they have mastered all basic equations.

The form permits the martial artist to use the Execution of the Defensive Equation and Execution of the Offensive Equation charms at no mote cost. These executions do not count as charm activations for the purpose of charm activation limits.
To hit the easy stuff, it's pretty standard for form charms to let you deal lethal damage with unarmed attacks and parry lethal unarmed, so you could tack that on easy. You also left off the Prerequisite Charms for this one. The ability itself is, I think, a bit too powerful–I think it should either make them not count as Charm activation, or work like Infinite Mastery, and provide a 3 mote discount on each one. As it is, this charm isn't unlike a TMA Relentless Lunar Fury, which is just something that shouldn't be.


Principle of Addition
Cost: 1m per action
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 3
Type: Supplimental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Assemblage of Equations Form

When the martial artist makes a flurry of attacks supplimented by the Assemblage of Equations Style, they endeavor to repeatedly strike the same location with each attack.

The martial artist pays a number of motes equal to the number of attacks they will be taking for their action. Each time they hit, they increase the damage of their successive attacks against that opponent by one, and reduce their opponents' DV against the next attack by one.

For example, if the martial artist hits with their first attack, their second attack is at +1 damage and -1 DV. If the second attack hits, their third attack is at +2 damage and -1 DV - the DV penalty does not increase, though the damage does.
I think that just having the charm double the onslaught penalty of the flurry would be a much clearer way of saying it, while having the same mechanical effect. The charm itself, looks fine.



Principle of Subtraction
Cost: 4m
Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Principle of Addition

An attack that can not be dodged can still be made inefficient. The martial artist, when using this technique, resigns themselves to getting hit and instead shift to minimize the damage of the attack.

The martial artist makes a Dexterity+Dodge roll as normal. The martial artist's DV is reduced to zero for this attack, and successes on this roll subtract from successes rolled for damage. This damage reduction can reduce the damage of the attack to zero.

This is not a perfect technique, however - even if an attack's damage is reduced to zero, effects reliant on dealing damage (such as certain types of poison) will still fully effect the martial artist. A martial artist who uses this ability in combat can quickly be covered in inconsequential scratches and bruises.
I'm not totally sure how this Charm is meant to be used; tagging what step it's meant to be used in would help. It likes like you'd use it in Step 2, let the attack hit you, and then just subtract the successes you roll on the (Dexterity + Dodge) roll from the enemy's Strength+Weapon Damage+Bonus Successes in Step 7...and if that's the case, I think it's a very weak effect, compared to just relying on DV's. I think it might be better to have this work as a defense reroll charm–say, use it in Step 6, roll your Martial Arts, and take away one of your enemy's bonus successes for each success rolled. I'd cost that effect at 2m. That might move a bit too far from what you want this Charm to do, but as is, the effect is just almost never going to be a better option than dodging.


Principle of Multiplication
Cost: 1 or 2m per action
Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3
Type: Extra Action
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Principle of Addition

If one attack is a threat, then multiple attacks must present many times that threat. The Principle of Multiplication allows a martial artist to make many attacks rapidly, up to their Essence. If those attacks are Offensive Equations, the cost is 1 mote per action. Otherwise, the cost is 2 motes per action.
Way too good; this thing is almost better than Peony Blossom Attack, and that's Solar. Now, if you meant the actions to still suffer multiple action penalties, that'd be a different thing entirely, and I think it'd be balanced–but that's so different from most Extra Action charms that I think you should explicitly state that. Also, just as an aesthetic thing, "If those attacks are Offensive Equations" should probably be "If the attacks are supplemented by Execution of the Offensive Equation."


Principle of Division
Cost: 2m
Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Principle of Multiplication, Principle of Subtraction

The martial artist endeavors to divide the opponent's force to weaken it, by executing both a parry and a shift of position simultaneously. Add the martial artist's parry and dodge DV's together for the purpose of this attack.

This charm only functions when the martial artist could either dodge or parry to defend against an attack. This charm does nothing if this is not the case.
Haha, this was actually a really common defensive effect in 1st Edition. I like it. Just in terms of cost, though, I think it should be closer to 5 or 6 motes, maybe even 7 or 8, just so it isn't drastically better than a Dodge or Martial Arts excellency–getting DV's of 5 or 6 each isn't hard at all.


Principle of Exponentiation
Cost: 4m per action
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Extra Action
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Principle of Division

As the step beyond addition is multiplication, so is exponentiation the step beyond multiplication, and the pinnacle of this style. When the martial artist invokes this Principle, their power surges forth and they move with clearly supernatural power.

The Principle of Exponentiation is an Extra Action charm which may be included in a combo only with other charms in the Assemblage of Equations Style - including the Principle of Multiplication, allowing for a flurry of flurries that can potentially lead to tens or hundreds of attacks as the martial artist expends immense essence to drive their movements to absurdly great speeds.

This charm can grant no more actions than the user's Essence score, ultimately limiting a combo of Multiplication and Exponentiation to a number of attacks equal to the user's Essence score squared (provided the martial artist doesn't become exhausted first!).
While combo-ing this with Principle of Multiplication makes the mechanical effect line up neatly with the math fluff, it doesn't work by combo rules...and the idea of someone making 9, 16, even 25 attacks in a flurry is ridiculous, no matter how much it costs. That would kill pretty much anyone who doesn't have an action-long perfect, and that's gonna be most everyone. More than a TMA really should do. It might work as a permanent charm enhancing Principle of Multiplication, letting you make even more attacks at additional cost...but I really can't see a way to maintain the flavor, because exponential effects just don't work well in Exalted. Maybe scrap this, and make calculus-based charms? :smallwink:

On the whole, this is a really great-looking style. Don't let my criticism drag you down; it's pretty much all just mote-economy stuff, and that's just squiffy numbers stuff. The concepts you've got are solid, and the mechanical execution is great. I like it.

[Indon]

I guess I need to specify that this is a 2nd edition MA style.


The wording on this part is a bit confusing...for the weapons, are you basically saying that only gauntlets and iron boots qualify?
And any other weapon that qualifies as an unarmed attack. Are those the only ones?


For armor, you could just say light armor–it means exactly what you said.
No, I mean literally weightless armor - such as that created by Glorious Solar Plate. I guess I should specify this.


Comparing this to Accuracy Without Distance, I think this needs to be more expensive–yes, it's Simple instead of Supplemental, but a TMA charm should be much, much weaker than a Solar charm. I would make the cost based on the penalty it cancels out: 1 mote per -1 penalty canceled, up to a maximum of (Martial Art).

The 2nd edition version of Accuracy Without Distance is much more powerful than this charm, as is There Is No Wind (3m to ignore all penalties except wound and multiple-action penalties, Supplimental). I may boost it to 3 motes nonetheless.


And this one is actually better than the Lunar charm, Golden Tiger Stance–same cost as yours, but it only cancels up to (Dexterity) worth of penalties for 2 motes. I'd do the same thing for the one above, make it one mote per -1 canceled out.
Golden Tiger Stance functions for both dodge and parry, and has no internal/external limitations.

I was unsure of making the cost 2 motes, though, and did it to match the Offensive Equation charm, so I'll probably adjust it up to 3 too.


To hit the easy stuff, it's pretty standard for form charms to let you deal lethal damage with unarmed attacks and parry lethal unarmed, so you could tack that on easy.
I quite intentionally left that out of the style. The Equations grant raw power, but few Essence-based enhancements.


You also left off the Prerequisite Charms for this one.
Doh!


The ability itself is, I think, a bit too powerful–I think it should either make them not count as Charm activation, or work like Infinite Mastery, and provide a 3 mote discount on each one. As it is, this charm isn't unlike a TMA Relentless Lunar Fury, which is just something that shouldn't be.
Compared with other Terrestrial Form-type charms, this is actually quite weak. Compare with the Ill Lily Form, with the following benefits:

adds Essence to bashing soak
adds half Essence to MA attacks
allows a miscellaneous action to empower the toxicity of poisons

Or the Jade Mountain Form:

Adds Essence to Strength and Stamina (reduces Dex by 1, though)
Soak Lethal with full Stamina
Parry Lethal


Form-type charms are just plain powerful.

Edit: Also, Relentless Lunar Fury interacts awesomely with like ten+ different charms. It's staggeringly more powerful than this charm.


I think that just having the charm double the onslaught penalty of the flurry would be a much clearer way of saying it, while having the same mechanical effect. The charm itself, looks fine.
Actually, I forgot to put some pretty important onslaught-related effects into the charms in the tree.

Multiplication and Exponentiation make strikes so similar that they don't impose Onslaught penalties to DV. That's why they seem overpowered - I forgot to put that in. I'll fix that for sure.

Addition gives you -1 DV, and that's it. Can't get any more from successive uses of the charm.


I'm not totally sure how this Charm is meant to be used; tagging what step it's meant to be used in would help. It likes like you'd use it in Step 2, let the attack hit you, and then just subtract the successes you roll on the (Dexterity + Dodge) roll from the enemy's Strength+Weapon Damage+Bonus Successes in Step 7...and if that's the case, I think it's a very weak effect, compared to just relying on DV's.
It's step 2, and apparently not cleaned up properly. It should be Dexterity+Dodge+Essence, and it shouldn't say 'as normal', a relic from when it was originally being designed with 1st edition in mind.

Though, even then, the damage reduction is rather low. I might add some auto-successes into that.


Haha, this was actually a really common defensive effect in 1st Edition. I like it. Just in terms of cost, though, I think it should be closer to 5 or 6 motes, maybe even 7 or 8, just so it isn't drastically better than a Dodge or Martial Arts excellency–getting DV's of 5 or 6 each isn't hard at all.
Hmm, good point.


While combo-ing this with Principle of Multiplication makes the mechanical effect line up neatly with the math fluff, it doesn't work by combo rules...and the idea of someone making 9, 16, even 25 attacks in a flurry is ridiculous, no matter how much it costs. That would kill pretty much anyone who doesn't have an action-long perfect, and that's gonna be most everyone.
As noted, I forgot the very important note regarding Onslaught penalties. Combined with the inability to combo this charm with even most Excellencies, and it's much less devastating as a result.


Maybe scrap this, and make calculus-based charms? :smallwink:
Terrestrial styles don't deal well with such abstracts. That's for the Sidereal style equivalent.


On the whole, this is a really great-looking style. Don't let my criticism drag you down; it's pretty much all just mote-economy stuff, and that's just squiffy numbers stuff. The concepts you've got are solid, and the mechanical execution is great. I like it.

More importantly, I'm horrible at editing! But very good suggestions.

Overall, the style is meant to have a couple nifty tricks, but be weaker than other Terrestrial styles in fundamental ways - such as, as you note, the ability to cause Lethal damage.

Eventually, I hope to design corresponding Celestial and Sidereal styles which interact with this style in interesting ways.

[Weimann]

This style is well fluffed, I think, and appealingly simple. I can see an Exalted accountant or bureaucrat knowing this style. It's no flashy tricks, but it's a mathematical strengthening of the most basic stuff, attack and defense.

I can't really tell if it's balanced or not, however. Sure it's only Bashing damage right through, and the Extra Action charms doesn't impose a an Onslaught DV penalty to the target, but still...

Experiment 1
Assume that an attacker has the Assemblage of Equations Form active. He can then use Execution of the Offensive Equation as a free action without cost. Also assume he has the combo Plotting the Continuous Curve consisting of Principle of Addition, Principle of Multiplication and Principle of Exponentiation (it should be noted that this combo wouldn't be possible if we were going by the core rules, since there may be only one Extra Action charm in a combo, but since you explicitly stated it, I'll go with it). Lastly we assume that the practitioner is a Dragon-Blooded Exalt, since it's regularly them who use Terrestrial Martial Arts.

Activating Plotting the Continuous Curve would allow the user to perform (Essence)^2 attacks against the target, and providing they all hit, she would suffer a -1 DV penalty against the (Essence-1) last attacks. The attacker would suffer no penalties to his accuracy due to freely using Execution of the Offensive Equation at every attack, as allowed by his Form charm, and would also stack damage in steps of one up to (Essence-1) in every step of Principle of Exponentiation.

So, assume an Essence 4 practitioner. He would gain 16 attacks against one target, with no penalty to his accuracy and with a stacking damage bonus up to +3, cleared at every 4th attack.

This would cost him 48 motes and 1 willpower. This is a heavy cost. An Essence 4 Dragon-Blood who has not increased his Willpower or Virtues by either bonus points at character creation or xp after the game started has a mote pool of 38, provided he has risen two Virtues to 3 at character creation (the maximum without spending bonus points).

Essence 5 entails a cost of 70 motes and 1 willpower for a full attack sequence of 25 attacks. However, it should be noted that even a Dragon-Blooded of Essence 10, Willpower 10 and his two highest Virtues at 5 (I'm not sure if they can be risen higher) gain a maximum mote pool of 80. Therefore, the lowest Essence at which a Dragon-Blood can perform the Essence 5 version of Plotting the Continuous Curve is in fact Essence 8, provided he has Willpower and two Virtues maxed. He can never perform any Essence 6 version.*

It's a powerful effect, but it cannot be accessed until late in the game. Much of the time, the character will have to use it at less than it's full effect.

Experiment 2
So, that other combo was a bit on the steep side, mote-wise. Let's see what happens if we don't include Principle of Addition. It's not like we don't get enough damage from the great number of attacks, and while the -1 to the target's DV is nice, it does increase cost a lot.

Essence 4, two Virtues at 3, Willpower 6 makes a mote pool of 38, as stated before. Cost of the modified Plotting the Continuous Curve would be 32 motes and 1 Willpower for 16 attacks. The target defends at her normal DV, and the attacker suffer no penalties either.

As we can see, you actually able to get off a full attack without increasing your other stats any in this version. Essence 5 would make the cost 45 motes, which is only 2 motes more than the pool you'd have at Essence 5 with the aforementioned stats. Even this combo cannot be taken above the Essence 7 level, however: such a usage costs 77 motes, so the combo caps at 49 attacks.*

Naturally, there are other things to take into account. Sure, the target may defend with her full DV, but it should be taken into account that any damage inflicted soon becomes wound penalties, while nothing can decrease the accuracy of the combo.

Also, while the attack is very powerful, it also costs very very much. At Essence 4, you are left with only 6 motes for the rest of the scene, unless you can regain them somehow. While you put on one hell of a beating, that is exactly it. You put on ONE beating, and then you're done.

Lastly, let me just say that I wouldn't want to be the ST to roll all those attacks. *shudder*

Is this overpowered? I don't know. I'm not really experienced with the system, but it can be said that while the effect is great, at a great cost. I'm not really sure what I wanted to say with this, but it's a bit of an analysis that I did late at night while getting slightly obsessed and since it's so late something might be wrong and I should end this sentence now.

In conclusion, though, I like the style. More savvy minds should take a look at it and see if they find it balanced or in need of tweaking.

On an unrelated note, how come the core book doesn't have an entry on Onslaught penalties for being the target of a flurry?! :smallfurious: FFFFFFFFF-

*Note that these calculations exclude the usage of any external kind of mote deposit.

Edit: Oh, man, I forgot to do the calculations for the effects on Essence 3 level. That might be relevant since it is in fact the level at which you gain the Charm. Essence 3, Willpower 6, two Virtues at 3 gives a mote pool of 33.

Experiment 1
Plotting the Continuous Curve costs 30 motes and 1 Willpower to perform, giving 9 attacks with damage increase and DV penalties for the target. It seems even the more costly version of the combo can be performed fully here.

Experiment 2
The combo costs 21 motes. This actually leaves a total of 12 motes for your further fight, which renders it not all that bloody after all, in my mind.

I have a feeling most people will stay with using the second variation of the combo at Essence 3 level. The cost is decent, and few things will allow you to attack 9 times without accuracy penalties, at least until much later in the game. My gut tells me this is overpowered, but I can't really prove it, what with the fact that it is only bashing damage, which is easy to soak, and the lack of an onslaught penalty. Play tests are required.