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OK, so I am going to develop a new Sidereal MA that blends MA with Sorcery. I have some ideas of some things that I want it to do such as a form-type charm that allows you a defensive action (either keeping your DV/Parry DV or allowing defensive charms like perfect dodges) while in a casting action and some other things. Mostly I want to focus around using magic to buff your combat abilities and using MA to aid in making sorcery easier in combat. Does anybody have any ideas or suggestions as to what they think would be cool and balanced?

Alright what I have so far is a rough idea of what it is going to look like. I am torn between a 2 or a 3 path style, a 2 path style would have a countermagic path and most likely a martial path. a 3 path style would have the countermagic, martial, and an essence refinement path. The paths would operate like PAoC in that each would have a form type charm and then at the end they would unify and you could activate the different form charms at the same time. Here are some of the ideas that I have so far, let me know if they seem too powerful or not, as of yet I don't have costs just effects.

Countermagic Path:
Magic/spirit sight-this would allow the martial artist to see patterns of essence such that he could see if a person was currently enchanted or casting, it would have the secondary ability of being able to see immaterialized spirits, it actually acts a lot like True Sight out of dnd. By spending a wp you can "learn" any spell that you see with your magic sight, you still have to spend the xp to purchase it but you don't have to take the time to research it or learn it.

Spell-Shattering Palm, this is just like the charm out of PAoC

Banishment Palm, this will act system-wise like Spell-Shattering Palm except that it will banish a summoned entity back to where it is from as per the Banishment spell in the White Treatise.

Spell-Shattering Palm enhancement, by spending a wp upon successfully dispelling a spell with spell-shattering palm, the martial artist can absorb some of the loosed energies from the destroyed spell, he would gain 1/2 the casting cost of the spell Essence, this can't take you above your max essence. (I can see some ways to limit this power such as forcing a roll and only gaining successes on said roll)

Form Type Charm, Either add Essence to all rolls in the Countermagic path or exude a dampening field that forces sorcerers within Essence x 10 yards equal to Essence or some such mechanic.




Refinement Path (note: this path is a lot less defined right now)

Spells count as one Circle higher for purposes of counterspell

Perfect Spell, this would act like a perfect attack, you always hit with at least 1 success and it can't be counterspelled (This could be very powerful and I understand if you want to disallow it)

Extend Duration, this would extend the duration of spells with a duration by a certain amount, may double it I don't know yet.

Martial Path

Right now the things that I have thought of for this are the ability to defend yourself while casting, making use of DV, Parry, and defensive, non-counterattack charms. I also thought of the ability to place a damaging spell in your weapon after you have cast it rather than just releasing it, you could later release the spell as normal or release it as part of an attack, if used as part of an attack the spell would ignore the opponents armor, but would not have any AoE.

Elemental Dragon Path

I just thought of this, it would be similar to the Magical material form of PAoC except that you would be summoning Elemental Dragons that would suffuse you with a bit of their power, an example is the Bones to Stone spell that adds your Essence to your Str and Stam, halves your wound penalties, halves falling damage round up, and doubles your weight


For the Capstone of the style I was thinking about being able to use the multiple forms from this style together and knowing it would allow the caster to learn the Circle Sorcery charm above what he can normally learn, i.e. a DB could now learn Celestial Circle although he still has to buy the prerequisite charm before he can purchase any spells. This would obviously not have any effect on Solars.

I also really like the concept of the Student and Elder Sutras out of the BotM, so I think that this style will make use of them as well.

well, i want steven's comments, both on possible charm effects in theme with what you are talking about, and on the worth of the path.

after he comments, i will comment further.

OK, fair enough, please help me Steven, I have never made charms before. I do apologize for how scatterbrained things were, some of it has been written down and other stuff I just pulled off of the top of my head.

My thoughts run somewhat counter to a lot of what you're looking to do.

My suggestion: Reform the cascade so that it does not mimic PAoC style. PAoC should be unique in its ability to activate multiple forms. I honestly don't much like that Ele-Hero Style can do it, but notice that I also did not structure it around a multi-form tree. The same basic concepts can still be used, but they can collapse into one form and then a scene-length non-form capstone.

This actually allows for more power in general, since post-form charms tend to be more powerful than pre-form charms. Pre-form charms are a Martial Art's 'buy in'. Post-form charms are the big benefits.

You can still use the basic concepts, as I said. Have the two/three lines feed into the Form charm that does something nifty and then fan back out into their seperate lines that then collapse back into the capstone.

Personally, I am against allowing access to higher levels of sorcery. Primarily this is because sorcery is explicitly defined as not being charm-based. Even Eclipses/Moonshadows cannot learn Sorc/Necro outside of their normal abilities. I also think it breaks game themes. There's a reason that Solar Circle sorcery is called that - only Solars can use it. It is one of the major thematic restrictions of power in the game, and I don't think Marital Arts or anything else should be able to change that.

Some commentary on individual path concepts:
Countermagic: This seems largely alright, though a lot of effects are duplicated from PAoC. The Magic sight charm might just function like All-Encompassing Sorcerer's sight with the addition of the ability to reduce/eliminate training time for spells. I would argue that in order to be able to spend the WP to achieve this effect, you also need to make probably an Int+Occult roll at a diff of (spell circle)x2/3/something and be able to spend the entire duration of the casting concentrating on watching the person cast (ie: not in combat or casting yourself). Might rename the Banishment charm :P even something as simply as "Banishing Strike" - though it may also be fun to come up with some sort of theme for each 'path' in the tree to give names with. I dunno. I like the spell-shattering enhancement, that's a lot of essence wasted if it just gos away. Should probably require an MA+Essence roll or something with motes gained based on the result, up to half the cost of the spell (if you take my first suggestion of using only one form-type charm, this is probably a post-form effect). If this is a Sidereal-level art, and is fairly high essence as a pre-req, you may even be able to remove the mote-regain caps. I'd still require the roll though. The two form effects you mentioned could also be very useful post-form charms.

Here's a kitten to break up my wall of text:



Refinement: Rather than out-and-out acting as a higher level spell for countermagic rolls, I would suggest that it triggers an opposed roll (which I think equal-level countermagic does already? I don't have my book handy) with some huge bonus for the user of the charm to resist countermagic. The perfect spell charm should probably be one of the last charms in the tree, its exceptionally powerful consider the strength of some spells. It should probably work only with spells that have an Instant duration (ie: not ones that summon something that attacks, like Magma Krakken). I'd say to give it some bonus to counterspell, but don't make it totally immune. Maybe have this one go ahead and treat it as one circle higher for counterspelling. The duration charm is fine, but should probably only apply to spells that have a duration less than a year (ie: it shouldn't apply to demon/elemental summoning, but to basically everything else; demon/elemental summoning is based on oaths made by these beings during the defeat of the primordials, charms aren't going to be able to change the way that sorcery exploits those oaths). Maybe have a caveat to cover things that last 'until the sun crosses the horizon' to revise it to 'until the sun twice crosses the horizon'

Martial: Most of this can actually just be condensed down into the Form-type charm. The 'add a spell to a weapon' thing may need to be split off into its own charm, but the ability to use your normal defenses while casting pretty neatly fits into a form. The 'add a spell to a weapon' ability should probably have similar restrictions to the perfect attack charm above.

Elemental Dragon: Depending on what you're going for here there are some options. I think have charms that have direct effects feels a little out-of-style for this MA. Perhaps having charms that reduce mote costs for spells that are elementally aligned or that boost thier benefits? Or something? Maybe. Not sure.

::dodges the wall of txted:: I was just skimming fyi. You should definately reduce the cost of casting if you can. There is a lunar anima effect as an example.

There, I broke it up some. Now read it! :P

Damn it, you can't defend vs ::wall of text smashes in to arete:: cats...

i figured that would be steven's take, and it is mostly mine as well. but i wanted someone more familiar with the spells to take a look first and see their input.

I already told you that the form type should be the "dodge while casting stance". You can add a couple more things to it, stuff that is little and mostly based around the sorcerous energy moving around and through you.

I don't want you to have access to a higher caster level per se, but effects from it are do able, such as a countermagic/banishment effect that can effect any circle (though it should still be difficult to get rid of high lvl stuff), or your "perfected spell" that can only be countered with adamant circle counters.

The form type effects you wanted could be scene longs standard charms, or you could even make a couple of them add-ons to the form type, kind of like VAP from dark messiah style (without its rules fuck ups of course). If you have multiple of that type, they should probably be only one of them active at a time i would think, unless they aren't that powerful (stance add on's that reduce casting time for offensive spells, or elemental spells, or whatever, might be combinable, whereas those that impair all spell casting in the area are not).

Essence for this seems to be firmly slotted at 5-6 range for most everything. It isn't much more powerful than PAC in terms of just fucking up other people's shit, but it does flagrantly fuck with the core mechanics of the game. You shold also be thinking "what does this style do for solars/abyssals?" B/c the rules allow them to learn the shit, so if it makes solar/void circle casting break, then the charm probably needs re-working.

the dragon stuff seems a bit out of flavor, and there are countless terrestrial styles, and 5 badass celestial styles all based off of elemental themes. If you want to go with this it should probably be a single charm in the tree that lets you take on the mantle of one of the dragons and gives discount/effect increase for spells matching the type. Steven: should something like that be a multi-purchase charm, i.e. the PAC charm that acts similarly, or is it a weak enough effect that one charm could cover all 5 dragons?

hmm... other thoughts... this is a buffing art, that acts indirectly. so if there are no attacks/defenses of the standard variety that is fine. but there should be some more modifications than what we've got atm. Though i'm really not sure where to go with it.

Charms like the spell-shattering charm dupe and the other similar ones -are- direct defenses/attacks.

I was just thinking, something that decreases the casting time of spells would actually be a -big-fucking-deal- and should probably be a late-in-the-tree sort of charm (but it isn't really mentioned until Cheyne brought it up, above). As far as the elemental thing goes, I dunno. I sort of felt like it was out of flavor too, since the rest of the tree deals primarily with raw Essence-as-Magic rather than specifically (elementally) aligned Essence. It may be better to generalize it into some charms that can decrease casting time, allow mote commitment to cheap later expenditures (a la No Moon/Infinite (Ability) Mastery) and the like.

actually i meant to say casting cost, not time. time would be a huge thing.

overall i think this should be themed around essence manip, not merely ma + Sorcery.

Glorious Enlightened Essence Understanding Style

OK, after reading all of these suggestions and talking to Cheyne about things for a while, I have a more clear idea on what this Style is, it is all about Essence manipulation. Cheyne had the idea that PAoC should be a prereq to getting this style and I agree fully.

First PAoC mimics some of the earlier charms such as the spell shattering palm, so if you had PAoC you were doubling up unnecessarily. Second, PAoC is based around seeing that all of Creation is essence and manipulating it to a certain degree, this will take that idea and run with it.

I am adding a new aspect to this style and taking some things away to help better define it and to streamline it. I am going to be adding a concept that is akin to Spellfire from DnD, once you get this charm you will be able to store shattered (i.e. dispelled) Essence in a separate pool that is equal to your peripheral essence pool. You will be able to spend a wp to tap into this pool and unleash a blast likened to an essence cannon (do not know what the damage is going to be for this yet but probably a 1 for 1 basis of L dmg...don't know what essence cannons do yet). You would be able to place essence that you have dispelled into either your natural pool or into this other pool.

I am taking away the Elemental aspects of this entirely, they really are random and don't make sense. So without further ado, here is v 1.1

Essence Cultivation Method, this increases the characters peripheral essence pool by his Temperance + Conviction, this can only be taken once

The Enhancement to the Spell shattering strike that allows you to roll MA + Wits to gain that many successes in essence up to the Essence cost of the spell destroyed (I am thinking that later there will be an enhancement that allows you to add Essence as auto successes to this roll unless that is not to powerful to have here)

Akuma Destabilizing Strike, this is the Demon dispelling strike

Magic Sight, this is the same as from the original style including the ability to "learn" a spell, it will require a wits + occult roll equal to the circle of the spell being cast.

Spirit rending strike, this allows the martial artist to damage spirits and gods, any spirit or god killed thusly is DEAD.

Essence Calcification Strike, this operates similarly to the Dawn Caste anima banner but instead causes agg damage to beings from the the Wyld by stabilizing its essence

The way that I envision this is two paths, one that uses Essence to enhance MA and one that uses Essence to enhance Sorcery, the form-type charm I see as allowing the MA his DV while casting and allows for the commitment of mote as per the No Moon ability but only for the purposes of spells and MA charms (indeed no other charm can be used while this form).

After the form charm is when you will be able to lower the casting time of spells and when you will be able to access EssenceFire.

There are going to be a few charms that allow for the ability to shape EssenceFire they are basically just enhancement charms and not a part of the path, one of them is going to be an EssenceFire parry, this might be a perfect parry.

you would have to make any charms that are "enhancements" a part of the actual tree, sayeth the mechanics.

I will comment more later.

rydi wrote: overall i think this should be themed around essence manip, not merely ma + Sorcery.

The 'essence manipulation' martial art is called Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Style.

Amseriah wrote:Essence Calcification Strike, this operates similarly to the Dawn Caste anima banner but instead causes agg damage to beings from the the Wyld by stabilizing its essence

Did you mean Zenith Caste? If so, have you looked at the Waxing Moon anima banner?

Probably more commentary later. Need sleep.

LOL, sorry I haven't really read the Solars stuff. Where is the info on the Waxing Moon caste? Is that actually in the Lunar book or somewhere else?