Crimson Pentacle Blade

Tactics

Crimson Pentacle Blade is designed to be used as part of a group. Many charms provided by it work only when used along with other users of the style, and it is generally weaker when used alone. Note that the style does not provide any form of active defense, although there is a weak soak-booster, a defensive difficulty-raiser, and several shield-boosting effects. As such, expect to either be splitting for defense, using defenses granted by other Abilities or Styles, or rapidly dying to the first relevant assault.

Also, it must regrettably be stated that the Crimson Pentacle Blade style offers no distinct style of combat in the manner that many other published styles do. The tree branches out in styles based on the various Postures, thus lacking the unifying charm focuses found in many other styles. Still, given the charms that exist and the form weapons, a few comments can be made. Crimson Pentacle Blade tends to be used with weapons that have high damage, speed, or both relative to most weapons, but they tend to be low in accuracy, defense, and rate. To some degree, these limitations are offset by the charms. The accuracy problem is diminshed some by the Form, and the defense one by the use of shields, but the rate lacks a useful solution. Given the unarmored style and the lack of granted dodges or parries, this means that a user of Crimson Pentacle Blade would be best to invest highly in the dodge ability and Charms.

Problematic Aspects

Unfortunately, there are a number of problems with the CPB style as written, some of which seem to result from a lesser understanding of the nature of Exalted combat than that shown in styles not found in the Players Guide. Some fixes are suggested, but bear in mind that these are not official errata in any way.

Assorted errors

• The Western Shield Posture grants a +1 specialty to the use of shields. However, shields are not, in the Exalted system, used with rolls of any kind, serving rather as a passive modifier to cover penalties, making this specialty irrelevant. One approach to fixing this would be to add one to the number of successes removed by the shield, but notice that this is twice as valuble than adding a specialty die, which would unbalance the WSP when compared to the other Postures. Alternatively, merely add a one-die specialty to defensive actions.
• Speardancer Concentration's type is Supplemental, but its function is to raise initiative. As supplemental charms cannot be activated before the user has initiative, this doesn't actually do anything as written. Change this charm's type to Reflexive.
• Eastern Root Protocal offers a "+1 defensive bonus" to its users. It is unclear what is meant by this, whether it is intended to raise the Defense value of the users' weapons, or whether it is intended to raise the cover penalty associated with shields. Given the text of the charm, the author of this guide believes that a cover penalty increase is intended, but be aware that different Storytellers may interpret it in different manners.
• In the text of Western Shield Crush Counterattack, the sentence "This is a counterattack, not an action." is not meaningful in terms of the Exalted system. Substitute the sentence "This is a counterattack."
• Furious Battle Scythe is a charm that creates a weapon, which lasts for one turn. Two problems are present, one semantic, and the other tactical. First, the weapon's traits are misnamed. For "Attack," read "Accuracy." For "Parry," read "Defense." The second problem flows from the fact that the weapon created is not particularly good, but can only be created when the user is already holding a weapon. The scythe is distinctly worse than all artifact weapons usable with the style (and given that the style is not usable with armor, and will be mainly used by Dragonblooded, it may fairly be assumed that the majority of its users will have at least a two-dot artifact weapon). It is also, argubly, no better than the majority of the mundane weapons usable with the style. Given that no sane user would pay four motes a round to make a weapon worse than the one he's already holding, this charm is clearly problematic.

It is suggested that this charm be replaced by one granting bonuses to the weapon being used. An additional +4L damage and +1 rate appear to be roughly in theme with those advantages the scythe has over some mundane weapons, but even these are relatively scant given the per-round cost. It is additionally suggested that the charm cost be lowered to 2 motes.

• Central Pillar Attack Pattern Mastery is the pinnacle charm, an Extra Attack charm costing 7m1w. It is not without flaws. It gives an increasing difficulty to the attacks, and remember that each raise of difficulty is the equivilent of two subtracted dice from the pool. Compare with the results of splitting one's dice pool, for a user with a +12 pool to attack and Essence 4. Splitting the dice pool four ways produces pools of 8,7,6,5. Using this charm, however, provides effective pools (given the difficulty) of 6,6,6,6, with an average effective pool half a die lower than if the user had merely split his dice. Even the fact that it counts successes double for damage does not nearly save it, as that makes one pay 7m1w and lower his dice pools for the equivilent of a turn-long Ferocious Jab, and this as the pinnacle charm of a martial arts style. It is suggested that this charm be replaced with Five Dragon Wrath from the Five Dragon style, as it probably cannot be purified without destruction.

Formations

The charm Five Directions Formation Protocal is sufficiently distinct that it requires another section just to deal with it. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the most lengthy and complicated charm currently in existence in Exalted. It is on the one hand intensely flavorable, and can be used to do many cool and interesting things. It is also horrifically flawed in terms of game balance.

Explanation Of The Text

• The FDFP is not technically a charm, but rather a methodology for designing multi-user "combos". To use one, the following qualifications must be present:
  • A "combo" must have been devised. This requires a number of martial artists who know FDFP, each of whom must contribute at least one charm to the "combo". All of these charms must either be martial arts charms or charms that are explicitly permitted to be used in combos with charms from other abilities. Devising this combo requires an expense of XP equivilent to the cost the "combo" would have if designed as a normal combo, which is divided up evenly among the group, with non-Terrestrials paying double.
  • All the martial artists who designed the formation must be present within a 10-yard radius.
  • All martial artists must activate the formation, which counts as their charm for the round and cannot be used with a "normal" combo. All must spend one point of temporary willpower.

• The effects are as follows:
  • All users must remain within 10 yards of all other users. The formation ends when any of them go farther than 10 yards from any others.
  • All have a movement speed equal to that of the slowest user unless a movement speed boster is part of the protocal. If one is, all may use it.
  • All users have access to the charms in the formation. This is the case even if they do not meet the Minimum Essence and Minimum Ability ratings required, as long as the one in the formation who actually has the charm meets those ratings.
  • Any user who has a charm up with a duration longer than instant may "bleed" it to others, allowing them to share its benefits, for one mote per recipient, payed by the "bleeder." Note that there is not a requirement that these be Martial Arts charms. Only one Form may be used at once, and permanent charms cannot be shared.
  • All essence costs (but not, it seems, willpower, health, or XP) of charms in the "combo" are split as evenly as possible across all the users of it.
  • A bonus of +1 per user of the formation is given to all rolls of charms present in the "combo," to a max of the Attribute+Ability of the user (as in Solar dice adders).

• There are, however, a few problems
  • Access can be gained to charms that are far outside of one's normal ability, explicitly allowing the use of charms that you don't meet the requirements for. This means, really, that if Sidereal Martial Arts are put in the "combo," everyone can use them. Even Dragonblooded. Even mortals. One Sidereal sifu and a dozen dragonblooded lackies can use FDFP to throw 48 Pattern Spider Touches at every enemy in view. This raises the question of why, exactly, the Usurpation was particularly difficult.Alternatively, they can shoot out a dozen Essence Shattering Typhoons and maintain them for some time, allowing one to annihilate quite a few square miles of land (and, of course, everyone in them who can't throw half a dozen perfect defenses) from a good number of miles away.
  • The "bleeding" cost is absurdly low, and it can be done with charms not in the combo. It is, for example, possible for someone with Bottomless Depths Defense to share it with everyone else in the formation for one mote each, rendering them all functionally invulnerable. Or, consider again what can be done with Sidereal Martial Arts. A master of the Prismatic Array of Creation could with ease share all his many hellishly powerful persistants with his minions. This gets even more sickening if you toss in fae, because they have many charms that are story-long, which with a raksha in your formation could result in everyone running around with half a dozen raksha charms on them for the rest of the campaign without the need for any pesky commited essence.

Between these two reasons, I'd say that about a dozen people from various sorts of magical character who had a properly designed formation would stand at least even odds of defeating everyone else in Creation at once. This is, one thinks, a capability a bit beyond what a midtree terrestrial martial art charm should provide. As far as fixing it... it is suggested that only Martial Arts charms of a sort that a character could use with his current initiations be usable by him, and that bleeding charms across requires paying and commiting the entire cost of those charms. It is also suggested that your Storyteller read this and slap on the back of the head any players trying anything described herein.

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Original Author: Random Nerd on RPG.net (Note: The blurb on the Exalted Martial Arts page was originally the lead-in to this article)