Talk:Heart-Breaking Blade Style

Heart-Breaking Blade Style

Single Note of Pain

This does not seem to be a Supplemental charm effect. Would it not make more sense as either a Simple, Instant charm (and thus entirely replace the basic Martial Arts Attack action normally used by martial artists), or as a Simple, Scene-Length charm that creates the 'virtual weapon' used by the style, which subsequently costs motes per use (later negated by the Form charm)?

Mechanically, what it's doing is supplementing a Martial Arts action and replacing the weapon stats present on that action (whatever they may be) with its own array. As Supplemental Charms are declared after the action but before calculating stats and rolling, I determined it to be best placed there, as I want it to cost your charm action to use. You could turn it into a Reflexive, Scenelong charm with spending motes as a non-charm action that did that quite easily, though the issue there would be the non-charm action, which is pretty inappropriate at MA 2 Essence 2.

Note that parrying ranged attack requires neither a stunt nor a charm normally.

That's right, only Lethal needs a stunt. I'm somewhat surprised that the impact remains from a design artifact in 1E.

Heart-Breaking Blade Form

Does this charm merely remove the mote costs from the affected charms, or does it also cause them to not count as charms? Removing the mote cost is fine on its own, but without having them also count as not-charms, a practitioner must still use their charm for the action on the activation of the ability, or combo it with other charms. I'm just looking to clarify the intent of the form.

Simply removes the mote cost. You're going to combo anyway (or at least I hope so, since you want Single Note, Melody, Refrain and Silence together, at least, with your defensive and Excellency selection present as well), the effect simply mitigates mote drain. You could make them non-charm actions if you like, this wouldn't break the game - save the user some Combo XP.

Threnody of Torment

This seems like it should be Type: Extra Action

It's Supplemental for a reason, primarily, to set up the echo combo. If you turn it into a traditional ExAct, the mote cost quickly turns ridiculous and renders the echo combo impractical to use, as well as making the style too effective against single targets due to ExAct/basic attack spam. It also spoils the larger-scale orchestration feel, as the thing is set up specifically to reward spreading Melody tags around against weaker opponents with impressive fireworks upon hitting the kill button, while still being pathetic at hammering through Celestial PDs - trying to flurry multiple opponents with it is really silly.

That function does do horrible things to people with no PD or ability to ignore crippling effects - if you want to tone down the style's ability to make entire non-optimized sworn brotherhoods explode into giblets as part of a synchronized dance move, you probably want to make it into a Rain of Feathered Death style multiplicative effect against a single target (still blockable with one PD), or a traditional ExAct as a last resort, since that makes it too good 1v1. :)

Closing Aria

Against people without active Agonizing Melody it's on the same level as Essence Venom Strike (Ess 3, MA 5), but against a target with active Agonizing Melody it is significantly more powerful. Considering the possible combo mentioned above it would make sense to set this Charm at Essence 4. That would also work on the visual/conceptual symmetry level - after a number of Ess 3 Charms, the master technique should not just be more powerful but also have higher prerequisites. Just one opinion ...

Probably a good idea if you think that trick is too strong. However, Essence 4 effects tend to be a bit more impressive than "I hit you for a lot of damage". I'd just bump the mote cost up.