Editing Mnemon Explains Solar Combat (section)

===Active Defence===

With a few specific necromantic exceptions, it's pretty difficult to win a battle if you're dead. Given that we Exalts as a culture tend not to deal with weaponry smaller than ourselves, this can be a harder prospect than it might first appear.

Have you read what that ugly little blonde woman Arianna has to say about Not Dying? Good. Her advice is sufficient for those not particularly interested in battle to survive if it is thrust upon them. I'll assume that you've followed her advice and have a reflexive defence charm at the very least. If you're serious about battle, I hope that you've got at least two different defences (of whatever kinds) that you can layer.

Defence is the most powerful form of combat - since Solars have the best defence, they are the strongest combatants. Solar defence (and defence in general), has a few key aspects:

#Having more dice. Being hit can be absolutely disastrous - you have a lot more to lose from rolling poorly than the attacker does. In general, you want to make sure you can bring 2.5-3 times more dice than there were successes on the attack roll. This can be done through dice adders, layered defences, or both (as well as sneakier techniques like reducing the number of successes through shields, martial arts charms and the like).
#Creating multiple decision points. One of the key benefits of layered defences isn't extra dice so much as giving you as the defender multiple opportunities to decide what you want to do. For instance, let's say Invincible Sword Princess is attacked by a crushing 14 success attack. She has Fivefold Bulwark Stance and Flow Like Blood active. Normally she might be intimidated enough by this to use a Perfect Defence, but she doesn't need to make that decision straight away - she can use Flow Like Blood and see how it goes before making a decision. She rolls a lucky 8 successes on her 10 dodge dice, and thus has 6 successes left to go. At this point, she could choose to use Heavenly Guardian Defence, her perfect parry, for guaranteed safety, or use Fivefold Bulwark Stance and hope to get more than 6 successes on her 17 parry dice, or even use Golden Essence Block to boost her Fivefold Bulwark Parry further! She goes for the Fivefold Bulwark, and successfully parries. By layering her defences, Invincible Sword Princess has been able to make informed decisions about which defences to use, and in this case got out of a big attack for nothing. If she'd flubbed her Dodge and got only 1 success, she could still have used Heavenly Guardian Defence for perfect safety.<br>If you're curious, this is one of the reasons I, along with everyone else, HATE you people. We can swing at you for hours before getting a hit. This is why, eventually, I will just incinerate you with first age weapons of mass destruction from far away.
#Have backup defences. It's fairly obvious that active defences - parry and dodge - are superior to passive defences, particularly soak. That doesn't mean you should turn your nose up at soak, however. Soak is what makes the difference between a successful attack wounding you and killing you, and thus you should have it unless you've got a very good reason not to. Instant Soak charms in particular provide yet another layer of defence - imagine Invincible Sword Princess above flubbed her parry roll and was hit despite ample opportunity not to be. At that point she could still use Iron Kettle Body for some extra soak.

That's the core principle, but how do we actually get there? Let's look at a few specifics.

The most basic layered defence pattern: Dodge + Dipping Swallow

This tactic won't actually let you attack, but it will keep you alive when you're in real trouble, and only requires two charms: Golden Essence Block and Dipping Swallow Defence. When you're attacked, Full Dodge. If your dodge fails, activate Dipping Swallow Defence for a full-pool parry. This can be fairly cheap in motes, and will generate a lot of defence dice.

Reversing the process is a bit more expensive, but gives you a better chance to act. If you win iniative, attack once or twice, and save one or two actions for dodges. When attacked, use Dipping Swallow Defence first, then one of your dodges if that's not sufficient. If you lose initiative, use Dipping Swallow Defence when attacked, and if that fails, Full Dodge. If your initiative comes around without you having to have full dodged, take as many attacks as you feel comfortable with (probably 3-4 if you were last in the turn, 1-2 and saving 1-2 dodges if there are enemies who still haven't acted).

Remember most ranged weapons (other than Chakrams) can be used to fight with the Thrown OR Melee abilities, so Thrown users might find it worthwhile to invest in Melee and Dipping Swallow Defence.

Not quite so good: Parry + Shadow Over Water

Shadow Over Water looks pretty similar to Dipping Swallow Defence, so this should work the same, right? Not quite - Shadow Over Water has a problem, as does non-charm parrying.

Firstly, many Dodge charms, like Shadow Over Water, stipulate that they must be activated BEFORE the attacker rolls their attack. This means you can't parry first and THEN decide to use Shadow Over Water - you must use Shadow Over Water first, so you're likely to use it more often than you would Dipping Swallow Defence, costing you more motes. This isn't a huge problem if you know how to stunt, but it is annoying. Check with your GM, though, since ignoring this rule is probably the most commonly used house rule of all! Lots of GMs find the houserule useful because they forget to ask about defences before they roll.

Secondly, unlike aborting to a Full Dodge, aborting to a parry only gives you a single parry, so it's a LOT less safe when faced with multiple opponents, or a skilled opponent given to multiple attacks.

That being said, though, this is still a great way to layer lots of dice, and for anyone not using Melee, well, it's what you've got. It works well if you win initiative (in which case you can attack once or twice, and then just save a couple of parries). If you lose initiative, you'll only have one parry, so be careful which attack you use it for - it might be better to take a hit from a moderate foe to save your parry for the bone-crunching attack of a more powerful enemy.

For those of you using a bow, remember you'll need to use a good stunt in order to parry at all. However, ranged combatants can often rely on Shadow Over Water by making good use of other defence strategies, like intelligent use of the terrain, items like shield bracers or Windhands hearthstones, and other measures. See below.


====Bulwark Stance====
''don't do us the favour''

This is a terrible charm. While it theoretically might let you defend against many attacks at full pool, in the vast majority of situations, it's not going to be as good as Full Dodge + Dipping Swallow, since it'll provide less dice. Unless it's a very large number of attacks, just using Dipping Swallow is better, since you'll still get your action. You can't even combo it, so forget comboing it with Shadow Over Water for a poor man's stacked persistent. Even if you do end up using it once or twice (say, you have Flow Like Blood already up and want to parry a thousand arrows or something), do yourself a favour and buy Fivefold Bulwark Stance as soon as you can, since it's better in every way.



====My first Persistent Defence====
''Flow Like Blood''

You don't need to start with a persistent defence (in fact, it's less efficient than using your bonus points to buy high Abilities and then picking up Essence 3 and Flow Like Blood with XP), but they're so staggeringly useful that if you fancy yourself a combatant at all, you should get one as soon as you can.

Chances are, the one you'll pick up is Flow Like Blood. While Fivefold Bulwark Stance has some key advantages, Flow Like Blood is much more reliable, and is useful for every character. Flow Like Blood protects against attacks you're unaware of, and also allows you to dodge when you wouldn't otherwise be able to (for nasty fun, lure an enemy onto a narrow ledge or tight corridor where he can't dodge but you can).

Its key weakness is that as a Simple charm, it consumes an action to activate, and can't be activated before your initiative. Combined with the fact that as a non-Instant charm it can't be placed in Combo, this means you won't be doing anything else on the turn you activate it. Hence, the key is to activate the charm BEFORE combat - generally at the first sign of trouble. Even if you don't actually end up in a fight, you should be able to stunt back the WP quickly, and regenerate the motes via hearthstone or rest before the next scene.

For Melee fighters, the beauty of Flow Like Blood is that BOTH your defences can come from charms, leaving your action entirely for attacks. Generally you'll use Flow Like Blood straight away against any incoming attack, and then Dipping Swallow Defence against anything that gets through that. If your initiative comes up before you've been forced to use Dipping Swallow, you may feel confident enough to use an offensive charm instead, especially if all your enemies have already acted (otherwise, save a parry or two). Ranged fighters who aren't in melee can emulate this without using a charm at all if they have a Windhands Gem, which will give them a parry against any ranged attack made against them.

For those unable or unwilling to use Dipping Swallow Defence, remember that you can use Reed In the Wind to add dice to your Flow Like Blood dodges - which, if you're willing to invest the motes, can be sufficient to not worry about parries at all, and save your entire action for attacks. Archers and Thrown users will probably want to use the terrain and other passive defences to cut attacks down to size, and use offensive charms rather than Reed In the Wind.

Finally, this is one of the most stunty charms you dastardly Anathema have. Have you ever stuck a daiklaive into someone only to have them slip off it effortlessly, unharmed? Well, neither have I, but I had an underling do it, and he didn't look happy.



====For the Meleeists====
''Fivefold Bulwark Stance!''

Fivefold Bulwark Stance has a couple of nice advantages over Flow Like Blood - firstly, it tends to give a few more dice (due to more applicable specialties and the Defence bonus on weapons), and secondly, it's Reflexive, so it's not as vital to get it up early.

If you're attacked before your initiative, and you have your weapon ready, activate Fivefold Bulwark Stance and Full Dodge. From nothing to layered defences instantly! If you win initiative, activate Fivefold Bulwark, attack once or twice, and save a dodge or two.

If your weapon isn't ready, and you lose initiative, you're in a bit of trouble. You'll have to Full Dodge until you can get a chance to ready the weapon on subsequent turns - try stunting your Full Dodge to get a stick or other improvised weapon into your hands, and if your GM goes for it, activate Fivefold Bulwark Stance, and then switch to your real weapon as soon as you get an action. Otherwise, run like a squealing Ledaal until you're in a position where you have a hope of winning initiative and readying a weapon.

Once you've got Fivefold Bulwark Stance up, on the next turn, activate Flow Like Blood if your initiative comes up and you haven't been forced to Full Dodge. Otherwise, you can keep Full Dodging whenever an attack gets through your Fivefold Bulwark before your initiative, or attack (possibly with an offensive charm) and save a couple of dodges if your initiative comes up without you needing to Full Dodge. You can use Shadow Over Water in place of Full Dodging if you want to make sure you can attack, but remember you need to activate it BEFORE the attack, so you either need to use it on every attack, or just gamble on only using it on the attacks you think will be big ones (if your GM houserules the dodge charms to work like the parry ones, just use Shadow Over Water and don't bother Full Dodging unless you're low on motes).

Fivefold Bulwark is no good against attacks you're not aware of, however, so beware ninja. Also, particularly hardass GMs might insist that the talk of "golden arcs of essence guiding the blade" in the charm description is always true - in which case it's a poor choice for discreet battles in such games.


====Perfect Defences====

These are some of the most potent charms Solars have - defences that can stop any attack, no matter how powerful. However, they're the charms you'll want to use least, owing to their expense.

Perfect Defences, in as much as they have a definition, are defences that are not rolled against the number of successes on the attack (in the case of Solar defences, not rolled at all, they just work), and that are capable of defending against Perfect Attacks.

Seven Shadow Evasion's main advantage is that it only costs motes, so if you've got plenty of motes and not much willpower, it's an excellent choice. It's also useful in that it doesn't require a weapon (or Melee charms), and unlike Heavenly Guardian Defence, doesn't result in a broken weapon if you're using a mortal blade and you're attacked with overwhelming force. However, it's vulnerable to undodgeable attacks (though your ST might rule it works against certain attacks that are undodgeable because of their area of effect), and crucially, must be activated before the attack roll. It's likely to cost you a lot of motes (since you need to use it before you know how bad the attack is), but it's required for Flow Like Blood, and it's a lot better than NOT having a perfect defence when you need one. If your GM houserules the dodge charms, it becomes a lot more useful, especially if WP is in short supply.

Heavenly Guardian Defence is one of the best charms in the game. It costs WP, making it difficult to use often, but will defend against unblockable attacks without problem, and can be used AFTER a full dodge or Flow Like Blood fails. It still involves contact between weapon and attack, however, so try stunting the use of an improvised weapon against truly powerful attacks if you're using a normal weapon you don't want to break. This charm's main disadvantage is that it requires the atrocious Bulwark Stance.

Adamant Skin Technique is the worst of the three perfects. It costs motes, WP and a Health Level, and must be used before the attack! It also only protects against damage, so if you're hit by an attack that has an additional effect, you're out of luck (whereas the above two charms could avoid it entirely). On the other hand, it DOES save you from non-attack damage, like falling - and honestly, I can only recommend it if you're planning to leap on your enemies from an airship or somesuch. IF, however, your GM houserules Adamant Skin Technique to be useable AFTER the attack roll, it actually becomes very useful to those with persistent defences, since you can use it to save your gleaming golden hide when you just got a poor roll on Fivefold Bulwark and/or Flow Like Blood and your opportunities to use the other perfects have already passed.


====A final note on Dodges and Parries====

The most important thing to remember is that you can only dodge each attack once, and parry each attack once. The key is to have multiple dodges and parries available, and choose the right ones at the right time. The very best option is to have Flow Like Blood and Fivefold Bulwark active, using Heavenly Guardian Defence if Fivefold Bulwark doesn't look like it'll be enough after your Flow Like Blood dodge.

However, anything that lets you do more than just put your faith in one dice roll is good, especially for those without Melee, and we'll discuss some of those below.