SoF Exalted/Supernatural MA

Supernatural Martial Arts

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General Requirements

To use any form of Supernatural Martial Arts, you must have an Awakened Essence. This is represented by having an Essence Affinity Ability and an Essence Pool track. Anyone with any of the "basic packages" can thus learn some form of supernatural Martial Art. Minimum Power TL is 2.

"Martial Arts" Advantages

There are a number of Expert and Heroic Advantages which can be used to simulate particular aspects of the supernatural Martial Arts.

Expert Advantages:

• Acrobatic
• Deadly Grace
• Grappler
• Hard Style
• Quick Step
• Soft Style
• Weapon Specialist
• Wrestler

Heroic Advantages:

• Assassin Strike
• Counter Attack
• Crippling Blow
• Dazing Blow
• Dervish
• Ground and Pound
• Slippery Combatant
• Weapon Expertise

These can already be used to represent mundane (ie non-supernatural) martial arts, but nothing stops them also being used to add nuance to the supernatural styles.

Optional

Those with Awakened Essences can also use that connection to fuel their martial arts abilities. You can choose to take Expert Advantages Hard Style, Soft Style or Wrestler, along with any of the Heroic Advantages with the Enlightened (-1) Limitation on them. This changes them to Powers with an activation difficulty of 4 which last the scene. You distinguished Enlightened Powers by marking them "(E)". So for example a Terrestrial grappling style might be Ground and Pound(E).

The purpose of this is to give the Enlightened martial artist a broader range of powers but at the risk of Essence Stress.

Limitations

Many supernatural Martial Arts styles come with limitations on them, such as elemental aspects which restrict how they can be used. Elemental-aspecting means taking Limitations on each one, which reduce their cost. There are other forms of restriction, all of which reduce the cost. Guidance on how much they should reduce a Power by are given in the table below.

AP Cost     Limitation
Modifier
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 -1         Armour restriction (only light, only non-metal armour, only metal armour, etc)
            Weapon restriction (only wood, or only a short list of three weapons, etc)
            Requires component (eg drugs, alcohol, dance)
            Enlightened (requires activation, lasts for scene; Expert and Heroic Advantages only)
 
 -2         Unarmoured only (Power does not function when armoured)
            Unarmed only (Power does not function when using a weapon)

As always, a Limitation cannot bring the cost of a Power under 1AP.

See page 199 of the SoF rulebook for more details.

Terrestrial Martial Arts

Terrestrial Martial Arts are the only form of supernatural martial arts that mortals and other non-Exalts can learn. They are the lowest tier of supernatural martial arts, but also the most commonly learned.

Requirements

To use Terrestrial Martial Arts, you must have an Awakened Essence and a minimum Power TL of 2.

Powers

Terrestrial Martial Arts are Powers, but are quite restricted in terms of both scale and scope. On scale, you may not spend more than your Power TL+1 on any single power. None may be taken to the superheroic level, that's the preserve of Charms and Celestial Martial Arts For scope, only ever from the list below:

• Absorption*
• Armour
• Augmented Movement
• Body Weaponry*
• Enhanced Endurance**
• Enhanced Speed
• Enhanced Strength**
• Enhanced Reflexes
• Imbue Armour or Shield*
• Imbue Weapon*
• Poison*
• Power Attack - Melee
• Resistance*
• Weapon Mastery

*Some of these may be more appropriate for Sorcery than TMA
**Enhanced Endurance and Enhanced Speed are custom-made Powers, see below.

New Powers

Enhanced Endurance

Sample Power Aspect: Iron Constitution Technique

Base AP Cost: 2AP

Activation: Fate Point

Activation Time: Free Action

Duration: Scene

You gain the ability to become inhumanly durable, gaining the Aspect Enhanced Endurance when this power is activated, as well as the following benefits:

Stress Boxes: +2 Stress boxes.

Other Rolls: For other uses of Enhanced Endurance, you gain a +3 bonus.

Modifiers:

+2 (Passive): Your Enhanced Endurance is "always on" and you do not need to activate it.

See page 177 of the SoF rulebook for more details.

Enhanced Strength

Sample Power Aspect: Five Dragon Musculature

Base AP Cost: 2AP

Activation: Fate Point

Activation Time: Free Action

Duration: Scene

You gain the ability to become inhumanly strong, gaining the Aspect Enhanced Strength when this power is activated, as well as the following benefits

Stress Boxes: +1 Stress box.

Other Rolls: +3 WR to uanrmed punches and kicks or adds +3 to the WR of melee weapons. For other uses of Enhanced Strength, you gain a +3 bonus.

Modifiers:

+2 (Passive): Your Enhanced Strength is "always on" and you do not need to activate it.

See page 178 of the SoF rulebook for more details.

Limitations

Terrestrial Martial Arts are generally elemental-aspected, and thus have restrictions relating to those elements. For example many Air-aspected styles cannot be performed in armour. The Five Dragon Style uses only swords and spears aside from martial arts weapons.

Celestial Martial Arts

Requirements

To use Celestial Martial Arts, you must have an Awakened Essence and a minimum Power TL of 4.

Sidereal Martial Arts

Requirements

To use Sidereal Martial Arts, you must have an Awakened Essence and a minimum Power TL of 5.