Air Dragon Style [1st ed]

[Acidburns]

Hi, I'm a great big dirty lurker from way back in the origonal Exalted Compendium days.  Didn't post much, mostly lurker.  I've been eagerly following (lurking) this site since it has been up.


Anyway, I decided to decloak in order to ask a question.  Air Dragon style is something that's never really come up in our games, but looking at the form we're abit confused over it.


The MA adds his martial arts to her abilty total for the purposes of ranged and dodge attacks.  The MA can reflexively dodge attacks with her martial arts score.


So, firstly these are simply bonus dice, and not bonus abilty dots?


If the MA reflexively dodges an attack, do they use their base martial arts score, or do they add the bonus dice as well?


Lastly, how does the style signature abilty interact with rate?  If the martial artist can throw up to his martial arts score in chakrams as a single action, does it count as one attack, or many for rate?


If it is the former, doesn't this make Air Dragon style hideously overpowering?


Thanks for your help.

 

[Hanat-Osul]

I assume by "ranged and dodge attacks" you meant, "ranged attacks and dodges."


It does NOT double his Martial Arts Ability.  It ADDS DICE equal to his M.A.  Which resolves your dodge question as well, I believe.


As for rate: it's not like that.  You can hurl a bunch of chakram in a single attack, if memory serves.  Which doesn't affect rate.

 

[Acidburns]

I assume by "ranged and dodge attacks" you meant' date=' "ranged attacks and dodges."[/quote']
Yes, that is what I meant.

It does NOT double his Martial Arts Ability.  It ADDS DICE equal to his M.A.  Which resolves your dodge question as well' date=' I believe.[/quote']
So with a MA score of 5, when performing a reflexive dodge he would roll 5 dice?  Plus his essence if it's powercombat?


Or would he roll 5 dice (his MA score), his essence, AND his MA again?

As for rate: it's not like that.  You can hurl a bunch of chakram in a single attack, if memory serves.  Which doesn't affect rate.

So, again with a MA score of 5, and armed with an Chakram of rate 5.  He could throw up to 5 chakrams, rolling once to hit, and his opponent rolls once to defend.  If he fails, he is hit by all 5 chakrams.  However, the martial artist could not throw any more chakrams because he has reached the rate of his weapon?

 

[Silence In Daylight]

It does NOT double his Martial Arts Ability.  It ADDS DICE equal to his M.A.  Which resolves your dodge question as well' date=' I believe.[/quote']
So with a MA score of 5, when performing a reflexive dodge he would roll 5 dice?  Plus his essence if it's powercombat?


Or would he roll 5 dice (his MA score), his essence, AND his MA again?

 The former.


 Think of the extra dice as similar to that provided by Essence, except that they apply even when you don't have a dodge action. See 5-Dragon Blocking Technique; it provides a similar parry dice bonus.

As for rate: it's not like that.  You can hurl a bunch of chakram in a single attack, if memory serves.  Which doesn't affect rate.

So, again with a MA score of 5, and armed with an Chakram of rate 5.  He could throw up to 5 chakrams, rolling once to hit, and his opponent rolls once to defend.  If he fails, he is hit by all 5 chakrams.  However, the martial artist could not throw any more chakrams because he has reached the rate of his weapon?

 The simplest way to answer this would be to invoke 'charm use,' which supercedes all weapon rates.


 The key to this is that in throwing five chakrams, the Air Dragon adept is not splitting five times, but making a single attack. I don't see a big problem with the adept launching 25 chakrams in an attack, if he's willing to split five ways and accept the splitting penalties.

 

[Acidburns]

Thanks for clearing that up.


While I have always interpreted the chakram rate issue the way you have stated, it just seems crazy.  I was discussing this with a fellow PC when we were looking at the style.


At essence 3, MA 5 (quite reasonable) is going to be doing a completely mental 15 minimum damage dice on every attack he makes.  That's on a heavily armoured foe too!

 

[Silence In Daylight]

Well, he needs to hit first. And with such a low base damage, Hardness may actually rear its ugly head.

 

[wordman]

I was nodding to the responses in agreement until I read the text of the charm:

[QUOTE="Dragon Blooded]...the Exalt may add her Martial Arts to her Ability total for any ranged attack or dodge attempt she makes for the rest of the scene. This can no more than double the Ability the Immaculate is using to make the ranged attack or dodge and is applied before any penalties for splitting her dice pool. If she wishes, the character may reflexively dodge attacks with her Martial Arts score. The above benefits are specifically cumulative independent of any other Charms or anima powers.

[/QUOTE]
At first glance, this seems like it effectively means the two things already said here:

1. Add Martial Arts dice to ranged attacks or dodges.
   
2. You get a pool of Martial Arts dice to reflexively dodge.

However, closer reading seems to me to indicate that while this is sort of true, there is more to it. The last line, for one thing, indicates that these bonuses don't count towards die limits. From the text it actually does seem like the intent is to add Martial Arts dots to the ability being used, which would also increase the die limit on rolls. Note also that the ability modification can only double the abililty being modified.


Note also that later rules in the Players Guide make the ranged attack bonus less useful than it might be. The player cannot make Archery attacks, for example, because "a character cannot be under the effects of a Form-type Charm when not unarmed or fighting with an in-form weapon" (Player's Guide, pg. 200). Thus, the ranged attacks bonus only works with chakram.


Take an immaculate with Dex 4, MA 4, Thrown 5 and Dodge 3. I think the text means that:

• When the immaculate spends an action to dodge, she treats her Dodge rating as if it were 6 (she could add up to 4 to it, but the result can only be double the original, so is capped at 6, "wasting" one of the bonus dots). This gives her a dodge pool of 10 dice (6 Dodge + 4 Dex).
  
• If she is using a dice pool adder charm as part of the above dodge, she can add up to 6 dice to the roll. (Dragon-Blooded have a dice adder limit equal to the ability score, which is now considered to be 6).
  
• If a solar with the same stats was using this form, he'd have the same base pool; however, if he used a dice adder charm, he could add up to 10 dice, since 10 is now considered his base Attribute+Ability.
  
• If character has some sort of reflexive dodge ability already, it's pool is calculated as if her Dodge was 6.
  
• If the character has no reflexive dodge, she can dodge with a reflexive pool of 5 dice (Martial Arts score).
  
• If she is throwing a chakram, the ability score used is Martial Arts, since it is a style weapon. The form adds 4 dots to the MA ability for the attack, giving an effective MA score of 8. That makes an attack pool of 12 dice (8 + Dex). Note that this is exactly the same effect as if you think about it as doing a normal MA + Dex attack, plus MA dice. The difference is...
  
• If a dice adder is used to augment the above attack, a Dragon-Blooded could add up to 8 dice, not 4. A solar could add up to 12, not 8.
  
• Since the bonus applies to any ranged attack, she could also use Thrown skill to toss the chakram. In this case, Thrown becomes effectively 9, giving a 13 die attack pool.
  
• When using Thrown skill, supplemental Thrown charms could be used rather than Martial Arts supplementals. Again, if using die-adders, DBs could add up to 9, solars up to 13.
  
• As an aside, I'd rule that solars using Firey Solar Chakram would get the benefit of the form.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

Your interpretation is based on reading '...the Exalt may add her Martial Arts to her Ability total for any...' as '...the Exalt may add her Martial Arts to her Ability for any...'


 Most people read 'Ability total' as 'dice pool.' No, it's not the only interpretation that one can reach--as you've demonstrated--but your version does seem slightly forced.

 

[wordman]

your version does seem slightly forced.

Maybe. However most charms in the DB book that manipulate dice pools explicitly mention dice or dice pools or say things like "add Martial Arts to dodge rolls", not "add Martial Arts to dodge ability". See, for example, Hurricane Combat Method, Flowing Water Defense, Five-Dragon Blocking Technique, the Wood Aspect anima ability, Seeking Throw Technique, Stoking Bonfire Style, Phantom Fire-Warrior Horde, etc.


Water Drgon Form, however, may act as a counter-example. I dunno. It's tough to interpret stuff in the DB book, because it came out before WW really standardized its terminology.


Either way, the only real difference in which interpretation you use is the effect on dice pool adding limits. If I'm wrong and the form is only adding dice, then in the first dodge example I gave, the pool will still be 10 (3 Dodge + 4 Dex + 3 bonus MA dice). Given the last line in the form text I quoted, the 3 bonus MA dice would not count towards pool limits, so a dragon blood could still add 3 dice (doubling the Dodge ability) with a dice-adding charm, not the 6 that my interpretation would allow. A solar could add 7, not 10.


The second edition version is a bit more clear:

[QUOTE="Second Edition Storyteller Companion]...the Immaculate can add her Martial Arts to any ranged attack, up to the maximum of doubling her normal Archery or Thrown Ability. Also, her DDV is increased by half of her Martial Arts rating.

[/QUOTE]
Given that, it's probable that my earlier interpretation is incorrect.