Ranged Combat Charms
Eagle Eye Advantage
Cost: 2 motes per die
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Perception: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
A Lunar Exalted can use this
Charm to sharpen his hand-eye coordination, making it easier to strike ranged
targets. Careful observers (a reflexive Perception + Awareness roll, difficulty
3) will notice a change in the Lunar’s eyes ― they take on an avian
aspect ― but otherwise, his form is unchanged. When making an Archery or
Thrown attack against a ranged target, the Lunar may convert attack dice into
automatic successes. He may not, however, purchase more successes than his
Dexterity score.
Nature’s Harmony Advantage
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Perception: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Eagle Eye
Advantage
By listening to his animal
instincts, a Lunar can compensate for adverse environmental effects such as
wind and rain on the flight path of his missile. The arrow always flies true,
allowing the Exalt to ignore all environmental penalties during an Archery or
Thrown attack. Nature’s Harmony Advantage does not compensate for reduced
visibility and must be included in a Combo with the Wolf Eye Advantage if the
Lunar is to avoid all environmental penalties for ranged attacks.
Knowing The Arrow’s Path
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Perception: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Nature’s
Harmony Advantage
Cover is a target’s best defense against
missile attacks, but the preternaturally enhanced senses and reflexes of the
Lunar Exalted can degrade its effectiveness. Using Knowing the Arrow’s Path
allows the Lunar to ignore cover penalties, including those of a shield, when
firing at an opponent.
Two-Target Method
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Extra action
Minimum Dexterity: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Knowing the
Arrow’s Path
By using his Essence to alter the
arrow’s flight, a Lunar can attack two targets with a single arrow, usually by
shooting through the first target into the second. Both victims must be within
two yards of each other. The Lunar’s player makes a single Archery + Dexterity
attack roll. If it succeeds, the successes are split as equally as possible
between the two targets, who each may attempt to parry or dodge the attack as
normal. If the Lunar’s player rolls only one success, he picks who he attacks. Regardless
of how the attack is described, determine the arrow’s damage normally against
target hit (i.e., arrows boosted by this Charm are not “slowed down” by passing
through the chest of the first target, beyond dividing the successes of the
attack).
Silver Waterfall Technique
Cost: 3 motes per attack + 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Extra action
Minimum Dexterity: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Two-Target
Method
Shifting her body to give it an
efficient, fluid grace, a Lunar archer can load and fire her bow with
preternatural speed. For every 3 motes spent activating the Charm, the Lunar
can make an additional Thrown or Archery attack, which may be at her first
target or at any other target in range. The player must declare the number of
attacks the Lunar is making before paying to activate the Charm. The player
cannot buy more extra attacks than her character’s permanent Essence Trait, nor
can she buy more extra actions than (the initiative on which the character
activated this Charm ÷ 3, rounded down). This normally means (the character’s
initiative ÷ 3), but Lunars who hold their action and then invoke this Charm
may lose extra actions. Each attack uses the character’s full dice pool. The
character cannot make an attack unless she has the ammunition to do so.
Rain Of Feathered Doom
Cost: 2 motes per target
Duration: Instant
Type: Extra action
Minimum Dexterity: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Silver
Waterfall Technique
Using this Charm to speed his
drawing and firing, the Lunar can loft a series of arrows before the first has
hit its target. Unlike regular shots, which are aimed at an individual, the Rain
of Feathered Doom targets an area. The Lunar may fire as many arrows as (his
Dexterity x the rate of the bow), subject to the number of arrows and motes of
Essence available. For every two arrows fired, the Lunar may target a single
individual, and each individual targeted costs 2 motes
of Essence. All of the targets must be within (the Lunar’s Dexterity) yards
equal to of a center point picked by the Lunar. The targets do not gain the
benefits of any movement or cover, so thick do the arrows fly. Make one attack
roll, and apply it to all the targets, increasing the base difficulty of each
attack by 1. Irrespective of the number of arrows fired, the Lunar may attack
each target only once during the turn (the extra arrows are wasted).
Finding The Needle’s Eye
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Perception: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Knowing the
Arrow’s Path
To an Exalt who can hit a dipping
swallow at 100 yards, striking a projectile in flight is only slightly more
challenging. Using this Charm, the Lunar can attempt to deflect a ranged attack
aimed at him by using a missile of his own. To attempt this, the Lunar must
have the bow and ammunition ready. The player makes a reflexive Dexterity +
Archery or Thrown roll, with each success reducing the attacker’s successes. If
the Lunar’s player rolls at least as many successes as the attacker’s the
attack is disrupted in flight and causes no damage. If the Lunar’s player does
not equal or exceed the attacker’s successes, then the attacker’s successes are
still reduced. This defense is only effective against ranged attacks, and the
Lunar must expend one arrow per activation of this Charm.
Arrow-Breaking Shot
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Perception: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Finding the
Needle’s Eye
While Finding the Needle’s Eye
allows an Exalt to use arrows to defend himself from enemy missile attacks,
protecting his allies is a more difficult task. Not only must he observe the
path of projectiles inbound against multiple targets, but firing at those
targets often requires him to hit a crossing target, not an issue when the
Lunar himself was the target. The Arrow-Breaking Shot functions like Finding
the Needle’s Eye, save that each deflection attempt
costs more Essence and requires the number of successes to exceed those
of the attacker for the deflection to be successful. As with Finding the
Needle’s Eye, above, the Charm can be used only against ranged attacks, and the
Lunar must expend one arrow with each activation of
the Charm.
Skillful Ricochet Attack
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Perception: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Knowing the
Arrow’s Path
Using this Charm, a Lunar can
negate an opponent’s cover by bouncing his missile off of several surfaces, his
enhanced senses allowing him to calculate an unerring trajectory for a single
Thrown or Archery attack. Each surface the missile must bounce off of to reach
its target subtracts 1 from the attack’s damage (meaning the character’s
Strength + the weapon’s damage bonus). If the total damage reaches 0, the
weapon’s energy is spent, and it falls to the ground.
Arrow-Shaping Method
Cost: 6 motes, 1
Willpower
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Manipulation: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Shaping the
Once-Living Form, Nature’s Harmony Advantage
So long as he is surrounded by
raw materials ― stones, twigs, bones, reeds, long blades of grass and the
like ― a Lunar will not run out of ammunition. Instant of drawing arrows
from his quiver, the Lunar may instead pick up an appropriate piece of raw
material ― anything long and thin for arrows,
and anything of roughly the correct shape for thrown weapons ― and
transform it into a missile suitable for firing from the bow or for throwing.
The arrow retains the appearance of the raw material, but in the hands of the
Lunar, it is a functional but non-magical item of that type. Only the Lunar can
use weapons he has shaped. He can shape a maximum number of missiles equal to
his Dexterity in a single turn and must use them within a number of turns equal
to his Essence, for at the end of that time they revert to their raw form.
Missiles embedded in their victims when they revert do an extra 1L damage.
Wolf Eye Advantage
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Perception: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: Eagle Eye
Advantage
By sharpening his senses, a Lunar
can offset the disadvantage of poor visibility (but not for the effects of
wind, rain and the like) on a missile’s flight path. Activating this Charm
allows the Lunar to treat visibility ranges as double their value for the
purposes of a single Archery or Thrown attack. For example, on a foggy day the
Lunar can attack targets without penalty out to 20 yards and with +1 difficulty
out to 60 yards. Furthermore, when using this Charm, a Lunar can make blind
attack out to 200 yards and treats all night conditions as day (further
including increasing visibility distances).
Wind-Wings Carry Technique
Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Perception: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Wolf Eye
Advantage
Range is the main enemy of
archers, but by enhancing his senses to observe the flows of Essence within the
air, the Lunar can use them to steer the shot to the target. The Lunar can
attack out to two times the weapon’s listed range at -1 die and out to three
times the weapon’s range at only -2 dice. Additionally, a Lunar using this
Charm can strike attack targets out to four times the weapon’s range at -4
dice. The Charm confers no benefits to hitting small targets at shorter
distances.
Bow-Bending Method
Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Strength: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Wind-Wings
Carry Technique
All bows have a pull, and beyond
this upper limit, the archer’s strength has no appreciable effect, except
perhaps to break the bow. Using this Charm to control his actions and Essence
to reinforce the weapon, the Lunar can coax extra performance out of the bow.
When firing, the Lunar’s player must state the Strength the Lunar is using and
can as much as double a bow’s maximum Strength without harming the weapon. The
player may increase the maximum Strength beyond double, but doing so requires
him to make an immediate ― before the shot is fired ― reflexive
Dexterity + Archery roll against a difficulty equal to the number of points by
which he exceeded the weapon’s maximum Strength. If he succeeds, the shot takes
place as usual. If he fails, the bow breaks, and the Essence is wasted. If
making multiple missile attacks, this Charm must be activated once for each
shot, as usual for instant Charms.
Body-Pinning Style
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Strength: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Bow-Bending
Method
While the Bow Bending Method
attempts to use brute force to increase archery damage, the Body-Pinning Style
relies on precision targeting as can only be provided by someone with the body
control of a Lunar Exalted. When rolling damage dice for an
archery attack, count all 10s as two successes. The number of extra
successes gained in this way cannot exceed the Lunar’s unmodified Strength.
Deadly Assassin’s Shot
Cost: 3 motes per success
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Strength: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Body-Pinning
Style
By allowing his subconscious mind
control and by shaping his body to the needs of the shot, the Lunar can fire a
truly devastating ranged attack at a single foe. The powerful Charm seems to
give the arrow a bloodthirsty life of its own, its erratic path leaving jagged
wounds and, occasionally, amputating limbs. Immediately after soak is applied,
the Lunar can spend motes of Essence, with the mechanical effect of turning
damage dice into automatic successes. The maximum number of automatic successes
cannot exceed the Lunar’s permanent Essence or the maximum Strength rating of
the bow, whichever is lower.
Lightning Stroke Attack
Cost: 6 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Strength: 5
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Body-Pinning
Style
Some attacks are so swift and
powerful that the target doesn’t see the blow coming and has no chance to avoid
it. Ranged attacks incorporating the Lightning Stroke Attack exploit the
Lunar’s powers to this end, misdirecting the opponent’s eye by warping limbs
and the missile in flight. The attack is rolled normally, but the target cannot
attempt to dodge or parry. Instead, she must rely on her soak to absorb the
arrow’s damage. The perfect defenses of the Solar Exalted, Charms such as Seven
Shadow Evasion and Heavenly Guardian Defense, are
proof against this attack, just as they are proof against all others.
Riding The Secret Wind
Cost: 7 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Perception: 4
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Wind-Wings
Carry Technique
By using this Charm, the Lunar
can tap into the flows of Essence and the senses of beasts in the area to
target any opponent within reach of his weapon. He may attack any target in
range with a single Thrown or Archery attack, even if no direct line of sight
exists between Lunar and target. As long as there is some unblocked route the
missile could take to the target, it will attempt to strike the victim. The
normal range penalties apply to the attack, but the target cannot claim any
cover modifiers. The target may attempt to parry or dodge and soak the attack
normally, though she is unlikely to be aware of it and, so, should probably
check for blindside. Riding the Secret Wind cannot be included in a Combo with
any Charms with automatic damage successes.