One weapon, two blows (2nd edition)

[Greenstalker]

Actually I asked a similiar question at exalted wiki but considering that there are like infinite questions waiting answer at there I will take my chance on here too.


Duration for this charm says One action but what actually does this mean? For example if I have a rate 2 weapon and used this charm in the first attack of a 3 attack flurry does 3rd attack happens or should I use this charm at the beginning of third attack? In either case, does the bonus stays until DV refreshes or does it end with flurry? Also if anything related this pointed out in any Exalted 2nd edition book can someone give me book's name and page number?

 

[Plague of Hats]

Duration for this charm says One action but what actually does this mean?

Its effects persist from whenever it is activated until your next action tick.

For example if I have a rate 2 weapon and used this charm in the first attack of a 3 attack flurry does 3rd attack happens or should I use this charm at the beginning of third attack?

Because the Charm's effect is ongoing, you can activate it on the first of three attacks in a flurry, and you will gain the +1 Accuracy bonus for all of those attacks without any further activations. You will also be able to make an additional attack in the flurry because of the +1 Rate, beyond what your weapon is normally capable of.

In either case, does the bonus stays until DV refreshes or does it end with flurry?

In most cases, it will last until your DV refreshes, but basing Charm duration on DV refresh is not quite correct. You can perform some actions that do no refresh your DV, but the duration of such Charms are generally based on the length of an action, not DV refresh.

Also if anything related this pointed out in any Exalted 2nd edition book can someone give me book's name and page number?

It's sort of implied in the way actions function. A flurry is an action. Each part of a flurry is not, itself, an action in the same sense, but a sub-action. The rather common confusion that arises is an unfortunate consequence of a sort of nested set of implications as to how all this fits together. When something only lasts for the resolution of a single action/sub-action, its duration will be "Instant" because the resolution of a given act is "an instant."
So, to thoroughly demonstrate:


Tick 0: I flurry three Speed 5 attacks, activating One Weapon, Two Blows on the first attack. All the attacks then benefit from +1 Accuracy, and if the weapon I was using were Rate 2 the Charm also makes the third attack possible.


Tick 2: Because I activated One Weapon, Two Blows as part of a Combo, I also activate Solar Counterattack when I am attacked. The responding attack I make benefits from the +1 Accuracy granted by One Weapon, Two Blows.


Tick 5: My next action tick. One Weapon, Two Blows lapses and I no longer treat my weapon as having +1 Accuracy and +1 Rate.

 

[wordman]

Also, take a look at some more specific definitions of "action". In the terminology used on that page, the duration of that charm would be "one turn".

 

[Greenstalker]

Okay so I was looking at glories most high Unconquered Sun and this charm caught my attention Flashing Edge of Dawn. Isn't this charms prerequisites are a little low for what it does, giving each melee attack a +1 accuracy +1 rate lasts for one action is looks like an overkill. For example if I have a attack pool of 15 dice without anything else this charm lets me make 15 attack flurry at 1 attack pool eachwithout actually invoking one weapon, two blows. Ofcourse I get -15 DV penalty too but with a mere 1m for activating Shadow Over Water, I can negate that penalty per attack. Even if my opponent only enhance his DV after his DV hits 0, he practically spents mote to do it meanwhile I spent nothing.


From what I can calculate I can go up to attack roll+1 attacks in a flurry (invoking one weapon, two blow in first attack).

 

[Persell]

I've not got Glories ( I know, consider me shamed....and poor while you're at it) but I'm sure you're getting something wrong with that Charm, as what you're describing would have made the forums erupt in choruses of "Broken!"

...I have a attack pool of 15 dices ...

Also a small nitpick (and I apologize if English is a 2nd language) but die is the singular and dice is the plural.

 

[Greenstalker]

Forgot about die/dice thing and yes english isn't my native language. Charm's description is like this

....The benefits of One Weapon, Two Blows are automatically applied to all Melee attacks the Solar makes. If invoked normally, that Charm’s effects stack with this upgrade.

Charm is a permanent one with a melee 4 and essence 3 and one weapon, two blow as prerequisite.

 

[Plague of Hats]

For example if I have a attack pool of 15 dice without anything else this charm lets me make 15 attack flurry at 1 attack pool each

You're ignoring or you don't understand the Rate of the weapon, which Flashing Edge of Dawn and One Weapon, Two Blows both affect. Now, if you combine the two, you can get +2 Rate, but in most cases that's only going to allow you to make 4-5 attacks instead of 3-4. It doesn't matter how big your dice pool is if your Rate is too low to allow you to make all the attacks that you want. Check out page 373 of the corebook for the definition of Rate.
You also don't appear to understand multiple action penalties. After determining how many actions you're going to perform, the first of those actions suffers an internal penalty equal to the total number of actions you are going to attempt. Each subsequent action suffers an accumulating penalty one die higher. Multiple action penalties, along with wound penalties, are also the exception to the minimum dice pool rule. While other internal penalties can't reduce your dice pool below your Essence for an action you can validly attempt, multiple action and wound penalties can. If multiple action and wound penalties reduce your dice pool to 0 or lower, you automatically fail at the action in question. And, despite what the corebook says in the section on penalties, thanks to the stealth errata under Vitriolic Corona Endowment in Manual: Infernals, you can't attack in the absence of a positive dice pool even if you have automatic successes to apply to the action.


So if you take, say, an orichalcum daiklave which has Rate 4, and you have Flashing Edge of Dawn, in your hands it effectively has Rate 5. That means that you can choose to make up to 5 attacks in a single action with it. If you do so, your first attack will suffer a -5 penalty, the second a -6, the third a -7, the fourth a -8 and the fifth a -9. If your dice pool for the attack were 10, then for the five-attack flurry it would be 5, 4, 3, 2 and then 1. If you used One Weapon, Two Blows on top of Flashing Edge of Dawn with this daiklave, you'd technically be able to make six attacks, but your Accuracy (which starts at a base of 11 now, assuming you invoke the Charm on the first attack) would be 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, making the final attack impossible without some further enhancement such as dice gained through an Excellency or something.

 

[Greenstalker]

I understand rate and multiple action penalty quite well. On the contrary you don't understand the charm at all. One weapon, two blow is a reflexive charm which can be used every attack you made and gives +1 accuracy +1 rate until for one action. This means I can use this charm 15 times in a flurry of 15 attack. Flashing edge of dawn lets this charm effect count on every melee attack that is made which means in a flurry of 15 attack it is as if 15 one weapon, two blow has been invoked.


Now lets make some calculations; From earlier argument about the matter you said that effect is persist until next action tick which means earlier activation of charm stacks within a flurry. I have 15 melee attack pool (dexteriy 4, melee 4, specialty 2, orichalcum short daiklave 5) on my tick I declare 15 attack of flurry. On my first attack flashing edge of dawn increases my weapon's accuracy and rate by 1 so I have 16 dice of attack pool and 4 rate, -15 penalty from multiple actions and my attack pool reduces to 1 die. On second attack I have 16 melee attack pool from first attack and flashing edge of dawn increases my weapon's accuracy and rate again so I have 16 dice of melee attack pool and a rate of 5; -16 multiple attack penalty and it reduces to 1. This continues until 15th attack. Now I made 15 attacks without spending a single mote because of onslaught penalty however my opponent probably droped to 0 DV somewhere in this mess. After that point he needs to spent some mote to avoid being get hit (or he needs to have a hardness high enough to ignore my damage) Not to mention that this was done by a beginning character which is not min maxed for combat.


With core only I come up with a dodge DV as high as 10 without stunts or charms maybe with serpent-sting staff it would be possible to have a 11 parry DV. On the otherhand again with core I got a 23 attack pool with razor claws and seven leaping dragon stone.


Point is; with Flashing edge of dawn you can burn your opponents motes or finish him in one or two actions without spending any mote or spending pretty low amount of mote (around 5 or 6)unless your opponent has high hardness (which incase you will not use this tactic anyway) or have flashing edge of dawn himself.

 

[Persell]

You don't understand the charm One Weapon, Two Blows.. It is not activated for every single attack. It Duration it not Instant. It last for your entire action and is not Stackable.

 

[Greenstalker]

You don't understand the charm One Weapon, Two Blows.. It is not activated for every single attack. It Duration it not Instant. It last for your entire action and is not Stackable.

First it is reflexive and by the definiton of reflexive as in page 182 it can be used as many times in an action as character wishes, it doesn't matter of the duration; duration only effects if the mote is comitted or not and if the charms effect stays or not. Which in ths case supports my point that you can make attack pool times melee attack in a flurry. If this charm was intended to be used only once in an action than it would be a simple charm not a reflexive one.


Second it doesn't says it can't be stacked on the contrary there isn't any limit for it at all since it doesn't effect (attribute+ability) roll directly, it increases a weapon's accuracy; now if you can show me the page or errata of that a weapon's accuracy (or rate or defense or whatever) can't be increased more than once than I will appreciate that but I couldn't find such information yet. Even if we assume that it counted as dice bonus from charm (like increase strength exercise but in that charm it is mentioned that it is counted as dice bonus however it isn't stated as such in one weapon, two blow) it still makes 8 dice for my example with short daiklave he already has rate 3 and it means he make 11 attacks; 8 of them with attack pool of 5 and last three as 4, 3, 2 respectively.


Third Flashing edge of dawn says that it benefits for all melee attacks so yes it is activated for every single attack. Furthermore you can activate actual one weapon, two blows for each of those attack by paying mote.

 

[Kyeudo]

It does not have the stackable keyword. Therefore, you cannot get any greater benefit from applying the Charm more than once. It doesn't matter that it is the weapon and not yourself that benefits.

 

[Plague of Hats]

Specifically, check page 184, under Multiple Purchases and Invocations.

 

[Greenstalker]

Okay I aprreciated guiding but it rises even more question in my head now. Like why this charm is reflexive? I mean if you want to get rate benefit you need to declare this charm in first attack so you can also enjoy +1 accuracy. From what I understand what this charm does it should be supplemental. Also with this state isn't this charm is actually weaker than excelencies? Is this charm only there to present a stepping stone to extra-action charms?


Only thing that came up to my mind is using this charm with paired short daiklave and invoking it twice, one on main weapon, one on off-hand weapon. With orichalcum short daiklaves I guess it makes up to 8 attacks considering attack pool that may just work.

 

[Plague of Hats]

Okay I aprreciated guiding but it rises even more question in my head now. Like why this charm is reflexive? I mean if you want to get rate benefit you need to declare this charm in first attack so you can also enjoy +1 accuracy. From what I understand what this charm does it should be supplemental.

If it were supplemental, when you used it as part of a Combo you'd have to activate it on every attack. That would undercut its utility and power. It's an extremely cheap way to gain +1 attack die on more than one attack, mostly. It grants you a bonus die above and beyond the normal Excellency cap, and it does so for an entire action at rock bottom prices.

Also with this state isn't this charm is actually weaker than excelencies? Is this charm only there to present a stepping stone to extra-action charms?

It's not weaker than an Excellency, it's different. It's pretty low key for a Solar Charm, so it is not very attractive. But it's not shit, and if you're willing to put it in a Combo there's really no good reason not to use it. Except when you're running out of motes, in which case you can choose not to use it because it is reflexive.

 

[Greenstalker]

So basicly it is a combo-must charm to get full benefits. Well since I didn't played too much game, I can't really say how much this charm goes along with a combo. One thing, I am sure though that a combo with one weapon, two blows definitly requires a charm like shadow over water (or similiar DV refreshing charms) otherwise multiple DV penalties will hurt more than anything else.

 

[Persell]

It's not a combo must at all. The biggest boon of the charm is it gives +1 Rate. The +1 Acc then goes to help cancel out the penalty you take for making an extra attack. It's like a, Extra Action charm with out the Extra Action.

 

[Greenstalker]

It's not a combo must at all. The biggest boon of the charm is it gives +1 Rate. The +1 Acc then goes to help cancel out the penalty you take for making an extra attack. It's like a, Extra Action charm with out the Extra Action.

But it works only with weapons of rate 1. A weapon with rate 2 or more (all orichalcum artifact weapons) will suffer more from this charm since you need to make 3 or 4 attacks to get that benefit. A -3 or -4 to DV is serious problem for a melee combatant if this charm wasn't part of a combo with defensive charms.

 

[FluffySquirrel]

Except it's a solar charm, and they get persistent defenses

 

[Plague of Hats]

It's not a combo must at all. The biggest boon of the charm is it gives +1 Rate. The +1 Acc then goes to help cancel out the penalty you take for making an extra attack. It's like a, Extra Action charm with out the Extra Action.

But it works only with weapons of rate 1. A weapon with rate 2 or more (all orichalcum artifact weapons) will suffer more from this charm since you need to make 3 or 4 attacks to get that benefit. A -3 or -4 to DV is serious problem for a melee combatant if this charm wasn't part of a combo with defensive charms.

It works with any weapon. While it's not negligible, if you're fine at DV 6 you're probably going to be fine at DV 5, too. A dedicated Solar fighter, though, is going to have Fivefold Bulwark Stance up, which makes most DV penalties for one's own actions pretty moot.
The benefit of the Charm also isn't just the Rate bonus. It's the Accuracy bonus, too.

 

[Greenstalker]

It's not a combo must at all. The biggest boon of the charm is it gives +1 Rate. The +1 Acc then goes to help cancel out the penalty you take for making an extra attack. It's like a' date=' Extra Action charm with out the Extra Action.[/quote']
But it works only with weapons of rate 1. A weapon with rate 2 or more (all orichalcum artifact weapons) will suffer more from this charm since you need to make 3 or 4 attacks to get that benefit. A -3 or -4 to DV is serious problem for a melee combatant if this charm wasn't part of a combo with defensive charms.

It works with any weapon. While it's not negligible, if you're fine at DV 6 you're probably going to be fine at DV 5, too. A dedicated Solar fighter, though, is going to have Fivefold Bulwark Stance up, which makes most DV penalties for one's own actions pretty moot.
The benefit of the Charm also isn't just the Rate bonus. It's the Accuracy bonus, too.

After thinking it a while, I guess it doesn't seem that bad. Still it is essential to make multiple attacks if you are going to use this charm or rather this charm is a good choice if you make multiple attacks regularly. Also for fivefold bulkward stance you need to have at least two other charms. It may be not hard to get this with a dawn caste but I don't think it would be effective for other castes (particularly I am thinking night caste since it is the one I like to play)

 

[Gylthinel]

I had a character w/ a rate 1 weapon, and used 1w2b every single round, just about. But, I think that it's rather inane for weapons that have over a rate of 1, as the penalty to attacks and DV get pretty steep. Yes, you can get solar charms to augment your DV, but I don't like justifying 1 charm by synergizing it with another.


A benefit of it being reflexive is that you can use it with martial arts weapons as well.

 

[Persell]

Hell, you can use it for a bow if you want.

 

[Gylthinel]

Hell, you can use it for a bow if you want.

Quite true. Do you feel that the use of reflexive charms outside of their ability is against the spirit, if not the letter, of the rule? I feel this way about using 1w2b w/ any non-melee attack, frankly. The same with Falling Icicle Strike, which I personally feel should be used only by throwers, but per cannon could be used with... well, a cannon.