I'm bored and I like writing/rewriting Charms. So here's an update to Solar Hero Style for 2e- feel free to adapt this to other editions. I'm aware this is not the first attempt. You like whatever version you like.
Goal: Solar Hero Style as a 'Core Solar Style' has a distinct gameplay loop and theme. It is the Improvised Weapon, Wrestling Pankration Style with a subtheme of 'Wreck scenery' and 'Fight big monsters'
You are intended as a player to wreck the scenery, pick it up, beat people with it. Or pick people up and beat the scenery with them. Also note that the core style does not have any defensive modifiers- no DV fixers, just 'I can parry lethal/unarmed' tech. That is deliberate, as the core Solar Hero Experience is rooted in the idea of being an all-attack wrestling style. Plus you have access to the rest of the Solar set for defense, including Melee and Dodge. Further, most of Solar Hero's knockback effects are intended to let you play king of the hill, forcing opponents to run back up to reach you.
If Solar Hero has a weakness, it's against Ranged opponents, which is why I expanded Heaven Thunder Hammer and Crashing Wave Through the way I did, and it's native expander, Righteous Avalanche Method.
Solar Hero uses the Cetus, Khatar, Fighting Gauntlet and Improvised Weapons as Form Weapons. It can be practiced in any form of armor.
Charm Concept: Improvised Weapon
Charms in this Style create Improvised Weapons fairly casually. Small improvised weapons are things like brooms, sticks, rocks held in hand and so on. Medium improvised weapons include ladders, person-sized objects (including people), oars and similar. Medium Weapons can have the Reach Tag if appropriate, such as a long shaft. Large improvised weapons are usually pillars, ship masts, large boulders and more. They often have the Reach and Piercing Tags.
Small: Accuracy -1, Damage +4B, Rate 2, Defense +1, Minimums -, Tags M
Medium: Accuracy -2, Damage +7B, Rate 2, Defense 0, Minimums Str 3, Tags, M, R
Large: Accuracy -3, Damage +11B, Rate 1, Defense -1, Minimums Str 4, Tags, 2-handed, M, R, P
Improvised Weapons do not break beyond cosmetic damage in the course of cinematic play. Only failed rolls, Disarming, supernatural powers that explicitly break weapons, and most importantly- botched attacks, can result in an improvised weapon being destroyed. At the Storyteller's discretion, a large weapon can be broken down to a Medium, then a Small, necessitating several separate disarms or failures.
Charm Concept: Characters as Weapons
Charms in this Style can count opponents (active or innactive) as weapons. For the sake of simplicity, the mechanics assume that beating someone up with another character does not inflict damage on 'the weapon' beyond the ignominy of being used in such a manner. For storytellers who wish to offer incidental damage, they may allow the wielding character to apply their Strength as Raw Damage, subtracting the 'weapon's soak and counting the rolled successes as damage levels.
=== Solar Hero Style ===
Fists of Iron Technique
Cost: 1m; Minimums: Martial Arts 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive (Step 1 or Step 2); Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: One Action
Prerequisites: None
The Solar hardens their limbs and weapons unto iron, able to cleave through hard oak or steel with their bare fingers. This Charm improves the Solar's unarmed attacks- allowing her to choose Bashing and Lethal at will, while their accuracy can never be less than +1, and their Damage never lower than +2, barehanded or otherwise, and Defense never lower than +1. They may also parry Lethal and Ranged attacks without a stunt.
Sledgehammer Fist Punch
Cost: 3m; Minimum: Martial Arts 2, Essence 2
Type: ; Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: None
Also known as Pillar Breaking Blow, this Charm supplements any unarmed attack. She doubles her raw damage against objects and structures, and if attacking a target or character behind that structure, she may strke through up to [Essence] yards of intervening obstacles to reach them. Doing so applies her attack successes to both the structure and the defender's DV, negating cover bonuses from the environment but not shields. Note that the Solar must either choose to strike blind at whatever's behind an obstacle, or know where her target is by some other means.
Lastly, this Charm creates up to [Martial Arts] improvised weapons at the Storyteller's discretion and the Solar may reflexively equip one from the wreckage created by this Charm. They are guaranteed at least one weapon they can legally equip.
Design Note: The goal here is for SFP to allow you to punch through walls to kool-aid man the other side, and then for your casual acts of wanton destruction to create a bunch of improvised weapons for your allies and possibly enemies.
Dragon Coil Technique
Cost: 4m; Minimum: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive; Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: One Action
Prerequisites: Fists of Iron Technique
The Solar can fight across the ground as well as upright, coiling around their opponent with crushing force. This Charm enhances an unarmed Clinch, adding [Essence] to the Solar's Accuracy and Damage, as well as allowing them to do Lethal Damage during a crush. If the Solar maintains control of the clinch, they may treat their opponent as an Improvised Weapon, based on their size. If the Solar's Feat of Strength rating is sufficient, they can carry their opponent freely without additional Miscellaneous Actions.
Solar Hero Form
Cost: 6m; Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple; Keywords: Form, Obvious
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisites: Sledgehammer Fist Punch, Dragon Coil Technique
The Solar takes on the stance of promised victory, declaring all will be broken before their might. While this Charm is Active, the Solar may parry Lethal and Ranged attacks without a stunt, and adds their [Martial Arts] to their Strength for determining both Feat of Strength, and trait minimums for improvised weapons. Lastly, the Solar may spend 1m in Step 8 of combat to roll their damage pool a second time, adding the successes of that roll to final post-soak damage.
Heaven Thunder Hammer
Cost: 3m; Minimums: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive; Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Knockback.
Duration: Instant
Prerequsites: Solar Hero Form
The Solar sends her opponents flying hither and yon, forced to scrabble back as she plays king of the hill. This Charm enhances both unarmed attacks and throws, as Heaven Thunder Hammer or Crashing Wave Throw, imbuing them with knockback. She may explicitly apply this effect to struck objects or improvised weapons that she can lift and throw, allowing her to attack at a range of [Martial Art x5] yards. This is known as Statue-Tossing Technique.
Opponents hit by the Solar's supplemented attacks are sent flying [Martial Art x5] yards in any direction of the Solar's choosing except straight down. If her opponent strikes an object or character before traveling the full distance, the Solar rolls 1 die per yard not traveled as a separate damage roll, soaked with Bashing as normal. If the object is sharp or otherwise hazardous, this damage can be Lethal. This effect cannot stack with Fall Damage, and whichever would deal the most damage is applied instead, not both.
In both cases, her victims are automatically rendered prone before a stunt or charm to stay upright.
Ox-Stunning Blow
Cost: 2m/die, Minimums: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple; Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Crippling
Duration: Instant
Prerequsites: Solar Hero Form
The Solar punishes her opponent for their terminity, sending them into a daze with a stunning strike. The Charm creates an attack with the following statline: Speed 6, Damage [2m/die], Rate 1, Defense +0, Tags: M. She add up to [Strength x2] dice to this attack. Note that this Charm cannot supplement a Clinch.
If the attack hits, it ignores non-magical and natural soak, adding successes over DV as usual to raw damage. Any post-soak damge sucesses are applied as Stunning Damage, which does not fill HLs, and inflicts a -1 wound penalty on the target to all pools for three Actions. This is a Crippling Effect.
Design Note: Ox-Stunning Blow is supposed to synergize with the Bronze Tiger's Roar, as well as Solar Hero Form.
Bronze Tiger's Roar
Cost: 5m+1wp; Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental; Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Knockdown
Duration: Instant
Prequisites: Solar Hero Form
Even when surrounded on all sides, the Solar Hero strikes back with thunderous force. This Charm supplements an unarmed attack, allowing her to apply her attack roll to all characters within [Essence] yards of her. This effect inflicts automatic knockdown on all affected characters, and if appropriate, gives the area of effect an Unstable Footing of [Essence]. If this Charm is applied to a ranged attack such as a launched improvised weapon, apply the radial effect at point of impact to all characters-including the weapon if applicable.
Shockwave Technique
Cost: 4m; Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive; Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Counterattack, Knockback
Duration: Instant
Prerequsites:
Any time the Solar inflicts knockback on an object or character with a strike or throw, she may supplement that effect with this Charm. Shockwave Technique creates an additional attack at her full pool in Step 9, where the Solar directs the path of her first target towards a second, counting the subject in motion as an Improvised Weapon. So long as the attack hits, both characters must check for knockdown as per Heaven Thunder Hammer, even if no damage is inflicted. This Charm is incompatible with other Counterattack effects.
=== Solar Martial Arts Charms ===
You'll note that the 'classic' Hammer on Iron has been moved into native Solar Charms, instead of the base style. This was deliberate, as HoIT was something of an odd one out in the thematic space of Solar Hero of being a single-target, wrestle-and-throw heavy style. It's not that having a rapid punch-punch-punch attack is out of theme for Solars, just for the core solar hero style.
Thunderclap Rush Atttack
No Changes
Knockout Blow
No Changes
Hammer On Iron Technique
No changes- moved into Native Solar Charms.
Righteous Avalanche Method
Cost - ; Minimums: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3
Type: Permanent; Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Heaven Thunder Hammer
This Charm permanently enhances the Solar. So long as they are within 1 Movement action of an applicable improvised weapon that they can throw, they may ready that weapon reflexively. A pile of rubble becomes a raining fusilade of artillery in the Solar's hands.
