Martial Arts

This Ability is important in combat.

Martial Arts covers formal study of martial systems, such as the styles detailed in Chapter Seven. In addition to providing mastery of unarmed techniques, Martial Arts also facilitates the use of certain exotic weapons, such as the staff, the rope dart, sais, and hook swords. Like Brawl, it can be used to calculate a character's Parry Defense.

Special rules: Martial Arts is a special Ability, which a character must possess the Martial Artist Merit to purchase. Martial Arts cannot be taken as a Caste or Favored Ability by itself. Instead, if Brawl is a Caste or Favored Ability, then so is Martial Arts. If Brawl is a Caste Ability, then Martial Arts can be taken as a character's Supernal Ability, if desired—but if Brawl is a character's Supernal Ability, this benefit does not extend to Martial Arts. Like Craft, when a character first buys this Ability, she must declare a martial arts style which her Martial Arts dots represent mastery of. Chapter Seven contains a number of example martial arts styles characters might choose from. Additional styles must be purchased as independent Abilities—thus, a character might have Martial Arts (Snake style) 5, and Martial Arts (Tiger style) 3.

Martial Arts Styles

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• Snake Style
• Tiger Style
• Single Point Shining Into the Void Style
• White Reaper Style
• Ebon Shadow Style
• Crane Style
• Silver-Voiced Nightingale Style
• Righteous Devil Style
• Black Claw Style
• Steel Devil Style

Feats of Strength and Demolition (Breaking Things with Martial Arts)

Sometimes the myth-hero narrative of Exalted turns to a certain kind of character—one who is physically mighty, drawing tremendous strength from iron will and iron thew. Such characters may call upon their gods, or the god within—their own tremendous Essence—to perform truly heroic feats of strength.

Feats of strength and feats of destruction are Strength + Athletics actions, with a difficulty determined by the chart below. Light objects can just be picked up—no roll is necessary to lift a sword or saddle. If you want to lift a boulder blocking a mountain pass, that's a feat of strength. If you want to kick down an iron-banded oak door, that's a feat of strength. Characters must have a Strength rating of at least 3 to attempt a feat of strength—such heroic endeavors are ill-suited to the merely average. Extraordinarily impressive feats of strength may require even higher Strength minimums—see the chart, below.

In the case of feats of strength to destroy an object, using a tool that would logically assist in breaking the thing (such as using a sledgehammer to smash a statue, or an axe to break down a door) adds one automatic success to the attempt. If the tool is an artifact weapon, add two.

In combat, it's generally a good idea (and a lot of fun) to ignore these rules and allow characters to use stunts to automatically break things, as long as those things aren't tactically significant to the battle or important to the story, and so long as it's within the scope of what the character might be able to accomplish. Let characters get knocked through doors in a hail of splinters, slash down stone lampposts with their daiklaves, and crack walls by hurling opponents into them. Also, you can allow feats of strength to automatically succeed if the character's dice pool is three times the difficulty or more—a character with Strength 5, Athletics 5 really shouldn't ever fail to break a board or lift a man.

Note that even though the Exalted may be able to exercise divine strength beyond the limits of mortal men, they're still constrained by their size—no matter how strong a Solar is, he still can't uproot a mountain, because there's no way for him to get leverage on something that big. At best, he could tear loose great boulders, or rip open a seam in a cliff face with his hands.

Finally, while these rules establish a baseline, Storytellers are encouraged to modify them to represent particularly dramatic situations or according to common sense. For example, a Solar hero might attempt to hold up a collapsing building while her Circlemates rescue the mortals trapped within. The Storyteller decides to model this as an extended (Strength + Athletics) roll with an interval of one minute and a terminus of 5, but no goal number. At each interval, the Solar must successfully match the given difficulty to hold up the collapsing building, with failure causing the Lawgiver to take bashing damage and the terminus to decrease by 1, and a botch signaling the complete collapse of the structure. At the action's terminus, the Solar takes even more damage, and then the feat begins anew with a higher difficulty. This adaptation creates a tense and dramatic rescue scene, highlighting the Solar's incredible strength and dedication. In another, simpler example, a martial arts tournament challenges its competitors to break various hard substances (such as wood, blocks of ice, and finally stones) with their fists to prove their fitness to compete. Since this is a test of a character's Martial Arts prowess, it becomes appropriate to substitute (Strength + Martial Arts) in place of (Strength + Athletics).

Successes	Example Feat
Strength 3+ feats
1	Lift a full-grown man or an anvil. Break a pine board with a kick.
2	Tote a bale of cotton on one shoulder. Kick an oak door open.
3	Lift a mule. Break a sword over your knee.
4	Lift a full-grown warhorse or Bend an iron bar with both hands.
Strength 5+ feats
5	Lift an ox. Pull a fully laden wagon. Bend a horseshoe into a pretzel.
6	Throw a mule. Snap an axe haft over your knee. Kick an oak door to splinters.
7	Lift a boulder. Throw a full-grown warhorse.
8	Lift a rhinocerous. Snap iron manacles. Slowly bash through a brick wall.
9	Throw an ox. Twist a steel lock off a door with your bare hands. Kick down an iron-shod door.
Strength 7+ feats
10	Lift an elephant. Raise a drawbridge by hand. Punch through a brick wall.
11	Raise a locked portcullis by hand. Punch through the wooden gate of a fortress.
12	Pull a fully laden wagon from a sand trap. Rip iron bars out of their stone settings with one hand. Rip loose the stone supports of a city gate.
13	Lift a boulder with one hand. Tear down the pillars holding up a mighty temple.
14	Lift a tyrant lizard. Carry an enormous statue on one shoulder. Tip over a Guild wagon. Push open a locked and reinforced fortress gate.
Strength 10+ feats
15	Uproot a mighty tree and slowly bash through the stone wall of a fortress.
16	Lift a mammoth. Hurl an elephant. Tear apart the welded steel bars of a portcullis.
17	Pull an entire caravan, chained cart-to-cart. Snap a mighty tree in half.
18	Lift a mighty tree with one hand. Crack a boulder in two. Rip a portcullis from its setting.
19	Throw a mammoth. Slowly push over a stone tower. Tow a boat away from a waterfall while on the shore.
20	Tear open the earth to create a crevasse. Smash through ten feet of solid stone. Lift a yeddim or outpull a team of them. Tow a boat away from a waterfall while swimming.