Editing Exalted (section)

===Martial Arts===

Considering all the shoutouts to Ramayana: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or [[Legends of the Wulin]], then it must be noted that another really big part of Exalted are its many magical martial arts that a character can learn in the game. The magical martial arts in Exalted are a key aspect of what can make a good combat character into an ungodly god-killing machine, but there are also strange and down-right weird martial arts that will let you do things that even the greatest of wuxia movie director can only dream of.

Every style tends to have a form weapon or two, a specific weapon that  the style functions with - such as one-handed swords, spears, hook-swords and so on. Crunch-wise, if using a given martial art's form weapon, then that character counts as using unarmed attacks. So even if you're using a sword while fighting with Five-Dragon Style martial arts, your blade and fists blazing with elemental essence, then you will be using Dexterity+Martial Arts to hit stuff, not Dex+Melee. As a general rule, then using a form-weapon is always better than fighting bare-handed, unless its a style that doesn't allow form weapons at all, but then there's usually a reason for that...

Not all styles work while wearing armor, but the ones that don't tend to contain charms that compensate for this, either through charms that grant extra damage soak, or charms that make the martial artist really difficult to actually hit in the first place. Or if hit you just shatter because you were in fact just a [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Anime <s>shadow</s> mirror clone]], or you absorb the punch into the infinite depths of the ocean, or because after landing your last hit your opponent exploded into the chunkiest of salsa. And if you are still not convinced, there is always the Armour That Is Not Armour, Silken Armour. (And also Infinite Resplendence Amulet but that is different)

The martial arts in Exalted are tiered as follows:

====Mortal Martial Arts====

That's it, non-magical stuff available to everyone. Mentioned only because you need some training in these before moving on to good stuff.

Unlike the magical martial arts, then normie martial art skills are represented via dots in Brawl or Martial Arts abilities, depending on what edition you're playing in.

====Terrestrial Martial Arts====

Dragonblooded, being the weakest but most numerous of the exalted, can normally only learn these magical martial arts and also Mortals can take them with the right dots . Mechanically they don't do all that much, but they'll let even the weakest dragonblooded exalted fight the strongest of mortal men or low level demons quite effectively, parrying swords bare-handed and whatnot like a boss. This is your basic "I punch the bad guy's minion, my fists blazes with elemental power, and he dies" martial art.

It should be noted that unless its an all-DB game, no player ever really wants to touch these. Also, mortal sorcerers and other people with unlocked essence can learn these. They can be helpful for some power in low level Solar games, since Swallowing The Lotus Root makes them stupidly cheap and easy to get. Depends if your ST allows the fan-made TMAs.

====Celestial Martial Arts====

CMAs are the most common martial arts in the game, and while blocked to Dragonblooded unless they get some special training, then everyone else usually goes for these. The effects players can gain from these martial arts are what most people will think of when thinking magical martial arts.

A good example of this from 2nd edition was Solar Hero Style, AKA [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Fist_of_the_North_Star Fist of the Daystar Style]], which can allow a player character to punch people so hard that they'll fly off several dozen yards and take damage if they hit stuff on the way, or throw people around like ragdolls, or kick down massive castle walls or gates with a single blow, or use giant Yak-creatures as weapons. Think Dragon Ball Z style fighting (without energy beams, until 3E added them as well) and you'll only be wrong on the parts where it doesn't matter.

Of other commonly seen CMAs there are the five Celestial Dragon styles, which can reasonably easily be summon up as "Avatar the last airbender, only they kills people and spirits really damn good". Celestial Water Dragon style lets you scream a tsunami to melt faces, Fire Dragon style can let you light other people's essence on fire inside them, making them burn from within, and so on. Any Solar is wise to take heed when facing a master of any of these styles, as they can turn an otherwise unassuming Dragonblooded exalt into a major threat, very quickly.

Of course, there are also far more exotic CMAs, such as Crystal Chameleon style, which can best be described as "Ninja disco style". There's also Celestial Monkey style which has a fun little charm that lets you punch people in their virtues for extra damage (and valor is apparently rooted in the groin...), or Hungry Ghost Style which is all about soul-eating, or Rightous Devil Style which is basically gun-fu, or Silver-Voiced Nightingale Style which is basically beating people up with the power of music. If you liked Tron, then the Alchemicals have access to a martial art that is basically disc combat, but made for chainsaw discs you throw around for deadly and very messy effect.

There are loads of other styles, such Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style which is best fought in ball-gowns as a pretty princess, or Laughing wound style which best practiced by first slashing your wrists and conjuring whips of blood from the cuts. In short, there's a martial art for every kind of character concept in Exalted. Also, there's one that lets you fight with your dick (though it was invented by demon).

...and that's not to mention all the homebrew martial arts that the Exalted community has dreamt up, an example being [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Meatbread Orichalcum Chef Style]] in case you actually want to play as an Iron Chef.

====Third Edition Martial Arts====

The Martial Arts tiers were revamped for Third Edition. Instead of separating Terrestrial and Celestial styles, Charms from non-Sidereal Martial Arts can have the Terrestrial and/or Mastery keywords. The Terrestrial keyword reduces the power of Charms for DBs, while the Mastery keyword increases power for Solars and (under some circumstances) Sidereals. The result is styles that scale to the power of the Exalt using them. 

The Immaculate Dragon Styles have been tweaked, they don't have the Terrestrial or Mastery keywords and instead let the MAist, while he's in the appropriate aura state, to get the  full benefits of other styles, generally making them a worse choice for Celestials who don't normally possess an elemental aura (it's been implied there is a way but we don't know the details yet).

====Sidereal Martial Arts====

Its been mentioned earlier that there's a SMA that lets you turn people in ducks. This is true, and its not even the most impressive thing you can do in that particular style. Dragonblooded can, RAW, not learn SMAs at all, and outside of Sidereals only Solars (and Getimians in 3e) can do it, and they need to find someone (A sidereal usually) who'll train them - this isn't something a character is supposed to develop on their own.

SMAs are best characterized when compared to CMAs. CMAs tend to deal with great might and power, while SMAs deal with more abstract concepts. Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Style lets you punch people in their sanity, driving them mad and then fighting them inside their mind as abstract concepts. Charcoal March of the Spider style emulates the pattern spiders that run reality, meaning that you punch people in their reality. This is the "punch people into ducks" style. Citrine Poxes of Contagion Style punches you in the health, making your targets magically sick. Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style is... well...

The game describes Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style by saying "[the style] holds a mirror to Creation and breaks it" - and that putting it really mildly. Mirror clones, mirror dimensions, and being able to gleam possible different futures... this style is just weird.  It also, appropriately, has a charm literally called "Shattering the Balance," and is generally seen as genuinely broken in a game where everything being fucking broken is a selling point.  Several later sourcebooks took digs at it.

Of course, when it comes to weirdness few things can beat Quicksilver Hand of Dreams Style, which lets you punch people in their dreams, punch dreams out of people, and ultimately punch reality to turn it into a dream... or a nightmare. There's also Scarlet-patterened Battlefield Style, which gets really abstract since the martial artist 'punches' with units of soldiers. Yes, really. Another fun SMA is Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Style, which is almost entirely made up of form charms, but lets the martial artist punch people in their essence for various fun effects, like catching and redirecting other people's charms, or punching your way into other people people's essence to temporarily posses their bodies. This also works on inanimate objects... like [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Mecha Warstriders!]

Basically SMAs let you punch concepts, such as love, to achieve really weird and specific effects - but they're none the less absolute nightmares to fight against. It should be noted that most SMAs are locked behind really high stat requirements, such as essence 6+, meaning that most players will NEVER get access to them. Considering how utterly devastating these martial arts are, this is not necessarily a bad thing. SMAs do make for really fun boss fights though.


All in all, magical martial arts are a cornerstone of what makes combat in Exalted fun and exciting. It turns a plain dragonblooded monk with a sword into a far more interesting and flavorful opponent, it turns a dread deathknight into a truly terrifying opponent, and it gives added flavor to player characters as they internalize the wisdom and tactics that their style informs.