Emerald Expansion 11 - Daggers

Dagger

Skill: Light Melee
Damage: Muscle
Range: Melee

With nary a bonus to accuracy nor damage, the classic too-close-for-comfort melee weapon always felt kind of underwhelming to me. Storming Daggers is without a doubt an incredible technique for being able to dish out 4 flat Wounds at Qi 2, and it has unbeatably reliable scaling, but I found that a Blade of Grass melee-focused build falls somewhat flat. Hopefully these techniques can facilitate more in-your-face dagger wielders.

I've chosen to present the techniques in level order rather than alphabetically so you get a sense for how skill with the weapon progresses. Without further ado:

Downward Thrust

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Light Melee against Parry

Type: Normal

Qi: 1

You make a downward thrust with your dagger, catching the untrained off guard.

Roll Light Melee against one foe. For the purposes of determining if this strike hits, reduce his Parry by the difference in your Dagger Skills. On a Success, do normal damage.

For example, if you have 3d10 in Light Melee and your target has 1d10, his Parry is penalized by 2. If you have 3d10 in Light Melee plus an Expertise in Dagger and your target is unskilled, treat his Parry as 4 lower.

Cathartic: Cathartically, in addition to the above, add the difference in your Dagger Skills to your Attack Roll. So if you have 3d10 in Light Melee and your target has 1d10, you roll +2d10, and if you have 3d10 in Light Melee plus an Expertise in Dagger and your target is unskilled, you roll +4d10.

Cut the Hand

Discipline: Dianxue

Skill: Light Melee against Parry

Type: Normal

Qi: 4

You make a painful cut into your foe’s muscles in the hopes of distracting him with agony.

Roll Light Melee against Parry. On a Success you do normal damage and for 1 hour per Rank of Dianxue the target takes -1d10 per Dianxue to his Muscle.

Cathartic: On a cathartic use he also loses 1d10 per Dianxue to your choice of Arm Strike, Light Melee, Medium Melee, or Heavy Melee for the same duration.

Dagger Desolation

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Light Melee against Attack Roll

Type: Counter

Qi: 5

You deftly sidestep a melee attack before plunging your dagger into your assailant’s side.

Roll Light Melee against one melee Attack Roll. On a Success you dodge the attack and make a counterattack with a damage roll equal to the damage roll of the original attack.

Cathartic: Cathartically your counterattack rolls the original attack’s damage roll, once per Rank in Waijia.

Six Mirage Slash

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Light Melee +1d10 against Parry

Type: Normal

Qi: 6

You appear to strike above, below, from each side, and straight ahead, making it impossible to know where your true blow lies.

Roll Light Melee +1d10 against Parry -1. On a Success, deal normal damage +1d10 +1 Extra Wound. Counter attempts made against this attack have -1d10, and the person you hit takes 1 Automatic Wound if they move away from you on their next turn.

Cathartic: Cathartically, all 1s in the normal effect become 1 per Waijia. You take double the normal imbalance when you use this technique, and even on a Total Success you still take 2.

Sever Ties

Skill: Light Melee -1d10 against Parry

Type: Normal

Qi: 7

You cut the target’s hair, dissolving her past relationships as you do so.

Roll Light Melee against the Parry of one target, with a -1d10 targeted strike penalty. On a Success, you reduce her Maximum Wounds by 2 + 1 per Grudge against her, which return at a rate of 1 per month. This technique cannot be used again on the same person until her Max Wounds recover.