Sword School - Foxhound Protocol

[GuardianTempest]

Developed for wartime use by soldiers operating in enemy territory, the Foxhound Protocol emphasizes combat effectiveness by quickly neutralizing enemy combatants with limited resources and eclectic pragmatism. Rumors among special forces units all over the Wheel claim that the discipline originated from formalized observations of a Human Paragon who has mastered close-quarters combat.

The key skill for the Foxhound Protocol is Athletics since the physically-intensive discipline requires a well-honed body. This Sword School prefers to maximize the use of unarmed attacks as weapons can be lost in the middle of combat and bare hands can be deadly with proper application.

Level 1: Apprentice

- Weapon (Brawl): Use Unarmed attacks with your martial maneuvers.

- Action (Grapple): Use the Grapple action as part of your martial maneuvers. You may choose to apply damage bonuses to the Attack with Weapon option, or the opposed test to maintain the grapple, decided when the maneuver is created.

Level 2: Initiate

(-1) Naked Stance: This attack requires at least one hand free.

(2) Hunting Hound: Targets hit by this attack grant combat advantage to your next melee attack.

Level 3: Journeyman

(-1) Skill (Athletics): As part of this attack, make an Athletics check against the Static Defense of the target. If it fails, the attack fails.

(3) Hands of the Patriot: When taking an Attack with Weapon action during a grapple, you may disarm your opponent and make a standard attack against a target within range with their own weapon.

Level 4: Master

- Mastery (Dynamic CQC): Unarmed parries against attacks made with weapons no longer require a stunt. If your Static Defense exceeds the attack roll by 5 or more after successfully parrying, you may initiate a grapple against the attacker afterwards. If the attacker is not adjacent to you then you may move up to your Speed towards him instead.

(3) Ground Zero: If this attack hits an adjacent target, it gains an additional effect depending on where it hits. Hitting either Arms lets the attacker make a Disarm attempt as a free action, and hitting either Legs allows a Knock Down attempt instead. Hitting the Head adds the Shocking property to the attack. Hitting the Body or Gizzards has the attacker initiate a grapple attempt afterwards.

Level 5: Grandmaster

(1*) Phantom Pain: Any result of X or lower in this attack's damage roll is treated as X+1 instead, where X is the amount of times you take this advantage (to a maximum of 7). Dice adjusted this way do not explode, they are just counted as the new value.

[GuardianTempest]

One of my oldest homebrew, this is a Sword School inspired by military combatives that proactively neutralizes enemies. In comparison, Setting Sun circumvents an opponent's strength against him, Show Stopper piles on the hurt in a grapple, and Chthonic Serpent focuses on maintaining the stranglehold to squeeze the life out of the target.

Naked Stance is just there to provide a unique restriction, although people who don't have one hand free is likely a dedicated dual-wielding character anyway as having a free hand is very useful. Hunting Hound allows you to chain one Special Attack after another onto the same target. Hands of the Patriot originally was a Level 4 advantage with much, much stronger effects but I toned it down. Dynamic CQC allows you to pull off the awesome imagery of a commando grappling some wannabe mook and do sweet techniques against him. Ground Zero is for taking the guy's assault rifle and gun down his friends, or steal his combat knife and jam it into his neck. Lastly, Phantom Pain's a somewhat-placeholder effect because I couldn't come up with anything appropriate for it.

[GuardianTempest]

The previous wording of Hands of the Patriot was "If this attack hits, roll on the Hit Location table" which works if you're using anything that isn't a Called Shot. I changed it although it might be too efficient then. Tell me what you think.

[GuardianTempest]

Phantom Pain was a placeholder effect, simply giving Proven (3) for 3 points, and Proven (4) for 8 points.

NOT ANYMORE!

Yes, this is pretty much the Proven property in Adeptus Evangelion. DtD's Proven is crazier due to RNG. Yes, this means your attack can have pseudo-Proven (8). The addition of the +1 is because I thought "what if I bought this for only 1 point? It wouldn't change anything" so there we have it.

EDIT: Phantom Pain nerfed, maximum is 6 points (for pseudo-Proven 7). This is to avoid headaches involving low-threshold dice explosions.

[GuardianTempest]

Added clause that prevents rolls adjusted by Phantom Pain to explode. This is mostly to avoid letting Katastrofi Cyphers break the game but there are other ways of changing explosion thresholds. The only way that 8 is going to explode is if you rolled it naturally.

[GuardianTempest]

Hands of the Patriot gets a nerf in that it only applies if the target is adjacent to you. This solves some rather bizarre interactions with stuff like Ring the Temple Bell and Blood Wind (namely the ranged grapple part). You kinda need to be up close to properly use 100% of your body for these combatives. I can't imagine Min-Min doing Metal Gear CQC with floppy noodle arms alone.

[GuardianTempest]

Hands of the Patriot and Ground Zero swapped effects, and also no longer auto-succeeds. It's a lot more dice rolled but it should be less of an instant-win condition.

(3) Hands of the Patriot: If this attack hits an adjacent target, it gains an additional effect depending on where it hits. Hitting the Arm causes the target to drop whatever they are holding in that hand. Hitting either Legs makes the target fall prone. Hitting the Head stuns the target until the end of their next turn. Hitting the Body or Gizzards has the attacker grapple the target afterwards.

(3) Ground Zero: When taking an Attack with Weapon action during a grapple, you may disarm your opponent and make a standard attack against a target within range with their own weapon.