u/setebos_

The best MAs tell a story and as you read that story you want to play it, a PC is formed with the MA as a seed and sprouts, shaped by the possibility and potential you saw in those charms.

For the fans of this SMA this preface was enough to recognize Quicksilver Hand of Dreams. For those who don’t know the story, I would suggest reading the Style.

Quicksilver Hand of Dreams
Scroll of The Monk page 138 - 144

theme: dreams, reality, the Wyld, enlightenment

What does it do?: initially it deals with effecting, stealing, entering and shaping dreams, post form it deals with shaping reality.

Pre Form: you can resist the Wyld, handle dreams as physical objects, steal dreams, force others into dreaming and enter other’s dreams from afar. At the far end that means putting others into permanent sleep, controlling a target's senses while it is awake and even chasing the target like a living nightmare. 
While in the Wyld he becomes hard to detect and target.
As a side effect the user is forgotten, erased gradually from the memories of anyone who ever encountered him and even loses backgrounds that require people to know who he is.

Form: all the user’s actions are perfect, both defenses, attacks and mundane efforts, those actions need to be possible by the wide limits of being possible with a roll of any (ability+ skill) but that is the only limit.
Others can bypass this effect through stunt or charm, even then each attempt allows the user an opposed Essence roll to resist.
To make him even more slippery if he is killed while in form he automatically enters someone’s dreams and respawns next time the host dreams.
Unique, powerful and unless the user has opposition (for example while crafting) allows for really silly long term efforts. A very iconic SMA form for a reason

Finally as a permanent effect the user is pretty much immune to most Wyld effects

Pre capstone: the user can use the dreams he learned to harvest and handle as materials for crafting, he can craft most mundane objects, minor artifacts or living soulless creatures, he does not however learn how to craft, he needs to learn the hard way. Weapons and armor crafted from dreams are form fitting for the style.
The user gets the ability to turn the near area (let’s say 300 meter radius) into middlemarchs, they fade in time but last for the scene, inside he boosts all his stunts and empowers his dream crafting, both the weapon and armor he already made and quickly crafting new items.

as a permanent effect the user is pretty much immune to the Wyld

Capstone: the form’s ability to make everything the user does a perfect effect can extend to all targets in the scene, any roll will go anyway he chooses and characters will take any action he decides.
Victims can spend willpower to act freely though under heavy penalties once enough willpower is spent to resist the charm breaks (this limits the charm’s use, while it can be used to ensnare 20 DB dynasts having so many non trivial victims will allow them to spend the required wp almost immediately breaking the hold in less than a round)
Again while useful against enemies when used with supportive circle members this allows for insane levels of munchkinery.
This is a very powerful and flavorful capstone, probably the best out of all the SMAs, it requires both the user and the victims to continuously narrate and stunt their struggle until the charm breaks, victims brought to 0 wp during the scene are helpless and become puppets unless stunting enough to regain wp pushing the drama further.
Before it is mentioned, this along with many of the styles other charms are key-word vulnerable, shaping defenses break this styles strongest options effortlessly.

Magicallness: starts as a tricky, mind bending dream style, ends as a reality bending intrusion of the Wyld into creation.

rating: pretty much the definitive A SMA, a narrative that pulls a PC from essence 2->7, of all the SMAs this is also the one that truly delivers on Enlightenment moving further and further from punching things and causing debuffs to fully creating and shaping Creation through martial art practices.
Mechanically the beginning of the tree rely a bit to hard on bad touch effects but those are mostly curable by charms, the main issue is the effect of perfect actions a QSHoD user will never fail a craft check, never fail a medicine check, as long as he is unopposed by an essence user he will succeed in everything, with the capstone this gets even more problematic, he can allow all his allies the same, all group activities can be granted a perfected outcome, well no…
A QSHoD master has no allies, no circlemates, no enemies, no reputation, by the time mastery is achieved if the RAI are observed the master will leave no trace in Creation, it will take time, but a QSHoD master is a stranger to all. Which is why this SMA is a story, it has an ending.

You can skip this one, trust me, this is the single most forgettable SMA ever written and for a perfectly valid reason

Sapphire Veil of Passion
Glories of The Most High - The Maidens of Destiny page 27-32

Theme: passion, sex, ownership.

What can you do?: grapple, mind control and own people.

Pre Form: you can analyze and opponent, you can dodge any attack and teleport to the attacker as long as he is within ~200 km, that includes social attacks afterwards you are perfectly glued to the attacker, an expensive perfect parry and a bit more attack and defense number modifiers.
Ohh and a scene long effect that gives an intimacy of lust toward you on a hit, this will come in handy later.

Form: 

• you levitate a few cm above the ground
• if an attacker has any intimacy toward you (positive or negative) they need to fail a compassion check to attack or pay 1wp per attack and an enemy does not want to run out of wp when attacking because… 
• when you hit an enemy with 0 wp or 0 motes (you have some tricks that burn motes in other charms) you knock them out for several hours
• You also regain 5 motes when your DV refreshes

 

This is nice, but a bit disjointed, the mote regen is tacked on, not even a fluff to explain it, the main point of this form charm is to drain your opponents wp so your social attacks will be more impactful, this would have been enough for a CMA but from a SMA this just feels plain and boring, even the individual PAoC forms had more uniqueness.

Pre capstone: 

• on a hit you can transfer all unnatural mental influences or all sickness and poison effects to the target
• if you grapple anyone they get a very strong intimacy of lust and you grapple hard
• When you knock someone out you can give them a second motivation to love and obey you and rewrite his memories to think it was always so, you also technically own the victim
• You can debuff a grapple victim
• You can make perfect attacks against people you debuffed and mind controlled

 

Capstone: your form charm is enhanced, you get ~3 reflexive MA attacks per round, you attack at a range of ~60 meters, all wound penalties you cause are external penalties due to being too sexy.
Well, it isn’t the worst capstone charm, but definitely the worst SMA capstone charm, this is a pure number crunching charm and not even interesting numbers, having extra reflexive attacks is great but… what does it have to do with the theme? 

Magicalness: by itself besides the long range teleport this is pretty tame, it is described however as a lightshow and a half with ribbons of light and threads of sapphire but those are just for show, the effects by themselves are pretty normal for exalted. 

Rating: a deep C, this is a pure “how do you fight” if the user goes deep into building a harem of mind controlled slaves this can be a weak B but there are plenty of charms, sorceries and abilities for that, it is a purely mechanical, balanced and tame style.

Once again a bit more of a background to explain, you can of course skip this but you can also just not read the post as well so… let’s go.
This is the only 2.5 SMA published after the Scroll of The Monk, due to how mechanically unstable the SMAs in the Scroll were; most storytellers avoided using them. In this book we got 2 CMAs Crane and Disco Ninja both were designed with the late stage 2ed mechanics and balance, this is the SMA that was meant to get the same, a balanced, mechanically stable SMA.
Crane style is one of the most memorable and flavorful CMAs probably fighting Disco Bandit in the top 5, both had a combination of interesting mechanics and stable well thought unique effects. So why did this style come out like this? It took all the wrong lessons from how broken the Scroll of The Monk SMAs were, the problem was the balance not the unique flavour and outlandish over the top antics.
In many ways this was the predecessor for 3ed SMAs, a more powerful CMA, not inherently different in scope or reach just in power level.

Today for the next most famous SMA, after PAoC being straightforward this one is filled with tricky role playing challenges, maybe overfull, this is also the moment to discuss the Yeddim in the Manse, who the hell uses these things? Well PAoC can be used by a PC or a relatively challenging NPC, it is at its core a mechanical combat driven style meant to make you harder to kill while making it easier for you to kill. 
Today let’s look at the opposite 

 BORDER OF KALEIDOSCOPIC LOGIC STYLE
Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Style 
Scroll of the Monk page 111-119

Theme: Mind Rape, fucking with people minds, doing horrible things to peoples minds, becoming your best self.

What does it do?: you can ruin almost any aspect of someone’s mind, puppet opponents and have some (3) powerful combat options but only at the end of the style.

Pre Form: you can by sight or touch do the following horrible things to enemies (or friends), each of these is a permanent mental effect resisted by perfect mental defenses and curable only by strong Solar charms or another BoKL user.  

1. The victim becomes obsessed by being noticed by his senpai to the level of a second motivation
2. The victim becomes supermortaly talented, for 10 minutes, leaving her completely mortality talented and deluded for life, even if cured magically from the delusion the trauma is permanent
3. The Sifu rearranges the victims virtue, or just randomizes them, making the victim a completely different person, easily making a patient healer into a remorseless berserker.
4. Inflict magical Prosopagnosia on the victim.
5. Inflict magical Aphasia on the victim (possibly making the victim an artist, which is even worse)
6. Inflict magical retrograde amnesia on the victim

Also the Sifu gains a charm that cures all of the above afflictions and other mental influences   

Form: with a touch the Sifu gains full control of a victim, up to 7 victims at first, each extra body has its own actions, uses the Sifu’s dice pools and charms and is also in BoKL form (so it can propagate the effect as well), the Sifu can use the victims Peripheral essence and use charms through them, they are in effect extra copies of the Sifu with extra turns in the turn tracker, they also always coordinate attacks. Wow, this is a dozy, on one hand it is unique and powerful, even frightening, however it is the very definition of “bad touch” one successful hit from the Sifu takes you out of the fight for good. This is a good form, maybe not fair, but fair is not really the point of an essence 7 charm.

Pre Capstone: a bit of a mix of stuff, you can make the form’s possession effect pretty much permanent creating an independent replica of their mind in another body. They can make themselves immune to direct attacks (but not AOE or stunts that simulate AOEs) and finally they can explode! Reappearing in Avatar State with a shopping list of scene long effects (the least of those is gaining ~+40 attribute points) 

Capstone: the Sifu declares a minigame, usually an RTS, everyone in line of sight has to pay 3 wp or play, everyone in the minigame can attack each other causing eroding wp and bashing health, when you die in the game you faint in real life, when the Sifu is knocked out or is the last standing everyone returns to reality, either knocked out and broken out of willpower or victorious.
The trick to the entire thing is that playing the RTS uses Virtues and skills as suitable to the type of game, maybe a Pirate game uses mostly sail and survival, a farm simulator will use other skills.
This charm is, first of all unique, probably in all of TTRPG, no other quite like it, it is also a session, not a turn, not a scene, each use of this charm is an entire session of gametime, the charm also has some glaring issues, mostly that it will almost always be better to pay the 3 wp than play by the Sifu’s rules, but that is just the mechanics, not the meat of the matter

Magicallness: zero, to an outside observer people just be acting stupid, crazy, cray cray, the Sifu is walking around and people just keep talking about weird things and having vivid daydreams. To a victim that doesn’t know he is under attack it is even worse, the Sifu doesn’t actually need the victim to be aware of the attacks, doesn’t need to explain, he just brushes his hand against you in a crowd and you are broken beyond repair, forever.

Rating: -a let’s sit down and have a nice long talk, the lowest essence to learn the first charm is 6, learning the capstone is 8, this is an incredibly weak SMA by that standard, essence 8 exalted are powerful, so powerful that they break the system, an essence 8 lunar or solar will scuff at this level of weak mental trickery, even an essence 8 DB probably has the artifacts and heartstones to resist this, this is not really an essence 8 SMA… it is an NPC SMA
This SMA is a roleplaying tool, given to a strong NPC facing against a lower essence PCs, allowing the players to play a variety of interesting scenarios, having their virtue messed with, having retrograde amnesia for a session, playing tower defense against a circle of Deathknights for the future of Gem.
You can’t run a session if the PC can uphand the entire gameplay with every charm use, you can, however, have a great showoff against a crafty NPC, requiring stunts, high level charms and planning to overcome this challenge.
Do you need 6 different “if I overcome your mental defenses you are crippled until healed” effects? Not really, is fighting against an NPC that gets total control of your body, taking you out of the fight with a single hit fun? Probably not.
This SMA is a powerful storytelling tool, it is an A type SMA for sure, the only problem is that it actually steps out of the other side, this SMA could have been a Wyld encounter, each charm a challenge the circle must solve to move forward, it could have been an N/A manses defense system, it could have been an actual Yozi, the inside of Eloge or Ormus.     
If PAoC was a combat bonus slapped on an NPC to make a tough but beatable battle BoKL is a story slapped over an NPC meant to make him unbattleable, forcing the players to rp and plan their victory.

A couple of years ago I went over all, yes all, of the 2.5 TMAs then all, yes all, of the CMAs, I found some surprises, once I dissected the styles some turned out to be a mess (I’m looking at you DPCS) some turned out to be gems (Hungry Ghost has no right going this strong) but I originally avoided doing the SMAs, partly because they take such a strange place in both the Ethos of Exalted and partly because they are so long and complicated.

Today this ends, after going through the 3ed SMAs I did another read through 2.5 and understood that they are actually pretty straightforward, under a lot of words.

The format is slightly different 

We will look at 4 stages

1. Pre form what can the Sifu do with all the charms preform
2. Form charm 
3. Pre capstone what can the Sifu do with all the charms just before learning the capstone
4. Capstone

Once again we will not count how much dice per mote, dice caps, paranoia build compatible or broken the style is, unless a certain charm just flat out breaks the game by itself.

Since the styles are very long we will go over 1 style in each post.

Finally, I will not compare the styles to their 3ed versions, I will do that in a separate post after the series.

Today we start with the quintessential SMA, and the most generic in scope. Prismatic Arrangement of Creation

Prismatic Arrangement of Creation
Scroll of the Monk pg 133-138

Theme: “controls the flows of Essence itself for attack and defense.” self transformation, synergy of disparate concepts, being multiple things in superposition.

What does it do: you can transform yourself into several different forms, each form is associated with a different type of attacks and defenses, spiritual, physical, magical etc.

We will deal with each path separately, each is a mini CMA
Physical pre form: 

1. hand are artifact weapon
2. Soak
3. attack at range with extra accuracy
4. other small but nice number bonuses
5. each of those apply for five action

Physical Form: all previous charms are activated and are scene long, you convert lethal to bashing, nothing in this shopping list is out of the scope of a nice CMA, having all of them in 5 charms is amazing but only in an economical sense. Bland but straightforward 

Magical pre form: you can mess, disrupt and cancel pretty much every type of ability, charms, sorcery, divination

Magical Form: your essence is 10, for all calculations and mostly for “your essence must be higher than the caster’s essence to do that thing” riders and opposed rolls, you don’t get to learn essence 10 charms also you get a free use of one of your magic disruption attacks each action. 
These are some unique options, some hungry ghost and water dragon style had the charm disruption but sorcery countermagic, at solar circle level is special, the essence 10 shtick can theoretically break some things, but only using later splats and if you really try
All in all a very interesting and iconic form, evoking the Sifu shattering with a single strike a Sorcerous working, blocking a Total annihilation beam with bare hands and looking cool doing so.

Spiritual pre form: you can possess people and items and you can change your anima banner and effect to any Exalt caste and get a boost to their favored stats.
Spiritual Form: people need to fail a compassion roll to hurt you, worse, they become addicted to your presence, this is kind of bland, kind of disconnected, it is useful but it could have been a dozen different effects and still fit here, a place filler 

Two miscellaneous charm+form charm tree: deal a lot of aggravated damage with each attack and get a custom built 5 dot heartstone. 

Pre capstone state: you can choose one of 4 forms and get very strong scene long bonuses and effects, you can still use all the other charms but the cost can be staggering.

Capstone: you get a bonus to join battle, immunity to surprise, detect stealth and finally the schtick, you can activate other form charms without leaving them, either all 4 in style forms or the capstone +any other TMA, CMA or SMA form, you can use the style weapons of any style you have and active form in. while unique and strong this form is famous for white room discussion, what combination of form charms and weapons can do the weirdest combination of number and mechanic wackery. By itself the capstone is a huge list of numbers and bonuses.

Magicalness: pretty high, you transform, glow, flicker, send ribbons of energy you are a one man disco second only to Disco Ninja Style.

Rating: this is almost the simplest SMA, nothing here is really outside the scope of a CMA, only the numbers and amount, this is, however, a nightmare of bookkeeping, covering 10 scene long number bonuses and half a dozen special attacks… you can probably create a separate character sheet for (out of style) vs (fully in style) and you should, how does it feel to fight a PAoC master? Kind of boring, lots of dice, overly complicated description
“You face a human shaped golem of all the magical materials, ribbons of energy swirl around him, looking at him makes you want to look at him forever… he also has a hearthstone in his forehead.. Ohh he also has a lot of mirror images shifting around him…” 
This entire Style is just a shopping list of abilities and effects to give your elder Sidereal to make him a tough opponent, if a player wants to learn this style out of all the styles it is because it only needs essence 5 to learn the capstone, and because he wants to get more numbers.
Low C, if your pinnacle of the Lotus is limited to hitting things really good you have not really left the mud of the stem, you should ask yourself why others speak of transcending time and space while you combine CMA forms for better synergy.   

I feel I am not being harsh enough... there are TMA capstone charms that have more heart to them than all this charm tree blended toghter

House of Light question
I'm in my first playthrough, managed to unlock most of the histories, managed to get my Salon hosting skills sharpened and...

I only have 2 incidents closed, I crafted anything I need, I'm upgrading some skills to level 9 but am I missing something? I seem to need to finish more incidents so I can get more members for my lighthouse, do I Just wait for several game years until some more incidents start and end so I can finish their investigations, is there a way to make visitors come more often or make incidents close earlier?