The "Shrike's Talons" update

[chaosvolt]

Something I'd been pondering for a while, self-PRing to give myself some more time to tinker with and test it.

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A form of combatives used by the hunters of hunters, high-ranking assassins of an arcane order devoted to blood magic. Designed with various bladed weapons in mind but also usable unarmed, especially by mutants with claws or with a limited selection of unarmed weapons. Strength and dexterity improve your abilities, and arcane knowledge is needed to use the style to the fullest.

Buffs, techniques, and special abilities

Name	Level Available	Other Requirements	Type	Effect
Arm Block	Unarmed 3
Bloodlust	Melee 3, Arcana 3	Melee/Unarmed, No Unarmed Weapons	OnAttack Buff	Enables "Harrying Blow" technique. +1 Accuracy, -1.0 Dodge skill, -1 bonus dodges. Lasts 3 turns, stacks 3 times.
Honed Claws	Unarmed 3, Arcana 4	Unarmed, No Unarmed Weapons	OnAttack Buff	Cutting Armor Penetration increased by 50% of dexterity. Lasts 2 turns, stacks 3 times.
Scavenger	Melee 4, Arcana 3	Melee/Unarmed, No Unarmed Weapons	OnCrit Buff	Enables "Sundering Talons" technique. Cutting/Stabbing Damage increased by 25% of strength, Speed increased by 75% of dexterity, -2 damage blocked, -1 bonus blocks. Lasts 6 turns, stacks 2 times.
Exsanguination	Unarmed 4, Arcana 5	Melee/Unarmed, No Unarmed Weapons	OnKill Buff	Bonus Cold Damage by 50% of strength, Dodge skill increased by 25% of dexterity, damage blocked increased by 25% of strength, +3 bonus dodges and blocks. Lasts 6 turns, stacks 2 times.
Harrying Blow	Melee 3	Melee/Unarmed, No Unarmed Weapons	Crit Technique	Requires "Bloodlust" buff. Stuns target for 2 turns.
Deflection	Melee 5	Melee/Unarmed, No Unarmed Weapon	Block Counter	Downs and stuns target for 2 turns, 0% movecost.
Sundering Talons	Melee 5, Arcana 4	Melee/Unarmed, No Unarmed Weapon, target must be stunned	Technique	Requires "Scavenger" buff. Increased weight. Cutting/stabbing Armor Penetration increased by 100% of dexterity, Cutting/Stabbing damage increased by 150%.

Weapons: Demon claw, tiger claws, bionic claws, veinreaver (including active form), battleaxe (including inferior variant), wood axe, fire axe, crash axe, hatchet, lichhook, sword bayonet (including modified version), machetes (including makeshift and survivor), kukri, khopesh, dao, wakizashi (including inferior variant), cavalry saber (including inferior variant), scimitar (including inferior variant), cutlass (including inferior variant), katana (including inferior variant), moonstone scourge (including active form), bullwhip, scourge.

Shrike's Talons is meant to be a foil of Via Gladium Et Malleo in many ways, fitting given each is associated with rival factions. Both are balanced towards taking on a group of enemies and work primarily with weapons fitting for the faction using it. Via Gladium Et Malleo is meant to encourage hit-and-run tactics or spreading out stunning attacks to wear down multiple enemies at once, while Shrike's Talons encourages more aggressive gameplay that focuses attacks on one enemy in the group at a time.

Some particular contrasts:

• Via Gladium Et Malleo provides a mix of both offensive and defensive buffs as you fight, but without direct damage increases. Killing enemies mitigates/reduces the impact of built-up offensive buffs but shifts focus to additional defensive buffs. Shrike's Talons increases your offense as you fight, including effects that add to direct damage, but debuff your defenses. Killing enemies expands the offensive buffs but also mitigates the defensive debuffs.
• Via Gladium Et Malleo is focused primarily on two classes of weapons used by mage hunters, swords and hammers/maces, and the buff/technique setup differs depending on which you use. Unarmed attacks and weapons gain some benefit, but lose out on the momentum mechanic forming the core of the style. Shrike's Talons is focused on an eclectic mix of edged weapons, only some are faction-specific, and the core mechanics are the same regardless of which weapon type you use. Unarmed attacks gain additional support that actively benefits mutants with claws, and unarmed users can access the same core mechanics as with weapons (requiring claw mutations for bare fists to fully benefit), but only a select few unarmed weapons are able to benefit from the style's abilities.
• Via Gladium Et Malleo's effects are static in intensity per stack, giving modest and consistent bonuses to affected properties. Shrike's Talons make heavy use of strength and dexterity scaling. A superhuman character will get bonuses much higher than what Via Gladium Et Malleo grants, but an average or below-average character will suffer for it.
• Arcana skill is implied to be used by Via Gladium Et Malleo for support and defense, channeling physical momentum to direct it towards things like protecting against exotic damage types, or for bypassing armor vs. hardening your own defense depending on weapon type. Its most anomalous effect if Battle Ward, where that momentum is used to provide armor against exotic damage types. Shrike's Talons implies the use aggression and adrenaline to directly magnify offensive power, improving damage and armor penetration primarily. Its most anomalous effect is Exsanguination, which includes actively feeding off violence to add cold-type damage to your follow-up attacks.

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As with Via Gladium Et Malleo, a trait for starting with this martial art can be selected in chargen, primarily in arcanist scenarios, but also for any scenario that permits faction arcanist professions of any sort. Just as blood mages and sanguine shrikes are barred from starting with Via Gladium Et Malleo, mage hunters, arcane purifiers, and arcane operatives are forbidden from starting with Shrike's Talons. Dark priests are likewise not able to start with either style, since they're a faction arcanist for the Keepers.

The book for it can show up in all the usual itemgroups you'd expect a magic-related martial arts manual to show up in, being a rare find in standard "all factions" magic books, mansion loot, etc. They also, predictably, show up in the book list specific for the Sanguine Order, just as the Cleansing Flame's booklist has their specific martial arts manual.

On top of all that, there's a certain sanguine shrike NPC who had the manual added to his inventory, so if you do a certain mission the peaceful way you'll have a reliable place to buy it from later in the game.

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Other additions:

The sanguine shrike profession itself has been given a spell that fits their intended role as a counter to mage hunters, just like how the two advanced Cleansing Flame professions both get a spell suited to their magitech focus. Magic Sign: Hardened Senses does exactly what it sounds like it does, protecting against blindness, deafness, stunning, and the dazed status as a bonus. Low cost and quick to cast, as its effect is rather narrow in focus.

Also tweaked skill selection of the shrike profession a bit, in particular making their main combat skills are level two, to match the skillset of arcane purifiers and operatives. Also fixed them having shotgun skill despite spawning with a rifle.