Today’s look at Abilities will run a bit long, as we’re taking a look at a ‘tool kit’ power, Ki Attack. Ki Attack allows you to purchase abilities that do Tide Damage at the cost of Ki. By paying Potential for different values in things like damage, range, etc, you can create your own spells and martial arts, without being bound to a specific list.
Before we go into detail, I’ll quickly summarize how Ki works in our system, to hopefully help the rest of the article make sense.
Ki (sometimes Chi or other names) is a concept with a long, though sometimes differently interpreted, history in eastern culture. In fact, it’s so core to human mythos that even western media has it’s own variations; the Force in Star Wars, cosmic energy in comics, even some definitions of sorcery in fantasy settings.
Ki is the energy of the universe; it flows through and around all things. I can even drop a little physics on you and ask that you keep the Law of Conservation of Energy in mind while thinking about Ki. Ki exists at all times, but our version of Ki takes a philosophical approach; Ki can always be used, but HOW it is used ends up affecting the Ki itself. Good intentions ‘flavor’ Ki in a positive way, while malicious applications darken it. Because Ki is always flowing, the actions of individuals can affect others and even places. Just attacking a powerful, violent spirit may not be enough to help a town if the spirit’s anger or sorrow has tainted the location.
In mechanical terms, Ki in our system functions something like “Magic Points/MP”. It is a currency you use to activate abilities (generally, the more powerful or useful an ability, the more Ki it costs to use). Unlike many MP systems though, our Ki mechanic does not give you Ki to spend until you run out; instead, characters can call upon as much Ki as they want. However, the stress caused by more and more Ki passing through one’s own natural balance can be dangerous, even destructive. In game terms, every character has a “Ki Limit” stat. When a character uses a power that costs Ki, that amount of Ki is put in their “Ki Pool”. As long as a character does not have more Ki in their Ki Pool than their Limit, they are fine. At the end of rounds of combat, Ki is automatically released, and characters can also take an action to calm themselves, breathe, and release even more Ki if they are using too much at once. We think this leads to interesting gameplay; instead of just hard-capping the number of spells you can cast before you need a nap, you can push yourself in critical situations at the risk of burning out from the strain.
Ki Attack
When you buy Ki Attack, you define a specific ability with damage and range. The damage defines how much Ki you have to pay each time you use the ability, but you can pay additional Potential when purchasing the ability to reduce the Ki Cost during play.
You also receive a skill that functions much like a Weapons skill; it is used to make checks when using your Ki Attacks. Note that you don’t have to buy this skill multiple times if you have additional Ki Abilities, it applies to all of them. You can increase your modifier with this skill just like normal skills.
You can build whatever abilities you want with this list of modifiers and then define them with your own story. Want a Ki-infused Martial Art strike? Take a range:1 attack and give it a cool name like Crimson Scything Cricket’s Kick. Want a generic ‘energy blast’? Take a range:2 or 3 attack with damage based on your Zeal modifier and name it “Soulblast” or “The Seven Burning Chains of Sogen-bi”. You can create punches that generate sonic booms by taking a ranged Ki Attack based on Strength, Agility or Endurance, or create an overwhelming aura of confidence by creating an attack that does damage based on your Resolve! No one knows if that old man with the steel gaze can actually fight, because those who approach him are always scared away by his confidence alone.
If you’ve flipped through our book previously, you’ll notice the costs on Ki Attack are probably different than when you last looked. Ki Attack is in a state of flux, we’re still balancing our overall damage system, and recently implemented a core change to how stats modify damage, which led to a slight reduction in the cost of damage. However, range is very powerful right now, and the original Ki Blast was priced when there was one more zone on each side. Ki Blast’s range component has received a price increase that may or may not have something to do with certain playtests where Ki Snipers made NPC opponents cry…
Ki Blast still has a lot ahead to look forward to, including more modifiers to allow you to build even more spells. Certain mechanics like Area of Effect and Debuffs are still being tested internally, and will be included in the final book.