Lost in Jianghu/HouseRules

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Character Creation & Advancement[edit]

Creation[edit]

  • Players have 25 Destiny and 15 Entanglement to spend on building their characters. Once character creation is completed, I will distribute additional, small Entanglement awards (5-10 points total) in the form of connections to other PCs and to the main plot.
  • ‘Natural State’ Chi Conditions: The book recommends allowing characters “one near-permanent beneficial Chi Condition per Rank level without the Sage messing with it” (p. 229). Those Conditions can be freely chosen at character creation, can be of any type, and are always Minor conditions with the following stats: Recovery 40, Interval 1 Chapter, Duration 2.
    • At the end of a chapter, players may choose to designate an existing Chi Condition as one of their natural state conditions, replacing one previously designated. The new condition uses its existing Recovery, Interval & Duration stats; if it is a Major Condition, it will however revert to Minor unless maintained.
    • Loresheet Chi Conditions: Chi Conditions purchased via Loresheets are treated as natural state conditions, and do not count against the limit of 1 free Condition/rank achieved. If a Loresheet Condition is ever permanently removed, the character has the Entanglement returned to them.

Advancement[edit]

  • Characters will gain Destiny at Movie pace (3x base rate)
  • Characters will gain Entanglement at Novel pace (2x base rate)
  • I may award entertaining actions that don’t quite rise to the level of Deeds with Joss or small amounts of Entanglement (1-2).


Chi & Chi Conditions[edit]

  • Elemental Chi Cultivation: Elementally-aligned internal kung fu now only cultivates normal Chi. Elemental Chi is no longer cultivated, but is instead produced only by Elemental Conversion Chi Conditions.
  • Elemental Conversion Chi Conditions: In addition to the ability to convert normal to Elemental Chi, Minor Conditions allow a character to store up to 2 Elemental Chi and Major Conditions allow a character to store up to 3.
    • Characters are assumed to begin combat with no Elemental Chi stored.
    • Conversion is assessed at the end of the round; if a character cannot hold additional elemental chi, it is respired as normal chi instead.
    • Elemental Chi does count toward the maximum amount of chi you can hold.
    • Example: Cai Fong, a 4th Rank Courtier with a max chi of 13, has Balanced Internal Alchemy, a Major Earth Conversion Hyperactivity. In the first round of combat, he's slated to recover 4 chi: 2 from his Rank, 1 from a Focus on Breath action, and 1 from an additional chi condition that grants a breath bonus. He spends 5 normal chi that round; at the end of the round, he recovers 2 normal (for 10 total) and 2 earth chi. In the next round, he's again slated to recover 4 chi, but only spends 1 normal chi. Therefore, at the end of round 2, he recovers 1 normal and 1 earth chi, for totals of 10 and 3 respectively. In the third round, Fong is again slated to recover 4 chi (2 base, 1 from Focus on Breath, 1 from breath bonus), but also activates Dragon Chi, which allows him to recover earth instead of normal chi from Focus on Breath. At the end of the round, after having spent 3 earth and 3 normal chi, he will recover 3 earth chi (2 from the conversion, 1 from Focus on Breath via Dragon chi) and 1 normal chi, for 8 normal and 3 earth total.
  • Elemental Chi Deviations: Elemental Conversion Conditions do not naturally dissipate; instead, a successful Recovery roll prevents the Condition from creating or inflaming a Mutation. Mutations are now treated as Entanglement Weaknesses (Duration 3/Interval 1 Chapter, with a Recovery equal to the Conversion Condition that spawned it). Trivial Mutations are barely noticeable; Minor ones are discernible, but tend to be overlooked within the Jianghu; Major Mutations render the character a freak.
  • Corrupt Chi Deviations: May either be a behavior or a mutation, but are now also treated as an Entanglement Weakness, with a severity based on the amount of Corrupt Chi you possess: 1 point is Trivial; 2 or 3 is Minor; 4 or more is Major.
    • These Conditions are more severe than most: Trivial Deviations affect 1 point of Entanglement; Minor, up to 3; and Major, up to 5.
    • The havoc caused by these deviations makes their bearers easy targets for the use of Secret Arts: the bearer of a Minor deviation suffers a -5 penalty to resist any attempt at Discovery, Inflaming, or Soothing a condition; that penalty increases to -10 for the bearer of a Major deviation.
  • Entanglement Weakness Conditions: These conditions no longer provide additional Entanglement; instead, the complicating Entanglement is taken from your next Entanglement award.
    • Since this game uses Novel advancement for Deeds, the amount of Entanglement affected will be multiplied accordingly.
  • Recovery from Chi Conditions: Players must wait the length of a Condition's Interval between Recovery attempts, regardless of whether or not the previous attempt was a success.
    • This does not apply to others' use of Secret Arts to Soothe (or Inflame!) a condition; in that case, the Interval only comes into play on a failed roll.

Combat[edit]

  • Initiative: The Initiative roll is treated as Opposed for the purposes of Joss and River use (i.e. you may use Joss and your River to affect that roll). Malicious Joss spent during the Initiative phase is treated as Xia Joss, i.e. it adds 1 die to your Lake rather than removing 1 from your opponent’s.
  • Waves & Marvels: A Wave or Marvel generated using a Skill is best broken or resisted using a Skill; one generated using a combat stat is best broken or resisted using a combat stat (Footwork or Block). An improvised wave or marvel may be broken with either a skill or combat stat (Footwork or Block). (Effective Chapter 1, Scene 3)
  • Physical Attacks: In order to determine the number of Ripples a successful physical attack inflicts, add the difference between the attacker's Damage and the defender's Toughness to the margin of success on the Strike result. A successful strike will always inflict at least 1 Ripple, even if the defender’s Toughness would bring the margin of success below 0.
    • e.g. if a Murderous Shadows stylist (Damage +10) has a Strike Result of 41, and a Storm God's Fury stylist (Toughness +5) has a Block result of 33, the latter would take 1 Ripple & an immediate roll rather than just 1 Ripple (8 [margin of success] +10 - 5 = 13).
    • If the Storm God’s Fury stylist uses the Eternal Temple God’s Armor technique for a +15 Toughness bonus, the Murderous Shadows stylist would still inflict 1 Ripple despite a negative result (8 + 10 - 20 = -2)

Kung Fu[edit]

External Kung Fu[edit]

  • Any technique that denies opponents bonuses based on higher initiative now only deny those bonuses if the opponent fails to exceed your initiative by 15 (if the technique costs 3 Destiny) or 10 (if it costs 2 Destiny).
    • 3 Destiny versions: Divine Pattern Long-Strokes’ Sweeping to All Side and Murderous Shadows’ Void Nature.
    • 2 Destiny version: Graceful Crane’s Patient Crane.

Internal Kung Fu[edit]

Jade Sword Spirit

  • 5: Sword Mindset
    • Round-long duration. You may spend 2 Chi to extend the technique’s duration another round; you must spend the Chi at the beginning of each new round.
    • The base weapon statistics of your Sword increase to +10 Strike and +10 Block.
    • If you have a Passion or Inspiration Hyperactivity, each round that you act in accordance with it while using this technique, you may use Sword-Heaven and one second-level Jade Spirit Sword Technique (that you already know) at no cost.
    • (N.B. I may increase the extension cost to God-Body Transcendence-style pricing if this technique proves too effective for cost.)

Heaven's Lightning

  • 4: Dragon Chi
    • Replace ‘When you Focus on Breath, it also improves the regeneration of Earth Chi’ with ‘When you Focus on Breath, you may regain Earth Chi instead of normal Chi’.

Formless Techniques

  • Combat stat-boosting Techniques give +5/level, up to level 3. (Poach or make up technique names as needed.)
    • Level 3 stat-boosting Formless techniques must be purchased as part of a Loresheet.

Secret Arts[edit]

  • When a character fails to resist a Secret Arts Discovery, this is treated as a failed Recovery roll; i.e. after failing to resist, the character cannot attempt to Recover until the period specified by the Interval elapses.