As I think about this more, I’m wondering if what I want isn’t something like this:

As a Free Action, you can impose Simple Tactical Oppositions, generally against a very Focused set of targets.   Good examples are “I avoid him” (Athletics), “I stay between those two” (Tactics), “I keep out of line of sight of the archer” (Dodge). The target gets a reflexive opposition to this; if they win, they ignore your constraint.   If they lose, however, they can still operate past your constraint; you just get the result dice from the Tactical Opposition roll to apply to your contest (so if you were trying to stay out of line of sight of the archer, and won by 6, you get 2 bonus dice on your dodge).

But then there is complex opposition - where you are burning a Full Action to do something.   Fundamentally, that isn’t overridable.   If you burn your full action to defend someone else, the laws of the Universe now require anyone to beat you up before they go after your protectee.  The more heroic, the more you can get away with.   A complex action is constrained to an activity, but not to a target; so you can defend person A, against anyone.   Trying to defend a lot of people is harder; and may be a custom ruling.

 

Still need to work on the constraints, right now it feels like, “Player proposes, GM disposes.”

Brian raised some interesting points about timing, and low-cost risk-taking.  Let me think about them.

Kung fu that buys dice.  To me, this is clearly a “declare before roll” technique.   If it isn’t, it makes Xia Joss an order of magnitude less useful than Corrupt Joss; and I don’t think that a game of naught but Corrupt Joss is as in-the-spirit as I’d like.

Result-dice adder.  Should totally be bought after you succeed on the roll; functionally, they are buying dice before the next roll.   Some for Armor boosters.

Revealing Results.  I can go either way on this one.   Clearly, a contested event (e.g., Initiative) is a simultaneous reveal.  But what about direct opposition?   Is it more over-the-top for the defender to know how the attacker did before defending, or not?  In D&D, you rarely know what your opposition rolled, even after the fact, for any sort of dynamic opposed roll; in Exalted, you generally know your opposition.  I don’t like either one, and was aiming for something in the middle.  I think for ease of play, I’ll relax this one, and attacker will reveal before defender decides, thus tipping advantage to the defender.

Boosting modifiers.  This one I thought was very cut and dry, but seems to be not.   To me, it seems obvious that you’d say, “Hey, I’m attacking Dominion, so I’d better use by Strike +15 tech if I even want to hit him”, and then roll dice.   Rolling dice, and then only having to pay for the Kung Fu when it is useful feels a little non-heroic (”Oh well, fate wasn’t going to let me hit Dominion this round anyway, so why should I bother using Kung Fu?”).

Visibility of Chi Expenditure.  I think that most, if not all, Kung Fu has a visible effect, unless it explicitly says otherwise.   Perceptive observers should probably be able to decipher a technique; maybe a reflexive Awareness roll; Everyday difficulty to recognize that a tech is the same one you say two rounds ago that took your left arm off.

 

 

Gosh.  I hadn't realized Tactical Opposition was a free action.

It would be very nice to have a table of what takes a free action and what takes a full action, a simple menu.  I think this is a start:

 

Full:

* An attack

* Use of a Secret Art (usually at a -10 penalty for haste)

* Moving more than 10 yards (free on a crit or with Lightfoot 2)

* Large-scale tactical opposition

* Inhaling

 

Free:

* Speech-only mundane presence attacks and similar

* 10 yards movement (or more with a crit or Lightfoot 2)

* Getting up once knocked down

* Minor tactical opposition

 

What am I missing?

 

 

On Timing of Kung Fu: It looks like you want Xia Joss and the River to be special in that they can be used after the roll, whereas Kung Fu must be used before the roll.  That's a big change.

 

On Information Hiding: So dice pools are visible, but the

often-more-powerful static modifiers aren't, and Chi expenditure isn't visible.  Further, the defender doesn't know how good the attack roll is when choosing his defensive buffs.  I'm not sure that's a change.

 

These last two together should reduce the amount of over-the-top action: they discourage risk-taking by giving it a cost.  Further, they'll have an interesting effect on combat: you've got to defend more often, because you don't know when the attacker wiffed.  You need Chi for that, so can't risk it on big attacks up front.

 

-Brian

 

Note: Some Kung Fu will specifically violate this, and will say so.

Declare your action.   If your kung fu alters the number of dice you will roll, or alters your modifiers, choose to activate your techniques before rolling dice.  Announce your dice.  Tan Dun will be attacking Amethyst Ting, and has 5 dice, while swinging his greatsword. Tan Dun has a +25 strike modifier; this does not have to be declared to Amethyst, but a visible affect (A hurricane of sleet) should be.

Opposition chooses whether they are spending Corrupt Joss. Amethyst is rightly afraid of this attack, and spends a point of corrupt Joss.

Attacker rolls dice, including River and Xia Joss effects.  Attacker does not reveal result.

Defender repeats these steps.

Compare results.

Apply retroactive effects (convert success to critical success, etc).

People seem to find tactical movement a little challenging, I’m not sure why.   Here’s my simplistic model:

Play on a hex map.   Each hex is 5’ (half a turns movement).  You must end movement in a hex, no weird, “I’m 12 feet away” tricks, this isn’t HeroClix.   Movement seems normal so far, right?

To move, on your turn, declare your move.  As a free action, you can move 10’, no roll required, except to deal with movement difficulty.   Or, you can choose to stretch your movement.   Declare your intent; your final move must be consistent with this intent.  Make your roll, obeying timing engine constraints (thoughts to come).   Decide if you’re using the full roll (full action), or whatever you beat critically (free action).   Move that distance, assuming you also beat the movement difficulty associated with each hex you are moving through.

What’s movement difficulty?  Terrain might have difficulties associated with it.   A square occupied by an enemy is implicitly opposed by the enemy’s choice of combat abilities (Melee/Fight).   Also, enemies may have imposed a tactical difficulty on a given set of hexes.

Tactical difficulty - as a free action, a character may attempt to constrain the battlespace.   To do so, they assert how they are doing so, and make a Tactics roll to constrain a set of hexes (with a penalty of -5 x ((number of hexes-1)+(gap in hexes between affected hexes and character)).  The difficulty is applied to those hexes until the end of the round.  Example:  Tan Dun wants to make it difficult for Amethyst Ting to get past him to attack Number Seven Swallow.  Having beaten Amethyst Ting on Initiative, he takes a free action to constrain two hexes out from him (building a five hex wide barrier).  He rolls his Tactics (3+1) with a -15 modifier (4 hexes, no gap between himself and the nearest hexes, and all hexes are adjacent).  He rolls (3,5,8,8, and matches an 8 in his river.   His roll of 38 thus imposes a movement difficulty of 23 on all four squares.  Amethyst Ting will need at least 33 (or 23+lightfoot 2) to pass him this turn.

 

Probably the most painful thing in the Kung Fu Techs is inconsistency in wording.   For this run, All Kung Fu techniques must be cleanly written to be explicit about their effects.   Also, all kung fu tech, even core book tech, will be vetted before being permitted for long term play.

Yes, there will be a lot.   This is a brand new system, and it is very buggy.   Things will be changed over time.   Get over it.