Japanese magic

[bhu]

your thoughts on flaws silly or otherwise?

[veekie]

Not much, other than that you could have flaws just be double edged feats(that is, it takes a feat slot, gives bigger perks than other feats of the same requirements, and inflicts a secondary harmful effect on the taker). Straight flaws are mainly just abusable.

[bhu]

Sorry work is progressing slowly.  I've been trying to clean off my hard drive.

[bhu]

I'm starting to do work on the weapons lists.  Those of you knowledgeable o nthe subject please drop in and possibly correct me when I'm wrong.

[bhu]

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=772.0

Okay the masive weapons list is done, I just need to decide which weapon groups they go into before statting them out.  If anyone has any reason to believe i am in error in any of the descriptions please let me know before the statting commences.

[bhu]

Weapon groups are done except any i may need to add due to classes.

[veekie]

Looks pretty complete yeah, though can't say much until they get mechanics attached.

[bhu]

ANy thoughts on padded leather or chain armor for ninjas?  There seems to be a great deal of argument about whether or not it exists.

[veekie]

I can see the possibility of some padded armor, which would be indistinguishable from thick clothing on a cursory search, but for ninja their whole point is to avoid being attacked entirely, and being caught wearing armor in whatever disguise that doesn't justify armor would mean you're dead, armor or not.

You might see some if its specifically a kill mission. Maybe.

[bhu]

While thy mostly did military scouting and sabotage thy did do some ambush for hire, and i can see armor in such a casr, but then you wouldn't need to hide it...

[veekie]

Depends, it'd be significantly easier to set up an ambush while disguised as the regular servants of the guy you want to kill(small poisoned weapon, hit your target and change disguise before anyone knows), and easier to get away too.

If you're going to ambush a guy out on the road, you'd use ronin instead.

[Kuroimaken]

As a general rule people didn't use much armor in Japan except when headed towards major battles. And sometimes not even then (at least not in the sense we view traditional armor).

[veekie]

Hardened leather and quilted cloth are reasonably common for any career that regularly enters into conflict though. But other than that, yeah, access to armor was mostly when you're actually going to war.

[veekie]

Incidentally, this might come in handy as an overall resource.

[bhu]

Thanks Veekie!

[bhu]

If anyone still reading I'm getting ready to add a bestiary at some point and I've added more skill based Ki powers.  I havent forgotten this i promise.


Also: any thoughts on variants for the shihan?

[bhu]

for the bestiary: would you prefer standard monsters or monster classes?  I'm thinking of doing them as classes.

[Kuroimaken]

for the bestiary: would you prefer standard monsters or monster classes?  I'm thinking of doing them as classes.

Might be worth going for both approaches. Monsters in Japanese settings typically have a fixed amount of power OR a power level dependant on their age, i.e. the older it is, the more unstoppable it becomes but the slower it is to affect the world around it, etc..

[veekie]

Mixed would be my call as well. Some youkai are appropriate for characters, such as kitsune, tanuki, tengu, kappa and other anthropomorphic youkai are suitable. Location tied youkai much less so, as well as the bloodthirsty/feral ones.

[Kuroimaken]

Kitsune in particular are tricky to adjucate because of the varying power level by tails. Tengu run the gamut from weakling to earth-shattering, and kappa are typically sitebound (it dies if the bowl in its head is void of water from its pond).