Keleni Breathing IV – Rage Breathing

Finally, we always gotta have an evil style, the one stolen from the heroes, the one the elders of the style never want to talk about, the forbidden dark side that the desperate hero embraces and doesn’t realize turns him into the villain until too late.

Or, at least, it’s how I originally conceived of Rage-Breathing. It evolved considerably, and became perhaps the most detailed and my personal favorite (though, man, the amount of work it took). It’s certainly a style that Ranathim (and Krokuta and even humans) can use better than Keleni, but it’s not that Keleni don’t have a lot of bottled rage. It’s not evil, really, it’s about tapping into something primal, instinctive, and dangerous to push ones body to the brink. If Celestial Breathing owes a debt to Dragon Ball Z and this entire thing to Demon Slayers, Rage Breathing draws from Kengan Ashura (though it does borrow one concept from Dragon Ball Super that we will touch on).

Rage Breathing is built around the heart chakra (probably more intensely than any other style is built around a chakra) and is inspired by the element of fire, hence my fire demon picture there. It’s also a rather involved style, so let’s dive in.

Keleni Breathing III – Celestial Breathing

We have our “martial” internal style, and our “psionic” internal style. We obviously need our Communion internal style. This was the last style I wrote, but not the last style I’ll present, and in a lot of ways, it was the easiest. It took a lot of work, but I think the strokes will look obvious to you after you’ve seen them, though there’s some sticking points we’ll get to later.

Celestial Breathing when it came to Chakras, I based it on the idea of the “Crown” chakra, though inspired by the idea of “air” element, I thought about connecting it to the throat chakra, and the singing of hymns and such, but I think in the end the crowning chakra makes the most sense, as that’s associated with ones connection to the universe, which neatly captures what Communion is.

Keleni Breathing II – Dream Breathing

This continues the breathing styles post from yesterday, a focus on four variants of Keleni internal martial arts. Today, we’ll look at the second, which was actually the first I ever created long before Keleni breathing was even a thing. It’s my least favorite of the styles, and the one I struggled the most to name. It’s not that it’s a bad style, it’s just “a worked example of psychometabolism” which is fine, and very valuable, but I’m not sure what makes it especially unique compared to any other style that teaches psychometabolism. It’s not a bad style, it’s just that I personally wish it had a little more sizzle.

Back when I first outlined the Templars, I described “Sacred Body Mastery” which was a study of psychometabolism. It was always something I wanted to explore and emphasize. Obviously, Templars would be able to study their psychic power, often at the feet of Keleni, and become faster, tougher, stronger and heal faster. And Ranathim, who also have access to psychometabolism, should be able to do the same. Sounds a lot like the premise behind Keleni Breathing styles, no? So there had to be a psychometablism in the breathing styles.

Symbolically, Dream Breathing integrates the “Third Eye” Chakra, of course. The other styles are “Earth, Air and Fire” based, so Dream Breathing probably gets Water by default, which does fit the sort of self-control aspect and the shifting of internal energies as well.

Keleni Breathing Styles: Introduction and Mountain Breathing

Okay, here we go.

I tend to believe that having a power structure adds a lot to a GURPS game. Players want to know what they can buy, and want to have goals to build their characters to. GURPS has these, but in more of a general sense: yes, you can buy Trained By a Master or Enhanced Time Sense or another level of Karate or Power-Blow, but players seek variety and things that feel exciting and grounded in the setting. Sometimes they want very unique elements, like DR that that requires focus to maintain, or super luck under very specific circumstances. Players can design this with their GM, but this can be a long drawn process; if the players design it themselves, they risk looking “twinky.” By having a pre-defined set of interesting powers, players can find inspiration in the power set, and freely take “twinky” powers that are GM approved and feel very clever when they build (GM-pre-approved) combos of interesting powers and explore the power sets you designed.

I’ve wanted a power-set like this for ages. When True Communion first dropped, it came with “Sacred Body Mastery,” a psychometabolism style designed to help Templars be generically better fighters, and was one of the special techniques of the Dark Vigil chapter. I’ve not done a lot of focus on these non-combat styles and, today, we’ll fix that.

I had intended for this post to be the release post, but it turned into a preview post instead, because this is taking forever to write. The full release will come once the previews are out.

Wiki Week Martial Arts Update 3: The Rest

Alright, in addition to finally fixing Maelstrom and upgrading the Fell Form, I wanted to touch on some of the old standbys. These don’t need as much help, but I’ve had some complaints about them and I wanted to address them.

This update covers

• The Destructive Form
• The Graceful Form
• The Simple Form

The Destructive Form

The new version of the Destructive Form is here.

The Destructive Form is fine. It relies on Beats and unarmed strikes to trigger stuns. This is enough to keep it competitive, even in a DB heavy environment. The Master level had a mistake in it that I had missed. I think I previously resolved it with Striking ST 4, but that’s probably excessive, so I trimmed that back to 1 and gave it more Intimidation and two levels of:

Shocking Stun: For every 2 points of injury in excess of the injury required to inflict a Major Wound applies a -1 penalty to the HT roll to resist Stun and Knockdown. This is in addition to any other penalties. The maximum penalty is -2 per level of this perk; 2 levels of this perk is a suggested maximum.

This makes the stuns it inflicts more meaningful and more likely to connect. It doesn’t make stunning worse, but in retrospect, stun also triggers knock down, which is also bad. Either way, they tend to be fight enders.

Second, I wanted to emphasize the use of Stuns by the Destructive Form as well as how scary it is, so I’ve given it a new form of Rapier Wit.

Rapier Wit (Threatening): This trait works like Rapier Wit, except it replaces Public Speaking with Intimidation, and replaces the -2 if your opponent has Clueless or No Sense of Humor with -1 per level of Fearlessness your opponent has. Consider using the limitation of once per encounter per opponent suggested by GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. 5 points.

I like DF’s rule about “once per opponent per encounter” so I made sure to include it.

The final problem with the Destructive Form is that it’s a little too good. It doesn’t need a nerf, but some GMs are reluctant to use it. It’s a classic “villainous” style, and watching the PCs get their limbs lopped off might be overkill for some groups. I’ve addressed this with a couple of optional rules for handling the Destructive Form in groups that want to give characters plot armor, or groups that make heavy use of Flesh Wounds to remove severed limbs from the equation.

Gap in the Plot Armor: Whenever the character attacks an opponent with “plot armor” that the GM doesn’t want killed, dismembered or maimed, the maximum damage the character is allowed to inflict increases by 1, and all deceptive attacks by the character apply an additional -1. In addition, any time the character would dismember, maim or kill a character with an attack and the GM or player disallows it by fiat, through special options, or through the expensive of impulse buys, the character gains 1 impulse buy point. No more than one impulse buy point may be gained this way per session.

Retroactive Stun Reverberation: If the damage roll, after applying for DR and conditions like injury tolerance, indicate a Major Wound has been inflicted, and he target of that wound uses some means to mitigate that wound (Flesh Wound, TV Action Violence, etc), they must still check for Stunning or Knockdown at all the same penalties for the original wound (eg -5 for a head injury).

Graceful Form

You can find the Graceful Form update here.

As a general rule, I’ve tried to focus on less popular styles, but Graceful is an exception, because I see people use it. Still, given the discussion of “Free Acrobatic Feints” I wanted to introduce one. It’s really the only change to Graceful From. I had hoped to integrate it into Trickster’s Step, but now it’s its own move.

Dazzling Runaround: Prerequisite: Acrobatic Feints. If the character inflicts a Runaround Penalty on an opponent (-2 to defense due to moving to their side or rear hexes), they also gain the benefit of a free Acrobatic Feint against their opponent.

The Simple Form

You can find the Simple Form update here.

I’m not sure if the Simple Form qualifies as “unpopular.” I’ve never seen it used, but people seem to discuss it often, especially the Formless Deception. So naturally I decided to make it stronger! I wanted to experiment with the idea of the Feinting Floor, and so I’ve integrated it into the Formless Deception. That probably makes it even more desirable and it was already a killer app for the style, but it’s the only other style that really uses Feints, and Swift has better tricks for ripping open defenses.

After thinking on it, I’ve decided to integrate all of Feinting Floor into a single perk. It doesn’t help on defense, it only helps on successful feints, and it gives +1 to +3 under very specific circumstances, so it seems like a perk.

Feinting Floor: If making a successful feint, always apply at least a -4 to the opponent’s defense as a result of a feint. That is, success by 1, 2 or 3 apply a -4 to the opponent’s defense. This has no impact on Feints with a margin of 4+.

I also had some thoughts about Trademark Moves, and while I don’t think it makes the style more powerful, it might make it more interesting and certainly fits with the themes. Defeat the Form came because I swore overuse of Trademark moves triggered bonuses to defense from opponents, but I couldn’t find it, so I created a more specific one. The rest are just really specific examples of Trade-mark tied Secret Style perks.

Defeat the Form: After seeing a Trademark Move performed once, the character may declare that Trademark Move “defeated” and gains a +1 to defend against all attacks from that Trademark Move for the rest of the encounter. The character may only “defeat” one Trademark Move per encounter.

Master the Form: Once per encounter per level of Master the Form they have, the character gains an additional +1 all rolls made during a Trademark move they use. The same Trademark Move cannot benefit from Master the form more than once per encounter (it must be a different Trademark Move each time). This perk is leveled, but may not be purchased more times than the character has Trademark moves.

Master the Formless: Once per encounter per level of Master the Formless, the character may apply a -1 to their opponent’s Defense or apply a +1 to their own defense roll provided they used no Trademark move. This perk is leveled, but may not be purchased more times than the character has Trademark moves.

I also removed Warding Parry (Did it ever do anything?) and bumped Cede Ground to +2 judo parry on retreats. +1 parry on all retreats might be more interesting, though, thinking on it.

What about…

This winds up Wiki Week. Why am I not buffing the other styles?

• The Swift Form: This style is already really good at ripping apart high defense values, and has a ton of tools to do so. It also gained Countless Ribbons of Light recently, which is a killer app on par with the Formless Deception.
• Knightly Force Swordsmanship: I didn’t really look into it, but I see this one taken a lot, and its use is more battlefield tactical than dueling focused. It’s less about using your shield to defeat a specific opponent, and more about tanking an entire group of enemies, which it does just fine.
• The Serene Form: This is already a very popular style that I’ve seen taken over and over again. It’s very useful at its core purpose, which is adapting to a variety of situations and deflecting blaster fire, and I’ve already integrated a dazzling draw into it. I wouldn’t mind an upgrade to Contemplate Endings, but Imperceptible Draw and the Eternal Now already make this a ridiculously effective style.

Wiki Week: The Fell Form Revised

So, wiki week continues with some tweaks and improvements on styles meant to improve how various force sword forms handle crazy defense twinkery that’s possible in Psi-Wars. At the risk of those proving me right for a “laser-like focus” on the Umbral Rim, I wanted to clean up at least one more Umbral Rim style before moving on: the Furious Form. It’s a style that’s struggled with a focus and identity outside of “Cool Lithian Ninjas, I guess.” The original style tried to do too many things, like Maelstrom, but I think I’ve narrowed it down enough that they can start to be really effective.

The updated version is available here: Sefelka Sonostrum: the Fell Form

Wiki Week: Maelstrom Form

So, this week is dedicated to updating some Force Sword Forms, and there’s one that really bugs me, because it was basically non-functional until now: Maelstrom Form. This style integrated several core concepts. First, it’s the style for people who want to be cool like Kreia from KOTOR 2, and it also integrates some of the style ideas that were memed around 10 years ago about how to use the Force to make your lightsaber combat even better. In short, it was intended to be the style that “casters” used, rather than the “fighter” styles of the other forms.

It should be fixed and functional now, though it turned out to be quite a complex topic. You can check it out here: Maelstrom Form.

The rest will be a discussion of what I changed and why.

Wiki Highlight: The Warrior

It’s done. Part of the fun of your constant support as I toil tirelessly on the wiki and the current iteration of Psi-Wars is watching vague ideas I had literally years ago come to full fruition. The Warrior is one such idea.

Before I dive into details, let me toss up some links for quick reference:

• The Warrior Template
• Lithian Gladiatorial Combat (the rules)
• Lithian Gladiatorial Training (the Style)
• The Marauder’s Path (Krokuta Traditional Style)
• Sefelka Gefrathalim (the Executioner’s Way, the Stygian Khopesh)
• The Secrets of the Arena (Eight Gladiatorial Substyles, 3 of which in fine detail) (Patreon Link) (SubscribeStar Link)

Quick Wiki Update: Blaster Ballet Updated

 The Martial Art formerly known as Undercity Noir has been renamed, cleaned up slightly, its formatting improved, and it’s Power-Up set improved to 20 points/level (on par with the “Big” pistol-based styles), with the new version of how we handle assault blasters integrated.  So for those who you intent on playing a highly kinetic Asrathi blast-slinger, there you go.

I’ve had a question about the Rite of Luck, and how it was “constructed.”  Originally, it was a highly limited version of Higher Purpose with Preparation Required, Limited Use, Requires IQ roll etc, but eventually I realized it was just a classic example of the extremely limited bonus used under race circumstances. It’s sort of a deferred “Occultism or Religious as Complementary Roll” with enough limitations placed on it that I felt it was acceptable to increase the bonus to a +2. I originally liked the idea of adding the bonus after the roll, but I thought this might be too powerful.  However, on reflection, I’ve decided to give it a try: I’ve reduced it to a +1 bonus, but you’re allowed to apply it after you’ve made a roll, but the ritual, whether you use the bonus or not, can only be used once per day, and it runs out after an hour.  I think this makes for more interesting play, as you’ll “say your prayers” before a big event, and it might do nothing, as there may be no roll that would benefit from a +1 improvement in margin, but if there is, well, it helps you luck out.  We’ll see how it plays.

Musings on the Psi-Wars Gun-Fu

 There’s a rule I’ve noticed about the Psi-Wars Community: if you mess with martial arts, you will get feedback.  The community seems to love the martial arts, and investigates the details of the styles with a fine tooth comb, more than anything else except, possibly, Communion.

So I wasn’t that surprised to see my inbox pop up with some thoughts and suggestions for more gun-fu and also more force sword forms.  So I thought I’d cobble together the feedback into a single place and discuss it.

Existing Gun Fu

Generally, the Gun Fu I’ve released has been well-received.

• Coda Resolute is surprisingly popular. I suspect it’s the flavor and the low buy-in cost to be “cool.”
• Undercity Noir is also quite popular. I think it, as well as the Graceful Form, need a bit more work, though.  Acrobatics is always a rather complex topic.
• Imperial Markmanship hit with a dud as “Fine.” This is understandable.  It’s meant to be an unglamorous workhorse style.  I originally intended for it to be like Coda Resolute, with only two “levels,” but the price proved an insurmountable obstacle.  I think the fact that it raises both rifle and pistol at the same time also really slows progress, which is unfortunate.  I would like to give it a “Mozambique Drill” style trademark move, however, so this style will see a slight retouch.
• The Way of the Rim was accepted with less fanfare than I expected.  It fits, and it’s suitable, and people like it, but I don’t think it really surprised people much.  The schtick of aim-then-draw rather than the other way around was uncontroversial.  I think it’ll see a lot of use, but not as much buzz as some of the others.
• Shineido was the big star, which didn’t surprise me (that’s why I released it last), but the level of feedback and love it got actually managed to exceed my expectations. In fact, a lot of the request from other styles came from Shineido.

I think it’s worth unpacking why Shineido generated the excitement that it did.  Of course, everyone loves Gun Kata, and everyone loves the idea of inserting it into a setting with Jedi.  It’s the sort of kitchen-sink crazy that every RPGer seems to yearn for.  But I think there’s more going on here than that.

The Martial-Arts-As-Power-Ups, in my experience, tends to highlight what a martial art can do.  It’s one thing to see a list of appropriate traits, and it’s another to see a martial artist in action, especially when there are certain combinations that work especially well together. These Power-Up systems generate way more feedback than the previous martial arts I’ve done, even though they’re based on the same martial arts I already did, precisely because they make what those styles can do more visible.

 Shineido highlighted two things.  First: the power of math!  Thus far, the setting has focused almost exclusively on psychic abilities (and, by extension, Communion).  We have cybernetics and, eventually, bio-mods, but by-and-large, if you wanted to be “cool” you had psychic powers. Neo-Rationalism, instead, focuses on the power of pure genius and cinematic logic to create nigh-supernatural effects, which is an exciting idea, especially as a foil for the “superstitious” psychic powers.  It creates a nice tension. It’s always been there, but Shineido makes it more obvious.

Shineido is also an explicity anti-space-knight style.  You use it not just to cool cool in combat, but to duel with a space knight.  The imagery of that is nice, but the idea of creating someone who can defeat a space knight, (The “Psi-Hunters” concept are we referred to them in Iteration 3) is an interesting one people seem interested in exploring further.

New Gun Fu

Are there are any plans for a gun fu style that utilizes psionics similar to psionic force swordsmanship? -KZRK

I haven’t seen as many calls for new Gun Fu as I have for force sword forms, but there are definitely some calls. In particular, there’s a request for a Psionic Gun-Fu style.

Now, I’m not shy about my love of the film Push, which is definitely a huge inspiration on Psi-Wars, and the moment he suggested it, I immediately thought of the TK Gun Fight from Push.  I think it would do a lot to cement how different Psi-Wars can be from Star-Wars. There are, however, a couple of problems that need to be overcome.

The first problem is that Psionic styles are a nightmare.  Psionic Force Swordsmanship needs another pass, and it was already one of the most difficult ones to design. You have to make a lot of assumptions about what characters are capable of.  For example, if you take EK then while Psionic Force Swordsmanship still has some value for you, but a lot of its moves are locked away.  What psychic power would Psionic Gun Fu use? TK? That’s cool for the guns and moving them around, but it won’t help you deflect blaster shots.  EK? That’ll let you deflect blaster shots and maybe super-power your gun, but it won’t let you wave your blaster around in the air in a cool way.  What about something else entirely, like an ESP or Telepathic Gun Fu style?  See, it opens up a can of works, and whatever choice we pick, the psychic power creates a hurdle to overcome: if you don’t have one of the powers associated with Psionic Force Swordmanship, the style is blocked off to you; but anyone can learn one of the other styles.  Thus, this is inherently a niche style that most people won’t care about and it takes more than the usual amount of work.

The second problem is where do you put it? We haven’t hard “Free floating” styles since Iteration 4.  Our styles have been grounded in the cultures that created them: Shineido is associated with Denjuku and the Shinjurai Royal Family.  The Furious Form is associated with the Satemo of the Umbral Rim.  Who would use this psionic gun-fu? It probably wouldn’t be the maradonians, as they see the force sword as a badge of honor.  You might see some psychic additions to the Coda Resolute, but aristocrats generally didn’t settle their differences with that style.  What about aliens?  Well, we don’t really associate the Ranathim or the Keleni with blasters. We might see a “temple maiden” concept for the Keleni, but they’ll be closer to commandos than to gunslingers (though it must be said that telepathically linked commandos might be scarier than Combat Geometrics). The Asrathi are associated with Probability Manipulation, and that’s worth touching on a bit more in Undercity Noir, but I don’t think that’s what KZRK had in mind. We have no PK- or EK-using aliens.  So who gets this?

One concept I do want to touch on at some point are non-space-knight, non-sage psychics.  I see Psi-Wars as a bit like Rifts in how it handles psychic powers: sure, there are mystics and knights out there, but there are also “mind melters,” rare and unexpected talent erupting somewhere like an X-men, with the Empire trying to register and/or imprison them, and space knights trying to recruit, but powerful “rogue” psychics who lack force sword training or who don’t live in temples or don’t pretend to be witches should definitely be a part of the setting, and this style might suit them well.  But other than these vague ideas, I’m not sure how to solidify it yet.

New Force Sword Forms

(H)ow about a force swordsmanship style that takes a more scientific approach similar to Shineido or Combat Geometrics? -KZRK

I think it speaks volumes for the popularity of force sword forms that when I introduce gun-fu, people use it as a platform to ask for more force sword forms. But there’s more meat here than just “I want more force sword forms.”  As we noted above, Shineido highlights that you can gain “cool powers” from math, science and logic in Psi-Wars, and given that people use “cool powers” to upgrade their force sword fighting.

Using math to be a better fencer is definitely not the craziest idea. In fact, we already have a style that does it: La Verdadera Destreza on GURPS Martial Arts page 158.  Of course, the math does nothing, but we could try to introduce some elements.  We could borrow some of the elements from La Verdadera Destreza and mix them with the essential kendo that underlies all force sword forms and toss on some of the Math tricks of Shineido.

But where would we put it in the setting?  The Shinjurai wouldn’t use a force sword, and a Maradonian wouldn’t use Neo-Rationalism? Where would we find such a character?

Maybe a branch of the imperial knights would work for the scientific force swordsmanship, since the empire is governed by the same philosophies that gave rise to combat geometrics -KZRK

There are actually several factions that would meld force swordsmanship and Neo-Rationalism.  KZRK is correct in pointing out that Imperial Knights might do it.  Another faction that might use it would be House Tan-Shai.  After all, they are neo-rationalist to their core, and lack psychic powers (being anti-psi themselves), but need to be able to win force sword duels, as they’ve been tangled up in Maradonian culture.

This brings up another concept such a style would likely seek to explore: the Stance Breaker Form. A core element of Shineido is defeating space knights.  This style might do the same, and wuxia is full of stories of a style that’s built around defeating the elements of a particular style (or “all styles,”), a “Stance Breaker Form.” Those who created this style would have wanted to beat space knights on their own ground, and would have had the data to do it. They would have analyzed all their styles incessantly and sought the weaknesses of each.  This would make the style a bit like the Simple Form in that it seeks to understand all forms, though it would likely focus on Maradonian styles.  I had a similar concept with the Skairosian styles, and I could borrow some of those ideas and use them here, but with more of a mathematical twist.

This puts the style into an interesting niche as a “Dark Mirror” style, which I always like: it’s the style you would give to characters who are designed to defeat or mirror the PCs. If you are a Maradonian Space Knight (one of the most popular concepts), then a Tan-Shai space knight is your “Dark mirror” able to exploit the weaknesses of your style and shut down your psychic powers. Imperial Knights would also represent a good “Dark mirror” to the style.

And we even had a good idea what it would look like: the aggressive flexibility of the Simple Form, the anti-Maradonian techniques of the Skairosian forms, the mathematic schtick of Shineido, and echoes of La Verdada Destreza.  I think it could work.