Star Style Taijutsu

[KnightOfBreath]

Asasei-ryu | Morning Star Style | 朝星流
Originally developed by Mochizuki Ichiro, Asasei-ryu focuses heavily on defense, turning aside foes’ attacks with sweeping blocks and parries before retaliating with careful weakening strikes to methodically bring down opponents.
Effect: [Morning Star Style] taijutsu techniques generate an "Morning" charge when the user successfully hits. The user is able to store a maximum of 5 Morning charges, which can be used for the following:

- When a user performs a damage-dealing [Morning Star Style] technique, they may spend X Morning charges (Maximum 2) to add [Weakened (X)] to the technique.

- As a free action in the Response Phase, the user may spend X Evening Charges to reduce the chance to fail of any Evening Star Response Phase techniques they perform this turn by 5X%. This may not reduce a technique's chance to fail below 5%. 

Additionally, the user receives a +5X% chance to dodge bonus until the end of this phase. This bonus is halved for Concentration-based attacks, rounded down.

- Morning charges can be spent to pay for the costs of techniques that require them.

 

Requirements: None
Cost: -1

 

 

Yorusei-ryu | Evening Star Style | 夜星流
Originally developed by Mochizuki Ichiro, Yorusei-ryu focuses heavily on offense. Practitioners are encouraged to only strike when the moment is absolutely perfect, and to commit entirely to each and every blow.
Effect: [Evening Star Style] taijutsu techniques generate an "Evening" charge when the user successfully hits. The user is able to store a maximum of 5 Evening charges, which can be used for the following:

 

- When a user performs a damage-dealing [Evening Star Style] technique, they may spend one Evening charge to add an additional strike to the technique. This additional strike becomes the first strike of the technique, deals no damage and inflicts [Exposed] on hit.

- When a user performs an [Evening Star Style] technique, they may spend X Evening charges to increase their base Accuracy by 40x if the technique was Genin or Chuunin rank, or 60x if the technique was Jonin or Sennin rank, for one turn. 
- Evening charges can be spent to pay for the costs of techniques that require them.

 

Requirements: None
Cost: -1

Edited January 19, 2022 by CTL1989
Making suggested corrections!

[KnightOfBreath]

Alright, so, hopefully these are nice and straightforward. The status effects for both styles are within the normal costs (Exposed is 40cp, Weakened is 35cp).

 

The passive bonuses are based off Golden Lion Style for the Block Range increase, and Rising Tempest Style for the accuracy increase. I understand that Passive bonuses based off number of charges are quite strong, which is why each style has a way to lose charges (failing to inflict a status effect, and failing to hit) to balance things out.

 

I'm a little uncertain if missing an attack is 'likely' enough with the Accuracy bonus provided by Evening Star Style to be considered an appropriate weakness, so just let me know if I need to make any changes to either style!

[almondsAndRain]

Oh hey, the site's back! Hi knight!

 

Alright, so, let's break these down. They're both Styles that have three effects. One of these is the ability to spend Charges on techniques that require them, and I'm not going to count that effect against the power of these Styles, because according to the main site all Styles can already do that: "All Taijutsu Styles may have Taijutsu techniques that use charges as part of their cost." So you can remove those clauses from your Style if you'd like, but keeping them won't cause any issue! 

 

That said, each Style is going to have to cost a minimum of -2. This is because passive Styles typically only have one effect, and both of these have two. Of you replace the passive effect with an active one, this cost will likely drop back to -1 because actives can have two effects without a cost increase.

 

Now, on to each Style individually:

 

Morning Star:

"[Morning Star Style] techniques generate a "Morning" charge when the user takes damage from an opponent’s attack." Is this in place of or in addition to the standard Charge generation you get when hitting an opponent? 

 

"The user loses 1 Morning charge when they perform an attack that does not inflict a status effect on their opponent." Charge loss mechanics need to be something that your opponent can cause, not something you can choose not to do. This is because there has to be a way for them to disrupt your passive effect. Losing a Charge the first time in a turn you get hit by an attack that inflicts a Status Effect could work, but feel free to surprise me.

 

"When a user performs a damage-dealing [Morning Star Style] technique, they may spend X charges (Maximum 2) to add [Weakened (X)] to the technique." This is good!

 

The passive effect itself: so unfortunately, I'm going to have to say no to this. This is not because it is broken, but out of design space concerns - Golden Lion Style is based around this and lowering damage in general. Other staff may have other opinions here, because block range is not a unique effect and I'm okay with this going forward if there are dissenting opinions. 

 

 

Evening Star:

"The user loses 1 Evening charge when they miss with a Evening Star Style technique." This is good!

 

"When a user performs a damage-dealing [Evening Star Style] technique, they may spend one charge to add [Exposed] to the technique." Also good!

 

Passively gaining Accuracy at 3% per Charge is not so good, though. That's well in Advanced Taijutsu Style territory, I'm afraid. Giving percentage bonuses like that is absolutely huge at higher levels, and absolutely worthless at lower ones. Some quick examples: if you have 400 Accuracy, one Charge is giving you 12 more, and even 5 is only giving you 60; if you have 2000 Accuracy, one gives you 60 and five gives you 300.

 

All in all, this is not a bad attempt at making Styles - everything is formatted correctly, you included Charge loss mechanics, and the costs check out except for the Accuracy bonus. Good work! Hopefully we can get this ball rolling and the Style in an approvable state shortly.

 

[KnightOfBreath]

Hi Almonds!

 

Thank you very much for all the detailed feedback, there was a lot there that I didn't know (obviously). And that's a good point about Golden Lion style. My apologies, I wasn't trying to intrude on anyone else's design space.

 

I've made some revisions that should (hopefully) be better:

 

- I've changed the Charge-gaining condition for Morning Star Style to just being on a successful hit, to simplify things.

- I've changed the Charge-losing condition for Morning Stay Style to 'If an opponent performs a non-damaging main phase jutsu', which I just kind of think is an interesting idea. It gives the opponent an easy way to control my charges, but it makes sense that a defense-focused style would lose 'momentum' when the opponent wasn't attacking.

- I've changed the second ability on Morning Star Style to being a 5% decrease to the failure change for RPJ per charge spent. This means that for Chuunin level RPJ, I can spend 5 charges to decrease the Fail Chance down to the default 5% and gain my Setup Phase back. And it lessens the risk for getting my main phase back for Jounin and Sennin rank. Since it can't drop the risk below the default 5% (and spending 5 charges at once is quite costly) I think it seems fair? But I don't really have anything to compare it against.

 

- I've changed the second ability of Evening Star Style to be 'Spend for a flat 40x accuracy on the attack', which is hopefully more balanced. It's a better buff than before at low accuracy, but a worse (though not insubstantial) one with 2000 accuracy. It's scaled off the normal 40cp value of a Taijutsu Charge, and the 1:1 stat increase scaling for Gennin Taijutsu.

[almondsAndRain]

Alright, these are looking good! There's a couple small things left, but we're very close to approval. Since these are both active Styles, you can drop the Charge loss mechanics now. That's for passive ones, so that you can't quickly rack up Charges and just perpetually sit on your bonus without your opponent being able to do anything about it. Additionally, they need to specify somewhere in the text that they are Taijutsu Style techniques, so something like "Morning Star Style Taijutsu techniques generate a Morning Charge when they hit an opponent" or something of that nature. The same also applies to Evening Star.

 

Evening Star I can see being a little stronger too. Spending Charges gets you a lot more than just holding them does, so we can push this up. Let's try "When the user performs an Evening Star Style technique, they may spend X Charges to increase their Accuracy by 40X if it was a Genin or Chuunin rank technique or 60X if it was a Jonin or Sennin rank technique for one turn." This has it stick to the Tai stat ratios and boosts every attack you perform that turn.

 

Morning Star… arright, so, I think that ability you have now is cool, but also kind of weak. It's all but useless to you at Genin, and at Chuunin you probably aren't gonna want to spend Charges on trying to save a Setup Phase action. At Jounin and Sennin, this is definitely more useful, but at most you're getting a 45% chance to keep your Main Phase out of this. That still ain't much. My suggestion here is to either think of an effect you can pair with this to make it better, to strengthen this some but accept that it will be bad at Genin and Chuunin, or to take this effect in another direction. Maybe spend Charges to gain a bonus of some type after you Block an attack?

 

[KnightOfBreath]

Okay! I've made the suggest changes. For Morning Star Style, I've gone with a 30x increase to base speed for one turn. It's a smaller boost than the Accuracy for Evening Star Style, since it's still paired with the Fail Chance reduction for RPJ. But the general idea is that, succeed or fail with the RPJ at least the next turn will come around a bit faster.

 

I'm not sure what the CP value of the fail chance reduction is, so I'm happy to drop down the 30x speed increase if necessary. 

[almondsAndRain]

Both

Since these are no longer active Styles, you can remove the Charge Loss mechanic. Passive Styles need to have a way for the opponent to force you to lose Charges, to prevent you from just stacking them up and keeping permanent bonuses. These are active now though, so that's not a concern. 

Also, where it says "the user may spend X Charges," it needs to specify what kinds of Charges you can spend.

 

Evening Star

This is approvable, other than the issue above! If you'd like to make the Exposed ability a little stronger, have it occur as a strike that is added before the rest of the attack. The CP cost will remain the same, but now any strikes from the attack that hit after the Exposed strike does will benefit from Exposed, which is potentially the entire attack.

 

Morning Star

The Response Phase is not typically the place for buffs like this, it is for avoiding attacks. Uh... here, feel free to try this instead. It gives you what you want and means half your Style isn't useless as a Genin.

"As a free action in the Response Phase, the user may spend X Evening Charges to reduce the chance to fail of any Evening Star Response Phase techniques they perform this turn by 5X%. This may not reduce a technique's chance to fail below 5%. 

Additionally, the user receives a +5X% chance to dodge bonus until the end of this phase. This bonus is halved for Concentration-based attacks, rounded down."

 

(It's not necessary that you use this, I'm just throwing an idea at you, feel free to use something else if you'd prefer!)

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by almondsAndRain

[KnightOfBreath]

Updated! Those are great suggestions, thanks! 

 

I'm not quite sure if I've got the wording correct for 'When a user performs a damage-dealing [Evening Star Style] technique, they may spend one Evening charge add an additional strike that is performed before the technique is resolved. This strike deals no damage, but inflicts [Exposed] if successful.', so let me know if it needs to be re-worded at all.

[Princess]

Can be cleaned up a bit.

 

When a user performs a damage-dealing [Evening Star Style] technique, they may spend one Evening charge to add an additional strike to the technique. This additional strike becomes the first strike of the technique, deals no damage and inflicts [Exposed] on hit.

So, you don't want to have it add another strike that is resolved before the technique, that creates a huge gap in timings where you're using a strike separate from the technique, which makes it another technique, not a strike in the technique. Plus, you don't need to specify it does exposed if successful, just say on hit, that's the standard terminology for these things.

[KnightOfBreath]

Done! Thanks for the clarification, buddy! 

[almondsAndRain]

Yep yep, these are looking good now. Approved.

 

Also, just for future reference, if a field does not have anything relevant, you don't need to include it (like the Requirements fields in these skills).

[Princess]