Five Element Palm

[Saiken, Asashi]

五元素手掌 

Wǔ yuánsù shǒuzhǎng

Five Element Palm 

Requirements: None

Description: A wise man in a distant land turned to nature for life's most pressing and challenging questions. He contemplated on the five elements of matter; water, wind, fire, wood, and metal, as well as perhaps the most perplexing; void. His philosophizing transformed in a way for self defense, first as a need to defend against such predators as the tiger, but developed more sophistication when the need to defend against thieves and warlords arose. War broke out in his country and over the generations, the Five Element Palm Taijutsu Style continued to be cultivated into one of the most powerful and revered esoteric martial arts. After centuries of war, his country would know a long lasting peace and the same principles were again cultivated as tools of meditation to increase health, happiness and life satisfaction. The current headmaster has decided to open this deep well of knowledge to all people for the benefit of mankind and despite now being used as a way to cultivate and reach immortality, the revered combative arts were not lost nor forgotten. It is said that the grandmasters of this martial art were capable of miracles, and mastery over this taijutsu style could make one untouchable in combat. 

 

Effect: The first time a user activates Five Element Palm in a battle they gain two(2) Form Charges. The amount of Form Charges the user has determines the effect of Five Element Palm Style Techniques and allows you to use techniques that require them. Every time an enemy makes a successful hit on the user of this style, the user loses a Form Charge. This loss of charges can only happen once per opponent per turn. The user of Five Element Palm may, as a Main Phase Action, bring their Form Charges to 2.

 

Form Charges are not gained with successful strikes as normal. Instead the user may ‘bet’ a number of Form Charges when they make a Five Element Palm technique. If this technique strike the target the user gains the ‘bet’ amount of charges. If the technique fails to strike, the user loses the ‘bet’ amount of charges. If you have no charges, you may bet 1 charge with no penalty for a miss. The Weakened effect of Five Element Palm techniques cannot increase or decrease a Weakened effect already affecting the target. Instead these effects are added as additional turns of affliction. This effect cannot make Weakened break duration caps.

 

0 Form Charges - no effect

1 Form Charge: Five Element Palm Taijutsu strikes apply Weakened. Weakened's effect is -15% to all modifiers when applied in this way.

2 Form Charges: Five Element Palm Taijutsu strikes apply Weakened. Weakened's effect is -30% to all modifiers when applied in this way.

3 Form Charges: Five Element Palm Taijutsu strikes apply Weakened. Weakened's effect is -45% to all modifiers when applied in this way.

4 Form Charges: Five Element Palm Taijutsu strikes apply Weakened. Weakened's effect is -60% to all modifiers when applied in this way.

5 Form Charges: Five Element Palm Taijutsu strikes apply Weakened. Weakened's effect is -75% to all modifiers when applied in this way

 

Cost: -2 SP

 

Creator's Note - I know that the proper thing to do would be to run this idea by an artificer or more experienced player first but right now I feel rebellious and the activity has been really low so not sure who's available. I just really wanted to get this idea out of my head and on paper. I modeled this Taijutsu Style's 'bet' system on the Crane Taijutsu Style on the main site for the sake of balance. Thanks! Best wishes.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Saiken, Asashi

[Sol Pope]

So this is just straight up a reflavored Crane. Am I correct when I say a 2 charge 5 Element Palm afflicts weakened at 30% modifiers instead of the basic status effect of 50%? This style would require 4 charges to increase above the base effect of Weakened?

[Saiken, Asashi]

Yes, that is correct!

[almondsAndRain]

Oh hey, other people are also screwing with affecting an opponent’s offensive modifiers, I see lol. Anyway, to get into it: Crane’s betting system is… not great. Crane is likely to lose it when we get around to fixing Taijutsu Styles, so I’m afraid we’re going to have to nix the system here as well. 

 

There’s a couple of other issues with this skill in addition to that, the largest being that you start with two extra Charges (starting with an extra one is usually worth -1 SP, so this would be -2 SP before we even review its main effect), another is that there is no reason to deliberately reduce the amount of Charges you have to two if your Style doesn’t really penalize you like Crane does, and a couple other small things, but we don’t need to go over them right now. 

If you want to start with extra Charges, maybe submit it as a separate skill below this one.

 

I’ll write out the style for you to copy-paste this over your effect and cost fields, it’ll help balance the skill and improve the wording (though I admit that I am tired and may need to rewrite it again in the future): 

 

Effect: The user may learn and perform Five Element Palm Taijutsu Style techniques, and collect Form Charges. The user gains one Form Charge whenever they hit an opponent with a Five Element Palm technique. The user loses one Form Charge at the end of any Response Phase where they were hit by an attack. 

Form Charges may be spent on techniques that require them. Additionally, if the user has at least one Form Charge when they perform a Five Element Palm attack, the first strike of the attack also inflicts one turn of Weakened. If the target is inflicted with Weakened through another source, they suffer whichever instance of the status effect reduces their Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, and Taijutsu modifiers the most. Weakened inflicted in this way has its effect determined by the number of Form Charges the user has: 

0 Form Charges: Weakened does not reduce the target’s Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, and Taijutsu. 

1 Form Charge: Weakened reduces the target’s Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, and Taijutsu by 10%. 

2 Form Charges: Weakened reduces the target’s Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, and Taijutsu by 30%. 

3 Form Charges: Weakened reduces the target’s Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, and Taijutsu by 50%. 

4 Form Charges: Weakened reduces the target’s Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, and Taijutsu by 60%. 

5 Form Charges: Weakened reduces the target’s Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, and Taijutsu by 75%. 

Cost: -2. 

 

I did not include the bit about Charmed at the bottom because I’m not 100% certain what it means. It might be best to submit that as a different skill as well, if only to keep the skills from becoming bloated and difficult to understand. I'm a little waffle-y on the -2 SP cost, I admit. Like I said, I'm tired, it's possible that this would be fine as a -1, let other staff take a look and decide what's up. I went with -2 because inflicting a status effect - even one that is weakened uh... enfeebled when compared to its normal normal strength - is strong for a passive style, and wanted to stay on the safe side.

[Saiken, Asashi]

I disagree with the above post entirely. It's taking the system and making it evasion reliant, where the intention is to make it accuracy reliant. That's already a huge fallacy and runs contrary to the character I intended it for. Perhaps you can give a suggestion without changing the core statistic? Also as a sidenote, I am completely against removing the crane system, which the bet system is copied from. How is it unbalanced? The effects are actually quite underwhelming compared to other taijutsu styles. What other accuracy reliant  taijutsu styles are there for me to substitute if crane gets slashed? I'm just concerned because I invest high in accuracy but it seems like it's not giving me a proper edge due to these perceived balance issues. You're basically suggesting to me to not invest in accuracy at all because I wouldn't be able to capitalize on it. 

 

Edit: I increased the number of skill points and I took out the training requirement. I removed the part about charmed. I am entering mid-level and I sacrificed a lot for my high accuracy stat. Stats don't lie. Entering mid-game, I should be awarded for my choices and be allowed to even the playing field, which weakened is the best ability to balance the scales. I even nerfed it so that even against someone who has high invasion may not be effected by the whole weakened effect. The form charges are balanced because if I take the risk to gain two, I lose two. Even if I lose two, a successful hit would bring my charges to zero then I could bet one or skip a main phase to garner two. I made this with balance as my priority and I am ready to debate in Crane's defense as well. The first two charges of Crane are actually detrimental with no benefits at all when all the other main site styles produce certain benefits as high as "The user may spend an Ox Charge during their Main Phase to increase the base damage of an Mountain Ox Style technique by 5x% as well as increasing their Defense stat by 10x% until their following Main Phase, where x is the amount of charges spent." That's two profound benefits. So either Crane should be buffed or Ox nerfed.  

Edited November 5, 2022 by Saiken, Asashi

[almondsAndRain]

The cost needs a negative sign in front of it. 

 

It was not clear that this was designed for an Accuracy-focused character, and it is not my intention to "give a suggestion that changes the core statistic." If you don't like the charge loss condition I recommended, then change it to "The user loses one Form Charge in the beginning of their Response Phase if at least one enemy successfully responded to an attack since the end of the user's last turn," or something else entirely. I am not trying to punish you for your stat distribution, nor was I suggesting that you not invest in Accuracy. I only recommended that loss mechanic because it is by far the most commonly used, non-unique loss mechanic for passive Styles, but changed in a way that doesn't punish you for being hit multiple times.

 

Now, regardless of whether you agree on anything I typed in this post or my last, an additional reason against Crane's betting mechanic being used are design space concerns. Unique mechanical effects cannot always be used in more than one ability. In the case of Crane, I don't much care if the effect is reproduced, but other staff may feel differently and that is a potential roadblock you may run into, especially if Crane doesn't ultimately lose the betting mechanic, because that is not a guarantee.

 

That all aside, I stated my opinions on this Style in my last post, and your rebuttal did not convince me to change them, so we're at an impasse. I'll clock out of this thread and allow other approval staff to take over further reviews for this Style.

Edited November 5, 2022 by almondsAndRain

[Sol Pope]

The character and skills and stats that a style is intended for is not relevant to the approval. We need to approve skills as though they are general across all characters of all types of stats. I understand you have a specific idea for your character and how this style will affect them but we generally have to approve and judge skills based off of an average of all players. 

 

This said: The Cost needs a negative sign in front of it still, as almonds stated.

 

Because of the above, I agree with almonds in a lot of her suggestions. Her suggestion is probably stronger than mine but if you want the gamble mechanic I have a suggestion as well, keeping your earlier values. But I want to stress that it’s probably going to be weak and feel bad. Crane’s issue is the issue of compounding failure. As you lose charges you become less effective and as you waste main phases to try to come back to parity, you lose tempo to your opponents. All this said, if you want to continue with your original plan (which is mostly approvable), it needs some rewording. The wording for Crane is ancient and is going to be changed. Change the effect wording to this (nothing mechanically changes) and I will stamp it.

 

Effect: The first time a user activates Five Element Palm in a battle they gain two(2) Form Charges. The amount of Form Charges the user has determines the effect of Five Element Palm Style Techniques. Every time an enemy makes a successful hit on the user of this style, the user loses a Form Charge. This loss of charges can only happen once per opponent per turn. The user of Five Element Palm may, as a Main Phase Action, bring their Form Charges to 2.

 

Form Charges are not gained with successful strikes as normal. Instead the user may ‘bet’ a number of Form Charges when they make a Five Element Palm technique. If this technique strike the target the user gains the ‘bet’ amount of charges. If the technique fails to strike, the user loses the ‘bet’ amount of charges. If you have no charges, you may bet 1 charge with no penalty for a miss. The Weakened effect of Five Element Palm techniques cannot increase or decrease a Weakened effect already affecting the target. Instead these effects are added as additional turns of affliction. This effect cannot make Weakened break duration caps.

[Saiken, Asashi]

Okay, I added those changes. Just want to ask if losing the ability to use form charges for techniques is intentional. If not, I would like to add that back in. Like, it's a core taijutsu style mechanic that doesn't need to be mentioned in the style because it's mentioned in the rule book, right? 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Saiken, Asashi

[Sol Pope]

It should be stated, yes I would add that in