[DF] Contemplating a Chi Mastery house rule

[(E)]

Chi mastery (mental) might scan better as Chi mastery (inner) or (internal) or (Yang)
My $0.02 worth.

[Harald387]

I've had some great success with the houserule here: http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...&postcount=109

Originally Posted by PK

You have access to the following Talents; each costs 5 points/level. The reaction bonuses (from other martial artists) do not stack; use that of your highest Talent. If you have Chi abilities, you get a bonus equal to (your total levels of Chi Talents)/3, rounded normally, to use them. Skills with a * appear in Martial Arts (pp. 61‑62).

• Chi of Earth: Body Control, Breath Control, Esoteric Medicine, Kiai, Pressure Points, Pressure Secrets.
• Chi of Fire: Autohypnosis, Flying Leap, Jumping, Meditation, Power Blow, Zen Archery.
• Chi of Metal: Breaking Blow, Immovable Stance, Mental Strength, Mind Block, Parry Missile Weapons, Precognitive Parry*.
• Chi of Water: Blind Fighting, Hypnotic Hands*, Hypnotism, Invisibility Art, Push, Sensitivity*.
• Chi of Wood: Acrobatics, Climbing, Light Walk, Lizard Climb*, Stealth, Throwing Art.

Which is yours, come to think of it...

[Gnome]

Diestro from DF Denizens: Swashbucklers p. 26 is a mini-Talent that covers some of the best mental chi skills. Consider allowing it or something similar for Martial Artists?

In general, I would say that the inability of Martial Artists to get insanely good at Flying Leap is part of what keeps things balanced. We've had more than one campaign in which someone bought Sheer Speed (Flying Leap) from Power-ups and broke the game with a ridiculously high skill in Flying Leap. (I've since banned both Sheer Speed perks in my DF campaigns.)

In one campaign, our best strategy in the final boss battle was to simply buff the Catfolk Martial Artist so that he could Flying Leap every round and keep kicking the dragon in the eyes for about 9d+18 or so. My archwizard that I was so proud of turned into nothing more than a FP battery, his only job to keep casting Lend Energy so that the Martial Artist could keep burning FP for Flying Leap.

Martial Artists are weak at ~250 points, but they become godlike at ~500. Any change that allows them to get good at those chi skills faster will mean they become godlike sooner. If you're playing a game that never gets far past 250 it's probably fine, but if the game either features fast advancement or is planned for a longer campaign, I would recommend against straying from the RAW, and I would consider restricting the ability of Swashbucklers to upstage Martial Artists with chi skills (Swashbucklers need no help to be awesome--they already have the best starting advantages for a fighter and some of the best power-ups.)

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Will is only 5/level, while Chi Mastery is 15/level. For this to work, you either need to greatly improve your value/point of Chi Mastery, or you need to accept that players will use Will rather than Chi Mastery to improve their Chi skills.

You only need Chi Mastery in the first place because there are such a large number of chi skills and they're on a wide mix of attributes.