Exalted "not shitty edition" deck-based martial arts

[spongeknight]

So there was talk on the Exalted thread of what the game would need to do in order to actually live up to its claims of being a kung fu anime game, and that is to make kung fu integral to the system and much better implemented. So, after thinking about it, I've come up with a system that might make Exalted combat actually fun and stuff while making everyone a martial arts using fighter.

Kung Fu Styles
Each style is organized into four levels of mastery- Apprentice, Practitioner, Master and Grand Master. Each level gives you five maneuvers, which are recorded on cards.

The Deck
Your Deck holds 20 cards. At the start of your turn you draw 5, and at the end of your turn you shuffle the cards back into your Deck. In this way you always have potential access to all of your maneuvers but only actually draw a fourth of them in a given turn. You can switch out any number of cards from your Deck with a full night's sleep, or 8 solid hours of rest and meditation. Your Deck can be made up of maneuvers from any amount of styles. You cannot use maneuvers that are not in your Deck.

Attack Maneuvers
Your attacks are in one of three major categories- Quick, Balanced, and Strong. Quick maneuvers tend to be more accurate but less damaging, Strong maneuvers are the opposite, and Balanced maneuvers are balanced. Obviously.

C-C-C-Combo!
You can combo a Quick attack into a Balanced attack, and a Balanced attack into a Strong attack. If you have all three, you can throw out all three in succession in an attack action. All three must be be defended against separately, but blocking or dodging one will not disrupt the others in the sequence (unless some other effect would make the attacker unable to continue).

Defense Maneuvers
You have three major categories as defensive maneuvers- Dodge, Block, and Counter. A Dodge increases the likelihood of completely negating an attack, a Block increases your defenses if the attack hits, and a Counter leaves your defenses open but allows you to strike back against attackers. You may play any number of defense maneuvers on your turn- put them face down in front of you, and you may turn them face up to use them in response to any attack directed at you. In this way they are not shuffled back into the Deck immediately, but do so at the end of the next turn, regardless if they were used or not.

Minor Card Categories
There are other tags and classifications of cards that fall under the Major 6 and also have their own distinct mechanics. Throws toss people around, Specials require set-up conditions to activate, Traps can be placed face down and are not reshuffled until used, Esoteric don't actually target people but do other things, ect.

Out of Combat
When not threatened by an enemy, you can use any maneuver in your deck, including combos, freely. With five minutes of meditation you can use any maneuver, including combos, that you know but do not have in your current Deck.


This is using the traditional (but made less shitty) Exalted dicepool system, where you'd toss out d6's and get a success on 4, 5 and 6 (same results, much easier). Split Dexterity into, say, Precision and Agility so you don't use the same stat to attack and defend, and clean up the social and mental stats to be more useful and less derpy- many kung fu styles will let you add or replace your mental/social stuff with your physical stats, so diplomancers can punch you in the face with the weight of their words and tacticians lead you around by the nose before gutting you. And, of course, being a "blacksmith" will let you use blacksmith-themed martial arts as well as giving you actual blacksmithing powers, instead of not doing that. Possibly you'd also have magic or rituals or some other power source that doesn't interact with kung fu at all, but you'd still have kung fu to fight with.

Any thoughts on a setup like this? Anything that looks derpy that should be tweaked, any suggestions to make this better, any comments calling me a fucking idiot who should crawl back into the primordial ooze and try again in a billion years?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Any particular reason for cards over Crusader style recharging, or Green Arrow roll a row style?

[spongeknight]

Any particular reason for cards over Crusader style recharging, or Green Arrow roll a row style?

I just personally find it easier and more appealing. You could certainly do it by just generating a list of five by rolling a d20 five times and it would do the same thing. But I'd imagine you could make cards that have flashy pictures or whatever and sell them separately if you cared about that sort of thing, or just include a template people could download and print off from your website.

[Red_Rob]

Cards combine ease of random draw with hidden information and a nice tactile element. Seems the most obvious way to go to me. If it's good enough for Street Fighter: The RPG it's good enough for me.

The setup seems fine, the combo system nicely incentivises having a balance of attack types. You'd need to be careful in making Defenses to avoid one type being straight up better than the others.

Gaining a set of cards from a style reminds me of Card Hunter's equipment mechanic. That game balanced powerful items by having them include some bad cards in their pool. In this you could simulate a more risky fighting style by having some powerful cards along with a "fumble" card or weak attack that would occasionally screw you over.

[Orca]

Can your deck-based system handle combat which isn't one-on-one? If no, no one would interfere in a duel, you may have suspension of disbelief problems. If yes, can it handle minion spam - we should learn from D&D 5e's mistakes there.

Some attacks and defences should target everyone engaging you to help avoid problems here I guess.

[name_here]

Minion spam might not be a problem if you have stats as well as maneuvers. Then you can just not use your defense maneuvers in response to minion attacks and take it with your base stats. Then minions rely on being numerous enough to deplete your defensive maneuvers in order to be effective at all.