Kamigakari Thread

So for Dark Hunter A, I actually went and asked The Man Himself, Rikizou. I asked if Shadow Freerun has an influence on Shadow Breach, as in, does taking Shadow Freerun make Shadow Breach not cost Prep any more.

His response was "yes, that is correct."

So in thinking about this, rather than pepper him with questions constantly, I'm thinking that while Shadow Breach doesn't count as a move action because it's a Talent, it DOES interact with anything else that says "Combat Move".

So Wall Walk for example out of Darkstalker? Yeah, that works with it.

So wall walk and freerun do affect it.

It seemed weird that it didnt work with a move in its own list. It also seemed to imply on its own that there were talents that worked with it.

Really wonky skill.

Yeah, it's weird. But I'm glad we've sorted it out... I think. Gonna add all this to the FAQ section at the end of the Style sections anyway. Certainly makes certain Dark Hunter combos far more appealing, and also now gives it some interesting synergy with Contractor A.

Indeed. It also makes dark hunter extremely mobile now that weve looked over some interesting combinations with it

so on that note, shadow breach confirmed for viable, i guess.

I'll Put that info into the improptu FAQ until such a time that the PDF 2.0 is complete.

Well, with that recent revelation, its not just "Slap extra attacks everywhere" but "Slap extra attacks everywhere and move like a schizophrenic ferret"

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bump

So on page 21 under "Artificial Regalia" I found a part that says:

"Therefore, it could be said that Artificial Regalia are living weapons that possess qualities similar
to gods. Because of that, Artificial Regalia are able to arm themselves, as well as grow and
evolve by absorbing Fool’s Gold and Materials."

I understand how the second part works, but what does the "able to arm themselves" part mean? I haven't found anything clarifying it in the rest of the book. Does it mean that Artificial Regalia can function on its own? Or that it could become alive or turn into a creature?

In short it's just a bad translation.

The word used in that sentence is 武装 (busou). It means "equipping oneself with armament in order to do battle" as well as the armament itself.

If I were going to retranslate this line now-a-days, I'd write it like this: "Because of that, Artificial Regalia are able to grow and evolve by absorbing Fool's Gold and Materials, making them ready for battle."

It does seem Regalia can operate on their own to some degree however, as per the Fallen Regalia enemy in the Mechanical Mononoke section of Requiem (code XXXY-5).

Well, this is a japanese game with a lot of japanese inspired stuff, so its safe to say that Tsukumogami probably exist, which is probably what Falls under.

Japans got a lot of weird sentient item type stuff. Usually though, its almost entirely negative. Resentment, being abandoned, etc etc.

They have an entire festival devoted to properly getting rid of specific stuff just because of the myth's surrounding tsukumogami.

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Y'know what, i'ma stat that umbrella. In a wgile.

Hmm, after being roped into watching Knight's & Magic, I wonder if you can do something where your PCs have mechs and fight monsters and stuff.

Legacy user B. There's also a couple items here and there that let you treat your size as one higher.

So in short? yeah.

Titan armor, thats the one.

It gives you +2 to size and reduces damage taken by 2 outright, on top of whatever abilities you give it otherwise.

And here's the umbrella.

>Name: Kogasa Tatara/ Class: Mechanical/ Lv: 2
>Size: 2
>Wits: High
>Senses: Normal
>Speech: Yes
>Reaction: Mercurial
>ID: 7
>Weakness: [Phantom] [Fire]

>| ACC | EVA | CNJ | RES | CHK
>{Combat Stats} | 3 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 6
>{Fixed Values} | 10 | 11 | 15 | 10 | 13

>HP: 40
>Initiative: 11(6)
>Armor: 2
>Barrier: 2

>[Weapon Attack] : Magical Attack / 3 sq / 1#/ Resist Halves
>- [Form: Magic] 2d6+11 Magical damage to the target.

>«Urameshiya!» Start/ Combat zone/ Combat zone
>- Attempts to surprise others, causing [Shift: Fallen]. Uses CHK, against INS. User requires [Shift: Hidden] to use 1/combat

>«Lying in wait» Prep/ User/ User
>- User Gains [Shift: Hidden] if engage to an obstacle

>«Umbrella Cyclone!» Attack/ Combat zone/ Combat zone
>- Inflict Bad footing penalties on everyone but the user or those with [Shift: Flight] 1/combat

>«Karakasa Surprising Flash» Attack/ Combat zone/ Combat zone
>- Inflicts [Shift: Darkness]. Uses CHK against INS 1/Combat

>«A Forgotten Umbrella's Night Train» Attack/ 10sq/ Area /Resist halves
>- Deals 2d6+11 Magical damage 1/Round

Since Kogasa is all about surprises and annoyances, i decided to make her a character that has a lot of annoying skills and abilities, but not a lot of damage. The brunt of her annoying things should be spaced out so as not to blow your load and be stuck with nothing.

And here's the umbrella.

>Name: Kogasa Tatara/ Class: Mechanical/ Lv: 2
>Size: 2
>Wits: High
>Senses: Normal
>Speech: Yes
>Reaction: Mercurial
>ID: 7
>Weakness: [Phantom] [Fire]

>| ACC | EVA | CNJ | RES | CHK
>{Combat Stats} | 3 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 6
>{Fixed Values} | 10 | 11 | 15 | 10 | 13

>HP: 40
>Initiative: 11(6)
>Armor: 2
>Barrier: 2

>[Weapon Attack] : Magical Attack / 3 sq / 1#/ Resist Halves
>- [Form: Magic] 2d6+11 Magical damage to the target.

>«Urameshiya!» Start/ Combat zone/ Combat zone
>- Attempts to surprise others, causing [Shift: Fallen]. Uses CHK, against INS. User requires [Shift: Hidden] to use 1/combat

>«Lying in wait» Prep/ User/ User
>- User Gains [Shift: Hidden] if engage to an obstacle

>«Umbrella Cyclone!» Attack/ Combat zone/ Combat zone
>- Inflict Bad footing penalties on everyone but the user or those with [Shift: Flight] 1/combat

>«Karakasa Surprising Flash» Attack/ Combat zone/ Combat zone
>- Inflicts [Shift: Darkness]. Uses CHK against INS 1/Combat

>«A Forgotten Umbrella's Night Train» Attack/ 10sq/ Area /Resist halves
>- Deals 2d6+11 Magical damage 1/Round

Since Kogasa is all about surprises and annoyances, i decided to make her a character that has a lot of annoying skills and abilities, but not a lot of damage. The brunt of her annoying things should be spaced out so as not to blow your load and be stuck with nothing.

Neat thing, you can get one of the common regalia talents and increase your size up to the max of 5.

It's a pity spirit barriers are a thing, seeing a 2BIG player fight a 3BIG aramitama would be awesome. Good excuse to put on BOC's Godzilla.

Thought spirit barriers coulld be as big as it needed to be for the fight's wishes.

That ain't the issue, the issue is that to colossi clashing is made awesome by how people react to it. No people besides godhunters and monsters = not as much impact.

Theres nothing saying the barrier is always up. You could even have it be a plot point where a collosal monster resists being put into one, or puts an entire city into one.

Godhunters dont doe in a spirit barrier, but innocents dont get that luxury

After thinking on it a while, i actually really like this idea. It could be fun in a lot of different ways.

Hows the revision going?

Shit, thread died?

Not a lot to talk about.

Tell a story, ask a question, make a request of some sort.

Theres more to talk about than people think, someone just needs to spark it off

Okay, I'll give it a shot. I'm not one to talk about technical things along the lines of power interactions and neat and interesting combos of talents.

So instead what kinds of story lines are people having with their games? Who is your big bad or antagonists? What are your PC's like? What are your themes?

The system is pretty straightforward, there's no story to tell without playing the game because the setting is deliberately derivative, and any questions outside of "why play this" come up through war gaming/talking to Kamigakari user/actually playing.

So I guess the question would be, outside of the modified Legends of the Wulin dice river gimmick, why play this skin of the SRS over any other, or Saikoro games, or TBZ, or one of the deliberately weeaboo systems like OVA or TfOS or Fight?

What makes this game worth playing outside of "It's super anime"?

Well, first and foremost it lends itself well to a lot of different types of anime-esque tropes. Mecha, persona, ninja's, magical girls, kamen rider, generic shounen BS. Its lore set up also lends well to these without directly clashing with any of it.

A lot of those systems do as well, but frankly it feels like this one does so with the least amount of fiddling required.

Second, its got a lot of systemic differences to many of the SRS Games. I had to look up some stuff, but one big change is in how classes work. Instead of getting like, 3 classes that all level on their own, you get 1 race and 2 styles, which don't level at all, but provide a pool of skills you can pick and choose from. You can also add more style's later, if you want. My point stands that you don't level a class, but instead choose a theme and grab the skills. The way damage is determined is fairly unique as well. Instead of just rolling a handful of D6's, your damage is determined by the highest number in your initial attack roll multiplied by the rank of the attack. With the influence system in place, this means players can very directly boost their damage if need be, giving players an interesting level of agency in combat, rather than being at the mercy of the handful of D6's.

Its got similarities in its breakthrough system, spirit crest, but also adds its own differences and quirks. Bonds don't power the abilities per se, but act as a sort of requirement to use 2 out of 3 of the spirit burn abilities, which are the same for every class.

There's probably a lot of other differences, but i'd say these are the most important ones. I left out more obvious stuff like the spirit pool and such, because i felt those were more obvious and sorta besides the point.

I was thinking of doing a god eater campaign at some point, but i haven't got the details hammered out yet. Nor do i much have the time right now, but still.

Re-fluffing the classes is super easy, though some need more explaining than others do. But otherwise, the stories gonna be pretty simple for that one. God eaters go out, kill aragami, and continue on until world-ending threat happens and they need to drop whatever they are doing or the world is doomed.

So, one of my players is a Demon-Eyed, and took a look at the Godseye Blade in Expansion 2. I took a look at it, and I wasn't sure of how big its area effect would be when the special effect is used. Any answers?

Area in terms of kamigakari just means you hit any hostiles (or friendlies, if you are an asshole) in an engagement.

So basically, any contiguous group of people with at least 1 side touching each, anyone in that range is hit.

Area means 'an engagement'. So however big the engagement is, it hits it. If there's no engagement it basically just hits a single square.

If you mean out of combat, uh... as big as it needs to?

So it'd be hitting whatever is in a cross-shaped pattern 1 square in front, behind, and to the left and right of the PC, assuming the PC is the center?

No. An Engagement doesn't mean 'who is adjacent to the PC', it means 'who is in the engagement'. If there's a 4x4 section of squares, and all of them are filled with characters somehow, that is "one Engagement" and an Area attack can hit all of it, so long as the Range can target even one of those squares. Same deal if it was 2x2 or 3x3 or 50x50.

I use those numbers for ease, but engagements can be of any shape or size.

Oh, so as long as a character has sufficient range, any cluster of characters can be hit with an Area attack?

Yup! If you look at page 250, the diagram on the right shows a big ol' engagement. There's more examples in previous pages too. But basically "Area" means "whole engagement" (though you can selectively not target allies). And the Range of the ability determines whether it's a big whirlwind strike (Range: Engaged) or a fireball (Range: anything not engaged).

It could be a squiggly S shape, a cross, or even a picture of cthulhu.

If the sides are touching, its an "Engagement" and if its an engagement, its the target of an area attack.

This is the user who was asking for an SRD type file, and the pastebin posted a thread (or two) ago was almost perfect. Just wanted to pass on my thanks!

You mean the quick rules sheet? With the math and shifts and such neatly put up in a few hundred or so lines?

Either way i wrote that, so no problem dude.

If you have anything else you think should be in there that i missed out, please inform me.

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I have a question! Actually just wondering for suggestions. I have a character who's a Dragon Carrier A/B, and I have yet to decide on which should be the main style. Both of their "◎" talent options seem lackluster compared to other styles, but I'm new to the system so some of them may be more powerful than I think.

I want the character to focus on the Guard/Dash Guard talents to protect allies while still having some offensive power. Does anyone have suggestions for whether Dragon Carrier A or B would be a better option as a main style? And are there any particular suggestions for "◎" talents in A or B that would be really tasty to pick up? I imagine «Force Master» is a nice way to pick up 5's, but I'm not sure if that alone makes it worth it.

If you are planning to focus on the guard skills, then you want B to be your main style. Guard requires you to take a hit for another person, meaning you will be taking that damage. While the skills may seem lackluster to start with, when combined, especially since most of them are passives that only require you to have a 5 to use the initial install, they can reduce damage quite dramatically.

keep in mind that ◎ skills can only be gained at level 3 if its the main style, and require a high talent to gain otherwise.

In the case of dragon carrier B, the ultimates don't SEEM to be all that great, but there are a few things to consider.

First, crystal enhance reduces ALL damage done by 5. Not just phys, not just magic, even straight HP damage is reduced by 5. This is way better than it seems at first glance, though its only 5. The +10 to health is just a good bonus.

For Ultimate form, that, install, and true install all stack. If you know what kinda damage an enemy is dishing out, which you will when someone makes a check for it, you can easily drop their damage by 15. If you get the -5 damage from enhance as well, then thats 20 damage outright avoided before halving takes place.

There are also a couple others in the 5th expansion PDF, But crystal evolution is the important one, since it also reduces damage taken by half. Not one kind, but all. The thing about Dragon carrier B is that while its defenses aren't particularly high compared to some talents, they are diverse. They resist almost everything damagewise.

So in saying all this, my suggestion is to take a guard and an attack skill at first level, true install at 2, and crystal evolution at 3. Halving all damage is just too good.

Thanks, that was insightful! I'll probably lean towards Dragon Carrier B when the time comes to choose (the GM's being nice and letting my choose which of the two is my main style at level 3, since it's irrelevant before that), and pick up all of the armor I can get.

Question for when I hit level 5 and get a high talent-- do you have any recommendations? The ability to have an extra Spirit Die all the time seems like it would help all around, since that's one more die to burn on Guard per turn, but there's also the option of picking up another style entirely, or any of the other options. What are your thoughts?

You can't get the extra spirit die at level 5 unfortunately. Thats a level 10+ high talent.

For level 5, your options are to increase the amount of die for rolls based on what stat you choose, continuous action to gain another attack timing, and getting another style.

The extra dice for rolls are okay if you use that one extremely often, and want to make sure you succeed and don't crit fail, but also make crits in and of themselves harder. Generally, these aren't great.

Getting another style can be great, but i wouldn't suggest this as diversifying to hard can lead to a weak build. Get this if you just need one or two things to work thematically.

At level 5, the clear winner is continuous action, assuming that none of the other two win for an extremely specific reason.

Also, i'm retarded and said you'd need to wait for level 5 to get an ultimate from a non-main style, but thats at level 10. So consider your choice very carefully.

I don't think any of the "add an extra die to a specific type of roll" options win out immediately, so Continuous Action seems like the way to go. Our GM is tentatively banning Continuous Action for fear of players winning through action economy alone, but he's on the fence about the deal, and is going to put it off until we have a better grasp of what an extra Attack action per round will be able to accomplish.

In the case that he does end up banning Continuous Action, do you have any thoughts for a theoretical bonus style? The Dark Hunter's ability to trip people and perform Combat Moves without spending [Prep] seems mildly useful, if it was combo-ed with the darkstalker race's Wall Walk and the Storm Assault common talent from expansion 3.

Actually, a lot of the level 5 high talents are pretty good from the first expansion. and i'm retarded for not remembering they were there when giving advice.

Counterstrike would be great on darkhunter focused build, combo skill on anything with multiple but cheap attack talents, strengthened vitality is pretty nice for a tank. And i see here the extra spirit dice as well, which i forgot was in the first expansion on top of a core level 10 talent. Specialized arts can also be really good since it can make some active talents completely free.

Honestly, the first expansion stuff throws things pretty out of whack. Continuous action is the winner in the main stuff, but for the other stuff, and for a tank, i'd choose to go with Either strengthened vitality for the extra health, Additional dragons veins for the die, or specialized arts on crystal divider/crystal evolution for free half damage. continuous action is still a contender, but its a matter of preference between those 4.

In terms of your GM banning continuous action he need not fear.

Its strong, but also consider that players can use their talents usually 1/round, and need the die to fuel them.

A lot of times, it may come down to an extra weapon attack, which is not all that strong.

I completely forgot about the expansions adding new High Talents, thanks! On that subject, would picking up Specialized Arts and choosing Guard as the talent in question allow me to guard my allies for free...all the time? Whenever I want, whenever they're attacked?

Free Crystal Divider/Evolution is tasty as hell, but if picking Specialized Arts: Guard lets me protect the entire party for free, there's no way I'm passing that up.
...DOES it work that way?

The party/GM seems to be leaning in that direction too, so I doubt Continuous Action will end up being banned. Thanks for all the advice so far!

No problem, its why i'm here.

As for how it would work with guard and divider/evolution, Guard at the least can only be used once per round, as you only ever have 1 defense timing per round. There's no way to get more of these.

On the other hand, depending on how divider/evo works, it may be able to work near constantly. That said, i'm fairly sure it also only works once per round, so do not get your hopes up too far. I remember Kamigakari user saying that talents work once per round, but i can't remember where it says that in the book so i'm gonna ask him about that.

The reason i would say to pick divider/evo in this case is that with the expansions, 2 talents can make guard work with literally any dice. Its much easier to use on average than divider would be. At the same time, halving damage for no dice at all lets you always blast all your dice and not worry too much about taking a hit, effectively making you a much better tank in all situations.

That's a good point with Guard being able to cost any die through other talents, though I'm pretty sure characters can get more than one [Timing: Defense] per round due to pic related.

Crystal Divider/Evolution is looking mighty tempting, the way you put it. Say, since the character's a Darkstalker, would picking up Close Combat Resilience be a sufficient replacement for that? I know it won't guard against EVERYTHING, but it's still a nice halving against melee attacks, and it's only one talent instead of three. Might save up some room for other Armor/Barrier talents, like True Crystal Install or Crystal Enhance. What do you think?

i was actually not aware of that. I'll put that in the quick rules sheet for posterities sake.

That being the case, it relies on you getting a large amount of extra attack actions, which dragon carrier A will not give you. You'd get one from Continuous action, but not a lot else.

So unless you wanna change Dragon carrier A to dark hunter A, you're still probably better off with divider/evo

Actually, thats another thing to ask kamigakari user. Whether thats meant to be "Attack action" or "Attack timing"

So how many times a round talents can be used, and whether thats translated right and not a typo.

I think the wording implies that anytime an [Attack Action] is made anywhere on the field, every other character gains a [Defense] in return in order to defend against it (or use other applicable talents, such as Guard or Protective Teachings)-- otherwise, even the free divider/evo combo would only work once per round, since it also uses the [Defense] timing.

Actually divider is timing Unique. Its used on damage reduction. Different thing to using timing Defense.

And even assuming you are right, i'd rather hear it from kamigakari user to be sure.

That's fair. In any case, thanks for all of the insight! It's been a big help getting a second opinion on all the talents available. Still on the fence about the divider/evo combo since it's only usable once per round (my bad for not realizing it was [Timing: Unique] instead of [Timing: Defense], though I also didn't catch the once-per-round clause in its text), but it's a strong contender regardless.

Well, the thing about divider is i'm not actually sure if its only 1 per round. I remember kamigakari user saying uniques can only be used once per round, or something or other, but i can't accurately say one way or the other what it was, especially since that was like, 5 or 6 threads ago, which is a matter of weeks per thread.

Check the timings section of the quick rules guide some time later and i should have the answer put up there though, once kamigakari user comes round.

Oh, I meant that the text of Crystal Divider and Crystal Evolution actually call out that it can only be used once per round, like in pic related, not that there's a clause about [Timing: Unique] talents only being available once per round.

oh, my bad. I somehow missed reading the middle of that. Fuckin hell. Lack of sleep is a hell of a drug.

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As per page 259 under "Apply 'Reduce Damage by X'" if an effect says [Damage], it means any kind of typed damage other than HP Damage. HP Damage is usually unblockable by any means.

This is correct. Any time anyone at all makes an Attack Action, everyone gets a Timing: Defense in response to it. They only get one per Attack Action, but as many per round as there are attack actions.

I'm not sure if there was anything else. When I wake up to a bunch of messages it's difficult to know what's been resolved/what hasn't been resolved. Let me know!

So far as the HP damage goes, that sucks a bit but there's very rarely anything that does outright HP damage either, and its usually pretty small amounts, so thats fine. Still, resisting any other type of damage outright is still pretty good.

the other thing was how many times per round you could use talents. I remember hearing something about unique talents at least being 1/round, but i don't know if thats even true, or if it was just unique or if it meant attack talents or what.

There is a global "assume Timing: Unique Talents are 1/round unless otherwise specified" which is mentioned on page 240 under the Unique header. This is basically because you have an unlimited number of Uniques, so they limit how many times you can use them.

Otherwise, I don't think any other Timing has an assumed limit, so unless the Talent itself says something, you can use it as many times per round as you like.

So if you had continuous action and wanted to use secrets of the destroyer twice, you could, but not so much with 99 regalia or something like that.

Okay, thats what i thought, but i wasn't sure. I remember asking about it once upon a time, but that was so long ago i'd forgotten the exact rule.

I'll add this to the quick rules thing for future reference.

Right. 99 Regalia even says 1/round itself, so that checks out.

M'kay, updated the quickrules and FAQ with that, among a couple other small tweaks. Thanks for the concise answers, as always.

I'm having trouble understanding "anime" as a campaign concept. Are there examples within the PDF itself? I only just downloaded it and am reading through the first section.

then don't think of "Anime" as a campaign concept. Thats far too broad a spectrum.

Instead, try and parse it down to bite-size bits. Genre's, if you will.

For example, some anime revolve around hunting monsters. Others involve several factions fighting eachother over this, that, or the other.

Basically, parse it down to anything that has a central conflict that would involve fighting or protecting oneself. Mecha, action, mystery, stuff like that.

Using a rather recent example, boku no hero academia would work quite well in this system, as the various style's could easily emulate "Quirks" from the series. For example, Deku's one for all would likely be God hand A or B.

Mystery? This system can run the mystery genre?

Mystery can be done in most systems. It just requires a hard to figure out central plot point, and a reason to keep your characters invested.

For example, At a meeting of godhunters, one of them mysteriously dies, and no one knows how or why. Now you have a room of superhuman nukes staring eachother down like their lives depend on it.

The only difference is power level. But when all powers are approximately equal, it will balance itself out as either side could win or lose.

Building on this, high power systems are actually an ideal place for mystery, albeit with a liberal use of rule 0.

With the way distortions work, and using rule 0 for a few other things to keep up the ambience, you could easily have a big old horror mansion where they need to work their way through the mansion bit by bit, solving puzzle's, fighting monsters, and shutting down distortions that will weaken some sort of boss monster that follows them around the place.

The thing about kamigakari is that it builds itself on a basis of godly power and japanese lore. And japanese lore is fucking terrifying. So take advantage of that in whatever situation you can.

When someone says anime in this regard, they mean battle shounen/seinen, which means cape comics in Japanese.

You have a bunch of people with funky combat powers punching other people with funky combat powers for reasons that are vaguely inexplicable. This game's funky combat powers are based off of vague Japanese animism and grinding monsters for mats.

Think X-men or the MCU, but with more high schoolers.

Pretty much this.

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That ones pretty cool. I wonder if there's any mononoke like that? If not, one might need to be made.

Okay, now that i have time, i wanna stat those things as a mononoke.

So i'm taking idea's for type, name, abilities, whatever.

What are some good combinations to work in with DC type B?

Well, that depends on what you are going for. Full tank, tank with some offense, tank-support, it all depends on what you want to do with it.

I was thinking tank with some offense. I'm also interested in DC A, but I also discovered the expanded talents in Four Guardian Gods.

If i may be blunt, i honestly don't like the idea of mixing dragon carrier A and B.

It makes you reliant on having a horrendous amount of 5's.

I would suggest using Arc slayer A or Legacy user A if you want to go phys damage, or elemental adept A/Elder mage A for magical damage.

There's ups and downs to each of them, but it will be easier regardless than hoping on that many 5 dice.