Homebrew Dragon Ball RPG Work...powers are a problem...

Hey everyone; once again I return to my homebrew game rules for a Dragon Ball RPG.

Now while I've figured out skills and characteristics, the one thing vexing me are powers.  I'm of the mind to try and keep things relatively simple.  That is it could not be overly complex in how one uses their powers.  In the world of Dragon Ball powers can be grouped into one of three specific categories (from what I've seen):

1. Ki
2. Magic
3. Psionics

Now ki is the bread and butter of the setting and powers can be set up in one of two groups: Special Techniques, and Normal Techniques.  So attacks like the "Kamehameha", or "Final Flash" fall into the group of Special Techniques.  Boosting one's strength, normal ki blasts, flying, or resisting damage fall into the Normal Techniques group.

Right now the rules I've written up are a bit too complex for my taste.  They run off the skill Channel Ki, and the other powers will have their own respective skills.

So here is a look into my notes on ki; keep in mind that it's a work in progress.

[NOTE:  All work for this game are original thoughts/intellectual property of me - that is just the game mechanics/rules; Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super, Dragon Ball GT and all characters there in are all copyrighted to Toei Animation & Akira Toriyama...just so you all know.  This work is in no way official and is a fan based creation.]

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Ki Powers

In order to use ki powers the character needs to gain the Ki Released trait which grants access to the Channel Ki skill.  Ki powers make use of this skill in order to determine their effectiveness.  In order to use any ki powers a character must either make use of the inherent amount of ki in their body or they must gather ki first.

Gathering Ki:  Characters have an initial ki score that denotes the amount of ki that the character can have in their body at any time.  However a character has only 1/5^th this available when at rest; this is why characters spend time powering up before they use their ki based abilities.  There exist a few methods by which a character can gather ki.

·         Physical Generation:  When fighting a character generates ki.  Once in combat, as you make melee attacks, you generate ki.  You gain 1 point of ki per melee attack you make.

·         Power Up:  The other side is to focus one’s mind and attempt to draw out and gather your ki to reach the maximum capacity that your body can hold.  This takes the characters full allotment of actions, and allows you to roll your Channel Ki skill.  However in doing this the character must convert Stamina to Ki equal to the amount of what was rolled at a 1 for 1 rate.  Note that just because you can gather X amount of Ki doesn’t mean you have to if it means expending all of your Stamina.

A character’s Ki score will have two subsets of numbers, one for PG (Physical Generation), and PU (Power Up) ratio.

·         PG can be increased by spending AP.  Increasing the amount of ki gained the cost is the current score x 100.

·         PU can be increased as well with AP.  Here the rate increases the ki gotten from the roll/stamina spent.  Thus if you spend 1 Stamina you would gain 2 ki.  The cost for this is the current score x100.

Ki Attack:  This is where the character uses their ki to either create a ranged energy attack, or to empower their unarmed attacks.  Note, character’s like Chi Chi and Videl can use their ki, but often cannot use ki blasts.  This is restriction that comes from either just the player refusing to use that aspect of ki, or they take a Negative Trait.

·         Standard Ki Blast:  This is a focused blast of ki that deals damage at a range.  The blast fired is often the size of a football and creates a localized explosion on a single target.

o   Damage:  d6’s are rolled for this and cost 3 points of ki per 1d6.

o   Range:  Initial range of a ki attack is Point Blank.  The “Extended Range” enhancement is needed to improve upon this.

o   Roll:  The amount of ki in the attack determines the base DS of the attack, being 3 ki for 3 DS.

·         Ki Strike:  This is where ki is focused into one’s melee strikes giving them explosive force.

o   Unarmed Damage Bonus:  Add 1d6 to your unarmed strikes per 2 points of ki.  Because this enhances an existing source of damage the ki cost is higher.

o   Roll:  The amount of ki in the attack determines the base DS of the attack, being 2 ki for 5 DS.  Channeling ki in this manner without harming one’s body is more difficult than it is to simply release one’s ki to do harm at a distance.

·         Enhancements:  Ki attacks can have enhancement effects added to them that not only increase the DS of the roll, but also the ki cost.  The cost for each enhancement is 1 ki point per die in the attack, this also increases the DS by the same amount.  Keep in mind that this is per level applied.  Thus if you have 5 die in damage the enhancement can be increased by 1 level for the cost of +5 ki/+5 to the DS.  But if you wanted to increase the enhancemtn further you would keep adding to it in this manner.

o   Explosive:  When the attack hits it detonates covering an area in its explosion.  This area is within the Point Blank range band.  This can be taken again to have the explosion apply to another range band up to the maximum level possible. Damage lessens however out from the point of impact.  (For more on this see Explosions in the combat section.)

o   Lethal:  An attack that is made lethal is capable of punching through a targets ability to resist damage.  Each time this is taken it negates a number of points in the target’s Toughness score equal what was taken.

o   Tracking:  A tracking attack is able to follow a target so long as the user maintains control over the power.  Each time taken allows for an attack to be maintained for an additional action until it lands or detonates, however each time it is maintained it loses that amount of points in damage as well.

o   Extended Range:  The range of the attack can be increased by one level per allotment of ki spent per die.

o   Beam:  A beam attack is a line that can be traced via a beam like a laser.  This attack is fast and difficult to evade.  Essentially this grants you a +1 to your attack rolls per expenditure of ki.

o   Stunner:  This converts the attack from one that deals purely damage to one that imparts the Stunned condition.  When used you decide how many dice of damage the stun condition will apply to.  Once decided roll damage separately from the other dice.  These “stun dice” set the DS of for the targets Resistance rolls and duration.  Each die has the stun condition last 1 turn. 

·         Channel Ki Roll:  The roll is about control of the power one is channeling.

o   Roll Success:  On a successful roll the power is used at its desired effect.

o   Roll Failure:  If you fail the skill roll then a few interesting things can happen.  When a failure occurs roll 1d6.

§  1-2 = Your power gets out of control on you.  The strain of this drains your Stamina costing an amount of Stamina equal to the ki cost of the power.

§  3-6 = You maintain control, but must reduce the power down to the minimum you can control with your roll.

It costs no AP to make use of these basic capabilities for a ki user.

Signature Attack:  This is a unique ki attack that is handled separately from other ki abilities.  Here you have to pay AP for these attacks.  A signature attack is made from the same process as a normal ki attack, but is more powerful and has a few different options available.

·         Damage Increase:  Ki attacks normally do a d6 in damage, but to upgrade the die type rolled for a signature attack, the cost is 50 AC for the first die, and doubles each time thereafter.  This is required to be bought at least once if the character wants to have a signature attack.  The damage die increase applies for either the ranged attack or melee, however in the case of the melee attack this applies only to the damage for the signature attack, and does not affect the characters normal melee damage dice.

·         Charge:  Signature ki attacks can all be charged.  This allows the character to build up more power in a signature attack than would normally be possible.  Here the character can expend additional actions to make more Channel Ki rolls to perform a “Power Up” action, however this power is being dumped directly into the attack, but the extra power gained cannot exceed what is already put into the attack from the initial roll to use the power.

·         Enhancements:  Signature attacks possess additional enhancements over that of normal ki attacks.  The ki cost and increase in DS for the Channel Ki roll are still figured the same.  However you must choose 1 of these enhancements that acts as the primarily “permanent” enhancement for the attack.  The previous enhancements can only be added if made permanent as well.  As such each additional enhancement added to the Signature attack will double its AP cost.

o   Wave:  The attack is what is known as a wave type attack.  This is a large beam like attack that primarily hits a single target, but has the potential to affect multiple targets.  When the opponent is hit if the damage is more than what the target can block, or resist they are enveloped.  The beam continues on with each additional target in the affected area and the attack is applied to them in the same way.  Once a target is enveloped the character can expend more ki on their following turn equal to what is already in the attack to keep the pressure on.  This however requires the sacrifice of the character’s other actions.

o   Disk/Beam:  The disk enhancement applies a significant change in the nature of the attack.  The disk is especially suited for cutting and can apply the severed condition.  The attack with this is automatically considered to have 1 level of Lethal applied at all times.  If the attack hits and does damage that is 3x the Toughness score of the target then suffers the Severed Condition.  The Beam version of this is similar but fires a beam of some sort that affects all targets in a straight line, (not unlike a wave), but stops at the first target if it fails to punch through their toughness.  This beam works differently than that of the normal beam type.  Additionally instead of imposing the Severed condition, the attack is considered to have 2 levels of Lethal instead.  Should the attack do damage than 3x the Toughness score of a target then it punches through the target to apply to the next target directly behind them.

o   Buster:  This is a powerful blast that detonates in an area.  This function’s in the same way as explosion, except it does not loose in damage over the distances affected.

Once a signature attack is made no new enhancements can be added to it.  Instead if the character wants to add to it, they must craft a new version of the attack to add to what they already have.  This rule however can be temporarily ignored under certain conditions (see “Wishes” for more).

Ki Booster:  In addition to using one’s ki for performing attacks, one can also use their ki to increase their physical capabilities several fold.  Ki Boost can be used to improve on Strength & Combat Stats.

·         Strength Boost:  The skill roll improves the character’s overall strength.  The base difficulty for the roll is equal to the character’s current Might score for the minimum effect which increases the characters the character’s Strength score by x1.5, and Damage increases by 1 die.  Increasing it further is based upon the multiplier you wish to add, which can include a .5 as in addition to a whole number.  This multiplier is applied to the difficulty of the roll, and if successful you get to multiply the existing Strength score by that.  In the case of damage the whole number of the multiplier adds a static bonus to the damage you deal, thus if a multiplier is x3, then you get a +3 dice to damage.

·         Combat Boost:  The skill roll improves on the characters over all combat capabilities by improving the Combat stat.  This essentially increases the dice in the characters Melee Combat and Ranged Combat skills.  This also improves defense as well.  The increase in the Combat score by 1 point sets a base DS being equal to the characters Combat score +3.

·         Combining Strength & Combat Boosts:  It is possible to combine both of these into a single boost.  Here you simply figure the DS for each, add them together.  So if you wanted to boost your Strength by x4 (Might is 4) the DS is 16.  And if you take 4 levels of Combat boost (Combat 4 as well), then the DS is 16 as well.  The final DS is 32 to activate both boosts.  It’s often a good idea to figure out boost levels ahead of time for both single and double boosts.  This makes it easier to figure things out when a game is up and running.

·         Ki Cost:  The cost in ki is equal to half the DS of the roll.  This ki cost must be paid one time at the start of the character’s turn in order to maintain it, no new skill rolls are needed to maintain this.  If the ki cost is not paid the effect ends.

Ki Stunts:  These are a few additional capabilities that the character can do with their ki.  These stunts need AP to be spent in order to access them.  The expenditure is simply 50AP per stunt.

·         Ki Barrier:  Ki can be used to block or reduce the damage one would sustain from attacks.  Here a Channel Ki skill roll is made to raise one’s Toughness score.  Your roll here applies its score directly to your Toughness score and the Ki cost is half the amount generated.

·         Ki Flight:  Ki can be used to fly.  At its base level the character’s normal movement is used to fly, costing only 1 point of ki per turn to maintain.  To fly faster you expend an additional point of ki and make a skill roll applying the result of the roll to your movement while flying.  You can continue to spend ki in this manner in one go, with each additional point of ki allowing a multiplier to be applied to the roll.  Thus for +1 ki point you add just the skill roll.  For +2 ki points you double the skill roll, and so forth.  Once flight is brought up you simply need to maintain flight by expending the needed ki, even if one is on the ground.  It is also possible to fly at non-combat high speeds, but keep in mind that while flying you can still hit things in the air, as such the character may need a “blast field”

·         After Image:  While moving you can make a Channel Ki skill roll, and expend ki equal to half the roll.  Opponents that target the character must make a perception roll vs. the Channel Ki roll you made.  If they fail the roll then each attack they make against you has a chance to fail to hit, incurring a penalty to the attack roll based upon the roll divided by 3.

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Kind of a mess right...but that's how one's notes are typically.

Obviously I need to refine this for ki powers, but what about Magic and then Psionics?

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?  Let me know in the comments section or reach out to me on Facebook.