Thursday, July 4, 2013

More on magic in Chanbara

There are six "schools" of magic in Chanbara.  I still haven't decided what to call them, schools or traditions or domains or ???.  In my draft they're just noted as types at the moment.  Anyway, the six types are:

Divination - knowing is half the battle
Elemental - mostly attack spells
Ki - body and mind effects
Protection - self explanitory
Spirit - grab bag of stuff to deal with spirit creatures
Transformation - again, fairly self explanitory

There are five levels of spells, with each type/school having 3/3/2/2/1 for a total of 18 1st level spells, 18 2nd level spells, 12 3rd level spells, 12 4th level spells, and 6 5th level spells.  A few are new ones I made up, but most are borrowed/adapted from D&D or Flying Swordsmen.

As I mentioned last post, I've transformed the Yokai race-classes into separate racial choices for characters.  This drops the number of classes to nine, with five of them having some access to spells.

Yamabushi - the pure caster, they get no Combat Maneuvers (combat oriented special abilities/feats) or Tricks (thiefy special abilities/feats), just Spells and Secrets (magical special abilities/feats).  They get Elemental, Protection, Spirit and Transformation spells.

Onmyoji - demon/spirit hunters who are primarily spell-casters, they also gain some Tricks on the side at the expense of some Secrets.  They get Divination, Protection and Spirit spells.

Shinsen - enlightened mortals or semi-transformed immortals, they are primarily spell-casters, but have some Combat Maneuvers as well and are a bit more buff.  They get Elemental, Ki and Transformation spells.

Sohei - warrior-monks with mostly combat prowess but some spell access (up to level 3 spells and Secrets).  They get Ki, Protection and Spirit spells. 

Gorotsuki - shinobi who use performance and magic to hide their covert acts, they primarily get Tricks, but have some spell access (again, up to level 3 spells and Secrets).  They get Divination, Ki and Transformation spells.

As for the changes to the Yokai, originally Kappa were Samurai/Ninja cross class, Kitsune were Yamabushi/Ninja cross class, and Tengu were Samurai/Yamabushi cross class.  Now, I've limited each Yokai race to certain classes:

Kappa: Samurai, Ronin, Kagemusha, Ninja (all the non-spellcasting classes).
Kitsune: Yamabushi, Onmyoji, Gorotsuki, Ninja (all the non-combat classes).
Tengu: Samurai, Sohei, Shinsen, Yamabushi (all the non-shinobi classes).

I may open the Yokai classes up, allowing Kappa any Bushi or Shinobi class (so they could cast spells as Sohei or Gorotsuki up to level 3); Kitsune any Shinobi or Maho-tsukai class (so they could get combat maneuvers up to level 3 as Kagemusha and Shinsen); Tengu any Bushi or Maho-tsukai class (so they could get Tricks up to level 3 as Ronin and Onmyoji).  We'll see.




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