Chi Bolt!

What I'm Working On
The Chi rules as informed by the Generic Archetype Traits.

The Chi Rules
As said, these are the mystical martial arts powers. In this case we will be looking at Chi Bolt--the ability to throw Chi "Fireballs" from your hands!

How Does It Work?
Well, the Chi attack power is pretty unusual by JAGS standards. Here's how we want it to work:

1. It's a ranged attack--Impact damage, 5 REA to throw, Rate of fire 1x per Round
2. Any round you don't use it you can for "0 REA" charge it. So if you throw it on Round 1 it does X damage--but on Round 2 it'll do 2X (not really--just for ease of thinking about it) and on Round 3? Almost 3X! So the more you hold it in reserve, the better!
3. You can use your "1 shot" to improve damage done with a strike. Not by as much--but it'll add. This has the same effect: the more you hold it in reserve, the more it adds.
4. If you have invested enough Character Points (CP) in Chi Training you can do some tricks such as area of effect attacks (Chi Bomb) and Chi Power Blast which is a higher-damage 8 REA version.

Why So Complex?

Well, it's so complex because it does a lot of things we like. It meets the Chi Battle criteria of having you not do the same thing every Round and having strategies that go from one Round to another. It also gives you the option to use it in a few different ways which is unusual for a JAGS power but works for what we're trying to do.

So How Does This Work?

Right now? Uhh .. okay: Here's the charts.

The RED is the costs in Damage per level (8 APs). So if I spend 8 AP I get 10 IMP damage every Round, 22 if I fire every other, and 32 if I fire every third.

If I spend 16 APs (two levels of Chi Attack) I get 17 damage on Round 2 I'd get 33 damage (22+11) and on Round 3 I'd do (32+21) 53 damage.

So anyway. Then in PURPLE you see the other attack types. Forget the %'s for a second--you wouldn't see that in the book per se. You'd see tables that, if I did the math right, lead to the below numbers.

Why Ever Use A Chi Punch Instead of A Chi Bolt?

So we can see that a Chi Punch (or kick) does +X damage where X is less than the bolt does. This is partly because the punch adds to your martial arts damage and the bolt doesn't. However, there's another possibility: what if throwing a Chi Bolt is a long action?

What Would That Mean?

Typically taking a Long Action means the target can respond by taking a Medium Action (any regular attack) to hit you before your Long Action ends. If you are in close range to a hand-to-hand fighter you wouldn't want to do that (although, with a Long Attack, there's a trade off: if they hit you, they can't block or dodge--but neither can you).

So that would relegate the move to being a long-range style deal. Which is good. The bad side is that a cop (a mundane cop) could shoot you while you're throwing a Chi Bolt at them--it'd be "slower than a gun." I'm not so sure I like that. But I kinda do.

In any event: it's on the table.

-Marco