Hermit Crab School - Wuxia Game

Located on a high bluff overlooking the a port town, the Hermit Crab School gets its name from its founder, who created the school primarily to entice students from across the empire to study there. His hope was to bond different martial arts communities together and spread their teachings to better aid the Imperial forces.

This is an attempt by a Western gamer to run a wuxia game. The players play martial artists at the Hermit Crab School, a former castle turned into a monastary overlooking a port city. You train, you fight, and protect the common folk from lawless bandits, evil tyrants, and supernatural monsters.

Rules

Character Creation

Choose 8 points worth of Combat Skills

You get 1 Defense for free.

Style – 1 point per rank, apply 1 rank of specialty in one of the combat actions, a favoured weapon, or a maneuver or terrain. You may take up to 2 ranks of disadvantage in specific actions, which reduces your rank in situations involving them, which gives you equal specialty ranks.

Sorcery – 1 per rank, define the kind of magic you use and the effect – sorcery is rolled directly to create the effect.

Defense - 2 per rank, up to a max of 4 at Chargen including free - this is what other players have to beat in order to get Push sux against you. You should have at least 1 of this.

Choose 10 points worth of Skills, non-combat abilities that apply for non-MA actions (Cooking, History, Barter, Survival, Forging, Charm, Medicine)

Combat

Push

Combat is largely the same as most d10 games; rolling D10s against other D10s.

When you fight an enemy, you apply different Styles against the opponents' style.

Any time you engage in combat with another, you roll your relevant Style rating. Choose what kind of action you're doing.

Strike: You hit someone. Roll your Style, and your opponent applies their opponents Defense, a positive result adds as Push on the enemies Bar.

Throw: You attempt to trip or hurl your enemy. Mechanically, you roll your style and apply it against your opponents Defense. A positive result subtracts dice from future Style actions; if Style is reduced to zero, reduce Defense.

Block: You attempt to guard against the opponent's actions. Add your Style rating to your Defense against your opponent's next attack roll.

After your roll, any successes left over are applied at Push against the enemy. Push is the advantage you have over your foe in combat. Applying push is cumulative and negates - it builds up as a fight goes, and opponents applying Push against you erased accumulated Push.

When a character suffers Push against them equal to 5 or more, they are in dire straights. Injuries and damage are possible, as well as coup de grace and finishing moves. When an opponent is at this level, you may attempt to end the fight with a Style roll, applied against the opponent's Style. Push dice above five subtract from the enemy's Style pool, both for normal actions AND for resisting a fight ender or Injury.

Injury: You can cripple an opponent, scar them, or steal an article of clothing or item from them. You may also KO them to end the fight.

Styles

Styles refers to physical martial arts. While some styles at higher levels may allow for supernatural effects, they are supplementary or subtle, and usually involve augmented strength and speed. Your martial arts style is your primary mode of attack.

When you create a style, describe what it favours (hard strikes, throws, counters, and other such things). When you build a style, you get 1 point of specialty that you apply to a kind of action used with it (Throws, Strikes, Blocks, a Weapon, or specific maneuvers or terrain). You may also take disadvantage points to specific actions, which reduce your ranking for the action – these give you another specialty you can put into the same favoured action, or another one.

Sorcery

This represents direct applications of Qi energy to produce overwhelming supernatural effects.

Mechanic: When you create Sorcery, you define the effect – you conjure fireballs, cause the earth to animate under people's feet, or summon spirits or demons.

Sorcery is rolled to activate, using the rating. Success applies the result to the relevant action. Examples include enchanting fists with flames, throwing fireballs, or conjuring a servant to help.

For enhancements, general rule is that half you rating rounded up is added to your Style for the purposes of Push.

For summoning, the entity you summon rolls Sorcery in place of Style, or skill rolls. Define what kind of things your summon can do.