Divine Spirits' UniverseI remember having heard you had nerfed this.
I did. It is pretty much the same as before minus the desire spirit mechanics and I lowered its range to 20/IL from 50/IL.
Strongly suggest making a more gradual thing, like reducig the enemy miss chance by your Listen check. Also reducing the uber tremorsense range. 5 feet per IL would still be pretty damn good.
Certainly. Good idea.
Wishful Soul of DesireI had meant to limit level 1 burst by making it impossible to enter Trance Mode before HD 4 with a minimum key skill ranks requirement in the How does it Work but I forgot that it is possible to get the needed spirits via Tenfold Listening. I could revamp things by putting a cap on maximum number of spirits that can be used at a time to half initiator level or the equivalent in skill ranks in the key skill. That would ensure only a level 20 character can use all 10 spirits in a single maneuver. Then remove the spirit cap without Trance bit. I'd just change this maneuver's linked trance effect to something else that reflects this change. Like use 1 more spirit than your maximum spirit per maneuver.
Honor "Colors of Twelve Levels"Its the same maneuver as before, though I added the actual colors as per the official ranks of the era and actually reduced the duration from what it was.
I could put that duration as a maximum that requires concentration, minimum 1. Similar system for other similar boosts.
It cannot help with celerity type spells since all effects that grant you a disadvantage (or other form of sacrifice) cannot be bypassed for the effect to work since it is part of the effect. Similar to how spells inflicting you ability drain/damage/burn cannot be spammed because of an immunity.
Also, I did some changes to a few maneuvers but I seem to have not saved them. This maneuver and its improved version are not supposed to only keep half the spirits released. Going to fix that.
Secret Treasure "Armillary Sphere of Ikaruga-dera"Aye. Part of the corrections that didn't save. Now I wonder what else didn't. >_<
Wait, although you can't trap enemies inside, you can still use it to block corridors and whatnot, so kinda imba in low level dungeons
Agreed. I could make it very brittle until it has a certain amount of spirits spent into it. With the change in spirit per maneuver, it wouldn't last long at low level. If the duration is too long for an impromptu wall all the same, I could further reduce the duration to 1 extra round per 2 spirits or more. Otherwise I could make it a higher level maneuver and try not to affect the pattern I have in the order of the maneuvers too much.
Thunder Arrow "Gagouji's Cyclone"The linked stance effect is the stance swap from the maneuver of the same name that is level 4 maneuver.
So its minimum IL 7, and between Trance use you must re-enter a stance, recover both this maneuver and Thunder Rites (which can only be recovered after leaving it) then initiate Thunder Rites to be able to trance this maneuver on the following round unless two swift actions can be used per round. The dispel is a level 4 effect that can thus normally be used once every 3 rounds. If they have the feat or roll less than 4.
Then, you have to actually hit that ranged attack or its all wasted and you leave your stance and did all that for nothing. There are better ways and maneuvers for a quicker way to dispel things out of combat at the same minimum level.
Influence of the EastI'll have it affect allies too. This reminds me I have to add the light descriptor to all the light effect maneuvers.
I tested it in-game and I'll have line area effects bypass it the ranged attack block. Though I'm tempted to switch it around and have the base effect prevent all mundane ranged weapon attacks, then magic ones for X spirits, area attacks except lines for Y spirits and the have the trance also block movement, then everything else for 10 spirits.
Tao Sign "Heavenly Ways in the Palm of One's Hand"Not sure how using it between fights help since you can just start the fight in Trance mode instead. This one feels more like something to benefit from during battle, and mostly if you do not have the feat to enter Trance mode faster.
Benign Rain from the Shining OneI don't get the part about the laser range increments.
It isn't a full-attack on everything at range but a full attack that can be done with all the targets within the cylinder as possible targets. Meaning you could, say, make a single fullattack with a sword as if everyone in the area was adjacent to you. Then there is bonus damage.
Gah why do the multi-target long duration boosts keep appearing?
Those maneuvers are actually the same as they were before but weaker. I reused them since they were Miko's. They either had a better duration or more possible targets back then.
Thunder Rites "Children of the Gods"This maneuver is actually exactly as it was back then. I'll scratch the custom arrow enhancements on Trance. It doesn't need it.
Discernment "Laser of Seventeen Articles"I agree I'll have to be careful on my wording to avoid making it possible to carry weapons you cannot use normally for effects relying on the weapon you keep sheathed.
Can maybe reduce the Trance damage maybe to the skill modifier.
Hermit Sign "Taoist of the Land of the Rising Sun"This one is the same as before as well.
It doesn't allow you to make a turn/rebuke attempt at undeads as an immediate action. It makes it so your stance allows you to make a better turn/rebuke if you already have that ability until you use another maneuver.
Secret Treasure "Prince Shoutoku's Out-of-place Artifact”Geez, doesn't your poster character has a missing arm?
For the Hermit, yes. Not True Administrator.
It wouldn't cure anything until IL 20 now so I guess that takes care of that. To mitigate the duration I could have the spirits invested into it be unrecoverable, so you cannot just recover them after using it. That and make it so that you suffer any damage dealt to the reliquary if it is damaged.
And I must say you may've as well made a class around this instead of a school. It has its special resource that doesn't interact with anything else, it has a single basic stance that it's linked to every single maneuver (and the other stance specifically demands it) so it's the one you'll always be using, and the maneuvers are mostly useless if you're not in said special stance. Then stuff like greater save DCs than usual all over the place.
Besides the addition of the spirit resource, its pretty much the same as before. I could make a monster class synergize with it the way vampire blood charges can be invested into SftD but I don't remember any super Taoist-like monster. Though perhaps one based on attracting spirits could do. Not sure I'll feel like making one though. The rest of the mechanics was around before I revamped it and then "Overall the stuff seems cool and original". Stuff like greater DC than usual is only for the Trance effects. At least I hope.
Them being granted to maneuvers by default started here with Chinese Star.
One of the biggest selling points of ToB schools is that you can mix and combine stuff between schools. This completely eliminates that, and may as well be its own isolated subsystem. It's kinda the same problem you're going with your darkness school, where you have a bunch of uber maneuvers that get directly more uber just by having more maneuvers of that school readied, meaning you're actively punishing yourself if you dare to take maneuvers from another school.
It is a selling point of the ToB disciplines system but one of the selling points of the Tohou Battle Grimoire is that most disciplines offer enough maneuvers at each level to focus on a single one. Which goes well with the notion that most Tohou characters only use their own spellcards and would thus only use their one discipline.
These maneuvers can be used by themselves but the stance is indeed meant to encourage you to use tao maneuvers instead of something else. As you said, the maneuvers become mostly useless if you aren't in the required stance but I feel they can still be useful for a discipline dabbler. Otherwise, I could broaden ease of mixing disciplines by changing Desire Dream to have it work with other disciplines instead of Dream Battle specifically and a slight nerf to the tao synergy with the chosen discipline by fixing the distance to 10-ft. instead of 10-ft. per stance level.
