So I have been reading my new rule book for a couple of weeks. I have yet to run a game in this system. I want to make sure I understand the rules before I do.

So my question is a clarification of Ki. I think if works simmilaly to Zeon, where as you have a total, that is how much Ki / Zeon before you have to recover. But each turn you have to accumulate your ki / zeon before you can actually spend the ki / zeon on a technique / spell. What seems different between ki and Zeon, is that instead of one pool of zeon and one accululation stat, you have a different ki and different ka accumulation for each stat. Again I'll say that I haven't played yet. But the Ki system seems overly complex, why do I 8 different ki pools each complete with their own accumulation stat.

So I guess my questions are these:

I am I right about how Ki works?

Isn't this a really akward system, or is it actually much smoother once you get playing?

Is this added layer of complexity nessisary to balance the ki technique system with the other supernatural systems?

When you buy up you ki and ki accumulation do you buy it up for each stat, or do you get some sort of generic pool that can be used for any stat?

Ki is the "power" I find most difficult to use and develop, and control as a GM.

Basically it's like magic, you have a pool, you have to concentrate to take points from this pool and when you have enough you can use the power.

The abilities used in techniques are very varied : increased damage, increased initiative, distance attacks, that's why they don't use the same characterisitc. And making the cost to develop and difficulty of use is because you can do insane things in combat with it. Perhaps an example would be best.

a guy has these accumulations (and KI stock) : 4 Strength (10), 4 Dex (10), 4 Const (10), he wants to use a technique that does +75 damage (6 strength, using the primary characteristic, primary effect cost), +40 attack (6 Dex, using primary characteristic, secondary effect cost), 1 additional defense maintained(primary characteristic Agi costing 2, changed to Agi or Con costing +1 and another +1 for maintaining, secondary effect cost), so the final cost is : 6 Str, 6 Dex, 4 Con.

As accumulation is halved whenever you do another action (other than the one you'll use the technique with), on the first round he'll move or attack and then accumulate 2 Str, 2 Dex and 2 Con, and in the second round he'll accumulate and use the technique at the same time, thus getting 4 Str more for 6 total, 4 Dex more for 6 total, 4 Con more for 6 total so he spends 6 str, 6 dex and 4 Con (the other 2 come back to the reserve), each round he'll pay 1 of any Ki charac to maintain his +1 additional defense.

This is a technique any lvl 1 could produce, he could even split the effects in several techniques with only one effect and maintain them. As Ki is regained fast (1 point in each charac each hour, or better with an advantage) so he could use some techniques each combat.

The effects can become insane very fast, such as additional attacks, zone attacks, intangibility (my lvl 3 Shadow can already do that) but it's very difficult to develop as Ki acc costs a lot and it's in the Combat ability, thus reducing the points you could allocate to attack or dodge.

You have 8 pools of ki, but you sure as hell wont use them all. When you put DP into ki to increase the amount you have you should actually be designing your ki techniques BEFORE the rest of your charecter. Thats why ki is complicated, because you have to work backwards.

After you have made the techniques you want i always check to see how many turns it takes before I can activate the power, and then how many turns it will take before that power runs out. (I like maintainted techniques).

Then I use my DP and even out the amount of ki in all pools that im using so that I am not bottelnecking myself. As in when you run out of ki it should be from your pools your using at the same time. you shouldnt be able to not use your ki technqiue because you ran out of Agility Ki but have plenty of Dexterity ki. Thats just sloppy deisgn if you let something like that happen.

The reason for the various pools of ki was to balance it out, and to allow people to create turly unique abilites. The creator must have assumed if it was all one pool, very OP things would be combined. So various effects are linked to stats. Iniutive for instance is not linked to strength.

So yeah its complex, but I would say nessicarly so to keep things balanced. Also if your new to the game, just avoid ki for the time being.