I know, I know, I knooow... Ki is something many have asked about before, and I apologize thousand times over and over. The Search thingie doesn't help me, so I will just have to embarass myself to be "repetitive" and noobish. But hey, I will just have to be that.

With that out of the way, here are my questionss! =D

I am very confused about this mechanic. What I DO understand are:

-Your Ki Pool is based on your six characteristics Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Power, Will and Constitution.
-Depending on your characteristics, you have a certain amount of starting Ki in each pool equal to the same number, or one more if its above 10.
-Your can accumulate ki per round of doing nothing but charging.
-How to build Ki Dominion abilities (some of them). Although some of the traits are curious to me... (see below).

What I DO NOT UNDERSTAND are:

-How much can you accumulate?
-If you can only charge your ki back, what's the point of Ki Regeneration?
-For the Ki abilities, which pool is depleted when it's used? Is it any of the six pools or a special ki pool not mentioned?
-For Ki Dominion, how do you advance? It mentions something about "when you want to advance your dominion, you must follow it like a tree, etc. etc.". Que?
-Lastly, for the ranged attacks in Ki Dominion techniques, what base damage do they do? Or is it based on what +[insert number] you take? So if I make a ranged attack without extra damage, it's basically just a puff of air that deals no damage?

I'm a Psychic and Summoner expert, but I'll try to help.

1. Up to the same amount as the appropriate stat, and each of them are added to the same pool. So it's like having water bottles of different sizes in a cooler; they each carry a different amount, but contain the same substance.

2. Once you've used ki, it's depleted in the same manner as Free PP; so it regenerates in hours. So, if you were to Accumulate 6 Strength Ki and 4 Dexterity Ki, you would spend 10 Ki out of your pool. That 10 ki regenerates at a rate of 1 per hour, normally.

3. It means that you have to buy a level 1 before a level 2, and a level 2 before a level 3.

4. You mean 'Long Distance Attack' on 103? It states the formula in the second paragraph.

I'd just like to note that on #2, you regenerate 1 Ki per stat per hour, so its technically 6 Generic Ki, 1 Ki in each stat, unless you use the unification of Ki optional rule, then its 1 Ki every 10 minutes (AKA, 6 Ki per hour).

SSB_Shadow said:

1. Your Base Ki Accumulation (see Table 50 on page 94) plus* your Accumulation Multiple for each Primary Characteristic.

*I actually assume this is "times" but I can't find the reference to support it.

2. Accumlating Ki is for bringing Ki from your pool so you can use it. Ki Regeneration is about recovering Ki in your pool once spent. They are two different things.

3. Most Ki Abilities don't require you to spend Ki. Those that do specify the Ki as generic i.e. you can choose them from any Primary Characteristic

4. It would really help if you gave specific references.Are you referring to Technique Levels on page 98? If so, when you create a Technique you need to choose a level: 1, 2, or 3. To make a level 2 Technique, you need to know 2 level 1 Techniques. To make a level 3 Technique, you need to know 2 level 2 Techniques. So generally you will organsie your Techniques into groups of 5 with 2 level 1, 2 level 2 and 1 level 3 Techniques.

5. I assume you mean adding Long Distance Attack to your Dominon Technique. Page 103 states:

To determine a Technique’s long-distance Base Damage, choose either the damage produced by the hand-held weapon or a value equivalent to twice the user’s Base Presence plus his Power Bonus. Thus, a third-level character would produce a damage of 80 plus the corresponding value supplied by his attribute.

Thank you all for your excellent answers. I understand it better and hopefully can get our Technician to work it out better rule-wise and turn down on the DBZ mode.

However, I am a bit slow on the head concerning #1...

I just don't quite get it. o_o

Could you give me an example, perhaps?
I will try to guess, so correct me if I am wrong.

---

For example, if Ping here has the following:
Strength: 7
Dexterity: 11
Agility: 8
Power: 7
Willpower: 8
Constitution: 6
(Are THESE the max ki pool?)

This tells us he has the following base accumulations:
Strength: (Ki 1)
Dexterity: (Ki 2)
Agility: (Ki 1)
Power: (Ki 1)
Willpower: (Ki 1)
Constitution: (Ki 1)

So if I spend an Accumulation for every characterstic each, will they go a step up from their base? (Like following):
Strength: (Ki 2)
Dexterity: (Ki 3)
Agility: (Ki 2)
Power: (Ki 2)
Willpower: (Ki 2)
Constitution: (Ki 2)

And just to make it clear: a fighter starts with 0 Ki at start of a battle, right? And has to charge before unleashing stuff? Can he decide to start charging before a battle or outside battle?

Deleted due to quoting catastrophe.

SSB_Shadow said:

This is the amount of Ki points the PC has full restored and before expenditure.

SSB_Shadow said:

Yes. As said, I have a feeling that each Accumulation Mulitple adds your base Ki, making "Dexterity: (Ki 4)" but I can't find it. The rules explicitly say +1 per Accumulation Multiple so your example is correct.

SSB_Shadow said:

He starts with his full Ki. However, to use that Ki he must first accumulate it. He does this at his Accumulation rate. When he spends it, it reduces his Ki. This then appears in time in accordance with Ki Regeneration.

So to give an example, the PC you noted above starts with:

Strength: 7
Dexterity: 11
Agility: 8
Power: 7
Willpower: 8
Constitution: 6

These are your Ki levels at rest.

He then gets into combat and wants to use the Scales technique from the Dragon (page 107). Leaving aside the fact that you half Accumulation if you take any other action per round, the PC begins to Accumulate Ki from his pool ready for use:

Round One Accumulation

Dexterity: 2
Agility: 1
Constitution: 1

Round Two Accumulation

Dexterity: 4
Agility: 2
Constitution: 2

Round Three Accumulation

Dexterity: 6
Agility: 3
Constitution: 3

So, he can now do the Scales and he spends Dex 3, Con 3, Agi 1 Ki

His Ki levels are now:

Strength: 7
Dexterity: 8
Agility: 7
Power: 7
Willpower: 8
Constitution: 3

When the battle is over, he will begin to recovery 1 Ki per Characteristic per hour or twice that at rest.

Page 32: "Ki Accumulation: Investing this number of DPs, the player adds one to the Ki Accumulation of a characteristic."

And rightfully so; even increasing a Characteristic directly never allows Ki Accumulaton to go over 4. To allow KA to work by factor of multiples instead of addition would break the whole system by making Ki more powerful than it already is.

As for Accumulation itself, Shadow already has it correct. As for 'charging before battle,' refer to the top of Page 95.

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you, guys.

Just one last thing:

What about high-level stuff?
Say, for example, I want to do The Dragon's Breath (from the book), a level 3 dominion technique. I have 15 Strength (15 ki) with an accumulation power of 3 Ki. If I charge up for 5 turns to get 15 Ki, but keep charging even farther up to, say, 30 (base ki multiplied with acc. 3). Then I use the ability (along with the other spendure of other characteristics), burns 15 Ki, but because I charged up to long I still have 15 ki, and technically didn't deplete any Ki from Strength.

This example was perhaps a bit drastic, but it could also be anything lower. A low-level dominion with only 4 Ki Strength depletion per use when you have 30 Ki, etc.

Is this a valid move? And if not, how are you supposed to be "Super Saiyan" if the Ki depletes so fast?

I'm not at my books, but isn't Dragon's Breath Predetermined? That means you HAVE to use it as soon as you accumulate enough. However, beyond that, yes, I do believe you can use that remaining 15 on something else, as if you don't, next round it returns to your pool.

As for the 'Super Saiyan' thing, the majority of that show wasn't energy blasts all day; they'd be fighting hand-to-hand a good deal of the time. Same thing applies here. Most of the time you're not going to WANT to sit around and charge up during battle, especially if your opponent is also a domine or even a mystic. You have no idea what their MA/KA might be, and don't know what they'll use, nor when they'll use it. The key to beating a domine is to either keep them from accumulating (by doing something to force their hand into an action, therefore halving their KA) or make them drop it (by stopping their concentration.) Being aware of this, both your Ki Pool and your Accumulation are essential to Domine playstyle; you need to be able to accumulate fast enough to put your techniques out there.

There's an Advantage in DE that allows full accumulation even when using an action, which you might want to look into.

pirouette said:

I agree.

All right, thanks a lot! I think I am nailing this now. ^^

That is pretty much all of my questions. Just out of curiosity, I asked one of my players (who is my little sister) what kind of special ability she would like her character to learn later. She showed me a move from an anime series and I think it was doable enough as a Ki Dominion. However, just wondering...

Is there any special abilities in the create-your-technique that allows you to control your attack once it's shot out? And is there some kind of "if you miss, the projectiles will turn around and attack again re-roll"-thingie? Most popular would be Yamcha's Spirit Ball / Sokidan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BegbsKCh_w

My sister wants some kind of multiple exploding feather homing attack, if that makes any sense. I hope it's ok if I ask this here rather than making a new topic about it.

Technique maintenance described on page 99 allows you to make more attacks with the same technique in subsequent rounds. It will be expensive however as you are effectively buying multiple versions of the technique in one hit.