Certain Bloodlines, namely the elemental ones, state that they lower the cost of a Ki Technique by 5 martial knowledge. The Example given is of a Legacy of Fire who wishes to learn a Dominion that has Attack Enhancement and Damage Augmentation, which are both fire aspected. The cost of the Dominion is thus reduced by 10 points. My question is how does such a cost reduction interact with the lowest possible cost of a Dominion. Continuing the above example, the technique obviously costs 10 points less. If that Technique already costs only 20 martial knowledge, the minimium amount for a level one Dominion, does he further reduce the cost? Does this trait allow a Technician to purchase Techniques for below the minimum?

My First impression is to say yes, as it preserves the ability for a Legacy to learn techniques from other people. He just learns them easier due to his affinity toward the element. However, some techniques could potentially be reduced to nothing with that ruling, and that doesn't make any sense. That would lead to the thought that the minimal cost is the minimal cost period, and nothing can reduce it. But at that point, the Legacy isn't getting to benefit from his trait. Obviously, this has more to do with using pre-made techniques than developing his own.

Thoughts?

Moonblade224 said:

Improve the technique. You get a -10MK cost to the technique, so make it cost 10 more by adding better effects, reduce the Ki cost by 1 (which costs +10MK), make it Combinable, etc. Basically, because it needs to cost 20MK and you get a discount you can make a better/cheaper technique. I would default to "For every -10MK to the technique you learn it at -1Ki." that way it costs the same to learn, but because you are attuned to the affects it costs less to use.
If you only get 5MK off I don't know what I would do, if it is >20 I would not care about the 5MK, if it is <20 I might modify that technique as GM, or allow the player to make slight modifications to it.

I've considered that approach as well. Unfortunately, it is harder than it looks due to the fact that it's -5 per technique, which sometimes throws the Math off. Was just curious if anyone else had an idea as to an official ruling.

My first time reading through it, it came across as -5 per technique (finalized technique), not each and every aspect within the technique. Not sure if that's of any help or not.

Its for each aligned element in the technique

Here my understanding of the "Elemental aptitude":

1. This reduces the MK costs of all effects, which have the proper element, by 5, except the effect costs already only 5 MK. For example, someone with the fire aptitude could learn a technquie with "attack ability (single) +50", "combat maneuvers and aiming (single) -50" and "damage augmentation +25". Usually it would cost him 30 MK (15 for attack ability, 10 for combat maneuvers and 5 for damage augmentation), but he only pays 25 (10 for the attack ability, because it has the fire element and the mk cost are above 5, 10 for combat maneuvers because it hasn't the fire element and therefore doesn't get the reduction, an 5 for damage augmentation, because it's costs not above 5).

2. To the minimal costs: the elemental aptitude reduces the costs of some effects by 5 points (to an minimum of 5, so you couldn't get them for free), but it never states, that the miminal MK for an technique will be changed. So, I would say, you must pay, for a level 1 technique at least 20 MK. If one learned a technquie with 20 MK cost from another person and at least has an aptitude with one effect, he would also pay 20 MK. Perhaps, you could rule it, that he could get the "reduction of Ki-costs" (and in some cases, must pay 5 MK more than the person he learned it from), but I think, the minimal MK costs aren't modified by the elemental aptitude.

So long,

I believe this is addressed on page 45 under the "Creation of a Technique - Step By Step" section specifically in Step 4: Calculate Technique MK where it states "Note that if the cost in MK of the effects chosen is lower than the minimum value allowed by the level of the Technique, the player can still create it, but its cost will be the minimum for its level."

So basically you can reduce the cost for a level 2 technique to below 40 but it will still cost at least 40 MK.

Of course I am new to the system but it seems clear to me. If I run into this I will either reduce the Level of the technique (if possible) or choose better effects as suggested (by Lia Valenth).

Darthsylver has the right of it.

However, just because you are paying 20 MK for a technique that should only cost 10, doesn't mean that you should always seek to improve it all the way to 20. Remember more effects mean more Ki cost.

AlphaWhelp said:

Except, as pointed out above, if it is 10 less than the minimum you can increase it to the minimum by decreasing the Ki cost. This is a great way to increase the MK if you need to.

Lia Valenth said:

Except that you can only decrease the Ki cost if a particular effect is spread out over 3 abilities minimum, which means increasing the Ki cost

I imagine most techniques costing 10 MK are cheap enough that they can be accumulated for entirely with a single characteristic, maybe 2. three is paying unnecessary amounts of Ki.

No, the technique must use 3 different characteristics, not any effect in the technique. So, if I make a technique with 3 effects, each effect uses a different characteristic to get its ki points from (so, I use 3 characteristics for this technique), I can also lower the ki costs.

So long,

F3nr1s said:

Except now you are adding 2 extra effects which each use the secondary Ki point cost leading to spending even more Ki than simply taking one Ki effect and spreading it across 3 characteristics. And you have to try really really really hard to come up with a Ki technique that uses 3 effects and is still less than 20 Martial Knowledge.

For example:

Sirius, Black Light. It uses 3 characteristics, costs 20 MK and has to effects with same elements (could be used with elemental aptitude fire or air). With this, I could reduce the MK costs to 10, so I can get ki reduction one time.

Similar with Jocasta, Edge of Shadow (fire), 25 MK to 15 MK

I found, in two minutes, 2 techniques, which have all the condition (low MK costs, at least 3 characteristics and enough m reduction through one elemental aptitude, so that they would below their minimum mk limit), so it couldn't be this hard.

Also, if I look at the techniques in DE: Most (not all, but most) have at least 3 characteristics, so I don't see your argument, that it would be expensive etc..

So long,

Expensive Ki wise, not expensive MK wise. You'll notice by quickly looking over the techniques in DE that use 3 or more characteristics are also more expensive than all the ones that use one or two characteristics (general rule, haven't closely examined the book enough to say this is absolute).

So the process of splitting up your technique so that it covers 3 characteristics just so you can increase the MK cost by 10 so that it costs you 1 point less Ki will always turn out to be a more expensive technique than if you just left it at 1 or 2 characteristics and did not reduce the Ki cost.

You spend less Ki if the ability is only 1 or 2 characteristics, unless you reduce Ki cost by 1 point extra than the 3rd characteristic.

The cheapest possible Primary char Ki cost is 1, the cheapest Secondary cost is 2. If I take 1 Primary and 2 Secondary, I now pay 5 Ki, if I reduce by 1, I pay 4. That is more expensive than Paying just 1, or just 3 (one primary + one secondary).

If you are spreading Ki of one effect over multiple characteristics, you must reduce Ki by an amount at least 1 more than the spread cost. So if distributing to a Char+1 characteristic, you must reduce Ki cost by at least 2 or else you are wasting Ki. If you spread one effect to a Char+1 and Char+2 (most effects do not have two Char+1s) then you must reduce Ki Cost by 4 to not waste Ki.

AlphaWhelp said:

But, as pointed out, you can create a technique that requires Attribute A: 1, Attribute B: 1, Attribute C: 2, creating a much more powerful technique that can be used on turn one with ease (especially considering if you spend 1 Fatigue you get +1 to all attributes) and while this does increase the Ki cost slightly, in combat the affect on your Ki pool will be Miniscule. Personally I like to spread my abilities over as many attributes as possible, because it allows me to make really strong techniques that can be used in 1 turn. Sure it makes a character need a slightly larger Ki pool, but then Technitians are the main people this concerns and they can get Ki pretty cheap.