Fighting Styles

Sometimes, you want to create a unified system to represent a Fighting Style that’s passed from master to student, father to son and shared by a group of warriors. Through this set of Optional Rules, you can make your own Fighting Style and bring it into the Dragon Universe!

Fighting Style Creation

At any point found fitting by your ARC, you may work with your ARC to create a Fighting Style or your ARC may create some Fighting Styles that characters can opt into from the start of the campaign or after undergoing training with a certain master, as a way of representing them belonging to a certain lifestyle or martial arts school. A Fighting Style is represented by a number of Talents and Signature Techniques which, when all possessed by a single character grant them a bonus, known as a Philosophy.

Fighting Styles are separated into 3 degrees of mastery: Novice, Expert and Master. Each one is represented by 2 Talents and a Signature Technique, but you must possess the lower degrees of mastery to qualify for this degree of mastery. Each degree of mastery grants additional bonuses to your Philosophy.

Instead of a different Signature Technique for each degree of mastery, the original Signature Technique gained for the Novice degree of mastery can be improved. The improvements must be selected at the time of Fighting Style Creation by the Fighting Style Creator and each improvement for a degree of mastery must increase the Technique Point Cost of a Signature Technique by at least +10. Improvements can be as simple as removing Disadvantages or they may be represented through adding additional Advantages. An improvement to an existing Signature Technique, however, cannot add any Disadvantages. A fun way to mark this is giving each degree of mastery for a single Signature Technique different names (i.e. ‘Kamehameha’, ‘Super Kamehameha’ and ‘Limit Breaking Kamehameha’).

For example, to be a Novice for the Turtle School Fighting Style, you may require the Combat Expertise and Resilience Talents, alongside the ‘Kamehameha’ Signature Technique. Then, if you would attempt to gain Expert, you would have to additionally gain the Cunning Evasion and Artful Strike Talents and make the listed changes to the ‘Kamehameha’ Signature Technique to make it the ‘Super Kamehameha’ Signature Technique. It’s only after meeting the requirements for both the Novice and Expert degrees of mastery that you would gain the Expert-level Philosophy bonus from this Fighting Style. If you had the Combat Expertise, Cunning Evasion and Artful Strike Talents, along with the ‘Super Kamehameha’ Signature Technique, you would still not qualify for the Philosophy bonus from either Novice or Expert (despite following Expert’s requirements) because you lack the Resilience Talent that is required to meet the requirements for the Novice degree of mastery.

Style Philosophy. The Philosophy of a Fighting Style represents its purpose, what it is meant to symbolize and how it is intended to deal with a Combat Encounter. It serves as an additional bonus once all requirements are met that is permanently active during a Combat Encounter.

When you create a Fighting Style, aside from listing the prerequisites, you must also select a Philosophy. Depending on the degree of mastery (see above), the bonus will become more prominent.

Below are a list of Philosophies:

Philosophy	Novice	Expert	Master
Dynamic	Whatever you like!	Whatever you like!	Whatever you like!
Growth	Increase the Dice Category of your Tier of Power and Superiority Extra Dice by +1 for your Dodge Rolls.	Increase the Dice Category of your Tier of Power and Superiority Extra Dice by +1 for your Strike Rolls.	Increase the Dice Category of your Tier of Power and Superiority Extra Dice by +2 for your Wound Rolls.
Assassination	Increase the Natural Result on your base d10 for your Wound Rolls on your Signature Techniques by +2.	Increase the Natural Result on your base d10 for your Strike Rolls on your Signature Techniques by +2.	If you would score a Critical on either your Strike or Wound Rolls for a Signature Technique, increase the Wound Roll for that Signature Technique by +3(bT).
Destruction	Increase all of your Wound Rolls by +2(bT).	All of your Ultimate Signature Techniques treat your Tier of Power as if it was +1 higher for your Wound Roll.	All of your Super Signature Techniques treat your Tier of Power as if it was +1 higher for your Wound Roll.
Conquest	Increase all of your Strike Rolls by +1(bT).	All of your Ultimate Signature Techniques treat your Tier of Power as if it was +1 higher for your Strike Roll.	All of your Super Signature Techniques treat your Tier of Power as if it was +1 higher for your Strike Roll.
Survival	Increase all of your Dodge Rolls by +1(bT).	If you are targeted by an Ultimate Signature Technique, treat your Tier of Power as if it was +1 higher for your Dodge Roll against that Attacking Maneuver.	If you are targeted by a Super Signature Technique, treat your Tier of Power as if it was +1 higher for your Dodge Roll against that Attacking Maneuver.
Protection	Increase your Soak Value by +1(bT).	If you are targeted by an Ultimate Signature Technique or use the Intervene Maneuver to take the Damage from one for an Ally, treat your Tier of Power as if it was +2 higher for Soak Value against that Attacking Maneuver.	If you are targeted by a Super Signature Technique or use the Intervene Maneuver to take the Damage from one for an Ally, treat your Tier of Power as if it was +1 higher for Soak Value against that Attacking Maneuver.
Deceit	Reduce the Critical Target on your Strike and Wound Rolls against an Opponent suffering from a Combat Condition by -1.	Reduce the Critical Target on your Strike and Wound Rolls against an Opponent suffering from a Combat Condition by an additional -1.	If you would score a Critical on either your Strike or Wound Rolls for an Attacking Maneuver against an Opponent with a Combat Condition, increase the Wound Roll for that Attacking Maneuver by +2(bT).
Self Preservation	Increase the amount of Life Points you regain from the Healing Surge Maneuver by +3(bT).	Increase the amount of Life Points you regain from the Healing Surge Maneuver by an additional +3(bT).	When you leave a Health Threshold due to gaining Life Points, you may immediately gain +1 Action to use during your turn.
Self Sacrifice	Whenever you would reduce your own Life Points, increase your Wound Rolls by +2(bT) until the end of your turn.	Whenever you would reduce your own Life Points, increase your Strike Rolls by +1(bT) until the end of your turn.	You do not suffer the penalties from a Health Threshold if you entered that Health Threshold by reducing your own Life Points.
Self Reflection	When using the Block or Deflect options of the Parry Maneuver, reduce your Critical Target for those Strike Rolls by -2.	If you successfully defend against an Attacking Maneuver using the Block or Deflect options of the Parry Maneuver, regain +4(bT) Ki Points.	If you successfully defend against an Attacking Maneuver using the Block or Deflect options of the Parry Maneuver, treat your Tier of Power as if it was +1 higher for the duration of your next Attacking Maneuver.

Multiple Styles. While you may possess multiple Fighting Styles, you can only benefit from the Philosophy from one Fighting Style at any one time. At the start of a Combat Encounter, you can choose which Fighting Style you are benefiting from and by spending One Action during your turn, you can choose to change which Fighting Style you are benefiting from.

Additional System Tools for Fighting Styles

Talent: Multi-Style Master

Multi-Style Master

– Once per Combat Round, you may switch which Fighting Style you are benefiting from as an Instant Action.

– Once per Combat Encounter, when using a Signature Technique that is part of one Fighting Style, you may add up to +3 applicable Advantages from another Fighting Styles Signature Technique to that Signature Technique.

Prerequisite – 2+ Fighting Styles with a degree of mastery of Expert or higher

Talent: Dedicated Technique

Dedicated Technique

– When you gain this Talent, select one Fighting Style with a degree of mastery of Master, in which you have gained only a single Signature Technique for. The Signature Technique of this Fighting Style becomes your Dedicated Technique. Reduce the Ki Point Cost for your Dedicated Technique by -1/2 (after all calculations).

– Once per Combat Encounter, when using your Dedicated Technique (if it is an Attacking Maneuver), treat your Tier of Power as if it was +2 higher for the Combat Rolls of that Attacking Maneuver. If your Dedicated Technique is an Aura, you may instead (once per Combat Encounter) apply the Aura Gathering Advantage to another Signature Technique (which is an Attacking Maneuver) when using that Signature Technique.

Prerequisite – Fighting Style with a degree of mastery of Master, in which you have gained only a single Signature Technique for