Sword School - Lion Heart

[GuardianTempest]

There is no sword. There is no gun. Blending the principles of Sword School and Gun Kata, the Lion Heart discipline sees its adept's arms as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone. Lion Heart maneuvers are elaborate, flashy, and hide a superhuman precision that shatters enemy lines in a matter of moments.

The key skill for Lion Heart is Ballistics, the ability to make your every shot count. Lion Heart weapons are exotic, particularly those with the Trigger mechanism, as those demand such a reckless combination of fighting techniques. Reports indicate that Lion Heart was originally practiced by renegade Tech Priests who taught that the position of foes on the battlefield was a statistically predictable element.

Level 1: Apprentice

- Weapon (Trigger): Use weapons with the Trigger property in your martial maneuvers.

- Action (Reload): Use Reload actions in martial maneuvers. Any attack-related advantages you apply to the special attack are applied to the next attack that expends the ammunition. That attack may not be a special attack of its own.

Level 2: Initiate

(-2) Wyvern's Fire: This attack gains the Unreliable and Overheats properties. Apply this only to attacks made with Trigger weapons.

(2) Rough Divide: This attack gains Razor Sharp.

Level 3: Journeyman

(-1) Skill (Ballistics): As part of this attack, make a Ballistics test against the Static Defense of the target. If it fails, the attack fails.

(2) Fated Circle: On a successful hit, all opponents adjacent to you or the target must make a Pinning test.

Level 4: Master

- Mastery (Paradigm Shift): Once per round, you may move up to 5m when expending ammunition from a melee weapon.

(3) Blasting Zone: This attack gains Blast (2) and can't be parried.

Level 5: Grandmaster

(1*) Renzokuken: Each raise on the attack roll adds +1k0 damage and repeats the effects of applied trigger mods (except combiweapon), up to the amount of times this advantage was taken. If the attack this advantage modifies is a full action, it gains +2k1 to the attack roll. Apply this only to attacks made with Trigger weapons, which consumes an additional round of ammunition for each time this advantage was taken.

[GuardianTempest]

Another school ported from the old forum, this one was originally by Kwak and I tweaked the wording a bit to make it slightly clearer. I'll be adding further adjustments down the line.

Although the current wording ruins the ability to do machinegun propulsion so I'm open to suggestions. Okay, so looking at the Wayback Archives, it turns out that the Mastery's single movement was intended as a solution after dealing with the headache of trying to repeat the Mastery via Omnislash.

We're in new ground now, if have any feedback and comments then feel free to bring it up.

[GuardianTempest]

Omnislash changed because of two questions:

- "What happens if I only took the advantage once?"

- "Would Trigger mods keep applying even if I exceed the attack's firing rate?"

[Amanojyaku]

Blasting Zone: Blast is an autohit in the radius. Can't Dodge or Parry the attack except by getting outside the template. Restricting which one of those options to use in response to the attack is completely irrelevant.

"Can't be Parried" would read better, if you insist.

[GuardianTempest]

May 24, 2022 16:16:52 GMT -6 Amanojyaku said:

Blasting Zone: Blast is an autohit in the radius. Can't Dodge or Parry the attack except by getting outside the template. Restricting which one of those options to use in response to the attack is completely irrelevant.

"Can't be Parried" would read better, if you insist.

That's fair. I guess I got too used to the common house rule of allowing to dodge Blast attacks.

[GuardianTempest]

I've gone back to the original thread and realized that I got some things wrong. RAW, Omnislash could imply that you're using a Full Auto Burst using Weaponry/Brawl instead of Ballistics.

Kwak from 2015:

Here's what I'm going for with Omnislash (which was originally called Renzokuken but that doesn't actually sound like anything so I had to go there):

• You put it on either a LionHeart Reload, an IronHeart Aim, or a ShadowHand Ready
• This allows you to choose Full Auto Burst as the action for your Special Attack, rather than a Standard Attack/Charge/Whatever.
• Full Auto means you can either get a +2k1 to your attack, or move your Dexterity in meters at a -1k0 penalty.
• It also means that every raise on your attack is giving you +1k0 damage...
• But only up to as many times as you bought Omnislash.
• Also as part of the attack (mandatory if it's a Reload) Trigger wielders can use their ammo to apply Trigger mods to the attack, but only if they have enough shots for the full burst
• If you wanna get really nutty, each Omnislash you buy is adding 2 meters of movement to the attack if you're using a Trigger weapon, which in my mind means....
• You could buy a 6-point Omnislash and just use it to launch yourself 6+Dexterity meters into the air somebody at a -1k0 penalty, but without any additional hits because you used them before reaching the opponent. But that's awfully situational and probably just a Stunt.
• Unintended Consequence: The ammo thing could be interpreted to mean that only melee weapons that have ammo will work, but I don't think that's very good of a Sword School to do so I'm instead interpreting it in a way that almost makes Trigger weapons the worst candidate for this, since their ammo limits them.
• Other Unintended Consequence: This shit Provokes. Whoops. Maybe it should just be a 1 point Advantage?

Oh yeah, I forgot the line about this being an Iron Heart replacement. That's kinda the most important part. It's there now.

Of course that was before the streamlining to the Mastery bonus (and I added the "Trigger weapons only" clause). Anyway the important thing is that you're essentially applying the Full Auto Burst logic on a melee attack which uses Ballistics (or Perception with Zen Shooting) instead of Weaponry/Brawl, and automatically applying Trigger mods since you're already expending ammo. I've also reverted the +1 bonus to the ROF because the quirk of Full Auto Burst is that there's a tangible benefit even if you did have a ROF of S/1. A Lasgun that lands all of its shots would roll 6k2 for damage due to having a ROF of S/3, and the limit to bonuses is equal to ROF (not ROF-1 like I thought). Crazy, huh?

[GuardianTempest]

Capstone advantage replaced with Renzokuken, to maintain the FF8 theme naming and to reduce ruling headaches because of letting you do a melee Full Auto Burst. RIP Steel Rain and I dunno, I liked Omnislash (and other "exception" abilities). I suppose it can't be helped, Kwak's gone so this becomes more divergent from the original iteration. Here is the previous advantage for comparison:

(1*) Omnislash: This attack can be used on a Full Auto Burst with a firing profile of S/X, where X is the number of times you take this advantage. Trigger mods repeat their effects for each raise on the attack roll, to a maximum of the attack's ROF. Apply this only to attacks made with Trigger weapons.

So much for being the blend of Sword School and Gun Kata.