Kizen Powers

DanFor

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While I'm patiently waiting for my copy of Wars RPG, can someone with a copy give a little more detail about the kizen powers? Are they like feats or totally different? Do they seem balanced? What do they add to the game? Thanks in advance!
 
I'm also gonna buy the game and I wonder if the Kizen powers are similar to The Force in Star Wars d20?
 
From the RPG (page 107):
'Kizen' has two meanings:
1. The power which now permeates the Solar System and grants some individuals strange and unique powers.
2. An individual who has mainfested kizen abilities.

Kizen in Society
"The number of humans who have demonstrated kizen abilities is, at this point, still a very small minority."

"Most people in the Solar System do not yet know what to make of kizen."

"The governments of Earth and Gongen have not yet made up their minds about kizen"

Who Becomes Kizen?
"Anyone, it seems."

"...there are a small number of factors which are 'strongly correlative'. They do not appear in 100% of all kizen, but are common enough that they seem to be a large part of the puzzle.

They are: Personality, Genetics, Age."

Defining Kizen
"The type of power - Physical, Mental, Energy or Spiritual." These are the talent tree studies of thought. (italics is my own comments)

"Many kizen powers are active - they are turned on by an act of will... other powers, often but not always physical, are innate - they never go on or off, and require no kizen points to use..."

Late Bloomers
"The core rules for Player Character kizen assume they gain their powers shortly before play beins, when they are 1st level. However, many throughout the system had well-established careers when the Mumon Rift opened, and were well past 1st level when they manifested their powers..."

- Stratos
 
Tegman said:
I'm also gonna buy the game and I wonder if the Kizen powers are similar to The Force in Star Wars d20?

No. The Force is limited to Force Feats awarded only to Force-Sensative -specific character classes.

Kizen is awarded to all PCs due to the Mumon Rift that occured just prior to the game era when Seyal entered our Solar System. It's more of a "mutation" than it is a "midichlorian-based" anamoly.

- Stratos
 
DanFor said:
can someone with a copy give a little more detail about the kizen powers? Are they like feats or totally different? Do they seem balanced? What do they add to the game? Thanks in advance!

It's a talent tree system increasing by level/s/ and character advancement.

- Stratos
 
Aha, so this means that you can be a soldier, a scientist or even a lurker and still have Kizen powers. Sounds interesting. I can't wait until I have the rules and can read about it (it's always interesting to read new rules).

Thanks for the info.
 
Yeah, the Kizen trees work totally outside of the class and feat structure. There is a Kizen Master prestige class that is required to access some of the very highest level powers in the trees, but this starts kicking in at Level 15+. In terms of other d20 system, they function alot like magic and psionics rather then the Force. And Stratos is right on, the source is a mutation caused by rift energy. Hence why the Shi and to a lesser extent the Quay have more Kizen amongst them, they've been exposed alot longer
 
Question on Kizen powers, in the Battlefront book they give you a new active ability called parting silk or something like that, it increases the threat range of a particular weapon, but when do you spend the Kizen Points to get the abiliity? Is it like prescise strike, in that you pay for it when you want it? Or was it a miss print?
 
Vaporsight said:
Question on Kizen powers, in the Battlefront book they give you a new active ability called parting silk or something like that, it increases the threat range of a particular weapon, but when do you spend the Kizen Points to get the abiliity? Is it like prescise strike, in that you pay for it when you want it? Or was it a miss print?

You pay for it when you want it, just like the Precise Blow powers. And, of course, it only works on the bonded weapon.
 
Is there a Kizen Power that cancels out the use of(or makes it more difficult to use) all other Kizen Powers?

Most RPG's tend to have something like this as some kind of "safeguard" so the "Magic" people can squash all mortals easily with their powers, but can't affect each other because everyone just cancels the others powers.

Kinda like in D&D where a Wizard can rain death down on any Fighter, but will fizzle most all of his spells against another mage, ironically forcing Wizards to fight each others with daggers most of the time XD.

I'm personally hoping there isn't one such power to "rule them all", am I right or wrong?
 
Power? There's a whole tree that does just that :). The Disruption tree contains powers that make it harder for other Kizen to use powers, jam them, and even make it so the Kizen loses powers :).
 
Of course, one thing that's important to remember is that kizen is not a class (well, except the Kizen Master prestige class), but rather is an additional ability available to all PCs. Every character in WARS has a host of class-based abilities to fall back on, preventing them from being completely hobbled by someone with the Disruption tree.

Take a 10th level soldier, for example. 'Darn. Can't use my kizen powers. I guess I'll just have to fall back on this plasma cannon instead.'

Disruption can and does offer a way to block kizen, but it won't render a WARS PC helpless.
 
But what kind of powers are they? Do they fling about fireballs, lightning like standard fantasy? Or is there a psi twist, with specific psi powers. TK is obvious, but what about things like making ppl's heads explode (scanners!), or looking through walls, or controlling minds, etc etc etc.

WHat about cool melee weapons? Any laser swords?
 
They are mostly Psi Powers, although electrical fields can be manipulated and force shields raised in two of the Trees.

The different factions have affinities for certain kinds of powers, the Earthers are good at assessing information about a target, so they favour Empathy and Psychometry for instance, while pure Telepathy is the domain of the Shi.

When the game starts, the assumption is that pretty much everyone wielding Kizen abilities granted by exposure to the Rift are fairly low level, so the more spectacular effects aren't going to an immediate part of the game. (Not sure how the Shi and Quay stand on this front though).

There isn't a power to specifically make someone's head explode (unless I missed it), Clairvoyance will let you sort-of see through walls, and there are a couple of ways to control someone's actions.

No laser swords, not sure what constitutes a "cool" melee weapon, but the Gongen Katana or Shi Vatarma might fit that description.
 
InfinityDoctor said:
There isn't a power to specifically make someone's head explode (unless I missed it), Clairvoyance will let you sort-of see through walls, and there are a couple of ways to control someone's actions.

I think the Deathclaw power could do soemthing pretty close :)
 
Lol, yes, good point, Deathclaw could do it, but just to keep things in context, I should point out that its an advanced power, your player characters aren't going to be exploding anyone's heads anytime soon... :D
 
Anonymous said:
Lol, yes, good point, Deathclaw could do it, but just to keep things in context, I should point out that its an advanced power, your player characters aren't going to be exploding anyone's heads anytime soon... :D

Nor should they be. :)

One of my goals in designing the Kizen system was not to make Wars into a superhero game, where the characters were de facto defined by their powers. Thus, the core classes are (I humbly submit) cool and interesting on their own. They are the true definition of the character's skills and abilities in game mechanics. Kizen are 'something extra'. Only at very high levels do earth-shaking Kizen powers come into play.
 
Thanks all. Sounds good, though IMO I think I will limit kizen powers to only 1-2 players to make them more rare and unique.

As a side note, how many powers in total are there? Can one pc get them all by level 20, or is there enough variety that 2 20 lvl pc's can have totally different powers. ANd will furture supp's have more powers?
 
Anonymous said:
Thanks all. Sounds good, though IMO I think I will limit kizen powers to only 1-2 players to make them more rare and unique.

As a side note, how many powers in total are there? Can one pc get them all by level 20, or is there enough variety that 2 20 lvl pc's can have totally different powers. ANd will furture supp's have more powers?

Lots but they are all arranged in talent tree style arrangements and there are only 14 trees (if i recall) in the main rules and each tree has at least 10 or more powers all obtainable at various levels whether or nto you get them all depends on how your players choose to advance.

And yes more trees are forthcoming there are 6 new trees in Battlefront
 
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