Anyone here seen the Book of Nine Swords RPG supplement from WotC? It's probably the BEST wuxia-themed RPG system that I have ever seen. Most "wuxia" rpgs seem to be written by people who based the genre on bad HK martial arts movies with meta terms like "wire fu" and cr@p.

BoNS has done an excellent job of both capturing the flavor as well as providing good mechanics to an existing RPG system (i.e. DnD 3.5).

The good stuff:

Stances -being in a given stance provides various abilities like being able to cloak yourself in shadows, move freely over broken ground, target enemy weaknesses, etc.

Boosts -swift actions to channel power into your weapons, move faster, jump higher, etc.

Counters -immediate actions to block attacks, dodge away, strike back, redirect enemy attacks,etc.

Strikes -whole array of different attacks ranging from attacking everyone you move by to releasing blasts of energy.

Perhaps the most innovative design is how manuevers are readied and expended. Typically most RPG players will end up using their most powerful attack over and over again until it's used up or they're out of power (not including various status effects) -not particularly interesting for fights.

Under BoNS, you only have a limited distinct list of moves available when a fight starts. When you use a manuever it is expended and cannot be used again until it is recovered (typically uses a single round to recover all moves). This forces a player to go through multiple different moves in a single fight or be limited to move, recover, move.

The current disciplines are quite nice and cover a gamut of different styles. I wanted to add some additional disciplines that were more reflective of Jin Yong's influences.

Current BoNS disciplines:

Desert Wind(fire movement)
Devoted Spirit(religious zeal)
Diamond Mind(mind focused power)

Iron Heart (tough it out)
Stone Dragon (ground based power)
Setting Sun (throws, redirection)

Shadow Hand (deceptive)
Tiger Claw (brutal two weapon)
White Raven (cooperative)


I propose to add:

Exquisite Form (profound variations)
Enlightened Wisdom(inner power)
Overwhelming Power(strong palm strikes)
Peerless Sword(weapon techniques perfection)
Dark Abyss (absorb/drain/poison)
Unbroken Circle (redirection)
Emphemeral Grace (evasion, dexterity)

I'm currently in the process of trying to divide various JY techniques into these disciplines, and organize them into stances/boots/strikes/counters. Once I have the flavor and basic ideas down I'm going to post them on WtoC's board for feedback on balance and playability.

Anyone interested in help me?