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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mike Myler" data-source="post: 7697789" data-attributes="member: 6726030">Thank you! As soon as I started to write things down for Mists of Akuma a veritable host of cogs in my head slammed into place and drove me to keep on penning -- it's easy to get sucked in. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />There are feats in Mists of Akuma more like regular feats (the first five in the preview up there and more that aren't in the promotional PDF) and while I could have made the stance feats in the same vein, there were a few reasons I took the tack I did.1) I'm a (very amateur) student of the martial arts -- I've practiced northern style shaolin, judo, tae kwan do, aikido, brazilian jujitsu, and even a bit of capeoira. Even my (comparably insignificant) years of study have made it extremely clear to me that no matter what form and style you're learning, it's not something you just "get", it's something that builds on itself. So there definitely needed to be an element of progression to the design for a martial arts stance (a progression based on enforcing a system not just on you getting better at everything, which is why I didn't tier things to proficiency bonus). 2) The plethora of race designs in Mists of Akuma frequently have damage vulnerabilities because some of them are pretty kickass, which I know would freak some people out (nobody likes being vulnerable). That can be mitigated via a martial arts stance feat, which also offers a little something in addition to covering your character's inherent weakness. 3) There is indeed a class that exploits the martial arts stances! It's a monk tradition. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> (and there may be more by the time the book is done, but as of right now that is the only planned one) 4) I'm a multi-system game designer: N.O.W. for Morrus' W.O.I.N. RPG, the last book for the Black Crusade RPG from Fantasy Flight Games, a ton of Pathfinder work for both Paizo and a host of smaller companies (including EN Publishing's To Stake A Vampire! and a bit on Trailseeker), and D&D 5E material (Legendary Games' imminent Hypercorps 2099 as well as EN5ider). It's not that easy juggling game systems when you're shoulder deep in the design phases for another game, so I rely on my colleagues and groups dedicated to one or another RPG to make sure I'm not crazy-old-man-in-the-woods-ing things up. Everything you see here has been vetted by my weekly 5E group (who have been playing since D&D Next) and is definitely sound enough for widescale playtesting that is already getting underway (right now there's....four groups, I think, playtesting Mists of Akuma). Moreover, all of the Kickstarter backers will receive a comprehensive Mists of Akuma playtest document when the project funding deadline comes around and I anticipate some excellent feedback to refine what we've put together. So I feel you man! That's why I made a section just for martial arts stances outside of the regular feats -- they are not regular feats and need to be treated that way. We are definitely giving them a thorough shakedown and I expect some changes to occur before everything is all said and done, but I can promise you that a good deal of thought went into their creation.Thank you for sharing your concerns! Mists of Akuma is totally an envelope-pusher and they are valid thoughts to have. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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