| All about Qi Gong "Qi Gong" refers to the "Lightness of Breath" technique wherein essentially a martial artist uses his great power over Qi and nature to render himself free from some of the bounds of gravity. At it's lowest (and most realistic) level, it is capable of allowing martial arts masters to do things like walking on snow or paper without leaving a trace. At it's other (and most cinematic) extreme, it allows them to fly around like a bunch of weightless astronauts in space. Somewhere in between, it lets them make 10m leaps into the air with little difficulty and burst through windows to land safely (and cooly) on the street below in front of our hapless heroes. This is one of the things that a WuXia GM is going to have to decide upon for his game, how much of a "Wire-Fu" aspect he wants there to be. Of course, this will generally be based on the tone the GM wants, the level of fantasy, and of course how cool he thinks this stuff is. If you think guys leaping around like they were on the moon is stupid, don't let them do it, there's lots of other cool aspects to WuXia and Qi Gong techniques are such a tiny part of the whole thing they don't matter to much in the end. But, if you think it's cool to no end, then you're going to need some rules, and that's where this article comes in. There are a number of ways to simulate Qi Gong in HERO, depending on what feel you want, but generally they are all going to be based on two powers: Leaping and Flying. How you use these will determine how you want your game to be. If you want your Qi Gong artists to be simply able to walk on snow and paper, to be able to walk across brittle leaves and rice without leaving a trace... 6" Flying, Must be touching a level surface (-1), Requires a Qi Gong/Meditation Skill Roll (-1/2) Active Cost:12, Real Cost:5. If you want your Qi Gong masters to be able to do a whole lotta jumping around, just let them buy Leaping, and lots of it. Although I do recommend they need to make an Acrobatic Skill Roll (-1/2) to be able to do it, and they might consider investing in a few extra combat skill levels of DCV requiring an acrobatics skill roll as well. And, if you're looking for masters of defying gravity in the good old high WuXia tradition: 10" Flying, Must touch a surface to change direction or gain altitude(-3/4). Active Cost: 20, Real Cost: 12 Based on watching a lot of WuXia films, I have to say the characters rarely take to the air for anything longer than a few phases. This is because they are actually just counteracting gravity with their Qi, not flying in the superhero sense. It's better to think of them as people simply moving in low gravity, and try to structure your "flight" system accordingly. In the above example, I set it up so they must "push off" from something to use their flight, and will keep going in that direction until they either land or change direction. I chose to make it "flight" in the HERO sense because if it was Leaping then the character would have to land at the end of the turn, but WuXia can normally stay in the air a couple phases at a time before they settle back down to the ground. A common way for WuXia to "fly" and stay in the air over a long distance is to run through or over the branches of trees because that we they can use the trees to support themselves and cover a long distance very quickly. |