Kamigakari FAQ

Homebrew Anon's Kamigakari FAQ

Preface:
This is a resource meant to answer some really common questions a lot of people tend to ask. This will be updated as more suggestions are made. More categories will also be added as needed.

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ToC:
General Questions [XXXG]
Term Clarification Questions [XXXT]
Mechanical Questions [XXXM]
Style-Specific Questions [XXXS]
GM Advice Questions [XXXA]

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General Questions [XXXG]

Q: What is Kamigakari?
A: Kamigakari is best described as "Anime as hell: The system". Its identity is entirely based around high power shenanigans, though its not bound theme-wise to any one type of anime, or even anime at all. From magical girl, to mystery, to kamen rider, to the most overpowered shounen BS, It excels in letting you do that. It does have a generally Modern setting, but otherwise there's no real restrictions on theme.

Q: Does this mean it does poorly in social aspects?
A: Not at all. There are a set of skills called Maneuvers that are specifically for use out of combat, and many talents can find out of combat usage. While roleplay is largely freeform, this gives players the chance to ham it up to the best of their abilities, rather than relying on rolling diplomacy. Roleplay over Rollplay, as they say

Q: Whats unique to this system, that would make me want to play it over another SRS system?
A: This will vary from person to person, but the spirit pool, spirit crest, influence, and damage systems are all somewhat unique to kamigakari. There is also the fact that classes don't "Level" like in many other systems, but are taken individually and simply give you a pool of talents to choose from based on your overall level. Its a very high power system, and deals well in over the top shenanigans as a result. The lore it has built in is also quite good, and very versatile, so making most kinds of games would be rather easy.

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Term Clarification Questions [XXXT]

Q: What is a session or episode?
A: These terms are more or less interchangeable. These are the entirety of a single session, whether 2 hours, 3 hours, or 6. Episode is the term most commonly used in the book though, so be aware of this. Some Episodes may span multiple sessions, but this is somewhat rare.

Q: What are Mononoke?
A: Mononoke has two terms in the book. One is the "Fluff" version, and the other the "Crunch" version. In the fluff, these are Non-Human Creatures with shards. Beings and creatures of lore and legend, corrupted artifacts, anything non-Human that also doubles as a being. In the Crunch though, the term "Mononoke" simply refers to any potential enemy monster that isn't made using a godhunter template. Mononoke have statblocks unique to themselves, where-as godhunter enemies are made as godhunters first then upgraded to be enemies.

Q: What are Aramitama?
A: This is what happens when shit hits the fan for some poor creature. These are whatever poor creature has been corrupted badly enough to become an existence needing a different classification. Whether through a curse, its own sheer hatred, or whatever other form of corruption alters it from the base mononoke, these are creatures whose sole purpose is to fuck shit up. They are also generally stronger than their un-altered counterparts. Be careful, as spending enough spirit crest and a spot of bad luck will turn your character into an Aramitama as well.

Q: What is a Scene?
A: A scene is an important out of combat happening. For example, talking to an important NPC, Or investigating a place when you arrive. There's not really an hard rules to split scenes, but generally speaking the scene will change when you leave an area, or start an entirely separate conversation. Multiple scenes can't happen at once, So switching from what one group is doing to what another is doing, then back would count as switching scene's twice, much like in anime or other shows.

Q: What are Styles?
A: These are the class system of Kamigakari. They will define what your character is good at. Whether smacking with a stick or shooting fire, Style determines if you can do it. Upon Character creation, you can gain 2 styles, One main style and one sub. The main style will give you the stats it has written, and allow you to gain Style ultimates [◎] At level 3. A sub style gets neither of these things, but does allow you to take talents from it.

Q: What Are Talents?
A: Talents are the skills and abilities that godhunters and aramitama choose to kit themselves out with. Whether this be a transformation, an attack, a buff, or whatever, Talents are abilities, whether active or passive, that improve your abilities in some way. An example would be An Arc slayer A's [Secrets of the Destroyer], An attack talent that improves the rank of your regular attack. There are Racial talents and Style talents, a well as Common and High talents. High Talents are gained at every 5th level.

Q: What do the Talent Symbols Mean?
A: [※] Means you Gain this Talent Automatically upon choosing the style.
A Talent with no symbol is one you can get at any point, so long as you have the slot to spare for it.
Talents marked with a [●] Are obtainable at 3rd level and onward.
Talents with a [◎] are also obtainable from 3rd level and onward, but face a unique restriction. If it is your main style, you can get them per normal, but sub style's can only get these from using a High Talent, gained at 5, 10, and 15. The Core PDF looks like it has two different versions of [◎], but this is just odd formatting

Q: What is the spirit pool?
A: The spirit pool is a set of four dice that allows you to use talents and improve dice rolls. This is basically your excess energy, that can be channeled in varying ways. More on this in the Mechanical Questions Section.

Q: What is Overflow?
A: Overflow is a unique Spirit die gained through special means. It Counts as any number for the purposes of using a talent or Influencing. These Do not carry over from combat to combat or scene to scene.

Q: What is Influencing?
A: Influencing is the act of replacing a rolls dice with one of the dice in your spirit pool. There are two restrictions to influence. One is that one of the original dice from the roll must remain unaltered, and the other is that you cannot influence into a crit or crit fail. Crits and fail's only happen on natural all 6's and natural all 1's.

Q: What is Spirit Crest?
A: Spirit crest is a resource in kamigakari that all players have. They can use various effects from the ability "Spirit burn" depending on how many "Bonds" they have made in an episode, up to a max of 7 bonds.  More on this in the Mechanical Questions Section

Q: What are Bonds?
A: Bonds are your interactions with people of note. They are also the bar that determines how many of your crest abilities you can use. These are mostly reset from episode to episode, and you can get a bond with the same people several times, if they are important to any one episode. You can have a total of 7 of them per session, and 2 will always be filled with a personal bond with an NPC, and a bond with another player.

Q: What is a check?
A: If you rolled something, thats pretty much a check. Everything from stat checks to accuracy checks, whatever you roll, its a check. Damage does not count as a check as its a derived number rather than something you roll.
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Mechanical Questions [XXXM]

Q: How does the Spirit pool work?
A: At the start of each session, you roll 4 D6 dice. The numbers on these die are your Spirit pool. Most talents require you to spend (Or "Exhaust") these dice to use your talents and abilities. These dice can also be swapped out for dice in a roll, such as an accuracy check, to increase the value and secure a hit. Swapped dice are not exhausted, but replaced.

Q: How do i get back exhausted spirit dice?
A: At the start of every scene (Out of combat) or Round (In combat) you reroll all exhausted spirit dice.

Q: How "Lethal" is Kamigakari?
A: In terms of death, very little. The chances of your character outright dying are slim to none, thanks to the effects of Spirit Barrier. However, you can be Downed, and then Taken out inside a spirit barrier. If you are downed, there is little that can bring you up. A total of 1 Spirit crest ability and 2 items at 200 and 500 gold respectively. and if you are Taken Out, there is nothing in the core book to bring you back up. However, if you burn enough spirit crest and can't recover it past the 0 mark, there is a 5/6 chance your character will retire, for one reason or another. BE CAREFUL WITH THE SPIRIT CREST

Q: How do Ranged weapons marked with a [※] Work?
A: These are firearms. Guns of varying sorts. They face special restrictions. There are two main differences between these weapons and other ranged weapons. First, they can only be dual wielded with another ranged weapon if that weapon is also a firearm, even if another ranged weapon is one-handed. So no gun and crossbow, as an example. However, gun and knife combo is completely legit. The second restriction is that they do not add your PD to their damage. To get them to do this, you need to buy a "Tactical Holster" accessory. Once you do, they act as normal in most regards.

Q: Spirit crest, what does it do and how do i use it?
A: Spirit crest is a set of resources and abilities unique to godhunters, on a mechanical level at least. There are 3 levels of abilities, each unlocked by having a specific number of "Bonds" in an episode, Called [Spirit Burn]. This is the act of burning off part of your soul to allow for some effect to happen.
Having 1-3 bonds gives you [Physical Transcendence], which allows you to roll extra dice for a check up to 3 extra dice. You also lose the same amount of dice in spirit crest. So if you choose to increase the result of a roll by 1d6, you also lose 1d6 spirit crest, 2d6 for 2d6, 3d6 for 3d6. This cannot be used for damage, as damage is not a check but a derived number.
[Vital Ignition] is gained at 4-6 Bonds. Once per combat, you can Remove [Shift: Downed] And give yourself HP Equal to your strength.
And lastly, at 7 bonds, you get [Concept Destruction]. This one actually does increase damage, by 1d6 Ranks. With some luck, you can seriously pack on the damage using this. It takes 2d6 spirit to use it, but it can be used over and over each time damage is being calculated.

Q: What Are Timings, And when do i get them?
A: A timing is the time at which you can make specific actions. there are approximately 6 timings. Start, Prep, Attack, Defense, Unique, and End.
Start is the start of a round. This is when you use whatever talents require you to use them here, like dragon carriers transformations.
Prep is when you do things like move, get out an item, use certain taletns, or other such tasks.
Attack is as it says. This is when you use an attack, whether a weapon attack or a talent one. Unless you get the [Continuous Action] High talent, you will only ever have 1 Attack timing per round. Attack Talents can be used as many times per round as you have Timings and dice to use on them.
Defense is when you would react to damage, whether to yourself or another. Almost all of these talents are reactionary.
End timing is the end of a round. Many effects and talents rely on this as a timer of sorts, but there are few to none that are actively used with this timing.
Unique, as the name implies, is a unique timing. These are ones that can be used at any time they would apply. The only restrictions are the cost to use them, and that you cannot use the same one twice in the same Action. These are almost always stacked on another timing. There is a global rule to unique timings that says that they are 1/round unless specified otherwise. This can be found on page 240 of the PDF

Q: What is HP Damage?
A: There are two answers to this question. The first is that its the total amount of damage dealt after all modifiers are added on or subtracted, respectively. In other words, the total attack reduced by any talents or effects the defender attempts to use. The other answer is that some effects cause damage directly to HP, bypassing most types of reduction. One example of this is the Form:Hammer weapon "Guards" special ability that does 2 HP damage. This damage is outright damage, and is not mitigated by anything. Unless something specifically reduces direct to HP damage, said damage will go through completely, regardless of other forms of damage reduction.

Q: The "Halve Y" and "Null Y" effects say when you "Take an attack action". Does this mean when i attack, or am attacked?
A: When you are attacked by something else. The wording is confusing, but means "When you take an attack to the chest" rather than "When you take an action to attack".

Page 83-88 "Reading a talent"
Q: Is it possible to perform a [Combat Move] while equipping a Ranged weapon and use a Talent with [Effect type: Physical attack]?
A: Yes. It is possible. This means you can equip a gun, make a [Combat Move], and not be allowed to make a [Weapon Attack] but ARE allowed to use Dragon Carrier's [Spark Zapper] (And use your guns' range with it). Which additionally means you can apply Storm Burst, and charge attack a dude with your glock

Page 86-87 "Effect Class"
Q. Can you use Magic attacks while holding a physical weapon, and vice versa? What happens to form if you do?
A. Yes. In the case of Magic used while holding a physical weapon, nothing changes, you simply get no benefits. You are using magic, just not channeling it through the weapon. In the reverse case, also yes, but in this instance the magic weapon is treated as [Form:Hammer], as you are effectively beating someone with a book or staff.
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Style-Specific Questions [XXXS]

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Dragon Carrier
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Q: Do talents like Crystal Divider, Crystal Enhance, or Crystal evolution from the fifth expansion reduce Direct HP damage? They seem to be wholly untyped.
A: Unfortunately not. While they are untyped, something has to specifically limit HP damage in and of itself to work on direct to HP damage. They do however reduce any other kind of damage.


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Dark Hunter
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Q: Does shadow breach count as a move action?
A: Revised: Yes it does! Apparently, Shadow breach uniquely is affected by talents that affect combat moves, which is out of the norm for the rest of the system. Source: Rikizou, Via Kamigakari Anon

Q: Does shadow breach actually need me to move to use it?
A: Not at all. You can stand still and still use it to inflict [Shift:Fallen]

Q: Dark shadow arts seems a little strong. Does it actually work with any prep talent?
A: Yep. Any talent with [Timing:Prep]. Dark hunter or not.

Q: What about Shadow double?
A: Yep. All it says is that it reduces "Cost". Not on what. So its usable with almost anything.

Q: Does Silhouette work if i don't take any prep action?
A: Yes it does. Even doing nothing at all is still "Using the timing", so you would get that free attack regardless.

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Digital Sorcerer
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Q: Can Zohar method be used even if the other person can't afford to use the ability normally?
A: Yes. Yes it can. Even if they don't have the dice for it, they can use the talent in question if you use zohar method.

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Legion
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Q: When using Target Acquisition with Focused Assault, does the penalty to Active Checks stack for each Weapon Attack?
A: No. The penalties do not stack. In other words, if the penalty for the first and second Weapon Attacks is -2, then they each take -2 to their individual Active Check.

Q: A question continuing from the above. Target Acquisition says to decide how much you increase the number of Targets by before the Attack Action itself, but if you do that, then reduce the number of targets with Focused Fire afterwards, is it possible to increase Damage Calculation that way?
A: Yes. That is possible.

Q: Another question continuing from above. Assuming the above question's answer is a "yes," if you use Focused Assault after increasing the number of targets with Target Acquisition, then reduce the number of Targets with Focused Fire... since the number of Targets gained from Target Acquisition is reduced, does that also lower the penalty?
A: No. Even if you use Focused Fire in this manner, the penalty from Target Acquisition does not reduce in any way. For clarity, we'll provide an example. First, we declare Target Acquisition with [Start]. Then, once it's our turn, we declare Focused Assault. While deciding the number of Targets to increase by, we decide to go with +3# (so this earns a -3 penalty to Active Checks). Then, if we use Focused Fire to reduce the number of Targets by 3, we'll be making our first Weapon Attack against [Target: 1#] with -3 to the Active Check, and +9 to Damage Calculation. On the second attack, because the effects of Target Acquisition and Focused Fire persist until the end of the round, we again make the attack with -3 to the Active Check, and +9 to the Damage Calculation of the Weapon Attack.

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Gm Advice Questions [XXXA]

Q: What do i need to play this?
A: Not a lot, compared to some systems. A map of the city (if you use kamigakari's city), Character sheets, A battle grid which can just be paper with a grid drawn on it, A ton of D6's, and the core rulebook. Anything else is secondary. Expansions do add a lot though, so don't discount them outright. If you are playing online, Roll20.net Is a perfect resource regardless of its reputation at large.

Q: My player wants to do something insane. What do?
A: Depending on what it is, let them. If your player can reasonably back up what they are trying to do with talents, by all means let them describe the insane crap they want to pull. An example is Using Secrets of the Destroyer with 99 Regalia to emulate something from fist of the north star, jojo's bizarre adventure, etc.

However, if they have no reasonable capability to do something, by all means call them out on it. No one wants to be a spoil sport, but there is a thin line of suspension of disbelief. An arc slayer can't cure cancer by killing it with his weapons, as an example. Not by itself, at least.

Q:
A:

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