Yeah that describes a lot of custom content though, especially when it comes to martial arts styles.
That can suck my nuts. If I'm doin' somethin like this, I'm doin' it
right.
Gotcha. I'm going to bed shortly, but I'll jot down some notes/ideas.
- Most CMA have about 9-12 charms, with 3-4 pre-form charms that create a 'core' of the style.
- I can't speak for 3e design, but in 2e, it's generally accepted that a martial art will try (for good or ill) to be a fully realized combat suite. So damage booster, defense booster, etc. You do not have to do this if you don't want to.
- Philosophically, you want to approach it as 'everything is kung-fu', from poetry to stonecutting to yes, even cooking.
- Your basic damage adder is likely going to be based on meat-tenderizing
- cooking- specifically eating/feasting, is a social activity, so you can extend that into a group/AoE or 'Against Magnitudes' effect, like 'Hunger Surrounds The Table' Technique.
- The Form Charm is going to either really synergize with the core of the style, or it's going to inform how you want to act. A good example is that with the form active, 'anything that belongs in the kitchen' and 'food' becomes an Improvised Weapon. Related to that, is you likely want a way to speed up weapon readying, simply to make jackie-chan efforts more approachable. Remember though that at least in 2e, combat is in part balanced around 'non-attack' actions. Being able to go from zero to 'beat shit' is an incredibly devastating force multiplier.
- Ages ago I had an idea for a style based on ritual maintenence of swords, so each charm came with a 'thaum procedure' that allowed you to bless the blade. Charms had a keyword that let them work better if the blades were blessed before each use/drawing. you can use a similar idea here, where certain charms in your style also confer recipes to cook, and give you bonuses for using them on or with recipes.
I'm out of ideas now, I will be around to discuss more later!
Okay, so, general ideas / brainstorming:
Cooking is about preparation, good cooking takes good preparation, and while one can make do with mediocre or bad ingredients, better ingredients treated with the same amount of skill will still be better. Eating / dining is a social thing, and cooking is almost always for others more than it is for oneself.
Barely Magical - Terresterial Level
Poisonous Stuff - Removing poison from things
Descaling / Skinning - Removing armor, natural or otherwise, flaying skin
Knife-work - Greatly increases speed / rate of attacks, multiplies cooking speed meaningfully
Searing / Roasting / "Cooking" - Light an area on fire
Debone - Crippling effects
Set the Dinner Table - Improvised weapons?
Stuffing - Slow target down due to bloat?
"Enlightening" effects?
Voice of the Ingredients - Greatly increases accuracy, reduce difficulty of working with hazardous substances massively
Food Honor - Significantly increases efficiency of previous techniques
Essence-Using / Explicitly magical - Celestial Level
Essence of Sustenance - Foodstuffs offer greater nutrition / boost healing. Based on the traits of things put into dish multiplied by its Essence. (Reminiscent of Chalcanth). User doesn't get 'full', can 'store' large amounts of sustenance when given the opportunity to indulge.
Essence of Flavor - Foodstuffs that expand Essence recovery or otherwise buff? The greater the traits of the things put into dish, the more powerful they are. (Reminiscent of Chalcanth). Provides Martial Artist Keen (Taste) Technique.
Essence of Dining - Foodstuffs require Virtue / Willpower rolls to avoid consuming, mastery of making meals appealing, resistance to drugs / similar effects
Essence of the Feast - Applying effects to a magnitude / preparing large feasts solo is easier / possible. Explicitly uses legs, elbows and absurdly full pots and such to achieve the effect. Not outright "Feed army with two fish" effect, but similar idea due to using parts of things that would normally be considered inedible.
Essence of Preparation - Penalties / bonuses from the techniques in the style / things its prepared stack better.
Messing with Elemental Essence to achieve effects:
Air - ???
Fire - "Baking" - Speed up cooking, gradually turn up the heat in an area as an environmental hazard of increasing power. Amplifies effects of alchemical solutions in some way, which includes Marinate. Derives from the Searing / Roasting effect or otherwise requires an existing flame effect?
Water - "Marinate" - Able to 'store' multiple alchemical solutions in themselves to use on command and / or in foods, applying multiple poisons to a single weapon
Wood - "Herbs and Spices" - Buff something, increasing its Essence and / or traits. Either striking 'chakras' in living targets or applying essence to non-living ones.
Earth - "Tenderizing and Texturizing" - Cause the target to take (Their own Essence) in damage or penalties, explicitly works off of buffed stats, like what Herbs and Spices buffs
Transcendentally / Extremely Magical
Perfection of Cooking - Foods require Virtue rolls / Restores Virtue Channels
Preparation of Ambrosia - Able to turn things like spells or charms into meals / store them
I need to figure out something for the Elemental Essence Air preparation. That and Essence of Dining doesn't feel sufficiently "Martial-Art-Y" at the moment. It also probably should have another set of "Enlightenment" effects to go from the middle-tier to the third. Even if the character can't use / develop Sidereal Martial Arts, it's an exercise of sorts to figure it out.
Edit: Also, while the Form Charm would definitely have to do with preparation in some way, I don't know how to implement that.
There also doesn't seem to be much of the social aspect of cooking / dining, partially because i couldn't think of a good way to "Martial-Art" it up enough or codify it sufficiently. Any ideas?
