Crane stance Vs. The Fox's retreat

Hi!
Im pretty new to Feng shui but not roleplaying games. It's a very fun game with great rules but I have a question about Crane stance and The Fox's retreat.

Since Crane stance is a stance i have assumed that it gives +5 to dodge during a whole sequence. Making it really hard for the evil dudes to hit the player. The Fox's retreat seems different because i just consider it a one time action that doesn't give a bonus for the whole sequence. But then I considered that both of these powers are one time bonuses but I don't know if I'm correct or not.

So please tell me, does Crane stance and the Fox's retreat give their +5 dodge bonus during a whole sequence or just the shot where the person gets attacked in.

Thank you:)

From memory (so I may be wrong) Crane Stance takes a 1 shot action to activate (it's not itself a defensive action), but then afterwards all your Active Dodges for that sequence are +5 to Passive Dodge. Fox's Retreat is only for a single dodge at the same bonus but is a defensive action.

So, if you are only attacked once, Crane Stance will use up 2 shots of initiative (1 to activate, 1 for the Active Dodge) whereas Fox's Retreat only uses 1.
Also, if you are attacked before you get a chance to enact Crane Stance, it won't improve your Active Dodge. Fox's Retreat still would as it is a defensive action.
If you're attacked and Active Dodge multiple times in a sequence, Crane Stance is more economical with your Fu.

Hope that helps.

With Queex on that one.

At least that's what I ruled for Fox's Retreat in a game I'm running right now. Have a character that's using Fox's Retreat, after re-reading it I saw that it said that it could be used as a defensive action which lead me to believe that it was a one-time use power instead of something you "activated" and then it was available for the rest of the sequence/fight.

Also 1 Chi felt a little cheap for adding +5 to a dodge value (especially since the martial artist using it already had a dodge of 15). Then again, I don't have a book to reference how much Chi Crance Stance costs.

Crane Stance(Cost: 1 Chi, Shots:1)
You only get the +5 Doge increase if the opponet attempting to hit you has a Perception rating lower than you Agility rating.
Crane Stance is a Defensive Action.

The Fox's Retreat (Cost: 1 Chi, Shots:1)
You get a +5 Doge increase.
The Fox's Retreat is a Defensive Action.

You get the bonus for both only for the sequence they are activated.

Crane Stance as you see in't as good as The Fox's Retreat, it is just a step before the Wings and Talon powers.

Ah, right. I was thinking of something else, then.

Forgot to mention this other Fu power that does deal with Dodges, that you do want to be aware of.

Willow Step (Cost: 1 Chi, Shots:0)
Gives +2 Doge till the end of the shot.
It isn't an Active Dodge.

Willow Step can be considered by some to best type of Dodge of the 3. If you want a +5 Doge you can use Willow Step & Active Dodge. You'll get +2 from Willow Step and a +3 from the Active Dodge. The +2 Dodge works the entire shot regardless of the number of opponets.
This is one of the most comenly picked Fu Schticks of starting PCs.

A very nice tactic is to get Willow Step and The Fox's retreat.
You declare using Willow Step, then you declare using The Fox's Retreat. That gets you a +7 Doge increase against your opponet for that sequence.

I've always ruled that that would count as combining Fu Powers- and thus verboten without Integration of the Clouds (and, as they share no keyword, impossible even with that).

I did some digging on Willow and Fox.I can't seem to find anything conclusive on how these are handled.
When first started playing Feng Shui back in 2001. I was under the impression that you could get a Dodge of 7 by using both from what I read on the old Jade Agenda site and on another site.

I did a quick google search and got some hits saying it could stack and some saying it couldn't

I found this in the mailing list archives.

mailman.rice.edu/pipermail/feng ... 31369.html

The Willow Step and the Fox Retreat Dodge issue I've found has been asked several times on the old FS mailing list and an official answer doesn't exist to it. Several times when it was asked for clarification on how these two worked in relationship to doge, when the authors of several Feng Shui books were actively answering other posts, they would make no comments on any posts that asked about it.

The Atlas foruns had this:

https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/willow-and-fox/1026/1

Queex or anyone know if an official rulling was ever made on the use of those two.

That is something that needs to go in the eratta I'm working on if one exists.

P.S. Queex one of my players was looking at printed copy I have of the Out for Blood PDF and liked it.

I'm not aware that there was ever any formal word- I think that thread was the most comprehensive the discussion got.

Maybe we should box up a load of questions like this and send them on to Robin. He might find time in his busy schedule to tell us a wizard did it.

The boxing up of questions is a good ideas. I sort of started doing that when I went to work on my errata. I've got some errors, and questions that no answer exists for.
The Willow and Fox one I think Robin is aware of from what the comments that got made in the first link.

I just finished going through the mailing list archives before posting this to see if any of the discussions Darrin Bright mentioned in his mailing list post he had with Robin and Greg about how to handle 0 shot fu powers were in the list archives. Didn't find anything.

(Side comment about the mailing list archives in case anyone wants to go digging around in them. you'd see a lot of off topic stuff on it and the post titles don't help always as they don't match with wath is being discussed.)

Well I need to ge back to work as I don't want to get stuck by having stuff to do and not be able to get my weekly movie fix in a few hours. I'm debating if I'm going to go see the one with the Old Master and the Scrappy Kid or the one with the 4 Ex-Specual Forces in it.

Good lord, I'm glad you're fielding that end of things, that looks way more confusing than finding the different character types floating around and getting them formatted properly, but it sure would be nice to see all that errata in one big nice document for everyone's benefit.

hmmmm I expect I am wrong but given that fox and crane last for the entire sequence would not this ruling prevent ANY other fu use in that sequence?

As I said I expect i'm wrong.

~will

But you only get +2 in dodging for one shot with Willow Step which is not that good. Since it only helps you dodge for one shot i think its ok to combine it with the Fox's Retreat.

Willow Step is a defensive action that increases your Dodge for one shot, which can be combined with an Active Dodge.
Fox's Retreat is a defensive action that increases your Active Dodge for a single attack.
Neither of them last for the sequence.

Willow Step is strictly better, as there may be more than one attack on a single shot and can be used even if you're out of shots.

This is the text from the rule book for all the powers being discussed and a few comments. Any mistakes are my own caused by burnout due to work.

from pg. 79:

Crane Stance Chi: 1/ Shots: 1
If the opponet attempting to hit you has a Perception rating lower than your Agility rating, your Dodge increases by 5. Using Crans Stance is a defensive action. Prerequisite: none, Path: Wing of the Crane

The Fox's Retreat Chi: 1/Shots: 1
Add +5 to your Dodge value. Counts as a defensive action. Prerequisite: None, Path: Eyes of the Fox.

from pg. 85:

Willow Step Chi: 1 / Shots: 0
Your Dodge Value increases by 2 for the duration of the shot. Prerequisite, none, Path: Walk of a Thousand Steps

from pg. 86:

Intergration of the Clouds Chi: 1 / Shots: 0
Combine the use of two fu powers into one action affected powers must share a word in their titles (such as "Fox" or "Fire"). Fu powers with contradictory conditions, may not be combined. Pay chi cost for both, but only the highest shot cost. Prerequisite: Torrent of Furry

The problems and things to rember:

1.) Willow Step is not considered a defensive action, according to its' description. (If Willow Step was considered a defensive action, you couldn't combine it with an Active Dodge.) You can only make one defensive action against an attack. The defensive action is only good for that one opponet's attack.
2.) The rules don't clearly forbid the use of multiple fu powers in a shot. Emphasis on the word clearly. Well this is multiple actions too.
3.) Willow Step has a 0 Shots cost. (This is the big issue. If you start examing the 0 shot powers you'll see some of the problems they can give or advantages if you don't think they are a problem.)
4.) Note, that according to the FAQ for the game if the character was a Karata Cop his +2 AV bonus only goes to Active Dodges. So if he were to just Willow Step and nothing else he would only get the +2 bonus willow step gives. If he were using Willow Step with an Active Doge, Crane Stance, or The Fox's Retreat he would get a +7 to dodge. If the GM ruled that he could use Willow Stance with the Fox's Reterat or with Crane Stance that wold be a +9! 7.) The Scrappy Kid and the Uber-Kid, from Seed of the New Flesh, get a +2 to Dodge as their per their unique schtick when dodging with Martial Arts, also. So do be aware of this.
5.) Intergration of the Clouds combines the 2 actions in to one action. Something you don't need to do in this case.

If you are going to let a player use Willow Stance with Crane Stance or the Fox's Retreat, don't forget that doing that costs Chi, that could be needed latter on, and the character gave up taking another fu power. Another question is why do you need to do it if you have a high enough Av in the skill you are going to doge with? Is it truely worth it? You need a high Agility for Crane to work, only a few types have this.

Lets look at a starting Old Master has a Martial Arts AV of 16. That becomes:

16 with just a passive dodge
18 with Willow Step
21 with an Active Dodge
23 with Willow Step and Active Dodge, or Crane Stance, or The Fox's Retreat.
25 with Willow combined with Crane and the Fox's Retreat.

Do you really need the 25 Av? Is it going to make much of a diffrence? Is the cost worth the benefit.
For a Karate Cop the numbers are:

14 with just a passive dodge
16 with Willow Step
19 with an Active Dodge
21 with Willow Step and Active Dodge, or Crane Stance, or The Fox's Retreat.
23 with Willow Step combined with Crane Stancea or combined with The Fox's Retreat.

Do you really need the 23 AV? Is it going to make much of a diffrence? Is the cost worth the benefit. Also, the Karata cop does start with no Fu Powers and had to use hard earned experience to get those Schticks.

If you google +"Willow Step" +"Fox's Retreat" you'll get a bunch of hits in which this issue was discussed. Till an official answer exists, I'd say let the GM rule how to handle it.

Active Dodge is only a +3 to passive dodge, unless fortified by something else. For the Old Master:

16 passive dodge
18 Willow Step
19 Active Dodge
21 Willow Step + Active Dodge / Fox's Retreat / Crane Stance
23 Willow Step + Fox's Retreat / Willow Step + Crane Stance

Thanks for fixing that.
I typed up the info into a word file last night after working for several hours straight and just did a quick cut and past this morning, without double checking everything. Bad thing when your having to work with lawyers, read police reports, and stuff along those lines, your brain becomes mush very easily.