Lets take the example of "Bite of the Dragon". "Make a Martial Ares attack with a +2 bonus to your Damage". The Shot cost is 3, Chi cost is 2..

So how many shots does it take to do a Bit of the Dragon? If you assume that, since it says you make the attack and got the bonus for a cost of 3 shots, the cost of making an attack (3 shots) is included. That way it takes a total of 3 shots. However, if you assume that the listed value is the additional cost for the attack, then you have a total of 6 shots (3 for the attack and 3 for the Fu Power).

Now I'm guessing that the shot cost of actions described in a Fu Power is included in the shot cost for that power (esp since, in the example above, the bonus really doesn't help enough to justify taking twice as long), but I'm not sure at all.

I have looked at the FAQ and not found the answer there.

This leads to one more question, if you have two Fu powers that involve an attack, can you use them with one attack to got both bonuses. My reading is that, even if you add the shot costs, each power has to be use with its own (seperate) attack.

For example, "Dark's Soft Whisper" allows you to make any martial arts attack completely silent. The next step on that fu path is "Blade of Darkness", which creates a six inch knife. I'd allow a player to combine the shot and chi costs, so that after 6 shots and spending 5 chi, they could make a silent attack with their created blade. ("Dark's Softly Whispering Blade of Darkness"??) I'd probably not allow snapshots to be used when combing schticks this way, however.

The other school of thought sometimes expressed on the Mailing List is "There are three types of schticks: offensive, defensive, and miscellaneous. You can use all three types on the same shot, but never more than one of the same type per shot." This prevents the Old Master from stacking his Unique Schtick with damage-enhancing schticks, but still allows him to Flying Windmill Kick *and* Willow Step *and* Prodigious Leap on the same shot (which seems to be allowed by the rules). Offensive schticks are obviously those that make or enhance an attack, defensive schticks affect passive/active dodges and stuff like TA-Snake's Warning, and miscellaneous schticks are usually movement-related (Prodigious Leap), general utility (Gathering of the Clouds), or just wierd non-combat stuff (Corners of the Mouth). This isn't in the FAQ, however, so it's not entirely official.

However, the general tone of the more recent books seems to be leaning much more heavily in the "schticks can be combined" direction(especially if it looks cool), so maybe preserving the effectiveness of one single schtick (Integration of the Clouds) isn't quite so important anymore.

Integration of the Clouds lets you use two fu powers and pay only the highest shot cost.

I would let the Old Master use Flying Windmill Kick, Willow Step, and Prodigious Leap... however the Prodigious Leap would come first (1 shot cost) along with the Willow Step (0 shot cost), followed on the next shot by the Flying Windmill Kick.

e.g. Make a Martial Arts attack with a +3 bonus to your Action Value and +2 to damage. Chi cost: 5, shot cost: 3.

P.S. As far as the darkness powers go, I'd make the character create the knife first, then the silent attack. Assuming they aren't noticed, it's the same thing really. If they ARE noticed though, they could be attacked partway through, etc.