P49
Strike with No Thought (Rank 6 Mastery Ability) Activation: Once per scene, as an Attack action, you may make a Martial Arts [Melee] (Void) check targeting one character at range 2–4 using a sheathed katana or wakizashi. The TN of this check is equal to your target’s vigilance. Effect: You immediately move to range 1 of your target. If you succeed, your target suffers a critical strike with a severity equal to the deadliness of your weapon plus your bonus successes. +: One character of your choice at range 0–2 of your target per  spent this way suffers the Dazed and Disoriented conditions.
P166
Range 4 represents the midrange for missile weapons like bows—a dozen to a hundred meters. Generally speaking, this range coincides with the edge of earshot for most characters.

One action to move 100 meters doesnt make sense

I found it funny that they gave kakita a cap ability that was made to specifically not work on duels.

It's very similar to an ability they had in earlier editions of the game, so its not unusual. The Iaijutsu kata is the one that needs some work. Kakita need to be able to spend extra successes on causing more damage or a crit.

In a moment of perfect clarity, the master of the school that produces the most legendary quick and precise swordsman can get to exactly where they need to be to use that legendary swordsmanship. Sounds pretty cool to me.

This edition is starting to feel like magic is in all the samurai in one way or another, not just the shugenja and monks. And I'm all for that.

On ‎06‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 2:06 PM, Mobiusllls said:

I found it funny that they gave kakita a cap ability that was made to specifically not work on duels.

To be fair, it does work in duels. You don't have to move 4 range bands, and range 2 is an allowable range band in a duel.

From the perspective of a duel, it's just a super-duper-iaijutsu which instantly deals an automatic critical hit, and unlike normal iaijutsu strikes, allows you to strike double-handed (because unlike iaijutsu, it doesn't specify a single-handed strike) allowing an instant deadliness 13 critical (deadliness 5 + two handed bonus 2 + Way of the Crane at rank 6)

Or you can just use heartpiercing strike like everyone else (Since you dont need to move at the duel) and add strife as severity. HeartPiercieng Strike uses Fire by the way, the ring of the Kakita family.

On 10/6/2017 at 1:01 PM, Kakita Renju said:

One action to move 100 meters doesnt make sense

I haven't read the mass combat rules deeply - can you not use School Techniques during a mass combat round? I'm at least reasonably certain that a mass combat round isn't as short as the 6 seconds or 1 minute that's usually used in personal combat.

11 hours ago, Radon Antila said:

I haven't read the mass combat rules deeply - can you not use School Techniques during a mass combat round? I'm at least reasonably certain that a mass combat round isn't as short as the 6 seconds or 1 minute that's usually used in personal combat.

No. Mass combat is something like 1-2 hours for a round; enough to resolve an action like "Lord Kakita's hatamoto storm the fortress and force the enemy to abandon it" rather than "I hit it with my axe".

Techniques are useable if they make sense.

You can use a school technique during a clash - essentially a complete duel fought within a single round of a mass combat - but no other 'personal scale action' is really going to affect the battle.

Opportunity abilities, maybe. At the very least, spending opportunity to get rid of your own strife, for example, might be sensible.

It wouldn't surprise me to see mass combat-related techniques in future supplements (especially a lion clan one!) - they have the only current mass combat technique I can see:

Quote

Way of the Lion (School Ability): When you succeed at an Attack or Support action check during a skirmish or mass battle, you may remove a number of strife from your character up to your school rank. If you do, add that many additional bonus successes to the check.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Techniques are useable if they make sense.

You can use a school technique during a clash - essentially a complete duel fought within a single round of a mass combat - but no other 'personal scale action' is really going to affect the battle.

Well in that case, it is my opinion that it does makes sense that a Rank 6 Kakita would be able to, in the span of one Mass Combat round, cross the battlefield to deliver a killing blow to the enemy General at Range Band 4.

He can actually attack anyone in his sight range (range six).

"Im tired of this battle. Kakita drops his naginata on the ground and look at the General, safe in the back line". Moves two range bands before his action. (therefore, range 4)

Action:Strike with no tought.

"Nothing personal, Kid."

(Funny enough, he can just run away now, if everyone around the general is dumbfounded about it.)

13 hours ago, Radon Antila said:

Well in that case, it is my opinion that it does makes sense that a Rank 6 Kakita would be able to, in the span of one Mass Combat round, cross the battlefield to deliver a killing blow to the enemy General at Range Band 4.

He can. Mechanically, that's pretty much what him doing a 'challenge' action on his turn represents; the command check essentially being him finding the opponent in the first place. Once in a challenge, your first action can be Strike With No Thought, and then the enemy general is probably looking for his head in the mud.

Crossing the battlefield in one round of mass combat is doable for anyone ; it's over an hour of real time (because 6 turns are a full day's fighting) .

It's also long enough for a rank 6 Ninja to theoretically declare a 'Final Silence' action and target the entire enemy army, and I doubt your GM will let that work without it being part of one of the mass combat actions either.

There are some misscopceptions here how Final Slice works. First it only kills minion and not the entire army is made out of them. A Ninja therefore can´t kill a complete army with that technique. Also worth to notice is that a Masscombat is a conflict scene.
Final slice only lets you kill one target (minion) of the marked ones each turn in addtion to all your other actions when you are in a combat scene. The I kill all of them clause only works in narrative scenes. So if you want to kill all the minions of the enemy army
you better do it in the night before the battle.

43 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

There are some misscopceptions here how Final Slice works. First it only kills minion and not the entire army is made out of them. A Ninja therefore can´t kill a complete army with that technique. Also worth to notice is that a Masscombat is a conflict scene.
Final slice only lets you kill one target (minion) of the marked ones each turn in addtion to all your other actions when you are in a combat scene. The I kill all of them clause only works in narrative scenes. So if you want to kill all the minions of the enemy army
you better do it in the night before the battle.

I agree; I was more using it as a joke.

Ah sorry. It is sometimes hard for me to notice these if the communication medium is strictly written and without all these bodylanguage stuff.

The ninja rank 6. has the intention to facilitate stealth or kill sentrys and let your non ninja allies walk unnoposed. I actually like it, since you basically kill people that a rank 6 in theory would kill with no tought anyway. (And its fun, in terms of storytelling, would be like Jaqen H'ghar when he is helping Arya Stark escape. No one knows how you killed all these guys, but you did and in silence.)

And strike with no tought also works on clashes and everything else, so it just feels strange anyway. Just like iaijutsu having range 2 while a person actually holding a sword in a good stance actually has less range.

49 minutes ago, Mobiusllls said:

The ninja rank 6. has the intention to facilitate stealth or kill sentrys and let your non ninja allies walk unnoposed. I actually like it, since you basically kill people that a rank 6 in theory would kill with no tought anyway. (And its fun, in terms of storytelling, would be like Jaqen H'ghar when he is helping Arya Stark escape. No one knows how you killed all these guys, but you did and in silence.)

Yup. It's pretty much an ".. .everyone's dead in here too. The heck?" I suspect our scorpion character is going to go nuts for it.

To be honest, the combat scene bit is far more amusing - the ninja wandering through the fight, doing what everyone else is doing, and just every few seconds boomeranging a shuriken off something into a passing minion....

50 minutes ago, Mobiusllls said:

And strike with no tought also works on clashes and everything else, so it just feels strange anyway. Just like iaijutsu having range 2 while a person actually holding a sword in a good stance actually has less range.

Indeed. At range 2 damage 5 it essentially turns the sword into a naginata for the turn.