Also, as far as I remember most of the Minor-Clan-Samurai also start with a Daisho and Kenjutsu, so the mosst Minor-Clan-Samurai start with a Katana. I don't see how they fit in the row with the "non-Katana-Bushi". Additionally I don't really understand how the Naga, Nezumi or Ogres fit in the picture, since they don't even use the exact same creation rules and can't use some of the Skills from the Corebook-List...

They're just all mentioned in the list of things that can be played other than "major clan samurai", in refutation of the idea that the game is only about "major clan samurai" and everything else is irrelevant.

Still don't really understand how they help in our discussion about wether to merge Iaijutsu and Kenjutsu into one skill or not...

Also, as far as I remember most of the Minor-Clan-Samurai also start with a Daisho and Kenjutsu, so the mosst Minor-Clan-Samurai start with a Katana. I don't see how they fit in the row with the "non-Katana-Bushi". Additionally I don't really understand how the Naga, Nezumi or Ogres fit in the picture, since they don't even use the exact same creation rules and can't use some of the Skills from the Corebook-List...

They're just all mentioned in the list of things that can be played other than "major clan samurai", in refutation of the idea that the game is only about "major clan samurai" and everything else is irrelevant.

Still don't really understand how they help in our discussion about wether to merge Iaijutsu and Kenjutsu into one skill or not...

It came up as follows:

1) it's extremely disjointed that almost every sword uses the Kenjutsu skill, but one particular use of one particular sword uses the Iaijustsu skill.

2) when this was pointed out, every non-"Japanese" sword present in the setting was dismissed as meaningless and unimportant, as were all the cultures and species that use those other swords

Also, as far as I remember most of the Minor-Clan-Samurai also start with a Daisho and Kenjutsu, so the mosst Minor-Clan-Samurai start with a Katana. I don't see how they fit in the row with the "non-Katana-Bushi". Additionally I don't really understand how the Naga, Nezumi or Ogres fit in the picture, since they don't even use the exact same creation rules and can't use some of the Skills from the Corebook-List...

They're just all mentioned in the list of things that can be played other than "major clan samurai", in refutation of the idea that the game is only about "major clan samurai" and everything else is irrelevant.

Still don't really understand how they help in our discussion about wether to merge Iaijutsu and Kenjutsu into one skill or not...

It came up as follows:

1) it's extremely disjointed that almost every sword uses the Kenjutsu skill, but one particular use of one particular sword uses the Iaijustsu skill.

2) when this was pointed out, every non-"Japanese" sword present in the setting was dismissed as meaningless and unimportant, as were all the cultures and species that use those other swords

Ok...

ad 1: The fact that there is a great difference between beeing a Kendoka or an Iaidoka aside, making the Iaijutsu-Skill a Katana-only-Skill is jsut putting more emphasis on the fact that the Katana is a very special iconic Samurai-Sword. The Katana represents the soul of the Samurai afterall...I don't see anything wrong with that.

ad 2: Well, the wording wasn't nice, but it didn't disregard the non-Samurai-Swords and non-Rokugani-cultures as unimportant or meaningless, it was just pointed out that they are the minority. And that is a fact.

Besides, there are only so many ways on how to swing a sword...still there is a great difference between beeing a Samurai trained in Iaijutsu or being a Swordsman specialized in using the Scimitar and their able to fight like a Derwish...

While I don't really see an issue with putting all swords together into one skirmish-skill (Kenjutsu), I do see a problem in fusing the various Duelling styles into Iaijutsu.

Where does this "fight like a Dervish " thing come from, by the way?

"Dervish" has nothing to do with fighting, and "whirling dervish" is NOT a swordfighting technique.

Where does this "fight like a Dervish " thing come from, by the way?

"Dervish" has nothing to do with fighting, and "whirling dervish" is NOT a swordfighting technique.

Because someone mentioned it in an earlier post in this thread and I was too lazy to check of the person knew what he/she was writing.

Okay guys, it is time to interrupt our program with something new: let's rework the combat system! Free/simple/complex actions are boring and rigid, let's have something more interesting and fast&furious. Let's have something fluid like this:

The basic idea is that there are no more Free/Simple/Complex Actions. Each Action costs a number of points you must pay from your Initiative score when you perform that action. Then, your Initiative score decreases, probably giving you another chance to act at a lover Initiative to perform another action from your remaining Initiative score. The Character's Initiative roll is now Air Rung + Insight Rank / Air Ring, and the character can't spend more Initiative during the same Turn than 5 + Insight Rank + Air Ring x 10. This means that an average starting character (Air 2, Insight 1) will roll 3k2 for Initiative (average 15) and can spend up to 26 points of Initiative to perform Actions. Initiative is re-rolled at the start of each Turn.

Some example Actions and their Initiative cost would look something like this:

- Swift Attack (attack with a -4k0 Attack roll penalty): 5 points

- Light Attack (attack but cause only half damage): 7 points

- Normal Attack: 10 points

- Heavy Attack (attack with bonus to damage): 15 points

- Full Attack (Full Attack Stance transformed into an Action): 12 points

- Normal Defense (Defense Stance): 7 points

- Full Defense (Full Defense Stance): 15 points

- Free/Simple/Complex Move (as currently): 0 points/5 points/12 points

- Center Stance (now you can choose how much you focus - higher cost means better bonus) - 5 points/10 points/15 points

There would be many more of course, and many School Techniques and special abilities (like Kata) would also become Actions. There would be also abilities that allow the character to combine certain Actions and execute them at once if he can pay the combined cost (like a Kakita would be able to combine Center Stance with a Normal/Full Attack to represent the "One Strike"). Dual wielding would allow the character to perform Swift/Light Attack Actions with his second weapon at a decreased cost.

In addition, Wounds would be largely replaced with Momentum and the damage system would also take a rework. Momentum would work a lot like the current Wounds, so attacks deplete it through damage, and when it reaches zero, the character is in trouble. The difference is that a character has less Momentum (5 + Insight Rank + 10 x Earth Ring for a basic starting value of 26), but he does not gain any penalties for losing Momentum and he regains some (twice his Earth Ring) Momentum in each Reaction Stage. When a character's Momentum reaches zero, he is ''Disadvantaged" - he takes a Wound (pretty much the equivalent of taking a full Wound Rank currently with penalties and everything) but otherwise remains fully functional but his opponents can now perform the 'Execute' Action on him for 10 points to incapacitate him instantly (this is not an attack, and happens automatically once an opponent performs the Action) - however, his allies can also 'Revive' him for 15 points and remove the Disadvantaged condition from him. Wounds and insta-incapacitation may also happen if the character takes too much damage at once. Abilities would play with these things, like the Hida School Techniques would make it more costly to perform Execute on a Hida Bushi, and he would recover from being Disadvantaged on his own over time - on the other hand, a Bayushi Bushi would get a discount on Executing people and could perform Execute on non-Disadvantaged characters under certain circumstances.

For damage, the separate Damage roll is a goner. A character takes damage equal to the amount the Attack roll has exceeded his Armor TN plus the attacker's Strength x 2 plus the weapon's DR (a fixed number). Armor TN is now equal to the sum of all Rings + Insight Rank + 5 (basic average 16).

As I can imagine this system in play, fights would become much more eventful as characters make all sorts of tactical decisions about how to manage their Initiative pool and what Actions they should perform and in what order. Everything would flow better as the characters build up (or break) combos and perform multiple Actions within the same Turn - things would be fast and deadly, with skill and good tactics becoming a major factor in combat while brute strength being less important.

I'd rather go with the Exalted/Scion "tick" system, rather than rerolling Initiative every round. In that setup, there *are* no rounds: just an ongoing series of ticks, and every action has a speed measured in ticks. The virtue of this is that it completely avoids the giant power jump inherent in "can you do this once per turn, or more than once?", because doing stuff more rapidly is incremental.

For example, let's say you're using a katana (Speed 6) and I'm using a knife (Speed 4). Our initiative rolls come out such that we both act on Tick 1. I go again on Tick 5, and you go on Tick 7. Then I act a third time on Tick 9 -- but when Tick 13 rolls around, we both act again. I got four attacks in the time it took you to attack three times.

I've actually contemplated how difficult it would be to implement this in L5R, and I don't think it would be that heinous to do. Just declare that anything which was a Complex Action before is now a Speed 6 action (which is the standard in Exalted and Scion, I think), and anything which was automatically a Simple Action (like standing up) is Speed 3. When it comes to techniques/spells/kiho/etc that let you do things more quickly, though, you can go through and rejigger that to be a more incremental Speed improvement: maybe calling a Raise makes a spell happen three ticks faster (the equivalent of a Simple Action) rather than 6 (a whole Complex Action/round, the way it currently is). Maybe your SAA technique actually speeds up your attacks by 1 tick, or 2.

I think it would work. But I'll admit I haven't really sat down and done the math on it.

(...yet.)

One of the problems I've found with a "tick" system is that it's harder to give any sense of uncertainty -- to work in interrupts and defensive actions.

One of the problems I've found with a "tick" system is that it's harder to give any sense of uncertainty -- to work in interrupts and defensive actions.

Hmmm, interesting. I can't say I've played extensively with them (I ran a Scion campaign, but we had very little combat.) I can see that "if you haven't acted yet this round"-type phrasings don't apply anymore. I'm guessing the problem with defensive actions is defining when the benefit expires?

One of the problems I've found with a "tick" system is that it's harder to give any sense of uncertainty -- to work in interrupts and defensive actions.

Hmmm, interesting. I can't say I've played extensively with them (I ran a Scion campaign, but we had very little combat.) I can see that "if you haven't acted yet this round"-type phrasings don't apply anymore. I'm guessing the problem with defensive actions is defining when the benefit expires?

Character A will go every X ticks, and character B will go every Y ticks -- very little variability.

If character A is slower, he's always behind the curve, and if he has to abort to a defensive action, then he's without another action for a relatively long time, compared to the quicker character.

But then, current L5R/R&K doesn't really seem to have much in the way of aborts, interrupts, and defensive actions.

Character A will go every X ticks, and character B will go every Y ticks -- very little variability.

So long as they're taking the same actions every time, yes. But how is that different from "Character A goes first in the initiative order, and then Character B goes after"? At least this allows for the variability that the character with the slight Speed edge will, over time, get more actions.

If character A is slower, he's always behind the curve, and if he has to abort to a defensive action, then he's without another action for a relatively long time, compared to the quicker character.

The variable-Speed thing should theoretically be balanced with the weapons they're using. The character with the katana isn't attacking as often as the one with the knife -- but he's doing more damage with each hit. If we both go on Tick 1 and you do 20 damage and I do 10, then on Tick 5 I do another 10, me being faster has only allowed me to keep pace with you . . . an advantage which goes poof when you hit me on Tick 7 and do another 20. By the end of Tick 13, when I go again, you've done 60 damage to me and I've only done 40 to you. Speed isn't everything, assuming the system has something resembling balance.

As for defense leaving me "without another action" -- right now in L5R my defensive options are to go into Stances which prevent me from attacking at all, and I'm stuck there until my action next round. So I don't see this approach making things any worse in that regard.

But then, current L5R/R&K doesn't really seem to have much in the way of aborts, interrupts, and defensive actions.

It doesn't, no. I'd say it's a matter of taste whether that's a problem or not; aborts and interrupts and so forth can slow combat down like whoa, which I personally find annoying. But from a redesign perspective, you don't have to build in a functionality that wasn't there to begin with, unless you really want to.

Reagrding AtoMakis suggestion:

Sounds complex and time-consuming...so I'm not sure if it would really speed-up battle.

For once it seems like more math will be nessecary ( keeping track of your Ini-Points, damage, Momentum, Wounds/HP) and rolling Initiative every round is annoying...one of my standard houserules is to not role Initiative every turn.
On the other hand it looks like it will feel sort of like a mash-up between the tick-system and the battle from D&D 4th. And while I'm ok with the tick-system, I hated the tactical-battle from D&D 4th.

And how would a non-healer, like a Bushi without the Medicine-Skill, be able to "Revive" his brother-in-arms? Or would you restrict the "Revive-Action" to those who are able to heal in one way or another?

How would you handle the casting?

And I'm not only asking because of the damage-spells, I play 3 Shugenja and 2 of them don't have damage-spells (except you count Heaven's Tears a a damage-spell) and one is a Kuni.

Regarding Kinzens suggestion:

I played SCION for a while and for me the fight was more complex but not more ...hm... cinematic? I didn't feel like there was more "action" than in the turn-based combats...I just felt that it was vital to have the tick-wheel or something similar to keep track of who is able to act when. So bottomline I didn't feel a great deal of difference between turn-based or tick-based combat. But that is just my opinion...

Sounds complex and time-consuming...so I'm not sure if it would really speed-up battle.

Well, it wouldn't speed up the battle when it comes to out-of-game time, but it it would make this time feel shorter because of the constant action.

For once it seems like more math will be nessecary ( keeping track of your Ini-Points, damage, Momentum, Wounds/HP) and rolling Initiative every round is annoying...one of my standard houserules is to not role Initiative every turn.

You gain some, you lose some. You wouldn't have to roll for Damage, but you would have to roll for Initiative in every Turn. And don't be afraid of some math. Math is love. Math is life .

And how would a non-healer, like a Bushi without the Medicine-Skill, be able to "Revive" his brother-in-arms? Or would you restrict the "Revive-Action" to those who are able to heal in one way or another?

How would you handle the casting?

Revive is automatic, just like Execute. You spend the Initiative cost, and your buddy is cool. No need for Medicine as Momentum does not represent actual physical damage but... well... momentum. A character running out of Momentum has ran out of breath, become winded and sloppy, thus an easy target for a fatal strike. When a character revives another, he just gets his back for a short moment and shouts a few encouraging words towards him so that the Disadvantaged character can catch his breath again. Also note that a character who ran out of Momentum will still regain Momentum in the Reaction Stage (though he will remain Disadvantaged) and can act normally - it is entirely possible that one gets to zero Momentum yet kills his opponent before she can Execute him.

Casting would be something like 5 (10?) points / Mastery Level. I would probably ditch the Spell Slots and make the spells cost Momentum instead.

Oh, and for clarification: you can only perform one Action of the same type (no Swift Attack spamming) per Turn, and you can "carry over" an Action to the next Turn if you don't have enough Initiative to perform it in the actual Turn.

Kinzen:

yeah, the Tick system gave me the idea . I would also introduce the 'Stunt Dice' system from those games.

Regarding Kinzens suggestion:

I played SCION for a while and for me the fight was more complex but not more ...hm... cinematic? I didn't feel like there was more "action" than in the turn-based combats...I just felt that it was vital to have the tick-wheel or something similar to keep track of who is able to act when. So bottomline I didn't feel a great deal of difference between turn-based or tick-based combat. But that is just my opinion...

I wouldn't say it's inherently more cinematic, no. I just see it as the only truly workable solution to the "multiple attacks a round" problem. 4e came up with a good variant by instituting the Complex/Simple Action distinction to replace the "you may attack twice a round" wording from 3e; while in many cases they amount to the same thing, at least 4e introduces the possibility that you might stand up and then attack, or attack your enemy and then move away -- basically, you have the option of doing something else with that other Simple Action, besides attacking. But ultimately, so long as rounds are a thing, you're attacking either once in a round or twice: the smallest available increment is a doubling of your offensive potential. The virtue of the tick system, in my eyes, is that it turns that cliff into a slope, which avoids the SAA power leap issue that I've seen people complain about again and again.

AtoMaki -- I use stunt dice in L5R, yeah. I'll probably do something similar in every game I run, because really, I like rewarding players for doing more than the bare minimum of describing their actions.

Reading that combat changes, I'll give my very own opinion. I don't like these idea at all because that would require a complete change from the current system, which, in certain cases sound like: "L5R System is bad, I prefer that other game system", nothing stops players to change the system, but is it bad if I say: Let L5R be L5R? I'm starting to wonder where this is going? With all these changes idea lately, if we're going from a higher point of view, I'll ask this: Why do you like L5R in it's current state? Why this question? Simply because there's discussion about changing everything, as if nothing is good about it.

From the very initial post, here's the question: "What do you feel should be changed to make the RPG better? What do you feel should be kept?" Lately, it sounds like nothing should be kept besides the setting. Sorry, but I'm against that because I really like what they did with the 4th edition. Yes the combat system is more rigid, but that's what it was needing, a more rigid and clear combat system where you don't have to ask yourself: "What's my limit in my action?" Is it perfect, of course not, like every system out theres, nothing is perfect otherwise every games would follow the perfect system. But at this point, I'm simply wondering why is there that many changes suggested lately and I don't feel like it's a small tweeks, but now it's a complete rework.

I'm not saying that changes are bad, what I'm saying is changing too much is a high risk. We can take D&D 4th edition as an example where they did some redical changes turning it as a "MMORPG style" of gameplay. Results are that the 4th edition sold less than the 3rd and people even turned themselves to Pathfinders because they did the very few tweeks to improve what people hated about the 4th. Sure, they took the risk, it could have turned otherwise but they removed the flavor that people like about the 3rd.

I really don't want L5R to die because of some complete changes that removes the current flavor. Let's not forget that L5R isn't a big player in the gaming, mainly because if it's visibility. I'll talk about my region, L5R is not popular because people don't know about it. There's even more discussion about totally new RPG that have a kickstarter than the existing L5R, as if L5R is off the map and honestly, the latest changes I've read and some that I commented, if they happens, I'll just stick with the current edition because I don't like them at all. These may be interesting as house-rules, but the main idea of the topic isn't about house-ruling, it's about the main stream.

About the ideas:

- Point systems: I really feel like that's too heavy to maintain. Let's say you have 4 players, one of them is a Unicorn with his horse, in a battle involving a pack of 8 bandits with 3 Ashigaru as the player's allies. It's a living hell to keep up with all these actions. Maybe it could be interesting in a "Post-Iaijutsu strike" since in a duel it's 1-on-1, but just scale up a bit and, from my point of view, it's a real hole to hell with the glowing sign pointing the hole saying: "Storyteller that way".

- The Tick system: Unlike the "point system", it's easier to manage but this kinda removes the flavor of some Bushi Schools, which is all about acting early. Yes, I know, it could be done in the school itself, by giving some techniques that reduce the "tick point" and then you "compare tick points" for these bonus, but meh. The lack of randomness in this makes it bland. Sure it's frustrating for someone when he rolls a crappy init roll and he doesn't have access to his techniques, but it's part of the game.

Speaking of initiative, I think it would be better to bring back the "Current init score + 1k1" rules in the end of each turn. This brought more dynamics in the rounds because that brought up some critical moments, specially when the init is close and the opponent rolled higher and now act before someone who was against it. Right now, it's the only small tweek that I think would be needing in the combat system.

I'll say it now, sorry if I seems closed at certains idea, specially when they are from another system that affects the system as a whole, but I like the current state of the game (Started from the 2nd edition) and some of the ideas are from systems that I didn't like. I don't want to feel like I'm playing another game using L5R Setting, if it's something that I wanted, I would do that as house-rules.

Reading that combat changes, I'll give my very own opinion. I don't like these idea at all because that would require a complete change from the current system, which, in certain cases sound like: "L5R System is bad, I prefer that other game system", nothing stops players to change the system, but is it bad if I say: Let L5R be L5R? I'm starting to wonder where this is going? With all these changes idea lately, if we're going from a higher point of view, I'll ask this: Why do you like L5R in it's current state? Why this question? Simply because there's discussion about changing everything, as if nothing is good about it.

I assume that you are aware to the fact that these changes only affect relatively small parts of the overall system. Like, the combat rules I proposed would change something like 4(!) pages of rules. Nobody says that the really important rules of the system are bad: the Roll&Keep system is awesome, the Rings+Traits+Skills system is cool, the Advantages/Disadvantages only need small changes, and the Clan/Family/School system is good as it is (though, some Schools need balancing).

L5R as a whole is fine, there are only some "artifacts" from the D20 days that aged terribly and thus they have to go.

Sounds complex and time-consuming...so I'm not sure if it would really speed-up battle.

Well, it wouldn't speed up the battle when it comes to out-of-game time, but it it would make this time feel shorter because of the constant action.

I find that the out-of-game time is the bit that needs to go faster... nothing makes a table drag quite like "Bob, it's your **** turn again, what the hell are you doing?"

It's also one more thing to memorize, and trust me, not all players are created equal in that regard.

L5R as a whole is fine, there are only some "artifacts" from the D20 days that aged terribly and thus they have to go.

Personally, I consider Schools to be an artifact of "classes" and Rank an artifact of "levels", and that's part of my skepticism about both features of L5R. I know this is one of those places where I get a lot of disagreement -- but at this point, I pretty much flatly refuse to play any system that outright has classes and levels, as both concepts are utter nonsense, anachronistic tripe from about 50 years ago that should have died long ago. L5R 4th is just inside the tolerability zone on that score.

~~~~

Also: Something to consider while we're talking about weapon speeds.

Different game systems handle the different weapon types with various rule sets. L5R takes a simple approach to this making it easier on the management area for the Storyteller, leaving him more free to tell a story, other games get heavy into the ligistics of combat, and create a management burden for the Storyteller. You have to decide where you will balance story and logistics. I would say in a game focused on storytelling like L5R keep the logistics simple, and clear for base rules, and perhaps write a seperate optional compendium for advanced combat to cater to those who really like the complexity, and heavy math.

I can't speak for others, Crawd, but I'm just entertaining myself with thought experiments and game design exercises. There are places where I think the system could benefit from a substantive change, but only in places -- for example, contra MaxKilljoy, I'm fine with the School/Rank thing, because to me it feels appropriate to the genre, and it doesn't do the nonsensical D&D thing of "poof, you instantaneously get better at everything all at once." It's really a mix of point-buy and leveling, and hits a sweet spot for me between the freedom to customize my character however I want, and the id-rewarding satisfaction of getting that cool ability I've been working toward all campaign. I like R&K, I like the way the system interlocks a number of its mechanics, and if it weren't a fairly solid piece of design, I wouldn't bother fiddling with it.

You raise the specter of "risk," of D&D sales dropping off a cliff because they changed the system too much. Remember that FFG is not AEG; they don't really follow the forums, and are unlikely to take any of our suggestions unless they already thought of the same thing themselves. Our thought experiments here affect precisely nothing -- except, at most, our home games. So at the end, when you say that if you wanted these changes you'd do them as house rules? That's the only thing we're really talking about here.

(Also a point of clarification, since it sounds like some people may be confused: the tick system does not begin with everybody going on Tick 1. You still roll initiative, so a character taking a slow action may still get to go first; they just won't go again quite as rapidly.)

That is different -- the "tick" systems I've worked with did not include an intitial intitiative roll -- and almost no one would go on 1, because they'd have to be at the absolute maximum speed and using a weapon or action that "delayed" them by 0 ticks.

(See, for example the HERO system -- there are 12 Segements in a Round, SPEED is 1 to 12, and you'd need a 12 SPD to have an action on Segment 1.)

Ah, the way Scion does it, whoever rolls highest goes on Tick 1 (or maybe it was Tick 0, I'd have to check). Then there's some way for determining the remaining spread, with nobody going later than Tick 6, no matter how huge the gap was between their initiative roll and the lead guy's, they aren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs until the combat is over. I think you'd have to rework that part for L5R, since if memory serves the possible range of initiative results in Scion is much smaller, but you'd still get a spread of who is acting first/second/third/etc, and being the sort of person who is quick to react (because of stats or techniques) still matters.

Does that make it more attractive?

Ah, the way Scion does it, whoever rolls highest goes on Tick 1 (or maybe it was Tick 0, I'd have to check). Then there's some way for determining the remaining spread, with nobody going later than Tick 6, no matter how huge the gap was between their initiative roll and the lead guy's, they aren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs until the combat is over. I think you'd have to rework that part for L5R, since if memory serves the possible range of initiative results in Scion is much smaller, but you'd still get a spread of who is acting first/second/third/etc, and being the sort of person who is quick to react (because of stats or techniques) still matters.

Does that make it more attractive?

Overall I find "tick" systems a bit better than fixed rounds with 1, 2, 3, etc attacks. I'm just pointing out some of the pitfalls I've come across.

(And I realize I do a bad job of presenting that, as I go straight to the problems... it's how my brain works.)

~~~~

PS: not a direct response to anything you posted, just avoiding posting repeatedly...

I'd suggest anyone looking at developing an RPG combat system from scratch (or doing a full rebuild) spend time watching this guy's work . Nothing says that any of this has to directly shape your system, but it's a lot of good information that runs counter to a lot of the assumptions that come out of combat myths, Hollywood, and 50 years of RPG history.

Sounds complex and time-consuming...so I'm not sure if it would really speed-up battle.

Well, it wouldn't speed up the battle when it comes to out-of-game time, but it it would make this time feel shorter because of the constant action.

For once it seems like more math will be nessecary ( keeping track of your Ini-Points, damage, Momentum, Wounds/HP) and rolling Initiative every round is annoying...one of my standard houserules is to not role Initiative every turn.

You gain some, you lose some. You wouldn't have to roll for Damage, but you would have to roll for Initiative in every Turn. And don't be afraid of some math. Math is love. Math is life .

And how would a non-healer, like a Bushi without the Medicine-Skill, be able to "Revive" his brother-in-arms? Or would you restrict the "Revive-Action" to those who are able to heal in one way or another?

How would you handle the casting?

Revive is automatic, just like Execute. You spend the Initiative cost, and your buddy is cool. No need for Medicine as Momentum does not represent actual physical damage but... well... momentum. A character running out of Momentum has ran out of breath, become winded and sloppy, thus an easy target for a fatal strike. When a character revives another, he just gets his back for a short moment and shouts a few encouraging words towards him so that the Disadvantaged character can catch his breath again. Also note that a character who ran out of Momentum will still regain Momentum in the Reaction Stage (though he will remain Disadvantaged) and can act normally - it is entirely possible that one gets to zero Momentum yet kills his opponent before she can Execute him.

Casting would be something like 5 (10?) points / Mastery Level. I would probably ditch the Spell Slots and make the spells cost Momentum instead.

Oh, and for clarification: you can only perform one Action of the same type (no Swift Attack spamming) per Turn, and you can "carry over" an Action to the next Turn if you don't have enough Initiative to perform it in the actual Turn.

Well...I'm one of the persons who get bored whiel other players take too much time thinking on how to possion themselves and whicht technique/action should be used...so I'm the kind of person who is interested in keeping the out-of-game-time shorter...

And sorry, but Math is a nessecary evil to me.

Sounds interesting...but I wouldn't ditch the spell slots. Or do you have an alternate idea of prohibiting a Shugenja from casting more "Fireballs" than he now is able, because there are only so many Fire and Void-Spellslots?

---

I also like the combination of steady progression (point-by) and some bigger improvements every now and then (Level-up). Especially since to me it feels like it would fit into an asian world and Rokugan is asian after all.

---

And regarding the weapon speed...well then the Ticks or times should be determined by a combination of Water-Ring (since the Water-Ring already is bound to movement) and the weapon of choice.

If we look at what FFG is doing with Star Wars, more options in 'leveling' should be a given.