Since there’s all this talk of the RPG and potential changes, I thought I may as well throw my hat into the ring an rant about some of things I think the older system did wrong; and put out my suggestion as to a fix.
The Roll and Keep system works fairly fine by itself but the sub-systems attached to it can be counterintuitive.
RINGS and TRAITS
Starting with one of the systems is the Baseline of all human characters, which has bizarre loopholes and cringe-worthy contradictions (EX: An eta has a Baseline of 1 but if he picks up a sword and calls himself a Ronin all his stats jump to 2).
To put an end to the obscene shenanigans of putting the human standard of henin, eta, and gaijin into the instant fail categories; all human characters start with all Rings/Traits at 2. Period! Any deficiencies will be determined by the Weakness Disadvantage and other any appropriate Disadvantages that may apply as normal.
STANCES
All of the Stances are the same except Defense which has been such a nuisance that it appeared rather regularly in the Homebrewed section of the Old Forum, more specifically in that Shugenja can attack (cast spell) in that stance by other characters can not. Instead of trying for some absurd restrictions that often make no sense or are utterly irrational (3 Raises and drop a Kept Damage Dice is the worst I‘ve seen yet) I’m apply Occams Razor here and making the Defense Stance the flipside of the Full-Attack Stance.
New Defense Stance
Characters in the Defense Stance add their Air Ring plus their Defense Skill Rank to their Armor TN.
You may attack or cast spells in the Defense Stance but at a -2k1 penalty.
[NOTE] This means characters with mediocre stats will likely be rolling 1k1 on their attack rolls, and be more likely just trying to stay alive, harass the enemy, and hope for some exploding dice (Ashigaru fit this perfectly). While allowing characters of greater skill and physical prowess can potentially fend off several low-level attackers while still being able to attack back…plus it allows for some combat styles that are normally junk to function properly (Lion Elite Spearman, Boar Bushi are two such examples; this works double for the Boar as his Rank 5 still functions properly).
COMBAT MANEUVERS
Due to the steep drop on available Free Raises for combat maneuvers I find that the maneuver ‘Damage Increase’ to be mostly useless compared to Feint, and that ‘Disarm’ and ‘Called Shot (Hand/Arm)’ too similar and doesn’t explain themselves to well. For that I made some changes/clarification to those maneuvers and to the ‘Additional Attack’ Maneuver.
Increased Damage Maneuver (1 or more Raises):
Adds a bonus of +1k0 to the total of the damage roll that corresponds to the attack. Multiple Raises can be made to gain a larger amount of Increased Damage, but all Raises made in one combat Round count as one effect for the purposes of any mechanics that decrease the number of Raises required. For every three Raises you call you gain a +0k1 bonus to damage instead of the normal +1k0.
Called Shot (Hand/Arm) (3 Raises):
When making an attack against an armed opponent using this maneuver you deal normal damage and if the damage total is equal to, or greater than, the opponents Wound Level then anything held in that hand/tentacle/whatever is dropped and they cannot use that hand until healed. If an opponent is holding an item/person in two hands (or whatever appropriate appendage) then they may chose not to drop it (unless the GM determines that the object is to heavy to carry one-handed) but may not be able to use it properly (majority cannot use two-handed weapons properly in one hand…except the Moto bushi).
Disarm (3 or 5 Raises):
While Called Shot deals with disarming in the most brutal and straightforward way, the Disarm maneuver deals with it in an entirely non-lethal fashion. On a successful attack roll make an opposed Weapon or Jujutsu roll with both parties choosing whether they apply their Strength or Agility. It takes 3 Raises to disarm someone of weapon or item held in one hand, and 5 Raises to disarm someone of either a large item/weapon or two one-handed weapons in a single action. This attack deals no damage (unless dropping whatever in hands would have disastrous result).
Additional Attack Maneuver:
This maneuver is otherwise unchanged sans the fact that it can be performed a number of times each round equal to the number of attack actions you can perform per round.
[Clarification]
A character with a Combat Skill less than 7 makes attacks as a Complex Action and can only perform the Additional Attack Maneuver once, for a total of two attacks per round. A character with a Combat Skill of 7 or more can make attacks as a Simple Action and can therefore attack twice per round, which allows them to perform the Additional Attack Maneuver for each attack for the maximum of 4 attack per round.
SKILLS
I have upgraded all skills to have Mastery Abilities at 3rd and every odd level thereafter (with the Rank 10 Free Raise remaining the same), this is to make it so that characters that put hard-won experience into raising skills past 5 have something to actually look forward to… and because there were many skills that held no reason to raise past 1 at all (a major part of the Shugenja Problem in fact comes from this…beyond the disagreement with how their magic is used at least).
The second is the existence of the Skill Specializations, which allows characters to gain further mastery in a particular aspect of a skill (one semi-example can be found in Book of Void for the Ring Sword, bad as it is).
Third, unless otherwise noted in the Skill Description, you generally cannot make Untrained Skill Rolls and must possess at least 1 Rank in the skill in order to make a Skill Check.
Lastly I’m planning on doing some skill splitting and condensing since there are oddities here and there that often make little sense or could be better used elsewhere. This is currently under major construction.
List of Skills
Courtier
Divinization
Etiquette
Games
Investigation
Lore*
Medicine
Meditation
Perform*
Athletics
Acrobatics
Battle
Defense
Horsemanship
Shields
Dual Wielding
Survival
Iaijutsu
Combat*
Animal Handling
Commerce
Creation*
Sailing
Forgery
Intimidation
Underhand*
*Marco Skill
Can be used Untrained
EMPHASIS
The purchase and Base Use of Skill Emphasis from the Core Rulebook remains unchanged, but in addition to that are the inclusion of Specialization Emphasis that open up options for enhancing your Skill Use. One type is to help speed up the game by providing a solid and set number that if meet requires no rolling of the dice to occur. The other type is to increase the options of the base skill or provide bonuses that make the use of the skill more effective.
Specialization Emphasis
types are:
+Consistency:
The most basic and simple to use Specialization Emphasis allows you to automatically succeed on a Skill TN (equal to 5 times your appropriate Skill Rank) without a dice roll for that particular specialization. This counts in all Raises (free or called) so a character with a particularly high Skill Rank can achieve great things with an ease that is the envy of their so-called peers. TN’s that exceed this number are rolled normally. The following skills receive this kind of Specialization and all cost the same price (5 exp): Animal Handling, Athletics, Acrobatics, Creation, Games, Hunting, Lore, Meditation, Perform, Sailing, and Tea Ceremony
+Expansion:
The more complex type of Specialization Emphasis grants new abilities or directly enhances the base ones. Unlike the Consistency-type these require you to possess both the proper Emphasis and Skill Ranks, and each Mastery’s cost is rated in Mastery Rank (3, 5, 7, or 9 exp). The following skills this kind of Specialization: Courtier, Divination, Etiquette, Investigation, Medicine, Spellcraft, Battle, Defense, Horsemanship, Shields, Dual Wielding, Combat, Commerce, Forgery, Intimation, and Underhand.
For the moment I have two examples of each type of Specialization and what it might look like.
Games (varies)
Sub-Type:
Macro-skill [Fortunes & Winds (Awareness), Go (Intelligence), Kemari (Agility), Letters (Awareness), Sadane (Awareness), Shogi (Intelligence), to name a few]
Mankind’s history is littered with the crushing weight of the necessity of a working class of people, as well as the ignoble people that often live off those workers. Yet boredom effects everyone eventually and in response to that people of all strips create means to pass time more enjoyably, one of these means is what are known as games (ye` know the thing your playing). Whether cerebral or purely physical, simple or masterworks of complexity; games exist for the sake of entertainment. The land of Rokugan is no different.
Emphasis:
Varies
Emphasis Type:
Consistency
General Games Mastery Abilities
Rank 3:
The character gains an additional +2 Insight above the total normally indicated by his Rings and Skill Ranks.
Rank 5:
The character gains an additional +3 Insight above the total normally indicated by his Rings and Skill Ranks (Stacks with Rank 3 Mastery for +5 Insight).
Rank 7:
The character gains an additional +2 Insight above the total normally indicated by his Rings and Skill Ranks (Stacks with Rank 5 Mastery for +7 Insight).
Rank 9:
The character gains an additional +3 Insight above the total normally indicated by his Rings and Skill Ranks( Stacks with Rank 7 Mastery +10 Insight).
COMBAT (Agility or Reflexes)
All offensive skills now have the same base Mastery Abilities and the real differences in combative mastery will be found in the Specialized Masteries. In addition, as noted in Athletics skill note, the Throwing Emphasis is now a full Bushi skill with its own Emphasis and the Ninjutsu skill has been spread over many skills.
Sub-Type:
Macro-skill
Emphasis:
Varies by sub-skill
General Combat Mastery Abilities
Rank 3:
Readying the weapons of this skill is a Free Action rather than a Simple Action once per round.
Rank 5:
The number of Raises required to perform the Extra Attack Maneuver is reduced by 2 with weapons for this Skill.
Rank 7:
You may make attacks with this weapon skill as Simple Actions rather than a Complex Action.
Rank 9:
The damage of all weapons in this skill is increased by +1k1.
Specialization Mastery Type: Expansion
Throwing Specialized Masteries: Small Weapons, Shurikens, Spears/Javelins/Nage-yari
Small Weapons
Emphasis Requirement:
Throwing (small weapons)
Mastery Rank 3:
After throwing a small weapon you may take a Free Action to draw another small weapon on your person once per round.
Mastery Rank 5:
You may throw small weapons at a range of 40’ (instead of 20‘)
Mastery Rank 7:
As a complex action you may ricochet a small weapon off another surface to hit a target that is within range but behind cover.
Mastery Rank 9:
Damage dice explode with thrown weapons on rolls or 9 or 10.
Shurikens
Emphasis Requirement:
Throwing (shurikens)
Mastery Rank 3:
You may ready/draw a shuriken as a Free Action any number of times per Round.
Mastery Rank 5:
You may throw a shurikens at a range of 50’ (instead of 25’)
Mastery Rank 7:
Ignore a number of Reduction equal to your half your Perception Trait Rank (rounded up).
Mastery Rank 9:
When wielding shuriken, you may take a Complex Action to make a number of ranged attacks equal to your Agility Trait Rank.
Spears /Javelins /Nage-yari
Emphasis Requirement:
Throwing (Spear or Javelins or Nage-yari, as appropriate)
Mastery Rank 3:
You gain a Free Raise when throwing a spear that can only be spent on the Called Shot Maneuver.
Mastery Rank 5:
The maximum range of a thrown spear is doubled.
Mastery Rank 7:
As a complex action you may ricochet a spear off another surface to hit a target that is within range but behind cover.
Mastery Rank 9:
When throwing a spear you may throw it an additional distance up to twice listed range, but suffers a -1k0 penalty to the attack roll for every extra 20’ beyond the enhanced (counting Mastery 5) range.
.
