- Raise cap reverted back to Void only, not skill-rank. And while, again, this is probably a good choice since 3E had no relevant Raise cap to speak off, this is another nerf especially for specialist builds who now NEED high Void so they can fully utilize their strongest skills (which kinda defeats the point of a specialist build)

You can take the Great Potential Advantage to revert this back to the 3rd Edition ways.

- Emphases were nerfed from +1 per rank to re-rolling 1s, which is mechanically awesome and far more interesting, but also means it's far stronger at low ranks and does not really scale (so the benefit at high skill/Trait is not much greater than at the lower ranks)

Let's do some maths:

6k3

+1 roll: Average roll: 28.1671

Reroll 1: Average roll: 28.416

Result: Reroll 1 is better.

9k3:

+1 roll: Average roll: 32.0879

Reroll 1: Average roll: 32.5767

Result: Reroll 1 is better.

6k6

+1 roll: Average roll: 40.7977

Reroll 1: Average roll: 40.5191

Result: +1 roll is better.

9k6:

+1 roll: Average roll: 49.9654

Reroll 1: Average roll: 50.8417

Result: Reroll 1 is better.

10k10:

+1 roll: Average roll: 61.0822

Reroll 1: Average roll: 67.4277

Result: Reroll 1 is better.

11k10:

+1 roll: Average roll: 63.0822 (12k10 turns into 10k10+2)

Reroll 1: Average roll: 67.4277

Result: Reroll 1 is better.

In the end, it's not really a nerf, it was some situation where the +1 die is better, but overall the emphases in the 4th edition is better...

- Raise cap reverted back to Void only, not skill-rank. And while, again, this is probably a good choice since 3E had no relevant Raise cap to speak off, this is another nerf especially for specialist builds who now NEED high Void so they can fully utilize their strongest skills (which kinda defeats the point of a specialist build)

You can take the Great Potential Advantage to revert this back to the 3rd Edition ways.

It would be interesting to see if the Raise cap was based off of the Fire Ring instead of the Void Ring or Skill Rank.

Or

Raise cap is base off half your Skill Rank (round down).

Just throwing some thoughts out there.

Crawd:very well thought out response with some interesting and good points, I'll try my best to provide my point of view

1) Honor as a role-playing restriction: yes it is, or can be, but it's a self imposed one. I can choose to not care about my honor score, and it won't alter anything my character is capable of unless I have a technique that relies on it. It's a buy in for certain clans sure, but it's supposed to be an impossible standard (and dealing with the stress of trying to live up to it is why I like the lion so much). But there are no honor requirements fire any basic school, only some advanced schools or paths will deny teaching you if your below a certain point.

And yes, seppuku could be demanded of you, that's the kind of world rokugan is, but you could choose to say no, to fight your way from your lord castle and go ronin. Lots of options for the daring scoundrel.

2) rolling dice: here I agree, you should only roll dice when the failure of an action is as interesting as the success. O mean if the point of interest for the players hinges on finding one clue or the hands grinds to a halt, why are we rolling investigation at all, right?

3)shugenja in court: here we are using honor as an assumption again. You assume the shugenja cats about proper behavior. You think the scorpion shugenja built for courtier activities isn't going to be casting spells for advantage? Or a desperate minor clan shugenja who NEEDS this trade deal to keep their lands fed? Unless you have rank 5 shugenja in every court (frankly I expect it at the imperial court and maaaaayyybbbeee high ranking phoenix or mantis courts) banishing kami to prevent spellcasting it's going to happen. Hell, I've even seen lion and crane shugenja do it.

4)gm suggestion/control: if you as the game master are telling the players what to take for their characters that's fine, but that is you taking the choice away from them. And if that is what it takes to get the game balanced than isn't that kind of an admission that the system is broken?

Let's talk about playstyle for a moment. I think this is incredibly important for this kind of discussion. My games are player centric sandboxes with lots of background things to get involved with. Pvp is a major factor sometimes. And this setting is written perfectly for this to be true. If the lion and dragon go to war, we expect the players of those clans to eventually go at it. Possibly even lethally. This is why character balance,not party Balance is important. The rank 4 crab bushi NEEDS to stand a chance of beating the rank 4 fire shugenja or else all these conflicts are decided before they start.

Dnd like adventures where we show up in dragon village, kill the bandits, solve the mystery, and then move on are not what we play. Not that it's bad, it's just not what we do.

And I have suggested stuff . I have suggested destroying the spell list and giving shugenja a 5 rank progression. I have suggested with doing away with raises increasing casting time. I have suggested tearing them and monks out whole sale and redesigning them from the ground up.

The only reason shugenja have the mechanics they do is because you are supposed to feel like a dnd spell caster when you play one. And I think that's a bad thing.

1) Honor as a role-playing restriction: yes it is, or can be, but it's a self imposed one. I can choose to not care about my honor score, and it won't alter anything my character is capable of unless I have a technique that relies on it. It's a buy in for certain clans sure, but it's supposed to be an impossible standard (and dealing with the stress of trying to live up to it is why I like the lion so much). But there are no honor requirements fire any basic school, only some advanced schools or paths will deny teaching you if your below a certain point.
And yes, seppuku could be demanded of you, that's the kind of world rokugan is, but you could choose to say no, to fight your way from your lord castle and go ronin. Lots of options for the daring scoundrel.

However, having less honor doesn't mean that people will trust you the same way. Yes, Honor is a self imposed one, but on a certain level, it's not just self imposed, since some of your action will also display your level of Honor. So it's kinda both way. And, as I've said in my suggestion, which was thought and written as I was writting the post, he can say: "I'll wait a few before doing my chores, the kami will just not be as friendly with me for a while, but who cares." Otherwise, I agree with you.

2) rolling dice: here I agree, you should only roll dice when the failure of an action is as interesting as the success. O mean if the point of interest for the players hinges on finding one clue or the hands grinds to a halt, why are we rolling investigation at all, right?

Of course I'm not saying that every rolls should be removed, but at some point, I feel like rolling too much is removing the immersion in the game. But I feel like we agree on this.

3)shugenja in court: here we are using honor as an assumption again. You assume the shugenja cats about proper behavior. You think the scorpion shugenja built for courtier activities isn't going to be casting spells for advantage? Or a desperate minor clan shugenja who NEEDS this trade deal to keep their lands fed? Unless you have rank 5 shugenja in every court (frankly I expect it at the imperial court and maaaaayyybbbeee high ranking phoenix or mantis courts) banishing kami to prevent spellcasting it's going to happen. Hell, I've even seen lion and crane shugenja do it.

I'm not denying the fact that some shugenja doesn't behave properly, but at some point, sending them outside of their zone of confort without their strenght is something that Storyteller should do once in a while. Of course, some people will be pissed because they will feel useless, but it will also make people who usually feels useless because they built their character "balanced" to face every situation. But all I was saying here is a situation where, yes, they could get out the "easy way", their easy way, but with a cost. My players tend to keep their spells as a "last ressort" but I'll take quickly about that later.

4)gm suggestion/control: if you as the game master are telling the players what to take for their characters that's fine, but that is you taking the choice away from them. And if that is what it takes to get the game balanced than isn't that kind of an admission that the system is broken?

I might have poorly wrote what I wanted to say, I do not impose anything, but I guide them, specially new players, knowing what's ahead in my game. In a way, I'm helping them to be useful. I really doubt there will have a fully balanced system, in fact, I never played one. Therefore, I strongly encourage character balancement at "Min/maxing" and my players know that. One of my friends, who really like my game and like to min/max in some game, that my game are more enjoyable when you build a more balanced character.

There's some system that you feel like what you're doing is balanced and you end up doing something really overpowered... It happened to me in the past and I do hate playing overpowered characters. So yeah, it's easy, after a while, to find broken stuffs, it's very hard to fix. It's not like a video games, patches aren't easily dispatched. Also, I never said that the Shugenja wasn't strong, they are very strong and the setting also goes in that direction. So, in the end, for the sake of balance, I feel like yes, the Storyteller should have the final word. It's his game after all.

Let's talk about playstyle for a moment. I think this is incredibly important for this kind of discussion. My games are player centric sandboxes with lots of background things to get involved with. Pvp is a major factor sometimes. And this setting is written perfectly for this to be true. If the lion and dragon go to war, we expect the players of those clans to eventually go at it. Possibly even lethally. This is why character balance,not party Balance is important. The rank 4 crab bushi NEEDS to stand a chance of beating the rank 4 fire shugenja or else all these conflicts are decided before they start.

Dnd like adventures where we show up in dragon village, kill the bandits, solve the mystery, and then move on are not what we play. Not that it's bad, it's just not what we do.

I can understand more about your concerns now. True, if there's PVP, I can understand why balancing becomes an issue. Therefore, I also feel like it needs more controls by the Storyteller in that case. He's not the owner of the campaign for nothing. And let's not forget the main rule of an RPG, which is like most games: to have fun with the others. I'll enforce the "with the others". I'm not saying that you can't have fun with the others in a PVP games, I'm just saying that at some point, if someone is simply playing for his own fun, yes, he'll find the most overpowered stuffs and forgets about balancing.

My games are very different, they are story driven, where there's a main plot with lots of character development occuring in background. I usually have 3 to 5 players, so yeah. I think there's mainly about the playstyle that we diverge a lot. But I still think that no matter the playstyle, I'm probably being annoying with that, but I feel like the Storyteller should have more control when balance becomes an issue. Of course, this has to be clear at the beginning of the campaign. I'm not telling that if your campaign has started long ago to change it right now, but maybe in the future and talk about it.

And I have suggested stuff . I have suggested destroying the spell list and giving shugenja a 5 rank progression. I have suggested with doing away with raises increasing casting time. I have suggested tearing them and monks out whole sale and redesigning them from the ground up.

The only reason shugenja have the mechanics they do is because you are supposed to feel like a dnd spell caster when you play one. And I think that's a bad thing.

Sorry if you felt like I was talking about you when I was saying that I was just suggesting something, instead of just whining about a problems, nothing else.

Then I totally agree with you that Shugenja shouldn't feel like a D&D spellcaster... The last time I've played a Shugenja, the Storyteller was soo happy to have someone bringing some Shugenja stuffs, like some prayers to a fortune before doing a task, of course, these were just some fluffy stuffs but he was happy to have more than a "Bushi able to cast" or a "Courtier able to cast", which are some Shugenja players, sadly.

On this, I salute your answer and it was very interesting.

- Emphases were nerfed from +1 per rank to re-rolling 1s, which is mechanically awesome and far more interesting, but also means it's far stronger at low ranks and does not really scale (so the benefit at high skill/Trait is not much greater than at the lower ranks)

-snip-

Perhaps I did not explain this right - it's not +1 rolled die, it's +Skill rank, so instead of 6k3 with the first 1 re-rolled you get 6k3+3, with 9k4 you get 9k4+5 and so forth...which is slightly better already at lower ranks and MUCH more relevant at higher ranks

As for the roleplaying restrictions: This depends a lot on the GM, to be honest, and the overall feel of the table. In an old-school, more or less imperial edition kind of setting a character may very well be taken to task for being dishonourable or even shunning social norms, but in a current day Rokugan with the Moto family, the Mantis Clan and the Spider cult, this kind of thing would not come up as much. Old school Rokugan is patriarchal, new Rokugan is actually mildly over the line on the feminist side of things. RP restrictions are viable and potentially awesome - if there is a common standard and people can agree on them.

Few things, however, are more toxic than festering disagreements on RP and discussion what a character should, or should not get away with if there are no hard and fast rules.

Which brings me to the second point: the workarounds you propose, basically "going around the dice" if the dice do not give the results you as a GM think are good for the game - I think that doesn't really address the issue. The mechanics represent the character in a sense, and they are a necessary arbitrator once things might work or not - sure, there is the stipulation that the players should be able to live with the result of failure (and be it character death, so there's genuine risk or thrill in some situations). Point is, the mechanics are an expression how the game world should work and shape the expectations of players. If they constantly lead to a "wrong" result (for example a weak character due to a bad build when it was not obvious or to be expected that, for example, picking up a Naginata made a character a bad bushi even if he had the requisite skill), then the GMs and player constantly correcting on the fly isn't really the right response when DESIGNING a game. Design should aim for a game that works out of the box.

L5R-RPG does this, but not 100%. The tropes of the setting support legendary Samurai having practically supernatural power and standing up to supernatural threats (well, there are ST members who subscribe to the D&D paradigm of overt magic >> everything, but not all do), particularly with toughness and determination. Shugenja being legitimately better at everything and only held back by a gentleman's agreement mechanically upsets that expectation.

If the people at the table constantly correct for that it's commendable that they are mature and aware enough to do it, but it shouldn't be necessary. "Leave it to the players to sort it out" is lowering the bar on the design side of things.

The tropes of the setting support legendary Samurai having practically supernatural power and standing up to supernatural threats (well, there are ST members who subscribe to the D&D paradigm of overt magic >> everything, but not all do), particularly with toughness and determination.

You know, I would just love to see this on the mechanical level. Get that general samurai power level a sweet-sweet boost and then we can talk about whether shugenja are good as they are. IMHO, a shugenja throwing around fireballs feels much less game-breaking when your average bushi is the Grim Reaper with a katana and not a glorified ashigaru .

Which I don't think would be a bad thing to do. I can easily imagine a couple different paths to take a character, but with clan specific options at different intervals.

How is the basic star wars system? Are there skills and attributes as well as talents? I'm imagining talents as little packages that increase options with the occasional built in stat bump rather than them being the main way you build your character. Am I close here?

attributes and skills combine (more of an attribute promotes weaker dice to stronger), then you have talent trees which typically give you situational modifiers or static bonuses to specific weapons or kinds of rolls. but thats reducing a fantastic system down to something that sounds a little boring. the advantage/threat mechanic is incredibly powerful. you wanna be a crunch heavy table? then they can be used to trigger crits and activate bonus dice. you are a narrative table? you can use them to suggest outcomes or dangers in the next action or scene. or any combination thereof.

my biggest beef with the system is the book splitting. from a logistical standpoint i can kind of understand but its hard not to see it as a cynical cash grab. especially not putting jedi in the core book of a star wars game. thats a super lame move in my opinion. don't get me wrong, Edge of the Empire def doesn't need jedi to be great, and neither does star wars, but that may well be a minority opinion.

To be fair, just about everyone knows that its likely going to be a Star Wars type-game ('Special' dice; a vary 'Narrative System'; with books dividing basic clans/character archetypes/etc. into different books requiring multiple purchases to get the 'full' game.).

Actually, I highly doubt that this will happen. They had the chance to do this with the Warhammer 40k RPG too, and they stuck with the old system so hard the newest system (Dark Heresy 2nd Edition) was barely more than a re-themed version of the previous one (Only War). In fact, they murdered a viable (if somewhat imperfect) beta that introduced many cool and new ideas (RIP in pieces Talent Trees...).

- Emphases were nerfed from +1 per rank to re-rolling 1s, which is mechanically awesome and far more interesting, but also means it's far stronger at low ranks and does not really scale (so the benefit at high skill/Trait is not much greater than at the lower ranks)

-snip-

-snip

I wonder what the numbers would look like with that ruling, because that sounds really Interesting.

I wonder what the numbers would look like with that ruling, because that sounds really Interesting.

Using an old tool on the web (thanks to the unknown swedish dude who coded and hosted the probability calculator for all these years!) and a rather recent Java tool I was shown during a recent play-by-post (thanks whoever was Bayushi Tsukiki in that game), I come up with the following:

At Skill 1/Trait 3:

3ER: Avg: 22.9, chance of beating TN 20: 63%

4E: Avg: 23.6, chance of beating TN 20: 65%

At Skill 3/Trait 3:

3ER: Avg. 29.5, chance of beating TN 25: 71%

4E: Avg. 27.7, chance of beating TN 25: 57%

At skill 5/Trait 4:

3ER: Avg. 42.4, chance of beating TN 35: 79%

4E: Avg: 38.9, chance of beating TN 35: 61%

You can kinda see the trend from here, but basically: For the reasons Magus Black outlined above, the re-rolled 1s are far more effective if you have few dice and thus the chance of re-rolling into something useful are still decent. It is a good benefit early, worth about 1.5-3 on the average over the climbing dice codes and a few percent of chance, but it doesn't really scale well. The advantage for hitting really high TNs is actually a little bigger, but overall the old 3ER Emphasis outstrips the new Emphasis in usefulness by quite a bit once your character hits the higher skill ranks.

Ah I was unclear because I am on my phone and didn't want a huge quote chain. I meant current emphasis rules, where you reroll, but instead you can reroll any dice you choose up to your void ring. I think that is an interesting idea and my gut says it would be very good.

The emphasis rules always seemed to me to be a way to raise your charecters minimum competence, rather than raising your average. And for something that costs 1xp to get (if it's more it's not by much, away from books) I think avoiding a truly disastrous role now and then is worth that price.

Oh, and please either make kata worthwhile, or ditch them entirely. I've reached the point where I have replaced then all in my games with martial kiho.

To be fair, just about everyone knows that its likely going to be a Star Wars type-game ('Special' dice; a vary 'Narrative System'; with books dividing basic clans/character archetypes/etc. into different books requiring multiple purchases to get the 'full' game.).

Actually, I highly doubt that this will happen. They had the chance to do this with the Warhammer 40k RPG too, and they stuck with the old system so hard the newest system (Dark Heresy 2nd Edition) was barely more than a re-themed version of the previous one (Only War). In fact, they murdered a viable (if somewhat imperfect) beta that introduced many cool and new ideas (RIP in pieces Talent Trees...).

I’m afraid your gravely mistaken there, I was there for both of Betas, that was not the case. What they were trying to do was input brand new mechanics in a preexisting game that were incompatible with all it predecessors. If those new rules had been good people would have had better views of its first mode…

They weren’t.

My point is that at the very best/worst, this will happen again with L5R. The only exception being that introducing a totally different special snowflake system will induce even more fan rage (especially if they copy-paste the SW system) and thus will make FFG dance back to R&K even harder. It would be exactly like the Dark Heresy Beta, but worse.

For one, I think the guys at FFG are smarter than going through this (again). They want L5R to be a big thing, and taking the risk of introducing a whole new system is definitely incompatible with their greater goal.

Oh, and please either make kata worthwhile, or ditch them entirely. I've reached the point where I have replaced then all in my games with martial kiho.

I'd axe them altogether, really, and replace them either by Kiho or other "active abilities" or special attacks from techniques. Or even just raw stats - nothing wrong bushi having more reduction or plain doing more damage. Kata weren't good in 3E, and worse in 4E in terms of design health, and were always nonsensical thematically (Kata are practice forms goddammit - either they are constantly in use since the bushi "borrow" sequences from them during normal fighting, or they are not applicable to combat - however you see it, they just don't work like this meditative state in which, for some reason, you just fight better).

Oh, and please either make kata worthwhile, or ditch them entirely. I've reached the point where I have replaced then all in my games with martial kiho.

I'd axe them altogether, really, and replace them either by Kiho or other "active abilities" or special attacks from techniques. Or even just raw stats - nothing wrong bushi having more reduction or plain doing more damage. Kata weren't good in 3E, and worse in 4E in terms of design health, and were always nonsensical thematically (Kata are practice forms goddammit - either they are constantly in use since the bushi "borrow" sequences from them during normal fighting, or they are not applicable to combat - however you see it, they just don't work like this meditative state in which, for some reason, you just fight better).

Not a bad idea. One of the things I thought about but never really did anything with was sort of 'advanced stances'. Defense stance making difficult terrain around you as you bog people down. Full defence jacking up your Dr. Full attack stance removing your raise cap. Never found a way to do it well, though.

I do not understand where the desire to nerf shugenja comes from. My table has admittedly been shugenja light, never having more than 2 at a time, but they have never out-shined the bushi present. I just use the rules already present in the game to curb their power. If a starting shugenja wants to be able to cast all his spells without having to carry around a scroll for them, then six of their starting exp are dedicated to memorizing those spells. That puts the character 13% behind any non-shugenja. And this exp curve continues as they get more, and more powerful, spells. The other thing to remember is story related. Most earth and fire magic is dangerous to use in the crowded, and densely built confines of Rokugani cities. Earth spells tear up the streets and fire burns down the buildings if you are not careful. Even air spells can be dangerous to cast, as the winds they summon can destroy the insides of most buildings, and occasionally damage the roofs in peasant areas. All of this public destruction will draw the attention of the local lord, and the public dishonoring, or legal punishment that such attention brings. This can also result in the loss of Honor for the whole group. I treat crimes like breaches of etiquette, and the other players suffer for having been accomplices. Attacking, so to speak, my players stats tends to keep them from abusing their power.

I even brought the spell mastery rules (Raises for free casting) over from 3R, but doing so costs 5 Raises. This way it is there as an option, but I have only rarely seen it used for more than an extra Jade Strike. It uses up most of the Raises a player can make on their roll, and keeps higher level spells from being cast quickly when spell economy trumps speed. Economy rarely does that though and so most of the time my players Raise for speed. With this rule though it is a must to remember that the character needs to have at least one spell slot of that ring left.

Skills I can agree need a bit of a tweak. Mainly in that most skills lack any mastery abilities. I would make sure that all skills, not just combat skills, have some mastery abilities to them at the normal level (3/5/7/10). I do not think I would want to attach an Insight bonus to all skills as Celeryman suggested though. I would also like to update the mastery abilities for some of the under represented weapons. Mostly this would be dropping any first round of a skirmish limits, like the ones on Polearms and Spears for rank 3.

I have always like kata, and found them to be generally useful for the cost. I tend to think of them as specialized styles of fighting, and can agree that they are misnamed.

Kata cost I don't think I've ever thought of as an issue, rather the crazy ring requirements for most of them. Starting at 3 for the most basic effects, and 4 or higher for most (really, what bushi is going to have the xp to spare for fire 4 or 5?). That and the effects offered by them are grossly unbalanced.

Well, if you house-rule Fire to become mechanically meaningful in Combat (as it should be) more Bushi will spent xp there.

In my games I have an house rule on Fire acting as a bonus in case of weapon size differences (longer or shorter get the bonus according to the situation...I'm in love with Reach and to explain it in a simple way, longer weapon get the bonus on onset/first attacks and shorter weapon get the bonus when the melee is already started. In this way Spears and knives start also to make sense).

Honestly, I'd be super down for a new dice mechanic. I like R&K, but the arithmetic involved in large dice pools can be cumbersome. "If you're bad at math, just use an app!" Sure sure. But I'm playing a tabletop game. Plus, summing dice is such a recurring mechanic in RPGs, so I like seeing variety (ORE, for example)

But, assuming R&K,

Less OP air ring--It's too useful!!

As I've said elsewhere, I really want to see clarification of what different insight, skill, and trait ranks represent. For example, is IR 2 the highest that most samurai achieve, and so IR 3+ is reserved for outstanding heroes? What skill level is considered professional? What trait is "average" for an experienced samurai? What ranks do samurai need to become sensei? I want to see all this info in the core book.

I'd like better art creation rules. 4e treats them as economic goods, when I think they should be social goods.

Better accumulating success mechanic--in 4e, players continually roll their dice pools to accumulate success to hit a high TN. Which means, given enough time, anyone can succeed at such tasks. I'd prefer to see a minimum TN to make progress based on the difficulty of the activity, and then add the difference between the minimum TN and the roll to the "accumulated success".

This one is minor: change the damage mechanics. I prefer when systems don't have damage rolls (GURPS being the exception). Maybe damage=difference between attack roll and TN? Which would mean re-balancing wounds... But DEFINITELY change the healing rate. It's too fast!

Timeline neutrality--this made it VERY easy for me to get into the RPG (I didn't come from the CCG).

Better hit locations rules--this may not be necessary in the core book, but I'd like to have better info on damaging different hit locations.

Kata cost I don't think I've ever thought of as an issue, rather the crazy ring requirements for most of them. Starting at 3 for the most basic effects, and 4 or higher for most (really, what bushi is going to have the xp to spare for fire 4 or 5?). That and the effects offered by them are grossly unbalanced.

I have never had a problem convincing my players to go for Fire 4. Water has always been a much harder sell. Once all your Rings are at 3, if you have Agility 4 then Intelligence 4 is a good buy option. And in my experience once a character has gotten about half way through IR2 they should be on their way to having all their Rings at 3. This makes about half of the printed Kata available to the player, assuming they have the school to purchase it.

And if we want to talk Ring 5 Kata, there are only five, three for Fire, one for Earth and one for Water. To add flexibility two of the Fire Kata can be purchased as Kata in the "overpowered" ring of Air.

I've got two more.

Change compensation for disadvantages: to me, the complications and penalties that characters acquire through 4e disads seem to outweigh the few points you get for them. Instead of having a set point value for disadvantages, maybe do something like Wild Talents disadvantages: note them, and then give extra XP when they seriously complicate the PCs lives. Or do something Fate-y with them when they come up. A system like this would make disads worth their trouble.

No damage soak for void points: in my experience, void point damage soak lowers the lethality of L5R, and makes it more of an attrition game like D&D. At my table, we feel like we have to save our void points for when we get hit, instead of using them to be awesome. Plus, damage soak is kinda redundant with +1k1, since +1k1 can be used to overcome wound ranks penalties. Perhaps damage soak could be an option from an expensive advantage, a school technique, a kiho, or something else.

Aaaaaaand another one:

Guidelines for adjudicating social conflicts (courtier, etiquette, etc), Like, social mechanics shouldn't be functionally mind control (esp. on a PC), so how should they they work? One idea is to have a mental fatigue/wounds/stress/whatever quantifier. If characters lose social conflicts, they can choose to capitulate to the other side, or take mental fatigue/wounds/stress/whatever, which impose TN penalties for social skills at different ranks of severity, much like wounds.

How I have taken R&K and monkeyed with it for Math Challenged players:

Step 1: State your Action - What is your PC doing? How are they doing it? What are they wielding?
Step 2: GM states the Attribute + Skill, and the TN based on your action.

Step 3: Player builds the dice pool. Roll is X+YkX where X=Attribute and Y=Skill.

Step 4: Player declares a number of Raises, removing 1k0 from their dice pool for each Raise. Free Raises may be spent at this time to gain +1k0 for each Free Raise spent.

Step 5: Player rolls dice. Each 10 rolled Explodes, either adding a Raise to their roll or rolling an additional die and adding it to the 10.

Step 6: Player adds their Kept dice together, compares the total to the TN. Meet or beat, and they succeed.

Step 7: If the player is successful, they may spend their Raises for additional effects. If they are not successful, all Raises are lost.

I keep my TNs fairly straightforward (between 15 and 25), and I have had no complaints.