Hello all. I have a new homebrew alternative path for those that are interested. As before, not sure if this path is balanced or not but feel free to use it as you see fit. Let's give the smart themed warriors some love. Although I use the Shiba for this tech, I can easily see it used for a Bayushi Bushi too with adjustments.

Shiba Blade-Scholars

-Replaces: Shiba Bushi 2

-Requirements: Fire 3, Iaijutsu 3, Any three Lore Skills at Rank 3

-Technique: Insightful Inspiration: You have a keen intellect that helps you strike true with blades of Honor. You may now use your Intelligence Trait instead of your Awareness Trait during the Assessment Stage of an Iaijutsu Duel. Also, when wielding a Samurai keyword weapon, you may add your Intelligence Trait to the total of your damage rolls.

P.S. This will go very nice with the Shiba Ancestor Advantage.

Quite an interesting concept!

However R2 ranks tend to give only one bonus\ability while you give 2 of them!

R1 techniques give 2 things but I guess you do not want to sacrifice Shiba Bushi R1 technique.

If you really want to powering up this concept you should work on it turning into an advanced school.

Or you can keep it r2 but cutting off one of the two abilities.

After sleeping on it I can see how this is a strong tech for Rank 2; might work better as two separate techs. Time to brainstorm again. lol

I actually think that the Technique is not that powerful at all. Intelligence is a rather useless Trait, so making it important for duels is a rather questionable choice - it is just better to leave it at the much more prominent Awareness unless you go for some super-specific Lore/Craft build. Then adding your Intelligence to your damage total is OK, and it has synergy with the first half, but again, if Intelligence is a thing for your character then you are already going sub-optimal so you might as well get something out of it.

The Requirements are too much tho. Fire 3 all by itself would be enough. The Skills are excessive, especially for such a questionable Technique.