I dig stuff like this until we get to the "unable to roll or only 1k1". Unable to roll sounds un-fun to me. I want my players to be able to try anything (even if success is highly unlikely). Rolling only 1k1 sounds like a finicky correction to not having rolled dice.

I do like the FFG SW solution, in which the higher number determines rolled dice and the lower number determines upgrades. So if we must keep R&K (which I hope we don't), we could do something like "roll the higher, keep the lower", which would encourage players to keep skills and traits in balance.

It still uses the Traits and Skills (no Rings though) for its foundation but unlike L5R Traits are Kept Dice but not Rolled Dice.

This system was in L5R through the first and second editions.

Edit: Wait, it was a second edition only feature as far as I can tell. That doesn't tell a lot of good about it .

Edit: Wait, it was a second edition only feature as far as I can tell. That doesn't tell a lot of good about it .

Wasn't the major fault of 2e L5R failure to adjust TNs?

3 Skill 3 Trait vs a TN of 20 is a 37% chance with roll Skill keep Trait (3k3) and a 82% chance with roll Skill+Trait keep Trait (6k3).

Personally, I have been finding surprising success with this series of house rules on my 4E Tabletop Game.

1) Standard TN is 15. Hard is 20. Difficult is 30. Impossible is 40. GM declares Dice Pool and TN first.

2) You take Raises by taking a -1k0 penalty to the roll. Wound penalties also impact dice pools (-1k0, -2k0, -2k1, -3k1, -3k2, and -4k4 + VP for Down). Normal limits for Raises to be taken. Player announces their Dice Pool second, and declares any Raises at this time, but does not need to specify what they are spending them on. Additionally, players may spend Free Raises to gain +1k0.
3) When you roll a natural 10 on a d10, it Explodes. On Skill rolls (and only Skill rolls), you may opt to gain a Free Raise instead of rolling and adding an additional d10 to that die.

4) Standard Roll & Keep resolution. If you succeeded, then you spend Raises at this time how you see fit.

This has lead to a far more dynamic game, and players have genuinely enjoyed the power this modification puts in their hands. It really makes some of the systems flow better.

I like R&K but I am very new to it. The one thing that bothers me about it is the amount of math. I am not bad at math, but doing arithmetic slows the game down. I like the idea of raises being +/- dice. It is more swingy, but it is also quicker and dice give a more tangible feeling to the gamble.

I have gone back and forth on GM declaring then TN. What have you liked about it?

It still uses the Traits and Skills (no Rings though) for its foundation but unlike L5R Traits are Kept Dice but not Rolled Dice. This means that no matter how high your Traits get, if you havent got the Skill your mediocre at best.

A person with a Trait of 5 and no Skill Ranks in what they’re doing is either unable to roll in the first place (though this is mostly for Advanced Skills) or he’s only rolling 1k1. In comparison a guy with a Trait of 3 and Skill Rank of 5 is rolling 5k3.

This variant would definitely help out in in preventing people from pretty much totally ignoring Skills (Shugenja), while still giving reason to increase your Traits too.

While the concept has some good idea, the end result made more or less sense. I think that the problem that some character ignore Skills should be solved in another way, I have no idea how at the moment, but I'll explain why I feel like it makes more or less sense.

I'll be using an example to display why I feel like it's more or less applicable. I'll take the example as a weapon master. Let's say he has 4 in Agi, 3 in Kenjutsu, 3 in Heavy Weapon, 3 in Staves, 2 in Polearms and 2 in War Fan. Based on the fact that he's skilled with a large variety of weapon, I feel like it makes no sense for him to be useless in the situation where he took a spear to defend people when he got surprised in an ambush. As I'm saying, I'm just talking about the fact that he's a weapon master, of course, there's some weapon type that he's not competent, but will that make him look like he'll hold that weapon like he's a total new born?

The comes Investigation skill when using the emphasis "Notice", which is usually used when spotting something by instinct. Based on the fact that it is an instinct, why isn't it possible for a player to have a very small chance to see it.

So yeah, the concept isn't bad and in fact, I do agree with the idea of giving more importance to skills than trait. It's kinda hard to think of a well balanced system, but I do think that Mastery Level is great start. Maybe they should be a little stronger, which will give a better alternative but even this isn't perfect, since some people will ignore most skills... While I don't like giving restriction, it could be a way solution too. By restriction I mean that in order to be able to purchase a Trait at rank N, it requires a X Skills at Rank N, Y Skills at Rank N-1 and Z Skills at Rank N-2. Of course, these are just thrown idea, I'm not saying they are better, I'm just throwing idea.

As for the Shugenja, I still think they should use a Skill Roll for their spellcasting... In my opinion, they shouldn't use their school rank, but Spellcasting skills, where elements are sub-skills (like Lore) and when casting multi-element spells, they should use the lower of both skills.

One way I found to be a strong incentive for players to invest in skills is change how penalties are calculated (Wound penalties being the most prominent ones). For each -5, gives the character a -1k0 instead.

A character with only a few skills gets hit hard by any sort of penalties (since his kept dice are penalized too), while a skilled bushi/courtier/etc. can maintain a good level of competence regardless of penalties.

This variant would definitely help out in in preventing people from pretty much totally ignoring Skills (Shugenja), while still giving reason to increase your Traits too.

Isn't Shugenja ignoring skills more a fault of how the Spellcasting system (which is Ring and Insight Rank based) is designed more than a fault of the roll Skill+Trait keep Trait version of R&K? Having to use a skill or skills to cast spells might fix this fault far more than removing traits from the number of dice rolled.

Most of what roll Skill keep Trait will change is the meaning of various TNs.

TN 5 becomes the representation of tasks that unskilled/poorly trained individuals can do a fair amount (60%) of the time.

TN 10 would be tasks that the average person (trait 2) can do with some training (2 ranks) a fair amount (64%) of the time and those fully trained (3 ranks) can do reliably (84%).

TN 15 represents tasks that those fully trained have some trouble with (47%).

TN 20 becomes tasks only better people (trait 3) with superior training (rank 4) attempt with a fair amount (57%) of success.

Over here, we are experimenting with making Skills cheaper by 1 point / Rank (so improving the Skill costs your current Rank, not the next Rank), with Macro Skills coming even cheaper (they cost 1 xp from Rank 1 to 4, 2 xp from Rank 5 to 7, and 3 xp from Rank 8 to 10). The results are good so far, but the Insight progress kinda suffers from it.

Figures that there isn't any more information to be had here, but like to say thanks to you all for the information (learn something new every day). Seems like there are no easy answers or shortcuts for fixing things, so I'm going to have to get back to work on my own 4.5 and hope the next Edition isn't total Heresy.

...wish there was a better place to work on this with.

Figures that there isn't any more information to be had here, but like to say thanks to you all for the information (learn something new every day). Seems like there are no easy answers or shortcuts for fixing things, so I'm going to have to get back to work on my own 4.5 and hope the next Edition isn't total Heresy.

...wish there was a better place to work on this with.

Huh... you asked for our opinion on the idea for or against it, most people gave their opinion.based on what you asked. It's not about breaking down the idea. As I've said, I like the concept, I feel it needs some polishing for balance issue. You shouldn't simply give up because people are saying opinion against it.

If it was the case of every people that worked in R&D, regardless of the field of research, we would still be in the Stone Ages...