On 9/2/2017 at 5:56 AM, TheWanderingJewels said:To represent this, the naginata should get the Keyword: Samurai if the school does not already have it.
As far as I remember the Naginata already has the "Samurai" keyword for everybody in 4th edition!
1 minute ago, LucaCherstich said:As far as I remember the Naginata already has the "Samurai" keyword for everybody in 4th edition!
it does.
On 2/11/2017 at 9:24 PM, tenchi2a said:I agree with this as long as there are not mechanical benefits.
None moreso than normal for any Lore Skill.
On 2/11/2017 at 9:24 PM, tenchi2a said:not sure this is needed, but each to their own.
Trust me it fixes a LOT of things about the vague and unwieldy Advantages. The normal ones don't mention if they include out of Rokugan (or Era for that matter) subjects like: firearms, Gajin Religion, Maho, Advanced Medicine, and Space Age Missile Tech
. There's also the fact that if you wanted to play a scholarly character you didnt take the Sage Advantage, but if you didnt want to be a scholarly character but wanted to still know Everything; you did.
Its an absurd contradiction.
On 2/11/2017 at 9:24 PM, tenchi2a said:Would love to see the breakdown on this as I have thought about doing this myself
Untrained Skills
Athletics, Courtier, Games, Investigation, Perform, Sincerity, Defense, Hunting, Jiujutsu, Weapons, Intimidation, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Temptation.
Trained Skills
Acting, Artisan, Calligraphy, Divination, Etiquette*, Lore, Medicine, Meditation, Spellcraft, Tea Ceremony, Battle, Horsemanship, Iaijutsu, Animal Handling, Commerce^, Craft, Engineering, Sailing, Forgery.
*Yes, seriously.
^Characters without at least 1 Rank can only do basic Addition and Subtraction.
==
For Rokugani characters these Skills required our Exotic Knowledge Advantage (4p, 3pts for Mantis, Dragon and Unicron) before you could take or advance the following skills.
Lore Gajin Culture (Select One)
Craft: Glassmaking
Shields
Swordsmanship
Archery
For Rokugani characters these Skills required the Forbidden Knowledge Advantage (5pt) before you could take or advance the following skills.
Lore: Gajin Theology (Select One)
Lore: Gajin Technology (Select One)
Lore: Secret Society (Select One)
Lore: Maho
Craft: Firearms
Craft: Cannons
Craft: Poisons
Craft: Explosives
Firearms
Cannons
On 2/11/2017 at 9:24 PM, tenchi2a said:-2k0 seems kind of high ?
Its meant to encourage people to either put points in Skills or at least use the Void "Temporary Skill Rank" option. Since otherwise it seems more like a slap on the wrist than an actual penalty...and the reason we didn't have the No Exploding is because Dumb Luck is Dumb Luck, and skill has nothing to do with that (we didn't like the spell and Techniques that effected that aspect of the game, besides that was too situational
to be genuinely useful).
On 2/11/2017 at 9:24 PM, tenchi2a said:I personally have never found defense that under-power, and I'm hesitate to punish spell casting due to all the limiters on it in 4th.
Beyond the multitude of Shugenja are too powerful post in this (and to a lesser degree the old forum) there is also the fact that its meant for fairness among archetypes. A Shugenja is ALWAYS in Defense Stance never anything else; Bushi, Monks, Courtiers all vary but the Shugenja never does. Its also somewhat absurd that a Shugenja can pull out a Scroll and read it aloud AND defend himself better than normal at the same time...but other characters cant attack at reduced ability and defend themselves at the same time too.
Before I fly into a rant, its simply about Fairness.
On 2/11/2017 at 9:24 PM, tenchi2a said:like the breakdown of a Schools Koku to Bu, but it seems like a lot of work to rebalance all items for a new conversion rate.
We, admittedly never converting everything so much as eye-balled as it came around.
Anything that can be reasonably owned by a Peasant was measured in Zeni.
Anything that should belong to the Middle Class of Rokugan (most samurai and Merchants) was measured in Bu.
Anything that should that rare or belonging to the Elite was measured in Koku.
To give an example we put a Spear at 1 Bu and Ashigura Armor at 50 Zeni; meaning it cost 3 Bu per 2 Ashigura (roughly 66 Ashigura for 1 Koku).
While in comparison a Katana costs 15 Bu, a Wakizashi costs 7, and Light Armor costs 3 Bu for a total cost of 25 Bu per Samurai (4 per Koku).
We figured this matched the setting pretty well.
We did away with money completely. If a character wants something then he rolls Commerce (Acquisition) against a TN depending on the availability of the item, and if the roll is successful, then he gets whatever he wants. We just assume the samurai's peers provide the necessary piece of equipment or whoever is selling the item is honored to give it to a samurai. If the player wants to feel rich then he can take the Wealthy Advantage that adds +1k0 to the Commerce roll per Rank.
Actual money only comes into play if the character is some sort of outsider (ronin, gaijin, or hinin) who can't rely on peers or reverence to get what he wants. Even lords and merchants use money only as a sort of abstraction to assess their resources.
How do you deal with crafting, then?
Don't get me wrong, seems like a great fit for Rokugan, although the conflict of Money and Bushido can be interesting, too. All too often some samurai runs into trouble because he didn't deal with money well enough, even though he's supposed to not care about it at all.
6 minutes ago, Myrion said:How do you deal with crafting, then?
It simply links back to availability (and item keywords like 'large' and 'samurai'), just like acquisition.
14 minutes ago, Myrion said:All too often some samurai runs into trouble because he didn't deal with money well enough, even though he's supposed to not care about it at all.
Well, we assume that samurai don't see money at all, only in some extreme cases. They don't receive stipends, and don't pay for anything - items and services they need will be readily provided on demand, with availability (and oftentimes, reputation) being the only limiting factor. You can still have drama about people abusing/exploiting the system by either taking too much and/or misusing the resources entrusted on them, or have people abuse availability by withholding access until certain conditions are met (this is a great opportunity for a player character to gain six-gorillion ranks of Obligation by the way).
Fair enough. I was just thinking about gentry and taxes as well as cases of monetary obligations that eventually ruin someone.
Those are all special cases and can easily enough just not come up.
Sticking with crafting for a moment, though (because it's been on my mind anyway):
How do you calculate crafting time and TN? GM decision?
5 hours ago, Myrion said:Sticking with crafting for a moment, though (because it's been on my mind anyway):
How do you calculate crafting time and TN? GM decision?
Uh, I don't know much about crafting (never had character for it yet), but it goes something like this:
- TN is set by item Availability (Common -> Average -> Rare -> Unique) and item Keywords (Samurai and other "complex" keywords increase TN, Peasant and other "primitive" keywords decrease it).
- Then the player makes a Cumulative Craft Skill roll against the TN, with the GM determining how much time each roll takes.
The only case I remember seeing it in action was when a Kaiu Engineer tried to forge a really bad*ss katana: he had a TN around 200 with each roll taking up a week (the character was off forging the sword for seven in-game months or so, driving the party crazy
).
A house rule that I have used that has gone over very well in my playgroups: Unexploded Dice.
When making a Skill or Spell-Casting Roll (or Raw Trait Roll), and you roll a 10 on a die, you may choose to A) Explode the Dice by rolling another d10 and adding to it, or B) set the die at 10 and take a Free Raise.
This has done a lot to keep combat dynamic, as well as make investigation scenes more engaging. Now, Players don't have to do the mental calculus of pushing their luck, calling Raises and risking failure. Now, they can call their Raises that they are confident they can make, roll their dice, figure out if they beat the TN and then either try to roll higher or save the 10 as a free Raise. My players are a lot more willing to take risks as a result, and enjoy their lucky rolls when they can.