2 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

Interesting. It is not during a military or political conflict but a fire conflict that he bows.

Somehow that detail passed me by too.

1 minute ago, Kiseki said:

Right, but what I was asking is where it specifically ties the honor gained or lost to their Glory. For all we know it could be one honor or two honor or any number.

I noticed that part about honor for provinces too, didn't know what to make of it. Intriguing at the very least. It will be very interesting if you can take a province to dishonor someone out.

Oh, the Honored section does specify how glory affects skill = "In addition, a character’s status as honored or dishonored can have a significant impact on its military and political skill. An honored character adds its glory to its military and political skills, while a dishonored character subtracts its glory from its military and political skills." I'd probably argue that the glory number gives or takes that much honor when honored/dishonored just for consistency sake and another potential tie-in with personal honor from the old game. The only other situation for the base rules, not counting cards, is the value of 1.

3 minutes ago, Kiseki said:

Somehow that detail passed me by too.

It makes me wonder what exactly Fire represents in the context of a conflict (and for that matter what it is about the element itself that honors or dishonors characters).

42 minutes ago, Isawa Kioshi said:

I really hope his ability is rare and good, but from what I've seen of the previews, a ranged 2 attack that requires to bow isn't that good (or worth using, save for maybe key moments) when the ability is on a unique, "big badass" personality like this guy, with what looks to be a great stat line.

It's not based on power, it's based on cost - so the much-feared pumped-up Berserker goes poof to him.

43 minutes ago, Isawa Kioshi said:

Double post.

2 minutes ago, Builder2 said:

It makes me wonder what exactly Fire represents in the context of a conflict (and for that matter what it is about the element itself that honors or dishonors characters).

It's because fire is the most obvious of the rings in l5r when thinking about duality. The 4th edition book puts it best: "The essence of Fire is the way of passion and destruction, of creation and death. It is oneness with the driving impulses of the innermost spirit and the sheer, raging intensity of the wildfire that scours the plains." Tao of Shinsei.

17 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

Interesting. It is not during a military or political conflict but a fire conflict that he bows.

Affirmative action of getting shot in the head. Courtiers and warriors alike,no discrimination

10 minutes ago, Builder2 said:

It makes me wonder what exactly Fire represents in the context of a conflict (and for that matter what it is about the element itself that honors or dishonors characters).

Well they did say you would pick what ring you want to use during a conflict. I'm guessing you could only use this ability if someone declared the conflict elemental ring to be fire.

1 hour ago, TechnoGolem said:

Well they did say you would pick what ring you want to use during a conflict. I'm guessing you could only use this ability if someone declared the conflict elemental ring to be fire.

That's right. I just meant flavorwise.

1 hour ago, TechnoGolem said:

Well they did say you would pick what ring you want to use during a conflict. I'm guessing you could only use this ability if someone declared the conflict elemental ring to be fire.

Don't forget we've already seen a Province that lets Phoenix manipulate which Element is being contested, even on defense.

2 hours ago, Isawa Kioshi said:

It was one of my least favorite mechanics in the old CCG. I hated having a guy with an ability or spell, but also had a good stat line (which didn't come often in Phoenix, especially towards the end), that required you to bow him to use.

I really hope his ability is rare and good, but from what I've seen of the previews, a ranged 2 attack that requires to bow isn't that good (or worth using, save for maybe key moments) when the ability is on a unique, "big badass" personality like this guy, with what looks to be a great stat line.

I greatly dislike trading a character's complete usefulness for just an alright ability.

That being said, if the new ranged/melee attacks are that strong balance wise (or synergize to be really strong, say with anti-bow/from home mechanics), I could see it being a fair trade.

Having a good stat line is actually part of what makes this guy so good. He doesn't need to be participating in a conflict to use his ability, so you can declare a fire conflict without him as your first one and just the threat of his ability is enough to force your opponent into an awkward position. Either they don't commit any 2- cost characters or they have to over commit to block you. And then, if they don't at least give you a good target to destroy he gets to sit around on defense, or on offense with your second conflict and use that 3 mil/ 2 pol + 2 glory statline.

1 hour ago, GoblinGuide said:

Having a good stat line is actually part of what makes this guy so good. He doesn't need to be participating in a conflict to use his ability...

We don't know if there's an equivalent to the old Rules of Location in this L5R yet. Personalities might have to be in a conflict to use their actions; that would go with the designers' goal of increasing interaction between players and increasing risk for characters.

1 hour ago, Gaffa said:

We don't know if there's an equivalent to the old Rules of Location in this L5R yet. Personalities might have to be in a conflict to use their actions; that would go with the designers' goal of increasing interaction between players and increasing risk for characters.

While you're correct, one of the articles FFG posted specifically said that Phoenix will use 'powerful magic' while not even present in Conflicts. Given that, I think its quite possible, even likely, that Masahiro can use his action even when he is sitting at home.

2 hours ago, GoblinGuide said:

Having a good stat line is actually part of what makes this guy so good. He doesn't need to be participating in a conflict to use his ability, so you can declare a fire conflict without him as your first one and just the threat of his ability is enough to force your opponent into an awkward position. Either they don't commit any 2- cost characters or they have to over commit to block you. And then, if they don't at least give you a good target to destroy he gets to sit around on defense, or on offense with your second conflict and use that 3 mil/ 2 pol + 2 glory statline.

1 hour ago, Gaffa said:

We don't know if there's an equivalent to the old Rules of Location in this L5R yet. Personalities might have to be in a conflict to use their actions; that would go with the designers' goal of increasing interaction between players and increasing risk for characters.

Exactly. "Fire conflict" is still a conflict and will more than likely have to be resolved during a conflict in which this guy participates. I took this to be similar to how actions were coded in old L5R, such as "water battle" and "fire ranged". I highly doubt you'll be able to bow this guy at any time and nuke some 1-2 cost enemy personality.

I do think, based on the description of the Phoenix clan, that they'll have conflict cards/stronghold abilities to allow you to take actions like this guy's from home, however.

That guy is quite potent. Nuking 2 or less force peeps left and right, without even the need to be in the conflict is brutal. The restriction on the conflict being fire is nice in a clan that can manipulate rings like the firebirds...

This should be interesting.

18 minutes ago, Ser Nakata said:

That guy is quite potent. Nuking 2 or less force peeps left and right, without even the need to be in the conflict is brutal.

#1. It's two cost or less. There is no Force stat in L5R.

#2. We don't know if he has to be in the conflict or not yet.

Interesting, have not seen many conflict actions on characters, so far a few reactions an interrupt....

1 hour ago, Gaffa said:

#1. It's two cost or less. There is no Force stat in L5R.

#2. We don't know if he has to be in the conflict or not yet.

Targeting the cost is even better than targeting the force... Considering how most previewed characters so far are in the 1-2-3, this character's ability already has a lot of potential targets.

And there's no protection against this, whereas there are always ways to boost strength, I don't think we'll see cards that raise the cost of a character in play...

33 minutes ago, Ser Nakata said:

I don't think we'll see cards that raise the cost of a character in play...

I think it's too early to say whether we will or won't, but this character keys off of printed cost anyway, and that's usually something that can't change.

13 minutes ago, Builder2 said:

I think it's too early to say whether we will or won't, but this character keys off of printed cost anyway, and that's usually something that can't change.

[Looks up from assembling a small printing press] Sorry?

9 hours ago, Gaffa said:

We don't know if there's an equivalent to the old Rules of Location in this L5R yet. Personalities might have to be in a conflict to use their actions; that would go with the designers' goal of increasing interaction between players and increasing risk for characters.

Putting such limitations in the rules isn't the way FFG usually does things. They prefer to put it on the cards themselves. However, I think they're going to put the "once a round" limit for actions in the rules (which would also be unusual for them), because we've seen some actions with no cost or limit in card text (the Unicorn character and a reducer holding, I think).

They usually don't have a blanket limit on Actions, and put the restrictions on the individual cards. This time i think its more likely to be a universal "once per turn" for actions, and revoke this limitation on individual cards...

13 hours ago, Isawa Kioshi said:

It was one of my least favorite mechanics in the old CCG. I hated having a guy with an ability or spell, but also had a good stat line (which didn't come often in Phoenix, especially towards the end), that required you to bow him to use.

I really hope his ability is rare and good, but from what I've seen of the previews, a ranged 2 attack that requires to bow isn't that good (or worth using, save for maybe key moments) when the ability is on a unique, "big badass" personality like this guy, with what looks to be a great stat line.

I greatly dislike trading a character's complete usefulness for just an alright ability.

That being said, if the new ranged/melee attacks are that strong balance wise (or synergize to be really strong, say with anti-bow/from home mechanics), I could see it being a fair trade.

I'd actually have to take the opposite view and say I don't really like when cards have one correct way to play and one correct way only. Having a trade-off (do I use his ability, or do I keep his stats?) is a nice way of allowing characters to be versatile while also giving the player meaningful choices to make. It sounds like in FFG's game, there will be a lot more choices for players to make, rather than the game being won/lost just because certain cards did/didn't come up.

11 hours ago, GoblinGuide said:

Having a good stat line is actually part of what makes this guy so good. He doesn't need to be participating in a conflict to use his ability, so you can declare a fire conflict without him as your first one and just the threat of his ability is enough to force your opponent into an awkward position. Either they don't commit any 2- cost characters or they have to over commit to block you. And then, if they don't at least give you a good target to destroy he gets to sit around on defense, or on offense with your second conflict and use that 3 mil/ 2 pol + 2 glory statline.

Yeah, we don't know anything about whether presence is still a part of the game or not. If it is, I would expect that cards that don't directly reference it don't care about it.

11 hours ago, Gaffa said:

We don't know if there's an equivalent to the old Rules of Location in this L5R yet. Personalities might have to be in a conflict to use their actions; that would go with the designers' goal of increasing interaction between players and increasing risk for characters.

I didn't realize that's how old L5R worked, so I guess that could be the case. I would have expected Jade Tetsubo to be worded differently though; it explicitly requires that the attached character is participating in a conflict to be used.

19 minutes ago, GoblinGuide said:

I didn't realize that's how old L5R worked, so I guess that could be the case. I would have expected Jade Tetsubo to be worded differently though; it explicitly requires that the attached character is participating in a conflict to be used.

A good point! We'll see eventually, of course.