the 2 duelists stand apart from each other they have stern looks on there face judging the other they focus on the next move carefully building there souls as they ready to kill the other they do a quick spring to close the distance both men strike at the other a second later there is a spray of blood from one of them the other flicks his blade then cleans it on a silk cloth and puts it away in a smooth motion the duel is over as the loser falls dead 2 master duelists have faced each other this day and one brave warrior has fallen the kami have spoken loudly.

this is a duel of 2 masters neither thought of defending themselves only killing the other the live of a samurai is death. They do not think of defending they do not fear death they fear a dishonorable death.

The tn of 2 represents how easy it is to hit someone. with a normal strike is simple 2 masters same skill same odds of hitting each other. The more skill and ring scores shows who probably will hit first and will determine how hard one hits. Rings also make you more resilient and give you more wounds total remember max wounds is resilience +10. Also the armor your wearing helps with that so most of the time traveling cloths but when your expecting battle at higher ranks you should have heavy armor this will soak a lot of the damage. Your also forgetting part of L5R lore is the young samurai that faces the superior opponent and some how kills that person in 1 shot a higher than a TN of 2 would make that almost impossible it's real hard right now with out a ton of luck but a higher tn would make that even worse.

yeah, but you make a big mistake believing that hitting someone in real combat is easy. master swordsmen are not easy to strike - not only because of their ability to strike first - they are ''passively'' more difficult to strike. there is way more in a katana fight than quick-drawing and reflexes : it is at the same time a mind battle, a guessing game, a matter of rythme and a matter of distance estimation.

you would be surprised to see how difficult just toutching someone can be if your adversay is skilled enought.

and speaking about armor, would'nt it make more sens to have them apply for lethality rather than wound? especially since wounds are not really ment to represent actual wounds but rather the warrior's energy and last-second reflexes?

16 hours ago, Kyros Skyfall said:

not only because of their ability to strike first - they are ''passively'' more difficult to strike. there is way more in a katana fight than quick-drawing and reflexes : it is at the same time a mind battle, a guessing game, a matter of rythme and a matter of distance estimation.

Which is covered in part by combinations of the following:

• Staredown step modifying initiative
• Opportunity being used to assist your own subsequent checks
• Fire opportunity to impart strife
• Water opportunity to reduce strife
• Centre action increasing defence
• Centre action imparting strife when 'outguessing' your opponent
• Provoke action reducing defence
• Air Stance increasing defence
• Striking-as-air increasing defence
• Battle In The Mind kata during a duel
• The Finishing Blow mechanic

16 hours ago, Kyros Skyfall said:

and speaking about armor, would'nt it make more sens to have them apply for lethality rather than wound? especially since wounds are not really ment to represent actual wounds but rather the warrior's energy and last-second reflexes?

Whilst I agree with that idea, that is not currently how wounds are depicted (though it was one option in the survey).

Regardless, it would also represent minor hits - flesh wounds, bruises, sprains, etc as well as exhaustion.

Remember that the primary driver to receive critical strikes is being pushed past your resiliance - which armour helps prevent. At the moment, criticals bypassing armour gives a nice simple means to give a specific technique or situation an 'armour-piercing effect' (e.g. Heartpiercing strike)

true, but you still got the opportunity for the strike action allowing a critical hit to be inflected despise the armor. that's the main point that can create ''logical bugs'' to me

Reminder that wounds are wounds. its written in the book guys. Stop let your feelings and what you makes more sense alter this basic fact.
This whole thing got so misinterpreted that they will probably change name and fluff lol.

@Mobiusllls actually, since the update, wounds are not wounds anymore : it's ''fatigue'' now. so what we say is still relevant, and by the way : what do you think of it? (though you might whant to read the update first)

On 09/11/2017 at 7:34 PM, Kyros Skyfall said:

@Mobiusllls actually, since the update, wounds are not wounds anymore : it's ''fatigue'' now. so what we say is still relevant, and by the way : what do you think of it? (though you might whant to read the update first)

It was posted before the update. i guessed that they would change name and fluff before they did it.

I'm against. Wounds was fine, people were projecting their expectations on it for no good reason on my opinion.

Must say that i'm not against "fatigue" or whatever (despite being strange you spending weeks to recover from fatigue alone). Just didn't saw a worth reason to change.

Ok, so in the ''critical strike for 2 opportunities'' post I ended up talking about defense scaling again. I'm posting my comment from this post here as a reminder :

theres another point to this : it's the general way to defend against oportunities. Developers made clear they do not want to made the defense scale with levels, but maybe we can have a defense score against oportunities ? after all the jade champion will not likely fall for a feint from a debutant bushi, or get easely pined by a mere rank 2 with a yari.

So : now we are not talking anymore about TN to be hit, but an ability to defend against katas and other opportunities. To me the funiest way would be a system where you don't rellay know how many opportunities will be necessary to inflict a state on a fighter the first time you fight him (you get to have to guess his defense against tricks).

Well aside from the obvious Earth stance - keeping you out of trouble of many opportunity fueled nasties - the TN increase from Air stance (or other indirect means in any stances) actually does limit the number of opportunities an opponent will get to pick! If you keep 4 dice and know you need 4 successes to hit your enemy, you won’t have much leeway in how many of those symbols you can afford to keep. Barring a very lucky roll. So defense scaling in one aspect is tied to the other too.

true it is tied. my only concern is about highlevel fights : I fear characters would never break earth or air stance, since first one to do so would immediately reduce its defense to ''normal'' and be cut down immediately.

I think we could start thinking about a system to passively defend against some opportunities.

Once you have, say, 4 martial dice and 4 ring dice, it does feel like mere Air stance won't be much of a barrier to being hit hard. Sure, guarding or Centering will punch that number upwards, but if the enemy won initiative, those won't be a factor at first.

It's a tricky balance, to be sure. Make TN to hit a real thing and people will be able to game it, and you devalue first strikes. Brush it aside for flat TNs and you reward just rushing forward and hitting as hard as you can over any other strategy.

If you assume school, ring, and stats are at 5, there are a few places where dropping out of air/earth makes sense.

With Kakita Duelist School (KDS) using a katana in a 2h grip in Fire stance attacking a defender in Air stance has a 50% chance to hit with Heartpiercing Strike. This will typically inflict a 10 severity critical (after the Fitness save), so it's probably worth it. Unfortunately, as a movement action, this means the KDS practitioner will need to avoid Cumbersome armor. Without the KDS school, this probably isn't worth it.

For recovery, any character may shift to Water stance, and start removing strife and fatigue while using Guard to remain relatively safe (around 25% chance to be hit).

In a non-war environment, it looked like KDS members would probably still go after criticals, with Iaijutsu: Rising Blade from Air stance still hitting around 80% of the time against an opponent in Air stance. This is only about a 5 severity critical (after Fitness), but that's still going to take down a foe faster than fatigue. In a battle environment, the target will have Ashigaru or better armor, so this wouldn't be worthwhile (Rising Blade needs to overcome resistance).

While armor will ruin the blade, a KDS practitioner may also go for a normal 2 handed Katana strike from Air stance, using the opportunity to crit. This won't work for Earth stance defenders, and has only around a 35% hit rate against an opponent in Air stance. When it hits, you'll typically get a severity 7 critical, which is decent, but given the low hit rate, fatigue depletion may be more effective. Against a foe that is in neither Air nor Earth stance, this is probably the best option for KDS.

An Akodo Commander School (ACS) practitioner will generally just use normal fatigue based attacks with a large weapon, dumping strife for extra damage. These attacks still hit 90% of the time against a target in Air stance, so the real benefit of Air is taking less damage (also available from Earth through less resistance), and making Heartpiercing Strike unattractive. Against a non-KDS, Heartpiercing Strike will typically inflict a severity 4 critical if the defender is not in Air stance, so the ACS practitioner will probably Incapacitate his opponent before the crits are problematic. With the Otsuchi (vs. Plate), the damage can be bumped to 9 fatigue. For non-ACS attackers, this is only 4 damage, so it's a bit less attractive. I suspect it's still the best option. The Cumbersome quality on the Otsuchi may be exploited by the defender to drop the hit rate to 80% instead.

For the Bushi characters, I'm a bit concerned that Crane and Lion have very powerful abilities that end up defining their approach, but the other schools only have a minor effect. There was some mention of trying to buff all the schools, though my personal preference is that the school abilities are more limited (to make the different Clans more equal). In particular, Crab and Unicorn abilities have similar power, but are once/scene instead of each action. Shiba guardian is nicely thematic, but very weak.

Back to defense scaling, I'm not sure how to deal with a high rank opponent that just sits in Air stance and Guards. It looks like there's only around a 5% chance to hit, which seems like it would be tedious for players. Without the Air stance, this goes to 25%, and is much easier to overcome. Another option is for players to all assist one player to overcome the Air Guard.

One nice thing about Kakita Duelist School is that it makes the Katana an optimal weapon for some attacks.

A high rank bushi in Air stance and doing Guard action will be really hard to hit, but at the same time won’t do much either (no attack, only limited move...). So one thing to do is just wait for them to drop their guard. Assist is a solid option too.

Note that Fire stance will not increase the chance to hit since it can only produce extra *bonus* successes. You still need the right amount of regular successes for the strike to connect.

anyway it's not just about combat : it seems odd that any one knowing the right suji could learn - for say - the emperor's ninjo just by spending 2 opp

I don't see why people are all unset about earth stance - it's not that powerful.

It only protects if the earth stance character is the target.

Have a quote from the book: " When other characters make Attack action checks and Scheme action checks that target you , they cannot spend <opp> to inflict critical strikes, conditions, or persistent effects on you." Underlining & Bold applied for emphasis.

In sequence, the following must be true for Earth stance to matter:

1. You must be a target before the opportunity spend
2. the action must be an attack or scheme. (ISTR there being a couple of support actions that apply negative conditions)
3. the desired sped must inflict one or more of
   • Criticals
   • conditions
   • persistent effects (effects which have a specified duration - damage is NOT a persistent effect)

So far, it's only once mattered in my play, and I simply targeted someone else, because I hadn't actually read it right.

Meanwhile, Air at +2 TN for SR 4+ makes one nearly unhittable save by experienced characters... that's potent.

1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:

I don't see why people are all unset about earth stance - it's not that powerful.

I can see 3 reasons for that :
- thinking it works against any critical / condition / persistent effect, not only those from opportunities (for example, thinking it would protect against Heartpiercing Strike's critical, or against Lord Hida's Grip's Immobilized condition)
- considering many things are conditions / persistent effects, when they are not (for example, thinking that Fatigue or Strife are persistent effects)
- thinking that spending 2 opportunities to get a critical is always an option, when it is only about the Strike action.

11 hours ago, Franwax said:

A high rank bushi in Air stance and doing Guard action will be really hard to hit, but at the same time won’t do much either (no attack, only limited move...). So one thing to do is just wait for them to drop their guard. Assist is a solid option too.

Note that Fire stance will not increase the chance to hit since it can only produce extra *bonus* successes. You still need the right amount of regular successes for the strike to connect.

Except a Crescent Moon Style kata (rank 2) allows you to attack people who attacked you or the person you are guarding. Which basically mean that you Guard yourself, and then return fire. Though it's better when done from Fire Stance than Air, strangely enough.

10 hours ago, Exarkfr said:

I can see 3 reasons for that :
- thinking it works against any critical / condition / persistent effect, not only those from opportunities (for example, thinking it would protect against Heartpiercing Strike's critical, or against Lord Hida's Grip's Immobilized condition)
- considering many things are conditions / persistent effects, when they are not (for example, thinking that Fatigue or Strife are persistent effects)
- thinking that spending 2 opportunities to get a critical is always an option, when it is only about the Strike action.

I was asking a rhetorical question. The real answer, in a nutshell, is that people are not actually reading what's there.

Air stance, however, is too strong at 2, and not quite enough at 1.

10 hours ago, WHW said:

Except a Crescent Moon Style kata (rank 2) allows you to attack people who attacked you or the person you are guarding. Which basically mean that you Guard yourself, and then return fire. Though it's better when done from Fire Stance than Air, strangely enough.

Oh but... yeah ! I’m a bit confused by this one though. As written it would seem that it lets you strike back EVERY TIME someone attacks you or your charge (does not say « the first time » or « once »). I strongly feel the intention is to allow only one counterattack per round rather than virtually unlimited attacks but does anything support this? For good measure, I would remove the TN bonus from Guard or Center after exercising the option to hit - seems more in line with the description and power level of a rank 2 kata...

Also, to counter this, take your wakizashi and close in to strike at range 0

13 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Air stance, however, is too strong at 2, and not quite enough at 1.

I'm not sure I agree with this. In a conflict between rank 5 characters in Fire and Air, the Fire character gets around 3 successes from strife, while the Air stance neutralizes 2 of those. With 5 ring and 5 skill, you can expect to hit TN4 a bit over 90% of the time, so neither character is missing many normal attacks. Overall, in a simple back and forth smash, the Fire stance will win. If Air gave 3, it would be overpowered. If Air gave 1, I think it would be underpowered (works well at lower rings, since the corresponding benefit from Fire is also lower).

At rank 1, with 3 ring and 3 skill, Air is better than Fire, since you are missed about 15% more often, but this gap closes by 4/4.

Edit: To clarify, at rank 5, since you have 90% chance of success to hit (without strife), the chance of not being able to use the strife as a bonus success is pretty small, so Fire is better. At rank 1, fire will miss often enough that the extra success when they succeed doesn't come into play often enough to counter the lower hit rate, so Air is better.

In Fire stance, Strife doesn't give successes. It gives bonus successes. You must succeed with your "regular" successes before you can claim benefit from Fire stance.

19 hours ago, ubik2 said:

I'm not sure I agree with this. In a conflict between rank 5 characters in Fire and Air, the Fire character gets around 3 successes from strife, while the Air stance neutralizes 2 of those. With 5 ring and 5 skill, you can expect to hit TN4 a bit over 90% of the time, so neither character is missing many normal attacks. Overall, in a simple back and forth smash, the Fire stance will win. If Air gave 3, it would be overpowered. If Air gave 1, I think it would be underpowered (works well at lower rings, since the corresponding benefit from Fire is also lower).

At rank 1, with 3 ring and 3 skill, Air is better than Fire, since you are missed about 15% more often, but this gap closes by 4/4.

Edit: To clarify, at rank 5, since you have 90% chance of success to hit (without strife), the chance of not being able to use the strife as a bonus success is pretty small, so Fire is better. At rank 1, fire will miss often enough that the extra success when they succeed doesn't come into play often enough to counter the lower hit rate, so Air is better.

Ring 5 characters should be hitting each other easily.

At Rank 5, you get access to stuff like Dazing opponents at will, so expect the difficulty of actually hurting someone scale up with their Katas - be it Striking as Earth, mean crits, immobilizing you and back stepping, or Dazing.

7 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Ring 5 characters should be hitting each other easily.

Why? on the contrary I'd say long-trained warriors should have difficulties overcoming the other, and have trouble finding a breach in their defense.

but anyway they're not going to come back on the TN to be hit they made that clear. still it feels odd that you can inflict conditions upon an adversary with the same number of opportunities weather you confront a mere bandit or the emerald champion.

2 hours ago, Kyros Skyfall said:

Why? on the contrary I'd say long-trained warriors should have difficulties overcoming the other, and have trouble finding a breach in their defense.

but anyway they're not going to come back on the TN to be hit they made that clear. still it feels odd that you can inflict conditions upon an adversary with the same number of opportunities weather you confront a mere bandit or the emerald champion.

Having watched (and faced) fencers of various skills, the high end fencers take less time per bout than comparatively skilled to each other mid-ranked, and them above comparatively ranked novices.

Olympic fencing is often over in 10 seconds per touch. Novices, it can be a minute or two per touch.

Spotting the openings is the singlemost important skill, second being the ability to put the weapon where you want it. Without knowing where you need it to go, all the accuracy means nothing. (Then again, if you can't put it where you want it...you're just as hosed)