2 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Only rolling one side of the equation does reduce the swing quite a bit. Rolling & Keeping does also.

Definitely. It's still possible to fail, but failing a basic strike against a target who's not making any effort to protect themselves when you have a decent dice pool gets monumentally unlikely very quickly - a squad of 6 goblins with bows has only something like a 7% chance of not landing a hit (and therefore if you expose yourself to them and didn't take precautions like air stance, striking-as-air, compromising them with strife, or whatever, you very much have only yourself to blame*).

*taking on minion squads is one element of edge of the empire and especially age of rebellion that players seem to have a blind spot for; rules aside, is there some reason you feel you should be able to solo your way through half-a-dozen TIE fighters in succession and not have it be a concerning experience? Your starting-level character is emphatically not Wedge or Poe Dameron.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Definitely. It's still possible to fail, but failing a basic strike against a target who's not making any effort to protect themselves when you have a decent dice pool gets monumentally unlikely very quickly - a squad of 6 goblins with bows has only something like a 7% chance of not landing a hit (and therefore if you expose yourself to them and didn't take precautions like air stance, striking-as-air, compromising them with strife, or whatever, you very much have only yourself to blame*).

*taking on minion squads is one element of edge of the empire and especially age of rebellion that players seem to have a blind spot for; rules aside, is there some reason you feel you should be able to solo your way through half-a-dozen TIE fighters in succession and not have it be a concerning experience? Your starting-level character is emphatically not Wedge or Poe Dameron.

Why can´´ t my starting character no be that? For me what powerlevel the satrting character has and what he can do depends highly on the type of game the people at the table want to play. It also depends on what they want form the game.
So sometimes the starting characters can be indeed emphatically be Wedge or Poe Dameron and there is nothing wrong with that.
I mean some people like to play such characters from the start and for them it is not a concering exp if you can battle your way through hordes of minions without breaking a sweat and since I am one of these players who likes to play such
a power fanatsy. I don´t find it concering and actually want this feeling when I set out to play such a character.

1 hour ago, Teveshszat said:

Why can´´ t my starting character no be that? For me what powerlevel the satrting character has and what he can do depends highly on the type of game the people at the table want to play. It also depends on what they want form the game.
So sometimes the starting characters can be indeed emphatically be Wedge or Poe Dameron and there is nothing wrong with that.
I mean some people like to play such characters from the start and for them it is not a concering exp if you can battle your way through hordes of minions without breaking a sweat and since I am one of these players who likes to play such
a power fanatsy. I don´t find it concering and actually want this feeling when I set out to play such a character.

Note - "starting level".

If you want to create a 1000 xp character who'll go through a TIE squadron like butter, or a 100 xp L5r character who's essentially Musashi's older, more competent brother, then go right ahead. But a 100xp EotE or 0xp Lr5 character isn't that. Even the 'movie supporting cast' like the Yavin fighter squadrons got absolutely cut to pieces by not-all-that-superior numbers.

2 hours ago, Teveshszat said:

Why can´´ t my starting character no be that? For me what powerlevel the satrting character has and what he can do depends highly on the type of game the people at the table want to play. It also depends on what they want form the game.
So sometimes the starting characters can be indeed emphatically be Wedge or Poe Dameron and there is nothing wrong with that.
I mean some people like to play such characters from the start and for them it is not a concering exp if you can battle your way through hordes of minions without breaking a sweat and since I am one of these players who likes to play such
a power fanatsy. I don´t find it concering and actually want this feeling when I set out to play such a character.

That is, axiomaticlly, characters with extra XP in every edition so far, and this one as well. If you want to start as a veteran samurai, check for the bonus XP and clear it with your GM.

You might not like the monomyth (aka Hero's Journey), but it's a big factor in the design, and of most RPGs

58 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Note - "starting level".

If you want to create a 1000 xp character who'll go through a TIE squadron like butter, or a 100 xp L5r character who's essentially Musashi's older, more competent brother, then go right ahead. But a 100xp EotE or 0xp Lr5 character isn't that. Even the 'movie supporting cast' like the Yavin fighter squadrons got absolutely cut to pieces by not-all-that-superior numbers.

There is a different between background pugs and starting level PCs in a game. Most players are not at all interested in playing the background fighter pilots. They are the heroes in their story not the pugs.

15 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

There is a different between background pugs and starting level PCs in a game. Most players are not at all interested in playing the background fighter pilots. They are the heroes in their story not the pugs.

In many cases, in both games and literature, the only difference is motivation, not in competence nor in raw talent. Read up on the monomyth.

1 minute ago, AK_Aramis said:

In many cases, in both games and literature, the only difference is motivation, not in competence nor in raw talent. Read up on the monomyth.

That trick here is that if you look what some of them pull off, exspecially in litriture, and compare it to what a starting character can pull off you find the starting character lacking most of the time.

Just now, Teveshszat said:

That trick here is that if you look what some of them pull off, exspecially in litriture, and compare it to what a starting character can pull off you find the starting character lacking most of the time.

My players haven't been failing rolls much at all. And they've been avoiding strife.

17 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

There is a different between background pugs and starting level PCs in a game. Most players are not at all interested in playing the background fighter pilots. They are the heroes in their story not the pugs.

Accepted. But then Rogue Squadron are not exactly target practice themselves and still take serious casualties. There's a couple of tiers here;

• Generic redshirt - academy pilot, guy you're not supposed to care about who gets killed to show that 'it's dangerous'.
• Competent background dude - still pointing at Star Wars as an example, say 'Hobbie' or 'Janson' - someone who's competent. This is about the level I'd expect 'normal' players with an interest in the field to be. You still have space to beat a larger number of grunts if you fight smart and carefully but aren't going through them by the baker's dozen simultaneously, and still have space in game to go "oh holy **** it's [darth vader/soontir fel/wedge antilles/poe dameron/whatever]"
• The 'best in the universe" characters - essentially the ones who are better than your guys unless you're rewriting the setting. In L5R, it's theoretically possible your character could end up in an arm-wrestling match with Hida Kisada:

Unless you're someone really really special and/or you're changing really important named characters in the setting, this should not go well.

Now, nothing stops you doing so - you're the GM, and the universe can be swapped around as you see fit. But it's not unreasonable for that to be the purview of characters with more than the average starting XP; you can always add more starting XP to starting stats and skills, given the way character creation works it's hard to take it away and leave less.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• The 'best in the universe" characters - essentially the ones who are better than your guys unless you're rewriting the setting. In L5R, it's theoretically possible your character could end up in an arm-wrestling match with Hida Kisada:

There's also Togashi Yokuni... The Kami Togashi.

Well heck ya'.

I would like to thank everyone for taking me seriously. When I point out what must be in the rules in order to call this game L5R roleplaying. I think I stated the big gamble. Little gambles are there to TN 15 raised to TN 20 a simple little gamble that could pay off big in the end. Also If the rule book says 3 raises and you get a called shot(wording different from 1st edition to 4th) This mechanic was so integral to the game that the game master would merely be presiding over procedures. Are original TN of 15 has grown to TN30. So many uses and permutations I cannot list them all.

6 hours ago, deathdealerDAN said:

Well heck ya'.

I would like to thank everyone for taking me seriously. When I point out what must be in the rules in order to call this game L5R roleplaying. I think I stated the big gamble. Little gambles are there to TN 15 raised to TN 20 a simple little gamble that could pay off big in the end. Also If the rule book says 3 raises and you get a called shot(wording different from 1st edition to 4th) This mechanic was so integral to the game that the game master would merely be presiding over procedures. Are original TN of 15 has grown to TN30. So many uses and permutations I cannot list them all.

your taking to people who will get into heated arguments about how a sword is displayed, why would you think we would not take you seriously?

12 hours ago, deathdealerDAN said:

Well heck ya'.

I would like to thank everyone for taking me seriously. When I point out what must be in the rules in order to call this game L5R roleplaying. I think I stated the big gamble. Little gambles are there to TN 15 raised to TN 20 a simple little gamble that could pay off big in the end. Also If the rule book says 3 raises and you get a called shot(wording different from 1st edition to 4th) This mechanic was so integral to the game that the game master would merely be presiding over procedures. Are original TN of 15 has grown to TN30. So many uses and permutations I cannot list them all.

While the big gamble "Aim for the sky! Calling max raises to risk it all on one roll. Dice explode and We win L5R forever!!1!!!" makes for an evocative image, the game usually didn't play out that way. More often than not things tended to go more like: "The TN is 15, I'm rolling 6k3 which means I have a 97% chance of success. I have a roughly 80% chance of hitting a TN 20, a 50% chance of hitting a TN 25 and a 30% chance of hitting a TN 30. I call [X] Raises for [Effect Y], roll and succeed/fail," or "TN is 15, I roll 6k3. My dice exploded like crazy. In hindsight I wish I called some raises."

1 hour ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

While the big gamble "Aim for the sky! Calling max raises to risk it all on one roll. Dice explode and We win L5R forever!!1!!!" makes for an evocative image, the game usually didn't play out that way. More often than not things tended to go more like: "The TN is 15, I'm rolling 6k3 which means I have a 97% chance of success. I have a roughly 80% chance of hitting a TN 20, a 50% chance of hitting a TN 25 and a 30% chance of hitting a TN 30. I call [X] Raises for [Effect Y], roll and succeed/fail," or "TN is 15, I roll 6k3. My dice exploded like crazy. In hindsight I wish I called some raises."

Yes that is the most common case. Sometimes I go with I call enough raises that I still have a chane of 70% or more to hit the TN and go with that but I agree in general it is a pretty unsatisfactory system because you don´t have the option to get raises in after you get the relevant information.
Thats btw why I still love the Bayushi courtier from 3rd edition because it made the whole game exp for me so much better and rewarded to actuall get good stats.

On 11/6/2017 at 6:02 PM, Ultimatecalibur said:

or "TN is 15, I roll 6k3. My dice exploded like crazy. In hindsight I wish I called some raises."

1e, there was a third case, which would go along the lines of;

Quote

TN is blind. I roll 6k3. My dice exploded like crazy. so I get free raises at half the rate I would have, if I had called enough raises to still succeed.

It's weird seeing that disappear.

2 hours ago, BitRunr said:

1e, there was a third case, which would go along the lines of;

It's weird seeing that disappear.

This was one of the house rule I added to 4th and it works just as well there.

Other additions included

1. Reach weapons are melee weapons with the length to strike an opponent
outside of normal melee range. When wielding a Reach weapon against an
opponent who is not, you gain a +5 bonus to Armor TN against that opponent.
This bonus lasts until the opponent makes a successful melee attack against
you (getting past your defenses), at which point he gains a +5 bonus to
Armor TN against you. The bonuses “reset” if you make a successful attack
against that opponent or keep a distance of at least 10 feet for a full round.
The following weapons are Reach weapons:
 CHAIN WEAPONS: chijiriki, kusarigama, kyoketsu-shogi, manrikikusari
 HEAVY WEAPONS: ogre club
 POLEARMS: bisento, lajatang, naginata, sasumata, sodegarami
 SPEARS: kumade, lance, mai chong, magari-yari, yari
 STAVES: bo, shikomizue
 SWORDS: no-dachi
 WHIPS
Normal attacks from opponents larger than human size are considered
Reach attacks, but do not provoke the Armor TN bonus for attacking a
human-sized target wielding a Reach weapon.

2. Re-added the Tide of Battle rules from 3rd ed. You gain 1D10 to your initiative for every round you go without suffering a wound.

These are just some of them

To give credit were credit is due some of these rules are in

"Little Truths" House Rules for Legend of the Five Rings, 4th Edition

Written & Edited by
SEAN C. RILEY

was still available the last time I looked.

Exploding Dice in and of themselves do not make raises.

Yes you would wast all your good luck! that's why you push it. All ways remember your odds. Multiple tend to multiplay.

Now I have a feeling no matter what we agree on here or disagree on here will not move or change the direction of F.F. juggernaut . Are we hear to discuss the game we love or change the game they are making? Some one prove to me that F.F. is considering are discution. Could they change there game to the way I like it before they go to press? Or as I suspect they are just going to plow forward with there broken system.

3 hours ago, deathdealerDAN said:

Now I have a feeling no matter what we agree on here or disagree on here will not move or change the direction of F.F. juggernaut.

I wouldn't be so quick to assume. Dark Heresy 2.0 beta wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of things.

3 hours ago, deathdealerDAN said:

Are we hear to discuss the game we love or change the game they are making?

It's a beta. Yes.

6 hours ago, deathdealerDAN said:

Exploding Dice in and of themselves do not make raises.

Yes you would wast all your good luck! that's why you push it. All ways remember your odds. Multiple tend to multiplay.

Now I have a feeling no matter what we agree on here or disagree on here will not move or change the direction of F.F. juggernaut . Are we hear to discuss the game we love or change the game they are making? Some one prove to me that F.F. is considering are discution. Could they change there game to the way I like it before they go to press? Or as I suspect they are just going to plow forward with there broken system.

Since their overall philosophy so far has been "Oh you don't like outburst s then lets change the name to unmask" or "Oh the damage system is to weak lets change the name to fatigue" I see this more as a proofreading then a Beta.

IMHO FFG or F.F.juggernaut as you have called them, are still hurting from the Dark Heresy 2.0 beta disaster. So this time they are going to push the beta through no matter what.

Not sure if this is a sign, but after the last update a lot of posters that have been here from the beginning seem to have disappeared.

Make of that what you will, but to me 5th/FFG L5R or what ever is a train wreck in the making.

6 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

Not sure if this is a sign, but after the last update a lot of posters that have been here from the beginning seem to have disappeared.

Make of that what you will, but to me 5th/FFG L5R or what ever is a train wreck in the making.

I’m guessing it’s mostly that the beta has been out for over a month, and there’s not as much to talk about with updates. *Especially* for those in the polished-4e-or-bust camp

I’ve got threads I want to follow up on, but I’ve got other gaming stuff on my plate, too I’ll get them eventually. I imagine others are in a similar boat.

15 hours ago, deathdealerDAN said:

Now I have a feeling no matter what we agree on here or disagree on here will not move or change the direction of F.F. juggernaut . Are we hear to discuss the game we love or change the game they are making? Some one prove to me that F.F. is considering are discution. Could they change there game to the way I like it before they go to press? Or as I suspect they are just going to plow forward with there broken system.

I think it depends on the nature of the changes.

If the Star Wars Betas were anything to go by, then the L5R Beta is less about wholesale revisions and more about fine-tuning the existing mechanics. Something would have to be shown to be incredibly non-functional at this stage for them to consider a wholesale revision rather than tweaking the existing mechanics, as was the case with Outbursts/Composure, iaijutsu dueling, and Family ring bonuses.

But a total revamp, especially to make it a 4th edition 2.0? That's simply not going to happen. For better or worse, FFG is attached to the notion of custom dice for their games, especially after it proved so successful with their Star Wars games.

So the folks that were hoping for an updated version of AEG's system are probably best off serving their interests by heading off to other pastures with regards to the Beta. The fact that this version is so different mechanically from AEG's prior editions is a pretty clear sign that they're not going to do anything more to support those older rules than offer the PDFs for sale on DriveThruRPG, and even that bit of 'support' may be finite.

I also don't know that I'd call this system "broken" as opposed to "cumbersome," as it's written this game can be played, with the primary issue being that the way skills are handled (each skill essentially has five sub-parts depending on which ring you use). I think if the designers loosened up on that a bit, the game might run a bit smoother and not feel quite so clunky.

18 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

Not sure if this is a sign, but after the last update a lot of posters that have been here from the beginning seem to have disappeared.

I guess the passion came down a bit. I started rather vocal against the changes, discussing with folks made me see the potential, but right now, it's just that, a potential. FFG behaves as if they acknowledge the feedback, but mostly the changes are cosmetics.

I still read, but post less. One of the reason is that many threads end up in heated yet somewhat sterile discussion around: "No, you are wrong Rokugan isn't like this" or "these rules captures samurai drama way better, if you disagree you don't understand samurai drama". Plenty of folks shoving their Rokugan in your face, but thinking it's The Rokugan.

So I post less, mostly in lore, and try to be careful now precising it's my Rokugan, and ask folks about their Rokugan.

I got fed up of folks wanting to school me into a setting I've gmed for 15+ years. I might have been guilty of doing it too, and saw the wrong in it.

I want to discuss, not being called wrong when expressing my opinion and my view of Rokugan, personal but built on 15+ years of material. So I consider my sources and interpretation not perfect, but not bad either.

I'm deep into the LCG at the moment, find even discussion on lore on the LCG forum more open minded sometimes.

I'll let ffg finish their cooking, if I like the taste, I'll buy. If not, I'll stick to 4e, houseruling if needed with spices from 5R5.

Right now, the dish looks good but lack flavor, in my humble opinion.

12 hours ago, Nitenman said:

I guess the passion came down a bit.

Right now, the dish looks good but lack flavor, in my humble opinion.

I think the first one has much to do with the pre-existing L5R fans coming to realize that FFG isn't going to just remake AEG's system, and that as I noted above this Beta is really more about fine-tuning the FFG version than making broad, sweeping changes. Having been one of those that was here through the Edge of the Empire Beta, I saw a number of folks come in full of piss and vinegar about how FFG should just remake either WEG or Saga Edition, and leave after it became abundantly clear that FFG was going to stick to their guns on using their own system instead of remaking somebody else's. They simply realized that this new Star Wars with its funny dice simply wasn't going to be their cup of tea, and so departed to other pastures, with a few of them setting up forums of their own to discuss and keep the older SWRPG systems alive.

I do agree that as it stands this version of L5R is good, but it's certainly not great, but at the same time it feels like some of the things holding it back from being great are things the writers are sold on keeping no matter how many folks here complain about it; perhaps they're writing it off as "well, they're just not used to the new way that skills work, but they'll come around after they've played it for a while," but not seeing that a number of folks are turned off enough by how cumbersome the rules are to give up and find an RPG that's actually fun for them to play. To be honest, I probably won't be picking up the core rules for this version, but then there's very few folks in my area that actually have an interest in playing an edition of L5R, so not much incentive for me to spend money on what's bound to be an expensive book that's never going to see use and will likely wind up collecting dust on the shelf.

Of course, it's a Beta so a lot of the fluff material simply isn't going to be included beyond the bare minimum to get folks new to the setting up to speed on the basics, and they've even come out and said we're not unveiling all the schools/advantages/disadvantages/kata/invocations/shuji during the Beta, just enough of it so that folks can make characters and test the game's mechanics. I'm still not personally sold on the strife mechanic how quickly a PC can accumulate strife (at least the mandatory outbursts have been changed to an option, albeit one that makes it harder for low-skilled PCs to succeed on checks), and how starting PCS are generally so unskilled, but the first one seems to baked-in at this point and the second they've at least addressed by means of offering suggestions for starting with more XP to reflect more accomplished samurai.

In a way, this whole situation reminds me of the hullaballoo over the change from D&D 3rd edition to D&D 4th edition. A lot of folks were upset that WotC was pretty much taking an entirely new game and slapping the D&D label on it. IMHO, I think 4e would have done fine if it hadn't been marketed as D&D, as it was simply too radical a shift for a substantial portion of the fanbase to swallow. That's not to say D&D 4e is an inherently bad game, as I've played it plenty and had fun doing so, but it's so inherently different from previous editions that I can see where the "it's not D&D!" crowd are coming from and understand why a number of them either stuck with 3.X or flocked to Paizo's banner for Pathfinder.

And we're seeing it again with the contrast between AEG's version and FFG's version of L5R, with the FFG version simply being too different mechanically for folks that played the AEG version to really get into. How it'll ultimately play out is anyone's guess, but asking for FFG to do an update of the AEG version is ultimately a fool's errand; if they were ever going to consider doing that, they wouldn't have spent all the time and money they have on their own version.