As near as I can see, rules as written, people with 0 honor can still stake honor. I can't find anything that says otherwise, and you can still lose honor at zero, it just doesn't take you below 0. I'm clarifying because it looks like clashes are critical to the threat of the game, and I want to make sure that I'm reading it correctly that a Shadowlands creatures can issue challenges to start a clash. It would be weird if PCs practically feared human opponents more than ogres. I checked, and the deadliness of their attacks doesn't seem any higher, as if they were adjusted to rule out clashes as an option.

Anyway, thoughts?

I would say some beings don't care about Honour, but to a Human though to run from a challenge from one of them would be dishonourable. This basically comes down to the GM but I would think it will be covered somewhere in the GM chapter of the final book

What would happen though if a human with zero Honour challenges a high honour character? The ronin who challenges a Daimyo for instance. Does the Daimyo loose honour for refusing? This is beyond my knowledge of the setting

Setting-wise, the ronin isn't even allowed to make the challenge because of the status difference. Not sure if the rules will reflect that or if they'll just let the GM handle it at the table. I believe we are on the same page for the other. A shadowlands creature has little motivation to accept a challenge (other than ego, I believe there's a glory hit too). A PC, on the otherhand, would lose honor and glory if they turned it down, so the shadownlands creature initiating is much more likely to be successful.

All this comes down from a memorable scene where an ogre challenged my crane to a duel to keep the party from swarming him in the shadowlands, because he knew I'd be too full or my craneness to refuse.

I think I disagree. I generally don't think obviously Tainted creatures need to be afforded the courtesy of a duel. Those who regularly deal with them (the Crab) don't care much about Honor, and I think the Crane would find it more dishonorable to take such a creatures seriously than to refuse the duel.

On the other hand, it may be the most practical solution. An ogre in a skirmish might take out several of your allies before you can whittle down his wounds, while a single, perfect strike may kill him.

17 hours ago, defendi said:

As near as I can see, rules as written, people with 0 honor can still stake honor. I can't find anything that says otherwise, and you can still lose honor at zero, it just doesn't take you below 0. I'm clarifying because it looks like clashes are critical to the threat of the game, and I want to make sure that I'm reading it correctly that a Shadowlands creatures can issue challenges to start a clash. It would be weird if PCs practically feared human opponents more than ogres. I checked, and the deadliness of their attacks doesn't seem any higher, as if they were adjusted to rule out clashes as an option.

Anyway, thoughts?

There's no good reason why a sentient shadowlander shouldn't be able to issue a challenge: especially if as defendi noted, they were using the PCs honour against them (classic villain!)

On 10/8/2017 at 9:24 AM, The Grand Falloon said:

I think I disagree. I generally don't think obviously Tainted creatures need to be afforded the courtesy of a duel. Those who regularly deal with them (the Crab) don't care much about Honor, and I think the Crane would find it more dishonorable to take such a creatures seriously than to refuse the duel.

We're talking about Challenges to initiate Clashes , not duels. An ogre can't challenge a samurai to a formal duel, but it can taunt them in the middle of a pitched battle to get some one-on-one time.

Yeah, I just confused it because an ogre dueled me once. That was totally my bad, because I wall getting all role-playey.

It was 1st edition when a crane used iajutsu for everything. We faced off for initiative, and I said something to get in character like, "I fall into my ia stance." The GM said, "The ogre gets a clever little smile and falls into a iajutsu stance to mirror yours." In my arrogance, I told the party to back off.

And LOST.