Those 32 Ise Zumi comprise a bit more than 1/10th of the total population in the Clan War era.

On 10/28/2017 at 11:49 PM, AK_Aramis said:

And yet, in Clan War, up to two units of 20 models per unit... must be lead by a personality with a glory of 5+...(CW DE 173)...

Similar to the Ise Zumi limit... but you can only attach 32 unnamed Ise Zume, while you can get all 40 unnamed Kenshinzen. Plus named ones.

Many of us, our Rokugan seems much less populated than the 2nd Edition AEG version...

Are you talking about the miniatures game? I don't think an attempt to jam the world of Rokugan onto Warhammer rules should be a metric for anything lore related.

Reminder that (to the best of my knowledge) FFG has not given any indication of how populous Rokugan is in 5E, including how many samurai there are.

While comparing to Japan to Rokugan is unreliable at best, population estimates for the Heian era run from 4 million to 7 million, only a fraction of whom would've been samurai.

Even assuming a 1:1000 ratio -- which I think overestimates the number of samurai -- you'd have had 4000-7000 samurai. Port that over to Rokugan and even excluding the minor clans and ronin, you've got fewer than 1000 samurai per Clan.

5 hours ago, sushicaddy said:

Are you talking about the miniatures game? I don't think an attempt to jam the world of Rokugan onto Warhammer rules should be a metric for anything lore related.

It was more core to the lore than the RPG... the annual tournaments for the pre-DE timeframe had the same timeline impact has the card game tournaments did.

The RPG didn't have the same level of impact on the story development; more than anything, the RPG showcased the storyline changes from the card and minis games.

1 hour ago, Doji Meshou said:

Reminder that (to the best of my knowledge) FFG has not given any indication of how populous Rokugan is in 5E, including how many samurai there are.

While comparing to Japan to Rokugan is unreliable at best, population estimates for the Heian era run from 4 million to 7 million, only a fraction of whom would've been samurai.

Even assuming a 1:1000 ratio -- which I think overestimates the number of samurai -- you'd have had 4000-7000 samurai. Port that over to Rokugan and even excluding the minor clans and ronin, you've got fewer than 1000 samurai per Clan.

Port that over to Rokugan, and you have one Clan, maybe two - in terms of area occupied and productivity.. Rokugan is much bigger than Japan.

At 15 kokudaka per 町 (chō) for rice, and about half that for other crops, and a 25% use rate.., with 2/3 being rice, 5/6 of 15=12.5 kokudaka per chō. and a chō being 2.451 acres, and 640 acres per square mile, 65.3 chō in use per square mile, or about 813 kokudaka per square mile. (Numbers based upon late shogunate, pre-meiji) Note that the kokudaka is a relative equivalence measure for taxation, but it's also pretty close to a caloric match, too... In the warmer plains a square mile can support almost 6x that if well watered, while in the northern mountains, as low as 1/10... Oh, and annual variation

Unlike Japan, Rokugan has a lot of wide open plains ... So, a square mile of wet plains, you can easily support 2 samurai per 2 square miles using your 1:1000 rate (which isn't far off from what I've seen figured for Japan)... plus the 2000 peasants.

Southern Rokugan (below the page break) is some 314,000. Square miles. Assuming a 25% use rate 256,000,000 kokudaka is a reasonable rate. sufficient land to reasonably support 100,000 samurai and 100,000,000 persons.

6 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

Port that over to Rokugan, and you have one Clan, maybe two - in terms of area occupied and productivity.. Rokugan is much bigger than Japan.

At 15 kokudaka per 町 (chō) for rice, and about half that for other crops, and a 25% use rate.., with 2/3 being rice, 5/6 of 15=12.5 kokudaka per chō. and a chō being 2.451 acres, and 640 acres per square mile, 65.3 chō in use per square mile, or about 813 kokudaka per square mile. (Numbers based upon late shogunate, pre-meiji) Note that the kokudaka is a relative equivalence measure for taxation, but it's also pretty close to a caloric match, too... In the warmer plains a square mile can support almost 6x that if well watered, while in the northern mountains, as low as 1/10... Oh, and annual variation

Unlike Japan, Rokugan has a lot of wide open plains ... So, a square mile of wet plains, you can easily support 2 samurai per 2 square miles using your 1:1000 rate (which isn't far off from what I've seen figured for Japan)... plus the 2000 peasants.

Southern Rokugan (below the page break) is some 314,000. Square miles. Assuming a 25% use rate 256,000,000 kokudaka is a reasonable rate. sufficient land to reasonably support 100,000 samurai and 100,000,000 persons.

And this is why I think historical/real world comparisons are Negotiably Useful at Best.

That's good analysis though. Frankly I think Tang China is probably a better model for Rokugan, but again, we're throwing poorly education guess-darts.

Where is the 314,000 miles figure coming from? Is it somewhere in 5E?

2 hours ago, Doji Meshou said:

Reminder that (to the best of my knowledge) FFG has not given any indication of how populous Rokugan is in 5E, including how many samurai there are.

While comparing to Japan to Rokugan is unreliable at best, population estimates for the Heian era run from 4 million to 7 million, only a fraction of whom would've been samurai.

Even assuming a 1:1000 ratio -- which I think overestimates the number of samurai -- you'd have had 4000-7000 samurai. Port that over to Rokugan and even excluding the minor clans and ronin, you've got fewer than 1000 samurai per Clan.

The economics of Rokugan never really made complete sense. I think the numbers were always meant to be a little higher than is plausible. Even with the great clans averaging 10k samurai or so, it’s unlikely the most elite schools number more than about two dozen members though.

1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:

It was more core to the lore than the RPG... the annual tournaments for the pre-DE timeframe had the same timeline impact has the card game tournaments did.

The RPG didn't have the same level of impact on the story development; more than anything, the RPG showcased the storyline changes from the card and minis games.

Just because the metaplot was affected by the game, does not mean the mechanics are canon. Also, that self same metaplot no longer exists in this edition of the RPG, so any weight it might have had is kinda nullified.

I would also put forward that this thread has gone completely off the rails and is now on a topic of lore discussion not even remotely having to do with game balance. We might want to steer it back on track, lest this thread be locked.

Having reread your initial opinion, Sushi, on kakita duelist as duelist in the beta I have to say I enjoy the fact that duels now host a variety of strategies to achieve victory and not just kakita center stance win.

While it does seem like it robs the crane of their most deadly tool I think they are still the ideal warrior for duels to the death. Something both in court and on the battlefield they are infamous for arranging.

1 hour ago, Shiba Rana said:

Having reread your initial opinion, Sushi, on kakita duelist as duelist in the beta I have to say I enjoy the fact that duels now host a variety of strategies to achieve victory and not just kakita center stance win.

While it does seem like it robs the crane of their most deadly tool I think they are still the ideal warrior for duels to the death. Something both in court and on the battlefield they are infamous for arranging.

I'd really enjoy it if Kakita duelists' thing was a strife mechanic instead of actual combat bonuses. Either a natural 'armor' against strife bidding, or making the enemy lose extra strife when they lose the bid. It would be a nice representation of having a talent for finding the perfect decisive moment when an opponent quivers and acting upon it!

Once per scene, lose school rank in strife and gain as much in initiative?

I think a the focus on the lethality works fine. It both demonstrates the kakitas perscion with their blade as well as their one swing on strike mentality of ending the fight with a single blow which without bonus to deadliness might not be guaranteed.

2 minutes ago, WHW said:

Once per scene, lose school rank in strife and gain as much in initiative?

I'd make it once per game, since it can scale to make you absurdly fast later on. It seems pretty strong, as currently there are no wound penalties but inflicting a status early on can be a big deal!

3 hours ago, Doji Meshou said:

And this is why I think historical/real world comparisons are Negotiably Useful at Best.

That's good analysis though. Frankly I think Tang China is probably a better model for Rokugan, but again, we're throwing poorly education guess-darts.

Where is the 314,000 miles figure coming from? Is it somewhere in 5E?

Thanks - and while I agree about the T'ang comparison, I generally describe Rokugan to newbs as "Samurai Culture took over China and Mongolia, with indochina being the land of evil." One of my players then made the leap that the Mantis are the Malay...

The analysis was me trying to figure out (as I did for Pendragon) just how to map out a Rokugani village. So I went diving into my default fallback — historical records. (Mu undergrad was in history - my upper division coursework mostly on Russian and Russian-Alaska history).

The area is found by taking a scan of the inside flyleaf into an image editor, measuring the scale bar, measuring the area of a triangle formed from just south of otosan uichi, to the bottom of the page, and the southern tip of Crab lands.

Note that estimates of the worst historical rice yields are around 8-10 kokudaka per chō... so the question isn't so much, "How much can Rokugan support?" as much as, "How much of Rokugan is actually settled..." Oh, and Kokudaka is essentially, an estimated annual production in koku-of-rice equivalents, Millet production is roughly equivalent to rice, but is "dry"-field. It was a taxation unit... between 17% and 45% was typical.

Here's the caveats... ① it typically takes about 1 person per 1.5 to 2 kokudaka to produce the crop. Rice and millet are amongst the most productive pre-modern crops known, and one of the most efficient ways to grow calories. The typical taxation (the level at which tax rebellions tended not to happen, as well) was about (kokudaka - population)*0.5. The high end, almost assured to generate tax revolutions, was about (kokudaka - population)*0.95. ② A number of subsidiary crops are not counted in the kokudaka - just enough to make the diet varied enough to avoid nutritional diseases. ③ Kokudaka was typically refigured only after major military campaigns, or on the succession of the Daimyō, Estate-holder, or after a military campaign, or maybe once a decade during peace and continuity of ruler... but usually, the production value was slowly climbing.

Rice is why the Chinese, the Japanese, and the south asian peoples had such strong cities - they could support them. By comparison, the surplus from western farming in the same era was about 1.1 "man-years" of food per person working, The Samurai never actually filled out what the system could support. the call of luxury and city-life spread that surplus to a very strong system of towns and cities.

3 hours ago, Shiba Rana said:

Having reread your initial opinion, Sushi, on kakita duelist as duelist in the beta I have to say I enjoy the fact that duels now host a variety of strategies to achieve victory and not just kakita center stance win.

While it does seem like it robs the crane of their most deadly tool I think they are still the ideal warrior for duels to the death. Something both in court and on the battlefield they are infamous for arranging.

Yes, I agree that multiple paths to victory is totally awesome, and I think that there is great potential to do exactly as you describe. I think you and I are of a like mind in a lot of this.

I'm gonna cross post some things that I said in our other discussion from the lore page, Rana. This is a better forum for where that discussion went went and I can expound a little more.

Imagine kata that Kakita duelist might have... They could have one that drops their strife to 0 when they assess at the beginning of a duel, which would be increadibly useful in a tense political situation.. Imagine a kata that doubles their composure while in a duel (which might result in an unmasking when the duel ends). A kata where you can add the opponents strife to your critical strike roll (and by extension a finishing blow). There could be a kata that allows you to secretly choose two rings that can cause the opponent strife; or a kata that allowed you to manipulate your own, or your opponents, strife levels directly.

I could see a Mirumoto bushi be able to use choose a second stance and be able to spend opportunities as if they were in either stance. I could see them having a kata that allows them to spend two opportunity to perform a critical strike immediately after a successful provoke action (simulating creating an opening with their wakizashi). I can see them having a kata that allows them to add the deadliness of the katana and wakizashi together when performing a critical strike (and by extension a finishing blow)

I can see A Bayushi bushi being able to, during the staredown, in any turn after they used a provoke action, to be able to gain two initiative for every one strife bid. I can see a Bayushi being able to spend 2 opportunities when centering to force the opponent to tell the player what their stance will be in next turn's staredown. I can see them able to spend opportunities to lower their opponents tn when acting first after a staredown. I can see then having a kata that inflicts the critical hit one lower on the critical hit table as well as the one rolled.

So here you have three schools that in the lore are good at dueling having three different methods of approaching a duel. A Kakita who manipulates strife waiting for a perfect single finishing blow, A Mirumoto who is going to come out swinging and trying to end the duel fast, and a bayushi who is looking to manipulate initiative and learn their opponents weakness before wounding and hamstringing them into a position where they can no linger fight back.

So who would win between a Dragon and a Crane? In this scenario it is a probably going to be a question of if the Dragon can get through the Crane's defenses before the Crane can get a finishing blow... but there are other ways you could play it. In fact the Crane might suspect the dragon is going to go this way, and so pushes hard and fast the first turn. It is all about options and how you use it. What if the dragon figures the Crane will sit back, and so pushes even harder the first turn burning strife to get the initiative the first turn, and get all up in the Crane's grill. Centering only works until the beginning of the next round, so if the dragon can act first, then they can attack the crane without the ridiculous tn that they can build with centering... but building up strife brings the dragon closer to that finishing blow. It is tense and full of questions and drama.

No, these kata I postulate here are in NO WAY intended to be suggestions or that they are in anyway balanced or even useable. They are just to show different ways that different schools that are known for dueling could approach the matter. High rings/skill and good rolls are always going to be important, but every clan and every school approaches it in a slightly different way. A hida with earth 5 and martial arts 5 is probably going to kick some *** in a duel, regardless of kata. Their approach will just be much more straight forward than, say, a Bayushi... and this not a bug, it's a feature.

I would love it if duels end up being more like a chess game than rock, paper, scissors. Simply making Crane duelists unbeatable makes duels boring, but having them be "ideal warriors for duels to the death" is much more exciting.

19 minutes ago, sushicaddy said:

Imagine kata that Kakita duelist might have... They could have one that drops their strife to 0 when they assess at the beginning of a duel, which would be increadibly useful in a tense political situation.. Imagine a kata that doubles their composure while in a duel (which might result in an unmasking when the duel ends). A kata where you can add the opponents strife to your critical strike roll (and by extension a finishing blow). There could be a kata that allows you to secretly choose two rings that can cause the opponent strife; or a kata that allowed you to manipulate your own, or your opponents, strife levels directly.

I could see a Mirumoto bushi be able to use choose a second stance and be able to spend opportunities as if they were in either stance. I could see them having a kata that allows them to spend two opportunity to perform a critical strike immediately after a successful provoke action (simulating creating an opening with their wakizashi). I can see them having a kata that allows them to add the deadliness of the katana and wakizashi together when performing a critical strike (and by extension a finishing blow)

I can see A Bayushi bushi being able to, during the staredown, in any turn after they used a provoke action, to be able to gain two initiative for every one strife bid. I can see a Bayushi being able to spend 2 opportunities when centering to force the opponent to tell the player what their stance will be in next turn's staredown. I can see them able to spend opportunities to lower their opponents tn when acting first after a staredown. I can see then having a kata that inflicts the critical hit one lower on the critical hit table as well as the one rolled.
(..)

No, these kata I postulate here are in NO WAY intended to be suggestions or that they are in anyway balanced or even useable. They are just to show different ways that different schools that are known for dueling could approach the matter. High rings/skill and good rolls are always going to be important, but every clan and every school approaches it in a slightly different way. A hida with earth 5 and martial arts 5 is probably going to kick some *** in a duel, regardless of kata. Their approach will just be much more straight forward than, say, a Bayushi... and this not a bug, it's a feature.

I would love it if duels end up being more like a chess game than rock, paper, scissors. Simply making Crane duelists unbeatable makes duels boring, but having them be "ideal warriors for duels to the death" is much more exciting.

These are all golden. Need putting into techniques and testing, yes, but they are EXTREMELY what I enjoy. Turning insight into power, switching weaknesses for strengths at the moment of clarity, creating that distraction of a thousandth of a second in which you can wager life and death. Much more dramatic and cool than things that end up meaning "+1 deadliness" or -1 TN.

I agree with the notion your pitching Sushi. I've always been a fan of lore and philosophy of styles and tactics being reflected in mechanics and visa versa.

In previous editions I'd always have fun with players hunting down special homebrews or creating techniques ourselves that granted a more of a peek at more obscure yet specialized lesser know styles. Two of my personal favorites were ones we found in 4th edition like the lesser known Seawatch Dueling style of the Crane which we flushed out utilized patience to magnify the bonuses recieved the assessment phase of a duel and the long lost pinnacle technique of the Original Hiruma School, Flowers on Unattainable Heights.

So yeah I love taking obscure lore and running with it ^^.

With that in mind though the fact that this new dueling structure is more tactful, variant in approaches, and inclusive with most schools given the right conditions of the challenge that leads me to one question.

If most kata and shuji can be adapted to find use during a duel in this system l, when does the number of expanded options engineered for it specifically become too much?

See the thing ive enjoyed most about the techniques and school approaches in beta so far is that the mechanics are broad enough to be of use in multiple situation and not just a single specialized one. With the right techniques, opportunity usage, and tactics i feel thesr duels can be just as engaging and detailed as you are describing Sushi. Just by using tools that have utility elsewhere as well.