I had this situation before, and while my players have not tried to try again after failing to sharpen their swords, I know what I would say:
The stake here, during this maintenance scene, is seeing how this seemingly innocent act of taking care of your weapon might impact your future. The stake of success is making the weapon repaired and possibly Durable; this might save your life ten days later, during a duel. The stake of failure is that you won't have this durable buff...and it might be the last straw that breaks your back.

Shall we roll?

Yes and I would roll as long as it takes to get the buff to ensure I win the duel 10 days later. See it still has no negative outcome besides me having to try again. And I am sure that failing it will not break my back because a) my sword does not get the damaged quality from the check, as that is not part of the rules and b) I am not a old man who coudl damage his body by doing things that strain it. So yeah still no reason to not do it as long as needed.
If oyu want to prevent it the Idea is to go and make the skill have mechanical consequences like if you have failed the roll 3 times in a row your sword gets dull instead of shap and gains the damage quality.
But that has to be written into the skill as that is the way to go if you want good rules and avoid that the gm needs to fix it with abitary decision making.

You would roll once. Thats the point. The stake is:

a) getting the weapon repaired and possibly buffed

b) getting the weapon just maintained and not buffed

c) getting the weapon not repaired

You roll, you get the consequence, we continue. No spamming until I succeed kind of thing. If you are unwilling to accept the stake of failure, GM will simply not allow the roll.

EDIT
Or I might give you "3 turns worth of playing with your sword". Spend your 3 actions however you want, but it might be unwise to do so spamming a single action.

10 hours ago, Teveshszat said:

Yes and I would roll as long as it takes to get the buff to ensure I win the duel 10 days later. See it still has no negative outcome besides me having to try again. And I am sure that failing it will not break my back because a) my sword does not get the damaged quality from the check, as that is not part of the rules and b) I am not a old man who coudl damage his body by doing things that strain it. So yeah still no reason to not do it as long as needed.
If oyu want to prevent it the Idea is to go and make the skill have mechanical consequences like if you have failed the roll 3 times in a row your sword gets dull instead of shap and gains the damage quality.
But that has to be written into the skill as that is the way to go if you want good rules and avoid that the gm needs to fix it with abitary decision making.

I think what @WHW was getting at is that by making this roll the GM can then decide that you want a situation where lacking the Durable trait on your blade may cost you your life. She would not let a character roll and roll until they get success. The penalty for failure is that time passes. If you fail your roll you can't roll again. Everyone gets to pick their downtime activities and then the next scene begins.

I'm with her on this one. If a player wanted to spam something they *might* succeed one, I would build in the penalty for failure in that they can't just spam it. I would also take it as a queue that they want that weapon durability to matter, so failure means their sword is at more risk to being broken by story design...

If failure only results in trying the same roll again under the same conditions with the same potential consequences, than it fails to meet the criterion that the consequence of failure must be interesting.

This is not a GM fix, this is in the rules. Complaining that the rules allow for situations when they do no such thing is ridiculous, and suggests that you are looking for things to complain about, as well as inventing things to complain about when that fails. This is not helpful.

4 hours ago, Drudenfusz said:

And by this you are proving what? Even the guy in the video said this proved nothing and it was not a demonstration.

This is a display quality blade versus a modern hardened steel meat clever.

11 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

And by this you are proving what? Even the guy in the video said this proved nothing and it was not a demonstration.

This is a display quality blade versus a modern hardened steel meat clever.

Even if you took a high quality sword made of traditional steel you would not want to bash it edge to edge with another weapon - nor would you want to bash it against something to which it would not cut. Every use of a sword, and every trip through the polish is a day of its life sacrificed. Using a sword destroys it. Even his high quality blades received damage from bashing this soft-metal wall piece.

On 10/20/2017 at 4:17 AM, deraforia said:

If failure only results in trying the same roll again under the same conditions with the same potential consequences, than it fails to meet the criterion that the consequence of failure must be interesting.

This is not a GM fix, this is in the rules. Complaining that the rules allow for situations when they do no such thing is ridiculous, and suggests that you are looking for things to complain about, as well as inventing things to complain about when that fails. This is not helpful.

This.

If you're prepared to spend "as much of those ten days as it takes to prepare your sword" then you get a TN1 check. rather than the TN2 or 3 or whatever that you repeat, because you're not trying again and again, you're making one unrushed attempt with every spare hour before the duel. There is no magic point where there's a 'ding' noise and 'weapon quality unlocked/not unlocked' scrolls past your view.

On 10/19/2017 at 9:29 AM, WHW said:

I had this situation before, and while my players have not tried to try again after failing to sharpen their swords, I know what I would say:
The stake here, during this maintenance scene, is seeing how this seemingly innocent act of taking care of your weapon might impact your future. The stake of success is making the weapon repaired and possibly Durable; this might save your life ten days later, during a duel. The stake of failure is that you won't have this durable buff...and it might be the last straw that breaks your back.

Shall we roll?

More to the point, even this fails the argument; if you're spending an [earth] opportunity to buy the durable quality as per the table, then you still need to define what, mechanical or significant narrative difference there is between success and failure (as in successes equal to or in excess of the TN, or not) otherwise the same rule says it's a TN0, purely time-filling activity and you're not making a check, hence there is no potential to roll an opportunity result.

If you and the GM had agreed that a suitably difficult smithing check would add durable on success, then fair enough. But that, to me, is much more into the 'fixing a damaged weapon' or 'forging a new one' rather than 'I clean the blade and resharpen it a bit'

It shows that even a katana thats made of very cheap steel does not break as easily as the rules want you to think it would.

The Video shows that a katana, even if made of low quality steel, is not going to break as easily as the rules would make us believe.

13 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

If you and the GM had agreed that a suitably difficult smithing check would add durable on success, then fair enough. But that, to me, is much more into the 'fixing a damaged weapon' or 'forging a new one' rather than 'I clean the blade and resharpen it a bit'

But that does not really matter becasue you are not deciding which effect the smithing[earth] chek applies, ´that get decided by the opportunities you spend to get the condition. To get durable you have to spend 1 opportunit when making and artisan [earth] roll (page 82).
So when you use your smithing [earth] it is perfectly fine to make the target of the check get the durable condition.

55 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

To get durable you have to spend 1 opportunit when making and artisan [earth] roll (page 82).
So when you use your smithing [earth] it is perfectly fine to make the target of the check get the durable condition.

Agreed. But for that situation to exist there needs to be a valid reason to make a smithing (earth) check targeting your daisho, which requires:

• The GM to agree that what you're doing is a smithing check (pretty much a given if you're targeting your swords)
• The GM to agree that what you narratively want to do is an earth approach (Restore, Withstand, Recall, Reason, Produce)
• There to be a meaningful success/failure criteria other than getting durable (because an opportunity is an additional effect not directly related to success).

'I sharpen the blade', for example, fails the above, because unless the blade is meaningfully damaged, that's Refine (to make it function better), which is Air.

3 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed. But for that situation to exist there needs to be a valid reason to make a smithing (earth) check targeting your daisho, which requires:

• The GM to agree that what you're doing is a smithing check (pretty much a given if you're targeting your swords)
• The GM to agree that what you narratively want to do is an earth approach (Restore, Withstand, Recall, Reason, Produce)
• There to be a meaningful success/failure criteria other than getting durable (because an opportunity is an additional effect not directly related to success).

I don´t see a reason why the Gm should not automatically agree to 1 and 2. As sitting down and doing maintanance for the sword is exactly what the earth apporach describes there.
So a Gm has no reason to not agree to that.
The thrid point is also fullfiled as it is meaningful that you keep your sword in good shape. Only a well maintened sword cuts well and probably every sensei will have taught that
to their pupils. So maintaining it is also a part of your character play and therefore meaningful for the character. Not getting the check done could be also meaingful as it
represents a good oppotunity for aweful trainng flashbacks that lead to you trying it again to please your teacher/family with your sucess.
So in the end point 3 is probably the point that has the least difficulty to make a yes behind it as it is very easy to come up with a meaingful criteria for the roll.

I don't understand why people think you couldn't ruin a blade (or any object) while doing maintenance to it. Maybe you are changing the angle of the grind (thus better supporting the edge) to give it durable. Or maybe you are even tempering the steel once again to soften the spine of the blade or make it better able to flex. Any of these operations could damage the sword significantly. Even sharpening could hurt a sword (perhaps dulling the blade instead of sharpening it). Nowhere in the beta does it say there will be no consequences for failed checks other than time lost.

10 minutes ago, DarkIxion said:

I don't understand why people think you couldn't ruin a blade (or any object) while doing maintenance to it. Maybe you are changing the angle of the grind (thus better supporting the edge) to give it durable. Or maybe you are even tempering the steel once again to soften the spine of the blade or make it better able to flex. Any of these operations could damage the sword significantly. Even sharpening could hurt a sword (perhaps dulling the blade instead of sharpening it). Nowhere in the beta does it say there will be no consequences for failed checks other than time lost.

Because the rules don´t give a negative outcome to the skill checks. See in each case where there is one it si specified, be it outburstfor strife or damaged for a weapon/armor. Since that is not the case the only that happens is that you don´´´t pass the roll but besides that there is simply no negative consequence to it.

32 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

As sitting down and doing maintanance for the sword is exactly what the earth apporach describes there.
So a Gm has no reason to not agree to that.

If it's not already significantly damaged or blunted (i.e. Damaged condition) then you're trying to improve it. Which to me is refine, which is Air.

But that's a decision made by your GM, not by me, and he or she may see it differently. Regardless, it's their decision, not yours.

32 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

The thrid point is also fullfiled as it is meaningful that you keep your sword in good shape. Only a well maintened sword cuts well and probably every sensei will have taught that
to their pupils. So maintaining it is also a part of your character play and therefore meaningful for the character. Not getting the check done could be also meaingful as it
represents a good oppotunity for aweful trainng flashbacks that lead to you trying it again to please your teacher/family with your sucess.
So in the end point 3 is probably the point that has the least difficulty to make a yes behind it as it is very easy to come up with a meaingful criteria for the roll.

Again, fair enough. But that still boils down to "what is the consequence of passing and what is the consequence of failing"

12 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

Because the rules don´t give a negative outcome to the skill checks. See in each case where there is one it si specified, be it outburstfor strife or damaged for a weapon/armor. Since that is not the case the only that happens is that you don´´´t pass the roll but besides that there is simply no negative consequence to it.

There's also no stated effect of success.

And it there's no meaningful consequence of success or failure, you don't get to make the check in the first place.

"aweful trainng flashbacks that lead to you trying it again" isn't a consequence unless it actually impacts you in some way - staked honour/glory, strife from emotional stress, or a genuinely meaningful effect on the storyline.

24 minutes ago, DarkIxion said:

I don't understand why people think you couldn't ruin a blade (or any object) while doing maintenance to it. Maybe you are changing the angle of the grind (thus better supporting the edge) to give it durable. Or maybe you are even tempering the steel once again to soften the spine of the blade or make it better able to flex. Any of these operations could damage the sword significantly. Even sharpening could hurt a sword (perhaps dulling the blade instead of sharpening it). Nowhere in the beta does it say there will be no consequences for failed checks other than time lost.

I agree. And if there is a consequence to sharpening the weapon badly (and there is in reality, potentially introducing rather than eliminating fatigue microfractures or even - in an extreme case - notching the bloody thing) I'd have no problem.

The same task can have different mechanical rules under different circumstances. 'I sharpen my blades and wait' is a perfect throwaway line for someone playing a veteran Bushi kneeling and watching the dawn before yet another battle, whilst someone playing inexperienced, flustered newbie in his school probably would be asked to make a check the first time he's ever sharpening a blade for his sensei's approval precisely because there's a non-trivial chance of him screwing it up and catching heck for it.

Not because the Bushi is worse at sharpening his blades (the reverse) but because it's not an important element of the story.

It's the same in Edge Of The Empire; yes, theoretically your GM could make his basically-cut-price-han-solo PC smuggler make a piloting check to land the totally-not-the-falcon in a docking bay, on a nice clear day, with a fully functional, undamaged ship, when not rushed or under fire, but why? They're not realistically going to crash. What's the point?

On exactly the same day, in exactly the same ship, I might make the protocol droid who's never flown the ship (or anything) before, and who's only flying the ship because the smuggler's in back bleeding out, make a check.

4 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

If it's not already significantly damaged or blunted (i.e. Damaged condition) then you're trying to improve it. Which to me is refine, which is Air.

No it is still earth as the sample task for an earth roll is perfoming maintanance after a normal use in battle. So Maintanance is indeed an aspect of the eath approach
and therefore can be used in the way I described it.

6 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Again, fair enough. But that still boils down to "what is the consequence of passing and what is the consequence of failing.

Consequence of sucess is I get a well maintained sword. Consequnence of failure in my example is that my characters gets an intrinsic conflict and fails the roll.
He than has to start over and if he has perfetionism as disaduvanatage he also gets strife for not being able to perfectly perform maintanace.

8 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

There's also no stated effect of success.

And it there's no meaningful consequence of success or failure, you don't get to make the check in the first place.

There actually is one and thats getting durable and maintaining your sword. That is a concrete positive effect of passing the roll. The sucess here is just not messured in sucsess symbols but opportunity symbols.
So while you want to pass the TN the dciding factor is how many opportunities you get for your effects to choose from.
Thats the common things with allt he artisan rolls, that besides crafting the weapon as psotive outcome all rely more on opportunities than the TN which is only there to have a binary failure or not result.
So for them the opportunities are the sucessfull effects most of the time while a concrete negative effect besides not passing the roll is not there.

13 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

"aweful trainng flashbacks that lead to you trying it again" isn't a consequence unless it actually impacts you in some way - staked honour/glory, strife from emotional stress, or a genuinely meaningful effect on the storyline.

Oh but it is a meaningful outcome as it is part of the character development and story. It shows the characters feelings and can get a glimpse at the reasonings behind his actions. So while it might not be meaingful for the storyline
it can stil lbe meaningful for other aspects of the game like for example the character arc or development.
As I said there are so many ways to make a roll meaingfull that probably each of them is meaingful in someway for the person that asked to make it. The result is that the question about the meaningfulness has a high probability to be answered with yes.

3 hours ago, Teveshszat said:

It shows that even a katana thats made of very cheap steel does not break as easily as the rules want you to think it would.

Does not break as easily? Were you watching the same video I was watching?

I've seen swords get messed up from even just a bad strike through a tameshigiri mat. It only takes a little tweak for your blade to get bent, and once your cutting plane is messed up its not going to do its job properly.

I'm not saying it couldn't be tweaked - but ppl who think they can swing a sword into a steel plate without damaging the sword need to become informed. People who think it could CUT THROUGH the armor are watching too much anime lol.

ATM, the most probable situation where you might damage your sword on purpose is a gamble where you keep explosions and opportunities to crit, while hoping that explosions will give you another success to pierce the armor. That, or doing a battle-deciding crit for a price of your sword.

2 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Does not break as easily? Were you watching the same video I was watching?

I've seen swords get messed up from even just a bad strike through a tameshigiri mat. It only takes a little tweak for your blade to get bent, and once your cutting plane is messed up its not going to do its job properly.

I'm not saying it couldn't be tweaked - but ppl who think they can swing a sword into a steel plate without damaging the sword need to become informed. People who think it could CUT THROUGH the armor are watching too much anime lol.

Bending is not breaking. The assupmtion that a katana breaks and is completly unusable is wrong even for a katana thats made out of trash material as this one.
Thats what the vid shows nothing more nothing less. So while i bends easily it does not break from 2 bad strikes onto a armor and that is what razor edged is doing when you trigger it twice.
Therefore it is no good repesentation of how a katana, made of non trash material, is probably going to behave.

29 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

Bending is not breaking. The assupmtion that a katana breaks and is completly unusable is wrong even for a katana thats made out of trash material as this one.
Thats what the vid shows nothing more nothing less. So while i bends easily it does not break from 2 bad strikes onto a armor and that is what razor edged is doing when you trigger it twice.
Therefore it is no good repesentation of how a katana, made of non trash material, is probably going to behave.

Maybe you misunderstand what "breaking" is. Does the sword shatter? No. Will it still cut? No. The blade can be dulled with 1 bad cut - even if you cut through something.

Worse than that - it has to be absolutely understood, a katana doesn't cut through steel plates either... it would be foolish to take a sword and bash it against armor expecting to hurt someone lol

12 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Maybe you misunderstand what "breaking" is. Does the sword shatter? No. Will it still cut? No. The blade can be dulled with 1 bad cut - even if you cut through something.

Worse than that - it has to be absolutely understood, a katana doesn't cut through steel plates either... it would be foolish to take a sword and bash it against armor expecting to hurt someone lol

I am pretty sure I know what breaking means and that does nto happen to a katana that often.
Yes a bad hit can make it dull but thats not breaking.
Also a Katana does not need to cut though steel because you don´t aim for the protected parts in the first place.
So if we don´t asume that all of our chars are complete idiots that a failing to rember their kenjutsu training none of them actually would go and bash his sword against a steel armor plate.
So therefore the blade getting damaged shoudl not be happen that often at least not for the reasoing proposed in the quality, whcih is that you hit a part of the armor and fail to deal damage.

1 minute ago, Teveshszat said:

I am pretty sure I know what breaking means and that does nto happen to a katana that often.
Yes a bad hit can make it dull but thats not breaking.
Also a Katana does not need to cut though steel because you don´t aim for the protected parts in the first place.
So if we don´t asume that all of our chars are complete idiots that a failing to rember their kenjutsu training none of them actually would go and bash his sword against a steel armor plate.

You bypass armor by using the Striking as Water kata, and spending opportunities. I don't agree with this method, but its there - meaning a normal Martial Arts Melee TN 2 attack is certainly not attempting to bypass the armor.

4 minutes ago, shosuko said:

You bypass armor by using the Striking as Water kata, and spending opportunities. I don't agree with this method, but its there - meaning a normal Martial Arts Melee TN 2 attack is certainly not attempting to bypass the armor.

You lower the resitance. That is made as an addtional way to help you to strike the right target. You samurai stil does not go and target armored part on purpose even if you don´t use striking as water.

Yeah you can model the samurai looking for and finding the gaps by having to effectively aim at higher TN - if you want to deal damage to a dude in plate armor, you are effectively fighting against TN 4 - as you need to keep 2 extra successes to deal 4+2-5=1 damage.

If you keep anything less than that, then well, why did you do that?