If a razor-sharp weapon has already become damaged by not causing damage when striking a character in heavy armor, does the Damaged condition also make it lose it's razor-sharp status? The rule seems to indicate that a katana would remain a razor-sharp weapon after being damaged by contact with heavy armor, so that it would be Destroyed after a second hit.

I'm wondering if the intent here was to have the katana become Damaged, but then no longer be considered a razor-sharp weapon, so a second hit would not Destroy it.

Thoughts?

It gets destroyed. Its intentional.

13 hours ago, WHW said:

It gets destroyed. Its intentional.

And genre appropriate.

Makes sense. I agree, it's appropriate for the genre. Thanks!

Note that if you can guess the armor of your opponent, you can literally decide to not hit if it would cause 0 damage --> break your sword. Armor values are standarized, even for enemies, so if you would do more than 5 damage, you can pretty safely attack - unless the opponent has something like Striking As Earth active.

That really just removes a layer of immersion from the game, by having one game mechanic inherently negate another one in such a patently silly way. "Oh no, I'm going to hit his armor! Split-second diversion of my strike!"

Effectively there is no point to any weapons having Razor-Edged because it should never come into effect. Character Resistance is set prior to the roll (their SaE bonuses are already in play). So the attacking character is fully aware of how many successes they need to avoid the effect. If they roll that many, they strike. If they don't, they then intentionally miss. That's so antithetical to roleplaying it's not even funny.

2 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

That really just removes a layer of immersion from the game, by having one game mechanic inherently negate another one in such a patently silly way. "Oh no, I'm going to hit his armor! Split-second diversion of my strike!"

More like you try to line up an attack but find no opening, so you do not commit to it, choosing to wait for a better opening. Or maybe you find an opportunity to keep your opponents attention so your buddy can have an easier time finding a way in through the armor.

2 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

Effectively there is no point to any weapons having Razor-Edged because it should never come into effect. Character Resistance is set prior to the roll (their SaE bonuses are already in play). So the attacking character is fully aware of how many successes they need to avoid the effect. If they roll that many, they strike. If they don't, they then intentionally miss. That's so antithetical to roleplaying it's not even funny.

The presence of Razor-Edged changes the way you approach attacking your opponent. It is possible to misjudge what you need to succeed if do not know your opponent's capabilities also. So there is a point, you just might not like it.

You can hand-wave however you like. Unless the rules or the GM explicitly state the target numbers in combat are hidden, then the rule stands as written, and you will inevitably have players figuring out what WHW did: that you can fail intentionally just because you didn't get the result you needed and avoid the negative outcome. It's storygame nonsense to avoid the outcomes of dice mechanics. Committing to rolling dice means an acceptance of randomized outcomes based on a calculated risk. 4th Edition had mechanics for this, represented by either a maneuver or raises, that would have (if 4E had had this Razor Edged trait) allowed a player with a katana to risk failure to look for opportunities to strike around the heavy armor if you were afraid of just hacking away. This mechanic lets the player figure out what they want to do after the randomized outcome happens, which eliminates risk. Did I do it? Awesome! Did I not? Oh, well I never tried anyway. Besides, if you're hiding target numbers from me, I'm going to use this rule to hit somebody with my spare sword to get a Void Point back, lol.

The game needs to decide what it is. Because right now it's just a crappy mechanical game with cumbersome storygame elements, and it's a crappy storygame with cumbersome dice mechanics. Crunch gamers don't want to play this game because the mechanics are chores and often nonsensical, traditional roleplayers don't want to play this game because the roleplay mechanics are a hindrance and poorly considered. Only storygamers want to play this game. If they want to make a storygame, that's fine. Go all the way on it and don't pretend it is using any of the heritage of previous mechanics, or of dice mechanics in general. Just please reprint 4th Edition so my newer players can get hard copy books without paying through the nose on EBay.

I guess the sixteen years I've spent roleplaying means nothing and I'm not a "traditional" roleplayer. I like crunch. I like story. I like playing my characters, and I do a lot more roleplaying without utilizing dice systems at all than I do with.

This game uses dice differently than the games you're used to. I understand that's different and you might not like that, but it doesn't make it wrong. Stop trying to speak for everybody, and stop separating people into false groups. You're not doing anybody any favors.

The issues here is not any have to do with techniques or bad/good mechanics. The problem is the ideas presented are all Hollywood promoted samurai myths.

1. The katana is not as fragile as they would have you believe. I have a few and have seen demos with classically forged sword, and even they can take a beating.

2. A strike with a katana is not a blunt force attack like most other sword it is a sweep and pulling action to bring the cutting power of the sword to the target.

3. Because of this the sword would not hit the armor with the force to damage or break it. it may need to be sharpened but that's about it.

4. The truth is in Japanese warfare katanas where rarely used on the battle field against heavily armored opponents as most of these would be high in the command structure or generals. So would not be in the heat of battle.

Overall this is a rule based on bad info that has be postulated in movie history.

In all honesty focus on the first paragraph were he discuss something concrete ( the system in itself) instead of the second one where he gives his views on the matter (Without a poll or stats to prove his argument.)

Choosing to miss (Since you can choose the result of the dice) is the right thing to do on this system, since you are actually allowed to do that. How you do that is indeed hand waving. You attacked the guy, you wanted to damage him, The roll happens and now you are like "lol lets see what opportunitys that i got?". Sure narratively, in game, it will make sense since you will just play whatever you decide.

Note:The opposite can be true. you may attack a guy thinking on just getting some opportunities off. but dices explode and you endup with 9 successes. "Lol i think i killed him, okay".

Thats the problem being pointed out right here is the fact of how much control over the dices players do have, you can avoid outcomes. I Like the break mechanic (I would guess that veteransergeant does not) but i agree that is a stupid mechanic due to the fact that you have full narrative control over when you break your katana and when you do not.

And i would agree with you on being possible to misjudge your opponent but in all honesty. the more i think this through the more problems i see. It came to me while i was playtesting a duel. the Game Master will NEVER misjudge something and will always know all values on the table. If you are fighting against a npc, you will maybe know a few of his rings or whatever some rolls you do give as info. Your GM will know everything about your character and be able to fight accordingly. And due to how mindgame related some options in this game are, it would be just too hard to "dumb yourself" to act as the character would. this is something simple to do on most of games, hard to do on this one. (you have to "gimp" yourself intentionally)

Anyway due to being able to choose successes an npc would NEVER break his own sword (unless he is willing).

13 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

The issues here is not any have to do with techniques or bad/good mechanics. The problem is the ideas presented are all Hollywood promoted samurai myths.

1. The katana is not as fragile as they would have you believe. I have a few and have seen demos with classically forged sword, and even they can take a beating.

2. A strike with a katana is not a blunt force attack like most other sword it is a sweep and pulling action to bring the cutting power of the sword to the target.

3. Because of this the sword would not hit the armor with the force to damage or break it. it may need to be sharpened but that's about it.

4. The truth is in Japanese warfare katanas where rarely used on the battle field against heavily armored opponents as most of these would be high in the command structure or generals. So would not be in the heat of battle.

Overall this is a rule based on bad info that has be postulated in movie history.

Even a Rapier can take a good beating. "Bend but does not break" is an actual thing. But in general i would agree with the idea of Katanas being more vulnerable, due to Japan steel not having a good quality by what i hear.

Best case i could hear against that is the obvious and 100% true fact. Rokugan is not Japan and its not supposed to be.

Just now, Mobiusllls said:

Even a Rapier can take a good beating. "Bend but does not break" is an actual thing. But in general i would agree with the idea of Katanas being more vulnerable, due to Japan steel not having a good quality by what i hear.

This is another miss conception. Japans steel is steel. the difference is due to the smelting process it has a higher level of carbon when the steel is created. That is the purpose of the folding process. Now does it get to the strength of spring steel no. but its also not as brittle as people think. The thing people tend to forget is that the armor uses the same steel as the sword, and the armor goes thru less refining then the sword making it the sword ****-of a lot stronger then the armor.

Just now, Mobiusllls said:

Best case i could hear against that is the obvious and 100% true fact. Rokugan is not Japan and its not supposed to be.

Well I would not say is Rokugan either. Its has more in common with Anime then Rokugan.

Its much easier to make a armor, or to be more precise, its harder to make a sword.

But i do agree with your point. The Japanese never really developed their armors much further. Same way the Katana design always stayed the same, instead of you know... improving.(Which is a L5R classical theme Tradition x Progress).

The Katana breaking would be more fitting(narratively speaking), at least on my head on a 1498 Samurai x Knight in full plate armor Than on a clash between samurais. (Even if the katana is not a war weapon, as we know.) Or well... to stay on the realm of possibilities of Rokugan (which actually makes more sense) against a shadowland monster with skin harder than stone. (And a crazy high reduction).

The same "edged weapon vs. heavy armor" issue existed in Europe. Striking plate armor with a longsword might not cause it to break, but it'll ruin the edge. You just rarely ever see this issue expressed in the rules.

Just my personal opinion, I like this particular rule. IRL, any samurai or knight would think seriously about what weapon to use against a heavily armored foe. The crab are big fans of the tetsubo for exactly this reason. Samurai from other clans are much less likely to encounter heavily armored opponents, but still often carry yari if for no other reason than that it's just poor planning to only have one tool in your toolbox.

56 minutes ago, Mobiusllls said:

Its much easier to make a armor, or to be more precise, its harder to make a sword.

The point I was trying to make is that the folding process in sword making is use to remove the large amounts of carbon in the steel, where the armor does not go thru the folding process.

56 minutes ago, Mobiusllls said:

But i do agree with your point. The Japanese never really developed their armors much further. Same way the Katana design always stayed the same, instead of you know... improving.(Which is a L5R classical theme Tradition x Progress).

56 minutes ago, Mobiusllls said:

The Katana breaking would be more fitting(narratively speaking), at least on my head on a 1498 Samurai x Knight in full plate armor Than on a clash between samurais. (Even if the katana is not a war weapon, as we know.) Or well... to stay on the realm of possibilities of Rokugan (which actually makes more sense) against a shadowland monster with skin harder than stone. (And a crazy high reduction).

As you said, I have always looked at this as comparing apples to oranges.

For the shadowland monster with skin harder than stone. As I stated in may thread on the rules. Razor-Edge is not in its self a bad trait. I just think its needs to be reworked. here's my take.

When the damage is reduced to (For a katana) -4 or -6 is when it takes effect.

2 minutes ago, Raenestro said:

The same "edged weapon vs. heavy armor" issue existed in Europe. Striking plate armor with a longsword might not cause it to break, but it'll ruin the edge. You just rarely ever see this issue expressed in the rules.

One thing that always gets missed here is "what is plate armor" in Rokugan. European plate and Japanese/Rokugan Plate are really not comparable. Japanese/Rokugan Plate has more in common with Lamellar armor then European plate.

2 minutes ago, Raenestro said:

Just my personal opinion, I like this particular rule. IRL, any samurai or knight would think seriously about what weapon to use against a heavily armored foe. The crab are big fans of the tetsubo for exactly this reason. Samurai from other clans are much less likely to encounter heavily armored opponents, but still often carry yari if for no other reason than that it's just poor planning to only have one tool in your toolbox.

As stated above, I don't hate this trait I just think its over blown right now and needs to be adjusted.

3 hours ago, deraforia said:

I guess the sixteen years I've spent roleplaying means nothing and I'm not a "traditional" roleplayer.

I would have to assume the other poster meant "gygaxian" when they said "traditional", and the gygaxian school of thought is that the character and roleplaying comes first, and the mechanics are how that character is represented. A person allowing the mechanics to dictate their character is a person that many old school roleplayers would call a munchkin or powergamer. Of course this all gets chucked out the window, I think, in the context of a game that has specifically designed mechanics that tell you how to roleplay on occasion.

Needless to say, your history with the hobby doesn't make you "traditional" by default.

It may be worth noting that you can't always decide not to hit:

If you're trying to overcome armor with explosive success, you've already chosen to keep dice and are probably committed to hitting.

Also you must keep at least one die. So there are rare circumstances when you'd be unable to stay your blade despite not liking the outcome.

20 hours ago, deraforia said:

I do a lot more roleplaying without utilizing dice systems at all than I do with.

So then what exactly about this system appeals to you? Seriously. A significant amount of the "roleplaying" is done through dice, and based around trying to achieve mechanical results rather than story results. That's rollplaying. 4E is far more conducive to roleplaying than this ever will be. This is just storygaming. Roll dice, get told what you can do, then describe it fancifully. In 5E, rollplaying your disadvantages gets you Void Points or Strife Points (in a completely counter-intuitive and ridiculous manner). The dice give you Strife Points. You use the stances and opportunities to get rid of the Strife Points. The game pretends to have roleplaying in it with Mechanical and Narrative Opportunities. Where do you get those? Randomly, from rolling dice. Roll dice, get a certain face, then roleplay. Don't get that result or don't use it? No roleplay for you. Creating a character even sucks, despite being wrapped up in what seems like a really cool roleplaying exercise. Oh, wait. I just write a bunch of stuff down then pretend my mechanically identical Hida Templata is different from the other Hida Templata with basically identical stats because he's a Daredevil with a bad memory. The closest it gets to roleplaying is ninjo and giri. Which is the idea I was most interested in coming into the game before being disappointed with how bland it was. But guess what? It comes with a mechanic, lol. And not a good one. Is it your turn to giri today? No? No roleplay for you. It's somebody else's turn for storygametime. Maybe next week. Or maybe next month if your group is big enough. I'm sure you'll get to ninjo at some point. Roleplaying and crunch GMs will love a mechanic with more bookkeeping and ambiguous parameters! So the one interesting facet of 5th Edition is still, like much of the rest of it, a clumsily written conceptual misfire.

In a traditional roleplaying game, you say what you want to do, then roll the dice if needed. The dice are the way to resolve the things that happen in the game. And that happens sometimes in this game. Which is because it does have (clumsy, poorly constructed) mechanics that are "describe then roll," but then you're back to the earlier issue of rolling the dice, the game telling you what you can do with them, then you tell a story about it. It's a board game with no board and more talking. What use do you have for this game if you are actually a traditional roleplayer that isn't better served by 4th Edition? Even the things that 4th Edition was bad at, like Advantages and Disadvantages valuation, this game managed to figure out how to be worse at, lol.

You need to stop worrying about labels. Nobody's going to send you to Tabletop Purgatory after you die because you didn't traditionally roleplay enough. It's not a slur if you aren't actually a traditional roleplayer and instead some kind of hybrid. Because I can tell you I showed the game to my group that has three roleplayers, a reformed powergamer, and a "Whatever the group wants to do-er" and the first four people had no interest. We didn't even finish the introductory adventure because nobody was interested in the gameplay as it was just too random, unstructured and time-consuming for no real benefit to them. Terms like storygamer, roleplayer, power-gamer, they aren't slurs or honorifics. It's just how people like to play games. It's just terminology for the standard of games that have existed for four decades in the vein of your D&Ds, your Shadowruns, your Twilight 2000s, your L5Rs, etc. My buddy has asked me to join a few times but his group loves games that use FATE or similarly mechanics-lite systems. I don't like those games, so I don't play. I don't talk down on them for playing them. They have their game days, and I have mine. Most of the comments in support of the Strife Mechanic are from people who are overly worried about how other people play their games, lol. Had somebody trying to argue against my points the other day by suggesting the fact that some people "pretend to roleplay" and don't, so they need to be forced to, lol. I mean, I'm sorry that's a problem in that group, but that's a personal issue. I don't care how people have fun. Some other jerk kept referring to "Mr. Trenchcoat McBadass" as if the players who just want to be heroic are doing it wrong. Those are the people not doing this community any favors. Not me for trying to distill down styles of play and giving them a name. Maybe you're just a storygamer by the way I siloed the styles of play. Don't think too hard about it. I'm not going to kick your door down and make you play Phoenix Command.

And I'm not trying to take away Legend of the Five Storygamers from the people who want to play a system like this. But, for the people like me who do think the rules have to be sensible and complete so they provide a clear framework for the mechanical play of the game so the GM can do the storytelling and our players can be the protagonists in that story, which has been the "traditional" roleplaying model for 40 years now, this Beta... sucks. And FFG needs to know this. And I wouldn't care if it didn't mean any time somebody new wanted to play they were shelling out huge amounts of cash to buy the old rulebooks. Because they own all the rights to republish 4th Edition. It requires no development time or cost. If they want to offer up a storygame version of L5R, then just do what a multitude of designers have done and just offer two versions. Modiphius can do it and they aren't nearly the powerhouse FFG is with their easy-sell Star Wars license which, while probably not super profitable at the per-item level, is still a huge revenue-generator based on volume.

Quote

I Like the break mechanic (I would guess that veteransergeant does not)

I don't care if katanas break, lol. I played Leading Edge's Aliens and 93 Games' Reflex rules Twilight. Mechanically complex as ****. Not the best systems for most games, but Reflex did post-apocalyptic modern combat really well if you liked that kind of detail (to be fair it had a Lite setting too) and it was amazing for a game where combat was a really hard-considered option and often avoided unless the players could position themselves for a clear advantage. So I'm all about a system that wants to put a little effort towards to realism. I do care that katanas break stupid in this game, since theoretically they should never break at all because you can't really do it inadvertently. It's a tool for GMs to roleplay stupid mook NPCs, I guess. I actually like that this game went out of its way to take combat away from All Katana, All The Time like 4E was for a majority of characters except the ones using No-dachis because why waste time sinking skill points into multiple melee skills if Kenjutsu has a 3k3 weapon in it. Though that's not entirely fair. There were Kaiu Cheeseblades (though technically still a katana) for Crab and Scimitars for the Unicorn players. But you can't put in a mechanic to discourage AKATT and then make that mechanic pointless. Weapons stats are actually one of the best parts of this game (with some exceptions, though I like that the yari has some purpose finally), of course, tempered by the inferior and janky combat mechanics.

I’d like to take a moment to point out the katana is far from the only weapon to have the razor edged quality. It is generally obvious if someone is wearing heavy armor, but concealed armor is another story. Even traveling clothes can be troublesome for a knife or worse yet, an improvised weapon. Breaking ones katana often was probably not the intent of this rule. Bear in mind that some opportunities require you to succeed at an attack. Therefore you might consider letting success happen (thus damaging the weapon) so that you can activate those opportunities.

Further, the GM must either tell you the TN for a roll or give you a void point. They do not have to tell you jack squat about the stats of the enemy according to that rule. Sometimes you might know the resistance of an opponent before you roll, sometimes you won’t. Seems fine to me as is.

9 hours ago, deraforia said:

I guess the sixteen years I've spent roleplaying means nothing and I'm not a "traditional" roleplayer. I like crunch. I like story. I like playing my characters, and I do a lot more roleplaying without utilizing dice systems at all than I do with.

This game uses dice differently than the games you're used to. I understand that's different and you might not like that, but it doesn't make it wrong. Stop trying to speak for everybody, and stop separating people into false groups. You're not doing anybody any favors.

The game uses dice and reward/punishment cycles differently than most "Trad" games.

Really, the reward cycles are a vital part of this game, and the big threats of outbursts are the honor and glory losses they can potentially bring — but only if the GM enforces that aspect.

There are MANY reward cycles here:

• Honor Gains/Losses (complex)
• Glory Gains/Losses (slightly less complex)
• Strife/Outburst (Simple but very in-your-face; should tie into Glory and Honor)
• Wounds/unconsciousness/criticals
• Experience & Advancement (too flexible as written to be judged well)
• Void Points & the advantages & disadvantages...
• Mechanical complexity (For some, a reward, for others a punishment; note that games generally tend to make most use of the most mechanicalized portions of the story range; For example, D&D has combat and magic with lots of details, but a very weak (5E, 3E) or almost absent (AD&D, BX/BECMI/Cyclopedia) travel system; a large portion of players spend most of their game time using spells and playing combats, often in minis-on-map tactical combat boardgame mode. Sure, you CAN do an RP heavy story-centered game in D&D, but the game doesn't reward this with interesting choices — only the GM does. If the GM doesn't reward story-mode, the game can fall into literally being just a tactical game. I've seen it happen a lot, including, neé especially, at Adventurer's League games.)

21 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

So then what exactly about this system appeals to you?

It's a tool I can use to tell good stories. So yes, I guess that makes me a storygamer, by your definition. I find it more useful for telling the sorts of stories and playing the sorts of games I want to explore in Rokugan than more traditional systems.

I like D&D, too. Played a lot of it in high school, as well as Palladium/Rifts and WFRP2. But I like those (well, not so much Palladium these days) for different reasons and purposes.

21 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

And I wouldn't care if it didn't mean any time somebody new wanted to play they were shelling out huge amounts of cash to buy the old rulebooks.

Fantasy Flight is still supporting the old books. If you're expecting them to print the books, I would not hold your breath.

On 22/10/2017 at 1:13 AM, Moribund said:

It may be worth noting that you can't always decide not to hit:

If you're trying to overcome armor with explosive success, you've already chosen to keep dice and are probably committed to hitting.

Also you must keep at least one die. So there are rare circumstances when you'd be unable to stay your blade despite not liking the outcome.

Dont know about rules forcing you to keep one die. But i'm obviously not completely aware of everything on the system, in any case, it changes nothing. Tn to hit is 2. its literally impossible to hit with only one kept die (Even if is an explosion, you are not forced to keep the other die, i believe.) You miss with one sword, your sword is not broken.

On 22/10/2017 at 2:26 AM, TheVeteranSergeant said:

I don't care if katanas break, lol. I played Leading Edge's Aliens and 93 Games' Reflex rules Twilight. Mechanically complex as ****. Not the best systems for most games, but Reflex did post-apocalyptic modern combat really well if you liked that kind of detail (to be fair it had a Lite setting too) and it was amazing for a game where combat was a really hard-considered option and often avoided unless the players could position themselves for a clear advantage. So I'm all about a system that wants to put a little effort towards to realism. I do care that katanas break stupid in this game, since theoretically they should never break at all because you can't really do it inadvertently. It's a tool for GMs to roleplay stupid mook NPCs, I guess. I actually like that this game went out of its way to take combat away from All Katana, All The Time like 4E was for a majority of characters except the ones using No-dachis because why waste time sinking skill points into multiple melee skills if Kenjutsu has a 3k3 weapon in it. Though that's not entirely fair. There were Kaiu Cheeseblades (though technically still a katana) for Crab and Scimitars for the Unicorn players. But you can't put in a mechanic to discourage AKATT and then make that mechanic pointless. Weapons stats are actually one of the best parts of this game (with some exceptions, though I like that the yari has some purpose finally), of course, tempered by the inferior and janky combat mechanics.

I would'nt go that far and call the weapons/armor chapter great, but yeah, at least is more balanced, does give choice to players. Tough if i play, i will probably do the same that i did on 4th ed. Just use katana anyway. Unless im playing Phoenix, i used Naginata with phoenix even on the 4th edition, would enjoy using it now that is not worthless.

On the detail front i enjoy more GURPS, On one game that i used a katana as weapon. (Off character i would do glorious nipon steel jokes, pretend that i could reflect bullets as jedis do with laser and such). I do precisely remember the entire group talking about the weapon after a quick combat that i had, an discussion about "is the Katana easy to break?". We found out that no, not really. Despite GURPS usually enjoying details, they didnt tought that this was the case or at the very least, they didnt went that far. A Katana breaking would be as common as a two handed european sword breaking. In other words, not likely.

But of course, to go along with Tenchi2A and talk about misconceptions, parry in this edition is a special thing that cost void points, and by the book its because japanese weapons are trash and japanese warriors prefer to die than to use their honed swordsmanship to parry a strike. would be a shame if an samurai that created one of the few styles of swordsmanship that are still practiced worldwide to this day used a second sword to parry. Would be even worse if that crazy guy was the one to come up with the "five rings" that this game borrows the name from.

On 10/22/2017 at 3:22 AM, tenchi2a said:

The point I was trying to make is that the folding process in sword making is use to remove the large amounts of carbon in the steel, where the armor does not go thru the folding process.

As you said, I have always looked at this as comparing apples to oranges.

For the shadowland monster with skin harder than stone. As I stated in may thread on the rules. Razor-Edge is not in its self a bad trait. I just think its needs to be reworked. here's my take.

When the damage is reduced to (For a katana) -4 or -6 is when it takes effect.

This would literally never happens, as Katana has damage of 4, and highest armor value in the game ATM is 5 for Plate Armor and unholy hide of terryfing oni. It would require the introduction of oppressive Resistance values for the opponents that do not mesh with the math of current system. Eyeballing numbers is a bad habit.

The only scenario where this could work is player character wearing Plate Armor using 3 Opportunities to activate Striking as Earth and then tanking an exactly 2 success hit from an NPC using a katana.

Nothing is stopping you from improving your plate armor to resistance 6.

And one or two opportunities is actually easily achievable, so you are looking at a resistance of 7 or 8 with the striking as earth almost every turn, if that is your intent on the skirmish or duel/clash.