Looking over the rules for the effects of different stances the effect you get from Earth Stance seems far better than any of the others. Water lets you take a free move or fiddle with gear and drop two Strife. Fire is a crapshoot--if you get a lot of Sakuras, you get to use them for bonus successes. Air adds +1 to your TN. Void lets you ignore Sakuras. All of these feel pretty balanced against each other if not tremendously evocative of their flavor text (which is great and I wish was reflected more in the mechanics to be honest).

Then there's Earth Stance. It makes you immune to exploding dice used to strike critical hits against you or triggered special abilities that inflict conditions or persistent effects. Wow.

I can't see a reason why any fighter, whether PC or NPC wouldn't use Earth Stance all the time. Am I reading this wrong? It seems like they protect you from just about everything you really want not to happen to you as a character. I wonder if it doesn't remove some of the danger and fun from the game that you can basically adopt a stance that gets rid of criticals and ongoing effects. Still I can't imagine wanting to use any other stance.

What do you folks think?

First off, please note that stances have been significantly reviewed in the update. Water is way more interesting now (especially since drawing a weapon has become harder overall) and lets you regen your choice of Strife or Fatigue. But mostly, Air adds more to your TN at higher ranks. Even feels too much now. I’d say it actually does what Earth does for you but via a different avenue: since your opponent has to keep more successes, they will have a hard time piling up opportunities to score a crit or whatnot.

Finally, Earth stance does not protect you from everything opportunities can do to you (there must be a thread about that )

I particularley annoyed a player by pointing out he was standing amidst gopher holes...

... by a spend of opportunity.

I thought I'd downloaded the newest version--but I think I might have the first version. It's the one up on Drive Thru RPG, right?

Updates actually are in a separate annex here : https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/98/41/9841fba7-1f05-4221-8fdc-ec65e7f653d1/l5r00_beta_updates_v10.pdf

10 hours ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

Then there's Earth Stance. It makes you immune to exploding dice used to strike critical hits against you or triggered special abilities that inflict conditions or persistent effects. Wow.

I can't see a reason why any fighter, whether PC or NPC wouldn't use Earth Stance all the time. Am I reading this wrong? It seems like they protect you from just about everything you really want not to happen to you as a character. I wonder if it doesn't remove some of the danger and fun from the game that you can basically adopt a stance that gets rid of criticals and ongoing effects. Still I can't imagine wanting to use any other stance.

What do you folks think?

It is very powerful. However, remember the following key points:

Quote

When other characters make Attack action checks and Scheme action checks that target you, they cannot spend * to inflict critical strikes, conditions, or persistent effects on you.

• It stops you receiving criticals, conditions and persistant effects inflicted by opponents spending opportunities in Attack and Scheme checks targeting you .
  • It only affects "critical strikes, conditions, or persistent effects"
    • Critical Strikes are as defined on page 168 (e.g. 'Close Call' causing armour damage)
    • Conditions are as defined on page 170 (e.g. 'Bleeding'), and whilst most commonly delivered by a Critical Strike, can be delivered directly by some techniques.
    • Persistent Effects are as defined on page 108, and are any opportunity effects (not success effects) written as 'this effect persists until', e.g. Striking As Fire/Striking As Water: "This effect persists until the end of your next turn", which aren't already disallowed by being conditions.
    • Fatigue/Wounds and Strife are not covered by this prohibition. So you can still take damage from someone spending an opportunity (like Shadowlands Goblin's Unruly Mob ability).
  • it only affects attack and scheme checks
    • If the infliction is a result of a support or maneuver action, you cannot claim immunity (e.g. Charge, before it was removed, caused damage on ** being spent, but was explicitly maneuver not attack).
  • It only affects things caused by opportunities
    • When facing a bunch of minions (let's say a trio of ashigaru) they don't have the option to spend * on criticals anyway . Only adversary-level opponents can spend * on anything not explicitly called up in their profile - and most minions don't have any * options in their profiles.
    • It won't stop anything caused by success on the check. Flowing Water Strike, for example, causes you to suffer the bleeding condition, whilst heartpiercing strike causes a critical hit. These are not from opportunities, but from the success/failure of the check, and hence bypass earth stance.
    • Likewise, taking damage in excess of your resiliance is not an opportunity - being repeatedly hit very hard in the face with an otsuchi will still cause a critical.
  • It only affects checks targeting you.
    • Whilst commonly you only inflict stuff on the opponent you're targeting, this is not exclusively the case - some examples:
      • Kanazagan no Oni can cause opponents at range 0-1 to suffer the Burning condition when attacking. This is not restricted to the target he attacks
      • Strike with no thought allows you to inflict dazed and disoriented on opponents near the target of your check.
  • It stops those effects being inflicted
    • It does not 'un-inflict' them if you are already suffering from them at the point you adopt earth stance
  • It is a conflict stance
    • You can only adopt it at the start of your turn and are then 'locked in' to using your earth ring for any checks (including critical-reducing fitness checks) until the start of your next turn.

The additional complexity here is that it's not just about the stances and their opportunities/effects, but also about your character build. You can't really look at any single rule in isolation and get a sense of the implications. I would say, for instance, that Striking as Earth is part of this equation for most Bushi since you are going to have at least 2 Earth and the extra Resistance on top of crit protection is clearly very strong defensively. For other characters... maybe not so worthwhile, even if the crit/condition protection is nice.