I noticed that striking a target that is not aware of your presence is still TN 2. maybe the rules should need a specification about that : if the guy does'nt even know you're there, maybe the TN should be lower.

And for the more unexperimented GMs, maybe it should be noted somewere that you do not need to roll the dices to kill someone who is uncouncious : the guy is sleeping, I don't see how you could miss his throat (by the way greate usefullness on the ''bayushi'' shcool here, for the lethality augmentation on unconcious targets). I know it's obvious but to some it will be their first ropleplaying game, so maybe it should be specified

19 minutes ago, Kyros Skyfall said:

And for the more unexperimented GMs, maybe it should be noted somewere that you do not need to roll the dices to kill someone who is uncouncious

Well, the rules DO say that you shouldn't make a roll if the character can't fail (under "When to Ask for a Check", p12)

Hmm. This is true, and the rules on “Only check when there is a chance for failure” certainly seem to apply.

Honestly? I would make the simple rule of “Any successful attack on an unaware or helpless target is automatically a Critical Strike.” And leave it at that. Maybe add something allowing additional Successes on the roll to add towards Deadliness.

Maybe you can't miss, but if the goal is, say, to silently dispatch the sleeper without him or her waking up and screaming for guards or making a ruckus, then a roll is in order.

Auto-crit with the Deadliness modifier for being Unconscious seems a good place to start.

Page 99: the table says that Stealthily dispatching a single Minion NPC guard outside of a conflict scene without alerting others is a TN 3 roll.

2 minutes ago, jmoschner said:

Page 99: the table says that Stealthily dispatching a single Minion NPC guard outside of a conflict scene without alerting others is a TN 3 roll.

Yes, this covers minions. For high profile target assassination, the poor victim will most likely be an adversary-type NPC.

14 minutes ago, Franwax said:

Yes, this covers minions. For high profile target assassination, the poor victim will most likely be an adversary-type NPC.

Then make it a TN 4, the same difficulty as subduing a squad of armed minions without getting hurt. A minion squad is roughly equivalent to an adversary, especially one that is asleep.

While I agree that striking a sleeping or unconscious person should be advantageous, the school bonus for Shosuro Infiltrators covers this, and is underwhelming...

The Path of Shadows (School Ability): Striking a foe from behind or while they are asleep is extremely advantageous, and thus extremely dishonorable. Fortunately for the ninja of the Shosuro Infiltrator School, such considerations are hardly worthy of notice. When performing an Attack action against a target who is unaware of your presence or is suffering the Incapacitated or Unconscious condition, treat the base damage and deadliness of your weapon as being increased by an amount equal to your school rank.

I think this ability should be re-done, as should the rules for attacking someone who isn't providing any opposition (asleep, unconcious)

On 19/11/2017 at 6:13 AM, sndwurks said:

Honestly? I would make the simple rule of “Any successful attack on an unaware or helpless target is automatically a Critical Strike.”

Looks like it happens with the new way of dealing damage from update v3.
Sleeping characters are Unconscious, which, I think, would prevent them from defending (as "suffering fatigue to dodge, block, or otherwise avoid a telling blow" look incompatible with "cannot move, perform actions, or otherwise significantly act upon the physical world").
Thus, they suffer a +10 critical strike.

Regarding " The Path of Shadows", the increase to base damage seems useless. The conditions for using it would likely fall under a "the target can't defend" situation. This means an straight critical, without going through damage.

On 11/19/2017 at 6:21 AM, Franwax said:

Yes, this covers minions. For high profile target assassination, the poor victim will most likely be an adversary-type NPC.

But if they're asleep, it's still probably not a conflict scene. Therefore it's not a standard strike action, it's a check whose difficulty is variable at the discretion of the GM.

Wondering if what I said above about The Path of Shadows...
If situations where you use it indeed lead to a critical strike, Way of the Crane does the same (and more)

Found useful info under "Unconscious > Removed When...":
"If a character is Unconscious but not Incapacitated (such as if they are asleep rather than having been knocked out), they can defend against damage as normal , and generally wake up if they suffer harm, [...]"

Someone asleep can defend.

Weird.
And it should be made clearer under "Unconscious > Effects" that you can defend if Unconscious (the removal part is not the best place to put that info)

Interesting indeed. And I suppose the same goes for unaware targets.

Now defending means taking a bunch of fatigue, mitigated by armor resistance, so why not. But it does highlight how special the incapacitated condition is: you can still move around, are aware of your surroundings, but are so winded/beaten up that you have to take a direct crit with every hit.

So by RAW, if you want to one shot a sleeping target, your best bet is to aim for those double-opportunity critical strikes and count on the +10 Severity from the Unconscious condition. Because as of update 3.0, even if you inflict more fatigue than the target's Endurance in one blow, I understand it takes another hit to score a critical strike...

10 hours ago, Franwax said:

Because as of update 3.0, even if you inflict more fatigue than the target's Endurance in one blow, I understand it takes another hit to score a critical strike...

That's how I read it, too. Nor are you rendered unconcious (because that's caused by suffering a critical strike whilst already incapacitated) in one hit (unless starting unconcious as in this case).

18 hours ago, Franwax said:

Interesting indeed. And I suppose the same goes for unaware targets.

Now defending means taking a bunch of fatigue, mitigated by armor resistance, so why not. But it does highlight how special the incapacitated condition is: you can still move around, are aware of your surroundings, but are so winded/beaten up that you have to take a direct crit with every hit.

So by RAW, if you want to one shot a sleeping target, your best bet is to aim for those double-opportunity critical strikes and count on the +10 Severity from the Unconscious condition. Because as of update 3.0, even if you inflict more fatigue than the target's Endurance in one blow, I understand it takes another hit to score a critical strike...

The next hit now also does drive you unconscious (u3 p11, "page 171" new text...

"If an Incapacitated character suffers a critical strike, they suffer the Unconscious condition in addition to any other effects."

Yes yes, I know, but it means there is no way to one-hit a live target into unconsciousness (barring upcoming kata I guess, our as a check outside of conflict, cf. minion). It's a one-two task: first incapacitate, then knock out.

A sleeping, but not incapacitated target will defend on the 1st hit, wake up, then if incapacitated in one strike fall back to sleep for good after the second. Unless the 1st hit had double opportunities to spare for a critical strike (at +10 severity) and ended up in an insta-kill; then they wouldn't wake up obviously

On 11/23/2017 at 4:53 PM, Exarkfr said:

"If a character is Unconscious but not Incapacitated (such as if they are asleep rather than having been knocked out), they can defend against damage as normal , and generally wake up if they suffer harm, [...]"

Wow.

So, the only way this makes sense is if you assume that the check where the sleeping character was vulnerable (i.e. not a conflict scene) was ended with a failed stealth check and the character is technically still asleep but stirring. You change modes when you leave narrative rules. Still seems daft tbh, but it's also very easy to ignore at the table.

On 23/11/2017 at 6:31 PM, Franwax said:

Interesting indeed. And I suppose the same goes for unaware targets.

Now defending means taking a bunch of fatigue, mitigated by armor resistance, so why not. But it does highlight how special the incapacitated condition is: you can still move around, are aware of your surroundings, but are so winded/beaten up that you have to take a direct crit with every hit.

So by RAW, if you want to one shot a sleeping target, your best bet is to aim for those double-opportunity critical strikes and count on the +10 Severity from the Unconscious condition. Because as of update 3.0, even if you inflict more fatigue than the target's Endurance in one blow, I understand it takes another hit to score a critical strike...

Wait, there's no way to roll so well that you straight up send someone's head flying with one roll?

In L5R?

In L5R there is no way to decapitate a mook with a single strike?

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

You can get a critical on your first strike, decapitating the mook (the double-opportunity critical mentioned).

If there's still a TN2 to hit (GM may change this for the unconscious target), that occurs a bit less than half the time (46%), even for a master (ring 5, skill 5).

The mook gets a Fitness roll to reduce the severity, but if you used a katana held in a 2 handed grip, that's severity 17. If the mook only gets a single success, that will result in a 16+ severity for instant death (decapitation seems appropriately dramatic). Unfortunately, a typical mook (ring 2, skill 1) will make 2 successes on that test 60% of the time, granting them a round of Dying before being dead.

If the player has the Heartpiercing Strike kata, they will hit 92% of the time, and the minion won't be able to keep their head.

Somewhat related, in Japan, you would claim a high status opponent's head. In Rokugan, there's a taboo against touching the dead that seems stronger than what existed in Japan. Am I correct in assuming that Rokugan bushi don't take heads?

Edit: These are based on an unconscious opponent. One hit kills are extremely unlikely for a conscious opponent.

Also, I didn't properly treat the mook as a minion. Minions have special rules for criticals, which are currently probably broken. They are immune to one hit kills, since a critical is turned into fatigue instead of a critical, and fatigue exceeding the endurance doesn't trigger a critical anymore. After the first blow that would be deadly for a non-minion, they are incapacitated (and probably no longer unconscious). I expect this is a bug, and not intended.

3 hours ago, ubik2 said:

Am I correct in assuming that Rokugan bushi don't take heads?

Not in Old5R. The kubi bukuro was very much an available item. They just didn't talk very much on its use, which led to misconceptions exactly like yours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubi_bukuro

7 hours ago, GhostSanta said:

Wait, there's no way to roll so well that you straight up send someone's head flying with one roll?

In L5R?

In L5R there is no way to decapitate a mook with a single strike?

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Katana, two handed, Two Success to hit, Two opp on a crit, enough fatigue damage to run them out, (for +5 crit severity, making 13), plus two more opportunity for dead next round (thanks to Razor Edged).

Given that the mook is in 0-3 points of armor, needed successes are 2+Armor on a katana, as the mook peasant has 4 Endurance/resilience.

So, to do so, you need 2 to 5 successes and 4 opportunity. It's too hard, but it's doable.

6 minutes ago, BitRunr said:

Not in Old5R. The kubi bukuro was very much an available item. They just didn't talk very much on its use, which led to misconceptions exactly like yours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubi_bukuro

And the head bags (Kubi bukuro) are noted in 3E, 4E, and 5E beta in the equipment lists, as well as Rokugan d20.

19 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

And the head bags (Kubi bukuro) are noted in 3E, 4E, and 5E beta in the equipment lists, as well as Rokugan d20.

Yeah, I got hung up on the loss of honor from touching a dead body. If the action is inherently dishonorable, it didn't seem like it would be standard behavior. It may be intended as a trade of honor for glory or status (since capturing the head of a prominent enemy would likely lead to glory or status rewards). It's also possible that the GM discretion is supposed to come into play, so the GM would typically ignore that entry in cases like taking of heads, and perhaps for recovery of a friend's dead body. The post-death cosmetics would be particularly bad.

GM discretion may be needed for the Challenge action as well (in Skirmish and Mass Battle), since otherwise, non-combat characters, like courtiers and shugenja will have a hard time staying above 0 glory. This could be something simple, like no glory/honor loss for declining a duel if your status is 20 greater than the challenger, or if you don't carry a katana. Realistically, non-combat characters shouldn't be leading a cohort in mass battle, but often the desire to have all the characters participate (to keep things fun) outweighs the desire for realism.

Note that, traditionally, the no-touching-the-dead didn't apply to the battlefield...

... in part because all warriors are (theoretically) prepared to be dead themselves before the day is over.
... and in part, because proof of competence is a stronger honor than touching an honorably defeated foe. (Even if the foe is not honorable.)

You'd still be expected to go through a cleansing rite of some sort after the battle, though. But yeah, it's less of a taboo on the battlefield, especially since blood tends to splatter back when you cut someone from collarbone to hip