6 hours ago, ExplodingJoe said:

Its about trying to go around all the stances. No one wants a non-duelist to get into water stance safely in the first turn. No one wants someone with high air to be able to hang around in their best stat with a defensive advantage. You really don't want people to corner you and take fire stance, since it contains most the really dangerous techs.

Earth doesn't win by default, its a safety net that your opponent can exploit. Catching someone out of Earth isn't an auto-crit, its an opportunity that's challenging to capitalize on in early game.

Never mind the fact that a lot of other families don't want to be in earth just for the protection, they want to be there cause it's often tied for best ring. If you can't stay in a ring that keeps three dice, good luck reliably hitting an Air based build with opportunity left over. I really just don't care if Earth sounds pivotal in one situation, because all rings are pivotal in one situation.

earth is pivotal most of the time. it makes you immune to a lot of nasty stuff. so if you have a high earth, you roll lots of dice and are immune to lots of things.

sure, you are not as offensive as fire. but being immune to most crits and conditions, is probably worth it in all kinds of situations (on top of being genuinely unfun for people trying to do stuff to you. its not like "its more difficult to" as air stance does. its literally "you CANNOT").

if its fine with you, then all good. but I cant wrap my head around liking what earth stance does.

as is, earth is too, radical. for me (thats my opinion ,i'm not the only one with this opinion though it seems). but yeah, we don't need to argue about it. i'm trying to find way to make earth less strong, you are saying it is just fine.

making it: "must pay 1 xtra opp the first time they spend opp to to inflict condition or critical strike on you during a round, at Rank 4, increase this cost to 2 opp " is as good as air in my book. making it more challenging but not downright impossible. remember, opportunity are only 1/3 of the dice's result and successes are about 1/2 (these are not exact numbers, but more or less). so that +1opp really makes it difficult to gather enough opportunity if you still want to succeed.

10 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

Im still on board for a "big rework", but i could very much drop the towel soon. Because i cannot shake that feeling out of my head that this game is anything good past a "beta" state.

I'm thinking the same thing.

I started L5R with the Clan War novels (all 7 of them), then went out and purchased L5R3e. When L5R4e came out, I was in love. Years later and my wife picks up FFG Star Wars (Edge of the Empire), and I was drawn to the idea of something other than succeed/fail on non-combat dice rolls.

I was hoping that the skill trees would be something like EotE. Four choices at "Rank 1", another four at "Rank 2". For example the Mirumoto Bushi had the following abilities:

L5R3e: The Daisho Technique (R1), Strong and Swift (R2), The Blood of my Brothers (R3), The Unrighteous will Fall (F4), Heart of the Dragon (R5)
L5R4e: Way of the Dragon (R1), The Calm in the Midst of Thunder (R2), Strong and Swift (R3), Furious Retaliation (R4), Heart of the Dragon (R5)

Plus a bunch of other techniques at different ranks. I was hoping that each of these had their own mechanic, and I could pick and choose my own pathing through the tree, like in Edge of the Empire.

Instead I purchased a book (and dice, and GM screen) where a school boils down to a single technique, a small pool of shared kata, and arbitrarily timed restrictions on skill purchases. Dueling became a mini-skirmish game for 1-on-1 combat, with absolutely no attempt to model the fiction that I've spent over a decade getting to know. Each encounter boils down to who freaks out first... the stoic honorable samurai is gone, and raging lunatics are in their place.

I've been trying to get my head around this edition, and I just can't. I know that others are happy with it, and I'm honestly glad that is the case, but I'm more likely to just start homebrewing an entire system from the ground up.

My apologies for starting this giant argument thread.

1 hour ago, Shinjo Koetsu said:

I'm thinking the same thing.

I started L5R with the Clan War novels (all 7 of them), then went out and purchased L5R3e. When L5R4e came out, I was in love. Years later and my wife picks up FFG Star Wars (Edge of the Empire), and I was drawn to the idea of something other than succeed/fail on non-combat dice rolls.

I was hoping that the skill trees would be something like EotE. Four choices at "Rank 1", another four at "Rank 2". For example the Mirumoto Bushi had the following abilities:

L5R3e: The Daisho Technique (R1), Strong and Swift (R2), The Blood of my Brothers (R3), The Unrighteous will Fall (F4), Heart of the Dragon (R5)
L5R4e: Way of the Dragon (R1), The Calm in the Midst of Thunder (R2), Strong and Swift (R3), Furious Retaliation (R4), Heart of the Dragon (R5)

Plus a bunch of other techniques at different ranks. I was hoping that each of these had their own mechanic, and I could pick and choose my own pathing through the tree, like in Edge of the Empire.

Instead I purchased a book (and dice, and GM screen) where a school boils down to a single technique, a small pool of shared kata, and arbitrarily timed restrictions on skill purchases. Dueling became a mini-skirmish game for 1-on-1 combat, with absolutely no attempt to model the fiction that I've spent over a decade getting to know. Each encounter boils down to who freaks out first... the stoic honorable samurai is gone, and raging lunatics are in their place.

I've been trying to get my head around this edition, and I just can't. I know that others are happy with it, and I'm honestly glad that is the case, but I'm more likely to just start homebrewing an entire system from the ground up.

My apologies for starting this giant argument thread.

I can understand your concern, though i am not as negative as you... I think if you change a few core things then the game becomes really good! Sure, there is only a small pool of katas to choose from etc, but I think there is enough (especially when you have shuji, invocations, kiho etc...), I think there is enough (until more sourcebooks!)!

Right now, I'm really putting a lot of energy in making critically important changes, quality over quantity, so that the game feels and play better (according to me at least).

edit: See my other post. I don't want to spam.