This is to collect the places where rules which could get easily forgotten about, but might be very important.

My two:

• You can only Unmask at the start of your turn and at the end of your turn.
  Core Rules, pg 30, in the Timing of Being Compromised and Unmasking sidebar
  This means that if you become Compromised when it is not your turn (due to something giving you Strife through Opportunities, or through the Ikoma Bard school ability), you cannot Unmask until your turn. This is especially relevant in a Duel, where becoming Compromised can trigger a Finishing Blow, which if it lands, you cannot keep dice with Strife icons for your Fitness roll to reduce the critical strike's severity.
• When you spend XP, you must choose if you are applying this spent XP to your School's Curriculum or your Title's Curriculum.
  Core Rules, pg 305, second paragraph under Titles
  Spending XP to advance your Title does not count for XP spent advancing your School Rank, and vice versa. If a Title Curriculum includes the appropriate symbol, it will grant access to certain Techniques that a character would not otherwise have access to, but it is unclear if this access remains after the Title has been complete.

Also good to know: you get half the XP you spend on out of curriculum stuff added to school advancement. P.97, Completing School Rank.

18 hours ago, sndwurks said:

It does not specific in Titles if having a Technique in your Title Curriculum gives you access to it if your School does not, so one presumably cannot (e.g. Cannot a Tattooed Order Monk learn Rank 1-2 Kata as an Emerald Magistrate, despite it being in their Title's Curriculum).

Thus, by extension, no Tattooed Order Monks can become Emerald Magistrates?

3 hours ago, Hida Jitenno said:

Thus, by extension, no Tattooed Order Monks can become Emerald Magistrates?

No, you just have to earn your Title Curriculum XP in other places, like Shuji, Kiho, or Trade Skills.

On 10/14/2018 at 8:58 PM, sndwurks said:

Spending XP to advance your Title does not count for XP spent advancing your School Rank, and vice versa. It does not specific in Titles if having a Technique in your Title Curriculum gives you access to it if your School does not, so one presumably cannot (e.g. Cannot a Tattooed Order Monk learn Rank 1-2 Kata as an Emerald Magistrate, despite it being in their Title's Curriculum).

The Emerald Magistrate Advancement chart has a diamond besides Rank 1-2 Kata, Open Hand Style and Shallow Waters. Emerald Magistrate grants privileged access while working on the Title. Those without Kata access, such as a Tattooed Order Monk, could in theory buy 10 Rank 1-2 Kata through the title. This is the same as how some schools can get Ninjutsu techniques without general Ninjutsu access.

1 hour ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

The Emerald Magistrate Advancement chart has a diamond besides Rank 1-2 Kata, Open Hand Style and Shallow Waters. Emerald Magistrate grants privileged access while working on the Title. Those without Kata access, such as a Tattooed Order Monk, could in theory buy 10 Rank 1-2 Kata through the title. This is the same as how some schools can get Ninjutsu techniques without general Ninjutsu access.

Updated and corrected.

P. 259 in The Finishing Blow: In duels, Strife is applied before opportunity is spent, including before spending to reduce strife from the roll.

It's also implied that this is true also outside of duels, but not explicitly stated.

After rolling initiative, you get into the stance from your rolled ring.

At the beginning of your turn, you can change stance.

Who in their right mind are going to roll initiative with water ring since water stance gives no benefit outside of your turn?

I think they meant to say that when rolling initiative you go into a stance and you need to keep that stance until end of your first turn (cant change stance at the beginning of your first turn of the first round)

25 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

Who in their right mind are going to roll initiative with water ring since water stance gives no benefit outside of your turn?

The only reason is if you get some benefit from a Shuji or Kata while in Water Stance, or if you want to just reduce a LOT of people's Strife by rolling Initiative through spending Opportunities.

a shuji or kata that would be activated before your first turn ?

ok for the reduce strife, i guess.

still think its weird. but hey, lot of things are weird so far.

in my circle of power gaming friends, this system feels like it will break in half sometimes.

21 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

The only reason is if you get some benefit from a Shuji or Kata while in Water Stance, or if you want to just reduce a LOT of people's Strife by rolling Initiative through spending Opportunities.

Water being their high ring is probably the main reason to use Water for initiative.

water ring would need to be much higher than the other rings which have a stance benefit if you actually lose the initiative. but ok. i guess it "can" be a choice. just a very bad one most of the time.

Please keep the thread for its intended purpose of providing the fast-and-dirty bullet list of often forgotten rules so that GM's can check it pre-game for utility purposes.TIA.

Anyway, my contribution:

- "Opp+Opp: Inflict Critical Strike" is not an universal ability of Attack actions. It is unique and only applicable to "Strike" action.

- While player characters can Unmask at start or end of their turn, a sidebar talking about NPCs and Strife specifically instructs the GM to Unmask NPCs at start of their next turn.

- Abovementioned table reminds you that NPCs are subject to all the same rules when it comes to accumulating and sheding Strife, so it is safe to assume that majority of NPCs that didn't have time to relax will enter the Scene with 1/2 of their Composure filled with Strife, just like PCs do.

- NPCs use simplified rules for Advantages and Disadvantages. Their Advantages and Disadvantages don't have narrative effects and their names exist mostly for flavor. What is important is the associated Ring and Skill Group - apply the Advantage/Disadvantage to *all* rolls matching the Ring+Skill Group combo.

- Strife results are resolved before Opportunities, Opportunities are resolved before Successes, Opportunity options relying on Success are resolved last. This means that certain effects triggered by Strife can interrupt resolution of the action (two most common examples being triggering Finishing Blow or becoming Critted as a result of Fatigue from Bleed/Dangerous Terrain), and that certain Opportunities can manipulate the TN of the current action (example, by removing or making you ignore TN-increasing Conditions like Wounded or Dazed)

- Being Incapacitated prevents you from initiating check-requiring actions, but it still allows you to take reactions, like Fitness checks to reduce Crits. If you use Opp+Opp Void option to ignore a condition when resisting a Crit while being Incapacitated, you may start ignoring being Incapacitated before the Critical Strike is resolved and applied, thus not becoming Unconscious and restoring your ability to initiate checks.

7 hours ago, WHW said:

- Strife results are resolved before Opportunities, Opportunities are resolved before Successes, Opportunity options relying on Success are resolved last. This means that certain effects triggered by Strife can interrupt resolution of the action (two most common examples being triggering Finishing Blow or becoming Critted as a result of Fatigue from Bleed/Dangerous Terrain), and that certain Opportunities can manipulate the TN of the current action (example, by removing or making you ignore TN-increasing Conditions like Wounded or Dazed)

Where is it that success is after opportunity?

Page 26 gives the sequence for resolving dice modifications...

substeps for PC rolls are NPC's first, then other PC's, then the PC making the check. within each substep, it's Add rolled, Cancel dice, Add keeps, cancel keeps (p 27).

So...

PC makes check. Once the dice are rolled...

• NPC substep
  • Add rolled dice
  • cancel rolled dice
  • Increase Kept
  • Cancel Kept
  • other mods in desired order
• Other PC substep
  • Add rolled dice
  • cancel rolled dice
  • Increase Kept
  • Cancel Kept
  • other mods in desired order
• Rolling PC substep
  • Add rolled dice
  • cancel rolled dice
  • Increase Kept
  • Cancel Kept
  • other mods in desired order
• pick kept dice...

The dice mechanics details are divided across several different sections of the book. I understand why (each is increasing complexity in the relevant sections, rather than a clear but hard to swallow large chunk), but it makes details like these a pain.

21 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

After rolling initiative, you get into the stance from your rolled ring.

At the beginning of your turn, you can change stance.

Who in their right mind are going to roll initiative with water ring since water stance gives no benefit outside of your turn?

I think they meant to say that when rolling initiative you go into a stance and you need to keep that stance until end of your first turn (cant change stance at the beginning of your first turn of the first round)

Page 329 includes a list of opportunities that can be used when making an initiative check, based on the stance you choose when making initiative.

If you choose the water ring you can use opportunities to assess the quality of all the terrain in the area.

On 10/18/2018 at 11:36 AM, Crawell said:

Page 329 includes a list of opportunities that can be used when making an initiative check, based on the stance you choose when making initiative.

If you choose the water ring you can use opportunities to assess the quality of all the terrain in the area.

And, potentially, add a piece of terrain that was not on the map.

Another interesting subtlety: If you spend a void point to not defend, you do not take fatigue, but you do suffer a critical. (p. 268 «Defending against Damage»)

Corollary of that: If you take a crit, you don't take fatigue, because you're not defending. (ibid)

On 10/19/2018 at 10:35 PM, AK_Aramis said:

And, potentially, add a piece of terrain that was not on the map.

Better yet, if you have the Tactical Assessment kata, you can give a piece of terrain a piece of terrain Obscuring FOR YOUR SIDE ONLY during the first round.

I dunno if anyone has noticed this yet, but the Compromised condition also drops the character's Vigilance to 1. Ouch...

32 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

I dunno if anyone has noticed this yet, but the Compromised condition also drops the character's Vigilance to 1. Ouch...

I love the "compromised" condition, and how it affect gameplay in many different ways (as it should!).

Only thing I will probably houserule is how you remove the condition, right now it is done if your strife falls equal or lower than your composure. I feel it becomes too gamey as in a player's party, there will always be someone who can roll earth opportunities and lower your composure by 2 for each opportunity, which is going to make you go from compromised to uncompromised and back again a bit too much.

So I will probably make it so that to remove the compromised condition, you need to lower your composure to equal or lower than HALF your composure. This way, you uncompromise at the end of the scene, or if you unmasked, or if other players make it a sustain effort to lower the strife on the character.

but you guys know me. I change everything

1 minute ago, Avatar111 said:

there will always be someone who can roll earth opportunities and lower your composure by 2 for each opportunit

You can only use that Opp once per Check. Only the Opp+ options can be repeated in the same Check, like Any Opp+ option that allows you to kill Strife gained from the Check.

3 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

You can only use that Opp once per Check. Only the Opp+ options can be repeated in the same Check, like Any Opp+ option that allows you to kill Strife gained from the Check.

that is how star wars works, but where did you find that rule in l5r?

even if the options can only be taken once (which is good to know!) I'll still keep the lower your strife below or equal to half your composure. I think. still feel many time you'll end up compromised with 1 or 2 strife higher than your composure and then your buddies will start to earth roll opp to help you, then either you'll get compromised again on your turn or if an enemy use fire opp... its a bit too ping pong for my taste, maybe. but that is why I write it here, to get discussions going.

5 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

that is how star wars works, but where did you find that rule in l5r?

even if the options can only be taken once (which is good to know!) I'll still keep the lower your strife below or equal to half your composure. I think. still feel many time you'll end up compromised with 1 or 2 strife higher than your composure and then your buddies will start to earth roll opp to help you, then either you'll get compromised again on your turn or if an enemy use fire opp... its a bit too ping pong for my taste, maybe. but that is why I write it here, to get discussions going.

This seems narratively appropriate, though.

"No, Samurai-san, I know the courtier just implied you lie with your sister, dogs, and a dog that IS your sister, but you cannot lose your temper in front of Daimyo."

It's the metaphysical "Hold him back before he does something stupid that gets us all killed."

1 minute ago, JBento said:

This seems narratively appropriate, though.

"No, Samurai-san, I know the courtier just implied you lie with your sister, dogs, and a dog that IS your sister, but you cannot lose your temper in front of Daimyo."

It's the metaphysical "Hold him back before he does something stupid that gets us all killed."

yes, and I love that.

i'm guessing there are techniques to help for that (reduce strife), or if you cool him down over a few turns/round.

but just one earth roll here and there ? it seems to swingy for my taste. basically every time someone is compromised, in a party of 4, you have 3 other players that play after. Seems too easy to "cool him down". Making the compromised condition less impactful. Unmasking should be the norm, not your buddies trying to cool you down. Sure, in some really particular situation you really need to avoid unmasking! but then it should become somewhat of a challenge to cool someone down.

8 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

yes, and I love that.

i'm guessing there are techniques to help for that (reduce strife), or if you cool him down over a few turns/round.

but just one earth roll here and there ? it seems to swingy for my taste. basically every time someone is compromised, in a party of 4, you have 3 other players that play after. Seems too easy to "cool him down". Making the compromised condition less impactful. Unmasking should be the norm, not your buddies trying to cool you down. Sure, in some really particular situation you really need to avoid unmasking! but then it should become somewhat of a challenge to cool someone down.

They won't be doing much more with their turns, though. Presuming this high Strife status happens later in the scene and you already collected all the info on your opponents you need, Earth approaches aren't going to be doing you much good, offensive-wise.

2 minutes ago, JBento said:

They won't be doing much more with their turns, though. Presuming this high Strife status happens later in the scene and you already collected all the info on your opponents you need, Earth approaches aren't going to be doing you much good, offensive-wise.

its not like earth is that bad. sure, not the most offensive option, but to uncompromise a buddy... it basically casting a heal in D&D or using a stimpack in StarWars

I want compromised to be harder to remove than just one or two earth opportunity (and that's not counting if a party member have a dedicated technique to reduce strife), i think it should be a "commitment" to cool down a buddy during a scene. lets consider a high average of 14 composure. basically, if the guy is at 16 strife, we are talking reducing by 8. which is a number I like. and that is for someone with a high composure. otherwise, just unmask! or deal with the condition.