Greetings from the Sands, Evil-Smelling Brother-in-Law of a Camel!
38 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:The importance/usefulness of a given Ring - particularly Air - depends in no small part on playstyle.
So far, i feel the fact that all Rings can be usefull both in combat and at court is a strong point of the 5th edition.
See you in the Sands.
11 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:This is very much true, but I feel the Air Ring is getting into this too hard. In comparison, Void checks out everything, Water can be useful all the time too, Earth and Fire are a bit playstyle-dependent indeed around the Scholar and Social Approaches, and then there is Air.
Air is kind of good at keeping you detached and hard to get to. The increased TN makes people have a harder time spending opportunities on you or even makes them accrue more strife to successfully hit/scheme you. Air characters also tend to have good if not great Vigilance, making them hard to lie, sneak or generally be tricky to. In play, the air characters in my table are seen as a real nuisance in the way that they subtly mess with people, but it is harder to get back at them as it would be otherwise. Also: in a ranged battle, air characters are king, since with an opportunity expenditure they can reach 4 TN to be hit at rank 1 (which reflects how good Air characters were with the Yumi in previous editions).
3 minutes ago, omnicrone said:Air is kind of good at keeping you detached and hard to get to.
Kind of...
3 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:Kind of...
Air ties into Vigilance and Focus. That alone is worth something in just about every type of adventure.
1 minute ago, AtoMaki said:Kind of...
Except for Earth characters being very good at turtling, no other ring is more than "kind of" good at things. At least at Rank 1. Water is kind of good at being flexible and Fire is kind of good at being explosive.
Void is maybe very good at being successful while keeping their cool, but focusing on Void gimps all of your derived attributes.
1 hour ago, AtoMaki said:Nah, Analyze is pretty good, I can even say that it is the second best Scholar Approach.
I've got the book something, like, less than a week ago and I'm already past a 6-hours session, prepping for a 8+ hours one for tomorrow. And we are taking it slow .
Yeah that is 1 session. Which is not much time.
Just now, Daeglan said:Yeah that is 1 session. Which is not much time.
At this point we could have had four if we had the players for it.
6 minutes ago, omnicrone said:Water is kind of good at being flexible and Fire is kind of good at being explosive.
Water is actually very good at being the "Stunt Ring" despite the nerf it has received, and Fire can be essential to maintain an Opp-intensive build and has the Strife Bomb. I have bad memories from the Beta with Earth turtling, so I can't speak about that. Void gives you Void Points, it doesn't have to do anything else really (yet it does!).
Personally, I think it would be enough to improve the Air Approaches a little bit. Feint needs some clarification and maybe a re-naming, Trick needs a clear-up, and Con should be a bit more flexible. I could settle for Air being the 'meh' combat Ring if it had more out-of-combat utility.
Hi All,
re: making Air ring part of composure calculation.
My point of view is really that after looking at the core book families/schools, I find that the "courtiers" are the ones with lots of air. Now, I know courtiers hold really strong narrative/convincing power. This is cool. But mechanic wise, I find they fall a bit short compared to the other characters. They are very fragile: physically, and mentally.
In my mind, courtiers should be the cornerstones of "composure". They deal with pressure and the stress of not unmasking. They play the most "by the rules". Sure in very "air" ways; subtle, hidden messages, double meanings etc.
Thing is, I want these characters to be the pillars of composure.
Now, with that in mind. Water allows you to remove 2 strife when spending opportunities. And allows you to use double actions to do a "Calming Breath" action and remove strife/fatigue. And in conflict allows you to spend 1 opp to remove fatigue. While Air... gives you nothing to sustain yourself; you have no composure, no endurance, no way to "heal up".
with the changes I propose;
Air gains a bit of composure.
Water lose composure, but gain endurance.
Fire lose endurance.
Now, to balance this a bit (this part is in testing after a discussion with user @Moderately , which I had great discussions with), I will most probably go on p.328, and make the following "switch".
in conflict and martial skill opportunity spendings:
take the "water 1opp: remove 1 fatigue" and send it to Fire.
take the "fire 1opp: increase the tn of the next check the target makes to resist a critical by 1" and send it to water.
(also, regarding the Fire opportunity spending to make resist checks versus critical hits, I found it EXTREMELY redundant with Strike As Fire, hence why It was my choice for the exchange)
What does that mean?
That water loses composure, but keep many solid ways of spending opportunities to regain composure.
That fire loses endurance, but gains a good way to regain fatigue (the only opp spending that allows to regain fatigue).
thematically, I am ok that Fire can help regain Fatigue with opportunity spendings. Fire should (and is very much) be weak against strife, but I feel the energy of a fire, if "fed" can keep going under any physical circumstances. So, sure, they lose raw endurance, but they gain "sustain".
Water, lose Fatigue sustain, but gains endurance. And also remember, Water can always double action and do a "Calming Breath" to regain fatigue. Still making it a really really good sustain Ring (-2 strife, and Calming Breath).
Air, just gained a bit of raw composure... nothing else.
to me, it all balances out nicely.
Edited by Avatar111
18 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:Hi All,
re: making Air ring part of composure calculation.
My point of view is really that after looking at the core book families/schools, I find that the "courtiers" are the ones with lots of air. Now, I know courtiers hold really strong narrative/convincing power. This is cool. But mechanic wise, I find they fall a bit short compared to the other characters. They are very fragile: physically, and mentally.
In my mind, courtiers should be the cornerstones of "composure" . They deal with pressure and the stress of not unmasking. They play the most "by the rules". Sure in very "air" ways; subtle, hidden messages, double meanings etc.
Thing is, I want these characters to be the pillars of composure.
Now, with that in mind. Water allows you to remove 2 strife when spending opportunities. And allows you to use double actions to do a "Calming Breath" action and remove strife/fatigue. And in conflict allows you to spend 1 opp to remove fatigue. While Air... gives you nothing to sustain yourself; you have no composure, no endurance, no way to "heal up".
with the changes I propose;
Air gains a bit of composure.
Water lose composure, but gain endurance.
Fire lose endurance.
Now, to balance this a bit (this part is in testing after a discussion with user @Moderately , which I had great discussions with), I will most probably go on p.328, and make the following "switch".
in conflict and martial skill opportunity spendings:
take the "water 1opp: remove 1 fatigue" and send it to Fire.
take the "fire 1opp: increase the tn of the next check the target makes to resist a critical by 1" and send it to water.
(also, regarding the Fire opportunity spending to make resist checks versus critical hits, I found it EXTREMELY redundant with Strike As Fire, hence why It was my choice for the exchange)
What does that mean?
That water loses composure, but keep many solid ways of spending opportunities to regain composure.
That fire loses endurance, but gains a good way to regain fatigue (the only opp spending that allows to regain fatigue).
thematically, I am ok that Fire can help regain Fatigue with opportunity spendings. Fire should (and is very much) be weak against strife, but I feel the energy of a fire, if "fed" can keep going under any physical circumstances. So, sure, they lose raw endurance, but they gain "sustain".
Water, lose Fatigue sustain, but gains endurance. And also remember, Water can always double action and do a "Calming Breath" to regain fatigue. Still making it a really really good sustain Ring (-2 strife, and Calming Breath).
Air, just gained a bit of raw composure... nothing else.
to me, it all balances out nicely .
See, here's the thing. You start all this off with a desire for a thematically inspired change (making courtiers cool cucumbers under pressure) and you end up with making a number of changes that work out in terms of balance (we can argue about that, but I'm ok with just assuming it's good enough) but thematically really don't make a lot of sense. Thematically Water and Endurance are not a good fit, but Water is arguably the best Ring for recovery; Water is, with the possible exception of Earth, the worst Ring for adversely affecting others and Fire is arguably the best one. Every single one of your changes, to me at least, goes against what the Rings involved represent.
Meanwhile, Courtiers with Air are good at the offensive side of high stakes interactions already. If they all suck on defense, that really still means the one with the best offense wins - and that seems to be how we'd want it. Courtiers who want to have less of a glass jaw can always invest in other Rings. In that sense they're on the same footing as bushi, who can't get away with focusing too much on a single Ring either.
re: changing earth stance
This is the other "sensitive" change from my pseudo rework (aside the ring stat distribution, and maybe the resist checks)
I am not yet totally happy with the exact wording of my change. Here is the goals I want to achieve with it:
1- Making it non-binary, non perfect.
2- Keep it as close as possible to the original intent of the designers.
3- Make the wording simple, clean, efficient.
4- Not making it overpowered or too weak (as much as possible).
so, for people who agree with me, give opinions
if you are one who likes how earth is currently, I respect your opinion. But I cannot be convinced that it is fine for me, I made up my mind that it is too binary/unfun.
16 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:See, here's the thing. You start all this off with a desire for a thematically inspired change (making courtiers cool cucumbers under pressure) and you end up with making a number of changes that work out in terms of balance (we can argue about that, but I'm ok with just assuming it's good enough) but thematically really don't make a lot of sense. Thematically Water and Endurance are not a good fit, but Water is arguably the best Ring for recovery; Water is, with the possible exception of Earth, the worst Ring for adversely affecting others and Fire is arguably the best one. Every single one of your changes, to me at least, goes against what the Rings involved represent.
Meanwhile, Courtiers with Air are good at the offensive side of high stakes interactions already. If they all suck on defense, that really still means the one with the best offense wins - and that seems to be how we'd want it. Courtiers who want to have less of a glass jaw can always invest in other Rings. In that sense they're on the same footing as bushi, who can't get away with focusing too much on a single Ring either.
But if you make Air your main ring. Thats the issue I have.
it is too weak. it is the worst ring to have as a "main" ring (lets not get Void into this discussion, it stands on its own for plenty of reasons).
Is my change off, and not making water what it should be ? maybe.. I can agree with that. But I WANT to make Air more geared toward composure.
so maybe;
endurance: earth, fire
composure: earth, air
focus: water, fire
vigilance: water, air
and, no. Air is not offensive. at least, not as much as fire and water. Air is "sneaky"
Edited by Avatar1117 hours ago, AtoMaki said:This is the only reason Air is not the obvious dump stat.
As an aside, right now for me Void is the obvious dump stat - certainly at first. I see very little reason to want to advance it before you want to get your main Ring to 5, very specific character types notwithstanding (and until we get Ishi, the first such type that would come to mind doesn't even exist in the game).
10 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:As an aside, right now for me Void is the obvious dump stat - certainly at first. I see very little reason to want to advance it before you want to get your main Ring to 5, very specific character types notwithstanding (and until we get Ishi, the first such type that would come to mind doesn't even exist in the game).
because by the rule, you can only increase a ring as high as: your lowest ring + void ring total.
and don't underestimate void points. or some of the void katas/shuji.
on another note, Air is definitely NOT an offensive ring. Air is "sneaky" and "manipulating" and "insightful".
but i really do think that it is the dump stat of this edition, being so weak at both endurance and composure, yet unable to heal any of them.
it is possible to have air as second or 3rd best ring. But making it your best ring ? very weak.
plus, let me give you this "Weird" convincing:
p.313, Seasoned Courtier adversary.
4 air
what did they do ? they gave him -2 endurance +2 composure (they do that for a lot of npc, but thats not the point).
the point is, they understand courtiers should be composure based, and bushi endurance based. in average. Its just that their ring stat distribution just doesn't totally nail it. when Air is basically courtiers, cranes, scorpions and ninjas.
Edited by Avatar11121 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:But if you make Air your main ring. Thats the issue I have.
it is too weak. it is the worst ring to have as a "main" ring (lets not get Void into this discussion, it stands on its own for plenty of reasons).
Is my change off, and not making water what it should be ? maybe.. I can agree with that. But I WANT to make Air more geared toward composure.
so maybe;
endurance: earth, fire
composure: earth, air
focus: water, fire
vigilance: water, air
?
You're allowed to want what you want, but that doesn't mean that what you want makes sense. Composure doesn't suit Air by definition to begin with. So, is this about balance and you want Air to be better? Then I think looking at other options would be better (maybe something that lets you regain Composure rather than letting it increase the derived attribute?) than the above. Is this about Courtiers and Composure? Then nothing says this needs to be addressed via the Air Ring.
Also, let's look at it from another direction: if you're ok with increasing Air for your Courtier character but not necessarily maxing it out every time you get the chance, you immediately free up xp to look at other Rings. That will in turn improve your Composure. If you want to keep pumping up your main Ring, you don't have the luxury of addressing your weaknesses. Personally I think Air is going to be a beast of a Ring in our campaigns though.
Edited by nameless ronin32 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:because by the rule, you can only increase a ring as high as: your lowest ring + void ring total.
Exactly. If your only reason to increase your Void is because it acts as a cap on other Rings that's pretty pathetic for Void though. Especially since you need to want to attain a legendary level in a Ring to even want to get past that cap. You can raise your Rings to 4 without ever touching your Void past that 2nd rank. Void might be a weaker Ring than in 4th edition and it's pretty **** bad in 4th.
Edited by nameless ronin4 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:You're allowed to want what you want, but that doesn't mean that what you want makes sense. Composure doesn't suit Air by definition to begin with. So, is this about balance and you want Air to be better? Then I think looking at other options would be better (maybe something that lets you regain Composure rather than letting it increase the derived attribute?) than the above. Is this about Courtiers and Composure? Then nothing says this needs to be addressed via the Air Ring.
Also, let's look at it from another direction: if you're ok with increasing Air for your Courtier character but not necessarily maxing it out every time you get the chance, you immediately free up xp to look at other Rings. That will in turn improve your Composure. If you want to keep pumping up your main Ring, you don't have the luxury of addressing your weaknesses. Personally I think Air is going to be a beast of a Ring in our campaigns though.
it is about all the clan/family/school that have AIR as starting ring are characters that should be composure based in my mind.
there are 2 types of Air characters:
the stealthy ones. (hiruma scout, shinobi)
and, the courtiers. (biggest group).
I strongly believe they should be composure based. both thematically (waiting for the right moment to strike, keeping a straight face, etc) and mechanically.
are switching the initial stat distribution the way to do it ? not sure.
2 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:Exactly. If your only reason to increase your Void is because it acts as a cap on other Rings that's pretty pathetic for Void though. Especially since you need to want to attain a legendary level in a Ring to even want to get past that cap. You can raise your Rings to 4 without ever touching your Void. Void might be a weaker Ring than in 4th edition and it's pretty **** bad in 4th.
void ring is its own beast. i don't have issues with it. i think void points are good. and yeah, its got the pathetic fact that you NEED to increase it at least to 2 or 3 unless you want to increase all your other rings equally.
i could understand people having concern with it... i dont at the moment.
well, not as much as i have concern with: air ring and earth stance
11 hours ago, omnicrone said:Going to respond to each thing. I'm also making fixes and homebrews for my table, but besides some really glaring problems (like CSS) I'm avoiding fixing anything before my table playtest it and agree that it isn't fun.
This isn't that hot, though I admit I considered a change like yours. I actually didn't like how most starting characters aren't exactly working as intended (Crane and Scorpion courtiers with low Composure and such), but seeing how NPCs work in this game gave me an idea that worked better for making starting characters: a favored derived attribute. NPCs have this, so I extended this to players with choices limited to their first school tag. A favored derived attribute adds 1 to the rings before calculations (effectively granting +2 to Composure or Endurance, +1 to Focus and +0.5 to Vigilance). Bushi may favor Endurance or Focus, Courtiers may favor Composure or Vigilance, Shugenja Endurance or Vigilance, Monks Composure or Endurance, Artisans Focus or Composure, Shinobi Focus or Vigilance. This makes most Doji Diplomats or Scorpion Manipulators start with at least the average 8 Composure without any issues and reach 10 Composure without even focusing on Earth/Water that much (noting that Water/Air is actually the favorite approach for Doji Diplomats considering their lore, while Bayushi definitely stays as Air/Fire).
Also, you are considering Air to be bad, but that isn't the case. Air is AMAZING at one of the most important things in Rokugan: knowing things about others. Samurai are not only masked to be stoic, they also wear masks to not show their cards to possible enemies. Air is the ring to unpack this using its opportunities: learn anxieties and disadvantages from others, read their insecurities, read who is genuinely loyal or friend to whom and many other things that can change the course of conflicts both in Intrigues and Duels/Skirmishes. Not as crunchy as the other rings, I agree, but from a roleplay perspective, the Air characters in the group are being respected exactly because how easily they are able to pick up useful info about NPCs and such.
We already discussed Earth in the duel thread. I hate "perfect" effects in RPGs and Earth Stance as written is definitely a "perfect" effect so it has got to go. In a table it makes for pretty boring intrigues and duels with everyone Earthing up and not accomplishing much. Your changes makes Earth still very conservative and "safe" but risky if an opponent just explodes his roll up in the wazoo. Still, I'm kind of iffy on just increasing the opportunity cost, I think there should be an effect to dissuade characters to even try to do nasty things to a turtle. Maybe: the first time in an attack or scheme action a character spend opportunities to inflict a critical or a condition on you, they must pay 1 extra opportunity and receive 2 strife. at rank 4, increase the cost to 2 opportunities and 3 strife
Either way, I will also try to fix Earth Stance on my end for sure.
The only adjustment I made to the weapon table was exchanging the names of Bisento and Naginata since I think they were printed with their names exchanged (considering how historically in L5R both weapons were treated: Naginata was always a flexible polearm and the Bisento was always a heavy polearm with very high damage for that weapon class.) I understand the 1h on the Bisento though, since it is a Monk weapon, the 1h is there for monks to be able to 1h it and punch things. I would fix this with a Kata that most sohei orders could get with exclusive access instead of how it was handled though.
To the other adjustments (besides the one for the Tetsubo which I liked), I don't know, there a lot of those that are purely cosmetic and roleplayly. Using an Ono is not proper, only Crab can get away with it without being mocked by their peers (and they still are mocked everywhere else) so for a Lion that likes heavy weapons it is use a Zanbato or good bye to your glory. Using a dai-kyu is the same, if you aren't a very martial Lion or an Unicorn, people will scoff at you for not carrying a Yumi. The Crane will gossip about you "trying too hard" and "mocking tradition" all day and all night, so good luck maintaining your reputation.
What I want to get is: there are weapons that are clearly better than others (more damaging with no drawbacks, or cheaper, or with better qualities), but Rokugan is a land of tradition and conformity, and the pragmatic samurai (ie. powergamers) that only look at an unusual weapon stats and go "let's go with that" can be reminded of such state through roleplay. As such, I don't think weapons need to be balanced like a videogame. They weren't in past editions and it always worked very well: you can use a more effective weapon, but you lose glory/face for being a nail that needs hammering (I miss the Peasant tag).
Wait works, unless you are playing with powergamers. If there are any of them on your table, yeah, remove it from the game ASAP. I did a very quick fix that worked wonders: to do any action after your Wait didn't trigger, you need to spend a Void Point, otherwise you just wasted your turn. And Wait has the same type of action as the triggered action, so no Attack/Wait while in Water.
CSS I already suggested something and I think it works really well: the guy with the entangled weapon need to take fatigue to swing it on that turn. Your fix to Rushing Avalanche Style unfortunately makes it not work with the lore: this kata is one of the signature kata of the Badger Clan and their signature weapon is a polearm (not listed in the book). It is for sure wrong as written in the book, since it wouldn't work for the Ichiro either way. I changed for 2h weapons with Cumbersome or "Heavy" qualities (with Heavy being a "better Cumbersome" which can be added by a good smith). Rising Blade seems perfect now and Striking as Air is actually good. Breaking Blow needed a nerf but I'm not sold on your solution and Cleansing Spirit I think is fine as it is, but nerfing it is not an overreaction either.
I prefer the fixes someone posted on the Big Bad Thread of Homebrews which fixed the few redundant curriculum skills (they are uncommon enough to think that it was a mistake that will eventually be Errata'd out). Your solution will slow down advancement a tad, especially for Shugenja.
Kind of an overreaction. Resist checks are not an issue for now (though at Rank 4 they might be). I will probably make this ruling at Rank 4 apply to minion and some adversary NPCs though, but I will never take from the players the ability to use opportunities on their rolls since it is the best thing about 5e and players enjoy it a whole lot.
huge answers. love it. thank you.
re: A favored derived attribute adds 1 to the rings before calculations (effectively granting +2 to Composure or Endurance, +1 to Focus and +0.5 to Vigilance). Bushi may favor Endurance or Focus, Courtiers may favor Composure or Vigilance, Shugenja Endurance or Vigilance, Monks Composure or Endurance, Artisans Focus or Composure, Shinobi Focus or Vigilance. This makes most Doji Diplomats or Scorpion Manipulators start with at least the average 8 Composure without any issues and reach 10 Composure without even focusing on Earth/Water that much (noting that Water/Air is actually the favorite approach for Doji Diplomats considering their lore, while Bayushi definitely stays as Air/Fire).
I like the idea.
re:
We already discussed Earth in the duel thread. I hate "perfect" effects in RPGs and Earth Stance as written is definitely a "perfect" effect so it has got to go. In a table it makes for pretty boring intrigues and duels with everyone Earthing up and not accomplishing much. Your changes makes Earth still very conservative and "safe" but risky if an opponent just explodes his roll up in the wazoo. Still, I'm kind of iffy on just increasing the opportunity cost, I think there should be an effect to dissuade characters to even try to do nasty things to a turtle. Maybe: the first time in an attack or scheme action a character spend opportunities to inflict a critical or a condition on you, they must pay 1 extra opportunity and receive 2 strife. at rank 4, increase the cost to 2 opportunities and 3 strife
Either way, I will also try to fix Earth Stance on my end for sure.
Yeah, earth stance is just boring, and breaks some mechanics. thing is, Air raise the TN by 1. and there is about 50% of the dices face that have a success.
opportunities are about 33% of each dices.
So, you have less chance to roll opportunities than success. making them pay 1 more opportunity is kinda harsh. at least as harsh as air. sure it doesnt affect "success or failure" but it still make you pretty much immune to condition based effects, if the character still want to succeed on his check, hes going to find it hard to be able to get anything off on you if it cost +1opp.
I am still evaluating if it is too weak, and if it is, i might increase its "diversity" instead of its "effectiveness". basically making it work against more stuff than just criticals and conditions. maybe EVERY opp spendings that include you as a target need to be +1 opp spending. this make earth useful vs a ton more of stuff. my only worry about that is if a courtier target a group of people, and that 1 guy in there is in earth, he basically need to pay the +1 opp. But honestly, maybe it would be ok!
under testing
re:
Resist checks are not an issue for now (though at Rank 4 they might be). I will probably make this ruling at Rank 4 apply to minion and some adversary NPCs though, but I will never take from the players the ability to use opportunities on their rolls since it is the best thing about 5e and players enjoy it a whole lot.
I find starting rank 3-4, so many things have resist checks attached to them. it is more strife to calculate, more rolls to do... its the equivalent of putting a "defender's roll". I really don't like that in RPGS. I prefer to put the roll in the attacker's hands. as D&D, as STAR WARS etc. a roll to "defend" is just unecessary bloating. I love that Vigilance is there for static TN number vs lots of abilities. But then they have ton of stuff working with a "resist roll"...
and rolls in L5R take lot longer than D&D for example... you need to check strife, choose opportunities etc... I think it is bad/bloated design.
re: all other points
we have kind of the same ideas, but have slightly different opinions on each. so i guess it is fair game !
thanks
Edited by Avatar11135 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:You're allowed to want what you want, but that doesn't mean that what you want makes sense. Composure doesn't suit Air by definition to begin with. So, is this about balance and you want Air to be better? Then I think looking at other options would be better (maybe something that lets you regain Composure rather than letting it increase the derived attribute?) than the above. Is this about Courtiers and Composure? Then nothing says this needs to be addressed via the Air Ring.
Also, let's look at it from another direction: if you're ok with increasing Air for your Courtier character but not necessarily maxing it out every time you get the chance, you immediately free up xp to look at other Rings. That will in turn improve your Composure. If you want to keep pumping up your main Ring, you don't have the luxury of addressing your weaknesses. Personally I think Air is going to be a beast of a Ring in our campaigns though.
explain to me that:
Warrior's Resolve/Courtier's Resolve
doesn't it make it clear courtiers should have composure ? but right now they don't by design as starting characters. its the Lions, Crabs, Unicorns etc who have the composure.
Edited by Avatar111
14 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:explain to me that:
Warrior's Resolve/Courtier's Resolve
doesn't it make it clear courtiers should have composure ? but right now they don't by design as starting characters. its the Lions, Crabs, Unicorns etc who have the composure.
Lion, Crab and Unicorn have Courtiers. I think you meant something else. Regardless, nothing is stopping Courtier characters from increasing their Composure. I certainly agree it would be smart to do so. The question remains: why would the Air Ring have to be part of this? Keep in mind that which Ring bonus you get doesn't often mean all that much in terms of xp efficiency, unless you get to double dip bonuses on the same Ring (which isn't a monstrous advantage either) or don't care about increasing any other Ring than your main one (and Void, presumably, because you'd have to).
6 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:Lion, Crab and Unicorn have Courtiers. I think you meant something else. Regardless, nothing is stopping Courtier characters from increasing their Composure. I certainly agree it would be smart to do so. The question remains: why would the Air Ring have to be part of this? Keep in mind that which Ring bonus you get doesn't often mean all that much in terms of xp efficiency, unless you get to double dip bonuses on the same Ring (which isn't a monstrous advantage either) or don't care about increasing any other Ring than your main one (and Void, presumably, because you'd have to).
crab schools that give a forced +1 to air: Hiruma(shinobi style) Yasuki(courtier)
lion schools that give a forced +1 to air: Akodo Loremaster (courtier)
unicorn schools that give a forced +1 to air: Ide Traders (courtier) Utaku Battle Maiden (bushi).
i mean... all these clans courtier schools give +1 air...
just saying.
here are all the forced +1 air schools;
hiruma scouts (bushi "shinobi")
yasuki merchant (courtier)
asahina artificer (shugenja)
doji diplomat (courtier)
kakita duelist (bushi)
kitsuki investigator (courtier)
akodo loremaster (courtier)
kaito shrine keeper (monk "archer")
bayushi manipulator (courtier)
shosuro infiltrator (shinobi, courtier)
Shoshi illusionist (shinobi, courtier, shugenja)
Ide Trader (courtier)
Shinjo Outrider (courtier, bushi)
utaku battle maiden (bushi)
to me.. it is kind of clear that air ring is very "courtier/shinobi".
Edited by Avatar1115 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:crab schools that give a forced +1 to air: Hiruma(shinobi style) Yasuki(courtier)
lion schools that give a forced +1 to air: Akodo Loremaster (courtier)
unicorn schools that give a forced +1 to air: Ide Traders (courtier) Utaku Battle Maiden (bushi).
i mean... all these clans courtier schools give +1 air...
just saying.
Trying not to be trite, but: just saying what, exactly? Air is bad for these schools because it doesn't help Composure? It certainly helps the "offensive" aspect of the schools.
edit: Let me rephrase: suppose you wanted to play one of these Courtier schools, would you choose not to increase Air at all? And if not, how is getting +1 Air bad?
Edited by nameless ronin4 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:Trying not to be trite, but: just saying what, exactly? Air is bad for these schools because it doesn't help Composure? It certainly helps the "offensive" aspect of the schools.
how does it help offensiveness ? mechanically ? not more than fire for sure, and on par with water and earth.. if even.
for the shinobis, i always said air is legit as is. its all part of the stealth gameplay. like "rogues". air is good for that.
its for the courtiers.... and since 95% of the courtier's school have air. And I want courtiers to have composure...
1+1=2
Edited by Avatar1117 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:Trying not to be trite, but: just saying what, exactly? Air is bad for these schools because it doesn't help Composure? It certainly helps the "offensive" aspect of the schools.
edit: Let me rephrase: suppose you wanted to play one of these Courtier schools, would you choose not to increase Air at all? And if not, how is getting +1 Air bad?
all these courtier school impose the +1 to air. it isnt a choice.
same as crane and scorpion impose +1 air.
so a crane and scorpion courtier, is minimum 3 air to start with. thats it, thats all. they blow a fuse all the time, its their style. while big bad hida is really composed. same as his moto and akodo buddy.
Edited by Avatar1111 minute ago, Avatar111 said:all these courtier school impose the +1 to air. it isnt a choice.
same as crane and scorpion impose +1 air.
Then pick a family that gives +1 Earth or Water. The Loremaster and Merchant schools give +1 Earth as well, the Trader school +1 Water. Do you honestly feel they should get less Air and even more Earth and/or Water? Would that fit a Courtier, to have Air as their 3rd Ring?