When I hit someone with 5 fatigue and deal 4 damage and 2 opportunities, that's a crit with severity equal to weapon deadliness. But what happens when the target has 2 fatigue left?
a) their fatigue drops to 0 and they suffer a crit and then another crit from opportunities?
b) their fatigue stays at 2 and they suffer two crits?
c) in each instance, instead of suffering two crits, they suffer one, but with higher severity (in other words, multiple crits stack?)
thanks!
A couple issues you're having...
So A and B are both wrong because you're doing the math the wrong direction.
Let's say Target Tika is Endurance 8, and she's taken 6 fatigue in the recent past. Her kimono is capable of 1 physical resistance
You hit her with 0 Bonus with your fist, and with 2 opportunity.
You do 1 damage - she can still defend since Fatigue is not more than endurance, but doesn't need to, since her "armor" will stop the hit. You do a critical - she resists, driving the 5 severity down to a 2, with a hot roll.
You try again, but with your sword, and get 0 bonus successes and 2 opportunity... you hit, doing a 4 damage attack, and her armor soaks none, but she's not incapcitated yet, so... she is now at 6+4 = 10 fatigue. So you do ONE crit - she defended against the damage, but the opportunity crit still hits; she runs it down to 0. Great, the kimono is no longer functional as garments... (WARDROBE MALFUNCTION!)
Next round, you get another katana hit, 0 BS, and 2 opp. 4 damage, and a crit. Now, we get to the point where I am interpreting rather than relying solely upon the rules precision... Min you, she's in water stance, doing a move and calming breath....
She cannot defend against the 4 damage, so she takes a severity 5 critical from the sword instead. Likewise, you hit her for another severity 5 crit. She gets a resist versus each.. but... her rolls suck. She takes a 3 and a 4. (both light wounds.) So, the first hit her for a light wound in Water. The second also hits her with a light wound in water - but she can't take another, so it proceeds down the chart, to severely wounded in water. (see p 273, bottom, «Wounded») On the other hand, the light wound goes away
Next round, you hit her again.. same rolls. She hasn't shifted from water, because she's moving and calming breathing.
So, the 5 severity isn't reduced as much, since you've done a wound, and tika's TN is raised. Two severity 5 hits.
First restores the light wound. Second converts the first to another serious, but since she's already serious, she coverts it to a permanent injury... and thus a new adversity.
Next, she is hit again by your buddy (he's no longer tied up with the bakemono) His foot does 2 damage, Tika rolls really bad - she has to keep 1 die, and all rolled have strife, and since she's been criticaled with a razor edged weapon, that means she takes a 1 point damage ... and this has a severity of current fatigue... so she takes a 10 severity from bleeding, resulting in a maiming wound... and then the severity 6 for his zanbato - another severely wounded... which hits another permanent wound, so per the sidebar on 270, she takes a lethal hit.
1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:She cannot defend against the 4 damage, so she takes a severity 5 critical fr om the sword instead. Likewise, you hit her for another severity 5 crit. She gets a resist versus each.. but... her rolls suck. She takes a 3 and a 4. (both light wounds.) So, the first hit her for a light wound in Water. The second also hits her with a light wound in water - but she can't take another, so it proceeds down the chart, to severely wounded in water. (see p 273, bottom, «Wounded») On the other hand, the light wound goes away
Next round, you hit her again.. same rolls. She hasn't shifted from water, because she's moving and calming breathing.
So, the 5 severity isn't reduced as much, since you've done a wound, and tika's TN is raised. Two severity 5 hits.
First restores the light wound. Second converts the first to another serious, but since she's already serious, she coverts it to a permanent injury... and thus a new adversity.
Next, she is hit again by your buddy (he's no longer tied up with the bakemono) His foot does 2 damage, Tika rolls really bad - she has to keep 1 die, and all rolled have strife, and since she's been criticaled with a razor edged weapon, that means she takes a 1 point damage ... and this has a severity of current fatigue... so she takes a 10 severity from bleeding, resulting in a maiming wound... an d then the severity 6 for his zanbato - another severely wounded... which hits another permanent wound, so per the sidebar on 270, she takes a lethal hit.
AK_Aramis explains it pretty well. One thing only...
At this point in his explanation, when she is incapacitated and cant defend. She suffers 2 crits (one from being unable to defend and a second one because of 2 opp). In Incapacitated description: "After an Incapacitated character suffers a critical strike, they suffer the Unconscious condition in addition to any other effects".
Not sure if crits are simultaneous; actually I think they are sequential (like when you apply one, then apply the next one and the injury goes down the chart). So after the first crit, she suffers the Unconscious condition in addition to any other effects. Subsequent crits will gain +10 to severity (Unconscious condition).
Not sure this would apply to the second crit this round (do you gain Unconscious after the first crit, or after the full effects of tha attack? dont think its clear). In any case it would for certain apply to crits on the following round. So she is pretty dead.
A slight correction to @AK_Aramis explanation: if your armour soaks everything, there's nothing for you to defend against - you don't choose whether to defend or not (by paying a Void) until AFTER the armour soaks.
Wow. Thanks, everyone! Really helpful
1 hour ago, Shosur0 said:AK_Aramis explains it pretty well. One thing only...
At this point in his explanation, when she is incapacitated and cant defend. She suffers 2 crits (one from being unable to defend and a second one because of 2 opp). In Incapacitated description: "After an Incapacitated character suffers a critical strike, they suffer the Unconscious condition in addition to any other effects".
Not sure if crits are simultaneous; actually I think they are sequential (like when you apply one, then apply the next one and the injury goes down the chart). So after the first crit, she suffers the Unconscious condition in addition to any other effects. Subsequent crits will gain +10 to severity (Unconscious condition).
Not sure this would apply to the second crit this round (do you gain Unconscious after the first crit, or after the full effects of tha attack? dont think its clear). In any case it would for certain apply to crits on the following round. So she is pretty dead.
if you want to be ultra bloated about it, and if they are sequential, you could spend opportunities on you resist check for the first crit and heal up fatigue with water (and possibly removing the incapacitated condition before the critical strike fully resolve thus making you without the incapacitated condition for the second crit and also awake on your next turn [and if you had 2 more opportunities for water also move 1 range band).
or, if you resist the 1st crit in void, you could ignore a condition you are suffering until end of your next turn, meaning you ignore your incapacitated condition thus won't suffer the unconscious condition.
GG bloating.
Or you do like I do, and make "Resist" checks without strife/opportunities (only successes matters/counts in resist checks).
Edit: add the "resist" wording to the check made to mitigate critical strikes.
but, the words of wisdom to remember from all that, in your own words: "dont think its clear"
a lot of those issues are part of the bigger question "when and in what order do opportunities resolve in a check"
because opportunity spendings can have such huge mechanical effects... it definitely needs a clarification.
Edited by Avatar11110 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:Or you do like I do, and make "Resist" checks without strife/opportunities (only successes matters/counts in resist checks).
Edit: add the "resist" wording to the check made to mitigate critical strikes.
but, the words of wisdom to remember from all that, in your own words: "dont think its clear"
a lot of those issues are part of the bigger question "when in in what order to opportunities resolve in a check"
because opportunity spendings can have such huge mechanical effects... it definitely needs a clarification.
I love that. I do also think that Resist checks should not take into account strife and opp. Its too many opps to track at the moment.
Also yeah, I hope we get some clarification oh how opp work.
6 minutes ago, Shosur0 said:I love that. I do also think that Resist checks should not take into account strife and opp. Its too many opps to track at the moment.
Also yeah, I hope we get some clarification oh how opp work.
Yeah, totally insane.
Someone could basically do a strike action, use "crashing wave style" and trigger a crit with the strike action making the opponent roll two resist checks...
And if the character was already incapacitated make three resist checks (crashing wave style and two crits).
Get the munchies out bro! We're here for a while.
Just now, Avatar111 said:Yeah, totally insane.
Someone could basically do a strike action, use "crashing wave style" and trigger a crit with the strike action making the opponent roll two resist checks...
And if the character was already incapacitated make three resist checks (crashing wave style and two crits).
Get the munchies out bro! We're here for a while.
You need to do that with a polearm, just so you can use Iron Forest Style so the opponent is in dangerous terrain and they take hits for every Strife they keep.
27 minutes ago, JBento said:You need to do that with a polearm, just so you can use Iron Forest Style so the opponent is in dangerous terrain and they take hits for every Strife they keep.
Just remove all strife/opportunities from resist (and crit mitigate) checks.
Gonna save a few hours and a few headaches.
Edit; at least make opportunities unusable on resist checks. Strife could stay, to make resist checks "harder". Ill think about it, but opportunities is a big no!
Edited by Avatar111while we are at it...
if you receive a crit, and you roll to "resist" it, but since strifes resolve before the resolution of the roll. you could basically be "compromised" before calculating the successes. but you would still have kept the dices with strife symbols because you weren't compromise when it was the "choose dices to keep" phase.
am i understanding correctly ?
13 hours ago, Shosur0 said:I love that. I do also think that Resist checks should not take into account strife and opp. Its too many opps to track at the moment.
Also yeah, I hope we get some clarification oh how opp work.
In particular, as written, using Strife makes Fire much much too powerful for resisting crits.
11 minutes ago, The Grand Falloon said:In particular, as written, using Strife makes Fire much much too powerful for resisting crits.
hmmm. interesting point of view.
basically fire makes resisting everything much easier. sure, you do need to keep "strife" to do so. but if you have good composure it is strong indeed (basically with any stance you might have to keep strife, so fire doesn't really force you to keep more strife than any other stance)
and yeah, you could basically become compromised as a result but still have an awesome resist because you already passed the stage of keeping or dropping dices when the strife takes effect, thus becoming compromised wouldn't change anything on the current check.
but sure, in any other stance, you may (or may not) keep whatever dices, its just that in fire stance keeping a dice with strife = 2 successes instead of one.
fire stance is strong indeed.
now, is it "too strong" if it also works for resist (out of turn/reaction) checks ? dunno. maybe. it also works on initiative, it works on everything that is a "check".
Edited by Avatar1112 hours ago, Avatar111 said:hmmm. interesting point of view.
basically fire makes resisting everything much easier. sure, you do need to keep "strife" to do so.
Not really. Most resist rolls are at a higher TN, like 3 or 4, and taking Strife doesn't help you reach that TN, because it's only for Bonus Successes. Also, so far as I know, there's nothing to be gained from Bonus Successes on any resistance rolls other than Critical Strikes anyway, so there's no point trying to grab that extra Strife.
When you take a Critical Strike, however, your TN is generally 1, because they want everyone to have a good shot at reducing the severity at least a little.
Now, we all know Strife can bite ya, but if taking a massive Strife dump means the difference between losing an arm and getting a scratch, well, that's no choice at all.
I'll be letting my players know that that trick won't work at my table. Fire is powerful enough in offense, I'm not letting it pull double duty on defense as well.
I think the biggest misconception people are having with the system is assuming NPCs uses the same ruleset as the PCs.
Assuming this, yes, the game is bloated and deadlier: since any mook lucky enough to roll 2 opp on a successful strike can crit, and some of the monsters/enemies have very high base DLS.
But reading the premade adventures (and even antagonists in the book), shows that NPCs usually do not follow the same rules as a PC : they just die/are KO'd if incapacitated and if they take a naked critical they should eat it without a roll on part of DM, furthermore most of their opp spending is limited to flavorful effects or one or two conditions instead of having the full range of opp spend players enjoy. They also have different perks PCs don't enjoy, like increased TN to be affected by Scheme actions of a particular approach, completely arbitrary derived attributes (for better or worse), etc. It is clear this game has no mechanical parity whatsoever between PCs and other characters and trying to do so breaks it full stop. This is another thing that makes this system resemble Exalted 3E, I guess.
So, I'd steer clear of making NPCs use the same rules as players unless they are really, really important antagonists/allies. The system was designed with giving lots of options and flair for players on all of their rolls, but in order to do that, it clearly sacrificed mechanical parity. Making an NPC roll to resist all critical strikes will bloat the system, yes, but they weren't designed to do so. Having them have access to the same opp spending as players would bloat it even more and give a headache to most DMs, but then again, they clearly weren't designed for that either. This system is a nightmare for "adversarial DM" tables (ie. mechanical parity/fair encounters) to a point that I would recommend to any group that has that mentality to stay the **** away from this one.
5 minutes ago, omnicrone said:So, I'd steer clear of making NPCs use the same rules as players unless they are really, really important antagonists/allies. The system was designed with giving lots of options and flair for players on all of their rolls, but in order to do that, it clearly sacrificed mechanical parity. Making an NPC roll to resist all critical strikes will bloat the system, yes, but they weren't designed to do so. Having them have access to the same opp spending as players would bloat it even more and give a headache to most DMs, but then again, they clearly weren't designed for that either. This system is a nightmare for "adversarial DM" tables (ie. mechanical parity/fair encounters) to a point that I would recommend to any group that has that mentality to stay the **** away from this one.
This. The difference between a minion and 'bad guy with a name tag' is very detectable in what they actually have the option to do.
Sooner than later you will need "bad guy with name tags" that can do what PC do, and more than one in an encounter, otherwise combat will become too easy.
2 hours ago, Avatar111 said:Sooner than later you will need "bad guy with name tags" that can do what PC do, and more than one in an encounter, otherwise combat will become too easy.
No you don't. A boar is a mook following the NPC rules, and two of them almost killed two of my players in a party of 6 (only 2 pure Bushi tho). Also, in the Topaz Championship I made both the Kakita and Bayushi duelists as simple NPCs with quick, dirty and flavorful opp speedings (the Bayushi had a tricky left-handed/southpaw Iai style for ex) rather than following PC stat builds and rolling rules. Worked wonders.
I think NPCs with PC rules should only be used for really, really important enemies and nothing else (BBEG level), unless you want to either waste a lot of your time "fixing" the system to accommodate the bloat (and probably taking away "cool things to do" from the players) or wasting an entire session in a single combat encounter with "Named Samurai that is not that important in the big picture actually and his even more unimportant buddies".
Edited by omnicrone46 minutes ago, omnicrone said:No you don't. A boar is a mook following the NPC rules, and two of them almost killed two of my players in a party of 6 (only 2 pure Bushi tho). Also, in the Topaz Championship I made both the Kakita and Bayushi duelists as simple NPCs with quick, dirty and flavorful opp speedings (the Bayushi had a tricky left-handed/southpaw Iai style for ex) rather than following PC stat builds. Worked wonders.
I think NPCs with PC rules should only be used for really, really important enemies and nothing else (BBEG level), unless you want to either waste a lot of your time "fixing" the system to accommodate the bloat (and probably taking away "cool things to do" from the players) or wasting an entire session in a single combat encounter with "Named Samurai that is not that important in the big picture actually and his even more unimportant buddies".
sure won't have the general opportunity spending for NPC
i'm guessing it is the biggest hurdle.
2 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:sure won't have the general opportunity spending for NPC
i'm guessing it is the biggest hurdle.
@omnicrone isn't saying "these things bloat the game enough already", they're saying "these blasted things are deadly enough already straight out of the book that you don't need to give them more tricks to keep your players on their toes."
6 minutes ago, JBento said:@omnicrone isn't saying "these things bloat the game enough already", they're saying "these blasted things are deadly enough already straight out of the book that you don't need to give them more tricks to keep your players on their toes."
give it a few ranks, like rank 2-3... you'll see how everything changes when the player characters are a bit more specialized.
At which point you take out boars and put in bears. If your argument is "PCs get better once they rank up, and the enemies that challenged them don't challenge them anymore", then yeah, I agree. I'm not throwing run-of-the-mill kobolds at 10th level PCs in D&D, either.
Just now, JBento said:At which point you take out boars and put in bears. If your argument is "PCs get better once they rank up, and the enemies that challenged them don't challenge them anymore", then yeah, I agree. I'm not throwing run-of-the-mill kobolds at 10th level PCs in D&D, either.
indeed.
but the game won't bloat if you don't give the NPC regular opp spendings.
that is all you need to change to remove the bloating as per what he said, and don't give the enemies too many actions that requires a "resist" i suppose.
fair enough. i'll still make the resist checks probably "opportunity less" and make fire stance not work with resist and resist criticals checks but that is a personal preference as i'd rather pimp my NPCs with techniques/abilities that can be resisted without slowing the game down to a halt.
1 minute ago, Avatar111 said:indeed.
but the game won't bloat if you don't give the NPC regular opp spendings.
that is all you need to change to remove the bloating as per what he said, and don't give the enemies too many actions that requires a "resist" i suppose.
fair enough. i'll still make the resist checks probably "opportunity less" and make fire stance not work with resist and resist criticals checks but that is a personal preference as i'd rather pimp my NPCs with techniques/abilities that can be resisted without slowing the game down to a halt.
Isn't Fire stance "successes from Strife" only just for bonus successes? Most resist checks (resist criticals comes to mind as the obvious exception) have no use for bonus successes, so that Strife is just... Strife (and damage to the face if you're in Dangerous Terrain).
1 minute ago, JBento said:Isn't Fire stance "successes from Strife" only just for bonus successes? Most resist checks (resist criticals comes to mind as the obvious exception) have no use for bonus successes, so that Strife is just... Strife (and damage to the face if you're in Dangerous Terrain).
yup, maybe resist critical is the only exception. minor detail then to make it work or not with all resist checks. as long as it doesn't work with criticals.