5 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:that makes the staredown hyper important (which is cool) and the guy with the biggest composure should be able to win that by bidding.
You can't bid more than your focus. So the 12 composure, 3 Focus starting Hida/Utaku are SOL if they want to outbid the 8 composure 5 focus Kakita/Mirumoto. Of course, more balanced characters will have more interesting staredowns.
Edited by omnicroneJust now, WHW said:One thing about Water Striking in Duels: I'm not sure if it is legal anymore. The character sheet specifies that you gain a "second action" to use with Water Stance, which would mean that in duel, you can't draw and strike in the first round - if you draw as your first action, you cant attack with your second action as it requires a roll. In non-duels this is a non issue, because you can bypass that with Waiting Triggers, but in duels Wait isn't necessarily a legal action, so they might have killed the water opening. Probably for the best. I asked about it in my latest email, so if it gets cleaned up, Ill post it somewhere.
that would change a lot of things. and probably make first strike / first blood duels even more about incapacitated (with iaijutsu strikes) or about losing composure (without iaijutsu strike) ! good find though, it definitely would change a lot of things and make water much, much weaker (also in skirmish though, as the wait action is not an "interrupt", but not as bad as it would become in duels)
25 minutes ago, omnicrone said:
You can't bid more than your focus. So the 12 composure, 3 Focus starting Hida/Utaku are SOL if they want to outbid the 8 composure 5 focus Kakita/Mirumoto. Of course, more balanced characters will have more interesting staredowns.
and if the high earth ring just roll initiative with earth. and stays in earth and turtle up immune to crits with good composure and endurance. you try to take him down incapacitated by constant bashing (and bashign first) and HOPE that he doesnt get a crit on you before you take him down. thats it ?
edit:
you're just never going to win with that "Crit". but like we said, if I accept that duels can be forced to go to "incapacitated" when you face an earth opponent, then its all fine. I am not necessarily against duels being fought to incapacitated when a kakita face a hida. I'm just still simply stuck with the old thread that a guy made about duelling mechanics and gave that very example, and we came to the same conclusion... in that old thread, a lot of people were not happy with the fact that duels were not more about one nice strike and it was a heated debate. though now i still feel the answer is the same; kakita can win, but hes got to strike fast and hard and incapacitate the hida ASAP.
but really, personally... i think i can make peace with that.
on another subject, but related, what do you think of the predict and center actions ? do they bring anything to duels ? considering that the higher the ranks of the duelists are the easier it is for them to achieve that critical strike.
the result of this thread was that:
Okay, I know there is something I'm missing. My two attempts boil down to:
(a) jumping the gun and forcing a skirmish instead, or
(b) waiting out to see who has the largest Composure (which will clearly be the Earth/Water build).
(which is the same as we are coming down to at the moment, mostly, when facing a big earth stance character)
this thread:
Edited by Avatar111
I don't like Predict and Center actions. We tried using them a few times in our beta games, but other than obligatory "we need to test it to send real feedback" setup situations, I made a note of my players *never taking Predict or Center in duels that weren't about testing Predict or Center*. I don't feel like they make the cut, but it might be the microcosm of our group and how we play.
Sometimes I actually feel like you should be able to Predict and Center once per duel as an additional free action, to make them strategic big game changers, but dunno. We enjoyed the duels as they were, so it felt like an unnecessary tinkering.
24 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:and if the high earth ring just roll initiative with earth. and stays in earth and turtle up immune to crits with good composure and endurance. you try to take him down incapacitated by constant bashing (and bashign first) and HOPE that he doesnt get a crit on you before you take him down. thats it ?
Against an Earth turtler? Yes. You are going to win unless you are really unlucky with your rolls. The 12 comp Utaku in my table lost duels/spars to both the Mirumoto (incaped by a nuke in 2nd round, after a smart trap) and the Ikoma (outstrifed by Fire aggro) because she insisted in Earth turtling. She also lost to the Kakita in the Topaz Championship, but that had more circumstantial adversities (she went to the duel with 6 strife piled up) so I will not hold that loss to Earth turtling exclusively, though she would stand a better chance by Water relaxing instead of Earthing up.
However, the Mirumoto vs Ikoma was fire (literally) both times they went against each other. In the Topaz Champ the Ikoma won, but later the Mirumoto won (after learning Iai). Also, the Mirumoto almost outplayed the OP Kenku in the emerald magistrate adventures because she was playing with her food.
5 minutes ago, WHW said:I don't like Predict and Center actions. We tried using them a few times in our beta games, but other than obligatory "we need to test it to send real feedback" setup situations, I made a note of my players *never taking Predict or Center in duels that weren't about testing Predict or Center*. I don't feel like they make the cut, but it might be the microcosm of our group and how we play.
Sometimes I actually feel like you should be able to Predict and Center once per duel as an additional free action, to make them strategic big game changers, but dunno. We enjoyed the duels as they were, so it felt like an unnecessary tinkering.
Yeah, center and predict are terrible RAW =(
Predict should either offer a roll to resolve opportunities or be integrated to the staredown. Center is marginally better than a Void Downtime, but takes an entire action while on a not very useful stance for defense and I don't think you can exactly spend opportunities on it since it is not a real skill check.
Edited by omnicroneI should add that predict can be cute as a first turn opener if you know an Iai Cut and your opponent doesn't. But that is just for styling and not exactly the most optimal of strategies
@omnicrone your duel examples, they were to first blood ? first strike makes earth much stronger. though sure, if you have a mirumoto... hes kind of a beast at early ranks duels (probably the best aside some characters with shenanigans that shouldn't be legit like ikoma)
so i guess i get it. basically earth stance makes you immune to "insta-lose" but you're probably going to lose incapacitated vs a fire opponent.
void and air is good for the initiative check, but lose a lot of value after that.
water is situational, good if you don't have an iai cut of if the character is not in fire or earth stance and you want to hope for a quick crit.
fire is basically the "best" option for striking as it have offence but at also helps to resist crits (for a first blood duel)
for a first strike duel, you probably want to stick with earth unless you are certain you can incapacitate the opponent before he can take 1 strike on you.
1 hour ago, WHW said:One thing about Water Striking in Duels: I'm not sure if it is legal anymore. The character sheet specifies that you gain a "second action" to use with Water Stance, which would mean that in duel, you can't draw and strike in the first round - if you draw as your first action, you cant attack with your second action as it requires a roll. In non-duels this is a non issue, because you can bypass that with Waiting Triggers, but in duels Wait isn't necessarily a legal action, so they might have killed the water opening. Probably for the best. I asked about it in my latest email, so if it gets cleaned up, Ill post it somewhere.
Table 6-1 simply says you may perform an additional action but nothing explicit about the sequence. Let us know what they say.
Is it possible not to turn every thread into another argument about duelling? This was about a specific question...
8 hours ago, omnicrone said:and I don't think you can exactly spend opportunities on it since it is not a real skill check.
You are correct. It's basically analogous to channelling for invocations, but the latter come as a freebie option after failing an invocation check rather than being an action on its own. It's very much an option for poorer, lower level characters in a duel to first blood if anyone, because the more competent you are, the less important a pre-loaded dice is to get success x2, opportunity x2 and a few 'spare' opportunities for razor-edged to overcome fitness.
9 hours ago, WHW said:Something to think about Air Stance:
Each time you forced an opponent to keep an extra Success to just hit you, you effectively gained virtual 1 Endurance.
Each time you made an opponent miss entirely with the Air Stance, you effectively gained virtual X Endurance where X is the damage that would be flung into your face.
Each time you forced an opponent to keep an extra Success to just hit you and made them unable to keep rolled 2 Opportunities to Critical Strike you or activate other abilities, you effectively gained the benefit of Earth Stance.
Each time you spend an Opportunity to add an extra kept Opportunity dice to your next Martial Roll, you effectively virtually increased your Ring by 1 for that roll.
Each time you forced an opponent to keep dice with Strife to do what they wanted, you effectively reduced their Composure by 1.
Being good at Air Ring generally means being good at being first, at unleashing Critical Strikes or other Opp-requiring effects, and at Waiting. Waited Critical Strikes are a really, really good way of making the TN of opponent miserable - +1 from Lightly Wounded becomes +2. which can drop chances of success from 70%+ to less than 20% (basically explosion fishing), and the Gravely Wounded becomes +4, making pretty much any roll effectively impossible.So if you prevented 2 bonus successes from turning into Damage, you gained effective +1 Ring Up for Endurance sake. If you prevented at least one attack from connecting, you probably gained multiple Rings worth of Endurance.
This. I think Air stance is, again, very good for lower level characters. When you're a starting samurai for whom something like 3 ring dice and 2 skill dice is a pretty good roll, being asked to get an extra success to land a hit in the first place is a big deal.
Any time succeeding on a check needs more results than the total number of dice you're allowed to keep, you are essentially demanding that you get an explosive success and it rolls on into another useful result. Thinking in such a situation that first swing = win is a flawed assumption. With 3 ring, 2 skill and a TN3, you're only just over 50/50 odds of a successful strike in the first place, let alone getting the opportunities for a critical on top of that.
13 hours ago, Avatar111 said:anyway, i am OK that duels in lower ranks are all about "incapacitating" the opponent. Though it goes back to our original thread about dueling... We come to the same conclusion, we just learned to accept it.
but try explaining that to @Tonbo Karasu @AK_Aramis and @Hida Jitenno the trio of haha who don't understand anything and rather insult me than having a logical point of discussion.
The what did I say one word about dueling in this or any other thread?
3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:You are correct. It's basically analogous to channelling for invocations, but the latter come as a freebie option after failing an invocation check rather than being an action on its own. It's very much an option for poorer, lower level characters in a duel to first blood if anyone, because the more competent you are, the less important a pre-loaded dice is to get success x2, opportunity x2 and a few 'spare' opportunities for razor-edged to overcome fitness.
This. I think Air stance is, again, very good for lower level characters. When you're a starting samurai for whom something like 3 ring dice and 2 skill dice is a pretty good roll, being asked to get an extra success to land a hit in the first place is a big deal.
Any time succeeding on a check needs more results than the total number of dice you're allowed to keep, you are essentially demanding that you get an explosive success and it rolls on into another useful result. Thinking in such a situation that first swing = win is a flawed assumption. With 3 ring, 2 skill and a TN3, you're only just over 50/50 odds of a successful strike in the first place, let alone getting the opportunities for a critical on top of that.
And in a ranged battle someone with Air as their main ring will be able to bump their TN to be hit to 5 (though they need some lucky rolls after they blow their free opp from initiative on the first turn), winning outright at earlier ranks. After playing a couple of long sessions it is very clear that every stance is quite good at some things and Air is pretty good at Intrigue and Skirmishes for PCs, in general, since it mixes attack and defense really well, and is not the worst stance in duels.
5 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:Is it possible not to turn every thread into another argument about duelling? This was about a specific question...
Sorry. In the end most threads end up in us getting to offer counterpoints to @Avatar111 's assumptions (Earth is op on duels, Air sucks, etc) about the game.
1 minute ago, omnicrone said:And in a ranged battle someone with Air as their main ring will be able to bump their TN to be hit to 5 (though they need some lucky rolls after they blow their free opp from initiative on the first turn), winning outright at earlier ranks. After playing a couple of long sessions it is very clear that every stance is quite good at some things and Air is pretty good at Intrigue and Skirmishes for PCs, in general, since it mixes attack and defense really well, and is not the worst stance in duels.
Sorry. In the end most threads end up in us getting to offer counterpoints to @Avatar111 's assumptions (Earth is op on duels, Air sucks, etc) about the game.
Hey, i made my point clear that my assumption was based on duels to first blood / first strike.
But i've made peace with the fact that duels against big earth guy is about incapacitating him and that center and predict are mostly useless.
If we accept that duels will come down to forcing a skirmish against some rings/build because it is th e best strategy, then i'm all cool.
lets not forget the original discussion about dueling in the thread i pasted here a few post ago, i was just still in that moodset.
20 hours ago, Avatar111 said:but try explaining that to @Tonbo Karasu @AK_Aramis and @Hida Jitenno the trio of haha who don't understand anything and rather insult me than having a logical point of discussion.
I'd like to address just this last point. I try my best to be polite on the various forums I frequent but know that I'm not perfect, so want to be clear that no insult was intended anywhere. When I said that our experience of the game is so different it wasn't worth discussing, I meant it literally - we appear to approach L5R 5e (and possibly roleplaying in general) from such diverse starting points that we'll only ever talk past each other. I really do wish you the best, but have set your account to ignore, because I was just scrolling past every post you made.
So for clarification, because it doesn't feel clear in the text. When you strike, and choose to spend opportunity to force a critical hit, does that hit still also do fatigue?
ex: Hit with no bonus successes and 2 opportunity. Choose to spend opportunity to crit.
Do they take weapon-armor damage, then the crit effect, or just the crit effect?
4 hours ago, Kaijukobo said:So for clarification, because it doesn't feel clear in the text. When you strike, and choose to spend opportunity to force a critical hit, does that hit still also do fatigue?
ex: Hit with no bonus successes and 2 opportunity. Choose to spend opportunity to crit.
Do they take weapon-armor damage, t hen the crit effect, or just the crit effect?
If the target defends, sure I think they take Fatigue equal to the weapon's damage rating. Then they still take a Crit on top of it (and have to defend with a Fitness roll).
If the target cannot defend (or choses not to by spending a Void Point), they would actually take TWO critical hits in succession! In that case, they do not take Fatigue equal to the damage received. It could be a viable tactic if you're confident you can shoulder the crit severity, aren't too concerned about your armor's condition and mostly want to avoid becoming Incapacitated due to taking Fatigue in excess of your Endurance.
Edited by Franwax10 hours ago, Kaijukobo said:So for clarification, because it doesn't feel clear in the text. When you strike, and choose to spend opportunity to force a critical hit, does that hit still also do fatigue?
ex: Hit with no bonus successes and 2 opportunity. Choose to spend opportunity to crit.
Do they take weapon-armor damage, then the crit effect, or just the crit effect?
In your example, in order
If the adjustment takes it below 3, for the first hit, the armor is damaged. For the second, it's destroyed, per the effects of the damaged quality (p 240).
After the armor is destroyed, such hits add insult more than injury - note the narrative description. Hair lopped off, beard trimmed, hit with the side instead of the edge...
After the battle, destroyed armor CAN be repaired.
On 11/10/2018 at 12:29 AM, Franwax said:If the target cannot defend (or choses not to by spending a Void Point), they would actually take TWO critical hits in succession! In that case, they do not take Fatigue equal to the damage received. It could be a viable tactic if you're confident you can shoulder the crit severity, aren't too concerned about your armor's condition and mostly want to avoid becoming Incapacitated due to taking Fatigue in excess of your Endurance.
It's an especially good option with 'blunt force trauma' weapons which inflict massive damage but aren't actually high deadliness (the Otsuchi is a good example).
As a narrative explanation, trying to block or deflect it is really hard (because it's a massive lump of metal on the end of a double-handed stick with a lot of power behind it) but stepping into the blow before it gets up to speed and taking a glancing hit isn't that bad because unlike a razor-edged katana, a 'gentle' contact won't slice halfway through the muscles of your forearm.
And yes, if you're not too bothered about your armour, and you have a high fitness, and/or other critical-reducing abilities (way of the Crab is a good example), then just tank the hit.
On 11/9/2018 at 7:30 PM, Kaijukobo said:Do they take weapon-armor damage, then the crit effect, or just the crit effect?
As @AK_Aramis noted, opportunities resolve before successes.
1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:
Note that opportunities that are conditional on success/failure resolve AFTER successes.
On 11/10/2018 at 6:44 AM, AK_Aramis said:In your example, in order
- apply the two opp to declare a crit due to expected hit. (Note expected, in case the GM had some other effect in play that raises the TN to hit unrevealed. Revelation is "here's a void point for X being news to you.")
- Figure the damage: weapon + Bonus successes. So, in the exemplar case, base damage only.
- find out if the target is able to defend.
- If yes, compare vs armor;
- if less than armor, no futher effect
- if greater than armor, increase fatigue by the difference
- if no, generate a second crit
Is this true? Can you land two critical simultaniously from one attack? First when I read the book, I assumed that the 2 Opportunity choice is only grants you the right to force a Critical strike instead of Fatigue damage.
It sounds pretty brutal. (Btw I haven't tested the game yet).
3 hours ago, Batonian said:Is this true? Can you land two critical simultaniously from one attack? First when I read the book, I assumed that the 2 Opportunity choice is only grants you the right to force a Critical strike instead of Fatigue damage.
It sounds pretty brutal. (Btw I haven't tested the game yet).
you can do 3 critical hits in the same attack with a bit of thinking.
11 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:you can do 3 critical hits in the same attack with a bit of thinking.
And a decent roll of the dice.
3 hours ago, Batonian said:Is this true? Can you land two critical simultaniously from one attack? First when I read the book, I assumed that the 2 Opportunity choice is only grants you the right to force a Critical strike instead of Fatigue damage.
It sounds pretty brutal. (Btw I haven't tested the game yet).
That was my initial read as well. But it seems that with the order in which actions are resolved the effect happens (damage of weapon value) prior to the opportunity effect of the critical strike.
So first apply fatigue then resolve the crit. Am I correct in understanding if the strike puts fatigue over that's NOT an auto crit?
ex. 10 fatigue, 12 endurance. Take a hit for 4 damage with 2 opportunity. Opportunity used for a crit. Even though the hit takes fatigue over endurance, that hit itself doesn't proc a crit?
1 minute ago, Kaijukobo said:That was my initial read as well. But it seems that with the order in which actions are resolved the effect happens (damage of weapon value) prior to the opportunity effect of the critical strike.
So first apply fatigue then resolve the crit. Am I correct in understanding if the strike puts fatigue over that's NOT an auto crit?
ex. 10 fatigue, 12 endurance. Take a hit for 4 damage with 2 opportunity. Opportunity used for a crit. Even though the hit takes fatigue over endurance, that hit itself doesn't proc a crit?
you are right.
2 hours ago, Avatar111 said:you are right.
I can't see a third, but opportunity is spent before success is counted. Page 23. Damage is usually success linked.
Which leaves the sequence thus
I don't see room for a third; I'm genuinely curious where Avatar111 thinks a third can happen.