19 minutes ago, omnicrone said:

I find hilarious that a character with Air 4 has 2 Vigilance in your rework (and that an Earth 4 character can have 4 composure).

it is more balanced.

all rings have value in composure or endurance.

do you find it funny that a character with 5 air could have 4 composure and 4 endurance ? (when any other ring, aside void, at 5 will give you a minimum of either 12 composure or 12 endurance).

you're going extreme lol. it will always look bad in "extreme cases".

but still looks less bad with my mixup.

11 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

When I said that the setup can work I did not mean "OK, this char is gonna be a cool duelist with all the cool stats" or anything like that. Geeeez . I was thinking more along the line of "here comes the party's walking radar character". Somebody hasta bust out that Analyze and Vigilance either way, so it might as well be the Kakita Duelist. Just have a few Void Points to spam Seize the Moment when crap hits the fan and you are golden.

1 more vigilance, at the cost of 6 composure.

screw the walking "compromised" radar with 1 vigilance if you ask me!

1 minute ago, Avatar111 said:

it is more balanced.

all rings have value in composure or endurance.

do you find it funny that a character with 5 air could have 4 composure and 4 endurance ?

you're going extreme lol. it will always look bad in "extreme cases".

but still looks less bad with my mixup.

It is much less hilarious than one with low vigilance for sure. Well, to each his own, I will not chastise you to go against everything written in the Book of Air/Earth (because at the end of the day they are part of AEG's old canon) if a Rank 1 Kakita not having the composure of a Hida seems wrong to you (which to me is not wrong at all). But don't assume what you think is best is not hilarious to anyone else, because it is to me.

I mean, a starting Hida now has better vigilance (Hiruma Scouts exist for a reason) and less composure than a starting Kakita and that is hilarious there is no way around it. The clan that drills "if you don't get your **** together and act out of emotion you can potentially doom the lives of millions of people so never do that" to their bushi now have bushi that are worse at keeping it together than the bushi of the Clan of "be an artist in all things and remember to do things that'll make you look cool when people read your biography down the line".

14 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

screw the walking "compromised" radar with 1 vigilance if you ask me!

What? Why? The build has a Composure of 8 (Earth 2 / Water 2) - subpar but fairly common among starting characters.

Composure of 8 is generally ok - 10 is good, 12 is overkill in many situations. It's just 4 and 6 that feel small, and it makes sense, because jumping from 4 to 6 is 50% increase. So yeah, most characters will fix their Composure with their first 6 xp, which is 2 game sessions - or 6 out of starting 10 xp if going with "young heroes".

3 minutes ago, omnicrone said:

It is much less hilarious than one with low vigilance for sure. Well, to each his own, I will not chastise you to go against everything written in the Book of Air/Earth (because at the end of the day they are part of AEG's old canon) if a Rank 1 Kakita not having the composure of a Hida seems wrong to you (which to me is not wrong at all). But don't assume what you think is best is not hilarious to anyone else, because it is to me.

I mean, a starting Hida now has better vigilance (Hiruma Scouts exist for a reason) and less composure than a starting Kakita and that is hilarious there is no way around it. The clan that drills "if you don't get your **** together and act out of emotion you can potentially doom the lives of millions of people so never do that" to their bushi now have bushi that are worse at keeping it together than the bushi of the Clan of "be an artist in all things and remember to do things that'll make you look cool when people read your biography down the line".

vigilance makes you look cool when people read your biography ?

o_O

no, vigilance is an overrated stat that can cost you 6 composure to increase by 1.

5 minutes ago, WHW said:

Composure of 8 is generally ok - 10 is good, 12 is overkill in many situations. It's just 4 and 6 that feel small, and it makes sense, because jumping from 4 to 6 is 50% increase. So yeah, most characters will fix their Composure with their first 6 xp, which is 2 game sessions - or 6 out of starting 10 xp if going with "young heroes".

sure thing. the only thing you don't need to "fix" is a dump stat in air ring. unless you want to be cool, i guess.

the question is not "is air totally useless". the question is "is air the worst ring".

I feel like you are overvaluing Composure and undervaluing both Focus, Vigilance an Air Opportunities, while also overavoiding Unmasking.
Also, @ Fire + Critical Resists - remember that the Fire Stance is pretty much the only stance with a bonus that can be "turned off" - both Bleeding and Dangerous Terrain make the stance bonus extremely painful to use, and both can be applied to you even when you are outside of Fire Stance. It's a high payoff, high risk Stance which loses tremendous amount of power when a cunning foe spawns Dangerous Terrain using Initiative Opportunities or Crits you with Razor Edged Weapon.

1 minute ago, Avatar111 said:

no, vigilance is an overrated stat that can cost you 6 composure to increase by 1.

It actually costs you 2 for 1 and 4 for 1 at every second step for an average of 3 for 1. Note that you literally cannot increase Vigilance without increasing Composure and vice versa - the only thing you lose out for real is the "empty" Air Ring increase that tosses the Air+Water sum to the next level.

1 minute ago, WHW said:

I feel like you are overvaluing Composure and undervaluing both Focus, Vigilance an Air Opportunities, while also overavoiding Unmasking.
Also, @ Fire + Critical Resists - remember that the Fire Stance is pretty much the only stance with a bonus that can be "turned off" - both Bleeding and Dangerous Terrain make the stance bonus extremely painful to use, and both can be applied to you even when you are outside of Fire Stance. It's a high payoff, high risk Stance which loses tremendous amount of power when a cunning foe spawns Dangerous Terrain using Initiative Opportunities or Crits you with Razor Edged Weapon.

no undervaluing Focus. but Vigilance, since its (ring+ring)/2... sure not that impactful since you will kind of always have the same value + or - 1.

air opportunities are allright, so is air stance.

Fire Stance, how is it bad vs getting crit by a razor-edged weapon ? isn't it basically the best stance against it ? (the one that gives you less chance to lose your arm?)

2 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

It actually costs you 2 for 1 and 4 for 1 at every second step for an average of 3 for 1. Note that you literally cannot increase Vigilance without increasing Composure and vice versa - the only thing you lose out for real is the "empty" Air Ring increase that tosses the Air+Water sum to the next level.

it is 6 for 1 if you have air 1 and earth 4 (or air 2 and earth 5)

extreme case maybe. but yeah. it just show the imbalance.

Vigilance allows you pretty much "auto-succeed" on many investigation checks without even having to attempt them, which saves you Strife in the long run. Many scenarios will have something like "Players may try to make a Check of TN X (often 3 or higher) to uncover this information, and characters with Vigilance X just automatically notice it".

The tricky thing about Fire Ring is that if for some reason you end up being Critted while not in a Fire Stance, or by some effect that just flat out makes you bleed, your bonus is kinda screwed. Other Rings can usually be harmed only "from inside" of them. Note that a Kakita of sufficient Rank - 3 - doesn't care anymore about your Fire Bonus Successes to Resist, as according to the email response I got, you apply the Kakita Ability after all other Severity modifications - so even if your Fire Master brought the Crit to 0, Kakita then can raise it by 3 to 3, which is enough to Lightly Wound you and then Razor Bleed you. Note though that this was an email response, and it might change in the future errata/faq, so its not "final ruling". One of reasons why I don't like talking about these rulings is that I don't like talking about stuff im not 100% certain will make it to the book.

Vigilance is your "not getting shanked by shinobi" stat, so I'm not sure it's possible to OVERRATE IT, anyway.

1 minute ago, WHW said:

Vigilance allows you pretty much "auto-succeed" on many investigation checks without even having to attempt them, which saves you Strife in the long run. Many scenarios will have something like "Players may try to make a Check of TN X (often 3 or higher) to uncover this information, and characters with Vigilance X just automatically notice it".

The tricky thing about Fire Ring is that if for some reason you end up being Critted while not in a Fire Stance, or by some effect that just flat out makes you bleed, your bonus is kinda screwed. Other Rings can usually be harmed only "from inside" of them. Note that a Kakita of sufficient Rank - 3 - doesn't care anymore about your Fire Bonus Successes to Resist, as according to the email response I got, you apply the Kakita Ability after all other Severity modifications - so even if your Fire Master brought the Crit to 0, Kakita then can raise it by 3 to 3, which is enough to Lightly Wound you and then Razor Bleed you. Note though that this was an email response, and it might change in the future errata/faq, so its not "final ruling". One of reasons why I don't like talking about these rulings is that I don't like talking about stuff im not 100% certain will make it to the book.

i'm pretty sure kakita increase in severity is that last to be applied in modifications (as per rules as written, player's own effects are applied last).

but that is before the opponent resist the critical though... if not, then yeah, i don't understand it 100% either.

2 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

it is 6 for 1 if you have air 1 and earth 4 (or air 2 and earth 5)

That still doesn't check out. If you have low Water for these, then you have to bounce back-and-forth between raising Air and Water to up your Vigilance, that again, will increase your Composure too at the 3-for-1 average cost I mentioned above. If you have high Water... then what's the problem? You capped out your Composure either way or at least you are very close to it, so any loss of increment is negligent in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah, I asked about it, the ruling I got was that the current wording is unclear and that the intent is to give the Kakita the biggest tactical choice possible by doing it as the last thing - so they can both increase it or decrease it to fit exactly the golden spot they want to hit, like injuring but not crippling their opponents.

1 minute ago, AtoMaki said:

That still doesn't check out. If you have low Water for these, then you have to bounce back-and-forth between raising Air and Water to up your Vigilance, that again, will increase your Composure too at the 3-for-1 average cost I mentioned above. If you have high Water... then what's the problem? You capped out your Composure either way or at least you are very close to it, so any loss of increment is negligent in the grand scheme of things.

doesnt matter the water score.

air 1 earth 4 water 2: composure 12, vigilance 2

air 1 earth 4 water 4: composure 16, vigilance 3

air 4 earth 1 water 2: composure 6, vigilance 3

air 4 earth 1 water 4: composure 10, vigilance 4

it is 6 for 1.

No book with me, but if the Kakita ability reads along the lines of "a critical suffered by your opponent" then it's applied last as written anyway, because your opponents don't SUFFER a crit until after they resist.

4 minutes ago, JBento said:

No book with me, but if the Kakita ability reads along the lines of "a critical suffered by your opponent" then it's applied last as written anyway, because your opponents don't SUFFER a crit until after they resist.

that makes the kakita ability much stronger. (edit: doesnt make air better or doesnt make fire stance being good at resisting crits less weird)

11 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

it is 6 for 1.

Oh wait, I thought we were talking about increasing the stats and not what the highest gap can be between them. I mean, yeah, if you shoot for some crazy stats then you will get some crazy results, no argument here !

8 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

that makes the kakita ability much stronger

The "You are already dead!"/"N-NANI?" jokes will see a great reckoning with this change !

6 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

The "You are already dead!"/"N-NANI?" jokes will see a great reckoning with this change !

unless the guy you duel stays in earth stance. then kakita just lose his composure, unmask, cries... and probably dies to the finishing blow.

36 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

vigilance makes you look cool when people read your biography ?

o_O

no, vigilance is an overrated stat that can cost you 6 composure to increase by 1.

Unmasking makes you look cool when people read your biography. Most of the things that makes non-bushi famous (people like Doji Barahime and every Shosuro and Bayushi with a pillow book worth reading) are exactly the sort of shocking shenanigans a well timed "act with emotion/passion" brings to the table. A Crab sleuth dreams of being as authentic with their feelings as those famous figures, after all.

High vigilance makes you win in court since it is your defense against Schemes, which is, surprise, surprise the domain of exactly both clans with +Air as their bonuses ?.

Just now, omnicrone said:

Unmasking makes you look cool when people read your biography. Most of the things that makes non-bushi famous (people like Doji Barahime and every Shosuro and Bayushi with a pillow book worth reading) are exactly the sort of shocking shenanigans a well timed "act with emotion/passion" brings to the table. A Crab sleuth dreams of being as authentic with their feelings as those famous figures, after all.

High vigilance makes you win in court since it is your defense against Schemes, which is, surprise, surprise the domain of exactly both clans with +Air as their bonuses ?.

in court I just strife them out with fire opp and strife giving actions. most crane or scorpion will probably start to cry within 1 or 2 rounds (unless they don't want to make checks during their turns).

Also, dirty strategy for a starting Kakita on iaijutsu duels:

Bide all your composure with your high focus, act first, unmask if compromised, Iai Cut, keep all strife if still uncompromised, unmask at end of turn if compromised (they don't have Iai Cut if they are as noob as you so no finishing strike) by going all Hotaru on their *** by crying mournfully about their impending demise. Next turn, outbid them again, hit a fat Fire strike and (hopefully) win just make sure you don't compromise on the second hit (you'll be able to keep 1 or 2 strife if you are a 8 composure starting Kakita). This gets better when you get Crossing Cut and you know for sure the opponent don't have any Iai Cut (use your Air opps to learn this).

It's adorable that you think your Composure is going to last two rounds in Fire stance and with low Vigilance in court against skilled courtiers, though.