It's weird to me that this game has no clear rules for sneaking, hiding, and ambushing. Sure, Samurai shouldn't do that against honorable foes, but if a monster is going to ambush you, or if you decide to forsake your honor for the sake of your duty to your lord, how do you resolve some of this stuff?

Let's take the simplest option possible. Some nasty goblin is hiding in a tree and shoots an arrow at a samurai. Does he get any benefit for being hidden?

More complex questions: assume a dishonorable Soshi Illusionist uses the Cloak of Night invocation to turn invisible and gets enough successes to be invisible for 3 rounds. (I assume that's "her current turn" and then two further turns while invisible.)

She wants to sneak past guards and get into a rival's house. Does she just auto succeed, or does she need to make a Skulduggery (Void) check? Or is it Fitness (Air)?

Or does the guard make a Theology (Void) check to detect the magic?

What if she wants to kill one of those guards with a dagger? Is there any benefit for attacking a foe who is unaware? Are there unable to 'defend' (i.e., the attack automatically is a crit)? Do you roll and keep an extra die?

What if she taunts the guard and the guard wants to attack her while she's invisible? He hears her voice, so we assume he can target her, but does he count as blind, which makes him reroll two dice showing success? Or is she in Obscuring terrain, which increases the TN by 1?

What if after turning invisible she goes into water stance, runs up and attacks a guy, then uses the extra action from water to move out of the foe's reach? He's aware there's an invisible foe, but can't see to defend, so does the illusionist get a bonus? How can the victim find her to attack back?

I've looked through things in the book including:

Soshi illusionist (pg 80)

Blindness disadvantage (pg 118)

Theology (pg 159), Fitness (pg 162), and Skulduggery (pg 168) skills

Cloak of Night (pg 192)

Skulk ninjutsu (pg 226)

Obscuring terrain (pg 267)

I expect this is a prime example of the devs wanting you to deal with things narratively rather than simulationist. Basically, there are no rules that cover this that should always be applied. Do whatever you think is appropriate for the scene. It's about letting the narrative shape the mechanics, not the other way around.

edit: let's illustrate with an example. Take that guard, who somehow noticed there's an invisible enemy in the room. How does he choose to deal with this? Maybe he chooses to accept getting hurt in hopes of getting a chance to catch the attacker - definitely Void (sacrifice approach), probably Fitness skill? Maybe he tries to figure out the position of the attacker - possibly Tactics skill, Ring could be anything other than Earth (Air if analyzing sounds, Water if trying to position himself so the attacker has the least openings to go for, Fire if trying to reason out what the attacker is thinking, Void if just guessing)? Maybe he'll attack - Martial Arts for sure, probably Void if just swinging away, Air if trying to force the attacker to make a mistake, Earth if fighting defensively, Fire if jumping around to try and surprise the attacker? TNs all to be set however you think is best (some probably Vigilance, others a fixed number), and if you want you can modify the dice pool too.

You can give your players the blind disadvantage when striking an invisible opponent. Simple.

And to "know" where they are, I do like in d&d; you always "know" where they are unless they use air fitness vs your vigilance to "stealth". That requires a check so once they attacked you once from "stealth" they would need to restealth again (or if they shoot an arrow from stealth and use lots of air opportunity to make it more subtle then i'd say they would need as many opportunites as your vigilance to not get detected)

Your player could also, if they really know someone is there but have no vigilance, make some kind of investigation check i suppose that would be their action this turn.

8 hours ago, ryanznock said:

Let's take the simplest option possible. Some nasty goblin is hiding in a tree and shoots an arrow at a samurai. Does he get any benefit for being hidden?

As a starting point, the difference between focus and vigilance. Focus is the "when ready for combat" initiative value, whilst Vigilance is the "Bloody Jigoku, where did they come from!" initiative value, and is almost always lower.

If you sneak up and launch an ambush, you'll be using Focus whilst they'll be using vigilance.

That probably makes the difference between the Goblins going first (and riddling you with arrows before your first turn) or not.

8 hours ago, ryanznock said:

She wants to sneak past guards and get into a rival's house. Does she just auto succeed, or does she need to make a Skulduggery (Void) check? Or is it Fitness (Air)?

Depends how she's sneaking in, I guess. Tip-toeing quietly through the is probably fitness; Skulduggery is more coming up with a devious plan (impersonating a servant, creating a distraction, finding an unguarded door) so you don't have to sneak in the first place. As the 'sneaky-sneaky' ring, I'd say it's probably air either way.

What will vary is the TN of the check: Sneaking past an average person is a TN2 Fitness (Air) check - obviously being invisible would drop that TN, whilst if the guards are not 'average people' the TN would be higher.

If the GM feels the net TN is dropped to an effective TN0 then you don't need to make a check and it's effectively an automatic pass.

8 hours ago, ryanznock said:

Or does the guard make a Theology (Void) check to detect the magic?

Unless the guard has a particular reason to be sensitive to magic, probably not. If you were sneaking into a shrine, and it was a shujenga on the door, maybe. Although spotting something unexpected is generally water ring - "identifying supernatural phenomena" would (at a reasonably high TN) qualify for "hang on, that shadow's the wrong shape and I can smell fudge*...."

8 hours ago, ryanznock said:

What if she wants to kill one of those guards with a dagger? Is there any benefit for attacking a foe who is unaware? Are there unable to 'defend' (i.e., the attack automatically is a crit)? Do you roll and keep an extra die?

When you're sneaking in rather than fighting, honestly I'm not sure it's a conflict scene, but regardless there should still be a check; there is the possibility to fail and there is clearly a difference between success and failure.

The example difficulties for Martial Arts had the following example:

Quote

Stealthily dispatching a single Minion NPC guard outside of a conflict scene without alerting others - TN 3 Martial Arts [Melee] (Air) check - Action

So using that example, it's a single Martial Arts (Melee) check where a pass is an automatic silent kill. Debate with the GM what being invisible does to the TN, and what a near-miss failure means - I would suggest still a kill but the target manages to scream.

8 hours ago, ryanznock said:

What if she taunts the guard and the guard wants to attack her while she's invisible? He hears her voice, so we assume he can target her, but does he count as blind, which makes him reroll two dice showing success? Or is she in Obscuring terrain, which increases the TN by 1?

Either works. It depends how 'good' you think the Cloak of Night is; does your table see the Soshi as chameleon-camouflage, predator-camouflage or star-trek-cloaked-ship-camouflage?

Using the equivalent of Blind isn't a bad idea. Equally, I'd point out that this would be a perfect time for an adversary opponent who actually has blind to invert their disadvantage - spend a void point to reroll positive dice to a quip like " I can still hear you breathing, Soshi-san ."

8 hours ago, ryanznock said:

What if after turning invisible she goes into water stance, runs up and attacks a guy, then uses the extra action from water to move out of the foe's reach? He's aware there's an invisible foe, but can't see to defend, so does the illusionist get a bonus? How can the victim find her to attack back?

Moving in and out whilst stabbing is a basic water technique. Not being able to see who your defending against must, logically, be a disadvantage, so I'd suggest the Blind disadvantage on stuff like a guard checks or critical resist check might be appropriate, but don't overuse it.

Essentially, the victim is either:

• Generic Minion, in which case just simplify it down to one check = stabbed
• An Adversary, in which case assume their sufficiently awesome to be able to pick out where you are (roughly) if they have a reason to sense you, and throw the Blind disadvantage on them temporarily (which gives you an edge but allows it to be inverted if the player gets cocky and relies too much on invisibility).

* Sorry. Warehouse 13 moment there.

The section on defending doesn't say a surprise attack can't be defended against...

Probably should.

(I searched for invisible, sneak, hide, hiding, surprise...)

35 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

The section on defending doesn't say a surprise attack can't be defended against...

Probably should.

(I searched for invisible, sneak, hide, hiding, surprise...)

You roll initiative as normal.

But the one doing the sneak attack use focus while the surprised targets use their vigilance instead.

There is no guarenteed sneak attacks in that game.

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

You roll initiative as normal.

But the one doing the sneak attack use focus while the surprised targets use their vigilance instead.

There is no guarenteed sneak attacks in that game.

Or, you handle it narratively - it's reasonable that you cannot defend against attacks you cannot perceive. Of course, that's more than just invisible.

I am also assuming that unaware targets are able to “defend” against attacks (i.e. take Fatigue and no critical strike by default). Otherwise Veiled Menace would be quite lackluster against unaware targets. The fact it takes a Kata and opportunities to inflict crits on a healthy but unaware target implies that without this technique, said target can defend.

Now for those who look for sneak attack bonus, Veiled Menace is the way to go and can be quite nasty!

exactly, since some techniques (veiled menace, maybe some ninjutsu) and school abilities(shosuro?) and also some example or TN in the skill section(auto-dispatching minions) all exists... means that it is how stealth works "mechanically". If you don't have any of those perks, well, you just get the Focus vs Vigilance initiative.

you can even go as far as say that if you are hidden and shooting an arrow on an unaware target, you can maybe use air opportunities to do it "sneakily" enough that your target doesn't notice where the arrow came from precisely (maybe if you spend as much opportunity as the target's vigilance).

anyway... the rules are there, you just have to find them in 4-5 different places... because, that's how this book is designed same as when someone asked "where are the rules for dual wield?", well... they are "everywhere and nowhere" ...

What I'd do is that being invisible is always cause for stealth and gets rid of most environmental issues. Normally, stealthing past guards in the middle of an open field under the noon sun is comically hard for example. Being invisible doesn't negate the need for stealth but it makes it back to a nice default level of difficulty.