heya,

what do we think of the Bayushi rank 6 ability ? doesn't it seem like "it will only ever be useful if the GM agrees to fall into the trap" ? meaning it isn't really a power in the player's hands more like the GM choose when it happens. I find that weird. thoughts?

also, the Soshi rank 6 ability... I, think I understand how it works, but anybody wants to take a shot at it ? what can you use that for ?

and lastly, since most games will end around rank 6 (more or less if you ever get a post rank 6 title, but most of the time rank 6 is "endgame") do you think that it is a bit late to get the final school ability?

are these abilities SO strong that they couldn't be given when you attain rank 4, for example ? so you could play like 2 ranks with them ? After reading most of them, some are really good but I don't think anything is particularly game breaking strong.

mirumoto rank 6 ability seems to be the only one that is too strong to have at rank 4, all others seems "ok", thoughts ?

Rank 6 as "endgame" presumes that players will not have unresolved plot threads and/or want to enjoy being the baddest baddies in Rokugan.

And that players will actually play that far... at about 75% conversion of earned XP to school XP, and an earn rate of about 2 per hour (including RP and goal bonuses), that's about 120 hours of play, or almost a year of now-typical 3 hour sessions (allowing for missing a few for holidays and weather).

And that's assuming it's played in Zero to Hero.

I expect most of the rank 6 play is going to be part of "winter court" scenarios, not ongoing campaigns... and that there will be higher rank play as well. After all, in 2E/3E, bushi and courtier schools ran to SR 5, but there were provisions for play up to and past SR 8...

The ones I've looked at are rather potent...

Utaku: After defending, Move 1 band and change stance.

Moto: After inflicting incapacitated, attack another target.
I can see this being really nasty with Iaijutsu crossing in a court situation... insulted? Unmask... TN2, roll in fire, get 4 successes and probably 3 strife, doing 2*(4+5)=18 Fatigue, then hit someone else (probably the yojimbō).... two incapacitated folk... then, "Apology accepted"... (The yojimbo is likely to have more endurance...) And (if you live) repeat it next round....

7 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

heya,

what do we think of the Bayushi rank 6 ability ? doesn't it seem like "it will only ever be useful if the GM agrees to fall into the trap" ? meaning it isn't really a power in the player's hands more like the GM choose when it happens. I find that weird. thoughts?

also, the Soshi rank 6 ability... I, think I understand how it works, but anybody wants to take a shot at it ? what can you use that for ?

and lastly, since most games will end around rank 6 (more or less if you ever get a post rank 6 title, but most of the time rank 6 is "endgame") do you think that it is a bit late to get the final school ability?

are these abilities SO strong that they couldn't be given when you attain rank 4, for example ? so you could play like 2 ranks with them ? After reading most of them, some are really good but I don't think anything is particularly game breaking strong.

mirumoto rank 6 ability seems to be the only one that is too strong to have at rank 4, all others seems "ok", thoughts ?

Let's see:

Hida Defender: too strong for Rank 4

Hiruma Scout: fine for Rank 4 (horse slayers!)

Kaiu Engineer: fine (Razor-Edged Tetsubos!)

Kuni Purifier: too strong if Shadowlands/Bloodspeaker campaign, otherwise fine

Yasuki Merchant: too strong

Asahina Artificer: too strong (free nemuranai wtf)

Daidoji Iron Warrior: too strong (with Crescent Moon Style)

Doji Diplomat: probably fine

Kakita Duelist: probably too strong

Agasha Mystic: strong, but not that strong

Kitsuki Investigator: fine I guess

Mirumoto Niten: hahaha, too strong

Togashi Monk: too strong

Akodo Commander: too strong

Ikoma Bard: fine

Kitsu Medium: too strong (extra character wtf)

Matsu Berserker: too strong

Asako Loremester: fine

Isawa Elementalist: too strong (2 spells wtf)

Shiba Guardian: much like the Daidoji, too strong

Kaito Shrine Keeper: like Kuni

Bayushi Manipulator: strong

Shosuro Infiltrator: strong

Soshi Illusionist: Exalted Lore skill shenanigans? probably fine tho

Yogo Wardmaster: like Agasha

Ide Trader: probably fine

Iuchi Meishodo: probably broken even at Rank 6

Moto Conqueror: too strong

Shinjo Outrider: videogames taught me that this is how horses actually work, can't understand why this would be a capstone ability ?

Utaku Battle Maiden: a slightly better version of Hiruma's School Ability, probably fine then

Worldly Ronin: cap-breaks! Although boring, this is one of the better Rank 6 skills so probably busted getting this early

Mirumoto is the only really busted one though

lot of the other ones require void points or are once per session.

but yeah, it would definitely be a powercreep. I just don't really enjoy abilities that you end up never really playing with. Thats like level 20 abilities in d&d.. they never see play, and considering in l5r there are only 2 school abilities, basically 50% will barely see play, if ever.

any opinion on the bayushi ability (only good if the GM enables it basically) and the soshi (really, can you give me an example of this in play? I am not really sure I get it).

23 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

any opinion on the bayushi ability (only good if the GM enables it basically) and the soshi (really, can you give me an example of this in play? I am not really sure I get it).

The Bayushi ability is ok. The GM - player relationship is supposed to be cooperative, not adversarial. If the players can't trust the GM to handle that appropriately, there are probably going to be bigger problems at that table. The Soshi ability is weird, but situationally really powerful. If someone important gets killed for instance, the Soshi could retroactively say that person wasn't really there - it was just an illusion. It needs proper adjudication though in my opinion - items or people that were physically interacted with in the scene should probably not be eligible, for instance.

3 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

The Bayushi ability is ok. The GM - player relationship is supposed to be cooperative, not adversarial. If the players can't trust the GM to handle that appropriately, there are probably going to be bigger problems at that table. The Soshi ability is weird, but situationally really powerful. If someone important gets killed for instance, the Soshi could retroactively say that person wasn't really there - it was just an illusion. It needs proper adjudication though in my opinion - items or people that were physically interacted with in the scene should probably not be eligible, for instance.

yeah, that is why I was a bit confused... basically, you can say that something that is there is an illusion.... but then, you can't really make it disappear or anything, so you're just like "hey guys! this is an illusion! believe me!", but you cannot prove it.

that is why I have a bit of a hard time understanding it the way it is written and what are the possibilities. (what were the designers really intending with this, feels like a regular mid rank invocation and/or persuade check to me).

for Bayushi, yeah, sure. I guess the GM should "fall into the trap" more often than not. I still don't like abilities that basically puts all of its effect in the control of the GM and not the player. But probably that a scorpion player should be a player that manipulates the GM also still... iffy design if you ask me.

5 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

yeah, that is why I was a bit confused... basically, you can say that something that is there is an illusion.... but then, you can't really make it disappear or anything, so you're just like "hey guys! this is an illusion! believe me!", but you cannot prove it.

that is why I have a bit of a hard time understanding it the way it is written and what are the possibilities. (what were the designers really intending with this, feels like a regular mid rank invocation and/or persuade check to me).

No, no - if you decide that that person was an illusion, he really was an illusion. You're retroactively changing reality for that scene. Somebody stabs Bayushi Bob? Nope, Bob wasn't even there. Bob's in the other room, or grabbing a snack from a food stall in the street, or visiting his sickly grandmother, whatever you want - when you use the ability, you're not trying to convince anyone of anything, you're changing what is. The illusion is an actual, real illusion that had everyone fooled.

5 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

No, no - if you decide that that person was an illusion, he really was an illusion. You're retroactively changing reality for that scene. Somebody stabs Bayushi Bob? Nope, Bob wasn't even there. Bob's in the other room, or grabbing a snack from a food stall in the street, or visiting his sickly grandmother, whatever you want - when you use the ability, you're not trying to convince anyone of anything, you're changing what is. The illusion is an actual, real illusion that had everyone fooled.

hmmm so you are rewriting the narrative ? ok yeah, kind of cool. But definitely needs a GM hard seal of approval cause this can *** up everything lol.

11 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

hmmm so you are rewriting the narrative ? ok yeah, kind of cool. But definitely needs a GM hard seal of approval cause this can *** up everything lol.

Letting the game go to rank 6 is all the approval it needs... especially when used in self-defense.

im cool with these rank 6 abilities (and I really like the soshi one now that I understand it , honestly, only the mirumoto one bugs me because "extra checks all the time" slows the game down).

I just don't like that they are actually rank 6 and won't see play in most games. wasted opportunity a bit!

Depending on how frequently one plays, reaching Rank 6 is not too hard. You need to spend 180xp on the Curriculum to reach Rank 5(6) and you gain ~10xp each session (with a 6 hours game). That's roughly 18 session or 4 and 1/2 months (with one session each week) - let's count with 6 months to include out-of-Curriculum spendings, missed sessions, etc. That's not a whole lot if you ask me.

As for play beyond Rank 6, I can imagine some advanced Titles that can extend the "shelf life" of a character by a bunch of game sessions. Becoming a kenshinzen, an elemental master, or what have you...

Depends on the campaign style, really.

4 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Letting the game go to rank 6 is all the approval it needs... especially when used in self-defense.

Eeeehhh... Suppose it's a skirmish and Bayushi Bob has been kicking *** and taking out enemies left and right, but then gets shanked himself - I don't think him having been an illusion all along or having stepped out to be replaced with an illusion is really acceptable anymore. Or suppose Kitsuki Carl, another PC, finds some item that's incriminating to the Scorpion but they also feel very strongly should not get lost - I don't think Soshi Saul should simply get to say Carl was an illusion all along so he can pocket the mcguffin for his clan, regardless of anything else that's happened during the scene. There are limits, and they shouldn't just be enforced through the TN set for the check.

4 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

Eeeehhh... Suppose it's a skirmish and Bayushi Bob has been kicking *** and taking out enemies left and right, but then gets shanked himself - I don't think him having been an illusion all along or having stepped out to be replaced with an illusion is really acceptable anymore. Or suppose Kitsuki Carl, another PC, finds some item that's incriminating to the Scorpion but they also feel very strongly should not get lost - I don't think Soshi Saul should simply get to say Carl was an illusion all along so he can pocket the mcguffin for his clan, regardless of anything else that's happened during the scene. There are limits, and they shouldn't just be enforced through the TN set for the check.

It's perfectly reasonable - provided Bayushi Bobu (can't have a naked consonant) noted down his start of scene accumlables (Strife, Fatigue). Which, should I be playing one, would be de rigeur.

Sure, it feels like a cheap shot.. but... they thought they were dodging real blades, and so took real defensive moves and real fatigue. The crits are psychosomatic... Anything that "died" is merely convinced they are dying - I'd allow a TN1 at end of scene to wake up, and allow a free "Instant Unmask" upon next meeting Bobu.

No worse than the whole "They Shot JR" issue on Dallas. Or any of a number of Star Trek Episodes.

20 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

No worse than the whole "They Shot JR" issue on Dallas. Or any of a number of Star Trek Episodes.

I'm not sure we have anything to talk about if the plausibility of Dallas scenarios is supposed to be within parameters of immersive roleplay... ? But you do you.

I think that this should probably be talked about by the group involved when the possibility of a Rank 6 illusionist being in the game comes up. That way, each group can decide what they're comfortable with.

17 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

I'm not sure we have anything to talk about if the plausibility of Dallas scenarios is supposed to be within parameters of immersive roleplay... ? But you do you.

It's not about immersive roleplay; it's about nullification of extant narrative, but I guess you are ignorant of the situation it caused in its fanbase, and so cannot see the relevance. Heck, Dallas nullified most of a season with "It was just a dream."

The basic point is that it's a common enough trope in fiction that it shouldn't be a major verisimilitude issue if handled right. Here, have a dangerously time-wasting-rabbit-hole link to the trope on TVTropes. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/AllJustADream

36 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

It's not about immersive roleplay; it's about nullification of extant narrative, but I guess you are ignorant of the situation it caused in its fanbase, and so cannot see the relevance. Heck, Dallas nullified most of a season with "It was just a dream."

The basic point is that it's a common enough trope in fiction that it shouldn't be a major verisimilitude issue if handled right. Here, have a dangerously time-wasting-rabbit-hole link to the trope on TVTropes. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/AllJustADream

I'm talking about the L5R RPG. Again, you do you - but I'm not keen on applying soap opera standards to my L5R.

20 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

I'm talking about the L5R RPG. Again, you do you - but I'm not keen on applying soap opera standards to my L5R.

L5R is based upon pillow books (Per John Wick, and also noted for 5E specifically by Katrina Ostrander). Those are soap-opera style romances...

4 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

L5R is based upon pillow books (Per John Wick, and also noted for 5E specifically by Katrina Ostrander). Those are soap-opera style romances...

No, pillow books in L5R are comparable to our romance novels. Real life pillow books are more like diaries or personal notebooks, albeit sometimes containing themes that could correspond with those of a soap opera (the aristocracy and their failings, for instance). Sei Shonagon's pillow book, mentioned in the list of sources for L5R, was never even meant to be publicized or read by anyone other than the author.

I don't see the problem with World Of Shadows; am I missing something? The GM decides the TN based on the plausibility of what you're attempting, and has final say on what's acceptable. The MA does say "all along", but the actual sticking point of how long an illusion has been masquerading as reality can be as low as "at least a few moments". The GM has to sign off on how far back you go, and it's entirely plausible that they'll pull up your epic rewrite of Bayushi Bob never even existing, because he clearly was here to shiv Kakita Carl, has a backlog of nefarious actions that aren't illusory, and you only passed your gempukku this decade.

On 11/16/2018 at 12:08 AM, Avatar111 said:

what do we think of the Bayushi rank 6 ability ? doesn't it seem like "it will only ever be useful if the GM agrees to fall into the trap" ? meaning it isn't really a power in the player's hands more like the GM choose when it happens. I find that weird. thoughts?

So I went and re-read the ability, and I have no clue why you think you need to trap the GM.

You make a character think you have an advantage or disadvantage. If the character attempts to exploit it in some fashion, they auto-fail and suffer strife. We can argue about whether its strong enough to be on-par with other rank 6 abilities, but nothing about it reads "trick the GM."

Unless, I suppose, your GM is a meta-gaming A-hole who can't keep character knowledge separate from personal knowledge, but then you have so many other problems, I can't see why you're still with that GM.

If you're in a contest with another character, and they think they have leverage over you, why wouldn't that character try to exploit it? How would you explain them not taking advantage of knowing a way to manipulate you?

4 minutes ago, Hida Jitenno said:

So I went and re-read the ability, and I have no clue why you think you need to trap the GM.

You make a character think you have an advantage or disadvantage. If the character attempts to exploit it in some fashion, they auto-fail and suffer strife. We can argue about whether its strong enough to be on-par with other rank 6 abilities, but nothing about it reads "trick the GM."

Unless, I suppose, your GM is a meta-gaming A-hole who can't keep character knowledge separate from personal knowledge, but then you have so many other problems, I can't see why you're still with that GM.

If you're in a contest with another character, and they think they have leverage over you, why wouldn't that character try to exploit it? How would you explain them not taking advantage of knowing a way to manipulate you?

Not every npc have the mentality to "manipulate".

So basically, the scorpion player takes a chance and the GM decides if it makes sense for its NPC to try to leverage that knowledge.

The ability is just a lot into the GM's hands.

Sure, I'm a good GM and I will most of the time make the NPC try to spend a void point to manipulate the bayushi so it can trigger his ability.

But, I find it a bit of a weird design decision to leave it into the GM's hands because sometimes the GM will be right that it wouldn't make sense for the NPC to try to manipulate the bayushi, but then the scorpion player could be a bit sad that the ability only really works when the GM says it can.

Again, just a thought. I know in most games the GM will be nice enough.

2 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

Not every npc have the mentality to "manipulate".

No, but the player likely understands what kind of scene they're in when they decide to use it.

"Sake house, haha, I will screw with the guy that brought me the teapot!"

or

"Hey, I'm in an Intrigue scene attempting to discredit that Doji Courtier who wants to get the Emperor's niece to marry into his family!"

Hmm, I'm gonna have to think real hard about which of those two situations involves someone who may try to leverage my dis/advantage... This is really tough.

3 minutes ago, Hida Jitenno said:

No, but the player likely understands what kind of scene they're in when they decide to use it.

"Sake house, haha, I will screw with the guy that brought me the teapot!"

or

"Hey, I'm in an Intrigue scene attempting to discredit that Doji Courtier who wants to get the Emperor's niece to marry into his family!"

Hmm, I'm gonna have to think real hard about which of those two situations involves someone who may try to leverage my dis/advantage... This is really tough.

Actually, it is hard.

It is a Doji Courtier you are talking about.

But yeah, if you and your Bayushi player can come to a good understanding and logic of the moments it can apply in your game. Then it is gucci.

I just think this type of ability design is not to my liking. But I'll role with it.

We are just discussing here, nobody is right/wrong.

Its all for fun