I'm probably missing something obvious here, but how is it possible to kill someone in a single crit with a Katana? With Deadliness 5, does that not mean that you will always do a 'Debilitating Gash' (unless reduced by opponent)?

Finishing Blow (Severity = DLS x2 plus Bonus Successes) or techniques/school abilities. Also if you two-hand a Katana you get +2 Deadliness.

Awesome, thanks!

A Katana is also a razor-edged weapon, so opportunities can increase its Deadliness... but except via finishing blow, it is remarkably hard to one-hit kill a healthy target. It’s probably better for the game to be enjoyable though.

1 hit kill requires a severity 12 or higher crit.

Outside of technique use, you cannot do a 1-attack kill. (opportunity iis resolved before success/failure, per pages 24-25.) This is because the primary ways of critting without techniques are

1. attacking someone who is incapacitated (Fatigue > Endurance), which generates a crit of severity equal to the weapon's deadliness
2. spending 2 ✻ to generate a critical strike

Only a handful of techniques directly turn an attack into a critical, and most of those have specific limitations, and they cannot use the 2 ✻ spend to critical again.

Razor Edged weapons can spend ✻+ to increase the deadliness.

Now, if you can cause them to be incapacitated before you attack, a katana can do some SERIOUS damage... 5 base, +2 for two-handed, puts it into scar range. Throw on 2 ✻ , and it is crits of same, which, per the sidebar, can be a "Dying 5" result instead of the second scar. Plus, they're unconscious after the first, and thus the second is thus +10 severity...

pretty much, you cannot replicate with L5R 5 (nor, really, L5R3) the "Cut two bound men in half with a katana". (It's also worth noting that a good sword of any kind can cleave through an unarmored man with the right swing angle and force. It's a matter of skill and leverage more than fine aspects of weapon design.)

Another way to increase the critical severity is the enraged condition. +2 severity to all crits dealt and received... meaning that if both opponents are in that state, all crits severity is increased by 4!

Come to think of it, two-handed grip katana + 2 enraged combatants + a couple of razor-edged opportunities can take you to the 12+ severity band. So I guess it is possible, provided that tempers flare

High rank kakita would have an easier time as well, with their school ability (increase or decrease Crit by rank).

But even with that keep in mind characters get to make a TN 1 fitness check to lower the severity, so you would probably need to go well beyond 12 for insta-kill in most cases.

3 hours ago, Arolem said:

High rank kakita would have an easier time as well, with their school ability (increase or decrease Crit by rank).

But even with that keep in mind characters get to make a TN 1 fitness check to lower the severity, so you would probably need to go well beyond 12 for insta-kill in most cases.

insta-kill is 16+; 12-15 is just "Dying soon."

Also, if the difficulty of outright kills irks a player group, consider "Grittier Games" (Page 289 sidebar) - amongst other rules it gives all weapons a blanket +4 deadliness. Just don't blame me if everyone's dead by the end of the session.

Nothing says gritty like people biting each other's limbs off and cats sending heads flying if they bat you about while you're asleep.

On 11/24/2018 at 6:28 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

Also, if the difficulty of outright kills irks a player group, consider "Grittier Games" (Page 289 sidebar) - amongst other rules it gives all weapons a blanket +4 deadliness. Just don't blame me if everyone's dead by the end of the session.

I think I'd like a slightly higher deadliness across the board, to be honest. Not +4 though. For one, because that's a much bigger deal for NPCs than for PCs. For another, because weapons are semi-balanced around the total of their stats (not the mathematical total, but weapons with high DLS tend to be less than average in other ways and vice versa). And thirdly - mostly an addendum to point 2 - because there'd be silliness like DLS 10 concealable razor-edged knives. +1 DLS to everything though, I'm up for that.

2 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

I think I'd like a slightly higher deadliness across the board, to be honest. Not +4 though. For one, because that's a much bigger deal for NPCs than for PCs. For another, because weapons are semi-balanced around the total of their stats (not the mathematical total, but weapons with high DLS tend to be less than average in other ways and vice versa). And thirdly - mostly an addendum to point 2 - because there'd be silliness like DLS 10 concealable razor-edged knives. +1 DLS to everything though, I'm up for that.

Increasing deadliness makes iaijutsu cuts a bit too insane though.

Not sure they thought about that when making that optional rule.

So unless you modifiy the iaijutsu techniques rules... can you imagine +4 deadliness crossing cut using a knife that sheath back after each attacks. Hehe.

The gritty rule is very much to suddenly make everything a grindhouse-type movie. Y'know, the choreography is so bad that you can see you didn't even hit that guy, yet his arm flies off an a few liters of red corn syrup gets pumped out of hose.

43 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

Increasing deadliness makes iaijutsu cuts a bit too insane though.

Not sure they thought about that when making that optional rule.

So unless you modifiy the iaijutsu techniques rules... can you imagine +4 deadliness crossing cut using a knife that sheath back after each attacks. Hehe.

It'd be 9 DLS 9 DMG with a katana, 8/8 with a knife. Pretty gruesome, particularly if you add the other benefits of the cuts. But the otsuchi would be at 8/8 without kata as well though, to put it in context. Now, Heartpiercing Strike... That'd be a whole other can of worms.

1 hour ago, nameless ronin said:

It'd be 9 DLS 9 DMG with a katana, 8/8 with a knife. Pretty gruesome, particularly if you add the other benefits of the cuts. But the otsuchi would be at 8/8 without kata as well though, to put it in context. Now, Heartpiercing Strike... That'd be a whole other can of worms.

Yeah, crossing you can also increase the dmg with the opportunities cause of razor edge! Its much stronger than a regular strike (aside that it cant crit). With a knife, concealble and razor-edged, it allows you to use it every round even without water ring. +4 deadliness? More busted than it already is lol.

Edit; yeah HPS +4 deadliness. Ooof!

10 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

The gritty rule is very much to suddenly make everything a grindhouse-type movie. Y'know, the choreography is so bad that you can see you didn't even hit that guy, yet his arm flies off an a few liters of red corn syrup gets pumped out of hose.

It's not even just that; there's also the 'worsening injuries' rule - where a wound gets one grade worse (wounded>gravely wounded>dying) at the end of the scene if not successfully 'first aided' and bleeding kills you if not removed.

And yeah, it's pretty brutal with a lot of techniques and weapons. Basically it massively, massively increases the importance of things like the Air Ring, the Guard Action and the Crescent Moon Style Kata, because not-getting-hit-in-the-first-place becomes the most reliable form of defence.

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

It's not even just that; there's also the 'worsening injuries' rule - where a wound gets one grade worse (wounded>gravely wounded>dying) at the end of the scene if not successfully 'first aided' and bleeding kills you if not removed.

And yeah, it's pretty brutal with a lot of techniques and weapons. Basically it massively, massively increases the importance of things like the Air Ring, the Guard Action and the Crescent Moon Style Kata, because not-getting-hit-in-the-first-place becomes the most reliable form of defence.

Guard action is really good. No doubt!!

But Air ring.. bah..

For full tanking i'd rather be earth (no crits!!) And striking as earth or earth opp to increase phys res. It is beastly.

Fire also helps versus criticals, so i'd probably rate it as defensive as air, maybe a bit less but not that much, for combat that is.

5 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

For full tanking i'd rather be earth (no crits!!) And striking as earth or earth opp to increase phys res. It is beastly.

No crits from spending opportunity . Really good. Until it isn't. 😛

33 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

No crits from spending opportunity . Really good. Until it isn't. 😛

if you have a beastly phys res. the no crit on opportunity becomes exponentially better. the more phys res you have, the more the no crit on opportunity becomes because you are only rarely incapacitated since you tank fatigue dmg so much.

hence why earth and striking as earth is THE stance to tank, and air is a gamble (and not such a good gamble) for defense.

9 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

hence why earth and striking as earth is THE stance to tank, and air is a gamble (and not such a good gamble) for defense.

Seems like a pretty good gamble at least at the start. A minimaxed PC will role 6k3 at character generation (3 ring dice, 3 skill dice) and needs 3 successes to hit a TN3 Air stance. That would essentially require all their keeps to achieve. Now yes, there's a 1 in 12 chance of your opponent rolling success/opp on each of your skill dice, so the chances of someone getting 3 successes AND 2 opportunities is not zero. But until that someone spends the 20 experience needed for attack ring 4, attack skill 4, it's not much of a gamble. Am I missing something here?

21 minutes ago, easl said:

Seems like a pretty good gamble at least at the start. A minimaxed PC will role 6k3 at character generation (3 ring dice, 3 skill dice) and needs 3 successes to hit a TN3 Air stance. That would essentially require all their keeps to achieve. Now yes, there's a 1 in 12 chance of your opponent rolling success/opp on each of your skill dice, so the chances of someone getting 3 successes AND 2 opportunities is not zero. But until that someone spends the 20 experience needed for attack ring 4, attack skill 4, it's not much of a gamble. Am I missing something here?

2/12 explosion on skill dice

1/6 explosion on ring dice

your chance of rolling an explosion on 6 dices (no matter if ring or skill dice since 1/6 for both) is 66.51%

edit: and other ways to reduce TN or add opportunities to your roll etc.

earth stance + high phys rez is much safer. unless someone use striking as water on you, or supernatural dmg.

12 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

if you have a beastly phys res. the no crit on opportunity becomes exponentially better. the more phys res you have, te more the no crit on opportunity becomes.

hence why earth is THE stance to tank, and air is a gamble (and not such a good gamble) for defense.

Unless you can reduce the damage to 0, getting hit is a bad thing. Massive endurance still runs out in the end. I think where we come down on what's most useful depends heavily on what kind of enemies the GM throws our way though. That said, Striking as Earth can be a very, very useful kata.

(obligatory comment on the core book's editing: resistance is really poorly explained and especially referenced in the index)

2 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Unless you can reduce the damage to 0, getting hit is a bad thing. Massive endurance still runs out in the end. I think where we come down on what's most useful depends heavily on what kind of enemies the GM throws our way though. That said, Striking as Earth can be a very, very useful kata.

(obligatory comment on the core book's editing: resistance is really poorly explained and especially referenced in the index)

i mean a big badarse phys 4 resist armor is already pretty champ vs a katana as is... good luck doing more than 1 or 2 fatigue.

if the guy have striking as earth... and like 14 endurance... you better roll really, really good. or bring a tetsubo.

1 minute ago, Avatar111 said:

i mean a big badarse phys 4 resist armor is already pretty champ vs a katana as is... good luck doing more than 1 or 2 fatigue.

if the guy have striking as earth... and like 14 endurance... you better roll really, really good. or bring a tetsubo.

Or just roll often . Roll often enough as a GM and you'll get those massive results eventually. Weight of numbers and all that. That's the issue PCs face: no matter how many opponents you defeat, there's always new ones.

When I'm a player myself, it makes a big difference to me whether I'm facing a few elite opponents or a large number of not particularly strong mooks.

4 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Or just roll often . Roll often enough as a GM and you'll get those massive results eventually. Weight of numbers and all that. That's the issue PCs face: no matter how many opponents you defeat, there's always new ones.

When I'm a player myself, it makes a big difference to me whether I'm facing a few elite opponents or a large number of not particularly strong mooks.

sure but then, i'd still rather be turtling in earth stance than air stance. isn't that the discussion ?

a mean GM would have his ashigaru mooks have the striking as water technique! thats how you gangbang!