5 hours ago, Franwax said:

Actually, incapacitated is not that big a deal if enemies discount you as “done for” and make the mistake not to finish you off. You can still get back into the fight with a (few) calming breath(s), and even if you’re too far out on the fatigue counter, you can still assist your buddies! (Though the latter is the perfect recipe to draw agro on yourself, at which point you deserve that crit).

That's nice if the GM wants to throw an incapacitated PC a bone, but realistically you either give up or the enemy makes sure you don't get up.

• Don't forget Warriors Resolve - that can burn off a lot of fatigue fast and doesn't require a check (although it does eat a void point).
• Your allies can assist in protecting you whilst you recover; there is a fire opportunity which increases the TN of an opponent's attacks if they don't include you as a target - which effectively translates to spending * as if they were bonus successes on the guard action the incapacitated player is (currently) incapable of.

Plus, I can perfectly picture an exhausted PC limping towards an enemy and clumsily trying to tackle them (and failing), which counts as a no-check Assist for the other PC coming from the other side. +1 rolled and kept skill die can help a lot.

From the enemy’s perspective, it’s not always a clear call: do you finish off the guy who, sure, is a pain but is not going to kill you or do you focus on the PCs still in fighting shape? It depends on which side has the numerical advantage and other factors. And if they do knock the incapacitated dude out, so be it, but at least that guy tried until the end. No reason to give up until that point if your comrades are still fighting.

And yes, warrior’s resolve!!

A lot of it will depend on the setting of the skirmish, too.

Some opponents (a relatively good natured bar brawl) wouldn't actively pursue a foe who dropped out of the melee 'for a quick breather' whilst others (shadowlander goblins pursuing a wounded foe) would take great glee in it.

And yes, between fire * increasing the TN to hit your incapacitated buddy and their assistance on a guard action increasing the TN to hit you, even with one of a pair of samurai incapacitated they can still make for a nice defensive formation 'back to back' whilst the rest of the PCs get their act together and win the fight.

A lot of it depends on if the GM is thinking about long term repercussions.

Same for the players.

L5R isn't D&D in tone nor mechanics; KTAATTS in a proper Rokugan-as-intended is a fast road to being put down like a rabid dog. (Remember Ol' Yeller?)

If one insists upon treating it as nothing more than "Asian D&D," the rules, especially the duels, will feel broken.

Thing is, duels are, in both Rokugan and Historical Japan, shockingly common and shockingly non-lethal. Killing another in a duel has HUGE consequences... and they are exacerbated heavily by any of: didn't get his lord's permission, didn't get your lord's permission, duel was over something minor, violated the agreed form. At best, a murderous duelist soon finds himself infamous and rōnin. At worst, his lord's other men slaughter him openly in the street... with anything other than katana... because he's not worthy of an honorable death.

Only on the battlefield was it fair to one-shot an Enemy.

45 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

A lot of it depends on if the GM is thinking about long term repercussions.

Same for the players.

L5R isn't D&D in tone nor mechanics; KTAATTS in a proper Rokugan-as-intended is a fast road to being put down like a rabid dog. (Remember Ol' Yeller?)

If one insists upon treating it as nothing more than "Asian D&D," the rules, especially the duels, will feel broken.

Thing is, duels are, in both Rokugan and Historical Japan, shockingly common and shockingly non-lethal. Killing another in a duel has HUGE consequences... and they are exacerbated heavily by any of: didn't get his lord's permission, didn't get your lord's permission, duel was over something minor, violated the agreed form. At best, a murderous duelist soon finds himself infamous and rōnin. At worst, his lord's other men slaughter him openly in the street... with anything other than katana... because he's not worthy of an honorable death.

Only on the battlefield was it fair to one-shot an Enemy.

we're going to need to have a talk with Miyamoto Musashi. The creator of the book of five rings, who was seeing dueling as a path to enlightenment and perfection.

and as much as narrative is important and great and fun and needed and the most important think in rpg (for real), it is no excuse for weak mechanical design. i love this game, but it needed more time on the oven, i find it extremely hard to believe the designer were totally ok with some of the rule the way they are written, it was more probably a case of mistakes were made and timer to send to printer was over, so they just press the "ship the shitt button" like they do in many industries.

edit: remember, a new player getting that rulebook have no way of understanding or even knowing your "etiquette" rules. you HAVE to consider this product as a stand alone that works by itself for new players.

For characters who can learn Kata, outside of school rank limiting them to Rank 1, are any schools limited by what kata they can learn? Same question for Shuji.

For characters who can learn Kata, outside of school rank limiting them to Rank 1, are any schools limited by what kata they can learn? Same question for Shuji.

44 minutes ago, Suimaru said:

For characters who can learn Kata, outside of school rank limiting them to Rank 1, are any schools limited by what kata they can learn? Same question for Shuji.

If your school has access to the technique types Kata and Shuji, you can learn every one of them that is up to your current school rank, and that does not have another prerequisite. Right now, the only ones in that last case are the clan-based techniques (Lord Bayushi's Whispers, Akodo's Roar, Shiba's valor, etc.). These are limited to a single clan.

Then, the other aspect is that those may or may not count towards your advancement for their full XP value. This is determined by the curriculum table of your school for each rank. If the technique you are buying is in there, it counts for its full value to completing the rank. If not, it only counts for half, but you can still buy it.

19 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

edit: remember, a new player getting that rulebook have no way of understanding or even knowing your "etiquette" rules. you HAVE to consider this product as a stand alone that works by itself for new players.

Uh, no. The corebook is pretty clearly NOT a standalone. The Rokugan setting book is fairly clearly intended to be the core setting. Likewise, the Beginner Game is fairly well presumed.

Newbs are expected to buy the Beginner Box. Then both the core and Rokugan.

The relative lack of templates is also indicative.

The difference in tone is explicit on page 6 (sidebar)

Thanks

5 hours ago, Franwax said:

If your school has access to the technique types Kata and Shuji, you can learn every one of them that is up to your current school rank, and that does not have another prerequisite. Right now, the only ones in that last case are the clan-based techniques (Lord Bayushi's Whispers, Akodo's Roar, Shiba's valor, etc.). These are limited to a single clan.

Then, the other aspect is that those may or may not count towards your advancement for their full XP value. This is determined by the curriculum table of your school for each rank. If the technique you are buying is in there, it counts for its full value to completing the rank. If not, it only counts for half, but you can still buy it.

Thanks. Now, for the techniques that aren't listed, since they cost 3 xp if only half is applied, does that round up or down? Also, does that mean that Shugenja schools can also buy any invocations of a certain element that is listed in their school such as the Isawa being able to learn Rank 1 Fire Invocations as well as Dance of Seasons.

3 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Uh, no. The corebook is pretty clearly NOT a standalone. The Rokugan setting book is fairly clearly intended to be the core setting. Likewise, the Beginner Game is fairly well presumed.

Newbs are expected to buy the Beginner Box. Then both the core and Rokugan.

The relative lack of templates is also indicative.

The difference in tone is explicit on page 6 (sidebar)

[Newbs] is kind of redundant here. Everybody is new to this system, and FFG wants everybody to buy as much of their products as possible.

I'm looking forward to Emerald Empire 5th ed, because we're all to an extent newbs to Rokugan 5th ed too. A lot will be the same, but there are certainly indications in the core book that a not insignificant part is not.

4 hours ago, Suimaru said:

Thanks

Thanks. Now, for the techniques that aren't listed, since they cost 3 xp if only half is applied, does that round up or down? Also, does that mean that Shugenja schools can also buy any invocations of a certain element that is listed in their school such as the Isawa being able to learn Rank 1 Fire Invocations as well as Dance of Seasons.

Page 98 says “rounded up” (in the section on spending XP out of curriculum).

For the Isawa’s case, they can buy every rank 1 invocation they want, plus Dance of Seasons despite it being a Rank 2 technique (privileged access marked with a diamond shape). They get full XP for that one as well as for any Fire invocation they buy during rank 1; and only 2 XP worth of advancement for other elements, including Water invocations that are not Dance of Seasons.

Well, we had a rather successful second session and my players seemed to enjoy the game that much more. They got their first venture into the shadowlands. Ran into 6 Goblins, they started to understand the lethality of combat, when the fatigue damage started to pile on, and the only thing that kept them from dying was the Shugenja tossing a timely Path to Inner Peace. Then next round using The Fires from Within to incapacitate three of the Goblins.

9 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

I'm looking forward to Emerald Empire 5th ed, because we're all to an extent newbs to Rokugan 5th ed too. A lot will be the same, but there are certainly indications in the core book that a not insignificant part is not.

Agreed. Whilst we've been told "until specifically stated otherwise, assume anything happening before the 1120s happened the way you remember from older editions" that's emphatically not the same as "we're not going to retcon it, we just haven't yet".

Most characters have a personality more or less in accordance with the characters you remember - Bayushi Shoju is "whatever it takes", Ikoma Ujiaki is still a bit of a tool, Kakita Toshimoko is still a bit of a Rokugani-fied escapee from an Errol Flynn movie.

The new characters are new. Doji Hoturi is emphatically not just a gender-swapped Doji Hotaru. And several things are new; the Tsunami, the Perfect Land Sect, for example.

1 hour ago, Suimaru said:

Well, we had a rather successful second session and my players seemed to enjoy the game that much more. They got their first venture into the shadowlands. Ran into 6 Goblins, they started to understand the lethality of combat, when the fatigue damage started to pile on, and the only thing that kept them from dying was the Shugenja tossing a timely Path to Inner Peace. Then next round using The Fires from Within to incapacitate three of the Goblins.

Yeah.... A lot of people hear the word "minions" and assume the generic NPC opponents should be D&D-esque cardboard cutout opponents who are there to die in ridiculous numbers to show how awesome the samurai are. Which is sort of true, but "ridiculous numbers" means two-or-three-to-one, not slaughtering their way through entire platoons....

When using invocations does the player's character have to be in a stance matching the invocation's element?

40 minutes ago, Suimaru said:

When using invocations does the player's character have to be in a stance matching the invocation's element?

Like all techniques that require a specific element to be rolled, yes.

Quick question, how useful is divination? I've been looking it over and I don't see it getting used.

2 minutes ago, Suimaru said:

Quick question, how useful is divination? I've been looking it over and I don't see it getting used.

Honestly, it's super useful. There's no real reason not to use it as often as possible (strife possibly being the one downside). I personally dislike the whole thing because of this.

1 hour ago, nameless ronin said:

Honestly, it's super useful. There's no real reason not to use it as often as possible (strife possibly being the one downside). I personally dislike the whole thing because of this.

It sometimes even feels better to fail it with an opportunity than to succeed... especially if your group runs short sessions or with not many downtime periods.

Okay, cause there'll be a downtime period coming up to give the PCs time to do stuff before they get sucked into a mass battle.

7 hours ago, Suimaru said:

Quick question, how useful is divination? I've been looking it over and I don't see it getting used.

Since it's not changed, it's well worth it if there's a downtime scene prior to a known big roll. it's a bonus kept Opportunity +Strife result.

I see. I'll have to let him know about this. Also, I plan to have my players go into the Slow Tide Harbor adventure next. They've gained 11 exp so far and 6 exp into their school, out of 20. i plan to give them some extra exp at the conclusion of this, if they can achieve certain events. Before I start them on this, I read over it and... I dunno if they'd be ready for this, it almost seems like they'd need to be at rank 2 in their school, or close to it, for this.

Well, it is supposed to be scaled to the group rank of the PCs, so broadly, yes. Asif (for the sake of argument) and Gaku are both conflict rank 4.

If you've got 4 players, at rank 2:

Quote

If the group rank is roughly equal to the encounter rank, the PCs are generally matched with the force of NPCs. They most likely have a solid chance of prevailing, though they could still lose if they grow overconfident (or fortune forsakes them).

Meaning the two of them together is a 'fair fight' without minions.

If your players are rank 1:

Quote

If the group rank is 0.5 times the encounter rank or lower, the PCs are significantly outmatched—cunning or luck will be needed to take the day, and this might even be a battle best avoided!

The Battle at the docks is pretty nasty if you've got the recommended forces: Gaku is Conflict Rank 4, Asif Conflict Rank 4 and 2 Gaijin Crew per PC (2 x 4 x 1) Conflict Rank 8.

That's a net rank of 16 if you let them all fight the PCs en masse, plus Kitsu Sokori lobbing evil ju-ju at them from across the water. That - by their ready reckoner - would be a tough fight even for 4 rank 2 PCs.

You can - if they're not up to it - balance the matter out with some smart roleplaying on the part of the PCs or with a few opportunities strewn in their way to do the same. If Asif is the villain, then logically the other 'potential' villains are not. Since Kasuga Yumiko can also normally be found on the docks with a bunch of Tortoise Clan samurai in tow; having her intervene in the battle (assuming the PCs haven't been a problem for Boss Kizo) might tip the scales - if she and hers can handle the minions it drops back to the PCs versus Gaku and Asif - more of a fair (if challenging) fight for 4 rank 1 players. Fortunately, owing their lives to a Gang Boss when you're Emerald Magistrates doesn't create a conflict of interest in any way and I'm sure the problem won't come back to haunt them in future dealings with Slow Tide Harbour and the Tortoise Clan.

I only have 3 players, hmm... this may complicate things.