Me and my group have finished the Game Master's Kit Adventure and we have some questions about Spend XP, and Characters Advance:

Question:

1) - There is a good reason for Rings to not count XP towards the School Rank Advancement? I Feel that player want to advance in the school, but need to upgrade the Rings, and that causes a Bad Feels.

2) - For what I read on the Errata, If I'm Rank 2, only Skills, and Techniques from THAT rank count for the Rank 2 Advancement Table. But can I still buy a Skill or Technique from Rank 1 (And that would go to the Rank 1 Advancement Table?)

3) - Can I buy multiple times the same Skill? (Ex: I have Command on my Rank 1 Adv Table, Can I buy 3 times (At cost of 2 XP + 4XP + 6XP) to have it at level 3?). If there is a Skill Group (Like Martial Skill), there is any difference?

Thanks for the Att,

Xupim

Hi,

1) remember all xp spent outside of the curriculum still count for half their value. So Rings are still a big chunk of your first rank completion, even counting only half the xp spent on them.

2) If you’re rank 2, you don’t care about filling your rank 1 curriculum anymore. It is full. You can still buy stuff that was in the rank 1 section if you would normally have access to it, counting half the xp value towards your rank 2 advancement. The exception from the errata concerns “special access” techniques, which you normally could not get (e.g. the Togashi monks can only buy Open Hand Style at rank 2: it’s a Kata, a category which they do not have access to).

3) Yea you sure can!

1) Things that are not in your curriculum at the level you are in but you are allowed to advance in, give you half the xp spent to advance. That includes rings, for everyone and at every curriculum rank.

2) It doesn't work quite like that. First, you can always advance any ring and any skill you want regardless of school or where you are at in the curriculum. Second, your school determines which types of techniques you can normally advance in: the ones under "techniques available" can always be advanced in, again regardless of anything else. Third, if the curriculum lists a technique you can't normally advance in, either because it's not a type of tech you're allowed by your "techniques available" or because it has a higher rank than you currently qualify for, you can take that technique anyway - but only while you're at that rank of your curriculum (this matters for instance for the various ninjutsu techniques or the Kaito Shrine Keeper's invocations). As in answer 1, you get the full xp if whatever you're advancing is in your current curriculum rank; if not, you get half xp.

3) Absolutely.

4) Ninja'ed by @Franwax . Dishonor on me! Much Glory on him. 😛

4 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Ninja'ed  by @Franwax . Dishonor on me! Much Glory on hi  m. 😛

No dishonor here ! I’m sure Xupim will be reassured to have two concurring opinions from different sources

Thanks guys. We will be updating the Characters Sheets.

I really thought that you could only buy once each skill. And that would be a capping system, so you don't se a Rank 1 bushi with a 5 Skill level. But as the ring itself is a capping mechanic, it should not make any problem.

Separate advancement question:

Say my school gives me access to something nifty that is usually a Tier 2 technique at Tier 1 level of the school. How much do does it cost to buy? Does it cost as a Tier 1 technique because I get it at Tier 1? Or does it cost the full T2 price and it’s just an opportunity to buy it early?

Thx for clarification.

2 minutes ago, Void Crane said:

Separate advancement question:

Say my school gives me access to something nifty that is usually a Tier 2 technique at Tier 1 level of the school. How much do does it cost to buy? Does it cost as a Tier 1 technique because I get it at Tier 1? Or does it cost the full T2 price and it’s just an opportunity to buy it early?

Thx for clarification.

All techniques cost the same price, regardless of the rank: 3xp (they say 'unless specified in the tech's entry' but I did not spot any that listed a different price). cf. p. 173

Really? How did I miss that? Thx! ::goes back to look::

4 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

2) [...] Third, if the curriculum lists a technique you can't normally advance in, either because it's not a type of tech you're allowed by your "techniques available" or because it has a higher rank than you currently qualify for, you can take that technique anyway - but only while you're at that rank of your curriculum (this matters for instance for the various ninjutsu techniques or the Kaito Shrine Keeper's invocations) . [...]

I will add the various titles curriculum to the ninjutsu and Kaito examples above, as a place where exclusive access can happen quite a lot for techniques not allowed in your school's "techniques available".

If "rushing to buy something because it won't be available anymore soon" doesn't sit right with you (as if the sensei will disappear or refuse you because "you're too advanced already"), I suggest you houserule this. As GM, you'll want to keep options open to avoid abuse. So something like:

"With GM approval, you may be allowed to purchase a technique with exclusive access from a completed school rank or completed title, though it will be considered out-of-curriculum at that point. Ask your GM early, before overlooking such techniques, to avoid surprises when it's too late."

@Agasha Kanetake Yes, I think that is a very good idea. For now I want to see how them react, reestrutures their sheets.

Then I will talk to everyone to see what they have come with, what problems they have and etc...

5 hours ago, Xupim said:

I really thought that you could only buy once each skill. And that would be a capping system, so you don't se a Rank 1 bushi with a 5 Skill level. But as the ring itself is a capping mechanic, it should not make any problem.

As an aside, increasing a skill from rank 2 to rank 5 - assuming it's part of your curriculum rank 1 - is enough to fill the first rank of your curriculum completely without taking any other advancements whatsoever. Getting a single skill to rank 5 while still remaining at school rank 1 is possible, but it's not particularly effective. In practice skill ranks are unlikely to go very high before school rank 3, aside from (maybe, not always) one key skill that is essential for the character.

I asked this in another post but I’ll ask it here. The invocations(hmm probably cause I called it spells oopsie) do you get on one or all of the level you can buy at. Example let’s say it’s say fire rank 1 do ya get all level ones in fire invocation ? Then if it say earth levels 1-3 do ya get all of the level you pick and do ya have to get previous levels first?

6 hours ago, Zuldan said:

I asked this in another post but I’ll ask it here. The invocations(hmm probably cause I called it spells oopsie) do you get on one or all of the level you can buy at. Example let’s say it’s say fire rank 1 do ya get all level ones in fire invocation ? Then if it say earth levels 1-3 do ya get all of the level you pick and do ya have to get previous levels first?

Invocations are techniques. You have to buy them with XP, just like any other type of technique. If a particular rank in your curriculum mentions "1-3 Fire invocations" that only means two things: first, that you have access to these invocations and can learn them, regardless of what your school allows you to learn; and second, that the full amount of XP you spend on these counts towards filling your school rank. You don't get any freebies, that's only for when you start in a school.