25 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

My preference is "deadly as all ****" because you should absolutely feel like your character is living 2 feet from death in this game. But I think most people wouldn't like that very much .

Do you consider the dying condition deadly enough?

Or being chopped everywhere is deadly enough? You are the one who mentioned the black knight effect. I'm trying to figure out where a GM should put the bar for it to be enjoyable for you.

Thing is, right now I am confused that basically the system never kills you, but will maim you all the time.

If you say a 5 success is easy to achieve at rank 3, then a "dying condition" is nothing dangerous. Since you can keep fighting and acting while dying, any party member (or yourself) can just give you a slap in the back while you are performing your insane sword fighting technique to remove the dying condition from you. Ultimately, if you don't chop off bits, how do you make dying feel dangerous or the combat threatening?

1 hour ago, AtoMaki said:

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

What  would be the sweet spot for you to make it fun/threatning and avoid the black knight effect? 

My preference is "deadly as all ****" because you should absolutely feel like your character is living 2 feet from death in this game. But I think m  ost people wouldn't like that very much . 

It makes a strong argument for discussion and negotiations to avoid permanent maiming injuries... and the constant reminder of one's shame in defeat, which is worse than death right? The rules are just there, the setting let's you apply them as needed. If my PC is contemplating bite attacks after losing both arms, please just finish him off so he can die with a smidgen of dignity.

15 minutes ago, T_Kageyasu said:

It makes a strong argument for discussion and negotiations to avoid permanent maiming injuries... and the constant reminder of one's shame in defeat, which is worse than death right? The rules are just there, the setting let's you apply them as needed. If my PC is contemplating bite attacks after losing both arms, please just finish him off so he can die with a smidgen of dignity.

permanent maiming injuries are fine, they are actually worst than death, because you can remove a Dying condition with ease eventually (soon enough) while permanent injuries are not possible to heal. Which makes them, worst, than the dying condition.

that is why many people come here and ask questions or are confused; "this system never kills you? it just maims you?"

well, yes. that it does.

and you will lose arms and legs and eyes and many other parts before you actually die.
at that point though, lets go back to one of my previous statement:
"you don't "die" in this game, your character just become so scarred, crippled, amputated, disfigured that he/she decides to call it a life and retire."

which goes back to what you just said about dignity.

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

Do you consider the dying condition deadly enough?

Or being chopped everywhere is deadly enough?

No and no.

Quote

I'm  trying to figure out where a GM should put the bar for it to be enjoyable for you.

If a sufficiently skilled character can't kill another with a single unprepared strike, then you ain't playing my game . In a rules revision that floated around our table if you crit'd an unarmored guy using your Void Ring and a Katana in two-handed grip then you instantly decapitated them - now that's pretty much where I would set the bar.

8 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

No and no.

If a sufficiently skilled character can't kill another with a single unprepared strike, then you ain't playing my game . In a rules revision that floated around our table if you crit'd an unarmored guy using your Void Ring and a Katana in two-handed grip then you instantly decapitated them - now that's pretty much where I would set the bar.

well, thx for sharing your rule. but no

I'm looking for something deadly/threatening, without the black knight effect. Not insta kill if you are not in earth stance

28 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

No and no.

If a sufficiently skilled character can't kill another with a single unprepared strike, then you ain't playing my game . In a rules revision that floated around our table if you crit'd an unarmored guy using your Void Ring and a Katana in two-handed grip then you instantly decapitated them - now that's pretty much where I would set the bar.

I'm not sure that I'd want something quite so arbitrarily deadly as that,

But I guess if you really wanted to up the lethality, you could consider changing the rule for strikes to "each bonus success adds two to the damage dealt and the severity of any Critical Strikes scored" or something like that?

6 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

If a sufficiently skilled    character can't kill another with a single unprepared strike, then you ain't playing my g  ame

Brings to mind Tenchu, where insta-kill in one strike was only possible when targets were unaware.

Just spit balling here, but maybe the assailant and target could make contested checks of skullduggery/athletics vs vigilance outside combat, or contested tactics checks in combat to prevent an enemy from using "dodge" to mitigate damage by gaining fatigue in the next strike action. Earth stance only prevents the use of opportunity for critical hits, but if you can't take fatigue, the damage needs to go somewhere.

My problem with it is that this should not be the case. Most duels (and conflicts) are ' a sufficiently skilled character trying to kill an equally sufficiently skilled character prepared for the attack'

If the opponent is not 'prepared' or ready then dont roll. Just narrate it. It would probably be murder as well....jmo

9 minutes ago, T_Kageyasu said:

Brings to mind Tenchu, where insta-kill in one strike was only possible when targets were unaware.

Just spit balling here, but maybe the assailant and target could make contested checks of skullduggery/athletics vs vigilance outside combat, or contested tactics checks in combat to prevent an enemy from using "dodge" to mitigate damage by gaining fatigue in the next strike action. Earth stance only prevents the use of opportunity for critical hits, but if you can't take fatigue, the damage needs to go somewhere.

its not me who said that! why you have my name in the quote

10 minutes ago, Matrim said:

My problem with it is that this should not be the case. Most duels (and conflicts) are ' a sufficiently skilled character trying to kill an equally sufficiently skilled character prepared for the attack'

If the opponent is not 'prepared' or ready then dont roll. Just narrate it. It would probably be murder as well....jmo

not prepared sounds like a +10 crit severity "uncouncious/unaware" condition to me. At least, you could narrate and rule it as such for a situation where the target is totally unaware of the danger (though he could spend a void point to become "aware" in the case of a PC).

my issue still stand though, how to make the game feels more threatening without just chopping off parts all the time.
is the Dying condition doing its job ? at being the standard threatening condition ? To me it feels like it is such a push over condition compared to being maimed. and, maiming is so much easier to achieve than putting the dying condition on someone.

there is my issue.

3 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

its not me who said that! why you have my name in the quote

Weird, must have accidentally included you in a quote by AtoMaki.

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

Not insta kill if you are not in earth stance

1 hour ago, gareth_lazelle said:

But I guess if you really wanted to up the lethality, you could consider changing the rule for strikes to "each bonus success adds two to the damage dealt and the severity of any Critical Strikes scored" or something like that?

The rules revise that was floating around our table had the following in terms of deadliness:

• PCs had 10 Wounds, period. There were some options that could increase it by 2 or so, but that's all.
• Characters had a derived stat running between 1 and 5 that passively reduced the amount of Wounds suffered. But only the Wounds.
• Armor ran between 1 (Concealable Armor) and 5 (Heavy Armor), and it reduced both Wounds suffered and critical damage.
• Weapons had a Damage Rating (Wounds caused) between 1 and 10, with 5 being the rough average but only 7+ being considered worthwhile. Critical Rating (Deadliness) also ran between 1 and 10 with the average being closer to 4 and 8+ being extremely rare. No Weapon Qualities, each weapon had distinctive special rules, and some weapons were intentionally made very nasty as they are supposed to be go-to choices. For example, the Katana had CR 8 and for an Opp it could ignore 2 points of armor, while the Tetsubo had DR 9 and for an Opp it ignored the derived stat passive soak altogether.
• Once a character suffered 10+ Wounds they started dying: they become Compromised and must spend a Void Point to take an Action or make a Skill Check. Suffer just one more Wound or screw around for too long, and the character dies. Dying is not a condition and the only way to remove it is to go <10 Wounds somehow (downtime activity Medicine healing is essentially the only option).
• The critical damage table went from 0 to 10, and the damage depended on the attacker's Ring. 0 was Conditions (Dazed, Prone, etc.), 1-3 was Injured Arm/Chest/Abdomen/Leg/Head, 4-6 was crippling injury, 7-9 was losing the body part (critical 7-9 from a Void attack was losing your head so instant death), and 10+ was automatic death. So a two-handed Katana strike using Void decapitated the target with a crit unless they wore heavy armor.
• Parry was simply -5 critical damage severity for a Void Point.
• Finishing Blow was a thing in every Conflict type.
• There was no free movement and you couldn't move and attack in the same Turn sans some very niche techniques. The basic Attack action also allowed up to two attacks (and nothing else). The move action also allowed you to move the enemy. So while the lethality was fairly high once the weapons were out (drawing weapons was a free action), moving those weapons to strike distance was kinda hard - weapons with reach ruled, techniques were extremely important, fighting without a plan was death, and good teamwork always won the battle.
• No Stances whatsoever, by the way. So no Earth Stance to deny criticals, and no Water Stance to move and attack.

The few tests we ran were fun, especially where two characters started apart with melee weapons and the whole fight devolved into a game of chicken as neither of them was really willing to step into weapon range first.

48 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

The rules revise that was floating around our table had the following in terms of deadliness:

• ....etc

Too complicated, Too much of a change. This is basically a new game, not just fixes to some of l5r design issues!

3 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

Too complexe, Too much of a change. This is basically a new game, not just fixes to some of l5r design issues!

Well, yes, the changes are obviously very extensive.

7 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Well, yes, the changes are obviously very extensive.

I was expecting a light and miraculously well streamlined and designed fix that integrated itself in the core system seamlessly while fixing the major issues of the critical/dying rules.

lets go!!

Gentlebeings, Might I suggest that your house rules discussion belongs in house rules, not in Rules Questions.

18 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

Gentlebeings, Might I suggest that your house rules discussion belongs in house rules, not in Rules Questions.

such a party pooper.

On 2/18/2019 at 1:05 PM, Avatar111 said:

you don't "die" in this game, your character just become so scarred, crippled, amputated, disfigured that he/she decides to call it a life and retire.

One happy accident of this system is that my buddy’s Mantis pirate, who uses water stance, got a foot cut off and an eye cut out. Now he really does look like a pirate! But of course the next maiming blow he takes either cuts off his other foot or his other eye, at which point he really cannot be a PC anymore unless they start making Rokugan handicap accessible.

Just now, AndyDay303 said:

One happy accident of this system is that my buddy’s Mantis pirate, who uses water stance, got a foot cut off and an eye cut out. Now he really does look like a pirate! But of course the next maiming blow he takes either cuts off his other foot or his other eye, at which point he really cannot be a PC anymore unless they start making Rokugan handicap accessible.

no clue how you ended up with that amount of Severity to maim him that much unless 3-4 NPC attacked him before his turn came back. care to explain ?

This wasn’t in a single fight. It was two separate duels.

Somehow he won a duel where he got his foot cut off...???

58 minutes ago, AndyDay303 said:

This wasn’t in a single fight. It was two separate duels.

Somehow he won a duel where he got his foot cut off...???

Oh yeah, duels... Lol.

So sad 😕