Konnichi wa mina,

As far as I understood, in this game steel, don't bite unless you're hit by a critical strike. You receive points of fatigue instead, to simulate you somehow dodge or parry the blows and that your armour protects you.

Therefore, the "damages" of weapon only show how much fatigue you undergo, Am I correct ? I f the damages are Supernatural, do you undergo Fatigue as well ?

My concern is the following: When you defend, you actually aren't hit at all, but in some kata or kiho we can see "if character cannot defend" ... you inflict twice the deadliness of the weapon (for exemple) . If he cannot defend, which means, he's undergone too much fatigue, he's either incapacitated or unconscious ; inflict a critical then is irrelevant. What do I miss ?

Miss and critical:

If I got 2 opportunities but no success, is my attack a critical nonetheless ? (I look at the entry corresponding the deadliness of my weapon)

Recovery:

After a wound, you have to wait 7 days to recover (or less with medical attention) I'm a bit surprised there are no kiho or invocation to heal or help the recovery. Again, did I miss something ?

Arigato !

Hello! I had actually faced this same conundrum a few days ago, but the misconception I had was how fatigue was represented in combat.

The idea is, if you're defending and not just accepting the strike (which can happen), you're defending in some manner which is combination of your stance, your armor, etc... It represents that you make exerting energy in some manner to not suffer a critical strike from the weapon being used against you. I had misunderstood at the time that you were taking DAMAGE, as in HP loss, when the reality is just that you're exerting effort to not be hurt.

Once you run out of fatigue (or, opponents spend opportunity, etc...) you're in a state where you suffer critical strikes and then you suffer damage on the Crit Strike table. In the "Conditions" space it lays out the kinds of things which can lead to you being subject to critical strikes.

1 hour ago, ruronin said:

Therefore, the "damages" of weapon only show how much fatigue you undergo, Am I correct ? I f the damages are Supernatural, do you undergo Fatigue as well ?

Yes and no. Most attack actions (certainly the 'strike' action* which is the generic attack everyone knows) - cause fatigue equal to the damage of the weapon plus the bonus successes, minus the target's resistance.

Supernatural damage causes fatigue just the same as physical damage. The difference is that most things specify that they either provide physical resistance or supernatural resistance (or if it provides both it doesn't provide it equally).

So supernatural damage ignores the high damage reduction of heavy mundane armour, because it only provides physical resistance, whilst sanctified shujenga robes may stop blood sorcery but are uncomfortably vulnerable to a spikey club.

1 hour ago, ruronin said:

My concern is the following: When you defend, you actually aren't hit at all, but in some kata or kiho we can see "if character cannot defend" ... you inflict twice the deadliness of the weapon (for exemple) . If he cannot defend, which means, he's undergone too much fatigue, he's either incapacitated or unconscious ; inflict a critical then is irrelevant. What do I miss ?

If you're incapacitated, a critical is not irrelevant. An incapacitated character can't make checks, so can't attack - they can still perform move actions, support actions to assist another character, and calmign breath to recover fatigue and potentially un-incapacitate themselves, getting back into the fight.

Equally, this isn't the only situaton this comes up. Iaijutsu: Rising Blade, for example, has the mandate "you cannot defend against this attack if you are compromised" [Compromised being 'too much strife']

Equally, actually killing someone will require a critical. Generally, continuing to hit someone after they're unconcious is dishonourable, but it depends on circumstances.

1 hour ago, ruronin said:

Miss and critical:

If I got 2 opportunities but no success, is my attack a critical nonetheless ? (I look at the entry corresponding the deadliness of my weapon)

No attack is automatically "a critical". The Strike action has the option to inflict a critical strike by spending ** on a successful strike action. If you didn't succeed in the strike action, you can't do that, even if you have ** in the dice results pool. Equally, even if you did succeed, you don't have to spend those ** on a critical strike - you might want to spend them on increasing your own resistance via Striking-As-Earth, or on assisting your allies so they land a hit as well.

1 hour ago, ruronin said:

Recovery:

After a wound, you have to wait 7 days to recover (or less with medical attention) I'm a bit surprised there are no kiho or invocation to heal or help the recovery. Again, did I miss something ?

You can only try a medicine check to remove Wounded from a ring once per week, but you don't have to wait a week. You can try more-or-less immediately, it's just that if you fail you need to wait a week before trying again (at which point the PC may also be eligible for a 'bed rest' check to remove it on their own).

Path to Inner Peace can also remove Lightly wounded (but not Severely Wounded).

* One of my favourite lines from Jackie Chan in Forbidden Kingdom: "You haven't taught me anything!" THWACK! "OW!" "That called 'strike'. Tomorrow, show you 'block'..."