When you prepare an Invocation (pg 190), do you get the Strife at that time, or when the invocation is invoked? And what happens in the event that you have a 3 strife prepared Invocation; when it's unleased, does it backlash, or is there some kind of backlash during the preparation?

53 minutes ago, wastevens said:

When you prepare an Invocation (pg 190), do you get the Strife at that time, or when the invocation is invoked? And what happens in the event that you have a 3 strife prepared Invocation; when it's unleased, does it backlash, or is there some kind of backlash during the preparation?

I think according to the rules as written, the backlash would occur when the invocation is triggered.

But backlashes as a whole are not a well defined thing and you can decide how you interpret it as long as all your players at the table agree and know it beforehand. Prepared Invocations are also very open to what the GM wants to allow.

Make it your own, discuss with your players how you see the rules and make sure everyone agree and go from there. This game works best when you don't try to figure out the exact rule for everything and instead "wing it" a bit more.

To put it in perspective, I am quite certain the very core Advantages/Disadvantages rules are not played exactly the same in most groups. So, it gives a cue as to what to expect for a lot of things, it is veeerrry loose and flexible and finding a sweet spot that you and your players can agree with is something that will need to ne worked out during the first few sessions.

Even as situation buffs, nothing says what you should do; give free opportunities? Lower the TN? Give a free advantage? Heck, I even use a "small advantage/disadvantage rule" basically giving a one dice reroll instead of two, for situational modifiers. Trying to shoot an arrow in a storm? Take that one die negative reroll.

Go with the flow, as long as you kind of master the impact of different adjustments, you should be able to come up with your own creative solutions.

I would take the opposite view;

Quote

When a shugenja’s check generates 3 or more symbols on kept dice while the shugenja is performing an invocation, they suffer spiritual backlash

As in, it's the check which triggers the backlash, which can be removed in time and space from the invocation's effect via stuff like prepared invocations or the Sacred Arrows ability. So it would occur when preparing the ward/potion/arrow, not when using it.

I'm going to go with "when preparing", because that's theoretically when you entreat the kami. Of course, a particularly displeased (or mischievous) kami can keep on pretending everything's ok just to have everything blow up in your face when it would make the most damage.

Good points. It might just be a bit weird to have a backlash if the invocation is not cast as a lot of the backlash affect the invocation.

But, maybe it works fine. Dunno. For sure it works fine for the fatigue damage though.

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

It might just be a bit weird to have a backlash if the invocation is not cast as a lot of the backlash affect the invocation.

I think fire stance is the only one (?) which references the invocation per se. But even then, it's not specifying 'when the invocation takes effect'; so I'd suggest you get blown up by an explosion equal to the effect of the invocation you're preparing, then, assuming you're not dead*, you're left with a 'working' prepared ward.

* I can imagine a shujenga school - "Lesson One! How not to spontaneously explode too often!"

27 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

* I can imagine a shujenga school - "Lesson One! How not to spontaneously explode too often!"

"do not keep more than two dice with strife symbol sensei!"

A lesson that apparently the Elemental Scion of Fire may have skipped.

That's fire stance for you; always too strife-hungry for its own good.

I am absolutely fine with one of the possible downsides to being too emotional when preparing an invocation is that it goes off before you want it to.

Definitely, strive backlash would imo cause the invocation to go off immediately, or on a different trigger than you set, depending.

on avoiding, if you're spending the time to make a prepared invocation anyways, you should channel it.

On 7/8/2019 at 3:56 PM, Tonbo Karasu said:

I am absolutely fine with one of the possible downsides to being too emotional when preparing an invocation is that it goes off before you want it to.

Premature invocations should cause lots of strife!

21 hours ago, T_Kageyasu said:

Premature invocations should cause lots of strife!

The opposite isn't the greatest either. Remember, should your invocation last more than 4 scenes, please speak to your shugenja!

On 7/8/2019 at 6:37 AM, Avatar111 said:

Good points. It might just be a bit weird to have a backlash if the invocation is not cast as a lot of the backlash affect the invocation.

But, maybe it works fine. Dunno. For sure it works fine for the fatigue damage though.

Normally, I think Fire invocations are nerfed by the fact that you can’t keep more than 2 strife. Since strife is what makes fore stance good.

Make a talisman and blow a load of strife to make a super fire power. Suffer the backlash and recover it before your next encounter. Seems to be a way to super-buff Fire invocations.

well, the fire invocs that use extra successes do so to make it burn more, or longer, or more people. Which makes sense, there's a certain amount of power you can channel, before it gets out of control. Which is why a backlash on fire causes it to effect everyone in an area. you lost control, everything burns .

That said, on a prepared invocation (not the same as a talisman, bee tee dubs) , i would suggest a backlash causes the whole, prepared, part to fail, for a fire one. You're trying to convince a fire spirit to lay in wait? that's tricky already. lose control of your emotions, and the fire spirit goes, Naw bro. No way Hantei, i'm going to burn it all down NOW! FWOOOSH.

for the others, i could see earth maybe just... not triggering. water randomly changing what the trigger is. air changing targets. but fire? Fire doesn't like to wait.

on the other hand, on a non prepared invocation of fire... if you think you can survive it, and no allies are near, i'd say muffing an invocation on purpose that way sounds like a winner. Oh, i have 5 strife, thats extra successes, i make the damage 5 fatigue more powerful. what? backlash? the blaze of fire hits me AND hits all 20 ashigaru surrounding me with Yari at the ready? oh my my.

Random thought on backlash: it's not beyond reason to give a hit to Honour and Glory whenever a backlash happens. If your job is to entreat the holy spirits that are the kami, and you displease one enough that you take a backlash to the face, you're clearly not good at your job. Perhaps even worse, you lost control, which is one of the biggest no-nos for a samurai.

2 hours ago, JBento said:

Random thought on backlash: it's not beyond reason to give a hit to Honour and Glory whenever a backlash happens. If your job is to entreat the holy spirits that are the kami, and you displease one enough that you take a backlash to the face, you're clearly not good at your job. Perhaps even worse, you lost control, which is one of the biggest no-nos for a samurai.

I like it.