Greetings,

Can the Matsu school ability be triggered when the character is already under the influence of the Enraged condition ?

Thanks!

Andy

1 hour ago, AndyDay303 said:

Greetings,

Can the Matsu school ability be triggered when the character is already under the influence of the Enraged condition ?

Thanks!

Andy

The rulebook doesn't answer this question, so it is up to you.

I allow it.

For what it's worth, I'd allow it too.

I wanted to pass this question up to support but apparently the contact page form is broke, or something. Shame.

Me personally, I actually interpret this as "no". The cost for the school ability is to suffer the condition, and since suffering a condition twice does nothing (unless explicitly noted) you can't pay the cost at the time of trigger, and thus cannot use the ability.

19 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

I wanted to pass this question up to support but apparently the contact page form is broke, or something. Shame.

Me personally, I actually interpret this as "no". The cost for the school ability is to suffer the condition, and since suffering a condition twice does nothing (unless explicitly noted) you can't pay the cost at the time of trigger, and thus cannot use the ability.

its just that if it works only one time... this ability is so garbage 😕

The point of the ability isn't the fatigue removal, its putting yourself into the enraged condition to increase your attack and get a void point if you kill someone.

I'd still only let it work once per Enrage, but I'd let the player use it if something already made her Enraged. For example, if she was targeted by Unholy Fervor or something. It already requires a kind of harsh trigger, and I wouldn't want to have to tell a player, "Sorry, you can't tap into Matsu's Fury right now. You're already experiencing the normal kind of anger."

7 hours ago, Scrivener Spills said:

The point of the ability isn't the fatigue removal, its putting yourself into the enraged condition to increase your attack and get a void point if you kill someone.

Can't a player just decide to become Enraged willingly?

But otherwise, being able to use the ability mutliple times doesn't affect the enraged part.. it just heals you for a TINY amount of fatigue each time you receive a crit or unmask.

Basically, nothing real gamebreaking. How many crits or unmask will you take?

As a GM, most of the time you don't want to crit your players unless you have an adversary with very high deadliness because of how garbage are the critical strikes handled when someone isn't incapacitated (yes! A critical strike severity 3 with a Yari! Now roll a fitness check and use these opportunities! It is basically doing the player a favor aside from scratching their armor. And that is if they had any armor to start with, otherwise you are basically screwing up their robes...HOW MEAN!! Yeah, screw critical strike and try to get more bonus successes for damage, unless the character is wearing a 4+ armor, then it can be worth it. Still quite cheesy though as a Punch would do the same effect as a Yari, basically.).

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

Can't a player just decide to become Enraged willingly?

But otherwise, being able to use the ability mutliple times doesn't affect the enraged part.. it just heals you for a TINY amount of fatigue each time you receive a crit or unmask.

Basically, nothing real gamebreaking. How many crits or unmask will you take?

As a GM, most of the time you don't want to crit your players unless you have an adversary with very high deadliness because of how garbage are the critical strikes handled when someone isn't incapacitated (yes! A critical strike severity 3 with a Yari! Now roll a fitness check and use these opportunities! It is basically doing the player a favor aside from scratching their armor. And that is if they had any armor to start with, otherwise you are basically screwing up their robes...HOW MEAN!! Yeah, screw critical strike and try to get more bonus successes for damage, unless the character is wearing a 4+ armor, then it can be worth it. Still quite cheesy though as a Punch would do the same effect as a Yari, basically.).

A scratch to your armor reduces/negates it’s effectiveness. Even if you’re just wearing a kimono, that gives you armor (which I hate). So a critical strike or two increases the damage (fatigue) you do, so it’s a good long-game strategy.

I also wouldn’t say that 6 fatigue for a rank 6 Matsu is tiny. And while many players don’t ever make it that high, there are some who think that high rank is when the game really starts... I fall into that camp.

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

As a GM, most of the time you don't want to crit your players unless you have an adversary with very high deadliness because of how garbage are the critical strikes handled when someone isn't incapacitated (yes! A critical strike severity 3 with a Yari! Now roll a fitness check and use these opportunities! It is basically doing the player a favor aside from scratching their armor. And that is if they had any armor to start with, otherwise you are basically screwing up their robes...HOW MEAN!! Yeah, screw critical strike and try to get more bonus successes for damage, unless the character is wearing a 4+ armor, then it can be worth it. Still quite cheesy though as a Punch would do the same effect as a Yari, basically.).

Well....the guidance was that non-adversaries don't really cause criticals anyway - if you only spend on their own abilities as per the suggestion on P.309 (I accept it's not a hard-and-fast rule), then minions will only cause criticals on incapacitated opponents anyway.

I would certainly agree that trying for a critical strike with something like a staff or yari is a waste most of the time (though @AndyDay303 is right that giving your opponent's armour Damaged is not a bad plan); it's just easier to keep instead and go for incapacitation, or else spend the on something else.

Plus it's another reason that the target spending a void point to not defend against damage is worth it; you're not only 'dumping' the fatigue but also getting an easy fitness check you might be able to snag some useful icons from.

32 minutes ago, AndyDay303 said:

A scratch to your armor reduces/negates it’s effectiveness. Even if you’re just wearing a kimono, that gives you armor (which I hate). So a critical strike or two increases the damage (fatigue) you do, so it’s a good long-game strategy.

I also wouldn’t say that 6 fatigue for a rank 6 Matsu is tiny. And while many players don’t ever make it that high, there are some who think that high rank is when the game really starts... I fall into that camp.

"Long game strategy" is not really something in this game. Especially not at rank 6. You HPS the *** out of everybody you see, and if you don't have a good fire ring and/or HPS, you don't do melee attacks against strong opponents anyway.

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

"Long game strategy" is not really something in this game. Especially not at rank 6. You HPS the *** out of everybody you see, and if you don't have a good fire ring and/or HPS, you don't do melee attacks against strong opponents anyway.

That is not how we play. Only 1 player used HPS at my table.

1 minute ago, AndyDay303 said:

That is not how we play. Only 1 player used HPS at my table.

Well, if they have a deadliness 6+ weapon and a good fire ring, no reason not to use it. It is an auto-dying/bleeding/maimed most of the time. I don't see why not use it against advesaries at high ranks, and I don't see what is actually better than that to dispatch a tough opponent.

but we are changing subject here...
asically, your Matsu PC won't get crit on him that much, and unmask is once per scene. Healing a couple of fatigue is not a big deal. It will hardly trigger unless you unmask or get hit while incapacitated (which puts you uncouncious anyway).

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

Well, if they have a deadliness 6+ weapon and a good fire ring, no reason not to use it. It is an auto-dying/bleeding/maimed most of the time. I don't see why not use it against advesaries at high ranks, and I don't see what is actually better than that to dispatch a tough opponent.

but we are changing subject here...
asically, your Matsu PC won't get crit on him that much, and unmask is once per scene. Healing a couple of fatigue is not a big deal. It will hardly trigger unless you unmask or get hit while incapacitated (which puts you uncouncious anyway).

Would it put you unconscious? Or would you recover fatigue and stay in the fight ?

17 minutes ago, AndyDay303 said:

Would it put you unconscious? Or would you recover fatigue and stay in the fight ?

put you uncouncious... but not incapacitated anymore (if the Matsu ability makes you heal enough, which is doubtful at early ranks but possible) so you could use a Void point to remove the uncouncious and be back.

basically how I'd do it ?

though, I still don't see any reason to limit the Matsu's ability more. Allowing it multiple times (the heal part) is really nothing amazing... Like others said, the fact that you become Enraged is probably the best part of this ability.

16 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

The cost for the school ability is to suffer the condition, and since suffering a condition twice does nothing (unless explicitly noted) you can't pay the cost at the time of trigger, and thus cannot use the ability.

That's a weird cost if it is one. Getting Enraged is usually a better deal than recovering a few points of Fatigue.

Well, I managed to send a message through, so we'll see. My thought was from a mechanics perspective, it's phrased like a cost. "suffer x to do y". If you can't suffer x, you can't do y, pretty normal trigger stuff. Technically I think all Conditions are "bad", just Enraged is double-edged. Unlike terrain there's not a "really happy" or "limbered up" condition to be a net positive. Enraged just happens to come with a benefit to offset it's penalty.

1 hour ago, UnitOmega said:

Well, I managed to send a message through, so we'll see. My thought was from a mechanics perspective, it's phrased like a cost. "suffer x to do y". If you can't suffer x, you can't do y, pretty normal trigger stuff. Technically I think all Conditions are "bad", just Enraged is double-edged. Unlike terrain there's not a "really happy" or "limbered up" condition to be a net positive. Enraged just happens to come with a benefit to offset it's penalty.

I kind think Enraged is overall a positive thing. A least as a purely "fighting/combat" condition.

Mechanically it might be a "cost", but basically, you WANT the enraged. The endurance heal is just gravy and almost useless.

Edit: I can see the Devs ruling it out either way though. Even IF allowed, as we mentioned earlier, its probably not going to happen more than once or twice per skirmish. either way is probably fine, a one use a bit too weak, and infinite uses slightly good.

8 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

Can't a player just decide to become Enraged willingly?

No, it's a condition that has to be caused. Basically, my read is, if you unmask, or get critted, you can go into a berserker rage, IE, cause yourself the enraged condition. By forcing yourself into enraged, you get some fatigue back, but the benefit is going enraged so you can cause extra damage on your crits. *** The fatigue, story wise, is being removed because of the burst of energy of going into that state. Getting critted again isn't really going to piss you off MORE , you're already as mad as you can get, and you're not taking it anymore!

I wouldn't call it BREAKING to let every crit restore fatigue, but it doesnt feel right, story wise.

*** Especially with the 6th rank ability, where spending void when enraged turns ALL your successes into explosive successes. especially with the gain a void from killing part of being enraged, its, take a crit, go enraged. Spend void, cut a person in half. Get a void point, spend it, cut another person in half.

1 minute ago, Scrivener Spills said:

No, it's a condition that has to be caused. Basically, my read is, if you unmask, or get critted, you can go into a berserker rage, IE, cause yourself the enraged condition. By forcing yourself into enraged, you get some fatigue back, but the benefit is going enraged so you can cause extra damage on your crits. *** The fatigue, story wise, is being removed because of the burst of energy of going into that state. Getting critted again isn't really going to piss you off MORE , you're already as mad as you can get, and you're not taking it anymore!

I wouldn't call it BREAKING to let every crit restore fatigue, but it doesnt feel right, story wise.

*** Especially with the 6th rank ability, where spending void when enraged turns ALL your successes into explosive successes. especially with the gain a void from killing part of being enraged, its, take a crit, go enraged. Spend void, cut a person in half. Get a void point, spend it, cut another person in half.

rank6. the game doesn't make sense at rank6. I dont think it is fair to take it into consideration when judging the school ability...

but yeah. as I've said, I'm ok with the rule being either way. No big deal, I allow it, you don't, he does, he do not... it is not game breaking either way.
I think there is a point to get some fatigue back from all crits though, even narratively. Like honestly, how many crits are you going to take? probably NONE if the GM is not stupid. So its basically an Unmask thing.

Im just imagining a berserker character jumping into a pile of unarmed enemies, getting enraged and prone. they start kicking him. all crits, since he cant defend. deadliness 2. armors toast, but no other effect. except you just regained 10 fatigue.

9 minutes ago, Scrivener Spills said:

Im just imagining a berserker character jumping into a pile of unarmed enemies, getting enraged and prone. they start kicking him. all crits, since he cant defend. deadliness 2. armors toast, but no other effect. except you just regained 10 fatigue.

why he cannot defend?

and if incapacitated, one crit puts him uncouncious. so doesn't matter how much he heals, he will need to pay a void point to "wake up".

my apologies, i meant immobilzed, not prone. (prone, prone dangit. wrong Hantei....)

On 7/11/2019 at 12:52 AM, UnitOmega said:

The cost for the school ability is to suffer the condition, and since suffering a condition twice does nothing (unless explicitly noted) you can't pay the cost at the time of trigger, and thus cannot use the ability.

Note that this isn't true. Just because suffering the condition again does nothing it doesn't mean you're not suffering the condition. If you get hit for 2 physical damage when wearing lacquered armour the hit does nothing, but you still got hit. In fact, several parts of the rules refer to suffering the same condition again, being phrased like "if you would receive this condition again, receive X instead."

So I was wrong, but my logic was sound. And the language is a bit confusing. but I got an email back anyway. FFG says you can choose basically to proc the ability by suffering Enraged again, even if you are already Enraged.

Under Persistent Effects, p. 174, you cannot "benefit (or suffer)" from multiple instances of the same persistent effect, but when this happens, you can choose which instance applies to you. So basically the Matsu ability is to "suffer" another set of Enraged and put it in the stack, you immediately ditch one because they can't overlap. Technically I think the way this is worded with the language "suffer", your GM could choose to be a meanie and say you do not actually suffer the new stack of Enraged, but that's probably a whole second set of questions about if Enraged is a beneficial or harmful effect, and is the verb "suffer" the same thing everytime, but we're not here for that. Rule Zero, DBAD, applies, so even if you're already enraged you can enrage.