I don’t love the armor/wound system in 5R5. This rule is intended to accomplish 2 things.

1. Make a shower of low deadliness critical strikes worthwhile.

2. Reduce the number of shirtless samurai on the battlefield.

The rule is simple: each scene, you can take only 1 critical strike at any given wound tier. So 1 “close call,” 1 “flesh wound,” 1 “permanent injury,” etc. if a wound hits that tier again, you step it up to the next tier.

Thoughts?

Cool enough. Needs a bit more tracking on the GM's part, which I am not totally a fan of, but it does make critical hits with lower deadliness weapons something less of a useless thing as it currently is.

And I agree the wound system is kind of iffy as is. I have my way of dealing with it too, as you probably know, but your option seems good too.

Basically, anything of deadliness lower than 5 and not razor edged is just not suited for critical hits aside breaking armors and robes (and probably giving opportunities to your opponent), leaving critical hits the shtick of a few select builds and weapons (when facing PC or adversaries as minions just take extra fatigue) This is just a fact. I just had more issues with how the Incapacitated condition made combat unfun so I prioritized that.

To each our own though. Depending on what your table likes or not. I really do not see anything wrong with your rule aside the need for extra tracking.

The rule for minions is perfect, its the rule for PC/Adversaries that have some loopholes, weird results and plain unsatisfying ends.

Before thoroughly reading the critical hit table rules, I was expecting a rule like this.. where more than "bleeding" or "wounded" had ranked tiers. Personally, it feels like there's a substantial gap between the hits that contribute toward shredded armor and maiming blows (in the original rules).

6 hours ago, T_Kageyasu said:

Before thoroughly reading the critical hit table rules, I was expecting a rule like this.. where more than "bleeding" or "wounded" had ranked tiers. Personally, it feels like there's a substantial gap between the hits that contribute toward shredded armor and maiming blows.

That gap is "lightly wounded" which is a push over if you have a water shugenja. The problem he mentioned is that unless someone have high enough deadliness, for example peasants with Yari deadliness 3. They cant "wound" you unless they wail on you while you are unconscious. Which is, in game, kind of really in a weird spot, unfun basically, that such weapons cannot wound anyone unless they attack you while you are already out.

It just makes the gameplay unfun, in all cases.

I do understand his issue. And I tried to fix it with the incapacited tweak (which works for me, especially since I allow minions to crit with 2opp). But there is definitely an issue in term of gameplay flow that i feel many tables will find iffy if they do not houserule it. Most fights have zero consequences (physically) if you dont adjust the rules, and that in turn makes the general feeling of danger a bit irrelevant. I for one think you should be in danger of getting wrecked sometimes. Meaning that, the FUN is mostly in making the choice of keeping fighting while risking a severe injury or stop fighting. The base rules just dont bring this kind of choice to the table, and that is a problem for me.

More than just a balance issue (which is honestly a non issue for me) the core rule goes against "fun". And that, is not good design.

Personally, I have an issue with the higher crit tiers not dropping to lower levels upon healing . Okay, someones "dying". If you have a healer on hand who can remove that, it makes sense, mechanically, to NOT use all your defense dice if it would drop you down a crit level, because then you get a permanent scar. But going from dying to not dying, while you still have to spend time healing, doesn't scar you? WTF?

1 hour ago, Scrivener Spills said:

Personally, I have an issue with the higher crit tiers not dropping to lower levels upon healing . Okay, someones "dying". If you have a healer on hand who can remove that, it makes sense, mechanically, to NOT use all your defense dice if it would drop you down a crit level, because then you get a permanent scar. But going from dying to not dying, while you still have to spend time healing, doesn't scar you? WTF?

I fixed that with my houserule (slight change to the crit table).

I had the same issue. I suggest you look at how I tweaked it. I think its much more organic.

Edit; though to make it more clear I should rewrite the modification to the crit table in a more word for word way. Right now you have to do a little bit of thinking to figure out how I make it work.

Its on my to do list! (edit2: done)

6 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

I fixed that with my houserule (slight change to the crit table).

I had the same issue. I suggest you look at how I tweaked it. I think its much more organic.

Edit; though to make it more clear I should rewrite the modification to the crit table in a more word for word way. Right now you have to do a little bit of thinking to figure out how I make it work.

Its on my to do list! (edit2: done)

yes, much better!

On 7/29/2019 at 11:38 AM, Avatar111 said:

I fixed that with my houserule (slight change to the crit table).

I had the same issue. I suggest you look at how I tweaked it. I think its much more organic.

Edit; though to make it more clear I should rewrite the modification to the crit table in a more word for word way. Right now you have to do a little bit of thinking to figure out how I make it work.

Its on my to do list! (edit2: done)

Care to post it here?

6 minutes ago, AndyDay303 said:

Care to post it here?

-Conditions and Critical Strikes fixes:

All the following changes assume you are playing with the sidebar rule on p.270 (repeated injury).
The purpose is to make combat more cinematic and more intense (incapacitated condition fix). It doesn't really affect the deadliness of combat, it is simply more fun and fixes a few weird loopholes with critical severity, severely wounded condition, and the stacking of such.

Dying condition: Add: If you suffer from the Dying Condition, you perish if you take any critical strike of severity above 0 after the resist check.

Severely Wounded condition: Effects: A Severely Wounded character increases the TN of their checks with the affected ring by 3.
If the character suffers the Lightly Wounded or Severely Wounded condition for the same ring, they instead suffer the effects of a severity 8 critical strike for that ring as if they had failed the check to resist it.

Incapacitated condition: Change it to: Effects: An Incapacitated character increases the TN of all action checks by 2. An Incapacitated character cannot defend against damage. After an Incapacitated character suffers a critical strike, they suffer the Unconscious condition in addition to any other effects.

CRITICAL STRIKES TABLE:

change/modify the following critical severity outcomes:

7-8 Permanent Injury : If the character was not Severely Wounded for the ring used for their resist check, the character suffers the Severely Wounded condition for that ring. The character also suffers the Bleeding condition, then chooses one of the following scar disadvantages for the ring they used for their check to resist: Air (Maimed visage or Nerve Damage), Earth (Damaged Organ or Fractured Spine), Fire (Lost Fingers or Maimed Arm), Water (Lost Eye or Lost Foot), Void (Lost Memories).

9-11 Maiming Blow : If the character was not Severely Wounded for the ring used for their resist check, the character suffers the Severely Wounded condition for that ring. The character also suffers the Bleeding condition, then chooses one of the following scar disadvantages for the ring they used for their check to resist: Air (Deafness or Muteness), Earth (Damaged Heart or Damaged Organ), Fire (Lost Arm or Lost Hand), Water (Blindness or Lost Leg), Void (Cognitive Lapses).

12-13 Agonising Death: If the character was not Severely Wounded for the ring used for their resist check, the character suffers the Severely Wounded condition for that ring. The character also suffers the Bleeding and the Dying (3 rounds) conditions, then chooses one of the following scar disadvantages for the ring they used for their check to resist: Air (Deafness or Muteness), Earth (Damaged Heart or Damaged Organ), Fire (Lost Arm or Lost Hand), Water (Blindness or Lost Leg), Void (Cognitive Lapses).

14-15 Swift Death : If the character was not Severely Wounded for the ring used for their resist check, the character suffers the Severely Wounded condition for that ring. The character also suffers the Bleeding and the Dying (1 rounds) conditions, then chooses one of the following scar disadvantages for the ring they used for their check to resist: Air (Deafness or Muteness), Earth (Damaged Heart or Damaged Organ), Fire (Lost Arm or Lost Hand), Water (Blindness or Lost Leg), Void (Cognitive Lapses).

Ok so I read your damage rules. If I’m not mistaken, it might just be easier to say that if you take a wound, all lower-level wounds apply as well, right? So if you take a maiming blow (9-11) the you also apply perm injury, serious wound, etc?

19 minutes ago, AndyDay303 said:

Ok so I read your damage rules. If I’m not mistaken, it might just be easier to say that if you take a wound, all lower-level wounds apply as well, right? So if you take a maiming blow (9-11) the you also apply perm injury, serious wound, etc?

Yes.

And, most are worded as "if you were not severely wounded". Very important wording here.

And also note that you do not "remove" your severely wounded condition if you take an injury anymore.

Overall, it makes the crit and wound progression more logical. Coupled with the changes to the dying and incapacitated condition, you might find it makes combat against Adversaries more streamlined, and more badass.