1 hour ago, UnitOmega said:

Crossing Blade also has a use in an official Crane-style duel, assuming you can roll big bad numbers enough. There's two ways to win, first blood and judgment. If your opponent becomes Incapacitated and unable to continue, you can appeal to judgment because obviously they are unable to continue, even if you haven't made them bleed. This works best with Fire Stance for extra bonus successes, but you have to be careful not to Compromise yourself and trigger finishing blow, because Strife is resolved before your successes in the order and you could get interrupted. You also have to have a decent Courtesy rank, because you need to hit a TN based on the judge(es) vigilance to appeal.

That is the best way to win, and what a mirumoto should do.

But this is where kakita shines, against the mirumoto, you will take a void point and take a low critical strike (probably 5, that you can soak with fitness to go below 5). But against a kakita, such strategy is less good.

Rising Blade is basically a -1tn on finishing blows if you did not draw your sword up to that point (which is just not a sane way to win).

Crossing Cut is where its at, for ALL duelists. For a Kakita with fire it is absolutely devastating, for the others, you probably force a void point spending and a small crit, which is better than nothing.

Mirumoto advantage is that he is not easy to hit in the first place, that affords him more round to take down his opponent as landing a crit will not be easy against him.

The bad moves are; rising blade, predict and center. Which do not have much use. Predicting to eventually use a finish blow with rising blade is a losing odd gamble. It doesnt automatically mean you will lose (theres random factors in a dice game) but lets say the probabilities are not on your side.

You say that Predict is a gamble, but it's really not that hard to get into an opponent's head, especially if you're playing with your regular group. I use it all the time to great effect. It's a "metagame" skill check with a fantastic payoff. (I will agree that I've never seen Center have much use, though. It's a strange addition.)

9 minutes ago, Orolando said:

You say that Predict is a gamble, but it's really not that hard to get into an opponent's head, especially if you're playing with your regular group. I use it all the time to great effect. It's a "metagame" skill check with a fantastic payoff. (I will agree that I've never seen Center have much use, though. It's a strange addition.)

I personally fail to see how a "maybe 4 Strife" and still letting the opponent take an action is better than just attacking and using opportunities.

Especially as the duelist melee skill gets higher and they roll more dice and more opportunities, predict becomes very underwhelming (we will not even talk about the battle in the mind kata which is just sad.

It might have niche case use, as a gamble if you are getting owned, but it is a terrible offensive option, I think.

I don't mind the predict mechanic's idea , but the problem in practice is that you waste an action to use it. If you succeed, it can be great, but with the duelling rules generally meaning that after, say, 4 rounds, most starting characters are compromised from the "strife clock" alone, gambling a turn is a big risk, especially since whilst you're laying a trap, you have to telegraph to your opponent that you've done so - even if they don't know which ring you've picked. I agree that it's generally a weak choice

It does have niche uses, and the fact that it's a universal action not a technique, and doesn't need a check, means everyone can do it when those niche cases come up, I guess. It's just not something to use as a 'default' plan.

I've always said it's not so much great for delivering strife as for ensuring your opponent is not able to use a particular ring for a critical turn, provided you're prepared to give up your own turn to achieve that. A duellist with either a detectably better composure, or an opponent who started the duel on half-strife, is in a better position to 'run out the clock' - and in this case being able to use predict to avoid someone you know doesn't have an iaijustu technique using water stance to draw-and-strike, or preventing someone who does have heartpiercing strike using it to bypass earth stance and inflict a Bleeding critical, could be a match-winning choice.