16 minutes ago, Tenebrae said:

L5R5th does not feel like a "lets kill everything in sight" game, so why work to turn it into one?

Which was my reasoning throughout this thread.

L5R 5e doesn't work as a "crawler".

It works as a game with pivotal combat scenes that have narrative weight attached to them.
But considering that, then it is surprising the combat system doesn't fully embrace this concept instead of being too tactical (and unpolished) for its own purpose.
I said hundred of times, this game would need much simpler and dramatic combat instead of juggling shenanigans that are not clearly thought of, or simply too bloated for what they bring to the "game".

39 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

One combat per 6-7 hours is murder hobo? Maybe. maybe. That is about 2 sessions for us. It could probably be reduced to less than that. I definitely do not think I run "combat heavy" campaigns.

I wasn't actually trying to suggest that your group were murder hobos. I was trying to point out that what some consider combat light, others would call combat heavy.

Then I realised that it might actually a higher frequency of fights that my current AD&D2nd campaign :uhoh:

regarding the original question, this is how I think Slippery Maneuvers is intended to work (one of my players uses it ), and how I have on occasion (where necessary) counteracted it:

They must pick a terrain feature that already has a terrain quality, and that is somewhat definable. Not "the forest", but "that brush between those two trees". A small hut, a large weeping willow tree, a flower patch, something like that.

It adds the obscuring quality to it, not stacking with existing obscuring. If the player dies, loses sight, goes unconscious or is otherwise unable to coordinate, talk or communicate even a little bit, the effect stops (as with all other Shuji, since they are explicitly social techniques, if they have ongoing effects).

To counteract, you can have enemies use the Void Stance to ignore the terrain quality, there is a different shuji that allows a group of NPCs to ignore terrain qualities, you can use enemy shugenja/mahotsukai to turn that terrain into something dangerous or otherwise problematic, and this really only works well in a scenario where the players can sit still in one location.

In our campaign, archers in void stance have become a major problem for my PCs when camping in terrain, and it fits the image of the zen archer to use Void Stance anyway.

Last but not least, remember the assist rules for groups of minions. A group of minions remains a threat even with slippery maneuvers.

Most of our fights are over in a handful of rounds. Losing an entire round of actions to set up terrain, or fix Initiative through Lightning Raid, or buff up yourself or others with Kiho and spells has often turned out to be a really bad idea. Very few support actions are routinely worth having competent enemies get the first hit in, especially once you are fighting anything with Unholy weapons or just a big bad tetsubo.