Hi guys and Happy Holidays.

I’m sorry if this was addressed before, how does the Way of the Scorpion really work?

It says:

“ Way of the Scorpion (School Ability): When you exploit a target’s disadvantage (see Turning Advantages and Disadvantages, page 100 of the core rulebook) as part of an Initiative check for a duel or an Attack action, you do not need to spend a Void point, and you may reroll additional dice up to your school rank.”

So when you roll initiative you must use your Air Ring in order to spend one opportunity (if you get one) to:

“ 🌸 : On an Initiative check, assess one foe’s weakness. Learn one of their disadvantages of that foe’s choice.”

and then you are allowed to reroll additional dice up to your school rank?

So is this one trick only against an opponent, what happens if you face the same opponent another time and you already know their disadvantage? Can you still use it?

Also on a side note, after you roll initiative can you swap your stance or do need to wait until the end of your next action to do so?

That's one way of doing it. You might have learned their disads earlier, through using Shūji and/or investigating them or you can learn them by using Shūji in the conflict. (Well, not if you want to use it for the initiative check. You need to know it already.)

Then, you don't just reroll. If the target's disad applies, you can exploit it to gain rerolls. Everyone else has to pay a VP to do so, and gets to reroll up to two dice, while the Scorp gets it for free and gets to reroll extra dice.

This is potentially very powerful in a duel, somewhat less so in a skirmish with lots of enemies - although it's most likely to work on important targets and you'll often be able to end a fight by taking out the leader.

As for the sidenote: yes. You get to change stance at the beginning of your turn. The stance from Initiative is there partly so you are in some stance if someone acts before you.

1 hour ago, Nheko said:

Also on a side note, after you roll initiative can you swap your stance or do need to wait until the end of your next action to do so?

When you roll initiative (even during intrigue scenes) your approach determines the stance you are in until you become the active player. On your turn you can switch things up and change your stance and I'm fairly certain you can do this at the beginning of your turn rather than after taking an action.

Thanks guys for the clarification.

So basically in a duel at rank 1 a Scorp Deathdealer can roll their initiative in Air use their ability if they win, then in their next turn they can switch their stance to water and move and strike (unless they are using a shinobigatana then they can stay in air stance and strike) Did I get it right?

Not quite. Assuming you don't already know any of your opponents disads, you'll roll init without being able to use your ability. You can use an opportunity off of the init roll to learn about a disadvantage, however. Then, knowing a disadvantage , you may be able to use your ability, if the disadvantage applies (though your GM should really tell you an applicable one first), whenever you use an attack action.

As for the stances, yep. Air stance for init then switching to Water to draw and attack is a decent move anyway.

Thank you for the explanation Marion. 😎