Hello,

I play L5R since the first edition, and reading the book on the shadowland, I see the oni do not seem invulnerable, and therefore have no more weakness in jade.

Did I miss something ? Otherwise the oni seem to me much less dangerous than before.

Your expert opinion?

On 2/18/2020 at 4:10 PM, NBSamael said:

Hello,

I play L5R since the first edition, and reading the book on the shadowland, I see the oni do not seem invulnerable, and therefore have no more weakness in jade.

Did I miss something ? Otherwise the oni seem to me much less dangerous than before.

Your expert opinion?

Oni don't pose a serious threat by themselves against a group of PC. Especally not if the PC have the right tools like Sacred weapons or techniques like Bind the shadows.

The most powerful oni have physical and supernatural resistance of 7, tagged Unholy. The only hand weapon that has a basic damage of more than that is the Otsuchi. You are chipping away at an Endurance of 24, one point at a time if you use a huge 2-handed Axe, while it hits back with Damage 9, Deadliness 7. Everything else bounces off. It's not strictly invulnerable, but from the point of view of an average solider, it might as well be. Even lesser oni easily have Resistance 5,

If you hit them with a Sacred weapon, that ignores all resistances. Jade inlay makes a weapon Sacred, as is Jade itself. I'd call that quite a big weakness to Jade.

The problem with enemies with weap8n immunity is that unless the GM specifically plans to provide the PCs with the right weapons, they cannot win the fight, through no fault of their own. Even if the GM does, unless he gives a whole stack of weapons, one or three PCs effectively sit the fight out and only stand there to take damage, as they are not the one to wield the Katana Of BlendungTM. That is not ideal.

Better give the enemy a very high armor and have the special weapons penetrate, but the others can deal a point of Fatigue or two, too.

L5R 5th does the weapon immunity with ghosts, who have physical resistance 10. Path of Waves offers a creature of Combat Rating 1 that will probably TPK a group of bushi for that reason. I am not a fan of that.

Do you mean the Furiribi? Because that doesn't actually attack you. It's more of a ghost light that's supposed to lure you to your death. You'll note that it doesn't have an attack - it only has a reactive ability when someone tries touching it . That one hurts, though.

The Hinotama is much scarier in that respect but is also Conflict rank 6 despite pretty terrible stats and a not amazing attack.

1 hour ago, Harzerkatze said:

The problem with enemies with weap8n immunity is that unless the GM specifically plans to provide the PCs with the right weapons, they cannot win the fight, through no fault of their own. Even if the GM does, unless he gives a whole stack of weapons, one or three PCs effectively sit the fight out and only stand there to take damage, as they are not the one to wield the Katana Of BlendungTM. That is not ideal.

Agreed.

Right now, even if you don't have a Sacred Weapon and a ginormous Oni of Doom turns up you have three options:

• Provide assistance to the buddy who has a sacred weapon (assuming someone does). Narratively, that's you fighting too, parrying and defending the one with the 'Katana of Blending'. Mechanically, it gives extra dice to the attack that matters.
• Go for critical strikes (ideally with a non-Razor-edged weapon, but you do what you gotta) - yes, the Oni has a high ring and martial rank, meaning they'll mitigate the critical strike to nothingness - except a severity 0 critical isn't nothing; it's applying Damaged to the Oni's armour. That reduces its resistance by 2, and if you can do it a second time, reduces it to 0, allowing people with mundane weapons - even weak ones - to land some fatigue.
• Panic. Not terribly helpful winning the fight but it tends to happen anyway.

Note that there are a few 'damage reducing' abilities out there not directly tied to Resistance.

The 'tainted' opportunity for Earth is a good one " : No mortal concern can slow you, as you already endure worse than most can even imagine. For the rest of the scene, whenever you suffer fatigue reduce the value suffered by 2, to a minimum of 0 ."

That's not game-winning by itself but it does go a long way to giving a strong earth-heavy Oni the ability to put up more of a fight against jade-wielding samurai.

Sacred weapons are too binary.

Too good if you have them, to the point of nullifying any form of resistances. But if you don't have them, it becomes extremely difficult.

This is bad design and doesn't leave enough granularity for the GM to play with.

It is a bit the same issue as Earth stance.

39 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

Sacred weapons are too binary.

Too good if you have them, to the point of nullifying any form of resistances. But if you don't have them, it becomes extremely difficult.

This is bad design and doesn't leave enough granularity for the GM to play with.

On this, we agree fully.