One of the potential uses for initiative opportunities is to look for difficult terrain. Does it mean than the character creates that difficult terrain somewhere that was supposed to be normal terrain?
Are there only the 6 types of terrain qualities described in the core book, or are there more in the other books? Because, except for the Entangling and Obscuring (that are pretty circumstantial in the fiction) all the other qualities are pretty... Weird. Even Entangling and Obscuring feel kind of lame to me...

How would you interpret fighting in the mud? Wouldn't it also cause an increased difficulty to avoid attacks or to hit, on top of the Movement action complication?

I don't think there are any new ones, although if anywhere they're in Shadowlands.

I find them to be underwhelming too, but it hasn't come up much in my game yet anyway. I think I'll just houserule some more interesting effects.

How do your players spend opportunities in their initiative checks then? Because the table of samples is a little poor in that sense, specially for the duels.

Moreover, somewhere in the book says that it is possible also to spend opportunities for beginning a Skirmish with the weapons ready, but this is not found on the table. Would it cost 1 or 2 opportunities for readied weapon?

The terrain is not created, so yes, a rather underwhelming use of opportunities.

Initiative checks are also conflict checks. Most use that table: Air stance players transfer it to their next martial check, Earth stance players buff their crit resistance etc.

Most of the time, they get as many successes on Initiative as they can and use any opportunities to lower the Strife they take, rather than other tricks.

Oh and for the second question: That devalues Water stance, if it is too cheap, so I'd say two, possibly restricted to doing it with Water in the first place.

The book says, literally in page 262:

Quote

Remember, characters may spend  from this check to get additional information about their surroundings or undertake small tasks such as readying weapons or diving for cover (see Table 8–1: Examples of  on page 328).

But then on the table in page 328 doesn't say anything about that "readying weapons" option...

Yes, and to implement that as a 1Opp cost opportunity for any ring in my opinion devalues Iaijutsu techs and the Water stance, which let you draw and attack on the same turn. If drawing is something that most people will do on Initiative, these options become comparatively weaker.

So I'd say, this is a 2Opp cost Water opportunity on your Initiative roll.

17 hours ago, Sedda said:

One of the potential uses for initiative opportunities is to look for difficult terrain. Does it mean than the character creates that difficult terrain somewhere that was supposed to be normal terrain?
Are there only the 6 types of terrain qualities described in the core book, or are there more in the other books? Because, except for the Entangling and Obscuring (that are pretty circumstantial in the fiction) all the other qualities are pretty... Weird. Even Entangling and Obscuring feel kind of lame to me...

How would you interpret fighting in the mud? Wouldn't it also cause an increased difficulty to avoid attacks or to hit, on top of the Movement action complication?

Mud is just entangling terrain. Do note that some Kata are both Attack and Movement Action, so their TN would increase by 2. Consider that the simple Strike action is just that, a simple "stab them with the pointy end" move with no fancy attack.

Oh and the character doesn't "create" the terrain, it was always there, but you only notice now and position yourself accordingly...

Like many narrative options, this "creates" things in cooperation with the GM. Sometimes, not all options make sense, but you can often come up with something. The gardener cut down creeping vines from the castle wall, but hasn't removed them yet et voilà, Entangling terrain inside a normally wide open courtyard. Oh, the way the sun is shining and creating shadows means that this patch creates confusing contrasts - Obscuring terrain. Etc.

2 hours ago, Myrion said:

Oh and the character doesn't "create" the terrain, it was always there, but you only notice now and position yourself accordingly...

Like many narrative options, this "creates" things in cooperation with the GM. Sometimes, not all options make sense, but you can often come up with something. The gardener cut down creeping vines from the castle wall, but hasn't removed them yet et voilà, Entangling terrain inside a normally wide open courtyard. Oh, the way the sun is shining and creating shadows means that this patch creates confusing contrasts - Obscuring terrain. Etc.

Agreed. We did that for a duel scene where I added a koi pond in the hops of pushing the target there, alas, it was never needed.