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Franwax

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Posts posted by Franwax

  4. Posted

    3 hours ago, Mirac said:

    Using only the Fire Strife Opportunity to Discredit is highly inefficient way to gain Strife on target. The opportunity is not scaling, so one can only cause 2 Strife on a roll no matter the result, as long as they get a single Opportunity.

    But with 3 opp, you can use one to give them 2 Strife and two more to force them to take Strife if they make a scheme action against you on their next turn. Decreasing returns, but still some scalability...

    MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving reacted to this

  5. Posted

    3 hours ago, Victarion13 said:

    So I never had this problem because I never had character with kiho before. Anyway, if a character activate a kiho using for example the earth ring, can the same character attack the next turn using another ring but still having the bonus of the kiho activate the turn before?

    Yes, it works. The enhancement effect lasts even if you switch stances in later turns. 

    Victarion13 reacted to this

  7. Posted

    11 hours ago, Shane said:

    But yeah, without a way to add strife to the enemy you won’t have a way to up it. Intimidate skills to incite strife, maybe?

    Any check in Fire Stance to milk the opportunities... that’s the most reliable way I have seen so far. 

  12. Posted

    1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:

    Skill 3 isn't abusive in the least - and it's doable for almost any school skill without the heritage. 

    I find it takes a lot of work. It’s easier for Theology, but nigh impossible for martial arts (without the right heritage table roll) - which is another thing that sucks for bushi. 

    Avatar111 reacted to this

  14. Posted

    13 minutes ago, Longes said:

    Looking at the Taoist Blade, I'm not that impressed to be honest. Your base is Water 2/Fire 2/Void 2, with +1 you are going to spend in any two of these. But you start with a Water kiho and learn Water kiho at rank 1, so it's going to be Water 3 probably. But Water kiho just don't seem that good with a blade to me. The best damaging Water kiho is Freezing the Lifeblood, and it gets nothing from being used with a Katana. Water Fist is better than nothing, but you would have gotten much more out of any other Fist.

    On top of this, you have non-synergistic skills. You have to invest into Martial Arts twice (weapons and unarmed), and Unarmed does nothing for you except activate kiho. So you are lagging behind upping your half-dead skill all the time.

    Rank 5 "Deadliness $TEXAS" notwithstanding, is there some kind of catch I'm missing? Taoist just seems not as good as a Togashi. You can duel, I guess, but you don't have anything exceptionally synergetic with dueling.

    Hmm I'm not sure about that. The school definitely looks morphed after the Togashi (bonus successes on kihos = to school ranks), except that:

    + They have "fists" that have a base DMG/DLS of 4/5 instead of 1/2

    + They have access to Kata to further enhance their abilities (I would love my Togashi to have even just Striking As Earth, they he would be able to activate at the same time as Earthen Fist)

    - They don't have Shuji... big deal

    And starting with Water Fist does not lock you in there; techniques are quite cheap and you only "lose" 1 xp out of 3 for your progression when buying them out of curriculum. So maybe he's a bit less XP efficient, but being able to combine Iaijutsu: Crossing Blade with Fire Fist for a base damage of 8, that is increased by bonus successes AND opportunities (Razor Edged) without the drawback of a cumbersome weapon is pretty neat.

    Ultimatecalibur and Magnus Grendel reacted to this

  15. Posted

    2 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

    They are good lore/rp wise. I mentioned so.

    But if you let your players choose, they will probably pick these;

    The item, the knowledge, the imperial lineage.

    Because they are much more mechanically inspiring than "+1 trade skill"

    I let one of my player chose, and he took the "Discovery"... for +1 Theology.

    I thought this was very flavorful and reasonable, then I realized he played a Shugenja who already had two ranks in the skill up to that point 😛 Theology 3 on a starting character who relies on Invocations is quite the power move. Basically worth 2 techniques in terms of XP (admittedly, 2 techniques you are authorized to buy, but as someone mentioned, you can always circle back around that point with Titles).

    Avatar111 reacted to this

  17. Posted

    1 hour ago, Longes said:

    Are any of them superior to the Earth Fist or Way of the Earthquake though?

    Might not be optimal, but I have a weakness for The Body is an Anvil. It is crazy strong for a rank 1 Kiho; but mitigated by a rather stiff TN at low ranks. But once you can reliably pull it off, with the burst effect to boot, it is a wonder of passive aggression.

  18. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

    I'm pretty certain Taoist's school ability currently being limited to the Elemental Fists and Edgeless is intentional as the school is based on Wuxia/Xanxia sword cultivators. The only RAI/RAW clash I see is in Water Fist because the kiho doesn't actually modify profiles  and Water Fist is the Taoist Blade's starting Kiho.

    Water Fist does affect the unarmed profile, actually.

    Quote

    While this kihō is active, your Attack checks using the punch or kick unarmed profile ignore an amount of your target’s physical resistance etc.

    At least in the pdf version. But anyway, that's beside the point. All punches and kicks use unarmed profiles. Let's not over-complicate things :)

  19. Posted

    1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:
    5 hours ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

    Death Touch only applies to Attack actions using the punch or kick profiles.

    As it stands, the Taoist blade's School ability only applies to 4 kiho: Earthen Fist (Increase Damage profile by Earth Ring), Air Fist (Set Max Range of profile to Air Ring), Flame Fist (Increase Deadliness profile by Fire Ring, damage type is supernatural), and Way of the Edgeless Sword (Set Deadliness and Damage to Martial Arts [Unarmed]+Void, gain Durable and Razor-Edged qualities).

     

    I think there is a RAW vs RAI issue here, I cannot believe the school ability only works for 4 kihos, 3 of them being rank 1 and one rank 5.

    Yeah, this sounds like an abuse of shoddy semantics here... Punches and Kicks ARE unarmed profiles, whether the words "unarmed profile" appear in the description or not. It would also apply to Water Fist, too. All those Kihos are restricted to punch and kick (leaving out the only other unarmed profile: bite). There is no other way to make an attack with a punch/kick than to use an unarmed profile.

    nameless ronin and Avatar111 reacted to this

  20. Posted · Edited by Franwax

    1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

    Koreans were much closer to mongols, and have a tradition of horseback riding and archery, which makes them similar to the Unicorns.

    And they have Korean barbecue!! Something that would only ever be palatable by Unicorns in Rokugan ;)

    I have always seen Unicorn as a mix between Mongols and Koreans... more of the former, but still. 

    Edit: to be fair, the Mongol part is most specifically tied to the Moto, so there’s room for other influences among the Shinjo and Iuchi. 

    neilcell, Avatar111 and Victarion13 reacted to this

  23. Posted

    I always found the Shinseist ability a bit underwhelming... very dependent on how often you can trigger those disadvantages, and even at the best of times, you won't have many occasions to use it in a session. And to be fair, having a rank in a skill you did not have will only make a marginal - if non null - difference in the end, as your Ring score will still do the heavy lifting. It's actually better to use it on a skill you do have to get extra opps. Their saving grace really is the combo of Kiho + Kata, which is unique to them (so far) and can lead to very interesting things.

    The Fortunist ability can range from anywhere between near useless to borderline broken. I get that it's meant as the mirror image of the Togashi ability but for Invocations instead of Kihos, but there is a big difference: all Kihos rely on bonus successes for burst effects, but Invocations sometimes do, and very often don't get anything out of bonus successes. So not only do you have to pick an invocation linked to your patron fortune, but you also need to consider whether bonus successes will do you any good. In some cases, it can lead to a "meh" moment of great magnitude. Now, if you pick Osano-Wo as your Fortune and survive until Rank 3, this can be absolutely devastating.

    The Togashi are definitely great all-rounders, and some Kihos can actually be useful in non-punchy situations. The Great Silence can be a fantastic social defense technique; and Ki Protection makes you second only to Shugenja in terms of healing (maybe even better if you add Cleansing Spirit). Getting reliable burst effect on things like the Body is an Anvil or Breaking Blow is super cool, and their Mastery Ability blows pretty much anything out of the water, combining offense or defense (or doubling down on offense) as needed.

  24. Posted

    22 hours ago, TheBlindSamurai said:

    As written, the combat rules focus on fatigue. Things which trigger the critical strike chart have to be voluntarily selected through the use of dice. If all combat inherently can rely on the use of only normal damage, which does NOT trigger any results on the Crit Strike table, are all players then inherently playing as pacifists since the rules only say you exhaust an enemy's fatigue

    Maybe best to see it this way. As written, combat works like this: attackers TRY to do harm onto their adversaries (say, by swinging a 4 foot long razor blade in their general direction) but they usually do not manage to do any real damage as long as said adversary has enough resource to defend themselves (it's exactly that: you take Fatigue to "Defend" against damage).

    The double opportunity crit is just an exception to the rule, some nice shortcut you can chose to take or not and sometimes just cannot even take because your opponent is in Earth stance. Or you can chose to use them on another effect (e.g. striking as Water to make sure your Katana does not break on the big Dark Moto's plated armor...). That does not make you a pacifist.

    Finally, the target of the attack can make that choice for you by spending a Void Point and choose not to Defend... the strike you executed is exactly the same, but it's your opponent's choice to sacrifice limb in favor of being able to fight another round that causes an actual wound to take place. So your attack was not, inherently, "harmless" to begin with.

    TheSapient, UnitOmega and Avatar111 reacted to this
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