Full release striking as wind

[JBento 229]

3 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

This is how the 'new' reserve abilities work, and this is how Striking as Air should work too in my opinion. 

By the way, there are two big uses for this Technique: diffusing "overexplosion" (when your explosions go too far) by dropping and later reserving the surplus, and salvaging "misfailure" (when you fail to succeed but your roll has some very good results like <Succ><Opp>). And since this Technique is "always active", you don't have to give up anything (well, only 2 XP) for a nice safety net. 

Isn't it 3 XP? Otherwise, it depends on whether or not you were going to be in Air Stance anyway. If you were, you MAYBE might as well, depending on what you were going to get with those 3 XP.

[Avatar111 553]

6 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

This is how the 'new' reserve abilities work, and this is how Striking as Air should work too in my opinion. 

By the way, there are two big uses for this Technique: diffusing "overexplosion" (when your explosions go too far) by dropping and later reserving the surplus, and salvaging "misfailure" (when you fail to succeed but your roll has some very good results like <Succ><Opp>). And since this Technique is "always active", you don't have to give up anything (well, only 2 XP) for a nice safety net. 

a nice safety net, if you strike (martial check only) in Air stance... which isn't exactly the most powerful thing to do. fair i guess.

and what are you talking about, what are the "new reserve abilities" ?

Edited October 24, 2018 by Avatar111

[Avatar111 553]

5 minutes ago, JBento said:

I'm not sure I understand your setup - do you mean I have 9 Fatigue and 12 Endurance, or that I have 3 Fatigue and 12 Endurance and thus can take 9 more Fatigue? There's no such thing as "maximum Fatigue." I'm going to assume it's the first case:

Scenario 1: Your Fatigue is now 15. You get whatever the condition is that you get whenever your Fatigue exceeds your Endurance. Incapacitated, I think? You take no crit, unless Dude has an ability that says you do.

Scenario 2: Your Fatigue remains as it was - you're not defending, so you don't get Fatigue. You DO take that cirtical hit, you get no condition unless the crit table says so or Dude has an ability that says so.

got it. it really makes the void point expenditure to take a crit instead of defending very strong vs low deadliness weapons. not that i thought tetsubo and otsuchi were any good anyway (they need a buff to be honest) , especially the tetsubo, the otsuchi is maybe ok.

[AtoMaki 1,431]

9 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

and what are you talking about, what are the "new reserve abilities" ?

The "new" reserve abilities are nuCenter and the Void Opp that allows you to reserve dice from a downtime activity roll. Both are added to the roll from reserve after every dice is cast, they do not replace rolled dice. This was a thing pressed against the old Center action in the Beta, the writers probably listened and changed it, applied the change to the new reserve ability that did not exist in the Beta (the Void Opp) but forgot to update the other reserve abilities (Channeling and Striking as Air). 

[ExplodingJoe 131]

Striking as Air used to be a way to jack up your TN to be hit by stupidly high levels. The new tech is much more balanced. Considering you were already TN3 to be hit in air stance, two opps made you TN5, which makes you virtually un-hittable in an early game duel.

The new tech is narratively more like you feinted your first attack, and the opp you keep is the opening you made for yourself in the following round. I appreciate the change.

[Avatar111 553]

7 minutes ago, ExplodingJoe said:

Striking as Air used to be a way to jack up your TN to be hit by stupidly high levels. The new tech is much more balanced. Considering you were already TN3 to be hit in air stance, two opps made you TN5, which makes you virtually un-hittable in an early game duel.

The new tech is narratively more like you feinted your first attack, and the opp you keep is the opening you made for yourself in the following round. I appreciate the change.

except the change makes it weak sauce.

you already can keep 1opp dice with a regular conflict air opportunity spending on p.328.

so it makes striking as air only useful for successes... and meaning that to keep that success, you need to remove that success from your current roll AND spend 1 opportunity (which could be used to simply add +1 opportunity on your next roll with the regular air opp spending table). Plus, on your next roll, you need to remove a dice to add that reserved success in...

its very very bad.

hence why we are discussing it. probably making it that you wouldn't need to roll less dice to add your reserved dice during your next roll. that would make striking as air decent, but still worst than the regular opp spending if you want to reserve a dice with an opportunity on it...

 

Edited October 24, 2018 by Avatar111

[ExplodingJoe 131]

I think the skill is perfectly fine as is. It's narratively fitting and it give players the opportunity to save successes from a failed roll. For 2XP at rank 1, it doesn't really need to do more than that. Air stance is already taking the long game approach, since you're forcing an opponent to keep 3 successes just to score base fatigue damage. Only an incredibly good roll is going to turn a crit on you (unless you're facing a ring 4 opponent), and then my advice changes depending on duel/skirmish.

You're welcome to homebrew it at your table.

[JBento 229]

5 minutes ago, ExplodingJoe said:

I think the skill is perfectly fine as is. It's narratively fitting and it give players the opportunity to save successes from a failed roll. For 2XP at rank 1, it doesn't really need to do more than that. Air stance is already taking the long game approach, since you're forcing an opponent to keep 3 successes just to score base fatigue damage. Only an incredibly good roll is going to turn a crit on you (unless you're facing a ring 4 opponent), and then my advice changes depending on duel/skirmish.

You're welcome to homebrew it at your table.

Isn't it 3 XP?

[Avatar111 553]

6 minutes ago, ExplodingJoe said:

I think the skill is perfectly fine as is. It's narratively fitting and it give players the opportunity to save successes from a failed roll. For 2XP at rank 1, it doesn't really need to do more than that. Air stance is already taking the long game approach, since you're forcing an opponent to keep 3 successes just to score base fatigue damage. Only an incredibly good roll is going to turn a crit on you (unless you're facing a ring 4 opponent), and then my advice changes depending on duel/skirmish.

You're welcome to homebrew it at your table.

but you have to roll one less dice to add that reserved "success". you have what, 50% to get a success on a dice? so for a 50% chance, you are willing to remove a success from your roll + spend one opportunity ?

you know that you could have just use the regular opp spending to add an extra opportunity (without rolling less dice) to your next roll ? that sounds much better to be.

and don't get me started on keeping "an explosion". because you would need to have an AWFUL roll not to take a chance to reroll that explosion for an extra success that would mostly make you succeed on your roll.

+

meanwhile the striking as earth stance guy is almost immune to crits, and add +1 to his resistance per opportunity he spends.

i will definitely homebrew striking as air at my table. but i understand your PoV.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Avatar111

[ExplodingJoe 131]

I would much rather spend opp to reserve a Success+Opp dice from a bad roll, then reserve nothing and continue to leave my fate up to RNG-sus.

4 minutes ago, JBento said:

Isn't it 3 XP?

Techniques that only give you opportunity options should be cheaper than ones that grant actions. I was pretty sure they left them at 2 xp.

[JBento 229]

Just now, ExplodingJoe said:

I would much rather spend opp to reserve a Success+Opp dice from a bad roll, then reserve nothing and continue to leave my fate up to RNG-sus.

Techniques that only give you opportunity options should be cheaper than ones that grant actions. I was pretty sure they left them at 2 xp.

Advancement table says 3 XP, and the start of the Techniques chapter says that "all techniques in this chapter cost 3 XP, unless we say otherwise" (paraphrased). Is that 2 Xp thing tucked away somewhere?

[Avatar111 553]

14 minutes ago, ExplodingJoe said:

I would much rather spend opp to reserve a Success+Opp dice from a bad roll, then reserve nothing and continue to leave my fate up to RNG-sus.

Techniques that only give you opportunity options should be cheaper than ones that grant actions. I was pretty sure they left them at 2 xp.

how bad your roll would need to be, for you to be willing to spend a success and and opportunity (that needs to be on a different dice than the one you want to reserve nonetheless) to get a 100% chance to have 1 success on your next roll instead of 50% to get one success (the dice you won't have to remove from you next turn's roll) + 1 guaranteed opportunity from the conflict air opp spending ?

oof man. big oof.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Avatar111

[ExplodingJoe 131]

I don't have to keep a success and opportunity. I just have to keep an opportunity and bank my successes for next round.

[Avatar111 553]

37 minutes ago, ExplodingJoe said:

I don't have to keep a success and opportunity. I just have to keep an opportunity and bank my successes for next round.

"keeping an opportunity" ? i don't get it. you need to spend 1 opp to bank your success (and remove one dice from your next roll, before rolling) that is how the technique works.

btw, "banking" your success cost you 1 opp...  an opp that could have been used to add 1opp to your next roll (p 328)... without the need to roll less dice on your next roll. and that dice that you are not rolling, would have had a 50% chance to roll a success.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Avatar111

[Moderately 7]

55 minutes ago, ExplodingJoe said:

I think the skill is perfectly fine as is. It's narratively fitting and it give players the opportunity to save successes from a failed roll. For 2XP at rank 1, it doesn't really need to do more than that. Air stance is already taking the long game approach, since you're forcing an opponent to keep 3 successes just to score base fatigue damage. Only an incredibly good roll is going to turn a crit on you (unless you're facing a ring 4 opponent), and then my advice changes depending on duel/skirmish.

You're welcome to homebrew it at your table.

Katas do vary from situational to general, but niche katas shouldn't be an inefficient use of xp if every fight matches their niche. Striking as Air, in the niche of attacking high TN, is inefficient compared to general options like skill ranks until you literally can't put points into them anymore.

If you miss but have an exploding dice, unless you're facing a guarding school rank 4 air stance user and missed by a margin of 4 (unlikely at school rank 4) you're more likely to hit by chaining the explosion and hoping for another explosion+success (1/12) than you are to have next turn be a miss salvaged by replacing a a roll with an explosion.

Against high TN, reserving a success on miss will on average be only half as useful as another skill rank for accuracy, let alone when we factor in generic opportunity options. When saving a success, you increase next rolls average successes by .4 and reduce your opportunity by .4 (due to the 1÷6 explosion, ring dice average .6 successes and .4 opportunities) using opportunity to aid an ally on average adds more success, more opportunity, rewards you sooner, and can be used after failing with an exploding dice while SaAir requires you decide rerolls. In one on one combat, adding an extra opportunity makes you very likely to land a hit/crit even on high target numbers by adding +1 opportunity at no xp cost, while reserving successes adds +.4 success -.4 opportunity for 30% the cost of the last skill rank.

 

Flavor wise it's not bad, but I know players who already struggle with what dice to keep, and this will slow down decision making in addition to being worse than generic opportunities in almost all situations, and still not an efficient use of xp in its niche.

[Avatar111 553]

12 minutes ago, Moderately said:

Katas do vary from situational to general, but niche katas shouldn't be an inefficient use of xp if every fight matches their niche. Striking as Air, in the niche of attacking high TN, is inefficient compared to general options like skill ranks until you literally can't put points into them anymore.

If you miss but have an exploding dice, unless you're facing a guarding school rank 4 air stance user and missed by a margin of 4 (unlikely at school rank 4) you're more likely to hit by chaining the explosion and hoping for another explosion+success (1/12) than you are to have next turn be a miss salvaged by replacing a a roll with an explosion.

Against high TN, reserving a success on miss will on average be only half as useful as another skill rank for accuracy, let alone when we factor in generic opportunity options. When saving a success, you increase next rolls average successes by .4 and reduce your opportunity by .4 (due to the 1÷6 explosion, ring dice average .6 successes and .4 opportunities) using opportunity to aid an ally on average adds more success, more opportunity, rewards you sooner, and can be used after failing with an exploding dice while SaAir requires you decide rerolls. In one on one combat, adding an extra opportunity makes you very likely to land a hit/crit even on high target numbers by adding +1 opportunity at no xp cost, while reserving successes adds +.4 success -.4 opportunity for 30% the cost of the last skill rank.

 

Flavor wise it's not bad, but I know players who already struggle with what dice to keep, and this will slow down decision making in addition to being worse than generic opportunities in almost all situations, and still not an efficient use of xp in its niche.

 

air players should be smart players. so the mechanic of reserving dices is fine. you seem decent in maths. if you don't have to roll less dice(s) on your next roll (basically just adding the reserved dice(s) to it. is the technique ok ? or too OP? or still bad?

Edited October 24, 2018 by Avatar111

[Moderately 7]

32 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

 

air players should be smart players. so the mechanic of reserving dices is fine. you seem decent in maths. if you don't have to roll less dice(s) on your next roll (basically just adding the reserved dice(s) to it. is the technique ok ? or too OP? or still bad?

Striking as series generally allows you to trade 1 opportunity for a +1 with some weakness, honestly swapping Striking as Air with the default option of adding a free opportunity to your next roll (which is imo to strong for a generic) is probably good enough.

If it doesn't eat up your roll, but does still eat a kept dice, it will still in most cases be worse than generic options. As assist another grants +1 skill dice and +1 kept dice, and the default extra opportunity is similar to +1 roll/kept dice on average.

Issue is, if it no longer eats a kept or rolled dice, than it situationally becomes trading 1 dice, 1 opportunity for +2 if you pass on an explosion or success+opportunity, this may be counterbalanced by the fact it has a delayed payoff, and in order to pass on the +2 dice you had to NOT use an above average result last turn, but a free keep/dice next turn will usually be a +1, and on known overkills/occasional misses it will be a +2. Considering on miss earth is usually +3-4 (as below average success roll is correlated with an above average opportunity roll) it would probably be alright. But offensive abilities are stronger than defensive abilities as the counterplay of "hit someone else, or take a non-attack option" is usually more accessible then "don't give them any legal targets to attack"

 

If you make it a free extra dice/kept dice, I highly recommend you keep the (every kept dice beyond the first costs another 2 opportunity) if you don't give it the free kept die, I still don't see it outperforming generic options 99% of the time.

[JBento 229]

Slight correction: the 2nd kept die, as written, only costs you one extra Opp. You get kept dices at 1, 2, 4 Opps.

[Moderately 7]

That is such a weird design decision.

[JBento 229]

And yet. There MIGHT be a missing "additional" there, but Strike as Air says "for every two Opp spent this way".

[Avatar111 553]

how i understood it is; 1opp for One dice, 3opp for Two dices, 5opp for Three dices. I understand what you mean though @JBento but i really think its should be 1-3-5  

 

and sure, the generic option of adding an opp to your next roll is better than doing the same thing with my buffed version of striking as air (same as current, except you don't roll less dices on your next roll, you simply add your reserved dice to it). but, you can only do it once with the generic. striking as air would allow you to keep an extra one. it also works with successes... while the generic option doesnt.

and I don't know if you've seen the Kiho "body is anvil" or something like that, but its like... super super strong as a defensive technique. at least i think.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Avatar111

[Moderately 7]

In most cases, 2 opportunity for a crit is better than other opportunies, so usually outside misses you only have an odd lone opportunity for the striking as series.

 

Also if you make the +1 opportunity a 1-3-5 cost technique, it can result in interesting situations as your opponent knows your next hit has a crit and considers air+guard or earth stance, and you consider what to do with a pile of opportunity.

[Avatar111 553]

9 minutes ago, Moderately said:

In most cases, 2 opportunity for a crit is better than other opportunies, so usually outside misses you only have an odd lone opportunity for the striking as series.

 

Also if you make the +1 opportunity a 1-3-5 cost technique, it can result in interesting situations as your opponent knows your next hit has a crit and considers air+guard or earth stance, and you consider what to do with a pile of opportunity.

yeah its definitely a technique to be used when you miss.

and obviously, the "spend 3 opps to keep 2 dices" would almost never be used... but one opp to keep one dice... also meaning you keep all results on that dice (which could be one success + one opp!) is good. because it can become relatively comon to be able to keep 1die with a success and an opp, and another die with just an opp (generic opp spending). to make sure your next strike is crit almost.

but yeah, instances where you would spend 3 opps to keep 2 dices wont happen a lot i think, thats basically if you decide to miss a strike to really get a super strike next turn. or you try to remove dices with strife cause they would compromise you..

anyway. will try it as is but without the "roll less dices on your next roll" and see how it goes.

and no, i will not make the generic opp spending to add +1opp to your next roll a 1-2-3 thing  its just 1 and its already very strong as is.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Avatar111

[ExplodingJoe 131]

I've never played statistics in games. It's a gambler's trap. The ability to bank a die for my next roll will always be valuable to me, since I know as a fact there will always be time when I roll one good die and nothing else, and I may want to spend opp to save it for later. If you don't, feel free to focus on other rings.

2 hours ago, JBento said:

Advancement table says 3 XP, and the start of the Techniques chapter says that "all techniques in this chapter cost 3 XP, unless we say otherwise" (paraphrased). Is that 2 Xp thing tucked away somewhere?

This looks like a good edition to the errata thread. They reference it as "3xp unless otherwise noted in the technique" but I didn't see any techniques noted with XP costs in the book. That leads me to believe this note was added for an edit that was forgotten before release. The original intent was that opportunity techs would be cheaper than action techs, because they're less powerful and control less of the narrative.

[JBento 229]

Body Is An Anvil is... okay, I guess? It has the issue you're STILL taking the hit to the face, and you can't use Void points to replace the damage with a crit if you're close to going down (I mean, you CAN, but then the Kiho does nothing).

Edited October 24, 2018 by JBento