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Post by akavidar on Aug 17, 2018 15:30:46 GMT -8
The L5R Beginner box is very similar to the Star Wars boxes. You get:
A Box.
A catalog of FFG products.
A bag of dice - 5d12 (White with red symbols) and 5d6 (Black with red symbols)
A pamphlet about how to play.
An Adventure book - Topaz Championship
A Rule book - Very pared down set of rules for the 4 included PC's
4 Character folios - Phoenix Shugenja, Lion Bushi, Dragon Tattooed Monk, Crane Courtier. Designed for the included adventure.
A sheet of POG's characters npc's enemies
A map of Rokugan on one side, other has Emerals Champion's Castle and the city of Tsuma where the adventure takes place,
That's it. Haven't read through anything yet. Trying to post a picture but the forum software is giving me shit.
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Post by akavidar on Aug 17, 2018 16:08:38 GMT -8
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Post by ayslyn on Aug 17, 2018 19:19:53 GMT -8
No Crab??!??
Dead. To. Me....
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Post by akavidar on Aug 17, 2018 19:58:57 GMT -8
As a download, you can get a character folio for a Crab Bushi, A Unicorn Archer, and a Scorpion something. Also a download of an adventure to find out how the Emerald Champion died.
Scorpion Courtier.
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Post by Zaszamonde on Aug 19, 2018 9:04:35 GMT -8
I'm a fan of the layout (mostly). I still think damage isn't as clear as it could be, however, the tip sheet on the back of the rules book is perfect and once you understand the rings, the game can be quite quick. Honestly, it seems to play very much like how Stu likes to run games. Skill + semi-variable stat depending on how you're approaching the situation. Attachments:
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Post by Zaszamonde on Aug 19, 2018 9:08:14 GMT -8
Skill page Attachments:
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
Posts: 2,142
Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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Post by fredrix on Aug 19, 2018 10:31:41 GMT -8
I'm a fan of the layout (mostly). I still think damage isn't as clear as it could be, however, the tip sheet on the back of the rules book is perfect and once you understand the rings, the game can be quite quick. Honestly, it seems to play very much like how Stu likes to run games. Skill + semi-variable stat depending on how you're approaching the situation. Does this mean there is no way to kill a (reasonably skilled) opponent with one blow?
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Post by Zaszamonde on Aug 19, 2018 11:01:05 GMT -8
I'm a fan of the layout (mostly). I still think damage isn't as clear as it could be, however, the tip sheet on the back of the rules book is perfect and once you understand the rings, the game can be quite quick. Honestly, it seems to play very much like how Stu likes to run games. Skill + semi-variable stat depending on how you're approaching the situation. Does this mean there is no way to kill a (reasonably skilled) opponent with one blow? No, it's very possible to one shot someone. Damage is weapon (+extra if wielded two-handed for some weapons) plus bonus successes and you can explode on your attack. Crits are on a different track and can be triggered with opportunities (may not be the right name, I'm on mobile). You can see the table of crit effects on the first page I posted. I'll post an example of damage when I'm back home.
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Post by Zaszamonde on Aug 19, 2018 11:47:15 GMT -8
So a katana held with two hands does at least 6 damage. A tetsubo does at least 8. Any successes above one adds damage. A character has 6-12 endurance (HP, (Earth + Fire) x 2), armor subtracts from damage (4 armor is a heavily armored bushi, 3 is an ashigaru). To one shot an ashigaru, you'd have to do 9 damage in one attack. To one shot an experienced bushi, you'd have to do 16. If you're in Fire stance, you gain additional success for each strife you keep.
Critical hits are additional on top of that. You only have four of these and you can cause a critical hit with two opportunities. One adds three strife, two makes the player's next check increase TN by 1, three increases all of their checks by 1, and four marks them out. You can spend a void point to take a critical hit instead of having it go to fatigue.
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Post by Zaszamonde on Aug 19, 2018 12:05:06 GMT -8
Comparing to the old system, you'd have to do something like 50-90 damage to take out an experienced bushi in one shot. On 7k3, that's nearly impossible.
EDIT: Looking at a stock, Insight 1 Hida Bushi with Earth 3 and Heavy Armor, you'd have to do 62 points of damage (3 x 5 + (3 x 2) x 7 + 5 armor) to kill them in one shot, 72 with void. Looking at my probability sheet, which only goes to 60, the only dice roll that has a better than 50% chance to cause 60 damage is 10k10.
Earth 2 no armor? 38 damage in one strike would kill them.
However, the biggest change is that you don't take penalties when you're damaged like you do in 4e, so the strategy of weakening opponents to make them useless isn't viable anymore, unless you only do critical attacks.
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Post by Zaszamonde on Aug 19, 2018 14:55:52 GMT -8
For character sheets, there's a few on their page:
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tappy
Journeyman Douchebag
Host
Posts: 192
Preferred Game Systems: Apoc World, Monsterhearts, L5r, Wod
Favorite Species of Monkey: Space Monkey
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Post by tappy on Aug 19, 2018 15:54:55 GMT -8
Comparing to the old system, you'd have to do something like 50-90 damage to take out an experienced bushi in one shot. On 7k3, that's nearly impossible. EDIT: Looking at a stock, Insight 1 Hida Bushi with Earth 3 and Heavy Armor, you'd have to do 62 points of damage (3 x 5 + (3 x 2) x 7 + 5 armor) to kill them in one shot, 72 with void. Looking at my probability sheet, which only goes to 60, the only dice roll that has a better than 50% chance to cause 60 damage is 10k10. Earth 2 no armor? 38 damage in one strike would kill them. However, the biggest change is that you don't take penalties when you're damaged like you do in 4e, so the strategy of weakening opponents to make them useless isn't viable anymore, unless you only do critical attacks. You are comparing to base 4e, 1e was better when is came to damage. Each rank was earth x 2, which is consequently how I run 4e damage. Also, running your simulations off the baddest clan for absorbing damage is not really "average". Saying you need 10 extra successes to one shot a Bushi is significant. Like crazy significant. The math is really complicated so I can't tell you how small the chance is, but it is small. I have one shot at least one person in every L5R game I ever played. In fact, it was so common that our GM had a special "Blood Spray" award (1 xp) that was given to the first person to take an opponent down from full health in each game session. It happened almost every game session. That is far more common that whatever the chance is to roll 10 extra successes in NL5R.
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Post by Zaszamonde on Aug 19, 2018 17:56:54 GMT -8
You are comparing to base 4e, 1e was better when is came to damage. Each rank was earth x 2, which is consequently how I run 4e damage. Also, running your simulations off the baddest clan for absorbing damage is not really "average". Saying you need 10 extra successes to one shot a Bushi is significant. Like crazy significant. The math is really complicated so I can't tell you how small the chance is, but it is small. I have one shot at least one person in every L5R game I ever played. In fact, it was so common that our GM had a special "Blood Spray" award (1 xp) that was given to the first person to take an opponent down from full health in each game session. It happened almost every game session. That is far more common that whatever the chance is to roll 10 extra successes in NL5R. Oh yeah, 1e was a damn deadly game. The only system where characters would have shorter play time was Traveler 1e when you could die in character gen. I was attempting to simulate the Beginner Box's stock enemy "Experienced Bushi" to a low-level, but highly defensive character. It's not a great comparison without the ability to build characters for some level of comparison. We can do that when the books come out. Maybe compare the stock character listed above to a stock Hida? I can't figure out the math for this game since you can choose dice to keep, stances affect success and strife, and there are explosions. However, I think you're right, the high rolls probably end with a max of less than a half dozen extra successes, probably 3-4. I think armor is a bit too good in 5e compared to 4e. 4e's armor was primarily to increase TN, the DR was quite low, whereas 5e is all DR and it's pretty high. On the other hand, critical strikes might actually be the fastest way to take someone out. It takes just 8 opportunities to take some one out and it ignores armor.
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Post by vyrrk on Sept 12, 2018 18:17:47 GMT -8
I really want to give this game a shot.... but the happyjacks ap made it sound awful. This box might be the right buy in point to check it out.
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Post by Zaszamonde on Sept 12, 2018 18:38:07 GMT -8
I really want to give this game a shot.... but the happyjacks ap made it sound awful. This box might be the right buy in point to check it out. I wouldn't take the AP as a review of a system as a whole. The majority of the problems they faced at the table related to the fact that the beta "book" was spread over several PDFs with no way to figure out what was accurate or not. Naturally, the Beginner's Box cleared that up. I'd pick it up since it's cheap and really is quite fun. The special dice might not be for everyone, but they allow for very interesting outcomes and decisions by the players.
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