Balance Pass, round 1

[Vutall]

Now that we are almost finished with our part 1, I am opening it up to the community to discuss game balance.

Is there anything you see moving forward into part 2 that need a balance pass? This can be anything from schools, skills, masteries, kata, it kiho.

[Kaiu Aiichiro]

The rank 2 of the CR Kaiu Engineer is... Awfully underpowered. Same with the Kaiu Battlemaster alternative trail.

[Vutall]

I am not sure. It’s very selective, that’s for sure. But in games where you are building walls and manning siege engines (like say, a potential Shadowlands game...) it would be pretty cool

[Kakita Kenji]

Yotuso, Kai and me had a small discussion about proposing these changes to the Spears and Polearms skill:

Polearms
Rank 3: When a character is wielding a polearm he gains a bonus of +5 to his Initiative Score.
Rank 5: While wielding a Polearm, increase your ArmorTN by 3
Rank 7: While wielding a Polearm, Opponents with a Reduction Rating have their rating reduced by 3

Spears
Rank 3: Ranged attacks made using a spear increase their maximum possible range by 5'.
Rank 5: Damage rolls made with Spears are increased by +1k0. And +1k1 against Enemys on Horseback or are Large
Rank 7: While a character is wielding a spear he may ignore 3 points of Reduction when making melee attacks against his opponent and gets +2 to his Initiative.

[Vutall]

I was working on spears and polearms earlier, here is what I had.

Polearms:

MASTERY ABILITIES:
c RANK 3: Until you are hit with a melee attack, you gain +10 to your initiative score in combat when wielding a polearm
c RANK 5: Damage rolls made with polearms is increased by +1k0.
c RANK 7: Polearms may be readied as a Free Action.

Spears:

MASTERY ABILITIES:
c RANK 3: Until you are hit with a melee attack, you may spear may ignore 3 points of Reduction when wielding a spear.
c RANK 5: Damage rolls made with spears against mounted or significantly larger opponents is increased by +1k0.
c RANK 7: Spears may be readied as a Free Action.

[Kakita Kenji]

The following argumentation against the rank 3 techniques: No other weapon skill has conditional bonuses, which makes this type of weapon rather useless. Here we should have a permanent bonus.

Argument against the rank 7 technique: Weapons of war or generally heavy or long weapons are never "sheathed". Also, the R7 of spears and staff weapons is comparatively weak. Here there should be a similarly strong bonus as for heavy weapons or swords.

Rank 5 looks good, although I would increase the spear bonus to +1k1, as it depends on the situation.

[Kaiu Aiichiro]

I am not sure. It’s very selective, that’s for sure. But in games where you are building walls and manning siege engines (like say, a potential Shadowlands game...) it would be pretty cool

Everything on the school is situational for very niche things. Since you can control when you craft an armor or weapon, rank 3 and 5 are cool. Since you are using your skills all the time you specifically do something Kaiu, rank 1 is cool. Rank 4 is the double attack one.

Rank 2 feels awkward and too specific for one type of campaign. If we are actually defending temples at a theorical part 3, which is something I have never seen in play, I would be cool with it.

Temples specifically because the first part is a flat bonus.

When constructing any large structure (temple-sized or larger), you may make an Engineering Skill Roll at TN 25 to add an additional number of Wounds to the structure equal to your School Rank x 100.

So it only counts towards Temples and up. Assuming a rank 3 character, a temple jumps from 500 to 800 HP, which is a hefty bonus. To anything larger than that, the bonus gets quickly insignificant.
A Estate jumps from 2000 to 2300, a Keep from 5000 to 5300, a Fortress would jump from 500,000 to 500,300.
Even if the feature is kept, the formula needs revision.

Also, when commanding a siege engine, you may re-roll once any of the siege engine's damage dice that roll below your School Rank.

This is extremely situational even for Kaiu. It assumes they are using a siege engine to attack something. Which is either a rare mission to destroy something at the Shadowlands instead of letting it rot, or an interclan war. It could see more use on a revised Mass Combat system depends on how it goes.

[Vutall]

I see the arguments for the ready.

The conditional Bonus for the Rank 3 is to represent the weapons reach, which is not something L5R takes into account ever.

+1k1 is a lot. usually the bonuses in anything are just one rolled or 1 kept, not both.

For the Kaiu: There will be a game where both repairing walls/buildings (Or construction), the HP of said things matters a lot. Additionally, siege weapons do have a planned use at some point in the campaign.

[Kaito Haruki]

Rank 5 damage increases are +1k0, not 1k1 according to what's there now. Are you considering the conditional reduction ignoring too?

[Kakita Kenji]

To not Spam the Discord into Oblivion i would suggest changing the Bonus to Focus and Assesment with the Chrysantheum Blade to a +1 Bonus to the roll

[Doji Sakura]

Please reconsider inheritance for iaijutsu. The strength of 1k1 to assessment and focus has proven to be far too much in previous games, and it makes the inheritance weapon even better than a kakita blade.

From a theme storypoint as well it doesn't make sense. You don't have any contact with your blade during the non-combat parts of a duel, so there's no reason having a blade at your side should add such a massive bonus to your staredown.

[Miya Wyn]

On the Kaiu:

Thematically I see the balancing of this and the drawbacks:
Drawback: You can not repair/reinforce a Structure, you have to have BUILT it so a Kaiu built structure gets the extra, but just reinforcing it does nothing.

Balance: It doesn't say only 1 kaiu can add their bonus, if 100 Kaiu help build a castle that's +30,000 HP to the Castle.

Its really good npc wise but not much for pc wise.

Now if you COULD reinforce a structure or repair a structure with this technique, I mean if you could REinforce a structure and add 50% or 300 which ever is left of "temporary" hitpoints to an existing structure I think that would make it more viable.

[Vutall]

I personally consider building and reinforcing the same thing, since to reinforce you have to build...

Iaijutsu Inheritance: Well, we have some folks who picked the Inheritance: Katana as a reward thinking it would give +1k1. This may require some serious thinking.

By the original intent for Spears, they only ignore reduction while you are far enough away from the opponent to really jab hard with it. Once someone gets in close, it becomes difficult to get a good momentum on the thrust, hence why the Rank 3 mastery in my reword has the ignore reduction until you are hit in melee (When someone closes in on you)

So, Polearms and Spears both need a new Rank 7.

Potentially the Rank 5 on spears needs adjusting.

[Kakita Kenji]

On the Iaijutsu Thing I would argue that a Duel in it's whole is one set of Combat and so the existing rules of the Bonus not applying on Combat rolls still holds. I don't think the Game Designer wanted to make a OP Duel Sword.

From my Viewpoint a Chrysantheum Engraved Sword would benefit impressing or intimidating other People as it is the Sign of the Emporor. Depending on the Situation this could Benefit a Courtier, Intimidation, Perform, etc. Roll.

But i understand that some People had the +1k1 Bonus in Mind picking that Sword and want to use it that way.

[Vutall]

The reason it's in the errata/changes document and the dueling rules is from Mindshred, the GM from the Hollow Throne games. He said many times over the years that the 4e team did indeed design the Inheritance: Katana to offer +1k1 during Focus and Strike, as he was a playtester for 4e.

Now, that doesn't mean we have to keep it.

[Yasuki Ginkarasu]

If it changes, I'd like to change my choice. It was really difficult to choose between three different things, and having the bushi/sword choice be pointless in comparison would be frustrating.

[Iuchi Prashant]

For all it's worth, giving players the possibility of changing their rewards if a rule changes sounds quite alright to me.

And... I do think +1k1 for two of the three duel rolls might be a bit much. Exchanging that for a +2 or something, or even +1k0 for those rolls (keeping +1k1 for social situations) sounds like a good adjustment to me... And then people could still have a chance to keep that or change their reward, maybe.

As for Spears - I like the idea of 'before someone closes in', but it's still a bit strange - mostly BC AEG never cared for more detailed range rules.

Maybe keep the bonus against each opponent until they hit you in combat, or unless they tried to attack you in melee in the previous turn?

Also - the bonus to throwing spears disappearing bugs me a bit, but it might not be a problem to others. Rank 7 being free draw is a bit odd (although arguably some people might keep their Yaris tied to their backs or something, I suppose?) and a bit weak, but I can't think of much more to do with them that wouldn't make things overpowered. Maybe raising or lowering the restriction on the R3 bonuses?

[Kaito Haruki]

Not to mention I can't imagine a samurai carrying around 20 spears on their back like a dnd fighter.

[Doji Sakura]

I don't see an issue with letting people change their reward if it means removing a potentially overpowered use of inheritance. It feels like it would be balancing for the game

[Togashi Dao]

The reason it's in the errata/changes document and the dueling rules is from Mindshred, the GM from the Hollow Throne games. He said many times over the years that the 4e team did indeed design the Inheritance: Katana to offer +1k1 during Focus and Strike, as he was a playtester for 4e.

Now, that doesn't mean we have to keep it.

Ahem....cough...

BUSTED AS FUCK!!!


Just thought I'd drop my 2 cents on this one. If I could take it back I would have NEVER been the one to open this can of worms back at Nodoka Toshi.