L5R RPG - Rules Runs - Part I Basic combat

Greetings fellow L5R Roleplayers. As my campaign rolls ever onwards I thought it would be useful to run through a couple of combat examples. Apart from getting it in my own 'head' it also helps with some of the tactical choices in what is a surprisingly nuanced system .

Anyway. For both fights we have two new characters. The first is the beginner box's Akodo Masako in her more experienced guise. The second is one of my home rolls - a Crane named Daidoji Katsuko

Character Details

Lion

Masako is very strong in the Earth and Water Rings with three in each and weak in  both Fire and Air with only one. The Void Ring is at  two - this is a good protective ring structure.

Her reasonable Void Ring level of two also allows a potential maximum of two void points which can be very helpful in combat.

Technique/skill wise 'Way of the Lion' is a very strong ability that both reduces risk (from bleeding) and increases the speed at which the character can deal with their opponent.

She also has purchased 'Striking as Earth': this is defensive kata that allows the user to spend an opportunity (whilst in Earth Stance) to reduce the damage of any successful strikes by the amount of opportunity spent until the start of the next round.

Indomitable Will is a bit more nuanced. As a GM I would not allow a player to use Indomitable Will to re-roll Strike rolls ( how does having an indomitable will allow you to 'fight' better) - It doesn't but at the same time you could possibly use it when blocking a critical hit so it is still relevant.

As an aside if you look at Hida Sugi from the beginner set her 'large stature' advantage is possibly even stronger than the Way of the Lion. That absolutely could be used every combat round and as it allows two re-rolls it can be very helpful indeed.

Crane

Stats wise Katsuko is strong in her water Ring (three points) but with average values for the air and earth rings (two). Void and fire rings are both weak at one and the single void ring means she only has one void point. Her advantages are a high focus so that she is more 'alert' than the Lion character. Her other advantage is that she is fitter with two skill levels in 'Fitness'. This means that critical hits may be easier to block and it is easier to pass movement checks

Katsuko has three relevant kata/techniques/advantages. She also possess Indomitable Will (with the same restrictions as Masako). Her other two are house based and have interesting possibilities.

Iron Forest Style - A Kata that says that if the user is using a pole arm and spends an opportunity point (not necessarily on a successful hit) then for each opportunity point 'spent' an opponent finds moving when in range of the pole arm very dangerous and must pass a TN4 fitness check to successfully carry out any movement closer to the defender.

Striking as Water - Another 'school' kata that says that if the character spends an opportunity point they can reduce their opponents protection by 1 point and that this lasts until the end of the opponent's next turn. 

The rules describe the order of rolling a check and the order in which dice are resolved. (pg 24&25) since opportunity is spent before success the opportunity effect occurs before the success dice so the opponents armour resistance will drop by one for this hit and will also apply in the next round.  

Equipment

Both are using Katana's two handed and both are wearing travelling clothes with an armour resistance two.

Katanas 'shiny'

Organisation

Both character start at range band one, this is the attack range for the Katana. For this fight I will include basic rules asides in boxes with red text. Some story description of the fight in boxes with blue text and the technical description of the fight are in the style of this paragraph. It will be fairly verbose to allow readers to see where the numbers are coming from…

Fight One: Katana vs Katana

Initiative

The dust settled around the two Samurai as they stood in their preparatory stances. Masako was like a rock not moving whilst Katsuko smoothly rolled her katana as she shifted stances dynamically moving sideways in an attempt to seek an opening.

Masako decides to wait to see what the Crane will do and goes for a steady and grounded earth stance. This is a TN (Target Number) 1 Tactics check where passing gives 1 plus the bonus successes so it basically matches the success rolls.

The rules often refer to the concept of bonus successes. These are successes above the target TN value so if you roll five successes on a TN1 then that is four bonus successes. Some checks auto include one for 'passing' and then add the bonus successes.  Therefore for a TN1 check this basically means 'count all successes'. If the check increases (or decreases) then this does change. I.e roll the same on a TN3 check and it becomes 1+ 2 bonus successes so is a result of 3.

Masako has a decent Tactics skill value of two so gets three black dice (for her ring value in earth) and two white (for her skill value in Tactics). When showing the dice rolls the first 'row' is the initial roll with any explosive success appearing successively beneath the relevant roll. 'Kept' dice have the light yellow background.

A nice roll. Masako takes four success and two strife to add to her focus of two for a total initiative of six.

Katsuko has chosen water stance which also gets her three black and two white dice. Her roll is worse.

Meh. At least she passed but with no bonus successes. Her base focus is a much better four though so with the success her initiative increases to five. It is not enough though and the Lion bushi will go first.

Going first is very important to a fight as it puts your opponent on a back leg and allows you to  control the tempo of the fight. This can be seen more clearly in fight two. If you fail a check then you lose the extra '1' for passing and just count your base value in the relevant check type (focus or vigilance). 

Round One

Lion Turn

Earth is a useful early stance as it prevents nasty tricks from your opponent, so Masako keeps in earth stance and strikes with three black and two white dice.

Most combat checks are TN2 Melee checks (and the melee type depends on the weapon used). This is because it is hard to hit someone with a sword but not that hard (if you are willing to die yourself it becomes easier still. If you want to hit them AND stop them hitting you then things get more difficult). In this case both characters are fighting in melee (hand weapon) so that is the skill both are using. Both are evenly matched as both have a skill rank of two in that particular skill. This is not unusual as both are combat focused characters.

  It is also useful to remember that succeeding at a combat check does not represent you hitting someone with a sword - it is a compound roll that represents you maneuvering and both sides attacking (and parrying) to try and generate an actual hit. The only time the weapon contacts the other person is when a critical hit occurs. 

So that is two successes and a hit on a TN 2. Masako can use 'Way of the Lion' to change a strife to an extra bonus success when she hits so that makes three successes. She takes one strife (to three) and uses the two opportunity gained to force a critical strike.

Weapon damage and abilities can be found on the relevant item page inside the core rulebook. The beginners game also list some of the more common weapons. Pay particular attention to base damage, range and deadliness.

The strike causes base weapon damage: a Katana does four plus the one bonus success and minus two for Katsuko's armour resistance meaning the Crane has to absorb three fatigue. Which she does.

If the character has not reached their endurance total yet then this 'fatigue' is absorbed.It is not soaking up an 'attack' but more represents the effort the character has to used to protect themselves. Fighting for your life is inherently dangerous and tiring so it is more the characters emotional, physical and skill reserves. The longer a fight lasts the less able a person is to protect themselves until they are exhausted or outclassed and thus easier to hit.

Now the critical gets dealt with. A critical basically represents actual contact between the striking weapon and the body of the defender. Criticals use the weapons deadliness as the  start figure and for a Katana, used two handed, this is seven. 

Deadliness is usually 'just' the weapon deadliness but it can be pumped by the attacker spending opportunity (each opportunity spent increases the deadliness by one). The higher results on the critical hit table are more usually reached in duels or by receiving an undefendable critical hit whilst incapacitated or bleeding.

The defending character then gets a chance to protect themselves against the hit. This is a TN1 Fitness check using the current ring.

Therefore the Crane player gets to roll three black and two white dice

A nice roll passing the TN and reducing the attack by 1 + bonuses so by a total of three. This reduces the Deadliness from seven to four  dropping it down to a Flesh Wound. Because the Katana is 'Razor Edged' a flesh wound also causes bleeding. It's final impact is that any TN's done by the Crane player while using this ring in the future are now increased by one.

Crane Turn

Katsuko really wants the Lion player out of Earth stance so remains in water and strikes herself. The TN is 3 because she is Lightly Wounded in Water but she still gets her full three black and two white dice

She misses, primarily due to the added TN from the injury. She selects an opportunity so that she can apply 'Striking as Water' - this reduces her opponents armour resistance by one for every opportunity spent until the end of the attackers next turn. 

She then uses her free movement action to move one range band to range band two and then uses her free water action (which can be anything that does not involve a dice check) to move a further range band to three

Masako thrust downwards forcing Katsuko into a furious parry that almost left her exposed. Her counter thrust was more easily handled and so Katsuko rapidly moved backwards using space to allow her to catch her breath and give her more time to manoeuvre.

End of Round Stats

CRANE	Fatigue	3/8 LW in water, bleeding	Composure	0/10
LION	Fatigue	0/8	Composure	3/12

Round Two

Masako now has a decision to make. Does she switch to water, move twice and then strike? Or does she perhaps keep in earth and try and make her free movement action cover more than one range band (which requires a TN2 fitness check) Since she is uninjured that check would only have four dice (she only has one point in her fitness skill) so she decides against it. Instead she uses the first option and switches to water stance before running forward for two range bands (a free movement action, then a free maneuver action ) before striking with three black and two white dice

Another excellent result with four successes. One strife can be switched to another bonus success with 'Way of the Lion' for five bonus successes with one strife gained (the single opportunity can cancel two of the strife points when in water stance)

Opportunity use in fights is very important. Even if it is just  used to reduce strife. Each ring handles it slightly differently so it pays to be aware of what you can and cannot spend opportunity on. 

Ouch, so  the strike does four base damage plus the three bonus successes and minus two for the armour for five fatigue. Which the Crane 'just' manages to absorb.

Crane Turn

Katsuko is in some difficulty now  and switches to air stance. Her strike is therefore two black and two white dice

She only just succeeds with two successes. Fortunately the 'Striking as Water' from the previous turn is still in play so the strike is four (base weapon) +  zero bonus successes - one armour protection for three fatigue caused

End of Round Results 

CRANE	Fatigue	8/8 LW in water, bleeding	Composure	3/10
LION	Fatigue	3/8	Composure	3/12

Round Three

Lion Turn

Masako switches back to her preferred Earth Stance and instantly strikes with three black and two white dice against Katsukos new TN of 3 (when attacking someone in air stance your  TN is increased by one)

Nice… So that is three base successes. She can switch one strife to a bonus with the, oh so useful, 'Way of the Lion' for four successes, two strife and two opportunity. She uses the opportunity to force an extra critical strike.

For the strike itself the damage is base weapon damage of four plus two bonus successes minus two armour resistance for four fatigue caused. This introduces an interesting rule point as the rules state you can still defend if your fatigue moves over your endurance so Katsuko will not have a forced critical strike at this point. She instead spends her sole void point to force a critical strike instead of taking the fatigue. The reason she does this is that if she takes the damage then her fatigue will be twelve (and her endurance is eight) so she would gain the incapacitated condition. This essentially takes her out of the fight so she is gambling on surviving two criticals as opposed to losing automatically.

Both criticals now get resolved. Both are at the weapons basic deadliness so she gets a TN1 fitness using the air ring (so two black and two white dice).

She takes the two successes and reduces the critical from Permanent injury to a debilitating gash. This is a serious wound that also causes bleeding (she already is bleeding so is 'meh' about that) A serious injury means that any further check using this ring has +3 to the TN making it almost unusable

Unfortunately she has to make a roll immediately to defend against the second critical (caused by Masako spending two opportunity)

So TN 5

She has failed. There are no good options here as if she received a second Debilitating gash then it automatically becomes a permanent injury. If she takes any strife then she gets extra fatigue and an undefendable critical hit at the strength of her current fatigue. This would be a strength thirteen critical which is not defended against would result in  'Agonising Death'. As it stands taking a Permanent Injury gives an ongoing problem (allowing she lives) , adds bleeding regardless as to weapon 'razorness' plus adds the +3TN (if not already active).

Crane Turn

She cannot keep in either of these rings so switches to earth stance and strikes with two black and two white dice.

Success, but only just. She does four damage minus two for the armour resistance (Striking as Water has expired) for two fatigue

End of Round Results

CRANE	Fatigue	8/8 LW in water +1, PI in air +3, bleeding	Composure	3/10
LION	Fatigue	5/8	Composure	3/12

Round Four

Masako feels in control of the fight as the Crane is obviously at the limits of her endurance so she keeps in Earth and strikes again.

Another solid hit. The strife can be 'switched' to a bonus success with the ever reliable 'Way of the Lion' which makes four successes and two bonus. Thus the strike does four weapon damage plus two bonus damage minus two armour resistance for four fatigue.

Katsuko cannot defend against this attack and does not have any remaining void points to force a critical instead of the damage so she becomes incapacitated. This fight is over and the Lion Bushi has easily won.

End of Round Results

CRANE	Fatigue	12/8 LW in water +1, PI in air +3, bleeding, incapacitated	Composure	3/10
LION	Fatigue	5/8	Composure	3/12

Masako effortlessly ran forward looping her katana round to strike low at Katsuko. Her own parry only just managed to stop serious injury but she was left exposed to Masako's follow and was left exposed to the deadly final strike.

Fight Two

The 'Way of the Lion' ability makes Lion bushi formidable warriors. To try and see if we can even the odds (or break them) in the next fight Katsuko will be using a Naginata. This is a vicious pole arm with a blade on the end (and was used memorably by the Crane Clan Champion in this story here)

All stats reset (as this is a test fight) and we again start with initiative

Masako again keeps earth as her preferred and safest starter ring and again has thee black and two white dice.

Another decent roll though slightly worse than before. The opportunity is used to cancel the strife so that is two bonus successes. Passing gives 1 + bonus successes so that will be three added to her base focus of two making five.

Katsuko  also uses her preferred start stance of water and has three black and two white for this TN1 tactics check.

Meh, another bad roll. Perhaps she is distracted. Masako has a formidable reputation after all. The one explosive success is enough to pass though which adds one to her base focus of four.

The initiative is a draw! In case of draws the first tie-breaker is honor and the character with the lower honor goes first and as Masako has an honor of 60 and Katsuko of 55  Katsuko will go first. (If this is tied then player character take precedence over npcs and beyond that GM choice)

Round One

Crane Turn

The Crane Player moves first and stays in water while she skips back to range two with her free movement action. This is done because her weapon has a base range of two because it is long and requires space to wield. As it is also heavy and cumbersome and  she has moved and then struck her next TN will be increased by one.

She therefore strikes on a TN3 fitness check. She needs this attack to succeed to keep the Lion player back so uses her void point early on the strike. Void points are used before you roll dice and not after you see the initial roll.... In practical terms this means she rolls an extra black dice. She also gets to keep an extra dice so as she has a three in the water ring she could potentially keep four dice as opposed to three.

						y/s

It looks like the void point gamble has paid off. She gets three successes - passing the test, one strife and two opportunity. Now as Masako is in earth stance she cannot use this to force an early critical strike (the way Masako did to her last fight) or for that matter cause any conditions but she can still use her abilities. So she uses one opportunity point to use 'Striking as Water' and to reduce Masako's armour protection by one until the end of Katsuko's next round and uses the other opportunity point to initiate 'Iron Forest Style' this means she starts spinning the Naginata in such a way that any movement by the targeted character (more opportunity can be spent to impact more opponents) is very dangerous and requires a TN 4 (Air 2 Water 5) to try and move. Since she is currently at range two Masako needs to move to get into range to be able to strike.

The strike itself uses the weapons base damage of six but adds no bonus successes then removes one point of armour resistance (because Striking as Water is now active and as one opportunity was spent it reduces armour resistance by one) for a total of five damage. Which Masako can absorb.

Already the use of a 'military' weapon as opposed to a 'personal' weapon is making a difference as the damage is much larger so it is more tiring to defend against.

Lion Turn

Masako wants to strike but now has to try and pass the spinning Naginata as she is now out of range of her Katana. If she stayed in her favourite stance (Earth) she would get three black and one white dice (she has a single skill point in fitness) to try and beat a high TN of 4. Not impossible but also likely to fail, if she switched to her other strong ring (water) then she gets the same dice but a TN of 5. If she went for the obvious choice (Air) It drops to a TN2 but she only gets two dice (one black one white). More dice mean more potential explosive successes so she keeps in earth and tries the TN4 for her free move action

Not so good. The player elects to use her indomitable will ability to basically 'ignore' the spinning blades. This will allow her to re-roll two dice. As  GM I decide that this is permitted but that any attack made against her next turn will have its Tn lowered by 1 as she is essentially ignoring the Naginata in her eagerness to get forward. The Lion player is happy with this compromise and elects to re-roll the white dice and the o/s black

The dice gods are not happy and she fails again. This means she cannot move forward. Instead she uses her primary action as a maneuver action and moves back to range three. Clever. This means the Crane will have to move to use her Naginata and this means the cumbersome addition will counteract the loss of TN caused by the Indomitable Will. Alternately she could have used the Calming Breath action to lower her fatigue to four.

End of Round Results 

CRANE	Fatigue	0/8	Composure	1/10
LION	Fatigue	5/8	Composure	2/12

Round Two

Crane Turn

Katsuko keeps in water and moves to range two and strikes. The TN is 2 (-1 for the 'Indomitable Will' useage and +1 for striking after movement with a cumbersome weapon). As before three black and two white dice.

No opportunity gained this time but at least the armour resistance loss from last turn is still around.

This means she scored four successes with three strife.

The strike does six damage (base weapon) plus two bonus successes then minus one for the (still reduced) armour resistance causing seven fatigue. This would push Masako heavily over her endurance and incapacitate her so she decides to spend a void point to take a critical hit instead of the damage.

A Naginata has a base deadliness of six so it is not as dangerous as a Katana.

The base fitness check will be a three black and one white

And it fails. The player makes a valiant effort to use 'Indomitable Will' but I see no reason why having mental fortitude in the face of pressure means having a metal object sliced into your body is any less damaging so say no.

The critical therefore remains at a six. (There was no point taking the success as it would just drop it to five and the same critical injury level but also add a strife). This critical hit causes a Debilitating Gash which is a serious wound increasing further TNs by three and, as the Naginata is also Razor edged, inflicting the bleeding condition.

Katsuko then uses her free movement action to move back to range band three. Since Masako will likely use water next turn this will not stop an attack but it will stop masako moving to range one , striking, then moving to range zero. If that was done then it would force Katsuko to move twice to even hit back and thus increase the TN by one due to cumbersome AND if the Lion's next strike succeeds then the water ring might be compromised with a critical hit TN dis-advantage making Water potentially highly unattractive.

Lion Turn

The Earth ring is now essentially useless so Masako can either stand and try and recover or switch to water and attack. This she does moving to range one with two actions. She then strikes with water at TN 2 and three black and two white dice

Water stance allows a free extra manoeuvre action. You can also pass a TN2 fitness check to try and increase the distance covered by the free movement action.

Just at the right time the dice come through. She gains five successes. One strife can be switched for six successes (Way of the Lion as usual) with three strife taken. The stress is building..

The strike does base damage four plus three bonus success to seven minus two armour resistance to five. It's her first hit though so Katsuko defends against it.

End of Round Results 

CRANE	Fatigue	5/8	Composure	3/10
LION	Fatigue	5/8 SW in Earth, bleeding	Composure	5/12

The fight started fast. Katsuko was quicker to re-act and slammed her Naginata forward in a vicious cut that Masako only just managed to parry putting all her strength into blocking. Left temporarily out of stance by the Crane's attack this allowed Katsuko to skip back out of range forcing Matsuko to move quickly to re-engage. Her response was effective but parried with the shaft of the Naginata.

Round Three

Crane Turn

Katsuko elects to remain in water and moves back to range band two with her free move action. She then strikes at TN3 (plus one for the 'strike after movement when using a cumbersome weapon') with three black and two white dice

The attack fails with the cumbersome addition making the key difference. She gets two opportunity though. She cannot use this to inflict a critical as she needs to succeed at the attack for that  so instead re-applies both  'Iron Forest Style' and 'Striking as Water'. Much to the annoyance of the Lion player.

Lion turn

Masako remains in water for her free movement elects to try and pass the TN4 fitness check again

She fails - she is obviously very nervous of the Naginata. Rather than take the TN loss that using Indomitable Will would cause - after all re-rolling two dice would need four explosive successes to pass so she accepts the result and instead uses  her main action as 'Calming Breath' to reduce her fatigue from five to four.

End of Round Results 

CRANE	Fatigue	5/8	Composure	5/10
LION	Fatigue	4/8 SW in Earth, bleeding	Composure	5/12

Round Four

Crane Turn

Katsuko remains in water and strikes. As she has not moved this is a TN2

So she gains three successes and three strife and an opportunity which she uses to re-apply Iron Forest Style…

The strike does six basic plus one bonus success to seven minus one for the armour resistance (still  reduced by one from the previous turn) for six fatigue. Masako cannot absorb this so rather than be incapacitated uses her final void point to avoid the fatigue and take the critical instead.

As before this is a Deadliness six weapon and the test is a TN1 fitness with three black and one white dice

A lucky roll. She passes with one bonus and so drops the Deadliness from six to four which means this is (only) a light wound which increases her water roll Tns by 1 and causes bleeding (again). The opportunity is important as she can cancel the strife with it which means she will not take a bleeding attack at deadliness five (her 'then' fatigue value)  which would have increased the injury to a much worse debilitating gash.

Lion Turn

Masako has to try and get past the Katsuko's deadly defence and as the water TN would now be 6 (base 5 +1 lightly wounded), and using earth would  be 7! (base 4 +3 for being seriously wounded in the ring). This makes air a valid choice so she attempts a TN 2 with one black and one white..

Oh. Now this provides an interesting choice. If she takes the success and the explosive then she has to take a strife. This would cause an extra fatigue from bleeding and a deadliness six critical. She has to choose which dice to 'keep' before rolling explosive successes. If that explosive provides an opportunity then she can cancel the strife but an opportunity/strife or anything else would cause the same.  If she tried indomitable she would have to re-roll the explosive which might fail!

She keeps both and rolls….

 Triple meh. She cannot take the second explosive without an even worse bleed. Plus she would need two explosives + an opportunity to cancel the strife. So the result is that she passes the TN and moves to range one. She then takes one extra fatigue from the bleeding pushing her to five (ever strife taken whilst bleeding increases fatigue by one) and then a five deadliness undefendable critical which causes her to have a debilitating gash in air as well, seriously wounding her in that ring and adding plus three to all further tn's

Rather than strike with a TN5 and only three dice (one black two white) she uses calming breath and drops the fatigue by one down to four.

 End of Round Results

CRANE	Fatigue	5/8	Composure	8/10
LION	Fatigue	4/8 SW in Earth, bleeding, LW in water, SW in Air	Composure	5/12

Round Five

Crane Turn

Masako had moved into range one so Katsuko has to move again. She was also in air so the TN of any attack would be four which is an unattractive proposition.

What she is doing has been working so she decides to keep in water, moves back with her free action to band two and strikes at TN 4

Rather than search for the hit  by keeping the explosive (which would cause her to 'lose' her opportunity rolls) she misses and re-applies both 'Striking as Water' and 'Iron Forest Style' and enjoys the expression on the Lion players face.

Lion Turn

Masako is in serious trouble now. This would seem a good time to leave the fight but she is Samurai and will not turn her back even though her risk of losing is high so she keeps in air stance and tries to move with a TN3 fitness (TN2 +1 for being lightly wounded in air) into range with one black and one white dice

She fails. She also cannot use calming breath as her fatigue is now less than half her endurance total. Even a guard action would be hard to achieve in air..She instead waits and hopes the Crane misses and/or gets no opportunity.

End of Round Results

CRANE	Fatigue	5/8	Composure	8/10
LION	Fatigue	4/8 SW in Earth, bleeding, LW in water, SW in Air	Composure	5/12

Round Six

Crane Turn

Katsuko is in range again but the TN is still 3 as Masako is in Air stance. She strikes with three black and two white dice

The Lion has 'some' hope as taking the hit means Katsuko cannot keep the opportunity. The hit 'might' be enough though. It does six damage with zero bonus successes but reduces by a single point of armour resistance as the 'Striking as Water' from the last round still applied. Without this Masako could have soaked up the hit and struck back herself. As it stands this pushes her to nine fatigue which pushes her over her endurance total. She is now incapacitated.

Lion Turn

Masako switches to water and uses calming breath as her free water action. This reduces her fatigue to eight thus removing her incapacitated status. She then uses her default movement action to move forward to range band one and then strikes with a TN of 3 (she is lightly wounded in water so +1 TN) and three black and two white dice. If she had not used water then she could not have carried out all three actions.

Unfortunately the roll is bad, any strife would incapacitate her (again) so she takes a fail.

End of Round Results

CRANE	Fatigue	5/8	Composure	3/10
LION	Fatigue	8/8 SW in Earth, bleeding, LW in water, SW in Air	Composure	5/12

As Masako returned to attack range Katsuko slashed the Naginata cutting a jagged gash into the Lion Bushi's arm. The Daidoji then started spinning her Naginata in a fast defensive screen keeping her opponent from re-engaging. The Lion would not over commit though and calmed her thoughts and waited.

Round Seven

Crane Turn

Katsuko free moves back to band two and strikes against a TN of 3 (TN2 base +1 for striking after movement with a cumbersome weapon)

She elects to not take the opportunity and instead takes the guaranteed strike. She gets five successes and two strife (making her compromised). That causes six base + two bonus minus two armour resistance (the 'Striking as Water' has expired) for six fatigue.

Compromising in fights is neither good nor bad and is nothing to be particularly worried about. If you unmask then your next round has a minus one TN - representing your mind clearing so your attack is easier but any attacks against you also have their TN dropped by one - representing a momentary lapse in your defence caused by the unmask. Strife is more dangerous when bleeding.

Masako has no void points to force a critical so is incapacitated and with no chance of quickly removing the points. Like a mirror of the last battle she is now at the mercy of the Daidoji warrior.

As Masako endeavoured to advance Katsuko saw her opening and smoothly sliced the Naginata into Masako's already wounded leg. With a scream the Lion collapsed forward onto the ground defenceless.

Conclusion

Hopefully this has cleared some issues with skirmish type fights in the 5th edition. Both characters attempted to use their 'best' rings and had little reason to switch. The other rings can be equally helpful. A high fire ring can overwhelm a character's base endurance really quickly, an air ring can help a character defend easier against damage and the void ring is often the best ring (when bleeding) to do anything at all.

The other differentiating factor is armour. If both characters has been wearing lacquered armour then the fight would have taken much longer as each would be taking 0-2 damage if hit as opposed to 2-5.

Other important giveaways are that character can use their skills and techniques to make combats both more deadly and more survivable. As can be seen in a 'simple' fight slugging it out with Katana's at close range and the Lion player's 'Way of the Lion' was enough (with some good dice) to stomp on the Crane. When that Crane used a longer ranged weapon supported by her own useful technique then the Masako's entire approach was stymied resulting in a slightly longer (but still easy) victory for the Crane.

The combat system is, as hopefully can be seen, highly nuanced and is a good representation of a deadly sword fight that gives a high degree of agency to a characters actions and abilities. To my mind it is a much more fluid and realistic system than a simple 'count'  until endurance is overwhelmed. It can also be very fast - especially when no armour is involved.

Finally it also allows potentially more story telling options in both the fight itself and in the results. As an example if a player character is incapacitated by some Ronin then they might be killed or perhaps captured and ransomed. Shadowlands opponents might drag their victim with them as dinner or back to their base. It therefore provides opportunities for moving the story in interesting ways in multiple directions. That adds both risk to any conflict and choice. Fleeing is also a possibility (or surrender) but the damage to a Samurai's honor and glory would be huge - would it be worth the risk? that would be up to the player and his opinion of his characters honor and motivation. Either choice and even how the fight is fought tells us a huge amount about who that character 'is' as opposed to what the character thinks, or says he/she is. Cool..

Narrative

It does depend on players but I am big fan of narrating fights. So instead of 'six bonus successes and two opportunity to force a crit' perhaps, ' I attack  to the left with a feint drawing her off guard, this allowed me to swing round cutting into her left side - I have six bonus successes and am using two opp for the crit'. This makes the fight more of a story and less of a roll this..

Moving On

I may produce another couple of these run throughs. One on a duel to the death and the other (perhaps) a bout with two fully armoured characters. Thanks for reading. If you have any queries on some of the rules listed then feel free to comment. If any of the rules listed are incorrect then please pm me so I can correct..again......

Credits

Plenty of people have helped out by pointing out problems with the original article. This new version probably has just as many but different. Anyway I just wanted to give a shout out to all those who helped

L5R RPG Facebook forum: Janek Sielicki, Themis Dimou, Mathieu Johnson, David Robotham
FFG Forums Frenwax
Discord Asahina Masami, Kitsuki Daisuke and duffrey

Hopefully I've spelt the names correctly.