L5R RPG - Rules Runs - Part II A Duel to the Death

A Dragon and a Crane face off

We move on with our walkthroughs. This blog entry will cover an Iaijutsu duel to the death. As with the Skirmish article, it will be in some depth.

The Characters

Our two valiant heroes are both new rolls. Both players intended for their characters to be primarily combat specialists.

First up we have Kakita Hiroji, a Crane trained at their duelist school.  Ring-wise he is very strong in both Earth and Air (with three in each), average in Fire (with two) but only one in the others.

He can use the 'Iaijutsu Cut: Rising Blade' Kata - which can be used with a sheathed razor-edged weapon and allows the user to make a Martial Arts [Melee] check targeting someone in range with the TN being the opponents Vigilance

This has been changed in the errata; this and other erratas can be read on the FFG site here https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/legend-of-the-five-rings-roleplaying-game/ got to the FAQ section, expand and there is an errata document.

He also possesses the school ability 'Way of the Crane' which allows him to increase (or perhaps decrease if in a less deadly duel) the deadliness of a critical strike by one for each School Rank (in his case by 'one')

Other relevant factors are his Advantages; his amazing 'Quick Reflexes' which permit a re-roll of up to two dice in relevant circumstances which includes Initiative in duels. He is also a bit of a ‘Daredevil’ so if he performs a fitness check to mitigate a critical strike he can remove three Strife.

Base stats are a decent Endurance of ten and an average Composure of eight.

His opponent is Mirumoto Fumi a graduate of their 'Two-heavens Adept' School. She favours a different approach to Hiroji with a strong Earth and Fire of three, average Void of two and one in Air and Water. This does give her two Void Points to play with, though.

You start with Void points equal to half your Void Ring and earn more through play. For interests sake all duelists in these examples will have earnt their max previously in this gaming session.

She can use 'Way of the Dragon' which allows her to use her hand or a one handed weapon whenever she is attacked to either ‘Ward’, which forces her opponent to re-roll dice up to her rank (in this case one), or 'Trap' which reduces the next TN of any attack you make against that person by one (to a minimum of one). This ability lasts until the end of her next turn and if you use a weapon you cannot use that weapon for attack actions also until the end of your next turn.

Fumi is ‘Ambidextrous’, which allows her to re-roll up to two dice if she uses a weapon unexpectedly (i.e. holding a sword left handed and strikes with it).

Stats wise she is strong in Endurance with twelve and a Composure of eight, similar to Hiroji.

Setup

Once a duel type has been decided (and dependant on where it is occurring it might need approval from someone of higher rank) then you can get into the details. In our case we have insults made towards the parent clan in public concerning a theft and a duel to the death has been approved to prove or disprove the allegations.

All Iaijutsu duels start at range band two (though distance is an ‘elastic’ concept for duels as both characters are ‘always’ in range) and all weapons are sheathed at start.

Initiative

Duel initiative can change as the duel moves on . As usual each character chooses a Stance (though they do not 'enter' their Stance until after initiative has occurred) then rolls initiative. Both characters are playing it safe and choose Earth. As it is a meditation check Hiroji will be rolling three black and one white and Fumi gets a better three black and two white (as she has two skill points in meditation).

Hiroji rolls first

Not outstanding but two successes makes a base of two plus his Focus of five for a total Initiative of seven, taking two Strife.

To use Quick Reflexes you need to be in Fire Stance, it is possible to use it in other Stances but it would need to be GM approved and probably narrated as to 'why'. Since Hitoji took the 'solid' earth Stance to reduce critical risk he is not 'reacting in an explosive fashion' hence quick reflexes does not apply

Now Fumi rolls

Better. She uses the single Opportunity to cancel one Strife so has a base Initiative of three added to her Focus of four for a total of seven with one Strife.

Round One

Staredown

This occurs at the start of every round (so initiative 'can' change). First up each character takes Strife equal to the current round number. As it is round one both take one so Hiroji is now on three Strife and Fumi on two.

Each character can secretly bid a value between zero and their Focus value to increase their Initiative for that round only. Any value bid increases your Strife by that value so bidding two would gain you two Strife.

Hitoji bids zero but Fumi wants to make certain of going first and bids two. So we move on with Fumi going first and Hiroji second. -

If the initiative result is ever a tie then Fumi would go first as she has lower Honor.

Hitoji		Endurance	10
		Composure	8	3
Fumi		Endurance	12
		Composure	8	4

Fumi would need to be in Water Stance to draw her weapon and strike but that leaves her open to counter critical strikes and she is weak in that Ring (one). So she instead stays where she is and simply draws her Katana.

Hiroji decides to keep in Earth and uses his ' Iaijutsu Cut Rising Blade'. Fumi's Vigilance is a weak 'one' so this will be a TN1 check with three black and one white dice.

A decent roll. Since the bonus successes do not count when using this ability, he just keeps a single explosive plus Strife.

The attack is a one handed ability so will do five damage (equal to the weapons deadliness for this kata) minus one for the clothes Resistance so causing four Fatigue. Fumi uses 'Trap' during this attack to reduce the TN of her next attack by one and uses her off-hand. 'Ward' would be a waste as there were plenty of successes to make it of marginal use...

For this Kata - compromised characters cannot ‘defend’ against 'Iaijutsu Rising Cut's' damage. If compromised then the defenders resistance gets deducted from the attack strength and allowing that it did not remove all the damage then an automatic critical hit would occur.

Hitoji		Endurance	10
		Composure	8		5
Fumi		Endurance	12		4
		Composure	8		4

Round Two

Staredown

Both characters now take two Strife as the round is now 'two' so Hiroji is up to five and Fumi on six!

Both bid zero so Fumi gets to go first

Dragon Turn

She remains in Earth, and simply strikes. This will be a TN of 1, because she used 'Trap' in the last attack, and will use three black and one white dice

A good attack, the Opportunity cancels one of the Strife so she hits with two bonus successes and takes one more Strife to seven!

The attack does four damage (base weapon) plus two for the bonus successes to six and minus one for the Resistance to generate five Fatigue

Hitoji		Endurance	10	5
		Composure	8	6
Fumi		Endurance	12	4
		Composure	8	7

Crane Turn

Hitoji is close to doing some serious damage but unless he gets plenty of bonus successes, he is very unlikely to breach Fumi's Endurance this turn. Instead he switches to Fire Stance and, using his Katana two handed, strikes with two black and one white on a TN2

Hitoji has missed but he did gain an Opportunity. If Fumi was not in Earth Stance (she is) and Hitoji had also hit (he didn't) then he could have forced a critical hit. Instead he uses one Fire Ring Opportunity spend to add two Strife to his opponents total (it is a * that inflicts two strife for a single point). This pushes Fumi's Strife to nine and she is now compromised.

Hitoji		Endurance	10	5
		Composure	8	6
Fumi		Endurance	12	4
		Composure	8	9

The first time in a fight you are either compromised or unmask your opponent gets to launch a finishing blow. On a TN2 Hitoji will two black and one white so not the best odds.

Fumi uses her ‘Way of the Dragon’ with her off-hand (she is still using the Katana single handed) and forces Hitoji to re-roll the single success. The roll goes well.

He hits and can convert that one Strife into a bonus success increasing his own Strife to eight and succeeding with one bonus success.

Anyway, a finishing blow does not deal Fatigue; instead it causes an instant critical hit at double weapon Deadliness. As the dual-wielded Katana has a Deadliness of seven this doubles to fourteen plus the bonus successes (one) to fifteen. 'Way of the Crane' could then be used to increase it by one further to sixteen, after the Fitness roll to reduce it.

'Way of the Crane' says, 'you may increase or decrease the severity of a critical strike by an amount up to your school rank' and the finishing blow says, 'the finishing blow inflicts a critical strike with a severity equal to two times the deadliness of the weapon used' -to me this reads you double the weapon deadliness and then add one otherwise it should read 'increase the deadliness of your weapon by one'.

This is a potentially deadly blow and to protect herself, Fumi needs a really good TN1 Fitness check (with three black and one white dice). This is a hard check so she decides to use one of her Void Ring points to 'Seize the moment' to add an additional black dice also allowing her to keep an additional dice (now four).

In Structured time (duels and conflicts) you can unmask at the beginning or end of your turn. Since this is the middle Fumi is stuck Compromised until she becomes the active player.

She cannot take any Strife dice so takes the success on its own which drops the Deadliness of the attack to fourteen. This is then increased by ‘Way of the Crane to fifteen, which is ‘Swift Death'. She is bleeding and will die in one round. This Ring is also now +3 to any TN's made with it.

The 'Swift Death' critical hit also inflicts the Severely Wounded Condition. Which adds 3 to the TN. If you get two instances of a wounded condition (light or severe) on the same Ring then you can also pick up a permanent disadvantage

Hitoji		Endurance	10	5
		Composure	8	6
Fumi	Bleeding	Endurance	12	4
	+3TN Earth	Composure	8	9

Now you could continue the fight but in my games any 'death' result means the character is basically incapable of continuing at any effective level. Your own mileage may differ. Personally, if Hitoji was a PC and Fumi an NPC then I would stop here. If it was the other way round then you could either continue the fight or allow the NPC to show 'mercy' - which would be highly shameful to the PC. So it depends on what the roleplay intention is moving on.

Now, let us reset and run the fight again, except that this time both players will be more cautious.... WARNING - the next duel is much longer so it might be better to come back to it refreshed on a different day...

Duel Two

Since Fumi is now cut into little pieces we need to introduce a new pre-roll. This is Shiba Aika. She has a very different Ring setup with strong Water and Void (on three so she has three(!) Void Points, if all are earnt), decent Earth at two and Air and Fire are the weaklings at one. Skill-wise she has a good range with most notably +2 Meditation, +2 Tactics +1 Fitness and +1 Martial Arts [Melee].

Stats wise her Composure is excellent at ten but she has weak bodily strength with only six Endurance. Her Focus and Vigilance are both unimpressive at two each.

Her ability is 'Way of the Phoenix' which when a character rolls a dice with strife she can (once per scene) cancel all the strife and then reduce that person's strife and fatigue by her school rank (one). This can be done on herself.

The relevant Technique is 'Striking as Water' which allows her to drop her opponents Resistance by one for every Opportunity spent during an attack whilst in Water Stance.

Note: you can do this in Water Stance without the Kata, the Kata basically allows the effect to last until the following round.

None of her advantages/disadvantages are relevant.

Duel

It looks like Hiroji is one of 'those' duelists and he has challenged a peaceful Phoenix Shugenja to a duel. Aika has stepped forward as that Shugenja's proxy and will fight the duel to the death instead.

Initial Initiative

Hiroji chooses Earth Stance and rolls three black and one white (three rings and a meditation skill level of one)

A good roll with an Initiative of nine (five plus four Focus) but taking three Strife in the process. Taking early Strife to attack first has worked well for him so far, or so his player thinks.

Aika also chooses Earth and then rolls three black and two white

Not as good but she can cancel the Strife with the Opportunity and has a base Initiative of five (three plus two Focus).

Hitoji		Endurance	10
		Composure	8	3
Aika		Endurance	6
		Composure	10

Staredown

Both players take one Strife for the round and then both bid zero for the Staredown. Neither player wants to waste Strife early on.

Hitoji		Endurance	10
		Composure	8	4
Aika		Endurance	6
		Composure	10	1

Round One

Hiroji's player starts his usual duel gambit, switches to Water Stance. He then uses 'Iaijutsu Cut: Rising Blade' to draw, ready and strike in one action. This gives one black and one white dice but will only be against a TN of 2 due to Aika's unremarkable Vigilance. He also spends an early Void Point to 'Seize the Moment' and rolls and keeps an extra black Ring dice.

He was hoping to use the low TN for the strike to permit an early Water Stance to gain an Opportunity to allow him to reduce his Strife by two but does not get any. It is a hit, though, with no bonus success and two extra Strife.

Fatigue caused is therefore five (weapon deadliness) minus one(for the Resistance) for four caused. Not a problem, yet, for Aika.

Finally he takes a Calming Breath to lower his Strife by one; from six to five.

Hitoji		Endurance	10
		Composure	8	5
Aika		Endurance	6	4
		Composure	10	1

Phoenix Turn

Aika switches to Water Stance and uses her free action to draw her Katana and then Strikes one handed at a TN of 2. She has plenty of Void Points so uses one now to 'Seize the Moment' and roll four black and one white, potentially keeping four.

Not that impressive but she uses one Opportunity with 'Striking as water' to lower her opponents Resistance by one until the end of her next turn. She uses the other Opportunity to reduce her Fatigue by one.

Round Two

Staredown

Both players receive two Strife for the current round. Hitoji is perhaps regretting keeping his Initiative so high (at the cost of early Strife)

Hitoji		Endurance	10
		Composure	8	7
Aika		Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	3

Both players then bid zero again so Hitoji will again be going first

Crane Turn

Hitoji switches to Earth Stance, and takes up his Katana two handed, and strikes at TN2 with three black and one white dice.

That is a hit with no Strife or bonus successes which (as before) will cause three Fatigue putting Aika on Six. The Opportunity is used to cancel the Strife. He could have taken the extra Opportunity/Strife dice but that would have permitted Aika an interrupting Finishing Blow so he decides to avoid that instead.

Movement in duels is strange. No matter what you do you are apparently always in close combat strike range.

Hitoji		Endurance	10
		Composure	8	7
Aika		Endurance	6	6
		Composure	10	3

Phoenix Turn

Aika stays in Water Stance. She uses Calming Breath removes one Fatigue to five. Before striking with three black and one white and using 'Way of the Phoenix' during the roll.

This is a hit with one bonus success. She takes the full four Strife (pushing her to seven) and uses one Opportunity to use 'Striking as Water' again to keep the Resistance at zero and the other Opportunity to lower her Fatigue by one again.

The hit does four damage (base weapon) plus one bonus and minus zero (as Hitoji's resistance of one has been reduced by one by the Strking as water) making five Fatigue caused

Hitoji		Endurance	10	5
		Composure	8	7
Aika		Endurance	6	4
		Composure	10	7

The Way of the Phoenix cancels the four Strife from the attack with a single Strife and a single Fatigue removed as well.

Hitoji		Endurance	10	5
		Composure	8	7
Aika		Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	2

The free extra Action can be used on any action which does not share a type with a used action. So Strike, Predict and the Rising Cut are Attack Actions. Calming Breath is a Support Action, and is permissible. Also note duels have weird movement rules. Once in range you are always in range so movement is useless. Of the available actions 'Center' is practically useless at these skill levels and 'Predict' is a gamble as the Strike is often a better choice regardless.

two lives expired with two strokes of a single sword. First, Musashi attacked to his rear, and Otaguro Hyosuke's head, or a piece of it, sailed past Musashi like a great crimson cherry, as the body staggered lifelessly toward Denshichiro. The second horrendous scream - Denishichiro's cry of attack - was cut short midaway, the broken-off sound thinning out into the space around them. Musashi leapt so high that he appeared to have sprung from the level of his opponent's chest. Denshichiro's big frame reeled backward and dropped into a spray of white snow.

copyright Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa

Round three

Both players receive three Strife for the round putting Aika on five.  Hitoji, though, has become Compromised at ten. 

Hitoji		Endurance	10	5
		Composure	8	10
Aika		Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	5

Aika could strike a Finishing Blow now and decides to go for it using 'Seize the Moment' to increase the roll to four black and one white dice against a TN2

A hit with one bonus success, she uses the Opportunity to increase the weapon Deadliness by one to eight. This then doubles to sixteen before the bonus is added for seventeen. She then takes four Strife to nine.

You can only spend an Opportunity to increase a critical hit deadliness if your weapon is 'razor-edged' If it is not then you would need to have 'Striking as Fire'

Hiroji now needs to make a TN1 fitness check.

He did it! With the jammiest 'clutch' roll ever, this reduces the Severity by six dropping it to eleven and causing a Maiming Blow, Bleeding and increasing his TN for Earth checks by three moving forwards.

Hitoji	Bleeding	Endurance	10	5
	Earth+3TN	Composure	8	10
Aika		Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	9

Aika bids zero. Hitoji cannot bid at all.

Duel rules state that you can only bid for initiative if you are not Compromised.

Crane Turn

Hitoji knows that if he cannot finish Aika this turn then he is in trouble. He also knows she is weak herself in Fatigue.  His own Earth is unsable and so he unmasks at the start of his turn to clear his own Strife before switching to Air and Strikes with three black and one white dice at TN2

A miss

Hitoji	Bleeding	Endurance	10	5
	Earth+3TN	Composure	8	0
Aika		Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	9

Phoenix Turn

Aikia has lost her best chance of winning but is still in control.

She therefore switches to Air Stance to make Crane attacks harder - before 'Predicting' that Hitoji's next stance will be 'Air'. If she struck she would be unlikely to force him over on Fatigue. If she went for Water and used Calming Breath then she could drop her Strife to six and avoid Compromising next turn; but by staying in Air Hitoji would be forced to take that attack at TN3 (+1 for air Stance) and in a lesser Ring (Fire) when he is bleeding, so he’ll be in trouble is he accepts Strife dice even allowing he hits. There are no ideal choices here so this is the approach she takes.

Round Four

Staredown

Both Players take four Strife putting Hiroji on four and Aika on thirteen!

Hitoji	Bleeding	Endurance	10	5
	Earth+3TN	Composure	8	4
Aika		Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	13

Aika being Compromised allows Hitoji a Finishing Blow and he switches to single handed and uses 'Iaijutsu Cut: Rising Blade' with his sheathed Wakizashi and his offhand. When your opponent is Compromised their Vigilance drops to one so this will be a TN2 (not TN3, from a base Vigilance of one plus Air Stance). Let's see how it rolls out. So TN2 with three black and one white

A hit; this has five Deadliness (for a single handed Wakizashi) doubled to ten.

Since the Rising Blade attack cannot be defended by characters who are Compromised it causes an automatic Critical Hit (and thus adds no Fatigue). Since this is a Finishing Blow this overrides the critical but bear it in mind for using this in standard skirmishes, or if a Finishing Blow is not possible.

Aika can attempt to lower the Deadliness; her TN1 fitness uses one black and one white dice

She passes but only with one so the Deadliness drops to nine, which is then increased by one due to “Way of the Crane”, and she receives a Maiming Blow so she is bleeding.

Finally, as Hitoji took a dice with Strife his own Fatigue increases by one to six.

Hitoji	Bleeding	Endurance	10	6
	Earth+3TN	Composure	8	4
Aika	Bleeding	Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	13

Fatigue caused by Bleeding ignores armor Resistance and can also cause a Critical Hit if the character is also suffering from a condition that prevents them from defending against attacks (i.e. Incapacitated). In that case, it causes a Critical Hit with a Severity of the character's current Fatigue level (so the bigger the endurance the more dangerous this becomes)

Phoenix Turn

Aika switches to Void Stance and unmasks losing all her strife.

She then strikes with three black and one white dice at a TN of 3

She can take Strife dice now but as she is in void ignores them anyway. The hit is strength four (base damage) plus two bonus successes to six minus one from armour Resistance down to five. This Fatigue pushes Hitoji to eleven and he is Incapacitated. She uses the Opportunity to select the Water Ring and if she uses that next turn her TN will drop by one.

Hitoji	Bleeding	Endurance	10	11
	Earth+3TN	Composure	8	4
Aika	Bleeding	Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	0

Round Six

Staredown. Both characters take six Strife, Compromising Hitoji and putting Aika on six.

Hitoji	Bleeding	Endurance	10	11
	Earth+3TN	Composure	8	10
Aika	Bleeding	Endurance	6	3
		Composure	10	6

Aika then bids four to take Initiative. Hitoji cannot bid as he is Compromised.

Phoenix Turn

Aika switches to Water and strikes again at Tn2 (Hitoji is still in Air Stance but her Void Ring Opportunity lowers it by 1)

The Opportunity cancels both Strife and it is ‘just’ a hit. Since Hitoji is Incapacitated he is knocked Unconscious and takes a Critical Hit which will be at Severity seven.

You can still roll 'resist' checks when Incapacitated so this will be a TN1 with three black and one white dice.

A pass with a bonus dropping the critical by two to five. This is a Debilitating Gash so he has the seriously wounded condition for this ring and the +3 TN on the air ring moving forward.

Should she hit him again the next critical would be plus ten Severity and cause ‘instant death’.

Finally. Since Aika is now in Water Stance the Opportunity is used to heal strife does from her base Strife. It does not prevent her 'taking' two Strife (by accepting the two dice with Strife on them). Since she is bleeding this increases her own Fatigue from three to five.

Hitoji	Bleeding	Endurance	10	11
	Earth+3TN Air+3TN	Composure	8	10
Aika	Bleeding	Endurance	6	5
	Air+3TN	Composure	10	10

  

Conclusion

This fight has been more complex due to the Finishing Blow failures. Another point to note is the importance of deciding when to Unmask, as is managing your Strife. Finally, once primary Rings start getting removed with wound conditions it can start getting very difficult to hit, especially when your opponent then starts using Air.

It is also relevant that in these examples both players 'knew' the opponent's current Strife and Composure. If this information is hidden, then it adds a level of guess work which some players might like. Finally, don't forget that if your players are not 'into' this level of detail then the rules do provide rules for single roll duels.

  

Maybe neither play was optimal, and I would recommend getting to know the various ways to spend Opportunity in each Stance and how your abilities apply to truly get the best out of the system.

Next up, when I get round to it, I want to do a piece on Shugenja combat magic use perhaps involving a team up against something large and nasty.

Finally this article has been very much a collaborative piece that needed that hefty assistance of several other people who put a lot of effort into proof reading and trying to ensure the rules were as correct as is possible. Going beyond the call of duty were Franwax from the FFG forums and Janek Sielicki from the Facebook group who both helped drastically with rules.  Argelius from discord did a lot of the base proof reading and Avatar111 (FFG forums) with LordSpecineff13 also assisted. Cheers all and any errors which still remain are on me.

Thanks for reading. As before there are probably issues with the article as it currently stands. Feel free to contact me or list these issues and I will then, over the next week, correct as needed (or re-write if the change is that drastic)