• Being Compromised sets vigilance to 1 now on top of forbidding dice with strife on them. I like the extra incentive to unmask.
  
• Resilience is (Earth + Fire) x 2 instead of (Water + Fire) x 2. Composure is (Earth + Water) x2 instead of (Earth + Fire) x 2. OK, whatever.
  
• Suffering strife from Anxiety is now enough to give Void Points, down from unmasking being needed, and VP also come from choosing to suffer a complication. Complications are a new official term for the GM throwing your giri or ninjo in your face so you have to think about it once per session. Mechanically you may take three strife and get a VP when it happens, or just shrug it off. It's a good rule. Essentially it means everyone has Anxiety about their giri and ninjo.
  
• Speaking of strife, ninjo now causes 3 flat strife when ignored and cools all strife when followed during downtime, and giri no longer has a particular interaction with strife. Other than Complications.
  
• A handy chart of suggested Op uses by element and situation in the back of the book compiles things in an accessible place and adds some new suggestions.
  
• Many game effects that used to target Tainted things now target Otherworldly things. That does include entities like manifest kami and ghosts but excludes "mundane" Tainted stuff like bakemono.
  

• Togashi Tattooed Monks are the exception; they are totally reworked. Rather than that lame bonus to skill checks they now select a kiho once per Rank, learn the kiho for free, and bind it to a tattoo that gives it bonus successes whenever used. They're cool again, everyone!
  
• Isawa Elementalists can now pick any two Rings to increase, which is good because it was very silly to have them oriented to Fire and Water always.
  

• They all cost 3 XP now, which is a nerf to many kata and shuji because the Techniques of those classes that only added new ways to use Ops used to cost 2 XP. Yes, a nerf to non-magical builds. Sigh.
  
• Non-curriculum purchases give half credit towards Ranks. Finally we are given a straight answer on how they work. I like this rule.
  
• XP costs to rank up have risen. I'd say roughly 25%. That's fair in the name of keeping progression tracks at their intended length.
  
• Ninjutsu are a new class of Technique. There's only four in the core book though.
  

• These are generally the same. That means that they still don't do a whole lot other than "hit man" (sigh again). However, several of the mid-to-high-Rank condition-oriented kata gained increased damage output, so at least they are on balance better at "hitting man."
  
• I counted seven new kata. One of them shows a little willingness to break out of caveman grog "verisimilitude" thinking where it lets the player pray to his ancestors to make his sword holy, but it's Rank 5 and pretty limited overall. Baby steps, I suppose. We still lack anything as bad-rear end as the Mirumoto death whirlwinds and Shiba Void sinks of past L5R RPG editions.
  
• Iaijutsu: Crossing Blade is the exact same P.O.S.
  
• Iaijutsu: Rising Blade is different though. Now it deals damage equal to deadliness - that's still 5 instead of the regular 4 for a one-handed katana, woo-hoo - but the damage becomes a crit if the target is Compromised. It no longer may use 2 Ops to crank up crit severity. In a duel when you Finishing Blow a Compromised target you get a 10-point crit with a one-handed katana just using a generic Attack. A generic Attack at TN 2, not TN 3 like this kata. That gets more crit severity for more successes. I don't see how this kata isn't trash like its brother. At least if you're in it for the ability to draw while still attacking Crossing Blade hits harder.
  

• Major changes here. Immediate effects are now called burst effects and require bonus successes to fire, rather than firing alongside baseline success. Kiho effects are renamed enhancement effects and no longer take effect on failed checks.
  
• Every last kiho has had its TN changed to align with the new approach to things. The TNs are all lowered and the required bonus successes for burst effects are set such that the same number of successes that got you a successful check in the beta get you a success with burst effect here, generally. So the real effect of the new rules is that there is a non-zero chance that you skunk the check and don't even get the enhancement effect. The TNs are so low that total failure is improbable, but it is technically possible, so this is a light nerf to kiho. I had advocated for a feather-touch nerf so I'm happy.
  
• A whole ton of kiho have very different effects now. Nearly all the ones that let you spend a Void Point for something are changed. I can't post them all without a wall of text. My impression is that kiho effects were overall nerfed, losing various instances of damage, guaranteed status infliction, or miscellaneous bounties, but seriously it's hard to be sure among the changes. At this time I accept where kiho ended up relative to kata - more powerful overall due to diversity of effect, but probably not as good at "hit man" and with some awkward use restrictions.
  
• I counted three new kiho, all Rank 1.
  

• The big news first: backlashes now ban the invocation’s element from the caster for the rest of the scene in addition to causing damage and an elementally-aligned effect. Now that's some bite I can get behind. My Java program suggested that backlash is a very real risk for many situations and I know many shugenja would be pretty sad to have their favorite element banned. This is *still* not perfect for several reasons but it's good stuff.
  (Flavor-wise, if the kami have retreated, why can others still use the element?)
  
• Air backlash no longer Disorients. Fire backlash only ignites terrain at GM discretion. Earth backlash no longer Prones. I would have kept the status effects and added something to Water but I can live with this. Seriously, the flavor text speaks of accidental maelstroms when trying to call a gentle current, and then the Water backlash just makes a little muddy pool around your feet?
  
• Offerings now re-roll three blank dice instead of giving a Distinction. This is a buff because it can stack with Distinction, so I disapprove, but it's not a big buff. Indeed stacking them would often be small marginal gain because you might only have so many dice in need of re-rolls.
  
• There is a new table of generic Op uses by invocation element, which mostly saves repetitive text but probably also empowers spells here and there.
  
• A new keyword system flags spell effects for interaction with other game elements. This is sound rationalization of effects.
  
• There were several changes to spells, but not nearly so many or so drastic as happened with kiho. Spells generally do what they did in the beta. However, several TNs to resist effects were lowered, so that's a nerf, so...good.
  
• I counted nine new invocations. Check this out, though: five invocations were deleted! They included some of the worst offenders for magical supremacy, too, like Essence of Air (mist form) and Know the Mind (telepathy). I only hope the developers don't reintroduce the drat things in splats. Though shugenja still do a lot of wacky poo poo like flying and summoning monsters, any reduction to their toolkit is balancing.
  

• No meaningful changes.
  
• One new ritual: Tea Ceremony.
  

• A few small changes to the numbers. No meaningful changes otherwise.
  
• One new shuji: Prey on the Weak.
  

• Maho backlash now crits you with severity equal to your strife instead of Tainted Rings x 2. Does not ban further maho.
  
• Maho offerings now reroll three blanks instead of giving Distinction, just like invocation offerings.
  
• Maho spells no longer Taint the ring used on success.
  
• Mark of Desecration can raise Bushi Skeletons as well as Peasant Zombies and works on any corpse, not just Afflicted ones, but the undead created also can't use the creator's skills as freely.
  
• The other spells changed changed around a bit but I only felt I'd point out the undead-making one. Seems every maho-tsukai uses that one.
  

• Lacquered armor is Cumbersome; testubo and otsuchi damage is down by one so they don't embarrass katana quite so badly; Concealable weapons can be readied as part of an Attack action; Snaring weapons can now spend Ops equal to a target's vigilance to Immobilize; Subtle gear no longer increases TN to learn about its user.
  
• Unholy items no longer allow a resist TN to avoid Affliction at end of scene after use, no longer cause Afflicted to their targets when dealing damage, and now ignore Otherworldly being resistance. So obsidian swords and maho knives are more dangerous but more tempting to use (they can bust ghosts) and also don't spam curses when PCs are on the receiving end. Good ideas, all.
  
• There are protective charms that give small benefits now!
  
• Poisons and ammunition and a couple other little things are different in small ways.
  

• A new "momentum points" system tracks progress towards goals in intrigues and mass battles. Imagine if "rhetorical points" were renamed and also applied to mass battles. That's momentum. I think it's a very welcome addition to mass battle rules. We see a fairly consistent scheme for handling extended-in-game-world-time conflicts this way.
  
• You can't skip your initiative check to heal strife any longer.
  
• You heal up to half health and strife at the end of scenes.
  
• You cannot Predict Void in a duel any more.
  
• Razor-Edged weapons cause Bleeding now on crits of severity 3-6. This is a welcome small buff to katana over tetsubo.
  
• Unspecified invocations and maho have deadliness equal to Ring + strife symbols kept, not Ring + strife / wounds on caster.
  
• Affliction is not tied to Rings. Instead, it keys off your most recently used Ring when you become Compromised. It also sets vigilance to 1.
  
• Exhausted now makes characters not heal fatigue and strife at end of scene.
  
• New condition Silenced makes casting spells, using shuji, and general Intrigue actions a lot harder.
  
• Fortifications have been reworked and include a momentum point difficulty rating to dislodge their occupants.
  
• Again, other little things changed.
  

SuperKlaus fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Oct 31, 2018

NGDBSS fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Nov 2, 2018