It Fell Off the Back of a Caravan Player Coordination

[Kitsu Masaru]

Place to coordinate our skills and who wants to tackle what rolls and such

to kick things off I am
Air 3
Water 3
Fire 2
Earth 1
Void 1

Skill wise
Skullduggery 2
Sentiment 1

[Shosuro Kaoru]

Hey, stop reading my character sheet.

For real, exactly the same, with the addition of Government and Commerce. No relevant school ability or techniques.

[Togashi Shinko]

I have none of the relevant skills, but I am

Fire 3
Water 2
Earth 2
Void 2

How does it work with assists? You use the base ring score and add a rank if someone who has it trained is helping?

[Shosuro Kaoru]

I forgot Kaoru has Subtle Observer (Air) and Sixth Sense (Void)... But at one point you kind of have to forget about who's mechanically better at things and roll anyway, or the whole event will turn into a one samurai show (that samurai likely being the Kitsuki)

How does it work with assists? You use the base ring score and add a rank if someone who has it trained is helping?

Core page 26:

During Step 3: Assemble and Roll Dice Pool, if a character making a check receives assistance from one or more others, the character making the check rolls one additional [skill die] per assisting character who has 1 or more ranks of the skill in use, and one additional [ring die] per assisting character who has 0 ranks in the skill in use. Each player whose character assists must describe how they are helping, and the GM decides if they can contribute.
At the GM’s discretion, during Step 4: Modify Rolled Dice, up to one advantage from one assisting character can be applied.
Then, during Step 5: Choose Kept Dice, a character making a check with assistance may keep up to 1 additional die per assisting character.
Finally, during Step 6: Resolve Symbols on Kept Dice, each assisting character may choose to suffer 1 strife to negate 1 [strife] symbol on the check.

It's more or less super void (roll more dice, keep more dice). Assistance can be either granted as an action (forfeiting the possibility to roll) or through the use of opportunities as a sorta consolation price for a poor roll.

[Kitsuki Jun]

Jun has good Air/Earth, weak in Water/Void. Fire is in the middle at 2.

He’s got 2s in Government and Sentiment, 1 Skullduggery and Culture, I think that may be it for useful skills BUT his school tech lets him roll as if he has 1 rank instead of unskilled when “performing a check to investigate,” which I suppose is the whole event.

Rings are going to be important here, since none of us has a lot of skills. Probably don’t want to send Jun after any of the Water or Void targets. Also juggling Strife for everyone so no one gets too overwhelmed.

Do we know if Stances apply yet?

Edit: also, maybe Kasumi has some of these peasant skills…

[Ender]

Jun has good Air/Earth, weak in Water/Void. Fire is in the middle at 2.

He’s got 2s in Government and Sentiment, 1 Skullduggery and Culture, I think that may be it for useful skills BUT his school tech lets him roll as if he has 1 rank instead of unskilled when “performing a check to investigate,” which I suppose is the whole event.

Rings are going to be important here, since none of us has a lot of skills. Probably don’t want to send Jun after any of the Water or Void targets. Also juggling Strife for everyone so no one gets too overwhelmed.

Do we know if Stances apply yet?

Eff it. They do.

[Shosuro Kaoru]

his school tech lets him roll as if he has 1 rank instead of unskilled when “performing a check to investigate,” which I suppose is the whole event.

AND grant a free opportunity in case he already has the skill.

[Kitsuki Jun]

Yep! Though that’s a nice bonus rather than affecting whether he’s more likely to pass the roll. Opportunities are always nice, anyway.

[Shosuro Kaoru]

20 turns.

9 rolls to pass.

A turn can be used to either roll or assist.

A given roll can only benefit from assistance once.

If we try to have the best roll ratio everywhere, this should look like:

TN 1 Commerce (Water) -> Yukikaze no Kasumi (ring, skill, technique)
TN 1 Seafaring (Fire) -> Yukikaze no Kasumi (ring, skill)
TN 1 Skulduggery (Air) -> Kitsu Masaru (ring, skill)
TN 1 Labor (Void) -> Togashi Shinko (ring) + any other playing assisting (since likely no one has the skill)

TN 2 Sentiment (Water) -> Shosuro Kaoru (ring, skill) with assistance from any other character with at least one point in Sentiment
TN 2 Culture (Air) -> Kitsu Masaru (ring) with assistance from Kitsuki Jun (skill) [the other way around would roll the same but keep one less]
TN 2 Skulduggery (Fire) -> Kitsu Masaru (skill) with assistance from any other character with at least one point in Skulduggery

TN 3 Government (Earth) -> Kitsuki Jun (ring, skill) with assistance from Shosuro Kaoru (skill)
TN 3 Commerce (Fire) -> Yukikaze no Kasumi (ring, skill, technique) with assistance from Shosuro Kaoru (skill)

Actions used: 15, leaving 5 to retry the ineluctable failed rolls.

Haven't factored advantages and disadvantages in, because it's already complicated enough as is.

[Yukikaze no Kasumi]

Just woke to see you organized barstids in gear... haven't even seen the event rules yet, so bear with me...

Air 1
Water 3
Fire 3
Earth 2
Void 1

Skill wise
Commerce 1
Seafaring 3 (because Mantis- NOT getting a 3 is actually harder than not)

Don't think any of Kasumi's Ads or Disads apply

[Kitsuki Jun]

Fwiw if we want to spread the load around a bit, Kaoru or Jun could tackle that TN 1 Skullduggery/Air just fine and leave Masaru a bit more of a Composure buffer for the TN 2 rolls. Though fortunately all of us have at least 8 composure…

[Shosuro Kaoru]

Kaoru can pretty much replace Masaru for any roll without changing anything to the logic above if need be due to having the same rings and skills.

I'm however not that worried about strife, in-between our huge composure pool or the fact the assistant can tank one instead of the roller. It's more of how much the characters want to be involved. My current repartition, while maybe "mathematically optimal", is pretty much the Kasumi and Masaru show, with a few guest stars poking here and then.

[Yukikaze no Kasumi]

No-Book Query: Isn't Seafaring a Merchant skill? Pretty sure Kasumi can tech those, too...

[Togashi Shinko]

No-Book Query: Isn't Seafaring a Merchant skill? Pretty sure Kasumi can tech those, too...

Pretty sure it is. The Wiki says so

https://l5r.fandom.com/wiki/Meta:Trade_Skill

[Shosuro Kaoru]

Oh, the Mantis tech actually works on every Trade skill check, not just Commerce. Sorry, the habit of someone who's only played characters with blank school abilities so far to underestimate those.

Commerce, Seafaring, but also Labor and Skulduggery, are Trade skills.

[Togashi Shinko]

Ender also added rules about posting. We have 20 turns and assisting counts as a turn. I don't think it's worth assisting me on the early ones

[Yukikaze no Kasumi]

I'd say nobody should waste their time assisting Kasumi on the TN 1 Seafaring (pool of 6, keeping 3) or Commerce (pool of 4, keeping 3)-

I may just go chuck some dice at those (fire first so I can use a water opp to mitigate some extra strife if needed)

[Togashi Shinko]

Snip

Would the Quick distinction count for the skullduggery/Fire check in stage 2?

[Yukikaze no Kasumi]

2 rolls in

3 points
0 Failures

Seafaring and Labor cleared

[Shosuro Kaoru]

Depending on Ender's answer in the GM questions thread, I may have Kaoru roll the first Commerce roll instead of Kasumi (same pool, just not the technique allowing rerolls), to split things more evenly and avoid "losing" actions.

If so, following the same logic, some combinations might need to be rearranged.