Name: Arashi Fukushi             Caste: Buke/Ronin                Level: 2
Profession: Bushi                Rank: Middle                     Budo: 10
Age: 18                          Social Status: 15(.6 Sam)        ON: 18
Height: 5’9”                     Personal Status: 25              KI: 2
Weight: 160                      Group Status: xx

                ST
STRENGTH: 31     12             Unarmed Dmg: 1d10                Damage mod: +3
DEFTNESS: 20      9              BAP: 10    PAP:     SAP: 5       Zanshin: 1
SPEED:    20.85   9              #Actions: 2                      Base Move: 7
HEALTH:   15      7              Healing Rate: 3
WIT:       4      3              Learning Rate: 1                 FIS: 4
WILL:      5      4              Power: N/A                       Perception: 3

Skills:         BCS   Score   Bonus   FIS
Kenjutsu         14    61      Yes    Yes
Kyu-jutsu        14    64.5    Yes    Yes
Atemiwaza        11    56      No     ???
Iaijutsu         11    45      Yes    Yes

Armory            6    24      Yes    Yes
Dance, Court     10    44      Yes    ???
Rhetoric          2    14      No     ???

Katakana          5    18      Yes    ???
Hiragana          5    18      Yes    ???

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

AC: 3              HP: 29

                  BCS   DMG        RNG        Size   Wt   minStr   Attack forms
Katana (inferior)   13   d6+2L       M         1.5H    5    15      Thrust
Wakizashi (Good)    15   d6+2L       M          1H     3    10      Thrust
Dai-kyu             16   See notes   2-10       2H    10    31      5d6 For Willow.  See below for others.
Dai-kyu             14   See notes  11-60       2H    10    31      4d6 For Willow.  See below for others.
Dai-kyu             10   See notes  61-180      2H    10    31      2d6 For Willow.  See below for others.

Note:
If Armor Pierce arrows, +1 BCS but instead of d6, use d5.
If Bowl Raker arrows, -2 BCS but instead of d6, use d6+d3.
If Humming Bulb arrows, -1 BCS but instead of d6, use d3.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

GP: ?    SP: ??    CP: ???

Equipment:
Samurai Garb, Average
Winter Garb, Average
Armor, Partial Light Samurai
Katana, Inferior
Wakizashi, Good
Dai-kyu, 3 man

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Brawling: 8
Climbing: 10
 Leaping: 10
Swimming: 11

=-=-=-=-=

KI:
Damage.  Focused.  Add effect # to all damage done.  No archery.
Defense.  Focused.  Increase AC by effect #.
Swift Arm.  Focused.  Increase BAP by half effect #.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:57, Mon 10 Dec 2018.

In reply to Arashi Fukushu (msg # 59):

Essentially it's sneaking and jujutsu. I didn't change anything of note

Skills of note
Ninjitsu 15
Jujustus 15

Abilites of note
Deftness 30
Speed 20

In reply to Arashi Fukushu (msg # 59):

Is the damage on your Katana correct?  You do get to add your strength bonus, don’t you?

In reply to Totsu (msg # 61):

Yes, I would add +3 for strength.

In reply to Arashi Fukushu (msg # 62):

So both your swords should do ad6+4, correct?
Don’t short change yourself.

This message was deleted by the player at 03:35, Wed 12 Dec 2018.

In reply to Hiro-matsu (msg # 60):

In reply to Chiisai Tori (msg # 25):

Before we split up I want to make sure I talk to everyone in the group to get to know them better and to find out more about what skills they have and a ballpark of how good there are. Also want to know if they have any outside affiliations, like Hiro.
When I talk with Takeshi i also try to get an idea of some of the things he can do with magic.
I definitely want to find out more about Ayare because she is very resourceful and is much better in combat than she keeps stating she is.
I’m trying to get a good assessment of who could do what in combat and who would need the most help so her saying she is useless bothers me. If she wants to play the poor helpless girl in front of everyone else that is fine I encourage her to do so but I just want to know how well she can really protect herself so I don’t unescessarily rush to her aid leaving others unprotected when she was doing just fine on her own.

I freely share my skills with all of you that ask. I’m a Budoka
Atemi Waza 60% bonus Budoka skill, +2
Kusari-jutsu. 60% bonus
Jujitsu 49% bonus
Kyu-jutsu 60% non bonus
Kenjutsu is only 5% and I will be looking to improve because my family swords are well above average quality (I request that you keep this confidential because you will not see me pulling them out in public because I don’t want a bullseye on them, in fact I probably go out of my way to make the scabbards they are in look a little dirty with some surface scratches on the outside) and I would like to use them occasionally.   However I would always prefer to get up close and pound people with my fist.
I also have a little skill in hunting and bowyer around 25%, and I did learn court dancing around 50%.

My clothes are lose fitting on purpose hoping people will underestimate my strength (which is a 31) so I can catch them off guard.  Hopefully it would be some bully who likes to pick on people they think can be easily pushed around.  Nothing gives me more pleasure then having some bully think he can do whatever he wants to people and underestimate myself and pick a fight with me so I can pop him right in the jaw.
Also my training has been almost exclusively in the physical skills so my mental attributes have suffered because of this so I would be susceptible to spells against wit and willpower. Like spirits taking over my brain.

ayare says she’s good at commerce mostly. She is a scribe by profession.

She doesn’t talk much about herself though.

Character sheets are all input and I think correct at this point.  Please review in case we disagree on something.  I have made minor tweaks to all sheets, based on the rules and rounding mostly.

Arashi, use the RPOL version since there are still some kinks in the excel you have.

Hiro, congrats on the zanshin increase ;D.  I bumped your perception up since Ninja get to add level and increased your ST’s to add level.

Takeshi, I messed with your skills some, and adjusted some capabilities.  I think you get bonus skills for your arts due to Heimin/Merchant rather than Shugenja.  You also need to increase a mental attribute for your increase from study.  .05/%

Totsu, since we went back and forth some, let me know if anything is off.  Also, make a note on your sheet that you put Wit up with downtime.  I’m bound to forget when I review next level.

Added Group and Society status to character sheets.

Group is all 0 for you guys, until someone becomes the 'campaign dependent'; meaning they are the center of most social actions and goals in the group.

Hiro, you have a special situation.  Since they know your clan, when with the group, your society status is higher than everyone's.  Your clan lends you prestige.  The second number on your sheet is public society status assuming they do not know clan.  At that point, you're equal to Takeshi.

Rich,
If you have a plan that allows us to talk to Hiro let us know what it is. The rest of us have not heard an idea that will work so we will continue with our current course of action unless a good idea presents itself. We can not simply say that we talk with Hiro before the ambush happens, we need a plan to make that happen and one doesn't exist.

In reply to Takeshi Oshiro (msg # 69):

I thought we had a plan in place that we were going to have Hiro sneak out on a specific night at a predetermined spot.
I thought that was the original plan then the next thing I knew we were already separated and had no plans in place.  I would have objected to us splitting up with no plan in place. But everyone else just kept moving along with the story and by the time I realized that we didn’t have a plan we were already split up.
I’ve seen all kinds of proposals about signals as well. Was any of this ironed out before we split up?
If we have no plan and nothing set up to meet with Hiro then I would just recommend following the path hopping we run into the caravan so we can at least get a look at how many there are and what is there marching order and what weapons they have. Maybe we could actually interact with them and ask them where they are headed and find out if they plan to spend the night at a town or camp on the road.
We could say we are headed to talk to a person in the town or village that they have just passed then say we have to hurry back with that persons response to another town that they would probably be close to by the end of the night and say we will be meeting that person at the local inn. Hoping Hiro will hear the conversation and we will go to that inn and we spend the night there hoping Hiro sneaks out and goes to that inn and updates us on what he knows of the caravan. If he doesn’t then we at least got a look at the Caravan and how many there were and can come up with some kind of plan based off the encounter.
As of now it seems to me that we have no plan in place and have no idea how well protected this caravan is.
We can say that Yashi is the person that needs to talk to the people and we are just along with you to make sure you are not traveling alone in case someone tried anything.
I’m just thinking in the real world just randomly trying to ambush some caravan you know nothing about is usually a recipe for disaster. Or we could just ambush people we know nothing about and hope Ron didn’t have anything set up that we cannot handle.  We can’t really blame Ron if we all get killed doing this.

... or we could just do the plan as laid out which covers everything. We find out about the caravan from Hiro when they approach our spot at the side of the road. We can decide to attack melee, ranged, or not at all. It gives us all options and verifies it is the right caravan.
Why are you opposed to this plan?

I don't want to argue about every course of action. Once somebody presents a valid plan we go with it unless there is a valid objection.
Does everybody agree???

In reply to Takeshi Oshiro (msg # 71):

How do we know if we are supposed to attack meele or with bows from a distance?
Is Hiro going to signal us when to attack?
How do we know if we should not attack with our bows?
Will Hiro signal this before they get in range?
What if Hiro knows we should not attack with bows and we start shooting arrows before Hiro is in range?

If we know nothing and you still want to attack then I say we at least pick a point on the map and say when the first person in the caravan gets to that point we start shooting arrows. I would recommend a point where the closest person is 40 yards away.  This should put the whole caravan within 60 yards which means they are all in medium bow range.  At least then we would be able to coordinate from our side when the fight starts and hopefully catch them by surprise.
I would also recommend having just one person watching (Takashi, since he has the highest perception) and have him be just having the top of his head and eyes not behind coverage then describe to the people with the bows the situation and where the people are. Then have him
Count us down as they approach and then when they hit the spot Arashi and Totsu will know exactly where to shoot when we pop up and probably give away our position.
We should also have some kind of code or phrase to decide to abort the plan if things look really bad. But we would have to do this before Hiro or Ayare perform any actions

In general, since online play needs a certain pace, there are two options for the DM moving action along.

Option 1 is when nobody is in charge, I'll move the action once everyone has had their say, and there is a consensus between players.  Not 100% consensus, but at least 50%.  Depending on the situation, of course.

Option 2 is if the team puts one person as their leader (even if they rotate whom that is).  At that point, I'd hope the leader would listen to everyone's thoughts, and then call a play.

Online gaming is clunkier that way.  There is not smooth conversations or discussions.  It's much choppier.  So I make allowances for that a bit as well.

For example, I think Totsu is correct, that the group set a point where Hiro was to meet them on the east side of the mountains in the hills.  Practically, this could be rife with problems since you just have a map, and the scale makes it so Hiro could be looking for hours to find you and might not have hours.  Or he might be dead.  But, it could work perfectly and at least he'd know when to start looking.

I also, personally, see no problem with Takeshi's plan of forcing a meeting, because the plan was also for Hiro to try to travel with them as an entertainer if he could.  Takeshi's plan has the advantage of there being no 'misses' of travelers; and covers if Hiro is already dead or simply cannot act as he'd hoped.

I moved action along since there was consensus and I felt everyone had said their argument.  At that point, either someone has to make the call, or I'll likely move action forward so that people don't lose interest in the game because the pace is too slow.

In reply to Chiisai Tori (msg # 73):

What is this lost talk?  Pigman missed me every time and I smacked him good twice.   If I wasn’t worried about having to fight another battle soon I would have kept going until I knocked him out or got electrocuted.
The only time I took damage (which was lethal even though he agreed to a non lethal combat) was when I touched him and he had bolts of electricity shoot out of his butt and into me.
If it wasn’t for his electric butt powers I would have kicked his butt.

In reply to Chiisai Tori (msg # 73):

Totsu’s current hit point status is 26 - 6 lethal from pigman - 5 lethal from pigman +1 from bandage = 16.  I will not heal anymore back until next morning and I think it will be close to zero because I traveled today and was in combat.

In reply to Totsu (msg # 75):

I’m trying to remember, why are we attacking this caravan?
What are we trying to accomplish?

In reply to Totsu (msg # 76):

Totsu its to uncover arms smuggling, but we need to insure we have accurate information so I believe a little discretion in our operation is called for.

In reply to Arashi Fukushu (msg # 77):

Ok thanks. We got sidetracked by pigman and I forgot what the original mission was about

In reply to Totsu (msg # 78):

Try to find out where the arms are going, who they are for, how many have shipped, where they are stored,  and particularly curious about how much the Shrine's Gakusho knows of all this.

In reply to Hiro-matsu (msg # 79):

Thanks

In reply to Totsu (msg # 80):

Healing
Buddhist clergy casting a basic Healing spell receive Shugendo =
(.1 x Level of Spell), if successful. Using a Yoga in Healing receives
Shugendo equal to Knowledge used/100, rounded to the nearest
tenth. Shinto clergy receive a flat 1 Shugendo for Healing as their
doctrines declare the sick and injured to be ritually impure, and thus
they gain less merit for such activity.

So they still heal they're just not thrilled about it.

Finally back!

Hope everyone had a good relaxing holiday and gained at least 3 pounds.

Happy New Year all.

Indeed, Happy New Year!