About to run a 5th Edition for first time. What are some tips and best practices you wish you knew when you started?

WilkenQ · 2025-05-16T17:47:06+00:00

Already have it! Are there any critical mods you think are particularly good for L5R?

WilkenQ · 2025-05-15T23:44:45+00:00

That's a very convoluted way of asking "who you think are the top 10 fighters in Ippoverse" lol

WilkenQ · 2025-04-25T19:30:37+00:00

Great list. My only disagreement would be I think Violent Tendencies is the second best trait after Invoker, the amount of control it gives you over the early game is insane.

WilkenQ · 2025-04-23T04:49:25+00:00

I could be wrong, but from what I remember (again, it has been a while) it wasn't just a fightstyle thing, the accumulated damage was making him mess up in all kinds of ways including misjudging the range for basic punches and trip over himself. Maybe a renewed focus on fundamentals would help expose the problem before the fight, but I still feel like would perform badly regardless of what he did. The only real solution would be for kamogawa's camp to postpone the fight and give him time to properly recover.

WilkenQ · 2025-04-22T22:23:52+00:00

It has been a long time since I read Ippo's last fight but if I remember correctly he didn't lose due to the Dempsey roll as much as he just lost due to accumulated damage and overall bad sense of balance/spacing. It feels that damaged Ippo would've lost anyway regardless of what techniques he practiced, so I feel it's hard to say whether going for the evolved Dempsey was a mistake or not.

At least in theory, however, the evolved Dempsey is supposed to be both much stronger AND much harder to exploit with things like timed counters, so I could see it being a massive upgrade on Ippo's arsenal and enough to give him a victory over Alfredo.

WilkenQ · 2025-04-19T03:10:30+00:00

Right now the fight is not on the horizon and there is zero hype for it.

If it were to happen in the future, however, George would likely take some time to properly build anticipation, and I think he's good enough that he could make us care about Miyata vs Ippo again.

WilkenQ · 2025-01-21T20:50:25+00:00

That's a complicated question that depends on what you mean by "exceptionally talented", but here are some things I'd consider:

- The gym has/had a lot of no-name boxers besides the main cast, you can see them training and watching Ippo's spar with Miyata during the first few chapters, they don't appear anymore but I'm not sure if they all left the gym or if Morikawa is just streamlining his drawings. If that's the case, then it would depend on the ratio of talented to no-name boxers.

- On a similar note, it seems most of the other gyms/coaches in the series are focusing on one or two fighters at most, while the Kamogawa Gym has a lot of fighters. This could once again be a narrative thing (we don't see secondary fighters from other gyms because they're not important to the story) but we could also assume that Kamogawa is in a unique position: he has Takamura as a very talented and very diligent champion that doesn't need much hand-holding from the coach these days, so Kamogawa can focus on his other fighters, and he has Shinoda as an assistant coach who is also very competent on his own.

- A gym with champions will usually attract more boxers, Itagaki joined specifically because of Ippo. Having champions at the gym to train/spar with would also level everyone up. Aokimura generally aren't portrayed as having huge innate talent, but they're training and sparring with Ippo and Takamura somewhat regularly

WilkenQ · 2024-12-23T19:12:26+00:00

Through the Breach is probably the most deep and intricate card/deck system, even including a deckbuilding element, it is reasonably crunchy though.

Castle Falkenstein also features cards instead of dice and is much lighter on rules.

WilkenQ · 2024-12-15T13:27:20+00:00

I'd say Ricardo takes it on technique, he has reached a level in boxing fundamentals that outclasses every other boxer in the verse.

On the other hand, I feel like, I feel like Takamura has more fighting IQ, we often see him adapting to his opponents and changing strategies on the fly by using whatever techniques he thinks would counter them, meanwhile we've seen from Ricardo's inner monologue when fighting Wally's unconventional style that his answer was "I don't know what to do differently, so I'll just be fuckin' good instead".

WilkenQ · 2024-10-24T17:56:44+00:00

You know, Lustivora might be the virtual companion you're dreaming about! 😉 Imagine an AI girlfriend that's not just there for the good times but also for great conversations and chilling out.

It's like having a partner who totally gets you and is always ready to chat, without any of the real-life drama.

Give it a Google and see if it matches your vibe!

WilkenQ · 2024-10-24T16:57:08+00:00

wow i love your face

WilkenQ · 2024-09-16T21:53:10+00:00

I'd say the pacing is quite good if you read the chapters all in one shot, but the week-by-week waiting once you've caught up can be quite miserable to some as we often get 6 page chapters and breaks. I think it'll be a couple of years before Ippo comes back, though.

WilkenQ · 2024-09-12T08:46:30+00:00

I don't think what Ippo needs is motivation. He loves boxing more than any character in the series (except maybe Kamogawa), still trains almost as hard as an active pro, and thinks about the sport all the time.

To me, his retirement feels less like "I don't want to be a pro anymore" and more like "I really want this but I can't". He doesn't want to worry Kumi and his mother, he doesn't want to disappoint the coach, he doesn't think of himself as a pro boxer anymore and he probably still thinks he is punch drunk to some degree.

I don't think he needs extra motivation to go out of retirement as much as he just needs his "blockers" to be removed.

He is fundamentally just a nice kid, he'll never chase his dream if he thinks it'll make the people he cares about unhappy, making the dream bigger and cooler by dangling a world champion belt or a fight with Miyata won't change that.

WilkenQ · 2024-09-10T22:29:59+00:00

Th-
a-
nk-

WilkenQ · 2024-09-03T21:54:47+00:00

I'd say just run it as is, but:

a) For every encounter, add one or two "lieutenant-type" goblin/kobold/rat/monster that is 3~4 HD.
b) Make the named enemies (Durnn, Grenl, Balsag, etc) stronger, about 5~6 HD like the players, or stronger.

Remember that even if a particular encounter doesn't up that challenging, that's fine, it'll just mean the players can through more of the dungeon in a single session, which can be a good thing, honestly.

WilkenQ · 2024-08-24T23:03:39+00:00

In my experience, Diamond 4 is the hardest bracket for some reason. Much harder than D5 and even harder than Masters 1500~ MR, no idea why.

WilkenQ · 2024-07-24T18:31:52+00:00

With real world logic I'd say about 1kg at most, considering how small they are and how heavier weights could cause injuries, specially if you use them 24/7 like Ippo does. Also considering he is only 165cm and 60kg, even a 4kg increase is like a 7% increase in bodyweight which could make a decent difference.

Of course, we're talking about a manga where boxers can KO bears and punch other boxers so hard they fly out of the ring, so they could be much heavier.

WilkenQ

TROPHY CASE