03: High Spirits

I thought even with exploded dice, you still can't keep more than your ring value. Am I wrong?

No that's not quite right. The way you work out your kept dice pool is as follows:

1) Roll your Skill and Ring Dice as appropriate for your Skill and Approach
2) Add any other dice to your pool from any other abilities (such as 'Blood of the Kami')
3) Before re rolling any exploding dice work out which dice you are keeping from your initial roll plus extra dice. The maximum number of dice you can usually keep at this point is equal to the value of the Ring you used in the check but can be amended for other factors (i.e. Certain school abilities, spent Void Points, etc)
4) Once you have worked out your Kept dice pool roll any extra dice for any Explosive Successes in your Kept pool (you do not re roll any that you did not keep)
5) You can decide to add any of those to your Kept pool even if that means your number of Kept dice exceeds your Ring value. If any of the additional dice you keep also roll Explosive successes you can roll additional dice for those as well and, dependent on the results, choose whether to add them to your pool of kept dice.

So in the example of your roll you got the following:

Ring Dice: 3 (Opportunity), 4 (Success and Strife), 6 (Explosive Success, Strife)
Skill Dice: 5 (Opportunity)
Breath of the Kami Dice: * (Opportunity)

So out of the above you can keep 3 dice, if one of the dice you keep is the Explosive Success then you can roll an additional die and add it to your kept pool if you want to even if that means you exceed 3 kept dice.

One other thing to remember is you only need to keep a minimum of 1 dice, can be useful in situations where you roll lots of Strife and a Blank die and don't want to risk unmasking.

Does that clear it all up? Just let me know how you're managing your dice pool for the next check and I'll redo the post with the result of it before moving on.

Yeah they just keep exploding but as noted above you only re roll for an exploding die if you are keeping it and you are also not under any obligation to keep any of the extra dice you roll as part of keeping an explosive success.

sounds good :)

Yes, thanks

The Ronin on Kashita is now Incapacitated (see below) and obviously out of the fight for the time being.

Ronin Condition Track
Ronin on Aki: 1 fatigue (5 Endurance), 0 strife (6 Composure)
Ronin on Kashita: 7 fatigue (5 Endurance), 0 strife (6 Composure) - Incapacitated
Ronin on Yoshi: 1 fatigue (5 Endurance), 2 strife (6 Composure)

Rolls for Ronin, results to follow.....

On Aki: Ring dice - 2(Opportunity and Strife) 6(Explosive Success and Strife), Skill Die - 4(Opportunity), Explosive Success Die - 2(Opportunity and Strife)
On Yoshi: Ring dice - 2(Opportunity and Strife) 5(Success), Skill Die - 8(Success)

TN for the Strike action to hit is 2. If the Ronin succeed they may add a number of bonus successes equal to the amount of Strife on the dice due to being in Fire Stance

On Aki: Ronin keeps the 6 Ring die (Explosive Success and Strife) and rolls again before determining final dice pool. As they can't get any more successes from keeping any other dice they will just keep the one and take a point of Strife
On Yoshi: Ronin keeps all three dice for a total of 2 x successes, 1 x Opportunity, and 1 x Strife. They hit for 2 Damage (1 from the 'weapon' for meeting the TN of 2, 1 for the kept point of Strife (Fire Stance)) which will translate to two points of Fatigue and they will use the Opportunity to activate their 'Sit down child!' ability again which knocks Yoshi down (need to spend your Movement on your next action to stand and suffer 1 Strife).

Where is everyone at now in terms of Strife and Fatigue?

Stances
Yoshi: Earth
Aki: Fire
Kashita: Air

Ronin Condition Track
Ronin on Aki: 1 fatigue (5 Endurance), 1 strife (6 Composure)
Ronin on Yoshi: 1 fatigue (5 Endurance), 3 strife (6 Composure)

PC's turn....

so a earth stance doesn't prevent him from knocking me? :( I hoping not to meet the friendly floor again...
I'm fatigue 5/10 and strife 9/10

so that's one opportunity, one blank and one opportunity plus strife. The strife ignored and I have an extra opportunity from the blood of the kami ability. Because my ring is void, I keep 2 dice... what is the point of critical striking the ronin? The alternative will be to recover two strife

My bad - I've amended to post to reflect that he didn't but you down again.

The deadliness of a kick is 1 and a punch is 2. In crit terms They are the same severity and would inflict a 'Close Call' which other than damaging their armor (if they were wearing any) doesn't do anything. I can't see anything in the main rulebook to suggest inflicting multiple crits would increase the severity of any subsequent crits so there's probably not much point in spending the opportunities like that in this fight.

Last thing, according to the Strike action you can only spend the 2 x Opportunities if you succeed on the check

Yup, seven bonus successes for a total of 8 damage!

Ronin Condition Track
Ronin on Aki: 9 fatigue (5 Endurance), 1 strife (6 Composure) - incapacitated
Ronin on Yoshi: 1 fatigue (5 Endurance), 3 strife (6 Composure)

Kashita to go....

Well you're both moving about (it's not like you're just standing still, taking turns to punch one another) but if there's something different you want to try just let me know and I'll try and work out the equivalent action for it. Remember you are just starting out and have only just hopefully finished your schooling

I suppose I'd have taken a earth stance instead, seeing that avoids the humiliation of being knocked down, if that is ok :D

ahah I meant that, taking a earth stance and being hit pretty much looks like just standing there looking like a punching bag :D which is very monkly

Quick bump - Kashita is up.....

Yoshi peacefully awaits to be punched... yet again :D