First Edition House Rules

Here are some house rules I'll be using:

Exploit Weakness Knack

While you receive one free rank in Exploit Weakness (Your School) when you purchase a Swordsman School, Exploit Weakness is no longer required as a knack for raising your school. Instead, the Attack knack associated with your school's primary weapon needs to be raised to 4 for Journeyman and 5 for Master. You also receive a free rank in Exploit Weakness when you reach Journeyman and again when you reach Master, though the Knack can never be raised above 5.

Characters can also learn Exploit Weakness for other schools. Ranks 1 and 2 can only be gained after Stories in which the character defeated an Apprentice of that other school in a duel or some other form of single combat; Rank 3 can be only be purchased after a Story in which a Journeyman was defeated. Rank 4 requires defeating a Master, and Rank 5 requires defeating a Grandmaster, several Masters at once or a similar extraordinary feat.

Brute Squads

To make Brutes a little more threatening (though still not particularly threatening), Brute squads now roll Threat Rating + Number for all rolls (instead of Number keep Threat Rating). This means a full TR3 Brute squad rolls 9k3 to attack, and a single TR3 Brute rolls 4k3. Does this make Brutes more dangerous? Absolutely, but as it is an unlimited number of Brutes essentially poses no threat to players. Here, players may take a few flesh wounds fighting Brutes, but still can largely defeat them.

NB: This rule may be refined in play; if it increases the power of Brutes too much, it may be toned back. I'm also considering requiring 2 raises to knock out extra Brutes of higher Threat Ratings instead of one. We'll see.