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Gravy Train Robber posted:
I have one planned out, I may test it out on TG at some point. The Kolat are pretty easy for "western" players to access since the guys who want to make a meritocracy and get rid of weird old religion are maybe more accessible to someone living in 2011 than a court system that disdains physical evidence in favor of status based testimony and where the Matsu are killing peasants in the fields for crossing the road at the wrong time. The one real issue you might have is that the Kolat tend to be a hell of a lot more subtle than the average group of PCs, they would need to be on the down low for most of it and would have to elect to do specific things. That said, I think it is a really good idea for binding a group together. A group of "traveling artisans" from various clans would work as would a few other notions, I suspect. Although I disagree with you about Hitomi. Dueling the moon is just arrrrgh.
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Jun 3, 2011 08:09
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The Kolat also have brethren out side Rokugan, though they may or may not know this. The Kolat was originally from the Burning Sands (spelled Qolat there.) In fact they are very much entrenched there, though not really much closer to their goals of over throwing religion, as the cultures in the Burning Sand tend to be much more merit based than Rokugan. There is a whole stranger in a strange land aspect one could do with a Kolat game where, maybe everything goes south and they have to flee the Empire for a while and they end up in Medinaat Al Salam for a bit, being some what guided about by their desert counterparts. Not saying jump into this aspect, but it would make for a nice change of pace during a long game.
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Jun 3, 2011 15:46
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Preview if the asako monks is up: http://www.gametrademagazine.com/downloads/GTM136_L5RAsako.pdf
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Jun 13, 2011 05:14
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I know this is some thread necromancy, but I recently was able to snag a copy of the handbook off amazon for 37 dollars since my group decided they wanted to give it a go. Seems really fun from what I've read.
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Jul 8, 2011 03:08
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I know this is some thread necromancy, but I recently was able to snag a copy of the handbook off amazon for 37 dollars since my group decided they wanted to give it a go. Seems really fun from what I've read. S'cool. I was thinking about digging up the thread myself, when the newest book comes out this month, supposedly during, or just before GenCon.
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Jul 12, 2011 19:52
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Speaking of, are any of the splats "worth it" for a new player? Or are they more for advance play/metaplot toomfoolery.
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Jul 12, 2011 20:49
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Emerald Empire is definitely worth it if you want to know more about the culture you're playing in.
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Jul 12, 2011 20:54
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Speaking of, are any of the splats "worth it" for a new player? Or are they more for advance play/metaplot toomfoolery. Enemies of the Empire is mostly worth it in that it gives you a nice variety of opponents and play options. The one issue are the Oni, which are virtually all invulnerable (and so unusable for most groups).
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Jul 12, 2011 21:36
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Mahoshonen posted:Enemies of the Empire is mostly worth it in that it gives you a nice variety of opponents and play options. The one issue are the Oni, which are virtually all invulnerable (and so unusable for most groups). Ono are perfectly usable for most groups, as long as you have at least one shugenja who took his elemental weapon spell of choice. It will be a hard fight, but that's l5r for you. My group has fire and earth shugenja and beat obi down even without their magic weapons, of which they have several now.
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Jul 12, 2011 21:53
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Bellicose Buddha posted:The Kolat also have brethren out side Rokugan, though they may or may not know this. The Kolat was originally from the Burning Sands (spelled Qolat there.) In fact they are very much entrenched there, though not really much closer to their goals of over throwing religion, as the cultures in the Burning Sand tend to be much more merit based than Rokugan. There is a whole stranger in a strange land aspect one could do with a Kolat game where, maybe everything goes south and they have to flee the Empire for a while and they end up in Medinaat Al Salam for a bit, being some what guided about by their desert counterparts. Not saying jump into this aspect, but it would make for a nice change of pace during a long game. The Qolat are rather more sympathetic, though, based on the fact that the gods in Burning Sands have a bigger history of being huge dicks. Their formation was a direct result of the sun goddess, Shilah, razing...the, uh, the entire region. To the point where nothing can really grow there and it became the Burning Sands, killing off a good 90% of the population at the time. I really don't blame the Qolat for holding a grudge, even if it was an rear end-long time ago, their gods suck. (Burning Sands was great and I was sad when they never released any other books for it.)
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Jul 12, 2011 21:58
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OK I have a question, anyone think the Kiho were snuck in by someone with almost no playtesting? Let's start with one that is useful but oddly fluffed: pre:STAIN UPON THE SOUL Ring/Mastery: Air 3 (Atemi) Type: Martial This is a basic martial technique known to many sects of the Brotherhood, but one that is decried by several orders as im- pure and wicked. Its ease of use and its terrible effect on oth- ers are the reasons most often cited for this. You must make a successful atemi attack against a target. This disrupts the fl ow of the target’s chi and causes crippling pain throughout the body, distracting them from everything else. The target suffers a penalty to all TNs as if he suffered from a number of Wound Ranks equal to your Air Ring. This lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Insight Rank plus your Air Ring. This effect cannot affl ict a target multiple times, and is superceded by actual Wounds, not cumulative with them. Moving on, we get to the good stuff. Check this out: pre:EIGHT DIRECTIONS AWARENESS Ring/Mastery: Void 5 Type: Mystical Some monks are at a state of harmony with the world to such extent that they are aware of everything around them. While this Kiho is active, you become aware of all living things within a distance equal to your Void Ring x10 feet. You are also aware of any object or individual within that range that has been deliberately concealed, including secret doors, hid- den compartments, buried objects, etc. pre:TOUCH THE VOID DRAGON Ring/Mastery: Void 4 Type: Internal Certain orders of the Brotherhood are adept at aligning their chi with the dominant Element in the environment around them, drawing strength from the world. While this Kiho is active, one of your Rings and its associated Traits are consid- ered one Rank higher. Which Ring is affected depends upon the environment. Mountains increase Earth, the seashore in- creases Water, the plains increase Air, the desert or volcanic areas increase Fire, etc. Most of the atemi are sort of useless, particularly given how they activate and that they don't get to cause damage, but this is particularly hilarious: pre:REST, MY BROTHER Ring/Mastery: Earth 5 (Atemi) Type: Martial Easily among the most diffi cult and most sacred of all Kiho, this technique is restricted to a handful of orders within the Brotherhood. It functions by reversing the chi fl ow of a Taint- ed individual, causing them excruciating pain and temporar- ily restoring clarity of thought. This Kiho requires an atemi attack to be activated. The attack deals normal unarmed dam- age (despite being an atemi attack), plus an additional number of unkept damage dice equal to the opponent’s Shadowlands Taint Rank. If the target is a human or other formerly un- corrupted creature (as opposed to an oni or other inherently Tainted creature), he loses all benefi ts of the Shadowlands Taint for a number of Rounds equal to your Earth Ring. Dur- ing this time, he is free from the madness and mental instabil- ity normally brought on by the Taint. These are mostly just the weird balance issues, but there is SPIN THE KHARMIC WHEEL which is just a total WTF?!?! power that seems to serve no purpose other than to be screwy.
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Aug 7, 2011 18:32
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Winson_Paine posted:Monks are wierd. Couldn't agree with you more.
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Aug 8, 2011 01:24
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I know for a fact that a ridiculous amount of stuff in the new L5R went in without proper playtesting. The only character options they actually playtested were those related to Bushi, Courtiers and parts of the Shugenja (they still haven't made the obvious fix to Shugenja taking paths), everything else was basically funnelled in with only a cursory glance. This is especially obvious when you read the errata thread on AEG's forums, as now and then they'll make a ruling that actually contradicts what it says in the text in a clear "You didn't actually read the section before ruling, did you?" sort of way, and when someone gently points this out their post gets deleted and they get quietly shut down. Occasionally, for added stupidity, the original ruling will then be modified without reference to the fact that the designer got it wrong. If you raise the subject of balance at all, the stock reply is "L5R your way!" On the other hand, though, the guys writing the books are understaffed and overworked, and don't really get much respect from the wider company, so I guess they're doing the best they can with little support. Edit: clarification. Etherwind fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 12:08
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The Great Clans is out, by the way. Looks good.
Etherwind fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Aug 17, 2011 |
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Aug 17, 2011 05:06
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Etherwind posted:The Great Clans is out, by the way. Looks good. I agree. Picked it up at GenCon, and it looks like a nice condensation of all the fluff from the original Way of the Clans books. Not the happiest with some of the mechanics, but they can't all be winners.
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Aug 17, 2011 12:10
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NinjaDebugger posted:Not the happiest with some of the mechanics, but they can't all be winners. Glad I'm not the only one. I swear to god, for all their talk of "balance", it's gone right out the window.
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Aug 17, 2011 16:23
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Etherwind posted:Glad I'm not the only one. I swear to god, for all their talk of "balance", it's gone right out the window. Please elaborate 
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Aug 18, 2011 07:23
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Linear Bushi, Quadratic Shugenja?
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Aug 18, 2011 09:13
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Yoshimo posted:Linear Bushi, Quadratic Shugenja? And where do courtiers fit in this? (I still love that one 3E build that could essentially one-shot the Emperor).
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Aug 18, 2011 19:43
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Courtiers are a roleplaying class not a ROLL-playing class 
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Aug 18, 2011 20:02
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Yoshimo posted:Courtiers are a roleplaying class not a ROLL-playing class Any samurai who cannot gently caress up his daimyo's enemies is no samurai at all. I play a Doji courtier in Heroes of Rokugan 3, and I have the highest kill count in my regular group, thanks to shooting people in the face with fleshcutters. Shooting at 9k4e and rolling 6k4 for initiative. I'll get outdistanced eventually, but I'll always be contributing, especially with Feint cap going up with rank. Didn't even have to compromise my absurd court skills. Looking forward to getting nosold constantly at rank 3.
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Aug 18, 2011 20:16
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NinjaDebugger posted:Any samurai who cannot gently caress up his daimyo's enemies is no samurai at all.
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Aug 18, 2011 20:51
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SirPhoebos posted:And where do courtiers fit in this? ...which one? The Asahina with infinite raises on an arrow shot that can't miss, or Shinjo Snipa, who could ride his horse right into court without anybody seeing him, kill the emperor in one shot, and ride back out again?
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Aug 18, 2011 20:57
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NinjaDebugger posted:...which one? It's not quite one-shot, but the formula if I remember correctly is: Rank 3 Doji Courtier (Force subject to make any roll a Test of Honor roll) + Rank 2 Otomo Courtier (Make anyone taking a Test of Honor roll to fail automatically) Given enough void points, you can pretty much drop anyone to zero honor before they've had breakfast. 
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Aug 18, 2011 21:10
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NinjaDebugger posted:Any samurai who cannot gently caress up his daimyo's enemies is no samurai at all. Sayings like "To die with your intention unrealized is to die uselessly", and so on, are from the weak Kyoto, Osaka Bushido. They are unresolved as to whether to keep to their original plan when faced with the choice of life and death. Every man wants to live. They theorize with staying alive kept in mind. "The man who lives on when he has failed in his intention is a coward" id a heartless definition. That to die having failed is to die uselessly is a mad point of view. This is not a shameful thing. It is the most important thing to the Way of the warrior. If you keep your spirit correct from morning to night, accustomed to the idea of death and resolved on death, and consider yourself as a dead body, thus becoming one with the Way of the warrior, you can pass through life with no possibility of failure and perform your office properly.
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Aug 18, 2011 22:08
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Thought I'd save this thread from oblivion with a mini review, and to show you how to make a fun little busted rank one I've discovered. I picked up Great Clans a few months ago, and it's fantastic. I don't mind fluff books like Emerald Empire, but unlike EE; Great Clans is almost 100% original fluff, with new schools, kata, alternate paths, and spells that actually add to the mechanics. I'm not keen on everything they added, (Oh good, ANOTHER Mirumoto death engine school  ) but it's nice to have options.Verdict: Get it, if you like fourth edition. My broken little build aka The Reason NSB games cap starting advantages at 10 points: My neophyte GM friend wanted to run a game; suggesting it would likely be PVP at some point. Since he's high on combat and low on RP, I built accordingly: Rank 1 Phoenix Shugenja Strength 3 Agility 3 Weapon of choice: The 5k2 Dai Tsuchi. Advantages: Large, Bishamon's Blessing, Ishiken-do Heavy Weapons 4 And the rest of the build is noise. Why this build is broken: 5k2 Weapon + 3 Str + Large + Bishamon's Blessing means I roll 10k2 dmg... before raises. Granted, i don't have a lot of skills, and my rings are under developped, save fire, but 10k2 damage is utterly fantastic at creation. Void Magic essentially lets me astrally project, and recover Void at will. I can also cast a spell that lets me blow all my void on one non-damage roll. Combine that with the spells that lets me have 2 floating void, and I can roll an extra 4k4 once per day. Water magic gives me healing, and the ability to cast the luck advantage on myself for one roll per round. Fire Magic let's me buff my hammer for another 1k1, 2k2 vs. large or mounted enemies. I'm using Air Magic for messages; but it's SO useful. Earth... is kinda bleh right now, but I'll find a use for it, and soon. Bishamon's blessing is maybe the most broken of all. It gives me 1k0 to all strength (Read:damage) rolls, but also gives me a free raise for damage when I call 3 raises. I can't do this until I hit void 3, but it's my first stop in this campaign. At creation, in my first fight, I brought an Ogre Overlord to its knees; rolling 10k6 dmg that slightly penetrated its reduction. When I hit void 3, and call call 3 raises... 10k2 standard + 4k0 Raises + 2k2 vs mounted/large = 16k4 = 10k7 or 10k5+2 Dmg vs. small. Yes... That will do nicely for my rank one shugenja. NutShellBill fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Oct 3, 2011 |
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Oct 3, 2011 19:23
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Wow, that's almost as awesome as my starting Doji Courtier! (Basically what I'm saying here is your character is about the furthest thing from busted since a starting Doji Courtier with no combat advantages can have better than even odds against him, and also, I'd like to know how you got heavy weapons 4 on a starting character.) NinjaDebugger fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Oct 3, 2011 |
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Oct 3, 2011 21:36
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NutShellBill posted:Yes... That will do nicely for my rank one shugenja. Is your earth ring at 3? because if not one or two hits is likely to drop you, even from a much smaller damage weapon, and someone with really high reflexes 3/4 and heavy armor will be very difficult to hit with 7k3. and absorbs 7 of your damage. You might want your earth ring up, and you definitely want the earth spell that gives you damage absorption. Also, with those many points in heavy weapons, you're missing out on some essential skills for most shugenja (especially one with void spells). Meditation 3 or Tea Ceremony 3 allows you to recover 2 void points per day from those skills instead of one, and if you've just raised agility/strength to 3 instead of fire/water then you're missing out on additional spell slots.
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Oct 4, 2011 00:03
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Anyone have a good Excel or Word character sheet for 4th Ed. hanging around? I'm running Fortunes Lost (amazing!) as a one-shot for my D&D group in the hopes that they will convinced to play something other than D&D, and it's a pain in the rear end to write out all the pregens longhand.
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Nov 1, 2011 21:32
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Fardels Bear posted:Anyone have a good Excel or Word character sheet for 4th Ed. hanging around? I'm running Fortunes Lost (amazing!) as a one-shot for my D&D group in the hopes that they will convinced to play something other than D&D, and it's a pain in the rear end to write out all the pregens longhand. L5R.com has 4th edition character sheets as a free PDF download. No longhand required.
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Nov 3, 2011 18:23
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So what is going to be in Imperial Histories anyway? I preordered it, but that was based on the strength of The Great Clans and Enemies of the Empire.
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Jan 11, 2012 21:27
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I'm about to be in an L5R game, so I was happy to see this thread. I've always been interested in L5R, but I've just never had the opportunity to really take a look at it, so I read the core cover to cover, and absorbed most of it, although still trying to pick up on the finer points, but I won't bother you lot with that. The game I'm about to be in is all Ronin, and the GM hasn't mentioned anything about progression yet. What are the avenues open for Ronin progression, and has it been expanded upon outside the core book? Is it basically try and join a Clan's school or is there something I missed? Also, sorry for the slight bump/necro.
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Feb 6, 2012 10:19
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The Enemies of the Empire provides expanded options for Ronin characters, so that would be a good place to start.
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Feb 6, 2012 16:12
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slut chan posted:I'm about to be in an L5R game, so I was happy to see this thread. I've always been interested in L5R, but I've just never had the opportunity to really take a look at it, so I read the core cover to cover, and absorbed most of it, although still trying to pick up on the finer points, but I won't bother you lot with that. I wonder if we should combine the L5R threads? Anywho, enemies of the Empire is a great place to find bonus Ronin schools, but has an unfortunate caveat: You have to join a ronin group to learn the technique, or swap a pretty big favour to be allowed to learn them. Since they'll expect some level of fealty and loyalty, your best hope might be to join a clan at some point, if you can. That being said, you can be rank 5, and only one school, at rank one. Being a ronin is tough.
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Feb 6, 2012 17:13
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Oops, don't know how I found this thread and missed the other. Thanks, I'll took a look at those and chat with my GM to see if he is willing to give any hints as to what his plans are.
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Feb 7, 2012 01:28
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SirPhoebos posted:So what is going to be in Imperial Histories anyway? Basically, it's "How to play" in ten parts of Rokugan's history, including when the Kami fell to earth (including what Rokugan might be like if any of the OTHER Kami instead of Hantei had won), The Gozoku (Basically, they wanted to make the Emperor a figurehead and let the clans run things how they wanted, etcetera). Amongst all the various time frames includes two "non-canonical" time frames, the Heroes of Rokugan setting (the Toturi dynasty never fell.. based on the long running RPGA-like convention series of adventures in Living Campaign format), and the Thousand Years of Darkness (Fu Leng won the Day of Thunder.... now what?)
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Feb 19, 2012 04:00
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Hey guys, I'm running a one-off in about a week. I haven't played for a long-rear end time and my players are familiar with 7th Sea, but not L5R. Despite the advice of #partyhard, I've decided to set the adventure on the road between Otosan Uchi and Toshi Ranbo in the years before the Lying Darkness seizes Toturi--most of my exposure to the card game is from that area; I got on board right after Clan War and got off when the Four Winds wrapped up. I have a plot question. If a lowly merchant (or a group of middle-class villagers) have a serious grievance against the samurai in control of their region, (A) do they seek out an Imperial Magistrate or a higher-ranking samurai or both, and (B) if the Imperial Magistrate, would that dude be riding circuit or would have have a home base they could go to? Also, how feudal is the land-control system, exactly? Could a given stretch of land with its villages conceivably be under the thumb of a single powerful samurai (with little outside oversight other than the Magistrate), or is micromanagement/federalism/activist daimyoing more common?
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Feb 24, 2012 22:55
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Is the Thousand Years of Darkness writeup in Imperial Histories done well/interestingly? Is there any mechanical support for the different eras/timelines or is it mostly just setting material like Emerald Empire?
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Feb 24, 2012 23:05
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Gravy Train Robber posted:Is the Thousand Years of Darkness writeup in Imperial Histories done well/interestingly? Is there any mechanical support for the different eras/timelines or is it mostly just setting material like Emerald Empire? It's 90% setting material, 10% mechanical support (new paths/whatever). The Thousand Years of Darkness gets about 25 pages. It's good if you're interested in the concept, but it boils down to post-apocalyptic Rokugan which I find boring as hell.
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Feb 24, 2012 23:13
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Sulecrist posted:I have a plot question. If a lowly merchant (or a group of middle-class villagers) have a serious grievance against the samurai in control of their region, (A) do they seek out an Imperial Magistrate or a higher-ranking samurai or both, and (B) if the Imperial Magistrate, would that dude be riding circuit or would have have a home base they could go to? Also, how feudal is the land-control system, exactly? Could a given stretch of land with its villages conceivably be under the thumb of a single powerful samurai (with little outside oversight other than the Magistrate), or is micromanagement/federalism/activist daimyoing more common? They're poo poo out of luck. Merchants are lower than peasants, and unless they're bringing something tremendously important to the attention of the authorities (literally, "This person is practising maho") then they will be ignored at best and executed for their impudence in daring to profane the name of a samurai at worst. If they were revealing such a thing, and the subject of their report was the Daimyo of a region, they'd contact Clan Magistrates first, then attempt to send word to the Family Daimyo if that failed, then the Clan Champion, and only Imperial Magistrates if all else failed. In any of these scenarios the lowly merchant is basically inviting any samurai he approaches to execute him for thoughts above his station (calling a samurai into question is not cool), and even if he is believed, unless he's dealing with the Kitsuki Family of the Dragon Clan they won't care for evidence and his testimony is useless. Under this situation, it's either something massively important, or any merchant with any sense will grumble and put up with it. Rokugani are dicks.
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Feb 25, 2012 00:16
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