/L5R/ General

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Which non-clan faction or character type is your favourite to create a character from?
For some reason, I've always been partial to the Ashalan.

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>GM letting you play Ashalan

If that isn't campaign central that is a weird choice for a game about magical samurai.

Oh, it's never happened, and it was explained that their techniques kind of suck if you're not immortal and high insight. Still something I'd like to play eventually.

I always liked the idea of a Kenku trained bushi, even if it reeks of speshul snowflake.
Also Nezumi. Hiruma-Nezumi liason gone native is a fun concept, even if it can't survive more than a few hours in most courts.

How true is the rumor that 7th Sea and L5R were originally supposed to be in the same world?

Doubleplusuntrue. As far as I know, there's never been any evidence of it and the gaijin mentioned in L5R never lined up well with the nations in 7th Sea.

Would you, Veeky Forums

I don't think I'd be given a choice.

Would you want to?

Because Kachiko is just terrible. She is as dickish as she is beautiful.

Pretty sure that's not bayushi kachiko.

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Yeah but, why does she wear the mask?

She's a sneaky girl.

No one paid attention to her, until she put in the mask.

From a GM's point, RP'ing Kachiko is always hard. Her weapon is seduction, and that only works if players\characters can be seduced.

Most Players are so hardwired in this game to "ALL FOR MY LORD - DIE FOR MY LORD - HONOR HONOR HONOR" that they wont play along, even if they have honor ratings of fucking 1. Also, everyone understands that you aren't getting any, and therefore, the seduction fails.

There was only one time that this ever worked. PC figured he was dead anyway, and wanted to go out with a bang. He returned the Kachiko flirting and got really spooked when it seemed to be going well, as in, not getting him murdered. He then decided that Kachiko was a slut, and bought into the seduction a 100%. He follows her into her bedchambers, and they bone all night long - little did he know it was her body double Yogo Asami. This turned into a long term affair, and the PC was so intent on keeping this love affair going, that the fell into whole of doing anything he was asked - eventually being instrumental in turning over a lot of family\clan secrets, a family heirloom, and then becoming a scorpion himself "to be close to lady kachiko" as her personal bodyguard

Naturally, he died in combat not long after that.

For your clan.

How did the Hida Ruri plot end?
Did she become a loyal Crab waifu through the power of love or was it just an epic Spider ruse all along?

I'm kind of new to L5R (played 3E once) and I might be playing 4E soon

I'd really like to play an unarmed combat powerhouse character (punching through armors and the people who wear them, ripping out organs, etc ...) and I can't figure out how to do that or if it's even possible/advisable. The only form of unarmed combat that I've seen for now is jiujitsu, which doesn't seem like the ideal for punching and kicking people into oblivion.

The prospective DM has already shattered all my dreams of playing commoners, so I guess the only choices I have would be a "muscle-wizard" shugenja or a tattooed monk ?

If you can help I'd appreciate it very much. Also please point out the inconsistencies with the setting in my reasoning if any. I thought I understood that it's taboo for nobles to touch meat, does that apply to digging bare-handed into your adversaries ?

Thanks in advance, have a qt for your trouble

Most players I've seen that want high honour were just after bigger numbers for techniques / damage.

The ones who were stuck in the stereotype of 'all honour, all the time' just needed something more to grasp the setting.

What books do you have access to? Hands of Stone will pretty much always be your starting point for higher unarmed damage.

Matsu Berserker / Lion Paragon / Strength of Purity kata (iirc) eventually does some intense amounts of damage, but most weapons would do more, and some get better exploding dice.

Monks? Osano-Wo, Henshin, Togashi, Hoshi, Hitomi, and the fire martial art path.

There's a handful of unarmed schools and quite a few martial arts that contain paths. Jiujutsu is just the name of the skill used for unarmed, in the same way that kenjutsu is the skill used for all sword combat regardless of tradition, it's not an indication of a martial art being used.
Basically, there's two ways to actually use a "martial art". You can get a skill emphasis for it in Jiujutsu, and/or you can get a special Technique for it. The skill emphasis is mostly just for fluff, but it can also get you into tournaments.

As far as major unarmed martial arts represented in 4e, there's
Kobo ichi-kai: Crab rip and tear anti-shadowlands martial art. It's represented mechanically by an entire school (Hida Pragmatists), but any Crab can learn it the basics by taking it as an emphasis. Has a wimpy non-lethal version used for tournaments called Kobo amai.
Sumai: Literally sumo, it's a fairly big deal in most clans. Only the Crab have an actual mechanical path for it, because only the Crab have tried to make it usable in real combat.
Hitsu-Do: The way of fire. Very punchy, very few practicioners. There is a mechanical path for it, but it's not open to many schools.
Mizu-Do: The way of water. Defensive, mostly practiced by the Crane. Again, mechanical path not easy to get outside the Brotherhood.
Ikoma Scrapper: Dirty fighting Lions. Poke your eyes out, bite your ears off, choke you to death.
Mantis Brawlers: Roundhouse punches and other drunken barfighter things. Mechanically, it's an entire five technique school that is also available to ronin because the Mantis just don't give a shit and it's an apprenticeship school anyway.
Unicorn Bariqu Wrestling: Not really practiced outside the Unicorn, but they do it, and they have a mechanical path for it.
>Cont.

Tattooed Monks are really good in general, even if you're not focussing on unarmed damage. as it stands, they also get a bonus 1k1 unarmed damage at rank 2, which helps with what you're looking for.

You'll also want to get the Friend of the Brotherhood and the Hands of Stone advantages. Being a Dragon and a Monk, you get a discount on both of them.

>The prospective DM has already shattered all my dreams of playing commoners
It's possible, but the rules for it went something like 'all rings start at 1, 8xp to buy low or merchant skills'.

>for some reason, I thought there was more left

Kaze-do: Peasants and Monks only. When you think of "jiujutsu" as a specific martial art, this is it. Fluffwise and mechanically only available to the Brotherhood and peasants. It's potentially learnable if you pretend to be a peasant for twenty years.

And then there's the Brotherhood and their endless Kiho that add all sorts of neat bonuses to all kinds of unarmed attacks.

Hands of Stone is a must as far as advantages go. If you're playing a shugenja or monk (Or "monk" in the case of Kuni Witch Hunters) and are NOT already a Brotherhood monk, Friend of the Brotherhood is a good one.

Actually, scratch that for Mizu-do. It's not actually possible to learn the Technique if you're not a Crane.

>Peasants and Monks only
Sort of. If you can convince one to train you, then there's nothing mechanically stopping another archetype taking it.

>What books do you have access to?
Practically most of them, theoretically, I can procure any of them, or at least the rule points required.

Hitomi monks look appealing because of their martial arts focus and because if I remember well, monks aren't as involved in the diplomacy/etiquette side of the game, which would help me pick it up as we go rather than risk tragic blunders

the Kobo Ichi-Kai, Ikoma Scrapper and Hitsu-Do seem like what I'm looking for, punchy, brutal close-combat with high lethality/mutilation potential
Can I pick up one of these while playing a tattooed monk ?

Brotherhood are the tattooed monks, right ? Togashi, Hitomi and Hoshi ?

Thank you very much to all, I was happily surprised by the speed and usefulness of your answers !
Domo arigato, as they say !

No, the tattooed monks are Dragon Monks, The Brotherhood is the Brotherhood of Shinsei.

The Hitome Kikage Zumi can learn Hitsu-Do.
Kobo Ichi-Kai is an entire School unto itself mechanically, and is a Crab School. Ikoma Scrapper is a path only available to certain Lion Schools.

>Brotherhood are the tattooed monks, right ?
Nah. Brotherhood are the monks that do high flying wuxia kungfu magic.

Tattooed men are Dragon Clan.

Do you have any resources or suggestions on tattoos ? There seems to be a buttload of them and I'm having trouble finding clear descriptions of their effects
I wanted to play a sumotori or a yakuza but apparently the DM's playstyle revolves around a lot of interactions intra-nobility and that would mean having an inactive character or having a high chance of him being killed off because nobles regard commoners as less than dirt
The brotherhood is an affiliation of its own then, separate from the clans ? Or are they a "secondary" allegiance

Tattooed monk still looks appealing but how close are they to their clan ? I'm seeing the character as some kind of travelling martial perfectionnist, that might oscillate between bandit and vigilante. Is this even feasible or advisable in L5R ?

I'm sorry if I'm making you spell out what seems obvious to you but this is really confusing to me, and the more I'm digging into this, the more I'm realizing that what I played was a homebrew setting with little to do with the actual setting (tattooed monks were outlawed, for one thing).

>monks aren't as involved in the diplomacy/etiquette side of the game, which would help me pick it up as we go rather than risk tragic blunders
That's not really true. Etiquette (the skill) and effort to remain polite are always important, but rarely life saving when dealing with everyday samurai. If you really want to avoid your lack of etiquette being a problem, don't go into the big city courts. Go rural. Play a young samurai from the Crab or Lion. The former is expected to be brutish, the latter may debate honourable courses of action with others. So long as you know the seven virtues roughly as written, you'll be learning more than if you play a monk straight away.

>The brotherhood is an affiliation of its own then, separate from the clans?
Yes. They're not samurai. They're their own separate class of people who draw members from all other walks of life. One monk might have been a peasant infant left on a monastery's doorstep and raised in the Brotherhood for their entire life, while another might be a retired old samurai. Either way, they give up past affiliations, take on a new name, and start fishing for enlightenment.
A samurai with the right mindset could literally put down their swords, shave their heads, and move into the nearest monastery with almost no questions asked. They're functionally dead to their clan, and completely removed from the normal celestial wheel. If peasants are below samurai, and eta are below peasants, then Brotherhood monks are somewhere off to the left.
The Dragon Tattooed monks and other clan monks are still technically samurai.

Tattoos and their effects can be found right after the Tattooed Monk school, right before the Lion Clan schools begin.

Best tattoos good for unarmed fighters are, in alphabetical order: Bamboo, Blaze, Crab, Mountain and Storm. Ki-Rin, Ocean, and Phoenix are also pretty good.
Although it's not strictly for unarmed combatants, I'm gonna take the time to mention the Dragon tattoo, and that breathing fire is really cool.

The Brotherhood is its own thing, unaffiliated with the clans
The Three tattood orders are part of the Dragon Clan
The Order of the Spider could be converted to a Ronin school for a martial perfectionist

>The Dragon Tattooed monks and other clan monks are still technically samurai.
The Henshin are all of samurai birth, but the Togashi take whomever passes their tests. Any that weren't samurai before do not become samurai after, it's just not done to ask about the previous life of a monk.

They're still treated as samurai, even if they don't "become" them.

The shinsei monks sound exactly like what I'm looking for, with a Hitsu-do focus
What books should I check out in particular for these ?

I'm planning on doing my homework and reading up on the etiquette and virtues anyway and trying to apply it as good as I can. The DM is pretty forgiving on that, especially for new players.

Would it be logical or acceptable to have a former Crab become a shinsei monk and keep using his crab fighting style or would it just be cheesing ? Also can fighting styles be combined ?

I remember the monk of our party basting a dozen of shinobis inside a pagoda thanks to the dragon tattoo. Good times.

Do you know about the rules of admission for the Hitomi ? Or are they assimilated into the Togashi ?

Again thank you very much, you're all being incredibly helpful

The other clans don't care about the distinctions made within the Dragon Clan.
As far as they care, the Togashi tattooed men are the "Togashi family", and if they raise a peasant up to their level, then that's socially the same as any other family allowing an ashigaru to swear fealty as a samurai.
They respect the fact that they're monks, but they're still Togashi samurai first in the minds of most other samurai.

Although, with the level of secrecy and isolation involved, most other samurai won't even be aware that the Togashi take in anyone who can pas their test and would just assume that they're all samurai from the start.

Yes, but they cannot consider themselves of samurai blood, nor take the daisho, if they were born a peasant.

Dragon Monks are celibate (I think), and don't you the daisho anyway: there is no important difference between those of peasant origin and those of samurai origin.

It's less that other clans don't care, and more that they can't know for sure.

We're talking about the same samurai that would attempt to kill the peasant successor of an Oracle, because the Oracle clearly made a mistake.

That depends on the vows they choose to take, you accidentally words, and you're wrong.

They can't know for sure, but they also don't know that it's even a potential issue. The Togashi never carry their daisho anyway because they're monks, but their leader is the Clan Champion and they're a group founded by a kami. As far as non-dragon (And really, even non-Togashi) are concerned, they're a Dragon samurai family. They might not consider themselves to be one, but when they step out of their mountains, they're given the full samurai treatment because nobody knows how they really work and assume that they work like any other samurai family does.

>The Togashi never carry their daisho anyway because they're monks
Untrue, ever since 1e included an advantage explicitly for it. Hence the quibbling over samurai blood.

The quibbling is a meta thing.
In-setting, they're treated as samurai because they run a samurai clan and are presumed by most to be a samurai family. A very, very strange and sometimes vexing samurai family. From a non-Togashi point of view, when they aren't carrying daisho, it's because they're doing the monk thing and just being weird, as ever. When they are carrying daisho, it's because they're samurai.

So, I've got a rules question, /l5rg/

the Chosen by the Oracles (fire) gives me +1k1 on all fire ring rolls. Does this count to the damage roll of a Tattooed Monk's dragon tattoo?

>The quibbling is a meta thing.
No.

Yes.
A Togashi tattooed man who comes down from the mountains is treated as a samurai. Period. He could be carrying nothing but a loincloth and he'd still be treated as a samurai.

You are stubborn, I'll give you that. Doesn't make you any more correct to hold your ground, however.

Even saying tattooed men are always treated as samurai is incorrect. Some will treat them as monks.

Just one last question for you rokugan savants

Can fighting styles be combined ? Or can characters only benefir from one style at a time ?

Is anyone currently running a game online and got room for one more?

I've always wanted to play a game of L5R but there's no community for it in my area

Techniques can be fully combined, Kiho can be combined up to a point (One of each type at a time), kata can't be combined with other kata.

L5R has an acute lack of GMs.

So I can theoretically use both Hitsu-do and Mizu-do (random example) at the same time ? Pretty neat ! I can't wait to be punching my way through samurai, horses and undead abominations

>currently running a game online
yes
and got room for one more
no room, I'm affraid.

But, I will give you some advice. I was in the same situation as you are in right now, before I found the solution: be the GM.
Now, I'm not an expert at L5R (one of my players is significantly more knowledgable than me), nor am I a particularly great GM, but I've been trying my best and my players seem to like it.

Best of luck in finding a group, user.

You theoretically could, but since they are not both available in any given School, you can't really. Not without jumping through a LOT of hoops and going up three ranks in a completely new school.

I'll have to keep learning how all this works, but thanks again !

A completely new school in an entirely different social strata.
A Doji Courtier or Asahina shugenja who gets to rank 3, takes mizu-do, then retires to the brotherhood, goes up to rank 2, and takes Hitsu-do could do it.
But I think at the point where you're a practitioner of Hitsu-do, you've almost certainly abandoned Mizu-do. They're very, very opposed philosophies behind those two martial arts.

What would you recommend as an effective complementary school with Hitsu-do ?

But I have only ever played a TTRPG once before as a player in a 4-session shithow so I don't know if that would be a good idea

If you're going Brotherhood, Temple of Osano-Wo. They're big, burly militant monks and their Technique also adds damage to unarmed damage. Hitsu-Do completely replaces your basic unarmed damage when you activate it, but because of the way the Osano-Wo monk technique is worded, it still adds its bonus damage to the Hitsu-do damage.
If you go this route, Hands of Stone becomes less important. It does stack with the Osano-Wo technique, but it doesn't stack with Hitsu-do technique.

So, I'm making a Tamori Shugenja for a game I'm playing, and I've found a way to start the game at insight rank 2. I'm mostly doing this because I've taken Agasha as my ancestor and Transmute is a dope spell.

I just want to know, is this considered bad form? Am I gonna rub people the wrong way by doing this?

Yes, most people consider that to be poor form.
I assume you're talking about the "Take every skill at rank 1" method. It works sort of, and it works better for shugenja who don't need to actually succeed at many skill rolls, but it's kinda shitty to do.

That's what I was going for in the first place
I think I'll stack the 3 since hands of stone is cheap as dirt for monks and it still gives quite a punch without activating the Hitsu-do
+0k2 on unarmed seems pretty savage if I give him decent strength

Well, before I started DMing recently, I could count the number of sessions I played per year on one hand.

Most of my knowledge of TRPGs is through reading the rules and building campaigns rather than actually playing them.

Hitsu-do won't be worth it until you get your Fire up to 3 or better, but that's fairly easy to do and you won't have access to the Hitsu-do technique until insight rank 2 anyway, so it's fine.

A Free Ogre. I once had a Free Ogre character who could remember the lost glory of his race and their downfall. He could remember Fu Leng killing their king and turning my character's friends and family (including his beloved wife and children) into mindless brutes. His hatred towards Fu Leng and his minions was so strong he willingly submitted himself to an Emerald Magistrate just so that he could seize the means and resources he needed to kill as many Lost and Oni as he could.

For almost a decade he served the magistrate, clad in a massive armor that hid his true nature (outwardly, he was really just a very big samurai). He killed countless minions of the Dark Kami and even became a honorary member of the Crab Clan (they did not know that he was an ogre, only that he was everything a Crab warrior should be). In the end, he even found his wife and mercy killed her when it turned out that she was too far gone.

Boy, it was a pretty fooking cool character!

pretty badass, desu senpai

Not really "every skill at rank 1," but a few of them. I've got a couple of skills at rank 3, and a bunch more at rank 2,

Most of the rank 1 skills are either lore skills or flavor skills, and none of them seem out of place (well, for a Dragon).
The only ones that really seem unusual are Games [Go] (I have the fascination disadvantage for Go) and Artisan [Gardening] (Agasha had a few ranks in it, and she taught me a bit).

>Hitsu-Do completely replaces your basic unarmed damage when you activate it, but because of the way the Osano-Wo monk technique is worded, it still adds its bonus damage to the Hitsu-do damage.
I don't believe it does. Hands of Stone is worded the same, and gives no benefit.

My gm had the biggest shit eating grin when he revealed he created a whole bunch of minor clans just so one of them could be the "Herring' clan.

One character from the Herring clan who we all thought was the bad guy - his name was "Akashi", he was literally named Red Herring.

Anyone have a any cool names to go with the theme of "Air".

So far all my campaigns have had a name but I am coming up blank for Air.

I've had - "Way of Fire", "Honor like Stone", and most recently "Within Water, Beneath Waves". But god damn if i am completely blank for Air.

Hitsu-do explicitly calls out Hands of Stone as something it doesn't stack with. It does not say that it can't be affected by other Techniques, just that it doesn't get affected by Hands of Stone and mechanically counts as a Mystical Kiho. It also is not a special action on its own. It's just a modification of the basic unarmed attack.
The Hand of Thunder says that "You gain +0k1 bonus to all damage rolls stemming from unarmed attack. This effect is cumulative with any other effects that allow you to roll or keep additional dice on unarmed damage.", which very clearly means that it stacks with anything and everything, as long as it's unarmed, which the Hitsu-do technique is.

An Air of Danger

Not that guy, but trying to pin the Togashi family down on one thing is stupid. The Dragon break the mold, the tattoo'd men are both monks and a samurai Family, any distinction between the two makes no sense as they are both. They are never not-samurai, and they are never not-monks, aside from the circumstance that one leaves the order and obtains permission to marry from the Clan Champion of course. Other samurai consider them members of the buge caste, even if they don't wear a daisho - which as an user indicated, they can however, because they're samurai! Peasants will likely treat them as samurai if they're aware of their standing as members of a samurai Family, if they've never seen one in their life and are unaware of their buge status, they'll likely default to treating them as they would anyone they don't know the precise caste of, like say an unarmed ronin. That is, with due deference and respect. The fact that some might also treat them as strange monks does not impact their status as samurai in the slightest, even if they don't deny being monks.

l5r.wikia.com/wiki/Noble_Birth

Maybe pick something in relation with the sky or te clouds?

In short, the Ise / Tsurui / Kikage Zumi are tattooed people. Mostly they conform to the Togashi / Hoshi / Hitomi, respectively when all three families exist. Any other time, they're all Togashi.
They are referred to as Tattooed Men, but may be women.
They are referred to as monks, but may be of noble birth and retain their daisho.
They are referred to as samurai, but may be of low birth, or have given up the daisho as part of taking a new name.
They may adhere to the default monastic vows (WotOH), any others, or their own, but are not required to.
They can be monastic or worldly, cryptic one moment and bluntly straightforward the next. Even the notion that they're all loyal to Togashi and the Dragon Clan is a preconception that enlightened madness occasionally breaks.

On an Ill Wind
Clear Skies, Clouded Paths
The Wafting Scent of Danger
Final Breaths
Like Birds, Fleeing a Cat

Could anyone point me towards rules concerning explosives for 4e. I've found information about gun/cannon/etc. but I find it very difficult to find any information about things that a Scorpion Saboteur or Infiltrator may use.

Imperial Histories pg 180 forward.
Keep in mind that all gunpowder use is blasphemous at best, so is reserved for really important things. Throwing it around willy nilly will get someone hung out to dry, just to avoid the Imperial sledgehammer that will be coming down on them and everyone they know if they get caught.

Oh wow, literally right under my nose. Thank you.
I know it's very illegal but I was just looking at what tools the saboteur had because it is one of the few 'ninja' prestige classes.

Hello dead game general.

I do miss you.

But then I am forced to remember how shitty the game was the last few years before its demise.

Question about the Iron Rogukan gun rules: WHY THE FUCK DO THEY USE INTELIGENCE AS THE TRAIT FOR TEPPOUDO??!?

Hey hey, the RPG is still loved and played!

Thanks for the all responses

>Any that weren't samurai before do not become samurai after, it
Yes they do. It is a lord's right to select his retainers. This goes down to city daimyo level, but the right of elevating peasants is probably reserved for family daimyo. However, by accepting these babies into their order, the Togashi daimyo is elevating them to their weird samurai-monk status. After all, only the ones who actually pass their musha shugyo become true members of the clan and thus samurai. So the unfit don't get elevated.

gempukku I mean

Sorry I was thinking about a musha shugyo thing earlier and my brain shit itself. One player wants to go on one, but how should I handle it if they go up insight rank during it? Will they be allowed to go to their sensei still? Do they just bank that rank till it is done?

What's your favorite Minor Clan? Mine is not actually the Bat, I'm a huge Badger fan, but I like the Bat a lot and this is cool art

See every other post on the subject, m80-san.

So I'm looking to pick up a core book. Is there "edition wars" like in dnd where some editions are drastically different/better at other things, or is it safe just to pick up 4e uniformed on the others?

What do I need to know?

4th E is by far the best. And outside of it, "the Great clans" and "Enemies of the Empire" are the only other books that most would say are essential.

In short, fourth is the most streamlined/balanced/modern, first is the most flavorful(albeit less balanced), third is heavier on crunch(also a bit wonky), while second is the d20 edition and should be avoided like the plague.

So tomorrow is Free RPG Day. I feel like making some content.

There anything you guys would like to see or maybe find useful?

Because they're slow in all respects, and you need to understand how they work, more than being agile or quick in aiming.

Adventures? Alternate weapon and/or movement rules, akin to Legends of the Wulin?

I always just houserule them as perception based. Intelligence works fine for me for cannon fire since there's trajectories and even sometimes math involved, but have you ever shot a gun? Or met a really dumb dude who is just a crack shot? That is a weird as fuck link, famalamadingdong