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I hope they don't kill the sun and moon again. That was silly. Also I really want to play this with people sometime.
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Nov 7, 2018 23:54
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Yeah I think we'd all be okay with more mid-level shenanigans (which FFG seems to be down for, given the fact that the cards include stuff like 'a surviving Kitsu' or 'oh hey, a tengu') and less high-level shenigans with Dragons and the literal celestial bodies as deities. That said, I am super confident we're gonna see some of the Burning Sands metaplot, given the visions that led up to the meishodo conflict.
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Nov 8, 2018 00:20
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Mors Rattus posted:Yeah I think we'd all be okay with more mid-level shenanigans (which FFG seems to be down for, given the fact that the cards include stuff like 'a surviving Kitsu' or 'oh hey, a tengu') and less high-level shenigans with Dragons and the literal celestial bodies as deities. That said, I am super confident we're gonna see some of the Burning Sands metaplot, given the visions that led up to the meishodo conflict. Like with Shinjo still being trapped under the city level, you think?
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Nov 8, 2018 00:30
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Dawgstar posted:Like with Shinjo still being trapped under the city level, you think? Not sure. Definitely something up with Kaleel The Evil Bad Guy Jinn tho.
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Nov 8, 2018 00:30
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Mors Rattus posted:Yeah I think we'd all be okay with more mid-level shenanigans (which FFG seems to be down for, given the fact that the cards include stuff like 'a surviving Kitsu' or 'oh hey, a tengu') and less high-level shenigans with Dragons and the literal celestial bodies as deities. That said, I am super confident we're gonna see some of the Burning Sands metaplot, given the visions that led up to the meishodo conflict. Emerald Empire preview is up and it includes a Kitsune character where the whole mechanic is 'I have to hide who I am'. Seems they're gonna lean into the more mystic element of the world without going too bonkers, yea.
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Nov 8, 2018 00:33
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:I just picked up the starter set last night, but I haven’t really dug into it yet. From my impression the new storyline isn’t so much a retelling as it is a full reboot with a good chunk of story changes? Yeah one of the big changes currently is the Scorpion Coup of 1123 has been bloodless instead of a giant battle.
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Nov 8, 2018 01:31
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Given Shoju’s new characterization, I wouldn’t call it a coup.
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Nov 8, 2018 01:37
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So is he running things through Kachiko, then?
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Nov 8, 2018 01:51
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Dawgstar posted:So is he running things through Kachiko, then? There's a fiction where he takes Kachiko aside and gently tells her to never ever mention again the possibility of him being Emperor, and he's consistently been telling the Scorpions to stop being so ambitious, we got things good right now, and maybe we have things too good and I will murder anyone who fucks this up by reaching higher. E: he is hand-selected by the dying Emperor to be Daisetsu's regent. tho, likely at Imperial Advisor Kachiko's advice.
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Nov 8, 2018 02:20
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Mors Rattus posted:There's a fiction where he takes Kachiko aside and gently tells her to never ever mention again the possibility of him being Emperor, and he's consistently been telling the Scorpions to stop being so ambitious, we got things good right now, and maybe we have things too good and I will murder anyone who fucks this up by reaching higher. Ah, so it's more of a well-known secret that the Scorpion run things instead of a hilariously ill-advised coup prodded by an evil magic sword. I like it.
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Nov 8, 2018 04:00
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It’s presented more as Kachiko being ambitious and him being loyal and more interested in serving the Empire in the Scorpion way, which is neat. Like he seriously discusses deliberately weakening the Scorpion as a possibility, though Kachiko argues against it.
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Nov 8, 2018 04:07
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Dawgstar posted:Ah, so it's more of a well-known secret that the Scorpion run things instead of a hilariously ill-advised coup prodded by an evil magic sword. I like it. yea as a scorpion fan myself I'm super happy their first real bit of fiction was basically 'listen we have a sweet gig being the known shadow masters and while everyone's watching our right hand for puppet strings our left hand can do whatever we need to do to serve the emperor, you know, our loving JOB. Plus we'd have to be idiots to not assume this is borrowed time we have to make the most of...so if any of you idiots wreck this for us by making some insane 'LET'S JUST BE EMPEROR NOW GUYS' move I'm gonna cut your head off myself'.
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Nov 8, 2018 04:10
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The other thing I love is that Kachiko is probably right and Shoju is probably wrong about what the Scorpion should do. There are absolutely powers moving in Rokugan that don't give a poo poo about preserving the norms, and the Scorpion making themselves non-threatening aren't going to appease them and will only serve to rob the Clan of the resources to respond. Of course, there are other powers who will see the Scorpion gathering power as an inherent threat and react accordingly, so Shoju is also probably right and Kachiko is probably also wrong. In other words, it's a truly beautiful mess.
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Nov 8, 2018 04:19
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I’m glad I’m not the only one playing an investigator. Their special ability is amazing.
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Nov 8, 2018 04:44
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yea they did a good job showing the two sides of 'typical Scorpion'. Kachiko wasn't wrong that bending over backwards to go 'no no guys I swear we're ok' won't really mean anything to a not-minor amount of their threats and maybe the world needs a more overt 'villain' like their ancestor promised the first emperor if it means they're well equipped to stand against the real monsters out there. Shoju is also not wrong that an equally not-minor amount of threats will see the fact that the Scorpion Clan exists at all as 'too much' and waving their dicks around could get a lot of Scorpion blood spilled for nothing and then, hey, every Scorpion that dies in some crazy Lion war is a Scorpion that can't ferret out the real threats to the Emperor. Honestly all the clans come off more well rounded than they ever did before. Everyone has flaws and successes and none of them are uniquely representative alone. The little sidebar of 'what Bushido means to the clan' is a really good addition. The addition of the Strife system REALLY let them add some life to the clans by using their schools. Like, it's a real good example of crunch creating fluff that you don't see often. I keep going back to the example of the Ikoma Bard's ability to either aggravate someone by giving the Ikoma's strife to them or comfort them by taking their strife, and the Shiba Guardian who can negate Strife gains of nearby characters. Those are really interesting ideas that really encourage the GM to go 'right...so HOW do you do that then?' Like, it doesn't say they magically have a chill out zone around every Shiba, it's up to the player to explain why them being right by someone when stress comes means that they can keep that stress from hitting, or why an Ikoma is able to not just help someone going through strife but actually absorb it into their own feelings and then have to deal with that themselves. I was kinda unsure how FFG would handle it but I'm really loving this direction they took it.
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Nov 8, 2018 04:50
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I've heard that in previous editions of the RPG, Unicorn characters were stuck in a sort of feast-or-famine situation where, if they could use their horse they were amazing, and if they couldn't use their horse they were kinda crap. Did this edition do anything to smooth that out? I know that the Unicorn are basically not-Mongols and therefore their horses and cavalry are one of their core aspects, but it's not exactly always easy to work in a "AND MY HORSE" to a lot of situations.
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Nov 8, 2018 05:00
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The Shinjo Outrider is better at everything if horse but that is the school’s entire gimmick. The Utaku Battle Maiden benefits from but does not require horse. The Ide, Moto and Iuchi don’t care about horse mechanically.
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Nov 8, 2018 05:05
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I did a big twitter thread about the school mechanics and what they encourage and I’ll work up a post about them tomorrow.
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Nov 8, 2018 05:07
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Also I wish Crab clan had a cooler animal mascot than a crab. I know crabs are tenacious or whatever but they're still crabs.
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Nov 8, 2018 05:09
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Dick Burglar posted:Also I wish Crab clan had a cooler animal mascot than a crab. I know crabs are tenacious or whatever but they're still crabs. The honey badger clan.
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Nov 8, 2018 05:18
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Beaver clan. Nature’s architect!
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Nov 8, 2018 05:26
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Dick Burglar posted:I've heard that in previous editions of the RPG, Unicorn characters were stuck in a sort of feast-or-famine situation where, if they could use their horse they were amazing, and if they couldn't use their horse they were kinda crap. Did this edition do anything to smooth that out? I know that the Unicorn are basically not-Mongols and therefore their horses and cavalry are one of their core aspects, but it's not exactly always easy to work in a "AND MY HORSE" to a lot of situations. Like said they really only have the one 'guys I really need a horse here' school and even then it's more 'I go from a pretty ok normal samurai to an equine GOD AMONG MEN' than anything. The other one just gets a little bump from Horse Biz and the rest of the families literally don't give a poo poo if horses exist or not they're merchants and mages and all. They're really good about making sure each clan starts with schools that play to all of their traditional elements, no awkward spread out stuff this time. Lion even get Kitsu ancestor channelers and Dragons get tattooed monks and Crab get their cool engineer craft types and like I mentioned Unicorn get their own 'I can get restricted stuff from out of the empire' merchant type. They do a good job of hitting all the iconics so if you wanna be a Lion but maybe don't want to be a berzerker you're still cool.
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Nov 8, 2018 05:28
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Really my only issue with this edition is those mainlander scum shoved the Mantis Clan stuff off to a free extra pdf, as if they're not a proper clan so they only have two schools  Sure the schools are cool 'sailor samurai badass' and 'storm mage gently caress your poo poo up' ones but still! The dishonor!
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Nov 8, 2018 05:30
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Mors Rattus posted:The Shinjo Outrider is better at everything if horse but that is the school’s entire gimmick. The Utaku Battle Maiden benefits from but does not require horse. The Ide, Moto and Iuchi don’t care about horse mechanically. I was happy to see the Battle Maidens get a good school. In 4E, while I'm sure other schools had their flaws, when their school rang the 'two attacks a turn' bell they had to be mounted to get their two attacks and they were the only one in the clan that had that restriction. Easy to houserule, but obnoxious.
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Nov 8, 2018 13:36
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sexpig by night posted:They do a good job of hitting all the iconics so if you wanna be a Lion but maybe don't want to be a berzerker you're still cool. Luckily, those players don't exist. Matsu school 4 lyfe.
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Nov 8, 2018 14:20
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hi i'm mors rattus and this is my effortpost Crab Hida Defender: Bushi. Hida are pretty pure combat; they can learn social skills and shuji but it's all off-curriculum for them. They're a group-focused fighter that hits people and wears heavy armor. Their basic tech is that they ignore the Cumbersome tag on armor (which increases TNs to maneuver) and once per round get to reduce a crit based on their armor and school rank, so they're crazy hard to kill. Their capstone lets them spend a Void to ignore all penalties and negative persistent effects until the end of their next turn including death - though they will collapse the moment it ends if they die in the interim. Basically a Hida is a giant tank. Hiruma Scout: Bushi/Shinobi. Hiruma are mobile fighters that also get ninjutsu access through curriculum and somewhat better social skills than the Hida. Their basic tech is that after they attack, they can change their stance (which has a bunch of tactical benefits on its own) and if they do they make it hard for anything silhouette 3+ ('big monsters') to hit them. Their capstone is a bit niche tho - all of their crits do extra damage against big monsters. I have a Hiruma in my game and I've told him that since we're not doing a focused monster hunt campaign, if he manages to hit the capstone he can spend a Void to get the extra damage against normal size dudes. (It also works on cavalry, though, which is neat.) Their niche is monster hunting but the stance dance trick lets them act outside it. Kaiu Engineer: These guys are Artisan/Bushi but their focus is primarily on tactical support and crafting rather than direct combat. They are more social than the other two but mostly in the sense of tactical command buffs rather than necessarily court stuff. They rely heavily on the crafting and downtime rules for their unique stuff, which is fortunately a thing you can do now. Their basic tech is that once per scene when they're using an item they personally made, they can get a bunch of free Opportunity results. Their capstone is that when making an item, they can choose to add or remove one item quality from it as long as it makes sense somehow. So basically, they are at their best when they have the downtime to do some custom item crafting, and should always try to make as much of their own gear as possible if not the entire party's. They can function as a good support bushi even without crafting, though. Kuni Purifier: The single most pigeonholed school in the entire game. They are bushi/shugenja, and uniquely among shugenjas just do not have shuji access. They have next to no access to social skills at all, even less than the Hida. They're good at fighting and fighting magic, and that's...basically all they can do. Their unique techs are even more specialized, which basically consigns them to the niche of 'play only in a game about hunting and fighting evil.' Once per round, when they make a check targeting or involving a Tainted target, they can swap Strife symbols into Success symbols, which is extremely powerful, but can only be used on targets you know are Tainted. Their capstone lets them, once per session, spend a Void to use an Invocation and have it target all Tainted beings in range rather than its normal targeting. Again, very powerful but only against Tainted foes - though at least this time it doesn't care if you know or don't know they're Tainted. They do the one thing, and they're crazy good at it but can't do anything else. Yasuki Merchant: The only Courtier in the Crab. They get great social skills. They can kinda dip into combat but aren't gonna be great at it by default. They make for great support and social manipulation, however. Their basic tech is that whenever they enter a market and have downtime, they can automatically gain a bunch of common items or one somewhat rarer item for free, with no honor or glory loss even if it's Forbidden or whatever. This is very handy for picking up stuff the party might want, or just grabbing nice stuff to use for bribes if you have nothing specific in mind. The bribe thing plays into their capstone - once per session, they can give a piece of gear away to massively reduce the TN of their next social check against the recipient and possibly get some free Opportunities, depending on the item's Rarity. Yasuki are the bribemasters. Crane Asahina Artificer: Shugenja/Artisan, heavy magic and social skills. (Not a ton of in-curriculum shuji, though.) Their basic trick is that when they make any check to summon illusions or to summon, augment or awaken objects, they get a bunch of free Opportunities, which is really good for being a tricksy summoner support shugenja. Their capstone is absolutely insane - once per session during downtime, they can make a check to temporarily turn an item into a nemuranai. Nemuranai get generic stat buffs to usage and also contain an invocation the wielder can just kind of use for free once per session. So, y'know, that's cool. Daidoji Iron Warrior: Bushi, and the best physical yojimbo in the game. The Shiba can match them for general all-purpose care, but when it comes to preventing literal physical injury, the Daidoji are the top. They also are pretty good at everything - they get a solid mix of combat and social skills and techs, though they lean some towards combat. They aren't complex, just good. Once a round they can intercept an attack on a nearby ally and take fatigue to reduce its damage to the ally. Their capstone lets them use the Guard action on multiple people at once. They're just...simply good. Doji Diplomat: Courtier, pure social. They can learn katas but they have to go out of curriculum to do so, and by default won't have any real combat ability. However, they are extremely good at social. Once per scene, when they're making a check to persuade or influence a person, they can get a bunch of free Opportunities. Their capstone lets them spend a Void once per scene to drop their strife to 0 and reduce all allies' strife. Which is extremely good. They're, again, simple but generically good at social. Also they can get an attendant as part of their starting gear, which is basically a useful peasant NPC that can do a handful of techniques for you. Kakita Duelist: Bushi/Artisan, mix of combat and social in rough balance. Their actual specialty is single combat - they're really good at single target fighting but suffer against groups. Their basic tech is that once per round they can either boost or reduce a crit they cause. (Reduction can be useful in duels that aren't to death; increase just means you kill the guy faster.) Their capstone is neat - it lets them teleport to a single enemy and instacrit them while confusing people watching with your insane speed. It's good! The Crane gimmick appears to be 'generically good at thing.' Dragon Agasha Mystic: Shugenja, and we're into the weird ones. (Dragons are the weird ones, no surprise there.) The Mystic is mostly magic, with a smattering of in-curriculum social. They are the system mastery school - not because they're OP if you're a master, but because their gimmick requires mastery to use properly and effectively. Their trick, see, is that they can swap what element their Invocations are. This lets them be unpredictable, since it means any invocation can be used in any stance, but it also means they can decide what element to use an invocation for because it swaps the available generic Opportunity spends to the swapped element. Learning which invocations are best with which elements is the trick to mastering this gimmick and be able to operate on the level of the more simply powerful shugenjas. Their capstone, at least, is broadly potent - they get a constant resistance buff against non-Void invocations, and may spend Void after being targeted by a non-Void invocation to immediately copy and use the invocation that targeted them, even if they don't know it. It's a really, really good capstone, honestly. Kitsuki Investigator: Courtier/Bushi, with a decent mix of social and combat skills. Their entire gimmick lies outside the normal divide, however, and is really good. When they are investigating stuff, per the investigation rules, they can use their school rank in place of any skill, and if they're already good at that skill they get free Opportunities instead. This is super good. Like, just incredibly good. It gets even better with their capstone - once per scene when making an investigation roll, they can spend Opportunities to reserve dice they didn't keep on the check. They can then, when interacting with whatever they were investigating in any way later, use those dice as additional free kept dice. It doesn't matter what they're doing, as long as they're interacting with the target of their investigation, whether it was a person or object. Study and investigate a sword to be better at using! Study and investigate a person to be better at convincing or murdering them! It's a really elegant design, IMO. Mirumoto Two-Heavens Adept: Bushi, though with a surprisng amount of social skills mixed in. Still, combat is their prime trick. Their basic technique is really good - once per round in a duel or skirmish, when targeted by a melee attack, they can choose either to ward it or trap it. Ward forces the enemy to reroll successes, and Trap makes their next attack on the enemy easier. Their capstone is generically good - once per round, they get a very easy opportunity spend chance when attacking that lets them make a second attack with their other weapon. The Mirumoto are, like the Kakita, single target death machines, but they do it by being a blender rather than by focusing on crits. Togashi Tattooed Order: Monk. The only school in the game currently that gets general kiho access, though two others get a handful of kiho via curriculum. They get a mix of combat and social skills, with kiho being their bread and butter for combat. Their basic trick is that they get tattoos associated with kiho; at each rank they pick a specific kiho and a tattoo to associate with it, getting the kiho free if they didn't know it and getting bonus successes towards using it. I'm really glad they decided to not mess around with weird tat effects and instead focus on making kiho cool to use, incidentally. Kiho do have one limit - normally, you can only have one active at a time. They give an instant effect when used and then a persistent buff until turned off. The capstone for Togashi lets them, once per scene, spend a Void while they have a tat-boosted kiho up to use and maintain a second kiho simultaneously, maintaining both until the end of the scene or their next kiho activation, whichever comes first. I suspect they're gonna be the top tier monks even after Shinseist and Fortunist Monks come out with EE. I'll look at the next 3 clans in my next post, this one is gettin' big.
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Nov 8, 2018 15:57
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Lion Akodo Commander: Bushi. Solid mix of social and combat...if you take military command to be social. Their shuji and social skill stuff in-curriculum is almost all tactical. But still, good social skills for a heavy combat bushi. They are the first of the Lion pattern of 'extremely good Strife manipulation,' with their trick being that whenever they hit with an Attack or Support action, they can remove some of their own Strife to get bonus successes at the cost of fatigue. This is extremely good! Super good, and the fatigue cost was probably added to give it some form of sanity check. Their capstone is also great in that 'this is generically good' way - once per session during a skirmish or mass battle, they can reroll a failed check, but this time against a TN of 1. Akodo are just...good. At thing. Ikoma Bard: Courtier, and good for the first time in its entire existence. The Bard is now a really solid social school that can dip its toe into combat (and combat support) a little more than most courtiers can. Their basic gimmick is known and good - they are a once-per-scene Strife battery, either removing it from others to give to themself or removing from themself to give to others. This synergizes really well with the Akodo and Matsu, btw. Their capstone is that once per session they can talk up someone to give them a large TN reduction to social rolls and a smaller TN reduction to everything else. It's real good if they can pull off the (admittedly rather difficult) check to do it, but their Strife battery powers are probably the more useful thing. Kitsu Medium: Shugenja. They get a solid mix of magical and social skills, though as usual with more of a magic focus. Their gimmick is really good - because their ancestral ghosts and lion furries love them so much, once per scene they can importune for an invocation without any TN increase or sacrifice. This means that every scene, they basically get to add any one invocation they want to the list of ones they know, decided on the fly. It's super good! Their capstone is also really good - they can summon one of their ancestral spirits to possess them once a session. This generally means picking any NPC statblock and using it instead of their own, but the GM can let them build the ancestor as a character with 180XP instead. The main catches: the shugenja remembers nothing while possessed, and the ancestors may have their own agendas. Even so, they can basically summon any skillset they need once per session. Matsu Berserker: Bushi. Pure combat, basically. They're the inverse of the Hida - a combat specialist in dealing massive amounts of damage constantly. They get very few social skills in their curriculum, but eh. That's not why you're playing Matsu. Their gimmick is that after they take a crit or become Unmasked, they can choose to become Enraged to remove fatigue. Becoming Enraged is a benefit, not a penalty - it increases damage dealt and damage received, and lets you regain a Void on your first kill. Further, their capstone is that once a round when attacking while enraged, they can spend Void to convert their Success symbols into Exceptional Success symbols. Because you weren't killing people fast enough before. KILL MORE PEOPLE FASTER. Phoenix Asako Loremaster: Courtier, but it trades in some of its social power for nerd power. It's still good at social but gets a lot more stuff for Scholar skills. Also, it gets some unarmed combat tricks, including access to two kiho at higher ranks, which is neat, but it's mostly going to be a social thing no matter what. The base ability is that it can use school rank in place of any Scholar skill, and if you actually have the skill at decent levels you instead get free Opportunities, which is pretty good. The capstone is stupidly useful, whenever you succeed on a check to know or gain info, you can spend Void to give your allies a TN reduction to their next action by explaining how your nerding helps, but they gain 1 Strife because you're annoying. (And the ability is so good it needed a balance, I assume.) Isawa Elementalist: Shugenja, still fluff-wise the generically amazing masters of magic. They're pretty pure magic, surprising no one. They get a once-per-scene TN reduction to use of an invocation, and their capstone is that once per round they can spend a void after using an invocation to use a second invocation that does a different kind of action. So, y'know, they're real good at magic. It's not fancy but it is definitely some solid raw power. Shiba Guardian: Bushi/Courtier, and with it a solid mix of combat and social skills. They don't actually have a heavy lean either way, though I'd say combat if you forced me to pick. They start with Lord Shiba's Valor as a kata which makes them really good yojimbo, and they are amazing at general support natively, plus curriculum access to a few kiho. Their basic tech is that once per scene, they can negate all Strife gained by an ally's roll and then reduce both their Strife and Fatigue. Which is crazy good. Their capstone power is that they can spend a Void to attack any enemy that comes in range of them until their next turn, and they immobilize anyone they hit on top of the normal damage. This is pretty good too! They aren't as good as the Daidoji at raw physical defense but their support abilities make them better for their charges in social situations. Kaito Shrine Guardian: Monk, but I'd say that mechanically they're closer to Bushi/Shugenja. They don't get native invocation access, but their curriculum is loaded down with them. They don't get kiho, either, because their particular gimmick is bow-focused rather than punch-focused. They are new for this edition and easily one of the breakout stars among the schools. See, their gimmick is that they can cast an invocation into an arrow at reduced TN. This turns the arrow Sacred, and causes the invocation to go off when the arrow hits its target, which with GM permission can be a piece of terrain. They can delay the invocation's onset with Opportunities, but the real power is their ability to massively extend the range of every single invocation they know. They can still cast them normally, but arrow casting is easier and the range boost is huge, even for non-attack invocations - you can throw, say, Path to Inner Peace on a signal arrow and shoot an ally with it. Their capstone is niche, but that's fine because their core ability is insanely powerful. Their capstone lets them pluck their bowstring to cause Strife to all otherworldly beings nearby and reduce their resistances with Opportunity spends. Useful, but niche. Scorps, Unicorn and Worldly Ronin on my next work break.
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Nov 8, 2018 17:00
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Also do the new Mantis please!
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Nov 8, 2018 17:20
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Zarick posted:The honey badger clan. The Badger Clan is like a lovely Crab Clan cover band. They protect the north border, or at least one specific mountain path at the north border. A thousand years went past without them doing anything. Then a single demon showed up and killed almost all of the before it was stopped. They spent a hundred years more begging for spare change from other clans, hoping to rebuild their ancestral castle. There's very little farmland where they live, so they subsist on edible cave fungus.
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Nov 8, 2018 17:43
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Mystic Mongol posted:The Badger Clan is like a lovely Crab Clan cover band. They protect the north border, or at least one specific mountain path at the north border. A thousand years went past without them doing anything. Then a single demon showed up and killed almost all of the before it was stopped. They spent a hundred years more begging for spare change from other clans, hoping to rebuild their ancestral castle. I loving love the Badger Clan, they have to be some kinda in-joke from a writer's campaign or something. They literally spent generations sitting on their hands in lands that even the Dragons would go 'uh this is a bad place to live, guys' waiting for their chance to DEFEND THE PASS and then one shadow-threat shows up and instantly destroys them. They're easily the funniest thing in L5R.
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Nov 8, 2018 18:08
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Scorpion Bayushi Manipulator: Courtier. It can do combat, but outside of picking up ninjutsu its curriculum focuses a lot more on social. It plays a different kind of social game than the other courtiers by default, since most courtier schools focus more on supporting allies than loving up enemies just out of how their school abilities work. The Bayushi do not; their basic ability is that when they take exploit someone's Disadvantages as part of a Scheme action, they can do so for free instead of with the normal Void cost, and when they do they get to reroll dice if they feel like it. This encourages them to do so as much as possible, so a lot of their time is going to be ferreting out weaknesses they can exploit. Their capstone allows them to project a nonexistent Advantage or Disadvantage onto themself when doing social rolls at people. When their target tries to exploit this nonexistent thing, their check automatically fails horribly and they become Disoriented. Bayushi are good at laying social traps, really. Shosuro Infiltrator: Courtier/Shinobi. People have complained that there's no Scorpion Bushi, because for some reason they have failed to notice that the Shosuro Infiltrator is it. The Shosuro get a solid mix of martial and social skills, but lean towards martial, plus ninjutsu access. Even their school abilities point towards this, with one caveat: the Shosuro never want to be directly targeted in battle, but instead want to hang around the edges picking people off from stealth. Because why would a Scorpion warrior be otherwise? Their base ability is that when they make an attack against a Compromised, Incapacitated or Unconscious target, or a target unaware of their presence, they get a large damage and crit boost. Their capstone pushes them even harder towards deadliness - they can take an action to begin murdering minions nearby. In a narrative scene, if this succeeds, they just straight up silently kill all nearby minions over a few minutes' time. In combat, they instead get a persistent thing where at the end of each turn they silent kill a nearby minion on top of whatever else they did that turn. Shosuro are your Scorpion bushi, stop whining. Soshi Illusionist: Shugenja/Courtier/Shinobi. Three roles, really? They mix social, ninja and magic skills, obviously, but magic is their main stock in trade. They're just sneaky about it. They do get more social access in curriculum than most shugenja, however. Their thing is that when they're using magic, they're hard to detect - anyone without high enough vigilance can't tell they're casting, though they can still see the magic when it goes off normally. The traces they leave are also harder to spot with Theology checks. They actually get sneaky enough that their capstone is the hilarious ability to retroactively have made an illusion. They can spend Void during a scene to declare that something in it - a person, an object, whatever - is an illusion they made, as long as it's something that they could conceivably do with their known magic. They then retroactively make the check to do so. If they succeed, then yep, at least for the last few minutes that entire thing was their illusion. If they fail, nothing changes. I kind of adore this? The Soshi definitely don't get the raw power other shugenja do but this is hilarious. Yogo Wardmaster: Shugenja, though they do get curriculum access to some ninjutsu anyway, because...Scorpion. Their gimmick is wards. Every shugenja can have one ward, which is an invocation cast onto a piece of paper. You attach the ward to something and define a trigger that will release the magic, which goes off when triggered. Anyone can use a ward, too - you can hand these things over to your buddies. Yogo are special because they can have multiple wards simultaneously, and if they want to they can force anyone trying to figure out what the ward does or use it to have to roll for it. So they can make nested ward traps, which is cool. Their capstone is also incredibly good at anti-shugenja fighting, which is kind of the Yogo niche. Once per scene when targeted by an invocation or maho technique, they can make a check to resist. If they succeed, the spell just...doesn't happen, and instead turns into a ward for the Yogo to use later. Which is really good. Unicorn Ide Trader: Courtier. These guys resemble the Yasuki a lot, but there's a few differences. They're still almost entirely social focus, but rather than get free items, their thing is that they, firstly, can use Forbidden items without any cost or penalty when buying or handling, because legally the Unicorn weren't there when the law was passed. Second, when they are acquiring, selling or gifting something, they may raise or lower its effective Rarity. So they still have to pay money for goods, but they are even better at Iuchi Meishodo Master: Shugenja/Artisan, mostly magic but with a decent bit of social skills, mostly related to crafting and goods. Their gimmick is meishodo talismans. They can make a number of these based on rank, and each one is devoted to a single Invocation, reducing its TN. They can hand these to other shugenja to give the bonus to them - and also give them the ability to use the invocation, if they couldn't - but gifted talismans break after a few uses. You can only have one talisman per invocation at any given time, however. This is pretty good - you get a subset of spells you use often, and you make them easier to cast. Nice. But when you hit capstone, it becomes crazy: At the end of your turn, you can spend a Void to blow up any number of your talismans and instantly cast the spell associated with every talisman destroyed that way, at reduced TN. So it's an emergency button that can wipe out entire armies if you're good. Moto Conqueror: Bushi, and pretty heavy combat. They're group fighters, specializing in surviving a lot of foes and loving them up. They get a surprising amount of shuji, too, so they can be shockingly good at social. Their base technique is really good - when they attack in skirmish or mass battle, they can spend an Opportunity to make it harder for a specific target to attack them until their next turn, giving them better survivability. Their capstone is simple: once per round, after they incapacitate a target or defeat a minion, they can make an attack on a different target. Simple, but highly effective. Shinjo Outrider: Bushi/Courtier. They get a mix of social and combat that is highly customizable. This is because their gimmick transcends such limits. Their gimmick is horse. Once per scene, before rolling, they can declare that their horse is helping them, as long as the horse is present. This heavily reduces the TN of whatever they're doing, provided they can describe why a horse is helpful. But what, you ask, if they do not have horse? That's where their capstone comes in, and it's perfect and beautiful. Once per session, they can summon horse. Horse arrives at the start of the next round, period. It doesn't matter how far away they are, how many barriers are between them. If the horse is dead its spirit will possess the nearest horse and that's your horse now. HORSE. Utaku Battle Maiden: Bushi. Like the other Unicorn bushi, they can do a decent mix of combat and social, but lean towards combat. Also, they are all women, obviously, and they begin the game with an Utaku steed; even the Shinjo don't get that. Utaku steeds own. Their actual mechanics are not totally horse-dependent, however. When they succeed on an attack, they get bonus successes based on how much distance they've moved this round. While mounted in a duel or mass battle (but not a skirmish???) they are always considered to have moved enough to get their max bonus. Their capstone emphasizes this mobility, too - once per round after defending against damage, they can move a range band and swap stance, which is a great tactical option. Other Worldly Ronin: Courtier/Bushi, largely because you can heavily customize your focus. It can go social or combat as you like. It will not get any of the specialized skills of the clan schools, but that's because its gimmick is focus on the basics. At chargen and every rank up, you select one skill; that skill is always considered to be on your curriculum for the rest of your career. When using one of these bonus skills, you can negate one Strife symbol rolled. Their capstone is just this but moreso - you can hit rank 6 in your bonus skills, so rather than having any special gimmicks, you are just superhumanly good at skills. It's honestly a pretty good option if you want simple but effective. Storm Fleet Sailor: Bushi, decent martial focus but with a good grasp on social skills and sneaking if not full ninja. Their gimmick is that they're Mantis and therefore don't care about using the skills of tradesmen, so once per round when making a Trade skill check while not Compromised, they can choose to gain Strife to reroll dice. It's not a combat trick, but it's ground that most samurai just straight up do not cover. They're going to be pretty heavy on gaining Strife, but as they grow they can generalize their ability. Their capstone, specifically, lets them, and it is amazing: for 1 additional Strife, they can use it on any check. Period. Which is extremely good (if also extremely Strife-heavy). Storm Fleet Tide Seer: Shugenja. Good mix of social and magic abilities, but leaning to magic. Shugenja, after all. Their ability makes them extremely handy to have around in large battles, because their invocations are selective - when using any invocation that would target everyone in range, they can choose to exclude a number of targets. Great for hurling fireballs into the middle of melee! Their capstone emphasizes their focus on mass direct damage and the Mantis clan motif of 'gain lots of Strife': when they use an invocation that smites people, they reduce their targets' resistance based on their Strife symbols kept. So, lots of damage...for lots of Strife. Kasuga Smuggler: I don't own the GM's Screen that this came with, but my girlfriend does and she took a picture for me. They're a Courtier with a social focus but decent martial access - which I think we're going to see a lot of for minor clans, since they'll have one or maybe two schools which will need to do the work of both bushi and courtier. You can see it in the Storm Fleet Sailor, too, which gets a lot of social for a bushi. Anyway. They're heavier social but have good martial for a courtier, better than I'd say any other courtier but the Shosuro. Their basic tech is that they never lose Glory for public use of a Trade skill as long as it's for their duties to the Tortoise, and once per scene they can add a bunch of free Opportunity results to any check to interact with gaijin, peasants, merchants, burakumin or anyone else with Status 20 or lower. So that's niche but very handy within that niche - which is one few others touch. I don't mind minor clans being niche like this - you're not gonna play them if you don't inherently want their niche. Their capstone is crazy - once per session, they may invoke the Emperor's remit, the Shell of the Tortoise. Until the end of the scene, they are Status 90, and anyone who wants to accuse them of wrongdoing related to acquiring or transporting any form of goods, legal or otherwise, must sacrifice both Honor and Glory based on the difference of Status. gently caress it, I'm in charge now.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:07
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sexpig by night posted:Those are really interesting ideas that really encourage the GM to go 'right...so HOW do you do that then?' Like, it doesn't say they magically have a chill out zone around every Shiba, it's up to the player to explain why Dangerous ground. This treads near the heart of The Fighter / Wizard problem. So long as you treat it as a spur for some interesting flavor text everything's roses but the moment a GM demands a non-magical ability be explained before effective use, on the basis that it isn't "magic," the bullshit game design dam breaks.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:14
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SuperKlaus posted:Dangerous ground. This treads near the heart of The Fighter / Wizard problem. So long as you treat it as a spur for some interesting flavor text everything's roses but the moment a GM demands a non-magical ability be explained before effective use, on the basis that it isn't "magic," the bullshit game design dam breaks. Given that 'I summon my horse from anywhere, it arrives, no exceptions' is not explicitly treated as magic, either, unless the horse is dead: yeah no FFG is just happy to let the Shiba be a magical chill out buddy.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:16
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sexpig by night posted:I loving love the Badger Clan, they have to be some kinda in-joke from a writer's campaign or something. They literally spent generations sitting on their hands in lands that even the Dragons would go 'uh this is a bad place to live, guys' waiting for their chance to DEFEND THE PASS and then one shadow-threat shows up and instantly destroys them. Man, that's amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if your theory regarding their origin was correct. That, or the result of a feud between writers where one took another's dumb pet minor clan and had them just get completely chumped at the one thing they were supposed to do as a "gently caress you". Also, they almost sound like the opposite of the Centipede in a way. Live in some lovely mountain pass in the middle of nowhere instead of some actually really fertile mountain pass in the middle of nowhere, dedicate their existence to preparing for some grand fight as opposed to dedicating themselves to prayer and having a relationship with the outside world that can be summed up as "please leave us alone", and got wrecked by a single monster versus being able to hold out against all the different times they were attacked, including by the Lion. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the writeups, Mors. I wish the Kuni were a bit more flexible; I love their idea and theme and stuff but they are way too focused, to an extent that seems like it actually hurts them in what they're meant to be good at in a way, albeit a more meta-level one than how they have no particular skill outside their focus. Like, if there is a Kuni around, Tainted things are going to be annihilated. They will be obliterated without effort unless they're extremely strong, in which case, how does the rest of the group who is participating in the battle contribute? Scale things up to challenge the Kuni and bushi will have a hard time contributing, keep things at their level and the Kuni will just crush them. "Protect the Kuni while they actually destroy the demons" might give everyone something to do, but some people might not appreciate that being their role. I don't know, I might be thinking of this too much like other RPGs, which L5R very much isn't. I just have a feeling that the Kuni have the double-problem of being too good at their focus in addition to being kind of crap at everything outside it and having almost nothing going for them in a game where Tainted stuff isn't a major concern, apart from being shugenja who can kick someone's rear end without magic as well as with it. Which is neat, admittedly.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:21
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I think my favorite thing is the ease of school design. I mean, you still have to find a good, balanced base ability and a (possibly slightly less) balanced capstone, but then curriculum design is essentially formulaic, so it's pretty easy to make up what you want your new minor clan to be. (Or in my case, the Burning Sands crew, since with the way magic works this time around and Foreign Names, sahir are just gonna be using foreign-name invocations like the Unicorn do.) e: and no, yeah, the Kuni definitely have...problems. Like, I get the idea of wanting them to be combat wizards to the extreme, but having literally no access to major social skills whatsoever is a Bad Time in L5R.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:31
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SuperKlaus posted:Dangerous ground. This treads near the heart of The Fighter / Wizard problem. So long as you treat it as a spur for some interesting flavor text everything's roses but the moment a GM demands a non-magical ability be explained before effective use, on the basis that it isn't "magic," the bullshit game design dam breaks. There's nothing that says it can't be magical. L5R is a distinctly and overtly mystical setting. Maybe it shouldn't be 'wizard magic' magic but there's zero wrong with 'I help my friend negate that Strife roll by smiling at him and reminding him of the time we were kids and faced a far worse danger together' and having THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD be so mystically strong it helps or whatever. It's not 'you have to explain this' it's 'you get to explain this'. I mean, more 'proper' magicy types also tend to need to describe how they do their thing, remember that magic here is almost never D&D wizard magic and more to the 'I invoke the spirits and ask them for help'. That opens themselves up to a lot of narrative stuff too. Obviously unless your GM is a prick the answer of 'uh yea I just give Jim a thumbs up' should be just as valid if the player can't think of something off the dome, just like how 'I ask a fire kami to grant me a fire ball...yea he's down, thanks fire bro' is valid for a spellcaster who doesn't want to get all flowery after five rounds of combat.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:36
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sexpig by night posted:I loving love the Badger Clan, they have to be some kinda in-joke from a writer's campaign or something. They literally spent generations sitting on their hands in lands that even the Dragons would go 'uh this is a bad place to live, guys' waiting for their chance to DEFEND THE PASS and then one shadow-threat shows up and instantly destroys them. So, the Mantis tried to recruit the Badgers when the Mantis was doing their, "Absorb every minor clan," thing. Badgers say no, we may not have a castle and we may mostly be dead but the Badger clan is doing just fine thank you. Mantis clan thinks this is dumb, but manages to convince the Badgers to build a dojo on Yoritomo family lands, ostensibly as an outreach thing but mostly so when the Badgers all inevitably die their secret wrasslin' techniques will not be lost. Fast forward a bit, and that dojo is ALSO burned down, and now the badgers need more money to rebuild even more stuff but still won't join any other clans. A while later, it turns out that when they were founded a thousand years ago, they were actually doing something important (protecting a magical shrine or something) so every clan hurls big fistfuls of money at the Badgers to rebuild their castles, their dojos, and also maybe have a hot meal. The good times last about five minutes, then the Yobanjin (the natives of Rokugan, who were chased out when the Rokugani arrived here from the sky) show up and burn everything down again. Badgers respond by saying, we're fine, we absolutely don't need any help, go away. They're so bad at everything.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:48
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sexpig by night posted:I loving love the Badger Clan, they have to be some kinda in-joke from a writer's campaign or something. They literally spent generations sitting on their hands in lands that even the Dragons would go 'uh this is a bad place to live, guys' waiting for their chance to DEFEND THE PASS and then one shadow-threat shows up and instantly destroys them. To be fair the one demon that wasted them basically added the bodies of everybody it killed to itself, kind of a devil version of the Borg. Hell, the Snake Clan got wiped out by a similar Shadowlands critter, though in that case that one was a possessor called a Shuten Doji that could spread to anybody who heard ANYTHING from one of its possessed people (one of those also messed up the Falcon enough that the survivors wound up having to be absorbed by the Crab). One thing that's always been neat/disturbing about Rokugan is the "monsters" are some seriously messed up poo poo, probably thanks to the myths they're pulled from.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:52
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Hahah we are in fact in perfect agreement. I was unsure how to interpret your post. I spent most of the beta shouting at the dev team to knock off the wizard supremacy, and I like to think I got through in some ways. But we're all narcissists. We also agree that the current representation of the Scorpion is great. They've always been so much more than mustache-twirling villains to any writer competent enough to use them. That's actually why, while I'm beyond 100% down with the idea of the Clans each regarding the tenets of bushido with different weights, I'm actually really upset that the book went to print with the Scorpion officially not valuing the tenet of Honor (also this makes them the only Clan to disfavor two virtues). The tenet Honor is identified as being about social norms and mores: refusing to touch dead flesh, bottling emotions, and (this one is big) killing yourself when told are all things that interact with the tenet of Honor. The Scorpion are in fact hugely about all of these things! I feel like some lazy bugger just wrote "scorpon hav no honor" and called it a day without reading what the book says on drat near the same page about what the tenet of Honor means. I'd rearrange quite a few of the Clan virtues to get their philosophies straight but that's the one that irks me most. Mors Rattus your dogs article is good stuff. That's just the sort of everyday life material that invigorates a game and fleshes out Rokugan beyond "grr Lion stabby man" "yada yada Crane talky man" stereotypes. In honor of your good article I bring up a related bit of samurai-era culture: dog sport shooting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuoumono You had better believe my play group is going to go to a dog shooting tournament sponsored by some fancy-pants Doji.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:54
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I actually think that shugenja look way scarier than they are because of the same thing that makes the Agasha actually a good school when you learn how to use them: elements. A Shugenja can't use an invocation whose element doesn't match their stance. This means that you can pretty easily guess what approaches are going to be best against them if you figure out what invocations they're planning on using.
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Nov 8, 2018 19:57
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