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Egiam
2008-12-30, 11:01 PM
I'm considering getting a non-D20 roleplaying game. I thought that I had narrowed down my choice to The World of Darkness, but today I took a look at The Legend of the Five Rings. It looks really cool, but looks can be deceiving, and I'd like some more opinions. What I'm looking for is a moderate to high lethality, gritty, "realistic" game when it comes to injuries. what bugged me about D20 is how incredibly P.C.s were able to withstand injury without penalty. L5R appears to have a nice damage system, giving penalties as you take damage.


Any opinions? I'd prefer no "it depends on what your looking for" posts, unless they effectively present the pros and cons of both systems. :smallsmile:

mabriss lethe
2008-12-30, 11:55 PM
hands down. L5R. I'm not as familiar with 3e as I am with either of the earlier editions. From what I remember, it's a solid medium between the two. I love the game

L5r's combat system, regardless of edition, is absurdly lethal for an RPG. Even high rank characters can very easily be 1 shoted and I've seen lots of duels end with the deaths of both characters.

hiryuu
2008-12-31, 12:03 AM
Hard choice is hard ('specially in light of Changeling), but I will vote for L5R, also.

WaterTengu
2008-12-31, 12:37 AM
i will agree, espiecally since i am starting a Legend of the Five Rings campaign on Giant in the Playground. the url is - http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98840

Lert, A.
2008-12-31, 12:50 AM
It depends on what you're looking for...

L5R I suppose.

WoD is lethal as in hyper lethal where you hope to God that you don't get into a fight because you will probably need to make a new character. Love that game, but L5R actually can have an actual combat where you can survive, albeit hurting.

Or maybe my ST is unusually cruel to me in response to my DMing.:smallbiggrin:

Satyr
2008-12-31, 03:41 AM
There is no reason whatsoever to waste money on WoD, rippoff version. Legend of the Five Rings is a solid RPG, with some cool elements and some more or less creative ideas. nWoD is a copy of the former format, without the originality or coolness.

Tip: Buy L5R, download Witchcraft (http://www.edenstudios.net/witchcraft/WitchcraftCorebook.zip). It's free, and it has the farly superior rules and background to the nWoD and you get one of the most versatile and adaptable rule systems for free in addtion.

Attilargh
2008-12-31, 03:43 AM
Actually, I did a bit of thinking the other day, and found out that it's actually pretty hard to kill someone in nWoD. No, really.

See, the average human has seven boxes of health. The average professional soldier should have a dice pool somewhere between nine and eleven. The odds of dropping someone in one hit are "possible, but not likely". As the wound penalties don't kick in until the three last boxes of health, even wounding a character is a bit tricky. Of course, fights tend to drag on a bit and that increases the risk of biting the dust.

In L5R, on the other hand, it's really easy to deliver debilitating injuries or even kill on an opponent, even at the first rank. This is partly because wound penalties kick in pretty early and climb steep, and partly because samurai are just awesome like that.

Tengu_temp
2008-12-31, 09:41 AM
Weeaboo > emo, go with L5R.

WaterTengu
2008-12-31, 11:17 AM
It's really the question of what you're interested in. World of Darkness is very dark, very gothic, and very morbid. Legend of the Five Rings is very based on momoyama period japan, and the values therein, so if you're gonna die in L5R you better die in battle. They re both very fatal systems, with very different thoughts behind them.

Tadanori Oyama
2008-12-31, 12:22 PM
I love nWoD. World of Darkness with mortals tends to focus less on fighting the supernatural directly on more on survival or investigation. Fights are supposed to be rough on the players and there's usually alot of time between them. If you want lethal combat threats it's a good one. Humans against Humans is a matter of luck and equipment. Humans vs Monsters, those humans had better have a solid plan or alot of luck.

bosssmiley
2008-12-31, 12:49 PM
Weeaboo > emo, go with L5R.

Does WoD have Hida Kisada, Dragon Clan CSi (the Kitsuki Investigators), or the unsullied awesome that is the Scorpion Clan? No? Then the answer is obvious. :smallwink:

Kioran
2008-12-31, 01:10 PM
I don't know about NWoD, but I've taken quite a shine to l5r. One-shotting characters is a definite possibility in that system, allthough my experience indicated that most hits, even solid hits with Katana or axes, only result in grievous wounds - possibly enough to render an IR1 character helpless or nearly so...Yeah, getting wounded is nasty business. Fighting is as well :smallcool:

One thing though: Don't, ever, use the SUP (school update project), and think seriously about banning all Phoenix schools and the Mirumoto bushi...

Egiam
2009-01-01, 04:07 PM
Thank you for all this imput but would someone please tell me some more specific info, such as how combat works in L5R?

WaterTengu
2009-01-01, 04:23 PM
Thank you for all this imput but would someone please tell me some more specific info, such as how combat works in L5R?

it is very similar to DnD in that play moves by a roll made before combat called initiative. But each organism in the combat only gets one action per turn, unless your special abilities allow you more.

for an attack - you roll against your opponent's TN (Target Number) To BE Hit (basically AC) with an attack roll using the roll and keep system (you roll a number of d10s and keep another number of d10s, expressed like this (roll)k(keep)) if you exceed the TNTBH then you roll for damage according to your weapon. You may use a "raise" to do special things with you attack such as attack the head of the opponent, feint, disarm, and other extraneous things. A raise raises the TN of your attack by 5.

you get one movement in your turn, either before or after your attack, you may adopt different combat postures to modify these things. those postures include full attack, full defense, and dueling stance. depending on what clan you are trained under and things such as that you may gain Free Raises, which do not raise the TN, but allow special conditions anyway.

Egiam
2009-01-01, 06:22 PM
Is it grid based?

WaterTengu
2009-01-01, 06:56 PM
yes, but it doesn't have to be. your speed is your water ring times 10', so that could be adapted very simply to a non-grid map.