Converting L5R NPCs to 3.5D&D

[Darth Stabber]

If you are a player in my Thursday game ->:smallfurious:GTFO:smallfurious:.

Okay, now that we have that settled, I need some help converting two NPCs from L5R 3e to D&D.

First is a Rank 3 hida wrestler of the hiruma family. He has a history of grappling big demons and winning. He is a very tall man (6' 3" in a setting were the average 5'5") lean and wiry wirey wiery... ??? can't spell it. He is also a borderline alcoholic, and a lout to boot. Mechanically he needs to be non-magical, approximately lvl 8, and able to wrestle huge things successfully.

The other is a nezumi of the hiruma scout school. He is ideally lvl 14ish, stealthy, also not a magical (he does possess a major artifact, but that is niether here nor there). He was raised by humans, and frequently acts as though he were a perfectly normal human. He has a fairly short memory, and is likely to forget anything non-vital in couple weeks, as a consequense he tends write down a lot of notes and reread his notes every morning. He carries an artifact of immense power, and he thinks nothing of it's power, and wonders why other people think it's odd when he pulls anachronistic objects from it. Mechanically I was thinking 14-16 mundane thrown weapon based fighter type, wields a javelin in his main hand, while wielding a shortsword in the other. Throwing javelins until the enemy closes, then. Two weapon fighting (3 if you count racial bit attack). Also very skillful (my players seem to think he is a timelord)

The fighting styles aren't negotiable (as they are a direct port from another game) but optimization with in those roles is important. They both also receive an extra feat from flaw (the wrestlers alcoholism and the rats short memory), and no other flaws. Incarnum, psionics, Magic, and ToM are off the table, but ToB is acceptable, also no setting specific material except OA. Magic items should be no more than WBL. These are not really to oppose the players but they might be involved in a fight along side them, necessitating statistics.

[The Big Dice]

It sounds to me like you need to track down the old Dual Stat L5R books. I skipped over 2nd edition, but for a while WotC owned the L5R brand. And because of that, they did a range of books including the Secrets of the Clans line that featured rules for bot L5R 2nd edition and 3.0 D&D. You should find most of that you need in Secrets of the Crab and Rokugan, which was the core world book.

[Darth Stabber]

I am not really needing a lot of specific mechanics, just a reasonably competitive build, with in the confines of books the group has agreed to.

Books allowed
Core, XPH, races of X (except dragon), completes, LoM, LM, draconomicon, dragon magic, OA, MoI, FR Underdark (no other FR books), DotU, MM1-3, ToB, ToM (binder section only), Savage Species, phb2, dmg2, Dragon Compendium, HoH, HoB, eberron champaign setting (warforged and artificers only), and select homebrew (if agreed upon by the group).


I will allow other books given time to peruse them, on a case by case basis, but I generally avoid champaign setting specific book, unless we are playing that setting. The secrets of the clans books are pretty decent (I have bought the shadowlands book for an L5R game and had good results) but I can't find dead tree copies, nor legal PDFs, and even if I could I couldn't really afford them at the moment, thus making them effectively non-existant to me.

[The Big Dice]

In D20 L5R, all samurai (that is bushi, not samurai caste) are a kind of fighter/kensai hybrid. I think the same idea might be used in OA. Mostly, the Rokugani schools are built up by feat and skill selection.

For your Hida Wrestler guy, I'd say a Barbarian with an emphasis on unarmed combat might not be a bad way to go. The Hida are quite well known for their berserkers, though if you can sub something else for Barbarian, that would work too. Take the usual suspect unarmed feats and knock yourself out. Or the other guy, as the case may be.

Assuming you've got a racial template for the Ratling, Scout is your obvious school choice, though Ranger could work too. Ranger could be a little easier, as you've already got the weapon style stuff saving you a hefty feat tax on the two weapon fighting.

That's how I'd be inclined to do things, though personally I'd sooner use L5R to play in Rokugan. I never felt the D20 port was particularly satisfying.

[Darth Stabber]

In D20 L5R, all samurai (that is bushi, not samurai caste) are a kind of fighter/kensai hybrid. I think the same idea might be used in OA. Mostly, the Rokugani schools are built up by feat and skill selection.

For your Hida Wrestler guy, I'd say a Barbarian with an emphasis on unarmed combat might not be a bad way to go. The Hida are quite well known for their berserkers, though if you can sub something else for Barbarian, that would work too. Take the usual suspect unarmed feats and knock yourself out. Or the other guy, as the case may be.

Assuming you've got a racial template for the Ratling, Scout is your obvious school choice, though Ranger could work too. Ranger could be a little easier, as you've already got the weapon style stuff saving you a hefty feat tax on the two weapon fighting.

That's how I'd be inclined to do things, though personally I'd sooner use L5R to play in Rokugan. I never felt the D20 port was particularly satisfying.

Sounds pretty good. As a note, I am not playing L5R using D&D, I am converting over 2 L5R characters for use in a normal D&D game. The Ratling in question drove my L5R players nuts, and one of those players is in this D&D game. I run my games on three principles: rule of cool, rule of funny, drive the players insane. This falls under the last one. The hiruma is hanging out with the Nezumi due to the L5R player's long running suspicion that the nezumi is infact a Timelord (and a Timelord needs a companion), and he was an NPC that the player I am messing with's character was close to.

[mabriss lethe]

Well, a good way to mimic the Techniques of the clans would be to draw heavily from ToB. Swordsages would also probably make better monks and Ise Zumi than monks/ tattooed monks do. Shugenja is kind of a crap class in 3e. better to just refluff a cleric or druid and mine heavily from the wu jen spell list for goodies.

[Darth Stabber]

Well, a good way to mimic the Techniques of the clans would be to draw heavily from ToB. Swordsages would also probably make better monks and Ise Zumi than monks/ tattooed monks do. Shugenja is kind of a crap class in 3e. better to just refluff a cleric or druid and mine heavily from the wu jen spell list for goodies.

Actually given the prohibitions in game against tier 1 and 2 (ie mandatory lost caster levels through multiclassing or prcs {-1 before lvl 10, lose another before 20}), shugenja become more attractive. But given niether is a monk, nor shugenja, this is rather irrelevant. I was thinking making the hiruma a warblade, but trade diamond mind for setting sun, or just go barb/fighter/reaping mauler. The nezumi will either be swordsage or ranger, either way aiming at master thrower, unless their is another good Prc for javelin throwing.