[L5R 4E] Just how good is the meishodo shugenja?

[mabriss lethe]

The Meishodo/Horiuchi shugenja school is found in The Great Clans.

Compared to a lot of the schools in 4e, This one seems almost a little too good.

- Amazing Family/School bonus synergy. A Horiuchi family member in the Horiuchi meishodo school will begin with an Earth ring of 3. There are only a handful of instances where a family/school bonus will mesh to give you a higher ring without the liberal use of Different School. Additionally, the school in question has an Affinity for Earth, making that combination extra juicy.

- The Meishodo technique: This thing makes it so that a character with the proper talisman can cast an ML 1-3 spell without a casting roll and as a Complex action. The downside is that the shugenja can't make raises on spells cast through talismans. At lower insight ranks, that's great for casting spells from your weaker elements, since you never have to worry about flubbing the roll. At higher levels it's even better, since it means you can field several spells in the time it would take a peer to cast a one spell. (and still not have to worry about making the casting roll.) What makes this better still? A meishodo shugenja may still cast any spell they know normally, making skill rolls and raises just like any other caster by eschewing the use of the talisman.

-The cost? Make a moderately difficult skill roll in advance to create the talisman and take up a few hours of in-game downtime.

compared to every other school aside from the Isawa, and that's just (in my opinion) too good.

[TheOOB]

Are they powerful, yes, are they broken, no. The Isawa still kick their ass, and honesty the Tamori shugenja do pretty much the same thing(honestly they do it a little better).

Meishodo can cast low level spells quickly and efficiently(given enough time they'll have a Meishodo for every spell they know), but they cannot call raises on their Meishodo spells, which is huge. Also, the only spells they can decrease the casting time of are rating 2 or 3 spells, which a sufficiently skilled shugenja can cast quickly with raises anyways.

On the other hand, a Tamori shugenja can put spells with raises into potions and can have multiple spells used in a round. You haven't seen scary until four bushi all drink a fires of purity potion all at once.

[mabriss lethe]

I'd forgotten about the Tamori school. It's major balancing point is flexibility, though. You can potentially throw out a whole lot of spells quickly, but you have to have those spell slots dedicated to the specific potions in advance and you can't get them back until the potion is expended. In terms of potential power, yes. It has a much higher potential power than the Horiuchi school. I'm not so sure that power will translate fully to practical application. I can see a player having a handful of potions at the ready, but no more than that for fear of not having access to the proper spell when you need it.

[TheOOB]

It can be practical. Lets say your a starting rank 1 Tamori Shugenja. You took Fires of Purity as one of your fire spells, and Path to Inner Peace as one of your Water spells. You prepare two potions of each for the bushi in your team(which I assume uses up your fire and water slots). When a fight breaks out you start using your earth and void spell slots for things like Earth's Stagnation and Earth Becomes Sky. Each bushi got a powerful buff the same turn they drew their weapons, and can heal themselves if they need to during battle, and you don't need to waste turns buffing and can focus your time on offense. Later in your career you can create potions of Earth's Strength(which normally takes 5 actions to cast), or put a spell with a bunch of raises in a potion(just cast the spell during your downtime).

Meishodo shugenja are good, they have more flexibility, but no where near as much power. At most they'll gain the equivalent of two free raises on a spellcasting roll, at the cost of being able to call no other raises. On the spellcasting rolls you'd most want a duration reduction on, however, Meishodo magic doesn't work. If Meishodo shugenja are broken, than Tamori shugenja are doubly so.

[kugelblitz]

"On the other hand, a Tamori shugenja can put spells with raises into potions and can have multiple spells used in a round. You haven't seen scary until four bushi all drink a fires of purity potion all at once."

As an L5R GM, I agree. The Tamori are potent AND they can fight. Take a Tamori who has the kata (Oforgeththename) which allows her to link to a Mirumoto swordsman and the Mirumoto gets VERY hard to hit, and they are already at a high TN with their niten style. The fires of purity potions turn the fighters into super nasty fire creatures and kami help anyone who gets grappled by a monk who imbibed the potion as well.

One shugenja spell which has cost me some sleep is reflections of pan-ku, in that at sufficiently high success rates and raises you basically hand the item description, maker, abilities and serial numbers to the dadgummed player. Which can be a game breaker in some aspects. My only save was that since pan-ku was known to have gone completely insane (since he discovered too many things that Bushi Weren't Meant to Know) I could somehow incorporate Cthulhu like SAN effects into the game. Sure, go ahead CAST the spell on the creepy item, but it will cost you.

[TheOOB]

I never found Reflections of Pan Kun to have any problems. It primary effects is just to tell you the supernatural properties of an item, which is useful, though it obviously can be fooled, otherwise things like the bloodswords would never have caused the damage they did.

Otherwise it will express the items history in very broad strokes at the GM's discretion, mentioning any info the GM doesn't want to give, they don't have to.

It's a pretty basic spell that's hard to abuse, and if you really want to spend one of your spell scrolls on it I'm not going to punish you for it.