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View Full Version : DM Help D20 Rokugan: Worthy buy?



Roxxy
2014-04-10, 07:09 PM
I already own Oriental Adventures. I want to start building a Pathfinder setting with a lot of Asian materiel, and I'm looking for books to borrow materiel from. Are the other D20 Rokugan books, like Creatures/Magic of Rokugan or the Samurai/Ninja/Sugenja books something I could borrow from? What's in the Samurai/Ninja/Shugenja books and Magic of Rokugan, anyway?

houlio
2014-04-10, 07:20 PM
I don't think that it's strictly necessary. I can't give you specific information about the d20 books, but being a player and game master of the Legend of the Five Rings, the system originally based in Rokugan, I can give you some advice. From what I can gather from your post, Rokugan is already basically what you are looking at making, so seeing how someone else has done it might help you out a bit. The big thing that Rokugan as a setting pushes is that players are all members of a certain social class, and the dramatic tension of the game comes from the trials of being a samurai. If you don't want your setting to be about that, then I think you should look elsewhere for inspiration, as most of the extra stuff out of Rokugan is straight out of asian folklore/myth and already in Oriental Adventures I believe (non-human races, monsters, et cetera).

For the most part, I think simply refluffing old creatures and classes to fit your setting is going to be the best way to get started and then moving from there. Instead of having shugenja, have clerics with elemental domains standard.

Roxxy
2014-04-10, 07:30 PM
Yea, Rokugan doesn't particularly work. I was looking towards feats, spells, creatures, and class features.

BWR
2014-04-11, 07:00 AM
If you aren't planning on running Rokugan specifically, the books are less useful. There are some nifty feats, spells and classes and prestige classes, but they are generally not as powerful as stuff you'll find in WOTC material (if that's important to you), and are very setting-specific. Sure, you can adapt the stuff, but I'm not sure they are generically "Asian" (read: Japanese) enough to count.

Rokugan d20 - pretty much required if you are going to use the others, because they introduce the Void Point mechanic, Honor and Taint mechanics, adopted from the R&K system. Yes, OA introduced Taint as well, but it's handled a bit differently. Some of the stuff is fun, and there are some useful feats there, especially for melee folks. The classes are middle of the road, mostly. Nothing that any optimizer would choose, but flavorfully appropriate.

Creatures of Rokugan has some fun stuff if you like monsters. It's definitely one of the better monster books out there.

Magic of Rokugan - A lot of new spells, some of which are very useful useful (Laughter of the Risen Earth - pay 5000 xp to avoid aging for 5 years, Peace of the Kami - stop all creatures in 600 foot radius from doing anything hostile for 24 hours, no ST or SR, etc.), a lot which are ok, some of which suck. If you want to improve the Shugenja, it's a good resource, but you can also easily just expand their spell list with stuff from WOTC sources. Some new magic items which are generally ok, a few new artifacts which are fun, and everything has history attached to it. A couple of prestige classes including the Master Craftsman which allows non-casters to craft awesome magic items. The introduction of Rokugani steel, which allows you to grant non-magical enhancement bonus to metal implements. The spells are, imo, worth it, but the magic items are mostly just fluff or campaign points rather than unique abilities or meant for players.

Way of the Samurai - details the warriors of Rokugan, with emphasis on the Great Clans, but also taking into account ronin, Minor Clans and the Imperials. Mostly fluff but every group gets at least 1, usually 2, new PrC and usually some feats, so there is enough crunch, and some of it is rather fun. They introduce some new mechanics like the Dojo (minor benefits, like skill bonuses, depending on where you trained) and Kata (basically spend xp to purchase a special kind of feat that can grant some nifty benefits.

Complete Exotic Arms Guide probably useless for your needs. New stats for variuos weapons and armor, a few mundane items, but mostly a flavor text for Rokugan.

Way of the Daimyo - An interesting book. It introduces Station, a point-based system for building social and miliarty influence and power beyond your personal skills. A simple mass combat system, five different types of lords: the provincial governor, the ambassador, the master sensei, the Keeper of the Temple and the warlord, each focusing on different aspects of power and government. Some feats and prestige classes to take advantage of the system. It's easy to use and not too easy to break and gives hints on how to develop new feats and classes and spells in-game and in-universe. If you don't want your players getting involved in any sort of rulership position, this is a wasted book. If you do, it could be worth your while.

The hidden Emperor, Fortunes and Winds - The former is basically a rundown of the Hidden Emperor period in Rokugan, so it's pretty useless if you don't play in Rokugan. The latter details the cosmology of the setting. If you want something different from the existing D&D cosmologies, it's an ok book, but I'd say it isn't for you. Some new mechanics which are middle of the road (even if the shapeshifter race/class was fun).

Way of the Thief - a discussion of crime in Rokugan, with little generic enough to be worth the price. Some new unimpressive mechanics, mostly fluff.

Way of the Open Hand - A discussion of monks and religion in Rokugan. The fluff can easily be changed to work for any number of monastic traditions in whatever Asian setting you want, and it introduces martial arts feat chains, similar to the Style feats of Pathfinder (3 or 5 feat chains). Most of them are a bit underpowered but they can be beefed up, and give more of a Japanese feel to the martial arts instead of the very Chinese feel of the Pathfinder Styles.

Way of the Ninja - A discussion of ninja, stealth, espionage and sabotage in Rokugan. A lot of fluff, but there are some very useful mecahnics if you want to focus in ninja action. Feats which which double crit range of sneak attacks and stacks with other range increases, a feat that allows you to use Spellcraft opposed by Perception to cast a spell without someone noticing it, a feat that allows you to increase damage and crit range of knives and daggers, a couple of fun ninja prestige classes (like one which grants you attacks of opportunity against people who successful see you when you try to use stealth).

Way of the Shugenja - Less useful for you than MoR. Some prestige classes and feats and spells, but more fluff. Some fun monk stuff, even if the shugenja stuff is a bit lackluster (a few exceptions, like the class which triples the distance and limits of Teleport spells), and a few spells which are ok and flavorful, but not must-haves.

Bloodspeakers - not written by AEG, but I include here anyway. Unless you are interested in maho and lots of fluff for Rokugan, this isn't the book for you. The mechanics are mostly unimpressive, with a few OP spells that no sane DM would allow (unless he wants blood magic opponents to be dangerous, that is :xykon:)

Secrets of X - they all introduce some new mechanics, some of which are fun, but I doubt it will be worth your money to buy them for a couple of pages of feats, spells and prestige classes.

Roxxy
2014-04-13, 03:53 PM
Thanks for describing each book for me. That is exactly the information I needed to decide.

SiuiS
2014-04-13, 06:25 PM
The Rokugan campaign setting is actually a very solid book. I would recommend it.


The sides, not so much. Unless you're willing to play fast and loose, that is. You'll get stuff like "if you go before the other guy by a sufficient margin you get extra attacks" or "you ignore enemy armor and if you use power attack and miss because of it, you still hit but without the power attack bonus", or an ever present favorite, "feint for free and if you hit a target after feinting them it's an automatically critical threat".

There's a slew of potential options that later WotC would follow suit with by making ACFs; the Rokugan supplements provide what are basically flaws, ACFs and substitution levels. You can spend some XP to learn techniques that might build into something useful. Go to a specific dojo and get certain benefits. Come from this family and not that family and you lose this feature but gain that one. Or get this bonus for free, and all you have to do is care about your reputation and have NPCs meddle with you. It's an artful system, in its own way.

My personal favorites from those are things like being able to get the two handed bonus on a one-handed weapon if it's favored by your school, or dropping your AC bonus for a +4 bonus to attacks for every successful attack you make in a round – which gets just sick with that diamond mind maneuver that gives you free attacks at cumulative -4 per attack and the feat that boosts your attack for e'ery successful attack in a round :smallbiggrin:

Be aware though, Rokugan focuses on t3 play. Melee (with special abilities) is important. You can find some good magic stuff there, but it's intended for blaster play. I you cherry pick from L5R for a game that has batman wizards running around you will DESTROY your game.

BWR
2014-04-14, 07:06 AM
. You'll get stuff like "if you go before the other guy by a sufficient margin you get extra attacks" or "you ignore enemy armor and if you use power attack and miss because of it, you still hit but without the power attack bonus", or an ever present favorite, "feint for free and if you hit a target after feinting them it's an automatically critical threat".


IIRC, the first required Void point use, so it's a very limited ability, and the second is actually two feats: Way of the Lion and the Final Lesson., and WotL grants you a +2 bonus on attacks against creatures with natural or regular armor (you can take it multiple times, though the bonus gained cannot exceed the armor bonus of the target). The Pincers Hold, the Tail Strikes does not grant free action feinting, though it does make your successful feint attack an auto threat. Gusai's Technique allows you a very limited free action feint.

Since I'm already on about feats, you have ones like The Mountain Does Not Move, which is basically the prototype for Iron Heart Surge: as a free action before your turn starts you may spend a Void point to ignore any or all of a lot of unpleasant status effects, incl. nauseated, unconscious, dying, etc. for 1 round. Personally, I feel that to correctly represent TMDNM from the R&K game it should also allow you to ignore penalties to rolls as well. The Mountain Does Not Move allows you to spend Void points to make a Fortitude ST to ignore damage. Way of the Crab - move at normal speed while weaing heavy armor, increase Max Dex by 1, and reduce ACP by 1. (can you tell I'm a Crab fanboy?)

However, I can't recall these ACFs or Flaws you mentioned. Which books are they in?

If you are going to introduce these books to your game, Roxxy, especially the Void point mechanic, I'd give everyone Void Use for free, simply because it's annoying to have to spend a feat on something which is basically an innate ability score (and is such in the R&K game).