Shugenja spells known exceending spell list?

[noce]

A level 9 Shugenja, according to spells known table, should know 5 spells of level 0 from his element, 4 from other elements and 1 from his order.

The fact is, every element only has 4 spells of level 0, so he cannot know 5 spells of that level from his element.

So, what is the solution?

Spells known table is wrong, Shugenjas never know a 5th spell of level 0 from their element.
Universal element (like detect magic) spells count for your element, so that every element has 4 unique spells and shares 2 spells with other elements, this way you can in fact pick 5 spells of level 0 from your expanded element.
Guys that wrote spell list and spells known never talked each other, we'll never know.


Please try to answer from a RAW standpoint first, then give your RAI interpretation if you like to.

[DrMotives]

Your #3 isn't a solution, but feels true. This problem exists in both OA & CD versions of shugenja. I'd allow your #2 answer, and also consider the level 0 spells from SpC: Caltops as earth, launch bolt & launch item as air, stick as water, and electric jolt as fire. Shugenja seem to always put electric attack as fire spells anyway.

[Falontani]

Your #3 isn't a solution, but feels true. This problem exists in both OA & CD versions of shugenja. I'd allow your #2 answer, and also consider the level 0 spells from SpC: Caltops as earth, launch bolt & launch item as air, stick as water, and electric jolt as fire. Shugenja seem to always put electric attack as fire spells anyway.

They do that because fire magic was supposed to be an "aggressive" school, including many of the damaging evocation spells like fireball and lightning bolt

[The Viscount]

There's no ironclad RAW answer, because they never described "all" spells in the writeup for the class. They cared so little about this class that they didn't even go back to say which page the spell list is on or align the chart properly. That being said, I feel there is a decent argument to be made that the universal spells such as detect magic are to be treated as every element. First, they are not uncategorized or set aside, they are classified as "all." Which seems to suggest that they would count as being your favored element (let's agree to ignore the fact that also counting as your banned element would remove it from your options, because that's just cruel). Secondly there is some precedent for doing this. Wu Jen is another class with an elemental focus, and it also has a spell list with some spels labeled "All". They actually have a line mentioning that such spells can be considered to be the wu jen's focused element for the purpose of elemental mastery. Add in the fact that shugenja and wu jen were originally from the same book and the argument becomes stronger, even if they also forgot to put this clause in shugenja's writeup.

[Faily]

Spell Compendium does mention possible ways of expanding the spell-list of "less popular" classes, like Shugenja and Wu Jen, and suggests certain ones from the Druid-list.

If you're fine with third party stuff, the d20 Rokugan-supplements have lots of good stuff for shugenja: the Rokugan d20 corebook, Way of the Shugenja, Magic of Rokugan, some of the Secrets of the [clan]-books also have spells. I would suggest going for the corebook, Way of the Shugenja and Magic of Rokugan.