Adventures in Rokugan Review - Third Party 5E

[Sparky McDibben]

This is my review of Adventures in Rokugan, released by EDGE Studios on DriveThruRPG. I purchased the PDF for $25 US. The book clocks in at 426 pages long, which comes to about 6 cents per page.

Reviewer Background and Biases:

So, just to level-set everyone, I've been playing RPGs in Rokugan since the 3rd edition Oriental Adventures book came out. I continued with Rokugan and the supplement line from AEG, and I love the metaplot, the wild and crazy antics that could happen, and just how weird everything could become. I like the setting, and that's something to keep in mind.

Executive Summary:

The book plays around with some great ideas, including giving martial characters techniques that do more than just "I attack," and reining in casters. It also jettisons the entire metaplot from the Clan War forward; the book is set right before the Emperor disappears. Much like Eberron, it's giving you the tools to create your Rokugan, not play through a pre-established story. Add in creative race / class options, a dueling system that actually makes you feel like your character is in danger, and a complete rework of the D&D magic system, and this book has a lot to recommend it.

However, the mechanics aren't nearly as simplified as I would prefer for a 5th edition game, and draw a LOT of inspiration from 4th edition. You're tracking various resource pools for martial characters, and the whole thing feels fiddly. This is definitely not the way to introduce new players to the game, but advanced players (or players who like 4th edition) might really enjoy it.

Introduction:

The book opens with some good discussion of what adventuring in Rokugan actually looks like, inspirational works of media, and a two-page section telling you how to avoid being a douche. They specifically ask that GMs avoid including ritual suicide, be respectful of real-world belief systems (such Zen Buddhism and Shinto), and "Don’t speak 'Asian-sounding' gibberish as a way of pretending to speak a language you do not." All pretty common-sense stuff that probably needed to be spelled out. It gives a basic overview of Rokugan's society, a decent map of the Empire, and an introduction to the Great Houses and other factions. There's also discussion of Rokugan's cosmology, the various moral codes that govern behavior, and a primer on religion.

This section does a decent job of giving new players the basics. "This is a feudal Japanese setting, here's how stuff gets done at a very high level, and here's the kinds of shenanigans you can get up to."

Species:

The book puts way more emphasis on background than on biology, which is probably a good move. The available races are:

Human: It's the variant human from the PHB, minus the extra skill proficiency. All the cool stuff for human characters is in backgrounds.

Naga: Snake people! +1 to any two ability scores, base and swim speeds of 35 feet, you can breathe underwater, heat vision, permanent disguise self, and you can telepathically communicate with a creature you know during a rest (though doing so means you don't gain the benefits of resting). The counter-balance is that you have vulnerability to cold damage, due to your cold-bloodedness.

Nezumi: Rat people! +2 / +1 to two ability scores, walking speed of 25', Small size, advantage on certain Perception checks, and +2 to AC vs opportunity attacks. But the two big draws are Adapted to the Shadowlands, which allows you to eat, rest, and hunt normally in the Shadowlands (this is a big deal, though situational), and Skitter, which lets you use a bonus action to drop to all fours, increasing your move speed to 40 feet and giving you a 40 foot climb speed.

Mazoku: Aaaand we've officially hit the weird content, y'all. These dudes are demonic cosmic bureaucrats. +2 / +1 to two ability scores, Medium size, darkvision. The real draw here is Demonic True Form, which you can assume as a bonus action. It gives you three buffs (out of a list of ten) that can do everything from "jump higher" to "immunity to exhaustion." Your type is Fiend when you are in your True Form, and humanoid any other time. If you die, you go back to Heaven to fill out the paperwork that backed up while you were away.

Specter: You're a ghost who broke out of Heavenly Judgment Conga Line and got back down to the Material Plane (Ningen-do, in Rokugan). +2 / +1 to two ability scores. There's a bunch of stuff here - you can use a reaction to go incorporeal when hit by an attack, but if you get too far from your friends you start to get pulled back to the Heavens, and you can pull watch with no penalties in your incorporeal form. If you die, you go back to the Heavens. Good luck getting out again.

Tengu: Bird people! You have a 60' glide speed (you can't ascend), a free spell, 30' move speed, +1 to two ability scores, and a permanent disguise self that only works when you're not flying.

Animal Yokai: A yokai is just a supernatural being; animal yokai are shapeshifters who can go adventure for a while. The base species gets +2 / +1 to two ability scores, and shapeshifting. The sub-races are bat-, fox-, and otter-folks. Bat folks can use a diet divination spell during a long rest and transform into a bat. Fox folks can create a minor illusion and turn into a fox, and otter-folks can use a very short-ranged scrying technique and turn into otters.

Unique Existence: You aren't basic - you want to play as something strange, cosmic, or otherwise not described in this book! Well, fear not, humble traveler! As a Unique Existence, you get: +2 / +1 to any two ability scores, two extra skill proficiencies (one of which must be Intimidate), and one of your ability scores is now capped at 22. LET THE MORTALS TREMBLE BEFORE YOUR MIGHT!!!!!!

Some of these are really interesting - the Naga and Nezumi are both flavorful and fun, while the Mazoku and Specter are really neat concepts that can enable edge cases like "Can I keep playing my dead PC?" However, Tengu, Yokai, and Unique Existence are all underdone with big ol' holes in 'em. The design team listed Inu-Yasha as an inspiration, so I expected to see a dog version of Yokai, or at least a badger. And Unique Existence...that's it? Can I instead have a menu of options so I can build my unique weirdness?

The other thing you might have noticed through here is how fiddly some of these options are. Nezumi get +2 AC vs opportunity attacks - how many players are going to remember that? I'd have just let them add their proficiency bonus to Initiative checks.

Classes:

The designers took a look at the PHB and decided those archetypes don't translate well to samurai dramas, so they made new ones!

Bushi: They're fighters with a d12 Hit Die and some stuff moved around. Most notably, they are one of two classes that get martial techniques. Techniques will be discussed in that chapter, but you should know that techniques are powered by Focus, a resource that you only get in combat. You start with 0 Focus and gain 1 Focus at the start of each turn after the first. Unspent Focus disappears after a combat encounter. You can generate extra Focus with Stances, a feature unlocked at 2nd level. Stances give you some minor benefits, and help you generate Focus. Subclasses include the Samurai Armsmaster, the Protector and the Vanguard.

Duelists: They're a fighter / kensai mashup with a d8 Hit Die and facility with Duels (a new procedure outlined later in the book). These chaps can hold their own in combat, but slot into a striker role better than a front-liner. At 3rd level, they can also challenge people to duels during combat, so they can serve as a budget tank if you really need someone taken out of melee. Most notably, they are one of two classes that get martial techniques. Techniques will be discussed in that chapter, but you should know that techniques are powered by Focus, a resource that you only get in combat. You start with 0 Focus and gain 1 Focus at the start of each turn after the first. Unspent Focus disappears after a combat encounter. You can generate extra Focus with Stances, a feature unlocked at 2nd level. Stances give you some minor benefits, and help you generate Focus. Subclasses include the Blademaster, the Adept, and the Deathdancer.

Courtiers: It's a bard without spells who can use their Inspiration Dice in a bunch of different ways. These ways are called Rhetorical Flourishes, and you can use them to gather information, send secret messages, or make someone make an attack against a target you choose. They've got a d8 Hit Die, limited weapon and armor proficiencies, and several ways to avoid the worst of combat. In combat, these guys are controllers; in court, these guys are OP AF if you don't know how to run social scenes. Subclasses include Diplomat and Investigator.

Shinobi: Yep, it's a ninja. Instead of using the rogue's Sneak Attack mechanics (which would have been fine), they use a pretty wonky escalating die system that is based on how many conditions an enemy is suffering from. At first level, you can inflict +1d4 of damage per negative condition affecting your target (maximum of 2d4). This steps up in later levels, until at 20th you're inflicting 4d6 per condition (max of 16d6). The player has to do more work to set it up, but the payout is potentially higher. You also get Ninja Tools, which is a Batman-style utility belt of several iconic ninja doohickeys, from caltrops to smoke bombs to throwing knives and more. These help inflict conditions on your enemies, which you can use to inflict extra damage. Subclasses include Infiltrator and Saboteur.

Ritualist: The only magic-user in Rokugan. You spend Favor (spell points, basically) to power invocations (spells). Subclasses include Artisan, Elementalist, and Medium. We'll be going over the invocations in the Techniques chapter.

Pilgrim: It's a monk based on Constitution, with extra Hit Dice that don't add to your hit point total but can be spent throughout the day. You also get a Yin/Yang tracker that has different minor effects based on your position (high Yang energy gives you additional damage, high Yin lets you heal more). You also get Externalizations, which help you use your Yin/Yang energy and also shift you positions on the tracker. This is like if someone took the Four Elements monk and made it's own class. Very different from anything you'd find in 5E. Subclasses include the Path of Redemption, the Path of Harmony, and the Path of Justice.

Acolyte: This is an odd class. d10 Hit Die, light armor proficiency, and simple and martial weapon proficiencies. The fiction states that this class is trying to ascend to something higher and become one with a major force in the cosmos. The two subclasses are the Order of Togashi (tattooed monks who can breathe fire) and the Order of the Shadow (which is kind of all over the place). I'm going to be honest here, y'all. I don't get this class. I don't know what fantasy it's trying to enable, and I don't know how the mechanics are supposed to come together.

Overall, the archetypes are fine, except for Acolyte which I just don't comprehend. The design, however, is FIDDLY. Take the Bushi - one of their stances is Ember Stance, which lets you mark something for death as a reaction (marked for death is a new condition that increases the damage the creature takes from your attacks by 1d8). It also give you three Focus points if you've dropped at least one enemy to zero hp during the turn. So now the DM has to track additional conditions, the player has to track their actions and their Focus gain, and the Stance uses a reaction, which slows the game down.

Most importantly, how many players are going to remember that they need to do this? I don't know about y'all, but some of my players can barely remember what their hit points do, much less the complicated interactions of multiple conditions stacking on a target.

If you're pissed that the Kakita Duelmaster wasn't included as a subclass, tune in next time for Backgrounds, which is where they stuck all the Great Clans' stuff.

[DarknessEternal]

Ritualist is the worst class I've ever seen.

[Black Jester]

The book plays around with some great ideas, including giving martial characters techniques that do more than just "I attack," and reining in casters. It also jettisons the entire metaplot from the Clan War forward; the book is set right before the Emperor disappears. Much like Eberron, it's giving you the tools to create your Rokugan, not play through a pre-established story. Add in creative race / class options, a dueling system that actually makes you feel like your character is in danger, and a complete rework of the D&D magic system, and this book has a lot to recommend it.

However, the mechanics aren't nearly as simplified as I would prefer for a 5th edition game, and draw a LOT of inspiration from 4th edition. You're tracking various resource pools for martial characters, and the whole thing feels fiddly. This is definitely not the way to introduce new players to the game, but advanced players (or players who like 4th edition) might really enjoy it.


I am interested in this game. I was quite fond of Legend of Five Rings' 4th edition, and the setting as a whole, but decided to avoid FFG's (now edge) version of the game, because I felt ambivalent about the setting changes and have no interest whatsoever in any game focussing on gimmicky novelty dice. So, having a verson that doesn't use rule mechanics I already know I wouldn't use seems pretty good to me.

However, fiddly rules are pretty much what I expect from this publisher, a long with very good graphic design and gorgeous illustrations. I would actually be surprised if the game mechnics weren't sloppy, overdesigned and kinda bloated. That is part of their design identity (Side note: 3rd party publications for 5e are more likely to add complexity to the game, probably because some 5e designs appear deceptively simple).


Ritualist is the worst class I've ever seen.

Can you specify why?

[DarknessEternal]

All of the non-spellcasting classes are in the same scale of power as regular D&D classes.

The Ritualist is the only spell caster. But it's equivalent to a Wizard that only gets to 2nd level spells ever, and even then can only cast 2 of them per day. It does have some free use cantrips, but they also do not scale.

It's a complete dumpster fire.

[Sparky McDibben]

Alright, friends, I've got the 'rona, so updates are going to slow down a bit while I recuperate.

For now, though, let's talk BACKGROOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUNDS!

Remember when I said that all the cool stuff for humans was in the backgrounds? Well, here it is! This is where you take your character from Generic Fantasy Asian Action Hero to someone grounded in Rokugan.

Backgrounds cover more than just "what you did before you adventured" here, they cover your political affiliation, your family, and give you certain specialized skills encompassing what your family does for the Empire.

The Great Clans are up first. As an aside for those of you who aren't up on the lore, each of the Great Clans is a bit of a stereotype, and each has a job. The Crab Clan are basically the Night's Watch of the setting, all Scorpions are spies, and the Crane Clan are all about diplomacy, grace, and elegance.

Each of the Great Clans has a background feature. For example, the Crane background lets you know who's who and what's what among the great Rokugani nobility, and gives you a working knowledge of the fine arts (in case you're looking to show off). After that, you choose which sub-family you are part of that makes up the Clan. Continuing our example of the Crane Clan, you can choose among the Asahina, Daidoji, Doji, and the Kakita. Each one gives you various proficiencies, equipment, and languages. Underneath each family there's advice for quick builds if you're going for a specific kind of character. For example, it gives you advice for how to build an Asahina Artificer, a Daidoji Iron Warrior, a Doji Diplomat, a Kakita Artisan, and a Kakita Duelist. Most of these involve some degree of multiclassing.

The Great Clan backgrounds go on for 28 pages. Hilariously, right after it gets done with the Unicorn Clan, it goes into the Imperial family. So if you ever wanted to play a literal Imperial prince, knock yourself out. I don't know how you get to adventure without some significant leeway from the DM, but it is an option.

After the Imperial backgrounds come the minor clans, including the Mantis clan (who get their own background feature, summed up as "Knows about boats"). The other minor clans get a background feature that's basically "Know about their clan." Not...super helpful? Also not sure why that would need to be spelled out.

The Minor Clans listed are the Badger, Cat, Centipede, Deer, Dragonfly, Falcon, Fox, Hare, Moth, Sparrow, Tortoise, and Wasp. There's a full page sidebar that describes how to play ronin (masterless samurai and wanderers), but no ronin background since ronin can be from any background. We round it out with a Monastery background (except for the Togashi, who have their own background), and several commoner backgrounds, covering everything from "Big City commoner" to "Ghost-Infested Forest commoner." The commoner backgrounds share a single background feature, "Worldly Wisdom," which is basically that you know the area you grew up in, know about local goings-on, and know how to go about getting work.

As you can probably tell, the balance isn't great between the Great Clan backgrounds and everyone else, but my guess is that the authors didn't think anyone would want to play as anyone other than the Great Clans.

Finally, they really step up the information we're given about the surrounding lands of Rokugan. All of these backgrounds share the same feature: "Neutral Party" which makes you someone to be courted by the various factions within the Empire. We also get a sidebar here that states Rokugani tend towards either curiosity or indifference to foreigners entering their kingdom.

The lands outside of Rokugan are the Ivory Kingdoms (fantasy India), the Qamarist Caliphate (fantasy Arabia), the Plains of Wind and Stone (fantasy Mongolia), Yún Fēng Guó (fantasy China), the Coastal Islands (fantasy Indonesia), and Saebyuksan (fantasy Korea). All of these get their own little sub-backgrounds. I'm happy to see them trying to make this more pan-Asian, and its nice to see people remembering that these places have their own millennia-old histories and cultures, instead of just focusing on fantasy Japan.

Finally, we have the Non-Human backgrounds, which have the feature "Walker in Secret Ways", covering your knowledge of secrets and spirits. There's not much here for Naga and Nezumi characters (as one would expect, given all the cool stuff they get for being themselves). However, it does have different sub-backgrounds for each of the other Realms (such as the Realm of Slaughter, or the Realm of the Hungry Dead). How badly have you ever wanted to have a character that's from the Realm of the Hungry Dead? Metal.

Alright, my compadres, we'll pick back up next time with the Equipment Section!

[awa]

maybe I'm misremembering but I kinda remember rokugan being super hostile to foreigners not curious or indifferent. I mostly read the book series with little dabs into the wiki rather than played the rpg so maybe that's not accurate.

[Easy e]

Thanks. I am finding this super interesting.

[Black Jester]

All of the non-spellcasting classes are in the same scale of power as regular D&D classes.

The Ritualist is the only spell caster. But it's equivalent to a Wizard that only gets to 2nd level spells ever, and even then can only cast 2 of them per day. It does have some free use cantrips, but they also do not scale.

It's a complete dumpster fire.

Okay. Now I am intruiged. Not having to deal with bland and boring wizards et al. stealing the show of more interesting/deserving characters look like an upgrade over standard D&D 5e. Also, over L5R 4e, a game that also suffered from making the blandest characters also the most overpowered (Crane and Shugenja, respectively).


Alright, friends, I've got the 'rona, so updates are going to slow down a bit while I recuperate.

Well that sucks. Get well soon (also gooble goble, gooble goble, we accept you, one of us etc. epp.).


As you can probably tell, the balance isn't great between the Great Clan backgrounds and everyone else, but my guess is that the authors didn't think anyone would want to play as anyone other than the Great Clans.

That's very true to the source material. The logic behind it always was that the Great Clans just had vastly superiour resources and capabilities. Rokugan has always been a setting were author favourites were strictly superiour to the factions the authors didn't like, both in the RPGs and in the CCG (again, don't know if this is still true after the change of ther licences holder).


Hilariously, right after it gets done with the Unicorn Clan, it goes into the Imperial family. So if you ever wanted to play a literal Imperial prince, knock yourself out. I don't know how you get to adventure without some significant leeway from the DM, but it is an option.

You can play a Hantei? Interesting. The other Imperiual families (Seppun, Otomo and Miya) are more like Imperial courtiers, and not necessarily more influential than the members of the Great Clans, usually less.


The lands outside of Rokugan are the Ivory Kingdoms (fantasy India), the Qamarist Caliphate (fantasy Arabia), the Plains of Wind and Stone (fantasy Mongolia), Yún Fēng Guó (fantasy China), the Coastal Islands (fantasy Indonesia), and Saebyuksan (fantasy Korea). All of these get their own little sub-backgrounds. I'm happy to see them trying to make this more pan-Asian, and its nice to see people remembering that these places have their own millennia-old histories and cultures, instead of just focusing on fantasy Japan.

That'S an interesting development, because most of them seem to be new. The Iron Kingdoms were pretty much completely genocided in the old timeline, and the other places seem to be new, and less European than the outside forces were before. That would be a good retcon, for the most part. Foreign policy and dealing with other cultures makes the seting feel more alive and grounded in an inherent reality. Also, what is the folly of japonisme without its sister, chinoiserie?

I see no Yobanjin, though. So, no more bird- or giant snake rideing barbarians from the northern wastes?. That's ... actually kind of understandable. The Yobanjin were usually underdeveloped and therefore a bit bland.



maybe I'm misremembering but I kinda remember rokugan being super hostile to foreigners not curious or indifferent. I mostly read the book series with little dabs into the wiki rather than played the rpg so maybe that's not accurate.

Yes, because it is so much fun to play a super-chauvinistic, racist character. The cool clans (Mantis and Unicorn) were a lot more open, though. That's why they're the cool Clans.

[awa]

Yes, because it is so much fun to play a super-chauvinistic, racist character. The cool clans (Mantis and Unicorn) were a lot more open, though. That's why they're the cool Clans.

I mean at least in the novels (which is mostly where I was familiar with it) the clans were presented as deeply flawed; With almost every clan simply being flawed in a different ways. You can be a non-racist person in a racist society.

[Easy e]

IIRC each Great Clan represented one of the tenets of Bushido, so they excelled in their one tenet; but often struggled in others.

For example, Scorpion were Duty and Crane were Courtesy.

[Black Jester]

I mean at least in the novels (which is mostly where I was familiar with it) the clans were presented as deeply flawed; With almost every clan simply being flawed in a different ways. You can be a non-racist person in a racist society.

Yes, I know, I hoped that the irony was clearer. The clans are almost never portrayed as perfect (except when they do the presentation themselves), but the handling of other cultures - and members of the non-Samurai castes was pretty much condescending, most of the times (again, the cool clans are better at this, which in this case also include the Crab). I don't know about the term used for foreigners in the game, but I am certain that the one used for the lowest echelons of society is pretty much a slur.

Don't get me wrong - I like the setting and I am fine with not overanalyzing every aspect of the game looking for hidden clues that the authors are secret Hilter in disguise, as well as taking the setting and its premise as it is and as it is supposed to be played, but it is a lot more fun to me to be one of the righteous dudes who can treat a farmer with respect and compassion than one of the more stuffy ones who even replaces the foot mats in every room a Crab sat in during the last Winter Court.


IIRC each Great Clan represented one of the tenets of Bushido, so they excelled in their one tenet; but often struggled in others.

For example, Scorpion were Duty and Crane were Courtesy.

The Scorpion's orignal super power was of course, being the favourite Clan of John Wick, and having the signitature character with the most cleavage, so she made it to a lot of the first arc's artwork.

[DarknessEternal]

Okay. Now I am intruiged. Not having to deal with bland and boring wizards et al. stealing the show of more interesting/deserving characters look like an upgrade over standard D&D 5e. Also, over L5R 4e, a game that also suffered from making the blandest characters also the most overpowered (Crane and Shugenja, respectively).


Well, here's the thing though. A level 20 Bushi is competitive with a level 20 fighter (there's pros and cons). A level 20 Ritualist is equivalent to a 3rd level Wizard and substantially worse than a 3rd level Cleric, with only hit points and proficiency bonus that are higher. Since damage spells are the easiest to compare, their attack cantrip does 1d10+nothing at all levels. And their fireball like spell does 3d6, and the level 20 Ritualist can do that twice per day and only cast cantrips the rest of the day. The rest of their spells follow the exact same pattern of dumpster fire.

This is not boring and bland, this is worthless.

[awa]

Yes, I know, I hoped that the irony was clearer.


been in too many conversations where a setting having problematic characters was taken to mean the players/dm must be bad people who endorses said beliefs.

[Sparky McDibben]

maybe I'm misremembering but I kinda remember rokugan being super hostile to foreigners not curious or indifferent. I mostly read the book series with little dabs into the wiki rather than played the rpg so maybe that's not accurate.

That is accurate, in point of fact. My guess is that they're editing this to 1) facilitate a more pan-Asian style of play, and 2) to avoid racist douchery.


Well, here's the thing though. A level 20 Bushi is competitive with a level 20 fighter (there's pros and cons). A level 20 Ritualist is equivalent to a 3rd level Wizard and substantially worse than a 3rd level Cleric, with only hit points and proficiency bonus that are higher. Since damage spells are the easiest to compare, their attack cantrip does 1d10+nothing at all levels. And their fireball like spell does 3d6, and the level 20 Ritualist can do that twice per day and only cast cantrips the rest of the day. The rest of their spells follow the exact same pattern of dumpster fire.

I can't speak to this analysis until I've gone deeper into the Invocations, but I can confirm that casters in Rokugan get a hard nerf.

And now, on to Equipment!

Before anyone asks, a katana is a d8 martial weapon with the versatile (d10) and finesse properties. So it's a finesse longsword. Makes sense.

The chapter opens with a conversation about the players' relationship to cash. It assumes they'll be playing samurai, and thus won't need to dirty their hands with filthy lucre, but mentions that they've included costs for everything in case you're running a Samurai Champloo-style game where every session opens with someone's belly rumbling. Next up is outfits. You know how the 5E PHB mentions you can have "vestments" but has no opinions on how those clothes might impact anything? In Rokugan, apparently, even your sartorial schema have consequences. If you're wearing Resplendent Regalia, you can use a bonus action to gain advantage on a Charisma check once per rest. Traveling Clothes give you advantage on Con saves made due to the environment, and Unremarkable Garb gives you advantage to checks to blend into a crowd.

The outfits piece I found interesting and varied; I like having consequences for things. Imagine meeting a noble on the road while you're in Traveling Clothes and bemoaning the fact that you packed your "nice clothes" up!

Next up is armor, and I'm a little less enthused about this one. There are seven different kinds of armor, and each one has some special property. Not like the weapon properties, though (which would have been the best way to assign tags of "imposes disadvantage to X"), these have special properties like, "Wearer reduces magical cold damage they take by 2, has resistance to nonmagical cold damage." Again, this is something that sounds good when you're writing it, but that slows the game down when the player asks the DM, "Wait, is that cold damage magical or non-magical?" They also don't hold to the same conventions as 5E SRD armors; there's a heavy armor you can add your Dex mod to, for instance. Hilariously, they also bring back tower shields (now called wall shields), but they give you the same AC bonus as a regular shield; in addition they give you partial cover (which is a +2 boost to your AC, the exact same as a regular shield). I know that partial cover lets you add that +2 to saves vs AoE, but still. We can't get 3/4 cover for lugging this big damned shield around?

Things to note here are that they also nerfed light armors - none of the light armors goes higher than 11 + Dex mod, so no studded leather for you, ninjas!

Now, onto the weapons. There are nine pages of weapon descriptions but no illustrations of the actual weapons (presumably because the designers figured you could Google the ones you didn't know). The simple melee weapons include some doozies, such as the carpenter's hammer, the club, the cudgel, and the reinforced pipe. That's right, there's four different ways to differentiate "blunt object what bashes folks" in this game! Hilariously, all but the cudgel do the exact same damage (1d4 bludgeoning) but have different traits. The carpenter's hammer is a throwing weapon, because apparently that's how the Rokugani carpenters drive nails - from range! The club is a light weapon, and the reinforced pipe is a finesse weapon. Let that sink in. The REINFORCED PIPE uses your DEXTERITY. It also has the defensive property.

Which means I guess I should talk about the various properties they've invented. There are three new properties: Defensive, Paired, and Snaring. Defensive weapons increase your AC by 1 but don't stack with a shield. They also don't stack with each other, by my reading, so wielding two reinforced pipes doesn't give you an additional AC boost. Paired weapons are defined by the following: "When you engage in two-weapon fighting using two weapons that have the same name and the paired property, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack." An example of paired weapons would be sai or tiger hook swords. Snaring weapons let you forgo damage to force a Strength or Dexterity save (your choice?) against a flat DC (set by the weapon); on a failure, the creature is restrained (do not pass the grappled condition and do not collect $200). It can get un-restrained by using its action to make a Str/Dex check (same DC). Examples of these are the meteor hammer (DC 15, plus reach!), the nunchaku (also DC 15), and the swordbreaker (DC 10).

Leaving aside the fact I've never seen anyone get snared by a nunchaku before (that may be my limited experience), I'm mostly OK with these. Defensive weapons feel like something that should exist, Paired weapons let you ignore the Two-Weapon Fighting Style (for a cost - you're stuck with those weapons), and Snaring Weapons have their DC set somewhere between "good" and "I mean, it might work?"

As for the rest of it, I think there are too many weapons with insufficient variation. Do you really need a chain sickle and a meteor hammer?

Next up is adventuring gear. The only really important thing here is the "finger of jade" entry which helps to ward off Shadowlands influence. After that is Tools, which include artisan's tools (most of the entries here are familiar, except for a few like "sword-maintenance kit" and "tattoo set"), gaming sets, musical instruments, mystic implements, and "tools of subterfuge."

There's a couple things worth pointing out here: one, under artisan's tools, it lists "chemist's kit," but later under mystic implements, it lists "alchemist's kit." The difference is that the chemist's kit crafts poisons, antitoxins, fireworks, and flares. Fascinatingly, none of these were listed under the adventuring gear section. The alchemist's kit crafts potions. Secondly, "tools of subterfuge" covers the disguise kit, the infiltrator's equipment (thieves' tools, basically), and the invisible ink set. Invisible sounds cool, until you read that it takes a DC 17 Investigation or Medicine check to figure out how to read the message, and if you blow it, the message is gone. Also, no guidance on how you'd know that a secret message is present. So...bit of a mixed bag, really?

After that we get the mounts section, including three different kinds of horse, a bunch of stuff about barding, and a few boats. After that we get into stipends (including sample stipends by social class), and jobs. Can you believe that assassinations in Rokugan only pay about 10 gp per head? Too many ninjas driving the price down, I guess.

Then we have cost of living and food (mostly the same set up as the SRD), and afterwards it's Awakened Objects!

So, in Rokugan, everything has a spirit. That spirit can get woken up and used differently through magic. The book gives several examples, which are not just weapons (a nuance I appreciate), and goes into how awakened items are treated (more like friends or family than property). All awakened items require attunement. All awakened items have a rating between 1 and 5 to reflect how awakened ("woke?") they are. For weapons, this rating translates directly to a bonus to attack and damage. So you can get a +5 sword now.

This was the point when I realized that EDGE Studios was not super-familiar with 5E. Look, I remember reading the 5E DMG and thinking, "Wait, magic weapons only go up to +3 now? That's bull-- er, puckey," (that's a direct quote, y'all). But once you've played 5E a bunch, you start to realize why only a +3 is necessary, and how much that impacts the game. Giving a player a +5 magic weapon? Oof. Even if you make them really earn it, even if it's only for 20th level...that's still going to thoroughly muck up your bad guys.

Now, it does give triggers for each stage of awakening the weapon, giving it its own motivation, but it also gets the ability to deliver +1d6 damage on a crit at awakening level 1 - that's an extra 3 damage, doubled because it's a crit, so 6. Plus it gets invocations (spells) that you can bind into the item! Look, the point is that if you have a player who really wants to level up their magic weapon, these can get out of hand, fast.

Awakened armor is also a thing, and it also goes up to +5. Armors aren't quite as flashy as weapons, but they will make your PCs darn near impossible to hit. If you get a PC that optimizes for defense, such as a segmented plate-wearing bushi (base AC 18) with the Defense fighting style (+1 to AC) carrying a defensive weapon (+1 to AC), and then throw on the +5 for awakened armor? You're looking at trying to hit an AC 25. Zoinks, Scoob!

We also have a table for "Other Item Awakening," which used to be called nemuranai. This is basically a "Build Your Own Magic Item" table, which is pretty cool.

Finally, closing out the chapter are Charms! Charms were an awesome idea in the 5E SRD, a sort of temporary magic item. Which is why I was sad to realize they're not the same thing in this game. Charms provide some small magical buff to your character, but you can only have a set number based on your level, they only work 1x per long rest, and can be purchased and recharged at shrines. I say recharged because you can apparently regain the use of a charm by visiting a shrine and making its required offering.

There's a bunch that's weird with this. First of all, the charms tell us that "After you use a charm, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest. Alternatively, you can visit the shrine where you acquired it, spend an hour in contemplation, and make its required offering to regain the use of it more quickly." Does that mean I can't just drop these in as treasure if the PCs need to know where the charm came from? Do the charms need to be kept track of by origin? Does every charm come with a little inscription telling you where it's from: "Manufactured at the Resting Heron Shrine, Kaiu Prefecture. Quality Inspector: Hida Hideyo." Why not just say you can take a short rest at any shrine or sanctified place to recharge your charms?

The charms themselves are varied - they do everything from remove conditions to healing a little to letting you know someone's motivation. They're good flavor and decently mechanically varied. I think they need to remove the one that does healing (it's essentially a 1x/day, undepletable health potion), but the rest are decent.

So yeah, this chapter is a mixed bag for me. Some good ideas, some good implementations...some really not-great implementations.

But join us next time, my mortal muchachos, for CUSTOMIZATION AND FEATS!!!

[Schwann145]

However, the mechanics aren't nearly as simplified as I would prefer for a 5th edition game, and draw a LOT of inspiration from 4th edition. You're tracking various resource pools for martial characters, and the whole thing feels fiddly. This is definitely not the way to introduce new players to the game, but advanced players (or players who like 4th edition) might really enjoy it.

Consider me super glad that a developer decided to not cater to the lowest common denominator and actually expect players of a game to... my god, be responsible for playing a game!
Too many gamers are infuriatingly lazy and 5e has coddled the hell out of such players. The game isn't supposed to play itself while you passively watch from the sidelines. Being responsible for a few fiddly bits is incredibly reasonable and I'm all for it. :P

In other news, thanks for the continued review! I'll continue to follow as I slowly go through the book myself. :)

[Sparky McDibben]

Consider me super glad that a developer decided to not cater to the lowest common denominator and actually expect players of a game to... my god, be responsible for playing a game!
Too many gamers are infuriatingly lazy and 5e has coddled the hell out of such players. The game isn't supposed to play itself while you passively watch from the sidelines. Being responsible for a few fiddly bits is incredibly reasonable and I'm all for it. :P

I agree with your sentiment about 5E players, but this book badly needed another editing pass. I also wish we'd gotten some kind of idea what downtime looks like in this world, or how to go about building political power. Or, for that matter, what to do with political support when you have it.


In other news, thanks for the continued review! I'll continue to follow as I slowly go through the book myself. :)

Thanks for the feedback. I'm considering purchasing Planegea for 5E as well; would anyone be interested in a review of that game?

[Schwann145]

I agree with your sentiment about 5E players, but this book badly needed another editing pass. I also wish we'd gotten some kind of idea what downtime looks like in this world, or how to go about building political power. Or, for that matter, what to do with political support when you have it.

I believe the idea is, "this is the 'adventure' version of Rokugan, where you go do the heroic thing/fight the big oni/find glory instead of play politics," and if you want to bother with a truer, more political, version of Rokugan, that's what this version (https://edge-studio.net/categories-games/l5r/) is for.
Now, I do wish D&D wasn't utter garbage at political/social situations, but that's just the reality we have to live with, ya know? So, to answer the question, what you do with political support, or building political power, is handled exactly like it is in non-Rokugan D&D - by the skin of the DMs teeth, and you pray they are good at winging it!

[Sparky McDibben]

So, to answer the question, what you do with political support, or building political power, is handled exactly like it is in non-Rokugan D&D - by the skin of the DMs teeth, and you pray they are good at winging it!

No offense, Schwann, but I really hope somebody comes up with a better solution. :smallbiggrin:

Now, onto Chapter 5: Customization and Feats!

Multiclassing takes all of one page; it follows the same formula as the SRD and is quick and to the point. No real surprises here.

Now for the feats. First of all, could we get a list of all available feats? I know there isn't one in the PHB, but the PHB only has like 5 pages of feats; Adventures in Rokugan has more than triple that (17 pages, for those of you playing the home game).

We start off with general feats, those available to anyone of any background. These cover everything from Battlefield Training (a slightly better Weapon Master feat), Fashionable (you can take a long rest to give everyone in your party either Resplendent Regalia or Unremarkable Garb, as described above, making them fabulous, darling!), Genuine Idealist (when you get inspiration, you can let someone else gain inspiration, too), and Unusual Weapon Mastery (which lets you use a random everyday object as a weapon; examples include ropes that do 1d4 slashing damage (yes, you read that right; I don't know how a rope does slashing damage, but just smile and move along)).

Most of the general feats are fine. Some of them are too focused on explicitly giving the PC permission to play something weird, or on enabling an odd character choice, but on the whole, they're OK.

Next for the Great Clan feats. These all appear to allow you to lean into one facet of a given Great Clan, and each Great Clan gets four feats. Continuing with the Crane Clan (because Cranes are the easiest to make fun of), you get four options.

Cautious Rhetorician gives you some moves from the Courtier class. I'm going to come right out and say that I don't like this design; it weakens the class archetypes. If you want to give Cranes the option to be really good at intrigue stuff, then make this a more meaningful boost and lock it to Crane clan courtiers.

Poise and Purpose gives you: "You have studied acting with intention, allowing you to make the most of your effort. When you succeed on a roll you made with advantage, if both the higher and the lower d20 had a result high enough to succeed, you gain 1 of the following benefits of your choice" (emphasis mine). The benefits of the feat are stuff like regaining spent Hit Dice or Focus points, or gaining some temp hp. It's nice to see someone trying to do something with the other advantage die. Again, though, the design reads as fiddly and difficult to track. There's a reason advantage / disadvantage works so well - you're only looking for one number, not two.

The next Crane Clane feat is Resolve of Iron, which gives you advantage against being stunned or frightened, and lets you roll a Hit Die to remove the condition. In addition, when you're at half hp or lower, you get resistance to psychic damage. However, the description of the feat describes you as "extremely resolute...hard to startle" - so why is this not giving you proficiency in Wisdom saving throws and add proficiency bonus to Initiative score?

Finally, the last feat is Well-Connected, which lets you find a contact who can get things for the party. At levels 1-3, these items are limited to 5 sp, but at 20th level, they're 100 gp. I don't think I've ever heard of a 20th level party who can't procure a simple 100 gp item.

My take on the Great Clan feats broadly is that they are trying to enable you to be a hero of old, but they aren't sure what fantasy they want to emulate. For example, the Well-Connected feat? Why isn't that letting you leverage a vast network of contacts across the Empire, letting you acquire just the right thing at just the right time...like a good Crane should. Also, too many of them seem focused around letting you borrow class features from other classes.

The Imperial Family and Minor Clans get some feat options, too, although they suffer from the same problems as the Great Clan feats. For example, the Imperial Family feat lets you gain advantage on a Charisma check once per long rest. That's...*checks notes* ...actually worse than the bonus from wearing fancy duds. The reminder to your subordinates that you are a bearer of a Heavenly Mandate with an actual hotline to the divine itself gives you advantage once per day. Man, the Rokugani sure have fallen off that religion wagon, y'all. Next they'll be wanting a Diet.

There are also some background feats, like Artisan's Ingenuity which lets you gather up to your level in gp of supplies for a job (not sure how this is a feat and not a background feature?). There are some species-specific feats, too. The Naga get the ability to Constrict, Mazoku get an additional feature for their Demonic True Form, specters get sending and prestidigitation as spells, and humans get Persistence, which is basically Lucky but 1x/day.

Feats are real hard to design for, y'all. For what it's worth, they had the right idea - these let you differentiate yourself from another character of your same background, and they lean into the identity of the backgrounds itself. Again, though, the implementation falls short for me. Some of these are OK, but I feel like three options per Clan was enough, and avoid feats that give away class features. Or rather, put those feats in the general feats section, not in the Clans themselves.

Next up is the Motivations chapter, which is where EDGE Studios takes the Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws concept in the PHB and gives it the Death Star treatment (they blow it up).

So instead of TBIFs, AiR asks you to choose two motivations from several different options:


Bonds: Connections with other people that are key to a character’s story
Desires: Personal goals a character wishes to achieve
Duties: Obligations a character must fulfill
Fears: Misapprehensions about oneself or the world that lead a character to question themselves, or once-rational fears that have grown into
obsessions
Ideals: Firm beliefs a character holds that lead them to behave chivalrously
Regrets: Past events that weigh heavily on a character’s mind


Each of these has between 7 - 16 examples, but the best part is that it explicitly tells both the players and DM that these are to be used to drive conflict. Each motivation generates complications, and they have a great chart at the end of the chapter that highlights this.

This is great, honestly. I really like that we're exploring character motivations instead of descriptors. Too often, TBIFs get written down at the start of a campaign and then forgotten about, with motivations, it feels very much like you need to tie your motivation to the character and then play the hell out of it, which can cause tension and conflict between the party when they have to choose between avenging PC X's dead mentor by chasing a fleeing arsonist...or saving PC Y's dojo, the only thing connecting her to her family's past, which the arsonist just set on fire. Great stuff.

Alright, ladies and germs, I'm going to call it for tonight, but tomorrow, we delve into Techniques and Invocations! (This ought to be interesting).

[t209]

Ritualist is the worst class I've ever seen.
I wonder if TTRPG seems to have "curse" on any Asian-coded magic user.
I.E- Wu-Jen, which gets taboo (namely not eating meat, not bathing, and so on) in exchange for what is essentially not that different from magic user.
I am not sure where they get that idea from.
Edit: Also if Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay even try to do Cathay, there might be surprise.
Clueless New player: I want to be a Samurai.
DM: *Laughs* Silly you, Fantasy China don't have Samurai. Here is a character sheet for an entry-level bureaucrat attached to the party and good luck not dying from infected wound.

[awa]

except the taboos at least the ones in 3rd edition are your choice, they list a number of sample taboos like not eating meat, not drinking alcohol, making an offering of food or not wearing certain colors. If you break a taboo you cant cast spells for the rest of the day and that's it.

And exchange you get to be a full caster, its not a particularly powerful full caster but that just means its way better balanced than a wizard.

[Schwann145]

Well, here's the thing though. A level 20 Bushi is competitive with a level 20 fighter (there's pros and cons). A level 20 Ritualist is equivalent to a 3rd level Wizard and substantially worse than a 3rd level Cleric, with only hit points and proficiency bonus that are higher. Since damage spells are the easiest to compare, their attack cantrip does 1d10+nothing at all levels. And their fireball like spell does 3d6, and the level 20 Ritualist can do that twice per day and only cast cantrips the rest of the day. The rest of their spells follow the exact same pattern of dumpster fire.

This is not boring and bland, this is worthless.

Emphasis added. I've spent about 5 minutes reading the Ritualist as well as a couple of Invocations, and you seem to be quite wrong.
The class is certainly significantly weaker than core 5e spellcasters (by design I imagine) but you're wildly downplaying how it's mechanics actually work, as well as the availability of Favor to fuel Invocations.

[DarknessEternal]

Emphasis added. I've spent about 5 minutes reading the Ritualist as well as a couple of Invocations, and you seem to be quite wrong.
The class is certainly significantly weaker than core 5e spellcasters (by design I imagine) but you're wildly downplaying how it's mechanics actually work, as well as the availability of Favor to fuel Invocations.

Looks at what that favor can actually do for invocations, then look at the amount of favor they actually have access to.

Spending as much favor as you can gets about a 2nd level spell's effect. They also can only do that once per day because they won't have enough favor left to do another max favored invocation.

[Schwann145]

Looks at what that favor can actually do for invocations, then look at the amount of favor they actually have access to.

Spending as much favor as you can gets about a 2nd level spell's effect. They also can only do that once per day because they won't have enough favor left to do another max favored invocation.

None of the Invocations have a high base Favor cost. If you want to blow all your Favor on one or two Invocations you can, but you certainly don't have to, and you certainly aren't therefore limited to only two a day.
Also, there are tons of listed ways to gain bonus Favor for free to spend on Invocations, sometimes as part of the School, sometimes built right into the Invocations themselves.
Also, you are not limited to "1/day" for Favor. You can regain it more than that if you have the time and choose to.

The Ritualist is certainly not a Wizard or Cleric, but it's not even trying to be. It's more like a Warlock with more flexible spellcasting.

As for spell "power," well the largest, longest lived complaint about D&D, 5e certainly included, is that spellcasters are way too powerful compared to their non-caster counterparts. Well, Edge seems to have listened, and their spellcaster is much more equal, but different, and will be useful without stealing the show from the martials.
Seems like a good decision. They could have just thrown Fireball back into the mix and called it a day. Instead they were thoughtful with design.

[Sparky McDibben]

Alright, team! Let's hit the thing you've all been waiting for - TECHNIQUES!

I have split this chapter up, because despite the name, it actually covers Techniques and Invocations. It's also the last player-facing chapter, so if you're planning on playing in this game, you might want to stop after the Invocations post.

Martial techniques are certain abilities granted to the bushi and duelist classes (or anyone who picked up the half-dozen feats that let you get access to those class' abilities). They're essentially like a training kata + magic. There are 21 of them in this chapter, plus a couple in the actual class descriptions.

This leads me to my first complaint: there is no table of techniques. Just a list of the techniques and their page number would have been super-useful. Adding in Focus cost, triggering action (so you can see which ones are Reaction and which ones are Full Action, etc) would have been even more useful. This is especially odd given that their layout has been pretty top-notch thus far.

Anyway, let's dive in!

But first, the book has some 'splaining to do. You see, the very first thing in this chapter, before they even tell you what techniques are, are a few key term definitions. These cover areas of effect, multitarget attack rolls (just wait), and new conditions.

So, the new area of effect shapes are not really doing anything new. For example, the Slam area is basically a slightly rectangular cube. I mean, literally, that's all it is. Why did you make an entire new area of effect for this? Or the Wave, which is a slightly broader cone.

The only new AoE shape is the Sweep, which is basically a crescent opening in the direction the PC is facing. And that brings me to my second complaint: there's no facing in 5E. This is one of those things that seems subtle until you realize how many things in 5E ignore facing, so to integrate them, now you've got to do a bunch of legwork. This should have been caught in playtesting.

Next up is multitarget attack rolls. Multitarget attack rolls are what they sound like - you make an attack roll against multiple targets, compare their AC to your roll, and then resolve an effect. Which brings me to my third complaint: WHY IS THIS NOT A SAVING THROW? THIS IS SOLVED TECH, GUYS, C'MON!!!!

I get that the math is the same, but it (AGAIN) puts additional cognitive load on the DM. Is the player rolling an attack roll or are you rolling a saving throw? This is why attack rolls hit one target, and anything else forces a save against the ability. It. Is. Simple. You'll recall, dear reader, that simplicity is the key selling point of 5E. This is a highlight of the designers misunderstanding the system they're designing for and trying to work against it.

These guys had a great idea, and then they absolutely botched the implementation. We'll see how in a second.

Finally, the explaining mostly stops with seven (SEVEN!) new conditions. Let's run these down:


Bleeding - The creature takes an extra 1d4 damage at the start of its turn every round until it regains hp by any means
Disoriented - Can't make opportunity attacks
Distracted - A -2 penalty to AC, removed when anyone hits the creature with an attack
Maimed - A -10 penalty to move speed and disadvantage to Dex saves. Ends when the creature regains hp.
Marked for Death - Marked creature takes an extra 1d8 force damage from the next attack that hits it from the creature that marked it for death in the first place
Provoked - A provoked creature has disadvantage on attack rolls against any creature other than the one that provoked it.
Weakened - A weakened creature loses its damage resistances, and its damage immunities become resistances


OK, so bleeding and disoriented are bad. Bleeding just gives me more stuff to track as the DM, or for the PCs to track. Bleeding is the kind of condition I'm OK with as a monster ability, but I don't want to have to track 1d4 hp every round. Moreover, multiple applications of Bleeding don't stack, so it's always 1d4. This really should have been a special attack.

Disoriented should have simply taken away a creature's reaction, except that I think we already have conditions that do that, so this is useless.

Distracted seems like it should not coexist with advantage. Marked for Death seems like a fiddlier application of Bleeding.

Now, Maimed, Provoked, and Weakened are all solid choices. These help solve the "there's no way to tank in 5E" problem, and they absolutely should have been in this book. It just sucks that there's too much dross with the gold.

And now we finally get into the technique descr--

Wait, never mind, there's more explaining to get through. Each technique has a cost in the action economy, too, so they walk you through what the action requirements are of a given technique. It can cost an action, an attack (made as part of the Attack action), a reaction, or an opportunity attack. It literally says you can spend 1 OA to activate a technique. I'm...honestly not sure where the book gives you more than one opportunity attack. Godd@mnit, now I have to go back through and find that later.

--Edit: I've gone back through the player options with a fine-toothed comb, and I cannot find anywhere that would give anyone more than one opportunity attack. This is either referring to something that got cut during development or is another example of the developers misunderstanding the 5E system.

There's a bunch of other stuff in this section about paying the Focus cost, damage, bonus effects, etc. I'm going to skip that and jump into the actual techniques.

So, these fall into some broad categories:

Techniques That Do Stuff Already in the PHB: 6
Techniques That Do Damage + A Condition: 9
Techniques That Do Something New: 6

The ones that do stuff already in the PHB are things like Crescent Moon Defense, which lets you spend a reaction after being missed by an attack to attack your attacker.

That's Riposte, the Battlemaster maneuver. There's a bonus effect if you use a slashing weapon, but ultimately, at its core, this is just Riposte with a longer title.

There's another called Iron Forest Defense, which lets you attack someone who just came within range of your polearm. Gee, it's like you've mastered that polearm! If only, like, there were a feat for that. Somewhere in the SRD, maybe. And it didn't require a resource expenditure except your reaction. Hmmm.... Someone should get WotC started on that.

Most of these techniques do damage and inflict one of the new conditions, like maimed or distracted, etc. A few do something new, like Falling Heavens Shot, which lets you "hang" a ranged attack. Those are awesome! I just wish there were more of them than a half-dozen.

Now, it is worth noting that several of the ones that mimic PHB features allow you to do so to more than one target or at range, so there is some degree of extra flexibility there, but ultimately, we're still stuck in "I attack"-land, we're just attacking more.

Honestly, this section was the biggest letdown in the whole friggin' book. This is why I purchased it. This was the value proposition. And the ideas are there, they're just buried under overdesigned nonsense that gives me heart palpitations about running it at the table. This is the saddest I've been about an RPG product since they cancelled Adventures in Middle Earth.

Alright, y'all, we'll pick back up next time with Invocations, see if DarknessEternal's fears are justified. So long!

[Dark.Revenant]

None of the Invocations have a high base Favor cost. If you want to blow all your Favor on one or two Invocations you can, but you certainly don't have to, and you certainly aren't therefore limited to only two a day.
Also, there are tons of listed ways to gain bonus Favor for free to spend on Invocations, sometimes as part of the School, sometimes built right into the Invocations themselves.
Also, you are not limited to "1/day" for Favor. You can regain it more than that if you have the time and choose to.

The Ritualist is certainly not a Wizard or Cleric, but it's not even trying to be. It's more like a Warlock with more flexible spellcasting.

As for spell "power," well the largest, longest lived complaint about D&D, 5e certainly included, is that spellcasters are way too powerful compared to their non-caster counterparts. Well, Edge seems to have listened, and their spellcaster is much more equal, but different, and will be useful without stealing the show from the martials.
Seems like a good decision. They could have just thrown Fireball back into the mix and called it a day. Instead they were thoughtful with design.

Let's take 11th level Ritualist with the Elementalist subclass (for simplicity over Artisan).

Ritualist 11 begins the day with 5 Favor, and has 3 Tier-0, 7 Tier-1, 4 Tier-2, and 2 Tier-3 Invocations known. Tier-0 is akin to a ritual, Tier-1 is akin to a non-scaling cantrip, Tier-2 is akin to a first-level spell, and Tier-3 is akin to a second-level spell, although Tier mechanically scales directly to spell level for the purposes of mixing with other D&D spellcasting mechanics. Most non-spellcasting stats are the same as a Wizard/Sorcerer, except a free tool proficiency and access to all simple weapons. Favor returns on a Long Rest or a 4-hour rest, if certain conditions apply. There is no Short Rest recovery. We can also temporarily "know" another Invocation for one cast, once per day, although we pay double Favor to do so. We also pick the Fire and Air elements as our specialties, which means if we spend 2 or more Favor on a Fire Invocation or an Air Invocation, we can use a bonus action to get an extra Favor for Empowerment. Alternatively, once per Short/Long Rest, we can use that bonus action to essentially use Quicken Spell, costing 1 Favor but (as far as I can tell) we can use any Invocations we want for both casts—as long as they're not both the same element.

Invocations have Resonances and occasionally an Offering, which empower the effects "for free" by generating Favor applied to the Invocation's Empowerments. You can generally cast something that has at least one Resonance applicable in a given situation. Each Favor added to Empowerments is mechanically akin to upcasting a spell by one level, although the actual effect from this is more like 1/2 of an upcast. Worth noting is that several Invocations have a duration of "Ongoing", which means it lasts 1 Round except that you can pay 1 extra Favor per round to keep it active.


So, let's tally this up.

We have about seven cantrip-grade Invocations to work with, all castable all-will, and they will generally do damage akin to a baseline cantrip (e.g. 1d10 damage). The non-damage effects are also comparable to D&D cantrips, so we have a reasonably good baseline level of utility, especially considering that we'll usually get a slightly bigger effect (akin to a level 0.5 or even level 1 spell) if Resonances apply. With 7 to choose from, at least one will have a Resonance that applies, in most situations, for an effect akin to a (weak) 1st-level spell. If we're especially lucky, we'll get 2 Resonances that apply on a Fire or Air Invocation, meaning we could spend a Bonus Action to essentially have 3 free Favor to spend on it, for an effect akin to a (weak) 2nd-level spell. We also have the Tier-0 Invocations to use as at-will ritual-style utility.

On a typical day, we won't have a 4-hour break at a temple between combat encounters unless the whole party is taking a Long Rest, so we can't assume we'll have anything more than the starting 5 Favor to work with per Long Rest. If we get more, great. But we're certainly not going to count on it. With that 5 Favor, we can cast up to 5x Tier-2 Invocations, 3x Tier-2 and 1x Tier-3, or 1x Tier-2 and 2x Tier-3. Since we have a relatively healthy selection to choose from in terms of variety, a Resonance will usually apply if we want to get the most bang for our buck. For Fire and Air Invocations, this will usually allow us to use a Bonus Action for an additional free Favor, so we can generally assume that when we expend 1 or more of our precious Favor resource, we'll get something on par with a 2nd-level spell or better. If we absolutely max out a single Invocation with multiple Resonances that apply, we can get something like 6 Empowerments on a Tier-3 Invocation at the cost of all of our Favor, for an effect on par with a 5th-level spell.

So, in ideal circumstances, we are essentially a caster with Rituals, non-scaling Cantrips, situationally-at-will more-or-less-1st-level spells, and about 5x 2nd-level spells per Long Rest—with the option of casting more powerful spells (up to about 5th level) at the cost of longevity with those 5 "slots". Things look better in a Gritty Realism game (we'd often have Favor recovery on a rest period that's faster than a Gritty Short Rest), but Adventures in Rokugan doesn't assume anything about the length of a Long Rest. As such, I'd rate the Ritualist as being effectively a half-caster, in D&D terms, but with a wide selection of weaker at-will abilities in place of martial prowess. The biggest problem is the lack of automatic damage scaling; martial classes will quickly leave you in the dust, with no way to even remotely compete.

[togapika]

What, no Tanuki race? I AM APPALLED!

[Schwann145]

Why did you make an entire new area of effect for this? Or the Wave, which is a slightly broader cone.
Because they're mechanically distinct and therefore need to be explained? A Cube is a set spacial effect that doesn't change it's dimensions. The new Slam has variable dimensions (ie: it's expandable based on technique used). It would be wholly inappropriate to introduce a new thing and not explain it, so they explain it. :)


The only new AoE shape is the Sweep, which is basically a crescent opening in the direction the PC is facing. And that brings me to my second complaint: there's no facing in 5E. This is one of those things that seems subtle until you realize how many things in 5E ignore facing, so to integrate them, now you've got to do a bunch of legwork. This should have been caught in playtesting. Except there definitely is "facing" in 5e. Burning Hands doesn't cast behind you, it casts in the direction you face it. Exactly the same thing happening here.


Next up is multitarget attack rolls. Multitarget attack rolls are what they sound like - you make an attack roll against multiple targets, compare their AC to your roll, and then resolve an effect. Which brings me to my third complaint: WHY IS THIS NOT A SAVING THROW? THIS IS SOLVED TECH, GUYS, C'MON!!!!

I get that the math is the same, but it (AGAIN) puts additional cognitive load on the DM. Is the player rolling an attack roll or are you rolling a saving throw? This is why attack rolls hit one target, and anything else forces a save against the ability. It. Is. Simple. You'll recall, dear reader, that simplicity is the key selling point of 5E. This is a highlight of the designers misunderstanding the system they're designing for and trying to work against it.
You seem to be inserting a 5e rule that doesn't exist. There's nothing hard and fast that says things that target multiple targets must use the saving throw mechanics and not the attack mechanics.
Also, if the "additional cognitive load" of this ("Is it an attack or a save?" "It's an attack." "Okay.") is too much for people, then we are absolutely doomed as a species. Doomed. :P


OK, so bleeding and disoriented are bad. Bleeding just gives me more stuff to track as the DM, or for the PCs to track. Bleeding is the kind of condition I'm OK with as a monster ability, but I don't want to have to track 1d4 hp every round. Moreover, multiple applications of Bleeding don't stack, so it's always 1d4. This really should have been a special attack.

Disoriented should have simply taken away a creature's reaction, except that I think we already have conditions that do that, so this is useless.

Distracted seems like it should not coexist with advantage. Marked for Death seems like a fiddlier application of Bleeding.

Now, Maimed, Provoked, and Weakened are all solid choices. These help solve the "there's no way to tank in 5E" problem, and they absolutely should have been in this book. It just sucks that there's too much dross with the gold.
This is leading me to believe something I'll get to in a minute. Hang tight...!


It literally says you can spend 1 OA to activate a technique. I'm...honestly not sure where the book gives you more than one opportunity attack. Godd@mnit, now I have to go back through and find that later.

--Edit: I've gone back through the player options with a fine-toothed comb, and I cannot find anywhere that would give anyone more than one opportunity attack. This is either referring to something that got cut during development or is another example of the developers misunderstanding the 5E system.
Real quick though, this is pretty clearly an artifact leftover from editing. You're not wrong, generally, that the book could have used another once over in the editing department. You'll notice if you look through every technique that none of them actually cost an "Opportunity Attack," and everything is either an Action, Reaction, or Attack.


So, these fall into some broad categories:

Techniques That Do Stuff Already in the PHB: 6
Techniques That Do Damage + A Condition: 9
Techniques That Do Something New: 6

The ones that do stuff already in the PHB are things like Crescent Moon Defense, which lets you spend a reaction after being missed by an attack to attack your attacker.

That's Riposte, the Battlemaster maneuver. There's a bonus effect if you use a slashing weapon, but ultimately, at its core, this is just Riposte with a longer title.

There's another called Iron Forest Defense, which lets you attack someone who just came within range of your polearm. Gee, it's like you've mastered that polearm! If only, like, there were a feat for that. Somewhere in the SRD, maybe. And it didn't require a resource expenditure except your reaction. Hmmm.... Someone should get WotC started on that.
Let's get to the point I was starting to see above. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what this product is.
This is not "additional material" that you would use alongside the player options in the PHB. This is *standalone* material that is constructed on the chassis of 5e.
Yes, Crescent Moon Defense is, basically, the Riposte of the Battlemaster. The Battlemaster doesn't exist in Rokugan, the Bushi does. If you want your character to have a "riposte-like" ability, Crescent Moon Defense is it.

[t209]

What, no Tanuki race? I AM APPALLED!
Well, Tanuki might not be “kid friendly” (I mean DND and TTRPG isn’t that friendly, but Tanuki had one aspect that is big no no.)
Though many did go for shapeshifting other than certain one I can’t discuss.

[awa]

Well, Tanuki might not be “kid friendly” (I mean DND and TTRPG isn’t that friendly, but Tanuki had one aspect that is big no no.)
Though many did go for shapeshifting other than certain one I can’t discuss.

I have seen enough PG tanuki that just glosses over/ignores the weirdest traits to know that isn't that big a deal.

and.......
A quick glance at the wiki seems to indicate they are in fact a thing in l5r
https://l5r.fandom.com/wiki/Tanuki

It seems like it would most likely be a an "animal yokai"

[raygun goth]

So if we were actually going to fix up the Ritualist, what would that look like?

Obviously some damage scaling on things. More Favor? Recover Favor with a short rest?

[Sparky McDibben]

You seem to be inserting a 5e rule that doesn't exist. There's nothing hard and fast that says things that target multiple targets must use the saving throw mechanics and not the attack mechanics.

There actually is such a limiter, though. In the PHB, p 194: "Choose a target. Pick a target within your attack's range: a creature, an object, or a location." Note the singular articles used - these are clearly specifying that attacks are limited to one creature.


Real quick though, this is pretty clearly an artifact leftover from editing. You're not wrong, generally, that the book could have used another once over in the editing department. You'll notice if you look through every technique that none of them actually cost an "Opportunity Attack," and everything is either an Action, Reaction, or Attack.

Ah, good catch!


Let's get to the point I was starting to see above. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what this product is.
This is not "additional material" that you would use alongside the player options in the PHB. This is *standalone* material that is constructed on the chassis of 5e.
Yes, Crescent Moon Defense is, basically, the Riposte of the Battlemaster. The Battlemaster doesn't exist in Rokugan, the Bushi does. If you want your character to have a "riposte-like" ability, Crescent Moon Defense is it.

So, this is a solid counter-argument, probably the best one available, and I applaud you for finding a silver lining here. I'm afraid it falls flat for me for three reasons:


I didn't buy this book to do the same stuff the PHB gives me. I wanted something new and fresh and exciting. If the best a designer has is, "Well, it does the same stuff the PHB characters can do, but using alternative mechanics," I don't want to spend money on their product. This is not new - it's the same stuff with new dice rolls.
Largely, this content gets me to the same place the PHB does. And that place is "I Attack Land," the world's least exciting theme park for martial characters. It gives me a meaningless choice between attacking one target and attacking a bunch of targets. I don't think martial characters are undertuned in combat - they are undertuned in everything else! :smallbiggrin:
This design fails to solve the problems of martial characters in 5E. Ultimately, this is my problem with this design. It came out advertised as something new for martials, but it's not. We're still stuck in the land of "I attack."


Schwann, I'm glad that you find value in the design here, because that means there's something valuable in it, and I'm glad those devs didn't waste their time. But it's not valuable for me. This is not the answer I was looking for. That doesn't mean either of us is wrong or right; it just means we were looking for different things. I encourage you to call out Techniques you think are cool, and unique, and different in the thread - share the stuff you think is awesome here!

Alright, now let's dive into Invocations!

These are the magic system in Rokugan, and the chapter lists 41 separate invocations. Invocations are basically spells powered by a new resource called Favor, accrued by the Ritualist. Spent Favor recovers on a long rest or after 4 hours of some spiritually refreshing activity. Favor is capped between 3 and 7 over the course of all 20 levels (meaning you have 3 Favor maximum at 1st level, which rises to only 7 Favor maximum at 20th). So you functionally only get 7 spell slots ever.

Like I said upthread, casters got a hard nerf in Rokugan.

Invocations themselves have a base Favor cost. Of the total 41, 20 of them require zero Favor to activate, and 13 only require 1, while 8 require 2 Favor. So the good news is that you will almost always be able to do something. However, each invocation comes with a list of empowerments, which are things you can spend Favor on to modify the spell. These can include things like, "change the casting time to a bonus action" or increasing the number of targets affected.

So while you can always do something, it will likely cause some hard choices about what to spend your Favor on. Hard choices are good, if that's what you're looking for, but this could get parsimonious real quick. Another thing to note is that certain kinds of magic either do not exist or are badly underserved. For example, there is no resurrection magic (outside of one quick mention in the pilgrim class) at all. There are only two healing spells, and both of them require extra Favor to restore hp - when cast at zero Favor, they only allow creatures to spend one Hit Die. These kami be stingy.

Now, I think that's kind of awesome, because it encourages highly tactical play and raises the stakes of every combat encounter. Combine these with gritty realism and / or slow natural healing, and you're cooking with some highly flammable Crisco, y'all. But it does make the ritualist player feel less-than-useful, and that's something to watch out for.

One thing I think is both really cool worldbuilding and slows the game down are Resonances. Each Invocation has a Resonance listed, which are symbols that are thematically linked with the Invocation in some way. Casting the Invocation in the presence of a Resonance gives you bonus Favor you can spend on empowerments. So one of those healing spells I mentioned earlier? It's Resonances are: "You are standing or swimming in a body of fresh water such as a river or pond (1 bonus favor), you are in a shrine, temple, or other place of spiritual power (2 bonus favor)."

Now, why should that slow down the game? After all, shouldn't a player know if they're in a "shrine, temple or other place of spiritual power?" Well, yes, they should. But what will probably happen at the table is that the player will try to retroactively invoke Resonances after declaring the Invocation. So instead of saying, "I am standing in a shrine, so I will cast Path To Inner Peace," the player will say, "Someone needs healing. Let me find my healing spell. OK, Path to Inner Peace. Let me find the spell. OK, can I get any Resonances? Hey, DM, are we near any bodies of fresh water?"

This is the sort of thing that really should have come up in playtesting. It's a great idea, with a great intent. But I feel like this should have been implemented as bonus Favor for all spells you cast under some circumstances. So if your clan does fire magic, you're going to get +2 bonus Favor for all Fire spells (the Invocations are themed by element, except for the Void element, because apparently it's Legend of the Four Rings now). Alternatively, the book should have told DMs to be extra generous with Favor for the Ritualist class, including what the designers assumed would be available, and how they came to that assumption.

As it is...the Ritualist isn't a complete dumpster fire, but it requires a player who is actively trying to get the most out of their Invocations by creative problem-solving and strong resource management skills.

Finally, Invocations are stunningly light on damage potential. As others have noted, Invocations do not damage-scale up with character level, so you will lag behind martial characters from level 4+. Be really careful before getting into fights.

Alright, you crazy kids, Sparky needs his pills. We'll pick up next time with the DMs Section and Adventuring in Rokugan!

[Schwann145]

So, this is a solid counter-argument, probably the best one available, and I applaud you for finding a silver lining here. I'm afraid it falls flat for me for three reasons:


I didn't buy this book to do the same stuff the PHB gives me. I wanted something new and fresh and exciting. If the best a designer has is, "Well, it does the same stuff the PHB characters can do, but using alternative mechanics," I don't want to spend money on their product. This is not new - it's the same stuff with new dice rolls.
Largely, this content gets me to the same place the PHB does. And that place is "I Attack Land," the world's least exciting theme park for martial characters. It gives me a meaningless choice between attacking one target and attacking a bunch of targets. I don't think martial characters are undertuned in combat - they are undertuned in everything else! :smallbiggrin:
This design fails to solve the problems of martial characters in 5E. Ultimately, this is my problem with this design. It came out advertised as something new for martials, but it's not. We're still stuck in the land of "I attack."


Schwann, I'm glad that you find value in the design here, because that means there's something valuable in it, and I'm glad those devs didn't waste their time. But it's not valuable for me. This is not the answer I was looking for. That doesn't mean either of us is wrong or right; it just means we were looking for different things. I encourage you to call out Techniques you think are cool, and unique, and different in the thread - share the stuff you think is awesome here!

To your first point: well, that's what I mean when I say fundamental misunderstanding, ;)
You wanted this product to deliver something it was never intending to. If you want to play in Rokugan with new and fresh and exciting, that's what "Legend of the Five Rings" is for! It's an outstanding game and I wish I got to play it more! However, this is not "Legend of the Five Rings," this is "Adventures in Rokugan." This is jumping on the popularity bandwagon of 5e, not designing something new and better/different.

To your second and third point, I totally agree. But, again, L5R on a 5e chassis is going to have all the same problems that come with using the 5e chassis. They aren't reinventing the wheel here (they already did that - again, with the L5R game).
I agree, again, that 5e sucks at doing anything that it doesn't already do (namely, "I attack") and it's a real shame that the developers either can't, or won't, address that.
I think Adventures in Rokugan does a lot to make "I attack" less boring than the core 5e offers. For instance, a huge critique of the Fighter is that, really, Battle Master should have been the core class. AIR actually does that, giving the martials a *lot* of customizability that is missing from core 5e! That's fantastic. But... at the end of the day, it's still 5e. Here is a setting where martials are the cream of the crop, and spellcasting is much more socially important than physically so... and they delivered on that by nerfing the heck out of spellcasting to be much more in line with what the setting expects and, as a side effect, brings it down to reasonable levels so spellcasting won't totally dominate the game the way it does in core 5e!
But 5e sucks at social stuff. So will AIR.
5e sucks at politics in general. So will AIR.
5e sucks at basically everything outside of "I attack." So will AIR.

So I'm saying all this to say: I don't think it's fair to knock points off of AIR for failing to fix critical issues inherent to 5e D&D, when AIR was only ever an attempt to hop on the bandwagon of the massive name/brand recognition of 5e, rather than any attempt to "fix" the edition's shortcomings.
There is a Rokugan game that does cinematic/lethal combat, politics, spirituality, etc *way* better than D&D! If we want to have our 5e problems addressed, let's go play that game instead.
This game, however, is just "D&D in Rokugan." Which is great. I think what's available here looks more interesting than what's available in 5e core (but maybe that's just because it's new - time will tell), but it's not going to be significantly different. :)

[OvisCaedo]

In regards to attack rolls against multiple targets: this already exists in 5e. In fact, it exists in the PHB. Hunter Rangers get exactly that kind of ability at level 11. The later released spell Steel Wind Strike also has a pretty similar feeling, targeting up to 5 things and making an attack roll for each. Scorching Ray can also specifically be used to attack multiple targets at once, though that might be considered a necessity of the target allocation choice (all against one target or split up however)

[Sparky McDibben]

In regards to attack rolls against multiple targets: this already exists in 5e. In fact, it exists in the PHB. Hunter Rangers get exactly that kind of ability at level 11. The later released spell Steel Wind Strike also has a pretty similar feeling, targeting up to 5 things and making an attack roll for each. Scorching Ray can also specifically be used to attack multiple targets at once, though that might be considered a necessity of the target allocation choice (all against one target or split up however)

In literally all of these cases, you need to make multiple attack rolls, one for each target.

Hunter Ranger, p 93 of the PHB: "MULTIATTACK
At 11th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
Volley. You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon's range. You must have ammunition for each target, as normal, and you make a separate attack roll for each target.
Whirlwind Attack. You can use your action to make a melee attack against any number of creatures within 5 feet of you, with a separate attack roll for each target."

Scorching Ray, p 273 of the PHB: "You create three rays of fire and hurl them at targets within range. You can hurl them at one target or several.
Make a ranged spell attack for each ray. On a hit, the target takes 2d6 fire damage."

Steel Wind Strike, p 166 of Xanathar's Guide: "You flourish the weapon used in the casting and then vanish to strike like the wind. Choose up to five creatures you can see within range. Make a melee spell attack against each target. On a hit, a target takes 6d10 force damage.
You can then teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 5 feet of one of the targets you hit or missed."

Say it with me kids: "There is no such thing as a multitarget attack roll in 5E D&D."

[OvisCaedo]

Oh, sorry, I guess I just misunderstood what you were saying was in the new book. You meant it's a single attack roll that resolves against multiple targets

[Schwann145]

Multitarget attack is way less time consuming than making a bunch of individual attacks against each target.
Seems like a middle ground compromise between 5e core (clunky and time consuming) and using a saving throw (feels wrong thematically to use a saving throw against a melee attack).
;)

[Sparky McDibben]

Oh, sorry, I guess I just misunderstood what you were saying was in the new book. You meant it's a single attack roll that resolves against multiple targets

It's OK - apologies for sounding terse; I was trying to copy, paste, edit, and get my kids into bed for the night. :smallcool:

But yeah, having the terminology of whether something is a multitarget attack roll, a regular attack roll, or a saving throw is just additional headache for the DM, and really annoying (especially when combined with the million and one other things I've noted throughout the book that slow the game down).

Anyway, enough griping because we now will learn how to build adventures in Rokugan!

Well, mostly this part is just solid advice for building any 5E campaign, customized for Rokugani campaigns. It lists off various campaign frameworks (including the Heroic Quest, the Warrior Band, and the New Founding), and discusses potential antagonists, obstacles, and sources of tension for each. Next there's a brief section about how to make various kinds of characters into adventurers. Samurai PCs will probably need a directive from their lord to go adventuring, for example. Finally, there's an excellent section on tying character motivations to the adventure, and various themes that can inform your campaigns.

These are well-written, to the point, and almost spawned whole campaigns in my head when I read them. It's good advice.

Next up is Duels! You know that one Critical Role episode where it's Grog arena-fighting that one dude and they're just bashing the crap out of each other for like a solid hour before one of them goes down? Yeah, EDGE Studios said, "Well, we can't make a samurai game and not include a Kurosawa-style staredown and cut sequence! GO FORTH, DESIGN TEAM!!!"

And go forth they did. Duels are a new procedure (almost a mini-game) in Adventures in Rokugan that are pretty simple, easy to run, and require very little prep.

They go over a brief mechanic for challenging people to a duel, and then we get into the mechanics. Duels are a bolt-on to the standard 5E combat round that increases lethality for each character.

Duels involve the use of Danger Dice, which are d6's assigned to the two duelists that represent the odds of a fatal strike being landed. The primary way you gain danger dice is through staredowns (covered next), but there are several duelist features that let you add them (or take them!) as well. Staredowns are what happens at the start of each of the duel's rounds. You and your opponent choose a number between 1 and 6.

The higher number gains decisive position, which means they act before everyone else in the initiative order. They also gain danger dice equal to the number displayed by the lower. The lower number acts on their regular initiative. If both duelists display the same number, they take neutral position, which means both of them get 2 danger dice and act on their normal initiative.

If, on your turn, you hit your opponent, you can then roll any danger dice assigned to them and add that to your damage. If your opponent would be reduced to zero by the extra damage, you can make a finishing blow, either lethal or non-lethal, that ends the duel.

I think this is pretty good design. It lets aggressive players get in over their heads and more cautious players can't "turtle up" to defend themselves. It's simple, fits pretty well into the existing mechanics, and doesn't break anything. The only thing I want that isn't here is a table of complications, preferably several by Clan, that list their favorite ways to stack the deck in their favor when dueling. So when you're dueling a Scorpion, you should watch out for poison, but when dueling a ronin, you should make sure they haven't brought a friend.

After the duel mechanics, the book discusses how Rokugani view cheating in a duel (negatively), and the consequences for it. There's also conversation around how to fold duels into the battlefield, outcomes of duels, and common forms of duels. These include mounted duels, training bouts (where nonlethal weapons are used), ritual duels (between ritualists), and the most common: iaijutsu duels.

I would love to see a "social" duel equivalent where instead of wounding a courtier, you're damaging their standing at court. Or perhaps instead of wielding swords, you have something more suitable to court, like a haiku competition, or meeting a challenge. Then again, that may just be me.

There's some solid advice around how to run a duel, including how to keep other characters engaged without spotlight-robbing, and how to RP the opposition.

All in all, I like this chapter. It's nothing flashy, but I love the Duel system and might steal this to run in other 5E games. Simple, common-sense, and easy to hold in your head. Well done, EDGE Studios.

[Easy e]

So, a serious question and not meant to be disrespectful..... why would I want to play this over Legend of the 5 Rings <insert favorite edition>?

Is it mostly because it is D&D 5E so my players and my DM "know the rules" so they will accept the new setting?

[Schwann145]

So, a serious question and not meant to be disrespectful..... why would I want to play this over Legend of the 5 Rings <insert favorite edition>?

Is it mostly because it is D&D 5E so my players and my DM "know the rules" so they will accept the new setting?

Pretty much, yeah.
Getting anyone to play anything that isn't D&D is way harder than it should be. This introduces the setting to the 5e audience... and maybe convinces them to try the roll&keep version. Maybe. Hopefully.

[DarknessEternal]

I also would never use this for anything set in Rokugan. D&D rules are just not appropriate.

I'm trying to figure out if I'm gonna use it for D&D still. I did with the last d20 L5R.

[Sparky McDibben]

So, a serious question and not meant to be disrespectful..... why would I want to play this over Legend of the 5 Rings <insert favorite edition>?

Is it mostly because it is D&D 5E so my players and my DM "know the rules" so they will accept the new setting?

Yep, this is a branding exercise. By introducing the IP to 5E players, they're hoping to skim the market and see if they can pull players into their base. Note that that's not a bad thing - "marketing exercise" doesn't necessarily mean "cash grab."


I also would never use this for anything set in Rokugan. D&D rules are just not appropriate.

I'm trying to figure out if I'm gonna use it for D&D still. I did with the last d20 L5R.

There are chunks in this book that I am actually excited about using in other games, particularly the Motivations and Duels sections. So it's by no means a waste of money to pick it up. Besides, there's always the fun of thinking about how you would design classes for Rokugan!

So, where we left off is the History of Rokugan chapter. It's 12 pages long, goes into broad strokes about important events in the Emerald Empire, and can mostly be skipped (unless you really want to know who the heck Fu Leng is). There are two good things to say about this chapter. One, they cut all the lore from just before the Scorpion Clan Coup onwards. This was a good move and lowers the lore barrier to entry significantly. Two, they've included "Adventure Flashpoint" callout boxes on pages where cool stuff happens. I counted six of them over the course of 1,123 years of history, implying that major adventures happen about once every two centuries.

Now, I didn't want that to be the whole post, because that's pretty weak-sauce. After all, we're almost done. In fact, this next section (An Atlas of Rokugan) is the last chapter of the book proper before the adventure A Grim Inheritance. It's also a huge part of the book's value, so I didn't want to minimize it. The Rokugani Atlas walks us through every Great Clan's domains, one at a time, and covers the following:


The general geography of the Clan's lands
The main cities, castles, domiciles, etc. within the Clan's domain
A map done in ukiyo-e style of the Clan's domain and surrounding areas
A full-scale adventure / encounter location, complete with another map done up in ukiyo-e style.


One thing to note: the adventure location is not keyed in the traditional sense, nor does it have a traditional room-by-room breakdown, but it does breakdown key areas and zones within the location pretty well. It also covers key NPCs and their motivations that can be found here.

The maps of the various Clan domains that are provided are excellent. Five minutes with a copier and a Sharpie and you've got a decent pointcrawl that you can start keying content to. Add to that a random NPC generator (maybe leveraged from "Red Tide" by Kevin Crawford?) and you've got enough content here to run for months, especially if your players are the itinerant types.

This, right here, is probably the reason to buy this book. If you want to run adventures in Rokugan, this book is your best bet by far.

Next time we'll pick up with the intro adventure, "A Grim Inheritance" and finish things off with general notes, final thoughts, and my Buy / Sell / Hold rating.

[Sparky McDibben]

Alright, we arrive at the final chapter - A Grim Inheritance. This is an intro adventure for levels 3+ and covers a quick trip to the Shadowlands to retrieve a noble scion.

I have mixed feelings about this adventures. It relies, I think, too heavily on the DM making information hard to access. The core dilemma is that the castle this noble scion has disappeared to is where the family sealed away a pretty nasty demon, and the noble scion has been "called" by his ancestor to become the guardian who keeps the demon imprisoned.

The problem is that the PCs have multiple conflicting narratives told to them by what look like the same NPCs (the demon is a shapechanger, so it likes using NPC allies' faces to spread misinformation). This can turn into a game of "Gotcha!" pretty quick. I don't mind misleading players, but it has to come out of their own faulty read of a situation. This adventure leans on the pattern of Go to Place -> NPC Tells Us What To Do -> We Do It. When you start inserting false NPCs into that model, it makes the PCs feel cheated and can cause some hurt feelings.

So let's back up. Lord Damsel-in-Distress' mom hires you to go to Daylight Castle, deep in the Shadowlands, and find her kid. There's no advice on hooking PC motivations into this adventure - it's assumed they will agree.

Afterwards, they gear up and we get some information about the Shadowlands. So, a brief bit of trivia - the Shadowlands were formed with the Eighth Kami's body fell to earth and began corrupting it. The Shadowlands used to actually be a different plane of existence, and it could slowly corrupt you with Taint (heheh). It's a place where everything's subtly wrong, a literal Hell on Earth.

And now all it does is deny you the benefits of a long rest. That's it. Now, you have to spend a finger of jade to take a long rest, otherwise 8 hours of sleep is a short rest. In the fiction, it can still corrupt people and lure them away, etc., but there's no mechanics. Boo.

In another instance of this adventure's core problem, additional information about the Shadowlands, especially potential allies, denizens, etc., is skill-locked behind a DC 10 History check to remember to ask the guards before you go. Hope your badass samurai didn't forget to zip up their fly, too. Just give them the information, adventure writers. Oy ve.

Then we get half a page of boxed text, some stuff about a potential nezumi habitat nearby (that is never mentioned again, that I can tell), and then we're given some encounters to run. In addition, we're supposed to roll for encounters on the "Wrath of the Corrupted Elements" table every six hours. It's three days to Daylight castle (that's 12 encounter rolls), and three days back, so some of these are going to get used more than once.

In addition, five separate encounters are included, most of which either introduce information that will be relevant later in the adventure or act as hit point taxes. Remember that there's almost no healing magic in the game, and it's only set up for 3rd level PCs; they've only got 3 HD to spend. I would probably let the PCs try to avoid the hit point tax encounters, giving them just enough information to know there's a trap before they go in. I'd also include some kind of treasure, generally something with a single specific power that will require creativity to use.

The adventure recommends the PCs level up once they reach Daylight Castle.

The Castle portion is the heart of this adventure, and there's a lot to recommend it from a dungeon-crawling perspective. The map is evocative and thoroughly jaquayed, the actual tension of what the PCs need to do vs figuring out what's going on here is done well enough to feel like a constraint, and the premise is a pretty standard D&D trope.

Unfortunately, the adventure shoots itself in the foot several times. Let's talk about the key.

The key for the map contains walls of bloated text, all too often leading with the word "If." "If the PCs would..." or "If the PCs have..." or "If the PCs want to..." are all chucked in here. It's a pain in the ass to skim through this and find the bits you actually need to remember. Bullet points are your friends, people. The key also lists the same location twice (the temple). It introduces it, tells the PCs they need a hand mirror (though that's also skill-locked), and then tells them they can't open the door yet. Later on, the key brings back the temple with "The Temple Revisited." That is maddeningly incoherent.

Secondly, the adventure really doesn't want the PCs to find anything out too easily. There's this priestess who shows up a few times in the adventure to give the PCs some information, but we're told explicitly that "If answering any of the PCs’ questions would reveal too much, the shadows at the edge of the dream intensify, and Masami seems to temporarily lose her ability to speak." What the hell, y'all? This is set up as a horror-mystery; there's already about a 50% chance the PCs don't understand what you're trying to convey. Why are you deliberately making this harder for me to run?

Finally, the writers fall back on a tired Bioware trope: branching paths. There are three possible ways the writers see the adventure playing out. This sucks, because we all know there are an infinite number of solutions to this problem, and any given table will come up with a unique solve. It also sucks because it bloats the writing more, because now the writers have to write the adventure like a choose-your-own-adventure book. If you don't know what that is, Google it and don't tell me. I don't want to feel any older than I do, young un.

The adventure recommends you level up the PCs after they find Lord Damsel-in-Distress.

The adventure does give the PCs an out and is admirably OK with them failing to stop the demon from escaping (good of them, after they did so much to set the PCs up for failure), but it clearly expects there to be some kind of big showdown. The adventure concludes with the PCs bringing Lord Damsel-in-Distress back to his mom, and riding off into the sunset.

Much like the rest of the book, this is a cool premise with a very flawed execution.

Alright, on to general notes:

Art: Look, we know that CCGs tend to have stunning artwork, and this book leverages that to the hilt, occasionally using art where it doesn't quite fit just because it looks cool. For example, the art for the Pilgrim class is actually art for Isawa Tadaka (an earth shugenja, who doesn't come close to the class' Taoist nonsense). For all that, though, the art is evocative, cool, and full-color.

General Layout: With a few special exceptions (the lack of tables listing the Techniques and Invocations, specifically), the layout in this book is very well-done. It's hard to make walls of text readable and engaging, and clearly the layout crew did a great job.

Bookmarks: I don't know why, but in my copy, all the bookmarks jump around a lot from where they were actually supposed to be linked. This is phenomenally annoying. There are also spelling errors in the bookmarks themselves. Grr.

So, should you buy, hold or skip this book?

Buy If:


You really love the Rokugan setting and want to see an alternate take on this world
You are interested in adventure material for Rokugan or fantasy Asian settings more broadly
You are interested in the Duel or Motivation chapters


Hold (wait for the price to drop) If:

You're primarily interested in the Techniques or class designs


Skip If:

You're a Rokugani lore aficionado
You want a highly social, intrigue-laden game
You want something you can drop into a regular 5E game


Alright, y'all, I think that's all for me. Ol' Sparky's going to relax through the uniquely American pasttime of watching some Japanese cartoons.

[thorr-kan]

So after plowing through several reviews of this, I too have come to the following conclusion. AiR is *not* a supplement to the PH, providing new and interesting subclasses to play in Rokugan, say similar to Kobold Press's releases for Midgard. Instead, it is a 5E variant meant to standalone and provide play in Rokugan, ala Cubicle 7's Adventures in Middle Earth or Free League's upcoming Lord of the Rings Rollplaying. That about sum it up?

[Schwann145]

So after plowing through several reviews of this, I too have come to the following conclusion. AiR is *not* a supplement to the PH, providing new and interesting subclasses to play in Rokugan, say similar to Kobold Press's releases for Midgard. Instead, it is a 5E variant meant to standalone and provide play in Rokugan, ala Cubicle 7's Adventures in Middle Earth or Free League's upcoming Lord of the Rings Rollplaying. That about sum it up?

On the nose. ;)
There is even a sidebar on the multiclassing page that basically says as much. It emphasizes that you can mix and match with the PHB or other 5e content if you really want to, but it'll be problematic and offers a few examples of mix and match options and what you could expect for doing so.

[thorr-kan]

On the nose. ;)
There is even a sidebar on the multiclassing page that basically says as much. It emphasizes that you can mix and match with the PHB or other 5e content if you really want to, but it'll be problematic and offers a few examples of mix and match options and what you could expect for doing so.

That actually makes this more interesting for me as a DM.

[Schwann145]

Having given the classes a good thorough read-through, and despite disagreeing with DarknessEternal above, I think the main concern I have is that the warrior classes (Bushi, Duelist, and Shinobi) are pretty well designed and interesting looking, while everything else (Courtier, Spiritualist, Pilgrim, and Acolyte) are all significantly under-powered.

The Bushi and Duelist both use Martial Techniques and they, for the most part, are useful and interesting with the potential to grow with resource expenditure as desired. The resource for using them (Focus Points) ebbs and wanes as combat progresses, but while you might not have as much to spend as you'd like every round, you'll always have some and never have to worry about running out or relying on the Rest mechanics to contribute.
A+

The Courtier is basically a Bard without any combat support or any spells. You rely entirely on Rhetorical Flourishes which are fueled by Intrigue Dice (Bardic Inspiration with significantly more options, limited by class level). The Rhetorical Flourishes can aid allies, hinder enemies, or provide useful information for non-combat activities. The class also interestingly increases the number of Reactions you have available per round to two at 6th level and three at 15th level, which is useful as many of your Rhetorical Flourishes require a Reaction to use. The downside to all this is that the effects you can provide via Flourishes are rather low-powered, so having a limited number of Intrigue Dice to fuel them seems extra punishing. You recover half your Intrigue Dice on a SR and all of them on a LR and the class offers some extra ways to get them back as you use them, but when you run out, you're out of meaningful ways to do... well, anything. You have exactly one ability you can use that doesn't require a Flourish to activate, but does require an attack, which you are bad at.
Honestly, I think you could rebalance how you receive Intrigue Dice and just... never "spend" them, instead gaining a growing pool that you roll for each Rhetorical Flourish you'd like to use as you level, and have an otherwise unlimited number of Flourish uses... all without unbalancing anything. The effects are flavorful and useful, but low impact. Having them always available, considering the lack of combat ability or spellcasting, seems utterly reasonable to me.
D-

The Shinobi uses Ninja Tools. There are Five of them total and you start knowing two, and eventually, through leveling, will know all five. While they aren't as free to use as Martial Techniques (they are Rest-bound), they do offer you pretty consistent ways to always be able to apply the main-draw to your combat ability: Merciless Strike (more powerful Sneak Attack). Even when you're out of Ninja Tools, you can still pretty easily apply Merciless Strike as many classes are constantly applying status conditions, which fuel the ability.
A

The Ritualist is the Priest, the spiritual guide, the religious leader, and the spellcaster of Rokugan. They are capable of speaking to the kami (elemental spirits that reside in all things) and convincing them to act on the world (ie: spell effect). They are not intended to be powerful wizards who can rain down devastating amounts of damage or warp realities or raise the dead. Magic in Rokugan is much more subtle and nuanced and the power level of Invocations available to the Ritualist reflects this well. The class works like a mana point system, spending Focus to cast and empower Invocations. Invocations are not as powerful as Spells from core 5e, but they will provide very useful benefits to a party such as stripping enemies of their resistances/immunities, dealing some (though not high amounts) of damage, revealing helpful information otherwise unavailable, minor healing, protective effects, etc.
While I still don't agree entirely with DarknessEternal about the limited amount of Focus, I'd be lying if I said you got enough. Because the magic in the setting is so much lower powered than in core D&D, there's really no excuse why you get the low amount of Focus that you do. You could easily triple the base amount granted by the class, as well as increase the bonus you can gain via Resonances, and not upset any balance.
D

The Pilgrim is the Adventures in Rokugan equivalent of the Monk, except it's like they forgot you are a combat class. The mechanics are certainly interesting, but they are drastically under powered. You gain no extra attack, your unarmed damage begins at a d4+stat and only increases in 2 out of your 3 subclass options, and even then only by an additional d4, which upgrades eventually to a d6. You gain 1-10 extra Hit Dice (separate from your HP Hit Dice) as you level which are used to fuel many of your abilities. You are always on a Yin/Yang-based resource that kind of works like constantly changing "stances." Depending on which level you are at at any given time, you have different minor bonuses, and you shift along the path towards higher Yin or higher Yang as you use your abilities, which makes some abilities available and others unavailable depending. You also gain some access to SRD spells that are more often flavor/RP-based than power (for instance, one of your subclasses gives you access to Darkness and Revivify, but also Calm Emotions, Suggestion, Geas and so on).
The class is very interesting, the mechanics are very interesting and flavorful, but I have serious doubts about it's ability to down bad guys and survive encounters with D&D-tuned monsters.
D-

The Acolyte seems to be Adventures in Rokugan's way to introduce a couple of very specific character types from Rokugan that don't really fit with the other classes: The Tattooed Monks of the Togashi Order, and Shadow Brands used by a certain sect of the Scorpion Clan. This class is all about which subclass you pick, and the core class seems to be just a kind of generic chassis for each of these two otherwise unrelated character options.
The base class is all about gaining, and spending, Inspiration. It gives you Inspiration on Resting, it allows you to gain Inspiration when you roll a 1 on several different things, and it allows you to spend Inspiration when you roll a 1 to regain uses of your subclass abilities outside of Resting. That's really the meat of the chassis. You gain a few other abilities that are just generically useful, but otherwise it's all about the subclass!
The Acolyte of Togashi gains improved Unarmed Strike damage to the tune of d4+stat, with the ability to make an unarmed attack as a Bonus Action as well (a Core Monk's Martial Arts without the ability to Flurry of Blows). They also gain several Tattoos which are broken up between Major and Minor, or you can choose an option to Embellish (improve) the effect of a tattoo you already have. Tattoos can't be used if you're wearing armor heavier than Light, so you're very Dex reliant. The power of each Tattoo is on the same level, I'd say, as the power of a Ritualist's Invocations, with Major Tattoos being tier 2-3 equivalent, and Minor Tattoos being tier 0-1 equivalent. You regain uses of your Tattoos either on Rest, or through the use of your Inspiration-based ability from the core Acolyte class.
Overall, the same problems/concerns I have with the Pilgrim apply to the Tattooed Monk: you're a combat class that isn't particularly good at combat. Your Unarmed Strike damage is low and doesn't increase. You don't gain extra attacks the way the Bushi/Duelist classes do. Your Tattoos are generally pretty low power. Just like the Pilgrim, I don't trust it's ability to down bad guys or survive encounters.
D-
The Acolyte of Shadows is wholly different than the Acolyte of Togashi, and in my opinion, much more interestingly designed. Your chosen Shadow Brands give you significant and interesting ways to interact with your environment, and not all of them are Rest-bound. To begin with, the subclass gives you Darkvision and then later improves it. You pick one of three different Shadow Brands to build around: 1) the ability to manifest shadow arms from your back which grant you various benefits like a climbing speed, a new way to attack or grapple, an extra reaction, etc. 2) the ability to manifest a clone of yourself made of your own shadow, which can act at your command, eventually gaining two such clones, 3) the ability to, on certain triggers, vanish/teleport and gain both advantage on your next attack roll as well as added damage to the strike. You gain some other shadow-based abilities as you level and eventually may choose to improve your Brand or pick a second one to have. You gain some damage upgrades that are appreciated as you, just as the Acolyte of Togashi, don't gain Extra Attack.
I feel like I'm not saying much on this one as I don't want to just list it's abilities, but it's very flavorful and offers a lot of interesting and fun abilities, but at the end of the day, it's still on the weak side.
Of the two subclass options, I think Acolyte of Shadows is doing significantly better than Acolyte of Togashi, but as a whole class the Acolyte is still feeling weak, like the designers forgot this is D&D with D&D levels of hit points and the need to be able to whittle them down before dying.
C-

I offered my ideas how to improve the Courtier and Ritualist because the fixes I had in mind were just incredibly quick and easy to come up with. I wish I could say the same for the Pilgrim and Acolyte but I can't think of any obvious solutions to help them. They'd require significantly more thought, possibly significant redesign. :/

Just my 2 zeni.

[dndkungfu]

Having given the classes a good thorough read-through, and despite disagreeing with DarknessEternal above, I think the main concern I have is that the warrior classes (Bushi, Duelist, and Shinobi) are pretty well designed and interesting looking, while everything else (Courtier, Spiritualist, Pilgrim, and Acolyte) are all significantly under-powered.



The Pilgrim is the Adventures in Rokugan equivalent of the Monk, except it's like they forgot you are a combat class. The mechanics are certainly interesting, but they are drastically under powered. You gain no extra attack, your unarmed damage begins at a d4+stat and only increases in 2 out of your 3 subclass options, and even then only by an additional d4, which upgrades eventually to a d6. You gain 1-10 extra Hit Dice (separate from your HP Hit Dice) as you level which are used to fuel many of your abilities. You are always on a Yin/Yang-based resource that kind of works like constantly changing "stances." Depending on which level you are at at any given time, you have different minor bonuses, and you shift along the path towards higher Yin or higher Yang as you use your abilities, which makes some abilities available and others unavailable depending. You also gain some access to SRD spells that are more often flavor/RP-based than power (for instance, one of your subclasses gives you access to Darkness and Revivify, but also Calm Emotions, Suggestion, Geas and so on).
The class is very interesting, the mechanics are very interesting and flavorful, but I have serious doubts about it's ability to down bad guys and survive encounters with D&D-tuned monsters.
D-





Do you think this evens things out a bit at 3rd level as there is no save and it is ongoing damage?

Resonating Strike

You infuse your Yang energy into a strike, causing it to reverberate throughout the foe’s body and inflicting ongoing harm.

Activation: 1 action
Range: Touch
Effects: You can spend your action to make an unarmed attack against a creature in range. On a hit, you can roll and spend a number of Hit Dice up to your Yang value. At the end of its next turn, your target suffers radiant damage equal to 1d6 + your Constitu- tion modifier. It suffers this radiant damage again at the end of each of its turns for number of rounds equal to the highest result among the Hit Dice you rolled.Using resonating strike on a creature already suffering from its effects does not increase the damage dealt but instead increases the number of rounds they are affected by the highest result among the Hit Dice you rolled. At 10th level, the damage is increased by an additional 1d6.
Energy Shift: Move your energy one step toward the Yin apex for each result of 5 or higher among the Hit Dice you rolled.

[Schwann145]

Do you think this evens things out a bit at 3rd level as there is no save and it is ongoing damage?

Resonating Strike

stats


I think it's a bit of a trap solution. It falls into the same issue that Courtiers have, in that it costs you your primary resource, of which you don't have much, and it's your only reliable source of damage. (Keeping in mind also, there is not a lot of healing options in this ruleset, so the value of spending HD on HP recovery goes way up from core 5e. The Pilgrim has to weigh the value of spending their HD on abilities or keeping them for resting.)

Now, there is a reliable way to regain HD built right into the class with the Well of Strength feature, but playing with Exhaustion is playing with fire and, even though Boundless Vitality helps, it's still quite hard to get rid of Exhaustion levels.

Maybe my grade is a bit harsh and in actual play it's not as much a problem as I'm worried it is. I'd be happy to be proven wrong. But on just a cursory read, I still have my doubts.

[dndkungfu]

Schwann145

Thank you for your response. I am having a bit of a struggle with the class. It has a framework I like but I feel like I might be a little short handed as I would probably have to play it in a standard dnd game and not in Rokugan due to my gaming options.

[Runenstahl]

We will probably start playing this in a few months. My goal is to play a duelist, but after looking at the classes more thoroughly, it appears to me that the Bushi is not not only better at combat in general (as he should be) but he might be the better duelist.

The duelists big advantage is that you give our oponent more (and depending on the subclass) higher danger dice. You also can reroll low numbers on those dice which makes them a bit more powerful.

However, the bushi of at least 6th level can (and in a duel very likely will) activate his "veteran instincts" to become resistant to the duelists damage. Combined with higher hit points, this probably more then cancels out any extra damage the duelist might do.

Not to mention that the duelist needs 3 attributes while the bushi can get away with 2 (if going for heavy armor). Worst case, the bushi even has a subclass that allows him to crit on 19-20 improving his chances to make a "finishing blow" after scoring a critical hit (actually this last point should be negated since the duelist can dodge each round as a bonus action).

Am I missing something ?

Also: While the duel rules look interesting at first glance, I'm beginning to wonder if there is any reason to pick anything else then a "one" during staring down, at least until you believe you or your oponent have enough danger dice to finish the duel. Again, am I missing something ?

[JLandan]

We will probably start playing this in a few months. My goal is to play a duelist, but after looking at the classes more thoroughly, it appears to me that the Bushi is not not only better at combat in general (as he should be) but he might be the better duelist.

The duelists big advantage is that you give our oponent more (and depending on the subclass) higher danger dice. You also can reroll low numbers on those dice which makes them a bit more powerful.

However, the bushi of at least 6th level can (and in a duel very likely will) activate his "veteran instincts" to become resistant to the duelists damage. Combined with higher hit points, this probably more then cancels out any extra damage the duelist might do.

Not to mention that the duelist needs 3 attributes while the bushi can get away with 2 (if going for heavy armor). Worst case, the bushi even has a subclass that allows him to crit on 19-20 improving his chances to make a "finishing blow" after scoring a critical hit (actually this last point should be negated since the duelist can dodge each round as a bonus action).

Am I missing something ?

Also: While the duel rules look interesting at first glance, I'm beginning to wonder if there is any reason to pick anything else then a "one" during staring down, at least until you believe you or your oponent have enough danger dice to finish the duel. Again, am I missing something ?

Choosing "one" does not accumulate danger dice very quickly. If you do not finish off your opponent, the danger dice transfer and the stare down for the next round accumulates more. Eventually either through damage building up or accumulated danger dice making a single attack deadly, someone is getting pasted. If you choose "one" and your opponent chooses "six" he'll go first and do one weapon die, probably not killing you, then you do six extra, leaving him hurting but probably not dead. Next round you both pick the same, he goes first and does six danger dice, with the first round that's eight total dice (two weapon dice and six danger), at this point you've done seven dice. But now you get to go if you live, and you are doing the same damage. So on and so on, the damage accumulates at the same rate, BUT your opponent always goes first. So being too conservative is just as deadly as being too aggressive.

[Runenstahl]

But you don't HAVE to do a finishing blow, right ? The way I understand the rules you want your opponent to get enough danger dice to the point that your certain you will kill him with the finishing blow.

Maybe I'm getting this wrong. The way I see it (example):
Hero picks 1, opponent picks 2 or higher. This means the opponent goes first, but he get's one danger die. Meanwhile you get no danger die at all. You attack second and after rolling to hit you can decide to use the one danger die (probably not a good idea) or just deal normal damage.

You just continue this and accumulate dice until you think your opponent has enough danger dice to kill him. Then, after hitting him you can decide to add all these dice to the damage. If it does not kill him your in trouble (as the dice get transferred to you afterwards).

The way I understand the rules there is no risk in picking a low number. Going second is no real drawback unless the enemy has a chance to kill you.

[JLandan]

You can withhold from using danger dice if you choose. But that means you are doing less damage each turn than you otherwise might. If you and your opponent are near equal in HP, and you do less damage each turn, and your opponent goes first each turn, math is not on your side. If your opponent also chooses "one", you both get 2 danger dice, and initiative is determined by a standard initiative roll. Fighting conservatively is a viable option, but if your opponent always goes first, you are at a disadvantage. That's my opinion anyway.