Quote Originally Posted by EndlessKng View Post
Keep in mind that the feat from Heroes of Horror and the feats from OA come from two different settings and Taint Systems. OA/Shadowlands is trying to emulate the 1e L5R taint system (a wholly separate system) in the context of D&D. They also were drawing upon/reusing the Dark Side point system in the then-current Star Wars RPG (and specifically the Dark Side Sourcebook, which came out two months before OA), especially with the limits before being utterly corrupt being related to Wisdom. The Taint System in HoH was a later development that separated mental and physical corruption - it was a similar concept but went in a VERY different mechanical direction. Further, nothing in Rokugan short of a divine artifact can offer full protection from Taint, as far as humans go; benefits were designed to mitigate or reduce the risk but it could never be fully undone. Mechanically, RAW, yes, it would work. Thematically, your GM would probably ban it and I'd have a hard time arguing against that.

To your question about what could prevent this, scrolls probably wouldn't work. Scroll activation normally requires you have the spell on your class' list and is affected by everything else that would affect casting a spell - such as having the ability score required for the spell and suffering from spell failure risk. Other magic items MAY be less risky to you, however. A spell trigger item requires the spell to be on the list but not that you are currently able to cast it - it still runs the risk of going awry (since magic in Rokugan involves invoking the Kami, and in the Shadowlands, the Kansen act in their stead and can choose to warp a spell), and the ITEM may become corrupted (which could leak into you over time), but it's probably safer. Command Word items would be the same. Keep in mind that D&D magic items don't line up perfectly with L5R lore - wands and rods don't exist as common magical implements in L5R, and technically all spells are stored in scrolls which are used as foci, with "one use" spells being almost non-extant as a concept in-universe (save for Scorpion Ward Magic). I'm coming at this from a deeper perspective, and your GM may have different interpretations based on their knowledge; it's not explicitly stated anywhere that I know of that these methods wouldn't work, but it's also not stated that they would, at least as far as d20 goes. However, given that everything mechanical about a scroll in D&D says it's basically casting a pre-made spell without using a slot, I'd almost certainly never allow a scroll to bypass those restrictions, and would probably always make the risk of the Kansen rebelling a possibility with other items as well.

That said... bringing 2nd level characters into the Shadowlands is close to asking for a TPK (or Total Party Corruption, as well). The Shadowlands aren't just a place to adventure - they're extremely dangerous, in any version of the game. If the GM is running them as written, he needs to be aware that it will likely kill or corrupt the entire party in very short order. The steepness of the check is supposed to be the warning - this is not a casual stroll through the park, but a dangerous and potentially fatal challenge for even the most reliable samurai. Low level Shadowlands encounters are supposed to happen at or just within the Kaiu Wall, before the area is so suffused with Taint that it is considered the Shadowlands. To break even on the check with a first level spell (that is, to be at a place where your base skill ranks plus ability score mod gets you an even roll, no other benefits considered), you'd be looking at needing a +10/+11 (since it'd be a DC 21). Even if you had a +4 in Intelligence (on a Charisma-based Caster), that's a minimum of six spellcraft ranks - at least level 3. For your +15 (which I agree is a smarter bet overall) that means level 8, which is much more reasonable for even a small foray into the Shadowlands.

For context, the conversion chart in the back of the Rokugan d20 book between L5R 2e and D&D (which sounds like it's in play, as you're referencing multiclass restrictions for shugenja) puts levels 4 and 8 as Rank 2 and Rank 3 respectively*. Now, L5R 2e varied from its later successors, but all the AEG editions of the game were roughly similar in relative strength - that is, you'd see similar differences in power between a Rank 1, 2, and 3 character in each respective edition, so discussing Rank between editions is fairly comparable. In the 4e living campaign I was a part of a few years back, the first foray into the Shadowlands proper was a mid-rank module, meaning you had to be minimum Rank 2 to play it, and it was built around a party of Rank 3s with sliders for Rank 2 and Rank 4. You could run into Shadowlands-related foes before this point, but until that module, you never went IN. And that has been consistent in other cases of long-running campaigns - going TO the Shadowlands is very risky in general. Your Level 2 Shugenja is a Rank 1 character roughly - they're not even at the "You must be this tall to ride" line, and way short of the "You must be this tall to not need a car seat" point.

However, there is another d20 variant of the Shadowlands Taint system, in the AEG book Secrets of the Shadowlands. That is more gentle, though risky still, and more in line with how it tends to work in the L5R game. In that system, corrupted environments prompt a Fortitude save with an initial DC of 5 upon casting a spell - not a shugenja's best (I played a Phoenix shugenja as my first EVER PC**), but at that DC and with a non-negative Con modifier certainly more likely. Failure causes the spell to go awry and gives 1d4 points of taint. The DC increases by 1 for every successful spell cast, and 5 for each failed check prior, and can be reset with 8 hours of meditation and a Concentration check or by remaining out of corrupted areas for 1 day for each point the DC went up. It's still a potential death spiral, but doesn't hit AS hard, and makes the multiclass combo you discuss more viable since that would give you a bit more Fortitude (though I warn you, the multiclassing will hurt your later spellcasting abilities pretty hard, but that's a problem that 3.5 has in general and not specific to JUST the shugenja).

*It should be noted that Ranks in L5R's first four editions are not quite equivalent to D&D levels; this is a rough comparison. Unlike D&D, L5R is a point-buy system, and Rank is a result of specific traits hitting certain thresholds; it is possible to spend a lot of XP and have a powerful character but be at a low Rank. However, the comparison works for average builds, and the "suggested experience point" equivalent lines up with how much XP a PC would likely have had at that point in the campaign as well if they had played at least 75% of the adventures in the campaign leading up to the one in question.
**Albeit as a visitor from our version of Rokugan in a western setting and without me knowing a lot about the lore - a void shugenja was just the only way I could find at a time to be the healer we needed AND cast fireball, which was very important to me at 12 for some reason.
Hey endlesskng thank you so much for your detailed answer. We are still learning about Rokugan, none of us have much experience with it but the GM is the one who read most about it. We are using rules both from "Oriental Adventures" and "Rokugan Campaign Setting" for d20, 3.5 rules. Sometimes the rules from these books contradict each other, but often not. Ocasionally we also use some rules from the "Secrets of the..." (crab, samurai, crane, shadowlands etc.) books, but then we have to adapt them because they are not d20. I guess we are still trying to find where we stand haha

I agree that preventing taint is almost impossible (I found that the tattooed monk's crow tattoo will give you taint immunity for a few days, but my character is not getting that haha), and yes, any use of magic in the shadowlands could result in eventually getting tainted. After some reading and debating, we reached the conclusion that using spells in the shadowlands (wether through your own casting, or scrolls and other items) is always risky because of the way magic functions in Rokugan - through using the spirits of the environment itself in order to complete the spell. So who know who's going to answer your call inside the shadowlands... ? lol (somehow like using magic in a wild magic or dead magic area - no matter the source of magic, it will conflict with the characteristics of these specific environments...).

I was suspicious of entering the shadowlands as 2nd lvl characters, but our game ran surprisingly 'smooth'. The idea of that quest is that we were taking our Genpukku tests, and return with the head of some monster we fought and defeated, you know, as the book says is Crab tradition. We were provided with enough jade, and after a few days following some tracks, we got into the mid-fight of some five Hiruma patrols battling some 'hounds of the lost' and we succeeded unscathed, to the expense of the poor patrolling guys - only two survived. So yeah, it is not meant to be a place for low level characters, but the GM went easy on us this time. But then I was wondering, how do the crab do the Genpukku thing this way? Do they take levels of other classes before being accepted in society as Samurai (that is, before completing the Genpukku)? Can they actually take Samurai levels before the Genpukku? In my case the GM just put me along the Samurai because I am a fighting-type shugenja (fighter 1/shugenja 1 with 18 Strengh lol) . I found a way to really improve my spellcrafting check for my level, but it's not much different from what you calculated, so not safe for using yet. All in all, I can say that this character concept I had in mind will only work properly in mid-to-high levels, when I will be able to cast spells in there in a less risky way. I just didn't know it because I didn't know the rules right, hahaha.

Thanks so much for bringing the taint system variant. It seems a lot more reasonable, I will present it to the GM and see how it goes.

As for the other replies, I really appreciate your inputs too guys, will reply you soon! (busy days...)