Questions tagged [l5r]
For questions about Legend of the Five Rings, a fictional setting created by John Wick and published by Alderac Entertainment Group in 1995. It is the basis for both a card game and an RPG, and was also the "featured campaign setting" of the D&D 3e Oriental Adventures expansion. It was acquired by Fantasy Flight Games in 2015. L5R is mainly set in the empire of Rokugan, based roughly on feudal Japan with influences from other East Asian cultures.
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Is there a price list for goods outside of the core book?
Rokugan is a very varied place, and characters might want to acquire a lot of things that are not covered in the core book.
Like, recently I came into the pickle that a painting samurai wanted to ...
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Was the Kitsune Impersonator school ability obsoleted?
Some week ago I finally got my copy of Writ of the Wilds. And reading it, I stumbled over one thing: My beloved Kitsune Impersonator class ability was suddenly made obsolete and overshadowed by a ...
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Ring advancements: can Void Ring be your lowest ring?
On p. 97 of the Legends of the Five Rings 5th edition rulebook it says:
Cannot increase a ring to a value greater than lowest ring + Void Ring. Maximum 5.
Does this mean that if your Void Ring is 1, ...
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Are there canonical Spell scrolls of unusual material in Rokugan?
In Rokugan, Samurai fight wars with swords on the battlefield and they fight wars with quill and paper. They live in houses of wood and paper, travel with travelling papers (~passports) and in general,...
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Is the living shadow based on any real life myth or story?
L5R is heavily based on Japanese and other Asian philosophy and stories, the story of the Kami, Ametarasu, lord moon etc.
Is the Living Shadow (first edition) or Lying Darkness as it is known later ...
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Literacy rate of Rokugani
Rokugan is a setting taking heavy influence from the '80s and '90s perception of medieval Japan (through a north-American lens) and strewing in influences from other East-Asian countries, creating the ...
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Action to use Battle Healing?
Given the text below, my question is: what type of action is it to use this ability (free, simple, complex)? There's a pre-campaign disagreement about this.
NEW ADVANTAGE: BATTLE HEALING
[MYSTICAL] (...
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What happens when Kitsune Impersonators swap their disguise?
Kitsune Impersonators1 choose a clan and family they depict as in character generation. This solves the main problem of making them, but...
The sidebar there also claims they could choose at any ...
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What family does the Kitsune Impersonator belong to?
The 5th edition Emerald Empire book does present the Kitsune Impersonator on page 239 as an option to play a Fox spirit. But it doesn't present any family or clan they belong to or has a rule for ...
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Which sourcebook describes the Fox-clan and the Kitsune-families?
Back in 4th, the Fox clan was a staple minor clan (or branch of the Mantis) and available from in the 4th edition core book.
When 5E came around, they revamped the whole character creation process, ...
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How are Void points recovered?
I am playing a game of the newest version (5th edition) of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG. However, I can't find rules in the book regarding how to recover Void points.
In older editions, it usually ...
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What are the rules for swimming and holding your breath?
Where do I find rules for swimming/holding breath in L5R 4e?
I am preparing to start a game set in the Mantis lands, and one of my players is considering playing an Order of Togashi monk. When we ...
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Is Head Taking a thing in Rokugan?
Head Taking was an unusual custom among Samurai (and before them Chinese nobles) to prove that you killed someone of renown and gain a reward and renown in return. In the Sengoku Jidai, Samurai went ...
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Can I keep results with Strife while I'm Compromised if my teammates grant me assistance and take Strife for me?
I'll be directing a game of L5R for the first time and I have some questions about Strife at L5R 5e (the one by Fantasy Flight Games). I might have missed the answers in the core rulebook as I've been ...
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Can I offer assistance while compromised?
I'll be directing a game of L5R for the first time and I have some questions about Strife at L5R 5e (the one by Fantasy Flight Games). I might have missed the answers in the core rulebook as I've been ...
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What ways can I use the Battle Skill in a Skirmish?
I play a Kaiu Engineer (Battle being a School Skill for me) and I enjoy playing the strategist part a lot. So far, my GM has allowed me to use the Battle Skill for a couple other uses apart from as a ...
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Roll and Keep in Anydice
I want to check out the probabilities of the Roll and Keep system (as known from L5R 1-4th Edition) in Anydice. We luckily have boundaries:
We roll Skill + Stat + Modifier initial dice.
10 explodes;...
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Rank 1 kakita applied to damage
Following what it is said on the book of fourth edition, rank 1 kakita bushi "The way of the crane":
You gain a bonus of +1k1 plus your School Rank to the total of all attack and Focus rolls while ...
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What school are the Kitsune Scouts?
I was hunting down the materials that contained information about the Kitsune and repeatedly found mentioning that the Kitsune family, both in their time as Clan Fox and as part of the Mantis clan, ...
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Looking for Support Skills for a Tattooed Monk in an L5R Game
Our group recently started up a campaign in L5R 3rd edition. I decided to go with a Dragon Clan monk. After a few play sessions, I'm starting to run into issues finding a role for the character. We ...
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Can I use "chosen by the oracles" to increase damage?
I'm using L5R 4th Portuguese version (Brazilian).
A player is using the Chosen by the Oracles ( You gain a bonus of +1k1 to
the total of all Ring Rolls using that Ring. ) advantage to increase the ...
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Where are the rules for Memorizing Spells?
I have heard that Shugenja could memorize spells, or at least used to be able to do so in earlier editions than the 4th Edition. I couldn't find the relevant rules in the 4th edition yet, so I wonder: ...
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What kind of publication is/was the "Imperial Herald"?
While skimming through the Legends of the 5 rings fandom-wiki, I found the page for the court system. It references a source:
"Way of the Magistrate" Written by Scott Gearin and published in the ...
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What is the earliest point at which a blind character could pass off as good as Zatoichi?
Zatoichi with his 26 films and over a hundred episode TV series starred by Shintaro Katsu is a well known franchiseTVTropes Warning as well as a meme as the epitome of the perfect blind swordsman. ...
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Can I choose the same starting skill twice?
All (that I know of) schools in the first edition of Legend of the Five Rings provide the set of starting skills for the characters. Sometimes one or more of those skills are "open ended" like "any ...
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As a Mirumoto bushi, should I learn the Spinning Blades Kata?
I am planning on creating a bushi of the Mirumoto niten school for L5R 5e, and I have been surprised to see that the rank 2 Kata that was available at rank 1 was the Iaijutsu Cut: Rising Blade and not ...
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How do I play out my players' characters getting nominated as Emerald Magistrates?
My L5R players' characters are going to get nominated as Emerald Magistrates.
I assume there is a specific in-universe ceremony for this, but I could not find details about it, at least in the 4th ...
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Is it common for the L5R clans to have territories far from their main land?
In the introduction to the Naishou Province supplement, it is explained how a number of clans want to control the province.
The localization of the Province is intentionally not mentioned, but I ...
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Do monks have a gempukku ceremony?
In Legend of the Five Rings, do the different monks orders (such as the Dragon Clan monks) have to undergo the gempukku ceremony like other samurais?
I don't have much information about this, but I ...
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How many families constitute a Major Clan in Legend of the Five Rings?
In Legend of the Five Rings, a list of families is presented for each Major Clan. There are some in the source book (usually 4 or 5 for each Clan), and some others in additional books.
However, does ...
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When is a Mizu-do practitioner able to enter full defence and react?
I need help solving a technicality about the Legend of the Five Rings RPG, 1st edition (roll & keep system).
The Book of the Crane introduces (at page 113) the Mizu-do, a Crane-specific martial ...
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Are Kitsune a playable race?
Searches here and elsewhere has convinced me that while kitsune do exist, there's no baseline mechanics for creating PCs or NPCs. I am hoping I am wrong, as one of my players has her heart set on a ...
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Where can I find the Heroes of Rokugan 1 modules?
I have found the Heroes of Rokugan website but only modules from Campaign 3 seems to be available on it. Does anyone either know where Campaigns1 and 2 are, or how I can get hold of them? Specifically ...
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What mechanical effects impact a character's School Skills?
In the Legends of the Five Rings core book, 4th Edition, page 134 (Book of Fire), emphasis mine:
SCHOOL SKILLS are the basic seven Skills taught to a character by his sensei while studying at his ...
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Should a samurai gain all bonus (traits and skills) when purchasing the Multiple Schools advantage?
The L5R-1ed core rulebook states, in the character creation section:
[...]Your character's training in that school will give him a few
bonus starting Traits and Skills.
On one hand this is ...
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Strike Without Thought (Kakita rank 5) in last-blood iaijutsu duels
Legend of the Five Rings, first edition.
Iaijutsu duels usually happen like this:
Determine "initiative" (not an actual initiative roll but still)
Contestant with higher initiative decides ...
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Roleplaying a proficient Crab officer - military art references [closed]
I've been playing L5R roleplaying game 1st edition, impersonating a Hida bushi.
Hida bushi start off with the Battle skill, which I even raised to 3 over time, and as the story progressed my ...
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How do you calculate rolls for attacking?
I think you calculate your attack rolls as your Agility + Skill for the "roll" and "keep" 2.
How do you increase the "keep"? A 6k2 rarely hits anything.
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Is listening in on a conversation at court dishonorable?
Emerald Empire p. 43 states:
Rokugan is a society where every residence is crowded and privacy is
rare and difficult to attain. If that were not enough, most internal
walls (and even some ...
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Must duels during a field battle still be fought using katana?
Dueling is supposed to happen with both contestants wielding a katana, and it is dishonorable to do otherwise (Hida Yakamo fought and won a duel using a tetsubo but you know, Crab clan).
When ...
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Do effects that modify Void Points stack?
There are several places in the L5R rules where absolute values are meant to be interpreted as relative bonuses/penalties.
Eg. The price advantages and disadvantages are modified if a character meets ...
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Shiba Bushi and Void Point modifiers
Shiba Bushi's rank 1 technique is written as:
The Way of the Phoenix: When spending a Void Point to gain +1k1 on a roll, you may choose to spend 2 Void Points (to gain +2k2) on the roll instead.
...
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Can the GM bypass the chart and just assign a Shadow Taint level instead?
In a current RP with my friends on Roll20, one of the characters was tainted by Fu Leng. The GM skipped the entire process of the Taint chart in the rule book and pushed my friend's character to the ...
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What is the penalty for a Hiruma Slayer wielding an off-hand Masakari?
The Hiruma Slayers alternate path (from The Book of Earth) has the following line in it's technique:
You suffer no penalties
for using a masakari in your off-hand (although you still
suffer ...
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How can a samurai train Jiujutsu if they can't touch people in public?
Jiujutsu is one of the most common bushi skills, and is trained in dojos in many schools of many clans.
However, as it is the art of unarmed combat (or with improvised weapons, but I think this part ...
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What is the best way to discourage "easy" disadvantages purchase?
I had this issue in L5R, but there are many role-playing games that include in their character creation process a "disadvantage" purchase system : any kind of handicap, that may be physic, mental, ...
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Center stance bonus clarifications
There are two things that bothers me with the Center Stance, and I can't seem to find definite answers.
The Center Stance gives a bonus of 1k1 to one roll, plus your Void Ring.
Let's say I have a ...
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Can maho or Oni powers harm creatures of the Lying Darkness?
The Way of Shadow says that creatures (or perhaps “extensions” might be a more fitting term) of the Lying Darkness can be harmed by weapons of crystal.
What about beings of Jigoku or the Shadowlands ...
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How many attacks when fighting with two weapons?
I'm making Samurai NPCs for a future campaign and I'm not sure to perfectly understand what are bonuses and penalties for a Samurai fighting with two weapons at the same time (that can be common for ...
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What is Fair for a Rank 0 Shugenja
I am presently running a game of L5R where they are encountering students who have failed their gempukku. For courtiers and bushi this is easy: no school. However, with a shugenja, talking to the ...
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