The Collected Rulings (and Wisecracks) of Rich Wulf

Davechan is correct. A Mirumoto can attack with whichever sword he prefers, with no penalty. Generally the katana is going to be the weapon of choice, because it does more damage, but if the bushi wishes to attack with his wakizashi he may do so at no penalty. Does this mean that a Mirumoto duelist gains nothing from taking ambidexterity. The way we were reading it, the Daisho technique only canceled out the +5 TN for weilding two-weapons, but does nothing for the +5 TN for off handed use if the Dragon attacked with his Wakizashi. Also does the mastery abilities for two weapons stack, as someone above mentioned earlier. A Mirumoto with Ambidexterity gains the benefits of Ambidexterity with every other weapon in the world that is not a katana or wakizashi. That's no small advantage. Just because they get a little bit of Ambidexterity for free doesn't mean the rest isn't still nice to have. As for whether they stack, it depends entirely upon the wording. If a Mastery ability says something like "When wielding two knives" and you've got a knife and a salami, then no you don't get them. But if the Mastery Advantages don't care what you've got in your other hand, then yes, you get the full advantages of both.

Ok I'm going to be a huge dork here and ask a question on an offhand sentence that was in 3E under Gaijin Gear. You mention several outside kingdoms (Ivory Kingdoms, Yobanjin, Senpet, Yodotai) and toss in the name 'Kingdom of Merenae' and reference Cutlass' and Rapier's as weapons from said kingdom. Any way I could get a couple sentence blurb on this offhandly mentioned distant kingdom? :) C'mon Rich, I'll buy you more drinks at Origins (like I wouldn't anyway.) Merenae is the offshoot of the gaijin Empire that once fought Rokugan during the Battle of White Stag. What is now Merenae was once associated with a larger kingdom known as Thrane, which collapsed due to many horrible events including a pretty nasty plague and a war with the Yodatai. It is a land with some amount of similarity to western europe in medeival times, albeit with slightly more advanced technology in some areas (such as some rudimentary explosives). A couple characters you are already familiar with have their roots in Merenae - Garen Hawthorne and Alhundro Cornejo. EDIT: Now that I actually READ the thread, Cyrus' info is also dead on, and most of what I said other people already covered. GO ME.

Very interesting. I have to confess that finding ways to make Rank 2 starting characters was sort of an ongoing goal for me in previous editions as well. While we didn't set out to make doing so any easier, it doesn't really bother me that much to see that it can be done. After all, a well rounded Rank 1 character does offer advantages that a character tweaked to make Rank 2 does not. So, I don't think I really have a problem with this. Quite the contrary, I'm happy to see that we have players clever enough to do the most with the tools afforded to them. ;)

As far as I saw, daggers and sai had no innate bonuses to dual-weilding, though the tessen do give a TN bonus. Edit: Apologies, the knives skill (including Sai and Jitte) does remove penalties and give bonues at certain mastery levels, whereas the War Fan skill doesn't, but the war fan itself does That's what I'm referring to. Glad to see those rules weren't removed, I was a little worried there. :D Anyway, try out the new two-weapon options. Let us know what you think. As always, the game is constantly evolving. If these options are insufficient, we can always address the matter with a rules supplement or website extra. (Perhaps our oldest mandate to fiddle around with the 3E rules and present our findings to the devs).

Oh, okay. It's just that it pretty much looks like there was a table in that column on the page, and it was deleted and the text moved to the top. My mistake. No this was a writing mistake. We removed the table, which we originally had in our text, and left the reference to it.

There is space at the bottom of the page the chart should be on, just about the size of a chart of sample TNs. Space was not an issue here. Actually Dace has it more or less on the head here. Material was removed. When we edit down the text, it's generally before it goes into Layout. We get an estimate of how much room is needed, and we cut appropriately. The guys that lay the book out are not the same guys that write the book. If they should suddenly find they have space later on, they do not have the material at hand to put back in the book, nor do the writers generally oversee the layout to make sure they've used every bit of page efficiently (that, of course, is layout's job and while they're doing it we're already working on the next book). Just an attempt to clarify the process here, but Dace is very much correct. A possibly subjective rules system relying on judgment calls was seen as less important as something very concrete, like poison, that could not be treated in such a manner.

So in order to get higher status one needs to buy Social Position Advantage? What is the mechanic for it precisely? Each social position counts as 1 pt of Status? Or they vary depending on what the position is? If so what would be average status of simple member of kuge family of the clan? The GM can grant Status any time a character gets a promotion and it's a good rule of thumb for a character's status to always at least be equal to his School Rank. Generally, players shouldn't really assume that their characters will be increasing constantly - for the most part characters in Rokugan will hit a "ceiling" where their Status levels out and, after this, promotions are somewhat rare. Status is used primarily as a gauge of who is politically, socially, and legally bound to offer obedience and/or respect to whom.

Because for the most part the chart is rather arbitrary and subjective. What you consider "Very difficult" and I consider "Easy" may very well be the same thing. A chart that covers every potential possibility would be impossible, and context often alters the possible difficulty drastically. For an extreme example: writing a poem in tribute to a young lady's beauty would be a great deal easier in a peaceful garden than in the depths of the Shadowlands - where you're likely to find it a little difficult to concentrate on something like that. For these reasons the TN chart seems like it would be useful more as a novelty than as an actual useful reference.

There are no rules for two weapon fighting. The only benefit of two weapons is that both are there ready to use. (Sighs loudly). Well, it seems we'll need to create some homemade rules for nitoujutsu fighting, again. We don't deserve being ignored like that. You're not being ignored, you're simply looking in the wrong place. Possible advantages for wielding two weapons at once are enumerated above, but it goes beyond this - look at the Weapon skills. Some weapons offer Mastery bonuses that grant lesser penalties or free raises toward gaining an additional attack when you wield one in your offhand. Included in this number are the sai, tanto, and tessen. Generic rules for using two weapons that apply regardless of skill would be just that - generic - they would inevitably either undermine the uniqueness of the Dragon and Mantis schools that are known for two weapon fighting, or (in an effort to avoid stepping into their territory) be so weak as to be useless. Instead we struck a compromise here - you can do two weapon fighting effectively if you: 1) Use weapons that lend themselves toward such tactics. 2) Become rather skilled with them. EDIT: Grain of salt here: the above changes were requested in a late edit. I have not seen the final copy of the book as I have not received mine. if for some reason these Mastery options for dagger, fan, and sai are not in the book someone please let me know so I appear a bit less silly than usual. If anyone does move Miromoto Ookami's two-weapon fighting home brew into the archive, please let me know so that I can re-direct the link appropriately.

With the number of Raises for damage the winner usually gets out of an Iaijutsu duel, it'll very likely be rare that his target survives the first shot even with the Down buffer. If they do survive, well, the loser is still bound by the rules of the duel. (i.e. - if it's a duel to the death, they die.) Whether or not the winner finishes the guy off or forces him to seppuku out of shame all depends on the context and the individuals involved.

Considering that Ashigaru, monks and Ronin don´t have schools and the initiative is Reflexes + School rank K Reflexes (as per the character sheet) Wouldn´t that make them turtles in combat? Ronin do, in fact, have schools now. Characters with no school whatsoever would use their Insight Rank.

Here's the new Design Diary! It came in a bit earlier than I expected so I haven't bothered Puck to put it on the site yet. At any rate I hope you like what you see; it was written up by one of our newest and most promising freelancers. L5R Third Edition Design Diary Number Five By Peter Thomas Ramirez, Freelance Writer One of the most interesting parts about working on Third Edition, in my humble opinion, was how fluidly the rules and mechanics evolved and adapted as we worked on it. For this project we were blessed not only with some of the most talented writers that have worked on the game, but also with a large body of playtesters to help make certain that the rules would be concise, intuitive, and fun. The end result was a tightly crafted system that combines the best parts of First and Second Edition, a handful of useful things we learned in the dual system days, and a few entirely new and exciting ideas. Most of that, of course, was during the last few days of playtesting, when Rich Wulf’s laptop mysteriously became jammed with peanut butter and, somehow, Yorkshire terrier hair. Though the writers and editors had several backup copies of the files, it was in the end deemed that collecting these would have been a great deal of trouble, and instead I was called upon to determine how the rules would be adapted for a third iteration of this beloved rules system. My advice was also sought out for various layout, artwork, and printing concerns. These changes were vast and manifold, but I have collected a handful of them here for your enjoyment. Top Ten New Changes to Third Edition 1)Advantages being purchased after character creation was long an optional rule, but it has traditionally been a popular one. This has been instituted in a new manner. To prevent abuse, Advantages no longer cost double the regular Character Point cost in Experience. Rather, they now cost one hundred dollars per Character Point. This money is to be paid directly to the Game Master, who will of course tithe ten percent to Alderac Entertainment Group. 2) People have long complained about the gender imbalance in the RPG. Simply put many of the player characters tend to be male. To correct this imbalance we will be encouraging the build of female characters by granting all female characters a +1 bonus to all starting Traits. I feel that this rule captures the flavor of the CCG quite well, especially when one looks at such artwork as Matsu Satomi, Shosuro Yasuko, and the perennial favorites, Kachiko and O-Ushi. As one can clearly see these are powerful characters with large, well-rounded rings. The RPG should reflect this! 3) Ratlings, as has already been mentioned previously, were unfortunately removed from the main book due to lack of space. While they are an important part of the ongoing storyline, the Ratlings have always been peripheral to the tales of the Great Clans and samurai. Disagreeing with this decision, I have seen to it that the Nezumi were returned to the main book and took things a step further by also including player characters rules for Naga, Yobanjin, Yodatai, Ningyo, Wyrm Riders, and puffins. To make room for these exciting options, other factions that I saw as less important have been removed. These include the Minor Clans, Ronin, Imperial Families, Bloodspeakers, and the Unicorn Clan. 4) In the interest of promoting Legend of the Five Rings to a wider audience, we are hoping to step away from the distasteful stigma that many hold toward role-playing games. Henceforth, there will be a decreased emphasis on matters of religion and the occult. There will be no more shugenja, henshin, monk, or maho tsukai rules options. Character options such as “Bishamon’s Blessing” or “Benten’s Blessing” have been renamed less offensive titles such as “Religiously Neutral Blessing of Combat Prowess” and “Really Hot.” The Phoenix Clan will henceforth set aside their obsession with magic and instead produce the finest sausage in the Empire. Hopefully this small gesture reduce potential offense and lower the unfortunately high incidence of Legend of the Five Rings players growing up to become murderous devil worshipers. 5) Long time fans of samurai drama are often fascinated with the tradition of seppuku – the Japanese custom of ritual suicide. While this custom has always been a part of Legend of the Five Rings canon, the role-playing game has always considered this an act better left to the imagination rather than described with specific rules. For Third Edition, we’ve determined not to steer away from such a grisly and controversial subject. Over 5000 words of seppuku rules will be included with the main book, including full color diagrams and step-by-step instructions. Enjoy! 6) For those who still own copies of previous editions, binding issues have been a serious problem. Some print runs of the book have proven to be extremely fragile, with the pages beginning to fall out after years of use. As this is a problem existing fans are already accustomed to, we have decided to save money by not gluing the book together at all. Further plans to randomly sort the pages of future sourcebooks and sell them in pre-sealed packages, including rare ‘chase’ pages that contain important rules are currently in the works. 7) Oftentimes players have reported on the forum that they are confused by the mechanics of Contested Rolls. Specifically how Free Raises and other such mechanics apply in such a roll. Henceforth Contested Rolls will be conducted in the following manner. Each player will collect his pool of dice and hurl it at the other player. The player that strikes his opponent with more dice succeeds at the Contested Roll. A dice that hits the other player in the eye, mouth, or groin “explodes” and may be thrown again. If either player begins to cry, he automatically loses the Contested Roll. 8) Of course one of the most popular facets of Legend of the Five Rings has always been its artwork, but another element of its popularity has been its interactivity. To this end, rather than have artwork in the main book, we will leave blank spaces so that the players may draw their own characters. A small box of crayons will also be included with the first print run of the Player’s Guide as a special reward for those who jump on the 3E wagon first. 9) Legend of the Five Rings has always arguably had an imbalanced Experience Point system. While some characters can reach high Insight and gain new Techniques quickly by distributing Experience evenly, other characters who build high Rings often feel left out in the cold, with nothing but their 14 Wounds on every level and 10k10 damage attacks to grant them solace. With this in mind, the Experience Point system has been abolished in 3E in favor of a new “head eating” system. Player characters must eat the heads of fallen foes to gain their powers and abilities, a concept seen throughout samurai film and fiction that has always been, until now, sadly absent in Rokugan. 10) Skill lists, as has been noted in other design diaries, have been both stripped to their bare essentials and also made deeper and more complex through the introduction of Emphases. In consultation with L5R Line Editor DJ Trindle, it was determined that while this change was good, it was not taken far enough. I will leave you with a fun sneak preview – the entirety of the Third Edition Skill List. Do Craft, Lore, Performance, Social, Weapon Skill Emphases: Acting, Anatomy, Baking, Battle, Birdwatching, Courtier, Defense, Divination, Engineering, Etiquette, Explosives, Haberdashery, Hen-Teasing, Horsemanship, Hunting, Iaijutsu, Investigation, Jiujutsu, Kenjutsu, Know the School, Kyujutsu, Medicine, Meditaiton, Motorcycle Maintenance, Origami, Shadowlands Lore, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Tea Ceremony, Tropical Fish Handling, others at GM’s Option. You are able to do things. All kinds of things. When you do things, you will use this skill. Mastery Abilities Rank 5: You can do things really good now. Rank 7: You are even better now. People are really impressed. Rank 10: Wow. You’re quite good at doing stuff! Congratulations! Okay, this is the April Fools design diary, it includes no practical information, but it was just too good to pass up. All Players Forum posts by rwulf that appear before this date are part of the designers' journal or relate to earlier editions of the game. This marks the end of the Collected Rulings (and Wisecracks) of Rich Wulf RPG Players Forum Edition.

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