Houserules discussion [Chrysanthemum Petals in Rain]

NoisyCricket

NoisyCricket

Elder Member
So, what houserules will we use? Eventually we'll finalize these and put them in the sticky, but until then, we'll debate.


I'm big on removing Great Potential as an advantage, and just allowing the 9's exploding like 10's on rank 10 naturally.


Other than that, I would have to reread the emails we've been sending back and forth, and right now I'm too lazy/tired for that.
 
stuff I saw mentioned in the e-mail thread.


Human samurai only.


No Spider clan players


http://www.l5r.com/products/rpg/masters-of-war-dojos/


http://www.l5r.com/images/l5r-mocwebsup.pdf


Nothing with the ninja tag.


30-60 exp kicker on start.


all skills explode on 9's at 10. great potential is gone.


All other basic schools - Allowed, except pre-hidden-emp, unless we play in the pre-hidden-emp time period, and the nanashi-mura schools banned, since it got kind of flattened, again, unless we play pre-hidden-emp.


Great Destiny - banned


Dojo's - one free, as per Charles


Dark fate - banned


Infamy/ronin as per HOR


Bloodlines?


Sacred Weapons?


Stuff I've pulled out of the HoR houserules.


Called shots allowed in duels


Bragging for glory rules


Kharma for dead characters. I know I discussed this with some people, basically I wanted people who died and made a new character to start out weaker, but catch up to the party in exp within 3-4 sessions.


Iajitsu != weapon skill.


The spell “Wind-Born Slumbers†has been modified as follows, in order to let it continue


to be a useful spell for characters (and NPCs) who already have it: the caster may Raise


once to increase the TN of the resistance roll by 5, and may Raise twice to increase the


TN penalty which the spell inflicts by 5.


Prohibited Spells


The following spells are forbidden in Heroes of Rokugan: Crystal's Awakening (Secrets of the Crab), Anvil of the Kami (Secrets of the Dragon), Shadowed Caress (Four Winds), Evil Ward (Prayers & Treasures), Stand Against the Waves (Prayers & Treasures), Detect Lineage (Fealty & Freedom), and all Maho spells.


Modified Spells


Strength of the Kami: Duration is in rounds, not hours.


Do we want to ban/modify the 'arrow always hits' spell. Me and ben discussed it just offering 1 raise, and one additional raise per 2 called by shuggy to the arrow.


How are we handling outfit refreshes?
 
I would recommend also looking at these:


http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 23&t=73838


And picking and choosing what we want to use. Specifically, the Asako Courtier change is a good call, as is probably the Tsuruchi Longbow change.


The questions on the rest of that forum are generally helpful too.


Also, I'm not in favor of sacred weapons, as they tend to be all over the place in terms of power.
 
rcuhljr said:
that errata would remove any reason to be a librarian :P
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Welcome to courtier-land, where everything you do is useless!


And even with that change, Asako is still a strong school. It's just not an insight-rocket with a free pass to rank 10.


Also, I think Iaijitsu should counted as a weapon skill.


Otherwise, Kakita bushi suffers a large disadvantage relative to all other bushi schools; weapon skills at 10 allow you to reroll 9's on damage. A Kakita sub'in in Iai for Ken thus couldn't, because Iai isn't a weapon skill.


Other than the Spymaster tech, I don't see much reason to rule that Iai isn't a weapon skill, and since Spymaster is being banned (since it has the ninja tag), I don't see why Iai couldn't be a weapon skill.


Is there any strong reason to rule it not a weapon skill?


Otherwise, I agree with everything on the list Rob posted, especially since most of them were my suggestions originally. >.>
 
I'm fairly up in the air about iai being a weapon skill. It doesn't make as much thematic sense, but it does sort of screw kakita.
 
I'm still against Iai being a weapon skill for two reasons. It costs the kakita a tiny bit of damage from not exploding on 9's for damage, and it makes wound penalties more important for them in combat since they won't be ignoring some for free. These seem like a fair trade for being able to substitute a skill as socially powerful as iai in for attacks and for going into what is the dueling bushi school. The whole point of the kakita is shifting the focus from pure melee to the duel. losing less then 5 dmg on the average attack isn't exactly a crippling weakness compared to getting a free rank 10 skill.
 
rcuhljr said:
I'm still against Iai being a weapon skill for two reasons. It costs the kakita a tiny bit of damage from not exploding on 9's for damage, and it makes wound penalties more important for them in combat since they won't be ignoring some for free. These seem like a fair trade for being able to substitute a skill as socially powerful as iai in for attacks and for going into what is the dueling bushi school. The whole point of the kakita is shifting the focus from pure melee to the duel. losing less then 5 dmg on the average attack isn't exactly a crippling weakness compared to getting a free rank 10 skill.
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And it puts them even further behind Mirumoto (And Hida Defender), for no appreciable gain, who get to make the same substitution, but theirs counts as a weapon skill, and thus gets exploding 9's.


Other than "Quit whining Kakita" is there any reason for it not to be a weapon skill? They're already a skirmish weak school; it seems more like 'adding insult to injury'. Heck, even if it's ruled a weapon skill I still probably wouldn't be playing a Kakita; Mirumoto is just better at everything at this point.
 
On a completely different topic:


Shugenja spells. How many per level up?


As has been amply demonstrated by HoR, 2 is really restrictive, and 3 seems much more palatable overall, while still preventing shuggies from turning into 'do everything' bots.


I'd suggest we adopt the white-orchid level of spell progression as the default (3 per level).
 
I'm fine with either 3 per level or fictions for one extra per level. especially since we seem to be running a shuggie light campaign.


As to kakita, I'm just trying to avoid tinkering with class balance because it's a slippery slope. Are we going to boost every other weak class? Dragon don't get their kenjitsu emphasis while dueling, which is a straight 2 raises they start behind every kakita duelist which seems like more than 'no appreciable gain' (And kakita get to apply their iai strike emphasis to skirmish as per HOR house rules). I also don't think they are that terrible at skirmish when speed kills and they get +20 to init and raises based on init. Certainly they are no worse then several other bushi schools, are we intending to fix all of them?
 
rcuhljr said:
I'm fine with either 3 per level or fictions for one extra per level. especially since we seem to be running a shuggie light campaign.
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I vote we stick with two but encourage GMs to reward shugenjas with spells, specifically because the theme says: "New spells may be offered by one's school as a reward for per­sonal achievement." You could argue that ranking up is substantial personal achievement, but, to me, ranking up feels more like furthering ones training while gifted spell scrolls feel more personal.
 
That'd be kosher, although two caveats. One, it should probably be players choice of spells. and secondly it makes an odd dynamic that shugenja players are getting rewards and bushi are getting...? unless we want to make fine->excellent->legendary->magical part of the gameplay and potential rewards.
 
Honestly, I assumed we would get favors/allies, and use them how we wished, instead of usually getting specific bonuses.


Though some explicit rewards would make sense too, tinkering with armor from the Kaiu, Asahina Fetishes, etc.
 
NoisyCricket said:
Honestly, I assumed we would get favors/allies, and use them how we wished, instead of usually getting specific bonuses.
Though some explicit rewards would make sense too, tinkering with armor from the Kaiu, Asahina Fetishes, etc.
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I was thinking about this last night, and we should probably have some favor-equivalency chart. Especially since HoR itself isn't very stable about such things. e.g. Rob got an Excellent Katana for 2 favors, Chris got one for 4 + obligation.


Something like:


Spell = 1 favor


Fine item = 1 favor


Fine weapon = 2 favors


Excellent item = 2 favors


Excellent weapon = 3 favors.


5 Koku in starting pack = 1 favor


etc.


(Note these are numbers 'off the top of my head' and not intended to be balanced or final. :-P)
 
Zoronos said:
NoisyCricket said:
Honestly, I assumed we would get favors/allies, and use them how we wished, instead of usually getting specific bonuses.
Though some explicit rewards would make sense too, tinkering with armor from the Kaiu, Asahina Fetishes, etc.
Click to expand...
I was thinking about this last night, and we should probably have some favor-equivalency chart. Especially since HoR itself isn't very stable about such things. e.g. Rob got an Excellent Katana for 2 favors, Chris got one for 4 + obligation.


Something like:


Spell = 1 favor


Fine item = 1 favor


Fine weapon = 2 favors


Excellent item = 2 favors


Excellent weapon = 3 favors.


5 Koku in starting pack = 1 favor


etc.


(Note these are numbers 'off the top of my head' and not intended to be balanced or final. :-P)
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Spells would need some tiering too, if this gets decided on. Personally, before I wrote any fictions for HoR, I had a mental model of 1-2: 1 favor, 3-4: 2 favors, 5-6: 4 favors
 
MeekInheritEarth said:
Spells would need some tiering too, if this gets decided on. Personally, before I wrote any fictions for HoR, I had a mental model of 1-2: 1 favor, 3-4: 2 favors, 5-6: 4 favors
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That sounds reasonable...as much as I want to see Shuggies with Light of Yakamo from only 1 favor >.>
 
Shifting topics again:

rcuhljr said:
30-60 exp kicker on start.


How are we handling outfit refreshes?
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a) What kind of numbers are we looking at for this?


I played around with the '50' value Rob had thrown out previously, and that looks like enough to reliably hit about rank 2, but only just barely and is not enough to max a weapon skill. If we want 'strong rank 1 / weak rank 2' that seems about the value to shoot for.


What are other people's opinions?


b)


I saw we have them refresh per 'mod', aka when the GM says so. That might be every session, but for longer 'mods', it might be 2 sessions. Any time there's a clean break in plot, the outfit should come back.


Not having to worry extensively about koku (unless you're a ronin) was a nice feature of HoR, imo.
 
What do you mean by 'maxing out a weapon skill'? 5, 10?


I am all for the outfit refresh. Otherwise we'll have to pay a lot more attention to koku/arrows/etc.
 
NoisyCricket said:
What do you mean by 'maxing out a weapon skill'? 5, 10?
I am all for the outfit refresh. Otherwise we'll have to pay a lot more attention to koku/arrows/etc.
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10. You can't reasonably hit 10 in a weapon skill (which is a good thing, imo) with Rob's proposed 'kicker'.


5 is obviously doable.
 
So... any opinions yay or nay on Rob's suggested value for the 'kicker' ?


I am in favor, since it seems to be a pretty good 'magic number' to get to insight 2 without going much beyond it.
 
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