Impressed with AEG's Rokugan books!
 

Finally had a chance to check out AEG's Rokugan Campaign Setting, Magic of Rokugan and Creatures of Rokugan. They're really quite impressive and full of useful crunchy bits one can use outside an asian setting. The classes like samurai and shugenja would make excellent variant fighters and clerics for a regular 3e game. The courtier class in particular seems like a huge improvement over 3e/SW's Noble/Aristocrat! As to the Rokugan setting itself, it's extremely detailed and I would probably use it if I were running an asian setting.

I was really overwhelmed by how cool these books were. It's funny how AEG devotes so much amazing quality to their Rokugan and Spycraft lines, and so much less to their other d20 products... Almost like two different companies were making them! I still enjoy AEG's misc. d20 output (War, Monster, Evil, mini-modules, etc.), but wish they could devote the same level of craftmanship to these as well.

They certainly seem to devote a lot of their quality to the Rokugan books.

I have the campaign setting, and intend to buy both Creatures and Magic of Rokugan. And I don't even like oriental settings!

Being also the owner of Dragons, by the same company, I suffer from the same wishful thinking that they would use the same standard in the generic products.

I specially enjoy Rokugan's idea of emphasizing honor over alignment for the game.

Total agreement, and not only because I'm running a Rokugan game.:) I particularly liked the magic items in Magic of Rokugan. It not only makes items a little more personal for PC's but it makes magic items more cool and less high value low bulk treasure.

The classes are well done. The courtier is well done and I very much liked the Ninja as a core class instead of PrC.

I'm very much looking forward to Way of the Samurai. Hmm..have to check when it's coming out.:)

I've ordered the campaign setting, and I can see myself buying the Magic of Rokugan, but how portable are the monsters in Monsters of Rokugan? I can see myself stealing some of the rules from the setting, but the monsters? Need more info. :)

The monsters are pretty cool. I'd say over half are portable to a regular D&D setting without tweaking. I just ignore the things that don't port (taint, honor, etc.). There are lots of evil spirits (oni), undead and icky stuff like oozes... It seems like a good mix of CRs and creature types.

My favorite hideous critter is Mokumokuren (Thousand Eyes Ghost), a unique and deadly ghost composed of one thousand eyeballs whose gaze strips the flesh from the bones of its victims! Another fun creep to spring on your players is the Obake, an ugly old hunchback with open red wounds on his hump... If you aren't nice to him and give him food or money (whatever he wants), he releases a swarm of wasps from the hump in his back (actually a wasp nest growing under his skin!). Gross!

There's a good section on PrCs, templated creatures and Tainted/Shadowlands powers. Appendix Three tells you how to use monsters in your game to maximum effect--good reading for any DM using any setting. Thumbs up!

Kaptain, you mentioned how impressed you were with the backdrop of the Rokugan Setting. If that's the case, I highly recommend the Clan sourcebooks("Way of the --". Way of the Crab is rediculiously aswesome). Excellent reading material. Talk about cultural delving! The beauty is that it's the same gentlemen that created L5R that are giving us all this beautiful d20 stuff (minus OA). Now that I've taken a look at the rules, I'm not too mad at the classic L5R rules either. Although I'd still like to play a d20 Rokugan game more. One change I would make to the rules is using "Star Wars" style Defence over AC. That was the beauty of the 1E and 2E L5R rules is that it was very easy for you PC to die. You had to make good decisions on wether to start a fight or not. :D

This is a plus and minus both. Since it is also a game where there is no coming back from death, I like d20 more since it's easier not to kill the PC's in my game.

I'll second comments on the "Way of..." books. They are cheap to find now as well since AEG is dumping them to make room for all the new d20 stuff. The 'lastest' info in the clan books is actually way out of date for Rokugan d20, so be warned of that however.

Aside from that, well...there has been some change over in AEG for L5R. After all, Rich Wulf was still doing his Rokugan 90210 and Rokugan 2000 when Ree and others were crafting L5R's earlier days.:)

Do I have to say I told you so? :)

Yes, the monsters in Monsters of Rokugan are fairly portable. With a few tweaks, the shadow samurai could become a shadow warrior. I too think the Mokumokuren is way cool... the picture just blew me away.

I actually have been working on this for my upcoming Rokugan game. I have converted armor and natural armor so that they provide a DR (Hardness) and gave all classes a defense bonuses to AC similar to the ones from Wheel of Time and Star Wars. That way your AC reflects your ability to not be hit and your armor represents your ability to not take damage when you are hit.

I also have converted the Star Wars Vitality Points/Wound Points system for use in Rkugan to increase the danger of combat.

BTW does anyone know when the next Rokugan book "Way of the Samurai" is due out? It is WAY overdue. Word has it that AEG had in issue with the poor job that the printer did and sent the books back to be redone, but they haven't updated their site or given a new ETA.

Tzarevitch

I had an order for Magic of Rokugan for 50% off from a place that was liquidating their RPG supplies. Three days after the order was confirmed they told me they had made a mistake and it was already sold out.:( Maybe some other time. It would probably make sense to get OA and/or Rokugan first though (which means I won't get it for a long while). It's too bad, the magic item advancement rules sounded really good.

Yeah, I've got Rokugan and Creatures of Rokugan. Both are excellent, though I think the ninja core class might be a little... overpowered.
The obake is a very cool low-level monster. It's a pity that I am not the DM of our Oriental Adventures campaign (expect a story hour soon!), because my mind floods with adventure ideas springing from the monsters, prestige classes, spells, and magic items.
These are the best non-WotC d20 books, and a lot better than many WotC-published ones, too.

You fear death?! YOU ARE WEAK!! ;)

Me? Fear death? I'm the GM! Bwahahaha! I fear nothing!;)

But game wise it's nice to have some character continuity, which becomes difficult if character's are dying too often. :)

I don't know. I think as the storyteller, s/he shouldn't put the PC's in that position as often. Political intrigue can be just as fun. It makes the decision of entering combat monumental.
"Masakito-san, I want you to give my diasho to my son if the 7 fortunes deem me not worthy to prove the strongest. Tell him I would have liked to have seen him as a man--a man with honor."
What I liked about the old rules is that those words weren't as hollow as they would have been if that fear wasn't so prominent. Continuity comes from players making intellegent decisions with the character that thy're playing at the time. If he/she dies honorably, karma can be passed on to the next character (i.e. the storyteller gives the new character someinteresting and cool ideas/items/advantages to work with. The rules start a PC with a certain amount of feats. What's to say a character can't start off with more than he should have? Good karma is a good excuse. It's also a good excuse to see a lot of those extra feats that you've wanted to see in use. By the way, this is coming from a very anti-power gamer.
In a more generic campaign (as the DM) I reward players extra feats and/or skill points based on the story they create for their character. The karma idea is just taking it a step further.

God, I love this game!:D

For some info on Way of the Samurai:
http://boards.wizards.com/rpg-bin/ul...02&t=000717&p=

Also two very good L5R books: the Book of the shadowlands and bearer of Jade, though they focus only on the shadowland, they are a very good resources. Those books are written as if a shugenja had written them, with stats for the original game system in very small coulums next to the text, so content wise, they are very useful for a d20 GM..