Legends of the Samurai: Mystic Arts: Kenza Questions

First, I really like this product.

Are Kenza's really compeletly restricted to the short spell lists? I see that they are seriously efffective with those spells. But they seem crippled by being severe one trick ponies. Am I missing something? I'm trying to think of a way to give them some utility without throwing things out of whack. Early thoughts are something like giving them access to the Mahoutsukai spell list, but increase the cost of those spells by like +5 or double, whichever is more.

Elemental Ease states that the minimum cost is as on the spell point table (0 for 0 and 1st and 1 for all others). The table lists a minimum of 0 for 0 and 1st and spell level for all others. Which is correct?

Thanks

Heya Bryon, Im really glad you like it

The idea behind the Kenza is that he's raw power. He's the magical equivalent of a Samurai. He's not subtle, he just rains down destruction.

If the player puts all his eggs in one basket (doing nothing but improving his ability with Fire spells) then he is going to be very limited. However, the idea is to strike a balance between being able to wipe the floor with anything not resistant to your element of choice and some of the more subtle elements, such as Air and Water.

Remember that instead of gaining power in one element, the Kenza can also branch out as he reaches higher levels. Each option grants him a different kind of power.

As for elemental ease there's a word or two missing, the description should say 0 for 0 and 1st level spells and 1 per spell level for all other spells (spell level is what's missing).

As for allowing access to mahoutsukai, I think doing that would kill the reason to play a mahoutsukai. I know one of our playtesters (in Paul King's group) multiclassed between Kenza and and Mahoutsukai. The spellcaster in my home playtest group multiclassed between Kenza and Ninja.

So anyway, that's my take

Chuck

Vigilance said:

Heya Bryon, Im really glad you like it

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Me too.

The idea behind the Kenza is that he's raw power. He's the magical equivalent of a Samurai. He's not subtle, he just rains down destruction.

If the player puts all his eggs in one basket (doing nothing but improving his ability with Fire spells) then he is going to be very limited. However, the idea is to strike a balance between being able to wipe the floor with anything not resistant to your element of choice and some of the more subtle elements, such as Air and Water.

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Yeah, I get that. It just seems extreme. If you just have one list you have mostly one spell per level and they often are just more powerful versions of the same general effect. I'd be a very hesistant to put my eggs in that small of a basket. You are right that they get REALLY good at that one thing.

Remember that instead of gaining power in one element, the Kenza can also branch out as he reaches higher levels. Each option grants him a different kind of power.

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But to pick up more than 2 lists gets into multiple ability dependency. So if I have to choose between the air thread, limited to 4th level or making my fire thread stronger at all levels, it seems pretty easy.

As for elemental ease there's a word or two missing, the description should say 0 for 0 and 1st level spells and 1 per spell level for all other spells (spell level is what's missing).

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ok

As for allowing access to mahoutsukai, I think doing that would kill the reason to play a mahoutsukai. I know one of our playtesters (in Paul King's group) multiclassed between Kenza and and Mahoutsukai. The spellcaster in my home playtest group multiclassed between Kenza and Ninja.

So anyway, that's my take

Chuck

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Yeah, I'm forced to agree. Though I'm still concerned that the Kenza is just to much a one trick guy. But maybe I'm just not the right player for it.

That does lead to a question on multiclassing. How do spell points work for a Kenza / Mahoutsukai? Say I am a K4/M4 with a CHR of 17. Seems clear that I have CL 4 for each and 10 Kenza SP and 10 Mahoutsukai SP. Can I recover both types at the same time? Or do I need to declare which type I am recovering in a given hour?

You only recover spell points once per hour. But keep in mind, while caster levels don't stack, you can spend spell points as you please. So a kenza/Mahoutsukai with 20 sp can spend all 20 on Kenza spells or Mahoutsukai spells as the situation demands.

On the subject of the kenza having one trick... I suppose... in playtest Fire/Air and Fir/Earth/Magma Kenza were so powerful that we limited the class several times. Although I see the point about needing multiple abilities, even a Kenza with two elemental spell lists has moved beyond being a one trick pony, and given how potent his "trick" is...

Well, let's just say in playtest the Kenza class logged more TPKs than anything else (so far- some monster might beat his record).

Another Kenza story from playtest... my home group saved the life of a Daimyo and was offered almost anything as a reward. They picked a Ring of Fire Resistance for each party member.

Chuck

Vigilance said:

You only recover spell points once per hour. But keep in mind, while caster levels don't stack, you can spend spell points as you please. So a kenza/Mahoutsukai with 20 sp can spend all 20 on Kenza spells or Mahoutsukai spells as the situation demands.

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Ah, thats slightly different than I was thinking. Ok, thanks.

On the subject of the kenza having one trick... I suppose... in playtest Fire/Air and Fir/Earth/Magma Kenza were so powerful that we limited the class several times. Although I see the point about needing multiple abilities, even a Kenza with two elemental spell lists has moved beyond being a one trick pony, and given how potent his "trick" is...

Well, let's just say in playtest the Kenza class logged more TPKs than anything else (so far- some monster might beat his record).

Another Kenza story from playtest... my home group saved the life of a Daimyo and was offered almost anything as a reward. They picked a Ring of Fire Resistance for each party member.

Chuck

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No doubt. But a one trick pony being a solid danger against a party in a single encounter is not the same as a one trick pony being a viable character for encounter after encounter. Many MM creatures are also one-trick.

How often did your play-testers run single class Kenza? Did they feel compelled to branch out for PC merit?

My PCs played single class Kenza several times, we do games for playtest purposes where everyone plays single classed versions of all the classes.

However, in the "real" campaign no one has played a single class Kenza, but I dont read too much into that (every PC in the party is multiclassed except the Samurai lol).

Something else to keep in mind about the kenza is that, at least in the way I run Legends of the Samurai, a lot of the opponents are NPCs. This makes elemental damage always useful.

In fact one of the last changes we made to make the Kenza less potent was adding Evasion to the rogue-ish classes.

Again, heaving dealt with the Kenza for a long time, it has always been the problem child of the classes, just in a very different way than you suggest. Most of the time we were attempting to reign him in.

Thanks for the comments Bryon

Chuck

Thanks for the feedback.

My apologies for sounded so critical. Perhaps you can just believe me that this is my nature and the big compliment is that this is my only issue.

Anyway, I do have a player that will probably be content to go "fireball", "fireball", "fireball", ...
If he can't fireball anything, he'll wait. heh

I may also apply a bit of liberal interpretation of importune kami spells.

I didnt think you were being critical at all.

The Kenza is a very different take on magic than is usually seen in D&D. Its actually unlike anything I have ever seen before in a P&P rpg, closer to the mage from most CRPGs than what you normally find in D&D.

So in a way its an experiment, and my initial write-up for the class was way overpowered Just ask Paul's party that got TPK'd by a maximized, empowered fireball that killed two party members who *made* their save This was the final straw that got Evasion re-added to many of the LOS classes. I had originally not had it as a class ability for any of the classes, specifically make the Kenza a little more fearsome... turns out he's fearsome enough

There's a lot of little things that make the Kenza powerful that (in my experience) don't show up on a cursory inspection. For instance, and this was mentioned above, the prevalence of metamagic. With the ability to horde spell points for that one big maximized, empowered, spell, you see these sorts of tricks much more often, since the Kenza can conserve his energy with cheap low-level spells most of the time.

This was true in Legends of Excalibur too, but there weren't really any BOOM spells there so it wasn't as noticeable.

Chuck

Vigilance said:

So in a way its an experiment, and my initial write-up for the class was way overpowered Just ask Paul's party that got TPK'd by a maximized, empowered fireball that killed two party members who *made* their save This was the final straw that got Evasion re-added to many of the LOS classes.

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Yeah, and the guy who failed the Ref save then proceeded to fail the Fort save due to massive damage; had he made his Fort save, he would've survived (Ashigaru with some *really* incredible hp rolls). My group was *very* happy when Evasion got added back in.