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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pinotage" data-source="post: 2659413" data-attributes="member: 15194">Legends of the Samurai: The Bushido Handbook is a pdf product from RPGObjects. Written by Charles Rice, this pdf brings to life the world of medieval Japan and features new rules, bloodlines, martial classes, skills, feats, martial arts, equipment and a lot more. The pdf is 60 pages long, 1 which is used for OGL declarations and 1 which is used for credits and a cover, leaving 58 pages to detail the social and martial culture of medieval Japan. This pdf normally retails on Drivethrurpg.com and RPGNow.com for $8.95. This review was done as part of Crothian's Review Project.Initial Impressions:Legends of the Samurai: The Bushido Handbook is one of three pdfs that form part of the Legends of the Samurai d20 world, the second in RPGObjects' Legends line. The pdf comes as a single pdf file, with the layout in three columns, and is crammed with lots of crunchy material. There are, unfortunately, no bookmarks or a table of contents, nor does the pdf indicate that it is in fact The Bushido Handbook as advertised. It appears to be a entire collection of rules on medieval Japan collected together, mainly aiming at player characters. There is some good art, particularly in the section detailing the various martial classes of medieval Japan.Having read through the pdf, there are some immediate conclusions that one can come to. The first is that the material is mechanically elegant, and makes excellent use of the d20 system to develop the Japanese culture and environment. The second is that the pdf on its own feels, and probably is, incomplete, not giving enough information on several subjects such as how to determine reputation. I suspect that the Legends of the Samurai hardcover (comprising all three pdfs) contains all those details, and that this pdf is a way of purchasing that product in instalments. While the pdf blurb states that there is enough information to create characters, this is probably true from a mechanical point of view, but lacks the details to truly build an interesting character in the Japanese world provided. With that in mind, on to look at the details that the pdf provides. The Details:The one page introductions gives some useful information on how to view this pdf and how to cater your play style towards the material. Do you want a fantasy Japan or a historical one, or are you more interested in an action orientated game as opposed to the social intrigue of the Japanese society and Imperial Court? Deciding on such factors allows you to gain the most from the material within the framework of the game provided, and sets the scene for the games to come.Chapter 1: The first chapters details the various bloodlines of the Japanese culture. These are the various social rankings, from the outcast class to the warrior class, and are akin to 'races'. Each bloodline is described in mechanical detail, and provides roleplaying information in the form of each class' history, description, social place, nature of adventurers from that particular social class, personality aspects and much more. It would've been nice to see more information on how to integrate the various social classes together into adventures, as a samurai from the warrior class is unlikely to associate with a outcast or even merchant unless required to during wartime. While it would be relatively easy and interesting to create a social roleplaying game from this material, more advice on how to apply it to other scenarios would've been helpful.The second part of this pdf details reputation, honor and allegiances. Characters have a reputation score that determines how well they are known, although no details how to calculate this score are given. If a character performs great acts, his reputation, as well as his honor, can increase. Honor is described in great detail, although, again, no details are given on how to determine starting honor beyond the ranges provided for each bloodline. Various acts and transgressions can affect your honor score, and as your honor changes it may be possible to change your bloodline by special permission of a member of the warrior class, for example. Given that honor and bloodlines form an integrated part of the Japanese culture, some more information on how to use this material in game would've been useful. The last section details allegiances, such as to a code of life, or a person. This is akin to an alignment system, where characters must remain loyal to their allegiances, unless they do not have one.This is a rich and interesting chapter, but it left me wondering how to integrate this material into a workable game across numerous bloodlines and various honor scores without having to resort to a wartime scenario. Presumably one could force characters to be from the same social class or those that are relatively similar such as merchant or artisan, but more information on this would've been valuable. I suspect, however, that this is provided in other parts of the Legends of the Samurai game, where this only concentrates on providing material for players.Chapter 2: This chapters provides ample information on the various martial classes, from the ninja to the ronin to the samurai or the yamabushi, monastic warriors. Given that this is a 'magic' free game, the various classes are given numerous bonus feats, skill bonuses and other abilities such as Ki that make them somewhat stronger than the standard core classes. Some careful thought and work would be required to use these classes in a standard fantasy d20 game. The classes are described in rich detail, provide lots of information for roleplaying each class within its social class, and the game mechanics are elegant, clear and concise.Chapter 3: This chapter is devoted to the skills and feats, and the martial arts. No, not martial arts or unarmed combat, the martial arts, often in Japanese culture encompassing horsemanship, rope use or a variety of other skills in combat. New uses of skills are presented, such Balance to resist trip attacks, new forms of Perform for Japanese culture and several others to incorporate aspects of the Japanese medieval world. Several feats are also presented, the largest portion of the feats devoted to feats describing the martial arts. This is an elegant system in the light of the number of bonus martial arts feats that the various martial classes get, and different martial abilities can be learnt by taking feats. A martial arts style needs to be selected before a specific martial arts manoeuvre feat can be selected. So characters can perform circle kicks or flying kicks or hip throws and numerous other manoeuvres during combat. These martial arts manoeuvres often incorporate other weapons such as spears or swords or bows.Chapter 4: The last chapter of the pdf provides the typical equipment used during Japanese culture, from the twin swords of the samurai and the warrior class, to the agricultural weapons used by farmers of the farmer class. New types of weapons, armor and equipment are provided with all the required details for players to use.Conclusions:Legends of the Samurai: The Bushido Handbook is the player's manual of the Legends of the Samurai world. It provides all the details on the different Japanese bloodlines, classes, feats, skills, honor system, equipment and much more. Even from a player's perspective, it appears slightly incomplete, despite the well written and elegant mechanics and the detailed in the material provided. It would've been beneficial to see more roleplaying material that will help players expand on their characters. As part of the larger Legends of the Samurai material, this has excellent potential for interesting gaming - as a standalone product it left me asking a lot of questions on how to best use this material in both a standard d20 campaign and in a Japanese fantasy or historical setting. Based on excellent detail and mechanics, quality of writing, but incomplete feel and nature of the pdf, I'd rate it with three and a half stars, rounding up to four stars.</blockquote>

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