Please forgive me if this is the wrong spot for this but can someone let me know if any gaming company has come out with a Pathfinder version of Legend of the Five Rings? To be honest I don't even know who currently holds the rights to the setting itself. I once had a book that seemed to use the 3.5 edition of Dungeons and Dragons that has core classes like Courtier and Shugenja but for the love of me I CANNOT REMEMBER whether it was titled Legend of the Five Rings or Oriental Adventures (basically Legend of the Five Rings set in Forgotten Realms in the continent of Kara-Tur). So, does anyone know if a Pathfinder version of this has come out (or if someone has done a conversion of this setting)?
WoTC's Oriental Adventures for D&D 3E used the Rokugan setting from L5R.
|
AEG still holds the rights but abandoned the D20 conversion with their 3rd Edition for the game. Now they are in their 4th Edition of the RPG and their books are a beauty to behold. Basically they returned to a fine tuned version of their Roll and Keep mechanism with d10s, that was also used in 7th Sea.
Short version: No.
(Heroes of the Jade Oath and the Kaidan setting both scratch a similar but different itch btw).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
But I can tell you, I tried booth and forget D20. It is so much more heroic and inspiring to give yourself a difficulty.
Behold the Kitsune Artisan who rolled a 103 with 4k2. And no it was not me and yes it was a woman.
I really like the balance between martial, magical and social in L5R.
Also never have I seen 5 players, 4 male and one female to debate for 2 evenings on what clothes to wear, what make-up, what haircut etc. to visit the royal court.
I DM'd a Rokugan campaign using 3.5 for quite a while. I believe it was AEG that also released a number of softback supplements most of which I found to be excellent, full of flavour and crunch. I would highly recommend Creatures of Rokugan, Magic of Rokugan, Bloodspeakers, Fortunes and Winds plus any of the 'Secrets of the......' series for a detailed focus on the clans. It really is a beautiful setting with tons of potential. If anyone completes a Pathfinder conversion document for the community I would be indebted!
So, no one has even done any sort of conversion of Rokugan via Pathfinder?
d20 Rokugan is blasphemy, I tell you. Blasphemy.
Ultimate combat has a heavy focus on the Tian-Shaw, and you could use most of that stuff for Rokugan. Most of the actual conversion would just be feats and perks that deal with the flavor of the different clans.
But, and I can not stress this enough, if you like L5R, give the D10 system a try. d20 does a very, very bad job of capturing the true essence of the setting.
Hai!
d20 Rokugan is what got me playing Third Edition, so I remain quite fond of it. :)
Personally as a game designer, half Japanese person, greatly interested in authentic Japanese history, culture, folklore and Asian horror, rather than converting Rokugan (which I thought was not very authentic to feudal Japan), I created a setting from scratch (my homebrew) and published it as an imprint under Rite Publishing. The Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) in many ways is more like Oriental Adventures crossed with Ravenloft.
Here's a link to the section of the Paizo store that contains most of that which has been released for the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG). Make sure you read the reviews for all material to get insight in what is really inside each product. There are 2 other Kaidan products that aren't on this page (I don't know why), but in other categories: Way of the Samurai (PFRPG) and #30 Haunts for Kaidan.
Unlike Rokugan (or Golarian's Minkai), Kaidan is an archipelago of islands much like real Japan. To me the isolation of Japan as an island nation is much of what got Japan's culture to be so unique, and molding how it became very isolationist - something that is captured in Kaidan. We are currently still writing both the GM's and Player's setting guides to Kaidan, which I am hoping for a release this fall.
You can also visit my Kaidan G+ community (you can find the map of Kaidan here) and my successfully completed Kaidan Kickstarter, which is over, but we ran a couple years ago to learn more.
I would convert the D20 oriental adventures over. D20 would be "Oriental Adventures" and the expansion books will be called "Secrets of X" (Crane, Crab, etc.) which would include rules for both and have plenty of fluff.
I have been running a 3ed L5R game for the last 3 years and love the world and the system. But D20 is what got me into L5R after playing a Crane Samurai\ Iaijutsu Master and loved it.
I don't think that was the point either, any more than Solamnia in Dragonlance is supposed to be an authentic representation of feudal Europe and its knights.Rokugan (which I thought was not very authentic to feudal Japan),
Perhaps not, but I've made an effort to be more authentic in regards to government, culture, caste system, using Buddhist, Shinto, Onmyodo, Shugendo elements in the religions, better portraying Japanese folklore in development of the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG). I've even had a Buddhist regional priestess (something akin to a bishop) and a Japanese ghost story translator expert, comment on how I've creatively melded authentic content with a ficitional setting. And the setting is highly rated among many reviewers and game industry pros. It is very much the point to my published setting.
I wasn't criticizing Rokugan specifically as it applies to all gamers, only how it applies to me, and how I tend to be more authentic in the presentation of settings. Since I am half Japanese and really into the culture, history and folklore, I was attracted to L5R, but too much that wasn't authentic bothered me (although much of it I did like). So I went towards more authenticity in my development of my Japan analog - that's just the kind of settings I prefer.
The real point is whether you would actually use the Kaidan is unimportant, because there are a ton of supplements to that setting, that is rather setting agnostic and really more towards any fantasy Japan, high or low fantasy setting. Our Samurai and Yakuza books set the bar in using Pathfinder and have a more authentic Oriental Adventures feel. Also our race books on Kappa, Tengu and Hengeyokai cleave to Japanese folklore, rather than to previously published RPG versions of those by other publishers. Our Haunts book uses many classic Japanese ghost stories as the background for the haunts and many of the haunts are directly inter-related. You don't need to use the setting to use the content to fit in your Rokugan game.
|
Is there any other games like L5R that use the Roll/Keep method with d10s that is more Medieval Fantasy? I love the L5R mechanics (not the d20 version) and would love to explore it in a more fantasy based setting. 7th Sea sounds interesting but it's no longer being made and seems more renaissance based. I would hate to have to try to figure out how to port the L5R system into pathfinder and convert classes and such....
So, no one has even done any sort of conversion of Rokugan via Pathfinder?
What do you need to convert? The differences are primarily flavor and theme.