Legends of the Samurai: The Bushido Handbook

[PosterBoy]

Legend of the Samurai Bushido Handbook

I started gaming at a young age back in the early eighties. D&D was the only game my friends and I knew and the classes and feel of the traditional game from the PHB, DMG, and the modules was the game we played. We were young and I can say that it really never occurred to use to have any other style of game. That is until we got our little hands on Oriental Adventures. This book opened our eyes to new possibilities and new styles. The honor system, the martial arts, the unique weapons; it was all an eye opening experience that revolutionized the way we played. Since those days I have always been interested in role playing games that capture the feel of the Far East. It is an area though that does not get as much coverage as it deserves. So, when I heard about RPG Objects announcement of their new book, I eagerly awaited to get a hold of a copy.

RPG Objects is a one of those game companies that is just waiting to take off. They have had some very good books and seem to have a good following but still are not quite as well known or appreciated as some of the big boys in the industry. They have put out some well received books like Darwin’s World, Legend of Excalibur, and the Blood and X series they have.

Legend of the Samurai Bushido Handbook covers the fighting side of the orient. It does other things, but most importantly it should be noted that there are no magical classes in this release. It covers quite a bit of area.

The only race presented is human. But to allow for differences in the characters they present a caste system in the form of different bloodlines. They run along the lines of honor getting different ranged of honor. They give different attribute bonuses and have different favored classes. I think this is one of the best ways I have seen doing the cast system.

Honor has always been a tricky thing in role playing games. It has been written up a few different ways that I have seen and one aspect that many have in common is the assumption that people know what is honorable and what is not. This book though really takes a good look at the honor and identifying many of the common transgressions and virtues that affect a person honor.

The classes presented are both interesting and really seem to fit. While the Samurai will probably be the most popular class in the book, the others all are interesting and have good possibilities presented for them. The classes all have reason to be taken to the high levels. That is something that not all martial oriented classes seem designed to be able to do.

Martial arts have always been an interesting challenge for game designers. There are a huge variety of options that exist within the different martial arts styles. In this book they have chosen to use the feat system for their martial arts. I feel that there are too few feats given over a characters life time for martial arts to really work this way. The amount of different maneuvers and options that are available to martial artists are just not possible to recreate with the limited amount of feats that characters get.

Overall, this is a very solid book that does a nice job of presenting the Samurai and other Japanese oriented ideas. It covers the basics and provides easy use material for both players and DMs. I look forward to seeing the next product in this line.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

. This d20 sourcebook features new classes and mechanics to bring the world of medieval Japan to life in your game and blends our popular spell point, nobility, fate, and martial rules to create an Oriental game experience like no other.

The Bushido Handbook is the first book in this exciting series. Combining elements from Legends of Excalibur and Blood and Fists, this supplement provides all the rules to create Oriental characters with a focus on Honor and the Martial Arts.

Checkout out the Legends of Samurai homepage for more details on this series of supplements.

Pages: 60+
Interiors: 13+
Format: Landscape (screen viewing), Portrait (for printing)*.
Download a preview: Ninja Base Class

This also includes a full color map of Japan which is not complete yet, but will be sent in an update.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

* Chapter One: Blood And Honor
o Bloodline
o Reputation, Honor, and Allegiances
* Chapter Two: Martial Classes
o Ashigaru
o Kuge
o Ninja
o Ronin
o Samurai
o Shokunin
o Touzoku
o Yamabushi
* Chapter Three: The Martial Arts
o Skills
o General Feats
o Martial Arts Feats
* Chapter Four: Equipment
o Armor
o Weapons
o Adventuring Gear

*Only the landscape version is in the zip file from RPGNow. Customers can download the Portrait from RPGObjects.com

 

[John Cooper]

Legends of the Samurai: The Bushido Handbook
By Charles Rice
RPG Objects
60-page PDF, $8.95

I want to start this review by dispelling some initial confusion about this product that I had, on the assumption that there may well be people out there as confused about it as I was. The PDF in question, Legends of the Samurai: The Bushido Handbook, is a bit misleading for a simple reason: nowhere in the entire PDF - including Section 15 of the OGL on the last page - does the term "The Bushido Handbook" appear! After doing a bit of Internet research, I discovered that Legends of the Samurai is an inclusive title that covers all three of the PDFs planned for this series: The Bushido Handbook, The Mystic Arts, and Samurai Campaign Guide. (Eventually, all 3 PDFs are slated to be combined into a hardcover book.) So, everybody got that? Even though this PDF only refers to itself as Legends of the Samurai, it is in fact The Bushido Handbook. Okay, time to move on.

The cover is unique to my experience in that it does not take up a full page; rather, it covers about 60% of the first page, with the other 40% standing in as the credits page. I suppose this is one way to condense material. (Of course, the "cover" portion is about the right size and shape for a "portrait" orientation; the PDF I received as a freebie review copy is in "landscape," so it is possible that the "portrait" version of the PDF is different (should such a thing exist). In any case, the cover art consists of the "Legends of the Samurai" title in white superimposed over a small collage of samurai images in various shades of red, along with the hilt of a katana and a Japanese kanji character in black. Jeremy Simmons is credited with the cover artwork, and while I am not sure whether he created it himself from scratch or just Photoshopped several pre-existing images together, it is a nice work in any case.

The interior artwork consists of 10 black-and-white images (actually, 9 - the illustration on p. 36 is reprinted in smaller form on p. 2), all drawn by Joseph Wigfield. These are all nicely done, with clean lines, great shading, and excellent facial expressions (I particularly like the elderly yamabushi on p. 33, who also sports some nice hair texturing and clothing wrinkles/folds). My biggest problem with the artwork is not with what is illustrated - I really like the pictures in this PDF - but what was not; I think many people interested in playing a Japanese campaign have no real idea what some of the armor and weapons look like, and a few illustrations of some of this all-important equipment would have gone a long way toward helping the campaign. The page layout has a red border on the top and bottom and of each page, with the same sword hilt from the cover in the top right corner. The red, white, and black color scheme was a very good choice, being not only pleasing to the eye but appropriate given the Japanese subject of the work (Japan has a flag featuring a red sphere - symbolizing the Rising Sun - on a white background).

The Bushido Handbook is laid out as follows:

• Introduction: a page touching upon the Japanese fantasy/historical gaming tradition
• Chapter One - Blood and Honor: The bloodline of a character (his standing in society: outcast, merchant, artisan, farmer, monastic, noble, or warrior) and the effects it has upon the character (including what classes he can attain), plus rules for reputation, honor, and allegiances
• Chapter Two - Martial Classes: Character classes that are combat-based - the ashigaru (footsoldiers), kuge (nobility skilled in court intrigue and mounted archery), ninja (it is worth pointing out that this is a 20-level core class, not a prestige class), ronin (masterless samurai), samurai (fierce warrior devoted to a master), shokunin (master craftsman), touzoku (petty criminal and thug), and yamabushi ("mountain warrior," a type of warrior monk)
• Chapter Three - The Martial Arts: New uses for existing skills (and several new ones as well, most of them new types of Knowledge or Perform as well as the all-new Pressure Points skill), 27 new general feats, a way to block your enemies in combat, and 72 martial arts feats
• Chapter Four - Equipment: A breakdown of the currency system, 8 types of armor, 7 agricultural weapons, 11 bows and arrows, 5 knives, 8 ninja weapons, 9 spears and staves, 5 swords, 4 exotic weapons, and 4 types of adventuring gear

Proofreading and editing was pretty good, with only a few mistakes getting through. The most frequent mistake was in capitalization; several terms were capitalized (or not) almost randomly, it seemed. The word "Hobility" on page 4 was probably supposed to be "Honor" (perhaps it was only partially changed from "Nobility"). There was an instance of phrase redundancy (yamabushi are apparently experts at "the staff, the spear...and the staff"), there were a few extraneous words in a few sentences and likewise a few missing words here and there, an inadvertent carriage return that threw the rest of a sentence to the next line, an incorrect word ("that" instead of "than"), and some misnumbered tables (and weapons not being alphabetized in about half of them). All in all, not too bad as far as that goes, but there was also a Faith feat referenced that is nowhere to be seen (either in The Bushido Handbook or thePH). Like usual with PDFs, I will send my error list in to the author so they can be corrected (one of the distinct advantages of the PDF over print products).

As for the material itself, I think that Charles has done an excellent job at covering the material. While the Legends of the Samurai line of products is built for both historical and fantasy RPGs, this first volume is definitely on the "historical" side of the spectrum. In fact, there is almost no mention of magic in The Bushido Handbook at all, as that material is due in the second PDF, The Mystic Arts. I say "almost," however, because there are a few nods towards magic in this PDF: specifically, a few of the weapons grant spellcasting bonuses when held (one example is the azusa-yumi, which is some sort of arrow, I presume - the description did not actually get around to mentioning its use as a weapon), and some of the character classes mentioned as being proper for some of the bloodlines to follow are presumably magical in nature, as they do not appear in this PDF (the shukke, for example, is probably a divine spellcaster, since those of the monastic bloodline are liable to take levels in that class). A DM looking to run a historical campaign set in feudal Japan has pretty much everything he needs with this PDF, since the magical stuff is not going to be playing a part in the campaign. Instead, he has got everything he needs to capture the feel of the warrior aspects of the Japanese culture. I have seen several martial arts rules now for the d20 system, and these stack up favorably as some of the best. I was really impressed with the way Charles tweaked the rules to best fit the Japanese culture; since they did not walk around in plate mail armor like the knights of most European-based campaigns, he created several new feats allowing other abilities besides Dexterity to contribute to Armor Class, and wrote them up in a way that makes perfect sense. I like the "non-magic" ninja class, as well - many people cannot resist slapping on "cool magical abilities" left and right when building a standalone ninja class.

I was also suitably impressed with the way Charles based a lot of his new material on pre-existing skills; rather than create an entirely new mechanic to simulate psychic duels (you know, when two samurai stare at each other, unmoving, for a minute or two before suddenly drawing weapons and fighting), he made it a new use of the Concentration skill. I also really liked the character classes, although some of them seem like they would fit best as NPCs - how many people are likely to want to run a shokunin, who spends his days creating weapons? Most people I know would prefer to run the PCs that are actually using the weapons, not just making them.

All in all, The Bushido Handbook does a great job of presenting ancient Japan as a campaign world, and I like that it is usable for those looking to be historically accurate as well as those more interested in a fantasy feel. While there were a few mistakes in editing and some illustrations of the weapons and armor would have been very helpful, this is still one of the better takes on the subject that I have seen to date. I give it a strong "4 (Good)," and look forward to future installments in the Legends of the Samurai series.

 

[John Cooper]

Weird - On the advice of a poster on the EN World "Meta" messageboards, I removed all of the apostrophes from my review to get it to finally post correctly. (I have been trying for about a week now.) I certainly hope this is not a permanent feature of the new server!

 

[trancejeremy]

Oook!

Legends of the Samurai is the second in the "Legends" product line from RPGObjects, which is meant to be historical and/or mythological roleplaying. That is, not just regular history, but history based on legends and mythology, too, so there's magic and such. It's regular d20, but not D&D, it has all new character classes and a new magic system. Somewhere between D&D and d20 Modern in terms of "realism".

As you might guess from the name, Legends of the Samurai is about Japan, specifically the medieval period. This is the first pdf of 3, covering characters (mostly martial ones, but not limited to them), the 2nd is apparently on magic, and the third is the campaign book. Much like Legends of Excalibur, all 3 will apparently be combined into a hardcover book later on (around Gen Con?).

My knowledge of Japan is pretty much limited to video games, movies, and So Taguchi. While probably half the DVDs I own are Japanese in origin, they are pretty much Kaiju movies (ie, Godzilla, Gamera, or my favorite, Mothra). So this is going to be a relatively short review, since I don't know much about the subject material.


The first chapter is on "Bloodline" which is more or less the characters status in society or caste. This pretty much works like a race in d20, that is, gives starting bonuses or penalties, including to ability scores. There's Outcast, Merchant, Noble, Warrior, Farmer, Monastic, and Artisan.


Instead of alignment, characters have "Honor", which is pretty much like the system from Legends of Excalibur, that is, a rating from 100 to 0, the higher the more honorable. A character does honorable things it goes up, dishonorable ones it goes down.


There are 8 core classes in this PDF, most of whose names I cannot even begin to pronounce. (I once tried to learn Japanese, but it went very badly...).

There's a Ninja, of course. But unlike many ninjas, this is a fairly mundane and thus probably very realistic one - no flipping out and it doesn't have to be a mammal, either. A Samurai and a Ronin. A class for a thief (which I can't begin to spell), as well as artisan and ascetic. Seems to cover most bases (magical classes are covered in the 2nd product in the line).



There's a lot of new feats. Including many new martial arts feats, presumably similar to the ones from the RPGObjects martial arts products. Too many to count easily, probably 50-60 of them. There are so many because many of the classes require the character to pick a combat style. This style (which can either be armed or unarmed) then determines what sort of bonus feats the character can take. Pretty neat, though I wonder if the classes actually get enough bonus feats to take full advantage of this. They seem to only get about 6-7 total by 20th level.

Again, much like the classes, the feats are fairly mundane. No Wire-Fu sort of combat. There is Sumo, though, which is quite possibly the complete opposite of that.

Lots of new weapons and armor is introduced. Pretty much a whole new listing, since the regular D&D ones aren't apropriate.



The art is fantastic. Remember the art in the old first edition Oriental Adventures book for AD&D? Well, it's like that, style wise. Eerie just how close it is. Since RPGOBjects is firstly a PDF company, the PDF takes advantage of most the frills the format offers, bookmarks and such.


To me, it seems like an excellent product. While I cannot personally vouch that it's completely true to the source material, since I'm not very familiar with it, based on the author's track record, I'm sure it is. So, if you are interested in a game set in this general era, then give this a look.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Another excellent historical based supplement

Legends of the Samurai
Bushido Handbook
Written by Charles Rice
Published by RPG Objects
PDF format w/Print latter
62 b & w pages

The first release for Legends of the Samurai brings all of the martial material for a Samurai styled game into the d20 system. If you’re unsatisfied with how the Samurai was restyled in WoTC Complete Warrior, then this is a product you should examine.

The book uses a standard two-column format with red lettering to bold the different parts of the book, including chapters and different headers, making navigation easier. The lack of borders and use of sigils for important parts to draw the eye, makes the book easy to read. The art by Joseph Wigfield is minimal, with pages of text going by but Joseph style is easy on the eye, similar to me at least, to Storn of Champions fame.
The book starts off with a quick introduction, talking about the different types of Japanese gaming traditions, going over some of the decisions the GM should make before starting, such as historical of fantasy, focusing on action or intrigue, but it’s just a primer for the meat of the book, which starts off with Blood and Honor.

I guess the assumption here is that everyone is human and works in a manner similar to d20 Modern. Based on your bloodline, you gain a certain amount of honor, different ability modifiers, and different favored classes. You also gain other benefits, like a bonus feat and notes on what your background means in the game.

For example, a merchant gains a standard bonus feat, but is also Silver-tongued, gaining +2 on all Bluff and Diplomacy Checks, and gains a bonus to starting wealth for each rank taken in a professional skill, to represent that skill level, and a bonus to starting honor if he swears allegiance to a guild governing his chosen profession. This is in addition to a +2 bonus on all Profession skill checks, although the character, like many, is illiterate.

It’s a nice change of pace from standard characters, but at the same time, for those wishing to incorporate the material into a standard d20 campaign, makes for some tough decisions. Do you drop the bonus first level feat and give them the other bonuses, making up for it by limiting their bonus feat, or do you take away all bonuses and just use the background information, which includes general background, personality, physical description, relations with other bloodlines, lands, religion, and why this bloodline might become an adventurer?

One of the interesting aspects of starting wealth here is that your Honor ranking plays a part in it. See, you gain a variable amount, usually times your honor. This is different than most games that give you starting wealth based on your class.

Once all the bloodlines have are detailed, the book moves into reputation, honor, and allegiances. Reputation can be increased by losing or gaining more than 5 Honor in by an action. You make a level check, d20 + level + Reputation, and if the roll exceeds 25 or higher, you gain +1 reputation. One interesting side effect of the Honor system here, is that your character is seen in the light of his Honor. You can have a high reputation and low honor, making you a dog, or a high reputation and high Honor, making you well liked and respected.

Different Honor values are broken up from 1 to 100 and effects of honor, as well as rules for gaining and losing honor, are included. Honor is ranked in four tiers in terms of losing or graining, minor, moderate, major or severe. The actions that cause the loss or gain are then described in the first section, Transgressions, all the taboos of Honor like cowardice, and disloyalty, to the Virutes, like benevolence and veracity. Each one includes examples, with descriptions of what tier that example would fall under.

Allegiances is another concept similar to d20 Modern. Here, you can have three allegiances, listed in order from most to least important, and rules for how to pledge your allegiance, as well as what that does for you, and who you can pledge it to, are included.

After that, we get into what I like, the class crunch of the book, the martial classes. Classes start off with name, background, adventurers, characteristics, honor, religion, background, bloodline, other classes, role, and game rule information. There is a nice variety in material here, ranging not only from the strictly martial, like the Samurai, but also stealthy, like the Ninja. Classes included are as follows:

Ashigaru: Footsoldiers of the armies of medieval Japan. Common warriors.
Kuge: The noble class with words as deadly as steel.
Ninja: Not as dangerous as the dreaded Ninja-Pirate, but useful for those looking for non-magical alternatives for the Ninja as a core class.
Ronin: A warrior breed class between social levels. Good for those who want a character that can either be honorable or join the hills for bandit activity.
Samurai: Quintessential warrior of this setting, master of a fighting style with options to master Kenjutsu, Iaijutsu or Nito-ryu Kenjutsu.
Shokunin: The craftsmen or experts of the setting.
Touzoku: “the petty criminals and thugs.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Yamabushi: Monastic warriors who often master the staff or spear, although the text notes “Specialists in the staff, the spear and the staff.” It’s important to master that staff don’t you know?

That’s a lot of options and the GM should decide ahead of time what he wants to allow in the game and what he wants to focus on long term. Does he want to run a political game where the Kuge struggle with the Shokunin who are in turn fighting against the Touzoku? Does he want to highlight the differences between Ronin and Samurai or perhaps have most of the characters be Ashigaru under the command of a Samurai?

Chapter three, the martial arts, starts off with existing skills and how they can be worked into the setting. This includes a huge listing of knowledge skills, like callipgraphy and divination, as well as new uses for skills that bring martial use to them. Take Sense Motive, with it’s new use, Predict Attack, allowing you to read the enemy’s body language, and gaining a bonus to armor class or even (if you have the right feats), a bonus to counterattack. Solid stuff that could work hand in hand with the material in the Book of Iron Might in terms of making all skills has some combat utility.

Of course once you have skills down, you know what’s next; feats. There’s a nice selection here, with not all of them focused on combat. For example, Educated is the dreaded +2 on two skills, in this case, two different Knowledge skills. Low profile works on the reputation system, lowing your current reputation by 3 points and giving you a neutral reputation when recognized by others.

Many of the feats however, are based on martial excellence. How about Kata Specialization, giving you a +2 bonus on damage rolls with a unarmed martial art and it’s follow up, Greater Kata Specialization? In a normal campaign, that’d simply be covered by weapon specialization with say, Fist, but note here that it’s prerequisites are Kata and Yamabushi, allowing a non-Samurai or core fighter style class, to gain it. Perfect when it makes sense as it does here.

One thing I didn’t like was the competence bonus given to your Armor class through different skills. It’s not that it’s a bad idea, but instead of having a feat for each statistic, like Charisma, Constitution, etc…, their should just be one feat and note that it cannot be stacked with the same feat twice, for example, no having Banter with Brute with High Pain Threshold, which is not noted, but shouldn’t need to be since it’s all the same type of bonus. I just dislike feats that say the same thing and take up space over and over again. One feat perhaps with a side bar on what each feat is called as it relates to each stat, and move on.

In addition to the different general and all purpose feats, there are also martial arts feats. These grant different abilities and while not in the same school as power attack, cleave, great cleave, do have some similarities. For example, if you want Axe Kick, to increase your base die damage with kicks, you need to have another martial art in the first place. Or what if you have Snap Kick, giving you a +2 bonus on one kick attack roll. Can that +2 be used with an Axe kick, using up both styles in one attack?

One thing unclear is how they may work together. For example, let’s say you have Ninjutsu and have multiple attacks. You have Circle Kick and Axe Kick. Each kick can only be performed once per round. Would you then use one form of kick and then the other? Seems a high price to pay, especially as one, the Axe Kick, inflicts 1.5 times your Strength modifier, than the other, which is standard. Overall it’s a solid representation of styles, but without the multiple bonus feats that these classes receive, it’s utility in a standard game may be less useful.

The last chapter, equipment, provides a quick breakdown of the currency, (bitasen, shichusen, toraisen, and koku), and then goes straight into armor and weapons. The armor table on page 54 notes that it’s light armor, but actually has all the armors there. It’s a short list, starting with a kote and ending with the old O-yoroi and Tousei-Gusoku, and this is really a section that needs to be more heavily illustrated as most people are used to western knights and their armor and weapons.

Weapons are broken up by type or family here. For example, we don’t have simple, martial, and exotic, but do have agricultural, bows, knives, ninja, spears and staves, swords, and exotic. Each comes with name, cost, damage, for both small and medium, critical, range, weight, type, and hands required.

The first book in the series showcases an interesting twist on the Samurai in terms of game mechanics both for races and for classes, with a few general setting trappings, like Honor and Reputation, thrown in. I can see the weakness of the product as a stand alone book though, as it doesn’t provide any integration notes into a standard d20 campaign, nor a lot of material to work with outside of the crunch, which is okay, as this is designed as the first of three books which will eventually be printed.

As it stands though, it’s d20 Modern slant on ancient Japan, makes it a worthy look for those not satisfied with current Oriental Adventures support, or the lack of official support from Wizards of the Coast on this popular topic.

 

[melon-neko]

That was a good review. Best of the three IMO.

 

[Ace]

Disclaimer: I received a review copy

One of the pleasures of being a reviewer is getting the opportunity to check out PDF's that you wouldn't ordinarily give a second glance to. I have very little interest in Japan as a game setting but the excellence of RPG Object's Legend of the Samurai is enough to make me reconsider

Appearance:
The PDF was I received 1.5 megabytes zipped. It looks like a professional scan of a book. I do have some problems with this though, while this is part #2 of the Legends of the Samurai series and is properly titled "The Bushido Handbook" No where in the book does it say that. It is a bit annoying and would might make sorting these PDF's a bit difficult
Second, there is no bookmarking. This is pet peeve of mine. All large PDF's should have bookmarking. In addition there is no index. This can make referencing the book a chore. This hurts what otherwise would be a very nice layout
Otherwise the art and structure are good. The layout is solid with nice use of text boxes too.


Contents
The books starts with the first chapter, Blood and Honor. This chapter is highly useable and gives a brief but game able overview of the various social strata in Mythic Japan. Each strata (Called a bloodline in the book) has its rights, bonus stuff and stat mods pointed out. This functions as both a sort of "race" and a background. Its a really excellent system, detailed, fairly realistic and gameable.
The next part of the chapter covers honor and reputation in some detail. The honor system provides solid mechanical and RP bonuses as well as superb virtue (to gain honor) and transgression system (to lose honor) While specific to feudal Japan it could also be used for Paladins or European Knights with minimal trouble
The last part has an Allegiance system similar to that of D20 Modern.

The second chapter is are the Martial classes.
These classes capture the flavor of most Samurai movies very well. They are a bit more powerful on the whole the core D&D classes but this is a low magic item setting so its fits. I espcially like the fact that each class gets a cool ability per level.
On a personal note the Ninja class is especially cool as it reminds me of the Ninja stories and martial arts books I have read. It is a the best of the myriad Ninja classes and prestige classes I have yet seen. It feels Ninja like mystical and practical. Somewhere Stephan Hayes is grinning
The only real oddity is the Unearthed Arcane like weapon proficiency system. Rather than the usual Simple, Martial, and Exotic it divides weapons into groups and exotic weapons.
This system works great to give classes socially appropriate weapons skills and is a good fit.
The classes listed here are
Ashigaru, peasant warriors, which look far more fun to play than I would have thought
Kuge, the noble class which have a range of social and martial abilities,
Ninja,
Ronin, which works as both a mercenary and as a class for shamed Samurai
Samurai, which are the combat taks of the game
Shokunin, which are a very playable craftsman class.
Touzuk, the thieves which are fairly close to D&D rogues
and lastly the Yamabushi, monastic mountain warriors, kind of like a fighter/monk hybrid.
The only missing class IMO is a merchant class but that may be covered in another book. I would use these classes in preference to any other similar classes I have seen, at least in a Japan styled game with the caveat that I don't feel they would work mixed with standard D&D classes. I am tempted to try them along with Swashbuckling Adventures class for a Shogun game though

Chapter 3 is the Martial Arts chapter.
It has a myriad of feats, skills and new uses for skills that really capture the flavor of Chambray movies and the like. I have only the most minor of qualms with this chapter, firstly the feats are closer in power level to Swashbuckling Adventures or the like. The means that DMs need a bit of care in allowing some of these feats ( especially the AC boosting ones) into standard D&D.
Also some of the feats feed of the Block system, I do not this system which requires the sacrifice of an attack to block.
I would have preferred a system that granted a free block maneuver -- similar to the defense roll variant in the DMG.
There are some facets of this system I really like, first the new skills uses for concentration, (meditation, psychic duel and more) and balance (resisting trip attacks) They are logical easy to use and very elegant.
Second the flavor of these martial arts and feats is second to none. The feel authentic and cinematic while maintaining game balance.

This is very good stuff

The last chapter covers basic Japanese weapons in plenty of detail. It suits this game and is easy to shift into any other game as well. To my surprise I found a few weapons, the O-Yumi (a crossbow) and the Himo Gatana (Stilleto) which I was not familiar with. I appreciate the attention to detail.


I highly recommend this PDF to anyone who want a more authentic Japanese D20 game and I look forward to more in the series.

 

[Pinotage]

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.

 

[PosterBoy]

Not sure where you got the PDF (rpgnow?/drivethru?), but the zip should contain both a landscape and potrait version. The landscape version is fully bookmarked.

So that part of the review is not ture.

Thanks for the review!