Hachigoku はちごく 八国: A reworking of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG from both a setting and system viewpoint. I do not claim any ownership of L5R; this is purely a not-for-profit exercise in fun. And you're invited.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Draft: The Tsuruchi Bushi


Ah, the Tsuruchi. This isn't in the mechanics, but one change is that Tsuruchi is considerably older. As in, dead. It's been several generations. Because having that great a legendary archer around is just really intimidating to all the other wannabe archers.

And, y'know, this is your word to have fun in. So let's just assume his fun was had.

Mechanically... I dunno. It's the archer ryuu. There needed to be an archer ryuu. There's not all that much to with that, okay? I didn't want to push up the magistrate angle because it feels too specific, not general enough to break the Clan Monopoly Problem. I leave that for a Path (yes, there's a Bounty Hunter Path).

Hopefully it's not overpowered; I did try to dial it back to feel like 1st edition.
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The Tsuruchi Bushi Ryuu

Basic Discipline: The Tsuruchi Bushi

Uji/Profession: Tsuruchi Bushi
Benefit: +1 Reflexes
Honor: 2
Skills: Athletics, Defense, Hunting, Investigation, Kyujutsu, Nofujutsu
Outfit: Daisho, daikyu or yumi, any 20 arrows, any 1 weapon, light armor, 1 kimono, traveling pack, 2 koku

Okuden
Rank 1, Never Let the Blade Reach You: If you let the enemy get near enough to hit, you die. When on Full Defense, you can still spend Actions to attack with ranged weapons. In addition, when wielding a bow you gain Free Raises on your attack roll equal to your Discipline Rank.

Rank 2, Sting of the Wasp: Tsuruchi was famous for blackening the sky with arrows. When you spend an Action to make an attack with a bow, you can also make additional attacks with that bow equal to your Discipline Rank.

Rank 3, The Arrow Knows the Way: Your technique collapses you, the arrow, and the target into a deadly unity. You can spend a Void Point before making an attack with a bow. The arrow automatically hits, but with no Raises other than Free Raises.

Rank 4, Flight of No-Mind: The unity between archer and target has erased all boundaries. When firing an arrow, you ignore all TN penalties, including the target's armor; a Raise is not a penalty. You also reduce Carapace by your Discipline Rank when firing an arrow.

Rank 5, Tsuruchi's Final Lesson: Every archer strives for that one, perfect shot. You can spend an Action and a Void Point to fire an arrow; it automatically hits, ignoring all armor, Carapace, protection from spells, or nemuranai. You gain 10 Free Raises on this attack. You cannot do anything else with this Action but take the single perfect shot.


2 comments:

  1. ...looks a little over-powered to me. Particularly getting the second attack one rank earlier than everyone else, and then getting MORE attacks. (Unless everyone can use their second attack with a bow, as well as melee weapons?)

    Also the fluff on the rank 5 makes it sound like it can only ever be used ONCE, which would be extremely cool - but I don't think it's meant to work like that, right?

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    Replies
    1. Unless an Okuden says specifically what kind of attack it affects, assume it affects all attacks. Which means most Okuden that grant an additional attack on an Action can be used for either melee or ranged attacks. Old school style. So the Tsuruchi get machine gun arrows, but never get multiple melee attacks.

      No, it's not meant to be only once, ever with the Rank 5...

      But crap. Spending a Void Point is supposed to make it a bit costly... but you could spend 2 Raises (or 4, or 6, etc.) to get back that VP... Making an infinite loop. Crap. Hmmm. Going to have to break the circuit.

      And maybe change the ending line to: You cannot do anything else with this Action but strive for that single perfect shot. So you can't assume you've actually made a perfect shot, and especially not on a regular basis.

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