There are a number of systemic problems that should be fixed if there is a 5E. And these are things I think are problems. There are other things I'm not a fan of (like super-lethality or some schools being so good at something that anyone else trying is basically useless) that have some arguable purpose and are to greater or lesser extent a matter of opinion. But there are things like:

- shugenja are crazily overpowered

- grappling has some issues (unless I'm mixing this up with 3E)

- weapons are not balanced (and in a way other than "the katana is best," because there would be an arguable thematic justification for that)

- the transition to getting two attacks a round (in general I think they should smooth out the gains from schools, but you definitely don't want this big of a power hump for bushi ... despite the fact that it's the biggest thing that a bushi might get and yet they're still much weaker than shugenja)

- most characters (aka, bushi) have all of their crunch focused around combat mechanics, but the combat mechanics for the game are vague and wildly open to exploits

There is no thematic reason for these that I am aware of. With regards to #5, I understand that there is a design purpose to having vague combat mechanics, and having vague combat mechanics is fine ... so long as they don't appear in a game with characters centered almost entirely around combat and require players/GMs to just ignore some character options/tactics because they destroy the game. And I get that some people think these things are a big deal, and some people think these things are not a big deal. But if they aren't providing anything positive to the game, it doesn't really matter if there a Big Deal or not - if you're making a new version of the game, there's no reason not to fix them.

Daramere, what's your take on the Courtier/Social mechanics?

I somehow get the feeling that I have a different 4th Edition of L5R than some of you have...

In the Nin...erm...Scorpion-Group I'm playing we have a "totally overpowered" Shosuro Infiltrator at Rank 3, the player get's more than 10k10 on stealth-rolls and not even our Soshi-Shugenja can keep up with this. The same goes for combat...my Actress is totally useless and the Shugenja can sort of keep up with our Infiltrator, but nothing more.

And as GM I never really had trouble with overpowered Shugenja-PCs. Or underpowered Bushi or Courtier.

As far as I remembere there are (optional) rules in the Imperial Archives for Shugenja that they have to stay spiritually clean and pius or get mali on their rolls. In every fluff-text about Shugenja it is highlighted that Shugenja normally refrain to use their power all the time, since the kami could easily be angered be missusing or overusing their powers without any good reason.

Yes, some rules are vague, I myself miss clarification on the rules for influence from the spirit realms (especially the Yumeji-rules from yume-do the realm of dreams).

Yes, neither a Shugenja nor a Courtier will ever be as good in combat as a Bushi, but if you spend most of your life arguing with people or look after the spiritual weelbeing of others, you have nearly no time for martial training. And still both can learn, and in may opinion should learn ar least two, bugei skills. (Defense and Kenjutsu for using their Wakizashi or Fan for using Tessen/Warfans)

Yes, neither a Bushi nor a Shugenja will ever be as good in debating over political situations, but if you spend your life mostly on training grounds or blessing crops/ marriages/ homes/ temples, you have nealry no time in training your political knowledge and debating skills. And still both can, and IMHO should learn at least one, social high skill. (Etiquette to defend themselves at least a bit)

Yes, neither a Bushi nor a Courtier will ever be as knowledgeable regarding religious topics, but if you spend most of your life protecting someone from physical harm or negotiating marriages/ hostage-exchanges/ trade agreements, you don't really have time for honing your religious knowledge. And still both can learn the aplicable Lore-Skills.

Yes, Shugenja have powerful magic, but Bushi can learn Kata and, under specific circumstances, Kiho to empower their skills even more then their Schooltechniques do. And if you thought it was fitting your campaign as GM you could always decide that a Tattooed Monk shows up, granting the characters fitting tattooes (which would provide a storyhook, since the PCs would be indepted to this Monk) to empower their prowess in any way you think is appropriate.

You could come up with a creature that can only be harmed by normal weapons. Or that a creature can only be harmed by fire, so if the player of the Shugenja isn't a total ******* he would have to cast Biting Steel on the blades of his/her companions so that they can harm the creature to, therefore using up 2 spellslots.

And if the Shugenja didn't memorize a certain spell and you think it would be more thrilling if the Shugenja could not use this specific spell in the next fight, let the spellscroll disappear (a trickster spirit hid it, a thief took it away, the Shugenja simply misplaced it,...) and this spell isn't availiable at the temple so the Shugenja there have to write the prayers down, which would take some time. Then the enemy shows up and the Shugenja has to find a way to work around this problem, like focusing on supporting his/her fellow Samurai.

You could use an opponent which is immune against the element which the Shugenja has as affinity, so you Shugenja has to use the other spells.

I could go on with possibilities to show your Shugenja that he/she has comrades and that they should fight together and not alone.

In Great Clans and Book of Air are rules on how to apply weather influences, so one could use those as guidelines for slippery ground or other difficult situations. And the various terrain-difficulties are mentioned in teh Corerulesbook.

And regarding that spellslots are "not up to date", I'm currently playing in a D&D 5E-Group and D&D uses SPELLSLOTS. You gain every now and then spellslots for the various spell levels.

Of course there are various approaches on the spelltopic. Like you have Mana/Zeon/Magic Points and every spell has a different value on how much magicalcurrency has to be used. Or you can cast some spells at will, some once per battle and some only once per day. Or you can cast every spell as often as you want, but everytime you cast a spell you have to roll at a random table if there are consequences in anyway. Or you have to cast a specific amount of dice and roll equal or more than the number shown at your spell to suceed and if your dice show the same number twice or more often, than roll on a random table for consequences. And I'm sure that there are even more options.

I like the spellslots in L5R because it is one way to give the element-rings a purpose.

Daramere, what's your take on the Courtier/Social mechanics?

I'm not sure. I didn't include them on the list because I'm not sure there's a "right" answer. I don't like the idea of "mind control" social powers, at least when used on PCs. I also don't like there not being mechanics to social interactions - courtiers (or others with good interaction skills) should be able to accomplish things with the stats/abilities they spent points on, just like a combat-focused character. I am perfectly fine with the rules effectively just working differently for PCs. NPCs can't "mind control" PCs (although the GM can and should take effective social skill into account when determining the social consequences of an interaction), and PCs can't do it to each other either. But PCs can (in the appropriate situations) 'force' NPCs to agree with them.

Depending on the nature of the game, there's also a question of what courtiers do other than direct social interaction. Despite the equality of presentation of different character types, my experience has been that (in tabletop games, not LARPs) there are more bushi characters than courtiers and shugenja put together, and not by a small margin (that is, of course, my personal experience, not any sort of data-driven statistical analysis). And the games where there are lots of courtiers (aka, LARPs), they often just ignore the mechanics anyway. So there's an argument for doing things like some other RPGs have done and try to broaden the mechanical versatility of social characters, including coming up with ways to make them matter more in combat (e.g., you can inspire your allies, buffing them). This also helps on the other end, because (at least in my experience) when you do get into the social realm, you want all of the characters to participate - but if you actually employ the mechanics, then some courtier configurations make the bushi characters mostly useless. Which, in my experience, largely results in the mechanics not being employed - so, why bother having such heavy-handed courtier mechanics?

But this goes against the notion in L5R that social interaction is equally important for the game/characters/setting as combat. So I think that moving the Courtier schools away from that model would draw significant resistance, even if, IMHO, the actual game usage of those mechanics doesn't match the setting anyway. But there's a thematic purpose there so, again, I would not call that position "wrong," even if it isn't the one I would hew to.

I do think that there should be more definition, or at least guidance, to social rolls. Maybe they're there and I'm not remembering, but I want to say that there isn't any guidance for things like modifiers to temptation rolls for what you're offering, what the target would be betraying, or their own inherent characteristics/preferences.

Note: all of the above is pretty much stream of consciousness, so I reserve the right to have completely forgotten about something, or to change my mind the next time I read this thread.

This is why I like Career system of Edge of the Empire. You basically start with a background - Colonist, Mercenary, Technican etc...a class. Then, you pick up one of three Careers - subspecializations of backgrounds. Politicians, Assasins, Slicers. Each Career gives you access to a Talent Tree, where you can spend XP to buy mechanical perks - it's a tree, because talents are connected to each other, and you need to learn them in sequence. But as long as talent is connected to one you already have - even if it's connection one up, one down, or one to the left - you can buy it. You buy talents for XP, and how much they cost depends on their location - first "grade" Talents cost 5 XP, second grade costs 10, and so on.

Character can have up to 3 Careers active at once - and learning extra Career allows you to mix and match the Talents as you desire.

I feel that using this in L5R could work really well; put Clans in place of backgrounds, and Schools in place of Careers. So your Kakita character can grab their initial Kakita Dueling Academy "Career", build their own style by composing their Talent tree (which is a GREAT draw for me - this allows two characters at the same rank from the same school to have different abilities and gameplay), and later, if they feel like it, they can go and grab Doji Courtier career and invest some Insight to hone their Courtier abilities.

It would both smooth out the progression curve, make characters from the same School more variable, and have as Courtly Bushi or Fighty Courtier as you desire. I'm personally also a fan of having two XP pools - one that can be only spent on character's characteristics (so skills, Traits, etc) and one that can be only spent on School Abilities, "Insight". In many games, people will quickly figure out that for example, raising skills or traits or something is totally undesirable and your XP are better spent on things that actually enhance your gameplay;

For example, in Mage of the NWoD, pretty much every XP point spent on munduane skills or attributes is a XP point wasted, because every point put into magical abilities increases your gameplay options tenfold. Which in turn leads to people rarely if ever touching their munduane skills and traits past obligatory points spend during character creation.

Having two XP pools helps with that, and can be used for really great flavor - after all, Insight is that deeper understanding of universe and yourself, something more than just knowing and practicing. It's...Insight.

Overall, I feel that Talent / Career system is much superior to the inflexible Schools and Ranks of the current L5R; while Insight calculating your Rank and giving you techniques as you gather many different skills is a mechanic with fantastic flavor, I think that game could become much better by challenging it's core assumption of 5 Ranks, 5 Techniques, One School.

Making process of training more visible and controllable helps bring out all these journey and training stories, and definitely would help capture the spirit of endless pursuit of mastery and skill.

EDIT

And forgot to mention - Mage tried to solve this problem later, by introducing Arcane Experience; Arcane Experience was something that was gained specifically from dealing with magical mysteries and expanding your understanding of the truth. I think that they shoulda restricted that ONLY arcane xp can be spent on magic at all - and this is how I would see Insight. Special XP which is gained from pursuing philosophy of your school, and only way to bump up your special abilities (which does not interfere with progression of your normal skills).

Notice that this allows to control the pace of advancement even more.

Arcane experience was in the Mage core, though.

Also, mundane skills weren't supposed to be useless, they were supposed to also help you be better at magic by making you more likely to succeed (more dice). But ritual casting and summoning broke everything in that game, you didn't need to worry about buying attributes for mroe dice, and could buff your stats forever anyway.

Guys, what are you playing? Is there a different sort of rulebooks in the US than in Europe?

At Char-Creation you get to spend 40XP in every way you want, regardless of Clan, Family and School.

So you could create a Crab-Hida-Bushi with Courtier, Ettiquette, Sincerity and Artisan: Poems at Rank 3 and Awareness at 3, so he would have 6k3 on those skills. You could be not only buy Crab Hands, but also Sensation, Sage or Soul of Artistry. And as long as his fighting skills are sort of on par with his fellow crab, there is no problem with that, maybe he would get the privilege to join the Yasuki-Courtier to join him on visiting the Winter Court, where he could show them that the Crab are not brutish uncivilized warriors, but just don't have time to dwell in the arts, because they have to fight against Oni, Goblins and Ogres day in and day out.

If your players are all power-gamers than talk to them about it.

In one of my campaigns I gave my players the advice that everyone should have at least on creative-skill (Acting, Artisan, Games, Perform and/ or Craft) and they followed my advice. I played with them the Hanami-Adventure (shared in the RPG-Ressource-Thread) and at the end of the adventure when Iweko proclaimed that there has to be a shrine for the fortune of cherryblossoms in every main-castle of every clan, the group was allowed to tell the story of the fortune and while the two Shugenja provided Origami and put them all over the platform, the Bushi asked a group of musicians to perform for them some "background -music", the Courtier first worked on and then told the story and the two Shugenja casted a spell to let the Origami open up to symbolize the blooming cherryblossoms and let some of them fly above the audience.

Even the NPCs are not just pure Bushi or whatever:
Hida Yagimaki
A ir : 3 Ea rth : 4 F ire : 3 Wa ter : 3 V oid : 3

Reflexes : 4 Agility : 4 Strenght : 5
Honor: 7.2 Status: 4.4 Glory: 6.7
School/Rank: Hida Bushi 3 (Defender of the Wall)
Skills: Craft: Bewing 1 , Athletics 2, Battle 3, Courtier 2 ,
Defense 4, Etiquette 2 , Heavy Weapons (Ono, Tetsubo) 5,
Hunting 3, Intimidation 2, Kenjutsu 4, Lore: Crab Clan
3, Lore: History 3, Lore: Shadowlands 5, Lore: Theology
(Shintao) 3, Medicine 3 , Meditation 2, Perform: Storytelling 5

Advantages: Hero of the People, Large, Strength of the Earth
Disadvantages: Contrary, Idealistic, Permanent Wound

I'd like to see 4ed supported with at least a forum. If FFG wants to put out a new edition in the future, fine, but can the current players get a little love? It seems to have been dropped into a black hole.

In terms of mechanics, I'm...

-Pro RnK.

-Pro schools, techniques etc. system

-Agree shugs may need some reworking re: counterspelling and resisting

-Am okay with current courtier techniques

One idea that I had recently was to get rid of most basic schools and end up with a few more generic but well balanced basic school with 5 ranks each:

• Bushi
• Duelist
• Scout
• Shugenja
• Monk
• Courtier
• Artisan

You would then introduce the whole clan technique as new paths:

Kakita Technique would replace the rank 1 Duelist technique.

Hida Berserker would replace rank 1 Bushi

Shusuro Shinobi the rank 1 Scout etc.

Not quite sure if this would be an interesting way to approach the RPG.

A major problem with most games including d20 is the game is balanced for low to mid level characters.

What if Each Shugenja school got 5 ranks of techniques instead? And the spells were rank-less, instead having prices you paid to the spirits in return for their help? And... they were more ritual based, (you basically have to importune the spirits every time).

One idea that I had recently was to get rid of most basic schools and end up with a few more generic but well balanced basic school with 5 ranks each:

• Bushi
• Duelist
• Scout
• Shugenja
• Monk
• Courtier
• Artisan

You would then introduce the whole clan technique as new paths:

Kakita Technique would replace the rank 1 Duelist technique.

Hida Berserker would replace rank 1 Bushi

Shusuro Shinobi the rank 1 Scout etc.

Not quite sure if this would be an interesting way to approach the RPG.

I think that would de-clutter things, most of the schools have overlap, I would just have it such that the player can choose to use a generic technique, or his clan/school technique at each level, (Give players a choice of 3-4 techniques per level). Rank One Techniques should be signature techniques, so there wouldn't be a generic one for that.

Problem with spells is that basically, each spell is worth a technique. So at each Rank, your Shugenja is gaining 3 techniques that often are more powerful and useful than "real" techniques, because "you need to expend resources to use them". This balancing factor is vastly overestimated and does...well...not much for balance. Remember also, that due to Importuning mechanic, if you have preparation time, your Shugenja can gain access to *any spell he could physically cast*, even if he doesn't have this spell in his prayer scroll. So you either want to roll "magical abilities" into basic capabilities of Shugenja, controlled by skill rolls and Raises (like everyone else do) with techniques giving them extra options, or you want to open up other types of characters to find their "missing techniques" they don't gain because they don't have access to spells. Current kata are definitely not fitting the bill here. Kata that operate like spells would be closer to filling the gap.

As for someone citing DND Next using spellslots as modern - DND Next is a dungeon crawling game where managing resources is actually important part of core design. You walk through encounters, you need to spend limited resources to fight them, and you are expected to do certain number of them per adventuring day to proceed. Spellslots and HP are there to adjust tempo of the exploration and how quickly you go through content, adding strategic layer of "do I keep my good spells for large monsters we scouted later in the dungeon". Being a Murderhobo Simulator, DND Next actually makes good use of Spellslots, because *you will run out of them*.

L5R has different pace, where such limited resource isn't a limited resource at all; kind of like Void Points stop being an issue after you get to Meditation 3 and can restore 2 per short meditation between scenes. Still, in case of Void Points their number still matters, because you can actually run out of them during single encounter.

Spells slots, while much harder to regain, are paradoxically less important to manage than Void Points, because at worst you will just have to switch to another element; and one spell per combat encounter is usually enough.

EDIT2

@Mage Talk

Arcane Experience is becoming more central to the game in upcoming Mage 2nd Edition - where each character will actually have to follow their Obssessions to gain Arcane XP, so they can go deeper into magical thingies. It's much more improved version of original AEXP, which was...ignorable.

Mundane Skills as Rote Parts worked in theory, but in practice, both Rotes and buying anything outside of Gnosis and Arcane dots was waste of XP - eatch dot of Gnosis made your spellcasting inherently better, and not only in ways including dicepools. Mundane skills theoretically opened up some extra options to you, but in practice, each Arcane dot opened up ten times more.

Basically, the most playable, natural and powerful choice was to focus your XP on Gnosis and Arcanes - it wasn't "the mucnhkin choice", but the natural, intuitive stuff people picked up after some gaming.

I'm personally not a fan of it, so I really like idea of making XP pools that are spent on different things - especially if you can use process of gaining this XP as a part of gameplay itself, like chasing Obsessions is.

In L5R, closest thing to this is the fact that Traits are tenfold more useful than Skills - so people tend to raise their Traits (so they can gain Rings bonuses, extra Insight, be more powerful in everything related to this Trait...) and Skills low, because there is practically no difference between having Lore: History 1 and Lore: History 2, or even 3, but there is ginormous difference between having Intelligence 2 and 3.

Which leads into situation where most skills are left best at 1, because raising them up makes almost no practical, gameplay difference.

What if Each Shugenja school got 5 ranks of techniques instead? And the spells were rank-less, instead having prices you paid to the spirits in return for their help? And... they were more ritual based, (you basically have to importune the spirits every time).

I'd imagine that would encourage shugenja to treat their prayers less like spells, and shift more to cajoling or commanding the local kami into doing what they want.

I think that would de-clutter things, most of the schools have overlap, I would just have it such that the player can choose to use a generic technique, or his clan/school technique at each level, (Give players a choice of 3-4 techniques per level). Rank One Techniques should be signature techniques, so there wouldn't be a generic one for that.

That was basically the idea.

However I would include "default rank 1" technique for ronin.

And I would not necessarily build a clan technique for each rank.

Rank 3 bushi could be: "Choose a type of weapon. Attack actions performed with these weapons are simple actions instead of a complex actions."

I mean there is hardly anything that beats this ability so why bother making alternate paths.

The way I see it there could be 3 special ranks:

Rank 1: Clan Signature Technique. (Kakita, Niten, etc.)

Rank 2: Specialized Techniques. (Bitter Lies, Fire Sculpture).

Rank 4: Career Techniques. (Inquisitor, Emerald Magistrate)

Rank 3 and 5 would work as techniques to distinguish between the the basic schools.

That you realize you picked a Bushi and not a Duelist.

If your Rank 4/5 Shugenjas are learning how to cause Earthquakes, change landscapes, edit memories, and cause giant lasers to obliterate armies, characters of equivalent rank should get stuff that also reaches similar proportions. It's silly that when Shugenja are learning how to obliterate armies, your Bushi get's awesome secret of "when people hit me, my next attack against them has +2k0 bonus" and your Courtier gets "If they disagree with me and I succeed on my stuff, they will lose 5 points of Honor!"

Eastern fantasy is full of awesome martial characters whose abilities go beyond human, while still being reliant on their martial discipline and training, without help of magic. There is no reason to not-enable them while enabling Orbital-Lasering Shugenjas "because they wield magic".

This argument is as old as time itself and spans every TTRPG ever made.

But I don't understand it.

Not all weapons are created equal. Therefore, not all weapons should be treated equal.

A flamethrower is more powerful than a longsword. Magic tends to = the flamethrower in this argument.

Not all weapons are created equal. Therefore, not all weapons should be treated equal.

A flamethrower is more powerful than a longsword. Magic tends to = the flamethrower in this argument.

The argument isn't that a flamethrower shouldn't be more powerful than a longsword. The argument is that one player shouldn't get access to a flamethrower while the other is restricted to a longsword simply because they've made different characters.

Why is it that combat has a clearly defined set of guidelines for penalties and bonuses both ways, but there's hardly anything of the sort of "courtier"/social rolls, or for magic? And no, that's nothing to do with any nonsense about "the dodgy of the dodgiest". The only thing dodgy around here is that strawman.

When facing a foe with a weapon, an attack can only come from one of nine directions.

When facing a foe with words, an attack can come from countless directions.

Not all weapons are created equal. Therefore, not all weapons should be treated equal.

A flamethrower is more powerful than a longsword. Magic tends to = the flamethrower in this argument.

The argument isn't that a flamethrower shouldn't be more powerful than a longsword. The argument is that one player shouldn't get access to a flamethrower while the other is restricted to a longsword simply because they've made different characters.

Why not? Aside from bruised ego, which is a non-argument.

Not all weapons are created equal. Therefore, not all weapons should be treated equal.

A flamethrower is more powerful than a longsword. Magic tends to = the flamethrower in this argument.

The argument isn't that a flamethrower shouldn't be more powerful than a longsword. The argument is that one player shouldn't get access to a flamethrower while the other is restricted to a longsword simply because they've made different characters.

Why not? Aside from bruised ego, which is a non-argument.

Because players shouldn't feel useless or eclipsed. Players make characters in order to have fun and do things. A player who wants to stab people with swords should not be punished with being ineffective because he did not choose to make a character who shoots people with lasers instead. Dismissing "it makes players unhappy and does not give them what they want to get out of playing a game" as "bruised ego" is like the wrongest possible way to address it.

I had so many times where people said yes your roll was better than mine but I don´t buy into your argument cause it is no mindcontrol.

This isn't a problem with the system. It's a problem with bad characters and GMs who let them have too much slack.

Simply put, your character's stats define what they are and are not capable of.

If you never raise your Awareness past 2 and only spend 1 point in Etiquette, then you have left yourself open to the potential of being some bored Courtier's political play-thing. If said player doesn't like that and drops some ridiculous, "that's not how my character would blah blah blah," ... well, actually, let's look at the character sheet! Turns out, it IS how your character would, based on these stats and by how badly you got beaten on that Courtier roll!

And it's not just an L5R problem. It's a problem for any game with any sort of playable "social" aspect.

Don't let bad players get away with this.

Not all weapons are created equal. Therefore, not all weapons should be treated equal.

A flamethrower is more powerful than a longsword. Magic tends to = the flamethrower in this argument.

The argument isn't that a flamethrower shouldn't be more powerful than a longsword. The argument is that one player shouldn't get access to a flamethrower while the other is restricted to a longsword simply because they've made different characters.

Why not? Aside from bruised ego, which is a non-argument.

Because players shouldn't feel useless or eclipsed. Players make characters in order to have fun and do things. A player who wants to stab people with swords should not be punished with being ineffective because he did not choose to make a character who shoots people with lasers instead. Dismissing "it makes players unhappy and does not give them what they want to get out of playing a game" as "bruised ego" is like the wrongest possible way to address it.

That's a very game-specific argument, and this is not D&D.

I've never heard a bushi player suggest that they felt ineffective (except Unicorn and attacking on foot, but that's specifically a 4th edition problem and is also unrelated to mundane v. magical arguments ).

It only takes a single, well-placed, sword swing or two to kill a foe. If you wanted to play a bushi, I doubt you were thinking, "Man, I'm gonna be able to walk all over many people at once with my sword skills." Because that's not how the mechanics are advertised. If that was your goal, you'd be rolling a shugenja or a courtier.

Not all weapons are created equal. Therefore, not all weapons should be treated equal.

A flamethrower is more powerful than a longsword. Magic tends to = the flamethrower in this argument.

The argument isn't that a flamethrower shouldn't be more powerful than a longsword. The argument is that one player shouldn't get access to a flamethrower while the other is restricted to a longsword simply because they've made different characters.

Why not? Aside from bruised ego, which is a non-argument.

The Flamethrower VS Longsword happened recently in a D&D game of mine. I was playing the sorcerer, and managed to play before the Barbarian. Having unleashed a torrent of damage against the "Dungeon Boss Monster", the next player just gave it a tap and killed it. The Barbarian player just looked around the table, shrugged and said "Great... didn't even got to roll the dice to hit the monster. Fun."

Keeping a fun environment for all players, regardless of their choice in character, is the main argument.

Successful game balance in an RPG has nothing to do with the players and the GM being balanced against one another. That's a fool's errand, because the GM can just drop rocks from space on you until you die.

Game balance in an RPG should modulate player contributions such that everyone gets to play the game they came to play, which they define by choosing to create a particular kind of character. Part of that is ensuring that characters who achieve similar ends through different means can't cut each other off at the knees. They way it does that is by not making a longsword and a flamethrower equally available.

Problem with spells is that basically, each spell is worth a technique. So at each Rank, your Shugenja is gaining 3 techniques that often are more powerful and useful than "real" techniques, because "you need to expend resources to use them". This balancing factor is vastly overestimated and does...well...not much for balance.

To be fair, you're forgetting that spells require multiple rounds to cast (if higher than Rank 1), and can totally fail. If you miss your spell casting roll, you do nothing for the round except lose a spell slot (and in this edition, there are very few ways to boost your spell casting roll).

All of this on top of the (very) limited number of slots (vastly more limited in number than most other RPGs that use spell slots for casters).

Bushi/Courtiers have none of these drawbacks built into their techniques.

The Flamethrower VS Longsword happened recently in a D&D game of mine. I was playing the sorcerer, and managed to play before the Barbarian. Having unleashed a torrent of damage against the "Dungeon Boss Monster", the next player just gave it a tap and killed it. The Barbarian player just looked around the table, shrugged and said "Great... didn't even got to roll the dice to hit the monster. Fun."

Keeping a fun environment for all players, regardless of their choice in character, is the main argument.

See, D&D is an entirely different animal than L5R.

Wizard spells are light years ahead of Shugenja spells in potential and power.

Fighters are definitely not killing their foes in a single blow.

Not all game mechanics are created equal. My argument here applies to L5R. My argument would be entirely different if we were discussing D&D.