Armor Restrictions

By M4S-_-T3R, in Balance Issues

It appears there are no restrictions, other than social consequences, for armor.

So monks and shugenja can wear armor freely?

Does anyone know of anything in the rules mentioning this?

14 minutes ago, M4S-_-T3R said:

It appears there are no restrictions, other than social consequences, for armor.

So monks and shugenja can wear armor freely?

Does anyone know of anything in the rules mentioning this?

This has been the case since the beginning of L5R.

Since the magic use calls on the spirits to preform the spell armor has no effect on it.

So yes a shugenja can wear armor freely.

Now for a monk it depends on which types of Kihos he is using.

And the restriction would be more about the armor restricting his movement with physical Kihos.

Now in truth armor is not all that important to most shugenjas due to them having a bodyguard, so most don't use it.

And for Monks, they can normally get more protection out of their Kihos then armor would provide with no cost to agility.

Edited by tenchi2a

Thanks

Well from a power gamer perspective (which most of my players are), they asked me about this while complaining there are no decent kihos for protection. So I am envisioning everyone wearing heavy armor soon.

14 hours ago, M4S-_-T3R said:

Thanks

Well from a power gamer perspective (which most of my players are), they asked me about this while complaining there are no decent kihos for protection. So I am envisioning everyone wearing heavy armor soon.

That’s not always socially acceptable. In fact, it usually isn’t. Dressing for combat means you expect combat. It’s rather disrespectful to imply to the local daimyo he can’t keep the peace in his own lands by wearing armor. It’s downright foolish to imply you intend to break the peace by wearing armor.

19 hours ago, M4S-_-T3R said:

Thanks

No problem.

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Well from a power gamer perspective (which most of my players are), they asked me about this while complaining there are no decent kihos for protection. So I am envisioning everyone wearing heavy armor soon.

Not sure about your game, but I have found that unless there is a war on or they are in the wilds or shadowlands most combat that PC will get into is out of their armor anyway.

As Nameless had said, your PCs should not be in their armor all the time as it shows a lack of respect to the lord of the lands. It's seen as making the statement that he is not capable of defending his lands.

Edited by tenchi2a

I wil agree that whenever armor is appropriate, there’s little or no reason not to go for the best stuff. However, I don’t see that as problematic. If you’re playing a samurai in Rokugan, it’s appropriate to have (or at least have access to) high quality equipment. You’re part of the ruling caste. Exceptions notwithstanding (and I’m rather curious about what FFG is going to do with ronin and monks, for instance), money and material possessions don’t have to be a big concern. And it’s not like the GM’s enemy NPCs will automatically get trumped by your awesome armor, they’ll just get a little upgrade here and there and they’ll be good to go.

With how powerful translating hits to Crits with Void is in practice, a character with steady supply of Void can easily survive without armor - and actually excel against high damage, low lethality weapons.

21 hours ago, M4S-_-T3R said:

Well from a power gamer perspective (which most of my players are), they asked me about this while complaining there are no decent kihos for protection. So I am envisioning everyone wearing heavy armor soon.

So are these players monks?

The reason I ask is that unlike in D&D, armor and weapons are not available in the local market.

War-gear is normal provided by ones lord or through a commissioned blacksmith.

Where a samurai can go to a blacksmith and have a new suit of armor made fairly easy.

A monk would have some explaining to do, and it better be good.

From my personal experience playing and GMing:

Armor is very useful when you are expecting a situation where a lot of combat might happen - either because it will be a lot of fighting in a row (multiple combat scenes tightly packed), or because there will be many enemy participants who will potentially get a lot of shots at you (so a group fight scenario). Both, narratively, make a lot of sense - if you are planning on busting a yakuza gang with your magistrate buddy, you are going to go in armored. If you go to a battle, you go armored.

Armor, however, isn't really necessary for survival outside of these situations - sure, it might be nice to shove off 2 or 3 more Fatigue points per hit, but chances are you will go down in the same number of turns anyway. Armor is best at "extending" your Fatigue bar, and stopping weak attacks entirely, but against Crits, armor is surprisingly irrelevant. There are three broad types of skirmish dangers: swarms of opponents (these get actually pretty well neutered by armor, due to low individual damage per opponent), skilled crit based opponents, and high damage based opponents. Armor doesn't help that much against crit people - if you can make their damage go to 0, its great, but chances are you wont, and for their purposes, 1 damage is often as good as 3 or 4. High damage foes theoretically are what armor is for, however, high damage almost always comes at expense of low Deadliness - and agains these types of foes, you can reduce damage to 0 by spending a Void point and soaking their naturally low Crit with your Fitness roll. Note though that this damages the armor and is vulnerable to two-handed katanas (and pretty much only them); so unless you are expecting to actually go into a situation where armor is logically and narratively a strong choice, armor isn't necessary at all. It is NICE to have, sure, but a skilled fighter with 2 Void Points can often turn 2 hits into non consequential Crits.

So for majority of my players, the "armor of choice" is (reinforced with +1 using Design) Durable Traveling Clothes - 3 points of physical Resistance make it somewhat knife proof, durable makes them not go naked when Hit-to-Critting heavy hits away, and only social consequence they might face from it is some Crane cranetalking them about not following the latest trends of fashion.

2 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

A monk would have some explaining to do, and it better be good.

Going sohei is good enough I reckon. Though armor for a monk is just about courtesy and aesthetics. If you are decked out with kiho rated for non-consensual intimate approach then wearing armor won't make much difference either way.

2 hours ago, WHW said:

From my personal experience playing and GMing:

Armor is very useful when you are expecting a situation where a lot of combat might happen - either because it will be a lot of fighting in a row (multiple combat scenes tightly packed), or because there will be many enemy participants who will potentially get a lot of shots at you (so a group fight scenario). Both, narratively, make a lot of sense - if you are planning on busting a yakuza gang with your magistrate buddy, you are going to go in armored. If you go to a battle, you go armored.

Armor, however, isn't really necessary for survival outside of these situations - sure, it might be nice to shove off 2 or 3 more Fatigue points per hit, but chances are you will go down in the same number of turns anyway. Armor is best at "extending" your Fatigue bar, and stopping weak attacks entirely, but against Crits, armor is surprisingly irrelevant. There are three broad types of skirmish dangers: swarms of opponents (these get actually pretty well neutered by armor, due to low individual damage per opponent), skilled crit based opponents, and high damage based opponents. Armor doesn't help that much against crit people - if you can make their damage go to 0, its great, but chances are you wont, and for their purposes, 1 damage is often as good as 3 or 4. High damage foes theoretically are what armor is for, however, high damage almost always comes at expense of low Deadliness - and agains these types of foes, you can reduce damage to 0 by spending a Void point and soaking their naturally low Crit with your Fitness roll. Note though that this damages the armor and is vulnerable to two-handed katanas (and pretty much only them); so unless you are expecting to actually go into a situation where armor is logically and narratively a strong choice, armor isn't necessary at all. It is NICE to have, sure, but a skilled fighter with 2 Void Points can often turn 2 hits into non consequential Crits.

So for majority of my players, the "armor of choice" is (reinforced with +1 using Design) Durable Traveling Clothes - 3 points of physical Resistance make it somewhat knife proof, durable makes them not go naked when Hit-to-Critting heavy hits away, and only social consequence they might face from it is some Crane cranetalking them about not following the latest trends of fashion.

Was speaking from more of a 3rd/4th ed point of view but ok.

Quote

So are these players monks?

The reason I ask is that unlike in D&D, armor and weapons are not available in the local market.

War-gear is normal provided by ones lord or through a commissioned blacksmith.

Where a samurai can go to a blacksmith and have a new suit of armor made fairly easy.

A monk would have some explaining to do, and it better be good.

Ok so the context.

-5e beta still as I'm wrapping up my campaign.

-Togashi Hanna Monk(player), while has not worn any armor yet has been convinced by the power gamer in the group that she should be.

-Isawa Satoshi Shugenja(player), other than traveling clothes has not worn armor but generally hasn't really felt the need, although the power gamer suggested he might as well be wearing armor.

-Hida Daisuke Bushi (power gamer by definition)

-Kakita Ryu Bushi (low attention span player)

-Traveling into/through Shadowlands to Hiruma Castle (very dangerous)

The above group along with 2 others was tasked into moving into the shadowlands upon which they faced some ogres and goblins. The group easily dispatched 2 ogres with a few of the characters taking a hit but nobody going down (stats for ogres had to be converted from 2nd Edition).

A couple days later, the group now fully healed/rested assaults Hiruma Castle and its Clan of goblins. The Hida walks straight to the gate but cannot be harmed by rock throwing goblins or their grapeshot catapult, due to his armor. Eventually they fight their way through the bulk of the goblins, the goblins' general, and the remaining skirmishers. Realizing how dangerous a clan of goblins can be after nearly wiping, the power gamer began complaining about how minion level monsters can benefit from stances (fire in this case), he also convinced me that not every goblin would be using their club 2 handed (so I ultimately did every other one), and after the monk and shugenja were both incapacitated complained about monks being gimp and how everyone should be wearing armor.

However, after 4-5(if memory serves) rounds of combat, the Hida only took 2 hits that damaged him due to lots of exploding successes and was forced to spend a void and take a crit. He feels that a swarm of 5 goblins shouldn't be able to harm him in his heavy armor by using stances and getting extremely good rolls, but rather every Bushi should be basically immune to certain attacks due to the merit of armor alone.

So the group kills 60 or so Goblins at Hiruma Castle with the help of a dozen or so ratlings, with the monk and shugenja going beyond their fatigue thresholds; no scars, permanent injuries or deaths.

Basically barring an incredible roll(as goblins only keep 2 dice even with 4 goblins assisting equating to something like 5skill/2ring keep2) using fire stance+exploding is the only way to break through armor of 5+possible striking as earth increases.

So I guess the characters mistake of not armoring up properly before their Shadowlands journey is a factor.

But the current rules really incentivize heavy armor over lacquered because the penalty of +1 TN to movement actions is really a non factor and the cumbersome weapon penalty only matters if you moved the same round, but its still only +1TN. Why wouldn't everyone be in Plated(Heavy) Armor

The problem I foresee is once everyone gets their set of Heavy Armor constantly having to "punish" them for wearing it when they shouldn't be, the Hida Bushi has already explicitly stated that he only removes his armor for sleep when he is not traveling. While this problem may be unique to power gamer types, I just wish the writers would allow for some mechanical controls so the DM can avoid conflict and complaints.

I liked the old Heavy armor system; while +5 more TN was nice it had serious penalties but could be avoided by the Rank 1 Crab Technique. This system just feels more like everyone should own a set of heavy armor, which I feel is less interesting/balanced.

Any group striking out to assault Hiruma Castle should be kitted out to the gills. Powergaming or not, it’s borderline suicidal to half *** a venture like that. So armoring up before travelling into the Shadowlands is just common sense.

That said, whining about goblins being even semi-capable of doing some damage is moronic. Encounters should be expected to tax the PCs to an extent. If they want pushover encounters, they should get pushover XP.

As for the Hida’s perma-armor, that’s appropriate in the Shadowlands and acceptable in Crab lands. Otherwise, unless there’s a war raging, he should catch some serious flak. “Are our lands not safe enough for you, Hida-san? I did not expect a Crab samurai to be a coward, but maybe I should expect a Crab not selected for duty near the Wall to be made of lesser metal indeed. Let us do you a favour and escort you off of our lord’s perilous domain, so you need no longer fear for your life. Evidently you have no use for those travel papers, so they are hereby revoked. Will your companions travel on to their destination, or will they make sure you need not travel alone?”

2 hours ago, M4S-_-T3R said:

Ok so the context.

-5e beta still as I'm wrapping up my campaign.

My condolences.

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-Togashi Hanna Monk(player), while has not worn any armor yet has been convinced by the power gamer in the group that she should be.

Game wise there are no rule against him wearing armor.

Now this brings about the question. Are the players there to play L5R or just a Japanese version of D&D.

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-Isawa Satoshi Shugenja(player), other than traveling clothes has not worn armor but generally hasn't really felt the need, although the power gamer suggested he might as well be wearing armor.

As a Shugenja he would have better armor from spells then armor would provide.

Quote

-Hida Daisuke Bushi (power gamer by definition)

-Kakita Ryu Bushi (low attention span player)

Not too important to this discussion.

Quote

-Traveling into/through Shadowlands to Hiruma Castle (very dangerous)

This trip would require permission from the Hida daimyo. And if given would more than likely they would be supplied before being let through.

Quote

The above group along with 2 others was tasked into moving into the shadowlands upon which they faced some ogres and goblins. The group easily dispatched 2 ogres with a few of the characters taking a hit but nobody going down (stats for ogres had to be converted from 2nd Edition).

A couple days later, the group now fully healed/rested assaults Hiruma Castle and its Clan of goblins. The Hida walks straight to the gate but cannot be harmed by rock throwing goblins or their grapeshot catapult, due to his armor. Eventually they fight their way through the bulk of the goblins, the goblins' general, and the remaining skirmishers. Realizing how dangerous a clan of goblins can be after nearly wiping, the power gamer began complaining about how minion level monsters can benefit from stances (fire in this case), he also convinced me that not every goblin would be using their club 2 handed (so I ultimately did every other one), and after the monk and shugenja were both incapacitated complained about monks being gimp and how everyone should be wearing armor.

However, after 4-5(if memory serves) rounds of combat, the Hida only took 2 hits that damaged him due to lots of exploding successes and was forced to spend a void and take a crit. He feels that a swarm of 5 goblins shouldn't be able to harm him in his heavy armor by using stances and getting extremely good rolls, but rather every Bushi should be basically immune to certain attacks due to the merit of armor alone.

So the group kills 60 or so Goblins at Hiruma Castle with the help of a dozen or so ratlings, with the monk and shugenja going beyond their fatigue thresholds; no scars, permanent injuries or deaths.

Basically barring an incredible roll(as goblins only keep 2 dice even with 4 goblins assisting equating to something like 5skill/2ring keep2) using fire stance+exploding is the only way to break through armor of 5+possible striking as earth increases.

So I guess the characters mistake of not armoring up properly before their Shadowlands journey is a factor.

But the current rules really incentivize heavy armor over lacquered because the penalty of +1 TN to movement actions is really a non factor and the cumbersome weapon penalty only matters if you moved the same round, but its still only +1TN. Why wouldn't everyone be in Plated(Heavy) Armor

The problem I foresee is once everyone gets their set of Heavy Armor constantly having to "punish" them for wearing it when they shouldn't be, the Hida Bushi has already explicitly stated that he only removes his armor for sleep when he is not traveling. While this problem may be unique to power gamer types, I just wish the writers would allow for some mechanical controls so the DM can avoid conflict and complaints.

I liked the old Heavy armor system; while +5 more TN was nice it had serious penalties but could be avoided by the Rank 1 Crab Technique. This system just feels more like everyone should own a set of heavy armor, which I feel is less interesting/balanced.

I point you to my earlier comment.

Are the players there to play L5R or just a Japanese version of D&D.

If the group can care less about the customs of Rokugan.

As you have shown from the Hidas comment about his armor.

Then there is no point to worrying about it.

It's your game and if it works for you then fine, but the game expects that the players will follow customs.

Which is where the restrictions would come from.

Edited by tenchi2a
Quote

“Are our lands not safe enough for you, Hida-san? I did not expect a Crab samurai to be a coward, but maybe I should expect a Crab not selected for duty near the Wall to be made of lesser metal indeed. Let us do you a favour and escort you off of our lord’s perilous domain, so you need no longer fear for your life. Evidently you have no use for those travel papers, so they are hereby revoked. Will your companions travel on to their destination, or will they make sure you need not travel alone?”

I would have loved to use this.

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Any group striking out to assault Hiruma Castle should be kitted out to the gills. Powergaming or not, it’s borderline suicidal to half *** a venture like that. So armoring up before travelling into the Shadowlands is just common sense.

The group's trip to the Shadowlands was kind of spur of the moment, accompanying a Hare Clan bushi to find his lost sword. They didn't have time to plan or prepare as the stubborn Hare insisted at leaving the following day at first light.

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This trip would require permission from the Hida daimyo. And if given would more than likely they would be supplied before being let through.

Because of the urgency of the situation, the group simply honestly explained the situation to magistrates who provided them an escort through the wall.

So the group decided to call the game early and switch to DnD 5e rather than finish the campaign.

I got the impression ACTUAL roleplaying is difficult for this group (even with forced RPing mechanics, ninyo/guiri adv/disadv none of which I liked at all), who would rather just meta the rules and powergame.

That said, while still holding alot of possibility for rping, DnD 5e is a better environment for the lack of roleplaying ability. Which is fine for me, as I don't have to deal with players who are uncomfortable with customs of Rokugan or other realities.

seems there is a "wargear" tag on these armors, and wargear is definitily not ease with court as it's said.... Guess a circonstancial TN+1 or +2 applied in social action could be enough to invite players to not wear wargear in court (may be excepting crabs)

On ‎10‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 12:12 AM, M4S-_-T3R said:

The Hida walks straight to the gate but cannot be harmed by rock throwing goblins or their grapeshot catapult, due to his armor.

Remember that minion groups work via assistance, which both adds dice and increases your keep limit; enough goblins volley-firing yumi arrows will go through even reinforced plate.

On ‎29‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 8:47 PM, fbtn said:

seems there is a "wargear" tag on these armors, and wargear is definitily not ease with court as it's said.... Guess a circonstancial TN+1 or +2 applied in social action could be enough to invite players to not wear wargear in court (may be excepting crabs)

The wargear trait's own rules tends to work well enough (increasing the amount of strife generated whenever you keep at least one). Note that nowhere does the rule say 'other' characters - you suffer increased strife from wearing wargear as well. In a court intrigue, where the armour itself is pretty useless, it can lead to compromising yourself much faster than the opposition.

That said, yes. The TN of a social check should at least in part reflect the demeanour of the target. If you responded to my invitation to take tea by walking into my home in full plate with a naginata in hand, I can assure you said demeanour wouldn't be especially good.