Given this thread is empty, I figure I might as well share some of our house rules

1) Ranking up rings

original: you can only rank up a ring if the new rank is equal or lower than your void ring+lowest ring

house: you cannot rank up you highest ring unless it is tied with another

Reasoning: By default, the void ring is essential to character progression meaning anyone who focuses on it advances faster, and anyone who doesn't advances slower. This results in almost every character wanting at least three void and leads to a lot of similar ring distributions early game. By changing this, players can take any ring combinations they'd like without handicapped progression, but they must split their attention between at least two rings.

2) Tweaked Skill list

house: Split stealth from fitness/skullduggery, made the niche seafaring into a more general expedition skill, compressed aesthetics composition and design into one skill, compressed performance and games together.

Reasoning: This is simply for our current campaign, which is meant to be less Rokugan and more Moribito. I always promote tweaking skill lists to fit the campaign.

3) Equipment

We added some new equipment to fit changes to the setting, but one thing I think a lot of games could utilize for foreign empires is shields

Shield, Durable, Range 0, Dmg 4, Deadly 2, one handed, while wielding, treat your physical resistance as 1 higher

4) Starting XP

This isn't a houserule per se, but just felt like pointing out starting with 20xp after 20 questions. Of the premade campaigns, all but the one where you are peasants and the pregen character campaign recommend starting xp so it is definitely worth remembering for your home campaigns.

1) 2 void is enough for a little while. nbody should stay with any ring at "1" anyway, thats like a big no no, not expensive to bump up. so void 2 plus lowest ring 2... you can bring everything to 4. I think it is ok.

2) no problem with skill splitting/shuffle. I think the system is actually generous for that.

3) interesting the shield. definitely not standard stuff in rokugan. the design seems legit.

4) you can start the player at whatever "xp" you feel like, thats like starting level 5 in d&d. not a houserule really, just a campaign thing.

I'd say that unless you are making the first adventure to be the PCs' genpukku or immediately after that, GMs should give bonus XP. All freshly created characters have very glaring weaknesses that can be tied into their inexperience and they clearly only trained to excel at one or two things their schools focuses on. This is very different than a 4E starting character, that began play much more well rounded.

3 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

1) 2 void is enough for a little while. nbody should stay with any ring at "1" anyway, thats like a big no no, not expensive to bump up. so void 2 plus lowest ring 2... you can bring everything to 4. I think it is ok.

A character who focuses on void can immediately dump every point into hitting void 5 (27xp total, less than some adventures starting xp.) While every ring has some gaps in their versatility this puts them at a huge advantage compared to anyone else when you're not forced into a specific ring.

While rings shouldn't stay at 1 over the course of a campaign, the fact is void 3 at char creation puts you a leg up on anyone who took a lower amount. Someone who left void at rank 1 during character creation needs to spend at least 42 xp to get a different ring to rank 5 (with a specific ring distribution that puts you at -3 xp at char creation for 45xp total.)

A char who wants to leave void at rank 1 needs 36xp to get a single ring to rank 4 and needs 87xp to get a ring to rank 5.

My problem isn't that void is to strong, my issue is this one ring cripples your progression if you don't take it, and promotes anyone who doesn't want to play a void char to take it anyways. This change is to promote more variety between characters.

and if you go chill about it ? just raise all rings to 2 (fast, easy enough) that way you can get any main ring you want to 4. after that, increase void to 3 and the other ring to 5.

i don't see it as that bad.

sure, everybody DO need some void ring. If you think you should be able to build void 1-2 character at end game that is another subject,