Does anyone think they will expand on the combat rules? As in more martial techniques? I've not any experience with the first 4 editions of the game, so I don't know what has come before.

9 minutes ago, allenowen said:

Does anyone think they will expand on the combat rules? As in more martial techniques? I've not any experience with the first 4 editions of the game, so I don't know what has come before.

If you mean more kata, then yes, definitely. There is already a hint in Emerald Empire that they are planning more ninjutsu, and they've already published more shuji. That said, I suspect they'll tend to use them as small inclusions that add value to specific factions/groups. Some kind of berserker kata for the Crab in Shadowlands is, I think, something reasonable to expect, assuming Berserker isn't made into a school, or a title ability.

Experience with how the previous games were published is pretty worthless honestly. It was a different company for one. For another, its own publishing history was one of fairly unique approaches edition to edition.

Will they make combat more, detailed, for lack of a better word?

26 minutes ago, allenowen said:

Will they make combat more, detailed, for lack of a better word?

they definitely should issue "hotfix" for some of the core stuff (duels/movement/conditions/critical hits come to mind), and that could include a little bit more detailing, but otherwise, the combat base is pretty solid. why make it more detailed ? adding techniques will do the job.

2 hours ago, Isawa Miyu said:

If you mean more kata, then yes, definitely. There is already a hint in Emerald Empire that they are planning more ninjutsu, and they've already published more shuji. That said, I suspect they'll tend to use them as small inclusions that add value to specific factions/groups. Some kind of berserker kata for the Crab in Shadowlands is, I think, something reasonable to expect, assuming Berserker isn't made into a school, or a title ability.

Experience with how the previous games were published is pretty worthless honestly. It was a different company for one. For another, its own publishing history was one of fairly unique approaches edition to edition.

Ninjutsu and Maho are definitely bare-bones right now, but as far as what has officially appeared in the story so far, there really hasn't been much incorporation of those elements into the setting yet. We have had only arguably two short stories that have involved any sort of ninjutsu and the Scorpion novel introduced it as something that exists within the setting, but didn't get too deep into it.

The Phoenix novel introduced better how ghosts function in the setting and bringing the Yobanjin as an element into the setting than the Scorpion novel did for the Ninjutsu.

Until the writers are ready to introduce the Goju and either the Chuda or Iuchiban into the story, I don't know that too much of an expansion on what ninjutsu or maho techniques can allow will be necessary. And at the current story progression, that might be years off.

Then again, the RPG has expanded on the monks quite a bit and I can't recall them appearing much at all in any story so far. But I suppose that since they are a low-key friendly element, there isn't much risk of presenting them in the RPG all that different from how the story might ultimately decide to present them.

Eh I haven't gotten too deep into the rules yet, so I don't know how combat works yet. Just skimming the book. I think I was asking if we will see more kata, etc. Especially for unarmed kata.

18 minutes ago, allenowen said:

Eh I haven't gotten too deep into the rules yet, so I don't know how combat works yet. Just skimming the book. I think I was asking if we will see more kata, etc. Especially for unarmed kata.

Unarmed kata is fairly unlikely because the true unarmed specialists in the setting are the Monks and those techniques are found in the kiho section.

29 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Unarmed kata is fairly unlikely because the true unarmed specialists in the setting are the Monks and those techniques are found in the kiho section.

Unarmed Kata are likely to be added in the future. Kiho are more supernatural techs than unarmed techs and both of the new monks have Kata access.

Well, most Kata which are not ranged or specific to a type of weapon work with [Unarmed], and I think Open Hand Style is exclusively Unarmed. There will likely be a few more Unarmed specific kata in the future, or we can hope similarly that most Kata stay relatively free form. All in all this edition of L5R seems less obsessive about using an exact singular weapon all the time.

That said if you want to be really effective at Unarmed, yeah, you'll like a monk with Kiho access. The low level Kiho are really good to have your punch or kick profile do meaningful damage, and then the high level Void Kiho are scary effective Unarmed.

5 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Until the writers are ready to introduce the Goju and either the Chuda or Iuchiban into the story, I don't know that too much of an expansion on what ninjutsu or maho techniques can allow will be necessary. And at the current story progression, that might be years off.

Interesting assumption. Mine is the opposite: we are getting a Shadowlands book, and one of the frightening aspects of the Shadowlands are maho wielding critters, and corrupted mortal generals, so I expect to see more maho available in the Shadowlands sourcebook. Since maho is the only 'magic' available to Shadowlands, it would seem odd to not include any.

(Also the preview article explicitly says there will be more guidance on using maho and additional techniques for it.)

Samurai were traditionally quite skilled at unarmed. See Aikijujutsu, etc. In fact, Aikijujutsu is based on kenjutsu. When you learn kenjutsu, you're also learning unarmed combat. I think that's what Musashi meant when he said "learn one thing, learn 10,000 things". So I am wondering if we will have options reflecting that. Maybe it doesn't matter for the game.

Most Kata are just as applicable to armed as unarmed combat, as I noted above, so in most cases you can apply what you know how to do with a sword as with a kick or punch, unless it is specifically say, a technique to use a spear or the like. In most cases though, your damage & lethality is obviously superior using a sword than a fist, unless you supplement with supernatural effects like Kiho.

2 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

Most Kata are just as applicable to armed as unarmed combat, as I noted above, so in most cases you can apply what you know how to do with a sword as with a kick or punch, unless it is specifically say, a technique to use a spear or the like. In most cases though, your damage & lethality is obviously superior using a sword than a fist, unless you supplement with supernatural effects like Kiho.

Ahhhhh I see. I haven't read that far into the book yet. Ok. And yeah, swords/daggers are obviously more lethal than empty hands.

19 hours ago, allenowen said:

Ahhhhh I see. I haven't read that far into the book yet. Ok. And yeah, swords/daggers are obviously more lethal than empty hands.

Well, naturally, just as they are in real life.

What exactly would be the point of forging weapons either within the setting or in real life if using a weapon were no more effective in combat than using nothing more than what you were born with?

It takes days of effort for people to mine that ore in the first place. and days of effort from others to shape that ore into a weapon...

And maybe generations of effort into refining the size and shape that the ore should be forged into in order to make it the most effective weapon.

If all of that effort was an utter waste because someone with bare hands could be an equal or more effective fighter without other sacrifices needing to be made, it would be pretty ridiculous and mark all those other efforts a complete waste.