Using Maho

Using Maho in your Game
By
Dace

I recall when we first took a look at the maho rules during the early parts of playtesting. Like many people who read them now, we were concerned that they may in fact be over powered. But Design assured us that that was the point. Maho in 4th Edition was meant to represent a stronger, darker and scarier thing.

And in that regard I believe the design goal has succeeded. Maho is scary. There are of course concerns that using maho may unbalance a game. The side bar on page 267 gives a way to balance maho in regards to it's use with PC Spider characters. Those same methods can also work for NPC's. What follows are a few more suggestions on how to use maho in a game with out turning it into a party killer.

First a few simple House Rules that can make surviving an encounter with a maho-tsukai easier. First and foremost is allowing fingers of Jade to act as protection. For every finger of Jade a character possesses increases the TN of a maho spell targeting them by 5. A GM may also consider allowing the Advantage Magical Resistance to work with maho. Combined with Jade protection these two alone should help to increase surviving an encounter with a maho-tsukai.

In addition to the above house rules a GM should also remember that a maho-tsukai can not wound more than one victim per round. This can be handled in one of two ways.

The first is that the maho-tsukai be allowed to wound his first victim at the end of the round he completes the spell on. Treating the action as a part of the spell's chant.

The second is to require the maho-tsukai to wound his victim at his action in the round following the completion of his spell. This method treats the act of attacking as a normal complex action. This only allows for one attempt at spilling blood to power a spell per round, unless of course the maho-tsukai in question is allowed to make the attack as a simple action.

When dealing with willing cultist ready to lay down their lives for the maho-tsukai the GM may wish to roll initiatives. This gives your players a chance to restrain and otherwise remove the cultist as a threat for powering the spell. Do note that the act of killing them by the PC's won't count towards powering the spell.

There are of course non mechanical concerns as well. You wouldn't toss your PC's at a Rank 5 Hida if they were rank 1 characters so why toss them at a maho-tsukai who has spells that can kill the entire party?

Careful spell selection is key to using a maho-tsukai. A maho-tsukai should only cast Touch of Death, for instance, if you're seeking to destroy the party, or you truly think they can handle it. Such of spell of course is likely best used when the party itself is close to the spell's Mastery Level of 5.

In some cases the spell's themselves should be treated as plot points. Summon Oni is a great spell for an arrogant maho-tsukai who thinks he can control what he brings forth. The point of the encounter would then shift from trying to kill the maho-tsukai to dealing with the summoned Oni. Other good plot spells are Summon Undead Champion and Essence of Undeath which can lay the ground work for the evenings encounter.

A more subtle balancing factor is taint and shadowland powers. When deciding what maho spells you're going to give your prospective holy terror of Jigoku you should bear in mind how much taint he has and what shadowland powers and mutations he might have. Shadowland powers can go a long way to making a maho-tsukai more challenging with out arming them with spells that you feel might bring an abrupt end to your campaign.

However the most balancing effect for a maho-tsukai is to consider his personality of the maho-tsukai. I have found when designing an NPC villain for a game that I can make him as powerful as I want, so long as I give him the right personality to fit the kind of threat I want him to be.

If I make a maho-tsukai who is most likely to go off the deep end and kill everyone in the village then I will probably limit his maho spell selection to useful spells but ones that won't ruin my campaign when the inevitable happens.

On the flip side a smart calculating maho-tsukai may have Touch of Death, since he is more inclined to wait till the right moment and the right person to use it on. Villains who show some restraint are villains more inclined to have the patience to learn the more powerful spells. They also live the longest.

The last piece of advice I can give with dealing with maho is don't be afraid to fudge a few rolls in favor of the players. GM's are people and sometimes we overestimate the resourcefulness of the party. If it seems like the maho-tsukai is on the cusp of destroying your adventuring samurai then pull back from the brink. Have him fail that crucial role. Or maybe he remembers he left the iron on somewhere.

Time and experience will of course help you better judge what is and isn't to much for your players where maho is concerned.

An Inside Look at Shugenja

L5R 4th Edition - Exploiting Shugenja
By
Kakita Seigi

One of the character class types that have had the largest overhaul in the 4th Edition is shugenja. Shawn Carman has discussed a number of fundamental changes to the traditional L5R spellcaster. However, the L5R Design Diaries did not reveal everything that’s changed! Players and GMs alike are going to realize that playing a shugenja in 4th Edition is a very different animal from past editions.

The first major change is that a shugenja can now only cast a finite number of spells per day. A shugenja character has spell slots equal to the elemental ring he is casting. There are also spell slot reserves equal to the shugenja’s void ring that can be used to cast any elemental spell. That sounds similar to past editions? True, but what is new is that these spell slots are not normally recoverable like they were in past editions.

The only normal way to recover spells is through sleep with very little exception. The Meditation skill no longer helps a shugenja recharge after a fight and shugenja cannot raise to prevent a spell slot from being used. However, not all hope is lost for the player who wants a more reliable method of casting their spells. The L5R 4th Edition provides a Rank 2 Water spell called Rejuvenating Vapors that will prove a useful regeneration tool. Once per day, this spell allows the recipient of the spell to recover all Void spell slots. Shugenja will want access to this spell as soon as possible.

Which leads me to the most important point, access to spells has also changed. Veteran players will remember the universal spell called Importune. The spell allowed a shugenja to invoke any other spell by raising the mastery level of a spell and performing a huge favor to the kami. The later requirement was a real pain and limited invoking spells the caster did not have.


4th Edition has completely turned this spell upside down and created a new gold standard for flexibility. In fact, I highly recommend this new paradigm to all L5R GMs who are playing older L5R RPG systems and have no interest in playing 4th Edition. To importune a spell, a shugenja must cast Commune on the desired element. By parleying for a designated period of time, a shugenja can make a skill roll with Spellcraft (Importune) / (desired Ring Rank) at a TN appropriate TN equal to the Mastery Level of the spell. Then for a period of time, the shugenja can cast that spell at a slightly increased TN. A shugenja may not importune spells with a higher Mastery Level than he could normally cast.


Thus, in order to cast a spell that a shugenja does not normally have, the shugenja will need to sacrifice two spell slots to cast it. This offers unprecedented flexibility for shugenja. Though this new mechanic is balanced for 4th Edition, since spell slots are limited resources. And to make matters trickier, often spell slots are used to power shugenja techniques. Still this tradeoff in flexibility can be well worth the steep cost and should lead to complex decisions by GMs and players alike.

Counterspell has also been removed and the old Banish spell has been merged into a utility of the three fundamental spells most shugenja start with (Sense, Commune, and Summon). The Banish function is now the only sure way a shugenja can stop ongoing spells from continuing. Spells cannot be negated anymore while the shugenja is casting the spell. Other shugenja can only discontinue a spell's effect if the spell lasts long enough for a shugenja to banish the kami from the area so the spell hopefully stops dead in its tracks.

Lastly, I want to talk about kiho. Shugenja having kiho is not new to L5R, but 4th Edition incents shugenja to take kiho like never before. While kiho are more expensive to buy and learn than a monk, a shugenja can buffer their spells by having four types of kiho activated at one time (Internal, Kharmic, Martial, and Mystical). Shugenja will find staples in Touch of the Void Dragon and To the Last Breath. Increasing a random Elemental Ring for the shugenja (an extra spell slot!) or refilling the party’s void points via Meditation is enormous. This theme is important and something I am very glad to see return to Rokugan.

Shugenja are holy men, not standard spell casters. The elements actually talk to them and infuse them with immense power. But invoking spells is something to be respected and not treated as an infinite resource. Shugenja are 4th Edition’s glass cannon. They require care to play, but provide players and GMs with unrivaled flexibility that no other class can provide. Every group is going to want to have shugenja on their party to help solve the myriad of challenges that they will likely face from a resourceful GM.