L5r 3rd Edition Character Creation

Posted By admin On 02.09.19

This is a GM tool for the RPG game 'Legend of the Five Rings' 4th edition. The character page Appmenu button Appmenu refund any advancement. Create L5R Characters; Extendible data format; Generates PDF character sheets; Dice roller; Rokugan names generator; Experience point calculation.

TRPG‎ > ‎Legend of the Five Rings RPG‎ > ‎School of Twilight‎ > ‎

Character Creation Guidelines

Character Sheets can be found in the L5R Resources section of the Site. There are sheets for each category of School, please use these to document your character. You will be making Rank 1 characters, so begin with the following rules.

Identity Selection and Role:

Be sure to select who your character is, and have an idea of whom they will become. Be sure to become something that you will enjoy playing and become an active member of the party!
  1. You have already had your Gempukku and have been training in your school long enough to be Rank 1.
  2. Choose a Clan: any human Rokugani Major or Minor Clan including Imperial Families, Ronin, or Monk. Don't play a peasant or gaijin (Burning Sands) unless you speak with me first.
  3. Choose a family (if applicable) within that clan, if you are a family outside the clan or are a friendly Spirit that has taken the place of a family member please consult with me first. Monks without an Order or Ronin without families get 6 more Character Points instead of a Trait Bonus.
  4. Choose any beginning school from within your clan, this can be any school mentioned in the L5R 4th Edition books. If you are accepted into a school from another clan please consult with me first. If you need access to the L5R mechanic materials, I have scanned them and can give you access to my Live Mesh folder (to be used for reference only), you can stop by, contact someone who has a book, or purchase one yourself.

Character Point Expenditure:

Diversify or intensify your character skills and traits. It is beneficial to round out the character, but be really, really good at a handful of techniques.
Follow these steps in order:
  1. You get the first rank in a school skill for free, some schools give a skill at rank 2 or higher, and you get your school starting equipment for free. Characters always have access to all items in the Travelling Pack list at any time and is assumed to be restocked with each village visit.
  2. Optionally, make 3 rolls on the heritage table and select the one (or none) that best fits your character's archetype, story, or something that you find interesting.
  3. You gain 2 ranks in a single Artisan or any Merchant Skill that is not related to your School Skills to reflect the services you provided to the community before your Gempukku; this includes: Artisan (Bonsai, Gardening, Ikebana, Origami, Painting, Poetry, Sculpture, Tattooing, etc.), Animal Handling, Commerce, Craft (Armorsmithing, Blacksmithing, Bowyer, Brewing Carpentry, Cartography, Cobbling, Cooking, Farming, Fishing, Masonry, Mining, Pottery, Shipbuilding, Tailoring, Weaponsmithing (weapon), Weaving, etc.), Engineering, and Sailing.
  4. You get +1 rank in a Game for free, this can be used to increase a school skill if applicable, like: Fortunes & Wind, Go, Kemari, Letters, Sadane, Shogi, bowling, gambling, etc.
  5. You get +1 rank in both Etiquette and Investigation for free; this can be used to increase a school skill if you already have it, these are used a lot.
  6. The character gets 40 Character Points to spend. Skills and traits at character creation are limited to rank 4, and you may have up to 5 character points left over if you want.
  7. Disadvantages are limited to no more than 10 Character Points and Advantages are limited to about 15 points; Anti-social has no place in my games so don't choose it. If you want to go beyond these values, please speak with me first.
  8. You get 7 more points that must be spent on Kata, Kiho, or spells--if you don't use these they are forfeit; for spells, use them to purchase additional spells that are within your casting potential at its mastery level in cost. I have found that most folks run out of points or forget to get these. If there is a Kata, Kiho, or spell that you want but isn't a part of your Clan or School we can repurpose it as a common ability that everyone has access to or you can create your own--before doing this, please get my permission first.
  9. Purchase your starting items, if any.
  10. Calculate your Insight Rank, it should between 130 and 149, if not then move points around until you are within the insight range.

Rank 2 Characters:

  1. You get 50 more experience points to spend on your character. Make sure the points are distributed until the character achieves at least rank 3 and less than rank 4, which is between 175 and 199 insight points.

Rank 3 Characters:

  1. You get 75 more experience points to spend on your character. Make sure the points are distributed until the character achieves at least rank 3 and less than rank 4, which is between 200 and 224 insight points

Rank 4 Characters:

  1. You get 85 more experience points to spend on your character. Make sure the points are distributed until the character achieves at least rank 4 and less than rank 5, which is between 225 and 249 insight points. Your rings are limited to a maximum of 5 unless you talk to me first.

Rank 5 Characters:

  1. You get 100 more experience points to spend on your character. Make sure the points are distributed until the character achieves at least rank 5 and less than rank 6, which is between 250 and 274 insight points. Your rings are limited to a maximum of 5 unless you talk to me first.

Character Description:

I interweave character stories and use this information in my game. I find it a fun challenge to unite everybody under a single (multi-tiered) storyline; I will work with you on rounding-out the edges and making your story fit with the overall plot if I necessary. Goals, morals, code, your desires, requests, etc. will become the story as both villans and saints use them to gain your trust and tear you down. It also adds depth to a character that helps define your roleplaying and character-group dynamics.
  1. Write-up a one page biography of your character, this can contain:
    1. Family/personal history
    2. Briefly describe your advantages and disadvantages, why you might have them, how you behave with them?
    3. Any interesting stories/adventures they've had?
    4. A description of the character's appearance or draw/find a picture of him/her.
    5. What drives your character? Morales, code, religion, love, selfishness, etc.. What are his/her goals?
    6. What is your character's family like? Any childhood memories that are pertinant to character developement?
  2. Please tell me what you want your character to accomplish in this Story. Is there anything that you would like in the story? Here are some examples:
    1. Bring Honor to my family name.
    2. Be victorious in a battle! Or die in a battle!
    3. Recover the True Tao of Shinsei! Get a badass katana!
    4. What happened to the Hare Clan? Why do the gods ignore the humans?
    5. I want ninja, pirates, or ninja-pirates! I want to discover Mahou, Soul Twister Magic, get some Shadow Powers!

Story Conformance and Hook:

You are asked to join the School of Twilight, either by your sensei, family, lord, or are approached by a member of the School when you performed some brave deed. Congratulations, you are now part of a group who protects those who cannot protect themselves!

You gain the following:

  1. A black kimono with a long crimson obi and a straw hat
  2. A fan used to show your rank in the school and which house you belong to, to be worn with the kimono on your sash
  3. Special Technique: Shelter the Meek -- The School of Twilight draws strength from their duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves. When you initiate an honorable encounter (skirmish or social discourse) where you are actively fighting to protect the life of a group or someone who cannot protect themselves (GM's discretion), you gain one bonus Void Point that must be used to protect them during the situation. This bonus Void Point is gained before initiative is rolled, and may be used during any round until the person can either protect themselves or they are saved, whichever occurs first. Unspent Void Points gained from this Technique are lost at the end of the encounter.
  4. A status of the celestial orientation of when you were born and a possibly a spiritual ability; this will be drawn from at random from a bag when the game begins.

Become a living legend:

  1. Please email (or attach/link) your character, biography, and story incorporation requests for review and approval.
  • 1Creating a character in Legends of the Five Rings
    • 1.1The Basics First
    • 1.2Customization Second

Creating a character in Legends of the Five Rings

This seems to be quite difficult in the 3rd edition book, not so much because it's complicated, but because the process is spread out all over the book. For my sanity and for the sake of my players, I've put together this small cheat sheet of pages, which is another complaint I have of the book, nothing is on the page the book says it is. So I'm attempting to simplify matters.

The Basics First

20 Questions

  • Legend of the Five Rings: Third Edition Revised was the revised core rulebook for Third Edition of the Legend of the Five Rings roleplaying game. Contentsshow Credits Writing: Rich Wulf, Shawn Carman, Seth Mason, Brian Yoon, Fred Wan.
  • /r/L5R - a community for the Legend of the Five Rings card games (CCG and LCG). /r/rpg - General tabletop RPG discussion. Created by EarlMcFisticuffs a community for 8 years.

All characters are required to have at least 15 of the 20 questions answered on pg.82-84 of the 3rd edition core book.

  1. What Clan does he belong to?
  2. What Family does he belong to?
  3. How would others describe his appearance?
  4. Is he a Bushi, Shugenja, Monk or Courtier?
  5. What is his main motivation?
  6. Who is the person he trusts most?
  7. What is his greatest strength? Greatest weakness?
  8. What does he think of Bushido?
  9. What is his opinions of his own clan?
  10. Is he married?
  11. Does he have and prejudices?
  12. To whom does he owe the most loyalty?
  13. What are his favorite and least favorite things?
  14. Does he have any recurring mannerisms?
  15. What about his emotions?
  16. How would he handle a subordinate's improper behavior?
  17. How would his parent's describe her?
  18. What is his highest ambition?
  19. How religious is he?
  20. If you could, what advice would you give him?

For further explanations, one would have to reference the book.

Clan and Family

This is a very important step of character creation process, it pretty much tells you who your character is, this is half the dirty work of figuring out the character's personality because each clan and family have their own teachings and outlooks on Rokugan and the various aspects of it.

There are eight major clans to belong to, a character also has the option to belong to one of the nine minor clans, four imperial families or even be a ronin. Here is some additional Clan Information. To each clan there are a number of Families to belong to, each will have it's own advantage specific to those family members. With the family name comes a general appearance, out look, and sometimes superstitions. It's wise to read up on the families before choosing one.

School

Schools can be the easiest part, but also very crucial. Once you have your family and clan chosen, there's generally only three or four choices for school without the advantage of learning from another clan's schools. Generally there is a Bushi School, a Shugenja School, a Courtier school, and sometimes a specialty school, these are the monk teachings, the scouts, or the battle maidens. Some clans offer them, some don't. Each school then has a set of Techniques, and shugenja schools get spells. There's generally no customization when it comes to techniques, you take them in order, and as a starting character you generally only get the first choice. Each school comes with a set of skills it teaches, standard honor for being a student of the school, standard equipment, and each school gives a specific trait bonus also.

Customization Second

Character Points

L5r Character Sheet

Each character starts with 45 Character Points that may be spent at any time through character creation. One spends their character points on and of the five areas:

Traits

To raise a trait with character points it costs the rating you want to buy times four.
I.E. Raising a trait to 3 would cost 12, raising it then to 4 would cost 16 more.
L5r rpg character sheet

Void

Similar to traits, void is also raised at the next rating, but instead of multiplying it by four, it is multiplied by six.

Skills

To purchase additional skills with character points is cheap and easy, it's the cost of the next level.
I.E. to raise a skill from 2 to 3 it will only cost 3. Raising a skill from 2 to 4 in this manner is going to be seven points.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages are beneficial tags added to your character, their costs are listed with the advantages. Disadvantages are generally less than helpful tags attached to your character that will give you a certain amount of character points to spend up to a maximum of 10 points.

Glory, Honor and Status

Lastly one's character points may be used to raise one's glory, honor or status. These are attributes that generally reflect one's respect gained from others, respect for themselves and where they stand in society. All characters start with 1 glory and status, and their honor is based upon school. A character may increase their honor by 1 whole point for 3 character points, or reduce their honor 1 whole point to gain 3 character points. Glory and Status may be altered through advantages and disadvantages.
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