We're using the Fourth Edition rules for Kanazawa game. While they're pretty good on the whole, there is some room for improvement.
This page contains three types of houserules:
Clarifications, where the main rule book is unclear
Alterations, which specifically alter the rules as written
Additions, which add entirely new rules to the game.
The houserules are organised thematically and each rule is tagged to indicate what type of rule it is.
Glory Awards
Decrease all Glory awards by half your current Glory rank (i.e. a glory 8 samurai reduces all Glory awards by 4). If you each 0 or fewer Glory, you do not lose any Glory for inaction.
Inaction
Samurai lose 1 Glory per season that they don't earn any.
The rules relating attacking as a Simple Action have been extensively modified. In summary, simple attacks are made using a new combat manoeuvre, rather than being granted by school techniques. It normally costs 5 Raises to make a simple attack, but all bushi gain a Free Raise per School Rank towards this manoeuvre. Furthermore, all bushi reduce the cost of this manoeuvre to 3 raises with their school's archetypal weapons. This ensures that bushi can still make simple attacks at Rank 3 with their school's weapons, but makes the progression less binary. The full text of the manoeuvre is below.
There are a few related changes:
All bushi techniques which granted simple action attacks are removed, and will replaced with suitable alternatives. These will often be take from Alternative Paths for that school.
No existing techniques which grant Free Raises can be used towards the Simple Attack manoeuvre
Some weapons will gain a new tag, "Heavy". Weapons with the Heavy tag require you to take an extra raise to make the Simple Attack manoeuvre. The tag will be applied to weapons with high damage ratings; a full list is provided below.
School Weapons
A school's archetypal weapons will generally be those that it gained Simple Attacks with under the old rules.
Kakita Bushi (Alteration)
Rank 1: Way of the Crane
You add your Iajitsu Skill Rank to all Initiative rolls, not twice Iajitsu. The Bayushi bushi is also meant to be initiative focussed, but the value of +1k1 is approximately +5. Reducing the Kakita bonus means the two schools are more equal.
Mirumoto Bushi (Alteration)
Rank 1: Way of the Dragon
The bonus to Armour TN is increased to 2 plus half your School Rank, rounded up. This means the bonus is higher at lower school ranks (+3 at Ranks 1 and 2, +4 at Rank 3) but the same at higher ranks (+4 at Rank 4, +5 at Rank 5).
Tamori Shugenja (Clarification)
Flesh of the Elements
You can also bottle spells with Area of Effect: One Person, One Creature or One Target.
You cannot bottle Importuned spells.
Bottling a spell does not trap a kami within the bottle; instead the bottle contains blessed and sanctified herbs and reagents which automatically produce the desired response from the local kami.
Kitsuki Investigator (Alteration)
Rank 3: Know the Rhythm of the Heart
The trait used to resist this roll is Willpower, not Intelligence.
Togashi Monk (Clarification)
Each tattoo may be activated [Insight Rank + 2] times per day, unless otherwise specified.
When you take this advantage, select a skill. Whenever an emphasis you have applies, add your ranks in the Skill to the total of the roll. Furthermore, if you have 5 or more ranks in the skill, gain a Free Raise on all rolls with that skill.
Example: Akodo Kenburo has Great Potential (Iajitsu), an Iajitsu of 7 and has the Awareness and Focus emphases. Whenever he makes an Iajitsu(Awareness) or Iajitsu(Focus) roll he add 7 to the result. Whenever he makes any roll with Iajitsu, he also gets a Free Raise.
Blackmail is priced analogously to Ally. You may spend points on Influence (functions exactly as for allies) and Control. Control is the equivalent of Devotion and reflects the consequences to the target if the blackmail becomes public knowledge. Roughly speaking:
Control 1 means the target will be embarrassed and a target of gossip.
Control 2 means a significant loss of status or face or a non-lethal legal punishment
Control 3 means that the target will have to commit sepukku if the secret is exposed
The number of Raises a character can make is capped by their Skill, and not by their Void. For rolls which lack a skill (e.g. spellcasting rolls, or raw Trait rolls), the number of Raises is capped by the relevant Trait. The Great Potential advantage has been re-worked accordingly.
All characters add their ranks in Defence to their Armour TN at all times.
Roll Sincerity/Awareness (generally TN 15) to sound sincere (if you fail, you sound insincere to everyone). You may Raise to enhance your sincerity.
Listeners may roll Courtier/Awareness (TN 20) to detect if you are truly sincere (this represents the listener carefully examining the speaker's words and manner of talking). The TN of the listener is increased by 5 for each Raise on a Sincerity (Deceit) roll, and decreased by 5 for each Raise on a Sincerity (Honesty) roll.
If the listener is successful, they know if the speaker was truly sincere or not. If the listener fails, they believe that the speaker was sincere (assuming the speaker made their Sincerity roll; otherwise the listener believes that the speaker is insincere).
Commentary: Sincerity (Honesty) allows a samurai to sway even a hostile audience, as they are able to overcome the high TN on the initial Sincerity roll and can also lower the TN of listener's Courtier rolls. Sincerity (Deceit) allows a samurai to deceive even the astute, as they can increase the TN of the Courtier roll significantly.
You may roll Courtier(Matchmaking)/Awareness to find a suitable spouse for yourself or for someone else. The base TN is 15, and you may raise to determine one characteristic of the prospective spouse:
Honour
Glory and highest Skill
Status
Alliances
School and Rank
Age and Advantages
Any one other thing
A successful roll means that a suitable spouse has been found, but does not mean that a betrothal automatically occurs. A given character may only have one Matchmaking roll made for them per season. Making the roll while at a Winter Court generally grants a Free Raise with targets from that Clan or any other Clan in notable attendance.
The following supernatural lore skills exist:
Lore: Tengoku, the Celestial Heavens. The Fortunes and the Sun and the Moon call Tengoku home. Emphases include: the Fortunes
Lore: Elemental Kami. Emphases include: Specific element
NB: Spellcraft covers the same field as Lore:Elemental Kami and the two skills are generally interchangeable. The only advantage Lore: Elemental Kami offers is Lore mastery abilities.
Lore: Maho provides knowledge of the kansen and the practise of maho. Emphases include: Kansen, specific types of maho, oni
Lore: Shadowlands provides knowledge of how to survive in the Shadowlands, and the abilities of its inhabitants. Emphases include: travel, oni, goblins
NB: Lore: Maho, Lore: Shadowlands and Lore: Realm of the Dead (Jigoku) have some overlap but are distinct skills
Lore: Spirit Realm provides knowledge of the realm of the spirits. The spirit realm includes Chikushodo, the realm of animals, Sakkaku, the realm of mischief, and Yume-Do, the realm of dreams. Emphases include: Chikushodo, Sakkaku and Yume-Do
Lore: Realm of the Dead provides knowledge of the realm where the souls of the dead go. The realm of the dead includes the following areas, all of which can be an emphasis:
Meido, the realm of waiting, where souls await judgement
Yomi, the realm of blessed ancestors, where the souls of the great may be found
Jigoku, the realm of evil, where kansen and the souls of the damned may be found
Gaki-Do, the realm of the hungry dead, where the souls of those blighted by desire or regret are purified
Toshigoku, the realm of slaughter, where irredeemable souls are published for all eternity.
At the start of an encounter, one person on each side may roll Battle(Skirmish)/Perception with a base TN of 15. If the roll succeeds, gain one point of Advantage (you may Raise to get one additional Advantage per Raise).
Comment: Characters who are especially familiar with the area they are fighting in will get 1 or 2 Free Raises on this roll.
Each point of Advantage can be spent to give one Free Raise to a single Bugei skill roll made by that side in the skirmish. Only one point of Advantage can be spent on any roll.
The rank 3 Mastery abilities for Knives and Warfans negates the -5 penalty to attacks made with the dominant hand, even if another weapon is being used in the dominant hand.
E.g. Akodo Hitomi is wielding a katana in her dominant hand, and a warfan in her off-hand. She has Warfans 3, and so suffers no off-hand penalties when attacking with either her katana or her warfan.
More skills have more mastery abilities, to encourage characters to buy skill ranks. Due to length, these are listed on a separate page.
A list of non-combat spells on its own page due to length. Many of these spells can be researched twice as fast as normal (see Downtime rules).
Fire Spells
Token of Insight: Gives +3k0 to Intelligence-based rolls for the duration, instead of boosting your Intelligence by 3!
Water Spells
Sympathetic Energies: The spell slot used to cast the stored spell is unavailable until the trigger goes off. The target of the triggered spell can be specified when casting Sympathetic Energies. If Sympathetic Energies is transferred to a non-shugenja character (using Silent Waters), then the target of the stored spell must be specified. The target can take the form of "When I say 'Hadoken', cast 'Fury of Osano-Wo' at whoever I'm pointing at". Especially complicated targeting rules may require a Raise. If the stored spell has a duration of Concentration, the target of Sympathetic Energies maintains concentration. If the stored spell refers to a Trait, Skill or other static value, use the value of the shugenja at the time of casting. If the stored spell refers to the casting number, use the casting number when the spell was stored.
Stand Against the Waves: The target of this spell gains a Simple Action during the Reaction Stage of the current Combat Round, which may only be used to make an attack. This attack is made with 5 Free Raises which may only be used for the Simple Action Attack manoeuvre.
If a samurai breaks a taboo (e.g. eating red meat, touching blood), they gain the Unlucky advantage until they have cleansed themselves (a simple ritual that can be done at any shrine or temple).
The table below replaces Table 4.2: Taint Growth (page 276, core book); the roll intervals have been altered to better reflect the passage of time in this campaign. In order to make the taint more dangerous, the following rules has been re-introduced from previous editions: Every time a character makes a Taint resistance roll successfully, the TN of the next such roll increases by 5. this TN increases stacks until the roll is failed. The TN is then reset. For example, a character with 8 points of taint (Seeds of Darkness) rolls once per year versus TN 5. If they succeed, the TN of the next roll increases to 10. If they succeed again, the TN increases to 15 (year 3). If they fail this roll, they gain 1 point of Taint, and roll versus TN 5 in year 4. All other rules relating to gaining Taint are unchanged (e.g. Jade Petal Tea is useful, as is a meditative lifestyle).
In terms of probabilities, a character at the Seeds of Darkness level will gain one point of Taint every [Earth Ring+1] years on average. A character with one full Rank of Taint will gain a point approximately every [Earth Ring] seasons. After that, things are much faster, but as characters also start gaining Shadowlands powers at this point, it's somewhat moot.
Naginata
Naginata deal 4k2 damage, instead of 3k2.
Scimitar
Scimitar deal 1k3 damage, instead of 2k3.
Heavy tag
The following weapons gain the Heavy tag: masakari, tetsubo, ono, bisento, nagemaki, mai-chong, tonfa and no-dachi.
You must take an extra raise to make the Simple Attack manoeuvre with these weapons.
Simple Action Attack (5 Raises)
This attack is made as a Simple Action, rather than a Complex Action. This benefit applies whether you hit or miss, and does not prevent you using this manoeuvre again this round.
When a character rolls Initiative, their player selects a Stance Card. Until a character acts, they are considered to be in Water Stance if it is relevant.
See the rules in the Book of Earth.
Kata Activation (Alteration)
When rolling Initiative, a character can assume one kata they know, and the effects of that kata affect the Initiative roll.
Changing a kata in combat requires a Simple action as normal.
The PCs can chose to navigate the battlefield as group. Pick one PC, who acts as the leader. They roll on the Mass Battle table, and everyone experiences the same Battle Opportunity. If a Duel is rolled up, the group can chose to overwhelm the enemy duellist, but this is highly dishonourable. Note that roving around as a solo PC may result in higher Glory awards (e.g. capturing the enemy banner is more glorious when done alone).
If the Mass Battle table indicates that a character takes X dice of Wounds, they take Xk1 dice. Mass Battle should be dangerous, but a single bad roll should not lead to near certain death for lightly armoured characters.
See the rules in Secrets of the Empire for crafting higher quality items.
Interesting rules for a more detailed crafting system are available here: http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=294&t=85547. The new weapon stats are mostly changes for change's sake, but the system looks interesting if people want to get fiddly with weapon mechanics.
Social Manoeuvring (Addition)
Draft ideas for a more in-depth social manoeuvring system, based on the rules found in "God Machine Chronicles" are on a separate page while under discussion.
When a character's Wound Ranks are all filled, they are not dead. The player may chose to continue playing their character, but they gain 1 point to spend on disadvantages for every 5 wounds they take beyond their maximum (round up!). The specific disadvantage will be decided on by the group - if no suitable disadvantage can be purchased with the available points, a weakened version of an existing one can be applied, or the points can be saved up for the next time the character ends up in dire straights. In addition, such wounds are not easily healed and healing spells may prove less effective than normal.
A player can always chose to have their character die if they would prefer.