By Bruce Boughner, Staff Reviewer

Way of the Samurai available from FRP Games for $19.95 (save $5.00)!!
Way of the Ninja available from FRP Games for $19.95 (save $5.00)!!
Way of the Shugenja available from FRP Games for $19.95 (save $5.00)!!

Sizing Up the Target
Way of the Samurai, Way of the Ninja, and Way of the Shugenja are each 96-page soft-cover accessories published by AEG for their Legends of the Five Rings/Oriental Adventures series. The authors are Rich Wulf, Seth Mason, Shawn Carmen, Aaron Medwin, Scott Gearin (on Samurai) and Travis Heerman (on Shugenja). The cover is done by Hugh Jamieson (Samurai)/Craig Maher (Ninja)/Llyn Hunter (Shugenja) and is done in the faux-tome cover style and shows a sultry lady samurai/striking ninja/scroll casting shugenja on a rice paper tome and they are available for $24.95.

First Blood
Normally, I wouldn't combine a review like this, but these books are exactly alike in layout, page number and content. The difference is the subject. These splat books are for the various classes in AEG's Legends of the Five Rings/Oriental Adventures series. Now I have been a fan of Oriental Adventures since the first edition book and really got into the novel series so I was looking forward to these class specific books.

Each of these books starts with an introductory story to set the tone for the new player as to the intended use of the class. This prose goes deep into Rokugan culture and the mores of each class. The introduction continues with the origin of the class.

The Samurai book goes into the honor and swords of a samurai. The meaning of the two blades, katana and wakizashi, their anatomy and the tenets of Bushido are given. An overview of how bushido changed over time is also shown. Then it discusses game mechanics and how the book is laid out (more on this in a bit). Then new feats and skills appropriate for the class are listed. Schools or a new way, paths can sort these. A new ability, exclusive to the samurai class is Katas, katas are specialized practice maneuvers used to train and meditate. The difference between school and dojo is also explained; school being a way of thought and dojo being a physical entity.

Ninja starts with what is a ninja, playing a ninja and then the history of ninjas. The history delves into the Clan War novel series. Then each house and its ninja or lack of ninja and the reasons why are shown. The service of ninja and the customs are then given; secrecy, loyalty and duty are the oaths of ninja, who live outside the law in service of their lord. Apprenticeship, training and some of the weapons of the ninja are given before discussing how they retire. Ninja are said to have many roles, spy, assassin, guardian, thief and saboteur and each of these are fleshed out roles. Then the book does as the samurai did, discussing schools, paths and katas before moving to sensei and feats.

Shugenja also starts as did the previous two going into the history of Rokugan's religion and the meaning of being shugenja. Kami, or elemental spirits are vital to shugenja, how to contact and utilize the powers of Kami is what makes a shugenja. Kami come in five types, Air, Earth, Fire, Void and Water, each have their own purpose in the fabric of reality. Spell research and the acquisition of secret spells is discussed with a research chart before moving onto Gempukku, the ceremony that makes an apprentice a shugenja. Again schools are discussed as before, then non-traditional schools, cults and bloodspeakers, cruel and evil shugenja who live outside of the clans of Rokugan. The military use of shugenja in battle and shugenji rituals are reviewed before the paths, schools, dojos, sensei, multi-element spells and feats are shown.

It is here in these chapters where AEG does something incredibly silly, everything in these books is double stat-ed, once for D20 and once for L5R. Hence the page count doubles as material is presented in 2 forms throughout the books.

Again, all three books proceed in exactly the same way, clan by clan, alphabetically, from the great clans of Lion, Crane, Dragon and Phoenix to the lesser clans of Mantis and Fox. Several schools and Dojos are given for each clan as well as outstanding NPC's and the senseis as well. History, traditions, training methods, Prestige classes, specialized feats, skills and spells. These notable figures are drawn from the novels as well as other sources.

The Bayushi Elite Guard of the Scorpion, Mirumoto of Dragon, Kyuden Agasha of the Phoenix, Prestige classes directly from the novels, laid out so you can adventure in the pearl of Rokugan, battle the Oni of the Shadowlands, be a Kuni Witch Hunter and combat the evils of Fu Leng. Everything needed to recreate or move beyond the novels and card game is here to be exploited and used.

Critical Hits
As I stated in the opening, I have been a long time fan of the genre and the series of these splat books fill a gap that the source books left wide open, they fill out the clans in more detail than was allowed in the Rokugan book. They expand the spells, feats and skills of theses classes and give highly specialized Prestige classes. There is a lot of crunchy material here for players and DM's alike.

Critical Misses
The whole dual stat thing really hacked me off. At $25 bucks a shot and the page count artificially inflated, this really stung as being way over priced. Removing the dual material from the books would make the books much smaller. Maybe a better direction would have been to have a Prestige hard cover with all three classes in it for a little more cost, with the page reduction from removed the dual material that book would still be under 200 pages.

Coup de Grace
Despite my misgivings over the duality of the material, there was enough stuff here to make it worth my while. There is plenty of new stuff, expansion of older material into new pathways to make it worthwhile as a purchase. A lot of the work here speaks for a lot of good research, the skills, feats and classes are well thought out, they fill existing niches lacking representation and add to the overall grace of the orient in game play. At the same time, a good deal of oriental philosophy comes through to the reader.

Fast Tracks Score: (maximum 5 pts for each category)

Overall Rating: 4.30
Final Grade: A