L5R Items

[Darthtator 25]

So I had a player try to purchase a couple of horses and I cant find the actual cost in the book. is there a chart for this or is it up to the gm alone to make the items value?

[Suzume Chikahisa 313]

1 hour ago, Darthtator said:

So I had a player try to purchase a couple of horses and I cant find the actual cost in the book. is there a chart for this or is it up to the gm alone to make the items value?

No costs for mounts in the books. That and and a general lack of cost for services are a glaring absence in the book, altough I can see horse rearing being heavily restricted and as such lacking a market value.

[Void Crane 189]

Rokugan ponies are ... not that hot IMO. But they clearly are better than nothing and a faster way from A getting to B. I'd think...at a guess...that their price would be somewhere in the ball park of lacquered armor? At least that's my guess. (Horses aren't cheap to raise and represent a major investment of food, and resources). Unhelpfully there isn't any official guidelines.

The real question you should answer is: How hard do you want to make it to get horses in your version of Rokugan? If it's hard, then getting horses is worthy of an adventure or two. And might cause hard feelings with a rival samurai who also wanted them. If it's easy, then the PC should be able to requisition them from his Clan.

Most fighting samurai outside of the Unicorn are infantry. Or maybe dragoons (not Dragons) who ride to battle but then dismount and fight on foot. My opinion. Unicorn mounts are usually the province of that clan. And are not generally available for sale. You theoretically could earn one for services rendered.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Void Crane

[Franwax 386]

To determine, in an abstract way, how hard it is to obtain a mount, the usual measure would be the Rarity... but that’s not indicated either 😛

Your guess is as good as mine here, but I’d peg the Rokugani poney around 5-6: you can pick one with the character creation questions that let you pick an item, but not as part of your “traveling pack”... it’s a rather difficult TN to manage with tributaries of trade or the likes, so not readily available, but can still be requisitioned if the situation warrants it. 

Unicorn warhorses would be 8+. Extremely rare outside the Unicorn clan and would definitely draw attention if a non-Unicorn were to ride one. 

Utaku steed is just off limits to anyone who’s not an Utaku battle maiden. 

[nameless ronin 706]

9 hours ago, Darthtator said:

So I had a player try to purchase a couple of horses and I cant find the actual cost in the book. is there a chart for this or is it up to the gm alone to make the items value?

Price: in 4th it's 25 koku for a pony, 75 for a gaijin horse (which should be rarer than an Utaku steed to find, unless the campaign allows for them) and 250 minimum for an Utaku warhorse. Works for me.

Rarity: last time this came up I said I didn't think the rarity mechanic works very well for horses, but really I don't think it's all that great in general. I like the concept of the roll itself, the location-based TN adjustments not taking the nature of the item in account just gives weird results. @Franwax' values seem pretty good as starting points - I'd just go with what seems sensible for adjustments rather than the examples in the book.

[Franwax 386]

2 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

a gaijin horse (which should be rarer than an Utaku steed

Actually I think “gaijin horse” referred to the regular Unicorn breed. They’re considered foreign by the rest of Rokugan because they’re indeed not from local stock. So these would be less rare than the Utaku steed, which are a sub-set of those so-called gaijin horses. 

[Hida Katsu 4]

Remember your Lord will provide what you need. Also nothing stopping you as a Samurai from just taking the horse if you need it and the local headman will bill your Lord for the cost. I believe that is why no actual cost is listed.

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

14 hours ago, Void Crane said:

Rokugan ponies are ... not that hot IMO. But they clearly are better than nothing and a faster way from A toileting B. I'd think...at a guess...that their price would be somewhere in the ball park of lacquered armor? At least that's my guess. (Horses aren't cheap to raise and represent a major investment of food, and resources). Unhelpfully there isn't any official guidelines.

The real question you should answer is: How hard do you want to make it to get horses in your version of Rokugan? If it's hard, then getting horses is worthy of an adventure or two. And might cause hard feelings with a rival samurai who also wanted them. If it's easy, then the PC should be able to requisition them from his Clan.

Most fighting samurai outside of the Unicorn are infantry. Or maybe dragoons (not Dragons) who ride to battle but then dismount and fight on foot. My opinion. Unicorn mounts are usually the province of that clan. And are not generally available for sale. You theoretically could earn one for services rendered.

Horses on long travel (multi-day) aren't really that much faster, as they need to graze or be fed hay on longer travels. A well trained soldier in light kit can make the same 30 miles a day and for the same several days before a resting day is required; a typical march pace is 3.5 miles per hour, versus the horse's 4. Both slow down after a few days steady travel, to about 20 miles per day. With men, it's a slower walk; with horses, more rests and grazing. One can founder a horse by pushing for faster speeds. A trot or gallup can't be maintained safely for more than a few miles... A horse relay with 5 mile stations can exceed 200 miles per day; human runners in relay (Inca especially) made about 120 miles a day IIRC, but that was again by relays 

The big difference is in how much can be carried with.

Also, the ponies aren't trained to be combat mounts...

[nameless ronin 706]

1 hour ago, Hida Katsu said:

Remember your Lord will provide what you need. Also nothing stopping you as a Samurai from just taking the horse if you need it and the local headman will bill your Lord for the cost. I believe that is why no actual cost is listed.

Hang on. Your lord does provide you with what you need, but a) he needs to feel you do need it and b) if you're not on his domain he might not be able to, or at least not quickly. As for taking something, that can work if your status is sufficiently higher than the owner's or you have some kinf of official writ to empower you beyond your own status; if not, taking something without permission is likely to go very badly for you indeed. And peasants are very unlikely to own a pony and will certainly never own a horse. Your lord footing the bill is an option in theory, but in practice this might be too complicated to arrange - and either way, you'll need permission. Maybe not for mundane  things, but a horse is too prized to let go so easily.

 

7 hours ago, Franwax said:

Actually I think “gaijin horse” referred to the regular Unicorn breed. They’re considered foreign by the rest of Rokugan because they’re indeed not from local stock. So these would be less rare than the Utaku steed, which are a sub-set of those so-called gaijin horses. 

Quite possibly, since 4th doesn't have stats for a regular Unicorn-bred horse (other than the gaijin horse's). However, in my personal opinion a Unicorn-bred warhorse costing 10 times what a pony costs is more plausible than just 3 times and an actual Utaku steed should be priceless for non-Unicorn samurai (and even among the Unicorn they are probably not traded out of hand). I'd set the price at 250 koku for a regular Unicorn warhorse.

[Void Crane 189]

16 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

Hang on. Your lord does provide you with what you need, but a) he needs to feel you do need it ...snip...

Agreed. You can absolutely try to requisition ponies/horses from your Lord. If your Lord (aka the GM) likes the cost benefit analysis and thinks it's a reasonable request, then you can count on the horses arriving promptly. But if not, then not ...

16 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

...snip... However, in my personal opinion a Unicorn-bred warhorse costing 10 times what a pony costs is more plausible than just 3 times and an actual Utaku steed should be priceless for non-Unicorn samurai (and even among the Unicorn they are probably not traded out of hand). I'd set the price at 250 koku for a regular Unicorn warhorse.

In one of the fictions for the card game, a character notes that one of the sweeteners given to the Emperor, when the Unicorn returned to Rokugan and sought formal recognition, was a pair of Utaku steeds. And the Utaku initially fought bitterly (although futilely) against it! I agree strongly that the Utaku steeds are simply not for sale.  250 kook for an exceptional Unicorn mare might be seen in some quarters as a very good deal (they don't sell the stallions to control breeding...) 

[Alastair367 6]

So I decided to do some research (for the Path of Waves sourcebook) because I’m running a Ronin campaign and money matters a lot more in this game.

So the average lifespan of a horse is 25-30 years, so let’s say it’s “working” lifespan is 20-25 years.  Farmers and merchants would most likely find Pony’s the most useful given their particular needs for them (travel hauling goods, and pulling plows and moving crops) so they would probably be worth about 20-25 koku (1 koku per year of working ability) on average. In areas where they are not common (smaller villages or regions where the geography isn’t good for horse breeding) this price could go up 1.5x if they are young. If it’s an older pony, it could go down in price due to its age (so you could buy a cheaper one if it’s a little older). Theoretically you could also find and capture wild ponies, and train them yourself or sell them to help buy a trained one.

For Utaku Steeds and Warhorses, they are probably significantly pricier due to their use only really being needed by Samurai, so I would think that they would be worth about 3-5x the horse’s working lifespan. This working lifespan is probably shorter because Warhorses are better in their prime, which may be only 10-15 years. You could also get a discount for buying a retired Utaku Steed or Warhorse, that’s too old for battle, but still usable for travel or other work. 

[UnitOmega 2,818]

Well, you can't buy an Utaku steed period, they're ancestrally sacred and effectively a "family secret". They're also magic so I expect they probably live longer than normal.