Khymerion's page

Kazaan... thank you for responding first off.

Interesting system you described but it and the second alternative still resort to wear a ton of armor to have a good chance of survival. The second alternative is the problem of have a 45% of having a worse armor class and only a 50% of being marginally better.

The heavy armors are something only a small selection of characters have. Not everyone gets to go go tooling around in full plate or has a chance to put on their massive sets of armor before being jumped.

Take for a example a high cleric jumped in his temple during a sermon. It is hard to justify him being in his full combat wombat battle gear. Sure, he might on the battlefield be clad in the most ornate of plate and the heftiest of tower shields but he might only have a ring of protection on at best while giving his sermon.

Sure, there is the magical enchantment that lets you pretty much be a power ranger and summon all your defenses to you. But it again approaches the edge realm of suspension of disbelief if too many use it.

Plus... there is the fear of over gearing the players if too many evil villains who are supposed to be beatable (albeit after a dramatic fight) get beaten and their massive magic item stores fall into the hands of the players. Soon everyone is wearing the +5 full plates, +5 rings of Protections, +6 to agility stat buffing items, and what ever other toys a book can put out.

There has to be a better way around it than just either letting the players stomp on everything with their to hit bonuses that way outpace the AC values at a certain point or eventually having everyone wearing magical tactical dreadnaught armor.

Forgive me if this question has been asked and answered before.

For someone who has been a long time player and GM, the very static AC number has been a been a bugbear for a very long time. The very limited alternate rule of 'rolling the defense instead of just taking 10' more often turns out to be worse than just not rolling at all and with the new rules that are out of Mythic Adventures, this static AC problem grows ever worse.

There is literally only so much armor, natural armor, magical defenses, dodge, and AC that one can realistically stack before either the budget for a major kingdom is maxed out or the suspension of disbelief begins to fray out. Honestly, how many times can you really run the city guard/generic humanoid opposition force running in with full plate, tower shields, magical protection, enchantments, buffs, and potion effects running at full to be able to even be able to offer a marginally effective deterrent/speed bump to the average or slightly above average party... especially with all the more advanced books/feats/tools floating about.

So I guess this comes down to this... is there a more active way to defend oneself?

I know that the duelist/swashbuckler has the ability to parry a single attack and there is the snatch arrows feat but is there a more active way to defend oneself? A general parry or dodge ability that is not just a set arbitrary target number? Something available to all classes?

The set number is all fine and good when running mooks and fodder and generic monsters... but not so good if you are trying to run a more dramatic fight. That and it is not always interesting to have everyone running around in half the magic item section's defensive items... but when the only option is either that or allow the fighter/barbarian/monk machine blender things apart because something has a melee AC of... well... a guy in a T-shirt and shorts.

Even if that guy has dodge, defensive fighting (full defense is completely not an option because all that does is allow the players to just wail on him at their own leisure looking for 20), combat expertise (now nerfed to uselessness), and most other tricks seems to make mr. not wearing a full suit of armor and all the magic items and spells not much of a challenge to slaughter.

Since I know 'Lol, magic invisibility flying wizard' is an option (a rather boring one honestly)... please don't include that since it does not really lend towards a very interesting and dynamic melee fight...

You know, something more than just two bits of metal just standing and whacking at each other till one runs out of HP.

Also, I know spring attack and reach weapons are in there... and the always stay moving to keep someone from getting more than a single attack... yes yes... but that still does not fix the problem of people tending to only needing anything but a miserable roll to hit with their first and primary attack (since a good number love to depend on Vital Strike thanks to spring attack shenanigans) for monstrous damages.

Thanks, any help on making things a bit more interesting and dynamic in a fight between players and major NPCs would be appreciated.

Sorry for the sarcasm... just a bit tired and frustrated.

Do you have any specifics in mind of why it isn't good?

Namely the clumsy system used for resolve and the nearly vacant selection of 'orders'. Heck the orders are relatively a joke for the most part.

The class comes off as some second grade support machine that is really only effective when on horseback... even so far as to give the class an animal companion mount. I know samurai love their mounts but a super special mega mount? I guess all my samurai are automatically members of the Unicorn Clan or the Takeda... and not any other clan what so ever.

The banner is rather lackluster and really is only effective if in a large army of mounted NPCs on a charge on a battlefield. Worthless anywhere else... like the average encounter that a party might be in on an average adventure. Now, if I was running a Unicorn clan cavalry army centric campaign... heck yeah! But the annoying animal companion mount plus two banner abilities that won't actually do much for average NPC troops will make a save verse a major encounter of the encounter level that you have get powers plus saddled with mounted archery. Okay GMs, when was the last time you ran an encounter with enough room for a mounted combat archer to be effective? Raise your hands. Okay... point made. Four moderately worthless abilities clogging up the class.

I understand samurai 'love' dueling but the idea of the challenge being the only way they deal any meaningful amount of damage seems rather uninspiring... especially with the AC reduction guaranteeing almost that the character won't make it to higher level and will end up as a pin cushion till lvl 20.

The two orders provided for the theme of samurai are jokes. Ronin is barely worth acknowledgment. Warrior is... silly till 15 and then is awesome 1 time per day. Hey, at least I got a DR of 1/- (5 at 20!) against my dueling target, right? Right?! Awwwwwwwww.... Sure, I could use Cavalier orders but most of them are jokes anyways.

The Resolve powers themselves are... well.. not that great. They are pretty much only there to tell the GM that X number of times per day that they won't be hampered by what ever nefarious status ailment or saving throw the evil GM might want to throw at them. Considering the massive numbers that some players throw around as damage totals (just watch a rogue or warrior in action to know this) and you will see that the resolve power for 'I am not dead yet' is a pure joke. Under 0 but not quite dead yet? Yeah right.

Greater Resolve... yay. Not going to be critted on so often. Another tell the GM no ability. 100% Fortification in a bottle. Had to wait till lvl 9 before resolve actually became useful. 8 whole levels of mediocre.

Demanding Challenge. Wheeeeeeeee. Finally an ability that is moderately useful almost all the time! Only took till 12th. Too bad it can't actually force a monster or person to actually attack them.

True Resolve - Whoooooo! The ultimate 'nu-uh' button to the GM. I am not dead, I don't care if you hit me with a 120 pt crit to my forehead. I'm just KO'd if I got 2 resolve or more left. Hey, have to wait till 17 to be able to have it but by then, I am pretty sure the average samurai player has gotten quite used to tasting the floor so they won't mind it.

Last Stand - Wow. Just wow. Two samurai declare each other dueling targets and sit there challenging each other two a game of Go (TO THE DEATH!) in the middle of a massive battle. Troops on both sides pour on sword slashes, cannon fire, guns, arrows, boulders, spear jabs, and the war ends around them. Both have taken over a million points of damage but are fine, they are just at 0 HP each and able to keep doing their actions till some shugenja drops a spell on them, killing them both instantly.

Or, more likely, the dragon beats the living snot out of the samurai, wonders why he is giggling and clinging to the bottom of his foot and then toasts him for good measure.

The only thing that really came off as really feeling like a samurai was the quick drawing of one of 4 weapons.

I'll admit, I enjoy my samurai to be interesting but I was thinking interesting like an Akira Kurosawa movie or Toshiro Mifune's many roles over the years or any of the more over the top samurai from the earlier editions of L5R (Up through the Day of Thunder or perhaps early Hidden Emperor)... not... what ever this is.

Where is the foot archer samurai, the warrior monk samurai, the true and right proper Kensai (NOT the thrice cursed Magus archetype, Miyamoto Musashi is NOT an accursed spellcaster!), and all the rest? The general lack of feats and versatility of the class really makes it seem to be a joke compared to what can be with any other class in the rules... even so far as to make even attempting to adapt the earlier AEG setting books not even worth the time due to incompatibility.

I know part of the problem is the fact that I am pretty much forced to run under Pathfinder instead of L5R because only quarter the current group wants to play that level of in depth characterization and the rest want their fantastic adventures in high fantasy level based silly land. Just trying to make the most of a frustrating situation and this class does not help any.

Question for those who thought the Samurai in this book was worth the ink and space it was given.

How come?

Forgive me for coming into this a bit late but I kind of made the jump to Pathfinder samurai after a long run of still using the old Oriental Adventures/Rokugan samurai and all the old AEG modules to have L5R flavoring in my samurai (and ninja and shugenja and monks). Since a good deal of our campaigns take place in a world where contact with the oriental cultures is relatively common, I thought of getting this book in the hopes of finally updating some of the now very long in the tooth classes for the current edition.

I was actually rather disappointed in what I ended up reading. Especially after coming from the 'old school' of AEG flavored Oriental Adventure samurai into what was in essence a very disappointed cavalier cast off. I will admit that it IS a quantum leap ahead of the worthless non-AEG inspired samurai from 3.5 and it might be playable on a minimal level if they have never played Legend of the Five Rings or Sengoku or the such but as it looks, it was a complete disappointment.

Is there any good suggestions of divulging Samurai of the shackles of being a second class cavalier? Or am I going to have to continue to slap dash modify ancient 3.0 classes from an out of date book in the vague hope of keeping them actually interesting?

Another legitimate problem that I have noticed during playtesting within my own group... beyond the laundry list of problems thus far...

is the very range of the guns themselves.

Even the lowly hand crossbow, weapon of choice of so many assassin/pistol types, out-ranges our rifle. Toss in the limitation of only being able to shoot out to 5 range increments... it means my effective engagement range is a mere 100 or 200 feet... pistol and rifle respectively.

I know in a dungeon or indoor environment, this isn't too bad... but in an outdoor area, where some players are already shooting out past the 1000+ foot range easily in engagements... knowing that the ranged cannon user has to literally charge into the closest of ranges to be able to use one of the signature abilities of the class is terrible.

Case in point here... what good is a long rifle when to be able to use the special ability, I am in perfect charge range for nearly anyone... including small sized creatures and dwarves... even the fighter in full plate. Pistol... if it is a large size creature with a reach weapon, yeah... I am going to get splattered across the dungeon wall.

In fact, that is EXACTLY what happened during a playtest earlier this week. Too much movement needed to get a special ability into play... especially considering the archer has been plunking away at the thing for the last couple rounds from about the next county back.

The cost to buy one is another joke. Case in point... 1500 gold for a non-magical rifle. Want in enchanted? 300 more gold. Since none of your basic starter guns are masterworked... you are going to be dumping that money if you want something enchanted. Toss in crafting rules into that mess and you are going to be waiting an eternity. Heck, your party fighter is most likely going to WALK into a set of magical full plate before you have had enough time to get the money and have the gun crafted.

You, as a gunner, are paying per shot, only about 4.5 gold less per shot than an archer is paying for a masterworked arrow... and he gets a chance to KEEP his if he retrieves them. Mine... gone. Irrevocably. Remember that scene for Lord of War of when the main character was watching someone firing an AK-47 and hearing the sound of money with every shot? Yeah. There you go.

Those are just some of my problems... theoretical speed loader pistols aside.