I also think there is absolutely no need to make a new base class for those two. After all BASE classes should be few and far beetween in my opnion.
U guys never tought about a prestige or something like that? The guy can START as a Samurai or NINJA (Fighter and Rogue respectivelly) but he could get a small prestige I would say 5 levels to add those "powers" you guys are talking about.
But seriously, as an old player and lover supreme of L5r since first edition I see no reason whatsoever why anyone would want to play a D20 Oriental setting... and if U REALLY have to use D20 rules (wich I discourage), why not go with Rokugan mechanics at least?
Stuff...Samurai...
I too think that the combat style is a good angle to go with.
If one is set on making new classes for these archetypes, it seems that multiple paths are the best way to go. The archetypes, as people seem to be envisioning them, are too broad to fit the entirety of their concepts into a single path.
For Samurai, picking type of samurai through combat style seems a good option. Also, perhaps choosing between Kiai, Knight's Challenge, and Ki would be a good option, in order to simulate the different paths of focus (though I really don't like the mystical flavoring personally, as it seems far more suited to PrC Samurai classes like Sword Dancer or Iai Master than the standard feudal samurai guy... but other people seem to think that's part of the concept, so whatever... %$$#% anime...)
For ninja, I still think that just using the rogue or monk is best. Sorry, but there you go. No one on this entire thread has proposed new, meaningful mechanics combinations that make rogue/monk, or either class individually, less appropriate. The best mechanic I've seen to trick out a ninja, is just adding more rogue talents, perhaps based on clan, and calling it a day.
And for both of these classes (and many others actually) another easy/simple solution is to give a base class access to a single School (and choose from 2 or 3 of the schools) from Bo9S, with warblade progression and s.sage recovery mechanic, and be done with it.
Knight or Fighter + Diamond Mind - a few feats = iaijutsu samurai
Knight or Fighter + White Raven - a few feats = educated tactical/diplomatic samurai
Monk or Rogue + Shadow Hand - a few abilities = mythic ninja
Monk or Rogue + Desert Wind - a few abilities = anime ninja
There are also mythconceptions which don't help in trying to create a balanced class for both ninja and samurai. A lot of these problems are rooted in anime/hollywood cack.
I don't even think samuari used two weapon fighting until the Portugese introduced it and that particular skill crops up everytime. They used long spears and bows from horseback, look at the armor it has been designed not to protect from swords but spears and arrows. The hands are barely covered to facilitate the use of a bow. Sword play came much later.
Ninjas are even worse in terms of mythconceptions.
Thats is why I say you don't need a specific class, use what we have as a building block, pick the right skills and feats. Multiclass if nescessary and build the ninja or samurai which fits your particular take on them because what you see as a N or S may be different to mine or anyone elses.
Sorry I'm rambling now.
There are also mythconceptions which don't help in trying to create a balanced class for both ninja and samurai. A lot of these problems are rooted in anime/hollywood cack.
You're conflating balanced with historical (or perhaps realistic). You can have a balanced two-weapon fighting samurai or fireball-tossing ninja.
There are also mythconceptions which don't help in trying to create a balanced class for both ninja and samurai. A lot of these problems are rooted in anime/hollywood cack.
To clarify.
Ninjas are supposed to be able to turn invisible, walk through walls, walk on water, move as silently as a ghost, confuse and muddle minds, cast spells, run up walls, leap tall buildings, etc, etc.To have a character which could do all of the above and have all the abilities of the rogue class is unbalanced. Being a ninja means different things to different people and to accommadate all of those mythical real world abilities into one fantasy class is nigh on impossible to please everyone and in my opinion could and should be done with the excellent Pathfinder product that we have.
There are also mythconceptions which don't help in trying to create a balanced class for both ninja and samurai. A lot of these problems are rooted in anime/hollywood cack.
To clarify.
Ninjas are supposed to be able to turn invisible, walk through walls, walk on water, move as silently as a ghost, confuse and muddle minds, cast spells, run up walls, leap tall buildings, etc, etc.To have a character which could do all of the above and have all the abilities of the rogue class is unbalanced. Being a ninja means different things to different people and to accommadate all of those mythical real world abilities into one fantasy class is nigh on impossible to please everyone and in my opinion could and should be done with the excellent Pathfinder product that we have.
Actually, a Swordsage pretty much does all of that (down to having access to sneak attack through a stance) and is balanced.
Well, I am against making a class for ninja and Samurai, specially samurai. Why? Cause then I could make one new class for a Greek Warrior, why not? To a Norseman or whatever historical "classes" that existed. I do believe that what we have now can acomodate almost any concept, any historical one at least.
That does bother me as much as I don't like the generic fighter any way. I think they're ought to be a variety of fighting classes (and other classes) for different archetypes, knight/samurai among them.The one obstacle I've come across is that I'm not sure what class the archetypal D&D fighter should be if not, well fighters. Basically what class are Robilar and Yrag if not fighter?
Well, I am against making a class for ninja and Samurai, specially samurai. Why? Cause then I could make one new class for a Greek Warrior, why not? To a Norseman or whatever historical "classes" that existed. I do believe that what we have now can acomodate almost any concept, any historical one at least.
Agreed. It is all a state of mind and how you approach roleplaying the character which is more important than a set of "rules".
Well... yes and no. The rules define what you're character is able to do. If you're character can't do the things you're character is supposed to be able to do then all the roleplaying in the world won't help. I'm not even talking about stuff like "Ninjas are supposed to have supernatural powers", but rather more basic stuff like skills and feats. Now a fighter is very generic and can fulfill a variety of roles, but wouldn't it be better to have classes that are made specifically to fulfill the archetype?
Now a fighter is very generic and can fulfill a variety of roles, but wouldn't it be better to have classes that are made specifically to fulfill the archetype?
That's the thing: there is no "archetype." You say "ninja" and one guy thinks the pajama'd thugs from the Shogun miniseries that Richard Chamberlain defeats with easy abandon. Someone else thinks of some invincible magic-user from some Manga comic or other. Yet a third person thinks of Sho Kusugi from Revenge of the Ninja during the '80s craze.
Same problem with the Samurai. There is no "archetype" -- there's a mishmash of history, legend, make-believe, and nonsense that varies wildly from person to person.
Well... yes and no. The rules define what you're character is able to do. If you're character can't do the things you're character is supposed to be able to do then all the roleplaying in the world won't help. I'm not even talking about stuff like "Ninjas are supposed to have supernatural powers", but rather more basic stuff like skills and feats. Now a fighter is very generic and can fulfill a variety of roles, but wouldn't it be better to have classes that are made specifically to fulfill the archetype?
As the poster of this thread has bowed out (so to speak) I suppose this could be threadjacked.
IMO I have noticed a real shift from the 1ed with rules. When I was a whipper-snapper the game was pretty much rules light, especially compared to what we have now. If a player wanted his PC to do something it all boiled down to a check of some sort based on conditions at the time. Want to jump a 5' pit, sure roll under your dex on 4d6, if your having a good run up roll 3d6, wearing plate roll 5d6. We didn't need an official rule.
Now I'm not saying the game is worse, Pathfinder is excellent, but it seems that players are too hung up on rules. It seems Gygax's words have been forgot "these aren't rules but guidelines". The impression I get is people are rule focused rather than play focused. And people get quite hostile over a rule.
I have access to all the rule books but seem to just use the PHB, DMG and MM anything else just seems unnescessary as those core books contain everything I need to run my game.
If I want to play a Norse Warrior I don't need an official rule book to tell me how to play/create one. Its going to be a mix of fighter/barbarian with suitable armor and weapons. If I want to play a ninja...well you know my thoughts there. It just seems to me that people are almost scared to just go for it and feel the need to have some sort of official ruling before they do something in case its wrong. Well its your game, you can't do anything wrong in it! You can do stupid things but never anything wrong.
Sorry for the ramble
I recently created a squad of ninja's from the PF rogue rules, one 15th level and the rest at 10th. I made one small change that fixed everything that ninja's are that rogues aren't, mainly their extra focus on martial training. This change was to take the Rogue Talent: Combat Trick and make it so that it could be selected more than once, effectively creating highly trained combat rogues. Feats like Mobility, Combat Expertise, Improved and Greater Disarm, Improved Critical, and Critical Focus, combined with stealth, sneak attack, and the Opportunist advanced talent made them very nasty (and realistic) people to meet in a dark alley indeed. If you wanted to make them even more deadly, simply allow them access to the Vexing Flanker and Adaptive Flanker feats from the PHB2 in addition to those other feats for this ability. As the Samurai they were sent to kill found out.
After talking with the player for some time about the best way to go about creating a realistic samurai for my game and the characters history, we determined that a Ranger/Fighter best fit his personal liking. We also added in the rules for Honor from the Unearthed Arcana, with a few minor changes. Class skill selection doesn't really need to be changed IMO due to the unique pursuit that each samurai found himself lead to pursue. In later era's they were encouraged to gain more noble pursuits, but the samurai most likely picked one to pursue over the others, and so skill focus reflects this devotion nicely. I'd even consider giving a fighter this feat if its used to pursue something like performing or some other odd skill like painting (craft: painting), poetry (craft: poem), prose (craft: prose), or even something like flower arranging (craft: arrangement). As for a Katana, we simply use the rules for a bastard sword. Normal proficiency means 2handed use, exotic means 1 handed use. For wakazashi, a short sword does the trick and for someone wanting to fight with Niten style Two Weapon Fighting works fine. Our vision of samurai is in the style of someone like Musashi and Kojiro or the samurai from the movie Seven Samurai.
Saying that such a conceapt is already covered by RAW, while true, doesn't instantly mean thats the option everyone awnts to, or needs to go for.
As said earlier, if you really wanted to you could play with only one or two classes and convert the others into feat chains. But I've not seen anyone play that way. Barbarian is it's own class even though the savage warrior conceapt can be filled by fighter easily. Theres a seperate sorcerer class even though a wizard themeing his/her abilities could cover the same as well. Ditto for paladin (just a cleric/fighter) or druid (cleric of nature) or bard (fighter/rogue/sorcerer specilizing in enchantments), and yet I've never seen anyone play that way.
So why? Why are all these other exceptions fine and unquestioned but someone wanting a samurai and ninja class is a step too far?
Saying that such a conceapt is already covered by RAW, while true, doesn't instantly mean thats the option everyone awnts to, or needs to go for.
As said earlier, if you really wanted to you could play with only one or two classes and convert the others into feat chains. But I've not seen anyone play that way. Barbarian is it's own class even though the savage warrior conceapt can be filled by fighter easily. Theres a seperate sorcerer class even though a wizard themeing his/her abilities could cover the same as well. Ditto for paladin (just a cleric/fighter) or druid (cleric of nature) or bard (fighter/rogue/sorcerer specilizing in enchantments), and yet I've never seen anyone play that way.
So why? Why are all these other exceptions fine and unquestioned but someone wanting a samurai and ninja class is a step too far?
My rule for such items as this is to keep changes as simple and streamlined as possible. If the goal can be reflected in pre-existing rules with simple tweaks, why reinvent the wheel? It's much effort for little actual payoff. If someone wants to play a mystical ninja with tons of abilites like something from some manga that's fine, I can see how that doesn't fit into the typical classes, but I would also argue that something along those lines seems more like a prestige class in my game, YMMV. I preferred the ninja's I detailed above using the Rogue PF rules than the ninja class out of the old Complete adventurer, mainly due to the differences in surprise attack and sneak attack, but also because the rules for rogues is much more streamlined in my mind and keeping track of the ki points/powers for 5 ninja's was more hassle than simply getting an extra AoO from Opportunist.
Samurai are a bit more varied and nuanced and they have alot of play in where to pin them down. I can see anything from someone taking a noble NPC class to something like a paladin or crusader to ranger/fighter to someone even playing something like a fighter/modified duelist. It's all in how you see your game and each particular Samurai working. Samurai is after all a social standing (class would be poor word choice here) and not a set type of profession.
Why are all these other exceptions fine and unquestioned but someone wanting a samurai and ninja class is a step too far?
Well, go ahead and make them, then -- no one is stopping you! Or are you waiting for the people who don't think they need to be separate classes to make them up for you?
Well, go ahead and make them, then -- no one is stopping you! Or are you waiting for the people who don't think they need to be separate classes to make them up for you?
I wasn't asking for that, and neither was the OP, yet this thread was still filled with people saying "Just use Figher/Rogues" rather than actually helping with what was asked.
I don't have a problem with anyone wanting to just use the Rogue or Fighter for such ideas, but I don't like anyone being told to just use them when they ask for advice on making seperate classes.
I don't have a problem with anyone wanting to just use the Rogue or Fighter for such ideas, but I don't like anyone being told to just use them when they ask for advice on making seperate classes.
So, examples of how to use existing classes -- which might be quite useful to many members of the boards (I've personally found them quite helpful) -- are not welcome in this thread, because you don't want to see them? In a thread with the title this one has, I see two legitimate topics: (1) discussion on making new classes; AND (2) discussion on using existing classes. If you're uninterested in either one, ignore those posts and focus on the ones you ARE interested in. Everyone gets to pick which one they prefer.
I wasn't asking for that, and neither was the OP, yet this thread was still filled with people saying "Just use Figher/Rogues" rather than actually helping with what was asked.I don't have a problem with anyone wanting to just use the Rogue or Fighter for such ideas, but I don't like anyone being told to just use them when they ask for advice on making seperate classes.
However for that I need to convert 2 of the classes that (in my experience) saw less play in the 3.5 era, The ninja and the samurai.So to that end I would like to know why, why do you not find the samurai and ninja appealing as classes? (besides the samurai being worst than a fighter at every level).
Note that the OP said CONVERT, and asked, WHAT DON'T YOU LIKE about the original classes. Not "help me make a new class". And he asked for opinions on such classes (which he got... "I don't like them b/c rogues/fighters do it better" is in fact a valid answer to the original question). Not that I fault him for asking questions mind you, just that were the nature of his request more clear, then some of the argument could have been avoided.
Now a fighter is very generic and can fulfill a variety of roles, but wouldn't it be better to have classes that are made specifically to fulfill the archetype?That's the thing: there is no "archetype." You say "ninja" and one guy thinks the pajama'd thugs from the Shogun miniseries that Richard Chamberlain defeats with easy abandon. Someone else thinks of some invincible magic-user from some Manga comic or other. Yet a third person thinks of Sho Kusugi from Revenge of the Ninja during the '80s craze.
Same problem with the Samurai. There is no "archetype" -- there's a mishmash of history, legend, make-believe, and nonsense that varies wildly from person to person.
It's the same thing for every class though. Each class is a mix of inspirations from various sources. I mean look at how much arguing went on over the cleric because people didn't agree what the cleric was supposed to be.
I say having a couple classes that are really generic and others that are more focused is just confusing. Either go one way or the other. Either have a couple, maybe even just one really generic class or have many focused classes.
I use the Lurk class for the Ninjas in my game. They have some nasty attack powers, good stealth, and psionics for all my Ninja-magic needs. Sometimes with the Assassin prestige class. My favorite Samurai have been fighters with the Kensai prestige class.
It's the same thing for every class though. Each class is a mix of inspirations from various sources. I mean look at how much arguing went on over the cleric because people didn't agree what the cleric was supposed to be.
Excellent point, Zack. I fully concede.
Of course, maybe all that is why I prefer "classless" a-la-carte systems!
Of course Psionics are still 'up in the air' with Pathfinder. I'll have to check out the message boards for the Pathfinder-compatible psionics classes are doing.
So maybe you shouldn't chastise those of use who suggest what he seems to want to do anyway, and who are, in fact, replying to the OP, which you perhaps need to re-read yourself.
I'm trying to make options other than "Just this this class" actually sound viable. If someone just wants to just use X class, fine by me, but one thing I've noticed alot in these forums lately (not just specific to this topic) is the "Just use X class" mentality even if the poster is asking for a critque on their class changes.
Fair enough, I jumped the gun a little here, but I still don't think I'm wrong. Wer've all played 3.5, we know already that classes such as fighter and rogues exist and what they do, so if we're asking about a samurai class, you're safe to assume that we already know fighter can be used for it, it doesn't need to be said every time the prospect of a *gasps* non-core class is brought up!
It get's especially irritating when people are happy to do it with such classes but convientlly ignore the druid or barbarian or other core classes that can already be covered by other core classes easily.
I can see the flexibility of the core classes but a) I don't like it in the first place and b) it can't really represent what I think of as being a ninja. You could get pretty close, but why settle for pretty good when you can create a class that fits it very good?
I also don't know why you "hate" me. Have I really offended you that bad by expressing my opinion that you feel such enmity towards me? Do you even know what the word "hate" means? And really, accusing me of being close-minded when my opinion just differs from you're own?
Hmmm....maybe combine the Spellthief spellcasting ability with the Mysteries of the Shadowcaster. That would certainly make an interesting ninja-type.
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Wow interesting posts, my favorite being the one calling people closed minded, sweet.
At any rate on topic, i decided to be fair and play the ¨pilot¨ of my game using all 4 classes. Those classes being Rogue (with homebrewed ninja like talents based on the clans on my ninja class), Fighter (with weapon and armor training replaced by ki abilities as per my samurai class), Samirau class (as posted before) and ninja (as posted before).
The results were very interesting.
Rogue with ninja talents. The player who used this character seemed very please with the result, and even thou he wasn´t too strong in combat he had a blast sneaking around infiltrating and beating people while they weren´t looking, he was pleased as an infiltrator.
Ninja. The player liked the flavor and style of the class, however the lack of some skill points had him focusing more on combat, and said combat not always wen´t well for him due to his low BAB (the d8 hit dice didn´t help much).
Fighter with ki instead of weapon and armor training. This one made a strong bastard sword wielding fighter, the ki abilities have him a samurai feel all and all. He was good in combat.
Samurai. loved the flavor and style of the class altogether, it played like more combat roented paladin with ki abilities. The abilities ran smoothly and the CMB bonuses helped him be a tripping martial machine.
Conclusion.
Rogue Vs Ninja. In this case the rogue with clan and ki based rogue talents takes the price, it was able to fill the roll of a standart rogue and have all the flavor of the ninja (by choosing a clan)
Samurai Vs Fighter. In this case both filled the roll well. However the big difference relayed on the combat maneuvers, the samurai was able to focus on those and give it a very martial flavor, which the fighter wouldn´t have been able to do. On The other hand the fighter was a better shocktrooper kind of guy, a vey smacky guy. So in this case it feels like a tie, both seem to do better in different areas. I honestly didnt expect the CMB training to be the thing to make the difference.
So this is my group´s experience with the conevrted classes vs PF class variations. I hope this helps others contemplating using the classes.
Thanks for posting results. I'm almost always more interested in how things play out than endless ranting debate... Even though anecdotal evidence isn't always objective, it has a way of putting things in perspective, and highlighting unforeseen problems/consequences/benefits.
While some people are open-minded enough to see the flexibility of the Core classes, others simply are too bound by preconceptions.
While true, it's not always the case. Partly the reason why I dislike hearing "Just use X class" is becasuse I see it crop up alot, and in all honesty, half the times it doesn't seem like it's there for the reason you mentioned (Especially when, as I've said a few times, the players that tend to do so never seem to have similer complaints about core classes like that).
Perhaps it's a pet-peeve for you about those of use who prefer to use a small number of highly flexible Core classes. Personally, I hate people who think they have to develop a new class for every single concept they want to play
Actually, I prefer smaller classes that can cover multiple roles to hordes, that's why my surgestion was a supernatural samurai - so that it's different enough to justify being a class on it's own.
And don't be so quick to dismiss new class ideas. Some of the best and most interesting classes I've seen have always started from such ideas. Again, even alot of core classes were like that - I think alot of folk seem to forget that the Barbarian, Monk and Sorcerer were originally splat-book classes in 2E. In fact, in 1E Paladins and Rangers were just fighter varients and the druid was just a cleric varient.
If we didn't allow specific classes back then, then alot of the variety that exists in D'n'D just plain wouldn't. We'd be limited to 4 classes.
You all might want to look here.
