I thought of this shortly after seeing it, brought it up in the chatroom. It's just fluff difference, but yeah the class would fit the concept damned well
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I both agree that it will and thank you for suggesting that you could us a (mostly) existing class to fit a character concept instead of trying to design a whole new core class.
No idea why but it just kind of grates on me when I see it. Not like people don't come up with good new classes or anything, just certain ones. x.x;
Nah in most games, I am alot more open then the homebrew, and then just on the subject of the other thread as it suited the flavor of the world.
I to dislike the ideal of new OA based classes. I mean come on a Ninja is a rogue, if ya must have some Chi , stuff rogue talents people. The caviler when I first saw it just about screamed Samurai. Be oh so easy
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And it also grates on some of us when it's declared that you can't use an existing class for a different concept ;)
(just poking a little fun, not trying to start that debate up here)
And to be on topic, yeah, I doubt anybody's going to argue that the cavalier makes a fair samurai.
Ugh, I know what you mean! It's like every darn thing has to be a separate character class.
"Well I've got to make the king, so that'll have to be the King class, better make it 20 levels too. And then his son, so there's the Prince class. Oooh, and there are rich merchants, so they'll need rich merchant classes. How many levels of Dog did I give to Mr. Scruffly?"
Sorry, sorry, it's almost 5am. I'm being too grumpy for my own good. Yay for cavalier samurai!
Actually why not make those kind of little changes into Character Traits? That'd work out really well. So you could have a Samurai background trait that gives you like a weapon proficiency for something else. Same thing for Ninja. The trait mechanic has a lot of potential.
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This topic = <3.
As a Japanese enthusiast, it grinds my gears when people want to "Orientalize" the base structure of a game. It's sort of backhandedly racist, and pigeonholes very broad aspects of history or nationality into very narrow class concepts. Yes, cavalier makes for a great "fiction-traditional samurai." So could fighter, ranger, or a bunch of other classes, since "samurai" is a social grouping, not a description of a skill set. It would be like making king, prince, or duke into character classes (as some clever person mentioned earlier).
Beyond that, though, I really don't mind as much when a specific existing class is mapped over to a given foreign concept. Creating a new Samurai base class out of whole cloth would essentially be saying, "They do it different in Japan," without really defining *why* it's different--not to mention reinventing the wheel. You don't need four separate classes when you can just make one class with some variability, then create variables that you can plug in to get the result you want.
In a game system as broad-reaching as d20 (and the Pathfinder incarnation of it), there's absolutely no reason for a short sword to be different from a kodachi to be different from a gladius to be... and so on. Every culture on earth has different names for things, but generally fairly similar ways of doing them, modified for local environment and resources. With fantasy cultures generally being melanges of several real-world cultures, there's no reason for them to be that different from one another either.
In short, function over form when it comes to game design. One man's fighter is another man's bushi, or what have you.
/getting off my soapbox now...
Jeremy Puckett
There is no need for a Samurai class. The fighter tends to cover "fighters" from any culture not just mounted knights. Also a ninja is a rogue.
I was just thinking this yesterday, and agree that some stray alternate class features and feats selection are great ways to make samurai and ninja!
One thing I think could be done as a new base class is a spiritualist/shaman type class, which is more magic and divination heavy than a cleric or druid. Of course, the oracle class could do that quite well too, few changes, a knowledge or spirit focus, appropriate spells, etc. You could make a kick-ass Brahmin priest, a chosen servant of the War god, and a conduit between the kami and people.
Wizards need little change, and a court wizard works in heirarchial societies which are analogous to any society which had scientific learnin in our world!
Hell, I made up a feat which lets people use non-plate armor but get armor bonuses, so that they would be equivalent called traditional armor, and an alternate druid class feature focused on divination and getting advice from a tribes ancestor spirits.
So cultural variation is in the little mechanics, not the big ones I think.
To me a shaman is an alt druid. switch out wild shape for something else, animal companion is gone take the domain listed and your pretty close as is.
To me a shaman is an alt druid. switch out wild shape for something else, animal companion is gone take the domain listed and your pretty close as is.
Well I swapped animal companion for Knowledge domain + augury on the druid spell list, kept wild shape though, as shapeshifting and magic are very common themes, especially outside europe, in many asia, african and mesoamerican myths.
that would work as well
So, no one liked the Samurai class we worked up in Paths of Power? The concept for that one was a warrior who is the sworn attendant of a noble lord, the keeper of social order and enforcer of their lord's will. To me, a samurai is quite different than a fighter. A fighter is a soldier/warrior, a professional armsman. A freelancer is usually considered an adventurer, occasionally a vagrant or mercenary. A samurai has an entirely different tradition including ultimate obedience, and not being in the service of a lord - being a ronin - makes them a societal outcast, not to be respected or trusted, and too dangerous to be ignored.
So, no one liked the Samurai class we worked up in Paths of Power? The concept for that one was a warrior who is the sworn attendant of a noble lord, the keeper of social order and enforcer of their lord's will. To me, a samurai is quite different than a fighter. A fighter is a soldier/warrior, a professional armsman. A freelancer is usually considered an adventurer, occasionally a vagrant or mercenary. A samurai has an entirely different tradition including ultimate obedience, and not being in the service of a lord - being a ronin - makes them a societal outcast, not to be respected or trusted, and too dangerous to be ignored.
Sorry, but put me in with the people who ultimately didn't like the various efforts to do a Samurai class over the years. The problem here is that a class is about what you can do. It has next to nothing to do with how a person is trained. Yes, the game makes a few very basic assumptions about that to get there, but a wizard is a wizard regardless of whether he got his study from a pretigious arcane college in a major city, a wizard's tower in an isolated wilderness, or whether he just stole books out of the trash and managed to pick up enough to make do. A rogue is a rogue whether she picked pockets on the streets for a living, burglared houses, raided ancient tombs in her homeland, or is just an over-rich fop with too much time on her hands.
And, by extension, a fighter is a fighter whether his skills were learned in a mercenary company, a national army, the gladiatorial arena, or as part of a noble house in the far east. The skills are the same.
But a fighter DOESN'T study specific fighting styles based on the unique equipment of the samurai, specializing in the art of drawing and cutting, the art of katana fencing, spearmanship, or archery with the particular asymmetrical composite longbow of the samurai. Nor do fighters study as part of their general educations things like calligraphy, tea ceremony, or strategic gaming.
So if you go off the "what you can do", then the samurai isn't the same thing as a fighter, by a long way.
Have you even looked at the class we published? Or did you just say, "Well, I haven't liked them before, so this one won't be any good, either."
And we actually did a Gladiator class as well, with the idea that an arena-slave using exotic weapons and fighting to provide a show for an audience, was different than a fighter, having none of the wilderness skills and armor proficiences but instead having a wider array of exotic weapon proficiencies, a persona developed inside the arena, and abilities to combine fighting skill with pleasing the crowd.
I have to agree, making new classes based off of a fighting style and a culture is a pointless class. The fighter of all the classes is the most open. The are the pugilists, knights, vikings, zulu warriors, Spartans, Greek solders, Roman legionnaires, Iron age celtic warriors,American Indian warriors,the huns. You name it the fighter can cover it in most cases with ease
The Samurai had a style of fighting and lived by a code, but so did all the ones I listed above
But a fighter DOESN'T study specific fighting styles based on the unique equipment of the samurai, specializing in the art of drawing and cutting, the art of katana fencing, spearmanship, or archery with the particular asymmetrical composite longbow of the samurai. Nor do fighters study as part of their general educations things like calligraphy, tea ceremony, or strategic gaming.
Incorrect. Fighting styles change from place to place, you can have 20 different styles but in game terms ya roll the d20+your BAB
All fighters, know the spear, sword and bow by default. The katana if ya must is just a bastard sword. All this can be done with a level 1 fighter. As for the skills
Human, Int 12, nets ya 4 skill points, 5 if ya use Favored class. Skill points in Knowledge strategy, nobility, and profession calligraphy has ya covered. You can also add history.
I do agree the 2 skills a level; is a crime, but still ya can pull off the very thing you have listed right there.
Some people like them; some people don't. You can't blame a 3P company for catering to those who do.
I don't mind it if it can not be done with a standard class, but a new class based purely on fighters of a different culture is a bit redundant.
Next come the viking class, the legionnaire, the Celtic warrior and so on. Each and every one was as unique and interesting as the samurai, yet not one even blinks when ya use a fighter for them but say a samurai is a fighter and ya get " No, it's not the same they had a one of a kind fighting style and culture" well so did everyone else.
That's put down to Eastern love. We Westerners have had a lot longer with Celts, Vikings, gladiators and legionaries than we have with samurai :)
Once again, you won't find any argument from me. Heck, I'm a samurai nut myself ;), and I'd love to play in a samurai-style campaign. My other two favorite periods are High Middle Ages and ancient Egyptian. In all of those cases, I'd use the fighter -- with different feats, equipment, and role-playing -- to represent a samurai, a foot-sergeant, or a nakhtu-aa, as the case might be.
The one thing I'd have trouble doing as a base fighter is the European knight. Which is why I like the cavalier conceptually, even though I think the mechanics have a couple of wrinkles to iron out.
But, to return to the original question after lo, these many posts -- I also think the cavalier could be easily adapted to a samurai. They did fight from horseback also, after all, and all the oath stuff is right up their alley culturally, if with a slightly different focus.
I agree 100%, the mounted knight is easy to pull off with a fighter. As long as ya stay under level 7 or so. Past that you best have a freaking herd of mounts as you lose one every single round. Without an animals companion you really can not pull off mid to high level mounted combat
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So, no one liked the Samurai class we worked up in Paths of Power? The concept for that one was a warrior who is the sworn attendant of a noble lord, the keeper of social order and enforcer of their lord's will. To me, a samurai is quite different than a fighter. A fighter is a soldier/warrior, a professional armsman. A freelancer is usually considered an adventurer, occasionally a vagrant or mercenary. A samurai has an entirely different tradition including ultimate obedience, and not being in the service of a lord - being a ronin - makes them a societal outcast, not to be respected or trusted, and too dangerous to be ignored.
Well no one is judging your class or others like it in terms of quality, simply the need to either tailor an existing class through the tools we have in the game already (ability scores, skill points, back stories, character traits and feats) versus cutting out something new from whole cloth like a new base class.
Personally to me you've described something like a personal ethos more keeping with an interpretation of the alignments of the game or of social classes then something that should be class based. When I play a character I'm the one that decides to hold a particular allegiance. Things like character class are meta issues my character wouldn't think in terms of.
Fighter probably most of all, as it covers such a broad spectrum of types of people. Some people view their character as their class and other people see the class system in the game as a tool to make their character. It's how the game has been for years and years. A person who seems themselves as a "fighter" due to them actually taking fighter levels certainly would want a samurai/ninja/scout or whatever class.
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So would saying that "Roman legionaries have a distinctive fighting style that makes them legionaries" be a racist comment against early Italians? I don't think that saying the samurai were pretty idiosyncratic (and they were, in my book) means that you're being racist against the Japanese, even backhandedly. It just means that you see something distinctive and you're interested enough to want to represent it.
You have entirely missed my point. Yes, the Japanese had a distinctive fighting style. So did the Roman legionnaires. But they can both be represented by the fighter class, or cavalier, or whatever pre-existing rules structure you like. The backhanded racism I was talking about was creating a Samurai base class just for the sake of separating out Asian culture as "different from us." Do you think there should be a Legionnaire base class too? I would *also* categorize that as vaguely racist. In the future, please try to actually read my posts before you rant at me, thanks.
Jeremy Puckett
I could see having a ninja one. Not so much the ninjas of history as the ninjas of the legends of the time and modern fiction (who sometimes have access to magics or similar).
Though any class that fits the rogue with slight magic point would probably work (yes theres a talent for that, but an incredibly minor one), the 3.5 assassin PrC comes to mind.
But yes, I don't see any point in a Samurai one, use a cavalier, us a fighter, use a flavor tweaked paladin, there are a lot of options.
Well, the way I see it, if a class operates with a different set of equipment, different fighting styles, different abilities, different mindset, different training, and different ethos, it's not the same class.
By your argument, a ranger is just a TWF Fighter who took lots of wilderness, survival, and stealth skills/feats; a barbarian a fighter who takes mobility and power attack feats.
And I don't see Paladins and Samurai as being at all the same. A Paladin is defender of the faith and champion of the greater good - that is their role. Samurai are enforcers of order and their local lords' will, regardless of whether it's good, neutral, or evil. A samurai may consider it just and proper to execute a peasant for a minor show of disrespect - certainly not most, but some would - whereas a Paladin never would. Paladin have mystical heroic abilites, samurai are exceptional swordsmen. These are different things.
Your welcome to your opinion, but really in game fighting style differences come down to feats. You have shown me nothing that does not scream "fighter"
In my Homebrew warriors of Use Segmentata armor, Long spear, Kukri and falcata. Along with having a culture more like the Celts then dark age Europe. That does not make them a new class. No, That makes them a culture not a whole new class
Samurai were warriors who lived by a code and use a fighting style. That pretty much is most fighters. And the equipment is pretty much just refluffed, in game it'd be a bastard sword, short sword, bow and glave
still not seeing anything that says I must have a new class to cover this.
And as for the ranger, lets see favored enemy, spells hunters bond,evasion qurry, track bonus, favored terrain, woodland stride master hunter. Most of that stuff is way to good or long for a feat
I see nothing in Samurai lore that screams "Need a new class to pull this off" Although I do agree the cavalier would make a great one.
I could see having a ninja one. Not so much the ninjas of history as the ninjas of the legends of the time and modern fiction (who sometimes have access to magics or similar).
I think you could pull that off really well with rogue talents. You already have minor/major magic talents. I see nothing wrong with adding a few more along that line. But there is no need for a whole new class when the wonderfully adaptable rogue is there, 2nd only to the fighter is customization
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I know this sounds a bit crazy but I would like to strip out all cultural references from the classes so that they can culturally be plugged into any cultural situation.
Some of the big offenders are barbarian and monk. Barbarian as your standard frenzied berserker could be broadened to encompass anybody who is stout and enters some kind of stance that gives them melee benefits. Dwarven defenders, whirling dervishes, honorable death trance samurai, crazy ass thugs in a dark alley all could fit the "barbarian" role mechanically.
A Monk has all kinds of mystical Asian cultural trappings. If you strip those you wind up with a guy (or girl) who uses their body as a weapon and has hyper focused in controlling their body. An almost unnatural ability to dodge and weave in combat and to strike quickly. They could represent "jedi" like characters, sword saints, kensai, duelists, heck even certain kinds of swashbucklers... not just I punch you characters.
Rangers and druids also could be stripped of their nature bent. I know it sounds crazy but why couldn't those just be option for them. Urban ranger is not a new concept and using the druid as just an elemental master, a shugenja or simply someone tied to the "old ones", or anything similar. Point is why can't any class have a nature bent, wilderness rogue = scout, wilderness fighter = brigand, wilderness cleric = shaman, wilderness wizard = witch doctor etc.
The cultural stuff could be stripped out of these classes so that they could stand in for many different cultural situations. Some classes are that way fighter wizard and some don't. It would be nice to have the classes consistent in that.
Well, Ranger, Cavalier and Fighter can represent a samurai. Even in an oriental setting there isn't a need for said class. However, if matching the fluff implies making sacrifices like no using heavy armor or not using shields Substitution Levels can be added to better match the fluff without punishing the players.
Something like losing heavy armor proficiency for free exotic weapon proficiency (bastard sword) or a reflavored pack proficiencies for rogue/ninja.
Humbly,
Yawars
Multi-class Rogue/wizard or sorcerer or heck bard specializing in acrobatics!I could see having a ninja one. Not so much the ninjas of history as the ninjas of the legends of the time and modern fiction (who sometimes have access to magics or similar).
Anything involving multiclassing with a spellcaster class is a bad solution. Either you get overoptimized game breaking power builds or something vastly underpowered.
Bards have a flavor that falls flat, even if you ditch the singing and the party boosts the spell list is still wrong.
One of the things that confuses the matter when talking about the shinobi (which I prefer to ninja), is that some historical samurai families served as bodyguards and military scouts, roles sometimes attributed to shinobi. Add ronin serving as mercenaries and spys to this mix and it gets interesting.
As a result, the monk, rogue, and ranger classes can make good shinobi. Bards (with some alternate class abilities) could double as shinobi bodyguards, appearing as performers, minor offials, or advisors.
On a related note, this discussion actually got me thinking. What exisiting classes could double for asian classes, either as is or with slight changes to class abilities?
Here are some of my suggestions
Yamabushi/Sungenja - Cleric, paladin, or monk.
Sohei - Paladin or ranger. Some were train in using the O-yori armor, while others were masters with bows or skill in fighting with the tanto and wakizashi. Fighter may also work.
Miko - Cleric, druid, witch, or wizard (perhaps a white necromancer or diviner specialist, since a miko is commonly considered a spirit medium or prophet). Still, I think the new witch class may work the best as a shrine maiden.
One of the things that confuses the matter when talking about the shinobi (which I prefer to ninja)
May I ask why? Is it to emphasize a video-game vs. pulp "feel"?
One of the things that confuses the matter when talking about the shinobi (which I prefer to ninja)May I ask why? Is it to emphasize a video-game vs. pulp "feel"?
No. Shinobi is the actual historical term. Ninja is just more familiar to the rest of the world. Ninja is also how the kanji would be read in the Chinese langauge and not in the Japaneese language.
Well, Ranger, Cavalier and Fighter can represent a samurai. Even in an oriental setting there isn't a need for said class. However, if matching the fluff implies making sacrifices like no using heavy armor or not using shields Substitution Levels can be added to better match the fluff without punishing the players.
Something like losing heavy armor proficiency for free exotic weapon proficiency (bastard sword) or a reflavored pack proficiencies for rogue/ninja.
Humbly,
Yawars
Very much agree. In many cases younonly need a slight tweek to
get the mechanics and fluff to sink up better. You can seethis Pathfinders Campagine setting book, and in the UA variant class options.
The other option for something like a spesific combat style is a feat selection. In later 3.5 WotC books you can find the feats to build out legoinar combat styles as well as others. What you don't see is an equivelent line for something like was described for the samurai earlier. However that screems feat-tree to me, not new class.
I hear these arguments all the time. For my Kaidan RPG setting for Pathfinder, I have a Samurai base class based on Ranger as a template because I need different kinds of samurai primarily based on which is the preferencial weapon. So I use Combat Styles of ranger for Samurai.
Note of course while based on Ranger as a template, its not a Ranger as Favored Enemy, Hunting, divine casting is all replaced with other features, but to be closest to Pathfinder in balance and power, Ranger was used to design the samurai class.
I also have a Ranger class for the setting: Matagi who is a bow wielding hunter, worshipper of forest spirits (not TWF).
Because my setting focuses on the whole society rather than samurai alone (as L5R/Rokugan is setup) I needed Fighters who weren't Samurai, in my case Bushi is a Commoner caste Fighter and is the straight Pathfinder Fighter.
My setting also uses both Rogue under Hinin Caste Yakuza, and Shinobi which is a Commoner Caste rogue with some ki pool enhancements - Ninja on the other hand is a Prestige class requiring Rogue levels as a prerequisite but whose powers are largely Ki/Psionics/arcane based, not rogue based.
I too like the idea of a Cavalier Samurai, but I'm more in favor of another combat style Samurai using the Ranger as a template rather than the Advanced Class of Cavalier (which I personally find as a really odd martial class and while partly appropriate with its Oath, Banner, Order, the other aspects I don't feel work well.)
If a setting has only samurai as its primary fighter, then straight fighter is the way to go. But my setting has Paladins which are Sohei (just not necessarily good), Rangers as Matagi, Fighters as Bushi and Samurai as its own Advanced Class - if I use Samurai as fighter, how do I differentiate Samurai from the Commoner caste warrior (bushi) unless its a different class. They do very different things, different training, different weapons, plus samurai has lots on non-fighting talents that must be reflected in a class that's different than Bushi.
GP