I had posted this under another thread, and liked it so much I'm running with it here. Edited a little as I finalized what the alternate class features would be
Alternate Fighter class feature: Samurai
Alignment must be Lawful (Good, Neutral, or Evil)
Ancestral Daisho: Instead of receiving a Fighter bonus feat at first level gain the Heirloom Weapon trait for both a Katana and Wakazashi. These are bonus traits and do not count towards the traits your character receives.
Strength of the Ancestors: Instead of receiving fighter bonus feats your ancestors add their strength to your blades. Starting at 2nd level your katana gains a +1 enchantment bonus, gaining another +1 every four levels (max +5). Starting at 4th level your wakazashi gains a +1 enhancement bonus, gaining another +1 every four levels. (Max +5). The weapons may be further enchanted with special abilities at the normal cost of the weapons current enhancement bonus. (I.e. imbuing a +1 katana with Shock would cost 6000gp, the difference between a +1 bonus and a +2 bonus.)
Ex-Samurais: If at any point your alignment becomes non-lawful you lose the benefits of the Ancestral Daisho and Strength of the Ancestors class abilities, and are unable to gain any additional classes in Samurai
Are you making Hollywood Samurai or historical Samurai? The cavalier might be a great fit as well. And I do not think they would be restricted to lawful only as they were as backstabbing, cowardly and cut throat as any other warrior culture.
In the historical based Samurai base class I did for 4WFG (in Paths of Power), samurai were limited to lawful (but not necessarily lawful good) alignments; a dispossessed samurai, or ronin, could be any alignment. The idea is that what makes a samurai special is their loyalty. Loyalty unto death in the service of their lord, and the enforcement of his laws and will. After all, player characters are representative of the heroic ideal, not the mundane everyman truth. Combined with Bushido abilities and combat styles, our Samurai is a bit different. This is a perfectly workable idea and quite easy to implement.
Going for the mythic samurai of lore. The honor/law bound warrior with ties to his ancestor's through his family weapons.
Not the historical samurai at all. They were just fighters sworn to a fuedal lord. That's easy... I make a fighter and he serves Lord Bob and would kill himself for him if asked. ;p
In the historical based Samurai base class I did for 4WFG (in Paths of Power), samurai were limited to lawful (but not necessarily lawful good) alignments; a dispossessed samurai, or ronin, could be any alignment. The idea is that what makes a samurai special is their loyalty. Loyalty unto death in the service of their lord, and the enforcement of his laws and will. After all, player characters are representative of the heroic ideal, not the mundane everyman truth. Combined with Bushido abilities and combat styles, our Samurai is a bit different. This is a perfectly workable idea and quite easy to implement.
Which I will now put on my list to check out.
This idea came from a conversation about if Tian-Xia will have new base classes or just class variants.
I figured what I would like to see is this simple idea. Gives me the mysticism of the ancestral daisho, and still keeps it simple enough that any GM could plug and play without having to reference back to the source material.
Also, the reason I go without the needing a master portion is more because of movies like the seven samurai and such where they were masterless and still helped because it was the right thing to do.
I'd encourage you to check out the 3.0 Oriental Adventures version of the Sammie. Instead of a fighter bonus feat, they got the Ancestral daisho, which they could choose to enchant as they gained in levels, BUT it was a CHOICE, so they could still focus on bow, or lance, or great club, while keeping their "proper" weapons as status symbols, or for duels. The mechanic was a "sacrifice" of X GP @ X Level and X days of prayer/meditation and they get a shiny weapon.
They also got d10s, full BAB, good Fort and Will saves, and 4 SP/level, plus I think they got a few bonus feats, maybe every 4 levels rather than every 3 for fighters. Lawful only, of course. Overall, it was arguably better than the fighter as a role paying class, thought that's really not saying much for 3.0 :)
I'd encourage you to check out the 3.0 Oriental Adventures version of the Sammie. Instead of a fighter bonus feat, they got the Ancestral daisho, which they could choose to enchant as they gained in levels, BUT it was a CHOICE, so they could still focus on bow, or lance, or great club, while keeping their "proper" weapons as status symbols, or for duels. The mechanic was a "sacrifice" of X GP @ X Level and X days of prayer/meditation and they get a shiny weapon.
I own two copies of that book lol, but this isn't a new base class, it's an alternate class feature.
The player would still get all weapon and armor mastery levels so they can still focus on other weapons.
Or if you want the samurai to keep their feats change it to where the enchantment bonus kick on for armor trainings/mastery (katana), and weapon training/mastery (wakazashi)
It's hard to compare an alternate class feature to a full base class.
I'd encourage you to check out the 3.0 Oriental Adventures version of the Sammie. Instead of a fighter bonus feat, they got the Ancestral daisho, which they could choose to enchant as they gained in levels, BUT it was a CHOICE, so they could still focus on bow, or lance, or great club, while keeping their "proper" weapons as status symbols, or for duels. The mechanic was a "sacrifice" of X GP @ X Level and X days of prayer/meditation and they get a shiny weapon.I own two copies of that book lol, but this isn't a new base class, it's an alternate class feature.
The player would still get all weapon and armor mastery levels so they can still focus on other weapons.
Or if you want the samurai to keep their feats change it to where the enchantment bonus kick on for armor trainings/mastery (katana), and weapon training/mastery (wakazashi)
It's hard to compare an alternate class feature to a full base class.
Agreed. They're really not the same thing at all.
I don't have Oriental Adventures and I'm not familiar with the Ancestral Weapon mechanic, so I didn't use those in our version.
so its a fighter with no feats and free weapons? not worth it IMHO
please tell me i'm reading this wrong
i agree with idea of using cavalier as a samurai, giving up the bonus feats and maybe tactician or possibly mount abilities for the Ancestral Weapons.
If you're talking about the one I made up, it's a base class of it's own. For Chozyn's... well, they're blades that automatically gain enchantment bonuses, that's not bad, really.
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If you're talking about the one I made up, it's a base class of it's own. For Chozyn's... well, they're blades that automatically gain enchantment bonuses, that's not bad, really.so its a fighter with no feats and free weapons? not worth it IMHO
please tell me i'm reading this wrong
i agree with idea of using cavalier as a samurai, giving up the bonus feats and maybe tactician or possibly mount abilities for the Ancestral Weapons.
i was talking about the OP's alternative. anyone can buy/aquire magic weapons, but feats are much harder to get
Name,
Another option, which I mentioned later, is to use the weapon enchantments instead of armor and weapon training and mastery, still keeping all of the bonus feats.
Which could work out better for the variant. What do you think?
I'm not messing with the APG classes until it's released in the final version mext month.
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Name,
Another option, which I mentioned later, is to use the weapon enchantments instead of armor and weapon training and mastery, still keeping all of the bonus feats.
Which could work out better for the variant. What do you think?
I'm not messing with the APG classes until it's released in the final version mext month.
whats the benefit to having enchantments replace unnamed bonuses that stack with enhancements? its just a fighter thats gimped, since their weapon is level appropriate anyway (more or less)
I'd say if you wanna go that route, just give up 1st level feat for ancestral weapon and let it apply to both weapons. or even just let the player have heirloom weapon as a free trait and give them master craftsman as a feat at 4th level.