I posted my thoughts on the EN world forum. I will post a version on here since it is the official playtest forum.
I will say with absolutely certainty that a well-designed ninja and samurai are classes I would use. And an Asian-flavored Adventure Path I would play. I'm a target customer.
But I still recall the previous 3rd edition attempts at a Ninja and Samurai, both lacking the most important elements associated with the archetype. The ninja was a watered down class with some loosely "ninja-like" abilities that no one ever played because it lacked the one defining aspect of a ninja that ever person that loves ninja wants as part of the class: martial arts.
I'm hoping Paizo boils down the classes into the key elements that ninja and samurai lovers enjoy from history and fiction:
1. Swordsmanship for the samurai
2. Hand-to-hand fighting for the ninja
Any version of the samurai and ninja lacking these two key elements will find no use in my campaign and I will not run an Asian-flavored adventure path with a watery soup type ninja and samurai.
Bottom line message to Paizo as one of the target customers for the samurai and ninja class and an Asian-themed adventure path: Do it right or don't do it at all!
Making a ninja without martial arts or a samurai with strong swordsmanship ability and expecting us to see it as legitimate rendering of the archetype is like making a wizard without magic and expecting us to call it a wizard. The whole attraction of Asian-themed characters and campaigns is the unique fighting systems developed in Asia. Without the unique fighting styles, Asian-themed classes seem like fighters or rogues with slightly different abilities that didn't much need their own stand alone 20 level class. Mine as well have been an alternate class path.
So do it right Paizo. Give the ninja marital arts.
You do such a nice job designing the core classes and the classes in the APG, I didn't figure Paizo would suddenly have a total breakdown of the imagination and design two legendary archetypes like the samurai and ninja without the core combat capabilities associated with each class. That would be the same type of poor game design I've seen from WotC for years and I know Paizo is better than that.
So don't screw up the ninja and samurai for the umpteenth time by a D&D product. Do them both right. Watch all the samurai and ninja movies. Read all the literature. Make sure a samurai is a bad to the bone, quick drawing, katana slashing bad dude and the ninja can go hand to hand nearly as well as a monk.
Then you'll be hitting the nail on the head.
This is coming from someone that would very much enjoy a well done ninja and samurai. And will very much despise another watery soup samurai and ninja from a d20 company that will never get any use.
So do it right Paizo. Give the ninja marital arts.
reading history, you can see how most ninja were awful husbands.
In a more serious note, what about Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple?
Maybe with the Ki throw and similar stuff added from APG?
Yes, i suppose i should be nicer, it's not their fault.
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I'm hoping Paizo boils down the classes into the key elements that ninja and samurai lovers enjoy from history and fiction:
As a fan of Japanese history and culture, let me say that both of the things you mentioned are almost entirely drawn from Japanese fiction, and hardly at all from history. While there were great samurai swordsmen, the samurai as a group were much more focused on cavalry and archery, especially on musketry during the 16th to 17th centuries. The abandonment of firearms was for cultural reasons relating to Japan's self-imposed isolation during the Tokugawa Shogunate, but the idolization of the sword as the symbol of the samurai's spirit didn't really gain any credence until the publication of the Hagakure in the 1740s or so. (Yes, Miyamoto Musashi discusses similar topics in The Book of Five Rings back as early as 1645, but he's specifically discussing samurai who want to be duelists, not all samurai as a whole.) Even if you take Hagakure as the summation of the samurai ethic, it comes after over 500 years of samurai tradition as horse-mounted archers, and is a response to Yamamoto Tsunetomo's anger over samurai changing from warriors to bureaucrats (sort of a "back in my day, things were better!" kind of rant).
The existence of ninja at all historically is debated, and even if you accept them as accurate, then they were never lauded as excellent hand-to-hand combatants. The view of ninja as masters of unusual martial arts emerges from very late-era Tokugawa fiction, where the romanticized view of samurai also largely comes from. Most historical accounts of ninja describe them as secret police, or just all-purpose spies. On the rare occasions they were described as assassins, they tended to kill with hidden weapons or poison. Most of them would have been of the samurai caste themselves.
If you want to argue that "samurai as swordsmen" and "ninja as martial artists" have great momentum as fictional conceits, I can't really argue with you, but arguing that they're more historically accurate representations is pretty much dead wrong.
Personally, I think making samurai and ninja as "alternate classes" is still going too far. They should be class archetypes, if that. Placing samurai as cavalier and ninja as rogue is pretty accurate--in the sense that those words describe complex cultural roles and disparate fictional concepts that can best be approximated in a class-based system by those classes.
Moreover, putting Japanese cultural icons into a special category above those of other cultures is not just inaccurate, it's orientalism at its worst. If we're going to have a special category for "samurai," where's my special category for "Zulu spearman"? Or "lin kuei"? Or "Apache outrider"? I've long since had to get past the fact that Paizo is doing this thing that is culturally insensitive and inaccurate, but I'm not yet jaded enough to sit still while people claim "historical accuracy" for their favorite hobby-horse as a means of getting the rules changed.
The only thing that begins to make this palatable is that Paizo are using "samurai" and "ninja" to represent fictional things that bear some small resemblance to real-world concepts of those words, in much the same way that "barbarian" and "paladin" have been used in D&D for many years. If you just accept that and leave real-world history out of it, then all we need to focus on is "What is this ability supposed to represent?" and "Which fictional concepts are they trying to convey here?" Doing anything else is just a headache at this point.
I removed a post, and the replies to it.
Always treat other with respect, and if someone doesn't, flag it and move on.
I'm hoping Paizo boils down the classes into the key elements that ninja and samurai lovers enjoy from history and fiction:
As a fan of Japanese history and culture, let me say that both of the things you mentioned are almost entirely drawn from Japanese fiction, and hardly at all from history. While there were great samurai swordsmen, the samurai as a group were much more focused on cavalry and archery, especially on musketry during the 16th to 17th centuries. The abandonment of firearms was for cultural reasons relating to Japan's self-imposed isolation during the Tokugawa Shogunate, but the idolization of the sword as the symbol of the samurai's spirit didn't really gain any credence until the publication of the Hagakure in the 1740s or so. (Yes, Miyamoto Musashi discusses similar topics in The Book of Five Rings back as early as 1645, but he's specifically discussing samurai who want to be duelists, not all samurai as a whole.) Even if you take Hagakure as the summation of the samurai ethic, it comes after over 500 years of samurai tradition as horse-mounted archers, and is a response to Yamamoto Tsunetomo's anger over samurai changing from warriors to bureaucrats (sort of a "back in my day, things were better!" kind of rant).
The existence of ninja at all historically is debated, and even if you accept them as accurate, then they were never lauded as excellent hand-to-hand combatants. The view of ninja as masters of unusual martial arts emerges from very late-era Tokugawa fiction, where the romanticized view of samurai also largely comes from. Most historical accounts of ninja describe them as secret police, or just all-purpose spies. On the rare occasions they were described as assassins, they tended to kill with hidden weapons or poison. Most of them would have been of the samurai caste themselves.
If you want to argue that "samurai as swordsmen" and "ninja as martial artists" have great momentum as fictional conceits, I can't really argue...
I'm aware of this. But is a fantasy game, based on "fictional conceits" as you put it is what I'm going off.
I know in real history there was no organized group calling themselves ninja or shinobi.
But there were groups operating that were like the ninja. But often they were either a group of spies secretly sanctioned by a given warlord or a group of mercenaries more like a criminal gang working for the highest bidder selling information or performing assassination missions. They often employed methods not accepted by the mainstream warrior or noble class.
It was the methods of the various mercenary spy groups that gave rise to the legend of the ninja. But most of the warrior class including the ninja could fight hand-to-hand. Then again most people don't realize that a Medieval knight was a skilled hand-to-hand combatant as well who could hold his own with eastern martial artists with wrestling, boxing, and the various forms of hand-to-hand fighting taught in the west. Though martial arts looks a whole lot cooler on TV than a fighting style like real Greco-Roman wrestling or boxing, though Greco-Roman wrestling was every bit as effective as any martial arts style devised in the east.
All that being said, a ninja in an RPG should have martial arts. It's an iconic ability. Much like the shiny armor of the knight, the berserking of the barbarian, the flashy blasting spells of the wizard, or the godly healing of the cleric.
Maybe a Ninja Trick that gives Improved Unarmed Strike is in order, much the same way a Rogue can take the 'Finesse Rogue' talent to get Weapon Finesse?
I approve ;D
Is thread in response to Paizo´s announcement that Ultimate Combat will contain ´Martial Arts´ accesable to all PC claeses?
But especially Monks, Fighters, and Ninjas? (Samurai by extension, given they can take Fighter only Feats)
Seems like a tempest in a tea-kettle to me. Report back from En-World in a week´s time...
I mean, I have no idea if I personally will LIKE what Paizo comes up with, but this exactly what they´re working on.
There is a "martial arts" called Ninjutsu, but as far as i know, it contains use of several weapons, sneaking and climbing, and whatever. It´s not really famous for conventional martial arts.
Its more like Ninja´s using things like feint and dirty tricks or similar stuff.
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I'm aware of this. But is a fantasy game, based on "fictional conceits" as you put it is what I'm going off.
I know in real history there was no organized group calling themselves ninja or shinobi.
If you're aware of that, then why did you try to bring historical accuracy into it? I'm not putting words in your mouth here--that's your first post's argument.
key elements that ninja and samurai lovers enjoy from history and fiction
Emphasis mine.
My problem isn't that you want ninja to be martial artists. It's that you're making an argument for your personal favorite fictional niche for ninjas with a "historical accuracy" statement. In fiction, there are lots of different interpretations for "ninja" beyond "guy what fights with punchy fists."
In addition:
But most of the warrior class including the ninja could fight hand-to-hand.
is also inaccurate. Throughout the end of the Warring States period and almost all of the Tokugawa Period, the eras that samurai and ninja are most associated with, the "warrior class" (samurai) were mostly trained in archery and horsemanship. Hand-to-hand combat was considered the realm of conscript soldiers (ashigaru), and wasn't considered a matter for true warriors until the Meiji Reformation, when the government ordered the samurai to disarm. At that time, unarmed martial arts became popular among dissatisfied samurai.
Ninja without hand-to-hand martial arts not a Ninja
Why would paizo give a pathfinder ninja a palladium skill?
You can kill a man with your bare hands, but it's rarely fast or quiet. There's no reason whatsoever for Ninja to be skilled unarmed fighters.