As for EWP being a crap feat..I'm totally cool with giving all human fighters, paladins and barbarians EWP bastard sword from an equality standpoint. Be just like 1E! :) No?If not, then no. The scimitar argument falls flat...I could make the same claim to fighters gaining auto +1 dmg with longswords. Shock! Horror! Oh, wait, they don't get it unless they spend a CLASS ABILITY to up their sword damage. Gotcha.
Samurai need to spend that option, not get it handed to them.
Except that getting the 'free' EWP is part of the samurai's sum of class abilities, just like MWP and resolve are, and they 'spend that option' by taking a level of samurai. Samurai lose some abilities cavaliers have and gain some they don't, EWP is one of the abilities they gain. You still haven't explained why EWP is a problem but resolve isn't.
Because resolve isn't part of the argument and we're talking about EWP?
The bonus human racial feat isn't meant to be spent on subbing for a racial weapon prof group which is inherently more pricey then one feat (all racial profs are at least two weapons).
Effectively, the samurai is getting 3 EWP for free. Trot over to the cavalier and fighter and maybe barb/paladin and see if they are so gifted. No? Then yes, it's part of the samurai suite. No, it's not balanced, and its inappropriate.
==Aelryinth
Don't you know? The katana is a death star in a sword form, it should take two feats just to be able to hold on to one. A class that allows such ease of use with such a weapon is so broken that it compares to star wars d20 jedi. The ability to wield the deity of blades allows one to become death incarnate. The use of a katana should a feature of a prestige class only.
Yeah, I know, but this is what I hear.
This sounds a lot like that meme "Masterwork Bastard Sword/Katana is underpowered in 3.5e", when someone started a huge rant about how much stronger the katana should be in 3.5e than it normally was all the while claiming he had a real-life katana and sliced bricks in half with it. It was amusing as hell.
Anyway, wielding katana one-handed would be hard, to say the least. And if you ask me, Exotic Weapon Proficiency is a stupid feat.
Effectively, the samurai is getting 3 EWP for free. Trot over to the cavalier and fighter and maybe barb/paladin and see if they are so gifted. No? Then yes, it's part of the samurai suite. No, it's not balanced, and its inappropriate.==Aelryinth
I have only two hands .. only one is free if i want to use a shield. So where is the big bad benefit of 3 free EWP feats if i have only one hand free?
Because resolve isn't part of the argument and we're talking about EWP?
The bonus human racial feat isn't meant to be spent on subbing for a racial weapon prof group which is inherently more pricey then one feat (all racial profs are at least two weapons).
Effectively, the samurai is getting 3 EWP for free. Trot over to the cavalier and fighter and maybe barb/paladin and see if they are so gifted. No? Then yes, it's part of the samurai suite. No, it's not balanced, and its inappropriate.
==Aelryinth
It's part of the argument because you're complaining that the samurai is unbalanced relative to the cavalier (or fighter or whoever). The samurai and cavalier are each a sum of rules including class features, hit points, proficiencies, and class abilities. You can't talk about how balanced they are without including every part of both and comparing the whole, if all you do is say "one has proficiency X and the other doesn't" you're ignoring the big picture of what makes up each class. You might as well be saying that the wizard is weaker than the fighter because the wiz doesn't get MWP and the fighter does while ignoring everything else about both classes.
So the argument is not "does the samurai get more proficiencies than the cavalier", it's "is the sum of samurai abilities including but not limited to the proficiencies significantly stronger than the sum of cavalier abilities". Considering how weak EWP is, especially compared to everything else in the samurai and cavalier suites, it's strange that you would be complaining about it. That is to say, it is such a puny ability that it has almost no effect on the balance of the class, compared to something like resolve which is actually pretty strong. In fact, I think if you were to compare the two classes in a more objective way you would find that the samurai is actually the inferior of the two, mainly due to the loss of the charge abilities on a mounted class and the fact that the weapon expertise ability and proficiencies shoehorn the class towards using suboptimal weapons (including the katana that you're complaining about - much better off with a lance or two hander). Mind you I'm not saying there's anything wrong with playing the weaker class, but if you're going to argue that the samurai is too strong you clearly haven't looked at the class very closely.
Also, your claim that they get 3 for free (or that certain races get 2) is misleading because they aren't going to be using all of those weapons, and if they try to it will be a significant resource drain. It gives them more build options but it doesn't increase their power any more than if they only had 1.
1) Nowhere. But it says so specifically in the Katana description. Linky (It says the same for the Bastard Sword, but those two are the only ones that behave like that)
2) If you use the same weapon in the main and offhand that's true, like shortswords or wakizashis. Using a full grown one-handed weapon like the Katana in the offhand though is a stupid idea since it gives you more TWF penalties. So you'd be using a Katana in the mainhand and a Wakizashi in the offhand for example. Now you need Weapon Focus once for the Katana and once for the Wakizashi. That's actually the reason most TWF people use the same weapon on both hands.
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This sounds a lot like that meme "Masterwork Bastard Sword/Katana is underpowered in 3.5e", when someone started a huge rant about how much stronger the katana should be in 3.5e than it normally was all the while claiming he had a real-life katana and sliced bricks in half with it. It was amusing as hell.
Anyone using a "real-life katana" to slice bricks instead of as a decorative/fighting tool shouldn't be allowed to ever speak about the things of life.
I don't understand why there is so much of an argument over this, it sounds more like a bunch of personal opinions on the weapon rather than actual rulings or understanding of fair play. Obviously the samurai and ninja are variations of other classes with slight differences made to better suit the flavor of the class. Regardless of its real life applications all weapons are based on statistics in game and there is nothing that unbalances the katana compared to a bastard sword. As far as the ewp argument goes it makes complete sense for the class variations made for "eastern flavor" get proficiency with their most "iconic" weapon. Considering you cant wield it diversely without taking exp no one would use it over another weapon without reason ( either loving the idea of rping a samurai or ninja, or min maxing to spite others with said weapon). That being said cavaliers don't just use bastards swords and didn't even mainly use bastard swords nor is the bastard sword popularized or well known because of the cavalier, in other words you can still fully embrace the flavor of a cavalier without a bastard sword . Now even if you set class flavor aside and just ask is giving the samurai and ninja proficiency with the katana (the proficiency allows 1h use) unfair? Again no , Is it unfair that a wizard gets a focus for nothing other than boosting his power? is it unfair that the sorcerer has a bloodline that gives bonus spells and abilities? is it unfair that a barbarian can increase his strength and constitution just by raging? No, its all a part of the class that's the way you are intended to use them. Barbarians are meant to rage, samurais are meant to use katanas, and rouges are meant to have sneak attacks . And you still have the freedoms to be unique and use things others than the classes intended weapons you just don't have to be sacrificing anything to use the weapon they intend to be used with the class. Almost everything argued is a bunch of house ruling nonsense " i don't like western stereotypes on eastern cultures " "I know a bunch of psycho fanboy manchildren who worship katanas" " Blah Blah katana Blah Blah master race blah blah Noob kids who watched tmnt " who cares , ofcoarse if your making the rules its whatever you want but if your using your experiences with others irl or the irl interpretations and uses of the weapon to decide how it should play out in game then your really narrowing the perspective and your not balancing for fairness your setting up for preference. If there honestly was a real issue here it would be addressed but the reason everyone can make a valid point one way or another is because the katana and the classes proficient with it are still in balance with the others case closed. If you want a childish argument over fairness for cavaliers consider it a trade of cavaliers get better armor prof. samurai get better weapon prof. a balance of def. vs. off.
You came here to make that rant in a 4 year old thread?