Wandering Swordsman (Unarmored Samurai Archetype)

[OpenPalm]

A player of mine wants to play a Ronin samurai and I wanted to create an unarmored samurai archetype and see if he likes it. I tried to make this by combining certain samurai and monk features together. I'm not sure how balanced it is, but I don't mind if it's a tier up from a regular samurai.

FYI, I also plan to give the move 1/2 speed as swift action ability for one point to anything with a ki pool or grit pool (this include Maxximilius's fighter archetypes) as well as the Skirmisher Ranger. The only thing I'm questioning myself on right now is including the additional abilities that you can spend ki on. I look forward to everyone's feedback

Wandering Swordsman:

Flow with the battle

A wandering swordsman rarely stays in one place and thus doesn’t have the ability to buy or maintain armor. A wandering swordsman loses all proficiencies with armor and shields.

This means that a wandering swordsman can attack faster than a normal samurai and has to be able to see blows coming to dodge them, since a hit could be deadly. A wandering swordsman adds 2+ Wis to his AC at 1st level and an additional +1 at levels 6, 12 & 18 when not wearing any armor.

Furthermore, the monk can take a -2 penalty to each of his attacks to double the amount of his attacks at each BAB level when not wearing any armor. This works exactly like flurry of blows and counts as flurry of blows for any prerequisites. A wandering swordsman can also take Perfect Strike as a bonus feat even if he doesn't meet the prerequisites and counts as a monk in determining how many times a day he can use it. This cannot be used for ranged or thrown weapons.

This ability replaces the samurai’s armor proficiencies.

React Quickly
At 2nd level, a wandering swordman gains evasion. At 9th level, he gains improved evasion. This replaces the mount and mounted archer features.

Ki Pool
At 4th level, the wandering swordman gains a ki pool equal to ½ his character level + his wisdom modifier. He also gains the “Extra Ki” feat as a free feat.

The wandering swordsman can spend 1 ki point as a swift action to make an additional attack at his highest BAB or to move half his speed. At 6th level and every two levels after, he can choose an additional ability from the list below with a ki point cost (as per the qinggong monk). Activating these abilities, unless otherwise specified, is a free action. If the ability refers to a feat, a wandering swordsman can use it until the beginning of his next turn. A wandering swordsman must meet the level prerequisite to use these powers. This replaces Banner and Greater Banner.

6th level
Deflect Arrows (1 ki point, except you can use your weapon)
Ki Stand (0 ki points, 1 ki point special ability, immediate action)
Sidestep (1 ki point, immediate action)

8th level
Gliding Steps (1 ki point, immediate action)
Whirlwind Attack (2 ki points)

10th Level
Lunge (1 ki point)
Step up and Strike along with prerequisites (2 ki points)
Wind Stance (2 ki points)

12th level
Ki Throw (2 ki points)
Punishing Kick (2 ki points, can use weapon instead of kick)

14th Level
Disarming Strike (2 ki points)
Improved Ki Throw (2 points)

16th Level
Bleeding Critical (3 ki points)
Lightning Stance (3 ki points)

18th Level
Any feat with critical focus as a pre-requisite (3 points)

[Anthony Kane]

Check this out:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/samurai/archetypes/paizo- --samurai-archetypes/sword-saint

Its an official Paizo archetype for the samurai class. See how you like it.

[Tim4488]

The Sword Saint is definitely cool and seems to get close, but unless I misread it nothing there denies him the use of armor. It might be possible to start with the Sword Saint and then simply swap armor proficiency for Monk-like Wisdom to AC and the scaling dodge bonus, though?

[OpenPalm]

Anthony & Tim,

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll ask him about the idea of sword saint with the monk AC bonus.

Me personally, I'm not a fan of the idea of iaijutsu. It doesn't seem like a practical technique outside of one-on-one duels, in which case it's great. I prefer traditional kenjutsu and it's multiple quick strikes, which is what I was going for with this archetype. It's a matter of personal preference though, though I admit iaijutsu looks very cool.

[Hannya Shou]

It's funny how a Sword Saint and a Kensai are different in Golarion.

[GeneticDrift]

Flurry should replace the challenge ability and the Ki abilities should be an order.

Giving up banner should be a small bonus
Giving up armor should not give you flurry.
gaining free 2+wis as armor is too good.especially at level 1, it will be dipped. If that's not a prob in your home game then it's ok.

Challenge and flurry together....you will have many dead things. Especially since you are letting him flurry with only one weapon.

[Kryzbyn]

I made this. Just have him take katanas, and it might work for ya.

[kaisc006]

You could try letting your player be a monk (weapon adept) but be able to apply his flurry ect. to a katana and wakizashi not just monk weapons. If you don't want all the ki powers a monk normally comes with then play around with mixing the weapon adept and martial artist archetypes.

[The Ghost Knight]

"Archetypes of the Jade Oath" from Rite Publishing has the Kensai monk archetype it is quite good, and may suit your needs.

[Morganstern]

Check out the 3.0 Oriental Adventures book and look for the Iaijutsu master Prestige Class. It's basically what your asking for, just adjust it to be an Archetype for Samurai. That's what i'm doing for a character in my campaign.

It does require a decent amount of good stats to use properly, as Str, Dex, Int and Cha are all used heavily by the class.

[vectorious]

The Martial Artist from "a fistful of denarii" would probably meet your requirements for an unarmored swordsman - if only costs a few dollars for 10 base classes - most of them very good.

[The Ghost Knight]

vectorious wrote:

The Martial Artist from "a fistful of denarii" would probably meet your requirements for an unarmored swordsman - if only costs a few dollars for 10 base classes - most of them very good.

yep that is a good one too

[OpenPalm]

Thanks for all of the responses!

I looked at the Martial Artist archetype from Fistful of Denarii and it didn't feel right to me. It looked too much like a fighter and less of what I thought a samurai should be. That may be good for some, but not for me. Most of the other types allow too many supernatural abilities, which doesn't really fit my concept. I tried to combine the monk areas but monks are quite complicated as is with too many fiddly bits. Samurai just seemed to be a simpler chassis to work off of, especially since I'm giving this too a player with only some tabletop RPG experience. I wanted simple and not supernatural, so I went with samurai as a base.

GeneticDrift--I took your advice regarding combining challenge and flurry and also about AC. Unfortunately, when you remove challenge from a samurai, too many pieces get removed. So, I added some features from monk and martial artist to the pot and it came out pretty well, I think. I also baked in the features from the ronin order into the class, since they seemed to fit so well. The only non-archetype change I made from samurai was to give the class a high reflex save, since it seemed to fit well with the motif.

I'm posting the link below, and I'd like to get some criticism on it as well. I made this document so a player can play the class without needing to reference any other books or documents, which should make it easier.

Wandering Swordsman