I wanted to make a character based as much as I could on the One Piece character Roronoa Zoro. This turned out to be difficult because in Pathfinder, there aren't many (read "any") options for wielding three swords, two in hand and one in mouth. My solution was to invent a class and with some GM help we rejigged some parts of the Mobile Fighter archetype and meshed it with a monk's flurry-of-blows-esque mechanic.
The result is a highly mobile secondary fighter dealing many, many hits with three blades. He can also choose to trade many hits (with below average accuracy) with a single hit at normal accuracy either dealing tons of damage or applying a status effect (taken from Anti-Paladin Cruelties).
The class is ready to play, but again I'd like input from people other than us who made the class in the first place.
The class can be found here: http://pastebin.com/NjeujrGJ
I'll be updating it depending on suggestions, feel free to use it in your own campaigns if you like it.
Some context on our choices for those who are interested:
Three attacks because as a Santoryu fighter, Zoro uses three katana. Three katana, however, were far from optimal since it caused a -2/-4/-4 attack bonus at level one and didn't get much better with advancement. You can use three Katana if you want to, but after the first round of play-testing it became apparent that this character would hit maybe one of three attacks (three maybe four out of ten if you're lucky).
The Bladesmith thing was an afterthought aimed at someone who didn't want to wield a weapon in his mouth while fighting, this gave an option purely for aesthetic purposes (and to give an option to those without teeth).
Since the class is focused on mobility, we thought we'd make that clear by incentivizing acrobatics to avoid attacks of opportunity. Adding a free Skill Focus: Acrobatics fits the feel we wanted while helping to make clear that this is what the class is for.
Oni Giri is basically a renamed Double Slice. Since double slice may or may not be allowed for multi-weapon fighting depending on a perticular GM's ruling, we decided to allow its use with this class. No dual-wielding fighter would be caught dead without this feat, so we gave it to him. We placed it at level 2 so that those pesky multi-classers wouldn't just be able to get cheesy maximum damage on three attacks.
Kenbunshoku was a necessity. At no level could this guy take a hit. He had no armour (No armour on Zoro means no armour on this guy), and we didn't think that a monk's wisdom based AC would fit, especially since it would be the only thing that scaled with wisdom. A fighter gets his durability from tons of armour and a barbarian gets his from tons of health (tons more while raging), and if we gave this character either of those, not only would he lose uniqueness, but neither of those options fit this character. He is not made to be a tank. Instead, continuing with his theme of mobility, we added a concealment bonus on 10ft.+ of movement. This means that until level 11 he has to make a choice of dealing his three attacks or (hopefully) not getting hit. It gave him a chance to live through the first round of combat without adding something that didn't fit while adding to his core mechanic, mobility.
That having been said, it doesn't matter how many times you roll percentages and acrobatics checks, you can't win them all. A scaling AC bonus was the least we could do to make sure that level 20 Santoryu master didn't have 13 AC.
Ittoryu was a by-product of the minimum 10ft. distance as well as the multiple attacks. Until level 11, full attacking with Santoryu is a huge gamble that could cost the fighter his life, the minimum movement to retain his ability to survive the round makes 5ft. steps less useful. On the other hand, having 3/4 Base attack bonus makes using a single attack a lacklustre option. In addition, because he uses many hits of lower damage (versus the barbarian's 1 hit of tons of damage) anything with DR will easily cut all damage dealt by half or more. The attack bonus scales at one level lower than the fighter's normal weapon training (except for at level 20) and gives the option to be useful for more than killing, if such a thing is needed. The DC to apply status effects scales with Dex, simulating accurately striking a vital spot.
So change draw time to be a standard action?
Concealment is doubled versus ranged attacks.
Why does the PC need to be able to achieve this extremely specific concept at 1st level? I'm sure the character you are basing it on did not do so when just starting out. Attacking with three weapon should be possible after some levels are gained.
Why does the PC need to be able to achieve this extremely specific concept at 1st level? I'm sure the character you are basing it on did not do so when just starting out. Attacking with three weapon should be possible after some levels are gained.
The character is introduced as having all three attacks.
As a kid, Zoro lost once while using one sword, once while using two, and once while using three. Then he used three for the rest of his life. I don't think he broke level 2 when he was 8 years old.
Giving three attacks at 1st level is ridiculous. I also agree with Ciaran Barnes. I don't see why this oddly specific concept needs its own class. It doesn't have enough content to stand alone as its own class. An archetype or maybe a feat that lets you treat your mouth as a second off-hand would suffice.