AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I think fighter really can work fine for a kensai. Its SLIGHTLY sub-optimal to go with Cloth armor as a 4e fighter, but not MUCH (and you can take Unarmored Agility). Truthfully you don't even have to START as such. Kensai were MASTERS of their weapons, not neophytes, so a level 1 kensai isn't even a concept that makes sense IMHO. At some point just doff your heavy armor and stick to the one weapon, take the kensai PP (if you want, there are others that probably work well too) and go from there.
Truthfully the idea of such a character not wearing any armor isn't even that authentic either. Musashi is almost certainly the model for this sort of thing. He almost certainly would have worn armor in battle, and NOBODY wore it all around town constantly or fought duels in it. So he wasn't really doing some super special thing.
One thing to watch out for, especially with OA/Kara-Tur but also with a LOT of the other 'oriental stuff' is its often wacky BS. Maybe its based on someone's idea of some interpretation of some legends and whatnot, but there's a huge range of sources and different time periods and traditions, and a lot of it isn't that much like what we got from reading OA or playing Bushido way back when.
Frankly, I think the existing classes, plus maybe the Dragon 404 themes, and the Dragon 404 honor mechanic (or maybe steal the one from OA, it wasn't bad) and just spin things 'Eastern'. The swords are curved, the armor is laquered, the houses have paper walls, and everyone wears a topknot and bows a lot. (not to make it superficial, but what I mean is the MECHANICS of existing classes will serve quite well, and the other stuff is story).
Truthfully the idea of such a character not wearing any armor isn't even that authentic either. Musashi is almost certainly the model for this sort of thing. He almost certainly would have worn armor in battle, and NOBODY wore it all around town constantly or fought duels in it. So he wasn't really doing some super special thing.
One thing to watch out for, especially with OA/Kara-Tur but also with a LOT of the other 'oriental stuff' is its often wacky BS. Maybe its based on someone's idea of some interpretation of some legends and whatnot, but there's a huge range of sources and different time periods and traditions, and a lot of it isn't that much like what we got from reading OA or playing Bushido way back when.
Frankly, I think the existing classes, plus maybe the Dragon 404 themes, and the Dragon 404 honor mechanic (or maybe steal the one from OA, it wasn't bad) and just spin things 'Eastern'. The swords are curved, the armor is laquered, the houses have paper walls, and everyone wears a topknot and bows a lot. (not to make it superficial, but what I mean is the MECHANICS of existing classes will serve quite well, and the other stuff is story).