A Fighter Who Forswears Killing?

[Shalimar]

I would say, nice to meet you Kenshin Himora, as thats the plot to the anime Rurouni Kenshin. The main Character was a master Blademaster who was Godlike with a blade, who made streets run red ankle deep, and then he gave it up to become a simple wanderer.

My suggestion is just ape what Kenshin did, have someone forge a reverse-blade sword. The blunted side was the outer side, and the sharp side was toward him. An exotic weapon profficiency, and you should be good to go.

 

[mattcolville]

Wouldn't he need to take a few levels in fighter normally, as he didn't till later forswear killing.

Well, he's not a typical character. He's got a level of Warrior representing his time in service in the war.

Here's a description of the character creation process and how the campaign got started in the first place.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=139176

 

[mattcolville]

Book of Exalted Deeds is your non-lethal fighter's friend. Take a hard look at Vow of Peace, as well as the feats that make non-lethal damage more viable. One of the more interesting of the latter allows a rogue to sneak attack for non-lethal damage -- a good way to simulate knocking people out, maybe.

Mmm...good idea! I'll check it out.

 

[mattcolville]

I'll check that out as well.

 

[Tatsukun]

Well, I would just build him with grappling in mind, and when he can't grapple, use a "merciful" weapon (in the DMG).

If he fights undead he will die, but maybe he doesn't mind destroying undead (it's not killing). if not, he can just deactivate the merciful enchantment and attack normally.

But yeah, the BoED Vows will help a lot.

-Tatsu

 

[Chaos Drake]

I would say, nice to meet you Kenshin Himora, as thats the plot to the anime Rurouni Kenshin. The main Character was a master Blademaster who was Godlike with a blade, who made streets run red ankle deep, and then he gave it up to become a simple wanderer.

My suggestion is just ape what Kenshin did, have someone forge a reverse-blade sword. The blunted side was the outer side, and the sharp side was toward him. An exotic weapon profficiency, and you should be good to go.

Great series. Sounds like Trigun, who doesn't kill, as far as up to Vol 2.

 

[Psimancer]

You could introduce a feat (Improved Subdual) that lets you deal subdual damage with no penalty for one weapon (or all weapons).

That's what I would do too. (I'd call it something along the lines of 'Merciful Strike').

Some examples can be found in the Netbook of Feats; Improved Subdual & Improved Subdue.

You may even want to merge these two into a single feat...

Special: While using a Bludgeoning Weapon to do subdual damage your threat range is doubled...

Anyway, its a place to start...

BTW Rurouni Kenshin's reverse-blade sword is a very cool weapon. The fact that it is supposedly balanced exactly the same as a Katana would, IMHO, mitigate the need for an Exotic Weapon proficiency… It is a great series, and I would highly recommend it; his ‘non-lethal nature’ seems to be a little contagious… for the most part, the rest of his ‘party’ start to follow it too…


.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Good character concept and some good replies to it! A few feats would certainly do it or... you could repackage the monk?

I figure you could pretty much change the ability names and 'fluff text' to make them a (possibly) divinely blessed barefist fighter rather than a oriental style martial artist? After all, the class abilities would seem to do what the character is looking for rather well. Just seems the Ki angle is letting it down?

 

[Will]

Before I read BoED, I wrote up 'merciful strike' for Player's Guide: Fighter and Barbarians. In short, it waives the -4 penalty to make non-lethal hits with lethal weapons.

That would take care of the problem nicely.

Personally, I see no problem with monks in fantasy european settings, but merciful strike seems more appropriate to the character.

 

[Felix]

You can do this with core stuff:

Improved Unarmed Strike.
Improved Grapple
Weapon Focus: Grapple
Weapon Specialization: Grapple
Two Weapon Fighting
Improved Two Weapon Fighting
.
.
.

He knows how to fight (he has martial weapon proficiencies), but he has decided to go another route.

The rogue is going to love this guy... he'd take away the Dex bonus of anyone he grapples. Heh heh.