Alternate fighter for mesoamerican setting

[elder]

Help!!!

I'm trying to develope an alterante fighter class for a meso-american setting. I don't want the class to have Medium or Heavy armor proficiency nor martial weapon proficiency, since I believe that all of the mesoamerican weapons fit into the simple weapon category. The question is what to give them to still make them balanced as there are some european equivalents running around with full armor proficiency and martial weapon proficiency. Also, I will have to consider the options for cleric and any other class that would normaly have full armor proficiency and martial weapons. Thanks.

 

[Nyaricus]

check out a book called From Stone to Steel - it has twp PrC's - Eagle Knights and Jaguar Warriors which might help you alot.

Other little-armoured player options are:

-Fighter/Rogue
-Fighter/Ranger
-Scout (complete adventurer)
-Swashbuckler (complete warrior)

now, these won't be the greatest starting points, but they will help. I should also note that From Stone to Steel gives you probably a half-dozen original weapons for your mesoamerican cutlures, along with full stats for another 6 or so thousand years of weapon technology. Buy it, and you will never regret it.

 

[wuyanei]

The Martial WpnProf & Med, Hvy ArmorProf are not actually worth much, as they can easily get these abilities by multiclassing for a single class in the european-style fighter.

For your question, I suggest you consider a mix of barbarian and fighter. I suggest against removing proficiency in medium armor -- they should be able to wear hide armor with no problems.

Make your meso-american fighters:

... barbarians! Alternately, I suggest having them...

Lose:
Martial weapon proficiency;
heavy armor proficiency;
proficiency with crossbows (crossbows are treated as martial weapons for the meso-american);
literacy;

Gain:
Barbarian class skills instead of fighter class skills;
Barbarian fast movement;
Proficiency with shortbows and composite shortbows, but not with longbows and composite longbows (shortbows and composite shortbows are treated as simple weapons for the meso-american);
add Track, Run and Endurance to the feats the meso-american fighter can take as a bonus feat;
illiteracy;


Make your meso-american clerics (shamans, really):

... become druids instead of clerics, but with no spiritual vows to never use metal armor/shields. Plus, they have proficiency in all simple weapons (plus shortbows and Comp. Short Bows, but minus all crossbows) instead of in druid weapons.

 

[Nifft]

There's a nice list of variant barbarian ideas here:
http://d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#barbarianVariantTotemBarbarian

One of those might work if you don't want them to be berserker rage barbarians.

Cheers, -- N

 

[elder]

Hmmm... thanks for the advice. I do have from "Stone to Steel" and have been planning to use their Prestige classes. One question for paladins. If I have a native paladin he does not get to call a mount since meso-americans didn't have horses to ride, and didn't ride other animals. In this case should I change the summon mount to an animal companion or is that too powerful? Thanks.

 

[wuyanei]

Why would a meso-american even be a paladin? Why not just use the ranger class for that role?