Complete Warrior base classes

[mfrench]

Hexblade, Samurai, Swashbuckler.

What are people's experiences with these new classes in terms of balance and flavor? I'm wondering if/how they step on the toes of traditional classes.

I'm interested to hear about actual gameplay experiences and theoretical arguments (class X would never work because of Y).

 

[Psion]

I won't touch the Samurai because I feel it is too narrow (it's a dual wielding feat chain given a class). The OA samurai did it better.

Swashbuckler I allow, but I don't particularly like. I think it's a bit silly to give it good fort save and poor reflex save with a bonus. Further, people tend to play it in the agile fighter archetype, but I think that it doesn't stand up to a lot of typical adventuring challenges unless you mix in some rogue levels. I think the AE unfettered and the Swashbuckling Adventures swashbuckler both have more interesting and compelling mechanics.

Hexblade I like - it has more flavor than a generic fighter/mage and therefore is justified in existing. As much as I like it, I could never justify it in my game without an in-game reason on why it deserved to be a base class. I finally found one. We'll see how it works.

 

[Graf]

A player played a frenzy barbarian (Unearthed Arcana alternate barb)/Swashbuckler in one game…
It worked fine in combat.
The class has enough MAD (needs high str, dex, con, int) that it would probably take a really gifted twink to do anything bad to your game with it.

If you have any familiarity with Samurai, even a little bit, the base class is almost torture. They avoided making a ninja class for a long time and when they did it was fine; there have been like 6 samurai base or PrCs and I’ve yet to see one that seemed to understand what samurai were about (the dual-wielding daisho thing…. I mean… there are samurai movies… they have names like 7 Samurai… you could go watch the movie and then you’d have an idea…)
From a mechanical perspective, if you wanted some sort of dual wielding Bastard Sword-SS, slightly better skills getting fighter who yells at people and startles them they’re fine.

No idea about the Hexblade… though people talk about how weak they are.

 

[Andor]

The CW Samurai is a complete waste of paper. After the wonderfully flexible and appropriate Samurai class from OA and Rokugan I cannot imagine what prompted them to print such a mass of used food.

The Swashbuckler is terribly weak, and oddly built on top of that. The Unfettered is far superior, as is the tradidtional Fighter/rogue multiclass.

The Hexblade I like. It's flavorful and has some uniquie abilities, but it's unfocused and lacks punch. It feels more like a PrC than a base class, especially now that we have the Duskblade.

 

[Enforcer]

The Samurai sucks, I'd prefer the Knight from PHB II (with something else for the Shield Block ability...maybe an Initiative/Iaijutsu bonus?) or even a regular Fighter. At least then you don't get railroaded into dual-wielding.

The Swashbuckler is interesting but I can't see any reason why anyone would ever take more than three levels in it.

I like the Hexblade flavor-wise, but I've never played one or seen one played so I can't comment on that.

 

[Sound of Azure]

I have to join the group heaping contempt upon the Complete Warrior Samurai Class. It really is very limiting compared to other versions I have seen. And after playing "real" Rokugani Samurai in the L5R rulebooks, it really doesn't add up. If you have access to the Oriental Adventures sourcebook, I would use that (it is superior). There is an update of OA to 3.5 D&D in Dragon #318.

Swashbuckler? Well, they aren't exactly a powerhouse. I'm always partial to lightly armoured, agile types, but it hasn't always played out the best. As stated by others, most people I know have tended to dip into this class for 2-5 levels, then change to something else, like rogue, scout, or ranger. One friend made a Li Mu Bi clone with Monk and Swashbuckler levels. A while back there was a Campaign Components article disussion a swashbuckling campaign, with some excellent Parrying rules, that dovetail nicely with this class. (In Dragon #301)

Hexblades have great flavour and have some solid mechanics behind them. Again, they don't have the raw power of a fighter or barbarian. Their spell list has a particular(and suitable) flavour, too. If you want more leeway with spells, it is probably better to multiclass fighter and sorcerer/ wizard, then go spellsword. I'm going to use Hexblades amongst the island cultures in my new campaign, representing their hatred of outsiders (there won't be alignment, just affiliations).
A recent Dragon magazine(Issue #339) gave some more options for Hexblade curses, and Hexblade feats.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Samurai - what everyone else said. They made the exact same mistake as the 3.0 ranger, then stuck a silly code on it. On a related note, I want to announce my contempt for the "spell-less" ranger in CW - it still has spells, so it's false advertising. The spells just happen to be missing components.

Swashbuckler - nice try, and not insulting like the above two, but I think it's a failure. I don't think it's really possible to do a light fighter well in a high magic item setting. I (don't) like how they made a swashbuckler basically switch from Int to Strength - way to fix the poor light fighter's MAD. Star Wars d20 and D20 Modern both do light fighters so much better.

 

[Felon]

All three are weak relative to the PHB or PHB II warrrior classes.

The samurai's rubbish.

The hexblade is a modified paladin, a bit watered-down IMO. I strongly recommend the familiar be traded in for the dark companion from the PHB II.

The swashbuckler is designed to multi-class with the rogue, which is why it gets some odd abilities like Improved Flanking that aren't particularly swashbucklerly. It needs a real AC boost, not just the Dodge abilities. Again, I'd recommend the PHB II variant ability.

 

[Psion]

If you have any familiarity with Samurai, even a little bit, the base class is almost torture.

The CW Samurai is a complete waste of paper.

The Samurai sucks,

I have to join the group heaping contempt upon the Complete Warrior Samurai Class.

Samurai - what everyone else said.

The samurai's rubbish.

This thread warms my heart.

 

[Sound of Azure]

Isn't unity wonderful?