More Options for new Base Classes

[scpna]

I have the MiniHB and the Complete Warrior and I am looking at modding some of the new core classes. In particular the Favored Soul and the Samurai. I think the Favored Soul is a little too weird because of some of it's abilities, particularly the wings. I think I have an issue with this because many of the deities in my world don't really fit with the idea of winged servants, particularly Midir my god of the earth. As for the Samurai, I'd like to see it with a broader weapon choice.

For the favored soul, would there be major balance issues with giving domain powers instead of the wings. Perhaps one domain power earlier in the level progression and then access to a second power later. I think this fits better with the theme of being so closely tied to a deity. I was wondering if anyone has tried something similar or if they think that the domain powers are too powerful an alternative to wings.


For the samurai, I was thinking about allowing several options for weapon styles, like the 3.5 ranger. This would allow more variety in the class and make it fit with the feel of my campaign. I am thinking of the following alternatives to class features:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A samurai is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, light and medium armor, and shields (but not tower shields).

Daisho Proficiency (Ex) -> Weapon of Choice (Ex): A samurai is very well trained in her chosen fighting style. She may choose one melee weapon upon entering the class to be her weapon of choice. If this weapon is a simple or martial weapon, the samurai gains the Weapon Focus feat with it. If the weapon is instead exotic, then the Samurai gains Exotic Weapon Proficiency with it.

Two Swords as One (Ex) -> Combat Style (Ex): At 2nd level, the Samurai may choose one of the following as a bonus feat, even if she does not meet the prerequisites for the feat: Armor Proficiency (heavy), Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mounted Combat, Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, or Weapon Finesse.

Iaijutsu Master (Ex) -> Always Ready (Ex): The same as before except replace "but only when he draws his katana or wakizashi" with "but only when she draws her weapon of choice".

Improved Two Swords as One (Ex) -> Improved Combat Style (Ex): At 11th level, a samurai may choose another feat from the Combat Style list or one of the following if she already possesses the feat in parenthesis: Improved Disarm(Combat Expertise), Mobility (Dodge), Improved Unarmed Strike, Ride-by-Attack (Mounted Combat), Cleave (Power Attack), Improved Sunder (Power Attack), Two-Weapon Defense (Two-Weapon Fighting), Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (Two-Weapon Fighting). The samurai does not need to meet any prerequisites to the feat, other than the feats given above.

Greater Two Swords as One (Ex) -> Greater Combat Style (Ex): At 16th level, the samurai may gain another feat from the Combat Style list. Alternatively, she may choose one from the Improved Combat Style list or the following as long as she posesses the feat given in parenthesis in the list: Spring Attack (Mobility), Improved Critical (none), Spirited Charge (Ride-By Attack), Great Cleave (Cleave), Greater Two-Weapon Fighting (Improved Two-Weapon Fighting).

I'd appreciate any feedback you can offer on these changes, especially any balance problems you see with them.

 

[RisnDevil]

I agree that the Samurai needs some change, but I have a serious problem with the way everyone wants to portray it....Has anyone ever looked into or studied Samurai? First of all, if you want the weapon styles, go with the Ranger or a fighter. Here is an ability to give the Samurai (especially if you want to try and make them more historically accurate...).
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First of all, get rid of the two swords crap. Samurai (Hell most of the asian culture) did NOT fight with two weapons. Musashi did, but he was very non standard in his practice. Yes, samurai DID carry a Katana and Wakazashi (usually) but they did not fight with both...the Wakazashi was a BACKUP weapon. As such, an ability like this would be nice and fitting:

Backup Weapon (Ex): Any time a Samurai is disarmed or otherwise somehow loses a weapon (For those that use fumble options like that) the samurai is able to draw his Wakazashi as a free action and receives one attack against one opponent, with them being treated as flat-footed against this attack. Note: The Samurai CANNOT just willingly drop his Katana to do this. This is a trained reaction not a trapping tactic.
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Next, Samurai were HIGHLY trained in the use of Hand-to-Hand combat. They may not have been as good as a Shaolin Monk trained only in Hand-to-Hand fighing, but they were better than MANY people. As such, this would be a nice addition to the Samurai:

Unarmed Strike (Ex): At level 2, the Samurai gains the Unarmed Strike ability and Unarmed Strike damage as a Monk of half his level. This ability allows the Samurai to qualify for any of the Unarmed Strike abilities that a Monk can get, but require special training to get each...(ie: Feats).
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Now, each Samurai is trained differently, but each Samurai IS highly trained (Though in a wider variety of items than a straight fighter....) As such, a monk also should get this:

Bonus feat: At level four, and every four levels thereafter, the monk gets one bonus feat. This feat must be chosen from the following list. (I don't have the time to type the whole list right now, but think of many of the Fighter Bonus Feats and many of the Monk "Ability" feats.) A Samurai must meet all the prerequisites for a feat before taking it.
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Lastly, though I do believe that giving this to the Samurai could make them kind of front loaded, the Samurai has, in addition to his Katana and Wakazashi, his armor passed down to him or made by his previous generation. The ability would read something like this:

Ancestral Armor: The Samurai also inherits his armor. He begins play with a MW suit of armor. (Preferably something Heavy and/or Oriental, though it is subject to DM approval.) This armor can be enhanced in the same way with all the same restrictions as his Ancestral Daishos can. To balance this out, the samurai should start with either Mage or Monk starting gold.
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Should I think of more stuff to make them slightly more accurate, I will share them. BTW, this was nothing against you or your ideas, I have just gotten tired of theses Samurai builds that are horrible innaccurate, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Let me know what you think about that.

 

[RisnDevil]

Now that I am done ranting about the Samurai, my opinion on the Favored Soul.

It is rather funny that WotC would give a BASE class with wing development, as everything else they have published would seem to imply that they think wings are REALLY powerful and warrant a LA. As such, I can understand many people's desire to drop this ability. (Though I think it adds a sort of flavor!) If you want to give the Favored Soul a domain like access because of their greater connection to their deity, then how about this.

At level five, and every five levels thereafter, the Favored Soul picks one of his Deity's Domains. (In my game, Favored Souls MUST have one particular Deity.) The Favored Soul from that point on adds those spells to his spell list, though gains no special slot to cast them.

What do you think about that? I don't think it is very unbalancing, and you can either choose to allow them the Special Abilities that come with the Domains (Though I don't suggest it....) or just allow them the spell access like I said.

 

[scpna]

Thanks for your input. I was more concerned about the balance issues of the changes, then keeping the oriental flavor of the class. I will most likely be calling it something else and the area that they hail from most commonly in my world is not orientally-themed.

I do think that your Backup Weapon idea is interesting, but it seems to be a little too powerful. Perhaps it could be broken apart into first getting to draw the wakizashi for free, then later giving an attack, and finally granting the flat-footed opponent at high levels.

I was thinking about unarmed attacks also, but for the flavor of my world, I don't need this class to excel at unarmed combat. Otherwise, I would agree with giving oriental-flavored samurai Improved Unarmed Strike feat and perhaps even allowing increased damage.

For the armor, that would likely front load the class and once again is not necessary for the flavor I am going for. No other character can start with heavy armor at level 1, so the samurai would outclass in armor for free for the first couple missions in the campaign.

Thanks again for your ideas. Mostly I am interested in just the balance issues, since I am not actually using this class in an oriental campaign.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

A samurai is so closely identified with the katana that to imagine him fighting with any other weapon is to imagine something that is not a samurai at all.

Granting unarmed fighting skills is not a terrible idea, since it would not detract from the samurai's preference for the katana. On the other hand, why would a master swordsman have acquired that sort of skill with unarmed attacks?

The proposed Backup Weapon ability seems like a creative attempt to make the wakizashi something more than just a prop. (RisnDevil is right that the two swords were not used together.) On the other hand, it does not seem right to have an ability that can turn failure into an advantage. Being disarmed should have only negative consequences. It should not enable the samurai to suddenly take his foe off guard. That said, it is worth continuing to think of some use for the wakizashi.

 

[RisnDevil]

If you are NOT attempting to create the ICONIC Samurai, and simply wish to change the areas you addressed, it DOES appear to be balance. Though personally, it does make the class seem a bit bland. Another question, does your "Samurai" still gain and "Ancestral Daisho" at first level? If not, what will replace this? (Of course I understand that the Daisho would be with whatever his chosen weapon is, not just the Daisho (Katana/Wakazashi combo).)

About the Backup Weapon ability...I will agree that gaining all the abilities at once would be a bit overpowering, and will change it taking into consideration your advice, scpna. I can also understand why you would not want to make the losing a weapon disadvantage into an advantage, so how about making it to require a Reflex save to be able to "recover" from the disadvantage, thereby drawing the Wakazashi (With of course a slower progression of the additional abilities gained)?

About the Unarmed Strike, although the Samurai is highly trained in swordplay, the Samurai has always been trained in more than one way of fighting, and it was seldom ever anything other than some form of Martial Arts, which is represented by the Unarmed Strike ability.

Did my advice/comment on the Favored Soul do you any good scpna? Hope to offer more advice if needed...

 

[scpna]

RisnDevil, sorry about not mentioning my thoughts on the Favored Soul earlier, I was a bit rushed while posting. I do like the idea of giving the domain spells, but perhaps at the cost of a spell known per spell level. Or maybe, you could simply allow the Favored Soul to learn the spells from her domains in addition to just spells off the cleric list. I think that removing the wings should merit something more interesting, such as the actual domain powers. Perhaps one domain power added at the first level and one around 7th level. I think possessing these powers provides more flavor than just allowing the extra spells.

Good point about making the bad thing of being disarmed into a good thing. Perhaps completely drop the flat-footed measure, but still allow the attack. I think the attack is reasonable and you are still being disarmed of your primary weapon.

 

[RisnDevil]

With the Favored Soul, I think that allowing the Favored Sould to gain the abilities of the Domains is slightly overpowered, as then the Favored Soul becomes almost as powerful, if not more powerful, than the Cleric, whose only advantage is then Turning Undead. I think if you take out the ability to use Domain powers, thereby only adding Domain spells to Spells Known (automatically) AND give them more than two domains (My variation above had four domains at level 20) is a good balancing factor WITHOUT becoming overpowered.

 

[RisnDevil]

And on my Samurai variant, what do you think of the requiring a Reflex save to successfully do this? What would the DC of the save be?

 

[scpna]

You're probably right about the domain powers being a little too powerful. I don't think the domain spells is quite what I am looking for however. Perhaps I will come up with alternates for the wings based on each god in my world where each god's favored souls develop a power related to the god's sphere of influence. I think this might be hard to balance, but might be worth it. For instance, the fire goddess might grant a burning aura, while the sky goddess could still grant wings. If you have any ideas for some powers that would be roughly equivalent to wings that could be handy.

As for the Reflex save, I'd have to say it should be somehow linked to the opponent. Perhaps either their attack bonus or HD/lvl. I think this would probably be a good starting point because it is scalable and poweful opponents can avoid it easier.