Oriental Adventures Balanced?

[Camarath]

Light armor only (no meduim no heavy and no shields) in my mind this makes a big difference.

 

[satori01]

The Sohei is wacked though, a bit to powerful. The samurai is strong as well, easily better than a fighter, but this is OA after all.
Shugenja is decidely better than a sorcerer,(d6 hit points, more spells known, 4 skill points,) though it does have a signifigantly smaller,(and much cooler), thematic list.

1e OA classes were much worse, hell a first level wu-jen could know martial arts and kill a 1e level magic user with his fists in one blow. I wish 3e OA had a core class Kensai, the weapon master doesnt cut it for flavor.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Having a hodgepodge of other classes' abilities doesn't make a class powerful. Notice the d6 hit die, the lower armor proficiency, and the single good saving throw. Heck, I wish the cleric was only this broken.

Now, those Vanara guys? They are a bit bogus with that +2 Int and Wis for -2 Str.

Justified by the same inane thinking that gives Half-Orcs +2 Str for -2 Int and Cha.

 

[Gez]

The Sohei is wacked though, a bit too powerful.

Contrarily to its closest game-mechanical equivalent (paladin and ranger), the Sohei has a lower BAB, and can't cast cure spells.

The samurai is strong as well, easily better than a fighter, but this is OA after all.

The main strength of the Fighter is its wide list of strong bonus feats. The samurai has a bit less feats, and they are much less limited in scope and variety.

Shugenja is decidely better than a sorcerer,(d6 hit points, more spells known, 4 skill points,) though it does have a signifigantly smaller,(and much cooler), thematic list.

Shugenja are divine casters. Everyone is better than arcane casters, especially the sorcerer. Compare them to shaman, druid, or cleric.

 

[hong]

Specifically, they have virtually no directly offensive spells, far less than clerics, let alone druids or wizards, and also have fewer buffing spells. Shamans don't have Divine Favor, Greater Magic Weapon, or Divine Power, the cornerstones of the cleric's buffing arsenal. Don't be fooled by the martial arts feats, shamans are much weaker in combat than clerics.

In short, shamans are essentially clerics that trades off a lot of offensive power for some neat abilities that are mostly defensive in nature.

Actually, the druid (renamed shaman) in my Britannia 3E game has been kicking a remarkable amount of hiney, for someone who's supposed to be a "support" character.

Offensive spells in the shaman's repertoire:
- 2nd level: rebuke (poor man's hold person; stuns instead of paralyzing, but works on just about everything), ancestral vengeance (1d6/2 levels against one target, or 1d6/level to undead)

- 3rd level: castigate (5d6 damage to everything around her)

- 4th level: holy smite (which is _not_ on the base cleric spell list, note!)

Some of the domains are also very nice, like Fury (harm, destruction, earthquake), Metal (magnetism, rusting grasp, blade barrier) and Hero (divine power, righteous might, stoneskin AND Tenser's transform... wow).

I wouldn't say the class is broken, but it's certainly more powerful than it appears to be at first glance. However, you do have to play it right. Simply charging into melee is liable to get you killed, as the druid discovered last session.

 

[Southern Oracle]

When WotC hosted the designer chats for Oriental Adventures and the Psionics Handbook, they said the classes in each supplement were not balanced when compared to the core classes, only to the classes for those respective settings.

 

[Gez]

When WotC hosted the designer chats for Oriental Adventures and the Psionics Handbook, they said the classes in each supplement were not balanced when compared to the core classes, only to the classes for those respective settings.

For OA, maybe; but for the psionic classes, that's a blatant lie. The psionic handbook is not a setting in itself, but an addition to the core setting. As such, the classes for its respective setting are Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Psychic Warrior, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer and Wizard.

The PsHB even state out that you may drop psionics into any D&D campaign without inbalancing things.

Even for OA, I have a doubt. As far as I remember, this was said about Rokugan ("strong" classes like the ninja, and "weak" classes like the courtier being balanced by the greater importance of social interaction and honor) and Swashbuckler Adventures (both by AEG); not for OA (WotC).

 

[redwing]

seemed to me that the OA classes were just different twists on the core classes that could be made with new feats, multiclassing, or just a new character concept.
Or they could be made into prestige classes.
Like the samurai.....exactly like the fighter, just strict alignment rules.

So basically, I don't think they are all that unbalanced.

 

[Camarath]

The samurai is strong as well, easily better than a fighter, but this is OA after all.

Yeah, I would trade 4 feats for up to a +6 to reflex, 40 skill points (with a slightly better skill list), a magical weapon that I could easily buy but if I lost I would become dishonored, less than 1/2 the feats in my bonus list and a Code of Conduct that requires me to kill myself. Yep easliy better, if your DM ingores all the restraints and limitations of the class; their Code of Conduct and limited feat list. Oh yeah, and who needs Shield or Heavy Armour Proficiency away way (so 6 feats).

The Sohei is wacked though, a bit to powerful.

Have you played the Sohei? Which core melee class do you consider weeker than it the Fighter(far better ooptions) the Barbarian(better BAB, better Rage, Uncanny Dogde) the Paladin (better BAB, special ablities and spells) the Monk (superior moblity and better special ablities) the Ranger (even with all it limitations seems about par with the Sohei) the Cleric (same BAB far better spell power) the Rogue (sneak attack, use magical device) the Bard (maybe but i think the bard's casting ablity balances the classes)?

 

[bwgwl]

i played a sohei for a while in a "straight" D&D campaign. if anything he seemed a bit under-powered compared to the other characters.

i can't make a real judge of it, though, because he was also an ECL race that didn't grant additional hit dice (the zenythri from MM2 -- lawful plane-touched).