Awesome ideas, in general. I hope you don't mind an eleventh-hour critique.
trav_laney said:
Focused Strike (Ex): By concentrating on a chosen foe, the samurai can deliver powerful blows that deal devastating amounts of damage.
To use this ability, the samurai first selects a single opponent in a space that he threatens. The samurai then makes a Concentration check (DC = selected opponent’s Armor Class). If successful, he may make a single attack against that creature with a +2 bonus to the hit and damage rolls. Using this ability is a full-round action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
If the Concentration check is unsuccessful, the samurai may still make an attack against the target opponent, but the bonus to hit and damage does not apply. In the event of a critical hit, the extra damage from the Focused Strike is not multiplied. Creatures that are not subject to critical hits, as well as creatures whose vital areas are out of the samurai’s reach, do not take extra damage from a Focused Strike, but the bonus to the attack roll still applies.
The bonuses to the attack and damage rolls improves to +4 at 5th level, and increases by +2 for every 5 levels thereafter (+6 at 10th level, +8 at 15th level, etc.) to a maximum of +10 at 20th level.
Consider allowing this ability to be useful in most combats, not just in the relatively unusual tactical situations that require a single very accurate and fairly damaging attack as a full-round action. You can do this and preserve the flavor (and bring out the "duelist" aspect of the samurai) by allowing him to spend a
full-round action once per encounter making his Concentration check. If he succeeds, give him half the usual Focused Strike bonus (+1 at 1st up to +5 at 20th) over the
whole combat, kind of like a meditative version of a barbarian's rage or in a sense a ranger's favored enemy (it's just that you select the enemy when you use the ability).
trav_laney said:
Perfect Strike (Ex): Once per day, the samurai may declare any successful melee attack to be an automatic threat for a critical hit. This threat for a critical hit is then confirmed normally. Items and attacks that are triggered by critical hits (such as icy burst or vorpal weapons) do not function with this ability, although the weapon still scores critical damage if confirmed.
Abilities like this are a pet peeve of mine, because they're balanced for weapons with normal multipliers, like swords, but really awesome for x3 weapons like axes and just sick for x4 weapons like scythes. This is also bad for the samurai because many of his canonical weapons have x2 crits--you don't want to give him a huge
disincentive to wield katanas. Consider just allowing perfect strikes to deal
double damage--this gets the essence of the ability across, is balanced for all weapon types, and allows you to avoid kluges like ruling out special abilities that only trigger on crits (because, again, the attack's
not technically a crit).
trav_laney said:
Crippling Strike (Ex): Once per day, the samurai may use his Focused Strike ability to deal a powerful blow that drains his foe’s strength. The samurai must state that he wishes to use this ability before making the attack roll (thus, a failed attack ruins the attempt). If the Focused Strike is successful and the attack hits, his opponent takes damage as normal and also suffers 1d10 points of temporary Strength damage.
trav_laney said:
Deadly Strike (Ex): Once per day, the samurai may use his Focused Strike ability to slay an opponent in a single blow. The samurai must state that he wishes to use this ability before making the Focused Strike (thus, a failed Concentration check or a failed attack roll ruins the attempt for the day). If the Focused Strike is successful, the opponent takes damage as normal and must make a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + ½ Samurai level + Samurai’s Charisma modifier) or die from massive damage.
Nice. Probably both of these remain balanced balanced in the face of my proposed Focused Strike revision if you only allow this opponent to be used with the enemy the samurai selected to make focused strikes against. You can use it as part of any attack, but still just once a day. Maybe the samurai has to make another Concentration check as part of the strike.
I hope this helps!
