D&D 4E Samurai in 4e

[Anthony Jackson]

As was pointed out in Converting your Character, a samurai is rather close to a great weapon fighter. However, there are a few distinctive quirks, probably buildable as encounter powers, that are genre staples for the samurai.

A big one here is the psychic duel -- rather than going after one another with weapons, samurai engage in a psychic duel, until one yields. This includes, but is not limited to, the iajutsu duel. However, I'm not sure how to do this in a workable way. My initial thought, which doesn't entirely satisfy me:

Duel of Wills Must be trained in Intimidate.
Encounter * Fear, Psychic
Standard Action Ranged 5
Target: one creature
Attack: Cha vs Will
Hit: 1d6+Cha psychic damage, and you are considered to be Readying an Action. The trigger for your Ready must be an action taken by your target. A target reduced below 0 HP is instead reduced to 1 HP and must surrender.
Miss: as a standard action, your target may attack you with a Duel of Wills. Otherwise, the effect ends.
Sustain Standard: attack again, with effects as above.
Special: you may use the enhancement bonus of your weapon or implement as a bonus to this attack, though you do not get other keywords or properties.

Reactions? Way this effect can be done better?

 

[generalhenry]

A target reduced below 0 HP is instead reduced to 1 HP and must surrender.

0 HP already works that way.



It would make a nice Paragon path. Though Cha on a fighter is totally MAD

 

[Tzeentch]

Pretty convoluted for what seems like something the basic Combat Challenge covers ("focus on me or you'll regret it"). Maybe just make it a ranged marking ability, since fighters lack many of those types of things?

Duel of Wills
Encounter * Fear, Martial
Minor Action Ranged 5
Prerequisite: You must be trained in Intimidate.
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: The target is marked. You may then ready an action (p. 291).
Special: You may use the enhancement bonus of your weapon or implement as a bonus to this attack.

 

[Anthony Jackson]

Pretty convoluted for what seems like something the basic Combat Challenge covers ("focus on me or you'll regret it").

That's not what it's for. It's for the stare-off that is an integral part of many duels -- the two characters simply sit staring at one another for a while, and then something happens (usually, one of them dies). In particular, it differs from Combat Challenge because attacking the samurai can trigger an attack, which isn't the case for a normal combat challenge.

I added damage to it because the loser of these stare-offs is at a definite combat disadvantage (usually, he goes down in one attack), and the easiest way to accomplish that effect in a remotely balanced way is damage.

 

[Tzeentch]

I added damage to it because the loser of these stare-offs is at a definite combat disadvantage (usually, he goes down in one attack), and the easiest way to accomplish that effect in a remotely balanced way is damage.

Simplest mechanic is probably that the loser in some sort of two-way contest of Wisdom vs. Will is either immobilized, and/or can be attacked with some sort of bonus to damage (I suppose the possibility is both parties fail and are affected). The ranged psychic beam doesn't seem to replicate a duel at all since it does nothing to prevent the target from moving away or ignoring the person entirely and is out of theme with most of the other fighter abilities - its just a ranged encounter attack.