Ultimate Combat Playtest: Gunslinger, Ninja, Samurai

[gamerprinter]

Gunslinger - while I too don't want guns in my game, so no gun bunnies either, I will say that the Gunslinger not getting any special gun skills until 7th and 11th level, compared to other classes and their 7th and 11th level abilities is a major weakness for this class. But since I won't play them, I don't care much.

Samurai - in my Kaidan setting, Samurai (buke) is a caste, not a class, and I'll include several classes in the Kaidan samurai caste. However one of those intended classes is Cavalier (hatamoto) - I think Paizo has been reading my notes, as this is very close to a Shogun's bannermen (hatamoto). While mine is more a Cavalier archetype, and this is an alternate class, in my archetyped version Charge will be replaced with the Vital Strike feat chain to be equivalent to Iaijutsu. However, I will be creating a more rural samurai class called Buke-Bushi, more of Yojimbo class, and I think will be more flavorful and preferrable to playing a hatamoto.

Ninja - hmmm, my ninja are shinobi, being archetypes for: Bard, Monk, Ranger, Rogue and Sorcerer. However, this ninja is not far from my Rogue (shinobi), so I can't complain too much. I am also creating a ninja prestige class, which will better follow cinematic ninja than this.

Since my setting features samurai and ninja, I am only pleased that Paizo is basically going the same direction as I intend, so at least gamers could use these classes with no changes into my game. While I will expand beyond what these classes are, at least their direction is not counter to mine, so I am happy about that.

Oh, and in Kaidan, katana is equivalent to the Curved Blade, it won't be a bastard sword, nor an Exotic Weapon.

There's a continuing argument on the Paizo boards in several threads regarding just what were ninja in compared to samurai. And the truth is Ninja were Samurai. All the famous Iga and Soga ninjas were samurai houses. Samurai were military servants of the noble caste. Even though the familiar samurai are the honor bound mounted archers, and later sword masters. Ninja were military cover ops specialist members of samurai caste also serving their lords.

Although my knowledge of this is older, one of the best sources for Samurai information is the Samurai-Archives.com. On its forum, the forum administrator confirms this... http://forums.samurai-archives.com/viewtopic.php?t=182


GP

 

[TanisFrey]

So a pistol bullet (d8) is more likely to bounce than a musket bullet (d12)?

I'm not sure I like it.

Assuming the bullet are the same size, and the same amount of power is used; the longer barrel of the musket allows the expanding gasses to transfer more power to the musket ball. This allows the musket ball to smash through bone and armor instead of bouncing around.

 

[DumbPaladin]

I have to say, I agree about not wanting gunslingers in my game, although I'd be interested in playing one for playtesting purposes ... but they seem really, really underpowered compared to even halfway-decent builds of other classes. Many of the playtest reports on Paizo's website bear this out: people are regularly reporting that the gunslingers just don't seem to keep up with the other members of the party.

That makes it appear gunslinger is a class that is in need of some revision. I hope it gets some before they include it in Ultimate Combat, but given how close that book is to release, I can't help but wonder whether it WILL get any changes or not.

 

[coyote6]

Ultimate Combat is due out at Gen Con, isn't it? That's 6 months away; that ought to give them a couple of months for playtesting.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Both the gunslinger and the gun rules themselves are utterly terrible to the point of being neigh unusable.

I like guns in my fantasy, but I guess Paizo did it this way to appease both crowds. If you like guns, there, there's rules for them! If you dislike guns, don't worry, the implimention is so awful nobody will use them!

Everyone "wins!"

 

[pawsplay]

Both the gunslinger and the gun rules themselves are utterly terrible to the point of being neigh unusable.

I like guns in my fantasy, but I guess Paizo did it this way to appease both crowds. If you like guns, there, there's rules for them! If you dislike guns, don't worry, the implimention is so awful nobody will use them!

Everyone "wins!"

Ouch. And can someone pour this guy a round of XP for me?

 

[DumbPaladin]

Ultimate Combat is due out at Gen Con, isn't it? That's 6 months away; that ought to give them a couple of months for playtesting.

True, but look at the depths of pretty valid and well-reasoned complaints about the gun system in Pathfinder and the class itself. One of the more troubling aspects of the complaints is against some of the rules, as mentioned on this page, of gun usage. These are described as NON-negotiable, and not under playtesting.

If that's true, it means there's not a lot of "fixing" to do ...

EDIT: Having read the 3 playtest versions of Magus, and the changes that class underwent, I'm willing to hold out hope that some significant improvements will be coming. This seems less like a rubber-stamp "please approve what we've already done" and more like a "No, we actually WANT feedback so we know what to tinker with" kind of playtest.

 

[Volaran]

I just thought I would re-post something that Jason Bulmahn put up on the Paizo boards.

So, we've got this message, loud and clear. We are looking at a number of different ways to address this issue. You have to understand that we have a few conflicting interests here that we have to serve.

We don't want guns to be common in Golarion, hence the price.
We do want a gunslinger character.
We do want to give you the ability to make guns more prevalent in your game, if you want.
We do want guns to be an approximation of the way they worked historically.
We don't need them to be a perfect model of that history.
We do want them to possibly have the same effect on the game that they had historically if you want.
We do want them to be a viable, cool option for characters.
We don't want them to be broken and way too good.

As you can see.. guns are very tricky. The rules presented are the ones appearing in the upcoming World Guide. They primarily serve the first master. The guns and the rules you find in Ultimate Combat are going to be a bit more open, flexible, and permissive, helping to serve a lot of other masters.

That said, we are taking in a lot of feedback in the way that guns work. We are going to take that and make the rules work, through new guns and various options. I think the thing I find most disturbing here is that folks so readily just throw up their hands and walk away, assuming that we are just going to leave it as is, and ignore the feedback we are getting. We can't always listen to the concerns of the playtesters, if other factors are in play, but we do try. I think we have a pretty good track record of that, but it seems like memories are very short.

Give us some time here folks.. and some patience. We'll get it right.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

So, it looks like the gun rules that we have been given for the playtest are the Golarion setting-specific rules, and Ultimate Combat will contain multiple firearms options. This pleases me, even if I think it means we still don't have adequate material with which to playtest the gunslinger at this time.

 

[DumbPaladin]

I really am not yet ready to think that the Paizo team is willing to ignore all of the loud arguments about the flaws in the class as it stands right now in its first version, especially when so many people are presenting their arguments logically and with factual data from their own playtesting.

I am optimistic they'll straighten out the bugs.

 

[pawsplay]

I believe Mr. Bulmahn's sincerity and I predict they will do a good job with whatever direction they go, but you know... what kind of response do they expect when they state "these rules are final and will not change?" Yes, Paizo has a GREAT record of taking feedback and reworking their ideas, but sometimes these feedback has been heaped upon them over their objections, over through and around closed threads, and (such as in this case) blatantly ignoring their statements as to what is sacred cow. I am grateful to Paizo for being so great with their feedback; I hope they are equally grateful to their fans for being so cussedly sure about what they want!