Wuxia Class

[erdamon]

I started work on this class a couple years ago and have gone though a number of revisions. Anyway just noticed the file a few days ago, made another change, and was wondering what folks thought of it.

You can also look at it here.

lvl BAB FS RS WS AC UM Special
1 0 0 2 0 0 30 Canny Defense, Evasion, Wuxia Sword Style
2 1 0 3 0 0 30 Improved Reaction
3 2 1 3 1 0 40 Leap of Clouds
4 3 1 4 1 0 40 Slow Fall (20ft)
5 3 1 4 1 1 40 Acrobatics I
6 4 2 5 2 1 50 Slow Fall (30ft)
7 5 2 5 2 1 50 Uncanny Dodge
8 6 2 6 2 1 50 Slow Fall (50ft)
9 6 3 6 3 1 60 Improved Evasion
10 7 3 7 3 2 60 Acrobatics II
11 8 3 7 3 2 60 Water Walk
12 9 4 8 4 2 70 Uncanny Dodge (can't be flanked)
13 9 4 8 4 2 70 Offense, Defense I
14 10 4 9 4 2 70
15 11 5 9 5 3 80 Acrobatics III
16 12 5 10 5 3 80 Offense, Defense II
17 12 5 10 5 3 80
18 13 6 11 6 3 90 Slow Fall (unlimited)
19 14 6 11 6 3 90 Offense, Defense III
20 15 6 12 6 4 90 Acrobatics IV

Game Rule Information
Alignment: Any good.
Hit Dice: D8.
Random Starting Gold: 3d4 (a wuxia recieves straightsword at initial creation).

Class Skills
The wuxia's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance(Dex), Climb(str), Concentration(Con) Craft(Int), Diplomacy(Char), Excape Artist(Dex), Hide(Dex), Iaijustu Focus(Cha), Jump(Str), Listen(Wis) Move Silently(Dex), Perform(Cha), Profession(Wis), Sense Motive(Wis), Swim(Str), and Tumble(Dex). See PH Chapter 4:
Skills for skill descriptions.
Skill Points at 1st level: (4 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at each additional level: 4 + Int modifier.

EX-Wuxia
A wuxia that becomes nongood cannot gain new levels as a wuxia but retains all wuxia abilities. Like a member of any other class, a wuxia may be a multilclass character, but wuxia face a special restriction. A wuxia who gains a new classor (if alreay multiclass) raises another class by a level may never again raise his wuxia level, though he retains all his wuxia abilities.

A wuxia may freely multiclass as a monk. Add wuxia and monk levels together to determine AC bonus and unarmored speed.

 

[erdamon]

Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Wuxia are poficient with butterfly sword, straightsword., club, dagger, handaxe, quarterstaff, and longspear. Wuxia are not proficient with armor or shields. When wearing armor or using shields, a wuxia loses their AC bonus for Lvl and heightened movement.

Canny Defense (Ex): When not wearing armor, wuxia add their intelligence bonus (if any) to their Dexterity bonus to modify AC while wielding a melee weapon. If a wuxia is caught flat footed or otherwise denied their dexterity bonus, they also loses this bonus.

Evasion (Ex): A wuxiacan avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great ability. If a wuxia makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save (such as a red dragon's fiery breath or a fireball), the wuxia instead takes no damage. Evasion can only be used if the wuxia is wearing no armor.

Wuxia Sword Style (Ex): Wuxia are highly trained with the straightsword , giving them advantages when doing so. They deal more damage when doing so, as shown on Table 2. This style requires freedom of movement, thus a wuxia loses the benefits of this ability when wearing armor or using a shield.

Improved Reaction (Ex): A wuxia gains a +2 to initiative rolls. This ability stacks with Improved Initiative.

Leap of the Clouds (Su): A wuxia's jumping distance (vertical or horizontal) is not limited according to her height. (See jump description, PH page 70.)

Slow Fall (Ex): At 4th level, a wuxia within arms's reach of a wall can use the wall to slow their decent. The wuxia takes damage as if the fall were 20 feet shorter than it actually is. Their ability to slow their fall (that is, to reduce the effective height of the fall when next to a wall) improves with their level until, at 18th level, the wuxia can use a nearby wall to slow their decent and fall any distance without harm. See the "Special" column on the above table for details.

Acrobatics (Su): At 5th level, wuxia gains a +5 competence bonus on Balance, Jump, and Tumble checks. At 10th level this bonus increases to +10, at 15th it increases to +15, and at 20 it increases to + 20. In addition, a wuxia can always choose to take 10 on a Balance, Jump, or Tumble check, even when circumstances would normally prevent him from doing so.
Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 7th level, the wuxia gains the ability to react to danger before their senses would normally allow them to do so. At 7th levl and above, they retain their Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) regardless of being caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. (They still lose their Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.) At 11th level, the wuxia can no longer be flanked; they can react to opponents on opposite sides of them as easily as they can react to a single attacker. This defense denies a rogue the ability to use a flank attack to sneak attack the wuxia. The exception to this defense is that a rogue at least four levels higher than the wuxia can flank them (and thus sneak attack them).
Improved Evasion (Ex): At 9th level, a wuxia's evasion ability improves. They still take no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks such as a dragon's breath weapon or a fireball, but henceforth they only take half damage on a failed save.

Water Walk (Su): A wuxia may cross water as though using the spell Water Walk. To use this ability they must both begin and end their turn on a solid surface.

Offense, Defense (Ex): At level, the wuxia has almost perfected their sword style. They may either focus on offense or defense. If they focus on offense they get a +1 to hit, if they focus on defense they gain damage reduction 5/+1. At 16th level this bonus increases to +2 to hit or damage reduction 10/+1 and at 19th level it increases to +2 to hit and +2 to damage or damage reduction 15/+1.

Straightsword Base Stats
Level Damage Critical Level Damage Critical
1 1d6 19-20/x2 11 2d4 19-20/x3
2 1d6 19-20/x2 12 2d4 19-20/x3
3 1d6 19-20/x2 13 2d4 19-20/x3
4 1d6 19-20/x2 14 2d4 19-20/x3
5 1d6 19-20/x2 15 2d4 19-20/x3
6 1d8 19-20/x2 16 1d10 19-20/x3
7 1d8 19-20/x2 17 1d10 18-20/x3
8 1d8 19-20/x2 18 1d10 18-20/x3
9 1d8 19-20/x3 19 1d10 18-20/x3
10 1d8 19-20/x3 20 1d10 18-20/x3

 

[Arkhandus]

Kind of interesting, but definitely more potent than the Monk while simply giving away a bit of the monk's mysticism and variety of powers. Instead it's much more focused on offense and acrobatic stuff, making it more powerful than the already-fine (albeit too unfocused) Monk.

I'm not quite sure what to take away to balance it. I suppose cut the Acrobatics bonuses to +2 each time, and remove Uncanny Dodge, and remove the Offense/Defense thing. Besides, the Defense option is worse than the Offense one, given the levels it's acquired at (almost everything they fight at those levels is going to be using magic weapons or spells or whatnot to attack, or will have inherant Damage Reduction sufficient to make their natural attacks bypass the Wuxia's weak Defense DR). So yeah, I guess I'd suggest those changes to better balance the class. I'd also suggest doing something a tad more to balance it, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps remove the expanded critical damage multiplier with the straightsword?

BTW, what stats do you use for the straightsword, is it just a shortsword (jian) or something?

 

[erdamon]

I believe the starting stats for the straight sword came out of a 3rd party weapons and armor book. Its a bit hard to remember now, but I'll take a look when I get home.

I am hesitent to lower the acrobatics bonus much more since insane jumping and such is a large part of the class (or at least why I originally started making the class). But I'll look at reducing the straightsword damage progression and rework the O/D ability a bit. I'll also switch the int based ac bonus to be wis based to it no longer stacks with the monk ability.

 

[erdamon]

I got the straight sword stats out of Bastion Press's d20 Game System Arms and Armor. It has a ton of other Chinese weapons if your interested.