Translations and builds for an oriental gnome build.

[Hazzardevil]

For a game I am going to play in soon I'm playing a gnome Wu Jen and it's got me thinking, what does Wu Jen and Shugenja mean in whatever Asain languages they translate from?

Also I'm making a Wu Jen fire build.

It uses the following:
Wu Jen, Silver Pyromancer, RuneSmith and one or two other prestige classes for using fire, war mage seems like a good idea though.
I need advice.

Note: The DM says that we can avoid race requirements as long as the race still fits.
Also we are doing this in the New world Rich made so Gnomes are the master wizard, my guy however went off deeper underground and learnt to channel heat and the moon, he then came back and learnt to use runes for armour and became the armored badass.
I don't think the DM has a problem with me changing allignment requirements and dropping turn undead.

heres a rough idea:
Wu Jen
Wu Jen
Wu Jen
Wu Jen
Wu Jen
Wu Jen
Silver Pyromancer
Silver Pyromancer
Silver Pyromancer
Silver Pyromancer
Silver Pyromancer
RuneSmith
RuneSmith

I have these rolls to work with:
16,14,14,12,11,8
oh, and I also need a way of getting heavy armor profiency without losing a CL or burning through too many feats, 3 feats right now does not seem sttractive.

Wu Jen 5/Silver Pyromancer 5/RuneSmith 5, Level 13, Init +0, HP / , Speed 10 ft
AC 10, Touch 10, Flat-footed 10, Fort -1, Ref +0, Will -1, Base Attack Bonus 0

Abilities Str 6, Dex 10, Con 8, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 8
Condition None

I imagine him to be quite cynical a bit like Raistlin really and be the sort that a paladin wouldn't like but couldn't manage without him with spells and armour.

[danzibr]

Shugenja is Japanese. If you slap the kanji together you just get something like "discipline test person" which makes no sense, but check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shugenja

Wu Jen... is not Japanese. I don't know.

[Hazzardevil]

I though it was asain and after testing about 7 different asian languages I gave up.

[Daftendirekt]

It's probably just words made up by Wizards because they sound "Asian". Which of course means nothing, as there are many different Asian languages. Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese, etc.

[Hazzardevil]

Japanese is Asia? I knew that the Japenese monks, (which teh in-game monk sare based on,) got karate from hina which got it form India/Asia but that's about it.
Anyway, any ideas on how to get heavy armor profiency?

[Daftendirekt]

Why on earth do you want heavy armor on an arcane caster? Arcane spell failure penalties through the roof. Wu Jen is really just a different flavor of wizard. Different spell list and fluff, but they're both arcane, both Int-based, and have the same spell level progression.

Don't wear heavy armor.

[Urpriest]

Shugenja is Japanese. If you slap the kanji together you just get something like "discipline test person" which makes no sense, but check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shugenja

Wu Jen... is not Japanese. I don't know.

Wu Jens themselves are a Chinese concept, which is why they don't exist in Rokugan (since Vanaras don't either, this just shows you how boring Rokugan is). I don't know if the word has an independent meaning.


Why on earth do you want heavy armor on an arcane caster? Arcane spell failure penalties through the roof. Wu Jen is really just a different flavor of wizard. Different spell list and fluff, but they're both arcane, both Int-based, and have the same spell level progression.

Don't wear heavy armor.

Runesmith negates spell failure IIRC. Granted it's not that useful, but he's probably going for the cool factor.

[Daftendirekt]

Ah, well , in that case, a dip in ANY class that has heavy proficiency is a better idea than actually spending feats. Just be fighter 1 before your intended build if you really want to get heavy proficiency that badly.

[Urpriest]

Ah, well , in that case, a dip in ANY class that has heavy proficiency is a better idea than actually spending feats. Just be fighter 1 before your intended build if you really want to get heavy proficiency that badly.

Cleric 1 is probably a better choice for a blaster. Access to cleric wands, domains/devotions, and access to Dweomerkeeper later.

In terms of getting proficiencies, Dragonslayer would take fewer feats than just straight up buying your way there, if still enough to make it a dubious choice. How doable would it be to just soak up the nonproficiency penalty, especially since it doesn't sound like you're actually gishing?

[Xuc Xac]

Shugenja is a Japanese word for a person who follows the Shugendo religion. Shugendo is a sort of nature worship that involves living on mountains and putting oneself through tests of bravery. It's rather secretive so people that aren't in the sect don't really know much about it, but there's a lot of hiking and praying on mountains. Shugenja is the name for anyone who is a member of that religion, not just the priests. The priests would be yamabushi.

Wu-jen is the Wade-Giles romanization of the Chinese 巫人, which is wú rén in pinyin. Back when Oriental Adventures was first written back in 1stEd days, Wade-Giles was still a popular romanization method, but pinyin is preferred now. 巫人 means "witchcraft person" or "pray/worship person" (before D&D, there wasn't much of a line between arcane and divine magic).

[Hazzardevil]

It isn't really, runesmith require heavy armour. I'm conisdering Gishing but I'm worrying about overshadowing party members and being too squishy with the sheer numbers of d4 HD. I'll look into dragonslayer but it might not fit my concept.

Edit: Dragonslayer seems a good actually.