How bad is the sohei base class?

[CyberThread]

Just overall, I never see it (like ever) but hear the bad comments on healer and the rest.


How "BAD" is the sohei?

[Kudaku]

Do you mean the Pathfinder archetype, or is this a 3.x base class I'm not familiar with...?

[T.G. Oskar]

It's not necessarily bad, but odd. It's hard to define what's good at.

For starters, it's chassis is similar to the Cleric, so they can fight up close and personal quite easily. It has an ability that's somewhat similar to a Rage, a few free feats (Weapon Focus, Deflect Arrows, and since Remain Conscious was folded into Diehard, they get the latter feat for free without the pre-req of Endurance). They also get some weird immunities and damage reduction.

It has some issues like a Monk, but somewhat worse, though. Ki frenzy, it's signature ability, works almost exactly as a Rage, but granting some Monk abilities (including the odd dichotomy of flurry and fast movement), but at least the Sohei has the armor and DR to actually BE a front-line combatant. With good saves, good hit die, good armor choices, and even Mettle to boot, they can stand up-front and fight decently.

However, just like Rage, Ki Frenzy doesn't let you cast spells...which wouldn't be a problem except that the Sohei ALSO casts spells. The Sohei spells are almost exactly as the Paladin's spell list, with one or two changes (no Heal Mount, no Holy Sword, Lesser Restoration is at the level a Cleric would cast it, 4th level spells are pretty cool). Most of them are buffs, so you can cast some of them before battle, but those that have to be cast in the midst of battle will waste you one turn.

The biggest problem of Sohei is that they're probably one of the only orphan classes on D&D, much like the Marshal does. No other class boosts their class features, since Ki Frenzy isn't the same as Rage, and thus you can't use that class feature to qualify for alignment-neutral PrCs that require Rage. The other class feature, the spellcasting, is also abandoned; they don't get any new spells, EVER, so they're limited to their small spell list, unless you cross hurdles to get them some more (you can't, for example, use Sand Shaper since the latter has to be neutral while Sohei must be any Lawful, and they cast Divine spells, not Arcane spells). Because of this, it's hard to let them multiclass, and thus they end up remaining full-classed for most of their life, ending up with a worse spell list than the Paladin and class features that don't get some progress.

If you're asking in terms of tiers, Sohei are easily Tier 5 (they can fight well in the frontlines with Ki Frenzy, and their spells make them even better combatants, but that's about it), but their optimization ceiling is far, far lower than that of a Paladin (because they get nothing to boost them, unlike the Paladin who gets stuff like Cursebreaker instead of Remove Disease, Charging Smite or Divine Spirit instead of the Mount, and options such as Mystic Fire Knight, Sword of the Arcane Order and Battle Blessing for spells or From Smite to Song for smites). They're moderately better than a Monk because at least they get their mojo going (they can withstand quite some punishment in the front row), but not as good as other classes. The mishmash of spells and Ki Frenzy makes them pretty odd.

If you're good at playing Paladins, the Sohei may be easier to play; otherwise, you may end up a bit unfocused.

@Kudaku: considering the OP speaks of the Healer, I think it's the Oriental Adventures class. Since it's 3.0 content, it's pretty rare to hear. It's one of the few classes that never* got ported to 3.5.

*: unlike you consider the update to Oriental Adventures from Dragon magazine, but unlike the other classes and some spells from the book, Sohei was never updated to a 3.5 sourcebook.

[CyberThread]

what was in the 318 magazine update?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by CyberDrag
what was in the 318 magazine update?

Not much, really. The sohei got a terrible bonus feat and a few tweaks to the frenzy ability.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has ever played a sohei. I almost gave an NPC a few levels in sohei once, but that was as close as I've ever been. Seems to be very rarely mentioned in these parts.

[Kennisiou]

In the dragon magazine they basically got frenzy progression similar to barb rage progression -- their extra attack gets fewer penalties (like the monk's flurry) and they get more stats.

Otherwise, Sohei received few changes. They're probably about as good as your average melee ranger, maybe better. Somewhere between melee ranger and barbarian depending on optimization.