Knight and Samuria Idea.

[Infernum]

Since both the classes are terrible, I was thinking of making them earnable titles in my game through significant roll playing and plot drama. Say for example that a fighter worked really hard for a lord and defended his lands or championed a cause or maiden. After significant strife and roll playing they could earn a title of Knight or Samurai pending on local.

I am curious how some of you would do the mechanics for said title. I know knights are generally written with a shout challenge or the like and defensive manuviers and samurai have ki shouts or the like. Just not sure how much to give. I want the title to mean something mechanics wise in addition to RP.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[j_spencer93]

I fixed samurai by combing it and oriental adventure's samurai. Players seemed to enjoy it alot more. And i do not really see anything wrong with making them titles that only give their special abilities, maybe condense them as much as possible by removing dead levels.

[ngilop]

Yeah making them titles is OK, especially for the Knight.

For me in my campaign, i wanted to keep the eastern themed classes, and wanted to keep them seperate from the western themed classes in terms of abilties

SO i went with teh whole mystical route with them. Giving the Ninja and and samurai some supernatural abilities to differentiate them from the Fighter an Rouge. I also collasped teh Cwar and Oa samurai that seems to be an easy fix.

Ninja (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=277587)

Monk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=266100)

Samurai (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=278499)

[Kelb_Panthera]

While I'm, personally, quite comfortable with both classes and both versions of samurai (lower tier does not automatically mean "bad" as far as I'm concerned), I have a suggestion.

Simply gestalt both samurais and knight together into a single class; the honor-bound warrior.

[Infernum]

Good ideas, but the whole purpose of this is to NOT have them as classes. I am just wanting to have them grant the character abilities so long as they maintain an honorable and vigilant lifestyle after achieving the title. I will fix the classes if i have to, but id really rather not as samurai would simply be left out all together as i have a severe dislike for the class as a class.

Perhaps equate this title to the equivalent of a powerful magic item.

[Kelb_Panthera]

In that case, perhaps grant the title holder the samurai's charisma based features or the knight's challenge abilities at the same levels that their respective classes would get them. Or perhaps both and make the title simply a fluff matter.

[j_spencer93]

Kelb- i like both samurai too but i have one player who whines over them so i mixed them together. On that note i have mixed knight and samurai before too, to me, i thought it made a cool defender class

[j_spencer93]

And thats why i said make them titles and give the title several tiers, as they move up in the tires (based on roleplaying at exp) they gain the corresponding class abilities but nothing else of the class the title is taken from.

[infomatic]

For Samurai title, why not give them the ancestral relic feat (the OA samurai has something like this) -- effectively award them their family sword. Toss in the Kiai Shout feat as a bonus.

So effectively two ok-to-good feats.

Plus land holdings. That's what made the titles so valuable in history.

[Slipperychicken]

You could just take the Pathfinder versions (Cavalier and Samurai) if the 3.5 versions are too bad.

PF has "order benefits" you get when issuing a challenge (which works much like if Smite Evil didn't care about alignment), but you only get the extra bonus if you followed your order's code of conduct that day.

[Prime32]

Since both the classes are terrible, I was thinking of making them earnable titles in my game through significant roll playing and plot drama. Say for example that a fighter worked really hard for a lord and defended his lands or championed a cause or maiden. After significant strife and roll playing they could earn a title of Knight or Samurai pending on local.http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html


I am curious how some of you would do the mechanics for said title. I know knights are generally written with a shout challenge or the like and defensive manuviers and samurai have ki shouts or the like. Just not sure how much to give. I want the title to mean something mechanics wise in addition to RP.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.Well, what makes knights special, since it's not just "more skilled" in this case? They swear an oath to a specific person who claims a divine right to rule (which may have mechanical effects), and possibly to follow a code of chivalry. I'd say let them use shield other on their liege as a Su ability, and make them immune to effects which would compel them towards betrayal.

For the samurai: if they commit suicide then they can't be affected by speak with dead or turned into an undead creature, and they don't lose a level when returned to life. Also they can perform a coup de grace as a standard action rather than a full-round action (on anyone that is, not just themselves).