[3.PF] Need advice for a Seven Samurai campaign.

[mistformsquirrl]

So, I've only tried to DM on the site here once previously - it didn't work out then, but I'm starting to think I should give it another shot.

This time I want to try a campaign based on the movie "The Seven Samurai" which is a pretty awesome film imo.* Obviously to make such a game something other than, as a friend put it "Six wizards and a samurai", there's going to have to be some house rules about allowed classes.

So I'm figuring no spellcasters of any sort (classes that have very limited casting (paladin, ranger etc...) must use an archetype or ACF from 3.5e to trade it away for something else.)

So far so good - the enemies will after all be humanoid bandits, so I'm not terribly afraid of the players being vastly outgunned by their opposition. The chief problem they'll face is one of numbers, supplies, as well as dealing with the villagers.

Here are the issues I'm running into -

1) Tome of Battle - Part of me says "no", because while I love it, some disciplines are substantially over the top compared to what I'm trying to do here. On the other hand, other disciplines fit quite well.

Diamond Mind and Iron Heart for instance I feel are probably alright, but Desert Wind and Shadow Hand are probably excessive to the point of being magic.

There's also the concern that even if I dummy out the disciplines that don't fit, the TOB classes might - in fact probably would - overshadow the more standard classes pretty badly.

To that end I'm almost considering ONLY allowing Tome of Battle stuff - but I'm hesitant to do that since it would involve limiting player choice rather extensively and with seven possible PCs might cause a lot of sameness. So that's... hrm.

2) While I plan for armor to be available, in the film the samurai were largely unarmored as I recall, with only one (Kikuchiyo I think) wearing any. To preserve that as an option for PCs I'm considering letting them choose to lose armor proficiencies from their base class and replace it with a monk-like dodge bonus for going unarmored; possibly allowing them to choose the mental attribute it keys off of.

That said... I don't know how balanced that would be. I don't *think* it'd be horribly imbalanced, especially given the rarity of magical items in this setting, but I'm not the world's greatest optimizer by any stretch either and I've been known to underestimate/overestimate things in the past.

So yeah, that's basically where I'm at. I kinda want to see what other people think.

*I also played in a campaign based on it briefly some time back and loved it - so I figure DMing it may be a good way to bring that kind of thing back.

[avr]

If you want unarmored to be an option, the Defence bonus rules from Unearthed Arcana might help: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm

There's any number of homebrewed ToB disciplines, choose some you like & let players swap their disciplines out for the new ones and you should get a good variety of characters.

[Rhynn]

Trying to imitate a film like this is always a bad idea, basically.

However, the basic plot of Seven Samurai is really simple and easy to convert into a RPG campaign:

The PCs are hard up for employment, and they are hired, one by one, or in pairs or small groups, to go protect a village from bandits.

The village has its personalities, secrets, and internal conflicts.

Maybe there's a reason (like rumors of a gold mine, wink wink) the bandits are bothering the village. In D&D, it could be something more fantastical, like a magic item supposedly hidden in the village.

The challenges are twofold:
1. Tactical: training the villagers to defend themselves, fortifying the village, figuring out the best tactics, scouting out and outmaneuvering the opposition, etc.
2. Interpersonal: managing, uncovering, dealing with, and defusing the problems and secrets inside the village, which, unsolved, could lead to betrayals, strife, failures, etc.

Don't try to copy the story. You can't, because you've got players in charge of characters. You can, however, copy the setup or the scenario.

[mistformsquirrl]

Don't try to copy the story. You can't, because you've got players in charge of characters. You can, however, copy the setup or the scenario.

Right, I guess I wasn't clear enough hehe, that's precisely what I'm trying to do actually. I'm using the same scenario and setting, but I'm not specifically copying the movie down to the letter or anything.

There will be differences - many being very substantial - from the film.*
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I guess another way to put it would be - I'm trying to create a gritty, relatively down to earth drama-filled campaign set in feudal Japan, with some significant inspiration from the movie.

@AVR - I'd forgotten about those rules, I'll have to take a look at them again.

*Earlier as I was thinking about it, this campaign may *start* based on the Seven Samurai - but nothing says it has to end once they've finished what they've initially set out to do; there's a lot of storytelling possibilities that branch off of that kind of start.

[Neknoh]

If you want more inspiration, watch The Magnificent Seven as well as A Bugs Life.

They are both remakes of Seven Samurai, Magnificent Seven moreso than ABL, however, ABL still has a lot of the story from 7S.

Try to have the campaign focused a lot around unarmoured investigation, to get the "Nitty gritty feel" you often have to incorporate a lot of roleplay, you need to let the characters discover what makes it nitty gritty and fending off a town against bandits in one big combat spanning five sessions isn't going to help with that.

Remember to look at how the fighting is done, short bursts, bandits running around, not really wanting to get close to the samurai but trying to attack when the samurai have their backs to them. That way, you won't get the "Wading onto the battlefield" vibe but rather the tense duel feeling. Everything could have low AC/low saves until the Samurai finally don armour in the end (much like the movie) for the final showdown. You want to keep players on their toes and you want to keep magical healing to a minimum.

Are you using Pathfinder or 3.5?

[mistformsquirrl]

Pathfinder primarily, but I'll probably allow some 3.5 material if requested.