Classes for an Eastern Set Campaign

[Major-Problem]

My general rule for the world I've built (medieval/renaissance Earth with dnd races/monsters) is that different classes would show up in different places, with core being the base template for your average European setting. In my current campaign that is set in England I restricted the players to core races and classes, partially because I think it makes sense from a world building perspective and partially to make it easy on me and my players, this being my first time DMing and most of them being somewhat casual. I've gotten some experience under my belt now and I'd like to branch out a little for my next campaign. The idea is to set it in Feudal Japan, and my question is what classes should I open up? I'm looking to be consistent from a world building perspective, so the obvious ones are Ninja, Wu Jen, and some version of the Samurai. Are there any that I'm missing? I've looked at Oriental Adventure but I wasn't that impressed with anything in there, and I like to keep to things that are in books, so no magazine or homebrew classes.

Edit for clarity: I'm still going to use core classes and flavor them eastern. I'm asking what additional classes have existing flavor that works in an eastern setting.

[Red Fel]

The idea is to set it in Feudal Japan, and my question is what classes should I open up? I'm looking to be consistent from a world building perspective, so the obvious ones are Ninja, Wu Jen, and some version of the Samurai. Are there any that I'm missing? I've looked at Oriental Adventure but I wasn't that impressed with anything in there, and I like to keep to things that are in books, so no magazine or homebrew classes.

Um...

Not to be a Debbie Downer or anything (for one thing, name's not Debbie, it's Fel, how'reyadoin'?) but you do realize that "class" is just a name for a package of abilities and features, right? You can hand a Fighter a jian and call him an Imperial Guardsman, you can give a Paladin a banner with three rhombi on it and call him a Samurai, you can put a Cleric in hermitage on a mountainside and call him a Yamabushi, you can give a Wizard a clipboard and quill pen and call him one of the August Emperor's Loyal Bureaucrats and Administrators of the Imperial Examinations. (Who also makes fireballs.)

Classes are made of tofu; their flavor comes not from the classes themselves, but from that with which you cook and season them.

Now, that said, if you want more of a wuxia flavor, the classes from Tome of Battle are terrific fun, and highly effective. A refluffed Warlock can become an emissary of the spirit world, a Dragonfire Adept can be a student of the Exalted Heavenly Lung Who Dwells Atop Mount Shoyu, and Tashalatora PsyWars can basically replace Monks altogether. As can Swordsages. And Battledancers. And Fighters with IUS and SUS.

[Major-Problem]

Um...

You can hand a Fighter a jian and call him an Imperial Guardsman, you can give a Paladin a banner with three rhombi on it and call him a Samurai, you can put a Cleric in hermitage on a mountainside and call him a Yamabushi, you can give a Wizard a clipboard and quill pen and call him one of the August Emperor's Loyal Bureaucrats and Administrators of the Imperial Examinations. (Who also makes fireballs.)

Classes are made of tofu; their flavor comes not from the classes themselves, but from that with which you cook and season them.

No, I get that, and of course the campaign would take the core classes and redress them a little for the setting. I just like the idea of a different cultural background forming classes that are wildly or even mildly different then their counterparts on the far side of the world.

And I'm unfamiliar with the Tome of Battle, I'll definitely check that out.

[Red Fel]

And I'm unfamiliar with the Tome of Battle, I'll definitely check that out.

You absolutely, 100% should. It's MELEE DONE RIGHTTM. It's very wuxia in flavor, with clashing swords and leaping through the air and warriors who cut through mountains and fade into the shadows and such. It doesn't bridge the gap between caster and non-caster, but it helps, and it's awesome, and it really fits the flavor for which you're looking.

That said, you might consider more specifically what you want. For example, if you told me, "I want a character who is studying the ancient and mystical Lungs, meditating on them and acquiring their power," I'd point you to the Dragonfire Adept (or Dragon Shaman). If you said, "I want someone making a pact with the forces of yomi or the Ten Thousand Hells for more power," I might point you to a reflavored Warlock or Binder.

And definitely bring in Psionics. I mean, the whole concept - meditating on your inner power and channeling it outwards - screams monastic mystic combatant.

Now, if you had something more specific in mind, we can work with that too. Concept first; class to fit.

[Major-Problem]

So far I've kept my campaign fairly grounded (as much as it can be in DnD) and I'd certainly like to continue on in that vein.

As for the setting specifically, I had originally just kind of thought what I was doing before with core with a couple of extra classes thrown in to give it flavor, but I hadn't thought about wuxia at all and that is actually a really interesting notion.

The historical setting I'm basically ripping off is the warring states period of Japan, so there would be a lot of martial strife, samurais betraying each other, ninja conflict, warrior monks banding together, ect.

I'm a little opposed to using Psionics for this setting, not because I dislike them but because I have them in largely centered on the Australian continent, but I can see the argument and would definitely think about changing it.

[Xerlith]

All of them. Just have a player provide a flavor to his build that fits the setting.

Wu Jen or Shugenja could be just as well played by a Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer or, well, anything.

[dascarletm]

I'll advocate for the devil and say that some classes don't mechanically deliver on what you want for such a campaign. A heavily armored divine conduit such as a cleric, wouldn't fit as well as say another class to represent a Shinto mystic/monk. In fact a lack of traditional deities may weaken the usefulness of that class for representing what you want.

I personally am a fan of limiting class choices to fit the themes of your campaign.

[DrMotives]

If you want to use Eastern classes, Wu Jen is very much Chinese, not Japanese. That's why even in OA, the 3.0 book where Wu Jen first appeared, it wasn't an allowed class in the Rokugan campaign as that setting is fantasy feudal Japan. But otherwise, listening to Red Fel's advice here is never a bad idea. He knows what he's talking about more than most people here.

[Major-Problem]

All of them. Just have a player provide a flavor to his build that fits the setting.

Wu Jen or Shugenja could be just as well played by a Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer or, well, anything.

I'm not crazy about this. The classes in DnD are clearly inspired by a wide variety of different cultures and the breadth of options for 3.5 mean that if you allow all options then you get, to quote Afgncaap5, "this weird kitchen sink of fantasy premises tossed into a blender." That's not what I personally like to run.

Still, the point is taken. What classes I do allow and don't allow are likely going to be dependent on what my players are interested in taking, and whether or not they can convince me that it fits into the setting.

[Xerlith]

I'll just leave this here:



The most extreme reflavoring I've ever seen described an "elemental changeling", an arcane bio-engineering experiment where the humanoid could shift its body partially into water (causing swords to pass through him if he could see them first, missing when they should have hit), air (to glide along walls and at high speeds), and even stone (to solidify his limbs right before striking). He had other abilities as well, mostly based around enhanced senses and other transmutations, such as liquifying his arms to wrap around things before solidifying them into stone to hold them, shifting his body to gas to let magic effects pass through him, and shifting to water, absorbing extra moisture from the air to reconstitute his wounds. Several of these were changes that had been so complete that they had been internalized, so they didn't even rely on magic to perform (in much the same way a fire elemental doesn't need magic to keep burning, even though basic physics would suggest he'd run out of fuel eventually), but a few of the more exotic abilities still relied upon it.

What was he, in the rules?

The 'elemental changeling' was a single-class Monk. These abilities were, respectively, his AC bonus, speed bonus / slow fall, improved unarmed damage, high Wisdom / Still Mind, Improved Grapple, Evasion, and Wholeness of Body. (He had planned to pick up some psionic feats that would work in the same way. Up the Walls would have the same flavor as Slow Fall, just being slightly more magic dependent.) He even described the Lawful alignment requirement by suggesting that he'd been conditioned since birth by his arcane creators to obey authority, and these same wizards were the ones "renewing his magic" or "upgrading the enhancements" when he gained a level. The multiclass restriction was the penalty for disobeying these wizards' orders, essentially contaminating the experiment.

Quite a long way from the kung fu master thematically, but mechanically identical to the stock monk.

[Prime32]

I'll advocate for the devil and say that some classes don't mechanically deliver on what you want for such a campaign. A heavily armored divine conduit such as a cleric, wouldn't fit as well as say another class to represent a Shinto mystic/monk. In fact a lack of traditional deities may weaken the usefulness of that class for representing what you want.Shinto, no, but clerics and paladins do fit for Buddhist-themed characters like sohei (with the most common form of divine focus being a quarterstaff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khakkhara)).

For a Shinto priest, you could potentially go druid, spirit shaman or binder. Though in the former case, either use the Urban Companion ACF (replaces your animal companion with a sturdier version of a familiar) or figure out a way to give your animal companion the celestial template, so you can say it's a servant of your god sent to assist you. Binders would be rare but extremely valued - an ACF which replaces some of their secondary class features with minor druid-type spellcasting might be appropriate.

The closest thing to a yamabushi/shugenja is probably the Haztaratain PrC from Secrets of Sarlona.

Wizards and sorcerers still make just as much sense, though a wizard is likely to be a civil servant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onmy%C5%8Dd%C5%8D) and a sorcerer is usually less "distantly descended from a dragon" and more "had a mystical creature as a parent" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_no_Seimei). Bards are also likely to have a mystical creature as a parent (or be one), particularly one of the kinds that specialise in trickery and illusion.

[Major-Problem]

I actually already have Paladins down as being Sohei! I think that's really in fitting with the period I'm looking at. I was thinking that clerics would actually fit better in the polytheistic shinto priesthood, since clerics are already written for a polytheistic society. I haven't gotten a huge chance to read up on shinto religion yet, though, so I could possibly change that.

Spirit Shaman is a good idea, though I'm unfamiliar with binder, I'll look into that, it sounds intriguing.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Albions_Angel]

How eastern do you want?

Spirit shamans are very Mongolian of course.

Wu Jen, Samurii (even though they dont perform all that well), monks of course, ninjas (surprisingly effecting in non-optimized games). ToB has been mentioned though if you play that in a non-optimized game then I suggest saying "for dips only" as they can rapidly break the game IF your spell casters arnt OP. Rogues can be fluffed in as a different sort of ninja. Bunch of PrCs.

Reason I say how far east is because of one book...

Sandstorm...

Its very middle eastern. But it can also fit India quit well. Worth a look.

[Aleolus]

OA has a listing of what core classes would and would not be appropriate in an oriental themed game, you could start there. I know Fighters were ok, but Clerics and Bards weren't (most musicians, it claims, would be either Rogues or Experts with ranks in Perform)

[Telonius]

One piece of advice, if you're looking beyond the PHB for classes:

There is a class in Complete Warrior called "Samurai." It is mechanically terrible. (It is usually mentioned in the same breath as several NPC classes, and I can count on one finger the number of decent builds I've seen using it). Please ignore its existence and use the Oriental Adventures version.

Incarnum could definitely fit into this sort of a setting. (In a real-world cognate, it would probably be more at home in India or China, but it's at least in the same neighborhood). Short version, Incarnum classes are all about chakras, and Constitution-based. They work by using Soulmelds (basically, magical bonuses that you choose from a menu once a day and can augment using soul-stuff called Essentia). If you "bind" a soulmeld to a chakra, it gains more power and is treated like a magic item occupying that slot. Totemist especially could give an interesting ancient-power feel. Ignore the glowing blue fluff, and it's a really nice little subsystem.

[Aleolus]

Very good point, it would not be hard to refluff incarnum classes to have a very Eastern feel to them, like some kind of shaman or priest

[Tiri]

Sandstorm...

Its very middle eastern. But it can also fit India quit well. Worth a look.

None of it seems particularly Indian-like.

[Prime32]

I actually already have Paladins down as being Sohei! I think that's really in fitting with the period I'm looking at. I was thinking that clerics would actually fit better in the polytheistic shinto priesthood, since clerics are already written for a polytheistic society. I haven't gotten a huge chance to read up on shinto religion yet, though, so I could possibly change that.For clarity: when I say "priest" I mean Shinto, and "monk" I mean Buddhism.

Basically... Shinto deals primarily with the physical world, and Buddhism with things outside it. In fictional depictions, the town priest and their family spend most of their time negotiating with whatever supernatural beings live in the area (sentient trees or mountains, spirits of the dead, animals that have lived for hundreds of years, etc.) and convincing them to form mutually beneficial relationships with the townsfolk, while driving off or imprisoning those entities that can't be convinced. Important priests (or those with the right connections) might even get to be courtiers in the Shinto equivalent of Mt. Olympus. Buddhas, on the other hand, are left enigmatic and almost never interact with other characters directly - at most you get images of them showing up when people invoke their power. Monks are also depicted as less likely to negotiate with supernatural beings, and more likely to just radiate "peaceful energy" against them (causing them to either turn good, or pass on to the next life).