3.5/PF Updated Oriental Adventures Classes?

[Dusk Raven]

So, Oriental Adventures is one of the few things that can actually bring me back to 3.5... which is a problem since Oriental Adventures is actually 3.0. I don't entirely know how well the Oriental Adventures classes have aged - or even if they were good to begin with. Admittedly, a good part of the draw for me is the setting, but since I like what they were trying to do with the classes, I'd like to see if those have been updated for 3.5 or Pathfinder - and I'm not talking about Complete Warrior's take on the Samurai!

Anyway, I'm looking for any attempts people have made to re-balance the OA classes - or even to convert them to Pathfinder. I did a quick search on here, but couldn't really find anything, so I wanted to ask if anyone had done this sort of thing, or knew of any successful attempts.

[Ashtagon]

Oriental Adventures got an update to 3.5 through an article in Dragon magazine (issue 315 and 318). Some classes also received updates in the various Complete books (ninja, wu jen, samurai, shugenja, and imho spirit shaman is an update on the shaman class). That's about it for official stuff.

However...

Iaijutsu Focus is badly worded, and never got patched properly. It remains the focus of major league shenanigans for munchkins as a result of this.

Class balance is way out of whack and remains so, even worse than core D&D. In particular, the samurai is generally considered a worse choice than the fighter, and full caster classes remain quadratic.

If something has been homebrewed, I haven't seen it, although equally, I haven't looked.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Anyway, I'm looking for any attempts people have made to re-balance the OA classes - or even to convert them to Pathfinder. I did a quick search on here, but couldn't really find anything, so I wanted to ask if anyone had done this sort of thing, or knew of any successful attempts.
I mean, most of them convert pretty easily to existing classes...

Samurai is just a lawful-aligned Fighter, really, though a named class does exist in Pathfinder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/samurai/).
Shamans exist in Pathfinder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/shaman/), and are pretty solid. Complete Divine also has a 3.5 version, the Spirit Shaman.
Shugenja were updated to 3.5 in Complete Divine, where they're decent enough casters; in Pathfinder, you could probably use an Oracle or Sorcerer with a focus on elemental spells. Or maybe a Druid with an archetype like Elemental Ally (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/Druid/archetypes/paizo-druid-archetypes/elemental-ally-druid-archetype) to ditch Wild Shape.
Sohei are... mildly unique, I guess, but Bloodragers (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/bloodrager/) get 4th level spells+rage, or Warpriests (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/warpriest/) with the Sacred Fist archetype (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/warpriest/archetypes/paizo-warpriest-archetypes/sacred-fist/) make pretty good kung-fu priests.
Wu Jen are just Wizards. Complete Arcane has a 3.5 version of the class, as well as a bunch of the spells.



Iaijutsu Focus is badly worded, and never got patched properly. It remains the focus of major league shenanigans for munchkins as a result of this.
Ehh... you have put a lot of work into getting it to trigger reliably, and it doesn't do that much damage once it does. If you invest the same amount of effort into... just about anything else, really, you'll get larger returns.

[Dusk Raven]

Yeah, I knew that Shugenja, Spirit Shaman, Wu Jen, and Samurai had been updated to 3.5, with questionable quality (and unquestionably negative quality in the Samurai), but for some reason I kinda blanked on that - and I'm not sure how to compare the two in terms of effectiveness (except for, again, the Samurai). I hadn't thought of the various classes in Pathfinder, though I was hoping for more direct ports, things designed with an Eastern aesthetic in mind and not just trying to make do with what exists. Not to mention that as it stands, the Sohei is probably my favorite (in turns of what it was trying to accomplish) in terms of the OA classes. Perhaps I should homebrew that to Pathfinder myself...

The Dragon Magazine entries (Well, 218, I dunno what in 215 connects to OA, exactly) look quite interesting, however. Seeing the Ancestor feats updated was a nice plus, I always like those kinds of "character-building" feats that suggest things about what a character is like or how they're connected to the world...

[ngilop]

I did a
Ninja (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?277587-Ninja-Re-tool-Please-Critque)
and a
samurai (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?278499-Samurai-Re-tool-please-critique)

got some hate about it being a 'social caste' and some other nonsense about, so it you want to be 100% historically accurate look somewhere else this is a fantasy game and magic happens and real world japan does not matter.


I needed an in-game reason for their to be a reason for the Fighter and the Samurai as well as the Rogue and Ninja to be different, and I have always seen eastern stuff to be randomly mystical and oOo-OooO-oOo spooky.

so the end process of that is they got magical powers