PDA

View Full Version : Samurai the way I see it[Base class]



Talus_of_Flambeu
2007-11-26, 07:40 AM
Samurai
"Honor is just as necessary as life or death. And far more deadly than the latter."
- Armand Doshi, a Samurai of the Royal Guard.

A great warrior, a near-divine avatar of Honor and combat.
The Samurai is a figure that strikes fear into mortal hearts (though no longer is this fear mentioned as a class feature) through sheer mastery of the martial arts and and melee weapons.
Although Samurai is often used as a title, not just a class, this is the true Samurai in his full and terrifying glory.

Making a Samurai
Abilities: Since the Samurai IS a front-liner, strength and constitution are the two abilities that will help him the most.
Charisma can also help the Samurai advance as a noble, and his special powers.
Races: The majority of Samurai are humans and dwarves.
Humans because of their natural skill, and dwarves for their innate link to order and combat.
Elves rarely become Samurai because their lack of Samurai-like honor, and so are halflings. The very rare half-orcs that become Samurai usally become many of the greatest in their time.
Alignment: All Samurai are lawful, and mostly neutral.
They revere law, honor and justice, and don't really care much for moral attitude.
Good Samurai will be the only true competition for the paladins' zeal, and some of them are seen as the "non-divne" champions of good and justice.
Evil Samurai are cruel and would have been an awful force of destruction if it weren't for their restraint. Their sense of justice and law is usally twisted, and can lead to a "legit murder" more than every so often.
Neutral Samurai hate chaos, and deem it an act of dishonor to band with chaotic individuals (though it won't strip them off their abilities).
Starting Gold: As cleric.
Starting Age: As paladin.

The Samurai- HD: D10
{table] Lvl|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|special|
1|1|2|0|2|Honor-bound, Ancestral Legacy (Dragon's Shock)|
2|2|3|0|3|Quick Draw|
3|3|3|1| 3|-|
4|4|4|1| 4|Heavy Armor Proficiency|
5|5|4|1| 4|Ancestral Legacy (Raven's Wings)|
6|6/1|5| 2|5|-|
7|7/2|5| 2|5|Bonus feat|
8|8/3|6| 2|6|Punishing Strike|
9|9/4|6| 3|6|-|
10|10/5| 7|3|7|Ancestral Legacy (Mind's Vigilance)|
11|11/6/1|7|3|7|-|
12|12/7/2|8|4|8|Bonus feat|
13|13/8/3|8|4|8|Severe Commitment|
14|14/9/4|9|4|9|-|
15|15/10/5|9|5|9| Ancestral Legacy (Spirit's Perfection)|
16|16/11/6/1|10|5|10|-|
17|17/12/7/2|10|5|10|Bonus feat|
18|18/13/8/3|11|6|11|Ancestral Lore|
19|19/14/9/4|11|6|11|-|
20|20/15/10/5|12| 6|12|Ancestral Legacy (Heart's Truth)|[/table]

{table]Lvl|Man. known|Man. Readied|Sta. Known
1|3|3|1
2|4|3|1
3|5|3|1
4|5|4|2
5|6|4|2
6|6|4|2
7|7|4|2
8|7|4|2
9|8|4|2
10|8|5|3
11|9|5|3
12|9|5|3
13|10|5|3
14|10|5|3
15|11|5|3
16|11|6|4
17|12|6|4
18|12|6|4
19|13|6|4
20|13|7|4 [/table]
Class Skill (4+ Int modifier per level, x4 at 1st level): As Warblade but also Ride.


Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Samurai are proficient with simple and martial melee weapins, short and long bows, and with light and medium armor, but not with shields. At 4th level you gain proficiency with heavy armor as well.
Maneuvers: The disciplines a Samurai can study maneuvers and stances from are: Devoted Spirit, Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Stone Dragon and White Raven.
Otherwise- as Warblade.
Maneuvers Readied: As Warblade, except Samurai recover only the maneuvers readied from a single discipline at a time for every swift action and melee attack (for example, a 14th level Samurai readied 3 maneuvers from Iron Heart and 2 from Stone Dragon. If he remained with 1 of each discipline, and then uses a swift action and a melee attack to recover them, he must choose between 2 maneuvers from IH, or one from SD).
Stances Known: As Warblade.
Honor Bound: A Samurai gains a +2 bonus to all will saves against fear or enchantment spells cast to make him do a dishonorable act.
Ancestral Legacy:
Dragon's Shock: Every time the Samurai inflicts damage to a creature using a Stone Dragon maneuver, the creature takes a cumulative -1 penalty to damage rolls, until the creature takes a full round action to re-orient itself (which provokes attacks of opportunity, but makes the penalty from this ability to be zeroed.
Raven's Wings: A Samurai may forgo one White Raven stance for the rest of the encounter to use this special stance.
While you are in this stance, you can choose between:
White Raven's Wings- All allies within 30 ft. of you recieve all of the morale bonuses that affect you at the moment, as if they were affected by them too (no creature can enjoy a morale bonus from the same source twice).
Black Raven's Wings- All foes within 30 ft. of you must succeed on a will save (DC 10+number of White Raven maneuvers you know+your charisma bonus), or suffer from all morale penalties you suffer from.
You can switch beween the 2 options as a standard action.
Mind's Vigilance: A Samurai may choose to expend a Diamond Mind counter with it having no effect, as an immediate action to counter a spell that will affect your mind (such as Charm Person or Read Thoghts). In effect, you gain SR equal to your Initiator Level+level of expended counter+your charisme bonus.
Spirit's Perfection: A Samurai may forgo one Devoted Spirit stance for the rest of the encounter, to use this special stance.
While you are in this stance, you gain an X/+X DR against one opponent, where X is the number of successful attacks against said opponent, minus number of successful attacks of your opponent against oyu, since adopting this stance.
Using a maneuver to augment an attack, makes the attack to be count as 2, while using a Devoted Spirit maneuver to do so, makes the attack to be count as three successful attacks.
Heart's Truth: The climax of the Samurai's abilities, Heart's Truth makes your attack a moving death.
Once per day, you may expend one Iron Heart maneuver, and two other maneuvers, to initiate this strike/boost.
As part of this strike, make a melee attack. This roll affects all creatures in a [(Charisma bonus+level of expended Iron Heart maneuver)x10] ft. cone, and so are any special bonuses to damage (such as a strike's bonus damage) and a +(levels of all expended maneuvers) bonus to all damage rolls that are made as part of this strike (although you make only one attack roll, you make separate damage rolls for every creature hit).
If you are using an Iron Heart boost/strike with this strike/boost, the range is a radius instead of a cone.
Quick Draw: At 2nd level, a Samurai recieves this feat for free.
Bonus feat: At levels 7, 12, and 17, a Samurai recieves a bonus feat from the fighter's list of bonus feats. The Samurai must still meet the feat's prerequisite.
Punishing Strike: At 8th level, the Samurai learns a new way to recover his maneuvers. From the 8th level, you may recover one maneuver every time you deal damage to a creature with at least one alignment component diffrent than yours. You may recover maneuvers this way only if their level is your Samurai level/2-1.The creature's CR must be at least equal to your Samurai level-1.
Severe Commitment: At 13th level, a Samurai learns another new way to recover his maneuvers.
He now can recover all of his expended maneuvers as a swift action, while inflicting (levels of all expended maneuvers x2) non-lethal damage upon himself.
The damage is inflicted at the end of the Samurai's turn, but he must make a will save (DC 15) to use this recovery method while he has less than half his hit points.
Ancestral Lore: Twice per day, a Samurai may expend a maneuver from any descipline, and gain a use of any maneuver from any descipline (he is not limited to his class disciplines) as long as it's the same level of the expended maneuver or lower.




Opinions appreciated :smallbiggrin:

shot-bya-monk
2007-11-26, 07:44 AM
they make really good dps and heros...the good guy none the less

Matthew
2007-11-26, 08:12 AM
A Samurai who is none proficient with a Bow? That strikes me as something of an oversight. You might want to reconsider such a general appellation

As far as it goes, it seems like a reasonable Tome of Battle Class.

Talus_of_Flambeu
2007-11-26, 08:17 AM
A Samurai who is none proficient with a Bow? That strikes me as something of an oversight. You might want to reconsider such a general appellation

As far as it goes, it seems like a reasonable Tome of Battle Class.

Well, I don't thik he'll use it anyway, but sure, I'm adding the bows.
And thanks :smallsmile:

StickMan
2007-11-26, 08:58 AM
Well, I don't thik he'll use it anyway, but sure, I'm adding the bows.
And thanks :smallsmile:

Yea the no bow this is a bit odd with Budishu (Sorry for spelling) being the way of the Bow and horse.

I don't like that the features of the class rely on you having maneuvers from specific styles but other than that the class looks good.

Talus_of_Flambeu
2007-11-26, 09:23 AM
I don't like that the features of the class rely on you having maneuvers from specific styles

The idea of it is that every discipline a Samurai know is part of his spiritual might- SD being brutal force, WR leadership ad personality, DM the mental prowess, DS the power of his soul to ignore what other cannot, and IH- the heart of a completely dedicated champion.
Therefor, every Ancestral Legacy ability is based on one of these aspects...
And thanks anyway
:smallbiggrin:

Matthew
2007-11-26, 09:27 AM
Well, I don't thik he'll use it anyway, but sure, I'm adding the bows.

Are you referring to a particular character or the the Class in general? You might want to reconsider calling this the Samurai Class if you don't envision the Class actually being like Samurai, if you see what I mean. Potential alternatives include Samurai Sword Master, Samurai Blade Master, Bushi Blade, Kensei, etc...


And thanks :smallsmile:

No problem.