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Dec 27, 2011 -- 11:52PM, SkyNet2.0 wrote:

Dec 6, 2011 -- 9:12PM, El_Karlos wrote:

The group I DM for is heading into an Asian themed area pretty soon, so I took the liberty of drawing up a homebrew Samurai class for them to play around with.

Fighter (Samurai)

Honorbound Strike is a melee 1 opportunity action.  Opportunity actions intterupt the triggering action.  So if your marked enemy shifts, you shift/teleport before their shift and make your opportunity attack.  

Did you intent for the power to work in this way?  
 

I see your point, using Honorbound Strike as an OA on a shift means they can charge right past you after you make the attack, and you wouldn't be able to do anything having already spent your OA.

The reason I didn't make it an Immediate Reaction, is that in Multi-marking situations, you would only be able to punish one mark per round, whereas an OA could punish different creatures in the same round. But since my Samurai is a one-on-one themed class, I'll probably switch it to Immediate Reaction.

As for the stickiness problem, what if Ki-strike slowed or proned on augment 1, and added extra damage on augment 2? That way you could use a PP to add some stickiness to the target of Honorbound Strike. Would that be OP?

Dec 28, 2011 -- 12:19AM, SkyNet2.0 wrote:

Silken Blade school - '... you gain +2 bonus to AC against attacks made by any target under the effects of your Honorbound Challenge.'

If you mark gives the target a -2 penalty to hit your allies, and at the same time you make yourself +2 to AC harder to hit you haven't encouraged your mark to prefer to attack you.  You are a defender and should have higher hp and defenses than the allies you are trying to protect.  The -2 to hit penalty from a mark equates to the defender giving his/her allies a +2 to AC; this puts there AC on par or slightly higher than the defender's AC, hence encouraging the mark to take a swing at defender.  

Let me put it to you this way, would you rather attack the low hp controller with a -2 to your attack role, or would you rather attack the high hp defender with a +2 bonus to his defenses (i.e. the same as a -2 to your attack role)?  If I was the monster I would rather take a swing at the squishy controller, and if you went with the Silken Flurry you can't stop (you can take a OA but can't immobilized me) me from shifting off you and charging (grants a +1 to hit for the charge attack) the controller.  

I didn't actually consider this. The reason the silken blade gets extra AC on their mark is because I was mimicking the established Berserker's approach to defending while wearing cloth armor. Cloth wearing 'zerkers get +3 to AC and +2 to REF at all times, with an additional +2 to AC while their defender aura is active. This lets them have Defender level AC without using a shield or heavy armor.

Silken blade also wears no armor and does not use a shield, and the +2 AC against marked enemies was to mimic the extra defense from a defender aura, otherwise they would have subpar defender AC unless HEAVILY invested in dexterity.

Any suggestions on how to approach this problem, without making the rest of the party more attractive targets?

Dec 28, 2011 -- 12:49AM, SkyNet2.0 wrote:

In general I think this guy needs to be nerfed a fair bit.  He/she is going to be an absolute monster in combat.  Essentially, you have taken a striker and given them the defender mechanics of mark and mark punishment.

I don't think hes any more of a striker than the defenders he was based upon. Both incarnations of the defender fighter (Knight and Weaponmaster) get a bonus to accuracy and either a scaling bonus to damage (Knight), or extra damage when wielding specific weapons. The berserker's defender mechanic does EXTRA damage on a hit, and the battlemind can pull some insane DPR with brutal barrage and some off action attacks.

The Samurai gets a situational bonus to accuracy and a situational bonus to damage, which is why the numbers are slightly higher than the Knight's scaling bonus to damage. However, it still lacks a striker mechanic, like multi-attacks, sneak attack, or extra flat damage (slayer,blackguard,sorc), that would push its DPR into the realm of striking. Furthermore, its reliance on heavy and light blades prevents it from using the most damaging weapons in the game, such as a gouge.

The fighter was already one of the most damaging defenders in the business, and I doubt a samurai would be gamebreaking in comparison to the fighter builds currently available.

Dec 28, 2011 -- 10:03AM, SkyNet2.0 wrote:

Where I'm coming from is the use of your minor action to generate more damage is a striker mechanic.  The samurai uses its minor to up your accuracy and get combat advantage.  Its similar to the Avenger getting two attack roles on his Oath of Enmity, upping his damage through increasing his chance to hit.  

This class is built on a combination of the battlemind and fighter in its defender mark related abilities, but it uses the stances of the slayer, a striker.  The level one is a beefed up version of the berserker's daily.  

For example, the daily power is a 4[W] monster that hits against reflex (generally the non-AC defenses are easier to hit against than AC).  Off the top of my head I can only think of two dailies that hit this hard at level 1: Barbarian's Life-Ending Strike (just added with the Heros of the Feywild content), and the Paladin's Blood of the Mighty and both of these powers target AC.  A level 1 brute has an AC in the range of 13, and a reflex of roughly the same.  A soldier (high defense target) has an AC of about 17 and a reflex of about 13 (AC = 16+level, reflex = 12+level roughly).  This power is definitely on the strong end of the spectrum.  

Now I am looking at the power more closely, the effect line happens after the attack (on hit or miss) is resolved.  So you charge or attack the target, then you shift up to your speed to a square adjacent to the target and sheathe your weapon.

Actually, it uses the stances of the Knight with a samurai specific stance based on the build.

I was worried about that Daily being powerful, which is why I limited it to bloodied targets only. It would make sense to change it to target AC for the sake of balance however.

Using a minor action to ready your sword for a draw technique fits the flavor of a samurai, and I figured it made sense for them to get an accuracy bonus for attacking from sheathed. It looks like the Samurai Theme that they added to the CB does the same, but instead of granting simply CA, its a flat +2 to the attack roll, free action, shift, and a bonus crit range.

Accuracy is important to any class, and a defender that relies on attack rolls to punish its mark would benefit from a once per round bonus to accuracy as a minor action. It only works for one attack unlike Oath of Emnity, so you dont get the accuracy and damage bonus over multiple attacks made in the same round without sacrificing more of your actions.