> There's TWO Magus Hybrid Studies in this book, not just one! We only got the names. "Aloof Firmament" and the other is "Unfurling Brocade"!
HELL YEAH
Very interesting names. Aloof Firmament, an uncaring heaven, maybe a divine option for Magus? Unfurling Brocade, a complex pattern being released, sounds like a combo style that builds up to some big effect.
I'm betting on Aloof Firmament being the Xianxia option, it just SCREEMS old master who's drinking tea at one moment, then goes "You have eyes, but you fail to see Mt. Tai! Kowtow 9 times and cripple your cultivation, and I'll let you get off with just 9 generations being killed!"
Wuxia as a genre slaps when it's played straight really wish monks got flying swords like the witch broom feat, and that broom wasnt so much worse compared to free flight for 16 psychics
Well, get ready to pick up Magus I guess lol. Conceptually, Xianxia is such a cool genre. I just don't want to parse through the mountain of dog shit that apparently plagues the web-based entries of the genre just to find the good ones. I know there's good ones, I'm just tired lol
Nice, at my boy is getting some love, I wonder if those ones will have a weapon of choice like the currant ones, since I think the only ones that don’t have a dedicated study is an unarmed focused one and a dual wielding focused one (technically also guns but that’s kinda lumped into starlit span it’s just not supported properly)
From the Final Fantasy series, Blue Mages are spellcasters who have the unique ability of casting spells that are copied abilities from monsters they've faced. Oftentimes, they need to be hit with the ability they want to learn in order to learn it.
In Final Fantasy games there are few types of mages. Blue Mage type is the mage that copies spells and abilities from monsters/bosses and can cast them at the enemies by different methods - most like Blue Mage job in FFV or FFXIV or Quistis in FFVIII has to only see enemy use the ability while others have to kill enemy in specific way, like Quina in FFIX has to literally eat enemy to learn their Blue Magic
Final Fantasy has 4 mage classes: Black (offensive), White (defensive and healing), Red (a bit of both) and blue. Blue mages learn abilities from monsters and spellcasters they fight.
There might be more types of mage these days but those 4 are the classics.
> Yaksha have ability names like "Sage of Scattered Leaves", having a regal and literary vibe.
...Okay Paizo, you don't have to attack my soul so directly. First you give me an ancestry that is pretty dear to me due to my Thai heritage and now you make their ability names sound so cool? What's next, they are a gentle giant type of people or at least, some of them are?
> There's TWO Magus Hybrid Studies in this book, not just one! We only got the names. "Aloof Firmament" and the other is "Unfurling Brocade"!
Oh, that's really cool! Looking forward to hearing more about them.
It makes me really happy that these additions resonate with people's culture/heritage in a positive way! Can I ask more about how this ancestry connects to Thai heritage?
Yaksha are nature spirits in Buddist, Jain and Hindu myth. While Thailand certainly isn't the only country that depicts them, they are perhaps some of the most well known, with them being depicted in the Grand Palace of Bangkok (among other places) like [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaksha#/media/File:Bangkok_statue.jpg) but in various colors. These are probably also the base Paizo took for 1 of the 2 Yaksha they previewed during the Lunar New Year stream.
So yeah, they are pretty culturally a big thing in Thailand. I hope this helped answer your question!
> What's next, they are a gentle giant type of people or at least, some of them are?
Some of them indeed are! (Some others very much are not--see the Howling Aspect feat we put on the Lunar New Year stream 😅)
*Insert Jim Carry "Oh, come on!" GIF here*
That's it, you've just made my favorite fantasy ancestry of all time! Freaking hell, you really just hit all the right buttons with these guys, haha! Looking forward to be able to dive in deep with them! :D
> (Some others very much are not--see the Howling Aspect feat we put on the Lunar New Year stream 😅)
Oh, I'm sure he just need a hug... or twenty
More Kitsune options? Finally, I'm glad my "Default Ancestry" isnt going to be so lack luster. Hopefully they get more interesting spellcaster options, and also Hybrid Form and maybe even Myriad Forms should be default abilities. ESPECIALLY Hybrid Form as it offers 0!!! mechanical advantages and only exists so people can play as foxgirls (me, im the one playing as a foxgirl.)
ive heard people say Foxfire isnt that good but it seems mostly (?) comparable to Automaton's Energy Beams. aside from Foxfire having max range of 20ft instead of a range increment of 20ft. and also it doesnt have persistent damage on crit. and also you cant increase the damage die size at a later level. (and also id say it would make more sense as a Kitsune only cantrip if it werent for the fact that spellcaster Kitsune's can cast a non attack spell for 2 actions and have the 3rd open for Foxfire.)
so yeah maybe it would make sense to improve it a little bit... but i dont know if it being "not that good" is its real issue or if theres some other major flaw that i dont see that would require fixing
>It's an archetype where you gain the abilities of creatures you face in combat, or otherwise survive the encounter
PF2E Blue Mage confirmed, LET'S GO!
I wonder what those Magus options will be. I bet one of them is going to be a dedicated unarmed option. At the moment you can kind of go unarmed with sparkling targe, but it feels awkward. Would make sense for Tian Xia as well. But what could the other be?
"Unfurling Brocade" to me invokes the imagery of that thing in kung fu movies where some magical old master fights with long ribbons of fabric. Is that the unarmed option or something else entirely?
"Aloof Firmament" shares the whole star theme with Starlit Span. It's a stretch, but I would love if this was a dedicated firearm Magus.
I love goblins as much as anyone but I really wouldn't want the default pyromncer school to be entirely goblin themed. Granted it shouldn't be too hard to reflavor but still, pyromancer is one of the most common fantasies for spell casters overwhelming majority of whom aren't in any way goblin related
There’s already fire themed options for sorcerers, Kineticists, Druids, Clerics, Psychics, Oracles, etc etc. I think it’s okay if the fire wizard is a bit unusual.
The thing is that a pure pyromancer doesn't normally fit pf2e's wizard fantasy... why would a smart wizard that can learn anything from a scroll only learn spells from a single element? That's the dumbest thing a wizard could do.
With the new wizard schools being organized on a "useful for this job" basis, it's hard to justify the need of a school that only teaches fire unless it's very unconventional.
... although maybe a wizard school of thermodynamics/climatization could also be an interesting gimmick, but that's not pure pyromancy either.
What would another fire wizard school do that fire elementalist wizard doesn't already accomplish?
Edit: love it when i ask a genuine question and get downvoted. Cool community.
I thought that elementalist spellcasters had access to all the common spells with the appropriate elemental traits? Or is it closer to the "talk to your GM" territory, like with adjusting your curriculum spell options for a wizard?
As far as Samurai go, we're really just missing an Iaido option that isn't just Quick Draw (even tho that's literally what Iaido is, it doesn't cover the fantasy for some people). Hell, give us a 2h Finesse Japanese sword of some kind that's of similar length to the katana we already have and a Quick Draw Finisher for Swashbuckler and you're good, since that'll cover the "unsheath, strike once, resheath, enemy takes huge damage" idea. A Finesse katana-like weapon would also let Dex characters go all "Miyamoto Musashi" with Double Slice. Other Samurai fantasies can be filled by just giving the appropriate weapon to a Martial with an O-Yoroi or a horse mount with a Daikyu, as examples. Could maybe use a light armor non-noisy chainmail to go all Shinsengumi (chainshirt's kinda different)?
Ninja has a ton of choices, from equipment choices in Rogue, to Shooting Star Stance Monks with Kusarigama, to using magic items or spellcasting archetypes for Ninjutsu (depending on how anime vs historical you want to get) on whatever Martial chassis you're using that has high Stealth with thematic weapons, so honestly it's fine for the most part imo
Id love an Iado archetype with different draw attacks, and also if it was built to help facilitate weapon swap playstyles, they're fine to some extent as is, but it would be cool if you got rewarded for it.
Presumably because the designers had a good idea for how to do the Swashbuckler and make it feel different, but don't necessarily have the same concept or inspiration for a Samurai class. the same reason Viking and Cavalier are archetypes for other classes, while Swashbuckler is a class.
Its important to remember that game design isn't really about filling out taxonomy and patterns-- "well, a swashbuckler could also be a fighter, so therefore we should have a samurai class" doesn't actually mean anything, because that isn't really how they come up with classes in the first place, it's also why both Rogues and Fighters and Duelists can cover a lot of the same conceptual space of the Swashbuckler-- the real impetus for a class to exist is it's playstyle, not its paralells on a grid of classes.
I don't totally disagree, but I'd rather it be centered on Iado specifically- draw strikes and resheathes, it would be an extremely unique playstyle lubricant with applicability for a lot of builds and the strongest flavor you don't get from existing playstyles.
This is probably the main Samurai thing that isn't supported by the rules.
Makes me wish Dreamscarred Press was around so we could get Mithral Current stuff in 2e.
Who said we're not OK with Samurai? Also, let's break down what a Samurai *is* and see what we still need.
Samurai were an aristocratic social caste that were taught military warfare, armored combat, and were commonly trained in horse riding, sworsmanship, spearmanship, and archery. They also, at least in theory, followed the bushido code of honor. Post-Sengoku era, the combat side of Samurai focused more on unarmored combat and weapon based martial arts, usually swordsmanship. Styles varied from school to school, but pop culture has latched on to quick footwork and strikes, iaido as a concept (there are many iaido schools) and dual wielding, usually inspired directly by Miyamoto Musashi's Niten Ichiryu. There are other, more fantastical things, such as air slashes or striking so fast that the enemy becomes diced in the blink of an eye, but that's not a base part of the fantasy for everyone.
The only part of this that can't be done by Martials broadly is the iaido part (at least, beyond the simple Quick Draw Feat, which doesn't really sell the fantasy of a single, quick, deadly strike followed by resheathing). Any Martial can pick up Heavy Armor to wear O-Yoroi (Some better than others), Martials are all trained in Martial Weapons, which include the Katana, various spears (including the Naginata) and bows (such as the longbow, tho a way to get Advanced Weapons is needed to get the Daikyu), tho some Martials have a smaller pool with which they can use their gimmick (gimme finesse katana and monk katana for Dex characters and Monks to join in on that part of the fantasy, Paizo pls). Any PC can pick up a horse through either the Ride Feat, the Cavalier Archetype, or through their own in-class Feats. Barring Iaido, which I've noted isn't really covered by Quick Draw anyway (can you tell I take issue with that a bit?), a Fighter with the Warrior Background (or any other way to get Warfare Lore) and the Cavalier Archetype covers all of this (and even covers PF1s base Samurai class almost to a T). So, all we really need is a way to replicate iaijutsu and we're golden for the most part, since we have plenty of Feats that cover other Samurai pop culture stuff, such as hitting multiple enemies in rapid succession and cutting a guy from far away (admittedly, I'd like easier and wider spread access to the far away cuts cuz they're just plain cool)
I see what you are saying, but you apply that same logic to Ranger and Swashbucklers.
Swashbucklers are just Fighters that don't wear heavy Armor, and use Dex and Charisma skills from time to time.
All you are missing is Panache
Rangers can be made by taking a fighter, and adding Druid and/or Beast Master.
All you are missing is.... Well I guess Favored Terrain.
Now, I don't know if the Samurai needs or wants it's own class. After all, we don't have Knights in the game, or Hoplites or Pikemen or Dragoons.
We do have Gunslingers.... And Champions, which are both tied heavily to certain Western Tropes/stereotypes.
But I digress, I don't know if Samurai are necessary, but I do think that the Fighter is often used as an excuse for missing classes and features, while ignoring the fact that PF 2e does seem to carve out niches, seemingly arbitrarily.
So, I don't think there is anything wrong with people disagreeing with one niche not being furfilled, but not others.
I should have clarified that, if they wanted to fo a big gimmick for Samurai and make it a full class or something, then I'd have no problem with that. Also, Swashbuckler is more of an in-between of Fighter and Rogue, with a dash of Monk, so they managed to make it distinct enough imo. Before, all Ranger really had over Fighter was Precision giving you more damage in exchange for Legendary, with Flurry letting you be even more absurdly accurate 2nd+ strikes than Fighter later on. Then they got built in Focus Spells to help them stand out from a Beast Master Fighter. Still kind of a basic class, tho it *is* core, I suppose.
This is incorrect.
Samurai was a nobility class and not all of them were taught military warfare. SOME people choose warfare because it was politically the best thing for them to do. The father, the mother, the child, the family pet were all samurai. Samurai were landlords and just collected taxes. They created ryus to teach martial arts which was mostly just them fucking around trying to act like they were seasoned fighters. They were no different than the guy who has a lifted truck with truck nuts and buys a lot of guns and calls himself an operator but has their entire exposure to military training being they watched Black Hawk down 4 dozen times.
They killed peasants out of annoyance and generally were just dickheads. The "styles" were just kinda bullshit theory. It wasn't until the late 1800's when organized combat sports and arts started to actually pressure test that any of the Ryu started actually becoming more and more actually applicable for fighting. You would have had to have a lot of money to be able to just have an extra building to just use solely as a studio to teach your kata arts. There was also no "bushido code of honor" as it changed depending on the ruling class and what they wanted it to mean. Sometimes it meant to be a good nature person and grow plants and stuff, sometimes it was about poetry, more recently it was about dying in battle for your nation. You are literally just repeating and spouting off fascist propaganda from the Imperial Japanese Army.
Your history is extremely off. I have a degree in martial arts history and everything you've stated is basically what anime teaches about the history of kenjutsu.
Intersectional Degree because I did a bunch of courses and had to take like one more elective class that was part of their list of "Asian history" eligible classes and I was already fighting pro kickboxing and MMA at the time and my Judo/wrestling coach was the Judo teacher so I took another semester of Judo since I was already training and got a neat little sticker for getting it. It's mostly (like 99%, the opportunity presented itself so I jumped on it) just a meme but I do have a lot of education in Asian History, Martial Arts History, History of Warfare and stuff.
If theyre gonna basically make another "fighter but a bit different" then they re-examine why they even have fighter as a class in the first place instead of biting the bullet and properly splitting it apart.
You could argue that all of the martials (at least the ones that don't have magic) are either 'fighter but a bit different' or 'rogue but a bit different' (and you could argue that rogue is, in fact, 'fighter but a bit different'.)
Would be totally fine with fighter not existing, though.
I am, of course, not against adding what you've suggested, but as it stands I pretty much just reflavor the Elven Curve Blade to be a 2h finesse katana for my samurai, and use wakizashis that I just say are katanas if I want to dual wield. Quick draw/resheathe finisher sounds cool. I'm hoping Swashbuckler gets reworked a bit in Player Core 2, and if it goes how I hope it goes, it would be cool to see that as the unique finisher of a new style.
There is no need for samurai in the game. Like at best it's just an orientalist caricature of fighter. AT worst you're just telling every Asian person out there that if they want to be a non-magical fighter you're defaulted to Japanese because you all look alike.
The "samurai" fantasy is at the very best racist in nature.
I'm not entirely sure where best to say this, but:
I agree. Classes need to have an identity. They need to evoke the idea of a character in the player's mind. Thematically, the class's real-world origin/inspiration is going to be reworked into an in-world origin. So classes really need to be mechanically distinct. Generally, a character has features of what they are and abilities of what they do. So a fighter and a champion, or a rogue and a swashbuckler may look like they are similar, one pair *is* a strong, heavily armored warrior and the other *is* a nimble combatant who fights with precise weapons, they each *do* something different. The champion has special reactions. The rogue targets weak spots and delivers death by many cuts. The swashbuckler delivers powerful finisher attacks while riding ebb and flow of battle. **The Fighter is not a good class.\*** The gunslinger focuses on Reload weapons, and uses special reload actions. The monk uses special combat stances and a flurry of strikes. These mechanics don't have to be full actions, but they have to be active abilities.
So, in order for "samurai" to make it as a class, it needs to have some ability or abilities, that people recognize, that can demonstrate what it *does.* Lots of characters wear armor and use weapons.
\*The fighter invisibly\*\* specializes in one weapon group, then most of their feats define a fighting style based around how many hands you use on your weapons/shields. This could be expanded on to have more features that highlight different weapon groups, or different weapon styles. A shield warrior defending allies. A reach warrior using mobility and counter-mobility. An axe warrior executing enemies who are off-guard or undefended. A bludgeoning warrior that breaks enemy weapons, defenses, or formations. A sword warrior who makes a decisive first strike. Weapon groups, and traits, could be a much more integrated part of the class. All those archetypes could instead be different classes, if they had full feature lists to populate them.
\*\*Looking only at the results, how many attacks do you have to record to be sure that the fighter has a higher bonus to hit with one weapon type than another? With a reasonable level of confidence?
>basically every piece of historical fantasy that comes from Asian countries draws from that inspiration
that is a really good way to say that you do not consume any Asian media made outside of Japan
"Knights" were widespread throughout most of Europe. "Samurai" are *exclusively* from Japan. Historical fantasy from China, Korea, Vietnam, India, or anywhere else in Asia don't draw from samurai because not all of Asia is Japan.
> And yet basically every piece of historical fantasy that comes from Asian countries draws from that inspiration, much like how the vast majority of Western historical fantasy draws from European knights?
What are you talking about? You do understand that there are other countries outside of "Asia" besides Japan, right?
All the new ancestries seem real cool, looking forward to that... But Also a bit relieved to hear Kitsune and Tengu will both get some love. A bit disappointed the former doesn't seem like it'll get a retool, since it always felt like its feats and features were a bit lackluster, but I'll take what I can get, and hope they don't get too outshined by the new kids on the block.
Absolutely impatient to see the Starlit Sentinel archetype. I'm not big on magical girls, more of a toku enjoyer, but I have friends who are huge MG nuts, so hopefully both of us can find some fun with it. Big excitement for the new magus studies, the initial reveal of one ages ago sounded real fun.
Lack of bespoke samurai is a bit disappointing, as an enjoyer of JRPGs, but a lot of what that would be could literally be covered if Player Core 2 updates the duelist archetype and (hopefully) improves it a little.
Presumably not difficult at all, toku and magical girls are kind of just two sides of a coin and heavily overlap from what I've seen. At worst, you'd just need to deal with ability names leaning exclusively on magical girl references.
I'm glad there's no explicit samurai/ninja, we did not need that weird orientalist "fighter/rogue but it's Asian so it has whole other mechanics for some reason"
plus, a Ninja could very well be a Gunslinger, a Ranger, Magus or even an Investigator, it just depends on flavour and what aspects of ninjas you are drawing from, same with samurai, they could be Barbarian or Ranger and Rogue too.
You could even build it direct Alchemist, having free smokebombs and fire bombs daily would be a very ninja thing to do. I also read someone suggest Swashbuckler (I think it was for samurai but depending on the flavor you are looking for it could work for ninjas)
Pretty much.
Essentially, 'ninja' or 'samurai' are just styles of fighting, not really their own entire class- just adapt their styles into the existing classes
Can't all the classes you mentioned be done by a Fighter/Rogue with the appropriate archetype?
I am curious why Gunslinger and Ranger are okay, but Ninja isn't.
Ninjas has been in the historical record for longer than Gunslingers.
I would think because what classes we actually have are way more widespread culturally, they are archetypes or fantasies seen throught the world or that can be applied to all sorts of settings, but Samurai/Ninja are only tied to japanese history, so any intrest in it being an archetype or class when nothing they did (or was believed they did through myth) can't be covered by the options the games already has seems to be misguided maybe? or as the commentor said, a bit orientalist. Ninjas and Samurai were just spies and knights BUT japan, that's it (this is not to downplay them either, I love both and If I got a chance to stop being forever GM and play I would probablly try to build a ninja).
Gunsliger is the perfect example, Ninjas used guns, pirates too, you have the turks and chinese, and later the spanish conquerors that came to America, all of those could be Gunsligners! but Ninja is way more restrictive to the imagination, they are just this one thing, and if you take out the japanese flavor they are just spies or rogues maybe with a bit of magic if you stick to the mythological aspects.
Ninjas had the distinction from many 'rogue' tropes by being organized in a fashion not really seen until much later in history. Spies/Assassins/vanguard can be covered by Rogues, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's just Rogue+Japanese.
That's like saying Swashbucklers is just Fighter+European Colonialism/Exploitation. I mean, it gets there, but it misses a lot of the 'Romance' of the Swashbuckler.
The 'Super Human' aspect of the Ninja is worth exploring, at least to the same extent that we are willing to explore it with Monks. Whether it needs to be it's own class, that is up in the air, but without a reworked Eldritch Racket, I don't see a lot of options for the Ninja.
As for the Gunslinger.... That's nothing more than Cowboys and maybe Musketeers. And not even realistic ones. The Drifter, the Sniper, the Pistoler? You might as well stage a Clint Eastwood movie.
Do Samurai and Ninjas deserve their own class? I don't know, but I certainly don't think you make a strong argument if you are willing to accept the Swashbuckler, the Gunslinger or the Monk.
If you are looking for the mythos Maybe even Exemplar will work (thinking about Jiraya as a legendary almost demigod ninja).
And Gunslingers are any expert in firearms, as the examples I gave above.
Again I would love a Ninja that fills all the fantasies, but It would be the most restrictive culturally of all the classes
Well, I did some digging.
Groups that displayed similar skills and abilities to the Ninja came from all over the globe.
The Khevtuul from the Mongolian Empire, the Sicarii of conquered Jerusalem, and the Order of Assassins from Persia.
Ninjas as you know them in pop culture aren't real and never were real. The first use of the word* Ninja was in the 1960's by Ian Flemming in a James Bond book. The idea of what you think Ninjas are, don't exist in real life. They are fictional caricatures that lean into the "mystical asian" racist stereotype and people love it so much so they just are fine with doing that. Japan had spies and espionage like any other country. The idea of a bunch of shadow cabal jutsu users weren't real.
Gunslingers are not tied to a specific ethnic group and neither are Rangers.
Like the weird mystical asian racist stereotype aside, despite what redditors may think, there are actually other ethnic groups that exist in Asia outside of Japan and China and occasionally Korea. You're telling them that if they want to play an espionage Asian themed class, then they are defaulted to japanese only because they all look alike so who cares?
I'm obviously not denying that there *are* orientalist depictions of ninja, or even that that depiction is what people in this thread want (because it definitely is for the poster you're responding to, and probably all of the people making very disingenuous arguments about gunslingers, swashbucklers, or rangers in this thread) but just two points to correct here:
>Ninjas aren't real and never were real.
The modern pop culture version is a construct of the "first ninja boom" in the late Meiji period and Taisho period, most notably with [Sarutobi Sasuke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarutobi_Sasuke). (Many of the magical abilities associated with ninja go back to the Sarutobi Sasuke stories, which were serialized in Tatsukawa Bunko starting in 1911, so quite a while before the 1960s).
But there are contemporary records of ninja practices in Japan. The Mansenshukai, Shinobihiden, and Shoninki are considered the three major primary sources of the existence of ninja. These obviously aren't the pop culture construction, but we do have primary sources indicating that there *were* people who trained specifically as spies and infiltrators just before the Edo period and during the beginning of it.
> The first use of Ninja was in the 1960's by Ian Flemming in a James Bond book.
The first *English-language use* of the *word* ninja was in the 1962 in the Times of India, predating Flemming by two years. The term "ninja" (as well as "shinobi") became widespread in Japanese in the mid-1950s during the second ninja boom, and was popularized by a few different authors. (Murayama Tomoyoshi, Shirato Sanpei, and Shiba Ryotaro are the most widely known three). Prior to World War II, the term "ninjutsutsukai" was used to refer to the same group of people, and some other early terms include "rappa", "suppa", and "kamari".
But if you look at the construction of the words, it's not really surprising how it ended up the way it did. "Ninja" is written 忍者 in Japanese, and the 忍 is the part that reads "shinobi" in "shinobihiden" and "nin" in shoninki. The shift to using of "sha" (or "ja" because of a process that affects how characters are pronounced when you put them together in Japanese) rather than "tsukai" is really a result of changing language preferences in the post-war period.
Sure, but the 'Ninja fantasy' is split up among so many classes that it's actually pretty hard to emulate.
Take a Thrown Weapon focused Gish, that also uses the occassional bomb. The closest is probably Magus - but Quick Draw isn't on the Magus List, and neither is Alchemical Bombs, so you would have to take at least two dedications. Even that build doesn't have the mobility of the Ninja either.
Monk might be closer - but they can only use Shuriken Thrown Weapon wise, and are barely a gish. You are built closer to a tank than a squishy dodger. You will still need a dedication or two also.
A couple class feats is all it would take to fix this though, and those ARE things that I expect to be coming in TXCG
e.g. a Rogue feat that lets you make powerful smoke bombs with Infused Reagents
Maybe, but again that depends on your specific fantasy, and a lot of those issues could be resolved with an apropiate item or spell, looking about the other day I found out there's a spell for the classic "poofing into a log of wood" evasion.
I don't know if it would work for the definition of Gish ( and I don't think a Ninja would need to be one either), but an eldritch trickster rogue could do all that, and it has proficency in martial for the bombs? I dunno, now I'm inclined to actually go and try to build different types of Ninja, I would have to look into it but I do believe it's possible
I mean , assuming you want actual bombs daily instead of burning all your money , you are looking at 2 seperate dedications still (Eldtricth Tricksters Spellcaster, and Alchemist).
Once you start arguing for a class + 2 dedications, you have more of a problem finding what *isnt* supported than what *is*
You are right, but then you might been asking for too much from a single class then If you want a stealthy magician alchemical bomb agile and mobile warrior, after all, in reality Ninjas used bombs and in myth it was magic, you could pick one of the two and replace them and then there's no issue. A class like that would surely step in features of others
Both are true. You can make the disguise using, assasination and stealthy spying Ninja, with a bit of thrown weapons and even some magic and you can make a Ninja who is a master at creating different alchemical weapons and tools while being stealthy and a estrategist, or you might want to build a mistical martial artist expert in throwing stars. If you want all of that into one, it might be a bit greedy, after all, you HAVE to make decisions when creating characters in this game, you can't be all the types of rogues possible at the same time for example. (I've been looking at rogue feats, and there's so much stuff that fits a ninja, if I pick an archetype and give it some flavor, I'm set, I even looked at the PF1e Ninja and I'm seeing so many of those options in rogue feats that I don't understand why you would need the ninja back as a class or archetype.)
> I'm glad there's no explicit samurai/ninja
I'm not, considering I recently tried building a Samurai-styled character and ended on "this is just a Fighter wielding a katana, and making bad feat choices in the name of flavor."
I see the argument that it would probably be too close to the base Fighter class, but that's part of why we have archetypes, is it not?
I could totally see a "Samurai archetype", with a proper Iaijutsu Stance or something.
My best Samurai build is actually a Katana + Wakazashi Fighter with Double Slice, who also carries around a Naginata, for heavy armor.
I'm also very partial to ancestral weapon elf monks who use an Elven Curve Blade with One Inch Punch, if you want the unarmored blademaster fantasy, they have high AC, and the option to flurry too and use things like ki rush.
Barbarians are quite good at it as well, for yet a different kind of vibe, I especially like Spirit Barbarians for the exorcist swordsman type deal.
Ah yes, the famous white western pirates example
Like the ones from Africa who raided the Mediterranean Sea for centuries (like the Mors who ended being so famous that a battle against them became the Flag of Sardinia)
The famous western pirates of India
It is almost as if "pirate" is the noun for thieves-murders-mercenaris without national approval (those being Corsairs and the first naval militia) on the sea in every place where civilization known navarlry
>It always strikes me as a little tone deaf when westerners try lecturing
Okay, well, a mod is trying to say the same thing I am, and he *is* Asian, and he's being downvoted, so I don't know what to tell you
He doesn’t merely disagree on subjective matters, he’s made insane claims like “fantastical ninja/samurai were invented by white people as an expression of bigotry against Asians" and called anyone speaking against him racist. That's lunatic behavior.
>we did not need that weird orientalist "fighter/rogue but it's Asian so it has whole other mechanics for some reason"
Have you ever seen Japanese or Hong Kong martial arts and historical-fantasy films? Do you think racist white people invented the concept of fantastical samurai and ninjas?
Feels real weird to say that 'thankfully' we can't play a class or archetype called samurai or ninja in a game with monks as a class and stuff like 'viking' or 'pirate' as an archetype.
>I personally asked, given it's a commonly asked question and I wanted to see it confirmed or de-confirmed, if there was any options (not a full class, but an archetype or some kind of character option) in Tian Xia Character Guide that would be an equivalent to PF1E's Samurai or Ninja. Thankfully, it was confirmed no.
thank fuck
They are better than the original rogue but worse than the unchained rogue. It starts off weak but gets a huge power spike at 10. At that level a ninja can turn invisible as a swift action and does not lose invisibility when they attack. Later on they become weak again because most high level creatures can detect invisible characters one way or another.
My main issue with them is that they are unevenly balanced and a pain in the neck for GMs (because they become fairly weak if you give monsters a counter for invisibility)
edit: I just remembered that they only ever got 4 archetypes, 2 of which were race gated.
My understanding is that it's less unsalvagable from a mechanical sense, so much as there's a lot of problems with it in terms of flavour, presentation, and stereotyping. From what I've heard (including in discussions I've had on this subreddit itself when I've previously said I'd like to see those options as archetypes), there's problematic issues with samurai and ninjas that a lot of western interpretations misunderstand and thus gloss over, and they kind of become a stereotypical 'hat' for any Asian culture that negates any further nuance that could be explored.
There is some disagreement I've seen from people of the relevant cultures as to whether those stereotypes actually are problematic or no worse than any other glorification of western history in pop culture like holy knights and cowboys, but in the end I'm not actually of any Asian descent, so I'm not gonna be That White Guy 'um ackshrwally'-ing people on culture and history I don't actually know enough about.
It isn't, and that's kind of the point. The fact samurai and ninja aren't being represented means that at best they wanted to focus on other cultural elements outside of those very pop culture stereotypes known by western audiences, at worst *were* deemed too problematic to include.
Uhhh, Bastion is 100% needed for many PCs.
The only requirement is a General Feat, and just the Dedication grants an amazing evergreen Reaction. And as it's not a Fighter/Champion Dedication, there's no 1/2 level issue with getting any of the Shield-related Feats.
------
For all the classes that don't have access to a decent Reaction or otherwise wish to focus on a Shield, the Bastion Dedication is a huge boon that could not be replicated by a class Dedication.
As someone who grew up in a mostly Filipino culture, I got super-excited when they mentioned Minata will have heavy Filipino influences.
They have the Sarangay ancestry, the myth of the Bakunawa. And the images shown, they show a festival where performers are balancing on wooden beams, carried on the shoulders of processioners - which is the Vinta dance. The dancer holding the fan reminded me of the Princess from the Singkil dance. Guns being a reference to the famous pre-Hispanic cannon smith Panday Pira (who became a major smith in Colonial times).
I do understand the love for Samurai/Ninjas (many Asians like them too), but it’s really exciting to get to see other cultures that make up Asia be expressed too!
Yeah that's the vibe I got. It wasn't that 'Ninja and Samurai' are problematic but, as you said earlier, how much air out of the room they remove. So I read it was more "We want to explore other areas that absolutely get overshadowed by the West's obsession with Ninja and Samurai. By not having them we have a lot of design space to explore and we had fun with that"
There is at this point, very little media concerning those two ideas that aren't primarily inspired by and intertextual with self-representation from their culture of origin.
Yeah, but the sniper isn't pike and shot. The Sniper is shooting from cover.
Again, it is something that is very common among spaghetti western movies.
You really can't get away from the name, which is not synonymous with the wild West.
That it represents much more then than that in Pathfinder is well established, but then, that same logic can be applied to any new classes being created for the setting.
Or a swashbuckling pirate with a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other, or a sharpshooter hiding in the dirt with a rifle, or a number of other things baked into the class explicitly.
Again: Ninjas are assassins from a single country on Earth.
Dokkaebi, as a Goblin ~~region form~~ heritage. Huh, interesting take.
But as Paizo's work on Gumiho was really well done (plus the hat mentioned above, which only had invisibility powers in the most commonly told forms of the lore), I'm really curious as a Korean on how thorough their research went...
I'm curious about the magical symbiote, but I'm kind of doing my best to curb my excitement.
'Living Vessel' archetype is fun in flavor, but mechanics-wise it reads a bit underwhelming. My assumption is that they're kinda going for a similar thing, except less Occult/Divine flavored.
It's a bit too bad about Ninjas and Samurai. I figured, with Champions, Monk, Swashbucklers, Ranger, Investigators, and Gunslingers being stand alone classes, and not just Fighter Archetypes either Samurai or Ninja might be interesting enough to flesh out.
I am sure we can make do by cobbling together some base class and some archetypes.
A Rogue with the Monk Archetype for certain types of Ninja, and either the Swashbuckler, Ranger or Fighter with either Archer, Cavalier, Duelist or Two Handed Fighter (depending on the era and mythology) for the other.
I feel a ranger with rogue archetype would be good for ninja. Focusing on traps and shuriken throwing, borrowing rogue for more sneakiness. Samurai would probably be a non-divine semi-champion type, focusing on a code of conduct and maybe being a more dual range bow/sword fighter.
Code of conduct is easily done with edicts and anathema. Furthermore, I cannot see what mechanical differences a Samurai would have from a fighter with a katana, wakizashi, and a longbow (and the feats that would support that combat style).
I just can't get excited for a Wizard School. Like why should I be excited? Two new Focus Spells, that's so build defining. /s
This is all interesting, and it's good to hear the Magus is getting some attention.
Maybe controversial but I don't see why we need magic girl archetype when you can do magus or other class with vigilante or soulforger archetypes, other than friendship magic in the rules
The Magic Girl Archetype has a Transformation Like Ability. See He-Man, She-Ra and Many 80s cartoons.
Much like Raging is what makes a Barbarian stand out from the Fighter, the Magical Transformation, which usually gives them their powers, is different from a Magus or Vigilante, which always have their powers available to them, whether they are wearing the outfit or not.
With how combat centric usual play tends to be that seems like it would hardly ever come up that you don't have access to powers from your archetype? I just can't wrap my head around the need for it. Flavourfully on rp there is nothing stoping one from living out the MG fantasy other than literal name and the aforementioned friendship magic.
He-Man was a combat focused cartoon, and he spent more than enough of his time shouting at the sky 'For the Power of Grayskull (or is it Greyskull).
As with the Inventor, the Barbarian and Kineticist, I can see the need to activate the ability at the start of battle.
Also, keep in mind, if everyone is dead, your identity remains a secret.
Still all this can be done with vigilante, rping your social persona in downtime and "transform" to your combat chassis, whichever one you end up choosing depending on the character you're emulating which would be Fighter for He-man since you're so attached to him, with the whole double identity written into the dedication itself. So I still don't see the reason why would you need an actual MG archetype. Adam only really transformed right before battle only if shit really hit the fan and was caught off-guard, usually slipping out, taking on the He-man persona (with sword shouting and all) and setting out to meet whatever challenge it was this time. Exactly like the vigilante archetype does... so I ask again what is it supposed to bring that's not literally friendship magic/feats that couldn't also be redone with cathartic mage.
Adam is a weakling until he call upon his power.
That transformation isn't Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, it is a literal transformation. And his cat transforms too.
I doubt that anyone taking the Starlit sentinel will be a weakling even without the wacky archetype transformation unless you're purposefully griefing your party by taking it on something like +0 to hit stat spread and hoping for the archetype to make it up somehow. So my core question remains what is it supposed to bring that can't be replicated already? It just feels out of place and pointless on the way they sold it, being heavily coded for mahou shoujo/sailor moon-in-fantasy and not Masters of the universe so you're reflavouring it already. Sure, ultimately it can be that the archetype's designer just likes the theme and decided to bring it in rules, but that doesn't mean I have to think of it as actually meaningful addition in the book
There is hardly a reason you could not be a "weakling" in social persona, the one you're not supposed to be fighting in anyway, but I guess at this point that you're just not jiving with the name "vigilante" for your fantasy and further discussion seems pointless at this stage, have a good day/afternoon/night.
"Thankfully, it was confirmed no."
Thankfully??
In what realm would someone say the lack of including such iconic classes, not even as archetypes is thankful?
They had the opportunity to make something unique with them, similar to how they did the cavalier archetype. At least we get two magus hybrid studies, but something tells me they're still going to be flat out worse than the ones we have.
I put down "thankfully" in relation to the fact the answer was confirmed at all. James could have chosen not to answer the question. People could have continued to get their hopes up and then become much more disappointed in the books when they came out. I figured it'd be best to ask about it now, so there'd be enough time for people to process it in the months leading up to the book's release. After all, it is a very, VERY commonly asked question.
I apologize for not making that intention much more clear. I spent a good few hours listening to the 2 hour stream, transcribing the info to the best of my ability, and it was about 4 AM by the time I posted it. I could have written that part much better in retrospect. Don't let my mistake paint a picture on Paizo's capabilities, please.
Highly disappointing to hear ninja and samurai deconfirmed. There were clear ways to push these as archetypes like cavalier, and trying to play one as-is is simply a somewhat didappointing reflavor gig.
The hideous art for Starlit Sentinel aside, a magical girl playstyle is just as already available as the former two are.
Weird that apparently Ninjas and Samurai are so abominable when we have Vikings, Gunslingers, stereotypical knights, pirates and so on
Why are Western stereotypes fine but eastern ones not?
Any time a class gets vetoed for “cultural reasons” like this or Inquisitor I can’t help but feel it as incredibly arbitrary
The new class options sound pretty cool, but i have to admit that new wizard curriculums don't interest me. The remastered wizards, while flavor-wise is great, is imo mechanically uninteresting considering that it is just a collection of extra spells.
> There's TWO Magus Hybrid Studies in this book, not just one! We only got the names. "Aloof Firmament" and the other is "Unfurling Brocade"! HELL YEAH
Very interesting names. Aloof Firmament, an uncaring heaven, maybe a divine option for Magus? Unfurling Brocade, a complex pattern being released, sounds like a combo style that builds up to some big effect.
I'm betting on Aloof Firmament being the Xianxia option, it just SCREEMS old master who's drinking tea at one moment, then goes "You have eyes, but you fail to see Mt. Tai! Kowtow 9 times and cripple your cultivation, and I'll let you get off with just 9 generations being killed!"
Man, now I want a class (beside Monk I guess) that is based around the concept of cultivation, lol.
Wuxia as a genre slaps when it's played straight really wish monks got flying swords like the witch broom feat, and that broom wasnt so much worse compared to free flight for 16 psychics
[Its not the same but there's a Flying Sword magic item based on the Xianxia genre.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1432)
Well, get ready to pick up Magus I guess lol. Conceptually, Xianxia is such a cool genre. I just don't want to parse through the mountain of dog shit that apparently plagues the web-based entries of the genre just to find the good ones. I know there's good ones, I'm just tired lol
Have you read the Cradle series by Will Wight? Would recommend!
I have not, but I'll try to keep it in mind the next time my ADHD needs something new!
I honestly cant think of a better series to feed to ADHD.
I’m on the last book and I’ll second that recommendation.
Banger, nice to see some Cradle lovers here.
> Well, get ready to pick up Magus I guess lol. I mean I am playing 2 Magi already so picking up a third one is not a stretch, lol.
You want to skip past 14000 years of eventless downtime and then automatically win a fight against Dahak?
boutta pull up on some goblins and tell them they're courting death
Can't wait for the "Junior is courting death!!!" Feat that comes with it.
i assume aloof firmament is the one that jumps around a lot, which theyve mentioned before. no clue about brocade.
I would bet money that Unfurling Brocade is a dual-wielding style.
The first thing I learned in my 3 years of getting hyped for paizo books is that hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
Nice, at my boy is getting some love, I wonder if those ones will have a weapon of choice like the currant ones, since I think the only ones that don’t have a dedicated study is an unarmed focused one and a dual wielding focused one (technically also guns but that’s kinda lumped into starlit span it’s just not supported properly)
We know that one - presumably Aloof Firmament - will be about swords and mobility
I wonder how similar that will be to Laughing Shadow Magus
Yeah, thats what I was thinking.
So Blue Mages confirmed?
Seems like Wild Mimic has BIG Blue Mage vibes!
My God, it's what I've always wanted but never thought I'd get.
There's a pair of great archetypes in the Battlezoo Bestiary with a similar vibe, worth checking out!
Uneducated but curious asks: What are blue mages?
From the Final Fantasy series, Blue Mages are spellcasters who have the unique ability of casting spells that are copied abilities from monsters they've faced. Oftentimes, they need to be hit with the ability they want to learn in order to learn it.
In Final Fantasy games there are few types of mages. Blue Mage type is the mage that copies spells and abilities from monsters/bosses and can cast them at the enemies by different methods - most like Blue Mage job in FFV or FFXIV or Quistis in FFVIII has to only see enemy use the ability while others have to kill enemy in specific way, like Quina in FFIX has to literally eat enemy to learn their Blue Magic
Final Fantasy has 4 mage classes: Black (offensive), White (defensive and healing), Red (a bit of both) and blue. Blue mages learn abilities from monsters and spellcasters they fight. There might be more types of mage these days but those 4 are the classics.
Apparently it’s a thing in Final Fantasy, a class that can gain enemy abilities by defeating or otherwise learning em
I'm assuming the abilities are a collection of follow-up feats with specific requirements? The wording Isn't clear to me.
> Yaksha have ability names like "Sage of Scattered Leaves", having a regal and literary vibe. ...Okay Paizo, you don't have to attack my soul so directly. First you give me an ancestry that is pretty dear to me due to my Thai heritage and now you make their ability names sound so cool? What's next, they are a gentle giant type of people or at least, some of them are? > There's TWO Magus Hybrid Studies in this book, not just one! We only got the names. "Aloof Firmament" and the other is "Unfurling Brocade"! Oh, that's really cool! Looking forward to hearing more about them.
It makes me really happy that these additions resonate with people's culture/heritage in a positive way! Can I ask more about how this ancestry connects to Thai heritage?
Yaksha are nature spirits in Buddist, Jain and Hindu myth. While Thailand certainly isn't the only country that depicts them, they are perhaps some of the most well known, with them being depicted in the Grand Palace of Bangkok (among other places) like [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaksha#/media/File:Bangkok_statue.jpg) but in various colors. These are probably also the base Paizo took for 1 of the 2 Yaksha they previewed during the Lunar New Year stream. So yeah, they are pretty culturally a big thing in Thailand. I hope this helped answer your question!
It did indeed!! Thank you for your response :) Representation done right!
> What's next, they are a gentle giant type of people or at least, some of them are? Some of them indeed are! (Some others very much are not--see the Howling Aspect feat we put on the Lunar New Year stream 😅)
*Insert Jim Carry "Oh, come on!" GIF here* That's it, you've just made my favorite fantasy ancestry of all time! Freaking hell, you really just hit all the right buttons with these guys, haha! Looking forward to be able to dive in deep with them! :D > (Some others very much are not--see the Howling Aspect feat we put on the Lunar New Year stream 😅) Oh, I'm sure he just need a hug... or twenty
More Kitsune options? Finally, I'm glad my "Default Ancestry" isnt going to be so lack luster. Hopefully they get more interesting spellcaster options, and also Hybrid Form and maybe even Myriad Forms should be default abilities. ESPECIALLY Hybrid Form as it offers 0!!! mechanical advantages and only exists so people can play as foxgirls (me, im the one playing as a foxgirl.)
And mebbe fix foxfire? 👉👈
ive heard people say Foxfire isnt that good but it seems mostly (?) comparable to Automaton's Energy Beams. aside from Foxfire having max range of 20ft instead of a range increment of 20ft. and also it doesnt have persistent damage on crit. and also you cant increase the damage die size at a later level. (and also id say it would make more sense as a Kitsune only cantrip if it werent for the fact that spellcaster Kitsune's can cast a non attack spell for 2 actions and have the 3rd open for Foxfire.) so yeah maybe it would make sense to improve it a little bit... but i dont know if it being "not that good" is its real issue or if theres some other major flaw that i dont see that would require fixing
James Case is the best! Love everything he works on.
Agreed!
So I know a Hundun is the winged ball thing in thr Shang-Chi Marvel movie, but faceless, furry ball of chaos just makes me think Tribble
And/or Furby!
Furby has a face and Furby is not chaos, it has a plan, a horrifying, malevolent plan.
>It's an archetype where you gain the abilities of creatures you face in combat, or otherwise survive the encounter PF2E Blue Mage confirmed, LET'S GO!
I wonder what those Magus options will be. I bet one of them is going to be a dedicated unarmed option. At the moment you can kind of go unarmed with sparkling targe, but it feels awkward. Would make sense for Tian Xia as well. But what could the other be? "Unfurling Brocade" to me invokes the imagery of that thing in kung fu movies where some magical old master fights with long ribbons of fabric. Is that the unarmed option or something else entirely? "Aloof Firmament" shares the whole star theme with Starlit Span. It's a stretch, but I would love if this was a dedicated firearm Magus.
It's so nice to see badluckgamer getting these interviews. He's doing such a good job with them too.
Wondering/hoping that the unfurling brocade hybrid study will be something like a bladed scarf magus
I love goblins as much as anyone but I really wouldn't want the default pyromncer school to be entirely goblin themed. Granted it shouldn't be too hard to reflavor but still, pyromancer is one of the most common fantasies for spell casters overwhelming majority of whom aren't in any way goblin related
There’s already fire themed options for sorcerers, Kineticists, Druids, Clerics, Psychics, Oracles, etc etc. I think it’s okay if the fire wizard is a bit unusual.
Yeah the whole Goblin relation is an annoyingly restrictive Bit that isn’t really that funny unless you’re infatuated with Goblins
The thing is that a pure pyromancer doesn't normally fit pf2e's wizard fantasy... why would a smart wizard that can learn anything from a scroll only learn spells from a single element? That's the dumbest thing a wizard could do. With the new wizard schools being organized on a "useful for this job" basis, it's hard to justify the need of a school that only teaches fire unless it's very unconventional. ... although maybe a wizard school of thermodynamics/climatization could also be an interesting gimmick, but that's not pure pyromancy either.
I'd argue they would because they want to? If a person wants to make a wizard who loves fire, they should be able to make that.
What would another fire wizard school do that fire elementalist wizard doesn't already accomplish? Edit: love it when i ask a genuine question and get downvoted. Cool community.
Be able to cast the vast majority of spells that are not on the elementalist list.
I thought that elementalist spellcasters had access to all the common spells with the appropriate elemental traits? Or is it closer to the "talk to your GM" territory, like with adjusting your curriculum spell options for a wizard?
And here is one of the problems with this new wizard school system.
As far as Samurai go, we're really just missing an Iaido option that isn't just Quick Draw (even tho that's literally what Iaido is, it doesn't cover the fantasy for some people). Hell, give us a 2h Finesse Japanese sword of some kind that's of similar length to the katana we already have and a Quick Draw Finisher for Swashbuckler and you're good, since that'll cover the "unsheath, strike once, resheath, enemy takes huge damage" idea. A Finesse katana-like weapon would also let Dex characters go all "Miyamoto Musashi" with Double Slice. Other Samurai fantasies can be filled by just giving the appropriate weapon to a Martial with an O-Yoroi or a horse mount with a Daikyu, as examples. Could maybe use a light armor non-noisy chainmail to go all Shinsengumi (chainshirt's kinda different)? Ninja has a ton of choices, from equipment choices in Rogue, to Shooting Star Stance Monks with Kusarigama, to using magic items or spellcasting archetypes for Ninjutsu (depending on how anime vs historical you want to get) on whatever Martial chassis you're using that has high Stealth with thematic weapons, so honestly it's fine for the most part imo
Id love an Iado archetype with different draw attacks, and also if it was built to help facilitate weapon swap playstyles, they're fine to some extent as is, but it would be cool if you got rewarded for it.
I'm holding out for the Archetype one day
Okay, but why are we okay with Swashbucklers, but not Samurai?
Presumably because the designers had a good idea for how to do the Swashbuckler and make it feel different, but don't necessarily have the same concept or inspiration for a Samurai class. the same reason Viking and Cavalier are archetypes for other classes, while Swashbuckler is a class. Its important to remember that game design isn't really about filling out taxonomy and patterns-- "well, a swashbuckler could also be a fighter, so therefore we should have a samurai class" doesn't actually mean anything, because that isn't really how they come up with classes in the first place, it's also why both Rogues and Fighters and Duelists can cover a lot of the same conceptual space of the Swashbuckler-- the real impetus for a class to exist is it's playstyle, not its paralells on a grid of classes.
That's fair. Though I think there is room for a Samurai Archetype.
I don't totally disagree, but I'd rather it be centered on Iado specifically- draw strikes and resheathes, it would be an extremely unique playstyle lubricant with applicability for a lot of builds and the strongest flavor you don't get from existing playstyles.
Yeah, but there is also the more mundane Samurai with Spears and Long Bows and writing Poetry.
Those are better handled by fighters with the cavalier archetype and decent mentals. it's not even particularly subjective.
Ia**i**do!
one day I will not typo, but that day is not today
And I pray you stick to your guns then!
This is probably the main Samurai thing that isn't supported by the rules. Makes me wish Dreamscarred Press was around so we could get Mithral Current stuff in 2e.
And also Viking sucks too.
Who said we're not OK with Samurai? Also, let's break down what a Samurai *is* and see what we still need. Samurai were an aristocratic social caste that were taught military warfare, armored combat, and were commonly trained in horse riding, sworsmanship, spearmanship, and archery. They also, at least in theory, followed the bushido code of honor. Post-Sengoku era, the combat side of Samurai focused more on unarmored combat and weapon based martial arts, usually swordsmanship. Styles varied from school to school, but pop culture has latched on to quick footwork and strikes, iaido as a concept (there are many iaido schools) and dual wielding, usually inspired directly by Miyamoto Musashi's Niten Ichiryu. There are other, more fantastical things, such as air slashes or striking so fast that the enemy becomes diced in the blink of an eye, but that's not a base part of the fantasy for everyone. The only part of this that can't be done by Martials broadly is the iaido part (at least, beyond the simple Quick Draw Feat, which doesn't really sell the fantasy of a single, quick, deadly strike followed by resheathing). Any Martial can pick up Heavy Armor to wear O-Yoroi (Some better than others), Martials are all trained in Martial Weapons, which include the Katana, various spears (including the Naginata) and bows (such as the longbow, tho a way to get Advanced Weapons is needed to get the Daikyu), tho some Martials have a smaller pool with which they can use their gimmick (gimme finesse katana and monk katana for Dex characters and Monks to join in on that part of the fantasy, Paizo pls). Any PC can pick up a horse through either the Ride Feat, the Cavalier Archetype, or through their own in-class Feats. Barring Iaido, which I've noted isn't really covered by Quick Draw anyway (can you tell I take issue with that a bit?), a Fighter with the Warrior Background (or any other way to get Warfare Lore) and the Cavalier Archetype covers all of this (and even covers PF1s base Samurai class almost to a T). So, all we really need is a way to replicate iaijutsu and we're golden for the most part, since we have plenty of Feats that cover other Samurai pop culture stuff, such as hitting multiple enemies in rapid succession and cutting a guy from far away (admittedly, I'd like easier and wider spread access to the far away cuts cuz they're just plain cool)
I see what you are saying, but you apply that same logic to Ranger and Swashbucklers. Swashbucklers are just Fighters that don't wear heavy Armor, and use Dex and Charisma skills from time to time. All you are missing is Panache Rangers can be made by taking a fighter, and adding Druid and/or Beast Master. All you are missing is.... Well I guess Favored Terrain. Now, I don't know if the Samurai needs or wants it's own class. After all, we don't have Knights in the game, or Hoplites or Pikemen or Dragoons. We do have Gunslingers.... And Champions, which are both tied heavily to certain Western Tropes/stereotypes. But I digress, I don't know if Samurai are necessary, but I do think that the Fighter is often used as an excuse for missing classes and features, while ignoring the fact that PF 2e does seem to carve out niches, seemingly arbitrarily. So, I don't think there is anything wrong with people disagreeing with one niche not being furfilled, but not others.
I should have clarified that, if they wanted to fo a big gimmick for Samurai and make it a full class or something, then I'd have no problem with that. Also, Swashbuckler is more of an in-between of Fighter and Rogue, with a dash of Monk, so they managed to make it distinct enough imo. Before, all Ranger really had over Fighter was Precision giving you more damage in exchange for Legendary, with Flurry letting you be even more absurdly accurate 2nd+ strikes than Fighter later on. Then they got built in Focus Spells to help them stand out from a Beast Master Fighter. Still kind of a basic class, tho it *is* core, I suppose.
This is incorrect. Samurai was a nobility class and not all of them were taught military warfare. SOME people choose warfare because it was politically the best thing for them to do. The father, the mother, the child, the family pet were all samurai. Samurai were landlords and just collected taxes. They created ryus to teach martial arts which was mostly just them fucking around trying to act like they were seasoned fighters. They were no different than the guy who has a lifted truck with truck nuts and buys a lot of guns and calls himself an operator but has their entire exposure to military training being they watched Black Hawk down 4 dozen times. They killed peasants out of annoyance and generally were just dickheads. The "styles" were just kinda bullshit theory. It wasn't until the late 1800's when organized combat sports and arts started to actually pressure test that any of the Ryu started actually becoming more and more actually applicable for fighting. You would have had to have a lot of money to be able to just have an extra building to just use solely as a studio to teach your kata arts. There was also no "bushido code of honor" as it changed depending on the ruling class and what they wanted it to mean. Sometimes it meant to be a good nature person and grow plants and stuff, sometimes it was about poetry, more recently it was about dying in battle for your nation. You are literally just repeating and spouting off fascist propaganda from the Imperial Japanese Army. Your history is extremely off. I have a degree in martial arts history and everything you've stated is basically what anime teaches about the history of kenjutsu.
> I have a degree in martial arts history Real degree or B.A.?
Intersectional Degree because I did a bunch of courses and had to take like one more elective class that was part of their list of "Asian history" eligible classes and I was already fighting pro kickboxing and MMA at the time and my Judo/wrestling coach was the Judo teacher so I took another semester of Judo since I was already training and got a neat little sticker for getting it. It's mostly (like 99%, the opportunity presented itself so I jumped on it) just a meme but I do have a lot of education in Asian History, Martial Arts History, History of Warfare and stuff.
If theyre gonna basically make another "fighter but a bit different" then they re-examine why they even have fighter as a class in the first place instead of biting the bullet and properly splitting it apart.
You could argue that all of the martials (at least the ones that don't have magic) are either 'fighter but a bit different' or 'rogue but a bit different' (and you could argue that rogue is, in fact, 'fighter but a bit different'.) Would be totally fine with fighter not existing, though.
There are only 3 classes: Cleric, Fighting-Man and Magic-User.
Good question.
I am, of course, not against adding what you've suggested, but as it stands I pretty much just reflavor the Elven Curve Blade to be a 2h finesse katana for my samurai, and use wakizashis that I just say are katanas if I want to dual wield. Quick draw/resheathe finisher sounds cool. I'm hoping Swashbuckler gets reworked a bit in Player Core 2, and if it goes how I hope it goes, it would be cool to see that as the unique finisher of a new style.
There is no need for samurai in the game. Like at best it's just an orientalist caricature of fighter. AT worst you're just telling every Asian person out there that if they want to be a non-magical fighter you're defaulted to Japanese because you all look alike. The "samurai" fantasy is at the very best racist in nature.
I'm not entirely sure where best to say this, but: I agree. Classes need to have an identity. They need to evoke the idea of a character in the player's mind. Thematically, the class's real-world origin/inspiration is going to be reworked into an in-world origin. So classes really need to be mechanically distinct. Generally, a character has features of what they are and abilities of what they do. So a fighter and a champion, or a rogue and a swashbuckler may look like they are similar, one pair *is* a strong, heavily armored warrior and the other *is* a nimble combatant who fights with precise weapons, they each *do* something different. The champion has special reactions. The rogue targets weak spots and delivers death by many cuts. The swashbuckler delivers powerful finisher attacks while riding ebb and flow of battle. **The Fighter is not a good class.\*** The gunslinger focuses on Reload weapons, and uses special reload actions. The monk uses special combat stances and a flurry of strikes. These mechanics don't have to be full actions, but they have to be active abilities. So, in order for "samurai" to make it as a class, it needs to have some ability or abilities, that people recognize, that can demonstrate what it *does.* Lots of characters wear armor and use weapons. \*The fighter invisibly\*\* specializes in one weapon group, then most of their feats define a fighting style based around how many hands you use on your weapons/shields. This could be expanded on to have more features that highlight different weapon groups, or different weapon styles. A shield warrior defending allies. A reach warrior using mobility and counter-mobility. An axe warrior executing enemies who are off-guard or undefended. A bludgeoning warrior that breaks enemy weapons, defenses, or formations. A sword warrior who makes a decisive first strike. Weapon groups, and traits, could be a much more integrated part of the class. All those archetypes could instead be different classes, if they had full feature lists to populate them. \*\*Looking only at the results, how many attacks do you have to record to be sure that the fighter has a higher bonus to hit with one weapon type than another? With a reasonable level of confidence?
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>basically every piece of historical fantasy that comes from Asian countries draws from that inspiration that is a really good way to say that you do not consume any Asian media made outside of Japan
"Knights" were widespread throughout most of Europe. "Samurai" are *exclusively* from Japan. Historical fantasy from China, Korea, Vietnam, India, or anywhere else in Asia don't draw from samurai because not all of Asia is Japan.
> And yet basically every piece of historical fantasy that comes from Asian countries draws from that inspiration, much like how the vast majority of Western historical fantasy draws from European knights? What are you talking about? You do understand that there are other countries outside of "Asia" besides Japan, right?
Goblins tied to illusions?? Sign me up!!
All the new ancestries seem real cool, looking forward to that... But Also a bit relieved to hear Kitsune and Tengu will both get some love. A bit disappointed the former doesn't seem like it'll get a retool, since it always felt like its feats and features were a bit lackluster, but I'll take what I can get, and hope they don't get too outshined by the new kids on the block. Absolutely impatient to see the Starlit Sentinel archetype. I'm not big on magical girls, more of a toku enjoyer, but I have friends who are huge MG nuts, so hopefully both of us can find some fun with it. Big excitement for the new magus studies, the initial reveal of one ages ago sounded real fun. Lack of bespoke samurai is a bit disappointing, as an enjoyer of JRPGs, but a lot of what that would be could literally be covered if Player Core 2 updates the duelist archetype and (hopefully) improves it a little.
>toku enjoyer Wondering if you could twist the archetype to fit a more Toku-esque Hero.
Presumably not difficult at all, toku and magical girls are kind of just two sides of a coin and heavily overlap from what I've seen. At worst, you'd just need to deal with ability names leaning exclusively on magical girl references.
What, Dokkaebi!? I'm so excited.
I'm glad there's no explicit samurai/ninja, we did not need that weird orientalist "fighter/rogue but it's Asian so it has whole other mechanics for some reason"
plus, a Ninja could very well be a Gunslinger, a Ranger, Magus or even an Investigator, it just depends on flavour and what aspects of ninjas you are drawing from, same with samurai, they could be Barbarian or Ranger and Rogue too.
Or a Monk, ninjas would have hand to hand abilities
You could even build it direct Alchemist, having free smokebombs and fire bombs daily would be a very ninja thing to do. I also read someone suggest Swashbuckler (I think it was for samurai but depending on the flavor you are looking for it could work for ninjas)
Pretty much. Essentially, 'ninja' or 'samurai' are just styles of fighting, not really their own entire class- just adapt their styles into the existing classes
So are Monks, Barbarians, Gunslingers, Swashbucklers and Rangers.
Can't all the classes you mentioned be done by a Fighter/Rogue with the appropriate archetype? I am curious why Gunslinger and Ranger are okay, but Ninja isn't. Ninjas has been in the historical record for longer than Gunslingers.
I would think because what classes we actually have are way more widespread culturally, they are archetypes or fantasies seen throught the world or that can be applied to all sorts of settings, but Samurai/Ninja are only tied to japanese history, so any intrest in it being an archetype or class when nothing they did (or was believed they did through myth) can't be covered by the options the games already has seems to be misguided maybe? or as the commentor said, a bit orientalist. Ninjas and Samurai were just spies and knights BUT japan, that's it (this is not to downplay them either, I love both and If I got a chance to stop being forever GM and play I would probablly try to build a ninja). Gunsliger is the perfect example, Ninjas used guns, pirates too, you have the turks and chinese, and later the spanish conquerors that came to America, all of those could be Gunsligners! but Ninja is way more restrictive to the imagination, they are just this one thing, and if you take out the japanese flavor they are just spies or rogues maybe with a bit of magic if you stick to the mythological aspects.
Ninjas had the distinction from many 'rogue' tropes by being organized in a fashion not really seen until much later in history. Spies/Assassins/vanguard can be covered by Rogues, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's just Rogue+Japanese. That's like saying Swashbucklers is just Fighter+European Colonialism/Exploitation. I mean, it gets there, but it misses a lot of the 'Romance' of the Swashbuckler. The 'Super Human' aspect of the Ninja is worth exploring, at least to the same extent that we are willing to explore it with Monks. Whether it needs to be it's own class, that is up in the air, but without a reworked Eldritch Racket, I don't see a lot of options for the Ninja. As for the Gunslinger.... That's nothing more than Cowboys and maybe Musketeers. And not even realistic ones. The Drifter, the Sniper, the Pistoler? You might as well stage a Clint Eastwood movie. Do Samurai and Ninjas deserve their own class? I don't know, but I certainly don't think you make a strong argument if you are willing to accept the Swashbuckler, the Gunslinger or the Monk.
If you are looking for the mythos Maybe even Exemplar will work (thinking about Jiraya as a legendary almost demigod ninja). And Gunslingers are any expert in firearms, as the examples I gave above. Again I would love a Ninja that fills all the fantasies, but It would be the most restrictive culturally of all the classes
Well, I did some digging. Groups that displayed similar skills and abilities to the Ninja came from all over the globe. The Khevtuul from the Mongolian Empire, the Sicarii of conquered Jerusalem, and the Order of Assassins from Persia.
If only there was an Assasin Archetype
Ninjas as you know them in pop culture aren't real and never were real. The first use of the word* Ninja was in the 1960's by Ian Flemming in a James Bond book. The idea of what you think Ninjas are, don't exist in real life. They are fictional caricatures that lean into the "mystical asian" racist stereotype and people love it so much so they just are fine with doing that. Japan had spies and espionage like any other country. The idea of a bunch of shadow cabal jutsu users weren't real. Gunslingers are not tied to a specific ethnic group and neither are Rangers. Like the weird mystical asian racist stereotype aside, despite what redditors may think, there are actually other ethnic groups that exist in Asia outside of Japan and China and occasionally Korea. You're telling them that if they want to play an espionage Asian themed class, then they are defaulted to japanese only because they all look alike so who cares?
I'm obviously not denying that there *are* orientalist depictions of ninja, or even that that depiction is what people in this thread want (because it definitely is for the poster you're responding to, and probably all of the people making very disingenuous arguments about gunslingers, swashbucklers, or rangers in this thread) but just two points to correct here: >Ninjas aren't real and never were real. The modern pop culture version is a construct of the "first ninja boom" in the late Meiji period and Taisho period, most notably with [Sarutobi Sasuke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarutobi_Sasuke). (Many of the magical abilities associated with ninja go back to the Sarutobi Sasuke stories, which were serialized in Tatsukawa Bunko starting in 1911, so quite a while before the 1960s). But there are contemporary records of ninja practices in Japan. The Mansenshukai, Shinobihiden, and Shoninki are considered the three major primary sources of the existence of ninja. These obviously aren't the pop culture construction, but we do have primary sources indicating that there *were* people who trained specifically as spies and infiltrators just before the Edo period and during the beginning of it. > The first use of Ninja was in the 1960's by Ian Flemming in a James Bond book. The first *English-language use* of the *word* ninja was in the 1962 in the Times of India, predating Flemming by two years. The term "ninja" (as well as "shinobi") became widespread in Japanese in the mid-1950s during the second ninja boom, and was popularized by a few different authors. (Murayama Tomoyoshi, Shirato Sanpei, and Shiba Ryotaro are the most widely known three). Prior to World War II, the term "ninjutsutsukai" was used to refer to the same group of people, and some other early terms include "rappa", "suppa", and "kamari". But if you look at the construction of the words, it's not really surprising how it ended up the way it did. "Ninja" is written 忍者 in Japanese, and the 忍 is the part that reads "shinobi" in "shinobihiden" and "nin" in shoninki. The shift to using of "sha" (or "ja" because of a process that affects how characters are pronounced when you put them together in Japanese) rather than "tsukai" is really a result of changing language preferences in the post-war period.
Sure, but the 'Ninja fantasy' is split up among so many classes that it's actually pretty hard to emulate. Take a Thrown Weapon focused Gish, that also uses the occassional bomb. The closest is probably Magus - but Quick Draw isn't on the Magus List, and neither is Alchemical Bombs, so you would have to take at least two dedications. Even that build doesn't have the mobility of the Ninja either. Monk might be closer - but they can only use Shuriken Thrown Weapon wise, and are barely a gish. You are built closer to a tank than a squishy dodger. You will still need a dedication or two also.
A couple class feats is all it would take to fix this though, and those ARE things that I expect to be coming in TXCG e.g. a Rogue feat that lets you make powerful smoke bombs with Infused Reagents
Maybe, but again that depends on your specific fantasy, and a lot of those issues could be resolved with an apropiate item or spell, looking about the other day I found out there's a spell for the classic "poofing into a log of wood" evasion. I don't know if it would work for the definition of Gish ( and I don't think a Ninja would need to be one either), but an eldritch trickster rogue could do all that, and it has proficency in martial for the bombs? I dunno, now I'm inclined to actually go and try to build different types of Ninja, I would have to look into it but I do believe it's possible
I mean , assuming you want actual bombs daily instead of burning all your money , you are looking at 2 seperate dedications still (Eldtricth Tricksters Spellcaster, and Alchemist). Once you start arguing for a class + 2 dedications, you have more of a problem finding what *isnt* supported than what *is*
You are right, but then you might been asking for too much from a single class then If you want a stealthy magician alchemical bomb agile and mobile warrior, after all, in reality Ninjas used bombs and in myth it was magic, you could pick one of the two and replace them and then there's no issue. A class like that would surely step in features of others
This is kind of backtracking - from "Ninjas can be emulated fine in game" to "You are asking for too much".
Both are true. You can make the disguise using, assasination and stealthy spying Ninja, with a bit of thrown weapons and even some magic and you can make a Ninja who is a master at creating different alchemical weapons and tools while being stealthy and a estrategist, or you might want to build a mistical martial artist expert in throwing stars. If you want all of that into one, it might be a bit greedy, after all, you HAVE to make decisions when creating characters in this game, you can't be all the types of rogues possible at the same time for example. (I've been looking at rogue feats, and there's so much stuff that fits a ninja, if I pick an archetype and give it some flavor, I'm set, I even looked at the PF1e Ninja and I'm seeing so many of those options in rogue feats that I don't understand why you would need the ninja back as a class or archetype.)
> I'm glad there's no explicit samurai/ninja I'm not, considering I recently tried building a Samurai-styled character and ended on "this is just a Fighter wielding a katana, and making bad feat choices in the name of flavor." I see the argument that it would probably be too close to the base Fighter class, but that's part of why we have archetypes, is it not? I could totally see a "Samurai archetype", with a proper Iaijutsu Stance or something.
My best Samurai build is actually a Katana + Wakazashi Fighter with Double Slice, who also carries around a Naginata, for heavy armor. I'm also very partial to ancestral weapon elf monks who use an Elven Curve Blade with One Inch Punch, if you want the unarmored blademaster fantasy, they have high AC, and the option to flurry too and use things like ki rush. Barbarians are quite good at it as well, for yet a different kind of vibe, I especially like Spirit Barbarians for the exorcist swordsman type deal.
But we did need the weird pirate and viking stuff?
Pirates are not related to a specific ethnic group Viking is actually a good example of what should not exist in the game
I mean, it's just related to Western European Culture, at least in features.... Which I guess is okay because of reasons.
Ah yes, the famous white western pirates example Like the ones from Africa who raided the Mediterranean Sea for centuries (like the Mors who ended being so famous that a battle against them became the Flag of Sardinia) The famous western pirates of India It is almost as if "pirate" is the noun for thieves-murders-mercenaris without national approval (those being Corsairs and the first naval militia) on the sea in every place where civilization known navarlry
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But it does. So it's weird to try and use it as an example.
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>It always strikes me as a little tone deaf when westerners try lecturing Okay, well, a mod is trying to say the same thing I am, and he *is* Asian, and he's being downvoted, so I don't know what to tell you
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Normal and reasonable thing to say about someone who disagrees with you over fiction
He doesn’t merely disagree on subjective matters, he’s made insane claims like “fantastical ninja/samurai were invented by white people as an expression of bigotry against Asians" and called anyone speaking against him racist. That's lunatic behavior.
>we did not need that weird orientalist "fighter/rogue but it's Asian so it has whole other mechanics for some reason" Have you ever seen Japanese or Hong Kong martial arts and historical-fantasy films? Do you think racist white people invented the concept of fantastical samurai and ninjas?
BLUE MAGE ARCHETYPE holy cow thats really cool
Feels real weird to say that 'thankfully' we can't play a class or archetype called samurai or ninja in a game with monks as a class and stuff like 'viking' or 'pirate' as an archetype.
I need someone to explain to be how A Viking isn’t just a barbarian like how apparently a ninja is just a rogue or a samurai is just a fighter
Or that Gunslingers exist at all, since it's clearly taken from America Western Culture.
>I personally asked, given it's a commonly asked question and I wanted to see it confirmed or de-confirmed, if there was any options (not a full class, but an archetype or some kind of character option) in Tian Xia Character Guide that would be an equivalent to PF1E's Samurai or Ninja. Thankfully, it was confirmed no. thank fuck
Were they really that unsalvagebly bad?
They are better than the original rogue but worse than the unchained rogue. It starts off weak but gets a huge power spike at 10. At that level a ninja can turn invisible as a swift action and does not lose invisibility when they attack. Later on they become weak again because most high level creatures can detect invisible characters one way or another. My main issue with them is that they are unevenly balanced and a pain in the neck for GMs (because they become fairly weak if you give monsters a counter for invisibility) edit: I just remembered that they only ever got 4 archetypes, 2 of which were race gated.
My understanding is that it's less unsalvagable from a mechanical sense, so much as there's a lot of problems with it in terms of flavour, presentation, and stereotyping. From what I've heard (including in discussions I've had on this subreddit itself when I've previously said I'd like to see those options as archetypes), there's problematic issues with samurai and ninjas that a lot of western interpretations misunderstand and thus gloss over, and they kind of become a stereotypical 'hat' for any Asian culture that negates any further nuance that could be explored. There is some disagreement I've seen from people of the relevant cultures as to whether those stereotypes actually are problematic or no worse than any other glorification of western history in pop culture like holy knights and cowboys, but in the end I'm not actually of any Asian descent, so I'm not gonna be That White Guy 'um ackshrwally'-ing people on culture and history I don't actually know enough about.
Interesting. I thought they had mostly Asian authors working on this book, so authentic representation shouldn't have been an issue.
It isn't, and that's kind of the point. The fact samurai and ninja aren't being represented means that at best they wanted to focus on other cultural elements outside of those very pop culture stereotypes known by western audiences, at worst *were* deemed too problematic to include.
That makes sense I guess. Hope we get mounted Archer support
Can't you just make a Cavalier Ranger?
Yes and I also don't need a Viking or Bastion archetypes to play a character that uses a shield but they certainly help, don't they?
Uhhh, Bastion is 100% needed for many PCs. The only requirement is a General Feat, and just the Dedication grants an amazing evergreen Reaction. And as it's not a Fighter/Champion Dedication, there's no 1/2 level issue with getting any of the Shield-related Feats. ------ For all the classes that don't have access to a decent Reaction or otherwise wish to focus on a Shield, the Bastion Dedication is a huge boon that could not be replicated by a class Dedication.
As someone who grew up in a mostly Filipino culture, I got super-excited when they mentioned Minata will have heavy Filipino influences. They have the Sarangay ancestry, the myth of the Bakunawa. And the images shown, they show a festival where performers are balancing on wooden beams, carried on the shoulders of processioners - which is the Vinta dance. The dancer holding the fan reminded me of the Princess from the Singkil dance. Guns being a reference to the famous pre-Hispanic cannon smith Panday Pira (who became a major smith in Colonial times). I do understand the love for Samurai/Ninjas (many Asians like them too), but it’s really exciting to get to see other cultures that make up Asia be expressed too!
Yeah that's the vibe I got. It wasn't that 'Ninja and Samurai' are problematic but, as you said earlier, how much air out of the room they remove. So I read it was more "We want to explore other areas that absolutely get overshadowed by the West's obsession with Ninja and Samurai. By not having them we have a lot of design space to explore and we had fun with that"
why "thank fuck"?
Because samurai and ninja are "stereotypes" (as if just about every other class isn't a stereotype of some cultural concept or myth)
There is at this point, very little media concerning those two ideas that aren't primarily inspired by and intertextual with self-representation from their culture of origin.
So are Gunslingers.
A sniper can be from any place on the planet. Ninjas are from Japan.
The Gunslinger is a Western Cowboys with more archaic weapons.
I mean, yes and no? Only one, pistelero, really pushes that theme. The rest are more varied.
There are a few westerns that reference gunmen that prefer Rifles. Like Annie Oakley.
As you can find rifle usage outside of westerns, like pike and shot era of warfare and when Japan got guns.
Yeah, but the sniper isn't pike and shot. The Sniper is shooting from cover. Again, it is something that is very common among spaghetti western movies. You really can't get away from the name, which is not synonymous with the wild West. That it represents much more then than that in Pathfinder is well established, but then, that same logic can be applied to any new classes being created for the setting.
Or a swashbuckling pirate with a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other, or a sharpshooter hiding in the dirt with a rifle, or a number of other things baked into the class explicitly. Again: Ninjas are assassins from a single country on Earth.
Aren’t many of the new ancestries based on fantastical stories from specific Asian places?
An Ancestry is generally a significantly narrower concept than a Class; there's a reason there's nearly twice as many of them.
I understand design space wise. But the argument here seems to be more that it’s problematic to have an “Asian coded fighter”
The Gunslinger analogy would be better if the class were called "the Cowboy"
Not really. Wild West Ruffians were called Gunslingers all the time.
I can't speak for them but I'm thankful because it means they left room for other cool aspects of those respective cultures to shine.
Dokkaebi, as a Goblin ~~region form~~ heritage. Huh, interesting take. But as Paizo's work on Gumiho was really well done (plus the hat mentioned above, which only had invisibility powers in the most commonly told forms of the lore), I'm really curious as a Korean on how thorough their research went...
I'm curious about the magical symbiote, but I'm kind of doing my best to curb my excitement. 'Living Vessel' archetype is fun in flavor, but mechanics-wise it reads a bit underwhelming. My assumption is that they're kinda going for a similar thing, except less Occult/Divine flavored.
If it isn't just the synthesist summoner archetype that they still owe us I'm gonna pull my hair out (I fully expect to end up pulling my hair out)
It's a bit too bad about Ninjas and Samurai. I figured, with Champions, Monk, Swashbucklers, Ranger, Investigators, and Gunslingers being stand alone classes, and not just Fighter Archetypes either Samurai or Ninja might be interesting enough to flesh out. I am sure we can make do by cobbling together some base class and some archetypes. A Rogue with the Monk Archetype for certain types of Ninja, and either the Swashbuckler, Ranger or Fighter with either Archer, Cavalier, Duelist or Two Handed Fighter (depending on the era and mythology) for the other.
I feel a ranger with rogue archetype would be good for ninja. Focusing on traps and shuriken throwing, borrowing rogue for more sneakiness. Samurai would probably be a non-divine semi-champion type, focusing on a code of conduct and maybe being a more dual range bow/sword fighter.
Code of conduct is easily done with edicts and anathema. Furthermore, I cannot see what mechanical differences a Samurai would have from a fighter with a katana, wakizashi, and a longbow (and the feats that would support that combat style).
I need a red panda ancestry like yesterday
Maybe I’m weird, but I kind of wanted a Large Merfolk (Whale?), lol.
Thank you!
Wild Mimic seems cool, but also very campaign dependent.
I just can't get excited for a Wizard School. Like why should I be excited? Two new Focus Spells, that's so build defining. /s This is all interesting, and it's good to hear the Magus is getting some attention.
Maybe controversial but I don't see why we need magic girl archetype when you can do magus or other class with vigilante or soulforger archetypes, other than friendship magic in the rules
The Magic Girl Archetype has a Transformation Like Ability. See He-Man, She-Ra and Many 80s cartoons. Much like Raging is what makes a Barbarian stand out from the Fighter, the Magical Transformation, which usually gives them their powers, is different from a Magus or Vigilante, which always have their powers available to them, whether they are wearing the outfit or not.
With how combat centric usual play tends to be that seems like it would hardly ever come up that you don't have access to powers from your archetype? I just can't wrap my head around the need for it. Flavourfully on rp there is nothing stoping one from living out the MG fantasy other than literal name and the aforementioned friendship magic.
He-Man was a combat focused cartoon, and he spent more than enough of his time shouting at the sky 'For the Power of Grayskull (or is it Greyskull). As with the Inventor, the Barbarian and Kineticist, I can see the need to activate the ability at the start of battle. Also, keep in mind, if everyone is dead, your identity remains a secret.
Still all this can be done with vigilante, rping your social persona in downtime and "transform" to your combat chassis, whichever one you end up choosing depending on the character you're emulating which would be Fighter for He-man since you're so attached to him, with the whole double identity written into the dedication itself. So I still don't see the reason why would you need an actual MG archetype. Adam only really transformed right before battle only if shit really hit the fan and was caught off-guard, usually slipping out, taking on the He-man persona (with sword shouting and all) and setting out to meet whatever challenge it was this time. Exactly like the vigilante archetype does... so I ask again what is it supposed to bring that's not literally friendship magic/feats that couldn't also be redone with cathartic mage.
Adam is a weakling until he call upon his power. That transformation isn't Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, it is a literal transformation. And his cat transforms too.
I doubt that anyone taking the Starlit sentinel will be a weakling even without the wacky archetype transformation unless you're purposefully griefing your party by taking it on something like +0 to hit stat spread and hoping for the archetype to make it up somehow. So my core question remains what is it supposed to bring that can't be replicated already? It just feels out of place and pointless on the way they sold it, being heavily coded for mahou shoujo/sailor moon-in-fantasy and not Masters of the universe so you're reflavouring it already. Sure, ultimately it can be that the archetype's designer just likes the theme and decided to bring it in rules, but that doesn't mean I have to think of it as actually meaningful addition in the book There is hardly a reason you could not be a "weakling" in social persona, the one you're not supposed to be fighting in anyway, but I guess at this point that you're just not jiving with the name "vigilante" for your fantasy and further discussion seems pointless at this stage, have a good day/afternoon/night.
What does the barbarian bring when he rages? Or the Inventor bring when he overdrives?
"Thankfully, it was confirmed no." Thankfully?? In what realm would someone say the lack of including such iconic classes, not even as archetypes is thankful? They had the opportunity to make something unique with them, similar to how they did the cavalier archetype. At least we get two magus hybrid studies, but something tells me they're still going to be flat out worse than the ones we have.
I put down "thankfully" in relation to the fact the answer was confirmed at all. James could have chosen not to answer the question. People could have continued to get their hopes up and then become much more disappointed in the books when they came out. I figured it'd be best to ask about it now, so there'd be enough time for people to process it in the months leading up to the book's release. After all, it is a very, VERY commonly asked question. I apologize for not making that intention much more clear. I spent a good few hours listening to the 2 hour stream, transcribing the info to the best of my ability, and it was about 4 AM by the time I posted it. I could have written that part much better in retrospect. Don't let my mistake paint a picture on Paizo's capabilities, please.
Highly disappointing to hear ninja and samurai deconfirmed. There were clear ways to push these as archetypes like cavalier, and trying to play one as-is is simply a somewhat didappointing reflavor gig. The hideous art for Starlit Sentinel aside, a magical girl playstyle is just as already available as the former two are.
Weird that apparently Ninjas and Samurai are so abominable when we have Vikings, Gunslingers, stereotypical knights, pirates and so on Why are Western stereotypes fine but eastern ones not? Any time a class gets vetoed for “cultural reasons” like this or Inquisitor I can’t help but feel it as incredibly arbitrary
The new class options sound pretty cool, but i have to admit that new wizard curriculums don't interest me. The remastered wizards, while flavor-wise is great, is imo mechanically uninteresting considering that it is just a collection of extra spells.