Talk:Tenken (3.5e Class)

Flavor
I like the flavor, but I was thinking, doesn't this seem more like a prestige class? (Then again so do many other base classes) OneManHorde 15:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I have ideas for prestige classes based off this, but only a few of them have really materialized into anything usable. I feel it has just as much flavor as most of the other martial classes you'll find (but in all fairness, it's a Dexterity-based fighter, wbich is hardly uncommon). This fact kind of dings it for flavor already. -- ThunderGod Cid 02:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeh I understand, I have to say I really do like it though, it's good work. OneManHorde 20:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Peanut Gallery
Hey, nice to see I'm not the only Kenshin fan around here. Which gives me a couple of points to bring up:


 * The Tenken refers to the natural talent for sword skills. The Shukuchi was Sojiro's movement speed. If it were me, I'd make Shukuchi a free move (taken as a swift action at first, progressing to immediate or swift later on). If used as part of a full-round attack, it denies opponents their Dexterity bonus. Then all the weapon bonuses and the like fall under Tenken


 * The AC bonus is weak. I mean, he's already got incentive to max dexterity, so I'd tinker with something working off that. Then again, I suppose he won't be against enemies which would punish a low AC; the fast movement sort of encourages them to pop up next to the squishy people and say, "Hi!" with a big grin and a sharp sword. I've heard people say this is how the SRD monk is supposed to operate--the difference between this and the Monk is that it could actually do what it's supposed to.


 * It's very interesting. I may fiddle with my own version, Tome-style. --Genowhirl 05:51, October 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * While I already tried to make a Tome-esque version (I'll admit I have no experience with Tome and the Tome BAB was on Leziad's advice), I would love to see another person's take on this class. I'll also admit that I kind of fudged the Kenshin terminology (I personally thought Shukuchi was too good of a name to pass up). Now that I think about it, the Revised Tenken has the 16th level ability Sword of Heaven, which allows you to take a full-attack action as a standard action (sort of the same premise of allowing a move before a full attack), so what if that particular name were changed to the Shukuchi to reflect that? - TG Cid 10:56, October 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * As for the AC bonus, there was only so much I felt could be done with the Dexterity bonus (that's why the feats like Dodge and Mobility were added to give him some extra AC). What if the base AC bonus were raised in the same manner that the bonus movement speed was increased? - TG Cid 11:03, October 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * Last thing: if you liked this I'm working on a Shinsengumi prestige class based purely on Saito (as a result, it generally disregards historical fact but this is D&D so I'm not too worried about that). I might post it on my Sandbox if you're interested. - TG Cid 11:03, October 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * Making the AC bonus increase at the same rate at the speed would be a step in the right direction. Oooh. Just had an idea. Make it a shield bonus that applies to any weapon the Tenken can use Superior Finesse with. Let the weapon's enhancement bonus apply to the bonus; possibly let the Dex mod apply to it to (Hate to say it, but he needs it at low levels). Name it something about Heaven's Shield/Defense, or look up the syllable(s) for 'shield' in Japanese and put 'Ten' in front of it. There. Decent chunk of AC that you have to hang into the class to get the full benefit of. Now, I'm still a bit bothered about the Shukuchi/Tenken divide; I'll put some brain sweat into movement and offensive abilities and see what occurs to me. Oh, and I'm interested. --Genowhirl 18:05, October 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * I stumbled upon an old idea that I had that would allow the tenken to make unlimited turns even while running or charging. Your thoughts? BTW, the Shinsengumi class features have been posted on my Sandbox. - TG Cid 23:23, October 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * That's good. It adds to the maneuverability, so it's interesting from a tactical standpoint. Also, the Gatotsu is handled well in that Shinsengumi write-up. Huh. Thinking of it, most of my PrCs have been adaptations of something or other (Neji from Naruto, Yusuke from YuYu Hakusho, the Dragoon, Jago from Killer Instinct...). I still haven't had a chance to sit down and work on how I'd handle superfast attacks; there's several ways (deny dex bonus, touch attacks, treat as charges, etc). But, yeah, got busy playing FFX today... --Genowhirl 00:23, October 4, 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, so from now on my edits will be on the Revised Tenken, since I feel that it is more playable than this one. I still like this one, but I kind of get the feeling that there should be one finalized version. Anyway, the name of Shukuchi has been temporarily removed from the revised Tenken (so that it can later be used for the aforementioned movement ability) and replaced with 'Kenjutsu'. Sound good? - TG Cid 02:01, October 4, 2009 (UTC)


 * Huh, after reading it, I like it. Just quick comments, three areas of note... two which is just simple wording.  The Wis to AC is like monk, which is cool.  Since I don't think it was your intent, you should clarify that it doesn't stack with monk and monk-likes, similar to how Ninja, Swordsage, and other Wis to AC classes say "doesn't stack with monk, same thing".  The other is on getting Dex to damage, which is cool.  Perhaps you should keep it from stacking with the Shadow Blade feat from ToB, Dex x2 or x2.5 would be unfriendly.  And the last one considers Astra... not overpowered at 19th level, nope.  You may have a problem with the fixed save though.  While it has a poor Fort save, 20 isn't that difficult.  If you want the fatigue threat to have any meaning, I suggest two things.  First, you can have it scale (each additional use raises the DC by +2 for the day or something).  The other thing you can base it off something else.  Erm, 10 + 1/2 HD + times used today.... which is kinda the same thing, just different means to the end.


 * In any case, good jorb! -- Eiji Hyrule 06:10, November 16, 2009 (UTC)


 * I echo Eiji's sentiments, and instead of +2 DC per day, perhaps make it +2 DC per encounter, and make the fatigue go away with 5 minutes of resting? That way it's balanced per-encounter (yay!), rather than per-day (boo!). --Ghostwheel 06:13, November 16, 2009 (UTC)


 * Heard and done. One question, though: Since the fatigue only lasts 1d4+1 rounds, should it really have to go away after five minutes of rest? Or are you suggesting that the number of rounds should be removed and replaced by the 5 minutes of rest? - TG Cid 20:48, November 16, 2009 (UTC)


 * Err, meant that with 5 minutes of rest the DC resets to the base, and every encounter the DC scales depending on how many times you've used the ability, and resets after 5 minutes or rest or something similar. Though either way could work. --Ghostwheel 23:44, November 16, 2009 (UTC)


 * Another thing that came up from looking over the class is how very dippable it is at level 1; have you thought about perhaps pushing Superior Finesse up to level two, or even three? I think that would also help smooth out the progression a bit more, since you don't just concentrate all the awesome in the class's first eight levels into just the first one. At first level you get: 1. Wis to AC, 2. Extra attack at a small penalty (often undervalued, but it can actually be pretty powerful), 3. +5 to some key skills, and 4. Dex to attack and damage which is even better than the Shadow Blade feat in that it gives 1.5* dex when the weapon is wielded in two hands. You could split all of those up amongst the first eight levels, perhaps even splitting Superior Finesse into two abilities, the first of which emulates Weapon Finesse and the second which adds the damage. Thoughts? --Ghostwheel 10:39, December 16, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, those are good points, but I am sort of hesitant to make many changes to the amount of positive things I've heard about the class as is (I'm not quite sure how such changes would affect most peoples' outlook). In it's defense, most of those abilities require the tenken to wear no armor, which greatly reduces its versatility with many other potential melee classes. If that restriction were extended to Superior Finesse (I don't believe it is presently), could that reduce the chance of dipping abuse? - TG Cid 18:28, December 16, 2009 (UTC)

Shukuchi
Can it be used in conjunction with TWF? What if the secondary weapon were an unarmed strike? If not, could you say so explicitly? Also, might I suggest adding 1d8 damage for every two levels the Tenken possesses (rounded up, so 1, 3, 5, 7...) whenever he uses Shukuchi if he cannot use it in conjunction with TWF? --Ghostwheel 06:35, February 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * So I clarified in the Shukuchi section with a little tidbit about not being able to use Skukuchi with TWF (it will probably be added into the Tome Tenken as well for consistency). As for the damage bonuses, does he really need them mathematically in order to meet the Rogue BP, given that he already has solid (if not superior) DPR thanks to the current combo of Skukuchi and Superior Finesse? I do like it for one thing, though, which is it would give another class feature in what I'm assuming the realm of levels 2-5 (which is the most boring part of the class). If it needs it to compete, I would probably add it to this as well as the Tome version. I'm just not convinced it needs what appears to be such a large power boost (given that assuming you even hit on your first four Shukuchi attacks would add 40d8 damage at level 20, quite a bit more than the standard combat rogue especially since the Shukuchi can be used on anyone unlike the prototypical SA). - TG Cid 11:00, February 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not quite sold on the adding d8's to Shukuchi, so here's my alternative:


 * Spiral Ace (Ex): If a 4th level tenken successfully hits his target with at least two attacks during a shukuchi, he gains yet another shukuchi attack at his highest attack bonus (any penalties from using the Shukuchi still apply). This new attack deals base damage normally and adds twice the tenken’s Dexterity bonus to damage. A tenken can only gain one extra attack in this manner per Shukuchi.


 * I think this gives it nice boost (and a good ability to make levels 2-7 less boring) while not messing with the RNG, providing more balance across all levels, and preventing a large amount of die rolling. Against AC 26, it raises the DPR to 15.6 from 9.5. Admittedly, that's not that big a boost, but according to the Guide to Party Roles a character's target AC should (their character level x 1.5) + 10, which gives me 21 tops. Against AC 21, the Tenken's DPR with Spiral Ace and your Alternative Iterative Attacks comes out to 28.6, which is well within the accepted range for a level 7 character. - TG Cid 13:41, February 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * I could be wrong, but was the damage boost to shukuchi supposed to replace Superior Finesse? At least the Shadow Blade portion of it? -- Jota 18:50, February 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * The DPR calculations we did before (as well as the ones above) included that, and were still found somewhat lacking. But the adding d8's to all damage along with everything the Tenken already has leads to exorbitant amounts of damage at high levels. While it was balanced at level 7, those levels are pretty bare as far as damage goes. In my opinion, the addition of d8's doesn't balance across all levels and just adds up to a bit much. - TG Cid 19:25, February 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Went ahead and instead just made an ACF version. --Ghostwheel 20:35, February 17, 2010 (UTC)

NPC
Could I use this class for an NPC? Click here. --Franken Kesey 22:57, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * You don't really have to ask, since this is publicly accessible homebrew. Thanks for being conscientious enough to so, though. Go ahead. - TG Cid 23:39, February 19, 2010 (UTC)