Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?

[Kuroimaken]

The best we can do is improve the areas we KNOW are lacking instead of killing the ones that are too good. Think of it like a well-oiled machine. You have some parts that work in an awesome way and some that don't do their work well. Do you improve the machine by making the awesome parts worse or by making the sucky parts better?

Depends entirely on your definition of "awesome". I don't consider "Lulz I win!" buttons awesome. And they must be improved by polishing them, aka making them smaller or simply cuting them. More isn't always better.

Really, I don't get it. You yourself have agreed that stuff like celerity and wish chaining simply can only be solved with nerfbat, but then you go back to "Don't nerf anything!" and then...

I think this is what should be a concern.
Universal solutions(Polymorph, Planar Binding, Miracle) need to be kept in check, split into multiple narrower solutions or be a class' primary solution(e.g. a shapeshifter class with polymorphing effects as it's main and only dish).
Universal solutions tend to trivialize all encounters, and are generally bad practice.

Back in 2e, doing this kind of stuff was kept in check by the philosophy that magic is supposed to be dangerous. Polymorph had system shock rolls, Wish/Miracle was a combination of DM fiat, aging, and bed rest (granted, the second one was trivialized if you were an elf), Planar Binding was much more likely to go wrong...you get the picture.

Sounds like a perfectly good way to handle things as long as you don't go overboard like 2e did.

...Back to nerfing. Because no matter how you put it, that's a nerf you're agreeing with there.

If I have a broken motor, the first thing I do is to look for stuff that may be jamming the motor pieces, not start to add even more stuff to the motor and pray the jamming pieces will magically unjam (pun intended).

- Not true. First of all, it's not a contest nor a race to see who wins first. It's supposed to be a cooperative game where everyone pulls their weight. Second of all, there's only a comparison to be made if the tricks are similar in the first place. If someone finishes an encounter by killing it and the other by befriending, in both cases you have a finished encounter, but the net results are patently different, and there isn't a standard measuring stick that applies to both.

Correction, one of the net results is patently better. Befriending the monster means you have a possible new ally, while a corpse isn't terribly usefull.

Offering a drawback is different from nerfing. Like a gun with one bullet and ludicrous reload time. Sure you can level the city with one shot, but if someone SURVIVES, you're a sitting duck while you reload, so you better make that shot count. It's not that the ability itself becomes more powerful, it's that you must be judicious in its use. That sounds more sensible to me than replacing a rocket launcher with a handgun and telling the guy to go shoot a tank anyway.

Really, I don't get it. You yourself have agreed that stuff like celerity and wish chaining simply can only be solved with nerfbat, but then you go back to "Don't nerf anything!" and then...

Please don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying you're buying yourself a headache by allowing them. What if with every wish you chained together you had an equal chance to screw yourself, or with every time you cast celerity you diminished your lifespan, like 2e Haste did? Doesn't make them any less potent, but if you have a risk that weights roughly the same as the rewards, you're not going to use it as a solution to everything.

Really powerful yet restricted in use > Really powerful with no restriction for our purposes. It's not rocket science.

In addition, by polishing the gear, you're making it more efficient at its given task, which is the same as buffing. Contrary to popular belief not all male-created analogy has to involve penis size.

Besides, I used awesome as in awesomely efficient, not as in cool.

EDIT: Sorry Oslecamo, but I doubt we're going to see eye-to-eye on this 'buffing versus nerfing' debacle. I've already stated my opinion on the subject, and I've already offered my reasons for it. I simply don't agree with the reasons you've put out for your given point of view. My proposition is that you should look to make things be like the best of the best, and not the worst of the worst; and that it's easier to bring lower things up than to bring both to a middle ground. Bringing a Caster down to a Fighter's level, who is already incompetent at his given task, will probably only make the game better if your DM wears a leather mask and you like if someone cracks a whip on your ass.

It's not that a middle ground can't be achieved, it's that I find it's the hardest path, and the one most likely to go horribly wrong.

[oslecamo]

Offering a drawback is different from nerfing. Like a gun with one bullet and ludicrous reload time. Sure you can level the city with one shot, but if someone SURVIVES, you're a sitting duck while you reload, so you better make that shot count. It's not that the ability itself becomes more powerful, it's that you must be judicious in its use. That sounds more sensible to me than replacing a rocket launcher with a handgun and telling the guy to go shoot a tank anyway.

Ah, so it's explained. You consider drawback=/=nerf, while I consider a drawback precisely a kind of nerf. Good to have that cleared up.

After all, I believe any military would tell you that a rocket launcher that can only fire once every minute is definetely worst than one that can fire every 3 seconds with the same destructive power.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying you're buying yourself a headache by allowing them. What if with every wish you chained together you had an equal chance to screw yourself, or with every time you cast celerity you diminished your lifespan, like 2e Haste did? Doesn't make them any less potent, but if you have a risk that weights roughly the same as the rewards, you're not going to use it as a solution to everything.

Really powerful yet restricted in use > Really powerful with no restriction for our purposes. It's not rocket science.

The problem here it's preventing spells from nullifying each other drawbacks. Wish (and several other powerfull spells) costs exp and/or gold. But monster's SLAs don't cost exp or gold. And planar biding allows you to get monsters, wich are normally weak, but their SLAs don't cost exp or gold.

Or what if you're an undead or have atained some other of magic imortality? You have all the lifespan you want to burn. Or the already mentioned celerity+daze immunity.

Well, I guess we could just make a "if you ignore the cost, you get no benefit" clause. So if you're immortal you can't haste yourself, and the efreeti's wish always turns up on a delusion.

EDIT: Sorry Oslecamo, but I doubt we're going to see eye-to-eye on this 'buffing versus nerfing' debacle. I've already stated my opinion on the subject, and I've already offered my reasons for it. I simply don't agree with the reasons you've put out for your given point of view. My proposition is that you should look to make things be like the best of the best, and not the worst of the worst; and that it's easier to bring lower things up than to bring both to a middle ground. Bringing a Caster down to a Fighter's level, who is already incompetent at his given task, will probably only make the game better if your DM wears a leather mask and you like if someone cracks a whip on your ass.

It's not that a middle ground can't be achieved, it's that I find it's the hardest path, and the one most likely to go horribly wrong.

So I ask you again, what's exactly the "best of the best"? Because whitout any changes to the rules, that's god-wizard chaining wishes and solars and whatnot with a trillion buffs on himself, his personal plane(s) and stealing monster abilities for himself.

But as you yourself stated, that's simply insane, so you cut down wish and solar chaining for starters. So you cut something. Nerf. Drawback. Call it whatever you want. You just made casters weaker/less versatile.

Perhaps I didn't explain me perfectly before, but when I said "middle ground", it's not exactly on the middle. Noncasters should get more buffs than casters are geting drawbacks/nerfs, yes. But you still need to reign on some of the caster tricks, otherwise there's simply no topline, as the caster can keep chaining stuff on top of stuff.

[Kuroimaken]

Offering a drawback is different from nerfing. Like a gun with one bullet and ludicrous reload time. Sure you can level the city with one shot, but if someone SURVIVES, you're a sitting duck while you reload, so you better make that shot count. It's not that the ability itself becomes more powerful, it's that you must be judicious in its use. That sounds more sensible to me than replacing a rocket launcher with a handgun and telling the guy to go shoot a tank anyway.

Ah, so it's explained. You consider drawback=/=nerf, while I consider a drawback precisely a kind of nerf. Good to have that cleared up.

After all, I believe any military would tell you that a rocket launcher that can only fire once every minute is definetely worst than one that can fire every 3 seconds with the same destructive power.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying you're buying yourself a headache by allowing them. What if with every wish you chained together you had an equal chance to screw yourself, or with every time you cast celerity you diminished your lifespan, like 2e Haste did? Doesn't make them any less potent, but if you have a risk that weights roughly the same as the rewards, you're not going to use it as a solution to everything.

Really powerful yet restricted in use > Really powerful with no restriction for our purposes. It's not rocket science.

The problem here it's preventing spells from nullifying each other drawbacks. Wish (and several other powerfull spells) costs exp and/or gold. But monster's SLAs don't cost exp or gold. And planar biding allows you to get monsters, wich are normally weak, but their SLAs don't cost exp or gold.

Or what if you're an undead or have atained some other of magic imortality? You have all the lifespan you want to burn. Or the already mentioned celerity+daze immunity.

Well, I guess we could just make a "if you ignore the cost, you get no benefit" clause. So if you're immortal you can't haste yourself, and the efreeti's wish always turns up on a delusion.

EDIT: Sorry Oslecamo, but I doubt we're going to see eye-to-eye on this 'buffing versus nerfing' debacle. I've already stated my opinion on the subject, and I've already offered my reasons for it. I simply don't agree with the reasons you've put out for your given point of view. My proposition is that you should look to make things be like the best of the best, and not the worst of the worst; and that it's easier to bring lower things up than to bring both to a middle ground. Bringing a Caster down to a Fighter's level, who is already incompetent at his given task, will probably only make the game better if your DM wears a leather mask and you like if someone cracks a whip on your ass.

It's not that a middle ground can't be achieved, it's that I find it's the hardest path, and the one most likely to go horribly wrong.

So I ask you again, what's exactly the "best of the best"? Because whitout any changes to the rules, that's god-wizard chaining wishes and solars and whatnot with a trillion buffs on himself, his personal plane(s) and stealing monster abilities for himself.

But as you yourself stated, that's simply insane, so you cut down wish and solar chaining for starters. So you cut something. Nerf. Drawback. Call it whatever you want. You just made casters weaker/less versatile.

Perhaps I didn't explain me perfectly before, but when I said "middle ground", it's not exactly on the middle. Noncasters should get more buffs than casters are geting drawbacks/nerfs, yes. But you still need to reign on some of the caster tricks, otherwise there's simply no topline, as the caster can keep chaining stuff on top of stuff.

Well, yes, I suppose it helps to clear up we have different definitions on something.

For me, a rocket launcher that fires once every three seconds but that packs humongous ammo isn't inherently worse, but it's more troublesome to work with.

Incidently, I agree with the problem of spells nullifying the drawbacks of other spells. But there have to be other ways to work with those. For example, there are ways around XP/gold costs (often by making them into SLAs via PrC abilities). One could stipulate a clause that if you planar bind a creature with a Wish SLA, you pay the cost it normally wouldn't have on that SLA (plus whatever added risk you'd have on planar binding). You still get the toy, but it's a toy you have to be careful with. However, if you do it via PrC, then you don't need to pay the cost. Why? Because you actually made an investment towards that goal, instead of getting it for free.

No drawbacks means no benefits sounds like a perfectly good balancing point to me. Or offer alternative drawbacks instead (for example, you could take ability burn for using Celerity, which is something you cannot solve by magic means and undead are not explicitly immune to, last I checked).

Remember that everything the players can do, so can the villains. The arms race argument doesn't apply, because even taking into consideration infinite loops, the villains have more resources on their hands than the heroes, and they ALWAYS WILL. Not having overpowered casters actually limits your storytelling options, if you think about it. Depending on how high they go, to a greater or lesser degree.

I actually DM a campaign world where criminals that go to jail have their souls ripped off and their bodies frozen in stasis, then their souls spend some time in a morphic time demiplane and come back to society after doing their time, complete with psychotherapy. How would I pull this off if I banned Genesis?

[Lycanthromancer]

You could make the more powerful spells (like genesis) be the product of artifacts, such as mythals.

That way players don't get them unless you have it available for use.

[Kuroimaken]

You could make the more powerful spells (like genesis) be the product of artifacts, such as mythals.

That way players don't get them unless you have it available for use.

You could also make the prison itself sit in an already morphic time plane. But that's beside the point, as the timeframe is only PART of the problem.

[Midnight_v]

Agreed, there's a perfect middle ground somewhere, wich demands nerfing and buffing the right things.  "God-wizard" and "How do I stab stuff samurai" aren't the only results possible, neither should they be

Hmph... I... can you explain to me what are the other options for samurai? I'm kinda at a loss.
Should the samurai become like... a I can't remember the tern they used in rifts... 1sec.
An M.D.C. Being? There is a simlar argument occuring elsewhere and I'm really curious to know what other options there are for the samurai besides "Samurai: The Stabbing" or whatever.

Aside from that ... Before anyone picks up the nerf bat, I suppose there needs to be something limiting its use. A HARD limit to what can be banned, or a criteria for banning, or whatever. I thought this because I've reread this and the Clerics are uber thread and something that stood out for me was the "Making clerics not be able to fight doesn't help the fighter but makes it suck to be a cleric of hextor"
You said removing DMM doesn't do that and they still have plenty of options, but then they'd have to use resources.
 I wanted to agree with you on that. . . but the thing is keeping people from ever taking away those other options. I"m pretty good with casting heightend Various clouds, under force cages, or walls of arbitrarium. Thats going to make the fighter feel pretty bad as well, not the same bad but bad ultimately, honestly on many levels the idea behind casters is superiour to warriors. So the concept of any warrior needs to be pushed up immensly in my book.

You could make the more powerful spells (like genesis) be the product of artifacts, such as mythals.

That way players don't get them unless you have it available for use. 

So... basically "fuck you Dm toy only" I feel like I've seen too much of that over the years. So... basically the DM can put people into the "negative zone" but players can't use that option on their own power? At high levels you're supposed to be the guy building interdimensional prisons. The fear there is that, said situations bring about a poor dynamic in high level play. If they can't meaningfully affect the gameworld and are still reduced to maguffin. Then the essence of HLP is to take the kobolds you fought at level 1 multiply thier hp x 20 give them a plot device and roll some dice. . . and really thats probbably exactly what some people want. I dont' think its a great baseline though.

[Solo]

Samurai should also be able to honor things to death. With honor.

[Lycanthromancer]

You could make the more powerful spells (like genesis) be the product of artifacts, such as mythals.

That way players don't get them unless you have it available for use.  

So... basically "fuck you Dm toy only" I feel like I've seen too much of that over the years. So... basically the DM can put people into the "negative zone" but players can't use that option on their own power? At high levels you're supposed to be the guy building interdimensional prisons. The fear there is that, said situations bring about a poor dynamic in high level play. If they can't meaningfully affect the gameworld and are still reduced to maguffin. Then the essence of HLP is to take the kobolds you fought at level 1 multiply thier hp x 20 give them a plot device and roll some dice. . . and really thats probbably exactly what some people want. I dont' think its a great baseline though.

I'm just saying that the excessively powerful stuff that probably shouldn't be in players hands (like time-trait genesis planes) could be pulled out, with the DM pulling them back in when he deems it appropriate.

Non-time-trait genesis might be okay. It's just a higher-level rope trick, after all.

[Midnight_v]

I'm just saying that the excessively powerful stuff that probably shouldn't be in players hands (like time-trait genesis planes) could be pulled out, with the DM pulling them back in when he deems it appropriate.

Honestly I'd rather have Polymorph not exist than allow it to be a thing the Dm puts back in when he "Feels Apprpriate". You have to consider the least common denominator, my friend.
I feel for people like kevin_video(the d&D martyr) but I've know plenty of people with that type of D&D experience. Specifically, you're right, in general you're incorrect about the approach in my opinion. I'd trust YOU to do that type of thing, just as I'd not truts anybody else who suggests such a thing as a design rubric for play.
Non-time-trait genesis might be okay. It's just a higher-level rope trick, after all.

Samurai should also be able to honor things to death. With honor.

Solo... you are the shit, for the emperor then!
I'd like to see the samurai do thing things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8gqDOnN32s
Yeah so maybe some thing killing like that would be best. Among other things.

[Lycanthromancer]

I'm just saying that the excessively powerful stuff that probably shouldn't be in players hands (like time-trait genesis planes) could be pulled out, with the DM pulling them back in when he deems it appropriate.

Honestly I'd rather have Polymorph not exist than allow it to be a thing the Dm puts back in when he "Feels Apprpriate".

Really, in order to make a decision one way or another we'd have to have a codified list of spells that are too powerful for their level and are exceptionally abusable. Then we'd have to go through, make edits to make some not as powerful/abusable, which would include hedging out abuses and raising the spell level (or lowering it for some useless spells, such as disguise elf, which should, all things considered, be level -3). All of this would have to be done on a case-by case basis.

This wouldn't mean we'd kill them completely; wizards etc would use those spells as before, but they're not as OMGUBERPOWERFUL as they were before.

This would, of course, be coupled with powering-up the crap classes.

You have to consider the least common denominator, my friend.
I feel for people like kevin_video(the d&D martyr) but I've know plenty of people with that type of D&D experience.

KV really needs to be the patron saint of abused D&D players, I think.

But again, we'd have to have a good idea of the intended power level throughout the levels, then cop to it when making whatever changes we had in mind.

Without having this stuff codified, we'd have different ideas of what we'd need to do level-by-level, and you'd have shit like what we got with the wizard/fighter, druid/monk system of balance.

Which is crap.

Specifically, you're right, in general you're incorrect about the approach in my opinion. I'd trust YOU to do that type of thing, just as I'd not truts anybody else who suggests such a thing as a design rubric for play.

Well, you can easily scrap certain problematic classes on both ends of the spectrum and aim for T2-T3 or T3-T4, wherever you feel is more appropriate. Ban everything that's not in those specific tiers, adding in a bit here and there where you like.

Because, really, I think the tier system is pretty spot-on with most of it, and the work is already done there.

Why revamp the system when you could just use what's there?

Nobody will EVER feel useless or unpowered in a T3 game, even if they're bad optimizers. They might feel slightly UNDERpowered, but nowhere near as bad as a fighter or monk.

Non-time-trait genesis might be okay. It's just a higher-level rope trick, after all.

Yup. It's a matter of knowing where the line should be.

I have a good idea, and I know the system well enough to eyeball something and see if there are issues. But I don't know the ins and outs of EVERYTHING out there, so even I make mistakes occasionally.

I did revamp the entire psionics system to include a ton more options, though I weeded out a lot of abuses. I tried to turn psions into hyperpowered T3s, and aside from adding more options, left psywars well enough alone. But I'm sure there's stuff in my revision I missed.

I did try, though, and something has to be said for that.

Samurai should also be able to honor things to death. With honor.

Solo... you are the shit, for the emperor then!
I'd like to see the samurai do thing things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8gqDOnN32s
Yeah so maybe some thing killing like that would be best. Among other things.

We ought to do something about that.

[oslecamo]

Agreed, there's a perfect middle ground somewhere, wich demands nerfing and buffing the right things.  "God-wizard" and "How do I stab stuff samurai" aren't the only results possible, neither should they be

Hmph... I... can you explain to me what are the other options for samurai? I'm kinda at a loss.
Should the samurai become like... a I can't remember the tern they used in rifts... 1sec.
An M.D.C. Being? There is a simlar argument occuring elsewhere and I'm really curious to know what other options there are for the samurai besides "Samurai: The Stabbing" or whatever.

By all means, acuse me of being an anime/manga fanboy, but you ever looked at samurais there? We have stuff like:
-Using your sword skillz to instantly craft stuff out of raw materials by cuting it really good.
-Use their swords to parry stuff thrown at their allies.
-Being really philosophical dudes thanks to their martial training, wich allows them to reach a special mental enlightment.
-Strike so hard they create waves of energy that cut their oponents at distance.
-Cuting time and space to travel around or simply messing up stuff.
-Carrying around dozens if not hundreds or thousands of swords, and during battle throwing them all at the same time to clog the battlefield with swords to limit the enemy actions.
-Sealing stuff inside their swords.

So basically, if the caster can reshape reality in a thousand ways with magic, why shouldn't the samurai be able to reshape reality in a hundred ways with his blade?

Tome of Battle doesn't exactly does this, but it's a good start. We have martial skill allowing for teleportation, seting your own blade on fire, flying, healing, making your allies charge off-turn, using concentration for saves, giving allies extra turns and attacks, ect, ect.

Aside from that ... Before anyone picks up the nerf bat, I suppose there needs to be something limiting its use. A HARD limit to what can be banned, or a criteria for banning, or whatever. I thought this because I've reread this and the Clerics are uber thread and something that stood out for me was the "Making clerics not be able to fight doesn't help the fighter but makes it suck to be a cleric of hextor"
You said removing DMM doesn't do that and they still have plenty of options, but then they'd have to use resources.
 I wanted to agree with you on that. . . but the thing is keeping people from ever taking away those other options. I"m pretty good with casting heightend Various clouds, under force cages, or walls of arbitrarium. Thats going to make the fighter feel pretty bad as well, not the same bad but bad ultimately, honestly on many levels the idea behind casters is superiour to warriors. So the concept of any warrior needs to be pushed up immensly in my book.

And again, I agree that warriors need more buffing that noncasters need nerfing.

The idea behind casters right now it's "They do everything whitout any real drawback!". They heal, they blast, they melee, they mind control, you name it... And they can do it all at the same time That needs to change. Either by nerfing spells or puting some real drawbacks or a magic fumble system (rolled a 1 firing that orb? It explodes in your face) or whatever.

Remember that everything the players can do, so can the villains. The arms race argument doesn't apply, because even taking into consideration infinite loops, the villains have more resources on their hands than the heroes, and they ALWAYS WILL. Not having overpowered casters actually limits your storytelling options, if you think about it. Depending on how high they go, to a greater or lesser degree.

I actually DM a campaign world where criminals that go to jail have their souls ripped off and their bodies frozen in stasis, then their souls spend some time in a morphic time demiplane and come back to society after doing their time, complete with psychotherapy. How would I pull this off if I banned Genesis?

First, what you're doing there it's already kinda DM-only, as it's questionable if genesis can affect the time trait, and even then I don't recally any spells for removing souls and puting them back like that.

Second yes, the DM has as much resources as it damn pleases, but from my experience it's quite common that the players can and will outwit a DM, by catching them by suprise by pulling broken combos in the middle of a session. Sure the best DMs can and will adapt to powerfull moves from the players (so you slayed the king to take over the kingdom? Ok, meet the big empire next door that now sees the perfect oportunity to conquer it's smaller neighbour), but a lot of DMs out there can't, and let the players basically take over the campaign as they can't keep up with the party's growing stratagems. Or simply make rocks fall and everybody dies whitout saves or contigency, wich pisses off the players.

[Soda]

After reading through most of the tome material again, it's my opinion that while magic could be nerfed a little, the biggest problem is underpowered mundanes. The root of it is, one player is having fun making decisions and affecting the game world and winning, while the other player is doing, "I attack. I miss.", or "I full attack. I miss. I miss. I miss."

Not fun.

Nerfing the wizard doesn't fix that.
So, to me, which is worse? Underpowered mundanes.

[Kuroimaken]

Agreed, there's a perfect middle ground somewhere, wich demands nerfing and buffing the right things.  "God-wizard" and "How do I stab stuff samurai" aren't the only results possible, neither should they be

Hmph... I... can you explain to me what are the other options for samurai? I'm kinda at a loss.
Should the samurai become like... a I can't remember the tern they used in rifts... 1sec.
An M.D.C. Being? There is a simlar argument occuring elsewhere and I'm really curious to know what other options there are for the samurai besides "Samurai: The Stabbing" or whatever.

By all means, acuse me of being an anime/manga fanboy, but you ever looked at samurais there? We have stuff like:
-Using your sword skillz to instantly craft stuff out of raw materials by cuting it really good.
-Use their swords to parry stuff thrown at their allies.
-Being really philosophical dudes thanks to their martial training, wich allows them to reach a special mental enlightment.
-Strike so hard they create waves of energy that cut their oponents at distance.
-Cuting time and space to travel around or simply messing up stuff.
-Carrying around dozens if not hundreds or thousands of swords, and during battle throwing them all at the same time to clog the battlefield with swords to limit the enemy actions.
-Sealing stuff inside their swords.

So basically, if the caster can reshape reality in a thousand ways with magic, why shouldn't the samurai be able to reshape reality in a hundred ways with his blade?

Tome of Battle doesn't exactly does this, but it's a good start. We have martial skill allowing for teleportation, seting your own blade on fire, flying, healing, making your allies charge off-turn, using concentration for saves, giving allies extra turns and attacks, ect, ect.

Aside from that ... Before anyone picks up the nerf bat, I suppose there needs to be something limiting its use. A HARD limit to what can be banned, or a criteria for banning, or whatever. I thought this because I've reread this and the Clerics are uber thread and something that stood out for me was the "Making clerics not be able to fight doesn't help the fighter but makes it suck to be a cleric of hextor"
You said removing DMM doesn't do that and they still have plenty of options, but then they'd have to use resources.
 I wanted to agree with you on that. . . but the thing is keeping people from ever taking away those other options. I"m pretty good with casting heightend Various clouds, under force cages, or walls of arbitrarium. Thats going to make the fighter feel pretty bad as well, not the same bad but bad ultimately, honestly on many levels the idea behind casters is superiour to warriors. So the concept of any warrior needs to be pushed up immensly in my book.

And again, I agree that warriors need more buffing that noncasters need nerfing.

The idea behind casters right now it's "They do everything whitout any real drawback!". They heal, they blast, they melee, they mind control, you name it... And they can do it all at the same time That needs to change. Either by nerfing spells or puting some real drawbacks or a magic fumble system (rolled a 1 firing that orb? It explodes in your face) or whatever.

Remember that everything the players can do, so can the villains. The arms race argument doesn't apply, because even taking into consideration infinite loops, the villains have more resources on their hands than the heroes, and they ALWAYS WILL. Not having overpowered casters actually limits your storytelling options, if you think about it. Depending on how high they go, to a greater or lesser degree.

I actually DM a campaign world where criminals that go to jail have their souls ripped off and their bodies frozen in stasis, then their souls spend some time in a morphic time demiplane and come back to society after doing their time, complete with psychotherapy. How would I pull this off if I banned Genesis?

First, what you're doing there it's already kinda DM-only, as it's questionable if genesis can affect the time trait, and even then I don't recally any spells for removing souls and puting them back like that.

Second yes, the DM has as much resources as it damn pleases, but from my experience it's quite common that the players can and will outwit a DM, by catching them by suprise by pulling broken combos in the middle of a session. Sure the best DMs can and will adapt to powerfull moves from the players (so you slayed the king to take over the kingdom? Ok, meet the big empire next door that now sees the perfect oportunity to conquer it's smaller neighbour), but a lot of DMs out there can't, and let the players basically take over the campaign as they can't keep up with the party's growing stratagems. Or simply make rocks fall and everybody dies whitout saves or contigency, wich pisses off the players.

That's more Swordsman material than necessarily Samurai material, honestly, but although I don't find Hakumen to be much of an example of Samurai,

I'm just saying that the excessively powerful stuff that probably shouldn't be in players hands (like time-trait genesis planes) could be pulled out, with the DM pulling them back in when he deems it appropriate.

Honestly I'd rather have Polymorph not exist than allow it to be a thing the Dm puts back in when he "Feels Apprpriate". You have to consider the least common denominator, my friend.
I feel for people like kevin_video(the d&D martyr) but I've know plenty of people with that type of D&D experience. Specifically, you're right, in general you're incorrect about the approach in my opinion. I'd trust YOU to do that type of thing, just as I'd not truts anybody else who suggests such a thing as a design rubric for play.
Non-time-trait genesis might be okay. It's just a higher-level rope trick, after all.

Samurai should also be able to honor things to death. With honor.

Solo... you are the shit, for the emperor then!
I'd like to see the samurai do thing things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8gqDOnN32s
Yeah so maybe some thing killing like that would be best. Among other things.

this seems pretty spot on.

The ripping off souls thing is basically Magic Jar on steroids of reflavoring.

But that is the kind of stuff that I'd hope to see my players come up with. YES, PLEASE reform the entire prison system of a kingdom with magic! And get some extra XP for being inventive while you're at it. Invent steam airships out of soarwood and a decanter of endless water attached to a heat engine! And carpet bombing too!

So instead of making melees feel small in the pants, I find the idea of "Why be realistic when you can be awesome?" to be a good design goal. Taking your own example regarding casters and samurai: why can't the fighter redefine reality with his sword?

[Midnight_v]

By all means, acuse me of being an anime/manga fanboy

C'mon now. . . I never said anything of the sort. Nor would I, what you, I or anyone wants thier fantasy rpg to look like is all equally valid.

That's more Swordsman material than necessarily Samurai material, honestly, but although I don't find Hakumen to be much of an example of Samurai,

See you gotta stop that. You know you're waaaaaay more knowledgeable about me at what a Samurai ACTUALLY is. . . you've studied it, I've listend to you over the years.
 I'm not saying "Hakumen should be the river from which all samurai's should flow" I'm saying if we're removing the limiter I'd like to see things like the samurai pullig people to the Astral(Ethereal, Shadow, selfmade demi) plane or have a time stop effect (essentially super speed I guess) to kill foes at level 20 Super Iujustu or whatever..
 You'd know more than me how to connect the hypethetical to the real for such purposes.
But I'm with the manga fanboy crowd on that one I think.

By all means, acuse me of being an anime/manga fanboy, but you ever looked at samurais there? We have stuff like:
-Using your sword skillz to instantly craft stuff out of raw materials by cuting it really good.
-Use their swords to parry stuff thrown at their allies.
-Being really philosophical dudes thanks to their martial training, wich allows them to reach a special mental enlightment.
-Strike so hard they create waves of energy that cut their oponents at distance.
-Cuting time and space to travel around or simply messing up stuff.
-Carrying around dozens if not hundreds or thousands of swords, and during battle throwing them all at the same time to clog the battlefield with swords to limit the enemy actions.
-Sealing stuff inside their swords.

Thats cool. Well... the carrying of literal blades~Infinite blade works... maybe not so much, I think that guys a psywar myself but thats just irrelavant. The thing is... you'd have to find a way that the samurai in someway appease people who've read the Hakegure as well as people who only watched "SPACE SAMURAI OPERA KNIGHTS!" or whatever... thats strictly a matter of what level being discussed and... fairness for the game really.

  After reading through most of the tome material again, it's my opinion that while magic could be nerfed a little, the biggest problem is underpowered mundanes. The root of it is, one player is having fun making decisions and affecting the game world and winning, while the other player is doing, "I attack. I miss.", or "I full attack. I miss. I miss. I miss."
Not fun. Nerfing the wizard doesn't fix that.
So, to me, which is worse? Underpowered mundanes.

and I agree... this is why I advocate the tome.  Hey here's the tome samurai:

Samurai
"My ancestors had words for people who would do such a thing. They were not nice words."

The war torn countrysides of many a land are held together with tremendous amounts of dedicated work by masters of weaponry and honor. These martial specialists represent the structure of society by their very existence, and beat the living crap out of any who would dare to stand against it.

At least, that's the idea. In truth, there are those who take upon the mantle of the Samurai only to betray its ideals. Those who trample the fabric of the social network they are supposedly sworn to protect.

Alignment: The Samurai can be of any alignment. All of them must maintain the veneer of honor and civility, though there is no reason that they have to actually be Lawful.

Races: The Samurai is primarily found in societies where the law of the land is held in primacy over other things. So while a Samurai himself does not have to be Lawful, Lawful races bear the vast majority of Samurai.

Starting Gold: 4d6x10 gp (140 gold), plus one masterwork weapon

Starting Age: As Fighter.

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Samurai's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Ancestral Weaponry, Pledge of Loyalty
2 Horde Breaker
3 Kiai!
4 Whirlwind Attack
5 Ancestral Guidance
6 Blindfighting, Terrible Blows
7 Iaijutsu
8 Parry Magic
9 Subtle Cut
10 Blade of Devastation
11 Iaijutsu Focus
12 Cut Magic
13 Deny Arcane Defenses
14 Final Cut
15 Iaijatsu Master
16 Reflect Magic
17 Blade of Souls
18 Deny Armor
19 Iaijutsu Grandmaster
20 Scrolls of Wisdom

All of the following are Class Features of the Samurai class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Samurai are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as a single Exotic weapon appropriate to the Samurai's tradition. Samurai are proficient with Light and Medium Armor, but not with shields of any kind.

Ancestral Weaponry: Every culture with a Samurai tradition has a signature weapon that Samurai from that culture use. Whether it is the Spiked Chain of the Hobgoblin Khanate of Khadun or the Katana of the Human Empire of Rokugan, the weapon serves as a symbol of the office and prowess of the Samurai.
A samurai can only have one weapon designated as his Ancestral Weapon at a time, and this weapon must be a masterwork weapon exalted by the Samurai's warrior culture. He must perform a 24 hour ritual to call his ancestral spirits into the weapon and designate it as his Ancestral Weapon. This ritual costs 100 gp in incense and offerings, and once performed grants the following abilities:
-Counts as his Ancestral Weapon for all Samurai abilities.
-Has a minimum enhancement bonus to attack and damage equal to his level divided by three (maximum of +5 for a samurai of 20th level or lower).
-The Ancestral weapon has double HPs and +10 Hardness, and has the Ghost Touch special
property.
Example: Bandy Humaido is a halfling samurai, and his people greatly extort the halfling skiprock as a weapon of war – but because the skiprock is thrown weapon ammunition, it is inappropriate as an Ancestral Weapon (which, of course, you could only have one of). As such, Bandy instead draws the power of his ancestors into a short sword.
Pledge of Loyalty:Samurai pledge their loyalty to a Lord, a figure of temporal power and head of a noble family or clan. To retain this Lord, they must follow this Lord's orders and uphold any Code of Conduct the Lord obeys. As long as a Samurai does these two things, he cannot be forced to act against his Lord or Lord's family by mind-affecting effects.

Samurai who have broken their vows to their lord are called ronin, while samurai who have never been pledged to a lord or are unwilling to do so are weaponmasters called kensai, sword saints, or simply "master swordsman" or other descriptive title. Regardless of their name, Samurai without a Lord receive a +4 bonus against mind-affecting effects.

Horde Breaker: A Samurai gains Horde Breaker as a bonus feat at 2nd level. If the Samurai already has this feat, he may choose a [Combat] Feat instead, but only if he meets the prerequisites of that feat.

Kiai! (Ex): At 3rd level, a Samurai may convert a successful strike into a confirmed critical hit. He may use this ability a number of times per day equal to his half his Samurai level +2. This ability is a free action that is declared after the strike is rolled and confirmed as a hit, but before damage is rolled. This ability cannot be used on Attacks of Opportunity.

Whirlwind Attack: A Samurai gains Whirlwind Attack as a bonus feat at 4th level.

Ancestral Guidance(Sp): At 5th level, a Samurai may seek guidance from his ancestors. This counts as a commune effect that can be used once a day. A samurai can also seek guidance from other peoples' ancestors if they are available. This works like a speak with dead effect that may be used once per day.

Blindfighting: A Samurai gains Blindfighting as a bonus feat at 6th level. If the Samurai already has this feat, he may choose a [Combat] Feat instead, but only if he meets the prerequisites of that feat.

Terrible Blows (Su): At 6th level, a Samurai's Ancestral Weapon bypasses Damage Reduction and ignores Hardness.

Iaijutsu (Ex): When a 7th level Samurai has the Edge on an opponent, he may take an attack of opportunity against that opponent as an immediate action at any time.

Parry Magic (Su): At 8th level, a Samurai may use his Ancestral Weapon to parry magic targeted at him. When the Samurai is targeted by a spell or supernatural ability, he may take an Attacks of Opportunity against the targeted effect. If he can make an attack roll against an AC equal to the spell or effect's DC with this Attack of Opportunity, the effect does not affect him.

Subtle Cut: A Samurai gains Subtle Cut as a bonus feat at 9th level. If the Samurai already has this feat, he may choose another [Combat] Feat instead, but only if he meets the prerequisites of that feat.

Blade of Devastation (Su): At 10th level, the Samurai may attack enemies within his reach through objects and walls, his Ancestral Weapon automatically destroying any unattended object or wall in the way with a Hardness less than 20. As a result, enemies do not gain cover bonuses against an attacking Samurai. This effect can also pierce [force] effects.

As a standard action, he can also destroy unattended objects of any Hardness with a successful Ancestral weapon attack, or dispel up to a 10' by 10' section of a [force] effect.

Iaijutsu Focus (Ex): At 11th level, a Samurai may make up to his per round limit of Attacks of Opportunity against any opponent(s) that he threatens as an immediate action.

Cut Magic (Su): At 12th level, a Samurai may attack ongoing spell effects by attacking the square they are in for Area of Effect effects or the object or person for targeted effects (which does damage as normal to the object or person). This attack is handled like the Samurai's Parry Magic ability, but it only dispels a 10' by 10' section of an Area of Effect spell or spell-like ability.

Deny Caster Defenses (Ex): At 13th level, a Samurai attacking with his Ancestral Weapon ignores any AC bonuses on his targets that come from spells or spell-like abilities.

Final Cut(Ex): At 14th level, a Samurai's Ancestral Weapon gains the Vorpal Special quality, even if it is not a slashing weapon.

Iaijatsu Master(Ex) : At 15th level, any enemy struck by a Samurai's Attacks of Opportunity must make a Fortitude save against a DC equal to 10 + half the Samurai's HD +the Samurai's Wisdom bonus or be dazed for one round. A successful save against this effect makes the enemy immune to this effect for five rounds.

Reflect Magic(Su) : At 16th level, an spell effect that would be dispelled by a successful use of the Samurai's Parry Magic ability can instead be reflected back on the caster, as per a spell turning effect.

Blade of Souls: At 17th level, any enemy killed by a Samurai's Ancestral Weapon has his soul sucked into it, and this enemy cannot be raised, resurrected, or otherwise returned to life until the Ancestral Blade is broken. Each time the Ancestral Weapon takes a soul, the Samurai gains a single bonus use of his Kiai! ability that must be used before the next sunrise.

Deny Armor(Su): At 18th level, a Samurai attacking with his Ancestral Weapon ignores any AC bonuses on his targets that come from armor or natural armor.

Iaijutsu Grandmaster (Ex): At 19th level, any Attack of opportunity made by the Samurai is automatically a confirmed critical hit.

Scrolls of Wisdom: At 20th level, the Samurai has reached the pinnacle of his art, and he may compose a treatise of his collected wisdom. If he spends one month composing this treatise, he may distribute it and spread his wisdom. Anyone who reads this treatise gains a +2 competence bonus to attack characters with Samurai levels, but a -8 penalty to attack the writer of the treatise.

In addition, a Samurai who writes his treatise no longer takes ability penalties for aging as long as one copy of the treatise exists.
   

I'm really on board with that kinda stuff... I didn't like the capstone ability, as it seemed too fluffy and I in someways feel like that might never come into actual play. I'd rather they got an ability to planeswalk or timestop or sometthing to that effect, however most of that? I'd feel good about playing even if the wizard was still silly strong. Oh and those tome feats do a lot of interesting stuff too, but its hard work from either end, I have to agree... if not the placements the "Idea" behind Jaronk's tiers was a pretty good idea set.

[lans]

Infinite loops should be removed.

Abilities that automatically shut down a wide range of abilities and peoples should be changed so its not automatic.
If necessary the ability can also be boosted so that its more of a trade than a nerf.


For Example- Protection from Evil shuts down almost an entire school of magic, as a level 1 spell is too powerful. Instead have it give a deflection bonus to the save. Bump its duration to 10/minutes a level.

Or you could have it only protect from spells of equal or lower level.

Forcage could be a strength check to burst the cage. Remove the material cost

Alarm should allow opposed stealth checks vs the caster level. You can add a round of stunning or dazing to the effect of the Alarm spell.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

I'm just saying, this is how malconvoker vs. samurai should go.

[Kuroimaken]

By all means, acuse me of being an anime/manga fanboy

C'mon now. . . I never said anything of the sort. Nor would I, what you, I or anyone wants thier fantasy rpg to look like is all equally valid.

That's more Swordsman material than necessarily Samurai material, honestly, but although I don't find Hakumen to be much of an example of Samurai,

See you gotta stop that. You know you're waaaaaay more knowledgeable about me at what a Samurai ACTUALLY is. . . you've studied it, I've listend to you over the years.
 I'm not saying "Hakumen should be the river from which all samurai's should flow" I'm saying if we're removing the limiter I'd like to see things like the samurai pullig people to the Astral(Ethereal, Shadow, selfmade demi) plane or have a time stop effect (essentially super speed I guess) to kill foes at level 20 Super Iujustu or whatever..
 You'd know more than me how to connect the hypethetical to the real for such purposes.
But I'm with the manga fanboy crowd on that one I think.

By all means, acuse me of being an anime/manga fanboy, but you ever looked at samurais there? We have stuff like:
-Using your sword skillz to instantly craft stuff out of raw materials by cuting it really good.
-Use their swords to parry stuff thrown at their allies.
-Being really philosophical dudes thanks to their martial training, wich allows them to reach a special mental enlightment.
-Strike so hard they create waves of energy that cut their oponents at distance.
-Cuting time and space to travel around or simply messing up stuff.
-Carrying around dozens if not hundreds or thousands of swords, and during battle throwing them all at the same time to clog the battlefield with swords to limit the enemy actions.
-Sealing stuff inside their swords.

Thats cool. Well... the carrying of literal blades~Infinite blade works... maybe not so much, I think that guys a psywar myself but thats just irrelavant. The thing is... you'd have to find a way that the samurai in someway appease people who've read the Hakegure as well as people who only watched "SPACE SAMURAI OPERA KNIGHTS!" or whatever... thats strictly a matter of what level being discussed and... fairness for the game really.

  After reading through most of the tome material again, it's my opinion that while magic could be nerfed a little, the biggest problem is underpowered mundanes. The root of it is, one player is having fun making decisions and affecting the game world and winning, while the other player is doing, "I attack. I miss.", or "I full attack. I miss. I miss. I miss."
Not fun. Nerfing the wizard doesn't fix that.
So, to me, which is worse? Underpowered mundanes.

and I agree... this is why I advocate the tome.  Hey here's the tome samurai:

Samurai
"My ancestors had words for people who would do such a thing. They were not nice words."

The war torn countrysides of many a land are held together with tremendous amounts of dedicated work by masters of weaponry and honor. These martial specialists represent the structure of society by their very existence, and beat the living crap out of any who would dare to stand against it.

At least, that's the idea. In truth, there are those who take upon the mantle of the Samurai only to betray its ideals. Those who trample the fabric of the social network they are supposedly sworn to protect.

Alignment: The Samurai can be of any alignment. All of them must maintain the veneer of honor and civility, though there is no reason that they have to actually be Lawful.

Races: The Samurai is primarily found in societies where the law of the land is held in primacy over other things. So while a Samurai himself does not have to be Lawful, Lawful races bear the vast majority of Samurai.

Starting Gold: 4d6x10 gp (140 gold), plus one masterwork weapon

Starting Age: As Fighter.

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Samurai's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good

Level, Benefit
1 Ancestral Weaponry, Pledge of Loyalty
2 Horde Breaker
3 Kiai!
4 Whirlwind Attack
5 Ancestral Guidance
6 Blindfighting, Terrible Blows
7 Iaijutsu
8 Parry Magic
9 Subtle Cut
10 Blade of Devastation
11 Iaijutsu Focus
12 Cut Magic
13 Deny Arcane Defenses
14 Final Cut
15 Iaijatsu Master
16 Reflect Magic
17 Blade of Souls
18 Deny Armor
19 Iaijutsu Grandmaster
20 Scrolls of Wisdom

All of the following are Class Features of the Samurai class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Samurai are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as a single Exotic weapon appropriate to the Samurai's tradition. Samurai are proficient with Light and Medium Armor, but not with shields of any kind.

Ancestral Weaponry: Every culture with a Samurai tradition has a signature weapon that Samurai from that culture use. Whether it is the Spiked Chain of the Hobgoblin Khanate of Khadun or the Katana of the Human Empire of Rokugan, the weapon serves as a symbol of the office and prowess of the Samurai.
A samurai can only have one weapon designated as his Ancestral Weapon at a time, and this weapon must be a masterwork weapon exalted by the Samurai's warrior culture. He must perform a 24 hour ritual to call his ancestral spirits into the weapon and designate it as his Ancestral Weapon. This ritual costs 100 gp in incense and offerings, and once performed grants the following abilities:
-Counts as his Ancestral Weapon for all Samurai abilities.
-Has a minimum enhancement bonus to attack and damage equal to his level divided by three (maximum of +5 for a samurai of 20th level or lower).
-The Ancestral weapon has double HPs and +10 Hardness, and has the Ghost Touch special
property.
Example: Bandy Humaido is a halfling samurai, and his people greatly extort the halfling skiprock as a weapon of war – but because the skiprock is thrown weapon ammunition, it is inappropriate as an Ancestral Weapon (which, of course, you could only have one of). As such, Bandy instead draws the power of his ancestors into a short sword.
Pledge of Loyalty:Samurai pledge their loyalty to a Lord, a figure of temporal power and head of a noble family or clan. To retain this Lord, they must follow this Lord's orders and uphold any Code of Conduct the Lord obeys. As long as a Samurai does these two things, he cannot be forced to act against his Lord or Lord's family by mind-affecting effects.

Samurai who have broken their vows to their lord are called ronin, while samurai who have never been pledged to a lord or are unwilling to do so are weaponmasters called kensai, sword saints, or simply "master swordsman" or other descriptive title. Regardless of their name, Samurai without a Lord receive a +4 bonus against mind-affecting effects.

Horde Breaker: A Samurai gains Horde Breaker as a bonus feat at 2nd level. If the Samurai already has this feat, he may choose a [Combat] Feat instead, but only if he meets the prerequisites of that feat.

Kiai! (Ex): At 3rd level, a Samurai may convert a successful strike into a confirmed critical hit. He may use this ability a number of times per day equal to his half his Samurai level +2. This ability is a free action that is declared after the strike is rolled and confirmed as a hit, but before damage is rolled. This ability cannot be used on Attacks of Opportunity.

Whirlwind Attack: A Samurai gains Whirlwind Attack as a bonus feat at 4th level.

Ancestral Guidance(Sp): At 5th level, a Samurai may seek guidance from his ancestors. This counts as a commune effect that can be used once a day. A samurai can also seek guidance from other peoples' ancestors if they are available. This works like a speak with dead effect that may be used once per day.

Blindfighting: A Samurai gains Blindfighting as a bonus feat at 6th level. If the Samurai already has this feat, he may choose a [Combat] Feat instead, but only if he meets the prerequisites of that feat.

Terrible Blows (Su): At 6th level, a Samurai's Ancestral Weapon bypasses Damage Reduction and ignores Hardness.

Iaijutsu (Ex): When a 7th level Samurai has the Edge on an opponent, he may take an attack of opportunity against that opponent as an immediate action at any time.

Parry Magic (Su): At 8th level, a Samurai may use his Ancestral Weapon to parry magic targeted at him. When the Samurai is targeted by a spell or supernatural ability, he may take an Attacks of Opportunity against the targeted effect. If he can make an attack roll against an AC equal to the spell or effect's DC with this Attack of Opportunity, the effect does not affect him.

Subtle Cut: A Samurai gains Subtle Cut as a bonus feat at 9th level. If the Samurai already has this feat, he may choose another [Combat] Feat instead, but only if he meets the prerequisites of that feat.

Blade of Devastation (Su): At 10th level, the Samurai may attack enemies within his reach through objects and walls, his Ancestral Weapon automatically destroying any unattended object or wall in the way with a Hardness less than 20. As a result, enemies do not gain cover bonuses against an attacking Samurai. This effect can also pierce [force] effects.

As a standard action, he can also destroy unattended objects of any Hardness with a successful Ancestral weapon attack, or dispel up to a 10' by 10' section of a [force] effect.

Iaijutsu Focus (Ex): At 11th level, a Samurai may make up to his per round limit of Attacks of Opportunity against any opponent(s) that he threatens as an immediate action.

Cut Magic (Su): At 12th level, a Samurai may attack ongoing spell effects by attacking the square they are in for Area of Effect effects or the object or person for targeted effects (which does damage as normal to the object or person). This attack is handled like the Samurai's Parry Magic ability, but it only dispels a 10' by 10' section of an Area of Effect spell or spell-like ability.

Deny Caster Defenses (Ex): At 13th level, a Samurai attacking with his Ancestral Weapon ignores any AC bonuses on his targets that come from spells or spell-like abilities.

Final Cut(Ex): At 14th level, a Samurai's Ancestral Weapon gains the Vorpal Special quality, even if it is not a slashing weapon.

Iaijatsu Master(Ex) : At 15th level, any enemy struck by a Samurai's Attacks of Opportunity must make a Fortitude save against a DC equal to 10 + half the Samurai's HD +the Samurai's Wisdom bonus or be dazed for one round. A successful save against this effect makes the enemy immune to this effect for five rounds.

Reflect Magic(Su) : At 16th level, an spell effect that would be dispelled by a successful use of the Samurai's Parry Magic ability can instead be reflected back on the caster, as per a spell turning effect.

Blade of Souls: At 17th level, any enemy killed by a Samurai's Ancestral Weapon has his soul sucked into it, and this enemy cannot be raised, resurrected, or otherwise returned to life until the Ancestral Blade is broken. Each time the Ancestral Weapon takes a soul, the Samurai gains a single bonus use of his Kiai! ability that must be used before the next sunrise.

Deny Armor(Su): At 18th level, a Samurai attacking with his Ancestral Weapon ignores any AC bonuses on his targets that come from armor or natural armor.

Iaijutsu Grandmaster (Ex): At 19th level, any Attack of opportunity made by the Samurai is automatically a confirmed critical hit.

Scrolls of Wisdom: At 20th level, the Samurai has reached the pinnacle of his art, and he may compose a treatise of his collected wisdom. If he spends one month composing this treatise, he may distribute it and spread his wisdom. Anyone who reads this treatise gains a +2 competence bonus to attack characters with Samurai levels, but a -8 penalty to attack the writer of the treatise.

In addition, a Samurai who writes his treatise no longer takes ability penalties for aging as long as one copy of the treatise exists.
   

I'm really on board with that kinda stuff... I didn't like the capstone ability, as it seemed too fluffy and I in someways feel like that might never come into actual play. I'd rather they got an ability to planeswalk or timestop or sometthing to that effect, however most of that? I'd feel good about playing even if the wizard was still silly strong. Oh and those tome feats do a lot of interesting stuff too, but its hard work from either end, I have to agree... if not the placements the "Idea" behind Jaronk's tiers was a pretty good idea set.

Well, what the tome samurai's got is a good start. But I'd have some things to change and a few to add. 

Also, as I said, I just don't find Hakumen to be much of a samurai in terms of demeanor. Yes, he's a honor-bound warrior. Yes, he wields a freaking huge Japanese sword. But there's just something... lacking.

I'll probably open up a thread of my own to discuss what a D&D samurai should be like.

[raith0]

So if we ae going to gather everything into a similiar power level we need to pick a tier for everyone to be in.  i would suggest tier 3-4 being the base line ( may have a few times) with good play/optimization letting you into the tier 2 range

i think that way tho you may make someone feel left out or undepowered once in a while it will ussaly mean they just need to learn a bit more about the game

Ron

[Midnight_v]

I'm just saying, this is how malconvoker vs. samurai should go.

You're mastery of distraction is powerful indeed!   I smilled and lost 10 minutes, thank you.

I'll probably open up a thread of my own to discuss what a D&D samurai should be like.

If you do rember what I'm mentioning, regardless of what the historical samruai actually was kuroimaken, a bulk of people do look at Hakumen type dudes and think "Samurai of the future" you have to temper imho, what the samurai acutally was (ymmv) with what our Pop culture considers him to be, for such a venture to be successful.
Also you can't punish Ronin for being ronin, the whole seppuku thing doesn't really happen for D&D heroes hell hald the dudes who want to play a samurai will WANT to be a masterless or renagade dude just because it "seems" more angsty. Oh and throw hakumens "Astral finish on there for me" (there's never been anyone on earth at D&D high level, go a little crazy).

Abilities that automatically shut down a wide range of abilities and peoples should be changed so its not automatic.
If necessary the ability can also be boosted so that its more of a trade than a nerf.

How would you affect fog cloud, stinking cloud, grease? The suggestion reminds me of pathfinder in some way.
Oh and I would think "infinite anything" would be an auto out, but that stuff only exist in theortical D&D. We could go to the TO board and say "No none of this" really. You don't get infinite wishes, no, but really I've never felt like thats been a "Real" issue its a show pony, to show system range, so kinda obviously nothing infinite or arbitrarily large.

So if we ae going to gather everything into a similiar power level we need to pick a tier for everyone to be in.  i would suggest tier 3-4 being the base line ( may have a few times) with good play/optimization letting you into the tier 2 range

i think that way tho you may make someone feel left out or undepowered once in a while it will ussaly mean they just need to learn a bit more about the game

Ron

This kind of thing is exactly how the Reblanceing Compendium started over on the Creations forum. That and several other projects just like it... failed. I'd consider that "shoot for tier3" was the exact same battlecry.
Not to dissuade you but to say maybe you could build on it, learn from those mistakes. GL

[Kuroimaken]

I'm just saying, this is how malconvoker vs. samurai should go.

You're mastery of distraction is powerful indeed!   I smilled and lost 10 minutes, thank you.

I'll probably open up a thread of my own to discuss what a D&D samurai should be like.

If you do rember what I'm mentioning, regardless of what the historical samruai actually was kuroimaken, a bulk of people do look at Hakumen type dudes and think "Samurai of the future" you have to temper imho, what the samurai acutally was (ymmv) with what our Pop culture considers him to be, for such a venture to be successful.
Also you can't punish Ronin for being ronin, the whole seppuku thing doesn't really happen for D&D heroes hell hald the dudes who want to play a samurai will WANT to be a masterless or renagade dude just because it "seems" more angsty. Oh and throw hakumens "Astral finish on there for me" (there's never been anyone on earth at D&D high level, go a little crazy).

Abilities that automatically shut down a wide range of abilities and peoples should be changed so its not automatic.
If necessary the ability can also be boosted so that its more of a trade than a nerf.

How would you affect fog cloud, stinking cloud, grease? The suggestion reminds me of pathfinder in some way.
Oh and I would think "infinite anything" would be an auto out, but that stuff only exist in theortical D&D. We could go to the TO board and say "No none of this" really. You don't get infinite wishes, no, but really I've never felt like thats been a "Real" issue its a show pony, to show system range, so kinda obviously nothing infinite or arbitrarily large.

So if we ae going to gather everything into a similiar power level we need to pick a tier for everyone to be in.  i would suggest tier 3-4 being the base line ( may have a few times) with good play/optimization letting you into the tier 2 range

i think that way tho you may make someone feel left out or undepowered once in a while it will ussaly mean they just need to learn a bit more about the game

Ron

This kind of thing is exactly how the Reblanceing Compendium started over on the Creations forum. That and several other projects just like it... failed. I'd consider that "shoot for tier3" was the exact same battlecry.
Not to dissuade you but to say maybe you could build on it, learn from those mistakes. GL

Relax dude. I know where you're coming from and I know what I want a samurai to do too.