Yakuza (prestige class)

[TheThan]

Yakuza

Yakuza are made men and women. They are the foundation of the underground. Basically they control organized crime in the cities and towns of the world. They often work under the noses of the government, smirking at their vain attempts to catch them. Others rule small towns with an iron fist. They are outlaws, thieves, gamblers and other sorts of scoundrels. Some Yakuza are beneficial to the town or city they work in, but most just leach off of society. The Yakuza can be many things, but one thing is for sure, leaving the Yakuza means death.
Not all members of a Yakuza gang gain this class. Most are thugs and thieves looking to leach some semblance of power off of the true Yakuza. Only the best and brightest are admitted into the Yakuza brotherhood.

Adventures
Most members of the Yakuza adventure to perform some service to their gang. Whether that be assassination, courier work or something else. It is vital for a member of the Yakuza to keep their true affiliation secret, capture by the authorities means a certain gruesome death. Capture by their enemies means death or ransom, bringing shame and dishonor on the Yakuza and his gang. Most people who enter this class are Rogues or Socialites though other paths are possible.

Abilities
Yakuza need quick wits, deft hands and a silver tongue to survive. High charisma helps with smooth-talking officials and intimidating those weaker than themselves. A high dexterity is needed for when you need to get your hands dirty and perform some sneaky task. A high intelligence grants you more skills for you to practice.

Requirements
Base attack bonus +6
Bluff 10 ranks
Diplomacy 10 ranks
Skill focus feat in any one of the following skills: Appraise, Bluff, Gather information, Knowledge (local) or intimidate

Hit dice: d6

Skills
The following are the Yakuza’s class skills: Appraise (Int), bluff (cha), Decipher script (int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (int) Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (local) (Int), Listen (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), and Speak Language (None).

Skill points: 4+int modifier per level


Yakuza Table (http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g42/TheThan/Yakuza.jpg)


Class features:


Weapons and armor proficiencies:
Yakuza gain no weapons or armor proficiencies.

Illicit barter:
Beginning at 1st level A Yakuza learns how to sell, and buy illegal items better. He gains a +5 competence bonus on any diplomacy check made to buy or sell Illicit or illegal goods.

Roll the Dice
At second level a Yakuza realizes he’s as lucky as he is good, he gains the ability to re-roll one failed ability check, skill check, attack roll or saving throw. The second result must be used, regardless whether it’s better or worse than the original dice roll. The Yakuza can use this ability a number of times per day depending on his level.

Resource access
Beginning at third level the Yakuza gains access to a wide array of resources. Once per day a Yakuza can make a Charisma check to use those resources. The value of the resources gained is equal to the result of the Yakuza's charisma check x 20. Thus a Yakuza with a charisma check of 16 would gain 320 gold: 16 (charisma)x20=320.
These resources can take any form the player wishes (within reason). The Yakuza may spend his resources any way he chooses. The resources are delivered to the Yakuza after 1d8 hours after the charisma check takes place. The resources must be reasonably available when and where he makes the check.
If a character with resource access already has this ability when he reaches level three in the Yakuza class, then he gains a +1 bonus to his charisma check when making a resource access attempt.

Strengthened Mind
At 5th level a Yakuza becomes skilled at resisting mind affecting spells and powers. He may add his charisma modifier (if positive) to any will save he is forced to make to resist mind affecting spells or abilities.

Inspire fear
Beginning at 7th level the Yakuza’s presence becomes unsettling to foes. A number of times per day equal to his charisma modifier, A Yakuza can instill fear in another. The target of the Yakuza’s inspire fear ability must succeed a will saving throw (dc = 10+ ½ Yakuza class levels (round down) + charisma modifier). A character that succeeds the will save becomes shaken, if the save succeeds by 10 or more, the character is unaffected by the Yakuza’s ability, and cannot be affected by Inspire Fear for 24 hours. If a character fails the save, he becomes Frightened for 5d6 rounds.

The Yakuza must make threatening action of some sort. Such as a verbal threat or drawing a weapon (the required action is not limited to these).

Frightened (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#frightened)
Shaken (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#shaken)


____________________________


Ok I was flipping through the 3.0 Oriental adventures rulebook when I stopped on the Yakuza prestige class printed in that book. I read through the class and I realized that… well the class stinks. First of all the flavor text makes the class appear to be some sort of misunderstood saint. Secondly the class itself is just useless to begin with. So I thought I would create my own and this is the result. Plese go head and Critique the class.

edit

Fixed some grammar problems
Doubled the skill rank prerequisites
Changed the name of “slippery mind” to "Strengthened Mind"
Reduced the money created by resource accesses

[averagejoe]

First, some nit-picky stuff. On the requirements you want to use “or” not “and,” because (I believe) you only need to pick one to meet the prerequisites. Also, in the “inspire fear” ability, you mistake what a caster level check is. When you make a caster level check your roll 1d20 + caster level. You don’t determine the number of dice for a fireball with a caster level check, or a check of any kind, it is a set number determined by the level of the caster. The main reason for making a caster level check would be to overcome the yakuza’s SR. You probably want to say, “anyone who directs a spell at the yakuza does so at -2 caster level,” or something like that.

That said, I don’t like the fear ability, in the sense of either mechanics or flavor. First, it is strictly better than a dragon’s frightful presence ability, except against characters with less than 5 HD, and that case is so insignificant that it doesn’t matter anyways. So, what, a gargantuan red dragon attacking you is less scary than some criminal who’s just sitting there? You get a save vs. the presence ability, it is limited to a certain range, it merely makes the player shaken instead of giving a straight -2 penalty vs. all action against it, people can be immune to it, and doesn’t affect the dice of spells at all. This isn’t even considering a ninth level yakuza, which is just ridiculous. Simply said, this ability is waaaay too good, and makes little conceptual sense. Some guy in a kimono shouldn’t be more intimidating than an elder dragon, in both the mechanical and flavorful senses.

Slippery mind is already a rogue ability, and it does something different than what you listed here. It’s bad form to redo existing abilities. (It lets you reroll a failed will save vs. an enchantment spell one round later.)

Also, resource access is way too good, even if it is, as you state, “within reason.” Lets say the third level yakuza has a fourteen charisma, and uses the ability every day. This will average out to 720 gp/day of whatever. Now, I don’t know if gold is “readily available” or “within reason” (you may want to clarify this), but even if it isn’t then I can just get 720 gp/day worth of arbitrary items, then sell them back at half price. This comes to 360 gp/day. If the yakuza does nothing but this for a week then that’s 2,520 gp. Do this for a couple months and that’s 18,000 gp. For free. This is about twice the total wealth that an eighth level character (which is more-or-less the minimum level at which one could have this ability) should have, according to the DMG. Even if the DMG shouldn’t be (and it shouldn’t) a strict guide for exactly how much treasure each character should have, this is a big enough difference to be unbalancing.

One last thing. You say that this is a class intended for rogues, but I don’t see that reflected in the prerequisites. The skill requirements aren’t nearly rigorous enough and basically any character could meet them by level eight. A barbarian yakuza may be kind of weird, as would a paladin yakuza, but as written I could do either. If you really want this to be a “rouge” prestige class then the skill requirements should be much higher.

[TheThan]

First off, thanks for the critique, it helps.

Now lets get down to it. The requirements, yeah that’s a mistake on my part; I’ll edit it.
I really didn’t know how to word the fear ability the way I wanted. As it stands I can see how it can be too powerful. I’m going to have to go back revisit it later on, in fact I’ll probably change it to Frightful Presence (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#frightfulPresence). I’ve got a tidbit of a new ability lurking around in my mind. If I can hammer that out I might submit it for review.

Now about resource accesses, I copied the ability from WOTC’s d20 StarWars game and I didn’t think to look at how much gold the character could receive. I’ll have to go and tone it way down, as well as putting some more solid restrictions on it.
As far as slippery mind, well I knew I recalled it from some where. I wrote this thing up late last night, I’d have to go and change the name of the ability. I was concerned that the prerequisites weren’t steep enough anyway, so its good to get confirmation.
Look for an edit to this stuff soon.
Oh an thanks again for the critique

Other things:
This class is designed for npcs as well PCs that’s why I didn’t tie its class level to any sort of hierarchy structure. Doing so would put the player in a powerful position probably with minions and stuff. I didn’t want that so I figured to just ignore it. if an npc needs minions, that’s what the leadership feat is for anyway.

[sigurd]

I really like this class Thethan, and I don't play oriental RPGs.

I think it would make a great NPC Class for well placed thieves guild members and fences.

I'm leaving the Gold amounts and skill entry levels the way you set them in the first place.


Thanks man.

[TheOOB]

Since the Yakuza is an allready existant PrC you should really think about renaming this one to something similar, if only to prevent confusion.

I'd suggest Yakuza Thug or Yakuza Gangster, it still shows where the classes roots are, but clearly presents that it is a different class.

[TheThan]

Changing the name is probably a good idea, off the top of my head I like Yakuza Gangster best. It gives someone (with no ranks in Knowledge: underworld) an idea of what the class is about.

The class is supposed to be strongly tied to an important npc for the Dm to use. However it can easily fit a pc character.

[averagejoe]

Yeah, now I could definitely see myself allowing this in my campaign. It has a good flavor too, even if you're not in an japanese-ish setting.

[TheThan]

yep, it can double as a generic "underworld boss" class