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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Ok so the prevailing though seems to be that the only class that might be less powerful than Soulknife is the CW Samurai. I suggest a showdown between the two classes to determine who really is the worst.

    We'll need people interested in playing both classes, as I plan to have them fight at multiple levels. We'll have to decide exactly which levels. If you think Soulknife is the worst, volunteer to play a Samurai. If you think Samurai is the worst, volunteer to play a Soulknife.

    I think we should do normal WBL, with no more than half your wealth spent on a single item.

    Do we need any specific scenario other than just an arena fight?

    Thoughts? Anyone interested?

    Please note, these will be STRAIGHT Soulknife and Samurai, no multiclassing.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Not an expert on these things. But I can feel that the Samurai will simply end up hitting more often. But the soul knife has a higher damage potential at low levels due to Psionic weapon + Wis 13 Psionic meditation.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    I'll be interested to see if this manages to go off, but my best actual prediction.. neither Samurai nor Soulknife have much in the way of relevant class features. Therefore, especially at higher levels, I expect these fights will be determined almost entirely by the equipment and feat choices of the combatants. I also suspect they're likely to look quite similar in that respect, since they both want roughly the same things out of their equipment. Soulknife's main feature may give him an edge there, in that the mindblade potentially frees up a significant amount of money.

    For the record, I think Samurai is just that little bit worse off than Soulknife, and I'd be willing to attempt to provide a Soulknife of up to level 5 to compete in that level range.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by Hackulator View Post
    We'll need people interested in playing both classes, as I plan to have them fight at multiple levels. We'll have to decide exactly which levels.
    I would suggest that, instead of "having them fight", you might want to have them participate in something more like a Same Game Test.

    Alternately, you could see how many niches each build could fill, based on Person_Man's Niche Ranking System.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Well, knife to the soul can open up the potential of knocking the samurai out with just raw stat damage to a mental stat before he can chew through the soulknife's d10's of hp at higher level. I say potentially because it's 4 am and I'm just trying to point out that Soulknife May have relevant class features to determining this fight, especially if it's obvious that the samurai like, dumped int or something.

    You didn't mention how stats are being determined, are you assuming the elite array of like, 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8? or point buy or what?

    Also, what races are available, any magazine or online articles, etc. Define what sources count as legal for this challenge, beyond just straight levels in the base class in question. Further, it might help to have a few different maps culled from map a week to try running these in, since just going with an arena fight with no cover or anything else may present too bland a location to let either class take advantage of their abilities and or gear based gimmickry.

  6. - Top - End - #6
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    I'm down to build the Samurai, let me know what our pointbuy and race limits are, and if there's any limits on sourcebooks. Looking forward to it. I'd like to have maybe a few encounters at different levels, since samurai is rather backloaded.
    Last edited by The Viscount; 2017-07-16 at 01:57 PM.
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    I recommend running a Same Game Test for them instead of a deathmatch. 1v1 fighting prowess is rarely an indicator of how useful a class is overall, though both of them do of course suck majorly in that one regard as well.
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    We could always do both. Same Game will definitely be a better test of overall performance, but it could be fun to have the spectacle of something like the old test of spite.
    Kolyarut Avatar by Potatocubed.
    Quote Originally Posted by willpell View Post
    Only playing Tier 1s is like only eating in five-star restaurants [...] sometimes I just want a cheeseburger and some frogurt. Why limit yourself?
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    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    I might volunteer but I want to know some things before I do so.

    1. Is UMD banned? I'm guessing it probably is due to the nature of this contest.
    2. Are we using only printed magic items or are DMG guidelines for creating magic items open?
    3. What are sources allowed? Are we able to use setting specific sources at all?
    4. What about generating ability scores? PB or elite monster stats?
    5. What about template and race limitations? Are there any?
    6. How much cheese can be involved? I'm assuming no pun pun crap but how far are we allowed to go?
    7. What variants rules are in place?
    8. Are we going through rules with RAW, RAI or a mix of both?
    9. What are the limitations on effects like DCFS and Psychic reformation? Can we use those for racial feats such as the elf proficiencies or for bonus feats such as those given by the soulknife?
    10. What other rules are involved?
    Last edited by flappeercraft; 2017-07-16 at 02:53 PM.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    I know that the canonical version of ShneekeyTheLost's Takahashi no Onisan has some light multiclassing, but I believe that the fundamental combo works as a straight-class Samurai (just a bit less efficiently). It's primarily a one-trick gimmick build, but it's a damn good gimmick build considering what it starts with. I'm not certain that a straight-class Soulknife has an equivalent. Based on that, we could argue that Samurai might have a higher ceiling than Soulknife does.

    If you don't count gimmick builds, eh, I don't particularly care enough to get personally involved. Still, Takahashi is a nice piece of optimization, so I feel that it's worth bringing up the build.
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    I know! Let's have them both fight a Pit Fiend.
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    Cookie cutter racial cheese aside, we should probably keep an eye on the whole "Dwarf only" bit of the OP. But hey, that's just me. Everyone feel free to throw out more op tricks that are 100% topic irrelevant. :P

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    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by DEMON View Post
    I know! Let's have them both fight a Pit Fiend.
    With some optimization they could end the pit fiend in less than a round probably. Maybe 2 if they are prepared for that specifically and with some favorable circumstances.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by Zaq View Post
    I know that the canonical version of ShneekeyTheLost's Takahashi no Onisan has some light multiclassing, but I believe that the fundamental combo works as a straight-class Samurai (just a bit less efficiently). It's primarily a one-trick gimmick build, but it's a damn good gimmick build considering what it starts with. I'm not certain that a straight-class Soulknife has an equivalent. Based on that, we could argue that Samurai might have a higher ceiling than Soulknife does.

    If you don't count gimmick builds, eh, I don't particularly care enough to get personally involved. Still, Takahashi is a nice piece of optimization, so I feel that it's worth bringing up the build.
    It's funny, that build is exactly why I signed up for samurai, because I'd seen that it works.
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    Quote Originally Posted by willpell View Post
    Only playing Tier 1s is like only eating in five-star restaurants [...] sometimes I just want a cheeseburger and some frogurt. Why limit yourself?
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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    RogueGuy

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    We might also want to do the same game, but since these are both martial classes I feel that direct combat is still fairly helpful for the discussion. Fighting another martial/physical(ish) type combatant is what these classes should probably have the best shot at anyway.

    Quote Originally Posted by flappeercraft View Post
    I might volunteer but I want to know some things before I do so.

    1. Is UMD banned? I'm guessing it probably is due to the nature of this contest.
    2. Are we using only printed magic items or are DMG guidelines for creating magic items open?
    3. What are sources allowed? Are we able to use setting specific sources at all?
    4. What about generating ability scores? PB or elite monster stats?
    5. What about template and race limitations? Are there any?
    6. How much cheese can be involved? I'm assuming no pun pun crap but how far are we allowed to go?
    7. What variants rules are in place?
    8. Are we going through rules with RAW, RAI or a mix of both?
    9. What are the limitations on effects like DCFS and Psychic reformation? Can we use those for racial feats such as the elf proficiencies or for bonus feats such as those given by the soulknife?
    10. What other rules are involved?
    1+2- No UMD, no custom magic items, this is to test the class features, not test how good people are at abusing UMD or creation rules

    3 - Not sure yet

    4 - Either elite array or point buy, what do people think?

    5 - I think basic races, at least to start

    6 - Any "cheese" should still be related to the classes' strengths. This is an attempt to test the classes themselves, not just your ability to break the feat system with some weird combo that is totally unrelated to the class features. You're not multiclassing so a lot of cheese is just not possible

    7 - None

    8 - Generally RAI where there is minimal argument, RAW as the final arbiter if there's no agreement?

    9 - Whats DCFS? You can't possible use Psychic Reformation. If you want to use WBL AND XP to pay to be psychically reformed, you theoretically could but I think RAI is that you can't switch to any feat you couldn't have taken originally so that won't be at all useful in this competition.

    10 - I dunno yet, nothing off the top of my head other than the specific scenario we drop them into.

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    DwarfBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    At level 14 and above the Samurai wins every fight in which he wins initiative, and every fight in which he loses initiative but survives the first round, provided that the Soulknife is not immune to fear.

    1. Take Imperious Command.
    2. Every point of WBL goes to raising Intimidate and Initiative.
    3. You win.

    So I propose to just declare Samurai stronger from level 14 onwards.
    Last edited by noce; 2017-07-17 at 06:52 AM.

  16. - Top - End - #16
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Make a note everyone: any soulknife L14+ needs maxed out Autohypnosis (if Imperious Command is in the valid source list).
    Last edited by Psionic Dog; 2017-07-17 at 07:25 AM.
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by noce View Post
    At level 14 and above the Samurai wins every fight in which he wins initiative, and every fight in which he loses initiative but survives the first round, provided that the Soulknife is not immune to fear.
    Soulknives get Autohypnosis as a class skill, which they can activate even if the Samurai goes first. And while panicking and flinging your weapons away is a problem for most other martial classes...
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by Zaq View Post
    I know that the canonical version of ShneekeyTheLost's Takahashi no Onisan has some light multiclassing, but I believe that the fundamental combo works as a straight-class Samurai (just a bit less efficiently). It's primarily a one-trick gimmick build, but it's a damn good gimmick build considering what it starts with. I'm not certain that a straight-class Soulknife has an equivalent. Based on that, we could argue that Samurai might have a higher ceiling than Soulknife does.

    If you don't count gimmick builds, eh, I don't particularly care enough to get personally involved. Still, Takahashi is a nice piece of optimization, so I feel that it's worth bringing up the build.
    Straight soulknife can become a bootstrap manifester fairly easily. So, it's got that going for it.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    DCFS refers to the dark chaos feat shuffle, an old TO trick from Tippy. It involves casting embrace the dark chaos followed by shun the dark chaos, the end effect being that you can turn any feat you have into any other feat you qualify for. Classically it's used on an elf to turn all their racial weapon proficiencies into bonus feats.

    Does no variant rules also mean no ACFs?
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    Quote Originally Posted by willpell View Post
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Then I would be interested in playing Soulknife.

    I assume for the purpose of this excercise we should not make any candle of invocation cheese. But could they be used for +5 Inherent bonus to all stats?
    Last edited by flappeercraft; 2017-07-17 at 11:10 AM.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by flappeercraft View Post
    Then I would be interested in playing Soulknife.

    I assume for the purpose of this excercise we should not make any candle of invocation cheese. But could they be used for +5 Inherent bonus to all stats?
    I don't think using wish-loops in any shape or form (or any other loops for that matter) is indicative of the abilities of the class. Just pay for the tome if you want those bonuses. Likewise, I don't think item wizardry - that is, replicating the abilities of a caster with items is really the point. While WBL is probably necessary, the point is to measure what value the classes and their abilities have. Thus, I trust in your ability to determine what the Soulknife chassis is all about and thus build around it (same with the CW Samurai). Your baseline tactic shouldn't be something a Commoner can do just as well.
    Last edited by Eldariel; 2017-07-17 at 11:13 AM.
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldariel View Post
    I don't think using wish-loops in any shape or form (or any other loops for that matter) is indicative of the abilities of the class. Just pay for the tome if you want those bonuses. Likewise, I don't think item wizardry - that is, replicating the abilities of a caster with items is really the point. While WBL is probably necessary, the point is to measure what value the classes and their abilities have. Thus, I trust in your ability to determine what the Soulknife chassis is all about and thus build around it (same with the CW Samurai). Your baseline tactic shouldn't be something a Commoner can do just as well.
    Fair enough, seems like a good basepoint

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by The Viscount View Post
    DCFS refers to the dark chaos feat shuffle, an old TO trick from Tippy. It involves casting embrace the dark chaos followed by shun the dark chaos, the end effect being that you can turn any feat you have into any other feat you qualify for. Classically it's used on an elf to turn all their racial weapon proficiencies into bonus feats.

    Does no variant rules also mean no ACFs?
    Yeah no, definitely not.

    What books have ACFs for Samurai or Soulknife?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldariel View Post
    I don't think using wish-loops in any shape or form (or any other loops for that matter) is indicative of the abilities of the class. Just pay for the tome if you want those bonuses. Likewise, I don't think item wizardry - that is, replicating the abilities of a caster with items is really the point. While WBL is probably necessary, the point is to measure what value the classes and their abilities have. Thus, I trust in your ability to determine what the Soulknife chassis is all about and thus build around it (same with the CW Samurai). Your baseline tactic shouldn't be something a Commoner can do just as well.
    I feel like this does a good job of stating something I was trying to say last night, except it was 2am and I was far from sober.
    Last edited by Hackulator; 2017-07-17 at 11:19 AM.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by Hackulator View Post
    What books have ACFs for Samurai or Soulknife?
    Mind's Eye and some Dragon articles I believe.

    Soulknives are also psionic, which gives them access to some toys that the Samurai doesn't get (at least, not without blowing a feat.)
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    Devil

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    For the sake of parity, you might want to open the races up to include the basic psionic races as well. Elan, maenad, xeph, etc .

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    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    An appropriate same-game test would probably pit them each against an assortment of monsters that tend towards physical combat (as opposed to being spellcasters in disguise). Say, a Giant, a Dragon, a Devil/Demon, and something else, all of appropriate CR to the level being tested.


    @Level 5: Hill Giant (CR7), Hellcat (CR7), Juvenile White Dragon (CR6), Seven-Headed Hydra (CR6)
    @Level 10: Fire Giant (CR10), Hezrou (CR10), Young Adult Black Dragon in a swamp (CR9+1), Dread Wraith (CR11)
    @Level 15: Storm Giant Fighter 2 (CR15), Nalfeshee (CR14), Mature Adult Blue Dragon (CR16), Greater Stone Golem (CR16)
    @Level 20: Balor (CR20), Old Red Dragon (CR20), Nightcrawler (CR18), Tarrasque (CR20)
    Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2017-07-17 at 12:54 PM.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    An appropriate same-game test would probably pit them each against an assortment of monsters that tend towards physical combat (as opposed to being spellcasters in disguise). Say, a Giant, a Dragon, a Devil/Demon, and something else, all of appropriate CR to the level being tested.


    @Level 5: Hill Giant (CR7), Hellcat (CR7), Juvenile White Dragon (CR6), Seven-Headed Hydra (CR6)
    @Level 10: Fire Giant (CR10), Hezrou (CR10), Young Adult Black Dragon in a swamp (CR9+1), Dread Wraith (CR11)
    @Level 15: Storm Giant Fighter 2 (CR15), Nalfeshee (CR14), Mature Adult Blue Dragon (CR16), Greater Stone Golem (CR16)
    @Level 20: Balor (CR20), Old Red Dragon (CR20), Nightcrawler (CR18), Tarrasque (CR20)
    Personally, I would say that you should have better representation for your same game test and not shy away from things that don't focus on physical combat. That will allow the class to show whatever versatility, if any, it has to offer. For instance, I would suggest using a Humanoid (Monstrous or otherwise), Dragon, Undead, Outsider, and Magical Beast. Each type will have different strengths and weaknesses and will be able to target the different weaknesses/strengths of the classes. I would be interested in making both classes and just seeing how my creations fare against such tests. I would say it would be fairly close to each other.

    EDIT:
    At level 5 I would use a Mummy (CR 5), a Young Black Dragon (CR 5), Troll (CR 5), Hieracosphinx (CR 5), and Barghest, Greater (CR 5).
    Last edited by AnimeTheCat; 2017-07-17 at 01:22 PM.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    Soulknife has access to psionic feats, which the samurai needs to take an extra feat to be able to do. And psionic feats can make the difference here with a good amount of extra damage potential.
    With the soulknife able to imbue his weapon with decent stuff for free, it's a fair bit of equipment money he can spend on other things. The samurai has nothing to compare. Add in his psychic strike, as well as boosts from expending his focus and we're looking at some serious first strike power.
    So the soulknife kinda wins equipment wise and damage wise. But the soulknife doesn't really get anything else. The Samurai has the fear effect but little else. Is the fear effect enough to counterbalance the massive gold advantage the soulknife gets due to not needing to buy a weapon? I think not. Fear immunity is relatively simple to obtain, and the soulknife, at lvl 20, is swinging around a +9 equivalent weapon.
    The samurai will be hard pressed to match.

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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    We should avoid any monsters that have access to spellcasting.
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    Default Re: Samurai vs Soulknife: The Ultimate Showdown

    I'd make it more varied. Use groups of enemies, quest goals, etc. It can include stuff like acquiring a McGuffin from a cave, defending a town against an incoming goblin horde, assassinating the assassins' guild leader in Waterdeep, winning a gladiator match. This way, characters can bring all their tactical and strategic tools to bear. Like, acquiring an item held by a young black dragon in a swamp cave is immediately a more useful gauge than "Soulknife vs. Black Dragon, final destination" and brings out the ways in which the classes can act strategically (granted, not many with these classes) and allows them to act both, as the active and the passive party in a campaign scenario. Just make an appropriate one up for each level range and go from there.
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