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Asian Archetypes: Martial
[978-1540421975]
$5.99
Publisher: Legendary Games
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by Vladimir C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/29/2016 19:01:24

I have been a fan of all things Asian since I started karate when I was a kid. Later, I discovered Kung Fu cinema by way of the free Dragon Fist RPG by TSR and the internet back in the day. Where I come from, Kung Fu movies beyond Bruce Lee’s are unheard of.

When I started playing Pathfinder, I was completely dazed by the monk. As a matter of fact, my first 3rd edition character was also a monk. However, it wasn’t until much later that class option like archetypes or even new classes started to come out. Among the best 3rd party content, I found The Way of Ki. This was the beginning of a long distance, one sided, platonic love for Legendary Games. Their products are amazing: the crunch is top-notch and balanced, the fluff is evocative and the art is amazing, but such quality comes with a fair price that I simply cannot follow. Even then I have bought all the Far East adventure path plug-ins and not once have I been disappointed.

Enough preamble, So what do we have here? As the name aptly implies, AAM is a collection of 12 archetypes with an Eastern feel, accompanied by other class options like feats and talents, some items and even an NPC. While the PDF is 28 pages, if we take off all the ads, covers, legal info and stuff we have 17 pages of content left. But we are talking about LG, so we don’t find filler content. Before we start with the content itself, it’s worth mentioning that there are no monk or brawler archetypes and I applaud this decision, since the monk has one of the biggest number of archetypes out there and the brawler, with its class features, can dabble in a lot of style feats, so new content for these classes is not really needed.

We start with the Blood Rider cavalier archetype, which is an order-less, banner-less warrior with a Mongol feel, but instead of mounted archery, these guys control the battlefield with a whip! They can make some combat maneuvers with it while mounted, and move opponents along the battlefield. I don’t know you but I would love to play one of these guys, being a martial controller without spells. Get a flying mount and oh boy! The class also includes two feats: Mounted Skirmish, which is similar to Ride-by Attack but without the need to charge, Mounted Sweep, which basically let you do any standard action while moving on your mount. Next in line we have the poor fighter archetype Hyakusho; no, the fighter is not a poor class, I mean, the archetype is poor, not in its design but in character. They start with half the gold and broken weapons and armor! Apart from this cool fluff, they can repair weapons and armor very efficiently, even able to use other discarded equipment instead of gold for repairs. In combat, they gravitate to light armor and have an expanded options for their bonus feats, including a couple of roguish ones, and can even ignore some of the requisites. This archetype is best used from level one, but all in all can be used as bruisers for a thieves’ guild or triad. A good option for dexterity-based fighters.

Iaijutsu Adepts are swashbucklers that focus on the art of drawing and hitting in the same motion. If you have ever seen Rurouni Kenshin or other samurai anime, you know what this is about. There is even a samurai archetype by Paizo with the same premise! Anyway, the archetypes have a very different feel since the swashbuckler class is more geared toward nimble, dexterous fighting. Any ability that depends on using light or one handed piercing weapons can only be used with a katana and only two-handed. Does this include when you draw? I mean, traditional iaijutsu uses two hands to draw, but since you use one hand to hold the scabbard and one to attack with the katana, is this treated as a one hand or two hand attack? And another nit-pick, there is no official way to get Dex to damage with a two-handed katana, and you don’t get free exotic weapon proficiency to wield it one-handed (and why would you when most abilities apply only when two-handing) so unless your GM lets you cheat with some of the requirements, maybe you don’t want to focus on Dex. I think the archetype should either give you the ability, or let you cheat the requirements. At the end of the day that feature is not needed but would come in handy, especially at low levels. The other abilities rock, you get better at reacting and gauging your opponents, dealing more damage with that first attack and become better with the katana. A cool, iconic eastern archetype that I think would benefit from a bit of polish.

The Imperial Unifier samurai is the shortest archetype, losing two physical class skills, being able to use one daily challenge to get an edge during a verbal duel, and losing their 6th level bonus feat for a weaker version of the Leadership feat that can be improved beyond the base feat by taking it. A nice little hack of the samurai class, perfect for those who like court intrigue but want to play a martial.

The Kaiju Hunter ranger is an archetype that really surprised me with its crazy concept. I mean, who hunts KAIJU!?!?!? But the name is a little deceiving, since they are tankier rangers (they get heavy armor proficiency and can use their class abilities in such) that battle large and bigger foes (the favored enemy bonus only work against big targets, as well as other abilities like evasion), perfect for any Adventure Path focused in fighting big things ;) They also dance with an inquisitor shoes, since they lose wild empathy for the Monster Lore ability of said class. They lose a lot of the nature-based abilities of the ranger to become better at fighting biggies. A crazy concept for an archetype but one that scales well with the foes one tends to encounter at every level.

The Kuma barbarians are Zangief’s students, being better at unarmed combat and grappling than their peers and they can even become bears. For a hefty cost of rage rounds, they can spend hours in bear form, and later get the scent ability. This archetype is perfect if your GM didn’t let you play a werebear or you want to changeshape but don’t like the druid.

The Kwa No are ninjas with a heavy Psylock (from the X-men) vibe. They get better unarmored defense similar to a monk’s but Charisma-based. They lose poison use but exchange it for the ability to cast psychic significance at-will and getting a small bonus to use psychic magical items. At third level they can make a powerful blade of thought by spending Ki, with later levels getting a more powerful blade. This blades takes the shape of a punch dagger, sai or wakisashi… why not one of those serrated Red antis Blades? I would call my character Psycho Mantis and Yell I CAN READ YOUR MIND! Ehem, this ability costs the Kwa No some sneak attack dice and the No Trace Ability. They can also learn special ninja tricks (called Ki slashes) that give them more options when attacking with their blade, and even more bigger and badder ones instead of master ninja tricks (called Ki thrusts). This archetype will rock your world if you are a Psylocke or Psycho Mantis fan, or want to play a soulknife but your GM doesn’t allow psionics.

The Mandarin investigator gives me a Judge Dee (see the movie of the same name) vibe, with alchemy replacing kung fu. The investigators are less adept at dungeoneering, losing all traps abilities and having less extracts per day, but instead of that they gain some useful social abilities for intrigue-heavy campaigns, specially the Favors ability. Since you are supposed to be a member of the bureaucracy, you gain favors among your peers by doing your job, which translates into some downtime activities. These guys rock if you like intriguing character concepts (sorry for the bad pun), but don’t use one in a dungeon-crawling game or you will regret it.

We continue with two archetypes for the vigilante, the first being the Mercurial Duelist. This beast of a class-hack replaces A LOT of the vigilante parts in exchange for A LOT of archetype-specific toys. They also focus on iaijutsu, but instead of Kenshin these guys are like Ukyo Tachibana from Samurai Shodown, drawing, striking and then sheathing their blade again, and some of their class abilities only work with a sheathed blade. They also get a Rokugani-inspired ancestral weapon, complete with the spending of money to enhance it without a wizard or feats. Also, since they lose vigilante specialization, they get a whole new category of Mercurial Talents which they can take along general vigilante’s. Three or so pages of such talents. These Duelist give me a feeling I would be playing with an armed One Punch Man since they can devastate with a single strike. I haven’t been able to playtest one but they feel very powerful. This section also includes some vigilante talents to dabble in the Mercurial arts and even in Swashbuckler’s panache and deeds!

The second vigilante archetype is a reprint from Legendary Vigilantes, but if you are like me and don’t have that book, the Sentai Soldier will leave you in awe. Yes, they are Power Rangers! (well, power vigilantes really). Basically, they are vigilantes that specialize in kinetic dabbling. But they are not a hybrid of vigilante and kineticist, they get their unique talents that have a crazy-loco sentai flavor with mechanics to match. Example? Your Powerful TransformationTM is so awesome that friend or foe who watches your transformation is fascinated for one minute! Don’t worry, it also comes with a way to maintain your secret identity, well, secret. This class is nuts and pushes the boundaries of what is OK in fantasy gaming, but if we have investigators and mesmerists why not a Sentai Soldier? You could even make a WHOLE PARTY if you convince your fellow players, there are enough kineticist toys out there for controlling, damaging, buffing and even healing!

The Silversword Samurai made me think of the similary-named X-men villain, but what we get is another social-focused samurai who instead of pledging loyalty to an order does it to his family, gaining free allies and enemies in the process. Like Imperial Unifiers, Silverswords can use thir challenge ability in non-combat situations, to the point where they can challenge themselves! Not gonna spoil how that works, though. On a minor nit-pick, they lose the Mount ability but in the text it mentions a cavalier, not a samurai, but oh well. The archetype then gives you the ability to again enchant your ancestral weapon in a way similar to the Mercurial Duelist, but later you also get to enchant an ancestral suit of armor. The Silversword also gains a Ki pool, which oddly enough mentions it replaces the mount ability, which was just mentioned as not gained a few paragraphs ago. You also gain the Unimpeachable Honor Feat, an ability to deflect arrows and later magical rays, and finally the ability to cut through dimensions, working as a ghost touch blade, dimension door or even a planeshift, all with different Ki costs. I have mixed feelings about this archetype, with the dimensional blade abilities now meshing well in my opinion with the rest of the archetype. I would have loved an Order of the Blood for the family aspects and then the ancestral sword, armor and dimensional cut as an archetype but well, that is my humble opinion.

To close the deal with fanfare, we end the archetype section with my favorite archetype, the Sky Dancer duelist. Not since playing a gestalt monk in 3rd edition have I had the opportunity to play a classic Wuxia swordsman! So instead of focusing on light piercing weapons, they focus on light monk weapons, not only gaining proficiency with all monk weapons but also able to use their swashbuckler features with them! They get some thematically-flavored deeds in exchange for others not appropriate to Wuxia swordsmen, and instead of charmed life they get leap of the clouds, which give them those crazy kung fu leaps and later they even can fly! The hack is not that big but even similar abilities get flavorful names. Have I mentioned they are my favorite archetype? No? Well, THEY ARE MY FAVORITE ARCHETYPE!

We finish this book with a Silver Blossom: a ninjaish 12th level Aasimar Mercurial Duelist vigilante with a detailed backstory and even a boon! With some changes to the backstory, you could even PLAY as her in the adventure path that deals with becoming the monarch. She is also the cover girl ;)

I was left exhausted after writing this review, but I’m happy I was able to do it. It was a worthwhile experience since each archetype gave me many ideas for both PCs and NPCs. I would recommend the book to anyone who wants some eastern and/or intrigue options for their campaign, since remember, some cosmetic changes and the samurai can be mamluks, ninja hashshashin etc., you won’t regret buying it! Even when I didn’t completely like all of the archetypes, this book offers enough variation to leave me without any complains. I will grade the book with a high 5 and would add ½ a star for the Sky Dancer alone, since it is my favorite archetype. I hope to play in my next campaign as, you guessed right, a SKY DANCER DUELIST!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Asian Archetypes: Martial
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