Ronin (TOWW)

This page is a part of the Homebrew setting "The Old Wild World."

Material on this page may not be suitable for traditional 3.5e gameplay.

Ronin

Making a Ronin

Abilities: Dex, Str, Wis.

Alignment: Any lawful.

Hit Die: d10

Class Skills

Acrobatics (Dex), Athletics (Str), Attune (Con), Craft (metalsmithing) (Int), Intuition (Wis), Knowledge (culture, geography, and history) (Int), Perception (Wis), Stealth (Dex), and Travel (Wis).

Skill Points at 1st level: (2 + Int modifier) × 4.

Skill Points at each additional level: 2 + Int modifier.

Table: The Ronin

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Defense Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Adrenaline Charges	Dash Speed Bonus
1st	+1	+0	+0	+2	+0	Adrenaline, Meditate, Dexterous Combat, Weak Point	5	+0 ft.
2nd	+2	+0	+0	+3	+0	Dodge, Quicksilver Strike	6	+0 ft.
3rd	+3	+0	+1	+3	+1	Armored Agility	6	+0 ft.
4th	+4	+0	+1	+4	+1	Uncanny Dodge, Dash, Reputation	7	+10 ft.
5th	+5	+0	+1	+4	+1	Assess, Weak Point +1	7	+10 ft.
6th	+6/+1	+0	+2	+5	+2	Meditate (3 charges)	8	+10 ft.
7th	+7/+2	+0	+2	+5	+2	Reputation +4	8	+10 ft.
8th	+8/+3	+1	+2	+6	+2		9	+10 ft.
9th	+9/+4	+1	+3	+6	+3	Opportunity	9	+20 ft.
10th	+10/+5	+1	+3	+7	+3	Intimidating Reputation, Weak Point +2, Reputation +5	10	+20 ft.
Mastery
11th	+11/+6/+1	+1	+3	+7	+3	Rest, Reputation Assessment, Focused Weak Point	10	+20 ft.
12th	+12/+7/+2	+1	+4	+8	+4	Deflect	11	+20 ft.
13th	+13/+8/+3	+1	+4	+8	+4	Meditate (4 charges), Reputation +6	11	+20 ft.
14th	+14/+9/+4	+1	+4	+9	+4	Arcing Slash	12	+30 ft.
15th	+15/+10/+5	+2	+5	+9	+5	Weak Point +3	12	+30 ft.
16th	+16/+11/+6/+1	+2	+5	+10	+5	Fearsome Reputation, Reputation +7	13	+30 ft.
17th	+17/+12/+7/+2	+2	+5	+10	+5	Quicksilver Barrage	13	+30 ft.
18th	+18/+13/+8/+3	+2	+6	+11	+6		14	+30 ft.
19th	+19/+14/+9/+4	+2	+6	+11	+6	Legendary Reputation, Meditate (5 charges), Reputation +8	14	+40 ft.
20th	+20/+15/+10/+5	+3	+6	+12	+6	Blur of Steel, Weak Point +4	15	+40 ft.

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the ronin.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

A ronin is proficient with all knife and sword weapons. A ronin is proficient with light armor and medium armor.

Adrenaline (Ex)

Ronins utilize a unique fighting style that relies on the usage of adrenaline. A ronin may perform normal actions, with costs listed below, and also has several unique abilities. A ronin has a fixed amount of adrenaline that will deplete during combat. Once out of adrenaline, he can no longer use adrenal abilities, and can only perform either a standard action or move action on his turn, but not both, and cannot perform a full round action (except for meditate or a restricted withdraw). If a ronin is performing an attack action without adrenaline, he does not add his base attack modifier. A ronin will become fatigued when trying to perform any actions while out of adrenaline, and will no longer be fatigued after regaining adrenaline.

Adrenaline Costs:

1 Charge: melee attack, unarmed attack, attack of opportunity, withdraw, run, aid another, bull rush, disarm, grapple, overrun, trip

2 Charges: full attack, charge

Feats such as cleave and power attack cost 1 charge of adrenaline.

If a ronin is fatigued, all adrenaline costs are doubled. If a ronin is exhausted, he is treated as having no adrenaline. All adrenaline can be recovered after a short rest. If a ronin is wearing heavy armor, and does not have the armor proficiency (heavy) feat, all adrenaline costs are doubled. This doubling stacks with the penalty for being fatigued.

Meditate (Ph)

A ronin may take a full round action to enter a meditative trance which recovers 2 charges of adrenaline. The ronin is unable to make any swift or immediate actions, flat-footed, and denied his defense bonus until his next turn. While meditating, the ronin has damage reduction of 3. Damage reduction can reduce damage to 0, but not below 0.

A ronin can prepare any number of ready actions prior to beginning meditation to be carried out like normal, but cannot take any new actions while meditating. If one of the prepared ready actions is triggered before his next turn, meditate will end and adrenaline will not be recovered. A ronin cannot use combat expertise or other similar actions to increase his dodge bonus to defense.

The ronin increases the amount of adrenaline recovered from meditating by 1 at 6th, 13th, and 19th levels, for a maximum of 5 charges of adrenaline.

The ronin gains a +3 bonus to attune checks.

Dexterous Combat

A ronin may use his Dexterity modifier for any attack roll instead of his Strength modifier. If he is wearing heavy armor and does not have the armor proficiency (heavy) feat, its armor check penalty is applied to his attack rolls.

Weak Point

A ronin is able to strike more vital areas of a target when his attacks are more accurate. An attack roll of 15 provides +1 to the damage roll, a roll of 20 provides a +2, and so on.

The ronin increases the damage of weak point by 1 at 5th level (+2 at 15, +3 at 20, etc.) and every 5 levels thereafter.

Quicksilver Strike (Ex)

At 2nd level or higher, a ronin can expend a charge of adrenaline when making a melee attack to make his target be denied its Dexterity bonus to defense. When making a full attack, the ronin instead expends 2 charges of adrenaline.

Armored Agility

A ronin of 3rd level or higher adds +1 to the maximum dex bonus of any armor. When wearing no armor, the ronin adds +3 to his dexterity bonus to defense.

Dash (Ex)

A ronin of 4th level or higher can expend 1 charge of adrenaline per move action in a round to increase his movement speed. If using the run action, the ronin can expend 4 charges of adrenaline to increase his movement speed by 4 times his dash speed. While dashing, a ronin gains a +3 dodge bonus to defense against attacks of opportunity and ranged attacks.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex)

At 4th level or higher, a ronin retains his dexterity bonus to defense even if he is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he still loses his dexterity bonus to defense if immobilized. If a ronin is using meditate, he retains his dexterity bonus to defense, and denies a Thief the ability to sneak attack him while meditating. If a thief would be able to sneak attack the ronin by other means, she is still able to do so.

Reputation

A ronin has built up his reputation enough that those who come across him and know his name are wary of him. The ronin gains a reputation bonus of +3 that he adds to his intimidate rolls. If the ronin successfully intimidates a target, he can add his reputation bonus to his persuasion rolls against that target.

The ronin's reputation bonus increases to +4 at 7th level, and by +1 every 3 levels thereafter, up to +8 at 19th level.

Assess

A ronin of 5th level or higher is far more aware of his surroundings than most other people due his his experience in combat and years of practice, allowing him to discern more intricate information from his observations. He can either roll perception or intuition to gain differing forms inspiration on the best way to handle a situation. Perception rolls yield inspiration based on what exactly the ronin can see. Intuition rolls will give inspiration for a big picture, creative solution, that the ronin must act on, even if he discerned faulty information. A ronin can only make one assessment of each type per situation.

Opportunity

A ronin of 9th level or higher can make an attack of opportunity against the first enemy he passes while dashing.

Intimidating Reputation

At 10th level or higher, before combat starts, the ronin can make a single intimidate roll against up to a number of targets equal to his level. If he succeeds, their attack rolls made against him have a -3 penalty to hit.

Mastery

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Before leveling up to 11th, a ronin chooses a mastery specialization. He can progress into a shogun, a yureishi, or a mastery ronin.

Rest (Ex)

At 11th level or higher, if a ronin is out of adrenaline, he can spend his standard action to rest, regaining half the amount of adrenaline he would gain from meditating.

Reputation Assessment

A ronin of 11th level or higher can make an assessment against an individual or group of individuals to see how to best apply his reputation.

Focused Weak Point

At 11th level or higher, when attacking a target that is denied their dexterity bonus to defense, or landing a critical strike against a target, the ronin deals double weak point damage.

Deflect (Ex)

A ronin of 12th level or higher can, instead of making a defense roll, expend 1 charge of adrenaline to make a deflect roll equal to his total reflex modifier plus his highest base attack modifier. The penalty is -5 for a thrown projectile, -10 for an arrow, bolt, or blow dart, and -20 for a bullet. A ronin cannot deflect artillery projectiles. If the ronin is not holding a weapon, he can instead catch the projectile (excluding bullets).

If the ronin successfully deflects a projectile, he can attempt to intimidate the target that attacked him.

Arcing Slash (Ex)

A ronin of 14th level or higher can choose to expend 5 charges of adrenaline to instead make a single attack roll at his highest base attack modifier against all enemies in front of him in a 10 foot radius. The targets must make an opposed strength check or be pushed back 5 feet, even if they are not hit. Quicksilver strike can be used with this ability. You must take the full attack action to use this ability.

Fearsome Reputation

At 16th level the ronin can make a single intimidate roll against up to a number of targets equal to his level (opposed roll = d20 + target's Int modifier + target's total defense modifier). For each target, if he succeeds, the target will attempt to either surrender or flee. If the total number of targets is greater than the ronin's level, they cannot be intimidated into fleeing.

Quicksilver Barrage (Ex)

A ronin of 17th level or higher taking a full attack action can instead make a single attack roll against a target at his highest base attack modifier. If the attack hits, the ronin can attack again at a -4, with the penalty stacking for each consecutive hit, with the target denied their Dexterity bonus to defense. Each consecutive attack roll costs 1 charge of adrenaline. This continues until the target's hit points are reduced to 0, or the ronin misses an attack.

Legendary Reputation

At 19th level, if enemy combatants have battle plans, and find out that the ronin would be present, they will change their plans according to the knowledge of his presence.

Blur of Steel (Ex)

At 20th level or higher, a ronin is able to become a blur while attacking enemies. The ronin expends all available charges of adrenaline to take a full round action to move in a 30 foot straight line, gaining 3d4 attacks to use at his highest base attack modifier, divided up among any enemies in his path as he chooses. If the ronin has more than 10 charges of adrenaline , he can use quicksilver strike the number of times equal to the amount of adrenaline over 10, divided up among attack rolls as he chooses. If he has less than 10 charges of adrenaline, he spends the next number of rounds equal to the amount of adrenaline less than 10 fatigued.

Ex-Ronins

A ronin who becomes unlawful loses adrenaline and cannot gain more levels as a ronin. He retains all the other benefits of the class: (armored agility, weak point, and uncanny dodge), but cannot use any abilities that require adrenaline.

Epic Ronin

Table: The Epic Ronin

Hit Die: d10

Level	Special
21st	Weak Point +5
22nd	Meditate +4
23rd
24th	Adrenaline 16 charges, Bonus Feat
25th	Weak Point +6
26th
27th	Meditate +5
28th	Adrenaline 17 charges, Bonus Feat
29th	Weak Point +7
30th
2 + Int modifier skill points per level.

Weak Point: The epic ronin gains +1 damage to weak point every 4 levels after the 21st level.

Meditate (Ex): The epic ronin's bonus to meditate increases once every 5 levels after 22nd.

Deflect (Ex): The epic ronin loses the remaining penalty to deflecting fast moving projectiles.

Bonus Feats: The epic ronin gains a bonus feat (selected from the list of epic ronin feats) every four levels after the 20th.

Epic Ronin Bonus Feat List: Blinding Speed, Dexterous Fortitude, Dexterous Will, Devastating Critical, Epic Reflexes, Epic Speed, Epic Toughness, Epic Weapon Focus, Great Constitution, Great Dexterity, Improved Combat Reflexes, Improved Whirlwind Attack, Overwhelming Critical, Penetrate Damage Reduction, Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting, Superior Initiative

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