Bushi (3.5e Class)

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A sublime combatant based on the Pathfinder Samurai and the Player's Handbook II’s Knight.

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Martial Maneuvers Full

Bushi

A warrior skilled in the sublime ways, the bushi distinguishes herself from others because of iron resolve and her unique skills. Unlike a warblade or crusader, the bushi is capable of issuing powerful challenges which gives her a competitive edge. A bushi’s great skill in combat should not be underestimated, especially using their resolve to survive otherwise impossible strikes.

Making a Bushi

A bushi is a full base attack bonus combatant, who can be either frontline or ranged based on her choice of discipline and weapon. A bushi uses her challenge class feature to boost the damage of her strikes and gain access to unique utility later on. Unlike other maneuver-users, the bushi relies on several daily ressources, be it their challenge or their resolve pool.

Abilities: A bushi needs a good Strength or Dexterity as her main combat ability, possibly both. A good Charisma is paramount as it determines the size of her resolve pool and the DC of her special challenges.

Races: While most bushi are human or elves, any race which produces fine warriors can produce excellent bushi.

Alignment: Any.

Starting Gold: As fighter.

Starting Age: Moderate.

Table: The Bushi

Hit Die: d10

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Saving Throws			Special	Maneuvers Known	Maneuvers Readied	Stances Known
		Fort	Ref	Will
1st	+1	+2	+0	+2	Challenge 1/Day, Combat Style, Order	3	3	1
2nd	+2	+3	+0	+3	Warrior's Resolve	4	3	2
3rd	+3	+3	+1	+3	Armor Training (Medium), Challenge 2/Day	5	3	2
4th	+4	+4	+1	+4	Bonus Feat	5	4	2
5th	+5	+4	+1	+4	Bladed Dash	6	4	2
6th	+6/+1	+5	+2	+5	Special Challenge	6	4	3
7th	+7/+2	+5	+2	+5	Armor Training (Heavy), Challenge 3/Day	7	4	3
8th	+8/+3	+6	+2	+6	Bonus Feat	7	5	3
9th	+9/+4	+6	+3	+6	Focused Duelist	8	5	3
10th	+10/+5	+7	+3	+7	Greater Bladed Dash	8	5	4
11th	+11/+6/+1	+7	+3	+7	Challenge 4/Day	9	5	4
12th	+12/+7/+2	+8	+4	+8	Bonus Feat	9	6	4
13th	+13/+8/+3	+8	+4	+8	Sturdy Resolve	10	6	4
14th	+14/+9/+4	+9	+4	+9	Final Blow	10	6	5
15th	+15/+10/+5	+9	+5	+9	Challenge 5/Day	11	6	5
16th	+16/+11/+6/+1	+10	+5	+10	Bonus Feat	11	7	5
17th	+17/+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Undying Persistence	12	7	5
18th	+18/+13/+8/+3	+11	+6	+11	Master Duelist	12	7	6
19th	+19/+14/+9/+4	+11	+6	+11	Challenge 6/Day	13	7	6
20th	+20/+15/+10/+5	+12	+6	+12	Bonus Feat, Pure Resolve	13	8	6
Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level, ×4 at 1st level) Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Gather Information (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Local) (Int), Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty) (Int), Listen (Wis), Martial Lore (Int), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Speak Language (None), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Rope (Dex).

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Bushi.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A bushi is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, plus a single exotic weapon of their choice. Bushi are proficient with all types of armor (heavy, light, and medium) and shields (except tower shields).

Maneuvers: At the levels shown above, you gain a new maneuver known from the Army of One, Diamond Mind, and Iron Heart disciplines alongside their Order discipline (see below). You must meet a maneuver’s prerequisite to learn it. You add your full bushi levels to your initiator level to determine your total initiator level and your highest-level maneuvers known. At the levels shown above, you gain an additional maneuver readied per day.

Upon reaching 4th level and every even-numbered bushi level after that (6th, 8th, 10th, and so on) you can choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one you already know. In effect, you lose the old maneuver and exchange for the new one. You can choose a maneuver of any level you like, as long as you observe your restriction on the highest level maneuvers you know; you need not replace the old maneuver with a new maneuver of the same level. For example, upon reaching 10th level, you could trade in a single 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th level maneuver for a maneuver of 5th level or lower, as long as you meet the prerequisite of the new maneuver. You can swap only a single maneuver at any given level.

Maneuvers Readied: You can ready all three maneuvers you know at 1st level, but as you advance in level and learn more maneuvers you must choose which maneuvers to ready. You ready maneuvers by focusing for 5 minutes. The maneuvers you choose remain readied until you decide to focus again and change them. You need not sleep or rest for any long period of time in order to ready your maneuvers; any time you spend five minutes in thought, you can change your readied maneuvers.

You begin an encounter with all your readied maneuvers unexpended, regardless of how many times you might have already used them since you chose them. When you initiate a maneuver, you expend it for the current encounter, so each of your readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter (unless you recover them, as described below).

You can recover a single maneuver as a move action, you cannot initiate a maneuver recovered this way until the start of your next turn. Alternatively you may recover all your expended maneuvers as a free action usable outside your own turn after defeating the target of your challenge.

Stances Known: At the levels shown above, you learn a new martial stance from Dancing Goddess, Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, and Setting Sun disciplines. You must meet a stance’s prerequisite to learn it.

Challenge (Ex): Once per day as a swift action, a bushi may challenge a single opponent within her line of sight. Whenever she delivers a strike maneuver against the target of her challenge she deals additional damage equal to her class level. If a strike has multiple attacks this bonus damage only applies once. However the bushi takes a -2 penalty to AC against all other opponents, as she concentrates on her target. The bonus of challenge lasts until the end of the encounter or until the target is defeated. The bushi may only have a single challenge active.

At 3rd level and each 4 levels thereafter the bushi may use this ability an additional time per day.

Combat Style: A 1st level bushi start the game with one of the following feat as a bonus feat: Quick Draw, Mounted Combat, Point Blank Shot, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse or Weapon Focus. She does not need to meet the prerequisites of the chosen feat.

Order (Ex): A bushi starts the game with an order or ideology she follows, granting her an additional discipline to draw her maneuvers from. She must attempt to follow the edict or her order or ideology, any blatant violation causes the bushi to lose her ability to use the challenge class feature for 24 hours. A bushi does not suffer a penalty if she violates her edict to save her life or the life of an ally from an overwhelming danger.

Table: Bushi's Order

Order	Discipline	Edict
Order of The Goddess	Dancing Goddess	The bushi must respect art and avoid destroying it. She must avoid maiming or scarring her opponent, and do not desecrate their body if they are killed.
Order of the Red Wings	Aerial Ace	The ground does not deserve to touch your feet. The bushi must scorn the earth whenever you can.
Order of the Shadow	Shadow Hand	The bushi must hide your face from all except her most trusted allies and loved one. Be it with a mask, cowl or by the shades.
Order of the Machine	Crazy Gadget	The bushi must seek to use technology to solve her problems.
Order of the Night	Blood Feast	The bushi must avoid exposing her skin to sunlight and she must attempt to consume blood at every meal.
Order of the Shrine	Devoted Heart	The bushi must respect shrines and other sacred places, and protect them if able.
Order of the Undying Empress	Bone Crown	The bushi should seek to spurn mortality, either naturally or unnaturally. She must never accept her death and fight as hard as possible to avoid it.
Path of the Gun	Black Rain	The bushi must seek to solve her problem on the spot, be it with words or bullets. She must avoid leaving anyone with a grudge behind.
Way of the Iron Code	Amaranth Eclipse	The bushi must seek to become the strongest you can be. Trample the weaklings in her way.
Way of the Monster	Wild Moon	The bushi must seek to become a monster and do as she pleases. She must not appease those who stand in her way with words.
Wild Heart	Tiger Claw	The bushi must seek to spurn the comfort of modern society and live in simple harmony with nature.
Zen Seeker	Anima River	The bushi must meditate consistently, be quiet outside of combat and answer question cryptically, especially with koan.

Warrior's Resolve (Ex): A 2nd level bushi is capable of using her incredible resolve to ignore wounds, persist after she is beaten or ignore fear. At the start of each day she gains a pool of resolve equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 1). She may spend her resolve on a variety of incredible feats. She gained a single point of resolve after defeating the target of her challenge. The bushi's pools reset whenever she rests for 8 hours, including losing any extra resolve she acquired during the day. The bushi can use her pool of resolve for the following ability:

• Whenever she is struck by an attack or damaging effect, she may spend 1 point as a nonaction to reduce the damage by 5 points. This stacks with DR, energy resistance and other forms of protection. She may use this ability only once per attack or effect.
• She may spend 1 point as a free action at the start of her turn to become immune to fear for 1 round. This suppresses any fear effect currently on her and their duration still elapses.
• She may spend 1 points at the start of the turn to be able to act as if Staggered while Dazed, Nauseated or Stunned for 1 round.
• As long as she has at least 1 point in her resolve pool, the bushi is treated as having the Diehard feat. If she already has the feat she does not lose hit points for performing strenuous actions while under 0 hit points. Additionally, the bushi may spend 1 point at the beginning of her turn to be able to not be disabled or staggered while below 0 hit points.

Armor Training (Ex): Starting at 3rd level, a bushi learns to be more maneuverable while wearing armor. Whenever she is wearing armor, she reduces the armor check penalty by 2 and increases the maximum Dexterity bonus allowed by his armor by 1. In addition, a bushi can also move at her normal speed and tumble while wearing medium armor.

At 7th level these bonuses increase by +1 and the bushi can move at her normal speed and tumble in heavy armor.

Bonus Feat: At 4th level and each 4 levels thereafter, the bushi gains a single [Fighter] feat she meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat.

Bladed Dash (Sp): At 5th level the bushi is able to cast bladed dash as a spell-like ability twice per day. She gains an additional use of this ability at 7th level and each odd level thereafter.

At 10th level she may cast greater bladed dash instead, or use her bladed dash spell-like ability as a swift action. Doing so consumes two uses of the spell-like ability.

Special Challenge (Ex): At 6th level, the bushi can issue special challenges. She gains access to Daunting Challenge, Last Stand and Test of Mettle. These special challenges use one the bushi’s challenge per day and are considered to be an active challenge, and thus no more challenge can be issued while they are active.

Daunting Challenge: The bushi can issue this special challenge as a standard action. In addition to the normal effect of challenge, the foe must make a Will save with a DC of 10 + ½ class level + the bushi’s Charisma modifier or become At Bay from the bushi for the duration of the challenge. If the bushi successfully uses a strike on the target of her challenge, it she bestow a single daunt level upon it. A successful Will save as above negate the daunt level.

Last Stand: The bushi can issue this special challenge as a swift action. When she does so she can expend any number of resolve, gaining 10 temporary hit points per point of resolve spent. The bushi treats all opponents on the battlefield as the target of her challenge, but she only adds half the normal damage bonus. Whenever the bushi would recover a point of resolve during her land stand she instead gains 10 additional temporary hit points. Last stand last for 1 round per class level, after which all temporary hit points gained from it vanishes. Whenever a bushi defeats an opponent while in last stand she extends its duration by 1 round, but it immediately end at the end of the encounter. After last stand's duration elapses you are fatigued for 1 hour.

Test of Mettle: The bushi can issue this special challenge as a full-round action. All foes within 60 ft. of her must make a Will save with a DC of 10 + ½ class level + the bushi’s Charisma modifier or be forced to attack her. Creatures that fail this save are forced to attack the bushi with their ranged or melee attacks in preference over other available targets. If a foe attacks by casting a spell or using a supernatural ability, they must target the bushi with the attack or include them in the effect's area. The affected creatures are otherwise able to act as normal.

The bushi gains her challenge bonus against any foe who attacked her for 1 round. If a creature under test of mettle is attacked by another creature the effect ends for it. If the bushi falls unconscious or dies, the effect of test of mettle ends for each target. The bushi can end her test of mettle as a free action, alternatively it also ends if no creature affected by it remains on the battlefield. If no creatures are subject to the bushi's test of mettle it does not expend a use of challenge.

Focused Duelist (Ex): At 9th level the bushi no longer takes a penalty to AC when using her challenge, additionally she gains a +2 bonus to AC against the target of her challenge.

Sturdy Resolve (Ex): At 13th level bushi gain DR 5/- for as long as she has at least 1 point of resolve left.

Final Blow (Ex): At 14th level, the bushi is able to expend an active challenge as a free action while striking the target of the challenge. The strike deals an additional d6 of damage per class level instead of 1 per class level. If the attack brings down her opponent she counts as having defeated the target of her challenge twice. If the attack misses or does not bring down her opponent, the challenge immediately ends.

Undying Persistence (Ex): At 17th level, whenever a bushi uses her last stand special challenge she halves damage from physical attacks during its duration.

Master Duelist (Ex): Once per round, when a 18th level bushi threatens a critical hit against the target of her challenge she may automatically confirm it.

Pure Resolve (Ex): At the start of her turn, if a 20th level bushi’s resolve pool is under her Charisma modifier she automatically gains a point of resolve.

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