A strong Samurai build

[Kurald Galain]

The Samurai from the Complete Warrior is one of the most-maligned classes ever. However, this poor reputation is clearly unjustified, as a number of threads on the Wizards forum point out. With a bit of work, a Samurai build can be as strong as a Fighter or Monk, which are the strongest core classes by far. I'm not going into the warrior vs. caster debate here, but it has been repeatedly shown that Fighters and Monks can easily defeat any caster of equal level. And with the suggestions below, your Samurai can out-damage the party rogue without raising a sweat.

The most important class feature is that a Samurai gets a katana and wakazashi. Aside from having cool names, these weapons are always masterwork. This means that you can have your weaponry enchanted from the beginning; even as early as level two you can have a flaming burst weapon. The other classes either have to pay a lot of money for masterwork weapons (money which you can spend on better items), or have to hope that the DM will give them, as lair treasure, a masterwork version of the singular kind of weapon they specialize in. The latter is possible with the random treasure tables, but unlikely unless the DM is deliberately house ruling to help the other classes.

Skill points are easy for a Samurai. As a noble, he already shines in social encounters; also, it's very flavorful to max out the legendary samurai stealth skills, which let you go unseen until you flip out and kill people. Before doing that, it is good to start with Forgery, because many DMs will enjoy giving fake documents to your character, and this lets you tell the difference. Furthermore, if you invest a bit in Open Lock and Disable Device, you can substitute for the party rogue in a pinch. This is especially useful in good parties, because sneak attacking is evil and a good rogue won't be able to use it much. Now the rogue player can play a more effective character instead, such as another Samurai.

Any good build has to pay attention to ability scores. Now a Samurai works best with 45-point buy (although it is also possible to make one with less). With the standard dice rolling ability generation, statistics show you'll generally come up with something close enough to that. A common beginner's mistake is to put a lot of points in strength. You don't actually need strength, because in any significant battle you're going to be polymorphed into something stronger anyway. Even when you're not, the katana already deals so much more damage than, say, a dagger, that taking a -1 to damage isn't that big a deal. You won't need much constitution either, since you already have good hit dice and a good fortitude save. No, the most important ability scores for a Samurai are Intelligence, which lets you max out several important skills as well as learn much-needed languages, and Wisdom, which lets you Arcane Disciple. Once you get 19 wis, and use that feat to take the Luck domain, you have access to Miracle, the most powerful spell in the game. This is a fine example of how casters and non-casters are balanced; and remember that the non-casters can actually fight in addition to using Miracles.

Now remember that the casters in your party, particularly the wizard, aren't there to torch the enemies with magic. Everybody on the boards these days knows that blasting spells do much less damage than a melee attack. Obviously, negative status effect spells are even worse, since a blast spell can kill things, and a debuff can't. No, the casters are there to provide buffs for your Samurai character. From True Strike to Righteous Might, all spellcasting classes have good spells that make your already strong Samurai even better. After all, the characters are a team and should work together. Remind the other players that they aren't just playing for themselves; there is no I in "dungeon".

As we all know, a cornerstone of D&D is paying NPCs to assist you. You don't need Leadership (there are much better feats out there); simply pay a few NPCs to follow you around, and buff and heal you when necessary. You can even get them to cook dinner for you, how is that not stylish? Particularly at low level you will want to pay a wizard to cast Polymorph on you during most battles, at least until your UMD skill is high enough to do it yourself. Spells are cheap on the Goods and Services table, so this will easily fit within your wealth-by-level. If you run out, you can always seduce your DM, which will give you more money; seduction is part of the delicate game balance that makes D&D such a great game.

Finally, there are a number of strong prestige classes available for the Samurai. This isn't needed, because Sam/20 is plenty strong on its own, but you may want to look into this for flavor and variety. One of the funniest is the Chameleon, which gives you access to spellcasting, so you can become an archmage in addition to having a sword. If you spend a feat on the ability to quickly don or remove your armor, you can even use both blades and spells in a single combat, which no other build can do effectively.

So you see, while it is easy to forget important parts of D&D in house ruling, if you play the game properly balanced, the Samurai is one of the greatest classes out there, and it fits easily into every setting. I hope I've inspired many people to take a Samurai as their next character!

[Spiryt]

I sense the great disturbance in the Force... Like a thousands of sarcastic sentences in one simple thread...

[Emperor Demonking]

Is it true that a samurai like its meant to be played is worse than a warrior?


This is a fine example of how casters and non-casters are balanced; and remember that the non-casters can actually fight in addition to using Miracles.

That line rules.

[KIDS]

Kurald Galain, you are a legend. We are but meager insects in the face of your genius. That was so incredibly awesome that I'll be in a laughing fit for the rest of the day!!! Thanks for writing up that much awesomeness.

[Yami]

Yeah.... suuuure. Of course your Samurai is going to rock the monks world if you decide to use leadership cheese to bring your own Wizard to the fight... (Yeah, paying NPC's isn't always available as an option, nor gauranteed not to get you stabbed in the back. Leadership however, is safe.)

*Sigh*

Your thread has no purpose, and this saddens me.

[Learnedguy]

I just have to use that build

[Fenix_of_Doom]

OMG, im now totaly playing a samurai next time!!!11!!!!11






Great thread by the way .

[Armads]

This thread is made of win. Sigged!

[KIDS]

Yami, isn't sarcasm a completely valid and in fact a glorious purpose?

[DraPrime]

Attention all samurai haters! You just got DISPROVED!

This thread has inspired me to play a samurai some time soon.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Yes, totally switching out from Favoured Soul to play the Samuraii! Look at that, Miracle and fighting! If only my FS could do that. . .

[Hario]

From True Strike to Righteous Might, all spellcasting classes have good spells that make your already strong Samurai even better.

Right about here I stopped reading this. You say a samurai is a better skill monkey than a rogue. Yeah, maybe if the rogue has a dexterity of 3 and int of 3 to go with it. But you obviously know nothing about spells at all since you listed, not one but both of your buff spells which allegedly to be buffing your samurai, which both are ranged personal. The only time I've seen a samurai be a little effective is by taking a one level dip to get the katana w/o exotic weapon proficiency to be used for ijistu cheese. Also where do you get this idea that the fighter and the MONK are the most powerful classes in core. Fighter has maybe 4 feats in core that he can actually benefit from. In Core you'll be wasting those 18 feats on useless feats that you won't ever use. The Monk, don't get me started, great for flavor, weakest base class besides the samurai, and only can be 'effective' (if you call it that) between levels 8-12 if you take VoP (not core). A Paladin, Barbarian or even a ranger can easily beat both of the fighter and monk handily and have more uses (not even trying to touch how much more powerful spell casting is, especially in core). The Only class which might not beat a Fighter or monk in a straight up fight is a bard, and that's if he didn't put any ranks in diplomacy, and if he did, there is no fight, the bard already won.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Dude.





KURALD'S POST WAS SARCASM!


Jeeze, some people can't get a joke.

[Spiryt]

Hario, are we going into sarcasm in response to sarcasm or are you serious?

I'm confused.

[Emperor Demonking]

I think he's pretending to be ignorant as a joke. I've doe it before but when I did it , I did it great.

[Jack Zander]

I think he's pretending to be ignorant as a joke. I've doe it before but when I did it , I did it great.

Suuuure you did...

[RoboticSheeple]

^_^ It seems the only difference between trolling and sarcasm is how people respond to it.

[RandomFellow]

^_^ It seems the only difference between trolling and sarcasm is how people respond to it.

QFT

[Gungnir]

I would like to officially declare Kurald as Stephen Colbert in the Playground.

[kpenguin]

I would like to officially declare Kurald as Stephen Colbert in the Playground.

Seconded

[Fenix_of_Doom]

Right about here I stopped reading this.

You did? well that wasn't very clever of you.

However the principles of the internet were proven once again, you can't say anything so sarcastic or dumb that everybody gets it.

[Reel On, Love]

That was BRILLIANT.

[KIDS]

Who is Stephen Colbert?

[Lord Tataraus]

*stands and claps, is joined by many*
Bravo, bravo. That was great. I didn't catch it for a little bit, but then the skill point part just got me. Very good.

[JaxGaret]

This is what KG's post is full of:

[Reel On, Love]

*stands and claps, is joined by many*
Bravo, bravo. That was great. I didn't catch it for a little bit, but then the skill point part just got me. Very good.

What tipped me off (beyond the title and many ridiculousnesses to start with) was the use of Giacomo's arguments. No way anyone else could make them sincerely.

[Mad Wizard]

Who is Stephen Colbert?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert

He's a political satirist who does a show on Comedy Central called The Colbert Report.

[Nerd-o-rama]

^_^ It seems the only difference between trolling and sarcasm is how people respond to it.

Quoted again for truth.

I think this board now has more sarcastic or metahumor topics than serious ones. And I've barely even contributed! What the hell?

[Nero24200]

So..let me get this straight, a class rumoured to be weak and underpowered, rather than make a thread with somthing to make it more playable, you dedicate a thread to simply mocking it?

Wow, thanks for that. I'll remember in future to find you when I can't make fun of somthing myself.

[Laurellien]

So..let me get this straight, a class rumoured to be weak and underpowered, rather than make a thread with somthing to make it more playable, you dedicate a thread to simply mocking it?

Wow, thanks for that. I'll remember in future to find you when I can't make fun of somthing myself.

It's funny and you know it.