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There is no bloody reason to gestalt with CW samurai ever. No.
No, not then either. My trick can't save samurai.
Gestalt characters are intended to be powerful, not hideously gimped. You might as well just gestalt with Fighter, it covers 95% of the same ground, works as a full-bab lead in to other classes, gains solid feat layout, and is fun to play comparatively.
I think the only real reason to take samurai instead of fighter in gestalt is if you need the TWF tree and don't have the dex for it and for some reason don't wanna take ranger.
I think the only real reason to take samurai instead of fighter in gestalt is if you need the TWF tree and don't have the dex for it and for some reason don't wanna take ranger.
As if that situation ever actually happened, the PHBII introduced the feat Agile Shield Fighter to give you yet another way to get around the problem.
So yeah, add in "and you're a katana/wakazashi fanboy who hates shields" to your list of requirements.
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Load up on traditional Fighter "Jimmy Feats". You've already got TWF and Quick Draw, so get Combat Expertise, the Weapon Focus tree for both your weapons, Whirlwind Attack (if you can), and Crescent Moon if your DM lets you count your wakizashi for it.
"But Zeal", you might say, "isn't this a sure-fire recipe for disaster?" Well, sorta, but it has its uses. Look up pages 121-122 of CW. Figure out what your Perform: Weapon Drill score is. Optimize your Charisma, get Skill Focus and Leadership (omg more feats), get a Circlet of Persuasion, and check again. Are you hitting 50 or more reliably yet? Now check out this. Note that there's no limits to how often you can do this, or to how many people it can affect. Put this guy in front of your army (assuming there's armies and not just a couple powerful Wizards duking it out while everyone else hides), and give all hundred thousand soldiers a nice edge over the enemy.
Yes, a Fighter X (and only a Fighter; nobody else gets enough feats) can do this too, but a Fighter X gets practically zero synergy off of Charisma. All that work you did to get this guy's check through the roof make him, if not good, at least decent in combat (bonus points: get an Antimagic Torc or three, and suddenly he's a lot more effective in a fight). He also gets a pretty solid Intimidate Score. With Improved Staredown, he can demoralize twice per turn since he can do it as a move and a standard action, do it against all nearby enemies simultaniously, and can (hopefully reliably) Frighten most enemies that come within 30 feet of him.
End result - Not really effective in most campaigns, honestly. This guy is best served as an NPC, in a campaign where massive armies clash regularly. His entire army becomes stronger, and he can route almost any squad that attacks him singlehandedly. Yes yes a Wizard could just Cloudkill the whole bloody mass of them, but that's not as classy, y'know?
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Last edited by sonofzeal : 08-18-2009 at 02:11 PM.
You know, I know the CW Samurai stinks, but I'm seeing a lot of "it stinks because of the mechanics" and not a lot of the two things I think really should be mentioned (as well).
1) How to fix it.
2) It stinks because of the style.
If I was supposed to use a Samurai, I would use the OA Samurai (or for a slice of lemon better, the Rokugan Samurai). Not as many feats as the Fighter (by just a little), but more skills, and if memory serves me, two good saves instead of just one. You can argue about how much the Fighter really isn't that good of a class or not, but the Fighter and the Samurai are about equal.
A plain Fighter would be better, honestly, although I could see using a Ranger as well. I understand the Swordsage is good too, although I haven't see the class yet.
Oh, as for style.
The CW Samurai stinks!
In Rokugan, you have several different fighting styles, based on the different Clans. Seven Great Clans, seven distinct styles - the only Clan which regularly uses two-weapon fighting is the Dragon Clan. That leaves six different styles of fighting, styles the CW Samurai doesn't even acknowledge as existing.
I'm not saying that you should use OA or Rokugan for your Samurai, but at least give them some style and options!
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Isn't that true for most non-casters come mid-levels? I mean, the Adept spell list, when stretching, actually contains a bunch of really, really good spells (Polymorph, anyone? Or Web? Or Baleful Polymorph? Or Heal?).
And yeah, Samurai is a class that has no reason to exist. It's just a Fighter with pre-written fluff and poorly chosen feats. Fighter can do everything Samurai can do, and gives you options while at it. This is assuming you're "Ok"ing Zhentarim Fighter to get class features, of course.
Isn't that true for most non-casters come mid-levels? I mean, the Adept spell list, when stretching, actually contains a bunch of really, really good spells (Polymorph, anyone? Or Web? Or Baleful Polymorph? Or Heal?).
And yeah, Samurai is a class that has no reason to exist. It's just a Fighter with pre-written fluff and poorly chosen feats. Fighter can do everything Samurai can do, and gives you options while at it. This is assuming you're "Ok"ing Zhentarim Fighter to get class features, of course.
And yeah, Samurai is a class that has no reason to exist. It's just a Fighter with pre-written fluff and poorly chosen feats. Fighter can do everything Samurai can do, and gives you options while at it. This is assuming you're "Ok"ing Zhentarim Fighter to get class features, of course.
Indeed. It's not like the soulknife or the monk, which at least have an interesting concept that can't be easily replicated by another class (or couldn't until the swordsage came along, in the monk's case). The samurai is just a badly pre-generated fighter, the sort of crap a terrible DM might try to force you to play.
Considering the Adept has a fixed spell list and so few castings each day, just about any non-caster can beat an Adept. It's just an Adept can also beat them.
The samurai is unfixable because it has nothing. Nothing of its own. It is a few feats stapled loosely together under some hit dice and BAB. The flavor text doesn't even give any real identity to the class, nothing to separate it from a fighter, a paladin, a barbarian, a crusader, a warblade, a marshal... You can make a "samurai" with any of those classes and probably a fair number of others and still adhere perfectly to the flavor and intent of the CW class. There is nothing it does or is intended to do that most individual warrior-type classes cannot do better on their own.
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Chameleon Base Class [3.5]/[PF]: A versatile, morphic class that mimics one basic party role (warrior, caster, sneak, etc) at a time. If you find yourself getting bored of any class you play too long, the Chameleon is for you!
Warlock Power Sources [3.5]: Making Hellfire Warlock part of the base class and providing other similar options for Warlocks whose powers don't come from devils.
I have read over and over that the CW Samurai is possibly the worst class every made.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The worst class is the Truenamer. Truenamers are the only class that get worse as they gain levels. Their abilities degrade in usefulness as they progress, until they are essentially Commoners by 20th level. It's sad, really, because their concept is universally thought of as Totally Sweet. The execution is so broken that only crazy optimization along one true build will make truenaming a viable option. Compared to that, the CW Samurai is merely lame.
Adepts are pretty good, though. They get some okay spells.
Although, really, the Adept's best use is to make the Archivist even better, due to getting some spells sooner than other divine classes. And also getting a few arcane spells as divine spells.
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Wrong, wrong, wrong. The worst class is the Truenamer. Truenamers are the only class that get worse as they gain levels. Their abilities degrade in usefulness as they progress, until they are essentially Commoners by 20th level. It's sad, really, because their concept is universally thought of as Totally Sweet. The execution is so broken that only crazy optimization along one true build will make truenaming a viable option. Compared to that, the CW Samurai is merely lame.
Totally not true. I'd much rather play a Truenamer than a CW Samurai. Much more powerful.
__________________
You can call me Draz. Trophies:
Work on my homebrew system, CRE8, is still marching slowly onwards. I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel -- an Alpha release -- in the distance now. Read my Design Goals here.
Work on my homebrew system, CRE8, is still marching slowly onwards. I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel -- an Alpha release -- in the distance now. Read my Design Goals here.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The worst class is the Truenamer. Truenamers are the only class that get worse as they gain levels. Their abilities degrade in usefulness as they progress, until they are essentially Commoners by 20th level. It's sad, really, because their concept is universally thought of as Totally Sweet. The execution is so broken that only crazy optimization along one true build will make truenaming a viable option. Compared to that, the CW Samurai is merely lame.
The Truenamer has a right to exist, which is more than anyone can say for the Samurai. Its abilities are merely a subset of certain previously existing classes'! Several classes do everything the samurai does and are fully compatible with the concept fluff-wise, too!
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Chameleon Base Class [3.5]/[PF]: A versatile, morphic class that mimics one basic party role (warrior, caster, sneak, etc) at a time. If you find yourself getting bored of any class you play too long, the Chameleon is for you!
Warlock Power Sources [3.5]: Making Hellfire Warlock part of the base class and providing other similar options for Warlocks whose powers don't come from devils.
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