I Need Assistance (Character Building)

[TechnOkami]

What I essentially want to make is a Samurai who dual wields weapons and rides a giant wolf, specifically a Winter Wolf.

I know there's the Samurai theme, and that's being put under consideration (I'm not sure if it's really worth it or not). I believe there is some Fey Beastmaster-thing which I could do as well for an animal to run around with, but I don't know if a Winter Wolf counts as such a creature. I've considered hybridizing into something with a Ranger (beast or dual wielding). Anywho, I'm really not sure what I should do is what I'm saying, and would like some help if possible constructing him. I would really like all these facets, and wouldn't want any of them excluded. Optimization isn't necessary, but I would at least like to be useful to my party.

Oh, also some particulars: Level 7

[Sol]

Well, since you want to dual-wield, I'd suggest going straight up beastmaster ranger rather than hybridizing, since rangers are already the best dual-wielders in 4e.

Additionally, beastmaster ranger is the only way I'm aware of to get the ability to use a medium-sized animal companion as a mount, without being small yourself.

If you take the beast rider feat, you're pretty well set.

Just take the samurai theme and ignore ranger powers with the beast keyword (they're almost all universally terrible) in favor of the standard melee multi-attacking fare and you'll do just fine.

Winter Wolfs don't count as any of the companion creatures, but there's no reason you can't just call your Wolf a Winter Wolf.

[TechnOkami]

Huh... I thought going as a dual-wielding Ranger or a Beast Master Ranger were their own separate things and both couldn't be done at the same time... cool!

[Surrealistik]

Spiked Chain

Fighter/Ranger hybrid

Twin Strike + Minor action attacks.

Might consider going for the Sohei theme; very powerful and close enough to the idea of a Samurai.

[Sol]

Huh... I thought going as a dual-wielding Ranger or a Beast Master Ranger were their own separate things and both couldn't be done at the same time... cool!

anyone can dual-wield. Only TWF rangers (or anyone that takes the TWF ranger MC feat) can wield a non-offhand-weapon in their offhand.

A great way to solve this is to use a double weapon.

As surrealistik points out, the spiked chain (if you take the MC spiked chain feat) is pretty fantastic in the hands of a character that's going to be making a minimum of 3 attacks per round.

fighter/ranger is quite brutal, but the need to "waste" hybrid talent on getting a beastmaster pet in your case makes me prefer a straight up ranger.

[Kurald Galain]

anyone can dual-wield. Only TWF rangers (or anyone that takes the TWF ranger MC feat) can wield a non-offhand-weapon in their offhand.

A great way to solve this is to dual wield a longsword and a shortsword, or some other combination where one weapon counts as offhand :smalltongue:

The weapon damage die is not going to be a major factor in your damage except at very low levels, anyway.

[Surrealistik]

Fighter/Ranger hybrid is worth it for Rain of Steel, Battle Fury Stance, and Rain of Blows (Sweeping Blow is good until you meet the RoB's Dex requirement for much needed crowd control).

You'll want to use your Hybrid Talent for Tempest style rather than Beastmaster.

You can take Fey Beast Tamer for your theme and reflavour any of the creatures as a wolf (except maybe the Blink Dog with its teleportation); I don't think that should really be a problem.

[Tegu8788]

That something that's worth pointing out, is that it is incredibly easy in 4e to refluff things. If your DM lets you change keywords it becomes even easier, but even without that powers are very flexible. A ranger could be refluffed as a wizard that specialized in variations of magic missile, a monk using full contact magic, an avenger is a ninja, ...

It's less important to match fluff of classes to the fluff you want than the mechanics of the classes to the mechanics you want.

[Sol]

Fighter/Ranger hybrid is worth it for Rain of Steel, Battle Fury Stance, and Rain of Blows (Sweeping Blow is good until you meet the RoB's Dex requirement for much needed crowd control).

You'll want to use your Hybrid Talent for Tempest style rather than Beastmaster.

You can take Fey Beast Tamer for your theme and reflavour any of the creatures as a wolf (except maybe the Blink Dog with its teleportation); I don't think that should really be a problem.

not arguing at all about fighter/ranger being really amazing, but he'd have to be a small race in order to use any of the fey beast trainer pets as a mount.

[Surrealistik]

You can't get a large mount through the Beastmaster option regardless. It's really something he'd have to buy/domesticate.

[TechnOkami]

Question: how good of a two weapon fighter is the Fighter?

[Surrealistik]

Given that the Tempest Fighter subtype is specifically orientated towards dual wielding, the class has quite a few good options in this capacity.

[Sol]

You can't get a large mount through the Beastmaster option regardless. It's really something he'd have to buy/domesticate.

yeah but the beast rider feat lets you ride a medium beastmaster companion as long as youre no larger than medium.

when he's listed the ability to ride his wolf as a build requirement, that's the only way i know how to do it.

beastmasters are handily worse than any other ranger, but if they ignore the powers meant for them and take the powers meant for twf, they're still on the quite strong end of the spectrum.

[Surrealistik]

Ah, I wasn't aware of that feat as I've never seriously considered a Beastmaster.

Still, he can refluff say a creature summoned from a wondrous item, or purchase a mount, perhaps convincing the DM to let it scale with his level as per a standard monster, paying the per level differential in item value for each level it advances (for example, when leveling the wolf from 7 to 8, he'd pay 800 GP or otherwise have it deducted from his WBL).