Doing CW Samurai's Thing, Better Than CW Samurai

[Dell_the_Engie]

Ah, yes, the Complete Warrior Samurai...

Exotic, flavorful, and infamous; infamously bad. Even in regard to his class specialties, which are Two-Weapon Fighting with his daisho, Kiai Smite, and Intimidation, he's laughably incapable. This class has very few things going for it, which is unfortunate, because the concept had the potential to be quite fun and reasonably effective, as far as martial classes go. It was in its weak implementation, that the concept fell apart, and became one of the worst classes in the game.

So, with the concept in mind, I wonder what kind of builds could do Samurai, better than Samurai?

Now, I need to lay down some specific limitations to begin with. Our character's race will need to be Human, and his alignment non-evil. He will not be a spellcaster, nor will he use psionics. His stats are limited to an array, which is 16, 15, 14, 12, 10, and 10. And, alas, no Tome of Battle. Preferably, material comes from Core and Completes, but feel free to reach from other places as well. Ultimately, the character should excel in Two-Weapon Fighting, and using Intimidation, extraordinary abilities, or other mundane means, to demoralize enemies into submission, with greater effectiveness than a Complete Warrior Samurai.

I have some idea, myself, of where I would start such a build, and I would probably collect its core features from Ranger, with some variants, and a dip into Lion Spiritual Totem Barbarian, for the Pounce ability, and rage.

But I'd like to know, what would you do?

[Troacctid]

Okay. Be a Fighter. Take Zhentarim substitution levels. Wear Fearsome armor (DotU). Get the Never Outnumbered skill trick. Congratulations, you're better than a Samurai, and you still have a bunch of bonus feats left over.

Not to your liking? Fine. Be a Bard. Take Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar to get a hippogriff (CW) or other large-sized creature as your familiar. Use it as a mount and have it demoralize for you. Use Inspire Awe (DrM) to escalate the fear. While you're at it, wear Fearsome Armor and use your move action to intimidate and escalate it even further.

Stuck with Completes only? Avenging Executioner. There, you're done.

I have more builds if you want them.

[Twilightwyrm]

Okay. Be a Fighter. Take Zhentarim substitution levels. Wear Fearsome armor (DotU). Get the Never Outnumbered skill trick. Congratulations, you're better than a Samurai, and you still have a bunch of bonus feats left over.

Not to your liking? Fine. Be a Bard. Take Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar to get a hippogriff (CW) or other large-sized creature as your familiar. Use it as a mount and have it demoralize for you. Use Inspire Awe (DrM) to escalate the fear. While you're at it, wear Fearsome Armor and use your move action to intimidate and escalate it even further.

Stuck with Completes only? Avenging Executioner. There, you're done.

I have more builds if you want them.

And that's the CW Samurai for you. Where a random Prestige Class does your concept better in five levels than you do in twenty.

[Blackhawk748]

And that's the CW Samurai for you. Where a random Prestige Class does your concept better in five levels than you do in twenty.

A random awesome PrC. But ya, id go with the standard Zhentarim Soldier build, but TWF with a Katana (Bastard Sword) and a Wakizashi (Shortsword). Hell have your first level be from OA Samurai and save a feat on proficiency

[Seerow]

I'd go something like Ranger2/Fighter9/Whatever 9.


The Ranger levels are to gain Two Weapon Fighting without needing the silly dex prerequisites. You'll nab Improved Two Weapon Fighting through the Gloves of the balanced hand. Greater Two Weapon Fighting is basically a trap regardless. Taking your first level in ranger also gives a much better array of skills to start with, which is nice at low levels.

Fighter 9 is for the Zhentarim sub levels. You also pick up 5 feats along the way. If you don't mind not getting heavy armor until later, you can go Exoticist Fighter here as well to trade out your heavy armor proficiency for 4 exotic weapons (getting you Katana proficiency plus some others).

I'd recommend grabbing Ancestral Relic as a low level feat. It'll make it easier to keep your mainhand weapon up to par. For the offhand, you could consider going Kensai with those other 9 levels, which will give you eventually a +9 offhand, and also gives you a boost to intimidate and some other interesting samurai-style stuff.

Other options for those last 9 levels include Exotic Weapon Master. In fact a 1 level dip into exotic weapon master plus Oversized Two Weapon Fighting, so you can dual wield katanas instead of a katana+whatever the smaller one is called, means that you can use two one-handed weapons that qualify for Uncanny Blow, getting double power attack returns, which is actually fairly potent.

[General Sajaru]

Fighter 6/Tempest 5, although you'd have to focus on Dex. Alternately, use Ranger instead of fighter to qualify for Tempest; that's not as good though, since you can't take the weapon focus/specialization feats and apply them to both Katana and Wakizashi while you spring attack with both of them.

[Hellborn_Blight]

I never thought samurai was that bad. It certainly wasn't great. Or deep. Or representative of Samurai at all. But my very first D&D game/campaign was as a Samurai, so...rose colored nostalgia and all that. But I've never been sure wtf wizards was going for with the Sam, but it wasn't anything resembling an actual samurai, which was to part that always annoyed me the most. While Iaijutsu Focus was a somewhat annoying and blundered representation of Samurai, it did at least have something to do with a common skill utilized by the fabled warrior class. Two Weapon Fighting was not. It was a rare style that even Kensei Musashi didn't employ most of the time. Speed of strike was a common idea that Samurai where attributed with. Precision is likewise important. The videos showing Isao Machii present what I always thought a Samurai's were like.

Game rules wise, I think a base Warblade builds a Samurai better than anything else. It completely ignores what wizards wanted a samurai to be, but they had it severely wrong to begin with. Depending on how you want to customize the Samurai's fighting style, you can change the selected maneuvers and feats, but this gave a good balance of weapon training, unarmed training, Concentration or "focus", speed, and defense, that when flavored with the Orient represent a Samurai way better. This was an NPC I used that was not optimized obviously, but represented a powerful Samurai Lord in the world I was running.

Daisuke Yamamoto
Human
20 level Warblade

1 Exotic Weapon Proficiency Katana
1 Weapon Focus Katana
1 Improved Unarmed Strike
3 Superior Unarmed Strike
5 Blade Meditation Diamond Mind
6 Snap Kick
9 Weapon Specialization Katana
9 Improved Initiative
12 Greater Weapon Focus
13 Combat Reflexes
15 Greater Weapon Specialization
17 Unnerving Calm
18 Melee Weapon Mastery
(Flaw: -2 on ranged attacks)

Stance's

Punishing Stance
Hunter's Sense
Dancing Blade Form
Supreme Blade Parry

Maneuvers

Moment of Perfect Mind
Wall of Blades
Mind Over Body
Iron Heart Surge
Pouncing Charge
Iron Heart Endurance
Avalanche of Blades
Quicksilver Motion
Lightning Throw
Diamond Nightmare Blade
Time Stands Still
Diamond Defense
Strike of Perfect Clarity

[Metahuman1]

Crack open PHB 2. Make an affiliation using the rules there. Have benefits be the TWF tree regardless of meeting prerequisites (Maybe including Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Rend, And the Double Strike/Twin Strike Feats (Might have the names mixed up. One let's you use a standard action to attack once with each weapon you use, the other let's you attack once with each weapon when an Attack of Opportunity is provoked.) Possibly also have it give you Dodge and Mobility as there popular feat tax items and some Intimidate bonuses. Fluff as your clan or the school you trained at or what ever.

At 6th level, pick up leadership, make your cohort a crafter to keep Ancestral Relics (Armor, weapons, anything else you'd need by way of a magic item.) maintained (Translated form fluff to mechanics, upgraded to suitable levels and at an affordable cost.) Fluff him as a vassal or something.

Pick up levels in Binder and Bind useful Vestiges and fluff it as all kinds of Mythological powers stemming from Ancestor worship.



Or, pick up Scout 4/ Cleric 1/ Barbarian 1/ Ranger X. Take Swift Hunter, Spirit Lion totem Barbarian. Maybe if you pick up Able Learner snag Cloistered Cleric at first level for Knowledge Devotion, but weather you can on not defiantly take travel devotion. Bonus points if you can squeeze in the Jotunbrod feat and Elusive Target as well as the assorted feat chain in the Jack Be Nimble Build. There's a feat in complete scoundrel that let's you give up precision damage dice to deny actions instead, and a 2 feat combo that gives +2d6 fire damage when you skirmish. And then another feat in complete scoundrel that doubles your bonuses form Skirmishing. Take them as well. (I recommend heartily abusing the retraining rules in PHB 2 so that you can turn every redundant proficiency into another bonus feat.) Your constantly moving, making metric tones of attacks, dealing tons of damage, and inflicting debilitating debuffs between knocking prone and taking away actions to your enemy's if you spec it right.

[ben-zayb]

I agree with snagging the JackB.Quick-based essential feats (Robilar's Gambit, Evasive Reflexes, and Double-Hit, at least), and pairing it with a Ranger 2 / Chaos Decisive Monk 1 / Zhentarim Thug Fighter 5 / Ronin 1 / Scarlet Corsair 5 chassis with Imperious Command. If you can snag Barbarian 1 cheese, I also suggest taking Dreadful Wrath.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Human: The following build uses a race that counts as Human for purposes of game mechanics. He's a Desert Half-Orc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm#desertHalfOrcs) with the Half-Humans and Humanlike Races variant in Races of Destiny p150, so he counts as a Human instead of an Orc. He's a Humanoid (Human), just like any Human variants or templated Humans (Silverbrow, Illumian, Skulk, etc.).

Str 14, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 15, level-ups should go Cha once, and the rest in Str.
Half-Orc Paragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/racialParagonClasses.htm#halfOrcParagon) 1/ Zhentarim Sneak Attack Thug Fighter 4/ Scarlet Corsair (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20050805b) 5/ Zhentarim Sneak Attack Thug Fighter 5/ Scarlet Corsair 5
Say you visited the Otyugh Hole in CS to get Menacing Demeanor without spending a feat on it.
Feats: Menacing Demeanor (B), Skill Focus: Intimidate (B), Two-Weapon Fighting (1), Item Familiar (3), Imperious Command (6), Weapon Focus (9), Weapon Specialization (12), Melee Weapon Mastery (15), Defensive Sweep or Combat Reflexes (18).

Skills: Never Outnumbered skill trick (CS) if beginning play prior to Scarlet Corsair 5, Psychic Reformation it once you reach that level; max ranks in Intimidate, 5+ in Bluff for synergy, 5+ in Balance, probably max Tumble, whatever else you want, plus prerequisites. Every skill point from 4th+ level should be invested in his Item Familiar, and add a bonus back into Intimidate equal to your ranks in it.

Items: +X Fearsome (DotU is the newest version, allows you to demoralize as a move action) light armor; Gloves of the Balanced Hand (MIC) with an Enhancement to Strength added (MIC p234); Ring of Protection +1 (Item Familiar) upgraded to Ring of Invisibility with +1 Deflection bonus to AC (MIC p234); See the Necessary Items (www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items) and the recommendations in the Fear Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809) for more choices. He'll always be wearing a glove or gauntlet over his Item Familiar so it cannot be targeted directly or slight of handed. He always wears a red shirt and brown pants.

At any given level, his Intimidate bonus is 19+(level x2), so for example at level 10 his Intimidate bonus is at +39. When he makes an Intimidate check as a move action thanks to his Fearsome armor, it affects all opponents within 30 ft., and causes them to Cower for one round, and then be Shaken for a number of rounds equal to his Cha bonus (at least three). The next time he uses that, anyone affected again Cowers for a round again, and then is Frightened afterward if they were already Shaken. He can still make a melee attack on any round he does this, or he can Intimidate twice each round. He uses a Greatsword, with Armor Razors (Underdark, slashing version of Armor Spikes) to deliver his offhand attacks when he full attacks. Once he hits Fighter 9 he can Intimidate everyone within 30 ft. as a swift action every round, and again as a move action if he wants, and a third time with another move action if he wants to forego attacking that round.