Samurai/Ronin 3.5?

[Foreverknight]

So I need to make a new character for my 3.5 game and I saw Samurai and thought it would be cool until literally everyone online who talked about samurais all talked about how bad the class was. Then I thought maybe Ronin?

Basically I wanted to see peoples opinions on how to optimize a samurai/Ronin 3.5 character. Most other players in this game min/max and I'm the newer player so making characters is rough for me. Basically anything goes as long as it's 3.5, we needed a front line melee character so if you have another suggestion other than ronin that isn't complicated to play I'm open.

[Silvercrys]

So I need to make a new character for my 3.5 game and I saw Samurai and thought it would be cool until literally everyone online who talked about samurais all talked about how bad the class was. Then I thought maybe Ronin?

Basically I wanted to see peoples opinions on how to optimize a samurai/Ronin 3.5 character. Most other players in this game min/max and I'm the newer player so making characters is rough for me. Basically anything goes as long as it's 3.5, we needed a front line melee character so if you have another suggestion other than ronin that isn't complicated to play I'm open.Well. Ask not for small favors. The class is... well, it's bad. Real bad. For the first ten levels you'll be wishing you were a straight classed Fighter because then you'd at least be drowning in feats.

For a high level build it's actually quite a bit better, because you can do some pretty good debuffing with Staredown/Improved Staredown and Imperious Command+the Menacing armor enchantment from Drow of the Underdark, so like... Samurai 14/Ronin 2/Fighter 4 is actually an ~okay level 10+ build. Those first 10 levels are going to feel like an eternity, though.

As far as actual Ronin, it's ~okay, mostly because it gives Shock Trooper (~ish) for free at level 2, so you could build a passable ubercharger with like Barbarian 6/Ronin 2/Frenzied Berserker 10/Fighter 2 or something.

[DrMotives]

I've seen some people suggest gestalting the 2 versions of samurai together, so you get bonus feats, ancestral weapon, and iajutsu focus.

[Zaq]

What aspects of samurai did you find cool? Maybe we can find something that feels similar without completely sucking.

[Elves]

A real world samurai is just a fighter in D&D and never merited a new class. Cultural variances and different weapons and armor are exactly why the fighter is so broad. So if the point is that you want to play a real samurai, any martial character who acts like one and carries samurai style armaments would fit.

If the staredown aspect is what appeals to you, consider an Imperious Command build.

[CharonsHelper]

See if your DM will let you bring in the Pathfinder samurai class. It's pretty cool. I had a lot of fun playing one. For a martial - it's very solid, and the Ronin specialty in particular is one of the better choices.

[Buufreak]

I've seen some people suggest gestalting the 2 versions of samurai together, so you get bonus feats, ancestral weapon, and iajutsu focus.

This is roughly what we are doing in our current online OA game. It... well, it helped get into prestige a hair easier without total feat investment. But generally, in a party with a shugenja and sword sage, I knew what I was signing up for.

That's really the long and short of samurai, or even fighter. If you are in a party with casters, and you up front know what you signed up for, then it's fine.

[EndlessKng]

I've seen some people suggest gestalting the 2 versions of samurai together, so you get bonus feats, ancestral weapon, and iajutsu focus.

Yeah... I had an idea to do that, and then found someone actually HAD done something like it on this very forum, with a few additions and narrowing the bonus feats into clan techniques (though you could probably change clan techniques back to bonus feats): http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?163793-3-5-Samurai-Revision-Rokugan. I've seen another version that did that (Though it got some criticism for leaving a bonus feat as the class capstone instead of, well, a capstone).

If you want to try your hand at it in your own way, you can make the class more functional overall. The one thing is that there are still a few dead levels, so it may help "smooth" the progression to shift a feat down or up where needed to fill in the few holes in the class if you make it that high. Also, CW samurai adds nothing at 1st level in terms of features, since "Daisho proficiency" is covered in the OA samurai's weapon proficiency list. You may want to see if you can get an extra bonus feat at that level.

That said, there are alternatives, assuming these are open to your DM. For the intimidation factor, the Zhentarim fighter is a solid favorite. Zhentarim Fighter adds three alternative class features related to intimidation, but unlike most Fighter ACFs, these happen at 3rd, 5th, and 9th - normally dead levels for the fighter. The added features, combined with the Imperious Command feat, make the 9th level Zhentarim fighter a terrifying force for enemies to behold.

For Iaijutsu Focus, consider using the Cosmopolitan feat to acquire it as a permanent class skill (it lets you add any skill like that).

For just sheer unadulterated combat potential with three feat of tagahagane steel folded a thousand times, Book of the Nine Swords is the way to go. There's a style (Iron Heart, IIRC) that has a katana as its main weapon, and many others can work with them as well (I think a DM in a game I was in used Diamond Mind to represent an Iai strike in a tournament, but I could be wrong). The styles can be learned somewhat with feats or prestige classes, but the main classes are solid for non-casters and can be easily reflavored to focus in on what you want.

For the ancestral daisho, keep in mind that, if you're Good-aligned (or can convince your DM to let you have it), there is Ancestral Relic as a feat, which gives the same benefits but to an item of your choice. Or just dip into OA samurai and grab it. THat's just as valid and I think a popular tactic.

[Foreverknight]

Well. Ask not for small favors. The class is... well, it's bad. Real bad. For the first ten levels you'll be wishing you were a straight classed Fighter because then you'd at least be drowning in feats.

For a high level build it's actually quite a bit better, because you can do some pretty good debuffing with Staredown/Improved Staredown and Imperious Command+the Menacing armor enchantment from Drow of the Underdark, so like... Samurai 14/Ronin 2/Fighter 4 is actually an ~okay level 10+ build. Those first 10 levels are going to feel like an eternity, though.

As far as actual Ronin, it's ~okay, mostly because it gives Shock Trooper (~ish) for free at level 2, so you could build a passable ubercharger with like Barbarian 6/Ronin 2/Frenzied Berserker 10/Fighter 2 or something.

We are level 15 so I don't have to go through the first 10 levels and if it's that bad I can do another melee class, right now we have a wizard who has spells/scrolls for everything, a jack of every trade rogue/monk/swashbuckler thing, a ranger and a paladin. Just trying to fill in the melee front line gap. So I'm not glued to the samurai ronin idea if it's not very good.

[Foreverknight]

A real world samurai is just a fighter in D&D and never merited a new class. Cultural variances and different weapons and armor are exactly why the fighter is so broad. So if the point is that you want to play a real samurai, any martial character who acts like one and carries samurai style armaments would fit.

If the staredown aspect is what appeals to you, consider an Imperious Command build.

I like samurai in real life but I don't have to play it if it's not a good class.

[Maat Mons]

Well, broadly speaking, the ways a character can get better are to either get bigger numbers, or to get a wider variety of options. If having more options is going to count as "complicated," and therefore be ruled out, that just leaves big numbers.

Some of the biggest numbers you can get come from ubercharging. At level 15, you'd be getting 120 damage per hit before factoring in base weapon damage, enhancement bonus, and Strength.

If you can convince the Wizard in the party to cast Greater Mighty Wallop on a warmace for you to use, the weapon's base damage goes up to 6d6 (and will hit 8d6 when the Wizard levels up to 16).

The highest Strength score you can get involves being a Druid. But a Druid is actually two characters (or three if you take Wild Cohort), so that might be getting "complicated."

[Silvercrys]

I like samurai in real life but I don't have to play it if it's not a good class.Well, at level 15 it's not a bad pick really, you can start as a Samurai 14/Ronin 1 with Imperious Command and Intimidate things into running away from you pretty easily.

It's not actually the most samurai-y class, though. I'd probably pick Warblade for that, but a lot of people don't like the Tome of Battle because they feel like it's "too anime" or something. It's also a bit more complex than your standard ubercharger/melee class, not quite as bad as spellcasters though.

Speaking of uberchargers, Fighter 4/Lion Totem Barbarian 2/Ronin 9 makes a decent one and you might actually get some mileage out of sneak attack as a flanker, judging by your party description. Maybe more Fighter or another prestige class is better after Ronin 2 depending on how much your DM frowns at level dips.

Either way it's not quite as good as Barbarian 2/Fighter X since Banzai Charge doesn't give you the damage numbers you'll get out of actual factual Leap Attack+Shock Trooper (to say nothing of Frenzied Berserkers with Improved Power Attack), but it's a reasonable facsimile.

Depends on what you want to do, really.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You can make a Warblade and just flavor it like a samurai. The various disciplines can represent different schools/styles of combat.