Fighter: Samurai | D&D Subclass Review

My updated breakdown of how to play the Samurai Fighter for D&D 5e from Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

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Bio
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Taron "Indestructoboy" Pounds is a game designer, graphic designer, music educator, Twitch streamer, and YouTuber. He has earned an ENnie nomination for his work on Home-Field Advantage, and is an adamantium best-seller on the Dungeon Masters Guild.
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Graphic Design & Editing: Taron "Indestructoboy" Pounds
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#dnd #ttrpg #dungeonsanddragons

[timovandervalk]

Also, one thing might not everyone is knowing, is that the lvl 15 feature, Rapid Strikes actually synergyzes with fighting spirit, which has been confirmed by Jeremy Crawford. This means, while giving up advantage on one attack, you can still get advantage on your additional attack from rapid strikes, through fighting spirit. This means in total, you just get one additional attack without advantage whenever, you use fighting spirit and apply rapid strikes to one attack.

[timovandervalk]

Such a flavourful and cool subclass.

I think the Samurai is one of the most overlooked fighter subclasses. Many people just underestimate it or think it is not good, since there are other ways to get oneself advantage, than fighting spirit. But fighting spirit gives oneself temporary hitpoints and you do waste attacks trying to shove enemies prone to get advantage etc.. Also it is thematically really on point. If you want your big epic moment just combine action surge with fighting spirit everytime.


Elegant courtier is also very nice, bonus proficiencies and the ability to use wisdom for your face skills is so on point and the capstone, is an ability every martial character can just dream of. I mean it is an entire additional turn before you go down and you can even use it to just chuck a healing potion if you want.

[SharinganVizard]

Funny thing about Samurai: There is nothing stopping you from playing a Ranged Samurai and it still workes ABSURDLY WELL. Fighting Spirit plus Sharpshooter is Insane

[feelingrizzly]

My buddy showed me his Samurai/Gloomstaker build with XBE and Sharpshooter and the burst damage is insanely high AND reliable. S Tier for sure

[tannerboudreau]

I’ve played a samurai up to lvl 12 and I loved every moment of it. My absolute favourite character!

[danielmariolle]

Completely agree, this is an S tier fighter without a doubt! Flavourful and consistently competent, Wizards definitely had the foresight for designing Samurai and its done in a simple way :)

[chrisfreese]

I’m playing a samurai with a dip in barbarian and I’m loving it. All of the advantage I could want

[isaacfreeman]

The 3 uses and long rest spoiled me between the UA and official release. The thing I love about fighter is that most subclasses regain most of their power on a short rest. I ended up feeling like a monk with permanently low ki. Plenty of ways to get advantage, and 5 temp hp is lame early on, and 15 is hilarious later on. This helped me feel like I really had to pick moments rather than go all in all the time. Rapid Strike felt good when I finally got it, but my game ended. I was a half-orc, so I had my lvl 18 from the beginning. I like everything else about the subclass on release. Theming and RP are top tier. Good review.

[misterright]

I like the samurai too but I think it needs fighting spirit to reset on a short rest. Or at the very least proficiency times a day. And the temp hp should scale as well.

[Howler]

I still remember when I did a high level one shot and I rolled up with a Samurai Fighter and everyone was going 'Fighter? Really? Why not *insert magic class here*, they're so much more powerful and fun.' Only for me to absolutely demolish the first boss fight in a single turn because of Action Surge combined with Fighting Spirit 😂

[farrex]

A samurai with elven accuracy, multiclassing with ranger gloomstalker to get the extra attack. This class already benefits from having wisdom. You would get, with 5 fighter-5 ranger. On the first turn, you would have 8 attacks the first turn at level 10. All of them can be attacks with sharpshooter and elven accuracy. Imagine +4 dex, and a +1 weapon. You would have a base damage of 120 if all attacks hit, at level 10. And that is without counting how many critical hits you would get, you would make 8 attacks all with elven accuracy.
It would be 8d8+120 with a median of 160 damage. That is without counting how many critical hits you could hit. If you get the piercer feat, you would roll three dice per critical hit and re-roll one dice for extra damage.
You could easily be making around 200 damage each first round at level 10.

[samfish]

Ok, this also just makes me wish even more so that every fighter got superiority dice with battle master leaning in on it and not just being the only one, like imagine if you could use the on attack effects even if you don't add the dice on them, you could do some flashy shit.

[ryanweaver]

*This* is the subclass when I think of someone wanting to play a Legolas character. While "Samurai" makes many folks envision swords, this works with any weapon attacks, so a sharpshooter longbow elf with elven accuracy for super advantage on every attack that turn.. hoo boy...

That you can essentially get your 4th fighter attack a little early is icing. You can either have it at level 15 a time or two per battle, or you can multiclass 3 levels of rogue for steady aim, giving up your movement and bonus attack every turn you want to for that extra attack; while thus has some drawbacks and doesn't kick in until 18th, that is still potentially 2 levels earlier...

Edit: of course, a STR based fighter can do similar with Barbarian and Reckless Attack, for GWM/PAM that doesn't even use their bonus attack for Reckless Attack to give all their attacks advantage for their turn, at an earlier level than careful aim.

[jakisz]

I have yet to play any DnD. But this and the Warlock Genie class are the two I want to play the most. The Samurai class was mainly for that Strength Before Death ability. I want it to be in a scenario where after the enemy gets my hit points down, I shout like Asta from Black Clover, "Not Yet! I ain't done yet!" Then attack that enemy down or slowly walk over to the enemy while giving them the fear of life from me. That ability is the best way to use that feature.

[brandonschneider]

And using the capstone wight fighting spirit you gain temporary hit points on top of the attack. So it would add 15thp.

[coopatroopa]

Which subclass is next hoping for the run knight it’s my favorite

[isaacgraff]

I have seen some crazy clutch nova using Strength Before Death.

[budington]

I feel like fighting spirit should have just been a buff to you action surge rather than a bonus action. Tireless spirit could have been something like you get an additional action surge once per long rest, or an additional second wind per short rest.

[Wrathnicangel]

I played a lawful neutral Blue-Dragonborn Fighter-Samurai over a year ago before I had to leave my group which I had to for unfortunate reasons. I was having an easier describing my attacks than when I was playing my tiefling wild magic sorcerer (I’m still surpised that there was no pyromancy subclass) should but boy did the dice hate my samurai character especially when I had to roll for stats. The other bad thing for my case about it is I had trouble roleplaying even my dm has said and noticed that had a hard time. Then again I lack the knowlege about roleplaying, being the face since we had a paladin in the party, and or even know how to act like a samurai despite my best resource was from the ones in anime.

But also if I ever play the samurai again on level 3 or 4 for a feat…I would just take either skilled or skill expert for tools, skills, etc. or magic initiate for 1 attack cantrip or 1 the other cantrip for utility, social, etc. for example: Thaumaturgy or just ask your dm for homebrew spell of that category I guess that fits samurai in my opinion. Or just take 2 social/utility/etc spells. 1st level spells though…dealers choice I suppose. ones because the fighter class or most of the melee classes in general main weakness is lack of outside of combat use to where you feel like a power gamer or munchkin or something along those lines I guess. Also I don’t recommend the soldier background…while it kinda fits theme I didn’t like it and couldn’t figure out a proper way to use its feature especially how your character’s background’s military, organization, etc. is unrecognized majority of the time for a proper use since its way too niche (there is also another reason but too long to type). Just pick knight, knight of order, far traveler, folk hero, or talk with your dm to make homebrew background example a ronin.

[Finnssssss]

Wouldn't you also be able to pop Rapid Strike with your reaction on an AoO that has advantage?