Samurai Reimagined
A detailed and comprehensive redesigning of the XGtE subclass
Samurai
Disclaimer
Just like the original 5e version of the samurai, this work's aim is to capture an evocative version of the narrative of the samurai as it is seen in books, films or other works of art. It's not supposed to be a historically accurate representation of a culture or fighting style.
That being said, I personally feel like the XGtE version is lacking in both how fun it is to play and how evocative it presents the samurai narrative.
Introduction
A few days before Christmas, our group finished our latest campaign and we started talking about the next arc, which I would be DM'ing. One of my fellow players and friends had announced he wanted to play a samurai, but came back on his decision later as he found the archetype, while fun, a bit too limiting. His main concern was not being able to wield two weapons, due to the number of bonus actions required and so, at first, I set out to see if I could address this.
What I want to do in this document is different from simply redoing the archetype. If this would have been the case, there would've been risks. I could, for example, simply have differ-ent ideas about what a fantasy or narrative interpretation of this historical subject is. Alternatively, I could have a different aim for the archetype. Perhaps Samurai was created specifi-cally in its XGtE form to be a simpler archetype, just like Champion.
It's impossible to fully negate these risks, but I will try nonetheless. Therefore, instead of simply being a number of features with a nice picture, I will include my thought process concerning the archetype as a whole and the individual features and why I think a different interpretation would work better or why the current are just fine.
The XGtE Version
Fighter as a class
As explained above, this document's aim is not to completely overhaul the Samurai subclass for the fighter. In fact, four out of the six features are untouched as I feel like they do capture the right spirit. The idea that the samurai is more than simply someone good with a sword hits the nail on the head. The fighter, by itself, already has this at its core and it is displayed in the three basic archetypes. The Champion meticulously studies his opponent and his weaknesses, the Battle Master is a master student of battle as a whole and the Eldritch Knight combines his martial prowess with arcane studies.
Fighter archetypes follow a standard arrangement. The 3rd level feature gives a bonus in combat, usually making the character better at attacking. It also introduces the core of the archetype, such as Superiority Dice. Furthermore, this is where the studying comes into being with certain archetypes yielding additional proficiencies. The 7th level feature is more of a general improvement to the character, be it through gaining knowledge or being better at certain out-of-combat actions. The 10th level feature, then, is at its core a quality of life improvement, often giving more versatility to the character. That being said, the main use of the Battle Master's 10th (and 18th) level feature is to add more damage. At 15th level, archetypes get an improvement to their core, often giving alternatives or enhancing the core 3rd level feature. The capstone feature, at 18th level, rounds out the archetype. Either by hitting home the fantasy of the archetype or shoring up certain weaknesses that other features left along the way.
What works
The Samurai gaining proficiencies in "study" skills, as well as social skills (Persuasion) (3rd level feature), and developing a sense of how to excel in these socials situations (7th level feature) is very fitting. Furthermore, the 10th level feature really hits home the feel of a disciplined, untiring servant to a cause, almost paladin-like. Finally, the 18th level feature, even though it isn't the famed Harakiri, definitely feels very heroic. It is a second chance at life, or otherwise, a death worthy of such a skilled warrior.
What doesn't
What I like less is how streamlined the second 3rd and 15th level features are. While the temporary hit points (THP) are actually quite a nice touch, the main bodies of the features simply make you hit more. In one form it's because you get advantage, in the other it is simply because you attack more, so you get more chances at hitting.
While all fighters are skilled warriors, the samurai's swordsmanship doesn't come into its own in this version, it is simply someone who is good at hitting and attacking fast. One might moot the point that the subtleties of swordsmanship don't have to be featured in DnD, especially in 5e, but in this case I would disagree. If a fantastical representation of the samurai is the goal, this should most definitely be part of the archetype. There are many tales of almost mythical feats that were accomplished with only a sword by samurai or similar warriors. Simply hitting more accurately or more often does not do justice to this image.
The Reinterpretation
Fighting Stance
Starting at 3rd level, you learn a fighting stance you can adopt, enhancing your combat abilities. As a bonus action on your turn, you adjust your posture and the way you hold your weapons, allowing you to anticipate your foe or strike true.
Earth. A defensive stance used to deflect blows. Holding your weapon low, you wait for your opponent to strike and leave an opening. Until the start of your next turn, your AC increases by 2. As a reaction, you can increase this bonus to 4. You may do this after the roll, but before your DM tells you whether the attack hits or misses.
Fire. This offensive posture raises the weapon high above the head, leaving the body exposed, but readying a powerful strike. You gain advantage on weapon attack rolls until the end of your turn.
Water. Traditionally the most basic, this middle-level stance is a balance between offense and defense and focuses on using your opponents power against itself. Until the start of your next turn, when a melee weapon attack misses you, you can use your reaction to make an attack against the creature that missed the attack, using its own attack modifier.
Wind. By maneuvering your weapon sideways, you can move more quickly and parry blows more effectively. Your movement speed increases by 15 feet until the end of your turn. Additionally, your swiftness grants you a +4 bonus to your AC against opportunity attacks.
Whenever you adopt a stance on your turn, you gain 5 temporary hit points. This increases to 10 and 15 temporary hit points at 10th and at 15th level.
You can choose another one of these stances to learn at 7th, 10th and 15th level. You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
Stance Improvements
Starting at 15th level, you learn how to combine stances, break out of them or simply use them more effectively.
Earth. While in Earth Stance and subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you can use your reaction to angle your weapon so you take no damage on a success and only half damage on a failed saving throw.
Fire. While in Fire stance, you can forgo the advantage on one of the attacks and make an extra weapon attack against that target instead, as part of the same action. You can do so no more than once per turn.
Water. When you make an attack with the creature's own attack modifier while in Water stance, you can make an additional attack with a melee weapon yourself as part of that reaction against that creature.
Wind. Whenever a creature makes an opportunity attack against you when you are in Wind stance, they provoke opportunity attacks from your allies within 5 feet of them.
Thought process
Fighting Stance
The Bonus Action. The first idea to remove this was actually not even accomplished, but when thinking on it further, even when playing a character that uses his bonus action to make a second attack, this isn't that limiting, so it didn't seem that restrictive.
The Stances. Given the association with the Oriental cultures, the samurai might be seen to encroach on the monk's territory here. This comment isn't unwarranted, after all, martial arts (the monk) and Eastern swordsmanship (samurai) tap into the same history, the same martial culture and even the same philosophies.
An alternative would have been to look at fantasy interpretations of kung fu and I actually did. However, swordsmanship encompasses several different schools (or martial arts). In fact, several stances, or variations thereof, are featured in different schools. Therefore, for now, I have decided to stick with the "Four/Five Elements" approach, even if it is rather reminiscent of the monk archetype. Interestingly, stances in martial arts such as kendo and ninjutsu use the older "Wu Xing" five elements, featuring wood and metal as elements, while, to my mind, most Westerners assume Air/Wind to be a key element, together with Void if one wants five of them, as featured in The Book of Five Elements or Ancient Greek philosophy.
Uses. Adopting these stances only three times a day seemed like very little to me, at first, but I wholly understand how good it would be to gain temporary hit points much more often, say, three times per SR instead of a LR. At least until level 10. I definitely wouldn't increase this THP gain, but still, the gap between an actual, historical fighter, who adopts a stance every time she strikes, and this interpretation is very, very large. I thought about making the stances recharge on SR, while the THP are still only on LR, but that just seems too convoluted.
Stance Improvements
Even though I had a rough draft penned down, while writing this feature out I stumbled on a number of difficulties or new ideas. First of all, I had double dipped on reactions in Water and Earth stances. For Earth this wasn't the biggest issue, but for water it obviously was. Therefore, the extra attack now doesn't require a reaction and is simply an upgrade from the 3rd level feature.
Furthermore, an interesting component about these stances is the way in which they blend into one another: How the swordsman transitions from one stance into another. One example is the Earth stance (Gedan-no-kamae) which could be interpreted as a "bait"-stance. While seemingly exposed, the opponent might overextend, allowing the swordsman to take advantage and strike. I didn't come up with a completely satisfactory version yet, though.
Alternatively, one could combine two stances or break out of one into another. Again, I wasn't quite satisfied with the mechanics as such.
Stance Transition
Starting at 15th level, while in a stance, you can suddenly change your posture again to surprise your foe. On your turn, you can expend another use of Fighting Stance to swap stances, no action required. When it's another creature's turn, this also uses your reaction. When you do so, you gain the temporary hit points as normal.
Final Thoughts
Goals and Accomplishments
At the start of a document I outlined a few goals, but not all of these were accomplished. First of all, the archetype still relies on bonus actions to perform its core mechanics. As opposed to simply overlooking this or not being able to be bothered, I changed my opinion on whether or not it's a problem. If most fights last four rounds (very generous if one uses the RAW rules and CR, but our table, for example, doesn't) and the party has around 4 combat a day, that's 16 rounds. In at least three of these rounds, the BA is taken up by a stance, to a maximum of 6 rounds (3 spent in the first fight and three regained through Tireless Spirit in consecutive combats.)
Does this completely remove the ability to play a dual wielding samurai? Not really, but it also doesn't help. Longswords might be regarded as very handy, since they can be wielded with both hands when using a bonus action to adopt a stance, but they can never be used while wielding two weapons, since they aren't light (unless you use homebrew feats).
The second goal was to hit home the idea of a warrior that does amazing things with nothing more than the weapon he feels for so strongly. While there is no feature such as Bonded Weapon in this version, even though there might very well be in another interpretation, I feel the skills are there. The stances allow the Samurai to both anticipate his foe and go on the offensive himself. Starting at 15th level, these are enhanced and he can switch between them more easily. As well as bordering on the mythical feats that are featured in tales. By simply holding his blade the right way, the Samurai can cleave a blast of fire in two, walking away unharmed.
On the other hand, the idea that the Samurai still only adopts such a limited number of stances per day doesn't quite feel right to me. There definitely is an interpretation possible where the Samurai is perpetually in a certain stance in combat and only uses his bonus action to switch from one stance to another. While this might be more accurate, and might very well be the core of a monk archetype, this might actually feel worse to play. Not only would the bonuses have to be significantly smaller, most combats would probably call for the same stance, most of the time, simply because of how streamlined 5e combat is. In that sense, the Samurai's core feature would be reduced to almost entirely passive. There's nothing wrong with this (see Champion), but it's definitely not the same kind of archetype as the version in XGtE.
Is it actually any good
While writing this document I went through my books, as always, and of course looked at the different fighter archetypes, most notably the Battle Master. Someone (very) familiar with 5e might see a certain mechanic and think that it's simply taken from another class and repurposed.
Thought process
Water. I considered making this require a light melee weapon to hit home the idea of having the opponent run into your blade and then quickly pulling out a short(er) sword or a dagger to stab them. However, this might unnecessarily limit what the player wants to do with the character. If the player wants to pull his weapon out of the creature and make a quick strike with his two-handed weapon, this should be possible too.
Limitations I could get behind, though, are melee weapons in general. Even though the character would have disadvantage when trying to shoot with, say, a hand crossbow this stretches the idea of what this ability should be about. Especially when targetting a second creature. Imagine if the samurai uses his reaction to have the opponent walk onto his blade, retracts it and attacks someone else entirely standing on his other side. Surely this goes beyond the intentions of the feature. Why would he, all of a sudden, get this extra attack against an opponent of his choosing, without any counterplay?
Stance Transition
This is an alternative interpretation of what it would mean for a samurai to master her stances. To transition from one to the other in quick succession and outmaneuver the opponent by adopting the right one would be very fitting. The problem it has is that by itself, it's just kind of underwhelming. It even further limits uses of Fighting Stance by consuming charges more quickly and by itself it doesn't really make the character a better warrior.
Something else entirely would be if this was added to the current version of Stance Improvements as baseline.
Earth stance looks a lot like Parry from the Battle Master, Water stance is reminiscent of the Drunken Master feature, etc. Remembering what my friend told me (for who this whole archetype actually is): "Why not just play Battle Master?" After all, DnD is mostly just talking to one another and with the right descriptions, a Battle Master would make a great samurai, without any need for actual stances made into 5e mechanics.
So, when one starts at Battle Master, looks at how many maneuvers that archetype gets (9 by 15th level when Samurai has all 4), how much extra damage the Superiority Dice do and how many options they have to choose from, even with its very nice THP gain, Samurai looks like the definite loser. However, the Fire stance is an exact copy of the Fighting Spirit feature in the XGtE, and the same goes for its 15th level improvement. So as soon as any of the other three stances come up in play, even if it's just once in an entire campaign, this version is more versatile than the XGtE one, and thus better.
So, even with all these changes and, arguably, improvements, if one wants to play a samurai inspired character, should one even bother with the Samurai or just pick Battle Master and have samurai-esque descriptions?
Samurai
Whether fighting for a lord or as an exile, honor is at the Samurai's core. Upholding it, together with tradition, he employs age old techniques in battle. As a life-long student and master of both combat and social encounters, he is a fierce opponent, but also a noble ally.
Bonus Proficiency
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: History, Insight, Performance, or Persuasion. Alternatively, you learn one language of your choice.
Fighting Stance
Starting at 3rd level, you learn a fighting stance, enhancing your combat abilities. When you take the Attack action, or as a bonus action on your turn, you adjust your posture and the way you hold your weapons, allowing you to anticipate your foe or strike true.
Earth. A defensive stance used to deflect blows. Holding your weapon low, you wait for your opponent to strike and leave an opening. Until the start of your next turn, your AC increases by 2. As a reaction, you can increase this bonus to 4. You may do this after the roll, but before your DM tells you whether the attack hits or misses.
Fire. This offensive posture raises the weapon high above the head, leaving the body exposed, but readying a powerful strike. You gain advantage on weapon attack rolls until the end of your turn.
Water. Traditionally the most basic, this middle-level stance is a balance between offense and defense and focuses on using your opponents power against itself. Until the start of your next turn, when a melee weapon attack misses you, you can use your reaction to make an attack against the creature that missed the attack, using its own attack modifier.
Wind. By maneuvering your weapon sideways, you can move more quickly and parry blows more effectively. Your movement speed increases by 15 feet until the end of your turn. Additionally, your swiftness grants you a +4 bonus to your AC against opportunity attacks.
Whenever you adopt a stance on your turn, you gain 5 temporary hit points. This increases to 10 and 15 temporary hit points at 10th and at 15th level.
You can choose another one of these stances to learn at 7th, 10th and 15th level. You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
Elegant Courtier
Starting at 7th level, your discipline and attention to detail allow you to excel in social situations. Whenever you make a Charisma (Persuasion) check, you gain a bonus to the check equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Your self-control also causes you to gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws. If you already have this proficiency, you instead gain proficiency in Intelligence or Charisma saving throws (your choice).
Tireless Spirit
Starting at 10th level, when you roll initiative and have no uses of Fighting Stance remaining, you regain one use.
Stance Improvements
Starting at 15th level, you learn how to combine stances, break out of them or simply use them more effectively.
Earth. While in Earth Stance and subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you can use your reaction to angle your weapon so you take no damage on a success and only half damage on a failed saving throw.
Fire. While in Fire stance, you can forgo the advantage on one of the attacks and make an extra weapon attack against that target instead, as part of the same action. You can do so no more than once per turn.
Water. When you make an attack with the creature's own attack modifier while in Water stance, you can make an additional attack with a melee weapon yourself as part of that reaction against that creature.
Wind. Whenever a creature makes an opportunity attack against you when you are in Wind stance, they provoke opportunity attacks from your allies within 5 feet of them.
Additionally, while in a stance, you can suddenly change your posture again to surprise your foe. On your turn, you can expend another use of Fighting Stance to swap stances, no action required. When it's another creature's turn, this also uses your reaction. When you do so, you gain the temporary hit points as normal.
Strength before Death
Starting at 18th level, your fighting spirit can delay the grasp of death. If you take damage that reduces you to 0 hit points and doesn't kill you outright, you can use your reaction to delay falling unconscious, and you can immediately take an extra turn, interrupting the current turn. While you have 0 hit points during that extra turn, taking damage causes death saving throw failures as normal, and three death saving throw failures can still kill you. When the extra turn ends, you fall unconscious if you still have 0 hit points.
Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.
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Later Changes
- Thinking over this archetype some more, especially how it holds up against Battle Master, I decided to change how one adopts stances.
Battle Masters don't need to use a Bonus Action to use a superiority die, they simply choose this as part of the attack. Therefore, stances can be adopted as part of the Attack action or as a bonus action. I considered making it just part of the Attack action, but that seemed a little too weird for Earth and Water stances. Surely these should be able to be adopted, even if one uses the Dash or another action.
I might change this back later.
- Even with the changes, I'm still bugged about the infrequency of the stances.
A solution would be to make them significantly stronger or longer lasting than Battle Master maneuvers, but honestly, I feel like they are right now. Fire has its strength in all attacks, Earth has a passive bonus all to the next turn, and Wind is also for all AOO, not just one. Moreover, Samurai is definitely stronger defensively with the THP gain, the Wisdom saving throws (very dangerous for fighters, because of spells such as Enemies Abound, so this is quite strong), and the earlier regeneration of charges (10th vs 15th level). That being said, the Water stance seems to be more in line with a maneuver, and might be a little on the weak side therefor. Then again, it's most powerful use would definitely be to use a dragon's (or similar monster) attack modifier for an attack, making it basically unmissable and do very high damage. Given this upper ceiling, maybe Water is just more niche, but no less strong.