Browsing a lot of the playtest results, you see an awful lot of fighter 1/samurai X builds. Letting the Samurai pick out some fighter feats was a good idea but I think the concept of "making" a player dip another class was not a good plan.
Back when Wotc released the Tome of Battle, they had the Warblade class be able to pick fighter feats as if they were a fighter of -2 level. Please implement this, or just as a fighter straight up, as it tends to screw around with the mechanics of this class.
I'm not saying it doesn't work, just most classes work well within themselves and the Samurai comes out looking a little weird this way.
I'm playing a fighter 1 / samurai 2 in our Serpent's Skull game. I've thought of several back story reasons that might explain this, but it does seem a little strange. I do understand were they are coming from ; by sacrificing a level of progress from samurai you gain the benefits of fighter only feats. Weapon Expertise gives other benefits, the ability to count as fighter levels if you want to delay your samurai progression, and lose your capstone is just another option of the class. Is the cost worth the reward? That depends on the player and I like that the question is there.
I'm playing a fighter 1 / samurai 2 in our Serpent's Skull game. I've thought of several back story reasons that might explain this, but it does seem a little strange. I do understand were they are coming from ; by sacrificing a level of progress from samurai you gain the benefits of fighter only feats. Weapon Expertise gives other benefits, the ability to count as fighter levels if you want to delay your samurai progression, and lose your capstone is just another option of the class. Is the cost worth the reward? That depends on the player and I like that the question is there.
I think it is a misinterpretation of what the devs were putting across, just like how eldritch knight was clarified this will be too, you dont actually NEED levels of fighter for EK to get fighter feats, and you dont for Samurai either, the term 'stacks with levels of fighter' is a poor choice of wording, nothing else.
The purpose of weapon expertise is to allow the samurai to take fighter only feats in that specific weapon only, and get quick draw for that weapon only.
Agree with Pendagast.
+1
I've always felt that class-specific feats were kind of arbitrary. If a wizard spends their feats on getting better with a weapon why the heck can't they pick up weapon specialization? It's probably a terrible choice in terms of optimizing, but I can't think of a single good reason to disallow it outright.
Samurai is known for being a specialist in a certain weapon (normally katana but arguments can be made for naginata and yumi/daikyu)
The Devs are trying to get this across with a character class ability.
Cavaliers (the english knight) were not known as masters of a specific weapon but rather adept at all manner of weapons. They were far more known as horse masters than the japanese , most likely because there is just a heck of a lot more land to run around in in europe than in japan, as such the cav is alot better with mounts and charging.
Its a specific ability that only applies to one weapon, and the sammy doesn't get the oodles of feats to compete with the fighter, so his progression in it is going to be alot slower.
Remember, Samurai only qualifies for fighter feats that affect a specific weapon like Weapon Spec. Disruptive, Spellbreaker, Greater/Penetrating Strike, Disrupting Shot, etc. don't qualify and are still Fighter only.