Weapon Expertise

[Kyle Smith, Role Player]

At 3rd level, a samurai gains an unparalleled expertise with his chosen weapons. At 3rd level, the samurai selects either the katana, longbow, naginata, or wakizashi. The samurai can draw the selected weapon as a free action as if he had the Quick Draw feat. In addition, whenever he threatens a critical hit with the selected weapon, he gains a +2 bonus on the confirmation roll. Finally, his samurai levels stack with any fighter levels he possesses for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites for feats that specifically select his chosen weapon, such as Weapon Specialization.

I remember this being a topic of a lot of debate during play testing and I don't recall there being an official ruling. Does a Samurai need to have a level in Fighter in order to access feats like Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization?

[Jiggy]

Kyle Smith, Role Player wrote:

At 3rd level, a samurai gains an unparalleled expertise with his chosen weapons. At 3rd level, the samurai selects either the katana, longbow, naginata, or wakizashi. The samurai can draw the selected weapon as a free action as if he had the Quick Draw feat. In addition, whenever he threatens a critical hit with the selected weapon, he gains a +2 bonus on the confirmation roll. Finally, his samurai levels stack with any fighter levels he possesses for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites for feats that specifically select his chosen weapon, such as Weapon Specialization.

I remember this being a topic of a lot of debate during play testing and I don't recall there being an official ruling. Does a Samurai need to have a level in Fighter in order to access feats like Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization?

I wasn't around for playtesting, but the most obvious answer would be that he doesn't need a level in Fighter. Having the levels stack means he gets to add them together and use the final total to determine his eligibility for such feats. Since 0+4=4, seems fine to me.

[Bobson]

Jiggy wrote:

Kyle Smith, Role Player wrote:

At 3rd level, a samurai gains an unparalleled expertise with his chosen weapons. At 3rd level, the samurai selects either the katana, longbow, naginata, or wakizashi. The samurai can draw the selected weapon as a free action as if he had the Quick Draw feat. In addition, whenever he threatens a critical hit with the selected weapon, he gains a +2 bonus on the confirmation roll. Finally, his samurai levels stack with any fighter levels he possesses for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites for feats that specifically select his chosen weapon, such as Weapon Specialization.

I remember this being a topic of a lot of debate during play testing and I don't recall there being an official ruling. Does a Samurai need to have a level in Fighter in order to access feats like Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization?

I wasn't around for playtesting, but the most obvious answer would be that he doesn't need a level in Fighter. Having the levels stack means he gets to add them together and use the final total to determine his eligibility for such feats. Since 0+4=4, seems fine to me.

The value of "any" can be 0, so that math looks perfectly correct to me.

[Kyle Smith, Role Player]

The reason I ask is because of how the wording looks in comparison to the Martial Artist archetype for the monk.

Martial Arts Master (Ex)

At 4th level, a martial artist may use his monk level to qualify for feats with a fighter level prerequisite when those feats are applied to unarmed strikes or weapons with the monk special quality.

This ability replaces slow fall.

[Roaming Shadow]

Kyle Smith, Role Player wrote:

The reason I ask is because of how the wording looks in comparison to the Martial Artist archetype for the monk.

Martial Arts Master (Ex)

At 4th level, a martial artist may use his monk level to qualify for feats with a fighter level prerequisite when those feats are applied to unarmed strikes or weapons with the monk special quality.

This ability replaces slow fall.

With that wording, it means that only one of the martial artist's classes could. So a 3rd level martial artist, 2nd level fighter would only count as a 3rd level fighter for the purpose of feat prerequisites, not 5th.

Think of it this way: all natural armor "stacks" with other natural armor. Any race without natural armor is considered to have a natural armor of 0. A samurai without fighter levels is like having a fighter level of 0. The trick here is that a samurai doesn't need fighter levels, but should he choose to multiclass, he is not impeeded in taking such weapon focused feats.