Samurai Archetype Idea


Homebrew and House Rules


We have your standard samurai, and your sword saint samurai. Have we ever thought about an archetype based off Miyamoto Musashi? You know specializing in dual wielding katana and wakizashi? The perfect offense and the perfect defense as they would say?


I almost wanted to say that a Monk Weapon Adept archetype with TWF would possibly fit the style of Musashi, but looking over it I'm not so sure now...


It'd be great. Lightly armored so low defense, but give 'em high DEX and let them use that for melee damage with their swords. They'd be the ultimate glass cannons, and they'd oriented towards going, if not first, than as quickly as possible.


Sakrileg wrote:
We have your standard samurai, and your sword saint samurai. Have we ever thought about an archetype based off Miyamoto Musashi? You know specializing in dual wielding katana and wakizashi? The perfect offense and the perfect defense as they would say?

Rite Publishing Way of the Samurai (PFRPG) has four samurai archetypes, including the Nitojutsu Sensei (2 swords master) which is a build based on Miyamoto Musashi (posted on d20pfsrd.com)

Especially for adventures where being on a horse is a disadvantage, and half a normal samurai's abilities surrounds his mount. The nitojutsu sensei has replacement abilities for his normal mount related abilities. If you are going to venture into a dungeon, most samurai aren't built for that - the nitojutsu sensei is. He loses access to his order, but gains a rangers combat style feats. Though not officially a ronin, Miyamoto Musashi was a ronin his entire samurai career, except for temporary participation under banners, during the Sengoku Period. This build is very ronin-like.

Additionally the other samurai archetypes are: kuge (courtier), tajiya (oni slayer), and yabusame (archer). Plus there are samurai-like archetypes for gunslinger (teppou bushi), paladin (yamabushi), ranger (yojimbo) and wizard (onmyoji). And 2 prestige classes: Mosa (defender) and Bugyo (noble official). Since samurai is a social caste in Japan/Kaidan, many character classes make up this social caste, hence all these other choices.

Plus there's a complete subsystem of creating a samurai clan based on the city stat block, with a complete sample samurai clan and town with map and encounters.

So not only is there a Miyamoto Musashi archetype already, but this supplement is almost a treatise on Samurai, unlike anything released for D&D before.

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