Hey all,
I guess I'm looking to pick your brains here, but I'm trying to build a Samurai to serve as an eventual member of the Sable Company Marines for Curse of the Crimson Throne.
The idea is he's a homeless Half-Elf kid who's just gotten over an addiction to shiver (Lamms fault). He's a bit of a street punk - Definitely a street urchin. He's lost a lot in his life, smokes and is incredibly reckless.
I'm going to start him out in the campaign with no gear and improved unarmed strike. The frustrating thing is, he essentially gets Diehard and Endurance with his resolve ability, but I need the actual feats for Stalwart and Improved Stalwart - I want his development to go from homeless, depressed, angst-ridden teenaged punk-bum to one of the finest Knights of Korvosa.
The focus for him should be high Damage Reduction and I'm using his Samurai class more akin to that of a Cavalier, treating the samurai side more as a fighting style, so he'll eventually be wearing medium or heavy armour. In short, I'm trying to make one tough SoaB.
I want him to go from an incredibly unrefined, non-caring, sensitive guy who means well to a shining example of a hero and Knight, so there needs to be a development of self-discipline. He was also inspired by Black Jack, so has a bit of an edgy attitude. I considered mixing Barbarian with Fighter, but the Samurai fighting style gives me a much better vibe.
Another issue is it takes about 8 feats to give him decent DR.
Ideally, I also need him to have Mounted Combat for his eventual Hippogriff mount (Dragoon is good for this, but I want to keep dipping into Fighter to a minimum).
Level 1: Fighter (Unbreakable)
Level 2 onwards: Samurai (Order of the Warrior)
Feats:
1. Improved Unarmed Strike (required for Crane Style)
3. Dodge (required for Crane Style)
5. Crane Style (necessary for the DR build)
7a. Crane Wing
7b. Power Attack
9. Crane Riposte
11. Stalwart
13a. Improved Stalwart
13b. Weapon Focus Katana
15. Critical Focus
17. Greater Weapon Focus: Katana
This gets him to about DR 15 against his challenges by level 17, but he can't do a lot else.
If you need his stats, they're as follows:
Str: 15
Dex: 14
Con: 17
Int: 13
Wis: 14
Cha: 13
Point Buy: 30
Thankyou in advance!
You could really just leave Crane Wing and Crane Riposte out.
For DR, a Barbarian with both the Urban Barbarian and Invulnerable Archetypes might fit what you're looking for. Invulnerable gets 1/2 level as DR, straight up. Urban Barbarian grants Controlled Rage, which as a theme is very different than normal Barbarian, and would seem to fit very well with the idea of discipline.
A Weapon Master Fighter of at least level 4 can pick up Weapon Sacrifice with the Advanced Combat Training feat, which basically lets you block deathblows by taking the hit to your weapon. Seems very useful for your concept. It's a bit derivative, but you can always use the other weapons you're "wielding" - gauntlet, armor spikes or cestus would all be valid things to block a deathblow with.
Taking 4 levels of Weapon Master is also extremely useful in general, since you're getting 3 bonus feats and Weapon Training (which opens up Gloves of Dueling for +3 attack and damage all together). And you're actually opening up two Advanced Weapon Training options, so you could grab Defensive Weapon Training or Armed Bravery or whatever. Weapon Master and Samurai or Weapon Master and Urban Barbarian could both work very nicely.
Hey BadBird - Thanks for the response. My initial concept was actually just that - An Invulnerable Raging Urban Barbarian with a focus on Renewed Life, Renewed Vitality and Guarded Life etc. Only thing is, one of the players who's usually a GM gets annoyed with the concept of mixing Barbarian and Fighter, claiming it just doesn't work.
I said to him instead of seeing their classes as what they are, see the abilities of the classes as just a single character. A character driven by anger and rage at the world, who then sees there's more hope in the world and strives to become more disciplined, so far so that he becomes a Knight for the Korvosan Guard.
Anyway, that aside, the reason I didn't go that route in the end is because I read that nothing else stacks with the Invulnerable Ragers DR, so Stalwart would be useless etc and he'd only be able to reach a DR of 10 (at 20th level, when most campaigns cap out at about 17 as you know). Yea, his survivability would be higher and he could transform a lot of damage into non-lethal AND ignore negative levels, but his DR is just not as impressive and to make it good, I'd really need to just stay Barbarian from start to finish.
As is stands with this build, I'd still like to be 15 levels Samurai purely for the resolve ability. He gets to about 14 DR by level 17. I did manage to create an amazing Barbarian build beforehand, mind. I just think I like this idea more, even though it's not as hardy as the Barbarian/Fighter I had in mind.
I'm not sure why Stalwart wouldn't stack with Invulnerable DR, but I'm going off of the SRD so I probably missed something. As for Fighter and Barbarian not being a valid multiclass... well I won't say bad words, but maybe I'll point out there are Rage Archetypes for both Fighter and Ranger - and those aren't Controlled Rage.
The Resolve ability is pretty cool, but as a capstone thing I don't find it personally all that compelling. Barbarian 10 allows pounce, or without normal Rage Powers, with some feats (like maybe bonus feats from Weapon Master), you could take the feat chain Totemic Initiate, Totemic Disciple and Totemic Master with Beast Totem, granting a pounce ability, meaning that a special standard attack action is junk compared to pouncing with a +3 Weapon Training katana.
Anyhow these are just ideas, not a condemnation of your build.
You've spent 100% of your feats from 1st to 13th lining up fightingly defensively bonuses and receiving one (because you lack Combat Reflexes) free AoO per turn from Crane Riposte. You're also going to be in the Sable Company Marines, but lack a single mount-related feat, either offensive or defensive. --Your animal will croak and you'll plummet out of the sky. (I know nothing of this AP, but I will assume that if you get to be in the SCM, that mounts better than a standard horse are in the offing.) That is, if you're not just flat critted by a BBEG charger for three-digit damage that completely punks the DR10 and fi-def +4 to AC you've struggled forever to attain, and at that point, there's little difference between 24hp left and 14hp left when one more swat will drop you either way.
Better idea: keep your critter purring, and keep combats as short as possible by delivering maximum firepower. In fact, the Company will insist. --They may chew through men like hamburger, but they train you well, and room and board are free in the Korvosa cavalry! Buck up, cadet!
~ ~ ~
01 Barbarian1 [Drunken Brute + Savage Technologist archetypes], Extra Rage
02 Samurai1 [Mount]
03 Fighter1 [Dragoon:Mounted Combat, Skill Focus:Ride], Boon Companion
04 Samurai2 [Resolve]
05 Brawler1 [Martial Flexibility], Extra Martial Flexibility
06 samurai3 [Weapon Expertise:katana]
07 Fighter2 [feat: Ride-by Attack], Indomitable Mount
08 (all samurai from hereon)
Mid-level bucket list:
Weapon: +1/Furious/Fortuitous lance, +1/Furious/Keen katana
Armor: mithral Tatami-do + armored kilt
....misc mount-retaled gear; and any gismo you can find enabling you to smuggle mounts past choke-points (e.g., into dungeons, the society ball, etc.)
Tactics: fight with lance while mounted and on-foot (using Martial Flexibility to pull in Spirited Charge or Combat Reflexes prior to have both those feats). When crowded in melee where 5'-ing is not an option, drop lance, quick draw a katana and full-attack.
Backstory: Not only were you addicted to shiver (which made you more crazy than comatose thanks to your mutt ancestry), but you also had a taste for the honeyed mead, whose sweet taste made that foul powder palatable. Meanwhile, over at army requirement, enlistment is down...way down, and things have to be done about it on the double-time. Long story short, when they're serving up mickeys at the bar, guess what? You rolled a natural 1 on your Fortitude save that day, and woke up on a barracks floor with a pounding headache in a pile of other newly-enlisted recruits. Why, you volunteered, dinchya know? There's your "X" scrawled right there on the register. See? That one's yours. Right there. That one.
You have no memory of this, of course, or how that tattoo of a knight riding a naughty hippogriff got on your chest. --But no time to think about it when the drill-instructor is beating on a trash-bucket lid in the pre-dawn hours. Rise 'n shine, boy. Your training begins now, because your country needs fresh meat in the air-force. Oorah! (First job? Mucking out the stables. So much mucking....)
Stalwart
You adopt a defensive stance that allows you to absorb and redirect hits.
Prerequisite: Diehard, Endurance, base attack bonus +4.
Benefit: While using the total defense action, fighting defensively action, or Combat Expertise, you can forgo the dodge bonus to AC you would normally gain to instead gain an equivalent amount of DR, to a maximum of DR 5/—, until the start of your next turn. This damage reduction stacks with DR you gain from class features, such as the barbarian’s, but not with DR from any other source. If you are denied your Dexterity bonus to AC, you are also denied this DR.
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Invulnerability (Ex)
At 2nd level, the invulnerable rager gains DR/— equal to half her barbarian level. This damage reduction is doubled against nonlethal damage.
This ability replaces uncanny dodge, improved uncanny dodge, and damage reduction.
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The invulnerable rager gets its DR from a class feat. Therefore it will stack.
It wouldn't stack with say adamantine armor though.
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An idea that could be interesting is to go for a single level in kinetic knight. It lets you dump int and still get combat feats that require Int with Con. It also means you will never be without a weapon.
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Stalwart does not stack with crane style.
To use stalwart you have to forego the dodge bonus. That means you can't gain an additional +1 dodge bonus because you are not gaining a dodge bonus for it to be in addition to.