I'm trying to build for flavor first and for most
Maybe you should try to make a character instead of asking for builds then. You've been darting from build to build for a while now, never stopping to actually bother with the flavor you're supposedly after.
What do you actually mean by this statement? You're only asking about the mechanical aspect of your characters, while it sounds like you want character concepts or roleplaying advice.
My recommendation: go Barbarian.
Barbarians have a lot of the things that classic Samurai types have:
- Kiai, represented in rage
- Durability (die while standing)
- Preference for melee weaponry, but enough DEX to be good with bows
- Intimidate opponents
So, how I'd build a flavorful faux-Samurai Barbarian?
1. Dreadnaught archetype (https://aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Barbarian%20Dreadnought ). You are an unmovable tower.
2. Adopted: Toothy trait for bite attack.
3. A few key Rage Powers: Lesser Abyssal Blood (for claw attacks and flavor), all the Tyrant Totem feats (for gorging on enemies).
4. If you go Unchained Barbarian, take your choice of Stance feats (I like Elemental Stance + Ymeri's Pyre to shrug off conditions). If you go Core Barbarian, take the Raging Vitality feat.
5. Spirit Oni Master feat (being Neutral Evil) for gore attack.
Then you go smashing, biting, clawing as a half-fiend oni Dwarven BarbSamurai.
so I moved on to a Dwarf samurai. I have this Image of what I think is a War - Axe with a samurai / oni Theme to it and I want to use Base a Character around itFirst thing: take that waraxe and throw it in the weeds. -- Samurais get Challenge, which is numeric damage, which feeds into crits. Axes suck on crits, while katanas are awesome on crits.
For role-play I figured the Dwarfs Honor and Traditions could pair well with Bushido. I am not sure what my play options would be. DPS / Tank
Oh yeah; tanking is what Samurai are all about, and dwarves make especially good ones when you combine their natural proclivity for making saving-throws with Resolve's extra die.)
STR: 15 (raise 4th, 12th+manual)
DEX: 12
CON+ 17 (raise 8th)
INT: 12
WIS+ 14 (15,15,12,12,12,10 20pt array)
CHA- 8
Feats & traits: Steel Soul, Glory of Old, Mounted Combat, Indomitable Mount,
Gear: Banner of the Champion, Daiyku of Command Presence
Btw, Secret Wizard's barbarian suggestion is not a bad one, but there's no reason you can't combine the two; i.e., two levels of barbarian and the rest samurai; you'll take Extra Rage and Raging Vitality (unless Savage Technologist archetype, in which case the latter is unnecessary). Picking up faster move and Perception as a class skill are added perks.
Dwarf Barbarian with a Katana and feats like Great Cleave, Imp Cleaving Finish, Cleave Through, Goblin Cleaver, Orc Hewer, Giant Killer would be an absolute blender of death and facemelting. Get potions of Enlarge Person so your threatened range is 10 ft and just jump in the middle of a bunch of enemies and go nuts :)
Dreadnought huh?
What Feats would you recommend for a level 7 Build
and what's the main diff between regular and unchained ?
Follow up on this, Unchained is better but your GM might rule you cannot use Dreadnaught + Unchained.
For feats:
LV1. Steel Soul
LV2. Rage Talent: Lesser Abyssal Blood
LV3. Power Attack
LV4. Rage Talent: Lesser Tyrant Totem
LV5. Spirit Oni Master
LV6. Rage Talent: Tyrant Totem
LV7. Extra Rage Talent: Elemental Stance
This is assuming you take Adopted: Toothy for traits to have a bite attack.
Also what samurai order or cavalier Order would work Best for a Dwarfish Samurai thank?
Base samurai with Order of the Warrior is just fantastic (and I'll always make room for Steel Soul in any dwarf build). Essentially, you are the rare martial with almost zero worries of blowing saves (only rolling two 1s on a Fort or Will save Resolve check should nerf you by early mid-level), and you can concentrate on being in the enemy's face full-time regardless of consequences. (Well, don't fall down pits; those always suck, and your ACP will be pretty high in heavy armor.)
I do like mounted concepts more than some players, but realize that it needs feat investment to make it work. Alternatively, relegate it to pack-animal duty, and be Ryze Kuja's "blender of death" infantry. Move20 is a big annoyance, however, and you'll be budgeting expensive boots to catch up to what your animal has base. Not a problem with early-game Zerg-rush enemies, but when they take to the skies or do artillery duel, it's aggravating.
One reason I might not do....
Cleave, Great Cleave, Imp Cleaving Finish, Cleave Through, Goblin Cleaver, Orc Hewer, Giant Killer
...is because that's *seven* feats that wink >off< whenever you're not simultaneously threatening two opponents. (As an enlarged PC with a polearm, your threatened zone is ten 5' squares wide. Enlarged with a sword grants a threatened zone six 5' squares wide, which seems only a little worse, but, since we're talking area, it's actually less than half (28.27 versus 78.54 5-foot squares if we're just inputting circles into a calculator, with stipulation that Pathfinder threatened zones aren't prefect circles). If you lack the action-economy to get your Enlarge off in time, then your threatened zone with a sword is only three squares wide versus five for Mr. Polearm (or 7.07 versus 19.63 5' squares).
A high-level fighter has the slot room to afford seven of his feats being frequently moribund, but a samurai will need to be a more circumspect, and focus on those that'll be "live" as close to full-time as possible. You don't want to have all your eggs in one basket. (There's nothing wrong with being a jack-of-all-trades martial who doesn't fail saves.)
If you want to be Mr. Cleave as a samurai, get yourself a fauchard, and budget a trait for Accelerated Drinker, or a multiclass level for Drunken Brute barbarian (which stacks nicely with Savage Technologist, btw).
Yomjimbo samurai of warrior order is very dwarven.
Yojimbo is not a bad, but I have a few quibbles:
* If you take Order of the Warrior ( IMO the best order), your GM could reasonably argue that your Yojimbo's Resolute Defense can only apply to same ally "master" every time (i.e., the party PC who "hired" you). Obviously not a problem if your GM doesn't read the fine print and get all strict about it.
* Armor Expertise is quite nice for other races, but dwarves already get to ignore movement penalties in medium and heavy armor.
* Intercept: ...your BSF cuisinart will not be doing this very often, if ever. (To be fair, he won't be doing much of the forfeited Mounted Archery either...at least not before acquiring a Daiyku of Commanding Presence.)
@ Slim Jim, what type of mount would be good for a tank like character
A big, ol' dragon, obviously. (Beg your GM for one today!) Short of that, anything that'll carry your heavy ass 40'-50' a round without dropping (thus Mounted Combat and Indomitable Mount in the build), and Samurai are limited to cavalier choices (horses, etc). Your animal won't be quite as impervious to inbound as if you were, say, a dex-based wakizashi TWF type, since Ride is a dex-skill, but you'll do fine once you start picking up bonus-to-Ride gear. IMO, the regular "heavy horse" is just fine for anything short of high-level rocket-tag. Gear for horses is plentiful and cheap; e.g., Horseshoes of Speed are only 3k, and you save more money because saddles and barding for horses don't carry "exotic" cost upgrades.
Primary worry will be not being able to take your animal various places since you can't warp it in like paladin. You'll want the Hosteling armor enhancement, which is perfect for a full-plate or O-yoroi-wearing dude like you.
I have this Image of what I think is a War - Axe with a samurai / oni ThemeFirst thing: take that waraxe and throw it in the weeds. -- Samurais get Challenge, which is numeric damage, which feeds into crits. Axes suck on crits, while katanas are awesome on crits.
There's only one time that what I wrote above will not be the case -- that being the case of you're a 15th-level samurai triggering his once-daily use of Strike True (from Order of the Warrior) to score an automatic threat. In this particular case, you'll want a x4 multiplier weapon, and fortunately your class provides proficiency in one in the form of naginata.
Strike True's fine-print: "...The attack deals the maximum amount of damage... (and) ...damage from this attack ignores any damage reduction the target might have...."
IOW any old piece of rusty junk naginata will do, because it'll be a use-once-then-drop weapon against a Challenged opponent (ideally a "fresh" boss).
Roll a d20 three times (because you'll fold Way of the Samurai into this as well) and hit, that's all you need to deliver 4x your base weapon die, maxed, plus 60 (4x challenge bonus), plus 4x your strength, power-attack, and anything else numeric going on. It'll take a fat chunk out of them, and then you'll drop the nagi and Expertise/quickdraw your main, blinged-up katana.
STR: 15 (raise 4th, 12th+manual)
DEX: 12
CON+ 17 (raise 8th)
INT: 12
WIS+ 14 (15,15,12,12,12,10 20pt array)
CHA- 8
STR: 15 (raise 4th, 12th+manual)
DEX: 12 or 14CON+ 17 (raise 8th)
INT: 12 or 14
WIS+ 14 or 16 (15,15,14,14,12,7 20pt array)
CHA- 5
...is more min-maxy (in exchange for dumping Cha, raise two of Dex, Int, or Wis two notches) and is arguably better unless your GM is one of those types who loves hammering your weaknesses (in this case running you through the Gauntlet of Neverending Diplomacy Checks, or bringing in gimmicky opponents that drain charisma and have an attack whose saving-throw you can't laugh off).
so would order of the Dragon and yojimbo pair well?
Let's compare: Yojimbo: ...you give up being mounted. That's OK if you have a mobility plan. Strength-based heavy-armor infantry is the antithesis of mobility (even if you are a dwarf and keep that extra 5' of movement). If you're only moving 20', you'll cry to watch Mounted Guy moving 80' on his animal with magic shoes as early as 3rd.
Order of the Warrior vs Order of the Dragon:
Edict: OD is less hide-bound than OW; i.e., none of this "truthful and courageous, respectful, honor and dignity" stuff cramping a murderhobo lootpillage chaotic-neutral roleplay style. (For most PCs, it won't matter. It will if your GM is a hard-case.)
Challenge: OW's damage-reduction, while rather slight, is MUCH more useful than OD's circumstance-bonus granted to allies for two reasons: 1) you'll forget to tell them and they'll forget to add it, and 2) the granted circumstance bonus won't stack with all manner of other things, the number of which steadily accumulate as your allies level, and 3) if you want to buff your allies, be a bard.
Skills: OD's Perception and Sense Motive are admittedly nice, especially in a dwarf with a wisdom bump, but mediocre intelligence won't generate too many points per level to spread around. (IMO it's better to gain Perception via trait, or by multiclassing a level or two of barbarian -- a class very synergistic with samurai, and which you're tempted to dip anyway. A single point in Sense Motive will end up being useless, whereas a single point in OW's Knowledge:Nobility retains its usefulness since the samurai might add half his levels to the check (and the DC probably isn't impossible, whereas any built-to-Bluff opponent will absolutely cream your lousy Sense Motive score).
Order Abilities:
* OD: Use precious standard-actions to weakly buff your allies.
* OW: You get bonuses and extra d20s for "important" rolls (I tend to reserve them for saving throws). First job of a martial is never face-planting. Order of the Warrior in conjunction with samurai's Honorable Stand makes it almost impossible to fail saves that you crucially must not fail. -- Imagine the boss critter is mauling you good and hard, and there's a rider-effect from those purple-venom-oozing fangs stuck in your chest, and the GM says, "Gimme a Fortitude save, DC, a bazillion!", and you get either one d20 (i.e., 99% of the builds in the game), or you announce "Honor in All Things + Way of the Samurai", and roll three d20s, add +4 to all of them (since they collectively constitute a single check), then pick the highest one (which also has a 14.26% chance of being a nat-20 since you rolled three). And, if you'd announced Honorable Stand previously, REROLL if that somehow manages to still whiff. (Do you hard it is to get rerolls in this game? Meat-space players bought real-world T-shirts and supplements they didn't need to get them in PFS. --That's how hard it is. But samurai get them *for free*.)
Dwarf Barbarian with a Katana and feats like Great Cleave, Imp Cleaving Finish, Cleave Through, Goblin Cleaver, Orc Hewer, Giant Killer would be an absolute blender of death and facemelting. Get potions of Enlarge Person so your threatened range is 10 ft and just jump in the middle of a bunch of enemies and go nuts :)what order would I take Feats for this build
1. Power Attack
3. Cleave5. Great Cleave
7. Cleave Through
9. Cleaving Finish
11. Imp Cleaving Finish
13. Goblin Cleaver
15. Orc Hewer
17. Giant Killer
What Class have you decided on? Barb? Slayer? Samurai? Fighter?
Edit/add: Slim Jim is correct about a build like this being inefficient vs. a single target. But you're not entirely useless because you're a full BAB class. Grab some Boots of Haste and you still get 2-5 attacks per round on a single target with a full-round attack depending on your current level, and that's nothing to sneeze at. But any time your party is surrounded by multiple enemies, you're going to shine, because this build is meant for doing nothing but Move Action + Cleave Everything you threaten within 10ft (and anything that dies provokes more attacks from Imp Cleaving Finish), next round, Move Action + Cleave Everything again. You're gonna just eat and eat and eat and eat whenever there's more than 1 target on the field.
Edit2: So imagine there's 4 targets out there, and 2 of them are already low health. You Move Action to get within 10ft of them all, and Cleave them all, so that's 4 attacks. And let's say you kill the 2 weakened ones, now you get two free attacks that you can use on the remaining two targets, so that's a total of 6 attacks. The best part of this is being able to make all those attacks and still being able to make a Move Action each round. You're a blender of death that moves 30ft per round, or 60ft per round with Boots of Haste. And remember that with Cleave Through, you're allowed to make a 5ft step in the middle of your Cleave to ensure your Cleave continues (just in case the targets are split up too far). Cleave Through is one of the best reasons to go Dwarf.
And may the gods be with your enemies if there are 10+ targets out there. You're going to be attacking ~5-7+ times a round, and moving with them when they try to run.
*Armour expertise also means (as you count as a fighter at full level) you can choose options under armour training. There are a host of useful ones to choose.Yojimbo gains Armor Training (via their Armor Expertise). But your mileage will vary as to whether your GM permits them the Advanced Armor Training options (see also related Arsenal Chaplain warpriest annoyances with Weapon Training; e.g., they do not get Advanced Weapon Training in PFS, etc).
In addition since you'll want a decent dex to use bodyguard a lot having it not be hindered by your armour is great even if you dont take those options. In fact, not having it means your dex isnt helping you and if you want combat reflexes that's just a poor choice.
Having a lot of dexterity is nice if you're a TWF finesse uRogue or Agile weapon build, or a polearm SavTech AoO-spammer. Having a lot of it is NOT nice otherwise if you're a strength-attacker because it means your attribute array is MAD in point-buy.
--Do you know why full-plate is so ridiculously expensive? Because you're only AC-1 while flatfooted instead of minus lots of AC. (Guess what this game has a ton of? Ways for enemies to make your BSF flatfooted.) And you can put Heavy Fortification on it to nerf those crits, and add Hostling to smuggle that wide-load horse into the society ball.
*you gain bodyguard which is aid another. You gain a bonus to aid another. I dont see how this WOULDN'T come up every fight, and indeed every turn.
YOU-the-samurai are the tank; your allies should be Aid Another'ing* you, not the other way around. Also note AA's fine-print of "You can’t aid another to grant a bonus to a task that your character couldn’t achieve alone." --The most use a martial will have for AA is OoC skill-checks. But skill-checks don't auto-succeed on a "20", so the character will be unable to contribute to most checks in the DC25 range unless he already has points in the relevant skill. What skill-checks are DC25+? ...all the important ones.... So yeah: A bunch of fighters new-on-the-scene can easily Kn:Local the best bar in town just by AA'ing their most charismatic member asking people on the street -- because the DC for such a thing will be low. But locating that rare tome in the hidden wing of the arcanist guild's members-only library? Eh, good luck with that.
True story: I had a PFS samurai who frequently traveled with a certain wizard (played with puppy-dog enthusiasm by a relatively new player to the game) was always trying to Aid Another me in some out-of-combat task. And he was spectacularly bad at it (difficult, you would wrongly think, given the skills points a wizard has at his disposal). And the GM began relishing every opportunity to invoke the "GM might impose further restrictions to aiding another" clause by ruling that the AA failures by spectacular amounts resulted in a too-many-cooks-spoil-the-soup penalty to my check. After the third attempt by the ever-unhelpful wizard, I blurt out, "PLEASE STOP HELPING ME!!!" ...I dunno if that's accurately RAW, but it was great roleplaying, and it makes perfect sense that "helpful" incompetents will mess you up.
(*Assuming they have nothing better to do in combat, and every build should strive for having something better to do than Aid Another. --If you really want to spam AA, don't be an oddly-constructed martial archetype, be a helpful Flagbearer halfling bard, and you'll be as good at it at 1st as an Order of the Dragon Yojimbo is at 14th.)
Benefit: When an adjacent ally is attacked, you may use an attack of opportunity to attempt the aid another action to improve your ally’s AC. You may not use the aid another action to improve your ally’s attack roll with this attack.
This seems sorta OK, if you can get it for free. But note the string-of-conditions necessary to make it a relevant factor: an ally 1) must be adjacent, 2) you must have an AoO available, 3) the bonus you contribute to their AC must make the difference (i.e., be the crucial extra amount necessary to make the attack miss, otherwise it either wasn't needed, or still didn't help enough, and you basically wasted an AoO for nothing).
IMO the biggest bang for the buck in the whole Cleavegasm is just the base Cleave. One feat (well, aside from Power Attack*) for one additional attack. Nice & easy. Because, on average, you're not typically not going to have more than two opponents within reach of you at any given moment unless your GM is always doubling the monster-count to Zerg-rush a certain PC in particular just to keep that player happy with their one-trick build choices. All the other feats are highly situational (especially Great Cleave, which has the added restriction of additional targets needing to be adjacent to the just-tapped one). (And I'd certainly hate waiting until 17th for something a dwarven fighter could have at 11th.)
*It might sound like sacrilege, but a Samurai doesn't need Power Attack AKA "The feat that makes you miss" (especially if you're not multiclassed barbarian and you've picked a race without a strength bump ) because they already generate a ton of additional damage from Challenge, and also from frequently critting with keen or ImpCrit 15-20/range weaponry.
-- What feat would I take for a samurai before contemplating Power Attack (let alone any feat dependent upon it)? Chain Challenge, which is perfectly usable by a dwarf with 5 charisma because he's not likely to average more than +1 freebie challenge anyway with it. (I recently did a breakdown of that feat here while attempting to dissuade MAD Cha-raising to pump it.)
I dont really see your issue with aid another. It's free, you're a frontline fighter, and it helps you tank by punishing those that dont try to hit you by increasing the AC of allies by +3 (minimum).
I don't have an "issue" with Aid Another qua Aid Another; what I am attempting to do is explain why it's a suboptimal use of resources for a player to build a martial doing it when so many other classes are far more suitable. E.g....
(I wrote above) "If you really want to spam AA, don't be an oddly-constructed martial archetype, be a helpful Flagbearer halfling bard, and you'll be as good at it at 1st as an Order of the Dragon Yojimbo is at 14th."
Also I'm 100% positive that " The yojimbo gains armor training, treating his samurai level as his fighter level, when wearing the selected armor." means they are treating it as a fighter so I see no issue with them gaining a fighter ability given with the same name.I am speaking "in general". What you do in your home-games is your own business, but RAW is default many places, and I doubt it would fly in, say, PFS, based on their ruling precedents concerning other archetypes with basic (but not "advanced") fighter class features.
The OP wanted a flavorful character, I fail to see why having a little dex to add that flavour is against the needs and wants of the OP.
So have him be a flagbearer bard with the "Helpful" trait who wears Eastern armor, carries a katana, and calls himself a samurai (and maybe even was one at 1st level). --Then he's "flavorful" *and* good at his job.