In 2nd Edition does a Samurai exist? I haven't been able to find one, but I am new to P2E. Any help is apricated.
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Yeah. It won't be a class. They would have told us. We might see an archetype. Same with ninja.
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Supporting the above, you can get most of the way there with already-existing options regardless of what flavor you're going for. Personally, I think the Fighter has a great chassis for it assuming you're looking to make a blademaster with access to specialized weeaboo techniques, but tons of classes have minute choices like that to really let you dig into a theme. On the skill side I love the Intimidation feat tree for that same reason.
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Yeah, we probably wont see a return of the Samurai class. Heck cavalier was made into a dedication. That's what I would expect at most for samurai. The samurai had even less thematic and mechanical distinction than the cavalier. Samurai was basically a reskinned cavalier, with the orders being slightly different-ish.
Honestly, as it stands you could make a samurai using the cavalier dedication. In my mind, if you accept the conversion of the PF1 cavalier to the PF2 version, then you should see the similarities between the PF1 samurai and cavalier end up making it all basically equivalent.
I do think we might get some archetypes in the Tian Xia books that might explore specific weapons or fighting style that could help differentiate from current class options but I don't think any of them would be specifically "samurai focused".
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Some of us just want to be the guys from Demon Slayer, or Hyakkumari from Dororo, or Kenshin..
Ah! You just want an unarmored swordsman!
Yeah... that's a known void in the available character types. There's no efficient way to play someone who uses a nonagile, nonfinesse nonmonk melee weapon (like, say, a katana) and remains unarmored. You pretty much just wind up punishing yourself.
It's a shame, because it *is* an established and well-beloved trope, but it is what it is.
Some of us just want to be the guys from Demon Slayer, or Hyakkumari from Dororo, or Kenshin..Ah! You just want an unarmored swordsman!
Yeah... that's a known void in the available character types. There's no efficient way to play someone who uses a nonagile, nonfinesse nonmonk melee weapon (like, say, a katana) and remains unarmored. You pretty much just wind up punishing yourself.
It's a shame, because it *is* an established and well-beloved trope, but it is what it is.
Well, Kenshin is somehow a finesse Katana user, but yeah Demon Slayer and others that would like to go unarmored is a tough route.
Only thing I can think that would sort of come close (but not until high level) is a monk using fuse stance with mountain stance and monastic weaponry...except mountain stance would prevent you from making sword strikes. And there's only one good monk sword. And while I'm big on reskinning things to fit a need, probably some people really need to be able to write katana on their character sheet to be happy.
I suppose fuse stance doesn't really work at all. You could technically start your turn, use the action to change into peafowl stance, make your flurry of blows, and another action to change to mountain stance but it's pretty terrible for action economy.
Although I suppose if you start with 18 strength, 14 or 16 dex, as a monk and use peafowl stance you aren't too far behind in AC to be unviable.
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I tried building a Magus to fulfill the concept, using spell for the more anime-like effects such as Flowing Strike, Blink Strike, obviously generic Spellstrike + Shocking Grasp or whatever, Laughing Shadow for the teleport and strike ability, and yes using a Katana, however I ended up still in medium armor with a +1 dex in order to pump my Strength and Int.
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Yeah we don't need racial stereotypes as classes.
A ninja is just a rogue from Japan.
A samurai is just a fighter or champion from Japan.
I don't think pre-Meiji restoration Japan is the setting of PF2E...
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I tried building a Magus to fulfill the concept, using spell for the more anime-like effects such as Flowing Strike, Blink Strike, obviously generic Spellstrike + Shocking Grasp or whatever, Laughing Shadow for the teleport and strike ability, and yes using a Katana, however I ended up still in medium armor with a +1 dex in order to pump my Strength and Int.
Yeah. That's the basic problem. Currently, any martial melee character you build that's going unarmord with katana could be made more effective by changing to heavier armor and maybe shuffling stats around... with the exception of a monk, who shouldn't be wielding a katana in the first place.
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Just about any weapon you could want for a Samurai exists, as does O-Yoroi armor; slap that on a Fighter or Champion as you see fit, and you're in business.
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I think unarmored martial (with non-finesse weapons) might work better as a class archetype than a regular archetype.
- It should be a thing for martials.
- It shouldn't be a cheap trick for casters to get the best AC. (Compare: Sentinel and Champion archetypes still have a bulk-based or actual hard strength prerequisite.)
- For the kind of characters that it's intended for, it should be available quickly (level 1-2), so you can't really make it depend on expert weapon proficiency or suchlike. Unless you're making a fighter archetype in disguise.
I think a class archetype for several martials would make sense. You'd get some kind of variant unarmed proficiency that gives you a faux item bonus to AC but lowers your max dex contribution to AC. A bit like the Dragon Disciple level 4 feat.
The advantage of clearly limiting it to some classes is that you don't have to nail it entirely shut with safeguards to prevent the wrong classes from getting too much from it.
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Yeah, generally the question you should ask yourself first if you're trying to mimic a character from popular culture is "what is the best way to do this with existing options."
Then if your fighter in O-Yoroi who carries a daishō and dual wields in the nitōjutsu style is not Samurai enough for your purposes, you ask yourself "what would I need to make this character more redolent of Samurai-ness." Odds are the answer is not "an entire class."
Like your inability to make Zatōichi is mostly about the lack of support for the "blind badass" archetype, since you can't make Daredevil either.
Unarmored martial is a thing literally anybody can already do, since with 20 Dex you have as much AC as someone in light or medium armor could (modulo runes and proficiency.)
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Unarmored martial is a thing literally anybody can already do, since with 20 Dex you have as much AC as someone in light or medium armor could (modulo runes and proficiency.)
Yeah but there are some problems with it;
- You can't get to 20 Dex before level 10- Katanas and various other weapons involved in this fantasy aren't finesse
Having to dedicate your key stat to Dex and then not getting Finesse and also not actually having normal AC for the first half of your career, is pretty cruddy. Cruddy enough that you might think, here is room for some new design to do this better.
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If looking for an unarmoured warrior I think we could do worse than look to the class that's already known for fighting unarmoured. A monk with some way to access a chosen sword would do wonders for cracking open the niche of dedicated and disciplined warriors who have borderline or more than borderline supernatural abilities.
On the other hand, it may be worth recognizing that Pathfinder inherently isn't and can't be the best system for replicating media where nobody wears armour as a default. It can do unarmoured warriors, but it can't make them the default, so any character from one of those settings might struggle unnecessarily if their lack of armour is taken for a defining feature, rather than incidental to their medium.
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Really, if a katana was a finesse weapon then almost all one-handed swords should be finesse weapons. Yes, a katana is light and agile but so is a sabre, a scimitar, and a longsword.
If you want to play an unarmored warror with a Str weapon, there's an AP that starts at level 10 (and another one coming) that's a good match for that sort of thing. I played an unarmored swashbuckler in Ruby Phoenix.
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The closest I can conceive of is Monastic Weaponry at 1. Then Ancestral Weaponry at 2. Rock an elven curved blade.
You could even go farther and go ancient elf into Rogue. And pick up Quick Draw at 4.
That is one of the ways I have elected to go - yes. Although I went human - half elf Monk with monastic weaponry and will get the ancestry weapon feat at 2. Elven curved blade reskinned as a katana visually.
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AND if you want the 1-strike kind of play style, the feat One-Inch Punch (6th level) would solidly fulfill that.And/or maybe ki strike?
I don't know if it'd be worth it considering that you probably couldn't pick it up until 3rd or 4th level. But, maybe it's worth it if you want to pick other ki options later.
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Yeah. It won't be a class. They would have told us. We might see an archetype. Same with ninja.
We actually have official confirmation? I mean it wouldn't at all surprise me,I just haven't seen it.
On a different note, why is a samurai supposed to be unarmored? I know the whole "lone wanderer" mercenary (ronin?) is a fairly common depiction in media. At the same time, afaik samurai would actually have by far the best armor out of everyone on the field and that is also a common depiction in narratives that are closer to reality. So is there a reason for why the former is absolutely necessary?
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Yeah. It won't be a class. They would have told us. We might see an archetype. Same with ninja.We actually have official confirmation? I mean it wouldn't at all surprise me,I just haven't seen it.
On a different note, why is a samurai supposed to be unarmored? I know the whole "lone wanderer" mercenary (ronin?) is a fairly common depiction in media. At the same time, afaik samurai would actually have by far the best armor out of everyone on the field and that is also a common depiction in narratives that are closer to reality. So is there a reason for why the former is absolutely necessary?
I guess it’s not necessary but, purely in my opinion/speculation, the majority of people a “Samurai” might appeal to probably are actually thinking of Ronin and have a guy in cloth “armor” walking around with a Katana and long hair, based on a thousand anime shows.
Granted there are shows like Ronin Warriors which ironically depicts fully armored Ronin/Samurai, but 1) the historical Samurai is already completely possible to create by picking, say, Noble Background on a Fighter, go strength, pick Katana, pick new treasure vault Japanese armor and done. For extra point be good at archery, horse riding and sword fighting (and probably idk calligraphy). And 2) the Unarmored Ronin anime samurai isn’t really possible without some big stretches or big sacrifices.
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Yeah I think aside from an official "Samurai" name tag, you can do most of a "real" samurai with a fighter. The kind that wears armor because in real life armor is a really good idea if people are going to be fighting back.
To make a new class, we need more than "I want a class with that name".
But the other one, the unarmored warrior. I don't think it's really all that hard to design and balance something like that. In a way, it already exists;
Scales of the Dragon
Feat 4
Archetype
Source Advanced Player's Guide pg. 169 2.0
Archetype Dragon Disciple
Prerequisites Dragon Disciple Dedication
Scales grow across your body, protecting you against physical and magical threats. When you're unarmored, the scales give you a +2 item bonus to AC with a Dexterity cap of +3. The item bonus to AC from Scales of the Dragon is cumulative with armor potency runes on your explorer's clothing, mage armor, and bracers of armor. Your resistance from Dragon Disciple Dedication increases to 3 + half your level.
Obviously this is a level 4 feat and the resistance would probably have to go. But as a general design pattern, I think it's pretty straightforward:
* You use your unarmored proficiency
* Your max Dex to AC goes down by the same amount as your item bonus goes up
* It works with runes like normal
You could make say, a level 1 fighter feat in this way that gives a +3 item bonus to AC but caps your dex at +2.
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Since the Tian Xia announcement, I've heard an awful lot of general desire for a Samurai Class... and almost no specifics. "Guy with a sword, who is maybe in armor or not" isn't much of a pitch, y'know?
Since the Tian Xia announcement, I've heard an awful lot of general desire for a Samurai Class... and almost no specifics. "Guy with a sword, who is maybe in armor or not" isn't much of a pitch, y'know?
Agreed. Isn't unarmored swordmaster just a swashbuckler or a monk with monk weapon? Isn't armored swordmaster on a horse just a fighter or champion, possibly with cavalier?
I guess letting monks use Japanese-style swords would fulfil one part of the fantasy. Homebrewing that is easy: give a weapon the monk tag and possibly remove another tag if it's too good.
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I'm sure there exists some historical variant of katanas that happens to be particularly light. Then you can put it in the Tian Xia books as a finesse weapon and make your light/no armor samurai swashbuckler that way.
I think samurai could be an interesting archetype, but it would be focused more on things like:
- quickdraw
- mental discipline
- some social prowess, also used in combat
- holding your ground against superior numbers
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Since the Tian Xia announcement, I've heard an awful lot of general desire for a Samurai Class... and almost no specifics. "Guy with a sword, who is maybe in armor or not" isn't much of a pitch, y'know?
If they were to do something Samurai-ish mechanically I’d like for them to be like P1 and have them be cool willpower based abilities and Challenges and stuff.
Which is to say, I don’t really care if it was samurai or not, I just miss those mechanics.
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Or you could, i’unno, not get defensive so fast and actually interact with what was said?
Immediate dismissal with “We can’t possibly fetishize another culture” is ridiculous and trying to preemptive absolve you something, which is eye brow raising. Especially since you felt the need to jump in when they weren’t talking to you.
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Yeah. It won't be a class. They would have told us. We might see an archetype. Same with ninja.We actually have official confirmation? I mean it wouldn't at all surprise me,I just haven't seen it.
First, a Class is a big enough deal that if they were going to include one in a Tian Xia book, they would have said so with the announcement of the Tian Xia books.
Second, we'd be hearing playtest noises. We haven't been hearing playtest noises.
I'm not aware of any official "no we will not do this thing", but if there were going to be full-on classes coming out of Tian Xia, we'd be getting clues that we haven't been getting, at last by my read.
I could be wrong, I guess? I really don't find it likely.
On a different note, why is a samurai supposed to be unarmored? I know the whole "lone wanderer" mercenary (ronin?) is a fairly common depiction in media. At the same time, afaik samurai would actually have by far the best armor out of everyone on the field and that is also a common depiction in narratives that are closer to reality. So is there a reason for why the former is absolutely necessary?
We have two entirely different archetypes that people are craving here.
- One of them is the wandering swordsman / warrior-poet type. This is the guy who wants to walk around wielding a katana while not wearing armor. That's really all it takes - some way to have an unarmored character who wields a katana and who isn't wrong for doing so. The people who want this one would be happy with an archetype. Heck - they'd be happy with a level 1 fighter class feat. All it has to do is make the choice non-terrible, ideally from level 1.
- The other one is the samurai warrior walking around in fancy armor, wielding daisho, possibly carrying a no-dachi and/or bow, with honor coming out of their ears, doing funky "soul of my sword" stuff. 3.x had an abjectly terrible one of these, so some people are hoping for a non-terrible version here. They are highly unlikely to get one. On the bright side, it's actually pretty possible to build the character type out of existing parts (fighter) and wind up with something pretty satisfying. It's entirely possible that they'll get some sort of archetype as well. It's a bit niche, but it's certainly not more niche than "Turpin Rowe lumberjack".
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That mistake was made in the core rulebook. The overlap between the fighter class and the monk class, and what separates them is a little arbitrary and confusing. What are the “martial arts” in Golarion and how does one train in them? All warriors have to learn breathing techniques for not exhausting themselves doing the horrific and tedious labor of fighting and war. Fighters have stances that kind of represent this dedicated focus of attention too. People say the magical side of martial arts is what defines monks, but that is just one strain of monks and the classes still essentially separate along cultural lines that are muddied and confusing in PF2 and make the placement of a “Samurai” warrior a little confusing for everyone, probably players and developers.
Even back in the playtest I thought it was a mistake for the monk to be essentially identified as unarmored fighter with weird weapon restrictions that feel like cultural choices, but the overall support for that decision was very positive so clearly I was wrong for this game.
If we do get an unarmored fighter in class feats or archetype. I hope it is not just “your AC is arbitrarily the same as armored” and is instead a trade off of AC for mobility and single powerful strikes.
We have two entirely different archetypes that people are craving here.
- One of them is the wandering swordsman / warrior-poet type. This is the guy who wants to walk around wielding a katana while not wearing armor. That's really all it takes - some way to have an unarmored character who wields a katana and who isn't wrong for doing so. The people who want this one would be happy with an archetype. Heck - they'd be happy with a level 1 fighter class feat. All it has to do is make the choice non-terrible, ideally from level 1.
- The other one is the samurai warrior walking around in fancy armor, wielding daisho, possibly carrying a no-dachi and/or bow, with honor coming out of their ears, doing funky "soul of my sword" stuff. 3.x had an abjectly terrible one of these, so some people are hoping for a non-terrible version here. They are highly unlikely to get one. On the bright side, it's actually pretty possible to build the character type out of existing parts (fighter) and wind up with something pretty satisfying. It's entirely possible that they'll get some sort of archetype as well. It's a bit niche, but it's certainly not more niche than "Turpin Rowe lumberjack".
Indeed. I honestly think the first one could be handled as a monk class feat(s), at least mechanically. Something that let's you use a katana (or other normally not monk weapon) probably by reducing the damage die or losing traits. Monk has enough of the other "anime" stuff as class feats that unarmored warrior with katana and some super powers can pretty much be fulfilled by only needing access to somehow combine katanas (or other weapons) and flurry.
The second one is mostly already possible by playing a fighter with the right armor and weapons. Except that people also usually assign some supernatural abilities to samurai similar to how the other warrior type has. We don't have a way to make that possible without the fighter going into another class dedication, but for something close to historical samurai, fighter already has it done. I think if you look at all the archetypes that exist, you can probably find something that hits the sort of supernatural powers you want you character to have to craft whatever version of a "samurai" your interested in. Afterall, you could pick up mindsmith and chronoskimmer dedications for some funky options. There's probably something to tickle your fancy. Possibly even some of the monk class feats.
I would like to see an archetype for a specialist in Iaijutsu.
I get the desire to play the unarmored swordsman, and while anybody can do this with 20 dex you're down a couple of points of AC until you get to 20 dex. I'm not sure the way around this since the monk gets expert unarmored at level 1 to fix this, but the normal martial progression is to get expert armor at level 11- that's a big gap.
The best template for getting the "Warrior Poet" thing done with a class archetype is probably on the Swashbuckler template, since if you're an unarmored person around swords if you're not preternaturally elusive your best strategy should probably be "move away from danger after stabbing it."