You Might Be a Samurai | Fighter Subclass Guide for DND 5e 

I like the idea of a half-goliath, half-tiefling who got the nickname "Oni" from a group of bullies and took it in stride, becoming an absolute monster on the battlefield.

"Strength before death" basically *demands* "You say run" as a soundtrack when it's triggered.

Another small but nice thing about this is that, as much as it is indeed called the Samurai class, your character doesn't actually have to fit the samurai archetype in order to make it work. The abilities honestly lend themselves to any form of noble and disciplined warrior, so if you want your character to be a high-ranking knight, a particularly well-read sellsword, or even just an uncharacteristically gentlemanly pirate, this subclass helps bring that to life quite well

Kurosawa influence aside, I think the samurai-to-western thing was more because of an oddly similar cultural value system. Both genres featured honor-bound wandering heroes, society-vs-outlaw themes, and gratuitous violence. Also, you know, easier to rip off an existing movie/story than create one from scratch. But I think it *worked* because of the similar values.

Criminally underrated fighter subclass. Generate your own advantage✅ Wisdom saving throw proficiency✅ An additional attack at lvl 15✅ Bonus skills✅ and a full turn immediately before death?✅ Why can’t more subclasses be this good?

Built a samurai for a short lived campaign a long time ago. An old Elf (elves mix really well with Samurai due to their innate bonuses + Elven Accuracy) who wanted to show that even an old timer like himself who has seen a few centuries could still hold his own on the battlefield. Partnering up with an alley cat of a business man, Vallana wanted to show old dogs can still learn new tricks, while keeping the old ways close to his hip with his sword. And what tricks may this old dog have learned? Well you see I gave him a gun. (A fireworks hand Cannon, specifically.)

Hell yeah. Go Halfling Samurais for shorty ronins that won't roll bad and have an excuse to wear tattered robes!

Way of the Kensei Monk fits like a glove for a multiclass.

Just got out of surgery, thank you for making the pain easier to deal with. Edit: that playground joke was solid.

The facts In a groundbreaking PhD thesis in 2011, Oleg Benesch produced overwhelming evidence against the view that “bushido was a centuries-old code of behavior rooted in the historical samurai class and transmitted into the modern period”. [1] Instead, Benesch demonstrated, “the concept of bushido was largely unknown before the last decade of the nineteenth century, and was widely disseminated only after 1900”. [2]

Awesome that this comes out literally while I’m on a trip to Japan

The half-elf 'Samurai' in our party is actually a cowboy who uses Elven Accuracy and ranged attacks with Fighting Spirit to obliterate enemies from afar. Which is great, because the golden age of cowboy movies was heavily inspired by the golden age of samurai movies.

Fun thing about the capstone Samurai ability, Since you get a full turn, that includes Bonus action, so you can Second Wind, and stay up after your crazy last chance thing. If you have something like Mobile, you can also get out of melee

5:00 They sat on their feet because the lord commanded it to make their legs numb & less responsive. This made the lord more comfortable being in a room packed with warriors if those people couldn't quickly just jump up & assassinate anyone in the room. They had seats & chairs but usually lower ranks were made to sit in this more 'diplomatic' way.

Honestly, Samurai is my favorite fighter subclass, fighting spirit is so awesome for a weapon based class, imagine multiclassing it with rogue

I’m rather ambivalent towards the flavor of the samurai, but man do I love the multiclassing power of this subclass. The ability to just decide that you have advantage now is SO strong.

I've been playing a Warforged Samurai called Titan, who not only tries to follow a loosely historical version of Bushido (which was mostly made up by Samurai to act like they were always honorable warriors but, no, not really) focusing on honor, honesty (slightly redundant as he's not great at lying) and respect, specifically as he was once a soldier-bot who ended up saving the life of a noble who used the style, who then took him in as thanks and taught him how to be more than just a living weapon - In essence, the Samurai trappings and code and such are to give him meaning BEYOND fighting, sort of like how Bushido and the actions of post-Sengoku style robed Samurai were meant to turn them into more than just soldiers or murderers. For extra points, he has the lord's Son as his squire with him, a bit of knightly mixed into it, but also allowing him to teach the Squire the way of the sword while coming to understand people more through him. Also he weilds a Nodachi, which has since become used like a Katana purely because of a magical armor he found making him bigger and able to use it in one hand without penalty. He's due to hit the level where he can add his Wisdom to Persuasion soon, and that'll fit naturally into how he's been progressing. As the others say though, this works for any noble style warrior class. Knights of course work well, especially with sword and board, but another is one of the Warrior who just keeps going, or the battle tactician who with a bit of focus (Fighting Spirit) can find the weak point in the enemy's guard and armor. The Hermit Warrior Sage who has practiced his particular style to a point that he can push himself beyond what most people can with inherent magic ala some Barbarians. Arguably I'd say some historical figures really work with the fighting spirit temp HP sort of thing, or carrying on when they should be unconscious.

Samurai in DnD 5e ~ "Roses are red, violets are blue, with x9 attacks/x7 with advantage, I may be dead but now so are you!" Lich ~ "Nani?!? Kansei... weeb-san!?!

Become a large race like Goliath or Half-Orc, go for maul and say it's a kanabo, and boom you got yourself a Shugoki

One of my favorites. I played a level 15 shadarkai elf ranged samurai in a high fantasy heist. Instead of taking out one crucial guard to allow the group to move up, i thought why not take out every guard silently? Taking crossbow feats and a van helsing movie tribute magic crossbow that shot icycles. Amazing, underrated

You make every one of these subclasses seem so much fun to play. Great as always YMBA

You can Call me Jack Samurai Jack!!

Love the Samurai. Very thematic and focused subclass.

Well that's unfortunate..... My tabaxi samurai just got killed last night and now I get to see how cool he would've been past level 3.

Cool, now we just need the Way of Shadow Monk (Ninja) to complete the set.

Samurai also works really nice as a medieval Knight

Samurai is one of my favorite subclasses i have been playing them for a lot a one-shots and it’s been a lot of fun but i never use the samurai stuff in role play i usually play them as honorable knights 😅

The samurai subclass can really be any character held to a code of honor, not just samurai themselves. Tbh, the samurai subclass makes a pretty good cowboy subclass

Dude the art is so good

The Star Wars rpg by fantasy flight games powered by the genesys system is genuinely a fucking BANGER

10:10 My favorite subclass of my favorite class getting a mention??? Thank you, thank you! Hopefully the Crown appears in the polls soon, too!

Bro, the background music goes so hard with this video! I mean, it always DOES, but even more so with this one!

So as per Rapid Strikes, "you can forgo advantage *for that roll* to make an additional weapon attack against that target..." So Fighting Spirit would technically give you advantage on the bonus attack too. Meaning Fighting Spirit + Rapid Strikes becomes "yeah, sure, have another attack" with no real trade off

Throw in two-handed fighting or Polearm Master and you can add an extra attack, so 20 attacks in the first two rounds. 22 if you have a Battlemaster ally or a means of triggering Opportunity Attacks.

Sadly my one campaign where I got to roll one got cut short, but I greatly enjoyed the class and this video really hit on why, you know, besides being able to slash something 1000000000000000000 times in a combat

Playing a samurai has been my favorite for years! The archer Samurai half elf is GOAT!!!

I have an idea for a human variant, with the acolyte background. Take the cleric ritual caster as your variant feat, and go with the samurai subclass. It makes for a really cool “Knight Templar” build in my opinion.

Hobgoblin Samurai player here and I gotta admit I love it so much I smashed Mongol aesthetic with Japanese was profoundly pleasing. The Hob code is draconian especially the "Never allow an insult" which goes both ways it's a fun lil quirk

Playing an Eladrin Samurai with archery. Already told my DM "I will put arrows into all your critters"

This makes for a very good ranged Fighter.

I played a Samurai that dual wielded a Flail, Rapier, Mace, Longsword, and basically any other weapon that was not a heavy or 2 handed. It was a pretty fun class getting to essentially beat down bad guys with whatever thing I wanted to that day.

I have a dragonborn fighter that I intended to run the Samurai subclass in & give them a maul. The idea is they're a younger, 2nd generation adventurer that has set off to make their name going only by the stories their retired mother told them. On the way, they seek perfection & to master the lessons they've learnt. So different from the traditional samurai, just flavouring the features as how they adapt to what they've been taught, etc. Fighting Spirit is flavoured as him slowing his breathing & taking every detail in a fight in, almost like bullet time. Swapped out of him in my current campaign as we already had a Fighter, but I hope to play him some day.

Elven Accuracy + Gunner + Piercer + Musket at lvl 20 equals 5 mins of counting the dice you are rolling and the damage you are doing. This subclass is great at low levels and top tier at high level games.

With the wisdom modifier enhancement a small one or two level dip into war domain cleric can also be pretty funny for getting a little bit more attacks

Been playing a Elven archer samurai and Elven Accuracy+ Fighting Spirit so good. I dont usually play the primary damage dealer but this character has been a lot of fun. Once i get Sharpshooter its over

My fav character atm is a samurai archer sniper. Its so, so, sooooo fun

Someone please talk about how OBSCENE this subclass is as a ranged build. On demand advantage, sharpshooter for 600yd range with a longbow and the -5/+10, archery fighting style, and with an elven background you can take elven accuracy for triple advantage on all those attacks. Not quite as versatile as Battle master maneuvers but the sheer, "Fuck that guy over there" potential is OBSCENE

I misread that Rapid Strike ability before this. I thought you forgo advantage on all attacks to make one more weapon attack, but no, just the one without advantage. That’s super tight.

My first fighter was a samurai! Made it to level 7, I just multi classed into 1 level war cleric.

I have a Air Genasi Samurai Fighter named Shiro Oozora and have been having so much fun with him. He has two weapon fighting for his fighting style, so let's add a couple more attacks with them action surges.

I thought of a Samurai who’s an Exandrian Shadar-Kai. He wears a porcelain half-mask and he worships the Raven Queen. My idea is that his society sees her as the ultimate example of selfless duty, which forms the basis of their version of Bushido. Maybe he is forbidden from telling anyone his name, except for his master.

Funny thing is I have been replaying ghost of tsushima recently, so to see this and the gameplay of that game was hilarious to me.

Here are some creatures/races that I think would be PERFECT to play as a Samurai. Dragonborn Elf Yuan-Ti Tabaxi Leonin Goliath Tortle

FINALLY, a figther subclass, now i can watch your videos

Kirito being slandered after being extra attack's icon for so long

As former forever DM I got time to play as a gestalt samurai swashbuckler half elf and it was a nightmare with the amount of damage and how high my persuasion checks best time of my life

It's the nujabes/ departure album as background music for me

Samurai for when you want historical drama Samurai, Kensei (plus tasha's options) for when you want to be a anime Samurai. ;)

The samurai fighter could thematically fit well as a multiclass with literally every monk expecially kensei. You could make a blade dancer hermit who spender his whole life studying the way of the sword. If you also used two light weapons in two handed like double scimitar you could use the new weapons property to make the extra attack in your action. A level 15 samurai fighter 3 monk(5.5) could make three attacks with his main hand weapons and 2 more with his offhand and then also doing a couple of unarmored strikes for a total of 7 attacks, 14 with action surge. You could make general grievous by usi g the astral self monk.

Great video! I really enjoyed your presentation and the depth of your research. However, I noticed a small error in your description of the Samurai. It seemed more like the media and tourist version rather than the historical reality. Samurai were often more focused on practical survival rather than adhering to a strict code of honor. Additionally, the Samurai were not just warriors but also engaged in activities like farming and trade, which contrasts with the common perception of them solely as elite warriors. Samurai would collect the heads of their enemies as trophies, which was a common practice to demonstrate their prowess and achieve recognition. This headhunting culture was a brutal aspect of Samurai warfare that is often glossed over in more romanticized versions of their history

I did play a samurai in a high level one shot and...well archery, piercer and the dms crit rulings for more damage basically turned me into The "lets go gambling" for crits.

This entire video was an attack on my character, and I love YMBA for it! 😂 (Baka) I'm sure the next one will be just as entertaining (as I believe in the YMBA that believes in you)!

Time for the samurai to master the art of Armored Unarmed Fighting where true honor comes from throwing hands while calling them out as badass attack names

Recent example of a Samurai character that doesn’t require weebing out? Duncan Idaho in the recent movies as portrayed Jason Momoa; crazy good swordsman and loyal to the death.

I would never have expected you to do Iaido. But then again, I do Iaido and nobody expects me

You should make a video for the Shifter race!

Great video! Can you create a video analyzing a Cleric of the Light Domain?

I honestly play two different samurai subclass characters in two different campaigns. I mostly just play them more as fighting proficient courtiers. Well…one of them. One is a noble and the other is a scholar. Both just have a ton of wanderlust and just genuinely like being around people and meeting new people and being friends. They are both protective of their friends and take very seriously their role as frontliner. I will say, my dm for the scholar one did give my character armor that resembled some blend of various Asian cultures (some homebrew he found, awesome art, dragon themed) so I guess that character sorta has the “samurai” feel. But I didn’t go out of my way to design a character that physically resembles Japanese samurai. Like I said, I play them more as courtier. People who are good at talking with people and have a stubborn mind (justifying that wis save proficiency). So yeah, courtly. It’s been fun. The scholar is actually my favorite character among the many characters I play. Not sure if it’s really the subclass that makes that so but it definitely helps that the subclass lends to the personality design and stuff of the character.

Great video! I'd love to see fey wanderer next!

I recently looked at this subclass and got to lvl 15 and immediately did the math and thought "holy crap, 32 possible attacks in 2 rounds of combat at lvl 20?!" Then i saw the once per turn and i have never been more disappointed. But i get it because, that would be busted and give DM's nightmares

My first samurai was a wood elf archer. He saved the party from a basilisk by killing it with his eyes closed.

Please do Kansai Monk next

Showed your video to my 9yrs old son and now he wants to play an orc samurai. XD

Honestly a two-level dip into Barbarian is crazy good

Good on you ymba-sama

Gonna admit, when I first started playing DnD with my friends, I tried Samurai Fighter and it didn't work with what I had envisioned for my character, who was supposed to be a naive and brighteyed halfling girl new to the adventuring life, so i couldn't really get behind Samurai. Adding to that I didn't have a good understanding of building my stats at first, so to me it at least requires a bit more familiarity with the system to make an effective Samurai character.

Ninja next pls!

Please do ORDER CLERIC next?!? 💙

Not gonna lie, since you said it, you can make a cowboy using this subclass, just make sure the DM allows guns

I've got a blue belt in iaido, too.

this is one of the subclasses that really make me miss 3.5, the tome of battle supplement was one of the best things ever published for D&D (imo). the anime and video game influence on what we consider high fantasy now is undeniable, and should absolutely be folded into D&D as much as possible.

See? This is why I like your videos. Cause personally I wasn't that impressed with the samurai but you make a good case to point out the strengths of this subclass.

Onna-Bugeisha were amazing and get far to little credit. Another easy plot start is - Wake up on the wrong side of a battle - IE story of Musashi

Duel wield samurai to be Musashi or Benkei like and get a bonus action attack, for SO MANY attacks.

You toon Iaido too. Nice

One of these days I'ma play a Lawful Good Goblin Samurai Fighter. Little guy read some poorly translated fairy takes and now wants to be a wandering hero.

Bushido wasn't actually agreed to have any rules specifically until samurai were already irrelevant and it was more-or-less just how your lord thought a cavalry man should act, later the samurai themselves were lords but that's basically it.

Many people get to the bonus profiency or Elegant Courtier at level 7, think that it´s not "Fighty" enought and ignore this subclass. As mention in many other comments, you don´t even have to be a samurai wearing robes and katana. I had a friend who made himself a red haired celtic claymore wielding warrior, wearing a kilt and he almost took Performance at lvl 3 so he could play bagpipes but he took insight instead (would have been funnier but useless)

Honestly I tend to use it as just a simple guy with tons of willpower

I studied iai too. What is your ryu? I studied Eishin Ryu. Including Samurai Jack in here reminded me how my former senpai in iaijutsu used to have a Samurai Jack charm on her sword carrying bag. I miss how samurai in the 5 rings setting of 3.5 e had iaijutsu combat rules and an iaijutsu master prestige class. I’ve been trying to think of a way to implement it in 5e

Another banger of a video keep it up

So question about Rapid Strikes. "If you take the Attack action on your turn and have advantage on an attack roll against against one of the targets, you can forgo the advantage for that roll to make an additional weapon attack against that target, as part of the same action." Do you have to make a separate attack roll for the additional attack? Or do you just use the same attack roll as the attack you sacrificed your advantage for? If you make a separate attack roll and assuming the situation that generated the advantage still exists (such as having used Fighting Spirit) would the additional attack not then also be made at advantage? I've always been under the impression that the additional attack requires its own attack role and thus would be at advantage. I get this from "you can forgo the advantage for that roll". However it's the "as part of the same action" that makes me second guess this interpretation. Thoughts?

Regular Kayito is weird. Abridged Kayito is custom built for a DnD campaign that heavily leans chaotic neutral

*Mirror of the World intensifies*

I think it's also important to note that because the Fighter subclasses are referred to as "Martial Archetypes", there's nothing saying that your Player Character HAS to be an actual samurai. The archetype of the fallen, honorable warrior exists across various cultures and stories, so you can add your own flavor and lore to your backstory if you're reluctant or nervous about making any unintentional cultural appropriations during the campaign. Honestly would consider this or the Cavalier over the Champion Fighter to introduce to first-time players to the game, especially if it ends up being a long-term campaign and they'll want to have more utility to play around with in later-game play.

Honestly this is one of the subclasses where i think WOTC did it well by accident. This subclass seems to be specifically designed to be the Pop Culture Definition of a Samurai, focusing on "One Clean Strike" that never misses and does deadly damage. HOWEVER, when optimized, ends up resembling the historical and more accurate version of a Samurai. A high-ranking officer of the law that uses Bow (or even Guns) as their primary weapon, and their swords as secondary or when they're cornered This subclass is busted on Elven Accuracy Builds, by shoorting a Bow or a Small Crossbow, it fits perfectly into an Archery Build. For example Crossbow Expert + Elven Accuracy + Samurai + 3 lvls of Gloomstalker Ranger is disgusting. Add 3 Levels of Hexblade Warlock and those are Crits on Crits, baby!!

I'm a weeb; sounds like you sort of just gave the weirdos of the community the heat 😂 we good in my books😂

There is a deep level of irony over Monk and Samurai players catching so much flak as weebs by other people who are *precisely* as weird about Knights and Wizards as some people are about Ninjas. Or, maybe its a lack of self-awareness.

Multi class oath of conquest for a lord

In the same way that Paladins are removed from their historical role as the enforcers of Charlemagne, and Warlocks are removed from their historical role of Norse oathbreakers, D&D Samurai are removed from their historical role as being Japanese enforcers of the Misei Shogunate. It is a way of being and a relationship with violence/mortality that makes one a samurai in D&D.