Comments welcome on what started as a champion variant and grew in a bit of a different direction...
Samurai
Samurai are professional warriors, members of the noble caste trained in the arts of warfare. They are born into a strict structure of loyalties, allegiances and honor that influence every stage of their lives. A samurai cut loose from this is a ronin with no family or clan, next to nothing.
Bushido
You are distinguished from ordinary fighters by your adherence to bushido, the moral and ethical path every true samurai tries to follow. When you reach 3rd level, you swear an oath to your lord and to the code of bushido. According to the code of bushido, a samurai must possess seven virtues.
• Gi (honesty and justice): Deal openly and honestly with others and cleave to the ideals of justice. Moral decisions do not come in shades of gray, only right and wrong.
• Yu (heroic courage): Never fear to act, but live life fully and wonderfully. Fear is replaced with respect and caution.
• Jin (compassion): Take every opportunity to aid others, and create opportunities when none arise. You have responsibility to use your power to help others.
• Rei (polite courtesy): There is no reason to be cruel, and no need to prove your strength. Courtesy distinguishes you from an animal, and reveals your true strength.
• Meyo (honor): Conscience is the judge of your honor. The decisions you make and how you carry them out are a reflection of your true nature.
• Makoto (complete sincerity): When you say that you shall perform an action, it is as good as done. You need not make promises; it is as if speaking and doing are the same.
• Chugo (duty and loyalty): Take responsibility for your actions and their consequences, and remain loyal to the people in your care. Your loyalty to your lord is unquestionable and unquestioning.
The code requires that you be obedient to your lord, accept death at any time and face it bravely, avenge any dishonor, and shun any appearance of cowardice. The core principles of bushido are honor, loyalty, and courage. Violating these precepts results in dishonor to yourself, your family, and your swords, which may result in you being stripped of your family name or being asked to commit seppuku (ritual suicide).
A samurai who has broken his code must seek absolution from his lord. At the DM’s discretion, a samurai who willfully violates the code of bushido, loses all of the class features of the archetype until he has sought and received absolution from his own or a new lord.
Ancestral Daisho
Starting at 3rd level, you learn a ritual that creates a magical bond between yourself and your daisho, your longsword (katana) and scimitar (wakizashi). You perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can been done during a short rest. The weapons must be within your reach throughout the ritual, at the conclusion of which you touch the weapons and forge the bond.
Once you have bonded the weapons to yourself, you can’t be disarmed of your daisho unless you are incapacitated. In addition, you can call upon the power of your ki and that of your ancestors to empower your daisho, allowing you to score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 with either weapon.
Kiai Strike
Starting at 7th level, you add your proficiency bonus to your initiative and double your Strength modifier (if positive) for all Strength checks and damage rolls for one round. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.
Honorable Resolve
At 10th level, you can ignore the effects of the frightened, paralyzed, poisoned, and stunned conditions and exhaustion for a number of rounds equal to your proficiency bonus. The condition’s duration is not affected by your Honorable Resolve. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.
Superior Daisho
Starting at 15th level, attacks with your daisho score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20.
Frightening Countenance
At 18th level, while wielding or carrying your daisho, the power of your ancestors surges through you, giving you a frightening countenance. Each creature you target within 30 ft. must succeed on a Charisma saving throw (DC = 8 + double your proficiency bonus) or drop whatever it is holding and become frightened for as long as you concentrate, up to 1 minute. While frightened, a creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move. If the creature ends its turn in a location where it doesn’t have line of sight to you, the creature can make a Charisma saving throw. On a successful save, the spell ends for that creature. Once you use this feature you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.
Background
Samurai (Noble Variant)
The samurai is a warrior from cultures based on the medieval Japanese civilization. He lives by a very strict code of honor and behavior, a code demanding: absolute obedience to his lord; readiness to die for honor or for his lord at any time; eagerness to avenge any dishonor to his lord, his family, or himself; willingness to repay all debts honorably; and unwillingness to demonstrate the most dishonorable trait of cowardice. Except as noted below, the samurai background is identical to the Noble background.
Skill Proficiencies: History, Persuasion
Tool Proficiencies: Calligrapher’s supplies, painter’s supplies
Equipment: A set of fine clothes, calligrapher’s or painter’s supplies, a ceremonial tea set, a scroll of pedigree, and purse containing 25 gp
While I don't mind it being more powerful than the Champion, per se, I do mind it taking the Champion's thing (expanded crit range) wholecloth, along with a lot of other strong features. I'd give Ancestral Daisho a different benefit, like having it count as a magic weapon for the purpose of ignoring resistance to nonmagical weapons. At 15th level I'd have it ignore slashing resistance.
Re: Frightening Countenance: Surely this ability requires you to take a long rest to use it again?
I'm actually in the process of doing a bunch of mythic Japan content for 5e myself(Including an entirely custom base class(not class archtype, base class!!) based on a shinto priest/miko kind of character which I feel the standard cleric dosen't do a good job of impersonating) and I must say, this is at least superficially simmilar to what I had planned for the samurai archtype. However, I had a few differences, which, interestingly enough, where at least partly touched upon by others. Mainly, that "samurai" itself was not one class, but many. "Samurai" in my mind is more of a -background- then a class, and a "samurai" in a FANTASY version of Japan could be any number of martial classes, or heck, even mages, in some cases, as in a setting with actual, real magic you can bet some feudal lords would use Onmyoji in their armies, as unlike actual Japan in a setting with magic those Onmyoji could decimate entire squads of bushi with spells like, say, fireball.
Thus, under the mythic Japan rules I'm making, "Samurai" is a background and different types of characters represent different types of samurai. Battlefield Tactician samurai? Battlemaster fighter with the samurai background. Mounted Archer samurai? Beastmaster ranger, with a horse companion, or an archery fighter with a horse and the ability to ride it, samurai background. Ruthless bully samurai with a terrible temper who fights best when angry and mistreats pesants between dowing copious ammounts of sake? Barbarian, with profiency in intimidation, and the samurai background. Warrior poiet samurai with the favor of a Kitsune who writes haikus and epics in between slicing people up? Bard, College of Valor, Samurai Background. Learned samurai who studies Onmyodo and acts as battlefield artillery in his lord's army? Wizard(Onmyoji) or Eldritch Knight fighter, depending on whether or not he still had standard martial training of his peers, samurai background. "Samurai", in mind, is not one class, but many. There are a -lot- of different classes that can be "samurai" as shone above, which, IMO, is why I feel "Samurai" itself, is better as a background and things like the Daisho could be either purely flavor(Buy a short sword and scimitar, carry them around, call them your "daisho" and have fun) or could be a feat line, that could be taken by any martial character who wanted it. "Samurai" can cover a lot of concepts, so I am totally all for doing what you did, and making a Samurai background. However, having samurai as a background AND a class seems, IMO, strange, so I'd rather keep samurai strictly a background, and instead have class and/or feat options that can help build samurai types that, you fee,l the current classes can't provide for.
What I am in the process of creating that reminds me of what you've made here is actually an "Oath of Bushido" for Paladins. While ALL samurais follow Bushido as an ideal, not all of them fully live up to it. Some may be corrupt, ruthless bullies, but yet still idealize/hold up the idea of "bushido". Others may respect it and uphold it, but not have it as their primary concern; the're much more concerned with protecting their family and friends, or promoting their lord's supremacy in the region, instead of caring about their duty to their lord's lowly dirt farmers. My logic behind the "Oath of Bushido" is the fluff of a samurai who not only upholds and respects the ideas of Bushido, but is so devoted to it that they become a living embodyment of it's tentnets, possessing divine blessings granted by the Kami that protect and serve the warrior class as a reward for being a paragon of everything a Samurai -should be-, but so many are not. My setting is not -exactly- Japan, but rather "Magical, fantasy Japan" so I thought a Paladin Oath for Bushido was an interesting route to take, along with making Samurai a background as appose to a class option. Samurai as a background just, IMO, makes the most sense to me since there are many different types of martial characters, of different classes, that could fall under the samurai umbrella.
However, as for the class, I am not the best with -balance- myself, so I can't say how OP or not OP it is, but I will say it looks darn cool and I may use it to further inspire my own work on the Bushido Paladin Oath.
Whoops. I forgot to put the long rest on frightening countenance. I didn't mean it to be used willy nilly.
I started with it being just a modified champion. I liked the ancestral daisho ability of the 3E samurai a lot, but wasn't keen on breaking 5E by granting a magic weapon, so expanding crits seemed like a good way to go. Then I kept tweaking and ended up with something a fair bit different then the champion, but that is still clearly based on it, which I think is fine (if you don't that's okay too).
I don't think the power level is that much different from the champion though. You have a few limitations in bushido and your abilities only applying to 2 weapons, where the champion can pick up anything. Similarly the kiai strike is a one shot maneuver (twice at higher levels) which limits compared to the champion, but perhaps its worth limiting it to once even at higher levels.
Thanks for the comments btw. It is appreciated.
I also get that this is the idealized version of the samurai. I did not intend it to be a real world version of the samurai because that would be quite a bit less appealing than a Kurosawa film or those from the Shogun miniseries or other film versions. It's also based on looking at the 1E-3E and PF versions of the samurai and trying to capture some of that flavor as well. All that said Oath of the Bushido would be great for a paladin, but I didn't want this one to have magic powers like a paladin or cast spells, so I didn't want to go that route. That said, there's no reason we can't put some oath like restrictions on another class, at least in my mind, or vice versa, that you can't make a samurai paladin.
TomCosta wrote:
TomCosta wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
PhyrexianKitsune wrote:
I like the idea of the weapons acting as magical like a monk's fists and will add that. I'm not sure I'm keen on letting the swords pick up bonuses as you level. That just seems to close to breaking 5E, which is why I liked the champion's enhanced crit, which also seems to work well with the legendary aspects of the daisho cutting enemies in half (though I know that the katana was in fact not necessarily any more effective a weapon than a European longsword).
I don't actually care much where the daisho comes from. Typically, one would assume its inherited, but I didn't want that limitation. Further, a character could bond with a new daisho if they wanted, although I'm realizing that is not clear, so I'll clear that up as well.
I'm also not trying to capture every version of the samurai. As has been pointed out, they came in many varieties and could as easily be a bowman as a rogue. I'm just trying to capture the movie/legendary version, much as previous editions of D&D did, whether it was the 1E OA versionk, 2E fighter kit, 3E OA version, 3E Complete Fighter version, or even to some extent the PF version.
I think the background fits the archetype, but I think 5E is flexible enough that you could have many variations that would work. You could have an outsider elevated to samurai a la Shogun, a more cerebral sage samurai, a soldier samurai, or what have you. That said, I think tweaking the noble background's tool proficiencies and equipment is a very minor nod to the archetype.
TomCosta wrote:
TomCosta wrote:
Hebitsuikaza wrote:
Hebitsuikaza wrote:
Hebitsuikaza and Raegoul,
I have seen the films and own several them. Seven Samurai and Yojimbo are my favorites of the bunch (While I'm forgetting his name, the main actor [a wonderful character actor that--if you haven't seen it, go see the US Western in which he plays a Japanese diplomat/samurai as a fish out of water] also plays the eventual Shogun in the miniseries of the same name). I've never played Five Rings, although I am familiar with some of it, but mostly through the D&D products. I have never claimed to be an expert on Eastern cultures and while I've had the opportunity to travel to over 40 countries on nearly every continent have not yet had the pleasure of making it Japan.
What I said was that I liked the daisho ability from previous editions and was recreating that and the romanticized version of the samurai would live up to the code of Bushido in all its forms much like the romanticized version of medieval European knight or paladin might (though without the magic). The fact that Yojimbo, the Seven Samurai, or even most of the Samurai in the Shogun miniseries fall way short of that standard is irrelevant. And while I could create a fighter with a longsword and a noble background and call him a samurai, I think most folks would agree its likely missing at least a little something because most of D&D is built on the chasis of medieval Europe, and western Europe at that.
I also said nothing about fighting with two swords. But the weapons were often created together and carried together and once again goes with the ability I was trying to create.
Thank you Macv12. Here is a rewrite of the daisho.
Ancestral Daisho
Starting at 3rd level, you learn a ritual that creates a magical bond between yourself and your daisho, your longsword (katana) and scimitar (wakizashi). You perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can been done during a short rest. The weapons must be within your reach throughout the ritual, at the conclusion of which you touch the weapons and forge the bond. You can only be bonded with one daisho, but you can replace the daisho you are bonded with by undergoing the same ritual with a new set daisho swords.
Once you have bonded the weapons to yourself, you can’t be disarmed of your daisho unless you are incapacitated and they count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage so long as you wield them. In addition, you can call upon the power of your ki and that of your ancestors to empower your daisho, allowing you to score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 with either weapon. Your daisho has none of these powers in the hands of others.
TomCosta wrote:
I should add that I realize that my revised ancestral daisho is now likely unbalanced, so I have to give that some more thought.
TomCosta wrote:
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Ranger is a class. It's a wider concept that can fit multiple different archetypes. The appropriate parallel would be the Fighter.
As this samurai is a subclass of fighter, the parallel would be a Gunslinger subclass for the ranger, specifically drawing inspiration from spaghetti westerns. All the features you mentioned would be perfectly valid there. In fact those homebrews have been created, and nobody came in blowing their racism horn. It's not racism; it's you being hypersensitive.
Hyperbolizing about how this is generalizing all Japanese people and other-izing them is such intense straw-manning that it's nauseating. So the paladin, with all its knightly flavor, strict oaths, power loss, and historical inaccuracy, is racism against western people? By western people?
Again. Make a gunslinger or an over-exaggerated code of Chivalry for a Knight subclass if you want. No one will stop you. It's exactly the same thing, but no one will call it racist, because it's about white people. When the same thing is done for another culture's tropes and you jump all over it calling it racist, you're the one invoking a double standard and being patronizing to "poor defenseless non-white people." These tropes are from a legacy created by Japanese people and exploited by them all the time.
If you saw a story about a "ninja" wearing bright orange clothes, running around with superpowers, slapping "jutsu" onto long nonsense move names to make them "ninja-y," yammering about his "nindō"...you wouldn't call that racist, because as mangled a vision of actual Japanese culture and history it is, it's made by a Japanese person. Japanese people have no problem making things much more exaggerated than this subclass, and no one here is insulted by it. It's not racist.
Can we get back to having fun and having some worthwhile discussion yet?
I'd suggest changes along the lines of the following.
SamuraiSamurai are professional warriors, members of the noble caste trained in the arts of warfare. They are born into a strict structure of loyalties, allegiances and honor that influence every stage of their lives. A samurai cut loose from this is a ronin with no family or clan, next to nothing.
There is a BIG difference between allowing one odd character concept to be part of an overall class and redefining an entire class of people so that none of them qualify as being part of that class any more.
Naruto has tons of different sorts of ninja who all vary tremendously. It does not say "this thing and only this thing is a ninja and if you divert from this in any tiny bit, you are no longer a ninja." THAT is the big difference.
Let me give you some examples of samurai....
OOOOOOhhh.. Wait. Yeah, that's right. You wouldn't call them Samurai. You couldn't call them samurai.
Look at that... spear.. bow... lance... Samurai use ONLY super ultra mega magical swords passed on from their ancestors. ONLY people who use a longsword and short sword together can be samurai. If these would qualify for the class, then they must be run by pretty stupid players who made an active choice to forgo the only actual class ability by specializing in different weapons.
In short, these guys show up and no one could call them "samurai" ever without looking awfully stupid.
Okay, so it is swords. Only swords, all about swords.
Oh, no wait--- sorry. Took a look at your little bushido code there. What's that about being honest, just or compassionate? Yeah, these guys are not samurai either. If they were they lost all of their abilities which makes it rather silly for them to have the class in the first place.
Maybe there might be ONE specific character, just ONE who manages to fall within the ultra narrow definition of how you think Japanese people behave, how you are willing to accept Japanese people arm themselves or fight and the narrow little definition of how all Japanese warriors utilize their weapons to fight.
The Paladin is a very specific sort of crusading Christian Knight. Even within that, they just had to be Lawful Good and now they just need to stick to some pretty vague and open oath-- not ridiculous 7 tennets that they could not help but violate at least one of constantly through normal play. Nothing about the Paladin REQUIRES that they fight with lances and only lances all the time or effectively give up all their class abilities.
That is the difference. You have some ideological naive kid who got his swords from his grandfather and effectively worships them and he uses only a duelist fighting style at all times... Fine he CAN be samurai. This is one very spefic character. But Samurai should NOT be him and only him and functionally disqualify everyone else.
That is the major difference. You are positing a definition for Japanese Knights where you INSIST that they are only capable of fighting with one specific set of weapons, fighting in one specific fighting style and that they have ridiculously unmanageable restrictions on their behavior at all times.
The currently existing class for Crusading Christian Knights doesn't enforce ANY of that. Furthermore, the game has ALWAYS maintained that the standard European Knight fall under the category of Fighter-- a class intentionally designed to be as vague as possible so you can build any kind of arms warrior you like from it. There is no hypocrisy there.
So just stop rationalizing and realize what you've done wrong and why.
The name sounds like its a bit of a sticking point. Since this class's implementation is essentially about getting massive bonuses for using a specific weapon set, why not just call it Weapon Master, or Kensei?
(In before all of the "Noooo! Kensei is a Monk subclass! 
)
You don't have to be a specific Rogue subclass to steal stuff, or to asssassinate people. You don't have to be this homebrew option to be a Samurai. Its just a name for the subclass based on what the OP thought would be cool.
Captain_Kobold wrote:
Macv12 and Captain Kobold, thanks again for the feedback. Some great ideas. I'll take a look, but I probably won't be able to address your comments for about two weeks. Hopefully, I will see you then.
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TomCosta wrote:
Captain_Kobold wrote:
Man, go away. You have friends to talk to. Go do something fun. This obviously isn't for you.