

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games. We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew.

Blue: Fantastic options, often essential.Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichĪre extremely situational.RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance. If you look at it and think “Yeah that’s exactly what a Samurai is.” then you’re in on the reference. If you look at it and think “How is this a Samurai?” then I’ve done my job. Our example build is not only a great way to show off the diverse options for building a Samurai, but an exercise in flavour as well. Taking advantage of your on-demand Advantage is key to playing Samurai and we’ll discuss ways to do that as we go through options for the class. Mechanically, the Samurai is a powerhouse because of the ability to just decide “I have Advantage this turn” a few times a day. Not that you can’t make your Samurai just like the real-world namesake if you wanted to, that’s up to you. Samurai as a Fighter subclass is not bound by the name Samurai. Just saying the word evokes certain ideas and images of what a Samurai is, what a Samurai does, and how a Samurai fights.
