so for those who know the series fate stay, there is a character sasaki kojiro (he is a samurai but of the assassin class) long story short a finesse based swordfighter of small build its even pointed out his small build and during a fight he is outclassed in weight, speed, and strength but he still fights evenly. I am curious if there is a way to do a samurai, rogue/assassin multiclass that would work decently or good? and how to start a dex based samurai in the first place. if anyone can help me out with some ideas i would be greatful i am new to d&d so hoping this community is great
A Sasaki Kojiro type of character is doable, but there are a couple of things to be taken into consideration. Short of a Sun Blade or a similarly homebrewed weapon, there would be no way to get weapon possible to be wielded with two hands and having the [weaprop]Finesse[/weaprop] property, which is needed for you in order to be able to use your Sneak Attack. Another thing to consider is the fact that Sasaki Kojiro does not really seem to be wearing any armor, so the Fighter proficiencies would be somewhat less useful, but this is mostly aesthetic stuff from the source you can obviously decide to ignore.
My personal suggestions are two: Rogue(Assassin)/Fighter(Samurai) OR Monk(Kensei)/Rogue(Assassin) Let's have a look at both options:
Rogue(Assassin) 5/Fighter(Samurai) 15 I would start off as a Rogue, as being DEX based you do not really need the heavy armor proficiency anyway. Put your highest stat in DEX, followed by CON and then whichever third highest I'd say in WIS, for saving throw purposes. You'd want to stay in Rogue at least until lvl 3, for the Assassin subclass, but I'd probably suggest to go on until lvl 4, in order to get the ASI (Ability Stat Increase) with no delays. At lvl 5 you could switch over to Fighter, for at least another 5 levels, in order to get the Extra attack and another ASI. After that, one more level of Rogue to get the Sneak Attack increase and Uncanny dodge and then all the way to 20 with Fighter, in order to get to Rapid Strike from the Samurai. Fighter gives you a lot of versatility and improvements due to the higher number of ASI they get, as well as a lot of attacks with advantage, self-heal and Action Surge, allowing you to have a lot of burst damage. Until you get a Sun Blade your choice of weapons is quite restricted, and the highest damage you could get is from short swords (1d6), but if you manage to get your hands one one (or, again, a similarly homebrewed weapon approved by your DM), you can go around using it with two hands and dishing out Sneak Attacks like there's no tomorrow.
Let's look at the alternative now:
Monk(Kensei) 6/Rogue(Assassin) 14 In this case I'd start off with the Monk, in order to get a boos of survivability from the get-go. I'd suggest putting your stats in this order: DEX, WIS, CON The Monk gives you good survivability without armor, increased movement, extra attack and a decent unarmed damage, but 6th level is as high as I'd go with it, to be honest. So from lvl 7 switch to Rogue, and go all the way to lvl 14, in order to get all that sweet Sneak Attack damage you can, evasion, and Blindsense, which can be extremely useful. Here again your choice of weapon is somewhat restricted until you get your hands on one with the [weaprop]Finesse[/weaprop] property, but you technically have 6 level before you really have to worry about that due to Sneak Attack, and until then, as part of your Kensei proficiencies, you can choose Long Sword, which will allow you to make use of all your Kensei and Monk abilities once you indeed find a suitable katana (which is normally considered a reskinned Long Sword).
This are the two options I can see knowing a bit the source character, let me know what you think!
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
This was done before the Samurai, but it advised in almost all cases go fighter first for the con save which is much more useful. 16 Samauri / 4 Assasin gives the most ASI, but you miss out on the 17th level Second Action Surge. This is wear the true assassin comes into play, Two Action Surges on the surprise round means 9 attacks all auto criticals....if you dual wield make it 10 attacks or just disengage. With Samurai Rapid Strike you can make it 11 Attacks with two of them not having advantage...still all auto crits.
And finally, while I've heard everyone rave about the Sunsword for rogues, as a DM I would shoot any chance of suprise out the window. The thing is glowing. Forget your stealth chance.
Surprise round damage:
Assuming hit on just 8/11 attacks with a short sword or scimitar and add one sneak attack, that's 110 damage average.....
(if you have the dual wield feet you could dual wield a rapier - no reason you can't call your katana a rapier) 126 damage....
This was done before the Samurai, but it advised in almost all cases go fighter first for the con save which is much more useful. 16 Samauri / 4 Assasin gives the most ASI, but you miss out on the 17th level Second Action Surge. This is wear the true assassin comes into play, Two Action Surges on the surprise round means 9 attacks all auto criticals....if you dual wield make it 10 attacks or just disengage. With Samurai Rapid Strike you can make it 11 Attacks with two of them not having advantage...still all auto crits.
Action surge is limited to 1/turn so if my math is correct you could get a maximum of 8 attacks with auto-grit (3 from fighter, 3 from action surge, 1 from rapid strike, 1 from off-hand), of which one is without advantage.
I watched Fate Stay and truthfully, I don't think Sasaki would not fit under Rogue class in dnd. Sasaki to me is a Fighter/Monk (Kensei) with a longsword.
Kensei monk with longsword would be the simplest. "Samurai" fighter class wouldn't benefit the build in anyway when you're going more for "samurai" background/character flavour.
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so for those who know the series fate stay, there is a character sasaki kojiro (he is a samurai but of the assassin class) long story short a finesse based swordfighter of small build its even pointed out his small build and during a fight he is outclassed in weight, speed, and strength but he still fights evenly. I am curious if there is a way to do a samurai, rogue/assassin multiclass that would work decently or good? and how to start a dex based samurai in the first place. if anyone can help me out with some ideas i would be greatful i am new to d&d so hoping this community is great
Hi Phantomshott, welcome to the community o/
A Sasaki Kojiro type of character is doable, but there are a couple of things to be taken into consideration.
Short of a Sun Blade or a similarly homebrewed weapon, there would be no way to get weapon possible to be wielded with two hands and having the [weaprop]Finesse[/weaprop] property, which is needed for you in order to be able to use your Sneak Attack.
Another thing to consider is the fact that Sasaki Kojiro does not really seem to be wearing any armor, so the Fighter proficiencies would be somewhat less useful, but this is mostly aesthetic stuff from the source you can obviously decide to ignore.
My personal suggestions are two: Rogue(Assassin)/Fighter(Samurai) OR Monk(Kensei)/Rogue(Assassin)
Let's have a look at both options:
Rogue(Assassin) 5/Fighter(Samurai) 15
I would start off as a Rogue, as being DEX based you do not really need the heavy armor proficiency anyway.
Put your highest stat in DEX, followed by CON and then whichever third highest I'd say in WIS, for saving throw purposes.
You'd want to stay in Rogue at least until lvl 3, for the Assassin subclass, but I'd probably suggest to go on until lvl 4, in order to get the ASI (Ability Stat Increase) with no delays.
At lvl 5 you could switch over to Fighter, for at least another 5 levels, in order to get the Extra attack and another ASI.
After that, one more level of Rogue to get the Sneak Attack increase and Uncanny dodge and then all the way to 20 with Fighter, in order to get to Rapid Strike from the Samurai.
Fighter gives you a lot of versatility and improvements due to the higher number of ASI they get, as well as a lot of attacks with advantage, self-heal and Action Surge, allowing you to have a lot of burst damage.
Until you get a Sun Blade your choice of weapons is quite restricted, and the highest damage you could get is from short swords (1d6), but if you manage to get your hands one one (or, again, a similarly homebrewed weapon approved by your DM), you can go around using it with two hands and dishing out Sneak Attacks like there's no tomorrow.
Let's look at the alternative now:
Monk(Kensei) 6/Rogue(Assassin) 14
In this case I'd start off with the Monk, in order to get a boos of survivability from the get-go.
I'd suggest putting your stats in this order: DEX, WIS, CON
The Monk gives you good survivability without armor, increased movement, extra attack and a decent unarmed damage, but 6th level is as high as I'd go with it, to be honest.
So from lvl 7 switch to Rogue, and go all the way to lvl 14, in order to get all that sweet Sneak Attack damage you can, evasion, and Blindsense, which can be extremely useful.
Here again your choice of weapon is somewhat restricted until you get your hands on one with the [weaprop]Finesse[/weaprop] property, but you technically have 6 level before you really have to worry about that due to Sneak Attack, and until then, as part of your Kensei proficiencies, you can choose Long Sword, which will allow you to make use of all your Kensei and Monk abilities once you indeed find a suitable katana (which is normally considered a reskinned Long Sword).
This are the two options I can see knowing a bit the source character, let me know what you think!
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469125-GUIDE-Dealing-Death-Handbook-of-the-True-Assassin
This was done before the Samurai, but it advised in almost all cases go fighter first for the con save which is much more useful. 16 Samauri / 4 Assasin gives the most ASI, but you miss out on the 17th level Second Action Surge. This is wear the true assassin comes into play, Two Action Surges on the surprise round means 9 attacks all auto criticals....if you dual wield make it 10 attacks or just disengage. With Samurai Rapid Strike you can make it 11 Attacks with two of them not having advantage...still all auto crits.
And finally, while I've heard everyone rave about the Sunsword for rogues, as a DM I would shoot any chance of suprise out the window. The thing is glowing. Forget your stealth chance.
Surprise round damage:
Assuming hit on just 8/11 attacks with a short sword or scimitar and add one sneak attack, that's 110 damage average.....
(if you have the dual wield feet you could dual wield a rapier - no reason you can't call your katana a rapier) 126 damage....
I watched Fate Stay and truthfully, I don't think Sasaki would not fit under Rogue class in dnd. Sasaki to me is a Fighter/Monk (Kensei) with a longsword.
"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Kensei monk with longsword would be the simplest. "Samurai" fighter class wouldn't benefit the build in anyway when you're going more for "samurai" background/character flavour.