Next up, it's
Xanathar's Guide's samurai subclass! "The samurai is in the book because the samurai is a great example of a word that people want to use to say "This is my character, I'm playing a samurai right [snark type people like?] so then when you say what does the samurai include you have to ask yourself well clearly when someone is saying here in this Forgotten Realms campaign, or whatever campaign, "I want to play a samurai". They're clearly not saying "I want to play a noble born warrior from feudal Japan who has a warlord", okay, that's probably not what they're saying. They're referring to what I what I think of is like the comic book or movie version of the samurai" said Mearls to D&D Beyond.
[video=youtube;G6VVT7THzIE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6VVT7THzIE[/video]
"Same thing with knight when someone says "I want to play a knight", they're probably thinking more what we saw in feedback and had a knight subclass that ended up getting devoured by the Cavalier. They want someone who's really good at fighting on horseback, which is definitely part of being a knight, but that's the part that's stuck out not the "Well you've sworn fealty to someone and you have to like you're responsible for like you're a warrior noble born, who's just because you own a horse and owning a horse is expensive and you've gotta be a [new little horse?] and all this other stuff", so you have to ask yourself "What is it when people say samurai, what do they mean and what is the actual thing they're looking for?"
For me a lot of it goes to Kurosawa, the Seven Samurai , which I love that movie and I love any movie that kind of deals with transitions that movie is really it's about the Seven Samurai but what it's really about is the end of the samurai era right it's about firearms right and the change in culture and Japan's heading toward modernization"
And so but what is it about the samurai that people find appealing, and what we sort of hit on was this idea of that fighting spirit. That the samurai has duty and puts duty above everything else and will die in trying to seek out "Here is my duty here's what I have set out to do, nothing will stop me"... that implacable nature.
So the samurai has the ability to get a boost of temporary hit points and attack with advantage for one round and they can do that three times between short rests. So basically as a samurai I kind of almost say that mechanically is like this micro-range - like barbarians range is much more produced - but it in the movie in my mind of thinking of this character we're designing, what I saw was okay it's the fight, you're a fighter and you've been backed up to the wall, the ogre, your second or third little fighter, the ogre just smashed you, you're down to three hit points, you've got to put this ogre down, well that's when you're using your samurai ability and then you're using your heroic surge as a fighter to get an extra action and so you're making a bunch of attacks all with advantage and you've given yourself a bunch of temporary hit points if maybe your clerics down or you're of healing points... healing spells so this is your sword if you're gonna cling to the edge and just alpha strike to try to take this guy down, and that felt very much like in the movie my mind it's like it's the samurai who's like bloodies but he's just still standing and fighting right like, in spite all these injuries, "This is my enemy, this is my goal nothing's going to stop me", so give people that real sense "Oh yeah that's the character I want to play, I want to play this bold impetuous unstoppable warrior, really fueled by this fighting spirit I have compared to other fighters."
