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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jaron Mortimer" data-source="post: 6646851" data-attributes="member: 6789925">The general idea of this class is a combination of Fighter and monk. That being said, the "pommel Strike" extra attack is mechanically equal to the feature a monk gets at level 1. Think of Kenjutsu as Martial Arts, just slightly more restrictive. Also, and you made the point yourself, The extra attack takes your bonus action. That makes that feature of Polearm master redundant (a good thing, since only the quarterstaff is a Kensai weapon) and makes it mechanically equal to/inferior to a TWF of the same level. Woah, no way. I'll try to give a good explanation as to why I certainly won't do it this way:  - The entire concept for the Kensai is a combination of Monk and Fighter. Since this is D&D we're talking about here, this is essentially the fantasy/anime samurai trope: Light or no armor, superhuman abilities, all that nonsense. Keeping in mind this is 5e, most classes abilities key off one or two stats: either Str or Dex, and one of Int, Wis, or Cha. Con is needed by everyone in the game, and is always the third stat to consider, though barbarians bump up the importance quite a bit. In the case of the fighter, you can build him to either focus on strength or Dexteirty, and then Int/Charsima (battlemaster), Int (Eldritch Knight) or Con (champion). Kensai was a distinct attempt to Build either Strength or Dex and Wisdom. Now, note that the only ability that you can't wear armor with is the Battle Sense ability; therefore, it is completely possible to build a Kensai using Strength instead of dex and still be very effective. Your AC will likely be a bit lower than it would be at a higher level, but there are things you can do with armor (like having it enchanted) that you couldn't do without. The idea here is that it's halfway between Archery (+2 to attack) and Dueling (+2 to damage). The d12 damage thing is kinda interesting, though, I may consider that for a different feat. I can understand your concern. That being said, Its highly doubtful there will be a 2 handed or versatile finesse weapon printed: the beta had quarterstaves as 2-handed finesse weapons, and they got rid of that. In any case, this is (again) mechanically similar to the monk being able to use dex for quarterstaves. the last point is a good one, and I may just swap it out. As a matter of fact, that's what I'm going to do. Boom!If you wanted to make versatile longswords or battleaxes worth using, you could make them heavy so you can use GWM with them. That would be something, combined with the +1 to AC. I don't know about the disengage though. It could be situationally useful, or it could be really badly exploitable in the wrong hands. I tend to suspect the latter. It is very rogue-like. But I'd rather people multiclass to get class features that are always on, rather than duplicate class features in feats, where there is less opportunity cost.</blockquote>[/QUOTE]

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