Special entry into the DPR olympics: The defense specialized fighter

[EWHM]

So, I puttered around a bit with the most excellent OgreSheet and cranked out a distant cousin to Tempest Ted. We'll call him 'Beatdown Bob', so named for his favorite tactic of shield slamming his opponents all over the place.

His stats are
STR20 (+5 ) 14 base, 2 racial, +4 belt
DX17 (+3) 15 base, 2 level
CN13 (+1)
WS12(+1) INT(10) CHA 8 (-1)
His weapon groups are close+2, bows+1
He uses a punch dagger (best close weapon) and a light shield with spikes.
Gear is +4 belt of strength, +2 full plate, +2 shield +2 punch dagger +2 shield spikes +2 ring of protection, +1 amulet of natural armor +2 cloak of resistance, handy haversack, masterwork composite long bow for 20 strength, and about 1600 or 1700 gp of consumables, miscellaneous gear, and the like
His feats are: power attack, weapon focus (light shield), greater weapon focus(light shield), improved bull rush, greater bull rush, iron will, combat reflexes, double slice, shield slam, improved shield bash, two weapon fighting, improved two weapon fighting
He'd really like the following, but he can't afford them :weapon specialization, step up, improved iron will, improved critical, critical focus, and a host of others. Fortunately his shield slam gives him a degraded step up---it's specifically permitted in the feat description to use a 5 foot step to follow up on people you thereby push. Beatdown Bob wants it bad, but he's looking lustfully at shield master at level 11, and greater two weapon fighting (although he'd need to swing 2 more dex to get that, probably upgrading his belt at +50% cost). He also desperately wants two weapon rend, so he will probably have to wait on those feats for a LONG time.

His power attack is
16/11 (on his shield, his secondary hand actually produces over half his DPR) d4+12 damage (crit on a 20, x2)
14/9 (on his punch dagger) d4+15 (crit on a 20, x3)
His lack of any exotic critical feats (both because he can't afford them and because he's got lousy weapons for stacking critical damage due to his need to keep mostly to one weapon group) makes his DPR easy to calculate and he weighs in at 33.45---about 56% of Falchion Fred's DPR, and comparable to falchion fred's magic item-less DPR. His big push over Falchion Fred is that he's got another trick (his shield slams with greater bullrush for battlefield control and the creation of AoO for his buddies and he's got a AC of 30, making him on average a solid 3 round proposition for Mr Fire Giant to turn into hamburger instead of 2 rounds with a solid chance of a one round match.

Anyone have any ideas on how to improve Beatdown Bob?
His missile fire capacity (+15/+10 at d8+6, x3 crit on 20 only) gives him a ranged DPR of 10.97, which is pretty wretched, although it is better than that of Mr. Fire Giant, who needs a 20 to hit him for an average of 23 points a hit.

Edited (bug in sheet here, added full power attack damage to shield instead of half, adjusting DPR down to 33.45 )

[Gworeth]

Just a few quetions that you may consider. Does the shield necessarily have to be off-hand? If it was mainhand you could easily take a heavy shield, for added damage and protection. The shield slam does give you more than 5ft step under certain circumstances, doesn't it? If you begin with a full-attack and haven't already used your 5ft step, shield slam the sucker and when he flies back and drops prone against the wall, there's nothing that stops you from making a move action and go up to him so you can attack him while he's prone and get AoO when/if he tries to stand up. Since the bull-rush attemt is specifically made with the shield it wouldn't be all cheese to claim that you got both bonuses from weapon focus(shield) and GWF + the bonus you get from weapon training (close).

And yes, next level with shield master the penalty for attacking with the shield disappears. Whoot!

Weapon Specialization, Improved Iron Will, Two Weapon Rend, and naturally Shield Master would be the feats I'd consider to take first. Greater TWF is getting somewhat useless, especially if you use your shield as the primary weapon.

You could even argue that double slice wasn't necessary either, but there is quite a lot of punch in that dagger (Pun most definately intended, so were you to sacrifice damage output a bit, you could select shield focus for that added protection.

And yet another high-end feat that could be waiting for you is Bashing Finish to really get the message across. Keen up you dagger.

In the end... even the fighter needs more feats ;)

Incidentally I made THIS guy a while back... You may recognize him :)

Edited for spelling/typo-thingie

[EWHM]

Double slice adds +3 to his shield damage, so it beat out weapon spec, which only adds 2. Shield bash per RAW must be done with his offhand. Unfortunately for Bob, you only get the TWF penalty reduction for a light weapon in your offhand, NOT in your primary hand :-<
Still, Beatdown Bob gets his CMB +2 (GWF on shield) +2 (weapon group close) +2 (magical bonus on the spikes) -2 (TWF offhand) +2 improved bullrush ---So CMB+6 on his bullrush which isn't too Shabby (CMB +21 with that trick at level 10, succeeding on a fire giant's CMD of 31 unbuffed on a 10+, with an enlarge or other buffs running, he'll do it more often by that, and he'll NEVER lose by 10+, which is a big consideration. Against less brutish enemies, he'll stick that shield slam more often.

[Gworeth]

So... If I understand this correctly, it wouldn't matter what weapon you held in your main if you used a heavy shield, the attack penalty would still be -4 for that weapon, right?

Seems kind of counter intuitive to me...

[EWHM]

Gworeth wrote:

So... If I understand this correctly, it wouldn't matter what weapon you held in your main if you used a heavy shield, the attack penalty would still be -4 for that weapon, right?

Seems kind of counter intuitive to me...

Yes, it kind of sucks, doesn't it. If you check improved shield bash, it specifies it must be done with the offhand. And TWF only cares about the weight of your offhand weapon, not your primary. Only reason why I went punch dagger on Beatdown Bob is to leverage his close weapon group across both weapons (that +1 additional to hit and damage vs picking, say, a longsword for an average +2 more damage is a winning proposition, the crits are a wash). Sadly, even after shield mastery if you go heavy shield, your primary will take -4, so it's probably not a good move regardless to go heavy shield. Paizo may need to adjust some of the rules here--for instance, giving the TWF penalty reduction for light weapons regardless of which weapon is a light weapon or allowing the shield to be the primary weapon. It's not like the sword/board/twf spec is super powerful anyway.

Also, the shield master feat REALLY needs to be clarified in the Core Rules Book and the PRD, complete with examples. From the way that it's written, one would think that it is intended to make a +3 shield, say, effectively a +3 weapon for shield bash but various threads including comments by developers indicate that this isn't the intent.
Weapon focus as applies to shields needs to explictly call out exactly what it works on, particularly as interacts with shield spikes. Shield spikes and bashing enchantments need to also be explicit regarding their stacking.

[Gworeth]

EWHM wrote:

Gworeth wrote:

So... If I understand this correctly, it wouldn't matter what weapon you held in your main if you used a heavy shield, the attack penalty would still be -4 for that weapon, right?

Seems kind of counter intuitive to me...

Yes, it kind of sucks, doesn't it. If you check improved shield bash, it specifies it must be done with the offhand. And TWF only cares about the weight of your offhand weapon, not your primary. Only reason why I went punch dagger on Beatdown Bob is to leverage his close weapon group across both weapons (that +1 additional to hit and damage vs picking, say, a longsword for an average +2 more damage is a winning proposition, the crits are a wash). Sadly, even after shield mastery if you go heavy shield, your primary will take -4, so it's probably not a good move regardless to go heavy shield. Paizo may need to adjust some of the rules here--for instance, giving the TWF penalty reduction for light weapons regardless of which weapon is a light weapon or allowing the shield to be the primary weapon. It's not like the sword/board/twf spec is super powerful anyway.

Also, the shield master feat REALLY needs to be clarified in the Core Rules Book and the PRD, complete with examples. From the way that it's written, one would think that it is intended to make a +3 shield, say, effectively a +3 weapon for shield bash but various threads including comments by developers indicate that this isn't the intent.
Weapon focus as applies to shields needs to explictly call out exactly what it works on, particularly as interacts with shield spikes. Shield spikes and bashing enchantments need to also be explicit regarding their stacking.

Oh, I agree completely! Some odd things do happens as well when you shield bash the guy, well, you bull rush at the same time, right? But the result of the bull rush comes from your attack roll, not a bull rush attempt with CMB and all that jazz, so how do you factor in the bonuses from Impr. and greater Bull Rush? Add it afterwards to determine how far back you push the guy or what? That seems kind of clonky. And if you don't get to add the +4 fom your two feats, well, what the dang point of them in this set-up then? That's what I'm thinking...

I really like playing with this system and see what I can squeeze out it, that's fer sure. And finding these corner cases is fun.

[EWHM]

I've interpretted the 'free bull rush' to mean you get to immediately roll a CMB + whatever hit modifiers you had on the initial hit roll + your 2 from improved bullrush vs their CMD. If it gets to use the same hit roll as your successful hit (which is generally good enough to execute the rush also when you think about it), that'd be a nice bonus in my view. Any actual clarification by the developers on this?

[Gworeth]

EWHM wrote:

I've interpretted the 'free bull rush' to mean you get to immediately roll a CMB + whatever hit modifiers you had on the initial hit roll + your 2 from improved bullrush vs their CMD. If it gets to use the same hit roll as your successful hit (which is generally good enough to execute the rush also when you think about it), that'd be a nice bonus in my view. Any actual clarification by the developers on this?

I seemed to recall that I ran into this conundrum awhile ago... Here is the Thread where I ask about it.

[EWHM]

You're quite right. The shield-type warriors will rejoice, since a successful hit is more likely to be a successful bullrush than a separate roll. Thanks.

[Dire Mongoose]

I don't have my books handy and I've never personally tried to make a build remotely resembling this in PF, so please excuse me if this is a stupid question:

Is there any reason you couldn't use shields in both hands?

Granted, I'm sure you can't get a shield/AC bonus for both, but if that can be done it would apply the weapon focus feats to both hands.

[EWHM]

Dire Mongoose wrote:

I don't have my books handy and I've never personally tried to make a build remotely resembling this in PF, so please excuse me if this is a stupid question:

Is there any reason you couldn't use shields in both hands?

Granted, I'm sure you can't get a shield/AC bonus for both, but if that can be done it would apply the weapon focus feats to both hands.

Shield slam has to be executed with the offhand. Since you've only got one offhand, you can't dual wield shields. Not to mention it offends the aesthetic mightily :-)

Being able to use the same weapon specialization and weapon focus on both weapons is a big part of the mojo of the conventional blender TWF build.
From the PRD
Shield Bash Attacks: You can bash an opponent with a light shield, using it as an off-hand weapon. See “shield, light” on Table: Weapons for the damage dealt by a shield bash. Used this way, a light shield is a martial bludgeoning weapon. For the purpose of penalties on attack rolls, treat a light shield as a light weapon. If you use your shield as a weapon, you lose its AC bonus until your next turn. An enhancement bonus on a shield does not improve the effectiveness of a shield bash made with it, but the shield can be made into a magic weapon in its own right.

[Jason Nelson]

I'm somewhat surprised, in a thread about the "Defense Specialized Fighter," that he seems to be nothing of the sort. He's a TWF/shield basher. The only sense this fighter focuses on defense is the fact that he has a shield at all.

How would you rate the abilities of an actual "Defense Specialized Fighter"? How would you rank the importance of the ability to improve:

1. Straight AC
2. Touch AC
3. Critical negation
4. Hit negation
5. Providing defense to allies
6. Interfering with movement/attacks of enemies that are not directed at you
7+. Any other qualities of defense you want to include...

[Dire Mongoose]

EWHM wrote:

Shield slam has to be executed with the offhand. Since you've only got one offhand, you can't dual wield shields. Not to mention it offends the aesthetic mightily :-)

Being able to use the same weapon specialization and weapon focus on both weapons is a big part of the mojo of the conventional blender TWF build.
From the PRD
Shield Bash Attacks: You can bash an opponent with a light shield, using it as an off-hand weapon. See “shield, light” on Table: Weapons for the damage dealt by a shield bash. Used this way, a light shield is a martial bludgeoning weapon. For the purpose of penalties on attack rolls, treat a light shield as a light weapon. If you use your shield as a weapon, you lose its AC bonus until your next turn. An enhancement bonus on a shield does not improve the effectiveness of a shield bash made with it, but the shield can be made into a magic weapon in its own right.

Probably this is my inner weaselly rules lawyer coming to the fore, but I don't read this as precluding shield bashing with a shield in each hand -- you'd just take the attack penalties for both hands as if it were your offhand weapon. Which you handily have several feats to mitigate.

To me, the ludicrous/offensive aesthetic of it is a large part of its charm. I have no idea offhand (no pun intended) if it at all would work out mechanically better.

[EWHM]

Jason Nelson wrote:

I'm somewhat surprised, in a thread about the "Defense Specialized Fighter," that he seems to be nothing of the sort. He's a TWF/shield basher. The only sense this fighter focuses on defense is the fact that he has a shield at all.

How would you rate the abilities of an actual "Defense Specialized Fighter"? How would you rank the importance of the ability to improve:

1. Straight AC
2. Touch AC
3. Critical negation
4. Hit negation
5. Providing defense to allies
6. Interfering with movement/attacks of enemies that are not directed at you
7+. Any other qualities of defense you want to include...

James, this guy is AC30, making him 5 or 6 AC higher than typical fighters of his level. His greater bull rush and shield slam gives him a moderate amount of battlefield control. Characters his level can rarely afford critical negation or to have a high touch AC, although his touch AC is better than most fighters of his level (higher dex, +2 ring of protection). He's core only so providing defense to allies isn't an option. Hit negation is also infeasible given that he's made under the DPR olympics, although he can get displacement, blur and other such spells cast on him in actual practice. He also can't afford anything like arrow attracting on his shield at this point. What he IS though is a tank that's very unlikely to be one-rounded by an equivalent CR foe. In the offense trumps defense world of PF/3.x edition, that makes him 'defense spec'd'. But if you've got something more defensive on offer, please, add it to this thread. I'd love to see more exploration of the defensive possibilities of the various classes around the level 10 mark.

[Jason Nelson]

EWHM wrote:

Jason Nelson wrote:

I'm somewhat surprised, in a thread about the "Defense Specialized Fighter," that he seems to be nothing of the sort. He's a TWF/shield basher. The only sense this fighter focuses on defense is the fact that he has a shield at all.

How would you rate the abilities of an actual "Defense Specialized Fighter"? How would you rank the importance of the ability to improve:

1. Straight AC
2. Touch AC
3. Critical negation
4. Hit negation
5. Providing defense to allies
6. Interfering with movement/attacks of enemies that are not directed at you
7+. Any other qualities of defense you want to include...

James, this guy is AC30, making him 5 or 6 AC higher than typical fighters of his level. His greater bull rush and shield slam gives him a moderate amount of battlefield control. Characters his level can rarely afford critical negation or to have a high touch AC, although his touch AC is better than most fighters of his level (higher dex, +2 ring of protection). He's core only so providing defense to allies isn't an option. Hit negation is also infeasible given that he's made under the DPR olympics, although he can get displacement, blur and other such spells cast on him in actual practice. He also can't afford anything like arrow attracting on his shield at this point. What he IS though is a tank that's very unlikely to be one-rounded by an equivalent CR foe. In the offense trumps defense world of PF/3.x edition, that makes him 'defense spec'd'. But if you've got something more defensive on offer, please, add it to this thread. I'd love to see more exploration of the defensive possibilities of the various classes around the level 10 mark.

James? :)

I don't know the special rules of the DPR Olympics thread, so I don't know if "Core" includes the APG, but there is a metric ton of defensive feats and fighter class abilities in there, especially for shield users.

I have a deadline coming up so may not be able to make a build in the immediate future, but if APG stuff is on the available list for the DPR comparison, you might give it a look.

[Gworeth]

EWHM wrote:

Jason Nelson wrote:

I'm somewhat surprised, in a thread about the "Defense Specialized Fighter," that he seems to be nothing of the sort. He's a TWF/shield basher. The only sense this fighter focuses on defense is the fact that he has a shield at all.

How would you rate the abilities of an actual "Defense Specialized Fighter"? How would you rank the importance of the ability to improve:

1. Straight AC
2. Touch AC
3. Critical negation
4. Hit negation
5. Providing defense to allies
6. Interfering with movement/attacks of enemies that are not directed at you
7+. Any other qualities of defense you want to include...

Jason (fixed), this guy is AC30, making him 5 or 6 AC higher than typical fighters of his level. His greater bull rush and shield slam gives him a moderate amount of battlefield control. Characters his level can rarely afford critical negation or to have a high touch AC, although his touch AC is better than most fighters of his level (higher dex, +2 ring of protection). He's core only so providing defense to allies isn't an option. Hit negation is also infeasible given that he's made under the DPR olympics, although he can get displacement, blur and other such spells cast on him in actual practice. He also can't afford anything like arrow attracting on his shield at this point. What he IS though is a tank that's very unlikely to be one-rounded by an equivalent CR foe. In the offense trumps defense world of PF/3.x edition, that makes him 'defense spec'd'. But if you've got something more defensive on offer, please, add it to this thread. I'd love to see more exploration of the defensive possibilities of the various classes around the level 10 mark.

If you really wanted to go defensive, as in 'turtle up', you could take Shield Focus, greater shield focus, dodge, Shield specialitation (which gives you +2 AC vs Crit, and at 12th lvl greater shield specialization that gives an add. +2 to AC vs crit plus it lets you negate a crit 1/day, combat expertise if he's got the wits for it, and just pile on protective gear.... But that is an entirely different monster...

[EWHM]

Jason,
Sorry about that. It's what I get for multitasking while posting. Core doesn't include APG. In game, I permit APG only on a very limited basis--I've not yet rendered final verdict on the book as a whole. I'll patiently await your builds though.
Gworeth,
Yes, I know that you can pile shield focus, gsf, and dodge on, getting to an ac of 33 without too much trouble. Shield Spec is APG I presume?
Thing is you have to maintain an at least credible DPR to prevent your opponents from ignoring you. You don't have the tank 'aggro' abilities of a 4th edition fighter or an MMORPG tank, so you have to make do with actually being a threat, what amounts to collision detection (the space(s) you occupy), and your battlefield control abilities like shield slam and AoO.

I've been reviewing some of the feats in the APG and I'm debating them quite a bit internally. Combat patrol is one I'm seriously considering making a lesser version of available to fighters as a level ability. Some of the shielding others type feats I'm thinking along those lines as well. Basically if a feat isn't too fantastic (in the magical sense as well as in the raw power sense) and it's necessary for a class or archetype to do its job I don't think it ought to be an additional feat. Fixing a class by adding extra feats that it can take long after game design is a bad way to go IMO. New feats should be about new options and none should be 'must haves' or 'things you should have been able to do anyway, and we'll let you now but we'll charge you a feat tax for it'. Casters have a lot less of this problem---new spells, well, they just can just learn them (unless their sorcerors I guess)), which tends to increase their power with each new book in practice---grrr.

[Gworeth]

From the get go there are precious few feats that I would actually choose for a real game. But that is most likely because they haven't crawled under my skin yet as the PFRPG book feats have... There are a few interesting prospects though... ;)

[EWHM]

Gworeth wrote:

From the get go there are precious few feats that I would actually choose for a real game. But that is most likely because they haven't crawled under my skin yet as the PFRPG book feats have... There are a few interesting prospects though... ;)

Combat patrol lets you do reactionary movement over a small area. This is key if you want to simulate something like an American Football offensive line or reflect the fact than one person CAN pretty reliably 'get in the way' of another person (or sometimes persons) even when they're both in the open with no confining terrain. Being terribly easy to go around someone is something of an artifact of the way the initiative system works. So I'm inclined to try to reflect this, giving the characters who are logically (and from a game balance perspective, who wouldn't be unbalanced by doing so) able to play 'offensive line' some manuevers to do so that don't require feat taxes.

[Gworeth]

EWHM wrote:

Gworeth wrote:

From the get go there are precious few feats that I would actually choose for a real game. But that is most likely because they haven't crawled under my skin yet as the PFRPG book feats have... There are a few interesting prospects though... ;)

Combat patrol lets you do reactionary movement over a small area. This is key if you want to simulate something like an American Football offensive line or reflect the fact than one person CAN pretty reliably 'get in the way' of another person (or sometimes persons) even when they're both in the open with no confining terrain. Being terribly easy to go around someone is something of an artifact of the way the initiative system works. So I'm inclined to try to reflect this, giving the characters who are logically (and from a game balance perspective, who wouldn't be unbalanced by doing so) able to play 'offensive line' some manuevers to do so that don't require feat taxes.

So Combat patrol combined with Stand still and you have your tank/blocker that is pretty sure to be able to defend his wizard buddy :-)

I like fighters, did you know that :-) Ack! I GM too much ;-)

[EWHM]

So, I ran the numbers on another build---basically Falchion Fred with the falchion cut down to a scimitar, carrying a heavy shield which he rarely bothers to bash with. Scimitar DPR with 22 STR, 30% crit, crit focus, WF and GWF, weapon specialization, power attack---also iron will, dodge, step up, and shield focus, greater shield focus, toughness
Stat line S22, Dx14, C14, In10 W12 Ch8 HP 99
Full plate +2, heavy shield +2, scimitar +3, ring of protection +2, amulet of natural armor +1, handy haversack, masterwork composite longbow (+6 mod), belt of strength +4, cloak of resistance +2
DPR is 40.49, a bit better than Beatdown Bob. His AC will be good
10+12 (full plate+2) +4 (heavy shield +2) +2 DEX +2 Ring +1 amulet +1 dodge +2 Shield focus/greater shield focus
AC 34, quite impressive
He's tougher than Beatdown Bob, with 10 more hp and 4 better AC. His DPS is higher also, having about 68% of Falchion Fred's DPS vs Beatdown Bob's 56% or so of it. You can swap one of his feats for combat expertise if desired to make him an even better turtle. He doesn't have any significant battlefield control going on though. Give him a corridor to fight in and he's golden.

BTW, this answers the question of how much DPR a onehanded weapon costs you at level 10, assuming a nearly otherwise identical spec---about a third (32% in this case). So you cough up a third of your damage output capacity and you can get yourself about 6 more AC at this level.

[EWHM]

So Scimitar Sam is tanking a fire giant.
Fire giant has power attack +18/+13/+8
He hits on a 16/21/26 meaning 25%/5%/5% so he'll do 35% * 34.5 damage * 1.1 (for crits) to Scimitar Sam, or an average of 13.5, meaning he'll take a little over 7 rounds on average to be turned into hamburger by Mr Fire Giant.
If Mr Fire Giant doesn't power attack, he's 21/16/11, hitting on 13/18/23 40%/15%/5% with average damage of 25.5, so 60% * 25.5 * 1.1 or 16.83, meaning Mr Fire Giant now averages a little under 6 rounds to kill him---his AC is good enough that power attacking is no longer helpful. It should be noted that this fight is insanely swingy, because a power attack hits for 34.5, a power crit for 69, and Sam's only got 99 hit points. Still, Sam only needs a little under 4 rounds to slay the giant, so he'll probably win, most of the time.