This might be a little long so I broke it down into parts, first being the build, the second being some thoughts and explanations, the third part being a breakdown of the feats per level. It was an interesting thought exercise and it came out better than I thought it would.
Built with 20 point buy
Bashy
Human Fighter (Two-Handed Fighter) 10
CG Medium Humanoid (human)
Init +1; Senses Perception +11
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Defense
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AC 24, touch 12, flat-footed 23 (+11 armor, +1 Dex, +1 natural, +1 deflection)
hp 94 (10d10+20)
Fort +10, Ref +5, Will +5; +4 vs. effects that cause you to lose your grip on weapons
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Offense
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Speed 20 ft.
Melee (L) +3 Light flail +23/+18 (2d6+19/x2)
Ranged Masterwork Composite longbow (Str +7) +15/+10 (1d8+10/x3)
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Statistics
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Str 24, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 7
Base Atk +10; CMB +17 (+20 Sundering, +21 Tripping); CMD 29 (33 vs. Disarm, 36 vs. Sunder, 31 vs. Trip)
Feats Cleave, Cleaving Finish, Combat Expertise +/-3, Devastating Strike, Felling Smash, Furious Focus, Greater Trip, Improved Trip, Power Attack -3/+6, Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (Light flail), Weapon Specialization (Light flail)
Gear -
Potion of enlarge person
+2 Full plate
+3 Light flail (Large)
Dagger
Masterwork Composite longbow (Str +7)
Amulet of natural armor +1
Belt of giant strength +4
Cloak of resistance +1
Gloves of dueling
Ring of protection +1
Total Wealth ~61300
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Special Abilities
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Backswing (Ex)
Overhand Chop (Ex)
Shattering Strike +3 (Ex)
Weapon Training (Bows) +3 (Ex)
Weapon Training (Flails) +4 (Ex)
I know that many don't like the concept and want to focus on the full attack but I wanted to see what such a build would look like fully fleshed out. I'll discuss some of the thoughts and concepts that were to go into this build.
I knew I would want the Two Handed Archetype, and specifically using the ability to combine Overhand Chop with Felling Smash and Vital Strike. Surprisingly there are alot of feats that go into this build, I didn't realize how many until I was done and I was still wishing for more.
Since I knew I would be tripping with the build (felling smash) I also wanted a trip weapon and there were two that stood out. The first one probably isn't surprising - a scythe. A pretty favorful and cool weapon, 2d4 damage and if you crit something it's probably dead. The other weapon I was looking at was the oversized (large) light flail which trades -2 to hit for +2 average damage over the scythe. So why the oversized flail? Well it has some advantages even over the heavy flail. If you fight with Enlarge Person (potion, friendly caster, ect) the scyth goes from 2d4 to 2d6 while the flail goes from 2d6 to 3d6. Another advantage from being enlarged are the Vital Strike + Devastating Strike feats. When all this is calculated becomes a differnce of 4d6+4 (scythe) vs 6d6+6 (oversized light flail) for a difference of 9 damage at the cost of 2 to hit. At the end of the day I think that the flail is a better choice if you expect to be using enlarge person alot, otherwise just use a scythe. From an optimization standpoint it's probably better to use a regular sized weapon until you at least pick up weapon Focus.
Combat Expertise is usually a feat tax but it works pretty well with this build if you need to be more defensive. Since you tend to focus on a single powerful attack and you also have furious focus taking a few points away to get more AC isn't that bad. You can use Combat Expertise and Fighting Defensively and still hit relatively reliably if the situation calls for it.
You still get multiple attacks as a standard action. Whether it's through cleave, cleaving finish or felling smash+greater trip it's possible to make multiple attacks when moving. All of this means that the build pretty mobile and there are still decisions to be made. You also aren't quite one trick pony either. You can dish out alot of damage and can even take your iteratives if you want to and the class feature backswing makes that more than possible. You bring some battlefield control with trips. Some people hate being bound to the full attack and hopefully this alleviates some of that to those that don't like the playstyle. Note I'm not saying that it's the best or the highest DPR or whatever, simply that it looks viable and you won't be a deadweight to your group.
1 - Power Attack, Furious Focus, Cleave
2 - Cleaving Finish
3 - Weapon Focus
4 - Combat Expertise
5 - Improved Trip
6 - Felling Smash
7 - Greater Trip
8 - Vital Strike
9 - Devastating Strike
10 - Weapon Specialization - finally :)
I hope this build is enjoyed by some. I liked making it. I know that at very high levels iteratives will surpass everything but not every campaign gets that far. Please post thoughts, comments and suggestions :)
Very interesting. The "one big hit" melee combatant has a bunch of options out there, but they have trouble working together most of the time and as a result the archetype still struggles to keep up with the sheer damage of the full attack combatant.
This build looks very good though, kudos to you for putting it together.
Have you considered using a two handed reach/trip weapon like a halberd? The damage scales very competitively with the oversized flail, you avoid the -2 to hit (which also applies to your trip CMB), and best of all, when enlarged, you can move and attack someone without having them 5' and full attack you on their turn.
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Have you considered using a two handed reach/trip weapon like a halberd? The damage scales very competitively with the oversized flail, you avoid the -2 to hit (which also applies to your trip CMB), and best of all, when enlarged, you can move and attack someone without having them 5' and full attack you on their turn.
Halberd is not a reach weapon (since 2nd Ed I believe - I played like it was for sometime before it was pointed out).
I like the Horse Chopper (martial, x3) and Fauchard (exotic, 18-20) as reach & trip weapons.
If you specifically want to use standard actions, you could go for spring attack.
Here's a thought: Use the scythe and get an a cohort, seeing as you're stacked in feats, to take combat expertise > butterfly's sting. Give them 2 keen wakizashis (or just take improved critical) and make them a 2 weapon fighter. They will have 4 attacks, each with a 30% crit chance. They crit, pass the hit off to you, and you step in and finish them off with your scythe. You'll be popping off scythe crits every other round dealing 150+ damage no problem with vital strike and overhand chop. Talk about a one hit wonder ;) (pa-dum-tish)
Have you considered using a two handed reach/trip weapon like a halberd? The damage scales very competitively with the oversized flail, you avoid the -2 to hit (which also applies to your trip CMB), and best of all, when enlarged, you can move and attack someone without having them 5' and full attack you on their turn.
As mentioned the halberd isn't a reach weapon. I did take a look at the halberd and the heavy flail but I didn't see much improvement over the scythe and to be honest I'd use the heavy flail over the halberd. Of course you are free to take this and change it any way you see fit. There are several weapons with reach and there are various crit ranges.
Lets just take a look at some of the numbers. Assuming Vital Strike and Devastating Strike (all other modifiers should be equal).
Scythe (x4) - 4d4+4 (average 14)
Halberd(x3)/Heavy Flail (19-20 x2) - 2d10+2 (average 13)
Oversize Light Flail (x2) - 4d6 + 4 (average 18)
It does change a little if you get enlarged though.
Scythe - 4d6 + 4 (average 18)
Halberd/Heavy Flail - 4d8 + 4 (average 22)
Oversize Light - 6d6 + 6 (average 27)
Average damage listed is before criticals.
I was working on a "one big hit" build. See the thread here.
An interesting thread for sure, but I think the focus is slightly different. Rather than going for a single big roll my focus was to see just how much I could do in a single standard action. For example I could easilly see the following happen: Roll the Standard Action attack (Vital Strike+Overhand Chop+Felling Smash), roll for trip, roll for AoO, oh look he's dead - roll for a cleaving finish attack into a secondary target.
If you specifically want to use standard actions, you could go for spring attack.
Spring attack is a full round action, but I realise many DMs may house rule it otherwise.
Quick note: Two handed fighter archetype has weapon training (two handed melee weapon) only, so you don't get the weapon training (bows). Everything else looks good though.
Well damn, and I tried so hard to not make any mistakes :) . You are correct, for some reason I thought it applied to all 2 handed weapons and not just melee ones.
I like the build...
If you specifically want to use standard actions, you could go for spring attack.
uh... that's a full-round, brah...
i like the concept, it's an over-looked one, but it's nice side is that getting slowed/staggered/etc doesn't hurt you as much, and you can attack at full effect on surprise rounds. so even if it's less than somebody else's DPR who optimizes for full attacks, you getting surprise + 1st round > them getting surprise + 1st round. some other builds like to go for pounce, but pounce can easily be defeated if you can't charge (obstacles, difficult terrain).critique: you have 2h weapon training, so to-hit is not a problem, ditching furious focus, and maybe weapon focus/spec may be good to get some other feats in. if you plan on making lots of standard attacks, facing miss chance is going to be a problem for you... taking blind fight/imp blind fight could be very useful. i would consider some other defensive/utility feats as well.
I don't like the idea of ditching furious focus. Having it mitigate the attack penalty allows for combat expertise/fighting defensively to not be bad options. Combat Expertise is not a feat tax for this guy. You do make a good point about Blind-Fighting though and that wasn't something I thought of.
Other feats I'd consider - dodge + mobility to get more of the mobile fighter feel, toughness but I never really found room for the feat, I briefly considered getting Great Cleave and Improved Cleaving Finish but I think that would be overkill and that feats would be better spent. If you think you are going to be dealing with alot of casters then Step up and disruptive can be nice to have.
I had a small epiphany.
Instead of weapon focus/weapon specialization for feats you could get the feats feint/greater feint thus making your 'full attack' feint + Vital Strike/Felling Smash, added utility of making them easier to hit for your allies and make any sneak attackers you have in your party super happy.
Take a trait to make bluff an extra +4.