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Two-handed Fighter or Weapon Master

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Hello there,

I need to build a 12th lvl fighter for a revisit to the classic module Die, Vecna, Die! and I can't decide whether to roll a two-handed fighter or a weapon master. My main concern is being locked on using only one specific weapon, thus ignoring any other magical two handed weapon I might find during the campaign. My ideal would be to make an optimized fighter that wouldn't be tied to a weapon, but I'm not sure if that would work.

So here are my two characters' feat selection and a small archetype special abilities overview.

12th Lvl Weapon Master

1st - Power Attack
1st - Cleave (retrain to Whirlwhind)
1st - Dodge
2nd - Mobility
3rd - Combat Expertise
4th - Spring Attack
5th - Iron Will
6th - Lunge
7th - Weapon Focus: Falchion
8th - Greater Weapon Focus: Falchion
9th - Improved Critical: Falchion
10th - Critical Focus
11th - Dazing Assault
12th - Sickening Critical

Class Features

2nd - Weapon Guard: +3 bonus to CMD vs. Disarm and sunder attempts while wielding his chosen weapon. (Also aplies to saves)
3rd - Weapon Training: +3 bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls with his chosen weapon.
5th - Reliable Strike: May reroll an attack roll, critical hit confirmation, miss chance check, or damage roll as an inmediate action. (2x day)
9th - Mirror Move: Gain his Weapon Training bonus as an insight bonus to Ac when attacked by his chosen weapon.

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12th Lvl Two-handed Fighter

1st - Power Attack
1st - Cleave
1st - Weapon Focus: Greatsword
2nd - Furious Focus
3rd - Step Up
4th - Weapon Specialization: Greatsword
5th - Great Cleave
6th - Vital Strike
7th - Disruptive
8th - Improved Critical: Greatsword
9th - Critical Focus
10th - Greater Weapon Focus: Greatsword
11th - Improved Vital Strike
12th - Dazing Assault OR Lunge

Class Features

2nd - Shattering Strike: +3 CMB and CMD on sunder attempts and damage rolls vs objects.
3rd - Overhand Chop: When making a single attack (with the attack action or a charge) with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his STR bonus to dmg rolls.
5th - Weapon Training: +2 attack rolls and damage rolls with a two-handed weapon.
7th - Backswing: When making a full attack action with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his STR bonus on damage rolls for all attacks after the first.
9th - Piledriver: As a standard action, make a single melee attack with a two-handed weapon. If the attack hits, he may make a bull rush or trip combat maneuver aganist the target of his attack as a free action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

thanks for your time, hoping for some advice on how to make a good and versatile two handed fighter.
Grand Lodge

Two-Handed Fighter.

Melee martial PCs often don't have the chance to full-attack, and the Two-handed Fighter will give you more bang for your buck.

If you are going Human, you can nab Martial Versatility, and Martial Mastery to spread out your options.

is it for PFS? If for PFS go with whatever you want. I never cared for re roll ability’s and feats, I find them rather weak, if they or not constant. So I would lean more toward two-handed fighter. If home brew go two-handed fighter and use a scythe, at level 19-20 you can one hit just about everything in the game and you are not going to miss with a -5 penalty on highest bab furious focus takes care of power attack penalty. I got one in my game he was weapon master before, he retrained because two-handed just does more damage, every hit is a critical. Weapon master is good if you think you are going to miss a lot which my player though was going to happen.

You can use Falchion with two-handed fighter and you going to out damage the weapon master easily because the critical range is the same.

edit* did not see the remake part of old adventure. I would go two weapon fighter either build is good. just swap the archtype.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

dump furious focus, you won't need it. The penalty is pretty small from power attack and you're practically guaranteed a hit on your first attack even with the penalty from power attack.

Fighters don't auto hit, at level 12 a CR 15 Ancient White Dragon is level appropriate and has AC 41(using shield). A level 12 fighter assuming a 15pt buy would have a str of 23. 16 to start, + 3 from levels, +4 from a belt. With a BAB of 12, +6 for strength, +2 weapon training, +2 weapon focus, +3 magic is +25. Power attack at level 12 is -4. So the fighter would need a 20 to hit the Dragon with +21 to hit AC 41. Using Furious Focus to make that +25 gives the fight 25% chance to hit instead of 5%. Add in a few buffs and the fighter may have chance backup by the rest of the party.

Furious focus is well worth it from my experience.

thanks all for the opinions. I really love Martial Versatility and Martial Mastery!

as for the 12th lvl feat pick, should I go dazing assault or lunge, or maybe even combat reflexes??

thanks again!
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
voska66 wrote:

Fighters don't auto hit, at level 12 a CR 15 Ancient White Dragon is level appropriate and has AC 41(using shield). A level 12 fighter assuming a 15pt buy would have a str of 23. 16 to start, + 3 from levels, +4 from a belt. With a BAB of 12, +6 for strength, +2 weapon training, +2 weapon focus, +3 magic is +25. Power attack at level 12 is -4. So the fighter would need a 20 to hit the Dragon with +21 to hit AC 41. Using Furious Focus to make that +25 gives the fight 25% chance to hit instead of 5%. Add in a few buffs and the fighter may have chance backup by the rest of the party.

Furious focus is well worth it from my experience.

A CR 15 monster should have an AC of 30 or only a 9 to hit, and that is a Hard encounter. Most likely you'll be fighting multiple CR 9-11 monsters ACs in the 23-25 range, meaning you're almost guaranteed to hit with your first attack. Obviously there are always exceptions, but it's usually best to go off the table for assumptions on what AC you'll need to hit at a certain CR.

You know, Weapon Master does sound like a cool archetype, and it is to a point, but the biggest problem is it's severely limited with weapons, etc. It's better off being used with a martial/exotic weapon that has a great critical threat range, or a martial/exotic weapon that has a phenomenal critical multiplier. Anything else and it just ain't that good. However, it is AMAZING if you NEVER want to miss an enemy. If you can build it around your party as well, you can definitely create a character that dishes out criticals and status damage etc etc with teamwork feats and all that jazz.
Two Handed Fighter is still my favorite out of fighter options, just because playing an Angelkin Aasimar with metallic wings and Flyby Attack is king to cutting a man in half at the waist.
Major_Blackhart wrote:

You know, Weapon Master does sound like a cool archetype, and it is to a point, but the biggest problem is it's severely limited with weapons, etc. It's better off being used with a martial/exotic weapon that has a great critical threat range, or a martial/exotic weapon that has a phenomenal critical multiplier. Anything else and it just ain't that good. However, it is AMAZING if you NEVER want to miss an enemy. If you can build it around your party as well, you can definitely create a character that dishes out criticals and status damage etc etc with teamwork feats and all that jazz.

Two Handed Fighter is still my favorite out of fighter options, just because playing an Angelkin Aasimar with metallic wings and Flyby Attack is king to cutting a man in half at the waist.

thanks for the input. Any comments to my feat selection for the two-handed fighter? considering of switching out cleave and great cleave for combat expertise and lunge

Grand Lodge

Horn of the Criosphinx is pretty cool.

Yeah, but it hasn't been ruled out yet with regards to an FAQ if it has any effect on the two handed fighter.

Lunge is a good feat to have, combat expertise not so much unless you're going for some sort of dirty trick/disarm or something type build. In which case I'd say don't do it. The Two handed Fighter's job is to bash things until they're dead. In truth, a THF doesn't really need feats to increases his damage output significantly save for a few. Best feats I can call to order are the eldritch heritage feats with the Orc Bloodline specifically. Those can actually increase the THF's damage output by 12 per swing, not bad all things considered.

This build will always do a crap ton of damage. You don't need a huge investment in feats to do any more. With regards to feats, you may want racial heritage if you can get it. Depending on what type of party you have, what type of enemies you'll be facing in the campaign, you may want either dwarf for the cleave feats and spellbreaker or half-orc for the awesomeness they have. Also, you may be able to swing it: Racial Heritage (half-orc) then go the nature's ally route to get an animal companion, then get the half-orc beast rider feat and take some monstrous dino. Then get spirited charge. You'll essentially do triple your strength damage on the charge while mounted. For a two handed fighter, that's INSANE! And Quadruple if you use a lance, plus triple with all other damage (like power attack).

People complain that the build isn't very versatile, but I really disagree with this. The Two handed fighter is SO versatile in fact because he already does a ton of damage without needing feats.
Take a look at one half-orc I did that was a bit of the party face with regards to traits and feats taken. This guy was AMAZING to use, very hard to compel to do anything, and overall a ton of fun. He certainly surprised various nobles with his linguistics as well as his ability to be diplomatic if need be.
He was pretty fast too thanks to Noble Scion and Improved Initiative, went first a few times and took someone out like that. This is one of the great benefits of the two handed fighter: I didn't specialize in any one weapon. I didn't need to.

Feats
Power Attack, Furious Focus, Endurance(Bonus), Diehard, Deathless Initiate, Critical Focus, Skill-Focus(Survival), Eldritch Heritage(Orc Bloodline), Improved Eldritch Heritage(Orc Bloodline), Greater Eldritch Heritage(Orc Bloodline), Noble Scion, Improved Initiative, Cosmopolitan, Additional Traits, Improved Sunder, Leadership, Sundering Strike, Iron Will, Heroic Recovery, Improved Iron Will, Lunge, Greater Sunder
Languages - Common, Orc, Hallit, Dwarven, Draconic, Giant
Traits
Reactionary(Combat), Influence(Social), Fate's Favored(Faith), Irritable Diplomat(Racial), Shaman's Apprentice, Sacred Tattoo, Skilled

Any comments? :P

12th Lvl Two-handed Fighter

1st - Power Attack
1st - Combat Reflexes OR Cleave
1st - Weapon Focus: Greatsword
2nd - Furious Focus
3rd - Step Up
4th - Weapon Specialization: Greatsword
5th - Lunge OR Great Cleave
6th - Vital Strike
7th - Disruptive
8th - Improved Critical: Greatsword
9th - Critical Focus
10th - Greater Weapon Focus: Greatsword
11th - Improved Vital Strike
12th - Dazing Assault

Class Features

2nd - Shattering Strike: +3 CMB and CMD on sunder attempts and damage rolls vs objects.
3rd - Overhand Chop: When making a single attack (with the attack action or a charge) with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his STR bonus to dmg rolls.
5th - Weapon Training: +2 attack rolls and damage rolls with a two-handed weapon.
7th - Backswing: When making a full attack action with a two-handed weapon, he adds double his STR bonus on damage rolls for all attacks after the first.
9th - Piledriver: As a standard action, make a single melee attack with a two-handed weapon. If the attack hits, he may make a bull rush or trip combat maneuver aganist the target of his attack as a free action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

Looks pretty solid so far, but I'd say get rid of the Vital Strike stuff. It doesn't work on strength or power attack, only damage rolls, so unless you're using a large Impacting bastard sword then grow a size yourself (your weapon becomes 4D8 at this point) I'd say it's a tad useless. Also, unless you're a barbarian I don't think you can use Vital strike as part of a charge.

you can use vital strike and overhand chop in the same attack action.

You can, but it always came off to me as a wasted feat because it only affects one thing.

oh and you can combine it with power attack too, all three, overhand chop, vital strike and power attack. For a couple of feats, sounds nice if you can't make a full attack.
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