Hoplite308's page

Great guide. While my personal experience disagrees on a few points, I think you've done pretty freaking well here. That being said, I'm curious about your thoughts on Adhesive Spittle. It's a Level 1 Conjuration spell that acts like a Tanglefoot Bag. Great against single targets in my experience, but it didn't feature in the guide.

I've noticed a few boards and class guides, but I never quite found one that appreciated my particular style of Pure Fighter, so I thought I'd throw it up here to see what people think. The idea is to have a character that can walk into the middle of battle, laugh at the puny mortals attempting to hurt him, and then become a mighty engine of destruction.

First, the build. I'm assuming no magic or masterwork items, and HP is done max at 1st and average (rounded up) every level afterwards, and I'll only be showing the build after every fifth level instead of level by level. Also, I'm not making any assumptions about what GMs allow, except what I have to in order to showcase the build. I assume they allow two Traits (pretty standard), alternate Racial Traits, and are okay with a modest dump of a stat (personally I don't like dumping stats more than that anyway, but that's just me). I'm also assuming most books are allowed, and that this character hast be the Tank with some DPS vs groups, not full DPS vs one enemy. In addition, due to (in my experience) Pathfinder being a very AC-favoring system, I'll be assuming that the player puts their extra points in skills (Acrobatics, Perception, and Intimidate). I'm building a "God of War" (God of War needs to know how to move, see, and be scary), not a "God of Screw That One Particular Guy".

Race: Half-Orc
Traits: Auspicious Tattoo (Race), Fate's Favored (Faith)
Racial Traits: Intimidating, Sacred Tattoo, Fey Thoughts (Acrobatics, Perception), Smog Sight, Orc Blood
Class: Fighter (OG)

Abilities (20-point buy): 16(18), 14, 14, 10, 12, 8

Level 1: Feats: Dodge, Power Attack*
Damage: +5:2d6+6 | +4:2d6+9 (Greatsword, 19-20)
Defense: 6/4/4, HP 12, AC 19 (Breastplate)

Level 4 +1 Strength

Level 5: Weapon Training: Heavy Blades
Feats: Dodge, Power Attack*, Cleave*, Ironhide, Weapon
Focus (Greatsword)*, Great Cleave
Damage: +10:2d6+6 | +8:2d6+12 (Greatsword, 19-20)
Defense: 8/5/5, HP 44, AC 23 (Full Plate)

Level 7: Advanced Armor Training (Armor Specialization: Full Plate)

Level 8: +1 Strength

Level 9: Advanced Weapon Training (Armed Bravery)

Level 10: Feats: Dodge, Power Attack*, Cleave*, Ironhide, Weapon
Focus (Falchion)*, Great Cleave, Weapon
Specialization (Falchion)*, Improved Critical
(Falchion), Greater Weapon Focus (Falchion)*,
Critical Focus, Cleaving Finish*
Damage: +19/+14:2d4+10 | +16/+11:2d4+19 (Falchion, 15-20)
Defense: 11/7/10, HP 84, AC 25 (Full Plate)

Level 11: Armor Training

Level 12: +1 Strength

Level 13: Advanced Weapon Training (Defensive Weapon Training)

Level 15: Armor Training
Feats: Dodge, Power Attack, Cleave, Ironhide, Weapon
Focus (Falchion), Great Cleave, Weapon
Specialization (Falchion), Improved Critical
(Falchion), Greater Weapon Focus (Falchion),
Critical Focus, Cleaving Finish, Bleeding Critical,
Greater Weapon Specialization (Falchion),
Improved Cleaving Finish, Furious Focus, Dreadful
Carnage
Damage: +25/+20/+15:2d4+14 | +25/+16/+11:2d4+26 (Falchion,
15-20 + 2d6 Bleed)
Defense: 13/9/12, HP 124, AC 27 (Full Plate)

Level 16: +1 Strength

Level 17: Advanced Weapon Training (Fighter's Reflexes)

Level 19: Armor Mastery (DR 5/-)

Level 20: +1 Strength
Weapon Mastery (Falchion)
I'm not going to list the feats again. At this point, I
have so many good feat paths to go down that it's hard to
pick one. However, AC (WITHOUT magic) should be ~30-32,
and things around you should just be dying quickly in
large numbers.
.

Justifications (aka the part where I stave off comments)

"Why not take the Two-Handed Fighter archetype?"
Armor training. Armor training. Armor Training. Yes, I assumed no magic (or special materials) when showcasing my build, but there's a particular item that this build likes to take advantage of: Belt of Physical Perfection +6. That's a +6 Strength, +6 Constitution, AND +6 Dexterity. AKA, +3 armor, if you have the max dex bonus for it. This build is meant to have a chance against spells, and with a base +6 max Reflex save, 14 Dex, Sacred Tattoo/Faith's Favored, and that item, you're rolling with a +13 before magic at level 20. +18 or more with magic (magic tattoos for additional types of bonuses are a thing). That's scary for wizards to realize that the full-plate Fighter has a half-decent chance against their spells, and I think the Will save is even higher. Also, I'm not the DPS, I'm the Tank. DPS does massive damage, Tank draws fire with damage on the side.

"But you're wearing full plate and only have two Armor Trainings. How does that work?"
Glad you asked. Because I'm wearing Mithril Full Plate, but couldn't assume that I'd find it in the build showcase. There's not a single Dex point left unaccounted for (2 Dex, 3 BoPP | 1 Armor Max, +2 Mithril, +2 Armor Training). To ballpark my final AC, it's about 10 base + 19 Armor + 4 Shield + 1 Dodge + 5 Deflect + 6 Natural + 5 Dex = 51. AKA: MC Hammer in Full Plate.

"Why not take Toughness early? Why not have more Con/HP?"
Pathfinder is so damage/AC focused that taking Toughness doesn't do much. With no magic at level 15, my damage potential is 102 if I full-round. Note that the AC of a d10 class with some Con is reasonably only slightly higher than that. My average damage (excluding crits) is 93/round. If I was facing someone with 180 HP, it'd still be a two-round fight. At level 15 using my assumptions, a Barbarian with 16 Con gets ~155 HP. Raging, he'll make it up to a 3-round fight, but not a 4-rounder. That's assuming I'm the only one fighting the Barbarian.

"Why are you keeping Cleave? I thought it sucked after Level 5."
Very big misconception. It only sucks after level 5 *if you're going for single-target DPS*. Cleave leads into Great Cleave, which translates to "about 8 attacks a round while surrounded", and more if Cleaving Finish and Improved Cleaving Finish go off. Wait... what's my motivation, again? Right, run into the middle of a huge group of enemies and start swinging, because I'm the "God of War". Draws attention away from the squishies? Check. Also... Dreadful Carnage kicks off in this situation. A lot.

"But what if I need to go ham on one guy?"
Re-check the build. I had to do so little to get that defense that I was able to keep massive offense as well. You're hitting often and hard, so don't worry, things will die. Fast. Faster if there's a Rogue (or other DPS class) in the general neighborhood.

Other weapon special abilities that you're forgetting: Keen and Speed. True, you can do Keen with Improved Critical and that option's stronger as a Fighter with ALL of the feats, but this is still an option, and a very good option. Speed is effectively a permanent Haste effect, but the best part of it. Saves the Wizard a spell, or just gives it to you if you don't have an arcane spellcaster or your caster's pretty blast-happy instead of buff-happy.

EDIT: Also, Speed as a dual-wielder. Flurry of Blows, Fighter Edition.

EDIT: Anarchic/Axiomatic/Holy/Unholy are also decent options. Stronger than the elemental versions, in my opinion, but they should be for being a +2 ability.

Note on Shield of Swings (since it hasn't been evaluated yet). This feat is an incredible defensive option levels 1-3 or so. In these early levels, half the damage of a greatsword is around the damage of a sword/board fighter, and given the low HP of most of the enemies you fight, this means that you're still 1-hit killing a lot of things, but now with an additional +20% miss chance (the mechanical result of +4 AC). I'd swap it out when you get Defensive Weapon Training, but it's still a good trick for early levels.

Point that sorely needs to be made on Cleave and Great Cleave. I'd take these on most fighters that I want to be able to fight mass hordes, and might even push Great Cleave until after level 10. Here's why.

The commonly-made point on Cleave is that it's useless after level 6 when you get two attacks. Those two attacks are at +6/+1 BAB. In a particular situation, two enemies next to each other (happens fairly often in mass combat or even Xv2 combat), your attacks are then +6/+6 in exchange for a -2 penalty to AC. Great trade in my opinion.

Great Cleave has similar advantages, but against mass amounts of enemies. Imagine you're playing a Level 12 Melee Fighter, with BAB of +12/+7/+2, and you're typically the one in the middle of combat. How often are you going to have three enemies adjacent to each other? Uh, very often if your GM likes mass combat. In this case, your BAB jumps to +12/+12/+12. Yes, only one attack each, but assuming they're weak enough for you to take them out in one hit each, that's a win for you.

My point is that in campaigns where your GM likes to put you in front of multiple monsters at once, or sends high-level PCs against armies, then these feats are situationally much, much better that a high BAB alone, and it's not exactly a rare situation. Don't be afraid to take these for damage-based fighters who constantly get swarmed.

EDIT: As a reminder, diagonal counts as "adjacent".

Here's a few things I've seen work in a Level 20 PVP tournament I ran/played in for a while, as well as a few other builds that I've either run or am considering running.

Human Wizard (Spellslinger) 1/Sorcerer (Crossblooded) [Orc/Arcane] 19
This thing hit me with a DC 50 Fort save with Disintegrate. I didn't run it, so I can't quote the exact formula, but if someone else can then please, do. Thankfully I had a Ring of Spell Turning active at the time.

Tiefling (small-sized) Paladin 4/Slayer 10/Alchemist (Vivisectionist) 2/Monk (Zen Archer) 4
This was my build. All stealth and archery with great sneak attacks, and potions for buffing.

Grapple-Focused Bloodrager/Dragon Disciple
I never saw the exact mechanics, but this soab almost got me.

Human Sorcerer [Sage] 20
I prefer the Sage bloodline over the Arcane bloodline. Arcane gives you a familiar, Sage gives you Int-based casting. That increases your skills for out of combat versatility, and with a single trait, you can still be good at diplomacy/bluff or intimidate (I picked intimidate). This one took primarily from Conjuration/Transmutation spells with a spattering of Evocation, Necromancy, Abjuration, and Divination spells.

Magus (Greensting Slayer) 7, Rogue 3, Arcane Trickster 10
Trapfinding, spellstriking sneak attacks whenever you feel like it, and a nice amount of spellcasting to back all of that up. Plays like a Magus, but with a lot more skill and strike as opposed to standing there and dancing. By the way, that's a full 10d6 sneak attack dice after you activate Greensting.

Human Fighter (Basic) 20
In terms of in-combat well-roundedness, I just can't beat the simplest of all characters. Maxed AC from Armor Training, Dex, Full Plate, Belt of Physical Perfection, Armor Specialization, Defensive Weapon Training... you get it. There's a lot of AC. The catch is that you actually don't sacrifice damage, maxing Strength the whole time, and your save base can be all but identical to a monk's with Armed Bravery and Fighter's Reflexes. Unless you're really cranking for the high AC with Combat Expertise, everything non-physical but Wisdom can be your dump stat.

Human Fighter (Titan Fighter) 16/Barbarian (Titan Mauler) 4
To-hit sucks unless your GM allows the Giant Blood campaign trait. But now think about the fact that you're dual-wielding Large Bastard Swords on a barbarian. When this was in a Mythic Campaign, and I (the sorcerer) cast Mythic Enlarge Person on this character, the GM created a new macro just for that called "Ohmygodwhathaveyoudone". This is the build I like to call "The Blender" for obvious reasons. The huge shift towards Fighter is because the Fighter archetype's reduction of the to-hit penalties scales much better. To be perfectly honest, I don't know how this would do in a normal campaign, but it at least deserves an honorable mention here.

Catfolk Rogue
At level 5 you're doing some slightly insane things with your claws. Each claw is 1d8 with two feats. Your sneak attack damage, with the Catfolk racial rogue talent Vicious Claws, is 3d8 per claw. With your second Rogue talent, Powerful Sneak amps up the sneak damage again to an honestly terrifying amount of 2d8+8d7+8 per round. Add Unchained and +1 Claw Blades, and this goes up AGAIN to 2d8+8d7+8+2+10. These numbers do not go away at higher levels, as you start using TWF to get even more attacks/round. Add in Claw Pounce, and at high levels I pity the GM who gave you a Sneak Attack Pounce. It just helps that Catfolk have racial items that keep helping this build.

In terms of synergistic power teams, however, here's my pick:

Sylph Bladebound Magus [Striker/Magic/Skill Monkey] (Dervish Dancer)
Aasimar (Angelkin) Paladin [Tank/Healer/Face] (THF style)
Catfolk/Half-Elf/Human Oracle (Life) [Healer/Tank/Face] (Heavy Armor)
Kitsune Sorcerer (Maestro) [Magic/Face] (Enchantress w/ Conjuration/Transmutation support, battlefield controller, DC-based caster)
Wayang Alchemist (Trapbreaker/Vivisectionist) [Range/Trapfinder/Skill Monkey/Crafter] (can tank, prefers a crossbow and range)

Not my team, with one exception (alchemist) that team belongs to a friend who's screen name is either Itazura No Kitsune or Keno Darkfire, depending on where you're looking.