As the title says, thoughts?
1HD : Improved Shield Bash
Fighter1 : Two Weapon Fighting
Fighter2 : Power Attack
3HD : Improved Bull Rush
Fighter4 : Greater Bull Rush
5HD : Weapon Focus (Battleaxe)
Fighter6 : Weapon Specialization (Battleaxe)
7HD : Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Fighter8 : Shield Slam
9HD : Weapon Focus (Heavy Steel Shield)
Fighter10 : Weapon Specialization (Heavy Steel Shield)
11HD : Shield Master
Fighter12 : Greater Two Weapon Fighting
13HD : Greater Weapon Focus (Battleaxe)
Fighter14 : Greater Weapon Specialization (Battleaxe)
15HD : Greater Weapon Focus (Heavy Steel Shield)
Fighter16 : Greater Weapon Specialization (Heavy Steel Shield)
17HD : Improved Initiative
Fighter18 : Iron Will
19HD : Great Will
Fighter20 : Double Slice
No offense to the OP, but this is just another example of why these boards sometimes make me cringe. It's not that you went to the trouble to map out a build, that's cool... but you called it a "Tank". More and more people are treating D&D like it's a video game, with maximization and "DPR" being of primary concern. I've seen many threads where people have actually gone to the trouble to figure out which class and build has the maximum damage per round. I'm talking about serious math... to figure out what the percentage of whatnot to hit and damage is on a two weapon fighting Rogue vs a Two handed weapon fighter or Paladin. I see these kinds of charts a lot on another forum... the WoW boards, which is fine for MMOs. Dear god, I hate seeing one of my favorite RPGs turned into a cheap MMO. Why is DPR so freaking important? Why not just play the game? Actually role-play rather than worry about whether you're dealing that extra 2 damage a round that you could be dealing. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't seem like obsession with DPR and using MMO terms wasn't status quo around here.
My apologies to the OP... I'm not intending to threadjack you. I hope you do get some good advice on your build. I just had to say something.
No offense to the OP, but this is just another example of why these boards sometimes make me cringe. It's not that you went to the trouble to map out a build, that's cool... but you called it a "Tank". More and more people are treating D&D like it's a video game, with maximization and "DPR" being of primary concern. I've seen many threads where people have actually gone to the trouble to figure out which class and build has the maximum damage per round. I'm talking about serious math... to figure out what the percentage of whatnot to hit and damage is on a two weapon fighting Rogue vs a Two handed weapon fighter or Paladin. I see these kinds of charts a lot on another forum... the WoW boards, which is fine for MMOs. Dear god, I hate seeing one of my favorite RPGs turned into a cheap MMO. Why is DPR so freaking important? Why not just play the game? Actually role-play rather than worry about whether you're dealing that extra 2 damage a round that you could be dealing. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't seem like obsession with DPR and using MMO terms wasn't status quo around here.
My apologies to the OP... I'm not intending to threadjack you. I hope you do get some good advice on your build. I just had to say something.
Some people are just min-maxers by nature. I was optimizing my characters for combat performance long before WoW came out. Some people enjoy getting the most out of their characters in a combat situation and things like dpr are a good way of representing that to the community.
I think that referring to a build as a 'tank' is fine. I actually welcome more defined roles for characters in 3.5/Pathfinder (it's one of 4E's best ideas IMO) as they encourage coherent, functional and effective parties, not just a bunch of PCs trying to do the most damage (maybe just my own experience).
I agree it can go too far the other way (I draw a line at saying 'lol' in real life), but not all of the ideas are bad.
Ranting at people when they use terminology you dislike and pointing out that a lot of people aren't playing the game "the right way" (in your opinion) is a great way to welcome people to this (somewhat struggling) hobby!
That said, your feat plan looks pretty cool, OP, but I would suggest trying to work in the Combat Reflexes --> Stand Still combination in there somewhere, for yummy movement controlling goodness.
As the title says, thoughts?
A few rules notes. . .
You can't take Greater Bull Rush until you have BAB +6, which is 6th level.
There is no "Great Will" feat, although I think you mean Improved Iron Will.
You can't take Improved Iron Will as a fighter bonus feat -- it's not on the list of fighter bonus feats.
You can't use a heavy steel shield with a battleaxe without taking some massive penalties. Both are one-handed weapons -- you take a -4 to all attacks if you do that. If you use a light weapon, you can reduce that penalty to -2. Since you can only use a shield to make off-hand attacks ("You can bash an opponent with a heavy shield, using it as an off-hand weapon"), you need to use a light shield or a spiked light shield.
You're taking 8 feats to buff 2 weapons - one of which you can only use when you make full attack actions. Double Slice can up your damage output considerably more than Greater Weapon Specialization (Shield).
To Michael Wadden: Looks like, since you're making a half orc, you might try to get a little more out of your racial choice. For example, since half-orcs have that bonus to intimidate, and you're taking not one but two weapon foci, maybe take a few things up the Dazzling Display tree. It would be fun and flavorful, and useful for dealing with large numbers of weak monsters. It also gives you something else to try when "I hit it with my axe and shield" isn't an option for whatever reason.
Intimidate is also useful outside of combat. If you're building this character for real play with a real party (not just for theory or arena fighting) you'll want to come up with some ways you can contribute to the party so you won't get bored with your character.
I agree with the other posters that you might want to opt for some other feats than some of the specializations. As mentioned, damage isn't the only thing you want to go for (plus, remember you're also getting bonuses to damage from your Weapon Training), and there are both combat and non-combat feats you might want to consider so you either are more flexible during combat, or again, have something to contribute when combat isn't going on.
Dorklord: I'm pretty sure my friends used the word "tank" for "guy in armor that kills things" long before World of Warcraft was a gleam in a programmer's eye. :) One of MY pet peeves about MMOs is how people keep crediting them with OUR tabletop gamer slang, when they clearly stole it from US. :) You're entitled to your opinion about pre-building characters, but please give credit where it's due. ;)
Meabolex pointed out some core flaws in the build.
You'll be stuck with light shield until you get Shield Master (which negates two-weapon penalties) but that means you need to postpone weapon specialization (heavy shield) until lvl 11 at the earliest.
You are devoting a huge percentage of feats on a secondary weapon that as Meabolex indicated is situationally useful (full attacks and bull rush attempts).
It's equipment intensive especially if you get shield spikes (magic armor, magic battle ax, magic shield, magic shield spikes) which means you've got a limited amount of room for other items.
IMHO Iron Will is something you need to get prior to level 18 for a fighter, especially one that is almost certainly got a mediocre wisdom score otherwise you are SoS bait.
Honestly as much as I like the sword and board TWF I think the Half-Orc TWF is doing himself a disservice not going with the Orc Double Axe build.
The free proficiency with the Double Axe, less investment in feats (you only have to get weapon focuses and specializations once), good base damage dice, less gear intensive (you only need magic armor and both blades enchanted) results in a better TWF.
The feats saved allow you to invest heavily into the dazzling display tree and the double slice/ two weapon rend tree. The cost savings on equipment mean that you can probably get the defending property on one blade and a decent amulet of natural armor to make up for the slightly crappier AC.
True, I agree its not the most 'devestating' build, but I'm a huge fan of racial diversity and in my group we have, a human bard, elf druid, elf rogue, half elf sorcerer, and myself, a half orc fighter. Now yes i realize the -4 penelty I take on twf with heavy steel shield, but as you continue to go up in levels it becomes much easier to take those penelities. Now I am just a big fan of using sword and shield, which is why I choose it, I'm personally a fan of a Really high AC so I had considered shield focus, I'm still iffy on the specialization feats to be honest, just seems like the thing to do as a fighter.
Now yes i realize the -4 penelty I take on twf with heavy steel shield, but as you continue to go up in levels it becomes much easier to take those penelities.
The ACs go up too -- it won't get any easier. You're much better off avoiding it at all costs.
You'll be stuck with light shield until you get Shield Master (which negates two-weapon penalties) but that means you need to postpone weapon specialization (heavy shield) until lvl 11 at the earliest.
Actually it doesn't negate the penalties for both weapons (shield and one-hander). You'd still take a -4 to your main hand weapon.
You do not suffer any penalties on attack rolls made with a shield while you are wielding another weapon.
I think they just want you to use a (spiked) light shield for bashing. . . unless their intent was to allow heavy shield bashes to be made as a primary weapon.
I'm thinking of adding Oversized two weapon fighting from Complete Adventurer to dumb down the penelities to -2/-2
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I'm thinking of adding Oversized two weapon fighting from Complete Adventurer to dumb down the penelities to -2/-2
Yes! if your gm isn't anti-"any feat that isn't pf" Oversized TWF is a must for the idea you're wanting to do. I really don't know why some form of this feat wasn't included in the PFRPG core rulebook. That and Double Slice as well as the Shield feats are great for what you're wanting to do. You may not be dishing out mass amounts of damage, but they are still a fun concept (just imagine action scenes from 300).
And if your GM isn't a stickler about +1 Bashing Large Spiked Steal Shields potentially doing 2d6 damage, go for that. I don't know if that argument was ever clarified on the boards but it did have people in an uproar. I have a player doing sword and shield with a paladin and I allowed it. It isn't game-breaking :P
Also, in my opinion, if you're still going for the doom-shield and bad-axe, don't worry about power attack. too many penalties for it to be effective with your build.
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Well Ardenup, I suppose in the long run power attack isn't a bad feat. If all 3.5 is available then two weapon pounce is pretty nice. However, since I either don't see or have missed what level the OP is starting at, I would suggest he not take power attack for this build until later levels when he's assured to hit. At the level he wants to take it, it's just a bad deal (unless he is in a situation where only one his is available, and then Vital Strike is a better feat given he's a TWFighter).
Also as Meabolex pointed out, Shield Master only negates the shields penalties, not the axe's. -4 isn't much to some people, but I prefer to not take more than one feat to negate a penalty.
Light Steel Shield
1HD : Improved Shield Bash
Fighter1 : Two Weapon Fighting
Fighter2 : Power Attack
3HD : Double Slice
Fighter4 : Weapon Focus (Battleaxe)
5HD : Weapon Specialization (Battleaxe)
Fighter6 : Shield Slam
7HD : Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Fighter8 : Greater Weapon Focus (Battleaxe)
9HD : Improved Critical (Battleaxe)
Fighter10 : Critical FocusHeavy Steel Shield
11HD : Shield Master
Fighter12 : Bleeding Critical
13HD : Greater Weapon Specialization (Battleaxe)
Fighter14 : Critical Mastery
15HD : Staggering Critical
Fighter16 : Greater Two Weapon Fighting
17HD : Stunning Critical
Fighter18 : ~
19HD : ~
Fighter20 : Double Slice
I would do something like this.
I would also be human and use my human feat to take Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword, which makes this build more doable, but my mind slipped about the half-orc part and I didn't want to re-do a lot of it.
To get the most use out of it, shield and axe should be using the same damage, i.e. a bladed shield, instead of a spiked shield.
Don't spend feats twice. If you want to have the Spec Tree apply to your shield, get the Adaptive Enhancement from Tome of 9 Swords. It does exactly that.
Your primary enhancement on the shield razors should be Defender. In any round you don't attack with it, you get +5 AC. Hard to beat!
A shield can be wielded as a primary weapon if so designated. Shields are nominally wielded in the off hand. There is no reason they can't be designated the primary weapon. heavy shields can even be two handed weapons if need be (Hey, Cap America does it all the time).
I'd advocate picking up IMproved Shield Bash, Shield Spec,. and Shield Ward. Don't lose shield AC when bashing, +1 Shield Ac, and all Shield AC is touch ac is pretty hard to pass up.
==Aelryinth
Well after a long talk with the other players in our group we have all decided that for this particular game we are just going to be using PF, and in the future we will convert things over.
Now I was looking at the NPC section of the book and noticed that for the shield and sword fighter it has Vital Strike down, so that got me thinking, I don't need to use that on my main hand (battleaxe) but I can use it on my off hand (Shield) correct? This way I can save myself a bunch of feats such as Improved/Greater two weapon fighting, I'm dumping the Weapon Specialization feats, and probably the weapon focus for the shield, i'll post a new and updated feat progression later today, but in the mean time can someone clerify if Vital Strike works that way? Thanks
Here are the tatics I'll be running with, since most of my party attack from a distance I want to create as much room possible between them and the enemey, So I use Power Attack with Vitial Strike and Bull Rush into another area code.
In a full attack I will get many attacks with both the shield and sword/axe and my AC should be high enough to avoid some of the most devestating attacks. I've still got some feat spots left open and I'm thinking of maybe an exotic weapon (Waraxe, Bastard Sword?) Thoughts?
1HD: Improved Shield Bash
1FB: Two Weapon Fighting
2FB: ????
3HD: ????
4FB: Power Attack
5HD: Improved Bull Rush
6FB: Greater Bull Rush
7HD: Shield Slam
8FB: Vitial Strike
9HD: Improved Two Weapon Fighting
10FB: Improved Initative
11HD: Shield Master
12FB: Improved Vitial Strike
13HD: ????
14FB: Greater Two Weapon Fighting
15HD: ????
16FB: Greater Vitial Strike
17HD: ????
18FB: Shield Focus
19HD: Greater Shield Focus
20FB: ????
I'm not sure how you think vital strike works, but I can clarify, hopefully. It's just a single attack with double the melee damage dice. Works great for move+standard attacks.
Stand Still is a bad trap feat. It takes an attack of opportunity and you make an unmodified combat maneuver check. If you succeed, they stop moving and can just full attack you or standard attack you. A better solution would be to just hit them with your shield for the attack of opportunity, get your free bull rush attempt, and try push them into walls or obstacles, or just away. Interrupting moves or charges is always awesome, and thanks to GBR, will make them provoke an attack of opportunity from the people around you, and if you hit them int oobjects, prone. If "most of the people in the party attack from range" I would also re-evaluate taking Greater Bull Rush since the true value is marching the bull-rush-ee through the melee cluster provoking from everyone you can.
Waiting until 15th level to take Weapon Focus isn't going to help you much. Neither is Intimidating Prowess at 10. The value of a +1 to attack or +2 to damage is very, very high at 1st level and very very low at 15th level.
I will agree with on the Weapon focus and the Stand still feat trap, but the reason I enjoy Vitial Strike is because if you only get 1 attack you can double/triple/quad your damage dice with it, now if I only use a shield bash I can move with my opponent, so dealing the extra damage with the shield i find is a pretty big advantage, unless I'm interpeteding the feat incorrectly.
I will agree with on the Weapon focus and the Stand still feat trap, but the reason I enjoy Vitial Strike is because if you only get 1 attack you can double/triple/quad your damage dice with it, now if I only use a shield bash I can move with my opponent, so dealing the extra damage with the shield i find is a pretty big advantage, unless I'm interpeteding the feat incorrectly.
Yeah, that is a good bonus. I'm surprised I hadn't thought of that before, to be honest, and it's a good combo. Just making sure we were on the same level.
I like where you are taking this guy Michael.
I'm not a big fan of the Shield Focus feats. Its unfortunate that they don't add to the benefits of Shield Master (which the designers have come out and said). Thus they are just giving a +1 to AC when using a shield. Dodge would be better, you don't lose it if your shield is put down or sundered, it applies to touch AC (but not flatfooted AC, but usually touch AC is the better one to have), and it adds to your CMD where the shield focus feats don't. The only time I could see taking shield focus would be if you either already have Dodge, or you can't qualify for dodge due to low dex.
Vital strike is nice and you have the feats for it. It of course works best with the larger weapons. Do you know if shield spikes will work with the bashing enchantment on a shield in your campaign? (There doesn't seem to be a clearcut answer on this and there have been some heated debates. Personally I think its doable.) If so, then a heavy spiked shield of bashing would do a base 2d6 damage, which makes vital strike very attractive for use with it.
Another unanswered question is whether the shield can be used as a primary weapon so that you can use a heavy shield in the main hand and a light weapon in the offhand to minimize the TWF penalties. Some say you can do this some can't, again there have been heated debates. But if you can do this and the shield spikes/bashing with a heavy shield, that would give a nice 2d6 base damage in the main hand and then the light weapon damage in the off hand, while only taking a -2 penalty to the off hand attacks.
(Or in theory, use a one hand weapon in the off hand taking a -4 to attacks with it. This works out the same on attack penalties as using a one handed weapon in the main hand and the heavy shield in the off hand with Shield Master. But you could take the 4th iterative attack with the shield, or the extra iterative attacks before you get Imp and Greater TWF.)
I guess what I'm getting at, is maybe make the shield your primary attack option. You get the free bull rush with it, and if you can stack bashing/shield spikes it will do great damage. And it will get the benefit of the better PA damage. And you can take Close weapons as your main Weapon Training ability to get the attack and damage the highest with the shield.
And taking Close Weapons with as your first Weapon Training, you could use a punching dagger or spiked gauntlet in your off hand to take advantage of that. Compare that with using a light weapon such as a handaxe and taking Axes as your second Weapon Training. The punching dagger gets a +1 to attacks does a +1 damage vs the handaxe. The average damage works out the same, as the spiked guanlet does a d4+1 vs. the handaxe's d6 (both average 3.5 damage), so you get the benefit of +1 to attacks this way. OR OR OR use just the shield and also armor spikes as your off hand weapon; armor spikes are also part of the Close weapon group and do a d6 damage and are considered a light weapon. That kind of seems like an orcish fighting style actually.
As for your other feats, blindfight is always nice, although the half-orc gets darkvision so its less likely to come up. Wep Focus/Spec is always nice too especially if you use it with the shield (the wep focus would help with the bull rush CMB while shield slamming..I think). I'm a big fan of Lunge and Great Cleave, although Great Cleave might be overkill with the TWF tree. And I can't tell if vital strike works with Great Cleave or not; would be pretty awesome if it did.
Ok I'm rambling. I'll stop now.
I was thinking Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack honestly, because I could run up use Vital Strike/Sheild Slam/Bull Rush, and continue to move with him or move back to protest the softer members and rinse and repeat. I'm still trying to use either a longsword or battleaxe, and i think weapon focuses and making it my frist weapon training should cancell our the negatives
Now we have a few house Rules in our game:
Weapon Finesse: Everyone is assumed to have if they are using a weapon that supports it, DM thinks that nobody should be penelized if they have a toon with high dex, this also applies to CMB, you just replace strength
Shield Focus: A talk with the DM as assured me that shield focus does stack with all currrent shield stats to attack with it
Here's my stats breakdown
Str: 17
Dex: 19
Con: 16
Int: 13
Wis: 16
Cha: 7
Well your house rules certainly make Shield Focus a much more desirable feat. Personally I think thats how it should work in order to make Shield Focus worthwhile.
One thing to consider is that you are looking at going in two wildly diverging directions with your feat selections. On the one hand you are looking at the TWF tree which is only useful when making full attacks. On the other you are looking at the Vital Strike tree plus Spring Attack tree, which cannot be used with the TWF tree. Theres nothing inherently wrong with this, but you should consider the drawback of spending so many feats in different directions such that many feats can never be used together. Perhaps instead of the Vital Strike tree taking things like Wep Spec and Improved Crit would work out to more overall damage in the long run, as those would work whether taking full attacks or single attacks.
Either way is fine, its just when I see this I start thinking about the TWFing Rogues with Spring Attack and it makes me feel sad....
Well I think the Vital Strike/Shield Bash/Bull Rush combo works because in the Shield Slam it says that after you've hit an opponent with your shield bash you can make a free bull rush attempt, which means that you've already done the damage and now your just following up on it. You just use what you rolled to hit as your Bull Rush attempt and add your bonuses from Improved and greater bull rush
I'm doing a slightly similar build too but mine will revolve around a Earthbreaker and a Klar
1st: Weapon Focus: Earthbreaker
Weapon Focus: Klar
Two Two Weapon Fighting
2nd: Thunder and Fang
3rd: Power Attack
4th: Weapon Specialization: Klar
5th: Improved Shield Bash
6th: Shield Slam
7th: Improved Bull Rush
8th: Greater Bull Rush
9th: Improved Two Weapon Fighting
10th: Double Slice
11th: Shield Master
12th: Two Weapon Rend
13th: Point Blank Shot
14th: Precise Shot
15th: Greater Weapon Specialization: Klar
16th: Penatrating Strike
17th: Greater Penetrating Strike
18th: Vital Strike
19th: Improved Vital Strike
20th: Greater Vital Strike