Working on a Sword & Board fighter


Advice


After exhausting myself on a 2H fighter which I love, I've been considering a sword and shield fighter as an alternate. The idea is to build a tank of sorts, one capable of wading in and pacifying the bad guys while the rest of the group worries more about killing them. This is the build I've got so far:

Human Fighter (Weapon Master)
Attributes
Str 19 (+2)
Int 13
Wis 14
Dex 13
Con 14
Cha 7

Traits
Defender of the Society (+1 AC when wearing medium or heavy armor)
Freed Slave, Andoran Region (+1 Will saves)

Feats
1st – Weapon Focus: Scimitar, Power Attack, Cleave
2nd - Dodge
3rd – Mobility
4th – Combat Expertise
5th – Spring Attack
6th – Whirlwind Attack
7th – Lunge
8th - Greater Weapon Focus: Scimitar
9th - Improved Critical: Scimitar (retrain Cleave to Furious Focus)
10th – Critical Focus
11th – Shield Focus
12th – Dazing Assault
13th – Staggering Critical
14th – Weapon Specialization: Scimitar
15th – Greater Weapon Specialization: Scimitar
16th – Stunning Assault (retrain Dazing Assault to Greater Shield Focus)
17th – Stunning Critical
18th – Step Up
19th – Following Step
20th – Step Up and Strike (retrain Furious focus to Iron Will)

The concept would be to have the AC to wade into a group of baddies and use Whirlwind Attack + Lunge to be able to stack Dazing/Stunning Assault and a high chance of Stunning Criticals for mitigation while still dealing out my fair share of damage. I've never run this sort of fighter before so any suggestions would be welcome.

I tend to prefer the Weapon Master option for most Fighters. Its one of the most under-rated builds out there in my opinion - it really maximizes the effectiveness of criticals and grants multiple opportunities a day to re-roll attacks as well as earlier weapon training bonuses.


To me it looks like you pretty much just rebuilt your 2h fighter with a shield and scimitar instead of a 2h. For sword and shield builds, I find going to TWF route tends to be the most effective, and allows you to put out some serious hurt. Hitting multiple enemies at once is all well and good, but enemies are binary, either they're alive or they're dead. With a single 1-handed weapon, high crit or not, you're not likely to kill off enemies quickly enough, unless they're a bunch of weak enemies which wouldn't be much of a threat anyways. The best way to be a 'tank' is to do enough damage to be a threat, while having the defenses to take a hit better than the squishies.

Bump up your Dex a good bit. You may need to drop your strength and intelligence to do it. The mobility feats don't really fit the build, and Combat Expertise on its own is terrible. Take Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Shield Bash. For weapons, you can either go with a spiked light shield and a scimitar, or a spiked heavy shield and a short sword. Once you get Weapon Training, going spiked heavy shield with a punching dagger or cestus would let you use the same Weapon Training category of close between your shield bashes and your weapon. Take Power Attack, Shield Slam, Double Slice, Improved/Greater Bull Rush, Combat Reflexes, Step Up, Disruptive, Iron Will/Greater Iron Will, Shield Mastery. You can go the Critical Focus route, depending on weapon choice. If you choose not to, then Dodge, Shield Focus, Dazzling Display, Greater Two Weapon Fighting if you can qualify.

Silver Crusade

Take Stand Still and Step Up. Reduce the options of geting around you. Drop mobility, spring attack, Whirl Wind Attack, Dazing Assault. They will not do you much good. For this type of build.

Follow SunsetPsychosis advice and if your going the shield and weapon. and go the TWF.

Other options are.
Phalanx Soldier : Tower Shield and Halberd (I favor this one. This makes it easyer to keap your AC. And still have some good damage and specal ability with the weapon.)
Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Greater Trip.

Shielded Fighter : Heavy Shield And Falcata/Scimitar
Same as your curent build.

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