Yeah, Iron Will a LOT sooner.
A shield build isn't a great TWF build until you get Shield mastery. Definitely isn't at low level, when TWF penalties will basically shaft you.
Use a Dwarven War Axe. It's an EWP without the feat penalty...use it!
You aren't going to be spec focused because you're going to be shield/twf'ing focused.
You also need a 19 Dex to grab ITWF, which you likely will not have at level 6.
Realize you are building a fighter that should be able to do three things:
1) Hit reliably and deal damage. At low levels, that's done by two handing a weapon. Dwarven War Axe is great for this. It's also what you want to do on a charge, for more damage.
2) Use a shield and tank. The shield ups your AC and lets you survive where you might not.
3) Against things with low AC, TWF and add the shield as a second weapon to add a flurry of damage.
Basically, you should go into every fight asking yourself, do you kill them fast, do you turtle, or do you flail away?
The penalty To Hit for TWF really cuts into your damage. Until you can obviate it with Shield Mastery, you don't need more then TWF. It's a feat cost that's not worth using.
Your normal tactics should be to charge into a fight, hit them hard with both hands on your axe, then fast equip a shield and take the counter hit. If they have low AC, maybe you bash with the Shield...but mostly you want to hit them and take them down reliably.
Remember, your Spec/Focus isn't going to carry between both weapons, nor is weapon training. You are always going to be better at one or the other. Your job as a shield fighter is to use the shield when its best to do so, and don't when it's not.
==Aelryinth
The feats look pretty good, though as a dwarf you do get proficiency with stuff like the dwarven waraxe automatically and thta d10 1 hand damage is pretty good. Personally though I prefer to take keen on my weapon instead of using improved critical. Toughness would also be a great feat, and as said before, shield focus is pretty helpful for the extra ac and taking iron will sooner will definitely be a big help.
Two weapon defense is a feat you should also take a look at for a later level, gives extra ac when you full round with dual weapons. Lightning reflex would be pretty usefl too, lots of nasty abilities that need reflex like dragon breath or high powered fireballs.
Ranger works well too. Can ignore Dex.
You need to take a look at the two weapon warrior archtype that allows you to make an attack with both weapons, in your case shield and weapon, when your stuck with a standard action. It saves you having to two hand as often.
As well as that as you level it gives you a static ac bonus as well as a to hit and damage bonus to both of your weapons insted of normal weapon training, that will really allow you to bring your shield in as a weapon much more often.
Your feat selection looks strong, but i'd probably swap out some of the focus and spec for other feats and use the tww static bonus to make up for it. Bull rush can be strong with improved and your aoo's, iron will earlier, combat reflexes, shield focus and spec to mitigate crits and maybe even missile/ray shield for ranged attacks, step up and lunge to make you a bigger threat etc.
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I've been pondering a similar build myself. Weapon Spec isn't all that critical, but the weapon focus feats help you hit, which is especially important with the shield attacks if you want to bull rush after the hit.
Speaking of which, the bull rush is going to be pretty situational: great for positioning enemies, but harder to effectively tank them unless you can move with the bull rush target -- which may leave other enemies no longer adjacent to you. Slam equals flexibility, but maybe not something you want to do every time you hit with your shield.
Greater Bull Rush would mean that your slam/bull rush push would give your buddies a free AoO on the bad guy. That's pretty useful!
The build I've been working on:
1) TWF; Improved Shield Bash
2) Weapon Focus (Shield)
3) Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
4) Iron Will
5) Improved Bull Rush; Weapon Training +1/+1 (Close Weapons)
6) Improved TWF
7) Shield Slam
8) Greater Bull Rush
9) Greater Weapon Focus: Shield; Weapon Training +2/+2 (Heavy Blades)
10) Improved Crit: Scimitar
11) Shield Master
12) Bashing Finish (free bash w/ main hand crit)
13) Two Weapon Rend; Weapon Training +3/+3 (Bows?)
14) Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
Looks like a cool build is there any additional flavor your looking to add beyond fights with sword and shield? I think the other posters pretty much covered that.
Still think you should do Ranger.
At 2nd level, you can grab Shield Slam, ignoring pre-reqs.
At 6th level, you can grab Shield Master, a full 5 levels before anyone else can.
Team work Presice Strike and Team Work Outflank
2 feats for +4 to hit and 1d6 damage work with both weapon and shield.
and free extra swing on critcal
vs 4 feat for +1 to hit and +2 damage
weapon focus scimar
weapon spcilization scimar
weapon focus (shield)
weapon scilization (shield)
That sounds like a great, idea the problem is that I have already started playing, and I am level 4.Still think you should do Ranger.
At 2nd level, you can grab Shield Slam, ignoring pre-reqs.
At 6th level, you can grab Shield Master, a full 5 levels before anyone else can.
D'oh.
So...start taking ranger levels? :)
I agree on ranger here as well, and make your main FE Giants. Sword and board rangers get early entry to all the cool feats and nice additional damage quickly. Also change out your racial hatred ability for a bonus to hit VS giants. Once you hit level 10 you can instant enemy and gain massive bonuses since the target creature is now considered a giant. (+FE+Racial bonuses to attack and damage, +4 racial and half FE bonus to Armor if you took favored defense).
The fact that the ranger is adding big time bonuses to his hits makes TWF worth it, and the feats allow him a lot of synergy. At level 11 I think your FE bonus is +8 if you dumped it all into Giant. Couple that with some giant bane and Instant Enemy becomes a marquis ability.
I wouldn't fall into the trap of trying to chase down the bullrush feat chain though, it's too many feats and it's too hard to do at higher levels.
Don't take rend, the damage is a little slim for the feats you invest in reaching it. You don't need weapon focuses or shield focus, just power attack will do fine for beefing up your damage. You don't need to TWF all the time, the shield is awesome in and of itself once you have a spike and the bashing enchantment on it.
GTWF might be reaching a little bit, depending on if you are going to use two shields or not. I need to stress again that your main weapon IS your shield. Getting more attacks with the thing in your other hand (unless it's also a large shield) will only be useful if it is a keen high threat weapon, to generate more shield bashes with Bashing Finish.
A large bashing spiked shield gets 2d6 damage, 3d6 when you have lead blades going. That is your main weapon, not your dwarven waraxe or your scimitar. In fact this guy should probably be using a light high threat range weapon in his non shield hand. By level 5 you suffer no penalties to your shield strikes for wielding two weapons, so at that point I'd dual wield shields personally (if the DM allows it). If not a kukri is ideal IMO.
Here's the build I've worked up for this:
Ranger1 Power Attack
Ranger2 (I Shield Bash)
Ranger3 Iron Will
Ranger4
Ranger5 TWF
Ranger6 (Shield Master)
Ranger7 ITWF
Ranger8
Ranger9 Open Feat
Ranger10
Ranger11 (Bashing Finish) Favored Defense
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GTWF is only worth going with if shield will be in your off hand so that it and ITWF give no penalty.
I actually like to use a weapon for primary hand and keep shield as offhand and this is to make full use of Shield Master. If I move and so can only get 1 attack I can declare which is being used and so if only one attack in a round I use shield for more damage. When full attacking I get 3 attacks with my weapon (+9,+4,-1 with TWF) and 3 attacks with my shield (+11 TWF,+11 ITWF,+11 GTWF). If using the shield in main hand then you lose the main benefit of Shield Master. Course my char is not that high so maybe I understand it wrong
GTWF is only worth going with if shield will be in your off hand so that it and ITWF give no penalty.
I actually like to use a weapon for primary hand and keep shield as offhand and this is to make full use of Shield Master. If I move and so can only get 1 attack I can declare which is being used and so if only one attack in a round I use shield for more damage. When full attacking I get 3 attacks with my weapon (+9,+4,-1 with TWF) and 3 attacks with my shield (+11 TWF,+11 ITWF,+11 GTWF). If using the shield in main hand then you lose the main benefit of Shield Master. Course my char is not that high so maybe I understand it wrong
You're mistaken, Shield Master only stipulates you're wielding a weapon in your OTHER hand. Not your main hand.
That's what lastoth was saying :-)
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3 attacks with my shield (+11 TWF,+11 ITWF,+11 GTWF)Master. Course my char is not that high so maybe I understand it wrong
Are you guys really interpreting Shield master is having no penalties at all? My read in the rule was that it was referring to TWF penalties, which would mean +11/+6/+1 in this case.
Good point on my prereqs, jacetms87. I'll figure that out and re-post when I have time. Bottom line for me is I am not looking for a super-high damage build with the shield master route: just decent damage with reasonable control and good defense. That's why I didn't put a high value on weapon spec, double slice and TW rend. You could go there, but you'd probably have to back off on some of the bull rush feats to make it work.
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You're mistaken, Shield Master only stipulates you're wielding a weapon in your OTHER hand. Not your main hand.GTWF is only worth going with if shield will be in your off hand so that it and ITWF give no penalty.
I actually like to use a weapon for primary hand and keep shield as offhand and this is to make full use of Shield Master. If I move and so can only get 1 attack I can declare which is being used and so if only one attack in a round I use shield for more damage. When full attacking I get 3 attacks with my weapon (+9,+4,-1 with TWF) and 3 attacks with my shield (+11 TWF,+11 ITWF,+11 GTWF). If using the shield in main hand then you lose the main benefit of Shield Master. Course my char is not that high so maybe I understand it wrong
It can be either hand, however ONLY the shield attacks are not effected by TWF penalties. ITWF and GTWF are extra attacks with your offhand are they not? And carry big penalties.
When TWF, your primary attacks and iterative attacks simply suffer -2 accross the board. So Shield Master will effect your attacks if using a shield in main hand, but essentially all it does is removed a -2 penalty from the attacks. Whereas in your offhand it removes the -2, -5 and -10 and so gives far greater benefit surely?So, using just BAB Shield Master with sword in primary, shield in secondary would be:
+9/+4/-1 (main hand sword), +11/+11/+11 (off hand Shield)
But if shield is main hand then:
+11/+6/+1 (as iterative attacks are a set BAB as opposed to a specific negative), +9/+4/-1 (sword)(or is it actually +9/+6/+1 as ITWF is -5 and presumable does not stack on top of the -2 for TWF?)
So, Sword works out to be the same, but shield is less of a bonus (unless iterative attacks do in fact work as if a negative is being applied?)
As you can see, TWF is not something I am very familiar with, so adding in SHield Master just further complicates things for my simple mind :)
That is not how shield master works, itwf and gtwf are not two weapon fighting penalties they are iterative off hand attacks at -5 and -10.
The two weapon fighting penalties are the ones described in the two weapon fighting section of the combat rules, -6/-10 basic, -4/-4 with twf or -2/-2 if the off hand weapon is also light. Itwf and gtwf are entirely described in their feats as having a penalty for the extra attack from the feat, not from two weapon fighting.
It occurs to me that the penalty for fighting with two regular size weapons might also be offset (-4 mainhand medium weapon and -0 offhand vs the usual penalty), since those are inherent to fighting with two weapons.
Mind you, I don't believe it's worth it to do this unless you can use two large shields.
However, I agree that iterative attacks still suffer the regular iterative reductions.
If you were in my group I would make fun of you for having a dwarf use a scimitar, assuming that is what was meant by scimar. Other then that it looks fine to me. I am sure there are other ways to build him, as stated prior, but you have to do what you want and what makes sense for the character's shtick. So rock it.
SGH
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That is not how shield master works, itwf and gtwf are not two weapon fighting penalties they are iterative off hand attacks at -5 and -10.
The two weapon fighting penalties are the ones described in the two weapon fighting section of the combat rules, -6/-10 basic, -4/-4 with twf or -2/-2 if the off hand weapon is also light. Itwf and gtwf are entirely described in their feats as having a penalty for the extra attack from the feat, not from two weapon fighting.
Told you I was clueless :)
May rethink my char then as I am now underwhelmed by Shield Master. Still, I may stick with it just probably won't bother with GTWF
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Again sounds great wish I had done it at this point, but I am a level 4 fighter, I will drop rend and double slice though, for most likly step up, or combat reflexes, I will drop weapon focus shield and spcilization shield, giving me 4 feats most likly step up, combat reflexes, bashing finish, and I am unsure of the last.
well since you haven't gotten weapon training yet chose the close weapon group and use a weapon from that list, that way you'll get +1 attack and damage with your weapon and shield
I know this is long dead but I see a few incorrect postings near the bottom that might confuse people about Shield Mastery.
Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (Combat)
You are skilled at fighting with two weapons.
Prerequisites: Dex 17, Two-Weapon Fighting, base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: In addition to the standard single extra attack you get with an off-hand weapon, you get a second attack with it, albeit at a –5 penalty.
Normal: Without this feat, you can only get a single extra attack with an off-hand weapon.
That is a Penalty on ITWF, it is not the same as the base iterative attack bonus. Since it is a penalty it is ignored via Shield Mastery. ALL penalties are ignored for the offhand shield bash.
You still have 1/2 Str bonus and 1/2 PA bonus, so it is not like this is THAT strong to be honest... Even if you get cheezie and then use a LARGE shield, with power attack, and are fighting defensively, you get a bunch of bonuses with no drawbacks on your offhand shield attacks, but you still are doing below average damage compared to the 2hander.
To be honest Shield Mastery just makes it so sword and board can keep up with the pack, but it will never surpass a proper str based 2hander build. Personally I think the BAB prereq should be 6 not 11! Why punish Sword and board to 5 additional levels of mediocrity IMO.