He starts out with +8 perception and has both survival and UMD for out-of-combat fun
He grabs the weapon focus tree for damage and Combat reflex related feats for battlefield control.
He grabs some purely anti-caster feats and other fun feats to fill him out.
What do you think of this build? Anything that I can do to make it better? Is it effective both in and out of combat?
Pin down and stand still are not triggered by the same actions.
Improved crit is just for added damage. I'm not going for crit focused build.
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Are you planning on having a lot of Dexterity? Reactive actions are good, but without reach it is generally not too hard to outmaneuver an opponent or just use Acrobatics to avoid the risk altogether. Combat Reflexes combined with Reach and a high Dex are pretty good, though.
Consider some of these Feats:
Dragon Style
Lunge
Quick Bullrush
Improved Bullrush
Vital Strike
Hammer the Gap
Cornugon Smash
Dazzling Display
Bloody Assault
Also, a lot of the power form UMD comes from getting items that you need to buff yourself: Wands of Enlarge, Shield, etc. So I think that choice merits more than just "Out of combat fun".
I like Dazing Assault because it is effective against anything with a low Fort save, usually jerks like Casters or DPS.
Step Up is okay, not my favorite. Reactive moving is pretty cool, though.
Disruptive>SpellBreaker>Teleport Tactician is a very expensive chain for fairly marginal opportunities to use them. You don't have a lot of the mobility feats for combat movement so it is unlikely the enemy spell casters are going to be within your 5' reach(10' if you enlarge).
Good luck on your build and have fun!
@Errant Pursuit
I should replace the Disruptive chain. I get them so late because I don't really like them. Maybe I'll work down the step up chain. Dex is an important stat for fighters if they want to make use of their armor training.
@Thomas Long 175
A wand or permanent protection from evil should prevent the party wiping mind control. Worth investing in if there are mind controlling enemies.
Well that is what I am looking for. Weaknesses.
*Shameless bump*
Well as long as the enemy isn't true neutral, i can buy a wand for them.
I am getting really tired of the current meme that Fighters, Monks and Rogues suck. They don't. All three classes as a blast to play and are popular. Yes, for certain roles there can be better builds- so? And at the highest levels spellcasters rule- but few ever play up there.
OP, I like your build.
Looks like a wand of shield and iron will would both be good ideas. Pick up a cloak of resistance. I think you should revise your feat tree a little bit. Combat reflexes with step up is really good. Why are you picking up additional traits?? It seems like there are much better feats to get... What traits are you planning on getting?
Stand Still kind of seems like an odd one out... It doesn't seem to fit your build. It doesn't synergize well with the already synergistic step up and combat reflexes. Pin down already does this way better. Consider taking iron will.
If you do take stand still, I would strongly recommend you retraining it later.
Step up and strike is good, but following step is kind of bad; you won't get step up and strike until 19th level.. doesn't seem worth it to me.
Also, you should strongly consider what character this will be before implementing the build. It kind of bothers me when people think of their character as an afterthought. This a role-playing game; your character should be more than just numbers. IMHO.
Still seems like a good build though. I like the idea behind it.
I'm assuming the DM didn't hand out two traits to everyone. Additional traits yields me a plus 4 to perception and UMD
Pin Down works on 5ft steps and withdraw actions. Stand still works on movement that generates AOOs. They cover different actions.
I'm assuming the DM didn't hand out two traits to everyone. Additional traits yields me a plus 4 to perception and UMD
Pin Down works on 5ft steps and withdraw actions. Stand still works on movement that generates AOOs. They cover different actions.
Ok.
Step up and strike is good, but following step is kind of bad; you won't get step up and strike until 19th level.. doesn't seem worth it to me.
What about this?
I still think a wand of shield should be an absolute must for this character...
I haven't made an item progression. That's hard to plan.
They are not essential feats for me, that is why they come later. They are nice and improve upon an earlier trick that I learned. Basically they are just their to hold space (better than disruptive and spell-breaker). Trying to find feats that make a significant impact without being so good that I decide to grab them sooner is hard.
Antagonize is a fantastic feat. In you don't mind sinking some points into intimidate (which you can do over several levels and then take the feat later). Read up on it. It forces you to come into melee range and attack you. You can take advantage of feats like stand still and step up by forcing the casting to come into your threatened area. I think it would work well with your build.
That feat was great up until the once per day part.
Antagonize is a fantastic feat. In you don't mind sinking some points into intimidate (which you can do over several levels and then take the feat later). Read up on it. It forces you to come into melee range and attack you. You can take advantage of feats like stand still and step up by forcing the casting to come into your threatened area. I think it would work well with your build.
Antagonize was errata'd to no longer require the victim to melee attack you. Now it also permits them to ranged attack you, or target you with a spell, or include you in the area of effect of a spell, or sort of glower at you with disdain.
Antagonize was errata'd to no longer require the victim to melee attack you. Now it also permits them to ranged attack you, or target you with a spell, or include you in the area of effect of a spell, or sort of glower at you with disdain.Antagonize is a fantastic feat. In you don't mind sinking some points into intimidate (which you can do over several levels and then take the feat later). Read up on it. It forces you to come into melee range and attack you. You can take advantage of feats like stand still and step up by forcing the casting to come into your threatened area. I think it would work well with your build.
I would still like it, if it was more than once per day.
It would be broken if you could spend your entire turn to (with sufficient skill investment and successful checks) sort of mildly inconvenience one foe twice in a row. Fighters being able to do things other than poke stuff with sharp sticks breaks my verisimilitude.
Fighters CAN do other things. Its just the most effective tactic happens to be hitting things with the pointy end.
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Two feats for UMB seems like a lot to me: it is useful, but not THAT useful, IMO. The feat to get it as a class skill and with a +1 is worthy: I would dump the skill focus.
I think you need to find a way to squeeze in Iron Will and (if you can squeeze the space) Improved Iron Will. You can't count on a magic affect to provide you with good Will save defense.
Weapon Specialization and Greater WS should be on the table as trade-ins for better feats, IMO. +4 damage is good, but two feats to get it is expensive. As a two-handed weapon fighter you are already getting solid bonuses from PA and Weapon Training. Damage is good, but you seem to be wanting versatility, which I think is a great idea, but costs feats.
Speaking of versatility in combat, I would suggest that you take a look at Cornugon Smash, Dazzling Display and Shatter Defenses. Scaring the snot out of your opponents is fun AND powerful. Salt with Intimidating Prowess, as needed. That's four feats, if you take them all, and quite the investment. Cornugon Smash by itself would be a nice solo option, but it doesn't get really fun until you stack all four (opponents you hit with PA are flat footed to you AND shaken.
Skill focus comes from the Human racial option Focused Study. I give up 1 feat for 3 skill focus feats.
I don't find a +2 and a reroll once perday much of a game changer for something like a save. By the time I have feats open, a plus 2 wouldn't do much anyways.
I don't consider the intimidate line of feats better than +4 to damage. Shatter defenses is nice, but the feats leading up to it are meh. Shaken and flat footed are not big penalties. Debuffing is the casters job anyways.
More troubling is the clog at low levels. The feat I would want is Shatter defenses. This would cause me to either move the Weapon Focus tree or the combat reflexes tree to later. Although Intimidate is a nice skill and may be more useful than survival.
*attempts thread cpr*
What are your ranged options? Yeah you can get wands to cover flight but sometimes it's simply a great idea to have ranged combat options.
I like to keep some room for deadly aim myself. If you take bows as your second weapon training choice you'll do well enough with simply those two and a decent magic bow.