Alright, so I'm trying to figure out how to go about a Sword and Board build. What I have, is a Dwarf using a Dorn-Duergar and Klar. I'm looking at three potential build setups:
Dual Style Spell-less Ranger: Taking both Weapon/Shield, and TWF
- Gives me a full-build of TWF(Including Rend) and the Shield Feats.
Viking Fighter: Using bonus fighter feats up to six, then switch to Rage Powers
- Allows me to mix in some rage powers, but have to sacrifice either two weapon rend, or some of the other bullrush/shield feats.
Full-on Barb: Take the bare minimum feats to shield-bash and dual wield, screw the rest
20 PB for stats.
Anyone have experience, or mathhammer to weigh in on this. I'm having a hard time deciding.
Go Viking, with priority to the Improved Shield Bash feat tree until you take Shieldmaster. After these take the standard feats and rage powers that a CAGM barbarian gets (Dazing assault, Reckless abandon, Come and get me) and leave Doubleslice and Two-weapon Rend for the high lvls, when you also have much more Str. Superstition and Witch hunter are also nice rage powers that you should obtain at some point.
Can all of that actually fit in a build though? With a decent progression?
Traits: Defender of the Society, Glory of Old
1 Steel Soul, Power Attack
2 Weapon Focus: Dorn-Duergar
3 Two-Weapon Fighting
4 Chain-flail Master, retrain Weapon Focus for Improved Shieldbash
5 Weapon Focus: Dorn-Duergar
6 Shield Slam
7 Improved TWF
8 Rage Power: Superstition
9 Intimidating Prowess
10 Combat Reflexes
11 Shield Master
12 Dazing Assault, Retrain Weapon Focus for Pin Down
13 Extra Rage Power: Witch Hunter
14 Rage Power: Reckless Abandon
15 Extra Rage Power: Come and Get Me
16 Rage Power: Spell Sunder, retrain Pin Down for Improved Sunder
17 Extra Rage Power: Strenght Surge
18 Doubleslice
19 Two-Weapon Rend
20 Rage Power: Eater of magic
What do you think?
It looks pretty good, although I wasn't sure whether to go the superstitious route, or with the Beast Totem route. I know superstitious is good, but so is pounce. Thank you for your help though.
I did notice there wasn't any of the bullrush feats in there. I figured Improved Bullrush in to Raging Throw would be worth it. Wit the other bonuses, the added +'s to Bullrush itself might not be worthwhile, but the extra damage could end up pretty nice.
Brolthemighty wrote: It looks pretty good, although I wasn't sure whether to go the superstitious route, or with the Beast Totem route. I know superstitious is good, but so is pounce. Thank you for your help though.
I did notice there wasn't any of the bullrush feats in there. I figured Improved Bullrush in to Raging Throw would be worth it. Wit the other bonuses, the added +'s to Bullrush itself might not be worthwhile, but the extra damage could end up pretty nice.
I like Pounce too, but I find the other rage powers more useful in the long run. Between Pin Down and Dazing Assault you will have plenty of opportunities for full attacks. When Come and Get Me comes online it becoems even better.
In such a feat starved build like this, I find the bullrush feats too situational to be worth it. If you ever need a good bullrush, just use Strenght Surge with a Shield Slam.
Also, curious on how you're switching out the Weapon Focus at 5, I thought retraining only applied to the Bonus Feats.
Ranger every time. you get to neglect the DEX prereqs for TWF.
The ONLY example I can think of thats better... Go Sword and Board Ranger with a Kukri, and take advantage of the Bashing Finish feat, plus Shield Master. This allows for a well enchanted shield that you get a free attack with quite often. Make it a light shield, and put Agile enchantment on both shield and kukri... should be good to go.
Brolthemighty wrote: Also, curious on how you're switching out the Weapon Focus at 5, I thought retraining only applied to the Bonus Feats. I was not aware of that you are right. Take Intimidating Prowess at 5th lvl, Combat Reflexes at 9th and Weapon Focus at 10th and retrain it at 12th lvl.
Ranger would also be nice, I believe though that the above build has a pretty good progression that justifies the stat inconveniency. Having rage powers at your disposal like Superstition, Reckless Abandon and Come and Get Me can be a serious boost to your fighting capabilities.
Use the ultimate campaign retraining rules
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