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Conducting a thought experiment that is centered around making a Tengu who uses Crane Style* with the Stalwart feat chain who winds up with very high AC, HP, and nice DR, while using "broken" natural attacks to get 3 attacks at highest attack bonus. This might become a future PFS character, so I'd like to keep it PFS legal.
I'm thinking mixing Unbreakable Fighter and Ranger together for 5-8 levels, and then going either Stalwart Defender PrC or Living Monolith PrC for some in-class DR and other goodies, because those are some of the few PrC's that can be pretty good.
I've thought of making a DR character using Crane Style with Stalwart. Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) is a good class to use (with a single level dip into Unbreakable Fighter) because it's DR stacks with Stalwart, and for good synergy, I would try to find a way to gain immunity to fatigue (a single level dip into Lame Oracle can come in handy there), and pick up Bolstered Resilience.
If you're always fighting defensively, a blocking weapon helps, as it gives you a +1 Shield bonus to AC.
If you're a halfling, you could pick up the feat Cautious Fighter to add +2 to your dodge AC (though this might be overkill: with Crane feats and a couple ranks in acrobatics, you're already looking at a +4 dodge bonus, and Stalwart caps your DR at 5, but takes away the entire dodge bonus).
But overall, I just think a barbarian fits this so much better. Mostly, because Barbarians are kinda always pretty boss. If you got the Come and Get Me rage power, then now you can AoO every melee attack against you, before they swing. You're tank-tastic anyway, but if you wanted to, you could use Pushing Assault or Punishing Kick or Stunning Fist (my character idea was based off of a barbarian monk) to make it near impossible to land melee damage on this tank. Every melee attack gets interrupted with an attack that pushes the enemy away or stuns him, making his melee attack not able to hit you anymore. Even if he used his five foot step to get back in range, you just interrupt again. That tactic, plus lots of DR, plus Superstitious bonus to saves....I like it.
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@Mechanical Pear:Blocking Weapons are nice for this, but they don't provide as much defensively IMO as the Tengu Claw/Claw/Bite combo does offensively. As to barbarian, eh, I know that it is probably the best for a pure DR build, with Invulnerable Rager and all, but I don't like making the Invulnerable Rager "tank" when I'm trying to tank. Call it a personal thing, but I prefer playing "Tanks" who don't get hit very often as opposed to "tanks" that wind up with an AC of 18 around level 12 and just are hard to damage.
That monk thing though, that is quite interesting. I'll have to keep that in mind for the future.
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@Mechanical Pear:Blocking Weapons are nice for this, but they don't provide as much defensively IMO as the Tengu Claw/Claw/Bite combo does offensively. As to barbarian, eh, I know that it is probably the best for a pure DR build, with Invulnerable Rager and all, but I don't like making the Invulnerable Rager "tank" when I'm trying to tank. Call it a personal thing, but I prefer playing "Tanks" who don't get hit very often as opposed to "tanks" that wind up with an AC of 18* around level 12 and just are hard to damage.
That monk thing though, that is quite interesting. I'll have to keep that in mind for the future.
I can make an Invulnerable Rager with AC 32 or so casually at 12th (Mithral Full Plate +3, Ioun Stone, Jingasa, Ring of Protection +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Dex 16, Beast Totem). Higher if I put any effort in. Just for the record. It requires Heavy Armor Proficiency, but if you're dipping Unbreakable Fighter anyway...
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I can make an Invulnerable Rager with AC 32 or so casually at 12th (Mithral Full Plate +3, Ioun Stone, Jingasa, Ring of Protection +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Dex 16, Beast Totem). Higher if I put any effort in. Just for the record. It requires Heavy Armor Proficiency, but if you're dipping Unbreakable Fighter anyway...
Fair enough. For the record, I often see barbarians who have AC's of 18 while raging when all is said and done [CaGM+Reckless Abandon+Rage] and typically don't like imposing penalties to AC on tanks. And these barbarians to call themselves "Tanks" and succeed at it [sort of].
As to the build, I'm thinking going something like this:
Tengu Unbreakable Fighter2/Slayer[ACG]3
Str16
Dex14[12+2]
Con14[16-2]
Int10
Wis14[12+2]
Cha7
Feats:
1:Dodge
1:Endurance
1:Diehard
2:Crane Style
3:???
5:Stalwart
I can make an Invulnerable Rager with AC 32 or so casually at 12th (Mithral Full Plate +3, Ioun Stone, Jingasa, Ring of Protection +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Dex 16, Beast Totem). Higher if I put any effort in. Just for the record. It requires Heavy Armor Proficiency, but if you're dipping Unbreakable Fighter anyway...Fair enough. For the record, I often see barbarians who have AC's of 18 while raging when all is said and done [CaGM+Reckless Abandon+Rage] and typically don't like imposing penalties to AC on tanks. And these barbarians to call themselves "Tanks" and succeed at it [sort of].
As to the build, I'm thinking going something like this:
Tengu Unbreakable Fighter2/Slayer[ACG]3
Str16
Dex14[12+2]
Con14[16-2]
Int10
Wis14[12+2]
Cha7Feats:
1:Dodge
1:Endurance
1:Diehard
2:Crane Style
3:???
5:Stalwart
That almost looks like the build of my Phalanx Soldier (Fighter) that started going Stalwart Defender. I think he ended up with a 15-20 DR/- and a 36 AC around level 14 or so.
AC jumped up into the 40's with Combat Expertise