Ok... I think I hit a snag here. What if I want to play a dude that focus on building a solid defense with a full plate and tower shield that ends up adventuring?
1) The armor and shield are heavy, slow down considerably his speed and require a sturdier mount to carry the guy. Then again, warhorses in Pathfinder got a slight boost.
2) The armor and shield itself can impede him due to the weight, which might lead to medium or heavy encumbrance.
3) The whole set has a huge armor check penalty for a number of viable skills, in addition of a maximum dexterity bonus.
4) The armor and shield are only a portion of the kit, when you add weapons, items and such.
So... yeah... if I want to make a guy who's motto is "COME AT ME BRO!" while drawing his tower shield and bastard sword that ends up adventuring in random terrains, narrow passeways and other natural hazards, what do I do?
It seems like adventuring is made for PCs who prefer to travel light, hence my concern.
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A high-strength Tower-Shield Fighter is whats supposed to do it. Darkwood Tower Shield to reduce the ACP and weight, along with Mithral Full Plate and an 18 or so starting strength to help with carrying capacity. It takes a bit to pull off, but it works eventually.
That kind of build is SUPER common. I'm running a game right now for a group that has 2 AC tanks: an armored hulk barbarian and an armor master fighter. It doesn't matter how hard the bad guy hits if the bad guy has to role a 20 in order to do damage.
If your worried about ACP, I'd go straight fighter and get Hellknight armor.
Ok... I think I hit a snag here. What if I want to play a dude that focus on building a solid defense with a full plate and tower shield that ends up adventuring?
1) The armor and shield are heavy, slow down considerably his speed and require a sturdier mount to carry the guy. Then again, warhorses in Pathfinder got a slight boost.
2) The armor and shield itself can impede him due to the weight, which might lead to medium or heavy encumbrance.
3) The whole set has a huge armor check penalty for a number of viable skills, in addition of a maximum dexterity bonus.
4) The armor and shield are only a portion of the kit, when you add weapons, items and such.
So... yeah... if I want to make a guy who's motto is "COME AT ME BRO!" while drawing his tower shield and bastard sword that ends up adventuring in random terrains, narrow passeways and other natural hazards, what do I do?
It seems like adventuring is made for PCs who prefer to travel light, hence my concern.
Well, lets see, for one, when ye can afford it, Mithral is a good material for weight reductions as well as the reduction of the armor check penalty and icrease to your max dex to ac limit. If you play a straight fighter, they have class features that also reduce armor check penalties, and eventually removes the speed reduction. And if ye don't want to play a fighter, dwarves don't suffer the speed reduction, either from weight or armor.
Although, for a 'knight' build (at least what I consider a iconic one), I tend to go for a large shield, and take the shield focus, and shield bash line of feats, as I've never liked the attack penalty of the tower shield. Although I did have a cavalier with a resizing shield, but not sure of the shield enchant was from 3.5 or Pathfinder...
Oh, and medium/heavy armor slow the person wearing them, so encumbrance matters less because you're already taking a significant movement penalty.
tower shield specialist and armor master are pretty common. Phalanx soldier is pretty fun too.
Or dip archaeologist bard and that the fate's favored trait and lingering performance feat. All that together means that you can get a +2 to attack (balances the shield), damage, saves, and skills for most fights throughout the day. You do kind of have to have atleast neutral CHA (which this board seems to hate doing on melee characters)
Don't worry about the spellcasting you gain. The 1st level spell is not really worth reducing your equpiment for arcane spell failure, and cantrips can just be cast until they work. You do get the advantage of wand use and some extra skills (maybe just to get trained in a few trained-only you would never bother with otherwise)
The flavor of archaeologist bards just seem like it meshes a lot easier than most spell casters for a melee adventurer. You are not some student of esoteric knowledge, descendant of some magical creature, or servant of otherworldly powers. You are just the guy that practiced a couple parlor tricks to help take care of some of the basics (I know prestidigitation would help me a lot when getting up in the morning with cleaning, getting dressed, and preparing breakfast). You are the guy that happened to take an elective course in Wandology 101 during highschool (you learned how to use Rune Processor and you can type 90 runes per minute. Not bad).
Ok... let's take everything one by one:
1) Play as a dwarf: true, it cancels the speed reduction. The problems I see however is that it doesn't affect ACP or MDB... and that their land speed is slow.
2) Archetypes: true, but I'd need more thime to think about it, because more of these can't be combined. Doable, but need more preparation. Also, it only worked for a fighter. I didn't specify the class, but a cavalier, paladin, samurai, gun tank gunslinger and armored hulk barbarian could be envisioned as well. Still, good ideas for a fighter at least.
3) Lighter material: true, but let's not forget that mithral and darkwood aren't "as good as" adamantine, but yes, it is a good idea, especially mithral.
4) Multiclassing: Ugh, I'm a bit turned off by multiclassing due to the drawbacks...
Cleric or Oracle that focuses on casting seems to be the way to go. Your tricked our full plate and tower shield may slow you down, but hey you're a 9th level caster with stupid high AC.
4) Multiclassing: Ugh, I'm a bit turned off by multiclassing due to the drawbacks...?
Loss of one favored class point?
Delay of poor saves by one level?
More the fact that you're literally halting the progression of a class.
I'm just not that comfortable with multiclassing; PrCs are another thing though.
As for taking just one level... it feels a little... pointless.
More the fact that you're literally halting the progression of a class.Halting implies never going back.
As to the point, I guess it depends on what that first level gives you doesn't it?
Hmm? "Halting" means that you stop moving for a while, before moving again... no? Meh, whatever...
Like I said, I feel like multiclassing just for one single level feels like a waste. If it's just to get proficiencies, pretty sure there's a way around it.
As for the whole "halting" stuff, I feel like multiclassing shouldn't level only one class, but both classes slowly yet equally. For instance, I keep thinking that your typical Fighter 10/Wizard 10 shouldn't have the abilities of a Fighter 10 and a Wizard 10, but a Fighter 15 and a Wizard 15. The best ways to describe multiclassing is "being average at everything, but good at nothing" and "one-trick pony".
That's why I'm less inclined to multiclass, even to the point of looking for ways to avoid it even for PrCs. Ridiculous, but still...
More the fact that you're literally halting the progression of a class.Halting implies never going back.
As to the point, I guess it depends on what that first level gives you doesn't it?
There's also leveling speed to consider. If you're in a game where you might level every 4 months (like me unfortunately), even one level behind is a lot.
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Hmm? "Halting" means that you stop moving for a while, before moving again... no? Meh, whatever...
Like I said, I feel like multiclassing just for one single level feels like a waste. If it's just to get proficiencies, pretty sure there's a way around it.
I consider that delaying progression, not halting it.
And it's a personal choice. Delay some features in order to get others. Deciding to put off features of one class so you don't have to spend feats on proficiencies is not something everyone wants to do. But the benefits of getting free proficiencies on top of whatever else sounds a lot better than buying one proficiency (or two in the case of tower shields) with limited feats.
That kind of build is SUPER common. I'm running a game right now for a group that has 2 AC tanks: an armored hulk barbarian and an armor master fighter. It doesn't matter how hard the bad guy hits if the bad guy has to role a 20 in order to do damage.
If your worried about ACP, I'd go straight fighter and get Hellknight armor.
You know, there was a monk in our game that focuses on AC, and yeah it took a 20 to hit him. One day after a long break he came back, natural 20 with a scythe if I remember correctly (We auto-confirmed criticals on a 20). Surprisingly I don't think he died from that though.
Armored Hulk probably does it best. Don't take reckless abandon and he has some of the best AC in the game.
If the attack penalty can be negated thru an archetype thats the class i would choose, not even cosidering multiclass until the - 2 was negated.
If the attack penalty can be negated thru an archetype thats the class i would choose, not even cosidering multiclass until the - 2 was negated.
Really tower shields are just awful if you want to contribute to fights. The -2 penalty to attack rolls for +2 AC(A silly trade) isn't worth it's situational use as cover you'll almost never get to use.
Not if you look at it like combat expertise wothout spending a feat. At first level with shield focus you could easily have aridiculous ac. What would be the best possible attack bonus at lev 1 using it unbuffed( no rage etc.) ?
Not if you look at it like combat expertise wothout spending a feat. At first level with shield focus you could easily have aridiculous ac. What would be the best possible attack bonus at lev 1 using it unbuffed( no rage etc.) ?
Well for one you can already achieve ACs of 22ish or so without the Tower Shield which requires CR1 monsters to roll a 20 to hit anyways, so the extra AC for penalties is pointlessly just giving you a penalty.
Human Armored Hulk wearing Four-Mirror Armor and a Heavy Steel Shield who took Shield Focus and Dodge. 14 Dex
22 AC when not raging.
A Fighter can potentially have more AC with certain optimized options but is ultimately a poor expenditure when considering the future benefits of Rage and Rage Powers.
Yea, low point buy it might b ok at 1 but aftsr review it does actually look horribad.
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How about the option of carrying a tower shield but dropping it at the start of combat, perhaps to draw a two handed weapon. Use a variant of tower shield (historically accurate) that stands up on its own. You don't benefit much from that tower shield, but there's a good chance someone on your team will.
Human Armored Hulk wearing Four-Mirror Armor and a Heavy Steel Shield who took Shield Focus and Dodge. 14 Dex
22 AC when not raging.
You forgot the armored kilt for 23AC
The trouble that Tower Shield specialists run into in my experience, both as someone trying to make the character type work for myself and as someone whose DM'd for people trying the same, is how to manage to do much of anything aside from being an unhittable guy occupying a square. This is especially critical as you go on, since unhittable AC becomes less and less valuable as you level and enemy threats diversify. Even though the archetype is literally make for Tower Shield users, I'm not totally sold on Tower Shield Specialist for that reason; it's boss at making you even more unhittable, and gives you a nice hedge against enemy threat diversity by protecting you from touch spells (well, giving you +4 vs. touch spells), but its sole contribution to making you an offensive threat is that it gives you +2 to hit at level five, which puts you back at base BAB. That's actually not bad, but you're still in a hole offensively compared to anybody with a normal shield. Being the offensive equivalent of an NPC warrior using a one-handed weapon in one hand doesn't make you a credible threat. Counterintuitively, I think that Tower Shield users need to focus all of their resources on offense, for whatever particular class combination that means taking. You're already not meaningfully threatened by things that target AC; you want to be spreading out your goodness from there.
Note that tower shield characters (any character that sacrifices offensive power for AC, really) are quite good at level one or two, when enemies have typically very few HP to cut through and mostly target your AC, and individual choices you make won't change that. You're looking to plan for the long haul in terms of what your character will do in situations where having really high AC isn't enough on its own.
Look at the student of war prestige class. It gives you some really fun options especially if you want to use some intelligence based skills.
If I may way in, an effective alternative to the Tower Shield (at about double the weight) is indeed a mechanical analogue of the Pavise. In the Ultimate Combat section about close-range Siege Weapons the Gallery does everything a Pavise does and fits the mechanical limitations of the game.
Simply put, reduce the size from Large to Medium (Granting cover instead of Improved Cover) and the cost from 250gp to 125gp & it becomes a Crew 1 "siege weapon". Now I realize it's lacking a given weight, but you could think of it as an oversized Tower Shield. The movement speed of 15' at full crew (1 in this case) I believe adequately replicates the trouble of moving such an unwieldy device.
Conversely, treat the Tower Shield as a small Gallery. All the pictures depicting a hero using the Tower Shield as Cover have him kneeling behind it to gain that bonus, so following the mechanical rules for cover the size approximation seems to fit.