Building a Mythic Brawler (Shield Champion) - Looking for feedback

[Vellis]

Hey folks, after the unceremonious death of my ranger in our Wrath of the Righteous campaign, I'm replacing him with a Shield Champion. Our party is a Sorceror, Oracle, and Rogue, so I'm the front line guy who needs to be able to take a hit. Here's what I have so far, I'm coming in at level 6 so the feat order doesn't matter up until then:

Stats (Roll 4d6)
Str: 13
Dex: 21
Con: 16
Int: 10
Wis: 14
Cha: 8

Feats
1: Unarmed Strike, Improved Shield Bash, Shield Focus
2: Dodge, Two-Weapon Fighting
3: Combat Expertise
4:
5: Weapon Finesse, Combat Reflexes
6:
7: Martial Versatility(Weapon Focus), Weapon Focus(Close Weapons)
8: Greater Shield Focus, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Pummeling Style
9: Improved Critical (Unarmed Strike)
10:
11: Shield Master, Shield Slam, Pin Down
12:
13: Pummeling Charge
14: Critical Focus
15: Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Spec (Unarmed Strike)
16:
17: Iron Will, Martial Mastery
18:
19: Greater Weapon Focus (Close Weapons)
20: Greater Weapon Spec (Close Weapons)

Guardian Path Abilities
1: Retributive Reach
2: Adamantine Mind
3: Impervious Body
4: Ever Ready
5: Legendary Light Shield (Legendary Fortification, Upgradable, Powerful)
6: Irrepressible Soul
7: Supreme Tracker
8: Sacrificial Shield/Cage Enemy
9: Legendary Shield (Rejuvenating, Unstoppable Strike, Unyielding/Powerful)
10: Impassable/Legendary Shield (Returning, Perfect Surge, Everlasting/Powerful)

Mythic Feats
1: Weapon Finesse
2: Mythic Paragon
3: Improved Unarmed Strike
4: Improved Critical
5: Critical Focus

Little explanation. I'm leaning hard on Weapon Finesse and Mythic Weapon Finesse so that I can dump everything in Dex to beef up my AC and damage at the same time, since Unarmed Strikes and Light Shields are both in the light weapon group. Pummeling style and the crit improving feats are self explanatory as my main damage source, and the Human Versatility feats will allow all my Fighter feats to apply to both Unarmed Strikes and Light Shields (as part of the close weapon group). Our Sorc is going heavy into crafting, so I'll have no trouble getting Stoneskin Gloves to let me skip getting the Mythic Titan Strike feat. I plan to use Martial Flexibility to pick up feats for Combat Maneuvers as needed, Shield throwing feats to attack into or out of melee as needed, and for Iron Will/Improved Iron Will when enchantments are a problem.

Things I'm looking for feedback on.

1) I was thinking hard about doing a heavy Trip/AoO build due to Retributive Reach and Ever Ready. With Improved Trip, Greater Trip, Vicious Stomp, and Ki Throw I could get two AoO on any creature that tries to approach me without reach, but since it's a demon heavy campaign we're going to be fighting lots of flying and huge monsters as the game goes on, so I went with the Fighter Focus/Spec feats instead. Good idea, bad idea?

2) In the same vein, I was also looking at the Snake Style feat chain, due to the last feat giving me AoOs and free attacks when I'm missed (which I intend to happen often). However, the feats leading into it are of very mediocre use, so I'm not sold on that idea. Also related, do I meet the requirements of having my hands free to pick up Counterpunch if I'm using a light shield? This feat line is also iffy because if monsters are getting creamed every time they try and hit me, they'll be more likely to go after our squishy Rogue instead.

3) For my Guardian path abilities, the universal monster rules state:

Quote:

A few very powerful monsters are vulnerable only to epic weapons—that is, magic weapons with at least a +6 enhancement bonus. Such creatures’ natural weapons are also treated as epic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Does this apply to PCs as well if I pick up Impervious Body? Meaning my fists beat all damage reduction as a +6 weapon?

4) I'm on the fence between going Sacrificial Shield with a Major Artifact shield to let me negate one hit every round for sure, or going with Cage Enemy/Impassable to give me more control (Seems a little redundant with the Fighter feat Pin Down?). I wouldn't mind working in Armor Master (Light) so that I can wear Elven Chain without a Dex max for more AC either.

5) Is Mythic Critical Focus a good idea? It will let my Pummeling Style auto confirm against non-mythic creatures, but it won't help me at all against mythic monsters. Might be better off picking up something that will help in the hard fights. Maybe Mythic Iron Will for more mind insurance?

Any other feedback I'm missing would be awesome. Thanks for taking the time to read my novel :)

[burkoJames]

Why Two weapon fighting? you can include shields in your flurry, so two weapon fighting seems to duplicate class features.

[shroudb]

Couple of things:

You can't pick up iron will with flexibility. Only combat feats.

Also you don't need twf feats:

Quote:

Starting at 2nd level, a brawler can make a brawler's flurry as a full-attack action. When doing so, a brawler has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat when attacking with any combination of unarmed strikes, weapons from the close fighter weapon group, or weapons with the "monk" special feature. She does not need to use two different weapons to use this ability.

You twf with your shield

Doing all attacks for both main and offhand with it

At full str bonus.

[Vellis]

I'm not actually getting two weapon fighting. That was just sloppy work on my part. Got the levels wrong for when Brawler gets it for free.

[Vellis]

One more question. If I make my shield a Legendary Upgradable item, is it considered to be +6 for the purposes of DR/Epic if I get it up to say, a +5 Bane weapon? Impervious body for damage reduction ignoring (and unarmed strikes in general) gets a lot less useful if it is.

[Babbling Bazzar]

Check out this thread about the furious weapon enchant. Near the end they talk about the bane enchantments too. It might require a house ruling from your gm though:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mssu?APG-Does-the-Furious-weapon-ability-count s

Impervious Body is okay, but it isn't great. I would recommend looking at Mythic Shield Focus. Your fists and shield only crit on nat 20s and even with Improved Crit, that gets you 19-20/x3 for 1 normal feat and 1 mythic feat, and another normal and a mythic feat for automatic confirms on non-mythic creatures and a passive +4 bonus to your confirmation rolls.

Another feat chain to look at is the Dodge/Mobility feat chains for things like Spring Attack.

I was going more for a tanky based brawler and just be the shield for my group but it looks like you are going for more damage and relying on the guardian path to keep you alive.

So far, I am at mythic tier 2 and level 7 in my current campaign and my gm has been scaling up encounters to be CR +2 for us to keep regular encounters somewhat difficult. The mythic fights have almost been deadly and we have a pretty solid group. I don't know how your gm is going to handle it, but just a warning, mythic is a huge power surge and if your gm doesn't know how to handle it, your group is going to start rolling through encounters with ease until the mythic fights.

[Vellis]

Babbling Bazzar wrote:

Check out this thread about the furious weapon enchant. Near the end they talk about the bane enchantments too. It might require a house ruling from your gm though:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mssu?APG-Does-the-Furious-weapon-ability-count s

Impervious Body is okay, but it isn't great. I would recommend looking at Mythic Shield Focus. Your fists and shield only crit on nat 20s and even with Improved Crit, that gets you 19-20/x3 for 1 normal feat and 1 mythic feat, and another normal and a mythic feat for automatic confirms on non-mythic creatures and a passive +4 bonus to your confirmation rolls.

Another feat chain to look at is the Dodge/Mobility feat chains for things like Spring Attack.

I was going more for a tanky based brawler and just be the shield for my group but it looks like you are going for more damage and relying on the guardian path to keep you alive.

So far, I am at mythic tier 2 and level 7 in my current campaign and my gm has been scaling up encounters to be CR +2 for us to keep regular encounters somewhat difficult. The mythic fights have almost been deadly and we have a pretty solid group. I don't know how your gm is going to handle it, but just a warning, mythic is a huge power surge and if your gm doesn't know how to handle it, your group is going to start rolling through encounters with ease until the mythic fights.

Thanks for the feedback. So am I correctly understanding that a +5 Bane Weapon would be able to beat DR/epic then? I'll probably drop Impervious Body and fight almost exclusively with the shield if that's the case. Heck, I could probably drop the human Martial Versatility feats to free up a few more feat spots for that matter.

The crit line is a little expensive, but you've also gotta keep in mind how it works with Pummeling Style. I only need one of my 3-7 rolls to crit for the entire attack to crit. If you're making 6 attacks with a 10% chance to crit, then the odds of NOT critting are .9^6 or roughly 53%.

I do think I'll drop mythic critical focus though if it's the mythic fights that have been putting you in danger. I thought about Mythic Shield Focus, but I'm not sure on it. My touch AC is already going to be very high since I'm planning to drop absolutely everything into Dex. Maybe pick up Mythic Iron Will for more mind insurance in its place. Same deal with Mobility/Spring Attack, my Dex/Acrobatics should be enough to keep me safe from AoOs.

As for our group, our Sorc is playing largely buffing and utility so far, the Oracle is new so I'm not entirely sure what his play style is going to be. Our Rogue is our main damage source, with my former sword and board ranger being supplemental. I see my Brawler being in a similar role, where I get in front of the big things and keep them there to set up flanks for the Rogue, while doing enough damage to make sure they consider me enough of a threat to not try and walk off to smash the Rogue. Though Retributive Reach + Pin Down + Cage Enemy should be more than enough to keep monsters from getting away once I'm in range.

We're level 6 and mythic 1. Our GM bumped the last encounter against a solo Nebasu up to CR+2 by adding four gargoyles, and it resulted in my Ranger dying from level drain, so it sounds like we're not quite as effective as you guys =p

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

[Babbling Bazzar]

I didn't think of the synerg of Pummeling Style and Improved Critical, which now makes a lot more sense.

My group is my Barbarian, a cleric that just replaced a fighter, a wildshaping focused druid, and a wizard with control and mythic fireballs. It shoul be a pretty solid group now that we have a cleric for more consistent healing instead of the fighter who did the most damage but the other group members were starting to catch up.

[Vellis]

Bah so much for Pummeling Style shield bashes. Foiled by the FAQ =p