Advice for a fighter / monk / barb

[Biab]

Alright, so i'm starting my combat maneuver martial fighter, and my plan is to do 6 levels in unbreakable fighter, 2 levels in martial artist monk and 2 levels in unchained barbarian.

The plan is to take these levels in barb and monk to net me evasion and uncanny dodge, plus the nice little bonus health that barbarian rage will allow me. Plus hey, free unarmed strike from the monk levels for when im disarmed in an emergency and a niiiiice boost to my saves.

I am probably going to take the two barbarian levels early to get that bonus health for the early game but I am generally wondering what to do with the other 10 levels of my build as I cannot for the life of me figure out what prestige class might work.

I am a human fighter, flavored to be a member of the Hongal coming to a foreign land to conquer it for his ancestors... as such I considered spending my last 10 levels into shaman but that seems like it could seriously stunt my martial capability.

STR 17
DEX 12
CON 15
INT 11
WIS 11
CHA 10

I'd really like some advice on when to start taking levels in my monk/barb and what else I could do with this build.

[Hendelbolaf]

Since barbarian and monk have an alignment conflict, you may want to talk with your DM on how to best work through that. You will need to take one or the other completely before you change alignment and then cannot progress in the previous class anymore.

[Biab]

Hendelbolaf wrote:

Since barbarian and monk have an alignment conflict, you may want to talk with your DM on how to best work through that. You will need to take one or the other completely before you change alignment and then cannot progress in the previous class anymore.

Martial artist monk doesnt require lawful alignment, my char is true neutral

[Bob Bob Bob]

So, as always, the standard question is "why?".

Why Unbreakable Fighter? It gives you nothing for combat maneuvers (and takes away the normal bonus of WT). If it's the Will save you could get a better one with AWT (Armed Bravery). It's it's Heroic Recovery you could just take the feat normally.

Two levels of Monk for Evasion isn't much help when you're multiclassing with two different classes with a bad Reflex save. Maybe if you have a nice Dex but you don't. And if a good Dex, why not URogue for Evasion and Finesse Training? Also, "Evasion can be used only if a monk is wearing light armor or no armor."

Two levels of Barbarian gives you 6+Con mod rounds of rage. With your 15 Con that's 8 rounds a day. 9 if you bump it up, but that's still not nearly enough. Unless you only fight one or two battles a day, you're going to run out. Oh, and this is literally the only thing I can find in your build that might boost your combat maneuvers. You need either more boosts or way more rounds of rage.

Warrior 20 does not a combat maneuver specialist make. You say combat maneuver Fighter but I don't see anything other than BAB and an incredibly tiny Rage pool that will actually help with that. A vanilla Fighter 10 can have bigger bonuses (Weapon Training) and better saves (Armed Bravery, Fighter's Reflexes). Ditto Barbarian 10, with Superstitious and Strength Surge (or Superstitious and Strength Stance). Even the Monk 10 will be just as good at maneuvers thanks to Maneuver Training. What does your specific combination do that a straight-classed <whatever> doesn't do just as well?

[Undeadsurgeon]

Have you considered brawler?

[Biab]

I feel - reading over the few replies I do have here- that I might have sorely misrepresented myself by vice of gratuitously over simplifying not only my build, but my intentions and most importantly the context. As Bobx3 has so aptly questioned, "why?" - and to that I answer 'doh I guess it was kind of stupid to try and slap the bare minimum of my hodgepodge build onto the forums and NOT expect people to try and tear it apart' because... well... it is a hodge podge of crap. Though hey! That is /vaguely/ the point and should everyone viewing here have the patience to read into it I will sort of have to explain the context and thought process into exactly why I am doing what I am doing. So- to start us off?

(On a related tangent, my default icon the forums have gifted me is oddly serendipitous to how I am feeling right now)

The Character
The characters name is Na Tai, a character concept'ed to make the idea of playing a barbarian interesting to me, because after working through other martial classes I have saved the rage boys for last- however faced with the task of forming up a barbarian character based around the classic Conan archetype I found myself utterly BORED with this idea. To save some time I will summarize the next few steps: I remembered that Conan the Barbarian was loosely based on Genghis Khan himself and decided that the most well known of the Mongol... would you call it a dynasty?... would be a fantastic place to start building up this character.

I took the Carefully Hidden and Military Training traits to give my martial class a +1 to will saves flat, a +2 to resisting divination effects and the military training to give my boy access to two exotic weapons. I picked the fauchard because the fauchard is an awesome weapon with trip and reach. Also the fauchard is a 1d10 polearm weapon that seems like it could be very useful for the flavor of Mongols (and Hongals) being primarily mounted combatants -also reach is dope- and the Bolas because the fauchard already also has Trip so why not give myself a ranged tripper as well.

Ontop of this I took a campaign trait that gave me another +1 to will,
(you will(ha) be seeing this as a theme with this build as we move forward, for reasons that will also be explained later) -and a drawback that gives a -2 to bluff and diplomacy

And since Na Tai, at this point in the build already has an affinity for trip, I will need to give him some combat maneuver feats to allow the guy to do this job as I plan to stick with this weapons build.

Now then, with the ground work for this mere concept out of the way, we can focus onto why oh why I would try to slap together such a assortment of weird mixes for what I am apparently trying to go for.

The Build

It is here that I must admit to an teensy-weensy lie from my first post when I called the character a combat maneuver fighter, that isnt actually true. The way I'd like the fighter to behave is as a 'flex' warrior who is adept at dealing with all kinds of physical challenges both in and out of battle, combat maneuvers will just help him do this. Every fighter I have ever played alongside has been consistently brought down by the dreaded Will Save (usually to a dominate person at higher levels once they can totally turn around and murder their allies) and for Na Tai? I really don't want that so the concept of buffing my saves is a big, big, big mark that I want to make sure I have cleaned up- even if that means I have to sacrifice other aspects in order to get there. Oh also I plan to keep light armor for the obvious reasons as we move forward- Which brings us to-

>>>>>Unbreakable Fighter

Now since I kind of have to commit to the trip combat maneuver (past the weapons its a really good one early game anyway) then in my mind, for this character I sort of have to go fighter in order to best facilitate the feat tax it'll take to get my Trip up to snuff, I am also going to focus on Grapple and Dirty trick and that should pretty much have me covered for CMB' stuff that I want to focus on for the character right? So by taking some levels in fighter I get a nice fat bonus to my fortitude and my BAB becomes damned respectable for a guy who is gonna be in the middle of the fray (as one should expect from a fighter) And looking at the archetypes, what do I see? But an archetype that boosts my will save? Well damn isn't that tantalizing? I'll take it! At first level it takes away my bonus combat feat from fighters, BUT it gives me endurance and diehard. I know, I know, these feats aren't necessarily all that great but it'll let me sleep in my armor to prevent night ambushes and me without my armor on and gives me a +4 to a bunch of circumstantial checks that might help eck-out the last bit of survival I will need in situations... holding breath while swimming.... forced marches... they might not come up but if they do I will be GOTDANG READY... and die hard? Well it'll let me keep fighting once I reach 0 HP as 'disabled' whiiiiiiich isnt super good.... but we'll get to that later!

Now the bonus to Will is nice, inarguable. And I personally will only ever call a 2 for 1 feat deal a good thing, but again there will be some nice combos to discuss once we get to the barbarian side of things. The hits to weapon and armor training is bad, but... I think I can actually get my GM to help me out here so considering I am only going to level 6 with unbreakable fighter I am only losing the first level of weapon training and little else. Which sucks. But doesnt destroy my already respectable damage and to-hit.

SAVES @ LEVEL 6 UNBREAKABLE FIGHTER
(These are considering my stats AS a level 1 character as they are right now with no magical items or benefits)

FORTITUDE: 5 [+2 CON] =7
REFLEX: 2 [+1 DEX] = 3
WILL: 2 [+2 Traits] [+2 Unbreakable] = 6

Next up!

>>>>>Martial Artist Monk

Now considering the fact that I am only going 2 levels into monk, the benefit of the Martial Artist is inarguable as it will let me straight up ignore the alignment restrictions of Monks- with the first change of this archetype coming in at level 3 it feels kind of like a get-out-of-jail free card.

For Monks though? +3 to every single one of my saves across 2 levels only? Benefit. Free unarmed strike in case I am without my weapon? Benefit. Stunning fist? Two free bonus feats? One of which I can take Improved grapple for? Maybe Dodge, or Deflect Arrows? I don't know about that second one, we'll see by the time I actually start taking those levels. And the reason I am dipping in the first place, Evasion as a fighter main. I get to make a reflex save and possibly negate AoE Damage? Are you kidding me? As a flex fighter this is an absolute in my mind to give me the ability to handle tough situations that a lot of fighters can... but usually by just tanking the damage.

And hey, fun little benefit, if I am ever trapped, caged or anything where I dont have my gear, these levels will help carry me with bonus to AC and damage.... of course I will have to see what I can do about pumping my wisdom but for now that point is kind of moot.

SAVES @ LEVEL 6 UNBREAKABLE FIGHTER + 2 MONK
(These are considering my stats AS a level 1 character as they are right now with no magical items or benefits)

FORTITUDE: 5+3 [+2 CON] =10
REFLEX: 2+3 [+1 DEX] = 5
WILL: 2+3 [+2 Traits] [+2 Unbreakable] = 9

>>>>>Unchained Barbarian

Oh Na tai, my son, what a wild ride we've taken to get you here all the way to a level 10 character with only 2 of those levels actually being in barbarian. But what do we get from 2 levels of Unchained Barb? Well since I plan to keep you in light armor, you get fast movement. So that's an extra 10ft of movement. Awesome. You get a Rage bonus, which we will get to in a little bit! But you also get a nice rage power just to top you off (I am taking auspicious mark) AND uncanny dodge which means it is going to be hard as balls to flank me and otherwise squirm through to hit me flat footed... which while wont be impossible... is another line of defense I am racking up alongside evasion to prepare this character for the later game where everything is looking to hit your Will saves and using AoE spells etc etc etc!

Now then onto how /unchained/ rage works! Unchained rage is much much simpler for the trade off of being a bit less powerful and a lot less risky! At second level I will be able to rage 3+Con(2)+2=7 rounds per day! Nice! But at a flat rate I will gain the following:
+2 on my to-hit
-2 to my AC
+2 to Damage
2 Temp HP per hit die (not barbarian level, straight up hit die which since i'd be level 10 by the end of this, is an extra +20 hp when I enter a rage.)

Now what I like to do with Barbarian Rage is take Combat expertise... which subtracts -1 to-hit and adds +1 AC with an additional 1 for high enough BAB, in my game the GM house rules that you can choose to take a lesser bonus from Combat Expertise meaning at level 10 I can take -2 to-hit and +2 to AC which if my math is correct would totally cancel out the barbarians rage to-hit and AC penalties and bonuses' and instead give me a pure +2 to damage and +20 health.

Which in a situation where my character suddenly drops below 0 health and I am left when an immediate action to act as a disabled character? I enter a rage and BOOM a +20 health back in my pool to give my character a chance to RUN THE F*CK AWAY- assuming I havent burned through those temporary HP of course.

SAVES @ LEVEL 6 UNBREAKABLE FIGHTER + 2 MONK + 2 UNCHAINED BARB

FORTITUDE: 5+3+3 [+2 CON] =13
REFLEX: 2+3+0 [+1 DEX] = 5
WILL: 2+3+0 [+2 Traits] [+2 Unbreakable] = 9

BAB= (+6/+1) + (+1) + (+2)

SO since I am building a flex fighter with barbarian flavor with a monks level of combat acumen and hugely great saves for characters of equal level- trading off AC and BAB for Evasion, Uncanny dodge and sustainability while still being able to pump out good damage with the benefits of two handed fighter + power attack... I donno... I feel like this answers the question as to why pretty thoroughly......... although super long windedly.

The question I am struggling with is what the heck to do next, I'd like to figure out how to bump my AC I suppose but I don't think that's what I can do with classes.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Biab wrote:

SO since I am building a flex fighter with barbarian flavor with a monks level of combat acumen and hugely great saves for characters of equal level- trading off AC and BAB for Evasion, Uncanny dodge and sustainability while still being able to pump out good damage with the benefits of two handed fighter + power attack... I donno... I feel like this answers the question as to why pretty thoroughly......... although super long windedly.

The question I am struggling with is what the heck to do next, I'd like to figure out how to bump my AC I suppose but I don't think that's what I can do with classes.

Vanilla Fighter 10:

Saves
Fort 7(base)+2(Con)=9
Reflex 3(base)+1(Dex)+2(Fighter's Reflexes)=6
Will 3(base)+0(Wis)+2(traits)+3(Armed Bravery)=8

A cheap magic item (in a rarely used slot, no less) can bump that Will save one more. The standard fighter item bumps the Reflex save two. Additionally, you'll have +2 att/dam all the time with your chosen weapon (which also bumps trip attempts by +2, since they use a weapon).

Barbarian 10:
Saves
Fort 7(base)+2(Con)+2(rage)+7(superstitious+FCB)=9/11(raging)/18(raging against spells, SLAs, SUs)
Reflex 3(base)+1(Dex)+7(superstitious+FCB)=4/11(raging against spells, SLAs, SUs)
Will 3(base)+0(Wis)+7(superstitious+FCB)=3/10(raging against spells, SLAs, SUs)

UBarb will lose 2 on the Fort save but gain 2 on the Will save and won't get a bonus against SUs (while raging). Additionally, you'll have enough Rage to actually use it regularly to boost your attack (and therefore combat maneuvers). And 4 more rage powers, many of which are very nice. Who doesn't want to daze someone with a Dirty Trick? Headband of Havoc fixes any issues with not being in rage when you get hit with a spell.

So no, those saves aren't that good. In return for frankensteining your saves this way the only real class feature you gain is Armor Training. You're making a Warrior 10 with good saves and some extra feats (from very specific, limited lists). If that's the goal then you should just keep dipping away to get a cheap boost to saves and any other low-level class features you want. I highly recommend not doing that, but since that seems to be what you're trying to do that's the best way to keep doing it.