Tank Dwarf with shields


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My two handed fighter got crit and died. So I need to make a new character.
The character I decided on was a tank, since our party did not really have one to start with. I want to annoy my DM as much as possible with how tanky and unkillable my character will be. I'm already set on being a dwarf since its based off of my backstory as my original characters sibling as they are triplets.

My stats I rolled were 14, 15, 17, 11, 11, 10

I'd prefer to be a shielded fighter of some sort, tower shield user or something along those lines. I'm still really new to the game as the character who was killed was my first one and only made it to level 3.

So my top things I want to have in the build,

1) To have a really high AC
2) To have a really high health
3) To be able to aggro or take hits for the team
4) lastly if at all possible deal a helpful amount of damage.


If you take any levels in Paladin, you can use a Wand of Swift Girding, which will let you don any suit of armor with a Standard Action instead of the many rounds it usually takes. Since you are a Dwarf, you might as well wear Full Plate of some sort and pile on those add-ons like Jarring and stuff, and if you do that, Swift Girding is essential.

You can get Tremorsense with some Feat investment, so maybe get Tremorsense and Blindfighting, and get yourself an Evesmoking Bottle, then you have high AC and a 50% Miss Chance.

With levels in Fighter, you can get DR as an Advanced Armor ability. You might also get a Protector Familiar as an Eldritch Guardian Fighter. Your Familiar has all the Feats you have including any of those Teamwork Feats. Protector Famoliars give you (kind of) an additional +2AC for starters, then protect you with Shield Other at level 5. One of the Inquisitor Judgemenmts gives you Fast Healing. So there are ways you can layer your defenses.


"This isn't even my final form!"
Synthesist summoner. Once they get thru your eidolon's hit points they still have to take down the dwarf inside...

Minimecha
A fighter with a couple of dwarven war shields can have reasonable offense and with armored sacrifice and quillbreaker defense can transfer a fair bit of damage to their equipment rather than taking it to their own body.

Water Knight
A kinetic knight aquakineticist has excellent defence, enough damage with their kinetic blade to make enemies think twice, can heal damage in an emergency with kinetic healing and has a pretty good image IMO.


Lvl3 dwarf fighter with Shield Focus, Dodge, Iron Will, Toughness, a tower shield, full plate, and a dwarven waraxe. Str17, Dex14, Con17, Int11, Wis13, Cha8.
You'll have 36hp, AC25, Fort +6, Ref+3, Will +4 and an attack of +4 (1d10+3).

I'd work towards Power Attack, Improved Iron Will, Step-Up, maybe Lightning Reflexes. Eventually trade out the tower shield for a heavy shield and...possibly take up Two Weapon Fighting and Improved Shield Bash?


Also to add, my DM let me do a mountain dwarf with +2 to Con and Str with a -2 to Cha. (If that were to change where I should put my stats)

If there is a build to increase my tanking ability and reduce damage thats fine. I was planning on possibly being a wall for our half elf ranger who could just shoot over my head.


If you can shift that 15 from dex to str that would be great. Keep the 17 in con. When you get to 4th level if your str is odd, bump that. Otherwise bump either your dex or con to make them even. Repeat at level 8.

If you are going to be a dwarf, go heavy armor. Heaviest you can afford. Quixote's list of feats and equipment are very good.

I'd ignore the advice about Two Weapon Fighting and Improved shield Bash, you can't do either with a Tower Shield. Also fighting with a shield means you can't get the AC bonus without some special ability/feat that says you can both strike and get its AC bonus at the same time.

While its ok to ignore offense when you make this character, you shouldn't focus all of your feats into defense. Take weapon focus, take power attack, and get weapon specialization when you know what weapon you want to use. Or avoid weapon focus/specialization and use whatever one handed weapon your GM sends towards your party. But definitely take power attack.

Also heavily consider taking Improved Iron Will, because nobody likes it when the tank gets dominated.


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Why fight with one shield when you can fight with two!

Use two Dwarven War-Shields. 2 levels of Siegebreaker Fighter and rest as Brawler. Flurry shield bash, knock people around, and pick up handy but situational defensive feats with Martial Flexibility.


The vigilante can be pretty good with a dual shield build.

Quote:
Shield of Fury (Ex) (Ultimate Intrigue pg. 16): The vigilante gains Improved Shield Bash as a bonus feat. If he already has the Improved Shield Bash feat, he can immediately swap it for another feat for which he qualified at the level he chose Improved Shield Bash. In addition, if he is at least 6th level, he is treated as if he has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat as long as one of the weapons used is a shield. This allows him to take feats that require Two-Weapon Fighting as a prerequisite without meeting the Two-Weapon Fighting or Dexterity prerequisites, but these feats only apply while he is wielding a shield as one of his weapons (unless he takes Two-Weapon Fighting as normal, in which case this restriction is lifted).

The avenger specialization has multiple other good options for a build like this.


Meirril wrote:
I'd ignore the advice about Two Weapon Fighting and Improved shield Bash, you can't do either with a Tower Shield.
Quixote wrote:
Eventually trade out the tower shield for a heavy shield and...possibly take up Two Weapon Fighting and Improved Shield Bash?
Meirril wrote:
Also fighting with a shield means you can't get the AC bonus without some special ability/feat that says you can both strike and get its AC bonus at the same time.
improved shield bash wrote:
When you perform a shield bash, you may still apply the shield’s shield bonus to your AC.
Meirril wrote:
While its ok to ignore offense when you make this character, you shouldn't focus all of your feats into defense.
BluePikachu wrote:

So my top things I want to have in the build...

3) To be able to aggro or take hits for the team
4) lastly if at all possible deal a helpful amount of damage.


Since no one mentioned it, "grabbing aggro" isn't usually a thing in Pathfinder. You can be the first to head in and that will usually work against non-sentient enemies. For intelligent enemies, you just have to make yourself the most important or convenient person to attack.

A bounty hunter slayer built for dirty tricks can make himself a big enough nuisance to get targeted by enemies without being all about damage. And the shield combat style is great for a dual shield build.


If you want to take hits for the team and buff your allies' AC, a Sacred Shield Paladin with Bodyguard/In Harms Way/Combat Reflexes, Vanguard Style, Protective Faith, Benevolent Armor, and a Ring of Tactical Precision can be pretty efficient. I used that build in PFS to good effect.

Paladins have some pseudo-taunt spells, though the DCs can be rather low.


Whenever I think of "tanking" in this game, I think of disabling opponents' ability to even cause damage at all. For this, I'd highly recommend a Dirty Tricks build. Brawlers, Fighters, and Barbarians are all excellent choices for being Dirty Tricksters and still have respectable health/AC.

As soon as you have Improved Dirty Trick, which can happen as early as level 1-3, you can start Blinding people. Blinded opponents can barely do anything until they clear the Blind effect as a Move Action.

Greater Dirty Trick comes online at lvl 6-7, and now requires a Standard Action to clear your Blind.

Once you have the Quick Dirty Trick feat at level 6-7ish, you can substitute one of your attacks per round to Blind, and once you're level 11 and get Dirty Tricks Master, you can start worsening your conditions if they don't clear them, so now you can Sicken in round 1, and Nauseate them in round 2. Nauseated targets can only take move actions, and Dirty Tricks Masters require Standard actions to remove their debuffs, meaning any time you Nauseate someone, they're out of the fight.

This is one of the best ways to "tank" in this game because it severely reduces the enemy's action economy, because they're essentially "forced" to clear your effects or be worthless, meanwhile it only costs 1 of your attacks in a round to do it and you're still able to cause damage with your iterative attacks.


Another "tanky/debilitaty" style character to consider is Debuff-focused Magus. He might not have the HP you're looking for, but you can make up for that with a high Con.

Grand Lodge

Sounds like you want a pure fighter, but if you're willing to look at other classes, a Paladin with full plate, a sword and shield that takes the "Shield other" spell combined with the Fey Foundling and Extra Lay on Hands Feats will make it really difficult for a gm to kill anyone with hit point damage.

Whenever either you or your shielded buddy get hit, just LOH the damage away and watch your gm roll his eyes in annoyance.


A Paladin in Full Plate and a Shield and insanely high Charisma would be enough to make any DM somewhat furious. You're immune to most things anyway and your Saves and AC would be absolutely ridorkulous, especially when Smite Evil is active. And with a crazy high Cha, your LoH uses per day would be quite a bit. Get the Sanctuary Mercy, Greater Mercy and Fey Foundling feats, and prepare as many Shield Other spells as possible.


Ryze Kuja wrote:
A Paladin in Full Plate and a Shield and insanely high Charisma would be enough to make any DM somewhat furious. You're immune to most things anyway and your Saves and AC would be absolutely ridorkulous, especially when Smite Evil is active. And with a crazy high Cha, your LoH uses per day would be quite a bit. Get the Sanctuary Mercy, Greater Mercy and Fey Foundling feats, and prepare as many Shield Other spells as possible.

Except spells and attacks that target touch AC, and your reflex saves won't be amazing. The Create Pit line of spells are a decent way for a GM to make a paladin fall.

Triple entendre! *Flips table*

Grand Lodge

I wouldn't mind, and I would even smile at seeing the paladin Shield Other-ing the target and self-healing during the process. I know I won't be able to KO the target, but I can force the paladin to drain resources, possibly until the unbearable point is reached. So in theory, that protection setup sounds ideal but in practice, could become counter-productive as it is too obvious.

Otherwise concurring on attacking the paladin's weaknesses heh.


Quixote wrote:
Meirril wrote:
I'd ignore the advice about Two Weapon Fighting and Improved shield Bash, you can't do either with a Tower Shield.
Quixote wrote:
Eventually trade out the tower shield for a heavy shield and...possibly take up Two Weapon Fighting and Improved Shield Bash?
Meirril wrote:
Also fighting with a shield means you can't get the AC bonus without some special ability/feat that says you can both strike and get its AC bonus at the same time.
improved shield bash wrote:
When you perform a shield bash, you may still apply the shield’s shield bonus to your AC.
Meirril wrote:
While its ok to ignore offense when you make this character, you shouldn't focus all of your feats into defense.
BluePikachu wrote:

So my top things I want to have in the build...

3) To be able to aggro or take hits for the team
4) lastly if at all possible deal a helpful amount of damage.

So the trade off is lower your AC by 2 so you can off hand attack with a d4 shield, or have 2 more feats to spend on not TWFing with a shield? When the OPs stated goal is to have a high AC, I think the option with the higher AC and more options is a little more persuasive?


1. In my experience, the -2 to attacks from the tower shield tend to outweigh the extra +2 to AC in most situations. So yeah, I'd move away from a tower shield after a couple levels.

2. The OP stated that their primary goal was to be tough, that their secondary goal was to "aggro" (i.e. make themself a target for the enemy) and to contribute to damage in a helpful way. I was talking about their goals as a whole, instead of focusing exclusively on the first.

Two Weapon Fighting isn't super awesome, but it's something to do when you're absorbing blows and not moving much, which are things that a dwarf with a shield is going to be doing a lot of.
Personally, if I wanted a fighter who protected their allies and was a desirable target for my opponent, I'd grab a polearm and Combat Reflexes. Offense ends far more encounters than defense ever can, and control/target saturation is at least as potent as durability. But the OP wanted a super AC and HP first and the other stuff second. And the ol' sword and shield combo certainly isn't *bad*. Maybe not optimal in a lot of situations, but it has its place, especially at lower levels.


Artofregicide wrote:
Ryze Kuja wrote:
A Paladin in Full Plate and a Shield and insanely high Charisma would be enough to make any DM somewhat furious. You're immune to most things anyway and your Saves and AC would be absolutely ridorkulous, especially when Smite Evil is active. And with a crazy high Cha, your LoH uses per day would be quite a bit. Get the Sanctuary Mercy, Greater Mercy and Fey Foundling feats, and prepare as many Shield Other spells as possible.

Except spells and attacks that target touch AC, and your reflex saves won't be amazing. The Create Pit line of spells are a decent way for a GM to make a paladin fall.

Triple entendre! *Flips table*

Very nice with the word play :)

Yeah, the DM is basically going to be forced to use Touch attacks to kill the paladin because a high Cha Paladin's Saves are simply too high for any reliable damage/effect to land, and the paladin is going to have high AC from plate/shield, so attacking normal AC won't be reliable either. Even with a coordinated touch attack from the DM, he'll be LoHing as a Swift every round and still probably survive it. 1h/shield Cha Paladins are very survivable. And they're BBEG killers too. Smite Evil does a redonk amount of damage and gives a pretty significant bonus AC with high Cha.

If you do choose paladin, I wouldn't be a dwarf because they're -2 Cha. Take that 17 and put it in Cha, use +2 racial to get it to 19, and at level 4, put that +1 point into Cha for a 20 Cha, and now you're LoHing 9 times per day and you have a +5 to attack and AC with Smite Evil.


If you want damage, but don't want to attack with the shield, then consider the shield brace feat for your dwarf. Fighter armor training is good for this to lower the check penalty for your shield. Choose the Dwarven longaxe or longhammer as your polearm to attack at reach, and you can have your shield or a dwarven boulder helmet for threatening close in addition to your reach weapon. You'll be full heavy armor while doing ok damage and able to use whatever good shield you happen to loot.


Is shielded fighter good? Using two spiked shields sounds fun.


Almost nothing that trades out weapon training is considered good anymore. Advanced weapon training is just too tempting. You could try it anyway if you want though. Better to have fun than be slightly stronger.


How does fighting with two shields work as well as calculated ac for my two shields? If I use two dwarven warshields, as a shielded fighter while fighting with a shield it says I get +1 dodge for a shield. Do I get and additional +1 for the 2nd shield? Do I get +2 ac, one for each?


I guess I really like the Shielded Fighter idea, so what could best optimize that?


BluePikachu wrote:

How does fighting with two shields work as well as calculated ac for my two shields? If I use two dwarven warshields, as a shielded fighter while fighting with a shield it says I get +1 dodge for a shield. Do I get and additional +1 for the 2nd shield? Do I get +2 ac, one for each?

You can only benefit from one shield as a shield, for the purpose of AC. You can choose which is which from round to round.

Quote:
I guess I really like the Shielded Fighter idea, so what could best optimize that?

You'll have to pick up two weapon fighting eventually, because you are going to want to grab shield master at level 11. So, you'll need at least a dexterity of 15 by the time you want to qualify for that. That can be hard on your stat budget. Some classes offer ways to get shield master without that prerequisite, like the ranger, slayer and vigilante, and that's why you see people recommend those a lot for shield builds.

The shielded fighter uses either fighting defensively, combat expertise or total defense alot, so you will want to try to find some feats to improve those, but I've never made a build like that, so can't tell you what would be good.


You only get the shield bonus from one shield. If you're using two dwarven warshields, that bonus is increased by 1. The dodge bonus from shielded fighter is separate from that and stacks.

The same stuff as helps with any TWF build helps the shielded fighter (aim for the shield master feat), with the exception of advanced weapon training and advanced armor training which the shielded fighter can't get. The archetype encourages fighting defensively or using combat expertise, so power attack probably isn't that useful for once. The things which interact with fighting defensively or combat expertise want you to be using different weapons, no help there.

There's not a huge amount you can do to optimise the shielded fighter.

Edit: thoroughly ninja'd.


Would Tower Shield Specialist be better?


upon further research, tower shield specialist may have the defense I want but not anything for offense


Vanilla fighter (no archetype) with two dwarven warshields will serve you better than either archetype IMO. Even at level 3 you can get advanced armor training (armored sacrifice) via a feat.


I'm definitely liking vanilla fighter the best the more I look at it.


I'm starting with 570 GP if that helps to pick starting gear.


You'll be wearing chainmail and an armored kilt (or similar) rather than full plate then. Being hard up drops your AC a little.


Is a dwarven axe gauntlet worth the exrtra one ac for the 1d8 damage vs the 1d10 of a war axe?


The blocking property only applies when you're fighting defensively, and the feats which mitigate that apply to only a few weapon types (light blades, heavy blades, a few club-like weapons, with one hand free {which you're not doing I think}, as a halfling) of which an axe-gauntlet is not one. No IMO.

Are you looking at tower shields again?


Im thinking about tower shields again


Fighting Defensively as a Standard Action
You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 to AC until the start of your next turn.

Axe-Gauntlet, Dwarven Heavy
Cost 21 gp Weight 5 lbs.
Damage 1d6 (small), 1d8 (medium) Critical x3 Type slashing
Category one-handed Proficiency exotic
Weapon Groups axes, close
Special blocking, disarm

Blocking: When you use this weapon to fight defensively, you gain a +1 shield bonus to AC.

That's what I found, so what part of this is needed for a hand to be free?

Because to me it seems like I could use a tower shield and fight defensively with the gaunlet.


Look at the mobile bulwark style feat line then. Mobile bulwark style, mobile fortress, mobile stronghold. With a dwarven waraxe rather than an axe gauntlet, I recommend.

Basically you can fight defensively but with nothing to mitigate it and with a tower shield, you have turned off your ability to do anything.


What do you mean by "mitigate". What am I mitigated. I think that's where I'm confused.


Because eventually being able to move and not take negatives to fighting seems good. Where would fighting defensively play into your idea? Or is the neg not worth the addition to AC


So the style would replace defensive fighting? and allow me to eventually do damage while having a side that is fully braced? Does the "total cover" stop all not magical attacks from that side?


There are feats which can reduce or remove the -4 penalty from fighting defensively, or which give other bonuses to doing so. None of them can be used by a dwarf fighting with an axe gauntlet and a tower shield. If you're fighting with -4 attack from fighting defensively, and more penalties from a tower shield, with a 1d8 damage weapon then enemies can and should ignore you.

And total cover means that you're as safe as can be from one side, and have no need to fight defensively, yes.


That makes sense


Besides Mobile Bulwark, fortress, and stronghold. Is there any other feats that would be really good for the tower shield and war-ax?

Is the double axe worth it to try and work in power attack and cleave with goblin cleaver? Since we know most of the campaign will be against goblins.

I was also confused on where was best to put my stats.
14, 15, 17, 11, 11, 10
Since it was said to move them after I said my DM said I could use the mountain dwarf with +2 to Str and Con and a -2 to Cha.

If I go into a better dex, is there a build to utilize the dwarven ram hammer, since it can be thrown?

What about a 2nd shield as a dwarven war shield as that would fit the backstory i wrote the best. If i understand shields correctly I dont get any extra ac for a 2nd shield.
(id imagine mutagen fighter with 3 tower shields, full plate would be broken)

I'd like to add I really appreciate all the help and apologize if im asking too many questions or anything thats seems really simple. I think I get too stuck on a cool concept rather than what would actually work best.


About the only way multiple shields help is if you're going for two-weapon fighting. Tower shields can't be used to shield bash.

Power attack is usually good value. Since you will often be using a move action on your tower shield, cleave isn't a terrible idea. If you know the campaign will feature a lot of goblins then goblin cleaver is alright but you don't need me to tell you that surely.

There are a couple of feats for tripping people with a thrown hammer, and for getting your hammer back after it's thrown. Tripping and throwing eat up a huge number of feats, this is probably incompatible with going for cleave, and it may take longer to start working properly than you'll like.

Personally I'd put my highest stat on Str here, but if you're going for a defensive character then having it on Con is understandable. Next highest should be Str though. Third highest is Dex or Wis depending on what you fear most.


Quixote wrote:

1. In my experience, the -2 to attacks from the tower shield tend to outweigh the extra +2 to AC in most situations. So yeah, I'd move away from a tower shield after a couple levels.

2. The OP stated that their primary goal was to be tough, that their secondary goal was to "aggro" (i.e. make themself a target for the enemy) and to contribute to damage in a helpful way. I was talking about their goals as a whole, instead of focusing exclusively on the first.

Two Weapon Fighting isn't super awesome, but it's something to do when you're absorbing blows and not moving much, which are things that a dwarf with a shield is going to be doing a lot of.
Personally, if I wanted a fighter who protected their allies and was a desirable target for my opponent, I'd grab a polearm and Combat Reflexes. Offense ends far more encounters than defense ever can, and control/target saturation is at least as potent as durability. But the OP wanted a super AC and HP first and the other stuff second. And the ol' sword and shield combo certainly isn't *bad*. Maybe not optimal in a lot of situations, but it has its place, especially at lower levels.

I thought about mentioning the -2 from TWF when I was writing up my counter point, but since its equal to the negative you get from using a tower shield I thought it would be immaterial to mention it in a side by side comparison.

I still hold that opinion.


Meirril wrote:
I still hold that opinion.

I'm not sure what opinion that is.

Apologies; it bothers me when someone appears to be criticizing a comment and their argument seems to consist mostly of issues the original comment had already addressed. That may be the reason for my rather curt initial reply.

BluePikachu wrote:
I'd like to add I really appreciate all the help and apologize if im asking too many questions or anything thats seems really simple. I think I get too stuck on a cool concept rather than what would actually work best.

No apologies needed. We all have to start somewhere.

And as far as I'm concerned, getting stuck on a cool concept is way better than getting stuck on big numbers. Pathfinder's got so much extra content at this point that you can almost always find a way to get both.


Quixote wrote:
Meirril wrote:
I still hold that opinion.

I'm not sure what opinion that is.

Apologies; it bothers me when someone appears to be criticizing a comment and their argument seems to consist mostly of issues the original comment had already addressed. That may be the reason for my rather curt initial reply.

I thought my argument was presented well enough? Well, obviously not. So lets present the complete thought.

Switching from a Tower Shield to using TWF with a heavy shield:

1) Both sides have a -2 on all of their attacks. One from using a tower shield, the other from using Two Weapon Fighting. As such, it isn't worth mentioning the -2.

2) To use TWF without losing the AC bonus from your heavy shield, you need a feat, and you need a second feat not to take massive penalties from using TWF. So you pay 2 feats to get an off hand attack with a d4 weapon.

3) Or you stick with the Tower Shield, which makes you 10% less likely to be hit and gives you 2 feats to spend on something else.

And I didn't present the first point before because it isn't a demerit in the comparison. Both using a Tower Shield and using TWF share the same penalty to hit. As such, it wasn't worth bring up until Quixote accused the Tower Shield of having a penalty to hit without pointing out that his own alternative also shares the exact same penalty.

I hope this makes more sense.


BluePikachu wrote:
I'd like to add I really appreciate all the help and apologize if im asking too many questions or anything thats seems really simple. I think I get too stuck on a cool concept rather than what would actually work best.

No apologies needed. We all have to start somewhere.

And as far as I'm concerned, getting stuck on a cool concept is way better than getting stuck on big numbers. Pathfinder's got so much extra content at this point that you can almost always find a way to get both.

In that regards. I'd like my character do be similar to Braum in League of Legends. Tanky, agile to jump and protect allies, decent cc to help get kills. Where his dmg is minor

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