Retraining Advice - Level 12 Dwarf Redeemer Champion (Shield Ally)

[Applied_People]

Playing a Strong-Blooded Dwarf with a Shield Ally and a Moderate Sturdy Shield in AoA. My party varies in size depending on the week but we have a Heal/Harm capable Cleric, an Angelic Sorcerer, a Animal (Frog) Instinct Barbarian, a Dragon Instinct Barbarian, and an archer Fighter MC Rogue. With my current setup, I'm capable of mitigating a lot of damage to myself and my party. I'd originally planned to lean even harder into this role with Divine Reflexes at 14 and maybe retraining to take the Bastion Archetype (at 2) and Quick Shield Block (at 12).

I'll soon have an opportunity to retrain, and I'm wondering if I'm going too far down the damage mitigation route. I'm looking specifically at replacing some or all of the following: Shining Oath (2), Aura of Courage (4) (though there aren't many options at L4 and below), and Lasting Doubt (12).

Here's my current setup:

Class Feats
1. Weight of Guilt
2. Shining Oath
4. Aura of Courage
6. Shield Warden
8. Quick Block
10. Shield of Reckoning
12. Lasting Doubt

Ancestry Feats
1. Unburdened Iron
5. Dwarven Reinforcement
9. Mountain's Stoutness

General Feats
3. Toughness
7. Fleet
11. Fast Recovery

I'm considering the following combinations, but I'm open to other ideas. Shield Warden + Quick Block + Shield of Reckoning are the core of my build so I'm less open to making changes there, but compelling ideas are welcome there too.

2. Cleric Dedication
4. Emblazon Armament/Basic Cleric Spellcasting

2. Bastion Dedication
12. Quick Shield Block

2. Talisman Dabbler
12. Deeper Dabbler

2. Bastion Dedication
12. Attack of Opportunity

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Blave]

Cleric Dedication is not worth it. You don't really need any cantrips and Emblazon Armament doesn't do all that much at your level if you don't have Emblazon Energy, which you can't get yet.

Bastion Dedication comes with (in my opinion) THE best defensive feat in the game. Getting an additional Shield Block and maybe Shield Salvation will make you REALLY tank-y. Can't really tell you if that's too much, though. Depends on your party's tactics and the enemies you face (I don't know AoA).

Talisman Dabbler sems useless to me personally. But to be fair, I hate consumables with a passion so I might not be the best person to judge the value of Talismans.

To suggest something different:

Marshal
How does your charisma and your charisma-skills look like? If both are solid, going Marshall Dedication at level 2 and picking up one of its stances at level 4 might be decent. Judging by your reliance on Shield of Reckoning, it seems like you often have allies next to you who could benefig from the aura.

Depends a bit on how buff-y your casters are, but if the rarely cast stuff like bless or heroism, that +1 attack from the Inspiring Stance is an extremely potent buff. And if they do buff often, you can grab a stance providing extra damage and causing all your crits to auto-frigthen the enemies.

Sentinel
The dedication is a dead feat, but if you wear heavy armor, your Dex is most likely terrible. This makes Mighty Bulwark pretty strong. Sentinel is a stronger choice for classes that don't get Armor Specialization for free, but I'd still at least concider it on a Champion.

Bard
Looks like you can spare up to 3 feats from your current build. That's enough to pick up Bard Dedication, Lingering Performance and Inspire Courage. Again, this is mostly useful if your charisma is decent and a bit more action-hungry than the Marshal Stances, but it's also a bit more powerful and will easily buff your whole party due to the large range.

Mauler
Again, the Dedication is pretty much dead to you. But with 2 more feats to spare, you can get Knockdown and Improved Knockdown. Depends a bit on how you (and your GM) read the feats and what weapon you are using. There are very few one-handed trp weapons, but if you can get your hands on something like a Temple Sword, you get a very potent debuff option.

[Applied_People]

Thank you for your thoughts, Blave. I hadn't thought to include my ability scores but those would be helpful, wouldn't they?

20 STR | 16 DEX | 18 CON | 10 INT | 14 WIS | 12 CHA

I have decent Dex so I could use a ranged weapon effectively. So Sentinel is less needed.

Conversely, my CHA is at the minimum I need to activate my Smite. So both Marshal and Bard would be hard to pull off.

Talisman Dabbler I liked for a bit of versatility and the ability to shave off 10 damage to my shield each combat. But admittedly, that's not very strong at 12.

So given all those things, Bastion is looking better and better.

As for Mauler, the dedication would give me critical specialization if I'm using a bastard sword (which is often via my shifting rune). So that's better than nothing. And I like Knockdown and Improved Knockdown a lot though. I've been wishing for some crowd control so enemies have a tougher time ignoring me and going for the squishies. And Improved Knockdown has amazing action economy. And Unbalancing Sweep looks good too and doesn't require a 2H weapon.

I'll mull it over but that's a great suggestion.

Thanks again.

[Decimus Drake]

Might seem an unusual consideration, but if you use slashing/piercing weapons you could consider the poisoner archetype. At level 12 you could make a total of 24 poisons up to ninth level with the Expert poisoner feat. Pinpoint Poisoner helps with DCs by applying a -2 penalty to saves of flatfooted opponents. They're free and you can give them to party members; your archer might appreciate having a batch of poisoned arrows for example.

[Applied_People]

Decimus Drake wrote:

Might seem an unusual consideration, but if you use slashing/piercing weapons you could consider the poisoner archetype. At level 12 you could make a total of 24 poisons up to ninth level with the Expert poisoner feat. Pinpoint Poisoner helps with DCs by applying a -2 penalty to saves of flatfooted opponents. They're free and you can give them to party members; your archer might appreciate having a batch of poisoned arrows for example.

Thanks, Decimus.

Poisoner doesn't fit with my character concept, BUT it is something for me to consider for another concept. I don't normally think about poisons as a player coming from 1e, but I'll have to take a closer look.

[cavernshark]

If you're using a shield, you're probably using a one-handed weapon, which means you're effectively dual-wielding. You might get a lot of mileage out of the Dual-Weapon Warrior Archetype. At level 2, you'd get Double Slice which minimally lets you combine a shield and weapon attack for bypassing hardness and the like. You can use that level 12 feat you were looking to replace to grab Dual-Weapon Blitz to get the ability to stride, and strike twice in two actions.

Overall those two feats boost your offense a little, and free your actions up a little since Dual-Weapon Blitz and Raise Shield would let you get into position faster while doing damage and getting the shield up. Flensing Slice is another alternative to Dual-Weapon Blitz. Only downside of this archetype is that it doesn't really give you a good level 4 feat, but it sounds like you're okay just swapping two, not necessarily the 2, 4, and 12 feats.

[shroudb]

As a purely offensive archetype you can also go for Monk dedication, Monastic Weapon, and Flurry.

This will allow you to have a "1 action do 2 strikes" ability with a monk weapon like a temple sword.

Given that you usually want to raise your shield as a 1 action each round, that will allow you to move, raise shield, and still do 2 strikes in a round.

Or raise shield, lay on hands, still do 2 strikes, and etc

[Applied_People]

Thanks, shroudb. I can see a lot of upside to your suggestion.

So, here's what's on the table currently.

Bastion
Bastion Dedication (2)
Quick Shield Block (10)

Dual-Weapon Warrior
Dual-Weapon Warrior Dedication (2)
Flensing Strike (8) OR
Dual-Weapon Blitz (10)

Mauler
Mauler Dedication (2)
Knockdown (4)
Improved Knockdown (12)

Monk MC
Monk Dedication (2)
Basic Kata (4) - Monastic Weaponry
Monk Flurry (10)

Bastion doubles down on my defensive capabilities. I'd have 3 reactions per round. 1 general reaction that can be used for Glimpse of Redemption, Reactive Shield, Shield Block, or Shield of Reckoning, and 2 Shield Blocks that I can use on myself or an adjacent ally.

Dual-Weapon Warrior gives me greater offensive capabilities, MAP benefits and maintains good flexibility with damage types (i.e. Shield Boss + Short Sword for B/P/S damage). However, there are no action economy efficiencies. Two attacks still cost 2 actions.

Mauler gives me access to the sword critical effect if I'm using a bastard sword, MAP benefits, and allows me to get a Trip without rolling if I hit. Both my Barbarians and my Fighter have Attack of Opportunity also. So getting a free Trip on a hit is attractive for that reason, in addition to the benefit of being better at controlling enemy movement. But again, no action economy efficiency here. An attack and a trip still cost 2 actions.

Finally, Monk gives me some action economy efficiency and increased offensive output. I can attack twice for 1 action if I'm using a monk weapon or unarmed attacks. This would increase my offense while maintaining my mobility and ability to raise my shield each round. The downside for me are the weapon choices and the flavor for my character concept.

I still don't know which way I'll go, but all 4 options feel like strong choices that are upgrades relative to what I have to trade for them.

Thanks for all your input!

[shroudb]

as a note to the above: Dual weapon warrior actually does have an action economy saver in Blitz, being 2 strikes and a stride with 2 actions (but the strikes have normal MAP unlike dual slice).

It still locks you though to 2 action activity.

And just as an addendum to my own monk suggestion, i said "monastic weaponry" just to keep the flavor of a weapon.

For purely offensive option both Gorilla stance and Stumbling Stance (instead of monastic weaponry) offer great "one-handed" options, better than most one handed weapons in fact, and can be used while wearing armor (the attacks being d8 forcefull, backswing, grapple and d8 agile, backstabber, finesse respectively). They also leave a hand open for maneuvers. And they do have the minor upside of doing non-lethal at will which may be useful for a Champion.

Their downside being the "flavor" (being unarmed attacks instad of weapon) and the 1 action per battle cost to get into stance (that should be easily be recouped due to flurry from the get go)

[Falco271]

I like the Bastion for the Disarming block free action. Each time you block (Shield block twice, plus the Shield of Reckoning), you can have a free action to try to disarm the opponent. Granted, disarming is hard, but even the -2 circumstance on their next attack might be worth it.