Figuring out my chances of landing a Hit


Advice


What is the likely hood of me Hitting my target of appropriate CR or 1 or 2 CR Higher

To Explain

The Character level Is 5
The Factors are Jotun Grip
Weapons Are Great Axe & Heavy Shield
TWO weapon Fighting
Possibility of power Attack
Assume the Axe is at least a + 1
And I have weapon focus for the Axe
Strength is 20 With Rage

With out any buffs from fellow party members what is my chances to hit?

Not looking for the most optimized character but I'd like to get a decent amount of the time


Jotungrip (-2)
Two weapon fighting with no light weapons (-4/-4)
Assuming BAB 5
Strength 20 (+5)
Ignoring power attack (+/-0)
Weapon focus (+1)
Magic Weapon (+1)
-----------------------------
+6 Axe, +4 Shield

CR 5 (Moderate AC) = AC 21

You'd need to roll a 15 (axe) or 17 (shield) or better to hit your target. It gets worse from there.

Likelihood of hitting your target? Bad. 30% with your Axe, 20% with your Shield. This character needs to be more optimized to perform adequately, let alone well.


@ DeathlessOne Thanks for doing the math

Ok

If I Drop the Two Weapon Fighting and Just used the Shield To Defend that would Help right?

BTW Character is Two levels Titan Mauler and The Rest Fighter. I did consider Slayer if I was going to TWF but Feel the a fighter might work better if I'm Dropping that


Using the shield purely for defense would raise your chance to hit to 50% with the Axe (and only for CR 5 moderate AC). Better, but to me that is still too low. Anything less than 60% just doesn't feel right to me.

Slayer might be the better option, even if you don't go TWF. The Studied target will help with accuracy and damage (sneak attack too). The Slayer even gets access to Ranger combat styles, which will eventually completely negate your TWF penalties if you get Shield Master.

Depending on what flavor of character you are going for, I might recommend the Viking (Fighter) archetype. You get some nifty shield-focused abilities, more rage, fighter feats, and can opt to take rage powers instead of fighter feats after class level 6.


If you want to keep TWF their is a trait (shield training) that lets yiu count a heavy shield as a light weapon.


@ DeathlessOne

Ya Viking Fighter sounds good for flavor wise

What feats or features would you think I should take to push my chance up to 60 to 70%?


20 pont buy
Race Human

STR 15 + Human = 17 (18 Starting At level 4)
Dex 14
Con 14
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 8

Likely 22 STR with rage. 24 if I could afford Stat boosting item

Speaking of items

What should I have (WBl)
+1 Great Axe
+1 Armor
+1 Shield
Stat booster?.


So Far this what I have

STR 18 (22 With Rage)
Dex 14
Con 14 (18 With Rage)
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 8

1ST Level = Titan Mauler
2NDLevel = Titan Mauler
3RD Level = Viking (Fighter)
4TH Level = Viking (Fighter)
5TH Level = Viking (Fighter)

Feats

1 weapon Focus
1 Shield Focus
3 power Attack.
3
4
5

Can I get some suggestions on my feats ?


I have to tell you, that other than for "cool" factor, Jotun Grip is pretty bad. Especially as you increase in level.

A greataxe deals 1d12 with a x3 crit modifier, and is a two-handed weapon but you're using it one handed with jotun grip at -2.
I'm a fan of weapons with big crit ranges, so let's go with the scimitar which is a d6 18-20 x2 weapon. No attack penalty.

Let keep in mind power attack gives you a -1 penalty for +2 damage on one handed weapons.

So our scimitar will deal 1d6+6 (22 str) damage for an average of 9.5 damage. But we aren't using power attack and have +2 to hit. If we activate power attack, we gain +4 damage, for 13.5.

Our greataxe is 1d12 + 6 damage, average is 12.5 damage. Now you could activate power attack for more damage, but you're to hit is going to decrease by 2.

As you continue to level you will get more bonuses to attack and damage that will make the difference not so apparent.

But keep in mind ultimately the difference in raw damage between a scimitar and greataxe is 3.5 average damage vs 6.5 average damage. Based on the 1 point of attack for 2 points of damage of power attack, this basically always a bad trade to use jotungrip.

Now, if you took 3 level of titan mauler barbarian for oversized weapons, and got the orc butchering axe (3d6 damage for medium) and instead use a large size one which you can wield thanks to massive weapon ability (although the penalties are bad) and the math can lean in favor of such shenanigans. Especially if you add in other size change stuff, such as being enlarged.

I think there is a rule about 1 effective and 1 actual size change so wield a large size butchering axe, while enlarged, with one of the various effective size change affects your weapon can do some crazy damage.


If you are taking Shield Focus, Unhindering Shield should be on your radar. It will let you shift back and forth between one handing your weapon and two-handing it, while keeping your buckler AC bonus. Also, if you go with that, consider Upsetting Shield Style and shield bashing people to debuff their attack. I've also looked at taking Missile Shield in combination with the two above feats to deal with pesky archers.


@ Claxon. I get it's more cool than Effective .

Perhaps Sword and Board as a slayer ?

I have the Image of My character wielding massive stone Axe and a wooden shield

There Dress in light armor , and she has several Battle scars on arms and legs


@ DeathlessOne

Ok if I was to go with slayer what is the biggest axe I could wield one hand , maybe taking EWP for a war-Axe or could I get by with a battle Axe ?


JuliusCromwell wrote:

@ Claxon. I get it's more cool than Effective .

Perhaps Sword and Board as a slayer ?

I have the Image of My character wielding massive stone Axe and a wooden shield

There Dress in light armor , and she has several Battle scars on arms and legs

You can make an effective combatant wielding a axe and shield, I was simply pointing out that the method of using Jotun grip to wield a two-handed weapon in one hand is mathematically worse than just using a regular one-handed weapon.

May I suggest you play a Slayer with a steel terbutje (it's like an axe, a saw and a club had a baby) and I'm suggesting it again because I'm a sucker for increased critical threat ranges. You could also wield a battle axe. Pick up a buckler as well. Eventually pick up Unhindering Shield which will let you wield a two-handed weapon and buckler.

If your open to not using an axe you could take Shield Brace which allows you to use a two-handed weapon from the polearm or spear weapon group while also using the shield (but you do take the shield armor check penalty to your attack rolls so you want a light shield or buckler until you can make it mithral, which allows you to use a mithral heavy shield. The difference is only 1 point of AC. However this style allows you to use your two-handed weapon well two-handed. Which means improved strength scaling (1.5 strength to damage) and power attack scaling. And after picking up Shield Focus/Shield Brace your feats are open to build however you like, though Power Attack is an obvious choice.


JuliusCromwell wrote:

@ DeathlessOne

Ok if I was to go with slayer what is the biggest axe I could wield one hand , maybe taking EWP for a war-Axe or could I get by with a battle Axe ?

"Biggest" as in "in game the physically largest" or has the largest damage die?

In either case I would say that neither of those things end up actually making an effective character. Weapon damage dice make up a very small portion of your damage after a certain level.

Consider my earlier example, at level 1 the greataxe made up about 52% of your damage. But for the scimitar build (which did more damage) the weapon only made up 26% of the damage. And as you level up and get any bonuses weapon damage dice becomes increasingly less relevant.

As for imagery of a large weapon...I've always personally felt just describing my weapon the way I want to the GM and players was enough, even if the weapons stats didn't quite fall in line with that. You shouldn't have to play something mechanically inferior just to be able to describe your character as having a big weapon, something with no mechanical impact.


Also, for what it's worth the formula for calculating your chance to hit is: 1 - [(AC - attack bonus -1)/20]

So if you have a +5 to attack vs an AC of 20 you have to roll a 15 or better to hit. Since rolls of 15 to 20 all hit, you have a 30% chance to hit (each number on a d20 has a 5% chance of appearing, 6 values in this example succeed). So 20-5-1 = 14. 14/20 = 0.7. 1 -0.7 = 0.3 *100% = 30%.

There other ways to write the equation but they all work out the same way.


@ Claxon

You know I wanted an Axe but I feel using a terbutje would just be wicked.

I'd even be willing to Drop the Shield and work on a Shattter defense build

But could use some suggestions

1 The terbutjecan, can it be made of things like mithral , cold iron, Adamantine (The Material I choose woukd likely Depend on the Game)

2 it has the fragile quality. Is there any thing I should now about this, is it just a down side or is there any benefit


@ Claxon

So Thinking Slayer with a terbutje

But had an idea and wanted to know something

So After Googling what a terbutje is I had a idea to Try and Do Sword and Board Paladin using a terbutje and Shield in The style of a Aztec / Amazonian Female Warrior

is there God that fits that flavor I could serve ?

My Idea would be to be dressed more as one wouid expect a Tropical Warrior to dress.

My Idea would to be a paladin of that God but flavor them as I said


JuliusCromwell wrote:

@ Claxon

You know I wanted an Axe but I feel using a terbutje would just be wicked.

I'd even be willing to Drop the Shield and work on a Shattter defense build

But could use some suggestions

1 The terbutjecan, can it be made of things like mithral , cold iron, Adamantine (The Material I choose woukd likely Depend on the Game)

2 it has the fragile quality. Is there any thing I should now about this, is it just a down side or is there any benefit

Well, it's worth noting that once you get a magical version of the weapon, the fragile quality goes away. So a +1 terbutje is no longer fragile. And there's also a steel terbutje which is the same weapon, but made out of steel instead of wood and rocks, and lacks the fragile quality. Fragile also only comes up when you roll a nat 1, so hopefully not that often. You might make it far enough that you can get a magical one without it being an issue. The steel terbujte could end up being made of any of the special materials that any normally steel weapon could.

You wouldn't have to drop the shield as the terbutje is a one handed weapon, but it you will have a competing need of feats for Unhindering Shield and then working into shatter defenses but you totally can do it.

I would suggest at early levels use the terbutje two-handed, pick up power attack, use slayer talents to grab ranger combat style for menacing style grabbing dazzling display and shatter defenses. Pick up cornugon smash as well. Later on you can grab shield focus and unhindering shield if you want to. I'd also grab the hurtful feat, which will let you make an extra attack when you successfully intimidate.

So you walk up to an enemy and attack with power attack, cornugon smash let's you make a free intimidate check to demoralize. If successful you have shatter defenses which makes them flat-footed next time you hit, until the end of your next turn. You can use a swift action for hurtful which will let you hit them again, invoking Shatter Defenses. Next turn all your attacks will benefit from flat-footed, including allow you to sneak attack.

It's a lot of feats, but it'll come together beautifully afterwards.

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