|
Good afternoon,
I am currently running a Dwarven Fighter (L7) with the Mauler dedication (free archetype) in the Curse of the Crimson Throne (converted to 2E).
He wields an Earthbreaker.
We've been given approval to rebuild the character if we want to, and I'm after a good Two-handed weapon fighter build.
I've found that I am not really into the character, either because I don't know how to run it properly, particularly the feats, or I just don't understand how it works.
I used Tarondor's guide to fighters, particularly the Fighter/Mauler (which he uses a Centaur, not a Dwarf).
Current feats are:
Ancestry - Ancient-Blooded - Call on Ancient Blood
Defy the Darkness
Unburdened Iron
Greater Darkvision
Class
Brutish Shove
Furious Focus
Powerful Shove
Vicious Swing
Free Archetype:
Clear the Way
Mauler Dedication
Slam Down
General:
Fleet
Titan Wrestler
Skill:
Battle Medicine
Continual Recover
Godless Healing
I guess I'm after advice on how to run it properly or, alternatively, a better build.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Regards
Prux.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Two-hander fighter is pretty simple. If you don't want to play that simple, you might not have that much fun. If you're a fighter, you don't need the Mauler archetype. You should focus the fighter feats on two-handed fighting.
1st: Sudden Charge: Staple of any melee class with it.
4tth: Slam Down
You will be slamming down almost every round, then attacking with Reactive Strike when they stand up. It gets worse if they don't stand up for them.
Vicious Swing with Furious Focus isn't bad to use if they don't stand up, just beat them down real good.
With Free Archetype, you should take Champion and Rogue Archetype.
Champion Feats you want: Champion's Dedication, Champion's Reaction, Nimble Reprisal. You don't need much else.
Rogue Archetype: Rogue Dedication, Mobility, Gang Up at level 12, Opportune Backstab at level 16.
This will give you lots of different reaction attacks and you'll get a second reaction to maintain Reactive Strike at level 10.
If you have the feats, work in a caster archetype or exmemplar archetype then Titan Breaker Ikon as that works awesome with a two-hander.
Big problem with fighter feats is you don't use many of them. They sound ok on paper, but in use they are mostly a waste of actions. You'll find your best action round after round after round with a fighter is Crashing Slam to trip people, then hit them with Reactive Strike when they get up. It helps your entire group if they don't up and debuffs them with a -2 to hit.
Then work in other reaction attacks like Champion's Reaction or Opportune Backstab to work off another player.
I played multiple fighters and I normally do lots of archetypes or passive feats like Blind-fight.
Big problem with fighter design is they get a lot of feats and even get daily changeable feats, but there aren't many very good feats to put in the slots. They mostly just waste actions with some occasional situational uses.
There are only a few classes with good feats at nearly every level: rogue, druid, bard, barbarian, sorcerer. Maybe one or two others I'm missing, but most classes are better off using archetypes. The fighter gets all of its best abilities as part of the base chassis and once you pick a fighting style, you generally don't change it up. You keep repeating it adding more Reaction attack abilities or passive abilities that assist your main fighting style.
|
|
You're spot on about feats looking good on paper but are a waste of actions mate.
I really appreciate your response and I'm definitely going to look into it!
Two-hander fighter is pretty simple. If you don't want to play that simple, you might not have that much fun. If you're a fighter, you don't need the Mauler archetype. You should focus the fighter feats on two-handed fighting.
1st: Sudden Charge: Staple of any melee class with it.
4tth: Slam Down
You will be slamming down almost every round, then attacking with Reactive Strike when they stand up. It gets worse if they don't stand up for them.
Vicious Swing with Furious Focus isn't bad to use if they don't stand up, just beat them down real good.
With Free Archetype, you should take Champion and Rogue Archetype.
Champion Feats you want: Champion's Dedication, Champion's Reaction, Nimble Reprisal. You don't need much else.
Rogue Archetype: Rogue Dedication, Mobility, Gang Up at level 12, Opportune Backstab at level 16.
This will give you lots of different reaction attacks and you'll get a second reaction to maintain Reactive Strike at level 10.
If you have the feats, work in a caster archetype or exmemplar archetype then Titan Breaker Ikon as that works awesome with a two-hander.
Big problem with fighter feats is you don't use many of them. They sound ok on paper, but in use they are mostly a waste of actions. You'll find your best action round after round after round with a fighter is Crashing Slam to trip people, then hit them with Reactive Strike when they get up. It helps your entire group if they don't up and debuffs them with a -2 to hit.
Then work in other reaction attacks like Champion's Reaction or Opportune Backstab to work off another player.
I played multiple fighters and I normally do lots of archetypes or passive feats like Blind-fight.
Big problem with fighter design is they get a lot of feats and even get daily changeable feats, but there aren't many very good feats to put in the slots. They mostly just waste actions with some occasional situational uses.
There are only a few classes with good feats at nearly every level: rogue, druid, bard,...
Deriven pretty much already answered it. All great advice.
In my experience there's two ways people play 2h Fighters:
1. Vicious Swing everything and just hit really hard. This is drop dead simple to play and can be pretty fun if you like rolling lots of damage dice. Get a big weapon, run in, hit things. If you're finding it too simple/repetitive then I'd do something else, but for folks that just want something easy with big numbers, it works real well.
2. Manouvers. Slam Down is one of these. Using a reach weapon like a Guisarme for Reach Trip is another. Knock the enemy down, then hit them when they try to stand up.
Rooting is actually a nice rune for this build because although the DC isn't that hard, they still have to spend the action to escape (and you're a Fighter, so you will crit). Since you can cover a wider area, you can become extremely annoying for an enemy team. An immobilized spellcaster for example that is next to you has no good options, especially if you have Disruptive Stance.
Extending is also a nice rune as it gives you a ranged attack that doesn't require swapping weapons and uses all your melee attack bonuses. You'll only get one strike a round with it at range, but it's a really good one. (And your weapon suddenly being 60' long is hilarious.)
In terms of skills, Athletics and Intimidation are the two most popular one. Intimidation gives great one-action options, is a useful skill out of combat frequently, and Scare to Death at high level is just plain fun.
The already mentioned archetypes are great. But you can also go more off-script with it. If you can get the INT (which is admittedly difficult for a Fighter), Alchemist is a great archetype for making your own buffing elixirs/mutagens, and just having items on demand if you need them. There's options here to get more reach, boost skills, get Temp HP every turn, add an energy type to your attacks to hit a weakness, etc. It requires poring over the alchemy item list to get the most out of it, but it's extremely flexible and the sheer amount of stuff it lets you have when you need it has no equal.
Dandy comes with all kinds of social abilities that people don't expect "the Fighter" to have, so if you've invested in CHA already for Intimidation you can also pick up some more social skills be surprisingly good in social encounters. This is a fun playing against stereotype option.
You can also pick up a caster archetype for some buffs. Druid or Sorcerer are good ones for things like Tailwind (more speed for 8 hours from one spell slot), and some utility spells. You won't be casting in combat, really, but it expands the options. This also opens up scrolls and wands from your tradition which is really handy for self-buffs, or if its a tradition your party can't otherwise cast from to expand the list of scrolls that are usable.
Monk/Martial Artist/Wrestler can give you options for if for some reason you can't use your 2h weapon. Niche, but "we want to take that enemy alive so I'll drop my weapon and wrestle him instead" is a good time.
Fighter is really good out of the box, so with FA you can take something that looks fun even if it isn't directly combat powerful and you'll still be plenty effective. Don't stress trying to min/max here, if you pick decent Fighter feats you'll be just fine no matter what you do with FA. :)
