[3.5] Weaknesses of the PA combo?

[Black_Zawisza]

I've used a lot of my feats to optimize PA: PA, Imp. Bull Rush, Leap Attack, Shock Trooper, and Combat Brute (plus Imp. Critical: Greatsword and Imp. Initiative simply cuz I like them). I've still got six feats left, though, that I want to use to make my character more well-rounded so he's not completely screwed if PA is not an option in a given encounter.

So I ask you this: what are some good feats (all splatbooks allowed) and Warblade maneuvers I can take to balance out with PA? What kinds of monsters do well vs. PA, and how can I counter them?

More emphasis on long-term optimization is better; I'm easily the best character in my L4 party already, and if I get any more powerful, I'm afraid my DM will artificially nerf me. =P

[Susano-wo]

Not the greatest optimizer, but it seems that PA would usually be unusable due to being unable to reach the foe, so maybe the Archery line with a composite bow? If you can grab a tripping weapon, Improved Trip might be nice for those times that the enemy closes with you after your Shock Trooper charge.

[Reynard]

You're a Fighter, that's a big enough nerf already. :smalltongue:

More seriously, you're going to have the biggest problem with enemies that fly and/or have concealment.

For flying, there isn't much you can do, beyond getting Leap Attack and pumping up your jump modifier so you can try and swat them out of the air. This probably won't work, since they can just fly away to higher than you can reach, but it might work if you read partial charges for when they do come into range.

Concealment... there are a few items that get rid of it. And a Feat, IIRC, but it's not a Fighter Bonus Feat.

EDIT: Oh yeah, try and get Pounce from somewhere, probably a 1-level dip in Lion-Totem Barbarian.

EDITEDIT: Get a reach weapon, to better help you with Flyers.

[Greenish]

Additional movement to keep charging or deny enemy full attacks is pretty nice. Sudden Leap and Travel Devotion are nifty for that.

Reach weapon is an excellent choice, and Combat Expertise complements it beautifully. Stand Still or Improved Trip on top of those can give decent control over the enemy beatsticks.


But really, a charger set is good for one thing, and one thing only: dealing hitpoint damage. You'll want to diversify.

[TheThan]

1600 gold gets you a pair of winged boots, which will let you fly for 15 minutes a day. while you technically can only use them for 5 minutes at a time. If i was the Dm i'd let you break up the time allotment anyway you want to.

[Newbieshoes]

Easy ways to shut down a ubercharger (looks like what you're after there) is trippers, reach creatures with a good grapple check. Also if your DM loves to swap the feats of monsters probably after you explode a few creatures with a charge expect to see more large sized creatures with Large and in Charge.

[The Shadowmind]

Take a level dip in cloister cleric and take animal and travel devotion due to the ability to trade a domain for a devotion in CChamp.
Travel allows you to move your full movement as a swift action, for 1minute a day, more uses by buring turn attempts.
Animal devotion lets, you increase your strength, fly, increase speed, or gain a poison bite. The cleric dip is so you don't have to use two feats and for the turn attempts to make the devotions more than 1/day.

[Eldariel]

Biggest issues for a Charger:
- Terrain not suitable for charging (rough terrain, etc.)
- Enemies outreaching you
- Enemies not vulnerable to your damage (Elusive Target, various invulnerability combinations, et cetera)
- Enemies not accessible (flying, burrowing, etc.)

So, what you want is: White Raven Charge maneuvers. They negate Attacks of Opportunity that would occur for moving during the Charge. Very key. The you want immediate action movement to position yourself so that you can ignore rough terrain and charge again and so on; the mentioned Sudden Leap and Travel Devotion are excellent here. The rest you can't really do much about, though against people with Elusive Target maneuver damage still works fine.

[Black_Zawisza]

1600 gold gets you a pair of winged boots, which will let you fly for 15 minutes a day. while you technically can only use them for 5 minutes at a time. If i was the Dm i'd let you break up the time allotment anyway you want to.
Looks good. How would flight help me in combat mechanically?

[Greenish]

Looks good. How would flight help me in combat mechanically?It would allow you to ignore difficult terrain (and other obstacles), and to actually reach flying enemies.

[Black_Zawisza]

It would allow you to ignore difficult terrain (and other obstacles), and to actually reach flying enemies.
Suppose I used a Spiked Chain while flying. Could I fly over an enemy's square and just harass it from above?

[FMArthur]

If you plan on charging, you almost have to grab the Nimble Charge and Twisted Charge skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel, which let you charge through difficult terrain and make a direction change mid-charge once per encounter each. If you have flight you can forgo the first but Twisted Charge is extremely valuable. Fighting inside buildings and inside dungeouns means even fliers often can't avoid having to move around something to attack.

Can't stress enough how big of an obstacle terrain and battlefield layout are to chargers. Take a look at what the PHB says about the "clear path" required for a charge:


Here’s what it means to have a clear path. First, you must move to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent. (If this space is occupied or otherwise blocked, you can’t charge.) Second, if any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement (such as a wall), slows movement (such as difficult terrain), or contains a creature (even an ally), you can’t charge. (Helpless creatures don’t stop a charge)

If it is possible to draw a line from your starting space to your target space - from any part of those spaces - that intersects a space containing allies, enemies, difficult terrain, or any other obstruction, you can't charge at all.

[Greenish]

Suppose I used a Spiked Chain while flying. Could I fly over an enemy's square and just harass it from above?Yeah. If the enemy can't match your reach, it can't hit you (without jumping, but that means no full attack for it).

[Black_Zawisza]

Yeah. If the enemy can't match your reach, it can't hit you (without jumping, but that means no full attack for it).
Since I threaten them on the ground and jumping counts as moving, wouldn't a jump provoke an AoO from me?

[Zhalath]

Since I threaten them on the ground and jumping counts as moving, wouldn't a jump provoke an AoO from me?

It's a DC 40 Jump check (without Leap of the Heavens) to make a standing jump 5 feet up, which I think will put them in reach of you. It does not look like it provokes an AoO, though you could make it...

[Black_Zawisza]

1600 gold gets you a pair of winged boots, which will let you fly for 15 minutes a day. while you technically can only use them for 5 minutes at a time. If i was the Dm i'd let you break up the time allotment anyway you want to.
Are you sure it costs 1600? This site says different: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Winged_Boots

Do you have another resource that says it's 1600? Can anybody else give feedback about the price of this thing?

[soulchicken]

Reckless attack - -to ac for + to damage up to your bab bonus
2 handed power attack - double strength mod to 2 handed weapons - you can't use improved init if you use this

I'd say grab a bow, and some feats for it
maybe get monkey grip and exotic weapon prof to up your weapon size damage.

I'm not an optimizer like some of these guys, but hey, I hope it helps.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Your entire PA combo damage output is completely negated by a single feat: Elusive Target. This is a pretty big weakness. You'd better have alternate methods of applying damage, or other ways to be useful in combat.

To this end, you've got, what, six feats left? Fine, get EWP: Spiked Chain, Combat expertise, and Improved Trip. Spiked chains are two-handed weapons. Base damage is 2d4 instead of 2d6, so you are loosing, on average, 2 damage. Big deal. In exchange, you get the following benefits:

1) Able to still perform Lockdown duties when not ubercharging around
2) You now have more reach than you used to, making it easier to land your attacks on Large creatures who also have reach.
3) You now have a viable touch-attack you can use to debuff (attacking prone critters is much easier)

[Tyger]

Are you sure it costs 1600? This site says different: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Winged_Boots

Do you have another resource that says it's 1600? Can anybody else give feedback about the price of this thing?

Yeah, that was a typo on the poster's part. The price is 16,000 GP. You won't find flight of any real length (other than scrolls and potions) much cheaper than that though.

[Ernir]

I'd start focusing my feats on defense, rather than trying to make me able to hit EVEN MORE HARDER. Stuff like Quick Recovery (Lords of Madness) and Steadfast Determination (PHB2), which helps patch up your weak spots.


Yeah, that was a typo on the poster's part. The price is 16,000 GP. You won't find flight of any real length (other than scrolls and potions) much cheaper than that though.

Winged Mask, 13k. It's in Magic of Faerûn. Allows you to cast Fly at-will, so while not exactly dispel-proof, it keeps you flying all day.

[herrhauptmann]

To this end, you've got, what, six feats left? Fine, get EWP: Spiked Chain, Combat expertise, and Improved Trip. Spiked chains are two-handed weapons. Base damage is 2d4 instead of 2d6, so you are loosing, on average, 2 damage. Big deal. In exchange, you get the following benefits:
I'm assuming most of these free feats are at levels 10 and later. Full PA line requires most everything up to level 8.

Don't forget knockdown. Even if he doesn' want to use a chain, knocking someone over each time you hit for 10 points of damage is pretty useful.

Unless it's an arena fight, I'm not sure how much you should worry about people having elusive target. Yes ET makes you cry if you power attack, but I can't see generic mooks, random encounters having the feat often enough to be an issue. Now the NPC who's your rival/hated enemy, he'd probably have ET, because his build is intended to counter yours. But each enemy, that's a little rough of the DM to do, especially if you're smart and not doing ubercharging to the point of 1000 points of damage.

Adaptable flanker (PHB2). The prereqs help you a little bit, but adaptable will let you help your allies to shine in combat.

How about the mageslayer line of feats? Mageslayer, Pierce Magic Protection, Blindfight+Pierce magic concealment. You'll still need flight or something to ensure you can reach the wizard, but you'd have the feats to completely shut him down and take him out of the fight, even if you weren't able to charge him.
Other Advice:
If you're already the best person in the party, don't power attack for full. At your level, there's little difference between doing 50 points on a charge, and 100, save for the fact that the DM is going to focus on you even more as a threat.
A smoking weapon. Grants a 20% miss chance, necessary if you're using shocktrooper a lot.

[Black_Zawisza]

Your entire PA combo damage output is completely negated by a single feat: Elusive Target. This is a pretty big weakness. You'd better have alternate methods of applying damage, or other ways to be useful in combat.

To this end, you've got, what, six feats left? Fine, get EWP: Spiked Chain, Combat expertise, and Improved Trip. Spiked chains are two-handed weapons. Base damage is 2d4 instead of 2d6, so you are loosing, on average, 2 damage. Big deal. In exchange, you get the following benefits:

1) Able to still perform Lockdown duties when not ubercharging around
2) You now have more reach than you used to, making it easier to land your attacks on Large creatures who also have reach.
3) You now have a viable touch-attack you can use to debuff (attacking prone critters is much easier)
Good catch, mate! Thanks for bringing that one up, I think I'll give the Spiked Chain a try. One thing, though...I'm not sure whether tripping or disarming's a better choice. I really have only enough feats to pick one or the other. Here's what I could take:

Combat Expertise -> Improved Trip -> Knockdown
Combat Expertise -> Improved Disarm -> Disarm and Deny

The Spiked Chain gives +2 to disarm but not to trip, so that's another plus. What do you guys think?

[lsfreak]

Good catch, mate! Thanks for bringing that one up, I think I'll give the Spiked Chain a try. One thing, though...I'm not sure whether tripping or disarming's a better choice. I really have only enough feats to pick one or the other. Here's what I could take:

Combat Expertise -> Improved Trip -> Knockdown
Combat Expertise -> Improved Disarm -> Disarm and Deny

The Spiked Chain gives +2 to disarm but not to trip, so that's another plus. What do you guys think?

Tripping is better. Disarming does nothing against animals, magic beasts, most abberations, most outsiders, elementals, many fey... it's humans, monstrous humans, and giants that might be using weapons. Trip, on the other hand, works on almost anything (it can just be difficult to trip the really big stuff).

[soulchicken]

Good catch, mate! Thanks for bringing that one up, I think I'll give the Spiked Chain a try. One thing, though...I'm not sure whether tripping or disarming's a better choice. I really have only enough feats to pick one or the other. Here's what I could take:

Combat Expertise -> Improved Trip -> Knockdown
Combat Expertise -> Improved Disarm -> Disarm and Deny

The Spiked Chain gives +2 to disarm but not to trip, so that's another plus. What do you guys think?

Knockdown only works if you are using unarmed to deal that 10+ points of damage iirc

Edit: Ignore this, as I am dum and stuff

[TheThan]

Are you sure it costs 1600? This site says different: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Winged_Boots

Do you have another resource that says it's 1600? Can anybody else give feedback about the price of this thing?


oh haha, that's a typo on my part, its 16,000 gold. that extra zero makes all the difference doesn't it.

Anyway I usually use the hypertext D20 srd (http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm) page for quick references.

[true_shinken]

Power Attacking has a rarely explored weakness - the decreased attack bonus makes you more vulnerable to disarming and sundering.

[TheThan]

Triping and disarming are both lousy choices.

The reasons are simple, the stats are stacked against you for tripping. Enemy monsters get huge bonuses for three major reasons: size, strength and multiple legs. Seriously monsters get +4 bonus on strength checks for EVERY size category they are above medium, and they get a +4 bonus for more than 1 pair of legs (fortunately this doesn’t stack). So if your fighting a basic centaur for example. He’s got a +12 bonus to his opposed roll if you try to trip him (1d20+4 ( str) +4 ( size) +4 (multiple legs). Even with 18 str and improved trip, you need to beat his roll by 5 to beat him in the opposed str contest. (Don’t know who wins ties). And if you fail, they get to make a free trip attempt against you. And this is from a very basic CR 3 monster. Bigger and scarier monsters get worse.

Now for disarm. Aside from the obvious of not being able to disarm a creature with natural attacks, the bigger creatures gets the bigger bonuses, also if your wielding a light weapon, you get penalized (for no real reason either). you get no bonuses for one handed weapons, but you get a bonus for a 2 handed weapon (which shows another reason why sword and board is so terrible). Also if you fail, they get to make a free Disarm attempt against you, and they don’t get to provoke an attack of opportunity like you did (without the feat that is).

One of my biggest problems with dnd 3.5 is that it really punishes melee characters. There are several really cool options like trip, disarm, sunder etc but they are all poor options compared to straight hit point damage (PA for example). 4E and Tome of battle have the right idea, give the players the ability to actually do cool stuff in combat. I just don’t care for the way they implemented their ideas.

[true_shinken]

Triping and disarming are both lousy choices.

I never even mentioned tripping. It is actually a very strong melee option, just dig around a little.
Also, I'm not saying a Power Attacker should disarm/sunder. I'm saying you should disarm/sunder a Power Attacker. The monsters could disarm/sunder him pretty easily.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Triping and disarming are both lousy choices.

The reasons are simple, the stats are stacked against you for tripping. Enemy monsters get huge bonuses for three major reasons: size, strength and multiple legs. Seriously monsters get +4 bonus on strength checks for EVERY size category they are above medium, and they get a +4 bonus for more than 1 pair of legs (fortunately this doesn’t stack). So if your fighting a basic centaur for example. He’s got a +12 bonus to his opposed roll if you try to trip him (1d20+4 ( str) +4 ( size) +4 (multiple legs). Even with 18 str and improved trip, you need to beat his roll by 5 to beat him in the opposed str contest. (Don’t know who wins ties). And if you fail, they get to make a free trip attempt against you. And this is from a very basic CR 3 monster. Bigger and scarier monsters get worse. A four-level dip in PsiWar solves most of these problems, as well as nets you a couple of bonus feats.

Expansion means being Large sized yourself, negating most of the problems you are describing. It's also a size bonus to Strength to negate that problem. Improved Trip neatly counters the Multiple Legs bonus. Problem solved.

Failing that, have someone cast Enlarge Person on you. Problem solved.

[Chipp Zanuff]

The biggest weakness of a charger build is a simple 1st level spell:



Grease (not the musical).

[Darrin]

Yeah, that was a typo on the poster's part. The price is 16,000 GP. You won't find flight of any real length (other than scrolls and potions) much cheaper than that though.

Phylactery of Change (A&EG p. 135) gives you all-day polymorph up to 7HD, only 11200 GP.

Amber Amulet of Vermin: Giant Wasp is only 800 GP. Flying mount 1/day for 10 rounds.

[TheThan]

A four-level dip in PsiWar solves most of these problems, as well as nets you a couple of bonus feats.

Expansion means being Large sized yourself, negating most of the problems you are describing. It's also a size bonus to Strength to negate that problem. Improved Trip neatly counters the Multiple Legs bonus. Problem solved.

Failing that, have someone cast Enlarge Person on you. Problem solved.

Psionics works well to get on even footing, but its pretty much non-core. So you will have to find a Dm that is cool with using psionics (and many Dms don't use it). So its not always going to be available for a player to use. Despite many people claiming its core because its in the SRD.

[herrhauptmann]

Psionics works well to get on even footing, but its pretty much non-core. So you will have to find a Dm that is cool with using psionics (and many Dms don't use it). So its not always going to be available for a player to use. Despite many people claiming its core because its in the SRD.

Core means different things for different people. Since the OP is asking for Warblade, I doubt it's a core only game.

The problem with getting disarmed/tripped after your own failure, yeah that exists. But if you're say 7th level, you should have the prereqs for several particular skill tricks. The ones you want are the ones that let you stand from prone as move/free action without eating an AOO. Sequence goes like this:
1)You fail your trip attempt
2)Enemy trips you in return (or disarms you of your chain)
3)You fall over, (or choose to fall over rather than drop your weapon)
4)Utilize your skill trick to stand upright again.
5)If you stood as a free action, continue on with your full attack sequence.

Jotunbrud allows you to count as if large sized (not one size larger, large sized) when advantageous in opposed rolls. There's your +4 to counter large sized creatures. Their bonus for multiple legs is negated by the bonus you get from improved trip. After this it becomes a strength contest. Eventually yes, you'll lose.
That's why tripping is only 1 trick in your arsenal taht takes a few feats. ComExp, ComRef, ImpTrip + (EWP: Chain, Knockdown). You can fill that by fighter 4. Afterwards you progress into lockdown.
Or do as the OP has been advised, go from Ubercharging, into trip/lockdown.

Yes 3.5 is biased in favor of casters, we know that. Rather than telling the OP that anything he wants to do is ineffective, come up with something useful he can do.


BZ:
Are you playing a straight fighter, straight warblade, or some mix/match of the two?
Here's two builds (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169009) I did recently which started from an unmounted ubercharger base.
First was the ubercharger with the minotaur greathammer+deadly concussion. A slight dip into bard to get Deadly Concussion sooner, and a dip into ranger for the last few skill points before going into Horizon Walker.
The second is the ubercharger but with a greatsword (frees 2 feats), but then takes a level in wizard, abjurant champion, and finishes with Eldritch knight. With an extra prereq feat at level 12, could have taken Knight Phantom (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4)
Both builds have nearly identical wishlists of items, and 2 free feat slots late in the progression. Could be easily filled with mageslayer, leadership, or a half dozen others.

Finally, Saph's Horizon Tripper (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80415) build. Not too relevant to BZ if using a lot of ToB, but it's still useful as a baseline when doing a noncore build.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Psionics works well to get on even footing, but its pretty much non-core. So you will have to find a Dm that is cool with using psionics (and many Dms don't use it). So its not always going to be available for a player to use. Despite many people claiming its core because its in the SRD.

Perhaps you didn't read the last sentence you quoted...

"Or simply have someone cast Enlarge Person on you. Problem solved".

And you can pay to have Enlarge Person be Permenancied on you, so you are always Large size. Easily within the WBL of a 10th level character.

[TheThan]

I didn’t say anything about enlarge person because I had nothing to say. Enlarge person helps to mitigate the size bonuses however, greater than large sized creatures still have an advantage, but that advantage is reduced.

In order for “you” to get enlarge person, you need to go gish to get access to the spell. Otherwise you’re reliant on someone else that's playing a caster and that's happy to throw the spell on you during or before combat. If he prepares something else instead, well then you don't get that spell (sorcerers are much less of a problem in that regards).

After you get to tenth level, permanency comes into play and you’ll be ok. The problem is that it took you half your adventuring career to get there, which kinda sucks. Getting enlarge person permanenced (permanented? What’s the plural for that?) on you before that will more than likely cost you gold, as it’ll cost the NPC caster some XP (fortunately its not that much). which brings up wealth by level.Plus you know. other than that, you've gotta get the Dm to approve it, but both of those are a topic for another thread. At level four, I don’t see the Dm doing that, but you never know, its worth finding out.

[Black_Zawisza]

Bumpitty bump bump. Any other ideas for counters?

[Jack Zander]

I didn’t say anything about enlarge person because I had nothing to say. Enlarge person helps to mitigate the size bonuses however, greater than large sized creatures still have an advantage, but that advantage is reduced.

In order for “you” to get enlarge person, you need to go gish to get access to the spell. Otherwise you’re reliant on someone else that's playing a caster and that's happy to throw the spell on you during or before combat. If he prepares something else instead, well then you don't get that spell (sorcerers are much less of a problem in that regards).

After you get to tenth level, permanency comes into play and you’ll be ok. The problem is that it took you half your adventuring career to get there, which kinda sucks. Getting enlarge person permanenced (permanented? What’s the plural for that?) on you before that will more than likely cost you gold, as it’ll cost the NPC caster some XP (fortunately its not that much). which brings up wealth by level.Plus you know. other than that, you've gotta get the Dm to approve it, but both of those are a topic for another thread. At level four, I don’t see the Dm doing that, but you never know, its worth finding out.

A wand of enlarge person costs 750 gold, has 50 charges and lasts 5 minutes at a time. Buy it as a gift for your arcane caster.

[Douglas]

Suppose I used a Spiked Chain while flying. Could I fly over an enemy's square and just harass it from above?
In addition to making it hard for the enemy to hit back, you'd get an extra +1 to hit for being on higher ground (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#favorableandUnfavorableConditi ons).


A wand of enlarge person costs 750 gold, has 50 charges and lasts 5 minutes at a time. Buy it as a gift for your arcane caster.
750 is for the caster level 1 version, which would only last 1 minute. If you want 5 minutes per charge, you need to pay 3750 for a caster level 5 wand.

[Jack Zander]

750 is for the caster level 1 version, which would only last 1 minute. If you want 5 minutes per charge, you need to pay 3750 for a caster level 5 wand.

Huh, that's odd. I always assumed that wands were created with a minimum caster level of 5 since you have to be that caster level just to create them. Still, 50 minutes of enlarge person for 750 gold isn't too bad of a deal for your melee monster to invest in.