3.5 6Fighter/6Eye of Gruumsh advice

[Chickenzilla225]

Hi, I'm rolling up a new character since my old one died. I am a chaotic evil orc serving Gruumsh. I get 88000 starting gold.

My DM allowed me to use a longspear as opposed to the double orc axe for eye of Gruumsh. I plan to substitute raging with whirling frenzy to offset the -4 ac from swingblindly+rage making it a 0 AC loss.

FEATS
I took a flaw and took 6 levels of fighter so three at 1st, one at 2nd, one at 3rd, one at 4th, two at 6th.
1:Power attack
1:Weapon Focus
1:Combat reflexes
2:Hold the Line Get AoO when opponent charges into square you threaten
3:Endurance Sleep in armor
4:
6:Weapon Specialization
9:Melee Weapon Mastery Piercing +2 attack and +2 damage
12:Steadfast Determination Use Con for Wil saves

Gets improved trip from Wolf totem. +4 strength to strength on trip attempt.

I was planning on getting the +4 belt of giant's strength, Chainshirt +1, steadfast boots (MIC168), +1 a long spear wounding, Changeling (MIC31), and a crystal of lesser returning on the long spear. Added Ring of Freedom of Movement 40,000, gloves of dex 4000, Cloak of Resistance +2 4000.

That's 16,000+1100+1400+16,005+2000+1000+40,000+4000+4000 =85501

STATS:
If we roll 4 1's on our stats that counts as a 20, so I have:
Str 20
Dex 16
Con 17
Int 12
Wis 12
Cha 6

Two points into the str for levels 8 and 12, and one for con at 4.
For being orc I loss 2 Char 2 Int 2 Wis and gain 4 Str
After all this (plus items) I have:
Str 30 (38 when raging)
Dex 18
Con 18
Int 10
Wis 10
Char 4

Now I plan to have this guy hanging out behind our front line tank stabbing away. I want to have him being able to change his spear larger to gain reach, and be able to shrink it/change it to a short spear as needed.

Any advice is appreciated thank you.

Edit: Take two levels of barb instead of fighter. Get improved trip.
-1 ref/wil +2fort

[Hiro Protagonest]

Lose Monkey Grip. Now. You're taking -2 on attack for +1 damage. Making your spear larger doesn't grant you extra reach.

I suggest you go warblade rather than fighter.

[Chickenzilla225]

Lost monkey grip and sizing. What are the benefits of warblade?

[Hiro Protagonest]

It's in Tome of Battle. However, its on a different level than the fighter. Does your group's cleric use Cure Critical Wounds, or Righteous Might and Divine Power? Does the wizard use Fireball, Haste (on others), and Cone Of Cold, or Displacement, Cloudkill, and Wall Of Force? The first spell choices are good for groups with fighters, the latter are more powerful, and should be played alongside warblades.

[Keld Denar]

Warblade is a base class in Tome of Battle. Its an entirely new combat system based around combat maneuvers. It integrates pretty seamlessly into play, but it is a lot to learn. Very worth it, but not all DMs allow it for various reasons.

Something worthwhile for you might be the feats Combat Reflexes and Hold the Line. Get a +2 Dex item (4000g) and you'll have 3 AoOs per round, which is plenty. Hold the Line is pretty brutal, especially since you'll have Steadfast Boots as well. You'll be taking 2 free attacks when someone rushes at you, 3 if they are actually charging. Thats a lot of hurt when its not even your turn.

While Cleave is not a bad investment, at 12th level Great Cleave will be pretty hard to trigger. You can generally plan to drop at least 1 big foe per round, meaning you'll Cleave 2-4 times per combat over several rounds. Great Cleave, however, requires you to drop 2+ foes per round to we worthwhile, which is a fair bit more difficult unless they are complete fodder. Spending a whole feat slot to mop up fodder is slightly wasteful IMO.

You need a way to strike adjacent foes. I'd suggest you put spikes on your armor. It won't be as strong of an attack, and 9/10 times you'll want to 5' step back before attacking, but its nice to have that option.

I'd get a +1 Wounding spear rather than a +3 spear. Wounding is awesome, and results in a lot of extra damage in the form of Con loss. This goes doubly so if you'll have a cleric or wizard in the party to cast Greater Magic Weapon.

[Chickenzilla225]

I just checked with my DM. He won't allow anything from tome of battle. Good call on the great cleave. I'll dump that. For the +3 spear I just meant that's the money I'm putting into it. Wounding sounds good. And any advice for other feats and equiptment?
Edit: I plan to make the full plate at least +1
as well and get gloves of dex.

[Keld Denar]

Check out this list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851). It has a lot of stuff you want.

Do you have a miss chance?
Do you have flight?
Do you have Freedom of Movement?
Do you have Mind Blank?
Do you have short range teleports?
Do you have resistance/immunities to daze and/or stun?
Do you have personal Haste?

You are a 12th level meleer. If the answer to more than 3 of these are no, you should look into fixing that.

EDIT: Don't forget about bread and butter things like +Resistance, +Str, +Con, etc.

[Chickenzilla225]

Ok, I added ring of FoM, and changed the full-plate+1 to breastplate+1, added gloves of dex, and took out the armor optimization and specialization.
I added Hold the Line and Combat Reflexes.
I have 5 feats open, and 2395 gold left.
Feel free to tell me I'm stupid with any of the gold that I'm spending here too.

Edit: And thank you for that list.

Edit edit: I added Shock trooper and Improved Bull Rush.

[Keld Denar]

Couple cheap things. Anklets of Translocation are 1400g and 2/day 10' swift action teleports. Thats nice for moving away from folks to full attack or flank, or making foes move extra through your threatened area.

Wand of Lesser Vigor (LV is in Complete Divine and SpC). This is THE most cost effective healing you can buy. 550 HP healed for 750g makes it ideal for out-of-combat healing. All the love you'll ever need, just make sure you hand it off to a friendly ally to tap you with it.

Did you remember a +Resistance item? Don't neglect your saves!!!!

Other feats that are handy. I like Improved Toughness as a filler feat. There is no such thing as too many HP, and IT is like having 2 more points of Con (except it doesn't boost your Fort save). Endurance negates the need for the Restful Armor crystal (so you can get something else, like the DR one), and also qualifies you for Steadfast Determination (PHBII). SD gives you your decent Con bonus to Will save instead of Wisdom, meaning you aren't a dumb gullable orc anymore. You also don't auto-fail Fort saves on a 1, which is nice with your massive Fort save. If you do do that, consider Quick Recovery from Lords of Madness. It allows you to attempt a saving through as a move action to end certain on-going effects. Even effects that don't normally allow a will save. Mind blast got you down? SURGE! Blasphemy? SURGE! Stinking Cloud? SURGE! Dominated? SURGE! You need a good Fort and Will save to use this effectively, but with Steadfast Determination, you should have both.

EDIT: if you do Steadfast Determination, swap your Wisdom and Int. MOAR skillpoints for no penalty is awesome.

[Chickenzilla225]

I added those three feats, but changed to a chain shirt and swapped my dex and int so I could get the bonus 4 AC. I also have 7k gold now. Is shock trooper and bullrush that worthwhile with my other feats set about waiting for them to come to me?

[Keld Denar]

I personally don't like Shocktrooper (there is another active thread in which I've discussed this). It encourages a certain 1-dimensionalism that is rather unhealthy. It also makes encounter planning MUCH harder for DMs since you can pretty much just auto-gib things he throws at you.

Power Attack is all about risk vs reward. How much you can get away with without going over and missing. Shocktrooper removes most of that risk. Without the risk, there is almost no reason not to bet the house on red every time you spin the wheel. Either your foe is a fine red paste, or you are. DMs almost always win that arms race.

Again, I'm not seeing a +resistance item anywhere. Don't neglect your saves. A failed fort save will kill you to death, and a failed will save could kill your friends just as hard.

[Chickenzilla225]

I can pick +2 Cloak of resistance for 4k.
I dumped improved bull-rush and shock trooper. Two feats left. What else don't I need up there?
2495 Gold left.

[Keld Denar]

Minor note....you have to swap the order of Endurance and Steadfast Determination. Endurance is a prereq for SD, not the other way around.

If you can't think of what to spend all of those feats on, consider taking fewer Fighter levels. A couple of Barbarian levels instead will cost you 1 feat without impacting your character dynamically. You'll get a couple more skill points, a couple more HP, and another rage ability. From there, consider taking Extra Rage for 2 extra Rages per day.

So...Barbarian2/Fighter4/Eye6 is still 12th level.

Another feat that is kinda fun if you have Rage is Mad Foam Rager (PHBII). MFR delays the effect of one thing that would impact you negatively for a single round. That 1 round might be long enough to kill the origionator or recieve a beneficial spell or effect that negates the ability. Big Bad Sorcalator wants to Dominate your Person? I'd like to see him issue commands with 18" of +1 Wounding Longspear sticking out of his FACE. CROM!!!!!!!

You might want to invest the remaining cash in the Wand of Lesser Vigor, or a couple of Healing Belts (MIC) with your remaining cash. You can't use the wands, but it makes you more self sufficient if your cleric or druid doesn't want to burn a bunch of slots healing you. Cause you shouldn't make demands on other players spell slots. Be a courteous orc and think of others' fun.

[Chickenzilla225]

He won't let me multi-class like that with fighter/barb unless I stay even 3 fighter/3 barb. It's not really worth it imo.
Also what about Reckless rage. Will that work with whirlwind frenzy? Will it give me +2 con when I rage?

[Hiro Protagonest]

He won't let me multi-class like that with fighter/barb unless I stay even 3 fighter/3 barb. It's not really worth it imo.

What? Barbarian is the orc's favored class, your able to multiclass in it without taking any penalties.

[Chickenzilla225]

Oh ****, I need to bring that up to him then, thank you.

[Gavinfoxx]

Are you a Water Orc? Water Orcs are pretty awesome! See SRD.

[Chickenzilla225]

Are you a Water Orc? Water Orcs are pretty awesome! See SRD.

Straight Orc, like I said for background purposes.

[Chickenzilla225]

I'm also going to do wolf totem with this build.

[Keld Denar]

I'll just answer your other questions here, since in thread form, you AND anyone else who wants to read it can benefit from it.

You asked about being a chargebreaker. Well, you already have Hold the Line AND Steadfast Boots, so you are pretty well off.

The 3 forms of control that couple with that are Standstill (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#standStill), Improved Trip/Knockdown (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown), and Knockback (Races of Stone). Knockback isn't really an option since you don't have Powerful Build and aren't large (although you can fake it 3/day with the Brutal Surge weapon enhancement in the MIC), so that leaves Standstill and Knockdown. You need Knockdown since a spear isn't normally a tripping weapon like a Spiked Chain is. Knockdown just needs to deal 10+ points of damage to activate which you can do with any weapon. Luckily, you can fill most of the prereqs for Knockdown with the Wolf Totem Barb2, which you are planning to take, so its not terribly feat intensive. Don't mind that its in the dieties part of the SRD, its still a [General] feat. Same thing with Standstill and the Psionic portion...its not [Psionic], its [General].

If you opt for both, you just need to know in which situation to use each. You use Trip in situations where your foe is medium or smaller, and not very physically imposing. Enemy humanoids are the prime targets. Use Standstill against anything that is larger than you, and anything that is physically sturdy (foes with multiple legs, high str, or exceptionally stable), as those foes tend to have a lower Ref save.

The only thing you DON'T have is the ability to counter Tumble. The only way to do that is with Thicket of Blades, which is a stance in Tome of Battle which is unfortuantely not allowed to you. You'll still do decent, you just won't be an absolute wall.

[Chickenzilla225]

Welp I lied, my DM won't allow totems...

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Without totems, the tripping portion of your build is basically dead. Unfortunate, but most of Keld's information is still super useful.

Building off of the Knockback/Knockdown strategy, you may consider going Fighter 6 for the Dungeoncrasher variant from Dungeonscape. It works well with power attack, keeping people away (or down, if you are above them:smallwink:), and meshes rather seamlessly with a "hold the line!" type of character archetype. It does mean that you won't have your bonus fighter feats at 2nd and 6th, however.

[Greenish]

You asked about being a chargebreaker. Well, you already have Hold the Line AND Steadfast Boots, so you are pretty well off.Add Intercepting weapon (Forge of War) and Pike Hedge (Dragon Magazine Compendium).

Four attacks against anyone who charges you, one at triple damage, one at double damage, and two as normal.