Lockdown Crusader / Knight Vindicator

[Yorae]

So, I was considering building a battlefield control / tank character out of a Crusader -> RKV and was looking for some advice.

I'm thinking this guy is your standard tripper tank, but also likes to throw out Shield Other-s and the like on his party members. Damage dealing capability is a plus.

Obviously I need the standard Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, and Stand Still. Knock-Down seems like it would be nice, since it seems that I could use it to attack with a martial maneuver and then trip as well (does this work?). I was thinking of using a Kusari-Gama in order to have a 1-handed reach weapon, so I can still use a shield. Spiked Chain is great, but Crusader has Shield Block and Shield Counter, which seem potentially fun and I'd like to maximize my AC where feasible. I'm am a little bit concerned that I won't deal enough damage on AoOs to make my enemies fail the reflex save for Stand Still. (Should I just bite the bullet and give up the shield anyway?)

I was also thinking of potentially using DMM(Persist) for some all-day buffs to maximize my tank-iness. Righteous Might in particular seems like a must, since I need to increase my reach as much as I can.

Anyone have any pointers to help me optimize this guy?

[Morbis Meh]

I wouldn't go DMM:Persist you will be feat starved as it is. I recommend grabbing a guisarme over a spiked chain/kusari gamma since it will save a feat. Make sure your cleric levels are cloistered since you can trade in the knowledge domain for the knowledge devotion feat. Law devotion, travel devotion, karmic strike and robilar's gambit are all excellent feats for this build.

[Greenish]

Cast Blessing of Girallon, use a guisarme, a flail and a shield.

[Fax Celestis]

Honestly, I'd say go with swordsage instead of crusader. Swordsage/Cleric has WIS-synergy, and you get access to Setting Sun, which is delicious for trippers. You'll have to spend two feats on a Devoted Spirit stance and maneuver to get in, but I think it's worthwhile. I've done it myself before (http://www.pifro.com/pro/view.php?id=690).

[Yorae]

It's worth noting that I should have more feats available than typical - our DM's character creation allows us to purchase additional feats, so I may have significantly more than is typical. I've heard of many people entering RKV via Ur-Priest, though the feat tax for that seems steep on top of everything else.

[Essence_of_War]

1) There is a sweet Crusader Handbook in my sig that can help you chart your path through the ToB water.

2) About how many more feats will you be getting? What is your starting level/WBL? What sort of other houserules do you have.

I've made lock-down crusaders before, and they can be feat intensive. Since this sort of build typically really wants Thicket of Blades, and the regular crusader can't get it before 8th level, you could do some early multiclassing (Monk 2, BBN 2, Fighter 2, OA Samurai 2) to help pick up the plethora of feats you'll need, and take your first two crusader levels for your 7th and 8th levels, thus nabbing Thicket of Blades (and potentially WRT as well!) at the same time at the single class'd crusader.

If you can get large size, or powerful build (or both!) that's obviously a tremendous advantage in the reach department, but also gives you access to the hilariously fun Knock-back feat. It makes fighter 6 for dungeoncrasher into Crusader X a pretty powerful combination. If you have the feats to get them, you can actually use Knockdown and Knockback at the same time, so that whenever you hit someone, and you're power attacking for at least 1, and you deal at least 10 damage (trivial), you get to both bullrush them AND trip them. So melee enemies will have to waste their move action standing up, and then have to get back into melee range of you to be dangerous.

If you're committed to the RKV route, you might consider one of these progressions:

Cleric6/Crusader1/RKV (gets thicket at 8th level)
Cleric4/Crusader2/RKV (gets thicket at 7th level)
Cleric 2/Crusdaer 3/RKV (gets thicket at 6th level!)

depending on your sense of aesthetic, and what your plans AFTER RKV are. More Crusader is likely leaning towards the 3rd, more Cleric/Divine PrC leaning towards the 1st.

If you have the feats to do the DMM AND the lockdown, in some sense RKV is kind of superfluous. That is to say, from a raw power perspective you might just be better off taking a 1-2 level crusader dip to pick up Glare/Thicket/WRT and spending the rest of your levels on straight cleric and its associated PrCs.

[Yorae]

1) There is a sweet Crusader Handbook in my sig that can help you chart your path through the ToB water.

2) About how many more feats will you be getting? What is your starting level/WBL? What sort of other houserules do you have.


Our house rules (don't think I left anything out):

Open materials are all WotC publishings, plus whats on the pfsrd.

Starting WBL at level 1 is 130gp + one half of maximum starting gold listed for your class.

Additional feats are obtained by a "Feat buy" with skill points - a player can spend up to 2 per level and once they have invested at least 8 they can cash out all their feat buy ranks for one feat. The same can be done with attribute points, except that you can cash out 4 points of attribute buy for a single +1 to an attribute. We are also able to trade three attribute points (bought or 'natural') for a single feat. Usually this results in between six and eight additional feats.

Up to the standard 2 flaws allowed.

Fractional BAB/saves are allowed.

No multiclass penalty (conditional upon DM approval)

Several skills are condensed to their Pathfinder equivalents. E.g., Open Lock and Disable Device are the same skill. Notable exceptions are that Acrobatics skills (Tumble, Jump, etc.) remain separate, as do Hide and Move Silently. Knowledge skills are changed slightly in that Archaelogy & Engineering and Dungeoneering are part of the same skill, Knowledge(Local) doesn't exist, and Knowledge(Social) is a new skill. Probably other knowledge skill consolidations that I don't recall. Autohypnosis no longer exists. Spellcraft/Psicraft are merged. UMD/UPD are merged.

Psionics is simply a type of magic (transparency in all cases where its possible to do so).

Skill points per level are based on the character's highest mental stat, rather than always intellect.

Character attributes are a fair bit higher than average - 4d6 drop lowest, pick three "primary" stats. You have a secondary point buy pool of 15. Spend 1 to increase a primary stat by 1. Spend 2 to increase a secondary by 1. Stats are capped at 20 before racials at level 1. (Yeah, I don't know why don't just use a straight point buy and just use a high value. Our DM likes having a random component.)

Not sure how we would handle LA, as noone has tried playing a race with LA thus far.


All of that probably wasn't necessary, but it can't hurt.




I've made lock-down crusaders before, and they can be feat intensive. Since this sort of build typically really wants Thicket of Blades, and the regular crusader can't get it before 8th level, you could do some early multiclassing (Monk 2, BBN 2, Fighter 2, OA Samurai 2) to help pick up the plethora of feats you'll need, and take your first two crusader levels for your 7th and 8th levels, thus nabbing Thicket of Blades (and potentially WRT as well!) at the same time at the single class'd crusader.


If you can get large size, or powerful build (or both!) that's obviously a tremendous advantage in the reach department, but also gives you access to the hilariously fun Knock-back feat. It makes fighter 6 for dungeoncrasher into Crusader X a pretty powerful combination. If you have the feats to get them, you can actually use Knockdown and Knockback at the same time, so that whenever you hit someone, and you're power attacking for at least 1, and you deal at least 10 damage (trivial), you get to both bullrush them AND trip them. So melee enemies will have to waste their move action standing up, and then have to get back into melee range of you to be dangerous.


That sounds pretty neat. You can take Knockback if you're not always large, correct? So, you could take it via Righteous Might and then you would only ever gain the benefit of the feat while the spell was in effect?

Also, could using Stone Power for at least 1 substitute for power attacking for at least 1? Is it a good idea? How about if you're utilizing the Stone Power + Lady's Gambit combo?



If you're committed to the RKV route, you might consider one of these progressions:

Cleric6/Crusader1/RKV (gets thicket at 8th level)
Cleric4/Crusader2/RKV (gets thicket at 7th level)
Cleric 2/Crusdaer 3/RKV (gets thicket at 6th level!)

depending on your sense of aesthetic, and what your plans AFTER RKV are. More Crusader is likely leaning towards the 3rd, more Cleric/Divine PrC leaning towards the 1st.

If you have the feats to do the DMM AND the lockdown, in some sense RKV is kind of superfluous. That is to say, from a raw power perspective you might just be better off taking a 1-2 level crusader dip to pick up Glare/Thicket/WRT and spending the rest of your levels on straight cleric and its associated PrCs.

And miss out on Divine Recovery and Divine Impetus? They look really, really good.

I was almost tempted for a dip to Knight 3 for Bulwark of Defense, since it seems really awesome (unlike just about everything else in that class). That's probably totally suboptimal, though.

Also considered taking Planning domain to avoid needing to take Extend Spell otherwise.

[Phaederkiel]

knight´s real ability comes at lvl 4 with test of mettle. This can make a lot of enemies attack you (only those at your lvl to your lvl-2, will dc against 10+ (knightlvl / 2)+cha mod negates).

Note that the dc can be boosted by about 3 with some easily gotten items, boosted some more with some items gotten not so easily.

there is a possibility to use a feat on the dc as well, i think. Ability Focus? It is a feat made for monsters, but nevertheless...

and vigilant defender isn´t that bad either. tumbling is one thing that may sink your boat.

I have a Knight 6 / fighter 2 / crusader 2 in my campaign, Karmic strike-spamming AoO powered by shocktrooper; she is quite a handful even without lockdown.

[Seerow]

knight´s real ability comes at lvl 4 with test of mettle. This can make a lot of enemies attack you (only those at your lvl to your lvl-2, will dc against 10+ (knightlvl / 2)+cha mod negates).

Note that the dc can be boosted by about 3 with some easily gotten items, boosted some more with some items gotten not so easily.

there is a possibility to use a feat on the dc as well, i think. Ability Focus? It is a feat made for monsters, but nevertheless...

and vigilant defender isn´t that bad either. tumbling is one thing that may sink your boat.

I have a Knight 6 / fighter 2 / crusader 2 in my campaign, Karmic strike-spamming AoO powered by shocktrooper; she is quite a handful even without lockdown.

I think you're confused. Nobody's talking about the Knight class here.

[Phaederkiel]

by seerow:


I think you're confused. Nobody's talking about the Knight class here.

by yorae

I was almost tempted for a dip to Knight 3 for Bulwark of Defense, since it seems really awesome (unlike just about everything else in that class). That's probably totally suboptimal, though.

[Gwendol]

I would also propose a few levels of knight: BoD is that good, especially when combined with Thicket of Blades and the other lock down/AoO spamming feats.

[Essence_of_War]

Knight 3 is a fine breakpoint, but if you have the charisma, Knight 4 can be fine also (although it sure doesn't scale with level very well).

The dip isn't great if you actually want to do the RKV thing.


And miss out on Divine Recovery and Divine Impetus? They look really, really good.

Indeed, they are good, but Divine Impetus (extra swift actions right) works best with DMM:Quicken rather than DMM:Persist. Being able to impetus out a few DMM:Quickened spells in one round can be pretty baller.

Also, it's almost certainly not what the designers intended, but as written, Divine Impetus is an Su ability with no additional notes on its action time, therefore it's by RAW a std action ability. It's almost certainly supposed to be a free action, but check with your DM.