[PF] Fighter Feat Suggestions

[Xander96]

I am building a 10th level fighter. I already have 9 out of 10 feats selected. I just need suggestions on the last. Currently, I have the following feats:

Toughness
WF: Lucerne Hammer
GWF: Lucerne Hammer
WS: Lucerne Hammer
Improved Initiative
Vital Strike
Improved Crit
Devestating Strike
Lunge

Thoughts, Suggestions?

[Zeikstraal]

What are the stats of your character? I'm sure we can help a bit more.
You have 2 more feats btw.
What I would suggest is, drop Vital Strike and Devastating strike. And maybe even GWF and I. Initiative.

If you have Int 13, go for Combat Expertise and the Trip feats.
If you have a dex of 13 or higher go for Combat Reflexes, wich is almost a MUST. Especialy with reach

Maybe drop one level of Fighter and take 1 level of Barbarian for the Rage.

Vital Strike isn't worth it. 1d12 extra damage is nothing, it's about the + that comes after the dice roll:smallsmile:

And one last question. Where is Power Attack??? the bread and butter of every 2-handed weapon fighter!!!!

edit: also drop toughness 10 hit points aint that good. You have better options to spend your feat on.

[Blisstake]

Are you only going for core feats?

[Xander96]

I knew I was forgetting something. I definitely have Power Attack and Furious Focus, which is AWESOME b/c it negates the penalty to the 1st attack

str 26
dex 13
con 17
int 13
wis 11
cha 11

[Lycar]

I would say, Fighters have a lot of options in PF and it depends a lot on which are available to you.

Having said that, the weapon focus/specialization line might not be the best way to boost your damage, especially since this still locks you down to a single weapon.

Vital strike can be nice if you only ever intend to use Standard attacks and use your Move action to, well, move around.

If you do that, however, using Cleave and Greater Cleave can do more for your damage output then Weapon Specialization and Vital Strike. Because Cleave/Greater Cleave triggers every time you hit as opposed to just when you drop an enemy. Although Cleaving Finish does just that and the additional attack can be on an enemy in reach as opposed to just one adjacent to your original target.

If you favour Full Round Attacks however, maybe Whirlwind Attack is worth looking into. Because combined with the extra reach from Lunge you can potentially get attacks at a lot of targets, all at full BAB and the chain doesn't get broken if you fail a to-hit roll like with Greater Cleave. But that is very feat intensive.

If the APG is in play, maybe look at the Polearm Fighter (http://www.pathfindersrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/polearm-master?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fapp%2Ftemplates%2Fprint%2F ). He gives up a few things like now being slowed by armour but he gets to attack with his polearm even at 5' with a swift action. It is a -2 on all attacks at your level though.

However, since the ability doesn't say you lose any reach, technically you could combine this with lunge to attack a frigging large number of foes with a Whirlwind Attack. In theory. If there are enough low-level mooks around to blend that is. Also you GM might forbid you to use both Pole Fighting and Lunge in the same round because Gouda. Better ask first.

EDIT: Also, if you are wondering how (Greater) Cleave and Cleaving Finish interact, this (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/rules/canCleavingFinishTriggerOffOfACleave&page=1) link might help.

[ericgrau]

That's +9 damage for 2 feats though, about 50% better than vital strike for 1 feat. But what about full attacks you say? Power attack is barely worth it for full attacks due to the -3 penalty, even though the penalty doesn't apply to the first attack. In a couple levels it'll be useless for full attacks.

I'd get vital strike first and then if you have feats leftover power attack + furious focus. I think Zeikstraal is underestimating 1d12 damage at his level. His bonus damage might add up to 11-12 total, not 100, so 1d12 matters a lot. True you want to full attack whenever possible, but often that is not an option and even a big damage boost round 1 and every 2-3 rounds thereafter is nice.

I've estimated increased average damage from improved initiative before and it's something but not too much. It's nice, but more direct feats like the above should be taken first if you're running out of feat slots. Or, heck, split off into improved trip.

You might want a little higher dexterity to take advantage of armor training. A 14 isn't too expensive. In a couple levels or so once you get richer you can buy a +2 dexterity item on top of that as 4k won't be painful anymore. Or look in the advanced player's guide and see if you can trade armor training for something else with alternate class features.

[Zurdan]

I knew I was forgetting something. I definitely have Power Attack and Furious Focus, which is AWESOME b/c it negates the penalty to the 1st attack

str 26
dex 13
con 17
int 13
wis 11
cha 11

Furious Focus really isn't worth it at the level you are starting at. As a fighter there should really be no question as to whether or not you hit with your first attack. I would second the 1 level dip into barbarian though, this will allow you to rage going up to 30 str, and get a weapon with the Furious enhancement.

If you are going for optimized damage I would go for
weapon focus
greater weapon focus
weapon specialization
improved crit
lunge
iron will or steel soul if you are a dwarf (cant have you killing everyone else)
combat reflexes
power attack
extra rage

[Xander96]

I suppose my confusion lies in the suggestions of the feats that I've already selected. As a fighter or a melee focused pc. Wouldn't you want feats that enhance your ab & to damage? WS gives you static +2 to your damage rolls every time. And WF & GWF gives you +2 to your ab. Also, your 1st attack is always going to be your best. So wouldn't you want a feat that negates that -3 penalty (currently) in order to execute the extra +9 damage?

What other feats other than the one I had listed would you suggest taking? The Iron Will one is a good one. Any other feats worth taking a look into?

[Yora]

With Str 26 and Con 17, those tiny numbers really don't make a noticable difference anymore.

When you strike, you will hit and you will hit pretty hard. But instead of trying to increase those numbers a bit, you should try to multiply them or hit more often.
At 12th level with power attack, you could take a -3 penalty to attack rolls, which you can easy afford, for a +9 bonus on damage.
With Combat Reflexes, you get additional opportunities to strike at your full attack bonus and deal full damage. That's a lot more valuable than making 2 more damage on ever hit.

If you have Power Attack, you might want to get to Cleave and Greater Cleave, which are a lot better in Pathfinder, since they give you additional attacks at full AB and full damage when you merely hit a target.

[Xander96]

But since acquiring feats is not a problem for me since I am a fighter. Why not just take the Furious Focus so that I can retain my ab w/o having the -3 penalty and still net +9 damage? That makes the most sense to me anyways.

Combat Reflexes makes sense, but for right now I am going to hold off. I only have a +1 to my dex anyways, which means only 1 additional AOO.

Cleave & Great Cleave have been the best suggestions so far. Now how do these feats work exactly? It says full base ab. So does that mean if I have 2 attacks. I can cleave 2 enemies if they are adjacent to one another for 2 attacks on each?

[Lycar]

The thing to remember about Cleave/Great Cleave is that cleaving is always a standard action. So it can not be combined with a charge to offset some of the Power Attack penalty.

Therefore your iterative attacks don't figure into it because with a standard action you can only make 1 attack anyways. If you can afford PA + Furious Focus, sure, go for it, it makes it more likely that your first attack hits and triggers Cleave.

With normal Cleave you only get 1 extra attack, with Greater Cleave you can keep on attacking adjacent targets as long as your attacks keep hitting, with the caveat that you can not attack a single enemy more then once in the entire attack series. All attacks in the Cleave chain are based on your full attack bonus + modifiers as normal. So if you use Furious Focus, all attacks but the first will be with the Power Attack penalty.

So if you feel confident you can keep hitting even with the attack penalty from Power Attack, or if you figure a PA hit will either kill or at least stagger a target, go for it. Otherwise you might be better off to go for x2, x3, x4 etc. damage by keeping the chain going.

But that is very situational. If you only face 2 or 3 foes to begin with, gambling on a Cleave chain may still be worth less then reducing the number of enemies ASAP. In which case you want to inflict maximum damage on your primary target. Everything above that is bonus.

Cleaving Finish is odd insofar, as it does not require the target of the extra attack triggered by killing/disabling a foe to be adjacent to the original target, unlike cleave.

[Xander96]

I think what I will do is add Iron Will. Since I'd like to increase my will saving throws. I hate getting dominated and killing my friends. That blows. Level 11 I'm taking Improved Vital Strike. So when I move and attack. It will be 3d12 + 9 (str) +2 ws +2 wt +4 devestrating strike bonus +9 PA. 26 damage w/o rolling the dice. Not too shabby...;)

[TurtleKing]

Nice to see someone who doesn't go the route of the powergamer looking to eek out as much for damage as possible. Xanderp96 would probably have done better describing the way he wants to fight and asking what feats would help with that. As for suggestions I'll let others do that as I don't play melee much.

[ericgrau]

I think there's some confusion between "good" and "better" here. It's good if most of your damage is added damage, you full attack when possible and usually hit on all single attacks. It's better if you add even more damage, have good single attacks when you must, and almost always hit rather than usually hit. Like the OP says since he has a lot of feats he can probably do it all.

As for iron will, the thing with the save feats is that they are a small bonus that you only use sometimes, rather than something you use every round. If it were a huge bonus that you use sometimes then I'd say ok yeah that makes up for the rarity. The thing is at +2 on the rare day that the dominate finally comes there's a good chance it won't help anyway. But again you do have a lot of other feats so as long as you have everything else you want, then it still helps.

I will second things you can use every round with no drawback, like the entire weapon focus tree.

[Person_Man]

What books are allowed, is 3.5 material allowed (in theory Pathfinder is supposed to be backward compatible), and are you using an Archetype?

Looking at your Feat selection, my opinion is that you've chosen things that provide fairly minor bonuses. The math is just not very impressive, especially for critical hit feats. Perhaps you may wish to look at Feats which provide scaled bonuses, additional attacks, multipliers, better action economy, and/or special abilities that can't be cheaply purchased with magic. Your options depend highly on what books are allowed, but within core Pathfinder you may wish to take a look at Combat Reflexes, Power Attack, Spellbreaker, Spirited Charge, and Step Up.

[Xander96]

Well, partially I was thinking of selecting Iron Will as a feat because 1, it adds +2 to my weakest save. And 2. there is another feat called Improved Iron Will or something like that that allows me to make another roll if I fail the 1st one. So that's not a bad option I was thinking anyways.

My fighting style is with a reach weapon. So we have 2 other melee pc's in the group. So essentially I allow them to base the enemy and then I plug myself in back of them and get the reach. I chose this weapon because I liked the RP flavor it provided. In the Kingmaker campaign that we are currently playing, the kingdom that we founded and are building. The "token" weapon of this kingdom is the weapon that I am using. So what better way to represent your kingdom then to you use the weapon from it to slay your enemies with.

Sure, I could have "cheesed" it out and selected a Falchion or even a scimitar/shield combo and "keened" those items. But I wanted to do something that would make sense RP wise.

Pathfinder only books. No other books allowed in this campaign.

@ Person Man: I have selected Power Attack. Also, you suggest the feats I have selected added "fairly minor bonuses." What feats would you have taken in place of WF & GWF? Those feats are the bread and butter of every fighter build. It adds +2, which can be HUGE if you're fighting something with a high AC. I'm not sure of any other feat would be better to select than those 2 right there.

Spirited Charge I will not select since I am not a mounted fighter. I will however consider the feats Combat Reflexes, even though there doesn't seem to be many AOO opportunities, as well as Spellbreaker & Step Up. Step Up seems the most attractive out of the suggested feats so far.

Thanks again Playground for all the suggestions! Keep them coming!

Xander96

[ericgrau]

Oh ya I forgot about Pathfinder's improved iron will. Iron will is still suck as a mere +2 usually won't save you even when you do finally use it, but the reroll on improved iron will makes it worth it. It's in the opposite boat... it's a long time until you finally need it which is great because you only get it 1/day anyway. I'd take it immediately after iron will because it's the one that actually matters.

Don't mind complaints about the fighter tree. It comes from 3.5 where there are better options to get 1,000 damage. In PF (and 3.5 w/ less splats) you need them to hit.

And don't dis reach, reach is nice. In fact I am suddenly noticing a distinct lack of combat reflexes to exploit it. Though I wouldn't bother with the hammer's sunder bonus quite yet (if ever).

[Cieyrin]

And don't dis reach, reach is nice. In fact I am suddenly noticing a distinct lack of combat reflexes to exploit it. Though I wouldn't bother with the hammer's sunder bonus quite yet (if ever).

Sunder is somewhat better in PF, in that there's a half-way point that weapons and armor gain the broken condition and are less effective, so you can sunder that far to make them less effective and not destroy your loot. You can also stop at 1 HP if you so choose, so Adamantine weaponry isn't overkill, either. If their weapon or armor isn't worthwhile, Greater Sunder makes your excess damage from your adamantine sunderer go into the target. So Sunder is actually a viable tactic, at least as much as the other options are.

[Person_Man]

Pathfinder only books. No other books allowed in this campaign.

@ Person Man: I have selected Power Attack. Also, you suggest the feats I have selected added "fairly minor bonuses." What feats would you have taken in place of WF & GWF? Those feats are the bread and butter of every fighter build. It adds +2, which can be HUGE if you're fighting something with a high AC. I'm not sure of any other feat would be better to select than those 2 right there.


+2 to-hit is not a huge bonus, and "every fighter build" does not use it. Similar bonuses can be gained from many other sources, such as charge, flanking, fighting from higher ground, a wide variety of spells and magic items, etc. Your Feats are a more precious and permanent resource.

If you really want me to, I could walk you through the math of expected damage per round, but that would require a knowledge of your average damage per hit, number of attacks per round, your overall to hit modifier for each attack, and the average AC of enemies you fight. Suffice to say, I've done the math for a number of different sceneries, and the additional bonus to hit generally translates into a very small bonus to your expected damage per round, and is generally less then then bonuses you would gain from getting additional attacks or damage multipliers.

If you were playing in an environment where 3.X were allowed, I could point you to long (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127026) lists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7165087) of (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7081777) better (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7066595) options (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125732). I've spent some time playing and writing about 3.X, and have a decent level of understanding about which 3.X feats and game mechanics. Since 3.5 material is not allowed and I lack the same level of familiarity Pathfinder Feats, I won't be much help in pointing you to alternatives other then those I've already identified from the SRD. But the underlying game mechanics for melee have not changed beyond how special attacks are calculated/nerfed, and thus my overall assessments of what Feats are weak and strong hasn't changed.

So again, I would suggest that you look at Feats which provide scaled bonuses, additional attacks, multipliers, better action economy, and/or special abilities that can't be cheaply purchased with magic.

As a side commentary, this is a sadly apt illustration of how Pathfinder made melee combat in general and the Fighter specifically weaker then the 3.5 versions. By removing or nerfing stronger melee options, melee and the Fighter are even less desirable when compared to full casters and psionic users.

[Cieyrin]

+2 to-hit is not a huge bonus, and "every fighter build" does not use it. Similar bonuses can be gained from many other sources, such as charge, flanking, fighting from higher ground, a wide variety of spells and magic items, etc. Your Feats are a more precious and permanent resource.

If you really want me to, I could walk you through the math of expected damage per round, but that would require a knowledge of your average damage per hit, number of attacks per round, your overall to hit modifier for each attack, and the average AC of enemies you fight. Suffice to say, I've done the math for a number of different sceneries, and the additional bonus to hit generally translates into a very small bonus to your expected damage per round, and is generally less then then bonuses you would gain from getting additional attacks or damage multipliers.

If you were playing in an environment where 3.X were allowed, I could point you to long (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127026) lists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7165087) of (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7081777) better (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7066595) options (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125732). I've spent some time playing and writing about 3.X, and have a decent level of understanding about which 3.X feats and game mechanics. Since 3.5 material is not allowed and I lack the same level of familiarity Pathfinder Feats, I won't be much help in pointing you to alternatives other then those I've already identified from the SRD. But the underlying game mechanics for melee have not changed beyond how special attacks are calculated/nerfed, and thus my overall assessments of what Feats are weak and strong hasn't changed.

So again, I would suggest that you look at Feats which provide scaled bonuses, additional attacks, multipliers, better action economy, and/or special abilities that can't be cheaply purchased with magic.

As a side commentary, this is a sadly apt illustration of how Pathfinder made melee combat in general and the Fighter specifically weaker then the 3.5 versions. By removing or nerfing stronger melee options, melee and the Fighter are even less desirable when compared to full casters and psionic users.

I don't think Weapon Focus is as weak as it used to be, as now it actually has value as a prereq to useful things, even in Core, like Dazzling Display, PF's Never Outnumbered, which can be used more than once per encounter, or Snap Shot, which allows ranged weapons to threaten within a certain range of yourself.

This isn't to say that all of PF's feats are good (by no means), as more often than not it seems to me that the writer's mantra is "There's a Feat for That!TM," with a like degradation of quality. So, Weapon Focus and its normal chain has value as Endurance does, though slightly higher in that the +1 to hit comes up far more often.

Also, PF attempted to leverage Fighter bonus feats with them being often the first to new, useful stuff, like slapping a BAB +6 requirement on many feats when most everyone else isn't gonna get it till 7th, along with Fighter-only feats and their ability to retrain their feats like how spontaneous casters can trade out spells known, though I think it may be a bit less restrictive on what can be phased in. This isn't to say Fighters aren't still at the bottom of the food chain in comparison to caster types but I don't think they're utterly screwed over, either, unless the definition of screwed over is "Must OHKO," which I think is not a feasible goal for many gaming groups. Instead, Fighters have access to a lot more BFC in terms of applying conditions and denying actions to enemies, which can be rather interesting, indeed. :smallbiggrin:

[Xander96]

+2 to-hit is not a huge bonus, and "every fighter build" does not use it. Similar bonuses can be gained from many other sources, such as charge, flanking, fighting from higher ground, a wide variety of spells and magic items, etc. Your Feats are a more precious and permanent resource.

If you really want me to, I could walk you through the math of expected damage per round, but that would require a knowledge of your average damage per hit, number of attacks per round, your overall to hit modifier for each attack, and the average AC of enemies you fight. Suffice to say, I've done the math for a number of different sceneries, and the additional bonus to hit generally translates into a very small bonus to your expected damage per round, and is generally less then then bonuses you would gain from getting additional attacks or damage multipliers.

If you were playing in an environment where 3.X were allowed, I could point you to long (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127026) lists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7165087) of (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7081777) better (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7066595) options (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125732). I've spent some time playing and writing about 3.X, and have a decent level of understanding about which 3.X feats and game mechanics. Since 3.5 material is not allowed and I lack the same level of familiarity Pathfinder Feats, I won't be much help in pointing you to alternatives other then those I've already identified from the SRD. But the underlying game mechanics for melee have not changed beyond how special attacks are calculated/nerfed, and thus my overall assessments of what Feats are weak and strong hasn't changed.

So again, I would suggest that you look at Feats which provide scaled bonuses, additional attacks, multipliers, better action economy, and/or special abilities that can't be cheaply purchased with magic.

As a side commentary, this is a sadly apt illustration of how Pathfinder made melee combat in general and the Fighter specifically weaker then the 3.5 versions. By removing or nerfing stronger melee options, melee and the Fighter are even less desirable when compared to full casters and psionic users.

Let me rephrase...the +2 is not an astronomical bonus by any means but big enough to make a difference. Ex: You're fighting an enemy. You roll your d20. You miss by 2. Wouldn't you then be wishing you had taken those 2 feats to hit your target instead of miss? Also, since the fighters get a boatload of feats. Why not take those? It only enhances your ability to hit, which is what you want to do in the 1st place.

Also, the 2nd point is exactly what Cieyrin eluded to. WF opens up other feats within that tree that can be quite effective.

If you have any suggestions in regards to PF for feats that might be better than WF or GWF. Please feel to elaborate. I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

[ericgrau]

WF and GWF each average to roughly 7.5% more damage from extra hits (e.g., hit on a 7 => hit on a 6 = +1/14 = 7.5% more hits), more once you get secondary and tertiary attacks . That's hard to beat in Pathfinder, and even if you do the two feats will still make the middle of your list. He's talking about 3.5's scaling and multipliers which would be better, but are harder to find in PF. Even the scaling feat power attack has a scaling drawback so once, say, you add 9 damage and then subtract 22.5%+ damage, you don't actually gain that much. At low to mid levels that example might net to 3 to 1 damage (decreasing with level, not increasing as you'd expect from "scaling"), and more might be lost on the final hit due to overkill. At high levels you usually lose more than you gain, except on furious focus single attacks of course. One thing you can still do for a multiplier is mounted charging, if dungeon space allows.