Thought Experiment: The Mighty Gnome

[NeoSeraphi]

Is it possible to optimize melee combat if you are a Small creature with 8 Str? To be clear, I'm talking about a gnome fighter, with no Sneak Attack or other forms of precision damage, and no maneuvers. The gnome's Strength score may not be increased, it must remain at 8 to level 20.

Would you be able to overcome that obstacle and still be able to hit and deal decent damage at higher levels? I realize that with Shock Trooper you don't need to worry about your BAB with Power Attack, but is a +5 weapon and +20 BAB enough to hit CR 20 creatures reliably, without a nice +10 bonus from your Strength score? Is Power Attack, even at -20 with a two handed weapon, enough damage to compete with a normal charge build? Etc.

(Of course, your build doesn't need to include Shock Trooper or Power Attack, I'm just listing my thoughts here.)

Edit: Duh, you don't qualify for Power Attack without 13 Str. I'm an idiot, ignore me.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

You don't even qualify for power attack with 8 strength. It would be easier if he was an initiator; then he could just do his concentration check in damage or something. Straight fighter, in this instance, may end up looking like a gimped version of a warblade, taking Martial Study for those kinds of maneuvers whenever he can. Of course, he'll have no way to refresh them mid-combat, way fewer options, half the IL, and no other class features to speak of.

[NeoSeraphi]

Right, forgot about PA's Str requirement...hmm..what about Spirited Charge? You don't need to have Strength to take Spirited Charge.

[Mystify]

Hmm. As a fighter, I'm not sure. I know of builds where you selectively dip around with classes and abilitites, and end up with every stat going into damage. And other things, if you want. Basically, become MAD as all get-out and turn it into an advantage. So you attack, and end up getting -1 damage from strength, then another 30 from dex, con, int, wis, and charisma.
I could dig up the specifics if that is an acceptable route.

[NeoSeraphi]

Hmm. As a fighter, I'm not sure. I know of builds where you selectively dip around with classes and abilitites, and end up with every stat going into damage. And other things, if you want. Basically, become MAD as all get-out and turn it into an advantage. So you attack, and end up getting -1 damage from strength, then another 30 from dex, con, int, wis, and charisma.
I could dig up the specifics if that is an acceptable route.

Sure, that makes sense. (Though I wouldn't want to be using a finessable weapon).

Let's see, Swashbuckler 3 for Int to damage. What about the others?

[Mystify]

take a level of swordsage, get a shadow hand stance, and take the shadow blade feat. This lets you add dex to damage with a shadow hand weapon(there are other ways to get this)
3 levels of swashbuckler for weapon finesse and int to damage
shiba protector for wisdom to attack and damage
Get a hammer of earth, which lets you add con to damage, then enchant it to be sizing and morphing, and transform it into a shadow hand weapon
bracer's of heartfelt strikes to add charisma to damage as fire

taking this further, you go into cleric, take the charm domain to boost charisma once per day, and the smite domain to get a cha to accuracy boost 1/day. Use your turning attempts on something like divine might, to spend your turning attempts to get charisma to damage again. Go into mystic wonderer for charisma to AC, fist of the forest for con to AC, 2 level of paladin of freedom giving you another type of smite and charisma to saves.

Then you try to qualify for saint, which will give you wisdom to AC as a deflection bonus, along with a pile of really nifty powers.

This actually leaves several spare levels, which you can use to get templates to boost your stats, since they are so integral to this build.

My final build looked like this:

half-fey
half-fey
draconic
fire-souled leadership
1.swordsage - shadow blade, combat expertise
2.swash weapon finess
3.swash alertness
4.swash
5.swordsage
6.fighter power attack iron will
7.shiba protector
8.domain focused cleric
9.cleric great fortitude
10.cleric
11.mystic wonderer
12.fighter improved unarmed strike knight of the stars
13.fist of the forest
14. freedom paladin
15. freedom paladin sanctify martial strike
16 sword of righteousness nymphs kiss
~saint
~saint

Which is technically level 22, but you aquire the saint template at 20 to boost it higher. You can work around that if its not kosher.

using a 29 point by I got a spread of all 14s for the base stats(you would shift some from strength, which is honestly this build's worst stat anyways)

You have +2 str, dex, wis, +6 charisma from templates, buy lots of stat boosting items, and AC boosting equipment.

Final stats:
AC 83, touch 69, flat footed 76

attack: shortsword +38/+33/+28 , 1d6+44+13 fire
claw/bite: +27 , 1d3+37(stats)/ 1d8+24+13 fire
+1+1d6 damage to evil creatures, +1d4+1d8 to undead and evil outsiders, attacks are good aligned
(if a freindly caster will cast greater magic weapon on the weapon daily, it can be enchanted with special abilities, which would add in to what is shown here)
This improves significantly if using fractional BaB, as this is multiclasses to absurdity.

They also have the fire subtype, DR 10/evil, DR 5/cold iron, fast healing 8, immunity to acid, cold, fire, electrcity, petrification, enchantment
a 20 ft numbus of light that acts as a double strength magic circle against evil and a lesser globe of invulnerability

And a spattering of other abilities I don't feel like listing.
And people say MAD is a bad thing :smallamused:

[Cog]

The Overwhelming Attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#overwhelmingAttack) variant of Monk from Unearthed Arcana gets Power Attack as a bonus feat, and therefore doesn't need the 13 Str. Most or all of the feats that come after PA don't reiterate the Str requirement, so you should be fine from there; Overwhelming's second feat is even the Bull Rush that Shock Trooper needs.

[Laniius]

For pathfinder, an option is to get power attack from the Ranger Two-Handed weapon tree. Then use an Elven Curveblae (I think), which is a two-handed weapon that allows you to use weapon finesse with it. Then put the Agile weapon enchantment on it, which allows you to use dex as damage. You won't be doing QUITE as much damage as a strength-based two-weapon build as the agile weapon enchantment doesn't allow you to do extra damage with a two-handed weapon when using power attack, but it is still respectable.