Help With a Fighter of Sorts

[SleepyShadow]

Hi there. Once again I've drummed up a character that I'd like a bit of help with. This time it's a melee warrior, and she's gotten some mixed reviews by my local gamer friends. Some have told me that she's quite powerful and little or nothing needs to be done with her, while the self-proclaimed Char-Op Guru says that she's worthless and isn't worth fixing (he also says the same about any character that isn't Tier One). So without further ado, here is my fighter.

Clarice

Race - Human
Alignment - Lawful Good
Class - Urban Warrior Fighter 4/Swordsage 4/Occult Slayer 5/Warblade 5/Human Paragon 2
Feats - Fleet of Foot, Improved Sunder, Spring Attack, Combat Brute, Elusive Target, Bounding Assault, Mage Slayer
Bonus Feats - Dodge [Human], Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus (Greatsword), Combat Reflexes [Urban Warrior], Mobility, Power Attack, Improved Initiative [Fighter], Weapon Focus (Longsword) [Swordsage], Lightning Reflexes [Warblade], Rapid Blitz [Human Paragon]
Notes - Urban Warrior grants three bonus feats but removes my shield proficiency, medium armor proficiency, and heavy armor proficiency. It also forces me to take a minimum of three fighter levels.


Please tell me what you think, and offer ways to improve her. Thank you

[TroubleBrewing]

Could you do a breakdown on your feat selection and tell us why you selected each one?

Please tell me Dodge is a prerequisite for something...

Also, where is the UW Fighter variant out of?

[Person_Man]

With the exceptions of Mage Slayer and Combat Reflexes, it seems like you've chosen a lot of weak Feats.

Elusive Target is nice but requires the cruddy Dodge and Mobility.

Spring Attack->Bounding Assault->Rapid Blitz limits you to just 3 attacks with cruddy to-hit penalties, when you can get many more attacks (including full Pounce and free movement) at a better to-hit via a variety of maneuvers and stances instead (or psionics, or Travel Devotion, or dozens of other methods).

Weapon Focus (twice!) and Combat Expertise provide very minor bonuses.

Improved Sunder is only useful against enemies who uses weapons or shields (ie, not most magical beasts, constructs, animals, vermin, dragons, etc) and destroys your treasure.


Do you have a particular build goal (ie, things you want to do well) in mind?

[eggs]

You're jumping through a lot of hoops to get feats, then using those feats for pretty weak options.

There's little synergy between the action options the build provides. Full Attacks exclude Rapid Blitz excludes the benefits of most ToB maneuvers.

There are some inklings of a coherent build here (you could combine Mage Slayer, Warblade, Occult Slayer and Pierce Magical Concealment with workable results), but nothing that makes up for losing high level maneuvers/effects.

[SleepyShadow]

@Grey McBannert: Dodge is a prerequisite for practically everything I have. Fleet of Foot is a fun regional feat that gets me +10' movement speed. Improved Sunder is taken and focused on because our group has a house rule that sundering can disable natural attacks (break teeth, cut off tentacles, shatter claws, etc.). I took the Spring Attack -> Bounding Assault -> Rapid Blitz tree because I wanted to give it a try and this would be the first melee character in the group without Lion Totem Barbarian in over a year. Combat Brute allows me to deal damage when I sunder something. Power Attack and Improved Initiative just seemed to be natural choices, and Lightning Reflexes is there to shore up my lowest save. As for Mage Slayer ... it's my last feat and I ran out of ideas :smallbiggrin: The bonus feats from Urban Warrior are non-optional. I didn't get to pick them.

@Person_Man: I have two Weapon Focuses because I'm not given the option of taking something else. As for a goal, Clarice is designed to be a disruptive melee combatant that will disable the enemy's method of attack while keeping herself out of harm's reach.

@eggs: Mage Slayer was just an end-game filler feat. Any suggestions on something better?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

What level are you starting play at, and what level do you expect to play to?

It honestly looks like just a mess of classes and feats with no real purpose. Human Paragon doesn't look like it's adding anything at all to the build. Occult Slayer can be completely replaced with a few magic items, and those five levels spent on something more useful/focused. You didn't mention what maneuvers/stances you've picked, so the purpose of having Swordsage and Warblade is a bit of a mystery. You should at least get rid of Spring Attack and Lightning Reflexes to pick up Melee Weapon Mastery.

For disrupting enemies, I'd switch it to Fighter 9/ Warblade 10/ Fighter 1, using the Zhentarim Soldier (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) substitution levels which can easily be renamed big-bad-bully and reflavored to remove the association to a particular organization.

You should definitely include Weapon Focus/Specialization, Melee Weapon Mastery, Greater Focus/Specialization, and at Fighter 10 you can get Weapon Supremacy. With Warblade you can actually reassign those to different weapons until you find something you really like. I'd even pick up EWP for probably a Greathorn Minotaur Greathammer (MM4), or maybe a Kaorti Resin (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a) Falchion.

Get max ranks in Intimidate, take the Never Outnumbered skill trick, and the feat Imperious Command from Drow of the Underdark. Also take the regional feat Dreadful Wrath in PGtF if possible, and Ability Focus is usually worth another feat. Go ahead and do Power Attack, Improved Sunder, and Combat Brute, and use the Greathorn Greathammer with Stone Dragon strikes. You could even go Half-Orc for the feat Imperious Command (preferably via the Otyugh Hole), and if you never expect to see 20th level grab Half-Orc Paragon 1 early on.

Everything else you had can either be replaced with items, hand-waved due to Iron Heart Surge, or wasn't even necessary in the first place. You should still have room for the Mage Slayer line of feats if you want them. Max Concentration with the Diamond Mind save-counters and never spend a feat on improving a save again.

[SleepyShadow]

Well I'm pretty flexible on the build, it's just the concept I want to keep relatively intact. 'Lightly Armored Mobile Sundering Fighter' was basically what I was going for. Urban Warrior and Swordsage definitely fit what I wanted, but the rest was admittedly just a hodgepodge of neat looking things. Perhaps something like this would be better?


Swordsage 3/Urban Warrior Fighter 4/Kensai 10/Swordsage +1/Warblade 2
Feats: Fleet of Foot, Improved Sunder, Mage Slayer, Combat Brute, Elusive Target, Pierce Magical Concealment, Pierce Magical Protection
Bonus Feats: Desert Wind Dodge [Human], Weapon Focus (Greatsword) [Swordsage], Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus (Longsword), Combat Reflexes [Urban Warrior], Power Attack, Improved Initiative, Resolute (ACF) [Fighter]


Do you think this would work better?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It looks like Urban Warrior gives you Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus: Longsword, and Combat Reflexes, none of which are even important to what you're planning for this character to do. Does it give any other benefits at all? It looks to me like you would be better off replacing it with Feat Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue), or just skipping it altogether.

I don't see the purpose of Kensai, other than replacing one thing that just looked nice with another thing that just looks nice. It doesn't seem to be adding anything significant, and you lose a lot of BAB and maneuver progression.

Consider something with at least fourteen levels of either Swordsage or Warblade, with the other six levels made up of a mix of those two plus maybe some Feat Rogue thrown in. With fourteen levels of a single initiator class, plus six other levels, you'll be able to have 9th level maneuvers by 20th level, but the sooner you get those the better. You'll probably do best with mostly Warblade, considering its superior recovery mechanic and significantly better BAB and HP. As I said before, don't worry too much about your poor saves, just get Moment of Perfect Mind, Action Before Thought, and Mind Over Body from the Diamond Mind discipline. I wouldn't bother taking one for an already high save, and be sure to learn them via Warblade so you can recover them easier.

[Person_Man]

Is there a reason you're not playing the obvious Swordsage 20 or Warblade 20, using Stone Dragon Hammer maneuvers (which ignore DR and Hardness) to Sunder when needed?

[SleepyShadow]

Is there a reason you're not playing the obvious Swordsage 20 or Warblade 20, using Stone Dragon Hammer maneuvers (which ignore DR and Hardness) to Sunder when needed?

:smalleek:

:smallconfused:

:smallsigh:

I over-think things. The obvious answer is far too obvious to be correct, except in the cases where it is. Thank you T_T

[herrhauptmann]

Just realized you posted an updated build.
You need blind fight as a prereq for Pierce Magic Concealment.
If you really want to play a mobile fighter, have you considered swiftblade? Wiz 6, swift 9, abjurant champ 5.
With abjurant champ, I think you could even sneak the mageslayer feats in without a real penalty. Mageslayer reduces your CL. Abjurant champ then ties it directly to your bab, which is pretty decent (>16 at level 20). Just take martial wizard for some fighter bonus feats instead of wizard ones (makes it easier to get the various prereq feats)

Original post below


@eggs: Mage Slayer was just an end-game filler feat. Any suggestions on something better?
Mageslayer should not be a filler feat for you.
You like the anti-mage concept enough to devote 5 levels to it.

Take blind fight (a prereq), and Pierce Magic concealment and Pierce magic protection.

My best argument for using PMC? When I was working on an anti-caster warrior, some posters said it was overpowered for melee because it stopped a lot of spells from affecting the warrior outright.
Doublecheck with your DM on what interactions it covers. For instance, if Roy from OotS had that, he'd have been able to ignore pretty much every defensive spell the Draketooth clan had cast (evocation trap spells are offensive in my opinion)

Look at the race Karsite (ToM), they're humans with some LA. They still get bonus feat and skills. The ability to drain the magic of a weapon is neat, but not likely to be useful unless you boost charisma.
There's also quor-bred from secrets of sarlona. Making you a psionically enhanced human who is an anti-psion. (Stacks with Karsite)
There are alternate dodge feats you can take. Some of them don't "designate a dodge target" making them interact poorly with feats like Robilars Gambit which require a dodge target. But check them out anyway.