[PF] Help with THW feats

[Craulnober]

I'm currently working a build for an Inquisitor with a two-handed weapon.
I'm gonna get Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Furious Focus, but can't seem to decide for the rest of my Feats.
The character will have high Intimidation skills, high STR and WIS.
I thought about Intimidating Prowess and Dazzling Display-Shatter Defenses.
While the former can help generally, I can't stop thinking that losing a full round for DD and then having to move (no full attack) for the Shatter Defenses feat will be a bit too much and not worth it.
Moreover, I think that the flat-footed thing of SD is not enough, as it is only for me (not helping a party rogue) and not all the enemies have DEX adjustment bonuses.
What are your opinion?
Are there any solutions? Going to Cleave? Vital Strike maybe?
Cornugon Smash looks very nice, but I'm not sure if it's allowed.

[StreamOfTheSky]

You don't really need other feats than Power Attack with a THW, that's one of the benefits. You're not feat starved.

I would not go for dazzling display, it is a poor waste of feats and combat rounds. If you don't think Cornugon Smash (which is awesome) will be allowed, or you just don't want to wait that long for it...

What god do you worship? If you can worship Saranrae, check out the Blade of Mercy trait, and see if that is allowed. If it is, you could combine it with the Enforcer feat for super long duration fear. Depending on your race, you could use that to pick up falchion proficiency or whatever to make up for your deity not having an awesome 2H weapon as his/her favored weapon.

I don't think Furious Focus is that great, if you plan to use iterative attacks or AoOs much. But it's decent, and opens the door much later on for Dreadful Carnage. The other must-have THW feat is similarly high level: Dazing Assault.

EDIT: Taking Dazzling Display for an area demoralize is especially poor for an Inquisitor; if Ultimate Combat is available, you have access to the Blistering Invective spell (2nd level). Demoralize enemies in a 30 ft cone and deal some fire damage, as a standard action.

[grarrrg]

Well, since this is turning into a Two-Hander AND an Intimidate thread...

Shield of Swings (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/shield-of-swings-combat) can be a useful alternative to Fighting Defensively. You take a hit on Damage dealt as opposed to To-Hit. Which considering you're a 3/4 Bab class can be handy.

Gory Finish (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/gory-finish-combat) lets you make a single attack, and if you reduce the target to Negative HP you can Intimidate all within 30ft. as a Swift action.

Shatter Defenses (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/shatter-defenses-combat---final), any demoralized opponents are treated as Flat-Footed towards you. This is mainly only a To-Hit bonus, unless...
1 level of Thug (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/archetypes/paizo---rogue-archetypes/thug) Rogue increases all Shaken durations by 1, OR gives you the option to inflict Frightened instead. And, being Rogue, gives +1d6 Sneak Attack.
Gray Gardener (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/e-h/gray-gardener) is an Inquitior-ish PrC. It stacks for a good number of abilities, but most importantly, gives some Sneak Attack starting at level 1.

If you are REALLY focused on Intimidating, then the Conversion Inquisition will let you use WIS instead of CHA for Intimidate checks.

And, just for the sake of completeness, the Intimidating Bane (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/intimidating-bane) feat gives a bonus on Dazzling Display when your Bane ability is active.

[StreamOfTheSky]

While the OP is free to pick whatever he thinks is cool, pretty much every single thing you posted there is a trap...

SoS: Killing things is the best defense around. That might be a good deal initially, but it does not scale with your damage AT ALL.

Gory Finish: The key part here is, single attack. Now, if you had to move anyway, this isn't so bad. But enticing you to give up full attacking makes it a trap, as do the feat taxes.

Shatter Defenses: Waste some feats and ~1/3 of your combat rounds on Dazzling Display for a +2 to hit.

Thug Rogue dip: Actually decent synergy for intimidating, but since it hurts your caster level AND BAB this is still weaker than staying Inquisitor.

Grey Gardener: Lose a CL up front and 3 over the 10 levels, fall behind on BAB... and it only gets 3d6 SA by the end. Oh, and the Justice judgement (ie, the best one) just plain stops advancing! Not worth it.

Intimidating Bane: You get precious few rounds of bane per day to kill things faster. Spending a feat and then rounds of that bane doing nothing but intimidating sounds like a great idea!

[Craulnober]

Thanks for the insight guys.
Some information:
Cornugon Smash is officially off unfortunately.
I'm not going for Shatter Defenses. I find it too circumstantial. I still consider Dazzling Display, but it has negatives as I said. Moreover, I have the Blistering Invective spell, so this makes it even less appealing.

StreamOfTheSky: I chose a deity with a falchion as weapon, so I'm covered in that. I'm human by the way.
Dreadful Carnage and Deadly Assault are truly nice, but they come later. The same goes for some of the Critical feats.
I now only have my first five feats to spend (up to 8th lvl). PoW-Attack is the only one that I'm sure of and probably Furious Focus. What others would you suggest?

grarrrg: I kinda liked Shield of Swings, I'll have it in mind.
Intimidating Bane looked nice, but I only get Bane for few rounds. So I should spend one of them for Dazzling Display? (which something I would normally do in the beginning) I don't like it.
Gory Finish is nice for low levels, but in higher levels I don't think it would be useful.

I'm not looking only for Intimidation feats or even for TWH. If you have other useful feats for the Inquisitor I could use them. (I've read some of the online guides, but they usually talk about the feats on my first post).
I'm not entirely convinced for any of the other Combat Feats.
Vital strike path? Yes and No.
Cleave path? Meh...
Step up? Not really.

[StreamOfTheSky]

What sources are allowed?

I would pass on Vital Strike and Cleave chains, they are bad.

Step Up is actually kind of nice. It won't phase a caster in the slightest because concentration DCs are still stupidly easy. However, it will ROYALLY bone a reach weapon user and will also ruin most archers' days unless they have a feat to shoot w/o provoking (Point Blank Master, which only 3 or so classes can even obtain, and...some UC feat for throwers).

EDIT: And I assume you meant Dazing Assault. Deadly Assault is a really bad feat.

[Ryulin18]

Step Up is actually kind of nice. It won't phase a caster in the slightest because concentration DCs are still stupidly easy.

Really?!
10 + damage dealt + spell level = pretty hard

Falchion with power attacked vital strike at level 5 is roughly going to be 5+7ish and we're talking level 2/3 spells. DC is going be about 22+ when your concentration is +7ish.

My party has a half orc inquisitor using a +1 falchion, 18 strength, power attack of -0/+6, vital strike, furious strike and bane on an 18/20 x2 crit!

That was 4d4 + 14 + 2d6 against chosen enemy + whatever judgement he wanted. AT LEVEL 5

[Craulnober]

What sources are allowed?

I would pass on Vital Strike and Cleave chains, they are bad.

Step Up is actually kind of nice. It won't phase a caster in the slightest because concentration DCs are still stupidly easy. However, it will ROYALLY bone a reach weapon user and will also ruin most archers' days unless they have a feat to shoot w/o provoking (Point Blank Master, which only 3 or so classes can even obtain, and...some UC feat for throwers).

EDIT: And I assume you meant Dazing Assault. Deadly Assault is a really bad feat.

My bad, yes I meant Dazing Assault.
Core, APG, UC, UM are allowed.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Really?!
10 + damage dealt + spell level = pretty hard

Falchion with power attacked vital strike at level 5 is roughly going to be 5+7ish and we're talking level 2/3 spells. DC is going be about 22+ when your concentration is +7ish.

My party has a half orc inquisitor using a +1 falchion, 18 strength, power attack of -0/+6, vital strike, furious strike and bane on an 18/20 x2 crit!

That was 4d4 + 14 + 2d6 against chosen enemy + whatever judgement he wanted. AT LEVEL 5

Where are you getting that from? The DC to cast defensively is 15 + 2 *spell level.

And a level 5 caster will have a concentration modifier of about +10. Or +12 if he has the trait that boosts it.

Step Up just lets you follow the guy's 5 ft step so you're still threatening. A Mage doesn't care, because he can just cast defensively. A reach weapon user or archer, however, will be very sad pandas. Because the game didn't bother giving *them* a skill that costs no skill points to try and avoid AoOs with.

As for Vital Strike, with a Falchion it is only adding an extra 2d4 damage. Full attacking is much better than that, and if it's a barbarian, he's at most 4 levels from being able to pounce (greater beast totem at 10th level, Vital Strike can't be taken until 6th level, or 7th for a typical barbarian due to no feat at 6th). Further, that tiny bonus damage does not multiply on a crit, so the high crit range doesn't matter at all for your argument.
Vital Strike is a bad feat.

[Ryulin18]

Where are you getting that from? The DC to cast defensively is 15 + 2 *spell level.

IF he isn't hit by someone that has step up and a prepared action.


and if it's a barbarian

He's not playing a barbarian, He's playing an inquisitor.

he has medium bab progression, a 2h weapon and numerous stats to fill out and be MAD with. He's not going to have a tremendous amount of attacks (2 at 8th and 3 at 15th)

Anything with DR makes the numerous attack routes as useless as vital strike in some respects. Because pathfinder is SITUATIONAL!


We're here to provide our experience and play styles in a way that he can extrapolate upon, creating a character that suits his play style. I merely gave an experience that worked well for one of my players who was making an almost identical build.

[Ryulin18]

I forgot to say that a usually forgotten skill, Solo Tactics (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/inquisitor#TOC-Solo-Tactics-Ex-) at level 3 is incredibly handy and free!

Because it can't benefit allies, unless they have the feat, think personal aid and pick up something like escape route (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/escape-route-combat-teamwork). Because weaving between your friends like they're cover and flanking with no AoO is awesome, maybe even get swap places (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/swap-places-combat-teamwork) for free at 6th to compliment it.

[StreamOfTheSky]

For some reason, I thought I saw Barbarian where you said Inquisitor.

In any case, I wouldn't try and ready an action. Just getting adjacent to the wizard to begin with is tough if he's not a dumbass, and by RAW there's not much to do for concealing the fact you're readying. You get into melee, you should just try and crack open that frail wizard right then and there, IMO. :smallwink:

Solo Tactics is nice. I would take Lookout first. Always act in the surprise round and occasionally get a full round action in it, just by standing next to somebody. The ultimate goal is Coordinated Charge, so you can immediate action charge when an ally charges, but the BAB requirement puts that off limits until like level 15 or so.

[navar100]

Vital Strike is a good feat for when you want/have to move and are only getting one attack anyway. Of course don't use it when you want to full attack. A feat doesn't have to be used every round all the time forever for it to not suck.