Tanky Warblade

[Whitersnake]

Hi guys!

I am preparing a character for a campaign that should be starting in a week or so. I will be playing a martial character, and have a concept and build in mind; but I wouldn't mind some suggestions to improve my implementation of it. 36 PB, most sources allowed, Dragon and Homebrew on case by case basis.

First, some ground rules:
1) I want to be a Warblade with 9th level Warblade maneuvers, so at least 14 levels of Warblade.
2) I want Thicket of Blades, so will either need to sink two feats into that or take two levels of Crusader.
3) I want the Knight's challenge abilities, or something that lets me do something similar. My goal is to play a tanky Warblade. The Knight's difficult terrain ability is also very nice.
4) I want good social skills. I'm putting at least a 12 in Charisma, which also helps with the Knight abilities. I also want good tactical skills (Martial Lore and Knowledge (History)) for RP reasons, so am planning on 14 Int as well.
5) I want to go Sword-and-Board. I know this isn't optimal, but I want to be a knight in shining armor.

My current plan is to go Warblade 14/Crusader 2/Knight 4. That gives me the 4th level Knight's Challenge abilities, Difficult Terrain in my threatened area, a number of 3rd level Crusader maneuvers, and 9th level Warblade maneuvers.

For feats, I was thinking of the following:
1 Combat Expertise
h Improved Trip

3 Power Attack

6 Improved Shield Bash
W5 Combat Reflexes

9 Shield Charge

12 Improved Critical
W9 White Raven Defence

15 Defensive Sweep
W13 Improved Initiative

18 Clarion Commander

This would allow me to charge into combat with a shield bash, then stand around and whack anyone who comes close. I can make it a very bad idea for an opponent to leave combat with me and, thanks to maneuvers, can ensure that I can get into melee.

I was planning on wearing Mithril Fullplate, using a heavy spiked shield and a heavy pick (which would rock with Improved Critical), and using items to ensure that I'm always Enlarged so that I have nice reach in combat. If necessary, I can drop my shield for two-handed power attacks.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments?

[Tvtyrant]

It looks like you have three stats to consider: Strength for your AoOs, Charisma for uses and effectiveness of your Test of Mettle, and Constitution to make drawing a ton of attacks none-suicidal.

The issue with one handed weapons is going to be finding a good one handed tripping weapon with reach. The usual solution is the Kusari-Gama, which is one handed, can trip, and has reach + normal threatened area.

Is there a particular reason you are going primary Warblade over primary Crusader? You are losing some of the shield abilities by doing that, and a lot of your flexibility in classes by taking extra crusader levels. In particular you could gain a lot by grabbing Bard and using Song of the White Raven to become a buffer type as well as a tank.

The goals for a tank are to maximize your reach and likelihood of tripping the enemy with your AoOs, and this is even better with you since it creates more difficult terrain. As a result you want some way to become larger and stronger. At low levels potions/castings of Enlarge Person would work, while at higher levels you want a magic item of Giant's Growth (heapo strength and size modifiers.) The reason you want to trip on AoO and not simply damage enemies is it completely stops their movement, so they cannot get away from you. You then get an extra hit if you succeed, so you gain a lot more from tripping than by just attacking.

Enlarged is insufficient IMO at higher levels to succeed at tripping many enemies. Psywarrior is often used for this reason (expansion!) but Giant's Size is better if you can get it.

The inclusion of Defensive Sweep is really good. Defensive Sweep is amazing with tripping because the enemy doesn't ever get to avoid it. Just continuously trip and punish them in an endless lockdown loop. I really like that feat, but again you need to be really good at tripping for it to work.

[Gwendol]

I would also recommend skipping warblade over crusader for your martial adept levels. You'll make better use of the CHA, you will be able to take hits even better, partly thanks to in combat healing.

[Red Fel]

For Thicket of Blades, the truly tank-y combo usually entails that, plus Combat Reflexes and Stand Still feats, plus a reach weapon. This allows you to increase your threatened range for Thicket of Blades purposes, increases the number of AoOs you take, and allows you to use them to stop enemies in their tracks instead of simply smacking them as they pass by.

If you really want to tank hard, you need to get into the thick of combat quickly. I would suggest taking a one-level dip of Barbarian with the Spirit Lion Totem variant, which would give you Pounce (full attack on a charge). It's a great way to quickly get into melee, and puts a group of enemies immediately within range of your Thicket of Blades.

I also echo what's been said above. Why take Warblade? You get good mileage out of Crusader.

[Metahuman1]

Just a couple of thoughts.

Take the Earth and Artic racial variant and template for useful stat boosts with no LA.

Take Monk 2/Psion 1 and retrain the 2 bonus feats from monk into Monistic training that that feat for stacking monk and Psion for manifesting.

Take The power shared pain and buy like 6-8 +1 Manifester Shurikens, and an Animated Riverine Object with a shrink Item spell put on it. Store the animated object in your armor and have it accept you manifesting shared pain on it. Instant half damage.

Now, Buy a necklace of Natural weapons. Put heavy draw backs on it (Aliment restriction, race restriction, Curse of -30 to some little used skill, ext.), and make it a +5 Warning Ghost Touch Defensive Style (Pick 2) Necklace. Then Buy the Greater Adamatine Weapons Augmentation Crystal. Enjoy not just halving all damage taken, but after that getting to apply a very significant amount of hardness too it afterwords and having a free +5 to AC, Touch AC, Initiative, and a free +3 to hit when ever your using any maneuver form one of the two chosen schools, or a +7 to hit when using a maneuver form both of the chosen schools.

Get a Collar of perpetual Attendance. Get a price nerfed +1 Ghost Touch Tower Shield and put a thin Riverine shell on it to make it sunder resistant. Have the Unseen Servant the collar provides give you Total Cover for an easy 50% miss chance.

[Lilapop]

9th maneuver level is class level 17, not 14 - just as with full casters. If you want to do some charging, try to get pounce one way or another (spirit lion totem barbarian 1, an item of continuous lion's charge (savage species version), or whatever else)... but I don't think it really fits the image you have of your character.
Also, look around for onehanded tripping weapons, even if most of them are probably asian-themed. Flail would be a western exception.

Metahuman: If you take a closer look at the OP, this is about finding crunch that appropriately models a specific piece of fluff, not finding crunch that crunches the mostestest.

[MeiLeTeng]

9th maneuver level is class level 17, not 14 - just as with full casters.

However, unlike casters, you also add 1/2 your non initiator classes to your IL. So at character level 20, a character with at least 14 levels in Warblade could have 9th level maneuvers.

[Whitersnake]

It looks like you have three stats to consider: Strength for your AoOs, Charisma for uses and effectiveness of your Test of Mettle, and Constitution to make drawing a ton of attacks none-suicidal.
[quote]
Actually I'm even more MAD than this... I need Dex for AoO attempts and Int because I want to be the party face (Our party is what remains of the company I was general of, which got wiped out).

[quote]
The issue with one handed weapons is going to be finding a good one handed tripping weapon with reach. The usual solution is the Kusari-Gama, which is one handed, can trip, and has reach + normal threatened area.I'm going for the knight-in-shining-armor turned mercenary flavor, which the kusari-gama doesn't fit at all. Since I'm planning on picking up Improved Trip for the free attack anyways, I don't need a tripping weapon. And while reach is nice, I am willing to take the hit and get my reach from Enlarge in order to stay true to my flavor.


Is there a particular reason you are going primary Warblade over primary Crusader? You are losing some of the shield abilities by doing that, and a lot of your flexibility in classes by taking extra crusader levels. In particular you could gain a lot by grabbing Bard and using Song of the White Raven to become a buffer type as well as a tank.I like Warblade maneuvers much more, and want 9th level versions of them. As for Bard, it just doesn't fit my concept. My character blames himself for the loss of his company (and for the razing of the village they were trying to defend). As a result, he's almost always quiet and stoic, though he can come out of his shell to negotiate with others. Certainly not the inspirational type.


Enlarged is insufficient IMO at higher levels to succeed at tripping many enemies. Psywarrior is often used for this reason (expansion!) but Giant's Size is better if you can get it. Not going Psionic by any means, though I'll look into items of Giant Size.


The inclusion of Defensive Sweep is really good. Defensive Sweep is amazing with tripping because the enemy doesn't ever get to avoid it. Just continuously trip and punish them in an endless lockdown loop. I really like that feat, but again you need to be really good at tripping for it to work.I'm planning on it. Weapon enhancements, size modifiers, str boosts, etc.


I would also recommend skipping warblade over crusader for your martial adept levels. You'll make better use of the CHA, you will be able to take hits even better, partly thanks to in combat healing.I like Warblade much better than Crusader for the fluff, though. Plus the Warblade maneuvers are so much more fun.


For Thicket of Blades, the truly tank-y combo usually entails that, plus Combat Reflexes and Stand Still feats, plus a reach weapon. This allows you to increase your threatened range for Thicket of Blades purposes, increases the number of AoOs you take, and allows you to use them to stop enemies in their tracks instead of simply smacking them as they pass by.Stand Still is a Psionic feat. This is not a Psionic character.


If you really want to tank hard, you need to get into the thick of combat quickly. I would suggest taking a one-level dip of Barbarian with the Spirit Lion Totem variant, which would give you Pounce (full attack on a charge). It's a great way to quickly get into melee, and puts a group of enemies immediately within range of your Thicket of Blades.

I also echo what's been said above. Why take Warblade? You get good mileage out of Crusader.I am not planning on dipping Barbarian for Pounce. For one, my character is Lawful, and we're playing from level 1 so no "Oh, he was Chaotic once but switched" shenanigans. Two, he's a civilized general turned mercenary, not a barbaric rager. I can pick up an item that gives Pounce or something.


Just a couple of thoughts.

Take the Earth and Artic racial variant and template for useful stat boosts with no LA. Absolutely not. Doesn't fit my character, and I don't want to pick those up just for a stat boost.



Take Monk 2/Psion 1My character is neither a Monk, nor Psionic in any way.
and retrain no retraining allowed
the 2 bonus feats from monk into Monistic training that that feat for stacking monk and Psion for manifesting. as an aside, retraining bonus feats into feats that you never qualified for seems incredibly cheesy.


9th maneuver level is class level 17, not 14 - just as with full casters. If you want to do some charging, try to get pounce one way or another (spirit lion totem barbarian 1, an item of continuous lion's charge (savage species version), or whatever else)... but I don't think it really fits the image you have of your character.
Also, look around for onehanded tripping weapons, even if most of them are probably asian-themed. Flail would be a western exception.

Metahuman: If you take a closer look at the OP, this is about finding crunch that appropriately models a specific piece of fluff, not finding crunch that crunches the mostestest.Thank you very much for actually understanding what I'm trying to do here. I appreciate it. Lion's Charge is a spell I'll look into for sure, though I doubt I'll be able to get the Savage Species version. Do I need a tripping item, if I have Improved Trip?


However, unlike casters, you also add 1/2 your non initiator classes to your IL. So at character level 20, a character with at least 14 levels in Warblade could have 9th level maneuvers.
Yep, this.

[Lord Haart]

Stand Still is a Psionic feat.

It is not, though. It is a completely nothing-to-do-with-psionics combat feat (the likes of which had been printed in Complete Arcane/Divine/etc., too, without being magical at all) which happened to be first printed in XPH and later placed in XPH's section of SRD. Check it.

[Whitersnake]

It is not, though. It is a completely nothing-to-do-with-psionics combat feat (the likes of which had been printed in Complete Arcane/Divine/etc., too, without being magical at all) which happened to be first printed in XPH and later placed in XPH's section of SRD. Check it.

My bad; I was looking at the Psionics Handbook version, which requires 1 reserve power point. The Expanded Psionics Handbook version only requires 13 Strength; yay!

[GreenETC]

Knight is most likely going to hurt you more than it helps. Without extra levels in it your save DC for the group challenge is going to be garbage. For the normal challenge, Morale is a very easy bonus to get, and you only get a single +1 to hit/damage/Will for the small number of times per day, as well as against a specific type of enemy too. That's nowhere near what you can get out of more initiator levels. Bolstering Voice, for example. It gives you +2 Morale to Will automatically, as well as boosts your friends. Tons of stances can be used to "declare a challenge" against a foe.

I'd recommend you go for Warblade 1/Fighter 2/Warblade 3/Crusader 2/Warblade 12. Use the Fighter levels to grab some extra feats that are weighing you down, then use this progression to get Thicket of Blades at 8 (when a single-classes Crusader would get it) as well as grab some good 2nd level maneuvers like Shield Block, Mountain Hammer, and Battle Leader's Charge along with it. Using the 2 Fighter levels gives you an IL of 5 at Warblade 4, meaning you get a 3rd level stance, and then you can just build the rest of your progression up.

You can also go for Warblade 3/Fighter 2/Warblade 17 and then use Martial Study: Shield Block at level 3, then take Martial Stance:
Thicket of Blades at level 6. That will give you what you want, get rid of the Crusader levels to help with the book-keeping, as well as progress your maneuvers faster.

[Whitersnake]

Knight is most likely going to hurt you more than it helps. Without extra levels in it your save DC for the group challenge is going to be garbage. For the normal challenge, Morale is a very easy bonus to get, and you only get a single +1 to hit/damage/Will for the small number of times per day, as well as against a specific type of enemy too. That's nowhere near what you can get out of more initiator levels. Bolstering Voice, for example. It gives you +2 Morale to Will automatically, as well as boosts your friends. Tons of stances can be used to "declare a challenge" against a foe. For some reason I thought the DC was based on character level, not class level. I'm working with my DM on a feat to let Warblade and Knight stack for Knight's Challenge purposes, in which case I could go with 3 levels of Knight; would this be worth it? Since I want an even number of non-Warblade levels I could grab a level of Fighter or something.


You can also go for Warblade 3/Fighter 2/Warblade 17 and then use Martial Study: Shield Block at level 3, then take Martial Stance:
Thicket of Blades at level 6. That will give you what you want, get rid of the Crusader levels to help with the book-keeping, as well as progress your maneuvers faster.Is Crusader 2 not better than Fighter 2? I do get 2 free feats, but I need to spend them on Martial Study and Stance, which means that it's a wash. And I lose out on having 5 3rd level Crusader maneuvers on a separate cooldown, which seems pretty awesome.



EDIT: Stats are 36 Point Buy. I'm going 16 Str 14 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 8 Wis 12 Cha at the moment.

[Big Fau]

Is Crusader 2 not better than Fighter 2? I do get 2 free feats, but I need to spend them on Martial Study and Stance, which means that it's a wash. And I lose out on having 5 3rd level Crusader maneuvers on a separate cooldown, which seems pretty awesome.

It is, but you have to keep track of their maneuvers. He's telling you to drop Crusader to speed up gameplay.

[Whitersnake]

We play over Roll 20 so I've always got my laptop when we play; getting a program running to keep track of my maneuvers is no problem.

I got permission from my DM to take this feat I whipped up:

Stalwart Knight

(General)

You combine the Warblade's deadly skill in battle with the Knight's honorable tactics to devestating effect.

Prerequisite:

Knight's Challenge, Initiator level of 3 or higher

Benefit:

Your Knight and Warblade levels stack for the purpose of determining which Knight's Challenge abilities you may use the and difficulty class to resist them. If you have levels in more than one Martial Adept class, you must choose only one to benefit from this feat.

Your Knight and Warblade levels stack for the purpose of determining your effective fighter level for the purpose of qualifying for feats.


So I think in this case I want Knight 3 in order to be able to make any squares I threaten difficult terrain, a level of Fighter to even out my dips, and then go Warblade 14/Fighter 1/Knight 3/Crusader 2?

[Metahuman1]

Absolutely not. Doesn't fit my character, and I don't want to pick those up just for a stat boost.

My character is neither a Monk, nor Psionic in any way. no retraining allowed as an aside, retraining bonus feats into feats that you never qualified for seems incredibly cheesy.



If you look at what I suggested be done, pretty much exclusively with the dips, you'd notice it accomplishes one thing. "Hey, I'm just amazingly good at taking hits and continuing to keep on coming at you despite that. Almost like I was a Tank."

That's all it accomplishes, makes you better at hitting things and getting hit.

As for the templates, no one ever said you had to swallow the fluff, just fluff it as "I'm a strong tough guy who doesn't focus so much on being nimble or a pretty boy/smooth talker."

And I seem to be missing something, how do you not qualify for the feats?

No retraining is a problem, in that case either just use a variant monk like passive way or overwhelming attack to get bonus feats you'd want anyway, and use the freed up slots to get the two feats, or worse case, pay for psionic reformation/dark chaos shuffle.


And last but not least, if you don't like the suggestions I made, by all means, don't take them. No problem. I just wanted to come across a bit more clearly, hence the above in this post. =)

[Whitersnake]

If you look at what I suggested be done, pretty much exclusively with the dips, you'd notice it accomplishes one thing. "Hey, I'm just amazingly good at taking hits and continuing to keep on coming at you despite that. Almost like I was a Tank."
The monk I can sorta swallow. But the Psion? I'm a completely mundane soldier. I did not wake up one day and say, "Hey, I'm gonna learn how to be psychic because that will make me better at taking hits".



As for the templates, no one ever said you had to swallow the fluff, just fluff it as "I'm a strong tough guy who doesn't focus so much on being nimble or a pretty boy/smooth talker." Not everyone plays with complete mutability of fluff.


I do appreciate your advice; however, it does not fit our style of gaming at all.

[Icewraith]

Note that with your original build, you won't get 9th level maneuvers because you take your last level of Warblade at level 14. With warblade you generally want to front-load your dips (starting with whichever class has the highest base skillpoints) and THEN take warblade levels (unless you're trying to hit a specific initiator breakpoint with a crusader or swordsage dip so you can pick up a certain stance).

What level are you starting? That can make a really big difference in how you want to build your character.

[Metahuman1]

And that's fine. Though before I depart I would note this: Monk 1 can still net you a bonus feat and the trick with the Weapon Augmentation Crystal + Necklace of Natural Weapons + Your body is a weapon for magic purposes to = I have hardness, which is like DR but better, and a couple of other bonuses.

Beyond that, Psion could be refluffed if you only ever manifest that one power to that one animated object that on one else ever sees as "I sorta learned how to push myself through the pain and reflexively move my armor in the way, makes it so I don't get hit as hard and I can take more of it then a lot of guys."


But yeah, if it doesn't fit the style of play it doesn't fit the style of play. No worries. Though I would think if nothing else, the suggestion for the Collar of perpetual attendance and a minorly tricked out tower shield would fly. The fluff would be "Yeah, one guy showed me that if I could get A and B I could do this neat trick that helps you get hit less often, so I figured now that I had some money I'd buy A and B and do the trick."

[Whitersnake]

Note that with your original build, you won't get 9th level maneuvers because you take your last level of Warblade at level 14. With warblade you generally want to front-load your dips (starting with whichever class has the highest base skillpoints) and THEN take warblade levels (unless you're trying to hit a specific initiator breakpoint with a crusader or swordsage dip so you can pick up a certain stance).

What level are you starting? That can make a really big difference in how you want to build your character.

That was the final split; I was gonna go Warblade 2/Knight 2/Warblade 4/Crusader 2/Warblade 2/Knight 2/Warblade to 20. We're starting at 1. Warblade has my highest base skills.

Edit: Though Warblade 2/Knight 4/Warblade 2/Crusader 2/Warblade X might work

[GreenETC]

Is Crusader 2 not better than Fighter 2? I do get 2 free feats, but I need to spend them on Martial Study and Stance, which means that it's a wash. And I lose out on having 5 3rd level Crusader maneuvers on a separate cooldown, which seems pretty awesome.

EDIT: Stats are 36 Point Buy. I'm going 16 Str 14 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 8 Wis 12 Cha at the moment.
The main reason for going 2 Fighter in the Warblade build is it lets you go for full Warblade while also getting Thicket of Blades EARLIER than a Crusader ever could, as well as adding Shield Block (or any Devoted Spirit Maneuver of your choice) to your Warblade list, meaning spamming it like it's going out of style.

Also, that feat you guys created would be better served by Warblade 3/Knight 2/Warblade 15, letting you pick it up early as well as keeping maxed out IL. The difficult terrain is basically meaningless if you've got no reach and you're heading after Thicket of Blades, since that stops even more than difficult terrain does. Of course, you're now down 2 feats to get Thicket of Blades, plus the feat you have to spend on your new invention, but adding Crusader levels would hurt your challenge, which is actually half decent since you can get Loyalty Beyond Death.

If you're into home-brewing, see if you can get the DM to allow you to trade a Warblade school for Devoted Spirit. I'd see your character idea working well with Devoted Spirit, White Raven, and Iron Heart, so try to pitch Diamond Mind or Tiger Claw, with a priority on Tiger Claw because it's the weaker school and kinda goes against your general fluff.

[Whitersnake]

The main reason for going 2 Fighter in the Warblade build is it lets you go for full Warblade while also getting Thicket of Blades EARLIER than a Crusader ever could, as well as adding Shield Block (or any Devoted Spirit Maneuver of your choice) to your Warblade list, meaning spamming it like it's going out of style.

Also, that feat you guys created would be better served by Warblade 3/Knight 2/Warblade 15, letting you pick it up early as well as keeping maxed out IL. The difficult terrain is basically meaningless if you've got no reach and you're heading after Thicket of Blades, since that stops even more than difficult terrain does. Of course, you're now down 2 feats to get Thicket of Blades, plus the feat you have to spend on your new invention, but adding Crusader levels would hurt your challenge, which is actually half decent since you can get Loyalty Beyond Death.

If you're into home-brewing, see if you can get the DM to allow you to trade a Warblade school for Devoted Spirit. I'd see your character idea working well with Devoted Spirit, White Raven, and Iron Heart, so try to pitch Diamond Mind or Tiger Claw, with a priority on Tiger Claw because it's the weaker school and kinda goes against your general fluff.

Actually, the DM changed it so that I get uses and DCs scaling for both Knight and Warblade, but no new types of uses. So I need Knight 4 at the least.

[GreenETC]

Actually, the DM changed it so that I get uses and DCs scaling for both Knight and Warblade, but no new types of uses. So I need Knight 4 at the least.
It's a bit difficult to make things playable in a way that you want, because you're going to be gimping yourself with that multi-classing feat if you DON'T keep up a full build of Knight/Warblade, since your DC isn't actually that good in the first place. The DC isn't even that powerful WITH the feat, since Cha is a tertiary stat for your build, and you've then got the problem of needing to find a way to somehow get Thicket onto there, which requires either 2 levels or two feats.

I think you may be better suited to trying to move a school from Crusader to Warblade or from Warblade to Crusader, since going in with that build, while also wanting to do tripping, is going to be very difficult, considering you didn't even start with an 18 in Str to help with the trip checks, when with that pointbuy you're looking at either a very difficult campaign or a lot of more powerful allies.

[Whitersnake]

It's a bit difficult to make things playable in a way that you want, because you're going to be gimping yourself with that multi-classing feat if you DON'T keep up a full build of Knight/Warblade, since your DC isn't actually that good in the first place. The DC isn't even that powerful WITH the feat, since Cha is a tertiary stat for your build, and you've then got the problem of needing to find a way to somehow get Thicket onto there, which requires either 2 levels or two feats.My Charisma isn't bad, though. It's starting out at 12; at high levels I can probably get to 20 through items. Add 18/2 or 9 levels, plus 10; my DC is 29, which is respectable. That's assuming I don't find or craft a custom Knight's Challenge DC boosting item or something. The Knight's Challenge is best for melee brutes, whose Will probably isn't amazing anyhow. And besides, we're starting at level 1; Knight's Challenge is gonna rock while leveling up. But the Crusader dip is a DC difference of 1; is that really THAT big of a deal?


I think you may be better suited to trying to move a school from Crusader to Warblade or from Warblade to Crusader, since going in with that build, while also wanting to do tripping, is going to be very difficult, considering you didn't even start with an 18 in Str to help with the trip checks, when with that pointbuy you're looking at either a very difficult campaign or a lot of more powerful allies.
Moving schools ain't gonna happen. But is 16 Str really that bad? It's a difference of 1 point.

[Metahuman1]

Random Gear suggestion:

Healing property is from champions of valor I think and causes you to heal when ever you hit and enemy for an amount equal to half the damage you just did to that enemy on that hit. It's a +2 property.

Sounds good for a Tanky character.

[Icewraith]

The thing with tripping is that as you level the monsters generally get bigger and quadratically harder to trip. Yes it's only one point, but it's also setting the chance of success for your major control mechanic. Granted at some point the Warblade gets INT to combat maneuvers (or is that only to RESIST combat maneuvers?) so if those points are going into int it may come out a wash.

The knight's challenge dc thing is worrying because low-wis brute types may not worry you, but buffed clerics or druids definitely should. At mid-levels a druid with a couple of buff spells wildshaped into a lion or tiger (pounce!) is definitely something you want to be able to affect.

[GreenETC]

The biggest problem is that without natural reach from a reach weapon, your difficult terrain ability is actually hurting you because it actively makes it HARDER for enemies to move up at you, meaning that without the challenge, they'll probably just ignore you to stab the dudes who are less difficult. Thicket is better, but having both is really not worth doing, because if you get enlarged, the terrain is already stopping them from leaving you as long as you're next to them.

Also, you're going to have the feat taxes to get Shield Charge, as well as making tripping good, which causes you to have even more feat taxes. You're wasting a bunch of feats to be incredibly suboptimal and risky at what you're trying to do, since failing a trip means you either lose your weapon or get tripped yourself. You'd probably be better served with Stand Still from the XPH, which lets you challenge everyone to you and then prevent them from leaving if they try.

And just as a kicker, I'd probably recommend not getting Improved Crit for your pick. I'm not the best at explaining it, but unless you're focusing on it, using a single weapon with less Str makes the bonus chance to crit not really worth it, especially for a 20 only crit weapon, though I can't really give the math on it.

[Callin]

No Knockdown Feat in a trip build?!?