Help me with a challenge for a duskblade

[Morphie]

Hello guys,

So I'm going to pitch the party's duskblade against a gladiator in a 1v1 fight. The duskblade is quite optimized, but since the gladiator is going to be the one being challenged he'll get to pick the conditions of the fight.

So far the conditions I'm going to establish are: No armor, no magic and no special equipment. They'll both get their pick from a selection of mw weapons and the first one to deal 80 dmg to the opponent wins.

The duskblade is level 14 and usually uses knowledge devotion+collector of stories trick to get the upper hand on a fight. The gladiator is a Goliath and his weapon of choice is a large heavy flail, he'll also be lvl 14 (13+LA).

Now, I could really use your help to build the gladiator. I want to keep the build with core-only + complete + races of... books. Any tips on other books might be considered, but no psionics or ToB.
Note that I'm not looking to crush him in a couple of seconds, I want to keep the fight challenging and balanced.

Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance :)

[Blackhawk748]

Hmmm, a rocky arena where the Goliath can hurl Large Javelins at the duskblade would be fun, make him a Ranger/Scout/Highland Stalker and he can actually do a lot of damage with one throw. On top of this he is pretty maneuverable, so that would cause problems for the Duskblade. Obviously the Goliath would only have a few javelins so when hes out he could charge in with his Flail and just start slugging away.

[J-H]

Sickening Blow (Phb2 or cw): Once per round using a bludgeoning weapon, you can use this feat. If the person you strike doesn't pass a Fort Save equal to the damage dealt to them, they are Nauseated for a round (some -2 penalties IIRC).

Using Spring Attack would help deny the Duskblade the opportunity to full-attack. Mobility is actually helpful there, in avoiding AOOs.

If the Goliath has a ranger level, he can take Favored Enemy: Arcanists for a bonus against the Duskblade.

Trip, Disarm, and Knockdown are all possibilities, although they may be frustrating to play against.

[Morphie]

Sickening blow sounds like a great choice, might choose that :)

The ranger/scout combo sounds cool, but I would like to give the guy some barbarian levels, I think it suits the race, being it's favored class and all. Do you know of any feat that does the same as swift hunter, but with barbarian and scout levels?
Any thoughts on the build, like how many levels should I put in each class?
Thanks guys

[sideswipe]

lion totem barbarian? power attack, improved bullrush, shock trooper and leap attack? martial study sudden leap? thats fairly optimised and still gives you 12 levels to work with. although the feats are taken.

the other 12 levels i like the idea of swift hunter, scout 3 ranger 9. take the ranged feats as a ranger and have him use a ranged weapon to a meh effect in th arena until the duskblade gets annoyed and rushes into charge range. then boom fight over.

for a little less player hatred, how about giving him the dark creature template, stacking hide modifiers, camo nets set-up to move between etc. get his hide very very high, then take the able sniper feat and have him wield a +whatever composite longbow. take swift hunter like before and have him unable to be spotted whilst doing the damage.

if he is the champion and gets to stack odds in his favour then let him.

only saying these because you said the duskblade was optimised.

[Morphie]

Hello again,
So this what I have so far:

Goliath Barb 7/ Ranger 3 / Scout 3
Roll: Str 22 ; Dex 14 ; Con 16 ; Wis 12 ; Int 10 ; Cha 10
(This has all the racial and level bonuses accounted for, it was a traditional roll of 4d6, drop lowest)

Favored Enemy: Humanoid (Humans) and Animal (Still not sure on this one, but it won't make any difference)

Feats:
Improved Initiative
Weapon Focus (Heavy Flail) - because of plot reasons
Swift Hunter
Power Attack
Leap Attack

I chose all of the barbarian substitution levels from RoS (Mountain Rage, Fortification and Skin of Stone), he will still get Improved Uncanny Dodge thanks to the Scout abilities, so no major problems so far.
The tactic I'm thinking of using is: If he wins Initiative (+7 mod), he'll start with Mountain Rage (Str 28) + leap attack. With 5 points in Power Attack he'll have an attack bonus of : 17/12/7 + 2d8 + 13+15+4+2d6 dmg, which means a minimum of 36 dmg and a maximum of 60.
If I also pick the lion spirit totem and add it to the mix he'll be able to charge and full attack in the first round. But I don't plan to kill the player in one round without giving him any chance of doing stuff. In fact, I don't plan to kill him at all, this is just a challenge.
Am I making this a bit overpowered and giving the player no chance of winning? As I said previously, the conditions of the challenge will be: No armor, no magic or special equipment and the same choice of mw weapons.

By the way, the idea of making him a stealthy gladiator was cool, but I'm not sure if it would fit the concept I pictured for him. Thanks anyway :)

Any thoughts?