Questions about Warlord and THF in general in Pathfinder, as a 3.5 player

[Windrammer]

I'd just like to know what I should know going into this. I have a passing understanding, I think, but I'm still figuring things out and getting a read on the meta. Two weapon fighting seems a lot better at a glance, but I'm not sure how deep that goes and I decided to be THF anyways for now.

Feats: Power Attack and Furious Focus are the only certainties at this point out of the seven feats I believe I can choose (level 6, human bonus, two warlord bonus). Considering Vital Strike, Improved Initiative, Lunge, Step Up (with or without the rest of that line), and Cleave, in that order of priority.

Vital Strike is very much worth it with Primal Warrior Stance in my opinion (8d6 weapon damage). But is Vital Strike compatible with Strike Maneuvers? Or a charge?

Is Step Up worth it by itself, or is it only good for qualifying for Step Up and Strike?

Does Lunge come into play much when you have it?

Does Cleave really matter with so many maneuver available that accomplish similar things?

I looked at the Warlord's Handbook but it's pretty skimpy. Is there anything else I should keep in mind as a Warlord?

[Hogsy]

I'd just like to know what I should know going into this. I have a passing understanding, I think, but I'm still figuring things out and getting a read on the meta. Two weapon fighting seems a lot better at a glance, but I'm not sure how deep that goes and I decided to be THF anyways for now.

Feats: Power Attack and Furious Focus are the only certainties at this point out of the seven feats I believe I can choose (level 6, human bonus, two warlord bonus). Considering Vital Strike, Improved Initiative, Lunge, Step Up (with or without the rest of that line), and Cleave, in that order of priority.

Vital Strike is very much worth it with Primal Warrior Stance in my opinion (8d6 weapon damage). But is Vital Strike compatible with Strike Maneuvers? Or a charge?

Is Step Up worth it by itself, or is it only good for qualifying for Step Up and Strike?

Does Lunge come into play much when you have it?

Does Cleave really matter with so many maneuver available that accomplish similar things?

I looked at the Warlord's Handbook but it's pretty skimpy. Is there anything else I should keep in mind as a Warlord?



All I can tell you is that Vital Strike only works on an attack action. If a maneuver which boosts your WEAPON damage dice to 8d6 exists, then you could use it on a single attack, yes. You may want to check the Cleaving Smash from the Weapon Master handbook where you can apply Vital Strike on your Cleaves.

Besides that, Lunge isn't that useful in my experience as there are tons of spells and items that do the same thing and feats are very valuable. Cleave has some nice uses but isn't that great overall. Step-Up and its upgrade can be nice but maybe later on.

Power Attack, Furious Focus, Weapon Focus(is nice), check some feats in the Weapon Master(Like Cleaving Smash). For your teamwork feats I recommend you pick up the Broken Wing Gambit initially and then the Wounded Paw Gambit. Other than that, you may want to specialize in a combat maneuver such as Trip. That way you can pick up Improved and Greater Trip. Improved Initiative is amazing. You might want to pick Leadership for a cohort or a flying magical beast friend since you'll have tons of charisma. Just remember that you have tons of maneuvers so picking feats for offensive uses might end up in an overkill. Pick feats from the Path of War to supplement some of your maneuvers or pick some utility feats like Step-Up or Disruptive after you've picked your core offensive feats. Spring Attack is always useful as well. Teleport Tactician is a nice anti-teleport feat for higher levels. Whirlwind Attack may also bring in some utility if you're enlarged and threaten more range. There are some nice feats in the 3rd party section as well. Sorry if this seems chaotic but I'm writing it as I go because I'm not used to building fighters and in my current campaign both PF and 3.5 is open so I'm mostly picking 3.5 feats or just very basic stuff.


To conclude, the Vital Strike chain may be nice if you make sure with yoru DM that it works with the boost you have in mind, don't overdo it with the offensive feats since you'll have a lot of maneuvers to make up for that, and look for Path of War feats that may be interesting. I'd also suggest you pick up crafting but that's totally up to you.

[Azoth]

Okay, you want to be a THF Warlord. Solid melee face rocker chassis. The main question before all too much help can be given is, what disciplines are looking to focus on using? I guess since you mentioned Primal Warrior Stance, that Primal Fury has caught your eye.

Outside of a few niche builds Vital Strike is pretty much a waste.

Are you looking to just deal damage? Throw some debuffs around? Be a force multiplier?

What alignments are you comfortable playing?

Honestly, a Black Seraph, Primal Fury, Golden Lion using Warlord with the Black Seraph Style feat chain, and two damnation feats can be scary as a pseudo Anti-Paladin.

Primal Fury, Mithral Current, and another style on a Bushi Warlord is a pretty scary and well defended Ronin style char.

Primal Fury, Iron Tortoise, and Scarlet Throne with a buckler is a good Noble Savage style character.

Your disciplines are pretty defining and can dictate good feats and an entire build scheme. It isn't as simple as a THF fighter or Barbarian, where it is "follow feat formula to be awesome".

[CGNefarious]

I also recommend checking out the Warlord Guide if you want a good idea of what feats to look at. I agree that Vital Strike is probably not your best option. You'll be using maneuvers for damage mostly, and they don't stack with Vital Strike. Here's a link to all of Elrich's Path of War guides.

All the Path of War Guides in One Place! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?380631-All-the-Path-of-War-Guides-in-One-Place!)

[Windrammer]

All I can tell you is that Vital Strike only works on an attack action. If a maneuver which boosts your WEAPON damage dice to 8d6 exists, then you could use it on a single attack, yes. [quote]
It's a stance, which is effectively an unlimited, persistent effect. In this case the effect is treating you as if you were a huge creature with a huge weapon. The greatsword goes up to 4d6 in damage, which I believe Vital Strike doubles.

[quote]Weapon Focus(is nice), check some feats in the Weapon Master(Like Cleaving Smash).
Is there something making Weapon Focus better in Pathfinder? People seem to like it a lot more in this system. Does it qualify yo for good things or what?


Other than that, you may want to specialize in a combat maneuver such as Trip. That way you can pick up Improved and Greater Trip.
I like tripping, but I don't have the intelligence for Combat Expertise.


You might want to pick Leadership for a cohort or a flying magical beast friend since you'll have tons of charisma.
I'm not going down that road, I think... I'll consider it because it's potentially cool but I'm going for a straightforward character here, and one that makes sense in a story rather than one with technical numbers potential.


Just remember that you have tons of maneuvers so picking feats for offensive uses might end up in an overkill.
Yeah... I just don't know the higher level maneuvers well enough I suppose. Vital Strike just seemed like 4d6 free damage and that was outdoing pretty much every maneuver available this level (6) and next.


Sorry if this seems chaotic but I'm writing it as I go because I'm not used to building fighters and in my current campaign both PF and 3.5 is open so I'm mostly picking 3.5 feats or just very basic stuff.
I appreciate it anyways, but I had a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of 3.5. I'm just figuring out the contrasts right now and what more pathfinder has to offer. So far I actually like it quite a bit more.

[Windrammer]

Okay, you want to be a THF Warlord. Solid melee face rocker chassis. The main question before all too much help can be given is, what disciplines are looking to focus on using? I guess since you mentioned Primal Warrior Stance, that Primal Fury has caught your eye.

Outside of a few niche builds Vital Strike is pretty much a waste.
Could you elaborate? In this case it's just free +4d6 to damage in combination with said stance, and that alone is outdoing pretty much all the other maneuvers.


Are you looking to just deal damage? Throw some debuffs around? Be a force multiplier?
Damage and general comfort on the battlefield. I like the ideas of maneuverability and flexibility, hence the feats like Step Up and Lunge that I had been considering for lack of anything else.

[qoute]What alignments are you comfortable playing?[/quote]
Nonevil.


Honestly, a Black Seraph, Primal Fury, Golden Lion using Warlord with the Black Seraph Style feat chain, and two damnation feats can be scary as a pseudo Anti-Paladin.
I'm going for a pretty straightforward, borderline mundane character here. Just a cool sword guy. Not necessarily looking for number advantages if it's at the expense of the theme of a straightforward warrior.


Primal Fury, Mithral Current, and another style on a Bushi Warlord is a pretty scary and well defended Ronin style char.
Bushi does look pretty cool but I think I may save it for the backup as it's hard to imagine a guy sheathing and unsheathing a greatsword so comfortably, I may do that for a two weapon fighter or a weeby samurai.


Primal Fury, Iron Tortoise, and Scarlet Throne with a buckler is a good Noble Savage style character.
I love the Noble Savage theme but I don't think I get Iron Tortoise, do I?


Your disciplines are pretty defining and can dictate good feats and an entire build scheme. It isn't as simple as a THF fighter or Barbarian, where it is "follow feat formula to be awesome".
I suppose, I just need to get better acquainted with all the maneuvers. Thank you for the input

[Windrammer]

I also recommend checking out the Warlord Guide
:smallannoyed:
Never change, Giant in the Playground. Never change.

[Tuvarkz]

I'd just like to know what I should know going into this. I have a passing understanding, I think, but I'm still figuring things out and getting a read on the meta. Two weapon fighting seems a lot better at a glance, but I'm not sure how deep that goes and I decided to be THF anyways for now.

One of the advantages of PoW is the mild optimization floor. There's little to few trap options amongst maneuvers, so you can just go through what you think sounds cool and it should work most of the time. Between TWF and THF, just pick what you prefer. (The former is more feat-intensive, however)



Feats: Power Attack and Furious Focus are the only certainties at this point out of the seven feats I believe I can choose (level 6, human bonus, two warlord bonus). Considering Vital Strike, Improved Initiative, Lunge, Step Up (with or without the rest of that line), and Cleave, in that order of priority.

Vital Strike is very much worth it with Primal Warrior Stance in my opinion (8d6 weapon damage). But is Vital Strike compatible with Strike Maneuvers? Or a charge?

PA is a good pick, although for Furious Focus you might want to take a moment to choose when you have some spare feats to do so. Improved Initiative is a pick to consider, but if you're building a charisma-heavy build (Trust me, Charisma-SAD warlord can be a beast if built properly) the Noble Scion feat (War option) is a good choice as well. Lunge is a choice to consider, but Step Up burns your immediate action, which means no swift action next turn, so take that into account. (Step up and Strike might be worth considering, though) Cleave is bad at later levels (AoE maneuvers start appearing at maneuver levels 3rd-4th, with an outlier at level 2 with Tempest Gale).

A good choice is always Discipline Focus (+2 to damage with discipline weapons, +2 to the save DCs of the selected discipline). Martial Charge will let you deliver standard-action strikes at the end of a charge, so it's a good choice too. If you're playing Human, I'd recomend trading your bonus feat for Focused Study-there's a good amount of maneuvers that require a skill check or that replace attack roll(s)/saving throws with a skill check so make sure to get that. Depending on your chosen disciplines and stances, you might want to give a check to the style feats from Path of War Expanded if you can.

Vital Strike only re-rolls your base die, so outside of Primal Warrior Stance it has little interaction (boost bonus damage die don't get rolled again). You can't Vital Strike on Strike Maneuvers, nor you can on a charge except through a Gorum-exclusive feat found in the Weapon Master's Handbook. However, while not the Warlord's field of play exactly, there's a PoW:E feat, Seize the Opportunity, which lets you perform attack actions when doing AoOs, which namely lets you Vital Strike on one. Of course, Warders are significantly better at taking advantage of this.

[Azoth]

Normally a Warlord doesn't gain Iron Tortoise as a discipline, but there are two ways to gain it without needing an Archetype. You could take a Martial Tradition, basically join an organization and swap a discipline for it. The other is a regional trait called Unorthodox Method. It does the same thing, just without belonging to an organization.

Obligatory link to Iron Tortoise's tradition: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/martial-traditions/defenders-of-the-realm

The reason it works well for a Noble Savage motif is that the three disciplines work well together. Scarlet Throne and Iron Tortoise combined work like classic fencing/honor duels when one party used a buckler/small shield in the off hand. Primal Fury is for when you stop caring about grace/elegance and just need to smash something's face in.

Mechanically, Primal Fury is good for charging and single powerful blows. Iron Tortoise has counters that are attack roll + shield bonus to negate enemy attacks and a few that offer counter attacks once you negate the enemies. Scarlet Throne offers some accuracy boosts and alternative striking options.

The best part is that all 3 are mundane, and easily doable with any two hander + a buckler.

*edit* On Vital Strike...I generally only use it on AoO builds that abuse Seize the Opportunity. That feat let's you make a standard attack in place of an AoO, which includes Vital Strike. So if you have feats to spare on an AoO build it is a nice addition. Otherwise I generally have better uses for my standard action.

[Hogsy]

It's a stance, which is effectively an unlimited, persistent effect. In this case the effect is treating you as if you were a huge creature with a huge weapon. The greatsword goes up to 4d6 in damage, which I believe Vital Strike doubles.


Is there something making Weapon Focus better in Pathfinder? People seem to like it a lot more in this system. Does it qualify yo for good things or what?


I like tripping, but I don't have the intelligence for Combat Expertise.


I'm not going down that road, I think... I'll consider it because it's potentially cool but I'm going for a straightforward character here, and one that makes sense in a story rather than one with technical numbers potential.


Yeah... I just don't know the higher level maneuvers well enough I suppose. Vital Strike just seemed like 4d6 free damage and that was outdoing pretty much every maneuver available this level (6) and next.


I appreciate it anyways, but I had a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of 3.5. I'm just figuring out the contrasts right now and what more pathfinder has to offer. So far I actually like it quite a bit more.



1) It's a prereq for some nice things and and since there aren't 500 feats like in 3.5, you don't actually have many choices for your lvl1 feat because there aren't "must-have" combos and the such.

2) Dip Brawler (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/brawler) to ignore Int Prereqs, get Martial Flexibility, and if you feel like gaining some extra levels in Brawler, Martial Training is also nice because you can qualify for Fighter-only feats. I don't remember if the Warlord has that. Besides that, I think that Brawler goes well with Warlord from an RP point of view as well. A Warlord is a mastermind of war and tactics, he can change his party's strategy on the go and all that. Well, Brawler does exactly that but with your own personal combat feats.

3) Leadership is rather interesting on many RP levels as well if you can roleplay your cohort in an efficient way. It can create a lot of memorable sessions and some nice drama. It may get a bit chaotic from time to time which is why I suggested a magical beast friend! You can even give it a couple of class levels!

4) I wish I could help you in a more efficient way here, but unfortunately I've only just recently read ToB so I'm not that interested into Path of War. That said, the stance you're talking about, Vital Strike(and the chain), Giant Fist Gauntlets (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/gauntlets-giant-fist), A Huge Greatsword(or ask your DM if he allows the use of the +1 enchantment in 3.5 which made your weapon 1 size larger than you) and finally Enlarge. You'll be hitting as if you were colossal for 8d6 on a regular attack, 16d6 on Vital Strike, 24d6 on Improved Vital Strike and 32d6 on Greater Vital Strike. I think that's pretty amazing along with a hefty STR bonus and Power Attack. Don't forget that Vital Strike procs on attack actions(standard actions) so it MAY work with some strike maneuvers.

If you couple that with the Cleaving Smash (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/weapon-trick-combat) feat I mentioned you'll be hitting everyone in like a 30-ft threat range(Enlarged + Giant Fist = Huge weapon which in the Reach Section states that has a 30-ft range.) for 24d6+modifiers at 16lvl or 16d6+modifiers at 11lvl.

You can ask your DM if you could use Cleaving Smash to simply Cleave using all your Vital Strike feats, instead of needing Improved Vital strike for x2 damage dice or Greater for x3 damage dice, I don't think it's gamebreaking although me may think differently. It's true that Vital Strike is usually a trap feat, but if you can get yourself to hit as a colossal being, it's not that bad. Just don't become a one-trick pony who needs to be enlarged with a huge greatsword to deal damage. This can be ONE of your combos. And a pretty neat one as well. Imagine an enlarged Warlord, wielding a huge Greatsword and commanding his party into battle.

It's only 3 feats and 1 magic item(perhaps 2 if you don't have any casters to cast Enlarge on you) in order to deal like 80-160 damage(depending on your level and which Vital Strike you have) to everyone in a 30-ft radius(perhaps 35 or 40 if you get a magic item and Lunge.). I don't think that's too bad. You may not be 1shotting people left and right but you'll be making everyone's jobs much easier

Also, by using your ability to grant teamwork feats to all allies and choose Wounded Paw Gambit, encounters will be ending much faster with the amount of attacks you'll be getting(Not just you, but the entire party). Don't forget that you will now have a reach of 30-ft, so every time that an enemy targets an ally who has selected that enemy with their Wounded Paw Gambit, you'll get a free attack on them(as an AoO) with all your juicy Vital Strike damage as long as you also have Broken Wing Gambit. You may even ask your DM if you can use Wounded Paw Gambit to attack as an immediate action instead of AoO even though it's not a ranged attack due to all the reach you've got. That means that with a little bit of coordination, you can attack all enemies in the encounter in one round, then when they attack your allies attack them again and kill them.

Remember, not every "martial" character needs to deal 300 damage per turn. Just do what you feel is right for your character and the concept you have in mind about him. Find a way to turn the character concept in a mechanical concept. That's what I've been doing for my last characters and I'm loving it. Sure, some choices may be sub-optimal but if you're fine with that and can carry your own weight, then you're good to go. Not to mention that your character not being perfect at everything he does creates drama. It's RP material.