Two-Handed Fighter Build Help

[LoyalPaladin]

Hello everybody.
I'm currently in a pathfinder game and I need a little help picking feats for my character, since I don't know the system very well. Below, I'll list my character's current information. I'm aiming for a two-handed, heavy hitting, melee combatant.

General Information
Level: 3
Class: Fighter
Archetype: Two-Handed Fighter
Race: Lizardfolk
Weapon: Falchion
Ability Scores:

Str: 19
Dex: 12
Con: 18
Int: 8
Wis: 12
Cha: 10


Feat Progression
Level Feats

1st: Power Attack
3rd: Cleaving Finish
5th: Furious Focus
7th: Improved Sunder
9th: Greater Sunder
11th: Weapon Specialization (Falchion)
13th: Greater Weapon Focus (Falchion)
15th: Disruptive
17th: Cornugon Smash
19th: Destructive Persuasion


Fighter Bonus Feats

1st: Cleave
2rd: Weapon Focus (Falchion)
4th: Great Cleave
6th: Improved Cleaving Finish
8th: Improved Critical (Falcion)
10th: Sundering Strike
12th: Death or Glory
14th: Greater Weapon Specialization (Falchion)
16th: Spellbreaker
18th: Critical Focus
20th: Critical Bleeding

[Seppo87]

Furious Focus is mandatory for a Vital Strike build. Take it asap.

Normally you cannot combine Cleave and Vital Strike, however the feat Weapon Trick allows you to. You need this one as well.

Falchion is not a good weapon for a Vital Strike build, because its base damage is lower than other two handed weapons, and the critical hits don't multiply the Vital Strike extra damage.
A Greatsword would give you a much better damage per round.

If you're allowed to change race or to bypass race restrictions, Dwarf is the best race for Cleave based builds, because it gets the Goblin Cleaver line (followed by orc hewer etc)

[Psyren]

Given the massive Sunder bonuses (You get up to +9 from the archetype alone, before factoring in gear, size, buffs, feats etc), I'd recommend that be your combat style of choice. You can sunder someone's armor or shield in the middle of a full-attack, and all your subsequent strikes will hit their reduced AC. You can also target other valuable articles like spell component pouches, jewelry, even potions before they can drink.

Is Lizardfolk set in stone? If you go Dwarf (or a human subtype race), you can pick up the Shatterspell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/shatterspell-combat-dwarf) feat, allowing you to sunder magic too.

[LoyalPaladin]

I'm also looking for a way to fit into the large category. Any suggestions?


Furious Focus is mandatory for a Vital Strike build. Take it asap.

Normally you cannot combine Cleave and Vital Strike, however the feat Weapon Trick allows you to. You need this one as well.

Falchion is not a good weapon for a Vital Strike build, because its base damage is lower than other two handed weapons, and the critical hits don't multiply the Vital Strike extra damage.
A Greatsword would give you a much better damage per round.
Hm. Well, the information for my stats 3rd level and below aren't changeable. So perhaps a vital strike build is not for me. Any other suggestions?


Given the massive Sunder bonuses (You get up to +9 from the archetype alone, before factoring in gear, size, buffs, feats etc), I'd recommend that be your combat style of choice. You can sunder someone's armor or shield in the middle of a full-attack, and all your subsequent strikes will hit their reduced AC. You can also target other valuable articles like spell component pouches, jewelry, even potions before they can drink.
Okay. That works for me too. What feats do you suggest for that route?


Is Lizardfolk set in stone? If you go Dwarf (or a human subtype race), you can pick up the Shatterspell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/shatterspell-combat-dwarf) feat, allowing you to sunder magic too.
It is. Sorry. :smallfrown:

[Geddy2112]

If you can get your UMD high enough, you can use a wand/scroll of lead blades to make your weapon count as large.

For any fighter I recommend the disruptive/spellbreaker feats to punish casters. The step up/step up and strike/following step is also good here so they can't 5 foot step away.

[Elder_Basilisk]

If you can get your UMD high enough, you can use a wand/scroll of lead blades to make your weapon count as large.

For any fighter I recommend the disruptive/spellbreaker feats to punish casters. The step up/step up and strike/following step is also good here so they can't 5 foot step away.

I've also considered a build that combines that with Stand Still so they can't just take the AoO and move away either. (You could even add teleport tactician to make it a complete "No Escape" build).

[Secret Wizard]

Hello everybody.
I'm currently in a pathfinder game and I need a little help picking feats for my character, since I don't know the system very well. Below, I'll list my character's current information. I'm aiming for a two-handed, heavy hitting, melee combatant.

General Information
Level: 3
Class: Fighter
Archetype: Two-Handed Fighter
Race: Lizardfolk
Weapon: Falchion
Ability Scores:

Str: 19
Dex: 12
Con: 18
Int: 8
Wis: 12
Cha: 10


Feat Progression
Level Feats

1st: Power Attack
3rd: Cleaving Finish
5th: Furious Focus
7th: Improved Sunder
9th: Greater Sunder
11th: Weapon Specialization (Falchion)
13th: Greater Weapon Focus (Falchion)
15th: Disruptive
17th: Cornugon Smash
19th: Destructive Persuasion


Fighter Bonus Feats

1st: Cleave
2rd: Weapon Focus (Falchion)
4th: Great Cleave
6th: Improved Cleaving Finish
8th: Improved Critical (Falcion)
10th: Sundering Strike
12th: Death or Glory
14th: Greater Weapon Specialization (Falchion)
16th: Spellbreaker
18th: Critical Focus
20th: Critical Bleeding


Here's my wisdom:

- Vital Strike sucks, because most of your damage past level 6 will be done with full-attacks. Vital Strike is useful in cases like when you move and attack, but even then, you probably want to make sure you don't HAVE to move and attack in the first place.

- Cleave is terrible because it forbids you from full-attacking as well, and it's very hard to set up. Greater Cleave is a bit better, but I don't believe it's worth the investment.

- Your build, in general, is well geared towards hitting stuff... but here's the thing, Fighters are already good at hitting stuff without the need of more feats. It's better to focus on the things you struggle with: defense and mobility.

- For a proper Fighter, you need to make good use of the Advanced Weapon Training and Advanced Armor Training options. These can be obtained by, respectively: giving up a new weapon group from Weapon Training (but your bonus to previously selected groups increases anyway); or giving up an increase of Armor Training. However, both can be obtained by picking the Advanced Weapon Training feat and the Advanced Armor Training feat too, which can be a good idea as well.

With this in mind, here's my revised Fighter, made with the goal of not just pummeling things to the ground but also being an ironbound bulwark that can withstand any punishment:

Class: Fighter
Archetype: NONE
Race: Lizardfolk
Weapon: Falchion
Armor: O-yoroi (best armor out there for Fighters, but if you ever come across with a Sash of the War Champion, replace your o-yoroi for a full-plate for sure.)
Ability Scores:

Str: 18 (16+2)
Dex: 15 (higher DEX has many uses for Fighters)
Con: 16 (14+2)
Int: 7
Wis: 12
Cha: 12


Level by Level Progression

1st: Power Attack
2nd: Step Up (allows you to maintain pressure on an enemy)
3rd: Iron Will (covers your weakest aspect)
Attribute Score Increase +1 to DEX (rounding it up, all the rest of the increases go straight to STR)
4th: Following Step (continuing to cover the ability to maintain pressure)
Weapon Training I: Heavy Blades
5th: Advanced Weapon Training > Versatile Training (Bluff, Intimidate) (suddenly, you have maxed ranks on social abilities! Will help you cover up out of combat roles well. If you are not interested in this, you can replace it.)
6th: Combat Reflexes
Armor Training II: Keep. (With 16 DEX, at this point you should have a +2 STR/DEX belt, so you could use O-yoroi to its fullest potential. Or a full-plate if you have Sash of the War Champion)
7th: Advanced Armor Training > Armored Juggernaut (DR that stacks with adamantine armor is great. Get that adamantine heavy armor as soon as you can!)
8th: Improved Critical
Weapon Training II: Replace > Advanced Weapon Training > Armed Bravery (no need for another weapon group, and Armed Bravery is a great boost to Will saves, particularly with Sash of the War Champion)
9th: Cut from the Air (improve your defense massively by gaining the ability to break missiles... this is one of your uses for Attack of Opportunity)
10th: Advanced Weapon Training > Defensive Weapon Training (this is a LOT of AC for just 1 feat. At this point, you should be moving to buy your Gloves of Dueling, which will make this at the very least a +2 bonus to AC... but you also get to add half your weapon enhancement, so with a +2 weapon, this is +3 AC for a single feat.)
Armor Training III: Replace > Advanced Armor Training > Armor Specialization (at this point you have to pick between O-yoroi or full-plate to specialize. Whichever you pick, this is scaling bonus to AC that's pretty generous, you can get +2 AC right away, +3 at 12th, +4 at 16th and +5 at 20th. Between this, Armor Training and Defensive Weapon Training, being hit stops being an option.)
11th: Smash from the Air (another use for your Attacks of Opportunity... now, you can easily destroy rays heading towards you, so you no longer fear casters trying to get through your AC by targetting your touch AC)
12th: Step Up and Strike (comes a bit late, but right now, no one should be able to escape you if you come into melee range)
Weapon Training III: Replace > Advanced Weapon Training > Fighter's Reflexes (at this point, you should have a Ring of Evasion. Between this and your high DEX, you also remove the ability of casters to try to kill you by throwing fireballs at you. Remember this bonus increases with Gloves of Dueling too!)
13th: Dazing Assault (because this allows you to basically disable and murder anyone you melee attack... and we built everything to this point to make sure that if you ever got to melee range, nothing would stop you from destroying your target, as enemies cannot move away, cannot hit you, cannot blast you, cannot ray you.)

After Dazing Assault, I'd focus on critical feats. Critical Focus > Staggering Critical > Stunning Critical > (Another Critical Feat) > Critical Mastery sounds like a good way to go about it.

[Extra Anchovies]

For a proper Fighter, you need to make good use of the Advanced Weapon Training and Advanced Armor Training options. These can be obtained by, respectively: giving up a new weapon group from Weapon Training (but your bonus to previously selected groups increases anyway); or giving up an increase of Armor Training. However, both can be obtained by picking the Advanced Weapon Training feat and the Advanced Armor Training feat too, which can be a good idea as well.

I definitely agree with this. The advent of the Armor and Weapon Master's Handbooks have provided some very good reasons to roll with stock Fighter. I was going to suggest a number of different options in the advanced trainings, but Secret Wizard beat me to it. I'd replace Iron Will with Improved Initiative, but that's a matter of personal preference.