This is just a sandbox build i was messing with for a Dwarven Defender! thoughts?

[CaPtMalHammer]

I acknowledge it has a Reflex weakness and that it is really costly in gear but I built this with no money restraints just to see how high I could get it without gestalt and homebrew or LA from a race. :) What do you all think?

Dwaven Defender AC Build
+2Con, -2 Chr, +4 Against Bull Rush and Trip, 20ft move, move full in Armor,

Str: 18 (12th, 16th, 20th)
Con: 18 (4th, 8th)
Dex: 10
Wis: 14
Int: 10
Chr: 7

1: Fighter (Endurance, Dodge {+1 AC})
2: Fighter (Toughness)
3: Fighter (Dwarven Armor Proficieny)
4: Fighter (Shield Specilization: Heavy {+1 AC})
5: Fighter
6: Fighter (Heavy Armor Optimization {+1 AC, -1 ACP}, Shield Ward {AC to BR, Trip, Touch etc.})
7: Fighter
8: Dwarven Defender (+1 AC)(Defensive Stance 1/Day { +4 Str, +4 Con, +4 Dodge AC, +2 Saves})
9: Dwarven Defender (Steadfast Determination {Con for Will Save})(Uncanny Dodge)
10: Dwarven Defender (Defensive Stance 2/Day)
11: Deepwarden (Track)(Trap Sense +1)
12: Deepwarden (Greater Heavy Armor Optimization {+1 AC, -2 ACP})(Deepwarden {Con to AC instead of Dex])
13: Fighter (Armor Specialization {DR 2/-})
14: Dwarven Defender (Trap Sense +2)(AC +2)
15: Dwarven Defender (Combat Expertise {+1-+5 AC, -1- -5 Attack})(Defensive Stance 3/Day)
16: Dwarven Defender (Damage Reduction 5/-)(Improved Uncanny Dodge)
17: Dwarven Defender (Defensive Stance 4/Day)(AC +3)
18: Dwarven Defender (Active Shield Defense) (Mobile Defense) (Trap Sense +3)
19: Dwarven Defender (Defensive Stance 5/Day)
20: Dwarven Defender (Damage Reduction 8/-)(AC +4)



AC: 67, FF: 64, Touch: 53
(With Stance, Gear, Stats, Feats, Class and Fighting Defensive)










Gear:

Belt of Giant Strength: +6 (36,000 GP)
Amulet of Health: +6 (36,000 GP)
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone: +1 Insight to AC (5,000 GP)
Manual of Bodily Health: +5 inherent to Con (137,500 GP)
Manual of Gainful Exercise: +5 inherent to Str (137,500 GP)
Shirt of Natural Armor: +5 Natural Armor (50,000 GP)
Cloak of Major Displacement (50,000 GP)
Steadfast Boots (?)
Mithril Nimbleness Ghost Touch Mountain Plate +5 with Greater Acid, Fire, Sonic, Cold and Electricty Resistance and Greater Slick (457,000 GP)
+5 Heavy Mithril Shield of 100% Fortification (101,020 GP)
+5 Ring of Protection (50,000 GP)
+5 Defending Ghost Touch Wounding Dwarven Battle Axe (162,330 GP)

Total Gold Cost: 1,222,350 GP

[CaPtMalHammer]

AC Math:

Base: 10
Armor: +14
Con (Dex): +3
Shield: +7
Defender: +4
Stance: +4
Dodge: +1
Defensive: +4
Ioun Stone: +1
Natural Armor: +5
Ring: +5
Feats: +8
Weapon: +5

AC -67

[LordOfCain]

Looks decent for a prestige class whose entire shtick is standing still... :smalltongue:

[CaPtMalHammer]

True I was thinking of calling him brick:) or Rock:) he is great in a high dungeon campaign where your in tight corridors a lot. :)

[Exocist]

Looks decent for a prestige class whose entire shtick is standing still... :smalltongue:

Could benefit a lot from those EXTREMELY USEFUL Stone Dragon stances...

@OP, why not try some Tome of Battle? Deepstone Sentinel (https://dndtools.net/classes/deepstone-sentinel/) is a good PrC for these types of builds.

[CaPtMalHammer]

interesting idea. not sure where I would fit them in. maybe instead of deepwarden :) will have to look at that.

[Fizban]

I assume the reason you're delaying Deepwarden is lack of skills, otherwise there's no reason to take it that late when you can get the two levels worth having before entering Dwarven Defender.

Why on earth are you using Mountain Plate? It is literally worse in every way than Mechanus Gear, dump it and get your feat and money back. And while we're at it, if you're tanking attack bonus where's your Tower Shield?

If what you really want is AC you can get more by switching into other prestige classes. Great Rift Deep Defender gives you +3/5 instead of +4/10. Topaz Guardian effectively gives you +3/5 on AC and saves both (sacred bonus). If you can find enough that grant +1 at 1st and 3rd you could theoretically get 2/3 by leaving them all early, but I think that's about all there is printed anyway.

Armor Specialization doesn't stack with other sources of DR. You seem to be listing your Combat Expertise transfer under "feats" rather than it's own heading, which just doesn't make any sense (you also don't qualify for Combat Expertise without 13 int). A full 14 points of AC are coming from tanking your attack bonus, if you're gonna do that you might as well take Superior Expertise so you can go -10/-10 before fighting defensively and toggling the defending weapon. If you really want AC, spare some resources to pick up Pearl of Black Doubt, which sends your AC through the roof almost instantly. Pious Templar would be a good idea for Mettle, but feat cost is a bit high.

A Ring of Universal Resistance (Greater) is half the cost of piling the resistances on the armor individually. You're missing your crystals of Screening and Arrow Deflection, and buying maxed out deflection and natural armor without Cloak of Resistance is asking for it. I'm pretty sure there are more effective AC bonuses to be obtained from armor abilities out there, but I've not yet compiled a list. Get some Anti-Impact on there to laugh at falling, constriction, and swallowing damage, should also have Durable in case of ooze, Restful so you never take it off, and Called so if for some reason it gets removed it gets back on. Add Periapt of Valor to your amulet for an easy +2 if you go below 1/2hp. Should probably do Necklace of Adaptation as well so you can ignore water and fogs.

If you want to get really mean, grab a Starmantle cloak to reduce all weapon damage to 1/2 with a reflex save. The old Retributive Amulet was insanely better of course (+2 sacred AC and force attack to take 1/2 of all your damage), but MiC updated it to a 3/day counter item.

[CaPtMalHammer]

I used Defender because it was a concept I was going for nothing else. Was not trying to completely optimize this. and I like flaws in a character makes them more fun to play in a roleplaying aspect. :) but yeah I need to increase by Int which is easy with a piece of gear. :) And I use Mountain Plate because I was themeing it with the Dwarf. I know the mechanus gear is better just didn't fit the theme of this build. and really if I wanted to I would have saved a lot of feats and made the armor halfweight and made it light armor. but then I wouldn't get any bonus from heavy armor optimization etc. lol the idea here was for a guard dungeon dwarf.

I am getting the same bonus from a tower shield with the heavy shield and shield specialization. you cant take that feet with a tower shield and its needed for shield ward.

I didn't even think about the Deep Defender that's an interesting idea and maybe I will check that out to tweak :) and before you say it I know everyone says Dwarven Defender is a crap class. I just like the idea of it and wanted to show a lesser class some love.

Superior Expertise comes from which book? I have a feeling its not in a book I have or one I looked at as to why I didn't add that in :)

Starmantle Cloak and Arrow Deflection are a great ideas as well. As well as anti-impact will have to add those to the armor somehow.

thank you and keep the responses coming :) I like tweaking and messing with concept builds!

[Fizban]

Tower shields have a base +4 AC, which is more than heavy+specialization, but you are correct that Shield Specialization won't allow tower shields, because whoever wrote it is a moron.

There's wasting a feat on style with a tiny mechanical bonus, and then there's wasting a feat on exotic armor. There is no benefit to making the armor light on a dwarf tank, no point in halfweight. Improved Combat Expertise is in Complete Warrior.

Dwarven Defender is a perfectly reasonable class if the table isn't player Super Char-op: The Game, the only problem being the emphasis on Defensive Stance which penalizes you if you have to move after activating it, making it very rarely worth using. The flat +4 AC and DR 6/- are more than you'll find of either ability in any other prestige class, and Uncanny Dodge shores up the weakness of dodge bonuses as much as is possible. Enter with Fighter 4/Ranger 1/Deepwarden 2, dip a level of martial adept if needed, and you're good.

Char-op would have you believe AC is useless: this is a lie. Are there some monsters with absurdly high attack bonuses? Yes, some of these are puzzle monsters, giant bugs or dinosaurs or tarrasques you're supposed to deal with by other methods besides melee combat, and some are power-creep'd monsters that are just way stronger than they should be, but your standard Monster Manual caps at about +35 for your iconic CR 20-23 ish guys (yes even dragons), usually closer to +30. You only need 15+attack bonus to get within range of Expertise-ing them to 20's only, which means a base AC of 45-50. If you total up +5 armor, deflection, natural armor, and (shocker!) +5 shield, you get 41-44 or so. Add in Dwarven Defender and you have in fact trumped the attack bonus of standard monsters. AC is only useless when you insist on two-handing because you can't handle the idea of dealing less than absolute maximum damage, who complains about getting hit when they're not using a shield?* At non-maximum levels you just invest in AC first, duh, and you should be able to keep within range just fine.

*Blah blah "they'll just ignore you because you don't deal damage," I thought that was what all that battlefield control and hiding on the other side of the room was for?

[Vizzerdrix]

Commoner-1 with the weresheep flaw. Now things have a reaason to not go around you, and you have free lycanthropy.Pluse a bonus feat.

[Karl Aegis]

How do you deal with mid-level demons like the Hezrou and the Glabrezu when you are level 20? Looks like even DR 10/good is really going to cut into your damage output if they bother going into melee. If things looks bad they have greater teleport to go into medium range for chaos hammer usage.

[GilesTheCleric]

Without Goad or levels in knight, no creature has a reason to attack you. You might also want to consider getting access to spells like Blockade, Entangle, or Wall of X so that foes can't just walk around you.

[CaPtMalHammer]

It is an issue!:) the good thing is D and D is a group activity and you have a party with you. you have the wizard/Sorcerer in your party cast a wall spell to funnel to you. You can have a reach weapon or ranged weapon for those pesky ones that want to stay away. :) The idea is your not the damage dealer your to get in the way and let the DPS in your party handle doing damage. :) One character I don't think has to be good at everything:) And yes I agree some sort of Goad effect may come in handy for this build its a good idea! :)