Warforged AoO Tripmaster Build?

[WarrentheHero]

Hello everyone! A buddy of mine is interested in starting up a new 3.5 game and I've always wanted to play a Warforged (not Eberron, but he doesn't care). I want to be the party's tank, which means battlefield control. We're starting at low-level so I have limited options feat-wise. Right now I'm thinking this:

Fighter 1: Adamantine Body + EWP: Spiked Chain
Fighter 2: Combat Reflexes
Fighter 3: Combat Expertise

And then after our first level up, I snag
Fighter 4, Improved Trip

This should let me make trip AoO with reach at +4 all around me. And then at level 5 I grab Crusader for Iron Guard's Glare stance to give enemies in that reach-threatened area -4 to attack my allies.

Is this as efficient as I can go with this build, or is there a way to make this concept better/faster? I could give up Warforged for human and Adamantine body, but I'm sort of attached to both and don't want to give those up, so I only have 3 feats to work with for my first session.

[gorfnab]

You could go with this setup for faster tripping if you want to go with Warforged.

1. Fighter - Adamantine Body, B: EWP Spiked Chain
2. Barbarian - Spiritual Totem: Lion ACF (CC), Whirling Frenzy ACF (UA)
3. Barbarian - Wolf Totem ACF (UA), Combat Reflexes

This setup gives you Improved Trip at level 3 from the Wolf Totem ACF. This also gets you the Pounce ability from Spiritual Totem: Lion (ACF) and some extra attacks per round from Whirling Frenzy (ACF).

Adamantine Body is a little strange when considering Combat Reflexes. Combat Reflexes relies on having a decent Dex score to really work well. Adamantine Body leaves you with a Max Dex of +1 for your AC. If you're going to focus partially on Dex why not consider Mithral Body instead, to take advantage of a better Dex score.

If you want to take another level of Fighter at level 4 to balance out your Initiator level before going into Crusader you could take the feat Sweeping Trip Strike (Drg #343) or Improved Buckler Defense (CW).

Other Tripping/AoO based feats to look into are Stand Still (XPH), Knock-Down (S&F), Curling Wave Strike (SW), and Mage Slayer (CA).

Latter on you could consider taking a level or two of Warblade for and the feats Ironheart Aura (ToB) and Stormguard Warrior (ToB).

[WarrentheHero]

I realized I could take my first level as Rogue with the ACF that trades Sneak Attack for Fighter Bonus Feats. This does set me back by 1 BAB and 2 HP, but gives me significantly more skills to work with and an additional features to take advantage of. It would looked something like:
Level 1: Rogue ACF 1, Adamantine Body, EWP: Spiked Chain
Level 2: Fighter 1, Combat Expertise
Level 3: Fighter 2, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes
Level 4: Crusader 1 (Iron Guard's Glare)

After that point it doesn't really matter what I take, because IGG is the thing that allows me to be a proper tank, since it forces foes to focus me.



Adamantine Body is a little strange when considering Combat Reflexes. Combat Reflexes relies on having a decent Dex score to really work well. Adamantine Body leaves you with a Max Dex of +1 for your AC. If you're going to focus partially on Dex why not consider Mithral Body instead, to take advantage of a better Dex score.
That's true, but one of the major advantages of Adamantine Body is that it offers that spectacular DR2/Adamantine and really sells the "unkillable metal man" theme. Besides, Combat Reflexes isn't meant to lean a Dex build; it's meant to give me more AoOs that I can use to trip my enemies to keep them away from me or my allies.

[Twurps]

Basics sound about right. Some things to consider later on in the build:

Feats:
Deft opportunist (CA p106)gives +4 to hit on AoO's, which you'll be making a lot of.
Knock down (mentioned below) for extra attacks

If you really want to up the number of attacks, get a kusari gama instead of a spiked chain. (Basically the same thing, but light and 1 handed, be sure to use the DMG version, don't be fooled by the outdated OA version)

With 'two weapon fighting' you can get two kusari gama's. and with 'double hit' (MH p21) you can use your off hand in AoO's! It does require improved two weapon fighting as wel, so perhaps an extra level of feat rogue for the feat?

As a side note:
fighter lvl 16 (but who ever gets to fighter 16?) has a nice ACF from PHII: 'overpowering attack'. which lets you double your damage on AoO's. I think there's a nice ACF at fighter lvl 12 in the same section of PHII, but I can't remember the name, nor what it does. :(

I'm not saying you should take fighter to 16, but if you ever do, tripping is the way IMO, and this is a nice feature.

Not in line with your build, but just for future reference:
-The goliath race had a sweet barbarian ACF called mountain rage where the goliath becomes big when in rage. (And goliaths have powerful build naturally already). Being bigger is very nice as it both gives +4 to trip and increases your thread range. It's LA+1, very playable with LA buy-off.

-The human race has a regional first level only feat called 'Jotunbrud' (RoF p166) which is very similar to powerful build. (so +4 to trip attempts, but no range increase, at the plus side: no LA.)

Edited to add: A classic tripping build (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6921.0) for inspiration