[3.5] RHoD Meatshield

[Fruchtfliege]

Hey everyone,

my current character in our red hand of doom campaign bit the dust.
Since part of the problem was our lack of a meat shield. (Party consists of a Druid, Cleric and Ranger; All of which are unoptimized and not very experienced)

Given, that this module includes a lot of breath weapons, no down time at all and quite a few battles against hordes of enemies, including undead and large size opponents, I really have to beef up my defenses.
My aim is a character that wades into melee and is VERY hard to kill (All saves high, High Hit Points, Some kind of self healing) and once that is established puts the rest of his resources into damage. I don't want a 100+ dpr build, so that I don't need defenses, this threat is all about PO not TO. :)

We use 28 point buy, may use any non setting specific feat/race etc., no flaws but dragon mag on a case by case basis. The character starts at level 6.

My current idea is a Desert Dwarf Warblade 1/Crusader 3/Warblade 2/Crusader 4, advancing crusader even further.
Warblade lets me choose Reflex and Will Save Counter; Plus some minor boosts/Maneuver.
Crusader lets me self heal, helps keep the enemies away from my allies and does real acceptable damage come level 8.
Dwarf lets me choose Dwarven Warpike as martial, for a nice reach weapon.

For feats I sadly need "Additional Favored Class (Crusader)" and would use "extra granted maneuver", the last feat is open. I thought about going "Stand Still" -> "Combat Reflexes", since until now I dont have anything against Grapplers.

I would really appreciate suggestions for this build.
If you have other builds in mind I'd like to read about them.

Thanks for reading, and even more for posting.

[ExLibrisMortis]

If you are playing with favoured class rules, don't take Extra Favoured Class. Just play something with favoured class (any), or avoid XP penalties by keeping your levels close together. Picking a level in dwarf just for the warpike is pointless; it's only +2 extra damage over a guisarme, which otherwise does the same thing you care about: tripping.

I would recommend the build in my signature. It does not have that much defence against breath weapons specifically, but you can outheal quite a bit of damage. If you can swing it, favoured class-wise, a one-level dip in monk can get you Decisive Strike, Combat Expertise, Improved Unarmed strike, and a +2 reflex save bump. Most importantly, that removes intelligence from your stat requirements, so you can easily go half-ogre half-minotaur azurin, for example.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Gonna second the advice to drop extra favored class. Just eat the penalty. It's smaller than the bonus XP you'll eventually get for being a level behind anyway.

In any case, couldn't you shuffle some levels around to avoid the XP penalty 'til level 6 or so and jump into one of the ToB prestige classes to avoid the issue? Bloodclaw master doesn't suck and you -could- go for master of nine (though the qualifying there is painful).

For breath weapons though, the answer is a tower shield. You don't even need to be proficient, just put it between you and the dragon until you get in melee range, then drop it and attack.