Help with Tower shield or Heavy shield build

[key777]

Hey I'm looking at making a super tanky possibly semi support class. I know the tower shield is sub-optimal but I really like the idea of it. I've deemed that the Dragon Shaman, Paladin and Knight don't fit the character but i'm up for any other suggestions. I'm currently looking at taking a fighter. Semi support tank is the goal not damage. Any input, or suggestions including feats or cross class capabiliies or really anything would help. Many thanks.

[Deeds]

Oddly enough, the Fighter's proficiency with the tower shield is unique to at least core classes. Like you said, tower shields are suboptimal thanks to it being a shield in 3.5 and -2 to attack rolls on a one-handed fighter.
You're offensive potential is very low.

My suggestion: dip a level or 2 in fighter for tower shield proficiency, exotic weapon proficiency kusarigama (DMG 1), and combat reflexes. Then go Crusader. Use the excellent stances like Iron Guard's Glare and Thicket of Blades to control your opponent(s.)

If you're not fond of Tome of Battle, I still suggest you multiclass into a class with other options than smacking the opponent for 1d8+3 damage. Perhaps cleric.

EDIT: If you can, buy an animated shield. This will free up your shield hand.

[Kayblis]

You can make a Crusader. Crusaders are great tanks, get all shield proficiencies, have a "delayed damage pool" that enables him to sustain more damage before actually feeling it and can learn the Shield Block maneuver, a counted that allows you to shield a friend with your tower shield (adding [Shield AC+4] to a friend's AC, +8 minimum with a Tower Shield).

It's the first class in the Tome of Battle. You should read it, most maneuvers are useful and some tanking options are unique to this book.

[Darrin]

My suggestion: dip a level or 2 in fighter for tower shield proficiency, exotic weapon proficiency kusarigama (DMG 1), and combat reflexes. Then go Crusader. Use the excellent stances like Iron Guard's Glare and Thicket of Blades to control your opponent(s.)


Oddly enough, the Crusader is one of the few non-core classes that is proficient with tower shields. So the dip into fighter isn't entirely necessary... although a Fighter 2 dip is usually a pretty good idea on a Crusader because it gets you two bonus feats and smooths out your stance progression somewhat. Fighter 2/Barb 2 with Wolf Totem (for Improved Trip) is a good start for a Lockdown Crusader.

Crusader can get by with Sword-and-Board because they usually have a handful of standard-action maneuvers they can use every round, so the opportunity cost of not full-attacking or not two-handing isn't quite so high. But I'm not sure I'd recommend a tower shield on a Lockdown Crusader... they do need to hit things, and the -2 attack penalty for a +2 AC bonus (over a heavy shield) isn't really worth it. Heck, you can get a similar +2 AC bonus from Combat Expertise. There are better ways to buff your AC that don't hork up your attack bonus.

There are two other classes that work well with tower shields. The first is Summoner Druid: summoning doesn't count as an "attack", so you can hide behind full cover and let your private zoo tear apart your enemies.

The second is Dragonfire Adept (Dragon Magic), but that's mostly because it doesn't rely on attack rolls. There's a bit of interesting utility there from draconic invocations, but as far as combat strategy goes, there's not a lot of variety there:

1) Use your breath weapon!
2) Did #1 not work? Better use #1 again!

Warforged DFA with Adamantine Body and a tower shield is essentially a slightly mobile armored flamethrower turret.

[flappeercraft]

I would make a Half-Minotaur Thri-Kreen (Non psionic) Fighter, using 4 tower Shields simultaneously and basically be Reindhart from Overwatch with it.

With this you would be trash offensively but would be actually pretty effective protecting your party.

[Fouredged Sword]

At one point I played around with a Tower shield swordsage build with the idea of using shadow hand teleports to act as a mobile wall. Use the full cover option then teleport to where you need to be as a move action. Great for dungeons with lots of 5ft wide hallways.

I even planed to use readied actions to be able to teleport between party members and incoming ranged or area attacks.