3.5 Pole Arm build without TOB?

[PangolinPie]

I feel like 3.5 seriously underplays the potential of a pole arm based warrior wether it’s a spear, naginata or even the humble longstaff. The range, the potential for disarming and tripping...I dunno I’m kinda looking for something closer to the martial arts movies I love....the application of a polearm regarding attack, defense and even maneuverability (pole vaulting) and so on. I feel like Exotic Weapons Master is a good starting point but am I missing something?

And yeah sorry but my GM is not a fan of TOB content...he’s a fantastic GM but sadly and old school traditionalist fart...

[Particle_Man]

The Hoizon Tripper build comes to mind. It starts with core and goes from there.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?80415-The-Horizon-Tripper-(Core-Melee-Build)

[MisterKaws]

Combat Reflexes+Tripping/Standstill and one or two Dragon Compendium feats make a pretty decent BFC fighter.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by PangolinPie
…the application of a polearm regarding attack, defense and even maneuverability (pole vaulting) and so on.

If there’s any chance of good homebrew being accepted, you might check out some vaulting feats (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?11367-New-Feat-Tree-Vaulting) by a former Playgrounder.

[Karl Aegis]

I had an idea that involved Decisive Strike Monk, Steadfast Boots and Knockdown once. Grab your quarterstaff and your boots, ready an action to finish Decisive Strike when someone walks within range and hammer them with your Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes and doubled damage.

Hold the Line at 3, Knockdown at 6.

[Falontani]

Longstaff
Improved Combat Expertise
Dancing with Shadows

Graceful Lunge: To use this maneuver, you must use Combat Expertise (taking a penalty of at least –2 on your attack rolls) or fight defensively for 1 round. In the next round, you gain a bonus on your first melee attack roll equal to the dodge bonus to AC granted by Combat Expertise or fighting defensively in the previous round.

If you are proficient with the longstaff and you fight defensively or employ the total defense combat maneuver, you cannot be flanked for the rest of the round. This benefit also applies if you are proficient in the weapon, have the Combat Expertise feat, and shift at least 2 points of your attack bonus to Armor Class for the round.

With the three things you can sink your entire bab into CE round 1, your probably going to miss but you'll get a large bonus to ac. Round two you can either put everything into power attack and do a 2h decisive strike, throw it into CE again for a big bonus to ac, or do a disarm attack. Since your two handed you get a bonus to your roll, but your big bonus will come from Graceful Lunge. Either way as long as you sink 2 points in you'll get immunity to flanking.

There are feats and abilities around to increase the benefit of using combat expertise as well, which, if you get a +1 bonus to ac when using CE then the following applies:
Round 1: CE +2, ac +3, to hit -2
Round 2: CE +3, ac +4, to hit +0
Round 3: CE +4, ac +5, to hit +0
Etc


A err stupid one however:
1 Neanderthal Fighter: Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Sugliin, Weapon Focus: Sugliin
2 Fighter: Power Attack(b)
3 Monk: Pole Fighter, Stunning Fist(b)
4 Monk: Combat Reflexes(b)
5 Psychic Warrior: Combat Expertise(b)
6 Psychic Warrior: Improved Trip(b), Monastic Training: Warmind
7 Warmind
8 Warmind
9 Warmind: Tashalatora
10 Warmind
11 Warmind
12 Warmind: Stunning Master
13 Warmind
14 Warmind
15 Warmind: Ability Focus: Stun
16 Warmind
17 Psychic Warrior
18 Psychic Warrior: knockdown(b), practiced manifester: Warmind
19 fighter
20 fighter: weapon specialization: sugliin

Build falls apart if you can't full attack, unless you grab sugliin mastery, but if you don't you have a huge weapon that you can flurry with as if you were a 12th level monk with 18 bab. IIRC that's 6 attacks each hitting two adjacent squares. You can toss in some unarmed in there to hit adjacent, or just target an entry square past your actual target. You have the tripping down as best as you can without a tripping weapon like the spiked chain.

[Mr Adventurer]

I had an idea that involved Decisive Strike Monk, Steadfast Boots and Knockdown once. Grab your quarterstaff and your boots, ready an action to finish Decisive Strike when someone walks within range and hammer them with your Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes and doubled damage.

Hold the Line at 3, Knockdown at 6.

I don't think splitting a full-round action works that way - I think you're proposing spending turn 1 using a std action to begin a full-round action, and turn 2 readying to complete it? You'd have to use your turn 2 std to complete the action at that time, surely?

[Manyasone]

...my GM is not a fan of TOB content...he’s a fantastic GM but sadly and old school traditionalist fart...

What does this mean? Casters can do whatever because magic? And martials have to explain every little thing they do when it's a bit outlandish?

[Venger]

I don't think splitting a full-round action works that way - I think you're proposing spending turn 1 using a std action to begin a full-round action, and turn 2 readying to complete it? You'd have to use your turn 2 std to complete the action at that time, surely?
Readying an action is different from begin/complete a full-round action.


What does this mean? Casters can do whatever because magic? And martials have to explain every little thing they do when it's a bit outlandish?

Yes. That's exactly what it means. It's known as the guy at the gym fallacy and is common among grognards,

[ZamielVanWeber]

Yes. That's exactly what it means. It's known as the guy at the gym fallacy and is common among grognards,

Hilariously ToB does an overall better job of mapping to real fighting than fighter since weapons in the real world have fighting style with specific techniques to learn.

[Venger]

Hilariously ToB does an overall better job of mapping to real fighting than fighter since weapons in the real world have fighting style with specific techniques to learn.

Of course it does. That's what makes it a fallacy.

[Manyasone]

Yes. That's exactly what it means. It's known as the guy at the gym fallacy and is common among grognards,

Should have used blue text. I've been called grognard because I don't like the way fifth handles things. My games heavily use PoW or SoM for martial empowerment. And since I thoroughly dislike vancian casting, I use akashic and SoP. I find it levels the field and allows everyone to be awesome.

[Vizzerdrix]

Should have used blue text. I've been called grognard because I don't like the way fifth handles things. My games heavily use PoW or SoM for martial empowerment. And since I thoroughly dislike vancian casting, I use akashic and SoP. I find it levels the field and allows everyone to be awesome.

What are PoW, SoM, SoP, and akashic? I like the idea of adding a bit of balance.

[liquidformat]

Should have used blue text. I've been called grognard because I don't like the way fifth handles things. My games heavily use PoW or SoM for martial empowerment. And since I thoroughly dislike vancian casting, I use akashic and SoP. I find it levels the field and allows everyone to be awesome.

For us less skilled in acronyms could you spell out yours pretty please? I am intrigued to look more into these things but not sure what they are...

[Venger]

Should have used blue text. I've been called grognard because I don't like the way fifth handles things. My games heavily use PoW or SoM for martial empowerment. And since I thoroughly dislike vancian casting, I use akashic and SoP. I find it levels the field and allows everyone to be awesome.

>3.x player being called a grognard

Well, clearly, that's crazy, and those 5thed players are using it wrong. The correct definition for grognard is "anyone older than I am"


For us less skilled in acronyms could you spell out yours pretty please? I am intrigued to look more into these things but not sure what they are...

pow = path of war
som = spheres of might
sop = spheres of power

they're splats for martial adepts. they seem popular but are only useful if you are playing pathfinder, which op is not

[liquidformat]

>3.x player being called a grognard

Well, clearly, that's crazy, and those 5thed players are using it wrong. The correct definition for grognard is "anyone older than I am"



pow = path of war
som = spheres of might
sop = spheres of power

they're splats for martial adepts. they seem popular but are only useful if you are playing pathfinder, which op is not

ah, I don't normally play PF so explains why I didn't know...

[Manyasone]

>3.x player being called a grognard

Well, clearly, that's crazy, and those 5thed players are using it wrong. The correct definition for grognard is "anyone older than I am"

Well, I am older than they are :smallsmile:




pow = path of war
som = spheres of might
sop = spheres of power

they're splats for martial adepts. they seem popular but are only useful if you are playing pathfinder, which op is not

this is true, but they are compatible with 3.5 without too much effort

[mabriss lethe]

While this isn't a particularly (or even remotely) optimized build, I managed to wreck shop in a low op game with a core only monk tripper. Earlier on in his career, he relied on a ki focus guisarme (courtesy of martial weapon proficiency feat...I told you this wasn't optimized) to stun and trip foes during AoOs, and would follow up with unarmed flurries while they were incapacitated.

[smetzger]

Monk + use weapon group rules in UA to get proficiency in polearms.

Get yourself a reach polearm combat reflexes and threaten squares next to you with unarmed strike and 10ft away with the polearm.
For some extra reach fun get buffed with enlarge.

Is there another way (without using a spiked chain) to threaten squares next to you with a reach weapon?

[Venger]

Monk + use weapon group rules in UA to get proficiency in polearms.

Get yourself a reach polearm combat reflexes and threaten squares next to you with unarmed strike and 10ft away with the polearm.
For some extra reach fun get buffed with enlarge.

Is there another way (without using a spiked chain) to threaten squares next to you with a reach weapon?

Wearing spiked gauntlets or getting a natural attack are popular ways to deal with this

[Mr Adventurer]

Short Haft feat, in PHB2 IIRC.

[StreamOfTheSky]

In a game that barely allowed much non-core content, and only from the earlier 3.5 sourcebooks at least, I rather enjoyed my Dervish character, that tripped with a guisarme and Dervish Dance. Being able to move around to attack not only meant hitting more enemies, it meant if I had the reach advantage on them (spoiler alert: I usually did), I could do a lot of the tripping via AoOs out of turn. Then tack on the Elusive Target feat, and intentionally provoke AoOs for enemies as you move by them, getting free trip attempts on them (doesn't even cost an AoO) w/ no risk for failure via the Cause Overreach tactic.

Whenever we actually had a lot of enemies, I was regularly getting 20+ attacks per turn.

Not sure if it'd be as good in a game that allows a plethora of splatbook stuff, but I liked it. The one caveat was...I was lucky the campaign included a bladed gauntlet in it (spiked gauntlet, but slashing). You're gonna want something like that, to cover threatening adjacent squares, and you're limited to slashing weapons in a dervish dance.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky
Whenever we actually had a lot of enemies, I was regularly getting 20+ attacks per turn.

How did this work in actual play? Sounds like the other players would have spent a lot of time watching you roll.

[StreamOfTheSky]

How did this work in actual play? Sounds like the other players would have spent a lot of time watching you roll.

It was online. My turns were probably faster than some other people, just b/c I was prepared and some of the others spent a ton of time just deciding what to do or being unannounced AFK, as people are wont to do in online games. Of course, since most rounds I had more rolling done out of turn than during my turn, it was hard to be sure exactly how long my turns were taking. If nothing else, every time I trip-pwned somebody and stole their turn, the time spent on my shenanigans was being taken from time the enemy would've occupied anyway. :smallwink:

Mook 1: Provokes AoO
Me: Rolls touch attack and trip attempt in one line (paste it in, hit enter)
DM: Rolls opposed
Me: If I won, roll bonus attack and damage in one line (paste it in, hit enter)

Mook 2: Provokes AoO
Me: Rolls touch attack and trip attempt in one line (paste it in, hit enter)
DM: Rolls opposed
Me: If I won, roll bonus attack and damage in one line (paste it in, hit enter)

etc...

A lot of times, the DM would just ask "how many AoOs do you have?" and would just do that many enemies in one bulk. Bottom line...I hit and trip things with a pointy stick. I may do it a few dozen times, but the action itself is rather simple and quick to resolve. We were levels 17-20, the casters spent longer than me usually, just pondering what to do.

EDIT: I'd usually wait till things had resolved before bothering to type a description of what had just happened. I know a lot of people give some prose about how they're attacking up front, but it always made more sense to me to wait till you saw the results to describe it, plus then I'm doing that while other people are figuring out their turns rather than dragging out my own turn further.

[Bucky]

You could build a gish instead.

The appeal of polearm builds comes from the passive area control. Simply by standing in the right spot, you're threatening to trade cheap AoOs for expensive move and standard actions for some distance around you. It's at its best in that respect if you can use regularly your move action for actual movement, to keep the threatened area relevant. So what do you do with your standard action if TOB is off the table? Spells.