Him
2020-10-01, 10:33 AM
{Scrubbed}
This is a generic Kensai I would recommend to some one interested in playing the class. Apply your own personal flavor, but I will leave comments and thoughts in general terms.
I say generic, but this Kensai is also an Exotic Weapon Master.
So the goal of a fighter is pretty simple, he is to carry the party in damage dealing until the wizard gets fireball. And he needs to occupy melee combatants so the spell caster and ranged players can do their thing. He is also the primary source of flanking for the rogue, though at high level a rogue should have something like a Rusty Bag Of Tricks to give at least a round of their own flanker, you may need to suggest.
So weapon hitting opponent as often as possible, this kind of build sets up various latent abilities, then gains momentum.
SKILLS:
Well for exotic weapon master at 7th and 8th level you need 3 craft weaponsmithing, and for Kensai, then the requirements are 5 diplo, 5 concentration and 5 ride.
Exotic Weapon Master skill levels, well not much selection, could be tempted to spend on cross class, I just dumped into Intimidate.
The kensai 2 skills I am sure to max out are concentration, for the strength focus, and balance. Since this build fights by tripping with knockdown, a skill that focus on staying on their feet was nice synergy. 5 ranks each in diplomacy, sense motive, knowledge local and royalty+non, means this character can interface with the local troubled nobility, helps with party NPC interactions.
1 rank of Tumble, for when you have mobility.
Human
6 fighter, 2 exotic weapon master, 10 Kensai 2 fighter.
16str
14 con
14 Dec
14 int
10 wis
10 Cha
1. Combat Expertise, Trip, combat Reflexes
2. Knock-down
3.Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Bastard Sword
4.Weapon Focus, Bastard Sword
6. Weapon Spec Bastard Sword, Power Attack
7 EWM: Uncanny Blow
8 EWM: Exotic reach.
9. sunder
12 Dodge
15 Mobility
18 spring attack
20 Whirlwind Attack.
This is a build designed to go epic with whirlwind attack, basics are finished by 9th level
Play progression
Level 1.
Finds you usually 10 in front of the party next to the rogue who is scouting. Carrying 2 shield, 1 is equipped while the is held in one arm, the other arm is occupied by a guisarme.
If surprised, the shield in hand is dropped, the guisarme readied and trip those incoming. If you can swap out the beginning masterwork weapon for potions of Enlarge, even better trip and hit up to 4 times with combat reflexes and normal attacks each turn.
Level 2
An enlarge ring and knock down will see you attacking normally with weapon and shield while still gaining AoO (attacks of opportunity)
Level 4
Large sized damage should be around 2d6+5 so should be activating knock-down in 50% of time damage is delt. DC for the trip is now around +12..
Level 6
Same, but the trip should be triggering 99%.
Level 9.
So we went from pikeman at first level, heavy infantry till now, final shift, we make the shield animated and use the Bastard Sword 2 handed with uncanny blow. This combo allows for the hardest hit I can come up with inside the rules. While there may be option for squeezing a few more damage out per round with a weapon in each hand, that's very expensive and i already have a character i made for myself. The training time on that one is rediculous though.
So yeah, level 9 heavy assault. Floating shield for extra a.c. each hit carrying a crowd control effect and using size(Wu Jen Giant Size spell, take a took) altering custom magic items, for the reach effect.
Exotic Weapon Master means the hardest hit and no one can hide when in your reach like a spell caster behind cover trying to snipe with a spell or whatever..
These tactics are good for human sized creatures, but monsters are different. When fighting monster, sunder. Sunder their wings for crowd control, natural weapons for damage control. Then just beat them up.
Now it's just about getting whirlwind attack for this epic style
Level 14
If you've been saving up, you can now enchant your Bastard sword to be +1 vorpal. Vorpal weapons are the classic mainstay of a fighter.. one of the beauties of this build is it allows you to dictate exactly when this occurs. Usually, to purchase this weapon would cost half your character wealth, but due to class choices you just pay some experience points, thus allowing you to spend your cash in other, beneficial ways.
Level 15.
Combining the fighter armor class with mobilit, attacks of opportunity from opponents can to a large extent be discounted. If a party member is cornered your character may save them by provoking the AoO if your DM doesn't run intelligent mobs.
Level 18
Spring attack combined with non lethal damage and a random insta-kill effect, when striking out at a party member stepping out of line can remind the party that while you are lawful good, you are a lawful good trained killer they shouldn't cross.
Level 20
Whirlwind Attack. This allows the fighter with reach to have a aoe of damage and suppression with knock-down. Training completed and ready for epic with battle style.
Gear.
Level 1 is all about the guisarme. After a few fights, you might have a few hundred gold buy a few enlarge scrolls, just pass these to the mage in the party and request that they use them at your request. Level 1 mages don't have many spells being useful to earn h, these should cover you until you get the enlarge ring at level 2. When enlarged you may want to switch to shield and flail.
Level 2
The a fore mentioned ring of enlarge and a few scrolls of magic weapon to cover until you get yours..
Next big magic item, a cloak of resistance.
From here the next item accumulation happens fairly naturally magical weapon
Next up is magical weapon. After that it's just sorta scrounging to get by, and the first "upgraded" is resistance, then strength, then protection, then armor, then con.
For your stat items keep strenght and con up, purchase dex second hand from the rogue and wis second hand from the cleric.
Short out what kinda armor you want, choices should be fairly obvious, I have previously, in a different thread, mentioned that the best a.c. is provided by the monk, but I didn't go the way at when checking out the epic armor, I found some armor of the celectial battalion or whatever for my build, and there is similar quality armor a valuable for this one, this is all around the point that this builds dex can't currently get high that +10 dex modifier, which is the max dex of armor of that level. This is also base medium sized, as there are dex modifiers for size.
Robe of eyes will give uncanny dodge like effects, but a weakness to gaze attacks, the will save bump from Kensai helps here with the fort fighter saves. By the time you afford a robe, your saves should be pretty decent.
A ring of evasion, well evasion eventually might get crafted onto the custom wu jen giant size item. But combined with Withstand at 13th level and a maxed put concentration and maybe a few extra skill points from an item, and you should only be failing with a 1.
For permanent stat increase, when building full blown epic characters, I actually always try a get an intelligence tone +4 as early as possible for the skill points. Even before strength, then followed by a +2 in strength,, then +4 con, dex, wis, cha, then +5 strength for this fighter build.
Oh and if your DM allows, research some kind of psipnics deterrence for anti magic fields. Most high level campaigns do contain one,
And a glove of endless javelin or something for a ranged attack
Throughout this guide I sorta made in a flow chartish way so for the parts that are,t relevant to that situation, you can just drop. The stuff about carrying a shield that you drop in the first round, that only for passive, we got surprised fight. The same character who gets a surprise round on 4 orcs at first level. If he attacks and then they charge, by everyone taking 10 with minimum damage, he can deal with them in 1 round, 5 orcs push it to a 1 in 16 chance of not surviving, 1 in 4 of taking damage.
This may sound over powered but that sort of perfect storm would only happen roughly 30% of the time at first level ,death around 6-7%. And this is pure physical damage area, a fighters forte.
Saves
Fortitude 11 base
Reflex Withstand 23 or 5 base,let's go withstand.
Will 10
So, that the re vamp of the golden oldie plain human fighter that I would recommend for any new player who are checking out this old legacy game. I will be posting my personal build later, as part of my Kensai Order I will be releasing, but please feel free to use this build as a reference for yourselves.
I am particularly of the lawful good being represented by the nonlethal vorpal weapon. I used to like playing knights until this player went feral and decided to just trash my character. The lawful good trained killer, he tries to deal with conflict in the party in a non-lethal way, but you just plain could die, and if you keep trying probably will. Once someone has erred 19 times, he is free to kill them.
As a fighter, build a good relationship with the cleric, since they are defensive, healing and at 9th level onwards, artillery with flame strike. With mages and fighters is fairly use and abuse as you are their meat shield, so tell them to take the meta magic feats as their area, so you are as good a meat shield as you should be. Since the attack style focuses on a situation when the enemy gets denied their dex bonus, rogue burst damage get brought out more often. He will use you as a distraction, while you use the rogue as a scout. Even at first level after you tripped them with reach, if the rogue has a long spear, even non proficiency the rogue could step up and add some damage to a fallen for, -5ac from no dex on an orc easily makes up for the -4 non proficiency.
So good luck, no need to tell me how awesome a build this is, as I already know.
This is a generic Kensai I would recommend to some one interested in playing the class. Apply your own personal flavor, but I will leave comments and thoughts in general terms.
I say generic, but this Kensai is also an Exotic Weapon Master.
So the goal of a fighter is pretty simple, he is to carry the party in damage dealing until the wizard gets fireball. And he needs to occupy melee combatants so the spell caster and ranged players can do their thing. He is also the primary source of flanking for the rogue, though at high level a rogue should have something like a Rusty Bag Of Tricks to give at least a round of their own flanker, you may need to suggest.
So weapon hitting opponent as often as possible, this kind of build sets up various latent abilities, then gains momentum.
SKILLS:
Well for exotic weapon master at 7th and 8th level you need 3 craft weaponsmithing, and for Kensai, then the requirements are 5 diplo, 5 concentration and 5 ride.
Exotic Weapon Master skill levels, well not much selection, could be tempted to spend on cross class, I just dumped into Intimidate.
The kensai 2 skills I am sure to max out are concentration, for the strength focus, and balance. Since this build fights by tripping with knockdown, a skill that focus on staying on their feet was nice synergy. 5 ranks each in diplomacy, sense motive, knowledge local and royalty+non, means this character can interface with the local troubled nobility, helps with party NPC interactions.
1 rank of Tumble, for when you have mobility.
Human
6 fighter, 2 exotic weapon master, 10 Kensai 2 fighter.
16str
14 con
14 Dec
14 int
10 wis
10 Cha
1. Combat Expertise, Trip, combat Reflexes
2. Knock-down
3.Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Bastard Sword
4.Weapon Focus, Bastard Sword
6. Weapon Spec Bastard Sword, Power Attack
7 EWM: Uncanny Blow
8 EWM: Exotic reach.
9. sunder
12 Dodge
15 Mobility
18 spring attack
20 Whirlwind Attack.
This is a build designed to go epic with whirlwind attack, basics are finished by 9th level
Play progression
Level 1.
Finds you usually 10 in front of the party next to the rogue who is scouting. Carrying 2 shield, 1 is equipped while the is held in one arm, the other arm is occupied by a guisarme.
If surprised, the shield in hand is dropped, the guisarme readied and trip those incoming. If you can swap out the beginning masterwork weapon for potions of Enlarge, even better trip and hit up to 4 times with combat reflexes and normal attacks each turn.
Level 2
An enlarge ring and knock down will see you attacking normally with weapon and shield while still gaining AoO (attacks of opportunity)
Level 4
Large sized damage should be around 2d6+5 so should be activating knock-down in 50% of time damage is delt. DC for the trip is now around +12..
Level 6
Same, but the trip should be triggering 99%.
Level 9.
So we went from pikeman at first level, heavy infantry till now, final shift, we make the shield animated and use the Bastard Sword 2 handed with uncanny blow. This combo allows for the hardest hit I can come up with inside the rules. While there may be option for squeezing a few more damage out per round with a weapon in each hand, that's very expensive and i already have a character i made for myself. The training time on that one is rediculous though.
So yeah, level 9 heavy assault. Floating shield for extra a.c. each hit carrying a crowd control effect and using size(Wu Jen Giant Size spell, take a took) altering custom magic items, for the reach effect.
Exotic Weapon Master means the hardest hit and no one can hide when in your reach like a spell caster behind cover trying to snipe with a spell or whatever..
These tactics are good for human sized creatures, but monsters are different. When fighting monster, sunder. Sunder their wings for crowd control, natural weapons for damage control. Then just beat them up.
Now it's just about getting whirlwind attack for this epic style
Level 14
If you've been saving up, you can now enchant your Bastard sword to be +1 vorpal. Vorpal weapons are the classic mainstay of a fighter.. one of the beauties of this build is it allows you to dictate exactly when this occurs. Usually, to purchase this weapon would cost half your character wealth, but due to class choices you just pay some experience points, thus allowing you to spend your cash in other, beneficial ways.
Level 15.
Combining the fighter armor class with mobilit, attacks of opportunity from opponents can to a large extent be discounted. If a party member is cornered your character may save them by provoking the AoO if your DM doesn't run intelligent mobs.
Level 18
Spring attack combined with non lethal damage and a random insta-kill effect, when striking out at a party member stepping out of line can remind the party that while you are lawful good, you are a lawful good trained killer they shouldn't cross.
Level 20
Whirlwind Attack. This allows the fighter with reach to have a aoe of damage and suppression with knock-down. Training completed and ready for epic with battle style.
Gear.
Level 1 is all about the guisarme. After a few fights, you might have a few hundred gold buy a few enlarge scrolls, just pass these to the mage in the party and request that they use them at your request. Level 1 mages don't have many spells being useful to earn h, these should cover you until you get the enlarge ring at level 2. When enlarged you may want to switch to shield and flail.
Level 2
The a fore mentioned ring of enlarge and a few scrolls of magic weapon to cover until you get yours..
Next big magic item, a cloak of resistance.
From here the next item accumulation happens fairly naturally magical weapon
Next up is magical weapon. After that it's just sorta scrounging to get by, and the first "upgraded" is resistance, then strength, then protection, then armor, then con.
For your stat items keep strenght and con up, purchase dex second hand from the rogue and wis second hand from the cleric.
Short out what kinda armor you want, choices should be fairly obvious, I have previously, in a different thread, mentioned that the best a.c. is provided by the monk, but I didn't go the way at when checking out the epic armor, I found some armor of the celectial battalion or whatever for my build, and there is similar quality armor a valuable for this one, this is all around the point that this builds dex can't currently get high that +10 dex modifier, which is the max dex of armor of that level. This is also base medium sized, as there are dex modifiers for size.
Robe of eyes will give uncanny dodge like effects, but a weakness to gaze attacks, the will save bump from Kensai helps here with the fort fighter saves. By the time you afford a robe, your saves should be pretty decent.
A ring of evasion, well evasion eventually might get crafted onto the custom wu jen giant size item. But combined with Withstand at 13th level and a maxed put concentration and maybe a few extra skill points from an item, and you should only be failing with a 1.
For permanent stat increase, when building full blown epic characters, I actually always try a get an intelligence tone +4 as early as possible for the skill points. Even before strength, then followed by a +2 in strength,, then +4 con, dex, wis, cha, then +5 strength for this fighter build.
Oh and if your DM allows, research some kind of psipnics deterrence for anti magic fields. Most high level campaigns do contain one,
And a glove of endless javelin or something for a ranged attack
Throughout this guide I sorta made in a flow chartish way so for the parts that are,t relevant to that situation, you can just drop. The stuff about carrying a shield that you drop in the first round, that only for passive, we got surprised fight. The same character who gets a surprise round on 4 orcs at first level. If he attacks and then they charge, by everyone taking 10 with minimum damage, he can deal with them in 1 round, 5 orcs push it to a 1 in 16 chance of not surviving, 1 in 4 of taking damage.
This may sound over powered but that sort of perfect storm would only happen roughly 30% of the time at first level ,death around 6-7%. And this is pure physical damage area, a fighters forte.
Saves
Fortitude 11 base
Reflex Withstand 23 or 5 base,let's go withstand.
Will 10
So, that the re vamp of the golden oldie plain human fighter that I would recommend for any new player who are checking out this old legacy game. I will be posting my personal build later, as part of my Kensai Order I will be releasing, but please feel free to use this build as a reference for yourselves.
I am particularly of the lawful good being represented by the nonlethal vorpal weapon. I used to like playing knights until this player went feral and decided to just trash my character. The lawful good trained killer, he tries to deal with conflict in the party in a non-lethal way, but you just plain could die, and if you keep trying probably will. Once someone has erred 19 times, he is free to kill them.
As a fighter, build a good relationship with the cleric, since they are defensive, healing and at 9th level onwards, artillery with flame strike. With mages and fighters is fairly use and abuse as you are their meat shield, so tell them to take the meta magic feats as their area, so you are as good a meat shield as you should be. Since the attack style focuses on a situation when the enemy gets denied their dex bonus, rogue burst damage get brought out more often. He will use you as a distraction, while you use the rogue as a scout. Even at first level after you tripped them with reach, if the rogue has a long spear, even non proficiency the rogue could step up and add some damage to a fallen for, -5ac from no dex on an orc easily makes up for the -4 non proficiency.
So good luck, no need to tell me how awesome a build this is, as I already know.