Path of war Zweihander Sentinel (Advice) please

[Nosta]

I have a Zweihander Sentinel I'm whipping up for a Homebrew Game a friend is putting together. I want to use a polearm ( The exact one unknown at this time) but I want it to be a heavy hitting reach weapon .


But the help I need is choosing my maneuver and stances

I want to go Iron Tortoise
& Piercing Thunder and have a good mix of manuvers counters Boost and stressed Strikes

I'm just not sure what ones are worth it.



The character image I have is a white hair male of some humanoid race who is a little over 7th foot tall and whears Whitish silver heavy Armor and is well built. and who wields a polearm that looks like a great sword with an extra long handle

[Kitsuneymg]

I have a Zweihander Sentinel I'm whipping up for a Homebrew Game a friend is putting together. I want to use a polearm ( The exact one unknown at this time) but I want it to be a heavy hitting reach weapon .


But the help I need is choosing my maneuver and stances

I want to go Iron Tortoise
& Piercing Thunder and have a good mix of manuvers counters Boost and stressed Strikes

I'm just not sure what ones are worth it.



The character image I have is a white hair male of some humanoid race who is a little over 7th foot tall and whears Whitish silver heavy Armor and is well built. and who wields a polearm that looks like a great sword with an extra long handle

Weapon: use the WMHB Custom Weapons Rules (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/EQUIPMENT/weapons/#Creating_New_Weapons). Iirc, you can get a 2d6 piercing or slashing reach martial weapon for 75 gp that is a member of the spear or Pilsen group depending on what you want.

I’ll admit. Piercing thunder is never something I’ve looked at, because the stances seem to completely define your fighting style, and thus you can’t ever leave some of them and still operate. However, a friend did a review of the first six levels (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?495623-Path-of-War-Expanded-Archetype-Discipline-Guide) of each discipline. It was focused on archetype initiators but is relevant for anyone.

[Ramza00]

Path of War encourages prestige classes with one class taking the practiced initiator trait and then you having dip classes to give you more maneuvers. This is because the prestige class advances your IL of your main and secondary classes and you get to swap Maneuvers for higher level maneuvers at IL 4, 6, 8, etc.

Combine that with Radiant Dawn as one of your Disciplines, and the Armory of the Conqueror soulmeld you get with a feat Shape Veil. Then invest your essence that Radiant Dawn grants you into the Armory of the Conqueror soulmeld with 1 essence being 1 size increase, 3 essence being 2 size increases, 5 essence being 3 size increase. Akashic Catalysts are expensive, but it is worth it for they boost your essence capacity and grant free essence on top of what Radiant Dawn gives you.

Thus your 2d6 Lucerne Hammer, or similar weapon now does 3d6, 4d6, 6d6, 8d6.

Maneuvers and/or the Vital Strike feat chain plus Seize the Opportunity boosts your damage further.

Of course if you do PoW expect your DM to do PoW as well including counters to block your Standard Action strike or Vital Strike. If this happens and you are doing the Warder’s Combat Patrol called Defensive Focus there is a +1 weapon ability I forgot the name for in Pathfinder that gives you 2 AoO with one triggering event. Googles it is Fortuitous, note it only activates if the first attack hits.