Knock me over with a feather! Er, wait, not a feather, a big slab o' wood. Got it. Carry on.
Originally Posted by OrthosI made a very last minute decision to participate, so here's my barebones build:
Spoiler: BuildShowOrthos
Azurin Fighter 6
Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Skills Feats 1st Fighter 1 +1 +2 +0 +0 Intimidate 4, Jump 4, Climb 4 JotunbrudHuman, Combat ExpertiseB, Improved Trip 2nd Fighter 2 +2 +3 +0 +0 Intimidate 5, Jump 5, Climb 3, Skill Trick: Extreme Leap Improved Shield BashB 3rd Fighter 3 +3 +3 +1 +1 Intimidate 6, Jump 6, Climb 4 Cobalt Expertise 4th Fighter 4 +4 +4 +1 +1 Intimidate 7, Jump 7, Climb 5 Shield ChargeB 5th Fighter 5 +5 +4 +1 +1 Intimidate 8, Jump 7, Climb 5, Skill Trick: Never Outnumbered - 6th Fighter 6B +6 +5 +2 +2 Intimidate 9, Jump 9, Climb 5 Shield Slam, Riposte
Epic Feats: 1. Shield Specialization (Heavy), 2. Agile Shield Fighter, 3. Shape Soulmeld (Spellward Shirt), 4. Bonus Essentia, 5. Allied Defense, 6. Dodge, 7. Mobility, 8. Elusive Target, 9. Shield Ward, 10. Improved Disarm
Spoiler: WriteupShowHold a big shield, hit people with it, protect your allies. All for profit.
This is a build centered around Combat Expertise and to an extent the combination of Improved Trip with Shield Charge allowing you to apply devastating crowd control when you succesfully charge. The idea is that on a charge, you Bash, dealing damage and Trip your opponent, gaining an additional attack from Improved Trip which you can use to either attack again, or attempt a disarm. Since you're always using Combat Expertise you don't care too much about the attack of opportunity (Your AC should be in the mid-20s with Combat Expertise combined with Cobalt Expertise for the bonuses to both AC and trip and disarm attempts.
Later on, we also grab Shield Slam, which gives us a chance too daze our opponent on the charge. And Riposte, which allows us to bait our opponents into attacking us, hopefully missing and granting an additional attack, something that can happen on our own turn as well, if we intentionally provoke, say with a disarm attempt against a prone opponent.
Going into the epic feats, initially we grab Agile Shield Fighter in order to increase full attack damage output, then we can follow up with a number of different approaches:
Shape Soulmeld (Spellward Shirt) + Bonus Essentia gives us SR 18 which in Epic 6 is not bad at all and should grant some much-needed magical defense.
Allied Defense allows us to share the Combat Expertise goodness with allies if we have more melee people in our party.
Dodge, Mobility and Elusive Target both negate Power Attack and grant the cause overreach maneuver, which should be very useful in our high-defense build.
Finally, Shield Ward increases our maneuver defenses and touch AC while Improved Disarm can keep our Disarming competent against tougher opponents.
Spoiler: SourcesShowPlayer's Handbook: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Dodge, Mobility, Improved Disarm, Improved Shield Bash
Magic of Incarnum: Azurin, Cobalt Expertise, Shape Soulmeld, Bonus Essentia
Complete Warrior: Shield Charge, Shield Slam, Elusive Target
Player's Handbook 2: Shield Specialization, Shield Ward, Agile Shield Fighter
Dragon Compendium: Riposte
Shining South: Allied Defense
Races of Faerun: Jotunbrud