"Bruiser Brigade" & Fighter DPR

[themilkman]

Strength cleric with a greatspear is a good idea. That allows the cleric to use Righteous Brand at a distance, giving to-hit bonuses to characters who may have heavy damage but relatively light to-hit. Helping a battlerager fighter to land a Crushing Surge, for example.

 

[Fedifensor]

I really like this! I'm going to have to suggest this to my friends for sure! One question though, as there are only five of us, which of those would you take out? I'm sure they'd want to remove the battlerager but I'm interested to see what you guys think. Anyone else have any suggestions for what kind of fighter I should make?

I'd remove either the ranger or the druid. Both defenders have striker as a secondary role, so you could live without the ranger if need be. The controller is nice to have, but doesn't fit the theme as well as the others.

While the group looks fun, my personal preference is to see a bit more AoE damage in a group. Trading out the two-weapon ranger for another sorcerer would be an interesting choice, or switching out the druid for an invoker with the Covenant of Wrath.

 

[Goumindong]

The answer is actually not a half-orc at all.

Its a dwarf, with Devoted Challenge. You pick up a waraxe with Dwarven Weapon Proficiency and you're sitting at a whole bunch of damage to your CC attacks.

Now, you aren't going to be striking as well when its your own turn, but that won't matter much, by level 2 your CC will be +11 and hitting for 1d12+9 damage (before a magic weapon) while your normal attacks are less impressive at 1d12+5 your OA's and CC will easily make up for it since they start with a higher to-hit and will maintain that will advance as you continue to pump wisdom. To top it off, you don't have to sacrifice AC with scale/heavy shield that will keep you alive.

Alternately, you could go with a Execution axe and brash strike for [1d12 brutal 2+7] damage if you were unconcerned about staying alive.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Don't go nuts with crunching numbers.

If you have settled on a Half orc fighter, which is nice for your party's concept, then go great weappon. This gets more juice out of your racial ability to add a [W] to an attack and doing 4D12 on brute strike, for example, is cool for what you are trying to do.

Probably use a fullblade; Half Orc have a Dex bonus after all.

Keep a decent Wis and go pitfighter; the flavor is right.

 

[Mengu]

Its a dwarf, with Devoted Challenge. You pick up a waraxe with Dwarven Weapon Proficiency and you're sitting at a whole bunch of damage to your CC attacks.

Now, you aren't going to be striking as well when its your own turn, but that won't matter much, by level 2 your CC will be +11 and hitting for 1d12+9 damage (before a magic weapon) while your normal attacks are less impressive at 1d12+5 your OA's and CC will easily make up for it since they start with a higher to-hit and will maintain that will advance as you continue to pump wisdom.

In my experience, the fighter gets maybe one combat challenge attack an encounter, and typically zero opportunity attacks. I don't understand how this build is going to do any kind of striking. Optimizing your standard action attacks is surely a more tactical way to strike, than relying on a DM's whim to provoke opportunity or combat challenge attacks.

 

[Victim]

In my experience, the fighter gets maybe one combat challenge attack an encounter, and typically zero opportunity attacks. I don't understand how this build is going to do any kind of striking. Optimizing your standard action attacks is surely a more tactical way to strike, than relying on a DM's whim to provoke opportunity or combat challenge attacks.

I agree. Counting on your enemies to stupidly give you powerful free attacks doesn't seem like a good plan.

The strength of the fighter's OAs and CC is more in the deterrence than in the attacks themselves.

 

[blargney the second]

The trick lies in forcing the DM to make a decision between two options that both suck.
-blarg

 

[Victim]

The trick lies in forcing the DM to make a decision between two options that both suck.
-blarg

Yet you're still granting them the option to choose whichever sucks less at the moment, instead of taking something terrible and shoving it down their throat.

And swinging at a battlerager, even one with a big weapon, isn't exactly a great choice.

 

[blargney the second]

Yet you're still granting them the option to choose whichever sucks less at the moment, instead of taking something terrible and shoving it down their throat.

And swinging at a battlerager, even one with a big weapon, isn't exactly a great choice.

Right. So make the choices both suck hugely and approximately equally and you end up with a win-win situation for the players... in addition to the massive damage the greatweapon fighter is putting out on his own turn. (I like greatweapon fighters more than battleragers because they keep the disincentives closer to equal.)

Sidenote: I like mordenkrads more than executioner's axes - they have bigger [W]s.
-blarg

 

[Goumindong]

In my experience, the fighter gets maybe one combat challenge attack an encounter, and typically zero opportunity attacks. I don't understand how this build is going to do any kind of striking. Optimizing your standard action attacks is surely a more tactical way to strike, than relying on a DM's whim to provoke opportunity or combat challenge attacks.

If your enemies never shift, never attack anyone but the dwarf(who then pumps his AC) and never make OAs(so your allies can waltz around without shifting and getting CA from using ranged in melee) then all the better for you.