Advice for a 6th lvl Newbie!

[dazm]

Hi there,

After lurking on these boards for a few weeks I thought I would break my duck and ask this question. I have just recently started playing 3E and I am running a Fighter in RttToEE. In the next session I will reach 6th lvl. Now the question is! which feats to go for?
I already have:
Power Attack.
Cleave.
Combat Reflexes.
Weapon Focus
Weapon Specialisation (Longsword)
Improved Initiative

So, basically I am stuck as to what new feats to get. Any suggestions?

PC Stats http://www.dmys08977.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Alduin .pdf

Cheers,

dazm

 

[Ilen]

Great Cleave would be a natural progression. Of course you have to ask yourself just how often have you used it and if you think being able to use it more then once a round is worth a feat.

 

[RogueJK]

Are you planning on taking any levels in a prestige class? If so, you might want to check the prerequisites, and make sure that you have all of the required feats.

Based on your current feat selection, a good choice for you might be the Weapon Master PrC from Sword and Fist. At 6th level, take Dodge and Mobility. Continue taking fighter levels, and at 8th level, raise your Intelligence to 13 and get Expertise. At 9th level, take Spring Attack, and then at 10th level, take Whirlwind Attack. You'll also want to accumulate 4 ranks in the Intimidate skill.

This way, you will have all of the prerequisites needed to take your final 10 levels as a Weapon Master. This will greatly boost your skill with the longsword. Unless, of course, there is another prestige class that you were aiming for...

At 12th level, plan on taking Improved Critical (Longsword).

[Edit] I would actually advise against taking Great Cleave. It’s really only useful at low levels, or against large groups of weak enemies. [/Edit]

 

[dazm]

mmmm interesting path. However as this is my first 3E pc I was thinking about just sticking with the fighter class. This may be lame in some peoples eyes but I wanted to see how far I could go with a single class before attempting multi/prestige route.

So with that outline would it still be advisable to take the route to whirlwind attack, or maybe ambidex/2 weapon fighting?

Thx for the help BTW

{edit} just realised that spring attack etc is useless to this PC as he wears heavy armor and intends to continue doing so. so any more ideas?

 

[AGGEMAM]

{edit} just realised that spring attack etc is useless to this PC as he wears heavy armor and intends to continue doing so. so any more ideas?

You should note however that while you cannot use Spring Attack in heavy armour, The Sage in his limited wisdom adviced that you could still use Whirlwind Attack even in heavy armour, eventhough Spring Attack is a prerequisite for Whirlwind Attack.

An advice I whole-heartedly disagree with, however some people, perhaps including your DM, take heed to his advice.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Get a Mithral Full Plate.

Anyway, Expertise is very useful if you fight against all those enemies that love to ignore your armor... (Until you take the Ghost Touch Option...)

Improved Trip, later possibly combined with the Knockdown Feat (Sword and Fist) is great (at least if you fight against monsters of your size or possibly lower), Improved Disarm can help you in all encounters where you want to take prisoners (and it is based on opposed attack rolls, so as a fighter, you naturally shine with it ).
Improved Bullrush might be an option, but since it "only" negates AOOs, it is not neccessarily the best.
Sunder would be a nice feat, but who wants to destroy possibly valuable magic weapons?

Ambidextity/Two Weapon Fighting is an option, but since you focused on the Longsword, the benefits are very low. (if you had waited with these feats, and took them for a Double Bladed Sword, or the Bastard Sword... )

Perhaps you could augment some of your ranged fighting capability - Point Blank Shot, Far Shot or something like that. (Precise Shot would be good, if you weren`t the melee fighter. Far Shot will give you the option to effectively attack your enemy from greater range before you are forced to enter melee.)

Dodge and Mobility are still nice feats, but without a decent speed, they might be useless. (Except you buy Boots of Striding and Springing)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[RogueJK]

just realised that spring attack etc is useless to this PC as he wears heavy armor and intends to continue doing so. so any more ideas?

Your character sheet lists your armor as +1 Mithril Full Plate of Silent Moves. Mithril Full Plate is considered Medium armor, so Spring Attack and Whirlwind Attack would still work.

But if you don't want to go the Spring Attack/Whirlwind route, I'd still suggest raising your Intelligence to 13 and getting Expertise. Melee fighters need all the boosts to AC that they can get.

As far as Two-Weapon Fighting goes, it wouldn't be the best choice, since you've already used 2 feats to focus on the longsword. If you wield 2 longswords, the penalties are higher, so you'd probably end up using 2 more feats to get Weapon Focus and Specialization in a light weapon for your off-hand, such as the short sword. That's a total of 4 feats that you would spend in order to be able to wield two weapons almost as well as you could wield one. This jumps to a total of 7 feats if you take Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Critical with both types of weapons... I'd continued fighting with a sword and shield, but YMMV.

 

[dazm]

That mithral full plate was a typo, I was just getting to grips with pcgen and never went back to change it.

 

[shilsen]

Hi there,

After lurking on these boards for a few weeks I thought I would break my duck and ask this question.

Nice to see another cricket fan here (the "duck" reference ).

I'd suggest going for Iron Will, actually. Fighters always have crappy Will saves, and nothing hurts more than failing against a Hold Person or the like and having to sit out an entire fight.

Mustrum Ridcully's idea about going Expertise - Improved Trip - Knockdown is also a good one, but unfortunately your PC's Int is too low for Expertise right now, so you can't do that unless you put a point in Int at 8th lvl.

Quick Draw is also useful for switching from a ranged weapon to a melee one and not losing your iterative attacks.

 

[UofMDude]

I think you're going to be much better off putting the next stat raise into Con (as opposed to Int) so I am going to ignore the whole Expertise chain.

I second the suggestion to take Iron Will. You can take that with your regular 6th level character feat. But you will also get a fighter feat. I would recommed taking Sunder (and later, Improved Sunder). Unless of course you game with a group that will scream if you "destroy treasure".

Still, it is a very good combination.

UofMDude