Half-orc fighter help plz

[Fundin Strongarm]

I'm fairly new to 3ed but have played AD&D since '80 or so.

My character is only level 2 but I'd like to know what feats and skills I should get. So far I have Improved Initiative, Power Attack and Weapon Focus: Great Sword.

I have 19 strength with my other stats pretty average (9,10,11,12,13).

I'm thinking of getting Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Critical, Weapon Specialization and Toughness in future levels but am not sure which is best. I have available to me the PH and the supplementary book for Barbarians, Fighters and Monks (forget the name).

If anyone can help me out with recommendations, I'd appreciate it.

If there are any good combos or anything as well. (If there's a better forum to post this please tell me.)

 

[Victim]

Hmm. This thread should probably be in rules. The "talking the talk" board is for out of character discussions and recruitment for play by post games. Issues of mechanical effectiveness go in rules.

Your off to a pretty good start. Weapon Spec and Imp Crit will help you deal out more damage. Also, consider Power Critical from Masters of the Wild. These feats all boost your damage. However, the two critical feats won't be available for a while.

Iron Will helps to cover the fighter's weakness in Will saves. Having supreme fighting ability is worthless if it can be neutralized easily or turned against the group. You should have decent Fort saves, and Reflex saves usually result in damage. But Will is a fighter's main weakness.

Cleave is very useful at low level, and retains much of it's utitility. That'd be a good next feat.

Also, consider multiclassing into Barbarian for beserker raging. Rage provides an offensive bonus greater than Specialization for a short period. While it penalizes AC, it boosts HP, Fort and Will saves. It's useful all around ability. If you multi to barbarian, the feat in MotW that grants 2 rages should be useful. With 3 rages per day, you'll be able to rage in most fights.

Toughness isn't very useful. Mainly, it helps characters survive at level 1. Wizards and sorcerers get the most from this feat. But you'll have three d10 levels by the time you can the feat. The difference in HP won't be that big unless you rolled very poorly.

Great Cleave isn't that useful. How often to you expect to kill multiple enemies per turn? Only if you fight lots of weak guys that you can drop in one hit. It's good for horde breaking, but not in most situations. If you expect to have 3 or more weak enemies within reach often, then take the feat.

At higher levels, Close Quarters Fighting is good. Lots of monsters will attempt to grab or eat you. Monsters are often really big, so they'll have significant advantages when grappling, and you can't use your greatsword. With that feat, you can stop most Improved Grab attacks.

Spring Attack is useful too, if you wear light enough armor. The full attack on many monsters is nasty. The CR 5 Girallon has 5 attacks at decent bonuses, and rend. They do lots of damage. But if you limit them to just one attack, then they can't rend and their damage is vastly reduced. Since your weapon does lots of damage per hit, limiting yourself to a single attack isn't that bad. But this feat chain will be more useful at higher levels. Consider it after you get other good feats.