cjosephs1s
First Post
This is modeled after the current build I am using in a Gestalt Campaign for my toon which is as follows Fire Giant 20/Fighter20 Monster of Legend 2/Warhulk 2. The build is simple using a straight 20 level fighter progression. Fit the feats in as Soon as you can. Should be plenty to go around Ok well I'm not sure what he has so far but here's a general feat list that will give a lot of potential to your fighter.
Weapon focus
Power Attack
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Greathammer)
Weapon Specialization
Power Critical
Mage Slayer
Improved Critical
Melee Weapon Master
Greater Weapon Focus
Greater WEapon Specialization
Defensive Sweep
Combat Reflexes
Cleave (only if you plan on taking the campaign epic and taking the next level of critical feats)
Toughness (explained later and only take it once)
Roll With It (TAke it if you have extra feats to spare and why you took Toughness)
Great Cleave (only if you plan on taking the War Hulk prestige class or are going to go epic and taking the overwhelming/devistating critical feats and have a huge and I mean huge STR bonus..I"m at +41 and still not sure if its worth taking)
Supernatural Instincts
Involuntary Rage
Other feats to supplement you specific build are recommended but these are basic front line, in your face fighter feats that I take every time I build a fighter
Dwarf is fine and good for Con bonus. Hopefully you dumped a high stat like a 17 into STR as this is what this fighter build is all about STR and CON as all the other stats can suck. With taking Roll With It several times this effectively increases the amount of melee damage you can withstand making you the "tank" of the group. Combine this with a high amount of damage output to get the monsters attention and keep it and you can just charge into combat and let everyone else do their thing while you stand toe to toe with big nasties.
Weapon Choices:
Standard weapons suck! Go exotic! I love my Greathammer for the x4 crit and 19-20 threat range. Upgrade this thing as fast as you can. Try to get at least a +4 straight bonus and then supplement with things like Wrathful Healing, Flaming, Shocking, and Impact if you DM lets it stack with Improved Critical (if so its a must have enchant and put it on ASAP!!!!) Also get one with an Augment Crystal socket built in it. Buy the following crystals ASAP:
Greater Crystal of Energy Assault Acid (or fire)
Greater Demolition Crystal
Greater TRuedeath Crystal
Next get a Wizard/Sorcerer/Bard to learn Greater Mighty Wallop and Cast it on your weapon as a buff. This will turn your Large Greathammer (3d6) effectively into a Colosal (10d6) version without changing the size or adding penaties.
Also you will want to get Counterstrike Bracers and some other magic item that give you reach of 10ft or better with your weapon or enlarge yourself. STick him in Astral Driftmetal Full Plate and boost it to +5 as you get money but upgrade your weapon before armor. Also get it so it can have augmentation crystals. Get the Rubicund Frenzy Crystal. As for other enchants its up to you but don't get Fortification.
Get some boots of Striding and Springing to up your speed..you'll need it and the +10 to jump doesn't hurt either and they are cheap (at least they were in 3.0 rules).
Get a cloak of resistance and upgrade it to +5 These are cheap so it shouldnt' be an issue.
You'll need to up your STR as much as possible so every extra ability point you get should go to STR and get you something that boosts your STR Upgrade it a poiint at a time if you need to until it hits +6
Also lots of people have been recommending some Boots of Speed which give you haste for 10 rounds. Wait until you get at least 2 attacks per roound and probably I would go with 3 before you worry about these.
An amulet of Con is also very useful. Upgrade this as you can afford to +6 as well.
Rings of Energy resistance are very nice. Get one and upgrade it as you get the money and just keep stacking the energy resist until you end up with one that has Acid, Fire, Cold, and Electricy all at 30. Somewhere along the way get the other ring to give you a deflection bonus to AC. Upgrade as you can to a +5
There are tons of other useful items to get as well but these are the CORE BASIC and will eat up most of your gold since your weapon alone will end up costing about 200,000gp or 1/3 or your wealth. Focus on upgrading this first. Then anything that boosts your STR. Next is anything that boosts AC, Con or Saves. And finally worry about energy resistance.
The goal of this toon is not to be good at everything. He's gonna suck at lots of stuff and thats ok. His focus is to do some serious melee damage and keep the monsters attention while doing it. The idea is to take large amounts of damage so don't try to be impervious to it. If your AC sucks that's actually good. It means more damage. When you get below 1/2 hit points you start doing more damage and if you get really hard with a crit or spell your damage will increase due to involuntary rage (+4 STR +4 Con till combat is over if you take 50 points of damage from a single attack). With the buff from Greater Mighty Wallop your doing 10d6 (average of 35 damge per hit) and then STR and damage bonus STR should end up about 30 at level 20 so that's a +10 (15 STR damage + 6 feat damage +5 weapon damage +5 rubicond frenzy damage + any power attack damage or other enchant damage). So that puts you at just over 60 points of damage per swing on average and you should be using haste from boots of speed or other forms at 5 attacks per round. Crits will average around 240 points of damage per hit and you can crit on about anything with your crystals. DAmage out put even at low levels will be nice with the 10d6 +1.5 STR mod and feats. When you crit is when you notice it. That x4 to even a standard +4 STR mod kicks that damage up to 24 by itself. Then the 40d6 on top of that and BAM!
TActics are simple. Get right up close (adjacent) to a monster and stand toe to toe and keep swinging till it dies. try to keep HP at about 40% after you get your rubicond crystal Let others use tactics such as flanking, triping, sunder, disarm, ect. Your main goal is to get up front and in the things face and make it attack you while you beat it to death in short order getting in as many attacks per round as you can doing maximum damage. If it misses, counterattack. If it tries to cast a spell you get an attack of opportunity. If it tries to use a supernatural ability you get an attack of opportunity. If it doesn't move and is next to you, you get an attack of opportunity. With reach if it does move when it is next to you, you get an attack of opportunity after its turn. Once your on this thing it's going to get pounded a lot and that's the point. Does this build work? yes. The monster will die quickly. If your worriied about prolonged combat odds are your priest will only have to heal you and no one else. And this is a straight figher build of 20 levels. Does it do everything under the sun? no. Its a fighter. Its job is to do damage as a front line combatant and take a beating when he needs to. Does it have amazing saves in all three catagories and will never get hit? no. But the saves are ok and AC is decent. CAn you munchkin a straight fighter build more than this? maybe if so let me know as I'm still playing this toon and am always looking for good feats to add but the list is going to be very small. Just DON'T FLING YOUR WEAPON ON A CRITICAL FAILURE!!! LOL
Everything I've used is from a WotC source of 3.0 or 3.5 (some sources weren't reproduced to 3.5 and so just taken from the book). Some of you will argue and say there are better fighter builds out there. Probably so but I'd wager they aren't just straight 20 level fighter builds that make spellcasting harder, moving harder, attacking harder, using abilities harder, and staying alive harder on monsters. This build works and i've been improving it over the last few years to what you see now. When I started it wasn't near this good and it was a good fighter build then. With my current build on my toon I can crit for over 1000 points of damage on an average roll and should max out at level 30 somewhere around 2000 points of damage on a crit. That's 10000 damage a round potential with non crits still doing over 1500 points of damage a round on average rolls. You wanted a good straight fighter damage build...here ya go!
Weapon focus
Power Attack
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Greathammer)
Weapon Specialization
Power Critical
Mage Slayer
Improved Critical
Melee Weapon Master
Greater Weapon Focus
Greater WEapon Specialization
Defensive Sweep
Combat Reflexes
Cleave (only if you plan on taking the campaign epic and taking the next level of critical feats)
Toughness (explained later and only take it once)
Roll With It (TAke it if you have extra feats to spare and why you took Toughness)
Great Cleave (only if you plan on taking the War Hulk prestige class or are going to go epic and taking the overwhelming/devistating critical feats and have a huge and I mean huge STR bonus..I"m at +41 and still not sure if its worth taking)
Supernatural Instincts
Involuntary Rage
Other feats to supplement you specific build are recommended but these are basic front line, in your face fighter feats that I take every time I build a fighter
Dwarf is fine and good for Con bonus. Hopefully you dumped a high stat like a 17 into STR as this is what this fighter build is all about STR and CON as all the other stats can suck. With taking Roll With It several times this effectively increases the amount of melee damage you can withstand making you the "tank" of the group. Combine this with a high amount of damage output to get the monsters attention and keep it and you can just charge into combat and let everyone else do their thing while you stand toe to toe with big nasties.
Weapon Choices:
Standard weapons suck! Go exotic! I love my Greathammer for the x4 crit and 19-20 threat range. Upgrade this thing as fast as you can. Try to get at least a +4 straight bonus and then supplement with things like Wrathful Healing, Flaming, Shocking, and Impact if you DM lets it stack with Improved Critical (if so its a must have enchant and put it on ASAP!!!!) Also get one with an Augment Crystal socket built in it. Buy the following crystals ASAP:
Greater Crystal of Energy Assault Acid (or fire)
Greater Demolition Crystal
Greater TRuedeath Crystal
Next get a Wizard/Sorcerer/Bard to learn Greater Mighty Wallop and Cast it on your weapon as a buff. This will turn your Large Greathammer (3d6) effectively into a Colosal (10d6) version without changing the size or adding penaties.
Also you will want to get Counterstrike Bracers and some other magic item that give you reach of 10ft or better with your weapon or enlarge yourself. STick him in Astral Driftmetal Full Plate and boost it to +5 as you get money but upgrade your weapon before armor. Also get it so it can have augmentation crystals. Get the Rubicund Frenzy Crystal. As for other enchants its up to you but don't get Fortification.
Get some boots of Striding and Springing to up your speed..you'll need it and the +10 to jump doesn't hurt either and they are cheap (at least they were in 3.0 rules).
Get a cloak of resistance and upgrade it to +5 These are cheap so it shouldnt' be an issue.
You'll need to up your STR as much as possible so every extra ability point you get should go to STR and get you something that boosts your STR Upgrade it a poiint at a time if you need to until it hits +6
Also lots of people have been recommending some Boots of Speed which give you haste for 10 rounds. Wait until you get at least 2 attacks per roound and probably I would go with 3 before you worry about these.
An amulet of Con is also very useful. Upgrade this as you can afford to +6 as well.
Rings of Energy resistance are very nice. Get one and upgrade it as you get the money and just keep stacking the energy resist until you end up with one that has Acid, Fire, Cold, and Electricy all at 30. Somewhere along the way get the other ring to give you a deflection bonus to AC. Upgrade as you can to a +5
There are tons of other useful items to get as well but these are the CORE BASIC and will eat up most of your gold since your weapon alone will end up costing about 200,000gp or 1/3 or your wealth. Focus on upgrading this first. Then anything that boosts your STR. Next is anything that boosts AC, Con or Saves. And finally worry about energy resistance.
The goal of this toon is not to be good at everything. He's gonna suck at lots of stuff and thats ok. His focus is to do some serious melee damage and keep the monsters attention while doing it. The idea is to take large amounts of damage so don't try to be impervious to it. If your AC sucks that's actually good. It means more damage. When you get below 1/2 hit points you start doing more damage and if you get really hard with a crit or spell your damage will increase due to involuntary rage (+4 STR +4 Con till combat is over if you take 50 points of damage from a single attack). With the buff from Greater Mighty Wallop your doing 10d6 (average of 35 damge per hit) and then STR and damage bonus STR should end up about 30 at level 20 so that's a +10 (15 STR damage + 6 feat damage +5 weapon damage +5 rubicond frenzy damage + any power attack damage or other enchant damage). So that puts you at just over 60 points of damage per swing on average and you should be using haste from boots of speed or other forms at 5 attacks per round. Crits will average around 240 points of damage per hit and you can crit on about anything with your crystals. DAmage out put even at low levels will be nice with the 10d6 +1.5 STR mod and feats. When you crit is when you notice it. That x4 to even a standard +4 STR mod kicks that damage up to 24 by itself. Then the 40d6 on top of that and BAM!
TActics are simple. Get right up close (adjacent) to a monster and stand toe to toe and keep swinging till it dies. try to keep HP at about 40% after you get your rubicond crystal Let others use tactics such as flanking, triping, sunder, disarm, ect. Your main goal is to get up front and in the things face and make it attack you while you beat it to death in short order getting in as many attacks per round as you can doing maximum damage. If it misses, counterattack. If it tries to cast a spell you get an attack of opportunity. If it tries to use a supernatural ability you get an attack of opportunity. If it doesn't move and is next to you, you get an attack of opportunity. With reach if it does move when it is next to you, you get an attack of opportunity after its turn. Once your on this thing it's going to get pounded a lot and that's the point. Does this build work? yes. The monster will die quickly. If your worriied about prolonged combat odds are your priest will only have to heal you and no one else. And this is a straight figher build of 20 levels. Does it do everything under the sun? no. Its a fighter. Its job is to do damage as a front line combatant and take a beating when he needs to. Does it have amazing saves in all three catagories and will never get hit? no. But the saves are ok and AC is decent. CAn you munchkin a straight fighter build more than this? maybe if so let me know as I'm still playing this toon and am always looking for good feats to add but the list is going to be very small. Just DON'T FLING YOUR WEAPON ON A CRITICAL FAILURE!!! LOL
Everything I've used is from a WotC source of 3.0 or 3.5 (some sources weren't reproduced to 3.5 and so just taken from the book). Some of you will argue and say there are better fighter builds out there. Probably so but I'd wager they aren't just straight 20 level fighter builds that make spellcasting harder, moving harder, attacking harder, using abilities harder, and staying alive harder on monsters. This build works and i've been improving it over the last few years to what you see now. When I started it wasn't near this good and it was a good fighter build then. With my current build on my toon I can crit for over 1000 points of damage on an average roll and should max out at level 30 somewhere around 2000 points of damage on a crit. That's 10000 damage a round potential with non crits still doing over 1500 points of damage a round on average rolls. You wanted a good straight fighter damage build...here ya go!
