Painful splattering aka Really Big Stuff Hurts

[Plane Sailing]

Your fogeting one of THE prime tanking feats - Combat Exp.

Your mob has +30 to hit - so Max is out at +50 with Die roll. All Joe Tank has to do it Sac. 7 to his Attack and add that to his AC < moveing it form 43 to 50. The Jarl moves form 40% chance to hit to a 5% chance to hit < and importantly a 1 in 500 chance of critting >

Don't forget that combat expertise tops out at +5 to AC, and if the FGJ gets down to a 5% chance to hit that is a 1 in 400 chance of critting rather than 1 in 500

(since Lurker 2.0 is keen on statistics, I thought I ought to mention it )

 

[Lurker 2.0]

Okay, nice responses, I'll go over the stuff individually:
Majere: I'm not saying that S&B is weaker than TWF, or really comparing TWF at all. It's Two-Handed Weapons that's messing with my mind: it tends to have whopping big damage, the AC differences between S&B and 2HW don't seem big enough in comparison to a CR 18 White Dragon's +39 attack (a better example than FG Jarl; Dragons in particular, whew, I know they're supposed to be great, but they're freaking impossible for fighters unless you're a Dragon Slayer or super-buffed), and 2HW gets insanely abusive buffs from PA. I'm personally in favor of the idea, forget what thread it's from, that S&B should be able to use Combat Expertise for a 2:1 like 2HW uses PA (I'm also in favor of allowing CE to go as high as BAB rather than requiring the Improved CE feat, but that's just because I'm tired of 2HW fighters in my campaigns). So basically, TWF should be nicer than S&B because you're required to get feats? Sure. But it's the power of 2HW I'm concerned with rather than the weakness of S&B in particular (although that matters too).
(I realize that this was not really clear in my previous post, but it was really late and I couldn't do all the figures necessary to calculate grossly abusive dmg)

In General: I forgot CE in my first example. Thanks to those who posted about it. It does go some way towards compensating, especially when it comes to Improved CE from CW. My complains, however, remain. It's not so much that high CR monsters have high ACs and attack bonus, it's just the progression compared to PCs, especially when you get those critters that combine massive fighter ability with wizard-level blasting powers (Ether-thingies from FF are a main example, I know there's others but can't list them right now)

Ulorian: very cool idea, but won't work for my situation, mainly because I don't have time to work it all over, and my players have monstrous PCs (which is fine at low levels, although with Humanoids [gnolls], you kinda get the inverse effect, where monster HD are crappier than class HD, but worth just the same). But thanks for the suggestion.

In General, Part 2: Okay, I wrote the first post when I was sleep deprived, and now I'm merely rushed for time. We're making progress. So I'm gonna hijack my own thread: My DM's instinct tells me that feats solve everything. So if anyone's got any nifty feats that aren't just number buffs (WF, WS, Imp Crit, and the like are useful, but they aren't fun) that fit into the existing feat chains/add new feat chains, I'd love to hear about them.

 

[Victim]

Animated Shields obselete Sword and Board.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Your not even trying if you think the good feats stop at 6, the best feats come at 8 or 12, namely improved crit and greater weapon focus.

Example feats for fighters:

WF, WS(4), IWF(8), IWS(12)
Improved critical(8)
Ambidexterity, TWF, ITF, GTWF
Iron will, Great fortitude, Lightning reflexes.
Power attack, Cleave
Combat expertise.

Thats 15 feats (so a fighter level 16 as a human, 18 as another race) without even trying for something a "different" such as an exotic weapon proficiency. The saving throw feats are really important for fighters, your going to be targetted alot so you should look to get IW and LR as soon as you have a "dead" feat.
Dodge is a solid feat (dodge bonuses stack), so there are still more feats over and above those I listed. Only fighters could ever hope to match feat chains like this, so to build uber TWF you are limited to basically playing a fighter (who plays level 40 characters ? Ive never got past level 15 )

Majere

Remember that in 3.5 two-weapon fighting incorporates ambidexterity; there's no ambidexterity feat anymore.

One of the real problems with two-weapon fighting by fighters is its prep-requisite Dex 15. Most "tank" (high AC) fighters seldom have Dexes higher than 12, because +1 AC is the highest bonus you get in full plate armour (unless it's mithral, but tanks prefer adamantine for DR). So said tanks can't take two-weapon fighting.

I reckon the Dex 15 pre-req for two-weapon fighting is the most forgotten feat pre-requisite there is. There's virtually one NPC in every Dungeon magazine with two-weapon fighting but Dex lower than 15 - usually a bad-ass fighter-type using a double weapon. How many two-weapon fighting fighter builds have you made with Dex lower than 15?

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[FireLance]

I reckon the Dex 15 pre-req for two-weapon fighting is the most forgotten feat pre-requisite there is. There's virtually one NPC in every Dungeon magazine with two-weapon fighting but Dex lower than 15 - usually a bad-ass fighter-type using a double weapon. How many two-weapon fighting fighter builds have you made with Dex lower than 15?

None, but I know the rules and I am a stickler for rules over flavor (but that's an entirely different heatedly-debated topic). If I need a NPC that fights well with two weapons but has a Dexterity of less than 15, I'd be sure to give him two levels of Ranger.

 

[Majere]

Dex isnt hard to pick up, 36k at mid to high levels is a drop in the ocean for +6 gloves of dexterity.
Further the first post was about how TWF was miles better than anything else, hence my reply.

Majere

 

[Darklone]

Hmm. About AC: I had a level 6 warrior once who reached AC in the midthirties with some nice feat choices, fighting defensively and C-expt. Without magic weapons/armors.

Was good enough to wait till the groups barbarian got tired.

 

[fett527]

Hmm. About AC: I had a level 6 warrior once who reached AC in the midthirties with some nice feat choices, fighting defensively and C-expt. Without magic weapons/armors.

Was good enough to wait till the groups barbarian got tired.

Care to share those feat choices?

 

[Darklone]

Trying.

AC 32 = 10 + 8 (fullplate) +1 (dex) +1 (Dodge) + 2 (large shield) + 2 (Shield Specialisation, KPG, if you don't like it get Shieldmate or a tower shield) + 5 (C-Expertise) + 3 (fighting defensively with 5 tumble ranks).

Feats: C-exp, Dodge, Shield Specialisation (KPG), Skill Prodigy (KPG; Tumble, Spot class skills). Warrior 7 is recommended without Skill Prodigy.

Shown as here without tower shield, the dude should have taken some ftr levels for TWF, Power Attack and improved shield bash... with full power attack and expertise he'll only hit on a natural 20 anyhow

Considering all those nice armour specialisation feats from Races of Stone or other books, a normal fighter can reach these AC values pretty easily given sufficient Dex and Int.

This guy is not even optimized... and still has an AC that keeps most level 6 barbarians from hitting him in melee.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

This guy is not even optimized... and still has an AC that keeps most level 6 barbarians from hitting him in melee.

True, but this guy isn't going to have much of a chance of hitting the barbarian in return, either. And once the barbarian realizes you can't hurt him and he can't hurt you, he's going to turn his attention toward the guy hitting him with Magic Missiles every round...