Tempest Fighter or Melee Ranger?

[Flipguarder]

I have an Idea for a character that's basically a weak party all by himself. He will start at a minimum of level 8.

The Necessary Things

Ritual casting
Dual-wielding flails (because it may be the coolest thing ever).
Wears plate

The Wanted Things

Decent attacking ability
Great defenses
As many healing surges as I can muster
High intimidate score

Things I can Sacrifice

Mobility (at least without items being added in.)
Dex if need be
Charisma
Skills
Race choice
Normally "must-have" feats
Probably going to be necessary to sacrifice some reflex defense
Aoe ability


Now it seems the best idea off hand is to roll a tempest fighter, multi-class wizard (for ritual casting) and be done with it. But from the martial power book it seems the tempest fighter has a SEVERELY limited set of attack powers devoted to it. Possibly because its based on a defender class, something I'm not particularly interested in for a solo character.

The other option is to roll a ranger spend 3 feats getting plate and multi-class wizard. Obviously sacrificing some healing surges, and using more feats but gaining much more in way of striking ability.

Things to know

This character will most likely be used in situations where Im having very few encounters 3-5 in between extended rests.

Overall the ability to strike effectively is more important than maxing my defenses. but the necessary things are the MOST important.

The plan is for him to be alone and possibly join a party where he would function as an extremely aggressive striker.

His name is Drago the Flailer. His catch phrase should be obvious:
"I must break you."



Thanks in advance for any ideas opinions you might have. Also any item ideas would be great, anything that helps mobility, healing surges and reflex defense seems to be what Ill need.


EDIT: ummm.... I possibly put this thread in the wrong forum, but don't really know a better place to put it.

 

[ppaladin123]

Try posting here too:

4e Character Optimization - Wizards Community

The character optimizing boards are full of people who would love to help you build your character as long as you ask nicely and do part of the work.

 

[Grydan]

It's certainly a different idea, which is interesting. The difficulty is that many of your goals conflict with the things you're willing to sacrifice, or with other goals.

Flail related feats have DEX requirements, and fighter powers that have flail-related benefits generally key their bonuses to DEX, so to truly be skilled with flails you can't really dump DEX.

Intimidate is based on CHA, so if you want to be really good at intimidating you can't really dump CHA. CHA however plays no role in the combat mechanics of either class. It's also another feat to train in it if you go Ranger.

Multiclassing Wizard will also require a bit of INT, so your stats are really getting pulled in all directions here. Both fighter and ranger reward need STR and reward WIS, CON is necessary for your armor (helpful for HP and surges too, of course), you'll need DEX if you want to master your weapon of choice, and finally you need CHA for the Intimidation factor. You're a 6 stat character, which means you're not going to be terribly focussed anywhere. Also means human probably isn't a good choice, as you're really going to miss that second stat bump if you go that way. On top of all that, it means that your REF and WILL defenses are going to be miserable.

Ranger won't reward your weapon choice at all, because ranger powers don't care what kind of weapon you use, just how many. Fighter powers on the other hand, occasionally reward flails quite nicely, though none of the ones that do (from memory, anyway) are tempest powers, so they don't give you any special bonus for wielding two of them.

Fighter is probably your better choice, giving you Intimidate as a class skill, closer to the proficiency you want, powers that better reward your weapon choice, and more healing surges.

Hmmm, let's see what I can come up with.

EDIT: If you want to dual-wield matching full size flails, something's got to give here. You'll either have to start ranger, or dump the wizard multiclass and pick up ritual caster the hard way.

EDIT: Also, if you're going Fighter, you're better off with one-handed weapon talent than tempest, as you're not going to get the bonus damage from tempest, and if you want full-sized flails you won't get any attack bonus from tempest either. All you'll be getting is a feat without having to qualify for it... and you'll likely have the stats to qualify for it anyway.

 

[DracoSuave]

Go Human Fighter, take Rain of Blows, (no really, take Rain of Blows), Two-Blade Warrior to multiclass into Ranger so you can take the powers that round you out.

Your fighter weapon talent should be One-Handed Weapons. (not tempest, cause you're in plate)

1) Ritual Caster, 1) Two-Blade Warrior
2) Skill Focus: Intimidate
4) Weapon Proficiency: Triple Headed Flail (cause if two flails are awesome, six flails is moar awsum)
6) Novice Power (to swap for a ranger dual weapon attack, cause you swing that way)
8) Armor Prof Plate

At 10, take Adept Power to swap for a ranger daily, and at 11 take whatever paragon path you like.

16, 15, 14, 11, 10, 8

Str 20, Dex 15, Con 16, Wis 11, Cha 10, Int 8

The only way to get more surges is to go Paladin or Warden, your defenses (except Will) will be pretty decent, especially once you start going into Two-Weapon Foo feats. You'll be using a +3 prof weapon that does 1d10 damage, so you'll be like a bastard sword/bastard sword ranger in terms of damage, except that +1 to hit from being a fighter will mean you Hit Moar. Skill Focus: Intimidate makes your skill in it -very nice-.

Ritual casting - CHECK
Dual-wielding flails (because it may be the coolest thing ever) - CHECK
Wears plate - CHECK

The Wanted Things

Decent attacking ability - CHECK
Great defenses - CHECK, except Will, but you'll have Paragon to take care of that.
As many healing surges as I can muster - CHECK
High intimidate score - CHECK

 

[Grydan]

Well, there you go. Better than what I had so far.

 

[Mentat55]

To take the Ritual Caster feat, you have to be trained in Arcana or Religion. So you need to take Skill Training somewhere in there. That probably means you need to drop the triple flail or Skill Focus (Intimidate). Or Novice Power -- there are some two weapon encounter powers for fighters in that level range. You'll already have Dual Strike, which is going to be your bread and butter anyways.

 

[Klaus]

Go Human Fighter, take Rain of Blows, (no really, take Rain of Blows), Two-Blade Warrior to multiclass into Ranger so you can take the powers that round you out.

Your fighter weapon talent should be One-Handed Weapons. (not tempest, cause you're in plate)

1) Ritual Caster, 1) Two-Blade Warrior
2) Skill Focus: Intimidate
4) Weapon Proficiency: Triple Headed Flail (cause if two flails are awesome, six flails is moar awsum)
6) Novice Power (to swap for a ranger dual weapon attack, cause you swing that way)
8) Armor Prof Plate

At 10, take Adept Power to swap for a ranger daily, and at 11 take whatever paragon path you like.

16, 15, 14, 11, 10, 8

Str 20, Dex 15, Con 16, Wis 11, Cha 10, Int 8

The only way to get more surges is to go Paladin or Warden, your defenses (except Will) will be pretty decent, especially once you start going into Two-Weapon Foo feats. You'll be using a +3 prof weapon that does 1d10 damage, so you'll be like a bastard sword/bastard sword ranger in terms of damage, except that +1 to hit from being a fighter will mean you Hit Moar. Skill Focus: Intimidate makes your skill in it -very nice-.

Ritual casting - CHECK
Dual-wielding flails (because it may be the coolest thing ever) - CHECK
Wears plate - CHECK

The Wanted Things

Decent attacking ability - CHECK
Great defenses - CHECK, except Will, but you'll have Paragon to take care of that.
As many healing surges as I can muster - CHECK
High intimidate score - CHECK

You need to take a Background that makes Arcana or Religion a class skill for your fighter, since training in one of those skills is a requirement for Ritual Caster.

I'd drop Con a notch to bump Wis a bit, to round out Will.

 

[Flipguarder]

Go Human Fighter, take Rain of Blows, (no really, take Rain of Blows), Two-Blade Warrior to multiclass into Ranger so you can take the powers that round you out.

Your fighter weapon talent should be One-Handed Weapons. (not tempest, cause you're in plate)

1) Ritual Caster, 1) Two-Blade Warrior
2) Skill Focus: Intimidate
4) Weapon Proficiency: Triple Headed Flail (cause if two flails are awesome, six flails is moar awsum)
6) Novice Power (to swap for a ranger dual weapon attack, cause you swing that way)
8) Armor Prof Plate

At 10, take Adept Power to swap for a ranger daily, and at 11 take whatever paragon path you like.

16, 15, 14, 11, 10, 8

Str 20, Dex 15, Con 16, Wis 11, Cha 10, Int 8

The only way to get more surges is to go Paladin or Warden, your defenses (except Will) will be pretty decent, especially once you start going into Two-Weapon Foo feats. You'll be using a +3 prof weapon that does 1d10 damage, so you'll be like a bastard sword/bastard sword ranger in terms of damage, except that +1 to hit from being a fighter will mean you Hit Moar. Skill Focus: Intimidate makes your skill in it -very nice-.

Ritual casting - CHECK
Dual-wielding flails (because it may be the coolest thing ever) - CHECK
Wears plate - CHECK

The Wanted Things

Decent attacking ability - CHECK
Great defenses - CHECK, except Will, but you'll have Paragon to take care of that.
As many healing surges as I can muster - CHECK
High intimidate score - CHECK

To avoid more ability splitting, I was planning on getting that head item that converts your str to your intimidate checks.

What are the stats / where is the triple-headed flail. I've not seen it.

I have NO idea how you got ritual casting.

My main problem with the fighter path is that most of the powers I saw only used 1 weapon. Maybe Im mistaken but I dont even think there is a power for two weapons at every level. Id feel like an idiot if Im sitting there with two awesome weapons only using one of them most of the time. Am I just incorrect?

When I was talking to my dm he said that most likely cha, and dex. Since Im not planning on taking any flail feats for now is reflex defense the ONLY reason im pumping dex? cuz I could just switch for int instead for better rituals right?

 

[Klaus]

Try this:

level 1
Human, Fighter
Fighter Talents: Tempest Technique
Background: Heir of the Forgotten Gods (Raligion is class skill)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 18, Con 10, Dex 13, Int 9, Wis 16, Cha 10.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 16, Con 10, Dex 13, Int 9, Wis 16, Cha 10.


AC: 17 Fort: 17 Reflex: 13 Will: 14
HP: 25 Surges: 9 Surge Value: 6

TRAINED SKILLS
Athletics +8, Endurance +4, Religion +4, Intimidate +5

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics, Arcana -1, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering +3, Heal +3, History -1, Insight +3, Nature +3, Perception +3, Stealth, Streetwise, Thievery

FEATS
Human: Ritual Caster
Level 1: Two-Weapon Fighting

POWERS
Fighter at-will 1: Dual Strike
Fighter at-will 1: Knockdown Assault
Fighter encounter 1: Funneling Flurry
Fighter daily 1: Tempest Dance (or Comeback Strike for the self-healing)
Human: Cleave

ITEMS
Short sword (2), Ritual Book, Chainmail

At level 2 take Boundless Endurance and Student of Battle for the extra healing (and take Heal as a trained skill).

While there are levels without the 2-weapon requirement, there are several that give an additional damage based on Dexterity. This jives well with the Two-Weapon Technique. At 1st level your at-wills will be doing 1d6+6 damage!

 

[Hereticus]

I have an Idea for a character that's basically a weak party all by himself. He will start at a minimum of level 8.

Things I can Sacrifice

Skills

A "party of one" will need skills like Nature and Perception to survive.