Tempest Fighter or Melee Ranger?

[Elric]

The best solo character is probably the very overpowered Dwarf Battlerager Vigor fighter. He could hit all of your conditions, too.

Pre-racial: Str 16, Con 16, Dex 12, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10
Boost Str and Con, so at level 8:
Str 18, Con 20, Dex 12, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10

You can switch Dex and Int for better rituals.

Skills: Athletics (Ranger MC bonus), Endurance, Intimidate, Religion (or Arcana; take a background from PHII that gives you religion or arcana as a class skill)

Feats (if you’re going to start at level 8, this order doesn’t matter):
1: Two-Bladed Warrior (Ranger Multiclass) (MP)
2: Ritual Caster
4: Dwarven Stoneblood (MP)
6: Weapon Proficiency (Triple Headed Flail from AV)
8: Armor Proficiency: Plate

Powers: Take Dual Strike (MP) as an at-will, Boundless Endurance as your level 2 Utility, Rain of Blows as your level 3 Encounter power (edit- never mind, you don't meet the dex requirement), and Rain of Steel as your level 5 Daily.

You get 7 temporary HP every time you get hit with a melee or close attack. At level 10 take Improved Vigor (MP) so this goes up to 8 temporary HP.

 

[Flipguarder]

You have a kind and gentle DM.

I would never ask for that... nor would I give it.

So your dm purposely attacks your weak points, and you continue to play with him? More than that, you do the same to him?

I thought this game was about fun, not useless torture and exploitation.

Not trying to dis your way of having fun, thats just how I would feel.

I see so much geared around going with Fighter/Ranger...

Since fighter is obviously not much of a striker, and they want healing surges AND ritual caster... Go paladin as a base, go half elf so you have the cha(intimidate) and con (HP/Healing Surges), go with dillettante as twin strike from ranger, and take versatile master whenever you can. And then pick MC Barbarian for more damage w/Great powers when you pick them up(inc rages).

with that process you would have 5 feats: Ritual Caster, superior weapon (triple flail for +3 prof bonus or the double-flail for defensive properties), ranger feat for dual wield, MC Barbarian (+2 damage one enc/day), and probably 2-weapon fighting for now... pick up barbarian daily for rage at 10th hehe

The Necessary Things

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
As many healing surges as I can muster - check
High intimidate score - check (trained, with cha race also)

Things I can Sacrifice

Mobility (at least without items being added in.) - Plate sucks for mobility
Dex if need be - will need bumped with pts somehow
Charisma - Half-Elf
Skills - Get a nice selection from Barbarian MC
Race choice - Half-Elf is pretty sweet
Normally "must-have" feats - Up to you
Probably going to be necessary to sacrifice some reflex defense - Not much
Aoe ability -Paladins get some AoE's

Additional Bonuses - Paladins can heal themselves VERY well, so you have extra survivability, the new 10th (I think) paladin stance in this month's dragon gives an awesome ability to mark/damage enemies/protect comrades and stances stack with rages, so can have both running

I know this isn't the most optimized build in the world. But isn't there NO benefit to having 2 weapons as a paladin and several benefits Im missing from a shield?

Im REALLY looking for a character that utilizes both the flails

Its funny you mentioned MC into barbarian.

My dm and I just had an extensive talk on this subject.

We came to the conclusion:

Human two-blade Ranger lvl 8
Background that allows switch for arcana training

starting Abilities: We always do a 24 pt buy system
Str 18
Con 14
Dex 12
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 8




lvl 8 abilities
Str 19
Con 15
Dex 13
Int 10
Wis 15
Cha 8

HP 66

AC 22
Fort 20
Reflex 17
Will 17

Init: +5

Feats:
chain
Scale
Plate
MC Barbarian, intimidate is trained
ritual casting
weapon proficiency Uber-flail

Skills:
Arcana
Intimidate
Perception
Dungeoneering
Nature (Ha Hereticus)
Stealth (stealth plate ftw)

how does this look?

 

[Elric]

Human two-blade Ranger lvl 8
Background that allows switch for arcana training

starting Abilities: We always do a 24 pt buy system
Str 18
Con 14
Dex 12
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 8

You can build this on 21 point buy. 9 for 16 Str, 5 for 14 Wis, 5 for 14 Con, 2 for 12 Dex, add +2 to Strength. With 24 points, you can start with 18, 15, 13, 10, 14, 8.

lvl 8 abilities
Str 19
Con 15
Dex 13
Int 10
Wis 15
Cha 8

When you level up a character all at once (so you're planning ahead), you should never put any points from increasing level into an ability that started below 13 when you could put it into an ability that started above 13. The reason is that you could redesign your character's stats from scratch to lower the ability score that started above 13 while raising it instead, and end up with more points to work with. From the above stats I suggested for your 24 points, I'd probably add 2 to both Str and Wis.

If you want to convert my build above from Dwarf to Human, replacing Dwarven Stoneblood with Improved Vigor and taking Warrior of the Wild with your human bonus feat for Hunter's Quarry + an additional skill should work pretty well (with the bonus skill from human, you could have Athletics, Arcana, Endurance, Intimidate and two of Dungeoneering, Perception and Nature).

Skills:
Arcana
Intimidate
Perception
Dungeoneering
Nature (Ha Hereticus)
Stealth (stealth plate ftw)

You're short a skill. 5 for ranger, 1 for Barbarian, 1 for human. So you can add Athletics, for example.

 

[Klaus]

I appreciate the help and ideas but the dual-wielding flails is necessary.

And overall I think I agree about being a defender rather than a striker. Basically I just feel the limit of two weapon powers in the fighter class is pretty devestating.

Take the Ranger multiclass, then, and dual-wield flails. You'll be missing on the additional damage from Tempest Technique.

OR...

Keep the stats for the short swords and just describe them as being flails designed for off-hand use.

 

[ppaladin123]

So your dm purposely attacks your weak points, and you continue to play with him? More than that, you do the same to him?

I thought this game was about fun, not useless torture and exploitation.

Not trying to dis your way of having fun, thats just how I would feel.

I'd ask my DM not to meta-game in either direction. He shouldn't go out of his way to generate encounters where the monsters exercise impossible knowledge to destroy me to spare me.

 

[Hereticus]

You have a kind and gentle DM.

I would never ask for that... nor would I give it.

So your dm purposely attacks your weak points, and you continue to play with him? More than that, you do the same to him?

Sir, it does you no credit when you take a point that I disagreed with, and assume that I must believe the opposite extreme. Please refrain in the future from posting these kinds of assumptions.

Thank you.

I thought this game was about fun, not useless torture and exploitation.

Not trying to dis your way of having fun, thats just how I would feel.

I expect a DM to create a reasonable challenge, which means presenting problems from my group if we knowingly leave ourselves short in Perception, or any other Survival skill like Nature (the ability to feed ourselves and track).

Now we have had many situations where the DM has allowed another player to run a monster or opponent of a part of the group. No DM can be as cruel to a player as another player can. In those cases the opponent does actively try to exploit weaknesses. But the player(s) know its coming. Its called strategy, and not only the players' characters can use it.

I have been a DM, a player, and an opponent for that type of scenario.

 

[FrozenChrono]

For the uber flail the triple headed flail from AV is +3 1d10, that's the best one hander flail you're going to find.

As far as your ability scores go pumping strength every ability bonus and simply pumping one of your other abilities a little more when you start would be more effective.

Also as has been pointed out your math's a bit off. (especially if you're using a 24 point stat buy)

Str 18 (with human +2)
Con 15
Dex 12
Int 10
Wis 13
Cha 8

Would be a good standard 22 starting point buy. You could use the extra two points to pump your con, or wis up a little more. (or start with a higher dex, like Elric said don't pump a stat below 13)

 

[Flipguarder]

You can build this on 21 point buy. 9 for 16 Str, 5 for 14 Wis, 5 for 14 Con, 2 for 12 Dex, add +2 to Strength. With 24 points, you can start with 18, 15, 13, 10, 14, 8.


You're short a skill. 5 for ranger, 1 for Barbarian, 1 for human. So you can add Athletics, for example.

Thanks for the correction. Its funny, Im the dm for the current campaign. (My first time dming) and I've learned a lot about building encounters, creating an implementing an interesting storyline, and dealing with players. But I can't count to 6 or 24.

Your scores are what I wanted to do anyway, thanks for the advice.

Sir, it does you no credit when you take a point that I disagreed with, and assume that I must believe the opposite extreme. Please refrain in the future from posting these kinds of assumptions.

Thank you.

I apologize for my mischaracterization of what you said. I post regularly on the wow forums, and the ridiculousness has seeped in quite a bit. On what should be a related note, I was able to acquire both nature and perception with the build any way, so I'm covered there.

Once again this forum has proved very useful for me. I want to thank those who assisted me.

 

[DracoSuave]

Two things:

1) You can't use Versatile Master in Heroic Tier (Level 8) and you can't use it to multiclass into many many classes, only to take powers from any class.
2) You can't Tempest or Battlerager in Plate. Plate and two flails is his concept for the class, and sort of needed.
3) Good eye on using background to get Arcana/Religion
4) Paladin doesn't give access to Rain of Blows or Dual/Twin Strike, either of which make the concept work.
5) The only way to get two flails -at all- is to go either Ranger main class or Ranger Multiclass. Otherwise it cannot be done.

The requirements and requests are very hard to put together. The character is asking for a -lot- of awesome in one package.

If this is for a DM character, I'd suggest setting it aside; it's not needed and parties don't usually appreciate a DM character muscling in on their turf. It's a great concept tho, if hard to work. If you need him for a concept NPC tho, just make a monster that can do what you need. Don't worry about the background stuff (Rit Master) or if the abilities are feat-legal. Just look through the MM for monsters around that level (The Shadar-Kai have a really cool mobile chain-wielding maniac for example) and reskin it. Change the Shadar-kai racial power to the one appropriate to the race you want, and presto.

 

[Elric]

Two things:
2) You can't Tempest or Battlerager in Plate. Plate and two flails is his concept for the class, and sort of needed.

There's no reason you can't have a Battlerager or Tempest in Plate. You just won't get the feature's bonus damage when doing so.

If this is for a DM character, I'd suggest setting it aside; it's not needed and parties don't usually appreciate a DM character muscling in on their turf.

Agreed. There are few times when I could see a "DM striker" working well. I could see some justification for "DM leader" if you have a group without a leader, particularly if that group was quite small (say, 3 characters) and could use another character in any case, or perhaps a "DM defender" in a similar situation.

As DracoSuave said, if you just need a short-term NPC then you don't have to follow the PC creation rules.