Winning Races: Half Orc

[mneme]

Well, they're fun enough off-race builds, but the Half-Orc Avenger and Swordmage are just a bit dodgy.

OTOH, the half-orc paladin's sitting pretty. On-stat build (Strength paladin, of course), get 2xStr for Divine challenge with two feats, and a good mobile paragon path. With Agile armor, you've got an easy 10+3+20+15 = 48 AC at 30th level without a shield and a nasty Divine Challenge doing 29 damage when ignored -- and that's if you don't qualify for plate specialization or wear a shield. (easy enough with starting stats of, say, 20/13/8/13/12/10).

 

[Mort_Q]

Winning Races: Half Orc

 

[mneme]

oops. Yeah, thanks!

 

[deganawida]

I thought that the Swordmage PP was awesome. It has good abilities and great fluff (enough to settle the last lingering doubts in my head about that class).

 

[mneme]

Oh, it's fine -- a 18/10/12/16/8/12 half-orcish swordmage (for example) will be a lot of fun, and a 16/11/10/18/8/10 might be better. It's not -optimal-, as a 16 main stat is marginal -- and you have to pay a lot to get an 18; possibly, for a defender, where maximizing all three defenses is ideal, too much.

The problem is that for that interesting first array, that there's not all that much you can do with your superb basic attack. It's not like you can build a Str-primary swordmage with mostly abilities that grant basic attacks the way you can build an Int-primary warlord -- the only swordmage basic attack powers are the Aegis of Assault feature and a 25th level daily. So all Str does for you is boost your damage and Aegis.

The Sharakim Blademaster is a very cool class -- It's extremely mobile, it does tons of damage, it has interesting tactical options (as you want to use Blade Flows like Water and, when you get it, Enforced Peace, before using Furious Assault, before spending an action point and using Furious Assault again). And it has a 5 square Aegis, which is huge. But when building an SB, you have to trade lackluster defenses against a mediocre hit chance, which isn't my favorite choice in the world.

 

[mkill]

I loved the article - it's one of my favorites in Dragon so far. The descriptions really help to imagine a character that is interesting and believable, and not a stereotype.
I hope we'll see more similar articles.

Of the 3 options, I'd say the Avenger is the best one. The daily is impressive, and the 16th level ability really helps charging your oath target.

The Paladin PP has flavor, but has a hard time competing with alternatives like Morninglord. It's just good, not broken...
The feat to key Divine Challenge and Sanction off Str should be a class feature though, dagnabbit.

The Swordmage... I love Swordmages, so anything Swordmage is great. However, Sword of Assault is still _the_ Paragon Path for Assault Swordmages, and there is nothing here that beats using an at-will on your Assault interrupt, on a charge or as a minor action. Instead, you gain two skills that are class skills anyway, and both key off Cha, which you won't have. At least there is a feat to make Intimidate useful.
The encounter power is very powerful, though.