The dwarf-king's war party reached the mining village of Rockfall at last, only to be shocked by a display of raw carnage. They had planned to use Rockfall as their base of operations for the campaign to clear this stretch of mountains of orcs, goblins, and other scum so that more miners could safely join the village.
Instead, hearing news of their approach, the Goblin Chief Nargle and the Orc Warlord Gnarsh called a truce on their years-old struggle for control of the region, gathered their forces, and attacked the village, hoping to wipe it off the map. The hardened dwarven soldiers were silent as they stepped over body after broken, limp body in the village streets, amazed at the destruction around them. Corpses punched through walls, impaled on wagon poles, and smashed flat surrounded them. Many bodies bore scorchmarks, telltales of powerful magics being unleashed in the fray. The battle must have been epic, and pride swelled in dwarven hearts. Obviously the villagers didn't go down without a fight against the hated goblinoids.
One wit quipped, "Looks like we missed one hell of a party," but most were too awed and disturbed by the sheer violence of the scene to reply.
At last they reached the town square, where a solitary old dwarf stood in front of the village's untouched temple. His weapon grounded, he stood like a sentry with orc and goblin bodies all around him. "Yer late!" he scolded the dwarven column as they spread out to secure a perimiter and search the town for any survivors of the slaughter. "I had to have all the fun myself!" He waved his glowing warhammer to the troops.
That was when it immediately became clear. The recently retired dwarven war-priest, Reverend Stouthammer, had picked Rockfall as the place where he would spend his golden years. Calling on the strength of the dwarven gods and his own martial training, he'd inflicted a massacre on the goblinoids that surely would be retold first among his many exploits for generations to come.
And from that day on every dwarf who devoted himself to war or to faith knew of Stouthammer, who it was said had the earthly power to fell any foe - and the holy power to bring them back and do it again.
* - feat can be changed at the cost of melee capability. ** - feat can be changed if you don't care about AOOs for casting in melee. + - feat can be changed if you don't want to cast offensively against enemies.
Unbuffed Vitals (nonmagic warhammer, plate, tower shield): +31 AB 22 AC +6 damage Fort 32, Reflex 17, Will 29 DR 15/- 648 max hp
The FAQ:
Q: Why not put more points into strength? A: Because divine power overrides your strength if it's under 18. You could drop wisdom to 20 if you wanted and int to 12, and bring strength up to 12-14 depending on how you do. That would help you early, and make you less dependent on bull's strength for carrying capability, but involves other tradeoffs in spells per day and feat picks.
Q: Why not 14 dex and 14 int? Odd-numbered stats are ugly and don't have bonuses A: 13 dex is to qualify for dodge, needed for dwarven defender. I didn't make it 14 because full plate has a maximum dex bonus of 1. Int got the extra point that was left over - I set it to 12 at first for +1 skill point, but changed it to 13 to qualify for improved knockdown.
Q: Why do you take the 4th fighter level so late? A: To max discipline near the end of the build, and because I have to take it on a natural feat level (like level 39) to get weapon specialization and epic weapon specialization on the same level.
Q: Why 26 cleric levels? A: Because 26 cleric + epic penetration gives you 32 SR penetration power - enough to overcome basic toolset SR all the time. Sure, with 22 wisdom and no spell focus, your save DCs won't be that good, but harm and word of faith have no save. Also, this gives your buffs a good duration, makes you harder to dispel, and nets two epic bonus feats.
Q: What kind of character is this meant to be? Tank? Buffed-melee? Offensive caster? Support caster? What tactics should I use? A: It's a hybrid character of all those types, though it's probably best employed as a buffed tank and support caster. Your direct offense spells are limited to harm and word of faith in epic levels, because of your low save DCs. I'd memorize the usual melee buffs, along with party buffs in an online environment, healing/mass healing, and some word of faiths and a harm or two.
You'll probably be a front-liner with the amount of defenses you have, so standing back and blasting isn't using your character to its best potential in my opinion. Buff up, buff your party, use aura buffs/debuffs to capitalize on your frontline position, and jump right into the fray to beat things like any good dwarf.
You're in a unique position to charge in to an ugly situation first, since you can shrug off so much damage and heal yourself of the rest.
Q: Aren't the AB and AC of this build low? A: Yes, especially unbuffed. But since you can buff up so much you'll have an AB in the mid-50s, (max 57), not spectacular but not bad. AC was a lesser concern because of the build's DR. 15/- backed up by heals is pretty nice when you think about it. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Edited By griphook on 10/07/05 22:08
First of all, you stole the name of one of my builds. It shares cleric and DD classes to. Aside from that they are very different. Any way to get WS and EWS earlier? First chance you get after getting EWF, perhaps. Remember, you CAN be debuffed, and sometimes you will be. 6 extra damage ASAP improves playability quite a lot IMO. Solid build. Good divine caster who will be hard to kill in melee.
edit: Now i saw your comment about that...... Well, It still holds some truth....
Edited By Grimnir77 on 10/06/05 00:53
Sorry about the name. I saw a dwarven battlemage build, but not a warpriest build, in the searcher thingy. Glad they turned out notably different at least.
You might be able to squeeze 1 more point of BAB out of the build by doing 4 fighter/6 cleric/10 DWD to 20, then taking a 5th fighter level at level 39 for discpline and EWS and having a final level split of 5/25/10. This gives you normal weapon specialization while you level up, but you won't get EWS till late in the build again.
Or you can go 2/8/10 to 20, and take 3 fighter levels in epic - 2 to get WS/EWS early, and a 5th to max discipline at the end.
The cost of that is a cleric epic bonus feat, and possibly a small lose of spell penetration power (it depends on the exact mechanics of spell penetration whether or not 26 or 25 caster levels + epic penetration is enough to beat 32 SR all the time).
I built for power at 40, constrained by wanting to make a different kind of 'battle cleric' that has enough caster levels + penetration feats to be reasonably effective as an attack caster, but is still a tough melee fighter. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
No problems with the name thing, mate. That clarification was nice, i like these cleric/DD builds, they are extremely suited for PvM, and this build will do nice in a PvP to. Against High AC bulds, you can always give them attack spells. My build lacks that.
A solid build as I said. Hard to kill. and hard to survive.
Here's my guy, just so you can see him Click Here
Sorry to put him i your build, but it is for you to see.
Glad they turned out notably different at least.
That clarification was nice, i like these cleric/DD builds, they are extremely suited for PvM, and this build will do nice in a PvP to. Against High AC bulds, you can always give them attack spells. My build lacks that.