Skills - Discipline, Tumble, Hide, Move Silently, some left over.
Ending Vitals: 32 Dex
AC 31, 34 with mundane tower shield 454 max hp F 21 R 30 W 18
AB +46, +8 damage strength + specialization
FAQ: Q: What prompted development of this build? A: I wanted to make an elven weaponmaster with epic dodge and a great AB. Fighter made an obvious choice for meeting the feat requirements for WM, while SD vied with rogue for the epic dodge prereqs.
Originally I tried builds that used more WM levels (16 or 19) but feat starvation left them without many options. I changed to less WM levels and the build ended up benefitting from more fighter bonus feats quite a bit.
Q: Why SD instead of rogue? Wouldn't rogue give you better skills and sneak attack dice? A: Yes, but the rogue build would end up with an xp penalty as an elf, and my experience is that WM and rogue can be redundant since sneak attack and crit immunity tend to go hand in hand.
The SD build also made it easy for me to take all warrior-class levels to 20, for the max possible BAB. Although uncanny dodge comes relatively late, you can't take SD levels by crossclassing hide until level 17 anyway, so I'm only actually putting it off 5 levels from the easliest I possibly could take it.
Q: Why don't you go for SC 5? A: It's a matter of tradeoffs. SC 3 is quite effective and this build doesn't have to sacrifice other important epic feats (armor skin, epic prowess, epic specialization, etc) in order to get it.
Q: Why do you recommend taking power attack and called shot instead of improved knockdown? A: Because you can use the extra damage from power attack, while called shot is just useful and signifies the ability of this character to strike with precision.
You might want to take Knockdown instead but I don't find it that critical when you aren't fighting spellcasters.
Q: Your saves aren't too impressive, isn't that a concern? A: Somewhat yes... I'd expect this character to want +con equipment which will help the fort save, and the will save is helped by slippery mind from SD levels. That's the achilles heel of fighter builds, though - relatively poor saves.
Q: What sort of environment would this character be good in? A: I'd say high magic. Weapons that have large enhancement bonuses and elemental damage will benefit a lot from your high crit rate and multiplier. And your weaknesses to magic can be covered over with immunity items. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Edited By griphook on 12/02/05 23:05
Quote: Posted 11/15/05 03:42:07 (GMT) -- Xylophone Q: What sort of environment would this character be good in? A: I'd say high magic. Weapons that have large enhancement bonuses and elemental damage will benefit a lot from your high crit rate and multiplier. And your weaknesses to magic can be covered over with immunity items.
I'd think in high magic you can somehow hack yourself Improved Invisibility, making SC3 somewhat useless.
And I question the use of SC3 overall. I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble taking SC at all if you don't maximize it (though I've heard the difference between SC4 and 5 isn't that huge). I guess one could run a simulation and/or make a table.
What do I know... euh, make me (us?) believe it's worth it
And I would pick Knockdown before Called Shot on a melee build. It's just... wonderful _________________ Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath: Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death.
The standard argument for SC over Imp. Invis. is that SC can not be dispelled.
As for a table showing SC 3 vs SC 4 vs SC 5, I bet if you look up each of Syrath's builds he has such statistics in one of them. I recall a post by him in which he mentions spending an afternoon of a thousand melees for statistical analyses....
Kaliban. _________________ Intelligent design is neither. Science over superstition please.
Never again .
Ive always felt that SC3 isnt worth the expense of trying to get ,SC4 and SC5 should be what you gun for.
Otherwise its better spending the feats elsewhere IMO.
YMMV.
I like this build myself it shows a lot of similarities to the not so dashing swashbuckler, only in that one I lose 2 AB against this one , 2 AC (armor skin). However I do get improved power attack and improved expertise and SC 5(but no called shot or toughness).
The original draught for the not so dashing was elf. Ive just never really liked playing demi humans.
Syrath _________________ It's SHADOWDANCER, dammit, shadowdancer!!!
If this was a sneak-attacker he'd have knockdown, but as it is, I think power attack helps overcome his damage issues a little further and called shot gives him more flexibility than knockdown in my opinion. Toughness, basically, compensates for him being an elf hehe.
The build's not designed for PvP and probably wouldn't make a good PvPer, but you could try PvPing using IKD and stealth to land knockdowns on an unsuspecting flatfooted target thanks to your above-average AB.
The reason I took SC 3 was because of, to a degree, the opposite of feat starvation at that point: I was getting all the combat feats I needed from Fighter bonus levels, and on my character feats I was left to pick between SC feats, great dex feats, or saving throw feats. The epic SD levels came into the build so that I wasn't taking epic dodge at level 39 in order to get 40 tumble at level 37, and if I wasn't taking SC from the SD bonus feat list it would have been improved whirlwind attack instead.
So I could have had 34 ending dex, epic will, and improved whirlwind attack instead of SC 3... I went for SC but the alternative wouldn't have worked out too badly either.
Overall I like dex fighters and I more or less met my goals for this build - a dex WM with a good AB, epic dodge, and that overcomes the WM feat starvation problem. But while he's a good fighter and can be a good stealther, other utility is sorta lacking and that's why I'm working on a rogue version too. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Quote: Xylophone called shot gives him more flexibility than knockdown in my opinion
Who cares about flexibility when you can have your opponent sit on the ground while you beat him to death! And what's cool is that when he gets up and you spam your KD button again, it's possible he manages to attack once (perhaps twice) but since KD takes a round your Epic Dodge will evade the attack. At least the other one. Ch33t At least that's the theory _________________ Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath: Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death.
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