I am a fan of pure builds, and a fan of the humble Fighter. Together with the Wizard, the Fighter is the base build in D&D from which all others come - everything else is just a specialised variant of either of these two.
While a pure Fighter is undoubtedly weaker than when he is multi-classed with Weapon Master or Champion of Torm, he remains as probably the most versatile class there is with a whopping 36 Feats to distribute. With this in mind, there has to be a clear idea behind a Fighter before you even begin or you will end up with feats all over the place and just taking Epic Toughness in Epic Levels.
First up, there is the Me Big Man build, which is focussed on Devestating Critical and ends up with Epic Toughness X.
Then there is the You Want to Fight, Fight Me! build which tries tomake the most use of the 36 feats by specialising in multiple weapons.
Neither of these builds, in my opinion, make the best use of a Fighter's abilities.
The idea for the Pure Bastard, and his cousin the Overwhelming Bastard, is to make a Fighter that specialises in only one weapon and uses all of his remaining feats to increase his flexibility in combat by raising his Saves and his combat choices. Basically he's a Mercenary that was too undisciplined to become a Weapon Master and too unruly to become a Champion of Torm. I also wanted to avoid going the Dev. Crit. (though I ended up making a Dev. Crit. version anyway) and Epic Toughness routes.
I've actually been playing around with this build on paper and in Character Builder Modules for a few weeks, but only started playing with the Spreadsheet in the last few days. I think that this version is a little different to the one I tested, but not much.
Skills Concentration 43(49), Craft Armor 1(3), Craft Weapon 1(3), Discipline 43(49), Heal 43(42), Spellcraft 21(23), Tumble 21(22) _________________ Richard: "Instead of helping an aged Dwarf woman across a road, you should be shooting her in the face with arrows until it stops being funny."
- Remove spring attack since you will have Tumble to overcome the AoO when moving in combat. - take IKD WAY earlier in life. - take your combat AB and Damage Epic feats before your save boosters. EWF/Prowess/EWS in that order. - after those, focus on EDR. - if you need to burn some bonus fighter feats doing so, take E-Toughness - fort is more important than will for a fighter (dev crit protection) so take Epic Fort before Epic Will.
- you will also NEED Epic Skill Focus Discipline or your build will end up on it's rump more often than not.
Edited By Grimnir77 on 07/05/07 01:15
Quote: Posted 06/21/07 19:10 (GMT) -- Bromium
A few suggestions:
- Remove spring attack since you will have Tumble to overcome the AoO when moving in combat. - take IKD WAY earlier in life. - take your combat AB and Damage Epic feats before your save boosters. EWF/Prowess/EWS in that order. - after those, focus on EDR. - if you need to burn some bonus fighter feats doing so, take E-Toughness - fort is more important than will for a fighter (dev crit protection) so take Epic Fort before Epic Will.
- you will also NEED Epic Skill Focus Discipline or your build will end up on it's rump more often than not.
Spring Attack denies enemies an AoO. Full Plate and Tower Shield reduces your Tumble by, iirc, around 15 meaning you will not be Tumbling away from AoOs until level 39.
I would prefer to take IKD earlier as well, and originally I did, but see below.
ALL Epic non-Bonus Feats are General Feats that cannot be taken on Fighter Bonus Levels (Saves and Great Strength). Taking feats from the Bonus list means you cannot take the General feats at all and leaves you with virtually no choice but to take Epic Toughness, which voids the entire concept of the build.
ESF: Discipline is a General Feat and the only place it can be taken is from one of the Great Strength levels.
Originally I had put the EDR in as the last three Bonus Feats. Then I moved all three to much earlier to give some mid level PvP potential to survive, I never moved them back (in fact those three feats were moved more than any other I think).
Dev. Crit. was specifically ignored for this build as it is so commonly disabled on many worlds. In my experience a good Will Save is much more important for protection against Confuse/Fear-type spells than Fortitude, which is why it is taken first. An EDR Fighter has a reasonably high Fort Save no matter what you do, but no Fighter has anything like a good Will save. _________________ Pointing at the large hole in Richard's chest. Gid: "What happened to you?" Richard: "I wanted to lose some baby weight, caused by the baby I ate."
On a pure fighter build, why is IKD taken during epic levels, let alone at level 38???
That defies all logic to me.
Edited By mantis3 on 06/21/07 23:07
I wasn't very clear with my other post.
EDR was originally taken at levels 36, 38 & 40. Some skills suffered in their placement because of this. IKD was one of these.
I don't use KD by itself, once my opponent is on their back I spam CS to lower their stats before they get up again, so I have to take CS before IKD. While there's some flexibility in the pre-Epic feat order there is much less in Epic. Combine that with all the moving of EDR, and IKD got left behind at a level when I wouldn't normally take it... that's what happens when you're fooling around with a spreadsheet at 4 am. _________________ Pointing at the large hole in Richard's chest. Gid: "What happened to you?" Richard: "I wanted to lose some baby weight, caused by the baby I ate."
LFG
Intersting idea. Many moons ago, a most lovely build (imho) was done using a dwarf, fighter8/pal2/defender. I thought it was masterful! He had full ab and ALL the save feats. Had edr and defender dr! Had a ton of con, so a TON of hps. At the end of the day, this build wasnt as widely accepted as i had thought. See, the trouble with this build is, 23 str! Its a shame, you wont hit much with that! too bad really! Well, it could be worse! You could have left it at 16!! LOL or whatever the start str was!
With ALL those fighter feats and lv 38 IKD! THis should be stickied! I have done, and I know others who have had no choice but to take pre feats in epic. Sometimes you have no choice (ex, a dex weapon master NON fighter! Very tough to fit all feats in pre), but with a full fighter there is no excuse. You DO NOT need mob and spring and dodge! Your argument is moot. I have a char at lv 18 who EASILY avoids AOE in full plate with cross class tumble. At 23, very rare to get picked off. THis is the difference between PLAYING the build and just lvling the build. _________________
This post is for general information purposes only, and does not constitute a legal opinion or render any legal advice. It may not be relied on for any purpose, and gives rise to
ALL Epic non-Bonus Feats are General Feats that cannot be taken on Fighter Bonus Levels (Saves and Great Strength). Taking feats from the Bonus list means you cannot take the General feats at all...
You bring up a point that is important when making fighter builds. The figther class is "all" about feats, and in fighter builds you can use feats to improve the character in almost every way.
Even if you have feats galore, you can't have them all. You have to focus in one way or the other. The abundance of bonus feats, let you use the 14 (15 if human) general feats for improving saves, stats and skills. IMO they are well spent there.
Then you spend the bonus feats to gain your fighting prowess. You get 21 of them, so you can achieve a lot. Still you have to make some choices, there simply isn't room for everything, even in a pure fighter build.
If you want to improve your build, I have a couple of suggestions. Be clear about your focus, also when it comes to choice of fighting styles, and pick your feats according to that. If you don't have enough feats, you have to make choices. You focus on improving the saves. Go all the way*. I wouldn't make a fighter with any less than 30 str at lvl 40. That means focusing on str instead of splitting it up between str and con, and it means taking 4 great str feats. 4 great str feats, *the 3 epic save boosters, and epic skill focus is one general feat too many. I'd probably go against my own advice above and leave out epic reflexes. Taking dwarf instead of human costs one general feat and you have to live with less charisma, but you get great bonuses to the saves, and extra con for better fort saves and more hitpoints. If you can live with multiclassing, the benefits of 10 levels of CoT must be emphasized. You get a +5 boost to all saves, and if taken pre epic, you also get better base reflex saves. You get the same number of feats, so the only "cost" is not being able to have an evil character during the entire levelling process. The other divine class feats are all charisma dependant and won't "disturb" the feel of your build with your low cha. I know you go for a pure build here, but since improved saves is a focus, I wouldn't rule out CoT. _________________ The curve is more powerful than the sword -- BG courtesan
Edited By Mick Dagger on 06/22/07 09:25
If, as you say, you're specializing in one weapon, at least take Overwhelming Critical. Even if Dev is disabled, you still gain a healthy amount of damage whenever you score a critical hit. It just seems worth it to increase your damage and strength a bit, since losing 40-80 HP from that massive pool is no real harm.
