Good day Amians,

It has been a while since I played much but I'm thunking about some concepts for characters to come back and try out.

This post is about a Gold Dwarf (for RP purposes) who is training to become a steadfast defender of grog and commander of pork scratchings. Or to put it another way utilises Dwarven Defender and Knight Commander to build a strong tank with a side order of Respectable dps which of course is amplified by his ability to stay in the fight and dish it out.

Considerations (mechanical)
As much tumbleless AC as possible (due to fighter/KC/DwD)
Max of 20 Charisma to top out KC aura effects
As much health and saves as possible whilst still having sufficient dps for pve (zero interest in pvp here)

Current prototype (base stats)
Str 16
Dex 13
Con16
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 8

Fighter 1-5
1 Toughness
1 Dodge
2 Blindfight
3 Skill Focus Discipline
4 Expertise

Knight Commander 6-10
6 Weapon Focus Battleaxe
9 Improved Critical Battleaxe (TBC?)

Dwarven Defender X-X
TBC

Fighter X-X (iirc I need 10 base class levels pre 20?)
TBC


Discuss and advise, thanks in advance

SC

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I would strongly encourage you to Snag a class that's going to let you take tumble at full progression. Missing three ac or more as a str build is going to hurt bad.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

I've once thought of a build for a concept like this. DD/Knight Commander is pretty stat intensive, but there is a good synnergy: Barricade of Swords + Dwarven Defender damage reduction. If you get 18 DD, all 3 EDR feats, and Barricade of swords, you'll have 10% physical immunity, a 21/- DR, and a damage shield that does 1d10+10 every time you get hit. Couple this with a high CON and you have a very sturdy tank, without having a need for high AC. You can use elemental shield potions for even more damage shielding.

The problem with that is, it's very stat intense. You need STR to hit, a 13 dex for DD requirements, 21 CON, enough INT to get the needed KC requirements, and enough CHA to make the auras work properly. You could in theory get by with an 8 CHA but that makes you very dependant on CHA gear.

Gold dwarf is even worse because you need to put in 8 points to get a 13 Dex with the -2 penalty they get.

But here's what I've got, as a rough draft:

Gold Dwarf
Starting Stats: 14/15(13)/18/14/8/8
Level Spread: 6/5/19 Fighter/KC/DD
Pre-epic: 5/5/10
End Stats: 18/13/21/14/8/8

Pre-epic feats(7+3F): Dodge, Toughness, SF Disc, Weapon Focus, Wspec, IMPR Crit, Blind Fight, KD, IKD, Great Fort (Or if you want to use the dwarven waraxe, shuffle this out to fit in exotic weapons earlier)
Epic Feats(4+2DD+1F): EDR 1-3, EWF, Eprowess, EWS, Armor Skin (Or Great Con 1, to even out the CON score)

You need 14 INT on a dwarf to get the KC skills at level 5, otherwise you'll need more fighter pre-epic, which makes fitting 18 DD difficult. 8 CHA is going to be a pain, as will trying to gear both STR and CON and CHA, but you can manage it. (You'll have plenty of HP from your base 21 CON anyways. More doesn't hurt, though). The character will have 516 HP without any CON gear, 696 if you max it out.

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I'd actually want to stack regen as well. With all that DR i'd think that 10ish points of regen might be more valuable then maxing con on gear.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

Ok so this is what I have so far based on what has been advised.

Gold Dwarf
Str 14
Dex 14 (13) (racial -2 / +1 at lvl 4)
Con 18 (26) (+6 at lvl 8/12/16/20/24/28)
Wis 8
Int 14
Cha 8 (10) (racial +2)

Feats

Fighter 1-5
1. Toughness, Weapon Focus Battleaxe)
2. Blind-Fight (I take this feat this early in case a delevel rebuild is required at a later date for some reason)
3.) Skill Focus Discipline
4.) Weapon Spec Battleaxe

Knight Commander 6-10
6. Dodge
9. Improved Critical Battleaxe

Dwarven Defender 11-19
12. Greater Fortitude
15. Knockdown
18. Improved Knockdown

Fighter 20

For the epic levels would it be advisable to take 7th Fighter (making 18lvl DwD) somewhere to get epic weapon spec? Is that even possible and if so I think 18th level DwD is as good DR wise as 19th level DwD?

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I've had the build sitting around in excel for a while now. Here you go. Modified for a gold dwarf of course.

Fighter(6), Purple Dragon Knight(5), Dwarven Defender(19)

Initial stats
STR: 14 (4 skill ups) (18)
DEX: 15 (-2 racial) (13)
CON: 16 (+2 racial, 3 skill ups) (21)
WIS: 8
INT: 14
CHA: 8

01: Fighter(1): Skill Focus: Discipline, Weapon Focus: Battleaxe
02: Fighter(2): Blind Fight
03: Fighter(3): Toughness
04: Fighter(4): STR+1, Weapon Specialization: Battleaxe, (STR=15)
05: Fighter(5)
06: Knight Commander(1): Dodge
07: Knight Commander(2)
08: Knight Commander(3): STR+1, (STR=16)
09: Knight Commander(4): Improved Critical: Battleaxe
10: Dwarven Defender(1): {Defensive Stance}
11: Dwarven Defender(2): {Defensive Awareness I}
12: Dwarven Defender(3): CON+1, Great Fortitude, (CON=19)
13: Dwarven Defender(4)
14: Dwarven Defender(5)
15: Dwarven Defender(6): Knockdown
16: Dwarven Defender(7): CON+1, (CON=20)
17: Dwarven Defender(8)
18: Dwarven Defender(9): Improved Knockdown
19: Dwarven Defender(10)
20: Knight Commander(5): CON+1, (CON=21)
21: Fighter(6): Epic Weapon Focus: Battleaxe, Epic Weapon Specialization: Battleaxe
22: Dwarven Defender(11)
23: Dwarven Defender(12)
24: Dwarven Defender(13): STR+1, Epic Damage Reduction I, (STR=17)
25: Dwarven Defender(14): Epic Damage Reduction II
26: Dwarven Defender(15)
27: Dwarven Defender(16): Armor Skin
28: Dwarven Defender(17): STR+1, (STR=18)
29: Dwarven Defender(18): Epic Damage Reduction III
30: Dwarven Defender(19): Epic Prowess


At level 5, make sure you have enough skill points in the Knight commander skill requirements. At level 20, put as many points in Taunt as you can (23 total skill points in taunt is the goal). You can cross class tumble to have 15 total points for 3 ac, and still have 30 or so skill points left over to put wherever you want.

*credit goes to MoshingChris for the build

Shield dwarf effectively gets 1 stat point more than gold dwarf due to the dex requirement, which isn't a deal-breaker. 1 more CHA makes getting the required CHA gear a bit easier.

If you really want to, you could drop CON 2 points, pump CHA 4 points, and you'll end with 2 less STR. I don't quite recommend that though because it'll further reduce your already lowish AB. Taking taunt may be a good idea because you can reduce a foe's AC by 6 to help bridge the AB/AC gap.

Also, you only need 6 fighter in epic to get EWS.

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Thank you all for your input, I just have one more question (for now ) as I am looking more at tanking this character up would it be OK to take expertise and improved expertise in place of knockdown and improved knockdown or is that a false economy given the 20 spam on npc attack rolls?

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You could take IE instead, that will get your AC to some good numbers, even if your AB plummets to the 'never hits' portions. Remember, this is a CON tank, it mostly runs on DR and massive amounts of HP. Still, having IE would be good against high critting foes like WMs, and certain bosses.

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The downside to expertise/imp expertise is that they're combat modes and dont stack with defensive stance. Granted, you probably shouldnt be using defensive stance when your life depends on it considering how buggy it is, but it's something to note. I hope one day they will look at it, but it's low on the priority list.

I'm taking DwD more for the DR than the stance, and the stance is complete shit if we are honest.

The single best way to make the stance even remotely useful would be for unlimited uses given how buggy it is and how auto discontinuation of stances can be abused.

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Party chat filtered, RP or it didn’t happen