Ok so far I have a level 10 lawful neutral human character. Levels 1-6 were fighter and 7-10 were done as Justicar. I am supposed to be the tank of the group so being able to take damage is important. I feel like the upper levels of Justicar are way underpowered. I did not expect the game to last as long as it has. Trying to think of the best way to proceed. Would like any suggestions. The main benefits of the Justicar are for dealing with humans but we are starting to deal with dragons and the such. Any ideas would be great.
EDIT: All books are allowed (Our DM is very lenient). The stable people in the group are a archer, sorc, cleric, and a rogue.
My stats are:
20 Str
14 dex
14 con
18 int
11 wis
12 cha
I like the grapping aspect of the character for low level but the bigger and badder the creatures get, the less likely it is I CAN grapple them.
First, some mandatory remarks about tanking not being about taking damage, but rather about drawing attention to yourself. Against any unintelligent foe, a tank is merely the closest target; against intelligent foes, he's the target exposing himself to the biggest risk, and thus a target that the enemy thinks he can neutralize first. Therefore, the role of a tank isn't to survive attacks - it's to draw them to him and then negate them, and to prevent attacks not aimed at him from functioning at all. Read what's in the spoiler block at that link; you will probably find it quite helpful.
I'm not quite sure how you qualified with six Fighter levels, since none of the three required skills are class skills; you'd be able to hit 5 ranks in them at level 7. The justiciar's class skills don't actually align with any of the core warrior classes, although rangers with the City Slicker feat can qualify pretty easily. (Surprisingly, Urban Rangers cannot, as they lack Survival. You have to be a wilderness ranger whose first-level feat corresponds to growing up savvy in an urban setting, which is kind of bizarre.) Anyway.
It's not just the last levels; the entire class is actually pretty bad. It has exactly two abilities I would consider interesting (Bring 'Em Back Alive and Hog-Tie; the former isn't terribly useful but isn't something I'd say no to, while the latter is actually nifty, if limited), and neither is priced appropriately for when they appear (I'd argue Hog-Tie should probably be available at character level 6 or so, and then would need to continue to improve for it to be relevant). Neither is useful on their own, meaning you'd probably need some other class in order to make them truly useful. In fact, the most useful aspect of Hog-Tie is that it can render an opponent helpless with relative ease regardless of saving throws or immunities - but the most useful effect that helplessness grants is the ability to deliver coup-de-grace attacks... which completely violates the premise of the justiciar, who is supposed to apprehend people and, well, Bring 'Em Back Alive.
(Note: The earliest Hog-Tie can show up is level 11. Freedom of Movement, which completely negates Hog-Tie, shows up at level 7, and there's absolutely jack you can do about it if it's up. It only becomes more commonplace from here on out. Antimagic manacles are damn expensive - 132k, according to the BoED - but them's the breaks when fighting casters. I hope one of your teammates can dispel.)
I'd strongly suggest advancing in a martial adept class (warblade and crusader fit the warrior schtick the best), giving you options when your handful of tiny stunts won't cut it. Crusaders tank damn well in 3.5 (and they even absorb damage well too), but there will be slight issues if you're swinging around manacles instead of a polearm. You'll want to find more ways to use Hog-Tie very quickly; attempting a grapple as an attack of opportunity might work here. When it isn't your turn, you establish the grab; on your turn, you pin with your first attack, then Hog-Tie with your second (or third, next round). This has the advantage of working off of a basic crusader AoO setup, and that's not all that hard to accomplish, even with only a handful of actual crusader levels. Additionally, most of the things you'd want to use to make you a more badass tank, such as size-increasing effects, also make you a better grappler, so your Hog-Ties will be more likely to succeed.
If you don't have the Tome of Battle available to you - and since you're playing a Fighter/Justiciar, it's likely that you don't - then your only real hope at this point is to look into spellcasting. A fast-advancing spellcasting class (Divine Crusader comes to mind if you have a domain you like) might give you access to magic buffs and locks that would be able to provide some support.
I can't really say more without knowing your ability scores or allowed books; the rest of your party's composition would also be helpful.
Also, a minor nitpick: it's "Justiciar" (pronounced "justice-ier", or "justice-eer" depending on accent), not "justicar" (which would be pronounced "just-i-car" if it existed). It's an actual (if archaic) title.
Warmind might just go a long way. If it's a bit hard to qualify for quickly. It will give you the ability to become Large, and eventually even Huge, and Grip of Iron. Hard to top the Psychic Warrior list for grapple bonus's (aside MAYBE from Wu-Jen). As Tempest says though this will require that you have a good Wis score to be useful. Crusader's a solid move if allowed and won't have any ability score clashing.
Are you allowed the retraining rules in PHB2? Even better, can you convince your DM to allow you to retrain class levels?
You want to be a tank. Step 1 is get a reach weapon. Step 2 is to take combat reflexes and improved trip. After that you are basically done and moderately effective. You can and should pile a bunch more things that trigger on hits, or allow you to take attacks of opportunity, but we need to know your exact feat choices to help.
To be frank, the DND Tank doesn't look like this.
He looks like this.
or this
Krusk wrote:
Also forgot to let you know of my feats. They are:
Combat Expertise
exotic weapon proficiency bastard sword
power attack
weapon focus and weapon specialization bastard sword
intimidating strike
and Jack of All Trades
Just in case people missed it, Bruinish edited the main post with his party composition (some archer, a sorcerer, a cleric and a rogue) and allowed books (any). He's also got the usual "ZOMG!!!" high ability scores that seem all too common at this point, but I'm willing to skip that for now.
With that in mind, Bruinish, you will not need to defend for the cleric (he's badass enough) and at level 10ish the sorcerer should be more than able to defend himself (flight, invisibility, etc). The archer will need some distractions, particularly if he's using precision damage, and the rogue benefits most from you if you have a large reach (as it increases the positions he can flank from). In all cases, reach is your friend.
Similarly, for some reason you've got 18 Intelligence, and absolutely jack in your build to put that to use. It will, however, lend itself well to any Intelligence-based rapid-casting PrC, should you go that route.
bruinsh wrote:
Ya the DM let me swing some of the requirements as my profession from level 1 is bounty hunter so he said if I wanted to get to Justicar, he would let it pass as meeting some of the req. As I said, we didnt think this game woulf last pass a few sessions lol. What weapons are better than bastard sword? I thought roll for roll its the best one handed weapon so I could also use a tower shield. How would I retrain the character? As for totally replacing, I tried but the DM would put a lot of restrictions on me as I wanted to switch to a crusader and to be honest I think he doesnt know that book well enough so he rather me not change fully. The Int was so high because I did roll high and wanted to put a spin on my character. Which casters would benifit from high int? I have always played fighters
You're looking at things wrong. You're looking at just damage. Sure a bastard Sword does more damage than any other 1h weapon, but who cares? D10 averages 5.5 damage, D8 averages 4.5, woooo, D6 averages 3.5. You get more damage out of power attack alone by level 3 if you're using a two handed weapon than a bastard sword deals as a base. That's if you even care about damage. Often melee characters deal in other things like tripping, using stand still or other stop effects like Brutal Strike or Staggering Critical.
Here's the point I'm getting to (and it's not something I came up with it's not original), monsters and NPC's alike fight as well at 1 HP as they do at full HP. So what have you done if you hit something and you haven't killed it? Basically nothing. Yes, it all adds up, but the opponent is still hitting your party. So you can try to build a fighter that hits hard enough to kill anything in one hit (this isn't hard, see the general Charger idea for the easiest way), OR you can build a fighter that focuses on action denial (this can be quite fun, and again isn't really hard).
Often, by the time you're high level you'll even be able to branch a bit from one of the above concepts, into the other.
bruinsh wrote:
bruinsh wrote:
Basicly he let me by-pass the skill reqs. I guess what I would like to do is retrain my char if the DM allows. What feats would you change for others? What weapon would you use? I do like grappling as I have taken major players out of a fight in the campain just by grappling. A couple things I DO like about the Justicar is non-lethal strike and esp crippling strike. Other than spiked chain, what weapons are best for tripping?
bruinsh wrote:
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
OK talked to the DM and he said that he would allow me to re-train the feats that I did not want. I am fine with tripping but I worry that if I go with a spiked chain that I will be limited when dealing with dragons (main part of the quest). What suggestions would you have when dealing with dragons? I am thinking about great sword or something of the sort for creatures that are to big to trip. A halberd with increased crit feat might be good as I could use to trip normal people and when dragon time comes I could board and sword with a scimitar for a better chance to crit. Thoughts? Now that I can change my feats, which ones other than power attack should I take.
Ok I figured out what I am doing but want to find weak links in my character. What I did was take the bastard sword out of the picture. Instead of the feats that I used for it, I took improved trip, giantbane, and brutal strike. Thought process is the following:
1) If dealing with one badass guy, I grapple the crap out of him
2) If there are multiple guys, I can trip them with my masterwork manicles (Flail), once down I use power attack
3)If dealing with a creature which I can't grapple (larger than me), I can use giantbane and get at least can do some damage
4)If dealing with something that I can't trip and has good grapple, I use my +2 warhammer and use brutal strike, crippling strike, and intimidating strike to beat the **** out of them.
I am just wondering if there are any weak links in my chain and if so, how should I correct them.
Just one: Power Attack will outdamage Giantbane, unless you're also using iaijutsu focus (as Giantbane is one of the few early-D&D effects to flat-foot a target on command (as opposed to merely denying dex).) Also, using Intimidating Strike precludes a full attack, which also precludes a lot of damage.
Be advised, again, that nearly anything you'd want to grapple will have Freedom of Movement up, meaning grappling is utterly moot, and you still have to deal with the issues involved in getting closer to them.
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
bruinsh wrote:
Tempest_Stormwind wrote: