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Meat-Shield (level 20 SOZ) Fighter (4), Paladin (3), Cleric (3), Dwarven Defender (10)
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Author: ScottG
Created: 7th October 2009
Updated: 8th October 2009
Votes: 1
*VERY* High AC build designed to distract opponents from other party members with-OUT buffs.
It can ALSO be buffed further without AC overlap. (i.e. it's build that can stack additional sources of AC.)
Good Fortitude and Will saves in general at higher levels (when needed). Immunity to Fear and Disease. (..in other words your "shield" isn't going to crap-out on you when things get tough.)
Modest skill-set selection available.
This is NOT a character designed for good attacks, though it does have decent capability against many of the mob-like low AC opponents in SOZ.
Can use Clerical wands for battle self-buffing.
Note: If necessary, "Grind" for the experience points required to achieve character level 19 BEFORE the final battle.
Summary
| Attribute | Base | Race | Final | Mod |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | 14 | +0 | 18 | +4 |
| Dexterity | 15 | -2 | 13 | +1 |
| Constitution | 14 | +2 | 16 | +3 |
| Intelligence | 12 | +0 | 13 | +1 |
| Wisdom | 10 | +0 | 10 | +0 |
| Charisma | 14 | +0 | 14 | +2 |
| Base Hit Points: | 274 |
| Toughness: | +20 |
| Natural: | 10 |
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| Armor: | 1 |
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| Shield: | 0 | |||||||||
| Deflection: | 0 | |||||||||
| Dodge: | 4 |
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| Dex: | 1 |
Attack Bonuses
| Melee: | +4 |
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| Melee Touch: | +4 |
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| Ranged: | +1 |
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| Ranged Touch: | +1 |
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Saving Throws
| Hardiness vs. Spells: | +2 |
Casting DC
| General: | 10 |
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| Abjuration: | 10 | |||||
| Conjuration: | 10 | |||||
| Divination: | 10 | |||||
| Enchantment: | 10 | |||||
| Evocation: | 10 | |||||
| Illusion: | 10 | |||||
| Necromancy: | 10 | |||||
| Transmutation: | 10 |
| General: | 10 |
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| Abjuration: | 10 | |||||
| Conjuration: | 10 | |||||
| Divination: | 10 | |||||
| Enchantment: | 10 | |||||
| Evocation: | 10 | |||||
| Illusion: | 10 | |||||
| Necromancy: | 10 | |||||
| Transmutation: | 10 |
Spellcasting
Outline
| Class | Ability | Feats | Extra | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fighter (1) |
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| 2 | Fighter (2) |
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| 3 | Paladin (1) |
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| 4 | Paladin (2) | INT |
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| 5 |
Cleric (1)
- Earth - Luck |
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| 6 | Fighter (3) |
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| 7 | Fighter (4) |
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| 8 | Paladin (3) | STR |
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| 9 | Dwarven Defender (1) |
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| 10 | Dwarven Defender (2) |
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| 11 | Dwarven Defender (3) | |||
| 12 | Dwarven Defender (4) | STR |
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| 13 | Dwarven Defender (5) | |||
| 14 | Dwarven Defender (6) |
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| 15 | Dwarven Defender (7) |
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| 16 | Dwarven Defender (8) | STR |
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| 17 | Dwarven Defender (9) | |||
| 18 | Cleric (2) |
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| 19 | Dwarven Defender (10) |
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| 20 | Cleric (3) | STR |
Notes
Select Skills as appropriate for your party.
Feats: You can always "flop" Great Cleave for Combat Expertise - up to you.
Combat use:
Have this character not only attack FIRST, but engage in combat before allowing others to attack UNLESS those others can kill their target in one round (..from perhaps a concentrated attack on one target).
This makes your meat-shield THE "center of attention", drawing-in virtually all of your opponents to this one character.
Again: Remember to achieve character level 19 before the final fight.
Note: Use Mithral full plate armor and a Dexterity enhancement (..when available). Mithral allows for a full +2 AC above any other full plate via Dexterity (..which stacks with everything else). Obviously also make use of a Tower Shield. Don't forget a Charisma modifier for your saves and later your Divine Shield. The same is true for Constitution as well (via Steadfast Determination) - enhancing both Fortitude and Will saves. Basically all attributes should be enhanced as much as possible except for Intelligence and Wisdom.
Comments
UPDATED:
Removed the Penalty at level 18.
The bad:
Great Cleave is delayed one level (..which is not as bad as 2 levels).
Divine Heath and "fear" Aura delayed until level 8, but neither are a signficant requirement before this level.
Attack number takes a -1 "hit" one level earlier than before (..5th instead of 6th).
The Good:
Will saves improve one level ealier, (from 6th down to 5th).
+1 AC at 3rd level and + 1 AC at 5th, (instead of +2 at 6th).
Combat Expertise one level sooner, (7th instead of 8th)
..and of course: no additional XP penalty at 18th.
(..IMO it's a set of compromises that comports with the build's use.)
Thank you GT74 and komniosm for "riding" me on this. It may not be the full measure of what either you were asking for, but IMO it's a compromise that works for the builds purpose.
I've found that Great Cleave is rather excellent.
On "paper" it doesn't look that good, but in practice it works far better than the description suggests.
The difference is the inclusion of addition damage from other characters that *leverages* Great Cleave.
And again, the interleaved PCPCP has trade-offs.
..and for what? 2 levels with 20% XP penalties?
I did a little more checking into the penalties (..so my previous estimates were off on the grinding - I'll do some editing to correct it).
They are:
Level 6: 1200 XP which amounts to about *2* encounters with a Will-O-Whisp and a 4 character party. (..I think.)
Level 18: 3600 XP which amounts to about *7* encounters with a Megaraptor and a 4 character party. (..I think.)
Pushing the build to level 20 (for the interleaved build) ditches the penalties but adds 19,000 XP to the requirement. (..Of course you are also getting additional attack benefits as well.)
This build gets an unneccesary XP penalty... might as well go for F6/P3/C1/DD10 if you're happy with the penalty since that'll get you an extra fighter bonus feat.
If you want to avoid the XP penalty go F4/P3/C3/DD10 and you even get yourself 2nd level cleric spells into the deal which you'd be able to cast with a +2 WIS item.
True - it does get a single experience penalty at character level 18. 20%.
IMO not a big deal.
Chances are you are doing some Grinding here anyway, so it's likely you'll add-on 7 more Mega-Raptor encounter kills to compensate.
The inclusion of the 18th character level as a Paladin is not unneccesary to the build however. It provides both Divine Shield AND a high BAB continuation.
The Cleric class for 2 additional levels (as a divine caster casting from the spell book), is an option.. but it really doesn't provide anything significantly beneficial (..and the concentration skill would be pretty poor). This does however assume that you also have another Cleric class character with the Craft Wand feat - IF you want to do some spell casting.
You can also do some class-shifting and even feat shifting, but basically I wanted the Paladin bonuses up-front from the start of the game.
I also preferred the +1 AC (from Luck of Heros) via the "Luck" domain from the Cleric class that has NO attack penalty - at level 6. As opposed to the +3 AC from Combat Expertise with a -3 penalty at level 7 (from the Fighter).
I could also have placed the Cleric class at level 9, and selected Divine Shield at that time.. BUT:
1. Divine Shield isn't particularly useful except for the end-battle. And your Charisma is fairly low at this point (level 9) - resulting in a very low duration.
2. It would move all the other feats further down the character build. Feats I think are much more important early in the game (..than Divine Shield).
and it *could*
3. IF I wanted to "limit" the problems of #2 I could add-in a Fighter level at 10 (after the Cleric at level 9), and "pick-up" the Improved Combat Expertise feat. Then however I'd be stuck with building it for a full 20 levels, which even given the XP penalty is a fair bit more experience to accumulate to get to DD level 10. Futher, it doesn't provide the DD's AC bonuses as quickly (..rather it is delayed *2* levels for most of the build-life/game). It *is* an option however.
You might want to review the XP penalty rules. As posted this build gets the penalty at L6 (When it's a P3/C1/F2) and keeps it for the rest of its life.
You might want to read up on medium-BAB progression as well. Medium-BAB characters (eg cleric) drop a point of BAB at class levels 1, 5, 9, 13, etc. A F4/P3/C3/DD10 has the same BAB as a F5/P4/C1/DD10.
Yes it does. It prevents XP penalty and loses nothing from the build. Why accept an XP penalty when you don't have to? Plus a character that can cast 2nd level spells with an item is better than a character that can't cast 2nd level spells.
There would be a -20% at level 6 as well (..though comparativly speaking not much XP's). You would have this penalty no matter what however (..unless you did interleaving).
There is no continuning penalty (..well, beyond the addition of the aformentioned Paladin at level 18). Neither the Fighter (as a favored class) nor the DD (as a prestige class) count. Continuation in Paladin or Cleric do though.
Yeah, you are correct about the BAB progression. I thought I was going to loose an attack number (..believing it to be on the 3rd level for the class instead of the 5th).
Unless the Cleric class and the Paladin class were interleaved (with at least one additional level of Cleric) - you aren't going to get around the XP penalty. Not what I'm looking for *when* I'm looking for "it". (.."it" being certain class specific feats.) Again, I don't think the 2nd level spell casting is important to this type of character. In fact I don't think *any* spell casting is important to this character. SOZ is all about the *party* dynamic - and this particular build has it's own little niche. *IF* I could truely get the 2nd level casting for free - sure, I take it.. but it isn't *really* free.
Perhaps I should say this another way:
Your argument is good, but I don't think it works out for the game and it's progression as I would intend for this build. IF you think it can and are willing to spend the time neccesary to build it here (on this website) - I would appreciate it if you did so.
Note: I did change the class to Cleric at level 18 and 20 based on your comments. (..Thank you!) Oddly though, I didn't make the changes for spell-casting, but rather for the enhanced Will save.
My point is - why have any at all? The build doesn't gain anything in the long run from getting one...
If you went F P P C C P F F F D D D D D D D D C D D you could do everything you're doing now and not get any XP penalty. If you didn't want able learner in there near the start you could bring DD forward a little as well.
It's free. Free as a bird.
FPPCCPFFFDDDDDDDDCDD
Hmmm.... (..basically an interleaved build.)
Fear and Disease immunity gets delayed from 4th to 6th. (..not significant.)
-1 to attack earlier from 6th to 4th. (..significant. Bad.)
Will saves and the domain feats get a boost from 6th to 4th (..significant. Good.)
Great Cleave gets delayed to 7th instead of 5th. (..significant. Bad.)
Combat Expertise gets delayed to 9th from 8th. (..potentially significant.)
DD class is delayed one level throughout build life. (..significant. Bad.)
(..moving the DD class structure ahead substantially delayes the feet selection progression - *very* significant. Real Bad, though optional.)
This versus 20% penalty at level 6 (which is almost meaningless in SOZ), and a 20% penalty at level 18 which is similarly easy to overcome.
It's a good suggestion, but it isn't a *free* suggestion.
Frankly it may be worth it - particularly if you are willing to grind a bit more early-on and near the end.
Basically your suggestion *forces* the player to level 20. Mine - level 19. On the other hand just getting to level 19 requires about 20% more XP for that level than normal for my build.
The other trade-off you provide is a very modest enhancement in spell casting and a modest increase in Will save earlier vs. the benefits of the DD class one level sooner with the addition of some of the combat feats earlier and better attack numbers near the beginning.
Yeah, I think it's viable - but it really depends on how much "work", (and when), the player is willing to put into the game.
Not intending to be obstinate, but I'd still choose my build (..as it is now). (..of course the inclusion of the Cleric levels at the end are your suggestion, again - Graci!)
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