Warforged Duo recommendations

[The_Baub]

My fiance and I have recently picked up the game, and we've been enjoying our ranger / cleric duo, but we're thinking about branching out. I've always like the potential of the warforged, and the sale this weekend on them was too much for me to pass up. We unlocked warforged, and are thinking about making a duo of them next.

Given a few preferences, what's recommended?

(haven't unlocked Favored Soul or Monk, so avoiding those. Same for Drow, but that shouldn't be applicable here.)

Arcane caster for at least one of the two for repairs seems obvious.

I prefer to go as pure as possible, as I like the potential of taking the capstone enhancement. So far the ones I've glanced at for possiblities for this duo sound like they might be nice (wiz / sorc / pali / fighter / etc.).

I'm currently thinking the frontliner (assuming the duo contains one) would do well as a 2-handed fighter, perhaps greatsword. Mainly this is for variety, my ranger is TWF.

The duo I'm looking at with most interest would be Pali / Wiz.
Pali: Lay on Hands works full strength on WF, and Pali has other utitilities that might come in handy. Plus, the one we teamed with the other day on our current duo did an awesome job when he got stuck in a room solo vs. an ambush. Seemed to shrug off the damage while laying waste, until the door opened for us.
Wiz: (as opposed to Sorc) I understand sorc's have more points and can specialize more effectively, but for a duo, the capability of switching from nuking to controlling to buffing to repairing might require more versatility. Additionally we're both new, and prone to make mistakes. If the wizard ends up with a wrong spell... oh well? Sorc's gotta go pay money and respec that off, only 1 / 3 days.

Speaking of respec'ing, that's another thing I want to avoid. I know sometimes it's good to take a feat or enhancement early and respec it to a different one later, but it just feels off to me. I'm stingy with the money, and like to get into the mindset to play a character as it's meant to be. Also, with some things incapable of respec'ing, like levels and skills (at least, that's what my meager research suggests), I generally want to get it right the first time.

As I said, we're new players, haven't gotten to endgame content so if a build needs to focus a certain way, or reach certain benchmarks just to still be viable for endgame without getting shelved, that would be good to know now. If endgame content makes some of my preferences unfeasible, that would also be good to know now.

We'll be duo'ing a lot, but joining groups from time to time, so although being able to do most things in quests is nice, it's not vital if it breaks the preferences.
Mind, these are all just preferences, so with good enough reasons, I'll adjust to compensate, but I do like to understand those reasons fully.

If you want to go so far as to make suggested builds, basic outlines, or just point to existing ones, that would be great, but all useful advice will be appreciated.

Hopefully my penchant for rambling didn't make this a tl;dr post, and thanks for anticipated advice.

The Baub

[Feylina]

Hey. glad to hear you're making out ok. i remeber your original thread and thought i'd repost for you.

I think the wiz / pali is a great idea.

will have great synergy in that you can heal and do whatever spells you wish, sp should be too much of a problem as you are duoing not soloing.

WF wiz (i'm assuming 28 point builds)

18 int
18 con
8 wis

That's my preference. max sp / spell dc, great hp and a bump to will save.

WF pally

16 str
14 con
14 char
10 wis

this way you wont have to work too hard to get your spells and still have decent smites. would also consider 12 char with 14 wis for more sp and no brainer getting spells . consider going 2h on a starter build and taking extend for zeal .

Possible Build to consider

WF wizzy / rogue 18 / 2

17 int
15 con
14 dex
10 wis

int will even off nicely at end game, con will too with a 2 ap wf con. This should give decent ability to find and disable traps, avoid them if need be and open most locks (handy if you short on sp for knock). don't forget insightful reflexes for evasion . i believe this build would help open the game up for you and your wife. it is a little bit of a pain in level progression though.

[VonBek]

Nicely done, Feylina. I'd like to add a couple of observations:

On the Wiz/Rog, with a max/near max Int, and the splash of rog, you'll have plenty of skill points to keep Concentration, OL/DD, Hide, Move Silent, & Repair in good shape.
Take rogue at 1st level to get the best value on your skill points. Hold off the second rogue level as long as possible. Spacing the rog levels keeps you just behind the power curve of of a pure caster. Level 9 lets you take Insightful Reflexes as a level up feat, to combine with the the rogue's class granted evasion. You want evasion, true; but you also want to avoid diluting your casting ability too soon.

On the Paly, 16 Str and 14 Cha are OK when you can rely on full parties. Still, gear and enhancements might let you tone the Cha back a bit to bolster Str. My experience soloing (mostly) a WF Paly found that Str/Con were vital almost all the time, but the Cha based abilities were situation specific, or just used on occasion. For example, LOH found it's best use as an emergency bump to HP, or a pre-shrine aid to offset lousy repair skills. Smite only counts when a swing connects - pretty frustrating when you think about how the mobs bounce around, at times.

[The_Baub]

May have me confused with the couple that posted a few weeks or so back. I read that thread, it had some very useful info, but wasn't specific enough for this particular duo. This was actually my first post here.

Appreciate the suggestions so far, but have a couple more questions:

I note the Wiz (pure) stats don't include any Dex. On all my PnP wizards, Dex was my 2nd most important stat, for AC. I take it that's not as useful here?

On the Pali stats, using the D&D Character Planner v3.1 I downloaded, when I drop the Charisma from 14 to 12, I can only raise the Wis to 13? Probably not a big deal, getting +1 Wis should be very easy.
VonBek, you mentioned bolstering Str yet more, is it worth 1 point of Str to drop the Wis / Cha from the 13 / 12 I'm looking at down to 12/11 (or 11/12)?

For both, are there any Feats / Skills / Enhancements that are must have, or at least highly recommended?

I'm guessing Adamantine Body for Pali, must be taken at lvl 1. For the rest, get 2HF feats, maybe extend for Zeal? Would the Cleave line be worth it?
Enhancements: Bladesworn Transformation sounds impressive. I know the Pali aura's are nice, are any particular enh to improve those ideal, or even worth it?
Only gets 1 skill point per level, what 1 skill should be maxed, or would a diverse set of mediocre skills be better?

On the Wizard, which metamagic feats? (all of 'em?) Other posts have focused on Necromancy and Spell Pen, are those that worth it?
Enhancements: Repair / Force seems obvious, as well as anything that gives extra spell points, and more Int. Take the 1st level of Inscribed Armor and call it good? Would it be better to take Mithral Body and get all 3 inscribed armors, putting up with arcane failure until reduced fully at lvl 10?
Where to put all the skill points, with the huge int? Concentrate I know, Repair seems likely, but other builds have focused on balance, UMD, even jump.


Still a new player, but indulging my not quite OCD tendencies to plan the chars careers out would make me less paranoid I'm going to have to make use of the new Reincarnation I was reading about.

Thanks again
The Baub

[mediocresurgeon]

If you are shortmanning content, you will probably want Sorcerer over Wizard because of the extra SP. If you want a rogue splash on your caster, I'd do Wizard over sorcerer--but only if you are doing traps! (Most traps can be avoided using hand/eye coordination anyway, but that can take practice.)

Paladin sounds fine as your melee, since they have great survivability and utility. The paladin capstone is pretty tasty, but costs you your ability to multiclass your way into greatness (splashing 2 rogue for evasion, sneak attack, and the ability to max Balance, Intimidate, and UMD; or splashing 2 monk for evasion, higher saves, and two bonus feats).

In small grounds it is often more important to try to overwhelm your opponents and kill them in fiercer, more dangerous battles than it is to try to outlast them. If you favor this sort of playstyle, I would suggest a THF Guard Berskerer instead of Paladin. You will take more damage, but have quicker dungeon completion time (and consequently level faster).

[Revord]

Personally, I like the idea of the pally wiz combo. I played a pally during the beta last summer and had a blast. Very versitile with the cleric spells, lay on hands, turning undead, plus the variety of weapons available and the ability to wear armor. I am currently running a wf wizard that is level 5 and have enjoyed dropping fireballs into the middle of mobs and watching them go up in smoke, plus having haste on hand is a nice bonus. One other thing I can recommend is if you do get the chance, get the monk. Out of all the classes, I am absolutely enjoying playing my wf monk more than any other that I have played so far.

[Therigar]

My fiance and I have recently picked up the game, and we've been enjoying our ranger / cleric duo, but we're thinking about branching out. I've always like the potential of the warforged, and the sale this weekend on them was too much for me to pass up. We unlocked warforged, and are thinking about making a duo of them next.

Given a few preferences, what's recommended?

My son and daughter (ages 12 and 10) both have warforged characters and they get the chance to group with me every couple of weeks. We have a group that consists of two melee types (them) and a healer (me).

Our choices were barbarian, fighter and wizard. So, IMO, your choice of paladin and wizard are not too bad. Keep in mind that warforged are armor advantaged in the early levels but armor challenged in the mid and upper levels. So you may need to adjust your play style to accommodate that.

If it were me I would go with barbarian, ranger or fighter over paladin. Even though I said your choice wasn't too bad, I think you could improve on it by taking a different melee class. Still, paladin isn't entirely a bad choice -- probably more a matter of preference than anything.

You may want to consider a small splash of 2 rogue levels with the wizard. This isn't absolutely necessary. It depends on how you want to deal with traps and locked chests.

Also, remember that neither of you can raise dead -- well, the paladin could if they take the right enhancments. So it will be worth finding gear with that feature if you can.

A battlecleric and wizard duo might be the most fun. The potential of that duo is very high -- especially as the cleric grows in spell power.

[Freeman]

Personally, I'd recommend going with a Wizard and a Barbarian. My wife and I played this particular duo up to the cap, then liked it enough that we almost immediately turned around and rolled a second set, only with the rolls reversed. We were able to duo most quests even before dungeon scaling was implemented. While paladins are nice, the stats are going to be spread out a lot more than I'd really like, particularly on a 28pt Warforged. While the Lay On Hands would be a bonus, most of the other paladin abilities aren't that useful to a WF character.(Although immunity to fear is always nice at lower levels) Instead, I'd go with a straight damage-dealing machine, with the wizard primarily for buffs and CC at lower levels, and switching to more damage at higher levels.

As for your questions:

Dex - Not really that important here, since it is very hard to have a meaningful AC past level 10. Displacement and Stoneskin will be worth far more than 1-2 points of AC from Dex.

Not sure what's going on with the planner.

As for feats and enhancements, I'd look for individual builds you like in the respective class forums. The wizard will be fairly straight-forward, since the feat list has a few fairly common feats(Extend, Maximize, Empower, Spell Pen, Greater Spell Pen, and Heighten are the ones I would consider most important) plus your preference of a few others. I'm fairly fluid with my enhancements while leveling, so I can't say a particular order. I'd do a mix of repair and fire/ice enhancements early on though. I wore a Docent with the Arcane Sigil enhancement, which reduces a WF's natural spell fairlure to 0 for a long time instead of spending the AP, so keep an eye out for one of those. As for skill points, you'll have plenty. I'd recommend Concentration, UMD, Balance, Jump, Tumble, and Repair as the best ones, in that order. If you have any extra, Haggle never hurts either. I'm probably forgetting something, but it is late.

A WF Paladin would be a little tougher, and I can't offer much help there. For any Strength-based melee, you should take Power Attack. I'd recommend taking it early, since it has no prereqs, but you won't likely use it for awhile. If you went the barb route, I'd recommend the THF feats as well, but can't say if that would be best on a Paladin.

[Therigar]

Appreciate the suggestions so far, but have a couple more questions:

I note the Wiz (pure) stats don't include any Dex. On all my PnP wizards, Dex was my 2nd most important stat, for AC. I take it that's not as useful here?

On the Pali stats, using the D&D Character Planner v3.1 I downloaded, when I drop the Charisma from 14 to 12, I can only raise the Wis to 13? Probably not a big deal, getting +1 Wis should be very easy.

<snip>

I'm guessing Adamantine Body for Pali, must be taken at lvl 1. For the rest, get 2HF feats, maybe extend for Zeal? Would the Cleave line be worth it?

<snip>

On the Wizard, which metamagic feats? (all of 'em?)

Slicing out just the parts I'd like to reply to....

Your AC will be trivial. DEX, therefore, doesn't matter. Unless you have a plan to hit 70+ AC reliably at end game then worrying about it doesn't make sense. Because it is very impractical for a warforged wizard to even come close then it means you do not need much DEX at all.

CON is much more important. In DDO every hit point matters. I would alway choose CON over DEX in your situation.

On CHA and WIS for the paladin. Pushing CHA is a mistake, IMO. WF have a 6 CHA so it takes a lot of build points to make it anything useful. You will get 3 CHA from enhancements and will probably find a +6 stat item eventually. If you figure on a +1 tome coming your way some day then you'll have a total boost to starting CHA of +10.

Do not put any other points into CHA! You are a duo where the paladin is the main punch. Stat increases when the character levels up need to go into STR. Just like with the wizard, DEX won't matter because the paladin's AC won't ever amount to enough to matter. Even taking adamantine body is probably a wasted feat. It will make a difference in the early levels but by L6 or so it will start to just not matter -- the character is going to get hit.

You don't need any points in WIS on the paladin. Get a +6 WIS item and use a +2 tome. Get +3 exceptional WIS on a Shroud crafted item. The most WIS you should start with is 10 -- and personally I'd leave it at 8. Spell casting isn't the primary function so spending build points here isn't really necessary.

While I'm on it, who told you to go THF? That is seeing a lot of use right now with all the new F2P players joining in -- but, it is weaker than TWF. Your paladin needs to be able to hit, hit often and hit hard. The total damage output will be much more with the TWF feat line. I know that warforged get a bonus to THF, but it isn't enough to justify taking THF in your situation. You want TWF, power attack and you want to learn how to use trip.

On the wizard -- every metamagic feat is what you want. Empower first, extend second, maximize third, heighten fourth, quicken fifth, enlarge sixth. The only one you can do without is eschew materials -- although it does come in handy if you run out of components it isn't really necessary. The sequence of the last 3 is a bit up to you, some people like enlarge a bit earlier so that they can FoD beholders from a safe(r) distance.

[Therigar]

If you are shortmanning content, you will probably want Sorcerer over Wizard because of the extra SP.

If you choose sorcerer rather than wizard be sure you work out your spell selection very carefully. Also, look at when you get the spells and the number of spells that you will carry at each level. There is a difference between the two and it may matter.

Also keep in mind that sorcerers won't have the full meta-magic line. They don't get the bonus feats that wizards do. That means less room for mistakes when choosing feats -- or room for other feats that you'd just really like to have.

Personally, I'm not certain that the larger spell pool is the better choice. However, I can see how people may prefer that.

[Therigar]

Nicely done, Feylina. I'd like to add a couple of observations:

On the Wiz/Rog, with a max/near max Int, and the splash of rog, you'll have plenty of skill points to keep Concentration, OL/DD, Hide, Move Silent, & Repair in good shape.

Do not waste your time on repair as a skill. It only affects you when you rest. Learn to top off before resting and use repair wands to top off if the rest doesn't give you enough HP back.

Instead put points into UMD if you splash rogue. Being able to UMD a raise dead scroll is infinitely more valuable.

[Therigar]

On the Paly, 16 Str and 14 Cha are OK when you can rely on full parties. Still, gear and enhancements might let you tone the Cha back a bit to bolster Str. My experience soloing (mostly) a WF Paly found that Str/Con were vital almost all the time, but the Cha based abilities were situation specific, or just used on occasion. For example, LOH found it's best use as an emergency bump to HP, or a pre-shrine aid to offset lousy repair skills. Smite only counts when a swing connects - pretty frustrating when you think about how the mobs bounce around, at times.

Paladins are very stat intensive and in duoing the melee character has to be able to put out lots of damage while still surviving. This is why I suggested that paladin may be a suboptimal choice.

Barbarian and fighter are significantly better. With both you can just focus on STR and CON. 18 STR, 18 CON and 10 DEX works for either one. For barbarian you can drop CON to raise DEX and for fighter you can drop STR to raise DEX. Stat increases when you gain levels go into STR.

Fighter is, IMO, the best choice because you have so many feats that you can be TWF and THF and still have feats left over. And, IMO, the kensai enhancement line is the best in the game atm.

[Freeman]

Fighter is, IMO, the best choice because you have so many feats that you can be TWF and THF and still have feats left over. And, IMO, the kensai enhancement line is the best in the game atm.

As far as feats go, fighter may give you the ability to get both TWF and THF, but on a 28pt build, I think hitting the Dex requirements for TWF would hurt to much to make it worthwhile.

[The_Baub]

GRRRR! Lousy new mouse with extra button mapped to 'Back' in the browser. Got it almost all typed and lost it.
Typing in WordPad now, trying to remember everything, may be less wordy to compensate (well, my version of less wordy)

Sorc has less room for mistakes, both in spell selection and in feat selection. We're new, want to allow for mistakes.
Understand the benefits of splashing 2 levels of Rogue for traps, already doing that with my Ranger... but the Ranger capstone isn't as interesting as the Wiz / Pali / Fighter / etc. ones (at least, for a heavy Tempest build).

Stat discussion showing the Pali might work best as 32 point build, thinking I'll come back to it after unlocked. Swap to either Barb or Fighter, of which Fighter is looking more interesting now (also more forgiving).

THF: nobody told me to go THF, that's my attempting to get some variety. Always made sure to have one of each style in the old games: Baldur's, Icewind, etc.

Was going to ask about TWF stuff, but after some research, thinking THF is still viable. May not be ideal, but some TWF feats require 17 dex, and that's going to take points away from other stats to get, and / or cost a fair amount of money. I'm very stingy, plus this gives me the opportunity to work in the Warforged enhancers for THF, play with that style. Worst-case, we make use of the feat / enhance respecs eventually.
One side question though, what's the ideal weap for TWF? My ranger is going Tempest, and I'd like to know if it's really worth the exotic weapon feat for Khopesh, and what I should drop for that? I'm guessing TWF-Defense, or Oversize, which this thread has suggested won't be as useful as I originally thought.

Starting to come up with a basic outline of a build, but 2 am here and have to get up in the morning.
Thanks for input so far, will keep checking back for more.
The Baub

[Thanimal]

For a duo, especially as new players, I'm nearly certain you're going to want trap skills. Oddly enough, one thing making that harder is not having the Monk class.

With that, you could pair up a WF pure Wizard with a WF 18 Ranger/1 Rogue/1 Monk. The latter can be made to be quite tanky (probably in the Finesse direction?), while dealing decent damage, handling traps, and providing some handy buffs and self-sufficiency. But if you take away the Monk level, the AC drops pretty significantly, and it's probably a little too squishy to be your only front-liner.

Given you goals and constraints, the duo I personally would recommend is:

WF Wizard 18/Rogue 2. (I'm trying to maintain a decent version of this called The Tinkerer, but it's still a work in progress since I'm not a real caster expert. Be sure to read the whole thread.)

WF Fighter (Stalwart) 18/Rogue 2. The bad news is this build can't really fit Rogue skills -- the Rogue levels are for Evasion and UMD. The good news is this build is one of the few I know of that can fulfill every front-liner roll adequately without having a Monk level. A carefully optimized version of it is called Big Rock Candy. Just start STR at 14 to make it a 28-pointer.
Another advantage of this build is that it works fine without uber equipment.

I know you want to go with a pure caster, but that basically forces you to have trap skills on the meleer, and that's not really that easy (without Monk). Here are some of the problems:

1) Paladins and Fighters have pitiful amounts of skill points. VERY hard to maintain trap skills in these classes.
2) Mostly-Rogues can be very nice tanks, but by far the best way to do this is with a Monk splash. (The Hurtlocker is an awesome example of a WF Rogue-tank.) Also, these builds aren't really ideal to be the ONE front-liner because they do SO much more damage when somebody else has the aggro.
3) I have a huge bias against Barbarians -- your spell points are gonna go fast if a Barb has all the aggro all the time.
4) Ranger is the obvious choice for a front-liner with trap skills, but by far the best way to do this is with a Monk splash. If you have to carry a shield, you give up a lot of what the Ranger class brings to the table. I've actually done a duo with a WF Sorcerer and WF Finesse Ranger (without Monk). It "works" but it's not really ideal. My wife's Ranger is a solid DPS, but her AC is only "OK" even after Barkskin and top notch equipment.

[Thanimal]

If you've read all my warnings and you still want to go with a pure caster, it might be possible to carefully a craft a reasonably tanky Ranger with Rogue skills, even without a Monk level. This will require some good equipment and an emphasis on defensive feats, including Dodge, Combat Expertise, and maybe even Two Weapon Defense. My first thought would be Ranger 18/Fighter 1/Rogue 1. The Fighter level is mainly to get an extra feat, and is easy to justify since Ranger 19 brings almost nothing. Stats are gonna be TOUGH on this build, since we need STR, DEX, CON, INT (for skills and CE). This may force dump-statting both WIS and CHA, which is a bummer because that effects Will save, spell points, and UMD. Let me take a shot and see how ugly it is:

STR 16 [10 points]
DEX 12 [4 points] (+1 Tome required for Dodge)
CON 14 [4 points]
INT 12 [4 points] (+1 Tome required for CE)
WIS 12 [6 points]
CHA 6 [0 points]

Ok, that sorta worked. Let's see where the AC can get to at say level 11:

10 base
10 armor (+5 docent in Mithral Body)
5 dex (max allowed by Mithral Body)
4 Protection item
2 Chaosgarde (this may be optimistic, but go Lawful to make it easier)
1 Dodge feat
1 TWD feat (may be optimistic)
5 CE feat
2 Tempest I bonus
4 self-Barkskin
---
44

Shield clickie brings you to 46 for a minute. Hm, this is borderline, but definitely not BAD. Ideal "tank pace" at 11 is 16+3*11 = 49, so not TOO far off. But if you drop some of the equipment from the above list, it could quick fall into scarier territory. With no chaosgaurdes and dropping TWD, that's 41. Still helpful for sure, but the caster is going to have to be "heal duty" in a lot of places.

Finally, feats may be unrealistic here. Thankfully we get TWF, iTWF, and gTWF for free, but we still want a lot of stuff:

Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack (required for Tempest)
Toughness (technically optional, but whoever plays the caster will be VERY happy to have a little more time to react)
oTWF (required for Tempest III)
Mithral Body, Combat Expertise, TWD for defense
Power Attack, Khopesh, iCrit: Slashing for DPS mode

And that's three more feats than we actually get... I guess Khopesh is gone -- probably use Scimitars in the long run. And it seems that Toughness isn't going to fit, either, which is a real bummer and might force strating CON of 16. The next cut is even more painful, but I think it's going to be Power Attack. Defensive mode feels more important to me here. (Maybe at the end-game, respec out of iCrit and use a pair of Mineral II weapons and then take PA.)

Hm, with the feats that ugly, it may be worth considering Composite Body and a huge DEX to get AC. At a DEX of 26 we come out even with Mithral, and above there we do better. That's very possible for a Ranger, but requires a little more initial investment, and might even suggest a Finesse direction, which cuts into DPS. Bah -- taking Finesse uses up the feat we freed by NOT taking Mithral!

So obviously this needs work, but hopefully gives you a vague idea of where you'd have to go to make this work.

[Therigar]

As far as feats go, fighter may give you the ability to get both TWF and THF, but on a 28pt build, I think hitting the Dex requirements for TWF would hurt to much to make it worthwhile.

Greater Two Weapon fighting requires 17 DEX without counting items or enhancements. This is base DEX with tomes and stat increases only. That does make it difficult to obtain if a player focuses only on min/max build ideas.

Note that I recommended 18 STR, 10 DEX and 18 CON -- and that I then mentioned that a fighter could reduce STR to increase DEX. The reason a fighter can do this is because they will get 3 STR increases from enhancements. So, for 1 less damage per hit they can reduce STR to 16 and increase DEX to 15.

That gives starting stats of 16 STR 15 DEX 18 CON 8 INT 6 WIS and 6 CHA. If your opinion is that 1 less point of damage per hit is not overcome by having twice as many attacks then I could see how you wouldn't choose to go this route.

I, OTOH, believe that hitting 38 times in 20 attack turns more than justifies dropping 2 points of STR in order to boost DEX to 15. Then, using a +2 tome (recently on sale from the DDO store) the character has 17 DEX and meets the prerequisites for the full TWF line.

At end game the character will have 2 points less STR than if they had started with 18 STR but will be doing so much more damage that the 1 point per hit that is lost will not be missed.

[Therigar]

Let me take a shot and see how ugly it is:

STR 16 [10 points]
DEX 12 [4 points] (+1 Tome required for Dodge)
CON 14 [4 points]
INT 12 [4 points] (+1 Tome required for CE)
WIS 12 [6 points]
CHA 6 [0 points]

Ok, that sorta worked. Let's see where the AC can get to at say level 11:

10 base
10 armor (+5 docent in Mithral Body)
5 dex (max allowed by Mithral Body)
4 Protection item
2 Chaosgarde (this may be optimistic, but go Lawful to make it easier)
1 Dodge feat
1 TWD feat (may be optimistic)
5 CE feat
2 Tempest I bonus
4 self-Barkskin
---
44

Shield clickie brings you to 46 for a minute. Hm, this is borderline, but definitely not BAD. Ideal "tank pace" at 11 is 16+3*11 = 49, so not TOO far off. But if you drop some of the equipment from the above list, it could quick fall into scarier territory. With no chaosgaurdes and dropping TWD, that's 41. Still helpful for sure, but the caster is going to have to be "heal duty" in a lot of places.

Finally, feats may be unrealistic here. Thankfully we get TWF, iTWF, and gTWF for free, but we still want a lot of stuff:

Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack (required for Tempest)
Toughness (technically optional, but whoever plays the caster will be VERY happy to have a little more time to react)
oTWF (required for Tempest III)
Mithral Body, Combat Expertise, TWD for defense
Power Attack, Khopesh, iCrit: Slashing for DPS mode

<snip>

So obviously this needs work, but hopefully gives you a vague idea of where you'd have to go to make this work.

The only good information in this post is in the last line, "So obviously this needs work."

Let's drop back to what I just posted regarding a fighter with stats of 16, 15, 18, 8, 6, 6. Notice three things: 1) you will have a higher end STR and thus do more damage because fighters get STR enhancements, 2) you will have an equal ending DEX because you start with 3 higher which compensates for the ranger DEX enhancements and 3) you will have more HP because a) fighters get 2 more per level and you start 4 CON higher -- at L20 that is 80 HP.

I have already advised that warforged suffer after the early levels when it comes to AC. This is so true that it makes it not worth the time and effort to go for that ~70 raid buffed AC. But, you can do better with the fighter option.

10 base AC
08 adamantine body
05 +5 docent
01 dodge bonus from alchemical ritual at stone of change
04 DEX bonus with Armor Mastery III enhancement
04 deflection bonus from +4 race protection item (bump to +5 at L13)
02 Chaosgarde bracers
03 Barkskin potion
02 defensive fighting
01 Two Weapon Defense feat
01 Haste from your wizard
04 1 minute shield boost from clicky
05 20 second armor boost from Armor Class Boost IV
--
50

The weakness here is the last 2 items which are on limited timers. However, your wizard will have blur and stoneskin so that will compensate somewhat in either situation. Without those the AC drops to 41.

Although this is less than the ranger build the benefits of more HP, more feats and higher STR -- coupled with the fact that you are not going to ever get to the raid buffed ~70 AC for end game with either build -- means that fighter is a better choice.

[Thanimal]

I have already advised that warforged suffer after the early levels when it comes to AC.

I'm too lazy to argue, because it doesn't matter. If he goes with a pure caster, then the "missing" build here is a front-liner with trap skills. If *that* requirement is alleviated, then all sorts of doors are opened, including Fighter 20 and Fighter 18/Rogue 2 (as I suggested earlier). What I was trying to do was to provide DPS, top-notch defenses, AND trap skills *without* a Monk level.

That's as close as I could get. Fighter doesn't have the skill points for that even if you gimp it with an 18 INT.

[cforce]

Er, I won't pile on with some of the same points Thanimal has already made -- suffice to say I agree with him -- but I do have to call out one thing he did not:

I have already advised that warforged suffer after the early levels when it comes to AC. This is so true that it makes it not worth the time and effort to go for that ~70 raid buffed AC.

Er, huh? Warforged have some of the best AC throughout the game, with the least investment. While Monk splashes with a Icy Rainment are higher, Warforged tend to have the highest AC achievable without hard-to-farm uber loot. (I think perhaps his mistake is thinking Adamantine Body is the route to optimal AC? Not sure.) I'd recommend disregarding Therigar's advice on this count.