Dwarven fighter

[HastyPudding]

So, I've been wondering about new builds to make, and I saw a lot of chubby little dwarves happily running around with their axes, and figured I'd finally make one. So, I got my first life rogue ready to TR, and I just need a build.

Specifics:
- Must be a dwarf with TWF dwarven axes. This was the entire point of this character.
- I would much rather rely on strength for damage, but going constitution as a dwarf is not totally out of the picture.
- Monk is optional, and while I'm usually heavily against this monk multiclass craze, kensei has good synergy with it, and light monk can give good survivability without taking divine levels.
- Must be self sufficient. I can't stand not being able to self heal in some way.
- Does not necessarily have to be EE capable, as I don't find myself running EE much and I use a couple other characters for such runs.
- This will be a second life (34 point build) character.
- Tomes currently available: +3 strength, +4 dexterity, +2 constitution (could probably dredge up a +3 somewhere), +3 intelligence, and +3 charisma (no wisdom tome, yet)

Build ideas I thought of:

20 fighter
- kensei capstone is nice, but no self-healing until level 20+
- no evasion, fairly low reflex and will saves, but has the ability to gain a lot of prr via full plate
- highly customizable, with plenty of feats and options

12 fighter / 8 fvs or cleric
- high self-healing and utility via warpriest tree
- no evasion, mediocre saves
- can't decide on fvs or cleric levels would be better, and adding wisdom or charisma detracts from other stats

12 fighter / 6 cleric or fvs / 2 monk
- high self healing and utility via warpriest tree
- has evasion, but not super high reflexes
- can't decide on fvs or cleric levels would be better, and adding wisdom or charisma detracts from other stats

12 fighter / 6 fvs / 2 paladin
- good self healing and utility via warpriest tree
- no evasion, but relatively high saves
- good synergy between fvs and paladin's charisma, but adding charisma detracts from other stats

14 fighter / 6 monk
- decent self-healing via monk's light fists
- has evasion and good reflexes
- good synergy between kensei and monk

12 fighter / 6 monk / 2 paladin
- decent self healing via light monk along with a weak lay on hands
- has evasion and good all-round saves
- charisma is needed for saves, taking points away from strength, dexterity, and constitution

Stats:
I really have trouble in this area. Is it common to take 13 dexterity at level 1, then gradually (and late in heroics) max out your twf feats (allowing for GTWF at level 15 with a +4 dex tome)?
What seems to work with the majority of the above builds would be:
16 strength (19 with tome, and all level ups going into strength)
15 dexterity (19 with tome, allowing for faster access to TWF feats)
16 constitution (18 with tome, but dwarf gets a ton of HP options, anyway)
8 intelligence (11 with tome)
8 wisdom
14 charisma (17 with tome)

Comments? Ideas?

[unbongwah]

Does it have to be fighter? If you're not going the monk / kensei route, rgr seems like it would be a better fit. See my Tempest Warpriest and Bardcher threads.

[HastyPudding]

Does it have to be fighter? If you're not going the monk / kensei route, rgr seems like it would be a better fit. See my Tempest Warpriest and Bardcher threads.

I was thinking fighter for the tons of feats to play with, although I forgot about ranger's tempest tree. The thing with tempest, though, is it doesn't really add much for dwarven axes. It looks to be more for finesse fighters or scimitars and such.

[HastyPudding]

After reviewing the tempest tree, that actually has some goodies that work quite well with what I wanted.

How about 12 ranger, 6 cleric, 2 paladin? Or 12 ranger, 8 cleric, I think I like that better, since ranger can get some nice reflexes on their own and improved evasion through tempest enhancements, and 8 levels of cleric gets you FoM, cure critical, restoration, and death ward. Both have synergy with wisdom, negating the use for charisma, which can be expensive on a dwarf.

Or what about 12 ranger, 8 fighter?

[elcagador]

After reviewing the tempest tree, that actually has some goodies that work quite well with what I wanted.

How about 12 ranger, 6 cleric, 2 paladin? Or 12 ranger, 8 cleric, I think I like that better, since ranger can get some nice reflexes on their own and improved evasion through tempest enhancements, and 8 levels of cleric gets you FoM, cure critical, restoration, and death ward. Both have synergy with wisdom, negating the use for charisma, which can be expensive on a dwarf.

Or what about 12 ranger, 8 fighter?

12 Fvs (spell points, heal spell, deathward, fom, ccw, amelliorating strikes from warpriest and divine might), 6 ranger (tempest enhancements, twf and itwf feats, some bow feats and manyshot for ranged dmg), Paladin (cha bonus to saves that also boost divine might)

Even on a dwarf Investing on charisma for bonus to saves and str from divine might is worth, fvs and ranger give you good saves that boosted with paladin make you very hard to be killed while doing decent dmg with tempest, good prr from heavy armor/medium armor, warpriest and tempest enhancements.

Can start with 16 str, 15 dex, 16 con, 14 cha, all lvl up on cha (give spell points, half bonus to str, bonus to saves, plus can help on some epic abilities like soundburst, energy burst, etc)

(also can change the 2 paladin levels for rogue if want trap skills and evasion (improved evasion with tempest), if so raise int instead of cha)

[unbongwah]

How about 12 ranger, 6 cleric, 2 paladin? Or 12 ranger, 8 cleric, I think I like that better, since ranger can get some nice reflexes on their own and improved evasion through tempest enhancements, and 8 levels of cleric gets you FoM, cure critical, restoration, and death ward.

One of the Tempest Warpriest variants I had considered was rgr 12 / FvS 6 / pal 2: 100% offhand procs, Div Grace, Div Might, lvl 3 spells, Unyielding Sovereignty for a free emergency heal every 10 mins. or Undying Court for the scimitar bonuses on an elf or HE.

[mna]

One of the Tempest Warpriest variants I had considered was rgr 12 / FvS 6 / pal 2: 100% offhand procs, Div Grace, Div Might, lvl 3 spells, Unyielding Sovereignty for a free emergency heal every 10 mins. or Undying Court for the scimitar bonuses on an elf or HE.

I've been quite happy with my project 12 Ranger / 7 Cleric / 1 Rogue TWF dwarf (currently at level 15 still). I went for trap skills, but you could alternatively just max UMD and put a bit into Open Lock, needing less points in Int.

Twin D-axes is fun. Especially when I get a crit with a bloodletting axe right after a Smite, a few extra points there too.
Being able to self-buff with Deathward and Freedom of Movement is very nice, and level 5 cleric spells can be scrolled with a 85% caster level check without UMD.



With paladin levels, I was thinking of going into a primarily ranged build maybe at some point, 11 ranger / 7 cleric / 2 paladin... take Zen Archery and be a centered GMoF "f2p-almostmonkcher" in epics, or something... or maybe not...

[TheGardes]

I'm thinking of building a Monk/Fighter 12/8 split that uses TWF dwarven axes. You need 8 levels of fighter to become centered used the axes.

I was thinking going full ****** dex and using the monk dex to hit/damage. The high dex has synergy with improved evasion, helps getting your saves up high enough to where it matters.

I'm not sure what the DPS will look like for EE content, but I've already started accumulating the gear. Should start it in 2ish weeks..

[Onetunge]

2 years ago my main was plaing 18 ranger/2 rogue Dwarf STR built TWF with dwarven axes, also a trapper. It was awesome and fun to play it.