Author Topic: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?  (Read 3362 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Goodlad

  • Ring-Tailed Lemur
  • **
  • Posts: 72
Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« on: April 17, 2011, 10:57:55 AM »

Hey guys,

Im playing in a game at the moment, one of the players is making a new char but they dont really know dnd well so asked me to suss out a char build for them.
They like the idea of having a shed load of attacks but also hitting hard. Now i think those two things can be combined, i think a heavy hitter = 2hander and lots of attacks will be ok but suffer badly against DR.

Should i look into making a fighter or maybe go with a warblade? 
Im not up to speed on ToB class optimization, would a warblade be best as a straight warblade?

Any build ideas you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated.

CantripN

  • Hong Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 1199
  • Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating
    • Cantrip, Gestalt Gish
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2011, 11:22:22 AM »
Reverent Blade + Hood sounds like what you're looking for, more or less. Look it up. The first is a PrC, the 2nd is a thread.
Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.

Kajhera

  • Hong Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 1167
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2011, 11:23:25 AM »
From my limited experience:

Warblade's a great heavy-hitting melee character all on its own, but if you multiclass, take it later. You can count earlier levels as 1/2 your warblade level for what level you get access to maneuvers, though your first stance has to be first level.

It supports single devastating attacks somewhat better than large numbers of attacks, but can do both. Look for boosts rather than strikes if you go with a martial character and want a lot of attacks.

With a 2-handed weapon, Power Attack gives better output. Look into the feat Shock Trooper from Complete Warrior to take the hit to his Armor Class rather than Attack Roll, but he can't do that until 6th level. Warblade's Emerald Razor's worth taking despite being a strike for this reason... but that would be a single, devastating attack.

If you meant two-weapon fighting yes, that does suffer badly against DR. Transmuting weapons (+1 bonus, magic item compendium) can help with this however, as does just dealing enough damage with them. They however suffer from not being able to Power Attack well since Power Attack doesn't work with light weapons except natural or unarmed.

Consider natural weapons as well. If you have claws, you can use both of them as a primary weapon, getting full Strength and attack bonus.  Unless you got them from being a psychic warrior, should you get more natural weapons, you can use them as secondary weapons at 1/2 Strength and a -5 penalty that can be entirely negated should you take Multiattack and Improved Multiattack.  :p My personal favorite build involves a Changeling Warshaper with 12 or so tentacles shaped as primary weapons and disguised as hair braids, but you may wish to avoid such things...

Ways to get natural weapons involve 5 levels in Druid or in a Ranger variant for Wildshape, 2 levels in Totemist, a level in Warshaper if you're shapechanger subtype, casting Alter Self, Polymorph, or Metamorphosis, being a Psychic Warrior and using any of their powers to get such things, being a kobold (Races of the Dragon web enhancement), being a lizardfolk, being Feral, and ... well, a variety of means.

Non-spell ways to enchant natural weapons include the Kensai prestige class from Complete Warrior (if of a single type, much cheaper than they would be if you tried to enchant that many normal weapons!), Thayan Gladiator prestige class (from... Champions of Ruin I think), Amulet of Mighty Fists (expensive), and Necklace of Natural Weapons (Savage Species)

Good sources of bonus damage are Sneak Attack (sometimes, get a pair of deathstrike bracers to mitigate the problems), Boosts from Warblade or Swordsage, being inspired by a bard, getting Greater Magic Weapon cast on your weapons, having a decent Strength (Power Surge from Kensai or Rage/Whirling Frenzy from Barbarian can help), Power Attacking and mitigating the loss of attack, Leap Attacking along with that and getting a full attack at the end of the charge (Lion Totem Barbarian from Complete Champion), and a variety of other things I'm sure someone else will be happy to explore.

KellKheraptis

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 2668
  • What's the matter? I thought you had me...
    • Email
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2011, 12:14:17 PM »
Reverent Blade + Hood sounds like what you're looking for, more or less. Look it up. The first is a PrC, the 2nd is a thread.

Well, sort of.  Best synergy there is a Revenant Blade Frenzied Berserker with Battle Jump, Leap Attack, and a Valorous Double Scimitar of Vaulting.  Power attack for full, dump AC, and charge, watching the bodies fall in droves.
BG's Resident Black Hatter
The Mango List Reborn!
My Warmage Trickery (coming soon!)
My PrC Pally Trickery (coming soon!)
The D&D Archive
-Work in progress!

Lycanthromancer

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 4003
    • Email
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2011, 05:08:20 PM »
For hard-hittingness with lots of attacks, there are a few ways to do this.

The first (and generally, best) way is lots of natural attacks. Druid, Totemist/Warblade, and Psychic Warrior are great ways to do this, and adding a dip for some unarmed swordsage definitely has its perks as well. You can also pull off a The Big Guy is With Me build, where you have an egoist psion with a psicrystal, and use Metamorphosis and other buffs to turn your pet rock into a melee beast from hell.

The second is to wield a two-handed weapon and something like armor spikes, a dancing weapon, an animated shield, or just take your race as something that has four arms (such as a thri-kreen), and Two-Weapon Fighting. This is a bit sub-optimal, as you take all sorts of penalties to attack, but it's doable.

Of course, if you go psychic warrior, you can have natural weapons, a buffed-to-hell psicrystal, AND TWF. Take Metamorphosis, Bite of the Wolf and Psionic Lion's Charge, the Illithid Grapple feat (x4), dual-wield lances with Spirited Charge, and turn your psicrystal into a 12-headed hydra, and you can hit really, REALLY hard whenever you make a full attack on a charge. 1 bite, 4 tentacles, a bunch of (x3) lance strikes, 12 hydra bites, and whatever other natural attacks you can grab from Metamorphosis.

Good stuff.
[spoiler]Masculine men like masculine things. Masculine men are masculine. Therefore, liking masculine men is masculine.

I dare anyone to find a hole in that logic.
______________________________________
[/spoiler]I'm a writer. These are my stories. Some are even SFW! (Warning: Mostly Gay.)
My awesome poster collection. (Warning, some are NSFW.)
Agita's awesome poster collection.
[spoiler]
+1 Lycanthromancer
Which book is Lycanthromancer in?
Lyca ... is in the book. Yes he is.
 :D
shit.. concerning psionics optimization, lycan IS the book
[/spoiler]

X-Codes

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 3941
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2011, 08:01:48 PM »
The first (and generally, best) way is lots of natural attacks. Druid, Totemist/Warblade, and Psychic Warrior are great ways to do this, and adding a dip for some unarmed swordsage definitely has its perks as well. You can also pull off a The Big Guy is With Me build, where you have an egoist psion with a psicrystal, and use Metamorphosis and other buffs to turn your pet rock into a melee beast from hell.
If your DM doesn't allow psionics, this can also be done with a Wizard and his Familiar.  Casting Haste, Polymorph, and Tenser's Transformation on your familiar yields awesome results.  Some people will say, however, that Psicrystals get feats and familiars don't, but I pretty much don't expect to ever see a Psicrystal with more than 1 feat in-game.

Another way to go if you want to hit hard with lots of attacks would probably be Monk 2 (Invisible Fist & Cobra Strike) -> Wizard -> Swiftblade.  With Haste, Flurry, and Snap Kick you get 4 attacks at full BAB -4.  With a form having a Claw/Claw/Bite routine you get 4 more at -9.  You get a pseudo-Skirmish ability from Swiftblade, so each of these attacks will be doing something in the neighborhood of 3d6+7 (some more, some less) with a decent strength, not accounting for stuff like enhancement bonuses.  Power Attack/Wraithstrike is also an option, so your real damage output will be a bit higher.

Goodlad

  • Ring-Tailed Lemur
  • **
  • Posts: 72
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2011, 05:09:29 PM »

Cheers for all the replies  :)

Took me a while to read through all the replies and look up the ideas your guys recommended so i understood them all.
Considering im making the char for someone new to dnd i dont want to make it too complicated on them.

What im thinking is Going for warblade, Reventant Blade, Eternal Blade.
They can get revenant blade at 6th then go straight into Eternal blade at 11th.

From what i see, the build will do fairly high damage output and get a good amount of attacks.

I can take power attack, which is make awesome by revenant blade. And then shock trooper t offset the minus to hit.

I might also trow in a dancing weapon to bring the damage up a bit more.

Mixster

  • Grape ape
  • *****
  • Posts: 1642
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2011, 05:44:08 PM »
Ways to get natural weapons involve 5 levels in Druid or in a Ranger variant for Wildshape, 2 levels in Totemist, a level in Warshaper if you're shapechanger subtype, casting Alter Self, Polymorph, or Metamorphosis, being a Psychic Warrior and using any of their powers to get such things, being a kobold (Races of the Dragon web enhancement), being a lizardfolk, being Feral, and ... well, a variety of means.

Or 6 levels of that monk variant!

Monks are pretty much the best designed class ever.

JaronK

Meep Meep - Mixster out

Saxony

  • Donkey Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 742
  • My avatar is from the anime "Pani Poni Dash!".
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2011, 10:08:22 PM »
In case you missed it, here's a handbook on barbarians: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8753.0

Barbarians are pretty simple. That handbook even gives you some effective builds to work with (near the end, here http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8753.msg294200#msg294200 ). It's also pretty funny.
If I say something about real world physics, and someone disagrees, assume I am right 90% of the time. This number goes up to 100% if I am late night posting - trust me, my star dust sibs.

nijineko

  • King Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 887
  • two strange quarks short of a graviton...
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2011, 02:25:07 AM »
arukibito ga michi wo erabu no ka, michi ga arukibito wo erabu no deshou ka?
Never game alone again!
KadoKado! Game for gifts!
The Ultimate Dice Rolling Engine

dark_samuari

  • Hong Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 1024
    • Email
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2011, 03:00:35 AM »
A simple Dungeon Crasher build is also a pretty viable option for a melee heavy hitter. Point the bulldozer in the direction and watch him do some serious devastation.

Lycanthromancer

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 4003
    • Email
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #11 on: April 19, 2011, 08:56:52 PM »
War-hulk/legacy champion to gain medium BAB and +OMGWTF Strength score?
[spoiler]Masculine men like masculine things. Masculine men are masculine. Therefore, liking masculine men is masculine.

I dare anyone to find a hole in that logic.
______________________________________
[/spoiler]I'm a writer. These are my stories. Some are even SFW! (Warning: Mostly Gay.)
My awesome poster collection. (Warning, some are NSFW.)
Agita's awesome poster collection.
[spoiler]
+1 Lycanthromancer
Which book is Lycanthromancer in?
Lyca ... is in the book. Yes he is.
 :D
shit.. concerning psionics optimization, lycan IS the book
[/spoiler]

CrimsonDeath

  • Curious George
  • ****
  • Posts: 316
    • Email
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2011, 11:29:42 PM »
War-hulk/legacy champion to gain medium BAB and +OMGWTF Strength score?
And top it off with Uncanny Trickster for the +BBQ.

Lycanthromancer

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 4003
    • Email
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #13 on: April 19, 2011, 11:42:35 PM »
War-hulk/legacy champion to gain medium BAB and +OMGWTF Strength score?
And top it off with Uncanny Trickster for the +BBQ.
Or just grab Polymorph. Alas.
[spoiler]Masculine men like masculine things. Masculine men are masculine. Therefore, liking masculine men is masculine.

I dare anyone to find a hole in that logic.
______________________________________
[/spoiler]I'm a writer. These are my stories. Some are even SFW! (Warning: Mostly Gay.)
My awesome poster collection. (Warning, some are NSFW.)
Agita's awesome poster collection.
[spoiler]
+1 Lycanthromancer
Which book is Lycanthromancer in?
Lyca ... is in the book. Yes he is.
 :D
shit.. concerning psionics optimization, lycan IS the book
[/spoiler]

Dawnmor

  • Domesticated Capuchin Monkey
  • **
  • Posts: 115
    • Email
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #14 on: April 20, 2011, 08:10:41 PM »
Well I have a different frame of mind when it comes to the BEST melee heavy hitters as its all out of perspective of the person who plays the character.  I have played Half ogre, Warhulk, Crusader or warblades, and such, played half orc using claws from being feral, been lycanthropes but in the end the best heavy hitters happen to be the agile characters.

For me, you need to be agile, with a high AC with little reward from damage.  Typically the heaviest hitter isnt exactly the one who wears the best and clanky armor.  Its actually the one who can survive the longest to get into flanking positions to assist the tank and other characters.  So here are a few suggestions that might fit your bill.

You need High Dex, High Wis, Str comes in for 3rd place, with a good Intelligence to boot.  But pump your Wis and Dex first and foremost.

Dwarf Swordsage (Unarmed variant is required) 4+, Fist of the Forest 3 (Con to AC), Swashbuckler 3 (Int to damage), Deepwarden 2 (Con to AC Again), and Mysterious Draconic PRC out of Draconimicon.  ((This will net you a decent AC, with damage as well as a good amount of damage, specially if you grab the Feat ((Shadowblade to get Dex to damage.)), later around 20 and depending on how high you got the Mysterious Draconic PRC, you can get around a 4d20 damage with Flurry at lvl 20 as the PRC boosts your damage output to the next Die and D20 is the highest you can get.

Or do a Soulknife/Swordsage with Shadowblade, boost Swordsage up and youll be good, as Soulknife gives you a Shortsword anyways, and the mindblade is a short sword in every respects except visually.

You also get a initiative boost too.  Its easy to get a +10 or more to initiative which helps you be a heavy hitter :).

But I suggest using a Kobold as a general race as you get a 30 speed :) compared to teh dWarf lol
« Last Edit: April 20, 2011, 08:19:02 PM by Dawnmor »

nijineko

  • King Kong
  • ****
  • Posts: 887
  • two strange quarks short of a graviton...
Re: Ideas for melee heavy hitter?
« Reply #15 on: April 21, 2011, 03:51:04 AM »

oh yeah, the build qualifies for both hulking hurler and warhulk. extra fun once i get him up high enough level.
arukibito ga michi wo erabu no ka, michi ga arukibito wo erabu no deshou ka?
Never game alone again!
KadoKado! Game for gifts!
The Ultimate Dice Rolling Engine