Building a fighter for beginners?

[Sronzer]

Something about me. I am mostly a action game player and have never played table-tops before. I have 60+ hours in P:K now but most of the stat systems and dice rolls still confuse the hell out of me(even after reading up a lot of stuff on the internet). So i would like help from veterans here to build a simple but effective BAB oriented fighter that i could play at higher difficulties.

My current build is a generic fighter. Im avoiding multi-classing because firstly, i find it too complex, and secondly my fighter is crit oriented. So im going for that passive at level 20 which auto confirms all crit rolls. My idea for a fighter is a BAB monster who i can just sic on an enemy and then put my hands behind my back.

Simply put, maximum AC for defense and for offense: x4 critical hit damage with serpent prince with high strength. Just BAB everything to death.

At higher difficulties going solo wont be effective so i am planning to spec Valerie as a super tanky tripper while i use Serpent Prince to coup-de-grace everyone. Since my build requires minimal min maxing and is revolving around the Serpent Prince(which i heard is good for endgame) here are the feats i use(currently level 12):

Level 1:
-Weapon Proficiency Fauchard
-Weapon Focus Fauchard
-Heavy Armor Focus

Level 2
Dodge

Level 3
Skill Focus Athletics

Level 4
Weapon Specialization Fauchard

Level 5
Combat Reflexes
Weapon Training Polearms

Level 6
Hammer The Gap

Level 7
Persuasive

Level 8
Improved Critical

Level 9
-Greater Weapon Focus Fauchard
-Weapon Training-Hammers,maces and flails
-weapon training polearms

Level 10
Critical Focus

Level 11
Sickening Critical

Level 12
Greater Weapon Specialization Fauchard

Currently using Heavy Armor.

So can anyone help me improve my build? Currently i am going solo on story teller difficulty and i will start using companions at higher difficulties but i still want my main character to be as tanky as possible.
What equipment i should look for besides Serpent Prince?
Which Stat and Skills should i invest in the most?

[Mork]

first you really need power attack

toughness, iron will and imp. iron will and also blind fight will help

[cjwasright]

Just wondering, does the athletics skill affect combat in any way or is it solely for the purposes of dialogue events?

[dwarfpcfan]

Power attack is essential, blind fight is absolutely essential late game to deal with the gaze attacks of the wild hunt. Vivisectionist levels are basically a given for "fighter" builds that are gunning for unfair difficulty.

Mind you Kinetic Knight is a better fighter then the fighter class so that's worth consideration.

[Ricochet]

Originally posted by cjwasright:

Just wondering, does the athletics skill affect combat in any way or is it solely for the purposes of dialogue events?

I'm also curious about this.

[Orange]

OP, it would help if we knew your ability scores and race

But assuming what you want is a damage dealer ( and without knowing the scores ), i would've gone something like this:

1st - Weapon Focus
3rd - Combat Expertise ( covers all your AC needs without having to spend 2 feats )
5th - Trip ( you're using a Fauchard might aswell capitalize on that +2 trip the weapon gives )
7th - Greater Trip
9th - Critical Focus
11th - Iron Will
13th - Greater Iron Will
15th - Blinding Critical

Fighter feats: 1st Fauchard Feat, 2nd Power Attack, 4th Weapon Specialization, 6th Greater Weapon Focus, 8th Improved Critical, 12th Greater Weapon Specialization, 14th Penetrating Strike or Combat Reflexes ( if dex is 14 or above )

Originally posted by cjwasright:

Just wondering, does the athletics skill affect combat in any way or is it solely for the purposes of dialogue events?

Originally posted by Ricochet:

I'm also curious about this.

It is used in combat for somethings, like getting out of binds ( like web effects ) or avoiding some spells like tsunami. ( Techniquely also grapples but i've never seen one )

[ELVIS]

This thread makes me wonder what Feats the game chooses if you enable auto-level up.

[xunlaiAgent]

Originally posted by dwarfpcfan:

Power attack is essential, blind fight is absolutely essential late game to deal with the gaze attacks of the wild hunt. Vivisectionist levels are basically a given for "fighter" builds that are gunning for unfair difficulty.

Can't you just use freedom of movement spell?

[Orange]

Originally posted by xunlaiAgent:

Can't you just use freedom of movement spell?

You can, but if we're talking about a self-sufficient character it might make sense taking Blind-Fight for gaze immunity and rerolling against miss chance

Rather than relying on buffs

[Sronzer]

Originally posted by Orange:

OP, it would help if we knew your ability scores and race

But assuming what you want is a damage dealer ( and without knowing the scores ), i would've gone something like this:

1st - Weapon Focus
3rd - Combat Expertise ( covers all your AC needs without having to spend 2 feats )
5th - Trip ( you're using a Fauchard might aswell capitalize on that +2 trip the weapon gives )
7th - Greater Trip
9th - Critical Focus
11th - Iron Will
13th - Greater Iron Will
15th - Blinding Critical

Fighter feats: 1st Fauchard Feat, 2nd Power Attack, 4th Weapon Specialization, 6th Greater Weapon Focus, 8th Improved Critical, 12th Greater Weapon Specialization, 14th Penetrating Strike or Combat Reflexes ( if dex is 14 or above )

Originally posted by cjwasright:

Just wondering, does the athletics skill affect combat in any way or is it solely for the purposes of dialogue events?

Originally posted by Ricochet:

I'm also curious about this.

It is used in combat for somethings, like getting out of binds ( like web effects ) or avoiding some spells like tsunami. ( Techniquely also grapples but i've never seen one )

My race is human. I distibuted my stats as:
16/15/14/14/10/8

Every 5 levels whenever i get another point i invest it in strength since i am using heavy armor which limits my dex bonus to AC.

My char isnt supposed to be a glass cannon rather than a tanky bruiser. He is supposed to be able to hit like a truck with improved critical and on my Serpent Prince with the level 20 trait giving me x4 critical damage modifier.
At the same time being as tanky as possible with high AC scores. Currently my AC is 34 and i am in the middle of chapter 2. But i have seen so-called squishy classes like kineticist's have 64 AC in endgame so i dunno how tanky i am currently with 34 AC at chap 2.

My build is supposed to be as simple as possible with minimal micro management required. Just switch AI control on then cross my fingers in front of my face and smile evilly as my char just kills everyone.

[xunlaiAgent]

But i have seen so-called squishy classes like kineticist's have 64 AC in endgame so i dunno how tanky i am currently with 34 AC at chap 2.

Well casters can get very high AC in end game because of some op spells. But you don't really need all your characters to be that tanky.

[Orange]

Originally posted by Sronzer:

My race is human. I distibuted my stats as:
16/15/14/14/10/8

Every 5 levels whenever i get another point i invest it in strength since i am using heavy armor which limits my dex bonus to AC.

My char isnt supposed to be a glass cannon rather than a tanky bruiser. He is supposed to be able to hit like a truck with improved critical and on my Serpent Prince with the level 20 trait giving me x4 critical damage modifier.
At the same time being as tanky as possible with high AC scores. Currently my AC is 34 and i am in the middle of chapter 2. But i have seen so-called squishy classes like kineticist's have 64 AC in endgame so i dunno how tanky i am currently with 34 AC at chap 2.

My build is supposed to be as simple as possible with minimal micro management required. Just switch AI control on then cross my fingers in front of my face and smile evilly as my char just kills everyone.

Here's the problem with your premise... its a 2h fighter and Heavy Armor is not best way to achieve high AC at late levels.

The only way you'll have to boost your AC will be through amulets of natural armor + ring of deflection + ring of shield so at best netting you a total of +12 AC

Assuming you're investing all str every 4 levels, thats a total of 20 str and 16 dex at level 20. Adding a belt of physical perfection for another +6 Str/Dex thats another +6 to AC (assuming you have the armor trainning).

Now assuming you're wearing a +5 full-plate armor, thats 14 armor bonus

So final math is 10+14+12+6 = 42 AC
And 26 Touch AC

This mostly happens because of fighters lack of advanced weapon and armor trainning from the Pathfinder rulebooks which would help boosting it further.


If you had a shield we could boost it by another 9 ( shield feats and +5 heavy shield ) netting us 51 AC but as you can see it pales vs late game Dex builds and most defensive caster builds ( but these last ones dont even rely on AC but rather miss chance ). But on the other hand you have far more HP, BAB and weapon damage

[Shadenuat]

My basic set up for 2H characters looks something like this: 20 str, weapon spec, dazzling display, PA, intimidating > all the way to shatter defences. The rest you can fill with various damage feats. The best endgame 2H weapon is arguably 2H Axe with flat bonus damage. If you actually want feats for +saves, pick Iron Will and Improved Iron Will. These are actually somewhat useful.

If you want pure 2h Fighter, go 20 levels 2 handed Fighter. Extremely basic but perfectly damaging. Friendly Alchemist can give you Shield, blind sense (and thus immunity to gazes) & Legendary Proportions.

Sometimes I pick Blind Fight like moment I can, because of how frustrating it is to fight naturally concealed enemies like that Concealed Bacon of Death near Tristian and because it takes time to get to spells countering this stuff; or I pick it on whole party at level 15 or so because in endgame you can get Dispelled and then ggwp.

[Uzkin]

In order to build a strong fighter the most important thing is to bring at least a couple of melee allies with you, and have every frontliner take the team feat Outflank as soon as possible, and preferably Combat Reflexes too if your chars have good DEX. Everything else is secondary.

If you insist on using only your fighter + Valerie on the frontline then you will lose a lot of potential damage (because Val doesn't proc that feat very often for you, nor does she benefit much of it if you proc it for her). But even in this case, Outflank is a good pick... it simply is that powerful.