Sunder Anything (3.5e Optimized Character Build)
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This page is incomplete and/or lacking flavor. Reason: Table incomplete.
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Introduction
This character is built to charge in and break anything the defender happens to be holding. Then hits the defender just as hard. And in the following round, hits them again, about as hard.
References
- Complete Warrior
- Complete Adventurer
- Players Handbook
- PHB 2
- Magic Item Compendium
Game Rule Components
Spells, Powers, Soulmelds, Stances, etc...
Giant Growth or Enlarge Person for extra cheese
- Exotic Weapon Proficiency
- Power Attack
- Weapon Focus
- Weapon Specilization
- Improved Sunder
- Combat Brute
- Leap Attack
- Melee Weapon Mastery (Slashing)
- Raptor School
- Greater Weapon Focus
Items
Heavy Poleaxe (CAdv) for 2d6 damage, reach, 20/x3 crit.
+1 Mithril Full Plate (+12 AC)
+2 Addy Heavy Poleaxe (for Reaching Sunders)
or Adamantine Maul of the Titans (treated as +3 Greatclub) that does triple damage against inanimate objects, and Adamantine for hardness bypass
Boots of Striding and Springing (for both the +5 to Jump and +10' movement, I personally rarely go for any other boots)
Armbands of Might (for that last +2 of damage on those Power Attacks)
Cloak of Resist +1 (because it did more than a Periapt of Wisdom for my saves)
Ring of Protection +1 (for +1 cheap AC, total 23)
Progression
Starting Ability Scores (Before Racial Adjustments): 25 point build, not including Dwarf adjustments:
16 Str
14 Dex
12 Con
12 Int (for some tasty skill points of Jump, Tumble, and Climb)
9 Wis (wish I had either an extra point or an extra 1000gp to keep the will save from sucking)
8 Cha
Race (Templates): Any, but Human gets an extra feat for extra cheese.
Dwarves get bonus con, and can resist being moved around on the ground, and in Mithril Full Plate can tumble (for extra sillyness).
Starting Racial Traits:
| ECL | Class/HD/LA | Base Attack Bonus |
Saving Throws | Feats | Class Features |
Special | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort | Ref | Will | ||||||
| 1st | <- class, racial HD, or LA -> | + | + | + | + | <- feat(s) -> | <- class features gained -> | <- other stuff -> |
| 2nd | <- class, racial HD, or LA -> | + | + | + | + | <- feat(s) -> | <- class features gained -> | <- other stuff -> |
| 3rd | <- class, racial HD, or LA -> | + | + | + | + | <- feat(s) -> | <- class features gained -> | <- other stuff -> |
| 4th | <- class, racial HD, or LA -> | + | + | + | + | <- feat(s) -> | <- class features gained -> | <- other stuff -> |
Other Components
Fighter (because you need the feats)
Just advance as Fighter and take the feats in order as listed under Feats and get max ranks in Jump, 5 ranks in Tumble. Max ranks in Tumble for a dwarf. Take whatever other skills you want, I went with Climb.
Put 4th advancement attribute into Strength to get the early even-out, and then your 8th into Inteligence, if you need the skills. Wisdom if you need the will save.
Highlights
Leap Attack does triple power attack damage on a charge. Cleaving Sunder (Combat Brute) gives you a free melee attack after you successfully break a wielded item on a sunder. Eagle's Swoop (Raptor School) grants +4 damage (on a DC 24 jump check, which at max ranks you should be able to make, especially with the bonus +2 from Armbands of Might). Hawk's Eye (Raptor School) means you can spend up to 3 full round actions studying your opponent for +2 to hit each time!
The Weapon Focus, etc. feats add attack and damage bonuses (especially Melee Weapon Mastery, which grants +2 to attack AND damage, and requires Focus and Spec)
A +2 Adamantine Heavy Poleaxe wielded by a Strength 20 level 10 fighter does 2d6+13 damage. Power Attacking for 6 on a charge with the 10 foot jump (Leap Attack) and the DC 24 Eagle's Swoop makes it +21 to hit and does 2d6+55 damage (bypassing hardness less than 20). It will break any item in the game--almost. And then you get a free attack on the wielder at the same to hit (-4? Combat Brute isn't clear on weather or not you retain the +4 from Improved Sunder), doing the same damage. Can you say, "Fort Save vs. massive damage"?
A PA of -10 does 2d6+79 with a +16 sunder, +12 attack: decent chance of success at level 10 (especially if the sunder broke a shield).
And the next round you can use Combat Brute's Momentum Swing (Power Attack for 5) and get x3 damage instead of x2 for that attack. Why break just his shield? Sundering Cleave his weapon too! For extra cheese, charge someone else for x9 damage (instead of the previous charge's x6) using both Momentum Swing and Leap Attack (look carefully! They multiply two different things!).
Combat Reflexes is handy to take Attacks of Opportunity when your foes decide to close with you. Alternatively, get the Short Haft feat (PHB2) to switch between Reach and No-Reach.
Munchkin-Size Me
Frenzied Berzerker 5 for extra Power Attack Damage. Why have x2 when you can have x3? Which then tripples to x9 from Leap Attack. Thanks to Sveanty for the suggestion. Sadly, it didn't make it into my 10 level build (5 Frenzy + 6 Fighter). Does leave you with enough feats to pull of the cheese (8, or 9 if human). [edit] A level in barbarian or someway to get rage ability will be needed as well before you can even get the qualifying feats to even take this PrC. The feats cannot be picked as a fighter bonus feat either.
More Strength Bonuses. My build was a 25 point build (was for a specific game), and as such only had 20 Strength after magic items. 22 str is not unreasonable. Giant Growth, Enlarge Person, Torc of the Titans, Brute Gauntlets, anything to make you bigger will also add significant power to those swings. Not to mention making the weapon larger.
Powerful Charge from Eberron, +1d8 damage on a charge
Greater Powerful Charge--why be medium when you can be treated as large? +2d6 damage!
Shock Trooper (tacticle feat) Comp Warrior. Why take pentalties to hit, when you can take penalties to AC? Add Rolibar's Gambit (PH2, BAB +12) for extra cheese! Have AC of "no" and get another attack when hit!
Take 3 levels of Knight (PHB2) and make the ground you threaten difficult terrain. No more 5 foot steps to close! But on the downside of the Knight's Code, which if broken causes a -2 penalty to attack for the rest of the day.
Frost Giant Intermediate Bloodline from UA. It'll give you a str bonus, Improved Sunder and Powerattack as bonus feats. Also, if you are using the D20 Systems Ultimate Equipment Guide, your weapon should be Star's Heart as it ignores Hardness. Furthermore if you are Using frenzy or rage, take the feat Khyber's Fury (Can't remember the book off the top of my head but I can tell you its probably on crystalkeep.com) as it will add more STR bonus to ur rage/frenzy.
Expert Tactitian (CAdv 109) if you're taking a lot of AoO, you and your allies +2 to hit and +2 damage.
If you feel like forgoing some fighter levels you may want to get a template for large size or become a Half-ogre. This will qualify you for the Warhulk Prestige class i believe. That class gives you a STR bonus for every level.
Side Notes
Use Eagle's Eye the first round of combat, two if you can! That's the difference between +55 damage and +67! Or the difference of +2 to hit, which at +20, you really should be making all the time at level 10.
Limitations
Only does ungodly broken damage when charging. Shouldn't be too hard to make the charge.
Low Con and low Wis scores. Even as a Dwarf this 25 point build has a relatively low con. +2 more would grant 10 hit points, +1 Fort save, and with Steadfast Determination, +1 Will save. Low Wis (w/o Steadfast Determination) hurts Will save, which as a melee character hurts if you end up facing things that start Charming you, which in turn hurts your allies.
Assuming my reading of Leap Attack is correct, it says "If using a two-handed weapon you instead [of double damage because of a one-handed weapon] triple the extra damage from Power Attack." PA does -N attack +2N damage. Tripled would be x6. If I'm wrong and it's only x4 (x2 + x3 = x4 in D&D) it does +43 instead of +55 damage. If I am again wrong and the triple replaces the PA double, then +37 damage; or still significant and can break just about anything you'd want to.
DM Counters
Adamantine items, but you're still doing enough damage to not care.
There is a sheild that has enough hit points that it MIGHT withstand the blow. Oh well, break it next turn.
Not being able to charge! Oh noez, rubble. Get Freedom of Movement. Or the Fleet of Foot to change direction and get around other obstacles.
No items to break, or ones with obsurd amounts of hardness (such as paper that has been Hardened, as per the spell Hardness 60 times).
Mind Effecting spells. Charm, Compulsion, anything to turn you against your allies or to keep you from breaking their stuff (and beating them to a bloody pulp).
Mirror Image, Mirror Image mass. Which isn't dispelled by area of effect spells, so either you're going to need someone to Counterspell or Dispel it. Or someone to go first and just whack at it until there's only the real one left (while you study with Eagle's Eye if there's a very good chance that they can get rid of all the images).
Also, one can take Spellgaunts shiny adamantine goodies away from them.
Miscellaneous
Thanks to a great many friends who helped tweak this build to make it just that much more obsurd, Minky, Flame Stryke, CogDissident, Sveanty, and to Bill for running the One Shot this build was built for.
Page could probably use a once over to fix mistakes and duplicated information, it's 4am and I probably bungled a number of things.
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