Deadly Stroke and Friends Advice/Help

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

So I am building out the feats with a 2h fighter.

Anyhow, I'm looking over the "deadly stroke" feat tree and its prerequisites. Included are: Shattered Defenses and Dazzling Display.

Now I'm also looking at and thinking about taking Cornugon Smash and Dreadful Carnage. Looking them both over, these two seem to be kind of redundant to have in the build. Cornugon Smash could be attempted to demoralize the opponent via intimidation when I Power Attack and Dreadful Carnage is used when I reduce an opponent to 0HP to demoralize ALL within 30 feet of me.

So I'm trying to figure out if it's worth it to have Cornugon Smash or Dreadful Carnage, or BOTH in the build...

Basically I figured that the way the first two rounds would go like this if taking and utilizing Cornugon Smash & Dreadful Carnage in the build. This is chalking up Dazzling Display as something I don't use other than to fill in a prerequisite:
Round 1-
*Power Attack
*Cornugon Smash (as a free action from PA)
Round 2-
*Shattered Defenses comes into play from the Cornugon Smash (if I demoralized the opponent) allowing me to...
*Use Power Attack again along with the Deadly Stroke having qualified for it due to the prerequisite of Shattered Defenses and utilizing the demoralizing effects of the Cornagon Smash.
Round 3-
*If I reduced the enemy to 0 HP, then I could do Dreadful Carnage here as a Free Action to hit every enemy within 30 feet with an intimidate and could just go do town on them one at at time using the PA/DS combo and rinse/repeat this as I continue to the other opponents in the subsequent rounds.

OR is it better to utilize only the Dazzling Display to set things up (hitting every opponent within 30 feet) to help the party out and not worry about Cornagon Smash and/or Dreadful Carnage which would then open another feat slot or 2 for something else?

It seems to me that Dreadful Carnage and Dazzling Display are pretty much the same thing, but Dazzling Display is REQUIRED of the build and Dreadful Carnage is NOT.

This would play out like this:
Round 1-
*Skip attacking and move into place to flank someone and then...
*Dazzling Display (attempt to demoralize every opponent within 30 feet of me)
Round 2-
*Shattered Defenses kicks in allowing me to...
*PA/Deadly Stroke the closest opponent who was demoralized from my Dazzling Display.
Round 3-
*Same as Round 2 if Intimidate is still in effect.

So any thoughts/ideas/critiques/advice would be appreciated.

 

[Systole]

You're going to be building for Intimidate, so you might as well be able to use it at every opportunity. Also, you're making the mistake of thinking every battle is going to go down with you being able to cleanly move/flank/DD/whatever and that opponents never make their Will saves. Battles NEVER happen like that.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Oh yeah, I know battles never work out the way that we expect. This was an example of a "perfect scenario." I know that thus far in the Serpent Skulls AP we have been playing in has had a lot of undead and the intimidate wouldn't even work on them, so that may be another thing for me to really think about if the AP continues with undead and the feats actually become useless...

I'm just wondering if the two additional feats would be worth grabbing to use with the build or if I should go into a different feat tree all together and get some more utility out of the fighter. I was also looking at something to do with the vital strike tree, bull rush tree, and lunge.

I want to be able to output a good amount of damage and help control the battlefield to our advantage. I know no build is perfect, but I'm looking for the best synergy in my build to be able to take advantage of the best feats.

 

[Systole]

Then it comes down to things like group synergy, type of campaign, and what you want to play.

Basically: Does your group have enough people to take advantage of enemies fleeing in all directions? Does your campign feature enemies who are capable of fleeing in all directions? Do you want to play a neat-trick character or a utility character? Do you have enough utility left over when the neat trick does a major bellyflop off the high dive board?

All those questions really come out of personal experience with your particular game. In my opinion. You may also want to sumbit this to the Ask Viktor column here.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

What level are you starting at? Dreadful Carnage makes all the other intimidation feats obsolete, IMO, but you can't get it till level 11, putting it out of reach for most. You're correct, all those feats are a waste to have since there's so much overlap. One thing to remember is that a Fighter can swap his bonus feats every few levels, even to gain a feat that he could not have qualified for at the level he took the old feat, so long as it doesn't cut the legs out of a feat tree he has. So you could always say...take Cornugon Smash when it comes available, then trade it for Dreadful Carnage later. The main problem with Cornugon Smash is...it's also not immediately available, and things you power attack have the unfortunate tendency to...die. Which makes intimidating them kinda pointless.

I think Deadly Stroke is a terrible feat and would not build towards it. Likewise, the time it takes to use Dazzling Display makes it very unattractive, so you may want to nix that entire feat tree. (And Shatter Defenses is mostly good for a Rogue w/ SA or a Monk w/ Medusa's Wrath, it's doing little for you)
If you want Dazzling Display though, consider dipping Cavalier 2 levels for Order of the Cockatrice. You get Braggart, which is basically Dazzling Display, but better.

I would consider if I were you getting the Blade of Mercy trait and using the Enforcer feat. It leaves foes shaken for a LONG time. Some foes are immune to nonlethal, but they tend to be the ones immune to fear as well anyway. You can then supplement it w/ Dreadful Carnage later. Or take Enforcer, swap for Cornugon as soon as you can, then swap that for dreadful carnage as soon as you can.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

What level are you starting at? Dreadful Carnage makes all the other intimidation feats obsolete, IMO, but you can't get it till level 11, putting it out of reach for most. You're correct, all those feats are a waste to have since there's so much overlap. One thing to remember is that a Fighter can swap his bonus feats every few levels, even to gain a feat that he could not have qualified for at the level he took the old feat, so long as it doesn't cut the legs out of a feat tree he has. So you could always say...take Cornugon Smash when it comes available, then trade it for Dreadful Carnage later. The main problem with Cornugon Smash is...it's also not immediately available, and things you power attack have the unfortunate tendency to...die. Which makes intimidating them kinda pointless.

I think Deadly Stroke is a terrible feat and would not build towards it. Likewise, the time it takes to use Dazzling Display makes it very unattractive, so you may want to nix that entire feat tree. (And Shatter Defenses is mostly good for a Rogue w/ SA or a Monk w/ Medusa's Wrath, it's doing little for you)
If you want Dazzling Display though, consider dipping Cavalier 2 levels for Order of the Cockatrice. You get Braggart, which is basically Dazzling Display, but better.

I would consider if I were you getting the Blade of Mercy trait and using the Enforcer feat. It leaves foes shaken for a LONG time. Some foes are immune to nonlethal, but they tend to be the ones immune to fear as well anyway. You can then supplement it w/ Dreadful Carnage later. Or take Enforcer, swap for Cornugon as soon as you can, then swap that for dreadful carnage as soon as you can.

Good points [MENTION=35909]StreamOfTheSky[/MENTION] we are starting at level 4. We talked a little about this character build a couple of weeks ago when I was thinking of going straight up barbarian. This character is taking the first two levels in barbarian (more for role-playing than for build optimization) and then the rest of the levels in fighter so he's currently level 2/2 is where I'm building from.

I really do see your point about how Deadly Stroke could be a bad idea and it is pretty feat intensive. I guess I was just looking for something to be able to do a decent amount of damage on enemies and give the party some utility at the same time. I guess I should have given some background on what the party make-up is as well.

We have: a level 4 witch, level 4 monk, level 4 oracle, and level 2/2 magus/alchemist. So we don't really have a tank, especially with my dip into barbarian, though at later levels I figure I'll be able to wear some nicer armor without the movement impairing effects due to being mostly fighter. I'm not wanting to be a tank though, so I went with this character for flavor and since he's not a tank I want him to be a dpr beast, being able to get into casters and ranged faces and slaughter them before they can do much damage to the party (hence the step up & strike feats I'm taking). My biggest problem right now if fleshing out the rest of the build after my current levels. I keep going back and forth with myself on going with deadly stroke or vital strike feats and which (if any) additional critical line feats to take outside of critical focus and improved critical. I probably should have posted asking for more advice on a dpr beast build utilizing a 2h fighter for 18 levels w/o any fighter archetypes.