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Jul 15, 2012 -- 5:48PM, Cheese_It wrote:

A warforged fighter  can use a 2 hander & attach a shield if your really set on using one.

No they can't. You can't wield anything with a shield hand. An attached heavy shield hand can hold things as if it was a light shield, but the light shield is unchanged if attached.

Jul 15, 2012 -- 5:42PM, Armisael wrote:

And? Ignore Zhara's words here - WIS *IS* your secondary. This is because Will is the most powerful NAD defense, it opens up access to Superior Will, and it has feats such as Marked Scourge and Slashing Storm to make you harder to ignore. All DEX gets you is a weapon mastery feat, and you don't really need the mastery.

Anyway, if you want more AC, BCL is good, but the real killer is not it - it's Bloodiron Armor. Get it and then go to work. The +2 to AC is a lifesaver, and will keep your armor class decent throughout your career.

And if you'de bothered to look at the statscore I built for him, it intentionally made sure he qualified for superior will. He also qualifies for superior reflexes, which he's going to need to compete if he's not going to wear a shield of any variety. Wis, as good as it is, when stacked up as high as he's got it, is hurting his defenses too much to justify. Without having some kind of direct defensive feature benefiting from wis (say an AC bonus), he's going to need to split his scores up more. 

Having 17 dex gves you a LOT more than a weapon mastery feat. For example, you can pick up  Defensive advantage, which is a stacking +2 AC bonus on CA, which he's likely to have if he's got another melee. (Admittedly, he's got an avenger, but I have no idea what censure it is, so I've no idea if it will be with the group.) He can get Scale spec, which will also be necessary for patching up his weak AC. Most imporantly, he can get Heavy Blade oportunity, which will let him use an at-will on op attacks and still get the benefit from his Combat Challenge that you're so eager to buff.

Jul 15, 2012 -- 8:11PM, Armisael wrote:

I don't care about combat challenge (which is combat superiority, rather). The important part is not getting hit by stuns and dominates, particularly the latter. That is worth far, far more than HBO, mastery, and defensive advantage, as one's mostly useless, one is handy but not particularly on-role, and one loses value as you level, because less attacks target AC each tier.

He's playing a home game, there's no telling what defenses get attacked less or more at high teir. I also disagree that scale spec is a feat that gets worse as you level. Sure +1 to ac isn't much, but when you're short on defensive stats to begin with because you've got a giant sword, you need every point you can game out of the system. He's also only losing out on 1 point of will with the stat score I gave him, as he's probably going to continue leveling it afterwards. There is no reason to have wisdom 20 at level 8 on a fighter. Split-primary-scoring with an offstat that doesn't give you some sort of super-pertinent class feature is just a bad plan all around.

The build you're suggesting also leaves him with a gaping hole in the reflex department, as he won't get 15 reflex until epic without dropping points into it. It means that every Todd, Chuck, and Jane with a dress and a staff will hit him with ease.