Shielded brawler and 3x shield use

[SpiffyJr]

Just pick what you think you'll need the most and spend them as they come up. Deflection training and mastery you can put off until later. Get three ranks.of.focus and brawler asap. Same with swiftness. Pick up steady shield when you have the points free.

[SpiffyJr]

Just wanted to post an update since I swapped back to hauberk/buckler.

Skill name             Mnemonic        Ranks
Combat Focus           focus             5
Dirtkick               dirtkick          5
Stun Maneuvers         stunman           2
Subdual Strike         sstrike           3
Combat Mobility        mobility          2
Combat Toughness       toughness         1
Block Mastery          bmastery          3
Evade Mastery          emastery          3
Cunning Defense        cdefense          5
Punch Mastery          punchmastery      3
Kick Mastery           kmastery          3

Skill name             Mnemonic        Ranks
Small Shield Focus     sfocus            3
Shield Bash            bash              3
Shield Swiftness       swiftness         3
Shielded Brawler       brawler           5
Deflection Training    dtraining         2
Deflect the Elements   deflect           1
Steady Shield          steady            2
Tortoise Stance        tortoise          3

Available Shield Training Points: 117

Likely shield candidates are finishing focus, deflection training 3, deflection mastery, and then guard mastery or maybe disarming presence. Maybe shield charge for defense.

Note: a buckler incurs a 15 penalty over tower for Trample (tower: 0, large: -5, medium: -10, small: -15). This makes using trample as a small race impractical. My kill potential, however, skyrocketed and I murder much faster even with 102/tortoise stance on.

A gnomish mugger swings a longsword at you!
  AS: +424 vs DS: +415 with AvD: +25 + d100 roll: +100 = +134
   ... and hits for 3 points of damage!
   Tap to the arm pricks some interest but not much else.

 ** Your vultite chain hauberk releases a shimmering beam of disintegration at the gnomish mugger! **

   ... 20 points of damage!
   Portions of musculature disappear, revealing bones beneath!
   The mugger's longsword falls to the ground.
   The gnomish mugger is stunned!

Sample capped bandit hit. Self-spelled - 101, 102, 103, 401, and Symbol of Protection. 5x armor, 4x shield.

[SpiffyJr]

And here's the shield mans I settled on. The only thing up for debate is whether or not I'll drop either disarming presence/tortoise stance for guard mastery 3. I really like guarding people.

Skill name             Mnemonic        Ranks
Small Shield Focus     sfocus            3
Shield Bash            bash              3
Shield Charge          charge            1
Shield Swiftness       swiftness         3
Shielded Brawler       brawler           5
Deflection Training    dtraining         3
Deflection Mastery     dmastery          5
Deflect the Elements   deflect           1
Steady Shield          steady            2
Disarming Presence     dpresence         3
Tortoise Stance        tortoise          3

Available Shield Training Points: 1

[Orthin]

Awesome! Appreciate all this info!

[SpiffyJr]

Disarming Presence sucks as much as I thought it would so I'm dropping it in favor of guard mastery rank 3.