Just for fun I put together a Crusader build (Fighter/Paladin) using the Unbroken class and the Paladin order that provides extra engagement when wielding a shield. The results were awesome/hilarious.
I jacked up Resolve and Con to max, and enjoyed a Deflection bonus so high when wielding a large shield that even if the enemies I fought rolled a natural 100 on the attack roll, they couldn’t score a crit on me.
I could engage up to SEVEN enemies at once and would have 13 armor base. This, coupled with having nearly 200 hit points and an Athletic skill such that I could gain 124 from using it made me pretty much invincible. I mean, not really, I did almost lose that fight, but with the modal on the shield* the back row of dart shooters couldn’t hurt me much, my resistances were so high I was almost immune to the paralysis effect on said darts, and the more enemies that engaged me the less damage I took (fighter defensive stance), 5% per enemy up to 15% reduction.
So yes, I nearly died, but I managed it without potions and I took out ALL FIVE ENEMIES myself and soaked almost 300 damage doing it, while the rest of my party said with their AI turned off in the back of the map. It was glorious. Talk about a tanky build!
*The modal ability for Large Shield Proficiency gives you a 50% reduction in damage from ranged and reflex based attacks but you can’t move. That’s fine with me, I was planted at a choke point anyway. Toggling Modal abilities off and on doesn’t cost any recovery and the cooldown is very short (maybe just 1-3 seconds?) so I could actually turn it off, charge the ranged attackers once the melee was down, and put it back up since they continued to use darts against me in melee range).
Next up - someone asked for a Mindstalker build, a Cipher/Rogue, and I think I have come up with a good one, so once the household wakes up I’ll record some footage of it.