Quote Originally Posted by Elkad View Post
Leverage Therapeutic Mantle (Incarnum) or similar on a melee toon for solid self-healing in combat, while still being combat effective.
Preferably with Trip or some similar area control to actually fulfill a "tank" role. Keep the bad guys away from the squishies in the back, make them think they are accomplishing something while poking holes in me, and then tank the damage through DR/selfheals/etc.

One idea. Lots of strikes while in Martial Spirit stance? For 4+(2*essentia) per hit.

P.S. I like moving reasonably quickly.
Lvl
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features
1 Incarnate +0 +2 +0 +2 Shape Soulmeld: Therapeutic Mantle Aura, Detect Opposition
2 Incarnate +1 +3 +0 +3 Chakra Bind, Crown
3 Incarnate +1 +3 +1 +3 Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Kusari Gama Expanded Soulmeld Capacity, Incarnum Radiance 1/day
4 Incarnate +2 +4 +1 +4 Chakra Bind (Feet, Hands)
5 Crusader +3 +6 +1 +4 Steely Resolve 5, Furious Counterstrike
6 Fighter +4 +8 +1 +4 Combat Expertise, Improved Trip(B)
7 Fighter +5 +9 +1 +4 Knock-down
8 Soldier of Light +6 +11 +1 +4 Turn Undead, Detect Undead
9 Soldier of Light +7 +12 +1 +4 Two Weapon Fighting Divine Grace, Smite Undead
10 Soldier of Light +8 +12 +2 +5 Positive Fortitude
11 Soldier of Light +9 +13 +2 +5 Energon Companion
12 Soldier of Light +10 +13 +2 +5 Awesome Smite Divine Vengeance
13 Soldier of Light +11 +14 +3 +6
14 Soldier of Light +12 +14 +3 +6 Fast Healing 1
15 Soldier of Light +13 +15 +3 +6 Combat Reflexes Energon Companion, Positive Energy Burst
16 Ordained Champion +14 +17 +3 +8 War Domain
17 Ordained Champion +15 +18 +3 +9 Diehard, Smite
18 Contemplative +15 +18 +3 +11 Cobalt Expertise Bonus Domain, Divine Health
19 Contemplative +16 +18 +3 +12 Slippery Mind
20 Crusader +17 +19 +3 +12

Lets break this down bit by bit! Incarnate 4, increases your soulmeld’s essentia capacity by 1. This means we can eventually put 5 essentia into the Therapeutic Mantle. Which means +10 healing every time it ticks. It also gives us ⅘ essentia that we need to fill the mantle. We also get some maneuverability from our bound soulmeld. Crusader 1 gives us Crusader Strike and Martial Spirit. So by level 5 we have our basis. Whenever we hit something we heal ourself for 2+2+2*essentia, this sets us up for the end game to heal ourself for 84 points of damage if we hit with all our strikes + haste. Fighter, we needed feats, we needed BAB. Enough said. And now Soldier of Light! Lovely prestige class. You get turn undead, you get smiting (more on that later) and you get the fun Energon Companions. They sit back and heal you for 1d8 (they need a ranged touch to hit you) or 1d6 (they just touch you) each round. They can boost that to 3d8+5 or 1d6 + 2d8+5 5 times per day. That means when they both snipe you from 120 ft away with their rays they heal you for a total of 2d8+24 each round (averages out to 33 healing/round) We also got ourself fast healing 1, buecase we don’t heal enough. Now we grab levels in ordained champion. 2 of them. For Smite. Smite is a fun ability that lets us turn our Turn attempts into Smite attacks using our turning level for bonuses to damage. 3+cha mod smites/day, grab a nightstick and you got yourself 7+cha mod smites/day. We aren’t dumping Cha (of course we need all our stats so…. We’re screwed in that department). These smites let us deal additional damage to any creature, and let us trigger Awesome Smite. Which gives us free trip attempts on those that we smite! YAY! Contemplative is there to give you whatever domain you want to stick onto this. And our final level of crusader gets us the better strike that heals someone (forgot what its called, doesn’t matter to much since its a standard action to activate.

So you have two kusuri Gamas, which are 1H spiked chains (keeps the reach and striking adjacent, and the bonus to trip or disarm). Allowing you to strike with your offhand weapon for more healing. You have Improved Trip and Knockdown to increase how much people are knocked down. You have awesome smite to allow you to trigger knockdown more often, and get more attacks (because you smite them, then get to trigger awesome smite’s knockdown and knockdown) and then get to hit them again.