[Locust]

Greetings and all that, I'm new here, but did have a quick question while I mull through some character ideas.

As the title suggests, I was wondering how viable two handed warriors are on this server (if at all). I really love the archetype, but most places they're pretty terrible. At least without doing some power gamey monk/cleric or bard/blackguard. Obviously roleplay comes first, but I would like to be somewhat useful.

Thanks in advance for any answers. :)

[Razor]

Welcome to Thay. Enjoy the experience. :D

Now, as far as I know, there are plenty of trinkets on Thay that let mundanes (that's characters that cast no spells) have some of the perks casters have. This includes AC (e.g. Brooch of Shielding), which is the main reason two handed warriors are difficult to effectively play.

Whenever you decide to be devoid of a shield, you're taking anything from a -1 to a -8 to AC. This is because the smallest shield is +1 and the biggest is +3. If you add in the most powerful spell to add AC to your shield, it's a maximum of +8. Obviously, that much of AC loss is going to hurt your two handed fighter. Literally and a lot.

To add to this and as a nod to what you said about adding the classes you meant, there's still the issue of other AC enhancing spells, which two handed focused fighters have nothing of.

Outside of this, the attribute buffs like Bull's Strength and Bear's Endurance help your class (which happens to be dependable on these two attributes) and, once again, a fighter class can't really utilize without the help of trinkets or a caster class added.

The plus side to this is that your damage output will probably become substantially better than a sword-and-shield character's own. Most two handed weapons have better base damage and with criticals, this racks up decent damage points.

Concluding, I'd say the loss in AC is a big hit and nearly makes it unworthy to play a two handed warrior if you truly want to have a lot of survivability. That being said, I'd wait until someone who knows a lot about the trinkets and special items in Thay possibly comes along and states how that "evens things out" for you. Also, a very important aspect of Thay is that you can enchant a lot of essential aspects to each of your items. (Such as +3 to AC on armor and +3 enchantment to weapons) This will help your melee oriented archetype a lot, but also requires some notoriety and XP to create.

All in all, I'd advise to find whatever you have the most fun with and stick with that. ;)

[DarkRanger]

My advice:
keep a 1 hander and shield handy for when you absolutely need it.
know group roles and if you're not in full plate and shield, let someone who is be first into the fight. Keep detect mode on until they engage then charge the enemy's flank.
several public shops sell brooches of shielding, most temples sell stoneskin potions, as well as potions of most damage shield spells(not sure about wounding whispers, but if you're going to get hit might as well strike back), and static quest reward items are worth pursuing.
spells can be added to items at the forge. Low caster level will make offensive spells fairly useless, but defenses and enhancements can be carried around for a good chunk of gold and experience.

[dremora]

I very much agree with Dark, my two-hander also carries a towershield and one handed weapon for situations where I just need AC over dmg output. Its also great to retreat with :P