Tough As Nails Barbarian.


Advice


I came across the tales of Ostog the Unslain, a Barbarian played by Erik Mona, and I thought the idea behind him was pretty rad. So, inspired, I decided to build an NPC Barbarian that was neigh-unkillable, but didn't wear armor.

What I came up with, is an Invulnerable Rager with a 1 level dip into Unbreakable Fighter (for Die Hard and Endurance). He uses Dragon Totem and the feats Combat Expertise, Stalwart and Improved Stalwart to have ungodly DR.

I made a 12th level version you can see here: Ostog the Unslain. When I'm building NPCs like this, I always use the Heroic stats of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8; for him, I arranged it as follows:

Str 15, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 8

This is the level progression I designed for him.

1) Barbarian; Power Attack, Combat Expertise (bonus)
2) Fighter; Die Hard (bonus), Endurance (bonus)
3) Barbarian; Toughness; (Reckless Abandon)
4) Barbarian;
5) Barbarian; Stalwart; (Animal Fury)
6) Barbarian;
7) Barbarian; Extra Rage Power: Intimidating Glare; (Dragon Totem)
8) Barbarian;
9) Barbarian; Extra Rage Power: Guarded Life; (Dragon Resilience)
10) Barbarian;
11) Barbarian; Improved Stalwart; (Dragon Wings)
12) Barbarian;

The way I see him functioning is this, while raging, with combat expertise and Dragon Totem, he's got DR of 19: 5 from class levels, 6 from dragon totem, and +8 from Combat Expertise/Improved Stalwart. Also, due to Guarded Life, whenever he gets low on HP, damage up to his Barbarian level is converted to non-lethal damage, which is then applied to his non-lethal DR, which is double whatever his current DR is. In this case, his non-lethal DR is 38.

So his ungodly DR combined with his huge HP pool means he's really, really hard to kill; despite the fact you're all but guaranteed to hit him with every attack as his AC while raging is 10. Also, the fact he can walk around bare chested in even the coldest of winters, and shrug off the most intense flames from the oldest red dragon... This Ostog is truly a Man's Man!

Now the questions I have for everyone are...

1) Is this all legal? I know there is a bit of a hoo-doo about whether or not Dragon Totem works with the Invulnerable Rager, did that ever get cleared up?

2) What else can I do to make this guy even tougher? Changing his stat array isn't an option because I try and build all of my NPCs off the Heroic Stat array. Remember, he also has to continue with the theme of not wearing armor. I even consider the bracers of armor kind of cheating, but I couldn't figure out how to get that extra +2 to maintain that AC of 10.

Any help would be appreciated.


1. Dragon totem's unclear things have not been cleared up to my knowledge.
2. Amulet of natural armor, ring of protection. Bracers should be fine. As it grants minor protection, and makes him look more badass.

Guarded life does not let DR apply twice. So if you took a lot of damage and the remaining gets converted, DR doesnt factor in again.


Skull wrote:


Guarded life does not let DR apply twice. So if you took a lot of damage and the remaining gets converted, DR doesnt factor in again.

What are you talking about?


Driver_325yards wrote:
Skull wrote:


Guarded life does not let DR apply twice. So if you took a lot of damage and the remaining gets converted, DR doesnt factor in again.

What are you talking about?

Guarded Life allows you to convert damage that would drop you below 0 HP to non-lethal damage up to your Barbarian level.

Since Ostog doubles his DR vs. non-lethal damage, ideally, this would mean that as he gets closer to 0 HP, his DR effectively increases from DR 19 to DR 30.

For example, say he's a 10 HP and someone hits him from 39 points of damage. The first 19 points of damage is subtracted from by his DR 19, and the remaining 20 points of damage would drop him to -10, however, Guarded Life would kick in and convert 10 of those points of damage to non-lethal damage. Now, ideally, because 10 of those points of damage is now non-lethal damage, it would apply, separately, to his non-lethal DR.

The idea is that, the less his HP, the harder he is to kill.


Tels wrote:
Driver_325yards wrote:
Skull wrote:


Guarded life does not let DR apply twice. So if you took a lot of damage and the remaining gets converted, DR doesnt factor in again.

What are you talking about?

Guarded Life allows you to convert damage that would drop you below 0 HP to non-lethal damage up to your Barbarian level.

Since Ostog doubles his DR vs. non-lethal damage, ideally, this would mean that as he gets closer to 0 HP, his DR effectively increases from DR 19 to DR 30.

For example, say he's a 10 HP and someone hits him from 39 points of damage. The first 19 points of damage is subtracted from by his DR 19, and the remaining 20 points of damage would drop him to -10, however, Guarded Life would kick in and convert 10 of those points of damage to non-lethal damage. Now, ideally, because 10 of those points of damage is now non-lethal damage, it would apply, separately, to his non-lethal DR.

The idea is that, the less his HP, the harder he is to kill.

So has there been a FAQ that says that DR/lethal and DR/nonlethal can not both apply during the same round.

If so, then okay the Devs have made a ruling based on game balance I guess. If not, I do not see why DR/lethal and DR/nonlethal do not both apply when energy resistance shock and energy resistance flame would both apply to an attack that does fire and shock damage.

Grand Lodge

The way I read Guarded Life is that it converts *existing* lethal damage to nonlethal damage. DR doesn't apply to this conversion, as it's not an attack.

I want to build a Skald with Guarded Life now.


Looks about right, I played a Barbarian like that in RotRL. The DR was extremely helpful, I'd have died with out it that high. I mean I was taking 40 damage a hit at times so even with DR I was still a little over 20 damage and hit and had a huge amount of hit point. My AC was horrible but the damage output was huge. I used Reckless Abandon and Power Attack.


Markov Spiked Chain wrote:

The way I read Guarded Life is that it converts *existing* lethal damage to nonlethal damage. DR doesn't apply to this conversion, as it's not an attack.

I want to build a Skald with Guarded Life now.

What. Guy swing a sword that does 40 damage (lethal). 15 of the lethat is blocked by DR/lethal and 25 of the lethal damage from the sword is converted to nonlethal.

The nonlethal damage is still coming from the sword attack. If there were no sword attack there would be no nonlethal damage.

What am I missing.

So looked at differently. If I have 10 fire resistance and an ability that turn shock damage into fire damage, then whenever I got hit by shock damage I would resist 10 points of it.

Furhtermore, your point is without distinction anyway because DR does not only work against attacks. For instance, spell damage that does bludgeoning damage would be cancel out by DR/piercing or DR/-, etc...

Grand Lodge

Guarded Life doesn't say it converts damage from the attack. It just says convert damage to nonlethal damage. You have 40 points of lethal damage, you fall unconscious, you now have 35 points of lethal damage and 5 points of non-lethal (at 5th level.) Guarded Life isn't even triggered by an attack, it's triggered by you being reduced to negative hit points.

Damage Reduction specifically says that it applies to damage from weapons or natural attacks. DR/- doesn't apply to spell damage unless the spell specifically says so (with the FAQ that Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing damage count as weapon damage for these purposes.)


Of course Gaurded Life doesn't say that it converts damage from an attack because that power is broader than that. However, in the specific instance where you are being struck by a sword, the damage is coming from the attack and being converted from the attack to non lethal damage.

You say Guarded Life is being triggered by the barbarian being reduced to negative hitpoints. Well yes, but the sword is causing the barbarian to be reduced to negative hitpoints in the particular instance we are talking about.

Furthermore, if the FAQ is telling you that RAI certain spell damage counts as weapon damage for the purpose of DR, what do you think that means in this case?

Would it not mean that, similarly, if a sword's lethal damage is converted to nonlethal damage that nonlethal damage is considered weapon damage - as if that is not obvious anyway?

After all, have you even considered what you are saying?

You are saying that the barbarian is not being harmed by the sword; instead he is being harmed by Guarded Life.

Scarab Sages

Edit: sorry i missed the extra DR for nonlethal line in Invulnerable Rager. I rewrote as below:

At most I would rule that you only get the extra DR once (i.e. total is double your DR, not 3x your DR)

But others might rule differently.
And I don't think it would stack with Stalwart. (if you get hit with a non lethal attack then yes you get 8 more, but if you get hit with a lethal attack and some gets converted to nonlethal, then no you wouldn't get the stalwart DR a second time)

But that barely matters, your nonlethal DR will already be high enough that the amount converted due to guarded life might never be greater.

It would be far better if you had Flesh Wound, then you can halve the damage on ANY hit, and apply a much larger nonlethal DR to it. But you don't get that till lvl 10, and most monsters will do so much more per hit that your Fort save might not be high enough.


and nonlethal damage is still bad for you--if it+lethal damage reaches your max hp, you fall unconscious anyway.


Berti Blackfoot wrote:

There is no such thing as "DR for lethal" and "DR for non lethal" the barbarian merely has DR/-

There is no FAQ necessary because there is no such thing as a separate DR for non lethal damage, nor is there a second attack that does damage for which you would apply DR.

For instance: a sword does damage, you subtract DR, and that tells you how much damage you take. Under certain conditions some or all of that is converted to non lethal damage.

You are right and wrong at the same time. Let me explain. Yes, the barbarian has DR/-. This damage reduction as well as all other DR applies to both lethal and nonlethal. The distinction is never made between the two because there has never been a case where DR lethal was a different number than nonlethal. Further, there has never been an attack that does part lethal and part nonlethal. Attacks either did all lethal or all nonlethal.

Then there came along Guarded Life and the Barbarian Build above and things changed. Now an attack could do nonlethal and lethal at the same time. Also, now a character could have lethal and nonlethal DR of different amounts

That said, even before the barbarian build above and before Guarded Life, if a person had a weapon that did nonlethal and lethal damage to a person who had DR/-, the DR/- would have applied separately to both the nonlethal and the lethal damage. After all, they are completely different damage types.


AndIMustMask wrote:
and nonlethal damage is still bad for you--if it+lethal damage reaches your max hp, you fall unconscious anyway.

Thus the point of this thread. After all, if my opposition is correct, and they are not absent a FAQ/eratta to uphold their erroneous position, then Guarded Life would be pointless.

The real issue is that they think the combination is too powerful and are grasping at straws to support a position that goes against intuition and all sense of logic.

Scarab Sages

Sorry to ninja edit you Driver, I found the ability that Tels was referring to and rewrote my thoughts.


You can fight defensively to get an additional 2 DR and max out your stalwart

Dark Archive

Driver the problem is that you ARE trying to apply the DR twice. There is one source of damage, and you are applying the DR to that original (not non-lethal) damage once, and then applying it AGAIN after Guarded Life is applied. You can't do that.


Argus The Slayer wrote:

Driver the problem is that you ARE trying to apply the DR twice. There is one source of damage, and you are applying the DR to that original (not non-lethal) damage once, and then applying it AGAIN after Guarded Life is applied. You can't do that.

No I am not. I am applying it once to the lethal and once to the nonlethal. As the sword is cutting into his flesh, the first X amount of lethal damage is being countered by the DR lethal. Then, as the sword goes deeper into his flesh, there is no more lethal damage, it is all nonlethal and that is being counter by DR nonlethal.

Now, yes this is a little different than the hypothetical weapon that does lethal and nonlethal at the same time. In this example, the lethal and nonlethal damage is separated in time by milliseconds (though they are still a resultant of the same attack). However, that is a distinction without consequence.


Ok, so I guess the the function of Dragon Totem and Guarded Life are the two aspects of the build that are the most in the 'grey' area of how they work.

I personally think Dragon Totem should work, because the Invulnerable Rager still has DR.

As for Guarded Life... considering he's an NPC for my games, I'm inclined to allow it if only because it makes him a more memorable character. I don't know if the NPC will be used as an ally, villain or neutral NPC, or even all of the above; I just enjoy building up a host of possible NPCs I can use if I need one. Though Ostog will more than likely appear in one of my games at some point; the idea behind him is just too much fun to waste.


Tels wrote:

Ok, so I guess the the function of Dragon Totem and Guarded Life are the two aspects of the build that are the most in the 'grey' area of how they work.

I personally think Dragon Totem should work, because the Invulnerable Rager still has DR.

As for Guarded Life... considering he's an NPC for my games, I'm inclined to allow it if only because it makes him a more memorable character. I don't know if the NPC will be used as an ally, villain or neutral NPC, or even all of the above; I just enjoy building up a host of possible NPCs I can use if I need one. Though Ostog will more than likely appear in one of my games at some point; the idea behind him is just too much fun to waste.

No, there is no grey with Gaurded Life. I have explained the rules to you and there is no counter argument. Don't confuse people saying no and not admitting that their wrong when confronted with the truth with people having a valid reason for saying no. The rules are exactly and explicitly as I have laid them out. I am saying this not only for you but for anyone in the future that might come accross the thread and mistakenly think that there is any legitimate controversy.

I am not sure what you mean by there being grey with Dragon Totem either, but since that concern was not developed above, I will not comment on it.

Grand Lodge

I stopped responding because I didn't want to get in an argument with you when it's clearly not going to change your mind. And I still don't. :)

But for "the future" your interpretation is wrong.

Guarded Life doesn't go back in time and modify damage from the last attack you took before it triggers and then retroactively prevent itself from triggering. It turns damage you've already taken from lethal to nonlethal. It doesn't re-apply new nonlethal damage for you to get your DR against.

Guarded Life triggers when you are reduced below 0 hit points.
It doesn't modify the damage of an attack that drops you below 0 hit points *in any way.* That damage gets applied, *then* you deal with Guarded Life.
When Guarded Life triggers, you take some of your lethal damage, and turn it into nonlethal damage. It doesn't heal the lethal and then re-apply the non-lethal as a weapon/natural attack for DR to reduce.

There's nothing unclear or wrong with that interpretation, you're just trying to work more effect into it that isn't there(saying it modifies damage from an attack instead of damage you've already taken.)

The advantage is, when you heal up after the fight, you need less magical healing that you otherwise would. Or if you've got Fast Healing/Channel/Heal spells from a buddy, you're back in the fight quicker. It *probably* prevents you from dying if the total damage would have killed you, but the total damage-(barbarian level) wouldn't.

Dark Archive

Willful ignorance. You DO NOT have two different DRs. You have one DR that applies differently in the case of non-lethal damage. You cannot apply it twice.


you have two different HP pools, the DR applies to each of them differently, it's not applying twice because it's adhering to its own ruling on each HP pool. It's that simple IMO :-)

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