| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hello Paizo community!
I've been on these forums here a while, so I decided I wanted to try my hand at a guide. I was looking through and was thinking something people have mostly left alone, so the Rage Prophet seemed perfect. Slight note: the major argument is that Barbarian 1/Oracle X is stronger than it, and I make my points but the purpose is to optimize Rage Prophets, not diss it. So I'd appreciate it if that's what we did here.
It's very much a work in progress. I try and work on it with my spare time and just add on to it. Input is welcome and appreciated. Getting all of your input can help inform my decisions. I'll add a post to the Guide to Guides when I'm happier with it.
So without further ado, here's the guide.
Thanks!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If somebody was going to approximate Rage Prophet with Barbarian 1/Oracle X, why not instead use Bloodrager 1/Oracle X? Then you could get the Mad Magic feat to let you cast while in Rage, including that induced by the Rage spell. Unfortunately, unlike arcane casters dipping in Bloodrager, I know of no easy way to be able to cast the Rage spell.
Too bad we don't have an update to the Rage Prophet prestige class to get it to work properly with Bloodrager without needing to go Primalist and blow half of the benefit on Moment of Clarity.
|
Yes, Mad Magic needs to be taken into account in your guide.
Even for Barbarians it's only two rage powers and a feat, and you take one of the rage powers anyway for Rage Prophet. It changes how the PrC is played. Bloodrager/Oracle/Rage Prophet is viable and might become a very odd but probably fun Barbarian Mystic Theurge. As UnArcaneElection points out, that one feat fundamentally changes whether Rage Prophet works as intended because Clarity of Mind is no longer needed to cast anything.
You have missed two very good races. Suli are +2 Str, Cha -2 Int and have elemental boosts to their attacks. Nagaji have the same stats and natural armor.
Other than that, good work, keep it up!
All right added. Uncommon races are on my to-do list but I'll make sure to make my way to them. From my reading of Ragecaster ability, you still need Moment of Clarity if you really want to stick an offensive spell on someone, which you can do very well.
Changed Bloodrager to yellow. I read Ragecaster and I don't think Bloodrager levels count as Barbarian for it, which weakens it as an option.
I'd put in some discussion of Chained vs Unchained Barbarian.
When uBarb first came out, I toyed with the idea of a uBarb/Life Oracle/Rage Prophet. uBarb Temp HP+Life Link is a nice buffer for effectively the whole party. And it lets you turn rage rounds into out of combat healing.
Interesting concept! I'll be sure to put it in when I have time.
Update: Finished Uncommmon Races and added Unchained Barbarians!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Merfolk with the strongtail trait and the barbarian move bonus shuffle around the battlefield at 25'. They're not as slow as you think, even if it seems silly.
On rage powers,
The beast totem isn't taken for the claws and only occasionally for the AC. It's taken because pounce is good. Well, maybe the claws + bite are worthwhile if you take Animal Fury too, but that's a lot of feats on extra rage power.
Moment of Clarity's successors Perfect/Ultimate Clarity are pretty good once you've got the sunk cost for Moment of Clarity anyway. Perfect Clarity lets you reroll miss chances as well as the bonus vs. illusions mentioned in the short description, Ultimate Clarity is basically 1 round of true seeing per rage.
Superstition is a great defensive power and Moment of Clarity lets you still accept spells when needed.
Reckless Abandon is something worth spending a feat on IMO.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
so um... I don't see anywhere in there yet What you think the strengths of the class are that makes it more worthwhile over barb 1 oracle X. Like you say it is worth because of it's strengths. But then I don't see any strengths explained. You need to explain in mechanics WHAT this is bringing to make it worth going into.
Like now with bloodrager 1, oracle X and mad magic you can be a raging person who casts oracle spells while raging if you wanted to do that.
Rage powers primarily are the major advantage. The Barb 1/Oracle X can only get access to 1st level rage powers, while the Rage Prophet can potentially get any of them, based on how many oracle levels they take. Plus your spells aren't actually that weakened and potentially is stronger. (In DC's)
Oh yeah and you get huge to hit bonuses against Outsiders and Undead.
I detail all that in the guide but I don't want to make a "Why it's worth it" section.
Otherwise, *meh* The guide is for Rage Prophets. I don't want to argue against other builds. I just want to help people make Rage Prophets. What can I say? I like PrC's!
Actually, a section comparing Rage Prophet to Barbarian|Bloodrager 1/Oracle X and listing the strengths and weaknesses of each one might be worth it -- not to argue against one or the other, but to help people figure out where each one shines. Sort of like comparing Eldritch Knight to Magus -- the latter took away a lot of niches for the former, but not all of them, and each can do stuff that the other isn't very good at.
^
Like, just by first glance in your guide I can't see when rage prophet would be a good or better choice.
|
|
OP, you say
"but I hope to emphasize the strengths of the Rage Prophet: The ability to cast powerful spells while raging, and overall have a strong melee focus; especially with rage powers."
Casting within Rage is only for self healing at level 2 and personal buffs at level 8. With Mad Magic you can cast any spell during a rage. You mark those powers red and yellow. Can you explain further? One of the primary benefits of Bloodrager is that you can go into combat laying down spells, if it is a major feature of one class, how come you rate it so poorly for the Rage Prophet? You may have a point, but I can't see the justification.
You have Bloodrager down as yellow because of Ragecaster, due to the caster level boost. But if you enter the class as Bloodrager 2/Oracle 3/RP x with the Magical Knack trait you don't lose any caster level anyway (outside of RP itself) and you don't have to use Moment of Clarity. Ragecaster becomes redundant.
Skald 3/4 with Oracle 1/2 qualifies also. I don't know why you would want to do so, but it's worth mentioning as another route in.
You mark Rage Prophet Mystery green. What's the benefit? None are for self-healing and only See Invisibility has a range of personal and eligible for Raging Spellstrength. The spells are quite interesting if you want to be a creepy Oracle diviner, but no use for a raging warrior.
I'll reiterate what the others above asked - RP does seem like a cool class but we need justification of how to make it good, class guides are about optimisation. It doesn't matter if the class is flawed - I'm sure someone has made a guide for Prophet of Kalistrade and zany stuff like that. We want to discuss why it is worth taking, other than quite cool.
I'll try tp be more detailed when I have time, but there is something Rage Prophets have to cast while in Rage.
Moment of Clarity. And my optimization recommendation is rage-cycling with the lame curse. Possible with potentially your first Rage Prophet.
If I later decide I should make a comparison with Oracle/Barbarians, I will. But the point of the guide is to help people build one. Not just give up on it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Casting within Rage is only for self healing at level 2 and personal buffs at level 8. With Mad Magic you can cast any spell during a rage. You mark those powers red and yellow. Can you explain further? One of the primary benefits of Bloodrager is that you can go into combat laying down spells, if it is a major feature of one class, how come you rate it so poorly for the Rage Prophet? You may have a point, but I can't see the justification.
Those abilities aren't very good. I use Rage-Cycling to get around it a bit, but the class also rewards the use of Moment of Clarity. Sure in case of dire emergencies it could be handy, but don't really need it. I don't want to talk about in-combat healing, but a lot of people say it's bad.
You have Bloodrager down as yellow because of Ragecaster, due to the caster level boost. But if you enter the class as Bloodrager 2/Oracle 3/RP x with the Magical Knack trait you don't lose any caster level anyway (outside of RP itself) and you don't have to use Moment of Clarity. Ragecaster becomes redundant.
In order to qualify you need at least one Rage Power; Moment of Clarity. The only way to do that as a bloodrager is the primalist archetype, which doesn't give ANY until 4th level. Therefore, you can only do it until after 4th level. You lose out on spell levels, not caster level, which loses spells you get.
You mark Rage Prophet Mystery green. What's the benefit? None are for self-healing and only See Invisibility has a range of personal and eligible for Raging Spellstrength. The spells are quite interesting if you want to be a creepy Oracle diviner, but no use for a raging warrior.
They're good utility spells. Gives you something to do outside of combat.
Also, casting while raging isn't really the whole point. If you're next to someone, you hit them. You cast offensive spells (which get boosts detailed in the guide) if no one is nearby. Otherwise rage and hit them. If you get the Lame Oracle Curse, you can rage-cycle and don't need to worry, or still rage and use Moment of Clarity for those nice boosts.
^
Like, just by first glance in your guide I can't see when rage prophet would be a good or better choice.
Please reread my first post here and the disclaimer.
I'll work on the weekend (when I have time) to make a comparison at level 16, since you all seem to want it. But otherwise, I'd like input on other areas. Besides, the point of guides is to help people make a specific class. People don't go to the Cleric guides and say you should play Druid instead.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
we don't need a comparison of builds. Just some mechanical reasons of why this class is awesome all in one paragraph/place.
Something like,
"This class has 2 main build paths, the gish aka weapon user that uses spells to buff and for utility, or the offensive caster. Both paths are going to have us using our feats to gain scaling class features from our parent classes.
For weapon route, since you get to count your level for rage powers it's a way to make a caster that has access to pounce using beast totem. The chosen oracle mystery can do a lot to get good buffs. (maybe going barb 4/oracle 2 or barb 5/oracle 1 to reduce rage power loss? haven't looked at this much) This is how you are awesome as a gish, plus against certain foes your Spirit Guardian ability makes you godly.
For the offensive caster path we'll be looking to take advantage of rage cycling and Ragecaster to put us close to full caster level and eventually to get a HUGE boost to our DCs. Plus we have a decent weapon presence as a fallback. Will definitely want to use the barb 2 oracle 4 for this build to progress spellcasting. Works well with X mysteries."
See, if you had this polished up and at the start of your guide I can see that your guide has two focal points, two directions to take this class and why it's exciting and awesome to build either. And that this classes power rests in the extra rage power and extra revelation feats.
Like seriously, me writing that and reading that makes me very interested in looking at how to build one of these. This is the kind of thing we're asking for at the start of your guide. Put this where your "Disclaimer" is and rename it to introduction and remove all the negativity about "the barb/oracle is better than this" and "people see this as worthless", since that kinda is really killing your guide right from the start.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hey, so something I just noticed that is pretty awesome for this. If you're going oracle 4, take the Spirit Guide archetype. At lv4 it adds the bonded spirit's spirit magic spells to your oracle spells known for that day, but only of spell levels you can cast. This is a great way to grab even more spells that aren't on the cleric list to your list.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rage prophet of battle PFS legal
Savage Technologist Barb 2/Spirit Guide Oracle 4 wood mystery lame curse/Rage prophet 6
Dual Minded Half elf
Speed 30ft.
Str 16+2/dex 12/con 14/ int 10/ wis 8/ cha 14
The draw of this build is getting both barkskin and heroism as a spell known and beast totem and superstition for combat boosts. Wood Bond as our revelation and gives us a scaling attack bonus.
Feats in order
Extra rage, power attack, extra rage power(superstition), extra rage power(lesser beast totem), quicken spell, extra rage power(beast totem)
Get the trait magical knack to up our CL to 10 normally and wayang spellhunter (divine favor).
So our ac is 10 base +9 breastplate+3, +3 for beast totem and +4 for barkskin, +2 for rage, +1 dex, +2 ring of protect+2 = 31 chilling at level +19, very close to the level +20 for good tanks. 17,000 gold spent.
Our attack is +9 BAB +3 wood bond, +2 heroism, +3 swift divine favor, +6 str(belt +2 and 2 level) and +2 rage, +3 from +1 furious sword = +28/+23 while raging for dX + 18 and +25/+20 for dX + 27. 12000 gold spent our power attack’s first attack hits on a 2 against CR12 AC from table.
Our saves are base +stat +2 heroism +4 superstition +4 cloak of resist +4 for
Fort 19/Ref 16/Will 18. 16,000 gold spent
45,000 gp spent which is less than the about 46,000 gp you have at lv9 and way less than the 108,000 gp at lv12 leaving plenty of money for whatever we want.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I suppose Prestigious Spellcaster might be kinda handy for a rage prophet.
Furious Spell is a thing that might be considered for a build such as this. It improves whatever blasting you may have, and can be an option if you don't want to be a cookie-cutter Lame Cursed Oracle.
Addendum: With the Magical Lineage/Metamagic Master trait(s) (along with your favored blasting spell), that metamagic benefit can apply for free on a single spell of your choice (or two, if you decide both traits are worth it).
Granted, Divine spell-lists don't have that great of options, I think it'd be cool to see that Rage Prophet decide that a trial by fire through the results of a Flame Strike spell would be neat, powerful, and overall useful over the course of the character's career.
Okay. I've been busy with some other projects lately, but I'm trying to get back to this.
Firstly! I lost my account info, so I'll have to use a back-up and update it. I'll get back with a link and new account later.
Secondly! I just saw a FAQ which makes me kind've sad... Basically Rage Prophets can't use Rage Prophet levels to qualify for Rage Powers. In Home Games, I would personally change that as it significantly weakens the Rage Prophet. However there are still plenty of good Rage Powers that are available.
I'll work on updating a bunch of stuff, and be a bit more positive. Regardless of that, the Rage Powers are a strength, the Rage Prophet is great at wrecking Outsiders and Undead, rage-cycling comes naturally to them, and the spells can have crazy DC's making a well-rounded Monster Gish.
OH GOSH, that FAQ is so horrible and really shuts this down for my gish build :(
Yeah... Prestige Classes don't get a lot of love... Rage Prophets can still be incredibly strong however.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If someone doesn't want to use Lame Cycle for whatever reason, there's also two levels of Scarred Rager, where you end your Rage at the end of your turn and then begin it again at the start of your next turn. While you don't gain the benefits of Rage and have fatigue when it isn't your turn, you can effectively Rage cycle, and you can use Reckless Abandon and still never have a Rage AC penalty (other than -1AC from fatigue). You also don't need Raging Vitality.
For that matter, any Rage Cycle character can choose not to run Rage while off-turn to exploit Reckless Abandon and ignore the usual CON and AC changes.
One very strong Rage Prophet combo would be Battle Mystery: Maneuver Mastery and Strength Surge with Reckless Abandon. You get to use full-level-BAB, Oracle buffing, almost full-level Strength Surge and Reckless Abandon on CMB rolls.
I guess it goes without saying, but Prestigious Spellcaster brought some love back for the P-r-C.
Is that how Scarred Rager works? It seems like tolerance is just if they fail a save, and you don't get fatigued from rage from failing a save.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Is that how Scarred Rager works? It seems like tolerance is just if they fail a save, and you don't get fatigued from rage from failing a save.
It's at the end of the text:
"If the effect does not allow a saving throw, its duration is halved instead (minimum of 1 round)."
So if you get 2 rounds of fatigue for having raged for a round, then you only get 1 round, so the duration ends as your next turn begins. It's kind of a cool theme - raging attacks between brief moments of fatigue.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
scarred rager makes all those thing last half as long. So yes, that's how it works. If you end on your turn, 1 round of fatigue ends the start of your next turn.
Ah! That's great!
|
Thought I'd point this out, but the Battle Oracle's Manuever Mastery seems to stack in interesting ways with Rage Prophet...
1 level oracle, 10 levels Rage Prophet would have +7 BaB from rage prophet levels, and +11 from "oracle" levels for a single combat maneuver. Add in 5 levels of barbarian, and a 16th level character effectively treats his BaB as 23 for one combat maneuver (16 is late, but the benefits do start coming in early)
I've been wondering about how to take advantage of this with a Grapple barbarian with a dash of poison. A human or half-elf can get skill focus for free, and Eldritch Heritage: Serpentine lets your bite attack do Con damage. Animal Fury is a free bite attack with grapple maintains, and greater hive totem (reachable by level 8) gets you more poison later on (both poisons delivered by bite attacks).
Just to add to the viability of the Barb 2/Oracle X/Rage Prophet X builds, I have one at level 16, and there is nothing like it.
My build only dipped 4 levels into Rage Prophet, but he is a front-line dps machine that can soak damage and self-heal.
Had my campaign had more undead/outsiders, I would have gone full Rage Prophet, but in Rise of the Runelords, there just weren't enough to justify full Rage Prophet.
Just an example of their power, my Barb 2/Rage Prophet 4/Oracle 10 with just 2 buffs (Righteous Might and Blessing of Fervor), unraged, hit a Storm Giant 4 times in one round, including one crit.
Dealt 279 damage.
Next encounter, repeat. Dealt 260 damage.
Not even close to buffed up and not raged.
He is also the tank for our party with a max dpr of ~320 and can easily reach the mid 300's for HP.
It's a fantastic flavor and build that should not be underestimated.
Resurrecting this because I find odd that the Fighter Viking is not listed as a possible entry class (allowing to be Lawful too, if this is viable- it's true that the nonlawful alignment is not a prerequisite, but it's still part of the class description...)
Original Viking has Fighter level -3 work as rage, and didn't let you use your Fighter level as Barbarian level for rage powers, meaning you couldn't pick up any totems or a lot of other rage powers.
Both versions don't let you grab a Rage Power until 6th level, meaning you have to be 8th level before entering, that is with only 1 level of Oracle. You'd be able to cast 4th level spells at level 17 when you max out your Rage Prophet levels.
Most builds go Barbarian 2/Oracle 4/Rage Prophet, entering at 7th level (due to BAB). This puts you at 5th level casting, with 6th coming next level when you get another level of Oracle.
So I noticed that the guide mentions Bloodrager as an entry option, but what does a Bloodrager actually gain by going Rage Prophet? It certainly doesn't get the CL boost from Rage caster since it is not Barbarian, nor anything else directly referencing Barbarian. Nor does it get Greater Rage or Enduring rage. Perhaps it gets the bonus to DC and the ability to cast healing personal spells, though I guess that depends on if being in a Bloodrage is considered "raging" or if that is just specifically a Barbarian Rage.
In the same line of thought a barbarian rage prophet gets nothing from the Mad Magic feat as it references bloodrage not rage.
How about the Dreadnought archetype. You could cast in a rage. Only half the bonuses but you could get them on the caster DC so it might be an option. Maybe I'll make a build for this for a potential BBG. :)
Edit: Damn you don't get the moment of clarity barbarian bonus then as you're not using moment of clarity. Ugh! :(