Sleeping Clown's page

Dude, that is some nice info. I never noticed Giant Hide Armor before. That seems so essential now that I know about it. Your insight into Hive Totems and Animal Fury have made me totally overhaul my build.

Question about Pinning Rend: I thought bleed doesn't stack? Wouldn't I just establish bleed damage once?

Also, I'm wondering if the size increase from Giant Hide Armor also gives you the additional abilities from Giant Form (e.g. Regeneration Fire/Acid from troll skin), or just the size/stat adjustments.

If the former is true, I was looking at a rage power progression along these lines:

Rage Powers
2nd *Archetype*
4th Animal Fury
6th Hive Totem
8th Hive Totem Resilience
10th Energy Resistance (Fire)
12th Energy Resistance, Greater (Fire)
14th Energy Absorbtion (Fire)
16th Energy Eruption (Fire)
18th Strength Surge
20th Hive Totem Toxicity

Having fire defense would complement turning into a troll, if that's what that armor does. Also, allows me to get up to more fire obsessed goblin shenanigans. The idea of "eating" fire attacks causes me to chuckle.

Also, in your build, you need to raise your dex by 1 to get Rapid Grappler.

Read some Hellblazer back issues. A couple of plot tricks to beating the devil there.

I played a Life Oracle for like, over a year, and it rooled skool. I know a lot of people pooh-pooh combat healing, and channel healing in particular, but in that game there seemed to be a lot of Fireballs and breath weapons dropped on us, so the Channel Energy was awesome even around level 10-12. The elemental transformation thing was also cool as heck.

Offensively I used a bunch of enchantment spells, but my DM was really hot on her dice so it became a running joke that my character didn't *really* know Hold Person, he was only pretending to do something.

Still, my vote is that for healing, Life Oracle is the coolest of the cool. I remember fights where our party were just getting hammered at range, and I kept them up until they could get in there and crush faces.

The size of the creature Grab works on increases with level. With an Enlarge Person, I can be grappling creatures up to Gargantuan size at 15th level, if I get there. Or just Huge without it.

The Brutal Pugilist does NOT continually add bonuses to his CMB and CMD. He can add a +1 bonus to each once. +2 if he's willing to do it without armor.

Feral Gnasher also does not take grapple penalties after sixth level.

To do what a strength focused Feral Gnasher could do, I would need to take Weapon Finesse *and* Agile Maneuvers, *and* get my hands on an agile AoMF. In an effort to make this character less MAD and focus on Dex, you're adding more feat requirements when there are other grappling feats to be taken as early as possible, *and* it is still not as good.

That is stacking three archetypes instead of one simple one, and still has a worse grapple because of the lack of Grab.

EDIT: And I mean, if you were a DM, and I brought you a character sheet that under "Class" said "Totem Warrior/Brutal Pugilist/Urban Barbarian", what would you think?

I believe that is *still* not better than what I'm doing. At the very least, not for grappling. Once again, that +1 cost from Agile is still a thing I would have to deal with. So the dex build would give me net +2 attack/damage advantage at this point over a strength build, but I'd be losing Grab because Urban Barbarian isn't compatible with Feral Gnasher, which would gives me a +4 to my grapple checks, and works off of my bite attack. Feral Gnasher has a better CMB and method for grappling.

The dex build would give me better reflex saves... but those are usually the least scary type of saves. Though in my current game we have a Fire Oracle that would beg to differ. Oh man. I wish I could play a fire obsessed goblin that worshipped the Fire Oracle in the current game. Just realized how fun that would be.

blackbloodtroll, I'm not sure I agree with Dex being a good idea for a barbarian. True, a goblin that using dex instead of strength means your attack stat is six points (+3 to attack/damage) higher than what it would be otherwise. But that sort of disappears considering you're losing +1 from the Agile enchant, and the strength from raging (the other +2) disappears. That's before you get greater rage, and after that, the dex build is definitely less effective, at least while raging. Not to mention you'd need to spend a feat on Weapon Finesse.

I'm not focusing on natural attacks, I'm focusing on grappling with bite/grab.

I know playing a strength based, small grappler seems nuts, but Feral Gnasher I think is like the only class I can think of that has access to a full BAB and *Grab* like all the time (a whopping +4 to grapple checks). Like, a Tetori can do it, but they have to spend ki points. So I think it could work.

I'm not sure I really *get* Totem Warrior. How is it not just a barbarian? Nothing's traded.

Phasics, those are... brilliant, goblin-y ideas. Setting yourself on fire... I'm not sure I'd want to take the dip, but just in terms of making the other players' jaws drop, that is awesome.

Uh, yeah, what Zolthux said.

I'm looking to make a character that can not only contribute to winning fights, but is fun/funny when doing so and entertaining outside of combat. The idea of a little green monster successfully wrestling mummies and trolls to the ground cracks me up, as does the idea of a goblin trying to survive an encounter with a dragon by throwing the dragon's own horde at it.

Also, if anybody has an idea of how to work in some goblin pyromania to this build, that would be great too.

Hi hi hi.

While I'm not in immediate need of a character, I sort of fall in love with the attitude/flavor of Golarion goblins every time I read anything about them. I keep a folder of builds that usually go from 1-20. While I'll usually tailor a character's origin and personality to the campaign, I like to have a few road maps so when I ding so I don't spend all week wallowing in indecision about what feat to take.

Anyway! I realized I haven't played a barbarian since... I think 3.0! I also haven't played a grappling character in Pathfinder, so the Feral Gnasher began to look pretty fun after re-reading some of the rules.

I wanted to bounce the skeleton of the build off the boards and see what people think.

Here's what I got--

For attributes, the DMs in my circle usually toss out 20 pts or more, but it is good to plan for a rainy day. My go to plan would be to put 13 pts into Str, take two from Int and Cha, and throw 2 into Dex, Con, and Wis. So that spread would look something like this:

Str 15 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 8 Wis 12 Cha 6

Stat bumps would go into Strength.

The skills every level would be Acrobatics, Perception, and... Linguistics. I know I just I usually tailor a background for a campaign, but I was thinking about shoe horning the idea of a goblin that was banished from his tribe for being cursed with letters, and having the compulsion to read aloud any writing he finds. Something like that.

Here's the spread for feats:

1st Improved Unarmed Strike
3rd Improved Grapple
5th Weapon Focus (Grapple)
7th Greater Grapple
9th Rapid Grappler
11th Deadly Aim
13th Roll With It
15th Body Shield
17th Quick Draw
19th Raging Hurler

For me, 1st through 9th is pretty set in stone because the grappling feats in conjunction with Lockjaw and Grab are the core for most fights. I usually don't see campaigns last past 13th level, so everything 13th and up is sort of a *fun* choice. Deadly Aim at 11th makes a lot of sense for this because anything I can't grapple, I'll be throwing improvised weapons at.

Wait... *gasp* no Power Attack? What kind of barbarian doesn't have Power Attack? Well, I think one that if he's in melee range, is always grappling. Because maintaining grapple checks controls the fight. I'm flexible on this, though.

I'm a little bit less confident about my rage power selections:

2nd *Archetype*
4th Superstition
6th Ghost Rager
8th Clear Mind
10th Eater of Magic
12th Fearless Rage
14th Strength Surge
16th Unexpected Strike
18th Witch Hunter
20th Spell Sunder

Basically I have a strongly ingrained fear of Save or Suck spells, and most of those powers are about making sure I survive long enough to pin you to the ground and chew your face off.

Any tips on gear priority?

I've had some insomnia lately and had an oddly specific hankering to read somebody's campaign journal. I'd like to read about a campaign set in Golarion, because my group pretty much exclusively adventures there and I'm enjoying learning about the setting, but also not from one of the Adventure Paths. Those are often what gets run in the circles I hang out in, so I want to avoid any spoilers. So, anybody know a place to read about an interesting campaign that is set in Golarion, but not an AP?

Lame-oh FTW!

I'm the OP's boyfriend...

Griffin, you son of a...

So you've come into your own and the DM acts like you're being a over-powered munchkin Druidzilla?

Oh, no no no, he did check it out and raise an eyebrow, but he hasn't complained! I just had some weird guilt over rocking for once. Which I'm getting over.

Last session I played in, my rogue1/druid6 cast a Summon Nature's Ally III and dropped five stirges on a tough enemy. The way this played out, it ruled school. All five hit with their touch attacks and dropped the enemy's Con by 5 very quickly. The enemy had to concentrate on killing the stirges if it didn't want to continue taking deadly Con damage. I shut down a serious threat with one spell. I ended up doing 9 Con damage in all, which seems magnificent for a third level druid spell.

To this point, I've been sort of the party lump; good for dialogue and plot points, but sort of just a warm body in combat. I've been making a concerted effort to try to be more clever with my spells.

And then suddenly there was this new feeling. The other players looked at me as if seeing me for the first time as a credible power. The DM furrowed his brow and checked the Bestiary before nodding sagely and begrudingly, "I'll allow it." And suddenly I have a very powerful trick in my arsenal.

... but I feel like I have some sort of... "winner's guilt." I wanted to bounce this off of these boards. Has any part of this been errata'ed? Am I cheesing too hard? As far as I can tell, even DR doesn't stop this. If the enemy is vulnerable to ability drain, this spell can hit a single target like a truck. Am I wrong? Mechanically or in sportsmanship?