punchbeard's page

So to really fit a good chunk of these in would require at a minimum dipping a level or two of Fighter. Might have to delay Enforcer and focus on Gory Finish as the bread and butter low level Intimidate skill.

Question about how this works. Let's say you're a level 4 Barbarian, and instead of going to 5, you take a level in fighter. So barbarian 4 / fighter 1. Now that you've leveled up, do you get 2 feats instead of 1?

Also, when you take further levels in barbarian, do you still get bonus feats? If you're a barbarian X / fighter 1, is that a bonus feat per level?

As for the betrayal itself, I don't think you need to leave clues necessarily such that the players can fully anticipate the betrayal. Or at least avoid making it predictable. Just make sure that you mention parts of the plot that could explain the betrayal, so that in retrospect it would make sense. Also, you could give the character a high Bluff skill, and then make a silent GM roll whenever a clue would otherwise become obvious.

Force-killing the party is a pretty bad idea. You could definitely spring the betrayal on them, and have the traitor person put up a tough fight. If the guy tries to kill off the PCs, the whole point of the combat system is that they have a chance to fight back. It's okay because it's a legitimate challenge. But just waving your hands and saying "suddenly you all die because the plot demands it" is going to frustrate your players, especially at higher levels where they've put effort into developing their characters. It's basically telling them that their choices and character builds have little effect on the campaign.

Is there some redundancy or overlap going on with the feats and powers here? I've been building an Unchained scare-barian myself, but now I've run into an issue. I'm using the Invulnerable Rager archetype, so I don't need survival feats or powers. Intimidating Prowess and Power Attack were the obvious choices, and the scaling AC bonus from Beast Totem is ideal for a tank character.
Anyway, now I'm not entirely sure why someone would want to have both Intimidating Glare and Dazzling Display.

The STR bonus to demoralize from Intimidating Glare can't stack with the STR bonus from Intimidating Prowess, so the rage power just removes my Charisma bonus from my demoralize check (this is good if your Charisma is below 10). Also, the duration-of-the-rage benefit doesn't apply to Dazzling Display anyway. If you dazzle display first, then your enemies will already be Shaken by the time you hit them, making Intimidating Glare kind of pointless. So you take Weapon Focus, Dazzling Display, and work towards Greater Beast Totem. A seemingly viable strategy would be to area-demoralize, then charge/pounce the toughest enemy who isn't shaken.

On the other hand, the ability to keep enemies Shaken for the duration of the rage only applies to those who were demoralized when they were adjacent to you. Dazzling Display triggers AOO and is better against crowds. If this is the case, it would make much more sense to go with Intimidating Glare and Cleave - this means that you can hit 2 enemies and demoralize them both for the duration of the rage. Also, skipping Dazzling Display basically opens up 2 feats, so you could fit Cornugon Smash or something as another feat.

Am I missing something here? What sort of strategy would require taking both?