Hi there! My name is Kilbourne, and I'm going to be playing in a higher level game starting in a few weeks, and would like some advice on the build!
I'm playing a faun PC, a race from the Pathfinder Homebrew Database, and I have to opportunity to build up to the 13th level with him. I want to have a second-line striker, with support casting. Hopefully this will accomplish that soundly.
1 - Barbarian 1
2 - Barbarian 2 (for Moment of Clarity)
3 - Oracle (Battle Mystery) 1
~
11 - Oracle 9
12 - Rage Prophet 1
13 - Rage Prophet 2
14-20 - Oracle
So at level 20 (ha!) he'll be a Barbarian 2, Rage Prophet 2, Oracle of Battle 16.
He's got a build of: (base from a roll generator)
Str: 16 = base 16
Dex: 14 = base 12, racial +2
Con: 10 = base 8, upgrade at lvl 4, lvl 8
Int: 10 = base 10
Wis: 11 = base 13, racial -2
Cha: 20= base 17, racial +2, upgrade at lvl 12
Revelations (3):
- Maneuver Mastery, Trip
- Weapon Mastery, Fauchard
- War Sight
Feats (7):
- Toughness
- Dodge
- Mobility
- Spring Attack
- Critical Focus
- Extra Revelation: Surprising Charge
- Vital Strike
Going with Maneuver Mastery (Trip) and Weapon Mastery (Fauchard) for my primary combat revelations, and become a springing, jumping, raging, tripping machine of death! Going to be fun.
I think this is a really strong combination because the Barbarian levels afford the ability to use martial weapons, without having to spend a Battle revelation on it (and heavy armor). That way I can take more useful revelations, but still have the use of rage while in heavy combat, and can heal myself without having to leave rage or use Moment of Clarity, due to that second level of Rage Prophet.
How does that sound? Any suggestions to improve something I may have missed?
Bump!
Barbarians don't get heavy armor.
Also, only 10 rounds of rage per day can be pretty terrible. Some GMs only do "1 fight per day" and encourage nova-ing. If your GM is that GM, then you're fine. But if your GM does the recommended 3-6 encounters per day, you're in trouble. Expect to spend a lot of time fatigued.
Also, given your build's focus, I don't see why you took Critical Focus.
And you know that the new errata that just came out this week says you cannot Vital Strike while Spring Attacking, right?
I love Rage Prophet, BTW. Awesome class. You should take more of it, and less of Oracle.
Also: what's your Curse? Normally for a Barb/Orac I would go with "lame" every time. (Effectively gives you Tireless Rage at extremely low level.) However, since you're built around movement and strikes, you might not want to take the hit to movement.
I took the vision curse, because, as you say, the decrease to movement would have been debilitating into the mobility focus. Speaking of which, the errata change to the Spring Attack and Vital Strike is going to be ignored by my GM, just because it would really reduce the overall utility of the Spring Attack chain into damage stack feats.
I do know that Barbarians do not get heavy armor, I was remarking that it allowed my character to use martial weapons without spending the Oracle Revelation on that proficiency (the revelation that allows martial weapons / heavy armor).
Right now, the party I'm joining has not one single dedicated caster, other than a Ranger and a Bard, whom cannot match the sheer blast power of an Oracle. Also, there is not a single healer. What I'm trying to build is something very usable is many fights, which is why I am not too worried about the lack of rage-rounds.
Do you think that the loss of more revelations and Mystery powers for the trade-off of Rage Prophet mysteries and a slower spell level progression is worth take more Prophet and less Oracle?
I do think I'll drop the Critical focus; what do you think would be a good replacement? Perhaps Extra Rage Power: Knockdown?
I should thank you for your advice! What magic and wondrous items should I hope for?
Whoops, forgot that Rage Prophet stacks with Oracle levels for determining revelation and curse powers, and spell progression (if slightly slowed).
I find vision to be annoying for the GM and hard to avoid metagaming. The GM describes a bunch of stuff, then turns to you and says, "but, uh, you don't know that!" However, that's very much a play-style descision, and YMMV.
On the other hand, if you and your GM get a little bit liberal with the interpretation, the synergy between "Haunted" and a trip-focused build can be hilarious.
The problem with lack of Rage rounds is "turning it off." Once you turn it on, you're kindof locked in. So if you start up a fight and think it will be quick, and then it goes long for some unexpected reason, you'll either have sapped your resources for the day, or worse, be dragging around with a lot of fatigue. And waiting until the fight is "in hand" before raging is a wasteful strategy. I just think it will be a dissapointment.
Basically, if you want to play an Oracle that can fight: go straight Oracle, or Oracle with a one-or-two-level dip in Fighter for the proficiencies and extra feat.
If you want to play a Rage Prophet, then go all-in with Rage Prophet. It's the best gish PrC in PF (IMHO), but you need to commit to it to have it shine.
Doing this half-in, half-out thing just isn't as good as it could be.
Also: Rage Prophet advances your Revelations at every level. (You still have your Mysteries replaced though.)
As for extra feats, either advance your Vital Strike, or get some metamagic (empowered is great if you have a healing-focus). Alternatively, the "totem" rage powers in the APG are pretty amazing (and fit in with your flavor nicely).
As for item, bleeeh, I hate shopping. So I'll give you the rediculous suggestion to get a magic carpet and have your spring attacks be flying.
empowered is great if you have a healing-focus
Please excuse this bout of temporary insanity. I was getting confused with a different build style that wouldn't work well for you.
Why aren't you taking more levels in rage prophet?
The savage seer ability means that your revelations are going to increase in power as well as your barbarian rage powers and curse powers, and the sixth and tenth level class abilities are nice.
I would suggest that quicken spell is really pretty much required for this guy.
The seventh level power of adding your consitution score to the DC of your spells means you could have the single highest DCs in the game (honestly that looks really rocking for a heavens oracle, or flame oracle).
Also the Rage prophet offers more than just powers:
It gives d10 hit dice, two good saves and the same number of skill points and BAB as the oracle does.
Some extra rage might not be bad if you aren't going to hit at least sixth level as a rage prophet.
On the other hand, if you and your GM get a little bit liberal with the interpretation, the synergy between "Haunted" and a trip-focused build can be hilarious.
OK, I'll admit to some confusion. I'm looking at Haunted and I'm not seeing any way it could synergize with a trip build. Could you elaborate?
The GM and I have already had a laugh about, "all this stuff is here... except you can't see it. Anyone want to explain to Hank what's across the street?" It could be pretty funny. I think what the plan is to combat that sort of thing, and also terrible meta-gaming, is that the character (not actually named Hank) will be able to discern things in the environment due to scent, the sound of things, echoes, temperature, and magnetoception, but not as accurately as sight.
The biggest problem I'm struggling with in this build is that it's really badly MAD, making it hard to have good amount of Con, Str, Cha, and Dex while not dropping Will-saves or Int (because who really wants to play a supernaturally Charismatic dullard?).
Considering all of this, I think I'm going to take all of these options and go over them with my GM, and the suggestions of the other players in the game. Even more considering how striker-heavy the team is already, I may just stick with a full-Oracle build so that I am not any more MAD than I am already.
I agree with both Abraham Spalding and the analytical Mr. Erik Freund, the Rage Prophet is an incredibly powerful gish PrC, more-so even than the Eldritch Knight, if only for the exceptional DC's.
Committing to the Rage is something that I can't do, I think, just because of how reliant I believe the party may become on a strong caster, which they don't have at this point.
So, everyone, thank you for your sound advice. I'm still not sure what to do with this Oracle of mine, but I will come back and let you all know once I have decided.
Something else to note though it might be considered cheesy:
You can get into the rage prophet prestige class without taking a single level in barbarian.
Instead you take..11(iirc) levels in cleric with the rage subdomain and a single level in oracle. Since half of your levels in classes not oracle count towards your curse you'll be level 7 for the curse at level 12. You go into rage prophet and throw all the caster levels into the cleric side and count again for your curse power with the savage seer ability.
You end with cleric casting 16, oracle casting 1 (11 for your revelations which you can take with feats), curse level 15, better saves and access to all your spells instead of just the limited oracle list as well as the ferocity domain and channel energy. It helps kill the MAD since you really don't need charisma in this case.
Holy crap man, you're a machine