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Hi everyone. I asked for some help recently on other post and got some great advice in making a barbarian.
Now I face another problem:
Default Barbarian vs Invincible Rager Barbarian
My DM gave me a look when I told him I am playing a Invincible Rager Barbarian.
Since it is the first game, our character are not "set in stone" yet and we could change them.
Some of my fellow players seems to be unsure if my choice of Invincible Rager Barbarian is a good ideal...
So I ask YOU ALL, what do you think? Is the Invincible Rager Barbarian a bad ideal? (At least when compared to the Default Barbarian.
Well, the trade-off is trap sense and uncanny dodge for DR.
Sneak attacks hurt, sure, but it's situational, as is trap sense. DR is universally good, and has an effect every single attack, and since people tend to build Barbarians with Low AC (light armor for movement and Str and Con in favor of Dex, THF as opposed to taking a shield), and high HP, reducing the damage done by all the hits you take is never a bad thing.
DR 10/- in a world of monsters with many primary natural attacks is never terrible.
There's no inherently "better" between the two options, they are different with different ways of making them work optimally for you - while at the same time having different trade-offs.
The invulnerable rager essentially gives the character a free reign to ignore investing in armor to some extent due to superior damage reduction. Coupled with high HP that makes the barbarian pretty hard to kill even if he's easy to hit.
A (vanilla) barbarian on the other hand doesn't actually give up DR, he merely gets DR at a slower rate and ends up with DR 5/- instead of DR 10/- by level 20. But he keeps (Improved) Uncanny Dodge which can make a big difference in certain fights.
Both are fun to play, they are just inherently different and require a different mindset to play "optimally".
Invulnerable Rager.
If you go with an Invulnerable Rager, make sure to play to your strengths. Since your AC isn't going to matter worth a damn, make sure you pick up feats like Toughness and Raging Vitality, and take rage powers like Reckless Abandon and Come And Get Me. Superstitious might also be a good investment. You'll be putting out some absurd damage and likely focusing all the enemy hate on you, so be sure to increase your survivability in non-AC ways and punish your enemies for hitting you.
Also, do your healer a favor and buy your own damn healing wands. A barbarian can easily burn through most of a Wand of Cure Light Wounds in a tough fight.
Add. Displacement or blur effects and you will be able to take a lot of hits.
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So I ask YOU ALL, what do you think? Is the Invincible Rager Barbarian a bad ideal? (At least when compared to the Default Barbarian.
Diehard or Orc Ferocity (if a half-orc) aren't bad things to pick up to keep from losing Rage (and the subsequent extra HP) when knocked down into negs - there were a number of times my Invulnerable Rager had his arse saved that way. Stick close to your cleric. :)
I wouldn`t say AC isn`t worth a damn. Certainly not vs. medium BAB types who are the ones who tend to have Sneak Attack.
Miss Chance stuff is very nice of course, but AC isn`t a lost cause just because you take a -2 penalty. Different Archetypes and Rage Powers will more than off-set that anyways, to the point of being as good or better than a Fighter in the same armor.
I have no idea why your GM gave you a look... maybe you should ask him.
Maybe that`s how he responds when people try to bring alternate rules into his game that he doesn`t understand very well.
I`d say it can be more than viable. I don`t really like Trap Sense or Uncanny Dodge because they`re both completely passive and very situational. That said, I personally don`t like Invulnerable Rager that much, but mostly just because it`s not my style. My favorite is Superstitious Archetype, which isn`t compatable with Invulnerable Rager... Though I wish they had made it so Superstitious Archetype let you see thru magical Darkness rather than seeing FARTHER (if you already had that sense)... Still, I DO like it :-)
From my experience, Invulnerable Rager is far better at lower levels; DamageReduction is a big boon at low levels. The vanilla barbarian gets his share of damage reduction in time, so he becomes better overall than the invulnerable rager in the higher ups. (My call.)
On the other hand, never being considered flanked can save your hide; especially against rogues. Damage Reduction 10 (at best) doesn't make you invincible VS many attacks with 10d6 precision damage (at best, again).
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Yeah, I agree about the invulnerable rager. It's a breaker of hordes and mooks for sure, but chewing a couple of full-attacks, since they will absolutely hit your naked hide, from a high CR foe is going to leave you wanting for more ac. It's possible to offset this somewhat with a lot of hit points and miss chance, but that's going to mean abilities spend on something else than, say, attack power or accuracy.
It's one of the most unique character options though, nevermind the relative superiority in fortitude: Playing the scarred titan of war who eschews armor and is actually effective.
Yeah, I agree about the invulnerable rager. It's a breaker of hordes and mooks for sure, but chewing a couple of full-attacks, since they will absolutely hit your naked hide, from a high CR foe is going to leave you wanting for more ac. It's possible to offset this somewhat with a lot of hit points and miss chance, but that's going to mean abilities spend on something else than, say, attack power or accuracy.
It's one of the most unique character options though, nevermind the relative superiority in fortitude: Playing the scarred titan of war who eschews armor and is actually effective.
Invulnerable Rager doesn`t have any lower AC than a normal Barb. The `Savage` Archetype is the one that eschews armor... There`s no reason a Barb can`t be wearing Heavy Armor with a Feat or 1 level of Fighter/Paladin, and Invulnerable doesn`t change that. If you`re talking about the Barbs that don`t have lots of HP at high level and Miss Chance from something or other... I have to say, I don`t know what Barbs you are talking about.
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Invulnerable Rager doesn`t have any lower AC than a normal Barb. The `Savage` Archetype is the one that eschews armor... There`s no reason a Barb can`t be wearing Heavy Armor with a Feat or 1 level of Fighter/Paladin, and Invulnerable doesn`t change that. If you`re talking about the Barbs that don`t have lots of HP at high level and Miss Chance from something or other... I have to say, I don`t know what Barbs you are talking about.Yeah, I agree about the invulnerable rager. It's a breaker of hordes and mooks for sure, but chewing a couple of full-attacks, since they will absolutely hit your naked hide, from a high CR foe is going to leave you wanting for more ac. It's possible to offset this somewhat with a lot of hit points and miss chance, but that's going to mean abilities spend on something else than, say, attack power or accuracy.
It's one of the most unique character options though, nevermind the relative superiority in fortitude: Playing the scarred titan of war who eschews armor and is actually effective.
I wasn't clear enough, oh well. I meant to refer to SunsetPsychosis' earlier comment about "ac not being worth a damn" for the IR achetype. It's actually a pretty widespread perception about the class in general. Either making enough damage to ensure that there's no retaliation or relying on DR. I don't subscribe to this dichotomy and do think armor fits there and matters.
As for high hp and miss chances, well, it depends.
Elven barbarians, for instance, will have spend their favored class boni to have more movement speed and they often have a lower con modifier. That's one barbarian concept that won't have a soaring hp.
Miss chances are available from three sources: a) rage powers b) items and c) spells. Without a magic mart or a dedicated buffer available the last two are not so likely. The rage powers, on the other hand, have opportunity costs associated with them since they are totem powers of which you can only utilize one power tree per character.
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I like the Drunken Brute/Brutal Pugilist variants (they stack).
Putting Invulnerable on top of a class which will already have almost 50% more HP those most other classes is overkill -- besides, the typical way a higher level barbarian dies is by eating a Maximized Flame Strike in the same round he also took a stone golem crit to the face. When barbs die, it's not because were nickeled and dimed, but because they went straight to -37 in a party whose incompetent healer didn't prepare Sacred Bond and Breath of Life.
Hi everyone. I asked for some help recently on other post and got some great advice in making a barbarian.
Now I face another problem:
Default Barbarian vs Invincible Rager Barbarian
My DM gave me a look when I told him I am playing a Invincible Rager Barbarian.
Since it is the first game, our character are not "set in stone" yet and we could change them.Some of my fellow players seems to be unsure if my choice of Invincible Rager Barbarian is a good ideal...
So I ask YOU ALL, what do you think? Is the Invincible Rager Barbarian a bad ideal? (At least when compared to the Default Barbarian.
If you want to have your cake and eat it too do invulnerable route with 4 levels of vanilla rogue, you can take fast stealth(or trap spotter is nice) and weapon focus as rogue talents, get uncanny dodge and evasion, 2d6 sneak attack, all for the cost of 1 bab. could be really fun with an orc double axe half orc barb/rogue
Grasshopper has a good point, and Mike`s point gets right to the chase for me:
If you have a competent healer, you should be able to survive without Invulerable Rager DR... After all, everybody else does.
And if you can survive without it, that means I`d rather pick my favorite Archetype powers (I like both Superstitious and Pugilist, and would LOVE if you could stack them too! :-))
BTW, @Mike: Do you play ignoring the action requirement for drawing potions with the Drunken Brute, or do you still find it useful even with it? The Move Action+Move Action isn´t THAT much different than Move Action+Standard Action (unless you are getting bonus Move Actins somehow), and I -have- found ways to make it useful, in arena set-ups with limited pre-buff rounds, you essentially get an extra 0.5 action every round, but over-all it seems `meh` for me in ongoing AP style adventures...
I wasn't clear enough, oh well...
Elven barbarians, for instance, will have spend their favored class boni to have more movement speed and they often have a lower con modifier. That's one barbarian concept that won't have a soaring hp.
Miss chances are available from three sources: a) rage powers b) items and c) spells.
Yeah, no worries, things get confused when cross-replying between multiple people :-)
To your points, I would just clarify:
the Elven barbarians who CHOOSE to take the move speed boost rather than fortify their weak point,
and that besides that `spells` doesn`t have to be a single-person buff, but could be an area fog spell
(or non-spell fog effect like smoke bombs, environmental effects, etc),
Miss Chance is also easily available from Feats: Wind Stance gets you 20% Partial Concealment whenever you move more than 5` (pre-req Dodge, not that big a deal) and immunity to most Sneak Attackers, especially Monsters (who aren`t built like min-maxing PCs with all the Feats to counter Concealment.
Hi everyone. I asked for some help recently on other post and got some great advice in making a barbarian.
Now I face another problem:
Default Barbarian vs Invincible Rager Barbarian
My DM gave me a look when I told him I am playing a Invincible Rager Barbarian.
Since it is the first game, our character are not "set in stone" yet and we could change them.Some of my fellow players seems to be unsure if my choice of Invincible Rager Barbarian is a good ideal...
So I ask YOU ALL, what do you think? Is the Invincible Rager Barbarian a bad ideal? (At least when compared to the Default Barbarian.
Invulnerable Rager by a landslide. I consider that the default barbarian now.
Fortified armor or outright killing them handles rogues or precision-based attackers. They are fairly rare and don't survive long anyhow.
Traps you can't survive as a barbarian have not yet come up in my campaigns.
DR comes up 95% of the time. A few rare encounters have pure spell casters.
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Thanks for all the advice.
Sorry if I can't reply to each post point for point, as there are a lot...
The reason I asked, is because I am making a Barbarian for the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path and don't want to make a character that is going to be suffer in the Adventure.
I like the ideal of the Invulnerable Rager, but with Serpent's Skull taking part in some sort of jungle setting, I was wondering if I the Default Barbarian will have a better time in it.
If I stick with Invulnerable Rager I am thinking about surviving by getting as much AC and HP I can get to stack on my character.
I am not going to drop my AC too much. I am wearing a Chain shirt now, but should I wear a medium armor instead? Also I am going with the Beast Totem route and that will up my AC by a bit.
HP wise I am going with Raging Vitality and Toughness at lvl 1 to maximize hp gain.
There are some suggestions that I take up feats to boost my weapon's to hit, but I think I will take Reckless Abandon instead. Beast Totem offsets the lost to AC and it levels with me.
And thanks for letting me know about Fortified armor.
Overall, I think I will go with Invulnerable Rager, unless there is some overwhelmingly good reason why I should I default Barbarian.
Mithril breastplate is the best thing to do if you don't take heavy armor prof. and you want to keep your 40 foot speed.
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A Decent Char AC is considered your level +20
You Can Do this with Invulnerable Rager:
AC- 10+3(15dex+ 1point at level 4)+3(belt of physical perfection 6)+6(breastplate)+5(amulet)+5(ring)+5(armor enhancement)+5(defending armor spikes)+4(beast totem)-6(reckless abandon)=40 when raging
40 Is a decent AC. The first attack from a melee monster and AOO's will get you but the chances on iteratives will drop severely.
Note: If you use Come and Get me- you WILL be hit alot more (AC 36). But the extra AOO's you get will win a DPR Race.
Combine CAGM with Dazing Assault to force them to make a save vs each AOO to daze them.
go for a 15 Dex and 17Str (+2 for Half-Orc, Human, Half-elf) on your point buy. Pumping con doesn't actually do that much for you in terms of rage rounds (14con max) and you will get more rage HP if you take Raging Vitality feat at 1st level.
What you pick is up to you but the bare bones OPTIMAL Invulnerable Rager is Human (favored bonus to superstition and heart of the fields racial trait) has:
Pounce
CAGM+ Combat Reflexes
Dazing Assault
Reckless Abandon (Between that and Mighty Rage- that's more to hit bonuses than fighter's get)
Superstition (delay rage on first round so your buffers can get you)
Witchunter
I also reccomend:
Strength Surge
Roused Anger
Knockdown
Knockback
Clearmind
and from 17 onwards:
Unexpected Stike
Surprise Accuracy
Mighty Swing
If you start with STR17 (take it to 19 with human) and use your level up points to get it to get it to 22
Your attack at 20 is
20 +4(Mighty Rage) +5(wpn enhancement)+ 3(belt of physical perfection) +6(Reckless Abandon)+6(str)+2(Furious Weapon)- 6(PA)+ 1(Wpn Fcs)= 41/36/31/26
Average 20th level AC is 34 so the first 2 are auto, 3rd nearly always hits. Your AOO's with Dazing Assault on are 41-5= 36 so auto hit.
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Mithril breastplate is the best thing to do if you don't take heavy armor prof. and you want to keep your 40 foot speed.
I am sticking with medium armor. I just don't see my Barbarian crashing through the jungle wearing a full plate...
Its going to take sometime to get that Mithril breastplate, but I keep it in mind. Thanks
I rolled my stats and have a total of 18 in str before lvl 1. Overall, my stats are higher then a 25 point buys, but I don't have any 17 or 18s among them (before racial.)
Other then that, thanks for the list of what feats and rage powers to get. I keep seeing suggestions for things I never thought of. Thanks!
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Remember that Serpent's Skull has very little in the way of buying and selling. We are about done with the second scenario(eight sessions in, btw) and there's been two occasions to replenish our stocks and very little chance to plan ahead with our equipment. I would not rely on getting any specific gear, since the Mwangi area is pretty sparse with settlements, big ones to be specific. You pretty much have to make do with what you find on the way.
For instance, that Belt of Physical Perfection, which STR Ranger mentioned, has to be either a) bought from a well-stocked merchant b) acquired via planar binding/ally or c) crafted. You won't have enough time off to get the thing crafted and neither a metropolis-sized city nearby to acquire one. Planar Binding might work, but you have no chance to plan forward to that. Same thing with the other gear that have high-level enchantments in them. Even if you do have a party member that'll take the appropriate feats, the stuff takes weeks to craft. And believe me there are time restraints in this campaign*.
I suggest not settling on any particular character plan for your late levels. You will have to see what you are up against and adapt to the occasion.
*not to mention the whole idea of taking three months off of adventuring to craft gear while there's a end of the world scenario going on. We did that in Rise of the Runelords and it was a complete immersion breaker. Planeshifting to Absalom from Varisia was much cooler and in tune with spirit of adventuring.
@Muser
What are you going to craft that it's going to take you 3 months?
3 months means 90 days which means something that has a market value of 90000gp, 180000gp if you can afford the +5 DC for double work (which after a certain level is somewhat easy for an INT based crafter), by the time you have the money to craft such items your wizard should be able to teleport you to a metropolis.
While I do like invulnerable rager quite a lot and plan to play one, people are throwing out a lot of poor information here. The big loss from dropping it isn't trap sense or improved uncanny dodge, it is plain vanilla uncanny dodge. Remember when you are flat footed you lose the ability to make attacks of opportunity and to take immediate actions. Obviously the immediate action part can vary dependent on your abilities and feats, and that will get more and more important as new material is released (I'd bet dollars to donuts we see immediate rage feat in ult combat), but the attacks of opportunity part is huge and all invulnerable ragers should select combat reflexes with one of their first 3 feats. I mean, DM calls for initiative, you get a 5, six guys and a dinosaur crash out of the bush, the dinosaur grapples you and you cant get your attack in, your DR doesn't help you much as you sit there pinned and the squishy guys in your party get butchered.
Remember when you are flat footed you lose the ability to make attacks of opportunity
True, but while Uncanny Dodge negates the flat-footed status altogether, Combat Reflexes still allows you to make AoOs even if you are flat-footed.
And since CR allows you to make additional AoOs and pretty much any barbarian will have it anyway, I don't think uncanny dodge is a huge loss.|
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@Muser
What are you going to craft that it's going to take you 3 months?
3 months means 90 days which means something that has a market value of 90000gp, 180000gp if you can afford the +5 DC for double work (which after a certain level is somewhat easy for an INT based crafter), by the time you have the money to craft such items your wizard should be able to teleport you to a metropolis.
In our case it was several items. A Headband of Inspired Wisdom +6 and a Headband of Mental Perfection(?) +4. I think there was some kind of cloak in there too and some other item.
And the crafter was a druid so increasing those DCs would have been rather hazardous.
The reason I said that AC generally isn't worth a damn for the Invulnerable Rager may just be because of how I view the archetype/class.
I see the strengths of the Invulnerable Rager as being able to take more of a brutal beating than others. The best rage power to take advantage of the extra durability is Come And Get Me, hands down. And if you're already giving them +4 to hit and damage on a class that generally doesn't prioritize Dex very much, usually wears medium armor at best, and never uses a shield, then why not go further with it, and drop AC even more with Reckless Abandon? And if you're going that far, then spend your armor budget on the best Fortification you can get, rather than raw AC bonuses.
I see the defensive capabilities of the archetype as a way to get more offensive abilities that a vanilla barbarian would have a harder time sustaining, like CAGM, because they're better able to handle the repercussions and drawbacks.
That said, even the burliest barbarian can't hope to handle all of the beatings that enemies can dish out without being a giant wad of meat draining the healing resources of the party. That's where things like miss chances, high saves, fortification, more HP, and higher DR come in handy, being non-AC related defensive abilities.
Just my personal view on the concept, at least.
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It would be interesting to play a CaGM invulnerable rager killing machine with the works in our games. Our last barbarian was a plain vanilla one with a lot of party support, since he tended to fail saves and took interesting Core book powers instead of the powerful APG ones. I remember when I introduced the APG in one of our last campaign sessions and people's reactions on seeing Reckless Abandon in action. He was an enemy mincer who everyone hit almost immediately, if they survived. Granted, this was RotRL, where high level threats are pretty optimized and his only protection was a mithral full plate and a scarab of protection.
Now, take the contemporary optimized barbarian with a lot of splat book backing and everyone would probably cry foul. I'd start an arms race between the classes :D We had an optimized Weaponmaster archer for a while and he contributed about 70 percent of damage in every fight. And that guy would have had nothing on an optimized barbarian's defences. Would have eventually made more damage though.
I also like the mental image of the invulnerable rager barbarian. A big, burly, angry guy charging into combat with a really big stick, wearing hardly more than a shirt. Yelling and screaming at the enemies, obliterating their faces when they dare to take a swing at him, shrugging off most blows like they were nothing as he continues to carve his way through the battlefield.
Oh man, I hope they bring back the Frenzied Berserker PrC in Ultimate Combat...
I also like the mental image of the invulnerable rager barbarian. A big, burly, angry guy charging into combat with a really big stick, wearing hardly more than a shirt. Yelling and screaming at the enemies, obliterating their faces when they dare to take a swing at him, shrugging off most blows like they were nothing as he continues to carve his way through the battlefield.
Oh man, I hope they bring back the Frenzied Berserker PrC in Ultimate Combat...
From what i have heard the Frenzied Berserker was a pretty powerful PrC...
Also from what we have seen i don't think that the UC will have any PrCs.|
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I see you are going to be playing Serpent's Skull. Another point about the Rager barb that may or may not come into play. I dont know how your GM handles things, but one of the games I'm in, mine is VERY picky about things such as "How are you getting by in the intense heat". Heat he makes us track water (cleric always has create water handy). Jungles are HOT, HUMID, and can pose a problem if your GM tracks such things. The Rager barb gets to choose either hot or cold environments and act as is if under endure elements attuned to said environment (in addition to slow scaling fire/cold resistance). So if you choose fire, you get endure elements towards the heat. Could be useful if your GM delves in such territory as mine does.
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Hot-weather clothing helps too. So does using the Survival skill to get bonuses to Fort saves. Add to that some racial bonus, like from Desert Runner and you are pretty darn well off.
The invulnerable rager ability is nice, but you get about the same time that endure elements is readily available from just about any caster. The previous levels were where we desperately needed heat endurance, but only had one two spells to throw around.
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Thanks for reminding me about what Survival can be used for.
I want to thank everyone for their advice on the Invulnerable Rager.
There are also of good points and advice given and it has helped me a lot!
I am sticking with Invulnerable Rager and it seems to be what I had in mind when I made a Barbarian - Tough, strong and not afraid to go charging into battle.
Once again, thank you!
Oh man, I hope they bring back the Frenzied Berserker PrC in Ultimate Combat...
Dude- the Invulnerable Rager+reckless abandon +Inspire Ferocity IS the Frenzied Berserker...