A fellow player in my game is playing an Oracle/Barbarian, and wants my help making an effective character. Right now we are level three and he is going to be a level one Oracle and a level two Barbarian. He wants to be a melee butt kicker. My first bit of advice was drop the Oracle level. But he wants to keep it. So with what he has now and going up to level 16 or so what would be a good build for this Oracle/Barbarian?
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A fellow player in my game is playing an Oracle/Barbarian, and wants my help making an effective character. Right now we are level three and he is going to be a level one Oracle and a level two Barbarian. He wants to be a melee butt kicker. My first bit of advice was drop the Oracle level. But he wants to keep it. So with what he has now and going up to level 16 or so what would be a good build for this Oracle/Barbarian?
I'm just gonna leave this here for you: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/n-r/rage-proph et
Any Oracle/Barb should take that prestige class. It lets you cast more spells while raging, stacks with your rage abilities and powers AND with your oracle spellcasting, revelations and curse. It's pretty amazing.
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Oracle of Lore is my favorite, but Oracle of Nature or Battle work, too. What kind of Barbarian doesn't matter.
So, with Oracle of Lore or Nature, you take the Revelation they have that substitutes Charisma for Dexterity for purposes of AC, and take a high Charisma, dumping Dex if you like. Make sure you take the Lame curse. This allows you to be the face character of the group as well as a melee character. You can take another Revelation or two via Feats if you want non-combat options (I'm a big fan of Focused Trance, plus one rank in all the Knowledge skills, which lets you auto-succeed at out-of-combat knowledge checks).
You can go Battles instead and grab the Revelation for Heavy Armor for a similar effect, if you like, but it's not as fun, IMO.
Now, by 9th level you are Immune to Fatigue, allowing you to do, say, Strength Surge every round, by restarting your Rage every round, or similar things. This is a very cool ability, and combined with the Improved Sunder Feat and the Spell Sunder Rage Power lets you auto-disable magical defenses.
It's an extremely vicious build, in it's way.
Oracle of Metal (Ultimate Magic) has a few good things too, including the Lead Blades spell (normally a Ranger-only spell) from the APG.
Even something like a barbarian 19/oracle 1 rocks.
Key point. Take the lame curse. At 9th lvl (barbarian 8/oracle 1) you are immune to fatigue and basically have the barbarian capstone 8 levels early.
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ok everyone loves the barbarian. for obvious reasons they are strong have huge hp pools and run fast while killing things. i ask you one question.. what cant the oracle do. the oracle can boost his own str and con with spells without the ac penalty. 2nd level spell=+4 to a stat. a solid bab progression is nice but an oracle has a 3/4 bab progression and has spells which more than make up for the few bab lost. the only thing this really does is slow down your access to some feats. and lowers the value of powerattack. now if you are looking for the cheese of rage cycling early then just dip, but if you are just wanting to make a beastly character capable of laying serious pain down on a battlefield while instantly curing himself and making all his allies chant his name in battle. my friend then you want to play a battle oracle.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/bloodsworn-retribution
is an amazing spell. and all of the spells available to you to increase your size, haste yourself, up your attack bonus, make you harder to hit, give you protection from everything playing a caster just makes a powerful character. no you dont get pounce one of the coolest things a barbarian gets but a battle oracle at level 20 gets the best combat movement ever capable of moving while taking a full attack and splitting the attack up.
also with just 2 revelations you can instantly gain 5 feats that everyone wants. weapon focus, greater weapon focus, improved critical, improved combat maneuver and greater combat maneuver. and when you do that combat maneuver you have full bab... hello trip. and both of these cap at level 12 just when you need them. u can heal as a swift action, cast ironskin on yourself 1/day with no component, roll initiative 3 times and pick the best and always go in a surprise round, all of this said if a barbarian and a battle oracle met on a battle field saw each other rolled initiative and started fighting chances are the oracle will emerge victorious. im sure people can show you how a barbarian can rage lance pounce from the back of some creature for maximum damage. but there are 100s of tricks in an oracles pouch and just a handful in a barbarians.
and an oracle does all of this without invoking the "and i activate the cheese of becoming incredibly angry and then instantly calming down in 6 seconds" which most dms i know have come to say is just ridiculous. since the wording on free actions says you are limited to how many make since. and i dont remember the hulk ever freaking out for just 4 seconds. but i got sidetracked.
taking one more thing on this rant of mine into consideration. if you really do want to blend the classes the above mentioned rage prophet is an ok way of going about it i hate losing caster levels but if thats your idea of a good time then i would suggest the majority of levels be in oracle before hand just to gain access to some of the clerical spells before goign in. either way ejoy the play and hope some of my input helps.
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my first post got a little long. heres a build for leveling
oracle 1
lame curse, battle revelation weapon mastery bardiche, feat power attack, feat(human) extra revelation (skill at arms).
oracle 2
oracle 3
revelation maneuver mastery trip, feat furious focus
oracle 3/barbarian 1
oracle 3/ barbarian 2
rage power moment of clarity/ feat fury's fall
oracle 3/barbarian 3
oracle 3/ barbarian 4
rage power reckless abandon/ feat extra revelation (war sight)
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 1
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 2
feat extra rage power (strength surge)
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 3
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 4
feat extra revelation (combat healer)
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 5
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 6
feat extra rage power (superstitious)
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 7
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 8
feat extra revelation (surprising charge)
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 9
oracle 3/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 10
feat extra rage
oracle 4/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 10
oracle 5/barbarian 4/ rage prophet 10
feat whatever you like
oracle 5/barbarian 5/ rage prophet 10
you now have a level 20 character. your rage powers and revelations have all turned you into a raging casting tripping destroying monster of a character. you could substitute any of the feats you like but i believe that the character advancement of this toon will be the strongest for you. it grants you access to several nice rage powers all of the battle revelations i like you are a 12th level caster so you get the nice 6th level spells by the end. and improved uncanny dodge.
you could push back access to the rage prophet prc until level 11 but i recommend early access to start the benefit of stacking with both classes earlier on. if your dm allows the classic horror book the fauchard is a devastating weapon with this build and id change the first level to look like this
feat power attack, feat (human) ewp fauchard, revelation weapon mastery (fauchard).
other than that you end up with a bab of 15 and tons of feats and spells to make sure every trip hits. well enjoy hope this helps
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my first post got a little long. heres a build for leveling
oracle 1
lame curse, battle revelation weapon mastery bardiche, feat power attack, feat(human) extra revelation (skill at arms).
Without commenting on the rest of the build, I will note that Power Attack requires a BAB of +1, which a 1st level oracle does not yet possess.
This is a sample build...
Human: Str 15+2, Dex 10, Cos 14, Int 10, Wis 8, Car 16 (20 point buy)
Lv 01. Battle Oracle 01: Lame Curse, War Sight, Combat Casting, Improved Initiative (Human).
Lv 02. Battle Oracle 02.
Lv 03. Armored Hulk 01: Power Attack
Lv 04. Battle Oracle 03: Greataxe/Greatsword/Heavy flail Mastery, Str +1
Lv 05. Battle Oracle 04: Furious Focus
Lv 06. Armored Hulk 02: Moment of Clarity
Lv 07. Rage Prophet 01: Extra Revelation (Surprising Charge)
Lv 08. Rage Prophet 02: Cha +1
Lv 09. Rage Prophet 03: Extra Revelation (Sunder/Trip Mastery)
Lv 10. Rage Prophet 04.
Lv 11. Rage Prophet 05: Extra Rage Power (Smasher/Knockdown)
Lv 12. Rage Prophet 06: Cha +1
Lv 13. Rage Prophet 07: Extra Rage Power (Strenght Surge)
Lv 14. Battle Oracle 05.
Lv 15. Battle Oracle 06: Dazing Assault (great combo with sunder/trip!)
Lv 16. Battle Oracle 07: Combat Healer, Cha +1
Lv 17. Battle Oracle 08: Abundant Revelation (Combat Healer)
Lv 18. Rage Prophet 08.
Lv 19. Rage Prophet 09: Abundant Revelation (Surprising Charge)
Lv 20. Rage Prophet 10: Cha +1
Rage prophet is a trap. You can gett better BaB and higher lvl spells with a Oracle/Barb build and none of the abilities the rage prophet offers is worth the BaB and spell lvl loss.
This is what the plan was for the Rage Prophet that I started playing in my current game (until he got ganked by a Shadow in the first dungeon.)
Half Orc (City Raised, Shaman's Apprentice)
Lame Metal Oracle 1 / Titan Mauler 2 / Oracle +3 / Rage Prophet 5 / Oracle +2 / RP + 2 / Oracle +1 / RP +3 / TM +1
(Dance of the Blades, Armor Mastery, Vision in Iron)
Rage Prophet Mystery Spells: See Invisibility, Spectral Hand, Dream, Shadow Walk, Vision
Friend in Every Town (Know(local)), Unbreakable Hate
Ferocious Resolve
Power Attack
Extra Rage Power: Reckless Abandon (requires Barb 2)
Iron Hide
Vital Strike
Furious Finish
Gore Fiend
Improved Vital Strike
Ferocious Action
Resilient Brute
Magical Knack is a much more useful trait for a Rage Prophet than Friend in Every Town, but I took it for RP reasons.
Lame Metal Oracle is probably the best Oracle for a Rage Prophet; Dance of Blades counters Lame's movement penalty, and after a few levels you'll be able to move at full speed in medium armour while carrying a heavy load.
Use a greatsword one handed and just throw down the shield if something needs to be dead just a little bit faster (to get the increased Str and Power Attack damage, and / or to get rid of the attack penalty of Jotungrip)
As for the people who are suggesting staying away from the Prestige Class, these were my reasons:
-Rage Prophet levels advance revelations, curses, and rage powers.
-SLAs and Guidance from Spirit Guide along with a few extra spells known from the RP Mystery
-Indomitable Caster & Ragecaster make the Rage Prophet's spells more effective than those of an Oracle / Barbarian.
-Greater Rage without having to get all the way to 11th level Barbarian