You can take fighter at 1st and designate your favored class as Barbarian.
As it says, 'Typically this is the same class as the one he chooses at first level.' This is clearly an atypical case where he picks Barbarian instead.
And it is good.
On an unrelated note, this is quite sexy and is deserving of a BARBARIAN SEAL OF AWESOME MANLINESS.
Why do you switch from Bardiche to Greatsword at level 13?The character as I played him carried both a Greatsword and a Bardiche starting at 13th level due primarily to Come and Get Me. . .
Right! Thanks.
Why not use heavy armor like full plate instead of a breastplate?You can actually ignore that. I just jotted down what the character would be wearing/weilding at 1st level and didn't really take it beyond that. As I said, equipment is mor eor less immaterial here - heavy armor would be a logical extention of the build as it levels up.
Why do you switch from Bardiche to Greatsword at level 13?The character as I played him carried both a Greatsword and a Bardiche starting at 13th level due primarily to Come and Get Me - there are reach issues that need to be compensated for to properly use the Rage Power and having a weapon that allows you to attack adjacent foes was the most practical solution... again, the equipment stuff isn't really part of the primary build, I just had to put something down and that was my reasoning.
Ahh, okay! Thank you. I created a build using this as a guideline this past weekend and was just curious if there was something I was missing with the heavy armor bit.
Again, thank you and excellent guide! :)
I really like this. It does everything I want a frontline fighter to do . . .
One questions:
Doesn't Furious Focus offer more DPR than desperate battler? At the least, it would greatly improve your chance of landing your first attack . . . was there a specific reason for not choosing it, other than the synergy of Desperate Battler / Crowd Control?
I really like this. It does everything I want a frontline fighter to do . . .
One questions:
Doesn't Furious Focus offer more DPR than desperate battler? At the least, it would greatly improve your chance of landing your first attack . . . was there a specific reason for not choosing it, other than the synergy of Desperate Battler / Crowd Control?
In my experience, except at very low levels, full martials don't have any trouble getting their first attack to land anyway, its the interatives that you really want to try to make count... having said that, Desperate Battler is definitely the feat that's the most disposable or interchangeable. I just figured since you're likely to be out in front all alone, it was a no-brainer.
If you take Furious Focus then I'd suggest playing around with an Intimidate-type build, particularly grabbing Dreadful Carnage for some free debuffs. I didn't do that myself because the build is pretty tight - the soonest you can take Dreadful Carnage is 11th, which is also the soonest you can take Improved Stalwart which you have to do, and then its a toss up between that and Come and Get Me at 13th, bumping one or the other to 15th... there just ain't much room to work with in the middle of the build.
Having said that, you could probably change out Desperate Battler with Furious Focus and Deadly Aim with Cornugon Smash... but you'd lose much of your effectiveness at range. That doesn't matter to everyone, especially everyone playing a tank, but it matters to me.
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I've been considering trying to do a version of this that works in evasion. My own thoughts are to add martial artist monk and a animal companion.
To that end I was looking at your build and realizing I'd need to sacrifice quit a bit for that, but maybe not too much, two level martial artist splash I think. I was thinking cha 13 int 13 (to get the combat expertise and eldritch heritage fey) and then later animal boon, so that I'd have a Animal companion at my lvl -1. (using skilled for the bonus feat, for two other skill focuses for free later)
Any thoughts on how you'd work it in?
Let me put it another way, how would you work in animal companion through eldritch heritage, boon companion, and a tetsubo (I was thinking proficiency just through the cracked ioun stone thats 1.5k rather than blow a feat)
Working in evasion would be a nice point, but not that worrisome.
and I will say that when you get into the subtleties of Come and Get Me it would be wise to have both a reach weapon and a non-reach weapon available to you - my guy carries a Bardiche and wears an Earthbreaker strapped across his back with the claws he manifests as his fallback option.
I'm using a +2 furious courageous transformative adamantine greatsword. The adamantine is arguably unnecessary, but I liked the idea of being able to rip through anything in my way.
The benefits:
* You can transform it into any other 2H martial weapon, such as a bardiche for the reach property. Otherwise you can leave it as a greatsword to hit adjacent things. If you're disarmed or grappled, fall back to the claws. [transformative]
* +4 enhancement bonus when raging. [furious]
* Any morale bonus gets +1/2 the weapon's enhancement bonus. This has synergy with furious. Multiple things benefit from this, such as Rage, Superstition, and Desperate Battler. [courageous]
* Break through pretty much any non-magical barrier with it. [adamantine]
Well, I tip my hat to the OP. I've been trying to build something with similar intent with a stonelord paladin, but it will never equal yours. The fact you have higher DR than the tarrasque makes me chuckle.
Very impressive character build. been a long time I was looking for something like this but was unable to do it right.
Fun fact: I compared that guy lvl 11 vs a adult black dragon (no gear) and even on full attack, the dragon do an average of 13 damage when everything hit (2 attacks are useless if not a crit)
Question: not sure to understand how guarded life works. Lets say I got 10 hp left and I'm level 11 (dr 11/-) the bad guy got full attack, hit 2 times. both attack do 23 damage lets say. Do I have only 1 time guarded life to transfer in non lethal? Do I even take damage?
Explain me please :)
As I understand it, it can be quite tricky and open to interpretation... the biggest question is whether or not you get to double-dip due to two different types of incoming damage.
An Invulnerable Rager gains double his normal DR vs. non-lethal damage... so let's look at it like this: let's say you're a 10th level Barb, have DR 10/-, Greater Guarded Life, have 10 hit points remaining and take 25 points of damage.
First, your DR reduces that 25 by 10. The other 15 get through. 10 of that damage would reduce you to 0 which would theoretically trigger Guarded Life. Now, does Guarded Life affect the entire incoming attack or just the damage that takes you below zero? Let's say the latter - well, since you effectively have DR 20/- vs. those 5 points of incoming now non-lethal damage, you remain at zero.
Then, you take another attack for 25 points of damage. First your DR 10/- applies, reducing it to 15... then, since any damage at all would take you below zero all the rest gets converted to non-lethal and you have DR 20/- vs. non-lethal, so you don't take any damage at all.
At least, that's my interpretation of how it works. I've seen enough disagreements to acknowledge that its pretty confusing at least and would love a Dev to weigh in.
BTW - Damocles and I (he's in my group, also known on these boards as Martial, Martial, Martial!) - are updating this build and more than a dozen others and will be posting them in a single thread for people to access. It'll be all our favorite builds from the various AP's and campaigns we've played in - this one in particular has found its way into Skull n Shackles, Rise of the Runelords, Reign of Winter and (hopefully) Serpent's Skull.
Strange build, don't know how you can get DR 33/-? I can't find anything that have this much DR. It's more than the damage my fighter can throw out with his power attack.
Very nice. I learned some stuff and it gave me some new ideas.
I've started working on a similar build for the stalwart defender. I'm interested in seeing if this is possible.
Strange build, don't know how you can get DR 33/-? I can't find anything that have this much DR. It's more than the damage my fighter can throw out with his power attack.
I have no idea what this is in response to, but I don't see anything posted with DR 33/-.
dot.
i like that build, but i have to disagree with the statement, that it has a good AC. In my opinion it just has average AC.
Everything increasing the AC of this character only manages to compensate for an AC loss somewhere else.
Good AC in my opinion would be the same build using a shield, a fighter that effectively uses his higher then normal max-dex on armor or a gunslinger with his nimble class feature.
Its still an awesome build, even if you see the AC as "average" instead of "high" ^^
I've been throwing around this idea for a while now, and while it does not entirely seem to mesh with the build, it is still an interesting though experiment I feel like sharing.
So here is the idea: a barbarian with a dip into archaeologist bard in order to make use of the archaeologist's luck.
The bonus granted by that ability applies to attack, damage, saves, and skills, so it certainly has some decent value. The problems come with making it worth detracting from barbarians progression. This problem can be somewhat solved with a single trait, Fate's Favored, which gives a +1 to any luck bonuses you get. With that, you are getting a +2 to most everything, and it is close to par with rage...early on at least (can't beat those rage powers and such).
Another problem to solve though is that you only get 4+CHA rounds, which doesn't go very far. Fortunately, since it works like performance when feats and such are concerned, you can take advantage of much more flexible performance is compared to rage when it comes to feat support. With extra performance, to get 6 more rounds, and lingering performance, to tripple you effective rounds, you can easily have enough rounds per day that you do not have to worry much.
So with just a dip, a trait, and two feats, you basically get benefits on par with greater fortitude, iron will, lightning reflexes, weapon specialization, and weapon focus. It also boosts your intimidation checks, for when you take advantage of that. I feel this compliments well with the general role of the barbarian as a tank. Certainly something to consider at least.
i like that build, but i have to disagree with the statement, that it has a good AC. In my opinion it just has average AC.
Everything increasing the AC of this character only manages to compensate for an AC loss somewhere else.
Good AC in my opinion would be the same build using a shield, a fighter that effectively uses his higher then normal max-dex on armor or a gunslinger with his nimble class feature.Its still an awesome build, even if you see the AC as "average" instead of "high" ^^
Perhaps it would have been better to say 'good' or 'high' for a Barbarian... most Barbarians have crap AC.
It is not a barb but was my first attempt at a "tank" style character with massive HP.
Also has some decent input from STR ranger on a barb build.