Mad Dog Barbarian Build advice

[Jeagal Bonecrusher]

Hey folks!

For the start of a Reign of Winter game, I'd like to play a Mad Dog barbarian with a wolf companion.

All Paizo books allowed, 15 point buy, average wealth to start.

My thoughts would be half-orc with the beastmaster alternate racial trait,

Stats: Str 18 (/w +2 half orc included), Dex 10, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 10

Skills: handle animal, perception and intimidate

Weapon: earthbreaker?

Feat: Power attack?

Traits: campaign trait Blood of Giants (later wanting to take improved sunder)
second one I don't know yet.

Any thoughts on this?

[Black Feather]

I'd arrange your stats a little differently; 15 points is pretty rough to start out with but Dex is fairly important. I personally hate having low skill points at the start but it's not insurmountable. If you lower your Con to 14 and your Str to 17, you can buff the Dex to 14.

As for beastmaster, it's not bad and is flavorful but I prefer the sacred tattoo, especially as you get a cheap +2 to all saves if you pick fate's favored trait. Fate's favored also helps later on in your career when you want the Jingasa for an AC bonus, or a luckstone.
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Plays a bit differently than your usual min-max pouncing superstitious barb but it can be fun.

Any big two-hander will do but you usually want reach, crit multiplier, and / or crit range -- at the beginning anything works but towards mid / endgame most of your damage is from your str, power attack, enhancement on the weapons, and whatever other modifiers you have.

[Jeagal Bonecrusher]

Right, I should up DEX, as I don't get to wear heavy armor... STR 17, DEX 14, CON 14 it is.

I could lower the WIS instead of INT, to get 4 instead of 3 skill points, just to get survival, which is WIS based. Shouldn't lower my CHA because of intimidate and handle animal.

I think I will need the beastmaster, for the +1 to handle animal, for training the wolf. ( I plan on later switching to a badger, once the wolf is large / the badger is medium. Raging barbarian with raging badger = awesome visual)

Yeah, I went for the earthbreaker for its x3.

[Umbranus]

You will not be able to use it until you get your rage ability but I suggest taking the coherent rage trait for animal handling. Without it you will not be able to give commands to your AC when you rage.

If it is fore a home game ask your gm if he would allow you to teach a feat with half-orc/orc prerequisite to your AC. If he does allow it teach him amplified rage and learn it yourself. It has a rage ability so that part of the prereq. is taken care of.
If you add the furious beast rage power you can always rage side by side with a big stat boost.

[Jeagal Bonecrusher]

Amplified rage is awesome, I'll pester him once I have the badger.

And a nice find with the coherent rage trait (Why are there so many of those? I can't look them all over to find such things!)

[LoneKnave]

If you really want an AC badger, you can get it through Animal Ally much more easily. Yes, it's 2 feats but Mad dog gives up more than 2 rage powers, and you can rage from lvl 1. You could also dip 1 level into cavalier (after getting Animal Ally) to get Tactics and grant amplified rage through that. You also don't need to limit yourself to a badger, since there's the ferocious beast Rage power which can grant rage to your AC.

Also, I'm not sure about this but I recall ACs not needing handle animal check to be controlled (that's for animals that are not granted by class features).

[Jeagal Bonecrusher]

The handle animal isn't used to control it (that's what the link (Ex) is for), but to train it the tricks, as far as I know.

Re: Animal Ally:
2 Feats, I can't take it before 4th level (5th really), and I'd count as Druid-3.
With Mad Dog I can have the wolf from the 1st day, and count as Druid.
Sure I lose the rage until 4th and powers.

Our group consists of 3 arcane casters (arcanist, sorcerer, witch), a monk, a ranged ranger and myself. Being in the front is necessary, and having an AC to help out front (with scent, as long as I have the wolf) is what I'm going for.

[RedDogMT]

Jeagal Bonecrusher wrote:

The handle animal isn't used to control it (that's what the link (Ex) is for), but to train it the tricks, as far as I know.

Recheck the Handle Animal skill.

All the Link(Ex) ability does for the Druid is to give the Druid/Ranger a +4 bonus to Handle Animal and makes activating the AC a free or move action instead of a standard or Full-round action. It does not give any telegraphic ability to command or communicate with the AC.

Handle an Animal: This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.

Action: Varies. Handling an animal is a move action, while “pushing” an animal is a full-round action. (A druid or ranger can handle an animal companion as a free action or push it as a move action.)...

A druid or ranger gains a +4 circumstance bonus on Handle Animal checks involving an animal companion.

Druids and Rangers need to use a free action to command their AC to perform their 'tricks' or a move action to push their AC to do a trick the AC does not know. They must roll the Handle Animal check.

The thing is that the DCs to activate a trick is only 10 (12 if the AC is injured), so the check usually isn't that difficult. A Druid or Ranger that has invested 4 skill points by level 4 has a +11 to the check, so activating tricks becomes automatic even if the animal is injured. By that point, they only need to worry about failing at pushing (DC 15/17).

Some GMs either don't know these mechanics or don't use them.

[Jeagal Bonecrusher]

Ah, thanks. Misread Link (Ex) then.

Link (Ex) wrote:

A druid can handle her animal companion as a free action, or push it as a move action, even if she doesn't have any ranks in the Handle Animal skill. The druid gains a +4 circumstance bonus on all wild empathy checks and Handle Animal checks made regarding an animal companion.

The bolded part means what then?

That even without ranks in Handle animal I can try commanding them by just rolling against a DC10/12 with just my CHA+4? (Most likely to still succeed around ~75% of the time)

[EDIT]Found that handle animal isn't usually usable untrained. So I guess that is that.