I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
I'm thinking paladin.
Hmm... Brawler? Become the Hulk, basically.
Hmm... Brawler? Become the Hulk, basically.
Especially after 4th level with the abyss bloodline.
Paladin would be my vote!
Hmm... Brawler? Become the Hulk, basically.Especially after 4th level with the abyss bloodline.
Especially with the abyssal bloodline!
Maybe bard or scald for some extra spell abilities and whip proficiency yeah.
How about Paladin 2/Oracle Nature (1) - Charisma to all saves, CMD and AC and a big boost to will saves. Then throw in some bard! Or fighter for armor training so you can take advantage of that giant AC bonus from Charisma.
A Bloodrager//Paladin removes his own fatigued from level 3 on instead of needing to wait until level 17 to not be affected by fatigued. That's a decent advantage.
A bit MAD but monk sweet saves and flurry plus raging pumbling style ouch.
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Battle Oracle/arcane bloodline Bloodrager. Get all the buffs & the action economy required to use them all too.
Battle Oracle/arcane bloodline Bloodrager. Get all the buffs & the action economy required to use them all too.
Nice.
I second the monk, specifically the martial artist. Then you are immune to fatigue altogether in addition to the previously mentioned advantages.
Make the bloodrager a primalist, pick up a bunch of 1/rage abilities, and rage cycle like you've never rage cycled before!
Ketamine or Zylazine
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Have you considered instead running a gestalt of a barbarian and a sorcerer? It's all the general good bits about bloodrager, without losing any of the really good bits. You still get all the rage powers, you still get access to bloodlines (and fair bit of the more favored bloodlines powers) but now you have 9th spell level progression. You would build it pretty much exactly like a bloodrager, except now you get rage powers (without needing to sacrifice your bloodline powers) and you get full casting progression. What's not to like?
I second the monk, specifically the martial artist. Then you are immune to fatigue altogether in addition to the previously mentioned advantages.
Make the bloodrager a primalist, pick up a bunch of 1/rage abilities, and rage cycle like you've never rage cycled before!
i have been spouting this quite a bit lately, but if you are going to rage cycle then meta rager is really fantastic.
Have you considered instead running a gestalt of a barbarian and a sorcerer? It's all the general good bits about bloodrager, without losing any of the really good bits. You still get all the rage powers, you still get access to bloodlines (and fair bit of the more favored bloodlines powers) but now you have 9th spell level progression. You would build it pretty much exactly like a bloodrager, except now you get rage powers (without needing to sacrifice your bloodline powers) and you get full casting progression. What's not to like?
That's cool and all but no rage casting which is kinda the point of the build And trying to get the biggest bang for the buck.
The Oracle thing seems pretty cool get your charisma mod to ac and the new feat
That gives you divine grace to saves then crossblooded to cherry pick your bloodline powers plus metamagic rager to pickup meta magic feats.
Ancestry Oracle, maybe warsighted and Dual-Cursed / Cross-Blooded Blood Conduit Bloodrager numnum. Burn favored class bonus on the shield of the ancestors, and maybe a couple on the weapon...good choice for the next game you run, that allows Gestalt...if you do that again.
My Personal favorate secondary class to gestalt with a primarly martial class (like the Bloodrager) is the Rogue.
The martial class fixes up a number of aspects that can make it painful to play a rogue, and all the rogue tricks and the extra skill points make it much more enjoyable to play as a character outside of combat. Not to mention the sizable boost to overall damage due to gaining all that Sneak Attack damage.
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^^ this guy has the right of it. :)
I'd take the BR archetype that spends spell slots for self healing + primalist. Doing that reduces the cha needed. Then I'd gestalt it with the hunter.
The cha you have allows you to take evolved companion. Later you can take ferocious companion via primalist. The result is a raging beast with his raging master, both of which can use their teamwork feats together. The master can self heal as swift action and has a lot of strong buffs for himself and his companion.
I was considering a Bard//Bloodrager seemed good
Especially if you take Spelleater, gains Fast Healing and you can use the Spell slots per day as extra healing spells for yourself.
Untouchable removes spells but not spell slots (Unless its suppose to be both spells known and spell slots but they should state that) gives you Spell Resistance to boot.
Tag on the awesome sauce of the bard and you are virtually unkillable.
If you want to be absurd try ragechemist. You might not be able to rage cycle and I'm not sure it's the flavor you were going for, but I got to play it for a little and it is out of the scales. Never worry again about hitting things, never worry again about killing things. I personally got to an absurd 62 strength value (higher than Cthulu) easy access to pounce, great range capability with belt of mighty throwing, and I wasn't optimizing since I wasn't expecting it to happen XD
Oh, also I had 4 arms each with 15-20/x2 critical and I could break spells with sunder maneuvers ;)
i'd say dawnflower dervish bard for stupid-good morale bonuses to yourself via battledance and (greater) heroism buff--especially with the courageous enchant--and the steadfast personality feat for cha to will saves.
or oracle (lore/nature/lunar for cha to defenses, grab the divine protection feat for cha to saves) for full casting and auxiliary revelations.
on oracle: if elf or half elf (or anyone with racial heritage (elf)) one could go ancient lorekeeper with the lore mystery, haunted curse, and eldritch heritage (arcane) feats for an incredibly SAD full BAB pseudo-mystic theurge gishy thing.
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for BR, preferred bloodlines would be arcane and/or destined.
an example crossblooded version with both might be:
1 - destined (1 - destined strike)
4 - destined (4 - fated bloodrager)
8 - arcane (8 - greater arcane bloodrage)
12 - arcane (4 - arcane bloodrage)
16 - arcane (16 - true arcane bloodrage)
20 - destined (16 - unstoppable (or) 20 - victory or death)
I'd take the BR archetype that spends spell slots for self healing + primalist. Doing that reduces the cha needed. Then I'd gestalt it with the hunter.
The cha you have allows you to take evolved companion. Later you can take ferocious companion via primalist. The result is a raging beast with his raging master, both of which can use their teamwork feats together. The master can self heal as swift action and has a lot of strong buffs for himself and his companion.
This. Be a half-orc and take amplified rage. Now the pair is a real force of nature.
But another option: Blood conduit Bloodrager/ enlightened paladin.
Go unarmed, with light armor you can get the brawling enchant and add cha to AC. You get half the monk progression to unarmed damage and can bond with his unarmed strikes.
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Half-Orc Primalist Spelleater Arcane Bloodrager//Slayer
Overlapping stats, lots of skills, Sneak attack damage, hardly any conflicting actions, Studied Bonuses.
Pick the right abilities you could be a viable switch hitter or have lots of Utility. With terrain mastery you could even slip into Horizon walker after level 8 (gaining swift action study). But I would wait till you get Opportunist. Fully progress the bloodrager for sure tho.
This. Be a half-orc and take amplified rage. Now the pair is a real force of nature.But another option: Blood conduit Bloodrager/ enlightened paladin.
Go unarmed, with light armor you can get the brawling enchant and add cha to AC. You get half the monk progression to unarmed damage and can bond with his unarmed strikes.
You can just as easily do Amp Rage + Bloodline Familiar Bloodrager to get the buddy, then gestalt in Skald. Reasonable stats overall and 27 STR while Raging Song-ing. Bonus points if you eventually go Dragon Disciple for the bonus STR/CON.
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Paladin wouldn't work well as a full bab class you aren't getting your monie's worth
It's not quite that simple. Full BAB classes often work better when gestalted with part-BAB classes that offer more diverse abilities, but some full-BAB//full-BAB gestalts offer synergistic combinations of combat abilities that can work very nicely.
Paladin//Bloodrager for example can use a Mercy to remove fatigue and gets massive defenses (Lay on Hands, DR, uncanny dodge, divine grace, paladin immunities, some bloodline abilities). Raging smite is terrifying. Lesser Celestial Totem (through primalist) is notable in that it lets you add your level to Lay on Hands, and is a good alternative to the Beast Totem line, especially if you like your high-level bloodline powers and don't want to trade too many away for rage powers.
Full BAB//Full caster has the problem that you can't easily fight and cast in the same turn - compare with martial abilities which can often be used to improve the same attacks.
That said, Oracle, Bard, and Sorcerer are also very good choices depending on what you want, and are more versatile. You can improve your action economy by focusing on spells to cast between combats (utility and long-term buffs) or by using a reach weapon to get in extra attacks of opportunity on rounds you cast (see the reach cleric build).
The Oracle has good buff options, both for itself and others. The Lame curse grants blanket fatigue immunity, you can take a revelation and divine protection to get very strong benefits from your Cha (especially if your stats aren't great and you want to sacrifice Dex). Many mysteries grant combat revelations, and Lunar is worth noting in particular for a natural weapons build (claws from a bloodline, gore from Gift of Claw and Horn, bite from race or rage power) and also grants Cha to AC and Reflex, which the Battle mystery doesn't.
Bard is the best choice for skills, and can also get combat buffs from bardic performance (either sharing them or buffing itself even more with the dervish) and from spells like heroism. Base saves are all good. Arcane Duelist is the best for combat abilities, at the cost of some skill tricks.
Sorcerer messes with your armour but it's also got neat tricks, some of which are more offensively minded than the oracle. For example, you get better access to polymorph spells than the bloodrager, so you can cast something like Monstrous Physique and then tear stuff up with your full BAB and Rage. Note that Rageshaper abilities will work on spells you cast as a sorcerer (though furious transformation requires the spell to be also on the bloodrager list and that you have Mad Magic). You could also rack up a really massive strength with the Abyssal bloodlines (and use sorc abilities to mitigate the Abyssal bloodrager's AC problem).
I would not go with Skald because raging song doesn't work with bloodrage.
I've got one
Warpriest and destined bloodline with the fates favored trait for very nice luck bonuses to attacks saves and armor class. If i can find a trait that lets me cast DIVINE FAVOR at plus one caster level that isn't a magic trate.
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Bloodrager//Sorc has some challenges, and is probably not as good overall as oracle, but it also has some very strong benefits. I would still consider it a worthwhile gestalt.
The sorcerer/wizard spell list is the most diverse in the game, and the bloodrager gets a fairly limited selection from that list, so the overlap will not be significant in terms of the actual increase in the versatility of your spells. You get earlier access to spells like Enlarge Person, Fly, or Black Tentacles, and completely new access to things like Grease, Dominate Person, Contingency, or Teleportation.
Archetypes give you a lot of flexibility when it comes to trading out overlapping or just plain bad bloodline abilities. Primalist works on the bloodrager side and lets you give up exactly the powers you don't want. Eldritch scrapper is a good place to start on the sorcerer side, since it works well with the bloodrager's martial abilities. You can also give up a 1st level power from either class for a bloodline familiar.
Losing armour is annoying, but it's not a dealbreaker. You have mage armour, shield, and non-AC defenses (mirror image, blur, displacement, greater invisibility, DR). In the very early levels before you can rely on these, you can do just fine wearing armour and avoiding casting in combat. The armoured coat is handy here because you can slip it on and off quickly to cast utility spells and pre-buffs, and you can wear a haramaki under it in case you get caught with the coat off. If you're planning on doing a lot of casting then just act like a sorcerer and stay a little farther back (possibly with a reach weapon).
The Dragon Disciple gestalt is for when you want the combat side to be more important than the casting - and that's fine. It's hard to do both well, even in gestalt. The bite is pretty awesome for a bloodrager with a natural weapons build since it adds 1.5 Strength to damage, and (like the claws) has energy damage attached.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
I'm thinking paladin.
Paladin. Take the Celestial Totem(via Primalist) and the Fast Healer and Fey Foundling feats. Your LoH will really rock this way.
If you really wanna Munchkin, be a half-orc with Fire Gods Blessing and a Burning weapon.Am too lazy to look it up, but Blood Conduit Bloodrager/Eldritch Scion could work well.
Blood Rager/Oracle might be fun as well.
Bloodrager/Sorcerer with Orcish Bloodline Sounds beastly.
Bloodrager/Cavalier could also work.
Last but not least you could always do, what most Barbarians do and pick the Scarred Witch Doctor.