I had an idea for a build that would be built around maximizing the concept of dealing damage when you got hit. When I first had the idea I thought for sure that there must be a ton of spells like Thorn Body and Fire Shield that you could use to do something like this but there just doesn't seem to be that many spells like that and those spells don't seem like good candidates for focusing on since their damage is so small to begin with. I started looking around a little more and found that Barbarian has some stuff that can do this like Come and Get Me and the Fiend Totem, but that was about. I know there are some other feats out there that allow you to leave yourself open to attack or attacks of opportunity in order to gain some damage or punish creatures taking AoO, but I don't know what they are. Does a build already exist around this idea of taking damage in order to deal damage?
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There's a few different rules elements which can do this. Among the better ones are the broken wing gambit teamwork feat, the panther style feat line, the caustic blood spell (and to a lesser extent its predecessor, toxic blood), and a little-known spell named horrific doubles. I suppose you might make a druid or sorcerer who put some of those together but I haven't, personally.
Actually, a lot of these spells are on the Bloodrager list. Bloodragers also have the Black Blood bloodline. This looks promising.
So I've been building this Bloodrager and I've got him pretty well fleshed out. The question now is, is there a way to take a five foot step, and thus preserve your full round action, but still provoke and attack of opportunity due to moving within threatened squares?
I know you've probably put in a bunch of work toward this bloodrager, but you should consider taking a look at kineticist...in particular the combination of fire and earth.
All told by around 7 or 8ish? you should be able to do 1d6 + 2.5X your level to anyone who hits you, and 1/2 level in dr/adamantine.
So I've been building this Bloodrager and I've got him pretty well fleshed out. The question now is, is there a way to take a five foot step, and thus preserve your full round action, but still provoke and attack of opportunity due to moving within threatened squares?
The Circling Mongoose feat is the closest I can think of, but that requires you to start adjacent to the enemy, and you can't take your 5 foot step and then start the circling mongoose since any movement prevents the 5 foot step. You could take step-up so that people don't just dance away from you, but circling mongoose is already pretty expensive.
Would other methods of provoking work? There's a few ways to get free combat maneuvers on attacking, and those provoke.
Pouncing (pummeling charge, polymorph spells, etc.) gives you movement which provokes AoOs and a full attack. An odd magic item called the batrachian helm can give you swift action movement which provokes.
Drawing a blank on exactly what you're after tho'.
I know you've probably put in a bunch of work toward this bloodrager, but you should consider taking a look at kineticist...in particular the combination of fire and earth.
All told by around 7 or 8ish? you should be able to do 1d6 + 2.5X your level to anyone who hits you, and 1/2 level in dr/adamantine.
No to much to totally scrap it for a cooler build. I'll check it out!
Pouncing (pummeling charge, polymorph spells, etc.) gives you movement which provokes AoOs and a full attack. An odd magic item called the batrachian helm can give you swift action movement which provokes.
Drawing a blank on exactly what you're after tho'.
Panther Style says, "when an opponent makes an attack of opportunity against you for moving through a threatened square". It would be cool to be able to take your full attack and then provoke an attack with a five foot step so you can get another swing in, especially once the retaliatory strike becomes a free action with Panther Claw.
I know you've probably put in a bunch of work toward this bloodrager, but you should consider taking a look at kineticist...in particular the combination of fire and earth.
All told by around 7 or 8ish? you should be able to do 1d6 + 2.5X your level to anyone who hits you, and 1/2 level in dr/adamantine.
I've been looking at this and I am admittedly not super familiar with Kineticists, but I don't see how you are getting to this. A lot of it looks like it requires them to hit you with natural or unarmed attacks. Can you say more about what your were thinking?
I've been looking at this and I am admittedly not super familiar with Kineticists, but I don't see how you are getting to this. A lot of it looks like it requires them to hit you with natural or unarmed attacks. Can you say more about what your were thinking?I know you've probably put in a bunch of work toward this bloodrager, but you should consider taking a look at kineticist...in particular the combination of fire and earth.
All told by around 7 or 8ish? you should be able to do 1d6 + 2.5X your level to anyone who hits you, and 1/2 level in dr/adamantine.
Wow holy s+@@, you're right...im not sure why they even mention weapons in there that statement crossed a wire in my head or something. Its basically a ...grapple ability?
I guess kineticist caps out at 2d6 from wood/earth...pretty mediocre.
In that case i guess all i have is to amplify that you need to look into DR and/or fast healing, cause your "get hit and cause passive damage" strategy necessitates the get hit.
The get hit to deal damage plan is looking less and less viable. When I first had the idea I thought for sure there would be a ton of spell support for something like that, but there just doesn't seem to be, and the spells that do it are just don't do that much damage because they don't really scale. I am really interested in this AoO build that seems to be coming together here though so I've been trying to figure out what class would be the best fit for it. UcMonk seemed, prima facie, like it would be the best, but now I think Warpriest would be a total beast.
Caustic blood is 1d6/level damage (Ref half, +half as much again next round Ref negates) each time you're hit. Not just once, or once/round, each time. That's a potentially ridiculous amount of damage. It scales up to 15d6, more with metamagic.
Horrific doubles does 1d3 Wis damage (Will negates) each time an enemy destroys a mirror image. Wis doesn't increase as fast as HP. Granted, given the enemy is frightened for a round on a failed save it'd be quite hard to knock them out this way since they'll be running rather than making another attack.
Doesn't scale, really?
Still it sounds like you're getting somewhere with panther style, have fun with that.
Caustic blood is 1d6/level damage (Ref half, +half as much again next round Ref negates) each time you're hit. Not just once, or once/round, each time. That's a potentially ridiculous amount of damage. It scales up to 15d6, more with metamagic.
Geez, you're totally right. For some reason I have it in my head that like, only Fire Shield and Thorny Body exist.
It would be nice, if your plan is to get hit a lot, to maximize your survivability: get a Miss Chance; maximize your AC; get DR; get Fast Healing.
Yeah, the weird thing is that if I want to get hit a lot, miss chances and a high AC are going to work against that. DR and fast healing seem like good routs to take though.
The Vengeful Hunter Fighter archetype has some stuff that keys off of being hit.
Anyone with access to Opportune Parry & Riposte is immediately setup for a version of your glutton for punishment build.
The get hit to deal damage plan is looking less and less viable. When I first had the idea I thought for sure there would be a ton of spell support for something like that, but there just doesn't seem to be, and the spells that do it are just don't do that much damage because they don't really scale. I am really interested in this AoO build that seems to be coming together here though so I've been trying to figure out what class would be the best fit for it. UcMonk seemed, prima facie, like it would be the best, but now I think Warpriest would be a total beast.
It works a lot better with teamwork feats, a cooperative party with at least 2 front line martials that are in some way tough, via hp, dr, or some other form of magic. My ideal was kind of dwarf themey but went like this:
You have a front line of at least 2 of:
Stonelord Paladin
Dwarf Fighter who has not given up armor training
Earth kinetic knight Kineticist
And the support would be a Dwarven Scholar Bard who is kind of the keystone of the strategy and perhaps a forgepriest cleric or warpriest.
The front line is all heavy armor + dr 1/2 level. I think tactically they should probably all be using two handed weapons/power attack and the way this party fights vital strike might not be terrible.
The fighter is the squishiest of the front line options at various levels, but he's the option you pick if you don't want to go simple 2hander combat. The key to his build is that at the earliest possible time he needs to take advanced armor training armored juggernaut and get some adamantine full plate to get his dr.
So you now have a front line of high ac, pipe hitters with DR, you give the dwarven scholar a giant sticker for reach and plant him directly behind the two.
TheDwarven Scholar Bard now begins to shine. Using War Chant they hand out combat reflexes and paired opportunists, then using Shared Training to hand out Broken Wing Gambit. As heavy armor users the +2 to hit them is going to end up being pretty tempting, but when they do, 3 greatweapon attacks of opportunity.