|
what is the focus of the character
do you want to just have lightning, or do you want lightning to be an integral part of your damage/character?
There are plenty of class for lightning manipulation. One I would suggest-
Kineticist. They have great flavor if you want to focus on an element. A lightning kineticist channels and uses lightning to devastate their foes. They get talents that can change the way their blast works, causing it to act similar to chain lightning, they can "teleport" themselves nearly 1000ft with a standard action for free. They can summon a weapon made entirely of electricity and smack a fool with it. (you can theoretically, shape the weapon however you want it as well)
Now, if you want OTHER spellcasting than lightning, thats fine. However I would suggest you go the fighter route here, the titan fighter fighter is basically the same as the barbarian. However, you don't have to worry about not being able to cast spells while raging.
Elemental Bloodrager 10/
Eldritch Knight 10
Full BAB all the way through... it's not an oversized Butchering Axe, but it is a solid way to get everything else you want.
Storm giant heritage and a big axe. Here's an idea; play a human with racial heritage (storm giant) and get the storm soul and storm warrior feats. If there's a half-giant race in your campaign that may work, but I have no idea what the details of that might be.
The goliath druid archetype lets you wild shape into giants and a druid has plenty of lightning, storm and wind spells on their spell list. In order to get access to those spells at a reasonable level I'd leave multiclassing until late game (after level 9) if at all.
If you want to be in melee combat, every level you take that doesn't advance your bar attack bonus will hurt as you progress in level.
If you want to be a spellcaster, levels you take that don't advance your caster level will hurt you, too.
I don't think the building above would do well in combat at higher levels. You're too fragile and not good enough at fighting.
You also won't be nearly as good at spellcasting, but spells are so good I feel like that won't matter as much.
Why do you want to multiclass? "Melee combatant with a storm theme" could be a straight druid, magus, bloodrager or warpriest with zero issues.
Also, beware of Vital Strike. It's not as good as you think.
Now, I like anything that gives a melee character more options beyond Full Attack. and Vital Strike can help in those rounds where you need to move. But all it does is help you lose less damage. It's not actually giving you more. If you're rocking 8d6+30, your Vital Strike may be an impressive 24d6+30, but your Full Attack is still 24d6+90. Even when you factor in the lower chances to hit on your 2nd and 3rd attacks, it's still going to be more damage almost every time.
I'd recommend fighter (titan fighter) 1/sorcerer* 4/dragon disciple 4**/eldritch knight 10/[fighter or sorcerer]*** +1 with the feats Skill Focus (Knowledge/Planes or Survival), Eldritch Heritage (Abyssal or Orc bloodline), and Improved Eldritch Heritage (Strength of the Abyss or Strength of the Beast)****.
*- crossblooded Draconic([Blue] or [Bronze]) and Elemental (Air); Draconic bloodline for +1 damage per die with electricity spells and Elemental (Air) to switch any spell that does energy damage to do electricity damage
**- for +4 Str and +3 (total) natural armor; the 1d12 HD and +3 BAB help, too
***- depending on if you want +17 BAB and spells as a sorcerer 16 or +16 BAB and spells as a sorcerer 17
****- to gain +2 inherent Str at 11th, increasing to +4 at 15th and +6 at 19th
I haven't read through everything here, but just going Straight Oracle might get you what you want?
I'm not an expert but I assume there's a Curse/Mystery combo that would work.
I'd meant the druid suggestion to be separate from eldritch knight - something like pure druid, or else druid 9 / crossblooded sorcerer 1 / druid +X.
thank u so much i really appreciate ur suggestions, what u think about the weapon? We are in a low magic campaign so i cannot have magical items, and what about the spells? we have 15 point buy and i don't know wich race can be goodI'd recommend fighter (titan fighter) 1/sorcerer* 4/dragon disciple 4**/eldritch knight 10/[fighter or sorcerer]*** +1 with the feats Skill Focus (Knowledge/Planes or Survival), Eldritch Heritage (Abyssal or Orc bloodline), and Improved Eldritch Heritage (Strength of the Abyss or Strength of the Beast)****.
*- crossblooded Draconic([Blue] or [Bronze]) and Elemental (Air); Draconic bloodline for +1 damage per die with electricity spells and Elemental (Air) to switch any spell that does energy damage to do electricity damage
**- for +4 Str and +3 (total) natural armor; the 1d12 HD and +3 BAB help, too
***- depending on if you want +17 BAB and spells as a sorcerer 16 or +16 BAB and spells as a sorcerer 17
****- to gain +2 inherent Str at 11th, increasing to +4 at 15th and +6 at 19th
A large nodachi (2d8 damage, 18-20/x2 critical) is a bit better than a large falchion (2d6 damage, 18-20/x2 critical) for a martial weapon. It's also a bit cheaper (120 gp vs. 130 gp) than a large butchering axe and doesn't require the use of a feat or a being specific race for proficiency. Longer term (after 8th to 10th level or so, with keen or Improved Critical), the nodachi will probably do more average damage than the butchering axe (even with 3d8 damage [large], 20/x3 critical) because of the way critical hits work.
For spells, you should probably try to have one damage spell, one defensive spell, one disabling/battlefield control spell, and possibly one buff/utility spell at each spell level to be useful in a wide range of situations. Because you can switch other damage types to electricity when casting, you should pick damage spells with different energy damage types at different spell levels (in case you run into creatures with resistance or vulnerability to specific energy types). Also, spells with "built-in" versatility, such as summon monster or many Illusion school spells, are worth looking at to take a few of. You will be a bit more limited on your spells known than a normal sorcerer, so you may need to be more careful about which spells you learn.
What is Eldritch Knight doing for this build?
If you can't have magical items, supplying your own via a class feature or feat, like Sacred Weapon or Arcane Strike, becomes important (if not required). Most such class features scale with class levels, making a Prestige Class less attractive.
To be totally honest here... It sounds like you want a strong Magus.
The Magus can channel touch attack spells through their weapon, dealing both the weapon's damage and the spell's damage with a single strike. And guess what? The Magus's PRIMO spell for every flavor of combat is Shocking Grasp, a lightning based spell. The only issue with the Magus is that you have to have your second hand free, so you cant 2 hand your weapon which will limit your weapon damage considerably. What I would suggest instead is that you take a look at Bloodrager, which does basically everything you want with the added bonus of not having to take a PrC to advance both spell-casting and face smashing.
Human
Traits: Indomitable Faith, Magical Knack (Bloodrager)
20pt build:
17(19) str, 7 dex, 14 con, 7 int, 14 wis, 14 cha
Reasoning: Strength is your primary stat, con is your secondary, charisma is your casting stat. Wisdom will (hopefully) keep you from killing your friends with your insane single-target damage. with pips in strength at 4 and con at 8 and 12 you'll have a good base strength and enough charisma to cast every bloodrager spell you're likely to have. your save DC for lightning spells won't be stellar, but that's why you focus mostly on spells that dont allow a save.
level 1: Fighter, Titan Fighter (Large size Nodachi or Greatsword)
feats: Power attack, Iron Will, Bonus feat: (archetype replaced)
level 2: Fighter 2
Bonus Feat: Furious Focus
level 3: Fighter 3
Feat: Toughness
level 4: Bloodrager (Crossblood Rager) Bloodlines: Arcane, Abyssal
Arcane gets you access to lightning bolt. Abyssal lets you enlarge to a large size creature for free when you rage at level 4.
Take Arcane bloodline power here.
level 5: Bloodrager 2
Feat: Raging Vitality
Keeps you from dying the instant you hit -1 hp.
level 6: Bloodrager 3
level 7: Bloodrager 4
Take Abyssal bloodline power here.
Feat: Vital Strike
at this point your fighter/bloodrager with a mundane non-masterwork Greatsword will be doing 8d6+18 for 12 rounds / day, and will have the spells True Strike and Shocking Grasp which deals 4d6 points of electricity damage.
level 8: Bloodrager (Arcane) onward
by level 12 your vital strike goes up to 12d6+24, and you have the option to cast Haste on yourself for free when you rage, in addition to casting Enlarge Person for free.this give you the option to opt into full attacks with a respectable +16/+12/+7/+2 instead or improved vital striking. In just a few levels you'll get Lightning bolt which is thematic and fun but sadly cant keep up with your melee damage. At least it gives you a range option.
As for spells, at this point you likely have mage armor, magic missile, magic weapon, shield, shocking grasp, true strike, bull's strength (which stacks with your morale bonus from raging) false life, and glitter dust, which means that even though you have 4 ac base, you're actually sitting around 12-14 when buffed up, and upwards of 180 hp. from here, all you really do is continue stacking up your BAB and power attack scaling and doing everything you can to improve your will save.
BIG warning, if you DO NOT invest in doing everything you can to prevent it, your will save while raging will be TERRIBLE and you WILL kill your party the very first time your GM casts confusion on the party. this is why you have 14 wisdom, why you invest in Iron Will, and why you have 7 dexterity. having 7 dex will ensure that your AC (which you will never care about anyway) is low enough for your party to hit. It will ensure that your Initiative is low enough that when the enemy wizard with 18 initiative goes first and dominates you the rest of the party will have a chance to drop you into a pit, hit you with a web, or otherwise stop you from killing them before you go. 9 times out of 10 when gm's run low-magic no magic item games characters like this end up killing the party because all low-magic settings really do is ensure that you have NO WAY to bolster your defense against mind controlling magic.
Soul, I absolutely LOVE that you built in a back door for the rest of the party to survive when your monster gets Confused/Dominated.
But why not start with 4 levels of Bloodrager? Then take the Fighter levels when you can afford a decent weapon of the size you want. Bloodrage is better than Power Attack at low levels, anyways. Even at level 4, Shocking Grasp will deal 4D6 lightning damage, with Magical Knack and Intensify Spell @ 5, you barely miss anything taking Titan Fighter levels 5-7...
Soul, I absolutely LOVE that you built in a back door for the rest of the party to survive when your monster gets Confused/Dominated.
But why not start with 4 levels of Bloodrager? Then take the Fighter levels when you can afford a decent weapon of the size you want. Bloodrage is better than Power Attack at low levels, anyways. Even at level 4, Shocking Grasp will deal 4D6 lightning damage, with Magical Knack and Intensify Spell @ 5, you barely miss anything taking Titan Fighter levels 5-7...
Sure, that's totally an option he can do. I built it out with fighter first to frontload Iron Will, and get him into his oversized weapon around level 3, which is when I expect players to reasonably be able to afford whatever non-magical weapon they wish.
I agree that bloodrager first is certainly stronger, and honestly it makes me concerned to have even a single level of a rage class without Raging Vitality, but I thought that the above was worth the delay.
I also didn't include any specific meta magic feats because Bloodragers are Spontaneous casters, and full-round shocking grasp is a lot worse than standard-action shocking grasp when you don't know if combat is coming and need both hands to hold your sword.
EDIT: @Deluk The best possible path is probably Bloodrager 4 (Raging Vitality, Iron Will) Fighter 5/6/7 (other feats listed) then back to Bloodrager for the rest)
Yeah, but since you are obviously a Half-Orc... +2 Luck bonus to all saves with Sacred Tattooes and Fate's Favored, Endurance from Shaman's Apprentice...
Bloodrager
1. Endurance (race)
1. Combat Reflexes (screw Toughness)
3. Iron Will (gotta do it)
Fighter
5. Power Attack
6. Furious Focus
7. Intensify Spell/Vital Strike
Bloodrager
8.
9. Vital Strike/Intensify Spell
Magical Knack and Intensify Spell almost completely mask the Fighter levels for BZZzzzT stuffs...