I think you pretty much nailed it if your goal is a Halfling Barbarian with a Mount... I mean, what else is left to flesh out other than point buy/stats and which order you plan on taking your feats...
Halfling
20pt buy (w/ racials)
16,12,14,10,12,9
1. Combat Reflexes
3. Mounted Combat
5. Boon Companion
7. Rideby Attack
9. Wheeling Charge
I don't know... I don't play or even build many mounted combatants. But that should at least point you in the right direction...
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There's support for making melee halflings effective, the risky striker feat for example. They do tend to be dex rather than str based though for obvious reasons; the unchained barbarian or a couple of archetypes (savage technologist or urban barbarian) work with this. Unchained or urban would be compatible with mounted fury.
If the image you want is wild but not necessarily furious you might look at the hunter class.
The bloodrager has an urban archetype which is compatible with bloodrider and which gives bonuses to dex. I'm not sure if urban fits your preferred image however.
But yeah, this certainly can work.
I played a halfling Barbarian who had a Dino mount. The destined bloodline works well with the fates favored trait.
You are definitely not setting yourself self up for failure. The stats I used (after racials)
Str 15, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 12
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It's good to know I'm not setting myself up for disaster. I'm not set on a specific theme so yeah, urban/mounted fury could work. Thanks!There's support for making melee halflings effective, the feat for example. They do tend to be dex rather than str based though for obvious reasons; the unchained barbarian or a couple of archetypes (savage technologist or urban barbarian) work with this. Unchained or urban would be compatible with mounted fury.
If the image you want is wild but not necessarily furious you might look at the hunter class.
The bloodrager has an urban archetype which is compatible with bloodrider and which gives bonuses to dex. I'm not sure if urban fits your preferred image however.
But yeah, this certainly can work.
Just in case you missed it, avr recommended the best feat for Halfling Barbarians . Honestly, you could go STR-based and be totally ok for damage with this feat. You get -2 STR but +1 to hit for being small, so that breaks even. The small weapon damage size and lower STR mean you deal less damage, but Risky Striker more than makes up for it.
Personally, if I were to make a Halfling Barbarian/Bloodrager I'd go STR-based for the cool factor. It'll still be perfectly functional, but more fun in my mind ... but maybe that's just me.
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One minor issue with a Bloodrider + Urban Bloodrager is the Urban Bloodrager archetype removes Handle Animal, Knowledge(Nature), and Survival from your class skill list: These guys just aren't the 'wilderness and animals' type.
Mechanically, you can certainly combine the two archetypes, but they do have a bit of a thematic clash...
I love this idea. You could really capitalize on being a Halfling Barbarian with a 2handed Dex Weapon and 3 levels of UnRogue
Personally, I find the whole "hahaha, he's little but he's strong!" trope to be played-out and offensive to certain real-world communities.
A halfling barbarian need be no more humorous than any other.
My friend rolled up such for our primitive/arctic game, and he was extremely effective.
1st: the unchained barbarian opens things up a bit so you can use ranged weapons to better effect.
2nd: the -2 Str hurts, but it's not like barbarians should be dumping Dex. Save some points for Str by putting in a lower score in Dex and letting your bonus make up the difference.
3rd: thrown weapons, reach, Combat Reflexes and Quick Draw worked really well. It allows you to benefit from your Str, Dex and racial traits while offering solid damage output and control of the field.
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I've had the most success with the 'halfling barbarian' concept, and making it strength based, by simply using Barbarian (Titan Mauler) 2 / Fighter (Viking) 18. If you don't want the ability to use the larger weapons, it is fine to just drop the Barbarian levels, but you'll have to wait longer for the ability to Rage.
Between the bonus feats from Fighter (and the ability to pick up rage powers in place of them), you should be able to devote your level based feats towards acquiring an animal companion (if you really want one).
My preferred way to build the character is:
(assuming 20 point buy)
STR 15 / DEX 16 / CON 12 / INT 12 / WIS 12 / CHA 9
Or for Min/Maxing
STR 16 / DEX 16 / CON 12 / INT 10 / WIS 10 / CHA 9
I generally focus on feats/abilities that let me do something BAD to things bigger than myself.
For sure.
I think (a big) part of the problem is how halflings tend to be portrayed in a lot of fiction and games. I've always considered what makes any of the demihuman races specifically *not* human, and also what makes them diverse (i.e., not just a couple stereotypes).
My friend's halfling barbarian was stoic and almost frighteningly practical. When he "raged", he didn't become this frothing lunatic. He got really quiet and focused. Except for the din of battle around him, you could have heard the creaking strain of his tendons as he pulled out another hatchet. The fact that he was Small was about as significant to him as the fact that an elf's ears are pointy.
BUT the halflings -2 str is a real bummer,
it's "just" -3 to damage compared to a race with +2:
-1 from -2 str-1 from the other one getting +2 str
-1 average from the small weapon
the difference is only rally matters much at lower levels and the "to hit" disadvantage is compensated by the size bonus.
my co player has a gripli with the following progession:
power attack
furious focus
crit improvement feats with 18-20 range weapon
ability boost on strength for every level
+x str magic item
furious weapon
his damage output is, quite frankly, obscene
Strength based Barbarian (and Primalist Bloodrager) is powerful enough so that Halfling is a perfectly viable race for it. Especially if you can stay on your medium sized mount all the time, because even with the effects being limited to the first attack in a pounce, mounted lance charge and Spirited Charge are still de facto bonus attacks.
So, I really like the idea of a wild halfling riding a pig. A badass little dude with a battle axe just sounds like a good time.
How important is the axe? A mounted build on a charge-happy class not using a lance is practically a crime.
How important is the axe? A mounted build on a charge-happy class not using a lance is practically a crime.
eh, the lance needs the charge
I‘d councel with the DM first if its a „charge rich“ campaign.you don’t want to build a „one trick pig“ when that one trick only shows up once per encounter, if you’re lucky.
.. but i think it’s misleading to imply that it’s just as effective as any other approach.
wasn’t implying that, just pointing out that the difference gets smaller with time, relatively speaking.
sure, at low levels those 4,5 damage on the biggest weapon in the books is about half your potential.but looking at the lvl13 char sheet I see:
furious nodachi with +22 to damage and a crit range of 15-20
the player stopped caring about those -2 to str a long time ago.
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Another problem with the Urban Bloodrager is that it says they give up Knowledge (nature), but the standard Bloodrager doesn't get Knowledge (nature) as a class skill. The only knowledge the class gets is Knowledge (arcana), and they've never errata'd this. You could obviously just take away Knowledge (arcana) instead, but I'm not sure how this works for RAW (and PFS builds). Possibly not an issue for you, but make sure your GM doesn't have an issue with the Urban Bloodrager for this reason.