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Greetings all, Going to be joining in on an Iron Gods AP soon, coming in at level 8
The premise is a barbarian seeking to free his people from the clutches of the league, in so doing, he has garnered the attention of several divine who have blessed him with powers. (he does not worship a god in particular).
He is very much a man that would rather -not- go about it, but has decided that no one else will truly take up the task. After all, if not him, then who? He also has something to prove, since he is half-orc, and so not pure kellid blood. He is a bit of a dreamer and idealist, especially compared to most Kellid. His optimism a trait he grew and used to help him survive his time in slavery.
His domains are Liberation (obv) and either Travel(fits with personal story), or War/Glory I'm leaning towards Liberation+Travel.
The Build-
Race: half-orc
Classes: Barbarian 2/Cleric 6
Ability scores- (after level boosts)
Str- 18
Dex- 14
Con- 14
Int- 12
Wis- 16
Cha- 10
Traits:
Magical Knack, Fates Favored (for divine favor and sacred tattoos), Berserker of the Society
Drawback: Mark of Slavery
Feats- We are using Elephant in the room feat tax, so saves me Power attack
1- Step up
3- Dodge (and mobility)
5- Spring Attack
7- Furious Focus (?)- Other options being Vital Strike, Extra rage, Iron will,
The idea behind this build would be to make use of my 50ft move speed to move around the battle field, take less full attacks, find better positions, and stick to the squishy casters. Bonus- the GM was open to possibly combining spring attack + Vital Strike
Rage Power: Moment of Clarity
Spells- All spells with be of Buff or utility variety. Divine Favor a particular favorite.
My first thought is why not go Oracle instead of Cleric so you qualify for RAGE PROPHET? You don't have to, just putting it out there.
I play an Aberrant Bloodrager in Iron Gods. I'm the only melee character, so my main job is to block enemies and tank damage.
1. Raging Vitality
3. Power Attack
4. Aberrant Reach
5. Toughness
6. Iron Will
7. Exotic Weapon Proficiency: CHAINSAW
9. Quick Reflexes, Strength Surge
9. Furious Focus
10. Improved Initiative
11. Improved Unarmed Strike
11. Combat Expertise
13. Endurance
13. Diehard
13. Stalwart
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There are a few good feats in there, but the main one to notice is Exotic Weapon Proficiency. The Chainsaw is absolutely worth the feat, but more importantly it gives my character a reason to invest in technology and get involved in this AP's main schtick. Bloodragers and Barbarians get very little benefit from most of the tech, and I think without that I'd be a fish-out-of-water in this campaign, so do something to involve yourself with the game.
I took a level of Oracle at 7 for flavour after I died and was resurrected . Once I'd done that I realised I couldn't get the Bloodrager Capstone, and that the last 4 levels of Bloodrager were fairly unexciting, since Tireless Bloodrage is now redundant, so I started looking for other helpful dips. I took a level of Brawler at 11 to ignore the INT-requirements for Combat Expertise. I took a level of Unbreakable Fighter at 13 for Stalwart . I probably wouldn't normally recommend this much dipping, but he has turned out a strong character.
One advantage of all the dipping is that I now have a little more reason to invest in tech. I love the idea of the SMART ARMOUR, but for a Bloodrager/Barbarian it's fairly terrible. The DR doesn't stack with your class DR, you're not proficient with Heavy Armour and the armour itself is more expensive than a Mithral Breastplate for the same AC bonus until you're willing to spend ~30,000gp on it. With the dip into Fighter I now have proficiency - which aleviates one of those problems - so I'm now looking to make this more viable for later in the game.
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I would very much recommend taking an archetype that gets something out of the tech - NUMERIAN LIBERATOR, SAVAGE TECHNOLOGIST and URBAN BARBARIAN are all options that could be good Barbarian archetypes for this campaign . IRON PRIEST is the obvious choice for Cleric, though I'm sure there are others.
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I'm not a fan of rage prophet to be honest, and wisdom is a much better stat than charisma IMO(apologies sir charisma). Also, Cleric has faster spell level progression, so is hurt less from the two level dip.
Most of the archetypes work well, for a full barb, but for the most part, I went barbarians (2), for- Rage power, so I can have a "oh crap" button during a rage to cast, BaB/HP, and one of my favorite features, uncanny dodge. And flavor.
Also, you can also take part in the tech stuff via cyber implants, for example- Cyber Legs, so now I would have a 60ft move speed to abuse Spring attack with haha.
I'm not a fan of rage prophet to be honest, and wisdom is a much better stat than charisma IMO(apologies sir charisma).
That made me laugh ^_^
Honestly I'm not a huge fan of Rage Prophet either, but I was looking at it from a Barbarian-centric focus rather than a caster-centric one. I thought maybe it looked better from the other side, but I haven't really looked into it. Oh well.
Also, Cleric has faster spell level progression, so is hurt less from the two level dip.
Most of the archetypes work well, for a full barb, but for the most part, I went barbarians (2), for- Rage power, so I can have a "oh crap" button during a rage to cast, BaB/HP, and one of my favorite features, uncanny dodge. And flavor.
Also, you can also take part in the tech stuff via cyber implants, for example- Cyber Legs, so now I would have a 60ft move speed to abuse Spring attack with haha.
Yeah fair enough.
I will say that I think the Urban Barbarian or Savage Technologist abilities to enhance DEX instead-of/as-well-as STR is good for this AP. The Urban Barb doesn't even replace Uncanny Dodge .
The implants are good, but expensive. If you find an implant you want then keep it, but buying them is tough . Implants also cause CON damage when installed, though if you have a few days of downtime that's a total non-issue.
One last important thing I did for my character is that I bought a MINOR CLOAK OF DISPLACEMENT. This is by far my biggest - and best - purchase of the game. As the only front-line character, and as a character who has a low AC this has saved me a ton of HP. I don't know that you'll need it as much as me , but it's a way around the AC problems that Barbarians and Bloodragers have. In order to keep my saves up I have a few FLAWED AMBER SPINDLE IOUN STONES. Don't know if it's worth it for you, but it let me ignore the AC-race and still avoid some attacks.