Level 12 Urban Barbarian Come and get me build

[JuliusCromwell]

Ok as much as I thought I would enjoy playing a Support build I don't Think I'd have as much fun as if I was going with a Offense build

So my idea is a Half Elf Urban Barbarian and just hamming out Dexterity
18 to start +2 race to start +2 from levels +6 from a stat item plus 6 from controlled rage for a total of 34 Dex

My idea came cause of thinking of what all dex effects Initative, armor class , ref , and witb build I'd effect atk and damage

My dex would basically be to high for any armor but I think bracers of armors might work

And for Offense I'd go with Elven curve blade and take weapon Finesse and throw the 3pp feat Deadly Agility in to the mix

I know like 12 AoO Around seem like a lot but are foes have a bunch of natural attacks and we normally have 4 to 7 enemies on board so getting surrounded is not impossible

Any way any way to optimize this idea so it runs, smoother?

[MrCharisma]

JuliusCromwell wrote:

Any way any way to optimize this idea so it runs, smoother?

Play as a PRIMALIST Bloodrager instead and take the ABERRANT Bloodline.

You can basically ignore Staggering Strike - if you crit them and they don't die AND they fail their save then great, but I'm playing a 17th level Aberrant Bloodrager and it's literally never come up.

What you're here for is Aberrant Reach at 4th level. This greatly enhances your ability to generate AoOs, and stacks with everything. By the time you hit 12th level you should be url=https://www.aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Enlarge%20Person]ENLA RGED[/url] most combats and you can cast LONGARM on yourself as a free action at the beginning of each combat. This gives you 20 feet of reach, which makes you better at getting AoOs (both those who attack you and those doing other things).

The Aberrant Fortitude at 8 and Unusual Anatomy at 12 are reasonably good defensive powers, but they're not super exciting and you can swap them out for rage powers fairly comfortably (My favourite is Strength Surge, as it actually makes me feel like a strong-man, rather than just a good-at-hitting-stuff-man).

Regarding going DEX-based, I'm playing a STR-based Bloodrager (30 STR while Raging and I have 7 AoOs per round: I have 20 DEX (14 base +6 belt), the Quick Reflexes Rage Power (I took that early when I had 10 DEX, probably wouldn't have bothered if I were going from 6 to 7. I don't know how much your 3rd-party feat gives you, but if you're not getting 1.5X damage from DEX then I'd go with STR-based. DEX-based is costing you 2 feats and losing you damage. More AoOs is better, but more damage means you'll need less AoOs (because they'll just die). If you are getting 1.5X DEX to damage then yeah, it's probably worth 2 feats.

My character has COMBAT EXPERTISE and IMPROVED STALWART, meaning I have DR:13/- This would help you negate the extra damage dealt to you from CaGM. Another way to negate their damage would be DAZING ASSAULT, or maybe STUNNING ASSAULT (Stunned is better, but Dazing comes online earlier and I think less things are immune to Dazed than Stunned). If you're going either Combat Expertise or Dazing/Stunning Assault you'll be taking a penalty to attack. An obvious way to get around this would be to take the RECKLESS ABANDON Rage Power. You AC will go down even more, stacking with the penalty for CaGM (or the enemy's bonus to hit technically), but you'll be using high-HP, DR and offensive capabilities to stop them hitting you, so it won't really matter.

Finally, I was planning on taking CaGM at level 12, but I ended up skipping it because: 1) I thought my GM might flip the table, it's seriously an OP power, and 2) It will actually slow the game down a lot. You REALLY need to be on top of this and be able to calculate your attack and damage quickly. If ou get attacked 6 times in a combat and it takes you 10 seconds to tell the GM your to-hit and damage numbers, that's a full minute you've added. If you're interrupting other people's turns and taking forever then you're going to have people getting annoyed at you. Make sure you have this set up and you're paying attention (I give this advice for people playing summoning-heavy builds as well).

[MrCharisma]

Oh, and one of the main reasons for Bloodrager is that you can buff yourself. Enlarge Person, Greater Magic Weapon, Monstrous Physique, Heroism, all good stuff.

[Trokarr]

Bracers of armour aren’t necessary. There are several types of light armor with no max dex.

[Taja the Barbarian]

Trokarr wrote:

Bracers of armour aren’t necessary. There are several types of light armor with no max dex.

There are two light armors with no Dex cap and both are only +1 Armor base (I don't count Varisian Dancing Scarves as proper armor since you don't get any armor bonus if you don't move at least 10' that round): This makes these armors barely an upgrade over Bracers and caps their AC bonus below that of Bracers (+6 AC max vs +8 for Bracers).

Honestly, you'll probably want to stick with the classic Mithral Shirt for a long time, as its baseline effective +10 AC bonus (+4 armor with +6 Dex Cap) is just tough to beat: You basically need a 30+ Dexterity for the 'no dex cap' armors to be better. Leather armor and studded leather armor made from Darkleaf Cloth are just as good at 28 Dexterity but not as good at lower Dexterity.

At higher levels, the classic Celestial Armor has +6 Armor with +8 Dex Cap for a baseline potential +14 AC bonus, but it has a fixed +3 enhancement bonus that might be a limitation at endgame (at which point the biggest bracers are your best AC options) if you can't overwrite it with a Magical Vestment spell or the like. Still, it will provide the same or better AC as a +5 Haramaki up to Dexterity 33, or up to Dexterity 37 if the enhancement bonuses are the same.

If the actual armor bonus you gain exceeds the portion of your dex bonus that you lose, then that armor is still a net improvement to your 'normal' AC*.

*Touch AC is a different story, of course...