1st time Barbarian, Help!

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I have to admit that the dual shield ranger build is quite unique and very intriguing! Have you used it yet - and if so - how did it compare with the other PCs?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

No, unfortunately. I was set to, but that game never materialized and now my slate is full. Even when I do play my next PF game, not sure I'll try it, I haven't even tried one of the new pathfinder classes (alchemist, witch, etc...) myself yet. For some reason, I've ended up playing just core PF classes so far.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Maybe later on then. So I built out a 2h fighter using the 2h fighter archetype and was wondering if you guys would critique it for me and see if you think it would work. I felt that perhaps going with barbarian might be too much of a glass cannon and so am going to RP him as raised by barbarians, but he's never been able to "rage" properly so he went the way of the fighter instead of the barbarian.

The DM is going to do something else with magical armor/weapons so I only put a couple of +1 masterwork items in there so it won't be "optimized" completely. I want to be able to output a ton of damage if possible.

MALEN ISNELL CR 3
Male Human (Chelaxian) Fighter (Two-Handed Fighter) 4
CG Medium Humanoid (Human)
Hero Points 3 (We do use these)
Init +3; Senses Perception +6
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DEFENSE
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AC 20, touch 13, flat-footed 17 (+7 armor, +3 Dex)
hp 44 (4d10+16)
Fort +8, Ref +4, Will +4
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OFFENSE
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Spd 20 ft.
Melee +1 Falchion +10 (2d4+8/18-20/x2) and
Earth Breaker +9 (2d6+7/20/x3) and
Unarmed Strike +9 (1d3+5/20/x2)
Ranged Longbow, Comp. (Str +0) +7 (1d8/20/x3)
Special Attacks Overhand Chop, Shattering Strike +1
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STATISTICS
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Str 20, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 9
Base Atk +4; CMB +9 (+10 Sundering); CMD 22 (23 vs. Sunder)
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FEATS:
Cleave
Cleaving Finish
Combat Reflexes
Furious Focus
Great Cleave
Power Attack
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TRAITS:
Carefully Hidden (updated)
Killer (updated)
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Skills Acrobatics +4, Climb +9, Escape Artist +0, Fly +0, Perception +6, Ride +0, Stealth +4, Survival +7, Swim +7
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SPECIAL ABILITIES
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Carefully Hidden You gain a +1 trait bonus to Will saves and a +2 trait bonus to saving throws versus divination effects.
Cleave If you hit your first target, attack an adjacent target at the same attack bonus in exchange for -2 AC.
Cleaving Finish Make additional attack if opponent is knocked out
Combat Reflexes (4 AoO/round) You may make up to 4 attacks of opportunity per round, and may make them while flat-footed.
Compass +2 circumstance for Survival or Knowledge (Dungeoneering) to avoid becoming lost.
Furious Focus If you are wielding a weapon in two hands, ignore the penalty for your first attack of each turn.
Hero Points (3) Hero Points can be spent at any time to grant a variety of bonuses.
Killer Add weapon's critical modifier to its critical bonus damage.
Overhand Chop (Ex) Single attacks with two-handed weapons receive double STR bonus.
Power Attack -2/+4 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Shattering Strike +1 (Ex) +1 Sunder and damage vs. objects.
--------------------

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hmm, you obviously use a bunch of houserules, like wounds and vitality points, eh?

Is armor as DR being used or something? It looks like you have DR 8/adamantine. What are +1 bracers? +1 to natural armor, or is it a weapon?

Build itself looks fine as far as the parts I understand go. Still, some critques/comments:

- There's a PF Society trait Defender of the Society. Good for a tank, if that's open to you. Other traits I really like that might be useful to you: Blade of Mercy, Defensive Strategist (actually better than Uncanny Dodge! UD only removes loss of dex for being FF; trait makes you not flatfooted at all!), Lessons of Chaldira... basically all the best traits are religion ones. Paizo really likes religious crap, just pick the god you like the best and take his/her overpowered religion trait.

- You took combat reflexes, but...what do you have to actually generate AoOs? Without even a reach weapon, I don't see that getting much use for you.

- Even with Fighter bonus feats, I don't think the Cleave line is worth all those feats. But do as you like.

- Before upgrading your eventual Str +2 item to Str +4, consider the Gloves of Duelling from APG. They give you +2 attack and damage for 16,000 gp. Upgrading Str +2 to Str +4 costs 12,000 for +1 to hit and +1.5 damage. Might want to get the gloves first. If not, certainly way before you get to Str +6 item.

- You could still give your character some Barbarian flavor...with a dip! Regular Barbarian is fine if you go 2 levels for Uncanny Dodge, but consider this archetype, which is hilariously bad for Barb 20's, but great for a dip: Wild Rager - Pathfinder_OGC

See, Paizo designed it bass-ackwards. The save DC goes up w/ barb levels, so it becomes harder to resist. But if you're just dipping 1 or 2 levels and have cruddy charisma, the save DC is like 8! Before long, you can succeed 95% of the time, and effectively have control over when you go confused and when you don't. The beauty for a dipper is, rounds confused don't count against your (very few) rage rounds per day, and as long as an enemy's attacking you, confusion will cause you to just fight back against him -- what you would've done anyway! Once nearby enemies dry up, just make the will save. Otherwise, don't opt to save at all and revel in your free rage rounds.
Only question is if going the 2nd level for the incredibly suicidal pseudo-haste effect is worth it. IMO, it's a nice option to ratchet out heavy damage on a round an enemy can't effectively fight back (blinded for a round from glitterdust or something, for example).
EDIT: The fact that rage powers are blocked w/o exception while confused only makes the archetype even more hilariously atrocious for true barbarians, but not painful at all for dipping. And mechanics aside, sounds like it'd fit well with your backstory if you started off with a level or 2 in Wild Rager before entering Fighter and "becoming more civilized."

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Hmm, you obviously use a bunch of houserules, like wounds and vitality points, eh?

Is armor as DR being used or something? It looks like you have DR 8/adamantine. What are +1 bracers? +1 to natural armor, or is it a weapon?

Oops! We don't have crazy house rules. I didn't even notice it when I copied/pasted it into the window here. I updated my hero labs last night to get Ultimate Combat and apparently all the options got checked. I will fix that part in my previous post to reflect what it should be. The +1 bracers are +1 Bracers of Armor.

Build itself looks fine as far as the parts I understand go. Still, some critques/comments:

- There's a PF Society trait Defender of the Society. Good for a tank, if that's open to you. Other traits I really like that might be useful to you: Blade of Mercy, Defensive Strategist (actually better than Uncanny Dodge! UD only removes loss of dex for being FF; trait makes you not flatfooted at all!), Lessons of Chaldira... basically all the best traits are religion ones. Paizo really likes religious crap, just pick the god you like the best and take his/her overpowered religion trait.

I'll look up those other traits, we only get 2 to pick from so that's why I went with something that I could get some more initiative out of and something that gives me some help to confirm critical strikes.

EDIT: Looked them up and they look good, but they weren't in my hero labs so I didn't pick them up. I may have to just hand-write them in!

- You took combat reflexes, but...what do you have to actually generate AoOs? Without even a reach weapon, I don't see that getting much use for you.

Yeah that's true, I don't have anything to generate AoOs unless something runs away from me towards my party members. I'll grab something else, thanks for pointing that out!

- Even with Fighter bonus feats, I don't think the Cleave line is worth all those feats. But do as you like.

So what would you suggest for optimal damage output instead of the cleaving line?

- Before upgrading your eventual Str +2 item to Str +4, consider the Gloves of Duelling from APG. They give you +2 attack and damage for 16,000 gp. Upgrading Str +2 to Str +4 costs 12,000 for +1 to hit and +1.5 damage. Might want to get the gloves first. If not, certainly way before you get to Str +6 item.

Yeah if our DM will allow that kind of thing, but he has something "in mind" for replacing the "magic arms race" as he says. So we'll see what that is, that's why I put points into strength to get as much damage as possible.

- You could still give your character some Barbarian flavor...with a dip! Regular Barbarian is fine if you go 2 levels for Uncanny Dodge, but consider this archetype, which is hilariously bad for Barb 20's, but great for a dip: Wild Rager - Pathfinder_OGC

I'll look at that dip, what level would you take it at?

See, Paizo designed it bass-ackwards. The save DC goes up w/ barb levels, so it becomes harder to resist. But if you're just dipping 1 or 2 levels and have cruddy charisma, the save DC is like 8! Before long, you can succeed 95% of the time, and effectively have control over when you go confused and when you don't. The beauty for a dipper is, rounds confused don't count against your (very few) rage rounds per day, and as long as an enemy's attacking you, confusion will cause you to just fight back against him -- what you would've done anyway! Once nearby enemies dry up, just make the will save. Otherwise, don't opt to save at all and revel in your free rage rounds.

Only question is if going the 2nd level for the incredibly suicidal pseudo-haste effect is worth it. IMO, it's a nice option to ratchet out heavy damage on a round an enemy can't effectively fight back (blinded for a round from glitterdust or something, for example).

That sounds pretty fun and I think the RP aspect would be kind of funny too.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Oops! We don't have crazy house rules. I didn't even notice it when I copied/pasted it into the window here. I updated my hero labs last night to get Ultimate Combat and apparently all the options got checked. I will fix that part in my previous post to reflect what it should be. The +1 bracers are +1 Bracers of Armor.

You know that Bracers of Armor give an armor bonus, right? It doesn't stack with your actual armor.

I'll look up those other traits, we only get 2 to pick from so that's why I went with something that I could get some more initiative out of and something that gives me some help to confirm critical strikes.

EDIT: Looked them up and they look good, but they weren't in my hero labs so I didn't pick them up. I may have to just hand-write them in!

Well, every trait i listed except Defender of the Society is a religion trait. You can only have 1 trait of each category, so you can only have one of the others I listed. So..take DotS and whichever religion trait and god you like the best. There's your 2 traits. I like Blade of Mercy to combine with the Enforcer feat, and being able to take someone alive without losing attack or damage (you actually gain +1!) is nice. But it looks like you're dumping cha.

So what would you suggest for optimal damage output instead of the cleaving line?

Probably nothing better for sheer damage output, I guess. If that's all you care about, go for it. Do take advantage of Fighter feat retraining, though. The FAQ entry on the fighter page on d20pfsrd specifically saysyou can swap out a feat you took earlier for a feat you qualify for now but did not back then. You can use this to load up on more high level feats than you'd otherwise be able to have. Not sure if it helps you, but it can be nice (I recall for an archery Fighter, you require Weapon Specializtion for Point Blank Master, so if at Fighter 4 you take Weapon Specialization as your 4th level feat and swap one of your earlier Fighter feats for PBM, you can get it at 4th level instead of waiting till 5th like you'd expect).

I'll look at that dip, what level would you take it at?

Well...1st level. Maxed d12 HD is better than a maxed d10 HD. Also, it makes more sense if you'll be levelling up in Fighter for the Barbarian to be in your past, and not something you flirted with before returning to Fighter, but that's just my opinion. Only reason to do Fighter at level 1 is if you want DotS trait and your DM only allows traits you qualified for at level 1 (you're starting at level 4, right?).

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

First off, thanks for continuing the discussion with me while I pick your brain clean of useful tidbits.

Didn't realize that about those bracers, I was just trying to spend a little gold and saw them in the "store" and thought they might be helpful to me so I'll just buy some more potions or something, thanks for the clarification on that.

Yeah DotS wasn't listen on my Hero Labs at all, so I'll have to buy the additional package for it.

I was looking over another build that goes with weapon specialization, dodge, mobility, and spring attack which may be pretty fun since Cleave seems to be so feat intensive and not so great at higher levels.

Got the build going now with 2barb (wild rager)/2fighter and think that this little beginning dip will work real nice with how I want to play (combat) and role play (story) my character. That was a really cool idea! I grabbed superstition for the added saving throws (it seemed to be the best that I could get). Yeah we are starting at level 4, will probably go to 5 in a couple of sessions since we were 1/2 through 4 when we got nearly TPK'd and that's the reason for this new character.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack is nearly as feat intensive.
And it's not so great, especially for a tank that wants to do a lot of damage. Presumably your allies want you to stay on an enemy, and you'll do more damage full attacking anyway. I'd look more into something like the Step Up feat and maybe the APG feats that require it. There's also the Combat Patrol feat, if you wanted to use Combat Reflexes.

I would not get Superstition as your one rage power if the selection was just for what is "best." First of all, keep in mind when confused, you don't get your rage power. Secondly...superstition as just a +2 bonus won't help you that much but WILL require you to save against any ally trying to provide helpful/healing spells. Like I said, if you do Superstition, go with it all the way for maximum possible bonus. The drawback sucks no matter what, and it hardly seems worth the pain if your bonus isn't even going to be that high.

I'm not sure what the best one-off rage power is, especially since much of your time in rage you won't be using it. Reckless Abandon is probably a good choice. *scans rage power list* Or do one of these:
Animal Fury: Weak bite attack to add to your full attack
Lesser Fiend Totem: Gore attack to add to your full attack, better than animal fury
Knockdown: Trip w/o provoking once/rage
No Escape: Double move as an immediate once/rage to pursue someone who withdraws

So yeah, one of those I'd say. I'd do Lesser Fiend Totem, I think. Odd that your demonic ram horns retract when your berserker fury drives you mad, but...eh (does give the party a handy visual cue to know the difference between "angry but in control" and "ANGRY").

Oh, also if it's not too late, you may want to lower your charisma more. Higher cha means a tougher will save.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

So I was talking it over a bit with a couple members of my group and they were a little worried about the confusion, so I figured I might want to take Iron Will and Improved Iron Will along with the rage power (su) lesser chaos totem which adds +1 to my saves vs confusion. That way with these three things I can add +3 to Will and give myself 1/day a Will re-reoll.

I was also looking at the combat feats a bit more and thought of going down the Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, and Vital Strike lines which I think (in theory) would really pump out my damage - perhaps some critical focus as well to add some bleeds and effects I also really like the Bleeding Critical line and grabbing the two that look fun to me are staggering and stunning. I'd probably also pick up toughness to give myself a bit more padding for hit points. The reason I'd want to go with the dodge/mobility/spring attack is to also get nice bonuses to AC for dodge and AoO, if I had to move to get to something that is attacking a caster for example. Was also looking at Whirlwind and that might be nice especially if surrounded by enemies (as I plan on wading into the thick of things) and this would be better than Cleave from what I've read so far.

Not sure what the Step Up will do or not do for me in the build. I take it that it's mostly to make sure you are locking someone up with you so they can't take a 5 ft step and say do a ranged atk w/o provoking an AoO? I kinda like the Lunge and Strikeback feats as well, they look like they could be interesting in play.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

So I was talking it over a bit with a couple members of my group and they were a little worried about the confusion, so I figured I might want to take Iron Will and Improved Iron Will along with the rage power (su) lesser chaos totem which adds +1 to my saves vs confusion. That way with these three things I can add +3 to Will and give myself 1/day a Will re-reoll.

That's fine. I would not get that totem power, though. You lose totem powers while confused, so you'd only get to use it to avoid going into confusion to begin with, not to end it. That seems way too little a benefit to spend your rage power on to me. Also, you won't always be level 4. Right now, DC is 11 (10 +2 level -1 cha), if you are able to lower your cha to 7 you could make it DC 10. Anyway, you have +2 wisdom, +2 morale bonus from raging, and a +1 cloak of resistance is dirt cheap (1000 gp). That's a +5 will save bonus and you don't even have a base will save bonus! Next level, Fighter 3, it'll go up by another 1. The DC will never increase unless you raise cha. Don't throw too much at the problem, the save will be "don't roll a 1" in relatively short order.

I was also looking at the combat feats a bit more and thought of going down the Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, and Vital Strike lines which I think (in theory) would really pump out my damage - perhaps some critical focus as well to add some bleeds and effects I also really like the Bleeding Critical line and grabbing the two that look fun to me are staggering and stunning. I'd probably also pick up toughness to give myself a bit more padding for hit points. The reason I'd want to go with the dodge/mobility/spring attack is to also get nice bonuses to AC for dodge and AoO, if I had to move to get to something that is attacking a caster for example. Was also looking at Whirlwind and that might be nice especially if surrounded by enemies (as I plan on wading into the thick of things) and this would be better than Cleave from what I've read so far.

The crit feats work for a Fighter, but won't be an option till like level 10 anyway. Vital Strike will help your damage on rounds you can't full attack, but it is inferior to full attacking when you can do that. WWA requires too many feats: IMO. Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, and Expertise. And you can only attack each person once, you're better off focus firing on one enemy at a time till he's dead. If they're weak enough to die in one hit by the time you get WWA, they're not really a threat ( to you, anyway), and you could just as easily use Combat Reflexes and AoOs to wipe them out as they run past you to the actual squishy PCs.

Not sure what the Step Up will do or not do for me in the build. I take it that it's mostly to make sure you are locking someone up with you so they can't take a 5 ft step and say do a ranged atk w/o provoking an AoO? I kinda like the Lunge and Strikeback feats as well, they look like they could be interesting in play.

Basically. You're the tank. Step Up helps you stay on someone so they can't get away. Not only archers, but also casters and reach weapon users. The other feats make it even better (Following Step; Step Up and Strike) but aren't as needed. Take it as a Fighter bonus feat. If your DM doesn't seem ot use enemies that require it at all, retrain it at Fighter 4 for something else.
Lunge is amazing, definitely take it at level 6 or soon after.
Strike Back sucks, IMO you should be able to do that already, and it's just not worth readying for. Most of the time, Lunge will solve your inferior reach problems just fine. It also requires +14 BAB anyway.

Oher feats...I definitely think Penetrating Strike is worth it when you hit Fighter 12. Nimble Moves may be useful to you so you can always 5 ft step. If you have Furious Focus anyway, I think getting Dreadful Carnage at level 11 (and suddenly pumping points into Intimidate, if you'd been ignoring it till then) is worth a feat. Even if your check modifier isn't that good, just the CHANCE to demorazlize everything within 30 ft every time you drop someone is pretty good!


The way this is shaping up, you may want to be a Half-Elf. They can trade their Skill Focus feat for an extra +2 will saves on top of your Iron Will (or you could drop Iron Will and Imp. Iron Will feats and use that instead). They also get a racial +2 on saves against enchantment "spells and effects." Confusion IS an enchantment effect...
Half-Elf also means you don't lose out on favored class bonus for the barb levels.