Post/Author/DateTime	Post
randomimages 01-23-08, 12:30 AM	My wife is playing a Half Orc Barbarian and we have just hit sixth level. Traditionally (as well as in this game) I play spellcasters, so I am not very familiar with barbarian prestige class options. Her character, Neega, is our primary damage dealer using her greatclub to great effect in combat. Currently her feats are power attack and extra rage. If anyone could give me some guidance as to what prestige classes may be good for her I would be much apreciative. We already looked into frenzied berzerker and she is not too interested in going that route. All books are available. also her stats are something like: Str 18, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 10. Thanks in advance.
Divisionbyzer0 01-23-08, 12:58 AM	I have no idea since I'm reasonably new and only have the PHB. See the prestige class index on crystalkeep.com. It doesn't show the stats for entire classes but groups them based on abilities, classes, etc and tells you what book they are from. So you could search through the ones that have "rage" as a requirement for example. The only ones that comes to mind at the moment are the frenzied berserker and the eye of gruumsh. She probably doesn't have the feats for either one. Right now I'm playing a half-orc barbarian/ranger levels 3/4 respectively, so I'm interested in seeing the replies here (I have access to books through friends). Edit: it seems I am mistaken. The feat list groups things by special abilities of the classes, the prestige index is less categorized... but it does show the possibilities she'd have available at each level as a barbarian.
TifRhal 01-23-08, 01:18 AM	My friend has a 5th lvl barbarian 5th lvl beastmaster him and his dire boar smash stuff nicely and he has a freaking crow that can pick your eyes from your head fast as can be. the extra animal companion at 4th lvl beastmaster is very nice and there is a feat that lets your animal companions rage when you do can get to be real ugly with 2 frathing at the mouth things come charging,
DonThelonious 01-23-08, 02:13 AM	If you don't mind using non-core stuff you can pop in over at the Races Of The Horde: PrC thread located here on the boards. We have A LOT of stuff for orcs, particularly raging orcs, that I think you will find most helpful. -- I will post a link if I remember later.
JaronK 01-23-08, 02:37 AM	Frenzied Berserker is generally the gold standard for barbarian PrCs... just make sure someone in your party can neutralize you if you turn on them (a caster with Grease does this extreamly well). Orc Warlord (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030301a) works great too. JaronK
The_Shaman 01-23-08, 07:36 AM	BTW, what alignment is her character?
Argaud 01-23-08, 07:53 AM	What books are available? I don't think there is a PrC that is really good for pure barbarians (besides Frenzied Berserk, which is not an option) but multi-classing is an excellent option for warrior classes.
The_Shaman 01-23-08, 08:41 AM	Normally I'm a fan of the Primeval from Frostburn, but given her intelligence I would not advocate going very far with it - the Regression feature can be dangerous, especially when one Ray of stupidity would knock her out. I'd recommend Runescarred Berserker from Unapproachable East, but her wisdom is too low to make use of the runescars (it works great for that ranger/ barb though, especially if the char has intelligence above 12). It's still a decent PrC, but not nearly as good. TBH, the barbarian class isn't so bad anyway. The one thing she could use more of is feats - so fighter levels or Divine Champion levels could come in handy. TifRhal, perhaps a beat heart adept or Beastlord might interest your player for later on?
Orchomenos 01-23-08, 09:34 AM	Perhaps Half-Orc Paragon (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/unearthedParagon.html#half-orc-paragon)? Over three levels, you get an additional Rage, +2 STR and +4 to Intimidate.
randomimages 01-23-08, 09:44 AM	Thanks for the advice. Any book is available and her alignment is CG. The half-orc paragon looks like a good bet for her. Which book is beastmaster from? After looking again going from half orc paragon to either human or orc paragon might be a good choice, though I am not sure how the elf hatred of the orc paragon would work out because I am an elven archivist and sort of her handeler. With out my character guiding her she tends to get into trouble and smashes things shes not suposed to :)
Cartigan 01-23-08, 09:46 AM	I was looking into this the other day through crystal keep - Magic 8ball said outlook is grim. Though as a Half-Orc you can look at Eye of Gruumsh. Nothing improves Rage, they just give you more rage. 3.5 is really weak on Barbarian stuff (even with Dragon Magazine).
The_Shaman 01-23-08, 09:57 AM	Thanks for the advice. Any book is available and her alignment is CG. The half-orc paragon looks like a good bet for her. Which book is beastmaster from? Beastmaster is complete adventurer. If you go there, after a level or two - or four, at most - I'd go for Beastlord from the same book. However, imo the Beast Heart Adept from Dungeonscape works much better if you want a few companions, but ymmv. I'm actually still thinking about a few levels of Primeval, followed by a few levels of warshaper, although Bear Warrior (OA/CW) isn't that bad if you want some 'morphing and are kinda poor on feats. BW works best with other things that boost a grapple check, mind you. Oh, and be sure to invest in wild armor and a few wilding clasps for your other items. BTW, Bear Warrior (bear form), Primeval (feral power) and Warshaper (morphic body) were clearly designed to let your animal form give you a bonus to HP. Thus, imo the "polymorph fix" that denies bonus HP from wildshaping/polymorphing should not apply to them, or at least their respective features.
Orchomenos 01-23-08, 10:12 AM	Also take a look at the various Savage Progressions (http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=SAVAGE+PROGRESSION&sp-a=sp10025a73&sp-p=all&sp-f=ISO-8859-1&sp-k=Dungeons+and+Dragons), especially for a lycanthrope. Getting an hybrid animal form on top of barbarian rage can be devastating, and DR/Silver will help the barbarian low AC. Gaining the Half-Dragon template level by level can be cool as well.
dman11235 01-23-08, 10:51 AM	I'm a fan of bear warrior/warshaper/Fist of the Forest. If you start now, you can do monk 2/FotF 3/bear warrior 1/warshaper 4/bear warrior4. Though theoretically you'd want to have more monk levels than barbarian for this (and earlier too). I also am a fan of Primeval, but as Shaman said, the int penalty will get bad. Though if you would like to tell us a more focused direction I'd be of more help.
Cartigan 01-23-08, 10:57 AM	I'm a fan of bear warrior/warshaper/Fist of the Forest. If you start now, you can do monk 2/FotF 3/bear warrior 1/warshaper 4/bear warrior4. Though theoretically you'd want to have more monk levels than barbarian for this (and earlier too). I also am a fan of Primeval, but as Shaman said, the int penalty will get bad. Though if you would like to tell us a more focused direction I'd be of more help. Not everyone is going to let you do that, you know conflicting alignment restrictions and all.
dman11235 01-23-08, 11:12 AM	Yeah, sorry, I'm just used to ignoring them. But the build does work, if you get the monk levels in first with alignment restrictions. So my new one: bear warrior 5/warshaper 4/FotF 3/Pious Templar 1/ barbarian 1.
Divisionbyzer0 01-23-08, 01:45 PM	Yeah, and once you become chaotic you should lose everything contingent on being a monk including the monk abilities and the abilities from the PrC requiring monk or abilities that came from monk, so the build doesn't work :D
Ecalsneerg 01-23-08, 02:12 PM	Yeah, and once you become chaotic you should lose everything contingent on being a monk including the monk abilities and the abilities from the PrC requiring monk or abilities that came from monk, so the build doesn't work :D Nope, monk abilities remain even if you go non-lawful.
Divisionbyzer0 01-23-08, 04:49 PM	Ah you just can't take new levels if you go non-lawful? Perhaps Half-Orc Paragon? Over three levels, you get an additional Rage, +2 STR and +4 to Intimidate. Those paragons seem nice, but I'm not sure why the half orc doesn't get d10 for hit dice considering that he's usually going to be a warrior, the paragon follows a warrior hit progression, and the average of the base warrior class hit dice in PHB is d10
Bergtann 01-23-08, 06:18 PM	I wonder if you could go Primeval/Master of Many Forms? Add a level of Shapeshifter between maybe.
kalstrand 01-23-08, 09:45 PM	Champion of Gwynharwyf from Book of Exalted Deeds is pretty good if you are willing to be a goody goody.
Karzach 01-24-08, 01:32 AM	I was going to suggest CoG also, but her poor mental stats means she loses out on the spell progression, and her smites won't be quite as beefy as they could be.
Divisionbyzer0 01-24-08, 01:41 PM	Her charisma isn't bad for a half-orc. With my guy that score got a serious shafting. It's so bad his wild empathy, animal handling, and intimidating abilities suffer a good deal because of it.
aelryinth 01-24-08, 02:27 PM	Don't forget just plain multi-classing with Fighter for feats. All the Rage feats are general feats, so even if you took Power Attack with a Fighter feat, that would enable you to get another Raging feat. If you want the Shock Trooper/Combat Brute combo, the best way to get it is with some Fighter levels. Half-orc Paragon and Orc Paragon are both options. CoG is Exalted, so likely not possible for role-playing. There's also the Berserker PrC from Deities and Demigods, which gives you a bunch more rages/day. ===Aelryinth
Keaerin 01-24-08, 02:35 PM	The Beastheart Adept is a class I have been playing around with as well, good for a barbarian that wants a little more. Since you can get a winterwolf at like 3rd lvl in the class makes for a very amusing mount idea.
Grod_The_Giant 01-24-08, 03:21 PM	Bear Warrior is always fun, and you sound like you're in the right level range to enter it.
Cartigan 01-24-08, 03:33 PM	Bear Warrior always sounded a little weak to me.
teshen 01-24-08, 03:43 PM	Depending on how long you expect the game to go, this idea may take too long to actually pay out... but if it goes for many more levels, consider two levels in Totemist and then prcing into Totem Rager. Both are out of Magic of Incarnum, and since incarnum is constitution based magic, her numbers are probably gold. Thematically the two classes mesh very well.
dman11235 01-24-08, 04:02 PM	Bear Warrior always sounded a little weak to me. It's because of the dead levels. I've used it to great effect. Only 5 levels, I can't justify 5 levels for only a +4 to str and +2 natural armor, and +1 rage/day.
Cartigan 01-24-08, 04:15 PM	Besides that dead levels, it strikes me that the bear forms are weak. You don't turn into a bear, well you do, but you shift into a bear and your stats get augmented (and this replaces your standard rage). I guess it's ok if you want to follow it up with Warshaper and go around doing crazy Warshaper stuff.
dman11235 01-24-08, 05:48 PM	The boosts are strictly better than rage. How is that bad? And you gain the natural armor, remember? As well as the (ex) attacks, like improved grab. I guess if you want to be a greatsword wielding maniac you've choosen the wrong class (maybe: gloves of man), but if you want a grappler, or an unarmed strike specialist (or both) it's great.
The_Shaman 01-24-08, 06:23 PM	Wait, were those abilities supernatural or extraordinary? After all, later on the most dangerous enemies - wizards and the like - tend to have teleportation spells at the ready; thus if you really want to grapple them, you want to do it in an anti-magic field.
Argaud 01-24-08, 06:37 PM	Bear Warrior is not a good PrC. By the time the character has the strength to inflict serious damage with the natural weapons, most enemies have DR, and magical weapons powerful enough to more than compensate the increased strength are available. Grapple remains an option, but at the mid-level almost all the enemies seems to be large and have huge strength scores. The bear form is not much better than just drink a potion of enlarge, rage and have Improved Grapple.
dman11235 01-24-08, 07:51 PM	I've got strength 52, am large, have improved grapple and improved grab. Oh, and BAB 19. Also, I have gloves of titan grip, giving me another +5. This is without the enlarge. The difference between this and the enlarged raging barbarian is that the other guy needs to have it cast on him, and has a bonus of much less. There are also ways to enchant natural weapons, so that's not a problem, and if you want iterative attacks, start with a couple monk levels and then three of Fist of the Forest. This gets you two attacks at full, and then four at -5. It'll lower you BAB by one. Warshaper lowers it by another 1 and gets you +4 strength, completely off-setting the setback. If you wanted even higher strength, take frenzied berserker or war hulk. Oh, and this guy can be enlarged to be even bigger if you wanted.
Cartigan 01-24-08, 08:02 PM	I again think we should discount dman because of his complete ignoring of the actual rules in order to make the character.
dman11235 01-24-08, 08:24 PM	What's wrong with starting out with monk 2, and then turning chaotic? I see nothing against the rules. I have not broken any rules in the creation of this character. Now for my math: 16 base+5 levels+5 tome+6 enhancement+4warshaper+16 brownbear=52. With the two monk levels and three of FotF (it is possible, I'm playing it, and I met all the prereqs for these), and 4 of warshaper, and five of bear warrior, the rest being some full BAB class, barbarian at least 1 included, that's BAB 18. I do usually play with ignoring alignment restrictions and multi-class penalties, but this is possible while including them. You just need a favored class any or monk or barbarian to avoid the xp penalty, and the build works around alignment restrictions. Monks who turn non-lawful retain everything.
Scarab83 03-10-08, 01:20 AM	I wish the power gamers would keep their garbage in the Character Optimization boards.. Some of these builds are so rediculous.
AtsuiShoto 03-10-08, 01:49 AM	Half-orc paragon IS good. After 3 levels in it, I would look into Human paragon over orc paragon. The BAB and improved darkvision of of the O.P. are very nice, and the average 1 extra hitpoint of the d10 is a tiny bonus, but the H.P. gives more skill points (which she's REALLY hurting for), the ability to channel those skill points anywhere (with the adaptive learning ability), and a good Will save (worth a whole feat, without sacrificing a feat slot that barbarians can't spare). Also, the H.P.'s feat slot is usually absolutely priceless for a barbarian, replacing the O.P.'s Elf Slayer ability that doesn't even thematically fit her character.
teshen 03-10-08, 02:23 AM	I wish the power gamers would keep their garbage in the Character Optimization boards.. Some of these builds are so rediculous.This is where I have to say... you're being short sighted... maybe even that your reasoning is counterintuitive. If you take a introspective person who studies martial arts (monk) and then spend a lot of time emulating nature (fist of the forrest) enough so that you take on attitudes and habits of that which you see in nature (barbarian), enough so that you become an avatar of sorts of the violent aspects of mother nature (bear warrior)... what is the problem here? Alignments at times contradict themselves. Since I started with AD&D and branched out into some rpgs without alignments, I now have problems with the whole alignment system. You don't think an evil character can't love their family or be caring with his child? And classes, prestige classes and the rest are metagame concepts meant to emulate an idea. A wizard with a few levels in fighter probably still thinks of himself as a wizard... but a wizard/dragonslayer/eldritch knight may not think of himself as a spellcaster no matter what level of spells he has access to because his magic is only important to him to be strong enough to fight... I have less problems with the CO boards examining the rules to 1) get more out of characters and character concepts and 2) to point out where the system has flaws than people who go to the character development area and ask 'is it ok if i roleplay a chick when i'm a dude' and eating up bandwidth by performing some half ***ed attempt at poorly written fiction.
Scarab83 03-10-08, 02:47 AM	This is where I have to say... you're being short sighted... maybe even that your reasoning is counterintuitive. If you take a introspective person who studies martial arts (monk) and then spend a lot of time emulating nature (fist of the forrest) enough so that you take on attitudes and habits of that which you see in nature (barbarian), enough so that you become an avatar of sorts of the violent aspects of mother nature (bear warrior)... what is the problem here? I have no problem with character progression that makes sense. What you described is perfectly acceptable. I was looking more at "bear warrior 5/warshaper 4/FotF 3/Pious Templar 1/ barbarian 1". It irks me when people dip into a class or prestige class for a single level just to min/max their character. It cheapens the game in my opinion.
Divisionbyzer0 03-10-08, 03:59 PM	What's wrong with starting out with monk 2, and then turning chaotic? I see nothing against the rules. I have not broken any rules in the creation of this character. Now for my math: 16 base+5 levels+5 tome+6 enhancement+4warshaper+16 brownbear=52. With the two monk levels and three of FotF (it is possible, I'm playing it, and I met all the prereqs for these), and 4 of warshaper, and five of bear warrior, the rest being some full BAB class, barbarian at least 1 included, that's BAB 18. I do usually play with ignoring alignment restrictions and multi-class penalties, but this is possible while including them. You just need a favored class any or monk or barbarian to avoid the xp penalty, and the build works around alignment restrictions. Monks who turn non-lawful retain everything. More and more I think alignment and multiclass restrictions are arbitrarily stupid. Mpost RPers can't play their alignment anyhow, and multiclass exp drain just punishes people for being imaginative. If they drop this stuff in the new game, I'm gonna propose we house rule it, since we ain't switching.