Bear Warrior any good? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Bear Warrior any good? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
jansteenstra
09-28-06, 05:15 AM Hi,

Compared to a decent barbarian the bear warrior (CoW) seems to suck.

A level 20 barbarian has 4 attacks doing 1d12+1.5*str damage and rages for +8 str.

A lvl 10 barbarian/lvl 10 bear warrior has 3 attacks, one doing 1d8+1*str and 2 1d6+0.5*str. Also he cant bear warrior as often as the barbarian...

when he has 20 str, his raged greataxe attacks gets +13 damage from 28 str. compared to a bear when he has 20 str he gets +15 damage on bite from 40 str and +7 damage on claw from 40 str.

Also take in consideration that a great axe can become magic and that an bear warrior cannot use armor it seems to suck greatly.

What are his advantages? Am i simply overlooking them?
CaoSlayer
09-28-06, 05:20 AM Can you say trip or gapple?

While you are dealing less damage, if you gapple an enemy, easy task being large with a huge str mod, most people will be unnable to escape and will only be able to use ligh weapons.

Try a build of barbarian/bear warrior/raping mauler for some gappling fun.

Same with trip.
supernerd8916
09-28-06, 06:01 AM Try a build of barbarian/bear warrior/raping mauler for some gappling fun.

don't know what to say to that...
TheMagister
09-28-06, 06:51 AM How about:

"No means NO!"

:)
Clawhound
09-28-06, 07:41 AM FUN <> SUCK

No matter what the numbers say, bear warrior is FUN in all capital letters.
eggplantm
09-28-06, 09:56 AM I had my warrior take just one level of bear warrior. There is a lot you can do. You can have the Wild enchantment put on your armor so that it stays with you when you transform. You can pay the dough to have magic fang put on your claws permanently with the permanency spell (fairly cheap) or just by 20th level potions of the same spell and take one a day. Take multiattack, take improved natural attack, take improved grapple.

The bear warrior is crazy fun. I have transformed to smash down a door, to escape a grapple, to claw someone while I was grappled anyway (only -4 to hit, they decided to let go of me). Also, and I tend to forget this, the bear is a four legged animal so it is difficult to use some combat maneuvers against it. I've also used it to intimidate as a display of power. Mostly, I keep it as an ace in the hole in those situations where a sudden burst of stength is needed. or where two claws at my highest BAB would be better than any iterative attacks.
DevilKiller
10-02-06, 08:10 PM Eggplantm, I'm not sure that a Bear Warrior can use Wild armor. Wild armor lets you keep your armor bonus while in wildshape. The Bear Warrior's supernatural ability is called "Bear Form", not "Wildshape". There's a special line in the rules for the Warshaper class which says that a character can qualify with "Wild Shape or similar class feature (bear warrior*, druid)", but it is unclear whether bear warriors qualify for any other feat, magic item, or prestige class for shape changers which doesn't specifically list the "Bear Form" ability. Of course nothing lists this rather obscure ability, so Bear Warriors seem to be out of luck.

I'd love to find out that I'm wrong on this. If somebody has further insight into the rules or perhaps a statement from WotC that Bear Form counts as Wildshape in terms of qualifying for feats and PrCs please post it. Else I'm forced to agree with the OP that Bear Warrior is not a particularly good PrC. The main problem is that its lack of magic items means you'll need a lot of spellcaster support to perform well.

It should be noted, however, that the higher Str bonus goes on the two claw attacks. This means the Bear Warrior's damage output is fairly reasonable. Here's my best Bear Warrior advice assuming you can't use Wild Armor, etc:

1) I believe Bear Warrior got errata'd somewhere so that you can take bear form as many times a day as you go into a rage or frenzy. Therefore the Extra Rage feat (CW) is a great idea.

2) Grappling is probably the way to go for Bear Warriors due to their high grapple bonus and potentially abysmal AC. Five levels of the the "Bear Totem" barbarian from UA gives you a +8 on grapple checks while raging. This is an alternate version of the basic barbarian class, so it won't cost you any PrC levels.

3) A level of Frostrager (FB) will net you a +4 AC bonus while raging. When making "unarmed attacks" the class also adds a few points of cold damage. More levels offer an extra "unarmed attack" per round, another +2 AC, and eventually a rend when two or more "unarmed attacks" hit. Some DMs might complain that the "unarmed attack" bonuses should not apply to a bear's claws since they're a natural weapon. I'm pretty sure that's bogus though since unarmed strikes (the normal form of "unarmed attack" for most PCs) are also natural weapons and count as "unarmed attacks" anyhow. Frostragers also heal when exposed to cold damage. If your party has a spellcaster willing to toss cold area effects your direction this can help keep the Bear Warrior's very large pool of HP full despite his low AC.

4) Spellcasters are your friends! What a Bear Warrior lacks in equipment can be made up for in spells. Greater Mage Armor, Barkskin, and Bull's Strength are all great buffs. Girallon's Blessing is a little weird and perhaps a bit silly but could produce impressive melee damage.

EDIT: Also, if you're using Book of Exalted Deeds a Bear Warrior with Vow of Poverty would probably be crazy powerful due to the fact Bear Warriors can't use any equipment anyhow. You'd be giving up almost nothing for huge bonuses. I consider this kind of a broken feat anyhow though.
Wargrave
10-02-06, 09:10 PM Take Warshaper also from CW, and you could turn your paws into hands and wield regular weapons.
Thorak
10-02-06, 09:18 PM Bear warriors are almost disgustingly good grapplers. Take Barbarian 5/Reaping Mauler 5/Bear Warrior, as a half-orc (so I'm not even being munchkin and dipping into classes, either; that's a full progression of both PrCs, and a half-orc, not a powergamed race), and you can hit Grapple checks in the mid-high 40s.

And that's before magical gear and external buffs. Just based on the class benefits and feats.

By the by, that's enough to grapple anything in the MM that's Huge or smaller, and Huge is one size bigger than you.

4) Spellcasters are your friends! What a Bear Warrior lacks in equipment can be made up for in spells. Greater Mage Armor, Barkskin, and Bull's Strength are all great buffs. Girallon's Blessing is a little weird and perhaps a bit silly but could produce impressive melee damage.

Two words. Animal Growth.

Bear Form works off Polymorph, meaning you gain the type. Animal Growth boosts your size and gives you a +8 size bonus to Str, +4 to Con (longer rage), and DR 10/magic, amongst other effects. Considering the attribute bonuses from Bear Form are untyped, and such stack with everything, and Bear Shape works like Polymorph still, meaning you continue to wear any gear a bear could wear. Like a Belt of Giant Strength, which stacks with both of the above.

It gets completely ridiculous very quickly, as you can see. Bear Warrior + Druid means three bears (bear warrior, Wildshaped druid, animal companion) all Animal Growthed and ripping the enemy apart.
Clawhound
10-02-06, 10:21 PM The rules for bear warrior are exceptionally vague. (I take every opportunity to say that the writer for the class needs to be eaten by a bear.) The vague drove me crazy. We house ruled bear warriors into wildshaping just so that we could resolve it. That solved most of the problems with bear warrior right there.

Bear warrior. Fun class. Awful writeup.
Wargrave
10-02-06, 11:08 PM How so?
Nitan
10-02-06, 11:30 PM raping mauler

"Reaping Mauler"
NecroDues
10-03-06, 01:37 AM I love this PrC....heres a suggestion I got from another thread

Meh, if you're going Bear Warrior, make it a Dwarf.

Barbarian 2/Ranger 3 (order doesn't matter, though you should probably start with Ranger at first, and remember that Ranger 3/Barbarian 1 gets you XP penalties)
Deepwarden 2
Bear Warrior 1
Warshaper (at least 2, possibly 3 and 4 as well, depending on what you want out of it)
Bear Warrior 2 - 5
Something else X

Watch the funny expressions your DM makes when Raging improves your AC.

minor note on this though: despite the massive strength score for Bear Form, your damage is generally going to be slightly sub-par due to a lack of hands with which to weild two-handed weapons.

I like this idea. I originally created a goliath instead of a dwarf.
heres what each class gives for a synergy bonus (while ignoring the ranger)

2nd lvl Deepwarden gives Stone Warden which adds his Constitution bonus to AC instead of his Dexterity.

2nd lvl Warshaper gives Morphic Body which gives him a +4 bonus to Strenth and Constitution (I think while in bearform). You can add the other levels of warshaper, but for more power Id continue with bearwarrior.

here are some fun feats to get as well:
Destructive rage-basically break anything (like walls doors...and buildings!)
Instantanious rage-Rage anytime. I like the flavor of this as well, especially if you have your character to rage anytime he gets ****** off or injured. hahah
Intimidating Rage- ok, good for scaring, but I prefer power maxing :)
Power Attack-duh!
Power Lunge-Incredibly deadly charge...ouch
Reckless Rage- +2 str and con, -2 AC
Extend Rage- Rage longer, though I think your con will be good enough to not need this
Extra Rage-Rage more often...May need this deepending on the campaign

Basically anything that says "rage" haha.

Also the vows can be very potent
Starting from level 1, taking nothing but Sacred Vow and Vow of Poverty (as a human), you get huge bonuses to stats and AC...plus free exalted feats.

I also think mixing 1 lvl of frostrager would be nice too.

And if you want to be deadly with your grapples mix in with Reaping Mauler. Now theres a terrifying sight!

*edit
also with the extra exalted feats vow of non-violence and vow of peace give you a better AC, though you would only be able to incapasitate your enemies and not kill them
jansteenstra
10-03-06, 07:22 AM owkay... i start to understand that grapple should be the way to go.

Maybe i should give him a try...

But how is he doing damagind? natural attacks only 1x strenght and secondary natural only 0.5x

Any way to buff those?
Wargrave
10-03-06, 07:54 AM The same way everyone else does. Magic and feats. Dip fighter until you've got the damage you want, or take frenzied berzerker as Frenzy and Rage stack, or get an Amulet of Mighty Fists or someone to cast Magic Fang on you.
jansteenstra
10-03-06, 05:02 PM Thinking about grappling.

I always thought grappling wasnt good for damaging opponents, but given the bear warrior it is!

If you are grappling you can make a number of actions your base attack bonus would allow. One of these actions is to attack with a natural weapon (at a -4 penalty). So given te bear warriors normal attacks: 1 bite and 2 claws, you can now have four bite attacks while grappling doing insane amounts of damage.

Anyways my question is how does power attack work for a bear? is it just +1 damage for every point of BAB? and can you use power attack while grappling?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
jansteenstra 09-28-06, 05:15 AM	Hi, Compared to a decent barbarian the bear warrior (CoW) seems to suck. A level 20 barbarian has 4 attacks doing 1d12+1.5str damage and rages for +8 str. A lvl 10 barbarian/lvl 10 bear warrior has 3 attacks, one doing 1d8+1str and 2 1d6+0.5*str. Also he cant bear warrior as often as the barbarian... when he has 20 str, his raged greataxe attacks gets +13 damage from 28 str. compared to a bear when he has 20 str he gets +15 damage on bite from 40 str and +7 damage on claw from 40 str. Also take in consideration that a great axe can become magic and that an bear warrior cannot use armor it seems to suck greatly. What are his advantages? Am i simply overlooking them?
CaoSlayer 09-28-06, 05:20 AM	Can you say trip or gapple? While you are dealing less damage, if you gapple an enemy, easy task being large with a huge str mod, most people will be unnable to escape and will only be able to use ligh weapons. Try a build of barbarian/bear warrior/raping mauler for some gappling fun. Same with trip.
supernerd8916 09-28-06, 06:01 AM	Try a build of barbarian/bear warrior/raping mauler for some gappling fun. don't know what to say to that...
TheMagister 09-28-06, 06:51 AM	How about: "No means NO!" :)
Clawhound 09-28-06, 07:41 AM	FUN <> SUCK No matter what the numbers say, bear warrior is FUN in all capital letters.
eggplantm 09-28-06, 09:56 AM	I had my warrior take just one level of bear warrior. There is a lot you can do. You can have the Wild enchantment put on your armor so that it stays with you when you transform. You can pay the dough to have magic fang put on your claws permanently with the permanency spell (fairly cheap) or just by 20th level potions of the same spell and take one a day. Take multiattack, take improved natural attack, take improved grapple. The bear warrior is crazy fun. I have transformed to smash down a door, to escape a grapple, to claw someone while I was grappled anyway (only -4 to hit, they decided to let go of me). Also, and I tend to forget this, the bear is a four legged animal so it is difficult to use some combat maneuvers against it. I've also used it to intimidate as a display of power. Mostly, I keep it as an ace in the hole in those situations where a sudden burst of stength is needed. or where two claws at my highest BAB would be better than any iterative attacks.
DevilKiller 10-02-06, 08:10 PM	Eggplantm, I'm not sure that a Bear Warrior can use Wild armor. Wild armor lets you keep your armor bonus while in wildshape. The Bear Warrior's supernatural ability is called "Bear Form", not "Wildshape". There's a special line in the rules for the Warshaper class which says that a character can qualify with "Wild Shape or similar class feature (bear warrior*, druid)", but it is unclear whether bear warriors qualify for any other feat, magic item, or prestige class for shape changers which doesn't specifically list the "Bear Form" ability. Of course nothing lists this rather obscure ability, so Bear Warriors seem to be out of luck. I'd love to find out that I'm wrong on this. If somebody has further insight into the rules or perhaps a statement from WotC that Bear Form counts as Wildshape in terms of qualifying for feats and PrCs please post it. Else I'm forced to agree with the OP that Bear Warrior is not a particularly good PrC. The main problem is that its lack of magic items means you'll need a lot of spellcaster support to perform well. It should be noted, however, that the higher Str bonus goes on the two claw attacks. This means the Bear Warrior's damage output is fairly reasonable. Here's my best Bear Warrior advice assuming you can't use Wild Armor, etc: 1) I believe Bear Warrior got errata'd somewhere so that you can take bear form as many times a day as you go into a rage or frenzy. Therefore the Extra Rage feat (CW) is a great idea. 2) Grappling is probably the way to go for Bear Warriors due to their high grapple bonus and potentially abysmal AC. Five levels of the the "Bear Totem" barbarian from UA gives you a +8 on grapple checks while raging. This is an alternate version of the basic barbarian class, so it won't cost you any PrC levels. 3) A level of Frostrager (FB) will net you a +4 AC bonus while raging. When making "unarmed attacks" the class also adds a few points of cold damage. More levels offer an extra "unarmed attack" per round, another +2 AC, and eventually a rend when two or more "unarmed attacks" hit. Some DMs might complain that the "unarmed attack" bonuses should not apply to a bear's claws since they're a natural weapon. I'm pretty sure that's bogus though since unarmed strikes (the normal form of "unarmed attack" for most PCs) are also natural weapons and count as "unarmed attacks" anyhow. Frostragers also heal when exposed to cold damage. If your party has a spellcaster willing to toss cold area effects your direction this can help keep the Bear Warrior's very large pool of HP full despite his low AC. 4) Spellcasters are your friends! What a Bear Warrior lacks in equipment can be made up for in spells. Greater Mage Armor, Barkskin, and Bull's Strength are all great buffs. Girallon's Blessing is a little weird and perhaps a bit silly but could produce impressive melee damage. EDIT: Also, if you're using Book of Exalted Deeds a Bear Warrior with Vow of Poverty would probably be crazy powerful due to the fact Bear Warriors can't use any equipment anyhow. You'd be giving up almost nothing for huge bonuses. I consider this kind of a broken feat anyhow though.
Wargrave 10-02-06, 09:10 PM	Take Warshaper also from CW, and you could turn your paws into hands and wield regular weapons.
Thorak 10-02-06, 09:18 PM	Bear warriors are almost disgustingly good grapplers. Take Barbarian 5/Reaping Mauler 5/Bear Warrior, as a half-orc (so I'm not even being munchkin and dipping into classes, either; that's a full progression of both PrCs, and a half-orc, not a powergamed race), and you can hit Grapple checks in the mid-high 40s. And that's before magical gear and external buffs. Just based on the class benefits and feats. By the by, that's enough to grapple anything in the MM that's Huge or smaller, and Huge is one size bigger than you. 4) Spellcasters are your friends! What a Bear Warrior lacks in equipment can be made up for in spells. Greater Mage Armor, Barkskin, and Bull's Strength are all great buffs. Girallon's Blessing is a little weird and perhaps a bit silly but could produce impressive melee damage. Two words. Animal Growth. Bear Form works off Polymorph, meaning you gain the type. Animal Growth boosts your size and gives you a +8 size bonus to Str, +4 to Con (longer rage), and DR 10/magic, amongst other effects. Considering the attribute bonuses from Bear Form are untyped, and such stack with everything, and Bear Shape works like Polymorph still, meaning you continue to wear any gear a bear could wear. Like a Belt of Giant Strength, which stacks with both of the above. It gets completely ridiculous very quickly, as you can see. Bear Warrior + Druid means three bears (bear warrior, Wildshaped druid, animal companion) all Animal Growthed and ripping the enemy apart.
Clawhound 10-02-06, 10:21 PM	The rules for bear warrior are exceptionally vague. (I take every opportunity to say that the writer for the class needs to be eaten by a bear.) The vague drove me crazy. We house ruled bear warriors into wildshaping just so that we could resolve it. That solved most of the problems with bear warrior right there. Bear warrior. Fun class. Awful writeup.
Wargrave 10-02-06, 11:08 PM	How so?
Nitan 10-02-06, 11:30 PM	raping mauler "Reaping Mauler"
NecroDues 10-03-06, 01:37 AM	I love this PrC....heres a suggestion I got from another thread Meh, if you're going Bear Warrior, make it a Dwarf. Barbarian 2/Ranger 3 (order doesn't matter, though you should probably start with Ranger at first, and remember that Ranger 3/Barbarian 1 gets you XP penalties) Deepwarden 2 Bear Warrior 1 Warshaper (at least 2, possibly 3 and 4 as well, depending on what you want out of it) Bear Warrior 2 - 5 Something else X Watch the funny expressions your DM makes when Raging improves your AC. minor note on this though: despite the massive strength score for Bear Form, your damage is generally going to be slightly sub-par due to a lack of hands with which to weild two-handed weapons. I like this idea. I originally created a goliath instead of a dwarf. heres what each class gives for a synergy bonus (while ignoring the ranger) 2nd lvl Deepwarden gives Stone Warden which adds his Constitution bonus to AC instead of his Dexterity. 2nd lvl Warshaper gives Morphic Body which gives him a +4 bonus to Strenth and Constitution (I think while in bearform). You can add the other levels of warshaper, but for more power Id continue with bearwarrior. here are some fun feats to get as well: Destructive rage-basically break anything (like walls doors...and buildings!) Instantanious rage-Rage anytime. I like the flavor of this as well, especially if you have your character to rage anytime he gets ****** off or injured. hahah Intimidating Rage- ok, good for scaring, but I prefer power maxing :) Power Attack-duh! Power Lunge-Incredibly deadly charge...ouch Reckless Rage- +2 str and con, -2 AC Extend Rage- Rage longer, though I think your con will be good enough to not need this Extra Rage-Rage more often...May need this deepending on the campaign Basically anything that says "rage" haha. Also the vows can be very potent Starting from level 1, taking nothing but Sacred Vow and Vow of Poverty (as a human), you get huge bonuses to stats and AC...plus free exalted feats. I also think mixing 1 lvl of frostrager would be nice too. And if you want to be deadly with your grapples mix in with Reaping Mauler. Now theres a terrifying sight! *edit also with the extra exalted feats vow of non-violence and vow of peace give you a better AC, though you would only be able to incapasitate your enemies and not kill them
jansteenstra 10-03-06, 07:22 AM	owkay... i start to understand that grapple should be the way to go. Maybe i should give him a try... But how is he doing damagind? natural attacks only 1x strenght and secondary natural only 0.5x Any way to buff those?
Wargrave 10-03-06, 07:54 AM	The same way everyone else does. Magic and feats. Dip fighter until you've got the damage you want, or take frenzied berzerker as Frenzy and Rage stack, or get an Amulet of Mighty Fists or someone to cast Magic Fang on you.
jansteenstra 10-03-06, 05:02 PM	Thinking about grappling. I always thought grappling wasnt good for damaging opponents, but given the bear warrior it is! If you are grappling you can make a number of actions your base attack bonus would allow. One of these actions is to attack with a natural weapon (at a -4 penalty). So given te bear warriors normal attacks: 1 bite and 2 claws, you can now have four bite attacks while grappling doing insane amounts of damage. Anyways my question is how does power attack work for a bear? is it just +1 damage for every point of BAB? and can you use power attack while grappling?