the Complete Champion we have another class that adds Con bonus to AC,the Fist of the Forest,however
to get the bonus from that class you cannot wear armor,thus eliminating the debate over whether or not an
armors Max Dex inhibits the Con to AC. So with these two classes you can get Con to AC twice. But what
is the best route to do this? i'm thinking something along the lines of this:
Human Paragon 3/Stoneblessed 3/Fist of the Forest 3/Deepwarden 2/Barbarian 2/Bear Warrior
5/Warshaper 2
1-Child of the Earth (Kingdoms of Kalamar,Players Guide)=Con as luck bonus to saves
2-Great Fortitude
3-Improved Unarmed Strike
6-Power Attack
9-Endurance
12-Superior Unarmed Strike
Now in addition to Con to AC x2,you get Con to saves..which would be very nice indeed. Human paragon
adds +2 to ANY score so +2 Con,then the Stonebless adds another +2,so we're up to +4 Con,and now
count as a Dwarf for ALL purposes. First we go FotF,for fast movement +10, Con to AC,Uncanny
Dodge,and Unarmed Damage bumped to 1d10. Now going into Deepwarden nets you Con to AC again.
Barbarian adds fast movement,or if you use the Lion totem barbarian variant to get pounce,(which you
really,really,REALLY should),Bear Warrior is there for a massive Str boost,and a decent Con boost as
well. Warshaper should be obvious by now as improved unarmed damage,immunity to crits and the like,
and +4 to BOTH Str and Con.
One thing I am not sure of is how superior Unarmed Strike stacks with the unarmed boosts of the
FothF,and natural attacks. As fist of the forest states that if your unarmed attacks already equal this much
damage,increase to the next lvl on the monk dmg table. but when it changes,does it go back to what it
normally would. In either case even with out that you will have Improved Natural Attack,going off of a
1d10,which turns into 2d8 which can be boosted by the Warshapers granted ability that bumps that to
3d8+Str,a fairly respectable amount. However if you are able to factor in SUS,that would bring that up
even further. So now in total we have Str +4(+16 in Dire Bear form),Dex +2(Bear form),Con +8(+8 in Dire
Bear form),+ 5 to Con or Str as you lvl as well,I'd prefer Con ;),and a BAB of .Pretty solid for a tank build.
We'll assume the elite array for this guy first (Str 14,Dex 9,Con 15,Int 10,Wis 12,Cha 8),add all of those
bonuses up and you have this..(excluding Tomes,and items of course)
Str-18(34 bear form) Int-10
Dex-9(11 bear form) Wis-12
Con-28(36 bear form) Cha-8
So you have (while in bear form) + 12 to hit and damage,+13 HP per level,and +26 AC,and +13 to all
saves. That my friends is a very brutal combination,and your unarmed damage would be 3d8+12,and your
BAB is +17. Now this is by no means completely finished as my mind is kind of blank on this right now as
to how to finish it..I was thinking for feats Extra Rage,and then Steadfast Determination to get Con x2 to
Will saves basically,and even though it would mean MAD,Combat Reflexes,Double Hit,and Rolars
Gambit..take some flaws to get the extra feats and you'd be golden.
Also,Add on Mineral Warrior for good measure in LA buy-off.Even better if you can talk your dm into adding on the Lolth-touched... +6 Str & Con,add them both for an LA +2 of complete crazyness.. +10 Str & Con, Int/Wis/Cha -2,Earth Strike,DR 8/admantine,Fearless,and more!
So here's the Summary
Saves
+38/+15/+20 (+42/+20/+24 in bear form higher con nets +4 to all saves from Child of the Earth)
(Wil save higher with Steadfast determination +13 I think)
BAB +17
AC-36(with no armor!)
Uncanny Dodge,Improved Uncanny Dodge
Unarmed Strike 3d8+Str,Claw and bite attacks when Feral tranced and Bear formed
Well,that's about it for now. Please excuse grammar and such,as well as any rules i may have misread or
mis interpritted..This is my first time posting a build on these boards. So please of great and fickle CO boards...optimize away!
(Oh and btw...I didn't add rage,or the feral trance abilities,but Rage is +4 Str,+4 Con,and Feral trance adds +4 Dex,+2 dmg on Unarmed strikes and gain bite attack for 1d6+Str mod)
I'll think o'sumthin...
let me get back to ya!
How much cheese do you want on that?
Cause I intially I think Worship an elder evil...
Also,just a side note. If you really want to be a defensive player,take the Saint template for the BoED. It's only an LA +2,easy buy-off really,and the bonuses are +2 to Con for one,and the Immunities are a killer deal. And it would be fairly simple to roleplay the requirement out. I am trying to better myself by learning about another race,and forgoing the material world. Take VoP tree too and you will be yawning at attempts to hurt you.
Umm... There is another argument going around how AC from the same source (i.e., Con) does not stack. So let's keep this thread out of sight of those guys, eh? :D
+1
Then what you want is some sort of other ability with a DC that depends on Con, like a Breath weapon, although those are usually weak. What isn't weak however are the several maneuvers in the ToB that use a concentration check instead of something else. Which leads us to: There is NO ToB-class dip. Any melee build that does not add at least one level of Warblade or Crusader at higher levels is seriously lacking. I won't give a definite recommendation, since I'm not nearly an expert, but DO consider this.
Your elite array is of course also quite weak, I must say. Any serious point buy will pump that.
I assume the elite array because well,DM's vary on their point buy,so I chose a static set of numers. And they were low,which only helped to show how much of a boost this guy would crank out. I also made him unarmed because FotF makes you forsake material posessions and seriously bumps your unarmed stikes.
And I agree with the breath weapon,get a half-golem template or such taked on,or even better a half-dragon or such and then take the feats and you will be happy,happy joy joy.
As I stated the build was not 100% numbers crunched,as I was looking for input. But the guy is still quite viable as a tank no matter what he comes up against.
Refering to the Con does not stack,the bonus from both Deppwarden and Fist of the Forest is an UNAMED bonus..and unamed bonuses always stack...I'd never thought I'd be saying this but yay for RAW!
Refering to the Con does not stack,the bonus from both Deppwarden and Fist of the Forest is an UNAMED bonus..and unamed bonuses always stack...I'd never thought I'd be saying this but yay for RAW!
YOu haven't seen the hardheads we've had to contend with do you? Do a search for Monk and Swordsage Wis bonus stacking thread. You'll see, you'll see! [maniacal cackle]
I thought about Dwarven Paragon but it really doesn't give the class the umph it needs. The Dwarf paragon is a good 3 levels don't get me wrong,but I'd rather have the benifits of the Warshaper over that. Being immune to stunning,crits,morphic reach,damage increase for natural weapons,+4 to Str AND Con. What do I get from Dwarven Paragon? +2 Con,weapon proficiencies I can't use without violating my FotF vow,and extended Darkvision and Stonecunning. You have a valid point sir but for this build it doesn't quite creep in.
Now if you go epic be all over it,and take some levels in Binder and bind the vestige that lets you add 1/2 you Con mod to your AC as natural armor. This will likely lead to this sentence.
DM:The great wyrm red dragon attacks you..::rolls,sighs::
Player::What?
DM:I didn't roll a nat 20.
I've been reading these boards for awhile,I know these hard-heads you speak of. But to be honest I don't generally listen to someone that is a complete dunce who is basically saying 2+2 doesn't equal 4.
I thought about Dwarven Paragon but it really doesn't give the class the umph it needs. The Dwarf paragon is a good 3 levels don't get me wrong,but I'd rather have the benifits of the Warshaper over that. Being immune to stunning,crits,morphic reach,damage increase for natural weapons,+4 to Str AND Con. What do I get from Dwarven Paragon? +2 Con,weapon proficiencies I can't use without violating my FotF vow,and extended Darkvision and Stonecunning. You have a valid point sir but for this build it doesn't quite creep in.
Now if you go epic be all over it,and take some levels in Binder and bind the vestige that lets you add 1/2 you Con mod to your AC as natural armor. This will likely lead to this sentence.
DM:The great wyrm red dragon attacks you..::rolls,sighs::
Player::What?
DM:I didn't roll a nat 20.
Please bear in mind the Warshaper's benefits only work when you are not in your normal form. Other than that, go you! :D
Oh, and if that red dragon attacks with normal melee attacks at those levels, it deserves to fail
But even if you do have to be in bear form that's the whole point of this build is to go bear and then start bear slapping,clawing,biting your way to the top.
Also would like to point out that the divine minion template that lets you wildshape would work well with this,you could drop the Bear Warrior and pick other class lvls. If you could make yourself large I think that War Hulk would be good for the insane Str bonus it gives.
But it was ment to be funny,not serious.
Throw in instantanious rage and that solves the problem right there. As yo ucan activate bear form anytime you can Rage or frenzy
Hey with this build your saves are insane...get a magic item that gives you evasion and you'll make him sad all day. He'd likely never be able to take you over,immoblise you or anything of the sort.
But it was ment to be funny,not serious.
It is called Grapple Bonus +70... :D
And also,I don't know why I didn't think of this,..maybe because i was just trying to get bonuses to Con. But a Dwarven Druid 6/Fist of the Forest 3/Deepwarden 2/Warshaper 3/Druid 6 would be another good way to stack things up.
Wildshape...what happens when you eat your Wheaties
Yeah well,do you honestly think he'd want to grab you once he figured out that all your attacks come from natural weapons? fighting in grapple without much of a problem is always fun.
And also,I don't know why I didn't think of this,..maybe because i was just trying to get bonuses to Con. But a Dwarven Druid 6/Fist of the Forest 3/Deepwarden 2/Warshaper 3/Druid 6 would be another good way to stack things up.
Wildshape...what happens when you eat your Wheaties
Considering the number of lost casting levels, at that point you should just go into Master of Many Forms. :D
With LA buy-off, you are set ;)
Yeah well,do you honestly think he'd want to grab you once he figured out that all your attacks come from natural weapons? fighting in grapple without much of a problem is always fun.
And also,I don't know why I didn't think of this,..maybe because i was just trying to get bonuses to Con. But a Dwarven Druid 6/Fist of the Forest 3/Deepwarden 2/Warshaper 3/Druid 6 would be another good way to stack things up.
Wildshape...what happens when you eat your Wheaties
Correct me if I am wrong, but you still have to win the grapple check to inflict damage?
Hitting AC 40+ with a penalty and missing BAB is gonna be a pain. Not to mention the dragon's got far more HP than him :DSaint Lolth Touched Mineral Warrior Dragonborn Mongrelfolk Druid 5/Stoneblessed 3/Deep Warden 2/FotF 3/Warshaper 3/MoMF 4.
With LA buy-off, you are set ;)
Why druid? If your only going for Wildshape, you might as well go for UA and CChampion Variant Ranger, Better BAB, more skill points, you'll be able to get Steadfast Determinations seeing as ranger gets Endurance as a bonus feat as well as another feat (though from a limited list).
I've found that Berserker and Fist of the Forest work well together.
Being able to be in bear form all the time, instead of only while raging, would be helpful to a build such as this, no?
In addition the Beast Shape is worse than the Bear warriors Bear Shape, for two reasons,
1)You don't qualify for Warshaper
2)Beast Shape only gives an extra +2 str, +2 con and you can't Fury ... you might be able to get some nice abilities out of the animal form you've chosen, but thats about the limit...
Incorrect, the Berserk still tries to kill his friends.
Note, I never said he wouldn't. In truth, the fact that he does is the reason I compared it to Frenzy, rather than just Rage. What I said was that it does not have the TRIGGER from damage that is the Frenzied Berserker's big folly (Oh no! Here come the group of my foes... shoot the big one with an arrow while they are 200 ft away ... *party runs for its life*.)
He has average, not full BAB
Which is not that big a drawback, considering many of the other suggestions involve 5 levels of Druid (2 lost BAB rather than 1 for 3 levels of Berserk), and Warshaper (poor BAB).
his will save requirements are potentially worse than FBs (which for the record are easy to handle) 15 + rounds spent in Fury, initially the Berserk has a better rage-like ability than the FB (+6 str, +6 con, +3 will)... the FB quickly remedies this by giving you the very useful Improved Power Attack, and Improved Frenzy as well... the Berserk however is stuck on Fury and Beast Shape, which aren't getting any better...
I'm not sure why you turned this into a full-fledged comparison to Frenzied Berserker. No one in this thread is talking about using FB for the OP's goals. I only brought it up to give people a rough-idea what the Fury ability was like, in case they did not own D&Dg.
1)You don't qualify for Warshaper
I'm away from my books at the moment. Please enlighten me why beastshape does not qualify.
And I'm not advocating never taking levels in Bear Warrior. It could be nice to be able to shift to bear form as a free action if you weren't already in it. But having the ability to always be in animal form, should you so choose, is quite advatageous for a build focused around warshaper.
It may well be the case that Beast Shape will not qualify you for Warshaper, but a berserker/bear warrior would qualify, and the warshaper abilities would apply to beast shape regardless.
2)Beast Shape only gives an extra +2 str, +2 con and you can't Fury ... you might be able to get some nice abilities out of the animal form you've chosen, but thats about the limit...
And isn't that the limit of Bear warrior as well? I fail to see how this is a detraction, considering the classes relevant to the OP.
Edit: Took a look at Crystalkeep. Here are the Warshaper prereq's:
Base Attack Bonus: +4.
Must be able to change shape
in one of the following ways:
1. Shape-change as a
Supernatural ability;
2. Shapechanger subtype;
3. Polymorph as a Spelllike
ability;
4. Able to cast Polymorph;
5. Wild Shape or similar
class feature.
Granted, it isn't spelled out that "Beastshape qualifies you," but any DM who did not allow a class feature similar to wildshape, that turns you into an animal, to count as "wildshape or similar class feature" has no business being a DM, unless he has a d*mn good reason not to allow it. You can't get much more similar to wildshape without being wildshape.
Then he isn't likely to do damage
Thanks for all to replies everyone. I you go with the original build you'll have a BAB of +17,combine that with a +12 to hit and you've got 29 without magic and whatnot. So that's respectable in itself..and when you start throwing +6 items and Tomes at the guy it only gets better. Goliath for powerful build would make you count as large for grapple checks and the like,lessening the penalties,find someway to build your size and you are golden my friend. I'm not saying that he is the ultimate death dealer. The build was built around building a solid tank. And with high hp's,excellent saves he serves that purpose just fine.
Oh and also War Hulk levels will add insane Str bonus,combine that with Hulking Hurler and you can just throw the dragon :D,granted we're talking epic level but I can dream!
Thanks for all to replies everyone. I you go with the original build you'll have a BAB of +17,combine that with a +12 to hit and you've got 29 without magic and whatnot. So that's respectable in itself..and when you start throwing +6 items and Tomes at the guy it only gets better. Goliath for powerful build would make you count as large for grapple checks and the like,lessening the penalties,find someway to build your size and you are golden my friend. I'm not saying that he is the ultimate death dealer. The build was built around building a solid tank. And with high hp's,excellent saves he serves that purpose just fine.
Oh and also War Hulk levels will add insane Str bonus,combine that with Hulking Hurler and you can just throw the dragon :D,granted we're talking epic level but I can dream!
I did make a gestalt Goliath Fighter/Duskblade/Dragon Disciple/Exotic Weaponmaster/Warhulk // PsyWar before. The strength was, needless to say, incredible.
But you still have a very slim chance at a +70 grapple check, unfortunately
I did make a gestalt Goliath Fighter/Duskblade/Dragon Disciple/Exotic Weaponmaster/Warhulk // PsyWar before. The strength was, needless to say, incredible.
But you still have a very slim chance at a +70 grapple check, unfortunately
Guess who beats this with a single casting of a spell.....
It's pretty sad when class-features that are the entire selling point of classes are made obsolete by individual spells.
Guess who beats this with a single casting of a spell.....
It's pretty sad when class-features that are the entire selling point of classes are made obsolete by individual spells.
Wha? We are talking about getting out of a +70 grapple by a Collosal GW Red Dragon?
Freedom of Movement, Andy.
That has nothing to do with the thread?
That has nothing to do with the thread?
I never said it did. I was just informing you of what the spell being referred to was. A ring of Freedom of Movement will also help you against the dragon. If you are optimized for Con and grapples, you should be able to fit a good number of natural attacks into your grapple and use the FoM ring if you ever need to get out of there...
Granted, it isn't spelled out that "Beastshape qualifies you," but any DM who did not allow a class feature similar to wildshape, that turns you into an animal, to count as "wildshape or similar class feature" has no business being a DM, unless he has a d*mn good reason not to allow it. You can't get much more similar to wildshape without being wildshape.
The magic words, This functions like the Polymorph spell, but my mistake, I misread the Beastshape ability. I thought it only allowed the user to become a hybrid...
you would be able to qualify for Warshaper (I think)... my mistake :embarrass
Note, I never said he wouldn't. In truth, the fact that he does is the reason I compared it to Frenzy, rather than just Rage. What I said was that it does not have the TRIGGER from damage that is the Frenzied Berserker's big folly (Oh no! Here come the group of my foes... shoot the big one with an arrow while they are 200 ft away ... *party runs for its life*.)
DC 20 Will save as free action at the start of your turn to end the frenzy, if your chance of success does not exceed 80%, you have no business being a FB. And if the DM is saying "You can't see anyone, so you can't go chasing in the general direction of the arrow" then theres something wrong IMO...
I'm not sure why you turned this into a full-fledged comparison to Frenzied Berserker. No one in this thread is talking about using FB for the OP's goals. I only brought it up to give people a rough-idea what the Fury ability was like, in case they did not own D&D.
Indeed... I'll be quite :p
And isn't that the limit of Bear warrior as well?
Well, seeing as a Brown Bear has a constitution score of 19 (+4 mod), which is what you get from the Beastshape (supposedly, its really, really vague... so I'm just assuming here) I would rather use the Bearshape and turn into a Bear and add a bonus to my hopefully already more than decent physical ability scores. The Beastshape might actually not provides too much of a bonus what so ever, seeing as it replaces your ability scores with the animals...
And I'm not advocating never taking levels in Bear Warrior. It could be nice to be able to shift to bear form as a free action if you weren't already in it. But having the ability to always be in animal form, should you so choose, is quite advatageous for a build focused around warshaper.
It may well be the case that Beast Shape will not qualify you for Warshaper, but a berserker/bear warrior would qualify, and the warshaper abilities would apply to beast shape regardless.
Taking into account that you should have a big enough number of rage-like abilites (what Bearshape Triggers off) to be able to last for several encounters, you shouldn't have too much a problem.
The Beastshape will certainly provide you with a form for almost indefinite time, I just think that it's a waste seeing as it doesn't scale and it replaces scores rather than adds bonuses, when in the animal form.