Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mugzug Feb 07, 2008 0:08:07	Intent: The intent here is to take the Dungeon Crasher Fighter alternate ability, and combine it with the Trapkiller alternate ability for Barbarians (both in Dungeonscape). This will make an effective rogue replacement to take out traps, handle tanking, and deal damage. Yes this was highly inspired by the thread that highlighted Dungeon Crasher. I will present a break down of the different feats utilized, why I chose certain prestige classes, the right skills to take, why I chose these races, show alternate routes in the Animal Lord part, and explain how to take this from level 1 to 20. The Reasoning First I will explain the two abilities that are central to this! Dungeon Crasher allows a bull rush into an obstacle to cause damage. It also provides bonuses to strength to bypass doors/break objects etc. Trapkiller allows the use of survival to find traps and the use of a weapon skill to disarm it! Together this can help get rid of the need for rogues, while maintaining martial competency. The race is Goliath turned Dragonborn (wings). This provides us with a hefty strength and con bonus. The flight will allow us to bull rush downwards! At early levels the gliding and jump bonus will be nice. Augment this with the Intermediate Water Elemental Bloodline from UA. It gives you feats that are vital, and grants a swim speed. Now you can dive from the air, into a lake, and bull rush them into the lake bed (or pond/whatever). It's hot. Barbarian3 and Fighter6 get us Dungeon Crasher and Trapkiller. No need to explain this anymore than I have. We will qualify for the Animal Lord Prestige Class, and go for Wolf. Track will work hand in hand with your maxed Survival, and you get scent. No natural attack though when compared to other aspects.... Don't worry. If this is a problem for you, go for Sharklord or Snakelord (they give bites). Warshaper levels will grant you natural attacks. Now you can give your wolf a bite! You can even get a graft for a tail as a dragonborn then make it bigger with warshaper, then it gives you reach! Use bite and tail attacks to augment your 2 handed weapon. Aside from this Warshaper is a nice package for other reasons too. To those who day you cannot qualify, read the Aspect part of Animal Lord CAREFULLY. Then read Warshaper. It is clear that Aspect is very similiar to wildshape (since you can even use wildshape uses for aspect), and Warshaper demands a similiar class feature. Qualify! Feats I chose are: Reinforce Wings: You can now fly with medium armor... or mithral heavy armor! Power Attack: Works with knockback, is a pre-req Improved Bullrush: The whole point of this build! Also a pre-req Improved Flight: Grants you 1 higher manueverability, allowing you to hover Knockback: You hit while power attack, free bull rush! Long Reach: Regional feat that allows your spears to get a better reach! Track: Pre-req for animal lord Rampaging Bullrush: Allows you to get free 'pseudo' trips Improved Trip: Works well if you have no rage left, cannot rage, or don't feel like wasting it. Extra Wildshape: You qualify for this thanks to Aspect Extra Rage: Needed to get 3/day Combat Reflexes: Will work nicely with your reach Skills: You will max survival, get basic animal lord requirements, then work on maxing Move Silent! Move silent will help when flying in 'cloud cover' so that you avoid getting seen. Hide is easy to get boosts from with improved cover, fog (you get that as a 1/day sp from water elemental bloodline), and various magic items.
#2 mugzug Feb 07, 2008 0:08:51	Here are the Magic Items I recommend: The Weapon: The Longspear Impaling(MiC): +1 So for 3/day you can use a touch ac on a melee attack Shadowstrike: Extra reach, and denies opponent dex bonus to attack X/day Adamantine: bypass DR, and make sure the spear stays in 1 piece! Remember mastwork cost is incorporated into the adamantine cost. Changeling (MiC): For 2k you can change it between longspear, spear, and shortspear. Everbright(MiC): For 2k your weapon is immune to acid damage and rust! Both of which can happen... Weapon Crystals: Demolition, lesser: extra damage to constructs Fiendslayer, lesser: extra damage to evil outsiders True Deather, lesser: extra damage to undead and attack incorporeal targets as if physical The Shield: The Animated Mithril Tower Shield You get a penalty to attacks, but the armor bonus is a must! Plus when flying it can provide total cover so you can avoid archers on the ground. It may even make it so you cannot be targeted by spells when using it as total cover. Mithril allows you to increase the max dex bonus to ac granted by the shield. The Armor: I got a Breastplate at 10th level. In the long run go for Mithril Full Plate (so it counts as medium) Armor Enchantments: Mind Armor (MiC): For 3k, 3/day you get a +5 bonus to will saves. Life saver. Daylight (MiC): For 3k you can negate any darkness penalties to attack (ie: concealment) from magical darkness! Easy Travel (MiC): For 1.5 you can carry up to a medium load as a light load while flying! Speed (MiC): 6k for 3rnds/day of haste Armor Crystals: Crystal of mind cloaking: These provide a bonus to will saves, and the greater one allows will save rerolls 1/day Iron Ward Diamond: Grants you DR#/- based on quality, up to a certain # of damage per day. Restful Crystal: You can wear your armor when you sleep. Great for when you are rolling for random encounters. Wondrous Items: Armbands of Might (MiC): Bonus to strength checks, extra damage on power attack attacks Belt of Growth (MiC): Makes you 1 size bigger Strength Belt: Need I say why? Gloves of Dex: For AC Brute Gauntlets(MiC): Morale bonus on str checks, pay 1.5X cost to add to Dex gloves Mask of the Tiger(MiC): +5 to survival if you have track feat, and grants Low-light vision Amulet of Natural Armor Cloak of Resistance (or instead get all of the resistance armor upgrades from MiC) Boots (the ones that grant you haste, very good) Ring Brute Ring(MiC): Ranged Bull Rush, can use it while in a grapple to knock opponent off of you! Can trigger dungeon crasher ability. Very good to have. Ring of Protection The only thing that I would like to see is something to increase flight speed. The only effect I know that does this is haste, which is great for this character!
#3 nexis Feb 07, 2008 0:29:08	I made a really similar build a little while ago...
#4 mugzug Feb 07, 2008 0:33:15	I saw other builds similar to yours before. They served as an inspiration. I just wanted to see if I could lend some flexibility to it. Mine brings in 2 natural attacks with reach, brings in a spear with extra reach, tracking capabilities, trap defeating abilities, underwater, and a very high manuever class of flight. Somehow I felt it could be done a little better. Warshaper and Animal Lord really have great synergy.
#5 NiteCyper Feb 08, 2008 1:08:44	I wonder if Bear Warrior matters to you? I don't think Trapkilling should be your job. Heck, you could dish out like the 40 gp for an NPC to take the fall for you. Maybe get your caster to entice them a little more with Charm Person. Bag of Tricks, Summon Swarm, a large rock, all could work instead. Ithougthyouwere Warforged, not Goliath, so ignore this. Knockback only works when you are larged. You are not large. Thankfully, someone has found a way to fix that for Warforged. (WARFORGED JUGGERNAUT, HERE I COME!) There's a weapon enhancement in MIC, forgot the name, that lets you use Knockback, forgot the effect.
#6 mugzug Feb 08, 2008 9:40:11	Bear Warrior is nice, and I thought about it. What was questionable was whether wings would be retained when changing into any bear or hybrid form, so I decided to play it safe with Animal Lord. This concept is to be a rogue and frontline fighter all in one, without taking any levels of rogue. Also note, this character has a good alignment due to dragonborn. Sending people to their deaths and excess animal cruelty (remember animal lord?) probably would result in the GM having Bahamut stripping my character of his dragonborn status. Hiring a rogue could work, but then remember that most npc stats are subpar. Rocks may work, except for certain traps that are triggered by use, complex mechanisms, and other work-arounds. In the end, to perform trap denial duties, you need to be there on the ground.
#7 ah_andras Feb 10, 2008 9:16:14	Take the Goliath Barbarian 1st level alt class feature Mountain Rage, it's just like Rage. except you are actually large while raging with a natural 10' reach. (RotS)
#8 sir_argenon Feb 10, 2008 10:00:44	very very detailed.. i like!
#9 jameswilliamogle Feb 10, 2008 10:40:50	very very detailed.. i like! +1! I don't like Animal Lord in there when you have Dungeonscape access, though... what's wrong with the Animal Class in Dungeonscape? There's plenty of weird critters that can do the same things as your pets.
#10 mugzug Feb 11, 2008 1:46:32	Andras: Good catch! I knew I missed a few things. That mountain rage could really bring a knock out punch to this build. james: If you are dying to mix in animal companions with this build, it is very easy. Take 1 level of druid, but then you will have to worry about multi-class restrictions, especially if you take another extra level of barbarian (for 1 more rage/day). That level of druid triggers the animal lord, animal companion ability! A point I intended to bring up later in greater detail. I have done some rough back of the envelope calculations for 45-60 points of damage on the average hit. Also, to avoid grapples you can get a Ring of the Brute from MiC which gives you a ranged bull rush attack with YOUR bonus! This will trigger dungeon crasher, and I am fairly confident this can be done while in a grapple. More interesting item tricks to come later.
#11 mugzug Apr 06, 2008 22:34:27	I just had my first session playing this build. It worked out pretty good, and demonstrated the feasibility of this class. I was doing around 25-35 damage on each attack and around 24-66 damage from Dungeon Crasher II. Even more damage when raging, and this was from only 1 attack. When hasting it got even more interesting. Impaling on the spear was great, the animated mithril shield saved me, and so did the mind armor. Mind Armor was my MVP closely followed by impaling. Dungeon Crasher did deliver some swift 1-hit kills that were badly needed, and ended up being the finishing blow to a Fang Dragon that nearly killed me after I tanked it for the group. The combat lasted a whole 2 rounds before I impaled the Dragon's head with my spear. I am looking at trying a Dive Attack (piercing damage does 2X in dive attacks) tied into the pounce ability for supreme ownage.
#12 steidas Apr 13, 2008 0:56:58	I have this build for my Human Dungeon Crasher: 1. Barbarian 2. Fighter 1 3. Fighter 2 4. Fighter 3 5. Fighter 4 6. Fighter 5 7. Fighter 6 8. Bear Warrior 1 9. Bear Warrior 2 10. Bear Warrior 3 11. Bear Warrior 4 12. Bear Warrior 5 13. Cleric 1 14. Ordained Champion 1 15. Human Paragon 1 16. Human Paragon 2 17. Human Paragon 3 18. WarShaper 1 19. WarShaper 2 I began with 18 strength. At level 20, after enchanting my armor to changeshape with my body, I will enchant it to give me +6 strength, so we have: +6 Enhancement bonus +5 Level Improvement +5 Inherent from BOok of strength +8 Sacred bonus from animal devotion feat +16 from Bear Warrior transformation +4 from WarShaper +2 from Human Paragon = 64, that's +27 bonus, without the help of anyone else or any other thing. The Cleric and Ordained Champion levels are used to give my claw natural attack Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Melee Weapon mastery and then Driving Attack on level 15th. With driving attack, I can make a single attack as a full round action, adding all my base attack bonus for power attack for adittional damage. My DM ruled that I can use Driving attack with the bludgeoning attack since it makes "more sense" but I can also make my natural attacks piercing with another feat, so it doesn't matter if this is house'd in or not. The total attack for this would be +27 for strength +3 for feats, -1 for size = +29. If the attack connects (and I can get this number WAAAY up with other **** but it's uninmportant right now), it deals +27 for strength, +17 for power attack +4 due to feats, +2 due to strength devotion = 3d6+50. Since I initiate a bullrush using my actual damage bonus instead of my strength bonus, my check would be +50, +4 for Improved Bull rush, +4 due to my size, +58 in total. This will USUALLY send anything below Gargantuan really far, and if it hits anything, it'll deal a basic 8d6+150. By DM rules (again) my size increase also increases the damage dealt by each die to d8, but it doesn't matter either if this is house'd in or not. Anyone got any sugestions? I'd appreciate them.
#13 mugzug Apr 15, 2008 21:31:31	I find that you might gain from a 1 level dip into Barbarian. Use the complete champion to use the animal totem replacement level, and pick Lion. You get pounce. Then become a dragonborn. This is +1 LA that you can buy off using UA rules. Now you can fly. With a dive attack (see dragonborn) piercing damage doubles. With pounce you can do multiple attacks on a charge. See where I am getting?