Google doesn't seem to have anything for this kind of gestalt, to my surprise.
To give the game context, we're playing levels 1 - 20. She's leaning toward a Spirit of the Lion Totem Barbarian/Frenzied Beserker//Rogue. We have another Barbarian, who's gestalting with the Pathfinder Summoner class, specialized to cast his Eidolon onto himself, and replace his physical stats. I'm going Wizard/Malconvoker/Initiate of the Veil // Factotum.
Anyone have advice to help us out? Thanks!
Edit: Before someone yells at me, all books are allowed, no dragon magazine. We're looking for advice on making the most of Rage/Frenzy damage plus sneak attack damage.
Secondary, utilizing Dastardly Finish to coup de grace cowering and helpless targets seems cool, so we'd like to incoprorate Intimidating Glare (Rage Power) with Imperious Command for a 1 round cower effect on enemies.
So, she definitely wants to go with sneak attack and not feat rogue? Even as a human with Pathfinder's increased rate of feat acquisition, getting into frenzied berserker at the first opportunity will tie up all her feats until 7th level.
Does she want to get into frenzied berserker at the first opportunity? Is she interested in multiclassing into fighter for a couple of levels? What races is she considering?
She might want to trade out some rogue class features that overlap with barbarian.
- Disruptive Attack (PHB 2, p 57): Don't gain uncanny dodge. Whenever you attack a flanked or flat-footed target, you can sacrifice your sneak attack to give them a -5 to AC.
- Penetrating Strike (DS, p 13): Lose trap sense. Whenever you sneak attack something normally immune to sneak attack damage, do half your normal dice of sneak attack damage.
- Quick Fingers (DS, p 13): Lose one level of trap sense to reduce the time needed to disarm traps.
She also might want to trade out some barbarian class features that overlap with rogue.
- Half-Orc Barbarian Substitution Levels (RD, p 159):
- 2nd level: Reckless Charge (+4 attack while charging, -4 AC), no uncanny dodge
- 5th level: Insightful Rage (+4 will vs. illusions), no improved uncanny dodge
- 7th level: Two-Handed Strike (+2 damage with 2 handed weapon), lose damage reduction 1/-
- Planar Barbarian (PlH, p 28): Add knowledge: the planes to class list
- 3rd level: Portal Sense replaces trap sense
Getting ready to play our first gestalt game, playing a 3.5+Pathfinder thing. My friend is dead set on a Barbarian//Rogue, so I'm trying to help make it solid in the campaign.
Google doesn't seem to have anything for this kind of gestalt, to my surprise.
To give the game context, we're playing levels 1 - 20. She's leaning toward a Spirit of the Lion Totem Barbarian/Frenzied Beserker//Rogue. We have another Barbarian, who's gestalting with the Pathfinder Summoner class, specialized to cast his Eidolon onto himself, and replace his physical stats. I'm going Wizard/Malconvoker/Initiate of the Veil // Factotum.
Anyone have advice to help us out? Thanks!
Edit: Before someone yells at me, all books are allowed, no dragon magazine. We're looking for advice on making the most of Rage/Frenzy damage plus sneak attack damage.
Secondary, utilizing Dastardly Finish to coup de grace cowering and helpless targets seems cool, so we'd like to incoprorate Intimidating Glare (Rage Power) with Imperious Command for a 1 round cower effect on enemies.
Not very knowledgable on pathfinder, But I can definately help with the 3.5
For the barbarian/rogue, let me see...
The first feat he needs is righteous wrath. while you are raging, It gives you the ability to stay calm and keep you from going crazy.
That means if you frenzy and rage at the same time , the berzerker doesn't attack the rest of the party.
It also makes your enemy make a will save when you attack it. If they fail they are shaken.
concussion attack would be another good feat, allowing your sneak attack to debuff Int and wiz by -2.
Persistant attacker gives the first attack after a successful Sneak attack, another automatic sneak attack regardless of if it qualifies.
Telling blow lets you add sneak damage to your critical.
Honestly, I would convince him to go Barbarian 10/frenzied berzerker 10//Warblade 1/ 19 rogue
Iron heart maneuvers are just better than wasting feats. The pathfinder barbarian is just oozing with flavor though (just read it)
Might need to be barbarian 20. That thing is sick. If you allow frenzied berzerker to continue rage power progression, then it is better.
I guess the summoner is okay...
wizard looses a level, but that is fine too.
Barb 5/fighter 2/FB 10/barb 3//Rogue 20
Power attack/leap attack/shock trooper.
Your tactic is to run, jump at people and kill them with a full attack before they go in init. If they do get a turn, charge into a flanking position.
I would actually consider going TWF. I know its not the normal power attacker route, but 3 more sneak attacks would be awesome and might output more damage than the power attack route. Dual wield short swords or something. This PC won't have any issues doing anything ever. (you are a wizard, prepare grease, so you are safe when his frenzy ends [can't make balance checks]).
Barb/Summoner. I don't know if you can cast "eidolon"s? and rage at the same time. If not, consider picking up the Rage Mage prestige class on your barb side.
@Maat_Mons: I do believe she wants to go the sneak attack route, over feat rogue. She doesn't mind the feat requirements.
She's relatively new to D&D (played a little over a year), and doesn't want to jump into a ton of new stuff - she's afraid she'll get lost in all of it. Right now she's playing a Frenzied Beserker currently. So this gestalt is an opportunity to add one class she's less familiar with into the mix. Our parties have had a few rogues come in and out, so she's pretty familiar with the class. Thus the unique mashup.
Thanks for the feat suggestions, I'll run those by her.
@DMVerdandi: You had me super excited about Righteous Wrath there, but it appears to only calm rage, not frenzy. They're seperate features, and Frenzy is the potentially dangerous-to-party one.
Persistent attack sounds smexy
You really piqued my interest with the Warblade 1 suggestion... Have to take a look through that!
@Krusk: Leap Attack looks awesome! But I don't understand adding in Shock Trooper, how does that help? I'm assuming it has to do with the "charge into a flanking position" part of your statement - is it the bull rush back a space, left/right a space, so you're on the side?
Also, what's TWF?
Thanks for the awesome grease advice!!!! I totally forgot she can't use dex-based skills! You rock!
Thank you for the quick replies! Here's my thoughts and replies:
@Maat_Mons: I do believe she wants to go the sneak attack route, over feat rogue. She doesn't mind the feat requirements.
She's relatively new to D&D (played a little over a year), and doesn't want to jump into a ton of new stuff - she's afraid she'll get lost in all of it. Right now she's playing a Frenzied Beserker currently. So this gestalt is an opportunity to add one class she's less familiar with into the mix. Our parties have had a few rogues come in and out, so she's pretty familiar with the class. Thus the unique mashup.
Thanks for the feat suggestions, I'll run those by her.
The bold bits are actually in conflict. The lengths to which you need to go to actually follow the frenzy rules without her eviscerating the team are pretty extreme (Grease is probably the LEAST extreme, but requires the greatest suspension of disbelief - so the berserker can't make a Balance check to prevent from falling over, but can make a Reflex save to prevent from falling over?), and Supreme Power Attack's interaction with the rest of the rules can be kind of intense.
@DMVerdandi: You had me super excited about Righteous Wrath there, but it appears to only calm rage, not frenzy. They're seperate features, and Frenzy is the potentially dangerous-to-party one.
Persistent attack sounds smexy
You really piqued my interest with the Warblade 1 suggestion... Have to take a look through that!
The real strength of the berserker isn't Frenzy, it's Supreme Power Attack. The wise berserker goes off in the morning and burns off his frenzies to avoid that liability. (Remember, if the wizard doesn't cast Grease fast enough...)
@Krusk:Leap Attack looks awesome! But I don't understand adding in Shock Trooper, how does that help? I'm assuming it has to do with the "charge into a flanking position" part of your statement - is it the bull rush back a space, left/right a space, so you're on the side?
Also, what's TWF?
Thanks for the awesome grease advice!!!! I totally forgot she can't use dex-based skills! You rock!
TWF = Two Weapon Fighting. It's the real way Sneak Attack is useful. (It adds bonus damage per attack, and TWF gives you lots of extra attacks... you just need to focus on making them accurate since the bonus damage makes up for the loss of two-handed attacks and Power Attack.)
Shock Trooper's Heedless Charge is what you're looking at, not the bull rush. What you do is this: Find a foe who is at least 10' away. Have a buddy move to the other side of the enemy. Charge, making a Jump check for Leap Attack. When you land, you're flanking the enemy, so Sneak Attack kicks in. Similarly, since you charged and jumped at least 10', Leap Attack kicks in, so every -1 you take on your attack rolls gives you +6 on your damage roll (it normally gives +2 per -1 for the two-hander, and you triple that). So you take as high a penalty on your attacks as you can (this penalty will be higher than 5). Shock Trooper's Heedless Charge lets you assign that penalty to your AC instead of your attack roll. So you're still attacking as accurately as if you hadn't Power Attacked.
Let's assume you're level 6 (the earliest Leap Attack is available) Barbarian // Rogue. You've got +6 base attack, 18 Strength (quite reasonable: 15 starting +1 at level 4, with +2 enhancement from an item), and Sneak Attack +3d6, and you're using a two-handed weapon (say, a +1 greatsword). If If you attack normally, you're attacking at +11 and dealing 2d6+7 damage (which averages to 14 damage, or 24.5 if you sneak attack). If you do the charge-Leap Attack-Shock Trooper trick above, Power Attacking for -6, you're attacking at +13 (Charging gives +2) and dealing 2d6+43 damage (averaging to 50, or 60.5 if you're flanking) in exchange for a -6 penalty on your AC. Note the attack bonus - and that if you kill the enemy, they can't take advantage of your momentary loss of AC. And this is WITHOUT RAGE OR FRENZY.
(This assumes no Pounce abilities - if you do pounce, both routines have an extra attack at +6 for the same damage. If you don't have pounce, your regular full attack has that second attack, but your charge does not. Note that in this case, the single attack from the charge is more accurate AND more powerful than BOTH of your attacks put together.)
This is the fundamental idea behind "ubercharging", by the way - find a way to amplify Power Attack returns into the stratosphere. Leap Attack gives you a higher return. Shock Trooper makes it hit. A Valorous weapon makes the attack deal double damage. If you have a method of Pouncing (like the Lion Totem Barbarian), you can attack multiple times at the end of the charge (but still with the bonus (doubled from Valorous) damage!). And so on. It adds up and can get pretty ridiculous with minimal feat investment.
This is also why Supreme Power Attack is the real asset of the Berserker. Look what IT would do in the above approach, even if you aren't raging. Supreme Leap Attack gives you an incredible +12 damage per -1. (The earliest level this is available to you is level 16. Assuming a 25 Strength (15 Str +4 Level +6 item) and a +4 greatsword, this would mean the Leap Attack / Heedless Charge trick from above would attack at +29 for an average of 213 damage. Your sneak attack at that level is adding +28 damage.)
[Edit: Durr. Totally botched the damage calculations because I forgot the wording on Leap Attack.]
I was talking to her about the advice given thus far (prior to reading your reply), and she was intrigued by the Feat Rogue Maat mentioned. Do you think the trade-off of sneak attack damage to feats is worth it? I ask because +3d6 in your example seems a good chunk of damage added.
She is taking pounce, so that opens up the full attack after her charge.
@Tempest_Stormwind: First of all, thank you for your really detailed response! You just imparted a lot of wisdom on me
I was talking to her about the advice given thus far (prior to reading your reply), and she was intrigued by the Feat Rogue Maat mentioned. Do you think the trade-off of sneak attack damage to feats is worth it? I ask because +3d6 in your example seems a good chunk of damage added.
She is taking pounce, so that opens up the full attack after her charge.
[EDIT: I totally botched the back-of-the-envelope calcuations above and just fixed them. Forgot how Leap Attack actually worked. With that in mind, YES, I would definitely take the feat rogue. See my next post for why.]
It will PROBABLY be worth the tradeoff. Depends what feats she packs in.
See, the only reason why it works the way it does is because Power Attack does huge things with two-handed weapons. (Without two-handing, even Leap Attack only returns +1.5 per -1). If you're going with Sneak Attack, you want as many attacks as possible, so you're automatically using weapons in ONE hand. Furthermore, Power Attack will apply the penalty, but grant no bonus damage, to light weapons. To minimize the penalty on TWF, you're going to use a light weapon in your off-hand. So instantly, your Power Attack gets cut in half for your main hand and doesn't apply at all to your off-hand attacks. You're getting as many main-hand attacks as you would before but at half the extra damage. And that doesn't even begin to factor in Strength here (instead of 1.5xStrength damage on each hit, you get +Strength on main-hands and +0.5xStrength on off-hands.)
Now, you can amp that up a bit by taking Oversized TWF from Complete Adventurer, which lets you use one-handed weapons in your off-hand at light weapon penalties (if I recall correctly; I'm away from my books). This will add Power Attack back to the equation, but your overall damage will still be lower (since although you're hitting twice as often for half as much damage, you're doing so at a slightly lower attack bonus due to TWF so more of those hits will miss.)
Sneak Attack will add a lot of damage to that equation, yes - but those attacks have to hit, and they have to be made under conditions that will trigger Sneak Attack (flanking or against a denied-dex opponent). While you CAN work towards overcoming the incredible drawbacks of combining Power Attack and TWF, I don't think it'll be worth the cost.
Here's why. In addition to the core ubercharge feats that you'll take regardless (Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, Leap Attack), you have to take all three TWF feats (to make the extra Sneak Attacks) and probably Oversized TWF (to add your PA back to the off-hand weapon without the serious penalty; if you're super-strong or have good weapons, just use the one-handed weapons without the feat). That doesn't leave you any room for the Frenzied Berserker route (if you plan on doing that), and if you go Oversized TWF it forces you to play a race with a bonus feat (like humans), which frequently have other awesome options locked from them. (You haven't said what race she's playing.)
You MIGHT be better off just taking feat rogue and using those extra feats to add in options and synergies for your big two-handed weapon. There's plenty of great options out there - Extra Rage and Extended Rage don't get enough press and they probably should, and all the reach weapons are two-handed, including the Spiked Chain (Reach weapons + Combat Reflexes are the real secret to battlefield control melee characters - on your turn, you're delivering damage; on the monsters' turns, you're preventing them from doing the same). Here's an example build I was working on a while ago that tries to synergize a lot of these things together; it's not a perfect match but it should be illuminating (read upthread for more information on it). Feel free to crib ideas from that if it helps.
Here's a quick comparison of the TWF/Sneak Attack model to the feat model. Let's ignore feat costs for a moment (biasing it towards the TWF model quite a bit). Let's take two level 16 characters (Barb 6 / FB 10 // Rogue 16 both with 25 Strength and +4 weapons as noted above). One uses dual battleaxes* and takes Sneak Attack. The other takes feat rogue and goes with a falchion*. To be charitable we'll give the TWFer Oversized TWF. I am assuming NO use of Rage or Frenzy (using them biases it towards the two-hander quite a bit, but we'll leave them out of the picture to illustrate just how disgusting Supreme Power Attack really is and why you don't need Frenzy to be a good berserker).
The TWFer does the Heedless Supreme Leap Pounce, relying on a flanker. He attacks seven times (at +29/+29+24/+24/+19/+19/+14 - the +2 from the flanker negates the TWF penalty with Oversized), with each main-hand hit (four of them) averaging 79.5 and every off-hand hit (the remaining three) averaging 75.5. For each of those seven hits, he adds +28 damage from Sneak Attack, averaging 196 if all hit (which will not multiply if he scores a crit). Assuming everything hits (a weak assumption but still), AND he has a flanker, this is a total of 740.5 average damage. If it isn't a sneak attack, it drops to 544.5.
The two-handed version does the same Heedless Supreme Leap Pounce. He does not rely on a flanker, but only hits four times (at +29/+24/+19/+14). His average damage is 211 per hit (you've got a higher base return on Supreme Power Attack and this is tripled instead of doubled on leap attack), and all of that will multiply if he scores a critical hit. This means his average damage assuming everything hits and no crits is 844, over a hundred points higher. Plus he has Supreme Cleave.
The average damage if EVERYTHING is a critical hit is left as an exercise. Note that two doublings is a tripling, so critical hits on leap attack aren't as straightforward as you think, AND that by assuming every attack is a crit, we bias things pretty strongly towards the TWF version (since battleaxes have triple damage on a crit, but only do so on a natural 20, compared to the falchion's 18-20/x2).
Similarly, explaining why it really makes that much of a difference when the numbers are that high is left as an exercise to the reader.
Even the sneak attack damage is high enough (over five hundred!) to reasonably wipe out just about anything, and you still have Supreme Cleave on top of that. With this in mind, it pretty much comes down to whether or not you want the bonus feats. I'd definitely do feat rogue here having seen the numbers - fewer attacks and fewer damage dice to roll means your turn will go swifter at the table, and you'll have much more freedom in designing your character with those available bonus feats and without having to invest so heavily in two-weapon fighting. Similarly, you'll only have to pay to enhance one weapon instead of two, leaving more gold for defenses and utility tools. Just remember to ignore Frenzy altogether when determining what you build towards and equip yourself with - you can take Extra and Extended Rage with impunity, and since you're burning off your Frenzies at the start of each day, you don't need to have the party always be on edge to stop you from flipping out. You basically become as controllable as a barbarian, but with far deadlier attacks in exchange for DR, uncanny dodge, and trap sense (most of which you get from your rogue side anyway - see also Maat Mons' alternate class feature suggestions), but with as many bonus feats as your typical technical fighter.
(To see what THAT can imply, look here. Remember, you're NOT a fighter, so Fighter-exclusives don't apply, but the general feats and lockdown tools still work. The key here is a reach weapon and Combat Reflexes. You CAN still do all of this and get numbers like above, so long as you keep charging people during your turn - Power Attack modifiers last until the start of your next turn. Just be advised that your AC will be in the hole: both of those above examples take -16 to their AC for one round after charging.)
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The reason for the axes? Best one-handed damage. TWF is aiming for bonus damage from Sneak Attack, which doesn't multiply on a critical hit, so the critical property doesn't matter. The two-handed barbarian uses a falchion for the opposite reason - bonus damage from Power Attack does multiply on a critical hit, so we aim to maximize that option. HOWEVER, this is still a close comparison, so each weapon just carries a flat +4 enhancement - ideally the falchion would have Keen while the axes would be enhanced as Swords of Subtlety are. But we're being simple here and not actually calculating the odds of a critical hit.
Thank you so much for the extensive look into all the options you explored. You really gave us a lot to consider, and we really appreciate it!!
We ended up landing on a Warforged Barbarian 7/Frenzied 10/(Barb?) 3 // Warblade 1/Rogue 19 wielding a two-handed weapon.
Feats:
1st - Mithril Body (+5AC)
Bonus - Power Attack
3rd - Furious Focus (No Power Attack pentalty for first attack each round)
Rogue Talent - Cleave
Bonus - Intimidating Rage
5th - Destructive Rage
Bonus - Leap Attack
-- Qualifies for Frenzied at level 7 --
7th - Improved Bull Rush
Bonus - Vital Strike
9th Shock Trooper
Bonus - Critical Focus
-- Haven't mapped beyond Level 10 --
Class/Character Features:
Barb: Pounce (Spirit of the Lion Totem)
Barb: Rage
Warblade: Battle Clarity
Warblade: Maneuvers (Steely Strike, Steel Wind, Charging Minotaur)
Warblade: Punishing Stance (-2 AC, +1d6)
Barb: Uncanny Dodge
Rogue: Bonus Combat Feat every two levels
Fangshield Barb: Fast Charge - 10'
Rogue: Evasion
Fangshield Barb: Improved Uncanny Dodge converted to Awesome Charge
Rogue: Uncanny Dodge becomes Improved Uncanny Dodge converted to View the Spirit World
Fangshield Barb: Fast Charge - 20'
-- Haven't mapped beyond Level 6 --
Rage Powers:
Roused Anger
Raging Vitality
Raging Leaper
-- Haven't mapped beyond Level 6 --
Rogue Talents:
Combat Trick (Extra Combat Feat)
Weapon Focus
Minor Magic
Major Magic
-- Haven't mapped beyond Level 9 --
The cool thing it gives is con to AC, but you get some dex boosts and an excuse to sleep in caves.
I should also probably mention that the point of gestalt is to have your character fill a variety of roles. Just keep in mind your skills, and make sure to double as a skill monkey often. For gestalt you really ought to fufill two roles at a time minimum. Basically don't neglect rogue just because you are a combat machine.