3.5 Totem Rager - improvements appreciated

[ZhonLord]

In the next campaign I'm going to be joining, our DM has announced it's going to be a powergame.  -Starting at level 10, we're expected to reach at least 17 by the end of the campaign. 
-No restricted books, all of 3.5 is open for use.
-We are given a feat at every single level instead of one every three, so that's a total of 12 feats including flaws. 
-We also get max hp per hit die, and a free +1 LA to use on anything we want (i.e. a template, a race with LA, a 1-level gestalt, etc). 
-Starting gold is 55k, no more than half can be spent on a single item.

He is going to be throwing some nasty stuff at us, so we should be as prepared as possible.  Here is my build so far:

(click to show/hide)

Keth
Race: Water Orc Dragonborn (+4str -2dex +4con -2int/wis/cha)
Classes: Totemist/barbarian gestalt 1, totemist 4, barbarian 1, Totem Rager 4)
Chaotic Good
Traits: Suspicious (+1 sense motive, -1 dip/intim), Plucky (+1 will -1 fort)
Flaws: Shaky (-2 ranged atk), Vulnerable (-1 AC)

Stats:
22 str (20 base, +2 enhancement), +4 in rage
14 dex
24 con (20 base, +2 level bonus, +2 enhancement)
11 int
14 wis
9 cha



HP: 166 (2*12 + 4*8 + 4*10, + 7con*10)
BAB: +8/+3
Fort 14, Ref 10 (+2 in rage), Will 5 (+2 cobalt rage)
AC 23 + 2 Rage (+2 if enemy is evil), Touch 13+2R(+2 if evil), Flat-Footed 21+2R(+2 if evil)
DR 1/-, Uncanny Dodge, Immune to draconic Frightful Presence
4 rages/day

Soulmelds: Girallon Arms (totem), Urskan Greaves (chakra = +1d4dmg per hit on charge per point of essentia), Lammasu Mantle, Wormtail Belt, Chimera Mask (totem if not using Girallon totem)


1. Barbarian/Totemist gestalt; Wolf totem, Lion Spirit Totem and Whirling Frenzy variants.  Multiattack, Improved Multiattack, Cobalt Rage
2. Barbarian 2: Extra Rage +2
3. Totemist 2: Power Attack
4. Totemist 3: Rebirth into Dragonborn, choose Heart aspect to get breath weapon, original feat replaced with Dragon Tail
5. Totemist 4: Entangling Exhalation
6. Totemist 5: Bonus Essentia
7. Totem Rager 1: Cobalt Power (will be replaced by other Incarnum feat)
8. Totem Rager 2: Recover Breath
9. Totem Rager 3: Expanded Soulmeld Capacity
10. Totem Rager 4: Knock-Down

(planned for next levels)
11. Totem Rager 5: Double Chakra - Totem
12. Totem Rager 6: Open Lesser Chakra - Arms
13. Totem Rager 7: Mage Slayer
14. Totem Rager 8: Leap Attack

I haven't determined skills yet, beyond the 5 Intimidate 9 Survival needed to prestige.

Equipment (used MIC combination rules for some of this)
Armor: +1 Breastplate with Displacement 1/day (5 rds), Light fortification, Death Ward 1/day, Mindarmor 3/day (+5 to will saves) - 19k
Adaptation Armor Crystal - 500
Restful Crystal - 500

Neck: Health +2 Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker - 4.5k
Ring of Protection +2 (+1 deflection Bonus, +1 luck bonus) - 5k
Ring of Sustenance - 2.5k
Hands: Brute Gauntlets of Ogre Strength +2 (3/day +2 damage to all attacks) - 4.5k
Arms: Armbands of Might (+2 to str checks, +2 to power attack damage when taking -2 to hit) - 4.1k
Torso: Formless Vest (1/day prevent half sneak/crit dmg) - 3.2k
Belt: Dragon Shaman Cincture (Healer Belt + Dragon Spirit Cincture) - 2.75k

Other Items:
Heward's Handy Haversack - 2k
Everfull Mug - 200 (in case of ring removal)
Everlasting Rations - 350
Magic Bedroll - 500
Rod of Bodily Restoration 3/day (heals 4 str, con, or dex dmg, or 2 to all three) - 3.1k
Troll Gut Rope - 500

Total: 53k, so 2k gold left to spend on mundane items and a few potions.

On the test rolls, he does a bare minimum of around 16-20 damage per hit, with five attacks per turn (six in rage), charging or not, at a minimum of +14 to hit each.

His breath weapon has 50' range and does 5d8 dmg of any energy type, Ref DC 23, and my DM will be allowing me to use the breath weapon in conjunction with the Chimera Mask totem bind at a later level to have a triple-breath attack.


Well, that covers everything.  Please let me know what you think and any suggestions for improving any/all aspects of the build.

[KerlanRayne]

How about instead of Gestalt, you could use Goliath along with that Rage ACF that lets him grow to size Large when he rages? Not sure how that would interact with Dragonborn.

[ZhonLord]

I looked into that during setup actually, and unfortunately it wouldn't work out well.  The natural attacks granted by Totemist binds don't get a dice-increase by size, as far as I and the people I've talked to about it can tell.  Also I don't think Mountain Rage can combine with the Whirling Frenzy variant, and losing that extra in-rage attack would be a pretty big hit to his dmg-per-round. 

If I'm wrong about either point, someone please say so because going Goliath instead of Orc might actually be viable if I could pull off the stuff above.

[X-Codes]

1) Go with +1 LA instead of that 5th Totemist level.  Mineral Warrior is probably good here.  All you're getting is chakra binds you already have from Totem Rager.

2) You may have a really awesome Fortitude save, but that doesn't mean you want to nuke it with Meager Fortitude.  There are a lot of other flaws you can pick up that work better.

3) Unarmed Strikes are your friend.  Pick up Improved Unarmed Strike, Superior Unarmed Strike, Snap Kick, and a level (or two) of Shou Disciple.  You can then use your normal BAB routine for unarmed strikes (notably with your full Strength modifier to damage), and then make your 4 claws and a bite attack as secondary natural attacks (most of which use only half your Strength modifier, regardless).

4) Wolf Totem from UA is also your friend.  Since you have 2 levels of Barbarian, drop Uncanny Dodge from the second to pick up Improved Trip without the Int requirement.  You can then compound that with Knock-Down and be almost guaranteed of tripping your opponent (from the sheer number of attempts you get each round), and even pick up an extra, free attack from Improved Trip in the process.

More later.  I need to go to work, and I may or may not be able to chat on here while I'm there.

[X-Codes]

sorry, double post

[Vicerious]

Bonus Essentia requires character level 6th, so you're going to have to juggle your feats a little.

[X-Codes]

Ok, some more stuff:

Feats-
Ditch Improved Multiattack, and consider ditching the regular Multiattack, too.  Neither is really that amazing.
Ditch Cobalt Power, too.  It doesn't stack with Cobalt Rage.
Note about Extra Essentia was made already.
Move Double Chakra - Totem up to 11th level.  Double-binding Heart of Fire and Girallon Arms when making about 8 attacks a round can cause some serious damage to creatures not resistant to fire.
Ditch Furious Inhalation, Entangling Exhalation is better, and +2d6 damage on one or two attacks isn't worth it.
If you follow my Shou Disciple idea, you'll need 5 feats.  I think just about all of them have been accounted for above.
Leap Attack and Shock Trooper are noteworthy, although you shouldn't need them given that you're dealing a lot of damage already.
Two-Weapon Fighting gives an extra attack, and Gloves of the Balanced Hand give another at -5.  Note that the penalty for fighting with two weapons will not apply to your natural attacks.

[ZhonLord]

Alright, updates to the build:

-Swapped Uncanny Dodge for Improved trip, thanks for reminding me about the Wolf totem.
-Swapped Furious Exhalation for Entangling, has much more potential to turn the tide in our favor.
-....wow.  Been playing incarnum classes for a while now and I never noticed Cobalt Power and cobalt Rage can't stack.  Ditching that, probably for another incarnum feat - have yet to decide on which.
-Juggled around Power Attack and Bonus Essentia to fix the level issue.
-Changed the Meager Fortitude flaw to Vulnerable (-1 AC), since armor doesn't matter quite as much at these levels.
-Putting Double Chakra at level 11 for the Heart of Fire is an interesting idea, especially since it doesn't require a charge attack for those extra d4's like the Urskan Greaves do.  Re-organizing planned future feats.
-Adding in Knock-Down, probably in place of Combat Reflexes since that's only two extra AoO's, and wouldn't be useful as often.  I had no idea that feat even existed 
-Also adding Leap Attack as a potential future feat, it would be very useful to do double damage in, well, EVERY situation.


The +1 LA is probably going to end up staying as a Gestalt, because any templates I would add to the build lose all their abilities during Dragonborn Rebirth.  I would only keep the stat changes, and that's not really worth using the LA on.

The Shou Disciple stuff is an interesting idea, but unfortunately it branches too far off from the base concept I had for my character.  Thanks for pointing it out though, I'll definitely keep it in mind for future campaigns.

I actually considered going the TWF route instead of the Multiattack stuff, but it doesn't work out well because TWF requires 15 dex and the way we did our ability scores doesn't give me room to take a point from one stat and put it into dex.  Besides, from my viewpoint it works out better to have the 4 claws (5 in rage) all at +17 attack and a tail at +14 than it would be to have 1(or 2) claw at +17, 3 at +12, and a tail at +9 in order to get the extra couple attacks I would have obtained from TWF.  Although I could be dead wrong about that, please tell me if I'm seeing this wrong.

[X-Codes]

If that's the case, then I suggest gestalting with something else.  That 5th level of totemist really is doing you no good, and the gestalt level isn't really improving your chassis any.  You've got the Wisdom to take advantage of a Cloistered Cleric dip, though.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

All those extra feats, can certainly be used for early qualifying.

Agree with X-codes about too many levels of straight Totemist.
Totemist 2 / Barb 2 / any 2 ... is (even randomly) gonna have more stuff.
The Cloistered Cleric 1 and Shou Disciple 1 or 2 , fit easily.

[Kremti]

How about:
1: Barb/Totemist
2: Barb
3: Totemist
4-6: *Incarnate*

?

Edit: Gah, can't qualify for +5 BAB, I don't think.

Psychic Warrior might be a possibility, to grab Expansion...?

-K

[X-Codes]

Those Incarnate levels have the same issue the Totemist levels do, too.  You're not getting much from them.  Cloistered Cleric you can describe as some minor, typical spellcasting ability that you get from your connection to Incarnum (or something like that).

[Kremti]

Well, except Soulmelds and Essentia.  So it possibly depends on what kind of specific soulmelds we are looking for, and see if there's Incarnate Soulmelds they he wants.  I just realized Crown Chakra isn't needed because of Totem Rager levels, so 1 level of Incarnate is pretty much optimum, I think. 

It's still better than 5th level of Totemist, which doesn't give him *anything* .  1 level of Incarnate instead gives him 2 soulmelds and 1 essentia, and some extra saving throws...

But you are right.  I was starting to look at Psychic Warrior.  2 levels of Psychic Warrior (and spend those 2 feats into Link Power and Metapower: Link Power: Expansion) gives him all-day being large option + 5 temporary hit points, which might be nice.

-K

[ZhonLord]

Damn those are some interesting choices.  Cloistered Cleric would give him more options of things he could do, although the spells could be an issue if I'd need to cast them in a fight and have already entered rage.  Multiclassing into Incarnate would actually help quite a bit too, granting the use of Bloodwar Gauntlets for attack bonus and Cerulean/Airstep Sandals for increased mobility.  Maybe one level of each to get the necessary benefits if I go this route?

The Psychic Warrior stuff sounds interesting too, although I don't know much about the psionics side of 3.5.  What book(s) are those feats you mentioned in, Kremti?

[Kremti]

Both from Complete Psionic.

-K