Help focusing a Barbarian

[bishop]

I have a few questions on a barbarian that I am working on.

Background, I am playing a Barbarian in a campaign with a Druid and Gish using sorc and abjurant champion. I wanted to play a scary barbarian after being inspired by Caedrus's fear handbook.

First off, how do natural attacks work with Bear Warrior if I go into bear form when I have stronger claw attacks from my Feral template? Do I have to use the lower damage bear claws?

Secondly, I see 3 'good' berserker prcs. Runescarred berserker, which I am not going to use unfortunately. Frenzied Berserker which my party has asked me not to use and I am okay with that and then finally bear warrior. Is Bear Warrior really a solid choice?

Outside of Prc's I am torn on trying to focus down my feats. I would like to be able to trip so I am taking the wolf totem variant and grabbing combat reflexes. I want to be able to trip people that are running when I scare them. I would like to scare people with Intimidating rage/imperious command. I am using power attack and leap attack to generate damage just like any good barbarian should. I am wondering if those would be effective enough to justify not having shock trooper. I am taking powerful build so that I can get +4 on trip/intimidate checks but I am wondering if that is worth losing another part of the combo potentially.

Thanks in advance for any help and let me know if you need any other information.

[Solo]

This is your build.

Human Barbarian 2/Fighter 2/Barbarian2/Fist of the Forest 3/Bear Warrior 1/Warshaper 4/Bear Warrior 6

Feats:
1: Extra Rage, Great Fortitude
2: Improved Trip
3: Intimidating Rage, Improved Unarmed Strike
4: Power Attack
6: Imperious Command
9: Frightful Presence
12: Multiattack
15: Improved Natural Attack: Claws
18: Improved Natural Attack: Bite

Skill trick: Never Outnumbered
Magical location: Oytugh hole for Skill Focus: Intimidate.
ACFs: Spirit Lion Totem, Wolf Totem, Trap Killer

[Jackinthegreen]

If you have access to Dragon Mag, there's a feat in 355 called Beast Strike.  It allows you to add your claw damage on top of your unarmed strike damage.  It's a bit scarce on exactly how that happens, but the easiest way to do it is just add the dice damage and that's it.  For example, if your US damage is 1d4 and your claw damage is 1d6, your unarmed strikes would now deal 1d4 + 1d6 damage, and then add strength and such.

Note that the way unarmed strikes and natural weapons interact is you get your full unarmed attack routine as normal, then you can do all your natural attacks but they're treated as secondary attacks (so they're -5 on attack rolls and only benefit from 1/2 your strength.)

Since Savage Species is allowed, there's the Necklace of Natural Weapons which you can enchant just like a weapon and have it apply to your claws, bite, etc.

For the interaction between Bear Warrior and Feral, note the line in Feral saying "If the base creature already has a claw attack, the feral creature uses the better base damage."  It's pretty likely you'll be getting Feral's 1d8 for medium or 2d6 for large.  Improved Natural Attack will use those as bases, so a medium Feral creature would do 2d6 claw damage and a large would do 3d6.  To be honest it's not all that much extra damage until you get to the really big size increases.

You may want to look at the variant rules in Masters of the Wild page 18.  Basically it says a raging barbarian gets a +4 morale bonus on Intimidate because entering a screaming blood frenzy tends to be, well, intimidating.  There's also the variant where Intimidate is based on Strength instead of Charisma.

Solo included the Lion Spirit Totem from Complete Champion because it lets you trade the +10 foot speed bonus for being able to make a full attack at the end of a charge.  That ACF does not mechanically conflict with the Wolf Totem presented in Unearthed Arcana.  Your DM might think differently, but there's the option to call it the Mountain Lion Totem or something.

Unless this is a character you've already started on and can't change?  If so, post it!  We can't give proper advice without complete information.

[bishop]

Jack - I like the idea of beast strike or using unarmed>natural attacks in an attack sequence at the lower attack bonus. Thank you also for clearing up the Feral/bear warrior claw damage, should have seen that. I was unable to find the variant for rage but I will continue to look. I am using the str instead of cha variant for intimidate and other fear effects based off of attacks.

Solo- Thanks for the build. I read your handbook several times trying to build this character and I appreciate the humor while reading them. I am trying to do the math and see if a FoF/Bear build will outdamage a normal Power Attack Shock Trooper build.

Would this be correct assuming a medium sized character with just valourous on necklace of natural attacks with pounce on a charge and PA using beast strike. Base Str of 22 with +8 from bear warrior rage @ lvl 8

2d8 (d8 unarmed+d8 claws)+10 (str)+16(pa)=35

so if I hit 3 times (main hand, off hand, main hand 2nd attack) for 105 damage and then multiple that by 2 for Valourous? so 210 on charge?

I realize it could be optimized for higher I am just trying to see if I am assuming correctly my damage.


Here is what I wrote up on sheet after ditching the bear idea earlier tonight but I am not 100% so open to the bear build or tweaking the below build.

H- Powerful Build
F- Combat Reflexes
F- Extra Rage
1- Intimidating Rage
3- Fearsome Gaze (using it as a feat instead of ACF)
6- Leap Attack
F1-Power Attack
F2- Improved Bull Rush

Feral Human Ranger 1/ Barb 2/ Fighter 2/ Avenging Executioner

Ranger is for skill points and fighter for feats. Barb is for Rage and improved Trip

Idea is that I can scare things with intimidating rage/bloody blade and normal intimidate to get them through multiple stages of fear then use Combat Reflex for AoO's and Trips. Also should have the straight damage output to just kill some things too. Using Valourous Weapon enhancement on most likely a Glaive/Guisarme. Things I would like to add would be Extra Rage/Exotic Weapon (spiked chain). Shock Trooper will be level 9 feat.

[Solo]

Solo- Thanks for the build. I read your handbook several times trying to build this character and I appreciate the humor while reading them. I am trying to do the math and see if a FoF/Bear build will outdamage a normal Power Attack Shock Trooper build.

You will not outdamage a proper charging build, however, that's not necessarily the point. After all, that would require you to charge, which is not your intended playstyle. Your goal is to make the enemy crap their pants as you turn into a bear and eat their faces.

[Jackinthegreen]

Just making sure on this: Has Powerful Build been houseruled into a feat?  There's the Jotunbrud feat, but that's as close as you'll ever get to a feat granting PB.  It doesn't actually grant PB either since it doesn't let you use larger weapons and such.

Heck, let's just cut it off at the pass: What house rules are in effect?

I should have specified that the rage "variant" is on the left side in the box.  Typically when someone gives you a page number you read through everything on the page to make sure you've covered all bases.  And it's Masters of the Wild, not Races of the Wild in case you went to that book.  We tend to be very specific here.

[bishop]

Wow, looking at what I searched for initially on powerful build was apparently a homebrew and I didn't notice it. I will be switching that to Jotunbrud.

The only houserules in effect are the fearsome gaze (see below) and that we don't use LA buyoffs.

I see where I misread and you did say Masters of the Wild, sorry about that. That sidebar is exactly what I am looking for for intimidation and removes the need for the "Fearsome Gaze Feat"

Thanks again for the help both of you, will have to fiddle around with a build some more.

[Solo]

Jotunbrud does not give you +4 to Intimidate.

It also would not stack with other enlarging effects.

[Jackinthegreen]

Well, the Demoralize action does have an opposed check in the form of a modified level check, and there is the +4 to intimidate for each size category you're larger than your opponent (or -4 for each size category smaller).  So you might have wiggle room with how the DM interprets things.

As for it not stacking with other enlarging effects, one would think a reasonable DM would realize what the intent was and not limit the feat to simply treat the character as "large" but one size larger than they actually are.