Author Topic: What's the best class and prestige class that focus on natural attacks?  (Read 9962 times)

Offline brujon

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Frey
The Frey are a race of upright felines that strongly resemble domestic cats in their morphology. They are strong-willed and clever, and quick and tenacious in a fight.

• Frey gain a +2 to Dex, +2 to Cha, -2 to Str, and a -2 to Con.
• Frey are size small, and thus gain a +1 to AC and to all attack rolls. A frey has a base speed of 20. However, if its hands are free, a frey can drop down onto all fours in order to move at a rate of 30.
• Frey get a +2 racial bonus to Listen checks and a +8 bonus to Jump checks.
• Frey have natural weaponry. They have 2 claws that do 1d2 points of damage, and a bite that does 1d3. Use of their natural weaponry does not provoke an attack of opportunity (as if the frey possessed the Improved Unarmed Strike feat). The critical threat range for both attacks is 20 (x2).
• Stinging Strike (Ex): Once per day per character level, a Frey can strike at a sensitive area he instinctively is drawn to, such as at a dog's nose or a human's groin. If the frey hits with his normal attack, it does an additional 1d4 points of damage. This is a free action that is added onto a standard attack action. This ability can only be used in a round in which the frey takes a full attack action, and its use must be announced by the player before the attack roll is made.
• Remarkable retreat (Ex): Frey get a +4 dodge AC bonus against all attacks of opportunity.
• Springing leap (Ex): A frey can jump up to many times their height. When calculating the result of jump checks, frey are not limited by a maximum distance.
• All frey have low light vision.

The Feral creature template sounds great. Changes claws to 1d6 dmg and like the 10ft to movement.

Feral applied to humanoid changes type to Monstrous Humanoid, which makes Enlarge Person not work on you anymore. This is a non-issue if you go with Psionics, because of Expansion, but Aberration type, which the Elan and Synad both give at +0 LA give access to Rapidstrike/Improved Rapidstrike at later levels, which will give you iteratives with all your natural weapons, giving you a downright scary number of attacks. IF you cannot change your race because you're already married to it, then some options open up to you.

Warblade from Tome of Battle gives you access to the Tiger Claw discipline, which has the Sudden Leap maneuver, which gives you a swift action jump check to move. Battle Jump from Unapproachable East gets you a charge whenever you drop 5ft on an opponent, depending on how you read it. It's a regional feat, but the rules do imply you can take it if you have 2 ranks in Knowledge (Local) for the appropriate region. Now if you go Totemist you can bind Sphinx Claws to your Hand Chakra and get pounce and a 1d6 claw attack, or you can dip Lion Totem Barbarian to get Pounce with any form of charge. Tiger Claw discipline has also other very nifty maneuvers for Natural Attack users, and claws are a favorite weapon of the discipline. Useful maneuvers include Raging Mongoose for even more atacks per round, and various other standard action strikes that say you Jump into an opponent (which will trigger both the strike and the pounce, depending on DM interpretation). This is a nice way to go, because you already have a WOOPING +8 racial bonus to Jump Checks, so you'll easily be able to make the checks necessary to make the jumps to trigger the charge.

Tome of Battle is very dip-friendly, and does not disrupt a Psycarnum build focused on making a scary efficient glass cannon King of Smackish build. Can't provide you with a full build right now, but see Ling Ling ( http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1276.msg33395#msg33395 ) for an example of what can be done with Totemist + Tome of Battle. See that it's not even that much optimized and has no Psionics in it (In order to fit thematically with the Character from the show...)
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline Silveron

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Your warblade suggestions (Tiger Claw discipline) sound perfect for what I was looking for. Since your avatar is a pic from Mushi-Shi, you will get I got the idea for my character from anime too.

Picture a talking cat jumping up slashing someone in the face, spring jumping off them to attack another person, then spring jumping off them and attacking the first person again. wash rinse repeat, cause at 10th level hope to have a ton of attacks.

Offline brujon

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Your warblade suggestions (Tiger Claw discipline) sound perfect for what I was looking for. Since your avatar is a pic from Mushi-Shi, you will get I got the idea for my character from anime too.

Picture a talking cat jumping up slashing someone in the face, spring jumping off them to attack another person, then spring jumping off them and attacking the first person again. wash rinse repeat, cause at 10th level hope to have a ton of attacks.

You will, definetely. Dipping Barb 1 for Lion Totem gets you always on pounce, Battle Jump as a feat gets you charge on a relatively easy jump check for you. Use Tome of Battle as a Dip (There's a guide over here on how to do it), and focus more on the Totemist side, eventually aiming for Totem Rager, since you will be able to get the higher-level Tiger Claw disciplines with few levels of Warblade by dipping it at the right points. Landshark Boots is a goodie, as is Manticore Belt (thanks for correcting me on this one), Blink Shirt (for at-will dimension door 10ft or more!), and there's Dread Carapace that effectively gives you Power Attack with natural weapons, and at a better rate if you invest essentia into it. Girallon Arms give you two more arms with claws on them. There's Threefold Mask of the Chimera that gives you 3 bite attacks and no-flanking-ever ability. Psionics work great because if you go Psycarnum, you can convert Essentia into PP and vice versa (If i'm not mistaken), and as such become *that* much more powerful. Even just 2 levels into Psychic Warrior gives you access to Expansion and a bonus feat, and the Claws of the Beast power that you can use to augument your claws, as well as a power that let's them count as magical (so you can hit incorporeal), without expending precious WBL buying some item that gives them that quality.

I'm just too lazy and drowsy ATM to provide you with a full build, and i was going to play a character like that in a campaign but dropped because of personal issues so i can't help you there... But the things i have outlined are scarily synergistic, so it's really not that hard to do.

Definitely consider talking your DM into letting you take Rapidstrike/Improved Rapidstrike (from Draconomicon IIRC), despite you not being Aberration/Dragon. It fits thematically and essentially gives you iteratives on natural attacks, which is essential if you want to get lot's of attacks to benefit from pounce.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2012, 04:02:50 PM by brujon »
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline linklord231

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If your DM allows homebrew (he might, if he's allowing 3rd party material), there are some dual progression Meldshaper/ToB class prestige classes that might work better than Totem Rager for you.
Indigo Initiator, Soulbound Master, and Martial Soul are all worth a look.
I'm not arguing, I'm explaining why I'm right.

Offline sirpercival

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Tiger Avatar as well.
I am the assassin of productivity

(member in good standing of the troll-feeders guild)

It's begun — my things have overgrown the previous sig.

Offline brujon

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If your DM allows homebrew (he might, if he's allowing 3rd party material), there are some dual progression Meldshaper/ToB class prestige classes that might work better than Totem Rager for you.
Indigo Initiator, Soulbound Master, and Martial Soul are all worth a look.

Most likely not, as he's not allowing ANYTHING that's not a book, even OFFICIAL articles online on the wizards.com site. His best bet is a build based off of king of smack with a smattering of Incarnum & ToB tossed in to power up the jump-pouncing build he's after.


Scratch that. I once again confused threads. His suggestion is good!
« Last Edit: August 23, 2012, 08:58:29 PM by brujon »
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life