Searched the forums and came up with no hits on this combo, so I decided to try one out myself. Just built him straight through with no preplanned build in mind to see what I came up with, once with human, the other with dwarf. The latter I believe was a little easier to build as I only had to put 1 point into con to gain access to the epic DR feats, however he seems a little tight for feats late epic trying to squeeze in those 3 feats, plus the rage feats, dev crit and then the basic ewf, armor skin etc. Managed to get most of them in and ended up with around 600 hp w/o rerolling, naked ac of 24-25 and ab with mundane greataxe of 41 i believe. All this lead me to believe in the hands of a more expereinced builder than myself a quite formidible adversary could be created using this combo, was simply hoping someone might tinker with it in hopes of better results. When I lvled him i went 11/1/8 barb/bard/rdd pre-epic and just barely eeked out that 4th attack at lvl 19. I would imagine taking more barb lvls pre-epic could push the ab up to mid 40's and a more respectable range for this char as he'd have quite a few weaknessed not being a caster or having the best saves. Finished him up 28/2/10 picking up the last bard lvl post lvl 36 to max out all the relevant skills though perhaps more bard in there might be beneficial as well. Anyways, just tossed this together real quick and have to leave for school, with the holidays etc. I won't have much time to play around with this for a bit so figured I'd toss up the idea here and see if anyone would run with it. Thanks, and Happy Thanksgiving all
Human
STATS STR 16 (30) DEX 10 CON 16 (22) WIS 8 INT 12 CHA 12
Saves Fort 29 Will 16 Reflex 17 BAB 30 AB 43 (melee), 30 (ranged) AC naked (full plate/ tower) 22 (30)
Bear in mind Epic Prowess and Armor Skin have not been taken.
CONS
1. Unable to wear Heavy Armor - could sacrifice Luck of Heros at 1st for Armor Proficiency Heavy 2. Mighty and Thundering Rages could be swapped out for Armor Skin and Epic Prowess 3. Personally I would dump Dev Crit, Over Crit, Thundering Rage and Great Cleave - taking Improved Knockdown, Armor Skin, Epic Skill Focus: Intimidate and Epic Prowess instead.
Your Rage bonuses would be considerable:
STR +8 CON +8 (equal to 160 HP) Will +4 Terrifying Rage - Any Opponent is forced to make a Will save against your Intimidate check or become panicked for 1d6 rounds. Opponents with up to twice the Barb's HD will not flee, but will receive a -2 penalty to attakc and saving throws. Creatures with more than 2 x the Barb's HD are unaffected. - so not a bad little bonus to have.
If you could squeeze it in as well, then I would take Epic Skill Focus: Taunt - possibly instead of Epic Prowess, as your base Taunt would then be 55 - unbuffed, which is not to shabby.
Anyway, just a few thoughts for you.
Take a look at my Raging Skald build. Doesn't have the DR feats, but it's pretty much in line with what else you want out of it. _________________ Wave upon wave of demented avengers marched cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream...
thanks much for the reply Samphus, very nicely done. One question, any of the barb feats/skills/abilities in any way affected by cha? I imagine intimidate may be if any of them, though if not it might be worthwhile to drop cha down to 10 or even 8 as you'll get +2 from RDD lvls and since you can wear only medium armor you could squeeze out a few more ac with your dex modifier making up for the lack of armor skin. I did this when I made him with dwarf allowing me to start with 18 con and only needing +1 from stat increases though I like the idea of human better. Not to mention all those barb lvls get you uncanny dodge IV iirc so your dex modifier would get some use from that as well. But, as is so often the case I may be way off on my cha assumption so the 12 cha may be the better alternative /shrug. Thanks again for the reply
thanks also for the reply Cinn, wish I had found that one on the search engine, could've avoided this post altogether. May tweek it a bit to more suit my tastes, but as you said definately along the lines of what I was looking for, danka.
you're right about the CHA influence on the terrifying rage.
As far as I'm aware that is the only influence on the rages it has.
Also, just realised that I hadn't put in the finishing stats for INT and CHA:
INT 12 (14) CHA 12 (14)
Edited By I...Samphus on 11/22/05 06:24
You might consider trying to get also ESF:Taunt. A successful Taunt is worth up to -6AB against your enemy
ESF:Intimidate would help his Terrifying rage DC. That terror will cause a -2 saveing throw to your opponent and that could be usefull for your dev crit attack.
Any opponent who comes withing the terror circle makes has to make that save. Taunt is a manually triggered action that you need to spend time doing.
It's true that the Taunt effect helps lower the other guy's AC, but it does nothing for saves.
Taunt : -6ac, 1 attack sequence used.
Terror: -2attack -2save
So, it's a toss up.
If you find that you have no problems hitting your opponent because of high AB, then the ESF:Intimidate makes more sence. If you have a hard time hitting the guy to begin with, then taunt might make more sence.
Odds are, anything you are hitting will need a crit range roll to hit anyways. That -2 save might mean a dev crit.
*shrug*
Edited By Bromium on 11/23/05 16:28
Quote: Posted 11/23/05 16:27:13 (GMT) -- Bromium
Odds are, anything you are hitting will need a crit range roll to hit anyways. That -2 save might mean a dev crit.
But a lower AC will make it much easier to hit with the 2nd roll. So a lower AC results in more critical hits. _________________ Character Build Calculator(works with Excel, Open Office) 2.83: updated to NWN 1.69.
Human