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Delandel
2009-10-01, 01:14 AM
Hey, me again. I have a level 8 frenzied (friendly) berserker with only 9 AC when in a frenzied rage. He's the only real melee in the group too. Clearly he'd go squish quite fast, especially without Deathless Frenzy. Are there any magical items out there that can help him live that can be used while in a rage (aka no command word) and are under 19,000gp?

taltamir
2009-10-01, 01:26 AM
why is his AC so low? can you give us more info about the build?

magic item cost is exponential.. so start by getting a full set of +1 items, then upgrade to +2, etc...

ring of protection for deflection..
boots of something (gives dodging armor).
+1 enhancement on armor
+nat armor item
etc...

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-10-01, 01:30 AM
Something like a Cloak of Displacement, Minor would be best, though thats 24,000 gp.

arguskos
2009-10-01, 01:34 AM
why is his AC so low? can you give us more info about the build?
I'll lay money it's something like Barbarian 6/Frenzied Berserker 8 or so (given how he mentioned Deathless Frenzy), using Shock Trooper and/or Combat Brute. Shock Trooper craps your AC so you can deal insane amounts of pain, and Combat Brute helps dish it out again, so you have a two-round charge (so to speak). That AC though is an issue.

I'd second a Displacement or Blink-like effect. Can't hit what isn't there. :smallbiggrin:

Delandel
2009-10-01, 01:54 AM
Well, right now I was thinking:
Barbarian 1 / Fighter 2 / Cleric 3 / Ordained Champion 1 / Frenzied Berserker 1.
Barb for rage, Fighter for 2 feats (Extra Rage, Reckless Rage), Cleric for sweet WILL progression and progression to Champ for two feats and more sweet WILL. Finally, Zerker. A type of bloodthirsty fanatic follower of Heironeous.

He needs to spend 8,000gp on a +2 periapt of wisdom and +2 cloak of resistance to make sure he beats the 20 DC Will save to end frenzy. No flipping out and killing friends.

He has -1 DEX and is wearing full plate (+8) so that's 17 AC.

Raging (-2 AC), Frenzy (-4), and Reckless Rage feat (-2) and he sits at 9 AC. I figured 9 AC isn't much worse than 11 so the feat is okay. As you can see, boosting his AC is a sort of hopeless.

Aw heck, I'll just post the sheet:
Holy Zerker! (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=156655) (work in progress)

Cloak of Displacement doesn't look too hot. 20% concealment for 24,000? Yikes.

I was thinking something along the lines of DR, or ways for my attacks to gain health. I know there's a couple weapon enchants that grant health when you deal damage, but the kicker is they gotta be usable while raging, no command words.

herrhauptmann
2009-10-01, 02:01 AM
Blink with pierce magical concealment(need mageslayer, blindfight too). So you ignore the miss chance of your own blinking.

Acquire the halfvampire template for some regeneration? Only until half full HP, but still better than nothing.
Or the shade template and fight in the shadow from FRCS, but I think that's a +4 LA


Other options: Retribution/retaliation amulet. The BoED version is very expensive, but I think worth it, also gives +2 sacred to AC. The MIC is a cheaper use/day thing.
Retribution armor (MIC): Everytime you take 10 points of damage, your opponent takes 1d6 untyped. 3d6 if you go below 0 HP.
Healing armor (MIC): Gives you a small amount of healing as a swift action, or automatically if you go between 0 and -9. But if an attack drops you from 2 to -13, you're SOL.
If you play "dying until negative con score" alternate rule or something, your DM might alter that to "less than 0, but still alive"

edit:
How about the whirling frenzy variant? I think Unearthed Arcana. Boosts ref, gives extra attack, and a dodge bonus to AC if my memory serves.

edit again:
Minor point, but your greatsword damage is off a little. 2handed weapon with 18str is +6 damage itself. You've got a +1 weapon.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2009-10-01, 02:25 AM
Well, right now I was thinking:
Barbarian 1 / Fighter 2 / Cleric 3 / Ordained Champion 1 / Frenzied Berserker 1.

Why are you a cleric? Will isn't exactly worth a three level dip since you'll have, what.....1st level spells? That you probably can't cast for that matter.
Seriously sometimes dips are good, other time, they're bad. You know which one this is? Paradox inducingly terrible.
Those three levels kind of hurt your BAB, so it's not a worthy trade off.

Delandel
2009-10-01, 02:45 AM
Why are you a cleric? Will isn't exactly worth a three level dip since you'll have, what.....1st level spells? That you probably can't cast for that matter.
Seriously sometimes dips are good, other time, they're bad. You know which one this is? Paradox inducingly terrible.
Those three levels kind of hurt your BAB, so it's not a worthy trade off.

I'm trying to build a playable frenzied berserker. To be playable he needs to beat that 20 DC Will save not to kill his friends, and for balance reasons I'm not going for any ubercharging or any shenanigans. The PrC's raw power alone and interesting roleplay is enough to justify it.

With Cleric 3 I lose only 1 BAB, get +3 Will save, and can cast level 2 spells. Cleric also lets me enter Ordained Champion for another +2 will save and 2 extra fighter feats because I ditched 2 domain powers from cleric.

Terrible? I think not. But in answering you I did notice a flaw in my build -- the bonus feats are fighter feats, which pose a problem with what I selected.


No templates, since this is a character not an NPC. Those armors are certainly interesting. I'd love to take that retributive armor since I'll undoubtedly be taking a bunch of hits, but I'm more concerned about simply living. 59hp after I'm done raging with 9 AC is a little scary. I'd rather not go whirling frenzy variant simply because of the extra attack -- I think I'm strong enough already. I'm not going for the lion totem for the same reason. That little AC is tempting though, especially if I drop reckless rage... Oh, and thanks for pointing out the damage mistake!


EDIT: Probably going to ditch Cleric 3 / Ordained Champion 1 for Paladin 3 and another Zerker level. Same flavor, STR drops by 4, I lose 2 fighter feats which didn't get what I wanted anyway. Divine Grace compensates for lost Will save, and I think Lay on Hands works even while raging so that could help. Maybe Crusader instead of Paladin?

Eldariel
2009-10-01, 05:54 AM
Get rid of the Full-Plate. It slows you down; it's not like opponents will be missing you any time soon anyways. I suggest the following defense:
- Reach weapon
- Enlarge Person permanencied, or similar
- Improved Trip or Stand Still

with a combination of those, you should be able to avoid most hits pretty damn easily simply by not letting people hit you. Screw the AC, you don't get hit. And you have a lot of Con anyways so you can trade hits with anything. And yeah, as stated, you'll want miss chances. Greater Healing armor [Magic Item Compendium] is the other good option; once you die, someone casts Revivify on you and the Greater Healing effect kicks in knocking you to ~30 HP or so.

Kaiyanwang
2009-10-01, 06:26 AM
more, what are the classes taken by your party members? Cannot they buff you up with defensive spells?

Miss chance is very good, if you cannot afford the item, ask your friend to buff you up with blur, displacement..

Glimbur
2009-10-01, 09:24 AM
You can dip Duskblade to get a good will save and good BAB. There are probably a couple of other classes like that.

Starbuck_II
2009-10-01, 09:46 AM
Shroud of Night (10K) gets you 1/day Dancing Shadows (untargetable displacement-you are effectively invisible, enjoy) from Tome of Magic.
It affects the vest slot so hopefully you lack a vest.
Activate it then rage is solution to no command items. Gives +2 Deflect to AC as well.

BenTheJester
2009-10-01, 10:05 AM
The bonus fighter feats are a given: Endurance->Steadfast Determination.

Which will give you Con to will saves.




EDIT: My bad, those aren't Fighter feats.

You should really take them anyway.

Bagelz
2009-10-01, 10:47 AM
forget your ac, while you are frenzied you are going to be hit, don't worry about it. focus on your hp/con. when you reach the point were you don't fall for negative hp, just make sure you don't stop raging till someone can heal you.
you gain some con while raging, so you should have tons of hp (until you stop and fall over). also anything that can give you concealment (magic item of displacement (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#cloakofDisplacementMinor)? ring of spell storing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#spellStoringMinor) with blink (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/blink.htm)?) anything that will give a miss chance rather than AC, start going for spring attack feats to get out of melee after you charge

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-01, 10:52 AM
You can dip Duskblade to get a good will save and good BAB. There are probably a couple of other classes like that.

Knight. Ex-knight, technically, for the frenzy, but whatever.

Leewei
2009-10-01, 11:20 AM
I like the idea of a Hexblade dip for full BAB, Mettle, bonus to saves against Spells and Spell-like Abilities and good Will save.

jiriku
2009-10-01, 11:35 AM
Magic Item Compendium has an armor enchant that allows you to heal your level in hit points twice per day while raging. MiC also offers a weapon augment crystal that gives you hp when you hit an opponent, up to 10 times/day.

The pally requires Lawful and barbarian requires non-Lawful, so you'll run into an alignment conflict with that one. You could avoid it with the paladin of freedom variant class in Unearthed Arcana, however.

PhoenixRivers
2009-10-01, 11:39 AM
First: At the levels you're looking at, FB is easily controlled.
Second: Some templates work very well with PC's. Take Dragonborn of Bahamut, for example. +2 Con, -2 Dex, and it can give you flight after you get to 9 HD. Nothing amazing, yet.

Water Orc, Make Dragonblood.
(Water Orc is available in SRD, in Unearthed Arcana Section)

+4 Str, +4 Con, -2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha

Now, put a 16 in Str, and an 18 in Con. Let's say a 10 in Dex, and leave Wis, Dex and Cha at 8.

Final Stats: Str 20, Dex 8, Con 22, Int 6, Wis 6, Cha 6
Put 2 stat dumps into Con (1 into Str), Get a +6 Con Item.
Stats with gear: Str 21, Dex 8, Con 30, IntWisCha 6

Now, with +10 Con modifier, you're looking at a lot of life.

Get Endurance and Steadfast Determination into the build.
Now your Con modifer applies to Will Saves.
Now, when you're raging, you have a +12 Con modifier, minimum.

There's 60% of your Will save, an awesome Fort save, and enough HP to survive most any fight. Go from there.

lsfreak
2009-10-01, 12:16 PM
20% miss chance is better than any kind of AC-boosting you'd get. You'll need to tack on so much extra AC in order to get that same results that the miss chance will be better cost-wise.

As for keeping your party alive, buy the spellcaster a Pearl of Power. You start going after your guys, the wizard casts Grease, or Web, or Suggestion, or Calm Emotions, or whatever.

Keld Denar
2009-10-01, 02:35 PM
If you do swap the cleric to pally levels, you could change your race to 1/2 orc and then check out the 1/2 Orc Pally Racial Subs in Races of Destiny. The first level swaps Smite for a Righteous Fury ability that gives you a +2 bonus on all weapon damage rolls for 1+cha rounds. If you do do that, also look into the Orc Paragon levels in UA. They give you the Rage ability you need to qualify for FB and it doesn't have any alignment restrictions. That means you could be a lawful rager.

deuxhero
2009-10-01, 02:48 PM
1.Buy an item of clam emotions for your party so you don't wind up killing them.
2.Buy a lesser spell storing ring (can you activate that in your rage?) and have the caster put "mage armor" in it for you

Keld Denar
2009-10-01, 02:55 PM
Mage Armor is not personal, so the cast can always put it on someone. It doesn't stack with Full Plate, but it will help his Touch AC.

Item of Calm Emotions is also a bad idea, since the save on it would be 13 (minimum stat 12, 2nd level spell, DC 10 + 1 + 2). If hes going with a Friendly Berzerker build, he's gonna have a will save around +18 at least, so thats not a very wise choice. A better solution would be an item or wand of Grease, since you can't make Dex checks at all (Balance checks to move off the Grease) while Frenzied.

My suggestion to up your AC would be to sneak in 2 levels of Deepwarden in there. That would involve being a dorf (not so bad) or taking 3 levels of Stoneblessed (blah, BAB loss), but that would give you Con to AC. Since your Con goes up while raging, this counteracts the -2 AC penalty to get from Raging. This also means that your +Con items will give you +will, +fort, +HP, and +AC, assuming you took Steadfast Determination (which would be foolish not to, given that Endurance is required for Deepwarden and SD).

RAWR SAD DORF BARBARIAN SMASH!!!!

herrhauptmann
2009-10-01, 08:47 PM
Mage Armor is not personal, so the cast can always put it on someone. It doesn't stack with Full Plate, but it will help his Touch AC.

Item of Calm Emotions is also a bad idea, since the save on it would be 13 (minimum stat 12, 2nd level spell, DC 10 + 1 + 2). If hes going with a Friendly Berzerker build, he's gonna have a will save around +18 at least, so thats not a very wise choice. A better solution would be an item or wand of Grease, since you can't make Dex checks at all (Balance checks to move off the Grease) while Frenzied.

My suggestion to up your AC would be to sneak in 2 levels of Deepwarden in there. That would involve being a dorf (not so bad) or taking 3 levels of Stoneblessed (blah, BAB loss), but that would give you Con to AC. Since your Con goes up while raging, this counteracts the -2 AC penalty to get from Raging. This also means that your +Con items will give you +will, +fort, +HP, and +AC, assuming you took Steadfast Determination (which would be foolish not to, given that Endurance is required for Deepwarden and SD).

RAWR SAD DORF BARBARIAN SMASH!!!!

I swear, it looks like you're promoting the entrance to your dwarven flurry fury build again. :)

Thanks again for that build. I altered it for my tastes and the game, but it was good enough the monsters could only kill me with HP damage. And I had a lot of HP (house rule, get max HP. Made cure spells suck though.)

Blaine.Bush
2009-10-01, 08:55 PM
1.Buy an item of clam emotions for your party so you don't wind up killing them.
2.Buy a lesser spell storing ring (can you activate that in your rage?) and have the caster put "mage armor" in it for you

Coolest. Item. Ever.

What kind of emotions do clams have, anyways?

Kylarra
2009-10-01, 08:57 PM
What kind of emotions do clams have, anyways?S[h]el[l]fish ones.

BobVosh
2009-10-01, 08:58 PM
Who needs magic items when you can simply drown yourself in a mundane bucket?

Blink + ring of spell storing (mirror image/displacement/greater mirror image) all work.

Vangor
2009-10-01, 09:45 PM
Desert Orc from UA receives Endurance, Heat Endurance, Low-Light Vision for the loss of Darkvision, arguably gains no Light Sensitivity, too.

Use Steadfast Determination to replace Wisdom with Constitution modifiers for Will Saves and an additional bonus of not automatically failing on natural 1 with Fortitude Saves.

Suggestion is take the Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian from CCha, combining with Power Attack and Leap Attack, potentially Urban variant too for Tumble as a class skill (Cityscape on the Wizard's site). I notice flaws, take two, I usually use Vulnerable and Shaky. I do 2 Barbarian/4 Fighter, though 2 Barbarian/2 Fighter/2 Full BAB Class can be used, as well, for whatever additions you may want.

1st: Destructive Rage (CWar)
Flaw: Intimidating Rage (CWar)
Flaw: Extra Rage (CWar)
3rd: Steadfast Determination (PHBII)
Ftr: Power Attack
Ftr: Cleave
6th: Leap Attack (CAdv)
Ftr: Headlong Rush (RoF)

Use a two-handed reach weapon, general choice is Ransuer (+2 Vs Disarm) though a Longspear (Set Against Charge) works. Effectively, you are able to do Full Leap Attack on a Headlong Charge while Raging and Frenzied, receiving an effective +7 to hit on Three Attacks which deals Double Damage and Quadruple Power Attack Damage, for a -9 AC (including Vulnerable). Assuming an 18 Strength, with Orc, Rage, and Frenzy we have a 32 Strength, with a Masterwork weapon we have a +14 to hit on our attacks before BAB. Let's ignore this, though, and use full Power Attack because +14/+9/+14 is pretty cool, done as a standard.

One hit will do 2 (Weapon) + 32 (Strength) + 48 (Power Attack), and you don't suffer attacks of opportunity from the Headlong Rush on your opponent due to Reach. Wear a Chain Shirt to not slow yourself down, giving you 65ft to land an attack. As well, after you kill an opponent, you can move an additional 5ft to make a cleave, meaning you have 10ft of space to slay someone else. Oh, and you get to do this 3/day, slightly less

With a base Constitution of 14 you'll possess a +6 Will Save while Raging, whatever is gained from class levels (2 Barbarian/4 Fighter gains +1), +2 Cloak of Resistance, and if you want you can take Iron Will at 6th and wait for 9th for Leap Attack...you lose 16 Damage if you bother to full Power Attack. Thus, we're at, presumably +11 Will Save while Raging, which means you still need to not be where traps are, but you are more likely to stop than not.

Plus, who cares about your Armor Class? You just hit two people hard enough at level 8 to erase them from the history books.

Of course, you can free two feats by ignoring Frenzied Berserker and venturing to Bear Warrior for 5 Levels and taking Warshaper at least 2 levels. This erases the cons of Frenzied Berserker, has no real requirements you aren't already taking, for 2 less Strength but 2 more Dexterity until level 12 where he maintains a +6 Strength lead and +4 Con.