Controller a Berserker

[Pard]

A friend of mine and I would like to roll two characters that have a close bond. I have always wanted to roll a Frenzy Berserker and I am looking for a way that let's my friend calm him down from the frenzy.

Here is the info for the campaign. We are starting at level 8. I am rolling a Barbarian Ogre. My friend is still up in the air. Any source is allowed. The backstory is that my friend's character ended up finding my ogre at a young age and raised him. Now my ogre is a raging berserker who only listens to my friend. Now we need a build for him that fits this story.

My alternative idea is to talk to DM into making an exception that lets my friend use his skills to lower my character out of a rage because my character sees his as a parental figure. Maybe handle animal... lol

[Vangor]

Bards, you get calm emotions as a spell and fascinate as bardic music.

[herrhauptmann]

Cleric and lots of 'calm emotions' fits thematically.
Also: Hamstringing via rogue sneak attack, marbles, and Grease spells.

[MeeposFire]

A lot of marbles or the grease spell can help.

Do realize while all these tricks can work to prevent him from killing you until you coax him from his rage, if at any time you cannot get him out of his rage before his turn to attack comes up you are in trouble so having something like elusive target could save your life (though taking a set of feats to save yourself does seem like over kill).

[Pard]

I was thinking of the cleric idea too. A cleric can armor up pretty good and can calm him out of it. And worst comes to worst a cleric can bring people back from the brink of death.

It's gonna be pretty important to keep him away from the party when berserking because his greataxe gives him 4d6+15 on a hit... that's a lot of pain.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

A little cheesy, but if it's just the two of you, the other player could roll an Incantatrix and persist greater invisibility on himself. A wand of silent image and some creativity should do the rest.

[herrhauptmann]

I was thinking of the cleric idea too. A cleric can armor up pretty good and can calm him out of it. And worst comes to worst a cleric can bring people back from the brink of death.

It's gonna be pretty important to keep him away from the party when berserking because his greataxe gives him 4d6+15 on a hit... that's a lot of pain.

He's going to have stay at a distance at all times.
Walking down a hallway, FB triggers a trap, fails his save, and takes 20 points of damage, and fails his DC30 will save, instantly starts to frenzy. Initiative starts, FB wins initiative, or goes before someone able to stop him. There's no enemies in sight, FB full attacks or charges and attacks, party member dies. FB cleaves, another partymember dies.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Ah, there's more than one other party member...

Well, if everyone is a caster with access to greater invisibility, then one Incantatrix can Cooperative Metamagic Persist, but this is getting excessive.

The other possibility is to jack up the will save to incredible proportions, although the Friendly Berserker resources at level 8 are limited (especially since we need to reliably hit VERY HIGH will save DCs to avoid frenzy TPKs based on damage traps). Incredible shenanigans required here.

I'm AFB right now, but assuming (1) Craft Contingent Spell can be put on others, (2) free actions can be taken even if you're surprised and (3) you're okay with a pathetically low will save on your mind-controllable barbarian, several Calm Emotions contingent upon passwords spoken by your buddy could work. Costs XP, but avoiding TPKs is worth it.

Can I mention that I hate Frenzied Berserker?

[Pard]

If I take Thayan Knight and he takes Red Wizard can we use that to lock down the berserker?

[gorfnab]

You could see if your DM would allow the feat Righteous Wrath from the Book of Exalted Deeds to apply to Frenzy.

[BiblioRook]

Mindbender :V

[Zaydos]

Crystal Mask of Mind-Armor (10000 GP)
Get someone to cast Greater Resistance (lv 3 or 4 spell) on you (or Cloak of Resistance +3 for 9000 GP)
That's a +7 to Will saves; +8 or +9 with base save; rage is another +2 (+10 or +11).

So the question becomes: Are flaws allowed? If so and you take 1 level of fighter you can take 2 flaws for Endurance and Steadfast Determination to get Con instead of Wis to Will saves and get a pretty big bonus (that brings it up to +16 when raging assuming a Con of 14 before racial modifiers). The DC is only 20 so with another feat (Iron Will) you could reliably succeed on a 2.

[JeminiZero]

Modified from here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10278639&postcount=6)

0) Have the Berserker buy a sap. Doesn't need to be masterwork or anything, so it should be reasonably cheap.
1) Out of Character, arrange for your fellow players to have their characters regale the Berserker with bizarre stories on how their secret super weakness is the humble Sap.
2) Of course, the Berserker should intentionally fail his sense motive check for their outlandish lies.
3) The Berserker now believes that the entire party has a secret weakness against saps.
4) When the Berserker run out of enemies, he will now attack his friends "to the best of his ability". That will of course involve him pulling out the sap, their one secret weakness (or so he thinks) and hammering them into unconsciousness, but not death.

Step 1-3 are unnecessary if your caster can just mindrape you into believing that your friends are weak against saps.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

If mindrape is on the table he could believe that pole dancing is the party's greatest weakness. Though, I guess there's no way to heal sanity damage out of character.


So the question becomes: Are flaws allowed? If so and you take 1 level of fighter you can take 2 flaws for Endurance and Steadfast Determination to get Con instead of Wis to Will saves and get a pretty big bonus (that brings it up to +16 when raging assuming a Con of 14 before racial modifiers). The DC is only 20 so with another feat (Iron Will) you could reliably succeed on a 2.The problem isn't getting out of the Frenzy so much as avoiding getting into the frenzy. Traps can do significant damage, which can create an *incredibly* difficult will save to avoid a frenzy with only allies around.

[Prime32]

Play a giff and have your friend take Blessed by Tem Et-Nu.

[Daftendirekt]

Yes! Genius! Have the berserker be a(n anthropomorphic?) hippo, and be a cleric of Tem-Et-Nu. Problem solved.

[herrhauptmann]

Play a giff and have your friend take Blessed by Tem Et-Nu.

A giff? Tem et-nu? Whuzzat?

[BiblioRook]

Have the berserker be a(n anthropomorphic?) hippo
You must mean an awakened Hippo :smallbiggrin:

...I'm probably not being very helpful in this thread.

[Daftendirekt]

A giff? Tem et-nu? Whuzzat?

There's a feat in Sandstorm, Blessed by Tem-Et-Nu I believe. It says that hippos cannot attack you unless magically compelled to do so. Utterly ridiculous, hilarious, and 100% useless. Except in random stuff like this.

Personally, I think it'd be kinda badass to see an anthropomorphic hippo barbarian.

[Lord.Sorasen]

How about Apostle of Peace? I think that class has a calm emotions aura, which would help with that whole "don't let him get near you" thing.

Plus 9th level spells in 10 levels is always a fun thing. Vow of poverty is not a fun thing, but whatever. Arguably you could say the Apostle can use magic items via equipment section, which would probably make the guy sort of ridiculous (magic items all the time, and also the vow of poverty benefits?)