Bear Warrior - Where's the Awesomesauce?

[Thespianus]

I'm looking through options for my wife's Barbarian 8 /Fighter 1 as she's about to take her 10th level. I'm looking for something varied and fun.

I found Bear Warrior, which seems interesting and it gets some love on the forum, but I don't really get it. What do you do once you're in Bear shape? You're really really strong, but you don't do any damage, your weapons as a Black Bear are your paws, and they make almost no damage at all.

What is the appeal? Is it Grappling? Anything obvious that I'm not bearing in mind? I'm losing my bearings, I can't bear the thought of not understanding the bear.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Suppose that, instead of a Barbarian 8/Fighter 1, we had a Goliath Barbarian 1/Fighter 6 with the Dungeoncrasher variant, knock-back and shock trooper. That strength bonus doesn't look too shabby when it's multiplied by three.

[Hyfigh]

Grappling would make for awesomesauce...

[Keld Denar]

The trick with Bear Warrior is generally to combine it with Fist of the Forest. That gives you decent Unarmed Strike damage while in bear form. Then you make your iterative attacks with your UAS, THEN add on your claw/claw/bite attacks as secondary natural weapons.

Also, most people don't take more than 1-5 levels of it. The latter 5 levels are incredibly lackluster, WAY too painful to slog through just to get Dire Bear form which only gives 4 more Str than Brown Bear form.

Bear Warrior also is a full BAB option to open up Warshaper, a great PrC which gives a lot of immunities, more Str/Con, Fast Healing, and other goodies.

[Eldariel]

I'm looking through options for my wife's Barbarian 8 /Fighter 1 as she's about to take her 10th level. I'm looking for something varied and fun.

I found Bear Warrior, which seems interesting and it gets some love on the forum, but I don't really get it. What do you do once you're in Bear shape? You're really really strong, but you don't do any damage, your weapons as a Black Bear are your paws, and they make almost no damage at all.

What is the appeal? Is it Grappling? Anything obvious that I'm not bearing in mind? I'm losing my bearings, I can't bear the thought of not understanding the bear.

You hit things with your 3 natural attacks on charges; that's on average 1 more than what you'd have as a normal Fighter at this point for those keeping the track. Base damage is poor but the Str-bonuses you get are rather massive. Though the real heart of the class is when you get Brown Bear-shape; that's the thing you really want. The free Grapple-attempt is of course also all good; use it if it works. Once you get Large, it becomes quite reliable, actually.

Do note that you can still Shock Troop charge people in Bear-form; the lesser numbers on your Power Attack tend to be somewhat made up for by your increased number of attacks, at least immediately. Also realize you can, if need be, combine Unarmed Strikes (from the class feature with the same name) with the Natural Attacks doing primary UA Strikes and secondary Natural Attacks for a massive number of attacks overall.

[Thespianus]

Maybe I need to read up on the Grapple rules and the bear special abilities to understand why this is so good.

I just can't see it right now...

[Hirax]

Consider the primeval prestige class in Frostburn, it's like a bear warrior, but you can pick different animals. Warshaper is also definitely worth your consideration if you go either bear warrior or primeval.

[Thespianus]

You hit things with your 3 natural attacks on charges
Oh, so the Bear gets some kind of "natural" Pounce ability? That's pretty neat, I didn't know that.

Still, you can't 2-for-1 power attack, I assume. Leap Attack/Shock Trooper might still work, though.

She doesn't have Pounce, so it might be an improvement that way. I need to do some math here.

Thanks, this post cleared up a few things. :)

[Hirax]

She doesn't have Pounce, so it might be an improvement that way.


Primeval will allow you to turn into a dire lion (among other things) and get it

[Keld Denar]

As I said, you get more attack per round by combining UASs with natural attacks. Since all attacks are natural weapons, you get 1:1 PA with all of them. If you have 7 attacks per round and you PA for 2 points, you can net up to 14 damage per round. Thats better than 2:1 PA will give you with 3 attacks per round (12 damage). The only drawback is that you check DR more often, so high DR targets will suck if you don't take the proper precautions.

If you ONLY use the natural weapons, then yes, you are much further behind, which sucks, especially since you are pretty much forever capped at 3 attacks since you can't make iterative attacks with natural weapons. You could take Rapid Strike (Draconomnomnomnomicon) if you qualified, but you'd pretty much have to be Elan, Synad, or Dragonwraught Kobold among the 0 LA races, since Rapid Strike is only available to a handful of creature types.

[subject42]

It's best if you can combine it with the shared rage feat + an animal companion.

That way you're a bear and your bear can turn into a bear.

Also, since the shape change effect sets you to a fixed size, it's one of the few ways of making a smaller-than-small barbarian.

[Cog]

Bear Warrior does not give you pounce, by the way.

[ericgrau]

Well I'll be. I thought all the appeal was from the puns. <cue thread derail>

[Keld Denar]

Well, the puns are the most polarizing part of the class, but are bearly the main focus.

[Tvtyrant]

Well I'll be. I thought all the appeal was from the puns. <cue thread derail>

I bearly understand the reference.

[Eldariel]

Oh, so the Bear gets some kind of "natural" Pounce ability? That's pretty neat, I didn't know that.

No, but you can use the Barbarian Pounce from Complete Champion with it just fine.

[Bang!]

I can see pun-decay bearing down on this thread, so a quick point before things go haywire:

If you're a stickler for the rules as written, Bear form can be triggered by the Rage spell, increasing the Bear Warrior's Rages/day to essentially be whatever's needed. Bear Warrior's Bear thing is a new ability to become a Bear while a character is in a Rage. Rage spell puts a character into a Rage in all regards except stats. Bear-forming replaces Rage stats, so it should trump the Rage rage modifiers.

If your group takes the rules as gospel, maybe this could be a point in Bear Warrior's favor.

EDITED TO MAKE THE CALL.

[Thespianus]

Primeval will allow you to turn into a dire lion (among other things) and get it

Primeval has three really annoying Feat prerequisites... Can't go that route, but thanks :)

[Thespianus]

No, but you can use the Barbarian Pounce from Complete Champion with it just fine.

Oh ok. Yeah, too late. She's 8 levels late. ;)

[Cog]

PHB 2 has retraining rules for that sort of situation.

[Thespianus]

PHB 2 has retraining rules for that sort of situation.
I know, but our DM bearly accepts retraining for non-cheese. Pounce is fairly high level cheese.

[Eldariel]

I know, but our DM bearly accepts retraining for non-cheese. Pounce is fairly high level cheese.

Depends. If you don't stack various charge modifiers on it, all it does is gives you an increased chance of actually being able to full attack. Which...isn't as much a luxury as basics for a warrior.

[Thespianus]

Depends. If you don't stack various charge modifiers on it, all it does is gives you an increased chance of actually being able to full attack. Which...isn't as much a luxury as basics for a warrior.

She already have the bear essentials of Leap Attack/Shock Trooper in place. I think retraining for Pounce would be pushing it. :)

[Eldariel]

Bear in mind, without the option of pouncing the bear-form isn't as alluring as it should be; Bears bear down hard in a straight-up slugfest but they can't bear to rush and hit at the same time. A Shock Trooper Barbarian without Pounce is probably better off remaining a human and using something really heavy in two hands since that bears the brunt of his damage on the first round. Streetfighter (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) Barbarian could give you something interesting for the rest of your passage in the class without PrCing out.

Runescarred Berserker [Unapproachable East] is most likely a more appropriate PrC if looking for one. And it's quite versatile. Bear Warrior really needs few specifics from the early levels to truly shine, either as a grappling machine or just a slugger.

[Thespianus]

Runescarred Berserker [Unapproachable East] is most likely a more appropriate PrC if looking for one.
Yeah, I've seen it, but - again - the unbearable feat prerequisites make the class beary hard to go into at this point.

[The Glyphstone]

Don't forget Mouthpick weapons (Lords of Madness) if you still want to be able to use your favorite axe/sword.

[comicshorse]

Consider the primeval prestige class in Frostburn, it's like a bear warrior, but you can pick different animals. Warshaper is also definitely worth your consideration if you go either bear warrior or primeval.

Hope the OP won't mind a digression but my character is considering Primeval but is there any way will I be able to use any of my magical gear ? ( particulalrly intrested in my Beast Claws as without them I'm not doing magical damage )

Oh, character is a Shifter Barbarian(1)/Ranger(3)/Warshaper(4)/WereTouched Master (3)

[subject42]

Hope the OP won't mind a digression but my character is considering Primeval but is there any way will I be able to use any of my magical gear ?)

Wilding clasps will keep magic items from melding.

[comicshorse]

Wilding clasps will keep magic items from melding.

I thought they only worked for Wildshaping ?

[subject42]

I thought they only worked for Wildshaping ?

You know, I think you're right. For some reason I had it in my head that Primeval's abilities counted for wild shape. I'm away from books so I'm probably wrong.

[Aspenor]

This thread seems to have covered all the bear essentials.