Optimizing a Frostburn Build

[King Atticus]

I've been kicking around a character concept for a while now that I've never actually taken to the creation stage and since joining the forum I've come to be quite impressed with the ability of (most) playgrounders to optimize. The idea is from Frostburn and is a Neanderthal Barbarian/Primevil (Dire Bear Form). I think flavor wise it works really well and I'm kind of taken with the potential for pure carnage that he delivers.

It should be noted that I brought this build to my DM and it has been banned from ever taking flesh now and evermore in any campaign he will run so this is purely a theoretical exercise and as such anything goes although I'd like to see it kept within the realm of actual play possibility (read: no huge LA races or templates that would never make it to actual game play) Lets go 28 point buy build to 20 (or as far as you want to build while including the primevil capstone)

So...thoughts? :thog:

[Lateral]

If you're going straight Barbarian, then Primeval isn't your best choice. You're doing bear Primeval, so take Bear Warrior instead- it activates on a rage, which you'll have many more of than your Primeval Shape.
If you want to go Primeval, try going with a Wildshape Ranger base and taking one level of Barbarian and a couple of feats to get Rage if you really want it.

One of my favorite and earliest PCs was a Wildshape Ranger/Barbarian/Dire Lion Primeval. (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=253562) The guy had a dire tiger cohort and a cheetah companion; we'd make 'sup dawg, I heard you like cats' jokes about every other session. Good times.

[Geigan]

I would love Primeval if it weren't for the awful feat prereqs. I'd say you might want to combine it with some totemist souldmelds that enhance natural attacks/get even more of them.

[Zaq]

I would love Primeval if it weren't for the awful feat prereqs. I'd say you might want to combine it with some totemist souldmelds that enhance natural attacks/get even more of them.

The problem with that, of course, is that after a while, you'll realize that you're better off with MOAR TOTEMIST.

[Geigan]

The problem with that, of course, is that after a while, you'll realize that you're better off with MOAR TOTEMIST.

Yeah It's not too great but I have a special place in my heart for the uncultured, primal beast that just wants to hunt down his prey and tear them into bloody pieces to feed himself.

I'd say an effective Primeval build would be something like totemist 2/Lion spirit totem barb 1/Wildshape ranger 5/primeval 10/whatever(most likely MOAR TOTEMIST) X. grab endurance from the ranger level, IMP toughess, and self-sufficient, on the way up to primeval with one feat open on the way for either extra wildshape if he goes ranger first or open chakra/shape suolmeld to get some more useful stuff keying off natural attacks. It even all ties nicely together thematically as you got the lion totem, you could grab dire lion, and you're just getting more claws from totemist. You have still fill the role of the ranger while going for the bestial feeling.

[Zaq]

Improved Toughness won't, RAW, get you into Primeval. You know what will, though? Azure Toughness, which will give you a bonus point of essentia. If you have any Totemist in your build at all, there is no such thing as enough essentia, so this will benefit you MUCH more than a few HP will. (Alternatively, you can put some of your essentia into the feat to get extra HP, but doing so locks the essentia in place for 24 hours, which defeats the entire point of essentia.)

I love incarnum.

[Geigan]

Improved Toughness won't, RAW, get you into Primeval. You know what will, though? Azure Toughness, which will give you a bonus point of essentia. If you have any Totemist in your build at all, there is no such thing as enough essentia, so this will benefit you MUCH more than a few HP will. (Alternatively, you can put some of your essentia into the feat to get extra HP, but doing so locks the essentia in place for 24 hours, which defeats the entire point of essentia.)

I love incarnum.

I know it won't I just think toughness should be changed to imp. toughness. Clever with the azure toughness though, I like that.

[Tvtyrant]

Why did he ban it? Does your party consist on monks? Seriously, Primeval isn't even a particularly amazing Prc.

[Zaq]

Why did he ban it? Does your party consist on monks? Seriously, Primeval isn't even a particularly amazing Prc.

It gets really, really shiny numbers. Adding +14 to your STR (at your first level in the class) on top of whatever benefits you're getting from Rage or whatever looks like it's really powerful. In some ways, it kind of is. You and I know that the gimped duration, icky prereqs, harsh HD limit on what you can turn into, and everything else about the class combine to make it OK but hardly great (I'd probably play a Bear Warrior before I'd play a Primeval). That said, I can see where it would scare off a GM who isn't really aware of how limited the class really is. They just see "you were already the party member with the highest STR, and now you can get up to, like, 40 STR, and it only goes up from there?! BANHAMMER'D." Not exactly the most reasonable response, but it is, at least, an understandable one.

Alternatively, I can see a game in which an uncouth tribal warrior (the stereotypical Barb) would be a humorously out-of-place nuisance, but an almost literally feral wild man who is actively losing his mental faculties as he grows more and more in touch with the terrors of prehistory is just crossing a line. In a game where the players are expected to meet with nobility (or polite society) for more time than it takes for the queen to say "There's a dragon in the cave to the west, go kill it," well, I can see where the Primeval wouldn't fit. It doesn't even have to be an intrigue-heavy politicsfest . . . just a game in which the players stay in town longer than it takes to buy supplies and dive back into the dungeon. If that's the reason, I can totally see it. A Barbarian doesn't have to be the uncouth tribal warrior, but given the stat changes a Primeval undergoes, they're preeeeetty much locked into being a feral wild man without some tweaking and (perhaps more than) refluffing. Flavor is mutable, but some flavor is more mutable than others.

[King Atticus]

Yeah Zaq pretty much nailed it on both counts. My DM throws some really high RP games at us (it's his favorite part of the game) so this character would drive him crazy as I just tore through stuff and completely regressed. I did think his next campaign would have had a place for him (at least from a storyline perspective) as it would have had a frozen north, Icewind dale type setting at one point.

But, yeah, the gaudy physical stats put a scare into him. I have to admit that I suggested it to him because it's pretty much the complete opposite of anything he would ever play. :smallbiggrin: