Straight Totemist or Totem Rager?

[danzibr]

Warforged, by the way, though I'm open to other suggestions.

I'm in an online campaign now going straight Totemist and (even though we haven't done much action) I'm really liking him. He's my avatar, by the way (thanks Squark!).

So while I have my build set for this campaign, for future campaigns I might want to try something like what I'm doing now or go Totem Rager. So what do you all think? Straight Totemist or Totem Rager? I'm not going for totally broken whatever, just a fun, slightly versatile, kind of strong build. Also, I'm not really looking for a build, just what you would play and why. Thanks.

[balistafreak]

If I recall correctly... Totem Rager gets bigger numbers in the end, and the levels of Totemist you've already gotten are sufficient for basic utility.

For more overall utility, go straight Totemist, but you'll deal less damage.

Either way is "good enough", they're both pretty well balanced from what I've found. Totem Rager does what it's supposed to as a prestige class, specializing as opposed to strictly strengthening.

If you're asking what I would personally do, I'd personally go for some weird Totemist build involving Manticore Belt. I'm not a fan of Rage (in any form of its flavors) but that's just me, and I will admit the bonuses are quite tasty.

[danzibr]

Totem Rager does what it's supposed to as a prestige class, specializing as opposed to strictly strengthening.

I'd personally go for some weird Totemist build involving Manticore Belt
I only took a couple snippets, but I did enjoy your entire post.

Hmm, yeah, I never really thought about the first one. Entering does take away some versatility.

And for the second, I never really thought about that either, but I really like the idea! Now I'm curious as to what can be done with Manticore Belt. If homebrew would be allowed, maybe some combination with Evolutionist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112349) could yield interesting results. I'm sure there's plenty in the official books though. Maybe a ranged dude that secondaries as melee.

[danzibr]

Hmm, at a glance, at level 18 (which is a ways away from 1, but stays viable throughout) you can get 7 attacks just from the belt. 4 base essentia, 1 from Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (IIRC), 2 from the increased totem thing. There may be ways to increase it more, but I'm not sure.

And anyways, that's as a standard action. If you can get another standard action, 14! Neat.

[Jude_H]

When I played I Totem Rager, the lack of Binds was stifling. In a higher wealth campaign - with more interesting items to fill the empty slots - that wouldn't be so bad, but in my our lower-wealth game it was a bit frustrating.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I'm no Incarnum Guru, but I do know that you will never have enough essentia either way you go. Straight Totemist will get you more, because even if you somehow get rage without a level dip, you still lose two levels in Totem Rager.

Totem Rage will at least give you enough essentia to close that gap when raging, so for purposes of combat, you could have more, depending on your level break down.

Sadly, due to how Incarnum multiclassing/prestige classing is so wonky when it comes to binds, your best route for focusing more so on the Incarnum side of things would be to go Totemist 4/Barbarian 2 (picking up the various variants from Unearthed Arcana and Complete Champion)/Totem Rager 10/X 4. Considering how slow your binds are compared to just straight totemist, though, it would probably be better to think of Totem Rager less as a totemist and more as a barbarian focused on natural attacks.

[danzibr]

Ahh... well, thanks for the input! I'll probably go straight Totemist then. It was really just the pounce that did it for me (though you can get from the boots IIRC). Maybe in a gestalt campaign I'll throw in some barb. I'll also continue to think on the Manticore Belt built.