[PF] Getting the most out of your DR

[Chained Birds]

Hey playgrounders!

I've been looking in on the feat Bolstered Resistance (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/bolstered-resilience) and have been wondering about way to use this to its fullest at the lowest possible level.

So far, I've figured there are 2 things necessary for making this work:
1. Gain immunity to fatigue or some other way to negate it.
2. Decide whether to go for pure DR or get as much dodge bonus as possible.

What I mean in 2 is that there is the feat Stalwart (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/stalwart) and its improved version Improved Stalwart (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/improved-stalwart) that can seriously jack up the DR by sacrificing your dodge bonuses for a turn. It does require some lame feats, so that's why I have it separated from the DR build. So, either DR or Dodge using the linked feats above.

And maybe using Rebuffing Reduction (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/rebuffing-reduction-combat) would be pretty cool for the either build (But most likely the DR build).

So far Invulnerable Rager Archetype Barbarian seems like the best candidate.

Any suggestions or build ideas?

[Menteith]

The Human Alternate Racial Trait Heart of the Fields allows you gain Immunity to Fatigue 1/day. Horizon Walker is probably the easiest way to do it, and you have Knowledge: Nature as a class skill anyway. Taking Endurance for HW makes Stalwart a bit more attractive (and Stalwart explicitly states that it stacks with the Barbarian's DR). You should be able to both Power Attack and Combat Expertise on the same attack, so no issues there. By level 9 (minimum level I can see to gain Immunity to Fatigue) you'll have DR10 - 3 from Barbarian Class Levels, and an additional 2 more from Combat Expertise + Stalwart * 2 from Bolstered Resistance, with the option to go up to 14 DR with a Total Defense action. Horizon Walker isn't awful on its own, with a D10 Hit Die and full BAB.

[grarrrg]

Stalwart.... that can seriously jack up the DR by sacrificing your dodge bonuses for a turn. It does require some lame feats, so that's why I have it separated from the DR build.

Boom (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/unbreakable).
1 level. And you're all set.

[Chained Birds]

Boom (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/unbreakable).
1 level. And you're all set.

But fighter is lacking when it comes to DR and dodge bonuses. Sure he can take the Dodge feat, but he can't really us the feats to their fullest.

But still a pretty decent 1 or 2 level dip for a Barbarian or other class; even if dipping is usually frowned upon in most PF builds.

With the above suggestions, I guess we can go something like this:

Fighter (Unbreakable) 1/ Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager/Urban Barbarian) 7/ Horizon Walker 3

-- Stats (20 point buy)

Human
Str 16 (Racial +2 / +1 at lvl 8) = 19
Dex 13 (+1 at lvl 4) = 14
Con 14
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 9

-- Feats --

- Primary Feats -
Human/ Combat Expertise
1st/ Power Attack
Fighter bonus 1a/ Endurance
Fighter bonus 1b/ Diehard
3rd/ Improved Bullrush
5th/ Stalwart
7th/ Bolstered Resistence
9th/ Rebuffing Reduction
11th/ Improved Stalwart

So by lvl 11: you'll have DR 3/- from Invulnerable Rager, DR 6/- from combat expertise + Improved Stalwart, and then you can double it once per round to a max of DR 18/-.
You do take a -3 penalty on attacks from combat expertise (Though there is a trait that reduces this penalty by 1) and any penalties you put into Power Attack. Perhaps Vital Strike + Furious Focus would be a good for this build?

How does this look?

[Cieyrin]

I actually have a similar build based off Invulnerable Rager, though I went a different path (https://docs.google.com/document/d/17MxOuCKlPgkAFPChXBkUdFpKy5JWegkdugAgNdsoDok/edit). I took Martial Artist Monk to pick up the feats I need to get into Crane Style, as well as 3 ranks of Acrobatics, so I can, at level 3, Fight Defensively at a -2 penalty for +4 dodge or Total Defense for +7, which is better than the Combat Expertise bonus of -1 for +1. At level 5, I take Unbreakable to pick up Stalwart, followed by another level of Fighter to pick up Vital Strike immediately when it's available and finally grab Furious Finish at 7, for which at the same time I pick up Roused Anger as my Rage power, meaning I can Furious Finish and go back immediately into Rage at no cost and gain immunity to fatigue for the rest of said rage, which would work with Bolstered Resistance.

The way I have it built, I have DR 1/- till 5th, when it jumps to 5/-. While I advance Barbarian the rest of my levels, I'm planning to pick up Improved Damage Reduction as Rage powers (which is why Extra Rage Power is there at 9th), so my DR keeps rocketing up when I rage. So at 7th, I'm 6/-; at 9th, I'm 8/-. At 11th, Improved Stalwart kicks in to push my DR up to DR 13/-.

[Chained Birds]

I like your build. It has more power and is able to do more than just take hits. I think the Racial Trait you were going for was Heart of the Fields, not Wilderness.

I'll still go with the same feats, but will change things up a bit with the class progression:

Fighter (Unbreakable) 1/ Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager/Urban Barbarian) 5/ Horizon Walker 2/ Barbarian +3

With this, my DR is now 4/- + 6/- to make 10/- then doubled for the max possible of 20/-!! With immunity to exhaustion and the ability to rage while fatigued. Oh, and I combined the 2 Barbarian archetypes together just in case a DM says I can't use Combat Expertise whilst raging or something along those lines. If given the okay with using the feat during a rage, I'd remove Urban Barbarian from the build.

Thanks for reminding me about the immunity to fatique whilst raging part of Roused Anger. Hmm, I've reached my maximum for DR. I guess I could keep going with Barbarian and get some more nifty Rage Powers.

[Cieyrin]

I like your build. It has more power and is able to do more than just take hits. I think the Racial Trait you were going for was Heart of the Fields, not Wilderness.

I'll still go with the same feats, but will change things up a bit with the class progression:

Fighter (Unbreakable) 1/ Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager/Urban Barbarian) 5/ Horizon Walker 2/ Barbarian +3

With this, my DR is now 4/- + 6/- to make 10/- then doubled for the max possible of 20/-!! With immunity to exhaustion and the ability to rage while fatigued. Oh, and I combined the 2 Barbarian archetypes together just in case a DM says I can't use Combat Expertise whilst raging or something along those lines. If given the okay with using the feat during a rage, I'd remove Urban Barbarian from the build.

Thanks for reminding me about the immunity to fatique whilst raging part of Roused Anger. Hmm, I've reached my maximum for DR. I guess I could keep going with Barbarian and get some more nifty Rage Powers.

Nah, I want Heart of the Wilderness so when Diehard kicks in, negative hp is basically extra hp, which Heart of the Wilderness extends as I level up. It's part of the reason I have Raging Vitality, too, so if I get dropped, sudden Con drop doesn't kill me and Heart of the Wilderness also means I'm virtually guaranteed to stabilize.

For Combat Expertise, they removed that restriction from rage in PF, so you're golden on that front.

My only qualm is I'd take Unbreakable at 5th rather than 1st, as you get more HP out Barbarian at 1st, plus more skills. You can't take Stalwart till 5th, so why worry about Unbreakable till then, right? :smallwink:

[grarrrg]

Consider up to 4 levels of Pain Taster (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/n-r/pain-taster) in your build.
It has Full Bab, and you already meet most of the requirements

You get a (semi-permanent/semi-floating) +2 bonus to the stat of your choice
DR 1/- (it stacks!) every two levels (same as Invuln-Barb, so no loss)
"Sneak Attack" (almost) +1d6 every two levels
Uncanny Dodge at level 3 (traded it away with Invuln-Barb)
And a few other minor bits.

[Chained Birds]

Consider up to 4 levels of Pain Taster (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/n-r/pain-taster) in your build.
It has Full Bab, and you already meet most of the requirements

You get a (semi-permanent/semi-floating) +2 bonus to the stat of your choice
DR 1/- (it stacks!) every two levels (same as Invuln-Barb, so no loss)
"Sneak Attack" (almost) +1d6 every two levels
Uncanny Dodge at level 3 (traded it away with Invuln-Barb)
And a few other minor bits.

Sounds like a plan. I guess a character Based around getting hit wouldn't mind getting a lashing from a drow woman to Prestige... Oh and for the floating ability bonus too. :smallwink:

[grarrrg]

Sounds like a plan. I guess a character Based around getting hit wouldn't mind getting a lashing from a drow woman to Prestige... Oh and for the floating ability bonus too. :smallwink:

Yes... the ability bonus...
*looks for a "shifty eyed" smiley, doesn't find one*
:smallwink:

[Chained Birds]

Human
- ARF: Heart of the Fields (Replaces Skilled)

Fighter (Unbreakable) 1/ Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) 6/ Horizon Walker 2/ Barbarian +2

- Primary Feats -
Human/ Combat Expertise
1st/ Power Attack
Fighter bonus 1a/ Endurance
Fighter bonus 1b/ Diehard
3rd/ Improved Sunder
5th/ Stalwart
7th/ Bolstered Resistence
9th/ Extra Rage Power
11th/ Improved Stalwart

- Rage Powers -
lvl 2: Superstitious
lvl 4: Roused Anger
lvl 6: Witch Hunter
(Extra) lvl 6: Spell Sunder
lvl 8: Strength Surge

Final form of my guy, DR Dan!

Dan hates spellcasters as they get through his invulnerable spirit with their magicy stuff. He wants to eventually eat magic to get rid of it once and for all, but is very worried about what he will encounter down the line..

So, final thoughts?

This guy, he is awesome. With a DR 20/- he can pull out of nowhere and some antimagic fun, he is sure to be well, awesome!
I took Strength Surge to improve the Sunder Attempt given that the DC is pretty high for sundering spells, around a DC of 26-30.
My Sunder would be on average without any item support: Rolling a 10 + 15 (CMB) +2 (Rage Strength Bonus) + 2 (Improved Sunder) + 8 (Strength Surge) = 37
...
Well, the +8 doesn't hurt it at all, and many casters can increase their caster lvls using other means. Not to mention high lvl casters that like to screw around with people like Dan. And I can always use tha +8 to bump up my CMD.
Pain Taster was a nice idea, but that last feat requirement seemed a little too much for me as my next 9 lvls are where all the powerful feats are.
Any last suggestions for this build?

[grarrrg]

Human
- ARF: Heart of the Fields (Replaces Skilled)

Fighter (Unbreakable) 1/ Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) 6/ Horizon Walker 2/ Barbarian +2


Any last suggestions for this build?


Could just be a typo, but you forgot Horizon Walker 3 to get Immune Fatigue.
Level 2 gets you Exhaustion-turns-into-Fatigue, level 3 gets you Immune Fatigue.
On the bright side, Fighter 1 + Walker 3 = an even number so it doesn't disrupt your Barb DR too much.

[Chained Birds]

Roused Anger gives me immunity to fatigue whilst raging as Cieyrin pointed out, so just 2 lvls of Horizon Walker is needed to gain immunity to the Exaustion effect from Roused Anger.
So at the end of my rage, at worst, I'm only fatigued for 10minutes per round of rage or, at best, the normal 2rounds per round of rage. And throughout that, I can simply rage again and become immuned to fatigue again, and if it is 10minutes per, I can use the Human ARF to remove the fatigue condition 1/day.

[Toy Killer]

in savage species [3.X], Roll with it gives you a free stackable 2/- DR and Iron skinned gives you X+2/- to all your DR sources. Both can be taken multiple times, and it gets pretty broken. you can also take the Survivor prestige class which only has 2 prereqs: your highest save must be lower then your character level, and spend a month in training/learning to endure. you lose all BAB for it, unfortunately, but you get evasion, improved evasion, uncanny dodge and DR 5/- as the capstone. each level has d12 hit dice, and monk saves. i don't remember anything about skills.


I had a dwarf that at level 9 had DR 19/-. It was pretty spiffy, but he couldn't hit a barn if you put his hand on it first.

EDIT: Sorry about the threadromancy, I checked a link in the other DR build question thread that linked to this one, and responded in the wrong one. My bad.

[Akal Saris]

Thanks for necro-ing the thread actually - I was looking for it last night and couldn't find it :smalltongue:

I worked on a different invulnerable rager build that uses Rage Prophet instead. The oracle's 'lame' curse grants immunity to fatigue at L5 oracle, and it advances at 1/2 for non-oracle levels (so character level 7 in the below build, or level 6 if you use the pre-errata rage prophet).

Immunity to fatigue means you can "rage-cycle," aka enter and drop rage each round to use 1/rage powers such as Flesh Wound (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/rage-powers/paizo---rage-powers/flesh-wound-ex)

Hmn (Invulnerable Rager) Barbarian 4/Oracle 1/Rage Prophet 2/Barbarian +13

Important feats: Endurance, Bolstered Resilience, Stalwart, Improved Stalwart
Important revelations: Resiliency (Battle mystery - grants diehard and some other minor bonuses while at low HP)
Important rage powers: Flesh Wound, improved DR x3 (or, in a real game, some much cooler rage powers)

So let's assume level 13 as the point where the trick comes together well. The character enters rage, gaining DR 8/-. He attacks defensively, gaining +4 DR, or DR 12/- and DR 24/- against subdual damage.

Assuming that he takes a ballpark of 30 damage from a single attack (He should have +15 or so to his fortitude save, up to around +25 if optimized for the tactic) and succeeds on his save for Flesh Wound, that would halve it to 15 subdual damage. Since he has invulnerable rager, however, his DR is doubled from 12 to DR 24/-, and so he takes no damage.

Then on his round he stops raging (no fatigue) and starts again, gaining the ability to use Flesh Wound once more.

At level 20, the combo would probably use combat expertise, and would be DR 21/- or DR 42/- against subdual damage, with a fortitude check of around +30-35. But in relative numbers, stopping 30 damage is a lot more significant at L12 than stopping 40 damage at level 20.

For getting real mileage out of stalwart, the lore warden fighter ACF has potential as well, since free combat expertise means you can drop Int a lot lower most of the time.

Edit: One can also use improved resilience, however then it caps DR at 20 and takes an immediate action, so no flesh wound. Both are nice to have though.

[Mathias1313]

Not sure if this rains on anyones parades but I think some of the above math might be wrong.

Stalwart says specifically that it only turns the dodge bonus from total defense, fightingdefensively or combat expertise to DR... to a max of DR 5/- and improved says specifically that that DR you get from Stalwart doubles to a max of DR 10/-. So to my understanding the most you can get from Improved Stalwart is DR10/-. Though that might change some fo the above builds.

[Akal Saris]

Well, it doesn't change mine at least - the point is that it is cumulative with a barbarian's DR.

[Ravens_cry]

The trouble with DR is it's a pretty static defence.
It's worse than even AC in this regard, as a to-hit of, say, 30, will still be beaten by AC 31 or better, no matter how much damage it would have done on an actual hit.
But DR is dependent on assumptions of expected damage output, and so is even more sensitive to variations in optimization.
That's my two CP anywho.

[Akal Saris]

That's true. The nice thing about DR is that it's guaranteed to have some effect most of the time, while AC is literally hit or miss.

Just as an optimizer, I find that DR is rarely optimized, whereas AC optimization is fairly commonplace. So I find a certain appeal in boosting DR to become a reasonable defense.