VGLordR2
2012-05-15, 02:16 PM
Hello, everyone. In order to celebrate my 100th post on these boards, I have decided to share a hilarious combo that I found. The general concept is a Warforged Barbarian that can survive any damaging spell from an epic Wizard, but will die from falling off of a stepladder. Without any ado, here it is.
The basis of this build is the Berserker Strength alternate class feature for the Barbarian (link here) (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=3). The class feature replaces use/day rage with a rage that is dependent on your hit points. Whenever your hit points are below five times your Barbarian level, you rage. When they are equal to or above the limit, your rage automatically ends. This can be used any number of times per day. I would like to draw special attention to a line near the bottom:
Any effect that would normally apply only during your rage applies whenever your berserker strength is active.
Now that we know this, we will use a common trick. The idea is to reduce your permanent hit points to below the Berserker Strength limit, causing permanent rage. Start out with a Constitution of 11. Choose Warforged as your race, making your Constitution 13. At first level, this makes your total hit points 13, which is a bit higher than five. So, we will apply the Frail flaw and the Quick trait. Both of these reduce your maximum HP by one point per level. This puts the total at 11. Now, we will use Self-Mutilation from BoVD to reduce your hit point total by 10, bringing it to 1. Now, we've reached the zone of perpetual rage, but my trick is slightly different. My variation requires that you are always within your class level of the Berserker Strength limit. So, we will take the Toughness feat to put your hit points at 4, which is the exact number needed.
Now that we have 4 HP, we take the Reckless Rage feat (there is a debate on whether or not you qualify for this feat, but I'll discuss that later). The Reckless Rage feat, among other things, gives you a +2 bonus to Constitution while you rage. This means that, when you rage, you gain one hit point per level from this Constitution bonus. This puts you above the threshold for automatic rage. This causes you to leave your rage, and also causes the Constitution bonus to disappear. This will put your HP at four again, which makes you rage again. This will cause you to shift between raging and not raging infinitely. You are constantly in a state of rage and not rage (which is what the basis of this build is based on).
By now, you're probably thinking that there is no possible use for raging infinite times per turn. Well, I present to you the Mad Foam Rager (http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-handbook-ii--80/mad-foam-rager--1814/) feat. Once per rage, you can delay the effect of any spell, attack, or ability used against you. But you can rage an infinite number of times per day. This means that you can continually delay anything used against you forever. Just delay the attack when it would affect you next turn, then delay it again, and again, and again, forever.
This combo is what can allow you to survive the most brutal of attacks, but die from the most mundane things (or, in other words, anything that is not a spell, attack or ability), all at level one.
Additional Notes:
Take the intimidating Rage feat to scare everyone you can find (even though you only get one attempt per day per person).
As I said before, there is some debate over whether or not Berserker Strength counts as the prerequisite for Reckless Rage and Mad Foam Rager. If you believe that it doesn't, this build is still possible at level two if you take Druidic Avenger at level one, and multiclass into the Barbarian at level two.
As a final note, it is very possible that I have missed something somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised. If I have, please let me know. I'm proud of this build, but I have made mistakes before. Let me know what you think. :smallsmile:
The basis of this build is the Berserker Strength alternate class feature for the Barbarian (link here) (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=3). The class feature replaces use/day rage with a rage that is dependent on your hit points. Whenever your hit points are below five times your Barbarian level, you rage. When they are equal to or above the limit, your rage automatically ends. This can be used any number of times per day. I would like to draw special attention to a line near the bottom:
Any effect that would normally apply only during your rage applies whenever your berserker strength is active.
Now that we know this, we will use a common trick. The idea is to reduce your permanent hit points to below the Berserker Strength limit, causing permanent rage. Start out with a Constitution of 11. Choose Warforged as your race, making your Constitution 13. At first level, this makes your total hit points 13, which is a bit higher than five. So, we will apply the Frail flaw and the Quick trait. Both of these reduce your maximum HP by one point per level. This puts the total at 11. Now, we will use Self-Mutilation from BoVD to reduce your hit point total by 10, bringing it to 1. Now, we've reached the zone of perpetual rage, but my trick is slightly different. My variation requires that you are always within your class level of the Berserker Strength limit. So, we will take the Toughness feat to put your hit points at 4, which is the exact number needed.
Now that we have 4 HP, we take the Reckless Rage feat (there is a debate on whether or not you qualify for this feat, but I'll discuss that later). The Reckless Rage feat, among other things, gives you a +2 bonus to Constitution while you rage. This means that, when you rage, you gain one hit point per level from this Constitution bonus. This puts you above the threshold for automatic rage. This causes you to leave your rage, and also causes the Constitution bonus to disappear. This will put your HP at four again, which makes you rage again. This will cause you to shift between raging and not raging infinitely. You are constantly in a state of rage and not rage (which is what the basis of this build is based on).
By now, you're probably thinking that there is no possible use for raging infinite times per turn. Well, I present to you the Mad Foam Rager (http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-handbook-ii--80/mad-foam-rager--1814/) feat. Once per rage, you can delay the effect of any spell, attack, or ability used against you. But you can rage an infinite number of times per day. This means that you can continually delay anything used against you forever. Just delay the attack when it would affect you next turn, then delay it again, and again, and again, forever.
This combo is what can allow you to survive the most brutal of attacks, but die from the most mundane things (or, in other words, anything that is not a spell, attack or ability), all at level one.
Additional Notes:
Take the intimidating Rage feat to scare everyone you can find (even though you only get one attempt per day per person).
As I said before, there is some debate over whether or not Berserker Strength counts as the prerequisite for Reckless Rage and Mad Foam Rager. If you believe that it doesn't, this build is still possible at level two if you take Druidic Avenger at level one, and multiclass into the Barbarian at level two.
As a final note, it is very possible that I have missed something somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised. If I have, please let me know. I'm proud of this build, but I have made mistakes before. Let me know what you think. :smallsmile: