[PF] I have THE BIGGEST STICK!

[RndmNumGen]

"Speak softly, and carry a big stick; you will go far" - Teddy Roosevelt

There has been some discussion on the boards in the past about using Shillelagh (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/shillelagh) to boost the damage of a Huge club to 4d6. Going larger doesn't benefit us, since 4d6 is where the size damage bonus maxes out without houserules.

What I want to do is augment this with a new feat I just found in Pathfinder, called Furious Finish (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/furious-finish), which lets us end a rage to deal maximum damage with a Vital Strike instead of rolling. Since we're using Vital Strike for this, our damage dice will be 8d6, meaning we have a flat 48 damage + whatever we get from Strength whenever we hit. Not bad at all in the level 6-9 range when we get access to this.

Of course, to actually pull this off we will need to accomplish three things:
1) Ability to Rage
2) Immunity to Fatigue(For Rage-Cycling)
3) Ability to wield a Huge club.
4) Ability to cast Shillelagh.

What is the best way for us to pull this off? I'm going to go ahead and restrict this to Pathfinder content only; no 3.5 material for now. I want to see where we can get with this.

1) The best, easiest and fastest way to get Rage is with Barbarian 1. We can also get rage through the Rage subdomain, which Druids, Clerics and Inquisitors can get access to.
2) We can gain Immunity to Fatigue with 1 level in Oracle(Lame Curse) or 3 levels in Horizon Walker(Desert Mastery). Are any other sources available?
3) We can wield a Huge club two-handed if we Wild Shape into a Large Ape, or carry around a Large Club and get Enlarge Person cast on us.
4) Druid and Oracle both grant Shillelagh as a level 1 spell. Alternatively, carry around oils of Shillelagh? Get a wand and UMD it?

From this, Druid 4/Barbarian[Hateful Rager] 3 with the Shapeshifting Hunter feat covers everything but the Immunity to Fatigue.

Oracle 4/Barbarian 3 with the Wood domain and the Lame curse will grant us Immunity to Fatigue, but we lose Wildshape. Need another way to wield a Huge club.

Druid 8/Horizon Walker 3 takes care of everything, but comes into play much, much later. Too late, perhaps?

What does the Playground think of this? Are there better builds to pull this off?

[StreamOfTheSky]

I know you want to keep this PF only, but 3E really makes this so much easier and a moot point. Greater Mighty Wallop (http://dndtools.eu/spells/races-of-the-dragon--83/mighty-wallop-greater--3107/) spell + CL boosting tricks.

Add in Strongarm Bracers from MIC to start with a larger stick before even using the spell to boost damage still higher.

[The Boz]

You'd get fatigued even if you normally wouldn't. So you can't cycle it. The wording is kind of vague, but I think the fatigue would last normally, meaning 2x rage duration.

[RndmNumGen]

You'd get fatigued even if you normally wouldn't. So you can't cycle it. The wording is kind of vague, but I think the fatigue would last normally, meaning 2x rage duration.

I think that's referring to this:


Tireless Rage (Ex)
Starting at 17th level, a barbarian no longer becomes fatigued at the end of her rage.

Otherwise, I don't see how you become Fatigued when you are explicitly immune to fatigue. Immovable object hits unstoppable force, much?

[Crasical]

You'd get fatigued even if you normally wouldn't. So you can't cycle it. The wording is kind of vague, but I think the fatigue would last normally, meaning 2x rage duration.

At least on the SRD, there isn't anything that would imply or state that the fatigue cuts through any immunity you would have to it, but I don't have the actual core book. Citation?


Why Hateful Rager, by the way? It gets less rage to use your combo, and the extra rage it gets on a successful KO can only be used to extend your current rage, which you presumably just ended to use Furious Finish.

EDIT: Wood oracles can Plant Shape into large plants for 11+ hours a day, letting them use the club, but requires 11th level to pull off. I think that Oracle 3/Barbarian 3/Rage Prophet 5 can do it.

[RndmNumGen]

Why Hateful Rager, by the way? It gets less rage to use your combo, and the extra rage it gets on a successful KO can only be used to extend your current rage, which you presumably just ended to use Furious Finish.


For the Favored Enemy. That way, I can use Shapeshifting Hunter to stack Barbarian levels with Druid levels for the purpose of Wildshape(and thus being able to become a Large ape instead of a Medium one, without needing 2 more levels of Druid).

[Fenryr]

When I read "(even if you would not normally be)." I read that you can't be immune to this particular fatigue. Perhaps 'm wrong. A situation like the Anti-Paladin and Paladin Auras?

A two cent suggestiom from 3.5: Tireless, feat from Player's Guide to Faerûn, p. 46. Immune to fatigue.

[RndmNumGen]

Right now I'm thinking the Oracle 4/Barbarian 3 route is best, and just trying to have somebody in the party Enlarge me. Easier than trying to work Wildshape into there, and it's the most efficient way to get Immunity to Fatigue in Pathfinder.

[StreamOfTheSky]

You only need 1 Oracle level. Curses treat your non-Oracle levels as oracle levels at half rate, so an Oracle 1 / other stuff 8 is an oracle 5 for curse benefits.

The only advantage to having more of oracle is to get fatigue immunity faster. Unless you planned to have oracle as the main class, in which case...why 3 in barbarian?

[Ravenica]

advanced race guide can net you immunity to fatigue at CC without oracle levels if you can swing a custom race from your DM, as well as make you large sized AND possibly give you Shillelagh as a spell like ability :smallbiggrin:

[Larpus]

A Titan Mauler Barbarian can wield a Large club with only a -1 penalty starting at level 3.

Apparently they changed something, couldn't find in the SRD the clause that would prevent a medium character from wielding a large 2-hander, instead, what I could find is this:


Inappropriately Sized Weapons: A creature can't make optimum use of a weapon that isn't properly sized for it. A cumulative –2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. If the creature isn't proficient with the weapon, a –4 nonproficiency penalty also applies.

Which seems to mean that there's nothing preventing you from wielding a Colossal 2-hander, other than the massive penalty, that is, but it also means that with enough Titan Mauler levels, you can wield normally a Huge Club and beyond at no penalty.

Or settle for 6 or 9 levels and wield it at -2 or -1.

[grarrrg]

2) We can gain Immunity to Fatigue with 1 level in Oracle(Lame Curse) or 3 levels in Horizon Walker(Desert Mastery). Are any other sources available?

You'd get fatigued even if you normally wouldn't. So you can't cycle it. The wording is kind of vague, but I think the fatigue would last normally, meaning 2x rage duration.

Roused Anger (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/rage-powers/paizo---rage-powers/roused-anger-ex) Rage Power and _2_ levels of Horizon Walker covers you.
"Desert: The horizon walker gains immunity to exhaustion; anything that would cause him to become exhausted makes him fatigued instead."

Furious Finish > Fatigued
Fatigued > Roused Anger
Roused Anger > Exhausted (Desert) Fatigued
[repeat step 2]

A Half-Orc with the Shaman's Apprentice (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/half-orc) alt-racial trait gets Endurance as a bonus feat.

Also, Horizon Walker requires Endurance, we can use that to help qualify for Living Monolith (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/i-m/living-monolith). Level 1 gives 3/day Swift Enlarge Person, with 6 minute duration.

As pointed out before, you can already wield bigger weapons, but you take cumulative penalties for doing so.

1 level of Druid or 2 levels of Oracle (Wood) get access to the Shillelagh spell.
Magical Knack (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/magic-traits/magical-knack) trait can help with the low caster level.


I'm thinking Titan Mauler Barbarian 3/(Druid or Oracle) 2/Living Monolith 1/Horizon Walker 2
That's 8 levels, we need 1 more to be able to take Furious Finish.
Vital Strike is a Pre-Req and needs 6 Bab, so we can take it as out 7th level feat, and then Furious Finish as our 9th level feat.
If we went with Oracle then we are Immune to Exhaustion AND Fatigue.