[PF] Barbarian / Monk questions

[Calinero]

I'm working on a character concept now, and had a few brainstorming questions.

Firstly, my character is most likely going to be an Urban Barbarian. He's a dwarf with a crapton of hit points, which I like. However, the Urban Barbarian causes me to lose the medium armor proficiency, and I'm wondering how best to make up for that AC. Is the Dodge feat a good one to take if I want him to be just a little tankier? I'm hoping crowd control will make up for some of it.

Secondly, I was wondering if you thought there might be any synergy at all with the Monk class later on. I was checking the rules, and a Barbarian who becomes Lawful doesn't lose any powers, they just can't progress as a Barbarian. I'm well aware that this is far from an optimized character choice, but I find the roleplaying possibilities very interesting, and was wondering if it was a complete mechanical bullet in my own foot or not.

[Drelua]

If you want to take some Monk levels on a Barbarian, look at the Martial Artist Archetype. They drop the Lawful requirement and get immunity to fatigue at level 5. This means you can freely turn your rage on and off, letting you use 1/rage rage powers every round instead of every fight.

[grarrrg]

If you want to take some Monk levels on a Barbarian, look at the Martial Artist Archetype. They drop the Lawful requirement and get immunity to fatigue at level 5. This means you can freely turn your rage on and off, letting you use 1/rage rage powers every round instead of every fight.

What he said.

[Beowulf DW]

Don't know if the Brutal Pugilist can combine with the Urban Barbarian, but you may wish to consider it. Might go quite well with a monk.

[Ailowynn]

Get an amulet of natural armor or ring of protection. Or have the wizard cast Mage Armor and/or Shield on you.

Really, Dodge won't do much good. +1 AC doesn't scale with level, and more fighting-oriented feats would be better. If you're not going above level 6 or so, maybe. Otherwise...it's really "meh."

[ArqArturo]

If you want to take some Monk levels on a Barbarian, look at the Martial Artist Archetype. They drop the Lawful requirement and get immunity to fatigue at level 5. This means you can freely turn your rage on and off, letting you use 1/rage rage powers every round instead of every fight.

This needs to be requoted.

[Drelua]

Wow, apparently that was even better advice than I thought. This thread made me want to play a Barbarian like this, maybe with Horizon Walker 3 for immunity to fatigue instead, so now I'm wondering, what are some good rage powers for this? The only ones I can think of that are 1/rage are surprise accuracy and powerful blow, but those don't seem very good.

[Calinero]

I'm definitely liking that this might make a Barbarian/Monk more feasible...this Martial Artist archetype is definitely rocking my concept, though.

I had been thinking I'd have to start Barbarian, get all the levels I wanted of it, then become Lawful and go entirely Monk. So, I was going to have to figure out how many levels of Barbarian to take, and how to transition from using weapons to fighting unarmed (or at least using Monk weapons.) Now, if I go with this idea, I am instead busy trying to figure out what order to take the levels from each class.

I'll admit, being able to take levels from both classes at once doesn't fit as well with my roleplaying concept, but it's so mechanically interesting I might have to try it.

As far as Rage Powers go, I've been looking...obviously, you'd benefit from some of the "once per day" powers pretty nicely. For example, the only difference between the Lesser Elemental Rage and the regular one is that Lesser gives you one strike with +1d6 damage, while regular gives it to you for all of them. There's no reason to ever go beyond the Lesser if you can start a new rage every round.

[Drelua]

Ooh, I hadn't noticed that. The only downside for Lesser Elemental is that it takes up all your swift and immediate actions, but if you don't have a use for those...

As for level progression, that depends where you start, but I'd recommend you start with enough levels of Barbarian to have a decent amount of rage in a day - probably 2-4 levels - then go straight for the fatigue immunity. You could take Extra Rage for another 6 rounds/day, but you'd probably regret that once you've got a few more levels under your belt. I'd recommend taking at least 10 Barbarian levels for Greater Beast Totem. Even if you don't want the claws, the Natural Armor isn't bad and pounce is amazing. You can't take more Rage Powers with the Extra Rage Power feat if you don't feel like you have enough, which will quite likely be the case.

On switching to Unarmed, I'm not sure you should. There's a feat called Whirling Steel Stike that requires weapon focus and lets you flurry with a longsword, which could be fun. It's 3.5, but it's also from Dragon Magazine which was being made by Paizo at the time, so your DM might allow it.

For more, and probably much better, advice, check out this PF Barbarian Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=233032). I haven't finished it yet, but it looks like it has some pretty good advice.

[Calinero]

Character is pretty much made now, thanks for all the help. Right now he's Barbarian 2 / Monk 1 using the Martial Artist archetype. He carries a dwarven longhammer in both hands, but is free to flurry with his feet and head. I plan to alternate levels until I hit Monk 5, then go straight Barbarian.