3.5 Fear build

[herrhauptmann]

This thread is a followup to a gestalt warlock help thread I wrote a little while ago. The DM has okay-ed the use of Paladin of Terror and a few other things.

Using some advice from Biffonacious (did I spell that right for once?), I've now got the following build.
See Below.

The fear handbook he linked (http://web.archive.org/web/20120520034053/http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0) listed several feats that should be taken. Among them were: Dreadful Wrath (PGtF 38) and Frightful Presence (Draconom 105).
Both feats give me a frightful presence, like a dragon. Same DC for the save. Also taking Imperious Command so that my foe cowers for a round first.

FP: attack or charge. All enemies in 30ft are shaken for 1d6+cha rounds (10.5 rounds on average). No effect on dragons or low int creatures (under 3).
DW: Charge, full attack, cast a spell that targets/includes enemy in area. 20 ft radius, shaken for 1 minute. Extraordinary morale effect.

Since the effects are nearly the same, would one of these be obviously better in some way?
DW might include my use of warlock invocations. Might not. It also seems to work on more creatures. But has a shorter radius.

edit:
Previous help thread. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299378)
House rules:
No enhancement bonuses exist. Feats at every odd level, instead of every third.

Build: PoT3 (with paladin ACFs)/Zhentarim Thug Fighter9//Warlock8/Hellfire3/Binder1.
Feats:
Dreadful wrath, Eldritch Claws, Mortalbane, Imperious Command, Quicken SLA.
2 blank feats, at first and 9th level. With 4 more ftr feats if I don't go Sneak Attack Variant fighter.
Invocations

Eldritch Glaive, See the Unseen, Eldritch Spear
Fell Flight, Hellrime Blast, Walk Unseen
Vitriolic Blast

Gear:
Everbright Aurorum Longsword.
Nervewrack and Subjugating.
Durable soulfire mithral breastplate of terror with Smoking (LoD) dragoncraft red dragon armor spikes.
Raptor mask (mic 209),
Healing Belt,
Tunic of Steady Spellcasting.
Bracers: Entangling blast and Quickstrike (mic 80 and 81)
Boots: Steadfast, Agile Leaping, Mountain King enchantments.
Chasuble of Fell Power (mic84), perhaps greater one.

[Blueiji]

Dreadful Wrath is MUCH better than Frightful Presence. This is because Frightful Presence doesn't affect enemies with more hit dice than your character, and it is very rare to fight monsters with less hit dice than you, especially at later levels.

You didn't mention the skill trick "Never Outnumbered" in you post. It's incredibly useful for any intimidation build, as it allows you to affect a larger group of enemies with your intiidation checks, which combined with Imperious Command, means more foes cowering.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You're missing something.

You want to start with enough Fighter levels to have the Zhentarim Soldier 9 sub level, which allows you to Intimidate as a swift action instead of the normal standard action. With this you get the feat Imperious Command, which makes opponents Cower (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#cowering) for one round and be Shaken for the next round. This allows you to keep at least one opponent from taking any actions at all for an entire encounter. With Never Outnumbered you can make every opponent within ten feet cower for a round once per encounter, and then they're all Shaken the next round which is easy to escalate via other fear effects such as Dreadful Wrath. Your character is able to accomplish this with minimal effort, as it only takes a swift action so you can still do everything else you would normally be doing without this trick.

The reason to use Half-Orc is because they get a +8 bonus to Intimidate, between the first Half-Orc Paragon level and the feat Menacing Demeanor which you don't even have to spend a feat to get. When you consider that the same size bonuses and penalties to grapple, disarm, bull rush, etc. apply to Intimidate checks, plus most monsters you face will have more HD than your character and be at an advantage by default. For example, you have a level 12 character with 15 ranks, Skill Focus, +2 Synergy, +6 Beguiling Influence, and Cha 16 for +29. You try to intimidate a Cloud Giant (CR 11), it has 17 HD, Huge size, and Wis 16 for +28. You're rolling a check at +29 vs a check at +28, whereas a Half-Orc would get +37 vs +28. So as a Human, you have a 50% chance to intimidate this opponent, but as a Half-Orc your chances are significantly improved.

Intimidate checks are what makes a fear build like this strong, if you skip it then you may as well skip the entire fear gimmick. If you don't have Fighter 9 starting out then you're going to either attack or intimidate, but not both (iirc you're using Eldritch Glaive which requires a full round action, so not even Fearsome armor reducing intimidate to a move action will be helpful). With Fighter 9 you can attack and intimidate, allowing you to completely disable one opponent for a round every round without sacrificing any of your own actions.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Everything Biff just said. Seriously. Zhent Fighter 9 or go home.

On the other side, have you considered Dread Necromancer? They get a free Fear Aura, and tools to significantly improve it.

First off, your build should look like Dread Necro 7/Dread Witch5. Your very next level will be another level in Dread Necromancer. This gives you 6th level spells (one level delayed, thanks to the dead caster level in Dread Witch), and you get access to a new Necromancy spell. Pick up Aura of Terror. Not only does it increase your aura by a flat 10' (now you are at 15'), but it also increases Shaken to Frightened and gives you a boost to your DC in the process.

From there, if you want to blow feats, try Dread Lore of Moil + Fell Frighten. If you apply stacking in the most beneficial manner, Fell Frighten makes your opponent Shaken, then your aura makes them Panicked. Dread Lore of Moil simply makes your spell deal damage so they can be affected by the Fell Frighten.

Best of all, thanks to Dread Witch, it will bypass immunities, which will become more prevalent as you gain levels.

So now you have a passive way to make opponents Panicked and an active way to make them Cower. Anything that makes their Will save to avoid being Panicked you can target with your Intimidate + Imperious Command + Zhent Fighter to Cower them as a Swift action.

[Person_Man]

The best Fear builds are generally full spellcasters, since they have a variety of spells that are basically Save or Lose Fear effects, without having to invest a ton of Feats or class levels into a combo.

But from the gist of your post, I'm guessing you want to stick with Warlock//Something. So my suggestion is to just find 2 different Fear effects (because any individual effect never stacks with itself) that are easily triggered, and then move on. It'll still be very potent against a lot of enemies, but you don't need to blow your entire build on 1 combo.

Off the top of my head:

Vanus vestige (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060407a): Fear aura that makes enemies Save or be Frightened. Binder is Tier 2 or 3 and gets multiple vestiges once you get to level 8. So you can go Binder X//whatever X, have your always on Fear effect, but also have a lot of other stuff going on. (Ashardalon vestige also has a potent Fear effect, but you can get Vanus as early as Binder 10, whereas you can't get Ashardalon until Binder 15).
Subjugating enhancement: Enemy must make a DC 20 Will Save or be Shaken for 5 rounds. +2 bonus. Heroes of Battle pg 130.
Frightful Presence: Gives you a Fear aura (Save or Shaken). Draconomicon.
Amulet of Fearsome Might: Increases the area of effect and Save DC of your Frightful Presence. 11,000 gp, Dragon Magic pg 93.

[Ansem]

A good fear build for me was Dread Necromancer, go necropolitan and be a creepy walking corpse with fear aura's an feat enhancing all this.
(Can't remember which feats I picked, think I picked frightful presence but retrained it later for something better after I found the HD error limit as well)
Add to that a lot of your spelllist gives these affects you can basically break everyone's spirit on the field. Except for this lvl 16 revenant with 15DR against everything but divine good magic, nothing will stand before you with a straight face and good heart.

[herrhauptmann]

Switched to Zhentarim9/PoT3, you guys are right, I'm being stupid if I don't use it. I'll keep halforc on standby though, PoT seems like it's doing less and less as I work on this build. Also, while this is an alternate character, we haven't had an actual fight yet, so I'm not sure what kind of enemies we'll be facing regularly. We're starting in a mostly human city though.

Sounds like dreadful wrath is preferred over Frightful Presence. I didn't notice the line about HD <= mine.
I can probably still use the Amulet of Fearsome Might, since DW says I gain frightful presence for that round. And the amulet boosts my frightful presence, however I gain it.
Weapon: I've got subjugating enhancement. As well as Nervewrack from Dungeon 105. Trying to decide on metalline/morphing/keen/impact for my weapon as well. Metalline/morphing obviously will let me not worry about weapon type. Keen/impact are for boosting my crit range for Nervewrack.

I'm going to skip Dread Necro and Witch though. We've already got a dread necro helping out the party. Also, I've put enough time into finally learning invocations, that by golly, I'm gonna use them.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
Yep, eldritch glaive, with Quicken SLA (only a few times a day of course).
I think Fearsome Armor has changed though. MiC version says swift action. 20ft radius. Will DC 16.
There is Hideous in CoR for +5, +10, +15 on intimidate.(3750, 7500, 15000 gold)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

MIC was published March 2007, Drow of the Underdark was published May 2007, so the DotU version of Fearsome armor is the most recent. Due to their close proximity though, I'd say both versions are valid, you just have to specify which you're using, but I've never seen the MIC version used.

Paladin of Tyranny gives you the Aura of Despair, imposing a -2 penalty to saves on every opponent within 10 ft. That's basically the same thing as getting +2 DC to everything you use on opponents at that range, so it gives your abilities a better chance of working. Plus there's the Cha synergy from Divine Grace. Plus if you use Harmonious Knight (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) 1 (same place Zhentarim Soldier is found) to get Inspire Courage, then replace that with Inspire Awe from Dragon Magic, you get yet another save-or-shaken area effect that can contribute to escalating a fear condition.

[herrhauptmann]

MIC was published March 2007, Drow of the Underdark was published May 2007, so the DotU version of Fearsome armor is the most recent. Due to their close proximity though, I'd say both versions are valid, you just have to specify which you're using, but I've never seen the MIC version used.

Weird, so used to the MiC being the most up to date book. Probably a reason it doesn't get used too, that will save is terrible. On the other hand, the DotU one is an enhancement bonus, so it won't exist as-is according to houserules.
If enhancement bonuses to skills are calculated according to the same equation as competence (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicArmor.htm#shadow), then I can just do 5000-3750=1250 for the price of the move action intimidate. DM seems to be lenient so far with those things, so long as I present the math.



Paladin of Tyranny gives you the Aura of Despair, imposing a -2 penalty to saves on every opponent within 10 ft. That's basically the same thing as getting +2 DC to everything you use on opponents at that range, so it gives your abilities a better chance of working. Plus there's the Cha synergy from Divine Grace. Plus if you use Harmonious Knight (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) 1 (same place Zhentarim Soldier is found) to get Inspire Courage, then replace that with Inspire Awe from Dragon Magic, you get yet another save-or-shaken area effect that can contribute to escalating a fear condition.
Don't know if I can chain ACFs like that. I remember someone had a big thread about that a while back, with a number of people weighing in on both sides of the matter. Like wildshape ranger trading out his wildshape for druid ACFs that lose wildshape.

Isn't Millil a Good deity? I doubt I can work a reason for a LE paladin to be following her. My story writing skills just aren't that good. Also, some rule issues. Some non-LG deities have paladins, but most of those are LN or NG deities with LG paladins.

I originally chose PoT for the aura of despair, and was going to pair it with Dark Companion Hexblade. But I've dropped hexblade (even after getting the fix approved) partly because I'm not sure if I can do anything to hide the companion when I want to.
PoT still gives the Divine Grace feature, which makes all my saves very nice. I've gotten approval for a few other paladin acfs

wyrmslayer, change class skills.
angel/fiend sight, don't want to be carrying a torch if I don't have to
gaze of truth, great for an inquisition-type character.

[herrhauptmann]

I've got a followup question for this build.

Would the feat Dark Speech (BoVD) be at all useful in a fear build? (didn't see it in the handbook)
Against Nonevil:
Weak enemies are shaken and may flee or cower.
Stronger enemies are filled with loathing
Against Evil:
Weak enemies cower and are frozen
Can be charmed.
Strong enemies are impressed, I get +2 on attempts to change their attitude.

I know the resulting charisma damage isn't great, but binder will make that a short term problem.

[ArcturusV]

Dark speech is useful for a bunch of other reasons. I almost never use it for fear inducing. I've used it to buff up undead against the inevitable "You face clerics with optimized TU to get rid of your minions I don't want to deal with". I've used it to Hivemind, because that's actually really damned power. And I've used it's Corruption thing. But the fear I never really use.

Still worth getting if you can swing it though.

[Person_Man]

I've got a followup question for this build.

Would the feat Dark Speech (BoVD) be at all useful in a fear build? (didn't see it in the handbook)
Against Nonevil:
Weak enemies are shaken and may flee or cower.
Stronger enemies are filled with loathing
Against Evil:
Weak enemies cower and are frozen
Can be charmed.
Strong enemies are impressed, I get +2 on attempts to change their attitude.

I know the resulting charisma damage isn't great, but binder will make that a short term problem.

Dark Speech doesn't function on enemies with higher hit dice. So you'd also need to take the Dark Whispers Feat, which augments Dark Speech, making it Confuse enemies with higher HD then you. Elder Evils pg 12.

[herrhauptmann]

Good point.

I'll have to see about freeing up another high level feat, or wait until next level to really use it.