Barbarian trouble

[Ducklord]

My PF Warblade/Barbarian is doing pretty well damage-wise, but while in punishing stance and in a rage(her default battle mode), her AC is incredibly low and a few hits usually reduce her HP pretty quickly. What could I do to either raise her AC or get her some other way of absorbing more damage?

She's a Warblade 1/Barbarian 2 half-orc with a feat to burn. Wears a chainshirt and no magic items, since they are pretty scarce in the setting. I took Invulnerable Rager so she has DR 1/-, which will help a bit I guess.

[CombatOwl]

My PF Warblade/Barbarian is doing pretty well damage-wise, but while in punishing stance and in a rage(her default battle mode), her AC is incredibly low and a few hits usually reduce her HP pretty quickly. What could I do to either raise her AC or get her some other way of absorbing more damage?

Don't. Seriously, don't build all the weaknesses out of a character.

[Ducklord]

Don't. Seriously, don't build all the weaknesses out of a character.

Well, I'm not trying to take all the weakness out of her, but the encounters are pretty hard and she's seen negative digits HP-wise in almost every single one of them. It's getting a bit frustrating.

[limejuicepowder]

I'd skip on the punishing stance, honestly. It only adds 3.5 damage for (generally speaking) a 10% increased chance of being hit. Not worth it for a character that already does lots of damage, like barbs.

You could get a masterwork buckler, and spend the feat on improved buckler defense. It only adds +1 AC, but it's better then nothing. It's also something that can be enchanted later for better protection.

[Greenish]

Don't. Seriously, don't build all the weaknesses out of a character.We're not talking about some kind of contingency wizard here. It's a melee bruiser, it basically has more weaknesses than strengths by default, and if it can't survive going toe-to-toe with enemies, well, then it has no strengths.

[Zanos]

I'd skip on the punishing stance, honestly. It only adds 3.5 damage for (generally speaking) a 10% increased chance of being hit. Not worth it for a character that already does lots of damage, like barbs.

You could get a masterwork buckler, and spend the feat on improved buckler defense. It only adds +1 AC, but it's better then nothing. It's also something that can be enchanted later for better protection.
Indeed. Punishing stance is great if you can consistently land multiple attacks per round, but when you only have one iterative and aren't dual wielding it's not worth the AC reduction.

You could upgrade to a medium armor like breastplate or scale mail and eventually mithral fullplate if you can afford it.

It seems like you're using some 3.5 material since you have a warblade level, so you could ask your DM if you could trade your rage for whirling frenzy, which is here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm). You don't get the con bonus from a normal rage, but the net improvement to AC would be +4.

[Magnetic]

Could you tell us more about what kind of things you've been fighting against?

If you are doing excellent damage, how/why are enemies living long enough to be frequently dropping your character into the negatives?

Are you often fighting a single, very powerful, opponent? Or are you suffering a death from a thousand cuts from multiple, relatively weak, foes?

Also, what are your party members, and what are they doing during combat? If everyone else is playing screwball characters who hardly contribute in combat, then that's a problem whose solution might not lie in your choice of feats and equipment.

[CombatOwl]

Well, I'm not trying to take all the weakness out of her, but the encounters are pretty hard and she's seen negative digits HP-wise in almost every single one of them. It's getting a bit frustrating.

Adamantine chain shirt will boost your DR/-, consider an adamantine breastplate if your dex is 16 or less. If you are using a two-handed weapon, you should really just switch to something with reach (and pick up the feats recommended for reach fighters--there's a lot of threads on that already). Pick a polearm with reach. Lucerne hammers are great. Reach means you can not take damage at all from a lot of enemies--and makes it easier to setup flanking for others in the party. Remember that you can always remove one hand from a two-handed weapon as a free action. If you wear a cestus while wielding a two-handed weapon, you can make strikes against adjacent enemies with the cestus and still threaten even against adjacent targets.

If you use a one-handed weapon, get a better shield. Even if you don't normally do the sword and board thing, consider carrying a one-handed melee weapon and a shield just for those circumstances where you need survivability more than massive damage.

More exotic solutions might include building for Ruby Knight Windicator--warblade can qualify martial stance wise, and you only need one level of cleric for the casting requirement. This gets you a little bit of cleric casting, and there are a lot of low-level cleric buff spells that can either increase your con, grant you temporary hp, or both.

Also, if the DM is skimpy with the magic items, he's arbitrarily cranking the difficulty way, way higher for martial types who are far more dependent on magic items. They hardly need nerfing, so he's basically just screwing you if not providing full WBL and access to magic items as per the rules.

[Greenish]

More exotic solutions might include building for Ruby Knight Windicator--warblade can qualify martial stance wise, and you only need one level of cleric for the casting requirement. This gets you a little bit of cleric casting, and there are a lot of low-level cleric buff spells that can either increase your con, grant you temporary hp, or both.Warblades don't get access to Devoted Spirit required for RKV.

[khachaturian]

how about a smoking weapon for miss chance?

edit- didn't notice that it was pathfinder, as well as the character level.

[cakellene]

Fist of the Forest helps offset AC penalty with Con to AC.

[CombatOwl]

Warblades don't get access to Devoted Spirit required for RKV.

Hmm, you're right. It's been awhile. One level of crusader does it though.

[Greenish]

Fist of the Forest helps offset AC penalty with Con to AC.That's three feats to enter (well, two feats and PA), and you'd need 18 Con to match the protection of even a non-magical chain shirt.

[Icewraith]

At higher levels (assuming you're allowing more 3.5 material), the solution is to take Combat Reflexes, Robilar's Gambit and Karmic Strike, and just let your AC fall into the toilet. Anytime anything swings on you in melee, attack of opportunity. Anytime anything hits you in melee (which, granted, will be pretty much all the time), Attack of Opportunity. If your DEX mod is reasonable you're basically getting free off-turn better-than-full attacks on anything that dares to swing on you. Yes, you can still be raging and power attacking.

At your current level, with a feat to burn.... what about Stone Power? It's sort of like Power Attack, only you gain temporary HP instead of damage, and we already know ToB is allowed in your game since you have a warblade level. It doesn't scale particularly well though, and works better on a Crusader chassis. Combat expertise might work better, but again it cuts into your to-hit.

[cakellene]

That's three feats to enter (well, two feats and PA), and you'd need 18 Con to match the protection of even a non-magical chain shirt.

True, but nothing stops you from getting both the shirt and the Con bonus for even more AC.

[Greenish]

True, but nothing stops you from getting both the shirt and the Con bonus for even more AC.Except that FotF AC bonus only works when unarmoured, and if you're wearing the chain shirt, you're quite un-unarmoured. So that's stopping you.

[cakellene]

Oops, forgot about that.

[Runeclaw]

Cloak of Displacement, Minor

If you have no access to on-demand magic items, this is a lot trickier.

[Zanos]

Cloak of Displacement, Minor
Bit pricey for a level 3 character, even in a normal magic setting.

[Blackhawk748]

i second, the Adamantine Breastplate as well as Whirling Frenzy, they're a mean combo

[Coidzor]

How's your wealth aside from having difficulty buying magic items and finding them?

[Grams]

Wrathful Healing +3 enchant (ememy and ally) Heals you half the damage your weapon deals

[Icewraith]

Healing belt? 750 GP if you can use magic item compendium, shouldn't be used in combat but can help top you up afterwards for the next encounter so there's less attrition on party resources. Also may be useful for stabilizing you if you get dropped.

[infomatic]

More details on you and your opponents would be great. One opponent or many?

I'd second the reach-weapon suggestion and also dump Punishing stance. You could replace with Stonefoot Stance (if you face a lot of larger enemies). And what about Stone Bones? It's lousy later, but at low levels DR5/Adamantine will help a lot.

Adding Martial Study (Crusader's Strike) will give you a self-heal.

Picking up Wall of Blades would be another suggestion once you can get 2nd level maneuvers.

So

Bbn2/Warblade1
Feats: Power Attack, Martial Study (Crusader's Strike) ______[human?]
Weapon: Guisarme
Stances: Stonefoot Stance
Maneuvers: Stone Bones, Steel Wind, Sudden Leap

[Coidzor]

Without magic items it's hard to get a decent armor class. If you can get the 3.x version of vow of poverty, that at least gives a decent AC.

[GameSpawn]

If you can get them, the Least Iron Ward Diamond (armor augment crystal) and Least Crystal of Lifedrinking (weapon augment crystal) are reasonably useful. The former grants DR 1/- that explicitly stacks with other DR of the same type, but can only block 10 damage per day. It costs 500 gp and requires masterwork armor to be attached to. The latter heals you 1 point of damage with every hit, up to 10 points per day. It costs 400 gp and requires a masterwork weapon.