Ideas for further growth of Barbarian build (Epic Level 22)

[JW86]

Hi, please help me take my beat-stick Level 22 Barbarian King to the next level of awesome.

Current build:
Large Orc (Permanencied Enlarge Person) Streetfighter Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian 20 / Dungeoncrasher Fighter 2

STR 37, DEX 12, CON 22, INT 12, WIS 6, CHA 6.

+5 Huge Valorous Wrathful Healing Flaming Greatsword.

Feats: Power Attack, Leap Attack, Shock Trooper, Improved Bullrush, Improved Sunder, Combat Brute, Knockback, Combat Reflexes, Robilar's Gambit, Cleave.

Has Boots of Speed..

With Mighty Rage, and a charging leap attack with Pounce ACF, Zakulnar Thrombeksson is making ROUGHLY 200-240 damage, regaining half of that back as HP, PER attack.. and he gets four of them per round, five if activating his boots. AC drops to 0, so in order to survive HP damage, he must be continuously destroying, hacking, and charging..

With Streetfighter, if he takes an enemy out on the first attack, he can make use of Charging Cleave to move on to the next victim to smash apart.

Boasting aside - I'd really like some input on how to advance him from now on. I'm considering four levels in War Hulk for Mighty Swing, (per attack action/attack 3 enemies), for effectively 12 attacks/2400-2800 damage a round on a charge, providing there are enough enemies around to take that kind of abuse.

I am, however, open to other suggestions! Does anyone have any cool ideas for a ridiculous epic beat-stick? I was considering "Legendary Dreadnaught" in a few more levels for the ability to smack my way through walls of force.

[OldTrees1]

Warhulk is definitely a nice choice. Based on your preferences, you might want to take Combat Expertise => Improved Trip => Knock-down[SRD version]. First check how your DM wants to nerf Knock-down + Improved Trip + Mighty Swing. Honestly when you can do several attacks per opponent in reach from an AoO ...

[TheMooch]

champion of gwynharwyf is nice to grab some spells that are very much needed at epic levels. Warhulk again is nice. Warmind could be good as well. bloodstorm blade could be fun as well. check out frenzied beserker.

How many more levels do you think you will need?

[JW86]

Chaotic Neutral alignment and a Wisdom score of 6 would make the Champion of Gwynhawyf particularly unobtainable/useless in this case, unfortunately.

Frenzied Beserker with this kind of damage could seriously give the rest of the party a scare, best not.... although tempting..

Warhulk is looking likely.

Leap Attack Pounce Mighty Swing for 200+dmg to three opponents. They take waaaay over 10 damage, thus incurring a free trip attempt, thus incurring a free attack.

And that is to three opponents.. with just one of the five attacks.

That's insane!:smallcool:

I think I will just try to go this route, wow.

I think campaign will be running to around Level 28, maybe 30.

[geekintheground]

after warhulk, maybe finish the dungeoncrasher levels (fighter 6).

[EugeneVoid]

If this is a high-op game:
Spend money to raise your wisdom and go into urpriest.

Otherwise:
Runescarred Beserker is good
So is Cancer Mage for infinite Strength

[JW86]

after warhulk, maybe finish the dungeoncrasher levels (fighter 6).

Possibly. The reason I hesitated to do that despite it being my initial plan, is that it's three levels of a whole lot of nothing in order to get a marginally better dungeoncrasher damage buff. I need to squeeze as much awesome into these levels as possible.

Ur-Priest requires evil alignment and a boot load of skill ranks I am completely inept in. The fast spell progression does look good though. Cancer Mage likewise. although he is a "natural 1" on looks and a pretty disgusting creature generally to be around!! - I am curious by the way how Cancer Mage can equal N.I. Strength?

Runescarred Beserker, if I do spend a feat on its prerequisites, will still only net me a couple of level1+2 spells by campaign's ending, I figure.

So - it looks like four levels of Warhulk, perhaps followed with Warblade(Will have a pretty high I.L. by then) and Bloodstorm Blade for throwing swords like a boss. Level 31 = Barbarian 20 / Fighter 2 / Warhulk 4 / Warblade 1 / Bloodstorm Blade 4.

Thanks. :D

[Coidzor]

Warhulk is always good, especially after you no longer have any BAB concerns.

Contract Variant of Lycanthropy/Emantothropy X, Y, or Z and take Warshaper levels for even more attacks.

Depending upon how your DM would adjudicate them, there's also Bloodlines, I suppose.

Totemist or Incarnate for some Incarnum goodness, especially if you go Totemist > Totem Rager or either/both > Necrocarnate.



Seems like you want to pump your dexterity and pick up Combat Reflexes to work with your Robilar's Gambit feat though.

[Ketiara]

Could you post the level/feat/items when you took which classes and feats... Think I'd like to try out your build but at medium level (6-16' ish)

[JW86]

Yes, a Dex boosting item to get the most from Robilar's Gambit should be acquired, I agree.

Totemist, now there is an interesting and unique idea. I'll look into it.

Ketiara, as this was the first character I ever created, it was severely underoptimised to begin with. When we hit Level 20, our DM allowed us all to effectively reconfigure our characters via some in-story "Helping the Dragon God, Dragon God reward you" mechanism. So I can't give you level-by-level. :)

The basics of it are as follows, however.

Barbarian with the 'Streetfighter' and 'Spirit Lion' ACFs.

Spirit Lion for the first three ACFs - so at 3rd level replaces 'fast movement' with 'pounce', allowing full attacks after a charge. At 5th level gives 'View the spirit world' which allows you to peer into the "spirit world" (i.e. grant darkvision and see invisibility) for some time, and at 7th level gives you the ability to ROAR, forcing a will save in a 30 foot radius to avoid being shaken.

10th level onwards I used the Streetfighter ACFs - at 10th level, you can make a single turn of up to 90 degrees during a charge. At 13th level, you can charge through squares occupied by allies or noncombatants. At 16th level you can move up to FOUR times your normal speed when charging, and at 19th level if an enemy is dropped on a charge attack, you can immediately make a new charge attack, until you fail to drop a foe in one attack, or run out of movement.

Dungeoncrasher Fighter 2 gives you one feat (at Fighter 1), and replaces the Fighter 2 feat with the Dungeoncrasher ACF - when you bullrush an opponent into a wall or solid object you deal (STR bonus x2) + 4d6 bludgeoning damage.


Basic feats for charging, power attacking madnsss are:

Power Attack, Leap Attack, Improved Bullrush, Shock Trooper. This will let you (in combination with Pounce ACF), charge, jump (DC 10) to make a full attack as power attack, deducting from your AC instead of your attack, as a -1/+3 to damage ratio (assuming you use a two-handed weapon)

Improved Sunder is a prereq for Combat Brute, which allows you to have a -1/+3 power attack damage in the round AFTER a charge if power attacking. Knockback allows you to send opponents flying with a free bullrush after power attacking them, so if you want to start bashing enemies around the battlefield, go for this.

Combat Reflexes and Robilar's Gambit are for making some AoOs when not my turn.

I got really lucky with the weapons. The Greatsword Zak has is Wrathful Healing (3.0) and Valorous (3.0) I believe.. so is a bit on the broken side.

Good luck.

[infomatic]

Seems like big defensive gaps. what's your counter vs. Will saves? Or a targeted dispel on your Enlargement? Or natural 1s?

At your level a mind blank item is possible, so you should have one. Ditto a spell-turning or Spellblade weapon. And I'd like to see Mad Foam Rager in there as a last-ditch defense.

[A Tad Insane]

Cancer mages are immune to the negative affects of diseases. Festering rage is a disease that gives strength at the cost of.... wisdom, I think. Do he time warp and have fun.

As for your build, maybe a few levels in totemist for some chakra fun, although I doubt you would get much out of it at this level. You best bet is probably anything ToB though.

You could take a level in commoner for chicken infested!