Best class for buffing Natural Attacks

[Vhaidara]

I have a villain I'm building for if I ever DM again. It is a man who has had as many grafts applied as I can (I believe I totaled around 40, since the various older grafts don't necessarily replace a body part). He'll have about a dozen arms, half a dozen legs, two pairs of wings, and three tails.

Because of these grafts, he will have a lot of natural attacks. My current build plan is Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian 1/Something X/War Hulk 10. This gets him Pounce and a massive Str score. But what is the best class/classes for the other 9 levels? I know Totemist is staple to Natural Attack builds, but are the good at buffing the attacks or just at generating them?

For reference, this is not someone the party should ever want to actually fight. The idea is to make them find a way to defeat him without fighting him, since he will literally be capable of tearing four guys apart in one round.

EDIT: I'm now going spirit bear totem barbarian 1/totemist 2/warblade 5/ warshaper 1/soul eater 1/black blood cultist 10.

[docnessuno]

Black blood cultis (Champions of ruin) 8, with a grapple-focused build:

Savage Grapple: Starting at 8th level, you deal damage as if you had hit with all your natural weapons (including rend, if you are raging) on a successful grapple check.

Considering grafts are nonmagical and (except for few specific stuff) work in an AMF, fill your WBL with graft and AMF-granting items. Then grapple spellcaster to death.

[Urpriest]

Totemist has a few "add x damage to all natural attacks"-type abilities, so it could definitely work for this. Warblade stances and boosts are also nice. You can check out the Thayan Gladiator, though it's more based on enhancing one attack. Finally, more Barbarian for better Rage could be worthwhile.

[docnessuno]

Black blood cultis


Thayan Gladiator

Funny we suggested 2 different PRCs from the same (rather obscure) source.

[Erik Vale]

Thayan gladiator would improve all identical attacks, so if you had a lot of claws/ghostly touch etc focusing on that would improve them all, leaving only a few out. It also boosts NA.

At least, if I remember right.

Kensai can also improve NA's, but that one actually only boosts one.

Agreeing with martial adepts, get the stances that add fire damage of xd6+IL to all attacks. I can't remember it's name.

[Vhaidara]

Black blood cultis (Champions of ruin) 8, with a grapple-focused build:

Savage Grapple: Starting at 8th level, you deal damage as if you had hit with all your natural weapons (including rend, if you are raging) on a successful grapple check.

Considering grafts are nonmagical and (except for few specific stuff) work in an AMF, fill your WBL with graft and AMF-granting items. Then grapple spellcaster to death.

...That is the single most beautiful PrC for this guy. I actually just replaced War Hulk.

So, what is being thought now is SLT Barbarian 1/ Warblade or Totemist 9/Black Blood Cultist 10.

Side question, when rend refers to double claw damage, does it mean double the damage of one claw or double the total damage of my claws? I doubt it's the second, but a man with 10 claw attacks can hope.

[Urpriest]

...That is the single most beautiful PrC for this guy. I actually just replaced War Hulk.

So, what is being thought now is SLT Barbarian 1/ Warblade or Totemist 9/Black Blood Cultist 10.

Side question, when rend refers to double claw damage, does it mean double the damage of one claw or double the total damage of my claws? I doubt it's the second, but a man with 10 claw attacks can hope.

It's double one of your claws.

You might want to try for Improved Grab. I don't know how to do it with Totemist, but if you switch to Bear Spirit Totem (and use the Pouncing Charge maneuver for Pounce) you could get it that way, or by fitting in levels of Bloodscaled Horror.

As a grappler, Warblade will probably be nice anyway for access to Crushing Weight of the Mountain.

[Vhaidara]

I'm pretty sure one of the grafts gives me Improved Grab. But I can see the attraction of having it on every attack, especially since I would allow this guy to grapple multiple people Kind of like iteratives, he takes a stacking -5 for every extra person, max based on final total number of limbs and limiting which attacks are usable against who.

Alright, warblade sounds like the ideal route, since 9 levels of warblade would get me 5th level manuevers even without the half non-iniatiator rule.

Are any of the UA barbarian variants worth it on this? I know one of the rules of ToB is always have an odd number of non-initiator levels.

[Dusk Eclipse]

At this point an amulet of mighty fist would be waaaaaaay more cost effective than a NoNW, just saying.

You don't need to sacrifice Spirit Lion Totem for Improved Grap, just pick Scorpion Grasp (Sandstorm) which is Improved Grab on all but name, it also allows you to get Wolf Totem (UA) to pick up Improved Trip at second level.

Getting a couple of totemist levels to bind the Heart of fire to your Totem Bind gives you +1d4/essentia to all your natural weapons. I'm pretty sure you see where this is going.

[Godskook]

At this point an amulet of mighty fist would be waaaaaaay more cost effective than a NoNW, just saying.

NoNW is for getting other things onto your natural weapons, not for giving them enhancement bonuses. You use Greater Magic Fang for that.

@OP, a DFI bard companion will add a *TON* of damage, and can even be technically part of the build via leadership.

[Forrestfire]

If you can toss some sort of shapeshifting onto him (maybe Changeling as a base race), a single level of Warshaper lets you increase the size of all his natural weapons.

[Vhaidara]

@OP, a DFI bard companion will add a *TON* of damage, and can even be technically part of the build via leadership.

This guy will not have Leadership. He is literally a frothing savage who has been experimented on past the point of sanity. Also, Leadership is kind of pointless on NPCs except as a flavor thing.

Sadly, I can't use Scorpion's Grasp. It specifies an unarmed strike or a light or one-handed melee weapon.

Okay, looking things over, I'm thinking Spirit Bear Totem Barbarian 1(improved grab on every attack)/Warshaper 1 (REACH)/Totemist 2 (grab Heart of Fire and Totem Chakra)/Warblade 6 (taken until I qualify for BBC, then used to finish out build)/Black Blood Cultist 10.

Maneuvers will focus on Tiger Claw, but I'll pick up Crushing Weight of the Mountain.

EDIT: Good catch on the warshaper. I'll qualify him with the Momentary Alteration Spelltouched feat. That's where any extra feats will go, btw. Spelltouched. Fits with the idea of him having been overly experimented on.

[Seerow]

Just for fun I recommend trying to incorporate this trick (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16959544&postcount=130) into whatever natural attack build you go for.

No idea if it's feasible at all without a dedicated build, but it's awesome. (Especially since if I'm understanding right you're going to have something like 40 natural attacks? Imagine attacking with each of those ~7 times a round)

Edit: Looking at it, it seems you need at least 2 levels of Totemist and 8 levels of Black Blood Cultist to make it work, which is 1 more level than you have to work with (and with that you're probably only hitting four volleys per round instead of 7).

[Vhaidara]

Fun trick, but a little tactical for this guy. He's more of a "Run in and tear your food apart" kind of guy.

To give everyone some perspective, his mentals will be straight 3s, with his mind flayer masters giving him plot protection against being ability drained into a coma. He is barely sentient.

[gorfnab]

A level of Soul Eater is nice for natural attack based builds.

[Vhaidara]

Now that's just mean.


I like it.

Trading 1 level Warblade for 1 level Soul Eater.

[Mootsmcboots]

Just a heads up on Warshaper, I don't think Momentary alteration will qualify you for it. It's specific about what does qualify it. The only spell listed is specifically Polymorph.

This is of importance because the warshaper's class abilities, which are awesome, only apply when you are in your alt form if I recall correctly.

Great for bear warriors. Additional natural weapon/up one in size, +5 foot reach, immune to stuns/crits, +4 str +4 con.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Quasi-Lycanthrope (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a) qualifies for War shape no questions asked for the low, low price of CR +1, in addition it grants DR 10/Silver which granted isn't great against Two hand fighters, but it is pretty useful against multi-attackers like volley archers or two weapon fighters.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Shifter qualifies for Warshaper and can also take Shifter Savagery (RoE) for 2 size increases on all natural weapons and increased crit range.

[Mootsmcboots]

Shifter may qualify you to take Warshaper, as it has the shapechanger sub class, but the warshaper benefits only apply in your atlernate form, and shifters don't actually have an alternate form if I recall correctly.

As far as I can tell, shifters don't shift into an alternate form. I don't even think they qualify as Lycanthropes. They have lycanthropic heritage, and at best they gain slight physical alterations at best.

So you could qualify but not be able to take advantage of the warshaper abilities as there is no alternate form.

[SinsI]

Shifter may qualify you to take Warshaper, as it has the shapechanger sub class, but the warshaper benefits only apply in your atlernate form, and shifters don't actually have an alternate form if I recall correctly.

As far as I can tell, shifters don't shift into an alternate form. I don't even think they qualify as Lycanthropes. They have lycanthropic heritage, and at best they gain slight physical alterations at best.

So you could qualify but not be able to take advantage of the warshaper abilities as there is no alternate form.

They have alternate form, but only for several rounds/day.

[docnessuno]

Changeling works better to qualify for warshaper.

[Mootsmcboots]

I can't seem to find anywhere where it says they have an alternate form. It says it acts like the barbarian's rage, and that they get a stat boost, but nothing about an alternate form.

Some can grow a horn or whatever. But that's hardly an alternate form. Otherraces/classes that qualify are either specifically mentioned in war shaper, or they reference the ability as similar to wildshape or polymorph.

I can't find anything similar for shifter.

[Zaq]

I still say Totemist. It's kind of as good as you get for natural weapons.

Well, maybe Druid has some kind of shenanigans. But Druids usually have some kind of shenanigans. (Can we add some kind of measly poison and then Venomfire? Because that would kill everything forever.)

[Donny_Green]

I wonder how an unarmed swordsage should do for the extra 9 levels.. Blade magic is ultra fun and never a waste.