Gnoll barbarian 3.5 build help

[Souskue]

Hello! I'm looking to build a gnoll barbarian for a 3.5 D&D game. We're starting at a total level of 5 (Class+Monster) and we're all running something with a level adjustment. One person is running a Shadar-kai rogue and the other is still on the fence on what they're doing. I'm aiming for an epic warrior type since I really don't have one that is to my liking (just started playing again after a few years). I'm starting with Lion Totem barbarian and I've been considering advancing into frostrager or fist of the forests just to punch/gut my enemies just because I think that'd be pretty funny. Current alignment is chaotic neutral.

With all my boosts my starting stats are....

Str: 22
Dex: 15
Con: 20
Int:13
Wis: 15
Cha: 11

Another thing I was considering was picking up monkey grip feat, but I was also thinking about boosting my size category anyways. if I did this I'd be using some pretty big weapons. Is there any real advantage to me staying medium size or disadvantages to me going large? I don't want to get monkey grip and boost my size up both just because it'd seem silly if I was carrying around something the size of a carriage and smashing people with it.

For my starter weapons I did Flail and Composite bow. The game won't be starting until we finish another one up so I still got plenty of time to make changes if I feel like it's needed.

Thanks for any help. :D I am looking to get this guy to 20 eventually, but the games involving him may be fairly spread out.

[sideswipe]

how much optimisation are you doing? is your party the weapon focus type? the type of picking good feats and ACF combos, or the dual 9ths by level 10 type?

first of all, power attack.

if its not too broken i suggest starting with spirit lion totem whirling frenzy barbarian 1. then either continue for a few levels or pick up 2 fighter levels for extra feats to progress your 2 fighting styles.
this will give you pounce and an extra attack, as well as more strength when raging.

if that seems pretty reasonable and maybe even leave you outshone then pick 1 of the next options.
if your party is high OP pick both.

warning, do not do this if your group is low power and casually playing.

1. second level as wolf totem barbarian, get improved trip for free and go for knockdown and a spiked chain. use feats to extend reach and possibly even cleave and greater cleave, consider the frenzied berserker prestige class.

this allows you to charge, pounce, hit up to a few enemies for damage, get a free trip, trip your opponents, get a free attack on tripped opponents, if you kill them you then you get to do more attacks, if PRC then you get to move between cleaves. if you do not kill and its a huge single thing then the trip will make your iterative attacks easier to hit with.

you also will have control of the area around you with reach and trip.


2. take with the fighter feats improved bull rush, and power attack or something else. at level 6 take shock trooper and later leap attack.

if you do not know what they do, they allow you to trade power attack normally, but instead of your attack bonus the penalty goes to AC. so you get full hit and damage. then leap attack gives more damage.

this is the hit things so hard they die before they can kill you route. it does leave you a little vulnerable if you are unwise in your actions.


if you combine it all...... you run in, you hit it HARD, you will kill it, if not you trip it and hit HARD again, it WILL die, you then cleave all nearby, this was 1 attack. you then move more and do the same again, killing all in your say... 30 ft reach each time. getting a tonne of free attacks, you could hit over double figures amount of attacks in a good round. and 30 or so in a great round against hoards of enemies. against a single one you still do really really well.

[Failed Phantasm]

I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to talk about pure martial characters, so I'm a bit hesitant to be offering build advice. However, on the subject of race: if you don't mind taking one extra LA, you might consider using the Flind Gnoll (Monster Manual III, pg. 62; also available here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040912b&page=3)) instead. You'll gain an additional +2 to all your physical stats, no penalty to Int or Cha, and a handful of other tertiary benefits (like automatically knowing Common).

If your DM allows LA buyoff (or if you're playing a gestalt game, but that's obviously not the case here), I find the Flind to be preferable to the standard gnoll.

[Souskue]

The flind gnoll does look way more appealing and I did run it by my DM who said it's okay to make the changes. Since I had some not so shabby rolls the lack of reductions is going to be sweet. I'll make those adjustments to my sheet later tonight and see how it looks.

I didn't think about it before, but the shock trooper build would work rather nicely in this game. It's okay to build way overpowered in these games as scaling will adjust session to session and encounter to encounter if need be. Besides, just because I have the ability to snowball the kills doesn't mean I have to. If I save it for rainy days or when loot distribution comes into question it'd still be worth it to me. As for the vulnerability it's a tradeoff I'm okay with making.

LA buyoff wasn't mentioned, but I can always ask. We are able to use all books and 3rd party needs to be ran by the DM.

Thanks for the tips! Anything I didn't address I'm probably reading up on.

[Inevitability]

I believe there is a feat that gives gnolls a bite attack while raging. Can't remember the name, though.

[Failed Phantasm]

Gnoll Ferocity (Races of the Wild, pg. 151)