squishycube
2007-04-11, 05:24 PM
Me and CthulhuChris made a prestige class for barbarians. It focuses on Rage mainly. This is a repost from a thread about this class two years ago. Some people here may even have already commented on it! I'm posting this again to get some fresh views and maybe make this class balanced enough to play. Please comment!
Giant Fury
http://www.w1k.com/entries/257500/257811BhJF_w.jpg
(image came from http://www.w1k.com)
Every barbarian knows the merits of Rage. The adrenaline pumping through his veins, the breathtaking strength and his ability to soak enormous amounts of hits.
But few barbarians know the true potential of Anger. Many barbarians even try to cultivate their Rage, trying to get it under control.
Giant Furies don’t do that. Becoming a Giant Fury is all about letting go, to let the beast take over and to benefit from the power this brings. While raging, a Giant Fury can blow himself up like a frog, becoming an enormous fighting machine that can crush his enemies beneath his bare feet.
A Giant Fury is not about style, or skill. It’s about hitting as hard and as long as humanly possible, and beyond.
Designer notes/FAQ:
In this section I will explain some of the thinking behind certain abilities and I'll answer some of the questions raised in the earlier topic.
- Path of Fury is intentionally very restrictive. This is because with the power this class delivers, it needs some serious drawbacks. Those drawbacks come for a large part at the later levels (with Monstrous Rage for going out with a bang). But this means that players must be forced to take those drawbacks. Path of Fury does this. A DM can consider relaxing it a little, for example to allow other rage-based classes to be taken in between Giant Fury levels. In this case I'd force a player to take all 10 Giant Fury levels within a certain amount of character levels (I'd suggest between 12 and 18). Think UA's bloodlines.
- The size changing is a magical ability akin to Enlarge Person. It makes the Giant Fury's equipment grow too. This was done for practical purposes mainly, but also because weapon base damage is not very important at higher levels. A variant is provided that doesn't have the growing equipment for low-magic worlds and/or DM's who want to tone the class down a little
- There are ways to keep control over a Mind Blanking Giant Fury: If a caster lands a Dominate or similar spell on the Giant Fury that caster gets to make the saves instead. If the caster succeeds at these saves the caster has normal control over the Giant Fury, as per the spell. Other mind controlling spells might work too, as per DM's discretion.
- There is a point in not taking this class and staying with regular barbarian:
You maintain control over yourself, you also miss out on the Barbarian's immunity to sneak attacks
- Monstrous rage is a template that is applied instead of the regular rage modifiers. The feats it gives are in addition to any feats you might already have
- The class does not get any extra resistance against mind affecting attacks. This would take away one of the class' main weaknesses, which are vulnerability to illusions/mind control and vulnerability to sneaking/assassins.
Fun comments
"Oh look, an old halfling with an axe. Awww...how cute."
"ME SMASH YOU NOW!!!"
"Holy Cra..."
*SMASH*
(By Tarkahn)
Frenzied berserker was cool, but this is awesome.
(By mr._Tentacles; thank you, I try :smallsmile:)
20+14+10+4+6=54 still. "Let's see. I give up 22 points of attack bonus, to deal 88 bonus damage from Supreme Power Attack. Does the castle still stand?" ;D
(By AtomicKitKat)
Hit Die:
d12
Requirements
Alignment:
Any Chaotic
Feats:
Instant Rage*, Destructive Rage*
*These feats are both in the Complete Warrior.
Base Attack Bonus:
+9
Special:
Rage Class Feature
Class Skills
The barbarian’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skill Points at Each Level
4 + Int modifier.
Table: Giant Fury
Lvl Bab Fort Ref Will Class features
1st +1 +2 +0 +0 Greater Rage, Path of Fury
2nd +2 +3 +0 +0 Damage reduction +1/--
3rd +3 +3 +1 +1 Enhanced Rage: Enlarged: 2/day, Unstoppable Rage 10, Additional Rage 1/day
4th +4 +4 +1 +1 Enhanced Rage +1
5th +5 +4 +1 +1 Damage reduction +2/--
6th +6/+1 +5 +2 +2 Enhanced Rage: Every Rage, Unstoppable Rage 15, Additional Rage 1/day
7th +7/+2 +5 +2 +2 Enhanced Rage: Improved Enlarge, Mind Blank
8th +8/+3 +6 +2 +2 Mighty Rage, Uncontrollable rage, Damage reduction +3/--
9th +9/+4 +6 +3 +3 Unstoppable Rage 20, Additional Rage 1/day
10th +10/+5 +7 +3 +3 Monstrous rage
Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
Giant Fury’s gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Path of Fury
Anyone who takes levels in Giant Fury must take all ten levels of Giant Fury. If a Giant Fury takes any other class or prestige class levels before he has all Giant Fury levels loses all the Giant Fury’s class abilities and cannot gain more levels of Giant Fury.
Greater Rage (Ex): At 1st level, a Giant Fury finds new levels of anger, this increases his bonuses to Strength and Constitution giving him the greater rage ability as the barbarian class ability of the same name.
Additional Rage
The Giant Fury continues to receive additional rage per day. He gets one extra rage at 3rd, 6th and 9th level.
Damage Reduction (Ex)
At second level and every three levels thereafter (5 and 8) the Giant Fury's damage reduction improves by 1 point. The damage reduction gained by the Giant Fury stacks with that gained by the Barbarian.
Enhanced Rage (Su)
From third level the Giant Fury may choose to enhance his rage. He taps into the anger of the world around him, giving him supernatural powers. However, using these powers is risky and the Giant Fury may not be able to contain himself.
The first enhancement makes the Giant Fury grow one size category: height, weight space, reach, AC and attack penalties are determined according to the new size, the Giant Fury gains a further +2 size bonus to strength and constitution and a +2 bonus to natural armor. (Note: the Giant Fury does not get the -2 penalty to dexterity normally associated with growing larger.) With his anger, the Gaint Fury changes the fabric of reality so that his equipment change size with him.
At first this power is only usable twice a day
At 4th level, when using his Enhanced Rage ability, his strength and constitution raise with an additional +1 when raging. His AC receives an additional -1 penalty while raging.
From 6th level onward the Giant Fury can no longer choose whether to use his enhanced rage, the powers of anger know where to find him. Every time the Giants Fury rages he is affected by the Enhancements and finds it harder to contain his anger.
From 7th level the Giant Fury's size grows two size category's when raging, his strength and constitution bonuses from size increase to +4 and his natural armor bonus increase to +3. His equipment grows with him as with Enhanced Rage.
Unstoppable Rage (Su)
When a Giant Fury starts to use external sources of anger he finds them trying to take over, but allowing them to do so gives him access to great powers.
From 3rd level onward, while raging, the Giant Fury may not choose to end his rage prematurely, while there are enemies in sight, unless he uses a standard action and succeeds on a will save DC: 10 + number of rounds left + 2 per rage already used that day.
This DC increases by 5 with every three level of Giant Fury (15+ at 6 and 20+ at 9). The Giant fury may attempt a new save every round he spends a standard action to shake of the powers trying to control him.
for example Kursk's (human brb 9 / gfu 6 with a base con of 14) improved constitution would be 14+6+1(enhanced) +2 (from size)=23 this would give him 9 rounds of rage. He drops his enemy after two rounds and decides to end his rage, this would make his will save DC: 15+7=22, if he fails he may try again next round, the DC would then be 15+6=21. If that day he had already used a rage the DC would be two higher: 22+2=24
Mind Blank
From 7th level a Giant Fury using his rage ability can no longer think straight. He needs to attack and can no longer choose to make a trip, disarm or sunder attempt; he may not choose to deal non-lethal damage and will fight to the death. He also becomes completely unaware of his environment, taking a -10 on all wisdom based skill checks and wisdom checks. When all his enemies are down the Giant Fury rolls a will save each round against the same DC as with Unstoppable Rage, each time he fails his will save roll on the table below. This continues until he makes his will save or the rage wears of, whichever comes first.
Table:
d% Behavior
01-10 The rage wears of. The Giant Fury can act normally again
11-30 Do nothing but scream loudly.
21-50 Flee away from the party at top possible speed.
51-70 Attack the nearest non-living object or animal. (ground excluded)
71-99 Attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the Giant Fury’s self).
100 DM’s Choice
Mighty Rage
At 8th level the Giant Fury gains Mighty Rage, as the barbarian class ability of the same name.
Uncontrollable Rage
Upon reaching 8th level the Giant Fury is no long able to control his fits of anger; anything that would make a man angry could sling the Giant Fury on a destructive rampage.
When losing more then one fifth of his current hit points in one attack or going under half his total HP the Giant Fury will automatically use his rage ability with all bonuses and penalty's described above.
Alternatively anything else that would normally get on his nerves has the potential to strike him off. On such an occasion the Giants Fury must succeed on a will save DC 20 to 30 (DM's discretion) or go into rage, setting his attitude towards the source of his anger as hostile.
Monstrous Rage
At 10th level the Giant Fury becomes a terrible beast when raging; instead of applying the normal effects of rage, apply following template:
Type:
Giant
Size:
Two categories larger than the base creature
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral
Abilities:
+14 strength, +12 constitution, -2 dexterity, -8 intelligence (If this lowers the Giant Fury’s intelligence score below 3, it stays at 3.), -6 wisdom (If this lowers the Giant Fury’s wisdom score below 1, it stays at 1.), -4 charisma (If this lowers the Giant Fury’s charisma score below 4, it stays at 4.).
Feats:
Improved Bull Rush, Awesome Blow.
Special attacks:
The creature gains rock throwing (see Giant in the MM) as a special attack
Special qualities:
DR: 10 / lawful; natural armor +10
Monstrous Rage lasts as long as a raging normally would have lasted. The Giant Fury still needs to make a Will save to end his rage, as per Mind Blank.
Non-growing equipment variant:
In this variant, the Giant Fury's equipment does not change size when he rages like it normally does. Instead,
at 1st level he gets the following class feature:
Improvised Weapons:
You can use trees, rocks, or nearly anything else at hand to attack your foes. Anything from a ladder to a haunch of meat to a barstool is a weapon once you imbue it with your ki using this ability. Regardless of the exact item, the weapon does 1d6 points of damage at your more advantageous number of attacks per round. (This damage increases with size) Most items do bludgeoning damage, although shish-kabob skewers, for example, would do piercing damage. Long items (such as ladders) have reach according to their length, and items with many protrusions (such as chairs) give you a +2 bonus on Disarm attempts. Finally, large items with broad, flat surfaces (such as tables) can be upended to become improvised tower shields.
Giant Fury
http://www.w1k.com/entries/257500/257811BhJF_w.jpg
(image came from http://www.w1k.com)
Every barbarian knows the merits of Rage. The adrenaline pumping through his veins, the breathtaking strength and his ability to soak enormous amounts of hits.
But few barbarians know the true potential of Anger. Many barbarians even try to cultivate their Rage, trying to get it under control.
Giant Furies don’t do that. Becoming a Giant Fury is all about letting go, to let the beast take over and to benefit from the power this brings. While raging, a Giant Fury can blow himself up like a frog, becoming an enormous fighting machine that can crush his enemies beneath his bare feet.
A Giant Fury is not about style, or skill. It’s about hitting as hard and as long as humanly possible, and beyond.
Designer notes/FAQ:
In this section I will explain some of the thinking behind certain abilities and I'll answer some of the questions raised in the earlier topic.
- Path of Fury is intentionally very restrictive. This is because with the power this class delivers, it needs some serious drawbacks. Those drawbacks come for a large part at the later levels (with Monstrous Rage for going out with a bang). But this means that players must be forced to take those drawbacks. Path of Fury does this. A DM can consider relaxing it a little, for example to allow other rage-based classes to be taken in between Giant Fury levels. In this case I'd force a player to take all 10 Giant Fury levels within a certain amount of character levels (I'd suggest between 12 and 18). Think UA's bloodlines.
- The size changing is a magical ability akin to Enlarge Person. It makes the Giant Fury's equipment grow too. This was done for practical purposes mainly, but also because weapon base damage is not very important at higher levels. A variant is provided that doesn't have the growing equipment for low-magic worlds and/or DM's who want to tone the class down a little
- There are ways to keep control over a Mind Blanking Giant Fury: If a caster lands a Dominate or similar spell on the Giant Fury that caster gets to make the saves instead. If the caster succeeds at these saves the caster has normal control over the Giant Fury, as per the spell. Other mind controlling spells might work too, as per DM's discretion.
- There is a point in not taking this class and staying with regular barbarian:
You maintain control over yourself, you also miss out on the Barbarian's immunity to sneak attacks
- Monstrous rage is a template that is applied instead of the regular rage modifiers. The feats it gives are in addition to any feats you might already have
- The class does not get any extra resistance against mind affecting attacks. This would take away one of the class' main weaknesses, which are vulnerability to illusions/mind control and vulnerability to sneaking/assassins.
Fun comments
"Oh look, an old halfling with an axe. Awww...how cute."
"ME SMASH YOU NOW!!!"
"Holy Cra..."
*SMASH*
(By Tarkahn)
Frenzied berserker was cool, but this is awesome.
(By mr._Tentacles; thank you, I try :smallsmile:)
20+14+10+4+6=54 still. "Let's see. I give up 22 points of attack bonus, to deal 88 bonus damage from Supreme Power Attack. Does the castle still stand?" ;D
(By AtomicKitKat)
Hit Die:
d12
Requirements
Alignment:
Any Chaotic
Feats:
Instant Rage*, Destructive Rage*
*These feats are both in the Complete Warrior.
Base Attack Bonus:
+9
Special:
Rage Class Feature
Class Skills
The barbarian’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skill Points at Each Level
4 + Int modifier.
Table: Giant Fury
Lvl Bab Fort Ref Will Class features
1st +1 +2 +0 +0 Greater Rage, Path of Fury
2nd +2 +3 +0 +0 Damage reduction +1/--
3rd +3 +3 +1 +1 Enhanced Rage: Enlarged: 2/day, Unstoppable Rage 10, Additional Rage 1/day
4th +4 +4 +1 +1 Enhanced Rage +1
5th +5 +4 +1 +1 Damage reduction +2/--
6th +6/+1 +5 +2 +2 Enhanced Rage: Every Rage, Unstoppable Rage 15, Additional Rage 1/day
7th +7/+2 +5 +2 +2 Enhanced Rage: Improved Enlarge, Mind Blank
8th +8/+3 +6 +2 +2 Mighty Rage, Uncontrollable rage, Damage reduction +3/--
9th +9/+4 +6 +3 +3 Unstoppable Rage 20, Additional Rage 1/day
10th +10/+5 +7 +3 +3 Monstrous rage
Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
Giant Fury’s gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Path of Fury
Anyone who takes levels in Giant Fury must take all ten levels of Giant Fury. If a Giant Fury takes any other class or prestige class levels before he has all Giant Fury levels loses all the Giant Fury’s class abilities and cannot gain more levels of Giant Fury.
Greater Rage (Ex): At 1st level, a Giant Fury finds new levels of anger, this increases his bonuses to Strength and Constitution giving him the greater rage ability as the barbarian class ability of the same name.
Additional Rage
The Giant Fury continues to receive additional rage per day. He gets one extra rage at 3rd, 6th and 9th level.
Damage Reduction (Ex)
At second level and every three levels thereafter (5 and 8) the Giant Fury's damage reduction improves by 1 point. The damage reduction gained by the Giant Fury stacks with that gained by the Barbarian.
Enhanced Rage (Su)
From third level the Giant Fury may choose to enhance his rage. He taps into the anger of the world around him, giving him supernatural powers. However, using these powers is risky and the Giant Fury may not be able to contain himself.
The first enhancement makes the Giant Fury grow one size category: height, weight space, reach, AC and attack penalties are determined according to the new size, the Giant Fury gains a further +2 size bonus to strength and constitution and a +2 bonus to natural armor. (Note: the Giant Fury does not get the -2 penalty to dexterity normally associated with growing larger.) With his anger, the Gaint Fury changes the fabric of reality so that his equipment change size with him.
At first this power is only usable twice a day
At 4th level, when using his Enhanced Rage ability, his strength and constitution raise with an additional +1 when raging. His AC receives an additional -1 penalty while raging.
From 6th level onward the Giant Fury can no longer choose whether to use his enhanced rage, the powers of anger know where to find him. Every time the Giants Fury rages he is affected by the Enhancements and finds it harder to contain his anger.
From 7th level the Giant Fury's size grows two size category's when raging, his strength and constitution bonuses from size increase to +4 and his natural armor bonus increase to +3. His equipment grows with him as with Enhanced Rage.
Unstoppable Rage (Su)
When a Giant Fury starts to use external sources of anger he finds them trying to take over, but allowing them to do so gives him access to great powers.
From 3rd level onward, while raging, the Giant Fury may not choose to end his rage prematurely, while there are enemies in sight, unless he uses a standard action and succeeds on a will save DC: 10 + number of rounds left + 2 per rage already used that day.
This DC increases by 5 with every three level of Giant Fury (15+ at 6 and 20+ at 9). The Giant fury may attempt a new save every round he spends a standard action to shake of the powers trying to control him.
for example Kursk's (human brb 9 / gfu 6 with a base con of 14) improved constitution would be 14+6+1(enhanced) +2 (from size)=23 this would give him 9 rounds of rage. He drops his enemy after two rounds and decides to end his rage, this would make his will save DC: 15+7=22, if he fails he may try again next round, the DC would then be 15+6=21. If that day he had already used a rage the DC would be two higher: 22+2=24
Mind Blank
From 7th level a Giant Fury using his rage ability can no longer think straight. He needs to attack and can no longer choose to make a trip, disarm or sunder attempt; he may not choose to deal non-lethal damage and will fight to the death. He also becomes completely unaware of his environment, taking a -10 on all wisdom based skill checks and wisdom checks. When all his enemies are down the Giant Fury rolls a will save each round against the same DC as with Unstoppable Rage, each time he fails his will save roll on the table below. This continues until he makes his will save or the rage wears of, whichever comes first.
Table:
d% Behavior
01-10 The rage wears of. The Giant Fury can act normally again
11-30 Do nothing but scream loudly.
21-50 Flee away from the party at top possible speed.
51-70 Attack the nearest non-living object or animal. (ground excluded)
71-99 Attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the Giant Fury’s self).
100 DM’s Choice
Mighty Rage
At 8th level the Giant Fury gains Mighty Rage, as the barbarian class ability of the same name.
Uncontrollable Rage
Upon reaching 8th level the Giant Fury is no long able to control his fits of anger; anything that would make a man angry could sling the Giant Fury on a destructive rampage.
When losing more then one fifth of his current hit points in one attack or going under half his total HP the Giant Fury will automatically use his rage ability with all bonuses and penalty's described above.
Alternatively anything else that would normally get on his nerves has the potential to strike him off. On such an occasion the Giants Fury must succeed on a will save DC 20 to 30 (DM's discretion) or go into rage, setting his attitude towards the source of his anger as hostile.
Monstrous Rage
At 10th level the Giant Fury becomes a terrible beast when raging; instead of applying the normal effects of rage, apply following template:
Type:
Giant
Size:
Two categories larger than the base creature
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral
Abilities:
+14 strength, +12 constitution, -2 dexterity, -8 intelligence (If this lowers the Giant Fury’s intelligence score below 3, it stays at 3.), -6 wisdom (If this lowers the Giant Fury’s wisdom score below 1, it stays at 1.), -4 charisma (If this lowers the Giant Fury’s charisma score below 4, it stays at 4.).
Feats:
Improved Bull Rush, Awesome Blow.
Special attacks:
The creature gains rock throwing (see Giant in the MM) as a special attack
Special qualities:
DR: 10 / lawful; natural armor +10
Monstrous Rage lasts as long as a raging normally would have lasted. The Giant Fury still needs to make a Will save to end his rage, as per Mind Blank.
Non-growing equipment variant:
In this variant, the Giant Fury's equipment does not change size when he rages like it normally does. Instead,
at 1st level he gets the following class feature:
Improvised Weapons:
You can use trees, rocks, or nearly anything else at hand to attack your foes. Anything from a ladder to a haunch of meat to a barstool is a weapon once you imbue it with your ki using this ability. Regardless of the exact item, the weapon does 1d6 points of damage at your more advantageous number of attacks per round. (This damage increases with size) Most items do bludgeoning damage, although shish-kabob skewers, for example, would do piercing damage. Long items (such as ladders) have reach according to their length, and items with many protrusions (such as chairs) give you a +2 bonus on Disarm attempts. Finally, large items with broad, flat surfaces (such as tables) can be upended to become improvised tower shields.