Monk... but Barbarian

[SadFaceNinja]

Ok, so I have a player who wants to play a bear totem barbarian. He does not want to use weapons, and plans on relying heavily on grapple. We are currently level 7, and he is just joining. We plan on playing to level 20. He took two levels of rogue to get tumble. And wants to do 5 levels of barbarian. He would like to take his next level in reaping mauler. My fear is that his character will be too invested in feats just to qualify for reaping mauler, and won't have anything but a good grapple. Any ideas on what might help this build out? I know he could pick up superior unarmed strike which will help with unarmed damage. He does not want to be a monk, so that's out of the question. We are playing tomorrow, so I know it's asking a lot but any advice would help.

[SadFaceNinja]

Forgot to mention that all 3.5 book are available, just no Dragon Magazine.

[Flickerdart]

Spirit Bear Totem (CChamp) is much cooler than Bear Totem since you get Improved Grab. This way he can punch someone smaller than him and then get a free grapple from it.

[Telonius]

Generally my advice would be, don't go into Reaping Mauler unless the DM is house-ruling away Clever Wrestling.

Have you looked at Unarmed Swordsage? Setting Sun might be up his alley. A Barbarian flinging enemies left and right could be a pretty cool concept.

[Rebel7284]

Reaping Mauler technically stops working if you are no longer medium (Clever Wrestling). This is pretty weaksause.

Consider Black Blood Cultist if he is evil.

Also, Fist of the Forest does the whole "Monk but Barbarian" impression super well. Make sure the RP implications are acceptable in your campaign though. Never sleeping in a man-made structure can be hard.

[Darrin]

I'd steer him towards Fist of the Forest. You get the monk's unarmed strike ability, but can ignore the rest of the awfulness of being a monk. Most everything else you can refluff with feats/ACFs: Snap Kick and/or TWF does a decent job of Flurry, Slow Fall can be replicated through a variety of means, and so forth.

[Dread_Head]

Is your player committed to taking Reaping Mauler? It's not a very good class and won't improve his build much. You are better just going for ways to increase size and get grapple bonuses that way.

If they really want Reaping Mauler then use the skilled city dweller acf from here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) to trade ride for tumble so the rogue dip becomes unnecessary. Taking classes like Fist of the Forest to boost his unarmed strike damage and Bear warrior to boost his strength while raging should help. Something like

Bear Totem Barbarian 5 / Reaping Mauler 1 / Fist of the Forest 1 / Bear Warrior 1 / Reaping Mauler +4 would be a much stronger build than Barb 5 / Rogue 2 / Reaping Mauler X.
Feats would look something like:
1. Improved Unarmed Strike
B. Toughness
B. Improved Grapple
B. Great Fortitude
3. Clever Wrestling
6. Power Attack

[ComaVision]

Psychic Warriors make good grapplers.

[Blackhawk748]

Im gonna toss out Leviathan Hunter (i think thats what its called) its from Stormwrack and it makes you good at grappling big things, also Thirding Fist of the Forest, its a great PrC for the Monkbarian

[AvatarVecna]

Monk/barbarian is a decent combo if you can find a way around the alignment thing without losing class features. barbarian strength added to unarmed strikes while ubercharging with Greater Mighty Wallop active makes for tons of damage. unarmed Swordsage also works out well, as does the chaos monk from dragon compendium. Gonna give another vote to FotF for the increased unarmed strike damage, Con mod to AC, feral stance, and scent. Also, you can throw on a Barbarian PrC for greater Str, like Frenzied Berserker or Bear Warrior.

[bekeleven]

Im gonna toss out Leviathan Hunter (i think thats what its called) its from Stormwrack and it makes you good at grappling big things, also Thirding Fist of the Forest, its a great PrC for the Monkbarian

Leviathan Hunter is the easiest book-based way to get clever wrestling without qualifying for it. So if he wants reaping mauler, use LH as a stepping stone.

[Metahuman1]

Suggest he also pick up Spirit Lion Totem form Complete Champion.

Dips into Warblade and Unarmed Swordsage and Psy-warrior are awesome for builds like this. So many good powers and maneuvers to pick from for extra attack options and self buffs. (While often over-looked, Stone Dragon has 2 nice 3rd level stances that can help a Lot. One of which is a +10 vs combat maneuver checks of various kinds, and it basically stacks with every other bonus you can pick up. The other let's you constrict on your grapples for 1.5 Str to damage and like, +2d6 to boot. And that one doesn't even come with the Stone Dragon issues with moving. )


Now, Reaving Mauler is a horrible, horrible trap class that will actively make you WORSE at grappling. Unless your gonna do some serious refitting of it, I'd strongly suggest telling him it's a no go and to put the feats elsewere.


Snap Kick, Superior Unarmed Strike, and if you can squeeze it in, Hammerfist are all excellent feats that are totally worth picking up.

(Aside: If he's not gonna be doing any actual spell casting, Mage Slayer would be pretty slick too.)

Oh, and don't forget, Necklace of natural weapons, like Amulet of Mighty Fists, only cheaper for just unarmed strikes or unarmed and 1 slam attack source, and more versitile in letting you put propertys on it. Get it.

One last thing, consider letting him have bought off up to 1 LA already and already making up the XP from it when he joins, and having him join with an LA 1-2 Race and/or Template Combo. Some good one's are Half Minotaur, Half Oger (Primordial helps those mental stat penalty's.), Feral, Loath Touched (Probably need to refluff that one.), Half Giant, Goliath, Stony, Dragonborn, and Water Orc. Apply 1 or 2 or maybe 3 of these and you can get a lot of solid stuff for 0 or 1 LA that way, which will help since Grappling needs a lot of help, particularly if your not a wizard or druid.