Druid/Barbarian Epicness

[Yeowan]

Recently I played in a campaign with a friend that was mostly a druid, but he took a dip in barbarian for rage. It was mostly to be fun and give the party a laugh. He ended up turning into a raging bear wielding a great club. The DM ruled the club was okay in favor of epicness.

Getting to my point, his character was our heavy-hitter for sure. He could cast shillelagh, wield his weapon two-handed, power attack, rage, and have bull's strength on-going and do crazy damage multiple times a turn. Plus other party members sometimes gave him other buffs.

Now I am wanting to make a character off of a similar premise. What would be the best way to "hit things really hard?"

I'm wanting to stay mostly within druid/barbarian territory, but if there are variants or classes very similar to those classes that I should look at, then that is fine. Prestige classes and magical items are another thing I would like to have more information on.

General concept thus far is to get at least 2nd level spells for bull strength. Beyond that I'm not familiar enough with barbarian builds to know where to go.

[nedz]

You could just play a straight Druid with the Druidic Avenger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druidVariantDruidicAve nger) ACF. This might give you what you want.

[Troacctid]

Seconding Druidic Avenger. It sounds like exactly what you're looking for.

Don't bother with Bull's Strength, though, it's not worth the action cost. Try the Bite of the Were-X line of spells from Spell Compendium—they're much more impactful.

[Hiro Quester]

Druid with a bit of barbarian flavor is Druidic Avenger for sure. But stopping with second level spells ruins the effect. You want wildshape. Lots of wildshape. If you don't care much about the spells, Druidic avenger/Master of Many Forms can be awesome. Drop a level of monk in there for improved unarmed strike and power attack (acf), and add some Fist if the Forest in there and you have an angry animalistic bruiser for sure.

[Bronk]

Druid Avenger does sound awesomely close to what you want, but if you're going to throw a level of barbarian in there anyway, it might as well be the level one Lion Totem Barbarian ACF for pounce, which works well for a melee fighter both in and out of wild shape.

[nedz]

Druid Avenger does sound awesomely close to what you want, but if you're going to throw a level of barbarian in there anyway, it might as well be the level one Lion Totem Barbarian ACF for pounce, which works well for a melee fighter both in and out of wild shape.

It does delay Wildshape, and more importantly spells, but it does add more ANGER to the character.

[Hiro Quester]

Keeping up to 9 levels of Druid in the mix would be good, for access to Bite of the Weretiger spell. That buff (+12 str and +4 dex, +6 con and +5 Natural Armor, plus use of blindfight and power attack, plus bite and claw attacks) on top of a large wildshape (polar bear, or dire lion for pounce--cat forms give you pounce even without that lion totem barbarian level) and rage will make you totally unstoppable in melee.

One level of monk gets you iterative unarmed strikes plus all your natural weapons of your form at -5. Unarmed strikes are improved by large, huge, gargantuan size.

So something like monk or barbarian 1/ Druid 9/ master of many forms 10 will make you the kind of awesome melee force you describe.

[Yeowan]

I'll look at the druidic avenger for sure, but I was actually debating on the shapeshifting. The problem I saw was that by time my friend got wild shape he was already stronger than nearly anything he could turn into. He also happened to be a half-orc. Though, the bite of the were-x spells do seem to be an improvement I was looking for. Not sure how I feel in regards to using natural weapons. Was really hoping to keep the great club.

The other reason I wanted to stick with barbarian is for a better BAB. Maybe not necessarily needed due to strength buffs, but I do know some things that we fought had some crazy AC. Also, I envision the character I want as the kind of guy that the massive damage rule is in there for. I'll definitely look into these suggestions, but does anyone have further info for something like that?

[Troacctid]

You can use a club and natural weapons in the same full attack. The manufactured weapon is considered the primary weapon, and all natural attacks are secondary.

The natural attacks from the spells don't actually matter, though, because you already have claw-claw-bite as a bear. You'd just be using them as a much bigger version of Bull's Strength.

[Yeowan]

My DM may have been lenient with the bear wielding a club. I assume most DMs or at least the rules would not allow for a bear to use a weapon.

[Hiro Quester]

The good thing about the Druid Wildshapemethod of beating on bad guys, is that wildshape replaces your physical stats with those of the form you take. So you can invest your points in other stats. Wisdom and Con (your own con affects your hit points) are important, int is good for skil points. But you can dump str send dex.

At fifth level then you can become an animal with very high strength and bite claw claw attacks.

Then at Druid 8 you can become a dire bear with very high strength. Or dire ape, with a large greatclub, with shillelagh cast on it (making it do damage like a gargantuan club).

Plus Druid casting, which does not suck, esp for self-buffs.

[DrMotives]

My DM may have been lenient with the bear wielding a club. I assume most DMs or at least the rules would not allow for a bear to use a weapon.

Yes, the rules say you as a bear can't. However, there is Rule Zero, and the Rule of Cool, which tend to override anything else.

[Yeowan]

The good thing about the Druid Wildshapemethod of beating on bad guys, is that wildshape replaces your physical stats with those of the form you take. So you can invest your points in other stats. Wisdom and Con (your own con affects your hit points) are important, int is good for skil points. But you can dump str send dex.

Then at Druid 8 you can become a dire bear with very high strength. Or dire ape, with a large greatclub, with shillelagh cast on it (making it do damage like a gargantuan club).

Plus Druid casting, which does not suck, esp for self-buffs.

Hm... That may be another character I make. The dire ape/club combo is very appealing. I had never thought of a shapeshifting character that actually uses weapons.

However, the problem is it turns the concept on its head. This would be a pretty standard druid build focusing on being a wimpy caster that shapeshifts. I'm thinking more of a burly man-beast that is pretty intimidating on his own, but does have a bit of magical power to enhance his burliness. Think of Conan the Barbarian with an innately magical capability of making himself even more physically imposing without turning into something else entirely.

EDIT: And isn't the downside of wild shape/shapeshifting the whole losing the ability to use magic items?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Bear warrior?

Or how about a divine minion barbarian/frenzied berzerker?

[Hiro Quester]

Ooh. Yeah. Bear warrior. Your rage turns you into a bear and adds +8, + 16, or +20 to your strength (also buffs dex and con).

Start with some mix of barbarian and cleric (for a few levels of buffing spells, plus the ability to use wands with cleric spells), then Bear warrior after you have BAB 7.

Edit: plus bear warrior bear form is based on polymorphed/alter self, rather than wildshape/alternate form. That means that you can wear and use magical items, and your bear form keeps wearing them.

And you can get magical gloves that give your wild form hunanoid hands. So if you wore those, you could keep using your weapon and use the bear's bite as secondary attack.

[eggynack]

What's the problem with a club wielding bear? If it's the item thing, then I think you'd be safe from melding because the club isn't worn. If it's the handedness thing, then I suggest picking a non-humanoid race, and using fangshields druid substitution levels from champions of valor for the ability to manifest hands in a wild shape. Sweet ability, that. Anthropomorphic bat is usually the way to go for a non-humanoid, and wild shape removes the issue with the low stats. I suppose you could use mouthpick weapons or something, but that's so boring compared to the awesome of a bear with hands.

As for items in general, the usual baseline solution is to remove your items, wild shape, and then have a team mate put them back on. The more consistent solution is using wilding clasps from the magic item compendium on all of your items. Bit of a tax on item use, but it does the job quite well.

Edit: Yeah, gloves of man would do it too. Bit expensive, but the picture for the item is amazing, so there's a trade off there. I'd tend towards the fangshields approach myself, as it costs you nothing but your racial selection.

[Grod_The_Giant]

However, the problem is it turns the concept on its head. This would be a pretty standard druid build focusing on being a wimpy caster that shapeshifts. I'm thinking more of a burly man-beast that is pretty intimidating on his own, but does have a bit of magical power to enhance his burliness. Think of Conan the Barbarian with an innately magical capability of making himself even more physically imposing without turning into something else entirely.
Hmm, yeah, sounds like a Bear Warrior build might do you just fine, with some mix of Druid, Barbarian, and Druidic Avenger. Maybe a Shifter for more early touches of magic? A bit of Totemist would also work, but that's 3.5's most obscure subsystem.

The Shapeshift ACF for Druid is a pretty substantial power drop, but it's a lot of fun and Druid can certainly take the nerf. Use Wild Cohort to get your animal companion back and maybe ask if the ability boosts can be something other than Enhancement.

[daremetoidareyo]

Lion Totem Whirling Frenzy Traphunter (Ranger ACF) Mimic (Rogue ACF from EoE) Deadly hunter Druidic Avenger Druid 6, Knowledge devotion (knowledge arcana), 2 terrible exalted feats
Sentinel of bharrai 3
Shapeshifter (OA) 1

At level 1. Wisdom to AC, monk's fast movement, disable device on skill list, disguise self 1/day, pounce, whirling rage, favored enemy. (Can even be traded again for favored enemy arcanists!)

ability to assume bear form at level 9.

9/10 casting, Wildshape 3/day at level 10.

You can replace sentinel of bharrai 3 with Swanmay 1 if you trade out the two terrible exalted feats with two other different terrible feats. This gives you the shifting ability, which you can turn into wildshape with shapeshifter from OA. You lose 2 spell casting levels with this, but you get wildshape earlier and you don't have to blow a feat on knowledge devotion to get knowledge arcana added to your skill list. However, you have to be a female and an angry swan for a level.

Lion Totem Whirling Frenzy Traphunter (Ranger ACF) Mimic (Rogue ACF from EoE) Deadly hunter Druidic Avenger Druid 5
Swanmay 2
Shapeshifter 1

[Yeowan]

I'll definitely look into that. Bear warrior sounds good and I'll see what I can do for gear and magic items. Would the general consensus be that a cleric is a better buff caster than druid? My buffs would have to be getting applied before raging obviously. To bad a quickened spell takes so many spell slots higher.

If I did go cleric what feats would be recommended?

Same for druid, what feats would be recommended?

[Hiro Quester]

I think the cleric list might be slightly better for buff spells. But for augmenting your own abilities Druid is not bad at all. But most of the druid's buffs are the same kind of enhancements to abilities and NA that the bear warrior will provide. Cleric might have better options there. I know more about Druid than cleric.

But druid's shilelaugh spell can be awesome for increasing damage (wield X large club and do damage like its a gargantuan club). Plus you get entangle for battlefield control. Plus the heart of X spells provide some good effects for hours/level that you can expend for rounds/level freedom of movement, stone skin, etc.

You would probably want feats like extend spell to make your buffs last longer (esp if you don't get your caster level very high).

But more than that you'd probably want combat feats like power attack, cleave, improved grapple, etc. a level of monk with overwhelming attack style gets you WIS to AC when unarmed, three good saves, +2 to intimidate, and improved unarmed strike and power attack feats.

Edit: of course, Druidic Avenger gets you the ability to rage, increasing rage uses per day that probably stacks with barbarian (this ability replaces your animal companion, and you do t get to spontaneously summon).

A cleric's ability to spontaneously burn spells for healing might be good on a primary melee character.