New to 3.5. Help with a natural weapon character.

[terramex]

Hi all, I am new to 3.5 and have been asked to make a 5th level character for a campaign with a bunch of friends. I am particularly interested in playing a demonic evil type character. Perhaps ranger/rogue but I would really like to use natural weapons, say claws and teeth. From what I have read it is possible to have grapple and natural weapon style of play? I was thinking an almost savage animal style character focused on combat, climbing, running sneaking and can survive with minimal gear etc that may not even be welcome in towns.

I was hoping some kind souls here could point me in the right direction or give me some suggestions of specific supplements to look at.

Thank you all in advance.

[Troacctid]

The totemist (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050907a&page=3) from Magic of Incarnum sounds like a great fit for your concept.

[daremetoidareyo]

Troacctid is correct. Totemist is right up your alley. It does require reading the most difficult D&D sourcebook to understand. I swear Magic of Incarnum needed an editor who didn't stink.

[Falcii]

If you are desperate for a nonincarnum option, I am a big fan of the shape shift variant druid from phb2 and reflavoring it's forms into focuses. Bonus, it opens up warshaper which is arguably one of the best natural weapon prcs ever

[Zaq]

Troacctid is correct. Totemist is right up your alley. It does require reading the most difficult D&D sourcebook to understand. I swear Magic of Incarnum needed an editor who didn't stink.

Bah, MoI's nothing compared to Weapons of Legacy. Even after the Legacy Champion round of Iron Chef, I still don't feel comfortable with those mechanics. (There's some inelegant parts about the way MoI is written, no argument, but I wouldn't call it "the most difficult.") That said, terramex, if you need help understanding how Incarnum works, there's lots of us who would be very happy to explain it.

Anyway, yeah, Totemists are awesome, and they're your go-to folks for natural weapons. Another good option would be the Psychic Warrior (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/psychicWarrior.htm), which is available on the SRD for free if you don't happen to have a copy of Magic of Incarnum. Your main power there would be Claws of the Beast, but there's also Bite of the Wolf, along with all the supporting powers that make melee combat shine (Psionic Lion's Charge, for example).

[Troacctid]

A fun demonic-type race could be the spiker (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040706a). You're like a humanoid whose body is covered in metallic spikes.
http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/ex_spiker.jpg
Spikers can use their natural spikes as a weapon, and deal extra damage every time they make a successful grapple check.

Darfellan (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/dx0805ex_Darfellan.jpg) could be fun too. They're like orca-people. They have a natural bite attack and a racial bonus to Strength.
http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/dx0805ex_Darfellan.jpg

Daelkyr half-blood is also pretty great if you have access to Eberron material. They have these creepy symbionts that attach to their bodies and make them look all weird and gross but also provide some sweet abilities, including natural attacks.
http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/moe_gallery/91495.jpg
Daelkyr half-blood seen here on the left with the gnarly arm and the freaky shadow. (The one on the right is a warforged.)

[terramex]

Thanks for your quick responses! I am at work right now but will look into it all your suggestions later. I think the campaign is set in the beast lands at the moment, I really like some of the shapshifter feats, stuff like great rend etc but would prefer a character that doesnt have to shift. If there was a race that was essentially a razorclaw then that would be ideal! Or if there was a troll which wasnt LA+5, the Gruwaar sounded interesting too. I didnt notice any feat options or anything to add claws or bites to an existing race. I think that I read that in pathfinder years ago.

[terramex]

Troacctid is correct. Totemist is right up your alley. It does require reading the most difficult D&D sourcebook to understand. I swear Magic of Incarnum needed an editor who didn't stink.

You are correct, reading all of that nearly broke my mind. So if I understand correctly you basically bind abilities to your chakras and can use them like shifter transforms a certain number of times per day at differing intensities?

I also quite liked the effect of the favored of the fiends variant from favored soul, except I am not really interested in a caster of any kind.

[Troacctid]

Soulmelds do not have limited daily uses.

Totemists have a long list of soulmelds available to them. At the beginning of each day, a 5th level totemist picks four of them. Those four are constantly active until and unless you decide to replace them with new ones. You can change them from day to day if you like, or pick the same ones each day, up to you. These are your shaped soulmelds. At higher levels, you can shape more soulmelds at a time.

Of those four shaped soulmelds, the 5th level totemist may choose one to upgrade to a more powerful effect. For example, the Pegasus Cloak that normally only helps you jump higher will now also allow you to fly. This soulmeld is bound. You can change your bound soulmeld every day, at the same time you choose your shaped soulmelds. At higher levels, you can bind more soulmelds at a time.

Soulmelds occupy chakras. Chakras are connected to different areas of your body. You can shape soulmelds in any chakra slots, but no more than one soulmeld can occupy the same chakra at the same time, and you can only bind soulmelds to chakras that you have opened. A 5th level totemist has opened the crown, feet, and hands chakras, as well as the special totem chakra that only totemists can access. Her bound soulmeld must be bound to one of those four chakras. New chakras can be opened as you level up.

Additionally, you have a pool of essentia. Essentia is like extra power that can turbo-charge your soulmelds. As a 5th level totemist, you have 3 points of essentia, and you can invest a maximum of 1 point into a single soulmeld, or 2 if that soulmeld is bound to your totem chakra. Essentia can be moved between soulmelds at will, so you might start out with a point in your Kruthik Claws to improve your stealth, and when a fight starts, you could move it to your Girallon Arms to improve your damage. As you level up, you gain more essentia, and the maximum you can invest in a single soulmeld increases.

[bahamut920]

You are correct, reading all of that nearly broke my mind. So if I understand correctly you basically bind abilities to your chakras and can use them like shifter transforms a certain number of times per day at differing intensities?

I also quite liked the effect of the favored of the fiends variant from favored soul, except I am not really interested in a caster of any kind.
Basically, soulmelds are almost like equipment. Each one occupies a slot on the body (most, but not all, of which correspond to the magic item slots) and only one can be in a slot at a time. Soulmelds can be either shaped (which offers a small benefit and allows the soulmeld to "share" a slot with a magic item) or bound to one or more slots (which generally offers more abilities but blocks off that magic item slot).

Essentia is a small pool of points which can be invested into your soulmelds, class features, feats, or even certain spells and magic items as a swift action. Investing essentia improves the bonus granted by the meld, feat, spell, or item, generally by increasing a numerical bonus. Barring some feats and spells, essentia investment is not permanent and can be reassigned at will; indeed, the rules expect you to be switching essentia around willy-nilly to account for different needs. You might invest your essentia in the girallon arms one round to get an enhancement bonus to your claw attacks, then switch that essentia to your totem avatar the next for defense. Then, once the combat's over, you assign it to your pegasus cloak to fly over the pit trap and pull the lever to disable it.

I've also done a natural weapons build as a half-dragon warblade, specializing in Tiger Claw maneuvers and taking the feats to get wing and tail attacks. Not the most efficient or optimized build, but it got the job done. You could probably do the same thing with a half-fiend (although their LA is even worse) or find some way to get claw attacks through a heritage feat or magic item. A dip in psychic warrior and a psychoactive skin of the claw can get you at-will claws.

[terramex]

Ok so I may indeed go with a totemist, I am still getting my head around what I can do at this stage and willlikely be back on here very soon asking for some clarifications! Thanks you all so much for your help.

[zyggythorn]

Razor claw Shifter warblade, specializing in tiger claw is probably not far off from what you would like. Normally, most ToB (Tome of battle) styles are tied to a certain group of weapons, the Tiger Claw has claws and natural weapons as a favored weapon (iirc). Additionally, Warblade has access to the wonderful Iron Heart style, which is well known around here for it's 2nd level maneuver Iron Heart Surge. This is basically clearing off a negative condition with your own willpower, which is nice with a martial character.

[terramex]

I am having trouble understanding this sentence

"When a totemist wishes to bind a soulmeld to her
totem chakra, she must choose a different chakra for that
soulmeld to occupy. Regardless of the chakra occupied by
the soulmeld, however, the totemist can bind it to her totem
chakra"

Does this just mean that to bind a soulmeld to your totem chakra that it moves from another chakra to your totem?

[Extra Anchovies]

I am having trouble understanding this sentence

"When a totemist wishes to bind a soulmeld to her
totem chakra, she must choose a different chakra for that
soulmeld to occupy. Regardless of the chakra occupied by
the soulmeld, however, the totemist can bind it to her totem
chakra"

Does this just mean that to bind a soulmeld to your totem chakra that it moves from another chakra to your totem?

The totem does not represent a physical part of your body, but the soulmeld still has to occupy a specific body slot. When you shape your soulmelds, you can't put more than one soulmeld in the same body slot without the Double Chakra feat. So when you decide on a soulmeld that you want bound to your totem chakra, you need to pick one of its other possible body slots (listed in the meld's description) for it to physically occupy, and thus to exclude other soulmelds from occupying. So if you have Brass Mane bound to your totem, it still has to be shaped to your throat, locking you out of other throat-chakra soulmelds.

[terramex]

Oh Ok I got it now, thanks. What else would you guys consider to make the totemist effective? totem combos etc. I was considering the orca race for the extra bite.

[bahamut920]

There are also several options for binders (from Tome of Magic) who want to focus on natural weapons. Amon grants a ram attack, Chupoclops a bite (and pounce), and Ipos grants two claws and rend.

[Zaq]

Choosing a race with preexisting natural weapons (warforged is my favorite choice, but darfellan is fine too) is never a bad idea. You'll likely eventually want the Multiattack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#multiattack) feat to make your secondary natural weapons better, but it doesn't have to be your top priority, since while it makes your numbers a fair bit better, it doesn't give you any new abilities.

Getting Pounce (the ability to make a full attack after a charge) is important. Binding the Sphinx Claws to your Hands chakra gives you Pounce, so that's easy once you can afford the bind. (Check with your GM to see if the Open Least Chakra feat gives you an extra bind that you wouldn't usually have or if it requires an existing bind, thereby making it paradoxically way weaker for actual meldshapers than for dabblers.)

You may want to eventually pick up some manner of bonus damage, but how much you need and what forms are appropriate really depends on the power level of the game/group in question.

[terramex]

Ok so the totemist is out, the DM doesn't have loads of experience and only a little with 3.5 (still more than I do) so she wants to keep it reasonably vanilla for now. Trying to stick to base classes and races for the most part although she has said she will be a little flexible for me to make my build work since she is expecting some specific stuff from me in the adventure she is writing.

She wants me to be a tiefling preferably or some other demonic/beastly creature.since I am starting at level 5 I am thinking this will work if I can find rules to get claws and bite and go barbarian, adding black blood cultist and thayan gladiator (not vanilla but easier for her and the group to understand) So my questions are how to go about this, what levels would you recommend I take where etc to get the most out of it.

My character is basically Chewbacca to an evil Han Solo ranger and we betray the group near the end of the adventure (with options to redeem in another adventure). I think I am supposed to almost fill the role of a pet beast/wildman companion to him and not really relying much on equipment (I guess imagine a naked scratchy bitey thing living in a cave that would eat your babies at night)

[zyggythorn]

First thing to do then is ask what books are allowed, with that, we can help you much better than if we assumed all books are on the table.

As far as mostly core options go, you are pretty limited- I would honestly suggest ye olde Punch-Barian for your build, and lesser teifling as your race.

For the build:

Battle Dancer 1/ Spirit Lion Barbarian 1/Battle Dancer +3 would work.

Battle Dancer is basically a less-sucky Monk, but Cha based, and more importantly, Chaotic aligned. With lesser Teifling you give up your SLA's, but also get rid of your icky LA. If planetouched tieflings are okay, then use that, instead. (Lose [outsider, native] subtype, LA, gain [Humanoid, planetouched] subtype)

[schreier]

I would consider, if Dragon Magazine is allowed, a wild shape variant Monk, then move into Fist of the Forest.

For race - if Dragonlance is allowed, I really like the Ursoi - big bear warriors. If not:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?229494-Low-LA-Races-With-Natural-Attacks

Feral template is awesome for +1LA (even more so if you can add it to Ursoi)

Kenku is another cool option
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040912b&page=4

[terramex]

Is feral template part of official rules?

[Troacctid]

Is feral template part of official rules?

Yes, it's found in the Savage Species book. It's a pretty good deal for +1 LA, although the rules for hit dice and level adjustment are very confusing, so I'm not sure I'd recommend it to someone who doesn't have a strong grasp of how it works, especially when the DM is also inexperienced.

[terramex]

Yes, it's found in the Savage Species book. It's a pretty good deal for +1 LA, although the rules for hit dice and level adjustment are very confusing, so I'm not sure I'd recommend it to someone who doesn't have a strong grasp of how it works, especially when the DM is also inexperienced.

I had a look at it previously and thought it was for 3.0?

[zyggythorn]

I had a look at it previously and thought it was for 3.0?

By and large, 3.0 material is legal if it hasn't been updated.

[terramex]

Feral template is really cool and is what I was looking for but yes it is a little complicated. Are there any feats or bloodline type rules that can be used to add claws or bites to a regular race?

[schreier]

If you're willing to spend 3 feats:
Dragontouched ( Dragon Magic, p. 18) - gain dragonblood subtype. minor bonuses (hit point, small skill and save bonuses) -- most importantly, can take draconic feats as if a sorcerer of your character level

Draconic Heritage ( Races of the Dragon, p. 102) - Requires sorcerer (or Dragontouched) - (small save bonuses but qualify for other feats - and can use other elements per dragon type selected with other dragon feats) - (doesn't matter for you though, other than to qualify for dragon claw)

Draconic Claw ( Races of the Dragon, p. 102) Requires Draconic Heritage and sorcerer (or Dragontouched) - gain claw attack (two claws) - (Small 1d4, Medium 1d6, Large 1d8)