Optimize This Feat-Tough As Nails

[JNAProductions]

Tough As Nails
Your body is very tough, breaking lesser weapons that are used to attack you.
Prerequisites: Undying, Shock Resistant, Con 13+
Benefits: When a weapon strikes your body, it takes damage equal to half the damage it inflicts after damaging you.

Undying requires Con 13+, allows you to act normally when disabled, a 15% chance per round of spontaneously stabilizing, and others have +4 to checks made to stabilize you.

Shock Resistant requires Con 13+ and Undying, and makes you immune to death by massive damage saves.

So, how do we make Tough As Nails kick ass?

[weckar]

Is there the assumption that this feat ignores hardness? Or what? I can't really think of a default scenario here.

[JNAProductions]

Is there the assumption that this feat ignores hardness? Or what? I can't really think of a default scenario here.

It does not ignore hardness. Which is why I'm asking for help.

[Ursus Spelaeus]

Well, for one thing, nobody is going to want to use unarmed strikes or natural weapons on you.

[Gildedragon]

Well. One wants to have DR rather than AC. So guessing Adamantine Body Warforged?

Vulnerable Flaw is probably a must.

The Good Karma feat to intercept attacks seems apt

The feat seems sunder-happy so bypassing the weapon's hardness is probably essential

This is more for melee weapons as ammo breaks regardless... Arrow snatching?

Vow of Peace or a Starmantle cloak seem related to the build...

[JNAProductions]

DR reduces the damage you take, and therefore the damage the weapon takes.

I think Fast Healing or especially regen would be better.

[weckar]

Bypassing hardness through conventional means will be tricky as there isn't a strict damage source; neither you nor the weapon. The damage just happens.

[Inevitability]

Well, I'd look for a way to not destroy magical weapons. These tend to be more useful than a pile of fancy scrap.

Failing that, take Craft Wondrous Item to repair the magic stuff.

[Deox]

AFB (so I can't check the wordings), but I'm wondering how this feat would interact with the Share Pain power.

[weckar]

Well, I'd look for a way to not destroy magical weapons. These tend to be more useful than a pile of fancy scrap.

Failing that, take Craft Wondrous Item to repair the magic stuff.
Can magic weapons even be sundered, normally? :smallconfused:

[martixy]

AFB (so I can't check the wordings), but I'm wondering how this feat would interact with the Share Pain power.

Share Pain is in the SRD, and everything relevant to the feat is in the OP.
Basically, it would interact badly, for our purposes. Same problem as with DR. Fast Healing/Regen is the way to go here.

Now Vigor... that's another story. Having a reliable way of obtaining loads of temp HP will help with survivability.
Not much with making the feat more effective per hit, but you get to stay up for more hits.

One can definitely make a strong argument for Adamantine body Warforged. Not so much Starmantle.

Anything that will modify the damage has to have a target it can be applied to. So if weckar is right and we have no target upon which to put properties, it limits options severely. Like maybe to environmental effects?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Can magic weapons even be sundered, normally? :smallconfused:
Yes, a magic weapon can be sundered just fine, though it gains additional hit points and hardness based on its enhancement bonus.

[ben-zayb]

It helps a tanky (with high HP instead of AC) AoO character a bit in its role, either by damaging the foes or their weapons. Robilar's Gambit also gives a +4 to damage rolls, which means 2 more damage from Tough as Nails.

[JNAProductions]

It helps a tanky (with high HP instead of AC) AoO character a bit in its role, either by damaging the foes or their weapons. Robilar's Gambit also gives a +4 to damage rolls, which means 2 more damage from Tough as Nails.

That's not a bad idea. The issue is, though, hardness. 12 points of damage to deal any damage to wooden weapons, and 22 minimum for metal.

[Deox]

Share Pain is in the SRD, and everything relevant to the feat is in the OP.
Basically, it would interact badly, for our purposes. Same problem as with DR. Fast Healing/Regen is the way to go here.

Now Vigor... that's another story. Having a reliable way of obtaining loads of temp HP will help with survivability.
Not much with making the feat more effective per hit, but you get to stay up for more hits.

One can definitely make a strong argument for Adamantine body Warforged. Not so much Starmantle.

Anything that will modify the damage has to have a target it can be applied to. So if weckar is right and we have no target upon which to put properties, it limits options severely. Like maybe to environmental effects?

Good call. I definitely think Vigor / Fast healing is the way to go. What I'd like to know is if there are any ways to willingly increase damage taken from a source. More specifically, allow vulnerability to inflate the damage being dealt back to the weapon?

[Gildedragon]

Spells: Fire in the Blood
If one is going to be smacked around one might as well spray death onto whoever hits one

The Pathfinder spell Blood to Acid might be good... Provided one is immune to acid and to nausea

The extraterrestrial template from d20 modern follows in that vein

[TheIronGolem]

A renewable source of temporary HP would be hugely helpful. Martial Power from Path of War would be great if we're allowing 3PP Pathfinder content. Even a wand of False Life would be useful.

[Morphic tide]

Okay, there's two things to optimize, here: Getting really hard to kill with HP damage, easily solved with one of the surprisingly standard weakness-ignoring Regeneration types, and becoming very easy and important to hit.

For the hard-to-kill, apply Dread Blossom Swarm Symbiote to get Regeneration on a decent beatstick of another sort. Here's the thread about the whole situation of Dread Blossom Swarm Symbiotes. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?259833) You get three bonus feats, Regeneration bypassed by Fire and Cold, Plant and Swarm traits, 10 skill points, poison with DC 17 Fort save paralyze for one round primary, paralyze for one minute secondary in a 15 ft. radius, and all for +1 LA or +6 CR. The Symbiote template forgets to have the CR of the symbiote count towards LA. To cover the weaknesses, we take either take a level of a rage-granting class to go Blazing and Frozen or template out the weaknesses.

For the important-to-hit, we can go into Druid or Cleric fairly well as a Dread Blossom Swarm Symbiote, thanks to having a notable Wisdom bonus. If going caster seems to be silly, we can instead go for a more conventional beatstick role as a Crusader of some description. The Host of the template may also have abilities requiring the enemy to go after you.

[flappeercraft]

You could go the Necropolitan Pugilist route to mitigate damage. IIRC supposedly you still take damage but pugilist instantly converts it to nonlethal and undead traits make you immune to such thing which make you go unharmed but following the interpretation that seems most common from my experience (Not necessarily most common in these boards though) it should work

Edit: Remembered the feat requires Constitution so ignore the Necropolitan part, you could replace that with something like Favor of the martyr though and still make it work.

[Paddywagon Man]

Trobriand's Crystalbrittle? 3rd level spell, reduces one metal object to hardness 1 and 1 hp/inch. Although if you need to be using 3rd level spell slots to sunder weapons (and still take damage once each from them) something's not going so well.

[flappeercraft]

What about Dark Speech from BoVD, specifically the Corruption section of it. This could work perfectly to reduce hardness to half of the original, although since it is a full-round action maybe something like a Belt of Battle should be used in conjunction with it or simply use all your actions to get rid of weapons.

[Dagroth]

Well, for one thing, nobody is going to want to use unarmed strikes or natural weapons on you.

Are natural weapons considered "weapons" by the rules though? Or are they Natural Attacks, thus not Weapons... thus not affected by this feat?

[Waker]

I'm a little surprised no one mentioned any soulmelds. Vitality Belt can grant a huge boost to HP, giving you Essentia X Meldshaper lvl= Bonus HP. Mantle of Flame is another ok one for this, enemies striking you with natural/unarmed attacks or non-reach weapons take 1d6 fire damage per point of essentia invested.

[Gildedragon]

Are natural weapons considered "weapons" by the rules though? Or are they Natural Attacks, thus not Weapons... thus not affected by this feat?

Figure they (thus the creature) take damage from the attack.
Makes monks very sad

[Dagroth]

Figure they (thus the creature) take damage from the attack.
Makes monks very sad

Logically, it makes sense they would.

By RAW, they don't.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Ideally, you want to be unkillable via hit point damage, have a low AC, AND have a way to take more damage from attacks-- that seems like it should be easier than AoE hardness reducers, somehow.

[flappeercraft]

Ideally, you want to be unkillable via hit point damage, have a low AC, AND have a way to take more damage from attacks-- that seems like it should be easier than AoE hardness reducers, somehow.

You can cover the unkillable via HP damage through Hide Life. If you're not a caster you could always UMD a scroll or something. Low AC is easy enough, get a low dex race and preferably large size such as a Earth Dwarf with Permanencied Enlarge person with no points in dexterity and additionally the pathetic flaw for a score of 2 in dexterity, to add to that take the Vulnerable flaw and you have an AC of 5 which is low enough at that point. To take more damage from attacks I have absolutely no idea. To reduce hardness you could always use Dark Speech

[Deophaun]

Ideally, you want to be unkillable via hit point damage
The problem is, if you're unkillable via hit points, then why do you care? It's like focusing all your attention during a battle on mowing the lawn: the lawn's not relevant to the fight. Obviates the need for the feat, which is the opposite of optimizing it.

[Ellrin]

The problem is, if you're unkillable via hit points, then why do you care? It's like focusing all your attention during a battle on mowing the lawn: the lawn's not relevant to the fight. Obviates the need for the feat, which is the opposite of optimizing it.

Presumably at the same time that you're making yourself unkillable, you're also making yourself a sufficiently difficult to ignore target that you're drawing attacks away from the rest of the party.

Of course, if you're actually unkillable via HP damage, eventually your DM is going to get sick of roleplaying that each new group of enemies doesn't know this and he'll start throwing a lot of non-weapon attacks at you; and regardless, if the enemies are all attacking you and not the party, then it still doesn't matter whether their weapons are taking damage or not, so never mind, your point is totally fair.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Two levels incarnate, bind Crystal Helmet to crown chakra. Take Karmic Strike, Robilar's Gambit, Improved Sunder, Combat Brute, the Aggressive trait, and the Vulnerable flaw. Hope your DM allows [force] melee attacks to ignore hardness.


Okay, Tough as Nails isn't that important in this, but incarnate gives you a solid base to get healing and defence on (see my signature), and you're rather good at sundering sundry items thrown your way.

[Telonius]

Well, for one thing, nobody is going to want to use unarmed strikes or natural weapons on you.

That depends. Is the damage "reflected" the same type of damage that's inflicted? I'm sensing some free healing shenanigans for positive and negative energy effects.