Totem barbarian

[LordDeath666]

I used to play totem barbarian years ago and just went to look at the variant again and realized the lion totem doesn't have pounce any more. Does anyone know why?

[DeTess]

There's two Lion totems, one with pounce and one without. The one with pounce is in 'Complete Champion'.

[Darrin]

There's two Lion totems, one with pounce and one without. The one with pounce is in 'Complete Champion'.

The totems in Complete Champion are "Spiritual Totems", and the Pounce ability is usually referred to as "Spirit Lion Totem" or "SLT" for short.

The Lion totem in Unearthed Arcana (UA) gets Run as a bonus feat. I will send you $1.00 (U.S. dollar) if you can send me verifiable proof if you have ever used the Run feat in an actual game.

Note that you *can* combine some of the UA totems with the Spirit Lion Totem. SLT only requires you to trade away Fast Movement, but some of the UA totems don't trade away Fast Movement: Horse Totem and Wolf Totem. The former gets you Run (same offer), while the latter gets you Improved Trip without the prereqs. So you may frequently see a Barbarian 2 dip with Spirit Lion Totem paired up with Wolf Totem (possibly noted as SLT+WT). Swapping Rage for Whirling Frenzy (Unearthed Arcana p. 66) is also a popular Alternative Class Feature (ACF). You could also trade Rage for some Ranger abilities: Favored Enemy and Archery Combat Style as a Ranger (Unearthed Arcana p. 58).

If you want Fast Movement back, you can get that with Simple Ranger 1 (same page), take Favored Enemy: Arcanist (Complete Mage p. 32), trade Track for the Trap Expert ACF (Dungeonscape p. 12), and trade Wild Empathy for Spiritual Connection ACF (Complete Champion p. 50).

ACFs are nifty.

[LordDeath666]

Why are you offering me money

[Darrin]

Why are you offering me money

I was just trying to make a point about the uselessness of the Run feat.

[daremetoidareyo]

I can confirm its worthlessness

[Elkad]

I will send you $1.00 (U.S. dollar) if you can send me verifiable proof if you have ever used the Run feat in an actual game.

Sadly I can't verify it, but I have used it. And seen it used.

I had Run and the 5' movement speed feat. Don't remember why, I sure didn't pick it on purpose.
Wearing medium armor, so my speed was ceil(35*(2/3))=25 (movement being one of the few things that round up).

Run multiplied that to 125'. Just enough for me to escape from a nasty moving 120'. (though if you wait until the end of the x5 to do the rounding, it would have been 120')

I've had players use it in other situations. Generally for something like moving across an open field to get to melee range of an archer.

Oh, one more. I (well, my creature) poisoned the Wizard, who took a bunch of con damage. And then hit the party with Fear and the Wizard turned a 1.
Monster died the same round. Cleric's turn. He takes off in pursuit of the panicked Wizard, Slow Poison at the ready. But the Wizard has Run, so he's pulling away.
9 rounds later, the Wizard stops running. He's opened up a 270' lead by this point. And he has to save again next round.
He sprints back towards the party. 150'. The cleric runs 120' towards him. They meet at the end of the cleric's move.
Wizard's turn. Time is up, save for secondary poison damage. Fail. Dead.

[ComaVision]

The Lion totem in Unearthed Arcana (UA) gets Run as a bonus feat. I will send you $1.00 (U.S. dollar) if you can send me verifiable proof if you have ever used the Run feat in an actual game.


I've seen it used on a charger for the Jump bonus. I probably have the character sheet in my "graveyard" somewhere.

[PacMan2247]

The Lion totem in Unearthed Arcana (UA) gets Run as a bonus feat. I will send you $1.00 (U.S. dollar) if you can send me verifiable proof if you have ever used the Run feat in an actual game.

I don't want the dollar, but I've done it. I played a psionic horse (the whole campaign was weird like that); went out of my way to bump his tactical speed (I don't remember the specifics of the build, but it was close to 100), did the math and figured out that when actually running, he was moving at highway speeds.

[Mordaedil]

The Lion totem in Unearthed Arcana (UA) gets Run as a bonus feat. I will send you $1.00 (U.S. dollar) if you can send me verifiable proof if you have ever used the Run feat in an actual game.
Can I present a case for a time I wished I had taken run instead?

We had just caught the mayor as being a shapeshifter and counter-spelled his fireball, whereupon he started running away across the fields towards his hideout, but he traveled south, turning east, recognizing this, I took running directly east, hoping to cut him off, while the melee characters charged him and attempted to grapple him. Turns out he had freedom of movement cast on him. I was able to use run to move in a straight line instead of moving through alleys and across difficult fields, and while I couldn't quite move fast enough to catch him, my familiar moving at 40 feet per round, while dashing at 160 feet, could catch him.

He also cast expeditious retreat to move faster and that extra 30 feet per round would have been nice at that point to prevent him from getting away.

Sadly, we were all too smart to take that feat.

[Dimers]

Oh, one more. I (well, my creature) poisoned the Wizard, who took a bunch of con damage. And then hit the party with Fear and the Wizard turned a 1.
Monster died the same round. Cleric's turn. He takes off in pursuit of the panicked Wizard, Slow Poison at the ready. But the Wizard has Run, so he's pulling away ...

Huhhuh. Slow poison. No, poison too fast. :smalltongue: