Bear Warrior

[el minster]

I'm thinking about a Barbarian 5/Something 2/Bear Warrior 10/Warshaper 3 but having trouble. Any tips?

[Rebel7284]

The tip I most often hear about taking Bear Warrior is to stop taking levels in it after 5. You gain nothing relevant or interesting for 5 levels until you finally gain, drum roll, an extra +4 Str. It's not nothing, but at level 17, you need to have more relevant abilities than that. Your caster friends just got Wish and Shapechange after all.

Warshaper is good though, although requires a conversation with your DM about exactly how Morphic Weapons work. Can you grow 1 Tentacle? 10? 42? Claws AND Talons?

What do you want the character to do? Adding initiator classes such as Warblade gives you more options in combat.

Frenzied Berserker gives you nice class features, but requires a conversation with your party since you might end up killing them.

Also, if you are going to be fighting with your claws also consider adding Unarmed Strikes with this Alternate Class Feature:

Dragon Magazine #349 City Brawler (Barbarian)

The urban slums you grew up in were as dangerous as any barbarian wilderness.

Level: 1st.

Replaces: If you choose this ability, you do not gain proficiency with martial weapons, medium armor, or shields.

Benefit: You gain Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat, as well as the effects of Two-Weapon Fighting feat when fighting unarmed.

At 6th level, you gain the effects of Improved Two-Weapon Fighting when fighting unarmed and at 11th level you gain the effects of Greater Two-Weapon Fighting when fighting unarmed.

You only take a -2 penalty when using improvised weapons (instead of the usual -4 penalty).

And of course the usual Lion Spirit Totem Barbarian in Complete Champion for Pounce is highly recommended on ANY melee character.

[Gruftzwerg]

I'm thinking about a Barbarian 5/Something 2/Bear Warrior 10/Warshaper 3 but having trouble. Any tips?

I guess that you intend to get pounce and go ubercharger.

If so, I would recommend to thing about Barb 3/ (Chaos) Monk 2 / Drunken Master 2/ Bear Warrior 10/ Warshaper 3.

1. While bear form is nice, it limits you to claw attacks, which translate to no iterative attacks. Unless you get Beast Strike (feat), which lets you add your claw dmg to unarmed strikes. With unarmed strikes you can make use of all the extra attacks you can get from high BAB.

2. When you already dip monk for an unarmed ubercharger, Drunken Master 2 is a good option.
It gives you "Stagger", which lets you do any kind of direction changes while charging. This leads to charge/pounce every turn, despite the enemies position. Further you may bypass any AoO's caused by this with a single (!) tumble roll. High pounce dmg ever turn? Yes pls^^.

[el minster]

that build seems to be unnecessarily complicated and I'm not trying to compete with spellcasters.
I believe you should only be able to have one morphic weapon at a time even if technicaly you could have more.

[tiercel]

“Something” could be Fist of the Forest (Complete Champion), if you have room for the feat prereqs. Getting Con to AC when unarmored isn’t shabby if you want to be a bear anyways, and you get a decent amount in a short space, and would seem to fit thematically to boot.

[noce]

I'd suggest 2 levels of deepwarden before bear warrior.
It's somewhat less powerful than fist of the forest, but it's more thematic and requires a lot less roleplaying limitations (I consider being dwarf a plus).
The only requirement of the class, apart from a couple skills and being my preferred race, is Endurance, a feat you will take anyway in order to get Steadfast determination.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Make a Barbarian who's a Divine Minion (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20050209a) of Osiris and buy off the +2 LA (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm). Turn into a bear whenever you want to and add rage benefits on top of that, or turn into a hawk whenever you want. Go Barbarian 4/ Warshaper 4 and then whatever else you want to take. Dip Warblade or Swordsage for the Hunter's Sense stance if you need to have scent, Swordsage 2 will also boost your AC in bear form. Wear armor with the wild property and put wilding clasps (MIC) on your key items that you want to still function while in bear form. You can even still take Bear Warrior and add the bonuses it grants on top of your wild shape: bear form's stats.

[Thurbane]

Side question: what is generally a better PrC - Bear Warrior or Primeval?

[Rebel7284]

Side question: what is generally a better PrC - Bear Warrior or Primeval?

Generally, Bear Warrior because it is much easier to enter.
Primeaval requires: Endurance , Self-Sufficient, Toughness, bunch of skills vs. Bear Warrior: Power Attack + BAB.

That can change depending on what animal you chose for your 8HD Primeaval form and how the rest of your build supports it.

[dantiesilva]

If you have access to (and are allowed to use it) Berserker (not to be confused with frenzied berserker) found in Deities and Demigods is a good fit for this. I used to run a Barbarian/Berserker/Bear Warrior/ Runescared Berserker and it was a lot of fun for a I hit things and can shape change into things on occasion.

[SirNibbles]

The tip I most often hear about taking Bear Warrior is to stop taking levels in it after 5. You gain nothing relevant or interesting for 5 levels until you finally gain, drum roll, an extra +4 Str. It's not nothing, but at level 17, you need to have more relevant abilities than that. Your caster friends just got Wish and Shapechange after all.

Bear Warrior probably could have and should have been a 5 level class: Black Bear at 1, Brown Bear at 3, Dire Bear at 5. Throw in Scent at 2 or 4. Becoming a Dire Bear at 12th level isn't exactly game-breaking.

[liquidformat]

So again taking more than 5 levels in bear warrior has bad return often taking over 1 level isn't great. Fist of the Forest is pretty much a must take, and Forstrager is a fun and interesting choice, and personally I would replace bear warrior with Primeval it is a much better PRC though the prereques can be a headache.

Personally I like going with Bear Totem City Brawler Barbarian 3/ Wild Shape Ranger 5 (or overwhelming assault monk 2)/FotF2/PrimevalX/(WarshaperX, Frenzied BerserkerX, or FrostragerX) taking both FotF and monk gets both wis and con to AC which in addition to your forms NA can have pretty crazy defense. Taking Dire Puma or Dire Lion are great forms that give you improved grab, pounce and rake. Wild shape ranger is nice to get more uses per day of primal form.

[el minster]

would a DM let me compress bear warrior into 5 levels

[liquidformat]

would a DM let me compress bear warrior into 5 levels

Maybe depends on the DM and power level of the group. If you have a DM open to homebrew with a pretty optimized group then probably, if you have a dm who is pretty controlling and doesn't even allow a lot of the splat books then probably not...

[SirNibbles]

would a DM let me compress bear warrior into 5 levels

It depends. The best thing to do is to just talk to your DM about what you want to do with your character.

[el minster]

yeah but my barbarian is currently level 1