Frenzied beserker VS Roguish win?

[Erebus]

Ok I have an arguement with a friend of mine...

He claims that a 2lvl Barb/4lvl Fight/1lvl Exotic Weapon Master/10lvl FB/1lvl Beserk (3rd edition Deities and Pantheons)/3lvl (unknown) can beat anything that is thrown with a roguish attitude at him. One of his main arguements is that he can wear a mithral full plate +5 Fully fortified therefore making the sneak attack/skirmish/sudden strike/(u name it) dmg useless...

What I need is simple :D

I need a counter build! Already thought of how to eliminate that armor arguement (you can call me antimagic field)...

Already thought of smthng but dunno if it can be done :P scout/ranger (swift hunter) 10 lvls in both class in total and 10lvl Dervish :P only problem is I cant UMD a scroll...:smallfurious:

Any help would be much appreciated :D

Books allowed: Anything official(Races,settings, complete series you name it) no Tome of Battle no Psionics

If you want me I can list some of the feats I know he will take...:D

:o Smthng I forgot to mention :) The fight will be made head on (meaning we will both be aware of each and roll inits) and there will be places where some1 can hide ;)

Thnx in advance :smallbiggrin:

PS just a question I always had :) Can true seeing become permanent or is there an item that can granted?

[Reinboom]

A bit more info please.
Is your 'antimagic field' shaped? :smalltongue:

Or are you relying on a build that shall be pure martial?

[Frosty]

I think a Beguiler will own the FB's soul.

[Tsotha-lanti]

I think a Beguiler will own the FB's soul.

Or an arcane tricksters, for that matter, since the spell you really need is a 1st-level wizard/sorcerer spell. "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up, but boy am I mad!"

[Erebus]

The anitmagic field is as described in the PhB...and yes I would rather prefer a martial build even tho those arcane trickster/beguiler thingies makes me wonder :P

Btw whats the spell you were reffering to? Grease?

If you think more info is required please by all means let me know!

[Frosty]

Yeah, Grease will own the FB. Can the FB even USE Balance when Frenzying? Hell, Dominate Monster or Otto's Irresistable Dance will do the job if you wanna get fancy.

[TheOOB]

A single classed rogue has two viable stratagies in a 1-on-1 fight. Sneak around and sneak attack the enemy, or UMD them to death.

Since sneak attacks don't work, use magic device is your best best. If you must stay martial, get two weapons of wounding, sneak around, and get as many stealth hits as possible and kill em with con damage. The problem is a good FB only needs a round or two of attacks to slaughter a rogue.

PS. make them brilliant energy wounding weapons. Anyone with full plate likely has a crappy ac without it.

[Renegade Paladin]

Arcane trickster, make sure you have grease and calm emotions.

[Erebus]

Cool you guys gave a lot of ideas to think about once I get home from work :smalltongue:thnx a lot! :smallbiggrin:

[Behold_the_Void]

Be it through Arcane Trickster or UMD, you should be flying. After that, target saves until properly defeated. Simple really.

Oh also, Elusive Target (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Elusive_Target,all) can help invalidate most of the damage the FB dishes out.

[lord_khaine]

well you could say that in the case of a arcane trickster its more the wizard part that wins.

and elusive target would just prevent him from taking you out in a singel hit, he could proberly still take you down in a singel full attack, especaly if he critts.

personaly i would recomend you try and take a closer look at shadowdancer, and maybe combine it with a wounding longbow.

[Kizara]

A FB of that level should have a ring of Freedom of Movement and Counterspells (Clam Emoitions), countering most of the common tricks against them.

That being said, an item of flying would certinally be hard for him to deal with.


Using a casting class with an element of rogue is kinda beside the point. It's like using monk 1/druid 19 to prove that 'monks' can beat FBs.

And yea, Elusive Target would be a pretty good and extremely reasonable counter that a rogue could have.

[Kurald Galain]

There are numerous rogue feats, features, or items that let you sneak attack things that cannot normally be sneak attacked... isn't there one of those that lets you pierce Fortified armor?

[Ramos]

Here's a failsafe strategy:

1) The maximum attack bonus of the character is 20 base +12 strength, +5 weapon, +7 frenzy, +2 weapon focus for a total of +46.

2) The maximum AC a rogue/duelist can have when fighting defencively is 10 base, +11 dexterity, +8 intelligence, +1 dodge, +10 duelist, +3 defencive, +5 combat expertise, +8 bracers of AC, +5 amulet of NA, +5 ring of protection for a scary total of 66. This means the Frenzied Berzerker only hits on a natural 20.

3) Elusive Target makes sure he can't Power Attack. Spring Attack makes sure he never gets a full attack. He only hits you once per 20 rounds.

4) Your initiative is +11 dexterity, +4 improved Initiative, +4 duelist for a total of +19. You go first. In addition, you're never flat-footed due to being a rogue.

5) Your attack bonus is +6 rogue, +2 fighter, +10 duelist, +1 weapon focus, +11 weapon finesse, +5 weapon, -5 defence for a total of +30. Given that a frenzied Berzerker doesn't have much AC, you probably hit every time.

6) The maximum frenzy duration is 11 rounds for a fully enhanced constitution, 14 rounds with extended rage. This means there's a 70% chance his frenzy ends before he lands a single hit.


7) Once the frenzy ends close in on meele. You'll hit probably every time with a brilliant energy weapon while he'll hit once per 5 rounds with full attacks and he can't PA. You outdamage and kill him.


Build:
Class: Human Fighter 2, Rogue 8, Duelist 10
Abilities: STR 14, DEX 16, CON 14, INT 15, WIS 8, CHA 8 (30 points)
Lvl up: +5 dexterity.
Items: +5 hardened adamantine brilliant energy rapier, bracers of armor +8, +5 amulet of Natural Armor, +5 ring of protection, +5 tomes of Dexterity and Intelligence, Belt of +6 to all stats (can't remember name) for a total of 717.000 gp. You can save 100k gp if you take separate boosting items for dexterity, constitution and intelligence.

NOTE:
The contest is rendered moot by a vorpal weapon. Then it only matters who rolls a 20 first.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Ramos, isn't the Intelligence bonus to AC the same as the "duelist bonus" (Int bonus to AC up to duelist levels) ?

Burn some feats (4 or 5?) for Greater Two-Weapon Defense and get a +5 defending dagger to get another +5 and +3 when fighting defensively, to counter any unexpected situational bonuses. (You don't have to actually attack with the second weapon, so it doesn't interfere with the Duelist precise strike damage.)

There had to be something the super-AC build can do.

Edit: Oh, and Robilar's Gambit for extra cheese. That +4 to the FB's attack rolls won't be enough to matter.

[Epinephrine]

Funny, I was going to suggest a different option, a scout skirmisher with Hinder and Shot on the Run or similar. If he can't get to you you should win easily, and it only takes a few shots to get him to a 5' movement. I'd avoid spring attack since he can ready an action to smack you, but there's little he can do against Shot on the Run or similar.

Using a mount (scout light cavalry variant?) you can ride and shoot at him. The scout light cavalry option has a paladin-type mount that gains 20' of extra speed and freedom of movement on top of the paladin mount abilities, so you could easily have a 100' movement rate mount. Making full attacks (ranged) from your mount would let you wear him down (I'd still opt for hinder, for safety). You can split with ranger (using swift hunter) for some nice favoured enemy bonuses and boosts to your missile combat style.

I'm not familiar with this armour fortification thing though. I'd imagine that anything that can stay out of range of him will wear him down. A favoured enemy of a swift hunter takes skirmish damage even if he is normally immune to it? Scouts get Hide in Plain Sight and Camouflage, and with a single level of Wild Plains Outrider your mount shares these, so you can do sniping in wooded territory just fine even. I forget the feat (Woodland Archer?) that offers a moving sniper option, which allows you to snipe from hiding and move, making you effectively invisible.

[lord_khaine]

2) The maximum AC a rogue/duelist can have when fighting defencively is 10 base, +11 dexterity, +8 intelligence, +1 dodge, +10 duelist, +3 defencive, +5 combat expertise, +8 bracers of AC, +5 amulet of NA, +5 ring of protection for a scary total of 66. This means the Frenzied Berzerker only hits on a natural 20.

im pretty sure the use of combat expertice and fighting defensively wont stack, and that you have to wield a defensive weapon to get the bonus from it.
even then, i still think this is a brilliant way of beating him, just get a defensive weapon with wounding on it, and you should be able to take him down in a straigth fight.

[Nebo_]

im pretty sure the use of combat expertice and fighting defensively wont stack, and that you have to wield a defensive weapon to get the bonus from it.
even then, i still think this is a brilliant way of beating him, just get a defensive weapon with wounding on it, and you should be able to take him down in a straigth fight.

This is what happens when you don't read the rules. They do, in fact, stack.

[Arbitrarity]

A dark (ToM), whisper gnome(RoS) swordsage(ToB) might be able to dish out some pain. Get a couple of counters, for dodging, and make heavy use of Stalker in the Night and the higher level shadow hand strikes. Attack, disappear. Rinse and repeat. He'll frenzy after the first attack, so just sit back, with +60'ish hide, and laugh. As soon as it wears off, hit and run his exhausted body to death.

EDIT: Headdesk over blindness. Ok, so we need a different damage dealing method. The basic idea works, but we need damage from a different source.

Hm. It's probable a factotum/chameleon with FOI could win through sheer ridiculousness. (40 INT? Yes please).
Or, do the above, but with darkstalker, and be a rogue. Grab wounding/greater wounding weapons, and hit and run him down. That counts as damage.

[senrath]

A FB of that level should have a ring of Freedom of Movement and Counterspells (Clam Emoitions), countering most of the common tricks against them.

That being said, an item of flying would certinally be hard for him to deal with.


Using a casting class with an element of rogue is kinda beside the point. It's like using monk 1/druid 19 to prove that 'monks' can beat FBs.

And yea, Elusive Target would be a pretty good and extremely reasonable counter that a rogue could have.

Alright, he has a ring of Counterspells with Calm Emotions in it. Simple fix: Move out of reach of the FB and cast Calm Emotions twice. The ring only works once before you have to put a new spell into it.

[mostlyharmful]

Pump Hide and MS, get a sling. lob pebbles at him until he dies. laugh as his level 20 ultimate powerhouse smachanator is defeated by a stip of leather and some rocks you picked up. Seriously, if he can't beat your stealth (and if you pump it he shouldn't be able to, even after you sling stuff at him) then he's toast short of very expensive magic shinanigans.

And as has been mentioned there's ways around fortification.

[SamTheCleric]

Wait, is this just a head on fight? That's stacking the deck and the only way to survive is jacking the AC or going spellcaster as recommended above.

If it's got terrain... you could always go for Sniping. I can't imagine his spot check will be that fantastic... and you can't hit what you can't see.

Edit: Ninja'd!

[Vortling]

Anything official? There's an alternate class feature in Dungeonscape that lets a rogue have half sneak attack damage against things that are normally immune to sneak attack instead of getting trapsense. I'm AFB at the moment so I'm not entirely sure it works against armor fortification.

[Ramos]

Ramos, isn't the Intelligence bonus to AC the same as the "duelist bonus" (Int bonus to AC up to duelist levels) ?
Nope. Duelists get BOTH intelligence AND their class level as bonus to AC when fighting defencively IN ADDITION to the defence and tumble bonus.


Burn some feats (4 or 5?) for Greater Two-Weapon Defense and get a +5 defending dagger to get another +5 and +3 when fighting defensively, to counter any unexpected situational bonuses. (You don't have to actually attack with the second weapon, so it doesn't interfere with the Duelist precise strike damage.)
Don't have the feats for that-but don't need it anyway. Improved Combat Expertise can increase the AC a bit and it is only one feat.


There had to be something the super-AC build can do.

Actually, this super-AC build is sub-par due to the OP requesting a rogue (so I put in the 8 perequisite rogue levels). Now, if you replace rogue with Hexblade/Rogue/Blackguard you also have insane defences vs spells. Add a luckstone or two and you're good to go.

[Chronos]

6) The maximum frenzy duration is 11 rounds for a fully enhanced constitution, 14 rounds with extended rage. This means there's a 70% chance his frenzy ends before he lands a single hit.Why are you letting him even make attack rolls while he's frenzying/raging? Just spend those rounds hiding from him. Once the rage is over, then you start hitting him, while he's without the use of his primary class feature, and fatigued to boot.

Heck, spend your time hiding to get far away from him in a random direction, spend a day digging a deep pit, putting some spikes on the bottom, and covering it over with some loose brush, and then show yourself and taunt him from the other side of the pit.

Or if you want to take less than a day, use a Portable Hole for the same trick. Then fold it up once he falls in, and wait for him to suffocate.

Sneak Attack only enters into the equation if you want to give up the use of the rogue's primary tactics, and Use Magic Device, while effective, isn't all that rogueish a way to do it.

[its_all_ogre]

Nope. Duelists get BOTH intelligence AND their class level as bonus to AC when fighting defencively IN ADDITION to the defence and tumble bonus.
.

i checked the dmg and it does not state adding duelist level to ac anywhere?

[tyckspoon]

i checked the dmg and it does not state adding duelist level to ac anywhere?

Level 7 feature, Elaborate Parry. Gain level to AC as a dodge bonus when fighting defensively.

[Behold_the_Void]

Might want to try to squeeze a few more points out of the AC build, with Barbarian he'd be foolish to not take Lion Totem Barbarian for the Pounce ability.

And I'd say so long as you're being rogue-ish about it, you should be able to dip as many classes as he did so we should be going for broke on the optimization here.

[Talic]

Books needed: Drow of the Underdark, Complete Arcane, Races of the Wild.

The core of the build is Warlock 1 (Invocation: Darkness), Rogue 10 (Halfling Racial substitutions). Take Woodland Sniper, Able Sniper, and Blend into Shadows. Your Armor? Leather +1, Greater shadows, greater silent moves.

Now, Max your hide and move silent, and get a ranged weapon that deals additional energy damage.

You move out of sight, and activate darkness on something, and use blend into shadows as a swift action to hide in plain sight. That's round 1.

Thereafter, you can snipe every round with a final modifier for sniping of -6. (Halfling rogue 10 lessens penalty from -20 to -10, able sniper lessens it to -6). At level 16, with a +4 dex item, and 4 boosts into dex, you have a 28 dex. That's 19 ranks, +4 size, +15 armor, +9 dex. Total hide mod: +47.

You snipe every round at a +41 to hide. You hide after sniping as a free action. You move in conjunction with that free action, if you've successfully sniped last round. Now, you can hide like a champ, and whittle him away, and who cares if he's got heavy fort?

He'll never. even. see. you.

EDIT: If you have the space to spare, Elusive Target, from Complete Warrior. It'll negate all power attack damage he does, as well.

[mostlyharmful]

bare in mind that at level 20 the WBL of any character that isn't a full caster is almost more important than their class features, certainly so for straight melee builds. If he can't fly he's toast, if he can't find you he's toast. If he can pull gate-cheese or time dilation effects then it becomes not about the frenzied berserker but about candles of Gouda or whatever.

Personally I'd go straight Rogue20 and use standard rogue tactics of hide and snipe. If he beats that with cheese then just laugh at him, if he takes you on with an overpowered melee ability and zip spot/listen then you own his pudgy ass, whatever.

FB is one of those oddities where their strenghts are only useful in a team that can deliver them to the end point bad guy without any magic tomfoolery, yet they have an obvious drawback to working in a team with anyone. It's only a good class if you look at the numbers they churn out and NOTHING else.

[Talic]

The point though is, if FB can optimize a bit of number (melee damage), then rogue should be able to optimize a number too. (hide)

One side has armor to nullify rogue ability. The rogue has armor to nullify the barb/FB location abilities.

Darkness/HipS is only to counter arena choice. Wide open plains favor the fighter, and this provides a way to even the odds.

A good rogue uses the terrain. A great rogue makes his own hiding spots.

Edit: This also works well in groups, with +6d6 sneak with sling, ability to infiltrate, set up flanks and the like. In addition, the Cause overreach in Elusive target is useful in many situations, if used with wise use of readied actions.

[Jastermereel]

Can your roguish build use Pixie as its race? Greater Invisibility and Sneak Attack sound so very nice together. Having a good flying speed is just icing after that. Yeah, it'll cost you some levels, but you might not need much in the way of hide skills at all after that.

[Talic]

Nah, pixie is too easily stopped by anything that Sees invisibility. The trusty hide check is more reliable.

[Riffington]

As a minor point, you can in fact use Balance while raging.

[Riffington]

Also, why if his argument depends on fortification armor, why doesn't he just take 17 levels of Barbarian so that he's immune to sneak attacks from you?

[mostlyharmful]

As a minor point, you can in fact use Balance while raging.

But can you do it while Frenzied? I thought Grease took them down because they can't use dex based skills, Rage is different.

[Squash Monster]

That balance thing is the trick. Just get a bag of marbles.

[Dullyanna]

Also, why if his argument depends on fortification armor, why doesn't he just take 17 levels of Barbarian so that he's immune to sneak attacks from you?

Part of the thing is that he apparently does a far better job of destroying things in melee than a barb 17/whatever 3 could. The fortification just makes him less susceptible in melee.

Anyway, I believe it'd be more amusing to take him down in close quarters, as opposed to just sniping him, although both would prove that he's vulnerable to a well played/built rogue.