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    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Nov 2011

    Default Re: [PF] Anger Management: A Pathfinder Guide to the Barbarian

    Feats


    -When you've got muscles this big, even moving them that much is pretty impressive.

    In you career as a Barbarian, you'll have 10 feats gain from levels (with possible additional feats from race or multiclassing), so you need to spend them wisely - don't go for things like Acrobatic that give +2 to two skills.

    The only "necessary" feat in a game that allows the APG is Raging Vitality, though standard damage increases like Power Attack should be snagged pretty quickly for most builds.

    Power Attack is the single biggest damage increase a full BAB class can get from a Pathfinder feat; Raging Vitality is the single biggest increase to survivability a Barbarian can get from a Pathfinder feat.

    To be completely clear: You only need two feats to be a competent Barbarian - Power Attack and Raging Vitality. Everything else is pure bonus.

    Once you have those two down, consider some of these:

    Always Good

    - Improved Initiative - The creature that acts first usually wins battles. Make sure you're that creature

    For Increased DPR

    Furious Focus - Removes the Power Attack penalty for the first attack of a round. Best at levels 1-5 when you're probably only getting one attack to begin with and your first attack of the round has a decent chance of missing. Worse later on when you'll almost always hit with your first attack in the round.

    Weapon Focus - It's a bonus on attack rolls. If you're in a position to use the same weapon all the time (and you're not going to be switching to a better weapon every few encounters), it's a decent pick-up.

    Spoiler
    Show
    Core Feats

    Bleeding Critical/Blinding Critical/Deafening Critical/Tiring Critical-> Exhausting Critical/Sickening Critical/Staggering Critical-> Stunning Critical -
    Blind Fight -
    Catch Off-Guard-> Improvised Weapon Mastery -
    Cleave -> Great Cleave-
    Combat Expertise -> Improved Trip -> Greater Trip -
    Combat Reflexes-> Stand Still-
    Master Craftsman-> Craft Magic Arms and Armor -
    Critical Focus -
    Weapon Focus -> Dazzling Display-> Shatter Defenses -
    Endurance -> Diehard
    Dodge -
    Double Slice -
    Exotic Weapon Proficiency -
    Extra Rage -
    Improved Bull Rush -> Greater Bull Rush -
    Improved Disarm -> Greater Disarm -
    Improved Grapple -> Greater Grapple -
    Improved Overrun -> Greater Overrun -
    Improved Sunder -> Greater Sunder -
    Great Fortitude/Lightning Reflexes/Iron Will (and Improved GF/LR/IW)->
    Two-Weapon Fighting-> Improved Two-Weapon Fighting-> Greater Two-Weapon Fighting -
    Vital Strike-> Improved Vital Strike-> Greater Vital Strike -
    Improved Critical -
    Intimidating Prowess -
    Leadership - Probably the most broken feat in the game. A second character for the cost of one feat? Sure. Don't take it unless you're in an extremely high-power campaign, and even then.
    Lunge -
    Deadly Aim/Point-Blank Shot/Rapid Shot/Many Shot/Other archery feats - If you're an archer, take them. If not, don't.
    Mounted Combat-> Ride-By Attack-> Spirited Charge -
    Step Up -
    Strike Back -
    Toughness -
    Trample -


    Equipment



    -Every bit helps.

    -

    Bonus: Why Not the Archer Barbarian?


    -A confused Barbarian attempts to learn the Way of the Bow. Soon, he will learn the Way of the Smack People with Stick

    There are three very important reasons why an Archer Barbarian does not belong in an optimization guide.

    1. Archery builds require at least two feats to be competent (Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot), and generally two more to be good (Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim). If you are not Human (or another race that gets a bonus feat), you will not be competent until level 3, and you will not be good until level 7; that's a long time to wait. "But! But!" you say. "I can dip Fighter for bonus feats!" Yes, my son, but why not just play a class that's good at what you want to do in the first place?

    2. You get bonuses to Str and Con when raging, not to mention fast movement and a whole slew of Rage Powers that mostly only work with melee attacks (and occasionally thrown weapons), all of which synergize perfectly with melee. Yes, you could be an Urban Barbarian, but then you're giving up half your stat bonuses (you'll only get the bonus to Dex, not to Con or Str as well); that's not to say you couldn't try it to have fun, but this is an optimization guide, not a fun guide (though I try my best).

    3. There are other classes that do it better - Fighter, Ranger, Zen Archer Monk, Gunslinger, hell, even the Paladin has a decent ranged archetype. If you want to play a wilderness guy who shoots arrows, go for the Ranger and focus more on grunting and flexing your muscles; we'll understand.

    Bonus: The Bloodrager

    A few quick thoughts about the bloodrager:
    -Overall, you should treat the bloodrager as a very involved archetype of the barbarian.
    -Bloodrager makes you a little more MAD because you actually need Charisma.
    -Spells are good, even if they come online late. You don't get many of them, but you still have a total of 13 per day at level 20 before bonus spells from Charisma.
    -You do not get rage powers (one of the defining features of the barbarian) baseline. This is sad.
    -You can immediately get them back with the Primalist. This is good!
    -However, you must give up some of your normal bloodrager bloodline abilities to do so. This is a dilemma.

    Look at it this way: You can either pick a bloodline with really awesome abilities that you wouldn't want to give up anyway, or you can pick a bloodline with complete sh*t abilities and trade them away for awesome rage powers. This means that ultimately, your level 1 bloodline power is the only one you really have to care about.
    Last edited by Novawurmson; 2014-09-13 at 09:48 AM.
    Tier System for Classes | Why Each Class is in its Tier
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    Quote Originally Posted by CTrees View Post
    Knowledge (local) being trained only, and not a class skill for many classes, means that your average human may well not be able to identify other humans! This may explain the exceptional quantity of half-human hybrids.