Junkyard Wars XLI - Spellcasting + Rage - Rage Mage

[pabelfly]

Trox, Shaped By War



(music)

NG Saint Frostblood Half-Orc Barbarian 1 / Cleric of Heironeous 3 / Ordained Champion 4 / Flux Adept 10

"The claim that 'war never changes' is both true and false. True, because every war is the same fight, the same struggle, the same cosmic battle, differing only in the details. And false, because no man can fight a war and not be changed by it."

Spoiler: Ability Scores and Languages

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Level 4, 8, 16 increases go to Strength, level 12 increase goes to Wisdom.

	STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
Array	15	10	14	14	14	12
Racial	17	10	14	12	14	10
Post-ASIs	20	10	14	12	15	10
Post-Sainthood	20	10	16	12	17	14

Known languages are Common, Orc, and Draconic. Upon acquiring the Saint template, this is largely superseded by Tongues.

Spoiler: Backstory

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Spoiler: Initiation

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The half-orc, clad in the white robes of an acolyte, shifted slightly in his chair. Across from him, the senior priest smiled politely, the stylized silver swords around her neck clanking together as she shifted position.

"Worry not, Trox of Yrthak Pass. Many a mercenary has found faith fighting side by side with the Shining One's church. There might be much for you to learn still, but our temples come well-equipped, and every priest shall be your instructor. Teaching the strong in matters of worship is little different from teaching the devout in matters of battle."

Trox muttered a word of thanks, and almost made to leave when he realized the priest had another thing to say.

"That said, before you begin your training... I have a question, more of a riddle, perhaps. This is unrelated to your initiation: it is simply something I like to ask new devotees. Can I pose it to you?"

The orc nodded.

"Humans, orcs, dwarves, elves, halflings; all were created by the gods. In that creation, we can already find the potential for war: the strength to wield weapons, the frailty to be killed by them. But why did the gods make it so? Why allow for their creations to kill one another? Why not give us the stony hide of gargoyles, which no spear or blade may pierce? Why not the vitality of trolls, that may survive even beheading? Or, if need be, why not remove our strength, and thus make violence impossible? The gods are neither cruel nor short-sighted: they must have known their design capable of great evil: why did they not make it less so?"

The orc reflected on that question. "How long to answer?"

The elderly priest smiled at that question.

"Why, Brother Trox, I've pondered it for sixty years and still not found an answer. If you find one ere I die, I will be pleased."

Spoiler: Heterodoxy

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Pale Dirt. A narrow peninsula, blasted by the northwestern ocean gale, home to smattering of farms and three tiny villages. The church of Heironeous kept a small shrine in the largest of them, maintained mostly out of an age-old obligation to station a priest in 'each border County of the Kingdom, for Education and Training of the Guard'. Earth's End had no guard: it had two dozen militiamen, half of which showed up to any given drill. On occasion, a stray ogre would wander in from the highlands, they'd scare it off, and that was that.

In other words, Pale Dirt made for a perfect spot to reassign any turbulent priests to. And Trox, more and more distrusted by his peers, had been deemed turbulent enough. The half-orc, tasked with little other than staying out of the way, spent his time praying, helping the villagers out where possible, and training his body to peak human ability.

He found the peak of human ability to be... insufficient.

Spoiler: Armageddon

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Demons poured forth from the hole in reality, uncaring that their summoner had been slain. The paladins, clerics, and other warriors that had penetrated the enemy formation had gambled on the fact that her death would end the spell: now they were surrounded on all sides by fiends, the main force too far away to help.

Esther the Just, commander of the regiment, cast spell after spell, each felling more demons that were just as quickly replaced by their brethren. She was going to die here, but at least some of those abominations would die with her.

A commotion to her right. A small figure split off from the main force, charging through the demons' ranks towards their position. A hopeless endeavor: already the fiends were attacking from all sides, blasting it with frost and lightning, calling out in unholy tongues. There the figure fell, barely halfway to their position, and what difference could it have made there? No, what she had witnessed was nothing but foolish bravery, an-

A golden light began to emanate from where the figure had been standing. A few demons began screeching, the din of battle still not enough to drown out their cries. Speechlessly, Esther watched the figure rise again, fight off its attackers, and advance, sword held before it. No ordinary sword, she realized: far bigger than the one-handed blades most of the church used. It almost reminded her of...

With a final mighty charge, the figure landed in the midst of the beleagured paladins. Immediately, the demonic attack faltered: the monsters halting their attack as if kept at bay by the radiance alone.

"Greetings, teacher." the figure spoke in a language Esther had only heard from the mouths of angels. She looked on in awe as he turned and smashed headlong into those stronger demons that still dared approach.

The figure, no, Trox, that initiate-turned-heretic, stood proud and radiant. Yellow flames enshrouded his teal body, heating his mail to a dull red glow. Two great swollen hands were clasping an inchor-covered greatsword, their nails lengthened and thickened into claws. The wounds demons had dealt him were closing before her eyes, somehow failing to be more than skin deep anywhere. Blood and sweat dripped off of him, a greenish tinge to both substances. The orc almost looked like a madman's painting: all bright colors and clashing lights, yet there was something utterly divine about him.

In that moment, she realized he had found the answer to her question long, long ago.

Spoiler: The Flux of War Heresy

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The war between Good and Evil, in all their many facets, trumps all else in importance. Evil will inevitably reject peace, and when it does, Good must be prepared. Faith alone is not enough: it must be backed by martial skill. Wars must be fought, and we should fight then on the side of Good. In all this, the church of Heironeous is correct.

But the church fails to answer why war is inevitable. A million possible worlds are conceivable where violence itself does not exist, where disagreement is impossible, where conflict has no point. If nothing else, we can imagine a world like ours where all receive some form of invulnerability: why did the gods not create that? A mere apostate might call their power limited, their motives cruel, their foresight fallible, but we reject these lies.

The answer is this: a skin that cannot be cut by swords cannot be cut by scalpels. A hand that cannot forge weapons cannot forge the tools of reason. The frostblood orcs of old would drink the blood of dragons, suffusing them with frozen power: a body that rejects all poison would have rejected this gift, too. However paradoxical, we were made frail so we may twist ourselves away from frailty.

What is war, then? A confrontation with our limits, and a challenge to exceed them. A reminder that mere humanity may not be sufficient to avoid death, a proving ground for those who seek to venture beyond. War is, on a cosmic scale, nothing more than a question posed by the gods: our own bodies will be the answer. The gods granted their creation the capacity to change: we would dishonor them by making no use of it.

---

Those who adopt this heresy typically choose a greatsword as their weapon. The symbolism is straightforward: the symbol of their god, simply made greater, as a plain example of the self-improvement they strive towards. Among those clerics who aren't Ordained Champions, Chaotic Good alignments are common.

Spoiler: Build Table

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Skilled City-Dweller Barbarian 1	+1	+2	+0	+0	Climb 4, Knowledge (Nature) 2cc, Knowledge (Local) 1cc, Literacy 2, Sense Motive 4, Tumble 4	EnduranceB, Extra Rage	Illiteracy, Rage, Spiritual Totem (Lion)
2nd	Cloistered Cleric 1	+1	+4	+0	+2	Craft (Alchemy) 1, Heal 2, Knowledge (Arcana) 1, Knowledge (Religion) 3	Weapon Focus (Longsword)B	Lore, Turn Undead, Knowledge Domain, War Domain, Courage Domain
3rd	Cloistered Cleric 2	+2	+5	+0	+3	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (2), Heal +1 (3), Knowledge (Arcana) +3 (4), Knowledge (Religion) +2 (5)	Heretic of the Faith(Greatsword, Planning), Weapon Focus (Greatsword)B, Extend SpellB	Planning Domain
4th	Cloistered Cleric 3	+2	+5	+1	+3	Heal +2 (5), Knowledge (Arcana) +3 (7), Knowledge (Religion) +2 (7)	-	-
5th	Ordained Champion 1	+3	+7	+1	+5	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (4), Knowledge (Arcana) +1 (8), Knowledge (Religion) +1 (8)	Power AttackB, Intuitive AttackB	Destiny Domain, exchange granted powers of Knowledge and Destiny domain, Continued Advancement, Modified Spontaneous Casting
6th	Ordained Champion 2	+4	+8	+1	+6	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (5), Collector of Stories skill trick	DiehardB, Great Fortitude	Smite
7th	Ordained Champion 3	+5	+8	+2	+6	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (6), Tumble +1cc (5)	-	Channel Spell, Divine Bulwark
8th	Ordained Champion 4	+6/+1	+9	+2	+7	Balance 1cc (1), Craft (Alchemy) +1 (7)	-	Fist of the Gods, Rapid Spontaneous Casting
9th	Flux Adept 1	+6/+1	+9	+4	+7	Balance +2 (3), Craft (Alchemy) +1 (8)	Blazing Berserker	Grace Through Will
10th	Flux Adept 2	+7/+2	+9	+5	+7	Balance +2 (5), Craft (Alchemy) +1 (9)	-	Pheromonic Control, Thermoregulation +2
11th	Flux Adept 3	+7/+2	+10	+5	+8	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (10), Twisted Charge Skill Trick	-	Iron Stomach
12th	Flux Adept 4	+8/+3	+10	+6	+8	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (11), Nimble Charge Skill Trick	Righteous Wrath	Bitter Tides
13th	Flux Adept 5	+8/+3	+10	+6	+8	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (12), Sense Motive +2 (6)	-	Feign Death
14th	Flux Adept 6	+9/+4	+11	+7	+9	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (13), Sense Motive +2 (8)	-	Taste of Truth
15th	Flux Adept 7	+9/+4	+11	+7	+9	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (14), Sense Motive +2 (10)	Headlong Rush	Haste
16th	Flux Adept 8	+10/+5	+11	+8	+9	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (15), Sense Motive +2 (12)	-	Boiling Blood
17th	Flux Adept 9	+10/+5	+12	+8	+10	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (16), Sense Motive +2 (14)	-	Polyhaemia
18th	Flux Adept 10	+11/+6/+1	+12	+9	+10	Craft (Alchemy) +1 (17), Sense Motive +2 (16)	Sanctify Martial Strike	Regeneration 1
20th	Saint Template	+11/+6/+1	+12	+9	+10	-	-	Insight bonus to AC, Holy Power, Holy Touch, SLAs, DR 10/evil, Fast Healing 9, Acid Immunity, Cold Immunity, Electricity Immunity, Petrification Immunity, Keen Vision, Protective Aura, Resistance to Fire 10, +4 on saves against poison, Tongues

Spoiler: Spells

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Spells per Day

Level	0lvl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
2nd	3	2+1	-	-	-	-
3rd	4	3+1	-	-	-	-
4th	4	3+1	2+1	-	-	-
5th	5	3+1	2+1	-	-	-
6th	5	4+1	3+1	-	-	-
7th	5	4+1	3+1	1+1	-	-
8th	5	4+1	3+1	1+1	-	-
9th	5	4+1	4+1	2+1	-	-
10th	5	4+1	4+1	2+1	-	-
11th	6	5+1	4+1	2+1	1+1	-
12th	6	5+1	4+1	2+1	1+1	-
13th	6	5+1	4+1	3+1	2+1	-
14th	6	5+1	4+1	3+1	2+1	-
15th	6	5+1	5+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
16th	6	5+1	5+1	3+1	2+1	1+1
17th	6	5+1	5+1	3+1	3+1	2+1
18th	6	5+1	5+1	3+1	3+1	2+1
20th	6	5+1	5+1	4+1	3+1	2+1

Typical Spells Prepared (ECL 20, CL 10):
0: Create Water, Create Water, Cure Minor Wounds, Cure Minor Wounds, Detect Magic, Detect Magic
1: Command, Detect Secret Doors, Doom, Obscuring Mist, Resurgence, Resurgence
2: Detect Thoughts, Shield Other, Shield Other, Shield Other, Silence, Sound Burst
3: Bestow Curse, Bestow Curse, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Remove Curse, Speak with Dead
4: Bestow Curse, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Panacea
5: Plane Shift, Raise Dead, True Seeing

(domain spells underlined)

Spoiler: Spotlights

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ECL 5
Your early-game role is best characterized as 'barbarian who remembers he is a cleric when combat ends'. You're wielding a greatsword, you have 3/day Rage, you got Power Attack... You also have the War Domain on speed dial, so you can fill spell slots with healing and utility and not miss out on Magic Weapon when needed. Medium Armor (which you can sleep in!) and the constitution boost from Rage give you a solid degree of survivability.

You also have some knowledge skills and Lore, things that are typically rolled between and at the start of encounters, so they minimally interfere with Rage. For the first few levels you're actually quite capable of contributing to the party this way: later on the lack of skill points starts to hurt.

Our heresy allows us to exchange Heironeous' longsword-specific benefits to a slightly bigger weapon, while also giving us the Planning domain and Extend Spell with it (if your DM doesn't like heresies, you can also just take Extend Spell normally and wield a longsword two-handed). Extend Spell itself has minimal benefit, but presumably making a spell last 6 rounds instead of 3 matters sometimes.

Speaking of exchanging things, Ordained Champion lets us give up two domain granted powers (the +1 CL to divination spells granted by knowledge, and the destiny domain reroll) and get two fighter bonus feats in return. Intuitive Attack is a really weird pick that'll only matter when we take strength damage: we chose it because it's one of a very limited list of fighter bonus feats that are also exalted.

ECL 10
Ordained Champion helps resolve the central paradox of raging casters: how to use spells you can't cast? The answer is: by burning them on damage bonuses with Fist of the Gods! If you'd rather protect yourself a little, Divine Bulwark gives some decent DR. They're supernatural abilities, and can thus be used during Rage.

In addition, you can Channel spells into your weapon, where they stick around for up to 8 hours. This straightforwardly lets you get in-combat use out of spells cast far before combat (Bestow Curse, Blindness, Sound Burst etc are all very nasty, Command can disarm foes). Another casting trick involves putting Silence either into our weapon or on ourselves: we weren't going to cast in-combat spells anyway, but it can really mess with enemy casters.

You also get Rapid Spontaneous Casting, allowing you to drop a Magic Vestment or Spiritual Weapon before entering rage and charging into battle. Essentially, between Channel Spell, Rapid Casting, and Fist of the Gods, you're getting use out of a regular 'spell allotment' each encounter... except you're also raging and full attacking all the while. We don't really have space for Divine or Devotion feats in the build, but our turning attempts can be expended on Smite, each one granting us one-time +7 damage boosts.

By the way, remember how we picked up the Destiny domain? It gives us Delay Death, which combines with our Diehard feat to let us completely ignore damage for brief intervals. Obviously it's not a strategy to employ every encounter (that damage will still be there when the spell wears off), but it can make for some impressive moments.

Finally, Trox begins experimenting with his own physiology, manipulating his own body temperature (Blazing Berserker, Thermoregulation) and movements (Grace Through Will). Pheromonic Control has minor synergy with the charisma-based abilities we will get, and at worst gives two more Turn Undead attempts (and thus smites) per day. Flux Adept also gives us some Balance ranks to help against the ever-scary Grease. Note how Blazing Berserker removes our innate Fire vulnerability: a welcome bonus at the level enemy clerics get Flame Strike!

We're not finishing Ordained Champion for lack of space, but note the 5th-level class features are mostly useless to us (we have more strength than wisdom and don't really care about caster levels). Even the point of BAB that we lose is going to be compensated for quickly enough.

ECL 15
Flux Adept levels are starting to eat into our BAB... but we're saved by Divine Power, which is a swift action to cast and gives us a third iterative just as the fighter starts getting one! Plus, y'know, +6 strength, a boost our two-handed power attacking charging self certainly appreciates.

Most of what flux adept gives us is mechanically unimpactful, but I like viewing these features through the lens of someone optimizing their own body for wartime environments: capable of subsiding on anything, able to escape bonds and cells by sweating acid, good at playing dead when needed, and quite capable at interrogations. Plus, 2/day free-action extraordinary Haste at the end makes up for a lot. Note that flux adept's abilities tend to be Supernatural or Extraordinary: neither of which Rage interferes with.

Also, note how a lot of Flux Adept abilities have constitution-based uses per day, so Rage actually grants us more uses of them! Bitter Tides especially might see some use: you can deal upwards of 70 points of acid damage in a little over half a minute (enough to melt down a 2-inch steel door) or gradually deal hundreds of points of damage over the course of an hour (which gets you through ~4 feet of hewn stone). Even adamantine will gradually dissolve under your hands: every ten minutes get you through two and a half inches of it.

We also grab Righteous Wrath to deliver a cute debuff on evil enemies and help us keep those Exalted feats around (combining it with a channeled Doom might pay off big time against low-Will foes), and finally take Headlong Rush because we have a ton of multiply-eligible bonus damage (Power Attack, Fist of the Gods, Smite, our immense strength). Lastly, we obtain two skill tricks that will help with reliably lining our pouncing charges up.

ECL 20
Flux Adept gives us Regeneration that can only be overcome by cold, electricity, fire, and sonic damage. Between Saint and Blazing Berserker, we have immunities to all except sonic. In other words, while raging, virtually all damage we take is nonlethal: now there's a capstone! Most of the ways to still hurt you involves targeting Fortitude or Will, but those are boosted by Rage, great base stats, and good base save values (plus Great Fortitude).

It's not just our barbarian side complementing our caster side: headlong rush really appreciates how our flux adept investment leaves its main downside nonexistent. The -2 AC that rage inflicts is also a lot less impactful now. This is also the point where we can start preparing several Shield Others a day: it lasts for hours/level and halves the damage your favorite allies will take with basically no drawback.

Outside of that, not much to say. You round out cleric progression to get to 10th-level casting, you have some at-will SLAs now, you get DR 10/evil (making Divine Bulwark somewhat obsolete, but it wasn't the best way to use your spells anyway), you hit evil creatures harder, and all your spells and special abilities get a bonus to the DC. Your Sense Motive also gets quite high (+30 with Guidance) thanks to the Flux Adept boost and a solid base stat, so you have something to do in social encounters. While I don't see it coming up, note that it's one of the few skills that functions normally during rage! The alchemy is for downtime crafting and occasional Polyhaemia.

Spoiler: Sources

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Frostblood Half-Orc - DM
Saint - BoED

Skilled City-Dweller - Cityscape web
Spiritual Lion Totem - CChamp
Cloistered Cleric - UA
-Courage Domain - SC
-Planning Domain - CWar
-Destiny Domain - RoD
Ordained Champion - CChamp
Flux Adept - DComp

Twisted Charge, Nimble Charge, Collector of Stories - CScndr

Extra Rage - CWar
Heretic of the Faith - Power of Faerun
Intuitive Attack, Righteous Wrath, Sanctify Martial Strike - BoED
Blazing Berserker - SndSt
Headlong Rush - Races of Faerun