Feats and Will saves?

[Edwin]

Hello.

Today, I found myself building a character to compete in the Arena here on the GitP forums.

I decided to go for an Orc Barbarian, who'll pack a punch of 1d12+7, which is pretty decent without too much optimizing, I think. However, this left me with a -2 to my will saves, which I don't think I can cope with, so here is my question; Except for the Iron Will, what feats boosts my will save?

For books, here is what it says is not allowed, (which means anything else is fair game, I think) in the Arena thread:
Dragon Magazine & Dragon Compendium
Third-party supplements, all
BoVD and BoED
Monster Manuel 2

[Keld Denar]

Endurance > Steadfast Determination is a feat chain that gives you the ability to use Con for your Will Save, as opposed to Wisdom. As a Barb, you should have a great Con. The funny thing is, when you rage, your Will Save becomes pretty incredible, since rage gives you a +2 will save, and +4 Con, it results in a net gain of +4 Will.

Unfortunately, its 2 feats, not 1, which is rough for a level 1 non-human character....

[Edwin]

Could you tell me which book its from?

I could ditch Power Attack for now and take an additional flaw to pull it off. Maybe.

[BobVosh]

Endurance is PHB.
Steadfast is PHB2. Also lets you not autofail on 1s for Fort.

Indominatable Soul is also in PHB and useful. Also requires Endurance. Mind affecting is what you are worried about, I assume?

[Edwin]

Endurance is PHB.
Steadfast is PHB2. Also lets you not autofail on 1s for Fort.

Indominatable Soul is also in PHB and useful. Also requires Endurance. Mind affecting is what you are worried about, I assume?

Indeed I am. Or a sleep spell to the face.

[Eldariel]

Warforged Barbarian is a decent path to avoid that; they're immune to most Will-save invoking spells, keeping about on-level with the Construct Essences. That said, yea, Steadfast Determination is the way to go for a Barbarian, especially if using the Core-version of Rage. If you want something else, Savage Species offers "Cumbrous Will", which fatigues you when you use it (I recall; there was some drawback), but gives you a +6 to Will-save.

If you take the Horse-totem Barbarian instead of the standard, you'd lose Uncanny Dodge, Improved Uncanny Dodge (bleh) and Trap Sense (if you're not trading it away, it's useless) and gain some random bonuses and Endurance as a bonus feat on 5, which would allow you to take Steadfast Determination on 6. Of course, that's pretty late, but if your group allows retraining rules, it may just be worth it.

You could, of course, multiclass in Ranger for the bonus Endurance or trade your Improved Uncanny Dodge for it as per Sandstorm Wasteland Barbarian Substitution Level (in the book Sandstorm pg. 44 is option to do the trade). But if you don't start with Ranger, you wouldn't get Endurance on level 3 and thus wouldn't be able to take Steadfast Determination on 6 again. Same with the substitution level. So either way, you either spend your two first feats on it, or only get Steadfast Determination on level 6.


I suggest you just suck it up for these levels and hope you don't have to make too many Will-saves before level 6. You could, of course, multiclass in something that would give you good Will-progression (two levels for +3), but bleh. Cumbrous Will requires Iron Will to qualify for so it's not an easy way out either.

[Edwin]

Note that it is for an Arena character, and as such, the amount of levels I get is severely limited.

[Person_Man]

You can get the Tome of Battle maneuver Action Before Thought with once feat. It replaces a Will Save with a Concentration check, which is Con based and relatively easy to boost.

[Eldariel]

Note that it is for an Arena character, and as such, the amount of levels I get is severely limited.

Then you'd better try for a race with immunity, use flaws (if the arena allows) or use multiclassing.