All sorts of STR and Damage bonuses?

[Roythebattousai]

Okay, so buffs of the same kind don't stack. How many different kinds of buff are there?

For my specific instance, I need a lot of Damage bonuses. I can easily make the attack roll, but theres some DR that I need to get by.

[Starbuck_II]

Okay, so buffs of the same kind don't stack. How many different kinds of buff are there?

For my specific instance, I need a lot of Damage bonuses. I can easily make the attack roll, but theres some DR that I need to get by.

Scared, Morale, insight, Circumstance, racial, enhancement, untyped, inherent, divine, and I think competence.

I think that is all kinds of bonuses possible to damage. Not sure where to get it all though.

[RTGoodman]

I'm assuming 3.x, since you're talking about DR...


The biggest way to increase damage is Power Attack. You take a penalty to attack in order to do a lot of damage back. Now, normally that's an OKAY option, but with several other feats your damage becomes astronomical. First, add in Improved Bull Rush (you need it as a prerequisite later). Use a two-handed weapon, for the 1.5x Str bonus to damage AND 2:1 Power Attack. Then Leap Attack (from Complete Adventurer, I think), which deals another 100% your extra damage from Power Attack. Then use the Shock Trooper feat (PHB2) to change the penalty from PA to be to your AC rather than attack, meaning you can just tank your AC but keep an awesome attack bonus AND deal a ton of damage. You can mix and match those last feats (LA, ST) depending on how optimized you want to go.

Otherwise, consider grabbing buffs from your party casters (Enlarge Person gives you bigger reach and size bonuses to stuff, bardic music helps attack AND damage, etc) and grab some items. The key is to get spells and items that give all different types of bonuses: inherent (from magical tomes), enhancement (belt/gloves of Str), sacred, morale (bardic stuff), insight (if there's anything that gives an insight bonus to Str), and stuff like that.

If you're allowed Tome of Battle, you can either play a martial adept, or at least dip levels or take feats to get maneuvers that can up your damage (especially boosts - it's not like you're using your swift actions for anything else).

[Lycanthromancer]

Don't forget vile damage.

And if you really want to get silly, lift the manyfang enhancement from the manyfang dagger from Serpent Kingdoms (weapon deals x4 damage, x5 on a critical hit) and the collision weapon enhancement. Combine those two together, and you get +20 damage per strike. Not to mention all the additional multiplied damage from Power Attack, Leap Attack, etc.

[ericgrau]

Strength, weapon enhancement bonus, criticals, power attack and a large weapon (via a large character and/or feats), sneak attack.

For strength you can typically get both an enhancement bonus and a size bonus.

There's also energy damage weapon enchantments which aren't subject to DR.

[sonofzeal]

Dip Barbarian for Rage (Extra Rage feat recommended): +4 unnamed bonus

Gauntlets/Belt of Ogre/Giant item: +2 to +6 enhancement bonus

Animal Devotion feat: +2 to +8 sacred/profane bonus

Orc race: +4 racial bonus (more if you take an LA race)

Chaste Life feat (third party; BoEF is pretty common though): +2 inherent bonus

Wish: +1 to +5 inherent bonus.

[Alleine]

A dangerous, and somewhat dubious(due to it being in MM2) source of a strength boost is becoming a half golem. It takes a lot of money and time to do, and a will save vs becoming an insane evil construct bent on the destruction of flesh-beings. But it nets you and insane strength boost. +12 at the most, plus some other very nice effects.

[Magnor Criol]

A dangerous, and somewhat dubious(due to it being in MM2) source of a strength boost is becoming a half golem. It takes a lot of money and time to do, and a will save vs becoming an insane evil construct bent on the destruction of flesh-beings. But it nets you and insane strength boost. +12 at the most, plus some other very nice effects.

WotC has free downloadable update PDFs for several 3.0 books, including MM2, providing all you need to bring them up to 3.5 legality.

The bigger issue is the will save, since from the sound of it the OP's character is a melee-type, and they don't usually have good will saves.

[Keld Denar]

The spell Valiant Fury from Spell Compendium grants a +4 Moral bonus to str. That's an unusual one that stacks with just about anything. Only available to 9th+ level clerics with the Courage domain though, and maybe Archivists. Yea, dirty rotten Archivists...

[Alleine]

WotC has free downloadable update PDFs for several 3.0 books, including MM2, providing all you need to bring them up to 3.5 legality.

The bigger issue is the will save, since from the sound of it the OP's character is a melee-type, and they don't usually have good will saves.

I have the errata and the 3.5 update... unless the wizards stuff is something else then as a DM I'd cringe if someone asked to be one. Some of their abilities seem unfair to me. Of course I've never DM'd and I can't really speak for the powers of the creatures you'd be facing by the time you had the money to pay for it.

The Will saves are actually not that big a deal. There are a bunch of ways someone can temporarily boost their will. Although you still run the risk of natural ones

[Crazy Scot]

If you are talking 3.5ed, one of my favorite combinations for melee type characters, that can make your ranged friends cry, is from ToB. The PrC you are looking for is Bloodstorm Blade. At 15th level (5 base + 10 PrC), you can make a single melee attack against all foes within throwing range. With the right combinations (anything to boost throwing distance) you can reach pretty far. Then get a weapon (doesn't matter type or damage quantity too much) that has a high crit range (18-20), double it (Improved Crit feat, magical enhancement, whatever) to 15-20, and you now have a 30% chance to crit on a hit. Stack on the ToB Tiger Claw stance - Blood in the Water, and win. It says any time you get a critical hit, you gain a +1 untyped bonus to hit and damage that stacks even with itself. If you go for more than 1 minute without getting a crit, it resets to +0. Still, in a campaign where mass-combat is common or the norm, you will be hard to match in raw damage capabilities. In shorter encounters, though, it probably won't carry as much weight. But it is still a fun combination, and if your DM allows you to attack inanimate objects, your options of things to "crit" on go up dramatically.

Also, something else to drool over, at 21st level, the feat Distant Shot would allow you to make a thrown or ranged attack against any target in LOS. Put that together with Blood in the Water and Bloodstorm Blade, and you could very feasibly take out an entire army probably in 2 rounds...solo. Well, you might leave an occasional one or two standing, but not many.

[Leewei]

Leewei's cheap core tricks for increasing +Attack and +Damage.

1. Morale bonuses from Inspire Courage, bless, aid, good hope or heroism. Bards seem best-suited to this. Inspire Courage in particular ramps up nicely through the levels, but is generally unsuited to stealthiness.

2. Enhancement bonus from bull's strength. Cat's grace is another option if the PC in question uses Weapon Finesse. Less damage, but +AC and +Reflex are not bad trades.

3. Enlarge person grants a +2 Strength, increases reach and upsizes weaponry.

4. Rage has a bit of a down side, but grants +2 Morale bonus to Strength.

5. Magic weapon / greater magic weapon provide Enhancement bonuses to the attack and damage rolls for a melee weapon. While these don't stack with enchanted weapon bonuses, a PC could, for example, get a +1 Holy Flaming Bastard Sword and use CL12 greater magic weapon to boost it to a +3 weapon for nice lengths of time.

6. Luck bonus from prayer.

7. Insight bonus from Quickened true strike. The best access to this for non-Gishes is probably via Ring of Spell Storing. Use Magic Device cheese might also be applied here.

8. Weapon enchantments. More specifically, Bane when applied to common creature types such as Magic Beast, Evil Outsider, Humanoid (Human), or Undead. Obviously, these will vary a bit by campaign.

9. Haste. +1 Attack and an extra attack at full bonus when Full Attack is used. Lovely buff.

10. Denying creatures Dex bonus.
10A. Greater invisibility is an excellent buff due to this as well as granting an added +4 due to Full Concealment. Stipping off enemy AC is great, and incredible for Sneak Attack.
10B. Glitterdust affects most creatures that fail their Will save against it (Grimlocks and Destrachians are the two immune creatures I can recall from the Monster Manual).
10C. Denying creatures without Dark Vision a light source. When attacked by several humans at night, a Tiefling Druid/Rogue gestalt I was playing merely sneered and called up a small water elemental, commanding it to douse their lanterns.
10D. Grease is the word. Balance checks for enemies with fewer than 5 ranks in Balance skill causes them to become flat-footed.
10E. Grappling causes most opponents to lose Dexterity bonus against other non-grappling creatures. Evard's black tentacles or the various summon spells are good options for this.

11. Higher ground. +1 Attack. Hey, it's cheap. :)

12. Feats, class features, racial bonuses, enchanted weapons. Most of this stuff isn't so cheap, but I mention it for completeness. Certainly many options exist in this category that can be exercised as needed. The one notably cheap-ish option here is Silversheen which costs 250gp and can make a weapon function as if alchemical silver. Against Vampires, Lycanthropes and certain Devils, this is a nice option.