[3.5] The Swiss Army Knife Charger

[Cespenar]

Okay, I had this silly idea when I was looking at Complete Warrior, just wanted to ask if it actually works.

Human Fighter 18/Lion Totem Barbarian 2

Flaw 1: Power Attack
Flaw 2: Cleave
Human bonus: Combat Expertise
L1: TWF
Fighter 1: Imp. Sunder
F2: WF: Warhammer
L3: WF: Battleaxe
F4: WF: Longsword
L6: WF: Heavy Mace
F6: Imp. Trip
F8: Quick Draw
L9: Imp. TWF
F10: Anvil of Thunder
L12: Hammer's Edge
F12: High Sword Low Axe
F14: Three Mountains
L15: Shock Trooper
F16: Leap Attack
L18: Oversized TWF

So, you have 4 attacks with the main hand, 2 with the off. Classic start, Rage, Charge, Pounce, full attack.

The "idea" is to attack with a weapon, drop it, draw another weapon, continue attacking, etc. to get the most use out of all weapon style feats, preferably activating them all in the same full attack.

Considering people can boost their Str to 30+ at that level with ease, the result is three Fortitude saves of DC 30+, in order to not get knocked prone, get dazed and nauseated. There's also a trip attack and a possible follow up attack involved. The minimum to activate them all requires 5 attacks, while the build has 6 (7 with Haste or Quick weapon). The DC is enough against monsters of CR 20, since they have around +20-25 Fort. saves, they'll probably fail half of them, more if debuffs are involved.

Leaping Shock Trooper charge adds +40 damage plus whatever your strength bonus is, probably something greater than 10, etc., old stuff here.

Optional: One can also lose one of the styles to free some feats, and can then add Dungeoncrasher + Knockback to use that "jumping and knocking your enemy into ground" tactic in addition to this.

Issues

1- Many different weapons: trouble. You can't have them all enchanted, and this is a serious disadvantage.

2- Off hand attacks + iterative attacks: very hard to make them all hit.

3- So. Many. Feats.

There are probably more, but let's address them for the moment being.

1- Greater Magic Weapon can help. We need optimally four of them, so it's a little harsh on our friendly wizard, but doable.

2- We don't have to make them all hit. Dazed + Nauseated is a little overkill, as well as Trip + knocked prone (essentially the same thing). One can arrange his attacks to give priority to one condition from either group, etc.

3- One can start from a normal charger build and then move along to this, so it's not that big of a problem.

Result

Too much effort for probably not that big of a gain. So, why, do you ask?

Because I was bored.

[herrhauptmann]

By level 20 a DC 30 fort is nothing, particularly with the enemies you're likely to be mixing it up in melee with. Yeah an enemy wizard would have a hard time with that, but you're not likely to be doing much melee with him.

Perhaps for a lot of cheese, Aptitude weapons so you can use all your feats with a given weapon set (think I'm reading the entry correctly). That'll free up a few feats, and a lot of money.

I assume you wanted spirit lion totem for pounce, not lion totem. If so, why not barb1/ftr18/ feat rogue 1 (or some other dip?)
edit:
Buy the wizard a metamagic rod of chain spell, now he should be able to chain Greater Magic Weapon. It's gonna cost you a lot, but it's better than expecting him to waste 4 slots a fight to let you do your thing, or get a wizard cohort.

[Cespenar]

About the saves, it's not exactly DC 30, it depends on how much you can boost your strength. DC 30 means a 30 strength, which I know any optimizer in this board can easily surpass.

The Aptitude weapon enhancement really helps this build, though. I'm not sure if it can mimic more than one weapons at the same time, but if it can, it would be a really nice mix with the Lightning Mace crit build, not to mention cutting the required Greater Magic Weapon spells by half.

And yes, spirit lion totem is correct, my mistake. Also, the second level of barbarian can use a change too.

Now that I look at it, Iaijutsu can also work with the non-Aptitude version of the build.

[SurlySeraph]

Another disadvantage: You kind of have to pick up the weapons you dropped if you want to go through that routine again, unless you want to carry a ton of nonmagical weapons around. As mentioned, Aptitude Weapons - which can function for all the feats simultaneously, as they behave as whatever is necessary - are a massive help to this build. And of course Lightning Maces would make it more powerful, but if your DM sees "Lightning Maces" and "Aptitude Weapon" on the same sheet he really ought to disallow it, because:
[spoiler]

Bolt Spammer

Spoiler

Show

Begin as some class that gets bonus feats and full BAB...probably a fighter. You dual wield hand crossbows, and make sure to get the following feats: EWP (Hand Crossbow), Round House Kick, Lightning Maces, Improved Critical, and Double Hit; make sure to get the prereqs as well. Now multiclass into Disciple of Disapater.
You're probably asking yourself, "What the heck is this guy thinking? These feats in no way go together!" But now we get into magic items. Buy yourself two +1 Aptitude Splitting Hand Crossbows. And something that gives you unlimited nonmagical ammo (Quiver of someone or other).
Now, you have a critical range of a good amount...13-20 or better. You'll have a lot of attacks, thanks to 2 splitting weapons. And every time you get a critical threat, you get 8 extra attacks! You have a chance to critical threat on them too. Think about it.
Effectively, you gain NI attacks...it never goes truly infinite, because of the fact that the chain can be ruined by a stroke of very bad luck.
However, beware of the psionic power Death Urge. It causes you to attack yourself, and automatically crit. Well, you crit, so you get 8 extra attacks...which all crit as well. Then you get 64 extra attacks...and so on. And atomize yourself.

[Greenish]

Wolf totem barb 2 for Imp. Trip, then Knock-Down. Drop High Sword Low Axe (that was the trip one, right?) and it's prerequisites. Now all your hits can trigger free trip attempts.

[Cespenar]

All good suggestions. Are you allowed to use 2 different totem barbarians in the same build, by the way?

Oh, and yes, I know about Aptitude + Lightning Maces cheese, just intended to use them in a less... cheesy way. You are right, though, DMs would shoot them down immediately when they see them together. Cancel Lightning Maces, then.

[Greenish]

All good suggestions. Are you allowed to use 2 different totem barbarians in the same build, by the way?

Wolf Totem is a variant base class, Spirit Lion Totem is an ACF. Neither effects anything the other does. Mechanically there's no conflict.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Why not get Warblade in there and be able to switch out your weapon focus/specialization/etc... feats without having to buy multiple different ones?

[herrhauptmann]

That'd probably make a more powerful character than fighter 18, but the OP would lose quite a few feats. Using warblade for a free retraining of feats each day might help reduce the need for feats, but I don't think it'll do enough.

[Cespenar]

Why not get Warblade in there and be able to switch out your weapon focus/specialization/etc... feats without having to buy multiple different ones?

If I'm not mistaken, that Warblade ability doesn't work when the feat you change stop meeting the prerequisites of another feat you possess.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

That'd probably make a more powerful character than fighter 18, but the OP would lose quite a few feats. Using warblade for a free retraining of feats each day might help reduce the need for feats, but I don't think it'll do enough.

Only Warblades also get Fighter bonus feats as well, so not really...

And you only need a single level dip in Warblade for the ability to retrain weapon-specific feats. So go Warblade1/Barbarian1/Fighter18. Save a whole pile of feats, and not loose a single one.

[Greenish]

Only Warblades also get Fighter bonus feats as well, so not really...

Warblades get warblade bonus feats, from a rather limited list. And the first one you get at warblade 5, then another every four levels.

[Cespenar]

Only Warblades also get Fighter bonus feats as well, so not really...

And you only need a single level dip in Warblade for the ability to retrain weapon-specific feats. So go Warblade1/Barbarian1/Fighter18. Save a whole pile of feats, and not loose a single one.

You can't retrain feats involving more than one weapons, and you can't retrain feats that are prerequisites of some other feats.

Thus, you can't retrain weapon style feats with the Warblade ability since most of them involves two weapons (Three Mountains is probably changeable, though), and you can't retrain Weapon Focus feats because weapon style feats have them as prerequisites.

Regardless, having the ability to change Three Mountains style and WF: Heavy Mace alone would be enough reasons to get Warblade 1, I guess.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Unfortunately Swordsages don't have white raven or discipline focus would give you three of your needed weapon focus feats.

[Tyndmyr]

If we're assuming a friendly wizard, can you assume the use of heroics as a buff? The extra feat might prove helpful in such a tight build.

[Guilliaume]

Get shifting weapons, +1 enchant free action turns weapon into any other weapon. No having to drop them

[Pechvarry]

Some Tempest levels could help with the multiple weapon foci.

[flabort]

Shifting Aptitude weapons:
best of both worlds.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Shifting Aptitude weapons:
best of both worlds.

Why bother with Shifting when you can get Aptitude and get everything you want from your pet toy, but still have the most optimized numbers relevant to your build?

Also, with two Weapon Focus feats, they can be any two you need to qualify for any given tactical feat you wish to use at the time. You simply can't use ones which you don't have 'active' at that moment.

Never underestimate the broken-ness of paired Aptitude Kukri being used for Lightning Mace, Blood In The Water, and either Improved Critical or Keen...

[The Glyphstone]

Warblades get warblade bonus feats, from a rather limited list. And the first one you get at warblade 5, then another every four levels.

I think he means that Warblades count as Fighters for picking Fighter-only feats, at their level-2 if I'm remembering right.

[Cespenar]

Some Tempest levels could help with the multiple weapon foci.

It's arguable, but that Tempest ability only says that the effects of those feats apply to other weapons, like making WF: Dwarven Waraxe give +1 to the hand axe in your off-hand. I don't think it fulfills feat requirements.