Pouncing Barbarian

[cody343]

Hi, this is my first post on here so if it not in the right place please let me know. My group is starting a new campaign soon and I'm working on making a pouncing charging barbarian. I just want to make sure everything works the way I think it does so all feedback would be great. We are playing 3.5 and all books and anything punished by WOTC is fair game. No homebrew aloud.

Race: Goliath (ros)
class: barbarian
Variants: Mountain Rage (ROS) and loin totem for pounce
Feats: powerful charge, power attack, Greater Powerful charge

so, my question at 6 lvl when raging and doing a charge attack ill do 3d6 on charging damage and then have i'll have my second attack without the extra 3d6 because it only works on the first attack? does this actually work the way I'm reading this?

[Biggus]

What book is great powerful attack from?

[cody343]

What book is great powerful attack from?

thank you i miss typed i'll edit it.

[Maat Mons]

I think the usual interpretation is that anything that provides benefits on a charge applies to all attacks if you have pounce. But I've seen it argued that such things only apply to the first attack. I'm sure it's not what you want to hear, but you should really check with your DM to see how he rules it.

Instead of Powerful Charge and Greater Powerful Charge, you might want to consider Improved Bull Rush and Shock Trooper (Complete Warrior). Improved Bull Rush doesn't actually do anything for you, but it's a prerequisite of Shock Trooper. Shock Trooper allows you to shift the penalty from Power Attack onto AC instead of your attack roll. This means you can Power Attack for max and suffer no reduction in your chance to hit. Having both high damage and a high chance to hit is a good combo for killing things fast.

You also might want to consider the Leap Attack feat (Complete Adventurer). It ups your returns from Power Attack from 2-to-1 with a two-handed weapon to 4-to-1. So, at level 6, if you Power Attack for full, that's +24 damage per attack.

[cody343]

I think the usual interpretation is that anything that provides benefits on a charge applies to all attacks if you have pounce. But I've seen it argued that such things only apply to the first attack. I'm sure it's not what you want to hear, but you should really check with your DM to see how he rules it.

Instead of Powerful Charge and Greater Powerful Charge, you might want to consider Improved Bull Rush and Shock Trooper (Complete Warrior). Improved Bull Rush doesn't actually do anything for you, but it's a prerequisite of Shock Trooper. Shock Trooper allows you to shift the penalty from Power Attack onto AC instead of your attack roll. This means you can Power Attack for max and suffer no reduction in your chance to hit. Having both high damage and a high chance to hit is a good combo for killing things fast.

You also might want to consider the Leap Attack feat (Complete Adventurer). It ups your returns from Power Attack from 2-to-1 with a two-handed weapon to 4-to-1. So, at level 6, if you Power Attack for full, that's +24 damage per attack.

I thought since powerful charge reads When you charge, if your melee attack hits, it deals an extra 1d8 points of damage (if you're Medium). For Large creatures, the extra damage is 2d6; for Huge, 3d6; for Gargantuan, 4d6; and for Colossal, 6d6. This feat works only when you make a charge. It does not work when you're mounted. If you have the ability to make multiple attacks on a charge, you may apply this extra damage to only one of those attacks in a round. that means you only get one with the extra damage.

I'll look into leap attack that sounds great and Goliath are great at jumping.

[Maat Mons]

Sorry, I only skimmed Powerful Charge. I was assuming it was worded the same way a bunch of other on-charge effects are.

[H_H_F_F]

Powerful charge is pretty good at very early levels, but it isn't the best choice when pouncing - there are much better paths to take to maximize damage on all hits.

Goliath is pretty good for an LA +1 race, but it isn't really needed for a charging based build. Unless you have LA buyoff, free LA, or you want to play a Goliath for non-mechanical reasons, I'd maybe reconsider.

Also, if I may ask, what is the expected power level in your group? Pouncing is considered pretty baseline in these forums, but in a low-op, low system mastery table going to high levels, I would NOT recommend taking it. At least, not the 0 effort barbarian option. If your table plays mid-op and up, you should be totally fine.

[Darg]

Edit: ^ what he said ^ Playing to the table is important.

One feat you might like that really benefits your pounce is Blood Spiked Charger. When you make a charge with a spiked shield and/or armor you get to add extra damage equal to twice your strength bonus when attacking with those 2 weapons. That's 3.5x with your shield; add 2.5x with your spiked armor if you use both to attack.

18 str + 4 ra + 4 enh bonus + 4 rage is a +35 damage to each of your shield attacks and +25 damage to your offhand armor. Gloves of the Balanced hand is a really good investment with this as is making the weapons valorous. Of course, one can also get shocktrooper and leap attack with it. If you add some fighter levels, you could get driving attack at level 14 which combos extremely well with the bloodspiked charger feat (who doesn't like tossing dragons around like ragdolls?).

[Weasel of Doom]

Yeah, I think you're reading it correctly. You'd only get the powerful charge benefits on the first attack since the feat has that clause specifically calling out multiple attacks.

Personally I'm a fan of the whirling frenzy variant for pouncing barbarians. It gives an extra attack/round whenever you rage so you can start taking advantage of pounce from level 1. Otherwise you're giving up fast movement for a benefit that doesn't really kick in until level 6.
Whirling frenzy conflicts with mountain rage though so that's a trade-off you'd need to consider.

I'd also recommend trying to give your character some abilities other than just "hulk smash". You don't want to be completely useless outside of combat (that's one of 3.5e's biggest problems with the martial-type characters imo).
Maxing intimidate can give you something to do during social encounters, and builds into the very nice 'intimidating rage+never outnumbered+imperious command' combo.
Trapkiller variant lets you deal with traps if the party's lacking a rogue.
Unshakeable variant helps compensate for your typically low will.
Finding some way to get stealth skills can help you back up the rogue or scout.

I want to second the comments about 'playing to your table'. It's pretty easy to make a pouncing, leap-attacking, shock trooper build that shreds anything it comes into contact with and depending on the optimisation level of your group that can easily make things less fun for your friends if they feel like they can't contribute or if the DM is struggling to come up with encounters that challenge you without murdering everyone else.

[Gruftzwerg]

Powerful charge is pretty good at very early levels, but it isn't the best choice when pouncing - there are much better paths to take to maximize damage on all hits.

yeah. What an ubercharger needs are charge damage multipliers:

- Lance
- valorous weapon enhancement (+1)
- Spirited Charge feat for mounted combat
- Riding Boots together with Spirited Charge for another multiplier
- piercing/slashing weapon when you make a dive attack (charge + flying down).
- Sandals of the Tiger Leap if you use unarmed strike as weapon

(Remember that in d&d x2 + x2 = x3. So you can stack charge multipliers from x2 up to x6 depending on your weapon and gear).

The least you should be aiming is a piercing or slashing Valorous Weapon and get access to fly somehow (at later levels when you have enough character wealth by your level).

PS: Be careful how much you optimize your damage. You can get to the point where you kill everything with each hit of your full attack. Check with the rest of the table at which optimization lvl you intend to play. While your build is imperfect, it could be even considered to strong on some tables. Others would just laugh at it. It really depends what the rest of the group is doing here in the meanwhile. Finally, remember that damage is the weakest optimization type, so any half way optimized caster who can use "Save or Suck" spells are still stronger. They can still take out several enemies within a single action and still do all kind of other stuff with their spells compared to a mundane who did go for dmg optimization.

[Zerryzerry]

I would add a single Ranger Level with the Arcane Hunter ACF + Solitary hunting ACF and Favored Power Attack for another multiplier

Arcane Hunter works against any arcane caster (bards, sorcerer, wizards, Assassins etc), any Invocation class (Warlock and the draconic one), and with anything that has SLAs (like A LOT of creatures and races, like ANY Drow, Fairy, Demon, Devil, Slaad, Dragon after a certain age etc)

[gijoemike]

I am surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet so I will do so,

In the rules compendium the benefits and penalties for charge are specifically stated as lasting for more than just one attack in the case of pounce. It is this clause that people will quote when claiming that leap attack and rhino armor damage applies to all attacks with pounce. Many people claim this is absurd but those are the rules. All attacks in a pounce have +2 attack and are considered part of the charge.

Powerful Charge has a special clause that states it only works for 1 attack out of the bunch. I personally wish more actions had this clause.

At the end of the day your GM has final say. Non magical ingrained pounce is serious power creep. In 3.0, the standard way for barbarians/fighters/rangers to get pounce was via an epic feat and it only applied on the first round of combat. Clearly this was far too restrictive. In 3.5 a 1st level acf to obtain pounce for barbarian is a major swing in the other direction. It is too easy now.

I would skip the greater powerful charge and go for leap attack at level 5/6. Jump 8 ranks, power attack. Triple damage from your power attack on a charge. But you have to jump the last 10 feet. And have clearance for your head when jumping.

I also want to share the feat power lunge. Bab +3 and power attack cannot be mounted. Its from a 3.0 book Sword and First, it also appears in Ghost Walk, and Enemies and Allies. In a charge use 2x your strength mod for the weapon roll. 1 hand or 2 hand doesn't matter. A 22 str would normally give +9 damage. this feat would give you +12. Greater Powerful Charge can be better than Power Lunge until your str is at least +8 if you only had 1 attack at the end of that charge. But with pounce (pounce is key) Power Lunge while raging with a really high str character nets more damage as early as str +6. I suspect that Powerful Charge is supposed to replace Power Lunge but I cannot find text stating so. But Power Lunge only costs 1 feat instead of 2. But remember Power lunge was printed when Pounce was a 1st round of battle epic feat.


lvl 1 Power attack
lvl 3 Power Lunge
lvl 6 Leap Attack

only skill needed is JUMP. Do what ever else you want.

Equipment to look at Rhino Armor.

Stay away from Frenzied Berserker. Your GM will hate you. In general avoid all multipliers from this point on as it will become 1 hit kills.

[Darg]

I am surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet so I will do so,

In the rules compendium the benefits and penalties for charge are specifically stated as lasting for more than just one attack in the case of pounce. It is this clause that people will quote when claiming that leap attack and rhino armor damage applies to all attacks with pounce. Many people claim this is absurd but those are the rules. All attacks in a pounce have +2 attack and are considered part of the charge.

Shocktrooper does have language that could be used to prevent it from benefitting pounce. It says when you make THE attack. It can be interpretted that a full attack would not trigger the feat because attack and full attack are separate and different actions.

[Gruftzwerg]

Shocktrooper does have language that could be used to prevent it from benefitting pounce. It says when you make THE attack. It can be interpretted that a full attack would not trigger the feat because attack and full attack are separate and different actions.

Because it refers to general charge attack rules. And that gets altered by the more specific Pounce rules. Both (Pounce & Shock Trooper) alter Charge and work together without any dysfunctions.
Remember that the character may choose the order of the abilities to apply. After you altered the charge text with Shock Trooper, you apply Pounce on it. Now you have Shock Trooper and Pounce for you entire charge.
RAW is pretty clear here. No dysfunctions at all.

[Biggus]

Remember that the character may choose the order of the abilities to apply.

Also remember that this a "general guideline" from the FAQ, not an actual rule (3.5 Main FAQ, p.51).

[Starbuck_II]

Hi, this is my first post on here so if it not in the right place please let me know. My group is starting a new campaign soon and I'm working on making a pouncing charging barbarian. I just want to make sure everything works the way I think it does so all feedback would be great. We are playing 3.5 and all books and anything punished by WOTC is fair game. No homebrew aloud.

Race: Goliath (ros)
class: barbarian
Variants: Mountain Rage (ROS) and loin totem for pounce
Feats: powerful charge, power attack, Greater Powerful charge

so, my question at 6 lvl when raging and doing a charge attack ill do 3d6 on charging damage and then have i'll have my second attack without the extra 3d6 because it only works on the first attack? does this actually work the way I'm reading this?

If Magic of Incarnum is allows the feat Shape Soulmeld can Thunderstep boots for +1d4 sonic damage to all attacks in a charge.
The feat Cobalt charge grants up tp +1 insight to hit/dam in a charge as well (since insight is a hard type to get).