Thursday, February 6, 2014

AM BARBARIAN (Barbarian Build)

AM BARBARIAN
Human Barbarian (Mounted Fury/Superstitious)
"ragelancepounce"

Alright, lets try and make some sense of this build.  AM BARBARIAN is a legendary build from the Paizo forums that relies on RAGELANCEPOUNCE to do stupid amounts of damage.  Unfortunately, all AM BARBARIAN threads wind up in the multi-thousand post territory and all over the place.  Also, most AM BARBARIAN builds rely on Leadership to gain a flying synthesist mount... we're not going to do that.  Today, AM Barbarian isn't going to rely on any frequently banned feats, he's not going to use any magic items, and he's going to ride a horse.

NOTE:  In an FAQ, Paizo clarified that you only get double damage on the first attack of a charge pounce.  This weakens the build, but it's still an overall very powerful option.  Below is presented the version before the FAQ.

Feats

 1:   Mounted Combat, Ride By Attack
 2:   Lesser Beast Totem
 3:   Spirited Charge
 4:   Superstition
 5:   Power Attack
 6:   Beast Totem
 7:   Furious Focus
 8:   Clear Mind
 9:   Boon Companion
10:  Greater Beast Totem
11:  Weapon Focus: Lance
12:  Ferocious Mount
13:  Wheeling Charge
14:  Greater Ferocious Mount
15:  Improved Initiative
16:  Witch Hunter
17:  Iron Will
18:  Spell Sunder
19:  Improved Iron Will
20:  Powerful Blow


Attributes

AM BARBARIAN needs high strength to deal damage, and dex and con to stay alive. Wisdom helps with will saves, but shouldn't go through the roof.  Charisma and Inteligence are dump stats.

Str>Con>Dex>Wis>Int>Cha.

Point Buy 15
STR:19 (17+2)
DEX: 14
CON: 14
INT: 7
WIS:11
CHA: 7

Point Buy 20
STR:20 (18+2)
DEX: 14
CON: 14
INT: 7
WIS:11
CHA: 7

Point Buy 25
STR:20 (18+2)
DEX: 14
CON: 16
INT: 7
WIS:11
CHA: 7

Attribute advancement:  Strength all the way.


Skills

Max Ride and Perception. Then, you got one skill point left over!


Horsey

We've got to have something to ride, so give him light armor proficiency, dodge, heavy armor proficiency, toughness, and mobility.

How to Play

Charge on horseback!  They die.  At level 10 we get pounce and they really die, allowing us to get full attacks on charges.


Traits

Reactionary: +2 to initiative.  Everybody loves initiative.
Carefully Hidden: +1 to Will saves (and a minor additional bonus)


What He Looks Like Each Level
(assuming no magic gear, 20pt buy).
 For each of these, we are going to assuming charging, raging, mounted and power attack

Level 1: Attacks at +10, dealing 2d8+20 damage.  Of course, you need to be able to afford a horse, armor, and a lance.  AC 14/8/12, Saves 6/2/3.  17 Hit Points, 3 skills

Level 4: Attacks at +13 for 3d8+30.  AC 14/8/12, Saves: 8/3/2, with a +3 on each of those to resist spells.  53 Hit points, 12 skills.

Level 8: Attacks at +18 for 3d8+61 Damage.  AC 17/8/15, Saves 10/4/5 with a +4 to resist spells.  101 Hit points, 24 skills.  The horse kicks too.

Level 12: And now we have pounce.  Attacks at +24/+15/+10 for 3d8+75 (x3) and +14/+14 for d8+8 (x3).  AC 18/8/16, Saves 13/6/8 with +5 to resist spells.  HP: 161,  36 skills.  The horse, up to effective druid level 12, bites too.  (Against AC27, DPR:161)

Level 16:  Attacks at +29/+19/+14/+9, dealing 3d8+90 (x3) and +18/+18 for d8+10.  AC 19/8/17 Saves 15/7/9, with +6 against spells.  HP: 213, 48 skills.  The horse now pounces too.

Level 20: With Powerful Blow and the new ability to Rage Cycle, we attack at +34/+23/+18/+13, doing 3d8+120 on the first and 3d8+102 on all others, as well as +22/+22 for d8+11.  AC 20/8/18, Saves 18/8/13, with +7 against spells. 285 HP, 80 skills.


21 comments:

  1. Where do you get the Rage Cycling from?

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    Replies
    1. Before capstone, we don't have it. Capstone gives it to us.

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  2. How do you get the horse to pounce?

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    Replies
    1. Nvm.. Ferocious and Greater Ferocious Mount... got it.

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  3. Ferocious Mount, Greater Ferocious Mount, and spending x2 as much rage in one round seems a bit pricey. Personally i would use any big cat as a mount (though synthesist would be better), it seems reasonable enough to include some equipment into builds, like animals. Even if there is no big cats at your town, at 10th level you can already teleport to a big city, and buy a few (500 gp. for combat trained tiger). Although in that prospect Ferocious and Greater Ferocious Mount can actually do some good to total damage if used with tiger, also, with teleport might wanna try to find a roc instead of a big cat... never mind me.

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  4. Could you make this build for a Bloodrager? Preferably with an Abyssal Daemon Spawn Tiefling, but I'm flexible. Also, could you do anything with a mounted un-lanced rager with a 3rd party Mighty Sword? Old Heirloom Weapon?

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    Replies
    1. You can certainly use this build as a base for something like that.

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  5. 2d8+20 damage? How does that happen? I know the 2d8 is from charging with a lance, plus a couple points from the strength modifier, but how does that get up to 20? Could we get a breakdown of that?

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    1. Let's see. Base strength is 20. While raging is 24. That's +7 damage. Holding the lance two handed adds half again, bringing it to +10. Charging with a lance doubles it to +20!

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    2. Oh! Wow. I thought charge+lance only doubled the die, not the total damage. Now I have yet another reason to try out a mounted character.

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  6. Lance only does extra damage on the first attack of the charge. Pazio hates uberchargers.

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    Replies
    1. Shucks, I think you are right. I've added a note.

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  7. How do you qualify for "animal companion" (needed for Boon Companion, and probably for all the listed feats ("light armor proficiency, dodge, heavy armor proficiency, toughness, and mobility" which btw needs medium armor proficiency too))

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  8. Some math seems a bit off.

    For HP: Level 1 you get 12 (max die) + 2 (Con) +1 (favored class) for 15 max. You could go to 18 with toughness, but you've used your level 1 feats on other things for this build, so I'm confused.

    Similarly at level 4... if you max HP 12*4 is 48, +4 from FC for 52, +8 from Con is 60. But who's getting max HP? Averages are 6.5.

    So starting from the level 1 calculation of 15 hp (above,) you roll 6, 7, 6 over 3 levels for +20, then +6 (Con*3 levels) and +3 (Favored Class *3 levels) for +29. 15+29=44 HP average at level 4. These things are important for a relatively low-AC front-liner.

    Regarding attack rolls: at level 1 you have 1 from BAB, +5 from str, +2 from rage, +2 from charge, and -1 from power attack for +9. Why are you short 1?

    At level 4, 4 BAB +5 str, +2 rage, +2 charge, -2 power attack for a total of +11. Why do you have 2 extra?

    Damage: Level 1 you get 1d8 +7 (Str+Rage) +2 (Power Attack), and another +4.5 rounded-down (x1.5 Two-Handed) for 1d8+13 total. Assuming you're doubling that due to your lance, you should be rolling 2d8+26. What am I missing that leaves you at 1d8+20?

    Level 4: 1d8 +7 (Str+rage) +4 (Power Attack) and +5.5 rounded (x1.5 Two-Handed) for 1d8+16, which gives you 3d8+48 with Spirited Charge. What am I missing?

    Your AC could be 16 at level 1 with a 15 gp Hide, and should be 17 by level 4 given that a mwk. breastplate is cheap. Why 14? At worst, if you're wearing light armor you should be at 15 at level 1 with a Hide Shirt, and 16 by level 4 wearing a mwk. Chain Shirt.

    Don't mean to tear this apart, I really AM just looking to see whether I'm missing something as I have been optimizing various barbarian builds for the last 5 years, and always looking to learn new tricks.

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    Replies
    1. I think the extra HP comes from the Constitution gained from Rage. Does that make it work?

      For damage and attack, I believe I'm not using power attack at levels 1 and 4. At level 4, half of 7 is 3.5, not 4.5. Does that clear things up?

      The AC is 14 because I am wearing hide - but I'm also raging.

      What did I leave out?

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    2. Con HP from raging would be +2 at level 1. You still max at 17, and would only be for 4 rounds / day.

      If you're not power attacking at level 1, you actually would be at +10 to attack, meaning you'd be off by more than in my previous post.

      Not power attacking does explain the damage calculation, however.

      The AC makes sense, thanks. I forgot about the -AC during rage because I've been playing Urban Barbs my last couple campaigns.

      Still much closer, just looks like you should add +2 to your "to-hit" for level 1, with level 4 looking correct.

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    3. Correct you are, I think I had neglected the charge bonus at level 1. Fixed.

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  9. Traditionally, Allnight is an alchemical item which can make you temporarily immune to fatigue if they haven't outlawed it. I also like heart of the fields for once/day rage cycle as a human... Which is honestly usually enough. (And if you want to follow the original build, that one skill point goes into 'Profession: (engineer)') but yes this is a good base.

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  10. I really didn't know how level 8 charge would deal 3d8 + 61 DMG. The 3d8 is the spear dice x 3, Ok. But from where we can take de 61?

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    1. Lets see - Strength is 22 + 4 rage = 26 (+8). A lance is a two handed weapon, so that's 12 damage from strength. Power Attack gives us +9 damage (normally +6 at +8 BAB, but 150% from Two handed. So that's 19 damage. Times three is 57. Not sure where the extra 4 damage comes from - anybody know?

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    2. 12(STR)+9(PA)=21, not 19. am i wrong?)

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