Strength of Arm and Blade- Barbarian and Fighter Updates

[Grimsage Matt]

Both sides make each other shine really. Troll gives the STR and CON boosts, regeneration, and reach. And the abillity to use Large Two Handed Greatswords. Rage boosts natural armor, and as the rage 'tiers up', it stops becoming a penalty and you get a net bonus to AC.

Just need to ask a question. Would it be possible to combine Spining Strike and Power Strikes? Reason being, 3d6+16 plus 10d6 damage to everything in a 10ft natural reach... I stop being a single target butcher and become a army killer.

[Yitzi]

Both sides make each other shine really. Troll gives the STR and CON boosts, regeneration, and reach. And the abillity to use Large Two Handed Greatswords. Rage boosts natural armor, and as the rage 'tiers up', it stops becoming a penalty and you get a net bonus to AC.

And of course let's not forget that if a troll rages to get extra HP (and he needs the extra HP) and then after he kills the enemy the rage ends and he loses those HP, he's not dead, just unconscious for a few seconds.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Just need to ask a question. Would it be possible to combine Spining Strike and Power Strikes? Reason being, 3d6+16 plus 10d6 damage to everything in a 10ft natural reach... I stop being a single target butcher and become a army killer.

Power Strike is nothing more than upgraded power attack, so... yup!

...though looking back, the Power Strike bonus is perhaps too high with two-handed weapons... maybe 1d8 or 1d10 per -1 penalty...

[Grimsage Matt]

Plus the Rage increases the amount and uses of the Trolls Shrug it Off. Which is awesome.

And for Power Strikes, all it does is allow a melee character to use power attack to approch the level of a caster, and even then its subject to the thousand and one ways to block/reduce melee attacks.

Besides, instead of the tome of battle, this would be the tome of rage.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Plus the Rage increases the amount and uses of the Trolls Shrug it Off. Which is awesome.

And for Power Strikes, all it does is allow a melee character to use power attack to approch the level of a caster, and even then its subject to the thousand and one ways to block/reduce melee attacks.

Besides, instead of the tome of battle, this would be the tome of rage.

It was already possible to outdamage (most) casters with pounce + leap attack. Power Strike was around that level with a one-handed weapon (an average of 3.5 damage per point of penalty) and way above with a two-hander. I did cut it back down to size somewhat.

[Yakk]

Level 18: You gain a Brute Power. The same thing you got at level 2. But you picked the best one at level 2, so now you get something worse at level 18 than you got at level 2.

Ok ok, some abilities have level requirements.

... Prerequisite: Crushing Strike, Shattering Strike Really? Do you really need feat trees?

Instead, what you you made each Brute Power auto-scale. So Crushing Strike starts including Walls Must Die.

Like Crushing Strike: Blah blah blah
Level 5: Also...
Level 10: Also...
Level 15: Also...
Level 20: Also...

That starts giving your Barbarian quadratic amounts of toys to play with, and keeps the "theme" chunks whereby a Barbarian that can bash through walls of force can also bash through doors (because "bash doors" is the level 1 ability, and "wall of force" is the level 10 ability).

In short, stop the upgraditus: every ability should be awesome, and if it is too strong to get at level 1, just make it an auto-upgrade at the level where you think you should get it.

DR: Your DR remains at roughly 4% of your max HP. Much like Brute Power, gaining 1 DR/4 levels is worth a single class feature slot (at the level where you first got it).

Rage: I'd boost the barbarians base DR slightly, then say that Rage doubles it. This both boosts your default DR, and reduces the number of numbers the player has to copy from the class. Or triple default DR if you want rage-DR to be that much higher than non-rage DR.

Juggernaut Strength: How about just granting a bonus to all saves equal to his Con modifier while raging? :) And... half that bonus when not raging.

That is about as good, but doesn't make your Dex and Wis pointless.

Shrug it Off: I'd strip the Con modifier. Instead, make it 1 time per day for every 2 Barbarian levels. Remove "per attack" restriction -- just "per condition" (an attack that applies two conditions seems fair game?), or have it apply to every condition caused by a given attack? Maybe force its use during a Rage, but give bonus uses equal to your Con modifier per rage?

[bcool999]

I think Mighty Thews needs to be toned down a little. If I am reading it right it gives a +10 to climb jump and swim checks at level 2 (if you choose it). Maybe say the bonus to climb jump and swim is fast movement bonus divided by 5 (that way the bonus is +2 then +3 and so on) otherwise the skills would be a bit ridiculous IMHO.

[Grod_The_Giant]

In short, stop the upgraditus: every ability should be awesome, and if it is too strong to get at level 1, just make it an auto-upgrade at the level where you think you should get it.

I get what you're saying. I do. I just... I dunno. The issue is that not every Brute Power has an nice, obvious upgrade path like Crushing Strike -> Shattering Strike -> Walls Must Die. I could write more, but what's the logical next step of Bleeding Strike?

DR: Your DR remains at roughly 4% of your max HP. Much like Brute Power, gaining 1 DR/4 levels is worth a single class feature slot (at the level where you first got it).

Not sure what you're saying here...

Rage: I'd boost the barbarians base DR slightly, then say that Rage doubles it. This both boosts your default DR, and reduces the number of numbers the player has to copy from the class. Or triple default DR if you want rage-DR to be that much higher than non-rage DR.

I kind of did-- when raging, you gain bonus DR equal to the strength bonus. DR 10 at level 10 is nothing to be sneezed at, my friend.

Juggernaut Strength: How about just granting a bonus to all saves equal to his Con modifier while raging? :) And... half that bonus when not raging.

That is about as good, but doesn't make your Dex and Wis pointless.

I went back and forth on whether to add or replace them. I like this solution, though-- it feels like a nice compromise.

Shrug it Off: I'd strip the Con modifier. Instead, make it 1 time per day for every 2 Barbarian levels. Remove "per attack" restriction -- just "per condition" (an attack that applies two conditions seems fair game?), or have it apply to every condition caused by a given attack? Maybe force its use during a Rage, but give bonus uses equal to your Con modifier per rage?

I like con times/day, because it offers an elegant way to grant extra uses in a rage.

I think Mighty Thews needs to be toned down a little. If I am reading it right it gives a +10 to climb jump and swim checks at level 2 (if you choose it). Maybe say the bonus to climb jump and swim is fast movement bonus divided by 5 (that way the bonus is +2 then +3 and so on) otherwise the skills would be a bit ridiculous IMHO.

No, you're reading it right. The bonus is large, and it's supposed to be. Do you know what we call a +30 to Jump checks? A level 1 spell. (Or being born a thri-keen). +30 to Swim? Arguably worse than a level 2 spell. +30 to Climb checks? Worse than a level 2 spell. And these are the bonuses at 20th level. If anything, they're low.

[Yitzi]

I get what you're saying. I do. I just... I dunno. The issue is that not every Brute Power has an nice, obvious upgrade path like Crushing Strike -> Shattering Strike -> Walls Must Die. I could write more, but what's the logical next step of Bleeding Strike?

As something that does large amounts of CON damage, I'd say that Bleeding Strike is the high-level version; a lower-level version would either do damage over time but no CON damage (like a bat swarm's wounding ability), or do 1 CON damage (like a Wounding weapon.)

[Yakk]

Bleeding Strike: Ongoing damage, Ongoing ability damage, Maybe drain. Maybe more stats (str dex and con).

It could include other kinds of crippling attacks -- reducing movement speed, attack penalties, stunning, etc.

We could take the Bleed bit and tie it to a Bloodlust chain -- start granting the Barbarian temporary HP when they deal damage. Or deal double damage on wounded targets (half HP or less).

You could grant bonuses on targets who are bleeding, like extending your crit range or auto-confirming.

Maybe a save-or-die attack. Heck, an attack that causes the target to save-or-die (or save-or-lose) each round for strength modifier rounds for a nicely evil one.