[Build Redux] What Makes Me Angry? Why, Everything

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Pardon the cheesy title, but the two recent threads regarding everyone's (not so) favorite Frenzied Beserker and question about ways to further enhance a given character's rage sent me down memory lane. A decade ago, I had the silly idea to get as much Rage or rage-like ability (i.e., boosts to various stats, but primarily STR and/or damage directly through the use of round and per-day limited class abilities) I could find. I never actually played the character, but I was given two very lenient houserules:

1. For any class that gave "Rage" directly as the default Barbarian class feature, I could instead opt to take any other ACF that replaced it with a separate "rage-like ability" (e.g., Whirley Frenzy)
2. I could (ab)use the Changeling-only Racial Emulation feat to qualify for specific racial substition levels, feats, prestige classes, etc. and did not need to worry about maintaining a given racial type after I was done with whatever it was I was after.

A few things like the Whirling Frenzy web enhancement and the Beserker Strength barbarian ACF weren't included. The former, because it had a line about not being usable at the same time as any other rage or frenzy and the latter because of how impractical it is to remain below 5 x Barbarian Level HP to activate.

Spoiler: The end result was this monstrosity:

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1. Overwhelming Attack (Chaos) Monk 1: Racial Emulation, Power Attack, Flaw: Great Fortitude, Flaw: Endurance
2. OA (C) Monk 2: Improved Bull Rush
3. Lion Totem Goliath City-born Barbarian 1: TWF, Cleave, -Mountain Rage
4. Half-Orc Paragon 1:
5. Half-Orc Paragon 2: -Ferocity
6. Half-Orc Paragon 3: Extra Rage
7. Fist of the Forest 1: -Feral Trance
8. Bear Warrior 1: -BEAR, probably trade out shifting bonus from Bloodclaw Master for it
9. Warblade 1: Shock Trooper
10. Bloodclaw Master 1: -Shifting
11. Bloodclaw Master 2:
12. Berserk 1: Intimidating Rage, -Battle Fury
13. Outcast Champion 1:
14. Outcast Champion 2:
15. Outcast Champion 3: Destructive Rage, -Desperate Fury
16. Frenzied Berserker 1: -Frenzy
17. Wildrunner 1:
18. Wildrunner 2: free, -Primal Scream
19. Warshaper 1:
20. Warshaper 2:

So, once/day, this character hulks out and smashes with +40 to Str, +18 to Dex, +20 to Con, +2 to damage, +2 to NA , +3 morale to Will Saves, -2 HP/round, and -8 to AC with some other minor benefits like bite attacks. Admittedly, Frenzied Beserker feels kind of tacked on at the end. Outcast Champion could probably be dropped, considering that desperate fury kicks in only when you're at half-HP or lower.

A previous iteration had Frostrager levels, but RAW it really doesn't do anything for us that the two levels of Monk don't already. Frostrager 5's Rend is nice, given how much extra strength the character gets. This build doesn't take it largely because of the aforementioned houserules and Hal-Orc Paragon levels. Without them, it loses some combination of Mountain Rage, Half-Orc Paragon, Outcast Champion and/or Wildrunner levels. Two of those levels could go to more Berserk for Beast Shape 1/day. It's similar to what Bear Warrior gives, but would recoup +2 Str lost from not having something like Primal Scream. Although, the flip side is that without the ability to swap out anything labeled "rage" for an ACF-equivalent, the build can be made more cohesive in directing its limited resources.

The option there would be to do something like add more levels in Warblade, add Dungeoncrasher Fighter, or maybe swap some of those for Unarmed Swordsage and instead focus on boosting Unarmed Strikes and Natural Attacks. On that last note, I had once considered using Weretouched Master for its Alternate Form (Bear) capstone, but then there's that rather nasty errata nerf. I know the character could grab something like a beserking sword, demonhair shirt, or mantle of rage, but the initial goal was rage-like class features.

So, fellow Playgrounders, is there anything I'm missing to getting really angry? Or, at least, more ways to rage?

[Bartmanhomer]

My Frenzied Berserker thread have inspired you.

[ShurikVch]

Some stuff which is, while not strictly better than those which you already used, may be interesting

PrC:

• Corrupt Avenger (Heroes of Horror): Sworn Foe, while situational, is like one more Rage; downside of the PrC - it required Taint subsystem in its Heroes of Horror variant
• Firestorm Berserker (Dragon #314) - the main point of this PrC is the Inner Inferno CF: it allow to burn your Con to extend Rage duration - bind Naberius and Rage the whole day. Also, while in rage, you will get fire immunity, breath weapon, and attacks from your natural or metallic weapon deal extra 1d6 fire damage (also, qualify you for Burning Rage feat)
• Thrall of Kostchtchie (Dragon #345) while in Rage, you will get Favored Enemy (and +4 damage vs. one), Fiendish template, immunity to Calm Emotions, summon CR 15 demon hound 1/day for 10 rounds, and at capstone - turn into Giant and become one size category bigger

Feats:

1. Burning Rage (Dragon #314) - extra fire damage from your weapon attack (see Firestorm Berserker) increases to 2d6
2. Channeled Rage (Races of Destiny) - as an Immediate Action, spend one of your uses of Rage to add your Strength bonus on a Will saving throw
3. Khyber's Fury (Dragon #322) - +2 Str/-4 AC, and you can't end Rage or Frenzy voluntary
4. Mad Foam Rager (Players Handbook II) - Once per Rage / Frenzy, you may delay the effect of a single attack, spell, or ability used against you until the end of your next turn
5. Reckless Rage (Races of Stone) - -2 AC/+2 to Str and Con for any Rage
6. Tainted Fury (Heroes of Horror) - separate from Rage; get hp equal to your Corruption score and tainted smite; at the end of the Fury, you will need to make Fort save, or be sickened and suffer 1d6 Con damage

Half-Dragon - because Mountain Rage makes you Large, so you would get wings!

Badger or Wolverine will get you Rage; despite it's named "Rage", it doesn't have "as Barbarian" - thus, you can Rage while you Rage! Accessible via Weretouched Master PrC (or lycanthropy + Black Blood Hunter PrC)

Demonhair Shirt (Dragon #356) - spend two daily uses of Rage and got demonic fury: profane bonuses to Str (+6), AC (+2), and speed (+10); also, your weapon count as chaotic to pierce DR. While in demonic fury, you suffer 2 points of non-lethal damage each round (duration equal to your Con bonus)

[liquidformat]

If you can work in a level of Primeval instead of Bear Warrior you can pickup dire wolverine form and have more rage. Further more at that point you could also take primeval wildshape which is also very rage like...

As a whole, shifters and there content also falls nicely into the rage category...

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Already mentioned, but I do so love wolverine/badger Rage. My personal take on "angriest character ever" was a were-wolverine (4HD for large size) shifter with 3 ranks in Weretouched Master (wolverine) so he could get that same rage again while shifting, and the Shifter Savagery feat.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

My Frenzied Berserker thread have inspired you.

Most of the work on this was ages ago, but it did serve as the spark for me to go find said work. So I appreciate you for that.

Some stuff which is, while not strictly better than those which you already used, may be interesting

PrC:

• Corrupt Avenger (Heroes of Horror): Sworn Foe, while situational, is like one more Rage; downside of the PrC - it required Taint subsystem in its Heroes of Horror variant
• Firestorm Berserker (Dragon #314) - the main point of this PrC is the Inner Inferno CF: it allow to burn your Con to extend Rage duration - bind Naberius and Rage the whole day. Also, while in rage, you will get fire immunity, breath weapon, and attacks from your natural or metallic weapon deal extra 1d6 fire damage (also, qualify you for Burning Rage feat)
• Thrall of Kostchtchie (Dragon #345) while in Rage, you will get Favored Enemy (and +4 damage vs. one), Fiendish template, immunity to Calm Emotions, summon CR 15 demon hound 1/day for 10 rounds, and at capstone - turn into Giant and become one size category bigger

Feats:

1. Burning Rage (Dragon #314) - extra fire damage from your weapon attack (see Firestorm Berserker) increases to 2d6
2. Channeled Rage (Races of Destiny) - as an Immediate Action, spend one of your uses of Rage to add your Strength bonus on a Will saving throw
3. Khyber's Fury (Dragon #322) - +2 Str/-4 AC, and you can't end Rage or Frenzy voluntary
4. Mad Foam Rager (Players Handbook II) - Once per Rage / Frenzy, you may delay the effect of a single attack, spell, or ability used against you until the end of your next turn
5. Reckless Rage (Races of Stone) - -2 AC/+2 to Str and Con for any Rage
6. Tainted Fury (Heroes of Horror) - separate from Rage; get hp equal to your Corruption score and tainted smite; at the end of the Fury, you will need to make Fort save, or be sickened and suffer 1d6 Con damage

Half-Dragon - because Mountain Rage makes you Large, so you would get wings!

Badger or Wolverine will get you Rage; despite it's named "Rage", it doesn't have "as Barbarian" - thus, you can Rage while you Rage! Accessible via Weretouched Master PrC (or lycanthropy + Black Blood Hunter PrC)

Demonhair Shirt (Dragon #356) - spend two daily uses of Rage and got demonic fury: profane bonuses to Str (+6), AC (+2), and speed (+10); also, your weapon count as chaotic to pierce DR. While in demonic fury, you suffer 2 points of non-lethal damage each round (duration equal to your Con bonus)

In order:

• I've never used the Taint rules, so Corrupt Avenger is out. Discounting the subsystem, it probably has the easiest entry requirements of any of the rage-granting PrCs I've seen however. So that's a plus. You could probably also cheese the Sworn Foe requirements and designate something that an ally could summon but I suspect to be on the receiving end of a book from the DM for such a trick.
• Firestorm Berseker is interesting, but the feat requirements are three massive duds. Luckily Fist of the Forest also needs Great Fortitude, and you can "buy" Iron Will. That just leaves Toughness. The concept is a bit pinched on rages/day, so any way to bypass that helps. I just feel like there's more to gain elsewhere for 6 class levels.
• Thrall of Kostchtchie would be nice were it not for the Thrall of Demon feat and CE alignment requirements. The gradual transformation is nice and would make for a fun NPC, however.

For the feats:

1. Burning Rage gives us what amounts to a conditional +1 weapon enhancement. We're tight on feats as-is and spending one for yet another mediocre damage boost is probably not a good idea.
2. Channeled Rage is handy, but costs a rage/day to use. Steadfast Determination does similar work as both Str and Con will be boosted.
3. Khyber's Fury's restriction is rough without having an ally to use calm emotions or one of the other ways of negating frenzy's downside other than boosting your saves. It has some serious fluff requirements (probably still easier than Thrall of Kostchtchie though). On its own, it's an extra +1 to-hit and damage. It reads like it applies to both rage and frenzy, so that would instead mean +2 to-hit/damage. Still not quite worth a feat by RAW. If we could argue that it should apply to other rage-like abilities, it gets better with each as the character adds more to the pile. My comment about Burning Rage still applies as this is still just "more damage," but at least it's "more damage" from boosting (rage) stats directly rather than as the adding the most commonly resisted elemental damage.
4. Mad Foam Rager is solid, as always.
5. Reckless Rage gets much the same comments as Khyber's Fury, except that it's easier to justify and lacks the downside of not being able to exit a frenzy. It is more stringent in that it only calls out "rage ability" specifically. If our hypothetical DM rules against Khyber's Fury, I wouldn't even bother asking about Reckless Rage.
6. Tainted Fury fits the theme. It's a feat rather than yet another class, but I'm not a fan of the costs or mild benefits.

Badger/Wolverine rage would be better with Weretouched Master, although the old negative level trick could help remove the added racial HD. Black Blood Hunter has the downside of being [Vile], so it ends up in the same camp as the Thrall PrC and is better used on a very angry NPC than actual character. A pre-errata Weretouched Master would probably be better off going with Bear or Tiger rather than Wolverine due to the wild difference in stat gains from Alternate Form. Post-errata, the Bear is still looking at an extra +6 Str while shifting versus the Wolverine's +2 after taking damage. That said, it is just "rage," so there shouldn't be any question about how Khyber's Fury or Reckless Rage work with it. It'd be another feat (or two), but each would bump the Wolverine's Rage by +2 Str. With a favorable ruling on either feat, I could use going Wolverine over Bear.

If you can work in a level of Primeval instead of Bear Warrior you can pickup dire wolverine form and have more rage. Further more at that point you could also take primeval wildshape which is also very rage like...

As a whole, shifters and there content also falls nicely into the rage category...

Primeval's main class feature hurts largely because it takes a standard action to activate. Dire Wolverine is appropriate enough, has the same benefits of all of the other wolverine-rages, and still could be combined with Bear Warrior for fun and profit as it sounds like the wolverine-rage could be transferred into a bear warrior bear form. The problem with Primeval is needing three dead feats, although it does share two of those with the Firestorm Beserker class ShurikVch recommended above.

Without the generous rulings on ACFs and Racial Emulation, I would definitely go with a Shifter. Later PrC levels would get switched around as that character wouldn't qualify for several of them, but then we wouldn't need Bloodclaw Master to grant shifting either.

Already mentioned, but I do so love wolverine/badger Rage. My personal take on "angriest character ever" was a were-wolverine (4HD for large size) shifter with 3 ranks in Weretouched Master (wolverine) so he could get that same rage again while shifting, and the Shifter Savagery feat.

The more and more I dig into this, some way of getting a wolverine or badger rage seem to be the way to go. I never had a DM allow me to use negative levels to ditch RHD, but even just being a Shifter (wolverine) could do the trick.