Northlander Hewing + Power Attack

[Hrafnar]

Pure barbarian build with a middling AB - should I skip PA and IPA and just stick with Northlander Hewing? Or get all three? PA and IPA would probably be replaced with extra rage and extend rage III. Cheers.

[chad878262]

The three can be used together as NH drops the lowest AB attacks so the -6 doesn't hurt as much and you really want to get some extra damage on those 3 attacks.

[Calodan]

Seems feasible to me. I was thinking about it with any one hander FB/WM really. Max damage on a hit?!?! With +24 to damage as well? Yes Mother effin please!

[Hrafnar]

Seems feasible to me. I was thinking about it with any one hander FB/WM really. Max damage on a hit?!?! With +24 to damage as well? Yes Mother effin please!

Tasty! I'm thinking of going two handed but with that extra dmg I could go sword and board instead - or both!

The three can be used together as NH drops the lowest AB attacks so the -6 doesn't hurt as much and you really want to get some extra damage on those 3 attacks.

Alright I'll go all three then!

[Moltrazahn]

Make a tarukk (?) Give it frenzied beserker 10. Then 3 levels of ranger. Get favored power attack (duregar). Combine it with the supreme power attack, then get yourself hewing and expose weakness, as it always hits.

Explosion ahoy. And let the farming begin :p

[Hrafnar]

Make a tarukk (?) Give it frenzied beserker 10. Then 3 levels of ranger. Get favored power attack (duregar). Combine it with the supreme power attack, then get yourself hewing and expose weakness, as it always hits.

Explosion ahoy. And let the farming begin :p

Will never leave the duergar compound.

[Sun Wukong]

You can technically skip the Extra Rage feat. In the Palace District of Baldur's Gate, in the old market square, there is a NPC merchant that sells a +3 Natural Armor amulet with both Extra and Extend Rage I feats. So you could take Extend Rage III and IV for even longer rage duration.

Additionally, if you have access to the 'Haste effect' either from items, or rage variant, it is possible to have up to 4 attacks even when Northlander Hewing is active. The extra haste attack will not be made with your highest bab, but instead at "BAB - 18."

As for those critical hits, the extra damage from Northlander Hewing does not get multiplied.

As for skipping both PA and IPA on a Barbarian build, and just going for Northlander Hewing, it is a perfectly feasible option. In fact, it is what I have done with my current barbarian on surface, I have no PA or IPA, and thus far NH has been enough. Those DRs of 10/- or 20/- are largely nothing and my barbarian just pummels through.

Then the Monkey Grip feat is worth it, because it will let you use a 1d12 weapon and a shield.

Oh, and finally, as for that Ranger 3/Frenzied Berserker 10... You would get Barbarian 17 - so no Mighty or Epic Rage and you would get your Tireless Rage around the mid epics. I understand you like the potential damage output, and it is nothing to complain about. However, you will be getting tired from raging and that cuts your defences and damage output. It is just so much more convenient to hit the rage hotkey whenever you happen to run out.

[Theodore01]

You can technically skip the Extra Rage feat. In the Palace District of Baldur's Gate, in the old market square, there is a NPC merchant that sells a +3 Natural Armor amulet with both Extra and Extend Rage I feats. So you could take Extend Rage III and IV for even longer rage duration.

You can't take Extend Rage III and IV, if you didn't take Extend 1+2.
Feats from items never qualify.

[AlfarinIcebreaker]

How good is Northlander Hewing? If I understand correctly, it maximises damage output in exchange for 3 attacks per round with lowest AB. How about additional damage? Does Rage have to be activated before NH in order to profit from increased STR? And the penalty for using the mode is -2 AB/AC?

[Theodore01]

Last i tested it (about 4 month ago) it was just max. weapon base damage + additional str bonus. Not worth losing additional attacks in my opinion.
Sure its great as long as you only have one attack, but it gets worse and worse as you gain additional attacks.
(No idea if they changed anything about it lately)

[Hrafnar]

You can technically skip the Extra Rage feat. In the Palace District of Baldur's Gate, in the old market square, there is a NPC merchant that sells a +3 Natural Armor amulet with both Extra and Extend Rage I feats. So you could take Extend Rage III and IV for even longer rage duration.

As for those critical hits, the extra damage from Northlander Hewing does not get multiplied.

Then the Monkey Grip feat is worth it, because it will let you use a 1d12 weapon and a shield.

So I had planned Extend Rage 1 and 2. I assume that they would not stack with the amulet and I would only receive the benefits of 2? In that case I might skip them entirely and free up two feats for Monkey Grip and something else.

Is thundering rage better than another epic damage reduction, given that I'm not making a crit build?

How good is Northlander Hewing? If I understand correctly, it maximises damage output in exchange for 3 attacks per round with lowest AB. How about additional damage? Does Rage have to be activated before NH in order to profit from increased STR? And the penalty for using the mode is -2 AB/AC?

From what I understand you have to activate NH after you activate rage. The situation I can see it being really useful at epic levels is against high AC enemies. The AB of the my last 2-3 attacks is going to be kind of crap and they probably won't hit anyway. I'm not sure about how the AC penalty stacks or how it's affected by Ice Troll.

[chad878262]

Sadly it has the most benefit for arcane gishes with 4 or 5APR and lower attack bonus, but it does still have benefit as Hrafnar listed.

[Sun Wukong]

You can technically skip the Extra Rage feat. In the Palace District of Baldur's Gate, in the old market square, there is a NPC merchant that sells a +3 Natural Armor amulet with both Extra and Extend Rage I feats. So you could take Extend Rage III and IV for even longer rage duration.

You can't take Extend Rage III and IV, if you didn't take Extend 1+2.
Feats from items never qualify.

Do have a look at the thing I was replying to. It was about taking Extra Rage and Extend Rage III... So taking those Extend Rage I and II is pretty much given.

How good is Northlander Hewing? If I understand correctly, it maximises damage output in exchange for 3 attacks per round with lowest AB. How about additional damage? Does Rage have to be activated before NH in order to profit from increased STR? And the penalty for using the mode is -2 AB/AC?

Yes, you have to rage first and then turn on NH to get the full benefit. But if you do not switch weapons or equipment, the bonus damage from your rage will linger as long as you do not rest or deactivate NH. Thus, as long as NH is active, you can just rage again to deal your maximum damage output. And if your Rage/Northlander Hewing timers bug out, just right click your character and you can find the two under your Barbarian/Special abilities.

And yes, the penalty is indeed -2 to AB and AC. Ice troll Berserker feat will help you overcome the AC loss. As will Whirlwind Rage variant - but that will drop your AB by another -2. In either case, the loss is not that great.

Last i tested it (about 4 month ago) it was just max. weapon base damage + additional str bonus. Not worth losing additional attacks in my opinion.
Sure its great as long as you only have one attack, but it gets worse and worse as you gain additional attacks.
(No idea if they changed anything about it lately)

The recent 1 gb update changed the bonus damage so that it also adds your weapon EB on top. So, what you get is "strength modifier + weapon enchantment bonus" as extra damage on top of maximized weapon damage dice.

As for my own experience with this feat, it has been the opposite. But then again, I do not play a character that has access to that '+8 AB' or more from feats, like your any avarage Fighter/Frenzied Berserker/Weapon Master does. And I personally just refuse to take Expose Weakness on any character that does not have around '+10 modifier' in their dexterity ability score. Thus my high strength characters cannot lower lower the opponents AC by -15, to basically get another +15 to AB. (So we are looking at +23 AB here, which does bump up the probability of that that sixth attack hitting, and scoring that high crit ratio critical hit.)

Thus, Theodore is correct in his statement - there are builds that will do much better without Northlander Hewing. But there are also builds that will be a lot better with it.

So I had planned Extend Rage 1 and 2. I assume that they would not stack with the amulet and I would only receive the benefits of 2? In that case I might skip them entirely and free up two feats for Monkey Grip and something else.

You have to take Extend Rage I and II to get Extend Rage III and IV. The Extend Rage I from the amulet does not stack, however, this amulet will still allow you to get 'Extra Rage' feat for free and get some extra Natural Armor when you are not raging.

Is thundering rage better than another epic damage reduction, given that I'm not making a crit build?

To make most out of Thundering Rage, you would want to go for a Barbarian 23/Weapon Master 7 build or something similar. So I would say that the Epic Damage Reduction is a better choice. Most common mobs will only scratch your character, and your regeneration will heal that up. Thus you can just collect a large mob, stop, and go make tea while your character pummels them do death.

Sadly it has the most benefit for arcane gishes with 4 or 5APR and lower attack bonus, but it does still have benefit as Hrafnar listed.

Anyone who decides to avoid Expose Weakness will find NH pretty neat. My current NH-using Barbarian could go for Expose Weakness, just for that one bugged auto-hit to penetrate concealment and be better off. But I won't.

[Sun Wukong]

I think there is one extra perk worth mentioning about Northlander Hewing:

Let us imagine two builds: Barbarian 30 with Northlander Hewing, and Barbarian 20/Frenzied Berserker 10 without.

Both have strength of 40, both need to wield a shield to survive, and both are up against that DR of 20/-, and critical hit immunity.

Northlander Hewing build:

• One handed damage: 12 (Greatsword) + 15 (strength) + 4 (EB) + 19 (NH) - 20 (Opponent's DR) = 30
• One handed AB: 30 (BAB) + 15 (Strength) + 4 (EB) - 2 (Whirlwind Frenzy) - 2 (NH) - 2 (Monkey Grip) = 43
• Attacks done at: 43, 38, 33, 28
• Damage if all attacks land: 120
• Damage if 3 attacks land: 90
• Damage if 2 attacks land: 60
• Damage if 1 attack lands: 30

Frenzied Berserker build:

• One handed damage: 6.5 (Greatsword) + 15 (strength) + 4 (EB) + 12 (IPA) - 20 (Opponent's DR) = 17.5~
• One handed AB: 30 (BAB) + 15 (Strength) + 4 (EB) - 2 (Whirlwind Frenzy) - 6 (IPA) - 2 (Monkey Grip) = 39
• Attacks done at: 39, 34, 29, 24, 19, 14, 39
• Damage if all attacks land: 122.5~
• Damage if 6 attacks land: 105~
• Damage if 5 attacks land: 87~
• Damage if 4 attacks land: 70~
• Damage if 3 attacks land: 52.5~
• Damage if 2 attacks land: 35~
• Damage if 1 attack lands: 17.5~

I hope this example shows the DR penetration that Northlander Hewing grants. Now imagine going against DR of 30/-. NH still deals 20 points of damage per hit and our Frenzied Berserker gets 7.5~ per hit.

But in all fairness, if that shield is not needed for surviability, our FB-Barbarian would deal 36.5~ damage per hit and our NH-Barbarian would be dealing 37 damager per hit. In this case, the FB-Barbarian will out damage the NH-Barbarian and purely out of the virtue of larger number of attacks.

That's all.

[Valefort]

The builds who benefit from NH the most atm are probably TWF builds in fact since the substracted attacks should only be for the main hand. Make a STR tempest and you'll have 6 attacks with high AB and some damage.