Bear Warrior Changes

[MadSeer]

Suggestion resume: Make Bear Warriors tankier so they're not outclassed across the board by full Whirlwind Barbarian.

As is, Bear Warriors are outclassed on damage AND tankiness by full Whirlwind Barbarian. General features that Bear Warriors lose: Specific DR bypass, vampiric regen, item Save bonuses and item use. Barbarian specific loses: Armored Efficiency, an extra feat, flat DR progression, Rage ability stacking, Epic Rage.

Whirlwind barbarians have vastly superior damage, similar AC, higher saves through equipment, similar regen through Vampiric weapons, higher flat DR/- and access to elemental DR while Raging, Rage bonuses stack with items and spells.

Bear Warriors have the advantage of getting Bear Roar, which is an amazing ability, but any enemies with high saves or immuned to mind-affecting spells just ignore it.

Suggestion ideas:
- Ability bonuses stack with Bear Form;
- DR/- progression;
- Armored Efficiency in Bear Form;
- Adjusting how AC from item transfers or adding synergy with other classes like FotF's CON AC bonus;

Fixing the damage by enabling weapon properties to transfer could also be considered, but I'd rather see the Bear Warrior act as a tankier alternative to full Barbarians, even if it means barely scratching the scales off of a Dragon! Save bonuses moving from items could also be added, but I feel like save stacking is already a big problem everywhere else :p

[Bobthehero]

Whirlwind barbarians outdo most if not all martial classes, really.

[Valefort]

These suggestions are not fixes but changes, and specifically buffs ! False advertising !

[MadSeer]

You saw through my ruse! Damn you! Fixed the lies.

Atlernatively, nerf base Barb.

[MadSeer]

As the main post might have sparked a separate thread about Barbarians, I want to clarify that I'm not too much into nerfing classes and the above suggestion for Barbarian nerf is mostly a joke. I prefer adding to what's lacking, rather than taking from something else!

My initial post about Bear Warriors stands, as Bear Form can't hold a candle to either base Rage abilities.

[MadSeer]

tl;dr:
I think the class needs to do something better than pure Barbarians, personally I'd like to see it be tankier than Whirlwind Frenzy, whether through changing how its AC stacks, adding save bonuses or giving it extra bonuses with Ice Troll and/or Epic Rage.

*****
After doing some testing in Jeg's, basing myself on my current character (consitution based Barbarian/FotF/Bear Warrior) and replacing BW by Barbarian:

If building with the same goal of being a constitution based barbarian, the 27/3fotf build has while Raging and with items:

Barbarian Vik:
- 53 AC (57 with Athkatlan)
- Evasion
- 624 HP
- DR 16/-
- Fast Healing 6 + vampiric weapon
- 44 AB
- +8 modifier to Strength and Con
- Higher saves (with items)
- Can use items in combat
- Can switch weapons to bypass DR

Bear Vik:
- 53 AC
- 774 HP
- DR 15/-
- Fast Healing 10
- 43 AB
- +7 mod to STR, + 13 to CON
- Base reflex lower, base Fort and Will higher, but no item bonuses
- Can't use items
- Can only bypass magic DR

Bear Form has more health and fast healing, Whirlwind has more AC, better damage, item use, saves and Evasion (but that's a flaw in Vik's build that puts Barbarian at 17, one level short of Evasion). First build has more Rage uses, but Bear lasts longer.

With that same 27Barb/3FotF build but with some stat splitting, you can build for Imp. Knockdown with a higher Strength mod, Epic Rage and ICE if you want to take the hit to the AB, while keeping a DR of 13/- and bumping your AC to the 60s. Building for ICE with that build and Bear Warrior is more touchy because of the extra feats Barbarian now get at 20 and 30.

Going BW, you lose out on everything. Its only strength (bear roar) falls off as you reach higher levels, unless you focus your build around it (Skjald bear warrior anyone?)

[zhazz]

I think Bear Warrior would be fine if it didn't change the number of attacks.

From what I've seen so far Bear Warrior only gets 3 attacks, regardless of BAB.
Those attacks are also only 1-handed, meaning there is no 1.5 multiplier to bonus damage from Strength, and PA/IPA damage isn't doubled.

Sitting at only 3 attacks really hurts the damage output, when compared to 6 attacks.
The only Combat Style available to a Bear Warrior is Northlander Hewing, which does add some good damage, but also reduces numbers of attacks to 2.


So my suggestion is this:
Lower the base damage of Bear Warrior from 2d6 to 2d4, and let numbers of attacks scale off of BAB, rather than be fixed at 3.

[MadSeer]

That's weird, I've got my full BAB in Bear Form. It has 3 attack types, the bite and the claws, but you normally keep your full BAB. Still, even with full attacks they remain worse than Epic Rage Whirlwind in every way.

[zhazz]

That's what I mean. You only get 3 attacks, despite your BAB saying you should get more.

[MadSeer]

What I meant is that you have 3 different damage types, but you get the right number of attacks per round. With 16 BAB, you get 4 attacks. I'm not sure how they're split, if it's 2d6 - 2d6 - 1d10 - 1d10, or 2d6 - 1d10 - 1d10 -1d10, but you get the right number of attacks according to your BAB.

I grabbed some screenshots, with a BAB of 19 I get the 4 attacks I should be getting.

[KOPOJIbPAKOB]

You can get past 60 AC with more dex investment and ICE, imho tankiness is not BW's problem, its main problems are miserable damage and inability to use items in bear shape. They used to have ability to roar in a humanoid shape which was a cool RP feature I could forgive a lot of flaws for, but then a certain developer said "I feel like you shouldn't be able to roar in human form" and disabled it for this sole reason.

Basically, I support the idea of buffing this class. In bear shape you can't use your inventory, and this alone is enough to give this class solid buffs. Druids can't too, yes, but they have their spellbook, BWs don't.

About Fist of the Forest synergy. FotF provides dodge AC, and in bear shape any dodge AC bonuses are neglected (including from your boots). But even if it worked, would be a power creep to transfer all your Con into armor. Like, imagine a Con-based Bear warrior with 800 hp and 70 AC (unbuffed), it's a bit too much. Con to damage, though... it might be an interesting solution to raise BW's low damage.

About number of attacks restriction - it's false information. Bear Warrior gets normal attack progression like other classes. Their damage just differs by 0-2 points since some of them count as bites, some as claws etc.

Basically, after thinking, here are my exact suggestions about buffing (fixing) Bear warrior:

1) Buff the Dire bear shape, raising the Con bonus to 12 and Nat. armor bonus to 8.
2) Revert the Roar change, enabling it in humanoid shape once more.
3) Give it "Powerful charge" feat for free at one of BW levels.
4) Some other damage buffs are in order, like the suggested Con-to-damage or something less radical.

p.s. Ex-BW mainer in the thread, if you have any class related questions go ahead.
p.p.s. Evidence of the correct attack progression, recorded 2 minutes ago.

Hidden: show

[zhazz]

Those are some solid ideas for buffing the class.

Here are a few other options to consider.

1. Add 1 damage per class level up to a maximum of Strength mod
2. Apply a 1.5 multiplier to bonus damage from Strength
3. Progress the Power Attack line of feats, giving Improved, Enhanced, and Supreme versions
4. Add Bonus Feats at class level 5 and 9, including new feats only available to the Bear Warrior, which grant synergies for the Rage line of feats:
   • Raging Strikes
     Adds 2/4/6/8 damage while in Bear form, as a synergy for having Rage/Greater Rage/Mighty Rage/Epic Rage.
   • Spiritual Claws
     Attacks made while in Bear form count as Cold Iron/Silver/Adamantine for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction, as a synergy for having Greater Rage/Mighty Rage/Epic Rage.
   • Dreadful Roar
     The Roar ability gain a +2/3/4/5 bonus to DC, as a synergy for having Rage/Greater Rage/Mighty Rage/Epic Rage. Additionally the ability can now be used at will as an instant ability.
   • Thunderous Roar
     The Roar ability now deals 1d6/1d8/1d10/2d6 Sonic damage per class level of the Bear Warrior, as a synergy for having Rage/Greater Rage/Mighty Rage/Epic Rage. A successful Will save halves the damage taken.

I especially like the option to synergise with the Barbarian Rage feat. Makes the Bear Warrior feel more like a specialized Barbarian than a class all on its own.

[MadSeer]

I'm glad to be seeing those suggestions because I'm personally garbage at class balance when something's off, which never quite helps my argument. I remember the Roar debate, and my thoughts back then was that Roar is very much like Scent, an ability the Bear Warrior keeps in human form, and be coherent with it.

I also like Zhazz's suggestion of a line of bonus feats to enhance Bear Form.

[MadSeer]

I'm adding a suggestion to this after doing some in-game testing: Make damage bonus vs enemy types transfer to Bear Form as well. If elemental bonuses transfer, other damage bonuses should too and it can remedy to the DR problem for Bear Warriors by investing in weapons that give a bonus vs specific enemy types.

[Valefort]

Barbarian is by no mean a good comparison point as they became too strong, buffing Bear warrior to their level won't happen.