The Littlest Titan (Explaining Massive Damage, and Massive Weapons)

We've all shared a table with one of those fighters at some point in time. During the days of 3.5 it was the guy who dual-wielded greatswords with the Monkeygrip feat. In Pathfinder they're the Titan Maulers, Titan Fighters, and any other melee specialist who looks like they're compensating for something by using a sword nearly as big as they are. In older editions it was the fighter with the tetsubo or the giant's bastard sword. Regardless of what form they take, though, these combat brutes combine overwhelming strength with the capacity to reduce most opponents to little more than cooling meat with a single swipe.

If you've been looking for a new spin on this archetype, though, I've got an idea for you.

Carry A Big Stick

In order to get the most mileage out of this idea, you need to pull out all the stops for your damage dealing capabilities. High strength, a barbarian/fighter combo with the Titan Mauler and Two Handed Fighter archetypes, Power Attack, Furious Focus, Vital Strike, all that good stuff. If you can wrangle an unusual race like an Ogrekin, then go for it. Any bloodlines, Rage Powers, etc. that will give you strength bumps, like the Infernal Bloodline for bloodragers, or just taking Dragon Disciple, are also options. If at any point you hear a voice that says, "yeah, I could take that feat to really buff my damage, and combine it with this class archetype that multiplies everything by two, but that feels like a little too much wooge," this is the time to ignore that voice and go for all the cheese. You're not just a fighter with a big sword; you're Memnoch the Sunderer, whose blows can cleave opponents in twain through even the finest armor.

You get the idea.

If you're looking for a way to crank up the damage, let me direct you Pathfinder's One Hit Wonders: Tips For Building A Bigger, Badder Brute. Also, due to a recent change in the rules, it seems that the Titan Mauler can, indeed, now use a Large-sized greatsword. So remember that.

The Runt of The Litter

To townsfolk, and even to fellow adventurers, the Littlest Titan is a Herculean figure. With an unbreakable, iron grip, and the strength to wrestle giants to the ground, his prowess and raw might are breath-taking. To the tiny titan himself, though, he never sees what he does as exemplary. It's always just good enough, or just barely acceptable, no matter how awe-inspiring or impossible the physical feat he just performed is.

The reason is because he was not raised among men, so he has no frame of reference for what men are supposed to be capable of.

That guy in red, for example, was flung halfway across the Inner Sea.

 

Who raised the Littlest Titan, and how, is completely up to you. Was he a deformed baby, left to die of exposure in the wilds, but instead adopted by a tribe of ogres who mistook him for one of their own? In which case he would always have been delicate and sickly, according to his adopted family, and he would always strive to be stronger, faster, or more skilled than they were, even if he would never grow to match their sheer, physical size. Maybe brutal treatment taught him brutality in kind, making him a vicious warrior who takes no prisoners, or who eschews all weakness as something that should be killed. Maybe it taught him compassion, and he defends those who lack even his "little" strength.

With the sheer variety of creatures and races in Golarion, this concept can be spun hundreds of different ways. A human with Ogrekin blood could, according to the chart in the back of Bastards of Golarion, display bulging muscles or a deformed limb that speaks to inhuman ancestry (if you want the flavor, but couldn't convince your DM to give you a full-on Ogrekin character). A tiefling might be taken from the crib, and forced to contend with devils and demons in possession of gifts and powers he would never be able to match. A child from the Land of the Linnorm Kings might be taken in by fire giants, shown how to work their forges until eventually his body raises to the challenge of wielding such large tools. Frost giants or storm giants may also work as a surrogate family, skewing the character's view of the world so that he constantly views himself as little more than a child in the face of what he expected to become. The blood of dragons flows through many, and those who were acknowledged by their sires may have grown up in the presence of power the likes of which few people truly understand. Elemental races like the Ifrit, or even the animalistic might of orcs, could lead to offspring who only share half their sire's blood, but who are determined to be accepted as strong by those who bore them.

It's also important to ask how the character acts, now that he or she is adventuring. For example, would the half-orc who was constantly towered over by bigger members of the clan be unable to turn down a challenge to prove his strength (no matter how ridiculous or obviously impossible)? Would the Oread boast loudly about his prowess in order to hide his insecurity, spinning the personal myth of The Mountain Who Slays as a way to insulate himself from the nagging voice that he'll never be more than a pebble?

It's your character, but with such a strange back story it's important for you to have the full road map of who they are, where they were, and what brought them to where they are now.

That's it for this latest installment of Unusual Character Concepts. What do you guys think? If you want to help support Improved Initiative, then head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to toss some change in my cup. If you want to keep up on my latest updates, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter too!

Pathfinder's One Hit Wonders: Tips to Build a Bigger, Badder Brute

We've all seen that player. When battle is joined dice scatter like a shotgun blast, and the number is high enough to make you wince. There's no magic, no sneak attack, just pure, unadulterated might behind every hammer blow. For those who are looking for the secret of the bigger, badder brute, it's not much of a secret at all. You just need to know how to bring the pain.

Step One: Choose Race and Traits

Starting from the ground, up.

When it comes to your bruiser it's important to begin at the beginning. Humans are the obvious choice because of their bonus feat and the floating +2 stat bonus (which you should add to your strength score), but both half-orcs and half-elves have their merits too. The former offers proficiency with the falchion and greatax, as well as half-orc ferocity, and the latter offers elven immunities along with low light vision. Both of these alternate race choices still provide a floating +2 stat bonus as well.

As far as traits go there are several, solid choices to provide an extra edge. Bloodthirsty (Ultimate Campaign) deals 1 additional point of damage when you reduce an enemy to 0 hit points, or when you confirm a critical hit. In the case of the latter the 1 point is increased by the weapon's critical modifier, which makes it a solid choice for high-crit weapons. Axe to Grind (Ultimate Campaign) provides a +1 trait bonus on damage to enemies who are only threatened by you in melee.

Step Two: Choose Your Class

When it comes to sheer strength two class choices are a cut above the rest; fighters and barbarians. While both can get the job done, it's important for players to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each class and what it offers.

Fighters

Nuff' Said

A fighter's strength lies in his or her ability to wear any kind of armor, and to wield even the largest arms with relative ease. Combined with weapon and armor training, as well as the sheer number of feats fighters receive, they are a slam dunk for a one-hit-wonder. The best fighter for doling out punishment in one, fell swoop though is the Two-Handed Fighter variant, found in the Advanced Player's Guide.

This variant loses armor training and bravery, but gains bonuses to sunder attempts and resistances, as well as the devastating ability of Overhand Chop. This ability, gained at level three, allows a Two-Handed Fighter to make a single melee attack with the attack action or a charge, and to add double his strength modifier to the damage dealt rather than 1 1/2 times when using a two-handed weapon. At level seven this variant gains Backswing, which allows the doubled strength modifier to be added to all attacks made as part of a full-attack action.

Barbarian

Nuff' Said 2.0

Known for raw power and a massive damage output, barbarians are often the fan favorite when it comes to doling out the harshness. With a full BAB of their own, barbarians are capable of wielding just as many weapons as the fighter. While barbarians lack the feat selection of the fighter, they make up for it with Rage, and with their Rage Powers.

For those who want to split their foes from crown to crotch though, the Titan Mauler (Ultimate Combat 30) is the way to go. These barbarians lose out on Uncanny Dodge and Fast Movement, but they gain the ability to wield two-handed weapons in a single hand, as well as the ability to wield over-size weapons at no penalty. These abilities are called Jotungrip and Massive Weapons respectively, and it's the latter that really solidifies this build as a one-hit-wonder. Bigger weapons equal a bigger damage potential, and that's what players are looking for. While you cannot wield a large greatsword, you can wield a large bastard sword just like the iconic barbarian does.

EDIT: Since it seems the fans wanted it, the Titan Mauler now does allow you to wield large-sized two-handed weapons, thanks to changes made in the rules.

Feats

The backbone of any brute, the right feats make the difference between a one-shot knock-out, and a dozen rounds of sparring back and forth on the battle mat. The following feat suggestions are chopped into groups.

- Power Attack (Core Rulebook 131)
- Furious Focus (Advanced Player's Guide 161)

The first two feats that any powerhouse should have, Power Attack increases damage by +2 (+3 for a two-handed weapon), and decreases to-hit by -1. Furious Focus negates the negative for the first attack made in a round (the only attack for most characters until level 6). At a BAB of +4 and every +4 thereafter the base damage goes up by +2 (+3 with a two-handed weapon), and the negative tacks on an additional -1. That's +6 at level 4, +9 at level 8, +12 at level 12, etc.

- Vital Strike (Core Rulebook 136)
- Improved Vital Strike (Core Rulebook 128)
- Greater Vital Strike (Core Rulebook 126)
- Devastating Strike (Ultimate Combat 95)
- Furious Finish (Ultimate Combat 102)
- Death or Glory (Ultimate Combat 94)

Despite its name, Vital Strike is not precision damage. It allows players to make a single, standard attack action, and to roll all of their weapon dice multiple times based on the how many attacks the character has as part of a full attack action. So that's double the weapon dice at +6 BAB, and triple the weapon dice at +11 BAB. Devastating Strike adds an additional +2 per die of weapon damage to a Vital Strike attack, up to a bonus of +6.

Furious Finish allows a character with Rage to make a maximized Vital Strike attack. This drops the character out of Rage, and leaves him or her fatigued. Lastly, Death or Glory allows a character to make a single melee attack against a large or larger opponent at big bonuses, but the trade off is that the enemy gets an attack on the character at the same bonuses immediately after.

- Raging Brutality (Ultimate Combat 114)
- Weapon Focus (Core Rulebook 136)
- Weapon Specialization (Core Rulebook 137)
- Greater Weapon Focus (Core Rulebook 126)
- Greater Weapon Specialization (Core Rulebook 126)

Raging Brutality allows a character who is currently raging to expend 3 rounds of Rage as a swift action to add his or her constitution modifier to the damage dealt to all enemies struck in that round. Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are the traditional feats for fighters, and they add a +2 to hit and a +1 to damage respectively. The greater versions simply offer the same bonuses, which stack.

Rage Powers

Don't get even. Get Mad. Really, really mad.

Rage powers are one of the major advantages of Pathfinder barbarians, and they provide a little more oomph. The more levels of barbarian someone has, the more puissant they become.

- Powerful Blow (Core Rulebook)
- Bleeding Blow (Ultimate Combat)
- Crippling Blow (Ultimate Combat)

When it comes to dealing straight damage to all enemies, the Powerful Blow tree is a barbarian's best friend. A single blow during combat receives a bonus of +1 damage. It goes up the more levels of barbarian a character has achieved. Bleeding Blow allows this bonus damage to be converted into bleed damage, and Crippling Blow allows this bonus damage to be dealt to an opponent's strength or dexterity scores. Other rage powers can deal damage to specific creature types, or give the barbarian other kinds of attacks, but for straight damage Powerful Blow is the way to go.

Oversized Weapons

Sometimes a short sword just won't do.

Even with all of the right feats, the right rage powers, and a strength score that's through the roof, a one-hit-wonder needs the right tool for the job. In this case that means an oversized weapon. Why? Because they let you roll more dice.

A large greatax, greatsword, greatclub, or great-whatever will deal 3d6 damage. Sadly they're too big for you to use, no matter what rules you've got. If someone makes you  bigger though, then your weapon gets bigger. Also you can wield a large sized bastard sword in two hands, and characters take a relatively small negative (-2) for wielding inappropriately sized weapons (which is negated if a player has the Titan Mauler's Massive Weapons ability).

Final Notes

When all is said and done, a one-hit-wonder is made up of a lot of little numbers from a dozen different sources. Every build has its flaws though, and players need to keep them in mind if they're going to prepare for any situation a game might through their way. When it comes to preparation, players can never go wrong with alchemical items (this list provides some of the best of the basics).

One-hit-wonders are melee combatants, which means they can't chase down flying creatures, or deal a lot of damage at range. These brawlers also tend to be fairly vulnerable due to a lack of shield. They have no protections against magic, and when it comes to hordes the one-hit-wonders might find themselves overwhelmed. The above suggestions are meant to create characters who go toe-to-toe with a single opponent, nothing more and nothing less.

Lastly, while multiclassing is an option, I would personally recommend against it for this build. Pick a barbarian or a fighter, but don't try to slap them together. Rage Powers' effectiveness are based on a barbarian's level, and combining a rager with fighters, alchemists, and even rangers may have short-term bonuses, but multiclassing can sap the effectiveness of these abilities in the long term. Fighters also gain the most benefits from taking a straight class, as weapon training bonuses, as well as higher level feats like Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization only become available to those who dedicate themselves to the disciplined art of steel.


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