Let's Build: Captain America

"You can't beat me, because I'm an American!"

-Bandit Keith, Yu Gi Oh Abridged Series

One of the coolest things about D&D 3.5 edition is the sheer freedom the volume and range of published content give you to build just about anything you want. This is one build I've always wanted to play: Captain America, i.e. shield-based melee fighter.

The basic concept of Captain America builds is pretty simple: acquire shield, hit people with it. Indeed, you can do a bare-bones build just by being proficient with a Heavy Steel Shield and putting the Returning enchantment on it...but let's take it a step further than that, shall we?

Again, the build concept is simple enough (hit things with shield, throw shield sometimes, punch stuff rest of the time) such that you can use several combinations of classes and PrCs to pull it off, but here is one I came up with:

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The Build

Race: Human

Fighter 2/ Warblade 3 / Bloodstorm Blade 5/ Warblade 1 / Fighter 2 / Warblade 7

Feats:

Level 1: Improved Shield Bash, Power Attack, Shield Specialization

Level 2: Point Blank Shot

Level 3: Shield Charge

Level 6: Agile Shield Fighter

Level 9: Shield Slam

Level 12: Superior Unarmed Strike

Level 13: Shield Sling

Level 15: Stormguard Warrior

Level 18: Snap Kick

Max out the following skills:

Concentration

Jump

Put 8 ranks in Balance by Level 5

Put leftover skillpoints into Diplomacy

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The Stats

Assuming 32 point buy...

If you're trying to replicate Captain America the character as much as possible, I suggest the following distribution of stats:

16 Str

14 Dex

14 Con

12 Int

10 Wis

12 Cha

If instead you're trying to optimize your stats as much as possible:

18 Str

10 Dex

16 Con

12 Int

8 Wis

8 Cha

In other words, prioritize your stats in the following way, from highest to lowest priority:

Captain America: Str>Con>Dex/Int/Cha>Wis

Optimized: Str>Con>Int>Dex/Wis/Cha

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Build Notes

The Bloodstorm Blade is a PrC from the Tome of Battle that basically lets you use melee weapons as throwing weapons, and gives you various boosts for doing so. For example, with levels in Bloodstorm Blade you can make Power Attacks with thrown weapons (including 2-handed power attacks for double the damage!), key your throwing attacks off of your Strength instead of Dexterity, and attack everyone in range at once by expending a maneuver. It also gives you certain feats for free, like Throw Anything (which lets you throw stuff like shields without taking the usual Improvised Weapon penalty). Meanwhile, the Warblade is not only a great melee class, but you also need to know Iron Heart maneuvers to get into the Bloodstorm Blade PrC and use its class features.

As for the levels in Fighter...well, doing stuff with the shield requires a big number of feats. Levels of Fighter is a good way to get those feats quickly.

This build was designed to be viable and fun to play starting from Level 1. If you were starting at higher levels, a different combination of classes and feats might be better.

Following this progression of classes, here is a recommended list of Warblade maneuvers, and when to get them:

Character Level 3 (Initiator Level (IL) = 2): Steel Wind, Steely Strike, Moment of Perfect Mind, Bolstering Voice

Character Level 4 (Initiator Level (IL) = 3): Wall of Blades

Character Level 5 (Initiator Level (IL) = 4): Mountain Hammer

Character Level 11 (Initiator Level (IL) = 7.5): Leaping Dragon Stance, Switch out Steel Wind for Iron Heart Surge

Character Level 14 (Initiator Level (IL) = 8.5): Battle Leader's Charge

Character Level 11 (Initiator Level (IL) = 9.5): Switch out Steely Strike for Sudden Leap

Character Level 16 (Initiator Level (IL) = 10.5): Pouncing Charge

Character Level 17 (Initiator Level (IL) = 11.5): Nothing

Character Level 18 (Initiator Level (IL) = 12.5): Covering Strike

Character Level 19 (Initiator Level (IL) = 13.5): Change Battle Leader's Charge to White Raven Strike, Dancing Blade Form

Character Level 20 (Initiator Level (IL) = 14.5): Manticore Parry

The maneuvers list is focused on getting some good staple maneuvers (Moment of Perfet Mind, Wall of Blades, Pouncing Charge), getting Iron Heart Maneuvers to expend on Bloodstorm Blade abilities, and White Raven stuff because that's the sort of thing Captain America would do.

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 The Tactics

From levels 1-5, before you get Bloodstorm Blade levels, you will basically just be a regular Warblade type except you smack people with a shield instead of a sword. Maneuvers, full BAB, and a d10/d12 should be more than enough to carry you through levels 1-5. Make sure to wield your shield two-handed for that 1.5x Str bonus to damage!

From Level 6 onwards, you have a lot of options up your sleeve. You can fight in melee, or you can throw your shield around, even use maneuvers by throwing your shield; after Level 9, you can debuff enemies by charging into them in melee (Daze and also trip them) or make a full-attack while throwing your shield. And, of course, there are your maneuvers.

As for Stormguard Warrior: this feat has a special clause where you can spend one round making melee touch attacks that do no damage on one opponent. For each touch attack you successfully make this way, then the next round you get a +5 bonus to hit on that opponent. So if you can get 3 or 4 touch attacks on your enemy, you can two-handed Power Attack your opponent for, like, a billion damage and not have to worry about missing.

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The Shield

Of course, we can't forget the shield itself!

At Level 1, get yourself a Heavy Steel Shield. As soon as you can, put some Shield Spikes on it: it buffs the shield bash damage from 1d4 to 1d6. (I know Captain America's shield isn't spiky—fluff it so that it's, like, shield reinforcements or something that lets the shield hurt more when it bashes someone.)

As you can levels, try to get the following properties on your shield, ordered from highest priority to lowest:

Bashing enhancement (PHB) (+1 enhancement): Boosts the size of your shield's bash damage die by 2 steps. If you have Shield Spikes, this makes your Heavy Steel Shield do 2d6 damage.

Make the shield out of Obdurium (Stronghold Builder's Guide) (+4000 gp): Obdurium is from the Stronghold Builder's Guide, which is a 3.0 book, so ask your DM if you can use it—if you can't, just make the shield out of Adamantium. Obdurium is the same as Adamantium, except objects made out of it have twice the hitpoints as an item made of Adamantium, plus it has 30 hardness. Sadly, Vibranium does not exist in the D&D world, so Obdurium is the best you've got.

Valorous enhancement (Unapproachable East) (+1): When you charge with a weapon with the Valorous enhancement on it, you deal double damage with that weapon.

Ghost Ward (Magic Item Compendium) (+1): Ghost Ward gives you a bonus to your AC against touch attacks. The bonus is equal to the enhancement bonus on the shield.

Also, remember that, for the purposes of magical enhancements, the shield and the spikes on the shield are different; the spikes count as a weapon, so you can enchant it separately from the shield. You can only apply weapon enhancements on the spikes. Some good ones to get:

Collision (Expanded Psionics Handbook) (+2): +5 to damage on the weapon. This is technically a psionic enhancement rather than a magical one, but putting this on a magical weapon shouldn't be a problem.

Defending (Player's Handbook) (+1): At the beginning of your turn, you can transfer some or all of your weapon's enhancement bonus to your AC. So if you have a +5 sword, you trade away some or all of that +5 and add it to your AC instead. This is probably better for someone who uses a shield mostly for defense rather than offense like you, but it's an option.

Other equipment:

Breastplate: Breastplates are the best Medium armor in the game, and for melee fighters who want to stay mobile (i.e. not get slowed down to 20 ft. per round movement by heavy armor), the best melee armor in the game when made of Mithral (which makes it light armor, and therefore does not slow you down).

Fanged Ring: Your Unarmed Strike is going to be your backup option, for when your shield is out of commission or you otherwise need to punch someone in the face—like, say, when you're being grappled. The Fanged Ring, as mentioned in the Totemist, gives you Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Natural Attack (Unarmed Strike). Once you get Agile Shield Fighter (make an extra shield bash attack, with all attacks that round taking a -2 penalty to attack) and Snap Kick (make an extra unarmed strike, with all attacks that round taking a -2 penalty to attack), you can spam quite a few attacks per round. Make up for the accuracy penalty with Stormguard Warrior.

Class Articles: The Totemist Part 7

Section 7: Conclusion

And that's that! There are a bunch more Soulmelds you can explore, both on the Totemist list and the Incarnate and Soulborn lists, each with their own unique and useful abilities. Furthermore, unlike the Dragonfire Adept from the previous Class Articles, the Totemist (and other Meldshaper classes) are pretty multiclass friendly; just take Totemist until you've got the Chakras and Essentia you want, then switch over to another class. Druids, for example, can mix well with Totemists; you keep your Soulmelds if you Wildshape into an animal, so you can turn into a giant bear and teleport all over the place, or turn into an eagle and breathe fire on everyone, or an elephant who claws people's faces off (they won't see that one coming, I assure you). Or mix Totemist Natural Weapons with the Warblade's maneuvers; the Tiger Claw school from the Tome of Battle explicitly says it mixes well with Natural Attacks. Do some experimenting, and figure out what you want out of the Totemist! The possibilities—as well as the broken, bloody bodies of your enemies—are endless.

Class Articles: The Totemist Part 6

Section 6: Sample Builds

Some sample builds for the Totemist:

Rip You Apart With My Bear Hands:

Your standard melee Totemist. Claw them up!

Beefy variant (Big initial Constitution boost):

Stat Priority, from highest to lowest: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Wisdom, Charisma/Intelligence

Equipment to shoot for: Fanged Ring, Strength boosters, Amulet of Mighty Fists, Smashing Tail, Gleaming Scales (Fire), Warforged Battlefist (if Warforged), Ring of Adamantine Touch if you need to overcome DR

Race: Dragonborn Mongrelfolk or Dragonborn Dwarf or Warforged

Classes: Lion Totem Barbarian (Complete Champion) 1/ Totemist 5

Note: The Lion Totem Barbarian is from Complete Champion. In exchange for the Barbarian Fast Movement class feature, you instead get to Pounce: at the end of a charge, you can make a full attack. Since you can charge someone from 10 ft., as long as you are able to charge there will never be an instance where you can't launch a full attack on someone.

Build at Level 6:

Feats:

Level 1: Power Attack or Unarmored Body (Races of Eberron) if Warforged, or just leave your built-in armor on and enchant it later

Level 3: Multiattack (if your DM lets you count Natural Weapons derived from Soulmelds for Multiattack), Whatever (if not)

Level 6: Bonus Essentia

Soulmelds (Max Shaped = 4, Max Bound = 1):

General loadout:

*Girallon Arms (Bound to Totem): 4 Claw attacks, with 1 of them Primary. 1D4 base damage. Also, +2 competence bonus to Climb and Grapple checks. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the Climb and Grapple checks by 2 and your attack/damage rolls for the Claws by 1. This will be your main offensive Soulmeld.

*Brass Mane (Bound to Totem): If you'd rather focus on having a fewer number of bigger Natural Attacks, you can also try the Brass Mane instead, which gives you a single Bite attack when Bound to your Totem. You also get +4 to Intimidate, and each point of Essentia invested adds +1 to your Bite damage and +2 to your Intimidate checks.

*Wormtail Belt (Shaped, not Bound): +2 bonus to Natural Armor. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the bonus by 1.

*Blink Shirt (Shaped, not Bound): As a Standard Action, teleport to anywhere you can see within 10 ft. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the max teleport distance by 10 ft. You can't take any actions until your next turn if you teleport, so if you're using this in combat make sure you do something first before you teleport!

*If you're not wearing regular armor: Ankheg Breastplate (Shaped, not Bound): +2 armor bonus. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the bonus by 1. If you are wearing armor: Threefold Mask of the Chimera is an option—you can't be Flanked, each point of Essentia invested gives a +1 bonus to Search and Spot. You could also go for Totem Avatar—you can temporary hitpoints equal to your Meldshaper level (so for this build, 5 hitpoints at Level 6), each point of Essentia invested gives a +1 bonus to your Natural Armor (this doesn't stack with the bonus from Wormtail Belt).

*Claws of the Wyrm (Shaped, not Bound): Unfortunately, Totemists don't actually get to have the Claws from Girallon Arms until Totemist Level 2 (so for this build, Level 3)...but since you're a Dragonborn, you qualify for picking up Draconic Soulmelds starting from Totemist Level 1. This Soulmeld gives you 2 Claws, each doing 1d6 base damage, and each point of Essentia invested boosts the damage and attack rolls with these Claws by 1. Swap this out for Girallon Arms when you hit Level 3. Obviously, this does not apply if you're Warforged; luckily for you, you start with a Natural Slam attack.

Killy variant (initial Strength boost):

Stat Priority, from highest to lowest: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Wisdom, Charisma/Intelligence

Equipment to shoot for: Fanged Ring, Strength boosters, Amulet of Mighty Fists, Smashing Tail, Gleaming Scales (Fire), Ring of Adamantine Touch if you need to overcome DR

Race: Darfellan, Goliath

Classes: Lion Totem Barbarian (Complete Champion) 1/ Totemist 5 (if Darfellan). If Goliath, then Lion Totem Barbarian with Goliath Racial Substitution 1/ Totemist 4 (remember that Goliath is +1 LA)

Otherwise, everything else is the same as the Beefy Variant, except you don't get access to Claws of the Dragon. Use your Bite and a weapon (if Darfellan), or just stick with a weapon (if Goliath) until you can Bind Girallon Arms.

Situational Soulmelds (for both variants):

*Yrthak Mask (Bound to Totem): Once every 2 rounds, you can hit someone with a ranged touch attack doing 1d6 Sonic Damage for each point of Essentia invested. Very few things resist Sonic damage—this Soulmeld can be handy if you're expecting to fight something that's resistant to your Natural Weapons. You also get a +4 competence bonus to Listen, which gets boosted by 2 for each Essentia point invested.

*Urskan Greaves (Shaped, not Bound): You can move across ice and snow without any speed penalties, and you gain a +5 bonus for balancing on ice. Each point of Essentia invested also gives you 5 Cold Resistance. Handy if you're expecting to go into snowy areas, or if you need Cold Resistance.

*General Energy Resistances: The following Soulmelds, when Shaped and invested with Essentia, give you Fire/Cold/Electricity/Whatever Resistance: Urskan Greaves (Cold), Phoenix Belt (Fire), Frost Helm (Cold), Behir Gorget (Electricity). (Kruthik Claws give you Acid Resistance, but you need to Shape it to your shoulders.)

*Brass Mane (Shaped, not Bound): Add a +4 competence bonus to your Intimidate checks. You're no Socializer, but you can scare people if you need to. Each point of Essentia boosts this by 2.

*Disenchanter Mask (Bound to Totem): You gain a melee touch attack that gives you 5 extra feet of reach. You can only make 1 attack per round with this tongue, it does no damage, and you can't make Attack of Opportunities with it, but each time you hit you have a chance to temporarily turn off a specific magic item your target is wearing. The check to turn off the item is 1d20 + your Meldshaper level. You can also use Detect Magic whenever you want, but only as a standard action and once per round. The range for your Detect Magic is 10 ft (boosted by 10 ft. for each Essentia invested).

*Inclement weather Soulmelds: Frost Helm (Shaped, not Bound) and Phoenix Belt (Shaped, not Bound) let you exist comfortably in cold weather and hot weather, respectively.

*Kraken Mantle (Bound to Totem): +8 to Swim checks, can breathe water. Each point of Essentia invested boosts your swim speed by +5 feet.

Tactics:

Rip and tear! Charge into someone and smack them with your claws! Beefy Variant Totemists will have to go without a Natural Weapon at Level 1 (unless they're Warforged), so grab a big sword until you hit Level 2. If you're a Warforged Beefy Totemist, you could instead get a good 1-handed weapon and then charge, which allows you to hit with the weapon AND your Slam in the same round. Your other Soulmelds will boost your armor, so if you can grab a good Chain Shirt AND put on things that boost your Natural Armor, you'll have rather good AC. But remember to not use Power Attack too much, if you have it! You only have ¾ BAB, so you'll be less accurate on average than classes like Fighters, so if you use Power Attack recklessly you'll just miss with your attacks. If you're going for the Killy Variant, you can Bite and use a two-handed weapon starting from Level 1, and attack with both at the end of a charge: switch over to Bound Girallon Arms when you hit Level 3 (so Totemist Level 2). Your enemies are huge! They must have huge guts! Rip and tear! http://www.doomworld.com/10years/doomcomic/comic.php?page=3

The Situational Soulmelds are there to either give you more options outside of combat or give you situational buffs against certain stuff (so if you're heading into, say, the Lair of Ashnar Lord of Fire, you may wish to start putting on Fire Resistance Soulmelds).

Later Levels:

Depending on what items you end up using versus what Soulmelds you need to Bind (let's say, you need to Bind something to your Waist but you also need Strength-boosting items, which usually are worn on the Waist), you may need to pick up the Split Chakra feat. You'll also want to grab Double Chakra at Level 9, mostly because some of your best Soulmeld abilities are available only when they're Bound to your Totem Chakra, and it'd be a shame if you could only use them one at a time. Don't forget to get Improved Natural Attack, too!

Some good later Soulmelds to get:

*Girallon Arms (Bound to Arms): Whenever you land 2 or more hits on a single target with any two Claw attacks in the same turn, you automatically land another hit, which does double claw damage (along with double Strength bonus damage). This is actually an ability found on other monsters called Rend, and is an excellent damage booster.

*Gorgon Mask (Bound to Throat): Turn an adjacent foe into stone, forever! They get a Fortitude save, though, and you can do this only once a day, so it's actually not THAT great. But still: turn people into stone! Now you'll never owe people money, because anyone you owe money to will be turned into statues in short order.

*Manticore Belt (Bound to Waist): Gain 10 ft. of fly speed with Clumsy maneuverability. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the speed by 10 ft. Flying is useful, especially against enemies that also fly. As a melee character, it sucks pretty hard when you can't reach your opponent due to them flying around: use this to negate that advantage. Alternatively, you can Bind the Pegasus Cloak to your Totem for the same, except it gives you Average maneuverability.

*Dread Carapace (Bound to Heart): Gain 5 Spell Resistance, each point of Essentia increases your Spell Resistance by 5. Your Natural Weapons also gain +2 (for Bites) or +1 (all other Natural Weapons) damage and -1 to attack, with each point of Essentia increasing the damage by +2 or +1 and decreasing the attack by -1. The main draw is the Spell Resistance, however.

*Sphinx Claws (Bound to Hands): Gain Pounce. I know you already have Pounce thanks to your Barbarian level, but in case you don't want to have any levels of Barbarian, this is another way to give yourself Pounce.

*Totem Avatar (Bound to Shoulders): Increase the size of ALL of your Natural Weapons by 1 step. As always, increasing the size of your Natural Weapons is sweet. The Shaped effect also boosts your max hitpoints by a number equal to your Meldshaper level, and each point of Essentia invested also gives a +1 enhancement bonus to your Natural Armor.

*Breath Weapons: The following Soulmelds give you some kind of breath weapon when Bound to a Chakra: Behir Gorget (Throat, Electricity), Winter Mask (Throat, Cold), Lammasu Mantle (Totem, Fire), Dragonfire Mask (Throat, Fire). You're no Dragonfire Adept or blaster mage: don't expect to do massive amount of damage. These are more backup options for when Natural Weapons won't work for whatever reason.

*Worg Pelt (Bound to Feet): +5 ft. bonus to your base speed, each point of Essentia invested boosts your speed an additional +5 ft. The Shaped effect also gives you bonuses to Hide and Move Silently. As you'll probably be doing a good bit of charging, the speed boost is very handy.

*Displacer Mantle (Bound to Shoulders): Grants 20% concealment like the spell Blur, meaning 20% of incoming targeted attacks miss you. True Seeing will ignore this concealment, but See Invisibility will not. At higher levels, you may find it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain your AC high enough for monsters to not hit you—if this proves to be the case, Bind this to your Shoulders for at least a 20% chance for monster attacks to miss.

*Heart of Fire (Bound to Totem): For each point of Essentia invested, your Natural Attacks deal an extra 1d4 Fire damage and you gain a +1 bonus to hit Cold-subtype creatures. If you have space in your Totem Chakra (i.e. you have Double Chakra), this can be a great way to boost your damage.

Fly Like A Butterfly...

This is a ranged combat variant of the Totemist. Before going this route, it is very important that you ask your DM whether or not the spike-shooting attack from the Manticore Belt is a Natural Attack. The spike shots from Manticore Belt aren't very good if you can't boost the damage with the usual Natural Attack boosting tactics, so if your DM says Manticore Belt spikes aren't Natural Weapons, then you may wish to not go for a ranged Totemist.

Stat Priority, from highest to lowest: Dexterity, Strength/Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma/Intelligence

Equipment to shoot for: Dexterity boosters, Strength boosters (Dex boosters are more important, though), Necklace of Natural Attacks, Ring of Adamantine Touch if you need to overcome DR. Also, either get Potions of Enlarge Person, or have a buddy cast Enlarge Person on you.

Race: Hadozee or Azurin

Classes: Totemist 2/ Scout 1/ Totemist 3

Build at Level 6:

Feats:

Level 1: Point Blank Shot (and Precise Shot if Azurin)

Level 3: Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (whenever you Shape a Soulmeld to yourself, pick one of them: until that Soulmeld is unshaped, the max Essentia capacity for that Soulmeld is increased by 1)

Level 6: Precise Shot (or Bonus Essentia if Azurin)

Soulmelds (Max Shaped = 4, Max Bound = 1):

General loadout:

*Manticore Belt (Bound to Totem): You shoot a spike from your tail for each point of Essentia invested, rolling for attack for each spike shot. Each spike deals 1d6+ half your Strength bonus in damage (this is why it's important to keep your Strength up a little bit). The Shaped effect also gives you a +2 enhancement bonus to Jump and Spot checks, with each point of Essentia invested giving you an additional 2.

*Wormtail Belt (Shaped, not Bound): +2 bonus to Natural Armor. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the bonus by 1.

*Blink Shirt (Shaped, not Bound): As a Standard Action, teleport to anywhere you can see within 10 ft. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the max teleport distance by 10 ft. You can't take any actions until your next turn if you teleport, so if you're using this in combat make sure you do something first before you teleport! Later on, you can Bind this to your Totem to teleport as a move action instead; given that you only ever need a standard action to make all of your attacks, this can give you amazing battlefield mobility.

*If you're not wearing regular armor: Ankheg Breastplate (Shaped, not Bound): +2 armor bonus. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the bonus by 1. If you are wearing armor: Threefold Mask of the Chimera is an option—you can't be Flanked, each point of Essentia invested gives a +1 bonus to Search and Spot. You could also go for Totem Avatar—you can temporary hitpoints equal to your Meldshaper level (so for this build, 5 hitpoints at Level 6), each point of Essentia invested gives a +1 bonus to your Natural Armor (this doesn't stack with the bonus from Wormtail Belt).

Situational Soulmelds are the same as the melee Totemist variant described above. Here they are again:

*Yrthak Mask (Bound to Totem): Once every 2 rounds, you can hit someone with a ranged touch attack doing 1d6 Sonic Damage for each point of Essentia invested. Very few things resist Sonic damage—this Soulmeld can be handy if you're expecting to fight something that's resistant to your Natural Weapons. You also get a +4 competence bonus to Listen, which gets boosted by 2 for each Essentia point invested.

*Urskan Greaves (Shaped, not Bound): You can move across ice and snow without any speed penalties, and you gain a +5 bonus for balancing on ice. Each point of Essentia invested also gives you 5 Cold Resistance. Handy if you're expecting to go into snowy areas, or if you need Cold Resistance.

*General Energy Resistances: The following Soulmelds, when Shaped and invested with Essentia, give you Fire/Cold/Electricity/Whatever Resistance: Urskan Greaves (Cold), Phoenix Belt (Fire), Frost Helm (Cold), Behir Gorget (Electricity). (Kruthik Claws give you Acid Resistance, but you need to Shape it to your shoulders.)

*Brass Mane (Shaped, not Bound): Add a +4 competence bonus to your Intimidate checks. You're no Socializer, but you can scare people if you need to. Each point of Essentia boosts this by 2.

*Disenchanter Mask (Bound to Totem): You gain a melee touch attack that gives you 5 extra feet of reach. You can only make 1 attack per round with this tongue, it does no damage, and you can't make Attack of Opportunities with it, but each time you hit you have a chance to temporarily turn off a specific magic item your target is wearing. The check to turn off the item is 1d20 + your Meldshaper level. You can also use Detect Magic whenever you want, but only as a standard action and once per round. The range for your Detect Magic is 10 ft (boosted by 10 ft. for each Essentia invested).

*Inclement weather Soulmelds: Frost Helm (Shaped, not Bound) and Phoenix Belt (Shaped, not Bound) let you exist comfortably in cold weather and hot weather, respectively.

*Kraken Mantle (Bound to Totem): +8 to Swim checks, can breathe water. Each point of Essentia invested boosts your swim speed by +5 feet.

Tactics:

The ranged Totemist is a bit more difficult to build than the melee Totemist; I strongly suspect that the Manticore Belt's spike-shooting ability was intended as a supplemental or secondary ability rather than a main attack form for the Totemist; as a result, compared to the melee Totemist you are Bound to do less damage and be somewhat less accurate. So, to keep up with the melee Totemists, you need to do more powerbuilding focused on boosting the damage from your tail spike shots—increase your size, increase your Natural Weapon sizes, get the Necklace of Natural Attacks (enchants a Natural Weapon like you would a regular weapon), ask your buddies to buff your damage, increase the max Essentia capacity of Manticore Belt as much as you can, shove as much Essentia in there as much as you can. The Scout level is there to provide an extra 1d6 of damage: since your ranged attack is always a standard action no matter what, you have almost no reason not to move your Totemist 10 ft. every round. Be mobile, be swift, shoot down vulnerable targets of opportunity (like that squishy mage over there), and take advantage of the fact that you can do good ranged damage and still can move after attacking.

Note: some of you might have noticed that the Scout's Skirmish ability (add 1d6 damage to each attack after you move 10 ft.) seems like it ought to add 1d6 damage to each spike you shoot, essentially doubling your damage. Sadly...this is not the case. Wizards of the Coast stated that any range attack that involves more than 1 attack roll but does NOT use a full-round action (like your Manticore Belt) is called a “volley attack”, and in volley attacks, stuff like Skirmish only applies once to the entire set of attacks. So alas, Skirmish only adds 1d6 to the final Manticore Belt damage, only increasing from 1d6 if you take more levels in Scout.

Later levels:

Get Improved Natural Attack! You need that damage boost. You should also try and spend a feat on Shape Soulmeld to grab the Sighting Gloves Soulmeld: normally available only to Incarnates, Sighting Gloves when shaped give you a +1 insight bonus to damage on ranged attacks, each point of Essentia invested boosting the bonus by another 1. And don't forget to grab the Precise Shot feat so you can shoot accurately into melee.

Some good later Soulmelds to get:

*Manticore Belt (Bound to Waist): As with the melee Totemists, you gain 10 ft. of fly speed with Clumsy maneuverability. Each point of Essentia invested boosts the speed by 10 ft. Flying around out of reach of melee enemies, while shooting them in the face with your tail-spikes, is an excellent tactic. Furthermore, you get the Flyby Attack feat for free: this means that, in the middle of a move, you can use a standard action to make an attack. Normally, you can only ever make an attack before or after you move; with this, you can attack during the move. This provides you with an excellent mobility advantage—I highly recommend taking advantage of it.

*Dread Carapace (Bound to Heart): Gain 5 Spell Resistance, each point of Essentia increases your Spell Resistance by 5. Your Natural Weapons also gain +2 (for Bites) or +1 (all other Natural Weapons) damage and -1 to attack, with each point of Essentia increasing the damage by +2 or +1 and decreasing the attack by -1. While the main draw is still the Spell Resistance, more damage is always helpful.

*Totem Avatar (Bound to Shoulders): Increase the size of ALL of your Natural Weapons by 1 step. This is especially crucial for ranged Totemists. The Shaped effect also boosts your max hitpoints by a number equal to your Meldshaper level, and each point of Essentia invested also gives a +1 enhancement bonus to your Natural Armor.

*Breath Weapons: The following Soulmelds give you some kind of breath weapon when Bound to a Chakra: Behir Gorget (Throat, Electricity), Winter Mask (Throat, Cold), Lammasu Mantle (Totem, Fire), Dragonfire Mask (Throat, Fire). Again, backup options for when your tail spikes don't work out.

*Worg Pelt (Bound to Feet): +5 ft. bonus to your base speed, each point of Essentia invested boosts your speed an additional +5 ft. The Shaped effect also gives you bonuses to Hide and Move Silently. Speed is always helpful, especially for a hit-and-run ranged build like yours.

Class Articles: The Totemist Part 5

Section 5: What are some of the usual options for the class?

So the Totemist has a lot of options, particularly with his Soulmelds; he's got a big list to choose from, and not all of them are necessarily good. That said, since Soulmelds can be switched out from day to day, and since you automatically know all of them (even if you can't necessarily Bind all of them), the world's not over if you pick the wrong Soulmelds. But before we get to that, let's look at some of the more usual feats, races, and equipment for the Totemist...

Feats:

Bonus Essentia (Magic of Incarnum): Totemists get a good amount of Essentia, but the hard-and-fast rule with Incarnum classes is: you can never have enough Essentia. Sure, you've got hardcaps on how much Essentia you can invest, but you'll still have a good number of Soulmelds on you at any given time, and if you've bothered to shape a Soulmeld you've probably done it because it's a good Soulmeld—so why not buff it by putting some more Essentia into it?

Double Chakra (Magic of Incarnum): Pick a Chakra. From now on, you can shape and Bind two different Soulmelds to that Chakra. This is amazing if there are certain Soulmeld abilities you want to stack, such as Heart of Fire (see the Sample Build section).

Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (Magic of Incarnum): Whenever you shape a Soulmeld, you can have its max Essentia capacity increased by 1. Remember what I said about Essentia for the Bonus Essentia feat? A similar rule applies; you can never have enough Essentia invested in a Soulmeld. The fact that you can change out which Soulmeld gets its Essentia hardcap boosted every day is doubly nice.

Shape Soulmeld (Magic of Incarnum): What's this? Can't you already shape Soulmelds? Yes, but only from the Totemist list...this feat lets you break that rule. Using this feat adds any Soulmeld from any list to the list of Soulmelds you can shape. You can even Bind the new Soulmeld to any Chakra that you can normally Bind Soulmelds to, at no additional cost! I'll go into what non-Totemist Soulmelds are handy for Totemists later.

Split Chakra (Magic of Incarnum): As you know, if you wear a magic item on a body slot whose Chakra is Bound, that magic item won't function. Split Chakra lets you use both a magic item and a Chakra-Bound Soulmeld at once. You can only pick one Chakra each time you take this feat, but if you pick the right Chakra you can go pretty far. For example, you could pick Throat so that you can keep wearing that Amulet of Health while Binding something to your Throat Chakra, or Heart so that you can keep wearing magical armor.

Multiattack (Monster Manual): As explained in the Natural Weapons article, when you attack with Natural Weapons, only one Natural Weapon (or one pair of Natural Weapons) gets to attack without any penalties; all the rest (“secondary Natural Weapons”) get a -5 bonus to attack. Taking this feat reduces that to -2. Melee attack spam ahoy! However, Multiattack requires you to “have” at least 3 Natural Weapons (so, a pair of Claws and a Bite for example)--it can be a little controversial as to whether having Soulmelds qualify you as “having” Natural Weapons as the authors of Multiattack intended it. Ask your DM about this.

Rapidstrike (Draconomicon): This is a 3.0 feat, so ask your DM if you can actually use this. The wording of the feat is a bit confusing, but as far as I can tell all it does is: pick a pair of Natural Weapons (like a pair of Claws). You can make an extra attack with the Natural Weapon(s) during a full attack, at an additional -5 penalty (so a total penalty of -10). The prerequisites are a little tricky...9 Dexterity (easy), 1 or more pairs of Natural Weapons (also easy), BAB of +10 (so only available at higher level games, but okay), and you have to be an Aberration, Dragon, Elemental, Magical Beast, or a Plant (uhhh...). The easiest way to do this is the be the Elan race from Expanded Psionics Handbook; they look like Humans, but don't age and basically don't need to eat, and they're Aberrations. However, as with Multiattack you should ask your DM if Soulmelds count as “having” Natural Weapons.

Power Attack (Player's Handbook): Actually, Power Attack isn't quite as good for Totemists as it is for two-handed weapon wielding Fighters and Barbarians. This is because two-handers get +2 damage for each point of BAB they sink into a Power Attack, while Natural Weapons only get +1. That said, Power Attack is still a melee staple, and is a prerequisite for a lot of feats, like...

Shock Trooper (Complete Warrior): You'll need Power Attack and Improved Bull Rush, and 2 out of the 3 effects this feat will give you aren't terribly relevant for you, but here's the big kicker; when you make a Power Attack, you subtract points from your AC instead of your attack. This means the accuracy of your attacks are preserved, while in exchange you become very squishy. This can turn Power Attack from an iffy thing into a high-risk yet high-reward attack. You can also combine this with...

Leap Attack (Complete Warrior): If you Jump 10 feet while charging, and you Power Attack during the charge, then you double the Power Attack damage that you do during that charge. Use this with Shock Trooper to do lots and lots of damage without sacrificing accuracy, and also use this with Pounce to do even more damage (more on getting Pounce later).

Improved Natural Attack (Player's Handbook): Each time you take this feat, you pick “one of the creature's Natural Attack forms”, and increase the damage die by one step; so 1d6 damage Claws become 1d8 damage Claws, etc. This is obviously quite nice, but since each instance of this feat only boosts one of your Natural Attacks, it might take a while to boost all of your Natural Weapons. Furthermore, ask your DM if Improved Natural Attack boosts Natural Weapons granted by Soulmelds; Natural Attacks from Soulmelds might not count as “one of the creature's Natural Attack forms”, depending on how you interpret it.

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Soulmelds:

I initially thought about listing all of the recommended Soulmelds and talking about why each one is useful, but then I started losing my sanity because there's a freaking lot of Soulmelds to discuss and holy crap. So instead, I'll mention relevant Soulmelds in the Sample Builds section.

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Races:

As you're primarily a melee class, and since Constitution determines how many Soulmelds you can have shaped at once, Strength and Constitution are quite important for you. I can't recommend, therefore, races that give penalties to either stat.

Here are some of the races that better synergize with the Totemist...

Human: As always, the extra feat is handy.

Azurin (Magic of Incarnum): A lot of D&D 3.5 books feature at least 1 “Human but slightly different” race: mechanically, these are identical to Humans, but instead of the “1 extra skill point per level”, they instead get some other thing. The Azurin race is the equivalent of this in Magic of Incarnum, and if the Azurin has an Essentia Pool (i.e. has levels in a Meldshaping class), his Essentia Pool is permanently increased by 1—if he does not have an Essentia Pool, he instead gets 1 Essentia Pool to work with. As Totemist isn't exactly a skillmonkey class, going Azurin is almost certainly better than going Human.

Silverbrow Human (Dragon Magic): So Dragon Magic has a bunch of Soulmelds available to the Totemist. They are all quite good; Dragon Claws, for example, gives you Claws to attack with right form Level 1, whereas otherwise you'd have to wait until at least Level 2 to start Shaping Natural Weapons. This happens because Dragon Claws give you Claws as a Shaped effect, NOT as a Bound effect. The problem is that, to use these Soulmelds, you need to either be a Dragon or have the Dragonblooded feat...so how fortunate for you that Silverbrow Humans exchange the +1 skillpoint per level for the Dragonblooded feat, eh? Go with Silverbrow Humans if you want to start using Natural Weapons from the get go, and still want that extra feat.

Dwarf: As with the Dragonfire Adept, the bonus to Constitution is quite nice, and in the case of the Totemist, now you don't care about the Charisma penalty in the slightest.

Dragonborn of Bahamut: They're baaack! The Mind and Wings aspects can save you some Soulmelds later on; as always, I can't recommend the Breath Weapon, unless you really want it. Combine with Dwarf or Mongrelfolk for MAXIMUM Constitution.

Mongrelfolk: Yep, combine with Dragonborn of Bahamut for +6 racial bonus to Constitution. Except, unlike the Dragonfire Adept, now you absolutely don't care about Intelligence or Charisma.

Warforged (Eberron Campaign Setting): Okay, Warforged are kind of...complicated. They're magical semi-sentient robots, and the salient points here are: 1) +2 to Constitution, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma (so no real penalties as far as you're concerned), 2) Immunity to a bunch if things, including poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, sickened, and energy drain, 3) Most forms of healing heal only ½ the damage, 4) Weird vulnerability to specific spells, 5) Automatically stabilize when at less than 0 hitpoints, 6) No need to eat, sleep, or breathe, 7) Have built-in Leather Armor (so +2 AC), but you can't wear armor on top of it unless you take a certain feat, 8) 1 Natural Slam attack, and 9) 25% immunity to critical hits and Sneak Attack. Certain feats can replace the built-in armor plating with Mithral (start off with a Breastplate), Adamantine (start off with Full Plate), Ironwood (start off with Studded Leather, can cast spells as a Druid now), or nothing (so you can wear armor like a regular person). Tl;dr: Go Warforged if you like robots, and/or you want a tough race that's immune to a bunch of things and has all sorts of craaazy abilities.

Kobolds: And not just any Kobolds, but Kobolds from this official Wizards of the Coast web enhancement: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a . Normally, Kobolds are pretty crappy as a race, particularly for melee—that -6 penalty to Strength (-4 Racial penalty, -2 from size) and light-sensitivity hurts a lot. The web article linked above, however, shores them up a little bit...though with the -6 penalty to Strength and Small size, they're still really, really awful, even with all the above buffs. So why am I mentioning them? Because with the above web enhancement, they're the ONLY LA +0 race that I know of that starts right off the bat with 3 Natural Weapons, meaning they qualify for the Multiattack feat easily. That said, if you absolutely need Multiattack, there are some other options, such as...

Darfellan with Draconic Template (Darfellan: Stormwrack, Draconic Template: Races of the Dragon): The Darfellan is a race from Stormwrack that comes with a natural Bite attack. They also have bonuses to swimming, can hold their breath for almost 10 minutes underwater, have Blindsense while underwater out to 20 ft., only have a 20 ft. base speed on land, and +2 Str and -2 Dex. This, combined with the Draconic Template (+1 LA, improve Natural Armor by 1, +2 to Str, Con, and Cha, +4 to saves against magical sleep and paralysis, and 2 Claw attacks) means you can start at Level 2 with 3 Natural Attacks. You might not want to do this if your campaign starts you at low levels, and I'd recommend asking your DM about whether or not he'll let you use LA buyoff to get rid of the LA, but this is one of the best ways to qualify for Multiattack easily.

Goliath (Races of Stone): +4 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con. Count as 1 size category higher for a bunch of stuff, automatically proficient with all simple weapons, can climb half of their move speed without taking the usual -5 penalty to Climb, can make standing long jumps and high jumps as though they were running, and don't take altitude penalties, all for +1 LA. Most importantly, they get a Racial Substitution level in Barbarian; when they take certain levels of Barbarian, instead of getting the usual class features they can instead elect to take the Racial Substitution version of the class feature instead. In this case, they can swap out the usual Barbarian Rage for Mountain Rage: not only does it give a massive Strength boost (+6 total, which is hilarious when combined with the initial +4 Str Goliaths get), Will Save boost, and Constitution boost, you also fully increase in size to Large. This is relevant because, as you become Large, your Natural Weapons also get their base damage boosted. 1D6 Claws, for example, go up to 1d8 Claws, and so forth.

Hadozee (Stormwrack): +2 Dex, -2 Cha, +4 to Climb and Balance, can glide (moves 20 ft. horizontally for every 5 ft. moved down) at a speed of 40 ft. per round. Hadozee are mostly for ranged Totemists, which I will explain later in the Sample Builds section. As ranged attacks rely on Dexterity, it's nice to have a Dex bonus—meanwhile, pretty much all of the other races with racial bonuses to Dexterity also have penalties to Strength, size, and/or Constitution (Halflings, Whisper Gnomes, and Elves, mostly); as a Totemist, you can't afford to take penalties to Constitution or Strength.

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Equipment:

The nice thing about Meldshaper classes, and the Totemist in particular, is that you kind of make your own magical items—because of this, you're not quite as equipment-dependent as, say, the Fighter, who can't to squat at higher levels if he doesn't have magic weapons and armor. You, though? You don't need no stinkin' weapons, you ARE a weapon. That said, there are a good number of magical items you'll find useful...

Armor: The cool thing about armor is that it stacks with natural armor...and you can get natural armor from various Soulmelds. Suddenly, being limited to only Light Armor doesn't seem so bad. As I said before, at higher levels I would recommend trying to shoot for Mithral Breastplates. Until then, Chain Shirts, and then Mithral Chain Shirts, work quite well. The armor bonus combined with your natural armor bonus will make you rather tanky.

Damage Reduction stuff: As I said before, Natural Attacks rely heavily on spamming lots of weaker attacks instead of single, big attacks. This means DR can utterly destroy you if you're not careful. Fortunately, there are several items that imbue your Natural Attacks with various properties that allow you to overcome DR...

Golembane Scarab (PHB): You overcome any and all DR on golems for 2.5k gold. A bit situational, but it's cheaper than a lot of other methods for overcoming DR X/Adamantine.

Wyrmfang Amulet (Magic Item Compendium): For 1,350 gold, your Natural Attacks overcome DR as though they were Magic. Cheap stuff—certainly cheaper than the Natural Weapon equivalent to +1 magic enhancement bonuses. Take heed, however: this occupies the Throat slot, which means this might conflict with some of your Bound Soulmelds. If you need to, you can always take the Split Chakra feat.

Gauntlets of Ghost Fighting (Magic Item Compendium): Punch a ghost in the face! For 4k gold, you negate the ability that ghosts (and other incorporeal creatures) have where 50% of all attacks done against them are misses. You also do an extra 1d6 damage per attack on incorporeal stuff. This item might conflict with any Soulmelds you've Bound to your Hands.

Ghost Shroud (Magic Item Compendium): A defensive alternative to the Gauntlets of Ghost Fighting. Instead of the damage boost, you get a +1 deflection bonus to AC (remember that deflection bonuses work against everything, even touch attacks and being flat footed). 5K gold.

Amulet of Mighty Fists +X (PHB): This item is a little weird. It's good for buffing a bunch of different Unarmed Attacks or Natural Attacks at once, in exchange for being very expensive. If you wear this, your Unarmed/Natural Attacks basically become +X Magic Weapons, like +1 Longswords except Claws, Bites, etc. This lets them overcome DR X/Magic. Costs 6k gold for a +1 enhancement, 24k for +2, 54k for +3, 96k for +4, and 150k for +5. However, this is only cost effective only if you have 4 or more Natural Attacks. If not, take a look at...

Necklace of Natural Attacks +X (Savage Species): Strangely, this item is more cost effective if you only have Unarmed Attacks rather than a bunch of Natural Attacks, but oh well. The cost is similar to magically enhancing a regular weapon: 1000 gold for a +1 enhancement, except you also add an extra 600 gold, and so forth. Unlike the Amulet of Mighty Fists, you can also add magical enhancements normally found on magic weapons, like Flaming or Shocking and so forth. Since this occupies the Throat slot, remember that this might conflict with some Bound Soulmelds.

Ring of Adamantine Touch (Magic Item Compendium): 6k gold, all of your melee attacks (including Natural Attacks!) count as being Adamantine for overcoming DR. Golems frequently have DR X/Adamantine, and this can overcome that, though if you're fighting just golems it might be cheaper to just get a Golembane Scarab.

If all else fails, you can also Shape Soulmelds that give you Breath Weapons; remember that energy damage (fire, cold, lightning, acid, sonic) all overcome all DR.

Grafts:

Grafts: we can rebuild him, we have the magitechnology! For some gold, you can add body parts or even replace some of them to make yourself superior. For ones that replace body parts, you can then put magic items on that body slot; once attached, Grafts count as being part of your body—they don't even radiate magic, so they won't show up if someone pings you with Detect Magic or similar. Note: all Grafts from the Fiend Folio are 3.0 items, check with your DM if using these are okay. Also, you should ask your DM on whether having a bunch of Natural Attacks count as “having” Natural Attacks for the purpose of qualifying for the Multiattack feat. If I have a bunch of Grafts that give me 3 or more Natural Attacks, am I allowed to take Multiattack? Definitely ask your DM about this.

Clawed Arm (Fiend Folio): You get a Claw attack and +4 Strength...for 4k gold. Holy crap. The one drawback is that, if you're not Evil, then you have to make a Will Save every day to avoid having some of your Wisdom drained (if you're Good) or be compelled to do an Evil act (if you're Neutral). Even with this, however, I would advise any DMs to keep a sharp eye on this particular Graft. For what it does, it's ultra cheap, and I don't see any rules preventing you from having more than one of these. Note: 3.0 Natural Attacks seemed to have worked differently, so there's no mention of whether the Claw attack from Clawed Arm is a Primary or Secondary Natural Attack. They might have updated the 3.0 rules somewhere, but I'm not sure—check with your DM. 1D6 damage.

Fiendish Jaw (Fiend Folio): You get a...gore attack? Yeah, the name is kind of misleading. 1D4 damage, and like the Clawed Arm it's not clear whether this is a Primary or Secondary attack.

Smashing Tail and Taloned Arm (Races of the Dragon): These count as Draconic Grafts. Smashing Tail gives you a secondary Slam attack, while Taloned Arm gives you a secondary claw. 1D8 damage for the Tail, 1d6 for the Claw, Tail costs 30k, Claw costs 34k. Grafting the Tail also costs 4 permanent hp, the Claw costs 2. Finally, you can't have any more than 5 total Draconic Grafts, and you can't mix Draconic Grafts with certain other types of Grafts.

An additional note to Draconic Grafts: if you have 2 or more Draconic Grafts, you also gain DR 2/Magic (it doesn't stack with other DR X/Magic, unfortunately) and all of your Natural Weapons count as being magical for overcoming DR. A cheap way to hit 2 Draconic Grafts while also getting a Natural Weapon out of it is to grab the Smashing Tail and Gleaming Scales—9k gold, Resistance 5 against one type of energy, improves Natural Armor by 1. Key words: “improves Natural Armor by 1”. This means that the Natural Armor boost from Gleaming Scales stacks with anything that gives you Natural Armor...like your Soulmelds.

There's a lot of Grafts out there, so I won't go over every single one; these are just some of the more obvious ones. Here's a handy link for more on Grafts: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=575.0

Other equipment:

Fanged Ring (Dragon Magic): Strangely, this item gives you 2 feats while you wear it: Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Natural Attack (boosting your Unarmed Strike). Remember that Unarmed Attacks and Natural Attacks can all be done in the same round: in a full attack, punch someone in the face and then claw them up! Finally, if you ever land a critical hit with your Unarmed Strike, you deal 1 damage to the opponent's Constitution. Two feats for 10k gold is an excellent deal.

Strength and Constitution boosters: These are a given. Don't forget them! I'd recommend focusing on buying Strength boosters over Constitution boosters—after all, you did start off with a good enough Constitution so that you wouldn't need to pump it too much...right?

Battlefist (Eberron Campaign Setting): This hand of mine glows with an awesome POWER! Its burning grip tells me it boosts your Natural Slam attack to base 1d8 damage, and also counts as a +1 Magic weapon. Furthermore, its entry says “Versions with higher enhancements are not uncommon”, so +2 and higher versions can also exist, according to the rules. This is a Warforged component: you can't get this if you're not a Warforged since it's supposed to be installed directly into a Warforged's body. Exception: if you get a certain Graft (Mighty Arms (Faiths of Eberron)), you can attach certain Warforged components to yourself.

Stuff that increases your size: As mentioned above in the Goliath section, increasing your size is a great way to boost your damage; the damage die on your Natural Attacks go up by 1 step each time you increase in size. Certain spells increase your size: Enlarge Person is one such spell, as does the Expansion psionic power. Getting potions of Enlarge Person is an option, as is asking a buddy to cast it on you. However, I should note that Enlarge Person does not stack with the Goliath Racial Substitution ability: Enlarge Person only makes you Large, it does not simply increase your size.

Section 5: What are some of the usual options for the class?

So the Totemist has a lot of options, particularly with his Soulmelds; he's got a big list to choose from, and not all of them are necessarily good. That said, since Soulmelds can be switched out from day to day, and since you automatically know all of them (even if you can't necessarily Bind all of them), the world's not over if you pick the wrong Soulmelds. But before we get to that, let's look at some of the more usual feats, races, and equipment for the Totemist...

Feats:

Bonus Essentia (Magic of Incarnum): Totemists get a good amount of Essentia, but the hard-and-fast rule with Incarnum classes is: you can never have enough Essentia. Sure, you've got hardcaps on how much Essentia you can invest, but you'll still have a good number of Soulmelds on you at any given time, and if you've bothered to shape a Soulmeld you've probably done it because it's a good Soulmeld—so why not buff it by putting some more Essentia into it?

Double Chakra (Magic of Incarnum): Pick a Chakra. From now on, you can shape and Bind two different Soulmelds to that Chakra. This is amazing if there are certain Soulmeld abilities you want to stack, such as Heart of Fire (see the Sample Build section).

Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (Magic of Incarnum): Whenever you shape a Soulmeld, you can have its max Essentia capacity increased by 1. Remember what I said about Essentia for the Bonus Essentia feat? A similar rule applies; you can never have enough Essentia invested in a Soulmeld. The fact that you can change out which Soulmeld gets its Essentia hardcap boosted every day is doubly nice.

Shape Soulmeld (Magic of Incarnum): What's this? Can't you already shape Soulmelds? Yes, but only from the Totemist list...this feat lets you break that rule. Using this feat adds any Soulmeld from any list to the list of Soulmelds you can shape. You can even Bind the new Soulmeld to any Chakra that you can normally Bind Soulmelds to, at no additional cost! I'll go into what non-Totemist Soulmelds are handy for Totemists later.

Split Chakra (Magic of Incarnum): As you know, if you wear a magic item on a body slot whose Chakra is Bound, that magic item won't function. Split Chakra lets you use both a magic item and a Chakra-Bound Soulmeld at once. You can only pick one Chakra each time you take this feat, but if you pick the right Chakra you can go pretty far. For example, you could pick Throat so that you can keep wearing that Amulet of Health while Binding something to your Throat Chakra, or Heart so that you can keep wearing magical armor.

Multiattack (Monster Manual): As explained in the Natural Weapons article, when you attack with Natural Weapons, only one Natural Weapon (or one pair of Natural Weapons) gets to attack without any penalties; all the rest (“secondary Natural Weapons”) get a -5 bonus to attack. Taking this feat reduces that to -2. Melee attack spam ahoy! However, Multiattack requires you to “have” at least 3 Natural Weapons (so, a pair of Claws and a Bite for example)--it can be a little controversial as to whether having Soulmelds qualify you as “having” Natural Weapons as the authors of Multiattack intended it. Ask your DM about this.

Rapidstrike (Draconomicon): This is a 3.0 feat, so ask your DM if you can actually use this. The wording of the feat is a bit confusing, but as far as I can tell all it does is: pick a pair of Natural Weapons (like a pair of Claws). You can make an extra attack with the Natural Weapon(s) during a full attack, at an additional -5 penalty (so a total penalty of -10). The prerequisites are a little tricky...9 Dexterity (easy), 1 or more pairs of Natural Weapons (also easy), BAB of +10 (so only available at higher level games, but okay), and you have to be an Aberration, Dragon, Elemental, Magical Beast, or a Plant (uhhh...). The easiest way to do this is the be the Elan race from Expanded Psionics Handbook; they look like Humans, but don't age and basically don't need to eat, and they're Aberrations. However, as with Multiattack you should ask your DM if Soulmelds count as “having” Natural Weapons.

Power Attack (Player's Handbook): Actually, Power Attack isn't quite as good for Totemists as it is for two-handed weapon wielding Fighters and Barbarians. This is because two-handers get +2 damage for each point of BAB they sink into a Power Attack, while Natural Weapons only get +1. That said, Power Attack is still a melee staple, and is a prerequisite for a lot of feats, like...

Shock Trooper (Complete Warrior): You'll need Power Attack and Improved Bull Rush, and 2 out of the 3 effects this feat will give you aren't terribly relevant for you, but here's the big kicker; when you make a Power Attack, you subtract points from your AC instead of your attack. This means the accuracy of your attacks are preserved, while in exchange you become very squishy. This can turn Power Attack from an iffy thing into a high-risk yet high-reward attack. You can also combine this with...

Leap Attack (Complete Warrior): If you Jump 10 feet while charging, and you Power Attack during the charge, then you double the Power Attack damage that you do during that charge. Use this with Shock Trooper to do lots and lots of damage without sacrificing accuracy, and also use this with Pounce to do even more damage (more on getting Pounce later).

Improved Natural Attack (Player's Handbook): Each time you take this feat, you pick “one of the creature's Natural Attack forms”, and increase the damage die by one step; so 1d6 damage Claws become 1d8 damage Claws, etc. This is obviously quite nice, but since each instance of this feat only boosts one of your Natural Attacks, it might take a while to boost all of your Natural Weapons. Furthermore, ask your DM if Improved Natural Attack boosts Natural Weapons granted by Soulmelds; Natural Attacks from Soulmelds might not count as “one of the creature's Natural Attack forms”, depending on how you interpret it.

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Soulmelds:

I initially thought about listing all of the recommended Soulmelds and talking about why each one is useful, but then I started losing my sanity because there's a freaking lot of Soulmelds to discuss and holy crap. So instead, I'll mention relevant Soulmelds in the Sample Builds section.

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Races:

As you're primarily a melee class, and since Constitution determines how many Soulmelds you can have shaped at once, Strength and Constitution are quite important for you. I can't recommend, therefore, races that give penalties to either stat.

Here are some of the races that better synergize with the Totemist...

Human: As always, the extra feat is handy.

Azurin (Magic of Incarnum): A lot of D&D 3.5 books feature at least 1 “Human but slightly different” race: mechanically, these are identical to Humans, but instead of the “1 extra skill point per level”, they instead get some other thing. The Azurin race is the equivalent of this in Magic of Incarnum, and if the Azurin has an Essentia Pool (i.e. has levels in a Meldshaping class), his Essentia Pool is permanently increased by 1—if he does not have an Essentia Pool, he instead gets 1 Essentia Pool to work with. As Totemist isn't exactly a skillmonkey class, going Azurin is almost certainly better than going Human.

Silverbrow Human (Dragon Magic): So Dragon Magic has a bunch of Soulmelds available to the Totemist. They are all quite good; Dragon Claws, for example, gives you Claws to attack with right form Level 1, whereas otherwise you'd have to wait until at least Level 2 to start Shaping Natural Weapons. This happens because Dragon Claws give you Claws as a Shaped effect, NOT as a Bound effect. The problem is that, to use these Soulmelds, you need to either be a Dragon or have the Dragonblooded feat...so how fortunate for you that Silverbrow Humans exchange the +1 skillpoint per level for the Dragonblooded feat, eh? Go with Silverbrow Humans if you want to start using Natural Weapons from the get go, and still want that extra feat.

Dwarf: As with the Dragonfire Adept, the bonus to Constitution is quite nice, and in the case of the Totemist, now you don't care about the Charisma penalty in the slightest.

Dragonborn of Bahamut: They're baaack! The Mind and Wings aspects can save you some Soulmelds later on; as always, I can't recommend the Breath Weapon, unless you really want it. Combine with Dwarf or Mongrelfolk for MAXIMUM Constitution.

Mongrelfolk: Yep, combine with Dragonborn of Bahamut for +6 racial bonus to Constitution. Except, unlike the Dragonfire Adept, now you absolutely don't care about Intelligence or Charisma.

Warforged (Eberron Campaign Setting): Okay, Warforged are kind of...complicated. They're magical semi-sentient robots, and the salient points here are: 1) +2 to Constitution, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma (so no real penalties as far as you're concerned), 2) Immunity to a bunch if things, including poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, sickened, and energy drain, 3) Most forms of healing heal only ½ the damage, 4) Weird vulnerability to specific spells, 5) Automatically stabilize when at less than 0 hitpoints, 6) No need to eat, sleep, or breathe, 7) Have built-in Leather Armor (so +2 AC), but you can't wear armor on top of it unless you take a certain feat, 8) 1 Natural Slam attack, and 9) 25% immunity to critical hits and Sneak Attack. Certain feats can replace the built-in armor plating with Mithral (start off with a Breastplate), Adamantine (start off with Full Plate), Ironwood (start off with Studded Leather, can cast spells as a Druid now), or nothing (so you can wear armor like a regular person). Tl;dr: Go Warforged if you like robots, and/or you want a tough race that's immune to a bunch of things and has all sorts of craaazy abilities.

Kobolds: And not just any Kobolds, but Kobolds from this official Wizards of the Coast web enhancement: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a . Normally, Kobolds are pretty crappy as a race, particularly for melee—that -6 penalty to Strength (-4 Racial penalty, -2 from size) and light-sensitivity hurts a lot. The web article linked above, however, shores them up a little bit...though with the -6 penalty to Strength and Small size, they're still really, really awful, even with all the above buffs. So why am I mentioning them? Because with the above web enhancement, they're the ONLY LA +0 race that I know of that starts right off the bat with 3 Natural Weapons, meaning they qualify for the Multiattack feat easily. That said, if you absolutely need Multiattack, there are some other options, such as...

Darfellan with Draconic Template (Darfellan: Stormwrack, Draconic Template: Races of the Dragon): The Darfellan is a race from Stormwrack that comes with a natural Bite attack. They also have bonuses to swimming, can hold their breath for almost 10 minutes underwater, have Blindsense while underwater out to 20 ft., only have a 20 ft. base speed on land, and +2 Str and -2 Dex. This, combined with the Draconic Template (+1 LA, improve Natural Armor by 1, +2 to Str, Con, and Cha, +4 to saves against magical sleep and paralysis, and 2 Claw attacks) means you can start at Level 2 with 3 Natural Attacks. You might not want to do this if your campaign starts you at low levels, and I'd recommend asking your DM about whether or not he'll let you use LA buyoff to get rid of the LA, but this is one of the best ways to qualify for Multiattack easily.

Goliath (Races of Stone): +4 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con. Count as 1 size category higher for a bunch of stuff, automatically proficient with all simple weapons, can climb half of their move speed without taking the usual -5 penalty to Climb, can make standing long jumps and high jumps as though they were running, and don't take altitude penalties, all for +1 LA. Most importantly, they get a Racial Substitution level in Barbarian; when they take certain levels of Barbarian, instead of getting the usual class features they can instead elect to take the Racial Substitution version of the class feature instead. In this case, they can swap out the usual Barbarian Rage for Mountain Rage: not only does it give a massive Strength boost (+6 total, which is hilarious when combined with the initial +4 Str Goliaths get), Will Save boost, and Constitution boost, you also fully increase in size to Large. This is relevant because, as you become Large, your Natural Weapons also get their base damage boosted. 1D6 Claws, for example, go up to 1d8 Claws, and so forth.

Hadozee (Stormwrack): +2 Dex, -2 Cha, +4 to Climb and Balance, can glide (moves 20 ft. horizontally for every 5 ft. moved down) at a speed of 40 ft. per round. Hadozee are mostly for ranged Totemists, which I will explain later in the Sample Builds section. As ranged attacks rely on Dexterity, it's nice to have a Dex bonus—meanwhile, pretty much all of the other races with racial bonuses to Dexterity also have penalties to Strength, size, and/or Constitution (Halflings, Whisper Gnomes, and Elves, mostly); as a Totemist, you can't afford to take penalties to Constitution or Strength.

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Equipment:

The nice thing about Meldshaper classes, and the Totemist in particular, is that you kind of make your own magical items—because of this, you're not quite as equipment-dependent as, say, the Fighter, who can't to squat at higher levels if he doesn't have magic weapons and armor. You, though? You don't need no stinkin' weapons, you ARE a weapon. That said, there are a good number of magical items you'll find useful...

Armor: The cool thing about armor is that it stacks with natural armor...and you can get natural armor from various Soulmelds. Suddenly, being limited to only Light Armor doesn't seem so bad. As I said before, at higher levels I would recommend trying to shoot for Mithral Breastplates. Until then, Chain Shirts, and then Mithral Chain Shirts, work quite well. The armor bonus combined with your natural armor bonus will make you rather tanky.

Damage Reduction stuff: As I said before, Natural Attacks rely heavily on spamming lots of weaker attacks instead of single, big attacks. This means DR can utterly destroy you if you're not careful. Fortunately, there are several items that imbue your Natural Attacks with various properties that allow you to overcome DR...

Golembane Scarab (PHB): You overcome any and all DR on golems for 2.5k gold. A bit situational, but it's cheaper than a lot of other methods for overcoming DR X/Adamantine.

Wyrmfang Amulet (Magic Item Compendium): For 1,350 gold, your Natural Attacks overcome DR as though they were Magic. Cheap stuff—certainly cheaper than the Natural Weapon equivalent to +1 magic enhancement bonuses. Take heed, however: this occupies the Throat slot, which means this might conflict with some of your Bound Soulmelds. If you need to, you can always take the Split Chakra feat.

Gauntlets of Ghost Fighting (Magic Item Compendium): Punch a ghost in the face! For 4k gold, you negate the ability that ghosts (and other incorporeal creatures) have where 50% of all attacks done against them are misses. You also do an extra 1d6 damage per attack on incorporeal stuff. This item might conflict with any Soulmelds you've Bound to your Hands.

Ghost Shroud (Magic Item Compendium): A defensive alternative to the Gauntlets of Ghost Fighting. Instead of the damage boost, you get a +1 deflection bonus to AC (remember that deflection bonuses work against everything, even touch attacks and being flat footed). 5K gold.

Amulet of Mighty Fists +X (PHB): This item is a little weird. It's good for buffing a bunch of different Unarmed Attacks or Natural Attacks at once, in exchange for being very expensive. If you wear this, your Unarmed/Natural Attacks basically become +X Magic Weapons, like +1 Longswords except Claws, Bites, etc. This lets them overcome DR X/Magic. Costs 6k gold for a +1 enhancement, 24k for +2, 54k for +3, 96k for +4, and 150k for +5. However, this is only cost effective only if you have 4 or more Natural Attacks. If not, take a look at...

Necklace of Natural Attacks +X (Savage Species): Strangely, this item is more cost effective if you only have Unarmed Attacks rather than a bunch of Natural Attacks, but oh well. The cost is similar to magically enhancing a regular weapon: 1000 gold for a +1 enhancement, except you also add an extra 600 gold, and so forth. Unlike the Amulet of Mighty Fists, you can also add magical enhancements normally found on magic weapons, like Flaming or Shocking and so forth. Since this occupies the Throat slot, remember that this might conflict with some Bound Soulmelds.

Ring of Adamantine Touch (Magic Item Compendium): 6k gold, all of your melee attacks (including Natural Attacks!) count as being Adamantine for overcoming DR. Golems frequently have DR X/Adamantine, and this can overcome that, though if you're fighting just golems it might be cheaper to just get a Golembane Scarab.

If all else fails, you can also Shape Soulmelds that give you Breath Weapons; remember that energy damage (fire, cold, lightning, acid, sonic) all overcome all DR.

Grafts:

Grafts: we can rebuild him, we have the magitechnology! For some gold, you can add body parts or even replace some of them to make yourself superior. For ones that replace body parts, you can then put magic items on that body slot; once attached, Grafts count as being part of your body—they don't even radiate magic, so they won't show up if someone pings you with Detect Magic or similar. Note: all Grafts from the Fiend Folio are 3.0 items, check with your DM if using these are okay. Also, you should ask your DM on whether having a bunch of Natural Attacks count as “having” Natural Attacks for the purpose of qualifying for the Multiattack feat. If I have a bunch of Grafts that give me 3 or more Natural Attacks, am I allowed to take Multiattack? Definitely ask your DM about this.

Clawed Arm (Fiend Folio): You get a Claw attack and +4 Strength...for 4k gold. Holy crap. The one drawback is that, if you're not Evil, then you have to make a Will Save every day to avoid having some of your Wisdom drained (if you're Good) or be compelled to do an Evil act (if you're Neutral). Even with this, however, I would advise any DMs to keep a sharp eye on this particular Graft. For what it does, it's ultra cheap, and I don't see any rules preventing you from having more than one of these. Note: 3.0 Natural Attacks seemed to have worked differently, so there's no mention of whether the Claw attack from Clawed Arm is a Primary or Secondary Natural Attack. They might have updated the 3.0 rules somewhere, but I'm not sure—check with your DM. 1D6 damage.

Fiendish Jaw (Fiend Folio): You get a...gore attack? Yeah, the name is kind of misleading. 1D4 damage, and like the Clawed Arm it's not clear whether this is a Primary or Secondary attack.

Smashing Tail and Taloned Arm (Races of the Dragon): These count as Draconic Grafts. Smashing Tail gives you a secondary Slam attack, while Taloned Arm gives you a secondary claw. 1D8 damage for the Tail, 1d6 for the Claw, Tail costs 30k, Claw costs 34k. Grafting the Tail also costs 4 permanent hp, the Claw costs 2. Finally, you can't have any more than 5 total Draconic Grafts, and you can't mix Draconic Grafts with certain other types of Grafts.

An additional note to Draconic Grafts: if you have 2 or more Draconic Grafts, you also gain DR 2/Magic (it doesn't stack with other DR X/Magic, unfortunately) and all of your Natural Weapons count as being magical for overcoming DR. A cheap way to hit 2 Draconic Grafts while also getting a Natural Weapon out of it is to grab the Smashing Tail and Gleaming Scales—9k gold, Resistance 5 against one type of energy, improves Natural Armor by 1. Key words: “improves Natural Armor by 1”. This means that the Natural Armor boost from Gleaming Scales stacks with anything that gives you Natural Armor...like your Soulmelds.

There's a lot of Grafts out there, so I won't go over every single one; these are just some of the more obvious ones. Here's a handy link for more on Grafts: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=575.0

Other equipment:

Fanged Ring (Dragon Magic): Strangely, this item gives you 2 feats while you wear it: Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Natural Attack (boosting your Unarmed Strike). Remember that Unarmed Attacks and Natural Attacks can all be done in the same round: in a full attack, punch someone in the face and then claw them up! Finally, if you ever land a critical hit with your Unarmed Strike, you deal 1 damage to the opponent's Constitution. Two feats for 10k gold is an excellent deal.

Strength and Constitution boosters: These are a given. Don't forget them! I'd recommend focusing on buying Strength boosters over Constitution boosters—after all, you did start off with a good enough Constitution so that you wouldn't need to pump it too much...right?

Battlefist (Eberron Campaign Setting): This hand of mine glows with an awesome POWER! Its burning grip tells me it boosts your Natural Slam attack to base 1d8 damage, and also counts as a +1 Magic weapon. Furthermore, its entry says “Versions with higher enhancements are not uncommon”, so +2 and higher versions can also exist, according to the rules. This is a Warforged component: you can't get this if you're not a Warforged since it's supposed to be installed directly into a Warforged's body. Exception: if you get a certain Graft (Mighty Arms (Faiths of Eberron)), you can attach certain Warforged components to yourself.

Stuff that increases your size: As mentioned above in the Goliath section, increasing your size is a great way to boost your damage; the damage die on your Natural Attacks go up by 1 step each time you increase in size. Certain spells increase your size: Enlarge Person is one such spell, as does the Expansion psionic power. Getting potions of Enlarge Person is an option, as is asking a buddy to cast it on you. However, I should note that Enlarge Person does not stack with the Goliath Racial Substitution ability: Enlarge Person only makes you Large, it does not simply increase your size.