Dungeons & Dragons Central: 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.

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.

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.

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.