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.