Vivacious Rager (3.5e Prestige Class)

Vivacious Rager
"I... I can't stop it! I have to keep fighting or..."

During a rage, the body goes above and beyond its limit, granting incredible strength, vitality, and willpower. But there is a physical limit to how fast a body can heal, how much punishment one man can take. In the end they are limited, but not the vivacious ragers. So great is their rage they transcend the limits of the body and dip into the spring of life itself, the blazing positive energy plane. Within this primal cosmic furnace of life lies endless strength, and also the dangerous threat of destruction from the spiraling energy of life itself.

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Vivacious Rager.

You do not gain any other benefits of the barbarian class such as trap sense, damage reduction, or tireless rage class features.

 (Su): Whenever you rage you may call on the energy of the positive elemental plane to augment your blows against the undead. A vivacious rager's gains the disruption enhancement on his weapon, even if it is not a bludgeoning weapon. If the vivacious rager is actually using a disruption weapon, the save DC increases by +2.

 (Ex): Instead of going into a normal rage, a vivacious rager may choose to go into a vivacious rage. He gains fast healing equal to his class level x 3 in addition to normal rage benefits. However unlike normal fast healing, this fast healing may exceed the vivacious rager's maximum hit points. Healing in excess of his maximum hp is temporary hp. If the vivacious rager's hp goes beyond twice his normal hp, he dies by awesome as all the life energy is too much for his body to handle. A vivacious rage once started cannot be stopped and so vivacous ragers often find themselves needing to take time to harm their own bodies simply to keep from exploding horribly. When the rage ends, all temporary hp gained from vivacious rage vanish.

 (Su): At 2nd level a vivacious barbarian is connected to the positive elemental plane, granting him fast healing 1. This fast healing does not threaten the vivacious rager with death by overhealing. During a vivacious rage, this fast healing is overridden by the superior fast healing granted by vivacious rage, but his normal fast healing granted by healing spirit spreads out into a 10 foot aura around the vivacious rager. All allies in range benefit from fast healing 1, any undead enemies in the area instead take 1 point of damage every round. The aura lasts as long as the vivavious rager is in a vivacious rage.

At level 5, the fast healing granted by this ability increases to 3. At level 8, the fast healing increases to 5.

 (Ex): At 2nd level a vivacious barbarian has a soul unquenchable even by death. If a vivacious rager dies, he does not lose any experience points when revived. In addition, it is impossible to animate the vivacious rager's body as an undead, as even the vivacious rager's lifeless corpse is supersaturated with positive energy.

 (Su): At 3rd level a vivacious rager's life force surges, protecting them from harm through excessive brute force. A vivacious rager gains resistance to negative energy 5. This rises to resistance 10 at 5th level and resistance 20 at 7th level. It is eventually overriden by Vivacious Apothesis.

 (Su): At 3rd level a vivacious rager's life force surges, empowering their blows with positive energy. Attacks made against undead and creatures which take damage from positive energy (such as a tomb-tainted humanoid) deal an additional 1d6 points of positive damage. Attacks hit incorporeal creatures as normal without a miss chance as if you were hitting with a positive energy effect. You gain an additional 1d6 at 6th level and every three levels beyond (9th, 12th, etc). This energy has no effect on creatures not harmed by positive energy.

 (Ex): At 4th level you are a beacon of positive energy, and thus a fearful bane to all that is undead. Undead creatures which attempt to attack you in melee with a non-reach weapon must make a Will save DC 10 + 1/2 HD + your Constitution bonus or be unable to touch you for the rest of the round. They may still attempt to attack at range but cannot bear to get closer to you.

' (Sp):''' At 7th level you figure out how to channel your healing energies into others through hard work and guts! There are two uses of Overheal. First, you may expend one rage attempt to duplicate the effects of a heal spell at a caster level equal to your character level, or you may expend four uses of rage to duplicate the effect of raise dead. The latter requires 1 minute of focus, but does not cost any material components. You are however limited to casting within 1 minute per character level, before the spirit is too far to summon back to the body through raw positive energy alone. If used in an offensive manner, heal is Constitution based for its saving throw.

 (Ex): At 9th level, nothing can stop a vivacious rager, not even things that should rightfully kill him. While in a vivacious rage, a vivacious rager does not die when he is reduced below -10 hp. In fact, no amount of negative hit points will kill the vivacious rager. This does not protect him from effects which destroy the body (such as taking a disintergrate while in the negatives or Flesh to Stone or from [Death] effects. If the vivacious rage ends and the vivacious rager is below -10 he dies as normal.

He becomes an outsider, although he still counts as a member of his original race when beneficial to him, and gains immunity to negative energy, energy drain, ability drain, ability damage, and death effects. He is immune to the harmful effects of the positive elemental plane and the explosive overhealing of his vivacious rage. His body often glows with radiant light which shines the area like a torch, though it may be quenched as a free action on his turn.

The epic vivacious rager gains a bonus feat (selected from the list of epic vivacious rager feats) at 11th and every 3 levels after.

Epic Vivacious Rager Bonus Feat List: <-list of bonus epic feats->

Ex-Vivacious Ragers
A vivacious rager who becomes lawful loses the ability to vivacious rage and cannot gain more levels as a vivacious rager. He retains all the other benefits of the class.

Playing a Vivacious Rager
Combat: A vivacious rager is ultimately a barbarian, a warrior, a front-liner. Forgoing things like damage reduction, the vivacious rager tanks through sheer hit points. Armor class is often unimportant and the vivacious rager may even desire to be hit, taking blows in place of others. In a pinch a vivacious rager can even make a fine healbot, taking the roll of cleric when not in foaming rage.

Advancement: What is good for a barbarian is good for a vivacious rager, nothing has changed about his methods, only his durability.

Resources: Vivacious ragers are not a lot to gather. In fact, vivacious ragers often become rivals, friendly and not, showing off the degree of their immense power.

Vivacious Ragers in the World
"I am invincible!"

NPC Reactions:

Vivacious Rager Lore
Characters with ranks in Knowledge The Planes can research vivacious ragers to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.

Vivacious Ragers in the Game
Adaptation: An entropic rager, fitted for undead barbarians may be possible. Of course, with no Con score to speak of undead make poor barbarians to begin with. Replace Constitution based saves with Charisma if you do this.

Sample Encounter: Bleed the Invincible, a supposedly immortal an unstoppable gladiator, is your next opponent. Is he really invincible like he says?

EL 16: