Okay gents, this topic has been beaten near death before, and I spent the other night reading every prior thread I could find, here and on DF. I actually like the barbarian as written, with the exception being the relative impotence of Primal Fury. Fixing it should be easy enough, and I've been weighing the options.
Firstly, everyone (Davis included, if I'm reading his posts correctly) seems to regard the Fury bonus as both to-hit and damage, although in the C&C PHB it's written as a damage bonus only. Assuming it should be both, how does this progression look?
3rd +2/+2 to-hit/damage
6th +3/+3
9th Fury twice per day
12th +4/+4
15th Fury three times per day
18th +5/+5
If I were to use a damage bonus only, however, I think I'd be inclined to give the barbarian +1 BtH at 1st level like the fighter, and have the Fury damage bonus +2 at 3rd level, +1 per 2 levels thereafter, and two Furies per day at 10th level. Or I might give the barbarian +1 to hit (effectively the BtH of the fighter) with a few favorite cultural weapons only. (Come to think of it, I might do that with either version.)
Either way, I'd leave the rest of Primal Fury more or less as-is: +2 to the Wisdom save, -2 to Int checks and AC. After all opponents are slain, I'd allow a Wis save every round to end the Fury (and avoid attacking comrades), but I would mandate that the Fury be a fight to the death for the barbarian, with no retreat permitted -- and probably rule that he is immune to Fear during the Fury. I'd treat the post-Fury fatigue as something like 1 minute per round spent in the Fury, minus Con bonus, so effectively just the remainder of that encounter.
I'd accompany this escalation in the barbarian's power with a slight tweak to the XP table, because I prefer that a given level always cost substantially more than a fighter, even at high levels. Maybe something like this:
XP table @ 118-125% of fighter:
1 0
2 2,501 (1.25)
3 5,001 (1.25)
4 10,001 (1.18)
5 20,001 (1.18)
6 40,001 (1.18)
7 80,001 (1.18)
8 170,001 (1.25)
9 340,001 (1.25)
10 600,001 (1.20)
11 900,001 (1.20)
12 1,200,001 (1.20)
+300,000/level
Thoughts?
Thanks.