Barbarian Class Changes

[Breakdaddy]

OK, so Ive been mulling over some changes in the barbarian class for C&C to make it more like my idea of a barbarian. I came up with this:

In addition to his normal skills, the barbarian gets the survival and track abilities of the Ranger class. The barbarian also can move 10 faster than other members of his race as long as he is not in heavy armor and carrying no more than a light load. The barbarian never gets the PRIMAL WILL ability normally given at 8th level.

Ive spoken with a few people about it and don't feel it's overpowered at all. Why? Because I asked myself and each of the players I spoke with if they were to roll up characters and had to choose ranger or barbarian, which they would choose. It was pretty much 50-50, so I think I succeeded in at least not making the barbarian TOO attractive. The ranger still has many abilitites which compel people to play one over the barbarian. The favored enemy and bonus vs. humanoids are amazing, and make playing a Ranger viable all by themselves. I feel that taking away primal will was a no brainer as the D12 hit die already mimics the innate toughness of the class over many others. Anyhow, just tossing it out there, comments are welcome. I will be implementing it as-is I think, unless I see compelling evidence that it could grossly unbalance my game.

[Moorcrys]

All of your changes sound good to me. There has been plenty of discussion regarding the barbarian on these boards and a lot of it revolves around a dissatisfaction with the class as it stands.

If you're going to keep Primal Fury as is, with its slow recovery time and dangerous chance of turning on party members when all foes have dropped, I would say you could add survival, track, and the movement bonus without dropping Primal Will at all and you'd be fine. That's just me.
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Moorcrys

[Ghul]

From my house rules doc:

BARBARIAN: barbarian gets the scale ability, as per ranger; also, the survival ability, as per ranger, but terrain type must be chosen (thus, this ability is limited compared to ranger); also, fatigue effects (following primal fury) last for 30 minutes.

--Ghul

[Breakdaddy]

Ghul wrote:
From my house rules doc:

BARBARIAN: barbarian gets the scale ability, as per ranger; also, the survival ability, as per ranger, but terrain type must be chosen (thus, this ability is limited compared to ranger); also, fatigue effects (following primal fury) last for 30 minutes.

--Ghul

Not bad at all. I added track because the archetype I had in mind would be good at tracking for hunting and migratory purposes. It also gives them a counter-track ability which I figured would come natural to a wilderness nomad type character.

[Breakdaddy]

Moorcrys wrote:
All of your changes sound good to me. There has been plenty of discussion regarding the barbarian on these boards and a lot of it revolves around a dissatisfaction with the class as it stands.

If you're going to keep Primal Fury as is, with its slow recovery time and dangerous chance of turning on party members when all foes have dropped, I would say you could add survival, track, and the movement bonus without dropping Primal Will at all and you'd be fine. That's just me.

Yeah, I only left primal fury alone because it really doesnt fit in with my archetype much to begin with, but I didnt think it would hurt much to leave it alone as an emergency "reserve of will" measure for the barbarian to tap into. Im on the fence about primal will. On the one hand, its not a bad representation of the barbarians innate toughness but on the other, it seems well represented by their hit die. I dont know if they really need it at all to represent the Barbarian archetype well. Your point is well taken, however, and confirms to me how grossly underpowered the barbarian is as-written.

[irda ranger]

Breakdaddy wrote:
The barbarian also can move 10 faster than other members of his race as long as he is not in heavy armor and carrying no more than a light load.

This part of your change sounds like a D&D 3.x rule, not a C&C rule. For C&C I would say that a Barbarian can move 10' faster as long as (1) they stick to the armor allowed for their class (this is how all other classes function), and (2) they do not exceed more than 1/2 of their Max EV.

For my concept of what a Barbarian is/should be, I would give them a bonus to overland movement, but not to in-combat movement. Overland movement suggests the tireless stride and the familiarity with the deerpaths of the wood, or a practiced technique for walking across shifting sands. They aren't really faster, just more efficient. In my mind, I don't see why a Barbarian should be faster in-combat than a Ranger or a Thief. From a practical point of view, the Barbarian will always be 10' faster than Fighters, Knights, Clerics and Paladins because of armor restrictions.
On the other hand, hunter gatherers are amazingly fit, and modern tests have shown their strength and speed to be on par with the best college athletes. Plains Indians were able to dead lift more than twice what Union soldiers could, and only four of them could lift a dead buffalo out of a pit-trap; so maybe a 10' move bonus and primal fury are appropriate after all.
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[Breakdaddy]

irda ranger wrote:
This part of your change sounds like a D&D 3.x rule, not a C&C rule. For C&C I would say that a Barbarian can move 10' faster as long as (1) they stick to the armor allowed for their class (this is how all other classes function), and (2) they do not exceed more than 1/2 of their Max EV.

Actually I pulled that and modified it from 1e AU, but I like yours as well. The only bad thing is that I tend to ignore/handwave EV altogether and "eyeball" whether or not the character has a light or heavy load, etc.

[Breakdaddy]

Breakdaddy wrote:
For my concept of what a Barbarian is/should be, I would give them a bonus to overland movement, but not to in-combat movement. Overland movement suggests the tireless stride and the familiarity with the deerpaths of the wood, or a practiced technique for walking across shifting sands. They aren't really faster, just more efficient. In my mind, I don't see why a Barbarian should be faster in-combat than a Ranger or a Thief. From a practical point of view, the Barbarian will always be 10' faster than Fighters, Knights, Clerics and Paladins because of armor restrictions.
On the other hand, hunter gatherers are amazingly fit, and modern tests have shown their strength and speed to be on par with the best college athletes. Plains Indians were able to dead lift more than twice what Union soldiers could, and only four of them could lift a dead buffalo out of a pit-trap; so maybe a 10' move bonus and primal fury are appropriate after all.

You make compelling points. I am on the fence about the whole movement thing to begin with, but I thought it injected a bit of 1st edition old school goodness back into the class while maintaining the hardy and fit wilderness dweller barbarian archetype. In the end, I could go either way on it, so I will likely playtest it as I wrote it and see how it turns out. It also adds a bit more "oomph" to an abysmally "outclassed" class.

[Jason Vey]

I have a number of barbarian variants, based on a "totem warrior" concept, here:
http://www.grey-elf.com/candc/classesandraces.pdf

(Totem warrior starts on page 8 )

[Breakdaddy]

The Grey Elf wrote:
I have a number of barbarian variants, based on a "totem warrior" concept, here:
http://www.grey-elf.com/candc/classesandraces.pdf

(Totem warrior starts on page 8 )

Thanks for the linkage, Grey Elf. The PDF appears to be top notch in layout quality. I have DLed it and am checking it out right after I post this.

[Jason Vey]

Breakdaddy wrote:
Thanks for the linkage, Grey Elf. The PDF appears to be top notch in layout quality. I have DLed it and am checking it out right after I post this.

Let me know what you think! Note, I did this before serleran's excellent XP breakdown, so the XP charts are mostly winging it. Also, just for the sake of completeness, for the psionicist, you may want to have this file as well:
http://www.grey-elf.com/candc/psionic_powers.pdf

[ChaosImp]

I guess I must be the only person who likes the Barbarian the way he is?

IMP

[Breakdaddy]

Thanks again, Grey Elf. I have also DLed the psionic stuff you linked to and will read more on both PDFs just as soon as I uncrash this server at work!

[Breakdaddy]

ChaosImp wrote:
I guess I must be the only person who likes the Barbarian the way he is?

IMP

Probably not the *ONLY* one, but many I've spoken with have found the class lacking in several areas. The big thing is, if I were to leave it as-is, I would drop the XP reqs in a major way because this class just comes out behind in almost every way when compared to the other classes.

[Breakdaddy]

Pretty good stuff, Grey Elf! I really like how you broke down the Totem Warrior into different groups based on their respective totem animal. The skills seem reasonable as well. I haven't really checked out Serleran's XP breakdown chart, so there won't be any confusion or worry there AFAIC. I'm going to pass your PDF link on to a couple of the guys in my group and see what they think, but looks good from here. 8)

[Maliki]

IMC I dropped the barbarian in favor of a Beserker class it was just a better fit.
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