Elmoptah's page

I ended up taking Reactionary (by far the most popular trait so far as I can see) and Indomitable Faith, to stack with Iron Will and give me a fair chance against those darn Clerics with Cause Fear.

Also took Power Attack, Iron Will, and Improved Bull Rush. Paired with Strength Surge as a Rage Power, I managed to very successfully push people around in the game today. A few more buffs to my CMB will give me a good striker and controller character, able to punish opponents and make some room when needed -- I think this is a perfect representation of the character I wanted.

Honestly, I don't know why people are saying the PF Barbarian is a bad choice. I see 2-3 more rage powers I could find useful, so although the range of powers isn't as good as I might like, I'm not going to hit my limits for many more levels -- if some better "official" powers get included before then, I'd be very happy with my character.

Oh, right, I had Power Attack. Of course, what barbarian doesn't? ;-)

Well, both of those suggested traits work -- I'm particularly keen on Reactionary, since acting first seems to greatly improve my chances to cut down clerics before they cast Cause Fear on me (got shafted multiple times while playing "Among the Living" by Cause Fear, it's become a joke at the local table).

I'm about to revise my 3rd level barbarian from Season 0 for organized play, and traits are a new thing for me. I also own a couple of the Pathfinder Companion and AP player guides that are legal for play.

My character (Elmoptah) is a fairly typical barbarian -- see stuff, charge it, kill it. Under 3.5/Season 0, I had Iron Will and Improved Bull Rush. I'm pretty sure I want to keep those feats, but I'm open to changes. I'm a bit different in that I'm from Osirion, which I guess is an unusual choice for a barbarian -- my interpretation is that I'm a fanatical Osirion faction member, devoted to defending those in my charge even to the point of foolishly risking my life, and those opposing me are subject to whatever measures are needed in order to do that.

So -- any suggestions for good feats or traits for barbarians that are not in the core? I'm open to buying books I don't own if they give me access to the needed trait or feat. I'm waiting for the Osirion Pathfinder Companion to show up, so anything from there is definitely or interest.

I think you have the right idea being concerned about this; organized play can be very hack-and-slash. I certainly saw tons of that in LG play. PFS Season 0 did suffer from having too many scenarios that were somewhat on rails without enough chances for using social skills and roleplay.

However... it depends on the GM and the other players. Even a scenario that doesn't prepare you well enough for the other options can be loosened up if the GM really reads the module and gets a feel for what is important to keep as-is and what can be reasonably improvised. If the other players are having fun with their characters and not solely focused on "goal-oriented" play, that helps too.

I've played 7 scenarios. I'd say better than 75% of the time I've had a chance to do something non-optimal (but RP driven) and still done fine in the scenario, had fun, and the other players had fun too. I've played with a combat-oriented character (a barbarian), but also played up a lot (3rd lvl playing with 5th level characters quite often) and gotten a chance to play up the fact that, hey, he's a barbarian with a low Wisdom and a very blunt attitude. I've made impulsive actions in combat, insulted NPCs when they seemed to offend my characters sensibilities, etc.

So, yes, I'd say go for it. You might have some scenarios at cons where you have less fun, but you'll have many more where the role-playing elements come into play and make a scenario a lot more fun.

Joshua J. Frost wrote:

By my calculations you were 2.6, which I call 3, so your GM was well within his rights to give you the option of up-or-down. I'm glad you made it through. :-)

Math is HARD :P

I didn't want to have to turn away a player, so we played up to the higher tier to balance the fact we had a 7th PC at the table.

As the player in question (1st lvl Barbarian), it felt pretty "right" the way we did it. I had to be a bit more cautious than felt appropriate for a barbarian character, but getting to rage at the end felt good (even if it resulted in me eating a nasty hit from the gnoll).