101 Barbarian Feats (PFRPG) PDF

This supplement clocks in at 27 pages, including 23 pages of content. With no introduction at all, we start with a standard table of feats, with prerequisites and short descriptions. After the table comes the full description of 101 feats, all intended for barbarians.
Most feats have as a prerequisite either Rage class feature, a specific rage power, or class features specific to certain barbarian archetypes.
A few feats, such as Improved Body Bludgeon, fall into the unfortunate trap of overly long feat chain prerequisites. Feats are a rare commodity in Pathfinder, so a feat which isn’t all that powerful to begin with shouldn’t require five other non-synergized feats as prerequisites. Fortunately, only a few feats in this supplement fall into this trap.
Many archetype class features have ‘improved [alternate class feature]’ feats. Those which already had such feats get ‘greater [alternate class feature]. The benefits of feats are quite varied, from inflicting curses using rage power, to an immediate-action charge which costs three uses of rage, to feats like Demonic Rage, which grants both the benefits and drawbacks of having a demon live inside the barbarian. There are feats which can allow a barbarian to transfer afflictions from themselves to enemies. Some feats are essentially ‘bane’ feats, giving extra bonuses when attacking creatures of a specific type or subtype. Mindless Rage allows you to become immune to mind-affecting effects while raging, at the cost of having to follow pre-set tactics. Some feats are tied to races. For example, halflings and blinklingsget Maul Joint, which allows the user to damage enemies’ joints. There doesn’t seem to be much reason the racial feats are tied to a specific race, though, except possibly to make the reader aware of races from other Rite Publishing products. Then again, the same can be said of most feats with racial requirements in Pathfinder.
There are small, full-color illustrations spread throughout this PDF.
Short Term Use: The editing and formatting are top notch, and the effects of each feat are clear. Hence, it is easy to add these feats onto your NPCs with little preparation. Of course, for PCs, more planning is typically required, given the nature of feat chains. Still, the variety of interesting effects earns a strong short term rating of 4/5.
Long Term Use: The nice part about these feats is that due to the variety of effects, they can be reused endlessly. You can combine them in a lot of different ways, or you could put them on monsters. These are all well-written and mostly interesting feats. If you are reading this review, you probably know what to do with a bunch of feats. The long term rating is 4.5/5, rounded up to 5 due to the low price.

'Beserker' Steven D. Russell of Rite Publishing has set out to provide a plethora of flavorful feats meant to ensure enemies are both crushed and driven before you--and one needn't contemplate overlong 'neath the tree of woe to find a satisfying selection at hand. 101 Barbarian Feats includes a wide variety of fun new options to further define and fine tune a given barbarian's play style; as an added bonus, the material herein offers functionality among rage powers as well--and a number of entries may even make their way to the sheets of fighters and other martial combat characters with the right inspiration.

Included here among the feats there is a fairly even spread between those that are wholly new and those which provide 'improved' and 'greater' versions of current mechanics; this serves well to not only open up new avenues of barbarian styling but to also continue to empower those which one might already be fond of. Each of the new offerings tend to balance off of a combination of expending rounds of rage or limited usage per day, which serve to keep things in line while offering a chance for barbarian characters to prompt powerful, cinematic moments.

Among the new entries there are a few which prove quite elaborate and at times a bit dense as well, but one pairing in particular really stood out: the Demonic Rage feats break down into a variety of different fonts of demonic power each with their own extraordinary or supernatural power which they grant while raging. These powers are derived from different demons contained within the barbarian which introduce a number of potent elements; the 'possessing' demon can communicate with their host telepathically and generally attempt to exert their wills and desires--but most poignantly, they are able to take control of their raging host at the GM's discretion.

The Demonic Rage feats could certainly lend to an interesting role-play situation, but would definitely require consideration from all parties involved before introduction to play. Beyond this arbitration, the one thing that I found ponderous was the mention that upon the barbarian host's death a given demon would appear in their square--which as one might imagine, could introduce a host (ho ho!) of new problems. Nevertheless, a very inventive mechanic upon which an entire character could be based.

As with any supplement of character options it will ultimately vary in personal preference for what you are comfortable introducing to your game, but on the whole I found the mechanics presented within 101 Barbarian Feats to be very manageable and thoughtfully balanced in line with existing character options.

One of the biggest values to me in this product is that various barbarian archetypes receive feat support here which can broaden their functionality. For example, the 'Hurler' archetype ordinarily starts and ends at the 'Skilled Thrower' ability; included here are a pair of feats to augment this class feature--but additionally one might take 'Covering Throws' to inflict morale penalties on enemies, or 'Perfect Pitch' to gain further range and damage on thrown attacks. Having these new options to augment existing archetypes is quite keen and handled in a very sensible but flavorful fashion!

Since many of the feats included may also be utilized as rage powers, there is considerable flexibility and ease in introducing them to new or existing characters; some of the feats included also serve to help strongly define a character's background--such as an origin as a pit fighter involved in deadly blood sports or a seaborne raider pillaging from port to port. Not only might these spark the inspirations for entire character concept--but they might also be employed to simply solidify an homage to classic tropes.

Between all of the background options, archetype augmentations and the various chains and trees presented here one might comprise an entire party of distinct individual barbarians to go cavorting and conquering together!

Overall: 101 Barbarian Feats is 27 pages, with 4 occupied by the cover, credits, OGL and an advertisement; this leaves us with 4 pages sporting sizable reference tables while the remaining 19 cover the broad and meaty spread of barbarian goodies herein. Rite Publishing's two-column standard of formatting is present, with plentiful full-color (a mix of stock and public domain) artwork throughout--nearly one piece on every page.

The artwork is suitably flavorful for the feats each piece accompanies, with most adding nicely to the feel. Layout and spacing are good on the whole, though there are some minor glitches and inconsistencies e.g. italics among the flavor text and a few typos among the mechanics--but ultimately nothing is glaring enough to detract from the otherwise solid presentation. The PDF is bookmarked for groupings of feats by letter, which is serviceable.

This is the sort of supplement where you might find yourself reading along and wondering aloud: 'Why wasn't this included in the core material?' Here Steven D. Russel has provided organic options for the continuation of current options and archetypes which feel perfectly in theme and balance with their roots; from there, we are also presented with a great many new avenues of exploration for barbarian character concepts not previously offered by the rules.

Between background seeds, extension and expansion on existing archetypes and mechanics and finally the character-defining, cinematic capstone abilities--101 Barbarian Feats could certainly serve as the foundation for a 'Complete Barbarian' style of product. Even as it stands on its own, I was thoroughly impressed by the material's creativity matched in equal measure by carefully considered crunch--which together in tandem serve to stand as a stellar offering of character options.

On the whole, if you are a fan of playing barbarians and enjoy having a bevy of customization choices available to you, this really is a must-have supplement; if you're a GM with players interested in pursuing barbarian characters they're apt to love the offerings here. As well, one could create rather interesting NPCs--or even compelling barbarian villains--utilizing the options included here. 101 Barbarian Feats is an excellent tool kit to tailor together truly iconic barbarian characters!

I'm going to go with 4.5 stars due to editing glitches, but rounded comfortably to 5 stars.

This pdf is 27 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving 23 pages of content for the new feats!

EDIT: This revised review is based on V.2.0 of the pdf.

Of all the core-classes, none has been as neglected as the barbarian - Wizards enjoy new (sub-)schools, sorcerors a lot of bloodlines, all the divine classes get a vast amount of new spells and what did the barbarians get? Nothing! Rite Publishing finally sets out to remedy this gross oversight and provide us with a vast selection of new feats geared specifically towards being useful for barbarians. After a comprehensive list of all the feats and what they do, we are introduced to them and boy, they are of the high quality I've come to expect of Rite Publishing.

Mechanically, this pdf contains a lot of feats and many of them also have the (combat)-subtype, that is fighters and gunslingers get something out of this file as well! That being said, emphasis definitely rests on barbarians and the flavor they feature oozes primal rage. As with the last 101-feat book, these feats all come with a short line of fluff. Many of the feats herein could also be selected as a rage power and use a new rage-point mechanic - similar to e.g. the Gunslinger, rounds of rage can be treated as points: Many a feat can be used by spending a couple of rage points to do some extraordinary displays of strength, resiliency and savagery and devastating attacks. Great innovation!

Several of the feats can also be considered background feats - there are feats for ex-slaves, who channel their pain into their strikes, man-hating amazons, notorious and shamed exiles etc. There are other feats in here, too: A whole slew of the feats enables you to channel your rage towards more benign purposes and guard designated family members, women etc. These feats of morality offer severe present a kind of codex for barbarians and harming a designated target might elicit sever repercussions - never harm a barbarian's child, unless you're prepared to suffer a devastating blast of rage...

Among my favorite of the feats herein is a mini feat-tree that is essentially a whole family of feats packed into 3: The demonic rage tree - essentially, the rage of these barbarians stems from demons that have been harmlessly bound. When entering a rage, the barbarian displays some of his demon's powers and quite a bunch of them are covered. From a balor's senses to a succubus' wiles - the options are iconic and cool.

Speaking of the latter: Have you ever been bugged by the fact that Conan got all the girls, but his Charisma was probably not that high? Well, herein are also feats that enable a barbarian to se his hardiness and strength to look appealing, enabling the concept of a barbarian leader.

And then there are the "Stark, raving mad"-feats - dirty and insane fighting techniques that should turn the stomachs of cavaliers - from insane, killing spree-like rages, the ability to blind foes with spittle and omit up acidic juices, the options to create slavering madmen is included, should you be so inclined.

It should also be noted that classics like the ability to spread one's rage to others, deliver minor curses etc. are covered as well. And then there are feats like "Rage against the Machine", which I know one of my players would immediately take without even reading the text. (Guess what - good against constructs!) Better yet, if you ever wanted to use your throwing axes/daggers for cover-fire, there's a feat in here for that as well.

Another thing you might associate with barbarians (I know I do), is resiliency and finally, there's a feat that lets you step into the footsteps of the great heroes of the Sword & Sorcery-genre - the invulnerability-feats. The mightiest of them, Greater Invulnerability, lets you expend 3 rage rounds once per day to ignore one melee or ranged attack and its effects. Thulsa Doom's deathgrip? Pfff! That dragon about to chomp you to itty bitty pieces and swallow you whole? You're standing in his mouth, holding his jaws ajar! By far the most powerful feat (at least in my opinion) in the whole book, I at first considered this overpowered, but the once-per-day restriction along its steep round-cost makes this a truly cinematic choice. In fact, several feats herein might actually make the barbarian a valid choice for being the party tank!

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting in teh revised edition is up to RiP's excellent quality standards. Layout adheres to RiP's 2-column standard, the artwork is stock and the pdf comes fully bookmarked. "What can I do, what can I say - choose your weapon, time to pay!" could be the tagline for this book - barbarians, often neglected, finally get their very own toolbox of deadly powers, several of which might actually be the focus of whole campaigns and could come with specific in-game reasons for adventuring. In fact, just reading these feats gave me a vast amount of ideas on how/where to use them, for which kind of character and even made a murder-mystery plot form itself in my mind - there's a hulk-style (sans green) feat that lets you grow and who would suspect that halfling sitting at the bar of being this huge brute that thrashed the townsguard two nights ago? Idea-wise, this pdf is golden - it expands rage-powers via feats, offers great customization-options and provides A LOT of fodder for everyone with even the slightest hint of a savage streak out there. In fact, if you're playing Skull & Shackles, you'll be happy to know that raiding barbarians and corresponding feats are covered in these pages as well! Now that the editing glitches are out of the way, I can only settle for a final verdict of 5 stars and a definite recommendation for everyone who wants to see their enemies driven before them - after all, "What is best in life?"

Endzeitgeist out.