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My group is still toying with the idea of running a 3.5 campaign in Greyhawk around 596 cy. We were discussing the system of multiclassing & prestige classes. Can anyone explain how a character with one or two classes could later take up the barbarian class? It isnt really a profession as much as a way of life one is born into. It doesnt make any sense that a mage or cleric could suddenly become "barbaric". Did I miss something in the fine print that prohibits taking the barbarain class as a 2nd or 3rd class? I dont even understand how it can be class?
My group is still toying with the idea of running a 3.5 campaign in Greyhawk around 596 cy. We were discussing the system of multiclassing & prestige classes. Can anyone explain how a character with one or two classes could later take up the barbarian class? It isnt really a profession as much as a way of life one is born into. It doesnt make any sense that a mage or cleric could suddenly become "barbaric". Did I miss something in the fine print that prohibits taking the barbarain class as a 2nd or 3rd class? I dont even understand how it can be class?
Barbarian is just a name they put on the class, like with the druid. The way you describe it, you could say the same thing about druids as you do with barbarians. The way you could justify multiclassing with a barbarian, is to have your party come into contact with a group of barbarians and have them train you. But you are right, most people would think that character would start off as barbabrians, but they don't have too. The best example I can think of is with Drizzt Do'Urden (is that spelled right?). For those who don't know, he is a dark elf who left his home because he is inherently good and drow are inherently evil. During the time he spent in the wilds of the Underdark, after he left, he became almost feral and picked up the barbarian class.
The only two classes that are really limited to multiclassing are the monk and the paladin, and there are feats you can take to get around those limitations too (I don't have my books right now, so I can't tell you what those feats are). Hope this helped.A bit from my Hoarde
Well, one of my players had a mage who took a level of barbarian...she had however already in creation of the character included a back story of being of barbarian birth but went to train as a mage on quite an early age...and then returned for a while among her relatives. The mage also had reasonable stats in str, con and dex so she was no weakling.
So the potential was there and she "already knew stuff but not enough in game statistics".
She was rather fun character, first throwing around cause fears and rays of enfeeblement and then going to melee waving her falchion :)
As has been noted, you didn't miss anything; barbarian can "legally" be taken when multi-classing at virtually any point. Personally, I don't play it that way. Like you, I imagine the barbarian as being much more of a race than a class. I imagine them to be savage, almost "feral" beings with limited resources or technology. Their social organization is loose (usually no more organized than tribes or clans) and their alignment leans toward chaotic. I use the historical examples of Native Americans, African natives, or Norseman for my models. Now I'm sure many can (and probably will) provide examples of how such cultures were advanced and "civilized", often moreso then their European contemporaries (in fact I just returned last week from a cruise that included a port-of-call in Costa de Maya where my wife & I toured some impressive Mayan ruins and learned how intelligent and advanced those people were). Still, in the strictest sense (arguably shallowly) the barbarians in my campaigns must select the "class" when creating his/her character or never at all. Barbarians shun magic (outside of shaman or witch doctors), lack couth and generally accepted social graces (and therefore possess lousy Charisma), excel at combat (with simple weapons) and survival/outdoorsy skills, etc.
I don't particularly like the newer use of Barbarians as strictly a class because it leads, IMO, to powergaming by players who take a level or two of Barbarian to gain specific abilities (namely Rage) just to maximize their characters without reasonable or logical explanations (or, IMO, proper justification for their "becoming" a barbarian). It only seems logical to me that an "uncivilized" person could join society and eventually blend in by adopting new lifestyles and abilities but much less logical that even a small percentage of the population would suddenly abandon civilized ways to lead a crude barbaric lifestyle then turn around and return to their original surroundings/culture while only retaining the positive attributes of the barbaric life. But hey, that's just me. Technically speaking 3.x not only allows such multi-classing but, again IMO, encourages it. So ... to each their own.
I don't particularly like the newer use of Barbarians as strictly a class because it leads, IMO, to powergaming by players who take a level or two of Barbarian to gain specific abilities (namely Rage) just to maximize their characters without reasonable or logical explanations.
Keep in mind, though, that the 3.5 update was designed to eliminate "cherry-picking" by spreading out a class's abilities over a wider number of levels (case in point: paladin). Sure, a spellcaster can get a big H2H boost by taking a level or 2 of barbarian, but he'll pay the price in spell progression.
For myself, I prefer to focus on the rage ability of the class when allowing someone to multiclass into it. Much as SirMarcus wrote, this is one of the aspects of Drizzt Do'Urden. If you take a Norse berserker as your template, it's not too difficult to imagine any PC falling victim to the "Blood Rage." Of course, all decisions on charcter development are ultimately the purview of the DM, and your word is law. Most of the time. ;-)
Don't forget though, Drizzt doesn't have a barbarian level because he gets a rage bonus to his attacks. Drizzt has a level of barbarian because he lived in a feral state alone in the Underdark hunting a foraging for years after he level Menzoberranzan.
Just pointing out that there is a story behind the level. Unless someone lives in the wilderness either alone or as part of a barbaric culture, I wouldn't let them take a level of the class.
Of course, unless someone takes years off in game time, I don't let them take levels of wizard or cleric either, unless they have taken certain feats or done something to indicate that their character had some training in their past that they didn't finish.
Of course, unless someone takes years off in game time, I don't let them take levels of wizard or cleric either, unless they have taken certain feats or done something to indicate that their character had some training in their past that they didn't finish.
First, I completely sympathize with the thought behind this. Unfortunately, it has major game implications. EVERY class has training involved in it that your character is assumed to have sent his formative years learning. By this logic, there is no mulitclassing, since you couldn't just get the knowledge or the arcane to be a wizard, the street smarts to be a rogue (or whatever aspect of the class you focus on), the martial skill to be a fighter, the education in prose or music to be a bard, ETC., in just one gap between levels. The only exception I can think of is a sorcerer- that just seems to happen. Everything else takes time and training to learn in the formative years, or so the starting ages in the PHB indicate.
It's generally justified in game by saying that adventurers pick up bits of information from their companions, and once past their formative years, have enough knowledge and experience to pick up knew skills fairly easily. I know that's actually a bit backwards, but it works ina very shallow frame of mind, which is necessary to make some aspects of any fantasy, game or movie or book, work.
At some point, you have to have a separation line: where do you break from realitiy to make the fantasy work? There are going to be logical inconsistencies, but you luckily have a large say in where those boundaries are, and that is largely what determines the feel of your world.
Don't forget though, Drizzt doesn't have a barbarian level because he gets a rage bonus to his attacks. Drizzt has a level of barbarian because he lived in a feral state alone in the Underdark hunting a foraging for years after he level Menzoberranzan.
Just pointing out that there is a story behind the level. Unless someone lives in the wilderness either alone or as part of a barbaric culture, I wouldn't let them take a level of the class.
I (almost)totally agree. At least with your first statement. :-) But the "Hunter" personality of Drizzt (everyone's favorite scimitar-wielding schizophrenic drow) could appear in any PC as a result of an emotional trauma or dire situation. The same thing happened to Drizzt in 'The Thousand Orcs.' I think a hunter/berserker could come out of any PC if they're pushed over the edge. But, of course, that just my opinion. If it doesn't work for you, cool. It's your world/campaign/decision.
A barbarian coud just as likely emerge from as character who had to spend time on the streets and got wrapped up with a gang, was captured by barbarians for a time, or for that matter had visions of those experiences in a drug, trance, dream, or prayer induced state, he could take a familiar with a barbarian backgound from barbarian lands, or could be exposured to a barbarian relic charged with the ancestral power of a long lost clan.
There are lots of ways a character could pick up a level of barbarian in the context of thte game
In a fantasy game IMO the goal is good story telling and balance - if the characters are not at risk - there is little point to play. Since IMO the classes are pretty well balanced (depending on the DM and the calibre of play of course). Im my opinion - multiclassing helps players that want to build interesting characters, if raw power is the intent virtually every true class is stronger if pursued to its end, each in its own way. Multiclassing impedes that progression and produces better storied, more interesting characters - but characters that lack a little punch - I actually prefer that, but many don't.
I have a character in my campain that started out as a fighter in a roman style colloseium fighting for his life in gladitorial matches. His charater is very withdrawn and detatched as he used this frame of mind to protect his psyche from all of the needless killing he was forced to do. So commonly his fights he was quiet and calculating and killed without any fanfare or apparant emotion. Finally he escaped but on his way out of town he saw a slave owner readying new "recruits" for the arena. He had the chance to just stick to his escape plan and avoid trouble but "as the player put it" something snapped in his brain. The fighter ran screaming from the shadows and ripped the slave master to peices with his bare hands. He barely escaped town after that little display and was wandering the nearby desert for days with his newly unlocked emotions. After that he took a lvl of barbarian with my blessing
It is not always a matter of upbringing IMO but a matter of personality. A wizard might throw fireballs and other destructive spells around in a fury , as long as the charater exhibits a core characteristic that is compatable with the class. Uncontrollable tempers for a barbarian, Untarnished rightiousness for a paladin, ect they can multiclass as much as they want.
There are different options out there:
- On the Waking Lands website [www.thewakinglands.com], there is a template that can be taken to represent the barbarian life style. Also, they renamed the barbarian class to the berserker.
- The Black Company Campaign Setting also changed the name of the class to berserker.
- And last, a few years ago on the DM's Yahoo groups, there was a discussion about barbarians and sorcerers could only be taken at first level as they represent an inherent lifestyle that an actual class.
Ultimately, if you want to make it work, you'll find a way to justify it. Humans excel at rationalization. If, for whatever reason, multiclassing into Barbarian and/or Sorceror doesn't work for you, well it's YOUR game. If you want to allow it, there's a whole slew of possible justifications. "Game on!"
All of this got me to thinking about battleragers again. Dwarven society tends to be lawful in its outlook, but battleragers require at least a level of barbarian in order to be able to rage. RAS seems to explain this by mentioning that prospective battleragers live together outside of traditional dwarven society, drinking the undrinkable and living in the wilder regions of the dwarven lands. I guess thats as plausible as anything.
I also thinks its kind of ironic that of the dwarven specific warior PrCs, dwarves produce dwarven defenders and battleragers, which are almost diametrically opposed in their mindsets to combat.