A barbarian who becomes lawful loses the ability to rage
and cannot gain more levels as a barbarian. She retains
all other benefits of the class.
Was there something wrong with barbarian/monks that they had to be effectively killed? One of my players is going to throw a fit (maybe even quitting) when he finds out that his orc barbarian/monk has had its balls cut off.
How exactly do you "forget" to rage? It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
EDIT: I know some of you are smirking at the very idea of a barbarian/monk, but the character was roleplayed quite well and is well-liked by the entire party. This is meant to be a serious discussion. I'm not just dicking around for fun.
** spoiler omitted **
Was there something wrong with barbarian/monks that they had to be effectively killed? One of my players is going to throw a fit (maybe even quitting) when he finds out that his orc barbarian/monk has had its balls cut off.
How exactly do you "forget" to rage? It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
The same way you'd forget that barbies must be chaotic and monks must be lawful and let him play a barbarian/monk, i guess.
The same way you'd forget that barbies must be chaotic and monks must be lawful and let him play a barbarian/monk, i guess.
Thank you for your useless contribution to this thread!
It's your loss I guess. From watching my friend play a barbarian who slowly becomes civilized through his exposure to the party (and religion) I can honestly say, it looked like an awesome/fun roleplaying experience.
I just don't get why they had to errata in a penalty.
Since when does adding more limitations make the game more fun?
The same way you'd forget that barbies must be chaotic and monks must be lawful and let him play a barbarian/monk, i guess.Thank you for your useless contribution to this thread!
It's your loss I guess. From watching my friend play a barbarian who slowly becomes civilized through his exposure to the party (and religion) I can honestly say, it looked like an awesome/fun roleplaying experience.
I just don't get why they had to errata in a penalty.Since when does adding more limitations make the game more fun?
I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you. Pardon my snarkiness.
The errata doesn't say the barbarian forgets how to rage. It says he loses the ability to rage. Also, neither the errata nor the rulebooks dictate how I run my game. Not sure why they seem to dictate the way other people run theirs. You want to allow barbarian/monks? Then allow them.
Just house rule it away. Problem solved. You can always add in the errata in a new campaign or something. If you don't like it, then just never use the errata version.
Simple answer...the discipline required to use monk powers and be truly lawful prevents the lack of control that is necessary to give in to Rage...and vice versa.
James Jacobs actually telegraphed this one a long time ago. I think someone actually pointed this out during the Beta, and he clarified that classes like Paladin and Monk have to do with someone learning how to control and master themselves, learning to improve themselves through self control, whereas barbarians become better at raging by learning how to loose control of themselves, and learning how to not hold back.
Its an opposite mindset, and pretty dang hard to maintain.
James Jacobs actually telegraphed this one a long time ago. I think someone actually pointed this out during the Beta, and he clarified that classes like Paladin and Monk have to do with someone learning how to control and master themselves, learning to improve themselves through self control, whereas barbarians become better at raging by learning how to loose control of themselves, and learning how to not hold back.
Its an opposite mindset, and pretty dang hard to maintain.
Monks mastering themselves is a huge thing in fiction (and maybe real life, I never met one). I understand the thought that mastering yourself and then losing your mind to rage are two very contradictory mindsets and don't seem to be able to coexist. Having mastery over oneself would imply being able to contain the rage. But a barbarian's rage is not spontaneous, it is invoked. The barbarian chooses when to rage. I can see this flavored as a form of self control, much like a lycanthrope who has learned to manipulate his form and resist shifting when he doesn't want to.
To me, it would make sense that a barbarian monk could still rage, but I would vote that while raging, he would lose some monk abilities instead for having the lack of control at that moment. At the very least I guess you can just say the guy has split personality disorder or something.
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James Jacobs actually telegraphed this one a long time ago. I think someone actually pointed this out during the Beta, and he clarified that classes like Paladin and Monk have to do with someone learning how to control and master themselves, learning to improve themselves through self control, whereas barbarians become better at raging by learning how to loose control of themselves, and learning how to not hold back.
Its an opposite mindset, and pretty dang hard to maintain.
That's the way I always envisioned it.
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James Jacobs actually telegraphed this one a long time ago. I think someone actually pointed this out during the Beta, and he clarified that classes like Paladin and Monk have to do with someone learning how to control and master themselves, learning to improve themselves through self control, whereas barbarians become better at raging by learning how to loose control of themselves, and learning how to not hold back.
Its an opposite mindset, and pretty dang hard to maintain.
Yin/Yang, light/dark, staples of the "Eastern Monk" philosophies, in general.
I rather tend to agree with the Dork, this was pretty pointless IMHO. I'll house rule it.
I like the idea of a monk, so disciplined and stoic, but when necessary to RP, able to throw off the civility and rage....then the eternal seeking of harmony again, to atone.
It's things like this that make me hate alignments. As a way of describing a character's personality and morals? Sure, that's fine. But when classes are given pointless alignment restrictions that add nothing to the game and instead act as a roadblock to what should be legitimate character concepts (and thus, serve only as a roadblock to people's enjoyment of the game), I can't help but hate alignments.
This:
The barbarian chooses when to rage.
To me, this really nails it. If barbarians raged when they took half their hitpoints (as the Unearthed Arcana variant) or something like that, then I'd say "lack of self control". The fact that they choose when to do it makes it, in my mind, a form of self control. It's basically a controlled adrenaline surge, which would require a lot of training and self control to pull off.
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Yin/Yang, light/dark, staples of the "Eastern Monk" philosophies, in general.
Aren't all those philosophies about balance?
You can't have the yin without the yang, the light without the dark? Why can't self-control give way to rage occasionally? There's an archetype for the monk that lets him get drunk and fight differently/better. If getting drunk isn't losing control, raging shouldn't be either.
It's things like this that make me hate alignments. As a way of describing a character's personality and morals? Sure, that's fine. But when classes are given pointless alignment restrictions that add nothing to the game and instead act as a roadblock to what should be legitimate character concepts (and thus, serve only as a roadblock to people's enjoyment of the game), I can't help but hate alignments.
Amen!
There are lots and lots of awesome character ideas that are totally off the wall that you can't do because of the rules, and there is nothing wrong with that. Its not alignment that is the problem, its that somewhere you have to draw a line between free form character imagining and what the rules will actually deal with.
I'm not saying that this particular concept absolutely had to be squashed, but at the same time, squashing this one doesn't really seem to me as if its going to ruin the game and the feel I get from it.
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** spoiler omitted **
Was there something wrong with barbarian/monks that they had to be effectively killed? One of my players is going to throw a fit (maybe even quitting) when he finds out that his orc barbarian/monk has had its balls cut off.
How exactly do you "forget" to rage? It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
EDIT: I know some of you are smirking at the very idea of a barbarian/monk, but the character was roleplayed quite well and is well-liked by the entire party. This is meant to be a serious discussion. I'm not just dicking around for fun.
I'm not sure why you guys are having a problem with this... Since 3.0 that text has been part of the class. Its nothing new. I assume they just forgot to add it to the class. They've always had the "Alignment: Any nonlawful" bit at the class section.
I'm not sure why you guys are having a problem with this... Since 3.0 that text has been part of the class. Its nothing new. I assume they just forgot to add it to the class. They've always had the "Alignment: Any nonlawful" bit at the class section.
Yeah, one of my players pointed it out during the Beta and asked if I thought it was intentional, because he wanted a raging barbarian/paladin. That's why I was paying attention when James had said at some point that he didn't think it was intentional for the reasons cited above.
I'm not sure why you guys are having a problem with this... Since 3.0 that text has been part of the class. Its nothing new. I assume they just forgot to add it to the class. They've always had the "Alignment: Any nonlawful" bit at the class section.
Alignment: Any nonlawful =/= losing your class abilities when your alignment changes, at least it didn't before now.
Just took about 5 seconds to hop over to the d20srd.org site:
Ex-Barbarians
A barbarian who becomes lawful loses the ability to rage and cannot gain more levels as a barbarian. He retains all the other benefits of the class (damage reduction, fast movement, trap sense, and uncanny dodge).
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I'm not sure why you guys are having a problem with this... Since 3.0 that text has been part of the class. Its nothing new. I assume they just forgot to add it to the class. They've always had the "Alignment: Any nonlawful" bit at the class section.Alignment: Any nonlawful =/= losing your class abilities when your alignment changes, at least it didn't before now.
Ah, but it did in both 3.0 and 3.5. They just most likely forgot to add this in.
Ah, but it did in both 3.0 and 3.5. They just most likely forgot to add this in.I'm not sure why you guys are having a problem with this... Since 3.0 that text has been part of the class. Its nothing new. I assume they just forgot to add it to the class. They've always had the "Alignment: Any nonlawful" bit at the class section.Alignment: Any nonlawful =/= losing your class abilities when your alignment changes, at least it didn't before now.
Allow me to rephrase that for you...
Alignment: nonlawful shouldn't == losing class abilities
Ah, but it did in both 3.0 and 3.5. They just most likely forgot to add this in.I'm not sure why you guys are having a problem with this... Since 3.0 that text has been part of the class. Its nothing new. I assume they just forgot to add it to the class. They've always had the "Alignment: Any nonlawful" bit at the class section.Alignment: Any nonlawful =/= losing your class abilities when your alignment changes, at least it didn't before now.Allow me to rephrase that for you...
Alignment: nonlawful shouldn't == losing class abilities
Honest questions: Do you and your group play the game by following every single rule to the letter? And are you frequently gaming in organized play?
Honest questions: Do you and your group play the game by following every single rule to the letter? And are you frequently gaming in organized play?
Never been in organized play.
We tend to really hate house rules (in our games).
I perfectly understood (and still do) the "one step" rule, and yet in my Forgotten Realms games I went by the old "cleric's alignment" section in the 2nd edition "God Trilogy" books, because it made more sense for my campaign.
Honest questions: Do you and your group play the game by following every single rule to the letter? And are you frequently gaming in organized play?Never been in organized play.
We tend to really hate house rules (in our games).
Then I sympathize with your discontent. FWIW, no, I don't think that it is an errata worth noting and it's a change that should have been made when Pathfinder debuted (not adding the restriction that is).
Would you expound on that?
We tend to really hate house rules (in our games).
We avoid making house rules in our games wherever we can. They add extra complexity to the game that often isn't needed. Getting everybody to understand the normal rules, the new rules, AND why there were changes in the first place can be a real pain (especially when introducing new players). In any event, in our group there is an overriding feeling of "if you aren't going to play by the rules, why play this game at all--why not a different game?"
What's more, I personally have seen enough bad (as in needless or unbalanced) house rules on the internet to be generally wary of them to begin with.
Sure, we have our own interpretations about various things, but we don't see those as house rules since, often times, there are multiple interpretations, all of which are correct via the RAW. We usually choose the one that makes the most sense or is the most simple and move on.
I'm not sure why you guys are having a problem with this... Since 3.0 that text has been part of the class. Its nothing new. I assume they just forgot to add it to the class. They've always had the "Alignment: Any nonlawful" bit at the class section.
Just because it has been a rule for a long time doesn't mean I have to like it.
Allowing barbarian and monk to work together would be a houserule. It is not an unreasonable one by any means, but it is still definitely a houserule.
And...so what?
Who here actually plays RAW 100%? Anybody? No?
All DMs have their own houserules, and they should be discussed prior to play if possible. This is no different. Players should come to the table knowing that the rules as written are but guidelines. The default, yes, but mutable to fit the group's playstyle.
Who here actually plays RAW 100%? Anybody? No?
Organized play pretty much does; in my experience, players who are in organized play at least some of the time also tend to stick extremely close to RAW in their non-organized-play games as well.
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Barbarians that became lawful in 3.5 also lost the ability to rage, and being unlawful was a restriction on the class the same way being lawful was a restriction for monks. It always amuses me at the rage that gets generated over stuff Paizo didn't even touch. That's the 3.5 wording exactly, just look over at the D20 SRD for Barbarians.
There were plenty of half-orc barbarian/monks roaming about too back in the day, and there still are today I'd imagine. Alignments can be changed after all, with some degree of effort.
Traditionally you'd take 1 level of Barbarian, reform and start taking monk levels until you had as many as you liked and then switch back to barbarian, reverting to your primal nature with your new movement speed of something around 70-90 feet.
A 1 level dip at 1st level got you a BAB point, huge hit points and fast movement and martial weapon proficiency. Raging at that point was just kind of this nice bonus thing that wasn't terribly important to the build.
Strengthening alignment restrictions is an okay goal, not necessarily a desirable goal but I understand why they might want to do it. However I do think that it hews to tightly to a eastern (even zen) conception of martial artists as eschewing emotions like rage and anger. I think it's entirely in keeping for a monk/martial artist to be about harnessing his chi in a wild, primal manner. I think the APG even acknowledges this with the development of the drunken master archetype. I don't really see the thematic difference between a drunken beserker and a jackie chan doing drunken master III besides one uses a big two hander and the other one uses his fists or maybe a Dao.
I have never seen any actually try to cheese monk-barbarian and can come up with numberous concepts in which both alignment restrictions prevent, I see really no reason why this rule should be kept in. Neither the monk or barbarian alignment restrictions make any sense to me, since they block far too many character concepts for no real reason. As someone above pointed out, you can somehow play a drunken monk but not one that unlocks his inner beast? how does that work, when many traditional martial arts styles were about mimicking beasts and learning to attack like them? And how do you play a drunken monk lawful? Not one of the depictions I have ever seen is anything remotely lawful.
Given that the Monk/Barbarian is one of the most popular forms of munchkin cheese.
Second only to the core wizard, cleric, and druid, and probably the sorcerer as well, and anyone else who's 10 times more effective after 10th level.
I am so going to ignore this, just as I already ignored the alignment restriction on Barbarians.
If there is one thing that class needs, it is NOT more restrictions.
As someone above pointed out, you can somehow play a drunken monk but not one that unlocks his inner beast?
So Jackie Chan is okay, but Jet Li (Unleashed) isn't?
Yay! I found an example.