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Look, I’m Censored sick of it. I’ve been in the ****ing Society f’r a while now, and any time someone asks me what I do – I can say “berserker” or “Brutal Pugilist” or “I’m the bloke who guards the spell-users and strangles the Omitted spell-users” – and they just say, “Oh, you’re a Barbarian” like I’m some half-orc half-dwarf NSFW who can’t even spell his own name. Look, just ‘cause I gotta write “Barbarian” somewhere on one of those forms (yeah, I can write. Both languages, too), doesn’t mean I’m Impolite “Barbaric”.
You wanna know how smart I am? 12! That's still above average. While those fancy pantsy geniuses write essays, I can at least get ‘em out when they’re lost in the desert; when that smug wizard’s all like, “Beep Monty, no-one told me I’d have to fly! I’m just ready to set fires!” I’ve already climbed up that thing that needs climbin' and dropped a rope. I can be careful! I can go around without a sword, and that’s not just ‘cause I can hit a guy without one.
Now, y’might say, “But Monty, fist-fighting’s dumb ‘cause you’ll get bigger numbers doing other Comment Removed”, but I’m not just in it for that: I can shut up the blokes who’re smarter than me, or knock out someone when killing everyone’s a bad idea. Besides, my numbers’re plenty big enough already.
Yeah, I’d agree that someone solves problems by losing his temper, he’s not gonna want boring niceties all day. But if you’d rather have a big, dumb, angry beast, just trap a giant Swearing badger!
Rename the class Berserker in your games. Make Berserkers literate unless they have the True Primitive archetype. Remove the alignment restriction. Problem solved. Now you have a class that can be primitive, but doesn't have to.
Is there a point to this?
Find the Record of lodoss war: lady of pharis manga. Beld is how I depict less than barbaric barbarians. Or Conner, my lovable halfling that happens to have a penchant for jumping ot and swinging an axe...
Rename the class Berserker in your games. Make Berserkers literate unless they have the True Primitive archetype. Remove the alignment restriction. Problem solved. Now you have a class that can be primitive, but doesn't have to.
Barbarians are already automatically literate in Pathfinder. One of the changes from 3.5 that lots of people miss. Enjoy Reading!
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Rant warning:
Yeah, it's one of the classes that has their own use strangleheld by flavor. People expect a loincloth and bulging biceps, while you try to play an angry bosun with self-control problems or a serene dwarven combat master. And it's not only about what people expect from the other players, but they themselves think it's expected that e.g their new society character has never seen a steel sword of is from beyond the border. Gets even worse when players have very little idea of the campaign setting in play. They expect there to be a general "barbaric frontier". For them barbarians don't even have ethnicities or flavors, just this Conanland where everyone is a smoky-haired grim giant.
Then there's the rage feature itself. It has problems. One, the flavor text limits it's scope for many. The way it is written is not the intense combat focus I like to imagine my character's attaining through rigorous mental exercise, but this froth-mouthed scream-filled physical seizure, yet the actual ability doesn't work that way. It gives you tons of different abilities, many requiring concentration or shifts in methods that the kind of shield-biting maniac could not possibly do. Look at Urban Barbarian and the Wild Rager for further proof. They are the opposite ends of the spectrum for the ability, in a way. The latter is the kind of all-in no holds barred viking madness and former is a more civilized state, where for example all character skills are available. This suggests that the original rage is something in between. Something which can't be explained away as "pure anger", unlike what the class ability is spouting. Not even magical fairy anger even though you grow wings and spit fire.
Two, it has very little mechanically to do with anger. There's no rules in play for what happens when you get angry. Or rather, you can rage whenever you want, even while eating your favorite food off a nubile slave's chest. There's nothing tying it to moods except roleplaying. Sure sure, not everything needs rules in place, but having something seemingly o emotionally ephemeral called "rage" is kind of questionable.
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but this froth-mouthed scream-filled physical seizure
I laughed for far too long at this.
Or rather, you can rage whenever you want, even while eating your favorite food off a nubile slave's chest.
You can even rage while sleeping, with the right feat. Which - according to popular perception - apparently means you can sleep very angrily.
My suggestion is to simply not tell people your character class.
End the bigotry and stereotyping!
Maybe you just deserve it? ;)
sleep very angrily?
...
I think my girlfriend has that feat. It explains why I keep getting whacked in the head so often when she stays over.
My wife uses that feat when she is sick. Given that she has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is trained in Krav Magav, there have been a few times that I have just given her the bed and slept on the couch. It is less painful and I don't have to defend myself in my sleep.
Can't ethnic shaonti barbarians write more langauges than the ethnic taldans so they are better at writing by raw than an equal int Taldan rougue or fighter with 10 int.