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Our little Beginner Box group is experimenting around with the BB rules and having a blast playing. Our new campaign kicks off this week, and one of the results of our round table discussions over dinner was adding Barbarian to the beginner box, which resulted in a discussion of how we felt the concept of a barbarian (savage) lends itself more to a race than a class so we molded our version into the following.
Volgen
(Human Sub-type)
Ability Scores: Add +2 Str and -2 CHA
Ability Scores: +1 to any one other ability
Speed 40 (25 in Medium or Heavy armor)
Arcane Hatred- Magic is a sin. They can never use an Arcane spell or effect.
Bonus Feat (since they are human)
Ferocity: Once per day, when a Volgen is brought below 0 hit points but not killed, he can fight on for one more round as if disabled. At the end of his next turn, unless brought to above 0 hit points, he immediately falls unconscious and begins dying.
Nomadic Hunter: add +2 to two of the following:
Knowledge Nature, Ride, or Survival. These are always class skills.
Weapon Familiarity: You are trained in the use of spears and all axes regardless of class.
They can never cast arcane spells but totemic/shamanistic themed divine is ok
Volgen-
The first human settlers to brave the icy continent of Icecap were shocked to discover an isolated indigenous people already living there. These were a large, long-haired, blue-eyed, hardy folk descended from savages, very early explorers, outcasts and refugees of the Solomodian empire. They were once slaves to the magical Solomod and as such revile all arcane magic and its users.
The Volgen roam the North in the land between the war citadels and fortress towns. Civilization is viewed as a weakness among these people, and magic, as opposed to divine shamanistic gifts, a sin. They maintain a nomadic life, living by hunting (and among evil tribes, by plundering). The last few hundred years have witnessed a branch of the Volgen conquering and claiming coastal citadels, and a diverse and vibrant affinity to coastal raiding.
Leathers and furs are common dress, but they know well the value of well-crafted armor and warriors tattoo the image of their tribal totemic spirits on themselves and shields, and their camps sport intricate banners of their gods.
The Volgen venerate and take their name from Volgahrj. Worship of the beastly gods is very strong within the Volgen tribes. Volgen also venerate (the nature god), but to a lesser extent.
Relationships between the Volgen and the civilized world vary according to season and whim. Civilized people and unprotected caravans are often considered fair game by the Barbarians.
The problem with this is that it's vastly overpowered compared to a regular human. You'd have to give it a +1 level adjustment (so a level 1 barbarian race is as powerful as a level 2 human barbarian essentially).
Or if you wanted to balance it instead, I'd remove the Bonus Feat. If you wanted an idea of how to balance classes, I believe the Advanced Race Guide playtest PDF is still available, and details really well how races are created and balanced (using a numerical system).
You could argue that the Arcane Hatred balances it, but it does not. You're making a specialized class that focuses on melee combat (with the +2 str) which.. arcane casters rarely are (bards/magi as exception).
They would make extremely potent Barbarians or monks. That 40 base speed..
I would just remove the +1 to any stat. But I really like it actually
Yeah, remove the odd +1 to a random stat, and also, either make the +10 speed only in light or no armor, or make arcane hatred force you to make all saving throws against arcane effects including harmless ones (someone's casting an arcane bull's strength on you? Roll save!)
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I would just remove the +1 to any stat. But I really like it actually
I may do that. It was a change added because we reworked all the races to match two things:
1 To define the flavor of the world
2 To provide the "four" class aspects of Pathfinder into three.
Melee 'tank'/Divine caster/arcane caster/skill driven
For example all humans get +2 to any two abilities and -2 to one other. I changed it to +1 for the Volgen because we eliminated Half-Orcs. There aren't any. The two races are incapable of breeding genetically. This is why this 'race' has Ferocity.
These are the Half-Orcs with campaign specific fluff
EDIT- Back to reason 2. We have 3 players. The Fighter likes the Volgen. She is our melee.
We revamped the rogue to (short version) Ninja/Rogue/Ranger hybrid with poison use and an extended list of talents, all renamed to remove any KI reference. We use Scoundrel Points.
The priest (think Kyra2) is a human priest favored with a touch of magic. (She is also a Cleric Lvl/2 Wizard) Think Gestalt Priest/Mage with a hint of Oracle.
Anyways, it is just our small group trying things because they will never move to "Core".
Removing an entire class for.. one race? The barbarian offers so much good gameplay that a fighter can't replicate. And of course what about Dwarven barbarians? Elven barbarians? Humans aren't the only race that have clans/tribes/etc of Berserkers.
As a side note, I would recommend switching from the BB to real Pathfinder before you make any huge changes to the rules.
I'm with dunebugg. The barbarian class should not be removed. That is not to say you can't have a more feral and brutal human subrace, but your suggestion is in dire need of balancing.
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Valid points and thanks for taking the time to give feedback.
I wanted to point back to the OP to note this is a customized Beginner Box campaign. There is no Barbarian in it (the free additional stuff not-withstanding). There aren't any Half-Orcs either. Therefore nothing is missing, just added.
Question for the sake of friendly debate:
The barbarian offers so much good gameplay that a fighter can't replicate.
I hardheartedly disagree. Remove Rage and Barbarians as a class bring nothing to the table that Fighters and story do not. We removed Rage as a class skill, which is just 'I get mad' from a class specific ability and made it available as an "Anyone Can rage" ability. Non-Fighters just feel the negatives longer. The one melee type character it would apply to said she won't use it as it does not fit her character concept. (She imagines herself destined to rise above her races' barbaric past and avail herself to justice as if she were to ascend into paladinhood.) My thoughts are if she stays true to that concept, at 5th I may grant her the Smite ability as if she were a Paladin, but that is a ways off.
We play our games where story always, always trumps rules.
Humans aren't the only race that have clans/tribes/etc of Berserkers.
Yes they are. Homebrew Campaign.
As a side note, I would recommend switching from the BB to real Pathfinder before you make any huge changes to the rules.
Noted. I am a Core junky. I soak it up. That said, we play BB purely because my players stated from day one they have no interest in being overwhelmed by rules, so I pick and choose things from my extensive collection of source material to utilize, rewrite it up in a BB format using EdoWars templates found in his blog here, and all the Pathfinder stuff they need to know is condensed into a easy to read 4 page document. Five counting the OGL stuff which is attached to every print out.
As a final note, we did remove the free feat and shrunk skill bonuses down to +1 Knowledge Nature. Ride was too big of an assumption.
Again I do welcome the feedback. It gives me a different look at things. I just chose to share in case anyone liked the idea or the fluff background. This is the Homebrew/ Houserules forum after all.
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Valid point. I concede. Our discussion (the groups) was based solely upon the Core rulebook take on Barbarian as summarized by myself to three new players that would never be seen again if I plopped a 400+ page rulebook in front of them, let alone all my PF hardbacks. If I did that our weekly game night would turn into a "Let's play Seafarer's of Catan or Pictionary" night.
If the BB had all the options on d20pfsrd or APG UC UM etc it would be a very different beast.