I would call the class what it is: Berserker.
Is raging really berserking? I know 3.5 saw a difference in two of its prestige classes.
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@3.5 Loyalist: Actually Hellenistic Cultures as a whole used it as a term similar to how we use the term Outsider.
And Mongols would probably be Urban Barbarians.
@Bill Dunn: So to join this class one must have slain a bear using a weapon used by your ancestor?
A Berserker is to the Norse as the Samurai is to the Japanese.
It is a position of honour. Not everyone can become them.
A Barbarian can be a Berserker, but not all Berserkers are Barbarians.
There was a bit of mockery from some sources, but not all, was what I was getting at, along with some neutral usage yeah.
Mongols, urban barbarians? The great cities and winding markets of the steppe?
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Honestly the class should be called Berserker after the Norse Super-Men it was inspired by.
Except the Norse "super-men" were just drugging themselves like the Hashishim and the word Berserker literally means 'Bear shirt'. Steroid freak with an itchy shirt doesn't sound like a fun concept to me, I'll stick with Barbarian. Or maybe OMEGA SUPREME....yeah.
Supreme Pizza the barbarian?
There was a bit of mockery from some sources, but not all, was what I was getting at, along with some neutral usage yeah.
Mongols, urban barbarians? The great cities and winding markets of the steppe?
Actually they did have some large villages and keeps.
@Maccabee: Berserker actually meant "One who wears the Bear's Soul".
It was used to denote that the Berserkers fought like Bears. There by they had the soul of the bear.
Why urban barbarian? What are you going for here?
Some villages and keeps does not make the great steppe an urban place.
There was a bit of mockery from some sources, but not all, was what I was getting at, along with some neutral usage yeah.
Mongols, urban barbarians? The great cities and winding markets of the steppe?
Actually they did have some large villages and keeps.
@Maccabee: Berserker actually meant "One who wears the Bear's Soul".
It was used to denote that the Berserkers fought like Bears. There by they had the soul of the bear.
Nope, bear shirt.
"The name berserker arose from their reputed habit of wearing a kind of shirt or coat (Old Norse: serkr) made from the pelt of a bear (Old Norse: ber-) during battle.The term comes from old Norwegian berserkr (plural berserkir), meaning bear shirt and suggests a robe. In earlier studies, the element ber- was often misinterpreted as berr-, meaning "bare", understood as indicating that the berserkers fought naked. This view has since been largely abandoned."
Using wiki for this one, but also came across it in a Leo Braudy book on historical masculinities. Same point.
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No, really? Who is MAKING you do anything with your characters or NPCs? A whole barbarian tribe might not have a single actual Barbarian in it, instead having many Fighters, Rangers and Rogues. There's literally nothing here except your own bias.
While I don't think the barbarian class needs to be renamed, I can say that some folks do unfortunately force their own built-in expectations onto how others try to play the class.
It's not very fun when you want to play your barbarian as stealthy, intelligent, graceful, and tending to rage "tranquil fury" style or subdued-snarling/death-glare style and others overwrite the flavor you want with clumsy/dumb/loud/"sounds like Arnold-Conan-at-his-most-ridiculous" commentary.
But that's not a problem with the name of the class, that's a player issue.
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No, really? Who is MAKING you do anything with your characters or NPCs? A whole barbarian tribe might not have a single actual Barbarian in it, instead having many Fighters, Rangers and Rogues. There's literally nothing here except your own bias.
While I don't think the barbarian class needs to be renamed, I can say that some folks do unfortunately force their own built-in expectations onto how others try to play the class.
It's not very fun when you want to play your barbarian as stealthy, intelligent, graceful, and tending to rage "tranquil fury" style or subdued-snarling/death-glare style and others overwrite the flavor you want with clumsy/dumb/loud/"sounds like Arnold-Conan-at-his-most-ridiculous" commentary.
But that's not a problem with the name of the class, that's a player issue.
I guess I'm just lucky to play with people who don't do that, then.
The first time, I'd correct them, the second time, I'd give them a look, and the third time, RIP AND TEAR!
We have an Urban Barbarian in our current group. He's a half orc with the Pass for Human feat modeled after the new conan movie (sort of), he's got city dweller too
He's actually going for rage prophet, under the premise of having "surges" of supernatural power which are rounds of rage. His controlled rage lets him modify either str or dex or con.
He can do all skills and even cast when under his surges.
So technically, he's an Inquisitor/possessed oracle with super natural power surges. Just Urban barbarian/Rage Prophet was the mechanical way to do that.
But yes, he does do the brooding sword monger thing really well, sweaty black hair and all.
Urban Barbarian for the Rage bonus to DEX for the Horse Archers.
And it depends on if you are using the Land usage or the Sea(Viking) usage.
Land is Bear Skin. And normally refers to Bear Hide Armour. And is surprisingly common. Strangely Berserkr refers to the Armour, a light hide Armour that normally on covers the torso like a tunic, not the wearer when used by Norsemen. The term was used by outsiders as the Name of the wearers.
Sea is "One who wears the Bear's Soul". The reason Why it is so major to Nordic Vikings is the bear represented Bravery and Strength.
The Nords had two dialects based on where they normally acted. Think how the Gauls and Goths were. One ethnicity in the same area close together. Different versions of the same language. Very different meanings.
What is a compliment in one dialect is an insult in another. Which sadly lead to much in fighting in the Gaulic tribes.
That sounds good then, although the urban name needs to be removed, just some fluff adjustments.
I prefer the name "berserker" for the class, but we're not going to change it at this point in the game.
Berserker should be the name of a barbarian archetype that is less (or not at all) reliant on armor.
The only armour you can wear is the shirt/robe of a bear. Which YOU must have killed up close. You cannot get it enchanted by limp-wristed spellcasters for they are puny and an insult to your warrior spirit (and the bear doesn't like them either).
Something like that.
Hmmm... A few factual errors here (or rather, guesswork about things we don't know).
A Berserker is to the Norse as the Samurai is to the Japanese.
It is a position of honour. Not everyone can become them.
While it's true that the berserkers where largely an "elite" force, I don't think there's any evidence that it was similar to the Samurai - it wasn't as much of a formal title, and there's nothing to suggest it was seen as honorable per se. Rather it was more a "cult", though socially accepted, that had borrowed a lot from the Mithras cult.
Except the Norse "super-men" were just drugging themselves like the Hashishim and the word Berserker literally means 'Bear shirt'. Steroid freak with an itchy shirt doesn't sound like a fun concept to me, I'll stick with Barbarian. Or maybe OMEGA SUPREME....yeah.
There's no historical evidence indicating they where drugging themselves really, it's just an age old trope with no factual basis. "Berserker" may have meant bear shirt (bersärk) or "just shirt" (berrsärk) (in that they fought without mail).
The technique, to fly into that kind of rage, was probably a trained technique that was based at dehumanising the berserker - they would convince themselves that they weren't human but rather some wild animal (commonly bear or wolf).
There's nothing implying it was a title gained by killing a bear with your hands. That's just silly. And the whole thing about eating toadstools too, since the effects of toadstool are like, euphoria, laziness and nausea.
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It amuses me that you're quibbling over whether "berserker" gives a bias toward Vikings, but are willing to accept the boring name "fighter" and the European-biased "cleric" and "paladin" as base class names. :p
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Man this is exactly why I'm voting for Meanrock Destructotron.
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It amuses me that you're quibbling over whether "berserker" gives a bias toward Vikings, but are willing to accept the boring name "fighter" and the European-biased "cleric" and "paladin" as base class names. :p
Not to mention "druid"; that's about as culture-specific as it gets.
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Barbarian is a term coined by the Greeks to anyone un-civilized that they could not understand. To them when these people spoke they sounded like barbarbarbarbar it was gibberish to them or so goes rumor
A barbarian could be a civilized Greek warrior, or it could be a Gaul or someone from Germania or a Celt or Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian
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I think the reason many feel "berserker" is more generic and less culture-focused is because the thing that the RL berserkers where famous of doing, the thing that defined them, was raging. Meanwhile, "barbarian" has specific cultural values - it has strong connotations to "uncivilized" and set in stark contrast to the more "standard" fantasy western culture.
So "berserker" is a name closely tied to what the class does - rages - while "barbarian" is a name more closely tied to it's cultural position - counter to the dominant culture.
For me, despite being from the north where the traditional berserkers where from (the word berserkergang is even kept in swedish bärsärkargång), I still feel berserker has less cultural weight than barbarian.
really?
how many players (new ones in particular) have ever built barbarians that were NOT high str, low int, uncivilized madmen in one way or another?
I mean its in the core manual, sure it CAN be worked around... just like a class called thief can be worked around... but Rogue is more open, does not require a work around and fits all of the options of the class more than thief does.
just because its not an issue that breaks the game does not mean that its not an issue that can be examined.
Well, there's the Rage Prophet prestige class. Madman (or 'woman) still applies somewhat.
And don't forget the barb/sorc combo
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A barbarian was only uncivilized to outsiders. They tended to have their own cultures, customs, religion, etc. They were absolutely NOT barbarians, in the original sense of the word, in their own opinion.
So a class that's called a Barbarian just means that OTHER PEOPLE think they're uncultured or whatever, and their fighting style tends to lend to this. And that's why I believe the name is completely apt for the class. Even if the actual Barbarian would never call himself as such.
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If I ever had to change the name of the Barbarian, I'd change it to Berserker.
Ditto. And if I got to go back in time, I'd call the Fighter, the Warrior, and have the NPC dude be called the 'Fighting-Man' or 'Soldier' or 'Guardsman' or something.
I just like the sound of Warrior better than Fighter. :)
'Barbarians' being from cultures that valued honor and taboos far more than culturally equivalent 'civilized' urban folk (where a certain amount of dishonesty and 'caveat emptor' was *expected*), and yet being 'mostly chaotic' seems like a freakish disconnect to me.
Agreed on warrior > fighter.
Though I still find "warrior" a little TOO generic. I'd actually have preferred something like "weapon master" or similar for the standard fighter, noting it's focus on weapon/armor training.
I read somewhere "Fighter" was originally "fighting man" but Gygax wanted to keep class names to one word. Fighter is too sacred cow to mess with, I'm amazed they did away with "magic-user" TBH
Maybe the real solution is to just make sure everyone realizes that the class names do not really exist in the world as such. So as concerned GMs, or concerned players, we remind people that "ninja" just means anyone who has the "ninja abilities" as described in the book, but could easily be an assassin, sneak, rogue, baker, or anything else in the game, depending on their perception of themselves, and others perceptions of them. Similarly, using "Barbarian" is simply what the book calls the set of abilities, but in game, maybe even a half-orc paladin would be called a "barbarian" in back-water hicksville. The book itself makes sure that this is clear concerning the distinction between casting classes, but it is out job to inform people the same is true for martial classes.
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I'm really hoping this goes somewhere, since screaming at my GM "MY LOVE FOR YOU IS LIKE A TRUCK" everytime my character does something is pretty high on my list of things to do.
A totally platonic truck.
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You can do that now, though. There's really nothing stopping your character from being from FANTASY SOVIET UNION and calling himself a Berserker.
...I never did get to play my Half-orc Alchemist with a Russian accent all that much. He was fun. (His name was Bratch Alheme. Guess what that means in Russian~)
Hmmm... A few factual errors here (or rather, guesswork about things we don't know).
A Berserker is to the Norse as the Samurai is to the Japanese.
It is a position of honour. Not everyone can become them.
While it's true that the berserkers where largely an "elite" force, I don't think there's any evidence that it was similar to the Samurai - it wasn't as much of a formal title, and there's nothing to suggest it was seen as honorable per se. Rather it was more a "cult", though socially accepted, that had borrowed a lot from the Mithras cult.
It was considered a status symbol. It represented you as deserving of respect.
you could call the barbarian base class the transformist and give it a transformation based theme similar to magical girls, power rangers, saiyans, Venom, or lycanthropes. allowing options for internalized (extra bonus feats over time) or trinket powered (bonded object) transformations.
then you could create an archetype for the Transformist called the Trance Warrior. which reflavors the transformation as a trance and covers the berserker, zen archer, serenity warrior, drunken master, or similar stuff.
if it isn't magical enough, instead of giving it supernatural abilities, give it something akin to psionic manifesting.
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wait, I have an excellent idea.... we could call it angry guy!
Lumiere, I just love how magical girls keep entering the barbarian discussion. Never even hear of them until I watched "Is This A Zombie" earlier this year. Keep fighting the good fight!
Greg
PS Still like barbarian though...but now visualizing in a pretty pink dress.
PS Still like barbarian though...but now visualizing in a pretty pink dress.
I actually have a Player whose Barbarian is extremely feminine and wears a Pink Dress...
When in a Dungeon she rages and tears the dress for better movement... Underneath is a Bikini of her selected armour type...
She then gets the Wizard to use mend to repair her dress after they leave the dungeon or finish combat.
Unfortunately, my visualization was more Ron Perlmanesque.
Greg
Unfortunately, my visualization was more Ron Perlmanesque.
Greg
Hers is a Half-Orc who she describes as a Female version of Ron Perlman...
I read somewhere "Fighter" was originally "fighting man" but Gygax wanted to keep class names to one word. Fighter is too sacred cow to mess with, I'm amazed they did away with "magic-user" TBH
My understanding is more or less the same. Those would be hold overs from the war game days.
Wouldn't calling it the Berserker still push the stereotype of an uncivilized wild man, savage, crazy person?
Wouldn't calling it the Berserker still push the stereotype of an uncivilized wild man, savage, crazy person?
and it would push you into a single culture as well.
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Maybe we could call it "Guts" ?
Greg
Maybe we could call it "Guts" ?
Greg
Then my Barbarians' and Fighters' battle cry would be useless...
Wouldn't calling it the Berserker still push the stereotype of an uncivilized wild man, savage, crazy person?
Thats why I like Rager the most.
berserker is less specific than barbarian though.
i know that sounds backward... since barbarian is in actuallity a more general word than berserker.
but the truth is despite the ORIGINAL meaning of the word. in todays culture the word berserker simply means one who goes berserk. as in one who goes irrationally wild and without regard for self (or others)... which fits the class.
... I still like rager though...
PS Still like barbarian though...but now visualizing in a pretty pink dress.
We have a gay, Atheist Barbarian, is that close enough.
Whose brother (who is in the party) is a Cleric of Sarenrae.
I'm still baffled as to how one can be an Atheist in a world where gods will sometimes deign to come down and kick your ass 7 ways from Tuesday to set the record straight.
I'm still baffled as to how one can be an Atheist in a world where gods will sometimes deign to come down and kick your ass 7 ways from Tuesday to set the record straight.
I can see how tht would work, but explaining it would start a lengthy discussion about religion.
But really in a world where gods are just an observable fact being an atheist is not so much not believing in them but more of simply choosing not to worship.
Well, Golarions gods rarely do. Also, I think it'd be very easy: Point out that there's no way for common folk to know the difference between a really high-level character/monster and a god. The only ones who can really know the difference would be high-level characters/monster and gods, so...
Basically, a golarion atheist might believe that Sarenrae exists, but not that she's a "god" more than solars, demon lords or other powerful extraplanar beings are.
In planescape, there was even a whole faction which were atheist. The Athar. From wiki:
"("Defiers", "The Lost"), who deny not only the gods' right to pass judgment over mortals, but their very divinity. They claim that the gods (whom they call "powers") are powerful but have limits and do not deserve worship. Instead, Athar priests channel divine power from what they call the "Great Unknown", or what they believe to be the true divine force behind everything. Their headquarters in Sigil is the Shattered Temple, the former temple of the dead god Aoskar. The Athar are broadly derived from real-world atheists, agnostics, and Deists."
Atheism=/=Not believing in God's.
It is more complicated. Even more than most religion. Though a Gay, Athiest Barbarian... never would have thought of that. Superstition would be almost mandatory.