Like some others, I don't care much for the Savage Barbarian RAW.
My main problem is that most of the benefits accrue on the wrong end of the level scale: to my mind, barbarians should shine most at the low levels, and increase in power more gradually than the end-game-oriented classes. Also, if my image of my PC is a barechested Conan-wannabe, it's no fun to have no benefits whatsoever to not wearing armor at first level.
So I spent some time looking at how a character's AC will progress given a few hopefully-reasonable assumptions about ability score increases, armor, and magic items. I used this information to tweak the features of savage barbarian until I got something I liked.
You can see my work on this Google Docs spreadsheet. I have two extra tabs, Monk and Fighter, that I used for comparison.
Here's what I've tentatively decided on in terms of changes to savage barbarian:
- No armor proficiency
- Natural Toughness is now a flat +2 natural armor bonus (still applied only while not wearing armor) starting at 1st-level.
- Instead of completely replacing damage reduction, its progression is slowed to +1 every six levels: 1/- at 7th, 2/- at 13th, and 3/- at 19th.
- While using a shield, Naked Courage's benefits remain unchanged: +1 at level 3, extra + 1 every six levels thereafter.
- While not using a shield, Naked Courage's bonus increases by +1 every three levels instead of six, and the bonus is applied to damage as well. (Strictly speaking, this is the real definition of this feature in my version; while using a shield, the damage bonus goes away and the AC/fear save bonus is halved, rounding up.)
I could conscience dumping damage reduction entirely but that creates ugly gaps in the chart: at 7th, 13th, and 19th, the savage barbarian would get no special benefits at all.
I'm considering dumping fast movement on balance grounds, rationalizing it by saying a savage barbarian's muscles will be more honed for quick bursts of agility than long-distance running, but I'm not sure it really matters enough one way or another.
Of course, a savage barbarian can opt to take a level in, say, fighter, and get all the armor proficiencies back, but when using them they're now a barbarian without trap sense and less damage reduction.
So, what do you think?