If you are not familiar with Frank Frazetta then I suggest a quick Google image search to see how his art helped shaped shaped the fantasy genre. He is most famous for his illustrations of Conan the Barbarian, but did loads of other stuff too.
I like the barbarian class, and don't actually want to fix it, but in reading the old Robert E Howard "Conan" stories and looking at the most famous depictions of that character, I don't feel that the D&D/Pathdinfer barbarian class does justice to the most famous of all "barbarians".
I have been working on a class that I have named the "frazetta", currently in its second incarnation. I like this one better than the first, but it's still not popping the way I would like it to. If you have any conceptual contributions you would like to make - fuel for the fire as it were - I would love to hear them. I would prefer inspiration from the original Conan stories and Frank Frazetta's art, but other old school fantasy stuff is fine too. For example, I have a selectable option titled "beastmaster". :)
Zippered boots?
Barely clad women all looking like his wife?
I like Conan, and I like Frazetta, and would love to get back his art books if I could remember who borrowed them fro me...
Conan is a mythic barbarian rogue, and a world renowned hero for most of his story. No apologies to the camp that refuses to consider any book character might be over level 6, creating a playable character that matches him using Pathfinder assumptions fails,
If you are serious about it, start with a 30 point buy, Advanced Template, and if you are thinking about selling down a stat, Stop. I would have him gain all the animal companion stat benefits (applied to his own stats/abilities) as a freebie as he goes up levels.
Howard did not write him with weaknesses and flaws, he spoke several languages, was incredibly knowledgeable, charismatic and perceptive. He was Howard's darling character, first among heroes.
Good idea Ciaran, the rage shtick has surpassed the barbarian completely in PF. What about the Conan RPG versiom? To clumsy and includes too many different ideas at once?
Daw,
I'm not making a character to play, I'm writing a character class. The point is not be able to be Conan, it is to create a class that resemble that niche. But you are right that Conan himself was a very high point buy. I'd say higher than 30.
JosMartigan,
I thumbed through that rule book years ago, but am not familiar with the specifics of it. As such I cannot comment that class being suitable.
Not all warriors that were historically referred to as barbarians were berserkers. When I think of PF barbarians the image I get is a cartoonish: an over muscled dude in a pelt with a weapon too big for him to use properly; huge tongue flapping out of the side of a wide open mouth, bulging eyes that are crossed, with veins everywhere on his body ready to pop, and flinging himself through the air in the most ungraceful way possible.
Not all warriors that were historically referred to as barbarians were berserkers. When I think of PF barbarians the image I get is a cartoonish: an over muscled dude in a pelt with a weapon too big for him to use properly; huge tongue flapping out of the side of a wide open mouth, bulging eyes that are crossed, with veins everywhere on his body ready to pop, and flinging himself through the air in the most ungraceful way possible.
*ahem* AM BARBARIAN! You have a stereotype to refute over here!
DoomKitten
Lol then paizo should lay off the billions of rage power trees and instead focus on alternatives to rage so as to avoid stereotyping.
Ciaran.
It's not a bad iteration. I have the pdf. If I can pull it from there and send to you I will. I will say it seems eclectic with little in the way of theme tying the special abilities together.
Back in the old days.... (Anyone still out there?)
Barbarians used to be about animalistic senses and super endurance.
Daw
YES! So very much those things. Honestly thanks to video games tabletop rpg classes have become cartoon charicture versions of themselves. Every fighter is bristling with weapons of different types regardless of whether he can carry them, every rogue is a master acrobat freebasing 5 hour energy and cocaine. Every wizard has a spell to fix every mundane issue that comes up . . . I long for simpler days.
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I've had my beef with the modern d20 barbarian (3.5 and Pathfinder) for a while largely because it struggles to fulfill the fantasy. Off the top of my head these are the first problems that come to mind:
* A barbarian should being durable without wearing heavy armor.
Fantasy artwork typically portrays barbarians in little to no armor, often sporting nothing but a loincloth. This is simply not broadly viable within d20. I know there's a couple archetypes that help in this regard but they're only small steps toward addressing the shortcoming. Part of the problem is that the barbarian fantasy leans toward strength and constitution, not dexterity. Pathfinder has taken great strides towards allowing dexterity to replace strength to fulfill the wiry swashbuckler archetype. It has done little to enable the opposite - the dauntless bare-chested barbarian.
* Even when it works, barbarians are a burden on resources.
Between the barbarian's limited access to armor and a class feature that penalizes their AC, it's clear barbarians are meant to endure incoming damage through having a larger pool of hitpoints as opposed to armor class/avoidance. The problem here is that the modern barbarian hasn't done anything to address the increased drain on resources such a approach creates. MMOs often have multiple tanking classes with different approaches to being durable similar to the fighter vs barbarian dynamic but MMO characters that tank via a larger pool of HP often have tricks that make them easier to heal. Barbarians have no such ability.
* Barbarians should be more than their rage.
Rage is fun sometimes but all of the barbarian's combat tricks and utility is tied into it. There are lots of situations where +2 to hit, +2/+3 to damage, and a 2hp per HD is not worth being hit 10% more often. Without favored enemy, rangers still have an animal companion and spells. Without smite paladins still have lay on hands/channel and spells. Without rage a barbarian is a d12 warrior. This makes them feel like a one-trick pony which hurts the fantasy that is supposed to be the savage barbarian. A barbarian should be cunning and deadly without always being debilitatingly angry all the time.
OK cunning warrior, is having survival as a class skill (and if survival is important enough) how about wis bonus to AC? Uncanny & Imp Uncanny dodge make sense. DR makes sense & d12 HD makes sense.
It seems one of the Ranger's makes sense for a non rage barbarian: terrain focus. That way a jingle barbarian and a mountain barbarian aren't carbon copies. Also Endurance as a bonus feat really fits.
If including rage as an option, I'd go with the rage offered for urban barbarian. It gives a floating bonus to str, dex, or con, and can be split among those stats. I'm pretty sure it also doesn't penalize AC and skills the same way regular rage does.
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There's a dozen different ways to tweak barbarians to help push them toward better fulfilling the fantasy.
I'd probably start with scaling back the number of rage powers, condensing them in power and utility, and sticking in assorted smaller perks (like terrain focus and endurance) where there used to be rage powers. In addition, there should be rage powers that do stuff or offer abilities while not in rage and they're enhanced while raging.
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If including rage as an option, I'd go with the rage offered for urban barbarian. It gives a floating bonus to str, dex, or con, and can be split among those stats. I'm pretty sure it also doesn't penalize AC and skills the same way regular rage does.
Savage technologist rage is exactly what rage should have always been.
A savage technologist can enter rage as a barbarian, except she gains a morale bonus to Strength and Dexterity instead of Strength and Constitution, and she does not take a penalty to Armor Class. She retains the bonus on Will saving throws. When a barbarian ability would increase the savage technologist’s Strength while raging, it increases her Dexterity instead.
This ability alters rage.
JosMartigan,
The first version of my frazetta had multiple barbarian class features, but I have since stripped them all. There is no raging, and no rage powers. No uncanny dodge (even though I like it), and no trap sense.
And since you mentioned it, canny warrior happens to be the name of a 1st level point-pool class feature. To add emphasis to the mental acuity of canny warriors like Conan, a 1st level frazetta chooses Cha, Int, or Wis and gets a point pool based off of that.
Since lack of armor has been addressed already, I will make mention of this other 1st level ability.
Iron Skin (Ex): A frazetta is most effective when unhindered and can forego armor when it does not benefit him. He gains his Constitution bonus as an armor bonus to his AC. At 4th level and every four levels thereafter, this armor bonus increase by +1.
Beginning at 4th level, a frazetta's armor bonus from this ability can be treated as a suit of armor for the purpose of being targeted by harmless spells that affect armor and the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat.
I don't mind input on actual class features, but I was hoping for suggestions on what such a warrior should be able to do - not neccessarily the mechanics of how it is done.
Feral,
So overall do you feel the Con bonus is too much when taken along with good fort and D12 HD? Or is it because Dex gets no love at all?
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I'm not sure I'm following your question Jos. The problem with constitution on rage is that it makes the barbarian's defining class feature into a death trap after a certain level because when you go down (which will happen eventually) you drop out of rage and instantly die. Paizo patched this with different feats here and there (Raging Vitality being the most popular one) but I still don't like the idea of using feats to patch bad design. Unchained Rage does this better by making the bonus temporary hitpoints but I'd rather just axe the extra hitpoints entirely and make the barbarian better able to avoid injury while he's hulking out. Dexterity is the obvious solution because it already ties directly into AC but dodge, natural armor, or some kind of morale bonus would work too. A big spike in DR might work similar to what 5e did. In 5e barbarians straight up take half damage from all physical sources while raging.
I don't know if constitution = armor bonus is enough. If we're stepping away from hitpoints as the vehicle for barbarian durability in combat you should aim to make the naked barbarian competitive with the fullplate his figher and paladin comrades gets to wear. I would start it at constitution + 3 and have it bump every third level. That puts the average 14 con barbarian in scale mail at level 1 (the same as the fighter), banded mail at level 6, plate mail at level 12, and +2 plate mail at 18. If the barbarian starts with more constitution or grabs constitution items he can catch up or even slightly get ahead of the standard paladin in plate armor.
Feral
OK I'm fully following the issue now. I honestly don't use or interact with barbarians enough in games. I forgot about the HP boost entirely. And you're right about that "benefit" being a deadly feature for the class. I was thinking more in terms of save bonuses and AC boosts.
One of the things I like to do running games is a flat 1/2 level to AC because I refuse to offer more and more magical armor. That seems to work reasonably well with other classes but I was considering it in regards to a barbarian rework.
Ciaran
Is there a link to your barbarian in progress?
Here is the link to the Conan RPG Barbarian list of abilities by level.
Go toGoogleDoc
The class table didn't come out right, sorry
I am going to keep on working on the frezetta a bit more before posting it in a new thread. I was looking for some inspiration to help me with ideas in the meantime. Thanks for the link.
Seems like spell-less ranger would fit the bill nicely.
Perhaps you include some sort of anti-stacking feature? A player who dips one level can come away with Iron Skin, which conveniently stacks with the Monk's WIS to AC. 1 level for a 1-5 AC boost isn't all that bad.
Don't you think that would would be difficult to abuse? You're talking about two different MAD classes, so I think that the amount of AC gained would be small. This isn't the same as a Wis spellcaster who dips monk to improve his AC.
Personally I always thought that the Slayer was a perfect class to represent Conan and that style of barbarian.
I mean a ranger/rogue crossbreed screams Conan to me.
I'm always perturbed when people use myriad classes for Conan when everything he is described of doing, barbarian class emulates perfectly (almost as if they based the class on him, ha). In 3.5 his stealth necessitated crossclassing with rogue or something, but in PF only thing that does not suit him is armor (at least in his thieving days). I've heard it said he doesn't rage, but then the Howard's stories I read are wrong cause he rages in them (attacks in anger or whatever). His thieving was never described as Disable Device, but rather as sunder and Strength checks, and using climb, swim and maybe Acrobatics.
Personally I always thought that the Slayer was a perfect class to represent Conan and that style of barbarian.
Coincidentally, I did include a variant of studied target.
One other thing I am working on is a "bond" class feature. The wizard, druid, ranger, and paladin all have a bond feature where they choose one of two paths. Because of several pieces of frazetta's art I want one of them to be animal companion. The second choice I currently have is weapon based like the paladin, but I'm not satisfied with it. Maybe some variant on the ranger's ally bond?
Necromental,
The barbarian class is close to a movie barbarian, though closer to the Barbarian Brothers than even Arnie's version. The book version is far more complex. He spoke several languages, living and dead, he was knowledgeable and worldly, and had a wide skill set, including dealing with traps and magic. He was the archetypal adventurer.
Necromental,
The barbarian class is close to a movie barbarian, though closer to the Barbarian Brothers than even Arnie's version. The book version is far more complex. He spoke several languages, living and dead, he was knowledgeable and worldly, and had a wide skill set, including dealing with traps and magic. He was the archetypal adventurer.
6-7 skill pts and mid level make up for all you describe. Like I said I don't remember any Disable Devices, but plenty of Str checks even in the books.
I played the Conan miniature board game recently, and while I didn't particularly like its mechanics, it made me think of different combat stances (an offensive stance against a single powerful enemy; a control stance to hold multiple opponents at bay; a defensive stance to stand one's ground; a mobile stance to move around the battlefield).
Start damage reduction at 1st level and increase it at every level, and perhaps throw in a natural AC bump here and there (no more than 2-3 points spread out over the 20 levels). This solves the AC problem without doing something wonky like adding CON to AC.
Add linguistics, knowledge (arcana and religion), sleight of hand, and stealth to his list of class skills. This better represents his roguish abilities and heightened Intellect.
grant the sunder feat chain and perhaps power attack as bonus feats throughout the build. This would better represent his "rage" than the actual rage mechanic.
just my 2 cents. good luck with the class.