Totems are somehow my biggest problem atm

[vonFiedler]

I can nitpick a lot of things but the biggest thing I'd like to see changed is how Barbarians work.

Barbarians were my favorite core class in Pathfinder. I'd hesitate to say that they've been ruined, as they're probably somewhat powerful between their rage damage and damage resistances.

But how did Barbarians ever evolve from a point where they weren't allowed to be lawful to a point where they have to follow laws in order to have their class features? When you think of anathema, you think of Cavaliers, Paladins, Clerics, and Monks... and now Barbarians? One of these things is not like the other things.

Most of these anathemas aren't big deals in and of themselves. The superstition anathema certainly is, but that's also not new. What kills me and drives me away from the Barbarian class is that Animal totem barbarians can't use weapons. There's good reason that animal totem is an option for Barbarians, as association with animals is huge with Barbarians in real life, between your Berserkers (Bears) and your Ulfhednars (Wolves). But those guys weren't running into battle trying to bite people, well, at least not exclusively. Even Animal Order Druids can use weapons!

"Why not just use Fury totem" another player has said to me. Because as I've seen pointed out on the board, Fury totem denies you access to 14 of Barbarian's 41 feats. That's only 27 feats to choose 11 from, or about 30 feats if you have a totem. Compare this to other traditionally martial class. Fighter has 67. Paladin has 46. Ranger has 39. Even Monk and Rogue are essentially martial now, and they have 51 and 47 feats respectively. Barbarians has only a few more effective feats than Sorcerer, a class that gets class feats half as often. Not only does Barbarian get a slightly low amount of feats in general, it can't use a lot of them.

So why can't a Barbarian take feats from other totems the way that a Druid can take feats from other orders? You could argue that Sorcerer and Wizard have this problem, but they are also full casters, so they have many more options in general, and they get half as many class feats. I realize that in PF1E Barbarians couldn't take feats from more than one totem, but totems were only introduced in the APG. This is core content, and as is, Barbarian is very restricted in both what it can do and in the flavor players want to bring to it. So even though the class has some fun things (unlike Ranger, but that's a different story), I wouldn't want to play one. Things would probably need to be rebalanced to allow cross-totem feat selection, but it would well worth it. Please allow cross-classing and if you keep anathema, please fix at least the animal totem (and maybe tone down superstition).

[Greyblade23]

vonFiedler wrote:

What kills me and drives me away from the Barbarian class is that Animal totem barbarians can't use weapons. There's good reason that animal totem is an option for Barbarians, as association with animals is huge with Barbarians in real life, between your Berserkers (Bears) and your Ulfhednars (Wolves). But those guys weren't running into battle trying to bite people, well, at least not exclusively. Even Animal Order Druids can use weapons!

I saw this and thought it was one of the less well-thought-out options. Really, the stereotypical barbarian uses a honkin' big weapon. This totem might be more acceptable if it were only anathema to barbarians under the influence of rage.

Speaking of rage, the description says "you can’t voluntarily stop raging", immediately followed by "if you stop raging before its usual duration expires". If rage can be involuntarily stopped by an effect or condition, how about a list of what conditions can do this?

[Greyblade23]

Greyblade23 wrote:

vonFiedler wrote:

What kills me and drives me away from the Barbarian class is that Animal totem barbarians can't use weapons. There's good reason that animal totem is an option for Barbarians, as association with animals is huge with Barbarians in real life, between your Berserkers (Bears) and your Ulfhednars (Wolves). But those guys weren't running into battle trying to bite people, well, at least not exclusively. Even Animal Order Druids can use weapons!

I saw this and thought it was one of the less well-thought-out options. Really, the stereotypical barbarian uses a honkin' big weapon. This totem might be more acceptable if it were only anathema to barbarians under the influence of rage.

I'm changing my mind about this point, based on something a person in my playtest group pointed out to me. Barbarians can rage almost all day - 3 rounds on, 1 round off, rinse and repeat. That makes the Animal Totem much more appealing, at least to me. Plus, there's no chance your weapon will break :).

[kaid]

Greyblade23 wrote:

Greyblade23 wrote:

vonFiedler wrote:

What kills me and drives me away from the Barbarian class is that Animal totem barbarians can't use weapons. There's good reason that animal totem is an option for Barbarians, as association with animals is huge with Barbarians in real life, between your Berserkers (Bears) and your Ulfhednars (Wolves). But those guys weren't running into battle trying to bite people, well, at least not exclusively. Even Animal Order Druids can use weapons!

I saw this and thought it was one of the less well-thought-out options. Really, the stereotypical barbarian uses a honkin' big weapon. This totem might be more acceptable if it were only anathema to barbarians under the influence of rage.

I'm changing my mind about this point, based on something a person in my playtest group pointed out to me. Barbarians can rage almost all day - 3 rounds on, 1 round off, rinse and repeat. That makes the Animal Totem much more appealing, at least to me. Plus, there's no chance your weapon will break :).

There is still a really big and weird downside in that one round where they go from having good weapons to fists. Their fatigued round is just a lot nastier than it is for others although if they are allowed to use the magic fist wraps it probably does not matter that much.

[Yamazakana]

I hope the animal anathema is altered to "wielding weapons to any animal
of your totem animal's kind (and flagrantly disrespecting them)."

[PossibleCabbage]

kaid wrote:

There is still a really big and weird downside in that one round where they go from having good weapons to fists. Their fatigued round is just a lot nastier than it is for others although if they are allowed to use the magic fist wraps it probably does not matter that much.

Considering how nasty fatigued is as a condition, and that your defenses are not great to begin with, I generally wouldn't recommend using all three actions in your "off-rage" term anyway.

But for Animal Barbs I figure the thing to do against an adjacent opponent while out of rage is to leverage your significant athletics modifier and try to trip/disarm/grapple somebody.

[Yamazakana]

I thought about it for a day, if Barbarian violates anathema,
she loses only totem power & totem feats.
So Animal Barbarian with a greatsword can use normal rage.

We usually fight with claws and bite, and after we need to use weapons,
we still fight as Fury Barbarian.