Berserk Warrior

[siegfriedliner]

So if you were trying to build a bear skin wearing, shield chewing berserk warrior in pathfinder 2e how would you approach it.

I am assuming barbarian fills the class niche best but the rest of the options don't really seem great, I was thinking animal totem because of the bear link and animal skin but I don't know if its a bit too literal in its transformation.

Also bonus question how would you approach an Celtic Warper whose rage leads to violent transformation ?

[Seisho]

The celtic warper is pretty much what you get with animal totem

for the regular berserker I would go either also animal totem or just pick fury totem which has no special benefits but an additonal feat but also no downsides

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, both of those are straight up Barbarian concepts and Barbarian does them both admirably.

Personally, I'd say that both are probably Fury Instinct unless you want to literally be biting people rather than stabbing them (in which case go Animal) or want to do the 'boiling heat rising off them' thing for the Celtic one, in which case you could probably reflavor Dragon Instinct.

[Claxon]

Yeah, definitely barbarian.

Depending on exactly what you want to represent as your berserk fury you choose a different instinct.

Fury is just a basic angry warrior.

Animal is "I'm so angry I'll turn into a bear"

Dragon is the same as animal, but dragons.

Giant is "I'm gonna go yuge and cave your face in"

You can reflavor all of these to some extent to get different flavor, but the 3 (animal/dragon/giant) are pretty similar in terms of I'm angry and turn into a thing.

I didn't include superstitious and spirit, but I think you can figure those out.

[jdripley]

I'll propose Fighter with Barbarian dedication. On account of "shield chewing." Fighter does shields better than Barbarian does. If you're going to go Fury Instinct, you're just as well off doing it via Barbarian Dedication as going straight Barbarian, except you get the extra accuracy of Fighter and a different suite of feats initially.

You would have to wait until level 2 to get Rage, and level 4+ before getting other Barbarian feats, so maybe that's not what you have in mind, but I think it's worth considering.

Just be sure to pay attention to your weapon - don't pick an Agile weapon or you'll only get a paltry bonus to damage from Rage, and that sucks!

Celtic Warper... I might go Druid for that. You'll be re-theming the wildshape into an "angry wildshape" but that's easy enough.

[Deadmanwalking]

Shield Block is a General Feat (and thus a really easy pick up) and the only real 'Fighters are better with shields than a Barbarian' thing. I'd go straight Barbarian if your concept is Rage-based.

And the Celtic Warp Spasm in myth and legend isn't shapeshifting into an animal at all, and bears little resemblance to doing so. Using Druid for it is a really bad pairing thematically.

[Captain Morgan]

Well, Fighters do get Paragon's Guard at level 12, which is an amazing feat exclusive to them. I'm surprised it didn't make it into the Bastion archetype, but here we are.

But yeah, I'd have to think mainlining Barbarian would the way to go.