A total and utter newbie’s guide to The Barbarian [Archive] - Wizards Community

A total and utter newbie’s guide to The Barbarian [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Venom of the Yuan Ti
07-28-05, 03:03 PM A total and utter newbie’s guide to
The barbarian.
In this thread I will be attempting to put together information for a total newbie on how to play a reasonable Barbarian. Read this, and you be able to avoid most of the pitfalls and also be able to enjoy a good round teamed character. I will even give you three themes (hereafter meaning the idea behind a character) (the stereotype, the inversion and the lateral thought) and several styles (hereafter meaning the way a character is built) to work from, but this is JUST the beginning, experiment!

For those of you who are not total and utter newbie’s, this is not for you but you may find it interesting. So before we begin on a 5 step guide to building and playing your character (Followed by a small section on multi-class options) lets have a look at the barbarian in a role-playing sense, were does he fit in?

A Barbarian and the world.
Put simply the standard barbarian does not fit in well in civilisation, he may find such large numbers of people in the same place disconcerting and many of their customs odd. He will almost certainly have his own honour code, which may well clash with the opinions of those around. Expect to come in for a lot of stick form the locals.

For non-standard barbarians you can still expect a lot of strange behaviour around you, as you will, if little else, be famous for your bouts of rage, which will not make you a popular party guest.

A Barbarian and the party.
Unless you are careful the party will simply consider you an unthinking combat engine.
Among your most likely friends if you are a more or less stereotypical barbarian are Druids, the less arrogant Fighters, Rangers and possibly sorcerers.
As you cannot read you are unlikely to end up seeing eye to eye with a wizard, and the more lawful classes are not likely to see eye to eye with you either.
You are more likely to know were you stand with rouges and bards (although this may well be with their hands in you wallet.)

Step 1. Theme.
This is the first step I ever take when designing a character, who the tap dancing hydra is he? Get together a background story and then chose a barbarian type to play (the ones I have identified are just below, there are probably others.) If backstory is an issue, just answer these questions.
Char sheet blurb (ie what is on the sheet.)
Where was he/she born?
Why did he/she adventure?
Who raised him/her?
Does he/she have any strong political/racial opinions?
Try to answer with each with at least one sentance. From here you can pick a theme.

Stereotype: Big, strong, stupid. Lives in the wilderness and focuses on melee combat. Is not at home in civilisation.

Inversion: Try taking one part of the steriotype and inverting it to get an interesting theme, Big strong and stupid, Wilderness, melee combatant. If we chose the second one and make him urban what do we get?

Urban Barbarian: A strong drunkard who spends much of his time in bar brawls and gang fights, poorly educated this person is likely to be from a poor area and will almost certainly have an attitude problem. In short a brutal thug the likes of which will boil the blood of the standard, honourable warrior, barbarian.

Lateral thinking: Is there another way that all of theses class features can be used to create a character who is blatantly NOT a barbarian, without changing anything? How about...

Zealot: Believing him/herself blessed with divine mission this semi-sane individual fights for their deity with an endurance and fury that shames most clergy. They see their work as holy and spend much of their down time screaming religious prattlings at people in the street.

Styles:

One sword: Focuses one weapon, in out no messing, the barbarian most play, probably the weakest.

Fleaxable: Uses an aray of weapons, ranged, reach and melee, seldom uses a shield due to the fact most of these are two handed.

I wanted to be a ranger: Takes track, and is very good at it, often uses two weapons, and is very good at that too.

2 Stats.
Form here stat up your barbarian, and take his/her back story into account. If you chose to try the semi-sane Zealot approach then a high wisdom score (indicating mental stability and higher reasoning) is not likely to make sense. Think ahead, and only put a score worse than 13 in str, dex, con and int if you can't help it, most for combat but a reasonable int is necessary if you wish to out manoeuvre the fighter is one are of advantage you have, skill points, a barbarian's "dump score", if any, should be cha or wis. Keep your theme in mind at all times, don't think "can I take the feat with these scores?" think "Would taking the feat with these scores make sense?" Monkey grip is nice, but in reality a very high Str score would be needed. Once you have stated up, chose either str, dex or con, maybe two, to pump up, and STICK TO IT!
A high Str barbarian deals lots of damadge and might consider a two handed weapon, wereas a high con barbarian can afford to risk wearing less amour and moving faster. A high Dex barbarian can become a lethal whirlwind of two weapon fighting, 80ft charge range, javelin throwing goodness.

3 Strengths.
Let us review what we know of the barbarian, he is tough and strong, a good melee combatant and has a better selection of skills than most other melee classes. Squeeze every inch out of all of your class abilities, fast movement will ensure you get the first attack if used well, for example. On raging, rage hard, rage fast, you fall into the “get it over and done with” set of classes, you will do far more damage early on than later, because in order to get the most from rage it has to happen early in combat. However a few things to avoid.
1. Don’t rage because you can, rage because you PLAN. I have known high level barbarians who waste rages on encounters 3-4 levels below them, there is no need to rage and it is not an infinite resource!
2. Rage smart. Raging on a charge is never a good idea, you will take a grand total of -4 AC, never good, also you get one attack. If you find you rage at bad times take the policy only to rage when you are in a position to get off a full attack for at least two rounds in a row, this will typically mean being in combat with an adversary who is not showing signs of flight.
3. Rage soon. When all is said and done, if you still have rage duration left after a combat is will be waited. Did the rounds you weren’t raging but were in combat (if any) add up to less than or equal to this? If so, you probably raged too late.

4 Weaknesses.
Ok, lets talk weaknesses. You are not that good at either ranged or prolonged combat, trust me when that rage runs out you are easily less useful than a fighter a level or two, below. The answer? End combat first, luckily few combats last that long, about 7 rounds (assume con 14-17), but that is still only 47 seconds. Whilst I have seen some barbarians pull off ranged combat it isn’t really for you, unless you invest in multiple composite longbows of different STR ratings. A few ideas might be to invest in magic items of get the wizard to cast spells that increase speed (NEVER say no to haste). Of your saves will is the one you have to worry about, nothing says “Bad day” quite like a raging barbarian doing a 180` turn on his party. Also watch your AC, if you use two weapons/ a two handed weapon it will be low anyway, but when you rage and/or charge, look at it plummet!

5 Skills feats and equipment.
Chose skills and feats that build off your style and then equip to fit. To end combats faster take weapon focus in your primary weapon to get the attack roll up. A shield is always nice for the AC, but if you take that power attack and cleave become more important because you need more damage and attacks! Two weapons generally requires too high a dex for the main stream barbarian, but by all my d20 is it very scary to see!

Multi-classing
If you are happy enough with the basic rules you may want to consider multi-classing. Here are a few pointers. However remember that ANY other class represents a loss in hp and rage advancement.

Cleric: Never turn down healing spells, also some domains (luck mainly) are worth the drop in BAB on their own. But remember casting cannot take place whilst raging.
Fighter: Bonus feats here you come!
Ranger: Mainly to get favoured enemy as a "flavour" thing. However you will become a great tracker and also be able to activate magic items, never to be sneezed at.
Venom of the Yuan Ti
07-29-05, 07:48 AM 32 reads and not a single resopnce, man even some swearing would have been nice.

Man.
the artful dodger
07-29-05, 08:10 AM If you insist. ;)

Anyway, a couple of points:

1) You're stereotyping Rage. Rage doesn't have to be mindless anger. It might just as well be a very tight focus in combat. If the latter, those bouts of rage won't reflect badly on you - rather, they make you a skilled warrior, which is a valued commodity.

2) Aside from mentioning that it lets you get from A to B (A usually being out of melee, B being in melee) you pretty much ignored fast movement. Considering you can just about outmaneuver a charging dwarf with a single move, it's a bit better than that. It's useful defensively and allows you to Spring Attack more easily.

3) Speaking of which, even at the cost of 3 feats Spring Attack rules for a barbarian when coupled with a reach weapon (get Enlarged too). Barbarians can expect to be the biggest damage dealers per single attack in melee, or close to that, but not per full attack (many monsters will outdamage them quite easily). Spring Attack + reach turns combat into a contest of trading single blows, but with you getting an AoO for every attack almost any opponent with less reach tries to make on you (notable exceptions: other Spring Attackers and Tumblers). Still, if you can sustain your Rage long enough (pump that Con) just that 1-for-1 attack exchange is favourable enough.

4) You ignored the mounted barbarian. Despite not having a whole lot of feats to build on that, Barbarians can still make fairly decent mounted fighters. More importantly, it's a fun build.

I guess that'll do for now. :) I very briefly mentioned defense, an extremely interesting topic for barbarians too, but that'd take too much time to expand upon now.
Ninja Squirrel
07-29-05, 12:48 PM Your Barbarian in the party makes barbarians look bad. Being a mindless killer can be a good thhin if the DM throws an army at you

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Venom of the Yuan Ti 07-28-05, 03:03 PM	A total and utter newbie’s guide to The barbarian. In this thread I will be attempting to put together information for a total newbie on how to play a reasonable Barbarian. Read this, and you be able to avoid most of the pitfalls and also be able to enjoy a good round teamed character. I will even give you three themes (hereafter meaning the idea behind a character) (the stereotype, the inversion and the lateral thought) and several styles (hereafter meaning the way a character is built) to work from, but this is JUST the beginning, experiment! For those of you who are not total and utter newbie’s, this is not for you but you may find it interesting. So before we begin on a 5 step guide to building and playing your character (Followed by a small section on multi-class options) lets have a look at the barbarian in a role-playing sense, were does he fit in? A Barbarian and the world. Put simply the standard barbarian does not fit in well in civilisation, he may find such large numbers of people in the same place disconcerting and many of their customs odd. He will almost certainly have his own honour code, which may well clash with the opinions of those around. Expect to come in for a lot of stick form the locals. For non-standard barbarians you can still expect a lot of strange behaviour around you, as you will, if little else, be famous for your bouts of rage, which will not make you a popular party guest. A Barbarian and the party. Unless you are careful the party will simply consider you an unthinking combat engine. Among your most likely friends if you are a more or less stereotypical barbarian are Druids, the less arrogant Fighters, Rangers and possibly sorcerers. As you cannot read you are unlikely to end up seeing eye to eye with a wizard, and the more lawful classes are not likely to see eye to eye with you either. You are more likely to know were you stand with rouges and bards (although this may well be with their hands in you wallet.) Step 1. Theme. This is the first step I ever take when designing a character, who the tap dancing hydra is he? Get together a background story and then chose a barbarian type to play (the ones I have identified are just below, there are probably others.) If backstory is an issue, just answer these questions. Char sheet blurb (ie what is on the sheet.) Where was he/she born? Why did he/she adventure? Who raised him/her? Does he/she have any strong political/racial opinions? Try to answer with each with at least one sentance. From here you can pick a theme. Stereotype: Big, strong, stupid. Lives in the wilderness and focuses on melee combat. Is not at home in civilisation. Inversion: Try taking one part of the steriotype and inverting it to get an interesting theme, Big strong and stupid, Wilderness, melee combatant. If we chose the second one and make him urban what do we get? Urban Barbarian: A strong drunkard who spends much of his time in bar brawls and gang fights, poorly educated this person is likely to be from a poor area and will almost certainly have an attitude problem. In short a brutal thug the likes of which will boil the blood of the standard, honourable warrior, barbarian. Lateral thinking: Is there another way that all of theses class features can be used to create a character who is blatantly NOT a barbarian, without changing anything? How about... Zealot: Believing him/herself blessed with divine mission this semi-sane individual fights for their deity with an endurance and fury that shames most clergy. They see their work as holy and spend much of their down time screaming religious prattlings at people in the street. Styles: One sword: Focuses one weapon, in out no messing, the barbarian most play, probably the weakest. Fleaxable: Uses an aray of weapons, ranged, reach and melee, seldom uses a shield due to the fact most of these are two handed. I wanted to be a ranger: Takes track, and is very good at it, often uses two weapons, and is very good at that too. 2 Stats. Form here stat up your barbarian, and take his/her back story into account. If you chose to try the semi-sane Zealot approach then a high wisdom score (indicating mental stability and higher reasoning) is not likely to make sense. Think ahead, and only put a score worse than 13 in str, dex, con and int if you can't help it, most for combat but a reasonable int is necessary if you wish to out manoeuvre the fighter is one are of advantage you have, skill points, a barbarian's "dump score", if any, should be cha or wis. Keep your theme in mind at all times, don't think "can I take the feat with these scores?" think "Would taking the feat with these scores make sense?" Monkey grip is nice, but in reality a very high Str score would be needed. Once you have stated up, chose either str, dex or con, maybe two, to pump up, and STICK TO IT! A high Str barbarian deals lots of damadge and might consider a two handed weapon, wereas a high con barbarian can afford to risk wearing less amour and moving faster. A high Dex barbarian can become a lethal whirlwind of two weapon fighting, 80ft charge range, javelin throwing goodness. 3 Strengths. Let us review what we know of the barbarian, he is tough and strong, a good melee combatant and has a better selection of skills than most other melee classes. Squeeze every inch out of all of your class abilities, fast movement will ensure you get the first attack if used well, for example. On raging, rage hard, rage fast, you fall into the “get it over and done with” set of classes, you will do far more damage early on than later, because in order to get the most from rage it has to happen early in combat. However a few things to avoid. 1. Don’t rage because you can, rage because you PLAN. I have known high level barbarians who waste rages on encounters 3-4 levels below them, there is no need to rage and it is not an infinite resource! 2. Rage smart. Raging on a charge is never a good idea, you will take a grand total of -4 AC, never good, also you get one attack. If you find you rage at bad times take the policy only to rage when you are in a position to get off a full attack for at least two rounds in a row, this will typically mean being in combat with an adversary who is not showing signs of flight. 3. Rage soon. When all is said and done, if you still have rage duration left after a combat is will be waited. Did the rounds you weren’t raging but were in combat (if any) add up to less than or equal to this? If so, you probably raged too late. 4 Weaknesses. Ok, lets talk weaknesses. You are not that good at either ranged or prolonged combat, trust me when that rage runs out you are easily less useful than a fighter a level or two, below. The answer? End combat first, luckily few combats last that long, about 7 rounds (assume con 14-17), but that is still only 47 seconds. Whilst I have seen some barbarians pull off ranged combat it isn’t really for you, unless you invest in multiple composite longbows of different STR ratings. A few ideas might be to invest in magic items of get the wizard to cast spells that increase speed (NEVER say no to haste). Of your saves will is the one you have to worry about, nothing says “Bad day” quite like a raging barbarian doing a 180` turn on his party. Also watch your AC, if you use two weapons/ a two handed weapon it will be low anyway, but when you rage and/or charge, look at it plummet! 5 Skills feats and equipment. Chose skills and feats that build off your style and then equip to fit. To end combats faster take weapon focus in your primary weapon to get the attack roll up. A shield is always nice for the AC, but if you take that power attack and cleave become more important because you need more damage and attacks! Two weapons generally requires too high a dex for the main stream barbarian, but by all my d20 is it very scary to see! Multi-classing If you are happy enough with the basic rules you may want to consider multi-classing. Here are a few pointers. However remember that ANY other class represents a loss in hp and rage advancement. Cleric: Never turn down healing spells, also some domains (luck mainly) are worth the drop in BAB on their own. But remember casting cannot take place whilst raging. Fighter: Bonus feats here you come! Ranger: Mainly to get favoured enemy as a "flavour" thing. However you will become a great tracker and also be able to activate magic items, never to be sneezed at.
Venom of the Yuan Ti 07-29-05, 07:48 AM	32 reads and not a single resopnce, man even some swearing would have been nice. Man.
the artful dodger 07-29-05, 08:10 AM	If you insist. ;) Anyway, a couple of points: 1) You're stereotyping Rage. Rage doesn't have to be mindless anger. It might just as well be a very tight focus in combat. If the latter, those bouts of rage won't reflect badly on you - rather, they make you a skilled warrior, which is a valued commodity. 2) Aside from mentioning that it lets you get from A to B (A usually being out of melee, B being in melee) you pretty much ignored fast movement. Considering you can just about outmaneuver a charging dwarf with a single move, it's a bit better than that. It's useful defensively and allows you to Spring Attack more easily. 3) Speaking of which, even at the cost of 3 feats Spring Attack rules for a barbarian when coupled with a reach weapon (get Enlarged too). Barbarians can expect to be the biggest damage dealers per single attack in melee, or close to that, but not per full attack (many monsters will outdamage them quite easily). Spring Attack + reach turns combat into a contest of trading single blows, but with you getting an AoO for every attack almost any opponent with less reach tries to make on you (notable exceptions: other Spring Attackers and Tumblers). Still, if you can sustain your Rage long enough (pump that Con) just that 1-for-1 attack exchange is favourable enough. 4) You ignored the mounted barbarian. Despite not having a whole lot of feats to build on that, Barbarians can still make fairly decent mounted fighters. More importantly, it's a fun build. I guess that'll do for now. :) I very briefly mentioned defense, an extremely interesting topic for barbarians too, but that'd take too much time to expand upon now.
Ninja Squirrel 07-29-05, 12:48 PM	Your Barbarian in the party makes barbarians look bad. Being a mindless killer can be a good thhin if the DM throws an army at you