As to the Barbarian, I too think it does not need a class unto itself. I would personally make "Barbarian" a theme as it is more of a Cultural option than a "class". The 1 unique thing to Barbarians is Rage, which can be easily done with the use of Feats or optional Class substitution abilities. Personally I prefer feats. This way you can have Rage-Fighters (e.g. Dwarf Battlerager) or Rage-Rangers (e.g. Viking Berserker).
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Conceptual Problem - Fighter vs. Ranger
- Thread starter JohnSnow
- Start date
underfoot007ct
First Post
Humm, no one should play a Barbarian because you don't like it? Wouldn't it be simpler if maybe if you just don't play a Barbarian. Maybe allow people who really like the barbarian, the honor to play a barbarian, only if they do a good job playing a barbarian. Just a thought.
TwinBahamut
First Post
A fairly new re-imagination? Huh? I don't know about older editions, but it is the main idea for both 3E and 4E, so it is way past being a "new" idea at this point.
And, well, I don't very well see the point of a "barbarian" class that doesn't even have a rage mechanic. "Barbarian" is just a slur, nothing more. it is impossible for a class to represent a real barbarian because such things don't really exist. It is possible to use that term to refer to something more real and specific, like a berserker, but it is silly to reject something for not accurately reflecting genuine barbarian-ness.
thedungeondelver
Adventurer
Please note: this is kind of a thematic answer to a mechanical question and I apologize for that in advance but here we go...
A fighter is a guy who...look, you might hate level titles but look at the 1st level fighter title in AD&D: veteran. Here's a cat who fought his way for season after season in the peasant levies, seeing his buddies get mowed down like wheat, trampled into red mush under the hooves of the high-and-mighty on their pretty war-horses and plate mail, maybe making it to sundown and finding a barber who'd sew his ear back on or wrap a couple of thin boards and string around the mess of cracked twigs that were his left hand until an orc's hobnail boot ground into it on the battlefield and at the end of it all came out alive. Not just alive but unlike the other cloth-eared coconut-heads who're going to find themselves cold clay in a season or three, he's able to apply what he knows and get better at it.
He's a badass by dint of wanting to be. He's not some screaming madman who fights like a aurumvorax because he grew up on a glacier and was savagely beaten awake every morning and had to gouge out his brothers eyes if he wanted to eat a strip of raw meat before he slept on a cold rock for three hours that night. He's not some prissy mirror-shined plate-mail wearing fop who spent his formative years putting perfume in his saddle and learning the harpsichord along with heavy lance. He's not some addlepated zealot who hears "the voice of God" telling him to order some dirt-poor villagers to cough up ten of the gold pieces they don't have to "the glory of Hieroneus" or whoever. He's not some half-thief survivalist nut who talks in circles but can't be bothered to warn anyone about an ambush or poison plant until it's almost too late, or tell anyone just how to stab a giant to hurt it worse...
No.
He is a fighter. And by all that's holy, he'll win the day because he wants to.
A fighter is a guy who...look, you might hate level titles but look at the 1st level fighter title in AD&D: veteran. Here's a cat who fought his way for season after season in the peasant levies, seeing his buddies get mowed down like wheat, trampled into red mush under the hooves of the high-and-mighty on their pretty war-horses and plate mail, maybe making it to sundown and finding a barber who'd sew his ear back on or wrap a couple of thin boards and string around the mess of cracked twigs that were his left hand until an orc's hobnail boot ground into it on the battlefield and at the end of it all came out alive. Not just alive but unlike the other cloth-eared coconut-heads who're going to find themselves cold clay in a season or three, he's able to apply what he knows and get better at it.
He's a badass by dint of wanting to be. He's not some screaming madman who fights like a aurumvorax because he grew up on a glacier and was savagely beaten awake every morning and had to gouge out his brothers eyes if he wanted to eat a strip of raw meat before he slept on a cold rock for three hours that night. He's not some prissy mirror-shined plate-mail wearing fop who spent his formative years putting perfume in his saddle and learning the harpsichord along with heavy lance. He's not some addlepated zealot who hears "the voice of God" telling him to order some dirt-poor villagers to cough up ten of the gold pieces they don't have to "the glory of Hieroneus" or whoever. He's not some half-thief survivalist nut who talks in circles but can't be bothered to warn anyone about an ambush or poison plant until it's almost too late, or tell anyone just how to stab a giant to hurt it worse...
No.
He is a fighter. And by all that's holy, he'll win the day because he wants to.
variant
Adventurer
I never said that. I just don't see the point. It could just be folded into the fighter.
A soldier is a profession, not a master-at-arms. Most soldiers don't go above 1st level.
A ranger and a scout are thematically two different things.
Last edited:
underfoot007ct
First Post
Scout has been a D&D class, & Ranger a D&D class almost from the origins of D&D, and if anything should be a theme it would be a Soldier & trailblazer. Fighting men was a class from the very begins of D&D in OD&D. Removing iconic D&D classes or reducing them to themes would not be D&D.
It was a stupid idea in 2000, it's still stupid now.
Blue Thunder
First Post
Here is what I think:
*In the original depiction it was simple:
Fighter= The guy with sword
Wizard= The guy with wand
Most of the visual aesthetic was Arthurian...
Old wizards in pointy hats + armoured knights etc.
*And in time, as more books came, other influences began to stick and stack to the core concept of this game of sword and magic...
-With the re-discovery of Conan in 70s, came the Barbarian.
-With so much love for Aragorn & LotR, came the Ranger.
_Due to some academic books on the subject, secret orders of assassins (the Hashishi cult) were popular...so the Assassin class was integrated.
_with efforts to spice-up and vary the Wizard class, they got the Druid.
-And then, with the 90s & 2000s, the inevitable influences like "badass anti-heroes" + "manga" creeped in, and D&D had to adapt....thus they created cool archetypes like Dragonborn Warlord etc.
(which are not inferior to the previous archetypes, but have no precedents in any mythological and/or literary text)
*So we got to 2012...where we can't find a proper meaning and context for the Fighter. All because of the many class inflation.
But it's actually the clearest of the classes to understand, Fighter is that guy with the sword , fighting the monster at the front line.
-He's a axe-hurling Dane in a Beowulf campaign
-He is Lancelot the Fighter betraying Arthur the Paladin or searching the grail with Galahad the Cleric in an Arthurian campaign.
-He is one of Conan's Hyrkanian war-dogs in a Hyborian Age campaign
-He is an Argonaut, or one of the Troyans in a mythical Greece campaign,
_He is a Gondorrian foot soldier or a Rohirrim rider in a Middle-earth campaign.
etc.
He is Lİttle John fighting with Robin Hood the Ranger in a Sherwood campaign
_ A final metaphor:
D&D is an open buffet with rich choices everywhere...but imagine a person eating all the salads, soups, steaks and desserts at the same time...then he gets sick, unable to appreciate the unique exquisite taste of a specific food.
D&D is also the same, it is an open feast of myth filled with men carrying swords and wands...but trying to fill them all in the same game dims their individual tastes.
I think we should pick & choose...
i.e.
There are no knights-paladins in classic Howardian sword & sorcery, and almost no good wizards.
On the other hand, there are no heroic barbarians in Arthurian myths
Just because D&D brought them side by side
doesn't mean we should have Arthur, Gandalf and Conan, fighting Dracula
The Bottom Line:
D&D is a conglomeration of wonderful mythologies...which deserve to be focused on separately, instead of getting lost in eclectic mish-mash of "generic settings"
*In the original depiction it was simple:
Fighter= The guy with sword
Wizard= The guy with wand
Most of the visual aesthetic was Arthurian...
Old wizards in pointy hats + armoured knights etc.
*And in time, as more books came, other influences began to stick and stack to the core concept of this game of sword and magic...
-With the re-discovery of Conan in 70s, came the Barbarian.
-With so much love for Aragorn & LotR, came the Ranger.
_Due to some academic books on the subject, secret orders of assassins (the Hashishi cult) were popular...so the Assassin class was integrated.
_with efforts to spice-up and vary the Wizard class, they got the Druid.
-And then, with the 90s & 2000s, the inevitable influences like "badass anti-heroes" + "manga" creeped in, and D&D had to adapt....thus they created cool archetypes like Dragonborn Warlord etc.
(which are not inferior to the previous archetypes, but have no precedents in any mythological and/or literary text)
*So we got to 2012...where we can't find a proper meaning and context for the Fighter. All because of the many class inflation.
But it's actually the clearest of the classes to understand, Fighter is that guy with the sword , fighting the monster at the front line.
-He's a axe-hurling Dane in a Beowulf campaign
-He is Lancelot the Fighter betraying Arthur the Paladin or searching the grail with Galahad the Cleric in an Arthurian campaign.
-He is one of Conan's Hyrkanian war-dogs in a Hyborian Age campaign
-He is an Argonaut, or one of the Troyans in a mythical Greece campaign,
_He is a Gondorrian foot soldier or a Rohirrim rider in a Middle-earth campaign.
etc.
He is Lİttle John fighting with Robin Hood the Ranger in a Sherwood campaign
_ A final metaphor:
D&D is an open buffet with rich choices everywhere...but imagine a person eating all the salads, soups, steaks and desserts at the same time...then he gets sick, unable to appreciate the unique exquisite taste of a specific food.
D&D is also the same, it is an open feast of myth filled with men carrying swords and wands...but trying to fill them all in the same game dims their individual tastes.
I think we should pick & choose...
i.e.
There are no knights-paladins in classic Howardian sword & sorcery, and almost no good wizards.
On the other hand, there are no heroic barbarians in Arthurian myths
Just because D&D brought them side by side
doesn't mean we should have Arthur, Gandalf and Conan, fighting Dracula
The Bottom Line:
D&D is a conglomeration of wonderful mythologies...which deserve to be focused on separately, instead of getting lost in eclectic mish-mash of "generic settings"
Last edited:
