Multiclassing Barbarian

[Evil DM]

Hi folks,

one of my players came up with the idea of playing a fighter who will be impressed by the furiosity of barbarians.

Thus she'd like to start with a fighter and later multiclass with a barbarian.

Sadly there are non multiclass feats for the barbarian yet - am I right?

So what to do? Any advice?

Cheers,
Evil DM.

 

[chitzk0i]

No, there are no multiclass feats for barbarian until PHB2 comes out in March.

You could make up your own. Generally, multiclass feats give you some class feature at a reduced frequency. For example, If it's normally at-will, the feat will give it once per encounter. It could be something like 1/encounter when you score a critical hit, you may make a melee basic attack as a free action.

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

There aren't any multiclass feats set up, unfortunately. However, as far as non-houseruled options, the Battlerager Fighter build (see: Martial Power p6) more or less seems to be the same thing.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

one of my players came up with the idea of playing a fighter who will be impressed by the furiosity of barbarians.

My advice:

First off: can the multiclassing wait until March? If so, you're fine, since we'll get MC feats for the Barbarian in the PHBII (at least, I'd expect as much). Perhaps the fighter is impressed by them now, but takes a while to learn their fighting techniques. Like a level or two in game and a month or two in real life.

If you can't wait, you should consider if the being impressed by barbarian ferocity even needs mechanical representation. There are a lot of things that make up a character that aren't on their sheet. And since "barbarian" the rules level concept is different from "barbarian" the character level concept, a fighter could already be a "barbarian" to the other characters.

Thirdly, could you just take some appropriate fighter options that produce a similar sort of character. The aforementioned Battelrager is good for this, as are other Fighter powers that grant enemies attacks or Combat Advantage. Or Stances, which are already quite a bit like Rages anyway. These fighter options might be retrained into Barbarian stuff once the PHBII comes out.

Fourthly, you could houserule a Barbarian MC feat to use for the next two months. Since it's a short time frame, you wouldn't need to be super concerned with balance: just pick a class feature, downgrade its frequency of use one step (At Will to Encounter, Encounter to Daily) and training in a Barbarian skill. Then when PHBII comes out, swap it for the official MC feat (or possibly keep your own if GM and player(s) all think it's better).

 

[Spatula]

As there's no official barbarian multiclass feat, you'll have to houserule something. Since the barbarian's "striker bonus damage" is built into its at-wills instead of being something that can be awarded seperately (like with the ranger & rogue multiclass feats), I would pattern it after the wizard multiclass: choose one barbarian at-will as an extra encounter power. And choose one barbarian class skill.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I'm going to second the notion that the MC feat can wait.
Take feats such as powerful charge and toughness early, then take the MC feat (or retrain for it) when PHB2 comes out.

 

[rowport]

I am going to swim against the stream of advice here.

I would suggest that she start as a Barbarian, and then take feats to make her more Fighteresque to taste. The Fighter multiclass feats already exist (both in PHB and more in Martial Power) plus it is simple to take armor proficiency feats to give the Barbarian more staying power.

Of course, some of this might depend on whether she prefers the idea of the Striker role or Defender role, but it sounds like she is making a roleplaying choice rather than a mechanical one. If so, Barbarian flavored with Fighter should work just as well as the reverse.

(Barring that, I think taking the Battlerager Fighter option gives the right "rage" feel.)

 

[LightPhoenix]

My suggestions for approximating the Barbarian MC feat would be:

1) For the skill, Nature. The Warden and Druid both get Nature automatically, and I'm betting that all Primal classes get Nature, like all Arcane classes get Arcana.

2) For the ability, I would say Rampage 1/encounter, possibly with the caveat that it applies to any attack power.

 

[DonAdam]

I think 1 skill + Howling Strike 1/encounter would work quite well.