D&D 5E The non barbarian barbarian

[ExploderWizard]

If it bothers you, take a pencil, scratch out "barbarian" in your PHB, and write in "berserker". Problem solved.

Heh. That makes me want to play a barbarian/bard named Olaf. " My love for you is like a truck BERSERKER!!"

 

[77IM]

I have this idea for a character who is basically Princess Jasmine, but after escaping from the castle, instead of going to the bazaar and meeting up with Aladdin, she heads to a biker bar, gets in a drunken brawl, and wakes up with a tattoo. A year later she's leading a gang of bandits and ruffians, and with no formal combat training, she has to rely on carrying a huge sword and just getting really angry (daddy issues). The Noble Barbarian, because she can still princess it up if she wants to.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That being said, well you kind of have a point Hemlock. I think it would be worth thinking about those issues during character creation.

For the record, I have no problem with the idea of an Arcane Duelist who is like a monk, only strictly weaker because all of his abilities are magic with all the problems that entails. Call him the Prosthetic-Magic Monk or the Wannabe Monk.

I only object to "refluffing" that doesn't consider the consequences of the underlying physical reality. But I don't have game balance objections to the idea.

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[FormerlyHemlock]

Sure. I get where what you mean. But that is also DM fiat territory. In all cases where you need a definite answer to a problem, like antimagic, I would treat the player as a regular monk.
But to be honest, I don't really think the core system of 5E perfectly balanced, so changing small stuff like this makes no difference overall. DMs should allow stuff like this because rule of cool. In case of imbalance, rule zero.

You're writing as though objections based on game balance considerations are the only legitimate objections. "Nobody should have a problem" as long as game balance stays the same, etc.

Do you actually believe this, or am I reading too much into your words?

As a simulationist DM, game balance is only a minor concern for me compared to consistency, simplicity, fun, and player agency. My most likely objection to a player wanting to "refluff without changing any of the mechanics" would be based on consistency and my ability to suspend disbelief, and therefore have fun.

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[The Grassy Gnoll]

I'm playing an urchin barbarian and he is a an orphan with anger management issues. Works a treat.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

My most likely objection to a player wanting to "refluff without changing any of the mechanics" would be based on consistency and my ability to suspend disbelief, and therefore have fun.

But in the case of the barbarian, refluffing "you're angry because you're a member of an uncivilized culture" to "you're angry for some other reason" probably doesn't require a mechanical change to maintain consistency. "You're angry because magic", maybe, but most of the concepts I've seen tossed out on this thread don't go that far.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Sort of in line with what other people are saying, I think the answer is to treat class names as a metagaming construct and not worry about it. The "Barbarian" class has a very narrow definition, but that doesn't mean you can't have a cleric barbarian (lower-case 'b').

The question does make me wish that backgrounds had more oomph mechanically, so that you could mix and match character concepts in ways that had more impact on gameplay, crunch-wise. That's sort of the role that Race plays, though. I could see it working better in a game where humans are the only playable race. (I haven't seen the chargen rules for the new Conan game by Modiphius, but that would have been a good candidate.)

But in a context like that Barbarian would be a great template, along with Lycanthrope and Vampire.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But in the case of the barbarian, refluffing "you're angry because you're a member of an uncivilized culture" to "you're angry for some other reason" probably doesn't require a mechanical change to maintain consistency. "You're angry because magic", maybe, but most of the concepts I've seen tossed out on this thread don't go that far.

Correct. I was talking about the monk refluffing. The barbarian, AFAIK, has no requirement to be an actual barbarian in the colloquial sense. Orphan-with-anger-issues is a bog-standard barbarian AFAIAC and I have no objections to it. Barbarian-as-space-marine-with-nanites could be an issue though.

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[Tony Vargas]

They were wrong, of course, but...

Re-skinning just isn't the thing in 5e that it was in 4e and other MMOs (yeah, cheap shot - but, why not, I don't feel like enduring another round of personal attacks). When it was announced, and through the Next playtest, the push was always to make classes more distinctive and fluff/crunch more integrated. The benefits of that should be obvious (and were certainly debated enough to refrain from doing so again). Same with the downsides.

That's why keeping the Barbarian was dubious. But, OTOH, 5e is very much the compromise edition, and the Barbarian was a very prominent part of 3.x (in the PH1, arguably the best class for melee and the best 'training wheels' class) - the 5e Barbarian leaning heavily towards the 3e version only makes sense, that way.

This is a perfect example of how you cannot ever refluff while ensuring that all the mechanics stay in place. In an infinite-resolution roleplaying game like 5E is intended to be, there is no dichotomy between crunch and fluff. In this case, your monk is changing how his abilities would interact with antimagic fields (like beholder eyes) and Dispel Magic/Counterspell/etc. Someone upthread mentioned a barbarian whose rage is actually a prayer. That ought to change both the ending conditions for Rage and the way it interacts with magical Silence (unless it's a nonverbal prayer) and possibly whether you can rage in the phlogiston.

There is no such thing as pure "fluff".

Now get off my lawn.

In theory (and not just in theory) you could have a system that is so effects-based that fluff really can be anything. Even Hero didn't go quite that far (there were some powers and limitations that referenced 'special effects'), but it came close. 4e actually /did/ segregate fluff and crunch and let you mess with the former - but 'crunch' included things like 'Source,' so you, indeed, could not simply re-fluff your WotST's 'One Sword' as a secret martial-arts maneuver, because it would still have the Arcane keyword.

You're writing as though objections based on game balance considerations are the only legitimate objections. "Nobody should have a problem" as long as game balance stays the same, etc.

He actually said mechanics rather than balance. But, yeah, how much harder would it be to put up with a re-fluffed character if that 'cosmetic' change somehow made it broken? Someone, for want of a psion, re-fluffs their Sorcerer as a psionic, and the DM lets him get away with being immune to Dispel Magic and using his full powers while everyone else's spells, ki, and magic items fail them in an anti-magic zone.

(cutting on yourself to keep your prayer up doesn't make sense in the same way that it does for rage)

There are all sorts of examples of self-injury in religious practices. As a form of sacrifice, to attain an ecstatic state, to purge sin, etc... That middle one could include 'keeping a prayer going.'

 

[Mouseferatu]

Re-skinning just isn't the thing in 5e that it was in 4e

Two words: "non" and "sense."

Reskinning is as applicable to 5E as to any past edition, and my groups and I have been doing it successfully in all of them. All it requires is a bit of thought, to make sure you aren't breaking anything, along with the creativity to reflavor/reskin.