Anyone remember 2nd Ed. Barbarians?

[Fenris]

I am in need of some help. IMC I am creating I have three barbaric cultures on the main continent. One has Norse underpinnings and so berzerking is fine. The other two cultures really don't have a rage like background. I could let them and work it in especially for ease of use by the players. I have other areas that will have barbarians who will definitely not fit with the rage (e.g. North American Indian based).
As I recall, the barbarians handbook from 2nd ed had great kits for barbarians, most of whom did not rage.

Should I use fighter or ranger for these other cultures? I really like everything else about the barabrian class for these cultures they just wouldn't have the rage as part of their culture. If I remove such a central part of the class, with what do I replace it?

 

[Crothian]

Usinf Rangers and fighters in place should work out okay. You may want to alter the fighter skill list to better reflect the more primitive culture the character is from.

Altering the barbarian class by lossing Rage is also a good option. What that would be replaced with would depnd on the culture we are talking about. You could have a group of horse nomads. So, loose rage and give bonuses to ride and mounted feats for instance.

 

[Fenris]

The two cultures that would lose the rage are a nomadic group of hunters, horse based, the other group live in semi-arid mountains, as primitive herders. How greatly do I compensate for rage? Skill points and feats are a great method, but how much would you give Crothian?

 

[Crothian]

Okay, Barbarian gains a rage thing at levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 15, 16, 20. Those are a lot of abilities. There are two ways I'd go, this would depend on the culture. You could up ther skill points (and possible add more class skills to make this more culture specific) to 6 a level and then a bonus feat at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, 20. Then you make the feat selection very limited, again basining it off of cultures.

 

[Anabstercorian]

Give them a rage-like ability based off their primary skill - The mountain herders could have Goat-feet sprint, which lets them run straight up slopes at full speed or some such. The horse-riders could get Horse Spirit, which gives them a whomping big bonus to their Ride checks while they rage.

 

[Tonguez]

Rage is a Feat

Replace them with other feats

Horse barbarians - trample, sleep in the saddle,

Mountain herders - goat-sprint I like Leap of the Cougar (able to leap from cliffs down onto unsuspecting victioms)

 

[Shirt Guy John]

Rage is a feat?

I don't know about Rage being equal to one feat here. In MotW you can take the Extra Rage feat to add 3 rages per day, with no requirements besides the rage ability. *shrugs* but of cousre, I thought this feat was HORRIBLY over powered. Oh well.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I believe it`s "only" 2 extra times per day...

I probably would have considered it even fair if it would only give 1 extra rage...

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Artoomis]

Give them a rage-like ability based off their primary skill - The mountain herders could have Goat-feet sprint, which lets them run straight up slopes at full speed or some such. The horse-riders could get Horse Spirit, which gives them a whomping big bonus to their Ride checks while they rage.

I like this idea - it's really simple to implement and reflects the barbarian class pretty well. Just scale up the powers you get like rage scales up and you're all set.

 

[med stud]

I havent play tested this, but from my calculations it wont unbalance anything if you add in five or six unnamed ability bonuses instead of rage.