Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Balancing a d20 hit die
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="DrSkull" data-source="post: 289138" data-attributes="member: 3718"><p>Okay, let me expalin why I set up my berserker as different from a barbarian. A berserker isn't meant to be a regular Viking warrior, but a rare, weird, semi-supernatural psycho-killer.</p><p></p><p>I used to play Chivalry and Sorcery using their Viking supplement. All of the warriors in Viking society in that game were allowed to go "ferocious", the equivalent of D&D's rage. So I established that the typical fighting-man in the D&D version would be the barbarian. The guards of chiefs and kings in C&S were able to do "power-attack" like things and had a generally higher level of combat skill and ability--so for D&D the Fighter class fit for them. All well and good.</p><p></p><p>But then there were Berserkers, you had to have favorable birth omens to be one (something I carried over to D&D), and they were really scary professional pyscopaths. Their berserking ability marked them as different than the regular "ferocious" warriors. In literature the numbers of these "true" berserkers was quite small (a king might have a dozen in his employ). </p><p></p><p>Several of the barbarian's abilites did not seem to fit, uncanny dodge for one (berserkers don't care about defense), all of the skill points for another. Berserkers killed for a living and did nothing else.</p><p></p><p>The rage of the berserker was a divine gift, a magical power, and in literature they were very hard to kill, it usually took magic or a magic weapon to do it. So, in order to model that I went for the huge hit die. I'm still not convinced that it doesn't work. After two sessions our berserker has survived only by the narrowest of margins (reaching -9 twice). </p><p></p><p>Perhaps it just seems freakier than it is. Perhaps I'll change it to a toughness feat for free on every odd level, that was a good suggestion and makes the class seem more in line with the others. I'm more concerned about the potential of a berserker using a lot of defensive magic, I should add a prohibition against that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DrSkull, post: 289138, member: 3718"] Okay, let me expalin why I set up my berserker as different from a barbarian. A berserker isn't meant to be a regular Viking warrior, but a rare, weird, semi-supernatural psycho-killer. I used to play Chivalry and Sorcery using their Viking supplement. All of the warriors in Viking society in that game were allowed to go "ferocious", the equivalent of D&D's rage. So I established that the typical fighting-man in the D&D version would be the barbarian. The guards of chiefs and kings in C&S were able to do "power-attack" like things and had a generally higher level of combat skill and ability--so for D&D the Fighter class fit for them. All well and good. But then there were Berserkers, you had to have favorable birth omens to be one (something I carried over to D&D), and they were really scary professional pyscopaths. Their berserking ability marked them as different than the regular "ferocious" warriors. In literature the numbers of these "true" berserkers was quite small (a king might have a dozen in his employ). Several of the barbarian's abilites did not seem to fit, uncanny dodge for one (berserkers don't care about defense), all of the skill points for another. Berserkers killed for a living and did nothing else. The rage of the berserker was a divine gift, a magical power, and in literature they were very hard to kill, it usually took magic or a magic weapon to do it. So, in order to model that I went for the huge hit die. I'm still not convinced that it doesn't work. After two sessions our berserker has survived only by the narrowest of margins (reaching -9 twice). Perhaps it just seems freakier than it is. Perhaps I'll change it to a toughness feat for free on every odd level, that was a good suggestion and makes the class seem more in line with the others. I'm more concerned about the potential of a berserker using a lot of defensive magic, I should add a prohibition against that. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Balancing a d20 hit die
Top