Barbaric Barbarians- Forked From: How do you make a Mage magical?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Forked from: How do you make a Mage magical?
Making Barbarians Barbaric

Lately, magic has seemed bland and boring to me. I'm going to be playing a wizard in an up coming campaign, and I want to inject some mystery into his magic. So I ask the good people of EN World: what do you do to make your magic-users seem more magical? Does he have any odd traits? Do strange and usual things happen around him?

I'd really like to hear from you and perhaps get some advice on how I can inject a bit of magic into my mage. Thanks!

The thread contained a lot of good suggestions...and it got me thinking about the other classes.



Barbarians are another class that can present roleplay problems. I get around this by trying to emulate some of the "barbaric" cultures with which I'm familiar:

1) Sometimes, "barbarians" are just as cultured as anyone else, they just don't have technology. PCs of this type I typically multiclass out of Barbarian quite early. Those that don't, I model more after the Native Americans, Vikings and the like- semi-nomadic traders who occasionally raid others...but who feel no longing for the "culture" of others- they feel that their lifestyle is the way.

2) Animist spiritual beliefs are common in "barbarian" cultures, usually reflected in shamanism and totemic themes. There are totemic barbarians in Unearthed Arcana and Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, but if those resources aren't available, I try to kit out "totemic" barbarians with weapons & equipment reflective of their totem animal. Example: I have a barbarian with several totemic animals- he is close to Porcupine, Skunk and Wolverine spirits, so he wears spiked armor, uses clawed bracers, and carries bottles of trog-stink to throw.

3) Some are so thoroughly and unwaveringly strong in their culture that they never give up their ways. Barbarians who don't sleep under a roof, use animal-bone weapons, refuse metallic armors, etc. are examples of this.

So, what steps do you take to help yourself roleplay a Barbarian to make them seem like barbarians?

 

[fissionessence]

Hm. The stuff you talked about seems to be stuff that's indicative or 'barbarian' in a historic sense . . . that is, an 'uncivilized' culture.

But, I define my fantasy-genre barbarians differently. Just as a rogue is sneaky and cunning, a barbarian is short-tempered, angry, and strong. Whether the barbarian is from a 'barbaric' culture or if he's the king's frustrated son isn't really important (although, I do still lean toward the primal tribe thing).

~ fissionessence

 

[blargney the second]

blargney speak in lower case bold.

 

[op1983]

I don't like to base characters personality on their fighting style.

So I consider a barbarian a fighting style rather than a life style. The barbarian is strong and seems to draw his strength from something other than his own body. He does things that one would normally not be possible if he relied only on his own flesh and blood so he draws strength from other sources.

This does not stop him from being a very skilled member of a towns militia or a thugish brute something like a rogue or anything really.

 

[Greg K]

Well, when I build a homebrew setting, I do the following for barbarian settings:
1. Use the barbarian hunter variant from Unearthed Arcana. If the culture doesn't produce ragers, it automatically uses this variant along with the Favored Environment variant from Unearthed Arcana. However, the weapon style might be something other than archery depending upon the culture. If I had a source with a feat: Rage, the raging barbarian would be gone as a base class.

2. Cultural weapon groups (Unearthed Arcana): I create cultural weapon groups for each culture using both the 1e Barbarian, the Dragon article, "Tracking down the Barbarian", and various anthropology books as guidelines. The hand axe, spear, and bow are almost always included (sometimes the bow is replaced with another ranged weapon) and a few other weapons are also included.

3. Religious leaders: When appropriate, I make the shaman (Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook) their priests or use the druid (renamed Animist) with a few tweaks.

4. Limit the avaialble starting classes and adding class variants to the culture as appropriate.

5.Urban barbarian variant: Not all ragers hail from wilderness environments. So, I also have a barbarian variant that gets some different skills.

 

[Byronic]

4 words: Witch Elves from Warhammer.

1) They're savage creatures who eat the hearts of their fellow Dark Elves

2) They frenzy, hard. It's like Raging but probably even better

3) It makes Elves different from the stereotypical Elves which is nice.

4) They drink wine made from poisonous herbs with hallucinogenic properties. Adding a slight bit of sophistication and elegance.

They're probably the best versions of Elf Barbarians ever made.

 

[DandD]

It was wrong of Gary Gigax or whoever came up with the barbarian-class to call it barbarian in the first place. The name Berserker would have been much much more appropriate. But now we're stuck with a really bad legacy from older times.

 

[Greg K]

It was wrong of Gary Gigax or whoever came up with the barbarian-class to call it barbarian in the first place. The name Berserker would have been much much more appropriate. But now we're stuck with a really bad legacy from older times.

You are aware that the official 1e barbarian that Gary Gygax created did not rage, are you not?
His barbarian was just overpowered from some of the abilities. While not overpowering, Native Territory played a role and provided your character with specific cultural weapons (in addition to hand axe, spear and bow) and some extra tertiary skills.

Amedio Jungle or Hepmonaland were jungle/rainforest (at least in the case of the Amedio Jungle): They would have long distance signaling, running, sound imitation, snare building, and possibly small,craft paddled. Amedio Jungle weapons received club, blowgun, and dart or javelin as preferred weapons. Hepmonaland received atatl and javelin, club, and shortsword.

Snow Barbarians and Hold of Stonefist were slavic: they received broad swords and short bows.
They would be good with small,craft rowed and running, but have minimal horsemanship.

Rovers of the Barrens , Tiger, and Wolf Barrens were exceptional horsemen. Rovers get running, animal handling, and some other abilities. club, javelin, and lasso or shortbow while others wiykd get king distance signalling and skilled in the use of lance, scimitar and composite short bow

Thus, Gary's barbarians would have been much closer to the craft hunter variant from 3e Unearthed Arcana combined with the 3e UA Variant Favored Environment and UA weapon cultural weapon groups.

 

[Drowbane]

IMC, the term barbarian represents "primitives", such as some human tribes and... orcs. Its not a class (base, or otherwise).

"Rage" is a (powerful) feat-tree.