D&D General Has D&D abandoned the "martial barbarian"?

[le Redoutable]

I literally have no idea what you mean here. Humility from you, from me, from Conan...?

Ah: you were faster than me
no, I wanted to add that I was entering Combat Mode ( by means of a hidden Intimidate )

 

[le Redoutable]

allez, let's get serious:

Humility is a relative to Lack of Ambition;
Ambition is a relative of Fame;
( It's only Love, that's All ! Tina Turner & Bryan Adams )

 

[le Redoutable]

you should ( at that time ) try to override your Athletics skill ( wtf ? )

 

[Faolyn]

you should ( at that time ) try to override your Athletics skill ( wtf ? )

WTF is right…

 

[Minigiant]

Oh, I perfectly understand that other fantastic stories, like superheroes, can have characters that aren't supernatural but are able to go toe-to-toe with ones that are. The problem is that D&D players have repeatedly shown their distaste for those concepts existing in D&D. Hell, they even explicitly refer to "supers" as a mockery of editions they don't like.

Personally I think it's a minority. I think if there were barbarian subclasses that just were supernaturally strong, fast, and tough,they would be embraced by the community.

The question is
Why do the D&D designers completely abandon the concept after they make the berserker?

Fear of the minority?
Inability to create the concepts?
Laziness and the ease to just give barbarian overt magic?

Do not mistake me: I would love to see this. I'm not talking about my interests. (I am, after all, a fan of 4e, where pure-strength Martial characters were empowered to contribute just as much as characters with supernatural powers.)

The problem is that, whether it is a majority or simply a vocal minority, the decisive voices in the community absolutely hate even the idea of melding the two a little bit. The official designers aren't interested in offering well-made "Warrior of Physicality" options (look at how both the Berserker and the Champion, the peak "Warrior of Physicality" archetypes, are not very good), and the few times such options have been well-made, they've gotten serious backlash. There's neither internal nor external motivation for it to happen...so it won't.

You'll have to look to third-party sources for that. And third-party sources are going to want to do a variety of things, not all of which you're going to care for.

I don't know.
It feels like to me, the designers are using the loud minority as an excuse to go the "easy route" to add blantant magic into the Warrior of Physicality as it is eaiser to design.

It's the "make them a spellcaster then give them a spell because no one complains about a spellcaster having spells" method.

 

[Blue Orange]

I always figured with the simplification of the combat system they had to give the barbarian something to give the class variety--'best at straight melee' is kind of the fighter's 'hat'.

As for miracles and witchcraft...I was reading a couple old anthropology books (comments from people more knowledgeable than me welcome), and it seems that a lot of cultures have these concepts, the difference being that religion/miracles is the socially acceptable variety, and witchcraft is the socially unacceptable variety, often involving harm to others. (Now, whether they're good or evil depends on what you think of society...you can easily imagine a setting where witches are the 'good guys/gals' resisting an oppressive society.) In a (historically accurate) medieval European setting of course the only appropriate supernatural force to invoke is God, or perhaps ask a saint to intercede on your behalf with Him. It's kind of like the old bit where our gods are gods and their gods are demons.

Basic Roleplaying's 'Magic Book' has essays written from the shamanic, clerical, and wizardry perspectives, where each of the three explains why they are the correct view and the other two are misguided, foolish, or immoral. (The shamanic perspective sounds a lot like indigenous Americans' views (or more likely the European-descended impression of them), the clerical like some mix of Wicca and Christianity, and the wizardly like a somewhat cocky scientific view.)

 

[mrpopstar]

For anyone interested in a scholarly approach to witches, witchcraft, and their definitions across cultures, I highly recommend The Witch by Ronald Hutton (a respected subject authority). Great read if you're into academic literature.

 

[le Redoutable]

WTF is right…

... for diversion usage

 

[le Redoutable]

hey! isn't the Hulk a barbarian ?
whatever, he rages most of the time lol

 

[Blue Orange]

For anyone interested in a scholarly approach to witches, witchcraft, and their definitions across cultures, I highly recommend The Witch by Ronald Hutton (a respected subject authority). Great read if you're into academic literature.

Thank you! I may check it out!