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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="khyron1144" data-source="post: 2010940" data-attributes="member: 8004">Let me make a two things clear at the start:  My first 3e character was a barbarian and I have a certain fondness for the class, so I bought this mostly with barbarians in mind.  Second, I am not familiar with its competition in this area, such as Mongoose's Quintessential Barbarian or Fantasy Flight Games's Path of the Sword, so I can't make a rellevant comparison.  As a source book for barbarians, Masters of the Wild is disapointing.  The fluff in the first chapter about how barbarians interact with the other classes and how to role play a barbarian properly and so on, is slightly interesting, but nothing absolutely vital to me.  The second chapter deals with feats and skills.  The skills section was okay.  The new uses for Handle Animal with new tricks and Wilderness Lore  with rules for covering your tracks while being tracked are somewhat relevant to barbarians becuase they're both class skills for barbarians.  It did stike me more as material for druids and rangers who get animal companions as a class feature and particularly for ranger's who get the trac feat for free.  The rage-related feats were cool.  I can see just about everybody taking feats like Extra Rage.  Here the problem was mainly with unatity rather than quality, although one feat, Destructive Rage, didn't seem that good to me.  I want my barbarian to use his rage to smash skulls, not doors. The equipment doesn't strike me as very barbarian-oriented.  Why would my barbarian choose a caber that might deal damage and break up military formations and requires a feat to use, when he could just use a great axe which does deal damage and breaks up military ranks very effectively by killing the people making up those ranks and a medium size or larger barbarian is automatically proficient with?The fourth chapter is abou animals.  Nothing to interest my barbarian, except potential foes.The fifth chapter is on prestige classes.  My hopes were high going in, but fell off quickly.  Here's a breaks down of what's offered:  Animal Lord- a class with affinity for and conrol of a particular type of animal.  Unfortunately it requires animal empathy ranks, which disqualifies single-classed barbarians, but I could see building a druid/ barbarian/ bear lord.  Bane of Infidels- a human-sacrificing bad guy divine spell caster.  No real potential there for a barbarian.  Blighter- a nature-destroying bad guy fallen druid.  Another one with no real potential or a barabarian.  Bloodhound- a character who tacks people down to cpature or kill them.  It looks like it was designed mainly with the urban ranger variant class in mind.  A barbarian could take it with the proper feat selection, but I can't see why one would.Deep Wood Sniper- another archer class; this time the focus is on hitting from a distance without being spotted.  This one is theoretically available to barbarians, but most barbarians are melee fighters who favor the power attack feat tree over the point blank shot feat tree.   Exotic Weaon Master- A character who, surprise! specializes in using exotic weapons.  This one is theoretically a barbarian prestige class, seeing as how it has the rage ability as a prerequisite.  However it takes three feats to qualify for it, which become useless once this class is taken to its fullest.  It als involves being willing to go down to d10s for hit dice for five levels too.  This class would work much better as a fighter prestige class with the rage requirement lifted. Eye if Gruumsh- a prestige class for half-orcs and orcs.  Not bad, but the limited range of races that can take it and the afilliation with an evil god  limit its appeal.  It's even intended foruse by barbarians.Foe Hunter- a ranger restige class that takes the favored enemy thing one step further.  This is very obviously a ranger class, but I suppose one could be ranger/ barbarian/ foe hunter if one really wanted to.Forsaker- A character who totally eschews the use of magic.  This is theoretically a barbarian class, but it presents serious party harmony problems.  One problem is the high level, we're in a hurry let's teleport directly to the adventure location scenario is out of the question for a forsaker.  Teleport only affects a willing target, but forsakers will never be willing.  This might work as an NPC class, but isn't much good for a PC.Frenzied Berserker- a barbarian that gets a stronger version of rage, in exchange for the chance of accidentally raging.  This is the one barbarian class that I would seriously consider taking.  It does however ahve Destructive Rage as a prerequisite, and as I already that one feels like a bit of a non-starter to me, but one bad feat in exchange for super rage isn't a bad trade off, so I guess it evens out.Geomancer- a spellcaster that blurs the line between arcane and divine magic.  This is obviously meant to be used by druid/ arcane spelcaster mulitclasses.  It looks cool, but it's not for my barbarian.Hexer- an enemy humanoid adept prestige class.  I have no idea why it's even in this particular book, rather than say, Savage Species.King/ Queen of the Wild- a character who is very comfortable in a particular type of terrain.  This one has potential to be taken by barbarians, but ragner's can qualify just as easily.Oozemaster- a class with an affinity for oozes.  I geuss it could be sort of a druid prestige class, but I think it's one from Tome and Blood that is reprinted here for mysterious reasons.Shifter- a shapechanging class.  This is obviously mostly for druids.Tamer of Beasts- Dr. Dolittle in D&D.  Another one mainly for druids and rangers.Tempest- the ultimate two weapon fighter.  Another one for the rangers.Verdant Lord-  a druid prestige class that eventually becomes a tree.Watch Detective- another urban ranger.  This one's more like a police detective than a free lance bounty hunter.Wind Rider- a mounted combat specialist.  Not much good to a barbarian.Chapter six is spells. This chapter offers nothing to barbarians.As a book for barbarians, Masers of the Wild is substandard (I would rate it a 2- pretty bad, with a few very good points).  Once you add in rangers and druids, it goes up to average.  The druid and ranger prestige classes intrigue me enugh, that I would consider playing one to see what it's like.</blockquote>

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