D&D General Naming the Barbarian? [added battlerager]

[NotAYakk]

[SNIP] sorry, inappropriate.

 

[Morrus]

I would not considered Australian citizens of aboriginal decent aboriginals. I would simply consider them Australians, as per their citizenship.

Oh here we go again. It's really not up to you. Don’t post again in this thread. As this will be your 9th warning point, many based in racism, we will be discussing whether to allow you to continue to post here.

 

[Morrus]

Ignoring what an oppressed group of people like to call themselves and replacing it with your own terms is classic example of being a racist shithead. You can, of course, consider yourself not to be one, however.

Like you said with barbarian, while racist shithead can be used as a pejorative, it need not be. It could even be a complement in some contexts - just like any other adjective.

Watch the language please. The best thing to do in these situations is to report the post so the mods can handle it.

 

[Minigiant]

Barbarian and Ranger are the only two classes in D&D that I’d accept combining, as the Wilder or Outlander or something like that, or even just making Rage something a Ranger can pick instead of Spellcasting, and make all Ranger and Barbarian subclasses available to this class. Nothing in any subclass for either class is something that wouldn’t fit just as well in the other.

So, level 2 you pick between Rage and Spellcasting. Level 1 you gain Unarmored Defense as a choice alongside the UA wilderness stuff from the class variants UA.

Beef up rage if needed to match the power of Spellcasting, but it shouldn’t take much.

I still see the barbarian and the ranger as two separate archetypes who only have outdoorsy in common.

However in my ideal 5e, I'd make 3 classes out of them

The Barbarian would be the untrained warrior of raw talent, instinct, and emotion. A barbarian would get to choose between Weapon Mastery, Totems, or Action Surge. Sublcasses would open up Rage (Berserk), Bardic Inspiration (Chieftain), Rituals (many), and Animal Companions (Beast Riders)as options. The signature of barbarians is their effectiveness with simple weapons, less than optimal armor, and their jump in prowess when they have access to quality materials.

The Bloodrager would be just the Rage machine. They can upgrade their rage into Frenzy, Wildshape, or Warden Forms. All their subclasses would be culturally neutral but tweak Rage with different bonuses to turn rage into a true super-mode.

The Ranger would be the defender of the border between civilization and the wilderness. Rangers would all get spellcasting but choose between Marks, Animal Companion, and Maneuvers. Subclasses would open up Rage (Marauder), Sneak Attack (Gloomstalker) Invocations (Fey Wanderer?), and Warden Forms (Sentinel)

I'm fine with Barbarian as the name if the class is more barbaric than rage-based.

 

[Weiley31]

Everyone says that we have to with Barbarian because of Conan.

....how quickly we forget that he was the Destroyer, as well.

And a King by his own hand!

But that is another story.

 

[Sir Brennen]

@Morrus FWIW, I'd still stick with Berserker over Battlerager had it been present in the initial poll options.

 

[BlivetWidget]

For me, I feel like I prefer a class to describe what the characters does -- a fighter fights, for example. Not all classes do that well, but barbarian probably does it the least. A barbarian rages/berserks, pretty much, in D&D. But you could totally have a civilized elf battlerager type.

I feel like I have to poke at this . You say barbarian does it the least? I'd say it does it as well as most of the classes. Few of the classes actually describe anything resembling what the character does. They describe a noun, and we all bring our shared assumptions about the verbs we associate with that noun but which are often unrelated to the noun. And we roll with it.

Fighters fight. I'll give you that one.
Bards... bard? It's a derogatory term for an itinerant musician, and so far as I know there isn't a verb form of the word.
Monks... monk? Again, there isn't really a verb form.
Rogues... rogue?
Barbarians barb. That is, they are barbers. Obviously. This is the second most clear name, right behind fighter.
Clerics clarify.
Druids druify.
Paladins pallad.
Rangers range.
Sorcerers ensorcell.
Warlocks despise locks to such an extent they have declared war on them.
Wizards wiz.

I'm not saying there's no virtue in wanting class names that describe what they do. Just that 5e doesn't do this with any amount of intentionality and barbarian is definitely not on the bottom of the list. I'd be all for classes that did, though. Fighter, healer, spellcaster, etc. I feel like it could really help consolidate the ballooning list of classes and would help bring a nice level of focus to the game design.

 

[MGibster]

Bards... bard? It's a derogatory term for an itinerant musician, and so far as I know there isn't a verb form of the word.

Since when has bard been a derogatory term? Outside of D&D, the only context I hear the word used is to describe a poet or Shakespeare in particular.

 

[jgsugden]

Trouble? What sort of trouble? That sounds ominous.

Still curious about what types of trouble a thread like this might invite?

 

[CleverNickName]

The more I think about it, the less I like "Battlerager." It's too similar to "Battle Master," which is already a subclass of Fighter.

Come to think of it, "Battle Rager" would be a great fighter subclass that adds a splash of Barbarian...much like the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster subclasses add a splash of wizard.