OGL Barbarian: The Barbaric Warrior

[Crothian]

Illustrators: Gary Dupuis and Shawn Richter
Pages: Updated to 50

Is your game barbaric enough? Do the warriors in your campaign have … performance … problems? Looking for something to put a little more hack in their slash? If so, the OGL Barbarian System: The Barbaric Warrior is the PDF for you!
Here is what you will find within:

* 17 new feats to help your characters face down their foes
* 11 new combat maneuvers with which to hack, slash, crash and bash
* New weapons and armor, including piecemeal armor for those warriors who do not want to wear a full suit
* 10 new prestige classes: the divine falconer (master trainer of falcons), the honor duelist (includes information on dueling societies), the horse lord (master trainer and breeder of horses, and incomparable warrior while mounted), the kindred archer (without peer when armed with a bow), the mauler (who needs weapons when they can tear their opponents apart with their hands?), the pit fighter (exceptional warriors enslaved for the enjoyment of others), warrior of dreams (enhanced martial skill by entering the trance of the black lotus), the hawkeye (master of thrown weaponry), the sea devil (marauding Northmen), and the deep wilder (pariah of civilization)
* 2 new codes of honor: the duelist code and the pit fighter code
* 10 non-player characters: one of each prestige class
* What good is a divine falconer prestige class without game statistics for the falcon?
* All you need to organize and run pit fights, including tables for determining the money on hand for betting and a map of a typical fighting pit
* A tournament tracking chart for keeping on top of a pit fighting tournament’s flow of victory and death
* Black lotus addiction rules – information that is especially important to the warrior of dreams

Note: The Hawkeye, Sea Devil and Deep Wilder are all available as Sampler products.

Read what Thor the Barbarian HAD TO SAY about The Barbaric Warrior

You can download a free JPG of the tournament tracking form HERE

When the time comes to call upon the gods to count the dead, will you be ready? Will your sword be sharp enough, your wits keen enough, and your legs swift enough to outrun Hell itself if need be? If your brow is troubled, perhaps you had best have a look at a product using the OGL Barbarian System.

Misfit Studios' OGL Barbarian products prepare your character to survive an Age of Ancient Wonders and Fated Dangers. Designed for use with a popular Open Game License barbaric rule system, OGL Barbarian products seamlessly fit into a world born from Atlantis’ ashes.

When you hear the call for blood, how barbaric will your answer be?

 

[Crothian]

[imager]http://www.rpgnow.com/products/product_4374.jpg[/imager]

Barbarians are a fun class and more options for them are always nice. With the OGL system it can be nice when a single book brings a bunch of things together that fit a single theme. These types of products are good for players to find lots of things for their character in one place. It also makes it nice for not having to get some books that there are only a few things in them that one would want to use.

The Barbaric Warrior is the first PDF I have seen by Misfit Studies. They have quite a few things out now so it is nice to see a good catalog of products for the company. The PDF is fifty pages long. The PDF is mostly black and white with red headers of sections. The book has borders as well so between those two they can be a little hard on an ink printer. The PDF though does not have any book marks and that is an option that would make it more useful.

One problem the book has is that with the collection of many things from many sources it references things that are not there. I do not know if working with the OGL these things can be edited out or they have to appear there but it is an annoyance and can cause confusion. There are classes like nomad, soldier, and scholar classes among others. There is reference to a base parry and base dodge bonus. In the equipment section there is armor piercing and sorcerer failure that are not described. Some of these might be obvious to some people like I believe the Sorcerer failure is Arcane Spell Failure, but it really is something that should be defined within the scope of the book since these things are not in the SRD.

The book starts off with some new feats for one’s barbarian. There are some cool feats like Ambush shots that can increase one’s threat range with a ranged weapon if attacking unnoticed. Some feats might be seen as a bit strong like two handed power strike that double strength bonus for a two handed weapon instead of the normal one and half times damage. There are also combat maneuvers. These are like feats except anyone with the proper prerequisites can use them. These are some interesting options that might be a little much for some people to try to keep track of and use as they can have some specific circumstances to be used.

There are a few new weapons and armors presented here as well. The weapons are fitting for the theme and nothing remotely too powerful that someone would worry about. They also have piece mail armor rules which is nice but they have damage reduction rules and armor bonus rules like in the standard D&D game.

There are many prestige classes in here. They do have some of the alternate unexplained rules as well that really can make them hard to use. There are cool ones like the Pit Fighter, the Mauler, the Kindred Archer, as well as many others. It is a good collection of classes and options for characters but the unexplained pieces is just too much and too numerous.

Pit fighting is the best part of the book for me. It has a nice section on what goes into pit fighting, finding them, the different types, and the most important aspect in the betting. There are some good betting modifier and nice guidelines for running pit fights and what can be expected in them from the owners and slaves since most pit fights probably involve slaves.

The book is a nice collection of options but there are just too many parts that are not explained. If this is the type of thing that bothers you like it does me then this book will be seen as not that good. But others will easily ignore it or be able to find the rules in other books they have.

Edit: It comes to my attention thanks to another reviewer that this book is really more of a Conan suppliment though it can't be said. The rules in here I refer to that are not in this book are in Conan and that seems to fit really well. It would really help if somehow in the book or the description this could be mentioned because I do not see a lot of people making that realization. To me this seemed like the standard d20 Barbarian suppliment as I started and unless the reader lucks out and is familar enough to piece this with Conan, they will be confused like I was.