Unorthodox Barbarians is a pdf product from The Le Games, featuring a handful of new barbarian-based core classes to use if the standard barbarian does not fit your campaign world or if you're after something different and unusual. Unorthodox Barbarians is part of the Unorthodox Series of mini supplements from The Le Games, each detailing a different set of new and different core classes as alternatives to the standard classes. Unorthodox Barbarians has a page count of 32, including 3 pages devoted to the cover and OGL declarations, resulting in 29 pages devoted to the five classes presented in this book. It normally retails on RPGNow for $2.
Initial Impressions:
The cover art is by Tom Miskey, and features a very Tarzan-like take on the barbarian. Interior art is also by Tom Miskey, although several images have been taken from other sources. While the cover art was well done, it struck me that the image it portrayed was not really consistent with the wild horse riders or rugged pirates presented in the book. The interior art enhances the feel of the book more than the cover, and I was quite pleased with some of the illustrations.
I was somewhat disappointed to find numerous editing errors in this book (several dozen if you counted recurring errors), several being recurring errors as one part of an ability description was copied and then used to describe a slightly different ability. It had a very ‘templated’ feel to it, although that does not detract from the class concepts or their uniqueness. Several aspects of the game mechanics struck me as odd, for example, the Planar Marauder’s Planar Rage ability grants a +1 bonus to Constitution, and uninspired, for example, the Wild Rider gaining all the mounted combat feats during the course of the class progression.
Overall I was willing to overlook the editing and somewhat clunky mechanics, because the class concepts, particularly the Planar Marauder, are good, and the roleplaying background and class descriptions are well done. I would have really liked to see sample NPCs from each of the classes presented, as that gives the reader a more comprehensive overview of what the designer had in mind for each class.
The general impressions out of the way, let’s move onward to look at the five classes presented in more detail.
The Details:
Conqueror: The Conqueror is a tough and hardy wandering warrior-king devoted to a lifestyle of war, combat and aggression. They come from foreign lands, plundering where they go, and commanding barbarian hordes to destruction. Game-wise the Conqueror is a leader of men, a skilled warrior able to inspire greatness if those that follow him, and capable of achieving impressive feats of combat prowess. Instead of the barbarian’s trademark Rage ability, the Conqueror’s abilities focus more are toughness, swiftness, and skills, culminating in a choice of several interesting, some powerful abilities granted by the ability Conqueror’s Contempt.
The Conqueror is an interesting take on the barbarian class – it’s a barbarian more capable of out-thinking an opponent than merely smashing them to pieces. Don’t get me wrong, the class can still do that, but it offers more versatility than the barbarian would normally allow in, for example, additional skills, igniting battle lust in his allies, and Conqueror’s Contempt, a selection of abilities that almost provide a signature ability for the fearless barbarian leader.
Corsair: The Corsair is a rugged and reckless pirate, a marauder of the seas. It has the feel of a barbarian buccaneer, a feral criminal of the seas. Game-wise the Corsair gains abilities mainly associated with a lifestyle of freedom, mobility, and the dogged resistance when holding your ground in a famous last stand. As one would almost expect, it shares several things in common with the rogue and other Dexterity based classes and prestige classes. One-handed Swing is a trademark ability of this class, allowing the Corsair to strike powerfully with a one-handed weapon as if it were wielded two-handed, while Gambler’s Luck allows the Corsair to tempt fate from time to time. Like the Conqueror, this is an unique class for those interested in playing a more hardy sea-faring character, while the lack of Rage is compensated for by the increase in a scattering of abilities.
Planar Marauder: My favourite class in the book, complete with an interesting background, concept and implementation. The Planar Marauder is a planar barbarian, a fierce fiendish-attired warrior roaming the planes in search of gold and glory. It gains the abilities to adapt easily to the conditions on the planes it travels to, as well as to plane shift to those planes. The barbarian’s Rage ability is replaced by Planar Rage, which develops into a useful number of abilities depending on which plane you associate with the Planar Rage. Certainly the most appealing of the five classes, the Planar Marauder is a must-have for any planar campaign and even for those that aren’t. Having your campaign world ravaged by extraplanar marauders that disappear the moment they’ve ransacked a certain area has some appealing game elements to it.
Savage Screamer: The concept of the Savage Screamer is good, although I thought the implementation was not. I jumped at the ideas behind a remote barbarian culture capable of harnessing the resonances and frequencies of nature to great effect, but was somewhat disappointed by the implementation. I was expecting a much more creative barbarian, capable of harnessing natural frequencies to enhance aspects of its life and culture.
Expectations aside, the trademark ability of the Savage Screamer is its Scream, a feral shout that can have different effects on your foes. It’s here where my disappointment lies. The various Scream effects appear quite random and disjointed, such as Ice Scream applying a penalty to attack and damage rolls, while Fire Scream, for example, results in fire damage done to foes. Dampening Scream, on the other hand, increases a foe’s arcane spell failure, and along with the other Scream abilities everything seemed a bit random.
Wild Rider: The weakest class in the book, the Wild Rider is a mounted nomadic warrior from rugged border territories. Instead of the Rage ability, it gets the ability Spur Frenzy, which is essentially Rage for your mount, and an interesting idea. However, the rest of the class is rather bland, offering one after the other, the mounted combat feats as bonus feats. I felt that was rather uninspired, and could’ve been done better.
Conclusions:
Of the five classes presented in this pdf, the Planar Marauder stands out above the rest, and is probably worth is based on the price alone. Let’s face it, at $2, this book is very good value for money, particularly if you’re prepared to fiddle around with some of the classes presented. While the book does offer advice on balancing classes, it doesn’t cover the aspects mentioned above.
The book’s strongest feature is the good roleplaying background for the classes and the interesting concepts they provide. However, I felt that the implementation was rarely something new, and rather a mix-match of different abilities from the standard classes. I would’ve liked to see some unique special abilities rather than what was presented here.
Overall, the books presents some interesting concepts for alternative barbarians, but the implementation combined with editing errors results in an overall rating of 3 stars.
