Would blending rangers and barbarians fix what is wrong with barbarians?

[Mark CMG]

I wonder if a Barbarian Ranger Prestige Class would be worthwhile.

 

[William drake]

Personally I get ride of that but the prestige class would be the one that gives the raging ability though I think that it should be toned down IMHO.

I agree.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Did you even read my post...or any reply I gave to anyone who questioned my thought?

I have valid reasons why I think the class needs work, in my point of view: and my questions as of yet have not been answered. And I think barbarians could be better if it was, say, toned down a little, and given more to play with instead of just "hulk smash, I'm to stupid to do anything else." Sorry, that's not what barbarians are to me, and as I've seen in this, there are those like myself who think that the class needs to be tweaked a bit back into level with the others. Given a purpose, some Rp'ing guideline besides “I can't read, and probably don’t talk to well either and also, I can barely wipe my #&^ but I can kill stuff”

William Drake, it sounds like your problem is more with Barbarian players rather than the class itself. Nowhere does it say that a Barb needs a low INT.

If you don't want a warrior with a decent amount of skill points who can rage, than play a Ranger, Fighter, or Paladin. There is nothing wrong with a warrior who can rage.

 

[DM-Rocco]

In 3e Conan would probably be a min-maxed Fighter-Rogue, yup.

For some reason EGG never liked Thieves who could fight decently, which makes Fafhrd, Mouser or Conan types difficult to do justice to.

I always thought that wierd about the 3.0/3.5 rules. You have a class, the Rogue, that gets arguably the five best combat feats ever (evasion, improved evasion, uncanny dodge, improved uncanny dodge and defensive roll) and they only get the second best attack in the game. Sure, they have sneak attack, but it always seemed a bit odd.

Anyway, in regards to the poster, the game is full of classes that where created with a broad brush. Take the Rogue again. In 1st edition, you could use just about any skill that they have listed in the 3.0/3.5 PHB and they increased every level. Now, even with a human and a starting INT of 18, a first level rogue with 13 skill points a level can't do it all. You are taking the rogue and focusing your skills in one certain area because you can't do it all with one class.

The same applies to the barbarian, the cleric, the fighter, the ranger, the wizard and so on. They are just generic versions of the class. You need to make them different by the way you role-play or, if you are looking for a class/rules way of fixing the problem, you need to take a prestige class. It sounds like this it what you really want because it doesn't sound from your opening statement that you are in settling differences with role-playing

I think you really just have a role-playing issue versus a class issue. Personally I liked the original edition of Unearthed Arcana that had the first barbarian in print. You got double you CON modifier in hit points and a bunch of other funs class features. The only thing that sucked was that you needed 500,000 XP to go from level 8 to 9

I once toughed it out to level 16 but retired that character when he kept getting level drained. Stupid 1st edition rules

 

[Desdichado]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the barbarian other than the cultural implications. I've used them for urban street tough type fighters and think the class works brilliantly as is with cultural assumptions removed.

That said, I also have really liked the idea of multiclassed ranger/barbarian (my current character is one, along with the Reachrunner prestige class from Races of Eberron), but in my case, it better fixes the problems I have with the ranger than with the barbarian.

And yes, AC is a bit of a problem. I really don't like the way AC progression works (or doesn't, really) in D&D the way it's currently formulated. I'd much prefer a class based AC progression like other d20 games (Star Wars, d20 Modern, Wheel of Time) have.

 

[Greg K]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the barbarian other than the cultural implications. I've used them for urban street tough type fighters and think the class works brilliantly as is with cultural assumptions removed..

I agree provided that the DM is willing to swap out skills similar to how the urban ranger, wilderness rogue, and Cityscape enhancement switch urban and wilderess skills.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't even think that's necessary, although I certainly have no problem with it. Which skills would you swap out, anyway? Handle Animal and Survival?