William drake said:
I say yes.
Barbarians and Rangers are the same in my opinion, two sides of the same coin.
These two classes represent what would be the warrior, or adventure type of a specific culture, those, like in a city or village, would defend the area, or go beyond it for trade or battle: culture, something that never seems to come up in game.
First, I disagree that the the barbarian and ranger are two sides of the same coin. They might share some overlap in that they have wilderness skills, but they are very different. The barbarian is a warrior that relies on fury rather than formal training in a variety of weapons tactics. Meanwhile the ranger is a wilderness warrior that slowly develops a mystical attunement with nature.
Second, on the issue of culture, if you want culture to come up in game add it.
I was personally disappointed with with the barbarian on two accounts- the first was actually the cultural issue as I prefered how the 1e barbarian worked in cultural variants as a part of the class via cultural weapon groups and skills (even if I disliked several of the class's other mechanical and flavor elements).
For my own campaign, I wanted culture to a factor and I didn't want the barbarian to necessarily be a rager. I wanted a class that represented tribal or clan warriors that didn't have to be about raging while still lacking both the fighter's training in a variety of weapon tacktics and the rangers' mystical attunment with nature.
The solution was was a three step processs.
First, I replaced the barbarian's simple and martial proficiency with culturally specific weapon groups based on UA weapon groups. Each weapon group included dagger, hand axe and spear plus a few other weapons (one of which was usually a bow, but occassionaly an exotic weapon weapon like the blowgun or boomerang replaced the bow).
Second, I introduced a non raging variant using the Unearthed Arcana barbarian hunter as a starting point. I assigned a style to each culture and the styles were not limited to archery or two weapon fighting as, when appropriate, I assigned an alternative style from other sources. Furthermore, I replaced favored enemy with the Unearthed Arcana favored terrain further playing up the environment in which the barbarian grew up.
Third, was determinning the cultural fluff which I do for every culture- subsistance, social structure, religous practices, mores, cultural dress, body adornement, etc.
As for my second issue, it was rage as a class ability. By making rage a class ability of the barbarian, it limited the idea of a berserker to a person with a skill for the wilderness. Rage struck me as something that should have been a feat or, at the least, that there should have been an urban class variant for the barbarian. Unfortunately, we had to wait several years before we got an "official" method for urbanizing the class via Ari's web enhancement. (even if I did create my own variant several years ago)