Barbarian Kits for the Good of Gnomes, Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Halfings Everywhere.
Mordeus
Member Posts: 460
This feature request is really less about expanding the Barbarian class but as a way of expanding the class opportunities for Gnomes, Dwarves, Half-Orcs and Halfings by giving it kits. The idea being that since the Barbarian is a 'crude' interpretation of the Fighter class, any Barbarian kit should be a 'crude' interpretation of another primary class. By expanding the Barbarian with kits, it helps to expand the class options without adding a primary class that could pale in comparison to those that currently exist.
Not to mention that the Barbarian is the only class without kits that is available to all races. If another kit or class was to be added to EE, it would be more worthwhile to make it available to all the races, rather than limit it to just humans since there is more than enough options for them already. You could open up all the classes but then we would be a little too close to 3ed. The Barbarian provides a pre-existing pathway to expanding the races.
A Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc or Halfling Paladin could be emulated with that of a cleric or fighter/cleric. Whilst a Bard could be emulated somewhat with a thief or a gnome thief/illusionist. Not to mention the Ranger could be emulated with a fighter. However a Monk or Druid is something pretty difficult to recreate with a fighter, cleric or thief.
So I suggest Barbarian kits that are crude forms of the Monk or the Druid. With the possibility of another, because kits come best in threes.
To illustrate my point I've put together some basic examples.
Barbarian's Druid Kit - aka the Shaman
"The shaman is a primitive spellcaster, drawing magical energies from ancestral spirits, a unique pantheon of deities, or, like a druid, from nature itself. His intimate knowledge of the supernatural makes him not only a gifted healer and soothsayer,but a fearsome combatant" - The Complete Barbarian's Handbook p11
The logic behind including the Shaman is that Half-Orcs and Halfings are raised in tribal communities where they would be best suited to the ethos of the druid, than that of the cleric. Yet they cannot become druids themselves. So I suggest a "Shaman" kit that takes on aspects of the druid but with the limitations you'd expect from someone akin to a barbarian.
The following is a mix of rules from the outline of a Shaman as described in 2ed's Complete Barbarian's Handbook with slight adaptations to BG.
The Pros:
- Similar movement speed as Barbarians
- Immune to backstab
- Access to only one Spirit Animal, the spirit animal would be dependant on the race. So a Dwarf's totemic spirit would be different to an Elf's one.
- Access to Abjuration, Alteration, Enchantment, Necromancy and Illusion related Druid spells to play a protective role.
The Cons:
- No access to the Rage ability
- Restricted to the armour and weapons of the Druid.
- Restricted spell progression akin to the Sorcerer to account for the class' wild nature.
- Restricted from Conjuration, Evocation and Divination related Druid spells.
- Cannot use Cleric scrolls.
- Cannot Shapeshift.
- Restricted to a 1d10 Hitdice.
Basically a mix between the Barbarian and Totemic Druid but with the spell progression of the Sorcerer.
Barbarian's Monk Kit - aka the Pugilst
"Pugilists are characters who prefer to fight with their bare hands. They might make a living by fighting in a ring. Or perhaps they specialize in martial arts. They are strong, tough, and fit into any society that allows professional or street fights. Pugilists make excellent adventurers, as they have quick reflexes and are good in a brawl with monsters. Adventuring gives them an additional outlet for their physical side, and it affords them opportunities to travel to new communities and find new fights" - Player's Options Skills & Powers p114
The Pros:
- Similar movement speed as Barbarians
- Immune to backstab
- Access to Barbarian's Rage ability.
- Can wear barbarian armour.
- Unarmed fighting improves at the same rate as the monk.
The Cons:
- No Monk abilities (aka Stunning Blow, Lay on Hands, Stealth, Detect Traps, etc...)
- No Monk magic resistance or immunities at higher levels
- Restricted to thief weapons and can only put + into proficiencies
- Doesn't receive the monk's AC.
Pretty much a Barbarian that in trained in bare armed fighting with none of the perks of the Monk.
Barbarian's Ranger Kit - aka the Racial Archer
The idea would be to create a Barbarian's interpretation of the Ranger's Archer kit with some Thief restrictions and the implementation of a racial weapon. So each form of this kit would be different between the races. I don't have any pre-existing kit to base this off as it is an amalgamation of ranged racial kits.
The Pros:
- Missile weapon bonus (+1 bonus to hit and damage for every 3 levels)
- Stealth and Detect Traps
- Can get Mastery in a ranged weapon depending on the character's race e.g. Dwarves are adept with Throwing Hammers/Axes while Elfs prefer Bows. Humans are skilled with heavy crossbows while halflings prefer light crossbows, etc...
- Can use rage
The Cons:
- Can only be proficient (+) in melee weapons
- Can only wear Leather or Studded Leather Armor
- Restricted to Thief melee weapons outside of their racial ranged weapon.
----
So the Barbarian isn't outclassed by any of his kits and retains his versatility however the kits fill in the gaps left in the lack of Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc, Halfling class selection. You have a bare-armed Barbarian, a ranged Barbarian and a support Barbarian with full supportive Druid spells and some damage Druid spells.
No to mention that in the case of the "Shaman" and "Racial Archer", the kits will vary among the races. So there are 7 kinds of Shamans and 7 kinds of Racial Archers. Which not only makes it worthwhile for Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc and Halfing classes to choose a Barbarian kit but at the same time doesn't completely tred on the feet of Elf, Human and Half-Elf classes who could already emulate them somewhat. In the case of the Pugilist, Half-Elves and Elves benefit from it being a surrogate for the Monk.
My examples are rather imperfect I admit but they give some idea of the potential Barbarian kits have that isn't already being filled for Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc and Halfling characters.
Not to mention that the Barbarian is the only class without kits that is available to all races. If another kit or class was to be added to EE, it would be more worthwhile to make it available to all the races, rather than limit it to just humans since there is more than enough options for them already. You could open up all the classes but then we would be a little too close to 3ed. The Barbarian provides a pre-existing pathway to expanding the races.
A Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc or Halfling Paladin could be emulated with that of a cleric or fighter/cleric. Whilst a Bard could be emulated somewhat with a thief or a gnome thief/illusionist. Not to mention the Ranger could be emulated with a fighter. However a Monk or Druid is something pretty difficult to recreate with a fighter, cleric or thief.
So I suggest Barbarian kits that are crude forms of the Monk or the Druid. With the possibility of another, because kits come best in threes.
To illustrate my point I've put together some basic examples.
Barbarian's Druid Kit - aka the Shaman
"The shaman is a primitive spellcaster, drawing magical energies from ancestral spirits, a unique pantheon of deities, or, like a druid, from nature itself. His intimate knowledge of the supernatural makes him not only a gifted healer and soothsayer,but a fearsome combatant" - The Complete Barbarian's Handbook p11
The logic behind including the Shaman is that Half-Orcs and Halfings are raised in tribal communities where they would be best suited to the ethos of the druid, than that of the cleric. Yet they cannot become druids themselves. So I suggest a "Shaman" kit that takes on aspects of the druid but with the limitations you'd expect from someone akin to a barbarian.
The following is a mix of rules from the outline of a Shaman as described in 2ed's Complete Barbarian's Handbook with slight adaptations to BG.
The Pros:
- Similar movement speed as Barbarians
- Immune to backstab
- Access to only one Spirit Animal, the spirit animal would be dependant on the race. So a Dwarf's totemic spirit would be different to an Elf's one.
- Access to Abjuration, Alteration, Enchantment, Necromancy and Illusion related Druid spells to play a protective role.
The Cons:
- No access to the Rage ability
- Restricted to the armour and weapons of the Druid.
- Restricted spell progression akin to the Sorcerer to account for the class' wild nature.
- Restricted from Conjuration, Evocation and Divination related Druid spells.
- Cannot use Cleric scrolls.
- Cannot Shapeshift.
- Restricted to a 1d10 Hitdice.
Basically a mix between the Barbarian and Totemic Druid but with the spell progression of the Sorcerer.
Barbarian's Monk Kit - aka the Pugilst
"Pugilists are characters who prefer to fight with their bare hands. They might make a living by fighting in a ring. Or perhaps they specialize in martial arts. They are strong, tough, and fit into any society that allows professional or street fights. Pugilists make excellent adventurers, as they have quick reflexes and are good in a brawl with monsters. Adventuring gives them an additional outlet for their physical side, and it affords them opportunities to travel to new communities and find new fights" - Player's Options Skills & Powers p114
The Pros:
- Similar movement speed as Barbarians
- Immune to backstab
- Access to Barbarian's Rage ability.
- Can wear barbarian armour.
- Unarmed fighting improves at the same rate as the monk.
The Cons:
- No Monk abilities (aka Stunning Blow, Lay on Hands, Stealth, Detect Traps, etc...)
- No Monk magic resistance or immunities at higher levels
- Restricted to thief weapons and can only put + into proficiencies
- Doesn't receive the monk's AC.
Pretty much a Barbarian that in trained in bare armed fighting with none of the perks of the Monk.
Barbarian's Ranger Kit - aka the Racial Archer
The idea would be to create a Barbarian's interpretation of the Ranger's Archer kit with some Thief restrictions and the implementation of a racial weapon. So each form of this kit would be different between the races. I don't have any pre-existing kit to base this off as it is an amalgamation of ranged racial kits.
The Pros:
- Missile weapon bonus (+1 bonus to hit and damage for every 3 levels)
- Stealth and Detect Traps
- Can get Mastery in a ranged weapon depending on the character's race e.g. Dwarves are adept with Throwing Hammers/Axes while Elfs prefer Bows. Humans are skilled with heavy crossbows while halflings prefer light crossbows, etc...
- Can use rage
The Cons:
- Can only be proficient (+) in melee weapons
- Can only wear Leather or Studded Leather Armor
- Restricted to Thief melee weapons outside of their racial ranged weapon.
----
So the Barbarian isn't outclassed by any of his kits and retains his versatility however the kits fill in the gaps left in the lack of Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc, Halfling class selection. You have a bare-armed Barbarian, a ranged Barbarian and a support Barbarian with full supportive Druid spells and some damage Druid spells.
No to mention that in the case of the "Shaman" and "Racial Archer", the kits will vary among the races. So there are 7 kinds of Shamans and 7 kinds of Racial Archers. Which not only makes it worthwhile for Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc and Halfing classes to choose a Barbarian kit but at the same time doesn't completely tred on the feet of Elf, Human and Half-Elf classes who could already emulate them somewhat. In the case of the Pugilist, Half-Elves and Elves benefit from it being a surrogate for the Monk.
My examples are rather imperfect I admit but they give some idea of the potential Barbarian kits have that isn't already being filled for Gnome, Dwarf, Half-Orc and Halfling characters.
1
Comments
I'd suggest trying to enlist the interest of @Requiem for the other ideas as his kitpack is the premiere kitpack out there currently for BGEE.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12697/mod-bgee-kitpack-v1-43-5113#latest
Shaman - This is a nice idea, and I have actually been speaking with @kamigoroshi about incorporating some kind of shaman kit into my next kitpack release, perhaps a combination of all of the ideas that have been floated could work.
The base class would be a druid, and you could use scripts to remove the spells that fall into the barred categories. You can add effects to increase the movement speed and make immune to backstab, as well as giving the spirit animal option as an innate ability, a small script would be run which would decide which animal to summon based on race. It isn't possible to give a druid a seperate sorceror spellcasting system at present (at least not possible for me, and without altering the sorceror kit) but it is possible to alter the spellcasting ability. I'm not sure how i would incorporate not being able to cast cleric scrolls, would have to check into that more thoroughly. You can't alter the hit dice, but you can add HP every level to simulate it, so instead of 1d10 you could do something like 1d6+2 to get the same average HP.
Pugilist - This is by far the easiest to implement as a full fledged kit. It would be based on a fighter kit with the ability to rage and some extra HP added, making fist damage and thaco increase is essentially simple enough. Restricting to only thief weapons without also forcing the thief armour restrictions is tricky, but he could just not be able to put proficiencies into non-thief weapons.
Racial archer - To have access to a detect traps button it would have to be based on a thief, which seems to fit the rest of the ideas well. The only problem is that thieves cannot use war hammers, axes or long bows so some of the racial options are off.
Just my thoughts, I will keep these in my mind for any updates i plan to make and will ask your permission before i use any of them.
That having been said, Barbarian, Sorcerer and Monk, as they exist in BG2, were brought to BG2 from 3rd edition D&D, weren't they? I think kit expansion could and probably should reflect that, rather than taking a kit (a refinement or specialization on a base class) and turning it inside out to be something else entirely.
Barbarian...hrm...
Bear Warriors are a popular barbarian prestige class, as are Frenzied Berserker. There was a sourcebook for 3x Forgotten realms...Unapproachable East I think it was called, that featured one or two Barbarian prestige classes that might fit, as we're in Forgotten Realms. I don't remember what they were, though.
For Bear Warrior, I dunno. The essential feature is shifting into a bear, so maybe they have half the rages per day of a normal barbarian, and the other half become shifts into bear form. The benefit would be that you could rage while a bear to increase combat ability beyond what any druid would get out of shifting. Beyond that though, you'd almost have to give them additional bear forms as they levelled or you risk them becoming useless against enemies requiring magic weapons to hit.
Frenzied Berserker, just give them a second, special rage per day. How you go about it, or what it does, you can kind of cherry-pick from. Perhaps it deals 1damage per round, but gives them Kai and "Headwound", where you lose complete control over the character (iirc, some versions of the frenzied berserker HAVE to attack the nearest creature. Foes are prioritized, but if there's no foes adjacent while an ally is...the ally's getting beat down) Bonus points if you could code in a "Can't be chunked" feature for Frenzied Berserker, as I'm pretty sure a popular feature of them (in addition to the stacking rage) is that they don't die until they stop raging. Not sure what to take. I'd probably take their movement speed and backstab immunity. Not sure what else. Maybe lose two-weapon fighting, shields and ranged weapons, forcing them into Two-Handers only.
Monk: Drunken Master (finally a reason to get hammered at the tavern!?!), Tattooed Monk?
Drunken Master: Not sure what all to take from them. Probably delay the AC bonuses of monk. Take away any disease/poison immunity. I might kill wholeness of body. Could take more if needed. Pros? Bonuses while boozed!! Each "drink" you take randomly assigns a 1 point bonus to either thac0, damage or AC. Gains a breath attack that lets them burn a drink (lowering corresponding bonuses and penalties) for fire damage. Would definitely want to add a drink counter to the Character Information page. Should probably also give them "Hiccups", if drinking doesn't already do that.
Tattooed Monk: Loses idk what. Wholeness of Body, Magic Resistance, some other things. Then draw up a small list of tattoos and hand them out as special abilities every 3 or 5 levels. The way you hand them out, I'm thinking, would be just like Sorcerer spell/HLA selection. You levelled. Congrats. Here's a list of options to pick from. You'll gain your selected option as a 1/day special (with some exceptions). Whether or not you let the same one be taken multiple times is up to you. Options could range from Wholeness of Body, Magic Resistance (essentially letting you pick whether or not you want it..or something else)...uhm. The Strength spell? Cure Moderate Wounds. Self-only Haste. Kai. Maybe the Poison spell. I can't remember what other popular tattoo options were in 3x.
Sorcerer: Harder. Dragon Disciple is the most popular "go to" I can think of. Really not sure about this one, as there isn't really much to take from sorcerers beyond Spell Progression or spells per day. Particularly with the sorc kits, part of the problem is that in 3x your physical appearance changes as part of the progression of these prestige classes. I think that if such were not added here (slowly changing the paper dolls and character models) people might feel a bit let down.
Dragon Disciple: less spells per level per day in exchange for boosted Strength, Dex and Con at creation, d8 or better hitdice, -1AC per X levels. Maybe an improved thac0 table? Not sure how many spells per day that's worth. 2? 3? 2 and delay their spells by ANOTHER level? 4 spells per day less with no hit to progression?
@Reqium Feel free to use any of these ideas. Afterall they are largely based on pre-existing DnD archetypes, so I really hold no ownership over them.
Looking back I was being a little too strict on the Shaman idea. The DnD description of the Shaman I was borrowing had that rule about being illiterate with scrolls, so its not really necessary.
I'm rethinking the idea of the Racial Archer now. There's no point in focusing on Bow or Crossbows if there is an Archer kit out there that Humans, Half-Elves and Elves can already use. And I guess you could already make a Half-Orc or Dwarf Barbarian that uses throwing Axes and Hammers as is.
So it probably would be better to make a Barbarian kit that uses the Thief as a base rather than the Ranger. It would pretty much be a ranged thief that ditches the pickpocketing and thievery for find traps and move quietly, whilst also being able to master the ranged weapons of the thief but being only proficient in melee weapons. Don't know what to call it, maybe a tracker or scout but neither seems "barbarian" enough.
I guess if Overhaul was to bring in the Shaman, Pugilist or Tracker as Barbarian kits, they'd have to hardcode the Barbarian out and back in from the ground up. An alternative would be to make the Shaman a Cleric kit, the Pugilist a Fighter kit and the Tracker as a Thief kit if it couldn't be done. It's not the best solution as having them as Barbarian kits, but there's a certain logic to it.
@Kushu Barbarians and Monks have existed since I think 1st edition. I think the only kit that was ported strictly from 3ed was the Blackguard that Overhaul used.
GM (or specialization for Core rules) is supposed to be a single class, plain fighter's exclusive ability. Kitted fighters are only supposed to get a max of specialization (or proficiency under Core rules). That's something BG F'd up majorly. Well..BG2 F'd up majorly. BG1 actually did it mostly right. Under the GM Rules, only single class, non-kitted fighters can attain GM. Fighter's that dual-class into something can't specialize further at all since they're no longer progressing as fighters, and other classes that dual into a fighter, can't go beyond specialization, since they're no longer single class fighters and thus can't qualify for going above specialization.
So you could say that it created the foundation for the Berserker and Barbarian in BG2. Since from what I can see, it is the earliest occurrence of the rage ability.
The strange thing about Barbarians in 2ed is that they are about 10 different interpretations of them.
The BG barbarian gets 4str/con, -2ac, +2saves and gets 1+1/4lvls rages per day, immunity to backstab, move +2 and gains 10% resistance at 11, +5% at 15 and 19.
So, frontloading backstab immunity, and tweaking the resistance. Same moverate increase. Same HD. Nearly identical rages and rages per day (although BG gets a truckload of immunities tacked on) And the BG barbarian rage doesn't improve like the 3e does. Perhaps this is due to the hard-cap on stats in BG. I am uncertain.
Monks....are a little further from the 3x monks than the BG barb is from the 3x barb. Although a lot of the 3x monk abilities are present in the BG monk, the level progression is faster for the BG version. Here I'm legitimately not sure which came first. Perhaps I am mistaken and the BG monk is not a port of the 3e monk.