Midnight Tiered Barbarian

[arnon]

I'm not sure i understand this. Do you mean he regains double hp and ability scores on normal rest (8 hours), and tripe with a complete day rest?

Yes, but if I am not mistaken medical attention also increases the rate, so i was thinking of base doubled, and increassed to triple at those times.

Long-term care does normally double the healing time. So it could be worder like so:

Shrug it Off: The barbarian becomes even hardier than before. With a full night's rest he now heals double the hit points and ability score damage, and with a complete day of resting he heals thrice the usual amount, providing lon term care shifts the healing rate two levels up (8 hours rest will heal 4 times the normal, and complete day rest 5 times the normal). Additionally the barbarian needs to rest only one half the time to recover from fatigue and exhaustion, fatigue caused by lack of sleep and similar means, though, can only be overcome by the usual means, like sleeping properly.

[Nifelhein]

Hmm, wait a bit.

Shrug it Off: The barbarian becomes even hardier, healing hit points faster than other people would. The barbarian now recovers twice his character level with a full night's rest and triple his character level if he undergoes complete bed rest for an entire day and a night. Additionally the character heals 2 ability points of damage in a full night's rest and 3 points with complete bed rest for an entire day and night and recovers from fatigue and exhaustion with only one half the amount of resting time usually required. If the character is given long term care this values are increased to triple the usual amount for a full night's rest and quadruple the original amount with an entire day and night of bed rest. This ability enhances the barbairan's ability to recover from harm and does not allow him to recover damage caused by lack of sleep, hunger and thirsty and other similar means without eating, drinking or sleeping, for example.

[arnon]

and quadruple the original amount with an entire day and night of bed rest

Thing is, with long-tern care, a character getting a full day of complete rest regains 4 hp per level, and 4 ability score points.

Long-Term Care: Providing long-term care means treating a wounded person for a day or more. If your Heal check is successful, the patient recovers hit points or ability score points (lost to ability damage) at twice the normal rate: 2 hit points per level for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 hit points per level for each full day of complete rest; 2 ability score points for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 ability score points for each full day of complete rest. You can tend as many as six patients at a time. You need a few items and supplies (bandages, salves, and so on) that are easy to come by in settled lands. Giving long-term care counts as light activity for the healer. You cannot give long-term care to yourself.

So a barbarian with Shrug it Off will heal the same amount as a normal character... I agree that healing 5 times as fast for a complete day of rest and long-tern care is a bit too much. How about that instead of 8 hours he needs only 6 hours; and instead of full day of rest he needs only 20 hours?

Might not seem much, but if you are on the run...

[Nifelhein]

Hmm... you are right, but I would rather have him heal the same with long term care then, make him a raw thing, unfit for the intricate sciences of civilization, or stick with the x5 there.

[arnon]

Hmm... you are right, but I would rather have him heal the same with long term care then, make him a raw thing

You have a point. I think this ability is good enough as it is... without the x5 thing.

It's very good actually, allowing a barbarian (with +2 Con modifier) of 12th level to heal 36 hp (out of an average of 113 hp) for a normal 8 hour rest... thats not too shaby...

[Nifelhein]

Except it is gained at 18th level only, if it is going to get the place of tireless.

[arnon]

Why on Aryth did i have it on 12th level in my document?!? 

Been thinking about Wild Blow:

Wild Blow (Requires Fury): Barbarians are unmatched when it comes to raw blow exchange. Once per round as part of an attack action the barbarian may bellow his anger at his opponent causing more damage. The extra damage is 1d6 per 4 barbarian levels, but leaves the barbarian fatigued for the next round (fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a –2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity). The barbarian may attempt a second Wild Blow during the same encounter but this will cause him to be exhausted for the next two rounds. A barbarian can't use wild blow with light weapons, and can't deal nonlethal damage with that attack.

Have though of maybe allowing him a save to negate the effect...

[arnon]

Ohhh, and Swift as the Wind:

Swift as the Wind (Requires Improved Uncanny Dodge): The barbarian appears to be almost everywhere on the battlefield. The barbarian may sacrifice one of his attacks in order to gain an additional move action.

[Nifelhein]

Drugs, they do that to you.

I am not sure, I think fury is already a requisite for other tier 2 trait and we need to create a good tier 2 for war cry, that is why I was aiming to make Wild Blow fit the bill. I think a good route would be to give a bonus to damage not based on level but on a trade off, like giving up AC in exchange for damage, every 2 points of AC add 1d6 of damage to a single attack roll, the penalty lasts until the end of the character's next round (what makes it be a bit more than a round and covers AoO for the next round as well).

Nonlethal is good, light weapons could be used, but suffer the same amount of damage the attack deals, possibly destroying it (magical weapons might survive it). I am not yet sure this is good enough though, i will check Iron Heroes to get some ideas.

Swift might be too much, we should limit it a bit: The barbarian appears to be everywhere on the battlefield, by sacrificing one attack in the full attack action the barbarian gains a move action that may be used before, during or after the full attack action, with the spring attack feat this movement may be used to move both before and after attacks. The barbarian may sacrifice no more than one attack to use this ability.

The question is, which attack should be sacrificed? the highest or the lowest?

[arnon]

-2 to AC... why oh why to i complicate things with Fatigue and Exhausted???

Excellent. I like that light weapons might shatter (perhaps the damage ignores the hardness or part of the hardness)

Swift: I like as well. My instincts say lowest attack... but my instincts usually suck when it comes to balancing acts.

[Nifelhein]

You were trying to make it the standard penalty to the barbarian, and while that is perfectly fine I find the idea of allowing him to use it more than once more fitting, and al the while I see this barbarian landing blow after blow in his opponent, oblivious to how many times he has been hit himself.

We don't even need to bother with the hardness, any light weapon will be destroyed with any blow dealing from 7 (light hafted) to 20 points of damage (light metal-hafted). If the ability is correct that will mean they are destructed in all but the weakest of blows.

I think swift could work with lowest attack myself, not that big a deal, or so it seems, playtesting could lead us somewhere else though. Let us leave it at that, when we have the final draft it will be easier to define whether things are good or need a bit more work, mainly because then I will be able to make a new tier tree to check this kind of thing and compare it to equal level abilities of other classes.

[arnon]

So you want a tier tree?... YOU WANT A TIER TREE?!?!?

I'll give you a tier tree...

Tier 1 Traits
Fury
Hard Stare
Heart of Wolverine
Quick Stride
Thick Skinned
War Cry

Tier 2 Traits
Overland Stride (Requires Quick Stride)
Rage (Requires Fury)
Stamina (Requires Thick Skinned)
Steel Eyes (Requires Hard Stare)
Uncanny Dodge (Requires Quick Stride)
Wild Blow (Requires Fury)

Tier 3 Traits
Mighty Blow (Requires Wild Blow and Rage)
Berserk (Requires Rage and Heart of Wolverine)
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Requires Uncanny Dodge)
Menacing Aura (Requires Steel Eyes and Wild Blow)
Mighty Rage (Requires Berserk)
Swift as the Wind (Requires Improved Uncanny Dodge)
Tough as Nails (Requires Stamina and Heart of Wolverine)

Truth is, I'm not to hot about Overland Stride... it doesn't really sit well with all the other abilities.

Attached is the latest Midnight Barbarian with all the latest corrections...

[Nifelhein]

I will make a Wildlander like tier document though, and I plan to do that to all the classes, and the defender as well. I will review the class document and see if we can call it done, or if we need to make some more additions and changes. Once we are done with this one I will have the chance to get back to the rogue, which I think needs more work than this one right now.

And when the rogue is done I will go to the fighter, focusing on each of the classes at once allows me to better wrap my mind around each.

[arnon]

Once we are done with this one I will have the chance to get back to the rogue, which I think needs more work than this one right now.

I concur.

[Albert]

*cheers for all the work already put into this*

Now that I finally found the time to take a close look at what you've made here I can start pestering with ungrateful comments
On first glance this barbarian seems a lot more interesting and midnightish than the one in the PHB, more similar to the wildlander and defender in how abilities are gained, and less focused on the berserker rage, which is a good thing.

I have some suggestions however.

Class skills: It has always bothered me that the barbarian has listen, but not spot as a class skill, I think that spot should be there as well.

Layout: The class abilities are neither in alphabetical order, nor in the order they are gained. They should be sorted in one of those ways, I prefer the latter.

Diehard: If the barbarian already has the feat, he should get another feat in exchange, I suggest the toughness feat. It does much the same as the ability written there. If you still go with the hit point bonus you need to clarify if you mean class or character levels, wether this bonus increase when you take more levels and so on.

Damage reduction: I was not aware that the PHB barbarians ability was limited to weapons and natural attacks, but now I know seeing as I looked it up after reading through the ability here. In my opinion restricting it to weapons and natural attacks seems unnescessary, but since that's how it is in the PHB we might as well keep the restriction.

Heart: I think this ability should be able to remove the shaken condition entirely. Also, I shortened the description somewhat as it seemed unnescessary to me to point out that any fear effect could be either magical or mundane.

Shrug it off: I simplified the description of Shrug it off, and made it more houserule friendly. (changing the exact description of how much was healed to "twice the normal" and such).


No other class in midnight makes use of swift actions, and neither are they a part of core 3.5 rules. I wrote them out of the traits.

Fury: changed the action to free, matching the rage ability. Allowed the ability to be activated right before initiative is rolled.

Heart of the wolverine: Interestingely, our house rules gives a character the fatigued condition when at half hit points or less, this is neatly cancelled out by this ability. I'll probably change the wording to "does not become fatigued" for our house rules however, but not here since this document is for regular rules.

Quick Stride: This ability is weaker than the old Fast Movement ability, but is now identical to that of the wildlander, which is a good thing. I'm in two minds about this though, since I like barbarians that move their normal speed in medium armour.

Rage: Changed activation to a free action, and simplified the uses per day issue.

Stamina: I really like this ability. However, spells that deal damage when you succeed on your save are not affected the way the ability is described now. How about:
"When affected by a harmful spell that allows a fortitude save, the duration of the spell is halved (unless instantaneous or permanent) and any damage is halved. This reduction only applies to the barbarian, area spells still have their full duration and do full damage to surrounding targets."

Wild blow: Why the damage to light weapons and only light weapons, do natural weapons count as light weapons for this purpose?
Removed the damage to light weapons and changed "attack roll" to "melee attack".

Menacing Aura: This seems like a pretty cumbersome ability (all those rolls for so little effect. Also does this ability take an action to activate, must opponents save every round. The dc for the ability would also be very high.
Since the penalties from this ability is almost a sure thing, why not make them so.
"In the midst of battle, covered in blood, the barbarian is a frightening sight. The barbarian exudes a demoralizing aura at all times, any opponent within 30 ft. takes a -2 morale penalty to attack, any opponent immune to fear or mind-affecting effects are immune to this ability.

Tough as nails: The percentile chance doesn't see much use in D&D (although it does happen), also, additional rolling take up additional time. What about: "When a critical hit is scored on the barbarian the critical multiplier is reduced by one. Thus a x4 critical become x3 and a x2 critical does normal damage (but is still considered a critical hit for the purpose of other effects)."


Also, I miss some sort of animal/wilderness ability, but I guess that would easily step on the wildlanders toes, and also I'm not in the mood to creates something new of scratch. I've included a document with my version of the class here.

edit: fixed some formating, and actually included the document

[lilithraevyn]

So you want a tier tree?... YOU WANT A TIER TREE?!?!?

Careful, or you'll get some of us all excited, or something.



Ahem.

This really looks awesome, everyone!

[arnon]

Sorry it took me so long to come back to this...

I'll just comment on what I do not agree with:

Heart: I like the fact that even a very high level character might still get a little shaken...

Wild Blow: Because light weapons are not ment to delivere so much damage, they will not stand the pressure... i think. And as for natural weapons... i'm not sure.

All the other stuff is good clean change and re-wordings that i like.

[Albert]

Sorry it took me so long to come back to this...

I'll just comment on what I do not agree with:

Heart: I like the fact that even a very high level character might still get a little shaken...

Wild Blow: Because light weapons are not ment to delivere so much damage, they will not stand the pressure... i think. And as for natural weapons... i'm not sure.

All the other stuff is good clean change and re-wordings that i like.

No problem, glad you found the time to answer.

Heart: High level barbarians can still get a little shaken, if any effect would normally cause them to be frightened, the effect is reduced to shaken. The difference is that effects that would cause him to be shaken does not affect him at all. So, only really scary stuff could get a high-level barbarian shaken.

Wild blow: I understand the idea, but there are two things that rub the wrong way with this ability damaging light weapons.
1): It's time-consuming, and not absolutely nescessary. It'll slow down combat, espescially since players rarely memorize the hit points of their weapons.
2): Wether a weapon is light or not isn't really a good measure of its fragility. A handaxe or light hammer could for example be considered rather sturdy, whereas a shortspear, quarterstaff or even a scimitar could be considered less sturdy. And the rapier (IMO one of the most fragile melee weapons) is a medium weapon, not a light weapon.

The forces a weapon is subjected to isn't increased if it is smaller, rather a large weapon is subjected to greater torque because of it's greater length, so a weapon shouldn't be immune to this damage simply because it's big. Bigger weapons tend to be more sturdy than small weapons (though it is not always the case),  which is why bigger weapons have more hit points. So even if you were to apply this damage to all weapons, light weapons would break more often.

[arnon]

OK... fine... you've convinced me (unless someone comes along with good counterpoints)

I still like the idea that a light weapon might shatter when used in such a fashion (wild blow fashion). I constantly get a picture in my head of an enslaved and beaten barbarian, grabbing a wooden spoon and shoving it into his tormentors heart...

....right....ahemm....

Other than that I think the barbarian is rather ready. Anybody care to comment?

[Albert]

"I'll carve out their hearts with a spoon!"
"Why not an axe, sire?"
"A spoon would hurt more!"

Quoting from memory, so this might be rather incorrect.

[arnon]

A great quote... it goes like this:

Sheriff: "Locksley! I'm gonna cut your heart out with a spoon."
Guy of Gisbourne: "Why a spoon cousin? Why not an axe?"
Sheriff: "Because it's dull, you twit, it'll hurt more."

Now Albert... move your ass over to the Rogue