You will never die amidst the blood and carnage of glorious battle

>you will never die amidst the blood and carnage of glorious battle.

is there any other way to play barbarians aside from the "i live for battle,will die in battle,and after death go to *insert off-brand valhalla* to battle forever!" trope?

not that i would play them any other way.

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I wanted to play a high int barbarian with a scholar background centered around the unique phenomenon of nerd rage but our party already had 2 barbarians

They could just be clumsy and strong. Genuinely trying to help and reducing everything to rubble/pulp in the process.

They could be literally retarded, with real retard strength action.

They could just be super pissed off, no valhalla aspect or enjoyment of battle required.

Batshit insanity could also give you blood lust/psychotic battle tendencies without living for battle. Maybe they're convinced nothing truly stays dead unless the seriously reduce their parts per million.

I dunno. They don't have to love battle, they just have to be overzealous walking blenders.

Could be a very pragmatic 'pushed too far' attitude adopted from having fought off ruthless pursuers or enemies.

Someone who was sent to a Turkish prison and had to disembowel someone everyday with their bare hands or a chair leg will learn very quickly how to fight like a complete berserker without necessarily enjoying it or having any particular background in it.

>They could be literally retarded, with real retard strength action.

so your average 6 int barbarian?

Give them nice clothes and a day job.

You could play a smart barbarian like Book Conan.

Some one like Ninefingers from The First Law books.

>party barbarian is like that
>has a giant book hammer with the same stats as a maul
>find a scroll of fireball
>barbarian sticks it in his bookhammer
>says he'll activate it as he's hitting someone
>DM gave it the OK
Part of me wants to stop him and part of me wants to see him go through with it.

Warhammer dwarfs style book of grudges. Simple person who takes slights against him very seriously

The character wanted to be a town guard/mercenary/arena fighter since they were young.
Spent a shitload of time learning how to use different weapons, learning the theory to different styles.
But, whenever they got mad, they always fell back on the most natural style: Just fucking hit it till it stops moving.
There's not a lot of room for a loose cannon like that in the force/on the sands/in a demanding job like merc.
They couldn't help it. They were just a naturally angry person. When they got pissed off, they just saw red. You've never let emotion get the best of you, for even a second?
But...That career, the one they dreamt of, was barred to them.
And then adventurers came. People who understood. People who only had just three questions:
Do you think you can do it on command? (Yes. Just think of shit that pisses you off)
Do you think you can use it on the other guys? (Yes. It's fairly easy to focus on whoever pissed you off.)
Is there anything holding you here? (No. Not since they failed.)

Good. Welcome to the team. The adventurers are on a quest to make the world better, and they have the skills to do it, and they say that what you can do is what they need.

They even had a name for you. "Barbarian". You hadn't heard that word before. To be fair, you hadn't heard a lot of words before. They didn't have the best teaching where you grew up.

But they called you barbarian, and gave you purpose. And for that, you'd give your life.

(If in a low level/you all meet at a bar game: The first group of adventurers died. You were distraught, until you thought to find another group. You can do it. You KNOW you can do it.)

Book Conan was a rogue with maxed out strength.

I recently had an experience with a meditative state. It wasn't focus or emptying the mind so much as letting the noise fall away. Which ended up letting me experience some memories of not-so-proud moments more strongly than I'm used to, and there were fewer distracting thoughts handy to pull me out of it.

Just another way to look at Rage.

Fucking this.
One of my favorite characters from a book so far

Considering the most "barbarians" didnt actually believe that...yes. shouldn't be that hard actually

There are a number of jobs in a barbarian tribe you could start out from. My idea was a judge, you know, something of a sheriff within the tribe who memorised all the laws of the ancestors and follows them with zeal and honour. He knows all the stories his people have been telling for generations by heart, and he strives to live by the example of the great heroes of old. You could spin him as either LG or LN.

He behaves respectfully, and carefully even if in the territory of a culture he is unfamiliar with. He will not deny his spirit, however, and will go full Klingon on anyone's ass if they act dishonourably.

He is a barbarian with an improved targeting system: he seeks out the schemers, the liars, the adulterers, and all the other scum of the world, and dispenses brutal justice upon them.

I played a Barbarian who was a consummate professional - in fact, until she used Rage for the first time the party assumed I was playing a fighter. Thing is, there's nothing about nature skills, hardiness, self sufficiency and getting angry when you fight that means you have to be a fur-wearing pagan, because being a Barbarian simply means you don't have time for playing the silly games of all those city-folk, and are strong enough to get by without pandering to a higher social class for food and protection.

I play my barbarians as bronze-age heroes. Every time. Egyptian, babylonian, greek, it doesn't matter. Just wear nothing but one of those Egyptian skirt thingeys, a pair of sandals, and tons of jewelry, and rock out.

>implying Not-Gilgamesh [the real one, not Fate] has time for your shit.

Does rage absolutely have to be retard strength mode? Can't it be like powering-up for battle or something, requiring absolute focus to maintain, hence no cha, dex or int skills. I mean they can still use wis, so they can be wise while raging. Maybe a barbarian philosopher who prefers physical debates, declaring philosophical truths as they beat the living shit out of the ignorant

>Maybe a barbarian philosopher who prefers physical debates, declaring philosophical truths as they beat the living shit out of the ignorant

>plato.jpeg

10/10

It is one thing

*WACK*

To show a man his error

*STOMP*

and another

*CRUNCH*

to put him in possession of truth

redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Badger_Rulers

And Con. And Dex.
Fucker cheated his stat rolls like no tomorrow what I'm sayin.

18/00 strength, 18 all other stats, rolled max gold

what more did he do

You could always go with the viking style of
>very well groomed/bathed
>intelligent
>always adding new gods to your pantheon
>always adopting new cultural ideas
You just happen to find that being a big angry man helps you explore more and conquer others a lot easier

A high-dex acrobat who does wardance shit and plays hurling when wars ain't happenin.

I like this, a lot. Kind of like the big dopey guy that just wants to be the big damn hero, but keeps tripping up and breaking stuff

A number of years ago I participated in a 3.5, game which was essentially set in mythical/classical Greece. The Minotaur, Medusa, etc were all more than real and I played the only non Greek in the party.

My character was a Danish sailor who took up work in the Mediterranean despite not being able to speak any of the local language. He got most points across with violent pointing/charades and had a nasty habit of consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms that were ostensibly the trigger for his rage mechanic.

It was rather fun having him react to Greek customs while having the party and NPCs react to him as a foreigner. Met his end being thrown overboard fighting the Kraken and drowning in his chain mail.

"Whenever I get into a fight I just see red bro."
t. Every person that can't fight.

I have a catfolk "Barbarian" (actually a Fighter) that I've been sitting on for a while now waiting to use.
Born and raised in a nomadic tribe. As a Young adult he was kidnapped and enslaved by Gnoll raiders that attacked his tribe. (Deepest secret is that when the Gnolls attacked he ran away rather than staying fighting to protect his people.) The Gnolls sold him to some funny looking people who made him perform manual labor then had him fight for their entertainment. He eventually gained his freedom by helping defend a castle. Now he is trying to find his way home. Except he doesn't know where home is and since being from a nomadic background and enslaved, only really speaks in broken common and is illiterate. This gives most the false impression that INT is his dump stat. They would be wrong.

>18/00 strength as a rogue
No

My last barb wasn't a live for battle guy. He was just an old hand at violence who got mad and flew off the handle. I tried to channel my inner Nicholas cage. He was fun every coversation ended being an intimidate roll.

Conan was a barbarian that decided that actually playing a barbarian was too restricting so he multi-classed at the first opportunity.

>prestige class: fuck yo momma

I play them as people who tap into a source of primal magic that strengthens them.

I have a barbarian that is a dwarven alchemist, played like Dr Jekyl and mr Hyde. He is highly intelligent researcher working on restorarive brews containing deep mushrooms and instead created a draft that causes him to hulk out. Only he c an take them, as he has been testing them on hinself for so long that he has a resistance to the instant death it would xause in others. He is an adventurer, in c an attempt to find a way to balance the draft, so that he gains the strength without the rage, but so far has only made the draft more powerful, with different effects (to simulate gaining levels).
To enter rage he uses the bonus action he would use anyway to take a swig and off he goes. He is usually very apologetic afterwards and is a friendly and helpful guy.

The problem with playing Nine Fingers is that once the party meets the Bloody Nine, they will either be dead, or they'll never travel with him again.

My barbarian was a former circus performer, who was sold to a gladiator arena to pay off debts. As such, he's constantly monologuing, showboating, and trash-talking his opponents. Very flamboyant, and treats his battles like a show.

His rage comes from his vanity and pride. I played him so that he never used rage unless he had been insulted, or was bleeding. To fulfill these conditions, he carried a razor to sometimes cut his own forehead to induce the rage manually.

>is there any other way to play x

Almost certainly, unless the system you use is shit through and through(see: DW)

Basically these. In my campaign I'm playing an Urban Barbarian that has a really high Profession(Engineering). The only war and killing aspect to her outside of her Mercenary company is that she has an incredible hatred for arcane casters.. Though it is a city campaign with mostly humanoid enemies and a fair amount of social and knowledge checks. You can really do whatever you want, the class doesn't have to define the character as much as it's a method for your character to do things mechanically.

Scot/English border folk.

Contemplative, philosophical and religious about their rage.

>"When I was younger I felt as though the gods had not completed their work on me. My father taught me otherwise. He showed me that my rage was a gift. Too often we cloak ourselves in lies-- dissembling about what is good and what is not, about who deserves what."
>"In the divinity of rage all that is swept aside and the truth revealed like the sun when the clouds split. The cruel are cruel, the righteous are righteous."
>"My father taught me that my rage was a gift and there were a thousand men deserving of it. I look at you and wonder-- are you one of them?"

Easiest way to play a Barbarian at the core without going off on these weird alt-tangents is to play them as a monster Hunter,

I recall one game long ago that divided humans into two groups: freewheeling outlanders, and the ones that favored high civilization with the strong government needed to run everything. The barbarians in that setting had tribal customs and castes that the imperial government would do away with. They had worse technology and better training. I don't see why they all have to be berserkers.

>Playing a MonHun themed DnD game currently

It feels so natural.

>scrolls attacked to warhammers
Why have I never thought of this before?

>Swinging the hammer counts as somantic componants

THE BATTLEFIELD IS MY STUDY.

FEEL THE WEIGHT OF MY KNOWLEDGE

I played a barbarian who was the scion of a noble family, reasonably intelligent (str 13), and the expected heir of the dynasty. He was schooled in martial prowess from an early age, and had a gifted physique.

The DM let me switch survival skills for int skills regarding noble houses and such.

But he had anger management problems, spazzed out and murdered his bride-to-be the night before their wedding in a fit of rage, and fled into the night wearing the tatters of his former life.

The DM had him constantly hunted by bouncer hunters working for his fiancé's family, and I played him as a good-guy driven into psychopathy by a life of numerous bloody altercations that broke his sense of morality.

Yet he still spent all his gold on very expensive clothing in the latest styles, and read lots of books. Eventually he became a kind of gentrified barbarian king, lord of thugs and mastermind of warmongering to fuel his thriving weapon-making businesses.

I've always wanted to do make a barbarian, but not tell anyone that was my class. Just say I'm a noble (man or women) who has taken up swordsmanship as a pass time and have joined them for (insert reason that fits the group and setting here).

I'd show up in fancy robes and talk all elegantly and never rage once, unless of course someone insulted my family or damaged my clothes. Then they'd go full beserker, unable to stop themselves.

I'm thinking of playing a barbarian as a high-class nobleman duelist. He's got high CHA and DEX and fights with rapiers -- yet he can easily rough it in the wilderness if he wants to. He's based off the original Tarzan.

My current character is actually a Barbarian with a nobleman Backround.
He's reasonably intelligent, sophisticated when he wants to be, and thinks quite clearly about problems.
But he fights with his greataxe like a complete bloodthirsty savage, relying on fury, instinct, and raw force to solve his problems in combat and enjoys killing things maybe a bit more then is healthy.

here. Read the original Tarzan books for inspiration.

Haha ninja'd.

I guess nobleman barbarian is a more common character archetype than I thought?

This guy right here is how I want to play a Barbarian.

Normal soldier type, High WIS, quiet attitude but goes completely berserk when in rage mode.

I also kinda like the idea of having triggers for rage instead of being able to voluntarily enter it(as long as it's not something stupid).

What's he from and also is it any good

Record of Lodoss War.

It's basically someone's game of D&D turned into an anime. I know there was a TV run of it, and I think there's a OVA as well.

It's very similar to the Slayers series. Kinda tropey but in a classic kinda way.

Orson(the guy in the picture) is one of the side characters in the series. Very stoic guy who literally gets possessed by a rage spirit when he goes berserk.
One of the best characters in my opinion, it's a shame he doesn't get a lot of screen time.

That sounds fun to watch, thanks