What would a barbarian, that could go toe to toe with a high level wizard that's essentially a demi god, look like?

What would a barbarian, that could go toe to toe with a high level wizard that's essentially a demi god, look like?

You included a picture of him, numbnuts.

>high level wizard that's essentially a demi god

I hate that this has become the default assumption.

That's because muh magic, muh wizard, muh theorycraft.

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He probably has such a supernatural force of will that he can shrug off most magic effects

Conan the Already got it covered

But it only applies to one edition of one game. It's not universal.

Rippling beast of muscle. He wields a sword made of the smoke from his village burned by the wizard's minions. His armor was forged with the tears of his young sister, who still awaits teary-eyed for him to return. His eyes aglow with hatred, that melt through the Wizard's shell of ice with pure righteous anger. His aim strikes true, not because of a feat but because he is so sure, so true to his core and mission that the barbarian WILL not miss.

None of this requires magic, wizards, or any 3.pf shit. Take fantasy back.

Cuchulain

Conan's wizards are pretty meh though, not reality warping shenanigans you see in most wizards today

Alrighty, /5eg/. Who is more broken: Lore Bard or Wu Jen? I feel Lore Bard definitely scales better, but I'm not sure which is better as a whole.

Oops

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Reading through the entire work. The only real demigod wizard he fought, was after he was given a magical item by another wizard, and the big bad got away. I want a barbarian, not a wizard that can bench press.

My nuts are numb from given your mom the d6 ... inches.

If we go by 3.5 dnd logic he would look very silly or how you want him to look really, he would also need to be a barbarian in fluff only, and have an actual tier 1 class, like psion to stand a chance.

Here is my suggestion; a living tree wood shaped into edgy chair and awakened and given 20 class levels of psion, its a very barbaric chair.

What I imagine, assuming he's specialized in anti-magic combat
>Very light armor, he needs maximal mobility and conventional armor won't protect him against magic. Maybe just a helmet, leather cuirass and leather greaves
>An easy to use close quarters weapon like a dagger (and a sword as a side-arm)
>Multiple light throwing weapons, like needles
>Multiple pouches across his waist and thighs with various useful items

His fighting style would be centered all around denying mages the advantage of magic. I imagine it would consist of three steps:
1. Denial of resources. By doing such things as throwing around smoke bombs or bottles of sticky goo (not that kind, ya perv!) he'd make himself difficult to target as well as make it difficult for the mage to maintain concentration.
2. Closing the distance. Under the cover of the items used in the Denial stage, the Barbarian closes in. In this stage he could also use prepared actions to make sure he can throw the aforementioned needles at the mage to interrupt any spells he might decide to cast anyway. These needles aren't supposed to penetrate armor or even truly damage exposed flesh, just sting enough to interrupt a caster's concentration.
3. Melee. At this point the barbarian will probably prefer using a dagger over a sword or axe because a dagger can (both IRL and in D&D rules) be used in a grapple. The barbarian will want to grapple as it not only makes it harder for the mage to get away, but by grappling he also limits the mage's ability to use somatic components (and concentrate). Once the mage is pinned down, the barbarian can proceed to stab him in the face until he stops moving.

1/2

As mentioned earlier the barbarian will have basic armor, a sword and maybe a buckler to fight against regular opponents in an orthodox fashion (I like to imagine the barbarian would save his 'dirty tricks' for mages alone, unless he feels in a situation where he can 'waste' resources [such as being close to a town where he can resupply]). The most difficult opponents would probably be gishes, because they can fight using both melee weapons and magic. The barbarian would have to use some mixture between his regular and anti-magic fighting styles to beat them which would be very hard. He'd probably start out using the first two stages of his anti-magic tactics, but replace step 3 with regular melee rather than grappling.

And in the end, whether his opponent is a gish or a regular mage, a lot of the barbarian's success against casters would rely on perparation. If a caster gets the drop on him, he's still fucked.
2/2

Rolled 3 (1d6)

Rolling for your dick size

Not impressive, ny mother would probably laugh at him.
>"Have you rolled to hit yet?
>"I already rolled for damage."

>beefy barbarian reduced to rogue, jumping about
>wizard stands back, unleashes the spawn of hell and meteor strikes around him

Dagger'll do it for sure.

>beefy barbarian reduced to rogue, jumping about
>reduced
There's that whole "speed vs strength" shit again. Speed IS strength and to a large extent the strong need to be agile as well. There is no one or the other, and this reducing of martials to these utterly arbitrary boxes is precisely what holds them back in many systems.

>wizard stands back, unleashes the spawn of hell and meteor strikes around him
The idea is that (if the rules allow for it) steps 1 and 2 cover that problem. Step 1 (if it includes the use of smokebombs) would reduce visibility so the wizard is just casting meteor strikes without knowing where to aim, and step 2 (moving with prepared actions for throwing attacks) would ideally interrupt casting so the spell doesn't fire at all.

Yes, I'm assuming the barbarian has some way to determine the caster's location despite the smoke. No, I have no idea how he'd do this. Maybe some kind of Blindfighting-like ability so he can locate the wizard through other senses than sight? Hearing his footsteps, "feeling the wind" and stuff like that?

>But it only applies to one edition of one game.

LIAR

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Conan kills sorcerers and crazy eldritch monsters all the time.


Pic related is Conan nailed to a cross. A vulture came down to nibble on him, and he bit its fucking head off. While crucified. This is a dude who could kill anyone, full stop.

NEKROOOOOOOON!

capable of shrugging off meteor swarm
capable of slicing walls of iron in half
shrugs off save-or-die as if they were so much popcorn
can use his fists to make giants cry for mommy

...

/thread

This shit dates back to Robert E Howard. Wizard - spoopy powerful. Only to be overcome by The Hero.

Conan is also pretty meh by the standards of heroes you see today. He's basically grumpy.

you want someone who beats magic with his fists?

If you go for this via fantasy-"science" you have to make differences between the defacto power of said people. A wizard taps into magic, the raw energy of the world/cosmos in most fictions. A barbarian is the heigth of biological possible raw power. To stand toe to toe with a wizard which wilds power which is to be fair not his own but summoned energy a barbarian has either:

a. Get euqal energy from a divine source (Mostly the gods of war in each setting)
b. Be in possession of an artifact or magical equipment of equal or higher power than the caster
c. It is possible to obtain a higher state of power then biologically possible, example: In pathfinder there are gods who ascended to godhood by pure perfection/control over their body and enough willpower

Dude i just watched that movie yesterday. Good fucking shit.

It really depends on the setting. Conan, for example, has wizards that, while powerful, mostly aren't the fireball and lightning types. LotR has insanely powerful magic but it's almost all indirect. Even D&D has normal characters being able to survive, if not completely shrug off, being directly attacked by the raw energy of the cosmos.

Yes.

I'm thinking someone who has eaten all the pokemons.

lol dude that's pretty autistic

Actual barbarian gameplay: apply greataxe.

>melancholy

More choleric innit?

Apparently not enough to not get himself crucified

Actually, Conan is a rare beast in that he has no real dump stat compared your modern hero, strictly speaking.

He is 25 point build minmax super gestalt.
Conan has the skills of a brawler, barbarian, rogue, ranger and cavalier.

He also speaks and read over 20-30 languages. That includes dead languages. He has also read the Hyborean Necronomicon.

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Conan, through sheer speed of reflexes.

Not really. Read some Conan, he's grumpy some of the time but mostly curious, proud, and extremely competent.

He stands outside the wizard's tower, or at the base of the mountain the tower is on. And with one swing of his axe he bisects it in it's entirely.

If you're fighting "Lol, I'm too smart for reality" tier wizards, you need an "I'm so strong physics stopped paying attention a while ago" level barbarian. Low level is more interesting though.

>It's another "how can martials compete against my god wizard meme?" thread

Here's your (you)

In the movie, they used a real fresh vulture corpse for that scene

Don't forget carefree. In Red Nails he didn't seem to mind at all when Valeria called him out on being broke and down in his luck.

>Not impressive, ny mother would probably laugh at him.
>>"Have you rolled to hit yet?
>>"I already rolled for damage."

i lol'd

stats, side skills and knowledge are one thing
lvl is another
having plain 20s in every stat and lots of unexpected utility skills won't help lvl.. eight maybe martial (that is where conan would be by D&D standards) compete against high lvl D&D characters with all their stupid superhero bullshit.
And it's good because that makes conan more interesting than said bullshit which is but a feed to tasteless and mostly underage plebs power fantasies. Even if Conan himself is also pretty blatant power fantasy with marysuish traits he pales in comparision with those. And has some interesting feel while those are just bland and boring

>Apparently not enough to not get himself crucified

He killed a lot of people before they got him
>I never saw a man fight as Conan fought. He put his back to the courtyard wall, and before they overpowered him the dead men were strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last they dragged him down, a hundred against one.

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BASED PANTHER MAN FROM FIRE AND ICE

BASED AS FUCK

So why do people like shitting on Conan?

It gets them attention

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Isn't He-man just a Kull knock-off?

Muscles on eyeballs

>average length is 3.5 inches

Everyone has that.

A 4e character.

There's a rough balance to the universe. Demigod level wizards tend to spawn enough plot armor for their enemies that they have a fighting chance.

>bump

he looks mentally challenged

Enkidu, companion of Gilgamesh. He was a barbarian raised by beasts who killed demons for shits and giggles. It took a goddess of war with a hatred-boner for Gilgamesh to kill him.

Most overrated story in the world.