How do I make a barbarian that isn't just an idiot who smashes stuff?

How do I make a barbarian that isn't just an idiot who smashes stuff?

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You're a genius who smashes stuff

Conan stories by Robert Howard. He smashes stuff but typically from a pragmatic view.

Barbarian doesn't mean hulking meathead. It just means someone who wasn't raised in a civilized environment. Your character can still be intelligent and wise, just ignorant of things that city dwellers would be more familiar with. So have him be rude or crass towards those he considers decadent but more accepting of civilized folk whom he feels are strong and capable.

The second you're starting to apply brains to Barbarians they become Rangers or Fighters. That's why you don't. Instead, make them human by creating a simple but genuine personality. Simple in this context is not as easy or trivial as many think.

Give them a spirit animal that they base their philosophy around. Perhaps if they're from the Crow tribe they appreciate subtlety and trickery a lot more, preferring to use a long spear to strike at foes from afar with great leaping attacks.

Get some wilderness skills from living a tribal existence or whatever.

What said. You are Nietzsche's superman, you make your own rules and follow them. You understand the world and you understand why some people do things the way they do, but if on your path to victory you must break a meaningless convention, smash it.

Your rage isn't just being a big dumb hulking idiot, it's more of a martial trance that's been perfected over the years.

You're a veteran of a war and your rages are PTSD/Flashback fits in battle.

Fortunately, you have just enough control to still recognize friend from foe, even if you get slightly confused which friends you're fighting with and which foes you're fighting against.

>"FUUUUUUUCK YOU, YOU UNDERDARK NIGGERS!!!"
>"Sergeant... We're fighting Kobolds."
>"STILL APPLICABLE!"

>LONGEARED DARKIES, FUCKING GET SOME
>Black party members want to complain, but he is really frighteningly good at killing drow

best post

Barbarians aren't just savages, but instead individuals who fight savagely. I've played a barbarian as a farmhand who never had any formal combat training, but knew how to use an axe from years of hard labor. Throw in a chance encounter with raider and a bit of an anger issue and you've got yourself one heck of a barbarian.

Make them a war vet who saw too much and goes into murder spree mode at the drop of a hat because war changed them.

Or they could be a special breed of warrior who consumes prepared tinctures and potions that drive them temporarily fearless and lets them tap into inner feats of strength while tripping balls.

Waaaah! Tesla crush!

>We need to get him mad
>But how?
>HEY TESLA
>EDISON MADE A BETTER CURRENT

Flavor your rage as intense battle focus instead of a stupid loosely directed fit of smashing.

>Barbarians aren't just savages, but instead individuals who fight savagely
I disagree. Barbarian implies more a way of life rather than how an individual fights. Some barbaric dude who lives out in the wilderness could be a barbarian or fighter or anything really. In contrast, however, someone who lives in a civilized society could be any of those things except a barbarian as, by definition, he lacks the barbaric upbringing of a barbarian. Barbarian in as much a culture as it is a class.

give her abs and huge tits

An idiot who builds smashable things.

If you're playing 5e D&D, make your barbarian go Totem Path. They are not an idiot who smashes things, they are a spiritually inclined warrior who channels the powers of nature in ways druids and rangers could only dream of.

You could also go Berserker Path and play pic related especially if you dip a little into monk

Had a friend who played a Warforged Barbarian who fluffed his rage as going into a battle formation with metal plates shifting around to better protect himself. That was pretty cool.

No abs but a nice taught tummy with huge tits and thick thighs that could crush my head

Culture is nothing but fluff. The abilities and class features are what matter, and those can be fluffed in many ways that make sense.

what do i call the shirtless hulking adonis, who wields a great axe, and can withstand the bitter cold and arrows using only his abs, but is also an accountant?

Greg

Just make him a great weapon warrior who fights without the need for armor.

> Unarmored Defense fluffed as mystical wards woven into his skin
> Rage is his sacred sword-dance, which involves intense focus and an almost supernatural resistance to damage
> He needs no armor, for his sword is his armor
> Danger Sense is his mystical spidey sense
> Reckless Attack is the signature quivering palm attack, but with a sword

You're not Fighty McShoutsalot. You're Samurai Jack.

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Daily reminder that Conan isn't playable in Dungeons and Dragons, unless perhaps you roll extremely high stats. His physical attributes should all be near 20 and his mental attributes all probably at 14 or above.

Approaching barbarians as a class is your first mistake.

Zodd is a duelist if I have ever seen one

>Greg the Barbarian
>File in triplicate, or to Hell with you!

Man, too many of my barbarian pictures are topless women.

I know its bait, but your image...
>Male barbarian, 250lb towering stack of muscle. Beef for days
>Female barbarian, 100lb maybe with oversized tits and no definition to speak of
Come on user, if you're going to give us a female barbarian, at least make her look like she can swing an ax

CONAN THE LIBRARIAN!
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Barbarians are survivalists.
they need to have keen senses and wit enough to spot patterns.
Tracking, woodcraft, orienteering, all of these are very above the neck pursuits.

Also remember barbarians are "idiots" in social situations only because they typically do not know or care to know the customs of the civilized world.
What they are good at in social circumstances is reading people's posture, tone, facial tics, mood, stress levels, etc.
All of these things are immensely useful when dealing with people in hard living circumstances or in the wild.

>My Skyrim character joins the mages college

Poor Garruk got turned into another axe-wielding idiot.

well, only recently did he he learn to walk and talk

Conan was a pretty clever dude in the books.

Read conan the barbarian.

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Nope, it's just a class.

>roll player detected

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Become rounin. Enter zen in battle.

I got both references here.

Accountant/clerk who gets sick of all the petty shit in his life and spergs out, kills his boss, burns down the office, and fucks off into the woods

These are not barbarians, these are sloots.

These are barbarians.

Play as a normal person who just happens to know more about wilderness than about city manners. You know what? Play your barbarian as Bear Gylls.

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Those sloots are Dex-based barbarians, shitlord. Check your Stat privilege.

It's not bait, it's playing to a fetish. Like your musclegirls...I mean "real" female barbarians.

Barbarians are just people who violate social norms, like migrants, invaders and merchants from distant countries. Give them a handful of skills that seem unusual, give them a handful of moral deviancies from the in-power ingroup and bam, you've got barbarians who aren't 18/00 STR 6 Int meat shields.

Just make him a non-roman wizard.

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He's a particularly stupid and entitled 3rd son of a local noble. He believes himself destined for great things but in reality he's just a dumb brat who spurned the aristocratic grace and learnin' and put all his meager skills into fencing and dueling.

He wasn't particularly good at following the formal rules of the duel, either, but strong and vicious enough to generate an air of intimidation.

His family keeps him at a distance, practically disowned in all but name only. His skills and apparent inability to function in proper society naturally leads him to adventuring lifestyle.

You know how to survive in the wilderness without the trappings of modern technology or civil society. You don't go to the well for water, you collect rainwater or travel the rivers for your needs.

Isn't that more ranger than anything?

I don't see the problem here.

First of all, you don't have to play it as an idiot.

You're playing a guy who's really good at smashing stuff, but the class itself leaves a lot for you to fill up. Maybe the rage is a battle trance, maybe you're channeling something or someone. Maybe you instinctively always knew how to fight, like muscle memory that fighters take years to master.

Think of the barbarian as a sorcerer and the fighter as a wizard, if it's useful.

I've played a barbarian recently. He was son to the leader of a mercenary band. Growing up and training, he never learnt the proper forms and stances as other people in the band, but he always managed to kick people's ass during sparing. As it turns out, his mother had the blood of the old kings, a warriors' blood. Eventually, he got into the actual family business, always finding gaps in enemy battle formations, jumping in and disrupting whole units.

Then he left for adventuring, because he wanted to diversify his experience out of the band before inheriting it from his father.

Had a lot of fun.

You play a person with a life and desires but who gets really violent sometimes.

Technically that was the roman stereotype of barbarian women. Big tittied breeders who did more screaming in the bedroom than on the battlefield.

Like Conan, but ironically only an extremely lucky character will ever roll the stats needed to play his build.

energy equal smash times cunts squared!

Don't make him an idiot?

The criteria for being a barbarians is being angry and smashing stuff in combat.

Other than that you are free to make whatever character you want. Logan Ninefingers from The First Law trilogy comes to mind; he is a renowned berserker but he struggles with his own destructive tendencies and is trying to be a better person. He isn't dumb, he just gets angry and kills everyone.

Fuck, that's some good art.

Exactly as I pictured him looking.

Conan has official D&D stats.

My current character is an intelligent batbarian

We have to distinguish between barbarian as fluff or background and barbarian as a class mechanic (usually rage/tanking/survival).

A barbarian tribe member can easily be a rogue or fighter or even a shaman.

Barbarian mechanics can be applied to any character with a bit of story. A veteran with a temper, a guy with a multiple personality disorder, girl posessed by a demon, etc. That means you have to lose the loincloth of course.

Great pic of Logen

look up wulfgar

/thread

>Like your musclegirls...I mean "real" female barbarians.
If someone is going to be swinging around a heavy object, fighting, climbing, hunting, running, and generally living hard they are going to be pretty well built.

Not being fetishistic, just following a simple train of logic

Bear hat is dual wielding daggers so I think she is more likely to be dex based and a ranger than a barbarian and sloot number one looks like she's got some muscle on her arms even if her face looks a little too well made up.

Either/or on the abs/tummy for me
But yes, tits and bone crushing thighs are mandatory

I don't see the issue

On a more serious note, I could buy a barbarian woman going topless in most games/fantasy settings, though it probably should cause issues in character (and depending on group out of character)

I do wish more female "barbarians" looked like that

This, barbarian =/= stupid
Just uneducated/ignorant of social norms

>These are not barbarians, these are sloots.
As others have noted they could be going for a non-STR build
Still should have more muscle definition though

I do kinda wish the class was named something like berserker instead, would be easier to separate barbarian the class from barbarian cultures

Agreed, don't forget her being really tall too

read "The last castle" dota2 comic, its a good example on how to do it.

A warrior poet who is very emotional about everything. When he gets sad, he is a meloncholy peice of shit. When he getsz happy, it quickly becomes annoying how chipper he is.

And when he gets mad, holy fuck does he get mad.

>Tracking, woodcraft, orienteering, all of these are very above the neck pursuits.
This is a ranger though
>What they are good at in social circumstances is reading people's posture, tone, facial tics, mood, stress levels, etc.
Barbs have shit wis/insight too though

By being the only motherfucker with a shred of survival skills and common sense. In my current game, somehow--despite having a Cleric and a Wizard--my Barbarian was the only one who thought "hey this guy has tricked us with illusions before, we should check for some"

Of course, being a Barbarian, I had no way of doing that, and nobody listened to me, so it didn't get done. Surprise surprise, it was an illusion and we fell for the trap, again, hook line and sinker.

both need it

barbarians and rangers are both people who go into the wildness and survive

a barbarian tribe would have rangers, shamans, and bards not just barbarians even if they take a few levels in barbarian

I do. I need some beefy boys

>official
What do you mean official?

Dex-based barbarians do not work in a single way in 5e

Wouldn't those said barbarians then rely on their rangers to do ranger things instead of doing it themselves?

And I want me some beefy ladies

>How do I make a barbarian that isn't just an idiot who smashes stuff?
Actually ground them as a reasonable member of a seminomadic, non-agrarian culture. Such peoples that the world would call barbarians have their philosophers and warrior-poets. Play the character as someone who thinks deep thoughts, even if their thought on combat happens to be "When it comes to weapons, size DOES matter"

You're right. Not enough of them are *completely* naked women.

And those stats are unachievable by a player without ridiculously good rolls.

>What do you mean official?
Published by TSR with permission from the owners of the Conan IP.

Consider their culture. Barbarians weren't savages, they were just different.

Martial prowess may be important, but it also might not necessarily be that way. They are people with facets of their personality that may not be apparent at first glance. How do their tribes interact with other tribes and/or civilizations around them? Who do they worship? Are certain behaviors taboo? Do they barter or use currency?

After figuring out how the tribe behaves you can focus on how the character behaves within the constraints of that tribe, and whether or not they are steadfast in following the rules and laws set forth by that culture, or if they go against the grain.

tl;dr - A barbarian is a character, the same as any other. It won't be an idiot who smashes things if you are willing to put thought into it.

>Completely naked
They're not naked, they're wearing body paint

Didn't the early editions assume you'd go through PCs until you got one half decent

Anti-magic specialist, literally too stupid to be affected by int based spells, is only really good in a fight using improvised weapons (that smash as they use them as weapons) and big choppas that accidentally smash stuff due to being big and choppy.

OK post naked barbarian females.
I need it as GM for NPCs in my next campaign, unironically.

What? If anything Serpico or Griffith would be

It can be done

Don't RP an idiot?
8 INT isn't retard level, the only time you can play GROGNARD SMASH is when you are a Half-Orc or Orc without putting points in INT.

Old Soldier too tired for this world's bullshit, smash people, ask question never. Basically fantasy Dirty Harry.

>Mfw this thread

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