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View Full Version : How to Play a... Badass Barbarian



jebob
2011-01-07, 12:25 PM
Okay, the point of this short series is to discuss how to play characters as if they were powerful. We're not talking how to get d12+8 damage at level 1, we're talking how to make it feel like enough damage to cut through two or three civilians.

I'm not looking for builds or munchkinery, but for advice on how to be an epic hero that the group will remember. Tips, well-built personalities and stories are appreciated.

So first up, how do I play a Badass Barbarian

Some examples: -If you use rage or a beserker ability, acompany it with a simple warcry. The 'Ooh-rah!' from the Marine Corps will do nicely.

-Be like Conan

-You don't have to act retarded if you have a below-par intelligence. Act retarded if your character is retarded, and if so you probably shouldn't be adventuring anyway.

Over to you, playgrounders!

Greenish
2011-01-07, 12:28 PM
-Be like ConanConan was a rogue/warblade. :smalltongue:

Now, if you want to be bigger than life, it's a good idea to have a look at other hams (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LargeHam).

The Gilded Duke
2011-01-07, 12:45 PM
At one point in a game I was in our barbarian got teleported to the bottom of a volcanic caldera without any fire resistance or a swim speed. He was in there for a total of 10 rounds and was finally rescued by an astral construct. When he came out everyone was surprised he had survived. His reply? "Oh, it only got me to half health."

It turns out he had miscalculated and forgot to include his bonus hp from raging. He didn't even get to 60 percent.

Myth
2011-01-07, 12:58 PM
Use Intimidating Rage to make them wet their pants. Get a Mighty Cleaving Glaive and go to town. There's not really much to the roleplaying of an illiterate class who has Int for a dump stat.

The most I'd draw from my selected background and the setting - shamanism, the patriarchal responsibilities of the tribe/clan, spirits of the ancestors, the gods, the closer ties with nature and superstition etc.

hamishspence
2011-01-07, 01:03 PM
Dragon magazine had a few "urban barbarian" archetypes- the "living weapon" the "violent inmate" the "tantrum-throwing aristocrat" and so on.

So- while illiteracy and Rage are built into the class- they can be handled in unusual ways.

Keld Denar
2011-01-07, 01:03 PM
Have a Cha of 15+.

Take the feats:
Intimidating Rage (CWarrior)
Immediate Rage (CWarrior)
Imperious Command (Drow of the Underdark)

Now, wait until someone declares that they are gonna do something you don't like. Jump up, flex your muscles and go OHHHH NOOOOO!!!! and enter a barbarian rage as an immediate action. Due to that rage, make a free Intimdate check against people who see you. If you succeed, those people are forced to cower for 1 round, effectively canceling their turn. Since everyone else is cowering, its now your turn again.

Congratulations. You are a Barbarian who just cast Celerity. Except you didn't cast anything, you just made everyone wet themselves.

OHHHHHH YEAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bang!
2011-01-07, 01:05 PM
Yell a lot.
Throw things.

loopy
2011-01-07, 01:06 PM
URGGZOB IS LIKE A SMALL COUNTRY WHOSE PRIMARY EXPORTS ARE PAIN AND CRUSHING!!! (http://lparchive.org/Icewind-Dale-2/Update%202/)

(Poly-sci was Urgzobb's minor in crushing college)

Play a barbarian like him and you can't go wrong. :smallsmile:

jebob
2011-01-07, 01:07 PM
Now, if you want to be bigger than life, it's a good idea to have a look at other hams (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LargeHam).
Heh, Ham-to-Ham combat:smallsmile:

The spiritual side of barbarians is something I hadn't considered. Here's an idea, the clan worships the god of terror who keeps the clan under his thumb. This partially explains the backward development and leans itself towards intimidating rage.

hamishspence
2011-01-07, 01:09 PM
Maybe use some of the description for Cú Chulainn's warp spasm?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cú_Chulainn

it may be one of the inspirations for the barbarian class, anyway.

Though Frenzied Berzerker rather than plain barbarian, may be closer.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2011-01-07, 01:10 PM
At one point in a game I was in our barbarian got teleported to the bottom of a volcanic caldera without any fire resistance or a swim speed. He was in there for a total of 10 rounds and was finally rescued by an astral construct. When he came out everyone was surprised he had survived. His reply? "Oh, it only got me to half health."

It turns out he had miscalculated and forgot to include his bonus hp from raging. He didn't even get to 60 percent.

200d6 unmitigated fire damage (20d6 per round for total immersion) doesn't even get him to half health? Given the average of 700 damage from that duration, I find that incredibly hard to believe. The maximum number of hit points a 40 Constitution, 20th level Barbarian could have is 840 (920 while raging), and that assumes maximum rolls on every die (and a 40 Constitution, which is impressive in it's own right, and requires heavy item and template hi-jinks).

Anyway...


Back on Topic


There's not really much to the roleplaying of an illiterate class who has Int for a dump stat.

Quite the contrary, my dear Myth! There's ever so much you can do.

That being said, I personally find things like battle-cries and Conan to be rather cliche, and overly expected. They're fine in their place, but they lend a more comic feel to the Barbarian, and what we're after, as per the thread title, is a Badass Barbarian, not a cheesy movie character.

First off, I recommend saving your Rage for when it really means something. Yeah, you might not get that +2 bonus to hit for the first several attacks, but a Barbarian who is always angry is usually comical, whereas a Barbarian who saves his anger for the moment when it's most needed isn't. Role-play the slow-building fury when, for instance, the monster sends your friend flying across the room with a swipe of it's claws. Break out the rage, and charge into it as an unstoppable juggernaut that gains momentum with every step, reaching the beast as your beserker rage reaches its peak. This isn't the all-destroying chaotic rage of the traditional Barbarian, but a focused, destructive fury that is all the more frightening for it's serious nature.

Remember that rage isn't just anger. Again, constant anger is more funny than it is badass. It can be a calm, composed, almost zen-like state where you forget yourself in the systematic destruction of your foe, a feral bloodlust, an inner reserve of strength...you can fluff it in any way you wish. Some Barbarians are normal warrior, perhaps driven into their rage when a friend or loved one is in danger, or when their home is threatened. Figure out what makes you rage, and make the ability matter when you do so. Proper use of the ability and proper role-play of the ability will go a long way to making a badass and memorable Barbarian.

I'd write more, but I have to go grocery shopping now. Alas. Anyway, I may contribute a bit more later.

Keld Denar
2011-01-07, 01:15 PM
How does that line go?

"Grog know how to behave in city. Loot, pillage, and burn it down on your way out. Like villiage, only takes longer."

Myth
2011-01-07, 01:16 PM
Have a Cha of 15+.

Take the feats:
Intimidating Rage (CWarrior)
Immediate Rage (CWarrior)
Imperious Command (Drow of the Underdark)

Now, wait until someone declares that they are gonna do something you don't like. Jump up, flex your muscles and go OHHHH NOOOOO!!!! and enter a barbarian rage as an immediate action. Due to that rage, make a free Intimdate check against people who see you. If you succeed, those people are forced to cower for 1 round, effectively canceling their turn. Since everyone else is cowering, its now your turn again.

Congratulations. You are a Barbarian who just cast Celerity. Except you didn't cast anything, you just made everyone wet themselves.

OHHHHHH YEAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since Intimidating Rage is a prerequisite for Frenzied Berzerker just willingly enter Frenzy afterward and slaughter the whole tavern! (this is happening in a tavern right? Everything happens in a tavern!)

Toliudar
2011-01-07, 01:19 PM
If this is for a tabletop game, cultivating a loud voice and distinctive speech patterns (not necessarily stupid: think of The Rock) at the table helps a great deal.

Unless you want a dark, brooding bottle of violence who says little and then crushes the skull of the stableman who talks back to him. In those cases, stillness and a less-is-more approach to communications can be very helpful.

hamishspence
2011-01-07, 01:21 PM
R. E. Howard style Conan is positively eloquent- when not cleaving enemies in half.

Crow
2011-01-07, 01:25 PM
If you want to play a badass barbarian, pretty much just talk and act like Macho Man Randy Savage, ALL THE TIME.

jebob
2011-01-07, 01:27 PM
First off, I recommend saving your Rage for when it really means something...

+1. I saw a system where barbarians had to be hit to enter a rage, but I think the player should have some narrative control here. Of course, the GM should probably allow stupid, brave or unwary enemies to taunt the barbarian for the lulz.

Keld Denar
2011-01-07, 01:28 PM
If you want to play a badass barbarian, pretty much just talk and act like Macho Man Randy Savage, ALL THE TIME.


OHHHH NOOOOO!!!!
<snip>
OHHHHHH YEAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

You were saying? Or am I channeling the Kool-aide man too much?

Crow
2011-01-07, 01:37 PM
You were saying? Or am I channeling the Kool-aide man too much?

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were using Macho Man, I did think you were talking about Kool-aid man...which could in itself work well now that I think of it. =)

Interesting side note; I had a job where we would attempt to penetrate secure facilities, and often times this meant going straight through their access facilities. Some of these places would have handicapped doors to allow people through that used wheelchairs.

One of things we would always do is in the planning stage, if it was determined that the door had a large enough plexiglass insert, we would plan on shooting out the plexiglass and smashing through because it was always quicker than explosive breaching, or even using fabricated keys.

Eventually, this became known as Kool-aid manning through the door. At some point, any reference to this tactic came to be immediately followed by an "Oh yeeah".

So when we'd do our pre-mission walk-throughs, it would sound like this;

"Ok, so after the search officer is down, I'm going to Kool-aid man through this door and-"

"Oh Yeeeeeaaaaah!"

*CO glares unapprovingly*

hamishspence
2011-01-07, 01:45 PM
Conan's account of why he wants to take ship, is a pretty good window into the "barbarian mindset"- honor first, respect for the law a distant second.

Well, last night in a tavern, a captain in the king's guard offered violence to the sweetheart of a young soldier, who naturally ran him through. But it seems there is some cursed law against killing guardsmen, and the boy and his girl fled away. It was bruited about that I was seen with them, and so today I was haled into court, and a judge asked me where the lad had gone. I replied that since he was a friend of mine, I could not betray him. Then the court waxed wroth, and the judge talked a great deal about my duty to the state, and society, and other things I did not understand, and bade me tell where my friend had flown.
By this time I was becoming wrathful myself, for I had explained my position. But I choked my ire and held my peace, and the judge squalled that I had shown contempt for the court, and that I should be hurled into a dungeon to rot until I betrayed my friend. So then, seeing they were all mad, I drew my sword and cleft the judge's skull; then I cut my way out of the court, and seeing the high constable's stallion tied near by, I rode for the wharfs, where I thought to find a ship bound for foreign parts.


R. E. Howard's Queen of the Black Coast

Tvtyrant
2011-01-07, 01:45 PM
...Pouncing super charger raging bear form time?

Keld Denar
2011-01-07, 02:07 PM
"Ok, so after the search officer is down, I'm going to Kool-aid man through this door and-"

I approve of your use of "Kool-aid man" as a verb.

Also, I'm a mechanical engineer, can you get me a job there? :smallcool:

Urpriest
2011-01-07, 02:11 PM
Have a Cha of 15+.

Take the feats:
Intimidating Rage (CWarrior)
Immediate Rage (CWarrior)
Imperious Command (Drow of the Underdark)

Now, wait until someone declares that they are gonna do something you don't like. Jump up, flex your muscles and go OHHHH NOOOOO!!!! and enter a barbarian rage as an immediate action. Due to that rage, make a free Intimdate check against people who see you. If you succeed, those people are forced to cower for 1 round, effectively canceling their turn. Since everyone else is cowering, its now your turn again.

Congratulations. You are a Barbarian who just cast Celerity. Except you didn't cast anything, you just made everyone wet themselves.

OHHHHHH YEAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've looked into this recently, and unless I'm missing something it's actually even better than Celerity. Instantaneous Rage isn't an Immediate Action, it's a Free Action that you can explicitly perform when surprised and in response to another's action. If a mage casts Celerity, you just yell "PUNY MAGE!" and you get to act first.

DeltaEmil
2011-01-07, 02:16 PM
Get Iron Heart Surge and end the sun like a badass barbarian can do. Then, end the apocalyptic winter that would wreck the world when the sun ceases to exist. After that, end the gods and mighty Pun-Pun who would try to stop you from ending anything you want as is your right as a badass barbarian.

Funny-ness aside, seriously, try to get some warblade maneuvers, either with feats or a few warblade-dips.

Keld Denar
2011-01-07, 02:20 PM
Unlike Celerity, its not a garuntee. The DC for Intimidate is HD based, which for some creatures can lead to some REALLY high DCs for their CR, and Intimating is [Fear] and [Mind-Affecting], meaning it doesn't work on everyone or everything.

Waker
2011-01-07, 02:26 PM
Remember that rage isn't just anger. Again, constant anger is more funny than it is badass. It can be a calm, composed, almost zen-like state where you forget yourself in the systematic destruction of your foe, a feral bloodlust, an inner reserve of strength...you can fluff it in any way you wish.
I've only played a Barbarian once, but he was such a larger than life hero that even years later, he is still remembered by my friends. Rather than falling into a drooling, screaming rage like many barbarians, he would become completely silent and focus all his intent on killing. In-game, the characters knew I was enraged by looking at my eyes.

Dienekes
2011-01-07, 02:43 PM
Tips on playing a Badass Barbarian. Not mechanical tricks, those seem covered:

1) Go watch The Black Adder, pay close attention to King Richard IV
1a) Just watch anything with BRIAN BLESSED really.
2) Remember, as a barbarian you are the pinnacle of manliness, act like it.
3) Speling is fer whimmps
4) Mix up your battle cries. Sure you may have the best one ever, but even that grows stale after awhile.
5) Real barbarians are not just defined by the adventures they're currently on, but all the adventures they were on before this, and before they even met their adventuring party.
6) Tell people you meet these stories, surely they will be inspired by your manliness. In fact, embellish a little, it's not like they'll know, you only killed 2 kobolds by accident instead of an entire tribe bent on dominating an entire continent with a magical artifact of doom.
7) You must never introduce yourself without adding at least 3 new titles to your name. Some examples: the Mead King, Breaker of Mountains, Thunderfist, and Husband to Bears (best not to explain this one)
8) Real barbarians always have a plan prepared for every encounter and every situation. Admittedly it is normally charge then power attack.
9) An intelligent barbarian knows how to be sneaky and subtle, he just realizes that it's far more fun to bash somethings brains in.
10) You get the girl. Always. No exceptions.

Follow this simple guide and you're sure to make a badass and memorable barbarian.

Myth
2011-01-07, 02:49 PM
I've looked into this recently, and unless I'm missing something it's actually even better than Celerity. Instantaneous Rage isn't an Immediate Action, it's a Free Action that you can explicitly perform when surprised and in response to another's action. If a mage casts Celerity, you just yell "PUNY MAGE!" and you get to act first.

Mind Blank says no.

Prime32
2011-01-07, 03:47 PM
You could always treat your rage like a Superpowered Evil Side (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperpoweredEvilSide) which affects your personality.

AyeGill
2011-01-07, 03:59 PM
act like the Renegade Sheperd in Mass Effect 2. You will be an automatically guaranteed badass.

VirOath
2011-01-07, 04:02 PM
Read Being Bane: Eldariel’s Guide to Barbarians (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105525)

Seriously, it is a guide, but the guide has a lot of fun character concepts inside of it and some fantastic quotes.

Sipex
2011-01-07, 04:14 PM
Playing a badass barbarian? Try a few things PCs tend not to try.

1) Throw enemies into pits and describe it as "I pick up the puny kobold, swing it above my head and plunge it into the pit below!"

2) Break through things when the time is right. Not everything, breaking through everything is comical (and a bit annoying) but it's incredibly bad ass if you break the door down to initiate combat (or, if you're strong enough, bust through the wall).

3) Grapple and subdue something larger than you if possible. Obviously there are limits due to size.

4) When battling large monsters, try mounting them and battling them. "I leap on the beast's back and plunge my axe into it!" for example. I'm not keen on 3.5 rules so you'll need to check with your DM here and use real world int so you don't provoke OAs unnessecarily.

5) Beat enemies with your bare hands if the risk is low enough or pieces of furniture works too.

Myth
2011-01-07, 06:34 PM
Or just watch this cartoon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_t605Th-QI). Warning - it's explicit.

Doughnut Master
2011-01-07, 06:44 PM
Take a dip in monk and rip people apart with your bare hands.


Also, use Turbopuns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs

Dr.Epic
2011-01-07, 06:53 PM
How to be a bad ass barbarian:

-step one: be a barbarian

-step two: ???

-step three: profit

FMArthur
2011-01-07, 07:03 PM
Any character with Rage, high single attack damage, durability, or any other way to demonstrate physical might used by a roleplayer with more than 6 charisma is capable of being a fully-functional badass barbarian.