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Milo v3
2015-09-15, 09:28 PM
Berserkr - Barbarian Archetype
Weapon and Armour Proficiency: A berserkr is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, and all natural attacks (claw, bite, and so forth) of any form they assume with berserk (see below). Berserkr are proficient with light and medium armour but are prohibited from wearing metal armour; thus, they may wear only padded, leather, or hide armour. A berserkr may also wear wooden armour that has been altered by the ironwood spell so that it functions as though it were steel.

Berserkr are proficient with shields (except tower shields) but must use only those crafted from wood. This alters and modifiers weapon and armour proficiencies.

Berserk (Su): A berserkr can call upon inner reserves of strength and ferocity, to become a true beast themselves. Starting at 1st level, a berserkr can berserk for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + her Constitution modifier. At each level after 1st, she can berserk for 2 additional rounds. Temporary increases to Constitution, such as those gained from rage and spells like bear's endurance, do not increase the total number of rounds that a berserkr can berserk per day. A berserkr can enter berserker as a free action. The total number of rounds of berserk per day is renewed after resting for 8 hours, although these hours do not need to be consecutive.

While in berserk, a berserkr gains the benefits of beast shape II. While in berserk, a berserkr cannot use any Intelligence-based skills and loses her ability to speak while in animal form because she is limited to the sounds that a normal, untrained animal can make, but she can communicate normally with other animals of the same general grouping as her new form. (The normal sound a wild parrot makes is a squawk, so changing to this form does not permit speech.)

A berserkr can end her berserk as a free action and is fatigued after berserk for a number of rounds equal to the number of rounds spent in the berserk. A berserkr cannot enter a new berserk while fatigued or exhausted but can otherwise enter berserk multiple times during a single encounter or combat. If a berserkr falls unconscious, her berserk immediately ends.

Berserk replaces and counts as the rage class feature for the purpose of feat prerequisites, feat abilities, magic item abilities, and spell effects.

Greater Berserk (Su): At 11th level, when you berserk it functions as beast shape III. This replaces greater rage.

Mighty Berserk (Ex): At 20th level, when you berserk it functions as beast shape IV. This replaces mighty rage.

Aergoth
2015-09-16, 01:06 PM
I like it, but it feels like it would be more interesting as a full hybrid base class between the druid and the barbarian, rather than as an archetype, would you mind if I took a stab at that?

Milo v3
2015-09-16, 07:05 PM
I like it, but it feels like it would be more interesting as a full hybrid base class between the druid and the barbarian, rather than as an archetype, would you mind if I took a stab at that?

I was originally going to make it as a hybrid class, but I quickly realized that there would be nearly no point since I mainly just wanted a shapechanging warrior, and that adding other things like spells would just annoy me. But your perfectly fine with making your own of course.

Ethereal Gears
2015-09-18, 02:47 AM
Simple but effective, I like it! Can never have too many spell-less full BAB shapeshifters! The only thing I might note is possibly you should start off by giving them beast shape I, upgrading it to beast shape II around level 5 or so? It just seems more elegant to me for some reason. It might not be balance issue.
Cheers,
- Gears

Milo v3
2015-09-18, 02:51 AM
Simple but effective, I like it! Can never have too many spell-less full BAB shapeshifters! The only thing I might note is possibly you should start off by giving them beast shape I, upgrading it to beast shape II around level 5 or so? It just seems more elegant to me for some reason. It might not be balance issue.
Cheers,
- Gears

The reason I started it as beast shape II is because beastshape I is much weaker than rage, only buffing your strength or dex by +2 rather than strength and constitution. Also, it gives the class more utility at lower levels.

upho
2015-09-18, 05:49 AM
This is pretty damn awesome! Simple, effective and most importantly provides the barb with tons of both flavorful and useful options that doesn't necessarily force the class into focusing purely on damage in order to be viable. My only doubt is whether the progression is fast enough. For example, a bloodrager with the arcane bloodline gets beast shape IV at 16th (on top of rage) for the price of 2 rage powers, without feeling OP even though arcane is arguably the strongest of the current bloodrager bloodlines.

Anyhow, this is perfect for a group of NPCs I'm about to put together for my current (heavily tweaked) RotRL campaign in a setting largely based on Scandinavian mythology. I'll give you some playtest feedback as soon as possible!

Ethereal Gears
2015-09-18, 07:13 AM
I would argue that beast shape I provides a lot of other benefits beside just stat boosts, as compared to normal raging, but as I said, it's probably not OP. The short total duration of rage does sadly lock this archetype out of taking advantage of a lot of beast shape's utility potential. I think the archetype is totally fine as is, but one other idea would be to make the beast shape effects last, say, 1 minute per class level and be usable 1/2 level + Con mod or something like that times per day. This may have wonky interactions with some rage powers though and require too much reworking. Just a random musing. Either way I like the archetype! :)

Draco.v9
2015-09-18, 07:42 AM
Love the flavour and spells would be clunky with it so no hybrid is good, but I agree about the later level beastshape stuff, it maybe a bit weaker.

Ethereal Gears
2015-09-18, 08:12 AM
Oh, right. I would also like to chime in regarding the beast shape progression. My suggestion would be beast shape I at 1st level, beast shape II at 4th level, beast shape III at 10th level and beastshape IV at 16th level. If even this seems to slow, I don't think I at 1st, II at 4th, III at 8th and IV at 12th would be too crazy, but I tend to err on the side of liking things a bit too OP, so don't quote me on that last progression.

Milo v3
2015-09-18, 08:32 AM
One issue with speeding up the progression is that a new capstone will be needed.

upho
2015-09-18, 11:01 AM
Well, a new capstone shouldn't be too hard. If we really wanna keep it simple, how 'bout simply:

Mighty Berserk: At 20th level, when you berserk, you can grow one size category larger, up to a maximum of Huge size. If you do, you also gain a +4 bonus to Strength and Constitution, and your natural armor bonus increases by an additional +4. You also gain a +1 bonus to CMB and CMD, and your natural reach increases by +5 feet. You do not take any penalties to Dexterity or skill checks due to this size increase.

Boring but functional. Another simple idea would be to go form of the dragon III (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/form-of-the-dragon-i). Which would also match pretty well with the fastest progression Ethereal Gears suggested, meaning: BS I at 1st, BS II at 4th, BS III at 8th, BS IV at 12th, FotD II at 16th, and FotD III at 20th.

Ethereal Gears
2015-09-18, 11:24 AM
I wonder what it is with Swedes and wanting people to turn into giant monsters faster than on average? It must be all the death metal in the ground water.

Anyway, the FotD idea could work, potentially. I think I prefer the size one; maybe let them become Gargantuan as well if they like (impractical in a lot of dungeons, but MOAR BIGGER feels very barbarian), since BS IV already allows for Huge size (albeit only for animals).

upho
2015-09-18, 01:48 PM
I wonder what it is with Swedes and wanting people to turn into giant monsters faster than on average? It must be all the death metal in the ground water.Well, it's mostly because of the loud growling water issue, but also because of all the damn big angry wolves and bears running around biting people during full moon nights (hence "berserk" which can be loosely translated into "in bear's clothing"). And once bitten, you just wanna join a pack to howl and growl loud songs about death and monsters. Corpse paint, too much eyeliner and spikes is optional (I personally prefer my fur "au naturelle", though I do pimp myself up with a nice spiked collar on special occasions).

Ah well, at least we don't have that oily black metal water issue those diabolical Norwegians struggle with...

:smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Såg precis att jag totalt missat att du finns i samma stad som jag själv! Kul! /EDIT


Anyway, the FotD idea could work, potentially. I think I prefer the size one; maybe let them become Gargantuan as well if they like (impractical in a lot of dungeons, but MOAR BIGGER feels very barbarian), since BS IV already allows for Huge size (albeit only for animals).Ah, you're right, forgot about the animal version. Gargantuan it should be then. And I think I like the size thing better than FotD as well, since FoTD drastically limits your options to which of the ten available colors/hues you'd prefer on your scales when going "mad weredragon". But FotD also really gives a pretty massive pile of candy:

You gain the following abilities: a +10 size bonus to Strength, a +8 size bonus to Constitution, a +8 natural armor bonus, fly 120 feet (poor), blindsense 60 feet, darkvision 120 feet, a breath weapon, damage reduction 10/magic, frightful presence (DC equal to the DC for this spell), and immunity to one element (of the same type form of the dragon I grants resistance to). You also gain one bite (2d8), two claws (2d6), two wing attacks (1d8), and one tail slap attack (2d6). You can use the breath weapon as often as you like, but you must wait 1d4 rounds between uses. All breath weapons deal 12d8 points of damage and allow a Reflex save for half damage. Line breath weapons increase to 100-foot lines and cones increase to 50-foot cones.

The stat boosts are the same as our pimped out huge/gargantuan BS IV, but it can't provide an option with anything near the above breath weapon, or an option having as much offensive power combined with all those flashy senses and even one type of energy immunity. Not that I think any of that is actually necessary, but more of a mechanical point to consider (perhaps along with the fact that the sorcerer got FotD III at 16th and could use it for at least 640 rounds/day even at that level).