What is the line between a fighter and a babrarian? What class is Achilles?

[Rfkannen]

Earlier I saw someone stated out Achilles as a fighter and I was kind of shocked, as I had always thought of him as a barbarian, considering his main personality trait is his raw unbridled rage (the illiad litterally starts by talking about how rage filled Achilles is). Like a lot of the things Achilles does in the illiad are things I would expect a barbarian to do, the whole tent thing, the whole massacre, his pettiness, pretty barbariany.

But the more I thought about it, the more fighter made sense. After all, barbarian literally means not greek and Achilles was most certainly greek, if I remember right (It has been a fair while since I have read the illiad) he was properly trained in modern combat, he was a general in an army (i think?) had followers. All pretty darn fightery things. In the end I am really not sure which class suits Achilles better.


So that got me thinking, what is the defining aspect of the barbarian class? Is it someone who is super angry? Is it someone who is primal and fights through untrained brute strength? Is achilles a fighter or a barbarian?

That also got me thinking about other mythical characters. Is Hercules a barbarian or a fighter? What about Thor?

What do you think?

[Tanarii]

Not having ever read the Iliad (I know I'm a heathen) and having only watched the movie Troy, I view him as a champion with dueling and defense fighting styles, high Str and Dex because medium armor is the best you get in the era, and the erratad PAM with a preference for the spear. But he'd work as a Str/Dex/Con barbarian with PAM just fine too.

As far as a Barbarian goes, their 5e defining traits are being able to take lots of hit (rage resist), Reckless Attack (hit a lot but get hit a lot), not wearing heavy armor, and a propensity towards using heavy weapons without too many tricks (feats or features) up their sleeves.

5e fighters are, barring archers, typified by wearing heavy armors, and being one of pretty much any style specialists with lots of tricks (feats and features) up their sleeves.

The line blurs when you make a Str/Dex spear PAM warrior in lighter armor though. I think that works as either.

Edit: Hercules was definitely a 5e Barbarian. Thor I'd do with a Tempest Cleric.

[Falconcry]

Thor was a tall dwarf Storm Herald. (His thrower came back to him.)

[heavyfuel]

I agree with Tanarii. Having only seen the movie, I'd say Achiles is definitely a Fighter.

I'd also argue that being filled with rage does not make one a Barbarian. Pretty much any character with emotions (such as every Human character) can get enraged despite not having class features to give mechanical benefits to said rage.

As a matter of fact, the Rage feature isn't very present in media outside of D&D examples.

[Morty]

You've arrived at the reason why the barbarian class is kind of a mess. Its entire identity is "fighter, but gets really angry before hitting things", but it's wrapped in some flavor text about civilization, barbarism and animal instincts to make it seem like there's more to it.

[Dienekes]

It's a false dichotomy really. Achilles was a Greek style hero. His flaw was his wrath. But he certainly knew how to fight and lead with or without it. His wrath made him fearsome, and made people so terrified of him they ran away. But even completely calm he was the greatest warrior in the entire war. But he wasn't unusually strong, at least in terms of Greek heroes goes. That honor went to Ajax (who also got angry, but his big moments of martial prowess are him being rational and defending things for the most part).

It's a bit difficult to pin characters like him into one specific class. For one, neither the Fighter or the Barbarian gives him near enough skills.

If I was trying to make him in a game, I'd probably do a Fighter/Barbarian multiclass. But recognise this is trying to put a square peg in a rectangular hole. It sorta fits, but not really.


If I was trying to define the barbarian class it would be: A character that goes into some state that makes them better warrior and either takes up their concentration or makes them lose their mind in such a way that they can do nothing else when in this state.

Hercules I think was more easily seen as a barbarian. His anger is the cause and solution to many of the problems in his stories. Though of course this is again simplifying things.

Thor is a god. He occasionally has a wrathful personality (trying to murder someone for playing a minor prank on you is taking things a bit far there). But his power comes from the fact he is a god first and foremost. He doesn't get stronger because he's angry. He isn't completely focused in some rage state, in fact he has a tendency to spit out poetry mid battle.

[Dualswinger]

If you want a proper Barbarian myth hero I'd say the Celtic hero Cu Chullaine. Overly sarcastic Productions did a wonderful video on the lad.

[Man_Over_Game]

If I had to make a fictional division between the DnD Fighter and Barbarian, I'd say the Fighter is more "goal oriented" while the Barbarian is more likely to treat strength or his opinion as his goal.

A good comparison I always imagine is Kratos (God of War) vs. Link (Legend of Zelda).

Link actively finds new means of exploration, combat, magic, anything he can get his hands on. He masters every one of them. He is successful because of hard work. There are no mistakes, as he's a perfectionist.

Kratos, however, kinda does the opposite. He gets tools and uses them HIS way. Things get in his way, and he uses them as tools. He is successful because he decides he will be, alternate opinions be damned. There are no mistakes, as anything that happens was going to happen anyway.

In a way, you could say the Barbarian is driven by his internal passion, while a Fighter is driven by an external goal.

Which better describes Achilles? My vote's on Fighter.

[Dr. Cliché]

Regarding the differences between Fighter and Barbarian, they're probably not significant enough to even warrant separate classes at this point. I'm pretty sure you could make the Barbarian a Fighter subclass without much difficulty.

[Trask]

I think you could do Achilles as a barbarian just fine. If we accept that a barbarian is a rage filled warrior who fights with raw power and less tact, Achilles and also Ajax are barbarians. I think its perfectly legitimate to play up one aspect of a class and de-emphasize another to fit your personal vision of a character. Barbarians have some spiritual, nature, wildman baggage but you dont have to play up that part, just dont pick nature themed skills and go for a berserker who focuses entirely on fighting.

[djreynolds]

A fighter...
But IMO I'd squeeze in rogue in there.

A mountain dwarf swashbuckler and short sword with the heavy armor feat.... looks like a mountain dwarf fighter with a short sword.

Achilles definitely had uncanny dodge like abilities or the mobile feat as moved on the battlefield.

I think a battlemaster swashbuckler is a good fit.

[AttilatheYeon]

Mechanically, barbarian fits a little better. Especially considering he was impervious to all weapons except at his heal.

[Man_Over_Game]

Regarding the differences between Fighter and Barbarian, they're probably not significant enough to even warrant separate classes at this point. I'm pretty sure you could make the Barbarian a Fighter subclass without much difficulty.

I mean, Samurai and Champion might as well be:
Works better with crits.
Emphasis on simplicity.
Gets extra defenses.
Expects to be at 50% HP 90% of the time.

The biggest difference is that the Fighters can be built using Dexterity and they can wear Heavy Armor.

I think that having more "broad" base classes would have been better in hindsight, but there will always be that opposition of "but that's not DnD".

[Catullus64]

Well, if you're willing to look at post-Homeric depictions of the guy, the ones in which he's actually invulnerable but for his heel, the Barbarian's damage resistance is a good representation of that.

As to the bit about "barbarian" being a dividing term between Greek-speaking, civilized people and bar-baring, uncivilized ones, I would argue that in the bronze age era when the epic is set, such a clear sense of shared ethnic identity hadn't really taken root yet. (Hell, the Iliad as a work arguably plays a pretty important role in creating that shared identity.)

If I were asked to play Achilles on the tabletop, barbarian would be my choice, primarily because it lacks heavy armor proficiency, allows you to be crazy strong on a regular basis (important for wrestling rivers), and makes you faster ("swift-footed Achilles"). But the thematic overlaps are definitely incidental to the core of the class.

[Seclora]

High level Barbarian/Oath of Heroism Paladin. Powered by the Divine, driven by rage. Achilles does not seem to have exceptionally high Constitution, but counteracts it with powerful magic armor and quasi-supernatural resistance to damage. His hits are impressively damaging(Increased Crit Range + Brutal Critical) and he inspires his allies by both his mighty deeds and his mere presence(High Charisma, Crits, Auras). He also seems to prefer thrown weapons for his ranged attack, indicating a preference toward strength over Dex.


The line between Fighters and Barbarians is this: a fighter is the wizard of martials, and a Barbarian is the Sorcerer. The fighter has trained in combat, learned to push himself to do more, react faster, and refine his technique. The barbarian figured out how to hold the weapon and then just propels it at his enemy with great malice, achieving a greater result by not spending any effort on the self-preservation the Fighter spent years learning.

[Whit]

If you want to go based on his mystic invulnerability then it’s barbarian.

But if you want the more realistic type. go with fighter battle master. Getting high ac can account as being invulnerable. Armor, shield sword and Spear. Fight style up to you. But I would go armor
Battlemaster grants skilled combat. Added def, fear , trip, so on. And added damage.
He wasn’t a brute fighter but a skilled fighter.

[warty goblin]

Really, the hardest part about Achilles in D&D is that he mostly fights with a spear and shield, which is generally a bad choice in RPGs.

If one goes by Homer, you really have to go with Fighter. Sure he gets angry, but that's a personality trait - and not arguably even a particularly dominant personality trait. He has two defining moments of rage in the Iliad: when Agamemnon insults him by confiscating Brisias, and after Hector kills Patroclus. Most people get angry when publicly humiliated by a useless and completely incompetent blowhard like Agamemnon, yet Achilles (guided by Athena to be sure, but everybody's guided by gods all the time in Homer) resists the considerable urge to fillet him like a fish. Given what you might call the high ambient gore level of Homeric society, deciding to not work for the moron anymore is a very restrained response. And while the popular perception is that he's off sulking in his tent after this, he receives the embassy quite politely and hears them out respectfully. He's really quite clear that his quarrel is with Agamemnon, because Agamemnon is a useless lout who treated him quite badly in front of the entire army.

His other major episode of anger is with Hector, who killed his best friend, stripped him naked, and tried to have his corpse fed to dogs. I feel that this would anger most people. It's not like he needs to be screamingly angry to route the Trojans - otherwise there's no point in the embassy in the first place because he isn't yet angry with them - Achilles is simply that good.

So barbarian is right out. Beyond that, Fighter is a reasonably ok fit, since he uses the heaviest armor around, is generally competent at every single weapon, and as an Achaean warrior, super athletic. That suggests Champion Fighter, with some completely insane physical stats. The guy's just a beast; he slaughters a considerable portion of an army, is half-drowned by a pissed off river god, then runs around the entire city of Troy 3 times in full combat gear. To get into some seriously dodgy historical arguments, a rough estimate from a map of Hisarlik in Troy and Homer* by Joachim Latacz suggests that the entire city of Troy had a perimeter of ~3km, although that was likely only protected by a ditch. The walled citadel was perhaps .75km in perimeter. Either way, that's rather a lot of running in some pretty substantial gear.

Equipment is problematic, because magic weapons aren't a thing in Homer, but there's clearly degrees of quality and value going on. So really you'd need an entirely different gear system. For optimal Homericness you earn bonus XP for having better (or at least flashier) gear, because killing an enemy dressed like a scrub is just embarrassing.


*At long last, I have fulfilled my life's dream of citing an obscure work of serious late Helladic III scholarship in an RPG discussion. I also have a translation of Schliemann's original excavation notes, but since he found the wrong layer, we won't use those...

[AntiAuthority]

Achilles is a good indicator that D&D characters won't fit into neat molds. He was well trained and invulnerable regardless of if he was raging or calm. So technically... Neither? He'd probably be closer to a multi-class or gestalt character that combines features from both classes into one instead of either one as described in D&D.




You've arrived at the reason why the barbarian class is kind of a mess. Its entire identity is "fighter, but gets really angry before hitting things", but it's wrapped in some flavor text about civilization, barbarism and animal instincts to make it seem like there's more to it.


Regarding the differences between Fighter and Barbarian, they're probably not significant enough to even warrant separate classes at this point. I'm pretty sure you could make the Barbarian a Fighter subclass without much difficulty.

Looking online for older editions... Yes, the distinction between Fighter and Barbarian is sort of arbitrary. The Barbarian class in older D&D editions originally started out as a kit/sub-class for the Fighter class, but sort of came to be known as its own separate class over time. So it's mostly a matter of tradition at this point as to why they're still two separate classes, as combining them would be returning the concept back to their roots.

[Tanarii]

Looking online for older editions... Yes, the distinction between Fighter and Barbarian is sort of arbitrary. The Barbarian class in older D&D editions originally started out as a kit/sub-class for the Fighter class, but sort of came to be known as its own separate class over time. So it's mostly a matter of tradition at this point as to why they're still two separate classes, as combining them would be returning the concept back to their roots.
And Monks were a subclass if the cleric. Rangers and Paladins were subclasses of the Fighter.

That mostly just meant which attack and saving throw tables you used. Everything else could be significantly different.

[AntiAuthority]

And Monks were a subclass if the cleric. Rangers and Paladins were subclasses of the Fighter.

That mostly just meant which attack and saving throw tables you used. Everything else could be significantly different.

My point was there wasn't much reason to separate "fighting man" from "angry fighting man" into separate classes beyond tradition, when they're pretty similar in terms of concept. Such as many mythological heroes having issues with their anger but also being competent/well trained fighters when not fueled by rage. Of note, Cu Chulainn and Hercules were noted as examples of Barbarians in this thread because of their problems with going into a blind rage, but by AD&D's PHB they're listed as Fighter examples. Anyone in myths or real life can get mad and start hitting harder when they're angry, it doesn't mean everyone in real life has a level of Barbarian, it just goes to show how weird the Barbarian class is. To me, Achilles falls in the same boat as the previous two heroes, in that he'd probably more closely represent some sort of multi-class or gestalt because D&D Fighters and Barbarians feel like the same class concept being broken into parts... Which might make sense since one started out as a sub-class for another one before becoming its own thing.

[Tanarii]

My point was there wasn't much reason to separate "fighting man" from "angry fighting man" into separate classes beyond tradition, when they're pretty similar in terms of concept.
Except they were "fighting man from a medieval infantry block" and "fighting man from a non-'civilized' wilderness-oriented culture". Achilles is definitely a Fighter under the original concepts. Just Greek era infantry not medieval.

-------------

Honestly early on after reading the PHB fighter subclass was named a Champion and then read it's abilities, I though "oh so it's Achilles". He's the penultimate Champion it is named after as far as I am concerned, the namesake of the class.

[Dienekes]

Except they were "fighting man from a medieval infantry block" and "fighting man from a non-'civilized' wilderness-oriented culture". Achilles is definitely a Fighter under the original concepts. Just Greek era infantry not medieval.

-------------

Honestly early on after reading the PHB fighter subclass was named a Champion and then read it's abilities, I though "oh so it's Achilles". He's the penultimate Champion it is named after as far as I am concerned, the namesake of the class.

I get your point but amusingly I don’t remember Achilles fighting in formation at all really. He either destroys formations alone or duels champions. The Iliad itself is not really interested in groups unless they are to be defeated by a hero.

Regardless, I can think of a few abilities Achilles has that aren’t modeled at all with champion. He clearly has Intimidating Presence for instance. Or more accurately an incredibly souped up version that causes madness. Has a monk’s unarmed damage die (or strength far above the bounded accuracy enough that he doesn’t need it). Movement speed of more than 60. Some ability to heal others. And if we go out of the Iliad expertise in Deception, and the monk’s deflect missiles ability. Only with boulders.

(Also Ajax has Vigilant Defender apparently, odd to think of him as a cavalier)

[Lvl45DM!]

So that got me thinking, what is the defining aspect of the barbarian class? Is it someone who is super angry? Is it someone who is primal and fights through untrained brute strength? Is achilles a fighter or a barbarian?


Fighters are trained warriors and masters of weaponry.

Barbarians are not trained, and have taken their body beyond normal limits.

A fighter is the one who splits an arrow with another arrow, the one who duels 4 or more opponents without taking a hit, who hones his blade to its sharpest edge and slices off an opponents head with a precisley timed and aimed swing, who after years of training fight for 3 days and nights without sleep.

A barbarian is the one who rips bars from solid stone, who splits his opponent in half with a random axe he snatched from a wall, who see through the wizards illusions by smelling something wrong, and who runs 3 days and nights without sleep from years of doing it to survive.

[AntiAuthority]

Except they were "fighting man from a medieval infantry block" and "fighting man from a non-'civilized' wilderness-oriented culture". Achilles is definitely a Fighter under the original concepts. Just Greek era infantry not medieval.

I'm not sure if you get my point, there's not much reason to distinguish between Fighter and Barbarian in later editions beyond traditions is what I'm getting at. I'm confused on where you stand in regards to that part of what I said.


Honestly early on after reading the PHB fighter subclass was named a Champion and then read it's abilities, I though "oh so it's Achilles". He's the penultimate Champion it is named after as far as I am concerned, the namesake of the class.

But Achilles doesn't take a lot of damage and starts to heal/walk it off with enough time, so much as he's just No Selling attacks except for one tiny spot. That seems like it'd better be represented with the resistance (likely Totem) Barbarians gain... The obvious problem with this being that Achilles' abilities are passive and always on, as opposed to when he's at half HP or if he's angry or not.

[Morty]

Fighters are trained warriors and masters of weaponry.

Barbarians are not trained, and have taken their body beyond normal limits.

A fighter is the one who splits an arrow with another arrow, the one who duels 4 or more opponents without taking a hit, who hones his blade to its sharpest edge and slices off an opponents head with a precisley timed and aimed swing, who after years of training fight for 3 days and nights without sleep.

A barbarian is the one who rips bars from solid stone, who splits his opponent in half with a random axe he snatched from a wall, who see through the wizards illusions by smelling something wrong, and who runs 3 days and nights without sleep from years of doing it to survive.

This sounds nice and all, but in practice they'll both make many d20 attack rolls until the enemy ceases to be a problem or removes themselves from the range of said attacks.

As far as Achilles' resistance goes, obviously "invulnerable except for one specific spot" isn't going to be a PC ability in D&D (or many other systems, though I could see it working in some), so we're talking about approximating it at best.

[Wizard_Lizard]

As someone who HAS read the Iliad, I'd put him perhaps with a bit of paladin. The whole rage thing was because Agamemnon dishonored him by taking Briseis. The key point being Honor, or Kleos (I think thats the word?) That was central to greek society, particularly with the warriors like Achilles. Also the whole thing with his vengeance on hector because hector killed Patroclus (Who was NOT Achilles cousin, for those who only watched the movie, Patroclus was more of a lover to Achilles). That was Vengeance. SO I'd say he probably had either conquest or vengeance paladin. Maybe the subclass from the odysseys of theros, but I ain't read up on that yet. Possibly he has a bit of barbarian (dip for rage), and a bit of fighter (Champion).

EDIT: Also note, in the iliad, Achilles invulnerability isn't a thing in the Iliad, that was brought in by Statius' unfinished Achillead from the first Century AD. Homer never mentioned Achilles being invulnerable to attacks at all. He was just the best fighter, who happened to get shot in the heel with a poisoned arrow.

[Dienekes]

As someone who HAS read the Iliad, I'd put him perhaps with a bit of paladin. The whole rage thing was because Agamemnon dishonored him by taking Briseis. The key point being Honor, or Kleos (I think thats the word?) That was central to greek society, particularly with the warriors like Achilles. Also the whole thing with his vengeance on hector because hector killed Patroclus (Who was NOT Achilles cousin, for those who only watched the movie, Patroclus was more of a lover to Achilles). That was Vengeance. SO I'd say he probably had either conquest or vengeance paladin. Maybe the subclass from the odysseys of theros, but I ain't read up on that yet. Possibly he has a bit of barbarian (dip for rage), and a bit of fighter (Champion).

EDIT: Also note, in the iliad, Achilles invulnerability isn't a thing in the Iliad, that was brought in by Statius' unfinished Achillead from the first Century AD. Homer never mentioned Achilles being invulnerable to attacks at all. He was just the best fighter, who happened to get shot in the heel with a poisoned arrow.

If you want to be really technical. There's nothing in the Iliad or the remains we have of the direct Homeric tradition that actually portrays Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. He's more Achilles squire/advisor than anything else. The one sex scene in the story is when Achilles and Patroclus decide to sleep with a bunch of female slaves.

However, roughly 600 years later, writers (especially Athenian and Theban writers), took it as obvious that Achilles and Patroclue must have been lovers. To the point that Plato dedicated a not insignificant part of one of his books on discussing who was the pitcher/receiver in the relationship. There is some debate discussing what this means for how the view of homosexuality changed over time and in different sections of Greece.

But yeah, you're completely right he wasn't invincible in the Iliad. A few words are given how thick and mighty his armor and shields were in the work.

[Wizard_Lizard]

If you want to be really technical. There's nothing in the Iliad or the remains we have of the direct Homeric tradition that actually portrays Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. He's more Achilles squire/advisor than anything else. The one sex scene in the story is when Achilles and Patroclus decide to sleep with a bunch of female slaves.

However, roughly 600 years later, writers (especially Athenian and Theban writers), took it as obvious that Achilles and Patroclue must have been lovers. To the point that Plato dedicated a not insignificant part of one of his books on discussing who was the pitcher/receiver in the relationship. There is some debate discussing what this means for how the view of homosexuality changed over time and in different sections of Greece.

Ok, touche, I like to think that there is subtext, but that's just me I guess. however, Achilles and Patroclus' relationship doesn't have anything to do with the class. But yes, you're kinda right.:biggrin:

[Sigreid]

If you want to go with the myth, he's a fighter with an epic boon of invulnerability with a specific weakness.

[Wizard_Lizard]

If you want to go with the myth, he's a fighter with an epic boon of invulnerability with a specific weakness.

Just gonna specify again that he don't need to be invulnerable, he died because Paris shot him with Apollo's help. Nothing in the Iliad mentions literal invulnerability, he's just the best fighter of the greeks.

[Sigreid]

Just gonna specify again that he don't need to be invulnerable, he died because Paris shot him with Apollo's help. Nothing in the Iliad mentions literal invulnerability, he's just the best fighter of the greeks.

Outside the Iliad, there's the stories about him being dunked in the river Styx; making him invulnerable except at the ankle where his mother held him as she dunked him.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Outside the Iliad, there's the stories about him being dunked in the river Styx; making him invulnerable except at the ankle where his mother held him as she dunked him.

Yeah but that's all noncanon fanfic of the HEEU (Homeric Epic Extended Universe):smallbiggrin:

[Doug Lampert]

Yeah but that's all noncanon fanfic of the HEEU (Homeric Epic Extended Universe):smallbiggrin:

And it's BAD fan fiction as it blatantly contradicts the primary source where even when enraged by Patroclus's death and the abuse of his corpse and wanting to kill the Trojans he had to WAIT while new armor was forged by the god of smiths himself because he needed armor and a shield to be effective and Hector had captured his original armor (Patroclus had been wearing it when he was killed).

Why is an invulnerable half-divine warrior who's supposedly immune to weapons supposed to absolutely positively need armor so badly that he'll wait even when in an Epic rage?

Hint: It has to do with the word invulnerable in that description not being present in the primary source.

[Seclora]

Yeah but that's all noncanon fanfic of the HEEU (Homeric Epic Extended Universe):smallbiggrin:

It's weird to think of how much of the HEEU is fanon vs. actual canon. I'm so used to drawing the line at the the Latin additions I forget that half of the Greek stuff is also later additions.

[Sigreid]

Yeah but that's all noncanon fanfic of the HEEU (Homeric Epic Extended Universe):smallbiggrin:

I ain't going to claim to know which stories were first and which were the fan fiction. Knowing that is a bold claim indeed. :smallbiggrin:

[Wizard_Lizard]

I ain't going to claim to know which stories were first and which were the fan fiction. Knowing that is a bold claim indeed. :smallbiggrin:

To be fair, even Homer's epics were written wayyy after the actual event.

[warty goblin]

To be fair, even Homer's epics were written wayyy after the actual event.

There's actually a reasonable amount of debate about this, on two different grounds.

The first ground is chronological, and the argument goes something like this. The current chronology of the Bronze Age is based heavily on the how long the Egyptian records say various Pharaohs ruled. However this in some places gives strange implications like people abandoning a city for several hundred years, then returning, and going back to making exactly the same sort of stuff as before they left. So the argument advanced by Centuries of Darkness (a book I really should read at some point) is that quite a few Pharaohs had overlapping periods of rule; sort of Daddy showing Junior the ropes of this whole god-king business. All told this removes something like a few hundred years, which in some chronologies bumps Troy VII from ca. 1250 BCE to 800BCE.

The second argument is linguistic, and holds that a large portion of the Iliad bears evidence of having been composed well before the usual date for its being written down in the seventh century BCE. The major line of argument here is that the pentameter is incorrect in a number of lines, which would be rectified by inserting digamma "w" sounds. Greek of course does not have a digamma symbol, but the argument is that Mycenaean Greek did, and the broken pentameter is due to this sound being lost between the time of composition and the time the poem was actually written down. Of particular importance is that the pentameter is broken in lines involving the word Ilios, which would then map to Wilios. This is likely the Mycenaean Greek cognate of Wilusa, a satellite city of the Hittite Empire, which can be linked to the Hisarlik ruins through archaeology. Particularly fascinating in this regard are a pair of letters from the Hittite diplomatic archive; one referring to a man named Attarsiya of the Ahhiya, which are possibly Hittite cognates of Atreus and Achaean, respectively. The other is to a ruler of Wilios, named Alexandu, which looks a lot like Alexander, the alternate name of Paris. The book I cited earlier, Troy and Homer by Joachem Latacz, gives a very good and quite thorough summary of all these arguments in English, which is quite handy since most of the recent archaeology of Troy is in German.

Obviously neither of these arguments depends on the other, but they are also not immediately incompatible. Overall I find the linguistic argument fairly convincing that quite a bit of Homer is preserved, substantially unaltered, from an original oral tradition describing an Achaean war on Troy. Obviously quite a lot of it is mythology, but quite a bit could in fact be genuine.

[KorvinStarmast]

Fighter, Achillles, vHuman

Feat: Polearm master (which now works with spears)

Champion or Battle Master? Hmm, I'll go with the latter but the former also makes sense.

Has Lucky feat to reflect somewhat the magical protection. (With the glaring exception of that bow shot from Paris).
Add Shield Master feat; original ruling in terms of when the shove can be done.
Dueling Fighting Style
Protection Fighting Style (later)
Maybe an Epic Boon vis a vis resistance to bludgeoning, Slashing, and Piercing damage.
Or, if the damage resistance isn't really legit, then Mobile Feat for extra speed and getting around the battlefield better than everyone else.

Other idea, as per above.
Vengeance Paladin. Fighting Style dueling, spear and shield, pole arm master.

[tomandtish]

As someone who HAS read the Iliad, I'd put him perhaps with a bit of paladin. The whole rage thing was because Agamemnon dishonored him by taking Briseis. The key point being Honor, or Kleos (I think thats the word?) That was central to greek society, particularly with the warriors like Achilles. Also the whole thing with his vengeance on hector because hector killed Patroclus (Who was NOT Achilles cousin, for those who only watched the movie, Patroclus was more of a lover to Achilles). That was Vengeance. SO I'd say he probably had either conquest or vengeance paladin. Maybe the subclass from the odysseys of theros, but I ain't read up on that yet. Possibly he has a bit of barbarian (dip for rage), and a bit of fighter (Champion).

EDIT: Also note, in the iliad, Achilles invulnerability isn't a thing in the Iliad, that was brought in by Statius' unfinished Achillead from the first Century AD. Homer never mentioned Achilles being invulnerable to attacks at all. He was just the best fighter, who happened to get shot in the heel with a poisoned arrow.

I wouldn't say paladin, but "Troy, Fall of a City" plays him up this way otherwise (Patroclus is his lover, anger at Agamemnon). But even when angry he never loses control, so barbarian doesn't work for that version. He's also not invulnerable.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I wouldn't say paladin, but "Troy, Fall of a City" plays him up this way otherwise (Patroclus is his lover, anger at Agamemnon). But even when angry he never loses control, so barbarian doesn't work for that version. He's also not invulnerable.

Song of Achilles is a bit like that. Although it plays up the anger a bit more. No invulnerability. THat one possibly works as a fighter with maybe a touch of paladin.

[Lvl45DM!]

This sounds nice and all, but in practice they'll both make many d20 attack rolls until the enemy ceases to be a problem or removes themselves from the range of said attacks.



Sometimes I wonder what game you guys are playing cos it doesn't sound anything like DnD.

If you aren't trying to or letting your players try to pull of absurd feats of skill and heroism, and building scenarios where those actions are better than just rolling d20s, I dont know what you're doing with the game.

[HappyDaze]

If you aren't trying to or letting your players try to pull of absurd feats of skill and heroism, and building scenarios where those actions are better than just rolling d20s, I dont know what you're doing with the game.

Playing strictly RAW?