3.5 for newbies campaign idea: the all-Barbarian party?

[Gavinfoxx]

So I'm going to be helping a friend of mine run a 3.5 campaign for his "perpetually can't be bothered to learn the rules" group he plays in, as an attempt to get them actually interested in the game. So, we came up with an idea: the all-Barbarian party! The idea is some famous Barbarian guy came through the area some decades ago, and the party is now all half-siblings of various different races (half-orc, half-elf, half-giant, half-gnome, half-fey, Mul, etc.; Various different la +0 and +1 races) on a quest to find their shared missing father! Play it a bit for comedy, bring a handful of "just enough xp to have bought off a single la" character sheets, make all the barbarians slightly different via choices of acf's, traits, flaws, feats, and the weapons they prefer... Deep dive into the obscure acf's and various class feature variants, perhaps. Have a funny shopkeeper that randomly shows up whenever they come into a small amount of money, that has only several copies of a single magic item that's useful to them as a way to train the players about useful magic gear. Have setpiece encounters that encourage different combat tactics and maneuver types. Stuff like that.

But my question is... What ways are there to tweak the barbarian class sufficiently to make each character a little distinct?

I have some ideas. One of them can be the "use survival for EVERYTHING" type, to handle traps. One can be a whirling frenzy archer. One could be an unarmed Ferocity brawler. One could be a grappler. One could be a tripper with a guisarme. Things like that. Though it begs the question... How innately magical can the barbarian class get? What are some other good niches and options?

[reddir]

I remember a story about an “intimidation rogue” - Orc or Half-Orc, high Str, bash traps to “disarm”, intimidate anyone watching to pretend they never saw him as “sneak”, and I think dmg bonuses from super high Str effectively averaged out to sneak attack damage.

[reddir]

Also, depending on how crazy you want to take this, there was a fantasy movie from maybe the 80’s starring two weightlifting brothers which you might look at. (I don’t remember the name)

They mostly solved every problem with their muscles - I remember one scene where they are both lynched but escape by breaking the nooses with their “neck muscles”. And I think maybe their muscles might have been hard enough to function as armor sometimes?

[reddir]

Oh! Another idea: the super-hot hunky oiled up muscles model.

They can act as the “face”. They can wear the fantasy barbarian minimal +5 bikini armor, constantly be flexing for diplomacy bonuses, do the bouncing pectorals thing to hypnotize... and so forth.

Hmm, the oil for the muscles might count as a skill tool, with MW oil available for more glistening... and maybe adding special expensive scents adds more bonus but reduces stealth.

[Dalmosh]

The ACF "Skilled City Dweller" may not fit with your fluff, but its crunch elevates one of the party to a quite reasonable party face with knowledge:local, sense motive and gather information.

[Lilapop]

One major hurdle is gonna be removing status effects. CharOppers sometimes handwave hitpoint restoration as "just throw wands of lesser vigor at it", which you can UMD, but the important dispels are higher level spells that can get expensive really fast. If your DM has to look at 75% of the Monster Manual and say "Can't use spiders, party doesn't have remove poison... can't use wights, party doesn't have a way to remove level drain... etc... etc", then his storytelling ability starts to suffer.

Check out this one. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dHhsHDHvgz76Ng26rssK_EsYtfD-PKWzpCZr3t4-taI/view#gid=0) Yellow is big divine casters only, orange is too late, red is missing for that class, green is the rare arcane caster contribution. Numbers are spell levels unless labeled ECL. Paladin BSF and ranger skillmonkey together can kinda pull the same weight as a single druid, but are a level or two delayed sometimes.

Bottom line: the all-barbarian party requires a certain amount of system mastery, on both sides of the table, and is not something I would do with beginners.

[Falontani]

Rage Mage Bardarian can be the "healer" when he isn't smashing someone with his "axe"

[Heavenblade]

Runescarred berserkers and champions of gwynharwyf can solve the status removal and casting problems.

City brawler and horse lord both function differently, and a battle howler character (the prc) can act as a party buffer.

[Gavinfoxx]

For what it's worth, I don't think the game will last long enough for people to get to those prestige classes!

What about the various feats that allow access to small amounts of supernatural power, any of those especially good?

[Falontani]

dragonmarks from eberron grant spell like abilities such as cure light wounds

[Efrate]

Shape soulmeld strongheart vest or binding can cover ability damage which also fixes poison given time. Shape soulmeld can cover nearly everything iirc but if it's big strong guys smash bigger stronger guys on the way to get daddy it might be asking a bit much.

If you stick to bruiser type monsters with a bit of special stuff you should be fine. Animals, most magical beasts, giants and monstrous humanoids can be the bulk of enemies. An owlbear or a hill giant do not pose massive problems. Stay away from a lot of undead, outsiders and abberations.

Make fights interesting because of tactical or terrain advantages not raw abilities and you can keep variety in fights while still having fewer too bad you are eternally screwed moments like chaos beasts and the like.

[el minster]

Um, whirling frenzy archer, somone with track and trapkiller acf, "tripper" wolf totem barbarian

[Gavinfoxx]

Is there any reason NOT to make them all Spirit Lion Totem, and have the 'normal' totem differentiate them some?

Also, Horselord seems to suck. And I'm not sure I'd want to encourage grappling... with half-giant bear totem / spirit bear totem. Grappling generally isn't that good, ya know?

What race and various ACF's would work best for intimidating rage?

[bekeleven]

Bottom line: the all-barbarian party requires a certain amount of system mastery, on both sides of the table, and is not something I would do with beginners.
4 healing belts and an eternal wand of lesser restoration gets you 95% of the way there, I've found.

[Zarvistic]

What race and various ACF's would work best for intimidating rage?
Fearsome Gaze is a good one. Makes Intimidate work off strength and adds a +4 bonus. There is also the the lion option of Totem Manifestation as well as the dragon option of the Totem Barbarian variant class. I don't think all of them can be picked together though.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You might be interested in this 'prison-shanking' build (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23413346&postcount=10).

Also here's (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?444354-3-5-Alternative-Class-Features-(ported-from-Wizards-community-boards)) a list of ACFs, and here's (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=9028.0) a list of Dragon ACFs.

[RaiKirah]

Half-Orc Paragon is a way to get Rage without technically being a Barbarian, and the Monstrous Mien ability is a nice racial +4 to Intimidate to start out the Intimidate character

[Lilapop]

4 healing belts and an eternal wand of lesser restoration gets you 95% of the way there, I've found.
Is there some obscure arcane caster class that has lesser resto on its list? Not that I'd allow that wand, just like I wouldn't allow CL1*SL1 boots of continuous haste made by a trapsmith.

Also, those last 5% are the important ones. Everything lesser resto does heals naturally, with the rate being doubled by a decent Heal skill check (take 10, plus some miscellaneous bonuses), but a CR 5 Basilisk, a CR 3 Wight, or a recurring enemy evil cleric will hit you with the stuff that will stick. And two of those three I definitely have planned for my current longrunning campaign.


Fearsome Gaze is a good one. Makes Intimidate work off strength and adds a +4 bonus. There is also the the lion option of Totem Manifestation as well as the dragon option of the Totem Barbarian variant class. I don't think all of them can be picked together though.

The PF feat Intimidating Prowess (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/intimidating-prowess-combat/) should stack with Fearsome Gaze for 2x strength to intimidate, and no charisma penalty.

You do however want something that escalates your demoralize from shaken to frightened. If you are not dumping charisma (meaning you might not even want Fearsome Gaze), Imperious Command (DotU 50) is an option. Otherwise, I tend to go towards Frightening Presence. Dragon totem is, overall, a suboptimal package, and most of the other feats granting FP require decent charisma scores. All things considered, Dreadful Wrath (PgtF 38) is probably your best choice there.

If other parts of the build require a larger number of feats, going for the Zhentarim Fighter substitution levels (CoV web enhancement) will net you Bluff as class skill (for the synergy), Skill Focus (Intimidate) and potentially swift action demoralize effectively for free, other than maybe staying in fighter for too long.

[King of Nowhere]

if they're never bothering to learn the rules, it may be that any build more complicated than "attack, roll, smash things" will be neglected. you can find all manners of interesting concepts, but it won't matter if your players won't bother to ever learn to use them.
at least, some of my players were like that

[bekeleven]

Is there some obscure arcane caster class that has lesser resto on its list?A few, yes. Assuming we're discounting Domain Wizards, there's still Knight of the Weave as a straight arcane caster, and Impure Prince adds the spell to any spell list known before prestiging.