@Fateless ... Minsc is a ranger exactly because it was explained like that. So he does not have the rage class ability. 🤣
Except If you know your Gaming History you would know that Rage was not a class Ability back then because the Barbarian didn't exist at the time of BG1 as standard.
And Minsc still had a Rage ability despite it not being a class ability.
Damn I must be old to actually have to explain all of this to people.
Except that Dominate X is intended to apply to all of it's valid targets as a general rule. Stillness of Mind is a specific exception to that.
If Stillness of Mind was a reaction or passive effect that made you immune to being charmed or frightened, I would agree with you. But because the monk must use its action to end the effect, then the monk must be free to take an action of its choosing. Dominate X spells specifically removes that freedom, whereas there are plenty of other charming/frightening effects which do not interfere with a creature's ability to take a non-harmful action.
Yes and no.
As per Dominate Person, you'd have to constantly spam it with actions to do. Note that "Run in circles as fast as you can forever" would not prevent the Monk from using Stillness of Mind because running is not an action and a dash does not use your action.
It must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you for the duration. If you or creatures that are friendly to you are fighting it, it has advantage on the saving throw. While the target is charmed, you have a telepathic link with it as long as the two of you are on the same plane of existence. You can use this telepathic link to issue commands to the creature while you are conscious (no action required), which it does its best to obey. You can specify a simple and general course of action, such as “Attack that creature,” “Run over there,” or “Fetch that object.” If the creature completes the order and doesn’t receive further direction from you, it defends and preserves itself to the best of its ability.
The "As fast as you can" modifier to that statement would require a monk to dash as both their action and by spending a ki when possible to use Step of Wind so as to achieve the highest movement the monk is capable of.
That being said, that one specific example is not really relevant anyway. There are plnty of commands that could be used to eat up a monk's action on its turn
I'll clarify. I was presenting that command as an example that wouldn't work, not as proof that no such example would work, but as an example of how tricky getting the command right can be. Add in that the command must be general and simple. "Repeatedly punch yourself in the face" wouldn't work either.
Lets look at the three options given to us by the spell
"Attack that creature" - The monk loses its action. Although it has access to bonus action attacks, it cannot use either of them without first taking the Attack action.
"Run over there" - If left as it is unmodified, the monk could still have access to its action...unless the point it must run to is far enough away it has to dash twice
"Fetch that object" - Same potential issue as above, except depending on the object the monk may also lose its action if required to take the Use an Object action to interact with it.
Either way, the caster could just spam "Attack that creature/object" for the duration. Giving the command costs the caster nothing, so there is no downside to spamming as long as you can find a suitable target for it to attack that isnt you. Worst case scenario, you still succeed in keeping the monk under your control for a few rounds before its action finally becomes free when you issue the wrong command.
There is Actually a Correction to Attack that Creature. if the Creature is not close enough to Attack. You move towards it but that does not actually take up your action because it's not there to attack. A distinction that actually comes up in the game several times when spells or things have attacking a creature as a forced option of the spell as standard but they do not have something in range to attack.
@Fateless dude. I played BG1 on actual MS-DOS. And still hate it. Especially Minsc.
So Minsc having the rage is not a thing that should ever have been. That was my joke.
It's like when people say "star wars only had 3 movies". Or "fallout only had 2 games, though i heard there is this thing called New Vegas that was inspired by it in a good way." You deny reality because reality sucked. That's the joke.
Rant/explanation on why that is begins below:
Yes. Minsc had the rage thing. Also: he was a ranger. Now. Let me explain why i hate Minsc in particular. Just like Drizzt and all the other """charismatic""" characters it was a one-note thing which everybody quoted or liked for the looks or one quirk which was repeated so much it became stale before it was even famous and nobody actually cared about the actual cahracter because it was paper thin.
And it shaped the game into the future in really bad ways. Thank Drizzt for the beastmaster (even though Drizzt did not even have an animal companion he had a statue with a summoned animal that he liked and that was it). Thank Minsc for the barbarian (even though his whole thing was that he came from a "barbarian tribe" not that he was a barbarian as defined by the rules of 2e, but then when Baldur's gate made the "barbarian class" very late into baldur's gate 2... they... kept Minsc a ranger, because Minsc was never supposed to be "a barbarian").
In AD&D the "Barbarian" was a fighter archetype (okay, they were called "kits" but same thing) that hated magic.
They were wrapped around this concept so much that it allowed them to do supernatural stuff out of rejecting the supernatural. 😂👍💯
Now. In AD&D magic items were not anywhere like in 3.Xe (AKA: the worst edition ever that even spawned that eldritch abomination which was pathfinder) where you would have about 50 items per player, aka "the christmas tree effect" but closer to 5e "useful but not necessary" kind of deal, where you would have about 2 or 3 by level 15 and that was it.
As a barbarian not only you could not use magic items (that included single or limited use ones): you could not be in a party that made use of magic or magic items. So. Yeah. Nobody played them because otherwise they would have to kill their own party members for daring to heal them or cast a fireball. But they were actually not bad at all.
You were very resistant to the supernatural because unlike most other classes the bonuses you got against everything supernatural... were very high indeed.
You see: As a barbarian you did not need magic items to actually attack stuff that needed magic items to be hit. The 2e barbarians had this extreme hatred of magic that allowed them to actually pierce the magic that creatures had around them (from 4rth level onwards). So you could attack whatever and still deal damage. Was this creature immune to slashing damage? not to a barbarian it is not. Does this creature require silver weapons? Not if i am a barbarian. Does this creature need a special procedure to be killed involving destroying a phylactery or whatever? Not if you are a freaking barbarian. Barbarians could kill death if they were faced by its avatar because they just did not care.
And also that they could summon "the horde" which is basically kind of like having suddenly followers at your side that you did not have to care about how to pay them or how to treat them. Because they were the spirits of other barbarians that litterally came out of death to join the barbarian in a fight and went away after the fight. They basically had the Horn of Valhalla, Iron as an archetype ability.
Get high level enough and you straight up could not die unless killed in battle just like the druids. Except you also got the ability to cheat death because if you died you kept fighting until the fight was over. Then you died. Yes this means that two barbarians fighting each other would fight until the end of times or until they reached an agreement to stop fighting and then they both would die. Which is why if you fought an enemy with an high level barbarian, you straight up skipped the fight, since it was useless to roll to fight against an unkillable thing and roleplayed the discussions you had with your enemy until your will to fight was sated. Since you also were hard to heal... yeah. High level barbarians usually played "the one last fight" as the end of their character, where they tested their will.
The shaman itself was a fighter kit companion to the barbarian, so that the barbarian could get healing, it traded away the magic hatred/immunity and the ability to call the horde and got some abilities based on asking counsel to the spirits of the dead that were basically D&D spells but "not really". So kind of like "you get full access to healing, animal, plant, combat and divination domains, access to up to 3rd level spells to the domains of elemental, sun, weather at twice the normal levels, so a 3rd level spell in these domains you needed access to a 6th level slot to cast, though you still cast it as a 3rd level (2nd edition had weird mechanics), forget about everything else". Sooo a "divine half caster for figher" kind of thing. Except it was not divine magic so you could cast these "spells" even in an antimagic zone, since it was actually you asking favours to spirits which... uh... apparently just straight up can do magic without magic? Kind of hard to explain withtout reading the book dedicatedd to these 2 archetypes (and a 3rd, the berserker, which sucked, because all you got was the magic "resistance", the ability to not die immediately... a couple of buff spells to raise constitution and strength... but nothing else, so uhm... faced with a werewolf and not having silver weapons you would fight until the werewolf died 3 days later because it reverted to its human form because full moon was over, so it died and then you die immediately afterward and everybody wasted time and a character.)
Also the barbarians did not have the Rage ability. That was never a thing in 2e which is where Baldur's gate is set (unless you count the berserker buffs which basically were the various ability enhancement spells from 5e almost literally in the 5e interpretations, so they were not really specifically tailored for fighting). 3e decided to retool from scratch the barbarian from the magic hating/resistant warrior capable of ignoring the damage resistances and immunities of the enemy and ignoring supernatural death conditions and summoning the spirits of the dead and to kill death itself by telling it to stand aside because you really needed to talk by trading blows with this enemy of yours...
...into a...
...uhm...
...very sub-par fighter that is on par (Not better. On par.) with a standard fighter only if they use the "rage" which has a counted number of daily uses.
All this because of Minsc.
So yes Minsc did have the rage ability. Minsc was never a barbarian, and (in fact) single-handedly destroyed "the barbarian" by transforming it from "basically Conan" which it was in 2e (a well cultured individual that hated magic and wanted to defeat any enemy via the "riddle of steel" that is "study the enemy, and its weaknesses, and exploit them" though the original version was: "what is steel? A tool of your own will. Steel may grow brittle. Flesh will age. Will is indomitable.") into a bumbling buffoon that can't read and foams at the mouth.
2 editions past 3e and the damage that Minsc alone did still stands (also we never got the shamans back since they were deemed "useless" since the barbarian could now be healed just fine, but, you know, we got the eldritch knight... which was never a thing? But now is?)
That said. My joke was: Rangers should not have the rage ability. If anything you should have had it if you were a fighter since the barbarian was a fighter "subclass". But Minsc is a ranger. Because of Boo. Which is his animal companion. Despite the rangers not having animal companions in baldur's gate due to engine limitations.
So basically. The team behind baldur's gate decided their idea of a buffoon with a convoluted pet hamster and a rage problem was so cool it would be better than following the rules and in doing so they redefined the rules for the editions to come and transformed an high roleplay class into a subpar fighter. Congrats.
That is how i remember it as i started with the red box through immortal then went into 2nd edition. I never played AD&D 1st. So i might be wrong.
I have the barbarian handbook tho and that is what i had.
It was several decades ago. Totally understandable how you could have misremembered.
It was technically a subclass. Though they only used that term very sparingly to mention the variations of the 4 basic classes from what I recall.
But it's not True that Magical Items were not a thing like in 3e. There weren't quite as many places to wear them. But Magical Items were very much a thing to every campaign. They just weren't as required to the power curve of the game except at very high level (almost exactly like 5e interestingly enough) But they tended to be fairly easy to pick up except in certain specific settings. The idea of a low magic setting didn't even exist for most of 2e. There were magical items ranging from the almost mundane to the truely fantastical. To Modern objects and sci fi stuff that was out of place in a typical fantasy setting of the time.
The Barbarian Book was also Released Before Minsc was a thing. But it was one of the last of the "class books" released along with Ninja. This happened in something like 95' or 96. There are lots of reasons why it might not have been popular but it was not a class officially represented in most materials until 3.e when it got retooled. And it didn't just get retooled because of Minsc. it got retooled because They were trying to create interest in it and it wouldn't work with What they were doing with 3.x with the magical items and things like being related to monsters basically being requirements of the power level of the system. Minsc was a minor influence at best on that and Minsc Was Influenced by non-class Powers that could cause raging type effects if the truth be told. Because that's what Rage originally was. It was an extra ability that could either be picked up on it's own or inflicted by certain conditions or spells. Some of them not well known. Minsc's Rage on his PC sheet interestingly enough was called Feral Rage. It had a once a day usage and was implied to be beastial in nature. This is why he has the Rage Ability in the Baldur's gate game.
And Drizzt didn't just make the Beast Master. Drizzt made the Ranger as you know it. The Entire Ranger Class would be different without Drizzt. They rewrote how Rangers Worked when AD&D 2nd Edition was introduced to fit how Drizzt worked because he broke the very operating rules but was a very popular character.
The Beast Master Came About because a lot of players liked combining animal companions with their rangers even without Drizzt or Minsc. Animal Companions and Animal Friendship is actually a mentality that commonly comes up in the game and it wasn't really Drizzt that inspired that because it was something people were doing with multiple classes even before him. I want to say Dragon Magazine actually toyed with a few different versions of pet based classes but it's been a really long time so I'm fuzzy on that. All Drizzt really did was narrow it down to happen with a couple of classes primarily to some extent. But Drizzt popularity had nothing to do with his sometimes animal companion. Back in the 90's all anybody ever talked about was his dual wielding and his bow use. The Main Group was copying this in their recreations. Not his pet, And that's why several of his video game versions didn't feature his feline companion even as a temporary use power of his, Including Baldur's Gate. The Truth is. You could almost blame Minsc and Boo for the Beast Master if you were going to try to tie it to a fictional character. But those fictional Characters are not what sparked the mentality behind the Beast Master. But the Truth is that the Beast Master became a Codified thing as part of the 3.x point in time of the game to try to appeal to the pet collector and the pet companion mentality and any pointing at even Drizzt for it was entirely an afterthought. If it had been forefront then it would have been codified in 2nd ed just like everything else about how Drizzt Functions.
As a Side Note. Conan didn't hate Everything about Magic. He just had a major Distrust for Arcane Magic. Sorcerer's and Wizards and things like that. He had no problem with Divine Magic that was actually from Gods and not from people that just called themselves Gods. He was even the faithful Follower of a God. And His Anger was one of his defining Features. That played it's own big part in the Rage of the Barbarians. Conan at that point long had an Image of Shouting Angrily and Slamming his Axe into things when 3.x came about. That likely had as much to do with Rage Becoming a Class Feature and even gaining Positive Benefits as anything.
Your Talking About an Optional Source book there. And much of it was not found elsewhere.
So it's exactly what I said. it's not a Class Officially Represented in most materials. it was represented in the Unearthed Arcana. And it was in the Barbarian's Handbook. Occasionally getting something small or supplemental in a particular setting. That is it.
Telling me to check the unearthed arcana pdf to see that it's in there does not change the fact that many people did not actually use the 1st edition Unearthed Arcana. Nor the Barbarian handbook.
Monk Was also in the First Edition. And it was an official class of the first Edition. The First Class in the book as I recall. But it still did not make it to second Edition. And when it returned there were some definite fundamental changes between the first edition and it's Major Return in 3.x, As well as it's smaller return in one of the specific settings of Second Edition. In fact i think in the second edition version it was technically a Fighter Variant if I remember Correctly. It's been a really long time and I'd have to go look at the specifics. But they did things like that.
Your Talking About an Optional Source book there. And much of it was not found elsewhere.
So it's exactly what I said. it's not a Class Officially Represented in most materials. it was represented in the Unearthed Arcana. And it was in the Barbarian's Handbook. Occasionally getting something small or supplemental in a particular setting. That is it.
Telling me to check the unearthed arcana pdf to see that it's in there does not change the fact that many people did not actually use the 1st edition Unearthed Arcana. Nor the Barbarian handbook.
Monk Was also in the First Edition. And it was an official class of the first Edition. The First Class in the book as I recall. But it still did not make it to second Edition. And when it returned there were some definite fundamental changes between the first edition and it's Major Return in 3.x, As well as it's smaller return in one of the specific settings of Second Edition. In fact i think in the second edition version it was technically a Fighter Variant if I remember Correctly. It's been a really long time and I'd have to go look at the specifics. But they did things like that.
Everybody I gamed with back then treated the UA as core as the PHB.
Monk Was also in the First Edition. And it was an official class of the first Edition. The First Class in the book as I recall.
Actually, the last one.
But it still did not make it to second Edition. And when it returned there were some definite fundamental changes between the first edition and it's Major Return in 3.x,
There was a Monk in 2e, but they drastically changed it and it sucked ass. It was a Cleric variant. It had this really goofy table you rolled on to determine what kind of unarmed martial technique you did (e.g. uppercut, hook punch, etc.).
The 3x Monk had more in common with the Monk from the gold Best of Dragon Magazine. That WAS an optional book for 1e. It gave the monk an ability at every level including magic resistance.
Your Group does not mean that everybody Did. Every group that I played with Entirely ignored the Unearthed Arcana. And most of the people I've played throw backs with have ignored the Unearthed Arcana. it was actually more common for people not to have it, including the DM, than it was to have it. To the point that it was an interesting curiosity when somebody did actually have it. I actually ran across rare campaign settings like Red Steel and Council of Wyrms more than I've run across groups that played with the Unearthed Arcana. (I moved around at points during my younger years with the family. So my groups changed every 6 months to a year for a while.)
So that can show how Experiences can be different and not always representative of the group. It's not to say that my experience means more than yours does at all with your groups. I'm just trying to show a perceptive difference. All we do know regardless of both of our experiences is that Barbarian was not really known about until it became a core part of 3.x
An interesting conundrum, and a great example why RAW, RAI, and similar examples are all important to consider when making a ruling. It reminds me of other questionable interactions where RAW and RAI seem to conflict.
Freedom of Movement states, "The target can also spend 5 feet of movement to automatically escape from nonmagical restraints, such as manacles or a creature that has it grappled." but the grappled condition states, "A grappled creature's speed becomes 0." The spell description gives an example that technically wouldn't work as a creature with 0 speed has no movement to spend. Is this meant to be an exception? That's how most people interpret it. The important part of this is why the community came to this conclusion. The RAI is clear and RAW was just as distinct, but what lead players to this decision?
On the other hand when looking at Echo Knight's Manifest Echo which states, "As a bonus action, you can teleport, magically swapping places with your echo at a cost of 15 feet of your movement..." , many said that a grappled creature would have no movement to spend regardless of whether or not they had a bonus action. The intent of the ability is crystal clear that you are teleporting, which has historically been a hard counter to grappling. Why the difference in opinion? Could it have something to do with the context of the release of the source material and it's reception?
Regardless on which side you land, of course it's important to follow the rules and examine the whys, but also the feelings behind them. Remember to ground yourselves in the reality that when you make your rulings, they are for the people you play with. People who, hopefully, you enjoy spending time with and are your friends. At the end of the day, the wrong decision is the one where no one is having fun.
Isnt that how Dominate spells work? Like if you use Dominate Person, it explicitly states the affected creature cannot do something (such as use Stillness of Mind) unless they permit it.
To me this seems like a "Stillness would clear it if used" but "You cannot use ANY action against their will"; they decide whether you can use it, and if they do so, you remove the effect.
In my opinion "Stillness of Mind" takes precedence over all actions imposed by another creature, but it actually lacks clarity. They should add more details to avoid misunderstandings.
<<Stillness of Mind: Starting at 7th level, you can use your action to end one effect that is causing you or one willing creature that you touch to be charmed or frightened. This feature is activated at the subconscious level by blocking any action imposed by effects.>>
Isnt that how Dominate spells work? Like if you use Dominate Person, it explicitly states the affected creature cannot do something (such as use Stillness of Mind) unless they permit it.
To me this seems like a "Stillness would clear it if used" but "You cannot use ANY action against their will"; they decide whether you can use it, and if they do so, you remove the effect.
Generally speaking, yes. Anything that takes your entire Action away, including but not limited to Dominate spells, will stop you from using Stillness of Mind, as a general rule.
Isnt that how Dominate spells work? Like if you use Dominate Person, it explicitly states the affected creature cannot do something (such as use Stillness of Mind) unless they permit it.
To me this seems like a "Stillness would clear it if used" but "You cannot use ANY action against their will"; they decide whether you can use it, and if they do so, you remove the effect.
Generally speaking, yes. Anything that takes your entire Action away, including but not limited to Dominate spells, will stop you from using Stillness of Mind, as a general rule.
In that case, what can Stillness of Mind actually do? Is there any charm/fear affect that still lets you do whatever you want? That's not a great charm/fear affect if one exists.
It costs an action so that it isn't just free immunity, but you can still use it when the charm/fear affect would otherwise cause you to do something else.
I think there is several creature features that make you charmed.
As a condition it's actually pretty good as it is removing your ability to attack the creature at all.... So having something to get that back is pretty good.
Dominate spells just make it so you can't take any action is the distinction.
Isnt that how Dominate spells work? Like if you use Dominate Person, it explicitly states the affected creature cannot do something (such as use Stillness of Mind) unless they permit it.
To me this seems like a "Stillness would clear it if used" but "You cannot use ANY action against their will"; they decide whether you can use it, and if they do so, you remove the effect.
Generally speaking, yes. Anything that takes your entire Action away, including but not limited to Dominate spells, will stop you from using Stillness of Mind, as a general rule.
In that case, what can Stillness of Mind actually do? Is there any charm/fear affect that still lets you do whatever you want? That's not a great charm/fear affect if one exists.
It costs an action so that it isn't just free immunity, but you can still use it when the charm/fear affect would otherwise cause you to do something else.
I think there is several creature features that make you charmed.
As a condition it's actually pretty good as it is removing your ability to attack the creature at all.... So having something to get that back is pretty good.
Dominate spells just make it so you can't take any action is the distinction.
So this 7th level feature is now only useful in extreme corner cases? I think it applies to all charm effects (as the feature states) as it takes an entire action. Though, I think this could be decided either way by a DM. But I think that a Monk, who spends their life honing their physical, spiritual, and mental selves would reasonably know something is fiddling with their mind without it being called metagaming. Thus, the feature should work as written, and any Monk that is told "no" would justifiably feel upset and shafted.
I disagree as it specifically says the creature is completely controlled in the case of dominate spells.
Every other charm works though... Just not dominate.
In that case, what can Stillness of Mind actually do? Is there any charm/fear affect that still lets you do whatever you want? That's not a great charm/fear affect if one exists.
It costs an action so that it isn't just free immunity, but you can still use it when the charm/fear affect would otherwise cause you to do something else.
Both the charmed and frightened conditions let you retain your action. It requires special riders on the effect in question to take your entire Action away. For example, Charm Monster will not take your action away, and neither will Cause Fear. As a result, the general case is that the charmed or frightened monk will have their action available. For a monster example, dryads can't take your action away, and neither can a quasit.
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Except If you know your Gaming History you would know that Rage was not a class Ability back then because the Barbarian didn't exist at the time of BG1 as standard.
And Minsc still had a Rage ability despite it not being a class ability.
Damn I must be old to actually have to explain all of this to people.
There is Actually a Correction to Attack that Creature. if the Creature is not close enough to Attack. You move towards it but that does not actually take up your action because it's not there to attack. A distinction that actually comes up in the game several times when spells or things have attacking a creature as a forced option of the spell as standard but they do not have something in range to attack.
@Fateless dude. I played BG1 on actual MS-DOS. And still hate it. Especially Minsc.
So Minsc having the rage is not a thing that should ever have been. That was my joke.
It's like when people say "star wars only had 3 movies". Or "fallout only had 2 games, though i heard there is this thing called New Vegas that was inspired by it in a good way." You deny reality because reality sucked. That's the joke.
Rant/explanation on why that is begins below:
Yes. Minsc had the rage thing. Also: he was a ranger. Now. Let me explain why i hate Minsc in particular. Just like Drizzt and all the other """charismatic""" characters it was a one-note thing which everybody quoted or liked for the looks or one quirk which was repeated so much it became stale before it was even famous and nobody actually cared about the actual cahracter because it was paper thin.
And it shaped the game into the future in really bad ways. Thank Drizzt for the beastmaster (even though Drizzt did not even have an animal companion he had a statue with a summoned animal that he liked and that was it). Thank Minsc for the barbarian (even though his whole thing was that he came from a "barbarian tribe" not that he was a barbarian as defined by the rules of 2e, but then when Baldur's gate made the "barbarian class" very late into baldur's gate 2... they... kept Minsc a ranger, because Minsc was never supposed to be "a barbarian").
In AD&D the "Barbarian" was a fighter archetype (okay, they were called "kits" but same thing) that hated magic.
They were wrapped around this concept so much that it allowed them to do supernatural stuff out of rejecting the supernatural. 😂👍💯
Now. In AD&D magic items were not anywhere like in 3.Xe (AKA: the worst edition ever that even spawned that eldritch abomination which was pathfinder) where you would have about 50 items per player, aka "the christmas tree effect" but closer to 5e "useful but not necessary" kind of deal, where you would have about 2 or 3 by level 15 and that was it.
As a barbarian not only you could not use magic items (that included single or limited use ones): you could not be in a party that made use of magic or magic items. So. Yeah. Nobody played them because otherwise they would have to kill their own party members for daring to heal them or cast a fireball. But they were actually not bad at all.
You were very resistant to the supernatural because unlike most other classes the bonuses you got against everything supernatural... were very high indeed.
You see: As a barbarian you did not need magic items to actually attack stuff that needed magic items to be hit. The 2e barbarians had this extreme hatred of magic that allowed them to actually pierce the magic that creatures had around them (from 4rth level onwards). So you could attack whatever and still deal damage. Was this creature immune to slashing damage? not to a barbarian it is not. Does this creature require silver weapons? Not if i am a barbarian. Does this creature need a special procedure to be killed involving destroying a phylactery or whatever? Not if you are a freaking barbarian. Barbarians could kill death if they were faced by its avatar because they just did not care.
And also that they could summon "the horde" which is basically kind of like having suddenly followers at your side that you did not have to care about how to pay them or how to treat them. Because they were the spirits of other barbarians that litterally came out of death to join the barbarian in a fight and went away after the fight. They basically had the Horn of Valhalla, Iron as an archetype ability.
Get high level enough and you straight up could not die unless killed in battle just like the druids. Except you also got the ability to cheat death because if you died you kept fighting until the fight was over. Then you died. Yes this means that two barbarians fighting each other would fight until the end of times or until they reached an agreement to stop fighting and then they both would die. Which is why if you fought an enemy with an high level barbarian, you straight up skipped the fight, since it was useless to roll to fight against an unkillable thing and roleplayed the discussions you had with your enemy until your will to fight was sated. Since you also were hard to heal... yeah. High level barbarians usually played "the one last fight" as the end of their character, where they tested their will.
The shaman itself was a fighter kit companion to the barbarian, so that the barbarian could get healing, it traded away the magic hatred/immunity and the ability to call the horde and got some abilities based on asking counsel to the spirits of the dead that were basically D&D spells but "not really". So kind of like "you get full access to healing, animal, plant, combat and divination domains, access to up to 3rd level spells to the domains of elemental, sun, weather at twice the normal levels, so a 3rd level spell in these domains you needed access to a 6th level slot to cast, though you still cast it as a 3rd level (2nd edition had weird mechanics), forget about everything else". Sooo a "divine half caster for figher" kind of thing. Except it was not divine magic so you could cast these "spells" even in an antimagic zone, since it was actually you asking favours to spirits which... uh... apparently just straight up can do magic without magic? Kind of hard to explain withtout reading the book dedicatedd to these 2 archetypes (and a 3rd, the berserker, which sucked, because all you got was the magic "resistance", the ability to not die immediately... a couple of buff spells to raise constitution and strength... but nothing else, so uhm... faced with a werewolf and not having silver weapons you would fight until the werewolf died 3 days later because it reverted to its human form because full moon was over, so it died and then you die immediately afterward and everybody wasted time and a character.)
Also the barbarians did not have the Rage ability. That was never a thing in 2e which is where Baldur's gate is set (unless you count the berserker buffs which basically were the various ability enhancement spells from 5e almost literally in the 5e interpretations, so they were not really specifically tailored for fighting). 3e decided to retool from scratch the barbarian from the magic hating/resistant warrior capable of ignoring the damage resistances and immunities of the enemy and ignoring supernatural death conditions and summoning the spirits of the dead and to kill death itself by telling it to stand aside because you really needed to talk by trading blows with this enemy of yours...
...into a...
...uhm...
...very sub-par fighter that is on par (Not better. On par.) with a standard fighter only if they use the "rage" which has a counted number of daily uses.
All this because of Minsc.
So yes Minsc did have the rage ability. Minsc was never a barbarian, and (in fact) single-handedly destroyed "the barbarian" by transforming it from "basically Conan" which it was in 2e (a well cultured individual that hated magic and wanted to defeat any enemy via the "riddle of steel" that is "study the enemy, and its weaknesses, and exploit them" though the original version was: "what is steel? A tool of your own will. Steel may grow brittle. Flesh will age. Will is indomitable.") into a bumbling buffoon that can't read and foams at the mouth.
2 editions past 3e and the damage that Minsc alone did still stands (also we never got the shamans back since they were deemed "useless" since the barbarian could now be healed just fine, but, you know, we got the eldritch knight... which was never a thing? But now is?)
That said. My joke was: Rangers should not have the rage ability. If anything you should have had it if you were a fighter since the barbarian was a fighter "subclass". But Minsc is a ranger. Because of Boo. Which is his animal companion. Despite the rangers not having animal companions in baldur's gate due to engine limitations.
So basically. The team behind baldur's gate decided their idea of a buffoon with a convoluted pet hamster and a rage problem was so cool it would be better than following the rules and in doing so they redefined the rules for the editions to come and transformed an high roleplay class into a subpar fighter. Congrats.
That is how i remember it as i started with the red box through immortal then went into 2nd edition. I never played AD&D 1st. So i might be wrong.
I have the barbarian handbook tho and that is what i had.
It was technically a subclass. Though they only used that term very sparingly to mention the variations of the 4 basic classes from what I recall.
But it's not True that Magical Items were not a thing like in 3e. There weren't quite as many places to wear them. But Magical Items were very much a thing to every campaign. They just weren't as required to the power curve of the game except at very high level (almost exactly like 5e interestingly enough) But they tended to be fairly easy to pick up except in certain specific settings. The idea of a low magic setting didn't even exist for most of 2e. There were magical items ranging from the almost mundane to the truely fantastical. To Modern objects and sci fi stuff that was out of place in a typical fantasy setting of the time.
The Barbarian Book was also Released Before Minsc was a thing. But it was one of the last of the "class books" released along with Ninja. This happened in something like 95' or 96. There are lots of reasons why it might not have been popular but it was not a class officially represented in most materials until 3.e when it got retooled. And it didn't just get retooled because of Minsc. it got retooled because They were trying to create interest in it and it wouldn't work with What they were doing with 3.x with the magical items and things like being related to monsters basically being requirements of the power level of the system. Minsc was a minor influence at best on that and Minsc Was Influenced by non-class Powers that could cause raging type effects if the truth be told. Because that's what Rage originally was. It was an extra ability that could either be picked up on it's own or inflicted by certain conditions or spells. Some of them not well known. Minsc's Rage on his PC sheet interestingly enough was called Feral Rage. It had a once a day usage and was implied to be beastial in nature. This is why he has the Rage Ability in the Baldur's gate game.
And Drizzt didn't just make the Beast Master. Drizzt made the Ranger as you know it. The Entire Ranger Class would be different without Drizzt. They rewrote how Rangers Worked when AD&D 2nd Edition was introduced to fit how Drizzt worked because he broke the very operating rules but was a very popular character.
The Beast Master Came About because a lot of players liked combining animal companions with their rangers even without Drizzt or Minsc. Animal Companions and Animal Friendship is actually a mentality that commonly comes up in the game and it wasn't really Drizzt that inspired that because it was something people were doing with multiple classes even before him. I want to say Dragon Magazine actually toyed with a few different versions of pet based classes but it's been a really long time so I'm fuzzy on that. All Drizzt really did was narrow it down to happen with a couple of classes primarily to some extent. But Drizzt popularity had nothing to do with his sometimes animal companion. Back in the 90's all anybody ever talked about was his dual wielding and his bow use. The Main Group was copying this in their recreations. Not his pet, And that's why several of his video game versions didn't feature his feline companion even as a temporary use power of his, Including Baldur's Gate. The Truth is. You could almost blame Minsc and Boo for the Beast Master if you were going to try to tie it to a fictional character. But those fictional Characters are not what sparked the mentality behind the Beast Master. But the Truth is that the Beast Master became a Codified thing as part of the 3.x point in time of the game to try to appeal to the pet collector and the pet companion mentality and any pointing at even Drizzt for it was entirely an afterthought. If it had been forefront then it would have been codified in 2nd ed just like everything else about how Drizzt Functions.
As a Side Note. Conan didn't hate Everything about Magic. He just had a major Distrust for Arcane Magic. Sorcerer's and Wizards and things like that. He had no problem with Divine Magic that was actually from Gods and not from people that just called themselves Gods. He was even the faithful Follower of a God. And His Anger was one of his defining Features. That played it's own big part in the Rage of the Barbarians. Conan at that point long had an Image of Shouting Angrily and Slamming his Axe into things when 3.x came about. That likely had as much to do with Rage Becoming a Class Feature and even gaining Positive Benefits as anything.
Your Talking About an Optional Source book there. And much of it was not found elsewhere.
So it's exactly what I said. it's not a Class Officially Represented in most materials. it was represented in the Unearthed Arcana. And it was in the Barbarian's Handbook. Occasionally getting something small or supplemental in a particular setting. That is it.
Telling me to check the unearthed arcana pdf to see that it's in there does not change the fact that many people did not actually use the 1st edition Unearthed Arcana. Nor the Barbarian handbook.
Monk Was also in the First Edition. And it was an official class of the first Edition. The First Class in the book as I recall. But it still did not make it to second Edition. And when it returned there were some definite fundamental changes between the first edition and it's Major Return in 3.x, As well as it's smaller return in one of the specific settings of Second Edition. In fact i think in the second edition version it was technically a Fighter Variant if I remember Correctly. It's been a really long time and I'd have to go look at the specifics. But they did things like that.
Your Group does not mean that everybody Did. Every group that I played with Entirely ignored the Unearthed Arcana. And most of the people I've played throw backs with have ignored the Unearthed Arcana. it was actually more common for people not to have it, including the DM, than it was to have it. To the point that it was an interesting curiosity when somebody did actually have it. I actually ran across rare campaign settings like Red Steel and Council of Wyrms more than I've run across groups that played with the Unearthed Arcana. (I moved around at points during my younger years with the family. So my groups changed every 6 months to a year for a while.)
So that can show how Experiences can be different and not always representative of the group. It's not to say that my experience means more than yours does at all with your groups. I'm just trying to show a perceptive difference. All we do know regardless of both of our experiences is that Barbarian was not really known about until it became a core part of 3.x
An interesting conundrum, and a great example why RAW, RAI, and similar examples are all important to consider when making a ruling. It reminds me of other questionable interactions where RAW and RAI seem to conflict.
Freedom of Movement states, "The target can also spend 5 feet of movement to automatically escape from nonmagical restraints, such as manacles or a creature that has it grappled." but the grappled condition states, "A grappled creature's speed becomes 0." The spell description gives an example that technically wouldn't work as a creature with 0 speed has no movement to spend. Is this meant to be an exception? That's how most people interpret it. The important part of this is why the community came to this conclusion. The RAI is clear and RAW was just as distinct, but what lead players to this decision?
On the other hand when looking at Echo Knight's Manifest Echo which states, "As a bonus action, you can teleport, magically swapping places with your echo at a cost of 15 feet of your movement..." , many said that a grappled creature would have no movement to spend regardless of whether or not they had a bonus action. The intent of the ability is crystal clear that you are teleporting, which has historically been a hard counter to grappling. Why the difference in opinion? Could it have something to do with the context of the release of the source material and it's reception?
Regardless on which side you land, of course it's important to follow the rules and examine the whys, but also the feelings behind them. Remember to ground yourselves in the reality that when you make your rulings, they are for the people you play with. People who, hopefully, you enjoy spending time with and are your friends. At the end of the day, the wrong decision is the one where no one is having fun.
Isnt that how Dominate spells work? Like if you use Dominate Person, it explicitly states the affected creature cannot do something (such as use Stillness of Mind) unless they permit it.
To me this seems like a "Stillness would clear it if used" but "You cannot use ANY action against their will"; they decide whether you can use it, and if they do so, you remove the effect.
In my opinion "Stillness of Mind" takes precedence over all actions imposed by another creature, but it actually lacks clarity. They should add more details to avoid misunderstandings.
<<Stillness of Mind: Starting at 7th level, you can use your action to end one effect that is causing you or one willing creature that you touch to be charmed or frightened. This feature is activated at the subconscious level by blocking any action imposed by effects.>>
Generally speaking, yes. Anything that takes your entire Action away, including but not limited to Dominate spells, will stop you from using Stillness of Mind, as a general rule.
I think there is several creature features that make you charmed.
As a condition it's actually pretty good as it is removing your ability to attack the creature at all.... So having something to get that back is pretty good.
Dominate spells just make it so you can't take any action is the distinction.
I disagree as it specifically says the creature is completely controlled in the case of dominate spells.
Every other charm works though... Just not dominate.
Both the charmed and frightened conditions let you retain your action. It requires special riders on the effect in question to take your entire Action away. For example, Charm Monster will not take your action away, and neither will Cause Fear. As a result, the general case is that the charmed or frightened monk will have their action available. For a monster example, dryads can't take your action away, and neither can a quasit.