we have the barbarian class so we can replicate the plethora of un-armoured fighty type characters in pop-fiction. Rage is not 'getting angry' like so many people think it is, it is actually based off berserker rages that were (news flash) a real thing. Ber (Anglo saxon for bear) Serkr (Norse for coat), was used to describe (I hate using this word cause it isn't very accurate but Oh well.) Viking warriors who entered a trance like state before battle, which helped them ignore their wounds and keep fighting. There is a myth that one (Cant remember the name) Who kept fighting after his head was cut off. That is why we have the barb.
I dont see any way to thematically re-create the monk with a "fighty guy" class, or a swashbuckler with a thief. I love 5e's classes, I am not complaining about that, but I wish they had done fewer class abilities per level, but more choice. Like you choose Indomitable, or dragonslayer.......wait they could just introduce class feats........🤯. I want feats that can only be taken by certain classes. RIght now.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
There could be both though. If classes granted a little less and subclass granted a little more and there were optional features for both at various levels, then those options would provide a little more crunch to be sure, but those choices could also reflect the narrative style of the character too. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Wasn't berserker rage caused by eating shrooms as well?
That's been speculated, but most likely no. If you want a drug available to the Vikings that resulted in being aggressive, fearless, and resistant to pain, you're probably looking at alcohol.
Wasn't berserker rage caused by eating shrooms as well?
That's been speculated, but most likely no. If you want a drug available to the Vikings that resulted in being aggressive, fearless, and resistant to pain, you're probably looking at alcohol.
They did have certain “herbal/fungal” options available to them.
It was unlikely that Norse 'berserkers' indulged in mind-altering drugs prior to combat, simply because not being at your absolute best in combat was a fantastic way to not live through combat.
The modern 'berserker' is potentially an amalgam of the notion of a chieftain's champion, who was often given ceremonial bear skins and similar attire to mark his status, and the fact that to everyone else, all Vikings were savage, frenzied frothing-mouthed psychopaths who Flipped Schittes Professionally on the battlefield.
it's also wildly off-topic for this thread (does this thread even have a topic anymore?), but still an interesting - if tangled - piece of history.
It was unlikely that Norse 'berserkers' indulged in mind-altering drugs prior to combat, simply because not being at your absolute best in combat was a fantastic way to not live through combat.
The modern 'berserker' is potentially an amalgam of the notion of a chieftain's champion, who was often given ceremonial bear skins and similar attire to mark his status, and the fact that to everyone else, all Vikings were savage, frenzied frothing-mouthed psychopaths who Flipped Schittes Professionally on the battlefield.
it's also wildly off-topic for this thread (does this thread even have a topic anymore?), but still an interesting - if tangled - piece of history.
I can only imagine, and cringe, at what the D&D source books would look like if you were the final say on them. Not everything, in fact, nothing, in a game, should be looked at through the lens of critical theory. You want to talk about the real world, that is a discussion worth having. But not D&D, or any other game. If D&D wants to portray Barbarians as baby-eating Vikings, that is just fine as is. As stated many times before, the existing set of classes/subclasses/species are also just fine as is. Nothing has to be added/altered, as there are already far more combinations and permutations that any player can churn through in 10 more years of hard core playing.
Holy shit dude, do you just go out of your way to follow me around and try to pick fights with me?
The only thing I really said was that no, the historical model for a 'berserker/barbarian', i.e. Viking warriors, were not generally drugged out of their gourds before a fight. Not if they wanted to live through that fight.
The enormous and continuing success of the DM's Guild program and the huge pile of highly successful homebrew content on that platform would like to have a word with the idea that D&D 5e is just peachy-keen perfect as is and not another word ever needs to be written for it everz, but I'm starting to get the distinct feeling that I could say 'water is wet, yo', and you'd figure out a way to tell me that water only became wet in 4th edition after immense pressure from Undesirables forced Wizards to cave, we got stuck with wet water in 5e as a byproduct, and the game would work better if water went back to being fluffy, instead.
Chill, Vince. Move on. Trust me when I say that dogging my heels looking for a scrap is not the best use of your time.
Holy shit dude, do you just go out of your way to follow me around and try to pick fights with me?
The only thing I really said was that no, the historical model for a 'berserker/barbarian', i.e. Viking warriors, were not generally drugged out of their gourds before a fight. Not if they wanted to live through that fight.
Well, the entire model of berserkers doesn't make sense unless you assume berserkers were expendable. Even if you assume an otherwise non-debilitating berserker drug, being fearless and impervious to pain isn't really a survival trait on an individual level (in D&D terms, it's something like "You can continue moving and fighting while HP are below 0. When berserk ends, you suffer normal effects of your hp"). Of course, D&D barbarians are intended to be actually useful PCs.
Which is why I honestly believe the whole drugged-up frenzied ragemonkey thing is basically a total fabrication, or at the least a severe distortion of history. Trained, equipped warriors were never really 'expendable'; they died, yes, but they were never really supposed to be wasted. In many of these older cultures, the men who went to war were also the men who harvested the fields or built the longhouses; losing a soldier was also losing a farmer or worker in many cases, and it was to be avoided. Yes, a warrior was expected to meet an honorable death on the battlefield once he'd outlived his prime, but dying like an idiot beforehand was also a good way to not get chosen by the Valkyries.
Nevertheless. While an interesting historical debate, seems off-topic for the thread in general.
Holy shit dude, do you just go out of your way to follow me around and try to pick fights with me?
The only thing I really said was that no, the historical model for a 'berserker/barbarian', i.e. Viking warriors, were not generally drugged out of their gourds before a fight. Not if they wanted to live through that fight.
Well, the entire model of berserkers doesn't make sense unless you assume berserkers were expendable. Even if you assume an otherwise non-debilitating berserker drug, being fearless and impervious to pain isn't really a survival trait on an individual level (in D&D terms, it's something like "You can continue moving and fighting while HP are below 0. When berserk ends, you suffer normal effects of your hp"). Of course, D&D barbarians are intended to be actually useful PCs.
There are umpteen real life analogies of people in various cultures that consider losing their life for their god, master, or ideal, a worthy thing, actually a preferable thing. (I hate the fact that I am dragging real life into a game, but there it is.) So a berserker makes perfect sense, as written.
There are umpteen real life analogies of people in various cultures that consider losing their life for their god, master, or ideal, a worthy thing, actually a preferable thing. (I hate the fact that I am dragging real life into a game, but there it is.) So a berserker makes perfect sense, as written.
Disposable soldiers are a realistic thing, but they make much better minions and monsters than PCs.
A lot of people want more classes. To those who want less classes or no more classes, how would it harm you to have more options in the game for classes? Don't give me the "it will destroy D&D" argument. That's BS. There's absolutely no reason why adding about half a dozen more classes to the game would destroy the hobby as we know it. How would it hurt you to have a Psion, Warlord, Occultist, Magus, and/or Shaman in the game?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
The reason I like more classes is that they have mechanical differences, which leads to different ways of playing and different players enjoying different things.
If there were few classes, but each was massively customisable, that would work too.
- You could have two classes, each which fill the same niche but play and are themed differently. e.g. barbarian and fighter.
- Or have one class, which forms a template and you can pick how you build it. e.g. a generic 'fighter' class, which allows you to pick barbarian things like rage as options.
orrrr
- Do the 5e method with most of its classes, where you really heavily theme an inflexible class, and then say play this one way with this single theme and mechanics which for most of the classes can't be changed. If you don't enjoy that one set of mechanics, or that theme, tough.
The issue with that, Lizard, is that you assume that the fewer rules a game has, the harder it is for munchkins to 'ruin it' by becoming good with those rules and figuring out how to maximize them. This is provably false. Chess has a basic ruleset one can teach someone in five to ten minutes. People have spent their entire lives throughout many centuries of human existence learning to master that game; the metagame surrounding the simple core game can take a lifetime to absorb. I've said it before, I'll say it again as many times as I need to. "Munchkins" do not need new rules to do their thing. Whatever ruleset exists, however slim or thicc that ruleset is, munchkins will do their best to absorb it and use it to their advantage.
You say every single character concept one could ever hope to play can be built with the rules for four character types - fighter, thief, cleric, and magic-user. Wizards did you one better - they boiled it down to Warrior, Expert, and Spellcaster. If a player doesn't give the slightest shit whether or not the mechanics and structure of the game reflects their narrative choices, then yes - you can do everything in the game with just those three archetypes. It'd be a sad bad game nobody would want to play because their ideas would have zero impact on their character and their choices wouldn't reflect in their capabilities, but it'd certainly be doable.
There's a reason no TTRPG that expects players to play a single campaign/story for a long period of time ever settles for such a basic, anemic character creation system. Even OG D&D quickly grew beyond that, and if you told everyone who played a fighter, ranger, barbarian, paladin, blood hunter, or monk that their class was invalid and they were all now using the rules for a 'Warrior' subclass with the most generic possible abilities, you'd get a riot. Same with wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, clerics, druids, and bards all being told "you're a 'Spellcaster' now, you all use the exact same hyper-generic abilities." Same with telling every rogue and artificer they're now 'Experts' who, once again, are all completely identical to each other no matter what the character sheet - or the player - says.
A lot of people want more classes. To those who want less classes or no more classes, how would it harm you to have more options in the game for classes?
I've seen D&D with splatbook explosion, it was not a good look. The reality is, classes are by design restrictive, and the reason this can be acceptable is because you get simplification as a part of it. The effect of massive numbers of classes is that you lose the simplicity advantage while still being pretty restrictive, so there's simply no point; if you're going to go beyond a dozen classes or so you should just go directly to classless.
Now, adding more points of flexibility to existing classes is a possible middle ground; e.g. for a paladin you might offer choices on
Lay On Hands becomes a choice (Lay On Hands, some other action)
Spellcasting remains but has variation in spell lists.
Divine Smite becomes 'choose a smite type'
Aura of Protection and Aura of Courage become 'choose an aura from this list'.
Now, adding more points of flexibility to existing classes is a possible middle ground; e.g. for a paladin you might offer choices on
Lay On Hands becomes a choice (Lay On Hands, some other action)
Spellcasting remains but has variation in spell lists.
Divine Smite becomes 'choose a smite type'
Aura of Protection and Aura of Courage become 'choose an aura from this list'.
If there was more of that in 5e then there would be fewer complaints from players who feel too restricted under the current structure. In fact, if classes (and subclasses) had those kinda of features, we could probably cut back on the number of classes and still have more variety.
That would be ideal, yes. That's sorta the point of Class Feature Variants; one can in some ways have their cake and eat it too. The people who cannot wrap their heads around any sort of complexity or cognitive load can play the 'Default' classes; those starving for choice and meaningful character building can dive headfirst into expanded CFVs. God I hope CFVs also open up base class homebrew customization in DDB. I wouldn't need a new base class for half the shit I'd otherwise need it for if I could edit the base features of some of the existing ones. There's still room for new classes before we get to Splatbook Hell, but a proper explosion of CFVs would be a great interim release valve for a lot of this pressure.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please do not contact or message me.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
we have the barbarian class so we can replicate the plethora of un-armoured fighty type characters in pop-fiction. Rage is not 'getting angry' like so many people think it is, it is actually based off berserker rages that were (news flash) a real thing. Ber (Anglo saxon for bear) Serkr (Norse for coat), was used to describe (I hate using this word cause it isn't very accurate but Oh well.) Viking warriors who entered a trance like state before battle, which helped them ignore their wounds and keep fighting. There is a myth that one (Cant remember the name) Who kept fighting after his head was cut off. That is why we have the barb.
I dont see any way to thematically re-create the monk with a "fighty guy" class, or a swashbuckler with a thief. I love 5e's classes, I am not complaining about that, but I wish they had done fewer class abilities per level, but more choice. Like you choose Indomitable, or dragonslayer.......wait they could just introduce class feats........🤯. I want feats that can only be taken by certain classes. RIght now.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
BigLizard,
There could be both though. If classes granted a little less and subclass granted a little more and there were optional features for both at various levels, then those options would provide a little more crunch to be sure, but those choices could also reflect the narrative style of the character too. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Wasn't berserker rage caused by eating shrooms as well?
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Yes, actually quite a lot of them did.....drugs. Oh no, now I cant help but see an ancient norse warrior in a black suit and sunglasses selling drugs.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
That's been speculated, but most likely no. If you want a drug available to the Vikings that resulted in being aggressive, fearless, and resistant to pain, you're probably looking at alcohol.
They did have certain “herbal/fungal” options available to them.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
It was unlikely that Norse 'berserkers' indulged in mind-altering drugs prior to combat, simply because not being at your absolute best in combat was a fantastic way to not live through combat.
The modern 'berserker' is potentially an amalgam of the notion of a chieftain's champion, who was often given ceremonial bear skins and similar attire to mark his status, and the fact that to everyone else, all Vikings were savage, frenzied frothing-mouthed psychopaths who Flipped Schittes Professionally on the battlefield.
it's also wildly off-topic for this thread (does this thread even have a topic anymore?), but still an interesting - if tangled - piece of history.
Please do not contact or message me.
I can only imagine, and cringe, at what the D&D source books would look like if you were the final say on them. Not everything, in fact, nothing, in a game, should be looked at through the lens of critical theory. You want to talk about the real world, that is a discussion worth having. But not D&D, or any other game. If D&D wants to portray Barbarians as baby-eating Vikings, that is just fine as is. As stated many times before, the existing set of classes/subclasses/species are also just fine as is. Nothing has to be added/altered, as there are already far more combinations and permutations that any player can churn through in 10 more years of hard core playing.
Holy shit dude, do you just go out of your way to follow me around and try to pick fights with me?
The only thing I really said was that no, the historical model for a 'berserker/barbarian', i.e. Viking warriors, were not generally drugged out of their gourds before a fight. Not if they wanted to live through that fight.
The enormous and continuing success of the DM's Guild program and the huge pile of highly successful homebrew content on that platform would like to have a word with the idea that D&D 5e is just peachy-keen perfect as is and not another word ever needs to be written for it everz, but I'm starting to get the distinct feeling that I could say 'water is wet, yo', and you'd figure out a way to tell me that water only became wet in 4th edition after immense pressure from Undesirables forced Wizards to cave, we got stuck with wet water in 5e as a byproduct, and the game would work better if water went back to being fluffy, instead.
Chill, Vince. Move on. Trust me when I say that dogging my heels looking for a scrap is not the best use of your time.
Please do not contact or message me.
Well, the entire model of berserkers doesn't make sense unless you assume berserkers were expendable. Even if you assume an otherwise non-debilitating berserker drug, being fearless and impervious to pain isn't really a survival trait on an individual level (in D&D terms, it's something like "You can continue moving and fighting while HP are below 0. When berserk ends, you suffer normal effects of your hp"). Of course, D&D barbarians are intended to be actually useful PCs.
Which is why I honestly believe the whole drugged-up frenzied ragemonkey thing is basically a total fabrication, or at the least a severe distortion of history. Trained, equipped warriors were never really 'expendable'; they died, yes, but they were never really supposed to be wasted. In many of these older cultures, the men who went to war were also the men who harvested the fields or built the longhouses; losing a soldier was also losing a farmer or worker in many cases, and it was to be avoided. Yes, a warrior was expected to meet an honorable death on the battlefield once he'd outlived his prime, but dying like an idiot beforehand was also a good way to not get chosen by the Valkyries.
Nevertheless. While an interesting historical debate, seems off-topic for the thread in general.
Please do not contact or message me.
There are umpteen real life analogies of people in various cultures that consider losing their life for their god, master, or ideal, a worthy thing, actually a preferable thing. (I hate the fact that I am dragging real life into a game, but there it is.) So a berserker makes perfect sense, as written.
Disposable soldiers are a realistic thing, but they make much better minions and monsters than PCs.
Gosh, what's happening to this thread?
A lot of people want more classes. To those who want less classes or no more classes, how would it harm you to have more options in the game for classes? Don't give me the "it will destroy D&D" argument. That's BS. There's absolutely no reason why adding about half a dozen more classes to the game would destroy the hobby as we know it. How would it hurt you to have a Psion, Warlord, Occultist, Magus, and/or Shaman in the game?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
The reason I like more classes is that they have mechanical differences, which leads to different ways of playing and different players enjoying different things.
If there were few classes, but each was massively customisable, that would work too.
- You could have two classes, each which fill the same niche but play and are themed differently. e.g. barbarian and fighter.
- Or have one class, which forms a template and you can pick how you build it. e.g. a generic 'fighter' class, which allows you to pick barbarian things like rage as options.
orrrr
- Do the 5e method with most of its classes, where you really heavily theme an inflexible class, and then say play this one way with this single theme and mechanics which for most of the classes can't be changed. If you don't enjoy that one set of mechanics, or that theme, tough.
I second this. If a class is causing an issue, just say that it is not allowed.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
The issue with that, Lizard, is that you assume that the fewer rules a game has, the harder it is for munchkins to 'ruin it' by becoming good with those rules and figuring out how to maximize them. This is provably false. Chess has a basic ruleset one can teach someone in five to ten minutes. People have spent their entire lives throughout many centuries of human existence learning to master that game; the metagame surrounding the simple core game can take a lifetime to absorb. I've said it before, I'll say it again as many times as I need to. "Munchkins" do not need new rules to do their thing. Whatever ruleset exists, however slim or thicc that ruleset is, munchkins will do their best to absorb it and use it to their advantage.
You say every single character concept one could ever hope to play can be built with the rules for four character types - fighter, thief, cleric, and magic-user. Wizards did you one better - they boiled it down to Warrior, Expert, and Spellcaster. If a player doesn't give the slightest shit whether or not the mechanics and structure of the game reflects their narrative choices, then yes - you can do everything in the game with just those three archetypes. It'd be a sad bad game nobody would want to play because their ideas would have zero impact on their character and their choices wouldn't reflect in their capabilities, but it'd certainly be doable.
There's a reason no TTRPG that expects players to play a single campaign/story for a long period of time ever settles for such a basic, anemic character creation system. Even OG D&D quickly grew beyond that, and if you told everyone who played a fighter, ranger, barbarian, paladin, blood hunter, or monk that their class was invalid and they were all now using the rules for a 'Warrior' subclass with the most generic possible abilities, you'd get a riot. Same with wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, clerics, druids, and bards all being told "you're a 'Spellcaster' now, you all use the exact same hyper-generic abilities." Same with telling every rogue and artificer they're now 'Experts' who, once again, are all completely identical to each other no matter what the character sheet - or the player - says.
Nobody would play that game, BL.
Please do not contact or message me.
I've seen D&D with splatbook explosion, it was not a good look. The reality is, classes are by design restrictive, and the reason this can be acceptable is because you get simplification as a part of it. The effect of massive numbers of classes is that you lose the simplicity advantage while still being pretty restrictive, so there's simply no point; if you're going to go beyond a dozen classes or so you should just go directly to classless.
Now, adding more points of flexibility to existing classes is a possible middle ground; e.g. for a paladin you might offer choices on
If there was more of that in 5e then there would be fewer complaints from players who feel too restricted under the current structure. In fact, if classes (and subclasses) had those kinda of features, we could probably cut back on the number of classes and still have more variety.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
That would be ideal, yes. That's sorta the point of Class Feature Variants; one can in some ways have their cake and eat it too. The people who cannot wrap their heads around any sort of complexity or cognitive load can play the 'Default' classes; those starving for choice and meaningful character building can dive headfirst into expanded CFVs. God I hope CFVs also open up base class homebrew customization in DDB. I wouldn't need a new base class for half the shit I'd otherwise need it for if I could edit the base features of some of the existing ones. There's still room for new classes before we get to Splatbook Hell, but a proper explosion of CFVs would be a great interim release valve for a lot of this pressure.
Please do not contact or message me.