Consolidated Barbarian Handbook- Midnight_v and Zendu

[wO-_-OdrOw]

Hah! I suppose I should have expected your agitated tone. I meant no harm, really, and I realize now how condescending I sounded! I guess if you believe there is some kind of integrity in not mentioning Dragon Magazines and other obscure non-WotC source materials, then you've done yourself proud.

[Midnight_v]

  Yeah... it really bothered me that I'd gotten so irked by that. I suppose I put so much time into the handbook, I just took it too personally. . . sorry. Plus your like of Mfdoom pleases me.
No hard feelings
There are reasons why no dragon magazines are included in most handbooks. Primarily among those reasons in my book is the availability. I don't expect everyone to be like me and HAVE every 3.5 dragon magazine. 
  So I try to keep it to reasonable to what the bulk of the audience seems to pull from.
... about shape souldmeld...
You may notice that I did not include Cobalt rage from that book either.
So heres the deal. For everyone.
If you want to add a section to the handbook (incarnum & rage for example) do a quick write up and analysis and I'll add it and further create a "Contributers" section in the first post.
While I've studied a lot of barbarian information. . .
 Somethings were willful omissions and maybe that was wrong on my behalf. 
Raging luck for instance was left out.
As well as... Dragon totem and dragon rage. Honestly these things came up near the end of the work and Zendu was unreachable, no one seem interested till recently, so at some point I became demoralized.
I suppose this resurgance is invigorating though.
So in the interest of creating a more complete work, I'm open to suggestions.
Especially items and any feats I may have missed but with things like "Monkey grip" and "Jotunbrud" I'm thinking they don't need to be there just for me to say "these are bad" especially when they're not Barbarian specific...

[sombrastewart]

I thought I might try to contribute a little to this.  This is a build that I made for an epic game that was meant to be a single-class, one to twenty, game.  The build eventually works its way towards Overwhelming and Devastating Critical at epic levels (I know, it's not a caster), but I think it's a simple, decent build until then.  It has a +1 LA for being a Goliath, which I would assume would be handled through LA Buyoff.

Tenzan Vaimei-Laga, "Red-Eyed"
Goliath Barbarian, Lion Totem

Goliath: +4 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con
Powerful Build
LA: +1

Equipment (to be enhanced as able)
-Medium Armor
-Falchion, Large

Class Progression:

Barbarian 1, Goliath substitution level
-Mountain Rage (+6 Str, +4 Con, -3 AC), 1/day
-Pounce special ability (replaces Fast Movement)
-Feat: Power Attack

Barbarian 2
-Uncanny Dodge

Barbarian 3
-Trap Sense +1
-Feat: Weapon Focus: Falchion

Barbarian 4
-Rage 2/day
-Ability Point: Str or Con

Barbarian 5
-Improved Uncanny Dodge

Barbarian 6
-Trap Sense +2
-Feat: Cleave

Barbarian 7
-Lion Totem Roar: Every creature in 30 foot radius makes a Will save (Dc 10 +1/2 Barb level + Str mod) or is shaken, 1/day

Barbarian 8
-Rage 3/day
-Ability Point: Str or Con

Barbarian 9
-Trap Sense +3
-Feat: Improved Critical: Falchion

Barbarian 10
-Lion Totem Roar, 2/day

Barbarian 11
-Greater Rage

Barbarian 12
-Rage 4/day, Trap Sense +4
-Feat: Great Cleave
-Ability Point: Str or Con

Barbarian 13
-Lion Totem Roar, 3/day

Barbarian 14
-Indomitable Will

Barbarian 15
-Trap Sense +5
-Feat: (Left Open)

Barbarian 16
-Rage 5/day
-Lion Totem Roar, 4/day
-Ability Point: Str or Con

Barbarian 17
-Tireless Rage

Barbarian 18
-Trap Sense +6
-Feat: (Left Open)

Barbarian 19
-Lion Totem Roar, 5/day

Barbarian 20
-Mighty Rage, 6/day
-Ability Point: Str or Con
 

[pfooti]

Just figured I'd toss in my build here.

Barbarian (lion ACF from CC) 1 / Totemist 2 / Incarnate 2 / Barbarian (wolf ACF from UA) +1 / Totemist +1 / Totem Rager 3 / Bear Warrior 1 / Totem Rager +1 / Bear Warrior +4 / Warshaper 4

Or thereabouts. Notable soulmelds include girallon arms bound to the totem chakra (gained at lev 3), Worg Pelt bound to the hands (gained at lev 12), mantle of flame on the incarnate side.

Overall, this gives you a pretty wicked standard totem rager build from 1-10. You get 4 girallon arm attacks at level 3, and with extra/cobalt rage, you get to rage 3/day, get +1 damage and will saves when you rage, and pounce. At level 4, you get mantle of flame and dissolving spittle. MoF dishes 2d6 fire damage to anyone who hits you - your AC isn't great, and at this level, 2d6 fire is not insignificant. It will probably discourage people from attacking you. Level 6 gets you improved trip from the barbarian level, which is handy although will go largely unused for the time being unless you need the tactical superiority. After that, you're a standard totem rager, with a fair amount of extra flexibility and essentia from the two incarnate levels (you also have no XP penalty, regardless of favored class, which is why I did it this way). Back in town, when not fighting, you can do stuff with truthseeker goggles and silvertongue masks to make a decent party face (or at least a secondary one).

Level 11, however, nets you bear warrior. Now you're a bear. You get +8 str when raging (and you can rage 4/day, I think). You also get the brown bear's claw/claw/bite routine, which you can augment with three additional claws from girallon arms (read the soulmeld text). At level 12, you open up your hands, feet, and crown chakras via the Totem Rager PrC. This gives you the ability to bind worg pelt to your hands, which gives you a free trip attempt if you successfully bite your foe. Imp trip gets you a followup bite.

So, here you are at level 12. You charge and pounce while raging. You get 5 claw attacks and a bite. The bite grants a free trip (with no countertrip) that you're very likely to succeed on against medium-sized or smaller creatures. If the trip is successful, you get another bite. There are even melds that will improve this trip roll pretty significantly, although most conflict with either your worg pelt or girallon arms melds.

Also, you're a bear. A bear that's on fire.

Soulmelds help cover your AC/save problems while "wild shaped" and a generous DM will let you use wildling clasps. Also, a neat little side effect of gaining the Feet, Hands and Crown chakra locations via a PrC is that you can bind any of your incarnate melds to those chakras, since your regular incarnate-2 level gave you a chakra bind. Tons of options there - flight speed, evasion, etc.

After that, it's up to you - do you want to improve your meldshaping with more levels of Totem Rager? If you do that, you can get split chakra (totem) at 15 and bind Heart of Fire, for +Nd4 fire damage to *all your natural attacks*. Or do you want to go to bear warrior 5 for the brown bear: large size, +8 more Str? Both are good choices. Round it out with warshaper for fast healing, morphic weapons (add a gore to your claw/claw/bite (trip,bite)/claw/claw/claw routine), morphic immunities, reach, etc.

Even without feats for grappling, you can grapple pretty effectively - between your mad strength and the extra +2 per essentia from girallon arms, you're good at this, provided your opponent doesn't AoO you when you start the grapple (but most guys don't have more than 1 AoO anyway, so it's just a matter of timing or trying twice).

It's very satisfying, and seems eminently playable from level 1 onwards (I've been playing since level 1, but we're still only level 3).

[Nagrud]

STYLES, TRICKS, ACCUMULATED BUILDS...

Imperious Command + Instaneous Rage + Intimidating rage (optional + Skill Trick never outnumbered) : This combo I cannot say enough about. It’s the barbarian equivalent to a mage with celerity. You basically can cut off someone’s action and shut them down for a round making them drop what they were doing and well (die to your charge) add never outnumbered and charge the opposing force, leap attack into the midst of them then rage while mid-air. Potentially cowering their whole team.

I do realize that I'm digging up an old thread here, but I seem to recall having read about the above tactic before and I still can't see how this could possibly work.
Instantaneous Rage let's you enter rage at any time. Nothing more, you just apply your rage bonuses (and penalties).
Intimidating Rage let's you demoralize an opponent as a free action. Free actions can only be taken during your own turn. Ergo, no demoralizing the opponent in his turn.
Or did I miss something?

[Midnight_v]

No. NO! I'm glad someone looks at this.
Okay...

You got your books handy?
Good good, and not to make a big deal about this but....

Instantaneous Rage let's you enter rage at any time. Nothing more, you just apply your rage bonuses (and penalties).

Word for word instantaneous rage allowes you to "activate your rage as a free action, even when its not your turn or even when your suprised)
That pretty much shows that you can take "free actions" when its not your turn. Now this is not normally the case with rage but thats because of RAGE not because of free actions.

Also at the end description of Insta rage it says "Normal: you can only enter rage during your turn."
It doesn't say anything about "free actions" being only on your turn.

But just to be methodical and sure I went to the SRD to check
[quote: from the SRD]Free Actions
Free actions don’t take any time at all, though there may be limits to the number of free actions you can perform in a turn. Free actions rarely incur attacks of opportunity. Some common free actions are described below.

Drop an Item
Dropping an item in your space or into an adjacent square is a free action.

Drop Prone
Dropping to a prone position in your space is a free action.

Speak
In general, speaking is a free action that you can perform even when it isn’t your turn. Speaking more than few sentences is generally beyond the limit of a free action.

Cease Concentration on Spell
You can stop concentrating on an active spell as a free action.

Cast a Quickened Spell
You can cast a quickened spell (see the Quicken Spell feat) or any spell whose casting time is designated as a free action as a free action. Only one such spell can be cast in any round, and such spells don’t count toward your normal limit of one spell per round. Casting a spell with a casting time of a free action doesn’t incur an attack of opportunity.
   [/quote]
Since it says "as a free action during a rage" and  "When its not your turn" you're allowed to speak" as a free action and under the description of intimidate in the phb is says intimidate includes verbal threats and body language.
You can just toss off a threat as couple harsh words (on thier turn) and scary the jeewilikers out of them.
Thats how it works.
 
However, the thought that you can take free actions only during your turn is you base mistake in this.
I've never seen such adjucation. Perhaps your confusing the fact that the barbarians rage is a "free" action that can only be taken during your turn with the effects of ALL free actions.
  Course as a Dm... you can rule free actions to work however you want, but theres not logical reason to say this doesn't  work unless your intention is to argue that someone CANNOT intimidate another person with "mere words" *(or as I tend to envision it an blood curdling other worldly bellow)
Hope this clears things up.
M_v 

[Emy]

Runescarred Berserker (UE) This is better on the gish scale.  The spell list gained from this class is small ,but powerful, allowing you to cast AMF or Heal.

It also allows you to cast heal in your AMF.

[Nagrud]

However, the thought that you can take free actions only during your turn is you base mistake in this.

I do not agree. I'll quote the SRD as well:

When a character’s turn comes up in the initiative sequence, that character performs his entire round’s worth of actions. (For exceptions, see Attacks of Opportunity and Special Initiative Actions.)

Admittedly there are a few Free actions that specifically say that they can be performed when it isn't your turn (such as speaking), but the base rule is that you take all actions when your turn comes up. If the action you want to perform isn't described as being allowed when it isn't your turn, you'll have to wait until your turn to do it. And there is no such exception in the description of Instantaneous Rage.
It's not simply a question of if you can intimidate people with mere words or in a very short time; spells can be cast with just a few words as well, but I still wouldn't allow anyone to cast a quickened spell out of turn.

(A note on my quote above - Special Initiative Actions = Delay and Ready)

[Midnight_v]

It's not simply a question of if you can intimidate people with mere words or in a very short time; spells can be cast with just a few words as well, but I still wouldn't allow anyone to cast a quickened spell out of turn.

  Actually yes, that exactly what it is.
Quickend spells are "swift actions" which implicitly cannot be cast out of turn because they're swift.
 Swift actions have thier own definitons, one of the things swift actions "can't do" is be used on someone elses turn.
 The ONLY question here is if you want to rule that someone cannot intimidate someone as a free action which basically is what the feat lets you do.
Raw however, you totally can.
Here's why.
Instantaneous rage: Allows you to rage out of turn, as a free action.
Intimidating rage allows you while raging to demoralize as a free action.
Intimidate as Demoralize normally takes a standard action but in lieu of the feet it now free.
Speaking a small amount "I'm going to eat YOUR EYES!!" or "INSECTS! YOU DARE! I WILL BREAK YOU!"
Or whatever... may well be done as a free action.
Speaking to someone a free action that may be taken on your turn satifies the requirement asked
for by intimidate . On someone another persons turn. 
 Intimidate which includes both verbal and things like glowering menacingly or whatever.
It really very simple.
 The only thing to be adjucated rules wise is if you believe or choose not to believe that someone can intimidate people with a few words.
Because thats all it really takes. Speaking to people and scaring them shitless as to what you're about to do.
One more time:

The section of the srd you quote is a general rule. Speaking on other peoples turn in a direct exception to that rule. Intimidate as demoralize is a generally a standard action, but if you can do it as a free action, then you can demoralize people with much much less effort. The effort of speaking alone in this case.
So it's NOT the write up of intimidating rage being a free action that does this.
Its the fact that speaking to an opponent is a free action that can be used on other peoples turn.
And speaking is by definition enough to demoralize people.

I mean you might not LIKE it, but thats the way the raw works, in this case. I'd read the feat and considered all of this before I placed in the handbook. 

[Nagrud]

1. When PH came out, there were no swift or immediate actions. A quickened spell was a free action, though you could only do it once per turn. Thus, by your interpretation, a quickened spell with only verbal components would have been legal to cast out of turn until the publication of CArc (or was it CDiv? Whichever introduced those terms and made them apply to quickened spells). Has anyone ever played the game that way?
2. When CWar came out, there still weren't any swift actions, but note that Intimidating Rage has even harsher limitations than the free action of casting a quickened spell did; you can only do it against a single foe in any encounter. Now, admittedly, it doesn't say that you can do it only once, but if you could do it several times against that single foe then there would be no reason to roll any dice at all, would there? I'd say this sounds like the kind of power that would have been labeled a swift action if those had been introduced by the time that book was published (or, if your interpretation was the wanted effect, an immediate action).
3. You say that this works because speaking is specified as a free action that can be done out of turn. Does this mean that you couldn't use the feat that way when, say, in bear shape? Or when under the effect of a silence spell? Or when your target doesn't speak your language?
4. If you want to get really technical, the PH description of Intimidate says "Intimidation includes verbal threats and body language." That's right, and, not or. Body language is never described as something you're allowed to use out of turn, is it? 

Not that it matters much if you could convince me anyway; this wouldn't fly with my DM no matter how many rules I threw at him. And I wouldn't allow it while DMing either, even if I'd've had to call it a house rule.

[snakeman830]

As far as I'm concerned, being able to Intimidate when you start your rage and being able to start your rage on someone else's turn means you can intimidate them on their turn if that's when you start raging.

[KellKheraptis]

As far as I'm concerned, being able to Intimidate when you start your rage and being able to start your rage on someone else's turn means you can intimidate them on their turn if that's when you start raging.

Considering that's how it's written, word for word.  Specific>General, if I recall DnD order of operations, and regardless, let the beatsticks have their tricks...this is one of the precious few that might actually save their ass

[Midnight_v]

Not that it matters much if you could convince me anyway; this wouldn't fly with my DM no matter how many rules I threw at him.

I'm sorry, but there ARE logic/rules impervious dm's out there.

I wouldn't allow it while DMing either, even if I'd've had to call it a house rule.

Yeah. and.....

None of us care.

  I pretty much had the idea that: You'd basically drawn that conclusion before you 1st post which to me basically put in the realm of trolling. Though since your refutation fails, you fall back on the uber-tired "I wouldn't allow that"... well, good for you, enjoy your magical tea-party.

If its a matter of the rules and it works within the rules we can totally make it work.
If someones not going to follow the rules as written then no amount of handbooks will be of use to them.

 Lastly, if you actually WANT to use this trick and you're dm WON'T allow it.
  Your next best bet is to build a "Champion of Gwynnfar" or whatever from the the book of exalted deeds.
It give you a radius 30ft fear bubble that enemies have to save against at a damned good dc. Or be frightened. Not quite as good but totally sets the tone for the rest of the fear stacking, also goes off "whenever you enter a rage" as opposed to being an action at all. Which takes all the guess work out of it.
The suckyness of that is that you may have to play an exalted character which the dm may dick around with you and try to play "GOTCHA!" like they do with paladins.
In this case just play C.o.D.zilla. and... well you know the rest.

[Nagrud]

Yeah, I realize that I came off as a bit of a dick there. Sorry.

Yes, I actually did want this trick to work, mostly because of the "let the beatsticks have their tricks" reason. But considering the amount of sloppy worded rules in these books (such as the one I pointed out in that last post: as the feat is worded, you can keep on demoralizing until you succeed, since it's a free action) that, if in doubt, me and my gaming group try to look for RAI instead of RAW. If I got this ruling through, there would be too many other tricks that the others want to be let through as well, and - worse - way too many rules discussions during gaming sessions.

What I was hoping for was that someone could point me to an official errata that either redefined this thing as an immediate action, or that at least worded it better. I guess no such errata exists.

[Midnight_v]

...
Okay... cool we are at peace then. 

What I was hoping for was that someone could point me to an official errata that either redefined this thing as an immediate action, or that at least worded it better. I guess no such errata exists. 

No such luck. Though overall it seems only you, I and possible Caedrus have ever given it that close a look.
As I said I really sat down and looked at that myself once or twice to piece together if it should or shoudn't work.
However. If you're in doubt about it then the Champion of Gwynharwyf, BOED pg 57, has fearsome fury which works without all of the confusion... and give you spells, and affects ANY Enemy that comes within 30ft! Sadly it only makes them shaken which means you still have to do something else to them to finish them off but it still affects them out of turn if you have insta-rage... which helps.

[Nagrud]

Yeah, that one was clear enough: "When she enters a rage, she makes an Intimidate check." So there should be no doubt at all about that working with Instantaneous Rage.

Not sure I like the 7th level class ability they get, though. I want the rest of the group to be afraid of me being controlled by the enemy... 

[Midnight_v]

Not sure I like the 7th level class ability they get, though. I want the rest of the group to be afraid of me being controlled by the enemy...   
Fair enough!

[awaken DM golem]

Barbarians and "Whisper Gnome +2 dex +2 con -2 str -2 cha, small, 30 ft. rouge, humanoid (gnome),

heh

Rogue ... or ... Rouge , 4e style with a hint of Vice Presidential
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6326.0

[Happosaai]

I'm playing a Barb/FB now, and found recently they can't activate items while frenzying. I do have the Berzerking weapon property on my weapon, and am wearing an iron ward diamond, but am looking for other useful items a FB can use, either while frenzied or while raging.

I've never played a barbarian before and it's pretty fun :-)

[Midnight_v]

I'm playing a Barb/FB now, and found recently they can't activate items while frenzying. I do have the Berzerking weapon property on my weapon, and am wearing an iron ward diamond, but am looking for other useful items a FB can use, either while frenzied or while raging.

I've never played a barbarian before and it's pretty fun :-)

  Wow... I'm sorry that I came back so late to this. I fear my handbook is no good anymore as... well is anyone actually PLAYING 3.5. I wish I had the password to handbook writer so I could add to this suddenly.
  Like "More builds" and "Homebrew barbarian fixes"