BARBARIAN Archives - Tribality

UA 2023 – Player’s Handbook 7 Playtest Breakdown, Part One

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 20:26:29 +0000

This packet dropped before I’d even finished covering its cyclopean predecessor, so I took a little time to make progress on other projects (good stuff, Under the Seas of Vodari backers!) before taking up sword and spellbook once again. This time out, the remaining five classes get a fresh draft: Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard. The spellcaster classes in particular signal a sweeping change to 5e.24’s development–we’ll get to that. Barbarian The changes noted in the change log sidebar […]

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UA 2023: Player’s Handbook Playtest 5 Breakdown

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 17:02:04 +0000

There’s a staggeringly huge new Unearthed Arcana playtest document from WotC, with the new weapons table, five classes (barbarian, fighter, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard), a bunch of new spells, a reversion to 2014 spell prep/spell knowledge (but with the meaning of those terms inverted for some reason), a few new feats, and a few changes to the Rules Glossary. I’m going to say right now that finishing this in one article is not bloody likely, not even with the ridiculous […]

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The Barbarian Class, Part Three

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 20:54:31 +0000

Welcome back to the History of the Barbarian, this time getting into the barbarian of D&D 3.0 and 3.5. Why did they drop the A? Because they finally admitted that the Accidental Death & Dismemberment wasn’t so Accidental – especially for the Improbably Large Axe class! Do you like d12s? I hope you like d12s, because this class is very much about that die size, in particular. Part One | Part Two | Part Three After writing Part Two, Friend of the […]

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The Barbarian Class, Part Two

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 15:51:09 +0000

In the first article of this series, I left out an important item: the Oriental Adventures barbarian class. My plan for this article is to cover it as briefly as possible, then move on to 2e’s Barbarian kit (from the Complete Fighter’s Handbook) and the Complete Barbarian’s Handbook. Just for completeness, I’ll also touch on the Berserker and Savage kits. I’m also covering the Amazon kit, even though… yikes, in 72-point font. Part One | Part Two Oriental Adventures 1e […]

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The Barbarian Class, Part One

Brandes Stoddard — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 12:00:31 +0000

Today I realized that it’s been almost three years since my last History of the Classes article. Today I’m starting in on the Barbarian, a class that goes back to an article by E. Gary Gygax in Dragon Magazine #63, in July 1982. As a disclaimer for the whole series: “barbarian” is a culturally loaded word and is a slur from first principles. I’m not defending it. I would be fine with changing the class name to “berserker” so that […]

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Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Breakdown, Part One

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 17:34:54 +0000

This is the beginning of what will surely (barring catastrophe in the next couple of months) be an extended series examining every nook and cranny of Tasha’s Cauldron. Let me say in no uncertain terms that this is not a euphemism, whatever you may have heard. We went on one date while I was in college, she had just broken up with some demon lord, I wasn’t ready to be a stepdad, it all fell apart. I miss her, is […]

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UA 2020: Subclasses, Part 1 Breakdown

Brandes Stoddard — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 06:15:46 +0000

New year, new Unearthed Arcana – this time bringing us four new subclasses. We have the barbarian Path of the Beast, the monk Way of Mercy, the paladin Oath of the Watchers, and the warlock Noble Genie Patron. I am excited to dive into this! Just, uh, be aware that I will be throwing in some jokes along the way. The jokes don’t mean I don’t love this material – it’s not intended as mockery. Barbarian: Path of the Beast […]

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Alternate Barbarian Rages

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 13:00:24 +0000

Both Colin and my friend Stephen have done some great writing about barbarians, thanks to the experience of having two barbarians in the party at the same time. You should definitely read what they have to say, but the short version that I care about for this article is that barbarian rage is sort of a non-choice. If you’re not raging, you’re a subpar fighter-type. If you are raging, your tactics become tightly constrained. This article is a touched-up and […]

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UA: Class Feature Variants Breakdown, Part One

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 04:11:33 +0000

I don’t want to alarm you, but this week’s UA is absolutely huge in both its actual volume (13 pages) and its impact (it touches every class in the Player’s Handbook to one degree or another). The article title suggests that it’ll be mostly replacing features (“variants”), but in actuality it’s mostly direct enhancements to features. These are almost universally quality-of-life improvements and efforts to solve for what the designers have learned about their game in ongoing development. It’s definitely […]

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Unearthed Arcana: Barbarian and Monk Breakdown

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 22:46:49 +0000

A new UA article! On a Thursday? Don’t these monsters know that this does strange things to my writing schedule for the week? They don’t? Weird. Anyway. Two new subclasses, one for barbarians and one for monks. The Path of the Wild Soul What if Wild Magic sorcery… but a barbarian? Makes sense to me – if you’re raging too much to control magic, let’s try some uncontrolled magic. The early flavor text mentions the Feywild, but that’s the only […]

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