Avenging Barbarian (3.5e Prestige Class)
Avenging Barbarian
| “ | "TALKY-MAN BROKE THOG'S TUSK!" | ” |
| —Thog, Half-Orc Barbarian/Fighter, Oots #795 | ||
Did a bully steal your favorite stuffed animal, maybe push you around, take your lunch money, then kick a puppy when you were in preschool? Did you want to beat them to the ground ever so much, regardless of logical consequences? This prestige class is all about that rage. Every time you, an ally, or something important takes damage, you get bonuses to combat abilities because of your ever building rage. Just be careful - when the rage runs out, the angrier you were, the weaker you become.
Becoming a Avenging Barbarian
You basically need to be a barbarian to join this class because of the rage feature. However, Avenging Barbarians tend to be pure barbarians, or at the very least people who simply like beating things to the ground. Tacticians, skilled swordsmen and the like should stay away from this class, especially if you can't continue reasonable thought while raging.
| Base Attack Bonus: | +6. |
|---|---|
| Special: | Must have Rage at least 1/day |
| Level | Base Attack Bonus |
Saving Throws | Special | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Fort | Ref | Will | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1st | +1 | +2 | +0 | +2 | Building Rage +1/2, Vessel for Pain | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2nd | +2 | +3 | +0 | +3 | Building Rage +2/4, Pained Pummel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3rd | +3 | +3 | +1 | +3 | Building Rage +3/6, Pain Tolerance | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4th | +4 | +4 | +1 | +4 | Building Rage +4/8, Pained Frenzy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5th | +5 | +4 | +1 | +4 | Building Rage +5/10, Pained Destruction, Pain Tolerance | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Class Skills (2 + Int modifier per level) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Class Features
Avenging Barbarians basically take rage at jerks beating on things they don't want beaten up and use it to beat said jerks. While this strategy tends to lead to less thoughtful, tactical combat, massive boosts to strength and raw damaging capabilities make up for standard strategic benefits. All of the following are class features of the Avenging Barbarian.
Building Rage (Ex): As you suffer more, you become angrier and angrier. If you, an ally, or a designated person or object is harmed, you gain "rage points" based on the damage and the object's connection to you. If you are harmed, you gain 1d6 rage points for 1 damage, 2d6 for 4 damage, 3d6 for 9 damage, and so on, gaining die of points equal to the square root of damage taken. You can designate up to 3 specific people or objects as "highly important", granting points when these objects are damaged equal to the amount of points you would gain if you were the one being damaged. You can designate 8 specific people or objects as "important", granting d4 dice of points instead. You can also designate 2 categories of people or objects as "important", with about the same amount of creatures or objects effected as a certain racial subtype, DM's discretion. The first two importance categories stack with the third, but not with themselves, so if an important person is also from an important group they give double points when hurt. As you gain rage points you get +1 to Constitution and +2 to Strength for every 10 points stored, starting at up to +1 extra Constitution bonus from raging and +2 extra Strength at 10 points and increasing by +1 Con/+2 Str for every level of Avenging Barbarian. You automatically begin raging at 10 points per level if you have rages per day left, and at the end of your rage 10 points per level of Avenging Barbarian are expended and you gain a penalty to Str and Con equal to the bonus you were recieving for 1 minute, which is negated if you rage again. Rage points dissipate at 1 point per minute if unused.
Vessel for Pain (Ex): Avenging Barbarians are very good at delaying pain, storing it away until it can be used safely. For every level of Avenging Barbarian, you can store 10 points of damage when hit, which don't effect you at all for 1 minute per Avenging Barbarian level. However, if you do not voluntarily take this damage within that time, you must succeed a (Concentration) check each minute you store this damage (DC 10+(Damage/5)) that increases by 1 for every minute you prolong the storage. If this check fails, you take the damage and are stunned for a round by the pain. You gain a bonus to the check equal to 1/2 rage points stored + Avenging Barbarian level. If you would die without this ability, you must make a concentration check as if you had held back damage equal to your health for ten minutes. If you fail, you die, otherwise you are at 0 HP and unconscious. These checks can be taken while raging.
Pained Pummel (Ex): Because Avenging Barbarians fly into fearsome but extremely uncontrolled rages, they occasionally drop their weapons and simply beat their enemies to the ground. When an Avenging Barbarian gains this ability, his effective Monk level for determining unarmed damage increases by one for every five Pain Points he currently has, capping at unarmed damage equal to a Monk four levels higher than his hit dice. In addition, you can roll your current unarmed damage and add the result to checks made to throw, crush, and grapple enemies, and can use any object lighter than half your light load as a weapon, dealing 1d6 per 50 lbs of weight.
Pain Tolerance (Ex): Avenging Barbarians are extremely good at ignoring pain. You gain DR 5/- and DR 10/- for nonlethal damage. At 5th level this increases to DR 10/- and immunity to nonlethal damage.
Pained Frenzy (Ex): Avenging Barbarians tend to flail and wildly swing when raging, leading to fast and deadly but inaccurate attacks. When you rage, you gain an extra attack as if under the spell #anc:Haste, and an extra attack as if you had the Monk ability Flurry of Blows] that applied to all weapons instead of Monk weapons. In addition, you can gain up to your Rage Points/10 attacks, though each extra attack places a stacking -2 to all attacks.
Pained Destruction (Ex): When an Avenging Barbarian masters the art of controlling and unleashing pain, he can reach truly unrivaled destructive power. When an Avenging Barbarian reaches 5th level, he gains a bonus to Pain Points to automatically rage equal to ten times his constitution modifier and can have unbounded bonuses from Pain Points. However, for every point of bonus beyond +5 Con and +10 Str, he needs (bonus^2) more pain points. In addition, when raging, he deals Strength x1.5 bonus damage with his fists instead of x1, and x2 with improvised smashing implements instead of x1.5.
Ex-Avenging Barbarians
Any avenging barbarian who loses the ability to rage (for becoming lawful or for any other reason) also loses all class features of Avenging Barbarian.
Playing a Avenging Barbarian
Combat: Avenging Barbarians like taking damage and have many bonuses for having high health, so they make good front-line defenders. Their damage also helps them be powerful melee damage-dealers.
Advancement: After becoming full Avenging Barbarians, many barbarians will continue gaining rages per day to gain more uses of it's abilities. Other helpful classes include Fighter for more abilities to boost damage.
Resources: Avenging Barbarians are similar to barbarians. If they belong to a tribe, they might be able to get help from them, but they are generally not the most civilized or cultured of people, and as such have little connections.
Avenging Barbarians in the World
| “ | TALKY MAN HURT PUPPY! THOG KILL TALKY MAN! | ” |
Avenging Barbarians are essentially barbarians in interactions with the world. However, if they are mercenaries or adventurers, chances are they adventure or help those who they care about.
NPC Reactions: Most NPC's might think an Avenging Barbarian is, as the name implies, barbaric, but depending on their attitude, could be awed by their strength and conviction, frightened by their ferocity, or irritated by their foolishness.
Avenging Barbarian Lore
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (History) can research Avenging Barbarians to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.
| DC | Result |
|---|---|
| 11 | Avenging Barbarians take their pain and use it to become more powerful. |
| 16 | Avenging Barbarians also can gain power from objects or people important to them being threatened. |
| 21 | Avenging Barbarians can actually cheat death, staying alive despite mortal wounds, and only feel the pain and effects of the wound after their task is complete. |
| 26 | Avenging Barbarians usually must concentrate extremely hard to avoid damage, and distractions can help increase the difficulty of this extraordinary death defiance. |
Avenging Barbarians in the Game
Avenging Barbarians fit wherever Barbarians do, but especially in positions protecting something. A difference between regular and Avenging barbarians is that people often respect Avenging Barbarians more for their ability to protect things, but are also often more frightened or hateful due to their less controlled abilities. Avenging Barbarians can usually be found within nomadic tribes of their kin, or protecting things they find important that are in danger. For example, if an Avenging Barbarian finds beer important, and a tavern is being attacked by some bandits in the city, expect to find an Avenging Barbarian beating the faces of the bandits in.
Adaptation: If there's an encounter with a barbarian in your game, you can consider using an Avenging Barbarian instead. You can also replace a fighter or other regular melee character with a 1st level Avenging Barbarian with 1 rage/day. They can be solitary bosses, using the focused damage on them to boost their damage in return, or as some of many soldiers, specifying other soldiers as an important group. If using the soldier type of encounter, assure the Avenging Barbarian is just a low ranking soldier who is VERY attached to his comrades, as they would lack the intelligence to be in any position of command.
Sample Encounter: Alden was a half orc in a human city with anger issues. From birth he was a very irritating baby, always kicking and screming. Most dismissed this as tantrums, but as he grew, he remained ill-mannered and irritable. However, he always tried to be good, help others, and ensure general happiness. As he grew up, he was encouraged to put his rage to use, and instead of studying to be a scholar like his father, he became a barbarian. As soon as he hit the age limit, he enlisted in the army and rose in the ranks due to his strength and fortitude. During his army days he became very attached to his closest allies, becoming good friends with them. When the wars ended and peacetime began, Alden returned home and lived off military pension and farming, but soon grew restless, and decided to find his old friends. He gathered them and asked them to go adventuring with him, and they accepted - all were equally restless in civilian life. Gradually, he became even more and more protective of his friends, and became an Avenging Barbarian.
A DM can drop this party as a "competing" party when someone is raiding a dungeon for money. Use any three other ECL 11 humanoids for party members.
EL 13 pr 15 with party:
Alden_the_Avenging_Barbarian_(3.5e_NPC)
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