Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

Hey all,

First attempt at any auxiliary rules. One of my players is interested in playing a Berserker in our up-coming first BFRPG campaign, and the current 'Barbarian' options aren't quite right for them / my story.

What we both came up with was the idea of quite wild and savage warrior, from a tribal background, whom has an ancient war spirit within them.

The Berserker gets taken over by this Berserk Spirit whenever threatened or angered, and thus the character would be effectively be able to Berserk always, rather than x/day. This seems like a huge advantage over a Fighter, but the disadvantages obviously should balance this out.

From a story point of view, the Berserker keeps fighting until all enemies are defeated or out of sight. They cannot leave combat, and will focus on attacking the nearest enemy (so are unable to tactically help allies with a spell casting foe for example).

Mechanically, we have a penalty to AC, and a little old school mechanic of the GM recording the characters Hit Points while in combat, so they are not entirely aware of their Health until they fall over (The original rule this was taken from also stated no Healing Magic worked until the Rage was over). The story myself and my player are drawing our inspiration from also has Berserkers completely afraid of magic, and any visible magic being cast will cause them to flee - Thematically this is quite cool, but in terms of gameplay, its very boring for both the player / any other party spell casters / and me setting spell casting enemies. Maybe just a saving throw penalty against magic (that isn't mind affecting?).

Currently there is Rages/day listed, but ideally we want to get rid of that. Anyway, its a bit of a mess at the moment; and wanted to open up what I've written so far to see if anyone had any input.

Thanks!

Grim

(also I stripped the .odt just to work out the class, and if it was ever finalised would include the ogl of course).

The battle spirit angle reminds me of Record of Lodoss War's Orson and his Fury spirit.

It would be interesting to see the class (I can see it as a quasi-class also) centered on the spirit and how it affects the character. Some ideas could be:

-An increasing chance of smelling blood.
-An increasing chance of sensing violent intentions against the character.

While berserking it could gain improved speed
I always prefers temporary HP over damage reduction
Fear to magic can be used in something like "whenever the berserker witnesses a magic wielding opponent it will become its primary target, ignoring anybody else."
After the berserk ends the classic rule is that of fatigue, but maybe another rule can be used, something like the character being paralyzed in a "combat awareness" state for some rounds.
Another option, if the spirit is one that is bounded to the character and enjoys battle is to him not to battle to the death, maybe when the character is at a set HP (or set %) roll a spell saving throw: success = the spirits loses control and the berserk states ends, failure = you run out of combat

Finally, the file needs its race requirements.

Thanks very much for the above Dimi!

Really like the direction. The preternatural sense of violence and blood is quite an interesting idea.

I usually favour Damage mitigation over avoidance, but Maybe the temp. HP work better. Are there many low level spells that grant Temp. HP to get an idea of values?

I like the idea of being drawn to spell users while in a berserk state. Another idea I had, as the berserk spirit is a constant feature, perhaps when successfully targeted by magic, the berserk rage departs for 1d6 rounds or something.

As I said I was just writing this for myself / my players - and we won’t be using racial requirements, but I’ll include them in my next draft anyway. I feel like humans and dwarves, plus half orc and half ogre.

Thanks again,
Grim

The more "standard" rage feature gives 2 temporary hit points per level.

Smoot's barbarian quasi-class has a damage reduction that is avoided by magic, you can use this, or just the drawback, meaning that any magical damage goes directly to the main HP.