Posted September 17, 2024 by josephumi
Good morning, for anyone who might actually stumble into seeing this. I just wanted to keep all my notes and thoughts in one place about how the Barbarian class finally came together.
There are a lot of issues in OSR games about how to make a barbarian feel like Conan without breaking the game one way or the other. I think a lot of this comes down to the idea of being "unarmored," and how to handle that. I went back and forth with a few of my friends - maybe you give the Barbarian double their Dex mod, or add Con and Dex to AC. But these end up making the class very stat-dependent in a way that is not conducive to 3D6 DTL, or even 4d6 drop lowest. At that point, the feature becomes worthless, or if someone rolls astronomically well, more powerful than other characters options.
After some thought, I worked backwards - Shadowdark has a listed number for unarmored AC - that's 10. So what if we buff that rather than a floating modifier or changing how stats are added? My thought was a barbarian with 12 or 14 Dex with the Barechested talent ends up with an AC of 14 or 15, which is equivalent to leather+shield for a fighter of the equivalent level/wealth/stats, which feels about right, but is mechanically different. The fighter still beats more face than the barbarian who isn't raging, but that's appropriate considering the barbarian infringes lightly on some thief skills.
Lastly, the barbarian gets kind of a stealth "buff" as it were, as carrying no armor saves the character two or three gear slots, but we give them proficiency in those armor types should they want to use a shield and armor for their magic properties. Honestly, I'm really proud of how Barechested, but also the class as a whole turned out without being too weak or too strong, at least in my early playtests.