The Quintessential Barbarian
The Quintessential Barbarian cover
| Author | Robert Schwalb |
| Series | Quintessential Series |
| Publisher | Mongoose Publishing |
| Publish date | 2003 |
| Pages | 128 |
| ISBN | 1-903980-92-5 |
| OGL Section 15 | qbbn |
The material below is designated as open game content.
Character Concepts
A character concept is like a character background. It provides adventuring and roleplaying suggestions as well as a small mechanical bonus and small mechanical penalty to help further define your character. Character concepts are an optional mechanic and should only be used with the approval of your game master.
- Abandoned
- Diplomat
- Exile
- Explorer
- Ex-Slave
- Gladiator
- Guide
- Lunatic
- Manhunter
- Noble
- Quester
- Raider
- Stoic Warrior
- Thug
Racial Concepts
For long-time players of role-playing games, the idea of any race playing a barbarian can be a difficult adjustment. Many races, such as elves and gnomes, do not seem suitable racial choices for the barbarian. This section presents a few concepts specifically designed for the races of SRD, excepting humans and half-elves. These concepts, as with others, may stack with regional concepts but not with the other character concepts presented above. Non-human characters are in no way restricted by these concepts and players should feel free to choose from the standard ones listed above.
Regional Concepts
This section targets the flavour of the class, manipulating weapons and armour selection in exchange for bonuses to skills, enhanced skill selection and specific abilities keyed to native terrain. The basic barbarian as presented in the SRD is a character class having a rudimentary knowledge of weapons, armour and a viable selection of skills. The rules assume all barbarians have the capability to manufacture any weapon available and therefore extend this knowledge to the selection of weapons and armour the barbarian is familiar.
This section manipulates the availability of weaponry to accommodate a selection of skill bonuses allowing barbaric characters to exploit the cultural levels from which they originate. A concept derived from this chapter may stack with one concept from the preceding section, thus allowing two concepts for one character.
Characters generated using Regional Concepts gain further abilities as determined by the limitations imposed by the technology level of their native civilisation. Once the tech level is chosen, they receive a number of benefits from which they may choose as defined within their native regions.
Characters choosing the default level of technology may not choose any further benefits from their native geographical region. Hence, more advanced technology offers less benefit, as the technology inherently carries a number of benefits over and above the more primitive cultures.
Technology
Throughout this section, the default technology level is of the SRD, where such things as crossbows, dire flails, double swords, katanas, steel weaponry etc. are available. One might note the more simplistic the technological level, the more resourceful the character needs to be. Survival is harder without technology. To ensure the livelihood of any given character in an earlier tech period, the character must have a firmer knowledge of how to accomplish things such as hunting, foraging and so on. The bonuses characters can achieve reflect the compensation for the loss of technology.
