Alignment changes: what happens if….
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… a barbarian who becomes lawful due to RP reasons?
Does he lose all his barbarian abilities like in the case of a fallen paladin?
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I'm pretty sure the paladin and druid are the only classes that lose powers when they break their alignment restrictions. Monks, bards, and barbarians who break theirs merely cannot advance as said class anymore.
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Paladins, druids and clerics I thought…
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In PnP, barbarians who shift to lawful lose rage and cannot gain new barb levels. Bards just can't gain any more levels as bards either. I suspect NWN just implements the no new level restriction.
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In PnP, barbarians who shift to lawful lose rage and cannot gain new barb levels. Bards just can't gain any more levels as bards either. I suspect NWN just implements the no new level restriction.
That's silly. I thought it was only in NWN that those 2 classes couldn't be Lawful. It really doesn't make sense that they can't be, other than to prevent crazy monk builds. I'm disappointed.
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Barbarians are wild fighters who eschew formal military training and strict codes for savage wild chaotic battle. Most are from small groups that live outside of society and live by older more organic codes based on the strong surviving, faith in savage powers and where life is the struggle of living free outside city walls amid the dangers of wild and untamed spaces.
They're pretty much the definition of chaotic.
Bards being chaotic I blame on the fact that every bard in FR novels is a Harper and they're like the anti-government, play by their rules and no one else's sort of good guys.
FR prevented crazy monk builds by instating the monk orders. Unfortunately they never got around to writing much of a source book for those orders.
I'm not sure if it's in NWN, but I think in NWN2 if you become neutral or lawful you actually lose your Barbarian speed and rage. (that was what I came here to write).
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Barbarians are wild fighters who eschew formal military training and strict codes for savage wild chaotic battle. Most are from small groups that live outside of society and live by older more organic codes based on the strong surviving, faith in savage powers and where life is the struggle of living free outside city walls amid the dangers of wild and untamed spaces.
Barbarians can be highly honourable societies where your word is your bond and oath breakers are the worst kind of scum.
That is the definition of lawful.
The no lawful Barbarians rule is a joke.
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Pretty much by D&D definition chaotic is a dumb label to give anyone other than the antisocial or sociopaths. If you take a tribe of barbarians they have to be lawful as a group. Every society is lawful to some extent, otherwise it wouldn't be a society-it would be a group of starving hippies. And FR barbarian tribes who follow strict tradition are lawful by D&D definition. Chaotic people are supposed to be the rebels in D&D, yet they say anyone with a code or belief system is lawful despite the society they're in. So chaotic people are those that rebel against their own set of morals? Have no morals? Literally look at every situation and make an off the cuff decision with no prior thought? Without a society or norm to rebel against or to be compared to, why even have the label?
Shouldn't have waded into an alignment discussion. It's just stupid to begin with. You are correct that at least 50% of all barbarians are probably lawful. Let's get back out of the dumb alignment system and back on topic.
Barbarians: lose no abilities, just can not gain levels at barbarian until alignment is chaotic again.
Paladin: Lose all abilities except armor/weapon feats if non lawful (I have heard this actually does not work in NWN and you retain even Smite Evil if you are evil).
Bards: lose no abilities, just can not gain levels at bard until alignment is non-lawful again.
Druids: In NWN can not level up as druid. (In 3.5 rules they lose everything including animal companion.)
Basically I think, unless CoA added custom scripts (which I'm not sure if you can do for base classes on level up) that in NWN you don't lose any abilities for any class. If you're an evil paladin using spite evil, a DM might smack you.
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Shouldn't have waded into an alignment discussion. It's just stupid to begin with. You are correct that at least 50% of all barbarians are probably lawful. Let's get back out of the dumb alignment system and back on topic.
It was resolved. The topic is intimately tied to alignment.
The Chaotic/Lawful axis is what's dumb, in my opinion. You need relativity in order for it to make any sense (lawful to your code, but against the city you're in - lawful or chaotic?) but as soon as that's introduced you can no longer give it a definite value (1-100).
I'm just saying that alot of the class restrictions along that axis are silly, and I had assumed were BioWare modifications.
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After looking over source material- a barbarian culture or tribe can be lawful. Also, most of the members are commoners and many of the warriors would be of a fighter or ranger class. Very few members are actually barbarian class.
"However, contrary to common belief, not all warriors who live outside civilization's borders are barbarians. Only those who embrace the wild and primal ways of the rage can rightly call themselves barbarian, imbuing them with a wild spirit not found amongst most warriors. Barbarians' feral nature means they lack the discipline to be lawful, though all other alignments are found amongst barbarians."
"However, barbarians, while undoubtedly feral and unpredictable by the nature of their rages are not necessarily uncultured brutes and have time and time again proven cunning and resourcefulness as well as sheer physical power and endurance. Sometimes, in spite of their aversion to order, barbarians even demonstrate honor.
However, barbarians are united, no matter their origins, by a marked lack of disciplines or patience for the laws and traditions that others adhere to. Likewise, while a generalization, it is true to some degree that nearly all barbarians come from outside the confines of settled civilization, being far more common amongst nomadic tribes or frontier settlers than they are amongst urban city dwellers."
Basically it comes down to this:
"Barbarian" as a class is a feral, rage based fighter who cares little for society, tradition, training. They are tied to primal spirits who revel in things like the hunt, bloodshed and more animalistic ways of living.
"Barbarians" is a label put on a society of people who live outside the normal society, whether in the wilds or on the edge in some manner. These tribes are made up of commoner classes, shaman or cleric classes, fighters, rangers and the like. While "uncivilized" they are not all barbaric in nature.
A Barbarian class character is more like to rise up in a barbarian society, due to the nature and location and nomadic lifestyle of the group, rather than in a city with strict laws and rules.
