Rage
Why would Barbarian ask Fighter for fashion advice in the first place? That’s what I want to know.
I’ve wanted to do a Barbarian rage comic for a while, but I struggled coming up with things that would automatically set her off. I mean, everyone knows that fantasy’s favorite musclebound primitives have anger management issues, but they all seem to have their own idiosyncratic triggers. Conan hates magic, for example. Dwarven barbarians hate lite beer. Thog hates the prison industrial system. But what is it that all barbarians, regardless of race, multiclass, or creed, truly loathe? Finding myself unable to answer this question, I turned to my artist/wife for advice.
“Hey Hon?” said I, “Name something that is guaranteed to piss you off.”
If you’ve never met Laurel, she’s got a great death glare. There’s a strong possibility she’s got some gorgon ancestry in her family tree. I mention this because, in answering my question, she also took the opportunity to remind me of an unfortunate marital spat involving a similar question of fashion. As it turned out, that had not been the proper time for a cavalier rejoinder.
I turn now to you, dear readers, with the same question. What is it that’s guaranteed to send you (or rather, your favorite player character) into a towering rage?
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Me, personally? When my brother pushes me too far… Which isn’t very hard to do.
As for my favorite character of the multitude I have… Let’s go with my namesake’s significant other: An assassin with a short temper. While relatively easy to make her angry, nothing sets her into a frenzy of irrational action moreso than general incompetence and idiocy of her peers, or really anyone else she would be dealing with at the time. At times this can result in a person meeting a rather unfortunate end….
It’s a good thing Marcus Eralice is a rather calm and well collected individual…
That assassin be all like http://giphy.com/gifs/deliverance-to3I2nkywr2PS.
I remember a game of Skulls-and-Shackles I was in, pretty much the entire PC crew had the same Berzerk button except for one. Anyone who dared to so much as *attempt* to harm our captain was going to meet a very gruesome death. The one who didn’t have that button was the merciful, anti-killing, Peace-Patroned Witch Captain. Lead to many an… interesting conversation IC.
Smart move on your group’s part. Nothing brings a party of unscrupulous sea dogs together like a well-loved captain.
And nothing separates a Paladin like trying to smite her.
Hmmm. I don’t play barbarian types too much. The ones I’ve had use the rage mechanic more like an unbridled enthusiasm for physicality. I had a very short lived game where my barbarian raged to solve the problem of the school principle having information we needed by simply picking up the desk and running it down the halls. Sure you could look around to grab the thing you need or be sneaky or fight a proper duel or whatever… or you could just lift heavy objects and book it. I like to think I solved the problem the “correct” way for my character.
So…what is barbarian school like?
Loud.
This is a thing, and I WILL use it one day!
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/letter-fury-goblin
I will use it so hard.
As a writer, I know I get pissed when I can’t think of the right word. I’d open up a can myself is somebody tried to steal the words from my head.
Pfft, if it were one of my characters in Fighter’s iron boots? “Why yes, it does. It really is the best axe.” This is followed up by an appreciative glance, a cocky grin, the most do-or-die, everything-or-nothing Diplomacy roll of that character’s career.
On a similar note, I’ve been toying with the idea of making a Rapier wielding ‘Noble Fencer’ type out of the Unchained Barbarian. Their backstory? Kicked out of the academy for anger issues. Their rage is that of a scorned noble: with powerful, unrelenting attacks and colorful language that compares the enemy’s breeding to that of various barnyard animals.
I gather that your current character is Charisma-based, lol.
Love that noble fencer barbarian idea. My current “wacky fencer” concept is an uncouth dwarven duelist who fences with a dwarven waraxe. “WAVE THAT WEE WILLOW SWITCH AT ME WILL YE!?”Rage can represent a lot of different things, from an assassin’s deadly single-mindedness to a trance state to the classic berserker. No reason it can’t do noble disdain.
My only Barbarian was a 40k-esque Ork Barb/Rogue. Reasons to Rage include WAAAAAAAAAGH!!
I hear what you’re saying, Brainshredda. And I want you to know I’m here for you. But I also want you to ask yourself, “Why do I need to WAAAGH?” Think about that until we meet again next week. Shelly will get you scheduled.
Iz yoo FITIN’? No? Iz yoo krumpin’? No to dat too? Iz you even mekkin’ for da fast gits? No agin?
YOO IS MUCKIN’ ABOUT.
What will invariably set me off is when people in a position of authority abuse that authority. It’s just an enormous berserk button for me.
More comedically, my most angry PC is probably Doctor Asklepio, who is set off by… anything magical. He HATES magic with a burning passion, especially that from a Divine source, and ESPECIALLY when cast on someone without permission. He despises nothing more than when untested eldritch forces are messing around with his perfect, ordered universe, and it always ends up hurting people whom he has to invariably save except sometimes he can’t because you can’t cure the tentacle-face curse with science.
Mabel, the tiny adorable Transmuter whom he instantly befriended against his own will, once tried to buff Nursie without her permission. The good Doctor very nearly gave the little one a heart attack with his reaction (by which I mean she has a severe heart condition and a sufficiently high Intimidate check WILL force a Fort save). He will tolerate Mabel’s magic because she is unusually wise and careful for a magic-user as well as technically a pacifist, but only with express permission from her targets.
Also, with this campaign? His whole world is now a labyrinth of randomised magical bullcrap over which the laws of nature have no control. Fun times for ol’ Koschei.
don‘t touch the hair, ok? just… don‘t!
Barbarian’s hair gets more fabulous as she gets more angry. It’s a rage power.
“Hey, is that Tze Chai?”
Our weekly DM is working on developing a custom d10 system for the One Piece anime and we’ve been playtesting it for a few years. One memorable side-villain related to my character’s personal story managed to enrage the entire group when he, through a series of INFURIATING rolls, managed to wade into the battle, pluck the big-bad-stopping mcguffin from my character, dance through the entire group unscathed, and basically waltz off with the BBEG of that arc without a scratch, while simultaneously wrecking three of our party members.
…He wasn’t even that great of a character! RNGesus just decided that every time we rolled a hit, he rolled a dodge. Every time he rolled a hit, we failed to dodge or parry. For about FIFTEEN ROUNDS!!!
So yeah, “TZEEEE CHAAAAAIIIII!” has practically become a battle-cry at our table.
As in “za chai?” As in “the chai?” As in “the chai latte?” I’d be mad too if I got beat up by a fancy cup of tea.
My group has a similar story from our early days. I’d ambushed them with some run of the mill goblins, and there was only one left. It had only one hit point left. It could not be hit. Full on yackety sax while they chased the silly thing around the battlefield, swinging and missing and slipping on the banana peels of their own incompetence.
In consequence, “It only has one hit point left!” is our group’s code for “It can’t be killed!”
Pronounced like the letter ‘Z’ (…and no, not ‘Zed’, because I know if I say that…). Our GM has a real soft spot for old kung-fu movies.
We’ve run into that (actually turned a random fleeing scientist into one of my friend’s trigger words, now that I think of it), but the Tze Chai in-jokes around our table have gotten rediculous. By this point, if he shows up again, we’re expecting full-on DragonBall Z levels of ham and untouchable power.
I’d still end up lobbing a knife at him. Him and his stupid face.
I’ve got a half-elf Monk named Khar who is really touchy on the subject of elves. He thinks elves are flighty and impulsive while simultaneously being unfeeling and sluggish. Might seem contradictory, but when your dad walks out on your mom because he just got bored of having a family, you hold a grudge.
Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
From a worn-out picture that my mother’d had
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye
He was big and bent and gray and old
And I looked at him and my blood ran cold
And I said: “My name is ‘Khar!’ How is you are!?
Now you gonna die!”
Depends on the character. For Breq it was actually managing to injure him. For Katherine it was her mother, the Morigan. People did not survive doing anything that might threaten a child around Locus. Smyler… is probably too much a mix of even-headed, calculating, and easygoing to actually have a berserk button that will work every time.
Seems like you’ve got a “rage button” for everyone but the last guy. I find myself wondering if that made them harder to play.
Me as a player, the dm, or basically in any capacity: Field a Hexblade Warlock (dnd 5e that is). An utter abomination of an archetype created by morons for munchkins – and that in lieu of actually fixing the problems with my favourite 5e class.
As for one of my recent played characters’s personal trigger, I did recently play a paladin (lawful neutral variety) who copped a lot of flak for backing her lawful evil leige lord over the chaotic “good” rebels. The two-dimentionality of some other characters’ assessment of the situation (but it’s for liberty so the murder and mayhem is justified!) and the repeated suggestion that she was “lawful stupid” rapidly led to a blow-up!
Did they actually use the term “lawful-stupid” in-character?
Not literally, no, but they maintained that she was unthinkingly and stupidly obeying the law. Lawful Stupid of course came out in the ooc commentary, but my fellow gamers were at least good at staying in character when they had to!
That sounds to me like an invitation to make a grand speech about your belief system. Gotta get all anime style monologue to show that you’ve got a coherent philosophy!
I believe I did, actually. Lucena Principe was very good at angry lecturing. It’s a good thing we were a very talky party!
As a player nothing pisses off my wife more than someone else reading her dice. That one player that for some reason memorized her hit mods reads it and maths it. Prolly tells the table if it hits too.