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ON BARBARIANS BY THOR___MoY

First let me start with the disclaimer that all classes in Drakkar have their advantages, and can become capable of great things in Drakkar. This, however, will deal with why you may want to have a barbarian character.

TOP TEN REASONS TO BE A BARB!

Barbs get the most natural hit points of any class 580 (go see hit doctor after level 13).

Barbs get 4 extra attacks at full berserk at level 20 massive increase in berserk usefulness because kills come faster. You hit like a Truck!

Barbs get added hit points at level 18 when they go berserk, for each level of berserk.

(This is the point berserk becomes very useful More notes on using berserk below.)

Barbs get added strength point for each level of berserk, beginning at level 16.

(This is where going berserk begins to be somewhat useful.)

Barbs naturally resist some psionic disciplines, which waste other classes very quickly, namely poison, lightning, enmiss and others.

Barbs are asked on almost all hunts to help party survive because barbs are the target so everybody loves barbs in Drakkar.

Barbs can be evil and get neat gear no one else uses tarak robes to see hidden critters, and other evil aligned gear such as Ninja’s katana, Ogre Lord 4/4 evil rings, etc.

Barbs are said to be easiest class to play in Drakkar (see my CAUTION comments ).

Barbs are less subject to having to change gear for each little place they go in Drakkar just to survive the trip.

Barbs can heal with both hands full when they learn how to autobalm. Autobalm is well described by the MA section here as well, but look below for how it works.

Barbs can solo where other classes can’t. (see more under Good news / Bad News)

Is that ten? Who cares? Barbs aren’t expected to be smart! In fact, at level one you will experience some difficulty in making a succor twig. Don’t sweat it because that gets better as you increase in levels. Someday you may even use a critcure scroll successfully on a pal you accidentally killed while zerked. (see more under Good news / Bad News)

You may have noticed from the above too, that barbs skill base comes from making each new level. Psionics users must attain new skill levels to learn new spells. Ergo experience points are more important to barbs than Psi users. Break magical items for points ! Respirate helms are very good and fairly common. (Experience is important more so than skill even up to about level 21, at which point you should focus on skill gain mostly - says Zenor) However, skill is covered below and is important. At first you may wonder where all these points will ever come from, but believe me, they will.

There are four levels of berserk, and you will see a message letting you know you are increasing you berserk, beginning with "You are agitated" at first level and "You are frothing at the mouth" at full berserk. You may see messages in between telling you that you are out of control, so try again. Just enter the letter "b" into your command line. Typing the whole word berserk isn’t necessary. Remember, barb not smart.

Play with berserk a little before level 16 if you like, but you gain little if anything from doing this. In fact, you cause yourself to be out of control and unable to do things like search for loot on crits, talk in game, make scrolls and many other normal actions.

Weapon Skill and Specializations

Barbarians gain a specialization bonus in a class of weapon at 15th, 17th, and 20th experience levels. If ya chose to specialize in a different weapon using each time. However, if you chose to add up all your specializations the levels are different.

Each specialization will increase both the effective skill level and combat penetration power of the chosen weapon . The Fighter/Paladin brotherhood are also eligible for this knowledge.

You can double specialize in the same weapon at 19th xp level 

Good News / Bad News

Zerking is really a big plus and minus ability. You get the added attributes while zerked like strength (16), hit points (18) and attacks (20) these are good. But you will eventually do some things you and others won’t be so happy about. You will break their gear accidentally, take the item from the ground which is meant for someone else, or attack them after the baddies are gone because you entered a few too many commands (called stacking), or you try to talk while zerked. Almost any action you attempt will make you target and then attack. Remember the message "You are out of control"?

OK, so don’t stack commands, don’t search corpses with others around, don’t talk, don’t try making twigs or climbing stairs. Don’t do anything till your zerked state fades away and you return to normal. Unless of course you are sure you have a hunting area all your own. Use your set macro command in the toolbar to make a macro for a nifty personalized message to tell the world you are Zerking. It should read

B ; @ <your message>

This will cause you to begin berserking and yell out your warning at the same time.

Another plus and minus feature of being barbaric is that you will come to rely on autobalm. Autobalm is done in the state of berserk when you are out of control. You will heal at 1/3 or less of your total hits. Say you have 1000 hits at full zerk. You will heal the next round you get out of control message that your health goes under 333 hit points. And it happens even with both hands full! You will come to rely on this nifty ability. But sometimes it may fail, say you kill the creature you are attacking your autobalm may fail here. Better to hit your Zerking message to go for an out of control message. Another possible failure is that the creature you are battling may hit you for 400 hits. Remember above? You don’t autobalm till 333 or under.

Which leads to the next plus and minus of being a Barb. You will probably begin to feel semi indestructible, conquering with success many fierce foes. This may lead you to a very dangerous habit of wanting to skill on lair critters like Red Dragons or Griffons.

It can be done and usually serves to make you feel your barbaric creature is omnipotent.

I DO NOT advise solo hunting of lair creatures which, when they kill you (and it will happen) take from your character experience points, skill you worked very hard to gain, and hit points. This is called being eaten. Don’t learn the hard way. It will make you ill beyond belief. Besides the small skill gain and any treasure is not worth it. TAKE A PARTY

P.S. Some lair crits will not eat you, but you need to know which ones will before going. Just ask players in game or at tables. Aleria lair beasties don’t usually eat you, but then they will strip you of your gear. Then you must round up help to get your gear, and that may not always be possible.

Having just made level 21 recently my Barb achieved the ability to resist being stunned by stunners and harpies while he is at full zerk. Those stunners and harpies no longer render me helpless to the attacking hordes. Oh, and at level 21 and extra attack to add per round. Level 20 was truly a huge leap because a barb has 4 extra attacks at full zerk. On top of the 8 you had before, you now have 12. Boy will you see the difference.

Barbarians require some characteristic to be as high as possible when rolling the character, mainly strength, constitution, will, luck and charisma. The first 3 can be increased through potions obtained in the Drakkar fairly readily, but the last 2 are rare , if at all available.