Play.net wants to deliver the best experience to you. This website uses cookies. By clicking 'I agree' you agree to the Terms of Service and settings below. We process your personal data in accordance with the Privacy policy.
Cookies are small text files with information stored on your device, i.e. your computer, mobile phone, tablet, etc., when you visit a website. A cookie will typically contain the name of the site that the cookie came from, how long the cookie will be stored and a number (usually a randomly generated unique number). Cookies are used to make websites work more effectively but also to provide certain information to the owner of a website. Cookies make it possible to distinguish different users from each other, which can give each user a more personalized and positive experience of the website.
As you walk into the bar in the guild hall, you notice a
barbarian at a corner table regarding you carefully, seeming
to be searching for a pattern in your movements. He takes
the smoldering cigar from his mouth and slowly rubs it out
into the palm of his hand as his gaze continues in your direction.
He motions Rushleel to bring two ales to his table, as you
obey your compulsion to walk over to him.
"New to the guild, eh? No need to answer that. But don't
just stand there like some baffled mage. Pull up a seat and
have a drink! If you like I can fill in some of the gaps that
Agonar and Mo leave in their speeches about the guild."
"You know, of course, barbarians understand weapons
better than any of them other guilds, but there's far more
to being a barbarian than just your mundane weapons. Lot's
more. Let’s begin with the force that fuels your Barbarian
abilities."
INNER FIRE
"Inner Fire is what we call the force inside you that
fuels your barbaric abilities. It's inside you and you carry
it with you, it’s not like that silly outside force
that mages rely on like a crutch. Berserking uses a lot of
Inner Fire, battle dances use Inner Fire, and if a spell overcomes
your magic resistance you can lose a bit of your Inner Fire.
You regain Inner Fire over time and by killing creatures."
"You can check your Inner Fire by meditating on a flame.
A lot of different things will work, cigars work, for instance.
Just sit or kneel and meditate on the flame (MEDITATE CIGAR,
for instance). Then wait for a bit and you will eventually
see an image of yourself surrounded by flames of a certain
size or height. Twice your height is full Inner Fire, and
a dim glow is minimum Inner Fire. There are quite a few levels
in between those that you'll discover for yourself, it's pretty
straightforward really.
"Meditating on a flame takes a bit of time and is a little
inconvenient since you have to have a flame handy. There are
other things you can meditate on that work better, though
they are quite expensive. They're called chakrel amulets,
and Vishlan lately has had a rough cut chakrel amulet for
sale in his shop in the Crossing Guild Hall for 25 plats.
A rough cut amulet takes the place of a flame and works a
little faster; you just meditate on it and wait for a vision
of your Inner Fire level. There are also even finer chakrel
amulets, often cut into different shapes symbolic of our battle
dances, like this one." He pulls a noble chakrel dragon
amulet hung from a blackened steel chain from inside a leather
scrip and lets it spin in the light a bit.
"These," he says, tapping the amulet to make it
spin a bit more, "will give you an instant vision of
your Inner Fire level." You have to sit or kneel, but
there is virtually no wait at all between when you begin to
meditate and when you receive your vision of your Inner Fire
level. Vishlan has only had them for sale at festivals and
his price on them was around fifty platinum.
BARBARIAN MAGIC RESISTANCE
"As a barbarian you're more resistant to magic than
those who failed to make the right choice and join the barbarian
guild. Your magic resistance is based significantly on your
statistics, though as to exactly which statistics it’s
really guesswork. Personally I think discipline and charisma
seem to have a lot to do with it. Regardless, whenever a spell
is cast that affects you directly or indirectly (like an area
effect) your magic resistance has a chance to affect the spell.
There are three possible outcomes: your resistance can defeat
the spell entirely and make it fail; your resistance will
reduce the effectiveness of the spell; or the spell will overwhelm
your resistance entirely. The second of these is by far the
most common and you won't seem to notice anything. The spell,
however, will have only 1 to 99 percent of its normal effect
and duration. If you defeat the spell entirely, you usually
see some silly lights around the casting mage and then nothing.
If the spell defeats your resistance entirely, then you will
feel a reduction in your Inner Fire. Others usually just see
you frown.
"Targeted magic spells are just a little bit different.
With targeted magic your resistance affects the targeting
magic and not the magic that creates whatever is trying to
be targeted at you. Successfully resisting those spells you
will just see the magic miss you.
"Spells that affect an area are harder to resist than
spells that are cast or targeted directly at you. And bard
magic through their singing is the hardest of the area magic
to resist. Also because bards sing them magic songs from room
to room, your resistance will be checked any time a bard singing
a magic song enters the room you are in. If you enter a room
where the bard is already singing, then you get no resistance
check and get affected by the enchante's magic.
"Your magic resistance is at its highest when you are
burning Inner Fire as greatly as possible. This means while
you are dancing or Berserking, and the higher circle dances
and Berserks give a greater boost to your magic resistance
than the lower ones.
"Since a lot of folk need the crutch of magic, when
you are in a group you should try to remember to leave the
group momentarily when beneficial magic is cast. If you stay
in the group you can decrease the benefit of those spells
to others, or make the spells fail entirely. Likewise, when
paladins are around and often ask if folks want courage, you
should usually not join the paladin for that spell; your resistance
will lower the spells effect for everyone.
WEAPONS
"There are nearly two dozen types of weapons you can
learn to use. There are hundreds of different weapons, but
they fall all into twenty-two groups or so. For instance a
broadsword is heavy edged and so is a longsword and a battle
axe is heavy edged too. (You can see all possible weapon skills
by using EXP WEAPONS ALL). You also learn to parry
and to fight multiple opponents just as fast as you learn
to use weapons. (The Parry
and Multiple Engaged
Opponents skills are also part of the Weapons
skill set).
"For your first ten circles, you'll need to train two
weapons equally to advance. You learned some weapons skills
when you joined, but you don't have to use those; you can
pick any of the weapons to train in. You'll need four ranks
per circle in your weapons to advance, for now. That means
you need 8 ranks in each of two weapons for second circle
and twelve for third. You'll also need to learn the same amount
of parry (4 ranks per circle), and half as much multi opponent
skill (2 ranks per circle). After tenth your weapons requirements
go up, and so does your multi requirement, but the parry requirement
stays the same.
"By the way, if you want to find out what skills you
need to advance to the next circle, just go to a guild leader
and ask them about experience (ASK AGONAR ABOUT EXP,
for instance).
"Later on you'll need to train a third weapon to advance,
and much later on five weapons. You can, of course, train
more weapons than you need to advance, and a fair number of
barbarians do so, some even train all twenty-two weapon skills.
"But WHAT weapons should you train? You can choose any
that you like, but I suppose I have some information that
could help you with that too.
"There's a lot of ways of dividing the weapons into
groups. Lots of folks look at them as edged weapons (light
edged or LE, medium edged or ME, heavy edged or HE, and two
handed edged or 2HE), blunt weapons (light blunt or LB, medium
blunt or MB, large/heavy blunt or HB, and two handed blunt
or 2HB), the missiles (short bow or SB, long bow or LB, composite
bow or CB, sling, staff sling, light crossbow or LX, heavy
crossbow or HX, light thrown or LT, and heavy thrown or HT),
and the pole arms (halberd, pike, short staff or SS, and quarterstaff
or QS), and then Brawling. Each of them has advantages and
disadvantages, so I'll go over some of them for you.
NON-MISSILE WEAPONS
"Edged weapons are probably the most popular of the
non-missile weapons. The best forgers in the lands can make
some very impressive blades, with more improvement over most
store-bought blades than in other weapon classes. Light edges
do less damage, but are easier to swing faster and because
they're usually lighter they don't sap your fatigue as much
when you're using them. Medium edged does more damage than
light edge generally speaking, and heavy edged does more than
medium edged. Two handed edged does the most damage, but you
can't use a shield while swinging a blade with two hands,
so keep that in mind. Likewise, light edges are usually more
balanced, while the bigger edges take the best advantage of
your strength. So if you want to take advantage of your agility,
a smaller blade will usually do the job better than a bigger
blade, while the bigger blades let you use your strength to
greater effect when devastating your foes.
"Oh, some creatures can be resistant to a particular
kind of damage, like puncture or slice or impact, that's not
too often but it is something to keep in mind, and a good
reason to use weapons that deal different kinds of damage.
So you might want to train a weapon class that has puncture
and slice weapons, like the blades or pole arms do, and a
weapon that does impact damage as well, and then also maybe
a missile weapon. Training one of each of those types of weapons
would give you the most versatility and ability to use the
most effective type of weapon against a particular opponent.
Of course, if you intend to forge one day, it may be wise
to train a set of weapon types, like all edges or all blunts
or all pole arms. That's because if you're forging a heavy
edge blade your skill with light edge, medium edge, and two
handed edge also factors in, just like all your blunt weapon
skills factor into forging a blunt.
"Blunt weapons are generally much less balanced than
edged weapons, and so a bit harder to connect with, but when
they connect they imbalance your opponent more than edged
weapons, and when your opponents are imbalanced, they are
easier to hit. Blunts generally require more strength to swing
and more stamina to keep swinging than a blade. But once you
have your opponent off balance, you're more likely to keep
them off balance using a blunt.
"Even though they're called pole arms, and there is
a pole range, not all pole arms can attack at pole range.
Also, some pole arms only require one hand to use; the lance
at Steelclaw Clan to the South for instance is a one-handed
halberd that also strikes at pole range.
MISSILE WEAPONS
"Barbarians have some special abilities when it comes
to missile weapons, though you mostly won't see them until
you're pretty good with a bow. You'll learn to load a bow
faster from a quiver when your agility and reflex get pretty
good, the exact point seems to vary a bit dependent on your
bow skill (its around agility and reflex at 26-30 each). And
once you're an expert (200 ranks) in short bow, longbow, or
composite bow, and have 30 agility and reflex, you'll be able
to dual load - that's loading and shooting two arrows at once
- as long as you are also dancing the eagle battle dance.
"You can also parry missile weapons (but not the missiles
themselves) with a melee or pole range weapon. That's something
that only barbarians and paladins can do.
BRAWLING
"Some barbarians do a lot of brawling, and most brawl
at least a bit. To start brawling you simply need to BRAWL,
and you stop brawling in the same way. While brawling you
can PUNCH, KICK, BITE, GOUGE, BUTT, GRAPPLE, TACKLE, SHOVE,
CIRCLE, WEAVE, CHOKE, in addition to the normal combat
maneuvers you have. Once you're grappled you can also pull
your opponent around by kneeling, sitting, and standing up.
"You can also use a lot of items at heavy thrown weapon
when you're brawling that you can't otherwise. Shields for
instance, you can use that way.
"As a barbarian you can CHOKE your opponents.
You need to be pretty strong to pull it off, but if you choke
them, they'll slowly lose their ability to breathe and will
die. If you CHOKE them a second time, if you're strong
enough to pull that off, you can snap their neck and kill
them a lot faster than waiting for them to asphyxiate.
"Brawling is a weapon skill, of course, and using brawling
style does let you train both brawling and your weapon in
hand at pretty much the same time. But it's a bit easier for
your opponents to hit you when you're brawling, so be mindful
of that. But I do hear that the guild leaders might be teaching
us some new brawling styles in a while that might eliminate
some of that.
TARGETTED ATTACKS
"As you improve with your weapons, you'll have a better
chance of hitting the various specific body parts of your
opponent. You can try this at any skill level, but early on
you might not have much luck (To slice a specific spot for
instance you would SLICE RIGHT ARM).
"You don't learn any more about your weapons by using
those attacks, but by targeting the same spots repeatedly,
you can defeat your opponents faster sometimes. You can stun
them more easily that way, and create worse wounds by repeated
attacks.
LORE
"You can appraise a weapon to find out more about it,
such as what kind of damage it deals. At first you won't get
too much information, but keep practicing your appraising
and you'll get more and more information when you appraise.
Appraisal, by the way, is one of the lore skills, that as
a barbarian you learn much slower than you learn weapon skills.
(EXP LORE ALL will show all of your lore skills and
ranks). The guild leaders do require that you learn a little
bit of lore in order to advance for the first ten circles.
You'll need to learn half a rank per circle in Appraisal
and in Mechanical Lore.
You learn Appraisal by using APPRAISE on things,
and you learn Mechanical Lore by doing things like scraping
pelts and hides with a hide scraper or carving branches or
braiding vines and grass, and a lot of other things of that
nature.
"Oh, and by the way, once you have a bit of appraisal
you can appraise creatures you're fighting and get a read
on how you stack up against them in a fight. That'll teach
you appraisal too. You can appraise your armor too, and just
like with other things, the more appraisal skill you have,
the more information you will get when you appraise it.
ARMOR
"I guess now would be a good time to talk about what
armor skills you need as a barbarian. There are six different
armor skills; shield,
leather, light chain, heavy chain, light plate, and heavy
plate. (EXP ARMOR ALL to see all of your armor skills).
You should have learned some armor skills when you joined
the guild: 2 ranks of shield, 3 ranks of leather, and one
and a half ranks each in light chain and heavy chain. For
your first ten circles you have to train shield and one other
armor skill to advance. You'll need two ranks per circle in
shield, and 3 ranks per circle in one other armor skill.
"I won't tell you what other type of armor to train,
but I will tell you the advantages and disadvantages of them
to help you decide. The three main things to consider with
armor are its weight, its hindrance, and how it guards you
from damage. As you gain skill in a type of armor, that armor
hinders you less and less until you have worked off the maximum
amount of hindrance possible. In other words a piece of armor
that might make you greatly hindered at ten ranks might only
make you lightly hindered with one hundred ranks. Anyway,
barbarians can work the most hindrance off of leather armor
with skill, then chain armor, then plate.
"Mind you, hindrance is different than weight or encumbrance.
Leather is not the lightest armor out there. For the most
part chain is lighter than leather, especially paladin forged
chain though that can be very expensive. So although leather
will usually hinder you less than chain, it is heavier and
may cause more of a burden to you than wearing chain would.
Plate, for the most part, is both heavier and more hindering
than either leather or chain, and barbarians can work off
less hindrance in plate than they can in either leather or
chain.
"If you're planning on working any stealthy skills,
like hiding or stalking or stealing, metal armor will make
it more difficult to succeed. Both because of the hindrance
it imposes and because it's metal and metal makes noise that
leather armor doesn't.
"Of course, you can train more than one armor type at
a time; you just wear different types of armor on different
parts of your body. The different parts of your body that
you can protect with armor are your head, neck, eyes, back,
chest, abdomen, arms, hands, and legs. Some pieces of armor
protect more than one location. A chain shirt, for instance,
usually protects your arms, chest, abdomen, and back. Careful
though, there are a couple of shirts that don't protect your
arms. APPRAISE the armor to see what areas it protects.
Likewise some helms protect just your head, some your head
and eyes, some your head, eyes, and neck, and some just your
head and neck. So to train two types of armor you could wear,
say, a light chain shirt on your torso, a heavy chain helm,
heavy chain gloves, and heavy chain greaves. (The ironworks
in Riverhaven is your best bet to get the heavy chain items).
"Now, you could add a piece of leather to that and learn
leather skill at the same time. Say, for instance, getting
a leather helm instead of the chain one. Mind you, mixing
leather and chain will add a hindrance penalty, so be careful
about it. You could also add light plate and heavy plate by
changing, for instance to light plate gauntlets and heavy
plate greaves, and getting a leather helm that doesn't protect
your neck and a heavy chain aventail for your neck. Mixing
plate with other armors will also add a hindrance penalty,
so if you wear leather and chain and plate you'll have two
additional hindrance penalties. Mixing light chain with heavy
chain or light plate with heavy plate doesn't incur any hindrance
penalties.
EVASION
"Alright, so that's weapons and armor, the last important
combat skill is a survival skill; Evasion. Evasion skill is
your skill at avoiding or dodging your opponents attacks.
The more hindrance and encumbrance you have, the harder it
is to evade. Since evading attacks is very good for your health,
you should always be aware of your hindrance and burden when
you're in combat. And hopefully, you'll always be in combat.
(To check your hindrance, appraise your torso armor and look
at how hindered it says you are considering all the armor
you are wearing. To check your encumbrance just type ENC.)
COMBAT
"So all that being said, let's talk about combat itself.
Make sure you're wearing your armor (INV ARMOR for
a list of the armor that you are wearing) since it don't do
you much good if you're not wearing it. Shields is the opposite,
of course, wearing them don't help you, you want them in your
left hand (If you REMOVE SHIELD it should automatically
go into your left hand, you can also WEAR SHIELD to sling
it over your shoulder). Get your weapon in your right hand.
(Try WIELD< weapon>). When you come across
an opponent and want to get closer to them, ADVANCE
or ENGAGE them (ADV <critter name>
or ENG <critter name>). If you're outdoors
you'll then be at missile range, then after a few seconds
at pole range, then at melee range. If you're indoors, you
start right out at pole range. Oh, if you really need to you
can always RETREAT.
"From missile range you can only use missile weapons.
At pole range you can use missile weapons and some pole range
weapons like, for instance, some halberds, some pikes, and
greatswords. At melee range you can use missile weapons, pole
weapons, and melee weapons.
MELEE COMBAT
"I'll talk more about missile weapons after we talk
about non-missile weapons, so hold off if you have questions
about them. Once you are within range of your opponent, you
should use some of the combat maneuvers. You can JAB,
THRUST, LUNGE, SLICE, CHOP, SWEEP, DRAW, FEINT, PARRY, DODGE,
and BASH. Each maneuver has different potential for
damaging your opponent and has a different effect on your
balance and position. Also, different combinations of maneuvers
work together differently. You should try different combinations
and see how they work for you. Starting out, , however, just
use ATTACK. ATTACK will choose a three maneuver
sequence that will help you gain balance. Pay attention to
the sequence, and then you can start using the specific maneuvers.
Ask around about what sequences are best too, for heavy edged
weapons you could try PARRY SWEEP SLICE CHOP and
then repeat from PARRY. Ask around if those combinations aren't
working for you, critters seem to be catching on a bit and
there are other good combinations too.
"You can check your balance and position, and that of
your opponents and allies by ASSESSing during combat.
For the most part you want to first maneuver for position
and then use the harder hitting attacks. Swinging a weapon
also can tire you out, so check your FATIGUE and
pay attention to how tired you're getting. If you're getting
too tired, slow down the rate at which you are swinging, toss
in a couple extra PARRY or DODGE maneuvers,
and regain some fatigue. If you keep swinging and losing fatigue
you can even make yourself fall down from exhaustion in combat;
generally not the best tactic for a fight, you know.
MISSILE COMBAT
"Missile weapons work a little differently. Thrown weapons
are the easiest; you can keep a shield in your left hand and
draw the throwing weapon and then just THROW <CRITTER>,
then GET <WEAPON>, and throw again. Bows and
slings you need to LOAD, and then AIM, and
then SHOOT. When you have the best aim possible you'll
sense that you have your best shot. Waiting to have the best
shot will improve the hits you get, though you do not have
to wait, and you even don't have to use AIM; you
can just load and shoot. Light crossbows, and the arbalest
(which is a heavy crossbow), and slings can be aimed with
a shield in hand. Most heavy crossbows, short bows, longbows,
and composite bows require two hands to aim. By the way, while
you have a bow or sling in hand, it's harder for you to evade
attacks, and so you'll probably notice that your opponents
can hit you a bit more frequently and a bit harder than when
you are using melee weapons.
"I mentioned hindrance and burden earlier and that you
should keep them low. The reason is that the more hindered
and burden you are, the harder it will be to defend yourself
and to RETREAT from combat if you need to. Higher
hindrance and burden also make it harder to use stealthy skills,
like hiding or stalking.
"Once you kill a critter, you should get a knife in
your right hand, free up your left hand, and SKIN <CRITTER>.
That will work your skinning skill (a survival skill), and
once you successfully skin the critters, you can sell the
pelts and/or skins and other parts to the tanner and make
some money. Also be sure to SEARCH <CRITTER>,
after you skin them, to see if they had any valuables on them,
quite a few critters do. If you don't search the dead critters,
they will eventually decay, but searching vastly speeds up
the rate of decay, so skinning them first and then searching
them is usually the best course of action.
SURVIVAL
”You should know, if you don’t already, that
the Guild Leaders will require you to train many different
survival skills
for your first ten circles. (Such as skinning, swimming, climbing,
etc).. They require that you get two ranks per circle in each
of ten different survival skills for the first ten circles.
After tenth circle, they only require you to train six skills,
and then much later on they require that you train eight each
circle. (To see all your survival skills, type EXP SURVIVAL
ALL). There are thirteen survival skills that barbarians
can train: Evasion, Perception, Hiding, Disarm Traps, Escaping,
Foraging, Swimming, Climbing, Lockpicking, Stalking, First
Aid, Escaping, and Skinning. Escaping can be dangerous to
train at low circles, so unless you listen to a class on it,
it’s probably not a good option to train at first. Other
than that you can pick any ten of those to train. You'll learn
evasion automatically from being in combat, and skinning is
pretty easy too as long as you're hunting skinnable critters
(not all critters can be skinned).
STANCE
" Oh, one more thing about combat is that you can change
whether you are focusing your defenses on your evasion, your
parry, or your shield. Just check your STANCE to
see what defenses you are relying upon to what extent. (STANCE
EVASION will set your stance to evasion 100, parry 40,
shield 40; STANCE SHIELD will set your stance to
evasion 40, parry 40, shield 100; and STANCE PARRY
will set your stance to evasion 40, parry 100, and shield
40. You can also set your stances more specifically through
STANCE EVASION ##, STANCE SHIELD ##, and STANCE
PARRY ##. You have 180 points to allocate among your
three defenses, and every ten circles up to 100th you gain
an extra point, so that at 30th circle you will have 183 points
to allocate among your defenses.)
"So you wanted to know about the real barbarian abilities
like Roars, Berserking, and battle dances?" He chortles
into his ale as he regards you carefully. "I suppose
there's no harm in letting you in on some of that. The first
of them abilities that you get is Berserk at second circle,
so I'll talk about that first.
BERSERK
"Berserks allows you to summon the rage of a true warrior
and fight like one possessed. They can snap you out of a stun
when you start it and during it (at each "pulse"
of the Berserk stuns are broken and you vault to your feet
if you are not standing), they can give you incredible balance,
great strength, more vitality, and more stamina. They can
increase the power of your Roars, help you free yourself from
webs, and increase your ability to fight with multiple opponents.
The duration varies depending on a number of things. First,
there is how much Inner Fire you had when you started the
Berserk, the more you had the longer and more powerful the
Berserk will be. Second, staying at melee with critters and
keeping dead opponents on the ground (don't search them that
means) will help you keep your Berserker rage going. Berserking
depletes a lot of your Inner Fire. When the Berserk ends,
you'll take a stun if it was a powerful Berserk, and you'll
be dog tired from all the frothing, seething and bloodlusting.
Berserks can be a real lifesaver, nothing really like it until
you learn the dragon dance at 60th circle, which is sort of
like a controlled Berserk.
“There are a bunch of different Berserks, and each
helps in different ways, here’s a list of them and when
you’re able to use them:
2nd - Blood
5th - Stone
12th - Nightmare
20th - Flame
35th - Cyclone
50th - Steel
70th - Grave
80th - the ability to Berserk out of a Dance form
100th - Kuniyo
120th - Everild
150th - Trothfang
180th - the ability to Berserk while maintaining enough control
to continue a Dance form
ROARS
"At fifth circle you'll be allowed to learn your first
Roar. There's more than two dozen Roars that you can learn,
though you can only learn one at fifth and then another every
ten more circles (5, 15, 25, 35, etc.). Some of them, however,
have minimum circle requirements to learn. If you don't care
for any of them, you don't have to pick one right away; you
can always wait until you advanced more circles and the guild
leaders are willing to let you select from a greater number
of Roars. You might have to travel to learn the Roars of your
choice too; each guild leader teaches four or five Roars,
and none of them duplicate what the other guild leaders teach.
Oh, by the way, there are both intimidation Roars and Inspirational
Battle Cries. The Roars are to intimidate your opponents,
while the Battle Cries are to inspire your allies.
"The Intimidation Roars are:
Kuniyo's Spirit
Everild's Rage
Trothfang's Butchery
Tempestuous Fury
Death's Embrace
Death's Lullaby
Death's Shriek
Magic's Bane
Mage's Lament
Caution of the Spider
Serpent's Hiss of Warning
Slash the Shadows
Screech of Madness
Banshee's Wail
Insane Laughter
Weighted Justice
Anger the Earth
Lash of Torment
"And the Battle Cries are:
Honor
Vengeance
Steadfastness
Pride
Nobility
Bravery
Bloodthirst
Superiority
BATTLE DANCES
"Your Inner Fire fuels your battle dances, the first
of which you can get at tenth circle. Once you're allowed
to get it, you should ask Rushleel, the bartender at the Crossing
Guild Hall about it, and he'll give you a hint about where
the dance pit is that you need to find where you can learn
the dance. The dance pits are spread across the provinces
and are not too conspicuous, you might even say hidden. If
you get really stuck, you can always ask an older barbarian,
they are usually pleased to help out.
"The first dance is called Swan; mainly it gives you
a nice boost to your balance, which can be very helpful in
combat. Once you have it, to start the dance (DANCE SWAN)
you need to have enough Inner Fire. Your dance's duration
and effectiveness are affected by your hindrance, your burden,
your discipline, and likely a few other things as well. To
see what Swan does, go ahead into combat and start the dance.
Then, keep assessing your balance and position, and watch
how your balance changes when you feel the dance balance you,
which you should feel periodically throughout your dance.
"After Swan dance you get a dance every four circles
for a while: Cobra, Badger, Eagle, Bear, and Wolverine. At
40th circle you can get Panther, and at 60th you can get Dragon.
The dances each have different bonuses they give you, and
generally speaking, the higher the circle required for the
dance, the more Inner Fire is needed and used by it.
WHAT TO HUNT
"As far as what you hunt, you might want to start with
rats in the shipyard in Crossing, or the frogs out the East
Gate in Riverhaven. Both of them critters is good to about
25 ranks in weapons and defenses, and by the time you get
there you should be ready for goblins out the West Gate of
Crossing or out the North Gate of Riverhaven. Goblins should
train you to 35 ranks or so, and then you can try goblin shamans
(out Haven West Gate), wood trolls (near Crossing and North
of Langenfirth too), or cougars (West of Crossing Goblins
and with wood trolls near Langenfirth), or thunder rams near
Langenfirth. If you want something in-between rats and goblins,
try badgers near Crossing and Salt Crabs in Riverhaven. Watch
the crabs though; you're best with blunt weapons against them.
TITLES
"You might have seen barbarians walking around introducing
themselves with different titles. Those titles are something
the guild leaders will let you brag about as you gain circles,
skills, and abilities.
There are an enormous number of titles you can choose from,
as your skill grows, so do your choices. (To see what titles
you can use, type TITLE PRE LIST, to select one type TITLE
PRE CHOOSE <CATEGORY> <TITLE>.
FORGING
"You might have heard that barbarians are particularly
good at forging weapons. That sure is true, but that's also
something that takes a whole lot of skill with your weapons,
and plenty of mechanical lore. There's a forge just for barbarians
a bit south of the Crossing Guild Hall, and one right behind
the Riverhaven Guild Hall. There are also public forges near
Dirge and in Mer'kresh and Ratha, and an estate holder forge
in Leth Deriel. Not only do you need skill in the weapon you
are trying to forge, but skill in related weapons helps too.
So if you want to forge a broadsword (HE), your LE, ME, and
2HE skills can help you do it, though not as much as your
HE skill. It works the same with blunts, LB, MB, HB, and 2HB,
and with pole arms, halberd, pike, quarterstaff, and short
staff. You can start practicing in the forge whenever you
want, but to forge weapons that are better than what are readily
available in the stores, you'll want to be at least expert
in your weapons (200 ranks or above), and ardent or better
in mechanical lore (100 or above). Like I said, it takes a
lot of skill to make the best weapons.
BARBARIAN VERBS
"Don't forget you can BELCH like a barbarian,
and to SNUFF cigars like a barbarian, you can CHALLENGE
<critter> like a barbarian too, and even GRUNT.
You can also DESCRIBE other barbarians to try and
tell what battle dance, if any, they are currently using.
ABILITIES
"I do have a chart here somewhere that shows all the
abilities
barbarians have right now and when you get them (though some
are just
rough approximations about when you might first get them):"
Circle
Abilit(y/ies)
2
Berserk
5
First Roar
10
Swan Dance
+1% Stance
14
Cobra Dance
15
Second Roar
18
Badger Dance
20
+1% Stance
22
Eagle Dance
25
Third Roar
26
Bear Dance
30
Wolverine Dance
35
Fourth Roar
40
Panther Dance
+1% Stance
Dual Load Possible (for some)
HOME
