Half-orc fighter/barbarian

Remove all ads!

What do you think is better?

 

Fighter.

Oh, maybe you'd like a motivation to go with that?

Better AC and Mastery in weapon skill.
A fighter has enough HP's so the extra a Barbarian gets isn't important.
Barbarians big advantage is his Rage ability. If you really like that take a look at the Berserker kit before choosing.

[This message has been edited by Earl Grey (edited April 28, 2001).]

 

The barbarian is an offensive fighter class - from concept beeing basically in between the kensai (in AC-terms) and the berserker (in fighting style terms).

He is limited to splint armor at best, but his rage ability (IIRC +4 on str and con) and they have improved movement speed (just like a monk), while berserk he´s immune to backstabbing and they get some weapon resistances against slashing, piercing, crushing and missile damage on lvl-11, partly compensating their lack of AC. His restriction to ** prof slots per weapon allows to make him more flexible in terms of weapon use.
For example I´d choose ** in two-handed weapon style, 2-handed swords, halberds, spears, longbows or single-weapon style and longswords, flails, maces and axes - this would give you the choice to use the best weapon available for the particular opponent and you´ll find some good weapons of all classes during the game.

On the other side the Berserker offers better AC, better weapon skills and most likely he´ll not be able to be *good* in more than three weapon classes and I´d still go for high mastery (+1 speed factor, especially when using two-handed weapons) in the end.

The barbarians strength and con boni in rage counsume this advantage in combat. A str-19 barbarian (str-23 in rage) will receive a +2 bonus on THACO compared to the berserker and +4 on damage, evening out the mastery advantage of the Berserker (who receives jut +1 on THACO and +3 on damage when in rage).

************************************************

Finally: I think the half-orc is a bit hyped and overestimated. He possesses a great strength and con. But str-19 can be achieved by using the girgle of hill-giant strength early available in the adventurers mart (and just giving a +1 on damage and *no bonus* on THACO compared to 18/00). So it is not that advantageous in the end.

Considering this I´d rather prefer the dwarven race for it´s better saving throws while it is still offering max str-18/00 and con-19. Only disadvantage is the dex-17 restriction resulting in a lower AC.

So it´s up to you: Outer strengths or inner values

I think the barbarian class is more fun to play and I´ll take a dwarven barbarian as my secondary tank in my next evil game to support my main char.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited April 28, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Taluntain (edited April 28, 2001).]

 

Yeah, the barbarian is cool, just get him the +5 scale mail from Ribald. Guess what? I never even used the enrage ability when playing the game through, having an evil barbarian and Korgan. I've never used Minscs enrage or Haer Dalis's special modes either... Now as I think of it, the only special ability I've used is Keldorn's dispel and my evil barbarian's slayer change. He took quite a lot of damage using it though.

*Wanders off to sell his wands and other limited use equipment as he never remembers to use them anyway.*

 

I've never played either of the two, but it sounds like a barbarian would be better, he still gets high hit points and berserk. The armor thing is no big deal for there is good armor for all the different kinds of armor. But correct me if I am wrong, can you not have a half-orc barbarian?
Also definately try enrage, offensive spin, and defensive spin, these are great abilities. People are so quick to put Haer'Dalis down and I bet half of them never tried his special abilities.

 

Minsc don't have Enrage. He has Beserk. It's kinda funny, but not necessarily good. Once when Aerie died in my party, Minsc went nutz and also decided he'd have fun and splat Jahiera and run around like a loon. Mighty hilarious!

but on the Barbarian issue, i think Fighters are better in power, but certainly Barbarians seem to have a lot of raw brunt in battle and can take one hell of a lot of damage, especially a Half-Orc Barbarian. Give a barbarian a 2 handed sword and they will be off to destroy the evil that stands before it.

 

Hey volar, i do the same thing with my limited charge items, i think my bag of holding as like seven wands in it.

ne ways, i like the berserker personaly.
(never played a barbarian)

and deano, ur right about minsc splatting every one and then running around like an idiot. that was probably the funniest part of the game(as far as i have gotten) cuz he killed 3 of my people and then keldorn told him to calm himself(after he had killed my people).

 

Don't underestimate Minsc's berserk ability. I got cleaned up by the Seeing Eye group once so I tried it again with just Minsc and Lillacor and a little bit of berserker whoop ass. He wiped out the whole lot of them with just a little backup from my monk. The real trick is to stay clear of him when he's under his berserker rage. The conversation between Minsc and Keldorn afterwards is quite good as well.

 

The only good reason not to pick a barbarian is that there's no +5 wolf furs in the game. Not being able to pick more than two proficiencies per weapon was a major advantage when I played a barbarian. He could always use the weapons he liked most (ended up with celestial fury and crom faeyr) and more than two proficiency slots don't help too much anyway.