Tribal Warrior RP Improvements

[pandincus]

Hello!

I have an alt tribal barb dwarf that I've been really enjoying playing, and I try to have fun with his summoned warriors. They have their own names and backstories, and they have a pre-established relationship with the PC. (I've seen others do this as well)

There are a few minor inconveniences that make the RP challenging at times:

1. Named Warriors

It'd be great if we could name them. I've seen this suggested before here back in 2017 , where it was placed in the archive, and as part of a large list of suggestions here in 2018, where it was rejected, but I didn't see a reason (and it was part of a whole group of suggestions, so I wasn't sure which exactly was being rejected).

Anyway, I wouldn't mind if we summoned them and then had to do like a -a -rename TribalNameHere kind of thing, that'd be fine. Not sure how hard that would be to implement.

Of course, I RP them as having names even under the guise of "Tribal Warrior", but it can sometimes get confusing, given barkskin, battle, lots of text, etc. Additionally, I suspect that players reading chat, if they're trying to follow along, have no idea who is who. (Potentially makes the RP a little bit harder for other players to engage with, since they're just "Tribal Warrior.")

2. Custom/saved appearances

I imagine this one is a little harder to do, but it'd be great if we could customize the appearance of the warriors we summon. Since we can get either 2 male or 2 female warriors, I've essentially got 4 characters in my notes to choose from, but it helps if I could a) give them consistent appearances, or at the very least b) choose which I'm getting when I do the summon.

I recognize that some kind of "warrior creator" UI would be super-hard to do, but I think any option even remotely approaching this would be fine. Perhaps some kind of a -a -saveappearance command? (once a warrior pops out that you like the look of, save him under a name, similar to saveoutfit?)

Anyway, those are my tribal barb RP suggestions. If I had to choose between 1 and 2, I'd definitely pick 1.

Thank you!

[Irongron]

I'm going to move this to feedback, not because you don't have a concrete suggestion, but because I actually don't like tribal warriors at all, and find it a bit absurd one can 'summon' real people.

I would prefer we replace them with tribal 'Ancestral Spirits', ghost VFX versions of the current versions.

If that is unpopular, we can instead do something along these lines - let's see what player have to say.

[Kenji]

I personally like the expendable feeling of tribal warriors and wish to have Tribal Barbarians further expanded in the direction of the henchmen being more mechanically versatile rather than more RP focused.

Giving them actual names and background would be an overkill, in my opinion, since that may as well be playing 3 named characters all at once rather than just 1. Of course, Animal Companions and Familiars would also be dragged into this should it become one of the arguments, at the same time, they aren't as integral as what actual characters of free will are.

I've always had a concept of having a diplomat or ambassador type character with Tribal Barbarian as a base mechanical class in order to have expendable guardsmen following him around. But the name "Tribal Warrior" makes that particular line of RP fairly limited.

Expand them in a way that the Tribal Warriors can be renamed into other generic titles such as "Guardsman" or "Street Minion" without giving them too many minute details. This would first allow the Player Character's RP to be augmented by the henchmen and, secondly, not detract the main Player Character's attention to the expendable henchmen.

Regarding the mechanical aspect of Tribal Warrior path, it'd be nice if one could choose whether it's melee or ranged for the followers. Tribal Barbarians aren't exactly popular in party settings since their warriors just compete for melee space with the other melee characters in the party.

[Anime Sword Fighter]

I've played a couple tribal barbarians over the years. I fully support reskinning them as tribal spirits! Please! Give them some minor rebalancing to make them just a smudge better and it'd be great. Or make it so you can only summon one, and then give the player a bonus in some fashion whenever it's summoned to make it feel like a nice class feature rather than a gimmick.

[RedGiant]

I would totally argue against both the spirit idea and a little less so against the RP enabled version.

I would wholly support adding some mechanical nuance or stream.

Making use of henchmen is and was genius, and the class totally gives life to many of the "swarm" races such as goblin and kobold...in addition to people who want to go the more traditional route.

The spirit idea runs up against necromancy, where keeping company with the restless dead has near universal negative connotations in DnD lore. There is alot more to say here, but, currently on break at work.

Even the RP idea, while seemingly good on the face, causes all the continuity issues Irongron cites as the problem.

If anything, I think its random and faceless henchmen are good here, as they represent the characters ties to a larger off-screen organization. You can RP them how you want anyway. I also dont think in a magical world where summoners are common and even your local slave clamper can reach across the planes, this is much of a continuity issue.

If anything, I think we could add this path, after a fashion, to the fighter class as a path. Take some of their feats, or more likely their equipment bonuses, and give them henchmen. For the one class that represents a true professional Soldiery, it would seem like they should have a way to call on their troops.

[Huschpfusch]

In addition to what pandincus already wrote:
Banter among tribal trio is fun but pain.
-a for Tribal warrior 1
-b for Tribal warrior 2
Would be nice.

Also humanoids seemed to switch gender randomly when summoned as compared to just one standard visual for goblin etc summons. So some option to select appearance if there is variations would be nice too.

Don't have any issue with tribal spirit idea.
With it's negative vs positive energy opposition things can be shoved rather conveniently into the framework of DnD-Faerun, I think.
Restless spirits (necromantic origin) have not passed the gates of Kelemvor/AnubisOsiris/KingofDeath. Whereas ancestral spirits have passed that gate of judgement into whatever is their deity's realm and are summoned from that plane.
Restless spirit = negative energy = undead traits.
Ancestral spirit = positive energy = tribal warrior-living matter (though extraplanar?) traits.

[AstralUniverse]

I've never played a tribal barbarian but I've seen some amazing (and hilarious) concepts with this path. I'd be sad to see it changed, and from the perspective of the player who RPs with the tribal barbarians, just giving them names would make a big difference.

[CptJonas]

I think that concept of tribal is super interesting....but on barbarian....and when you take all of their features....that kinda meh
You as character gets no bonus feats, no interesting mechanics...and class with no skills...if you couple it with nearly requirement to be pure or near pure to work...you have one ehh combo...

It would be super cool to have class that actualy have something thats going for it then just those summons...
Striped down ranger, fighter....anything....

Also option to chose between melee and ranged would be nice....so you can choose by your character like 1 ranged 2 melee...or 2 ranged 1 melee....you got me right?

Changing that from barbarian would also open up more RP options...would be nice to give that path to every non caster class...on exchange for all bonuses that arelith made for that class or something...like paladin knight with his two pages (knights in training), band of bards, hunting group of rangers, patrol of soldiers,....you can RP it like they are you bodyguards, your disciples, or just someone uder you...rank lower, in some organization....

[CptJonas]

Sorry...it was maybe reply...but more like suggestion...my bad

[Wuthering]

I'm definitely for the ancestral spirit idea. Tribal barbarians are weird and often awkward to be around because they usually aren't given any personality. Are you supposed to pretend they aren't there when they player just drags them around with minimal RP? Though I do like trying to talk to them instead of the PC.

They're often chosen by new players because they seem easy and powerful and this makes the above even more a problem, it's difficult enough for a new player to get the hang of RPing one character never their witless sidekicks.

Ancestral spirits sounds like a good option. I'd kind of like to see them limited to more savage races in that case but whatever.

[Brandon Steel]

I personally like them the way they are now, if for nothing else but for races like goblins, kobolds, etc. having a sensible path where there’s multiple of the race rather than solo which really makes more sense. I admit that for humanoid races it’s always felt a little strange but it was nothing so abnormal to me I didn’t like it. What’s more abnormal to me is that they wear identical gear to the PC and have no names.

I remember when a trio of my friends and myself were playing and both of them were tribals so rather than having three goblins running around, we ended up with “seven” which really felt very thematic for the race.

[Xarge VI]

Im also in agreement that tribal path is very thematic for all kind of savage monsters. Maybe disable the path from all but races that can use Skull Coins.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I think ancestral spirits is a wonderful idea, but i also like expendable tribemen.

Either way, I feel naming them to be bad taste.

I think ancestral spirits is a great idea if we were to mechanically rework and, or make new path. (Old style tribeman could still legacy or be an outdated option few take due it being mechanically not as good at epic levels, but available as rp option).

Like if spirits are already summoned then rage does a temp boost on all of them.

Or give summons an actual duration similar to rage so that it has like a burst of powerful spirits, could even add an aura to ancestral barbarian that buff him and allies (which would include the spirits).

My only question, lore wise, who are these spirits?

[hmm]

When i want to RP a tribe of barbarians in Skal, or a hoard of Kobolds, i use this Class.
Great for Roleplay.

Instead of replacing Tribals with Spirits, what about making it a 2nd option at Character Creation?
and yes i still play here

Giving Tribals custom names is awsome!
I'm grateful for being able to talk through them already.

[Beard Master Flex]

Mechanically tribal warriors leave a lot to be desired.

I like them as they are for pathetic, weak monster races like goblins. It makes sense thematically when you encounter a goblin you're going to encounter several more. I've used them on PC goblins a few times for throw away villain characters and it worked okay in small doses. But that is super niche and a waste of a class for the off chance someone wants to do that.

Changing them to ancestral spirits is awesome! One thing that I find lacking is sort of a 2h Ranger option. Basically a buff, tough woodsman wielding a big axe.

I'd buff the summons and their scaling more so they're actually useful but make them short duration on cool down not unlike the Barbarian's rage so you have to think about when you want to use them. Then I'd give the chassis some Ranger flavor like tracking, trackless step and animal language. Maybe Animal Empathy if that's possible.

[PaaranDisen]

I think the idea of ancestral spirits/spirit guardians or something similar would be a fun and easy change for those who find full blown 'summonable people' to be jarring to RP. Slap a ghostly visage visual on them and you're good to go.

They are not at all mechanically lacklustre. They get the job done at worst, and if you use them with the right sort of co-operation you can tackle a lot of very tough content with a tribal barb. At the moment I've been running a cleric alongside a tribal barb and we were able to get through the tombs in Sibayad at level 8 and comfortably fight in the Orclands at level 9. Presently at level 12 and can do much of the orc-related content, which is usually for characters around vl 14-20ish.

For the argument that they tail off in the late game (Which I don't necessarily agree with) they are still perfectly viable, they simply aren't optimal if you're powerbuilding. It'd be an enormous shame to see them altered too much with the RP opporutnities and unique build they give access to for the reason that they aren't incredbly amazing in the late game.

That is their biggest strength, I think: the roleplay opportunities. There are also more barbarian tribes than goblins and other monster races. The Uthgardt Human tribes and the Ghostwise halflings for instance, the latter of which has been fun to roleplay so far.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

My biggest concern about spirits helping you, would it be viewed as Necromancy?

[Wuthering]

Presumably the spirits would be there because they want to be (or it's their duty to aid their tribe or however you want to justify it.) It wouldn't be raising corpses, it would be more like summoning outsiders. You'd assume these are spirits of barbarians past who love the idea of one more battle.

Of course your LG paladin can still call it necromancy I suppose, which could be very good RP, or it could be borderline trolling depending on how you handle it *pointedly glares at paladins who insist all monks are warlocks*