Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General DnD question - Barbarians.. I don't understand

Again, in what regard does the barbarian class ever refer to tribes and such ? It just doesnt. D&D Barbarians can origin from cities, or civilization as a whole, just fine.

Doesn't the very word barbarian mean they are not from a city?

The original ancient meaning of barbarian was anybody not from Greece or Egypt. So yes, people from the developed cities of Persia or North Africa were all barbarians. It wasn’t just tribal peoples from Germania and Gaul.

The modern meaning of barbarian is somebody who acts cruel and brutish, and has nothing to do with being tribal or indigenous. The derogatory term for tribal peoples in the colonial era was usually savage. While they might also be called barbaric, this term wasn’t used exclusively for tribal peoples.

Also, there is no reason a street urchin could be a wizard, but DnD allows it. It’s fine.

This thread and your objections are all ridiculous.

Which I think just sums up the baffling incoherent confusion of this class. What even are you talking about? Warriors who have supernatural rage coming from animalistic shamanism can come from civilization just fine? What? How does growing up on streets give you the ability to channel the spirits of bears and elks? Shouldn't you maybe know what an elk is first? Doesn't the very word barbarian mean they are not from a city?

Why not just have an option where fighters can have rage? That is all this should be. A fighter subclass called berserkers who learn how to channel raw anger.

Barbarians can come from cities. Amazing. Next you will tell me vampires are big blood donors and elves mine for gems underground to.

Now granted anything can happen just fine in D&D so long as that is what the DM wants to do. You want all the barbarians to only come from cities? Fine. But we are talking about a character invented by Larian to represent this class. If we are going to have Barbarians mean street wise muscle then explain that in the background and make the mechanics make sense.

One of the members of the Varangian Guard was the future king Harald Sigurdsson III of Norway, known as Harald Hardråde ("Hard-ruler").[49] Having fled his homeland, Harald went first to Gardariki and then on to Constantinople, where he arrived in 1035. He participated in eighteen battles and during his service fought against Arabs in Anatolia and Sicily under General George Maniakes, as well as in southern Italy and Bulgaria. An extensive account of Harald Sigurdsson's journeys is found in Harald Sigurdsson's Saga.

During his time in the Varangian Guard Harald earned the titles of manglavites and spatharokandidatos. But his service ended with his imprisonment for misappropriation of imperial plunder taken during his command. He was released upon the dethronement of the Emperor Michael V, and saga sources suggest he was the one sent to blind the Emperor when he and his uncle fled to the church of Studion Monastery and clung to the altar.

Harald then sought to leave his post, but was denied this. He eventually escaped and returned home in 1043, becoming King of Norway before eventually dying at the Battle of Stamford Bridge while invading England in 1066.

Street Urchin can steal books, even if they're bad at reading, they'll probably have an older mentor figure that's like a hobo or fellow urchin to teach said urchin to read, sometime before the Mentor gets the Uncle Ben treatment.

Warriors who have supernatural rage coming from animalistic shamanism can come from civilization just fine?

In the real world, barbarians are foreigners that talk funny and act weird. From the perspective of an arbritrary (self-proclaimed) civilization, they are uncivilised. Of course the notion of civilisation is entirely subjective, but the word 'barbarian' could be applied by people from a certain population centre to outsiders that have a different language and culture. So with the focus of BG3 on the city of Baldur's Gate, the single big city in the area, it follows that locally the term barbarian should be reserved for people that grew up outside of the city.

Now it could be that the term 'barbarian' should be taken as meaning as something entirely different in D&D. I really don't know, I'm not a D&D expert at all. But I do know how to look things up, and this description of the D&D class that Google found for me does seem to show that the concept of D&D barbarians is not very remote from real world barbarianism:

"People of towns and cities take pride in their settled ways, as if denying one’s connection to nature were a mark of superiority. To a barbarian, though, a settled life is no virtue, but a sign of weakness. The strong embrace nature—valuing keen instincts, primal physicality, and ferocious rage. Barbarians are uncomfortable when hedged in by walls and crowds. They thrive in the wilds of their homelands: the tundra, jungle, or grasslands where their tribes live and hunt."

I still think it strange that Karlach and my Tav barbarian grew up in Baldur's Gate.

I posted the full lore text from the players handbook (and dndbeyond) earlier in this thread, but apparently no one read it (probably tl;dr).

Sorry about that, Piff. I must have read it upon first encountering this thread, but that is a while ago now. The (lame) excuse that I can offer is that the bit of text that I quoted is the part that really seems to counter the idea that barbarians can be Baldurians.

And I did just read the extra bit of lore you provided. If these texts represent official D&D lore, they do confirm that barbarians can not be city folk. Larian: It's patchin' time!

I didn't say it before, but I also agree with Niara that having the [Baldurian] tag applied to your character without your input is not great design, especially because picking the outlander background means that you aren't from the metropolitan sword coast, so now you have two clashing tags.

There's also the issue of Karlach, as other posters have pointed out. She has the outlander background, but talks like she was born and raised in Baldur's Gate. It's possible that she only became a Barbarian after going to the hells, it is pretty savage and tribal, and probably has spiritual practices that can only be found in the hells. but then why the outlander background if she was born and raised in Baldur's Gate? Why not soldier or urchin instead?

You simply invented that. Shamans arent even a thing in the PHB; they are not a standard class.

Old thread but this lore issue is still very relevant.

Shaman is what barbarian tribes, orcs, goblins (basically the groups that live in the wilderness, regardless of alignment) call their clerics.