13th Age 2e Pregenerated Character Builds: Fanatic Barbarian

By Jay Godden

In this series, I’m presenting two different pregenerated builds for every 13th Age Heroes’ Handbook character class, at all levels. My goal is to present complete mechanical builds using only standard elements and rules from the Heroes’ Handbook, ready for you to apply your own backgrounds, icon relationships, and One Unique Thing.

In this pair of articles, we look at two potential builds for the Barbarian.

The Barbarian is all about laying the hurt on their enemies as messily as possible. You are a frontliner with a huge potential damage output, able to take out your foes quickly and direct the course of battle.

The Barbarian’s most important mechanic is Rage, which you can access much more readily compared to first edition. You have a roughly one in three chance of starting to rage each turn and the first time each battle you are damaged by an enemy attack, with your chances increasing with the Escalation Die. You can also rage on command once per arc, with some feats giving you a few more options too. While raging, your crit range expands by 4 (typically to 16+) and your potential for bloodshed skyrockets. As a Barbarian you are typically lightly armoured, and don’t have exceptional hit points, so while you hit like a bulette you can’t always take it. Your best defensive stat is your enormous d12 Recovery, so make use of this. Work with your party to take some of the heat off you and keep your hit point total looking healthy.

Being one of the simpler classes, Barbarians don’t get powers or a spell list, but they do get access to an extra talent at 5th and 8th level.

Fanatic Barbarian

Download the Fanatic Barbarian character sheets here. These sheets make use of the class-specific character sheets designed for second edition by Miguel Friginal.

The Fanatic Barbarian channels the powers of tooth and claw and ancestral magic to hone their martial prowess. This build uses some of the Barbarian’s more complicated talents, has some risky or resource-intensive options that will need weighing up carefully, and will have you bouncing around the battlefield like a pint-sized whirlwind. The Fanatic Barbarian works well with either using a two-handed weapon for more damage, or two-weapon fighting which improves the Harsh Response feat (which you will be triggering often due to Whirlwind and Slayer).

As usual magic item choices are left out of the character sheets, check with your GM to see if they will be granting you any. After selecting a two-handed or dual-wielding style for a magic weapon, you might want to ask for some magical armour to help protect you against the many opportunity attacks you generate, or a magical belt to help you heal more HP with Unstoppable. If the opportunity attacks are proving too punishing, then magical boots will help you disengage more safely.

Talents

Beast Aspect

This single talent gives you access to seven powerful effects, which you can use two of each arc. Keeping a careful eye on the best opportunities to use these powers is important, whether it’s an important enemy you can beat in initiative with speed, a timely maximised Recovery to keep you swinging, or a battle where you can use Skitterfoot to reliably trigger power.

Whirlwind

This extremely powerful effect lets you target 3 engaged enemies with melee attacks for just one standard action, though low rolls will trigger opportunity attacks against you.

Unstoppable

Once per battle you can use this before attacking and then heal using a Recovery if you hit, a great way to make use of your big d12 Recoveries to offset your more middling hit points and defences.

Kin Power

Halfling’s Skitterfoot might be a non-obvious choice for a Barbarian, but being able to reliably disengage helps you trigger Slayer’s extra damage from 5th level, and the AC bonus against opportunity attacks helps offset the risks associated with the Whirlwind talent.

Attributes

Strength is for hitting monsters, Constitution is for being hit by monsters: Str 19 (+4) Dex 12 (+1) Con 17 (+3) Wis 14 (+2) Int 10 (+0) Cha 13 (+1).

1st level

Attributes: Str 19 (+4) Dex 12 (+1) Con 17 (+3) Wis 14 (+2) Int 10 (+0) Cha 13 (+1).

Kin Power: Skitterfoot

Talents: Beast Aspect, Whirlwind, Unstoppable

Feat: A: Beast Aspect

2nd level

New feat (A: Whirlwind).

3rd level

New feat (A: Harsh Response).

4th level

+1 to three attributes (Strength, Constitution, Charisma), new feat (A: Unstoppable).

5th level

New talent (Slayer), new feat (C: Whirlwind).

6th level

New feat (C: Skitterfoot).

7th level

+1 to four attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom), new feat (C: Slayer).

8th level

New talent (Ancestral Warband, if you fail the recharge roll use Building Frenzy in your next arc, hence; two different versions of the second sheet of your character sheet), new feat (E: Whirlwind).

9th level

New feats (E: Beast Aspect replaces adv, A: Strong Recovery).

10th level

+1 to five attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma), new feat (E: Slayer).

Zenith feat

New feats (Z: Zenith Adventurer, E: Unstoppable, A: Grim Determination)