Why is the Barbarian CLASS considered a fighter KIT?

Remove all ads!

I'm a little lost here. Can someone explain please
Maybe there's a mod out there to fix it?

 

Because its a fighter kit? You really should check out the 2nd ED rules

 

If it's a fighter kit then why is it a class?

I don't have any D&D 2nd edition books.

Sorry I forgot I have the Unearthed Arcana It adds the Barbarian CLASS to the mix of character classes along with the Cavalier & Thief Acrobat. So why is it a kit in BG/BG2?

 

I can't claim to speak for the designers as to why they built it this way. But what is the "problem" you are trying to fix? How would making a Barbarian a pure class help you out?

 

The Barbarian is not a class in the core rules of 2nd ED and what you have is a supplement book meaning its been added on later and they wanted to stick to the core stuff for these games.

 

Barbarian is a class in BG2. If it shows up as a fighter kit in your game, it means you have a mod that makes it so.

 

They made the barbarian a separate class due to it beings its own class in 3rd edition. If you notice this game "teased" us by having classes that were returning in 3e such as the monk, barbarian, and sorcerer. The class abilities given to these classes were similar to what they got in 3e (and to an extent what they had in 1e especially for the monk) though translated loosely since the classes were not done yet and this was still 2e and not how the classes/kits were done in 2e (monks were a cleric kit and barbarians were a fighter kit with very different abilities which were more roleplaying oriented and less helpful in combat).

The game itself is coded to handle the barbarian class as a fighter kit despite being shown as its own class in many respects. You can in fact mess with shadow keeper and make a fighter/X multiclass a barbarian/X due to this (though it may require a mod to do 100% correct).

 

It is a bit weird, actually.

Barbarian, monk and sorcerer were classes that came with D&D 3rd edition (although they existed under some form before - at least barbarian and monk), which went out in 2000. Baldur's gate 2 uses 2nd edition mechanics, and came out in September 2000, iirc just months before 3E, so I imagine the designers intended to introduce some of the newer classes. I imagine those 3 classes were inserted in pretty much the last moment, though, and there was little time for kits This may be why the barbarian has similar rage stat bonuses to the 3E barbarian (even though +4 strength is very different in 2E and 3E) and also why they don't have their own keep quests or kits. Really, think about it for a moment - all 2E classes have kits and class quests of their own, yet the 3e classes do not.

 

That's how I noticed it is a fighter kit was in Shadowkeeper
I was going to make a barbarian with the blade kit

 

I think the game treats the Barbarian as a kit since, technically, the Barbarian is just a fighter who trades weapon/armor proficiencies for special abilities. They probably did it for the sake of convenience - the class already plays very similarly to the fighter (and almost exactly like the Berzerker class) so just model it using the fighter template. They'd probably have done the same for the Sorcerer except the Sorcerer uses a very different set of rules for casting spells.

 

It should be a kit. Being a barbarianjust means you are a fighter that has grown up somewhere uncivilized.

 

As a veteran of 2E whose group broke up in '97 and thus had no knowledge of 3E until I got IWD2, I was confused as to why the barbarian was a class instead of a fighter kit. Especially since Shadowkeeper and infinity explorer seemed to indicate it WAS a kit.

Then again Paladins and Rangers were considered fighter kits in 2E, unlike in 1E and the Gold Box games. Just as the bard was a rogue kit and the druid a priest kit for a True Neutral priest.

Well, they were called subclasses. The concept and term of "kit" was introduced in other sourcebooks, while subclasses were in the core rulebooks.

 

Rangers and Paladins were not kits in fact they could take fighter kits (so really the complete fighters handbook really should have said "warriors" handbook but then the fighter players would get upset). I forget what exact term used (I am away from my books) but it would be similar to sub-class where warrior would be the overarching class type. Clerics and druids were types of priests and bards/thieves were types of rogues. Kits was another level entirely. Some were allowed for any class where others were class specific.