Posts

• Aug 3, 2026

  Let's Read Dungeon Fantasy Adventurers: Druid

  A lot of people call druids “nature priests”, and their mechanics sorta resemble the cleric’s, but they’re something else entirely. Druids don’t usually deal with gods - they worship Nature directly, and the gifts it grants spring from the Earth itself. DFRPG can’t use these terms, apparently, but I can: clerics are Divine, druids are Primal.

  Druids cast druidic spells and have access to a power set named Druidic Arts. Their powers are less effective inside most dungeons, but they make the trek to the dungeon a lot easier and more survivable.

  Personally, I never played druids in this game, as I tend to favor urban or dungeon-based campaigns. I don’t have too many personal impressions to share about them other than what I got from reading the entry as I wrote this post.

  Basic Stats

  Druids start out with ST 11, DX 12, IQ 14, HT 13, and Speed 6. A little less ST and a bit more HT than the cleric, but otherwise pretty similar.

  Advantages

  All druids have Green Thumb 1 and Power Investiture (Druidic) 3. The first one is a Talent boosting skills that involve dealing with plants. It’s also a prerequisite for their version of Power Investiture.

  The discretionary list has the usual stat boosts, some of the same wilderness survival boosts the Barbarian gets, and advantages that can enhance your interactions with animals, plants, or spirits.

  You can also spend these points on Druidic Arts powers (see below).

  Disadvantages

  Two separate discretionary lists here, one dealing with your mystical vows as a defender of the wilderness, and the other dealing with being looked upon by “urbanites” as an unwashed hippy with an unreasonable fear of fire and machinery. Mix and match as desired.

  These vows notably don’t include avoiding equipment made out of metal, which would be a very bad idea in this game. But you can choose to have a vow to follow a vegetarian diet (which raises your cost of living) or never sleep indoors.

  Skills

  Your melee skill choices are Spear, Staff, or a weapon-and-shield setup similar to the cleric’s. Ranged choices are throwing your melee weapon, or using something quirkier like a blowpipe or a set of bolas. The druid chooses to leave archery to the Scout. Your skill will end up being 15 or 14 like the Cleric’s and the other professions for whom combat is secondary.

  Druids also get a lot of skills for handling animals and plants and surviving in the wilderness, knowing the hidden lore of spirits, fairies or elementals. They also know the two druid-only skills (see below) and can also choose to brush up on their diplomacy, first aid… or poisons.

  Spells

  Druids start with 20 druidic spells. Druidic spellcasting works similarly to the clerical version. There’s a druid-specific spell list where the only prerequisites are a minimum level of Power Investiture (Druidic). Spells cost FP, and druids get exclusive access to a lot of animal-, plant- and weather-affecting spells. When a spell also exists in other power sources, druids might get earlier access to it as well. Spells are dependent on Nature’s Strength (see below).

  Special Druidic Traits

  Druids can improve FP by 1/2 of their HT instead of 1/3. So a Druid with HT 14 can have up to 7 extra FP. They also get exclusive access to two skills:

  • Esoteric Medicine (Druidic) is a lot like the Holy version, but doesn’t depend on environmental factors. As long as you have access to its special healer’s kit, you can use this in place of First Aid or Surgery.

  • Herb Lore lets you make magical concoctions using using herbs found in nature. You normally need to pay for raw materials, but between adventures you can make a subset of the available options (including healing potions) for free by finding the herbs yourself. You can also use this instead of Alchemy to identify and deal with herbal concoctions.

  In addition to the esoteric skills and druidic spellcasting (see above), Power Investiture (Druidic) also lets you learn the Druidic Arts. These are intrinsinc powers that don’t cost FP. PI (Druidic) gives a bonus to any rolls associated with them.

  However, both these powers and druidic spells draw their power from Nature. Nature is stronger in areas of unspoiled wilderness, and gets weaker the more “built-up” or polluted the surrounding environment is. And the weaker it gets, the harder it is to use these powers.

  Zones like a rural area or a road through light woods aren’t “bad” enough to give a penalty, but any dungeon that isn’t a natural cave will give you a -3. If you’re spending a lot of time in those and glossing over the trek, you won’t be happy playing a druid. If, on the other hand, the journey is the point or your dungeon is the Underdark, the reverse applies!

  Druidic Arts

  Despite being influenced by Nature’s Strength and your level of Power Investiture, Druidic Arts cost no FP and are not considered magic. This means stuff like Dispel Magic and Magic Resistance doesn’t affect them.

  • Beast Flight (14 points): turn into a small bird or bat to fly at twice your Move. It takes 10 seconds of concentration to switch between forms, and your beast form is both tiny and weak, with Size Modifier -7, ST 1, and 1 HP. Injury is proportional, so taking 1 HP of damage in beast form means you’ll be at 0 HP when you return to your natural form!

  • Control Animal (33 points): Roll a Quick Contest of your IQ vs. the target animal’s Will. Victory means you can order them around like they were a trained animal.

  • Nature’s Shield (7 or 14 points): gives 1 or 2 DR against “elemental” damage, whether it’s from the environment or from spells.

  • Plant Empathy (5 points): You can intuit the general state of plants. If they’re sentient enough to communicate, they will react well to you and you can use your social skills on them as if they were people.

  • Speak with Animals (23 points) and Speak With Plants (14 points): Like it says on the tin. Unlike the bard version, you don’t need to sing.

  Customization Notes

  This section is mainly about spell choices, with sample “beastmaster”, “elementalist” and “green druid” sets. Druids rarely spend their quirk points on extra gear, and instead go for more spells or abilities.

  Next up

  Holy Warriors!

• Jul 29, 2026

  Let's Read Dungeon Fantasy Adventurers: Cleric

  Dungeon Fantasy Clerics are described as “mortal agents of the Powers of Good”, though the exact nature of those powers is, as mentioned previously, left as an exercise for the GM. This does match the original D&D description pretty closely, but the mechanics here are a bit different. DFRPG clerics are much better spellcasters than they are frontline fighters, though they have an easier time “multiclassing” into Holy Warrior than anyone else. If divine-powered frontline fighting is your thing, though, you should play a Holy Warrior instead.

  Basic Stats

  Clerics start out with ST 12, DX 12, IQ 14, and HT 12. This is pretty good and could be taken in several directions with earned points, though it still leans towards a caster-type.

  Advantages

  All clerics have Clerical Investment and Power Investiture 3. The former makes the character count as a properly ordained priest whenever that matters. This gives a positive reaction bonus to people who share their religion, lets them perform exorcisms without penalty and is a pre-requisite for Power Investiture, their spellcasting talent. It’s quite possible your players will care more about the latter two in a Dungeon Fantasy game.

  Power Investiture does for clerics what Magery does for wizards: it lets them cast spells and acts as a bonus to their skill level with those spells. It also gives a bonus to rolls for Holy Might powers. We’ll talk about both below.

  In addition to these advantages, we get 45 points to distribute among a set of choices. Aside from the usual enhanced attributes and Luck entries, we get a few categories here:

  • Be a better caster! This includes more Investiture and Energy Reserve.

  • Guard yourself from evil! This includes advantages that give bonuses against fear, disease, and harmful mental influence.

  • Be better at your actual job! This includes things that make you better at interacting with spirits, healing people without relying on magic, and speaking extra languages.

  But that’s not all! We can also choose to spend these points on Holy abilities, which we’ll see below.

  Disadvantages

  Clerics must choose a specific -10 point disadvantage from among Honesty, a Sense of Duty to all correligionists, or a Vow to never use edged weapons. It’s part of the “divine power” package, and represents the core vows the cleric has made to access them.

  A Sense of Duty means you must help the specified group when they need it, and can’t voluntarily abandon them; a Vow is exactly what it sounds like. Neither have self-control rolls, so there is no circumstance where it’s okay to ignore them. Honesty does have a self-control number, though “resisting your honesty” too often probably counts as breaking your divine vows.

  The rest of these disadvantages are mostly split between “compassionate holy man” and “intolerant inquisitor” personality traits, with a side order of extra vows and ritual behavior that can work with either.

  Skills

  For weapon skills, you can pick the traditional “mace and shield” package, or follow Friar Tuck’s example and just take Staff. Your one-handed weapon could also be an axe, flail, or sword too - you don’t have to imitate D&D on this particular detail. Your skill will end up as either 15 or 14, which means combat isn’t necessarily your strong suit compared to some of the other delvers.

  All clerics know the basic skills required of their trade, like Religious Ritual, Public Speaking, Theology, and a few others. They also know how to diagnose health problems and apply first aid, and a bit of lore about one type of traditional foe (demons, spirits, or undead). Optional skills include all the standard Adventurer stuff, plus some things like Research for the religious scholars, Panhandling for the mendicants, and additional enemy lores.

  Spells

  Clerics start with 20 spells from the clerical spellcasting list, picked by the player, with 1 point spent on each. More on how that works below.

  Special Cleric Traits

  Clerics can raise their Will to 25 instead of just 20. Clerical Investment is described in this section too, along with two esoteric skills that require it:

  • Esoteric Medicine (Holy): A hard skill to learn, but it can replace mundane First Aid and Surgery in places with any level of sanctity above “none”.

  • Exorcism: Rituals for cleansing cursed areas and treating posession victims.

  The bulk of our special traits are supernatural powers, though. Cleric powers fall into two categories, both of which are granted by those campaign-specific Powers of Good. Holy Might comes from the “divine within” and costs no Fatigue to use. Clerical Spellcasting draws from the ambient sanctity, and does cost Fatigue.

  The cleric’s Power Investiture acts as the “power talent” for both of them. The character needs at least one level in this talent to buy the related abilities.

  Clerical Spellcasting

  The cleric’s spell list is smaller than the wizard’s, but also much simpler. The only prerequisite for learning a given spell is a minimum level of Power Investiture. Another advantage clerical spellcasting has over the wizardly variety is exclusive access to certain types of magic - most notably healing spells.

  Cleric spells cost FP as normal, but depend on ambient sanctity instead of mana. Sanctity is a measure of how much influence the cleric’s deities have over a given place. It has the same named levels and rules as mana, but is completely independent from it. Most places are “normal” sanctity. Higher sanctity can be found in temples or other places holy to the deity, and makes casting easier. Lower sanctity usually means you’re in a place that’s holy to the deity’s enemies, and makes casting harder or even impossible.

  It’s okay for the cleric to have some spell overlap with their wizard buddy, as they will still be able to cast if they find themselves no a no-mana zone that’s still normal sanctity.

  Holy Might

  These powers depend on living a virtuous life. In addition to having Power Investiture, the cleric needs to accept a specific -10 point disadvantage that restricts their behavior, as we saw above. A player who doesn’t like the three choices can work with the GM to choose some other appropriate disadvantage.

  You must obey your chosen principles - failing to do so means losing access to your holy abilities until you make some significant penance. The GM is free to come up with an appropriate one. A generous donation to the temple in town combined with some kind of dangerous quest feel to me like they’d be an appropriate starting point.

  The upside to this is that holy abilities are, well, divine powers. They don’t count as “magic”, and so cannot be Dispelled and are not affected by Magic Resistance. They also cost no FP to use and don’t depend on ambient sanctity - a virtuous cleric can use them even in the depths of Hell.

  This section contains a list of holy powers typical of clerics:

  • Contingency Casting (14 points/level): Once per session per level, you can cast any divine spell at a skill level of IQ + Power Investiture. Even if you don’t know it, and even if you don’t have the minimum Power Investiture to learn it. You still obey all other restrictions (like ambient sanctity and FP cost).

  • Detect Evil (18 points): With a second of concentration, you can roll to detect nearby sources of evil, by either focusing on a specific object or the general are around you. You also get a hint as to the power level of anything you detect, and a vague clue about its nature. Critical success in the identification roll provides more details.

  • Divine Guidance (14 points): This works like the Intuition advantage. Given a bunch of options to choose, you can roll to figure out the correct path. It’s a bit cheaper because it’s a Holy power, subject to the restrictions above.

  • Divine Omens (14 points): Once per day, you can check for omens in the world around you. There are secret rolls both to detect and to interpret them, and the better you do the more information you get about the future. Critical failure means the GM lies.

  • Faith Healing (33 points): Non-spell divine healing! Unlike the other powers, this one does cost FP proportional to how much you heal, but it’s not dependent on sanctity like a spell. You can also try to restore crippled limbs or cure diseases. Cumulative uses of the same type of healing (spell or power) on the same target give -3 per extra attempt. This resets daily.

  • Turning (24 points): The classic power to turn undead. It works on any undead labeled as “truly evil” or animated by magic described as such. If you win the Quick Contest of Will against the target creatures, you keep them at bay for as long as you concentrate on this power, and for 1d seconds afterwards. No mass undead destruction here - that’s why you have companions.

  Note that Holy Warriors also use Holy Might, so a Cleric could also acquire any of the Holy abilities listed on the Holy Warrior’s section and vice-versa.

  Customization Notes

  Making a heavily armored D&D cleric with a mace and shield is a possibility here, but note that while ST 12 is above average it can still mean your character might be substantially slowed down by heavier armor. There are several ways to remedy that, of course: higher ST is one, and it also helps you do more damage with that mace. Magic armor is also a good alternative, both for reducing weight and increasing the protection of lighter pieces. But you’ll need to adventure under heavy encumbrance for a bit before you gain access to that.

  Disadvantage-wise, “intolerant inquisitor” and “compassionate saint” are the two big choices here. The rest of this section is mostly spent on spell list recommendations, with one example centered on buffs, one on healing, and another on supernatural warfare with spells effective against creatures like demons and undead.

  Even if GMs don’t allow “multiclassing” (i.e., picking special powers from other templates), clerics still have access to the Holy Might powers listed under the Holy Warrior template. So if you want to go in a more paladin-y direction with your Cleric, you can focus on increasing combat skills and buying appropriate Holy Warrior powers with earned points.

  Example Clerics

  Rescued from the distant past of 2017, here’s Kyra from the Pathfinder iconic lineup! I don’t think I’d do anything differently if I was building her today.

  There’s also Urist, the dwarf cleric I built for my solo Hell’s Rebels campaign.

  Next Up

  The Druid!

• Jul 27, 2026

  Let's Read Dungeon Fantasy Adventurers: Bard

  Dungeon Fantasy Bards have a little of that “jack of all trades” vibe from certain editions of D&D. They have a bit of the thief’s sneakiness, the wizard’s magic, and the swashbuckler’s fencing. However their real strength lies elsewhere. They have special insight into a mystery that eludes most other delvers. In other words, they have social skills. And more seriously, they also have access to the powers of Bard-Song.

  Bards excel in campaigns that involve heavy doses of social interaction, whether it happens in the city or inside the dungeon. In more combat-centered campaigns, they can still pull their weight against enemies with minds vulnerable to their magic, and they help immensely when selling loot back in town.

  I feel this template lets bards be a little more distinct from each other than they are in D&D. You can still play a fop with poofy sleeves, a fancy feathered hat, a smallsword, and a lute, but it takes relatively few changes to move away from that.

  Basic Stats

  The default statline for bards is ST 11, DX 12, IQ 14, HT 11, which clearly marks them as brainy sorts. Their Basic Speed is increased to 6.00 but the secondary stats are otherwise untouched.

  Advantages

  Charisma is not a stat in Dungeon Fantasy, but rather just one of a large set of advantages and disadvantages that affect your social reaction modifiers. All bards start with one level of Charisma and the Voice advantage, both of which enhance social skills and give them reaction bonuses in most instances of personal interaction.

  They also have two levels of Bardic Talent, the bard spellcasting trait. That lets them use a subset of wizard spells (from the Communication/Empathy, Mind Control, and Sound colleges). It’s also a prerequisite for Bard-Song powers.

  They have a further 60 points to spend on customizable advantages, which include the usual stat increases plus stuff in the following categories:

  • More magic power! This means extra Bardic Talent and an Energy Reserve to help them power spells. This point pool can also be spend on any Bard-Song powers listed with the template.

  • More social power! There are more social buffs beyond Charisma and Voice, and many of them are in this list. Including, yes, a prettier physical appearance.

  • More music power! A small set of advantages that make you a better musician or performer. This makes you better at using some Bard-Song powers and can also help in social situations.

  Disadvantages

  There are two separate lists to choose from. The first demands you choose -15 points and contains traits that represent being some sort of extreme extrovert. You’re not just good at social interaction, you crave it. Lecherousness is in this list, for those who think bards need to be horny.

  The second list asks you to choose -35 points of traits that make you a flighty and capricious creature. Are you a compulsive teller of tall tales? Do you have an actual addiction to tricking enemies in amusing ways? Or are you the sort of person whose plans are never more complex than “chaaaarge!!!”?

  Skills

  You favor fencing when you fight. Skill packages let you have Skill 15 with a fencing sword, or Skill 14 with that weapon and then skill 14 with either a shield, an off-hand dagger, or a cloak.

  You get one ranged skill as well, either Bow or something for throwing knives or grenades.

  Your standard non-combat skill package includes a lot of social skills, plus singing, one musical instrument skill of your choice, and musical composition. Your optional background skills include some rogue stuff and more situational social and adventuring skills.

  Spells

  You get to pick 15 wizardly spells from the Communication and Empathy, Mind Control, or Sound colleges. Your Power Talent is Bardic Talent, and its default level means your spells will start out at level 14 or 13 depending on their difficulty.

  Your bard spells are considered wizardly, and you learn them as if you were a wizard. This means you must respect prerequisite chains, and your spellcasting is sensitive to local mana levels. If one of the prereq spells is outside of these colleges, you must learn it but can’t cast it. As an additional requirement, you must be able to sing to cast spells with Bardic Talent. Don’t let then silence you!

  Special Bard Traits

  The same Bardic Talent advantage acts as pre-requisite for Bard-Song abilities, and adds its level to any rolls required by those powers. It also boosts your Musical Composition, Singing, and Musical Instrument skills.

  Bard-Song abilities have the same limitations as wizard magic: they require mana to work, they’re affected by Magic Resistance, and they can be dispelled. You also must be able to sing or play an instrument to use them, like for your spells. However unlike spells they don’t cost Fatigue Points, so you can use them as often as you like.

  • Song of Command (35 points): Win a contest of your IQ vs. your target’s Will, and you can control their mind for as long as you keep singing or playing an instrument.

  • Song of Echoes (14 points): It’s an active sonar! Use your Hearing roll to perceive your surroundings through darkness or fog, or to spot invisible enemies.

  • Song of Humiliation (4 points): This game’s equivalent of Vicious Mockery. Roll a contest of your Singing vs. the target’s Will, and if you win they’re mentally stunned! That makes it a lot easier for you or someone else to land a hit on them, and prevents them from taking action until they recover. Even better, this is a free action!

    This power only works in people who are “vulnerable to insults”, i.e, who are sapient, can understand the bard, and are not immune to mental effects. It also can only be attempted once per victim per combat. When it works it’s wonderful, however, and it’s so cheap most bards should take it.

  • Song of Sending (21 points): Lets you transmit messages over extremely long distances as if you were whispering into your recipient’s ear.

  • Song of Terror (21 points): Everyone who hears this (in combat, everyone within 16 yards) must make a Fright Check. This is the game’s “fear” roll. Failing causes mental stunning and might have nastier consequences for those who fail really badly. Note that it’s not selective, so your buddies who are not immune to fear should plug their ears.

  • Song of the Wild (18 points): The Disney Princess song. While you play it, you can communicate with animals, who answer you back in song as well. A good investment for bards heading into the wilderness, or for canny spymasters who know pigeons and rats and spiders have a lot to say.

  Customization Notes

  Despite the “jack of all trades” vibe, the book recommends picking a specialty and focusing on it. The suggested ones are Bard-Song powers, spellcasting, or mundane social skills. Bards are not completely useless at physical combat or stealth, but they still work best as supporting cast for those activities.

  Bards are one of the classes who might have a use for spending quirk points on extra starting cash, as their chosen weapon is a sword and they might also want a nice musical instrument. However, this isn’t mandatory, as there are some cheaper alternatives for both types of item. A thrifty bard can fence with a cane and use their voice as their instrument, casting spells a capella.

  Example Bard

  Back in 2017 I statted up Lem iconic Pathfinder Bard for the DFRPG here. My inexperience shows a bit in that I didn’t take Song of Humiliation for him. You’re also getting a preview of the Halfling stats in his character sheet.

• Jul 26, 2026

  Let's Play Hell's Rebels: The Many Steps Monastery, Session 3

  Intro

  

  This post is part of my solo Hell’s Rebels campaign.

  Our intrepid rebels continue their raid of the Many Steps Monastery, aiming to clear it of its devil-worshiping occupants and score a blow against the fascist rule of Barzilai Thrune and his bosses who watch from both central Cheliax and Hell.

  Our previous post was entirely dedicated to preparing the remaining two fights in this adventure. In this one we’ll hopefully get through at least one of them.

  [Player] Continuing the Delve

  Our last position was room F4, and our last turn number was 19.

  Turn 20

  The heroes take a passage to map-east, entering a short corridor that has one door in a wall to their right, and one at the very end, both closed. Urist knows the side door leads to a lecture hall, and the end door to the common room.

  They open the lecture hall door and see that the place is a mess that smells strongly of sulphur and dog shit. It’s probably where Nox’s hellhound sleeps, though it’s not here right now. Surely it will be ahead.

  They lock this door and proceed to the common room one.

  Turn 21: Combat!

  The party still remembers their conversation with Yiliv back at the start of the raid, so they know there are still a bunch of redactors in here and that they’re all aware the group is coming. There’s two chambers left before they clear the whole place, so they’re in for some heavy fighting right about now…

  Urist casts a 3-point Armor spell on himself, and the party forms up with Urist and Arcturus in front and the other three as a second line. Then Art kicks the door in!

  They immediately a pair of burly devils with swords ready to fight among a group of tables and chairs filled with books and other documents. Just behind them are three hooded weirdoes. It’s a fight!

  The party charges in, aiming to engage, but two additional hooded weirdoes who had been waiting just out of sight ambush them as they run past! Jade manages to parry the stab directed at her, while Art takes the hit on his armor, escaping unharmed.

  Things devolve into a somewhat complicated scrum after this, as two of the hooded weirdoes prove to be spellcasting diabolists instead of rank and file redactors, and the devils this time are able to … secrete tar nets into their hands to toss at our heroes. Jade spends the first few turns of the fight entangled by one such net, though the devil it’s tethered to can’t get close to her first because Urist is in the way, and then because Rosalia stuns it with her Song of Humiliation.

  Art dodges the net thrown at him and proceeds to heroically charge at the devil responsible for it, taking damage from its aura of hot stinky tar but eventually managing to wrestle it to death. A nearby adept keeps trying to ensnare him in a Dark Tendrils spell, but the Atlantean is far too beefy to let that stop him.

  The regular redactors once again show themselves to be annoyingly nimble, as one manages to slip past Rosalia and try to stab Jade. Jade however, is still able to act at a penalty (since we’re using Fantastic Dungeon Grappling) and stabs him to death after he gets stunned by Rosalia. Urist downs another one, and Rosalia the last despite some close calls attempting to parry their knives.

  Jania eliminates one of the spellcasters with a well-aimed and very large Ice Dagger to the chest, and Art choke-slams the other into oblivion after dealing with his first opponent. Rosalia and Jade then stab the remaining devil to death just as he recovers from his bardic stun.

  With this batch of enemies dealt with, our heroes turn to the passage leading to the underground garden, the final chamber here in the monastery. Nox awaits.

  [Player + GM] Analysis

  This fight took me about three sessions to run, each taking between 1 and 2 hours. They were spaced over about a month as I got distracted by video games and dedicated much of my free time to them.

  It does sometimes get a bit annoying to do things the Foundry way, since I’m the only player. When I attack I need to mark the target, select the attacker, roll the attack, select the defender, roll the defense, select the attacker again to apply damage, and so on. I imagine it must flow a lot better with more several different people playing. Maybe I can find a way to make a dual head setup here with one instance of Foundry running as GM and another as the player? Though that just might exchange one type of context switching for another.

  The fight itself was fine. Nox did not intervene but I think the players sweated enough that she didn’t feel the need to. Also it was over in seven seconds, so there wasn’t really time for her to arrive even when it did start going badly for the forces of evil.

  Coming up Next!

  Boss fight! Boss Fight!

• Jul 23, 2026

  Let's Read Dungeon Fantasy Adventurers: The Barbarian

  The Barbarian is our first template because they’re listed in alphabetical order. Like the D&D Barbarian, this one is a beefy raider from some far-off region whose culture the campaign’s dominant society finds a bit strange. Unlike that other barbarian, however the Dungeon Fantasy Barbarian is not necessarily “the angry one”.

  Barbarians are big beefy fighters with big personalities, and have wilderness survival skills compatible with their home region. These skills make them very valuable party members in wilderness-focused adventures and campaigns, and their combat skills are useful everywhere.

  Basic Stats

  Barbarians start with ST 17, DX 13, IQ 10, and HT 13. They also start with HP increased to 22, Perception increased to 12, and Basic Speed decreased to 6.00.

  Their starting strength and HP makes them by far the strongest and toughest delvers in our lineup. Due to a rule we’ll see in the Campaigns book, that 22 HP also means any healing applied to the barbarian counts double. They’re not just hard to kill, they’re also easy to heal.

  High HP should never be your only defense, and the Barbarian does have others. However, there are things out there that can bypass everything else, so it’s still nice to have.

  Advantages

  All barbarians have High Pain Threshold {10} and Outdoorsman 2 {20}. The first helps a lot with reducing pain-based penalties, particularly when you take damage. The other is a Talent, an advantage that directly increases the level of a set of skills; in this case, outdoorsy survival ones.

  They can also spend 40 points on buying more advantages from a list displayed here. I won’t go over them one by one, but they fall into a few categories beyond the standard “increased stats plus Luck”:

  • Stuff that makes you tougher, both against HP damage and against the sort of Bad Stuff that demands resistance rolls.

  • Stuff that lets you fight better, an ironically small category for barbarians. Most of their combat effectiveness comes from their raw strength and high weapon skill, not from special powers.

  • Stuff that makes them even better at outdoor survival. Of note is further increasing Outdoorsman up to the maximum level of 6, letting them improve survival skills as if they had IQ 16, Per 18, or DX 19. Improving this talent is always a better deal in terms of points than improving the individual skills.

  Disadvantages

  All barbarians have Social Stigma (Minority Group) {-10}. This gives them a penalty to reactions from others in social situations and is due to the differences between the barbarian’s culture and the one where the campaign takes place. If the campaign is in the Barbarian’s homeland, of course, you can remove this and replace it with -10 points in other disadvantages from the template’s customization tables.

  There are two here: a small one with further traits for more accentuated cultural differences (such as Gullible, a fear of machinery, or reduced starting wealth). And a large one of stereotypical barbarian personality traits, for those who want to have gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth.

  Skills

  Barbarians start with either skill 18 in a two-handed weapon, or skill 16 in a one-handed weapon and in shields. This is pretty high by core GURPS standards, and it’s what you need if you want to attack every turn with little in the way of setup. It also gives you a pretty decent Parry defense in melee.

  They also get one ranged weapon skill, which could be the ability to throw their melee weapon depending on that choice. Like every delver, they also get some emergency unarmed combat skills.

  After that you have a selection of outdoor survival skills, many of which are covered by the Outdoorsman talent.

  Special Barbarian Traits

  Barbarians can buy strength up to 25 and HP up until 1/2 of their ST (not just 1/3). Other Barbarian-only traits include:

  • Discriminatory Smell lets you have Wolverine’s nose. You can memorize scents and recognize them later, get a big bonus to both smell-based Perception rolls and the Tracking skill.

  • Lifting ST: You can lift even more than your already impressive strength indicates. Add this to ST to determine your Basic Lift and general feats of strength, but not your damage or HP.

  • Temperature Tolerance: In Cold and Heat versions, this gives a bonus to resist temperature related effects. This is how Conan can walk shirtless in the snow. You can have up to three levels of both.

  • Tough Skin: Adds to your damage resistance as if it was armor! It’s still flesh, though, so it doesn’t protect the eyes and doesn’t work against attacks that just require skin contact or a small scratch to take effect. Barbarians can have up to 3 levels. It does stack with worn armor.

  Customization Notes

  The book has some example archetypes here to guide players who don’t quite know which traits to pick from the template.

  The angry one might pair Berserk and Bloodlust with the traits that make them tougher. Note that Berserk is a major disadvantage, not a superpower. A survivalist has more Perception and Outdoorsman, traits like Discriminatory Smell, and disadvantages like reduced Wealth and illiteracy. A wilderness guardian might be Fearless and an Animal Friend, but also Overconfident and burdened with a Sense of Duty to Nature.

  Weapon and survival skills should match the feel of barbarian’s origin culture. A viking could have Spear and Shield, plus Survival (Arctic), Seamanship, and Skiing, for example.

  ST 17 or more means any weapon is effective in the hands of a barbarian, so they can save some money by taking something big and relatively cheap like a spear, axe or mace. Swords are expensive!

  Example Barbarian

  Way back in 2017 when the DFRPG had just come out, I wrote up most of the Pathfinder iconics as DFRPG starting characters. You can look at Amiri the Barbarian here.

  Coming up Next

  Bards!

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