This class and 5 others are now available in a playtested, balanced, edited, layouted and illustrated version in my 13th Age expansion book Dark Pacts & Ancient Secrets.
At its height, the Dragon Empire was able to drive back the nomads and savage tribes at its borders, but its defenses have weakened. The Orc Lord raids the northern reaches every summer, the High Druid keeps attacking settlements near her forests, and the Three have established a permanent stronghold of the savage races in Drakkenhall. These tribes are your people. You were born with them, you fight with them, and one day they will scatter your ashes in the wind. Your people are free. The city dwellers are nothing but caged animals, toothless and weak. Your blood still boils. When the swords start clashing, feel the rush of battle in your veins. With every strike you sink into the heart of your enemy, you grow stronger, more ferocious, more deadly.
Play Style: Your place in battle is the front line. You get into your enemy’s face and then proceed to smash it.
If you like to charge in and bash skulls, this is your class. You don’t just dish out damage in large heaps, you’ll also be able to take quite a bit. However, don’t underestimate how quickly your enemies can cut you down if they gang up on you.
With your Frenzy Dice class feature, your damage increases with every hit. During battle, there are two things to keep track of: the number of dice in your frenzy pool and which frenzy powers you have already used this battle.
You can also make yourself useful in social situations. While you won’t impress anyone with table manners or polite conversation, your free spirit can cut through the complications and get to the core of matters quickly. If diplomacy fails, the threat of ripping someone’s arm out is quite credible if it comes from you.
Ability Scores: You gain a +2 bonus to Strength or Constitution, as long as it is not the same as your racial bonus. Those two abilities are your mainstays. A good Wisdom or Dexterity is important for your armor class.
Races: Members of any race can pick up a big stick and bash their opponents to a bloody pulp. Half-Orc is a top pick. Dwarf, dragonspawn, dark elf, wood elf, or dwarf-forged are also great choices.
Backgrounds: The disgraced daughter of the tribal shaman channels the power of the spirits in a vengeful fury. The bloodthirsty mercenary wants to make a fortune before he returns to the north to his loving wife. The freed gladiator has sworn to travel every known land. The hell-hole scavenger feels an inner anger that is not all natural. The fallen paladin is on a quest to atone, but instead of peace, he has found new strength in channeling his inner anger. The gruff bounty hunter was once a celebrated painter, before the dragons came and it all went to hell.
Icons: For humans, elves, and dwarves, the savage life means they have left their civilized home behind, and the relationship to their emperor, king, or queen will be distant at best. Hailing from outside the civilized areas of the Empire, your main allegiances are the outsider icons; in particular, the High Druid for humans and elves, the Orc Lord for half-orcs, and The Three for dragonspawn. Your close relationship to nature makes the Diabolist or the Lich King, the despoilers of life and nature, natural enemies.
Most Savages hail from tribal societies, and carry with them what they need to survive in the wild. The clothes they wear are simple and sturdy, often made from the tanned furs and hides of animals they hunted. Many decorate their skin with paints, tattoos or ritual scars to appear more fearsome to their enemies. Mercenary types will wear the civilized military clothing of their region, with light armor such as a chain shirt or breast plate, and the usual travelling gear.
You can choose to start with either 25 gp, or 1d6 x 10 gp. If you don't hail from civilization, this is most likely furs, gems, or small pieces of art like carved animal teeth that your people use for trading.
Savages usually wear light armor in battle, as they find heavy armor too restrictive for their fierce, untamed fighting style.
Savages favor melee weapons. The most common style is a single heavy weapon, but there is a variety of styles that depend on your choice of talents.
Note: Although not listed on the table, Savages get three talents. They do not gain more at higher levels.
Multiclass Savages start with 2 powers known at level 1. See the Multiclass information at the bottom for more details.
With each hit you score in a battle, you build up a pool of frenzy dice. You add these dice to damage, but you can also expend them to fuel your powers or heal yourself.
You start each battle with zero frenzy dice. Whenever you hit with a melee attack or a thrown weapon ranged attack, you gain frenzy dice at the end of that turn. Only the first hit counts, multiple hits in one turn still only grant you frenzy dice once.
At rst level, you gain a single d4. The die increases by one step each level, as per the level progression table. At 5th level, you gain two dice, and at 8th level, four.
The frenzy dice you gain are added to your frenzy pool. You can keep adding frenzy dice until you reach the maximum, which is three times the dice you gain per hit. When an attack or power uses your current frenzy dice, the pool is referred to as FRENZY (similar to WEAPON for your weapon damage dice). Most importantly, you add FRENZY to damage when you hit with a basic melee attack. Using FRENZY does not expend the dice; they remain in your pool.
However, there are two uses that expend your frenzy dice. One is to pay the cost of your frenzy powers, the other is your Frenzied Healing class feature below.
Your frenzy powers are stronger melee attacks and furious battlecries. They can be used once per battle. You start with three at first level, and you can switch them out when you gain a level. Many of your powers come with a cost entry. After you use the power, remove frenzy dice equal to the cost from your frenzy pool. That way, dice expended to pay for the cost are still counted for its FRENZY effect.
At the end of your turn, you can expend frenzy dice to heal yourself. Roll the dice you discard to determine how many hit points you heal. If you have to discard frenzy dice because you have reached your maximum frenzy, or the battle has ended, you can use them to heal with this ability.
Champion Feat: When an attack reduces you below zero hit points, you can use Frenzied Healing as an interrupt action to heal back up from zero hit points. You have to expend your entire frenzy pool if you do so.
Whenever you roll a natural even failure on a skill check related to animals, you can reroll the check once. This includes combat control checks. See the mounted combat rules in 13th Age Monthly #20 for details. When you succeed at a mounted combat control check, don’t increase the DC of the next check by 5.
When you score a critical hit with a melee attack or thrown weapon ranged attack during your turn, gain double frenzy dice at the end of your turn.
Champion feat: When your frenzy dice pool is at maximum, gain a +2 bonus to your critical threat range with melee attacks.
Adventurer feat: You can use your melee attack frenzy powers as thrown weapon ranged attacks instead.
Champion feat: Once per battle, when an enemy successfully disengages from you, make a thrown weapon attack against that enemy as an interrupt action.
When you use the Frenzied Healing class feature while staggered, gain extra hit points equal to your Constitution modifier. Double this bonus at 5th level, triple it at 8th.
Epic Feat: You can heal above your maximum hit points with Frenzied Healing. Any excess hit points vanish at the end of the battle.
Warriors of your tribe use leather and hides for protection in battle, but you earned a set of heavy armor in your spoils of war and you’ve been wearing it proudly ever since.
For a hulking brute like you, a normal sword is a better toothpick. You’d rather wield a sword that’s taller than most of your enemies, or an axe with a blade that’s twice the size of their heads.
Adventurer feat: When wielding a two-handed melee weapon, gain a +1 bonus to hit against large and huge monsters.
Champion feat: When wielding a two-handed melee weapon, gain a +2 bonus to your critical threat range against large and huge monsters.
Epic feat: When wielding a two-handed melee weapon, deal triple damage on a critical hit against large and huge monsters.
Whenever you take an attack penalty from a condition, halve that penalty. For example, if you are dazed, reduce the attack penalty from -4 to -2.
Champion feat: Once per battle, when you are unable to take actions during your turn (such as when stunned or unconscious), you can take a standard action.
Epic feat: While staggered, you can choose to ignore the effects of any other condition. Note that when your hp drop to zero, you are no longer staggered, so the effect ends and you fall unconscious.
The spirits of your ancestral lands, and heroes of past ages, whose deeds are passed on in legends, watch over you. In the rush of battle, you can feel them guide your blade.
You gain a bonus frenzy power. You can choose a power that is two levels higher than your current level. Note that there are no powers higher than 9th level.
When members of your tribe reach maturity, they perform a vision quest to discover their totem animal. You have successfully completed this quest, and were accepted as an adult. You can call upon the strength of your totem spirit in battle.
You gain a beast aspect from the druid’s Shifter talent as a daily power. As a quick action, you can gain the initiate effect of the aspect until the end of the battle. You can take the feats of that aspect. Ignore other rules of the Shifter talent.
When waves of enemies crash against you, you are the rock that splits the tide, with a weapon in each hand for double the slashing.
Champion feat: When wielding two melee weapons, gain a +2 bonus to your critical threat range against mooks.
If your enemies think that just because you are a hulking mass of muscle, your mind is weak and can be easily swayed, they are in for a nasty surprise.
You gain a +2 bonus to MD. If you are hit by an attack against MD with an effect other than damage, immediately make a saving throw against that effect. If the save succeeds, ignore the effect.
Adventurer feat: Once per battle, if an attack against MD misses you, gain a frenzy die (2 at 5th level; 4 at 8th).
Hit: Psychic damage equal to your Constitution modifier + FRENZY. Gain frenzy dice as if you had hit with a melee attack at the end of your turn.
Champion feat: You can spend a frenzy die to give all nearby allies a +2 bonus to their next melee attack.
Effect: Pop free from all enemies and jump to a nearby location. For a long or risky jump, the GM can require a Strength-based skill check.
Always: Engage a nearby enemy as part of the attack. You take a -4 penalty to AC until the start of your next turn.
Adventurer feat: Until the start of your next turn, you gain a +4 bonus to opportunity attacks against the target.
Natural even hit: The target is hampered (can only make basic attacks) until the start of your next turn.
Hit: WEAPON + Strength damage. Spend a recovery to heal and add FRENZY to the amount of hp you heal.
Champion feat: You can spend up to three frenzy dice on this power to use one recovery per die spent.
Champion feat: If this attack kills the target, immediately make another melee attack against a nearby enemy.
Effect: You take half damage from the attack. If the attack had a type of damage associated to it, such as fire, you gain resist that type 16+ until the end of the battle.
Natural even hit: Spend 1 frenzy die and make another melee attack. Keep attacking until you roll odd or run out of frenzy dice. You can pop free and engage other nearby enemies between attacks.
Effect: You shout out a challenge to an icon, and gain a negative relationship die with that icon until your next full heal-up.
Effect: Increase your critical threat range by 2 until you roll a critical hit, or until the end of battle.
Epic feat: You can use this power as a free action, at no frenzy die cost, after killing a non-mook enemy.
Champion Feat: You can use this power against a nearby enemy you are not engaged with. Make a basic ranged attack with a thrown weapon instead.
You only gain frenzy dice for hits with savage basic melee attacks and savage power melee attacks. You would not, for example, gain frenzy dice for a hit with the Paladin's Smite Evil.
Use the barbarian entry for key ability modifiers. A Savage / Barbarian has Str / Con as key abilities.
Savages count as "skillful warriors" and do not suffer from a weapon damage penalty (if the other class is also from that list)
You are one level behind on frenzy powers. At 1st level, you know 2 savage powers, and your frenzy die on hit is 1d3. Your maximum frenzy is 3d3.