Indoor/Outdoor Barbarian
by Sirian

Class: Barbarian
Tag: None.

Introduction

Adherence to weapon restrictions on indoor/outdoor is the main point of the variant. This pretty much means a Barb with weakened passives and no uberskills, who will have to rely more on lesser combat skills or on warcries, who must also keep two sets of weapons and use them both.

Rules

Weaponry in OUTDOOR areas restricted to AXES ONLY. This is to fight off the hordes of demons and demonically possessed. Axes do include throwing types, if desired.

Weaponry in INDOOR areas restricted to MACES ONLY. This is to combat the living dead. Wands, scepters, and staves are considered mace class weaponry and are acceptable. Note that currently Wands and Staves are called "Staff Class" in-game, but Mace Mastery does effect them. -Lem

Act Boss encounters and areas are the one exception, when the player may choose to use axes if he wishes, even though all the act bosses are in indoor areas. This includes Catacombs, level 4 only. It includes Tal Rasha's Chamber. It includes all of the Durance lvl 3, all of the Chaos Sanctuary, and the Worldstone Chamber.

No restrictions on items except weaponry, but no twinking and no outrageous trades. Use common sense.

Note that you are not allowed to do the Den of Evil, obviously, until you have found or bought a mace-class weapon. This is not a rule unto itself, but I thought it should be pointed out. Barbs start with a hand axe, so they are good to go from the outset as far as the Blood Moor is concerned.

Items

Shields
Shield, Double weapons, or Two-Handed is up to the player.

Weapons
No use of swords, polearms, spears, bows/xbows, daggers, or javelins.
Axes and Maces are allowed. Axes are used outdoors, and maces indoors.
Throwing axes are allowed in outdoor areas.

Skills

No use of Whirlwind or Leap Attack skills. Do not get them.

No use of Sword, Polearm, or Spear Mastery.

No more than HALF of all skill points are allowed to be assigned to the Passive Tree at any given time. This means your FIRST skill point must go into warcries or combat skills. Once you have a point in one of those trees, you can put a point into Passives. Your next point then cannot go into Passives. You can only put points in Passives when the total number of points NOT in passives exceeds the total IN passives. This includes skill bonuses from quests.

Unassigned skill points do NOT count toward raising the limit for Passives. That is to say, you must actually ASSIGN a point to the war cries or combat skills trees, before you can then assign a point into Passives. No more than half of your ASSIGNED points in Passives! If you have saved points, that's fine, but there is to be no situation such as 15 points in Passives and 15 other points unassigned. (I hope that was clear enough).

Axe Mastery must be improved before Mace Mastery. First one, then the other. They must never be more than 1 skill point differential, and if so, it will be with Axe Mastery ahead by 1 skill point. Remember also that no more than half of total skill points can be in the entire passive tree... and that includes more than just weapon masteries. If you want to improve Iron Skin and Natural Resistance quickly, you will have to postpone improving the Weapon Masteries, to one degree or another.

Throwing Mastery is allowed if desired, but may not exceed the current level of Mace Mastery, and only throwing axes are permitted: no dagger-class or javelin-class throwing weapons, and even throwing axes are only legal in Outdoor or Act Boss areas.

Where to put Non-Passive skill points is up to the player. He can invest heavily in attack forms, war cries, or mix it up, and it IS legal to have substantially less than half of points into the Passives tree if desired -- just never MORE than half.

Outdoor and Indoor Areas

Outdoor Areas

- Act 1: Blood Moor, Cold Plains, Burial Grounds, Stony Field, Dark Wood, Tristram, Black Marsh, Tamoe Highland, Outer Cloister (but NOT Monastery Gate!), Inner Cloister.
- Act 2: Rocky waste, Dry Hills, Far Oasis, Lost City, Valley of the Snakes, Canyon of the Magi
- Act 3: Spider Forest, Great Marsh, Flayer Jungle, Lower Kurast, Kurast Bazaar, Upper Kurast, Kurast Causeway, Travincal
- Act 4: Outer Steppes, Plains of Despair, City of the Damned, River of Flame
- Act 5: Bloody Foothills, Frigid Highlands, Abaddon, Arreat Plateau, the Pit of Acheron, Nihlathak's Temple (not the Halls of Anguish/Pain/Vaught; the snowy exterior area), Frozen Tundra, the Infernal Pit, Arreat Summit

Everything else, including all caves, dungeons, tombs, temples, lairs, sewers, cellars and so on and so forth, are all Indoors. The Arcane Sanctuary is considered Indoors. The Cow Level is considered an Act Boss area: use either type of weaponry there.