So I've been thinking about rage and how to make barbarians more barbarian like and not just a raging full plate fighter.
So my idea is to give barbarians a bonus to their rage in epic levels if they dont use heavy armour or tower shields, because to me that isn't really barbarian like.

Now how to do this in a balanced way I'm unsure of, my suggestion is to give them extra rage benefits.
First let the rages keep progressing until barbarian level 28 if you use at most large shield and medium armour.

With that progression a character with 28 barbarian levels would get.
Standard rage
+1 ab
+1 damage

Unyielding rage
+1 dodge ac
+1 regen

Ferocity attack
+2 damage

Besides that I was thinking that at barbarian lvl 24 and 28 the might of the barbarian rage would be able to inspire its party members slightly. My thought was

Standard rage giving party
+1 ab at 24 and +2 at 28
Maybe also the same values in damage

Unyielding rage party buff
+1 dodge ac at 24 and +2 at 28
Maybe +1 regen at 24 and +1 universal save at 28

Ferocity attack party buff
+3 damage at 24 and +6 at 28

Then the epic rages, these I'm unsure of but it would be cool if these also got an upgrade if someone committed 28 levels into barbarian.

My suggestions would be
Terrifying rage
Even on a successful save the target gets a -1 penalty to ab, damage, and saves.

Mighty rage
Grant's either a % based physical immunity or crit immune

Thundering rage
+1d8 sonic damage (total of 2d8) and/or haste

All these boosts would require the barbarian to use at most medium armour and large shield.

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Playing as:
Essedeavenix: Qu’el’faerz'un'arr of house Defadilae
Alva Schultheiss: Bloodthirsty devote of Targus

I feel like that'd simply buff dex barbs incredibly, which... from what I've heard, they hardly need. I like the idea of str barbs not wearing plate, yeah, but it woudn't achieve that. It would just mean barbs almost -have- to go dex.

DeX barb build pretty much never go beyond 16 barbarian as they pretty much needs a bunch of rogue lvls to do any damage and 13 rogue for epic dodge, the buffs I suggest is a minor party buff at 24 and the epic rage buffs is at 28 and requires you to get mighty or thundering rage wich require 21 str and con for mighty or 25 str for thundering. Cant really see how that would buff dex barbs.

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Playing as:
Essedeavenix: Qu’el’faerz'un'arr of house Defadilae
Alva Schultheiss: Bloodthirsty devote of Targus

Can confirm - Dex Barb always goes eithet 16/13/1 or 17/13, you cant invest more Barb without serious drawbacks.

On the other hand, if you do you might be able to justify dropping epic dodge on a dex build with this.

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