Smart Barbs scare me

One of my favourite characters was a wizard/barbarian lizardman. He believed that if you defeated a powerful foe you could gain its power by eating its heart (and also knew that this wasn't literal, it was a cultural thing). He explained to the party that he was very smart because "I ate a wizard, once." In fact, the wizard had had a Headband of Intellect that Xarg took from his corpse. He disguised the headband by wrapping it in crude leather decorated with teeth, making it look like a tribal collar thingy, so that people didn't know how important it was.

Imagine going from incredible intelligence, to absolute stupidity, every time you take your hat off. That must be a very jarring experience.
- Another good reason why he switched the item's form factor from headband to collar, much less likely to come off that way. Especially since lizardmen don't really have good foreheads for headbands to begin with. :)
- Now I'm imagining Crocodile Dundee, but it's an actual crocodile that casts spells.

Robert Jordan wrote some Conan the Barbarian books. I was caught off guard by Conan being smart. It was rather scary.

The original Conan short stories depict Conan as very intelligent, even if he despises 'overclever' solutions.
I guess I found what I'm reading next, thank you.
- No problem. It was a random find at the library for me. I was looking for the next Wheel of Time book, but it was out and these Conan books were right there. I picked them up and loved them.
  Actually, I'll put them next on my re-read list.
How much of the book is spent explaining the detailing on female barbarian clothing?
- You and me focus on different things while reading a book.

Barbarians in 3.5 actually get base 4 Skill Points per level, which is more than Clerics, Fighters, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Wizards. I always took this as meaning that D&D Barbarians were intended to have more going on than just rage-smashing - stealth, tracking, nature lore, etc.

Yes, they've always been a Conan-type.
Conan was not stupid, he just had a very particular set of skills geared towards murdering people and looting ancient temples.
- In the Conan books I read, he was primarily identified as a thief early in his life, and only later became known as a warrior and tactician.
  Of course, most people know him more from the movies, which emphasized his brawn over else.
- He eventually becomes king, so he's definitely an intelligent tactician. He just had limited life experiences having been raised as a slave and then a gladiator.

"All you really need to know is that it comes down to a logic tree and all decisions can be summarized as 'Smash!' or 'No Smash.'"

But we're talking about barbarians, not bards?
- I chose my words carefully.

Philosophers with clubs.

The battle:

25% Red Lasers

25% Blue Lasers

50% Knowing

or when u max str/dex/con and dump the rest on int against mind flayers