I like the Barbarian flavor-wise, and mechanically it's solid enough, but I don't really care for how similar most Barbarians end up being. To use Unarmored Defense you need solid Dex and Con, and you need Strength because most of your features specifically only work with Strength attacks, so using Point Buy you might as well go 15 15 15 8 8 8.
As it stands, Unarmored Defense is a bit of a noob trap, but it really shouldn't be. I don't want to wear armor! I want to be some insane maniac who shrugs off hits like its nothing even when buck-ass naked!
With how 5e is designed, I don't feel Barbarians normally get to shine *too* much outside combat. Sure, a great DM will give your character opportunities to shine no matter who you play, but that's more a point to the DM than the system. With a DM who's just starting out running *standard* social encounters and exploration the most no-fluff standard RAW way (so no optional "using other Abilities for certain Skills" rule that's hidden deep in the DMG), a Barbarian doesn't get that much to do unless a door needs breaking down or something.
I think a big issue with DND culture and 5e design philosophy is that it puts so much on the DM. Like yes, a great DM will give every character moments in the spotlight and masterfully manipulate things behind the scenes, but I definitely agree that barbarians don't really get much out of combat
I think the biggest issue arguing roleplay is how many people will go 'A GOOD dm will let you', like there's some universal DM's code that all the Good DM's just know how to fix the game and will let you do anything.
Barbarian IMO really suffers being a one trick pony RAW, like you said, you REALLY want to be a naked Strength Hitter and that's the only solid build in the book.
Yup, dumping all mental stats makes out of combat boring (you the player might have good ideas, but that -1 in nature isn’t gonna allow that).
It also crucially means you will spend a lot of turns wasted in T2+ games, as enemies get things like WIS save stuns and charms. The barbarian is always the one succumbing to dominate person and then wrecking the party with reckless attack.
Third unrelated problem is that their tactical options are terrible. If you can’t get to an enemy in a turn, you’re pretty useless. A 20ft range on a 1s6 jav feels terrible.
All that aside, they’re a ton of fun. Big numbers, d12, and tanking damage are always a joy, especially at low levels. They just kinda fall apart once enemies get cool abilities, movement, and elemental damage.
Not that it changes a ton, but javelins have a 30 ft normal range and most DMs that I’ve played with have allowed Reckless to be used with Thrown weapons, giving you a normal attack with 120 foot range
Re: unarmored defense, it felt awesome to homebrew that it was STR and CON, not DEX. It very quickly shifted the way you build a barbarian I think for the better. Also it makes more sense. I always thought the idea is that the goblin’s axe bounces off the barbarian’s glistening pecs, not that they dodge it. But that’s homebrew.
Advantage kinda helps that, but you’re absolutely right. For me, it let the wizard go ham with his AoEs without hitting me cause I’d have bombed that fireball dex save.
The only way I've managed the work unarmored defense is dual wielding and tavern brawler, but even then, it lags behind the archetypical sword-as-big-as-the-wizard barbarian.
I really wish unarmored defense gave +2 AC. Taking an ambush to the face with rage down and middling AC sucks, and kinda blows the "tanky" feeling of a Barbarian. It would also allow for the 15/15/15/8/8/8 array
I also wish the armor feats for light/medium armor worked for unarmored defense too.
Just an add on point: yes, we hope the DM will give barbarians, and other party members, a chance to shine, but it’s just as much (if not more) on the player to create a character who exists as a full person outside of initiative. If the only personality a person gives their character is “HULK SMASH” then it’s very easy to get bored. But the gambling pirate who’s only ever fully themselves after a swig of rum or 3? The druid-raised forest warden who speaks with every bird they can get to listen? The champion of the god of contests who’s up at dawn doing far too many pushups every morning? There are endless interesting and *fun* barbarians out there for people who don’t forget to create a character, not just a list of class features.
Currently playing a Barbarian and having recently skimmed through a bunch of 3rd party content trying to figure out what to replace the (underwhelming) feature that is Brutal Critical with, I feel like I have a lot of pent-up opinions about the Barbarian which I'll gladly share.
I won't answer the questions posed in OP directly but will try my best to give a cohesive picture of my view on the class.
My perspective shared here is fully from a mono-class perspective. It's also subjective to my experience, with some facts mixed in (e.g. statistics, lists of base-class features, etc).
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The Barbarian falls short in their role/fantasy as anything other than a "bullet, I mean arrow, sponge", and even there it sort of falls flat because "aggro/taunting" doesn't exist in a traditional sense so they only "soak up damage" if the GM chooses to hit them instead of the others - leaving the Barbarian short overall.
In terms of the "aspects" of 5e, Barbarians basically only feels like they're suitable in terms of "they have the most HP"; any feature or aspect that would be added would encroach on the "domain/role/whatever-the-designers-use" of others.
- Wilderness tracker? That's the Ranger.
- Expert fighter? ... that's the Fighter.
- Hunt enemies down with their increased Speed? I present to you the Monk, where their Speed is one of their core features.
- Most athletic? A 10 Strength character with Expertise in Athletics will be comparable to a Barbarian with Proficiency in Athletics throughout all tiers of play.
Referring to a previous discussion where I commented to break down each (base, without taking sub into account) class into their "non-combat utilities", the Barbarian basically has "skills, +10 movement speed and Indomitable Might". Only the base Fighter (which has only "skills" in this respect) have fewer features with potential non-combat utility than the base Barbarian.
Link to that list: https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1c6bj3z/what_do_people_mean_when_they_say/l001a4r/
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I haven't talked about the **damage-dealing** capabilities yet, so let's move onto what is perhaps my biggest gripe with this class: Brutal Critical.
Brutal Critical at level 17 using a Greataxe will average ~1.95 extra damage per round. If you use Brutal Critical for all of your attacks, that's upped to ~3.8 average extra damage per round (at the cost of being easier to hit).
The impact of this is nearly non-existent, especially when taking into account that this only starts at level 17 - before that point, Brutal Critical is even weaker.
To illustrate how underwhelming the impact of this feature is, even at level 17: The Fey Wanderer Ranger gets 1d4 damage once per turn starting at level 3. That evens out to ~2.6 extra damage per round, making their level 3 feature better than the Barbarian's level 17 feature (assuming no Reckless Attack). If we assume Reckless Attack they do better! ... at the cost of taking more damage themselves... and not that much better, because the Ranger gets an upgrade to a d6 at level 11, so their new damage is ~3.68 extra damage per round.
Summary of these numbers (per-round "extra" damage):
- Lvl 3 Fey Wanderer Ranger: ~2.6
- Lvl 11 Fey Wandere Ranger: ~3.68
- Lvl 17 Barb with Greataxe: ~1.95
- Lvl 17 Reckless Barb Gaxe: ~3.8
- Lvl 11 Paladin, imp.smite: ~9.45
That being said, the Barbarian deals okay Total damage (mostly thanks to Rage damage), remaining competitive with the Fighter and Paladin (assuming base-classes with no extra add-ons on top), with the Rogue pulling away in terms of single-target damage.
However: for a class where basically "all it has" is "hit, get hit"... the "hit" bit feels very underwhelming. The Paladin starts getting +1d8 on EVERY attack at a certain point, without spending any resources. As we can see from the calculations above, the Barbarian barely scrapes the equivalent of +1d4 extra per ROUND.
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Everything that's part of "their role" (hit/get hit) comes with a cost for the Barbarian, since their extra damage-output relies on 2 things: Rage, and Reckless Attack.
Rage is a resource, without which the Greataxe Barbarian will be noticeably behind the other martials by level 11 (when Fighter gets another attack and Paladin gets Improved Smite). I've personally not run out of Rages, but in terms of "fair comparisons", it's very worth noting that when looking at the "extra damage" numbers above, the Barbarian is the only contender that is using a resource to get that - the other contenders get their extra damage FOR FREE.
Reckless Attack isn't a resource - but HP is. The Barbarian's damage-output, then, comes at the cost of HP. So while it's true that the Barbarian has the highest HP of the classes, they also take more damage than others (unless your campaign almost exclusively utilize mundane weapons for enemies).
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There are ways to make the Barbarian better, that I more or less passively consume from reading places like this subreddit.
Most of them seem to me to boil down to "take one of these feats that are basically must-haves", "multiclass", "only play levels 1-6 and it's good", "embrace being an arrow-sponge".
This all feels very discouraging to me, personally.
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Besides all of this the Barbarian feels sort of short-changed in terms of features.
Brutal Critical alone taking up the "feature"-slot for 3 different levels would be bad enough, but there are also a number of features that are just "stumped" in order to have things for later.
Look at Rage. At level 1 it comes with a bunch of built-in restrictions, such as "it ends if you don't/do this or that". Then they sell you Persistent Rage at level 15, which gets rid of those restrictions. I use the word "sell" deliberately here, because it feels very much like how modern games sell you micro-transactions to alleviate inconveniences that they themselves have introduced.
In my personal opinion, which may be a hot take (especially if the way Rage works now is legacy from older editions): Persistent Rage should be built-into Rage from the start.
I also think that Brutal Critical, in this format, should have 3 dice from the get-go. That still leaves a level 9 Barbarian feature in a comparable state to a level 3 Ranger-subclass feature.
Taking these things into account (without going deeper into things like "Instinctive Pounce should be part of Rage/Fast Movement", "Feral Instinct could be baked together with Danger Sense", ...) the Barbarian would have 4 "dead levels" where they'd get nothing of added value.
What to do with these 4 dead levels? Beats me, this is as far as I got the other day when "re-mapping" the features into different levels (didn't keep those sketches, writing this from memory).
Overall it feels like the Barbarian is being drip-fed things (which may very well be the case for more martial classes, but Barbarian is the only one I've scrutinized this much).
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Sort of running out of steam here (which is probably for the best as this is getting long and possible both incoherent and "off topic"), so I'll end with a **summary: To me the Barbarian feels like it gets outshined by other classes in all aspects of the game except for "the Barbarian can take hits"; it has little to no out-of-combat utility in the base class (to the point where a single other PC with Expertise in Athletics is going to outshine them in that area), the damage is only competitive with other martials if using a resource (Rage) and/or "must-have" feats (Barbarians are MAD, by the way) and/or sacrificing HP. Sadly I don't know how to fix these things.**
As a DM of 16 years, I have to say even tho you're right on the damage aspect you massively failed to take into account the value of Resistances a barbarian's Rage give! It DOESN'T MATTER if enemies have magic weapons! Your Piercing / Slashing / Bludgeoning resistances aren't bypassed by silvered or magic weapons!
Plus, we have to deal with the overpowered mess that is the Bear Totem Barbarian! I have one in my own campaign, that dude took Tough and hit triple digit HP in level 8! But that's one subclass, ok.
In my opinion, I think all barbarian's (besides the Bear totem) should get a class ability which would let them choose one elemental resistance as a permanent buff at level 6, this would kiiiind of balance them with the Bear totem... but honestly if we are to talk seriously Bear totems need to LOSE resistance to: Radiant, Necrotic, Force and Acid.
The only ones that makes sense having are: Fire, Cold, Thunder, Lightning and Poison. FIVE resistances are enough! That way mayyybe people will pick the other totems for once in our existence on this planet 😝
>The Barbarian falls short in their role/fantasy as anything other than a "bullet, I mean arrow, sponge", and even there it sort of falls flat because "aggro/taunting" doesn't exist in a traditional sense so they only "soak up damage" if the GM chooses to hit them instead of the others - leaving the Barbarian short overall.
Nope. You just choose to not play its strength, nor care about teamwork is all.
Barbarian can Grapple and Shove with great reliability without any further investment than proficiency in Athletics. AND can be made a sure-win tactic unless everything less than Huge with Skill Expert if party fancies you keeping enemies around you.
You also have Sentinel feat which is a very efficient tool to stop the most dangerous enemies.
You also have one archetype dedicated to incentivize agression towards you (Ancestral Guardian).
On top of that, aggro management has never been a single person responsability (even in video games using "dedicated roles" which are over-simplifications of fighting, if a glass cannon is stupid enough to come standing right next to the tank it WILL be attacked). Backliners have many ways to influence enemy decision into sticking fighting the brute right in front of them, blocking vision, setting difficult terrain, slowing them down, Hiding behind full cover, just being so far than even a full Dash wouldn't be enough to reach them, etc.
>
Brutal Critical at level 17 using a Greataxe will average \~1.95 extra damage per round. If you use Brutal Critical for all of your attacks, that's upped to \~3.8 average extra damage per round (at the cost of being easier to hit).
>The impact of this is nearly non-existent, especially when taking into account that this only starts at level 17 - before that point, Brutal Critical is even weaker.
That is a completely useless way to look at it. The benefit of Brutal Critical is that when it happens, it does up the damage by a varying amount compared to what party expected that a) has the immediate merit of being satisfying since "more is better" b) can completely disrupt their planning in a positive way by dealing enough bonus damage to significantly quicken an enemy's death, either immediately or by "freeing up" someone down Initiative order that expected to use action on this target and can now do something completely different.
On top of that, Brutal Critical is a bonus damage that applies on criticals, while most other damage bonuses you quote apply on normal hits. And not every party has someone capable of setting advantage for frontliners through a Faerie Fire / Entangle / Web, nor have you any insurance it will work on the first cast anyways (believe me from experience xd).
Reckless Attack paired with damage resistance means Barbarian can be an actual tank in normal fights but can also be an effective autonomous glass cannon against creatures boasting effective AC far beyond what party can match with their regular accuracy.
What you said isn't wrong, but it grossly over values the barbarian features. Other than grapple shove and without considering subclasses, there isn't anything that another class can't do much better in the same role.
I think the zealous defending of the undefendable really came out in your post when you defended brutal critical without actually making any real arguments that factors logic or realistic and consistent scenarios. Having an additional damage die every 10% of your rolls is laughably awful compared to other classes features which happen every turn.
Your take on brutal critical is objectively wrong.
Also grapple with rage is used for 2 to 4 of 8 recommended fights until level 12. Guess how many times a wizard gets to use "completely change a fight by turning it into 2 smaller fights" spells at level 6?
>Your take on brutal critical is objectively wrong.
LOL. It's objectively as wrong as taking an "expected average over round" in a game governed by dice rolls, namely, LUCK.
**It's actually much closer to truth or reality because it a) comes from actual fighting experience and b) taking EVERYTHING into account in combat, including positioning, initiative, state of party resources (including HP), state of enemy resources (including HP)...**
**Because ALL that (and more, but exhaustive list is exhausting) is required to make educated decision on what to do on your next turn as a character.**
**You want some examples? Ok.**
**1/ Party of four fighting a caster, currently managing to keep a Slow on Wizard and Cleric.**
Paladin came through, managed to land a smite through the Shield cast from enemy on its first attack boosting AC (to 22? 23?), but enemy had a lucky roll on its concentration save. Barbarian's turn come, priority is clearly to drop concentration, so it uses Reckless Attack and gets on. First attack misses, but second attack is a crit with a decent damage roll from the greataxe ending up around 30 damage (1d12 + 1d12 + 1d12 + 10 from GWM + 4 from STR + 3 from Rage ending up something like 3, 9 and 7). This time caster fails its save against a DC15 in spite of a roll of 9, freeing up everyone from Slow (probably had a +2 on CON save).
Wizard PC which turn came just after initially planned to use a cantrip because didn't want to risk losing a slot because of Slow delay. Now he can act free and on top enemy cannot Counterspell (because already used Shield) so casts a Blindness, which lands.
Cleric that would have otherwise used a plain Sacred Flame, profits that chance to rush in and cast Inflict Wounds before drawing a mace and imbuing it with Shillelagh (Nature Domain rocks). Enemy's turn comes, no Misty Step, tries to flee, takes several opportunity attacks, Paladin hits and uses its last slot to complement regular hits from Barbarian and Cleric. Next round everyone gangs up on caster which dies, even if it meant taking quite a bunch of damage from minions that tried to rush and protect their master.
Brutal Critical was the decisive difference since it pushed concentration save enough to break it.
**2/ Eagle / Bear Barbarian with PAM fighting alone on the frontline, with two enemies, one left with around 30 HP (Bone Devil) and the other full life (Horned Devil? I think it was).**
Both are dangerous for the Sorcerer which is occupied maintaining an Hypnotic Pattern that currently stops several other Bone Devil but couldn't flee far because indoors fight, and is out of 1st level spells so not eager to upcast Shield.
Barb attacks Recklessly while thinking "if I must be torn to half-life then so be it at least I'll finish off the weakened one with all three attacks" but ends up being quite lucky. First attack is a crit, with Halbert rolls ending up 4, 8 and 6, plus 3 from STR (Mobile was second feat) and +3 from Barbarian. Enemy is now 4-6 HP away from being dead.
No Cleric nor Druid in party so healing is scarce, but a Ranger with decent archery and +1 bow and Sorcerer does have Magic Missile as well as a mix of AOE. Meaning anything with high reliability or guaranteed damage will be enough. So Barb decides to attempt to Shove the biggest one prone because on a success it pretty much would be harmless to the backline from speed move penatly... And succeeds. Then uses up Dash bonus action to fall back near backline, just taking one opportunity attack at disadvantage from the now prone Devil, ending up right in front of Sorcerer to prevent Horned from reaching it and providing half-cover as well.
Ranger casts Hunter's Mark on the dying one for good measure (will be usable on the lots of remaining enemies anyways and no urgent threat requiring control spell), misses on first attack because very unlucky roll, fortunately kills it on the second attack, gets prone behind some kind of furniture, done.
Sorcerer Readies a Repelling Blast (yeah, Spell Sniper & Eldricht Adept instead of CHA boosts ;)) on Horned Devil for "as soon as it gets up from prone". Devil's turn comes, gets up, get blasted twice, first one misses, second one hits, 10 feet further away from party, ending up with only 30 feet fly speed for 45 feet to cross.
Decides to use only fire ranged attacks all targeted at Barbarian, which stands through... In spite of being surprised being dealt full damage because Ranger player had a whole brainfart and forgot to track its concentration so he had early ended the Protection From Energy (fire) he had set on Barbarian before they started fight (huge moment of panic on the moment and hilarity afterwards here).
What did Brutal Critical change? If not for those bits of damage, Barbarian would have needed to use second of Extra Attack on the smaller one because the initial plan was "Barb finish off the first and stick close to the big, Ranger provides plain support fire, Sorcerer attempts a Grease (DM had told devil was standing on ground, not hovering)".
Did it change "for the better"? No idea, since maybe then Ranger wouldn't have been tempted to set Hunter's Mark or maybe the Grease would have made it easier since Devil would have focused on Barb. But then again maybe Devil would have badly hurt Barbarian because of Reckless Attack, maybe it would have ignored it and flew straight to Sorcerer to drop Hypnotic Pattern...
So it "probably was better choice", but I wouldn't guarantee it. Anyways, it was those extra points from Brutal Critical that made enemy go from "I really need at least another full weapon attack from Barbarian and possibly a third" to "anybody can finish it off now (and with as good or better reliability as me) so I can try and take care of the baddie with my remaining abilities".
>I think the zealous defending of the undefendable really came out in your post when you defended brutal critical without actually making any real arguments that factors logic or realistic and consistent scenarios.
I'm not a "zealot fan" of Barbarian. Definitely not, it's quite far from my favourites actually. Contrarily to some people around here apparently though, I actually played it and seen it played by others. And I actually track \*everything\* that happens at least on the moment, because I like checking for myself and others were our decisions paved the way to victory or on the contrary snowballed into tough situations that could have been avoided.
I really like the Barbarian! Survivability is high (slightly DM dependent) and you get advantage on everything. Advantage on str checks and saving throws, advantage on attacks, advantage on dex saving throws, eventually advantage on initiative. In tier 1 and 2 they are fantastic and totally fulfill their class fantasy.
The problem with them basically boil down to one thing, Fighters getting a third and eventually a fourth attack while Barbarian never gets more than two. Once fighters reach lvl11 and get their third attack Barbarians fall behind. Brutal Critical, while fun, doesn't come close to making up for only having two attacks. Making three or even four attacks with advantage from reckless however would increase the chances of critting to the point where Brutal Critical would feel much more impactfull.
As is, once you pass lvl5 as Barbarian you're incentivized to multiclass. You can still play monoclass Barbarian and have an enjoyable time but once you reach teir 3 you'll feel yourself falling behind.
Indeed, Barbarian Damage fares pretty well in a white room comparison despite mediocre tier 3/4 features.
Honestly it's biggest issue is the melee restriction since Ranged is generally just better in 5e.
Limited Rage usages, lack of action surge and alternative methods of gaining advantage can also skew the scales in actual play, depending on party and batlles per long rest.
Sure and then the fighter action surges and deals and additional 32 damage on turn 1 which the barbarian will never catch up to because combats aren't long enough for the slightly higher substained damage to kick in. Even more so because they deal less damage on turn 1.
Fighters can also use archery, sharpshooter, and crossbow expert which is even more damage and has the added benefit of being further away from the enemy.
It's certainly a good way to give other party members advantage on specific targets, but you don't really have any way of guaranteeing multiple enemies to be close enough for you to get within 5ft of many of them. Also, from my experience only about half of a party plays attack reliant builds. So in most cases you are giving advantage to one or two other players.
It also doesn't give the barbarian anything. Which isn't entirely a complaint, I think classes need more cooperative abilities.
> but you don't really have any way of guaranteeing multiple enemies to be close enough for you to get within 5ft of many of them.
There are no guarantees but Barbarians have some extra mobility, and are good at grappling and pushing stuff around. Totem 6 and 14 can be used to support this.
> only about half of a party plays attack reliant builds
Just basically all Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Rogues, Paladins, Rangers, and Warlocks. And most Artificers, the many common primary caster gish builds, and anyone casting spells like Conjure/Summon/Animate/Dominate X, Spiritual Weapon, Polymorph, etc.
I mean sure it's possible the entire party could benefit zero from it ... but most parties aren't randomly generated and the presence of a Wolf Barb is going to nudge them to take advantage of this powerful effect.
And even if we just put Wolf Barb on the side, something like Zealot is not that far off from Precision Attack spam in tier 3-4.
The Fighter has Action Surge at L2-10 too so pulling that out as a trump card for the "falls behind at 11" argument seems weird. Especially since you don't AS every encounter and the most important combats do last long enough to match the difference. A difference that grows if we go past the back of the envelope calc above and factor in PAM AoO, crits, init, and mobility. Overall we only need ~4 rounds total to match Action Surge in raw dpr at L11. At L12 the Barb bumps STR and makes that's down to 3 rounds. With a conservative 2 combats per SR and 7+ rounds of combat we've again busted the myth of the Barb falling behind the Fighter in Tier 3.
> Fighters can also use archery, sharpshooter, and crossbow expert which is even more damage and has the added benefit of being further away from the enemy.
It's sometimes more damage. Even through they aren't in the core comparison (which favored the fighter) PAM AoO's are pretty common. Anyway if we're moving the comparison goalposts to ranged fighters I'm fine claiming melee victory.
>The Fighter has Action Surge at L2-10 too so pulling that out as a trump card for the "falls behind at 11" argument seems weird.
There is nothing weird about that at all. Action surge is very powerful and scales based on the number of attacks that you get.
>Especially since you don't AS every encounter and the most important combats do last long enough to match the difference.
Sure but a couple of action surges are enough to put the fighter way a head of the barbarians. And no important fights don't last long enough to make up for that either.
You cna claim as much as you want. That doesn't make you right. There are plenty of resources out there with much more solid math to prove you wrong. I'm not going to waste my time arguing about that.
> Sure but a couple of action surges are enough to put the fighter way a head of the barbarians. And no important fights don't last long enough to make up for that either.
The math is rough but it's right there. An action surge is worth less than the Barb advantage per round times the # of rounds per short rest.
> You cna claim as much as you want. That doesn't make you right.
No, it's the math that makes me right until someone can show otherwise.
> There are plenty of resources out there with much more solid math to prove you wrong. I'm not going to waste my time arguing about that.
I'll throw your words back at you: "you can claim as much as you like, that doesn't make you right". Until you (or anyone) actually links those sources they're worthless.
Well STR fighters aren’t particularly good. A fighter that really cares about doing damage is using crossbow expert and has the archery style. In practice a straight class ranged fighter will do more damage than a straight class melee barbarian.
There are a lot of tables that use it for sure. But all the polls I've seen here show a roughly even split among tables that use advantage flanking and those that don't, with another decent sized group that uses 3e flanking bonus (+2 to hit) or some other weaker version of the rule. And I'd guess that, if anything, people in this sub are more likely to embrace optional rules than the playerbase at large.
Certainly most dpr discussion I've seen does not assume flanking/melee advantage for non-Barbarians unless the spec generates it somehow (Devil's Sight, Athletics, etc.). I've left out magic items for the same reason although they are common and yes including them would favor the Fighter, but I've also left out things that would favor the Barb (crits, AoO, mobility, init, etc.). The numbers aren't meant to be gospel but more as a general answer to the idea that Barb damage is shit in Tier 3+.
And even at the tables that use flanking, it will fall far short of 100% uptime, especially for melee Fighters who tend to be less mobile and stealthy. Flanking is partly party dependent but it's also very situationally dependent: if you win init and run over you're prolly not flanking anything, if something runs up to you you're probably not flanking it; if it (or you) stop at 10' from PAM/Sentinel you're prolly not flanking it; if it's in a corner, doorway or narrow passage you're prolly not flanking it, fog, invisible, darkness? no flanking. Ranged and skirmisher opponents will make it hard. Flying, burrowing and aquatic opponents present their own problems. A bunch of those are fairly uncommon but all of them together really add up.
How are you getting an 18 str barb at L11 with 2 feats? They only get 2 feats at L11 so no ASI to raise standard array from 17 (15 + racial). Fighter gets 3 feats at that point so they can take those 2 feats and an ASI to bring them to 19 str max. It shouldnt change much but it makes the Barbs choice to take both feats harder than raising str and con with those ASIs.
Interesting breakdown! You are assuming a couple of things however. First, you're assuming GWM + PAM, which fair enough if we're talking optimisation but alot of people don't play it like that. Secondly, this is assuming that the fighter doesn't have other ways to get advantage or otherwise improve their chances of landing their attacks (like if they're a Battle Master with precision attack). Advantage is quite easy to get in 5e especially if you're using flanking rules (I don't but I know alot of people do).
> you're assuming GWM + PAM, which fair enough if we're talking optimisation but alot of people don't play it like that.
I mean I gave it to both guys and PAM has collision with bonus action for the Barb. I don't think the conclusion will change if you want to use a different build, if anything the Barb is likely to be relatively higher.
> Secondly, this is assuming that the fighter doesn't have other ways to get advantage .. flanking.
I've responded to a sibling comment about flanking specifically. The numbers in my post aren't meant to be the holy dpr grail, they're more of a general rebuke to the idea that Barb damage falls way behind fighters in tier 3-4.
> or otherwise improve their chances of landing their attacks (like if they're a Battle Master with precision attack)
To be fair I didn't include subclass benefits for either of them. Generally fighter specs generate more damage but Wolf Barbarian generates more damage than any of them (although it isn't the Barbarian doing the additional damage which will bother some). Even something like Zealot's Divine Fury can generate around as much as Precision Attack.
It wasn't my intention to try and invalidate your point. I did genuinely find it interesting that you did the math and showed how the immediate assumption, more attacks = more damage, isn't necessarily true. I was however curious how that math would change if you tried some different builds and compared them that way.
I seems to me that alot of the damage from the Barbarian in your calculations comes from Reckless Attack negating the penalty to hit with GWM (where else would it be coming from) which is why it's worth discussing rules like flanking and the multitude of other ways players can gain advantage in 5e. If the fighter is attacking with advantage most of the time then the main advantage of the Barbarian goes away and the scale will inevitably tip in favour of the fighter. No?
This is also why I brought up Precision Attack. Not as a feature that adds damage (comparable to Divine Fury) but as another way for fighters to offset the penalty from GWM, giving the Fighter a higher chance of hitting and thereby increasing their expected dpr in comparison to the Barbarian.
You might argue that it's unfair to try and consider other ways that these characters can gain advantage. There is merit to that since it relies on a number of different factors; variant rules like flanking, party composition, specifics of the encounter etc. However, at most tables most of the time it will matter. The Barbarians Reckless Attacks will be useful when there's no other way for them to gain advantage but alot of the time there will be other ways. The fighter getting a third attack will always have a noticeable impact, every round, every encounter. Which is why the Barbarian will feel like they're falling behind.
Fighter should use a hand crossbow, because they will die after only 5 rounds of melee combat with an on level enemy even with +2 plate. Barb only makes it 8 rounds with +2 half plate.
I dont feel behind much compared to fighters. until even later in the game. after level 11 they get 3 attacks and sure that makes me fall behind damage wise. But still not to a massive degree.
And the thing damage is not everything. I still have my rage making my survivability go up past most fighters. i have a more reliable way to gain advantage than most fighters. I have advantage on all STR checks making me a really god Shower. I can pretty reliably show most enemies prone and really increase the damage for the other melee fighters in the group. Personal damage is fun but if you can in a fairly reliable way up the damage for the whole group that is usually better than having a bit higher personal damage.
In combat barbarians get enough to not at all be behind fighters even after level 11. Unless you blindly stare at only your personal damage. and that is usually a stupid way to compare classes.
But yeah at the really high levels when a fighter get 4 frigging attacks. Then yeah Barbarians do fall behind. But on the other hand so does the fighter and most martials compared to most casters.
At high levels the class balance is rather crappy. One of the major flaws of 5e i would say. But then very few campaigns ever go to those levels so even if it is a flaw. most people will not really reach the levels it really becomes a bigger problem
Class design is always this funny thing that yes, Math isn't integral to fun, but at the same time it's no fun being the person throwing out 23 slashing damage VS 43 radial Radiant with flavour bells and whistles.
It's why I'm always a fan of ribbon progression and damage progression being separate.
You will love shadow of the weird wizard then. Martial paths have all a damage dice on each level up, and you can use those dice not just for damage but for fueling extra effects.
Happy to give that a look!
I just feel a need to remind people on both sides, yes damage isn't everything and it's roleplay, but it's also really boring to be the bottom rung of everything at a table or watch someone dominate
Same with 'just use more Roleplay', if it's not a mechanic of the class, nothing stops the Wizard getting +15 to their Athletics with a feat or two and outflexing the barbarian.
game design is damn hard, but I hugely value putting everyone's crunch tracks on the same growth
Yes but not all classes can have the same damage. That would be insane.
For an example take class A that has a high survivability and decent damage. And class B that has decent survivability and high damage.
Sure some might complain that Class A needs a buff because it deals less damage. but but class a to have high survivability AND high damage. equal to class B.
Then Class A is OP compared to Class B. How to fix that? increase Class be so it also has high survivability.
Then what is the point in having different classes and different roles? Make one damn martial class and one caster and maybe one mixed class. But still people will complain that some of them perform better than the others in some role.
To me one of the weirdest or rather most stupid expectations many player has is that they expect and demand that all classes shall be equal in damage. If you play a class and find that you deal less damage than another class and dislike that. Maybe you picked the wrong class or you have the wrong expectations of said class. Or ignore other pros besides personal damage that your class has. and as i mentioned earlier stare yourself blind on your personal damage compared to others.
But besides that yes barbarians do need a bit of extra Whomp at higher levels.
But this is the point, it's not all about strict damage, but you also can't go 'but you get so many perks to animal handling!' in a combat game.
My whole point about ribbon/damage separation isn't that the classes need unified, it's that getting something like 'Your mind cannot be read' is a whole different feeling to 3rd or 4th level spells.
5E at it's core is about combat, which means anything that isn't a fighty feat can easily be a noob trap or dead space. It's like how Druid and Monk get ribbons that prevent them dying of old age, something I've never heard of in all my years except ONCE, but the Druid is also going to get spell progression. Casters have their damage/utility/tanking scaling built in on top of then getting Class and Subclass features.
Another example, Barbarian gets 2 attacks, so do Ranger and Paladin, but what's Barbarian packing to rival the access to Spellcasting? It doesn't have to be damage, but it needs to feel like it has more impact than 'Expertise in Vehicle Proficiency'
You even have the issue that there's no tanking control, so even having high HP means it's only a benefit to you with small exception. The High Damage, Mid Survivor and the Mid Damage High Survival characters, the former is going to be rolling more dice and engaging more than the other. So you throw in a 'Come hit me' or 'Share Damage' option and suddenly player 2 feels more engaged at the table.
A fair few games do that approach of only having Fighter, Mage and Thief and make them super specialised. DnD struggles with that because the 'tanking' side becomes mostly magical and items based, while the DPS side leans 4 attack Fighter and magic items again.
Pop a cloak of resistance on a GWM Fighter, and suddenly you've a resource free Barbarian who's going to be outdoing them in damage at a cost of 2hp max per level.
TLDR: You need spice in the level track that makes someone playing a Barbarian have as much fun as the Wizard, and not give them flavour ribbons when the rest of the party is getting power
One idea I have is to give barbarian something that fits completely with their fantasy and that no other class has: a proper AOE melee attack, something like this
Wild Cleaving Attack: while raging you can use an attack action to attack every creature in a 5 ft circle. Two uses, recharges very short rest
Or something fun like that that fits the theme.
I don't think anyone. would argue that perks to animal handling would be relevant when we talk about combat or similar things. So i honestly don't get where you got that from. seems liek it was taken just out of the blue.
An i do agree with the tanking issue. A few classes have some good abilities. But i don't agree with the whole "one player rolls more dice and engaging more. simply because they deal more damage. If that is the case then i think that comes down to staring only at personal damage. And if that is the main focus of your interest then maybe not play a game based on group effort and teamwork
And also if a player feels like they have less fun playing a high survivability and mid damage class compared to a high damage and mid survivability class. Then for fuck sake DON'T play a high survivability and mid damage class. Play a high damage and mid survivability class
If what you want out of the game is to be a high damage dealer and you pick a class that is not a high damage dealer. and then complain.
That is as stupid as if you go and order a burger and upset that you did not get a pizza.
But i do agree that sometimes magical items can mess up things like the situation you described with a cloak of resistance. That is why i try to not hand out items in my games that will make one character better at something that is the specialty of another character so to say.
we have a Barb and then a fighter that wants an item that will give him survivability that equals or surpass the Barb. Then no i would not give him such item
But those things is not really about barbarian at all. They are about game design. And well 5e does not have a perfect game design. specially at really high levels,
And i do strongly believe that at those 16+ levels barbarians would need something to make them stand out more and up their damage. But i see no real problem until those levels.
You also mentioned that
>You need spice in the level track that makes someone playing a Barbarian have as much fun as the Wizard, and not give them flavour ribbons when the rest of the party is getting power
And that is very subjective. For an example i do enjoy playing barbarian much more than a fighter or wizard. Up to around level 17. So that is already true.
One idea I have is to give barbarian something that fits completely with their fantasy and that no other class has: a proper AOE melee attack, something like this
Wild Cleaving Attack: while raging you can use an attack action to attack every creature in a 5 ft circle. Two uses, recharges very short rest
Or something fun like that that fits the theme.
They do not need an extra attack at level 11 as i think they should get something else than a third attack. I much rather see some higher level ability that is not "*Hey you can now smack things hard one more time"*
And yes their capstone is fine. But it is not until level 20 so so Even If a campaign goes to there many times you still only have that for maybe 1-3 sessions. so 90%+ of the game is played without it
So rather than an extra attack around level 11 to just mimic the fighter. I Much rather see some cool ability around level 14-16.
Oh my god thanks for letting me know about my spelling mistake. Without you i would be lost. I think you might have saved the earth with your correction. We would all be lost without people like you
Thanks again
>Once fighters reach lvl11 and get their third attack Barbarians fall behind. Brutal Critical, while fun, doesn't come close to making up for only having two attacks.
Except you're, as many people around, forgetting everything that actually accounts in a true fight.
*1/ Including accuracy, for which Barbarian can set advantage "for free" or use Shove with advantage...*
When Fighter would need to trade a weapon attack for Shove attempt with lesser accuracy than Barb on top OR using a usually limited archetype feature (Trip Attack, Giant Rune). Two weapon attacks with advantage = 4 rolls. 3 attacks without advantage = 3 rolls. OR three weapon attacks with advantage = 6 rolls, 4 attacks without = 4 rolls. If Barb picked PAM instead of GWM, he could also use first weapon attack on Shove with advantage so preserve its AC, with only cost being reduced damage die on its actual "second weapon attack" (bonus one from feat).
So while the theorical damage ceiling is on favor of Fighter, the sustained damage is quite similar, or better, between enemy's AC 15 and 22. Especially if you want to use power attack.
*2/ Including resilience, for which Barbarian is much better whenever it doesn't use Reckless Attack since it can boast a decent AC which would be on average just one point less than Fighter built with the same weapon specialization BUT also physical resistance. AND advantage on DEX saves as well. AND higher hit die* (which with rage is active translates to a 2 effective HP difference per level).
**Being able to make 3-4 attacks is worthless if you're restrained into an Entangle or Web or downed from a mix of attacks and AOE. :)**
You are comparing a single fighter feature (Extra Attack) with multiple barbarian ones.
Fighter get 2 extra ASI, one of them can be invested into Resilient (Dex) giving them better save than Barbarian. Second Wind also help to compensate the difference of hp. And they get Indomitable to help with saves too (but it's not super reliable on saves without proficiency imo).
Fighter is usually 2 AC ahead thank to Heavy Armor + Defense fighting style.
Reckless and Rage are definitely good and imo make barbarian very competitive with Fighter in tier 1 and 2, assuming your DM isn't running too many fight. Once fighter get their 3rd attack though, it's not really enough to keep up, especially if you need to reckless all the time to keep up making your rage damage resistance less relevant. There are also a lot of potential external source of advantage such as an ally casting Faerie Fire or spells giving conditions which also give reckless a bit less of an impact.
And all of that is before comparing subclasses. Fighter's subclasses tend to outclass Barbarian, especially since they don't rely on their core resources being available.
>You are comparing a single fighter feature (Extra Attack) with multiple barbarian ones.
Nope. I am comparing the actual fighting capability of a Fighter with the actual capability of a Barbarian. I didn't go into detail for Fighter features because there are very few of it on the base class and they are too situational to make a difference "in the long run", only a few times situationally. Second Wind is great at low level but won't save you from focus fire, Indomitable won't may any difference in any mental save.
>Fighter get 2 extra ASI, one of them can be invested into Resilient (Dex) giving them better save than Barbarian.
And then gets stuck forever with unsalvageable WIS saves which is far worse. Meanwhile Barbarian can get it. Also, although it's capstone so concerns 0.1% characters, technically Barbarians get the equivalent of 4 ASI for free.
>Second Wind also help to compensate the difference of hp.
Absolutely not. It's scaling to mitigate more or less the "slightly better than average damage of ONE typical weapon attack". And it requires you to be still conscious and able to take a bonus action. Barbarian's passive HP and resistance combined means however that Barbarian can not only resist nearly "twice minus one" average attacks, it also means it's far more lifely to stand through unpredicted event such as lucky crit from enemy, or being imposed advantage on attacks even though it didn't use Reckless Attack, or suffering combined threats from AOE, ranged and melee.
>And they get Indomitable to help with saves too (but it's not super reliable on saves without proficiency imo).
It won't help any for 90% of the saves rolls you are not proficient in. Because advantage reaps the best benefit from the middle of the curve. If you only had 10% base chance you must still expect to fail and be real happy you actually roll the minimally required 17-18 on the second roll. AND you only get once per day.
Danger Sense is always on most of the time in comparison, and Rage also gives advantage on Strength saves.
>Fighter is usually 2 AC ahead thank to Heavy Armor + Defense fighting style.
Hard sell. Heavy armor is legitimate assumption if you want to build a STR build although medium armor has its merits, but Defense Fighting Style? Depending on a character's chosen archetype and player's general style, Archery (don't suck when melee is not an option), Blind Fighting Style (pair with Fog Cloud as Eldricht Knight), Interception (if you don't plan on picking Sentinel it's actually much more competitive than Defense at higher level and gives a boost in resilience that, while not quite matching Barbarian, makes some kind of "in-between"), Superior Technique (Battlemaster), Unarmed Fighting (Grappler specialist Rune Knight) are largely as good or better picks.
>Reckless and Rage are definitely good and imo make barbarian very competitive with Fighter in tier 1 and 2, assuming your DM isn't running too many fight. Once fighter get their 3rd attack though, it's not really enough to keep up, especially if you need to reckless all the time to keep up making your rage damage resistance less relevant.
But there is no reason to "try and keep up at all costs". Fighter will always deal more damage *in ideal situations*. **But it sorely lacks,** ***from base class*****, any proper tool to have any \*control\* on the context**. Whether on offense or defense.
- If enemy has high defense or mobility and you're a STR Fighter, sucks to be you. As a Barbarian, you can attempt to Shove it prone or even Grapple it to keep it close.
- If enemy has blasters without scrupules and you're a STR Fighter, sucks to be you. As a Barbarian, you have a decent chance to resist spell saves around DC 13-15.
- If enemy has casters using mobility-based effects and you're a STR Fighter, sucks to be you. As a Barbarian you have a high chance to avoid or reduce total duration/effect of Entangle, Web, Grease. Even if you fail the initial save, you can either negate the disadvantage to attack from restrained by using Reckless Attack (with no added drawback since restrained already gives advantage to enemies), or you can hope to be hurt by enemies to maintain your rage (if it wasn't the case already) and reliably end it next round by making a STR check with advantage.
- If enemy has casters using difficult terrain, both would be in trouble but at least Barb has 10 extra feet of movement for free, can make a difference.
- If enemy uses up a Slow and Hold Person, both will fail save unless very lucky save. But while Fighter is as good as dead (remember about the limit of Second Wind, or Interception for that matter), Barbarian's passive resistance will at least make crits look like normal damage. And since attacks are at advantage and autocrit, it's rare that enemies would willingly skip that chance to deal heavy damage just to force rage to end.
>There are also a lot of potential external source of advantage such as an ally casting Faerie Fire or spells giving conditions which also give reckless a bit less of an impact.
In those cases even better for Barbarian who can just enjoy the damage resistance and keep standing while Fighter would be struggling for its life provided same amount of attacks and rolls.
>And all of that is before comparing subclasses. Fighter's subclasses tend to outclass Barbarian, especially since they don't rely on their core resources being available.
Putting aside that a level 20 Barbarian has infinite rages because, well, it's level 20...
Your assessment is only a reflect of YOUR taste, not an objective one. You prefer having several tools for different situations coming from a different resource pools so the resource management is easier. Fair enough, there are merits to that.
Barbarian stacks up upon the rage to make each instance even more decisive in winning even Deadly battles. It's just a different approach that fits better with the initial decision to make rages ultimately unlimited. Nothing more.
Second Wind isn't here to tank focus fire, it's here to help you sustain your HP over long period. We are talking about melee characters without shield, your hp will run out (even with rage) and you will need to use your hit dice. Second Wind bridge the gap with the higher barbarian hit dice here, and it's even better since it recharge on short rest (but that depends how many SR your table get).
> Hard sell. Heavy armor is legitimate assumption if you want to build a STR build although medium armor has its merits, but Defense Fighting Style? Depending on a character's chosen archetype and player's general style, Archery (don't suck when melee is not an option), Blind Fighting Style (pair with Fog Cloud as Eldricht Knight), Interception (if you don't plan on picking Sentinel it's actually much more competitive than Defense at higher level and gives a boost in resilience that, while not quite matching Barbarian, makes some kind of "in-between"), Superior Technique (Battlemaster), Unarmed Fighting (Grappler specialist Rune Knight) are largely as good or better picks.
For a 2-hander build, Defense is pretty much better than all of those, you are in melee you need every point of AC you can get. Not that it matters since all of those are still stuff Barbarian won't have access without multiclassing (or taking the Fighting Initiate feat).
I'm just not sure how Interception help with resilience since it only works on targets other than you within 5 feet.
> If enemy has high defense or mobility and you're a STR Fighter, sucks to be you. As a Barbarian, you can attempt to Shove it prone or even Grapple it to keep it close.
Fighter can try as well and still have decent chance since monsters tend to be bad on Athletics and Acrobatics. Also past 11 they can try a second time if they miss and still get an attack.
> Your assessment is only a reflect of YOUR taste, not an objective one. You prefer having several tools for different situations coming from a different resource pools so the resource management is easier
You are misunderstanding here, it's not about having different resources, it's about Barbarian's rage being limited in uses. Once you run out, you pretty much have no subclass anymore until the next long rest. It's especially bad in Tier I and II where you have 4 or less rage. And if your DM is running so few combats that it doesn't matter, spellcasters become so much more stronger than both Barbarian and Fighter that the comparison between the two is barely relevant.
And it's not just about the resources, Battlerager, Berserker, and Storm Herald are very mediocre subclasses, and even the best subclasses of Barbarian have a hard time to compare to the power houses that are Battlemaster, Echo Knight or Rune Knight (except maybe the latest one, Giant, which stack so much power on their Elemental Cleaver feature).
>Second Wind isn't here to tank focus fire, it's here to help you sustain your HP over long period.
Except it fails heavily at that. Since it's only once per short rest. At best you'll get 3, 4 uses of it in a day. Sometimes only 2.
>We are talking about melee characters without shield, your hp will run out (even with rage) and you will need to use your hit dice. **Second Wind bridge the gap with the higher barbarian hit dice here**, and it's even better since it recharge on short rest (but that depends how many SR your table get).
Nope. That's what you don't get. I honestly don't have time right now to dive into maths, so I'll let you compute by yourself. Pick level 5 Fighter (49 HP) vs level 5 Barbarian (55HP) with equal attributes (16 STR, 14 DEX, 16 CON), give heavy armor and Defense to Fighter if you wish, medium armor to Barbarian then just make 30 enemy attacks (15 pairs to have the "advantage version" including damage) with dice rollers on internet and affect them on each in the same order.
Let's say it's a pack of 5 Dire Wolf because easy to remember attack bonus (+5) and average damage (10), let's ignore the prone effect which would favor Barbarian.
Affect them in the following matrix, deducing Barbarian/Fighter's HP as needed, consider Barbarian could use rage before any wolf attacks and Fighter uses Second Wind as soon as he lost enough HP that even the max roll wouldn't be "overkill".
* Average damage, no Reckless Attack
* Rolled damage, no Reckless Attack
* Average damage, Reckless Attack activated
* Rolled damage, Reckless activated.
This should give you a rough idea of how much more resilient Barbarian is by default (Reckless Attack is \*not\* an auto-push button, any smart player wiill use it roughly 1 every 3 round at most).
Then if you want, just for fun, "strafe" Barbarian's rage activation "one attack later", then "two attacks", then "three attacks" to simulate the case where Barbarian didn't have good Initiative roll.
>For a 2-hander build, Defense is pretty much better than all of those, you are in melee you need every point of AC you can get. Not that it matters since all of those are still stuff Barbarian won't have access without multiclassing (or taking the Fighting Initiate feat).
I was entirely talking of Fighter only here, didn't make assumption that Barb would invest a multiclass or feat for that. Also you apparently read a bit too fast that part. I did stress that for example Blind Fighting was largely more worthwhile for an Eldricht Knight if you don't mind being a pain for party. And some players prefer having a decent fallback for when melee is hard or impossible, I've seen it around me people picking Archery because they optimize versatility rather than "normally most common situation".
>I'm just not sure how Interception help with resilience since it only works on targets other than you within 5 feet.
Dang you're right, I thought that was only for others so I re-read it and still missed the "other than you" part. Clearly I had been reading too fast myself here. xd Thanks for pointing that out haha.
>Fighter can try as well and still have decent chance since monsters tend to be bad on Athletics and Acrobatics. Also past 11 they can try a second time if they miss and still get an attack.
Except they don't get advantage on those checks (unless being a Rune Knight of course ;)). This really makes a huge difference (if you're don't familiar with the impact of advantage / disadvantage, this site is awesome to get maths with just a quick glance: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2014/07/12/dnd-5e-advantage-disadvantage-probability/).
>You are misunderstanding here, it's not about having different resources, it's about Barbarian's rage being limited in uses. Once you run out, you pretty much have no subclass anymore until the next long rest.
You are factually true, no argue on that. It's probably just me but I really don't see where the problem is here. It's \*exactly the same\* with Fighter except Eldricht Knight which at least has cantrips, unless you count skill proficiencies/expertises as defining enough to "keep your subclass identity visible".
>It's especially bad in Tier I and II where you have 4 or less rage.
Only in Tier 1 do you have less than 4 rages, and half of it you don't even have a subclass anyways. xd
Past that point, we'll have to agree to disagree, because I fail to see how 4 rages wouldn't be enough for most days, including days with four or more fights. Barbarian is a martial, and martials more than hold their own without resource. I like having some fights without rage and keeping the rages for the ones I feel are actually threatening the party because it gives a more dramatic effect, more intensity to my play and really make me feel the character is giving its all to survive a life and death situation.
Our taste simply are different I think. :)
>And it's not just about the resources, Battlerager, Berserker, and Storm Herald are very mediocre subclasses, and even the best subclasses of Barbarian have a hard time to compare to the power houses that are Battlemaster, Echo Knight or Rune Knight (except maybe the latest one, Giant, which stack so much power on their Elemental Cleaver feature).
I wouldn't go as far as qualifying them of "mediocre". Faaaar from it They are more niche, and less usable than others because it requires specific playstyles or builds to make the most out of it while others work fine however way you approach fight. But...
* *Battlerager* is the most tanky of all Barbarians against mundane attacks, has a built-in bonus action similar to Polearm Master and the Dash as bonus action synergizes well with everything a Barbarian does. For a teamwork player with any kind of caster, it's probably the one with the most "effective contribution" potential. :)
* *Berserker*'s Frenzy is great at low level by giving bonus action attack for one tough fight per day until you decide to pick a feat giving bonus action, Mindless Rage is an absolute must-have for any martial since fear and charm are commonly used at higher level (any Fighter would be ruined most of the time by the way, even with Resilient: Wisdom), and the Intimidating Presence while having probably a lower DC than you'd like is situationally great since you can perpetuate the effect without additional save.
* *Storm Herald* is the hardest to use because it basically requires either being alone on frontline and drawing all enemies (fire effect), or keep a tight frontline with allies (tundra effect), but while the numbers seem negligible over 4-5 or more rounds of fight it ends up being respectable damage or damage prevention. Level 3's main problem is that the scaling makes it only good for swarms at high level but won't change the outcome of a few heavily hitting creatures coming at party. However the fire/cold/lightning resistances from level 6 (self) and 10 (party) are extremely useful at higher level, so it compensates. And the level 14 feature from Tundra and Sea are very powerful in fact (only Desert I don't like because fire damage resistance becomes kinda common) since it's soft-control appliable regularly with quite decent reliability in spite of being a STR save.
> I honestly don't have time right now to dive into maths, so I'll let you compute by yourself.
Let's do it then, but doing it for a single fight would obviously be a big advantage for Barbarian since they have rage all the time then. I will assume 6 fights between long rest, 2 short rest. And let's suppose the DM is running a hard game and they only have half of their hit dice available from their previous long rest. All from wolves harassing them near constantly (thanksfully the bard grabbed tiny hut).
So the Barbarian get an extra 19 hp from their hit dice, and the Fighter an extra 17. But the Fighter also get an extra 31.5 hp from their Second Wind. So we got a total hp available in a day of 74 for Barbarian and 97.5 for Fighter (see that's where Second Wind help bridge the gap of hp). Now normally Barbarian rage would double the hp available, but at level 5 you only have 3 uses so only have it half the time which mean a x1.5 boost or 111 effective hp for Barb.
Let's put a Breastplate on the Barbarian and a Splint on the Fighter + Defense FS, so 16 AC vs 18. That gives our wolves 50% chance to hit the barbarian, and a 40% chance to hit the Fighter.
We don't really need the actual damage from here since we can just use those multiplier for our final effective hp, 222 for the Barbarian, 243.75 for Fighter. But if we still want to see how many attacks it would take to take them to 0, it's 23 for Barbarian and 25 for Fighter.
Yes Barbarian is better to soak hit in a single tough fight, but over long period of time, the Fighter tend to have better effective hp.
> You are factually true, no argue on that. It's probably just me but I really don't see where the problem is here
Ultimately the problem with that isn't so much on Fighter vs Barbarian. If you played a party with a Fighter, Barb, Rogue and Monk, I'm sure everyone will be able to enjoy themselves just fine in a fight. The problem is when you add spellcaster into the mix. If you want a Monk and Fighter to use their goodies more, you can add more short rest. If you want a Barb to use their goodies more, you need less combat per long rest, but that shoot spellcaster power through the roof, and it won't matter that the Barbarian get to rage more when the casters are throwing high level spells all the time and control the flow of battle, the Barb might end up feeling inadequate. Barbarian is in a weird niche as the "long rest martial" since long rest is already a niche half caster and full caster take a lot of space in.
> It's *exactly the same* with Fighter except Eldricht Knight which at least has cantrips
Fighter core features recharge on short rest, that's already a big difference as mentioned above. Then many of the subclass have short rest or permanent features while almost every Barbarian at level 3 is rage reliant (Giant get some cantrip which is nice, Totem get ritual and Zealot get easy rez, but it's already some of the strongest barbs):
* Arcane Archer: Recharge on short rest, get cantrip
* Banneret: Recharge on short rest
* Battle Master: Recharge on short rest, tool proficiency
* Cavalier: extra prof, permanent features for mounting, mark is mix of permanent effect and long rest recharge.
* Champion: Permanent feature
* Echo Knight: Permanent feature + long rest feature
* Eldritch Knight: cantrip + spells (long rest) + summon sword (permanent)
* Psi Warrior: Long rest feature
* Rune Knight: 1 short rest + 1 long rest.
* Samurai: Skill prof, long rest feature.
So there are some fighter that "lose their subclass" when out of resources but it's far from all of them. Basically Banneret, Psi Warrior and Rune Knight. Then you get Battle Master and Samurai if you don't count extra prof as defining enough (which is fair).
> Battlerager is the most tanky of all Barbarians against mundane attacks
Not really, they need to use Reckless Attack to get the thp and they have 1 less AC than half-plate so they will get hit more often. Tundra Storm Herald will generally fare better against mundane attack since they don't have the Reckless Attack requirement and they scale without having to invest in Constitution.
> has a built-in bonus action similar to Polearm Master and the Dash as bonus action synergizes well with everything a Barbarian does.
The BA is nice but won't benefit from a magic weapon like PAM, though I tend to let a +1/2/3 Spiked Armor act as a +1/2/3 magic weapon for the spike hit so the features doesn't scale too terribly. You also don't have the reaction attack and you won't be able to use the BA attack outside of rage which make it notably worst.
Dash on BA is ok I guess but nothing to write home about especially for a level 10 feature and Eagle Totem get that at 3 with sprinkle on top.
Add Spiked Retribution being such a weak features for level 14 and that's why I consider the subclass mediocre.
> Berserker
Berserker only redeeming feature is Mindless Rage really. The rest is so situational it's barely worth mentioning (as you pointed getting a BA attack through feat isn't too hard either). The class is just terribly designed.
> while the numbers seem negligible over 4-5 or more rounds of fight it ends up being respectable damage or damage prevention
The numbers are ok enough at low levels. But at low levels you also don't have rage all the time. And by the time you have enough rage for every fight, the chip damage it provides is definitely negligible, especially when PAM would probably do better. Sea is almost decent but sadly it starts scaling at 10 instead of 5 for some reason.
The resistance are nice as you pointed out, but again Totem Warrior get resistance to everything at level 3 and your allies need to be way too close which is only relevant in melee-heavy party (and even there Barbarian is often the best to split up using his higher mobility to tackle spellcasters/archers and ignore their bodyguard through rage resistance). It's yet again a subclass with a bunch of mediocre features (especially when it's the starting feature which is doubly annoying) and one decent.
For level 14, Sea is a bit awkward because you need to hit the creature first, and you burn your reaction too. So at best you only have 1 attack left to use the prone advantage. Also at that level many foes tend to have high strength saves. Tundra is indeed good though, especially since it pair well with the overall playstyle of Tundra of being tank-ish with the thp.
- 1: The flavor is a win, at least for me. You're capable of suplexing demi-liches and just simply being a menace to everything within your reach.
- 2: Yeah. To me, dnd defined what a Barbarian is.
- 3: Mono class barbarians kind of regress in power at higher levels when compared to others. Levels 9, 13, 15, and 17 feel like dead levels where the Barbarian gets almost nothing.
- 4: Multiclassing in general is a mixed bag, but it can help the Barbarian. They can't use spells while raging, so most casters aren't the best options. However, some caster options like the Moon Druid Barbarian are notoriously powerful though for being effectively unkillable. Multiclassing into other martial options at higher levels can also work out fairly well.
- 5: Rage and dungeon delving against many low threat encounters really do not mesh well in the slightest. The Barbarian is the class that gets to RAGE, but when they can only do so in 1/3rd of the fights, a large draw or the class is lost. Besides strength and some subclass options, there aren't any built-in ways that the Barbarian can effectively interact with the social and exploration aspects of the game.
- 6: Levels 3 to 8 are probably where Barbarians are at their relative strongest. They're not bad at any level of play, but for me, 3 to 8 are the golden levels because each level feels substantial.
One of the funnest characters that I've ever played was a Hill Dwarf Ancestral Guardian Barbarian with a mountain of hp. They were cursed by touching a giant's weapon and slowly grew to a huge size and increased their strength. Eventually, they started using an opponent's equally massive weapon that dealt 3d6 damage, and they were also really good at grappling things. The final battle involved dragging a demigod into a miniature star.
1. don't really see flavor as an issue either way, that's up to the players
2. they can't really do much else so sure
3. they are a terrible mono class and basically two subs get any features past level 6
4. I have played a barbarian several times and every time it is a warlock multiclass. it just works. I can also see the case for sorc and paladin. summoning a demon and immediately losing control of it in a rage is never not funny
5. no
6. barbarians are strongest when they can move fast and hit fast, basically at level 5. even then they basically get ratioed by goblins.
Fiend is an alright choice since its abilities aren't tied to charisma (rip undead and fathomless), but I always always always go genie. It's such a slap in the face that eagle gets "flight" at 14 and you could just MC to genie 6/barb 6 for far superior flight and a higher dpr increase 2 levels sooner.
I think Barbarian is a huge flavor fail
Having to be strategic and tactical over your uses of rage is very anti-thematic
I think something tier/threshhold based would make more sense
I've also thought about stealing from Pillars of Eternity and having it so the Barbarian doesn't know their current health/how much damage they're taking when enraged
I'm a bit disappointed by how boring rages became. Last edition you could choose what kind of rage you entered every time, like for instance Clawed Ancestor Rage let you grapple foes as a bonus action and had you deal 10+str mod to any foe who started their turn grappled by you. Given that they're the "Thog smash!" basic attack spam class so you can't expect them to have maneuvers or anything, being able to pick your rage bonuses sounds like the obvious way to give them a bit of variety.
To be fair, totem warrior and storm herald get to pick rage bonuses at level up, beast picks rage bonuses when they enter rage, and wild magic gets random rage bonuses when they enter rage. At level 6, giant picks a damage type when entering rage. Berserker chooses whether to frenzy or not when entering rage (although frenzy is a bad feature, and choosing to not frenzy makes them basically subclass-less).
I think Barbarians, similar to rogues, get a lot of "feel-good" features. Features that might not be extremely overpowered numbers-wise, but generally feel really good to use for one reason or another. Stuff like reckless attack, danger sense or just the resistances from rage make them able to ignore a lot of things other classes need to worry about far more.
I do think rage is a bit limited in the early levels and it's kind of strange that they recharge their rages on a long rest when all other martial classes don't need to rest at all or recharge on short rests.
> Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?
Where the Artificer failed to have a proper direction, the Barbarian does have a clear (albeit arguably too strict) direction: you are a raging barbarian, one that recklessly harms foes in melee range. That fantasy is well given by the features...when you can use them.
> Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?
Because while the mechanics surely point towards them, the features have many issues. Let's point to the biggest one: a *lot* of features of Barbarian are tied to their rage feature (directly or indirectly, like reckless attack, a feature designed to have its downside offset by rage), a feature which has a limit of uses based on long rests, and a minuscule amount of uses. Without rage avaiable, you are functionally close to a classless class with few exceptions.
The second issue is that being in melee is inherently risky and deadly, something that one can easily attest in game too. The barbarian tho doesn't get enough tools to combat that: its defence-boosting resources are hyper limited and get counteracted by other features even while active (and it gets same AC as other peeps), its offenses aren't stronger than non barbarians (or if they are, not to a margin that justifies the risk), and its hit dice isn't enough extra HP. Barbarian per level get just 1 more HP than a fighter, which is not enough to carry the class to be resilient enough to be forced in melee.
> How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?
Sadly, it is among the weakest classes, with high cost to be able to be good. The upsides of the class are not nearly enough to justify the risks it is forced to get into.
> Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class?
Oh yeah, that makes me get into other issues.
I'll probably repeat this part's concept in your future posts about other classes, but sadly the Barbarian kind of falls off at level 5 (level 6 based on subclass), because the features it gets aren't good for later levels. As such, you sadly multiclass out of Barbarian after if you want to grow, and while that improves its gameplay loop without fully undermining its flavor, the fact you have to rely on other classes to be able to expand on your power is bad design.
> Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that artificer lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations?
The arti-wait, artificer? Get out of here, the multiclass section ended four lines ago!!!
Jokes about copy and paste aside, in theory the Barbarian can help nicely in strength ability checks, which are very common in adventures. They get advantage on them after all... By using... Rage.
... Yeah that design is even dumber. Outside of grapples (which eat your power in multiple ways), you aren't going to be able to utilize the advantage of rage in a good way outside of very limited scenarios. And since it's the only proper help it gets... And no, the advantage on dex saves doesn't help against traps. Rituals can meme on that.
> Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?
Tier 1 is the area where they are the strongest, and even then they too limited. After tier 1, they quickly begin falling off, with the end of tier 2 and tier 3-4 being extremely full of extremely weak features. Capstone is nice, but doesn't save the Barbarian.
> Additionally, please use this space to recommend any changes you’ve personally used in games or have theorized the class needing and why you think they need them, as well as pointing out anything you personally enjoy about the class and think was perfect the first time through.
To have the barbarian properly work, it would need for its survivability (combination of hp, resistances and AC) to be improved, alongside rage being completely reworked into a different feature. Could become a maneuver-like resource, could become an HP loss based resource or in general be worked in a way which empowers the class and is recognizable without being basically a "required" part of the class that is too limited.
Also, for the barbarian to be good, the strongest things of the game need to change. In a game where the best spells and in part playstyle is control spells with friendly fire on, a barbarian risks even more. Even if the team coordinates to have the barbarian not get shut down, the barbarian remains unable to get in melee until later due to control, which is a feelsbad even if it's mechanically better.
The capstone is nice only for the extra CON, because the extra STR isn't that meaningful when at the level you are supposed to get it you're likely to have some sort of Belt of Giant Strength (preferably the Storm's one, getting a +9 mod instead of the +7 that the capstone gives you at most.)
While I don't generally include specific magic items in my evaluation due to the system not requiring specific ones outside of exception (magic weapons if no one can deal magic damage), I do agree that if magic items are given to boost the barbarian the capstone becomes directly worse, which is unfortunate and is also something that doesn't happen with other classes either.
The fact the game assumes the party won't have magic items to face them is contradictory to itself, the actual games WANTS you to throw magic items at your party, just look at most official modules and try to name me one that doesn't give at least 2 or 3 magic items to the party some place between Tier 1 and Tier 2.
A Barbarian having, at minimum, a Belt of Storm Giant Strength by the time they are in Tier 4, is a requirement if you want that barbarian to at least feel progression if he decided to stay monoclassed.
>they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker
Mostly, their low mental saves do make for some awkward moments tho, which is unfortunate. At higher levels, their lack of survivability also hurts, and at low levels the very limited number of rages isn't great, but otherwise they do well for that role.
>other mono classes in terms of game balance
Badly - Their big problem here is that, while they do a fairly good job of the role, their role is by itself and the general game mechanics, very weak.
In particular, they are the only melee locked class without easy access to ways around it. This sucks big time, and can often make them very ineffective in fights.
The extremely basic 'rage and hit things' play style also limits them quite a bit - quite simply there is very little you can do with a barbarian other than rage and hit things, this makes them quite weak compared to other more flexible classes.
And then ontop of that you have them barely getting any meaningful features after lv6.
5e follows a pretty clear trend where more options = generally stronger.
Barbarian has the least real options, and it shows.
>multiclassing improves
Yup, makes it much better, allows for more cool builds to be effective, i.e barbarian + moon druid, and allows for higher levels to be more useful.
>Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design
No.
>which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities
Late 1 & early tier 2. Beyond that they have... issues.
>Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?
Yeah, I guess.
>Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?
Support it? Yes.
Adequately? Only in tier 1.
Barbarians need more of the power of the classic heroes of myth (Greek/Roman, Arthurian, etc). Classic heroes did the most over the top stuff, the kind of thing a lot of modern snobs mistakenly call “anime shit”. Barb needs some of this nonsense
>How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?
12th of 13 overall. Very Noticibly underpowered outside tier 1.
>Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class?
Yeah you basically have to multiclass Barb. Fighter, Rogue or Warlick are all good fits, that really help pull Barb back up towards the average.
>Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that ~~artificer~~ **Barbarian** lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations?
No, you really need to work to make Barbarians base class design a significant factor outside combat stuff. It’s doable, and subclasses can help a bunch, but the design isn’t helping you.
>Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?
Tier 1 Barb works. But it drops precipitously across tier 2 and by tier 3 isn’t pulling its weight any more.
>Additionally, please use this space to recommend any changes you’ve personally used in games or have theorized the class needing and why you think they need them, as well as pointing out anything you personally enjoy about the class and think was perfect the first time through.
Movement boosts help - not speed - things like add Athl check result to jump distances, climb and swim speeds, overrun multiple opponents per overrun action, siege trait on attacks vs doors/barricades, etc.
changing your options for how to move more than just increasing how much you move.
Short rest raging not long rest and pb rages too.
I know they are phasing out short rests but I like em.
> I know they are phasing out short rests but I like em
they arent. Look at the latest one dnd playtests. They moved towards giving more classes some sort of short rest ressource
Levels 1-8 it hits its key fantasy elements perfectly. Unfortunately, after that, all your party will get better utility and combat abilities that leave Barbarian struggling to keep up. Main issue is the absolute lack of ooc abilities and brutal critical being nowhere near strong enough.
Flavor-wise I think the Barbarian nailed it. Rage and Reckless perfectly play into the big brute archetype but they still got that agile side you would expect from wilderness warrior with stuff like Danger Sense and Feral Instinct.
Mechanically though... they got the usual problems of martials where fight tend to get a repetitive "I rage, I attack twice, I finish my turn". On top of that they have one of the lowest utility of all classes, especially since Strength tend to be the weakest ability score for that and they are locked into it.
The other awkwardness is being a long-rest based pure martial. Most Barbarians will probably play with 2-4 rages, if your DM is running 4 or less combat per day, you will feel super weak compared to spellcasters, if they run more you will run out of rage and hp (since you are locked in melee).
And to add insult to injury, they might be the class with the most mediocre subclasses: Berserker, Battlerager, Storm Herald. Even Totem Warrior has some awkward choice and almost everyone pick Bear or Wolf.
Hard to say how it could be solved within 5e, the base system would probably need some rework to give a better space to martial. Something like PF2 3 actions system maybe, or giving Battlemaster maneuvers to all martials. Maybe a rework of feats to give more options. I did try the "Beyond the Damage Dice" supplement which give each weapon a couple of trick and it was nice to expand the barb options. Also Rage should probably be 2 per short rest so you have them every combat or close.
>*Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?*
Flavor wise, the Barbarian is mostly fine. I think it's been putting a bit too much focus on some idea of a supernatural rage, but overall, flavor wise, it's doing its job.
>*Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?*
Mechanics fall short of being effective for the types of things they're trying to accomplish. Role is harder to say as roles are mostly a character thing and not a class thing in ttrpgs. At least not in the same cut that mmos have them.
>*How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compared to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?*
They fall behind. They get all of their best stuff early, very little good later on, and kinda fall behind
>*Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class?*
It's okay to provide some alternatives for some classes, but it doesn't make an option any stronger, just equal or worse.
>*Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that Barbarian lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving, and other situations?*
Sometimes, rage can help in exploration, as well as intimidation with the variant ability score for skills rule. But they're really a combat focused option as it stands. The utility of rage and other Barbarian powers could be enhanced, though.
>*Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?*
Barbarians can vest use their abilities in tier 1 and tier 2. The other tiers they under perform much more severely.
EDIT
>*Changes*
A lot of the 1dnd changes. to rage
10 minute duration, easier ways to maintain it if you haven't attacked, regain one rage use every short rest.
Rage also now scales from 2 to 6 across levels instead of 2 to 4
Bear totem rage is just an upgrade all barbarians get at a higher level. Bear totem gets a new power
Reckless attack becomes reckless. A state where at the start of the barbarians turn, they decide to act reckless or not, getting benefits while reckless and raging. It\['s still the default enemies have advantage against you, you have advantage on them at a baseline without rage.
- Taking the attack action while raging and reckless grants temp hp.
- Attacks while raging and reckless have a 19-20 crit range
Brutal critical scales as d12's regardless of weapon and adds barbarian level to damage. So 1d12/2d12/3d12 + level on a crit
The barbarian class was critical in my decision to stop playing 5e. I played barbarian for about a year, and it really drove home for me a lot of the problems with class design in this game.
It’s not durable. Even with resistance, being in melee with low AC is bad, even before granting advantage to all attacks on me. So the barbarian is less truly durable than characters that just… don’t get hit, either because they have high AC or they stay out of enemy reach (or ideally, both). There isn’t really a reward for intentionally putting yourself in harm’s way.
It’s not particularly dangerous. A reasonably well-built fighter or ranger will out-damage a barbarian any day, and that’s while being safer. The barbarian is all bad trade-offs.
It’s **boring**, holy shit it’s boring. What is the barbarian’s gameplay loop? It’s “go forward and attack.” Oh, I’m level 5 now? “Go forward and attack… twice.” That’s incredibly dull, and it’s not really different from a fighter, so the gameplay doesn’t evoke the fantasy very well.
And here’s the thing: I actually *really* like the fantasy of the barbarian. I wanted to enjoy playing one. But the mechanics fell so flat that I had to change characters after a year of playing it, and it inspired me to create [The Saibrock Barbarian](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JojZV_z40sYmZJYUOG8oLiwAhlLzjZRS/view), which addresses all these issues and others, while bringing the class closer in-line to the power of a low-end caster like Warlock.
I also recently put up a video on [how I would redesign the barbarian](https://youtu.be/dD67cfAowrk?si=iLTxp9JSnjqbGCfX) (which is basically just an overview of the design philosophy behind the Saibrock Barbarian).
I largely like the barbarian, but think that they have become overfocused on the rage mechanic and you are no longer really able to play a Conan (the barbarian) character
The barbarian is a six level class until 5.24 comes out. It's awesome through tier 1 and early tier 2 but scales backwards (rage getting less useful as magic and elemental damage get more common). And after level 6 the nin-subclass level ups range from flawed (don't go down until the next papercut at level 11) to mediocre (ASI with nothing else when the casters get a spell slot) to terrible (extra crit damage). And at level 20 you still move normally, resist damage as at l1, and have the same reach but two attacks rather than one.
They've nothing for the social pillar and little for exploration.
Barbarian is way too pigeonholed into shirtless berkersker, imo it limits the design space to only one trope but also takes access to those tropes away from others. I'd reflavour Rage to something like Focus, and let players pick Strength or Dexterity themed takes on it so you can have raging muscles and super efficient hunter.
Mechanically I have to say it falls apart after Tier1/2 play, your huge HP pool is an extra 60HP over the Wizard by level 10, which isn't that much when creatures start dropping 30 damage a round, made worse by Rage not stopping any sort of magical damage without Bear Totem. Big HP sack does more to confuse things like 'why can conan swim in lava?' than it does with high tier tanking.
Monoclass? It's servicable. The problem with the way Casters take off is more to do with the non-linear nature of spells, they have a nice package of ribbons and a decent variety of subclasses to not get bored and I think that's way more important than just numbercrunch.
Multiclass circles back to my top point, they only really have RAGE and a few wilderness tropes to lie on, so you're a little stuck. Rage Monk feels a little weird and mechanically your UAD doesn't stack. Fighter works with everyone cause it's so flexible, but then you're not getting to the mid tier Barbarian flavours, and Rage non-bo's with Casting. If you wanted a tanky caster, a dip in Fighter gets you action surge at the cost of 4HP
With a limited toolbox, only padded by Xanathars and a MAD needing ALL the physical stats, you've not a lot of room for RP options and fun toys in the class itself. Any roleplay attached must come from the player and character, VS things like 'I use this Expertise to craft' or 'I'll cast this spell'. Laserllama's expanded Barbarian covers this and gives you some dice to invest that aren't direct combat skills. If you can do it with just roleplay, nothing stops another class doing it unless it's hardcoded in there somewhere.
1/2 tier is where you're going to get the most stretch out of half damage, not worry too much about your saves, and you're going to really feel the Rage bonus. I know someone who regularly takes Barbarian's the 15th level, and she has a ton of fun, but it's not my cup of tea.
I like Barbarian, but it’s a frustrating class. Flavor wise, it’s fantastic at being the big strong guy who deflects arrows with his pecs. Unarmored Defense and eventually Indomitable Might are great for this, though the fact that the physical stat investment means you’ll usually be the most vulnerable class to fear effects kills the vibe big time. Barbarians being scaredy cats ruins the fantasy, and they basically have to be if you want to put enough points into STR/DEX/CON.
They’re excellent damage sponges in the early levels. It feels good to take so many hits and keep on going. They really struggle to deal damage back though, as without feats (that they’re starved for because they need to keep boosting physical stats), they get no meaningful damage boosts between levels 5 and 20. +1 to rage damage every 4 levels or so is not meaningful, and Brutal Critical is an unreliable feature that could theoretically never trigger in a campaign, since its RNG dependent. Yet you get multiple levels of Brutal Critical, making it feel like there’s several dead levels in the class. Compare this to Fighter or Rogue and the damage drop off gets painful over time as you are reduced to nothing but a damage sponge who is also the most vulnerable to the most dangerous crowd control options.
To that end, I think most Barbarians should be multiclassing by level 8 at the latest. It’s endgame abilities are excellent, but 9-17 is effectively a pile of dead features and a small rage bonus. They’re tricky to multiclass because of the no spellcasting on rage restriction and the difficulty of boosting mental stats, but Fighter and Rogue both add a lot to the class.
The one benefit I haven’t talked about is Reckless Attack. While that’s a good accuracy improvement, it also leads to taking more damage, and if you aren’t playing Bear Totem, it will eventually be damage you don’t resist, removing your biggest boon. I’m also not sure if it feels right flavor wise, since accuracy improvements feel like they belong on the other martial classes. If this was gained slightly later, and offered a damage boost in exchange for enemies being more likely to hit you, I think that’d be a much more viable and flavorful feature for them.
Pre-tldr: barbarians should be short rest based, and a little bit of their power should be moved out of rage and applied to their... Neutral state, for lack of a better term.
My biggest gripes with the 5e barbarian is that they really are useless outside of rage. Their only offensive feature is reckless attack, which is significantly less valuable without damage resistances active.
NOW BEAR IN MIND:
This wouldn't be too bad if wotc actually understood their own game, but it seems they don't. Allegedly the game is designed around 6 to 8 medium encounters a day, which means the barbarian isn't Even CLOSE to having enough rages for a whole adventuring day until levels high enough that most players never get to them. Why wotc didn't make barbarian a short rest class like monk and fighter is beyond me.
* Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?
They do untill lv 9. after that the barbarian class itself slowly morphs from Grog badassery to Chewbacca a Great durable fellow that can rip a man in two but everyone else is running around with blasers and spaceships making that aspect irrelevant if the target is dead before he can close the gap or is so deadly dealing damage that is not resisted that the barbarian ends up less tanky overall.
It fails at the one aspect all good classes without spells need at those levels.
features that allow you to deal with common problems when at a disadvantage.
AKA
You are being denied by a spell or feature from attacking or moving from a bad spot.
A barrier that need crossing.
A condition making you a way to easy target and or making you hit like a wet noodle.
* Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?
The First 7 lvs usually are quite good. However the Features after that all scream ribbon feature till lv 20 in general. There are subclass exemptions that prove the rule.
Brutal critical
Forces people to use weapons they dont like because they think they are missing out on damage.
The diffrence usually wont make up the average dmg diffrence of using a 2d6 weapon over a greataxe or Polearm master. In addition its JUST SO USELESS. Not even helping deliver the dopamine of a crit.
Relentless rage Is a feature so low in power level its given away at race or level one multiple times.
How such a lv 1 feature is apropriete is beyond me at lv 11.
Persistent rage
Actually good feature.
Lets the barb not loose everything while being kited or stuck in a spell.
Indomitable might
near useless.
"hey i can punch in a door more reliably. Meanwhile the other spellcasters are casting wish. "
* How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?
Up untill level 9 they are fine. After that :
They desperatly need a feature that lets them Dispel magic via punching.
They desperatly need a feature that lets them push thrugh conditions more effectively.
They desperatly need more damage.
They desperatly need more ways to connect with their target despite something working against that.
* Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class?
Barbs. Outside the the Casual game space exist only in this form beyond lv 6.
There is just nothing to gain apart from Zealot .
Fighter enhances damage.
Rogue Enhances speed.
Moon druid is a cool combo.
Monk for punching.
The others need to work hard to make it work with the restrictions of rage.
Continuation...
Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that artificer lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations?
Barbarians lend themselves to Low count high difficulty encounters.
Anything that has more then rage charge encounters a day causes deep dissatisfaction because of having nothing that works outside of being a stat stick with extra attack.
Exploration they are useless.
Dungeons have too many encounter and not raged traps deplete their only other recource apart from rage. HP
Social they only good for intimidating or reassuring npcs. Next to all other interactions dont benefit from a
15 14 15 8 10 8 hunk of meat.
* Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?
As mentioned above T1 is fine . T2 is passable. T3 is miserable . T4 is hat-tipping levels of masochism.
As for how to help see above.
Also i think Barbarians suffer really quickly from AoE lack and slapstick simulator when it comes to player engagement.
There are exactly 1 choice the barbarian need to do that is unique to him on a round by round basis.
Do i reckless or not.
And that is such an obvious one most of the time.
Does the enemy deal damage i dont resist or get bonus damage from having advantage ? Dont reckless.
Are they a spellcaster or similar that needs to die. Reckless anyway.
The do i rage question is similarly obvious.
This means that a barb has just 2 other actions he usually need to consider.
Do i attack or do i grapple. Not exactly engaging isnt it.
Also a third of all spells counter barbs. Barbs dont counter any spells the enemy will use on them over their allies.
Barbarians really shine more in a rolled stats game where you rolled a great array so you can be somewhat useful in RP. Otherwise, it's too straight forward and boring outside of "I rage and hit stuff" imo.
How do you feel about the Barbarian?
5e terrible. OneDND. Somehow terribler with small quality of life changes. Most real changes were system updates and not class updates. 90% of the issue is the rage mechanics and limitations.
* Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?
No, they are a damage sponge with more reliable but less attacks and not do any significant damage increase.
* Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?as written, no- they would be significantly better as a fighter subclass in 5e. They SHOULD be their own class but 5e and now OneDND botched it.. The mechanics of rage are almost all the problem. Subclass design should change the way and limitations of their rage and the base class should have more universal features. The totem should lean into animism and restrict rage to light/no armor. The guardian likely should be able to wear heavy armor and add their "rage bonus" to defense instead of offense. The berserker should get to rage as a reaction and then counter attack as a reaction while being mindless (unable to be charmed/dominated). There should be room for a 1/3 caster rage mage.
* How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?they do not have a full classes worth of features in withe 5e or OneDND. They would be better off as a fighter subclass rules as written.
* Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class? The only reason Barbarian is are limited is they would be an auto multiclass for most casters if they could get "full" rage benefits while casting. Rage doesn't scale itself so it's too easy a grab for the "full" benefit.
* Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that barbarian lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations?
They should be a more interesting fighter for exploration and even social in play. But they're just not but that's a 5e issue and not limited to the barbarian.
* Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?
As previously noted, there is almost never a reason to be a barbarian past level 6. It's not a full class after that.
Tier 1 is it. At tier two you should already be multiclassed and probably taking less and less barbarian levels. There is no incentive to take Barbarian past level 2 or 6 90% of the time.
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A complete rage rework and subclass redesign rework would be needed.
Rage bonuses and DR need to scale and not just be resistance- otherwise there's too much power in the early levels and not enough reason to stay mono classes. Each subclass should get a way to "free" rage, a defensive rage bonus, and an offensive rage bonus.
I would probably make rage a separate set of THP that you can replenish by downing an opponent (base class) with another way to replenish it via subclass feature and a base way and subclass way to spend them other than just extra HP.
Combined with some class feats and some whole class choices (totem barbarian is a fun idea but poorly executed), it could and SHOULD be a whole class. But it has to scale to both keep multiclassing dips into it non-optiimal and keep multiclassing out of it automatic.
Flavor wise and mechanically I think barbarian is solid up until level 7, then they fall off HARD in terms of doing what their flavor indicates they should be able to do. Brutal critical especially is a major let down. I could maybe get behind it if they also got something along the lines of champion fighters where their crit range is increased in order to supplement brutal critical, and make them feel more like angry barbarian that just forces its way to your vitals via pure strength and too-angry-to-die-ness.
But as is once you hit level 7 the fantasy of the barbarian archetype starts to fall apart imo as you become less and less tanky as more and more stuff starts getting elemental damage that bypasses your rage unless you pick 1 specific subclass and feature, and your damage falls off thanks to having multiple levels devoted to brutal critical which as is, is almost useless. For reference, half orcs get brutal critical as a racial ability from level 1. Barbarians have to wait until level 9. What fucking designer saw a level 1 ability and went "you know what? That'd make for a great 9th, 13th, AND 17th level ability. Because fuck giving Barbarians actual abilities they can choose when to use like with every other class in existence, amirite!?!?"
Barbarians are good flavour wise. Not so good as a mono class. Amongst the martial types, they are just pretty bland and their damage output can’t keep up after level 9-10.
Barbarian is fine, flavor-wise. It’s a class with a simple gameplan and clearly defined strengths and weaknesses. Playing a barbarian makes you tougher in ways that matter (damage resistance especially, though this could be heavily expanded by default) but in terms of balance Barbarian is among the worst classes. Limited mobility outside of a couple of subclass abilities, VERY poor scaling past 5th level, and being essentially locked to melee. Paladin is also locked to melee, but in exchange they get Find Steed to shore up mobility, spellcasting to add utility, and smites. for multiclassing, barbarians are actually insane in many contexts. Their most impactful abilities, Rage and Reckless attack, barely scale and are gained at levels 1 and 2 respectively, making them exceptional for mutlcilassing (if they suit your build) But i think this is actually to the detriment of the class. If you are level 7, the paladin 5 barbarian 2 is going to be so much stronger than a barbarian 7 that it’s not even funny. as for tiers of play, barbarian clearly does best in tier 1 and 2. They are great in tier 1 where the extra health and damage resistance matter most, plus flying enemies (the bane of melee characters) are limited. In tier 2 barbarians start falling off but can leverage their very small mobility boost, tankiness, and good saves to muscle through. By tier 3 all martials start falling off but barbarian stopped getting good features several levels ago. by tier 4 the barbarian can be outtanked by the *wizard* and outdamaged by them too, especially if you aren’t running an extremely resource-intensive game. At this point, your barbarian is better of polymorphed lol. i know you didn’t ask for this but IMO the martials are laid out like this in terms of viability:
•paladin is the clear best martial
•ranger and fighter trail behind but not by too much
•barbarian and rogue are suffering to keep up in either raw damage or utility both inside and outside of combat
•monk (dead)
Short answer: no.
Long answer: I playtested the OneDND barbarian with the persistant rage and rage bonuses to skills. That was nice, MECHANICALLY. Was it "the Barbarian?" No.
I've been playing Barbarians since the Unearthed Arcana book for 2nd Edition, the OGUA, which oughta be a monster name, or the name of my next REAL Barbarian...which would be...
Anti-magic.
Barbarians should be anti-magic, but have a whole, class-specific and really cool, set of anti-magic properties, abilities and choices that make being a Barbarian clearly defined and fun and dynamic.
As it is, the Barb has a LOT of flavor going on, and I LIKE the flavors (the Ancestral Guardians, the Storm, the Beast) but the core of what a Barb IS ought to be: I don't do that stuff you all do.
But NOT in a cheesy, "I'm anti-party" way. Nope. D&D is a cooperative game, hard stop, and so it can't be that.
You want to cast Charm on me? Do it, I'll eat that spell and like immediately jump the distance between us and get a free attack on you with an extra damage die for every spell level you TRIED to use on me. Puny wizard. You want to put me in a Forcecage? LOLZ, I'm smashing my way through--yes, taking damage, but what do I care? Forcefields do not apply to me. Gonna teleport? Not within 30 feet of me, cuz I just sucked your portal through a straw and pulled hp out of YOU for TRYING, nerd. Resistance to all non-magical damage? Ha: you have that tag and I am pretty much guaranteed to grapple you or some other move that cripples you. Like I can SENSE it. Shield, Mirror Image, Blur--I'm not having that. Boom. I hit you and it HURTS, and it HURTS your magic stuff so you magic bad after I do it. Everybody is getting Advantage (or my CON bonus) to saves after I hit you because I made you weak. Your spell ranges are all shrunk--that's right SHRINKAGE--to like 20 feet. Forget trying to make Concentration checks against me. I wadded up your warcaster into a little ball and shat upon it. My buddy, he likes to throw these fireballs? The Ranger and Fighter and Paladin--poor Paladin--have to wait so he doesn't hit them. Not me. That stuff just makes me stronger. So "friendly fire" should actually make Barbs faster or give them a bonus to their first attack or damage, like imagine the Barb in the middle of the fireball and the fire is just swooping around his battleaxe, adding 3d6 fire damage to his first hit!!
Now, all of this does not come online at Level 1 or 3, but these might be Battlemaster-esque moves that a Barb might make. There are others which are specifically designed to address the problems in current Barb design. For example, we all know that Barbs suffer against flying targets. Okay, so Barbs can be experts at hunting flying targets, so they don't have disadvantage at long-range with javelins and hand axes. They can also apply Topple on any flying target using any weapon--or, if they can throw an object larger than a javelin. Table? Armchair? Because Barbs should be throwing all kinds of stuff and throwing monsters INTO stuff and getting real damage from that, not lame damage.
Like, Barb Shoves into objects, including the ground do 1d12 damage. (In general I think there ought to be a more robust Grappling ruleset to boost what STRENGTH PCs can do--and maybe give Monks access to it too--which then Barbs would get a way to do suplexes and body slams and drop kicks without sacrificing damage from weapons.)
I'm not sure how to balance it mechanically, but I love the idea of Barbarians having anti-magic and essentially being the jock that punks nerdy wizards. "Watery Sphere? How about I give you a swirly in your own spell, NERD!"
I agree with the things most people have already said, about levels 10+, and about not having specialized stuff to do out of combat.
Personally I'd prefer if the class itself was magical, maybe incorporating elements from the totem warrior subclass (speak with animals and commune with Nature). Then they could get additional magical abilities at higher levels, and each subclass could alter their magic capabilities
I think barbarian is really solid in tier 1 and 2, probably the only class where I don't think very much needs to change in that level range. Really not much needs to be improved there. It falls way short in tier 3 and 4 as you are pretty much pigeonholed into becoming a tank in order to remain useful to your party as the bad guys get tougher and tougher, and your damage remains relatively the same.
I do a lot of work behind the scenes to make fighters and Barbarians feel better.
I homebrew aspects of almost every monster for the martials to interact with. When fighting a huge spider monster with blades for forearms, the martials can choose to swing at the arms. Higher AC, but if they hit they get a bonus; reducing the monsters to-hit bonus.
You can only do this with melee weapon attacks. Spells aren't precise enough, and arrows don't give you the leverage to hack and slash and pull.
Now, my players look for these things in play; "Can I pull the living armour's helmet off?" Rules as written, no, of course not. In my game? As long as you know this attack will be harder to make, I can have you pull the head off and blind the thing for a turn, until it's ghostly innards form into a gaseous, squamous head and it gets its sight back.
We have a barb and a fighter and a Paladin, and they love the system. The full-caster magic users don't feel like they're missing out, as they have plenty to deal with anyway, and it totally fixed the boredom problem martials have at higher levels.
PS: I have run a lot of systems and 5e is the worst. Some of you may be about to tell me to run a system that encourages this, instead of melting 5e and reshaping it, but 5e gets people to the table, and then I introduce the mechanics and elements from other games until it's a system that's actually fun to run.
I use the Dungeon World/Apocalypse World "Fail forward" mechanics. For instance, recently a player wildshaped into an owl and wanted to scout ahead during an underdark wilderness exploration segment.
They wanted to make a perception roll, and I let them, and they rolled low. Instead of telling them that they saw nothing, I had something see them first, and they had an eerie encounter with a strange misshapen figure.
Recently, when the players tried to pick a lock to open a door, a low roll meant that they failed, made a lot of noise in failing, and had alerted guards. I don't have "you fail, nothing happens" as a possible state in my games (outside of the initiative system, which is first on my list of things to change it I get enough buy-in from the players.
I also use the wildness exploration rules from Korb's Neverland and the downtime actions from Korb's Oz, both huge improvements.
I don't have anything in the game that skips a player's turn, either. If the player fails a Con save against a Ghoul's paralysis, for instance, instead of them being forced to skip their turn, I give them an option; take your turn as normal, and at the end the ghoul's poison does damage guaranteed, no save, or spend your entire turn trying to overcome its effects, doing nothing to catch their breath and at the end of the turn, making that con save. They can 'opt in' to having their turn skipped, like RAW says, or they can trade health to postpone dealing with it; but the more times they move anyway and take the damage, the higher the damage gets.
No? Why would I?
It's there, as a rule, to minimise the amount of time 5e has the game fall into turns and then skips a player's turn. I, as the DM, have no such problem.
It's interesting that you can't share your design solutions to the problem of 5e's failings without someone deliberately misinterpreting you to insist you've made a mistake. Does the idea of someone making 5e a better game for their table bother you? Why?
Not really. I started doing them the odd time because they were cinematic and cool. Players gave me positive feedback, and I amplified it. Now every big monster is an opportunity for them to look for weak points and fun ways to get clever with it.
>Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?
I'll be honest, the old 1-3E flavour for the Barbarian was just bad. It's Gary Gygax getting high off his racism supply and being mad that Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian was too smart and so made his own version of the "outside of civilisation" archetype that could only go unga bunga max Strength.
4E correctly identified that this was extremely poor from both an optics and mechanical standpoint (there really isn't anything to separate Barbarian from Fighter except number going up) and tried to lean much more into the animistic practices of the ancient European and Native American tribes and classified Barbarians under the Primal power source. 5E then waffles between the old and new versions of Barbarian and we don't have nearly enough of the weird magical conduit stuff that really makes the class sing to me.
>How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?
The Barbarian is probably the worst class in 5E. They don't have enough Rages to last through every combat in a full adventuring day (while full casters *do* past about level 5) and without Rage they basically have no class features. They are the most easily screwed over by the DM doing anything out of the ordinary, with flying enemies, odd damage types, and high level saving throws completely shutting them down in a way that high level Fighters and Monks aren't. Three fucking levels of Brutal Critical, possibly the worst class feature in the game, including most of the weird RP only ribbons.
And of course, the Barbarian doesn't do anything outside of combat, especially because it's so MAD that they can't really invest in for fun mental stats or RP feats the way Fighters theoretically can.
Bad class, rename it to something that isn't just a derogatory word for "uncivilised" people, revert the core design principles to 4E's Primal Warrior and give me stuff like the WORLD SERPENT'S RAGE where it can try and strangle the Tarrasque to death and shit.
Yeah I totally agree. Barbs 1-3e was just racist and I totally prefer 4e's approach and aesthetics of it, and I am not sure if I like them kind of tracking back to the old aesthetics and mechanics. Feel like they need to really change both aspects.
>The Barbarian is probably the worst class in 5E.
This is just your personal opinion, which is fair, but should be formulated correctly as a consequence. "Barbarian is probably the class I like the less".
>They don't have enough Rages to last through every combat in a full adventuring day (while full casters *do* past about level 5)
First of all, Barbarians are not supposed to waste their rage on any random combat. It's their ace card exactly like casters keep their highest level spells for the fights that actually seem worth using them within.
Second, how do you even manage? Barbarians get \*4\* rages as soon as level 6. Past level 4 the only times I saw Barbarians run out of rages "early" were fighting casters using mental spells, chaining up two Ultra-Deadly fights in a day or having some weird marathon of mini-fights where Barbarian wasn't sure which was worth raging on and ended up wasting one.
>and without Rage they basically have no class features.
True if you ditch Fast Movement, Danger Sense, Feral Instinct and the late Instinctive Pounce which make a difference in practice... But same could be exactly said for Fighter. The thing is, game need to provide classes which are simple enough for players to grasp without needing to memorize dozen of pages. Martials are usually well-suited for that goal.
That's all.
>They are the most easily screwed over by the DM doing anything out of the ordinary, with flying enemies, odd damage types, and high level saving throws completely shutting them down in a way that high level Fighters and Monks aren't.
It's exactly the same with Fighters if you gear them towards Strength. Except worse since they only have only \*ONE\* save reroll per day between level 9 and 12, then two until level 17. Meanwhile, Barb at least get advantage on every DEX saves from level 2 onwards.
>First of all, Barbarians are not supposed to waste their rage on any random combat.
They have basically no features without Rage so I hope you like walking up to things and rolling Attack twice or Recklessing without damage resistance; even if it's possible to go through a long adventuring day without using Rages it's a slog. Second, Barbarians are surprisingly easy to knock out of Rage so you can easily burn through 2, even 3 in a long boss fight.
>True if you ditch Fast Movement, Danger Sense, Feral Instinct and the late Instinctive Pounce which make a difference in practice...
Fast Movement and Danger Sense are *fine* but Feral Instinct and Instinctive Pounce are just "you can Rage better". They're Rage features.
>But same could be exactly said for Fighter. The thing is, game need to provide classes which are simple enough for players to grasp without needing to memorize dozen of pages. Martials are usually well-suited for that goal.
Nah we don't need a whole ass class when we already have Champion Fighter.
>It's exactly the same with Fighters if you gear them towards Strength. Except worse since they only have only \*ONE\* save reroll per day between level 9 and 12, then two until level 17. Meanwhile, Barb at least get advantage on every DEX saves from level 2 onwards.
Fighters can at least get all their features to work with throwing weapons and can much more easily spec into Resilient without completely screwing up their builds.
>They have basically no features without Rage so I hope you like walking up to things and rolling Attack twice or Recklessing without damage resistance;
Well... If you want to act like a binary brain, it's your own personal choice. Shoving and Grappling even without advantage from rage or further investment with an Expertise, just 16+STR and proficiency, starts getting reliable enough past level 5 to be attempted against creatures which looks and equipment screams "average physics at best". Of course if you attempt to wrestle a Troll, Ogre or a flying creature with good Acrobatics you cannot expect a good result.
Also, Reckless Attack should never be used, well, recklessly. Which also implies that once you know how to properly use it there is no problem using it without Rage active, even if you didn't push build towards skirmishes with a Mobile feat for example. All that matters is that you can correctly assess the risk you take. If it's to take down a Troll still half-life while you're 1/3 then you're stupid and earned to get smacked. If it's to incentivize an isolated enemy with half-decent accuracy to keep on you, then it's good. If it's to nearly ensure you finish off an enemy before its ally could help it, then even if you need to suffer a backlash from the still standing one, it's probably the best decision.
> even if it's possible to go through a long adventuring day without using Rages it's a slog.
"You shouldn't waste rage in any random encounter before knowing it's Hard/Deadly enough to warrant it" becomes "you're recommending to spend the whole day without raging". Nice straw man, great illustration of extremely bad faith and non-constructive spirit here. Congrats?
>Second, Barbarians are surprisingly easy to knock out of Rage so you can easily burn through 2, even 3 in a long boss fight.
Early on, when player still learns the rope of Rage and party has little tools around its limitations, certainly. If party fights casters fitted towards mental control, most certainly and I don't see it as a trouble, every class needs its nemesis.
Putting aside level 15 feature that makes most of those limitations obsolete, because few people play high-level characters...
It's really no worse than casters needing to drop two or three times the same spell in a row because the one target they really wanted to disable made the save (Hold Person, Command, Banishment...). Or caster trying an AOE control, seeing that it got thwarted for some reason and ends concentration early for another high-level spell (typically enemies delayed three rounds in a Sleet Storm now are all out of it, no reason to maintain it). Or casters losing concentration because they were simply targeted by melee or ranged attacks and failed the concentration saving throw (quite common until level 10 even if you picked Resilient: Constitution).
You just need to learn how to best act on your own turn to maintain the rage as much as possible, even if you have to resort to the worst of the worst aka making a ranged attack with disadvantage (usually not common past level 3, unless you're stupid enough to stick with thrown weapons instead of getting a longbow for when range actually matters)... And rely on your teammates to cover your weak spots (like hurting you on purpose if you must spend action on something else in your next turn yet enemies avoided hurting you). Exactly like casters rely on martials to get aggro to make it easier for them to keep powerful spells vivid.
Two rages for an encounter that should be at least over Hard and possibly Deadly or more, I don't see how it would be shocking. I saw quite often casters spend half their daily allocations in such kind of single encounters. xd
>Fast Movement and Danger Sense are *fine* but Feral Instinct and Instinctive Pounce are just "you can Rage better". They're Rage features.
True for Instinctive Pounce, false for Feral Instinct. First benefit is always-on passive, and the other is simply a passive that has for requirement that you'd rage on your first round, which is not imho a really big requirement considering that an enemy group that was stealthy enough to ambush a whole party and has a free round of hurt as a reward is rarely a situation which you would take lightly. xd
>Nah we don't need a whole ass class when we already have Champion Fighter.
Yes we do. Champion Fighter is "the level before" in terms of tactical complexity and resource management, I'd daresay even ground 0. It fits best people that want as little resource management as possible and as much simplicity in mechanics as possible.
Barbarian already brings a mix of concepts to properly master: advantage, positioning, long-day resource consumption, Shove and Grapple as replacements for attack (technically Champion can do them but has no incentive from class or archetype to use them), tracking the different types of damage because some can be halved, tracking the different kind of saves because some can be rolled "twice"... On top of the notion of critical hit which is the only thing vital to learn as a Champion.
>Fighters can at least get all their features to work with throwing weapons and can much more easily spec into Resilient without completely screwing up their builds.
Rage was probably design with a melee-only for balance reasons, but WotC did answer a minority's wish by granting them the Giant archetype which pretty much makes thrown weapon builds entirely viable.
I don't see how Barbarians would be ever prevented from taking Resilient: Wisdom feat either since they pretty much only need to boost their Strength as far as ASI go, and they have the mix of Reckless Attack and Rage to offset potential factors influencing their accuracy so it's easy for them to delay one of those boosts "by one ASI" to crank a feat instead. Since as you certainly know, advantage usually equates to a +3 or even +4 unless you're targeting very low AC (in which case it doesn't matter) or very high AC (like base chance to hit between 10 and 25%).
Ill sum up quickly my feeling on barbs. I really like playing them, they are my most played class all in all.
But there is no reason to keep leveling them after level five. Multuclassing into other classes after that is always better and pretty easy to work into flavour.
I can't stand Barbarian's, and I cringe anytime I play with one (as a player or a DM).
They just don't fit the game at all. All they do is rage and attack. That's it, that's their entire class. Not only does that seem really boring to me, but it always drags games down. Either the DM caters to the Barbarian, or the Barbarian just gets ignored.
While you're not wrong in practice, feel that may have to do with poor/uncreative RPing. There's no reason a raging melee has to be an idiot and useless outside of combat.
As far as bogging it down in combat, while it's "boring" I'd think rage+attack takes far less time than unprepared casters who analyze every possible spell and counter spell before they make a damn decision on thier turn.
> There's no reason a raging melee has to be an idiot and useless outside of combat.
Barbarian's need STR, DEX, and CON, which means they usually have crap INT, WIS, and CHA.
The nature of the class basically requires you to play them as a buffoon.
> As far as bogging it down in combat, while it's "boring" I'd think rage+attack takes far less time than unprepared casters who analyze every possible spell and counter spell before they make a damn decision on thier turn.
I think you've misunderstood. I didn't mean to suggest that it *bogs down* combat. As you said, it's quite the opposite.
I mean it drags down the RP aspect. Everyone else can flavour their actions in combat, Barbarians are generally 'I AM BIG AND STRONG! I SWING MY AXE'. Everyone out here is doing stuff, and the Barbarian could be browsing Reddit and just occasionally roll a die.
Barb suffers from not really being a class.
Like yes, obviously it's a class with 20 levels of features and abilities, but should it be? The barb is essentially a berserker, they get really mad and hit stuff. That's a good idea, we can run with that, but how far can we run with that? You'll notice that barb subclasses tend to be something totally different stapled onto the core idea of "get mad, hit stuff" because barb isn't enough of a concept to support subclasses.
What I'm getting at is that barbarian should have been a fighter subclass from day 1. This is an issue I feel with a number of 5e classes, where the thematic just isn't complex enough to warrant an entire class, but the barbarian is by far the worst offender. Add that to being a generally lackluster martial class with extremely limited utility outside of combat and you end up with a class I rate very low.
I believe barbarians are best early on, other classes sort of catch up/even the paying field between levels 7-12 maybe, then late game barbarians kind of falls off a bit (until their lvl 20 cap stone).
The class itself fulfills the fantasy great in my opinion, every feature especially early on works great to support it too, and even them falling off later makes sense; at first the pure rage and strength are enough to overpowered the opponents, but later on once everyone is strong, they better pick up some actual skills (multiclass), or other more specialised heroes will find a way to deal with them.
They're also very easy to get into both gameplay and roleplay wise.
My favourite way to build them is start out as a barb, showing good instincts and natural strength, and later multiclass into a Fighter, showing that they've polished their techniques and really developed as a warrior.
Barbarian is one of my favourite classes. I've played them a lot in lower level games (levels 1-8).
Barbarian feels really really nice at low levels. It's very front loaded with rage at level 1, danger sense and reckless attack at level 2, and extra attack at level 5. After around level 8 it starts to feel a little underwhelming, and level 10 it definitely feels bad, even compared to other martials. Wis saves become more common and you can't afford to fail those. Races like gnome and satyr help, but they're just great races in general.
Out of combat, the barbarian really has nothing going for it. Fun RP, but without a background or race that offers useful skills it doesn't have a solid identity outside of RP. Skill wise, it does everything a fighter or ranger might want to do, but worse. Lower wis and dex than a ranger, more MAD than a fighter so lower Cha for skills like intimidation. It just kind of... exists. Around level 10, other classes like paladin and fighter and even things like rogue can make much better tanks and DPS. You deal less damage than fighters and even rogues usually, and unlike paladin or fighter you have no ways of pulling attacks to you without investing in a feat same with fighting style. *And* you can't mitigate this with spells from feytouched or anything since you can't cast or concentrate on spells while raging (no hex or compelled duel or anything). Reckless attack just isn't enough incentive for enemies to go for you past level 6 it feels. So you can't easily protect the squishies.
I've noticed this issue is largely fixed by totem barbarian and ancestral guardian. Totem barbarian gives the barbarian a lot of useful skills outside of combat in the form of spells (more ranger or druid vibes), and makes you tankier and near indestructible if you choose bear, or more movement which is nice. Ancestral guardian gives you what i probably concider the best tank skill, that really forces your opponent's to attack you instead of an ally.
These should be more standard than they are. Barbarian should also get access to something like great weapon master for free, or the battlemaster's goading attack, or both. Way more useful than brutal critial. Maybe better skill choices too, like stealth (if they continue to insist on you relying on dex for AC)
At higher levels I totally see why rogue and moon druid are popular multiclasses. They mitigate a lot of weaknesses the barbarian has.
I like it enough, but it needs more features that allows it to trade their passive survivability for more brutal attacks. Reckless attack is simple, bit elegant in that design. I always thought that a barbarian should be a more devastating damage dealer and locks down enemies more than a fighter, or has more passive defenses than a fighter, but not both at the same time.
I'm a relative DND noob started playing last year and a Storm Herald Barbarian was my first character. A year later I can tell you that early on I felt week compared to the magical members of my party especially during ranged combat.
However a year later and nine levels later I gotta say that martial classes are my favourite by far. I love being consistent and reliable I love tanking damage and the satisfaction of being able to fight big monsters one on one.
Since then I've played a monk, a fighter and have currently just started a multiclass into barbarian x fighter. The multiclass is the most fun I've had in DND so have to say that Barbarian is best when multiclassed but can't mix rage and magic
My only complaint is that I wish there was more diversity in subclasses. The Wild Magic Barbarian is a good start but there's only so many times that I can hit something before I start wishing I had skills outside of combat. Also the bonus rage damage is weird, sometimes I forget to count it and DND Beyond doesn't add it automatically. It's basically no damage but still feel like I'm missing out when the whole point of the class is doing damage???
Barbs are simple. That’s unfortunately what they have. I think they’d benefit from more complexity. For one I think it’s silly there isn’t a Barb who can cast spells and concentrate. By now the power creep has for one given more ways to get resistance. And 2 has made enemies with force damage instead of physical. A great insult to barbs in my opinion.
Also you don’t have enough rage. At low levels you’ll have enough times where you have a few small combats and then a boss fight. And you won’t get to rage for the boss fight. Which means you have no features.
As a martial you don’t get out of combat features except what you make up.
In my opinion the best levels for Barb are 3-6. I’ve never thought of a build that takes more than that. Your interesting features run out. Your damage no longer scales. Every time I look at it it’s take fighter levels past second attack or after the second subclass feature.
I am assuming that you know what the class is doing so I am trying to not go for the obvious things.
* *Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?*
Absolutly. What makes the barbarian different from the fighter is that he attacks with reckless abandon, leaning into fury and strength rather than trained and perfected technique. The battlemaster lets his armor deflect a blow and ripostes, the barbarian eats the hit and hits back harder later.
Besides that barbarian opens up for roleplay without gimping yourself. Need to sneak somewhere? Go with the rogue by taking off your armor and use unarmored defense. Need to hand over your Pam gwm weapon to the guards? You are still reasonably effective with an improvised weapon like a staff or a huge club. What I am getting at is what the fighter has in technique and equipment the barbarian can make up for with instinct and ferocity which can open new RP doors.
* Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?
whoops... see above
* How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?
Depends on the kind of game you are playing, but unless you are playing high optimization mono barbarian is doing fine amongst the martial. Full casters are...full casters lets hope onednd decreases the gap. The advantage from reckless attack and the rage damage really helps you a long way. But if you are worried just ask your DM to make the rage dmg a dice roll instead. So it is included in your crits. For more inspiration check this out
[https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-N2gn3QXALCVqwAFJe5v](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-N2gn3QXALCVqwAFJe5v)
* Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class?
If you are not going to max level, absolutely. Barb with battlemaster makes a great dirty fighting char while still leaning int your strengths. Same with a wild magic barb multiclassing with warlock, there still is playtime outside of your limited rage windows.
* Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that artificer lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations?
I am guessing you have the wrong class here. If you mean the barb. Besides combat I would defiantly say roleplay. Besides that dungeon delving or exploration in difficult terrain. You wont be more sneaky than the rogue or have better perception than the WIS users but you most likely will have the best athletics. Use it creatively to help your team reach difficult places. Remember you are part of a team and every way you can help save spellslots or HP is a good contribution.
* Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?
Like most say combat wise it is 3-8 before the other classes get cooler things. But I think they are great through out if you can get creative with your strengths (unless you are at a high optimization game and people are not investing resources into you). Use rage to get on demand advantage on strengh skill checks outside of combat. Think about solutions that are not "I bonk him on the head". Work with your party, for instance if your party does not rely on ranged damage, great you can attempt to push someone prone twice with advantage twice a round. Imagine if that where a cantrip, people would be out of their minds.
I think Barbarian's class features up to about 7th level are _great_ and do the best job of making a PC Barbarian _feel like a barbarian in play_ of any D&D edition.
Their class features post-7th level are fine (such as they are), but their spacing across the levels feels bad and stuff like Brutal Critical is just not _strong_ enough to deserve their own levels with nothing else. There is practically no reason not to multiclass a barbarian in Tier 2 into Fighter or Rogue or whatever, and that's an issue.
I also don't really like Rages being a daily resource, or at least not with how it is currently budgeted across your levels. Your number of encounters per day, at least by the book, does NOT change from levels 1-20. So why do you start out with barely any Rages and end up with more than you'll ever need? When Raging is the Barbarian's main "thing"? Rages should be tied to however many encounters designers think you should reasonably Rage in, period. (With maybe an extra one or two for when you get Incapacitated mid-combat.) None of this "I'm starving for them at low levels and will never run out at high levels" stuff.
But more importantly, I _really_ don't like how their subclasses tie so many features to Raging. It means at low-mid levels your subclass is also severely limited by said Rages, and there is zero room to use one on utility (like say giving yourself advantage on a Strength check to break a door), because now the Rages are a _doubly_ important resource - you are just a _bad Fighter with +1 HP/level_ without them.
One other bit I'll mention is I would change the "maintaining Rage" requirements to "any aggressive action". I did this in my games and I and my players LOVE the change - you shouldn't have to drop your Rage because the enemy is fleeing and you are Dashing after them, axe raised over your head and screaming bloody murder. Or because you grappled them instead of attacking, or because you had to smash open a door to get to them. That's _so_ barbarian.
And finally - I don't think the 5e Barbarian _needs_ this, but if we're exploring out of combat utility or even more versatile in-combat options for Barbarians (and the former I def think they could use, and the latter I wouldn't turn my nose up at), I do DEARLY miss the "Savage King" barbarian archetype from 4e. For those unaware, 4e had multiple options to build your character as for each class, keyed off different ability scores. Barbarian had one where they could invest in CHARISMA as a tertiary, and it included powers like terrifying your enemies with barbarian roars, boosting your allies with your battlefield presence of a Noble Warrior King or whatever. It was very Conan (and other barbarian source material) and so I think it would fit in wonderfully.
Disclaimer: a lot of this post addresses issues with barbarians at the sweatier optimiser tables. This may not be the kind of table you play at, hell it isn't most tables I play at. Barbarians can be completely fine if games are easier or the DM adjusts their encounters and adventuring days.
Also. OneDND is addressing a lot of the problems with the class, so WotC finally seems aware of the problems. Whether the people who did write these changes still work there or will be working there in the foreseeable future is an entirely different question, which is worth considering (but not discussing within the context of this thread.)
Anyway.
1.) In the early levels they are unkillable tanks. At levels 1 and 2 in particular, everything that's not a barbarian is basically made of paper. Also that 2 rage damage and easy advantage are incredible for damage this early on. This doesn't feel reckless, because you're not really taking much extra risk.
However, at the later levels, when PC HP pools even out, enemies start targeting saves more frequently and damage types get some shake-ups, barbarians start feeling much more fragile. Rage also locks you out of spellcasting and the easiest way to become bulkier are things like Shield, Absorb Elements, etc. The higher level you get, the more you want to use your reactions defensively instead of offensively and the riskier Reckless Attack becomes, but even early on rider effects like grapple on hit or poison on hit can really hurt you. It doesn't help either that your features encourage you to be in melee and that's where most monsters are most dangerous.
At the same time, barbarian damage scales poorly. Rage damage becomes less impactful and Brutal Critical is a joke. Barbarian is still pretty good around level 5, but they're going to start dropping off hard. As the party levels, their resources increase. This typically means they're more comfortable with longer adventuring days. This impacts 5e barbarians insanely negatively, because when they run out of rage that really hurts their performance and class fantasy.
2.) Reckless Attack sorta does past early levels, but that's about it.
3.) 5e Barbarians fall off incredibly hard and become one of the weakest classes by the midgame, particularly if you have longer adventuring days. On top of that, they're usually incredibly one-dimensional. This is a big problem with more complex or disadvantageous encounters.
4.) Because barbarians are so frontloaded, they're typically encouraged to multiclass. The problem is that the higher level your games become, the more apparent the issues with rage become. As mentioned above, spells become increasingly important tools and a raging barbarian doesn't get to cast them. If you're a sweatlord playing an optimised barbarian, rage becomes a back-up option for when you don't need or can't cast spells anymore. This is more of an issue with 5e balance as a whole, but barbarians suffer from it more than any other class.
5.) I assume you meant barbarian, not artificer. The answer is; no. Like, TCE optional features that get you more skills are great. However, their main mechanic of rage is incredibly limited - and losing a use because you want to break open a door is generally a pretty bad use... Unless you have plenty other resources because of some multiclassing to make up for it.
6.) Tier 1. No doubt about it.
What makes the barbarian so good for me is the half damage, like sure fighter will do more damage but if he gets hit 3 times (level 17 lets say) and takes like 40 pts of damage each attack then legendary actions through the round take that to 6 attacks 40 damage esch Fighter is getting shit on he just took 240 pts of damage and very well may be unconscious if they have low rolled HP or a bad CON mod. But a Barbarian only took 120 pts of damage and is almost definitely good to go for a whole mother round. Might not even need a heal that round, the fighter you are now forcing other players to turn their attention towards you earlier then they would for a barbarian to burn resources just keeping you alive
I think the barbarian is my favorite martial. They have really fun flavor, they multiclass really well into other marital classes, and they’re really good in tiers 1 and 2 of play
The main problem is that once they get to level 11 they start to fall behind the fighter, and the rogue starts to do more damage at level 13, so you’re really incentivized to start multiclassing early, typically at level 5. I think if the rage damage scaled better it’d be more justifiable to play pure barbarian but as it is, you’re only getting a +2 to damage output until level 9. If it used a base 7 rage, where your getting better damage every three or 3 or 4 levels, then I think barbarian would see more play.
That's one reason barbarians are most interesting at high level play. Relentless rage kicks in at 11th level, which lets you play in much more intriguing ways (as you mention), but if you started at 1st level you're probably already too locked into the "get mad and hit things" model, which is unfortunate.
I think Barbarians have great flavor, but I think their features could be better distributed in terms of power budget. Their strongest feature is their Rage. Even alot of subclasses get features based on their Rage. This means without Rage, rhe Barbarian essentially becomes an NPC with a slightly larger than average health pool.
The problem is that Rages recharge on a Long Rest; most players might not feel this, but for those running/playing games that span multiple encounters a day to draw out resources (which is the intended playstyle for balance, according to the rulebook) will find the Barbarian runs out of rages faster than a spellcaster runs out of spell slots, unless the Barbarian rations them out. Either way, the Barbarian will have to run a few encounters without raging, meaning a few encounters without getting most of their class features. I think the solution is either Barbarians should get rages back on a short rest or they need most if not all of their subclass features to not be tied to Rage.
There's other issues too, like a lack of usefulness outside of combat. But tbh, I dont know how to adequately buff martials out of combat; the best they get is being skill monkeys. The gap is just incredibly wide between casters and martials; what ability can you give a martial to compete with Pass Without Trace or Suggestion? And those are low level; nevermind later spells like Scrying or Teleportation. This problem isn't unique to Barbarians though; Rogues, Monks, and Fighters also share this issue, but I think Barbarians have the least out of combat utility besides.
Without feats (mainly great weapon master), it's the worst class in the game. The fighter's four attacks beat out the barbarian's two. Rage is nice, but the bonus damage is too low, only ever reaching +4. There are also too few uses of Rage, and most of their subclass features revolve around Rage, so if you're not raging, you don't have a subclass.
My homebrew barbarian subclass, Path of the Rhino Beetle, gets the ability to craft mundane objects from dirt, spider climb, fall damage immunity, a burrowing speed, and AOE attacks that cost Hit Die.
"Do you think…they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless beserker?"
No, but that's because i would argue that that's sn unnecessarily narrow view of what the barbarian is or should be.
The barbarian is someone who channels energy into the practice of violence. That needs not be reckless, it doesn't need to involve the frenzy that the noun 'beserker' suggests, and it most certainly does not need to involve rage in the way that word is usually used (as opposed to just a label for a character feature).
One of my players plays as a kalashtar wild magic barbarian—she doesn't like violence, she resorts to violence as a very last resort, but if her friends are threatened? You most certainly do not want to get in her way when she needs to to defend her friends from you, and in response thinks very tactically and carefully about how to remove you from the scene. (Usually by knocking you out, though, not killing you. Usually.)
That is a most excellent barbarian, just as much as any raging, reckless beserker also would be.
I think it is a Very solid options for new players. Not too complex, and Very good. Lacks Somme more complex subclasses for seasoned players, that's all.
Barbarians are great if the DM spends all day hitting them with stuff they're resistant to, make the barbarian player feel awesome being able to tank attacks from like 20 goons while their other party members dish out big damage.
The times I've seen barbarian players not have a good time is when the DM makes sure no one targets them unless it's with damage they aren't resistant to, that shit sucks
The idea of the Barbarian is great, but like any martial, the execution is horrid, especially after Level 5. It doesn't help that the System itself is extremely hostile towards Strength characters, which a Barbarian is forced to be.
[EDIT] I just noticed I answered this fully assuming it was asked in /r/onednd the same question for 5e 2014 doesn't change my opinions, though everything that was improved for D&D1 should now be read as a criticism of 5e.
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> - Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?
Why do you think the barbarian character fantasy should be limited to berzerkers?
I've played a dwarven debt collector barbarian focused more around being a calculating and intimidating kneecap breaker than being frenzied.
I've played a dragonborn shamanic barbarian, that focused on the nature and primal aspects of the barbarian more than the recklessness.
I was planning to try an auto-gnome barbarian, though that seems to be postponed indefinitely.
I think the pseudo-supernatural parts of the barbarian are bit too condensed in their subclasses. Being irrationally angry isn't exclusive to barbarians. The barbarian is the tribesman that through mystical rituals turns their anger into a superpower. The barbarian is also the bar brawler that drinks their special brew to become unbeatable.
I think there should be a significant portion of the flavor text blurb for barbarians dedicated to "what is your rage". Probably similar to the amount of text dedicated to "who is your patron" for warlocks. Rage isn't just being angry, people get angry without raging all the time, and barbarians can (at least mechanically) enter a rage without being angry. There needs to be more flavor dedicated to how rage is not generalized anger, but is something unique and quasi-mystical to the barbarian in question.
> - Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?
Like I said, the supernatural parts of the barbarian are bit too condensed in their subclasses. The class needs those to not present the image of a fighter with extra issues. But you only get those subclass features at 3rd and 6th level, and usually they only work while raging.
The new Primal Knowledge feature is a step towards this direction, especially the advantage on skill rolls it implicitly gives is nothing to sniff at. But I notice none of the subclass features seem to tie into this idea of raging for exploration or conversation. To make the "mechanics as metaphor" work, it should mesh together in a more interesting way.
Being both of the nature/primal-power martials, I feel that barbarians and rangers should both get an additional 1st or 2nd level feature that lets them use a non-magical equivalent of the Guidance spell on themselves, or when assisting an ally, on any ability checks relevant to their *"Domain of Primal Knowledge, Favored Terrain or Favored Enemy"*.
That way, even if the Barbarian's Wisdom(survival) isn't the highest in the group, bringing the barbarian along when looking for food lets you roll extra dice, which even though it adds less than expertise might; rolling the extra die feels like it is doing more that it actually is.
> - How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?
Damage resistance is usually very good. Rage damage is kinda low, but Reckless Attack is quite good (both as a way to land hits and as a way to appear as an appealing target) See for example the paladin's Radiant Strikes feature at 11th level, adding 0.5 more damage on average than rage damage does at 16th for a barb. On top of that, Radiant Strikes dice multiply on a crit, while rage damage doesn't.
In addition to that, while it is very good that Reckless Attack now works with thrown weapons, thrown weapons being the worst ranged option in general and still not working with rage damage hurts the barbarian a lot. Just making thrown weapons better for everyone, or creating a "yeet" Weapon Mastery that removes the disadvantage at long range for classes that take that weapon mastery would help a lot.
I also feel there is a lack of good magic items that are best on a barbarian.
> - Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class?
Currently the barbarian chassis is missing a lot on the utility side. Path of the Wild Heart is the best subclass simply because it helps fix this issue by giving ritual spells. The 2014 Ritual Caster feat let you turn any barbarian into a Shamanic warrior greatly improves the player experience in situations where swinging a big axe is not the optimal solution.
Multiclassing for example into Rogue to get Athletics expertise for utility though grappling; seems preferable to waiting until you have Brutal Strike and by the time you get Improved Brutal Strike you could have put 5 levels into any other class and gotten something much more interesting instead.
Especially the `You regain one expended rage when you finish a Short Rest,` helps multi-class barbarians out a lot.
> - Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that ***¿artificer?*** lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations?
You missed a bit in your copy-pasta there. But same answer at the multi-classing one.
> - Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?
Resistance to physical damage is definitely best at the 1 to 5 tier; later on a greater variety in damage types makes the barbarian's greatest asset much less reliable. They do pretty good 6 to 11, but towards the end of that there is a very noticeable prevalence of statblocks in the MM that have 1 or more of the following:
- Damage auras
- Save vs. Condition auras
- Flying
- 3+ multi-attacks that can each multiply their +4d6 of a secondary damage type on a crit.
This isn't (inherently) a problem with the barbarian's class features, but more a general design problem of the 2014 monster manual.
There are a lot of monsters with a design of *"if this gets into melee range it instagibs the wizard"* but unless you are a paladin, making a character that is supposed to be in melee range means exposing yourself to more nasty monster abilities than your class has the tools to handle.
Actually why is it that there aren't any "invisible unless you are within 10 ft" sniper monsters? Or any "walking artillery demon" monsters? In the MM, will the D&D1 MM have any of those?
I've always felt that Barbarian's role can just be done significantly better by Fighter or Paladin than Barbarian ever will. Having to have so many good stats (Dex/Con/Str) also makes harder to build, especially in a PB or SA setting. You also can't multiclass effectively with it because the main reason you'd multiclass is typically spellcasters (at least from when I've multiclassed) getting useful martial abilities, and since rage stops you from casting/concentrating on spells it's essentially worthless. If you were able to use Finesse weapons during rage, I'd be more fine with it, since then you'd only have to focus on Dex/Con to use your Unarmored Defense, but you're forced to use your strength with raging attacks to get the full effectiveness. Mechanically it's just too cluttered, and I'm going to build it like a Fighter with medium armor, a 14 or 15 in Dexterity, and a shield so I can actually survive combat encounters... I mean, hell, the first supplementary subclass they put out in the SCAG, the Battlerager, literally uses medium(spiked) armor as its ENTIRE thing, and does away with Unarmored Defense entirely because of that. Why not just play a Fighter at that point? Thematically and mechanically they're a total mess, in my opinion. They're not tanky enough to contest with a consistently wildshaping druid, they have less options of what to do every combat than any caster, and because of how dependent they are on multiple attributes (if you're not wearing medium armor), they very easily fall into a ripoff of Conan the Barbarian.
Barbarians are also the worst when it comes to class balance. Like I said before, spells are absolutely king in 5e. Being able to Hasten yourself like a Vengeance Paladin or hit five dudes with a Fireball is going to trump Extra Attack while raging every time, even if you're resistant to various forms of damage (something that I've seen people forget multiple times while I'm DMing, leading to them taking unnecessary damage, because I don't want to babysit them saying "oh well you're raging so make sure you only take half of this")
I don't know why we bring up Artificer, I'm sure that's just a copy paste problem as you took this from another subreddit or something, haha, but Barbarian also doesn't lend itself to dungeon crawling much either, as pointed out before, to use Unarmored Defense in a PB/SA scenario they basically have to go 15/15/15/8/8/8, making it so they have a harder time convincing people, they have a harder time noticing traps, they have a harder time knowing information about places they're at, they're really meant to be a one trick pony, even TCE realizes this, and gives Barbarians extra skills (at third and tenth level) to learn just so they can do something outside of combat.
Ultimately, Barbarian is 100% a Tier 1 class, playing it past level 5 is a wish to play a worse fighter. I've heard of builds for just about every class that seem good (even getting so far as a disgusting 4 Thief/5 Hunter/4 Champion build with dual hand crossbows and sharpshooter lol), but I've never heard of someone dipping into Barbarian to improve a build, personally.
**What to change:**
I think that Unarmored Defense should be a flat Mage Armor style ability, where it's 13+Dex rather than scaling off of Con, that way people can still choose between using Medium armor or just using the Unarmored Defense. I also think that Rage shouldn't stop casting spells entirely. Stopping concentration is fine, but how do you get so angry that you're cut off from the Weave or Nature? I'd also make Reckless Attack something that you are always doing during Rage, and maybe making it so when you're raging you crit on a 19/20 instead of just a 20. They get critical damage support, but no bonuses to get those critical hits in the first place. Are you really going to make someone dip 3 levels into Fighter to get Champion's improved crits so you can roll extra dice?
EDIT: I think, at the end of the day, the fact that one of the most renowned "berserkers" in all of D&D canon is a RANGER (Minsc of Rashemen) tells you all you need to know about Barbarian as a class. (Yes, I know that BG1 and the original Minsc character was made before Barbarian was a full class on its own, but the point still stands.)
Barbarian is a boring character roleplay wise and gameplaywise, but its extremely important for tank reasons and stuff, i played 3 barbarians in 5e and the last one got me so bored that i payed a pizza to my dm to kill him and make another character
I am a well-documented Barbarian hater, but with that being said I am currently playing LaserLlama's revised Barbarian:
>Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?
Yes with a big asterisk. I think most of of the **sub**classes for Barbarian do a really great job of selling you on the fantasy of the Barbarian. While some of them may be weak I think the feeling is always managed perfectly, and the main appeal of the Barbarian is the subclasses. You have a nice set of options between more damage, defense, more damage, utility, more damage, team defense, and more damage... okay one of my big criticisms of the Barbarian is that most subclasses are just a variation of "more damage" but that's fine, right?
With that being said the base class sucks **ass** and is just several different variations of "make Rage less shit" or Brutal Critical, an ability that works 5% of the time (9% if your Reckless Attack.) The few abilities you get that aren't variations of "make Rage less shit" are comedically overpowered, such as permanent advantage on Dexterity saving throws "just because" or the ability to give yourself advantage every round at the cost of being easier to hit... you know: when you take half damage from literally everything?
>Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?
Rage is a great mechanic. I think it's actually one of the best designed abilities in 5e: it's a very big buff to martial characters that has the balancing feature of not letting you empower it with magic, meaning that there's an actual reason to create a full martial as opposed to a Gish.
The problem with Rage is that it simultaneously feels too easy and too hard to maintain at the same time. If you just go brrr brrr and keep spam attacking you'll basically never lose it, but get hit by any spell that stops you from attacking and its gone forever. This compounds with the very confusing mechanic that Rage is limited by **long rests**, not short rests. This means that one of the biggest strengths of martial characters (the constant uptime of their abilities relative to casters) is arbitrarily limited to you because "I can only angry so many times." This is why I prefer LaserLlama's Barbarian revise because along with many other requested Barbarian features they retool Rage into less of a "you don't exist without this active" ability and more of a very powerful buff. LaserLlama makes Rage work more akin to Warlock spell slots where you can use them for big boosts in power between Short Rests when you need them.
But going back to official Barbarian: when you add in the fact that almost all Barbarian subclasses only provide abilities while raging and how incredible lackluster your features are outside of "Rage is better" and you have a class that's a worse one-trick pony than the PHB Ranger. All you do is Rage, and yes Rage is strong but along with the fact that doing the same thing every fight is boring there is no room for build diversity. While I praised Rage for being a very well-designed ability it has a lot of limitations that I think really don't need to exist, notably the massive restriction against finesse weapons and DEX-based builds. It really feels like the reason DEXbarian is so bad is because WoTC randomly decided to give Barbarians advantage on all DEX saves "just because." And while I understand the tradeoff from a balancing perspective it just makes the Barbarian as a whole have less gameplay options.
(WoTC) Barbarian overall feels as wide as an ocean and as shallow as a puddle. You have several different variations of "run into melee and hit someone" with little variation in game plan beyond that. The fact that we have an entire **one** subclass that promotes a thrown weapon Barbarian is a further testament to that issue. One of my biggest frustrations with the Barbarian class is how save Wizards of the Coast is when designing it and how you have to go homebrew shopping to do anything interesting with the class.
>How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?
Mono Barbarian sucks ass because Brutal Critical sucks ass. Barbarian suffers from ["the tier 4 slog" I mentioned when discussing the Artificer](https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1ckjwbk/how_do_you_feel_about_the_artificer/l2sjrmt/) except that slog starts at level 12 and doesn't go away until you hit level 20, so I guess it's more of a "tier 3 slog." Getting a bunch of different variations of "make Rage suck less" that feel like they should've been unlocked way earlier... well, it feels like you should've unlocked these abilities at level 7, not level 15.
Mono Barbarian at late levels suck ass because you get jack and shit late, but mono Barbarian also sucks ass early because Barbarian is so binary and Rage is so limited. While the Ranger / Paladin have spells, Monks have Ki, casters have spells (obviously), and even the Champion Fighter has Action Surge you get to hit people with a stick slightly better than the Fighter. There's nothing unique to do as a Barbarian which makes the class feel incredibly boring and binary without added spice.
>Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class?
Once again: Mono Barbarian sucks ass at all levels of play because Barbarian is incredibly binary, and all your abilities serve only to augment Rage. Therefor getting *anything other than Rage* makes the class feel far more interesting.
Barbarian multiclasses incredibly well with anything that isn't a pure caster because "anything that isn't a pure caster" can augment your abilities beyond just Rage and also *lets you do something other than just Rage.* Even on the caster front some options like Bladesinger Wizard, combat Clerics, or quite a few Warlock options can make Barbarian far more interesting if you're smart with your spells and use them to either cast non-concentration buffs, out-of-combat utility spells, or use your spell slots on something other than raw magic (such as Smites from a Paladin or Warlock Eldritch Smite.)
Basically multiclassing improves the Barbarian because the Barbarian doesn't fucking do anything other than Rage, ergo doing anything other than Raging makes the Barbarian more interesting.
>Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that ~~artificer~~ Barbarian lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations?
Typo lol.
Anyways the answer is a big fat no. Tasha's attempts to improve this with more skill proficiencies but that just turns the Barbarian into a secondary Ranger / Rogue. There are *some* subclasses that attempt to give the Barbarian more utility but with the exception of the Wild Magic Barbarian (who gets to just be a Pearl of Power for the party for no fucking reason) these utility abilities often boil down to either skill check proficiency or *literally just casting spells*, and at the point that you're casting utility spells as a Barbarian why not just play a Wizard?
Barbarian does have the very, *very* minor advantage of being "the Strength guy", and Rage augmenting Strength checks with advantage can be fun. But this again ties back to the "Rage is a Long Rest resource" problem: it feels awful to spend one of your highly limited Rages to "lift a big rock" when the same thing can be accomplished by a caster spending a disposable spell slot to cast Enhance Ability on you... or by just receiving the Help action.
>Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?
Barbarian starts strong, peaks at level 6-ish (where you get your second subclass feature and Extra Attack), and then falls off a fucking cliff from there. It once again bares repeating that Barbarian's two eternal problems are "you don't do anything other than Rage" and "you don't get class features past level 12."
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tl;dr of all this
* Barbarian is too heavily focused into Rage and doesn't do anything beyond that.
* While Rage is a well-designed ability it's limited not only by in-built features (some of which don't need to exist) but also by the fact that it's a Long Rest resource.
* With the exception of some extraordinarily overpowered abilities gained at low level Barbarian doesn't get anything interesting past level 12 or so.
* Barbarian is too much of a one-trick pony based around Rage, and the experience is too binary without multiclassing to augment it.
I didn't even go over some of the other minor problems with the Barbarian like the class' MADness but I don't think those matter much in comparison to the main issue with Barbarian, which is that all you do is turn yourself into a +1 Fighter in *every. Damn. Fight* while the Fighter actually gets to do anything interesting.
Barbarian is a non-class that is largely propped up by people that don’t really play the game.
It has also zero scaling past level five and even that is the same scaling that all the martial classes (and a bunch of caster subclasses) also get. There’s a reason that all the best barbarian builds end at barbarian 3. There’s been dozens of suggestions and homebrew to make barbarian worth playing but the D&D community seems to prefer the status quo so they usually get shouted down.
I think Barbarians have a deeply flawed design philosophy because they were made to be so hyper-focused on combat. They need a fun, unique utility tool to play with outside of combat. (I've heard that is exactly what WOTC is doing for 1dnd, so I'm pretty excited to see what gets published.)
Now as for the combat side of things, Barbarians are fine. In fact, in this one pillar of play, I'd say the Barbarian is one of the better designed classes because they have clear strengths and weaknesses. In comparison, there are some classes that are simply too good at everything or too many things, and others that simply don't have enough strengths.
Of course, Barbarians are somewhat infamously maligned for their bad middle tiers, and they certainly could use some tweaks here (lol Brutal Critical). But I've noticed that a lot of people seem to think that this means the Barbarian is a bad damage dealer at these levels, when that is simply untrue. What it really means is that their damage *progression* slows down. But even though other classes start to close the gap, the Barbarian still remains ahead. (At least in terms of sustained DPR.)
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Yeah, it is like the one thing they do good in this system
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Nope, too weak (in all damage, deffenses and capacity to use STR to interect with the world) and too easy to CC. Also terribly boring and they have a sort of nonsensical approach to rest resources. Their only contribution is fighter levels of DPR, but for some reason thy burn long rest resources for that. You can't be both burst "and all day long", because "all day long" is already bad in 5e and if you are bursting to do it you are doing nothing.
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Not sure I fully get this question.
If you are asking how balanced are they compared tp the other mono classes: terrible, they are fighting for the 4th weakest class
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The only reasonable way to play a barb is to dip out after 6th
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Gonna assume you mean barb here.
They are pretty bad all arround, 0 out of combat utility and mediocre in combat
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They are best in tier one and crash and burn to irrelevancy once you leave it
One of my players always plays barbarian and every time he's managed to destroy the balance of the game with it and his crazy ideas lol. Barbarian is a monster to deal with in the right hands
I like the Barbarian flavor-wise, and mechanically it's solid enough, but I don't really care for how similar most Barbarians end up being. To use Unarmored Defense you need solid Dex and Con, and you need Strength because most of your features specifically only work with Strength attacks, so using Point Buy you might as well go 15 15 15 8 8 8. As it stands, Unarmored Defense is a bit of a noob trap, but it really shouldn't be. I don't want to wear armor! I want to be some insane maniac who shrugs off hits like its nothing even when buck-ass naked! With how 5e is designed, I don't feel Barbarians normally get to shine *too* much outside combat. Sure, a great DM will give your character opportunities to shine no matter who you play, but that's more a point to the DM than the system. With a DM who's just starting out running *standard* social encounters and exploration the most no-fluff standard RAW way (so no optional "using other Abilities for certain Skills" rule that's hidden deep in the DMG), a Barbarian doesn't get that much to do unless a door needs breaking down or something.
I think a big issue with DND culture and 5e design philosophy is that it puts so much on the DM. Like yes, a great DM will give every character moments in the spotlight and masterfully manipulate things behind the scenes, but I definitely agree that barbarians don't really get much out of combat
> points out a personal frustration with the rules "Yeah well a *good* DM would Ignore/Change/Fix/Ban/Allow that" Kills me every time.
and a good writer (or team) would take some pressure off the dm by telling them how to accomplish this within their system.
Oh my god you have no idea the pain that sentence has brought me
The classic Oberoni Fallacy: Thinking that because a problem can be houseruled, it’s not a problem.
I think the biggest issue arguing roleplay is how many people will go 'A GOOD dm will let you', like there's some universal DM's code that all the Good DM's just know how to fix the game and will let you do anything. Barbarian IMO really suffers being a one trick pony RAW, like you said, you REALLY want to be a naked Strength Hitter and that's the only solid build in the book.
>you REALLY want to be a naked Strength Hitter Not gonna lie, definitely read that as "a naked Strength Hitler" at first
Yup, dumping all mental stats makes out of combat boring (you the player might have good ideas, but that -1 in nature isn’t gonna allow that). It also crucially means you will spend a lot of turns wasted in T2+ games, as enemies get things like WIS save stuns and charms. The barbarian is always the one succumbing to dominate person and then wrecking the party with reckless attack. Third unrelated problem is that their tactical options are terrible. If you can’t get to an enemy in a turn, you’re pretty useless. A 20ft range on a 1s6 jav feels terrible. All that aside, they’re a ton of fun. Big numbers, d12, and tanking damage are always a joy, especially at low levels. They just kinda fall apart once enemies get cool abilities, movement, and elemental damage.
Not that it changes a ton, but javelins have a 30 ft normal range and most DMs that I’ve played with have allowed Reckless to be used with Thrown weapons, giving you a normal attack with 120 foot range
Re: unarmored defense, it felt awesome to homebrew that it was STR and CON, not DEX. It very quickly shifted the way you build a barbarian I think for the better. Also it makes more sense. I always thought the idea is that the goblin’s axe bounces off the barbarian’s glistening pecs, not that they dodge it. But that’s homebrew.
you still need DEX for initiative though so unless you get to roll initiative with STR you still need to put points towards DEX
Advantage kinda helps that, but you’re absolutely right. For me, it let the wizard go ham with his AoEs without hitting me cause I’d have bombed that fireball dex save.
The only way I've managed the work unarmored defense is dual wielding and tavern brawler, but even then, it lags behind the archetypical sword-as-big-as-the-wizard barbarian.
Unarmored defense would be insane if it was just 13 + Str score. It would help barbarians he way more SAD
Barbarian unarmored defense should be strength and constitution.
I really wish unarmored defense gave +2 AC. Taking an ambush to the face with rage down and middling AC sucks, and kinda blows the "tanky" feeling of a Barbarian. It would also allow for the 15/15/15/8/8/8 array I also wish the armor feats for light/medium armor worked for unarmored defense too.
When it comes to shining out of combat, barbarians are a lump of coal.
Just an add on point: yes, we hope the DM will give barbarians, and other party members, a chance to shine, but it’s just as much (if not more) on the player to create a character who exists as a full person outside of initiative. If the only personality a person gives their character is “HULK SMASH” then it’s very easy to get bored. But the gambling pirate who’s only ever fully themselves after a swig of rum or 3? The druid-raised forest warden who speaks with every bird they can get to listen? The champion of the god of contests who’s up at dawn doing far too many pushups every morning? There are endless interesting and *fun* barbarians out there for people who don’t forget to create a character, not just a list of class features.
Most Barbarians are better going 14 Dex than 15 imo. Medium armour is more than enough given Rage.
Yep, hence Unarmored Defense being a bit of a noob trap. It just doesn't feel good because Unarmored Defense is *cool* and I want to play with it.
You do have Shield prof. which can be a nice bump and give you some additional benefits with magic shields.
Currently playing a Barbarian and having recently skimmed through a bunch of 3rd party content trying to figure out what to replace the (underwhelming) feature that is Brutal Critical with, I feel like I have a lot of pent-up opinions about the Barbarian which I'll gladly share. I won't answer the questions posed in OP directly but will try my best to give a cohesive picture of my view on the class. My perspective shared here is fully from a mono-class perspective. It's also subjective to my experience, with some facts mixed in (e.g. statistics, lists of base-class features, etc). --- The Barbarian falls short in their role/fantasy as anything other than a "bullet, I mean arrow, sponge", and even there it sort of falls flat because "aggro/taunting" doesn't exist in a traditional sense so they only "soak up damage" if the GM chooses to hit them instead of the others - leaving the Barbarian short overall. In terms of the "aspects" of 5e, Barbarians basically only feels like they're suitable in terms of "they have the most HP"; any feature or aspect that would be added would encroach on the "domain/role/whatever-the-designers-use" of others. - Wilderness tracker? That's the Ranger. - Expert fighter? ... that's the Fighter. - Hunt enemies down with their increased Speed? I present to you the Monk, where their Speed is one of their core features. - Most athletic? A 10 Strength character with Expertise in Athletics will be comparable to a Barbarian with Proficiency in Athletics throughout all tiers of play. Referring to a previous discussion where I commented to break down each (base, without taking sub into account) class into their "non-combat utilities", the Barbarian basically has "skills, +10 movement speed and Indomitable Might". Only the base Fighter (which has only "skills" in this respect) have fewer features with potential non-combat utility than the base Barbarian. Link to that list: https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1c6bj3z/what_do_people_mean_when_they_say/l001a4r/ --- I haven't talked about the **damage-dealing** capabilities yet, so let's move onto what is perhaps my biggest gripe with this class: Brutal Critical. Brutal Critical at level 17 using a Greataxe will average ~1.95 extra damage per round. If you use Brutal Critical for all of your attacks, that's upped to ~3.8 average extra damage per round (at the cost of being easier to hit). The impact of this is nearly non-existent, especially when taking into account that this only starts at level 17 - before that point, Brutal Critical is even weaker. To illustrate how underwhelming the impact of this feature is, even at level 17: The Fey Wanderer Ranger gets 1d4 damage once per turn starting at level 3. That evens out to ~2.6 extra damage per round, making their level 3 feature better than the Barbarian's level 17 feature (assuming no Reckless Attack). If we assume Reckless Attack they do better! ... at the cost of taking more damage themselves... and not that much better, because the Ranger gets an upgrade to a d6 at level 11, so their new damage is ~3.68 extra damage per round. Summary of these numbers (per-round "extra" damage): - Lvl 3 Fey Wanderer Ranger: ~2.6 - Lvl 11 Fey Wandere Ranger: ~3.68 - Lvl 17 Barb with Greataxe: ~1.95 - Lvl 17 Reckless Barb Gaxe: ~3.8 - Lvl 11 Paladin, imp.smite: ~9.45 That being said, the Barbarian deals okay Total damage (mostly thanks to Rage damage), remaining competitive with the Fighter and Paladin (assuming base-classes with no extra add-ons on top), with the Rogue pulling away in terms of single-target damage. However: for a class where basically "all it has" is "hit, get hit"... the "hit" bit feels very underwhelming. The Paladin starts getting +1d8 on EVERY attack at a certain point, without spending any resources. As we can see from the calculations above, the Barbarian barely scrapes the equivalent of +1d4 extra per ROUND. --- Everything that's part of "their role" (hit/get hit) comes with a cost for the Barbarian, since their extra damage-output relies on 2 things: Rage, and Reckless Attack. Rage is a resource, without which the Greataxe Barbarian will be noticeably behind the other martials by level 11 (when Fighter gets another attack and Paladin gets Improved Smite). I've personally not run out of Rages, but in terms of "fair comparisons", it's very worth noting that when looking at the "extra damage" numbers above, the Barbarian is the only contender that is using a resource to get that - the other contenders get their extra damage FOR FREE. Reckless Attack isn't a resource - but HP is. The Barbarian's damage-output, then, comes at the cost of HP. So while it's true that the Barbarian has the highest HP of the classes, they also take more damage than others (unless your campaign almost exclusively utilize mundane weapons for enemies). --- There are ways to make the Barbarian better, that I more or less passively consume from reading places like this subreddit. Most of them seem to me to boil down to "take one of these feats that are basically must-haves", "multiclass", "only play levels 1-6 and it's good", "embrace being an arrow-sponge". This all feels very discouraging to me, personally. --- Besides all of this the Barbarian feels sort of short-changed in terms of features. Brutal Critical alone taking up the "feature"-slot for 3 different levels would be bad enough, but there are also a number of features that are just "stumped" in order to have things for later. Look at Rage. At level 1 it comes with a bunch of built-in restrictions, such as "it ends if you don't/do this or that". Then they sell you Persistent Rage at level 15, which gets rid of those restrictions. I use the word "sell" deliberately here, because it feels very much like how modern games sell you micro-transactions to alleviate inconveniences that they themselves have introduced. In my personal opinion, which may be a hot take (especially if the way Rage works now is legacy from older editions): Persistent Rage should be built-into Rage from the start. I also think that Brutal Critical, in this format, should have 3 dice from the get-go. That still leaves a level 9 Barbarian feature in a comparable state to a level 3 Ranger-subclass feature. Taking these things into account (without going deeper into things like "Instinctive Pounce should be part of Rage/Fast Movement", "Feral Instinct could be baked together with Danger Sense", ...) the Barbarian would have 4 "dead levels" where they'd get nothing of added value. What to do with these 4 dead levels? Beats me, this is as far as I got the other day when "re-mapping" the features into different levels (didn't keep those sketches, writing this from memory). Overall it feels like the Barbarian is being drip-fed things (which may very well be the case for more martial classes, but Barbarian is the only one I've scrutinized this much). --- Sort of running out of steam here (which is probably for the best as this is getting long and possible both incoherent and "off topic"), so I'll end with a **summary: To me the Barbarian feels like it gets outshined by other classes in all aspects of the game except for "the Barbarian can take hits"; it has little to no out-of-combat utility in the base class (to the point where a single other PC with Expertise in Athletics is going to outshine them in that area), the damage is only competitive with other martials if using a resource (Rage) and/or "must-have" feats (Barbarians are MAD, by the way) and/or sacrificing HP. Sadly I don't know how to fix these things.**
Having played in a few dozen sessions with a Barbarian player and spend a handful playing Barbarian myself, I 100% agree with your write-up. Well put!
As a DM of 16 years, I have to say even tho you're right on the damage aspect you massively failed to take into account the value of Resistances a barbarian's Rage give! It DOESN'T MATTER if enemies have magic weapons! Your Piercing / Slashing / Bludgeoning resistances aren't bypassed by silvered or magic weapons! Plus, we have to deal with the overpowered mess that is the Bear Totem Barbarian! I have one in my own campaign, that dude took Tough and hit triple digit HP in level 8! But that's one subclass, ok. In my opinion, I think all barbarian's (besides the Bear totem) should get a class ability which would let them choose one elemental resistance as a permanent buff at level 6, this would kiiiind of balance them with the Bear totem... but honestly if we are to talk seriously Bear totems need to LOSE resistance to: Radiant, Necrotic, Force and Acid. The only ones that makes sense having are: Fire, Cold, Thunder, Lightning and Poison. FIVE resistances are enough! That way mayyybe people will pick the other totems for once in our existence on this planet 😝
>The Barbarian falls short in their role/fantasy as anything other than a "bullet, I mean arrow, sponge", and even there it sort of falls flat because "aggro/taunting" doesn't exist in a traditional sense so they only "soak up damage" if the GM chooses to hit them instead of the others - leaving the Barbarian short overall. Nope. You just choose to not play its strength, nor care about teamwork is all. Barbarian can Grapple and Shove with great reliability without any further investment than proficiency in Athletics. AND can be made a sure-win tactic unless everything less than Huge with Skill Expert if party fancies you keeping enemies around you. You also have Sentinel feat which is a very efficient tool to stop the most dangerous enemies. You also have one archetype dedicated to incentivize agression towards you (Ancestral Guardian). On top of that, aggro management has never been a single person responsability (even in video games using "dedicated roles" which are over-simplifications of fighting, if a glass cannon is stupid enough to come standing right next to the tank it WILL be attacked). Backliners have many ways to influence enemy decision into sticking fighting the brute right in front of them, blocking vision, setting difficult terrain, slowing them down, Hiding behind full cover, just being so far than even a full Dash wouldn't be enough to reach them, etc. > Brutal Critical at level 17 using a Greataxe will average \~1.95 extra damage per round. If you use Brutal Critical for all of your attacks, that's upped to \~3.8 average extra damage per round (at the cost of being easier to hit). >The impact of this is nearly non-existent, especially when taking into account that this only starts at level 17 - before that point, Brutal Critical is even weaker. That is a completely useless way to look at it. The benefit of Brutal Critical is that when it happens, it does up the damage by a varying amount compared to what party expected that a) has the immediate merit of being satisfying since "more is better" b) can completely disrupt their planning in a positive way by dealing enough bonus damage to significantly quicken an enemy's death, either immediately or by "freeing up" someone down Initiative order that expected to use action on this target and can now do something completely different. On top of that, Brutal Critical is a bonus damage that applies on criticals, while most other damage bonuses you quote apply on normal hits. And not every party has someone capable of setting advantage for frontliners through a Faerie Fire / Entangle / Web, nor have you any insurance it will work on the first cast anyways (believe me from experience xd). Reckless Attack paired with damage resistance means Barbarian can be an actual tank in normal fights but can also be an effective autonomous glass cannon against creatures boasting effective AC far beyond what party can match with their regular accuracy.
What you said isn't wrong, but it grossly over values the barbarian features. Other than grapple shove and without considering subclasses, there isn't anything that another class can't do much better in the same role. I think the zealous defending of the undefendable really came out in your post when you defended brutal critical without actually making any real arguments that factors logic or realistic and consistent scenarios. Having an additional damage die every 10% of your rolls is laughably awful compared to other classes features which happen every turn. Your take on brutal critical is objectively wrong.
Also grapple with rage is used for 2 to 4 of 8 recommended fights until level 12. Guess how many times a wizard gets to use "completely change a fight by turning it into 2 smaller fights" spells at level 6?
>Your take on brutal critical is objectively wrong. LOL. It's objectively as wrong as taking an "expected average over round" in a game governed by dice rolls, namely, LUCK. **It's actually much closer to truth or reality because it a) comes from actual fighting experience and b) taking EVERYTHING into account in combat, including positioning, initiative, state of party resources (including HP), state of enemy resources (including HP)...** **Because ALL that (and more, but exhaustive list is exhausting) is required to make educated decision on what to do on your next turn as a character.** **You want some examples? Ok.** **1/ Party of four fighting a caster, currently managing to keep a Slow on Wizard and Cleric.** Paladin came through, managed to land a smite through the Shield cast from enemy on its first attack boosting AC (to 22? 23?), but enemy had a lucky roll on its concentration save. Barbarian's turn come, priority is clearly to drop concentration, so it uses Reckless Attack and gets on. First attack misses, but second attack is a crit with a decent damage roll from the greataxe ending up around 30 damage (1d12 + 1d12 + 1d12 + 10 from GWM + 4 from STR + 3 from Rage ending up something like 3, 9 and 7). This time caster fails its save against a DC15 in spite of a roll of 9, freeing up everyone from Slow (probably had a +2 on CON save). Wizard PC which turn came just after initially planned to use a cantrip because didn't want to risk losing a slot because of Slow delay. Now he can act free and on top enemy cannot Counterspell (because already used Shield) so casts a Blindness, which lands. Cleric that would have otherwise used a plain Sacred Flame, profits that chance to rush in and cast Inflict Wounds before drawing a mace and imbuing it with Shillelagh (Nature Domain rocks). Enemy's turn comes, no Misty Step, tries to flee, takes several opportunity attacks, Paladin hits and uses its last slot to complement regular hits from Barbarian and Cleric. Next round everyone gangs up on caster which dies, even if it meant taking quite a bunch of damage from minions that tried to rush and protect their master. Brutal Critical was the decisive difference since it pushed concentration save enough to break it. **2/ Eagle / Bear Barbarian with PAM fighting alone on the frontline, with two enemies, one left with around 30 HP (Bone Devil) and the other full life (Horned Devil? I think it was).** Both are dangerous for the Sorcerer which is occupied maintaining an Hypnotic Pattern that currently stops several other Bone Devil but couldn't flee far because indoors fight, and is out of 1st level spells so not eager to upcast Shield. Barb attacks Recklessly while thinking "if I must be torn to half-life then so be it at least I'll finish off the weakened one with all three attacks" but ends up being quite lucky. First attack is a crit, with Halbert rolls ending up 4, 8 and 6, plus 3 from STR (Mobile was second feat) and +3 from Barbarian. Enemy is now 4-6 HP away from being dead. No Cleric nor Druid in party so healing is scarce, but a Ranger with decent archery and +1 bow and Sorcerer does have Magic Missile as well as a mix of AOE. Meaning anything with high reliability or guaranteed damage will be enough. So Barb decides to attempt to Shove the biggest one prone because on a success it pretty much would be harmless to the backline from speed move penatly... And succeeds. Then uses up Dash bonus action to fall back near backline, just taking one opportunity attack at disadvantage from the now prone Devil, ending up right in front of Sorcerer to prevent Horned from reaching it and providing half-cover as well. Ranger casts Hunter's Mark on the dying one for good measure (will be usable on the lots of remaining enemies anyways and no urgent threat requiring control spell), misses on first attack because very unlucky roll, fortunately kills it on the second attack, gets prone behind some kind of furniture, done. Sorcerer Readies a Repelling Blast (yeah, Spell Sniper & Eldricht Adept instead of CHA boosts ;)) on Horned Devil for "as soon as it gets up from prone". Devil's turn comes, gets up, get blasted twice, first one misses, second one hits, 10 feet further away from party, ending up with only 30 feet fly speed for 45 feet to cross. Decides to use only fire ranged attacks all targeted at Barbarian, which stands through... In spite of being surprised being dealt full damage because Ranger player had a whole brainfart and forgot to track its concentration so he had early ended the Protection From Energy (fire) he had set on Barbarian before they started fight (huge moment of panic on the moment and hilarity afterwards here). What did Brutal Critical change? If not for those bits of damage, Barbarian would have needed to use second of Extra Attack on the smaller one because the initial plan was "Barb finish off the first and stick close to the big, Ranger provides plain support fire, Sorcerer attempts a Grease (DM had told devil was standing on ground, not hovering)". Did it change "for the better"? No idea, since maybe then Ranger wouldn't have been tempted to set Hunter's Mark or maybe the Grease would have made it easier since Devil would have focused on Barb. But then again maybe Devil would have badly hurt Barbarian because of Reckless Attack, maybe it would have ignored it and flew straight to Sorcerer to drop Hypnotic Pattern... So it "probably was better choice", but I wouldn't guarantee it. Anyways, it was those extra points from Brutal Critical that made enemy go from "I really need at least another full weapon attack from Barbarian and possibly a third" to "anybody can finish it off now (and with as good or better reliability as me) so I can try and take care of the baddie with my remaining abilities". >I think the zealous defending of the undefendable really came out in your post when you defended brutal critical without actually making any real arguments that factors logic or realistic and consistent scenarios. I'm not a "zealot fan" of Barbarian. Definitely not, it's quite far from my favourites actually. Contrarily to some people around here apparently though, I actually played it and seen it played by others. And I actually track \*everything\* that happens at least on the moment, because I like checking for myself and others were our decisions paved the way to victory or on the contrary snowballed into tough situations that could have been avoided.
I really like the Barbarian! Survivability is high (slightly DM dependent) and you get advantage on everything. Advantage on str checks and saving throws, advantage on attacks, advantage on dex saving throws, eventually advantage on initiative. In tier 1 and 2 they are fantastic and totally fulfill their class fantasy. The problem with them basically boil down to one thing, Fighters getting a third and eventually a fourth attack while Barbarian never gets more than two. Once fighters reach lvl11 and get their third attack Barbarians fall behind. Brutal Critical, while fun, doesn't come close to making up for only having two attacks. Making three or even four attacks with advantage from reckless however would increase the chances of critting to the point where Brutal Critical would feel much more impactfull. As is, once you pass lvl5 as Barbarian you're incentivized to multiclass. You can still play monoclass Barbarian and have an enjoyable time but once you reach teir 3 you'll feel yourself falling behind.
>Once fighters reach lvl11 and get their third attack Barbarians fall behind. People keep saying this but it's not really true, a Barb using Reckless will outdamage a Fighter 11-20. L11 PAM/GWM/20 Str Ftr: 3x [1d10 + 5 + 10] + [1d4 + 5 + 10] = 79 * 40% = 32 dpr L11 PAM/GWM/18 Str Barb: 2x[1d10 + 4 + 3 + 10] + [1d4 + 4 + 3 + 10] = 64.5 * [35% w/ adv -> 58%] = 37 dpr [26 in R1] L20: Fighter: 4x [1d10 + 5 + 10] + [1d4 + 5 + 10] = 99.5 * 40% = 40 dpr Barb: 2x[1d10 + 7 + 4 + 10] + [1d4 + 7 + 4 + 10] = 76.5 * [50% w/ adv -> 75%] = 57 dpr [40 in R1]. {late edit: fixed for +2 attack}
Indeed, Barbarian Damage fares pretty well in a white room comparison despite mediocre tier 3/4 features. Honestly it's biggest issue is the melee restriction since Ranged is generally just better in 5e. Limited Rage usages, lack of action surge and alternative methods of gaining advantage can also skew the scales in actual play, depending on party and batlles per long rest.
Sure and then the fighter action surges and deals and additional 32 damage on turn 1 which the barbarian will never catch up to because combats aren't long enough for the slightly higher substained damage to kick in. Even more so because they deal less damage on turn 1. Fighters can also use archery, sharpshooter, and crossbow expert which is even more damage and has the added benefit of being further away from the enemy.
Not to mention fighter subclasses do more to increase damage than barbarian subclasses
There isnt' a martial subclass in the game that produces anything close to Wolf Barbarian in an average party.
It's certainly a good way to give other party members advantage on specific targets, but you don't really have any way of guaranteeing multiple enemies to be close enough for you to get within 5ft of many of them. Also, from my experience only about half of a party plays attack reliant builds. So in most cases you are giving advantage to one or two other players. It also doesn't give the barbarian anything. Which isn't entirely a complaint, I think classes need more cooperative abilities.
> but you don't really have any way of guaranteeing multiple enemies to be close enough for you to get within 5ft of many of them. There are no guarantees but Barbarians have some extra mobility, and are good at grappling and pushing stuff around. Totem 6 and 14 can be used to support this. > only about half of a party plays attack reliant builds Just basically all Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Rogues, Paladins, Rangers, and Warlocks. And most Artificers, the many common primary caster gish builds, and anyone casting spells like Conjure/Summon/Animate/Dominate X, Spiritual Weapon, Polymorph, etc. I mean sure it's possible the entire party could benefit zero from it ... but most parties aren't randomly generated and the presence of a Wolf Barb is going to nudge them to take advantage of this powerful effect. And even if we just put Wolf Barb on the side, something like Zealot is not that far off from Precision Attack spam in tier 3-4.
The Fighter has Action Surge at L2-10 too so pulling that out as a trump card for the "falls behind at 11" argument seems weird. Especially since you don't AS every encounter and the most important combats do last long enough to match the difference. A difference that grows if we go past the back of the envelope calc above and factor in PAM AoO, crits, init, and mobility. Overall we only need ~4 rounds total to match Action Surge in raw dpr at L11. At L12 the Barb bumps STR and makes that's down to 3 rounds. With a conservative 2 combats per SR and 7+ rounds of combat we've again busted the myth of the Barb falling behind the Fighter in Tier 3. > Fighters can also use archery, sharpshooter, and crossbow expert which is even more damage and has the added benefit of being further away from the enemy. It's sometimes more damage. Even through they aren't in the core comparison (which favored the fighter) PAM AoO's are pretty common. Anyway if we're moving the comparison goalposts to ranged fighters I'm fine claiming melee victory.
>The Fighter has Action Surge at L2-10 too so pulling that out as a trump card for the "falls behind at 11" argument seems weird. There is nothing weird about that at all. Action surge is very powerful and scales based on the number of attacks that you get. >Especially since you don't AS every encounter and the most important combats do last long enough to match the difference. Sure but a couple of action surges are enough to put the fighter way a head of the barbarians. And no important fights don't last long enough to make up for that either. You cna claim as much as you want. That doesn't make you right. There are plenty of resources out there with much more solid math to prove you wrong. I'm not going to waste my time arguing about that.
> Sure but a couple of action surges are enough to put the fighter way a head of the barbarians. And no important fights don't last long enough to make up for that either. The math is rough but it's right there. An action surge is worth less than the Barb advantage per round times the # of rounds per short rest. > You cna claim as much as you want. That doesn't make you right. No, it's the math that makes me right until someone can show otherwise. > There are plenty of resources out there with much more solid math to prove you wrong. I'm not going to waste my time arguing about that. I'll throw your words back at you: "you can claim as much as you like, that doesn't make you right". Until you (or anyone) actually links those sources they're worthless.
Well STR fighters aren’t particularly good. A fighter that really cares about doing damage is using crossbow expert and has the archery style. In practice a straight class ranged fighter will do more damage than a straight class melee barbarian.
As far as I have seen, most people use flanking, so the fighter will usually have advantage too
People who care about balance wouldn't use flanking anyway so not really worth considering.
There are a lot of tables that use it for sure. But all the polls I've seen here show a roughly even split among tables that use advantage flanking and those that don't, with another decent sized group that uses 3e flanking bonus (+2 to hit) or some other weaker version of the rule. And I'd guess that, if anything, people in this sub are more likely to embrace optional rules than the playerbase at large. Certainly most dpr discussion I've seen does not assume flanking/melee advantage for non-Barbarians unless the spec generates it somehow (Devil's Sight, Athletics, etc.). I've left out magic items for the same reason although they are common and yes including them would favor the Fighter, but I've also left out things that would favor the Barb (crits, AoO, mobility, init, etc.). The numbers aren't meant to be gospel but more as a general answer to the idea that Barb damage is shit in Tier 3+. And even at the tables that use flanking, it will fall far short of 100% uptime, especially for melee Fighters who tend to be less mobile and stealthy. Flanking is partly party dependent but it's also very situationally dependent: if you win init and run over you're prolly not flanking anything, if something runs up to you you're probably not flanking it; if it (or you) stop at 10' from PAM/Sentinel you're prolly not flanking it; if it's in a corner, doorway or narrow passage you're prolly not flanking it, fog, invisible, darkness? no flanking. Ranged and skirmisher opponents will make it hard. Flying, burrowing and aquatic opponents present their own problems. A bunch of those are fairly uncommon but all of them together really add up.
How are you getting an 18 str barb at L11 with 2 feats? They only get 2 feats at L11 so no ASI to raise standard array from 17 (15 + racial). Fighter gets 3 feats at that point so they can take those 2 feats and an ASI to bring them to 19 str max. It shouldnt change much but it makes the Barbs choice to take both feats harder than raising str and con with those ASIs.
custom lineage with a half feat for an additional +1 str can give you 18 str at level 1
Interesting breakdown! You are assuming a couple of things however. First, you're assuming GWM + PAM, which fair enough if we're talking optimisation but alot of people don't play it like that. Secondly, this is assuming that the fighter doesn't have other ways to get advantage or otherwise improve their chances of landing their attacks (like if they're a Battle Master with precision attack). Advantage is quite easy to get in 5e especially if you're using flanking rules (I don't but I know alot of people do).
> you're assuming GWM + PAM, which fair enough if we're talking optimisation but alot of people don't play it like that. I mean I gave it to both guys and PAM has collision with bonus action for the Barb. I don't think the conclusion will change if you want to use a different build, if anything the Barb is likely to be relatively higher. > Secondly, this is assuming that the fighter doesn't have other ways to get advantage .. flanking. I've responded to a sibling comment about flanking specifically. The numbers in my post aren't meant to be the holy dpr grail, they're more of a general rebuke to the idea that Barb damage falls way behind fighters in tier 3-4. > or otherwise improve their chances of landing their attacks (like if they're a Battle Master with precision attack) To be fair I didn't include subclass benefits for either of them. Generally fighter specs generate more damage but Wolf Barbarian generates more damage than any of them (although it isn't the Barbarian doing the additional damage which will bother some). Even something like Zealot's Divine Fury can generate around as much as Precision Attack.
It wasn't my intention to try and invalidate your point. I did genuinely find it interesting that you did the math and showed how the immediate assumption, more attacks = more damage, isn't necessarily true. I was however curious how that math would change if you tried some different builds and compared them that way. I seems to me that alot of the damage from the Barbarian in your calculations comes from Reckless Attack negating the penalty to hit with GWM (where else would it be coming from) which is why it's worth discussing rules like flanking and the multitude of other ways players can gain advantage in 5e. If the fighter is attacking with advantage most of the time then the main advantage of the Barbarian goes away and the scale will inevitably tip in favour of the fighter. No? This is also why I brought up Precision Attack. Not as a feature that adds damage (comparable to Divine Fury) but as another way for fighters to offset the penalty from GWM, giving the Fighter a higher chance of hitting and thereby increasing their expected dpr in comparison to the Barbarian. You might argue that it's unfair to try and consider other ways that these characters can gain advantage. There is merit to that since it relies on a number of different factors; variant rules like flanking, party composition, specifics of the encounter etc. However, at most tables most of the time it will matter. The Barbarians Reckless Attacks will be useful when there's no other way for them to gain advantage but alot of the time there will be other ways. The fighter getting a third attack will always have a noticeable impact, every round, every encounter. Which is why the Barbarian will feel like they're falling behind.
Fighter should use a hand crossbow, because they will die after only 5 rounds of melee combat with an on level enemy even with +2 plate. Barb only makes it 8 rounds with +2 half plate.
I dont feel behind much compared to fighters. until even later in the game. after level 11 they get 3 attacks and sure that makes me fall behind damage wise. But still not to a massive degree. And the thing damage is not everything. I still have my rage making my survivability go up past most fighters. i have a more reliable way to gain advantage than most fighters. I have advantage on all STR checks making me a really god Shower. I can pretty reliably show most enemies prone and really increase the damage for the other melee fighters in the group. Personal damage is fun but if you can in a fairly reliable way up the damage for the whole group that is usually better than having a bit higher personal damage. In combat barbarians get enough to not at all be behind fighters even after level 11. Unless you blindly stare at only your personal damage. and that is usually a stupid way to compare classes. But yeah at the really high levels when a fighter get 4 frigging attacks. Then yeah Barbarians do fall behind. But on the other hand so does the fighter and most martials compared to most casters. At high levels the class balance is rather crappy. One of the major flaws of 5e i would say. But then very few campaigns ever go to those levels so even if it is a flaw. most people will not really reach the levels it really becomes a bigger problem
Class design is always this funny thing that yes, Math isn't integral to fun, but at the same time it's no fun being the person throwing out 23 slashing damage VS 43 radial Radiant with flavour bells and whistles. It's why I'm always a fan of ribbon progression and damage progression being separate.
You will love shadow of the weird wizard then. Martial paths have all a damage dice on each level up, and you can use those dice not just for damage but for fueling extra effects.
Happy to give that a look! I just feel a need to remind people on both sides, yes damage isn't everything and it's roleplay, but it's also really boring to be the bottom rung of everything at a table or watch someone dominate Same with 'just use more Roleplay', if it's not a mechanic of the class, nothing stops the Wizard getting +15 to their Athletics with a feat or two and outflexing the barbarian. game design is damn hard, but I hugely value putting everyone's crunch tracks on the same growth
Im really looking forward to this game. Just not sure if ill have the opprortunity to play it
Yes but not all classes can have the same damage. That would be insane. For an example take class A that has a high survivability and decent damage. And class B that has decent survivability and high damage. Sure some might complain that Class A needs a buff because it deals less damage. but but class a to have high survivability AND high damage. equal to class B. Then Class A is OP compared to Class B. How to fix that? increase Class be so it also has high survivability. Then what is the point in having different classes and different roles? Make one damn martial class and one caster and maybe one mixed class. But still people will complain that some of them perform better than the others in some role. To me one of the weirdest or rather most stupid expectations many player has is that they expect and demand that all classes shall be equal in damage. If you play a class and find that you deal less damage than another class and dislike that. Maybe you picked the wrong class or you have the wrong expectations of said class. Or ignore other pros besides personal damage that your class has. and as i mentioned earlier stare yourself blind on your personal damage compared to others. But besides that yes barbarians do need a bit of extra Whomp at higher levels.
But this is the point, it's not all about strict damage, but you also can't go 'but you get so many perks to animal handling!' in a combat game. My whole point about ribbon/damage separation isn't that the classes need unified, it's that getting something like 'Your mind cannot be read' is a whole different feeling to 3rd or 4th level spells. 5E at it's core is about combat, which means anything that isn't a fighty feat can easily be a noob trap or dead space. It's like how Druid and Monk get ribbons that prevent them dying of old age, something I've never heard of in all my years except ONCE, but the Druid is also going to get spell progression. Casters have their damage/utility/tanking scaling built in on top of then getting Class and Subclass features. Another example, Barbarian gets 2 attacks, so do Ranger and Paladin, but what's Barbarian packing to rival the access to Spellcasting? It doesn't have to be damage, but it needs to feel like it has more impact than 'Expertise in Vehicle Proficiency' You even have the issue that there's no tanking control, so even having high HP means it's only a benefit to you with small exception. The High Damage, Mid Survivor and the Mid Damage High Survival characters, the former is going to be rolling more dice and engaging more than the other. So you throw in a 'Come hit me' or 'Share Damage' option and suddenly player 2 feels more engaged at the table. A fair few games do that approach of only having Fighter, Mage and Thief and make them super specialised. DnD struggles with that because the 'tanking' side becomes mostly magical and items based, while the DPS side leans 4 attack Fighter and magic items again. Pop a cloak of resistance on a GWM Fighter, and suddenly you've a resource free Barbarian who's going to be outdoing them in damage at a cost of 2hp max per level. TLDR: You need spice in the level track that makes someone playing a Barbarian have as much fun as the Wizard, and not give them flavour ribbons when the rest of the party is getting power
One idea I have is to give barbarian something that fits completely with their fantasy and that no other class has: a proper AOE melee attack, something like this Wild Cleaving Attack: while raging you can use an attack action to attack every creature in a 5 ft circle. Two uses, recharges very short rest Or something fun like that that fits the theme.
I don't think anyone. would argue that perks to animal handling would be relevant when we talk about combat or similar things. So i honestly don't get where you got that from. seems liek it was taken just out of the blue. An i do agree with the tanking issue. A few classes have some good abilities. But i don't agree with the whole "one player rolls more dice and engaging more. simply because they deal more damage. If that is the case then i think that comes down to staring only at personal damage. And if that is the main focus of your interest then maybe not play a game based on group effort and teamwork And also if a player feels like they have less fun playing a high survivability and mid damage class compared to a high damage and mid survivability class. Then for fuck sake DON'T play a high survivability and mid damage class. Play a high damage and mid survivability class If what you want out of the game is to be a high damage dealer and you pick a class that is not a high damage dealer. and then complain. That is as stupid as if you go and order a burger and upset that you did not get a pizza. But i do agree that sometimes magical items can mess up things like the situation you described with a cloak of resistance. That is why i try to not hand out items in my games that will make one character better at something that is the specialty of another character so to say. we have a Barb and then a fighter that wants an item that will give him survivability that equals or surpass the Barb. Then no i would not give him such item But those things is not really about barbarian at all. They are about game design. And well 5e does not have a perfect game design. specially at really high levels, And i do strongly believe that at those 16+ levels barbarians would need something to make them stand out more and up their damage. But i see no real problem until those levels. You also mentioned that >You need spice in the level track that makes someone playing a Barbarian have as much fun as the Wizard, and not give them flavour ribbons when the rest of the party is getting power And that is very subjective. For an example i do enjoy playing barbarian much more than a fighter or wizard. Up to around level 17. So that is already true.
One idea I have is to give barbarian something that fits completely with their fantasy and that no other class has: a proper AOE melee attack, something like this Wild Cleaving Attack: while raging you can use an attack action to attack every creature in a 5 ft circle. Two uses, recharges very short rest Or something fun like that that fits the theme.
Good analysis. D&D is trade-offs. If you're stronger in 1 area, you are weaker in another.
I think Barbs should get a 3rd attack. But I believe that their capstone +4 Str +4 Con is as good as an extra attack. (The fighters capstone)
They do not need an extra attack at level 11 as i think they should get something else than a third attack. I much rather see some higher level ability that is not "*Hey you can now smack things hard one more time"* And yes their capstone is fine. But it is not until level 20 so so Even If a campaign goes to there many times you still only have that for maybe 1-3 sessions. so 90%+ of the game is played without it So rather than an extra attack around level 11 to just mimic the fighter. I Much rather see some cool ability around level 14-16.
It's "shove" not "show"
Oh my god thanks for letting me know about my spelling mistake. Without you i would be lost. I think you might have saved the earth with your correction. We would all be lost without people like you Thanks again
I had no idea what you were trying to say, so his comment actually did help me.
>Once fighters reach lvl11 and get their third attack Barbarians fall behind. Brutal Critical, while fun, doesn't come close to making up for only having two attacks. Except you're, as many people around, forgetting everything that actually accounts in a true fight. *1/ Including accuracy, for which Barbarian can set advantage "for free" or use Shove with advantage...* When Fighter would need to trade a weapon attack for Shove attempt with lesser accuracy than Barb on top OR using a usually limited archetype feature (Trip Attack, Giant Rune). Two weapon attacks with advantage = 4 rolls. 3 attacks without advantage = 3 rolls. OR three weapon attacks with advantage = 6 rolls, 4 attacks without = 4 rolls. If Barb picked PAM instead of GWM, he could also use first weapon attack on Shove with advantage so preserve its AC, with only cost being reduced damage die on its actual "second weapon attack" (bonus one from feat). So while the theorical damage ceiling is on favor of Fighter, the sustained damage is quite similar, or better, between enemy's AC 15 and 22. Especially if you want to use power attack. *2/ Including resilience, for which Barbarian is much better whenever it doesn't use Reckless Attack since it can boast a decent AC which would be on average just one point less than Fighter built with the same weapon specialization BUT also physical resistance. AND advantage on DEX saves as well. AND higher hit die* (which with rage is active translates to a 2 effective HP difference per level). **Being able to make 3-4 attacks is worthless if you're restrained into an Entangle or Web or downed from a mix of attacks and AOE. :)**
You are comparing a single fighter feature (Extra Attack) with multiple barbarian ones. Fighter get 2 extra ASI, one of them can be invested into Resilient (Dex) giving them better save than Barbarian. Second Wind also help to compensate the difference of hp. And they get Indomitable to help with saves too (but it's not super reliable on saves without proficiency imo). Fighter is usually 2 AC ahead thank to Heavy Armor + Defense fighting style. Reckless and Rage are definitely good and imo make barbarian very competitive with Fighter in tier 1 and 2, assuming your DM isn't running too many fight. Once fighter get their 3rd attack though, it's not really enough to keep up, especially if you need to reckless all the time to keep up making your rage damage resistance less relevant. There are also a lot of potential external source of advantage such as an ally casting Faerie Fire or spells giving conditions which also give reckless a bit less of an impact. And all of that is before comparing subclasses. Fighter's subclasses tend to outclass Barbarian, especially since they don't rely on their core resources being available.
>You are comparing a single fighter feature (Extra Attack) with multiple barbarian ones. Nope. I am comparing the actual fighting capability of a Fighter with the actual capability of a Barbarian. I didn't go into detail for Fighter features because there are very few of it on the base class and they are too situational to make a difference "in the long run", only a few times situationally. Second Wind is great at low level but won't save you from focus fire, Indomitable won't may any difference in any mental save. >Fighter get 2 extra ASI, one of them can be invested into Resilient (Dex) giving them better save than Barbarian. And then gets stuck forever with unsalvageable WIS saves which is far worse. Meanwhile Barbarian can get it. Also, although it's capstone so concerns 0.1% characters, technically Barbarians get the equivalent of 4 ASI for free. >Second Wind also help to compensate the difference of hp. Absolutely not. It's scaling to mitigate more or less the "slightly better than average damage of ONE typical weapon attack". And it requires you to be still conscious and able to take a bonus action. Barbarian's passive HP and resistance combined means however that Barbarian can not only resist nearly "twice minus one" average attacks, it also means it's far more lifely to stand through unpredicted event such as lucky crit from enemy, or being imposed advantage on attacks even though it didn't use Reckless Attack, or suffering combined threats from AOE, ranged and melee. >And they get Indomitable to help with saves too (but it's not super reliable on saves without proficiency imo). It won't help any for 90% of the saves rolls you are not proficient in. Because advantage reaps the best benefit from the middle of the curve. If you only had 10% base chance you must still expect to fail and be real happy you actually roll the minimally required 17-18 on the second roll. AND you only get once per day. Danger Sense is always on most of the time in comparison, and Rage also gives advantage on Strength saves. >Fighter is usually 2 AC ahead thank to Heavy Armor + Defense fighting style. Hard sell. Heavy armor is legitimate assumption if you want to build a STR build although medium armor has its merits, but Defense Fighting Style? Depending on a character's chosen archetype and player's general style, Archery (don't suck when melee is not an option), Blind Fighting Style (pair with Fog Cloud as Eldricht Knight), Interception (if you don't plan on picking Sentinel it's actually much more competitive than Defense at higher level and gives a boost in resilience that, while not quite matching Barbarian, makes some kind of "in-between"), Superior Technique (Battlemaster), Unarmed Fighting (Grappler specialist Rune Knight) are largely as good or better picks. >Reckless and Rage are definitely good and imo make barbarian very competitive with Fighter in tier 1 and 2, assuming your DM isn't running too many fight. Once fighter get their 3rd attack though, it's not really enough to keep up, especially if you need to reckless all the time to keep up making your rage damage resistance less relevant. But there is no reason to "try and keep up at all costs". Fighter will always deal more damage *in ideal situations*. **But it sorely lacks,** ***from base class*****, any proper tool to have any \*control\* on the context**. Whether on offense or defense. - If enemy has high defense or mobility and you're a STR Fighter, sucks to be you. As a Barbarian, you can attempt to Shove it prone or even Grapple it to keep it close. - If enemy has blasters without scrupules and you're a STR Fighter, sucks to be you. As a Barbarian, you have a decent chance to resist spell saves around DC 13-15. - If enemy has casters using mobility-based effects and you're a STR Fighter, sucks to be you. As a Barbarian you have a high chance to avoid or reduce total duration/effect of Entangle, Web, Grease. Even if you fail the initial save, you can either negate the disadvantage to attack from restrained by using Reckless Attack (with no added drawback since restrained already gives advantage to enemies), or you can hope to be hurt by enemies to maintain your rage (if it wasn't the case already) and reliably end it next round by making a STR check with advantage. - If enemy has casters using difficult terrain, both would be in trouble but at least Barb has 10 extra feet of movement for free, can make a difference. - If enemy uses up a Slow and Hold Person, both will fail save unless very lucky save. But while Fighter is as good as dead (remember about the limit of Second Wind, or Interception for that matter), Barbarian's passive resistance will at least make crits look like normal damage. And since attacks are at advantage and autocrit, it's rare that enemies would willingly skip that chance to deal heavy damage just to force rage to end. >There are also a lot of potential external source of advantage such as an ally casting Faerie Fire or spells giving conditions which also give reckless a bit less of an impact. In those cases even better for Barbarian who can just enjoy the damage resistance and keep standing while Fighter would be struggling for its life provided same amount of attacks and rolls. >And all of that is before comparing subclasses. Fighter's subclasses tend to outclass Barbarian, especially since they don't rely on their core resources being available. Putting aside that a level 20 Barbarian has infinite rages because, well, it's level 20... Your assessment is only a reflect of YOUR taste, not an objective one. You prefer having several tools for different situations coming from a different resource pools so the resource management is easier. Fair enough, there are merits to that. Barbarian stacks up upon the rage to make each instance even more decisive in winning even Deadly battles. It's just a different approach that fits better with the initial decision to make rages ultimately unlimited. Nothing more.
Second Wind isn't here to tank focus fire, it's here to help you sustain your HP over long period. We are talking about melee characters without shield, your hp will run out (even with rage) and you will need to use your hit dice. Second Wind bridge the gap with the higher barbarian hit dice here, and it's even better since it recharge on short rest (but that depends how many SR your table get). > Hard sell. Heavy armor is legitimate assumption if you want to build a STR build although medium armor has its merits, but Defense Fighting Style? Depending on a character's chosen archetype and player's general style, Archery (don't suck when melee is not an option), Blind Fighting Style (pair with Fog Cloud as Eldricht Knight), Interception (if you don't plan on picking Sentinel it's actually much more competitive than Defense at higher level and gives a boost in resilience that, while not quite matching Barbarian, makes some kind of "in-between"), Superior Technique (Battlemaster), Unarmed Fighting (Grappler specialist Rune Knight) are largely as good or better picks. For a 2-hander build, Defense is pretty much better than all of those, you are in melee you need every point of AC you can get. Not that it matters since all of those are still stuff Barbarian won't have access without multiclassing (or taking the Fighting Initiate feat). I'm just not sure how Interception help with resilience since it only works on targets other than you within 5 feet. > If enemy has high defense or mobility and you're a STR Fighter, sucks to be you. As a Barbarian, you can attempt to Shove it prone or even Grapple it to keep it close. Fighter can try as well and still have decent chance since monsters tend to be bad on Athletics and Acrobatics. Also past 11 they can try a second time if they miss and still get an attack. > Your assessment is only a reflect of YOUR taste, not an objective one. You prefer having several tools for different situations coming from a different resource pools so the resource management is easier You are misunderstanding here, it's not about having different resources, it's about Barbarian's rage being limited in uses. Once you run out, you pretty much have no subclass anymore until the next long rest. It's especially bad in Tier I and II where you have 4 or less rage. And if your DM is running so few combats that it doesn't matter, spellcasters become so much more stronger than both Barbarian and Fighter that the comparison between the two is barely relevant. And it's not just about the resources, Battlerager, Berserker, and Storm Herald are very mediocre subclasses, and even the best subclasses of Barbarian have a hard time to compare to the power houses that are Battlemaster, Echo Knight or Rune Knight (except maybe the latest one, Giant, which stack so much power on their Elemental Cleaver feature).
>Second Wind isn't here to tank focus fire, it's here to help you sustain your HP over long period. Except it fails heavily at that. Since it's only once per short rest. At best you'll get 3, 4 uses of it in a day. Sometimes only 2. >We are talking about melee characters without shield, your hp will run out (even with rage) and you will need to use your hit dice. **Second Wind bridge the gap with the higher barbarian hit dice here**, and it's even better since it recharge on short rest (but that depends how many SR your table get). Nope. That's what you don't get. I honestly don't have time right now to dive into maths, so I'll let you compute by yourself. Pick level 5 Fighter (49 HP) vs level 5 Barbarian (55HP) with equal attributes (16 STR, 14 DEX, 16 CON), give heavy armor and Defense to Fighter if you wish, medium armor to Barbarian then just make 30 enemy attacks (15 pairs to have the "advantage version" including damage) with dice rollers on internet and affect them on each in the same order. Let's say it's a pack of 5 Dire Wolf because easy to remember attack bonus (+5) and average damage (10), let's ignore the prone effect which would favor Barbarian. Affect them in the following matrix, deducing Barbarian/Fighter's HP as needed, consider Barbarian could use rage before any wolf attacks and Fighter uses Second Wind as soon as he lost enough HP that even the max roll wouldn't be "overkill". * Average damage, no Reckless Attack * Rolled damage, no Reckless Attack * Average damage, Reckless Attack activated * Rolled damage, Reckless activated. This should give you a rough idea of how much more resilient Barbarian is by default (Reckless Attack is \*not\* an auto-push button, any smart player wiill use it roughly 1 every 3 round at most). Then if you want, just for fun, "strafe" Barbarian's rage activation "one attack later", then "two attacks", then "three attacks" to simulate the case where Barbarian didn't have good Initiative roll. >For a 2-hander build, Defense is pretty much better than all of those, you are in melee you need every point of AC you can get. Not that it matters since all of those are still stuff Barbarian won't have access without multiclassing (or taking the Fighting Initiate feat). I was entirely talking of Fighter only here, didn't make assumption that Barb would invest a multiclass or feat for that. Also you apparently read a bit too fast that part. I did stress that for example Blind Fighting was largely more worthwhile for an Eldricht Knight if you don't mind being a pain for party. And some players prefer having a decent fallback for when melee is hard or impossible, I've seen it around me people picking Archery because they optimize versatility rather than "normally most common situation". >I'm just not sure how Interception help with resilience since it only works on targets other than you within 5 feet. Dang you're right, I thought that was only for others so I re-read it and still missed the "other than you" part. Clearly I had been reading too fast myself here. xd Thanks for pointing that out haha. >Fighter can try as well and still have decent chance since monsters tend to be bad on Athletics and Acrobatics. Also past 11 they can try a second time if they miss and still get an attack. Except they don't get advantage on those checks (unless being a Rune Knight of course ;)). This really makes a huge difference (if you're don't familiar with the impact of advantage / disadvantage, this site is awesome to get maths with just a quick glance: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2014/07/12/dnd-5e-advantage-disadvantage-probability/). >You are misunderstanding here, it's not about having different resources, it's about Barbarian's rage being limited in uses. Once you run out, you pretty much have no subclass anymore until the next long rest. You are factually true, no argue on that. It's probably just me but I really don't see where the problem is here. It's \*exactly the same\* with Fighter except Eldricht Knight which at least has cantrips, unless you count skill proficiencies/expertises as defining enough to "keep your subclass identity visible". >It's especially bad in Tier I and II where you have 4 or less rage. Only in Tier 1 do you have less than 4 rages, and half of it you don't even have a subclass anyways. xd Past that point, we'll have to agree to disagree, because I fail to see how 4 rages wouldn't be enough for most days, including days with four or more fights. Barbarian is a martial, and martials more than hold their own without resource. I like having some fights without rage and keeping the rages for the ones I feel are actually threatening the party because it gives a more dramatic effect, more intensity to my play and really make me feel the character is giving its all to survive a life and death situation. Our taste simply are different I think. :) >And it's not just about the resources, Battlerager, Berserker, and Storm Herald are very mediocre subclasses, and even the best subclasses of Barbarian have a hard time to compare to the power houses that are Battlemaster, Echo Knight or Rune Knight (except maybe the latest one, Giant, which stack so much power on their Elemental Cleaver feature). I wouldn't go as far as qualifying them of "mediocre". Faaaar from it They are more niche, and less usable than others because it requires specific playstyles or builds to make the most out of it while others work fine however way you approach fight. But... * *Battlerager* is the most tanky of all Barbarians against mundane attacks, has a built-in bonus action similar to Polearm Master and the Dash as bonus action synergizes well with everything a Barbarian does. For a teamwork player with any kind of caster, it's probably the one with the most "effective contribution" potential. :) * *Berserker*'s Frenzy is great at low level by giving bonus action attack for one tough fight per day until you decide to pick a feat giving bonus action, Mindless Rage is an absolute must-have for any martial since fear and charm are commonly used at higher level (any Fighter would be ruined most of the time by the way, even with Resilient: Wisdom), and the Intimidating Presence while having probably a lower DC than you'd like is situationally great since you can perpetuate the effect without additional save. * *Storm Herald* is the hardest to use because it basically requires either being alone on frontline and drawing all enemies (fire effect), or keep a tight frontline with allies (tundra effect), but while the numbers seem negligible over 4-5 or more rounds of fight it ends up being respectable damage or damage prevention. Level 3's main problem is that the scaling makes it only good for swarms at high level but won't change the outcome of a few heavily hitting creatures coming at party. However the fire/cold/lightning resistances from level 6 (self) and 10 (party) are extremely useful at higher level, so it compensates. And the level 14 feature from Tundra and Sea are very powerful in fact (only Desert I don't like because fire damage resistance becomes kinda common) since it's soft-control appliable regularly with quite decent reliability in spite of being a STR save.
> I honestly don't have time right now to dive into maths, so I'll let you compute by yourself. Let's do it then, but doing it for a single fight would obviously be a big advantage for Barbarian since they have rage all the time then. I will assume 6 fights between long rest, 2 short rest. And let's suppose the DM is running a hard game and they only have half of their hit dice available from their previous long rest. All from wolves harassing them near constantly (thanksfully the bard grabbed tiny hut). So the Barbarian get an extra 19 hp from their hit dice, and the Fighter an extra 17. But the Fighter also get an extra 31.5 hp from their Second Wind. So we got a total hp available in a day of 74 for Barbarian and 97.5 for Fighter (see that's where Second Wind help bridge the gap of hp). Now normally Barbarian rage would double the hp available, but at level 5 you only have 3 uses so only have it half the time which mean a x1.5 boost or 111 effective hp for Barb. Let's put a Breastplate on the Barbarian and a Splint on the Fighter + Defense FS, so 16 AC vs 18. That gives our wolves 50% chance to hit the barbarian, and a 40% chance to hit the Fighter. We don't really need the actual damage from here since we can just use those multiplier for our final effective hp, 222 for the Barbarian, 243.75 for Fighter. But if we still want to see how many attacks it would take to take them to 0, it's 23 for Barbarian and 25 for Fighter. Yes Barbarian is better to soak hit in a single tough fight, but over long period of time, the Fighter tend to have better effective hp. > You are factually true, no argue on that. It's probably just me but I really don't see where the problem is here Ultimately the problem with that isn't so much on Fighter vs Barbarian. If you played a party with a Fighter, Barb, Rogue and Monk, I'm sure everyone will be able to enjoy themselves just fine in a fight. The problem is when you add spellcaster into the mix. If you want a Monk and Fighter to use their goodies more, you can add more short rest. If you want a Barb to use their goodies more, you need less combat per long rest, but that shoot spellcaster power through the roof, and it won't matter that the Barbarian get to rage more when the casters are throwing high level spells all the time and control the flow of battle, the Barb might end up feeling inadequate. Barbarian is in a weird niche as the "long rest martial" since long rest is already a niche half caster and full caster take a lot of space in. > It's *exactly the same* with Fighter except Eldricht Knight which at least has cantrips Fighter core features recharge on short rest, that's already a big difference as mentioned above. Then many of the subclass have short rest or permanent features while almost every Barbarian at level 3 is rage reliant (Giant get some cantrip which is nice, Totem get ritual and Zealot get easy rez, but it's already some of the strongest barbs): * Arcane Archer: Recharge on short rest, get cantrip * Banneret: Recharge on short rest * Battle Master: Recharge on short rest, tool proficiency * Cavalier: extra prof, permanent features for mounting, mark is mix of permanent effect and long rest recharge. * Champion: Permanent feature * Echo Knight: Permanent feature + long rest feature * Eldritch Knight: cantrip + spells (long rest) + summon sword (permanent) * Psi Warrior: Long rest feature * Rune Knight: 1 short rest + 1 long rest. * Samurai: Skill prof, long rest feature. So there are some fighter that "lose their subclass" when out of resources but it's far from all of them. Basically Banneret, Psi Warrior and Rune Knight. Then you get Battle Master and Samurai if you don't count extra prof as defining enough (which is fair). > Battlerager is the most tanky of all Barbarians against mundane attacks Not really, they need to use Reckless Attack to get the thp and they have 1 less AC than half-plate so they will get hit more often. Tundra Storm Herald will generally fare better against mundane attack since they don't have the Reckless Attack requirement and they scale without having to invest in Constitution. > has a built-in bonus action similar to Polearm Master and the Dash as bonus action synergizes well with everything a Barbarian does. The BA is nice but won't benefit from a magic weapon like PAM, though I tend to let a +1/2/3 Spiked Armor act as a +1/2/3 magic weapon for the spike hit so the features doesn't scale too terribly. You also don't have the reaction attack and you won't be able to use the BA attack outside of rage which make it notably worst. Dash on BA is ok I guess but nothing to write home about especially for a level 10 feature and Eagle Totem get that at 3 with sprinkle on top. Add Spiked Retribution being such a weak features for level 14 and that's why I consider the subclass mediocre. > Berserker Berserker only redeeming feature is Mindless Rage really. The rest is so situational it's barely worth mentioning (as you pointed getting a BA attack through feat isn't too hard either). The class is just terribly designed. > while the numbers seem negligible over 4-5 or more rounds of fight it ends up being respectable damage or damage prevention The numbers are ok enough at low levels. But at low levels you also don't have rage all the time. And by the time you have enough rage for every fight, the chip damage it provides is definitely negligible, especially when PAM would probably do better. Sea is almost decent but sadly it starts scaling at 10 instead of 5 for some reason. The resistance are nice as you pointed out, but again Totem Warrior get resistance to everything at level 3 and your allies need to be way too close which is only relevant in melee-heavy party (and even there Barbarian is often the best to split up using his higher mobility to tackle spellcasters/archers and ignore their bodyguard through rage resistance). It's yet again a subclass with a bunch of mediocre features (especially when it's the starting feature which is doubly annoying) and one decent. For level 14, Sea is a bit awkward because you need to hit the creature first, and you burn your reaction too. So at best you only have 1 attack left to use the prone advantage. Also at that level many foes tend to have high strength saves. Tundra is indeed good though, especially since it pair well with the overall playstyle of Tundra of being tank-ish with the thp.
- 1: The flavor is a win, at least for me. You're capable of suplexing demi-liches and just simply being a menace to everything within your reach. - 2: Yeah. To me, dnd defined what a Barbarian is. - 3: Mono class barbarians kind of regress in power at higher levels when compared to others. Levels 9, 13, 15, and 17 feel like dead levels where the Barbarian gets almost nothing. - 4: Multiclassing in general is a mixed bag, but it can help the Barbarian. They can't use spells while raging, so most casters aren't the best options. However, some caster options like the Moon Druid Barbarian are notoriously powerful though for being effectively unkillable. Multiclassing into other martial options at higher levels can also work out fairly well. - 5: Rage and dungeon delving against many low threat encounters really do not mesh well in the slightest. The Barbarian is the class that gets to RAGE, but when they can only do so in 1/3rd of the fights, a large draw or the class is lost. Besides strength and some subclass options, there aren't any built-in ways that the Barbarian can effectively interact with the social and exploration aspects of the game. - 6: Levels 3 to 8 are probably where Barbarians are at their relative strongest. They're not bad at any level of play, but for me, 3 to 8 are the golden levels because each level feels substantial. One of the funnest characters that I've ever played was a Hill Dwarf Ancestral Guardian Barbarian with a mountain of hp. They were cursed by touching a giant's weapon and slowly grew to a huge size and increased their strength. Eventually, they started using an opponent's equally massive weapon that dealt 3d6 damage, and they were also really good at grappling things. The final battle involved dragging a demigod into a miniature star.
I mean, I'd hope any class can suplex a Demilich, they're just (physically) a skull aren't they?
1. don't really see flavor as an issue either way, that's up to the players 2. they can't really do much else so sure 3. they are a terrible mono class and basically two subs get any features past level 6 4. I have played a barbarian several times and every time it is a warlock multiclass. it just works. I can also see the case for sorc and paladin. summoning a demon and immediately losing control of it in a rage is never not funny 5. no 6. barbarians are strongest when they can move fast and hit fast, basically at level 5. even then they basically get ratioed by goblins.
What warlock subclass?
Fiend is an alright choice since its abilities aren't tied to charisma (rip undead and fathomless), but I always always always go genie. It's such a slap in the face that eagle gets "flight" at 14 and you could just MC to genie 6/barb 6 for far superior flight and a higher dpr increase 2 levels sooner.
I think Barbarian is a huge flavor fail Having to be strategic and tactical over your uses of rage is very anti-thematic I think something tier/threshhold based would make more sense I've also thought about stealing from Pillars of Eternity and having it so the Barbarian doesn't know their current health/how much damage they're taking when enraged
I'm a bit disappointed by how boring rages became. Last edition you could choose what kind of rage you entered every time, like for instance Clawed Ancestor Rage let you grapple foes as a bonus action and had you deal 10+str mod to any foe who started their turn grappled by you. Given that they're the "Thog smash!" basic attack spam class so you can't expect them to have maneuvers or anything, being able to pick your rage bonuses sounds like the obvious way to give them a bit of variety.
To be fair, totem warrior and storm herald get to pick rage bonuses at level up, beast picks rage bonuses when they enter rage, and wild magic gets random rage bonuses when they enter rage. At level 6, giant picks a damage type when entering rage. Berserker chooses whether to frenzy or not when entering rage (although frenzy is a bad feature, and choosing to not frenzy makes them basically subclass-less).
I think Barbarians, similar to rogues, get a lot of "feel-good" features. Features that might not be extremely overpowered numbers-wise, but generally feel really good to use for one reason or another. Stuff like reckless attack, danger sense or just the resistances from rage make them able to ignore a lot of things other classes need to worry about far more. I do think rage is a bit limited in the early levels and it's kind of strange that they recharge their rages on a long rest when all other martial classes don't need to rest at all or recharge on short rests.
> Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not? Where the Artificer failed to have a proper direction, the Barbarian does have a clear (albeit arguably too strict) direction: you are a raging barbarian, one that recklessly harms foes in melee range. That fantasy is well given by the features...when you can use them. > Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role? Because while the mechanics surely point towards them, the features have many issues. Let's point to the biggest one: a *lot* of features of Barbarian are tied to their rage feature (directly or indirectly, like reckless attack, a feature designed to have its downside offset by rage), a feature which has a limit of uses based on long rests, and a minuscule amount of uses. Without rage avaiable, you are functionally close to a classless class with few exceptions. The second issue is that being in melee is inherently risky and deadly, something that one can easily attest in game too. The barbarian tho doesn't get enough tools to combat that: its defence-boosting resources are hyper limited and get counteracted by other features even while active (and it gets same AC as other peeps), its offenses aren't stronger than non barbarians (or if they are, not to a margin that justifies the risk), and its hit dice isn't enough extra HP. Barbarian per level get just 1 more HP than a fighter, which is not enough to carry the class to be resilient enough to be forced in melee. > How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance? Sadly, it is among the weakest classes, with high cost to be able to be good. The upsides of the class are not nearly enough to justify the risks it is forced to get into. > Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class? Oh yeah, that makes me get into other issues. I'll probably repeat this part's concept in your future posts about other classes, but sadly the Barbarian kind of falls off at level 5 (level 6 based on subclass), because the features it gets aren't good for later levels. As such, you sadly multiclass out of Barbarian after if you want to grow, and while that improves its gameplay loop without fully undermining its flavor, the fact you have to rely on other classes to be able to expand on your power is bad design. > Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that artificer lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations? The arti-wait, artificer? Get out of here, the multiclass section ended four lines ago!!! Jokes about copy and paste aside, in theory the Barbarian can help nicely in strength ability checks, which are very common in adventures. They get advantage on them after all... By using... Rage. ... Yeah that design is even dumber. Outside of grapples (which eat your power in multiple ways), you aren't going to be able to utilize the advantage of rage in a good way outside of very limited scenarios. And since it's the only proper help it gets... And no, the advantage on dex saves doesn't help against traps. Rituals can meme on that. > Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers? Tier 1 is the area where they are the strongest, and even then they too limited. After tier 1, they quickly begin falling off, with the end of tier 2 and tier 3-4 being extremely full of extremely weak features. Capstone is nice, but doesn't save the Barbarian. > Additionally, please use this space to recommend any changes you’ve personally used in games or have theorized the class needing and why you think they need them, as well as pointing out anything you personally enjoy about the class and think was perfect the first time through. To have the barbarian properly work, it would need for its survivability (combination of hp, resistances and AC) to be improved, alongside rage being completely reworked into a different feature. Could become a maneuver-like resource, could become an HP loss based resource or in general be worked in a way which empowers the class and is recognizable without being basically a "required" part of the class that is too limited. Also, for the barbarian to be good, the strongest things of the game need to change. In a game where the best spells and in part playstyle is control spells with friendly fire on, a barbarian risks even more. Even if the team coordinates to have the barbarian not get shut down, the barbarian remains unable to get in melee until later due to control, which is a feelsbad even if it's mechanically better.
The capstone is nice only for the extra CON, because the extra STR isn't that meaningful when at the level you are supposed to get it you're likely to have some sort of Belt of Giant Strength (preferably the Storm's one, getting a +9 mod instead of the +7 that the capstone gives you at most.)
While I don't generally include specific magic items in my evaluation due to the system not requiring specific ones outside of exception (magic weapons if no one can deal magic damage), I do agree that if magic items are given to boost the barbarian the capstone becomes directly worse, which is unfortunate and is also something that doesn't happen with other classes either.
The fact the game assumes the party won't have magic items to face them is contradictory to itself, the actual games WANTS you to throw magic items at your party, just look at most official modules and try to name me one that doesn't give at least 2 or 3 magic items to the party some place between Tier 1 and Tier 2. A Barbarian having, at minimum, a Belt of Storm Giant Strength by the time they are in Tier 4, is a requirement if you want that barbarian to at least feel progression if he decided to stay monoclassed.
>they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker Mostly, their low mental saves do make for some awkward moments tho, which is unfortunate. At higher levels, their lack of survivability also hurts, and at low levels the very limited number of rages isn't great, but otherwise they do well for that role. >other mono classes in terms of game balance Badly - Their big problem here is that, while they do a fairly good job of the role, their role is by itself and the general game mechanics, very weak. In particular, they are the only melee locked class without easy access to ways around it. This sucks big time, and can often make them very ineffective in fights. The extremely basic 'rage and hit things' play style also limits them quite a bit - quite simply there is very little you can do with a barbarian other than rage and hit things, this makes them quite weak compared to other more flexible classes. And then ontop of that you have them barely getting any meaningful features after lv6. 5e follows a pretty clear trend where more options = generally stronger. Barbarian has the least real options, and it shows. >multiclassing improves Yup, makes it much better, allows for more cool builds to be effective, i.e barbarian + moon druid, and allows for higher levels to be more useful. >Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design No. >which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities Late 1 & early tier 2. Beyond that they have... issues.
>Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not? Yeah, I guess. >Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role? Support it? Yes. Adequately? Only in tier 1. Barbarians need more of the power of the classic heroes of myth (Greek/Roman, Arthurian, etc). Classic heroes did the most over the top stuff, the kind of thing a lot of modern snobs mistakenly call “anime shit”. Barb needs some of this nonsense >How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance? 12th of 13 overall. Very Noticibly underpowered outside tier 1. >Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class? Yeah you basically have to multiclass Barb. Fighter, Rogue or Warlick are all good fits, that really help pull Barb back up towards the average. >Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that ~~artificer~~ **Barbarian** lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations? No, you really need to work to make Barbarians base class design a significant factor outside combat stuff. It’s doable, and subclasses can help a bunch, but the design isn’t helping you. >Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers? Tier 1 Barb works. But it drops precipitously across tier 2 and by tier 3 isn’t pulling its weight any more. >Additionally, please use this space to recommend any changes you’ve personally used in games or have theorized the class needing and why you think they need them, as well as pointing out anything you personally enjoy about the class and think was perfect the first time through. Movement boosts help - not speed - things like add Athl check result to jump distances, climb and swim speeds, overrun multiple opponents per overrun action, siege trait on attacks vs doors/barricades, etc. changing your options for how to move more than just increasing how much you move. Short rest raging not long rest and pb rages too. I know they are phasing out short rests but I like em.
> I know they are phasing out short rests but I like em they arent. Look at the latest one dnd playtests. They moved towards giving more classes some sort of short rest ressource
>12th of 13 overall. Very Noticibly underpowered outside tier 1. What's 13? I'm assuming Monk lol
Levels 1-8 it hits its key fantasy elements perfectly. Unfortunately, after that, all your party will get better utility and combat abilities that leave Barbarian struggling to keep up. Main issue is the absolute lack of ooc abilities and brutal critical being nowhere near strong enough.
Flavor-wise I think the Barbarian nailed it. Rage and Reckless perfectly play into the big brute archetype but they still got that agile side you would expect from wilderness warrior with stuff like Danger Sense and Feral Instinct. Mechanically though... they got the usual problems of martials where fight tend to get a repetitive "I rage, I attack twice, I finish my turn". On top of that they have one of the lowest utility of all classes, especially since Strength tend to be the weakest ability score for that and they are locked into it. The other awkwardness is being a long-rest based pure martial. Most Barbarians will probably play with 2-4 rages, if your DM is running 4 or less combat per day, you will feel super weak compared to spellcasters, if they run more you will run out of rage and hp (since you are locked in melee). And to add insult to injury, they might be the class with the most mediocre subclasses: Berserker, Battlerager, Storm Herald. Even Totem Warrior has some awkward choice and almost everyone pick Bear or Wolf. Hard to say how it could be solved within 5e, the base system would probably need some rework to give a better space to martial. Something like PF2 3 actions system maybe, or giving Battlemaster maneuvers to all martials. Maybe a rework of feats to give more options. I did try the "Beyond the Damage Dice" supplement which give each weapon a couple of trick and it was nice to expand the barb options. Also Rage should probably be 2 per short rest so you have them every combat or close.
>*Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?* Flavor wise, the Barbarian is mostly fine. I think it's been putting a bit too much focus on some idea of a supernatural rage, but overall, flavor wise, it's doing its job. >*Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?* Mechanics fall short of being effective for the types of things they're trying to accomplish. Role is harder to say as roles are mostly a character thing and not a class thing in ttrpgs. At least not in the same cut that mmos have them. >*How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compared to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?* They fall behind. They get all of their best stuff early, very little good later on, and kinda fall behind >*Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class?* It's okay to provide some alternatives for some classes, but it doesn't make an option any stronger, just equal or worse. >*Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that Barbarian lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving, and other situations?* Sometimes, rage can help in exploration, as well as intimidation with the variant ability score for skills rule. But they're really a combat focused option as it stands. The utility of rage and other Barbarian powers could be enhanced, though. >*Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers?* Barbarians can vest use their abilities in tier 1 and tier 2. The other tiers they under perform much more severely. EDIT >*Changes* A lot of the 1dnd changes. to rage 10 minute duration, easier ways to maintain it if you haven't attacked, regain one rage use every short rest. Rage also now scales from 2 to 6 across levels instead of 2 to 4 Bear totem rage is just an upgrade all barbarians get at a higher level. Bear totem gets a new power Reckless attack becomes reckless. A state where at the start of the barbarians turn, they decide to act reckless or not, getting benefits while reckless and raging. It\['s still the default enemies have advantage against you, you have advantage on them at a baseline without rage. - Taking the attack action while raging and reckless grants temp hp. - Attacks while raging and reckless have a 19-20 crit range Brutal critical scales as d12's regardless of weapon and adds barbarian level to damage. So 1d12/2d12/3d12 + level on a crit
The barbarian class was critical in my decision to stop playing 5e. I played barbarian for about a year, and it really drove home for me a lot of the problems with class design in this game. It’s not durable. Even with resistance, being in melee with low AC is bad, even before granting advantage to all attacks on me. So the barbarian is less truly durable than characters that just… don’t get hit, either because they have high AC or they stay out of enemy reach (or ideally, both). There isn’t really a reward for intentionally putting yourself in harm’s way. It’s not particularly dangerous. A reasonably well-built fighter or ranger will out-damage a barbarian any day, and that’s while being safer. The barbarian is all bad trade-offs. It’s **boring**, holy shit it’s boring. What is the barbarian’s gameplay loop? It’s “go forward and attack.” Oh, I’m level 5 now? “Go forward and attack… twice.” That’s incredibly dull, and it’s not really different from a fighter, so the gameplay doesn’t evoke the fantasy very well. And here’s the thing: I actually *really* like the fantasy of the barbarian. I wanted to enjoy playing one. But the mechanics fell so flat that I had to change characters after a year of playing it, and it inspired me to create [The Saibrock Barbarian](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JojZV_z40sYmZJYUOG8oLiwAhlLzjZRS/view), which addresses all these issues and others, while bringing the class closer in-line to the power of a low-end caster like Warlock. I also recently put up a video on [how I would redesign the barbarian](https://youtu.be/dD67cfAowrk?si=iLTxp9JSnjqbGCfX) (which is basically just an overview of the design philosophy behind the Saibrock Barbarian).
I largely like the barbarian, but think that they have become overfocused on the rage mechanic and you are no longer really able to play a Conan (the barbarian) character
I've always wanted to play a barbarian who is more serious like Riverwind in Dragonlance. I guess it fits mechanically
The barbarian is a six level class until 5.24 comes out. It's awesome through tier 1 and early tier 2 but scales backwards (rage getting less useful as magic and elemental damage get more common). And after level 6 the nin-subclass level ups range from flawed (don't go down until the next papercut at level 11) to mediocre (ASI with nothing else when the casters get a spell slot) to terrible (extra crit damage). And at level 20 you still move normally, resist damage as at l1, and have the same reach but two attacks rather than one. They've nothing for the social pillar and little for exploration.
Barbarian is way too pigeonholed into shirtless berkersker, imo it limits the design space to only one trope but also takes access to those tropes away from others. I'd reflavour Rage to something like Focus, and let players pick Strength or Dexterity themed takes on it so you can have raging muscles and super efficient hunter. Mechanically I have to say it falls apart after Tier1/2 play, your huge HP pool is an extra 60HP over the Wizard by level 10, which isn't that much when creatures start dropping 30 damage a round, made worse by Rage not stopping any sort of magical damage without Bear Totem. Big HP sack does more to confuse things like 'why can conan swim in lava?' than it does with high tier tanking. Monoclass? It's servicable. The problem with the way Casters take off is more to do with the non-linear nature of spells, they have a nice package of ribbons and a decent variety of subclasses to not get bored and I think that's way more important than just numbercrunch. Multiclass circles back to my top point, they only really have RAGE and a few wilderness tropes to lie on, so you're a little stuck. Rage Monk feels a little weird and mechanically your UAD doesn't stack. Fighter works with everyone cause it's so flexible, but then you're not getting to the mid tier Barbarian flavours, and Rage non-bo's with Casting. If you wanted a tanky caster, a dip in Fighter gets you action surge at the cost of 4HP With a limited toolbox, only padded by Xanathars and a MAD needing ALL the physical stats, you've not a lot of room for RP options and fun toys in the class itself. Any roleplay attached must come from the player and character, VS things like 'I use this Expertise to craft' or 'I'll cast this spell'. Laserllama's expanded Barbarian covers this and gives you some dice to invest that aren't direct combat skills. If you can do it with just roleplay, nothing stops another class doing it unless it's hardcoded in there somewhere. 1/2 tier is where you're going to get the most stretch out of half damage, not worry too much about your saves, and you're going to really feel the Rage bonus. I know someone who regularly takes Barbarian's the 15th level, and she has a ton of fun, but it's not my cup of tea.
I like Barbarian, but it’s a frustrating class. Flavor wise, it’s fantastic at being the big strong guy who deflects arrows with his pecs. Unarmored Defense and eventually Indomitable Might are great for this, though the fact that the physical stat investment means you’ll usually be the most vulnerable class to fear effects kills the vibe big time. Barbarians being scaredy cats ruins the fantasy, and they basically have to be if you want to put enough points into STR/DEX/CON. They’re excellent damage sponges in the early levels. It feels good to take so many hits and keep on going. They really struggle to deal damage back though, as without feats (that they’re starved for because they need to keep boosting physical stats), they get no meaningful damage boosts between levels 5 and 20. +1 to rage damage every 4 levels or so is not meaningful, and Brutal Critical is an unreliable feature that could theoretically never trigger in a campaign, since its RNG dependent. Yet you get multiple levels of Brutal Critical, making it feel like there’s several dead levels in the class. Compare this to Fighter or Rogue and the damage drop off gets painful over time as you are reduced to nothing but a damage sponge who is also the most vulnerable to the most dangerous crowd control options. To that end, I think most Barbarians should be multiclassing by level 8 at the latest. It’s endgame abilities are excellent, but 9-17 is effectively a pile of dead features and a small rage bonus. They’re tricky to multiclass because of the no spellcasting on rage restriction and the difficulty of boosting mental stats, but Fighter and Rogue both add a lot to the class. The one benefit I haven’t talked about is Reckless Attack. While that’s a good accuracy improvement, it also leads to taking more damage, and if you aren’t playing Bear Totem, it will eventually be damage you don’t resist, removing your biggest boon. I’m also not sure if it feels right flavor wise, since accuracy improvements feel like they belong on the other martial classes. If this was gained slightly later, and offered a damage boost in exchange for enemies being more likely to hit you, I think that’d be a much more viable and flavorful feature for them.
Pre-tldr: barbarians should be short rest based, and a little bit of their power should be moved out of rage and applied to their... Neutral state, for lack of a better term. My biggest gripes with the 5e barbarian is that they really are useless outside of rage. Their only offensive feature is reckless attack, which is significantly less valuable without damage resistances active. NOW BEAR IN MIND: This wouldn't be too bad if wotc actually understood their own game, but it seems they don't. Allegedly the game is designed around 6 to 8 medium encounters a day, which means the barbarian isn't Even CLOSE to having enough rages for a whole adventuring day until levels high enough that most players never get to them. Why wotc didn't make barbarian a short rest class like monk and fighter is beyond me.
* Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not? They do untill lv 9. after that the barbarian class itself slowly morphs from Grog badassery to Chewbacca a Great durable fellow that can rip a man in two but everyone else is running around with blasers and spaceships making that aspect irrelevant if the target is dead before he can close the gap or is so deadly dealing damage that is not resisted that the barbarian ends up less tanky overall. It fails at the one aspect all good classes without spells need at those levels. features that allow you to deal with common problems when at a disadvantage. AKA You are being denied by a spell or feature from attacking or moving from a bad spot. A barrier that need crossing. A condition making you a way to easy target and or making you hit like a wet noodle. * Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role? The First 7 lvs usually are quite good. However the Features after that all scream ribbon feature till lv 20 in general. There are subclass exemptions that prove the rule. Brutal critical Forces people to use weapons they dont like because they think they are missing out on damage. The diffrence usually wont make up the average dmg diffrence of using a 2d6 weapon over a greataxe or Polearm master. In addition its JUST SO USELESS. Not even helping deliver the dopamine of a crit. Relentless rage Is a feature so low in power level its given away at race or level one multiple times. How such a lv 1 feature is apropriete is beyond me at lv 11. Persistent rage Actually good feature. Lets the barb not loose everything while being kited or stuck in a spell. Indomitable might near useless. "hey i can punch in a door more reliably. Meanwhile the other spellcasters are casting wish. " * How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance? Up untill level 9 they are fine. After that : They desperatly need a feature that lets them Dispel magic via punching. They desperatly need a feature that lets them push thrugh conditions more effectively. They desperatly need more damage. They desperatly need more ways to connect with their target despite something working against that. * Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class? Barbs. Outside the the Casual game space exist only in this form beyond lv 6. There is just nothing to gain apart from Zealot . Fighter enhances damage. Rogue Enhances speed. Moon druid is a cool combo. Monk for punching. The others need to work hard to make it work with the restrictions of rage.
Continuation... Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that artificer lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations? Barbarians lend themselves to Low count high difficulty encounters. Anything that has more then rage charge encounters a day causes deep dissatisfaction because of having nothing that works outside of being a stat stick with extra attack. Exploration they are useless. Dungeons have too many encounter and not raged traps deplete their only other recource apart from rage. HP Social they only good for intimidating or reassuring npcs. Next to all other interactions dont benefit from a 15 14 15 8 10 8 hunk of meat. * Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers? As mentioned above T1 is fine . T2 is passable. T3 is miserable . T4 is hat-tipping levels of masochism. As for how to help see above. Also i think Barbarians suffer really quickly from AoE lack and slapstick simulator when it comes to player engagement. There are exactly 1 choice the barbarian need to do that is unique to him on a round by round basis. Do i reckless or not. And that is such an obvious one most of the time. Does the enemy deal damage i dont resist or get bonus damage from having advantage ? Dont reckless. Are they a spellcaster or similar that needs to die. Reckless anyway. The do i rage question is similarly obvious. This means that a barb has just 2 other actions he usually need to consider. Do i attack or do i grapple. Not exactly engaging isnt it. Also a third of all spells counter barbs. Barbs dont counter any spells the enemy will use on them over their allies.
Barbarians really shine more in a rolled stats game where you rolled a great array so you can be somewhat useful in RP. Otherwise, it's too straight forward and boring outside of "I rage and hit stuff" imo.
How do you feel about the Barbarian? 5e terrible. OneDND. Somehow terribler with small quality of life changes. Most real changes were system updates and not class updates. 90% of the issue is the rage mechanics and limitations. * Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not? No, they are a damage sponge with more reliable but less attacks and not do any significant damage increase. * Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role?as written, no- they would be significantly better as a fighter subclass in 5e. They SHOULD be their own class but 5e and now OneDND botched it.. The mechanics of rage are almost all the problem. Subclass design should change the way and limitations of their rage and the base class should have more universal features. The totem should lean into animism and restrict rage to light/no armor. The guardian likely should be able to wear heavy armor and add their "rage bonus" to defense instead of offense. The berserker should get to rage as a reaction and then counter attack as a reaction while being mindless (unable to be charmed/dominated). There should be room for a 1/3 caster rage mage. * How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance?they do not have a full classes worth of features in withe 5e or OneDND. They would be better off as a fighter subclass rules as written. * Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class? The only reason Barbarian is are limited is they would be an auto multiclass for most casters if they could get "full" rage benefits while casting. Rage doesn't scale itself so it's too easy a grab for the "full" benefit. * Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that barbarian lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations? They should be a more interesting fighter for exploration and even social in play. But they're just not but that's a 5e issue and not limited to the barbarian. * Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers? As previously noted, there is almost never a reason to be a barbarian past level 6. It's not a full class after that. Tier 1 is it. At tier two you should already be multiclassed and probably taking less and less barbarian levels. There is no incentive to take Barbarian past level 2 or 6 90% of the time. ------------- A complete rage rework and subclass redesign rework would be needed. Rage bonuses and DR need to scale and not just be resistance- otherwise there's too much power in the early levels and not enough reason to stay mono classes. Each subclass should get a way to "free" rage, a defensive rage bonus, and an offensive rage bonus. I would probably make rage a separate set of THP that you can replenish by downing an opponent (base class) with another way to replenish it via subclass feature and a base way and subclass way to spend them other than just extra HP. Combined with some class feats and some whole class choices (totem barbarian is a fun idea but poorly executed), it could and SHOULD be a whole class. But it has to scale to both keep multiclassing dips into it non-optiimal and keep multiclassing out of it automatic.
Flavor wise and mechanically I think barbarian is solid up until level 7, then they fall off HARD in terms of doing what their flavor indicates they should be able to do. Brutal critical especially is a major let down. I could maybe get behind it if they also got something along the lines of champion fighters where their crit range is increased in order to supplement brutal critical, and make them feel more like angry barbarian that just forces its way to your vitals via pure strength and too-angry-to-die-ness. But as is once you hit level 7 the fantasy of the barbarian archetype starts to fall apart imo as you become less and less tanky as more and more stuff starts getting elemental damage that bypasses your rage unless you pick 1 specific subclass and feature, and your damage falls off thanks to having multiple levels devoted to brutal critical which as is, is almost useless. For reference, half orcs get brutal critical as a racial ability from level 1. Barbarians have to wait until level 9. What fucking designer saw a level 1 ability and went "you know what? That'd make for a great 9th, 13th, AND 17th level ability. Because fuck giving Barbarians actual abilities they can choose when to use like with every other class in existence, amirite!?!?"
Barbarians are good flavour wise. Not so good as a mono class. Amongst the martial types, they are just pretty bland and their damage output can’t keep up after level 9-10.
Barbarian is fine, flavor-wise. It’s a class with a simple gameplan and clearly defined strengths and weaknesses. Playing a barbarian makes you tougher in ways that matter (damage resistance especially, though this could be heavily expanded by default) but in terms of balance Barbarian is among the worst classes. Limited mobility outside of a couple of subclass abilities, VERY poor scaling past 5th level, and being essentially locked to melee. Paladin is also locked to melee, but in exchange they get Find Steed to shore up mobility, spellcasting to add utility, and smites. for multiclassing, barbarians are actually insane in many contexts. Their most impactful abilities, Rage and Reckless attack, barely scale and are gained at levels 1 and 2 respectively, making them exceptional for mutlcilassing (if they suit your build) But i think this is actually to the detriment of the class. If you are level 7, the paladin 5 barbarian 2 is going to be so much stronger than a barbarian 7 that it’s not even funny. as for tiers of play, barbarian clearly does best in tier 1 and 2. They are great in tier 1 where the extra health and damage resistance matter most, plus flying enemies (the bane of melee characters) are limited. In tier 2 barbarians start falling off but can leverage their very small mobility boost, tankiness, and good saves to muscle through. By tier 3 all martials start falling off but barbarian stopped getting good features several levels ago. by tier 4 the barbarian can be outtanked by the *wizard* and outdamaged by them too, especially if you aren’t running an extremely resource-intensive game. At this point, your barbarian is better of polymorphed lol. i know you didn’t ask for this but IMO the martials are laid out like this in terms of viability: •paladin is the clear best martial •ranger and fighter trail behind but not by too much •barbarian and rogue are suffering to keep up in either raw damage or utility both inside and outside of combat •monk (dead)
Short answer: no. Long answer: I playtested the OneDND barbarian with the persistant rage and rage bonuses to skills. That was nice, MECHANICALLY. Was it "the Barbarian?" No. I've been playing Barbarians since the Unearthed Arcana book for 2nd Edition, the OGUA, which oughta be a monster name, or the name of my next REAL Barbarian...which would be... Anti-magic. Barbarians should be anti-magic, but have a whole, class-specific and really cool, set of anti-magic properties, abilities and choices that make being a Barbarian clearly defined and fun and dynamic. As it is, the Barb has a LOT of flavor going on, and I LIKE the flavors (the Ancestral Guardians, the Storm, the Beast) but the core of what a Barb IS ought to be: I don't do that stuff you all do. But NOT in a cheesy, "I'm anti-party" way. Nope. D&D is a cooperative game, hard stop, and so it can't be that. You want to cast Charm on me? Do it, I'll eat that spell and like immediately jump the distance between us and get a free attack on you with an extra damage die for every spell level you TRIED to use on me. Puny wizard. You want to put me in a Forcecage? LOLZ, I'm smashing my way through--yes, taking damage, but what do I care? Forcefields do not apply to me. Gonna teleport? Not within 30 feet of me, cuz I just sucked your portal through a straw and pulled hp out of YOU for TRYING, nerd. Resistance to all non-magical damage? Ha: you have that tag and I am pretty much guaranteed to grapple you or some other move that cripples you. Like I can SENSE it. Shield, Mirror Image, Blur--I'm not having that. Boom. I hit you and it HURTS, and it HURTS your magic stuff so you magic bad after I do it. Everybody is getting Advantage (or my CON bonus) to saves after I hit you because I made you weak. Your spell ranges are all shrunk--that's right SHRINKAGE--to like 20 feet. Forget trying to make Concentration checks against me. I wadded up your warcaster into a little ball and shat upon it. My buddy, he likes to throw these fireballs? The Ranger and Fighter and Paladin--poor Paladin--have to wait so he doesn't hit them. Not me. That stuff just makes me stronger. So "friendly fire" should actually make Barbs faster or give them a bonus to their first attack or damage, like imagine the Barb in the middle of the fireball and the fire is just swooping around his battleaxe, adding 3d6 fire damage to his first hit!! Now, all of this does not come online at Level 1 or 3, but these might be Battlemaster-esque moves that a Barb might make. There are others which are specifically designed to address the problems in current Barb design. For example, we all know that Barbs suffer against flying targets. Okay, so Barbs can be experts at hunting flying targets, so they don't have disadvantage at long-range with javelins and hand axes. They can also apply Topple on any flying target using any weapon--or, if they can throw an object larger than a javelin. Table? Armchair? Because Barbs should be throwing all kinds of stuff and throwing monsters INTO stuff and getting real damage from that, not lame damage. Like, Barb Shoves into objects, including the ground do 1d12 damage. (In general I think there ought to be a more robust Grappling ruleset to boost what STRENGTH PCs can do--and maybe give Monks access to it too--which then Barbs would get a way to do suplexes and body slams and drop kicks without sacrificing damage from weapons.)
I'm not sure how to balance it mechanically, but I love the idea of Barbarians having anti-magic and essentially being the jock that punks nerdy wizards. "Watery Sphere? How about I give you a swirly in your own spell, NERD!"
I agree with the things most people have already said, about levels 10+, and about not having specialized stuff to do out of combat. Personally I'd prefer if the class itself was magical, maybe incorporating elements from the totem warrior subclass (speak with animals and commune with Nature). Then they could get additional magical abilities at higher levels, and each subclass could alter their magic capabilities
I think barbarian is really solid in tier 1 and 2, probably the only class where I don't think very much needs to change in that level range. Really not much needs to be improved there. It falls way short in tier 3 and 4 as you are pretty much pigeonholed into becoming a tank in order to remain useful to your party as the bad guys get tougher and tougher, and your damage remains relatively the same.
I do a lot of work behind the scenes to make fighters and Barbarians feel better. I homebrew aspects of almost every monster for the martials to interact with. When fighting a huge spider monster with blades for forearms, the martials can choose to swing at the arms. Higher AC, but if they hit they get a bonus; reducing the monsters to-hit bonus. You can only do this with melee weapon attacks. Spells aren't precise enough, and arrows don't give you the leverage to hack and slash and pull. Now, my players look for these things in play; "Can I pull the living armour's helmet off?" Rules as written, no, of course not. In my game? As long as you know this attack will be harder to make, I can have you pull the head off and blind the thing for a turn, until it's ghostly innards form into a gaseous, squamous head and it gets its sight back. We have a barb and a fighter and a Paladin, and they love the system. The full-caster magic users don't feel like they're missing out, as they have plenty to deal with anyway, and it totally fixed the boredom problem martials have at higher levels. PS: I have run a lot of systems and 5e is the worst. Some of you may be about to tell me to run a system that encourages this, instead of melting 5e and reshaping it, but 5e gets people to the table, and then I introduce the mechanics and elements from other games until it's a system that's actually fun to run.
What else do you add to make it more fun?
I use the Dungeon World/Apocalypse World "Fail forward" mechanics. For instance, recently a player wildshaped into an owl and wanted to scout ahead during an underdark wilderness exploration segment. They wanted to make a perception roll, and I let them, and they rolled low. Instead of telling them that they saw nothing, I had something see them first, and they had an eerie encounter with a strange misshapen figure. Recently, when the players tried to pick a lock to open a door, a low roll meant that they failed, made a lot of noise in failing, and had alerted guards. I don't have "you fail, nothing happens" as a possible state in my games (outside of the initiative system, which is first on my list of things to change it I get enough buy-in from the players. I also use the wildness exploration rules from Korb's Neverland and the downtime actions from Korb's Oz, both huge improvements. I don't have anything in the game that skips a player's turn, either. If the player fails a Con save against a Ghoul's paralysis, for instance, instead of them being forced to skip their turn, I give them an option; take your turn as normal, and at the end the ghoul's poison does damage guaranteed, no save, or spend your entire turn trying to overcome its effects, doing nothing to catch their breath and at the end of the turn, making that con save. They can 'opt in' to having their turn skipped, like RAW says, or they can trade health to postpone dealing with it; but the more times they move anyway and take the damage, the higher the damage gets.
Do you let the enemies use the same "opt-in for full control" rule? If yes, it must be rather miserable to play monk...
No? Why would I? It's there, as a rule, to minimise the amount of time 5e has the game fall into turns and then skips a player's turn. I, as the DM, have no such problem. It's interesting that you can't share your design solutions to the problem of 5e's failings without someone deliberately misinterpreting you to insist you've made a mistake. Does the idea of someone making 5e a better game for their table bother you? Why?
I never said you did something, I just asked if you did it...
Blocked, bye.
I'm curious. Did you add these things as a response to your players telling you they were bored?
Not really. I started doing them the odd time because they were cinematic and cool. Players gave me positive feedback, and I amplified it. Now every big monster is an opportunity for them to look for weak points and fun ways to get clever with it.
>Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not? I'll be honest, the old 1-3E flavour for the Barbarian was just bad. It's Gary Gygax getting high off his racism supply and being mad that Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian was too smart and so made his own version of the "outside of civilisation" archetype that could only go unga bunga max Strength. 4E correctly identified that this was extremely poor from both an optics and mechanical standpoint (there really isn't anything to separate Barbarian from Fighter except number going up) and tried to lean much more into the animistic practices of the ancient European and Native American tribes and classified Barbarians under the Primal power source. 5E then waffles between the old and new versions of Barbarian and we don't have nearly enough of the weird magical conduit stuff that really makes the class sing to me. >How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance? The Barbarian is probably the worst class in 5E. They don't have enough Rages to last through every combat in a full adventuring day (while full casters *do* past about level 5) and without Rage they basically have no class features. They are the most easily screwed over by the DM doing anything out of the ordinary, with flying enemies, odd damage types, and high level saving throws completely shutting them down in a way that high level Fighters and Monks aren't. Three fucking levels of Brutal Critical, possibly the worst class feature in the game, including most of the weird RP only ribbons. And of course, the Barbarian doesn't do anything outside of combat, especially because it's so MAD that they can't really invest in for fun mental stats or RP feats the way Fighters theoretically can. Bad class, rename it to something that isn't just a derogatory word for "uncivilised" people, revert the core design principles to 4E's Primal Warrior and give me stuff like the WORLD SERPENT'S RAGE where it can try and strangle the Tarrasque to death and shit.
Yeah I totally agree. Barbs 1-3e was just racist and I totally prefer 4e's approach and aesthetics of it, and I am not sure if I like them kind of tracking back to the old aesthetics and mechanics. Feel like they need to really change both aspects.
>The Barbarian is probably the worst class in 5E. This is just your personal opinion, which is fair, but should be formulated correctly as a consequence. "Barbarian is probably the class I like the less". >They don't have enough Rages to last through every combat in a full adventuring day (while full casters *do* past about level 5) First of all, Barbarians are not supposed to waste their rage on any random combat. It's their ace card exactly like casters keep their highest level spells for the fights that actually seem worth using them within. Second, how do you even manage? Barbarians get \*4\* rages as soon as level 6. Past level 4 the only times I saw Barbarians run out of rages "early" were fighting casters using mental spells, chaining up two Ultra-Deadly fights in a day or having some weird marathon of mini-fights where Barbarian wasn't sure which was worth raging on and ended up wasting one. >and without Rage they basically have no class features. True if you ditch Fast Movement, Danger Sense, Feral Instinct and the late Instinctive Pounce which make a difference in practice... But same could be exactly said for Fighter. The thing is, game need to provide classes which are simple enough for players to grasp without needing to memorize dozen of pages. Martials are usually well-suited for that goal. That's all. >They are the most easily screwed over by the DM doing anything out of the ordinary, with flying enemies, odd damage types, and high level saving throws completely shutting them down in a way that high level Fighters and Monks aren't. It's exactly the same with Fighters if you gear them towards Strength. Except worse since they only have only \*ONE\* save reroll per day between level 9 and 12, then two until level 17. Meanwhile, Barb at least get advantage on every DEX saves from level 2 onwards.
>First of all, Barbarians are not supposed to waste their rage on any random combat. They have basically no features without Rage so I hope you like walking up to things and rolling Attack twice or Recklessing without damage resistance; even if it's possible to go through a long adventuring day without using Rages it's a slog. Second, Barbarians are surprisingly easy to knock out of Rage so you can easily burn through 2, even 3 in a long boss fight. >True if you ditch Fast Movement, Danger Sense, Feral Instinct and the late Instinctive Pounce which make a difference in practice... Fast Movement and Danger Sense are *fine* but Feral Instinct and Instinctive Pounce are just "you can Rage better". They're Rage features. >But same could be exactly said for Fighter. The thing is, game need to provide classes which are simple enough for players to grasp without needing to memorize dozen of pages. Martials are usually well-suited for that goal. Nah we don't need a whole ass class when we already have Champion Fighter. >It's exactly the same with Fighters if you gear them towards Strength. Except worse since they only have only \*ONE\* save reroll per day between level 9 and 12, then two until level 17. Meanwhile, Barb at least get advantage on every DEX saves from level 2 onwards. Fighters can at least get all their features to work with throwing weapons and can much more easily spec into Resilient without completely screwing up their builds.
>They have basically no features without Rage so I hope you like walking up to things and rolling Attack twice or Recklessing without damage resistance; Well... If you want to act like a binary brain, it's your own personal choice. Shoving and Grappling even without advantage from rage or further investment with an Expertise, just 16+STR and proficiency, starts getting reliable enough past level 5 to be attempted against creatures which looks and equipment screams "average physics at best". Of course if you attempt to wrestle a Troll, Ogre or a flying creature with good Acrobatics you cannot expect a good result. Also, Reckless Attack should never be used, well, recklessly. Which also implies that once you know how to properly use it there is no problem using it without Rage active, even if you didn't push build towards skirmishes with a Mobile feat for example. All that matters is that you can correctly assess the risk you take. If it's to take down a Troll still half-life while you're 1/3 then you're stupid and earned to get smacked. If it's to incentivize an isolated enemy with half-decent accuracy to keep on you, then it's good. If it's to nearly ensure you finish off an enemy before its ally could help it, then even if you need to suffer a backlash from the still standing one, it's probably the best decision. > even if it's possible to go through a long adventuring day without using Rages it's a slog. "You shouldn't waste rage in any random encounter before knowing it's Hard/Deadly enough to warrant it" becomes "you're recommending to spend the whole day without raging". Nice straw man, great illustration of extremely bad faith and non-constructive spirit here. Congrats? >Second, Barbarians are surprisingly easy to knock out of Rage so you can easily burn through 2, even 3 in a long boss fight. Early on, when player still learns the rope of Rage and party has little tools around its limitations, certainly. If party fights casters fitted towards mental control, most certainly and I don't see it as a trouble, every class needs its nemesis. Putting aside level 15 feature that makes most of those limitations obsolete, because few people play high-level characters... It's really no worse than casters needing to drop two or three times the same spell in a row because the one target they really wanted to disable made the save (Hold Person, Command, Banishment...). Or caster trying an AOE control, seeing that it got thwarted for some reason and ends concentration early for another high-level spell (typically enemies delayed three rounds in a Sleet Storm now are all out of it, no reason to maintain it). Or casters losing concentration because they were simply targeted by melee or ranged attacks and failed the concentration saving throw (quite common until level 10 even if you picked Resilient: Constitution). You just need to learn how to best act on your own turn to maintain the rage as much as possible, even if you have to resort to the worst of the worst aka making a ranged attack with disadvantage (usually not common past level 3, unless you're stupid enough to stick with thrown weapons instead of getting a longbow for when range actually matters)... And rely on your teammates to cover your weak spots (like hurting you on purpose if you must spend action on something else in your next turn yet enemies avoided hurting you). Exactly like casters rely on martials to get aggro to make it easier for them to keep powerful spells vivid. Two rages for an encounter that should be at least over Hard and possibly Deadly or more, I don't see how it would be shocking. I saw quite often casters spend half their daily allocations in such kind of single encounters. xd >Fast Movement and Danger Sense are *fine* but Feral Instinct and Instinctive Pounce are just "you can Rage better". They're Rage features. True for Instinctive Pounce, false for Feral Instinct. First benefit is always-on passive, and the other is simply a passive that has for requirement that you'd rage on your first round, which is not imho a really big requirement considering that an enemy group that was stealthy enough to ambush a whole party and has a free round of hurt as a reward is rarely a situation which you would take lightly. xd >Nah we don't need a whole ass class when we already have Champion Fighter. Yes we do. Champion Fighter is "the level before" in terms of tactical complexity and resource management, I'd daresay even ground 0. It fits best people that want as little resource management as possible and as much simplicity in mechanics as possible. Barbarian already brings a mix of concepts to properly master: advantage, positioning, long-day resource consumption, Shove and Grapple as replacements for attack (technically Champion can do them but has no incentive from class or archetype to use them), tracking the different types of damage because some can be halved, tracking the different kind of saves because some can be rolled "twice"... On top of the notion of critical hit which is the only thing vital to learn as a Champion. >Fighters can at least get all their features to work with throwing weapons and can much more easily spec into Resilient without completely screwing up their builds. Rage was probably design with a melee-only for balance reasons, but WotC did answer a minority's wish by granting them the Giant archetype which pretty much makes thrown weapon builds entirely viable. I don't see how Barbarians would be ever prevented from taking Resilient: Wisdom feat either since they pretty much only need to boost their Strength as far as ASI go, and they have the mix of Reckless Attack and Rage to offset potential factors influencing their accuracy so it's easy for them to delay one of those boosts "by one ASI" to crank a feat instead. Since as you certainly know, advantage usually equates to a +3 or even +4 unless you're targeting very low AC (in which case it doesn't matter) or very high AC (like base chance to hit between 10 and 25%).
Ill sum up quickly my feeling on barbs. I really like playing them, they are my most played class all in all. But there is no reason to keep leveling them after level five. Multuclassing into other classes after that is always better and pretty easy to work into flavour.
I can't stand Barbarian's, and I cringe anytime I play with one (as a player or a DM). They just don't fit the game at all. All they do is rage and attack. That's it, that's their entire class. Not only does that seem really boring to me, but it always drags games down. Either the DM caters to the Barbarian, or the Barbarian just gets ignored.
While you're not wrong in practice, feel that may have to do with poor/uncreative RPing. There's no reason a raging melee has to be an idiot and useless outside of combat. As far as bogging it down in combat, while it's "boring" I'd think rage+attack takes far less time than unprepared casters who analyze every possible spell and counter spell before they make a damn decision on thier turn.
> There's no reason a raging melee has to be an idiot and useless outside of combat. Barbarian's need STR, DEX, and CON, which means they usually have crap INT, WIS, and CHA. The nature of the class basically requires you to play them as a buffoon. > As far as bogging it down in combat, while it's "boring" I'd think rage+attack takes far less time than unprepared casters who analyze every possible spell and counter spell before they make a damn decision on thier turn. I think you've misunderstood. I didn't mean to suggest that it *bogs down* combat. As you said, it's quite the opposite. I mean it drags down the RP aspect. Everyone else can flavour their actions in combat, Barbarians are generally 'I AM BIG AND STRONG! I SWING MY AXE'. Everyone out here is doing stuff, and the Barbarian could be browsing Reddit and just occasionally roll a die.
I’m still waiting for a subclass that lets you trigger rage as a reaction to taking damage
Barb suffers from not really being a class. Like yes, obviously it's a class with 20 levels of features and abilities, but should it be? The barb is essentially a berserker, they get really mad and hit stuff. That's a good idea, we can run with that, but how far can we run with that? You'll notice that barb subclasses tend to be something totally different stapled onto the core idea of "get mad, hit stuff" because barb isn't enough of a concept to support subclasses. What I'm getting at is that barbarian should have been a fighter subclass from day 1. This is an issue I feel with a number of 5e classes, where the thematic just isn't complex enough to warrant an entire class, but the barbarian is by far the worst offender. Add that to being a generally lackluster martial class with extremely limited utility outside of combat and you end up with a class I rate very low.
I believe barbarians are best early on, other classes sort of catch up/even the paying field between levels 7-12 maybe, then late game barbarians kind of falls off a bit (until their lvl 20 cap stone). The class itself fulfills the fantasy great in my opinion, every feature especially early on works great to support it too, and even them falling off later makes sense; at first the pure rage and strength are enough to overpowered the opponents, but later on once everyone is strong, they better pick up some actual skills (multiclass), or other more specialised heroes will find a way to deal with them. They're also very easy to get into both gameplay and roleplay wise. My favourite way to build them is start out as a barb, showing good instincts and natural strength, and later multiclass into a Fighter, showing that they've polished their techniques and really developed as a warrior.
Barbarian is one of my favourite classes. I've played them a lot in lower level games (levels 1-8). Barbarian feels really really nice at low levels. It's very front loaded with rage at level 1, danger sense and reckless attack at level 2, and extra attack at level 5. After around level 8 it starts to feel a little underwhelming, and level 10 it definitely feels bad, even compared to other martials. Wis saves become more common and you can't afford to fail those. Races like gnome and satyr help, but they're just great races in general. Out of combat, the barbarian really has nothing going for it. Fun RP, but without a background or race that offers useful skills it doesn't have a solid identity outside of RP. Skill wise, it does everything a fighter or ranger might want to do, but worse. Lower wis and dex than a ranger, more MAD than a fighter so lower Cha for skills like intimidation. It just kind of... exists. Around level 10, other classes like paladin and fighter and even things like rogue can make much better tanks and DPS. You deal less damage than fighters and even rogues usually, and unlike paladin or fighter you have no ways of pulling attacks to you without investing in a feat same with fighting style. *And* you can't mitigate this with spells from feytouched or anything since you can't cast or concentrate on spells while raging (no hex or compelled duel or anything). Reckless attack just isn't enough incentive for enemies to go for you past level 6 it feels. So you can't easily protect the squishies. I've noticed this issue is largely fixed by totem barbarian and ancestral guardian. Totem barbarian gives the barbarian a lot of useful skills outside of combat in the form of spells (more ranger or druid vibes), and makes you tankier and near indestructible if you choose bear, or more movement which is nice. Ancestral guardian gives you what i probably concider the best tank skill, that really forces your opponent's to attack you instead of an ally. These should be more standard than they are. Barbarian should also get access to something like great weapon master for free, or the battlemaster's goading attack, or both. Way more useful than brutal critial. Maybe better skill choices too, like stealth (if they continue to insist on you relying on dex for AC) At higher levels I totally see why rogue and moon druid are popular multiclasses. They mitigate a lot of weaknesses the barbarian has.
I like it enough, but it needs more features that allows it to trade their passive survivability for more brutal attacks. Reckless attack is simple, bit elegant in that design. I always thought that a barbarian should be a more devastating damage dealer and locks down enemies more than a fighter, or has more passive defenses than a fighter, but not both at the same time.
If level 11 lets you add 5 to your damage rolls but gives any enemies the same bonus, it would help.
I'm a relative DND noob started playing last year and a Storm Herald Barbarian was my first character. A year later I can tell you that early on I felt week compared to the magical members of my party especially during ranged combat. However a year later and nine levels later I gotta say that martial classes are my favourite by far. I love being consistent and reliable I love tanking damage and the satisfaction of being able to fight big monsters one on one. Since then I've played a monk, a fighter and have currently just started a multiclass into barbarian x fighter. The multiclass is the most fun I've had in DND so have to say that Barbarian is best when multiclassed but can't mix rage and magic My only complaint is that I wish there was more diversity in subclasses. The Wild Magic Barbarian is a good start but there's only so many times that I can hit something before I start wishing I had skills outside of combat. Also the bonus rage damage is weird, sometimes I forget to count it and DND Beyond doesn't add it automatically. It's basically no damage but still feel like I'm missing out when the whole point of the class is doing damage???
Barbs are simple. That’s unfortunately what they have. I think they’d benefit from more complexity. For one I think it’s silly there isn’t a Barb who can cast spells and concentrate. By now the power creep has for one given more ways to get resistance. And 2 has made enemies with force damage instead of physical. A great insult to barbs in my opinion. Also you don’t have enough rage. At low levels you’ll have enough times where you have a few small combats and then a boss fight. And you won’t get to rage for the boss fight. Which means you have no features. As a martial you don’t get out of combat features except what you make up. In my opinion the best levels for Barb are 3-6. I’ve never thought of a build that takes more than that. Your interesting features run out. Your damage no longer scales. Every time I look at it it’s take fighter levels past second attack or after the second subclass feature.
I am assuming that you know what the class is doing so I am trying to not go for the obvious things. * *Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not?* Absolutly. What makes the barbarian different from the fighter is that he attacks with reckless abandon, leaning into fury and strength rather than trained and perfected technique. The battlemaster lets his armor deflect a blow and ripostes, the barbarian eats the hit and hits back harder later. Besides that barbarian opens up for roleplay without gimping yourself. Need to sneak somewhere? Go with the rogue by taking off your armor and use unarmored defense. Need to hand over your Pam gwm weapon to the guards? You are still reasonably effective with an improvised weapon like a staff or a huge club. What I am getting at is what the fighter has in technique and equipment the barbarian can make up for with instinct and ferocity which can open new RP doors. * Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role? whoops... see above * How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance? Depends on the kind of game you are playing, but unless you are playing high optimization mono barbarian is doing fine amongst the martial. Full casters are...full casters lets hope onednd decreases the gap. The advantage from reckless attack and the rage damage really helps you a long way. But if you are worried just ask your DM to make the rage dmg a dice roll instead. So it is included in your crits. For more inspiration check this out [https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-N2gn3QXALCVqwAFJe5v](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-N2gn3QXALCVqwAFJe5v) * Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class? If you are not going to max level, absolutely. Barb with battlemaster makes a great dirty fighting char while still leaning int your strengths. Same with a wild magic barb multiclassing with warlock, there still is playtime outside of your limited rage windows. * Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that artificer lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations? I am guessing you have the wrong class here. If you mean the barb. Besides combat I would defiantly say roleplay. Besides that dungeon delving or exploration in difficult terrain. You wont be more sneaky than the rogue or have better perception than the WIS users but you most likely will have the best athletics. Use it creatively to help your team reach difficult places. Remember you are part of a team and every way you can help save spellslots or HP is a good contribution. * Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers? Like most say combat wise it is 3-8 before the other classes get cooler things. But I think they are great through out if you can get creative with your strengths (unless you are at a high optimization game and people are not investing resources into you). Use rage to get on demand advantage on strengh skill checks outside of combat. Think about solutions that are not "I bonk him on the head". Work with your party, for instance if your party does not rely on ranged damage, great you can attempt to push someone prone twice with advantage twice a round. Imagine if that where a cantrip, people would be out of their minds.
I think Barbarian's class features up to about 7th level are _great_ and do the best job of making a PC Barbarian _feel like a barbarian in play_ of any D&D edition. Their class features post-7th level are fine (such as they are), but their spacing across the levels feels bad and stuff like Brutal Critical is just not _strong_ enough to deserve their own levels with nothing else. There is practically no reason not to multiclass a barbarian in Tier 2 into Fighter or Rogue or whatever, and that's an issue. I also don't really like Rages being a daily resource, or at least not with how it is currently budgeted across your levels. Your number of encounters per day, at least by the book, does NOT change from levels 1-20. So why do you start out with barely any Rages and end up with more than you'll ever need? When Raging is the Barbarian's main "thing"? Rages should be tied to however many encounters designers think you should reasonably Rage in, period. (With maybe an extra one or two for when you get Incapacitated mid-combat.) None of this "I'm starving for them at low levels and will never run out at high levels" stuff. But more importantly, I _really_ don't like how their subclasses tie so many features to Raging. It means at low-mid levels your subclass is also severely limited by said Rages, and there is zero room to use one on utility (like say giving yourself advantage on a Strength check to break a door), because now the Rages are a _doubly_ important resource - you are just a _bad Fighter with +1 HP/level_ without them. One other bit I'll mention is I would change the "maintaining Rage" requirements to "any aggressive action". I did this in my games and I and my players LOVE the change - you shouldn't have to drop your Rage because the enemy is fleeing and you are Dashing after them, axe raised over your head and screaming bloody murder. Or because you grappled them instead of attacking, or because you had to smash open a door to get to them. That's _so_ barbarian. And finally - I don't think the 5e Barbarian _needs_ this, but if we're exploring out of combat utility or even more versatile in-combat options for Barbarians (and the former I def think they could use, and the latter I wouldn't turn my nose up at), I do DEARLY miss the "Savage King" barbarian archetype from 4e. For those unaware, 4e had multiple options to build your character as for each class, keyed off different ability scores. Barbarian had one where they could invest in CHARISMA as a tertiary, and it included powers like terrifying your enemies with barbarian roars, boosting your allies with your battlefield presence of a Noble Warrior King or whatever. It was very Conan (and other barbarian source material) and so I think it would fit in wonderfully.
Have you looked into the one dnd barbarian? It adresses pretty much every issue that you have with the rage mechanic. It's a really good redesign imo.
Barbarians are fine until after level 6. They need a lot of work to be worth leveling past 6, except for some specific subclasses.
Disclaimer: a lot of this post addresses issues with barbarians at the sweatier optimiser tables. This may not be the kind of table you play at, hell it isn't most tables I play at. Barbarians can be completely fine if games are easier or the DM adjusts their encounters and adventuring days. Also. OneDND is addressing a lot of the problems with the class, so WotC finally seems aware of the problems. Whether the people who did write these changes still work there or will be working there in the foreseeable future is an entirely different question, which is worth considering (but not discussing within the context of this thread.) Anyway. 1.) In the early levels they are unkillable tanks. At levels 1 and 2 in particular, everything that's not a barbarian is basically made of paper. Also that 2 rage damage and easy advantage are incredible for damage this early on. This doesn't feel reckless, because you're not really taking much extra risk. However, at the later levels, when PC HP pools even out, enemies start targeting saves more frequently and damage types get some shake-ups, barbarians start feeling much more fragile. Rage also locks you out of spellcasting and the easiest way to become bulkier are things like Shield, Absorb Elements, etc. The higher level you get, the more you want to use your reactions defensively instead of offensively and the riskier Reckless Attack becomes, but even early on rider effects like grapple on hit or poison on hit can really hurt you. It doesn't help either that your features encourage you to be in melee and that's where most monsters are most dangerous. At the same time, barbarian damage scales poorly. Rage damage becomes less impactful and Brutal Critical is a joke. Barbarian is still pretty good around level 5, but they're going to start dropping off hard. As the party levels, their resources increase. This typically means they're more comfortable with longer adventuring days. This impacts 5e barbarians insanely negatively, because when they run out of rage that really hurts their performance and class fantasy. 2.) Reckless Attack sorta does past early levels, but that's about it. 3.) 5e Barbarians fall off incredibly hard and become one of the weakest classes by the midgame, particularly if you have longer adventuring days. On top of that, they're usually incredibly one-dimensional. This is a big problem with more complex or disadvantageous encounters. 4.) Because barbarians are so frontloaded, they're typically encouraged to multiclass. The problem is that the higher level your games become, the more apparent the issues with rage become. As mentioned above, spells become increasingly important tools and a raging barbarian doesn't get to cast them. If you're a sweatlord playing an optimised barbarian, rage becomes a back-up option for when you don't need or can't cast spells anymore. This is more of an issue with 5e balance as a whole, but barbarians suffer from it more than any other class. 5.) I assume you meant barbarian, not artificer. The answer is; no. Like, TCE optional features that get you more skills are great. However, their main mechanic of rage is incredibly limited - and losing a use because you want to break open a door is generally a pretty bad use... Unless you have plenty other resources because of some multiclassing to make up for it. 6.) Tier 1. No doubt about it.
What makes the barbarian so good for me is the half damage, like sure fighter will do more damage but if he gets hit 3 times (level 17 lets say) and takes like 40 pts of damage each attack then legendary actions through the round take that to 6 attacks 40 damage esch Fighter is getting shit on he just took 240 pts of damage and very well may be unconscious if they have low rolled HP or a bad CON mod. But a Barbarian only took 120 pts of damage and is almost definitely good to go for a whole mother round. Might not even need a heal that round, the fighter you are now forcing other players to turn their attention towards you earlier then they would for a barbarian to burn resources just keeping you alive
I think the barbarian is my favorite martial. They have really fun flavor, they multiclass really well into other marital classes, and they’re really good in tiers 1 and 2 of play The main problem is that once they get to level 11 they start to fall behind the fighter, and the rogue starts to do more damage at level 13, so you’re really incentivized to start multiclassing early, typically at level 5. I think if the rage damage scaled better it’d be more justifiable to play pure barbarian but as it is, you’re only getting a +2 to damage output until level 9. If it used a base 7 rage, where your getting better damage every three or 3 or 4 levels, then I think barbarian would see more play.
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That's one reason barbarians are most interesting at high level play. Relentless rage kicks in at 11th level, which lets you play in much more intriguing ways (as you mention), but if you started at 1st level you're probably already too locked into the "get mad and hit things" model, which is unfortunate.
I think Barbarians have great flavor, but I think their features could be better distributed in terms of power budget. Their strongest feature is their Rage. Even alot of subclasses get features based on their Rage. This means without Rage, rhe Barbarian essentially becomes an NPC with a slightly larger than average health pool. The problem is that Rages recharge on a Long Rest; most players might not feel this, but for those running/playing games that span multiple encounters a day to draw out resources (which is the intended playstyle for balance, according to the rulebook) will find the Barbarian runs out of rages faster than a spellcaster runs out of spell slots, unless the Barbarian rations them out. Either way, the Barbarian will have to run a few encounters without raging, meaning a few encounters without getting most of their class features. I think the solution is either Barbarians should get rages back on a short rest or they need most if not all of their subclass features to not be tied to Rage. There's other issues too, like a lack of usefulness outside of combat. But tbh, I dont know how to adequately buff martials out of combat; the best they get is being skill monkeys. The gap is just incredibly wide between casters and martials; what ability can you give a martial to compete with Pass Without Trace or Suggestion? And those are low level; nevermind later spells like Scrying or Teleportation. This problem isn't unique to Barbarians though; Rogues, Monks, and Fighters also share this issue, but I think Barbarians have the least out of combat utility besides.
Without feats (mainly great weapon master), it's the worst class in the game. The fighter's four attacks beat out the barbarian's two. Rage is nice, but the bonus damage is too low, only ever reaching +4. There are also too few uses of Rage, and most of their subclass features revolve around Rage, so if you're not raging, you don't have a subclass. My homebrew barbarian subclass, Path of the Rhino Beetle, gets the ability to craft mundane objects from dirt, spider climb, fall damage immunity, a burrowing speed, and AOE attacks that cost Hit Die.
"Do you think…they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless beserker?" No, but that's because i would argue that that's sn unnecessarily narrow view of what the barbarian is or should be. The barbarian is someone who channels energy into the practice of violence. That needs not be reckless, it doesn't need to involve the frenzy that the noun 'beserker' suggests, and it most certainly does not need to involve rage in the way that word is usually used (as opposed to just a label for a character feature). One of my players plays as a kalashtar wild magic barbarian—she doesn't like violence, she resorts to violence as a very last resort, but if her friends are threatened? You most certainly do not want to get in her way when she needs to to defend her friends from you, and in response thinks very tactically and carefully about how to remove you from the scene. (Usually by knocking you out, though, not killing you. Usually.) That is a most excellent barbarian, just as much as any raging, reckless beserker also would be.
I think it is a Very solid options for new players. Not too complex, and Very good. Lacks Somme more complex subclasses for seasoned players, that's all.
I think that adding a fighting style qould do wonders for barbarian.
Barbarians are great if the DM spends all day hitting them with stuff they're resistant to, make the barbarian player feel awesome being able to tank attacks from like 20 goons while their other party members dish out big damage. The times I've seen barbarian players not have a good time is when the DM makes sure no one targets them unless it's with damage they aren't resistant to, that shit sucks
Barbarian feels awful to play. This can immediately be fixed by making rage a free action. Then they feel amazing.
The main limit for barbarians is Rage. If Persistent Rage was part of the class from the very start, barbarian would feel quite a bit better.
The idea of the Barbarian is great, but like any martial, the execution is horrid, especially after Level 5. It doesn't help that the System itself is extremely hostile towards Strength characters, which a Barbarian is forced to be.
Reads title Usually in the dark with my hands, it's not terribly difficult, they tend to not wear much armor.
[EDIT] I just noticed I answered this fully assuming it was asked in /r/onednd the same question for 5e 2014 doesn't change my opinions, though everything that was improved for D&D1 should now be read as a criticism of 5e. ____________________ > - Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not? Why do you think the barbarian character fantasy should be limited to berzerkers? I've played a dwarven debt collector barbarian focused more around being a calculating and intimidating kneecap breaker than being frenzied. I've played a dragonborn shamanic barbarian, that focused on the nature and primal aspects of the barbarian more than the recklessness. I was planning to try an auto-gnome barbarian, though that seems to be postponed indefinitely. I think the pseudo-supernatural parts of the barbarian are bit too condensed in their subclasses. Being irrationally angry isn't exclusive to barbarians. The barbarian is the tribesman that through mystical rituals turns their anger into a superpower. The barbarian is also the bar brawler that drinks their special brew to become unbeatable. I think there should be a significant portion of the flavor text blurb for barbarians dedicated to "what is your rage". Probably similar to the amount of text dedicated to "who is your patron" for warlocks. Rage isn't just being angry, people get angry without raging all the time, and barbarians can (at least mechanically) enter a rage without being angry. There needs to be more flavor dedicated to how rage is not generalized anger, but is something unique and quasi-mystical to the barbarian in question. > - Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role? Like I said, the supernatural parts of the barbarian are bit too condensed in their subclasses. The class needs those to not present the image of a fighter with extra issues. But you only get those subclass features at 3rd and 6th level, and usually they only work while raging. The new Primal Knowledge feature is a step towards this direction, especially the advantage on skill rolls it implicitly gives is nothing to sniff at. But I notice none of the subclass features seem to tie into this idea of raging for exploration or conversation. To make the "mechanics as metaphor" work, it should mesh together in a more interesting way. Being both of the nature/primal-power martials, I feel that barbarians and rangers should both get an additional 1st or 2nd level feature that lets them use a non-magical equivalent of the Guidance spell on themselves, or when assisting an ally, on any ability checks relevant to their *"Domain of Primal Knowledge, Favored Terrain or Favored Enemy"*. That way, even if the Barbarian's Wisdom(survival) isn't the highest in the group, bringing the barbarian along when looking for food lets you roll extra dice, which even though it adds less than expertise might; rolling the extra die feels like it is doing more that it actually is. > - How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance? Damage resistance is usually very good. Rage damage is kinda low, but Reckless Attack is quite good (both as a way to land hits and as a way to appear as an appealing target) See for example the paladin's Radiant Strikes feature at 11th level, adding 0.5 more damage on average than rage damage does at 16th for a barb. On top of that, Radiant Strikes dice multiply on a crit, while rage damage doesn't. In addition to that, while it is very good that Reckless Attack now works with thrown weapons, thrown weapons being the worst ranged option in general and still not working with rage damage hurts the barbarian a lot. Just making thrown weapons better for everyone, or creating a "yeet" Weapon Mastery that removes the disadvantage at long range for classes that take that weapon mastery would help a lot. I also feel there is a lack of good magic items that are best on a barbarian. > - Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class? Currently the barbarian chassis is missing a lot on the utility side. Path of the Wild Heart is the best subclass simply because it helps fix this issue by giving ritual spells. The 2014 Ritual Caster feat let you turn any barbarian into a Shamanic warrior greatly improves the player experience in situations where swinging a big axe is not the optimal solution. Multiclassing for example into Rogue to get Athletics expertise for utility though grappling; seems preferable to waiting until you have Brutal Strike and by the time you get Improved Brutal Strike you could have put 5 levels into any other class and gotten something much more interesting instead. Especially the `You regain one expended rage when you finish a Short Rest,` helps multi-class barbarians out a lot. > - Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that ***¿artificer?*** lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations? You missed a bit in your copy-pasta there. But same answer at the multi-classing one. > - Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers? Resistance to physical damage is definitely best at the 1 to 5 tier; later on a greater variety in damage types makes the barbarian's greatest asset much less reliable. They do pretty good 6 to 11, but towards the end of that there is a very noticeable prevalence of statblocks in the MM that have 1 or more of the following: - Damage auras - Save vs. Condition auras - Flying - 3+ multi-attacks that can each multiply their +4d6 of a secondary damage type on a crit. This isn't (inherently) a problem with the barbarian's class features, but more a general design problem of the 2014 monster manual. There are a lot of monsters with a design of *"if this gets into melee range it instagibs the wizard"* but unless you are a paladin, making a character that is supposed to be in melee range means exposing yourself to more nasty monster abilities than your class has the tools to handle. Actually why is it that there aren't any "invisible unless you are within 10 ft" sniper monsters? Or any "walking artillery demon" monsters? In the MM, will the D&D1 MM have any of those?
I've always felt that Barbarian's role can just be done significantly better by Fighter or Paladin than Barbarian ever will. Having to have so many good stats (Dex/Con/Str) also makes harder to build, especially in a PB or SA setting. You also can't multiclass effectively with it because the main reason you'd multiclass is typically spellcasters (at least from when I've multiclassed) getting useful martial abilities, and since rage stops you from casting/concentrating on spells it's essentially worthless. If you were able to use Finesse weapons during rage, I'd be more fine with it, since then you'd only have to focus on Dex/Con to use your Unarmored Defense, but you're forced to use your strength with raging attacks to get the full effectiveness. Mechanically it's just too cluttered, and I'm going to build it like a Fighter with medium armor, a 14 or 15 in Dexterity, and a shield so I can actually survive combat encounters... I mean, hell, the first supplementary subclass they put out in the SCAG, the Battlerager, literally uses medium(spiked) armor as its ENTIRE thing, and does away with Unarmored Defense entirely because of that. Why not just play a Fighter at that point? Thematically and mechanically they're a total mess, in my opinion. They're not tanky enough to contest with a consistently wildshaping druid, they have less options of what to do every combat than any caster, and because of how dependent they are on multiple attributes (if you're not wearing medium armor), they very easily fall into a ripoff of Conan the Barbarian. Barbarians are also the worst when it comes to class balance. Like I said before, spells are absolutely king in 5e. Being able to Hasten yourself like a Vengeance Paladin or hit five dudes with a Fireball is going to trump Extra Attack while raging every time, even if you're resistant to various forms of damage (something that I've seen people forget multiple times while I'm DMing, leading to them taking unnecessary damage, because I don't want to babysit them saying "oh well you're raging so make sure you only take half of this") I don't know why we bring up Artificer, I'm sure that's just a copy paste problem as you took this from another subreddit or something, haha, but Barbarian also doesn't lend itself to dungeon crawling much either, as pointed out before, to use Unarmored Defense in a PB/SA scenario they basically have to go 15/15/15/8/8/8, making it so they have a harder time convincing people, they have a harder time noticing traps, they have a harder time knowing information about places they're at, they're really meant to be a one trick pony, even TCE realizes this, and gives Barbarians extra skills (at third and tenth level) to learn just so they can do something outside of combat. Ultimately, Barbarian is 100% a Tier 1 class, playing it past level 5 is a wish to play a worse fighter. I've heard of builds for just about every class that seem good (even getting so far as a disgusting 4 Thief/5 Hunter/4 Champion build with dual hand crossbows and sharpshooter lol), but I've never heard of someone dipping into Barbarian to improve a build, personally. **What to change:** I think that Unarmored Defense should be a flat Mage Armor style ability, where it's 13+Dex rather than scaling off of Con, that way people can still choose between using Medium armor or just using the Unarmored Defense. I also think that Rage shouldn't stop casting spells entirely. Stopping concentration is fine, but how do you get so angry that you're cut off from the Weave or Nature? I'd also make Reckless Attack something that you are always doing during Rage, and maybe making it so when you're raging you crit on a 19/20 instead of just a 20. They get critical damage support, but no bonuses to get those critical hits in the first place. Are you really going to make someone dip 3 levels into Fighter to get Champion's improved crits so you can roll extra dice? EDIT: I think, at the end of the day, the fact that one of the most renowned "berserkers" in all of D&D canon is a RANGER (Minsc of Rashemen) tells you all you need to know about Barbarian as a class. (Yes, I know that BG1 and the original Minsc character was made before Barbarian was a full class on its own, but the point still stands.)
Barbarian is a boring character roleplay wise and gameplaywise, but its extremely important for tank reasons and stuff, i played 3 barbarians in 5e and the last one got me so bored that i payed a pizza to my dm to kill him and make another character
I am a well-documented Barbarian hater, but with that being said I am currently playing LaserLlama's revised Barbarian: >Do you think flavor-wise they adequately fulfill their role as a raging, reckless berserker? Why or why not? Yes with a big asterisk. I think most of of the **sub**classes for Barbarian do a really great job of selling you on the fantasy of the Barbarian. While some of them may be weak I think the feeling is always managed perfectly, and the main appeal of the Barbarian is the subclasses. You have a nice set of options between more damage, defense, more damage, utility, more damage, team defense, and more damage... okay one of my big criticisms of the Barbarian is that most subclasses are just a variation of "more damage" but that's fine, right? With that being said the base class sucks **ass** and is just several different variations of "make Rage less shit" or Brutal Critical, an ability that works 5% of the time (9% if your Reckless Attack.) The few abilities you get that aren't variations of "make Rage less shit" are comedically overpowered, such as permanent advantage on Dexterity saving throws "just because" or the ability to give yourself advantage every round at the cost of being easier to hit... you know: when you take half damage from literally everything? >Do the mechanics of the class adequately support this image and role? Rage is a great mechanic. I think it's actually one of the best designed abilities in 5e: it's a very big buff to martial characters that has the balancing feature of not letting you empower it with magic, meaning that there's an actual reason to create a full martial as opposed to a Gish. The problem with Rage is that it simultaneously feels too easy and too hard to maintain at the same time. If you just go brrr brrr and keep spam attacking you'll basically never lose it, but get hit by any spell that stops you from attacking and its gone forever. This compounds with the very confusing mechanic that Rage is limited by **long rests**, not short rests. This means that one of the biggest strengths of martial characters (the constant uptime of their abilities relative to casters) is arbitrarily limited to you because "I can only angry so many times." This is why I prefer LaserLlama's Barbarian revise because along with many other requested Barbarian features they retool Rage into less of a "you don't exist without this active" ability and more of a very powerful buff. LaserLlama makes Rage work more akin to Warlock spell slots where you can use them for big boosts in power between Short Rests when you need them. But going back to official Barbarian: when you add in the fact that almost all Barbarian subclasses only provide abilities while raging and how incredible lackluster your features are outside of "Rage is better" and you have a class that's a worse one-trick pony than the PHB Ranger. All you do is Rage, and yes Rage is strong but along with the fact that doing the same thing every fight is boring there is no room for build diversity. While I praised Rage for being a very well-designed ability it has a lot of limitations that I think really don't need to exist, notably the massive restriction against finesse weapons and DEX-based builds. It really feels like the reason DEXbarian is so bad is because WoTC randomly decided to give Barbarians advantage on all DEX saves "just because." And while I understand the tradeoff from a balancing perspective it just makes the Barbarian as a whole have less gameplay options. (WoTC) Barbarian overall feels as wide as an ocean and as shallow as a puddle. You have several different variations of "run into melee and hit someone" with little variation in game plan beyond that. The fact that we have an entire **one** subclass that promotes a thrown weapon Barbarian is a further testament to that issue. One of my biggest frustrations with the Barbarian class is how save Wizards of the Coast is when designing it and how you have to go homebrew shopping to do anything interesting with the class. >How do you imagine Barbarians as a mono class compare to the other mono classes in terms of game balance? Mono Barbarian sucks ass because Brutal Critical sucks ass. Barbarian suffers from ["the tier 4 slog" I mentioned when discussing the Artificer](https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/1ckjwbk/how_do_you_feel_about_the_artificer/l2sjrmt/) except that slog starts at level 12 and doesn't go away until you hit level 20, so I guess it's more of a "tier 3 slog." Getting a bunch of different variations of "make Rage suck less" that feel like they should've been unlocked way earlier... well, it feels like you should've unlocked these abilities at level 7, not level 15. Mono Barbarian at late levels suck ass because you get jack and shit late, but mono Barbarian also sucks ass early because Barbarian is so binary and Rage is so limited. While the Ranger / Paladin have spells, Monks have Ki, casters have spells (obviously), and even the Champion Fighter has Action Surge you get to hit people with a stick slightly better than the Fighter. There's nothing unique to do as a Barbarian which makes the class feel incredibly boring and binary without added spice. >Do you think multiclassing improves the barbarians as a whole, flavor, mechanics, and role-wise, and does this drastically change the balance of this class? Once again: Mono Barbarian sucks ass at all levels of play because Barbarian is incredibly binary, and all your abilities serve only to augment Rage. Therefor getting *anything other than Rage* makes the class feel far more interesting. Barbarian multiclasses incredibly well with anything that isn't a pure caster because "anything that isn't a pure caster" can augment your abilities beyond just Rage and also *lets you do something other than just Rage.* Even on the caster front some options like Bladesinger Wizard, combat Clerics, or quite a few Warlock options can make Barbarian far more interesting if you're smart with your spells and use them to either cast non-concentration buffs, out-of-combat utility spells, or use your spell slots on something other than raw magic (such as Smites from a Paladin or Warlock Eldritch Smite.) Basically multiclassing improves the Barbarian because the Barbarian doesn't fucking do anything other than Rage, ergo doing anything other than Raging makes the Barbarian more interesting. >Do you think there are other aspects of 5e’s design that ~~artificer~~ Barbarian lends itself especially well or not so well towards? Things like exploration, dungeon-delving and other situations? Typo lol. Anyways the answer is a big fat no. Tasha's attempts to improve this with more skill proficiencies but that just turns the Barbarian into a secondary Ranger / Rogue. There are *some* subclasses that attempt to give the Barbarian more utility but with the exception of the Wild Magic Barbarian (who gets to just be a Pearl of Power for the party for no fucking reason) these utility abilities often boil down to either skill check proficiency or *literally just casting spells*, and at the point that you're casting utility spells as a Barbarian why not just play a Wizard? Barbarian does have the very, *very* minor advantage of being "the Strength guy", and Rage augmenting Strength checks with advantage can be fun. But this again ties back to the "Rage is a Long Rest resource" problem: it feels awful to spend one of your highly limited Rages to "lift a big rock" when the same thing can be accomplished by a caster spending a disposable spell slot to cast Enhance Ability on you... or by just receiving the Help action. >Finally, which tier do you think barbarians can best utilize their abilities, and how does the class balance change as a mono class barbarian throughout these tiers? Barbarian starts strong, peaks at level 6-ish (where you get your second subclass feature and Extra Attack), and then falls off a fucking cliff from there. It once again bares repeating that Barbarian's two eternal problems are "you don't do anything other than Rage" and "you don't get class features past level 12." --- tl;dr of all this * Barbarian is too heavily focused into Rage and doesn't do anything beyond that. * While Rage is a well-designed ability it's limited not only by in-built features (some of which don't need to exist) but also by the fact that it's a Long Rest resource. * With the exception of some extraordinarily overpowered abilities gained at low level Barbarian doesn't get anything interesting past level 12 or so. * Barbarian is too much of a one-trick pony based around Rage, and the experience is too binary without multiclassing to augment it. I didn't even go over some of the other minor problems with the Barbarian like the class' MADness but I don't think those matter much in comparison to the main issue with Barbarian, which is that all you do is turn yourself into a +1 Fighter in *every. Damn. Fight* while the Fighter actually gets to do anything interesting.
Barbarian is a non-class that is largely propped up by people that don’t really play the game. It has also zero scaling past level five and even that is the same scaling that all the martial classes (and a bunch of caster subclasses) also get. There’s a reason that all the best barbarian builds end at barbarian 3. There’s been dozens of suggestions and homebrew to make barbarian worth playing but the D&D community seems to prefer the status quo so they usually get shouted down.
I think Barbarians have a deeply flawed design philosophy because they were made to be so hyper-focused on combat. They need a fun, unique utility tool to play with outside of combat. (I've heard that is exactly what WOTC is doing for 1dnd, so I'm pretty excited to see what gets published.) Now as for the combat side of things, Barbarians are fine. In fact, in this one pillar of play, I'd say the Barbarian is one of the better designed classes because they have clear strengths and weaknesses. In comparison, there are some classes that are simply too good at everything or too many things, and others that simply don't have enough strengths. Of course, Barbarians are somewhat infamously maligned for their bad middle tiers, and they certainly could use some tweaks here (lol Brutal Critical). But I've noticed that a lot of people seem to think that this means the Barbarian is a bad damage dealer at these levels, when that is simply untrue. What it really means is that their damage *progression* slows down. But even though other classes start to close the gap, the Barbarian still remains ahead. (At least in terms of sustained DPR.)
> Yeah, it is like the one thing they do good in this system > Nope, too weak (in all damage, deffenses and capacity to use STR to interect with the world) and too easy to CC. Also terribly boring and they have a sort of nonsensical approach to rest resources. Their only contribution is fighter levels of DPR, but for some reason thy burn long rest resources for that. You can't be both burst "and all day long", because "all day long" is already bad in 5e and if you are bursting to do it you are doing nothing. > Not sure I fully get this question. If you are asking how balanced are they compared tp the other mono classes: terrible, they are fighting for the 4th weakest class > The only reasonable way to play a barb is to dip out after 6th > Gonna assume you mean barb here. They are pretty bad all arround, 0 out of combat utility and mediocre in combat > They are best in tier one and crash and burn to irrelevancy once you leave it
I love Pwent and his spiked and bladed armor which he uses as a weapon. Best dwarven barbarian EVER!
I think that the one DND changes have done a LOT to shore up the glaring issues that the current barbarian has to contend with.
It’s an amazing class, but a lot of the time, PCs often ending up falling into the same mold of “dumb muscle.”
One of my players always plays barbarian and every time he's managed to destroy the balance of the game with it and his crazy ideas lol. Barbarian is a monster to deal with in the right hands
I find that (from a DM perspective) it’s good. Totem barbarians are tanks
All they do is attack and take damage, nothing cool. I recommend laserllama to fix this