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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 5:08AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 10, 2008
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Playtest: The BarbarianTake a Walk On the Wild Side by Heinsoo, Mearls, Decker, and Schwalb [INDENT]Exclusive to D&D Insider, the barbarian! This Player's Handbook 2 class won't see print until 2009, but you can get a first look at one of the builds for the class here, from levels 1 to 30. So roll up a barbarian and send us your feedback today! See it now(2.7 mb PDF) Barbarians are savage warriors who deal out powerful blows from their mighty weapons. They charge from foe to foe and seldom feel the pain of an enemy's strike. For barbarians' foes, the moments of greatest terror come when barbarians call upon primal forces to lend power to their raging spirits. These rages, although temporary, give a barbarian incredible powers, a combination of skill, willpower, and a legacy of ancient tribal rituals.[/INDENT]
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 5:50AM
#2
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2005
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I would have liked to see a limit on the type of armor to use when raging. Or before long we'll have barbs raging in full plate.
Gomez
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 6:16AM
#3
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I agree. As it stands, I can make an orc or warforged barbarian with a 20 str, 17 con and put all the other stats firmly in the toilet. Then I can put on some full plate and trade -2 to hit and -2 to reflex (and every reflex attack is gonna hit, anyway) and get 5 AC. That's a trade I'll make any day.
-Sutro
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 6:31AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2007
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Linky to the optimization thread: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1097592Basically, the consensus is that the barb needs to be reworked.
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 6:32AM
#5
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If you really think after Martial Power and PHB2, you are still going to have 3 feats you want to dedicate to armor, you are crazy.
As it is now, there is already a bevvy of offensive options, which I would assume most people who play strikers will focus on, with two more books of material and months of dragon, the opportunity cost of that Plate Mail will greatly increase.
As it is, I really liked this playtest, I think it feels more like an axe-wielding-maniac-barbarian than +4 to two stats any day of the week. The number of ways built in to get extra attacks, (and essentially be swinging your weapon in a mad rage) was very clever. Special kudos to Avalanche Strike, dealing massive damage but giving everyone else a huge bonus to hit you - that is what a barbarian is all about.
My only concern is with the rage strike daily. I am not sure anyone would ever use this except maybe at levels 26-30. The fact that I have to expend a daily to get into it and then have another daily to expend just for swinging the weapon (meaning I can't use this at all until level 5 unless I am missing something). Dailies are so precious normally, even more so for this class simply for the number of things that "turn on" when you use a daily and start raging. I can't see expending a future rage just for 3 or 5[W]. Perhaps I am mising something, what does everyone else think?
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 6:59AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2003
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I have one request: could we see a multiclass-to-barbarian feat in the final version of this article? Thanks! And some other random comments:
- I like the various rage powers. Much more interesting than the one-size-fits-all rage, and the animal themes fit the class nicely — making it feel like a real class, not just a fighter with anger-management issues grafted on.
- It's interesting that there's no ranged weapon proficiency or powers. That may cause "3e-rogues-vs-constructs-or-undead" issues in play.
- The Rage Strike feature is somewhat confusing. It basically lets you burn extra daily powers in exchange for high-damage attacks. Only works if you're already raging. The normal rage powers have a rest-of-the-encounter benefit, and if you use a second one it replaces the benefit of the first, so Rage Strike is needed when you want to go all-out. Points of confusion that could use extra wording to add clarity:
- Although you start with the feature, you don't actually have extra daily powers to burn until 5th level. This works fine, but should be mentioned in the text above the class feature.
- When you "expend" a power, you don't gain its benefits. Clearly that's the intention, but I can see arguments happening.
- Unlike raging itself, a rage strike is just a single strike and doesn't increase your damage for the rest of the encounter. Maybe that doesn't need to be said here but could preemptively be put in the FAQ.
- I'm a bit concerned that the at-wills seem better than those of other classes. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 7:01AM
#7
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Date Joined:
May 29, 2008
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The requisite for Rage Strike is confusing to me. I understand that you have access to that At-Will power only while the Barb is raging, but the second criteria is that the barb needs to expand an unused Rage power to use it. Unless people houserule using Action Points to regain a use of their daily powers, I cannot see how a Lvl 1 barb can pull Rage Strike off, having only 1 Rage power, much less see it as an Encounter Power, or as the playtest puts it, an At-Will. And for a Class feature power that can only be used from level 5 onwards at the sacrifice of one Daily power, that's too much to ask for. Unless the developers intend to word it as 'Evocation power', which would make better sense with Rage Strike's 'At-will' assignment. Other random comments: The paragon path feels like a gamble, which is good I feel, as it accentuates the recklessness of a frenzied barb. The mechanic for Final Confrontation - Paragon Path, is an interesting one. I can't think of a way to exploit it, but I'm sure someone will find a way.
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 7:09AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jul 18, 2003
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The requisite for Rage Strike is confusing to me.
I understand that you have access to that At-Will power only while the Barb is raging, but the second criteria is that the barb needs to expand an unused Rage power to use it.
Unless people houserule using Action Points to regain a use of their daily powers, I cannot see how a Lvl 1 barb can pull Rage Strike off, having only 1 Rage power, much less see it as an Encounter Power, or as the playtest puts it, an At-Will.
And for a Class feature power that can only be used from level 5 onwards at the sacrifice of one Daily power, that's too much to ask for. Unless the developers intend to word it as 'Evocation power', which would make better sense with Rage Strike's 'At-will' assignment.
Heh. Case in point. 
So, the deal is: the barbarian's daily rage powers all have a limitation that only one can be active at a time. This means that if you use more than one daily power in an encounter, you're not getting the full benefit. Other classes don't have this limitation. Rage strike gives the barbarian something to do with dailies in that case. (If you want to "go nova", you can.)
Of course, other classes can't do more than one daily in an encounter until fifth level, when they have more than one. So there's no need for it until that point.
There's nothing wrong with it (in fact, it's important to have), but it's confusing to read. Maybe the text should just say that you gain this ability at fifth level. (Or, if that's against the style rules, just explain that it's only useful at that point.)
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 8:04AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2005
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General Thoughts
While people are complaining that there is no point to Rage abilities at low levels (And there is a thought that I half agree with them), I also say that once you hit level 15th level, they might be too powerful.
Let us forget for a moment that you are sacrificing a daily. You go from rolling 3 dice of damage for every daily, to 6 dice. that means that once you hit your "OMG, this is the End Encounter" of the day, your barbarian is outdicing damage of just about everyone, and it gets WORSE as it rises in levels. By the time you hit epic, no one rolls as much dice as the barbarian.
This power has the whole "Magic User" issue to it. It's useless at early levels, but you hit a magical point, and they use nothing else. This should be the warning sign that it's "busted", and you need to rethink how you do things.
What Surprises me is that you don't treat Rage more like the other Striker Bonuses from the PHB1. I would have not been surprised to have seen a class based encounter or daily power that just added more dice to damage when you chose to rage, and just kept on giving it for the round, along the lines of Sneak Attack scale of damage. I don't think you really needed to create a second version of the stiker bonus damage.
And it's distressing a little to see you have to add in that bonus damage directly into the class power then as a bonus die from the class ability. Did somehow in playtest you found Rangers and Warlocks forgetting to use the ability, and dropping it? Why the big change in the formula for the Striker?
I'm not done looking it over, and I'll run it through a mock combat or two in a bit, but I felt I definatly needed to pipe up here.
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5 years ago ::
Oct 06, 2008 - 8:52AM
#10
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I'd like an option to go for light shield proficiency (as an alternative to hide proficiency, if necessary for balance).
If you look at the barbarian's historic models, Celts, Germans, etc. these were all spear/sword and shield wielders who still charged wildly. Viking berserkers were even described frienzedly chewing their shield-rims.
Raging shouldn't equate to failing to protect yourself.
Obviously this isn't a munchkin power gamer attitude, just trying to open up a bit of flexibility for character choices and RP.
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