Community

I like most of the Barbarian so far.

The Dailies being Rages seems like a good thing and gives flavor to the class.

I feel that Rage Strike is confusing and not worth using since it expends Dailies that are essential to be used one per encounter. It is working in direct contradiction to the Flavor of the Daily Rages.

The idea is fine, the mechanics could be changed.
Hence I would recommend rewriting Rage Strike as follows:

Class Features

Rage Strike Barbarian Feature

You channel your primal rage to hit harder than normal.

Encounter <> Primal, Weapon

Minor Action Melee Weapon

Requirement: You must be raging to use this feature.

Effect: Whether you hit or miss with your next Primal weapon attack, do 1[W] damage to one creature that was targeted by this attack.

Special: This must be used by the end of your next turn. The creature damaged must be within reach of your melee weapon.

Really what is going on here is typical of any design process.

You brainstorm for ideas; you take the best ones and work on them.
Eventually, some of the ideas need to change to mesh with the other ideas.
Once in a great while, two of your idea become on a collision course with each other.
This is what has happened with the Barbarian character, and that might be why more play-testing is needed compared with the Bard which is looking pretty good right now.

The Rage Strike features says, hey you can have this ‘broken’ attack if don’t mind burning up all your dailies in a single battle.
And it is very strong.
Compare it to a normal daily attack.
What do you see?
A fifth level Rogue attack does 2[W] damage (+2d6 with CA) and this does 4[W] damage.
A ninth level Rogue attack does 3[W] damage (+2d6 with CA) and this does 5[W] damage.
A fifteenth level Rogue attack does 3[W] damage (or 5[W] if bloodied) (+3d6 with CA) and this does 6[W] damage
A nineteenth level Rogue attack does 6[W] damage (+3d6 with CA) and this does 7[W] damage.

All in all it is a very simple flavored attack. You use your first daily, then you attack once or twice more with Rage Strike. The rest of day, you don’t rage at all. This design assumes that a Barbarian is even tempered most of the day and goes wild with rage once in a great while.

On the hand, another design features many various interesting bonuses and abilities surrounding rage. These little features are flavorful and even built into some of the basic at-will attacks. You “Rage early and often” as is promoted for the barbarian. This design assumes that a Barbarian will want to go into a rage early during many encounters.

Now choices are good if they are not as difficult as this one is. A player is faced with the fact that he/she must decided a certain style of play over another without taking advantage of both. The player can save all the dailies up, not knowing what is next and not enjoying all those favor things that have been added. Or the player can rage at the start of each encounter and endure the criticism of other players who feel that the player should be taking the more “broken?” route.

This brings problems to the DM as well. Knowing what is happening, the DM must calculate whether his climatic battle will quickly be brought to an end with a saved up Barbarian Rage Strike. This forces the DM to up the odds and possibly bring out more powerful monsters than the party can handle. And what happens when the Barbarian uses his dailies on something other than a climactic battle or the Player decides to try the other route for fun? Then the DM must adjust the encounter again.

Yes, it is true that player might like to save up their dailies for a bigger battle, but that does not mean that all characters should do this. The Barbarian might intentionally be made an exception to this rule, and that alone would make more interesting.

That is why I separated Rage Strike from its connect to the Daily Powers and why I think it should be an at-will, encounter, or daily class feature of its own. This grants the players the ability to enjoy all that hard work put into flavorful rages that seems well thought out.

Time is precious, that is so true.
What I have already said should suffice.
I will not repeat what I have already wrote, because you would have twice as much to read later on…


About identifying Solo monsters:
Page 26 of the DMG has a section titled “Informing Players”.
It is good reading.

While it does not specifically discuss whether a DM should give clues when a monster is a minion, elite, or solo monster, the text does imply that sometime during the encounter a DM should supply this information to the players. “…You should, however, give enough information that the players know what’s up and have an idea what to do-and what not to do.”

If one is really into D&D realism, them a minion would appear weaker in some way to character who is very skilled in fighting. An elite monster would appear more tough or strong or skillful or commanding. A solo monster should be described as being very formidable in some fashion or another. Having no clues as to whether a creature is a minion or a solo monster sounds very unrealistic to me. These clues might not come right away, but they should be there.

The DM is the eyes and ears of the players, if you don’t tell them enough to feel like they are seeing and hearing what is going on, the game will not come alive.

Of particular interest is the section on ‘“Gotcha!” Abilities’ and how a DM is responsible to convey this information to the players in the form of clues. Also, the section on “Game States, Conditions, and Effects” is interesting as well. The information there implies things too.

During some of the Podcasts and during the Podcast video, WotC staff members did give clues or plainly say whether a monster was elite or a minion. This was sometimes provided at first and sometimes provided after a round or two.

I do feel that damage increases based on whether a monster is elite or solo could be a good mechanic for WotC to consider in the future. These monsters have higher defenses and considerably more hp. They can afford slightly higher damage done to them.

There could be other ways to handle this as well.
No need to toss an interesting design completely away.
Rage Strike could also simply be changed to a Daily Power:


Rage Strike     Barbarian Feature

You channel your primal rage into a devastating attack.

Daily <> Primal, Weapon

Standard Action       Melee Weapon

Requirement: You must be raging.

Target: One Creature

Attack: Strength vs. AC

Hit: You deal damage based on your level:
1st level     3[W] + Strength modifier
5th level     4[W] + Strength modifier
9th level     5[W] + Strength modifier
15th level     6[W] + Strength modifier
19th level     7[W] + Strength modifier
25th level     8[W] + Strength modifier
29th level     9[W] + Strength modifier