Anti-Barbarian

Hey all.

So in my current campaign the Barbarian is running willy-nilly over all opponents.

Anyway what are some good anti-barbarian spells/tactics that can be used every once in a while?

Thanks for the advice.

[[Yes, ranged would work]]

Enemy casters would be your best bet. Wizard/Sorc/Witch or Druid especially. Hit him from range, slow/stop his movement, mess up the terrain. They'll be squishy if he gets up close to them, but if they can keep their distance they can seriously slow him down.

If your biggest problem is the Barbarian, I envy your problems.

Any will save spell will tend to work well, as well as ranged touch (if he has superstition + ghost...whateverit'scalled he'll be much less vulnerable to these).

Calm Emotions is the class dick move spell for a DM to throw at a Barbarian.

Beyond spells, use hit and run attacks, archers, and melee that use combat expertise and fighting defensively (you CAN do both). Possibly with Crane Wing. They won't be able to hurt him, but that's not the point. The point of all of these mundane tactics is to waste time and draw out the combat length so he has blow rage rounds. If he drops his rage, then strike full force. Especially if he lacks fatigue immunity, he's pretty vulnerable at that point.

Ray of Enfeeblement? Ray of Exhaustion? Touch of Fatigue? Waves of Fatigue? Sure, he'd probably pass a fortitude save against a lot of these, but they'd still have some effect even if he passes.

Any spell that would put Difficult Terrain between the barbarian and his targets would also help, so he couldn't outright charge them off the bat and couldn't 5-foot step and get more full attacks.

What level is the party?

Create pit on the barbarian could get around superstition.

I think theres a emotion spell out there that knocks out Rage, could be good.

Spells such as spike stones could also be used to interesting affect especially if he is in fact running willy-nilly all over the place.

Calm emotions. Swarms are always a pain encounter for martial characters.

Next time you're in town, have the barmaid give the strongest ale on him. Make it so strong that he could only pass on an natural 20. Then give him the worst hangover of his life for the next few days (Because it was magic dwarven ale) that cuts his stats.

What are his stats? The correct response to this really varies a lot based on what kind of Barbarian he is.

thanks guys.

For the record I am not the GM, I created this and will now direct the GM here.

Party is 7th BTW.

And he is a typical 2-hander bash em barbarian.

Thanks again.

Eh at 7th level even his Will save won't be terrible...

Umm I'd probably go with creative game tactics, and possibly even sudering/disarming.

I've used things like a Wizard with Levitate casting Pit and putting an Illusion over it, I've used flying grappling enemies to attempt picking guys up, I think for one guy I had a problem with I made sure they had to fight in the dark using Deeper Darkness, and anything really that puts him out of his element.

I think Spring Attack, Ride by Attack and Fly by Attack are going to be his bane. Spread guys out and have them run in, attack and run out. That way he has to make use of charging and running around.

thanks guys.

For the record I am not the GM, I created this and will now direct the GM here.

Party is 7th BTW.

And he is a typical 2-hander bash em barbarian.

Thanks again.

O_o

Does the DM actually express issue with him, or did you sort of do this fact finding on your own initiative?

I don't like the sound of this...

Thefurmonger wrote:

thanks guys.

For the record I am not the GM, I created this and will now direct the GM here.

Party is 7th BTW.

And he is a typical 2-hander bash em barbarian.

Thanks again.

O_o

Does the DM actually express issue with him, or did you sort of do this fact finding on your own initiative?

I don't like the sound of this...

heh, I can see how you might think that...

The Gm in question is an amazing story teller, he is great at weaving a gripping tale that really grabs you.

He has deep, intresting NPC's and his campaigns are some of the best I have played in.

However.

He is not the best at plain old crunch. he is more into the narative then the hard and fast rules stuff.

I sometimes give him a hand with stuff as an "extra set of GM eyes"

So if something is a problem I give advice on how it can be worked with.

Yes he is hapy to get it and i tread lightly.

Hi Folks,

I'm the GM running the campaign with the barbarian, that this thread is about.

I happened to mention my behind the screen belief to Thefurmonger that the barbarian class errs on the broken side and was looking for suggestions on how to slow down the Pathfinder killing machine.

My problem with the barbarian class is that as soon as you approach 10th level most of the negative balances built into the class have little effect on the class in game.

The biggest Achilles heel of the class, Will saves, can be overcome or just merely slow the barbarian down to a single attack.

The game suddenly becomes unbalanced with trying to build combat encounter that a barbarian can't bulldoze through, while leaving the rest of the party standing there going "I guess we'll wait until the barbarian's done to move on."

Please keep the suggestions coming.

A barbarian can hit hard enough to smash most things to bits in one hit, but they can only swing so many times a round. Any excess damage after the kill is wasted. So, for the same CR Budget, you can gat a lot of small minions and have them fight dirty. Throwing alchemist fire, hit and run, ect. Tuckers Kobolds is the classic example, but the principle scales down too.
This kind of encounter favors AOE and Archers with loads of attacks. The main strengths of a Two Hander build are wasted, but a fighting type is still viable enough to not feel slighted.

My advice since you LOVE story...Anti-paladin. High AC, Channel Negative Energy, and there are LOTS of undead with DR. When he struggles to hit te Anti-paladin he may frown, but when the Paladin at level 7 channels negative energy he will REALLY frown.

Not to mention this also doesn't leave the rest of the group struggling to have a role in combat.

The OP doesn't sound so much like "how can i screw up the barbarian" but more of a "WHat can i do to provide a challenging encounter for my barbarian" WHich is probably good.

You can also use an enemy with HIgh DR that the other players can get around somehow. Like Sneak-attacking for higher damage, spells, etc, but when it comes to raw damage, its' pretty resistant. Give it a significant DR, and Fast-Healing.

It both lets the Barb shine by rewarding his massive damage output, cause he needs HUGE damage to get through DR, but also makes it tough for him, cause he's got to do alot more damage than normal to drop this enemy. Just make sure to give the other players ways of contributing as well.

as a Barbarian myself, that is my favorite enemy to fight. Supermen duking it out.

You can try some different encounters.

Give the opponents ranged attacks and put in some intervening terrain so the barbarian can't get at them.

An invisible summoner should give him fits, too, as summoning creatures does not break invisibility.

Shadows are incorporeal (50% damage reduction) and deal Strength damage -- watch him cry as his attack and damage bonus go through the floor.

Wraiths are incorporeal and deal Constitution drain -- there go his rounds of rage. Two of them are a CR7 encounter (meaning your party should blow through them pretty quickly, but then the barbarian is down rounds of rage for the fight, and maybe for the Con drain).

A 9th-level wizard can cast enervation as a ranged touch for 1d4 temporary negative levels (no save).

A 5th-level wizard can cast ray of exhaustion as a ranged touch. It's got a Fort save, but even if he makes his save he's fatigued (and can no longer enter rage).

As has been mentioned, calm emotions can knock him right out of his rage (leaving him fatigued).

For bonus fun, dominate person on the barbarian and have him attack the rest of the party. I guarantee they won't be standing around waiting until he's done.

He has a lot if hit points, but at 7th level a lot of opponents are going to have ranged area attacks (like fireball) that depend on Reflex saves. Feel free to liberally douse the barbarian (and anyone nearby) with those. Also, an alchemist throwing explosive bombs would literally light him up.

Speaking of which, if you're having problems beating his will saves for some reason, an alchemist with madness bombs should whittle him down pretty quick.

You could just throw a magus at them, though. A couple of rounds to buff and they're very tough and deal a ton of damage.

In short, there's no end to the ways to ruin a barbarian's day. If the character is really out of line with the other members of the party, however, your best bet might be to talk it over with the player and explain that his character isn't letting the other players participate in the game.

What are his stats? The correct response to this really varies a lot based on what kind of Barbarian he is.

He's a straight forward barbarian, no archetypes, built with a 15 point buy.

There is nothing broken in the build, and the player is not a power builder, because there are some class features and feats he could take to bump up attack/damage output even higher.

Excellent suggestions everyone.

The bummer for me as a GM is just that I have to give more attention to balancing out what a party with a barbarian in it can do in combat, versus what a party without a barbarian in it can do.

I'm just more of a fan of skillful team work combat than brute melee combat.

But I understand that its just one part of the game, and I'm fine with that as a GM.

Have you heard of the concept of spotlight balance?

It sounds like your game is heavily social encounter-oriented already. While anyone can roleplay and that's fine, the Barb class offers nearly diddly squat mechanically to help with social interactions (other than using intimidate to solve every problem :) ).

So maybe just let him shine in the combats and others can shine in the social interactions.

One I have seen used very effectively:

A very large field (football sized) with several dozen 1st to 3rd level goblins scattered all over the place. Have a few that have a sorc level in there to cast true strike, grease on the axe, etc...
Whatever goblins the barbarian (or other melee) charges close to run away. They never try to melee, just get away.
Others crouch down and hide in the grass and try to get close enough to throw alchemical stuff. tanglefoot bags, thunderstones, alchemical fire, acid, cold, etc...
Others continually try to circle the group to get at the squishies and shoot poisoned xbows at the melee types. Yeah, AC and fort save are high, but their are lots of arrows. Some will hit. After a while some fort saves will be failed.
They should still eventually win (eventually have the goblins fail a morale check and run away for now).

You get some of everything. Doing 400 damage to everything within 5 ft isn't that great if it's only one level 2 goblin.
The melee types will probably actually be scared after they start getting hit by lots of small damages and effects. If they don't protect the squishies they will learn that lesson.
The other characters will have time to do something.
They will still get the feeling of whinning against terrible odds.

+1 on the mob suggestion, it weakens the barbarian while still making him feel like a badass. When he drops the goblin to -43 in a single hit, just make sure you describe just how comically mutilated the bodies are.

Will-save VS Barbarian is overrated; if he's put even an ounce of thought into character creation, a raging human barbarian has a +5 morale bonus to all saves against magic by 7th, putting his will save roughly on par with an equivalent-level wizard and the rest of his saves in the "nutty" category. Also, he can and should be readying actions to attack when the caster starts waving his hands, forcing concentration for both the damage and casting defensively. "Barbarians have crappy will saves" is mostly a holdover idea from 3.5 when they were rolling with +3's at that level. This fight comes down to the initiative war, and fights that come down to initiative war are almost never fun or worth running. It's a fine way to "defeat" your players, but if you're trying to "win", you're doing it wrong.

That said, a more battlefield control spellcaster could actually be a fun challenge for your barbarian. Say, an invisible conjurer focusing mainly on summoning, fogs, and movement impairing abilities while silencing all of his spells. That would be fun.

Barbarians charge---a lot. The typical counter to charge tactics is to either deny a clean charge lane, or to ready weapons with the brace feature to receive the charge. You can do a lot of damage with readied strike plus attack of opportunity when he pounces.

Barbarians charge---a lot. The typical counter to charge tactics is to either deny a clean charge lane, or to ready weapons with the brace feature to receive the charge. You can do a lot of damage with readied strike plus attack of opportunity when he pounces.

All you really need to deny charge is difficult Terrain. Anything that hinders movement will stop a charge.

how to kill a barbarian? grease...

if hes over level 5 then create pit

if hes over level 9 then wall of stone

if you really want to get rid of him, combine the 2 spell above, that means an instant kill on the barbarian.

but flying enemies are usually the best way to slow a barbarians crazyness.