I'll be doing more later today. I'm using a prior poster's proposed method of analysis, where the class analysis is done with them fighting a series of challenges with the EL equal to its level. The ideal we're shooting for is roughly 50%.
Half-Orc Barbarian - level 5
Stats (32 point-buy): Str 20, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 10
Feats: Power Attack, Overhand Chop, Weapon Focus (Greatsword)
Skills: Climb, Intimidate, Perception
Rage Powers: Surprise Accuracy, Intimidating Glare
Equipment: belt of strength +2, +1 breastplate, +1 greatsword, potion of enlarge person, 2 potions of lesser vigor, heavy wooden shield, mighty (+5) composite longbow
Challenges
[u]Huge animated iron statue[/u]: This is not a fight the barbarian can afford to be thrifty with, though we're fortunate that it's AC is so low. For the first three rounds, he uses Surprise Accuracy and Power Attack for booku damage at a near guaranteed hit. Then it was mop-up, though on the second fight I did get crit by one of its slams and had to take a lesser vigor potion before coming out of rage. Overall, the fight took virtually all of the barbarian's rage points, and it still took four rounds. Just to try it out, I experimented on the third fight by not using Surprise Accuracy. I barely made it, but it only took a round longer to actually kill it.
[u]Basilisk[/u]: I'm only failing 10% of the time, so I started off just fighting with my eyes open. I opened with a Power Attack and Surprise Accuracy to make sure I could only miss 20% of the time, and then died to a natural 2 on the second round before I attacked. That was an anomaly, as I then proceeded to kill it the next two times.
[u]Large Fire Elemental[/u]: Damn, this is a close fight, looking at the numbers. However, I got semi-lucky and managed to remain standing by the second round thanks to those virtual HP from raging for two fights, though I just plain lost the second of the three. 2/3 ain't bad, though this was a more struggling fight than the basilisk.
[u]Manticore on the Wing[/u]: I wait to rage until it's within reach, since the barbarian can't fly or reliably shoot ranged. Unfortunately, that magic critical with my bow never appears, and I die a horrific death the first time through. The second go around, I try to hunker behind a shield and wait four rounds, and I still die. I try one more time to wait behind the shield, and survive the thing's barrage, only to die from one round of melee because I was incapable of dealing 57+ damage in that one attack I had available.
[u]Mummy[/u]: First fight brings death. The barbarian gets his revenge in the second fight and kills it back. Unfortunately, this seems to be an alternating pattern, as the barbarian dies horrifically in the third fight.
[u]Phase Spider[/u]: It gets the first bite, but once the barbarian goes on the alert, it dies on the second swing. Even failing against the poison proves to not be enough for the spider. This is a hat trick for the barbarian.
[u]Troll[/u]: The barbarian surprisingly does well here, taking it down and then putting a torch to its face all three times. They deal comparable damage to each other & have identical hit points, but the troll doesn't quite do enough in two rounds to take him down.
[u]Chasm[/u]: Proves to be doable, if a bit time-consuming, since the barbarian is having to do it the old-fashioned way.
[u]Moat filled with acid[/u]: This is really damn embarrasing. I assumed the moat was an almost trivial 10' across, which means I have to roll an 8+ after a running start with Acrobatics (Dex based). I failed to do so three times in a row. I'll give him a pity win to account for the bad luck, which brings it up to 1 out of 4 for this challenge.
[u]Locked Door Several Pit Traps[/u]: He survives the traps, grunts at the lock, and proceeds to smash open the door with 7 rage points and a single attack.
[u]Pit Filled with Medium Monstrous Scorpions[/u]: On the first and second run, the barbarian rolled poorly enough to miss the pit and falls in. Twelve are just too many for him to survive, especially since he's only killing one a round. Now, on the third fight, he sees them and laughs as he fills them full of arrows (like shooting scorpions in a pit?).
[u]Grimlock Assault Team[/u]: Like lambs to the slaughter. These guys just can't do enough damage and die from being breathed on, even though one of them got lucky and crit before going down, which brought our barbarian to the fairly hurt stage (still able to stand without having to drink a potion).
Final Result: At 5th level, he's doing quite well for himself (got a score of 65%), and does almost exactly as well as an optimized paladin (still different in strengths/weaknesses). He effectively blows his entire load in two fights, but that gives him more staying power than the paladin. This is a rather typical build, with simple feats. I would almost venture to say that this is almost too good for this level. Even a relatively minor reduction in the actual numbers would turn a couple of fights from wins to losses because they were so close (the elemental and statue, namely); or even being more frugal with rage points and not using Surprising Accuracy.
One other thing I am somewhat disappointed by, which is the option for Intimidating Glare. It's too expensive to even bother, doubly so with the fights being so short.
Why 32 point buy? The standard seems to be 25 or 28 points. Maybe with that kind of point buy, the barbarian would be on target rather than slightly too powerful.
Why 32 point buy? The standard seems to be 25 or 28 points. Maybe with that kind of point buy, the barbarian would be on target rather than slightly too powerful.
If you generate stats by 4>3 the average point value of the result is close to 32. Of course, that's partially because you roll suboptimal 15s and 17s. But I tend to use 32 point buy for playtests because I use it for my games, which is because it gives MAD classes a fighting chance.
Well, for the CR vs. CR argument to hold it's salt, You would have to use the rules set forth for designing NPC's. That means using a 25 point buy or the 15,14,13,12,10,8 method. With a 32 point buy, you are effectively upping the character's CR by 1.
This is a PC, not an NPC. Players have better stats than the elite array. Even if we lowered it down to this 'common' standard of 28 point-buy, which is the average you get with the 4d6 rolling method, we can lower Intelligence and Charisma by two each and drop the Intimidate skill (since it was never used) without changing the results at all.
I love posts like these this is solid testing of the game and the classes it has made
I love posts like these this is solid testing of the game and the classes it has made
One caveat is that tactics and equipment can make a huge difference. For instance, a melee fighter with a reach weapon and a tanglefoot bag has a big advantage over one without (an entangled enemy can't make a 5' step, so the melee fighter can attack + 5' step back, forcing the enemy to provoke an AoO every time it tries to get back in melee range as well as preventing the enemy from making full attacks).
Yeah but this is one of thouse blank room tests that just checks power vs power of the classes
I was trying to avoid the reach+tanglefoot tactic, because that doesn't really show us the class, but the tanglefoot bag.
Now, there had been some tactics used, but they were more positioning and timing tactics; as I had the barbarian wait for the troll to charge him rather than the other way around (prevents the first round full-attack ability of the troll).
I'm not really certain how much I should bother with a high level barbarian playtest, because he's going to play as well as the high level fighter one (same tactics, same limitations). I should at least build him and see where the differences lie.
Uh... what about skill challenges? The ability to do something in the non-combat phases of the game is part of what balancing classes is all about, isn't it?
Not really. There isn't any way to compare the two animals (combat vs noncombat), and thus any attempts to account for the deficiency in one through the inflation of the other is a fool's errand. DM style swings the importance of skills wildly because of the comparative lack of crunch in their use, on top of the fact that many times roleplaying can/is done without rolling a single die (and their success is more dependent on the player than the character); making even the intra-balance of skills difficult at best.
Thusly, the first attempts at analyzing balance is comparing effectiveness in combat, which is so far showing a severe deficiency at higher levels.