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The latest Dragon feature is up. It brings the first look at The Barbarian!
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Take a Walk On the Wild Side
by Heinsoo, Mearls, Decker, and Schwalb
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!
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.
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Other than the new powers. It also goes over the new Paragon Path: The Frenzied Berzerker
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Okay, I like the concept behind the barbarian, but I'm seeing one problem with it at 1st level - you can't use the Rage Strike at-will power. Why? Because you have to be raging and have an unused rage power. Rage powers are all daily powers (in fact, all daily attack powers for barbarians are rages), and at 1st level, you only have one daily power. You can't both be raging (which requires that you've used your one daily power) and spend an unspent one.
At later levels, it works. Until you hit 5th level and get your second rage, not so much, unless I'm missing something.
Okay, I like the concept behind the barbarian, but I'm seeing one problem with it at 1st level - you can't use the Rage Strike at-will power. Why? Because you have to be raging and have an unused rage power. Rage powers are all daily powers (in fact, all daily attack powers for barbarians are rages), and at 1st level, you only have one daily power. You can't both be raging (which requires that you've used your one daily power) and spend an unspent one.
At later levels, it works. Until you hit 5th level and get your second rage, not so much, unless I'm missing something.
Well back in 3.x the Barabarian only got 1 rage/day initially anyway. Don't know if it is set up to do this on purpose to show that, but that's what it seems like to me.
Hopefully if they get feedback about this they can rectify it; it's playtest after all.
I think they did a fantastic job with the flavor of the class, and I like, conceptually, the mechanics it uses. Balance-wise, it feels a bit too powerful as a whole, with several powers that are simply way too strong. (Which only makes me more glad they are testing this in advance, so fixes can be applied!)
The one thing that might be a challenge to fix - they are a striker class that doesn't have an extra damage bonus such as Warlock's Curse, Hunter's Quarry or Sneak Attack. In return, their powers as a whole seem stronger, with them often getting an extra [W] above other classes to let them fill their striker role. In isolation, this works fine. In practice, multiclassing and snagging some of their powers is potentially inherently stronger than doing the same with other classes, and I'm not sure how to fix that.
I also like how they have tons of hp but are likely to have pretty poor defenses. Whether it will work out, I'm not sure, but again - conceptually, I like it.
If you pick it up through multi-class then an at will power would become an encounter power, yes? This should keep things from getting too out of hand. In fact I'd think the ranger power is in some ways more potent because you can put up Hunters Quarry and then use your normal powers with that extra die of damage. Very potent against something like a Solo. A single use of a fairly damaging power in an encounter does not seem to dangerous.