|
The final barbarian is rather weak, considering he was the strongest of the core full BAB classes in 3.5.
They are probably still the best damage dealers on the first few levels but get replaced in that position by fighters rather quickly who can all the time deal more damage than the barbarian can do while raging.
Barbarians are strong, but most of the things they get to do is He-Man stuff, making large jumps, bending iron bars etc. As a class, they are poor in defense without having a strong offense.
At 20th level, it isn't even funny anymore. A fighter can rather easily ignore the DR of a barbarian while getting a DR of 5/- himself. He'll also get a bonus of +5 to hit and +8 to damage while the barbarian gets only +4 to hit and +6 to damage. While raging.
I'm thinking of replacing the normal rage with Whirling Frenzy from Unearthed Arcana. While it's be a lot stronger, it might make the barbarian a little bit more veritable compared to other melee classes like fighter, ranger, paladin or bard.
Anyone got any links to where I can find copies of Unearthed Arcana and the Spell Compendium for 3.5 please? I found them on Amazon but does Paizo sell them still too?
I think I'm going to try leaving them as they are for now, except to houserule several of their rage powers to be usable 1/round at will (without even requiring a swift action).
"Surprise accuracy" isn't that great even if it is used for free every round. As a swift-action power once per rage it's pitiful (compared to some of the other rage powers I mean).
Some exceptions apply. Clear Mind is quite useful and should still take your swift action. The bite should take a swift action. Mighty Swing should definitely be once per rage.
In any case, they do look fun to play, and most of their rage powers have a nice feeling of violent spontaneity.
I don't like them either. If I had more free time I would just rewrite the entire class, but since I don't I will modify them as best I can with the free time I do have.
Supposing you did have time to do a ground-up rework, what direction do you suppose you'd want to take them in?
While alot of the ideas are good, the abilities just seem so..meh to me. Why spend an swift action to gain a +4 bonus to a single damage roll, when using power attack you could potentially be gaining +18?
If they made the abilities more powerful (or at least made it that swift actions weren't required) then they might stand out more. My worry is that some abilities are never really going to see the light of day, and others will be taken constantly (such as the improved damage reduction one).
Blackleaf looks forward to new rules.
I'm sorry... a little off topic.
I'm just finding it so humorous that most people are going, "OMG, they nerfed my favorite class!" or the like: Bard, Wizard, Barbarian. I'm sure if you look hard enough, you can find the others.
Okay, back to your normally scheduled posting.
That's to be expected I think. The Beta handed out awesome new powers left and right, after which the final version threw out a lot of surprise nerfs to dampen or counterbalance them.
That's how these things work, though; you ham it up in early versions to get the new ideas out, then reign things in later on.
There are several changes I'm not happy with and it would have been nice if they'd saught more feedback between editions rather than making so much of it a "surprise", but it is what it is.
So, I haven't seen it anywhere else on the boards, but did anybody else notice that the Str/Con bonus from rage became a morale bonus instead of an unnamed bonus? I haven't found anything else yet that gives a morale bonus to Str or Con, so it might not be a big deal, but it's interesting that it's there to prevent future stacking.
I'm just finding it so humorous that most people are going, "OMG, they nerfed my favorite class!"
It's not quite as simple as that. If we approached any argument with that tone, then of course it'll sound bad.
"OMG: People complaining?!"
Doesn't sound as nice when it's your own argument is it? If you disagree with someone, explain why, don't act annoyed simply because someone has an opinion though without even explaining.
My problem isn't that the class is weaker. On the contray, I think the 3.5 barbarian was one of the better classes in terms of balance. It just seems a little off-putting that the biggest change in the class doesn't seem to really have much (or in the case of some powers, any) impact at all on it's playing.
Ignoring the beta version (which we should all be doing), I prefer this version of the Barbarian to the 3.5 version. This one has mechanical variety and a decent amount of versatility.
I think that, like all the other classes, once people stop looking at the rules and start playing the characters in actual campaign settings they'll find awesome and fun nuances that were overlooked on first glance.
Plus, it's hard to downplay DR/-. That s--t rocks.
Supposing you did have time to do a ground-up rework, what direction do you suppose you'd want to take them in?
I would definitely have them do more damage than the fighter. Since Barbarians as savage, but not necessarily savages they would have some sort of intimidation ability*, but as a barbarian you would get a bonus to resist it since you are from the culture. I would up the DR when they were raging, and maybe have other ways for them to take more damage.
This might even be a talent tree. Eventually you might even be able to intimidate large groups of creatures. If this is an ability already then I overlooked it.
Actually I guess that sounds like the barbarian we have now, but mine would be more effective, but since I dont have time for a new writeup I will tell what I did change.
Rolling Dodge and Guarded Stance have been combined into one ability that affects melee and ranged attacks. You get +1 AC for every 5 levels and it is a swift action to activate.
Improved Vigor allows you to automatically succeed on any failed saved as an non-action even if the failed save would kill you. If you don't use the ability as soon as you learn that you failed it then it can't be used. You must be 12th level
Unexpected Strike can be taken up to 3 times and it stacks
Any rage power that can be activated as a swift action can be activated as part of the rage.
Note: You can only activate one power when your rage begins as part of the rage.
Devastating Attack(I made this one up) give you a +4 to attack and damage rolls. It can be used 3 times per day. You must be a 12th level.
Supreme Power Attack: Your power attack if you have the feat is only limited by your BAB. In other words the 3.5 version. You must be level 10 to select this feat.
PS: When I say you have to be certain level it means you have to have that many Barbarian levels so being a level 1 barbarian/ level 11 rogue will not get you improved vigor.
These came to be in about a a 10 min time span. None of these have been playtested at this time of course, so use/allow at your own risk.
I have yet to make a fighter(Pathfinder), but it seems the fighter now has better AC, and does more damage with all of its feats. If someone makes a fighter/barbarian comparison could you post the info. I would do it, but I am playing or DMing 3 campaigns.