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So, as I look over the barbarian, I feel kinda... unimpressed.
The core ability, Rage, lasts an awfully short amount of time and takes an action. The bonus is kinda lackluster. The damage resistance varies in utility depending on the totem. Its only a few points of damage that are easily overshadowed by magic weapon damage. On top of that, rage takes an action, the bonus is conditional, limits your actions, confers an AC penalty and the fatigue afterward basically makes you lose a round. It seems almost like it hurts more than it helps in many cases.
The class itself doesn't even become an expert with weapons until level 13. A caster with the Fighter Archetype gets that at 12. Even a Paladin nabs that at 5. But...man... 13....
I dunno what the fix is here but I think that a raging barbarian should feel more imposing than it looks now.
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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Barbarian i think is actually one of the best classes in the play test. Out of all of them it felt the best and gave a really good first impression. I really like the rage mechanic because it has some strategy to it. Do you rage right away to end the battle quickly or to you take a turn or two before you rage to see how the battle goes. If you expect a long combat maybe its better to rage right away because you know you are going to be raging more than once. I still think the class need some work but it is going in the right direction.
Paizo seemed to really be pushing the tactical combat angle hard for this edition. If that's not your thing, it's pretty much TS.
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I like the over-all dynamic, although I feel maybe Rage should be Free to activate instead of 1 Action.
It feels like accuracy is area that is lacking, I can see why more common crits could be unbalanced with damage bonus,
but the damage bonus doesn't need to multiply on crit, at least have choice how to fight there.
Lagging that much behind even Paladin is absurd, and pushes viable builds too much certain directions.
Lack of ranged options (outside Dragon/Spirit Totem) feels VERY noticeable and regression from 1st Edition.
(where Rage applied to Thrown weapons in Unchained, and even Bow damage in Vanilla, and numerous thrown abilities existed)
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So I like the Barbarian, but one of the things I wonder about is classes who are faced with feat choices between "good at fighting" and "good at other stuff". Like Acute Scent, Raging Athlete, Furious Sprint are fine, but I find myself wanting to take fighting oriented feats (including archetype feats) instead.
I wonder if we wouldn't be better off siloing "directly combat applicable" choices from "general utility" feats. Like the fighter can easily spend all their feats on fighting basically, whereas for Monks and Barbarians you're weighing "moving around" feats against "fighting" feats.
Absolutely. IMHO alot of those abilities are better handled as General/Skill Feats that have Barbarian Level requirement. Why shouldn't your Class impact what you do with General/Skill Feats? (this goes for all classes really, they all should have aspects compatible with General/Skill Feat Tiers) Which is another good reason why "Class Feat" name should be dropped (which creates expectation other Feats can't be Class-related, although system doesn't actually require that), and a name for Feat tier that just implies "Most Powerful" Feat used instead.
PossibleCabbage wrote: So I like the Barbarian, but one of the things I wonder about is classes who are faced with feat choices between "good at fighting" and "good at other stuff". Like Acute Scent, Raging Athlete, Furious Sprint are fine, but I find myself wanting to take fighting oriented feats (including archetype feats) instead.
I wonder if we wouldn't be better off siloing "directly combat applicable" choices from "general utility" feats. Like the fighter can easily spend all their feats on fighting basically, whereas for Monks and Barbarians you're weighing "moving around" feats against "fighting" feats.
I think it would be even better to have out-of-combat focused feats for these classes to also offer benefits for combat, even if they're weaker than a purely combat feat. This way you can have a bit of both worlds even if you're going for something more of out of combat.
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For all the playtest I've been playing barbarian exclusively because it was my first favorite class in PF1 (followed later by Inquisitor).
I've gone the route of Giant Totem Barbarian which might arguably be the best totem to choose.
The only complaints I've really had about the class specifically were skill related (which has been addressed by changes to the number of starting skills and removing signature skills), the lack of reaction abilities, and the lack of good actions to take besides attack (like the fighter's raise shield).
I do have turns were I feel like I don't accomplish anything due to missing on 3 attacks, but this isn't a barbarian problem. This is a problem for every class. Casters if their target rolls a critical success save, fighters if they roll poorly, etc. Everybody can run into this sort of issue. It's just worse for barbarians since they don't have other productive ways to spend their actions/reactions.
PossibleCabbage wrote: So I like the Barbarian, but one of the things I wonder about is classes who are faced with feat choices between "good at fighting" and "good at other stuff". Like Acute Scent, Raging Athlete, Furious Sprint are fine, but I find myself wanting to take fighting oriented feats (including archetype feats) instead.
I wonder if we wouldn't be better off siloing "directly combat applicable" choices from "general utility" feats. Like the fighter can easily spend all their feats on fighting basically, whereas for Monks and Barbarians you're weighing "moving around" feats against "fighting" feats.
To be honest, I find the three specific feats you mention very combat oriented, because getting there is often half the battle in campaigns I play and GM. Acute Scent should likely have a 30 foot range, but scent can be very useful in combat.
Swipe is great, but I will get a lot of use out of Raging Athlete as well.
^ Nor proficiency/accuracy boosts which keep up with level.
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1/ I don't get why Barbarians never get past expert proficiency.
They should get expert and master at the same level a Ranger does.
Mechanically, the sluggish condition from the Giant Totem hurts too much with the class' innate lack of accuracy.
The best Giant Totem Barbarian is a Fighter with the Barbarian archetype (in terms of average DPR) and that is sad.
Besides, while I support the idea that only Fighters should ever become legendary in weapons, I don't understand why a class -Barbarian- that is presented as performing well in the role of combatant should not achieve master proficiency.
2/ Besides, I'm not a huge fan of the new Rage action itself.
Whatever you end up doing when it runs out, you'll have such a huge AC penalty that it'll far outweight the temporary HP you gained from raging.
There' a very real chance that the enemy is going to hit you with multiple attacks per round and it hurts really bad.
With the current rounds limitation, Rage should be a free action.
There was a thread at some point that went into great lengths to illustrate how much of a DPS loss it is to constantly have to spend an action to apply/reapply Rage in combat.
Barbarians end up doing less overall damage in a fight than Fighters.
They have slightly more HP but they also suffer from very poor AC, due to the mechanics of Rage.
As a result, we have a class that is supposed to be low-defense, highest-damage and ends up being low-defense, average damage.
Something went wrong. :/
Suggested fixes:
- Barbarians gain expert proficiency in their chosen weapon group at level 3 and master proficiency at level 13, akin to Rangers with their Weapon Expertise/Weapon Mastery class features.
- Rage becomes a free action and keeps all of its current limitations and penalty.
OR
- Rage remains a regular action (not a big fan) but you are no longer fatigued when it ends. In short, you get Tireless Rage at level 1. It also frees up a new class feature slot for the Weapon Expertise/Weapon Mastery suggestion above.
It seems obvious +att/proficiency and +dmg are seen as opposing demands because of former leading to more crits, thus multiplying latter. I've suggested specific mechanical means to avoid that, but looking at big picture... I think a good amount of damage from +crit * +dmg will simply be "over-kill" that doesn't change anything. Not to say there isn't potential concerns, but a decent % of the theoretical total DPR increase will be "over-kill" and thus shouldn't on it's count in balancing equation.
EDIT: It just feels like saying "well they may not hit as often, but when they do it's big, especially when they crit" doesn't really work. If you're not going to Crit a boss except maybe on a 20, it doesn't matter how big your crit might have been. If you'r only critting mooks, well you probably don't even need these crits in order to kill them.
Data Lore wrote: So, as I look over the barbarian, I feel kinda... unimpressed.
I dunno what the fix is here but I think that a raging barbarian should feel more imposing than it looks now.
I agree with you. I wanted my first character to be a barbarian, but after 3 hours of character generation I made him a fighter instead. I couldn't justify the lower AC and lower attack (Giant totem barbarians are -2 to hit compared to fighters). What put me over the edge was double penalizing Rage( penalty to AC during and fatigued after. I hope they go through and remove ALL double penalties (Rage and resonance come to mind). I think there is hope, they removed double penalty from infused items.
I think the deal with the lower proficiency is a narrative one: barbarians are unsophisticated unlearned beasts of damage, so they they don’t have any of “thos phansy teknics” with weapons or armor (the proficiencies) but they do hit harder and take more punishment.
This raises 4 questions: is the narrative appropriate, and is the tradoff fair (*2 for attack and defense).
I’m fine with the narrative, and think it’s not too overbearing for those who aren’t, but this is highly subjective.
As for balance, I haven’t played or GMd for barbarians in the playtest, so take my statements with a grain of salt:
I think the ac for temp health is a great and flavorful idea, and just from reading seems balanced (though I might be wrong there).
The attack for damage may or may not be balanced, I haven’t done the math, but I think it has a major issue with criticals. It may be fine to take away some hits from the barb, but lowering the attack bonus also means taking away some of their crits, which seems counter to the point; barbarians are all about swinging wide and hitting hard! They should have more crits, not less!
Here is my suggestion - keep the lower proficiency (or even lower it more!) drop the bonus damage, and give a bonus to crit chance. Maybe at high levels all hits are crits. This way playing a raging barb will be an emotional roller coaster, with great highs and lows. You know, like a rage fit.
It also turns out pretty balanced regarding the various weapons - low damage weapons with agile, deadly, and fatal all get boosts, as do high damage weapons (obviously).
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dnoisette wrote: 1/ I don't get why Barbarians never get past expert proficiency.
They should get expert and master at the same level a Ranger does.
I agree that should get an increase sooner than 13, although not necessarily when the ranger does.
A slight delay makes some sense, 5th or 7th for expert. I do not necessarily think they need Master, just that Expert should happen sooner than 13th. I am not opposed to the idea of the getting Master in a Weapon group at level 15 or maybe rather a Class Feat at level 14 to allow Master in a group of weapons if someone really wanted it for the flavor.
dnoisette wrote: Barbarians end up doing less overall damage in a fight than Fighters.
They have slightly more HP but they also suffer from very poor AC, due to the mechanics of Rage.
Normally I'd be OK with the Fighter out damaging Barbarians over the long haul. But that is old school thinking. Now that Fighter's get the same number of skills and nifty abilities like Master Perception and bonus initiative, I am not sure the Barbarian is keeping up all the way.
I like the flavor of the current Barbarian, but they do seem to be falling a little short. I might be discounting their resistance and Saves; also Mighty Rage does help with Action economy after 11th.
That's a problem with most of the classes. They make passable multiclass options for fighter or rogue, but can't stand on their own very well.
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In pure Dpr numbers, fighter will always outdamage barbarians.
But I find the extra abilities of barbarians much better than the fighter ones for everything non-dpr. Basically, fighters can hit stuff. Really good. But that's all they do.
For starters, with medium armor being equal to heavy now, and the way ability boosts work, a barbarian will be more tanky than a fighter due to getting quite a bit of temp HP every 4 rounds. Add that vigor is now a very nice "3rd action" and DR and a vision starts forming.
Barbarians are generally more mobile than fighters, can have alternative movement modes or increased reach, better HP pools plus periodic and round by round temp HP, plus always on DR and they start resembling Tanks much more than Dpr monsters they were in 1ed.
I'll add that giant totem does feel like a trap option. The main "draw" of giant totem is greatly enhanced reach. But as AoO are atm, that great benefit suddenly becomes kinda meh.
Superstition, with alchemist MC and the new self healing and vigor is viable but it struggles at low levels.
Animal is superb with free action pounce later on and insane "one handed" damage die from the start.
I haven't seen a Dragon barb in action, although they seem better than giant totem ones.
One thing I would love though would be all the morph powers to last much more than 3 rounds. Shape-shifting to an animal/dragon for 9seconds, taking a 3 sec pause, and repeating, is really dumb narrative (and mechanical) wise.
PossibleCabbage wrote: So I like the Barbarian, but one of the things I wonder about is classes who are faced with feat choices between "good at fighting" and "good at other stuff". Like Acute Scent, Raging Athlete, Furious Sprint are fine, but I find myself wanting to take fighting oriented feats (including archetype feats) instead. I don't think it's possible to meet the prerequisites for acute sense. I guess a grand total of 0 players are playtesting the non-combat feats.
Gaterie wrote: PossibleCabbage wrote: So I like the Barbarian, but one of the things I wonder about is classes who are faced with feat choices between "good at fighting" and "good at other stuff". Like Acute Scent, Raging Athlete, Furious Sprint are fine, but I find myself wanting to take fighting oriented feats (including archetype feats) instead. I don't think it's possible to meet the prerequisites for acute sense. I guess a grand total of 0 players are playtesting the non-combat feats.
Even in the strictest, obviously mistyped, interpretation, you can still meet the requirements as a half orc since you can have both low light and dark as one.
Obviously people are actually playtesting the actual game more than trying to nitpick on wrong commas.
Reminds me of people who argued you couldn't countersong, and refused to used it instead of actually playtesting the obvious correct spelling of the ability to see how it behaves mechanically.
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Claxon wrote: For all the playtest I've been playing barbarian exclusively because it was my first favorite class in PF1 (followed later by Inquisitor).
I've gone the route of Giant Totem Barbarian which might arguably be the best totem to choose.
The only complaints I've really had about the class specifically were skill related (which has been addressed by changes to the number of starting skills and removing signature skills), the lack of reaction abilities, and the lack of good actions to take besides attack (like the fighter's raise shield).
I do have turns were I feel like I don't accomplish anything due to missing on 3 attacks, but this isn't a barbarian problem. This is a problem for every class. Casters if their target rolls a critical success save, fighters if they roll poorly, etc. Everybody can run into this sort of issue. It's just worse for barbarians since they don't have other productive ways to spend their actions/reactions.
Starting from level 3, a giant totem barb lag 3 point behind a fighter in attack.
Let's say a fighter can hit a monster on a 9+. Counting crits as two hit, they score (average) 1.25 hit per round. (with standard deviation 1) Your barbarian scores 0.8 per round (with standard deviation 0.83 O_O). The fighter scores 50% more hit... Are your damage per hit 50% higher? At level 3, yes (1d12+10 vs 1d12+4). So the barbarian's damages are balanced against the fighter, if we forget the fatigue round, the action needed to activate the rage, the fighter's feats increasing his DPR, and the fact consistent DPR is always better than swingy DPR for the players...
Then +1 swords become available and the barbarian is left in the dust forever. But no worry, he gets 10 temp HP every 4 rounds, that's a huge amount when compared to monster's DPR - especially when considering the abysmal AC of a giant totem barbarians.
In the end, I agree with you: giant totem barbarians are a very solid trap option. People who don't break down the maths see the fighter missing every attacks from time to time, and think 1.25 +- 1 is exactly the same as 0.8 +- 0.83 and maybe it's compensated by their damages.
shroudb wrote: Gaterie wrote: PossibleCabbage wrote: So I like the Barbarian, but one of the things I wonder about is classes who are faced with feat choices between "good at fighting" and "good at other stuff". Like Acute Scent, Raging Athlete, Furious Sprint are fine, but I find myself wanting to take fighting oriented feats (including archetype feats) instead. I don't think it's possible to meet the prerequisites for acute sense. I guess a grand total of 0 players are playtesting the non-combat feats.
Even in the strictest, obviously mistyped, interpretation, you can still meet the requirements as a half orc since you can have both low light and dark as one. So the only way to get this level 2 feat is to take a specific ancestry choice with two specific feats and spend a level 6+ feat. I stand corrected.
Quote: Obviously people are actually playtesting the actual game more than trying to nitpick on wrong commas. The game is out since 2 month, and there has been exactly 0 thread about the requirements of acute vision.
You can assume it's because a lot of imaginary people have chosen the feat and have houseruled the requirements and didn't talk about it on the forum because they don't think a playtest is about correcting such errors.
Or you can assume no one bothered about the feat and those people exist only in your head.
Hint: PossibleCabbage gives an explanation about why no one bother with the feat. Because they can take a combat feat instead.
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shroudb wrote:
For starters, with medium armor being equal to heavy now, and the way ability boosts work, a barbarian will be more tanky than a fighter due to getting quite a bit of temp HP every 4 rounds. Add that vigor is now a very nice "3rd action" and DR and a vision starts forming.
A Barbarian will never be tankier than a Fighter.
I repeat, never.
Fighters are not supposed to boost their Dexterity, they're meant to keep it low and enjoy the benefits of better proficiency with heavy armor than any other class in the game (except Paladins).
If a Fighter wants to use medium armor (they do get expert proficiency after all) they can. They have enough room to start with 14 DEX, 14 CON, 18 STR and 12/14 in whatever else you like.
A Barbarian has no such possibility. They can never wear better than medium armor but it will take them a lot of time to catch with the max DEX modifier they're supposed to have to work with medium armor.
This is because Barbarians must start with 18 STR and 16 CON. Sure, you can start with just 14 CON and push DEX to 14, why not after all?
Except you always lose 1 AC when raging and up to 4 AC when the rage goes way! You'll never have the AC of a Fighter, even if you try your best at it.
You'll have more HP. Up to 3 extra HP per level, and your temporary HP. Barbarians don't mitigate damage with armor, they do so with their health pool.
If you build for very high CON, you can have an impressive number of HP and temporary HP.
The bad news is, monsters hit for a lot of damage and will usually take all of your temporary HP in one hit.
Fighters tank damage with armor, Barbarians tank damage with their HP and yes, that makes them weaker.
I can't let you say they're much tankier, that's just wrong.
At level 6, a Dwarf Fighter with 16 CON has 88 HP.
A Dwarf Barbarian with 18 CON has 106 HP.
When the Barbarian rages, he gains 10 temporary HP.
The Barbarian has 28 more HP than a Fighter when raging.
The Manticore, a 6th level monster, attacks for average 16 HP on a hit.
You won't even mitigate two full hits with your temporary HP.
The Fighter has 16 DEX and is wearing medium armor, say a +1 breastplate.
That's 24 AC, 22 TAC.
The Barbarian only has 14 DEX, otherwise they couldn't also have 18 CON.
They're also wearing a +1 breastplate, for a total of 23 AC, 21 TAC.
Except when raging, this goes down to 22 AC, 20 TAC.
On a turn that rage runs out, it goes as low as 19 AC, 17 TAC.
See where I'm going with this?
You're at least 10% more likely to get hit every attack and you don't even have enough HP to soak up more than one attack in full before you're on equal ground with the Fighter.
No, Barbarians are not tankier than Fighters.
They're different, because HP and not armor is their defense.
But they're not better and never will be.
dnoisette wrote: shroudb wrote:
For starters, with medium armor being equal to heavy now, and the way ability boosts work, a barbarian will be more tanky than a fighter due to getting quite a bit of temp HP every 4 rounds. Add that vigor is now a very nice "3rd action" and DR and a vision starts forming.
A Barbarian will never be tankier than a Fighter.
I repeat, never.
Fighters are not supposed to boost their Dexterity, they're meant to keep it low and enjoy the benefits of better proficiency with heavy armor than any other class in the game (except Paladins).
If a Fighter wants to use medium armor (they do get expert proficiency after all) they can. They have enough room to start with 14 DEX, 14 CON, 18 STR and 12/14 in whatever else you like.
A Barbarian has no such possibility. They can never wear better than medium armor but it will take them a lot of time to catch with the max DEX modifier they're supposed to have to work with medium armor.
This is because Barbarians must start with 18 STR and 16 CON. Sure, you can start with just 14 CON and push DEX to 14, why not after all?
Except you always lose 1 AC when raging and up to 4 AC when the rage goes way! You'll never have the AC of a Fighter, even if you try your best at it.
You'll have more HP. Up to 3 extra HP per level, and your temporary HP. Barbarians don't mitigate damage with armor, they do so with their health pool.
If you build for very high CON, you can have an impressive number of HP and temporary HP.
The bad news is, monsters hit for a lot of damage and will usually take all of your temporary HP in one hit.
Fighters tank damage with armor, Barbarians tank damage with their HP and yes, that makes them weaker.
I can't let you say they're much tankier, that's just wrong.
At level 6, a Dwarf Fighter with 16 CON has 88 HP.
A Dwarf Barbarian with 18 CON has 106 HP.
When the Barbarian rages, he gains 10 temporary HP.
The Barbarian has 28 more HP than a Fighter when raging.
The Manticore, a 6th... At 9+ you gain around 29 hp/4 rounds easily.
That's on average 7hp/round
You also have DR 4 vs most physical. Even at just 1 attack per round, that's 11damage mitigation per round. 15 damage mitigation if getting hit twice.
Getting hit 10% more often, from 50 to 60% means getting hit (on average) for 20% more damage. So, as long as you're getting hit for around 75 damage per round, you're equally tanky.
At 9 you rarely get hit for that much per round.
If you routinely get hit for like 2/3rds of a fighter's health pool per round, every round, then you need other encounters.
shroudb wrote: dnoisette wrote: shroudb wrote:
For starters, with medium armor being equal to heavy now, and the way ability boosts work, a barbarian will be more tanky than a fighter due to getting quite a bit of temp HP every 4 rounds. Add that vigor is now a very nice "3rd action" and DR and a vision starts forming.
A Barbarian will never be tankier than a Fighter.
I repeat, never.
Fighters are not supposed to boost their Dexterity, they're meant to keep it low and enjoy the benefits of better proficiency with heavy armor than any other class in the game (except Paladins).
If a Fighter wants to use medium armor (they do get expert proficiency after all) they can. They have enough room to start with 14 DEX, 14 CON, 18 STR and 12/14 in whatever else you like.
A Barbarian has no such possibility. They can never wear better than medium armor but it will take them a lot of time to catch with the max DEX modifier they're supposed to have to work with medium armor.
This is because Barbarians must start with 18 STR and 16 CON. Sure, you can start with just 14 CON and push DEX to 14, why not after all?
Except you always lose 1 AC when raging and up to 4 AC when the rage goes way! You'll never have the AC of a Fighter, even if you try your best at it.
You'll have more HP. Up to 3 extra HP per level, and your temporary HP. Barbarians don't mitigate damage with armor, they do so with their health pool.
If you build for very high CON, you can have an impressive number of HP and temporary HP.
The bad news is, monsters hit for a lot of damage and will usually take all of your temporary HP in one hit.
Fighters tank damage with armor, Barbarians tank damage with their HP and yes, that makes them weaker.
I can't let you say they're much tankier, that's just wrong.
At level 6, a Dwarf Fighter with 16 CON has 88 HP.
A Dwarf Barbarian with 18 CON has 106 HP.
When the Barbarian rages, he gains 10 temporary HP.
The Barbarian has 28 more HP than a Fighter when raging. ... Barbarian also has access to Renewed Vigor as a level 8 class feat. It lets you trade an action for Temp HP = 1/2 level + Con. At level 8, when you get it, that should end up being 8 HP for a single action. That's roughly on part with a Fighter raising his shield against a monster that is likely to hit you no matter what (equal level or higher). It's not a terrible bump to the Barbarian's HP pool and augments that "29 every four rounds" rather nicely.
Barbarian, while not an AC tank (none exist in this game as there is a prioritizing of active defense abilities... which universally are crap and don't do what they enough), does an okay job of being both a massive HP pool and a ton of damage mitigation through resistances and temporary HP. In a game where the best you can hope for, at anything, is "passable" the Barbarian is at the apex of tanking.
Con is always a trap over raising Ac. The advantage a character that starts with 16 con vs one that starts 14 is a that they will hit +5 con at level 15 rather than 20. The low levels of health offered before that don't outweigh the benefit of higher Dex.
At level 6 you could build for being level 6 rather than starting at level 1. This build is possible as a dwarf or a Human.
Str 18
Dex 16
Con 18
Wis 14 (+2 as dwarf)
Ancestry dex con, background str con, str class, pick the 4 above at level 1 and 5. Also available to either barbarian or fighter so the difference between them is 2hp/level( 16 vs 14) which is 15% more hp and the difference in armor is 5% so they take 20% more damage over a full attack when accounting for crit.
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shroudb wrote: At 9+ you gain around 29 hp/4 rounds easily.
That's on average 7hp/round
You only gain temporary HP when you start Raging.
With 18 CON, at level 9, you gain 13 HP and that's it.
If you want more, you're gonna have to keep reapplying your Rage every round and that is one big a** DPS loss like no other.
What's the point of having extra damage per hit if you lose the opportunity to attack once each round?
Greg.Everham wrote: Barbarian also has access to Renewed Vigor as a level 8 class feat. It lets you trade an action for Temp HP = 1/2 level + Con. At level 8, when you get it, that should end up being 8 HP for a single action. That's roughly on part with a Fighter raising his shield against a monster that is likely to hit you no matter what (equal level or higher). It's not a terrible bump to the Barbarian's HP pool and augments that "29 every four rounds" rather nicely. Renewed Vigor will grant you 8 HP, according to my previous example (level 9, 18 CON).
You can't use it more than once during your off-rage round because temporary HP are no longer cumulative.
It also has the interesting side effect of further increasing your penalty to AC, because you're taking an action.
I'm not saying Barbarians can't soak up damage.
But they can't be tankier than Fighters.
Or rather, they can be, if you want to reapply your Rage every round.
In that case, Fighters win the DPR race by a large margin and their higher AC means they're not much worse at surviving the fight anyway.
The damage resistance helps but level 9 is halfway through your character's career. You have to survive (and hopefully have fun with) the first 8 levels before you get there.
I remain unconvinced. :/
I feel it's important that I emphasize the following: I'm not advocating for Barbarians to become better at taking damage.
I want them to become better at dealing damage and I think that extra tiers of weapon proficiency throughout a character's career would go a long way in helping that happen.
Wait.
How do you rage while raging? Rage does not have the Rage trait (and does have the Concentrate trait).
Gaterie wrote: Claxon wrote: For all the playtest I've been playing barbarian exclusively because it was my first favorite class in PF1 (followed later by Inquisitor).
I've gone the route of Giant Totem Barbarian which might arguably be the best totem to choose.
The only complaints I've really had about the class specifically were skill related (which has been addressed by changes to the number of starting skills and removing signature skills), the lack of reaction abilities, and the lack of good actions to take besides attack (like the fighter's raise shield).
I do have turns were I feel like I don't accomplish anything due to missing on 3 attacks, but this isn't a barbarian problem. This is a problem for every class. Casters if their target rolls a critical success save, fighters if they roll poorly, etc. Everybody can run into this sort of issue. It's just worse for barbarians since they don't have other productive ways to spend their actions/reactions.
Starting from level 3, a giant totem barb lag 3 point behind a fighter in attack.
Let's say a fighter can hit a monster on a 9+. Counting crits as two hit, they score (average) 1.25 hit per round. (with standard deviation 1) Your barbarian scores 0.8 per round (with standard deviation 0.83 O_O). The fighter scores 50% more hit... Are your damage per hit 50% higher? At level 3, yes (1d12+10 vs 1d12+4). So the barbarian's damages are balanced against the fighter, if we forget the fatigue round, the action needed to activate the rage, the fighter's feats increasing his DPR, and the fact consistent DPR is always better than swingy DPR for the players...
Then +1 swords become available and the barbarian is left in the dust forever. But no worry, he gets 10 temp HP every 4 rounds, that's a huge amount when compared to monster's DPR - especially when considering the abysmal AC of a giant totem barbarians.
In the end, I agree with you: giant totem barbarians are a very solid trap option. People who don't break down the maths see the fighter missing... I'm not sure you math breaks down. Mostly because I'm not sure how you've calculated your chance to hit values.
But I can tell you that I built an 11th barbarian and fighter, and the barbarian was in fact 3 below the fighter in to hit. That means 15% less chance to hit or crit, but the question becomes does the character do 15% more damage? I don't actually know because I didn't look at it, but I can't think it's as far off as you seem to indicate.
Draco18s wrote: Wait.
How do you rage while raging? Rage does not have the Rage trait (and does have the Concentrate trait).
You're right, I had not even considered the fact that you can't end your rage prematurely on a whim just so you can start raging again.
In fact, I had not even thought of doing that until I tried to understand how shroudb could get these numbers to begin with.
Only possible explanation to me was raging again each round...which is impossible.
This adds even more weight to my analysis: no, Barbarians will never be tankier than Fighters, extra temporary HP do not make up for lower AC and the fatigued condition when rage ends.
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I have two playtest groups that both include a Fighter and a Barbarian. Both times, the Barbarian has drastically underperformed by pretty much every metric.
They took more damage (I'd expect this), hit less often (I can accept this), and dealt far less damage (this is a problem). Also, that penalty to AC is far more problematic when it results in taking more criticals.
Barbarians need a buff.
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We've had some barbarians in our playtest. The players enjoyed the hell out of them. They were very happy with their damage and felt appropriately like barbarians. Other sessions they've said "man, that would have been easier if we had a barbarian instead of <class X or Y>."
I'm sure other people have had vastly different experiences because... well, that's part of the magic of these games.
The lack of thrown weapons working with rage really hurts them, not having ranged options is just flat out an issue in most cases and your unlikely to have enough wealth to pick up 2 magic weapons and keep them upt o date with the latest tier even if that was adressed, and with the tight math being behind will just result in more wiffing.
The non-rage round is very painful and that will be a frequent occurance, tireless rage comes too late for Rage to be reasonable as an action in my eyes.
Until the stat inflation of monsters gets adressed, that -1 ac is incredibly painful too by increasing monsters crit chance. Especially as raging resistance is on the weak side of things(4 resistance in most cases is nothing too amazing) and temporary HP will only absorb a chunk of the first hit/crit.
I've been curious how good mighty rage is because i haven't seen too many 1 action rage abilities that i would really want to utilise it on that would make it amazing.
Several of the totems could do with some adjustments. For example; I like the idea behind giant(more damage for sluggish which considering you'll typically miss 2nd/3rd attack isn't a huge issue a lot of the time) but it becoming WORSe as you invest more feats into it considering size affects very little this edition and this is one of those effects where it probably should do more then provide a bit more reach. Thats a pretty mediocre benefit to something that makes it harder for you to fit into places, will likely mess with your ranged attackers more, will have more enemies be able to (potentially- flank you if facing anything higher level then you are, etc.
I wish they had something more out of combat aswell, but thats true for most of the strength based builds.
Accuracy wise, i don't get why they are below fighters. Its a common issue for all martials and probably the reason why fighters are pretty much everywhere in my playtest groups and other martials get skipped over besides paladins for a more steady frontline instead of the damage dealing martial.
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Claxon wrote: I'm not sure you math breaks down. Mostly because I'm not sure how you've calculated your chance to hit values.
But I can tell you that I built an 11th barbarian and fighter, and the barbarian was in fact 3 below the fighter in to hit. That means 15% less chance to hit or crit, but the question becomes does the character do 15% more damage? I don't actually know because I didn't look at it, but I can't think it's as far off as you seem to indicate.
As I wrote, I count critical hit as two hit. If a fighter hits on a 9, he has 50% chance of normal hit and 10% chance of critical hit, for a total of 0.5+2*0.1 = 0.7 hit on average on his first strike. Since the crit does damages*2 and I counted crits as two hits, his average damages on this strike is 0.7*F, where F is the average fighter's damages on a hit (10.5 at level 3, 17 at level 5 if using a greatsword).
The Giant Totem barbarian at the same time hits on a 12, ie 40% chance of normal hit and 5% chance of crit, for a total of 0.5 hits (average) and average damages of 0.5*B on his first strike - where B is the GT barb's average damage on a hit (16.5 at level 3, 23 at level 5, 25 at level 7).
Then you compute and add the average number of hits on second an third strike, and you obtain 1.25 for a fighter (for 1.25*F average damages) and 0.8 for a barbarian (for 0.8*B average damages).
This is low-grade maths, really. It's just an easier way to compute the average damages of both (it doesn't help for standard deviation) by separating the computation in easy, understandable steps.
In the end, since 1.25 = 1.5625*0.8, we need B = 1.5625*F in order to obtain the same result for barb and fighter. That's never the case when magic weapons become available. You can change the numbers a bit (compute against a boss monster with 3 more AC, against a mook with 3 less AC...) and the end result is always the same: more average damages for the fighter when magic weapons are available.
... and the fighter has a lower (relative) standard deviation; he has less risk of over-damaging a mook. And he doesn't lose 1 action every 4 rounds to rage. And he doesn't lose his whole 4th round. And he has at least 2 more AC. And he has feats to increase his DPR - if DPR is really what you want.
Barbarian are a trap for people who can't compute DPR, and GT Barb are a trap inside the trap. I have no problem with people not being able to properly compute DPR - this is why some people are professional mathematicians while others aren't; I have problem with a game-designer not doing his job - which include "doing the math beforehand so people who can't compute DPR aren't trapped in a weak class". I shouldn't have to do those boring DPR computations in the first place - I'm not paid for that, and I though the simple math of the game was intended to allow designers to do the maths.
Twilight_Arcanum wrote: Con is always a trap over raising Ac. The advantage a character that starts with 16 con vs one that starts 14 is a that they will hit +5 con at level 15 rather than 20. The low levels of health offered before that don't outweigh the benefit of higher Dex.
At level 6 you could build for being level 6 rather than starting at level 1. This build is possible as a dwarf or a Human.
Str 18
Dex 16
Con 18
Wis 14 (+2 as dwarf)
Ancestry dex con, background str con, str class, pick the 4 above at level 1 and 5. Also available to either barbarian or fighter so the difference between them is 2hp/level( 16 vs 14) which is 15% more hp and the difference in armor is 5% so they take 20% more damage over a full attack when accounting for crit.
I agree. The proper way to build a barbarian is to start with Str 18 Dex 16 Con 12, then at level 5 you change your build to get Str 18 Dex 16 Con 18, then at level 10 you change again to get Str 20 Dex 16 Con 18.
At level 7 you have low defenses and you have nothing to do with your third action, but at level 8 you take a mandatory feat (I don't even know why there are other level 8 feats) and suddenly you become the party tank and have a good third action.
Now we can throw the other barbarian's sillyness into the mix: the acute vision giving access to scent, and the shoggoth-animal barbarian randomly growing new appendices every 30 seconds. Is there something else i miss? Maybe some way to combine Animal skin with bracers of armor to get the best possible AC, but only at high level so you have to change your build once more?
Best. Class. Ever.
Dreamtime2k9 wrote: The lack of thrown weapons working with rage really hurts them, not having ranged options is just flat out an issue in most cases and your unlikely to have enough wealth to pick up 2 magic weapons and keep them upt o date with the latest tier even if that was adressed, and with the tight math being behind will just result in more wiffing.
The non-rage round is very painful and that will be a frequent occurance, tireless rage comes too late for Rage to be reasonable as an action in my eyes.
Until the stat inflation of monsters gets adressed, that -1 ac is incredibly painful too by increasing monsters crit chance. Especially as raging resistance is on the weak side of things(4 resistance in most cases is nothing too amazing) and temporary HP will only absorb a chunk of the first hit/crit.
I've been curious how good mighty rage is because i haven't seen too many 1 action rage abilities that i would really want to utilise it on that would make it amazing.
Several of the totems could do with some adjustments. For example; I like the idea behind giant(more damage for sluggish which considering you'll typically miss 2nd/3rd attack isn't a huge issue a lot of the time) but it becoming WORSe as you invest more feats into it considering size affects very little this edition and this is one of those effects where it probably should do more then provide a bit more reach. Thats a pretty mediocre benefit to something that makes it harder for you to fit into places, will likely mess with your ranged attackers more, will have more enemies be able to (potentially- flank you if facing anything higher level then you are, etc.
I wish they had something more out of combat aswell, but thats true for most of the strength based builds.
Accuracy wise, i don't get why they are below fighters. Its a common issue for all martials and probably the reason why fighters are pretty much everywhere in my playtest groups and other martials get skipped over besides paladins for a more steady frontline instead of the damage...
Mighty rage is awesome.
For animal barbarians it gives you free action stride and strike
With intimidation it allows free action intimidate
With giant totem you grow to the size you want as you rage, with dragon you polymorph, and etc.
Since all the above are basically actions you do in the first round either way, it basically makes rage a free action.
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dnoisette wrote: shroudb wrote: At 9+ you gain around 29 hp/4 rounds easily.
That's on average 7hp/round
You only gain temporary HP when you start Raging.
With 18 CON, at level 9, you gain 13 HP and that's it.
If you want more, you're gonna have to keep reapplying your Rage every round and that is one big a** DPS loss like no other.
What's the point of having extra damage per hit if you lose the opportunity to attack once each round?
Greg.Everham wrote: Barbarian also has access to Renewed Vigor as a level 8 class feat. It lets you trade an action for Temp HP = 1/2 level + Con. At level 8, when you get it, that should end up being 8 HP for a single action. That's roughly on part with a Fighter raising his shield against a monster that is likely to hit you no matter what (equal level or higher). It's not a terrible bump to the Barbarian's HP pool and augments that "29 every four rounds" rather nicely. Renewed Vigor will grant you 8 HP, according to my previous example (level 9, 18 CON).
You can't use it more than once during your off-rage round because temporary HP are no longer cumulative.
It also has the interesting side effect of further increasing your penalty to AC, because you're taking an action.
I'm not saying Barbarians can't soak up damage.
But they can't be tankier than Fighters.
Or rather, they can be, if you want to reapply your Rage every round.
In that case, Fighters win the DPR race by a large margin and their higher AC means they're not much worse at surviving the fight anyway.
The damage resistance helps but level 9 is halfway through your character's career. You have to survive (and hopefully have fun with) the first 8 levels before you get there.
I remain unconvinced. :/
I feel it's important that I emphasize the following: I'm not advocating for Barbarians to become better at taking damage.
I want them to become better at dealing damage and I think that extra tiers of weapon proficiency throughout a character's career would go a long... I'm not sure you understand how vigor works.
1st round, you rage.
That's 13 temp hp at 1st round
Second and 3rd round you vigor.
That's an additional 8 hp every round.
So 29 temp hp over the course of your rage.
And who cares if they stack or not?
As you pointed out, they get shaved off by a hit each turn.
Add your DR
And at 9th level you have an effective 45-61 extra hp over the course of 4 rounds depending if you get hit once or twice each round.
That's more than a +1 ac will mitigrate over the same rounds (on average) unless you're getting hit for more than around 80+ damage per round
P. S.
If you instead want great AC as well, go animal skin+bracers with high dex and a shield instead of vigor for your 3rd action (you have a D10 "no hands" weapon and a d8 agile simultaneously with your shield for damage). Bracers are equal to a leather, bracers with animal skin are equal to studded but unlimited Dex bonus. Meaning that if you start at 14-16 dex which is more than reasonable, you can still have the "7 armor bonus" even while raging. (although personally I would only do that on a rogue/monk MC barb where dex is main stat for the sweet +7 dex bonus to AC while wearing "studded" for +9 to AC vs other people's +7)
Gaterie wrote:
As I wrote, I count critical hit as two hit. If a fighter hits on a 9, he has 50% chance of normal hit and 10% chance of critical hit, for a total of 0.5+2*0.1 = 0.7 hit on average on his first strike. Since the crit does damages*2 and I counted crits as two hits, his average damages on this strike is 0.7*F, where F is the average fighter's damages on a hit (10.5 at level 3, 17 at level 5 if using a greatsword).
The Giant Totem barbarian at the same time hits on a 12, ie 40% chance of normal hit and 5% chance of crit, for a total of 0.5 hits (average) and average damages of 0.5*B on his first strike - where B is the GT barb's average damage on a hit (16.5 at level 3, 23 at level 5, 25 at level 7).
Then you compute and add the average number of hits on second an third strike, and you obtain 1.25 for a fighter (for 1.25*F average damages) and 0.8 for a barbarian (for 0.8*B average damages).
This is low-grade maths, really. It's just an easier way to compute the average damages of both (it doesn't help for standard deviation) by separating the computation in easy, understandable steps.
In the end, since 1.25 = 1.5625*0.8, we need B = 1.5625*F in order to obtain the same result for barb and fighter. That's never the case when magic weapons become available. You can change the numbers a bit (compute against a boss monster with 3 more AC, against a mook with 3 less AC...) and the end result is always the same: more average damages for the fighter when magic weapons are available.
... and the fighter has a lower...
I'm still not sure on your math because you're not using the standard DPR formula. You're also not showing what your target AC values your checking against are. The math is less complicated for a comparison of fighters and barbarians because we don't need to worry about precision damage or things like that not doubling on a crit like in PF1.
The only points that should matter are the difference in attack rolls, which should only vary by up to 15% for giant totem barbarian. 2 for expert proficiency vs legendary proficiency and sluggish condition for the barbarian. Otherwise, equally built fighter's and barbarians would have the same attack bonuses. And the damage should be the same except for rage bonus damage. I suspect that you are right that the barbarian does slightly less damage, especially as we level up because the rage bonus doesn't keep the barbarians damage enough above the fighter's (especially with crits).
Also, a requiring a 9 to hit is a 55% chance to hit with a 10% chance to crit.
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shroudb wrote: I'm not sure you understand how vigor works.
1st round, you rage.
That's 13 temp hp at 1st round
Second and 3rd round you vigor.
Ah, so that's what you were doing. Using an action for Vigor each turn.
You are still losing an attack each round just so you can keep up in terms of defense or play tank (whatever that means, since a good DM will simply ignore a tanky character and move on to bashing someone else whenever they want - and no, your damage being subpar to that of a Fighter will not make you a threat to deal with urgently).
I'm amazed.
shroudb wrote: P. S.
If you instead want great AC as well, go animal skin+bracers with high dex and a shield instead of vigor for your 3rd action (you have a D10 "no hands" weapon and a d8 agile simultaneously with your shield for damage). Bracers are equal to a leather, bracers with animal skin are equal to studded but unlimited Dex bonus. Meaning that if you start at 14-16 dex which is more than reasonable, you can still have the "7 armor bonus" even while raging. (although personally I would only do that on a rogue/monk MC barb where dex is main stat for the sweet +7 dex bonus to AC while wearing "studded" for +9 to AC vs other people's +7)
Animal Skin only comes online at level 6.
Barbarians are not proficient with shields so now I'm spending a general feat, wasting an action and reaction each turn that I should have been dealing more damage so I don't die.
Besides, with that DEX modifier you're going with, you probably have either:
- poor CON modifier and lower amount of temporary HP + lower amount of DR
- poor STR modifier and lower accuracy + lower damage
Yeah, looking at these options, I'm pretty convinced Barbarians were not intended to be the ultimate tank in this game.
They have mechanics to survive with their low defense and supposedly do a lot of damage in the meantime.
Unfortunately, the action economy of Rage, the round you spend fatigued and the lack of better proficiency in your weapons make it so the last statement (do a lot of damage) doesn't work right now.
Claxon wrote: I'm still not sure on your math because you're not using the standard DPR formula. I am.
Average damages per strike
= probability of regular hit * average damage per regular hit + probability of critical hit * average damage per critical hit
= probability of regular hit * average damage per regular hit + probability of critical hit * 2* average damage per regular hit (assuming no special property increasing damages on crit)
= (probability of regular hit + 2 * probability of critical hit) * (average damage per regular hit)
Again, it's just low-grade maths. I just use a factorisation, and call the first number "average number of hit (counting crit as two hits).
You need more precise formulation ?
P(damage = x)
= P(regular hit)*P(damage = x | regular hit) + P(critical hit)*P(damage = x | critical hit) (because "regular hit" and "critical hit" are disjoint events)
Hence E(damages of a single strike)
= sum_x (x*P(damages = x))
= sum_x (x*(P(regular hit)*P(damage = x | regular hit) + P(critical hit)*P(damage = x | critical hit)))
= P(regular hit)*sum_x (x*P(damage = x | regular hit)) + P(critical hit)*sum_x (x*P(damage = x | critical hit))
= P(regular hit)*E(damage on a regular hit)) + P(critical hit)*E(damage on a critical hit)
= P(regular hit)*E(damage on a regular hit)) + P(critical hit)*E(2*damage on a regular hit)
= P(regular hit)*E(damage on a regular hit)) + P(critical hit)*2*E(damage on a regular hit)
= (P(regular hit) + 2*P(critical hit))*E(damage on a regular hit)
Again, it's low-grade maths using linearity of the E() operator, of the sum_x operator, and some factorizations.
Then you can add this formula several time if you want - again, linearity of the E() operator:
E(Damage Per Round if you strike three times)
= E(Damage of first strike) + E(Damage of second strike) + E(Damage of third strike)
= (using the above formula for a single strike and a factorisation):
(P(regular hit on first strike) + 2*P(critical hit on first strike) + P(regular hit on second strike) + 2*P(critical hit on second strike) + P(regular hit on third strike) + 2*P(critical hit on third strike))*E(damage on a regular hit)
This is an factorization you should do anyway if you want to quickly compute average damages; because the first factor only depends on the number you need to hit on the first strike (and some special properties lake "agile" that don't apply on d12 weapons), so you can quickly tabulate it.
eg, if first strike hit on a 9:
(P(regular hit on first strike) + 2*P(critical hit on first strike) + P(regular hit on second strike) + 2*P(critical hit on second strike) + P(regular hit on third strike) + 2*P(critical hit on third strike))
= (0.5 + 2*0.1 + 0.3 + 2*0.05 + 0.05 + 2*0.05)
= 1.25
and it allows to quickly compute the effect of a small change in AC.
Eg, if you need a 8 to hit instead of 9, the number of hit from the first strike increases by 0.1 (the probability of regular hit doesn't change, but the probability of a crit increases by 0.05) and the number of hits from the second and third strikes increases by 0.05, for a total of +0.2 hit; so 1.45 hit per round. If you need a 9 to hit but your weapon is agile, you get 1.35 hit per round. Etc.
Note: I won't get into the details of how you compute the standard deviation... Because I simply asked a computer to do it without trying to get a simple formula. End results are: when your average number of hit per round is lower than 1, its standard deviation is equal to its average value (actually the standard deviation is a bit higher). when your average number of hit per round is bigger than 1, its standard deviation is equal to 1 (actually it's a bit higher, but it doesn't increase very fast).
That's something you should have in mind when you heard something about barbarian (or any other low-accuracy class)'s average damages: if someone says the average damages are 40, it actually means "during most of the rounds they deal 40 damages, plus or minus 40 damages". To deal 0 damages isn't an unlucky outlier for a barbarian.
Quote: You're also not showing what your target AC values your checking against are. Fighters need a 9+ to hit on his first strike. It can be a level 1 fighter (+6 to hit) vs a level 1 goblin commando (AC 15) or a level 3 fighter (+9 to hit) vs a level 3 hell hound (AC 18), or a level 8 fighter (+15 to hit) vs a level 8 brain collector (AC 24). Seriously, who cares? "Fighters need a 9+" seems to be quite consistent across the levels.
Anyway, I already explained the result of changing AC (modifying it by +3 or -3). You can just tabulate the number of hit per round, and see how the -3 of the GT barb impacts the hits per round (and how many damage he'd need to make normal DPR).
Quote: Also, a requiring a 9 to hit is a 55% chance to hit with a 10% chance to crit. No.
50% chance of rolling 9-18 (regular hit) and 10% chance of rolling 19-20 (crit).
dnoisette wrote: Ah, so that's what you were doing. Using an action for Vigor each turn.
You are still losing an attack each round [...]
The attack you're losing has 5% chance to deal regular damage, and 95% chance to do nothing. Seriously, who cares?
In the other hand, I agree with you on your second point: the GM can simply ignore the barbarian. He doesn't have AoO or ret strike or anything, at most he's able to pursue his opponent - if his opponent isn't a fire elemental with $TEXAS land speed or a manticore with fly or a bulette with burrow or...
shroudb wrote: Bracers are equal to a leather, bracers with animal skin are equal to studded but unlimited Dex bonus. No, animal skin has a max Dex of +4. it makes it worse than an expert quality studded leather armor (no ACP, +2 AC, max dex +5). The expert quality studded leather armor is level 2, while the feat is level 6. x)
Anyway, i guess animal skin is again some stupidly designed feat, made to punish the player who don't know better, and at the same time to allow some stupid AC shenanigans for the player who knows every magic item and spell.
Because that's a common complaint about PF1. "There aren't enough trap option to punish players who aren't good at math, and there aren't enough stupid shenanigans".
Gaterie wrote:
The attack you're losing has 5% chance to deal regular damage, and 95% chance to do nothing. Seriously, who cares?
I use Roll20 for online play sessions and so I happen to have chat history with all of my dice rolls recorded.
One of five of my 3rd attack rolls would hit last session and that includes 3 natural 20s.
Yes, I'm lucky like that and it tends to happen all the time.
I am aware not everyone will feel the same but, for me, a 3rd attack is valuable because, if it hits, it's probably going to crit as well. :)
dnoisette wrote: Gaterie wrote:
The attack you're losing has 5% chance to deal regular damage, and 95% chance to do nothing. Seriously, who cares?
I use Roll20 for online play sessions and so I happen to have chat history with all of my dice rolls recorded.
One of five of my 3rd attack rolls would hit last session and that includes 3 natural 20s.
Yes, I'm lucky like that and it tends to happen all the time.
I am aware not everyone will feel the same but, for me, a 3rd attack is valuable because, if it hits, it's probably going to crit as well. :) That's extremely anecdotal though.
When you hit at 20 it's terrible to try that instead of gaining extra life.
That's like saying "AC is irrelevant because my GM is unlucky, so I don't value AC at all"
On average, every single martial needs a non attack 3rd action because 3rd action attacks should be literally the worst thing you can do in a round.
As for ignoring the barbarian, he still can output really solid damage, and as pointed out, it's not like things don't damage him. So, really, ignore the barbarian and focus on the paladins, the fighters, the rogues. I'm happy when that happens and I don't have to care about survivability but I can go all out.
The way I see it:
Paladins : the most defensive martial option
Ranger: the most offensive martial option
Barbarian: in between paladin and ranger (more defence but less offence compared to ranger, more offence but less defence compared to paladin)
Fighter: can be built either way, ranging from as defensive as a paladin, to as offensive as a ranger, but will always have an edge in offence. Has literally zero out of combat stuff to do to balance his extreme combat abilities.
shroudb wrote: As for ignoring the barbarian, he still can output really solid damage, and as pointed out, it's not like things don't damage him. So, really, ignore the barbarian and focus on the paladins, the fighters, the rogues. I'm happy when that happens and I don't have to care about survivability but I can go all out. What is the purpose of your character?
You deal less damage than a fighter, and you don't even protect the other character like he does and you don't bring more skills to the table. You can survive longer with your pseudo-fast-healing, but how do you contribute to the party? Is your goal to finish enemies when everyone else is dead because you weren't able to defend them nor to kill the monster quickly?
edit:
shroudb wrote: The way I see it:
Paladins : the most defensive martial option
Ranger: the most offensive martial option
Barbarian: in between paladin and ranger (more defence but less offence compared to ranger, more offence but less defence compared to paladin)
Fighter: can be built either way, ranging from as defensive as a paladin, to as offensive as a ranger, but will always have an edge in offence. Has literally zero out of combat stuff to do to balance his extreme combat abilities.
wait; what?
The ranger and the barbarian have zero out of combat stuff as well. The main ability of the ranger gives him a +2 to track a monster he can see 100 feet away, it's not very useful out of combat range (and not very useful in combat as well).
The ranger deals less damage than a fighter and doesn't bring much out-of-combat, and the barbarian should do even less damages?
Gaterie wrote: shroudb wrote: As for ignoring the barbarian, he still can output really solid damage, and as pointed out, it's not like things don't damage him. So, really, ignore the barbarian and focus on the paladins, the fighters, the rogues. I'm happy when that happens and I don't have to care about survivability but I can go all out. What is the purpose of your character?
You deal less damage than a fighter, and you don't even protect the other character like he does and you don't bring more skills to the table. You can survive longer with your pseudo-fast-healing, but how do you contribute to the party? Is your goal to finish enemies when everyone else is dead because you weren't able to defend them nor to kill the monster quickly?
Read my edit.
Basically, imo, barbarian is the middle ground of defence and offence compared to a paladin (defence) and a ranger (offence)
Fighters can be built any way they like (defence vs offence) but they lack literally everything non +attack/damage wise.
shroudb wrote:
On average, every single martial needs a non attack 3rd action because 3rd action attacks should be literally the worst thing you can do in a round.
Alright then, Fighters with only 2 attacks each round still outdamage Barbarians on the account of their increased accuracy, have better AC, can spend their 3rd action demoralizing the enemy, shoving them, etc.
Your character is not pulling their weight.
Your survivability is now on par with a regular martial character but you're not offering better damage or more utility.
In that case, what is the purpose of your character?
I'm with Gaterie here.
dnoisette wrote: shroudb wrote:
On average, every single martial needs a non attack 3rd action because 3rd action attacks should be literally the worst thing you can do in a round.
Alright then, Fighters with only 2 attacks each round still outdamage Barbarians on the account of their increased accuracy, have better AC, can spend their 3rd action demoralizing the enemy, shoving them, etc.
Your character is not pulling their weight.
Your survivability is now on par with a regular martial character but you're not offering better damage or more utility.
In that case, what is the purpose of your character?
I'm with Gaterie here. The better AC is irrelevant. The actual EHP is higher if a fighter is not using a shield. And if he's using a shield, he's doing less damage than a two handed barb.
Damage wise, fighter is slightly ahead if he's using a two hander, but he's also a bit less survivable.
What you're offering is much better mobility than a fighter
Much better senses than a fighter
Shape-shifting, elemental damage, flying, dispels (depending on your totem), etc stuff that fighter can't do.
Fighter can do one thing. Hit stuff.
Atm, fighter is the single highest dpr character if built correctly bar none.
But on the flip side, he literally can do nothing else than beat things with a sword.
If you want to do anything slightly different than "beat stuff with a stick" then you'll struggle with a fighter.
If only thing you care about is dpr, then fighter will be the king there.
Gaterie wrote: I am.
Average damages per strike
= probability of regular hit * average damage per regular hit + probability of critical hit * average damage per critical hit
= probability of regular hit * average damage per regular hit + probability of critical hit * 2* average damage per regular hit (assuming no special property increasing damages on crit)
= (probability of regular hit + 2 * probability of critical hit) * (average damage per regular hit)
Again, it's just low-grade maths. I just use a factorisation, and call the first number "average number of hit (counting crit as two hits).
You need more precise formulation ?
P(damage = x)
= P(regular hit)*P(damage = x | regular hit) + P(critical hit)*P(damage = x | critical hit) (because "regular hit" and "critical hit" are disjoint events)
Hence E(damages of a single strike)
= sum_x (x*P(damages = x))
= sum_x (x*(P(regular hit)*P(damage = x | regular hit) + P(critical hit)*P(damage = x | critical hit)))
= P(regular hit)*sum_x (x*P(damage = x | regular hit)) + P(critical hit)*sum_x (x*P(damage = x | critical hit))
= P(regular hit)*E(damage on a regular hit)) + P(critical hit)*E(damage on a critical hit)
= P(regular hit)*E(damage on a regular hit)) + P(critical hit)*E(2*damage on a regular hit)
= P(regular hit)*E(damage on a regular hit)) + P(critical hit)*2*E(damage on a regular hit)
= (P(regular hit) + 2*P(critical hit))*E(damage on a regular hit)
Again, it's low-grade maths using linearity of the E() operator, of the sum_x operator, and some factorizations.
Then you can add this formula several time if you want - again, linearity of the E() operator:
E(Damage Per Round if you strike three times)
= E(Damage of first strike) + E(Damage of second strike) + E(Damage of third strike)
= (using the above formula for a single strike and a factorisation):
(P(regular hit on first strike) + 2*P(critical hit on first strike) +...
Now that you've shown your work I understand what you did, but simply put your previous terminology was confusing, no offense. I understand basic math quite well (though I do occasionally make mistakes as a human).
Also, requiring a 9 to hit is a 55% chance to hit, there is also a 10% chance for that hit to be critical, but the formula does get altered from the previous PF1 formula because there is no longer a confirmation roll which I wasn't thinking of because you need to account for the that on a roll of 19 or 20 is an automatic critical.
So you have a 40% chance to miss (roll of 1-8), a 50% chance to hit (roll of 9 through 18), 10% chance to critically hit.
And you are correct for the most part that since almost all damage now multiplies on a critical (at least that barbarians and fighters would do) that you could instead express that by doubling the chance to hit for crits to determine overall damage.
I guess my problem that I had was you weren't showing your math of giving out your figures for damage or the target AC.
Also, I feel like your post took a condescending tone which I don't appreciate.
Gaterie wrote: The ow we can throw the other barbarian's sillyness into the mix: the acute vision giving access to scent, and the shoggoth-animal barbarian randomly growing new appendices every 30 seconds. Is there something else i miss? Maybe some way to combine Animal skin with bracers of armor to get the best possible AC, but only at high level so you have to change your build once more?
Best. Class. Ever /QUOTE]
Said nothing about changing your build. The simple fact is that optimization must be looked at in the context of what level the character is. This is due to the way stats work with odd stat points being wasted potential. This holds true across all classes.
I will agree that the shifting from 2 point increases to 1 point increases does make for some oddities in how you build your character.
Specifically if you know a campaign will end before 20 you know that you need to look carefully at where you place your stats because it would be easy to end up with an odd stat that does nothing for you. Or you can throw it into a one of the two stats you don't use much, but would still give you something vs the nothing moving from 20 to 21 would.
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