All I ask for the Remastered Barbarian...

[Kaspyr2077]

Hey, SuperBidi, Gortle, Raven Black. Thank you for your contributions. If you don't mind, I would like you all to do a couple small favors for me, to better ensure we're all on the same page here.

First, I would like you to open your book or the AoN to the Barbarian class and give it a quick once-over.

I invite you to consider the "During Combat Encounters..." section. The first guidance on how to play a Barbarian.

Quote:

You summon your rage and rush to the front lines to smash your way through. Offense is your best defense - you'll need to drop foes before they can exploit your relatively low defenses.

After that, I suggest taking a read through the class features, and take a note of how many of them mention "your rage" or "your fury" as a flavor element before giving Barbarians basic progression upgrades. While you're there, observe how access to critical specialization effects - basic for other Martials - is gated behind Rage for the Barbarian.

Now, please explain to me again how it's debatable that the class is supposed to be all about Rage, and that the player who plays according to the above advice is somehow at fault for failing to consider other tactical approaches.

That done, let's revisit something before coming back around to my big question.

The Raven Black wrote:

RootOfAllThings wrote:

Teridax wrote:

The restriction on concentrate actions sort of makes sense as a legacy restriction against spellcasting, perhaps also Recalling Knowledge, but ends up meaning the Barb can't Demoralize without a feat, which is a bit silly. It also means a Barb can't do something like Hunt Prey, which would otherwise be thematically appropriate.

It also locks the Barbarian out of 90% of active/reactive magic item use. Both envision and command are concentrate-tagged, and a surprising number of runes weapons, and wearable items have one of them. 108 of the 154 talismans are Envision, and 19 are Command. Magic items are already bad enough that there's not much incentive to use them (low DCs, awkward handedness, bad action economy), so its not like a barbarian is really expected to give up their class feature to use them, but it still feels bad to look at all the toys you can't even begin to fit into your combat routine. Preventing spellcasting barbarians is one thing, but it seems wrong for them to be cut off from a good chunk of one of 2e's axes of character progression.

The restriction on Concentrate is only when Raging.

Entering Rage is not necessarily the best use of a Barbarian's first action. Or even of later actions.

I sometimes spent entire fights with my PFS Animal Barbarian not Raging.

Even the Barbarian has to use sensible tactics in PF2

Here is a great list establishing what Barbarians can't do while Raging. Included for emphasis is the argument why that's somehow not a big deal, despite my point above.

Would the Barbarian be overpowered without these limitations?

Would they really be notably ahead of the Fighter or Rogue if they could use Demoralize without a feat buy-back? If they could Hunt Prey? If they could use any weapon runes they chose?

The Barbarian is the only class that suffers a "thou shalt not" clause on their core class mechanic. This should be a rather heavy balance consideration. It seems to me that the Barbarian accepts more limitations than any other class, and in return, gets to be overall-pretty-good-with-the-right-subclass, which... doesn't seem like enough.

[SuperBidi]

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

Now, please explain to me again how it's debatable that the class is supposed to be all about Rage, and that the player who plays according to the above advice is somehow at fault for failing to consider other tactical approaches.

You exactly point out what I criticize. There's no class that should be defined by their weakness in specific situations or encouraged into playing badly.

For example, the Barbarian says "You use intimidation to get what you need, especially when gentler persuasion can’t get the job done." stating that the only way to socialize as a Barbarian is by being a bully. On the other hand, the Fighter says "You can be an intimidating presence. This can be useful when negotiating with enemies, but is sometimes a liability in more genteel interactions." which is not forcing you into bullying people but just pointing out that you are certainly better at Intimidation than Diplomacy.

So, yes, what you raise is an issue: the Barbarian should not be painted as a one-dimensional character. There are plenty of people who like to play complex characters and don't like to be shoehorned into a specific behavior (especially this one).

PS: I don't really care about the discussion on what you can do while raging, I don't have a strong opinion on either side. I find the limitation makes sense and don't think it's a big deal, on the other hand I wouldn't bat an eye if it changes.

[MEATSHED]

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

Now, please explain to me again how it's debatable that the class is supposed to be all about Rage, and that the player who plays according to the above advice is somehow at fault for failing to consider other tactical approaches.

There is also the major issue of barbarian feats mostly only working while raging. Out of the 88 barbarian class feats, around 20 of them actually do something when you aren't raging.

[pH unbalanced]

SuperBidi wrote:

There's also another point I'd like to raise: In this discussion, some players state that the Barbarian should be "easy to play", if not "easier than everything else". I question why?

I've never said that, but if I were going to make that argument it would be because Barbarian is one of the classes that new players are always drawn to, so having them be one of the easier to play classes would be nice for that reason. I hate steering newbies away from classes they want to play for reasons of complexity.

(Kind of a tangent, but something that has happened *multiple* times at public PFS games I have run is that we'll have a new player sit down at the table, and when I hand them the folder of pregens, they look through them for a while and then stop, and look over at me and say, "Wait. Is this THE Amiri?" and when I nod they immediately choose to play her. In case you were wondering what sort of affect the Pathfinder: Kingmaker CRPG has had.)

[SuperBidi]

pH unbalanced wrote:

I've never said that, but if I were going to make that argument it would be because Barbarian is one of the classes that new players are always drawn to

Is it? Or is it because people push new players toward Barbarian.

My experience is that new players play a bit of everything and it's only when they ask "What is easy to play?" that they are pushed towards Fighter and Barbarian.

[The Raven Black]

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

Hey, SuperBidi, Gortle, Raven Black. Thank you for your contributions. If you don't mind, I would like you all to do a couple small favors for me, to better ensure we're all on the same page here.

First, I would like you to open your book or the AoN to the Barbarian class and give it a quick once-over.

I invite you to consider the "During Combat Encounters..." section. The first guidance on how to play a Barbarian.

Quote:

You summon your rage and rush to the front lines to smash your way through. Offense is your best defense - you'll need to drop foes before they can exploit your relatively low defenses.

After that, I suggest taking a read through the class features, and take a note of how many of them mention "your rage" or "your fury" as a flavor element before giving Barbarians basic progression upgrades. While you're there, observe how access to critical specialization effects - basic for other Martials - is gated behind Rage for the Barbarian.

Now, please explain to me again how it's debatable that the class is supposed to be all about Rage, and that the player who plays according to the above advice is somehow at fault for failing to consider other tactical approaches.

That done, let's revisit something before coming back around to my big question.

The Raven Black wrote:

RootOfAllThings wrote:

Teridax wrote:

The restriction on concentrate actions sort of makes sense as a legacy restriction against spellcasting, perhaps also Recalling Knowledge, but ends up meaning the Barb can't Demoralize without a feat, which is a bit silly. It also means a Barb can't do something like Hunt Prey, which would otherwise be thematically appropriate.

It also locks the Barbarian out of 90% of active/reactive magic item use. Both envision and command are concentrate-tagged, and a surprising number of runes weapons, and wearable items have one of them. 108 of the 154 talismans are Envision, and

...

Toi bad that you did not mention "whereas others try to hold back the storm of emotions inside them and release their rage only when it matters most."

FWIW my PFS Animal Barbarian is a LN Dwarf and tries to always take the most sensible course of actions when fighting.

Should he Rage as soon as a combat starts, even if all opponents are flying ? Because suddenly he is more useless than if not Raging because of his anathema.

And TBT I find my Barbarian much more interesting to play with these constraints than if the one true way was always Sudden Charge+Rage. Not all Barbarians should have to be Hulk Smash.

[Kaspyr2077]

SuperBidi wrote:

You exactly point out what I criticize. There's no class that should be defined by their weakness in specific situations or encouraged into playing badly.

For example, the Barbarian says "You use intimidation to get what you need, especially when gentler persuasion can’t get the job done." stating that the only way to socialize as a Barbarian is by being a bully. On the other hand, the Fighter says "You can be an intimidating presence. This can be useful when negotiating with enemies, but is sometimes a liability in more genteel interactions." which is not forcing you into bullying people but just pointing out that you are certainly better at Intimidation than Diplomacy.

So, yes, what you raise is an issue: the Barbarian should not be painted as a one-dimensional character. There are plenty of people who like to play complex characters and don't like to be shoehorned into a specific behavior (especially this one).

PS: I don't really care about the discussion on what you can do while raging, I don't have a strong opinion on either side. I find the limitation makes sense and don't think it's a big deal, on the other hand I wouldn't bat an eye if it changes.

See, I look at your two posts immediately following my initial post, and what I see is you pointing out that, technically, options exist for the Barbarian to do things that aren't Rage immediately, therefore if a player Rages immediately, it's their own problem and they should Git Gud.

It's one thing to recognize that the way players are currently encouraged to play a class is suboptimal, distasteful, and possibly encouraging unfortunate playstyles. I don't even disagree with you on that. It's another thing entirely to pretend that the class is not designed and presented as exactly the thing you dislike, and players should know better than to play like that.

Re: PS: I agree that there is a certain degree of sense to the restriction, especially thematically. If you're designing a class to represent the phenomenon of sacrificing higher function for aggression, there does need to be some mechanical weight to change the playstyle when that happens. I'm not arguing that it shouldn't be there. My argument is that its current implementation is quite costly in terms of mechanical options, precludes things that it probably shouldn't, and doesn't give enough benefit in return for the cost.

I think part of the issue is the width of the concept trying to be covered. On one hand, there's the concept they're trying to represent with the Fury Barbarian - basically a lightly armored, more aggressive Fighter - to the other extreme of Spirit, Dragon, or Giant Barbarians, who channel awesome supernatural powers through their Rage. I love all of these, wouldn't want to exclude any of them, and wish several of them got more love than they did. Still, it's difficult finding room for all of this under the umbrella of one class.

I would love to see more consideration given to appealing non-Rage options for the Barbarian. If Raging was a legit tactical trade-off, and time spent outside Rage could more directly and obviously be spent in a meaningful way in service to winning the encounter, that would be awesome. In the current iteration of the class, it feels like not being in Rage is a wasted opportunity to bring everything you could to the battlefield.

I would love to see better support for Fury Barbarians overall. If your Barbarian concept isn't supernatural in the current iteration, you're bringing a lot less to the table than you could have. You could have played a Fighter instead, and everyone wishes you had.

At the same time, I loved the 4E take on Barbarians as well, with their Rage channeling awesome Primal powers, and I feel like PF2E could take that even further with the supernatural Instincts, to open up fun new options to replace all the ones sacrificed to the Rage feature.

Oh, and Raging Intimidation. Needing a feat to buy back a thematically appropriate option everybody else has, but your class chassis cost took from you, feels REAL bad.

[Kaspyr2077]

The Raven Black wrote:

Toi bad that you did not mention "whereas others try to hold back the storm of emotions inside them and release their rage only when it matters most."

FWIW my PFS Animal Barbarian is a LN Dwarf and tries to always take the most sensible course of actions when fighting.

Should he Rage as soon as a combat starts, even if all opponents are flying ? Because suddenly he is more useless than if not Raging because of his anathema.

And TBT I find my Barbarian much more interesting to play with these constraints than if the one true way was always Sudden Charge+Rage. Not all Barbarians should have to be Hulk Smash.

How silly of me, ignoring one sentence in the introductory flavor text, and concentrating on 100% of the content below that.

I'm here, arguing that your preferred playstyle needs more mechanical support and encouraged, not dismissed, by the text, and here you are acting like you're arguing with me by telling me you're doing it already, and anyone not doing it is wrong. Gosh, the Internet is great.

[exequiel759]

I really hope Raging Intimidation is removed honestly, or at least allow barbarians to demoralize while raging without costing a feat, with the feat itself giving you the feats it currently gives you plus some other minor effect. Intimidation and barbarian go hand in hand as the berserker trope is usually a very scary individual. Heck, PF1e barbarians explicitly were allowed to initmidate their foes while raging, so why they didn't add a clause like "You can't use actions with the concentrate trait unless they also have the rage trait with the exception of Demoralize".

[exequiel759]

The Raven Black wrote:

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

Hey, SuperBidi, Gortle, Raven Black. Thank you for your contributions. If you don't mind, I would like you all to do a couple small favors for me, to better ensure we're all on the same page here.

First, I would like you to open your book or the AoN to the Barbarian class and give it a quick once-over.

I invite you to consider the "During Combat Encounters..." section. The first guidance on how to play a Barbarian.

Quote:

You summon your rage and rush to the front lines to smash your way through. Offense is your best defense - you'll need to drop foes before they can exploit your relatively low defenses.

After that, I suggest taking a read through the class features, and take a note of how many of them mention "your rage" or "your fury" as a flavor element before giving Barbarians basic progression upgrades. While you're there, observe how access to critical specialization effects - basic for other Martials - is gated behind Rage for the Barbarian.

Now, please explain to me again how it's debatable that the class is supposed to be all about Rage, and that the player who plays according to the above advice is somehow at fault for failing to consider other tactical approaches.

That done, let's revisit something before coming back around to my big question.

The Raven Black wrote:

RootOfAllThings wrote:

Teridax wrote:

The restriction on concentrate actions sort of makes sense as a legacy restriction against spellcasting, perhaps also Recalling Knowledge, but ends up meaning the Barb can't Demoralize without a feat, which is a bit silly. It also means a Barb can't do something like Hunt Prey, which would otherwise be thematically appropriate.

It also locks the Barbarian out of 90% of active/reactive magic item use. Both envision and command are concentrate-tagged, and a surprising number of runes weapons, and wearable items have one of them. 108 of the 154

...

You can play your barbarian what you want, in fact, more power to you if you want to play a class but roleplay it with characteristics that normally aren't attributed to it like being a barbarian that is very calm and collected, but the fact that the class is all about being Hulk Smash isn't debatable. You can play a bard that doesn't know how to play a single instrument, dance, or sing (or at least you can RP it, since the class makes you trained in Performance automatically) but that doesn't remove the fact that the bard is supposed to be artistically-inclined. An air/metal kineticist with Rogue Dedication and Clear as Air can be otherwise indistinguishable from an eldritch trickster rogue, but that doesn't mean that all kineticist are rogues. I also can play a rogue as if it were a swashbuckler (and I would be better than a swashbuckler) but the swashbuckler class already exist and has that flavor, but isn't the only class allowed to have that flavor.

The flavor of your character is 100% up to the player, but deny that some classes come with some in-built flavor doesn't make any sense.

[pH unbalanced]

SuperBidi wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

I've never said that, but if I were going to make that argument it would be because Barbarian is one of the classes that new players are always drawn to

Is it? Or is it because people push new players toward Barbarian.

My experience is that new players play a bit of everything and it's only when they ask "What is easy to play?" that they are pushed towards Fighter and Barbarian.

People are absolutely drawn to the Barbarian on their own. I even told my story about how people specifically *love* Amiri. I always try to push them towards Valeros or Merisiel but a lot of them make a beeline towards Barbarian.

To be fair, once you take casters out of the mix, there aren't that many choices. And remember that a good number of people are picking based on the picture, and Amiri has this *cool enormous sword*.

[YuriP]

exequiel759 wrote:

I really hope Raging Intimidation is removed honestly, or at least allow barbarians to demoralize while raging without costing a feat, with the feat itself giving you the feats it currently gives you plus some other minor effect. Intimidation and barbarian go hand in hand as the berserker trope is usually a very scary individual. Heck, PF1e barbarians explicitly were allowed to initmidate their foes while raging, so why they didn't add a clause like "You can't use actions with the concentrate trait unless they also have the rage trait with the exception of Demoralize".

I'm not against to keep Raging Intimidation feat once that Demoralize is an option not a must have action. Instead I prefer that they change it to work like Fearsome Bulwark but for Str and with Rage trait to use it only in rage. This is more flavorful and interesting because makes the Barbarian to use it Cha when not in Rage representing their charisma to intimidate while in Rage changes to its rageful and scary presence and muscles.

Starfinder 2 Field Test 1 - Fearsome Bulwark wrote:

Your sheer mass terrifies foes when they see you. You can use your Constitution modifier instead of your Charisma modifier on Intimidation checks.

[Captain Morgan]

pH unbalanced wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

There's also another point I'd like to raise: In this discussion, some players state that the Barbarian should be "easy to play", if not "easier than everything else". I question why?

I've never said that, but if I were going to make that argument it would be because Barbarian is one of the classes that new players are always drawn to, so having them be one of the easier to play classes would be nice for that reason. I hate steering newbies away from classes they want to play for reasons of complexity.

It is not so much this (I have this problem with the Swashbuckler, instead) as simplicity is baked into the concept of the barbarian. Let's compare the CRB texts for the barbarian and fighter:

Quote:

Core Rulebook pg. 82 4.0

Rage consumes you in battle. You delight in wreaking havoc and using powerful weapons to carve through your enemies, relying on astonishing durability without needing complicated techniques or rigid training. Your rages draw upon a vicious instinct, which you might associate with an animal, a spirit, or some part of yourself. To many barbarians, brute force is a hammer and every problem looks like a nail, whereas others try to hold back the storm of emotions inside them and release their rage only when it matters most.

During Combat Encounters...
You summon your rage and rush to the front lines to smash your way through. Offense is your best defense—you’ll need to drop foes before they can exploit your relatively low defenses.

Quote:

Source Core Rulebook pg. 140 4.0

Fighting for honor, greed, loyalty, or simply the thrill of battle, you are an undisputed master of weaponry and combat techniques. You combine your actions through clever combinations of opening moves, finishing strikes, and counterattacks whenever your foes are unwise enough to drop their guard. Whether you are a knight, mercenary, sharpshooter, or blade master, you have honed your martial skills into an art form and perform devastating critical attacks on your enemies.

During Combat Encounters...
You strike with unmatched accuracy and use specialized combat techniques. A melee fighter stands between allies and enemies, attacking foes who try to get past. A ranged fighter delivers precise shots from a distance.

The fighter is all about using combinations of clever combat techniques, and the barbarian is supposed to neglect their defenses thanks to astonishing durability without complicated techniques. But in practice, those roles are reversed for the player experience. (Though fighter feats tend to be a bit more nuanced than barbarian feats.) The barbarian is a fun class, but it doesn't entirely mesh with the presentation because despite its stellar HP it still doesn't want to get hit more than it has to. Making features like damage resistance or Vengeful Strike an earlier part of the play experience would mesh the concept and mechanics better.

For all the problems Swashbuckler has, it does at least conceptually work as advertised-- the class is powered by doing ill advised stunts. Barbarian could have used a little more of that.

[Kaspyr2077]

I mean, most people would say that the Swashbuckler fails to work, but at least the way it's played matches what it says on the tin. You're right, though - that's a place where the Barbarian suffers. How it plays in practice is not how it's meant to play according to its description in its own entry. It's described as a high-risk glass cannon that will get hit, but can soak those hits long enough for its stellar offense to get it out of trouble, but trying to play it that way is likely to be a brief experience.

[Gortle]

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

Would the Barbarian be overpowered without these limitations?

No not at all.

Just like the Swashbuckler, Inventor and some Oracles, the Barbarian has real limitations. It costs an action to Rage and the vast majority of its powers are gated behind that. Rage makes concentration actions mostly too expensive to use.

Most classes can use their abilitites out of combat, but a lot of Rage actions can't reasonably be used that way.

Some classes like Fighter really don't have any limitations. A Rogue can take a few feats and pretty much always have Sneak Attack. Yet the classes are balanced assuming they have all their powers functioning. No it is not especially fair.

[SuperBidi]

pH unbalanced wrote:

People are absolutely drawn to the Barbarian on their own. I even told my story about how people specifically *love* Amiri. I always try to push them towards Valeros or Merisiel but a lot of them make a beeline towards Barbarian.

To be fair, once you take casters out of the mix, there aren't that many choices. And remember that a good number of people are picking based on the picture, and Amiri has this *cool enormous sword*.

So, what you're stating is that the character design of Amiri is much better than the character design of Valeros, and I 100% agree with you. It still doesn't make Barbarian a more appealing class, just Amiri a more appealing character.

Captain Morgan wrote:

It is not so much this (I have this problem with the Swashbuckler, instead) as simplicity is baked into the concept of the barbarian. Let's compare the CRB texts for the barbarian and fighter:

Honestly, the Barbarian is not hard to play, and even the comparison with the Fighter is hard to make in terms of complexity. I wouldn't call the description deceptive on that point.

[Bluemagetim]

The barbarian is the rage smash class.
It makes sense that they get temp HP to take extra damage and have less AC cause when they rage they are not really trying to defend themselves as much, they are literally ignoring some of the pain. It also makes sense that they can decide not to rage whenever, and those that take moment of clarity have even more mechanical representation of being able to calm their fury to concentrate.

How to play a barbarian is up to the player but how to take advantage of their strengths and compensate for their faults is determined by the mechanics.
They are heavy damage dealers, they are somewhat survivable on the front but they cant take hits all day like a champion with a reinforced shield in heavy armor.
Not to say you cant dedicate to add some of this flavor but that's not what base barbarian mechanically does.

Should they stop being what they are limited as they are? I don't think so. Should some of the less well endowed instincts be brought up to par with the best? Yes.

But this conversation is still helping the general discourse. What if the Fury instinct just lost some of the rage limitations? They have that extra feat and can use abilities with the concentration tag and don't have the -1 to AC? They are the weaker barbarian at damage cause they still only get the base damage but that is the trade of for a more controlled rage.
Animal Barb should still get a bit more rage damage.

[exequiel759]

The problem I have with Fury instinct being the more "controlled" rage and with less penalties is that it is called fury instinct, so its not like most people would think "yeah, I'll take fury to be the less furious barbarian". The current iteration isn't really "furious" either though.

[Squiggit]

It's third party but I like what Barbarians+ did with their rework. Fury gets the Giant Instinct gimmick of being generic max damage instinct while Giant got reworked into something Giant related.

It was weird to see at first but it kind of makes sense having Fury focus on being generally good at the Barbarian's core niche while other instincts specialize in more unique ways... instead of the existing status quo where Fury is just uniquely bad.

[Bluemagetim]

exequiel759 wrote:

The problem I have with Fury instinct being the more "controlled" rage and with less penalties is that it is called fury instinct, so its not like most people would think "yeah, I'll take fury to be the less furious barbarian". The current iteration isn't really "furious" either though.

Easy lol, rename instinct to tempered fury barbarian.

[exequiel759]

Bluemagetim wrote:

exequiel759 wrote:

The problem I have with Fury instinct being the more "controlled" rage and with less penalties is that it is called fury instinct, so its not like most people would think "yeah, I'll take fury to be the less furious barbarian". The current iteration isn't really "furious" either though.

Easy lol, rename instinct to tempered fury barbarian.

I mean, I get its a joke, but I think there's enough to the "controlled barbarian" trope to give it their own instinct. One of the most remembered characters in my group was a barbarian that a friend played in D&D 4e (yes, we got into the hobby through 4e and I don't regret a single thing about it) in which at some point he got a "calmed" rage of sorts (I don't know if it was homebrew since I can't find anything about it). The funny thing is that at one point he died and his soul fused with the dying soul of an archdevil of Hell that happened to die at the same moment (it was a long time ago, we were teens, don't judge lol) so they effectively fused together and obviously grew in size and other stuff, so when he raged calmly the common joke was that he had a constant pathethic-looking face against those he was bashing.

I also think there was a similar option in PF1e too? I don't remember exactly.

[MEATSHED]

Yeah the urban barbarian archetype in 1e
had controlled rage, which didn't have any downsides but gave less stats (though it could increase also Dex) and didn't give a bonus to will.

[Bluemagetim]

The first thing that caught me with the fury instinct was the bonus feat. It made me think, oh, this barbarian is more "skilled" at combat than the others. So the controlled rage kinda clicked in my mind especially since when they fly into a rage its not as devastating with lower rage damage and they are not tapping into outside sources for their instinct. Tapping into giant or dragon instincts does seem like the kind of thing that would be both very strong and overwhelming.

[Arachnofiend]

Squiggit wrote:

It's third party but I like what Barbarians+ did with their rework. Fury gets the Giant Instinct gimmick of being generic max damage instinct while Giant got reworked into something Giant related.

It was weird to see at first but it kind of makes sense having Fury focus on being generally good at the Barbarian's core niche while other instincts specialize in more unique ways... instead of the existing status quo where Fury is just uniquely bad.

Yeah it's hard to even say what I would want out of the PC2 Barbarian that isn't just copied from Barbarians+. It goes a long way to fix the things about the class that feel underwhelming.

[exequiel759]

Now I want a barbarian that follows stoic philosophy.

[Secret Wizard]

Really like some ideas, don't see eye to eye with many other comments/suggestions...

...but honestly would like some indication of where Paizo stands with the PC2 classes, TBH.

[Corwin Icewolf]

My main frustration with it is that I, after all this time, am still really confused as to what exactly is enforcing barbarians' anathema. And I'd rather they just be roleplaying guidelines than something where... I dunno... The platonic ideal of a giant gives you your rage and also takes away if you're insufficiently gianty.

Which is the best explanation I can come up with for why a barbarian needs to follow anathema. And explanations like that still feel rather goofy when applied to martial classes rather than spellcasting ones.

[PossibleCabbage]

Secret Wizard wrote:

...but honestly would like some indication of where Paizo stands with the PC2 classes, TBH.

Well, Player Core 1 came out on Nov 15, 2023. The first Paizo blog that was a preview of Player Core 1 (about the remastered Wizard) came out on September 19, 2023.

Since PC2 is solicited for July, I expect we won't hear anything substantive before May.

[Captain Morgan]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Secret Wizard wrote:

...but honestly would like some indication of where Paizo stands with the PC2 classes, TBH.

Well, Player Core 1 came out on Nov 15, 2023. The first Paizo blog that was a preview of Player Core 1 (about the remastered Wizard) came out on September 19, 2023.

Since PC2 is solicited for July, I expect we won't hear anything substantive before May.

There were a bunch of previews before the blogs in various streams. However, they only focused on classes getting substantial overhauls-- basically cleric, wizard, and witch. The classes which we can probably safely expect similar levels of changes are:

Champion -- Needs a rework without alignment. The CRB remaster errata more or less works but they need to work on that less.

Alchemist -- it was buffed in every other errata and probably will be in this one. Also, the ommision of Mutagens from GM core makes me think the core set are getting overhauled.

Oracle -- Their curse progression doesn't mesh with the new refocus rules.

Barbarians don't really fall into those categories, so I'm not expecting big changes. The most I'm sure of is Dragon Instinct and Dragon Bloodline will be reprinted with the new dragon types mentioned under PC1 spells, but that's basically all they need to be ORC compliant. Anything beyond that is gravy.

[Squiggit]

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

90% the same but maybe they just inexplicably make Superstition worse for some reason because Paizo likes to occasionally throw a curveball and nerf something nobody even thought was good.

[Gortle]

Fix Superstition, fix Cleave, give something to Fury, and allow the Elemental Impulses to work without Rage.

Still at the same place I started.

[YuriP]

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

My main frustration with it is that I, after all this time, am still really confused as to what exactly is enforcing barbarians' anathema. And I'd rather they just be roleplaying guidelines than something where... I dunno... The platonic ideal of a giant gives you your rage and also takes away if you're insufficiently gianty.

Which is the best explanation I can come up with for why a barbarian needs to follow anathema. And explanations like that still feel rather goofy when applied to martial classes rather than spellcasting ones.

I agree in a lore standpoint the barbarians' anathema are weak. While cleric and champions have deities providing them divine powers barbarians doesn't have some plausible explanation.

But same already happens to druids. There's no explanation why druids lose their primal powers because they teach their language to non-druids even with this becoming more banal due their archetype.

Curiously IMO if you want to provide some explanation for both it can be based in belief. With them beliving that their exception rage powers comes from nature, dragons, elementals, gians or spirits. If they lose such believe they insticly loses the nescessary spirit to get theirs instintive powers. Maybe this looks a bit exagerated at first glance but in practive this is inspired in original nordic's berserker myth of fantastics furious that belive that they take their strengh from spirit of bears and wolves.

Gortle wrote:

... allow the Elemental Impulses to work without Rage.

I believe that most GMs just allows players to use Impulses without Rage once they comes from the archetype. IMO my understand is that the impulses Rage get inside of "While raging..." statement but for organization the AoN put it in another paragraph making this wrong understand (but I agree that need to be more clear).

But I honestly don't expect this in PC2 but in a RoE errata.

[Lightning Raven]

Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

90% the same but maybe they just inexplicably make Superstition worse for some reason because Paizo likes to occasionally throw a curveball and nerf something nobody even thought was good.

Honestly, at this point in time, I wish they just drop the concept altogether. The niche of "anti-mage" Barbarian shouldn't be locked to that. It doesn't work and traditionally, as we've see how it was implemented in PF2e, it is too costly.

Drop the concept, pick a new one to fill its niche. When you really think about it, being superstition is the opposite of being closed to magic, which is the mechanical foundation of the concept. You believe there is magic, even without it existing at all. Being skeptical and even minded, however, that makes more sense and won't rely on incredibly disruptive anathema.

[YuriP]

Gortle wrote:

Fix Superstition, fix Cleave, give something to Fury, and allow the Elemental Impulses to work without Rage.

Still at the same place I started.

I also believe that they deserve a better way to deal with ranged opponents. IMO thrown weapon could be in chassis instead of a feat and the feat could give a range increment improvement and Brutal trait. This will give to barbarians a way to deal with oponents beyond their reach, specially flying ones without need to be a Dragon Instinct or have to get fly via spells or ancestry.

Lightning Raven wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

90% the same but maybe they just inexplicably make Superstition worse for some reason because Paizo likes to occasionally throw a curveball and nerf something nobody even thought was good.

Honestly, at this point in time, I wish they just drop the concept altogether. The niche of "anti-mage" Barbarian shouldn't be locked to that. It doesn't work and traditionally, as we've see how it was implemented in PF2e, it is too costly.

Drop the concept, pick a new one to fill its niche. When you really think about it, being superstition is the opposite of being closed to magic, which is the mechanical foundation of the concept. You believe there is magic, even without it existing at all. Being skeptical and even minded, however, that makes more sense and won't rely on incredibly disruptive anathema.

I agree.

As I said before most instincts and their anathemas are based in original berserker's myth of getting a supernatural power from animal's spirit. This could be easily expanded to get it from spirits of the deads or elements or from fantastic beasts like dragons but get power from a Superstition of that magic is bad/dangerous goes out from this concept a lot. IMO makes more sense to have a instinct that get powers from pure magic (like wild magic barbarians from D&D) than from not believe in magic.

So IMO it's better to just switch it to another one like a beast instinct or even magic instinct instead.

[SuperBidi]

Lightning Raven wrote:

Honestly, at this point in time, I wish they just drop the concept altogether. The niche of "anti-mage" Barbarian shouldn't be locked to that. It doesn't work and traditionally, as we've see how it was implemented in PF2e, it is too costly.

Drop the concept, pick a new one to fill its niche. When you really think about it, being superstition is the opposite of being closed to magic, which is the mechanical foundation of the concept. You believe there is magic, even without it existing at all. Being skeptical and even minded, however, that makes more sense and won't rely on incredibly disruptive anathema.

As a Superstition Barbarian player, I'm fine with a revisitation of the mechanical aspect of the Instinct, and I don't care about the flavor aspect (as this is something the player chooses so I don't have to change anything) but seeing the whole concept of "mage slayer" dropped out of the game would really annoy me.

The Superstition Instinct is the only one to cover that (extremely basic in my opinion) concept. Mage slayers and witch hunters are a common fantasy and having no mechanical aspect covering it besides "high saves and high knowledge skills" would be sad.

[Errenor]

SuperBidi wrote:

The Superstition Instinct is the only one to cover that (extremely basic in my opinion) concept. Mage slayers and witch hunters are a common fantasy and having no mechanical aspect covering it besides "high saves and high knowledge skills" would be sad.

Except when in this game any normal martial is a mage slayer I'm not sure the game really needs that.

[Teridax]

This is just spitballing out loud, but what if the Barbarian could just pick up anathema as feats and gain benefits from those, instead of having fixed instincts? The general idea would be that becoming superstitious in certain ways is a choice you'd make that would give you special powers, and if you wanted you could become a really superstitious Barbarian bound by lots of different anathema, but who'd gain lots of varied benefits as a result. Alternatively, you could just have your Barb not lean into any kind of superstition at all and instead focus on other things. Similarly, Rage could start off as a fairly basic damage boost with no downsides or restrictions, but you could take on certain tradeoffs (which could include some of these superstitions) for additional benefits, which could then also make it much easier to bridge the gap into things like a bloodrager in the future as well.

[WatersLethe]

SuperBidi wrote:

Lightning Raven wrote:

Honestly, at this point in time, I wish they just drop the concept altogether. The niche of "anti-mage" Barbarian shouldn't be locked to that. It doesn't work and traditionally, as we've see how it was implemented in PF2e, it is too costly.

Drop the concept, pick a new one to fill its niche. When you really think about it, being superstition is the opposite of being closed to magic, which is the mechanical foundation of the concept. You believe there is magic, even without it existing at all. Being skeptical and even minded, however, that makes more sense and won't rely on incredibly disruptive anathema.

As a Superstition Barbarian player, I'm fine with a revisitation of the mechanical aspect of the Instinct, and I don't care about the flavor aspect (as this is something the player chooses so I don't have to change anything) but seeing the whole concept of "mage slayer" dropped out of the game would really annoy me.

The Superstition Instinct is the only one to cover that (extremely basic in my opinion) concept. Mage slayers and witch hunters are a common fantasy and having no mechanical aspect covering it besides "high saves and high knowledge skills" would be sad.

I think the theme of Superstition as a mage slayer is great and won't change, but all it needs is to be reframed.

Also, a "warrior in constant battle against wizards and witches" would understand the value of spellcasting, especially supportive casting, when facing those foes. Saying a person who specializes in taking down casters won't accept support (even from divine or primal sources) is SUCH as specific fantasy. It should be an opt-in thing, even for this specific instinct.

[Secret Wizard]

Teridax wrote:

This is just spitballing out loud, but what if the Barbarian could just pick up anathema as feats and gain benefits from those, instead of having fixed instincts? The general idea would be that becoming superstitious in certain ways is a choice you'd make that would give you special powers, and if you wanted you could become a really superstitious Barbarian bound by lots of different anathema, but who'd gain lots of varied benefits as a result. Alternatively, you could just have your Barb not lean into any kind of superstition at all and instead focus on other things. Similarly, Rage could start off as a fairly basic damage boost with no downsides or restrictions, but you could take on certain tradeoffs (which could include some of these superstitions) for additional benefits, which could then also make it much easier to bridge the gap into things like a bloodrager in the future as well.

I love this, but I think it steps a little too far into the Monk territory of developing a discipline.

[Captain Morgan]

Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

Yeah, I know I've been complaining about them but the class is functional and fun in a lot of ways. With the level of changes I expect in PC2 I'd rather focus be put on the bad classes.

[Secret Wizard]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

Yeah, I know I've been complaining about them but the class is functional and fun in a lot of ways. With the level of changes I expect in PC2 I'd rather focus be put on the bad classes.

I don't get this approach... classes shouldn't be balanced in comparison to each other, they should be balanced as an experience on its own.

I feel like the Barb not doing what it says on the tin is a problem, even if other classes are worse off.

[Captain Morgan]

Secret Wizard wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

Yeah, I know I've been complaining about them but the class is functional and fun in a lot of ways. With the level of changes I expect in PC2 I'd rather focus be put on the bad classes.

I don't get this approach... classes shouldn't be balanced in comparison to each other, they should be balanced as an experience on its own.

I feel like the Barb not doing what it says on the tin is a problem, even if other classes are worse off.

You're not wrong, but there are other constraints.

1. Paizo has a publishing deadline and limited labor hours they can put towards the Remaster. They can't cover everything we'd like covered. So they need to make choices about upgrading Barbarian above 8/10 or alchemist ahove 4/10, and I would vote alchemist every time.

2. The scope of these changes is intentionally being limited to ease backwards compatibility and avoid PF2R feeling like a new edition.

The ideas I'm floating are more likely to be realistic for PF3, which will be incentived to break even further away from D&D origins. The changes from your OP are less ambitious and might therefore be realistic for player core 2, but they also don't really adress the identity problems I mentioned. Removing the AC penalty exacerbates thr problem for me because barbarians SHOULD get hit more, IMO. They just need some combination of being able to weather the attacks better than other classes and a way to reward taking those hits.

Edit: Though getting rid of Anethema doesn't seem realistic when Paizo is leaning into it as the new alignment.

[exequiel759]

Exactly. All classes have minor problems that in an ideal world could get solved if Paizo actually got to fix those, but since time is limited due to the deadlines I prefer for them to actually use that time to fix the stuff that truly doesn't work (like alchemist, oracle, swash, etc) rather than fix all the minimal stuff that doesn't work on the classes that already work as intended.

[Riddlyn]

Secret Wizard wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

Yeah, I know I've been complaining about them but the class is functional and fun in a lot of ways. With the level of changes I expect in PC2 I'd rather focus be put on the bad classes.

I don't get this approach... classes shouldn't be balanced in comparison to each other, they should be balanced as an experience on its own.

I feel like the Barb not doing what it says on the tin is a problem, even if other classes are worse off.

Ahh you feel like. That's a big part of the issue that Paizo has to look at and think about. Because for quite a few people that feel it's doing what it says on the tin.

[Kaspyr2077]

Squiggit wrote:

It's third party but I like what Barbarians+ did with their rework. Fury gets the Giant Instinct gimmick of being generic max damage instinct while Giant got reworked into something Giant related.

How would one go about finding Barbarians+? It's not coming up on a web search for me. Is it cool to link third party stuff here?

[Demorome]

Quote:

How would one go about finding Barbarians+? It's not coming up on a web search for me. Is it cool to link third party stuff here?

Just tried it and noticed that Google replaced the search with "Showing results for Barbarian pf2e". I pressed "Search instead for Barbarians+ pf2e" and it showed up. It's on pathfinderinfinite .com if that doesn't help.

[Kaspyr2077]

Thank you. It looks intriguing.

[Secret Wizard]

Riddlyn wrote:

Secret Wizard wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

Yeah, I know I've been complaining about them but the class is functional and fun in a lot of ways. With the level of changes I expect in PC2 I'd rather focus be put on the bad classes.

I don't get this approach... classes shouldn't be balanced in comparison to each other, they should be balanced as an experience on its own.

I feel like the Barb not doing what it says on the tin is a problem, even if other classes are worse off.

Ahh you feel like. That's a big part of the issue that Paizo has to look at and think about. Because for quite a few people that feel it's doing what it says on the tin.

I already exposed my arguments here. Feel free to engage them or, alternatively, not respond to my comments.

[Riddlyn]

Secret Wizard wrote:

Riddlyn wrote:

Secret Wizard wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

Yeah, Barbarians are in a good place over all I wouldn't expect much.

Yeah, I know I've been complaining about them but the class is functional and fun in a lot of ways. With the level of changes I expect in PC2 I'd rather focus be put on the bad classes.

I don't get this approach... classes shouldn't be balanced in comparison to each other, they should be balanced as an experience on its own.

I feel like the Barb not doing what it says on the tin is a problem, even if other classes are worse off.

Ahh you feel like. That's a big part of the issue that Paizo has to look at and think about. Because for quite a few people that feel it's doing what it says on the tin.

I already exposed my arguments here. Feel free to engage them or, alternatively, not respond to my comments.

Basically from a design point you're never going to please everyone. The barbarian really does play as advertised. You take a small defense penalty to do more damage. The -1 isn't as bad people try to make it seem. Especially since it gets a good amount of temp hp to help make up for it. Raging out the gate is a choice. But the feat selection shows that there are certainly other options and choices. I agree that not being able to intimidate while raging is odd but I also acknowledge that raging Intimidation isn't a bad feat because it's several feats rolled into one. The barbarian really doesn't need much work.

[Ryangwy]

Yeah barbarian is a very solid class already and some of the suggestions people are making here is practically a new class. Give Fury an extra benefit? Sure, they've done that a bit. Wrangle Superstition into playability? It's mostly down to anathema, so not much of a problem. Rage trait on Impulse? Again, can be clarified, though given that's RoE stuff it's unlikely to come up in PC2. But making fundamental changes to how Rage works? Changing how the PHB instincts are weighed against each other? That's not just going to be way out of the stated goals of PC2, it's also going to make a lot of people upset. (They might rebalance the animal instinct attacks, but don't bet on it)