This may be a cold take, but I think the time is long overdue for PF2 barbarians to get some support for spellcasting builds. The idea of someone entering a "spell-rage" and going on a rampage is iconic. Skalds, too.
I have a hunch there will be a blood rager addition to barbarian subclasess or it will be added as an archtype. Either way the new dragons tied to traditions could be the barbs window into bloodrager and magic use.
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Bloodragers are great, but they're not the problem to me. The problem is that perhaps no class is more starkly limited in its archetype versatility than barbarian. Barbarian's core feature prevents her from using a ton of archetypes as long as she's using it. We don't need a single narrow archetype like it's PF1, we need barbarian maguses and wizards and bards and druids to become viable. I think buffing Moment of Clarity would be one way to do it.
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What would be some better first level feats for barb actually?
1st Level:
1. Sudden Charge - Good as is, but ignoring the first 5ft of difficult terrain (better than the Fighter's, who has a more stacked chassis).
2. Raging Thrower - Current benefits plus Quick Draw for Thrown Weapons only.
3. Draconic Arrogance- Current Benefits plus Flavor bonus (damage or social skills) against Dragon trait.
4. Moment of Clarity - Current Benefits but gives bonuses against Mental/Emotion Effects.
5. Raging Intimidation - Reworked to give plus Rage+Demoralize. At this point, I think Intimidating Glare should either be a free feat for Barbs or baked into Rage itself. Regardless, Demoralize while raging should not be a tax.
I also think that at 2nd, we could have something like:
1. Shake it Off - The amalgamation of the current Shake it off plus Second Wind.
2. No Escape - As is.
3. Furious Finish - You decide after you hit. Or it's a Reroll taking the best result.
4. Adrenaline Rush - Current Bonuses plus Fast Movement.
All around buffs? Yes. Do they increase the raw power of the class? No by much. Each feat feels like a better choice? Let me know, because to me, they all seem juicy.
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It do think its a bit of an oversized cost to have to get the class feat then later get the dedication for a spell casting archtype and later get basic spellcasting with another feat and then use an action in combat to allow you to concentrate and then cast a spell.
It makes barbarian probably the most suboptimal class to archtype into a spell casting.
Fighter, ranger, champion, monk, and anyone else doesnt need moment of clarity and doesnt have to use a rage mechanic to get all their benefits in combat and doesnt need to use an action in combat to allow the use of spell casting.
So barb additional cost to spell cast while getting the other full benefits of their class?
level 1 feat
+1 action used per round they want to spell cast
Yes everyone else has to make the other feat investments too and barbarians can cast spells before or after raging but other classes dont have to cast before or after anything they can just cast and they dont have an action tax to do it.
The question then is does it enhance the class concept to keep that limitation?
I see your point, but I think it's not really important. Healing downed martials, especially those who use weapons (well, I know yours don't but most Barbarians do), is in general a weak move. I don't do it with my healers and I tell other players not to do it on my Barbarian (still, they sometimes do, but it's nonetheless pointless).The problem is not going down. It's that you do not have any of your special abilities left for the rest of the fight when you get back up.
Imagine a caster losing all their spells, a Fighter losing their higher weapon proficiency, a Rogue losing their sneak attack for the rest of the fight once they go down. Not fun and not consistent with being a dedicated frontliner, which the Barbarian is.
If they just removed the 1-minute timer on Rage, it would already help tremendously.
Yep. Exactly as The Black Raven stated. Barbarian is only class to completely lose their abilities by getting knocked unconscious and is unable to get them back for the fight duration.
I do heal downed martials with my decision dependent on how much longer the fight will last. We tend to do big fights versus many small fights. If one of your main frontline martials gets whacked down and your backline is going to get hammered with the meatshield gone, gotta get them back up.
If the fight is almost over and is clearly won, then I may let them rest a few rounds depending on their dying number as we don't want them to die.
No one wants to travel with some snake of a healer who let's people die.
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I feel like the core concept may have outgrown the need for a lot of its limitations. People can flavor their barbarian rage as an intense hyperfixation, a kind of laughing madness, a deliberately drugged trance, a Jekyll-Hyde transformation that no longer requires the potion, a Pyroland-esque psychosis, a possession by spirits--why narrow it so intensely to "you're angry and frothing at the mouth and only know how to hit things hard"? We've already left Illiterate behind. I could swear we've seen at least one casual comment from a designer/dev about how they wish they could change the name of the class to "berserker".
I wouldn't mind if we went back to 3.5's standard of "going unconscious doesn't end the rage", either. Maybe once you're in the warrior state, your body is just going to keep pumping adrenaline until you're no longer in danger, and being badly injured is certainly going to keep the blood pumping even if all that powers your rage is terrifying dreams. That could even be an interesting feat of some kind.
I sort of go back and forth on all this, though. I definitely wouldn't be sorry to see the limitations go, but if they stay, I'll probably assume the designers have a good reason for it.
Healing a martial back up is usually only something you do if a fight is desperate--which, you know, if someone's gone down, there's a good chance it is or is about to become so. To put it coldly (at least insofar as your ally's long-term prospects with the Wounded condition), 1-2 actions to summon an ally who's the same level as you and gets their own actions is not a bad use of your time.
Getting KOed and brought back up during a fight is rough on any character (especially monks who rely on weapons), but barbarian's the only class that gets completely shut down by it.
I think Paizo didn't reprint Eldritch Trickster in PC1 because they didn't know what to think with it at the moment, but for PC2 we could see Eldritch Trickster and a new Bloodrager class archetype to have that magical flavor. That or a skald-like option too as Paizo is aware the magical barbarian was popular on PF1e.
It depends on level. Most of the martials in our group obtain kip up, so getting up is a free action, no reactions, 1 action to obtain weapon. So after level 7, you can get back into action fairly quickly. Heals are pretty big as well.
I can see at low level not healing a martial back into action as the 1d8+8 is not a sure thing for staying up very long, but at higher level once the martial can get rolling again quickly it's a good idea to get them back on their feet and fighting as you lose three actions, possibly three big damage actions with striking weapons.
Of course, it's best not to let them go down in the first place, but in PF2 with crits things happen.
The barbarian is definitely the worst martial to get back on their feet with healing during a fight as you calculate getting the barb back up is just getting up a martial that has lost all of their power and can't get it back when you heal them. They're just a weak martial who can't rage.
If you had a group of martials knocked out and had to choose one to get up, probably be fighter first, then champion, and every other martial with barbarian being last because you knew the barb could not rage again and healing felt wasted.
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Yeah the whole unable to cast spells while raging seems to be a legacy holdover too. Not sure if it makes mechanical or balance sense. It makes flavor sense for sure but it's probably not worth the trouble for that. Definitely support buffing moment of clarity.
Maybe baseline you'd need to pass a DC 5 flat check to use a concentrate action and moment of clarity would remove that requirement once per round or something.
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I'd prioritize any martial with useful reactions or utility, basically. Champion is a big one.
I feel like people underrate forget how incredibly strong healing really is in PF2. In PF1, healing really couldn't keep up with damage. In PF2, a third-level cleric with the healing font can bring a partymember from 0 HP to two-thirds their max hit points with two actions and still have time to raise a shield. Or heal them for another 2d8.
Besides which, as nasty as Wounded is, being unconscious can be pretty bad, too! If the enemy's throwing around area effect damage, you really do just have to get your ally up ASAP, and damn the risk.
It helps that I rarely see a party without the Medic archetype popping up at least somewhere down the line, if not at Level Two. Doctor's Visitation, girl. If your party values healing, healing will carry your team.
An average 3rd-level melee monster does 12 damage on a hit and has a +12 to-hit. An average 3rd-level martial who's got the right armor has an AC of about 20-21. Let's say 20 AC, no heavy armor, and, of course, prone (so 18 AC).
Assuming the monster gets to be adjacent, the monster has a 50% of hitting (25% chance of critting) on the first attack , a 45% chance of hitting (5% of critting) on the second , and a 20% chance of hitting (5% of critting) on the third . This means the average total damage per round is 21, for three full actions.
For two actions, a 2nd-level heal spell can heal an average of 25 hit points. If the cleric spends a third action to cast a 3rd-level heal or use Expert-level Battle Medicine, that average goes up to 34 or 36.6, respectively.
Healing's pretty good!
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I'd prioritize any martial with useful reactions or utility, basically. Champion is a big one.
I feel like people underrate forget how incredibly strong healing really is in PF2. In PF1, healing really couldn't keep up with damage. In PF2, a third-level cleric with the healing font can bring a partymember from 0 HP to two-thirds their max hit points with two actions and still have time to raise a shield. Or heal them for another 2d8.
Besides which, as nasty as Wounded is, being unconscious can be pretty bad, too! If the enemy's throwing around area effect damage, you really do just have to get your ally up ASAP, and damn the risk.
It helps that I rarely see a party without the Medic archetype popping up at least somewhere down the line, if not at Level Two. Doctor's Visitation, girl. If your party values healing, healing will carry your team.
** spoiler omitted **...
Thanks for the math but something's been bugging me.
With how kobolds are work now, are kobold catgirls hypothetically cannon now? What powerful creatures could influence a kobold population to be kitty kobolds?
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Kobold ancestry, beastkin versatile heritage. :3
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Kobold ancestry, beastkin versatile heritage. :3Yeah, lol. That was true pre-remaster though. What exists in lieu of dragons as their leader in monster core that could result in that is what I'm wondering.
Rakshasa? Agathion? A particularly adorable Kaiju?
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Perhaps a very powerful werecat magic-user!
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I don’t think Cleave as a reaction was the right direction for it in the first place.Well then you are just creating another problem then. There are too many Reactive Strikes in the game. I would prefer is the martials all had different reactions, and not just minor differences to Reactive Strike like they do now. Really speaking only the Champion and the Rogue's is good enough.
I wrote a response earlier, but I guess the forums ate it.
Isn’t Cleave just a minorly different Reactive Strike? But worse, and not as thematic as Vengeful Strike.
If there’s another reaction that would be thematic for a barbarian, I’d be all for seeing what that is. As things are structured now, most Martial classes have some alternative to Reactive Strike that grants an extra attack. Just some of them are much better than others. Opportune Riposte iis in a similar place as Cleave, in that it’s too situational.
Ranger has Disrupt Prey, which is basically Reactive Strike only against your Prey. And Twin Riposte, which is basically Opportune Riposte.
Monk has Stand Still.
Magus doesn’t get a unique take on it. Just AoO/Reactive Strike.
Gunslinger doesn’t really have one, but at a ranged focused class, that’s understandable.
So it makes sense that Barbarian would have one, too. Where I think they went wrong is that Barbarian had three of them, counting AoO/Reactuve Strike itself. Cleave as written could be a 4th level feat, and that would be about right. Maybe then it might get taken over Swipe and other things. As you could still take Reactive Strike at 6. Vengeful Strike, to me, should be an 8th level feat. It’s comparable to Opportune Backstab. And it creates a strategic problem for enemies. Having both Reactive Strike and. Vengeful Strike puts an enemy in an uncomfortable spot. Cleave just means enemies have to try to not end up adjacent to each other.
Anyway, none of that is going to “fix” the class or Cleave. It’s just a kind of not great feat.
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Yeah the whole unable to cast spells while raging seems to be a legacy holdover too. Not sure if it makes mechanical or balance sense. It makes flavor sense for sure but it's probably not worth the trouble for that. Definitely support buffing moment of clarity.
IMO this is basically a D&Dism.
Most of the current Barbarian concept comes from it. When the 3rd edition designers made the Barbarian as a class (before this it was a subclass of fighter) they kept it as conceptually opposite to spellcasters. While the casters obtain their powers from a complex source that's magic, the barbarians was designed as raged brutes that takes power from its own strength and inner fury and they created the concept that this prevents barbarian to use complex powers, specially magic in order to make a class that goes in a way in opposition to casters.
But if we go back to the original myth where the barbarians was inspired that was nordic berserkers and some vikings they are never conceptually oposed to magic and rituals instead is the oposite they are pretty ritualistics and religious.
In the end the whole concept of barbarians as brutishes that are unable to use magic was a pure D&Dism IMO. Something that is also good if the Pathfinder abandon at all.
I like the idea of an axe wielding barbarian (for Sweep and axe crit specialization) getting swipe and cleave.
I think the fighter though having 2 more hit from proficiency makes them better at AOE.
They get the +2 from expert so they are going to get the crit specialization effect more often with axes. They can get swipe from their own class list at 4th and forget about cleave. Getting more axe crits with a +2 to hit is better than having cleave for AOE. Also if enemies want to reposition themselves to not be grouped up anymore they get a reactive strike in response, and if it crits their neighbor gets hit anyway before they could move away from them.
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I don’t think Cleave as a reaction was the right direction for it in the first place.Well then you are just creating another problem then. There are too many Reactive Strikes in the game. I would prefer is the martials all had different reactions, and not just minor differences to Reactive Strike like they do now. Really speaking only the Champion and the Rogue's is good enough.I wrote a response earlier, but I guess the forums ate it.
Isn’t Cleave just a minorly different Reactive Strike? But worse, and not as thematic as Vengeful Strike.
It is the game play effect not just the theme.
The problem I have with Reactive Strike is that it reduces tactical movement. That is an important effect that we want to have it the game. We just don't want it to dominate every game. Especially the way it does in D&D5.
Paizo set a design goal to free the game up so that the characters can be more mobile. They acheived that by having 85% of monsters not having Reactive Strike. Mostly it works. However when it shows up on almost every martial character it becomes a feat tax and it gets distasteful that the monsters don't have it. OR sometimes you end up in a tightly themed section of a campaign where everyone has it. That hurts a few classes fairly badly.
Unfortunately Reactive strike turns your reaction into an attack often enough that it is a significant power boost so most PCs who can take it do take it. I prefer that they have other options. Options that make sense for the class.
Cleave is an agressive maneuver that does suit a Barbarian thematically and because it is a reaction competes with Reactive Strike. I'd like it to be effective and somewhat comparable in powers so more players choose to take Reactive Strike less. There are other options in class like Embrace the Pain. But that is much higher level. (Personally I'd like to see Cleave have no MAP and the follow on feat allow a step)
Ranger, Monk, Magus, Champion, Swashbuckler, Thaumaturge all have a form of Reactive Strike.
The Champions Champion's Reaction truely competes with Reactive Strike. It is just that there is so much dross in the Champions feat list that most still take Reactive Strike as well.
The Rangers is much weaker than anyone elses.
The Swashbuckler also gets Opportune Risposte. Which is nice but it just doesn't trigger often enough to reasonably surplant Reactive Strike.
Gunslinger gets Fake Out - which is actually good in the right party.
Inventor and Investigator get nothing in terms of good reactions under level 10. Which really hurts the strength of those classes.
If there’s another reaction that would be thematic for a barbarian, I’d be all for seeing what that is. As things are structured now, most Martial classes have some alternative to Reactive Strike that grants an extra attack.
As explained they have very little and it is mostly a rebadged Reactive Strike. Which I what to see less of in the game. I want other different tactical play styles.
Just some of them are much better than others. Opportune Riposte is in a similar place as Cleave, in that it’s too situational. .
At least Opportune Riposte is free and doesn't cost a level 6 feat. You can build it and it plays fairly well. A Swashbuckler Fencer with Goading Feint and a focus on defense, can be quite a good point martial. It is not that popular though as Swashbuckler class itself could do with a little boost.
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I guess I just don’t find Cleave any more thematic for a Barbarian than it would be for any other martial. Meaning that yes, a Barbarian who Cleaves makes sense, but when I think of a Barbarian, I don’t think of Cleave as a defining ability. It’s a feat that shouldn’t have been class locked.
Reactive Strike should have been automatic for the classes that get it. Either when proficiency advances to Expert or instead of Weapon Specialization.
In a way, though we disagree on whether Reactive Strike should be more or less common, I think we both agree that more interesting actually class specific options would be good for the game. It does feel like a feat tax, and it feels boring, but it’s too good to pass up. I would rather have feats that build on a class’s abilities. More Rage powers that are interesting. Which is what we had in 1E and why I still hate that Combat Feats got mixed in with Class Feats.
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Since design decisions because of tradition have been mentioned a couple of times on this post already, why do you think Paizo made the conscious decision to now allow barbarians to demoralize unless they take a feat for it? PF1e barbarians were explicitly allowed to still be able to intimidate while raging, and I believe D&D 3.5's ones were as well, so it feels really weird that a literal angry dude running around to hack things down somehow isn't able to be intimidating. Was that an oversight or they made it on purpose just to create room to have feats to solve it?More likely an oversight from the staggering amount of work that needed to be done between the playtest and actual launch. Even if with this annoying issue, Barbarians are largely great as a class. Flavorful, strong and enable multiple types of characters (even if the main focus is high damage dealer).
Back then, things were in flux quite a lot, the devs were still finding their bearings with this new system (that's quite a jump from PF1e) and Paizo likes their taxes more than the IRS sometimes.
You can see the difference in design paradigm between classes from the APG that were incredibly undertuned, had issues with action economy that only became more apparent with time (once players and devs got more familiarized with the ins and outs of the game) and the design of classes like Thaumaturge, Kineticist and the upcoming Animist (easily the strongest class ever released in its playtest form and incredibly flavorful as well).
I think Raging Intimidation was also an example of Paizo going too far in their mission of "opt-in complexity." The base chassis of a class was meant to follow relatively simple rules, like "no concentration actions while raging." Then if you want more complicated exceptions, like "except Intimidation" you make that choice by spending the feat.
Of course, the simplest rule would have been not having the restriction on concentration actions at all, but they probably wanted it for legacy reasons. And they probably didn't know how many actions yet to come would be concentrate, like numerous magic items or commanding an animal from the beast master. I think I've come around to just getting rid of the restriction all together. It would tangible improve the class while also making it way simpler.
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Of course, the simplest rule would have been not having the restriction on concentration actions at all
Unless the restriction was itself an attempt at simplification. In hindsight it's a bad choice, but in the context of "opt in complexity" and Barbarians designed to be especially straight forward, giving them a mechanic that just limits their in-combat options does help streamline them in a really weird way, which might have been part of the design.
For me, the best example of a class that rages is David Weber's Hradani. I wonder if he could be convinced to release the concept under the ORC? :-)
Anyway, if there's anyone here who doesn't know the Hradani, read Weber's "War God" series. A brief history: On the world of Norfressa, there was, 1200 years ago, a great war. In that war, one side's wizards managed to instill in one of the Races of Man, the Hradani, the Rage. Hradani were fearsome fighters to begin with; in the Rage they were berserk and terrible (in the sense of "causing or likely to cause terror"). After the war, Hradani were shunned. Even today they're considered barbarians by the rest of humanity (which includes humans, elves, and dwarves). But now, 1200 years after the war, something has changed. Some Hradani have learned to control the Rage. And one has become, albeit reluctantly, a Paladin of Tokamak, the god of war.
Of course, the simplest rule would have been not having the restriction on concentration actions at allUnless the restriction was itself an attempt at simplification. In hindsight it's a bad choice, but in the context of "opt in complexity" and Barbarians designed to be especially straight forward, giving them a mechanic that just limits their in-combat options does help streamline them in a really weird way, which might have been part of the design.
That's true if you have an encyclopedic knowledge of what actions have concrete tagged on. Otherwise, it has the opposite effect-- you'll plan to do something only to have it pointed out that you can't.
It is like having the shove trait on weapons. A player who with a shove weapon will probably understand they can shove with it. But a player who picked a two handed weapon without shove may want to shoulder check someone and then be surprised to learn they can't.
Seems to me a "shoulder check" is an unarmed attack. I don't see a reason somebody couldn't do that.
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Yeah the whole unable to cast spells while raging seems to be a legacy holdover too. Not sure if it makes mechanical or balance sense. It makes flavor sense for sure but it's probably not worth the trouble for that. Definitely support buffing moment of clarity.
Maybe baseline you'd need to pass a DC 5 flat check to use a concentrate action and moment of clarity would remove that requirement once per round or something.
After reading this thread and its strong arguments, I would just remove the Concentrate restriction completely.
And for Superstition Instinct, I would remove the "even from your allies" part. So that Superstition Barbarian would be the only one unable to cast spells, but they would be able to benefit from their allies' spells
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I guess I just don’t find Cleave any more thematic for a Barbarian than it would be for any other martial. Meaning that yes, a Barbarian who Cleaves makes sense, but when I think of a Barbarian, I don’t think of Cleave as a defining ability. It’s a feat that shouldn’t have been class locked.
It was a design choice made by Paizo to lock many combat feats to some classes instead of turn them into general feats like they was in 1e and later gives access to some of them via archetypes if you want to take some of them with other classes.
Due some probably arbitrary reason they put Cleave into babarians, as the same way that Power Attacks are into Fighters and Quick Draw is into Rogues, Ranges and Gunslingers.
I don't think this is something in a point to be discussed here (it's something for a future PF3). The point now is just how to made Cleave competitive with Reactive Strikes once that they share the same place as feat requirements (level) and reaction.
IMO it need to changes to work more frequently and MAPless.
The MAPless part I think that all agree that there's no reason to Cleave share get and share a MAP.
To improve its frequency my idea still making it able to trigger on critical hits too and change adjacent to target to adjacent to you.
IMO this would be enought to make it more competitive with Reactive Strikes.
If the idea is that the fighter controls the battlefield while the barbarian carves a path through it, that's cool! I think Cleave just needs a major buff. Maybe something that lets you Step and Strike and ignore the increased MAP until the end of the action, if we really want it to rival Reactive Strike.
And one has become, albeit reluctantly, a Paladin of Tokamak, the god of war.
That's Tomanāk, god of war and justice.
Tokamak is a type of fusion reactor.
Maybe it would be easier to figure out the role cleave needs to have in improving barbarian abilities or options first to figure out what it should ultimately do?
Right now it has
Barbarian Rage
Source Core Rulebook pg. 90 4.0
Trigger Your melee Strike kills a creature or knocks it unconscious, and another foe is adjacent to that creature.
You swing clear through one foe and into another. Make a melee Strike against the second foe.
Cleave Leads To...
Great Cleave
Traits
Rage:You must be raging to use abilities with the rage trait, and they end automatically when you stop raging.
So any change to cleave probably would need to be done for great cleave.
We have all pointed out its limitations make it a very poor use of a reaction and 6th level feat.Should it just have no adjacency restriction and no MAP restriction is that all this needs?
If those restrictions are removed for it and great cleave then would great cleave become too strong?
And one has become, albeit reluctantly, a Paladin of Tokamak, the god of war.TOKAMAK! Destroy my enemies, and my life is yours.
I don't think this is something in a point to be discussed here (it's something for a future PF3).
You say that like PF2 doesn't already have feats available to multiple classes. They don't need to re-invent the wheel to expand upon it.
We have but they are still limited to some classes or archetypes (and there's many like Cleave that currently is one class only). Many of these feats was general feats in PF1/3.5.
I'm not saying that this need to be changed. As I said it was a design choice made by designers to make some combat feats unique to some classes to make these classes more unique. What I just say is that's a thing that won't be change in PF2 and if someone doesn't like how it was made in PF2 these people will need to wait some years to propose these changes in a PF3 or make it as homebrew.
This can get even funnier, remember " This frenzy lasts ... until there are no enemies you can perceive"? Now, let's add very well hiding (and possibly invisible) enemies. Or even just one. And they've made themselves Undetected from a barbarian. Now raging is over, too? :)The problem is not going down. It's that you do not have any of your special abilities left for the rest of the fight when you get back up.
Imagine a caster losing all their spells, a Fighter losing their higher weapon proficiency, a Rogue losing their sneak attack for the rest of the fight once they go down. Not fun and not consistent with being a dedicated frontliner, which the Barbarian is.
If they just removed the 1-minute timer on Rage, it would already help tremendously.
You still know there are enemies about. You don't know where they ARE, but you know they're there. 'They're in the trees ... ' (Which makes it funnier if the enemies have just left and are watching and laughing.)
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We have but they are still limited to some classes or archetypes (and there's many like Cleave that currently is one class only). Many of these feats was general feats in PF1/3.5.
I'm not saying that this need to be changed. As I said it was a design choice made by designers to make some combat feats unique to some classes to make these classes more unique. What I just say is that's a thing that won't be change in PF2 and if someone doesn't like how it was made in PF2 these people will need to wait some years to propose these changes in a PF3 or make it as homebrew.
My earlier point wasn’t an attempt to get the design philosophy changed. I understand how we got here and why. The end result is that we have feats that don’t have anything to do with class identity being artificially turned into class identity. Because we have Cleave, or because Reactive Strike is a class feat, if you want to improve or in some cases keep up, you have to spend class feats on generic combat feats, instead of on actual class feats. Cleave is a Barbarian only feat because someone chose to make it one, not because it has anything to do specifically with being a Barbarian. Reactive Strike/AoO is a near automatic choice when it becomes available, because it’s just mechanically good. So instead of taking a Champion/Barbarian/Swashbuckler/Magus/whatever other class gets access to it feat, you have to spend a Class feat on it.
I don’t expect that to change, but it is part of the reason we don’t have more thematic feats for the classes. “Fixing” Cleave might make Cleave a better feat, but it won’t make it feel like it should have been a Barbarian-only feat in the first place.
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Maybe it would be easier to figure out the role cleave needs to have in improving barbarian abilities or options first to figure out what it should ultimately do?
Right now it has
Barbarian Rage
Source Core Rulebook pg. 90 4.0
Trigger Your melee Strike kills a creature or knocks it unconscious, and another foe is adjacent to that creature.
You swing clear through one foe and into another. Make a melee Strike against the second foe.
Cleave Leads To...
Great Cleave
Traits
Rage:You must be raging to use abilities with the rage trait, and they end automatically when you stop raging.
So any change to cleave probably would need to be done for great cleave.
We have all pointed out its limitations make it a very poor use of a reaction and 6th level feat.
Should it just have no adjacency restriction and no MAP restriction is that all this needs?
If those restrictions are removed for it and great cleave then would great cleave become too strong?
Right now, I would forget the Reaction thing and make Cleave a once per round free action.
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We have but they are still limited to some classes or archetypes (and there's many like Cleave that currently is one class only). Many of these feats was general feats in PF1/3.5.
I'm not saying that this need to be changed. As I said it was a design choice made by designers to make some combat feats unique to some classes to make these classes more unique. What I just say is that's a thing that won't be change in PF2 and if someone doesn't like how it was made in PF2 these people will need to wait some years to propose these changes in a PF3 or make it as homebrew.
My earlier point wasn’t an attempt to get the design philosophy changed. I understand how we got here and why. The end result is that we have feats that don’t have anything to do with class identity being artificially turned into class identity. Because we have Cleave, or because Reactive Strike is a class feat, if you want to improve or in some cases keep up, you have to spend class feats on generic combat feats, instead of on actual class feats. Cleave is a Barbarian only feat because someone chose to make it one, not because it has anything to do specifically with being a Barbarian. Reactive Strike/AoO is a near automatic choice when it becomes available, because it’s just mechanically good. So instead of taking a Champion/Barbarian/Swashbuckler/Magus/whatever other class gets access to it feat, you have to spend a Class feat on it.
I don’t expect that to change, but it is part of the reason we don’t have more thematic feats for the classes. “Fixing” Cleave might make Cleave a better feat, but it won’t make it feel like it should have been a Barbarian-only feat in the first place.
The Barbarian is the martial class that deals huge damage on their own with every successful Strike. They do not need crits for this (as opposed to the Fighter) and they do not need special circumstances like the Rogue does.
A class feat that builds on this would feel pretty appropriate IMO. Not sure what it should be though.
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And for Superstition Instinct, I would remove the "even from your allies" part. So that Superstition Barbarian would be the only one unable to cast spells, but they would be able to benefit from their allies' spells
That would make the Instinct pretty imbalanced. The Anathema would not really be one but the benefits would still be here.
Also, as of now the Superstition Instinct can technically cast spells so certain builds would have to be reviewed if you make that change, which is always a bad thing for these players.The only thing I'd remove is the unclear limitation on "continuing to travel with an ally (who) insists on using magic on you despite your unwillingness" and just keep the fact that you can't be a willing target for spells.
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And for Superstition Instinct, I would remove the "even from your allies" part. So that Superstition Barbarian would be the only one unable to cast spells, but they would be able to benefit from their allies' spellsThat would make the Instinct pretty imbalanced. The Anathema would not really be one but the benefits would still be here.
Also, as of now the Superstition Instinct can technically cast spells so certain builds would have to be reviewed if you make that change, which is always a bad thing for these players.The only thing I'd remove is the unclear limitation on "continuing to travel with an ally (who) insists on using magic on you despite your unwillingness" and just keep the fact that you can't be a willing target for spells.
Anathemas are pretty much inconsequential for barbarians, with the only exception being superstition. Most instincts have anathemas that 99% of barbarians aren't going to break anyway (a dragon instinct barbarian likely wasn't going to be disrespectful towards dragons, otherwise why would the player choose to play as that instinct) so if the anathema becomes meaningless for the superstition instinct it would make it in line with the others.
Anathemas are pretty much inconsequential for barbarians, with the only exception being superstition. Most instincts have anathemas that 99% of barbarians aren't going to break anyway (a dragon instinct barbarian likely wasn't going to be disrespectful towards dragons, otherwise why would the player choose to play as that instinct) so if the anathema becomes meaningless for the superstition instinct it would make it in line with the others.And for Superstition Instinct, I would remove the "even from your allies" part. So that Superstition Barbarian would be the only one unable to cast spells, but they would be able to benefit from their allies' spellsThat would make the Instinct pretty imbalanced. The Anathema would not really be one but the benefits would still be here.
Also, as of now the Superstition Instinct can technically cast spells so certain builds would have to be reviewed if you make that change, which is always a bad thing for these players.The only thing I'd remove is the unclear limitation on "continuing to travel with an ally (who) insists on using magic on you despite your unwillingness" and just keep the fact that you can't be a willing target for spells.
Yeah so why don't we get rid of the thing altogether.
If the anathema/edict system is fun on its own, it doesn't need to be pushed onto players.
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Anathemas are pretty much inconsequential for barbarians, with the only exception being superstition. Most instincts have anathemas that 99% of barbarians aren't going to break anyway (a dragon instinct barbarian likely wasn't going to be disrespectful towards dragons, otherwise why would the player choose to play as that instinct) so if the anathema becomes meaningless for the superstition instinct it would make it in line with the others.
The Superstition Instinct has a strong Anathema balanced by better features. So if you remove the Anathema it's no more balanced with other Instincts.
Also, I think the Anathema is important to the concept of the Superstition Instinct, so I don't think removing it is a solution. I also think the Anathema is not as bad as everyone make it sound. I play a Superstition Instinct and it's rarely a problem (outside Bards). The only real issue is the second part of the Anathema which is unclear and can lead to very different GM adjudications.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Anathemas are pretty much inconsequential for barbarians, with the only exception being superstition. Most instincts have anathemas that 99% of barbarians aren't going to break anyway (a dragon instinct barbarian likely wasn't going to be disrespectful towards dragons, otherwise why would the player choose to play as that instinct) so if the anathema becomes meaningless for the superstition instinct it would make it in line with the others.The Superstition Instinct has a strong Anathema balanced by better features. So if you remove the Anathema it's no more balanced with other Instincts.
Also, I think the Anathema is important to the concept of the Superstition Instinct, so I don't think removing it is a solution. I also think the Anathema is not as bad as everyone make it sound. I play a Superstition Instinct and it's rarely a problem (outside Bards). The only real issue is the second part of the Anathema which is unclear and can lead to very different GM adjudications.
Maybe it's just my lack of practical experience with Superstition Instinct, but I really don't think it's as strong as it should be given its massive constraints. The spell resistance at level 7 is certainly decent, though.
Also, as a repeat of my previous arguments, I think we should drop the concept of superstitious altogether and focus more on the anti-mage niche it is trying to occupy. The whole thing has an incredibly shaky conceptual foundation, I really don't think we should be asking Paizo to fix it, but to rework it altogether.
Anathemas are pretty much inconsequential for barbarians, with the only exception being superstition. Most instincts have anathemas that 99% of barbarians aren't going to break anyway (a dragon instinct barbarian likely wasn't going to be disrespectful towards dragons, otherwise why would the player choose to play as that instinct) so if the anathema becomes meaningless for the superstition instinct it would make it in line with the others.The Superstition Instinct has a strong Anathema balanced by better features. So if you remove the Anathema it's no more balanced with other Instincts.
Also, I think the Anathema is important to the concept of the Superstition Instinct, so I don't think removing it is a solution. I also think the Anathema is not as bad as everyone make it sound. I play a Superstition Instinct and it's rarely a problem (outside Bards). The only real issue is the second part of the Anathema which is unclear and can lead to very different GM adjudications.
Does it have better features? I literally see very average bonus that scales similarly to fury instinct (the lowest scaling instinct) but unlike fury it only applies certain enemies, a nice healing that triggers every 10 minutes but that isn't groundbreaking if not inconsequential most of the time, and a +2 to saves against magic which is fantastic but in lieu of you being one of the weakest barbarians damage-wise (when barbs are DPS class). The raging resistance is one of the best ones, but I still consider it worse than fury and more or less the same as elemental, though not like people choose an instinct because of its resistance IMO.
I honestly don't know why barbarians, out of all classes, needed anathema. It feels like Paizo wanted to have anathema to avoid the "brute" trope which is associated with barbarians but made their anathemas easy to ignore for the most part, which is something I agree shouldn't be punishing because that only feels bad, but at that point why bother?
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Imo, superstition should be uncommon since it does need an asterisk to look at party composition and what kinds of healing are available.
Healing is not the problem, it's more how other players view their characters. If someone brings a support caster, it's problematic. But you don't specifically need to be healed during combat anyway.
Also, as a repeat of my previous arguments, I think we should drop the concept of superstitious altogether and focus more on the anti-mage niche it is trying to occupy. The whole thing has an incredibly shaky conceptual foundation, I really don't think we should be asking Paizo to fix it, but to rework it altogether.
I've always advocated for that. The concept of the Superstition Barbarian, someone who's basically afraid of magic, has nothing to do in adventure where magic will be a common occurence. The mageslayer on the other hand is a classic trope.
Does it have better features?
It's complicated to answer. It's a tank Barbarian so it's hard to compare it to the other types of Barbarians that are more balanced between offense and defense or very much offense oriented. I can say that it works as intended: It's extremely hard to put down my Barbarian and the only creatures who managed to do it after the first level were respectively 3 and 4 levels above me.