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.
I have the opposite vision!
Currently the anathema of being unable to receive beneficial effects of magic spells. Being unable to be magically healed, get bonus from bards, bless, heroism, haste, remove conditions spells, true target, girzanje's march and so on is way more penalizing than get resistance vs dmg spells of 2 traditions and a +2 to saves against magic.It's the opposite. The physical resistances that other instincts have is way more common to be used than magical resistance to some specific traditions.
If the concentration restriction would be removed and this restriction put in place of the currently Superstition anathema the things would be way more balance than they currently are.
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.
I disagree. Healing is a problem. I have a table with 2 barbarians (an giant and an animal) and sometimes they need some healing. It's not so uncommon even in higher levels that due bad dice rolls or decision and lower AC they need some healing. Restrict this to potions can be very problematic.
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.
I agree with both of you here. This concept of a barbarian prejudiced with magic isn't good neither mechanically nor in lore IMO. An anti-magician barbarian makes way more sense.
being unable to be magically healed, get bonus from bards, bless, heroism, haste, remove conditions spells, true target, girzanje's march and so on is (way more) penalizing
It completely depends on your casters. If they never cast Bless, Heroism, Haste, Remove Conditions, True Target or whatever because they are no support caster then there's no penalty at all. If they are support casters, then there's an issue as their characters and yours are basically not compatible.
I disagree. Healing is a problem. I have a table with 2 barbarians (an giant and an animal) and sometimes they need some healing. It's not so uncommon even in higher levels that due bad dice rolls or decision and lower AC they need some healing. Restrict this to potions can be very problematic.
Healing is a problem, obviously, but not a big one.
Also, comparing a Superstition Barbarian that is extremely hard to put down and a Giant Barbarian that is quite easy to put down is not really a good comparison. Superstition Barbarians are excellent tanks, they soak a truckload of damage.
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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.
Yeah but healing in and out of combat is still more restricted in addition to its other challenges is what I mean.
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Yeah but healing in and out of combat is still more restricted in addition to its other challenges is what I mean.
Superstition Instinct allows you to heal your level + Constitution modifier every 10 minutes so out of combat healing is straightforward. For in combat healing, clearly, you nearly never get healed.
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I'm not sure the superstition barbarian needs to make it into the remaster. That's a thing that I think is fine to leave in legacy content.
Like it just seems weird that there's enough "magic hating" that's intense enough for a Barbarian instinct when magic is in fact just a fact of life.
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Yeah but healing in and out of combat is still more restricted in addition to its other challenges is what I mean.Superstition Instinct allows you to heal your level + Constitution modifier every 10 minutes so out of combat healing is straightforward. For in combat healing, clearly, you nearly never get healed.
Oh I actually thought they just got more temp hp than usual. Forgot about that bit. That's pretty handy.
Also, maybe it's just the games that I've been in, but we do a lot of healing in battle. There's plenty of abilities that are meant to be used in combat. Not sure where the you don't heal in combat is coming from.
Also, maybe it's just the games that I've been in, but we do a lot of healing in battle. There's plenty of abilities that are meant to be used in combat. Not sure where the you don't heal in combat is coming from.
As a Superstition Barbarian, you never get healed in combat (because most combat healing is spell based so you quickly learn to improve your survivability to not depend on it).
Healing is very party dependent: If you have a dedicated healer, there will be a lot of healing. If no one cares about healing, there will be very few. But both strategies "work". I'm personally on the no healing team, I see dedicated healers as burdens (I prefer short fights than long ones).
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Also, maybe it's just the games that I've been in, but we do a lot of healing in battle. There's plenty of abilities that are meant to be used in combat. Not sure where the you don't heal in combat is coming from.As a Superstition Barbarian, you never get healed in combat (because most combat healing is spell based so you quickly learn to improve your survivability to not depend on it).
Healing is very party dependent: If you have a dedicated healer, there will be a lot of healing. If no one cares about healing, there will be very few. But both strategies "work". I'm personally on the no healing team, I see dedicated healers as burdens (I prefer short fights than long ones).
I see. I interpreted one of your previous comments as healing isn't supposed to happen at all, which if you're playing perfectly maybe lol.
I would think that if any character is going to need healing, it's the character built to absorb craptons of damage who loses her class abilities if she ever goes unconscious.
But yeah, I prefer long fights where everyone generally lives to short fights with lots of tossups, so it's just a difference of style! I also play a lot of clerics, and Heal is definitely one of the strongest combat spells in the cleric's arsenal.
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Battle Medicine is not magical, is pretty common, and doesn’t even have Concentrate, so a Barbarian can use it themselves. Elixirs are not magical, and while they aren’t fantastic in terms of action economy or the amount of healing, they are options in an emergency. That’s not much worse than where most negative healing (or whatever it’s called now) characters end up in random PFS groups where other characters haven’t necessarily planned for it.
Renewed Vigor is an option, though not a great one as an 8th level feat.
Anyway, I think the issues with not being able to benefit from buff spells is much bigger than the issues around healing.
I maintain that if it makes it to core 2 with its current challenges, it should probably be uncommon.
The good thing is that it's almost a guarantee it will changed, it was one of the most mentioned things on the thread one of Paizo's staff made about Anathemas that required an once over. Superstitious Barbarian has been a point of contention ever since the original playtest.
Which was no surprise it didn't make the final release. And it was a complete surprise when its anathema was released largely unchanged later on.
I would think that if any character is going to need healing, it's the character built to absorb craptons of damage who loses her class abilities if she ever goes unconscious.
But yeah, I prefer long fights where everyone generally lives to short fights with lots of tossups, so it's just a difference of style! I also play a lot of clerics, and Heal is definitely one of the strongest combat spells in the cleric's arsenal.
Have you often played without a dedicated healer?
Fights without healers are not tossups, they are very similar to fights with healers. They are mostly just shorter.The removal of spell schools would necessitate fixing its resistance. I'd really like it to simply cover all damage from spells.
Traditions haven't change, so there's no change needed.
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I would think that if any character is going to need healing, it's the character built to absorb craptons of damage who loses her class abilities if she ever goes unconscious.
But yeah, I prefer long fights where everyone generally lives to short fights with lots of tossups, so it's just a difference of style! I also play a lot of clerics, and Heal is definitely one of the strongest combat spells in the cleric's arsenal.
Have you often played without a dedicated healer?
Fights without healers are not tossups, they are very similar to fights with healers. They are mostly just shorter.The removal of spell schools would necessitate fixing its resistance. I'd really like it to simply cover all damage from spells.Traditions haven't change, so there's no change needed.
Ok I just haven't read superstition barbarian in too long apparently lol
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IMO not really, specially if they don't change the anathema. Elemental gives you resistance to everything in regards to your element, even creatures with the trait of that element even if they don't attack you with that element, which is huge and IMO better than what superstition has. The same with spirit instinct and undead which are one of the most common types of enemies. If they don't want supersitition to be a DPS like other instincts, at least I would want them to double down on its tanky-ness.
Would resistance to all spell damage be too much though?
I don't think so, it's still only applying to a relatively narrower subset of damage.
Not to mention that just from the way spells are constructed, you tend to take fewer spell damage hits in general, which reduces the value of resistance somewhat.
Plus Superstition has the worst anathema and the worst rage damage of any instinct, it desperately needs something good (assuming we're skipping the option to just trash it because it doesn't make much sense).
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I mean the AC Penalty is mostly because the quintessential barbarian fantasy involves "you shrug off blows that would end lesser warriors and laugh in the face of your enemies" or something like that.
Though they might want to get back to the drawing board to figure out a way to better represent this since the Barbarian's other defenses like resistance and more HP aren't actually as good as "AC" because lower AC means you take more crits.
I think the "no more concentration restriction" seems plausible.
As you mentioned, that shrugging off attacks fantasy no longer works cuz lowering AC opens Barbarians up to eating more crits. When I played a Barbarian I didn't feel tough at all, I felt extremely fragile. Not at all the experience I was expecting. Hopefully they dump the AC penalty in the Remaster, or if they want to keep it then Barbs need damage resistance from lvl 1. Temp HPs don't even come close to making up for the AC penalty.
Could also maybe provide a sort of divine striker itch.Now I want to make a Roberto Baggio character.
I prefer a Zidane build myself...
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I would think that if any character is going to need healing, it's the character built to absorb craptons of damage who loses her class abilities if she ever goes unconscious.
But yeah, I prefer long fights where everyone generally lives to short fights with lots of tossups, so it's just a difference of style! I also play a lot of clerics, and Heal is definitely one of the strongest combat spells in the cleric's arsenal.
Have you often played without a dedicated healer?
Fights without healers are not tossups, they are very similar to fights with healers. They are mostly just shorter.
Yeah, I have, and fights without dedicated healers in my experience are always kind of nightmarishly swingy in my personal experience! I have my own curiosities about your games, but at the end of the day, what works for you works for you and what works for me works for me, so it doesn't really matter.
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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.
I read "Willingly accepting the effects of magic spells (including from scrolls, wands, and the like), even from your allies, is anathema to your instinct" as completely preventing the Superstition Barbarian themselves from casting spells.
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Yeah, I have, and fights without dedicated healers in my experience are always kind of nightmarishly swingy in my personal experience! I have my own curiosities about your games, but at the end of the day, what works for you works for you and what works for me works for me, so it doesn't really matter.
I play quite the amount of healers, 8 to be precise, from the Psychic (not really a healer) to my main which is an Angelic Sorcerer. Outside fights against undeads, I use one or 2 Heals a day past level 5. The fights I experience are very far from nightmarishly swingy (past the very first levels which are swingy no matter what).
But yeah, definitely, experiences vary from tables to tables.Also, a Superstition Barbarian can choose to accept spells in dire times. They lose their special Rage powers until they take a day off but it doesn't trigger the second part of their Anathema and as such their long time adventuring. If you play a superstitious barbarian, it's problematic RP-wise (but the superstitious barbarian is problematic in all accounts) but if your barbarian has at least a little bit of common sense it works fine (that's what I do if my PFS Superstition Barbarian ends up in a party that is heavy on supporting magic as the pleasure of everyone is more important than a few bonuses).
I read "Willingly accepting the effects of magic spells (including from scrolls, wands, and the like), even from your allies, is anathema to your instinct" as completely preventing the Superstition Barbarian themselves from casting spells.
Effects is a game term. If a spell doesn't target you then you are not accepting the effects of magic spells. If you consider the more general English meaning of "effects" then having a spellcaster casting a debuff on the enemies would trigger your Anathema, too ;)
Now a reaction to negate a crit might be something worth considering.
Valuable when it fires.
It would be hard to use in practice as you have to leave a reaction spare in order to keep the option open.
Now a reaction to negate a crit might be something worth considering.Valuable when it fires.
It would be hard to use in practice as you have to leave a reaction spare in order to keep the option open.
In normal circumstances, yes. Against AP+3 or +4 fights, it would be your best reaction.
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Now a reaction to negate a crit might be something worth considering.Valuable when it fires.
It would be hard to use in practice as you have to leave a reaction spare in order to keep the option open.
I would make it a lower level feat, so you could, in theory, take both it and Reactive Strike. If it needs to be limited to 1/rage to do so, I think that would be fine. Even that could mean the difference between the Barbarian dripping halfway through the fight, then losing Rage for the remaining part, and the Barbarian staying up and murdering the boss.
This also makes me wonder why Barbarian doesn’t have an equivalent to Orc Ferocity. A reaction to stay conscious when you would normally drop also seems good for a barbarian. Anyway, a series of feats around the idea of them powering through damage twitch their rage seems more thematic than some of what we’ve got, while also addressing the serviceability without raising their AC.
Yup, I think another solution could be that enemies now have to beat your lowered AC by +11 instead of +10 to crit, but that might be tricky to remember...
As you mentioned, that shrugging off attacks fantasy no longer works cuz lowering AC opens Barbarians up to eating more crits. When I played a Barbarian I didn't feel tough at all, I felt extremely fragile. Not at all the experience I was expecting. Hopefully they dump the AC penalty in the Remaster, or if they want to keep it then Barbs need damage resistance from lvl 1. Temp HPs don't even come close to making up for the AC penalty.
If we have to jump through so many loops to solve the -1 to AC, why don't remove it? As we already discussed the -1 AC goes against the basic idea of barbarians being tanks that shrug off blows as they get hit and crit more often.
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If we have to jump through so many loops to solve the -1 to AC, why don't remove it? As we already discussed the -1 AC goes against the basic idea of barbarians being tanks that shrug off blows as they get hit and crit more often.Yup, I think another solution could be that enemies now have to beat your lowered AC by +11 instead of +10 to crit, but that might be tricky to remember...
As you mentioned, that shrugging off attacks fantasy no longer works cuz lowering AC opens Barbarians up to eating more crits. When I played a Barbarian I didn't feel tough at all, I felt extremely fragile. Not at all the experience I was expecting. Hopefully they dump the AC penalty in the Remaster, or if they want to keep it then Barbs need damage resistance from lvl 1. Temp HPs don't even come close to making up for the AC penalty.
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You keep saying this like this is a universally held consensus. It is not. Not getting hit is diametricly opposed to how barbarians are supposed to tank hits. Not getting crit, sure. Not going down super quickly, sure. But getting hit is part of the basic idea. See: Wolverine, Ultra Ego Vegeta, Metal Bat, and various other berserker types.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If we have to jump through so many loops to solve the -1 to AC, why don't remove it? As we already discussed the -1 AC goes against the basic idea of barbarians being tanks that shrug off blows as they get hit and crit more often.Yup, I think another solution could be that enemies now have to beat your lowered AC by +11 instead of +10 to crit, but that might be tricky to remember...
As you mentioned, that shrugging off attacks fantasy no longer works cuz lowering AC opens Barbarians up to eating more crits. When I played a Barbarian I didn't feel tough at all, I felt extremely fragile. Not at all the experience I was expecting. Hopefully they dump the AC penalty in the Remaster, or if they want to keep it then Barbs need damage resistance from lvl 1. Temp HPs don't even come close to making up for the AC penalty..
You keep saying this, and you keep being wrong. Not getting hit is diametricly opposed to how barbarians are supposed to tank hits. Not getting crit, sure. Not going down super quickly, sure. But getting hit is part of the basic idea.
I'm not the only one that has this opinion on this post, but I ask you; how is getting hit more often part of the barbarian flavor? The barbarian flavor isn't that they are always getting hits but they aren't as damaged from the attacks, only the not getting as much damage from attacks is part of that, which PF2e barbarians only get from 9th level onwards. I also mentioned earlier how the barbarian fantasy is always going naked pretty much, which is also another thing that barbarians that aren't the 5e barbarian don't have in the "D&D-based" TTRPGs.
If anything, you are the wrong one here as it's clear the assumption here is that barbarians should run around in medium armor and when they become strong enough they'll be able to resist the attacks that actually are succesful against them, not that they are always going to get hit or crit. Also, as someone else mentioned, barbarian is the class that is hurt the most by getting downed in battle because they can't rage again for the rest of the combat, so it's not only not appropiate for barbarians to have lower AC but its also a design flaw that makes them more likely to become less useful in combat as they can literally lose their class features due to those crits.
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If we have to jump through so many loops to solve the -1 to AC, why don't remove it? As we already discussed the -1 AC goes against the basic idea of barbarians being tanks that shrug off blows as they get hit and crit more often.Yup, I think another solution could be that enemies now have to beat your lowered AC by +11 instead of +10 to crit, but that might be tricky to remember...
As you mentioned, that shrugging off attacks fantasy no longer works cuz lowering AC opens Barbarians up to eating more crits. When I played a Barbarian I didn't feel tough at all, I felt extremely fragile. Not at all the experience I was expecting. Hopefully they dump the AC penalty in the Remaster, or if they want to keep it then Barbs need damage resistance from lvl 1. Temp HPs don't even come close to making up for the AC penalty..
You keep saying this, and you keep being wrong. Not getting hit is diametricly opposed to how barbarians are supposed to tank hits. Not getting crit, sure. Not going down super quickly, sure. But getting hit is part of the basic idea.I'm not the only one that has this opinion on this post, but I ask you; how is getting hit more often part of the barbarian flavor? The barbarian flavor isn't that they are always getting hits but they aren't as damaged from the attacks, only the not getting as much damage from attacks is part of that, which PF2e barbarians only get from 9th level onwards. I also mentioned earlier how the barbarian fantasy is always going naked pretty much, which is also another thing that barbarians that aren't the 5e barbarian don't have in the "D&D-based" TTRPGs.
If anything, you are the wrong one here as it's clear the assumption here is that barbarians should run around in medium armor and when they become strong enough they'll be able to resist the attacks that actually are succesful against them, not that they are always going to get hit or crit....
There are also plenty of people who disagree with you. As to examples of getting hit being appropriate flavor, see: Wolverine, Ultra Ego Vegeta, Metal Bat.
I do agree that PF2 should better support the bare chested barbarian, though.
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To be clear, I'm not arguing that barbarians are 100% successfully delivering on their premise, because if they were so many people wouldn't be complaining about their fragility. What I'm arguing is that if that is a problem, removing the AC penalty is the wrong way to fix it. I'd prefer options like DR coming on earlier or being more widely applicable, fast healing, crit negation, or revenge mechanics.
I must admit I really don't get this idea that Barbarians are going down easily. If you consider a -2 to AC (-1 from Rage and -1 from not being in heavy armor so I'm rather nice as Barbarians can easily end up in Heavy Armor), it means they take 25% more damage. Considering the extra hit points from their 12 hp per level and temp hit points from Rage, they have roughly 25% more hit points than other martials. So Barbarians are as tough as Fighters if we consider that they are only taking AC based damage. And I don't see anyone complaining about Fighters going down always.
On top of it, they have Deny Advantage which is extremely handy against lower level foes (the ones that your low AC helps a lot as bosses crit no matter what).
So, really, I don't get why Barbarians are going down easily according to so many players.
I feel it is not directly related to their actual ability to tank... Because one thing that is for sure: Barbarians attract truckload of attention. They don't look like walking cans like Fighters and Paladins (unless they choose heavy armor) and they deal excellent damage. Also, the fact that they get hit attracts attention as enemies will tend to focus on what they feel are easier preys (as they don't know how much HPs the Barbarian has).
So I feel the solution to the problem has nothing to do with the rules but is more a player/GM behavior. If the GM always focuses on the Barbarian then the Barbarian goes down always, like any other character in the same situation. If the player doesn't control the attention they raise, then their Barbarian always ends up with more than they can handle.
Edit: Also, I must admit, I've seen much more stupid behaviors coming from Barbarians "in the name of roleplay" than from other characters. Similarly, when I speak of grabbing Heavy Armor on a Barbarian many players complain when all the Strength-based Fighters I cross are in Heavy Armor. I'm not sure it has an impact but it may add to the general opinion: If players expect Barbarians to be more reckless then they will be disappointed unless Barbarians end up with Champion level of tanking.
Do you not expect Barbarians to be more reckless, SuperBidi? That sounds odd given how they're based entirely on raging to enable their class features. Plus it's flavored in such a way that they are incapable of concentrating and thinking things through, so playing "stupidly" seems like the only correct way to play. At least when you're raging.
Agreed on this point, which is why I like Revenge mechanics that reward it so much. That said, I agree with Super that I don't normally see this barbarians being super fragile thing in my own experience, with the exception of the giant instinct. Giant particularly wants to play tactically by abusing reach.
I played through Extinction Curse as a Warpriest. My main flanking buddy was the party's Animal Instinct Barbarian/Wrestler. Twenty levels, and in my experience I wasn't healing G'abba an excessive amount. Yeah, he had the rage penalty, but it didn't seem to translate to an excessive amount of hits & crits. Plus, he was so bloody tough...
I don't deny there's abilities that exist to circumvent that -1 to AC in the class, but I feel those are really weak or don't come up until much later. Let's take a 9th level barbarian for example: they would gain 12 or 13 temp hp from raging, as well as reduce 6 or 7 points of damage to whatever they resist. Assuming the barbarian is against a creature which they resistance is useful, it means that at 9th level (which is decently high) a barbarian has an effective 20-ish extra hp in the first attack and 6-ish in every subsequent attack. This is IMO frankly borderline useless when we take into account that (as per the monster creation rules) a monster of that same level would deal something in between 2d10+11 (22) and 2d8+9 (18), which effectively means a barbarian more or less "avoids" two or three hits per combat through their resistances, though since the -1 to AC also makes it easier for enemies to crit you likely end up more or less taking the same damage as if you didn't have those resistances in the first place.
This is kinda my point here. If you remove the -1 AC and the temporary hit points you'll end up with a barbarian that is more tanky than other martials which does fit with the barbarian fantasy of being a meat ball, but if you want to have a barbarian that draws attention to themselves then the temp hp should probably be recharge every turn (like inexorable magus) because as is you are actually squishier than most martials which is literally the opposite of what a barbarian should be IMO.
That or give barbarians raging resistance earlier and make it scale a little higher (half level + con?).
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If we have to jump through so many loops to solve the -1 to AC
We don't really though. Like, the Barbarian is an excellent class as is. people are just speculating about new stuff or potential changes.
I would think that if any character is going to need healing, it's the character built to absorb craptons of damage who loses her class abilities if she ever goes unconscious.
But yeah, I prefer long fights where everyone generally lives to short fights with lots of tossups, so it's just a difference of style! I also play a lot of clerics, and Heal is definitely one of the strongest combat spells in the cleric's arsenal.
Have you often played without a dedicated healer?
Fights without healers are not tossups, they are very similar to fights with healers. They are mostly just shorter.Yeah, I have, and fights without dedicated healers in my experience are always kind of nightmarishly swingy in my personal experience! I have my own curiosities about your games, but at the end of the day, what works for you works for you and what works for me works for me, so it doesn't really matter.
I agree. My party had some fights without a healer (but with 2 players having battle medicine). It isn't a TPK but was surely way more risky, slow and difficult than with parties with healers.
PF2 is a game where you can survive without a dedicated healer but this cleary changes the game difficult and risks.
If we have to jump through so many loops to solve the -1 to AC, why don't remove it? As we already discussed the -1 AC goes against the basic idea of barbarians being tanks that shrug off blows as they get hit and crit more often.Yup, I think another solution could be that enemies now have to beat your lowered AC by +11 instead of +10 to crit, but that might be tricky to remember...
As you mentioned, that shrugging off attacks fantasy no longer works cuz lowering AC opens Barbarians up to eating more crits. When I played a Barbarian I didn't feel tough at all, I felt extremely fragile. Not at all the experience I was expecting. Hopefully they dump the AC penalty in the Remaster, or if they want to keep it then Barbs need damage resistance from lvl 1. Temp HPs don't even come close to making up for the AC penalty.
Honestly I don't see them as tanks but as melee DPRs with a large amount of HP to try to kill before being killed.
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Do you not expect Barbarians to be more reckless, SuperBidi? That sounds odd given how they're based entirely on raging to enable their class features. Plus it's flavored in such a way that they are incapable of concentrating and thinking things through, so playing "stupidly" seems like the only correct way to play. At least when you're raging.
Absolutely not.
If you play stupid, you are punished so you can learn to play properly. No class should be better than the competition because it's supposed to be balanced by stupid play. Also, you have a party with you, not everyone will accept your stupid actions because it's "your roleplay". Sometimes, the obvious action is to ditch the barbarian at the next tavern and take an adequate martial instead.
I feel like a class that encourages "high risk high reward" play has value. Recklessness isn't inherently stupidity, just risk taking.
High risk high reward is not inherently bad but it has to be a class that interacts positively inside a party. A class that encourages rushing the enemies and taking a lot of punishment while dishing out a ton of damage is forcing the rest of the party members to play around them. Unless the other players are on board, it can lead to extremely unpleasant experience: either some party members being forced into gameplays they don't embrace because "they have to support the Barbarian" or Barbarians being unable to play because the party doesn't want to support them in their gameplay (like a lack of healers for example).
In third edition, Barbarians were able to dump their AC below 10 with the benefit of dealing incredible damage. That was awful to play with. For most fights the Barbarian was doing everything alone and when crap was hitting the fan the whole party was desperately trying to save them as they were taking a hundred points of damage per round. Really an experience I don't want to live in PF2.
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I have not noticed the barbarian being easy to bring down past the low levels. They do a lot of damage too. Their have a lot of good quality feats.
A giant barb using Whirlwind attack with an ogre hook can be truly brutal. Or just hammering on some creature multiple times.
I tend to build barbs as knockdown specialists as I do with most two-handed martials and monks. So you can control your enemies with knockdown, then hammer with a Reactive Strike to regain the attack lost to the trip. On top of taking feats to do damage when you trip.
I also consider barbs an encounter ender class. If they get on a roll with crits, they do so much damage that the encounter ends up being over quickly. The faster you kill, the less damage is done to you.
Sure, they are easier to crit and hit, but they also do a lot of damage which nearly nothing is immune to, not precision immunity and they punch through DR better than any other class at higher level.
The things I'd like to see are the following:
1. Smoother low level experience because at low level when they do go down easy, losing rage is extremely frustrating and can cause a player to give up on the class early because of that weakness.
Rage needs to be much easier to turn back on if dropped or hit with some spell that calms emotions or something. It's their only ability.
2. More diverse builds. Differences in rage damage and feats really push barbs into very select builds far superior to other builds.
Giant and dragon for damage.
Animal for tanking.
3. More reaction strike abilities. They get one reaction forever. AoO is their best reaction because Come and Get Me and Vengeance Strike are too costly with all the other AC reduction abilities to take. It is far too costly for one reaction strike that you can set up far more effectively with trip with a higher cost-benefit by far.
You really have to improve the cost-benefit of other reactions.
Making Cleave or Come and Get Me/Vengeful Strike more worthwhile to take and use would be nice.
Right now having played multiple barbs, it's far better to build a trip barbarian with Reactive Strike by such a huge margin that I everyone pretty much ignores the other reaction abilities because they are so bad.
Giving everyone flat-footed and a bonus to damage against you for one vengeful strike? Who thought that cost-benefit up?
If you're fighting mooks, you're going to get wiped out by the sheer number of attacks for one Vengeful Strike against moooks.
If you're fighting a boss, their hit roll is so high they are going to do far more damage to you with a higher crit chance than your reactive strike and you have off-guard likely anyway from standard flanking or tripping them.
So you have these dead feats only new players might take until they find out they are bad options.
Be nice if the barb vengeance striker with Come and Get me was built as a more attractive option that can at least compete with a Trip barb.
Same with the cleave reaction user.
Those are the types of fixes I would like. The -1 AC is fine in my opinion. The animal warrior tank build works well for the barb.
As a player of 3 barbarians to level 16 plus. A giant, a dragon, and an elemental barbarian, the giant and dragon are the best and the elemental is not bad in a dual class campaign with a kineticist. Not sure I would play elemental without being a dual class kineticist. I'd like to see things more evened out so other barbarian options are more attractive, preferably not by nerfing giant and dragon.
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High risk high reward can work if there is a big heal spell coming
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I only played one barbarian in PF(S) 1.
He was Guarded Stance (where his AC went *up* when he was raging) with a few add-on Feats to make it hard for things like incorporeal and the like to hit him.
It felt 'better' to not be a 'glass cannon' dependent on the charity of (relative) strangers at a random table, and it made him a pretty awesome tank, to boot.
So far, I haven't seen anything in PF2 that comes close to replicating that.
If I want a 'glass cannon', wizards can do that just fine.
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If we have to jump through so many loops to solve the -1 to AC, why don't remove it? As we already discussed the -1 AC goes against the basic idea of barbarians being tanks that shrug off blows as they get hit and crit more often.Yup, I think another solution could be that enemies now have to beat your lowered AC by +11 instead of +10 to crit, but that might be tricky to remember...
As you mentioned, that shrugging off attacks fantasy no longer works cuz lowering AC opens Barbarians up to eating more crits. When I played a Barbarian I didn't feel tough at all, I felt extremely fragile. Not at all the experience I was expecting. Hopefully they dump the AC penalty in the Remaster, or if they want to keep it then Barbs need damage resistance from lvl 1. Temp HPs don't even come close to making up for the AC penalty..
You keep saying this like this is a universally held consensus. It is not. Not getting hit is diametricly opposed to how barbarians are supposed to tank hits. Not getting crit, sure. Not going down super quickly, sure. But getting hit is part of the basic idea. See: Wolverine, Ultra Ego Vegeta, Metal Bat, and various other berserker types.
Ummm...Conan is THE ORIGINAL Barbarian, and in the Robert Howard stories he was described as having the reflexes of a cobra, or a panther, when he went berserk. He hardly ever took a hit, bad guys would end up hitting each other cuz he was so fast.
I wasn't as big a fan of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, tho I read a couple of their stories and I recall Fafhrd being fast and an excellent swordsman, not someone who stood around and got stabbed alot.
The whole "face tanking" thing has nothing to do with Barbarians in literature. As far as I know, it was a D&D invention that Barbarians were too stupid to duck a hit.