Leatherhead
Possibly a Idiot.
So the D&D 2024/1D&D/5.5e/Anniversary playtest Barbarian is here, and it is, so far, the least talked about changes of its packet.
Arguably the biggest change to the Barbarian lies in the Weapon tables changes, granting weapons extra riders when you attack. Which says a lot about the rest of the changes, really.
While that seems all fine and good, I want to talk about system changes that have a knock-on effect. As you may or may not know, I did a lets read of Mordenkainen Presents Monster of the Multiverse. The thread was focused on monster design as it might apply to the edition changeover, and one of the takeaways was that monsters were losing the Magical Weapons ability in favor of simply having elemental damage on their attacks. The primary benefit of this change was to make the monsters feel more “magical”, with the secondary effect of significantly cutting down the word count.
This is a problem because Barbarian Rage does not normally resist elemental damage. (Though I know given the number of bear totem barbarians, many tables may not realize this fact). These typically higher level monsters now have an automatic way to bypass the primary defensive ability of Barbarians, at a point in the game where martial classes begin to start tapering off.
I had put off posting a thread about this because I was waiting on the Barbarian packet to see if WoTC were going to fix this new snag in design philosophy. But in seeing that they didn’t change base class Rage resistance, nor provide the sample subclass with an expanded Resistance option, I am now posting about it to raise awareness of a problem that has slipped through the cracks, in the hopes that it might be addressed before it becomes cemented.
Arguably the biggest change to the Barbarian lies in the Weapon tables changes, granting weapons extra riders when you attack. Which says a lot about the rest of the changes, really.
- Rage lasts longer, and can be extended by use of a bonus action now instead of punching yourself (but people can argue that’s a wash given the evocative flavor)
- They get an extra skill (similar to the alternate class feature from TCoE), and while in rage can use their class skills with STR (I really wish that part was always on, more out of combat options are nice, plus you could still rage to gain automatic advantage on all of your new STR checks, providing a synergy)
- Brutal Critical is now an appreciable amount of bonus damage instead of an extra die, allowing it to function with every kind of weapon and scale better with level.
- The other class features were shuffled around a tad or take place in a tier of the game where nobody will play.
- Oh, and of course, the Berserker subclass no longer kills you when you use it’s primary feature. (Which is the bare minimum I expected for it)
While that seems all fine and good, I want to talk about system changes that have a knock-on effect. As you may or may not know, I did a lets read of Mordenkainen Presents Monster of the Multiverse. The thread was focused on monster design as it might apply to the edition changeover, and one of the takeaways was that monsters were losing the Magical Weapons ability in favor of simply having elemental damage on their attacks. The primary benefit of this change was to make the monsters feel more “magical”, with the secondary effect of significantly cutting down the word count.
This is a problem because Barbarian Rage does not normally resist elemental damage. (Though I know given the number of bear totem barbarians, many tables may not realize this fact). These typically higher level monsters now have an automatic way to bypass the primary defensive ability of Barbarians, at a point in the game where martial classes begin to start tapering off.
I had put off posting a thread about this because I was waiting on the Barbarian packet to see if WoTC were going to fix this new snag in design philosophy. But in seeing that they didn’t change base class Rage resistance, nor provide the sample subclass with an expanded Resistance option, I am now posting about it to raise awareness of a problem that has slipped through the cracks, in the hopes that it might be addressed before it becomes cemented.