Barbarian Playtest Experiences

[pukunui]

Great thread.

I'm just building a lvl 3 human barbarian now, and I can't decide which encounter powers I like better. I've got all three at-wills, so that's no problem, and I'm taking Great Leap for my utility and Swift Panther Rage for my daily.

My stats are STR 18 CON 16 DEX 12 INT 8 WIS 12 CHA 10.
Feats: Chain proficiency, Fullblade proficiency, Toughness
Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Nature, Perception
Magic items: +1 bloodclaw fullblade, +1 eladrin chain, cloak of the walking wounded


Essentially, I think I should have either Great Cleave or Blade Sweep, but I'm unsure which is better. I quite like Hammer Fall, but I don't know if it targeting Fortitude means it'll be easier to hit with or harder ... plus, if I'm patient, I'll be able to knock more opponents prone at lvl 5 with Thunder Hawk Rage. I like the hitting bit of Avalanche Strike but not the -4 to AC. That makes Great Cleave more attractive but not a no-brainer.


Any help would be much appreciated.


Cheers,
Jonathan

 

[rowport]

I thought I would throw out my playtest observations, but will do it as a quick summary since it really echoes lots of posts already here.

I am playing in the Forgotten Realms RPGA, with all chargen following those rules. My character is Durg Heavyheft, a Dwarf Barbarian that uses a Rage technique he learned from Pwent's Gutbusters. (I mention that because I found it very easy to ignore the fluff that assumes a "primal" background; my party did not even realize that he was a Barbarian until well into a combat since he looked and acted like a Fighter.)

Stats: STR 16 CON 16 DEX 11 INT 8 WIS 16 CHA 12
Feats: Chain proficiency
Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Perception
Equipment: greatsword, throwing hammers, chainmail
Powers:
At-Will: Howling Strike, Recuperating Strike
Encounter: Avalanche Strike
Daily: Bloodhunt Rage

Playtest:
* Barbarians do tremendous damage, but are very sqwishy. Even with the chainmail proficiency, my AC is only 16 and my other defenses are also very low (Ref 10!). The tricky part about this is that unlike defenders who can root in place and wait for healing, to make the most of his abilities a Barbarian charges frequently. I got into hit point trouble frequently.

* I absolutely love Rampage. Getting excited about having a critical is fun enough, but then another Free Action basic attack is just icing on the cake. I found myself wondering whether there is a 4e version of a wider critical threat range like the 3e falchion or scimitar-- that would be really great for a Barbarian.

* Using Howling Strike with a charge was my default attack. It rocks. Great damage, and great "Hulk Smash!" visuals.

* Avalanche Strike is tricky. It does huge damage-- I one-hitted a homunculi with it-- but you only want to use it far away from other enemies or risk being a pin cushion with your lower AC.

* Only having one Rage per day makes the class a bit more tactical than it first seems. Because of all the other powers that get better with Rage you do not want to waste it on a lesser-battle, you really need it with BBEG. Even just the difference of temp hit points from 3 to 8 is really significant.

* I like the Skill choices, but kind of regret the reduction to only three trained Skills. I preferred the 3e model here. But, I like Skills.

That's it! I will update again after playing more. I plan to take the full series of armor proficiency feats, chainmail, scale, and plate. It seems boring to do that, but the higher AC should help quite a bit, more than extra hit points in my opinion.

 

[sroy2]

Overpowered...

We've been trying a 11th level campaign and I think we've found a broken combination:
Genasi Rageblood Barbarian with Elemental Tempest paragon path cross-classed into cleric.
(He only cross-classed to get cure serious wounds.)

1) Stone Bear rage is felt way overpowered... Between the Genasi resists/racial abilities and the Stone Bear resists he was able to have 22 resist all for multiple turns in a row. Added with the Healing from Both classes, barbarian and cleric and the temporary hp the Barbarian class is so fond of- he was able to (at level 11) take out 6 lv 14 elites and kill the lv 16 wizard NPC the DM had planned for him to save.

All in all he resisted over 400 dmg in the one encounter and healed over 150 dmg with who knows how many temporary hit points thrown into the pot.

If anyone would like a copy of the build so they can play test it let me know, but it feels ungodly overpowered.

Let me propose a scenario to you. You have a random character capable of dealing 40... dmg per hit and having 100 hp. They start an encounter, the barbarian charged in first attacking with stone bear rage and goes into his rage. You take 3[w]+str lets say the weapon was a falchion (2d4) and does about 20 dmg + 8 elemental from his genasi form. You attack back and do 40 - 12: 28... So far you have both broken even. He attacks back with recouperating strike, 1[w] + d6 + str and deals 15 dmg + 8 elemental while giving himself 13 temporary hp. You attack 40 - 12 - 13: 15 dmg, you are slowly falling behind. Repeat the sequence X2 - you are so far 24 hp behind and the barbarian has only been using at will powers after the rage. Put all the healing this barbarian has built into his class and you are going to loose, unless you have a build that can regularly deal about 50 dmg per hit at level 11...

 

[Herschel]

Ya know, it seems (at least in my experience) that at least one character experiences that every session. That is, being the guy who gets knocked unconscious, healed, knocked unconscious, healed, knocked unconscious, etc ad infinitum.

QFT. This has been my experience in many battles too.

 

[pukunui]

I found myself wondering whether there is a 4e version of a wider critical threat range like the 3e falchion or scimitar-- that would be really great for a Barbarian.

Check out the epic level weapon mastery feats. I think there may be the odd power that increases your threat range too but I'm not 100% sure.

* I like the Skill choices, but kind of regret the reduction to only three trained Skills. I preferred the 3e model here. But, I like Skills.

I like skills too. I think barbarians should get one static skill (either Endurance or Nature) plus 3 more.

That's it! I will update again after playing more. I plan to take the full series of armor proficiency feats, chainmail, scale, and plate. It seems boring to do that, but the higher AC should help quite a bit, more than extra hit points in my opinion.

It seems like quite a few people are doing that, but if you ask me ... a plate armor-wearing barbarian just doesn't seem right. Barbarians should be able to wear just leather or hide without being penalized for it. That fits the archetype better. How many barbarians in full plate do we see in fantasy literature? How many barbarians in chain armor, even? Most of them wear very little, if anything. Barbs should definitely get to add either STR, CON or CHA to their AC so they don't have to take heavy armor feats. Either that or some sort of built-in hide optimization or something. Part of the problem is that DEX and INT are useless for barbs, but another part is the gap between the AC bonus provided by hide and chain.


p.s. No one wants to help me decide on avalanche strike v. great cleave and blade sweep v. hammer fall?

 

[James McMurray]

It seems like quite a few people are doing that, but if you ask me ... a plate armor-wearing barbarian just doesn't seem right. Barbarians should be able to wear just leather or hide without being penalized for it. That fits the archetype better. How many barbarians in full plate do we see in fantasy literature? How many barbarians in chain armor, even? Most of them wear very little, if anything. Barbs should definitely get to add either STR, CON or CHA to their AC so they don't have to take heavy armor feats. Either that or some sort of built-in hide optimization or something. Part of the problem is that DEX and INT are useless for barbs, but another part is the gap between the AC bonus provided by hide and chain.

If you replace the word Barbarian with Enraged Striker, does that help? Dwarven Battleragers are a fairly common "barbariab" archetype that wear plate.

p.s. No one wants to help me decide on avalanche strike v. great cleave and blade sweep v. hammer fall?

Definitely Great Cleave. It gives you more opportunities to roll a critical, and the barbarian is fairly squishy until later in his career, so giving everyone +4 to hit is an invitation to unconsciousness.

I'd go with Blade Sweep. It's a sure fire minion slayer.

 

[rowport]

If you replace the word Barbarian with Enraged Striker, does that help? Dwarven Battleragers are a fairly common "barbariab" archetype that wear plate...

James-

That is precisely the flavor that I was going for with my character. He is much less Conan, and much more Pwent (from the RA Salvatore books).

Nevertheless, I take pukunui's point about the "feel" of the Barbarian wearing armor. It is fine for the class to work with the "Dwarven Battlerager" style, but taking all the armor proficiencies to make it viable feels like a kludge. I certainly think my default mental image of "barbarian" does not evoke plate mail!

 

[WalterKovacs]

sroy2: How are you calculating the resistances?

Stone bear gives 3 + Con mod. At level 11, best case is going to be a +4 Con mod, so that would be resist 7 max, and at that point you are hurting your STR to get more con.

Resistance does not stack with other resistances ... so you'd get either 7 or 10 depending on the type of damage being dealt.

I'm assuming you are using some feats to increase your resistances, but outside those that explicitly increase your resistances, they do not stack with each other.

Also I'm wondering where the +8 from elemental form comes from. There is a power that gives +2 for fire and +2 for lightning and I could see you getting +4 by dual manifesting those with your paragon path, but I'm not sure where the rest is coming from.

Also, your 13 temp HP seems high. You'd only be getting 9 temp HP. It's 5 + con modifier while raging, and I'm pretty sure your con mod isn't +8. It you killed someone outright, you'd be getting 10 + con mod temp HP (which also doesn't stack) because of the feral might/bloodrage vigor ... but the recuperating strike doesn't scale up in the same way.

I'd like to see the build, but some of the unbalancing effects seem a little ... off.

 

[pukunui]

If you replace the word Barbarian with Enraged Striker, does that help? Dwarven Battleragers are a fairly common "barbariab" archetype that wear plate.

Definitely. In that particular instance, I don't have an issue with it. That being said, I think that a dwarven battlerager "build" would be easier to making using the previous edition of D&D, where taking a level of fighter would grant you proficiency in plate armor automatically. No need to burn lots of feats getting plate armor. I suppose the other option would be to start as fighter and multiclass as barbarian in 4e, but obviously that is not an option until we get the barbarian multiclass feat.

Definitely Great Cleave. It gives you more opportunities to roll a critical, and the barbarian is fairly squishy until later in his career, so giving everyone +4 to hit is an invitation to unconsciousness.

I'd go with Blade Sweep. It's a sure fire minion slayer.

Thanks. Those are the two I've written down at the moment, and while I'm not too keen on avalanche strike, hammer fall is definitely tempting ...

That is precisely the flavor that I was going for with my character. He is much less Conan, and much more Pwent (from the RA Salvatore books).

I'm going for more of a Conan style character myself but Pwent is good. See above re: my musings about making a dwarven battlerager vs a lightly-armored/unarmored rager.

Nevertheless, I take pukunui's point about the "feel" of the Barbarian wearing armor. It is fine for the class to work with the "Dwarven Battlerager" style, but taking all the armor proficiencies to make it viable feels like a kludge. I certainly think my default mental image of "barbarian" does not evoke plate mail!

My sentiments exactly.

 

[Victim]

But Conan has worn plate armor too.