D&D 5E Why play a low-level Fighter when the Barbarian is so much better?

[Perun]

Maybe raging should prevent the use of heavy armor...

It does. You can't rage in heavy armour. And (although it wasn't mentioned), increased movement (5th level, IIRC) also doesn't work in heavy armour.

I am more worried about dipping moon druid level 2 and will certainly rule that at lvl 2 you only be able to change into a 1/2 CR animal.

I was looking at statistics of certain animal forms, and while attacks can be pretty impressive, especially at 2nd level, the AC tops at 14 (dire wolf, giant hyena, IIRC). The most plausible animal form (you have to have seen the animal to wildshape into its form), brown bear, has AC 11 and 34 hp. While it might be good (or even too good) at 2nd level, it will soon fall behind, esepecially for someone with just a 2 level dip in druid.

OTOH, limiting wildshape to CR 1/2 at 2nd level seems like a really good house rule. Plenty of good combat forms at CR 1/2 (ape, black bear, giant goat, panther, giant wolf spider, etc.).

Regards.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It does. You can't rage in heavy armour. And (although it wasn't mentioned), increased movement (5th level, IIRC) also doesn't work in heavy armour.



I was looking at statistics of certain animal forms, and while attacks can be pretty impressive, especially at 2nd level, the AC tops at 14 (dire wolf, giant hyena, IIRC). The most plausible animal form (you have to have seen the animal to wildshape into its form), brown bear, has AC 11 and 34 hp. While it might be good (or even too good) at 2nd level, it will soon fall behind, esepecially for someone with just a 2 level dip in druid.

OTOH, limiting wildshape to CR 1/2 at 2nd level seems like a really good house rule. Plenty of good combat forms at CR 1/2 (ape, black bear, giant goat, panther, giant wolf spider, etc.).

Regards.

It would even be consistent with the lvl 6 writeup: druidlevel/3 rounded down.+

If you don´t round down t the next integer, but to the next possible CR, 2/3 rounded down is 1/2 and from lvl 3-5 it is 1.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This is kind of like saying that multiclassing itself results in being annoying because everything is one level later.

Let's take level 9 fighter vs. level 8 fighter level 1 barbarian.

The level 9 fighter has indomitable 1/day. The other has rage 2/day.

Maybe this is the wprst level to compare them, as rage 1/day vs indomitable is not the best trade as you calculated. But at least it is something.

As I was told later, rage does not work in heavy armor. So for being able to rage you have to use medium armor or even light armor. So most probably your AC is lower than the fighter AC at least with the standard array at that level.
Since rage damage bonus only works on STR attacks, a DEX based fighter gets much less benefits out of the rage.
So DR vs piercing and slashing is traded against the possible attack that does not hit.

And last but not least: a lvl 9 party vs a lvl 8 non legendary dragon is a fight the party will win, no matter what.

 

[KarinsDad]

Maybe this is the wprst level to compare them, as rage 1/day vs indomitable is not the best trade as you calculated. But at least it is something.

As I was told later, rage does not work in heavy armor. So for being able to rage you have to use medium armor or even light armor. So most probably your AC is lower than the fighter AC at least with the standard array at that level.
Since rage damage bonus only works on STR attacks, a DEX based fighter gets much less benefits out of the rage.
So DR vs piercing and slashing is traded against the possible attack that does not hit.

And last but not least: a lvl 9 party vs a lvl 8 non legendary dragon is a fight the party will win, no matter what.

Browser ate my response.

Bottom line: Yup.

However:

1) I only had that dragon to compare to a 9th level party (level indomitable is acquired). It's a medium difficulty challenge. I purposely wanted to compare that level (since most everyone loves indomitable). I think that a tougher dragon comparison where it takes 5 or 6 rounds to take out the dragon would have illustrated even more how much damage resist gives compared to a single save reroll.

2) If using the variant encumbrance rules, a 20 Str fighter in 65 pound plate mail is sucking up a lot of his 100 pound total. A shield, a few weapons (just in case foes have resist to your main one), a pack and it's easy to go over. Not every fighter has a bag of holding. It's not unheard of a a fighter to be in half plate, take the 1 AC hit, and have 25 more pounds to play with. Granted, variant encumbrance will not be used at every table.

Bummer about that no heavy armor thing, but it still might be worth the price of admission for some PCs in some games. Not nearly as good though if it does not work with heavy armor.

 

[Juriel]

Forget the barb, how about the paladin?

This, this is the proper question. Pallies get it all.

And I don't even begrudge them, it's nice to have some class that supports a charismatic leader. That has something else to do than just roll to hit.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Browser ate my response.

Bottom line: Yup.

However:

1) I only had that dragon to compare to a 9th level party (level indomitable is acquired). It's a medium difficulty challenge. I purposely wanted to compare that level (since most everyone loves indomitable). I think that a tougher dragon comparison where it takes 5 or 6 rounds to take out the dragon would have illustrated even more how much damage resist gives compared to a single save reroll.

2) If using the variant encumbrance rules, a 20 Str fighter in 65 pound plate mail is sucking up a lot of his 100 pound total. A shield, a few weapons (just in case foes have resist to your main one), a pack and it's easy to go over. Not every fighter has a bag of holding. It's not unheard of a a fighter to be in half plate, take the 1 AC hit, and have 25 more pounds to play with. Granted, variant encumbrance will not be used at every table.

Bummer about that no heavy armor thing, but it still might be worth the price of admission for some PCs in some games. Not nearly as good though if it does not work with heavy armor.

Agreed. But with the heavy armor thing, maybe the designers have thought a bit about interfereences of different classes.
The game does not look that unbalanced. (Although some classes shine at certain levels)

 

[KarinsDad]

The game does not look that unbalanced. (Although some classes shine at certain levels)

Yup.

Interestingly enough, I think that at level 5 for the melee types (and 11 and 20 for the fighter), they shine in a slightly different way.

Table time in combat.

Getting to roll to attack 2+ times in a round means that the player is eating up twice as much real time clock. The actual time at the table revolves around that player longer.

Ditto for Flurry of Blows, etc. Granted, there might be a player who rolls color coordinated dice and rolls all of them at the same time to minimize this, but many players do not.

With all of the talk about how much the casters rule and martials drool, those players of martial PCs sure do take up most of the combat table time.

 

[doghead]

The Basic DM pdf says the typical adventuring party should be able to handle 6-8 medium to hard encounters per day.

6 - 8 encounters per day, thats a busy day.

Wake up early in preparation for the inevitable pre-dawn attack. Kill something.

Make breakfast, divide loot, break camp.

Run in into some random monsters. Kill something.

Stop for a snack. Divide loot.

Arrive in town. Get some lunch. Go shopping at Ye-Olde-Magick-Shoppe. Try out your new toys. Kill something.

Head out of town. Run into some bandits. Kill something. Take their loot.

Find some ruins. Kill something. Divide up loot.

Explore ruins. Kill something. Make camp. Divide up loot.

Rest.

Repeat the next day.​

thotd

 

[ExploderWizard]

Actually the barbarian class lends itself very well to that. Basically all barbarian abilities can be excellently explained as a sophisticated warrior entering a state of battle-zen.

While they still had the katana as a 2h 1d10 finesse weapon, I had a barbarian in the playtest who was excatly that. A cultured, educated, well spoken wandering swordsmen, who has his special technique of zen which explained all his class abilities.

That is a fine explanation for a set of mechanical abilities (although I admit difficulty in seeing rage as a zen like state).

The heart of the matter really is what says barbarian about that? The barbarian label is cultural. If you are Joe Schmo the regular guy in society, then class abilities don't matter-you are NOT a barbarian.

Being a barbarian is all about not belonging to the accepted "normal" society. How many times you can rage per day is beside the point. You are considered a barbarian because you are not a cultured well spoken member of society. You might well be just that in your own culture but there you wouldn't be a barbarian either, just a regular person.

When I want to play a barbarian, it is because my character concept involves being an outsider who is looked upon as uncivilized regardless of the mechanics involved. This can be as a fighter in B/X, as the actual barbarian class, or whatever.

[bar·bar·i·an
bärˈbe(ə)rēən/
noun
noun: barbarian; plural noun: barbarians

• 1.
  (in ancient times) a member of a community or tribe not belonging to one of the great civilizations (Greek, Roman, Christian).]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

 

[drjones]

Yeah what you created was creative and sounds fun but it is a reskinning of the Barb mechanics to make a Kensai like character. It does not rage, it's not a berserker style Barbarian.