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

[Bryk]

Fighter 1 / Barb 1 / Fighter X probably kicks butt on both straight Fighters and straight Barbarians.

He gets the rage for the big fights (like Dragons), has better AC in the long term, and fighter benefits on average just seem better than Barbarians (e.g. 3 attacks per round at level 12 for the multiclass without the exhaustion of Frenzy).

Keep in mind, a lot of that early Barbarian stuff, such as Rage, Fast movement, does restrict on heavy armor.

That said, having Action Surge as a fighter is really strong early levels - recharges on short rest. Both have their pluses and minuses. Rage on Long rests...

Grabbing 1 Barbarian as first level, then Fighter is what I am doing for the ultimate tank, 4 Barb Wolf Totem, 16 Battlemaster. Giving all allies advantage on whatever is within 5 feet of you, having physical damage resistance, having advantage on DEX STs (coupled with resilient and a Dex build). It adds up quick. Going unarmored, grabbing defensive duelist, protection from Fighter. With Maneuvers to throw around to boot.

Hands down, best tank in the game. I just rolled one for Adventurers League, 27 point buy, 14 STR, 15 DEX(+1 Human), 16 CON (+1 human), 8 INT, 8 WIS, 12 CHA and starting with the healer feat. It is going to be a really fun character.

I do feel multiclassing between the two is going to be common if you want to give up heavy armor, if you don't then it becomes not really worth it. IF you want the heavy, stick with fighter, you just are not gaining from barbarian otherwise.

 

[fireinthedust]

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.

I think what you're saying is better worded "the game mechanic works also for this concept". Because, y'know, "civilized" flies in the face of the term "barbarian". You're right, the mechanic can be re-skinned to do this. They're just not a Barbarian.

Also it stops being "rage" if you're using focus and calm.

 

[Bryk]

taking barbarian 1 just for the rage is really old. 14 years old truth be told. Good idea? Maybe. But delaying all ability bumps traded for partial damage reduction.

Dragon fire is not reduced by the barbarian rage damage reduction. Also a dragon can just fly away and come back later when the barbarian has clamed down.
Good? Certainly. Overpowered? Not too much. Maybe raging should prevent the use of heavy armor... but most probably dipping barbarian is a fair trade. Being one level later at everything is annoying. It could be just that level where you fight the dragon when you are one attack behind or when you wish you had indomitable to resist the fire breath.

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.

It does limit on heavy armor :

While raging, you gain the following benefits if you
aren’t w earing heavy armor:
• You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength
saving throws.
• When you make a melee weapon attack using
Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that
increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown
in the Rage Damage column o f the Barbarian table.
• You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and
slashing damage

 

[Gradine]

I agree. It's also nice (IMO) to be able to use your class features repeatedly before you level up and move on to new ones. That way it feels like you get the feel of your character at each level. I always hate leveling so fast I haven't tried out half of my spells (if a caster) or barely used my class features more than once or twice (as a non-caster).

I'm just not a fan of every battle being designed to test the the skills of the players and characters. I enjoy battles that let me just use those skills.

Easy encounters definitely have their place. They can be breathers for players, an opportunity for them to try out what they can do, or even just to feel like certified badasses once in a while.

As a DM, they serve an even greater purpose: Telegraphing. Let's say you've got a bunch of new players and they've never encountered trolls before. Do you make their first encounter with Trolls against three of them, in a gas-filled mine*? No, you telegraph that encounter with a single troll scout, outside the mine, to give them an opportunity to suss out the troll's strengths and weaknesses in a (relatively) safer environment.

There's also, as has been mentioned, tension-building. Party exploring a dungeon runs into a single kobold. It's easily taken care of, but what the hell was that kobold doing out there alone? They search his body, find some tripwire, jagged bits of metal, perhaps a crude horn instrument. Oh crap, the party thinks. There are more.

Back to the main topic, if I'm playing a Fighter it's because of one of several reasons:

• I've got a build that is for some reason incredibly MAD and/or requires several feats. I haven't noticed the Fighter's extra API's accounted in balancing it against Barbarian/Paladin, but it's a factor.
• I'm intrigued by the Fighter's subclasses and their specific mechanics (as a 4e Taclord fan I've liked what I've seen of the Battlemaster).
• I'm a Half-Orc that already has brutal criticals and want to get the most out of an expanded crit range.
• I want to play a heavily armored spell-splinger and I don't want to deal with multi-classing or roleplaying devotion to a specific oath.

Or because I feel like playing the type of character I can play in the following exchange:**
DM: There's a problem
Me: I hit it until it's not a problem anymore


*Credit to Angry DM for the Gassy Troll Mine example: http://www.madadventurers.com/angry-rants-gotcha/
**Credit to Twinkin' Out With Red Mage, sadly lost to the annals of time

 

[Quartz]

This seems wrong to me: Fighters start with Chain Mail + Shield. AC 18. Barbarians can't wear chain-mail.

A Dex-barian can have AC 18 (Dex 16, Con 16, Shield).

At higher levels, fighters will probably keep 1-2 points above the barbarian in armour.

I'm not so sure about that.

A dueling fighter gets the extra damage all the time.

Well, yes. but the barbarian's DR and +1 HP/level counters that at low levels.

This feature kicks in at 9th level. It adds one extra die of damage. Meanwhile, the "basic" fighter has been gaining 19-20 criticals from 3rd level.

The barbarian has been taking half damage from weapons since first level.

Also Second Wind 1/rest and Action Surge 1/rest. Which can be pretty significant.

Now that is a good point, but a barbarian's rage can last the whole encounter; Action Surge is a 1 turn affair.

Your first level human barbarian is +5 (1d12+5) when raging, and a AC of 14. I'm not sure which feat they'd take.

I'd take the raging Dex-barian with a rapier and shield for 1d8+5 (finesse weapon) and AC 18 and half damage from the fighter.

Anyway, ISTM the fighter really only comes into her own at at about 11th level, when she has more attacks. The manoeuvres of the battlemaster sound fine in principle until you realise that they're severely limited in number. I will grant you that they sound very fun to play, which could well make up for it.

However, I have no experience in actual play so I'd love to know if this holds in play.

 

[MerricB]

I'd take the raging Dex-barian with a rapier and shield for 1d8+5 (finesse weapon) and AC 18 and half damage from the fighter.

Characters are balanced in their capability against monsters, not each other.

Also note that their bonus damage when raging requires them to use a Strength-based weapon. Reckless Attack? Strength-based weapon.

A Dex-based Barbarian? You sort of lose out on the major barbarian abilities!

The trouble with the Barbarian's AC is it is very hard to get better past first level. It's reliant on increasing Con or Dex, and (for the most part) you'll want to increase Str. (And Barbarians also rather like having two-handed weapons). The fighter just needs more money to increase their AC. Platemail and shield is AC 20 and costs 1,500 gp. To get that AC, the barbarian needs 18 Dex and 18 Con and a shield - and the fighter doesn't need Dex at all and can put those points into another ability score.

Honestly, if I were playing a barbarian, I'd have at most a 14 Dexterity and then go for half-plate later in the campaign - that allows a AC of 19 with a shield or AC 17 without. The way Brutal Critical works, using a Greataxe maximises its potential.

Incidentally, the barbarian needs to be very wary of hold spells, as they'll stop his rage early!

Cheers!

 

[DM Howard]

Because the barbarian archetype doesn't appeal to me and the fighter does?

Not everyone plays a PC based on optimization


I feel like I just said this the other day

Indeed. I'd play a fighter because I want to play a fighter.

 

[TheGorramBatman]

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.

I've found this to not be the case. Especially compared to earlier editions.

The fighter isn't attacking 6 times at 20, 20, 15, 15, 10, 5. They're attacking 3 times at 10, 10, 10.

So you scoop up a few d20s and roll all of the attacks at once. "2 hit." Cool, now roll 2 dice.

If you're someone who is super awesome (like me) you have color coordinated dice. I've yet to have a martial with so many attacks that I couldn't roll all of my attack and damage dice at the same time. "Green is a miss. Red and blue hit, 22 damage."

The slowest part of the games I've run has been rolling saving throws vs AoE spells, though I tend to roll the saves for monsters of a similar type all at the same time.

In either case, this is the fastest paced table top game I've played in a long time.

 

[KarinsDad]

Honestly, if I were playing a barbarian, I'd have at most a 14 Dexterity and then go for half-plate later in the campaign - that allows a AC of 19 with a shield or AC 17 without. The way Brutal Critical works, using a Greataxe maximises its potential.

Or alternatively, Dex 16, Medium Armor Master, and the AC goes to 18, the Barbarian can stealth in half-plate, and the Barbarian never has to raise Dex or Con again if he doesn't want to.

A Variant Human Barbarian with Str 16, Dex 16, can have Medium Armor Master at level 1. Although he cannot yet afford half-plate, he's in AC 17 or 19 at level one, and just with gold can be in AC 18 or 20 later on.

Going the Str boost plus Con boost plus Dex boost with or without Shield takes a LOT of levels and is very MAD.

I do not know if the Barbarians have any special Con abilities, but by starting like this means that Dex and to a lesser extent Con can be taken out of the MAD equation.

 

[Quartz]

Characters are balanced in their capability against monsters, not each other.

Also note that their bonus damage when raging requires them to use a Strength-based weapon. Reckless Attack? Strength-based weapon.

A Dex-based Barbarian? You sort of lose out on the major barbarian abilities!

Ooh. I completely missed the bit about only Str-based weapons getting the extra damage! Still, you can have Str 14, Dex 16, Con 16, and a shield and be AC 18 and hit at +4 for d8+4 And having Advantage on Str checks means that you don't need as high a Str.

The trouble with the Barbarian's AC is it is very hard to get better past first level. It's reliant on increasing Con or Dex, and (for the most part) you'll want to increase Str. (And Barbarians also rather like having two-handed weapons). The fighter just needs more money to increase their AC. Platemail and shield is AC 20 and costs 1,500 gp. To get that AC, the barbarian needs 18 Dex and 18 Con and a shield - and the fighter doesn't need Dex at all and can put those points into another ability score.

This does give the problem of when they're out of armour.

Honestly, if I were playing a barbarian, I'd have at most a 14 Dexterity and then go for half-plate later in the campaign - that allows a AC of 19 with a shield or AC 17 without.

I did consider that, and it seems viable.

The way Brutal Critical works, using a Greataxe maximises its potential.

If I were playing a barbarian, I'd ignore critical capacity completely unless I had some way of ensuring them. They're too rare.

Incidentally, the barbarian needs to be very wary of hold spells, as they'll stop his rage early!

TBF, they'll stop anyone!