Level Up (A5E) Barbarians without "reckless attack"

[toucanbuzz]

We've started our Dragonlance campaign (pure coincidence with Morrus's timing!), and my gamers have been used to 5E rules. Our "barbarian" gamer hit level 2 and realized the 5E feature of "reckless attack" no longer exists, instead replaced with a 5% chance to have a hit do something special (crit with a benefit), assuming it doesn't get nerfed by a monster using a reaction or breaking a shield to convert the crit to a normal hit.

He feels with the way that crits can be negated, and the odds of ever rolling a crit in the first place, that the feature is beyond terrible compared to reckless attack. He's bummed at the moment and not encouraged by the idea that maybe at 12th level this starts to become somewhat useful.

Anyone have feedback on this, including game design and/or actual gameplay?

 

[W'rkncacnter]

...uh...tell him about zealous stance?

 

[VenerableBede]

We've started our Dragonlance campaign (pure coincidence with Morrus's timing!), and my gamers have been used to 5E rules. Our "barbarian" gamer hit level 2 and realized the 5E feature of "reckless attack" no longer exists, instead replaced with a 5% chance to have a hit do something special (crit with a benefit), assuming it doesn't get nerfed by a monster using a reaction or breaking a shield to convert the crit to a normal hit.

He feels with the way that crits can be negated, and the odds of ever rolling a crit in the first place, that the feature is beyond terrible compared to reckless attack. He's bummed at the moment and not encouraged by the idea that maybe at 12th level this starts to become somewhat useful.

Anyone have feedback on this, including game design and/or actual gameplay?

I feel you, man. Here's the advice I would give your player:

• Get a weapon with the Vicious trait (AG 313). Increases your crit range by 1, so now you have a 10% chance to crit. Still really small, but it's literally double what he'd have otherwise. (If I were Narrator, I'd consider giving it as a reward for a quest.)
• Take the Blinding Maneuver Furious Critical. Unfortunately it doesn't help you get a Furious Critical any sooner, but its guaranteed Blindness for a few turns, which gives you Advantage on every attack, which greatly increases your chance of critting. I would always recommend applying this Furious Critical first when you hit an enemy.

Unfortunately A5e doesn't have any resources I'm aware of to give him regular, consistent, he-chooses-when Advantage like O5e did, which is a bummer, but the above should help him out.

zealous stance?

That adds expertise to your attacks and theirs. It doesn't grant advantage.

 

[xiphumor]

@toucanbuzz It’s not gone! It just got tweaked slightly and became something everyone could do!

AG pg. 443: Press the Attack

Before you take the Attack action, you can use a bonus action to designate one creature within your reach which is not currently the target of a Press the Attack action. Until the beginning of your next turn, your melee attacks against that creature gain an expertise die, and all attacks against you are made with advantage. You cannot gain expertise dice in this way on attacks made with disadvantage. When you Press the Attack, your target can use its reaction to Fall Back.

Also note the Fall Back sidebar:

Whenever a creature takes the Press the Attack action against you, you can use your reaction to yield ground. You move backwards 5 feet, and your attacker does not gain an expertise die against you from using Press the Attack. As part of its action, your attacker can move 5 feet towards you. Neither you nor the attacker provoke opportunity attacks from this movement. A creature using the Rage class feature cannot choose to Fall Back.

 

[VenerableBede]

@toucanbuzz It’s not gone! It just got tweaked slightly and became something everyone could do!

AG pg. 443: Press the Attack

Color me picky, but I would disagree. Press the Attack is significantly toned down - yeah, an expertise die to hit is OK, but for a berserker trying to crit more often, it does nothing. A5e has very few (if any - none that I’m aware of, at least low to mid-high levels) features that let you get Advantage whenever you want at a cost, as Reckless Attack did.
For a berserker trying to crit more, it’s not the end of the world, but it does make lower levels a little bit of a bummer, as you might go several sessions without seeing your most iconic feature activate once, while most other classes can do theirs several times a session.

 

[xiphumor]

Color me picky, but I would disagree. Press the Attack is significantly toned down - yeah, an expertise die to hit is OK, but for a berserker trying to crit more often, it does nothing. A5e has very few (if any - none that I’m aware of, at least low to mid-high levels) features that let you get Advantage whenever you want at a cost, as Reckless Attack did.
For a berserker trying to crit more, it’s not the end of the world, but it does make lower levels a little bit of a bummer, as you might go several sessions without seeing your most iconic feature activate once, while most other classes can do theirs several times a session.

I do agree with that, and I’m also in the camp that thinks crit-fishing shouldn’t be built into the class.

 

[VenerableBede]

Berserker would need to be completely redesigned to remove the crit-fishing aspect, so we’re already past that point. This did make me wonder if the berserker might benefit from having a unique “soft crit” with a much more generous range, not guaranteed chance to hit, and lower-but-not-insubstantial bonus to damage. Or maybe a number of times per long rest that a Furious Critical could be applied even if you didn’t crit.
There’s an archetype here that we’re basically formulating.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

That adds expertise to your attacks and theirs. It doesn't grant advantage.

i'm aware, but it's basically identical besides that. mathematically it's pretty similar too (1d4 is ~+2.5, o5e/a5e consider advantage to be +5 but it's really +3.33...). it is basically just a5e's version of reckless attack. you are right it doesn't help much for critfishing, though.

Berserker would need to be completely redesigned to remove the crit-fishing aspect, so we’re already past that point. This did make me wonder if the berserker might benefit from having a unique “soft crit” with a much more generous range, not guaranteed chance to hit, and lower-but-not-insubstantial bonus to damage. Or maybe a number of times per long rest that a Furious Critical could be applied even if you didn’t crit.

if nothing else, i think brutal critical should be changed so that even if your critical hit is reduced to a regular hit by an effect other then a reroll, you still get the effect of the brutal critical. that way even if the enemy you crit decides to take a level of fatigue or sacrifice their shield to reduce it to a regular hit, your class feature that's already hard to make use of doesn't become completely irrelevant.

 

[xiphumor]

It does, at least, get notably better at level 5. It changes from a 5% crit chance per turn (13-14 turns before an expected crit), to a 19% crit chance per turn (3-4 turns before an expected crit). But before level 5 it’s awful.

 

[VanguardHero]

I feel like the Release version of Press The Attack is really underwhelming. Expertise on either side would be fine, but only gaining Expertise yourself but Advantage on attacks against you is awful. Especially when Fall Back negates the benefits of using it but doesn't mitigate the negatives. I think it was much more potent in the Playtest, Advantage on both sides plus Fall Back causing Disadvantage on attacks of whoever used it iirc, which may have been a bit too much but it just feels impotent now.