D&D 5E Are Barbarian’s “Meh”

[NotAYakk]

A bear half plate and shield barbarian can be a pretty solid tank.

 

[Ancalagon]

Why? In 5e your Barbarian could be a Rapier wielding High Elf Noble from Waterdeep. And if my Paladin finds a sweet magic boneclub he might very well trade his mundane weapon for it.

I winced a little bit at the elf one... but I shouldn't have. The class is a lot more fun if you realize that the class doesn't have to be the culture.

A fighter could be a medieval knight, a samurai or a spaniard duelist.

A barbarian could be a conan-like barbarian sure. But she could be a viking berserker, a soldier with anger issues, a brutal thug or - as I mentioned earlier - a mendicant dervishe.

So kudos to that angry elf!

 

[ccs]

It is for 'simple' play, because the questions of when to wear armor or not, when to switch to a shield will come up.

It's pretty simple in most cases*.
Wether you wear armor or not is determined by what will give you the highest AC. If your stats are high enough you go with unarmored defense. Otherwise you wear the best armor available to you. You recalculate only when your stats or available armor change.
As for using/not using a shield? I've found that question occurs equally whomever the shield user is. It's based upon "What do I want to do this round? Does that require 1 or 2 hands?"
(* Note; I did say in most cases. That's because some of us will play or characters as we envision them, regardless of mechanical advantages/disadvantages. For ex: My own halfling barbarian uses breast plate & shield - even though her stats are high enough that that's not the optimized choice. Why? 1) because the very cool mini I have is clearly wearing armor. 2) The thought that she'd be safer in combat NOT wearing armor is an absurd idea that would never occur to her. )

If you want just one stat block on your char sheet, Barbarian is not the way to go....the Barbarian needs lots of different 'looks' .

Because writing in a line that reads (in my case) "Unarmored Defense = ____, +Shield" was sooo hard & confusing.

A Fighter can dump stat Dex, and still be viable.
A Fighter can dump Stat Dex, take Shield Master and be powerful.

And so can a Barbarian if you're not opposed to wearing armor & maybe taking SM.

A Barbarian has 3 stat M.A.D. There is a reason why Dex Barbarian is the most common search result when looking for Barbarian optimization.

Oh No! 3 stat M.A.D.!
Believe it or not, success in 5e is really not that dependent upon maxing out stats. You can get away with not wasting every opportunity (be it during character creation or as you lv) to get another +1 To Hit/Dam.

 

[Ancalagon]

and in an RP heavy game, you could play a chicken and have a great time.

In my current Troika! game, one of the players is a chicken warrior. I am not kidding.

The Chicken Warrior (a Troika! background)

Today, a Troika background! Drawn by one of my players. Character sheet by Dyson Logos But I didn't come up with it. Olgaf did . ...

slugsandsilver.blogspot.com

 

[ccs]

In my current Troika! game, one of the players is a chicken warrior. I am not kidding.

The Chicken Warrior (a Troika! background)

Today, a Troika background! Drawn by one of my players. Character sheet by Dyson Logos But I didn't come up with it. Olgaf did . ...

slugsandsilver.blogspot.com

That would not be the strangest thing I've ever played.

 

[Ancalagon]

That would not be the strangest thing I've ever played.

Sounds like you are ready for Troika!

 

[Coroc]

And I assume that you warned the Fighter and the Paladin to rehaft their polearms accordingly before they entered the dungeon so they can keep that extra d4, but conveniently neglected to inform the Barbarian? Or, you know, the polearm user could choke up on the haft before swinging it round?

This entire rant feels like tone trope policing of the highest order. It's none of your business to try and micromanage every aspect of how your players envision and build their characters so long as they're staying within agreed-upon material. I could understand your objections if you were running headlong into the PAM-Sentinel combo -- maybe not be sympathetic to, but at least understand -- but as it reads it feels like that you're trying to put Barbarians in a tiny suffocating genre box in a game system that encourages finding alternate expressions of mechanics.

Also the pike isn't eligible for Polearm Master for whatever reason. Only the glaive and the halberd are.

I was just referring to the pike, which @doctorbadwolf considered to be an archetypical barbarian weapon but he cleared that up to be a long spear instead.
I house rule spear anyway to be a 1d8 two handed 5ft reach weapon whith which you can apply PM in my games, so, no in a normal dungeon corridor you could twirl around with it. And to further anger your critizism on my trope faible, in a game where barbarians would play an important rule, aka be egligable for PC class there might not be any other polearm available, or only savage versions of glaives or tetsubos or such.
And tbh I am perfectly fine with ruling that sometimes a dungeon corridor might be to narrow to use long weapons, so the (wo)man upfront could perfectly use his spear but not twirl it in this case, same with a halberd, Also the one in second position could use a reach weapon but also only to thrust.

I sometimes want tropes and sometimes not so much, but I hate ridiculous things like a gnome or Halfling wielding a weapon not intended for their body size. It breaks my make believe and I do not enjoy it.
And if some wants to play powergaming I am ok with it, and he can come up with whatever build he likes, there will be a suitable monster to counter it. And so I tend to agree with the players upfront, and if there is something missing I either try to build it in, build it in with a twist, or suggest something different.
More often than not my narrow selection is more than enough for my group, some races or classes I like to see in play are not chosen by them many of them are into playing humans e.g. And I also discuss the predominant playstyle and pillar if there is one. And that might be RP or Powergaming or investigation, but I give recommendations upfront e.g. either minmax a bit or put some points into cha for social skillchecks come often or whatever.

I do not care about PAM Sentinel combos, because if someone plays a powerhouse in my games it is because I want to dm a game where power house is a possible character build and plan accordingly (e.g. use more spells or mobs which can compensate a bit for the strength of a certain build)

 

[Coroc]

If you use Standard Array Point Buy, miscalculated sorry, plus +2 Str +1 Con race choice to get a spread of

Very good analysis, but you chose a trope race didn't you ?

 

[Coroc]

Lol Unarmored defense is far from a trap.

Some barbarians need to be hit in at the earliest possibility in a combat, or they need to be hit from time to time, one good thing about barb which 5e does right is that they do not rely so much on AC, but also on HP and DR

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A long spear is ok, a pike is a formation weapon at least 12 to15 feet long. It is totally unusable in 1 on 1 combat situations but very effective in a phalanx.

Weapons in 5e are broad categories, not precise definitions. "Pike" includes any pointy stick that is too heavy to wield one-handed.

Note that apart from damage type its game stats are the same as a halberd, and halberds are typically only about 6 feet long.

And, given that the reach of a 5e pike is only 10', we have to conclude that it cannot be 15' long.

Compare "longsword", a weapon that does not exist outside of D&D.