D&D 5E Are Barbarian’s “Meh”

[Tony Vargas]

Now, a weapon wielder will have less variety than a pure caster in every pillar of play. And the barbarian doesn't have a extra skills to make up for that in outside combat. So that is against them.

Kinda at the bottom of the heap, with the Champion Fighter, that way, sure.
but...

The idea that other classes do more damage makes me ask if the DM routinely does short adventuring days. When there's only 2-3 encounters per day pure casters will be wiping out more spells in combat for lots of effects and damage, and still have slots for utility in other pillars of play.

A low-mid level Barbarian should do well in terms of DPR on short days, he gets to rage every combat. As long as the combats aren't, each, themselves, too short, and as long as it doesn't get so short he has un-used Rage (at which point, surely, the 8th+ level casters are ending their day with unused spells, too).

 

[BookBarbarian]

I like to 'brew, how about you? Design notes in italic.

Nice!

I was thinking something on the line of choosing from 3 options that can modify your base Rage, and then picking up the other options as you hit the second and third Brutal Critical level.

A simple one would be: while Raging and using Reckless Attack you no longer grant Advantage to your attackers.

Or while raging you gain a bonus to AC equal to your rage damage bonus.

Or just double Rage bonus damage

I was thinking you would have to pick on of those each time you Rage, not get all three at once.

Still boring and not adding anything new to Barbarians, but I'd get a lot more use out of even one of them compared to old Brutal Critical.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Boring characters are because of boring players. If there was an issue with class design, it would have come up a lot in 5 years and millions of players.

My RPG world is forever changed, thank you for such a statement. I’m afraid you placed them in the wrong forum, The Chickenshite Platitude Forum is two below this one.

Folks, / Mama Bear DM/ BOTH Players are Veteran, Immersive Role Players, who MADE interesting characters who chose to start fresh rather than continue on. Do not hate on my players / Mama Bear DM Off/

Many things in the world are well made, but fail to inspire passion....The Barbarian class could be one of them. 5 years and less than millions of people on ENworld, and multiple respondents have stated that from their view past 9th level the class is not as inspiring as others, or is fit to only multi-class.

If Lawrence Olivier and Robert Dinero are only playing the role of Willie Loman to Intermission, but Dustin Hoffman is willing to go for the whole show, then that tells me the class may be a bit narrowly designed for some.

 

[NotAYakk]

Nice!

I was thinking something on the line of choosing from 3 options that can modify your base Rage, and then picking up the other options as you hit the second and third Brutal Critical level.

A simple one would be: while Raging and using Reckless Attack you no longer grant Advantage to your attackers.

Or while raging you gain a bonus to AC equal to your rage damage bonus.

Or just double Rage bonus damage

I was thinking you would have to pick on of those each time you Rage, not get all three at once.

Still boring and not adding anything new to Barbarians, but I'd get a lot more use out of even one of them compared to old Brutal Critical.

I dislike having "pick the best of these options at level 9. Then at higher levels take the ones that sucked, oh, and you don't get any synergy" design pattern.

Barbarians MC for crit-fishing rather than take levels 9 through 20. I thought "why not eliminate that draw", and grant them increasingly powerful crit based abilities.

Reckless Critical the first one:
Previous level: 0.1 chance of +1d12 damage * 2.5 attacks = 1.625 DPR
Before: 0.1 chance of +2d12 damage * 2.5 attacks = 1.625*2 DPR, or + 1.625 DPR
After: 0.19 chance of +2d12 damage * 2.5 attacks = 6.175 DPR, or +4.55 DPR, more if you have bonus damage dice (flametongue gives another +1.575 over previous level, for ex).
Each one after is .19 * 2d12 * 2.5 = 6.175 DPR.

So the new feature is 4x better than the old, and I don't think it is unreasonable; from L 9 to L 19 you (baseline) get 3 of those and +2 damage/hit, which was anemic (at 80% hit rate, that is like 9 DPR from level 9 to 19 from class features!)

Afterwards, you get 20.9 DPR from 9 to 19 from class features; ~2 DPR per level isn't unreasonable.

 

[SirGrotius]

Good question. There are probably some built up biases, as one can assume that D&D players may trend toward the nerdy (i.e., smart?!) end of the spectrum and try as one might, Barbarians are stigmatized as being fairly straightforward, less...creative characters.

 

[Ancalagon]

Mechanically maybe?

It's essential to give them a personality. I couldn't never play a "hulk smash!" barbarian.

However, on this very board I played Lal Qalandar, of the Purple Lands across multiple games. A mendican dervish, a hermit, a philosopher and an accidental planar traveler. (see 5E - Rogue's Gallery - 5e Al-Qadim for one of his versions. ). Now that was interesting.

It's a lot of fun to use the barbarian mechanic and, through the use of backgrounds, see where else it would fit.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

.

 

[Kurotowa]

Has no one ever wanted to RP a character like Conan The BARBARIAN! ? !

Or Kull of Atlantis?

I find the D&D Barbarian is about as close to Conan or Fafhrd as the D&D Ranger is to Aragorn. That's obviously what the original inspiration was, but there's been 40 years of growth and change since then for them to diverge.

Besides, RP is well and good, but it's only half the game. If I'm unsatisfied with how combat plays then I'm spending a lot of time not having fun. Why endure than when I can create a character with a strong personality AND stimulating combat interactions? But not everyone has the same needs, which is why I'm only saying "The Barbarian is not a good fit for all players" and not "The Barbarian is a badly designed class".

 

[Chaosmancer]

If people (and this is to everyone saying it, so probably not the OP) are feeling like the Barbarian class doesn't offer enough tactical decisions, I found some great fun in the Ancestral Guardians subclass.

The ability to create a shield that absorbs damage, picking opponents to hit who then have a hard time hurting allies, and I combined it with a variant human with Shield MAster for even more control and options (sort of, I never seemed to be able to pull off actually knocking something prone)

But to the OPs question, I have never seen a player retire a barbarian. I do have one guy who loves the concept, but has a poor understanding of the mechanics, so he often runs into fights thinking he is invicible and will never die, and takes 10 to 20 hits and is suddenly on his last legs. But, since his frustrations stem from a lack of understanding that Resistance only halves damage and a low level barbarian can't just face tank an entire mob by himself, I don't think it is a design problem with the class.

Now, I don't think I've seen very many Barbarians hit the table. So, I think most of players were getting exactly what they wanted out of the class. But I can see how the many many passive abilities of the barbarian start leading to a lack of actual options in play.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There does seem to be a lot of judgmental comments about how people play in this thread. There is no RIGHT way to play D&D.

As for barbarians, yes, I have seen players get bored with the class quickly. Lack of tactical options is an issue, but I think the biggest one is that the class doesn't live up to the name. People who are not intimately familiar with the rules will often choose barbarian because they want to play a "Hulk SMASH!" type character. Then they are disappointed when they see paladins, swashbucklers and battlemasters getting the big melee damage numbers.

As a defensive character barbarian is fine, but you wouldn't know that by the name. An Ancestor Guardian or Wolf Totem barbarian can make a huge contribution to a team. But you have to know that your role is support, not damage.

Has no one ever wanted to RP a character like Conan The BARBARIAN! ? !

Or Kull of Atlantis?

Bran Mak Morn, the Pict.

I found it being an underused class, with most players not knowing how to properly RP a Barbarian.

The thing is, the Barbarian class doesn't model these characters well. Conan hits things with his mighty blade, he is not a supporter who helps his allies. And you can role play these guys perfectly well when your class Fighter, Rogue, Ranger or some MC combination of those.