D&D 5E Are Barbarian’s “Meh”

[BookBarbarian]

Oh. Oh. Oh my ....

Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if they were good jokes or bad puns. Why we laughed, and why we groaned.
All that matters is that today, I read a terrible pun with your name, Crom. If humor pleases you, grant me this one request. Grant me revenge for the horrible, terrible, no good feeling I have reading that pun!

And if you do not listen, the HELL with you!

 

[Coroc]

Nah. There's nothing unfitting about a barbarian with a polearm. Also 5e weapons are not singular, meaning a pike isn't just a pike, it's a very long polearm that does piercing damage. So, any very long spear.

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. Yo ualways point it generally in the same direction stunts like PM grants to hit with the end are simply physically not possible.
A Halberd e.g. is totally unfitting for a barbarian, that would be like a paladin in full plate wielding a boneclub!

I mean play as you like, but if someone i dm for or a group i play with would state: "yea i hit the orc once and then PM grants me to hit with the other end" my remarks would be like "thank god the dungeon corridor is to narrow to twirl your 16 ft weapon around or you would flail the rest of your group now".

 

[PsyzhranV2]

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. Yo ualways point it generally in the same direction stunts like PM grants to hit with the end are simply physically not possible.
A Halberd e.g. is totally unfitting for a barbarian, that would be like a paladin in full plate wielding a boneclub!

I mean play as you like, but if someone i dm for or a group i play with would state: "yea i hit the orc once and then PM grants me to hit with the other end" my remarks would be like "thank god the dungeon corridor is to narrow to twirl your 16 ft weapon around or you would flail the rest of your group now".

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.

 

[Don Durito]

This, definitely. I've seen so many barbarians that were just played as fighters with a different set of abilities.

Sure, it's exciting to recklessly attack, crit, fell an enemy, then get to attack and ending up taking out another (as a bonus action no less, if one has gone the Great Weapon Master feat route). But for me it's how the character acts, their personality, that keeps them interesting to play.

I played my Vengeance Paladin as a Barbarian with a difference set of abilities.

That way I got have fun in and out of combat.

 

[Don Durito]

I think simple classes is setting the bar too low. And a lot of bars are set low in 5E. It's a very cautious game.

Granted you don't want to load down Fighters and Barbarians with necessary complexity - a lot of people want them simple - but it wouldn't be impossible to have some kind of opt in complexity that you can pick up as you go.

Because what get's missed the whole "Some people like simple classes" argument is that while it's true, a significant subset of those people are likely to find that that their preferences in regard to simple change after familiarity somewhere between Level 1 and 20.

 

[Oofta]

I think simple classes is setting the bar too low. And a lot of bars are set low in 5E. It's a very cautious game.

Granted you don't want to load down Fighters and Barbarians with necessary complexity - a lot of people want them simple - but it wouldn't be impossible to have some kind of opt in complexity that you can pick up as you go.

Because what get's missed the whole "Some people like simple classes" argument is that while it's true, a significant subset of those people are likely to find that that their preferences in regard to simple change after familiarity somewhere between Level 1 and 20.

All I can say is that when I pick a simple class I know what I'm getting into. I can't speak for anyone else.

But that is why I always allow people to swap out PCs or rebuild (within limits) if they don't like their PC when I DM. It doesn't happen often, but I want my players to have fun.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[BookBarbarian]

A Halberd e.g. is totally unfitting for a barbarian, that would be like a paladin in full plate wielding a boneclub!

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.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Can we at least agree on some terms here?

You might disagree with the take on polearms.

Or with how the game is run.

Or even think that this person is ranting.

But someone ranting and expressing their own opinion on polearms is not tone policing. Let alone tone policing of the highest order.

And, by the way, different tables have different agreed-upon sets of rules; your vision of player agency might be another table's vision of minmaxed munchkin anarchy. Some table mediate within agreed-upon material; in other words, just because it's in the PHB, doesn't mean a given table will allow it.

I understand and acknowledge the bolded. However, I feel that the below statement does constitute unwarranted "policing".

A Halberd e.g. is totally unfitting for a barbarian, that would be like a paladin in full plate wielding a boneclub!

If "tone policing" isn't the right term, we can call it "trope policing" instead. Because that's what it is: insisting that certain tropes and conventions apply to characters by dint of their character class irregardless of their other character traits. Why is a halberd unsuitable for a Barbarian and a club fashioned from bone likewise unsuitable for a Paladin? There's no mechanical reason for it; both character classes can use both weapons fine, if not optimally. Thus the only real reason is that of fluff, and Coroc's argument specifically is pushing a heavily restrictive "class fantasy" that has no basis in the mechanics of the game. Or as Book put it:

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.

Also I think my next character will be a Paladin that exclusively uses blunt weaponry. Spiteful? Yes, probably. Still fun? Yes, definitely.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*