Barbarian Playtest Poll

[Hammerhead]

Definitely a Defender...a Barbarian is a big, tough guy who rushes straight into the battle and stops hacking and slashing once everyone is dead.

I predict some good self-healing abilities to keep him up (if he has only light armor) and buckets of hit points. Probably less sticky than the Fighter's marking ability; I'd also expect some sweet charge-based powers.

 

[Gort]

I'm thinking defender as well. At the end of the day, the barbarian is a close-combat warrior who's at home on the front lines. Rangers and rogues (our other melee strikers) are all about skirmishing through and around the front line, while the barbarian's more about wading in with a huge sword. Wonder how they'll do his marking, though.

 

[RandomCitizenX]

Definitely think he will be a Primal defender with a big dose of striker. I see him having many abilities that get a kicker once he is bloodied, and his mark allowing him to do something like charge whoever dared ignore him.

 

[Asmor]

I think all the defender people are trying too hard to shoehorn the barbarian based on their intuition, rather than looking at what the roles are supposed to do.

As has been mentioned already, the barbarian will likely be high-damage, high-mobility, lightly-armored. The very definition of a striker. The barb will be a melee-oriented striker.

I could be wrong, but if I were making the class that's how I'd do it.

 

[frankthedm]

Wonder how they'll do his marking, though.

If they went this route, maybe the barbarian would mark those who Attack / Damage him.

 

[Shroomy]

If they went this route, maybe the barbarian would mark those who Attack / Damage him.

That seems too passive for one of the defining characteristics of the class/role.

 

[Cadfan]

As has been mentioned already, the barbarian will likely be high-damage, high-mobility, lightly-armored. The very definition of a striker.

I doubt this. I suspect he will be a high damage, moderate mobility, and lightly armored but possessing huge numbers of hit points and good ways to spend healing surges.

Lets go through the details.

High damage- all he honestly needs for this is good two handed weapon options. And even if he has more than that, it doesn't necessarily mean he's going to have high single target striker style damage.

High mobility- the only things that made the barbarian a high mobility character in 3e were 1) light armor, and 2) +10 speed. Nothing about avoiding OAs, or anything that would help with the in-combat maneuverability that has so far defined striker style mobility.

Lightly armored- Heavy armor doesn't define the defender, nor does light armor define the striker. What matters is actual durability. The swordmage is an example of a lightly armored character that has high durability, due to his high statistic bonus to his armor class. But that's not the only way that things could be done- a character with relatively low AC in comparison to other defenders could work just fine, if it had the hit points (and therefore the healing surge value) and the healing surge triggers necessary.

 

[Cadfan]

That seems too passive for one of the defining characteristics of the class/role.

I dunno, the more you hit him the angrier he gets? Its not like its his only ability, and if his marking is tied to a reactive attack like the Fighter's is, it could work quite well.

I like the idea of some kind of reactive marking, except that mechanically it doesn't work well. What good is marking someone after they've already attacked?

Myself, I'm expecting his rage to be tied to healing surges in some way. One possibility would be to have his rage automatically grant him a healing surge. That way you wouldn't be able to rage right away, you'd have to take some damage first. It would give you an incentive to get right into the middle of the battle, do some damage, take some damage, then get rewarded by being able to heal and hulk up.

 

[Fifth Element]

Primal defender gets my vote. Especially considering that hit points are based on role. If the barbarian does not have the highest hit points in the game, that's wrong.

As for the name of primal powers? Nothing really leaps to mind. Though "exploit" wouldn't have leapt to my mind either. How about rip-snorts? Furies? Outbursts?

 

[Shroomy]

I dunno, the more you hit him the angrier he gets? Its not like its his only ability, and if his marking is tied to a reactive attack like the Fighter's is, it could work quite well.

I like the idea of some kind of reactive marking, except that mechanically it doesn't work well. What good is marking someone after they've already attacked?

Myself, I'm expecting his rage to be tied to healing surges in some way. One possibility would be to have his rage automatically grant him a healing surge. That way you wouldn't be able to rage right away, you'd have to take some damage first. It would give you an incentive to get right into the middle of the battle, do some damage, take some damage, then get rewarded by being able to heal and hulk up.

I don't think that a marking class feature should be based exclusively on the actions of the enemy, as that would mean that a DM could negate one of their primary abilities by not attacking the barbarian, which kind of defeats the purpose of the class feature in the first place. Now, I could see this sort of reactive marking as part of a specific class power...

That said, if the barbarian was a striker, I could see how their version of the hunter's quarry or warlock's curse would become more powerful as the barbarian is damaged and/or attacked (ex. +1d6 at heroic tier, increases +2d6 when bloodied). Couple this with high hit points and I think you'd have an effective and interesting striker concept that is quite different from the ranger.