D&D 5E Barbarian troubles

[Phantarch]

I could not had made it more clear that the Cleric of Death had a grudge against the barbarian and the rest of the original party members. This all happened over the course of a few weeks in-game. Yet the only thing he sees is that I was just gunning for his head and acted smug online about I tried to kill him with an assassin but he totally foiled me with his awesome.

Sorry to say it, but it just sounds like a problem player to me. It's difficult that he is your friend, so I'm not sure how to advise handling it without knowing the dynamic of your relationship.

I know I have friends that I just can't do certain activities with because they lead to conflict. You may need to let him know you won't be DMing for him in the future because his attitude with the game is affecting your friendship. Start a game up in the future with the other players who don't seem to have attitude problems.

 

[Xvartslayer]

I don't think rolling for ability scores is a problem. Plenty of people use that method and, in my experience, it creates as many opportunities as problems. (At least in 5e)

Likewise, the level disparity isn't a problem. Though I hate, hate, hate it as a player it demonstrably can work fine.

Even a powergamer in an otherwise standard party can work just fine.

The problem is when you mix these all together with what appears to be a socially maladjusted player and a DM unable to adjust (require a new party when all but one character are dead; keep characters the same level; use point buy; give cool items to up the other character's party level; more and weaker monsters; etc.)

If the rest of the party is having fun, though, there is no problem. Are they, really? Have you asked them flat out, at the table, with the Barbarian player present?

Have you checked the Barbarian's math and also checked to see if he is using flexible interpretations of the rules? There is a big, big difference between a person who likes to push the limits of rules and a person who just wants to rule the table. Your player sounds like the former.

 

[jgsugden]

Has anyone suggested having the barbarian "take a rest" until the other PCs catch up in level? It'll give the player a chance to try another PC type....

(...and the DM can give that PC some fun roleplaying benefits to make them a star of the story without being overpowered, meaning the player may elect to stick with the PC rather than go back to the barbarian ... especially if the barbarian ends up in some awkward role playing situations prior to being sent to the bench).

 

[Tony Vargas]

One of my players just up and decided to make the tankiest tank in the land, a bear totem barbarian with a shield and Sentinel feat at level 7. He has 21 AC with a shield (most creatures almost can't hit unless they crit or close)

I've seen even lower-level characters with a 21 AC. Though there are a few sad little low-level monsters out there with only a +1 to hit, most do better. Even a Kobold will hit this guy on a 17, which is not quite a 'near crit,' IMHO. Besides, nothing says you have to always attack AC... there can be casters on the bad-guys' side, too.

Mind you, I don't aim to kill him, I just want to have encounters that don't feel like he's just immortal.

Killing him would certainly establish that feel.

he came into possession of the Berserker Greatsword (a variation of the Greataxe) and he immediately attuned to it and in the next encounter, killed his whole party. This is also why he is now almost at three levels above everyone else. The others tend to die a lot.

Wow, did you use the wrong cursed item. Next time finagle it to be the other way around! Pick on him so he's a couple levels behind the party, that should take care of it.

I might just be a bad DM, I mean...my players tend to die a lot (aside from the barbarian player's characters). I don't try to kill them...but characters don't tend to last too long.

There's some fairly easy, old-school tricks you can pull. For one thing, get a DM screen and make all your rolls behind it. That way you can fudge the occasional roll to avoid 'unfairly' ganking a PC through random luck - or unfairly letting a problematic PC waltz around feeling immortal...

It gets complicated in that, this guy is my best friend and he's technically just following the rules...he knows I don't like his OP build yet if I throw something too hard at him, I get the feeling he'll just think I'm actively trying to kill him...

You don't need to throw anything particularly hard, just something that hammers him in areas he's not maxxed out. The way 5e is set up, for instance, a could of his saves prettymuch have to suck. It should be easy to do something pretty awful to him (instead of to the rest of the party) with the right failed save...

He does has low Wis...

There you go.

 

[Celtavian]

You've been sniping against 5E for far too long for me to respond. If you don't like it, don't play it.

Or, you could do what I advise the OP of this thread: play using characters that the game works well with.

For a non-optimized non-combat heavy game that means nearly nothing needs to go away.

For games like the ones you and I play: don't use the +10 damage part of GWM/SS feats, the damage reduction feature of bear barbarians, don't allow anyone's AC to get much higher than 18, and don't allow anyone to start with a higher score in your primary stats than 15 if you include feats in your game. The "Sane Magic Item" pricelist provides pretty neat advice on what magic items you probably should never give to any minmaxing players.

Whether you houserule away these features, change them or merely agree as gentlepersons not to combine them, is up to you.

But "just do it", and then spend your time being happy and playing, rather than voicing dissatisfaction in such a passiveagressive and unproductive way.

If it makes you feel better, Celtavian, feel free to consider the game directed towards carebears that can't optimize. Anything as long as you accept the game handles minmaxing attempts poorly, and that you have to give up the notion that WotC will fix the optimization pot holes for you.

Again I say: for "regular" heroes, the game works well. In my opinion, it's the best, funniest and fastest edition of D&D - so generate a couple of less-than-best-in-class PCs and everything starts to work swimmingly!

Cheers,
Zapp

The game don't break that easy. A bear totem barbarian isn't that hard to handle, especially at level 7. I'm wondering why you thought the game would break that easy. I have trouble with other combos that do things far more egregious than rage. If that was the worst I was seeing, I'd be ok.

5E is no different than any other edition other than 1st and maybe 2nd. 3E/Pathfinder was easy. I was thinking when 5E was bragging about being like 1E/2E, we'd see those editions lethality. Both 1E and 2E were lethal and it was easy to die. 5E is more like 3E/Pathfinder in that I have to do a lot of work to make encounters tougher. That was a bit disappointing. It's nothing I haven't done before.

I'm not passive-aggressive. I'm flat out aggressive. Don't confuse the two. I say what I don't like and what I do like. I support it with evidence. Passive-aggressive people are aggressive in an indirect manner. If you haven't noticed, I'm very direct.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You've been sniping against 5E for far too long for me to respond. If you don't like it, don't play it.

Celtavian has reportedly been having a great time with 5e.

Or, you could do what I advise the OP of this thread: play using characters that the game works well with.

Now that's sniping at the game. 5e is not so broken that you have to ban perfectly ordinary combinations of options - in this case, just a class, a feat, and a chargen method. That's hardly out of control 3.x/PF-style system mastery, just a couple of obvious choices and a couple of good rolls.

5e can totally handle that, it just counts on the DM to use all that empowerment it's provided him to do so.

For a non-optimized non-combat heavy game that means nearly nothing needs to go away.

D&D assumes 6-8 encounters a day, that seems like it's on board for 'combat heavy,' at least some of the time. 5e presents players with some choices, anytime you have choice, you have potential for optimization - it may not even require a conscious intent to optimize, a build-to-concept can end up being 'optimal,' too.

Anything as long as you accept the game handles minmaxing attempts poorly...

Now that sounds like sniping.

I'm not at all confident that 6-8 combat encounters each and every day is consistent with an organic-feeling world. It also seems like potentially very sloggy.

It's where 5e theoretically balances, though, so going with less means re-jiggering not just the encounter difficulty, but the resource mixes of the various classes to maintain that built-in balance - or using more subtle DM whiles to impose balance among the PCs (and we've seen how much trouble the OP is already having on that score).

5E is no different than any other edition other than 1st and maybe 2nd.

1e & 2e (AD&D) constitute over half the game's history, so that's a huge 'other than.'

I played AD&D starting in 1980, and I find 5e strongly reminiscent of D&D in that period. A lot of reviewers seem to feel the same way.

3E/Pathfinder was easy. I was thinking when 5E was bragging about being like 1E/2E, we'd see those editions lethality. Both 1E and 2E were lethal and it was easy to die.

Lethal at low level, yes, and that holds true in 5e, particularly at 1st level. At high level, AD&D saves got notoriously easy, something that 3e-5e haven't ever gotten back to, though failing one save in isolation is less likely to get you killed than in AD&D.

5E is more like 3E/Pathfinder in that I have to do a lot of work to make encounters tougher.

Monster design, for instance, seems easier than in 3.x/PF. The encounter design guidelines are more involved, but you'd be skipping them at that point, anyway.

Personally, I find 5e easy to adjust on the fly, which makes it much easier to dial up an encounter than under 3.x/PF.

 

[Sacrosanct]

1e & 2e (AD&D) constitute over half the game's history, so that's a huge 'other than.'

I played AD&D starting in 1980, and I find 5e strongly reminiscent of D&D in that period. A lot of reviewers seem to feel the same way. .

I do.

 

[S'mon]

It's where 5e theoretically balances, though

The survey I did a while back indicated that few GMs were averaging 6-8 combat encounters/day.
The game might be theoretically balanced for this, but it's rare in practice because it's very
hard to enforce without very heavy-handed railroading techniques. It's not something
likely to emerge naturally in play.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The survey I did a while back indicated that few GMs were averaging 6-8 combat encounters/day.

While I feel obliged to point out how meaningless ENWorld surveys technically may be, that matches my experience & preconceived notions pretty closely, too.

 

[Flamestrike]

double post