Barbarians seem very effective, too effective?

[mneme]

I'm not going to condem it, because I think the Barb can use the boost (that said, it does leave the thaneborn barb hurting in comparison, though they start out with better defenses before the feat).

If one assumes a minimaxed barb (I'd say: Str 20. Barbarians need to hit), it starts out at Scale levels at 1st level -- 10+3 for con, +3 for Hide, + 1 for barb reflexes = 17 (vs 18 for Plate).

At, say, 14th level... 10+7 for level, +5 for con, +4 for enhancement, +4 for darkhide, +2 for reflexes = 32, vs 10+7(lvl)+11 (warplate) + 4 (enhancement) = 32.

Hmm. So yeah, at paragon levels, at least, it's the equal of plate (for an extra feat). That's really good -- though I'll note that if they wanted to, the barbarian could just wear plate (for 2 more feats). That said, one could make an argument that it's intentional -- that the barbarian was intended to be a bit less of a glass cannon than she ended up--the real question is how it works in play.

 

[keterys]

Let me be more clear on the condemn statement:
We don't have the text of the feat. We don't know what it does. We can't make any assumptions about what it will do at paragon.

 

[Akaiku]

See?

Every class has its weakness so the universe remains balanced.

Now, if you get a belt of vim, are a human, wear displacer armor and use that one amulet that gives people 5+ squares a -5 to hit you, that dries up in many situations, but hey, monks' low defense is ac....

 

[Destil]

Let me be more clear on the condemn statement:
We don't have the text of the feat. We don't know what it does. We can't make any assumptions about what it will do at paragon.

While agree, this is the same argument that led me to believe the expertise feats wouldn't be must have. We assumed they'd just be +1 to hit from the first preview, which of course everyone thought would be broken...

I'm just saying, it could be worse too. Let's leave it out of the discussion until the books out.

 

[keterys]

Right. I totally agree it could be stupid. I'm on record up thread, even as "that's stupid".

But let's not hinge a whole argument on something until we see it. Maybe the writeup is just bad