D&D 5E Barbarians: Why not multiclass?

[CapnZapp]

Except Hemlock, this thread wasn't about that either.

A more on-topic discussion would be to compare your barblock, a barbighter (ouch), and a barbogue (double ugh) against a straight barbarian. To see what you gain (and lose) by MCing, that is.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Except Hemlock, this thread wasn't about that either.

A more on-topic discussion would be to compare your barblock, a barbighter (ouch), and a barbogue (double ugh) against a straight barbarian. To see what you gain (and lose) by MCing, that is.

That's kind of the point. You don't lose much of anything by not taking those 12 levels of barb except 24 HP (compensated by Armor of Agathys), Dexterity, and 2 points of Strength. A straight Barbarian 15 would play almost identically in this fight, but without Armor of Agathys and with a bit of extra damage on that critical he got. The barblock's worst option is the pure barbarian's only option.

So the answer to the OP's question is, "Your player's instincts are correct. There's really no hidden awesomeness to 20 levels of barbarian. It's pretty much what it looks like."

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

But without me forcing the game to have 6-8 encounters per long rest, he feels comfortable only having the 3 rages per day he has now. The rage damage also doesn't go up by much from 5th to 11th level (only +1), and we're not planning on hitting level 20 so the capstone doesn't matter.

Rage+Reckless Attack+GWM exists as of level 2; level just lets you do it more. Am I missing something in their higher level scaling? Brutal Critical doesn't seem like it's going to add up to too much.

IMO, 6-8 encounters is like a MMO hack and slash trash clearing fest. I struggle to include enough meaningful encounters as well without players being bored by yet another room with 4 pushover orcs, or whatever wuss encounter the game expects you to grind through. He's right, most days 3 rages probably IS enough for any real fight, with the rest being 1 round speedbumps.

If he doesnt want to continue in the class, that's fine, let him multiclass and play a character with abilities that benefit and interest him. it's not like becoming a slightly more disciplined fighter is some absurd leap of character development. It's basically what Conan did, with a few rogue levels sprinkled in.

 

[CapnZapp]

So the answer to the OP's question is, "Your player's instincts are correct. There's really no hidden awesomeness to 20 levels of barbarian. It's pretty much what it looks like."

Excellent.

Then perhaps it was only me that was too dense to draw that conclusion from your experiment

 

[CapnZapp]

IMO, 6-8 encounters is like a MMO hack and slash trash clearing fest. I struggle to include enough meaningful encounters as well without players being bored by yet another room with 4 pushover orcs, or whatever wuss encounter the game expects you to grind through. He's right, most days 3 rages probably IS enough for any real fight, with the rest being 1 round speedbumps.

We really should have this discussion in a thread of its own.

I agree so much that it's a shame only people interested in the OPs barbarian problems are reading you!

But as an immediate suggestion to you Ehren: try not handing out long rest benefits each time the PCs go to sleep. It will do wonders with the encounter to rest ratio, meaning it will make it much easier to marry a reasonable combat pacing to the DMG encounter expectations.

Imagine there's a roadside inn every three days of travel and only there will the party regain spells and hit points, and all other nights camping counts only as a short rest. Now you can easily have 6-8 encounters over three days, interspersed with two short rests, and capping off with a long rest.

As long as your players are on board with the needs of the adventure setting the pacing, this makes for a much more satisfying game.

The only sacrifice is that... the needs of the adventure sets the rest pacing. For instance, when you run a dungeon bash with a combat around every corner, having 5 minute short rests and 1 hour long rests, work well.

Then, when the party set sail to explore another continent, with perhaps only one encounter per week of ocean travel, it makes sense to not allow a long rest for a month.

But again, we should have this discussion in another thread.

 

[Zardnaar]

We really should have this discussion in a thread of its own.

I agree so much that it's a shame only people interested in the OPs barbarian problems are reading you!

But as an immediate suggestion to you Ehren: try not handing out long rest benefits each time the PCs go to sleep. It will do wonders with the encounter to rest ratio, meaning it will make it much easier to marry a reasonable combat pacing to the DMG encounter expectations.

Imagine there's a roadside inn every three days of travel and only there will the party regain spells and hit points, and all other nights camping counts only as a short rest. Now you can easily have 6-8 encounters over three days, interspersed with two short rests, and capping off with a long rest.

As long as your players are on board with the needs of the adventure setting the pacing, this makes for a much more satisfying game.

The only sacrifice is that... the needs of the adventure sets the rest pacing. For instance, when you run a dungeon bash with a combat around every corner, having 5 minute short rests and 1 hour long rests, work well.

Then, when the party set sail to explore another continent, with perhaps only one encounter per week of ocean travel, it makes sense to not allow a long rest for a month.

But again, we should have this discussion in another thread.

Yup 5E actually handles exploration (combat encounters) poorly. Monsters a a walkover solo and you have to grind the PCs down to really challenge them after level 3 or so.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yup 5E actually handles exploration (combat encounters) poorly. Monsters a a walkover solo and you have to grind the PCs down to really challenge them after level 3 or so.

I see where you're coming from, but really, why not throw a much more dangerous foe at them?

I mean, a fully rested party that isn't still in tier 1 (where one unlucky swing can be too much of a big deal) can easily handle far deadlier foes than suggested by the encounter and challenge rating system.

A five-man level 5 party that isn't depleted from prior encounters should be robust enough to weather a CR 10 solo creature no matter how un-optimized.

If your group consists of minmaxers, and you want to really challenge them, that's as easy as throwing a Mummy Lord at them (CR 15).

If your group is anything like my group, and you want them to face a foe so awesome they seriously consider fleeing instead of actually taking him down, then you would probably have to quadruple their own level.

Of course, 5th edition is a curious beast. The danger is seriously lying in numbers.

I mean that Mummy Lord goes from a potentially embarrassing wrap of easy xp to an guaranteed total party kill just by adding half a dozen underlings. That level 5 party can't do a thing against the Mummy Lord if you just add five ordinary Mummies to his side.

On the other hand, make that a level 11 party, and they will cut through those extra Mummies like nothing, again making the Mummy Lord a pushover (since, again, he's effectively reduced to facing the heroes alone).

Which tells me the system is working

 

[Zardnaar]

I see where you're coming from, but really, why not throw a much more dangerous foe at them?

I mean, a fully rested party that isn't still in tier 1 (where one unlucky swing can be too much of a big deal) can easily handle far deadlier foes than suggested by the encounter and challenge rating system.

A five-man level 5 party that isn't depleted from prior encounters should be robust enough to weather a CR 10 solo creature no matter how un-optimized.

If your group consists of minmaxers, and you want to really challenge them, that's as easy as throwing a Mummy Lord at them (CR 15).

If your group is anything like my group, and you want them to face a foe so awesome they seriously consider fleeing instead of actually taking him down, then you would probably have to quadruple their own level.

Of course, 5th edition is a curious beast. The danger is seriously lying in numbers.

I mean that Mummy Lord goes from a potentially embarrassing wrap of easy xp to an guaranteed total party kill just by adding half a dozen underlings. That level 5 party can't do a thing against the Mummy Lord if you just add five ordinary Mummies to his side.

On the other hand, make that a level 11 party, and they will cut through those extra Mummies like nothing, again making the Mummy Lord a pushover (since, again, he's effectively reduced to facing the heroes alone).

Which tells me the system is working

Well exploration kind of requires that you go CR10+ over the party level if it is their only encounter for the week. Its also the healing rate combined with wonky CR numbers.

 

[Xeviat]

Thanks for those replies and getting back on track. I'm wondering, then, if patching in a different system of giving out rages would be more beneficial to an encounter set up that's different then the standard. As it stands now, as long as 2 short rests go out a day, short rest classes line up reasonably well against the daily classes. This is because if you go down to 3 big fights a day, the daily classes can unload all of their spells in those 3 fights.

The barbarian cannot use more than 1 rage a fight, unless they get knocked out or if the fight goes long. There's no benefit to it. 4E avoided this by adding the "Rage Strike" power, letting you expend rages during a rage to do an extra big hit. Or, rage could work like in Pathfinder, where rages are counted in rounds per day; again, if you're only having 3 big fights, you can rage for more and more of those fights as you gain levels.

Now, I'm not saying that I can't force 6 to 8 fights a day. I've done it in a mini campaign from 1st to 5th level. But it does get difficult to make all the fights more interesting. We're going to be playing a time sensitive module, so I don't want to switch to another rest mechanic, but I could easily see doing a "rest vs. bed rest", or even "night's rest" vs. "weekend's rest" mechanic for short and long rests in a more slow paced longer term campaign. Heck, not being able to long rest when out in the field would be an easier way to balancing things.