Fighter vs. Barbarian

In Core, I was slightly underwhelmed by barbarians, but with bonuses to grapple, knockback, sudden strike, and the awesome, awesome strenght surge you can make a good barbarian, exspecially if you focus on the grapple and power attack lines.

And don't understimate superstition.

And the fact that the true barbarian capstone is at level 17.

APG (take a look in the SRD if you don't have the book yet) loves deeply the barbarian. Human Barbarians are impervious to a lot of magic thanks to the superstition boost.

A lot of archetypes make him far more durable, Come and get me is scary, and Barb can get pounce (3 rage powers in total, but prerequisites are more natural attacks).

You can find more combos with feats (you can build a barbarian able to pounce, and in the same turn drop by a bullrush every enemy in the path dealing to him damage).

Knockdown adds goodies to the control department.

Point is, Fighter is better in using weapons and armor.. not a surprise. But Barbarian is very spicy, and has a combat style with sudden surges of true power (+54 in a CMB check, istasunder of an armor).

You just have to understand what each class can do for you and play by it.
 

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The choice between barbarians and fighters does seem to incorporate a lot of flavor issues. Hell Pathfinder stepped up to the plate and is even willing to kill Barbarians over said flavor since they incorporated the often maligned 3E houserule of Unconsciousness ends rage.
 

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I'm running both a fighter and a barbarian right now head to head. Both two-hander fighters.

So far I can give my impressions at lvl 8.

Fighter: Slightly more damage and to hit chance. Pretty much a straight up offensive machine. Fighter has a better AC because he wears heavy armor. His path to power is feats.

Barbarian: Does great damage. Almost equal melee damage. Then toss in an extra natural weapon attack and spike damage to close the gap some. Can take a ton of damage with the DR. Moves faster and better skill set. More interesting and varied powers to look forward to with rage powers.

Both players seem like they are having fun and both are shining in combat. The fighter and barbarian seem pretty comparable.
 

The choice between barbarians and fighters does seem to incorporate a lot of flavor issues. Hell Pathfinder stepped up to the plate and is even willing to kill Barbarians over said flavor since they incorporated the often maligned 3E houserule of Unconsciousness ends rage.

Well, like many other glaring problems, they "feat patched" this with Raging Vitality in the APG, rather than just eratta their mistake. Still, the one Barbarian I've played in PF so far was allowed to use the Ferocity variant, and was actually using Whirling Frenzy for a few weeks before i noticed Ferocity and asked to switch. I'd never play a Barbarian in PF with normal rage, way too easy to get killed trivially at mid to high levels, and I refuse to spend a feat just to fix a core problem with my own class.
 


Because upon losing rage, you lose 2x level hp. Or 3x or 4x level hp at higher levels. Take a level 11 Barbarian for example. He falls unconsious for any reason in PF, he suddenly loses 33 hp. If he's low enough for that to put him to dying or dead, he's taken a lot of damage already, sure. But it's still pretty twisted to suddenly go from fighting healthy and kicking ass to...DEAD. The worst part is, as you go higher in level (and the higher the con bonus goes as rage improves) the hp threshold of "if I get knocked out, I'm done for" gets larger and larger and thus makes the issue of ever graver concern. A level 20 Barbarian's Rage is a suicide pact.

Maybe you find that flavorful and interesting. I find characters that don't suddenly go poof and die to be more flavorful and interesting.
 

re

Because upon losing rage, you lose 2x level hp. Or 3x or 4x level hp at higher levels. Take a level 11 Barbarian for example. He falls unconsious for any reason in PF, he suddenly loses 33 hp. If he's low enough for that to put him to dying or dead, he's taken a lot of damage already, sure. But it's still pretty twisted to suddenly go from fighting healthy and kicking ass to...DEAD. The worst part is, as you go higher in level (and the higher the con bonus goes as rage improves) the hp threshold of "if I get knocked out, I'm done for" gets larger and larger and thus makes the issue of ever graver concern. A level 20 Barbarian's Rage is a suicide pact.

Maybe you find that flavorful and interesting. I find characters that don't suddenly go poof and die to be more flavorful and interesting.

Don't try to sell me on the you find it more "flavorful and interesting" angle. You don't want your character to die and you want them to make it mechanically safer for barbarian characters.

I find it more appropriate that they lose rage when unconscious. Not more "flavorful or interesting" as you put it.

My player solved this problem by buying Endurance and Diehard. So he'l be standing and fighting until he is dead. With that amped up con and hit points, that will be a long damn time too.

We have an Oracle of Life healer purely focused on healing with magical lineage (heal) for lvl 7 empowered heals for 225 points of healing damage back at 14th level. The chances of him buying the farm are pretty slim, but it could happen.

I say have a good healer or buy Diehard or Raging Vitality if you want to stay standing. Otherwise your at risk of buying the farm when you leave your psychotic rage when being knocked out. That is appropriate in my opinion.

if Paizo gave no options to overcome this possibility, I might agree with you. But Paizo gave a few nice options to make sure that doesn't happen. I think those options work out fine and in the case of Diehard, it makes the Invulnerable Rager Barbarian that much more bad to the bone and unique.
 

You don't want your character to die and you want them to make it mechanically safer for barbarian characters.

Well no, I prefer my characters alive, unless they're undead, and if they're going to die, I'd rather it not be sudden or trivial. If Weapon Specialization had a 1% chance of killing the Fighter every round he used it, I'd never ever make a Fighter either.

I find it more appropriate that they lose rage when unconscious. Not more "flavorful or interesting" as you put it.

Sounds like a flavor reason to me...

My player solved this problem by buying Endurance and Diehard. So he'l be standing and fighting until he is dead. With that amped up con and hit points, that will be a long damn time too.

Two feats, one of them incredibly crappy, on a class with no bonus feats, just take make his primary class feature less suicidal? Of course, that STILL doesn't protect him from effects that make you unconscious on a failed save, like the Sleep spell.

if Paizo gave no options to overcome this possibility, I might agree with you. But Paizo gave a few nice options to make sure that doesn't happen. I think those options work out fine and in the case of Diehard, it makes the Invulnerable Rager Barbarian that much more bad to the bone and unique.

I completely disagree, and even if the feats did fix the problem, it's far too much of a cost, the class feature should just work right from the start.
 

I know I said I wouldn't be back but I got re-linked to this updated thread by a friend :P

As far as fixing the base problem with rage (getting knocked out means death) I can see two basic fixes. First would be the good ol' Frenzied Berserker's Deathless Frenzy, I would recommend it being added only at higher levels but it fixes the problem as long as the Barbarian can keep up their rage.
For any who don't know:
Deathless Frenzy (Ex): At 4th level and higher, a frenzied berserker can scorn death and unconsciousness while in a frenzy. As long as her frenzy continues, she is not treated as disabled at 0 hit points, nor is she treated as dying at -1 to -9 hit points. Even if reduced to -10 hit points or less, she continues to fight normally until her frenzy ends. At that point, the effects of her wounds apply normally if they have not been healed. This ability does not prevent death from massive damage or from spell effects such as slay living or disintegrate.
The second option I see is make rage HP temporary HP instead of what they are now, this is a lesser change and not nearly as breaking. It also means that when they come out of rage they only lose the HP they didn't use instead of their base HP. Honestly, I'm not sure why they aren't temporary HP in the first place but that is not really the point.
 
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A level 20 Barbarian's Rage is a suicide pact.
It is a round by round choice to have the barbarian's usable HP total is 80 HP over his normal HP total at the cost of not having access to the 20'ish dying HP the character would have had to be laying helpless on the ground.

Pathfinder probably should have just let raging barbarians fight while in negative HP instead of having rage grant a Con bonus. With higher level barbarians getting to go deeper and deeper.
 
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