My vision for the Barbarian.

[Jack Colby]

I'm not sure that barbarians are 'defenders' they're not solders, they're brutes.

Never read Conan, then?

 

[generalhenry]

So that's two big yells

I like that line of thinking. That gives us the third power type to work with. Smashes, rages, yells.

Maybe a power or a class feature where the barbarian can rage whenever one of his allies he can see becomes bloodied could be a good idea.

I like rages as stance powers, that way we can create different rages with different triggers.

Never read Conan, then?

nope.

 

[megasycophant]

I'm picturing the Barbarians as a different kind of defender- instead of defending by being able to stand his ground and keep opponents back, he rushes all over the place madly, causing chaos and fear in enemies brave or stupid enough to go after the party.

Isn't this almost the textbook definition of a striker?

 

[EP]

Isn't this almost the textbook definition of a striker?

Not really. Strikers affect a single opponent at once, but he's talking about causing fear on multiple opponents simultaneously, like a controller.

 

[dcviana]

Perhaps when the Barbarian becomes bloodied and goes into a rage, he lets out a war cry that marks all enemies within a 5 square burst for a single turn? A simple mark is unlikely to cause enemies to peel off their targets and provoke OA's just to come to the barbarian and avoid the penalty, but it might screw up a few attacks.

I don't know if marking enemies in the burst is a good idea, if someone with 18 str yelled at me I would be terrified and wanting to get the hell away from him, not the oposite.

Maybe if the barbarian gain Combat Advantage against enemies in a 5 square burst it would be better, the enemies are so scared of his war cry that they open their defenses against the barbarian.

The same goes for when an ally becomes blodied, the barbarian could yell something like "YOU'LL PAY FOR HARMING MY COMRADES, YOU SCUM" and your ally gains combat advantage against the enemy that caused the blodied status in the first place.

 

[ShaggySpellsword]

I was thinking Barbarians could be very good defenders with the follwoing abilities:

Rage:
Like you said, keying off when the Barbarian is bloodied. But this would be their big character choice, what KIND of Rage do they fly into.

Brutal Rager: Add Constitution modifier to attacks and damage while bloodied, gain temporary HP equal to your Con score.

Frenzied Rager: Add Dex modifier to attacks and damage while bloodied, add half dex modifier to base speed

Terrifying Rager: Add Cha modifier to attacks and damage while bloodied, add half Cha bonus to saving throws

Then all powers would key off of Str, with secondaries off of Con, Dex, or Cha. Yells/Warcrys could have bonus effects based on Terrifying Rager, Big striking-powers could have bonuses for Brutal Ragers, and Frenzied Ragers could get some cool multi-target and movement-based bonuses.

As far as marking goes, I would make it similar to a fighter's, but with a meat-shield twist: Whenever you attack an enemy, you can choose to Mark them as a free action. In addition to the standard drawbacks, any time a marked creature or the target of one of his attacks is adjacent to the Barbarian, the barbarian can choose to take half of the damage from the effect.

This makes Barbarians take lots of damage, which gets them bloodied, which helps them rage. It also keeps their allies alive.

Then we add the final class ability: Damage Reduction.

Barbarians get DR equal to their level.

Then, attacking a Bbn's friend instead of the BBN just means that you are dealing less damage to the friend than normal, at a penalty to your attack roll, and the Bbn is going to soak most of the damage anyway.

I think this is a pretty reliable Tanking strategy that will have a distinctly different feel to the Paladin and Fighter.