New to D&D and Need Help Building A Barbarian.

[sabrinathecat]

If you take the background Auspicious Birth or Born Under a Bad Sign, highest stat is used for HP. That can lessen the need for high Con.
Barbarians can be amazingly tough.
I enjoyed inflicting confusion on the one in the game I was running. Most of the time it made basic melee or charge against the closest target. Fortunately for the party, it was usually the creatures causing the confusion (they hid behind a wall and waited).
Skill challenges when your character is useless--yeah, I know those. Annoying, but it happens.

 

[pemerton]

I was useless vs the infinite minion spawning arcane puzzle trap

Skill challenges when your character is useless--yeah, I know those. Annoying, but it happens.

I think it can be a marker of poor encounter design.

If the puzzle is meant to be a puzzle for the players, then that's one thing: the player of the barbarian helps work things out even if, ingame, we imagine all the thinking being done by the INT 20 mage.

But if it's being done via mechanical resolution, there should be a way for the barbarian to contribute - even if that means that the spawn rate picks up so that the barbarian gets to fight a meaningful combat while protecting the mage who is desperately trying to shut the thing down.

 

[S'mon]

If the puzzle is meant to be a puzzle for the players, then that's one thing: the player of the barbarian helps work things out even if, ingame, we imagine all the thinking being done by the INT 20 mage.

If I wanted to play an INT 20 mage I'd play an INT 20 mage, not an INT 8 barbarian. I find puzzles really annoying anyway, and the GM arbitrarily nerfed my barbarian-based mechanical solution of breaking stuff, by making all the stonework of the doors, frescoes, statues etc immune to my maul. Since I had chosen a maul as my weapon in order to be good at property damage this was really annoying. Still, it was a good reminder to me when GMing to be mindful of the player's vision of their character, and obviously to avoid railroaded 'solutions'.

 

[pemerton]

If I wanted to play an INT 20 mage I'd play an INT 20 mage, not an INT 8 barbarian.

Fair enough - this is something where different players have different approaches.

I find puzzles really annoying anyway

I rarely use them, partly because they can be annoying, partly because I'm not all that good at them, and mostly because I find they tend to be anachronistic.

the GM arbitrarily nerfed my barbarian-based mechanical solution of breaking stuff, by making all the stonework of the doors, frescoes, statues etc immune to my maul. Since I had chosen a maul as my weapon in order to be good at property damage this was really annoying.

In my earlier post I mentioned the possibility of poor encounter design. I'm going to go more specific now and say "poor GMing"!

 

[S'mon]

In my earlier post I mentioned the possibility of poor encounter design. I'm going to go more specific now and say "poor GMing"!

I thought the whole 5+ hour session was shockingly bad, apart from the one short encounter in the middle. But as usual when I play, I did learn some things to watch out for when GMing myself. Bad GMing can be as useful as good GMing for lessons learned.

 

[Herobizkit]

Is there any way you could make your Artificer more melee-focused rather than changing the character entirely?

Artificers are nifty. Many of them have powers that can be used as melee AND ranged attacks. And they heal, which is also nifty. Swapping a "Leader" for a "Striker" means more damage output, sure, and that could turn a battle faster than having a Healer clean up during the fight.

Warforged Artificers are extra nifty. Their high CON and resilience makes for a great melee basher.

I guess I don't have much in the way of a Barbarian build. :/

 

[The Human Target]

Artificers are pretty tricky to play from the limited experience I've had with them in my games.

For a newer player they're probably a bad choice.

Plus his party already has two other leaders.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

As long as you make sensible looking choices you are near certain to end up with a good character in 4e. But there is a class that's every bit as "Get in your face and smash" as a Barbarian and designed to be incredibly easy to play with no daily powers to worry about. That class is the Slayer (in Heroes of the Fallen Lands) although for minimal rules, the other essentials martial classes (Hexblade, Thief, Knight, Scout) are also pretty good.

The normal Barbarian's Handbook can be found on the WotC boards and is pretty good at steering you to and away from powers. If you're building with a theme in mind and follow that guide you should do pretty well.

Was going to say this too.

IMC there's a 4e barbarian, and coincidentally he's 10th-level too. He chose to put his secondary into Dex and wore hide armor, cranking his AC a bit higher than the designers expected. (No problem, his Will defense is still pretty low.)

But if you're new, I recommend the slayer. It's so much simpler, due to fewer moving parts. I don't understand rage at all and leave rage management entirely to my player.