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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1873307" data-attributes="member: 3146">As others have indicated, it depends on what you want to do.Archery: barbarians don't hold a candle to fighters. They don't have enough feats and rage doesn't do them much good. Weapon Specialization does fighters a lot of good.Cavalry: barbarians make passable cavalry, but fighters are better since they have the ability not only to have all of the mounted combat feats, but also to have a variety of other feats.Heavy infantry: multiclass barbarians make good heavy infantry, but straight-up barbarians have the deck stacked against them if they want to absorb attacks with a high AC. They don't have heavy armor proficiency, they don't have tower shield proficiency, their AC goes down when raging, and they can't use combat expertise.Damage trading: barbarians excel at dealing large amounts of damage in a short time. Give a barbarian a two handed weapon and his straightforward damage potential is simply better than a fighter's while he's raging. Of course, he can only rage a limited number of times per day, but he can live with that.In a one on one matchup, the fighter will lose if he plays the barbarian's game: stand in one place and trade damage. On the other hand, if the fighter uses combat expertise and a tower shield, he can probably outlast the barbarian's rage and then clean up. Or the fighter can use trip. disarm, sunder, spring attack (with a reach weapon--preferably one with tripping capability), and stands a better than 50% chance of defeating the barbarian. The barbarian can use some of those manuevers himself (mostly sunder, spring attack, and reach), but lacks the feats to be equipped for a variety of situations. A tripping fighter can carry a bunch of flails, etc and quickdraw a new one after losing the strength check and being forced to drop one. A barbarian with improved trip probably doesn't have the feats for Quickdraw.Barbarian is a better class if that is the role you want to play (and if you have enough clerics/wands of CLW to heal you up after every fight since a barbarian usually takes more damage than a fighter). Fighter is the better class if you want to be an archer or want to have a bunch of different tricks. However, at high levels, there's little reason not to take both. Two or four levels of barbarian is a good addition to nearly any fighter and two or four levels of fighter complements nearly any barbarian.</blockquote>

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