Buff the Barbarbar!!!1111one (Barbarians no type gud)

[Voice of Kerensky]

So on the topic of "classes you almost never see play" there's the king of rage, the herp of derp: the barbarian. Honestly, these guys aren't seen much for good reason. A slight hit dice bump and a slight skill point boost over fighter doesn't make up for... well, everything else. Or the lack thereof.

Even worse for the barbarian is that most of their special epic feats are basically obsolete/not that good by the time you hit epic (ironically). Rarely worth dropping an epic feat on, anyhow.

Suggestions:

1) Truly the big one here, the problem is rage benefits not stacking over the 12 cap. Rage benefits should stack over the 12 cap to give the class's core mechanics any true advantage on CD.

2) 3.5 barbar gets improved uncanny dodge, which basically functions as the dwarven defender class's defensive awareness II. As this is a solid ability, and I would not want to stomp all over part of the DD's advantages, I would suggest giving this to Barbarian somewhere between levels 8-12 (so it takes a decent amount of investment in barbarian to gain this ability). DD still remains a viable option for another class who wants to add this defensive ability with a lesser investment (only needing 5 DD levels for that particular one).

3) Damage Reduction. 3.5 barbarian gets 4 by level 19. I usually house rule barbarian to use the following very simple gained DR chart:

8: 1/-
11: 2/-
14: 3/-
17: 4/-
20: 5/-

It gives a slight more benefit to investing deeper into the class, and coincidentally, this damage reduction scheme also falls in line with the gain of epic barbarian DR (23rd, 26th, 29th, etc). Also, the 3.5 barbarbar gets 5/- DR by level 20.

4) Indomitable Will. This is a feat that the barbarian gains at level 14th in 3.5, and gives +4 will saves vs enchantments while raging. Decent idea, poor execution in a live environment. I instead suggest giving the Barbarian the Slippery Mind feat, at level 14.

5) Bonus feats. Quite simply, the barbarian gets bonus feats from a very specific, barbarian-themed list at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. Similar to the Wizard magic-centric bonus feats at these levels, basically, they allow a wizard to become more wizardy and a barbarian to become more barbarianish without stomping too heavily on fighter's role.

Would need to sort out the bonus feat list.

6) The "epic" barbarian feats. Quite simply, they aren't worthy of their epic status in effect. Making them available to the above bonus feats and loosening the prerequisite on them is an idea, however. These, specifically, are Thundering Rage and Terrifying Rage -- adjusting their prerequisites so they're available at level 15+ (with a corresponding intimidate score for Terrifying and a sufficient strength score for Thundering) would make progressing deep into the barbarian levels worth it. These feats, given their effects, are of dubious value to be taken with epic bonus feats and should show up as earlier options for the barbarian. Oh, nearly forgot, but Mighty Rage as well; this is a freebie at 20 in 3.5.

7) Reflex saves high. The class is themed around being fast and swift and has several feats regarding such, yet no high reflex?

Revised barbarian would look something like this:

Hit Die: d12
BAB: Full
High Saves: Fort, Ref

01) Barbarian Rage (1x), Barbarian Fast Movement
02) Uncanny Dodge 1
03) n/a
04) Barbarian Rage (2x)
05) Uncanny Dodge 2, Bonus Feat
06) n/a
07) n/a
08) Barbarian Rage (3x), Damage Reduction 1
09) n/a
10) Uncanny Dodge 3, Bonus feat
11) Damage Reduction 2
12) Barbarian Rage (4x), Defensive Awareness 2
13) Uncanny Dodge 4
14) Damage Reduction 3, Slippery Mind
15) Greater Rage (4x), Bonus Feat
16) Greater Rage (5x), Uncanny Dodge 5
17) Damage Reduction IV
18) n/a
19) Uncanny Dodge 6
20) Mighty Rage (6x), Damage Reduction V, Bonus Feat

Now that's a scary barbarian. There are still much better power builds you can throw together, but that barbarian would be worth playing.

[Nokteronoth]

I do remember seeing Vincent say somewhere else that they're getting some goodies in the hak update whenever it'll be coming around.

~BR

[Edge]

Funny enough, I have a Barbarian. He's rather insulted by the implication of stupidity in his occupation, what with his 14 INT and speaking multiple languages.

[Voice of Kerensky]

May 25, 2015 0:01:14 GMT -5 Edge said:

Funny enough, I have a Barbarian. He's rather insulted by the implication of stupidity in his occupation, what with his 14 INT and speaking multiple languages.

They're the only core base class that can't read/write by default, regardless of int! I assumed this applied to typing as well.

[Edge]

Admittedly his first level was Rogue so he didn't have the Illiteracy issue

[Vincent07]

I have plans for barbarians that I will detail when I'm not at work.

[trylobyte]

I remember having this discussion with Vince quite extensively in the past and I remember him having some pretty good ideas to poke the class further towards viability.  The main thing holding it up was the fact these changes are part of The Great Big Hak Update.  Rather than try to remember the changes from conversations we had months ago, I'll just let Vince detail them when he can.  Most of them centered around making the Rage mechanic not terrible, if I recall.

[Voice of Kerensky]

May 25, 2015 7:40:02 GMT -5 trylobyte said:

I remember having this discussion with Vince quite extensively in the past and I remember him having some pretty good ideas to poke the class further towards viability.  The main thing holding it up was the fact these changes are part of The Great Big Hak Update.  Rather than try to remember the changes from conversations we had months ago, I'll just let Vince detail them when he can.  Most of them centered around making the Rage mechanic not terrible, if I recall.

Making the rage mechanic not terrible (and able to stack with item/spell buffs over the +12 cap) is a good start, but the class needs more than that, as well. It's a class that invites pure classing (or a prestige class that continues its abilities, which we don't really have) but it tends to drop off very heavily compared to the other options.

Working on some proposals, though. Most of them are at least somewhat based on 3.5 barbar.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Suggestions:

1) Truly the big one here, the problem is rage benefits not stacking over the 12 cap. Rage benefits should stack over the 12 cap to give the class's core mechanics any true advantage on CD.

2) 3.5 barbar gets improved uncanny dodge, which basically functions as the dwarven defender class's defensive awareness II. As this is a solid ability, and I would not want to stomp all over part of the DD's advantages, I would suggest giving this to Barbarian somewhere between levels 8-12 (so it takes a decent amount of investment in barbarian to gain this ability). DD still remains a viable option for another class who wants to add this defensive ability with a lesser investment (only needing 5 DD levels for that particular one).

3) Damage Reduction. 3.5 barbarian gets 4 by level 19. I usually house rule barbarian to use the following very simple gained DR chart:

8: 1/-
11: 2/-
14: 3/-
17: 4/-
20: 5/-

It gives a slight more benefit to investing deeper into the class, and coincidentally, this damage reduction scheme also falls in line with the gain of epic barbarian DR (23rd, 26th, 29th, etc). Also, the 3.5 barbarbar gets 5/- DR by level 20.

4) Indomitable Will. This is a feat that the barbarian gains at level 14th in 3.5, and gives +4 will saves vs enchantments while raging. Decent idea, poor execution in a live environment. I instead suggest giving the Barbarian the Slippery Mind feat, at level 14.

5) Bonus feats. Quite simply, the barbarian gets bonus feats from a very specific, barbarian-themed list at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. Similar to the Wizard magic-centric bonus feats at these levels, basically, they allow a wizard to become more wizardy and a barbarian to become more barbarianish without stomping too heavily on fighter's role.

Would need to sort out the bonus feat list.

6) The "epic" barbarian feats. Quite simply, they aren't worthy of their epic status in effect. Making them available to the above bonus feats and loosening the prerequisite on them is an idea, however. These, specifically, are Thundering Rage and Terrifying Rage -- adjusting their prerequisites so they're available at level 15+ (with a corresponding intimidate score for Terrifying and a sufficient strength score for Thundering) would make progressing deep into the barbarian levels worth it. These feats, given their effects, are of dubious value to be taken with epic bonus feats and should show up as earlier options for the barbarian. Oh, nearly forgot, but Mighty Rage as well; this is a freebie at 20 in 3.5.

7) Reflex saves high. The class is themed around being fast and swift and has several feats regarding such, yet no high reflex?

Revised barbarian would look something like this:

Hit Die: d12
BAB: Full
High Saves: Fort, Ref

01) Barbarian Rage (1x), Barbarian Fast Movement
02) Uncanny Dodge 1
03) n/a
04) Barbarian Rage (2x)
05) Uncanny Dodge 2, Bonus Feat
06) n/a
07) n/a
08) Barbarian Rage (3x), Damage Reduction 1
09) n/a
10) Uncanny Dodge 3, Bonus feat
11) Damage Reduction 2
12) Barbarian Rage (4x), Defensive Awareness 2
13) Uncanny Dodge 4
14) Damage Reduction 3,  Slippery Mind
15) Greater Rage (4x), Bonus Feat
16) Greater Rage (5x), Uncanny Dodge 5
17) Damage Reduction IV
18) n/a
19) Uncanny Dodge 6
20) Mighty Rage (6x), Damage Reduction V, Bonus Feat

Now that's a scary barbarian. There are still much better power builds you can throw together, but that barbarian would be worth playing. Adding to OP as well.

[suddenperihelion]

www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/barbarian/rage-powers

Rage powers are a rare case of a p&p rule that translates to a PW environment even better than p&p. Rage powers have several advantages, as a mechanic.

-They allow each barbarian to customize itself, distinct from other barbarians, with a unique type and set of abilities
-They give the barbarian a bit of distinctiveness from other melee classes - instead of just giving more raw numerical boosts (which brings the class up to the level of other melee classes but doesn't do anything to make it distinct from other melee classes), they allow specialized/specific functionality that sets the class apart, and makes it unique mechanically
-The totems and such allow some additional flavor that the players can, if they choose, incorporate into their roleplay
-They are easy to script

Some of the particular rage powers don't translate well, but those can easily be reworked while maintaining the overall framework. Where I've seen this done before, it was very popular with the players.

[suddenperihelion]

May 24, 2015 23:14:12 GMT -5 psappho said:

1) Truly the big one here, the problem is rage benefits not stacking over the 12 cap. Rage benefits should stack over the 12 cap to give the class's core mechanics any true advantage on CD.

I've seen this done before, but it's trickier than one might think. There are basically two ways to do it, both of which have significant drawbacks.

1: "Fake it" using bonuses to divine damage (so for example, regular rage would give +1 divine offhand, +2 divine main hand, and +3 divine for two-handers), and attack (+2 attack from regular rage). For the con bonus, you can fake it using temporary hit points and a con save bonus. The major drawback here is that it can run into stacking problems. Also you don't influence carrying capacity, but that doesn't really matter so much.

2: Use NWNX to give 'true' base ability score boosts. The problem here is that if you aren't careful in how you implement it, it can screw up character files badly. Where I've seen this done, it took well over a year and multiple scripters working on it to iron out all of the bugs. And during that time, dozens of screwed up character files had to be manually repaired by staff using LETOs or similar.

[Deleted]

We already have a mechanic in place to account for the cap on rage. Vincent would need to explain the details.

[Vincent07]

Right. I forgot to post here. Derp.

Moving on.

As it currently stands, Barbarians that are stat capped in either str or con when using rage are compensated with a boost to AB/Dmg and Temp HP respectively, depending on how much the rage boosts should have increased their stats.

Most of my ideas for making Barbarian better, revolve around altering the Rage mechanic, but I'll touch on some of the others mentioned above as well.


- Rage:

There are a few things I'd like to do here, as I think Rage should be a core and awesome feature of the Barbarian.  The first change is to entirely undo the stat gains.  Stat capping STR and CON is rather easy, so rather than having Rage do some complex calculating to figure out if you are and what to give you to compensate, I'd change it to a flat boost to AB, Damage, Temp HP and Fort Saves.

Furthermore, Barbarians under the effects of Rage will be immune to Fear, which I will have progress to a full Mind affecting immunity at higher levels.

I'm going to increase the duration.

Starting at... probably level 16, Rage will grant 1 extra attack.


- Mighty Rage:

Automatic gain at 20 Barbarian. (This requires either a hak change, or script lines like I've done with Uncanny dodge for others)

Same effects as Rage, but increased slightly and without the AC hit.

Increase saves vs Death, as the Mind Immunity makes the will bonus pointless at this point.


- DR:

The DR feats themselves are hard coded, though they can be placed at different levels.  This requires a hak update.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel here, as DR that cannot be overcome is powerful, though that is a small amount, it does stack with DR from Dwarven Defender, and of course any other resists you may get from gear.

- Saves:

Changing Ref to high is again, hak work.  I like it though.


- Thundering/Terrifying Rage:

I'd like to leave these as epic, though they could perhaps be improved in some ways.


- Armor:

I love the idea of Barbarians in light armor, or at most medium, swinging a big two-handed weapon and full of RAEG.
However, let's be serious for a moment.  That's going to severely hurt your AC compared to any Plate wearing type, or cloth armored dex build.
My idea is as follows.  Barbarians will gain a boost to Dodge AC based upon their CON modifier, as long as they do not wear heavy armor.  This bonus will scale up with Barbarian levels and likely be capped at +5.


- Bonus Feats:

Eh... I feel like giving Barbarian bonus feats just makes them more like fighter, rather than making them unique.

[suddenperihelion]

Here's an example of an NWN implementation of barbarian Rage Powers. Most of this stuff would be pretty easy to do and it would also mean that each individual barbarian could customize themselves to be distinct not just from other classes, but also from other barbarians.

www.tsr-nwn.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10&p=15#p15

[Atomic Twinkie]

I like the con AC thing, and was going to offer it as a potential thing if it wasn't mentioned anyways Always good