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View Full Version : (3.5) [Base Class] Barbarian (P.E.A.C.H.)



Apalala
2009-12-19, 10:57 PM
Barbarians, like most martial classes, suffer from not being able to deal with challenges at their CR unless heavily optimized. They also suffer from a linear power curve, while the monsters and casters both lie on an exponential one. By the time the Wizard is granting wishes, creating his own plane, flying around and hurling lightning, etc, the barbarian still has his same bag of tricks.

So, here's a new Barbarian, one that can decidedly go beyond the limits of what is humanly possible.

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfd7zxz_53m6kcs2dw

Some thoughts on the class. First, the change to rage. Rather than give a small bonus, rage now gives an increasingly large bonus to strength. +8 at level 1, +1 every level after that, and with a high level ability that can even double that bonus. However, it comes with a price, attack penalties that cancel out the bonus, so that a core barbarian will actually be more accurate with its attacks. What's more, it's an enhancement bonus, so it's unable to stack with most magical bonuses. The result is that the barbarian has a relatively low attack compared to other full BAB classes, but with the extra strength to make those attacks that do get through hurt. That extra strength also allows the barbarian to keep up with the monsters he faces, so that he can grapple and bullrush and so on, as well as increasing his carrying and lifting capacity, and makes him strong enough that a creative player will be able to do some fun things outside of combat.

In addition, Rage is no longer usable only a few times a day. Instead, the barbarian has a maximum amount of time he can rage at once, and then spends an equal amount of time fatigued.

Next is the ability Extreme Toughness. This ability grants twice his level in temporary hp each round the barbarian is raging. Quite powerful, yes, but the barbarian could use it. With no class features that boost AC, at the higher levels a barbarian is going to be taking lots and lots of hits. A CR 10 Fire Giant's full attack does an average of 76.5 points of damage, and a barbarian with 18 con at that level will have about 110 hp. Without some significant damage mitigation, a barbarian is unable to beat an even CR enemy. Even with the extra hitpoints, such a battle is still fraught with peril for the barbarian.

Next, Gorilla Grip. Quite simply, it lets the barbarian use really big weapons, and combined with the later Leverage abilities, ridiculously big weapons. This is mostly for fun, and because it makes for a good mental image. When fighting a massive enemy, normal weapons must seem like toothpicks.

Unstoppable. This replaces the minor bonuses a barbarian gets from his rage with bonuses to will and fortitude equal to half his level. The bonuses are almost always active, but like the strength bonus from rage, doesn't stack with most magic bonuses. Combined with the natural save bonus, a level barbarian has a +22 bonus to saving throws, and he'll be facing DCs that range from 25 to 31. On a side note, with no abilities to boost reflex and a poor save, barbarians are going to be hit a lot. Barbarians don't duck and cover from the fireball, they walk through it.

The Tricks. First off, horrible horrible name for these. Feats would probably be better, but that's already taken! If anyone has a suggestion, please share. But right, tricks. Designing these, I wanted the barbarian to have some cool options in combat, and these are those. Not sure of the balance, so any comments on flaws or exploits with them would be good.

Finally, the Rage Perfections. These are really powerful. However, the barbarian gets access to them at the same level that a wizard gains access to his level 9 spells. I felt that at the world breaking end game, a barbarian should still be an interesting character to play. The increase in power is pretty sudden though, so perhaps there should be some lower level abilities that can build up towards it.

The class is still in a very rough draft. I've tried running a hastily built barbarian through the Same Game Test (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Same_Game_Test_%28DnD_Guideline%29), and the results so far have been encouraging, with the class being neither too weak nor too powerful. Still, very rough, so any analysis is still more than welcome and the final version will probably look quite different.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-12-19, 11:16 PM
A rather interesting take on the barbarian. At first glance, it looks solid mechanically, but without playtesting I couldn't say for sure. Initial thoughts:

The 1st level bonus feats don't state whether you need the prerequisites--and if you do, then really there's only one choice for a 1st level feat, Power Attack, in which case you might as well just give them that anyway. At the very least, I'd suggest widening the selection by 1 or 2 feats.
Twice his level in temp HP every round? That's a bit much to give out at 2nd level, methinks. I would suggest splitting it into at least two abilities to mitigate the frontloading; either 2 x level at the start of combat at 2nd level and 2 x level each round at a later level or 1 x level each round at 2nd level and 2 x level each round at a later level would work.
You might as well just say Relentless Rage applies to all status conditions; the few conditions not on that list that wouldn't be inflicted by a spell you can always justifying as being overcome through rage, and it's simpler to remember that way.
Level 17 is a bit overloaded and the early levels are somewhat frontloaded, so I think some rearranging of abilities is called for--moving the Tricks down a level each and moving Unstoppable up to 6th would spread the abilities more evenly.

Apalala
2009-12-19, 11:28 PM
A rather interesting take on the barbarian. At first glance, it looks solid mechanically, but without playtesting I couldn't say for sure. Initial thoughts:

The 1st level bonus feats don't state whether you need the prerequisites--and if you do, then really there's only one choice for a 1st level feat, Power Attack, in which case you might as well just give them that anyway. At the very least, I'd suggest widening the selection by 1 or 2 feats.
Twice his level in temp HP every round? That's a bit much to give out at 2nd level, methinks. I would suggest splitting it into at least two abilities to mitigate the frontloading; either 2 x level at the start of combat at 2nd level and 2 x level each round at a later level or 1 x level each round at 2nd level and 2 x level each round at a later level would work.
You might as well just say Relentless Rage applies to all status conditions; the few conditions not on that list that wouldn't be inflicted by a spell you can always justifying as being overcome through rage, and it's simpler to remember that way.
Level 17 is a bit overloaded and the early levels are somewhat frontloaded, so I think some rearranging of abilities is called for--moving the Tricks down a level each and moving Unstoppable up to 6th would spread the abilities more evenly.

Thanks for the feeback.

Definitely need more bonus feats, no argument there. Some suggestions for potential bonus feats would be good, as well as some homebrew feats to compliment the class would be nice as well.

Keep in mind, the temporary hp doesn't stack with itself. So it's a use it or lose it sort of thing.

Relentless Rage could use some rewording. I want something that covers most everything, but at the same time I don't want the silliness associated with Iron Heart Surge.

Mm. Making the middle levels more interesting would definitely be good.

Surgo
2009-12-20, 12:44 AM
Rage duration: Do you seriously want people to sit down at the table and do math that's harder than basic addition/subtraction or multiplication of numbers less than 10? 1 minute is 10 rounds anyway, which is what you get at level 1, and that's longer than any combat. That should be rewritten.

Secondly, you're clearly giving the strength bonus for damage only. Instead of doing that and also hitting with a negative penalty to hit, which seems a bit of a counter-intuitive way to do things, why not go along the lines of rage dice (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Barbarian,_Tome_%283.5e_Class%29)? That could also help keep damage in line -- you can combine that strength with some ridiculous charge feats to multiply it by something like ridiculous. Using dice keeps that sort of thing in line, because dice never get multiplied. You could apply some bonus to breaking stuff too (I recommend "ignores hardness" after a certain level).

Extreme Toughness is a silly scale. I'm not sure what +40 hit points is supposed to do at level 20; I mean, by that point you might as well not have them.

Apalala
2009-12-20, 01:10 AM
The reason the rage duration scales up so big is so that a PC has the option of using rage outside of combat. So if a barbarian wants to clean the Augean stables in one day or redirect the course of a river or any other prolonged feat of strength, he can.

The strength bonus is there for all things related to strength, EXCEPT for the bonuses to attack. The enhanced strength boosts damage, combat maneuver checks like grappling, carrying and lifting capacity, the ability to break things with a strength check, etc. Looking through the charge feats from Crystal Keep, the only really easy to abuse charging feat are those that multiply Power Attack damage. This barbarian is actually much worse at power attacking than the standard barbarian, since it doesn't get any bonuses to attack from rage and strength boosting magic items.

For the Extreme Toughness, it can technically be boosted up to 80 hitpoints at level 20, but yeah, that's a really suboptimal choice. Perhaps make Invincible Rage triple the bonus? Hmm.

Surgo
2009-12-20, 01:22 AM
Throw Spirited Charge at it alone, and it gets x3 to all that bonus strength damage. That's without even leaving core. And then there's various crap you can do to your weapon to boost that multiplier even higher.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-12-20, 01:48 AM
Keep in mind, the temporary hp doesn't stack with itself. So it's a use it or lose it sort of thing.

It is use-it-or-lose-it, but a renewable temp HP buffer is essentially giving it DR (levelx2)/-- against one attack per round. The core barbarian's existing DR is pitiful, yes, but expanding it by that margin is a bit much. Keep in mind that I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea to have it, just a bad idea to give that all at 2nd level; getting some temp HP at 2nd and then scaling it up should be fine.

Apalala
2009-12-20, 02:23 AM
Throw Spirited Charge at it alone, and it gets x3 to all that bonus strength damage. That's without even leaving core. And then there's various crap you can do to your weapon to boost that multiplier even higher.

Hmm. Looking through the feats, the real problem is Shock Trooper. Full Power Attack bonuses for a penalty to an AC that doesn't scale anyways. Yikes. At level ten, that's minus 10 for 20 for a twohander, 30 with leap attack, and then 90 with spirited charge. Of course, that's not unique to the barbarian at all.

Hmm. The obvious quick fix is "While raging, you can't use power attack.", but that's hardly elegant.

Milskidasith
2009-12-20, 02:26 AM
Hmm. Looking through the feats, the real problem is Shock Trooper. Full Power Attack bonuses for a penalty to an AC that doesn't scale anyways. Yikes. At level ten, that's minus 10 for 20 for a twohander, 30 with leap attack, and then 90 with spirited charge. Of course, that's not unique to the barbarian at all.

Hmm. The obvious quick fix is "While raging, you can't use power attack.", but that's hardly elegant.

So you want a barbarian that loses attack bonus but gets large numbers, but you don't want larger numbers? I don't get it.

Melee sucks enough anyway; let them be halfway decent at the one thing they can do.

Apalala
2009-12-20, 02:38 AM
So you want a barbarian that loses attack bonus but gets large numbers, but you don't want larger numbers? I don't get it.

Melee sucks enough anyway; let them be halfway decent at the one thing they can do.

Too much of a good thing. Ideally, I would want to create a character that has an average of 50% success versus challenges of an equal CR. Laughable, I know, but I can dream...

Milskidasith
2009-12-20, 03:20 AM
Too much of a good thing. Ideally, I would want to create a character that has an average of 50% success versus challenges of an equal CR. Laughable, I know, but I can dream...

CR is a borked system... good luck finding anything that has a chance against a lantern archon at level 2, a revived fossil baboon at level 1, an allip at level 3 (IIRC), that damn crab at level 3 (IIRC), or a Clockwork Horror at level 9.

Apalala
2009-12-20, 03:53 AM
CR is a borked system... good luck finding anything that has a chance against a lantern archon at level 2, a revived fossil baboon at level 1, an allip at level 3 (IIRC), that damn crab at level 3 (IIRC), or a Clockwork Horror at level 9.

Ugh, yes. Bloody crab. Still, it's the closest thing I have to a benchmark with this.

Milskidasith
2009-12-20, 10:37 AM
Ugh, yes. Bloody crab. Still, it's the closest thing I have to a benchmark with this.

The benchmarks are wildly off... what you should do is balance it to be as strong as the warblade.

Surgo
2009-12-20, 11:17 AM
The Same Game Test (CR) is the only reliable way to measure character power, and I commend the OP for using it. The benchmarks of the SRD monsters are certainly not "off", and every monster of CR X can be beaten by some PC level X. The important part is where any PC can't beat more than 50% of the monsters (not true for a wizard, but they are overpowered anyway).

If you want big but not too big melee numbers, I re-recommend the suggestion of rage dice.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-12-20, 11:31 AM
If you want big but not too big melee numbers, I re-recommend the suggestion of rage dice.

The other option is simply to add a flat bonus to damage and Str checks; that accomplishes everything the "-attack, +Str" model does except carrying capacity, but really most people handwave encumbrance anyway.

Apalala
2009-12-20, 12:12 PM
There are a few problems with rage dice. First, they apply on every attack you make, and so encourage you to make as many as possible. It would feel a little weird if a barbarians best weapons were dual-wielded acid flasks. Second, they have the same damage progression as sneak attack, which means you're stepping on toes then.

If I went the rage dice route, I'd probably make it so that they only applied to one attack per round, and then cranked up the damage accordingly. Still, adding rage dice, then making rage activate rage dice, boost grapple and combat maneuver checks, strength checks, skill checks...

Effectively, that would be "Increase your strength by this much, then subtract that amount from your attack bonus and melee damage."

Honestly, I still believe power attack is the only thing that breaks the build. Without that one feat, this barbarian is probably going to do LESS damage than an optimized srd barbarian or rogue. In terms of logic, a line could be added to rage along the lines of "A barbarian puts his full strength behind each and every blow. Therefore, he can not trade accuracy for increased power using power attack."

If an optimizer wants to show me how wrong that is, by say, comparing the damage output of a the two barbarians and a rogue at level 10, I'd appreciate it.

Surgo
2009-12-20, 03:34 PM
I'll do that later when I have a bit more time on my hands, but rage dice can just be said to apply "only to attacks granted by your Base Attack Bonus" and you'll be able to avoid that problem.

Milskidasith
2009-12-20, 03:50 PM
The Same Game Test (CR) is the only reliable way to measure character power, and I commend the OP for using it. The benchmarks of the SRD monsters are certainly not "off", and every monster of CR X can be beaten by some PC level X. The important part is where any PC can't beat more than 50% of the monsters (not true for a wizard, but they are overpowered anyway).

You're kidding, right? CR is a completely horrible system. Even melee monsters with no amazing special abilities are CR'd terribly (Revived Fossil Baboon at CR 1, That Damn Crab at level 3, the Tarrasque over CR'd at 20, etc.)

erikun
2009-12-20, 05:05 PM
First, I find it amusing that a 250th level barbarian can sleep for 8 hours and still be fatigued. Of course, they can rage for over 8 hours straight too, but that's not the point.

Characters who don't fatigue can rage 24/7, so go Necropolitan Barbarians! Also, if you don't want big numbers, you probably shouldn't be handing out 74 STR or more to characters.

Why not just call Gorilla Grip "Powerful Build" and be finished with it? I mean, they're basically the same, and the +4 to grappling checks is largely overshadowed by the STR bonus to rages at that point. It will also stop people from thinking that they can stack the two abilities.

For that matter, I'm not quite clear if Leverage applies to Bull Rush (Tackle) and Sunder attempts, with the appropriate tricks.

Apalala
2009-12-20, 05:52 PM
First, I find it amusing that a 250th level barbarian can sleep for 8 hours and still be fatigued. Of course, they can rage for over 8 hours straight too, but that's not the point.

Characters who don't fatigue can rage 24/7, so go Necropolitan Barbarians! Also, if you don't want big numbers, you probably shouldn't be handing out 74 STR or more to characters.

Why not just call Gorilla Grip "Powerful Build" and be finished with it? I mean, they're basically the same, and the +4 to grappling checks is largely overshadowed by the STR bonus to rages at that point. It will also stop people from thinking that they can stack the two abilities.

For that matter, I'm not quite clear if Leverage applies to Bull Rush (Tackle) and Sunder attempts, with the appropriate tricks.

A feat to reduce the downtime from raging would probably be good. And big numbers are fine, within reason. The barbarian should be able to take out a beefy monster in 1-4 turns, with most of those being 2 or 3. So at say, level 15, the barbarian should be dealing somewhere between 60 and 120 damage.

At level 15, three attacks. Say a +15 strength bonus (18base+22rage=40strength) to damage with rage, plus the 5d6 from a huge weapon, plus 7 for using a two-hander, that would average out to 39.5 damage per swing. A magic weapon will almost certainly be needed for helping to overcome damage reduction, so the average damage would probably be closer to 45 or 50. The barbarian has 3 attacks, but I would reckon that with the barbarian having a harder time raising his attack bonus, two would hit on average, and only one getting through would not be unheard of. So he could deal anywhere between 50 and 150 damage on a full attack. Something like Spirited Charge would make for triple damage with one attack, but doing so requires a mount, which can be impractical. Without factoring in a magic weapon, he'd deal about 120 with a spirited charge.

Okay, looking at the core barbarian briefly. 2d6 weapon with a strength of (18base+6rage+6amulet) 30 for +10 bonus damage, +5 for a two-hander. Barbarian has +6 more attack, so will swing with the same attack as the homebrew if he takes 6 off with PA, adding +12 damage, for an average of 34 damage, 5.5 less than the homebrew. Add in a magic weapon and that'll make the comparison 44 to 49.5. Then add in shock trooper, and the barbarian can charge with that extra +6 attack and +30 damage from power attack, so 52 damage on a hit, before magic weapons, and with shock trooper, that becomes 156, without a magic weapon.

Again, all this assumes that the homebrew barbarian can't use power attack.

edit- Oh, and about Leverage. It lets you wield bigger weapons, and it use your maneuvers against larger opponents. So you can go from hurling large enemies to huge ones to gargantuan ones. What it doesn't do is give you a +4 size category bonus when you do those things. Probably need to reword it to be clearer.

Apalala
2009-12-23, 10:02 PM
Okay, made some changes, mostly to get rid of the dead levels. Increases the power level a wee bit. Thoughts?

Raiki
2009-12-25, 06:39 PM
I like it. I think that it definately brings Barb up a tier or two. I adopted the "Feat Tree" fighter variant that Yakk posted here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132240) awhile back, and I've been looking for something to bring the Barbarian up to snuff too. I think I might just steal this.

Now all I need are variants for the Ranger, Paladin, and sorcerer that make THEM useful. I've given up on the monk and bard...

~R~

edited because I apparently forgot how insert links...silly Raiki

Apalala
2009-12-25, 08:38 PM
I like it. I think that it definately brings Barb up a tier or two. I adopted the "Feat Tree" fighter variant that Yakk posted here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132240) awhile back, and I've been looking for something to bring the Barbarian up to snuff too. I think I might just steal this.

Now all I need are variants for the Ranger, Paladin, and sorcerer that make THEM useful. I've given up on the monk and bard...

~R~

edited because I apparently forgot how insert links...silly Raiki

Thanks. I'd love to hear how it fares in your game. Also, I've put up a "finished" version, getting rid of that last dead level at 12. Looking at the class, it seems fun. I've got a level 6 campaign I'm playing in, so hopefully I'll be able to test it out and see how it works in action.

Lappy9000
2009-12-25, 11:22 PM
I really like this. It takes the most awesome of the barbarian, and makes it barbarier! :smallcool:

Although I personally would stick with a more simple system for the maths, as well as including only core bonus feats (or at least listing where the feats came from), I'm sure it serves your purposes well enough.

Oh, and I wanna see a warforged barbarian use Hurl Alley with a longclaw shifter :smallbiggrin:

Apalala
2009-12-25, 11:41 PM
Glad you like it. I should cite the feats, you're right. How would you suggest I simplify the math though?

Raiki
2009-12-26, 10:13 PM
Well, I've re-read the class, and I really think that banning power attack really isn't necessary. If someone wants to do a nigh-infinite damage attack, there are ways. People who try to break the game will succeed, no matter how hard to try to stop them. Barring PA is just telling all the players who just really really want to play a normal barbarian (read NOT lion totem, mounted, shocktrooper-ing cheese-monkey) that they can't have one of their coolest toys.

Honestly, even WITH all the added charge abuses, the barbarian STILL only excels at doing HP damage, so the party Psion/Wizard/Sorc/Cleric/Druid/Factotum/Binder/pretty much anything will still be breaking the game much harder.

Anyway, those are my two dragons coppers.

~Raiki~

Apalala
2009-12-26, 10:26 PM
I still like it. With power attack, the barbarian's damage per round soars past the rogues, shock trooper or no. Without it, it can still kill just about any beefy monster in two or three rounds.

Fruchtkracher
2009-12-27, 05:09 AM
Removing power attack while raging makes absolutely no sense fluff-wise.
I mean come on, when I'm angry and hitting things harder and had a way to STILL hit harder I'd definitely use that.
Maybe you could simply ban the use of shook trooper during rage, would fit better and would (I think) not imbalance anything at all. Though it would reduce the use of shook trooper during the HD^2 minutes (:smalleek:) of rage each day.
Holy Rah! HD^2 minutes! That's like 400 minutes at lvl 20, or 4000 rounds of rage! have fun counting that down :smalltongue:

Besides, the boni Unstoppable grants probably won't be around too long, with the over 90% of total hit points.

Apalala
2009-12-27, 11:25 AM
Removing power attack while raging makes absolutely no sense fluff-wise.
I mean come on, when I'm angry and hitting things harder and had a way to STILL hit harder I'd definitely use that.
Maybe you could simply ban the use of shook trooper during rage, would fit better and would (I think) not imbalance anything at all. Though it would reduce the use of shook trooper during the HD^2 minutes (:smalleek:) of rage each day.
Holy Rah! HD^2 minutes! That's like 400 minutes at lvl 20, or 4000 rounds of rage! have fun counting that down :smalltongue:

Besides, the boni Unstoppable grants probably won't be around too long, with the over 90% of total hit points.

The way I see the fluff, you are angry and hitting things as hard as you can. Power attack is all about giving up precision for extra power, but the barbarian doesn't have any precision to off. Each and every swing is already as hard and powerful as he can do. Ah well. If people want to waive the power attack restriction, there is nothing stopping them really.

Unstoppable works while he has 90% of his hp OR at least one temporary hit point from his extreme toughness ability. It's possible to negate it, but not too easy.