Quote Originally Posted by punchbeard View Post
Anyhow, what I'm hearing is a bit disheartening. Barbarian doesn't scale much past level 5? How do I keep up scale to the other players?

Aha, the broadsword is stabbed into the other foot now! All teasing aside, I agree with Lerondiel - good on you for being more team-oriented.

The thing about scaling is that, at early levels, damage output may be king, but at later levels, versatility has more value than DPR. Being able to lock down enemies, or take them out without getting in their faces, is incredibly useful, as are other tools like invisibility, flight, teleportation, speaking languages, having extensive knowledge skills; basically all the stuff casters embarrass the rest of the party doing.

Now, the PF Barbarian is, at least in my opinion, a big improvement over the 3.5 Barbarian, who was basically a walking beatstick with rage and some useful ACFs. Rage powers are awesome, and some of them do help with versatility. For example, Come and Get Me is awesome for supporting the party, Dragon Totem Wings and Raging Flier can grant temporary flight, Ghost Rager bypasses incorporeality, and Energy Eruption gives you a breath weapon. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Rage Powers tend to boil down to "hit things harder" and the occasional "don't get hit as hard." There's not a lot of versatility, and most of your effectiveness comes from face smashing.

Consider the fact that at high levels, you're dealing with enemies that can lock you down just as effectively as your casters can lock them down. If a caster is immobilized, he can still cast; if a Barbarian is locked down, he can barely do much at all (unless he has a bow or a few ranged tricks). If a caster is completely locked down, he can often use spells to wriggle out and keep casting; if a Barbarian is locked down, he can't do much at all, full stop.

Your allies might be a bit behind right now, but give them time, and they'll shine all on their own.

They grow up so fast, y'know.