The Barbarian Horde (Throughout Editions)

One of my criticisms about Next is the lack of being able to make meaningful decisions both when building a character and during level up, as most levels of most classes have predetermined class features.

Sure at 2nd- or 3rd-level you get to pick a kind of theme (which you may not agree with), but this one choice predetermines everything else you get for the rest of the game. This is not only boring, but limits a class to one interpretation of a concept and makes it needlessly more difficult–if not impossible–for a player to build the character that they want.

To better illustrate my point I decided to compare the barbarian class in 3rd Edition, 4th Edition, 5th Edition, and 13th Age.

3RD EDITION
You get fast movement (+10 ft. speed when not in heavy armor) and can rage once per day (bonus to attack, damage, and Will saves). For some reason you cannot read or write unless you spend two skill points. The only thing you can customize here is how you distribute your skill points and where to spend a feat.

An example of several half-orc barbarians.

4TH EDITION

All barbarians gain a scaling bonus to AC and Reflex when not in heavy armor, rage strike (which lets you keep using daily attacks without losing the benefits of a previously activated one if you do not want to), and Rampage (if you score a critical hit, you get to make a free attack).

From there you choose from one of four Feral Might options: Rageblood is your more straightforward beat ’em up type, Thaneborn is if you want to be a leader, Thunderborn have strong ties to thunder-based primal spirits, and Whirling is for dual-wielders. Each class feature gives you a unique ability, and can potentially grant bonuses to certain thematically appropriate evocations.

You also get to choose four evocations at the start: two can be used at any time, one can be used once per battle, and one–the “rage” powers–can be used each day. Rages tend to deal a lot of damage and grant continuous effects for the remainder of the battle.

Like 3rd Edition you still get to choose skills and a feat. Unlike 3rd Edition feats can give you both skills and limited access to features from another class (further expanding customization).

5TH EDITION

Speaking of 3rd Edition, the 5th Edition version is much the same in that you do not get to choose anything, at least at the start: at 3rd-level you get to choose from one of two features that lock a group of five options for the rest of the game (you cannot pick from both trees). Feats are optional, but can add some much needed customization if you use them, and skills are throttled into two “fields of lore”.

More half-orc barbarians.

13TH AGE
You start with rage, because all barbarians must rage, but get to pick three barbarian talents from a list of six. The amount of talents you know increases as you level, with levels 5 and 8 adding two more to the list. Instead of skills you spend 8 background points on aspects of your character that make the most sense to you (up to a +5 bonus). They are not linked to ability scores. You get to spend a feat, and while there are general ones race and class talents can also be boosted with them, too.

FINAL VERDICT

3rd and 5th Edition come in miles behind 4th Edition and 13th Age, which are both about the same in my book: I love the amount of options and flexibility that 4th Edition gives you, but the sheer number that you start with and the amount you will end up with can make it cumbersome for some players to keep track of. 13th Age slims down character options, while still giving you almost complete control of the reins, making it ideal for players that want control without all the content.

If you wanted to make things even simpler you could take a page from Dungeon World, having most classes start with the same stuff, but you get to pick what you gain as you level up. We just played our first session of Numenera last night, and building characters was a snap despite being able to actually pick some things. I do not think it is as difficult or cumbersome as it sounds. Why not at least give it a shot?

Legends & Lore: This Week in D&D

The newly focused Legends & Lore debut topics include Weather & Warriors, with a few paragraphs at the end about rules complexity and future packet updates.

If and how I use the weather can vary quite a bit from adventure to adventure. Usually it functions as window dressing, but sometimes I throw in rain or snow to limit visibility (which can work in the characters’ favor), or make it difficult to climb (or even move, in the case of ice).

I tend to emphasize it more in Dark Sun, what with its focus on survival due to the inhospital everything and lack of food and water. I am a fan of tables, and have used random weather before, I just prefer that its mechanical impact does not require too much bookkeeping.

Of greater interest is the plan to change fighter maneuvers so that they are an additive to damage, instead of forcing you to choose between dealing damage–generally considered the more optimal option, as it tends to be the fastest track towards the dead condition–or doing something interesting. The small paragraph on how this works reminds me of the warblade from 3rd Edition’s Book of Nine Swords, where you had a list of maneuvers that you could use once, but you could use a standard action to make a normal, run-of-the-mill melee attack to refresh them all.

The summary here is that you get a pool of dice that represents skill and energy, which you to perform maneuvers, and can use an action to take a break and regain some of it. I am curious that if scaling damage is going to become its own thing, why they have to use dice at all? I do like the mention of spending an action just to regain some of it, as opposed to all, as it forces the player to choose how much energy she wants to use at a given time. I am curious if the fighter will still get to make an attack (like the warblade), if you get a defense bonus, or what.

I wonder if there will be any class features or feats that let you regain expertise, such as by defeating a monster, parrying an attack, landing a critical hit, etc.

As for the bit on spending feats to open up maneuvers, I am not sure what to think: most 3rd Edition feats that I remember were pretty meh, often giving you a small numerical boost to something (Weapon/Spell Focus), or giving you access to a highly situational ability (Cometary Collision), though some, like the Reserve feats from Complete Mage, were pretty cool.

To be fair 4th Edition had its share of boring, arguably mandatory math-boosters (such as anything Expertise), but there were also many more that shook up both your race and class features (such as Agile Superiority and Defensive Bluff for fighters and halflings respectively), as well as let you combine certain races and classes in thematic ways (such as Distracting Challenge for gnome paladins).

At the least 5th Edition has more hits than misses for me (I wish Arcane Dabbler let you choose your cantrips). Granted there are not many to choose from, and it is still in its playtesting phase, so hopefully we will avoid an insurgence of +x to y feats, and whatever maneuvers you end up being able to purchase are worth the cost (or trap choices).

The last part mentions rules, rules complexity, DM styles, stuff that we have already heard about plenty of times by now. As I have said before I like the idea of being able to set the bar on rules complexity, but am still waiting for an actual example to see how they are implementing it. Hopefully when we get the exploration rules that they come with a “dial’ for people to mess with.

Legends & Lore: A Change in Format

It looks like Legends & Lore is switching focus from the overall bigger picture to a weekly progress update, so we will see what that entails next week. Hopefully this includes flavor and crunch previews.

While we did not get the exploration rules in the latest packet–which, I was not aware we were supposed to get–Mearls states that they will be in the next one. The brief overview he does provide sounds similar to how it works in Dungeon World: when you are traveling, each character gets a job, either trailblazer, scout, or quartermaster. You then make a Wisdom check (roll+WIS), with success or failure affecting what happens during the trip.

The exploration rules in Next will provide more structure while exploring. Turns are a thing, and there will be sets of actions that characters can perform such as making a map, checking for traps, and watching for monsters. I remember having to actually draw out maps based on DM instructions in 2nd Edition, but I am curious as to how making a map will be handled, what benefits it will provide, and how this will all be abstracted (if need be). There are also guidelines for pace and random encounters. He mentions that they were handy when he ran Isle of Dread, so I will probably give that another shot when the next packet is released.

The few reactions I have seen towards the barbarian unanimously agree that it is a bigger, better fighter, which is why it looks like they are going to rein it in, while making the fighter more flexible.

My in-play observations are that most of the time it is just a bit tougher at the start (something like 2 hit points), and more straight-forward due to a lack of maneuvers. Reckless Attack has some situational use depending on a lot of factors, including the number, type, offensive/defensive capabilities, and position of enemies. Rage changes this up, making the barbarian much tougher, more accurate, with just a bit of extra damage output.

How much better, I think ultimately depends on how many encounters you throw at your party in a day. If they run into one random encounter each day while traveling well, then the barbarian is probably going to easily outshine the fighter. The same goes if they are freely exploring a dungeon with largely static threats and no time constraints; if they can come and go as they please, then there is little incentive to keep going when their rages run out.

In other words, it can create the same problem some groups have with clerics/wizards, per-day spells, and the 15-minute workday, except now there is a third class lobbying in their corner.

I have said before that I would prefer the barbarian to have some mechanic that lets her accumulate dice/tokens/points on a round-by-round basis, that let her deal bonus damage, shrug off damage, activate more supernatural powers (like 4th Edition barbarians). Couple this with terrain-based features from 4th Edition’s berserker and I think you have a very solid, very unique class from the fighter.

As a final note, those massive battle rules sound pretty interesting. I have never run a war campaign, but getting to test new rules sounds like a great opportunity to try that out.

D&D Next: Barbarian

Clarifications are all well and good, changes to spell durations perhaps less so, and conversion notes for a D&D Encounters adventure are nice if you happen to have it (though personally I feel that I put way more effort into my adventure conversion), but really the big thing about this playtest packet is the barbarian class.

A reliance on Strength and Constitution, d12 Hit Die, and some kind of rage mechanic are to be expected. Like the fighter (and the rogue and monk), the barbarian is great with weapons, starting with a bonus to attack rolls and Martial Damage Dice right from the get-go (and, obviously, it scales at the same rate).

The other starting features let you add your Constitution modifier to Armor Class when you are not wearing armor, and when you are not raging you can make an attack with advantage at the cost of granting everyone else attacks with advantage against you for a turn.

The most complex class feature is rage. You can rage twice per day at the start, which grants you advantage on Strength-based attacks, checks, and saves, a scaling bonus to damage rolls, and resistance to non-magical damage. The downside is that you cannot rake reactions, and if you do not attack the rage ends.

As you level up you gain fast movement, roll twice for initiative and take the best result, have essentially zombie durability (make Constitution saves to stay at 1 hit point regardless of damage, though the save DC increases each time), negate surprise, regenerate hit points when you are at less than half, and more.

Like the 3rd Edition barbarian there are no decision points, which is fine because as Mearls said this would be a kind of early draft; customization–such as modifying how rage works and some awesome-sounding shapechanging stuff–would come later.

My initial reaction is that while the barbarian is tough and powerful, it does not deliver anything we have not already seen. Actually thanks to 4th Edition’s barbarian and berserker it would have to deliver quite a bit in order to meet or exceed my expectations. Again, it is an early draft, so this might change depending on what options eventually crop up. Lack of options aside, another reason for my reaction is rage, specifically everything about it.

It is not that I am not surprised by the decision to make a rage a limited-duration, daily resource, as it makes it easy to manage, but that also makes it unexciting for me: you activate it, get a bonus for an encounter, and that is it. Diablo III‘s barbarian had a mechanic where you build up “rage” through successive attacks. The more you hit, the higher it got and the better special attacks you could trigger. Out of combat it gradually depleted, so you had an incentive to stay in the thick of it hewing through enemies as fast as you can.

Iron Heroes had a token system that operated in a similar manner: a berserker would build up fury tokens by killing enemies, getting hit, and spending actions to basically psyche yourself up, and spend them to trigger your abilities. If they want to stick with dice, you could give the barbarian a dice cap, and require her to skill enemies to get hit in order to build them up, spending them to deal bonus damage, make extra attacks, inflict an automatic critical hit, absorb damage, and so on. To me this seems a lot more dynamic and interesting .

A concern that I have seen is if the barbarian is better than the fighter. It has more hit points, and since it can combine Dexterity and Constitution to determine Armor Class it is a pretty simple feat to match even a fully-armored fighter at the start, and you do not have to spend anything to get it. Rage provides a massive combat bonus for basically the entire encounter if you can keep attacking, which may end up contributing to the 15-minute workday (especially since wizards also get only two spells per day).

At any rate I plan on giving it a gauntlet-style run sometime this week in order to see how it plays, as well as compare it to a fighter. Maybe several fighter builds, just to see how sword and board, two-handers, and dual-wielders match up.

D&D Next: Barbarian Homebrew

This is based on the 4th Edition barbarian in that it channels spirits, but because I do not like per-day resource management figured I would try something that I think makes a bit more sense; when you hit a barbarian, they get angrier and can hit you back a lot harder (which hopefully balances out with the fighter, who gets static damage bonuses). I also wanted to incorporate Heartlands from Heroes of the Feywild, but figured that would frontload the class a bit too much. The main issue I am having is how to make the wolf companion work better, though if its an issue you could just swap it out for Endurance.

BARBARIAN

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• Hit Die d12
• Weapon Proficiencies Simple Melee, Military Melee
• Armor Proficiencies Light, Medium, and Shields
• Class Features Rage, Mighty Strike, Spirit Totem

Rage: Every time an enemy hits you with an attack, you gain a rage point. Rage points can be spent to increase your damage and activate spirit boons. They last until the end of the encounter or you fall unconscious.

Mighty Strike: When you make a melee attack on your turn, before making the attack roll you can spend any number of rage points. If the attack hits, you deal bonus damage equal to the number of rage points spent.

Wolf Totem: I like the idea that barbarians are able to draw power from spirit totems. At 1st-level your speed increases by 10 feet when wearing light or no armor, and 5 feet when wearing medium armor. You are also considered trained in Stealth, and gain a +3 bonus to it.

BACKGROUND: HUNTER
Natural Lore +3
Perception +3
Survival +3

Animal Companion: You gain a wolf companion. Not sure how to make this work with the action economy. Maybe something like per-encounter/day reactions, have it do “instinctive actions”, or just grant bonus damage when flanking a target with the barbarian.

THEME: SLAYER 
This is on the fighter sheet, and I think it works out well enough.

Level 2 (2,000 XP)
Increase your total Hit Dice to 2d12. Increase your maximum hit points by 6. You gain Takedown spirit boon.
Takedown (wolf totem): When you are flanking a creature or have attack advantage against it, you can spend 3 rage before making a melee attack. If the attack hits, the target is also knocked prone if it is your size or smaller.

Level 3 (6,000 XP)
Increase your total Hit Dice to 3d12. Increase your maximum hit points by 6. When you roll initiative you gain one rage point.

Other Class Features
Spending rage points to gain advantage when making ability checks, skill checks, and saves, as well as impose disadvantage when things try to oppose some of your checks, damage resistance, other special attacks. Spirit totems could also grant abilities usable independant of rage points, such as a wolf totem making it so that certain skill checks gain the rogue’s Skill Mastery, or a hawk totem allowing you to fly x times per day.

Class Acts: The Ruthless Reach

Blackdirge did a fine job in the past writing the only Chaos Scar adventures that I give two shits about, so I’m eager to see how he handles mechanics.

The Ruthless Reach Barbarian presents an array of evocations that only work with reach weaponry (because, you know, they all have a Requirement line demanding as such). However its not enough to just say, “you need to be packing a polearm,” though. Well designed powers will have mechanics that back it up, and most of them do.

I’m just really fucking confused why the article is about polearm barbarians, and we get a picture of some crazy dwarf with a sword. *shrugs*

There are nine powers, including a new at-will called savage reach. Its not a reach attack, and it doesnt increase your reach in some bizarre way. Its more or less a simple evocation that deals base weapon damage in addition to a slide kicker. I find it similar in power to pressing attack, you just dont get to shift and slide instead of pushing. So, its good and also maintains the polearm theme of being able to knock opponents around.

About half the new powers follow this easy-to-remember theme: do something nifty and add in some forced movement. I’m not surprised by this and actually come to expect it for manners of consistency. It allows me to assess the kind of weapon that I want to use on the faith that the exploits, prayers, or whatever will back up my choice. Spears push. Its what they do. Make sure if you are making powers with that in mind that you stick to those tenants kplzthx.

Some however do things a biiit differently but still remind you that you’re packing a spear in terms of mechanics. For example, room for carnage is a level 1 encounter attack with an effect that autopushes adjacent creatures and then lets you follow up with an attack. Slashing tornado rage hits every enemy within 2 squares, and also auto-damages enemies within 2 squares whenever you act. That “2 square” range thing? Yeah. That helps. I like that. Still feels like a polearm, just via different rules.

The trio of feats only work when you are using a reach weapon (obviously), and are really badass. One makes all your attacks brutal while raging, while the other two let you deal bonus damage against creatures at least 2 squares away when you use either rage strike or Rampage.

Well done. Fits a narrow niche, but at least does it extremely well. Unfortunately while I enjoy barbarians I dont particularly care for spears/polearms for aesthetic reasons. I think that he should do an article that makes warlord/infernal pact warlocks much more enticing. >_>

Generic Human Barbarian

A simple-but-effective human barbarian to compliment Greywulf’s character concept render.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Human Barbarian, level 1
Human, Barbarian
Feral Might: Rageblood Vigor
Background: Geography – Mountains (+2 to Athletics)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 18, Con 15, Dex 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 11.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 16, Con 15, Dex 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 11.

AC: 16 Fort: 17 Reflex: 14 Will: 11
HP: 30 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS
Perception +5, Intimidate +5, Athletics +10, Endurance +6

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +1, Arcana -1, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Heal, History -1, Insight, Nature, Religion -1, Stealth +1, Streetwise, Thievery +1

FEATS
Human: Action Surge
Level 1: Deadly Rage

POWERS
Barbarian at-will 1: Devastating Strike
Barbarian at-will 1: Recuperating Strike
Bonus At-Will Power: Howling Strike
Barbarian encounter 1: Avalanche Strike
Barbarian daily 1: Bloodhunt Rage

ITEMS
Adventurer’s Kit, Hide Armor, Greataxe
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======

Jaroo, Gnome Barbarian

Jaroo belongs to the Ghost-Stalker clan, which relies on their limited invisibility to hunt and kill. Since gnomes get a Charisma bonus, I decided to go with the thaneblood class feature with the intention to later multiclass into shaman, bard, or perhaps sorcerer (to bank on the magical aptitude that the race possesses). To this end I cranked up Charisma quite a bit higher than I expected, which synergizes extremely well with thaneblood.

In the beginning, I just had an image of a gnome with wild hair and a cracked, bone-white mask, packing a humongous sword. Initially my only concern was to just give him a Strength of 16 and call it good, figuring that everything else is gravy. However, in the end I thought more and more about it and the concept started to solidify into something more than just a random race and class combination.

This is a character that I would absolutely love to play. Its a gnome that plays like a gnome would, but not like gnomes I expect to see (and certainly not a gag character). At this stage he’s up and running, but perhaps not as optimized as he could be. I dont expect to use complicated tactics, and in fact would possibly attempt to provoke an opportunity attack just to gain invisibility for an encounter or daily attack (assuming he hasnt gotten smacked already).

Jaroo, level 1
Gnome, Barbarian
Feral Might: Thaneborn Triumph

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 16, Con 15, Dex 13, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 15.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 16, Con 16, Dex 13, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 11.

AC: 15 Fort: 15 Reflex: 12 Will: 11
HP: 31 Surges: 11 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS
Intimidate +6, Endurance +7, Athletics +7

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics, Arcana +3, Bluff +1, Diplomacy +1, Dungeoneering -1, Heal -1, History +1, Insight -1, Nature -1, Perception -1, Religion +1, Stealth +2, Streetwise +1, Thievery

FEATS
Level 1: Weapon Proficiency (Bastard sword)

POWERS
Barbarian at-will 1: Devastating Strike
Barbarian at-will 1: Howling Strike
Barbarian encounter 1: Vault the Fallen
Barbarian daily 1: Swift Panther Rage

ITEMS
Bastard sword, Hide Armor, Adventurer’s Kit