Barbarians(Again)

[Mechaviking]

Am I the only one who thinks Barbarians should have gotten the Brute power monsters have instead of the increased critical nonsense?

Instead of getting improved criticals(which they are in no way shape or form specced for) they get extra weapon damage dice.

Is it me or would that make them more mechanically thematic?

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

While it would definitely lead to a lot more greataxe wielding Barbarians, I'm not sure it's balanced. You'd either need to push it way up in level as a feature, or give up something on top of Brutal Critical.

[silveralen]

As a level 11 feature it'd be very powerful, beats paladin's, is hard to compare with ranger's, and honestly might be better than fighter's if you maximized off round attacks/got haste.

So no, I feel like not getting that was a very intelligent choice. I wouldn't have minded them getting improved critical somewhere along the line though.

[Mechaviking]

/Rant

If you want to go for crits your probably way better off playing a half orc greatweapon champion fighter.

Although you have about the same chance of critting since you can reckless attack

But think about it:

Barbarian Gets it at lvl 9 while its a racial feature for Half Orc. Sounds like a raw deal for me especially since I´ve been playing a half orc Paladin and I´ve rolled that extra dice all of 2 times.

It seems to me that the reason to play barbarian is mostly fluff, you can´t even use your rage out of combat until LVL 15.

Barbarian is about as tough as a fighter(less AC more hp and resistance while raging)

Barbarian can choose to be more accurate than a fighter(unless battlemaster in which case we call it even, but at the cost of AC)

Barbarian and fighter use mostly the same feats and weapons(not that theres a problem there there rarely is a Barbarian and fighter in the same group)

Now that I list it He doesn´t seem to be lacking that much but that´s mostly because of the first 5 lvls or so but it feels like a lvl 9 feature that happens once every 20 rolls or so(about once per session she is ofcourse a fickle mistress) is kind of a wash, the fifth level spell all the casters get are going to happen twice as often(this is not a fair comparison).

The only comparable feature that happens at this level is indomitable for fighter which is more of a safety net but still about to be used twice as often.

Let´s say a hypothetical advancement

Barbarian lvl 9: Brute
Barbarian lvl 13: ??? (siege monster equivalent)
Barbarian lvl 17: ??? (Legendary resistance 1/Long Rest)

I have no idea what the latter 2 would do but probably give some sort of utility just something off the top of my head could probably find something more useful and or fluffy also probably move Brute from lvl 9 to 13 so that multiclass fighter barbarian could not get it.

Just something other than:

lvl 9: Hey this is so and so and happens once every 20 rolls or so
lvl 13: Hey that thing that is so and so every 20 rolls is now ok
lvl 17: Hey this can maybe save the campaign every 20 rolls or so hope you roll it on a fresh mob at the start of combat, ohh and its better than it was but still bland as hell

Not that its bad its just... bland and uninteresting.

Guess its no wonder all of the characters in my current campaigns can cast spells.

/Rant off

[bloodshed343]

Instead of Brute giving an additional weapon dice, have it add a flat d6/d8/d10 to damage. That way it's not adding a d12 at level 9, which would be too much.

[Mechaviking]

Instead of Brute giving an additional weapon dice, have it add a flat d6/d8/d10 to damage. That way it's not adding a d12 at level 9, which would be too much.

Or that :D

I just mined brute out of the MM as an example