shouldn't barbarians be tier 3?

[grimbold]

So according to the tier system tier 3 is

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when

that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as

classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that

can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with.

Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too

difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.


listed a tier 3 characters are Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psionic Warrior

The barbarian can do all of these things, He is capable of fighting quite well, and is always useful. I think that the reason the barbarian is tier 4 and not tier 3 is that the author was not considering uses for rage outside of combat.

For example- cant break down the door? Rage
stuck in jail with your barbarian friend? (like thog in oots) Rage
Trying to stop an assassinnation but the only way to stop it is to run several miles?
rage get boosted constitution and be able to stop the assassination.

Now there are classes that could do this better but rage is still pretty useful, his mechanical ability to solve the encounter is, great cleave and he is usually able to mow down 8 opponents a round if he can place himself properly, improved uncanny dodge makes him not have to worry about flanking

if he takes the frenzied berserker prestige class he can get supreme cleave and run around the battle field as a killing machine, i have taken out 30 some zombies in a round this way.
Also as a frenzied berserker he can inspire frenzy in others, frenzy is much like a rage and for non spellcasting classes is extremely usefull.
That is why that i think that barbarians are at least tier 3 maybe even tier 2 with the frenzied berserker prestige class.

ps. frenzied berserker is found in MotW

[Tinydwarfman]

So according to the tier system tier 3 is

Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when

that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as

classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that

can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with.

Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too

difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.


listed a tier 3 characters are Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psionic Warrior

Yes, it should also be noted that whatever the Barbarian can do, the Psionic Warrior, Duskblade, Warblade, and Wildshape Ranger can do better.

The barbarian can do all of these things, He is capable of fighting quite well, and is always useful. I think that the reason the barbarian is tier 4 and not tier 3 is that the author was not considering uses for rage outside of combat.

For example- cant break down the door? Rage
stuck in jail with your barbarian friend? (like thog in oots) Rage
Trying to stop an assassinnation but the only way to stop it is to run several miles?
rage get boosted constitution and be able to stop the assassination.

Now there are classes that could do this better but rage is still pretty useful, his mechanical ability to solve the encounter is, great cleave and he is usually able to mow down 8 opponents a round if he can place himself properly, improved uncanny dodge makes him not have to worry about flanking

I honestly have no idea where you are getting this from. Rage only boosts you strength by 4-8, and Con to the same degree. In no way does that let you break out of jail when you couldn't have anyway, or run that little bit further, (especially since rage doesn't last nearly long enough, besides that point that the difference is negligible in the first place.)

As for combat, as stated before, MANY other classes do it better and with more versatility than the Barbarian.

Your argument only makes sense if you DM doesn't play the game using it's mechanics, but rather like a free-form game where you can simply do things provided you have some thematically relevant ability. It also requires that DM exactly tailor your challenges so that the small boost you get from rage is enough to overcome them, or even be useful at all.

if he takes the frenzied berserker prestige class he can get supreme cleave and run around the battle field as a killing machine, i have taken out 30 some zombies in a round this way.
Also as a frenzied berserker he can inspire frenzy in others, frenzy is much like a rage and for non spellcasting classes is extremely usefull.
That is why that i think that barbarians are at least tier 3 maybe even tier 2 with the frenzied berserker prestige class.

ps. frenzied berserker is found in MotW

Which is why FB is a +2 tier class, often considered too powerful. This has very little to do with the actual barbarian.
EDIT: It's also in Complete Warrior, not whatever that acronym is. (Masters of the Wild? Isn't that 3.0?)
{Scrubbed}

[DeltaEmil]

Rage is good, but at higher levels doesn't scale that fast. Frenzied berserker, which was updated with Complete Warrior is also lackluster. The supreme cleave is worthless (you can only take one 5 ft. step once when cleaving), and for a bunch of weak-ass enemies, your wizard or cleric-pals mop them up without having to move around.
Also, if you win and are still in frenzy, then you start killing your own friends (and if you induced frenzy in your friends, and they accepted it for whatever insane reason, they might start killing you with their best spells too).

Breaking doors is not important, that's the job of the rogue, or the wizard with all his prepared knock-spells and scrolls, and if the door's dc is really huge (like being made of adamantium or reinforced by arcane lock), then the strength bonus doesn't help that much from rage or frenzy.
It's not bad, but it doesn't have such great skills like spot and listen, no search either, can do nothing but rely on his strength really.
A warblade can just do that much more with his ability to choose from the nine disciplines, and has better skill selections.

[Zaydos]

For example- cant break down the door? Rage
stuck in jail with your barbarian friend? (like thog in oots) Rage
Trying to stop an assassinnation but the only way to stop it is to run several miles?
rage get boosted constitution and be able to stop the assassination.

Rage is, unless you take destructive rage, unlikely to make much of a difference in breaking down a door. Either you already could with a few tries, or now need a 19 or 20 to break it. Without some serious templating or other means to get Str bonuses you won't be breaking down the difficult doors till high levels by which point you can hack them down with adamantine weapons. When dealing with wooden doors you either don't need rage or can just use swords to break through them. Actually wasting one of your daily uses of rage on breaking a door would be rather foolish (the only reason to take Destructive Rage is the Frenzied Berserker PrC).

The jail one I'll give you, that is the kind of situation you might actually need the extra strength from rage to break down a door (or bend bars in this case) and even then it is going to be difficult and without some means to keep the guards from noticing you not a good idea. Or else you simply don't need the +2 to +4 on the check rage gives (again Destructive Rage can change this, but then you are using one of your feats which you need for combat on this).

Your third example just doesn't work. Rage is 3 + Con modifier rounds and leaves you fatigued until "end of encounter". In battle it's easy to determine when "end of encounter" is, when running that's until you stop running. Actually raging makes it harder for you to run those several hours, and if you don't trade Fast Movement for Pounce you've gimped your melee capabilities.

So no these are not useful out of combat abilities.

As for Frenzied Berserker: they just hit things better. Also you're still limited to 1 5-ft step with Supreme Cleave so you need reach to get through that many zombies and even then mowing down 8 enemies a round only happens if you're fighting some rather weak enemies. Actually if you're fighting 30 zombies that probably means they're so far under leveled that it's not worth wasting frenzy on them. Regardless this still leaves barbarian in Tier 4, able to do one thing well (kill things).

Also: Frenzied Berserker is in Complete Warrior for the 3.5 stats.

[Zaakar]

Originally posted by JaronK:

Spoiler

Show

Q: Why is my favorite class too low? It should TOTALLY be much higher!

A: Remember, you're probably more experienced with your favorite class than with other classes. Plus, your personality probably fits well with the way that class works, and you probably are better inspired to work with that class. As such, whatever your favorite class is is going to seem stronger for you than everyone else. This is because you're simply going to play your favorite class in a more skillfull way... plus you'll be blinded to the shortcomings of that class, since you probably don't care about those anyway (they match with things that you as a player probably don't want to do anyway). As such, if I did this right most people should think their favorite class is a little too low, whether that class is Fighter or Monk or Rogue or whatever else.

[grimbold]

point taken zakaar
thank you

[Person_Man]

Lets review the Barbarian:

• Full BAB, d12 hit die, simple and martial weapons: Can't ask for better then that.
• Skills: Nothing useful other then Intimidate and Jump.
• Light Armor, Medium Armor, Shields: Lack of Heavy Armor means your AC will be running a few points behind many other tank classes until you can afford Mithril or magic armor.
• Fast Movement: Basically the same as one bonus Feat. And it limits you to Medium Armor, so even if you pick up Heavy Armor from multi-classing or a PrC, you'll have to either give it up or keep your AC lower.
• Rage: A poorly scaled bonus to Str, Con, and Will Saves that can be used limited times per day.
• Uncanny Dodge: Somewhat helpful on the first round of combat. But it's pointless if you win Initiative.
• Trap Sense: A highly situational, poorly scaled bonus.
• Improved Uncanny Dodge: Useful, but highly situational. How often do you fight Rogues?
• DR X/-: Useful, but it scales so poorly that it barely has an impact on combat. By mid levels enemies can deal 20-50 points of damage per hit. So DR 2/-ish is mostly pointless. Also has no effect on damage from spells, psionics, spell-like abilities, vestiges, etc.

And that's it.

Now lets compare that to the Warblade:

• Full BAB, d12 hit die, simple and martial weapons: Same as Barbarian.
• Skills: Intimidate, Jump, plus Diplomacy and Tumble. Advantage Warblade.
• Light, Medium, and Heavy Armor and Shields: Advantage Warblade.
• Blade Magic: A huge variety of ALL DAY buffs (stances) AND boosts to attacks (maneuvers) which can be used 3 out of every 4 rounds in combat (at level one, it goes up to 7 out of 8 by level 20). Rage and Fast Movement looks like a joke compared to this. Advantage Warblade.
• Battle Clarity: Int bonus to all Reflex Saves, at level 1. Compare this to Trap Sense, which only applies to traps, and will almost always be lower. Advantage Warblade.
• Uncanny Dodge -> Improved Un Dodge: Same as Barbarian.
• And then there are 6 other useful class abilities: Discipline Focus, 4 bonus Feats, Battle Ardor, Battle Cunning, Battle Mastery, and Stance Mastery.

[Greenish]

Warblade doesn't get all martial weapons nor heavy armour proficiency.

[Vangor]

I stand corrected. I had never noticed "melee" in there, probably because we never have anyone using ranged weapons.

[Snake-Aes]

warblades don't get heavy armor. They also get no ranged (or no martial ranged).

[Lucid]

Warblade doesn't get all martial weapons nor heavy armour proficiency.

Barbarians don't gain heavy armor proficiency:

Barbarian:
A barbarian is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, light armor, medium armor, and shields (except tower shields).

Warblade:
You are proficient with simple and martial melee weapons (including those that can be used as thrown weapons), light and medium armor, and all shields except tower shields.

The Warblade loses out on projectile weapons, but the rest is the same.

edit:swordsage'd

[Person_Man]

Whoops, right you all are. I shouldn't have tried to do it all from memory.

So the Barbarian and Warblade are the same on armor, and the Barbarian can use a bow or crossbow, which he never does. I think the larger point of Warblade > Barbarian is still pretty obvious though.

[Greenish]

So the Barbarian and Warblade are the same on armor, and the Barbarian can use a bow or crossbow, which he never does. I think the larger point of Warblade > Barbarian is still pretty obvious though.

Well, barbarian archers aside, I wasn't trying to deny the point.

[valadil]

Would the variant that gets Pounce be tiered any higher? Or does the tier system take into account the whole class and not just one awesome level?

[Zaydos]

Would the variant that gets Pounce be tiered any higher? Or does the tier system take into account the whole class and not just one awesome level?

The tier system assumes you're optimizing, so I'm guessing it assumes you'll trade Fast Movement for something useful like Pounce.

[Gnaeus]

Pounce doesn't alter the barbarian's tier at all. A barbarian who does 30 damage per round is tier 4. A barbarian charge build that does 2000 damage per round is.... still tier 4. He is a guy with a trick. It is a really good trick, but if he is prevented from charging or more damage isn't helpful he is still just a guy. He can't fly, hide, create minions, heal himself, block enemy magic, buff his allies, break the action economy,etc. Tier 3 characters are likely to be able to do at least 2-3 of those things, and still be effective in combat.

There is a much better case to be made for rogue being in tier 3. It is almost there.

[Person_Man]

Would the variant that gets Pounce be tiered any higher? Or does the tier system take into account the whole class and not just one awesome level?

Nope. There are 80 something different ways to get Pounce or free movement. Although Barbarian 1 is often the quickest way to get it, most other builds can get access by mid levels with a modest investment. Anyone with Turn/Rebuke Undead can take Travel Devotion, Psychic Warriors get Psionic Lion's Charge and Hustle, Rangers and Druids (and anyone with UMD) get the Lion's Charge spell (buy a wand and a wand chamber), Binders have Paimon and Chupoclops vestiges, Totemists get Pounce with natural weapons via Sphinx Claws (which anyone can get access to with 2-3 feats), anyone with access to Wildshape, Alter Self, Polymorph, etc, can change into a form that offers Pounce, and so on.

[Caphi]

If a warblade finds range a big issue, he'll spend a maneuver on that Iron Heart technique that lets him throw his weapon. Or Martial Study it. Or Martial Study (fan the flames) or Martial Study (shadow garrote).

[Pechvarry]

Warblades don't get Survival or Listen (seriously, Wizards. You were still doing this crap at the end of your design cycle?) as class skills.

Not much, but it does help Barbarians with being useful outside of combat.

...

And now I want to see a ToB discipline with Listen as its key skill.

[Mongoose87]

And now I want to see a ToB discipline with Listen as its key skill.

The Daredevil Discipline?

[shadow_archmagi]

Barbarians, it is true, CAN do fighting quite well. But they can't do much in situations where fighting isn't appropriate.

Here's some example situations:

1. Invading Castle Trapland: Barbarian can detect traps, but not do anything about them. Not very useful.

2. Fighting Count Dragonula: Barbarian can fight. Useful.

3. Attending the king's fancy dinner that he throws to celebrate: Not useful at all.

4. Breaking out of jail when he turns on you: It's unlikely that the bars will be breakable even with your rage. Breaking out will be up to someone who can trick the guard into walking over or something. Maybe a little useful.

5. Preparing the city to defend from invasion: Barbarian could... maybe.. I dunno, teach the guards something? Oh wait he probably doesn't have CHA or INT. Not useful at all.

6. Fighting in the siege: Barbarian can fight, but can't do groups efficient unless you invested feats into it, leaving him vulnerable in other areas. Moderately useful.

7. Tracking down cultists: Whoop no information skills

[Curmudgeon]

1. Invading Castle Trapland: Barbarian can detect traps, but not do anything about them. Not very useful.

The Barbarian can't detect traps ─ just survive them a bit better. They've got trap sense, but not trapfinding.

[Saintjebus]

And now I want to see a ToB discipline with Listen as its key skill.

If you check the homebrew forum, you may find one. I know that there was a big project with homebrew disciplines.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Also, in the jail scenario, anyone who picks up mountain hammer can break free, which is more of a boon to the warblade than the barbarian as hardness and iron bar HPs are both too high without some form of mitigation.

[tyckspoon]

The Barbarian can't detect traps ─ just survive them a bit better. They've got trap sense, but not trapfinding.

In this particular instance Barbarian benefits a lot from being a Core class, so there's a lot of splat support; Dungeonscape offers the Trapkiller ACF, which lets him trade Trapsense for actual Trapfinding and the ability to apply his signature "hit it until it breaks" problem-solving method to mechanical traps.

[Riffington]

The barbarian can benefit from multiclassing/dips much more easily than the warblade can, since he's not dependent on keeping his initiator level up.
Not sure if that applies to the tier list though.

[Tyndmyr]

The barbarian can benefit from multiclassing/dips much more easily than the warblade can, since he's not dependent on keeping his initiator level up.
Not sure if that applies to the tier list though.

Eh, ALL other classes count half toward initiator level. You can dip quite a bit as a ToB class and still have a decent initiator level.

[TheAzrael]

look a normal 20 barbarian will not be a tier 3 ( the right feats can make him a charge killing machine but still that aplies to all melee). but there are many options for a barbarian and you can trade many of the abilities for more usefull. here is a link http://www.giantitp.com/forums/newre...te=1&p=9189439 that shows that a barbarian can be a tier 3 class if built correctly.

[Greenish]

look a normal 20 barbarian will not be a tier 3 ( the right feats can make him a charge killing machine but still that aplies to all melee). but there are many options for a barbarian and you can trade many of the abilities for more usefull. here is a link http://www.giantitp.com/forums/newre...te=1&p=9189439 that shows that a barbarian can be a tier 3 class if built correctly.

The link shows nothing of the kind! (Because it just loops on to making comments to this thread.)

[true_shinken]

Well, barbarian archers aside, I wasn't trying to deny the point.

Actually, my party recently faced a few weretiger Barbarian archers. It surprised the heck out of them. Large Arrows and Str 30, while other weretigers lock the battlefield with Attacks of Opportunity.