Scary experience for my barbarian last night in battle...

[samcifer]

Okay, another session as well as an ally down as far as you can get (our artificer charater died because he got a botch on a death save then another low roll on his next turn). My guy took 38 damage from a bosses'3 attacks (that's halved, the full damage was 75), but now that we hit the next level I went to fighter 2. I'm hoping to get good use out of Action Surge.

[Man_Over_Game]

On Reckless Attack: Don't use it unless you have a reason to. If you think that the enemy has a lower AC than you, there's no benefit to using it. If you think that the enemy is going to attack you more than you're going to attack them, there's no reason to be using it.

Use Reckless Attack against bosses, don't use Reckless Attack against swarms. If Advantage is offered to both parties to attach each other, it mostly helps the underdog. So only use it to attack things that are more dangerous than you.

[samcifer]

On Reckless Attack: Don't use it unless you have a reason to. If you think that the enemy has a lower AC than you, there's no benefit to using it. If you think that the enemy is going to attack you more than you're going to attack them, there's no reason to be using it.

Use Reckless Attack against bosses, don't use Reckless Attack against swarms. If Advantage is offered to both parties to attach each other, it mostly helps the underdog. So only use it to attack things that are more dangerous than you.

The main issue is that the DM has admitted that he's made the fights tougher than average. Death is a rather real possibility in this campaign and we've already had 3 times a character has needed to make death saves (the last time ended in a player death). Standard tactics aren't working in this game and I'm nearly ready to get my character killed off so that I can go with a either a ranged character instead as melee characters are taking ridiculously high amounts of damage from npcs, or go with a character that can heal. I might go with a light cleric so I can do good damage and heal as well as have better armor. Might go variant human so I can have heavy armor, not that it's helping a lot because enemies are rolling so high to hit. At least 3 5ths of all the dms attacks are hitting and that's with my AC at 19. The boss monster we fought last night came after me after I tried to get away after recklessly attacking and hitting from 10ft away (I use a glaive so I have reach), then moved away. It chased after me and scored on all 3 attacks for 75 damage total. Luckily I was a bear totem so I only took half damage (38), but I might have lycanthropy now. :(

Another idea would be to go sorcadin, but mostly focus on spellcasting, using heightened hold person from a distance and keep as far away from enemies as possible. Even that isn't a guarantee, though, as we lost our artificer that way. Another idea might be to go tabaxi swashbuckler rogue so I can hit and run. Maybe with a whip so I have reach if I can get it, maybe by taking a level of fighter for better armor.

[Man_Over_Game]

The main issue is that the DM has admitted that he's made the fights tougher than average. Death is a rather real possibility in this campaign and we've already had 3 times a character has needed to make death saves (the last time ended in a player death). Standard tactics aren't working in this game and I'm nearly ready to get my character killed off so that I can go with a either a ranged character instead as melee characters are taking ridiculously high amounts of damage from npcs, or go with a character that can heal. I might go with a light cleric so I can do good damage and heal as well as have better armor. Might go variant human so I can have heavy armor, not that it's helping a lot because enemies are rolling so high to hit. At least 3 5ths of all the dms attacks are hitting and that's with my AC at 19. The boss monster we fought last night came after me after I tried to get away after recklessly attacking and hitting from 10ft away (I use a glaive so I have reach), then moved away. It chased after me and scored on all 3 attacks for 75 damage total. Luckily I was a bear totem so I only took half damage (38), but I might have lycanthropy now. :(

Another idea would be to go sorcadin, but mostly focus on spellcasting, using heightened hold person from a distance and keep as far away from enemies as possible. Even that isn't a guarantee, though, as we lost our artificer that way. Another idea might be to go tabaxi swashbuckler rogue so I can hit and run. Maybe with a whip so I have reach if I can get it, maybe by taking a level of fighter for better armor.

You might think that what you're doing isn't working, but a Barbarian taking that much damage is probably the best case scenario. You play anything else, and you'll start seeing party members dropping like flies. The only way a Barbarian could really lose value is if enemies are ignoring him. In this case, you have the opposite problem, playing the Barbarian subtype who's entire existence is focused on mitigating as much damage as possible.

You ARE the best case scenario right now. Maybe the DM is cranking up the numbers to make things feel impossible, but planning around something else in the hopes that it'll be better will end up biting you in the rear. Now, if you're not having fun, that's another thing. But if you're changing because you're worried about how well you're doing, I can inform you that you're doing everything as perfect as possible. Talk to your team first, see what they have to say about it. Also talk to them about coming up with ways to help keep you alive.

[samcifer]

You might think that what you're doing isn't working, but a Barbarian taking that much damage is probably the best case scenario. You play anything else, and you'll start seeing party members dropping like flies. The only way a Barbarian could really lose value is if enemies are ignoring him. In this case, you have the opposite problem, playing the Barbarian subtype who's entire existence is focused on mitigating as much damage as possible.

You ARE the best case scenario right now. Maybe the DM is cranking up the numbers to make things feel impossible, but planning around something else in the hopes that it'll be better will end up biting you in the rear. Now, if you're not having fun, that's another thing. But if you're changing because you're worried about how well you're doing, I can inform you that you're doing everything as perfect as possible. Talk to your team first, see what they have to say about it. Also talk to them about coming up with ways to help keep you alive.

So it would be better to focus on ways to increase my hp instead? I had wanted to go with Polearm Master for my next ASI, but would more CON or the Toughness feat be better (Probably the toughness feat first as I'm at 17 CON and the dm is a bit generous on custom items, so finding an item to raise my con my 1 pt. isn't impossible.

We no longer have healing as our artificer is dead (the player said he might play a cleric next, but our rogue with a level of cleric won't be playing for awhile as his mother had a stroke (irl) so he wants to focus on her care for the time being.

[GlenSmash!]

I'll also say you are barbarianing correctly.

I absolutely want my barbarian to soak damage so others don't take it. I'd rather be the on going down to 0hp then anybody else.

Like Man_over_game said, I'll reckless attack against someone who is going to hit me anyway (A recent fight with a fire giant, he had to roll a 4 or less to miss. Sine h was hitting me regularly with disadvantage it didn't matter in the slightest to give him advantage. Or if I really need to kill a weak enemy in one hit, in which case I'll use -5/+10 from GWM too.

I find those are my 2 big roles in the current party. Regular damage against big guys, and clearing up little guys.

[samcifer]

I'll also say you are barbarianing correctly.

I absolutely want my barbarian to soak damage so others don't take it. I'd rather be the on going down to 0hp then anybody else.

Like Man_over_game said, I'll reckless attack against someone who is going to hit me anyway (A recent fight with a fire giant, he had to roll a 4 or less to miss. Sine h was hitting me regularly with disadvantage it didn't matter in the slightest to give him advantage. Or if I really need to kill a weak enemy in one hit, in which case I'll use -5/+10 from GWM too.

I find those are my 2 big roles in the current party. Regular damage against big guys, and clearing up little guys.

Sadly, there's no real 'weaklings' in this campaign. The dm wants every fight to have a chance of a player dying so he's upped the difficulty in fights by increasing damage, accuracy and hp for enemies, making fights a lot harder to win. Our last campaign had us all severely overpowered, so he's overcompensating when we all made our characters weaker on damage anyways. Every battle is stressful this time around. :(

[GlenSmash!]

Sadly, there's no real 'weaklings' in this campaign. The dm wants every fight to have a chance of a player dying so he's upped the difficulty in fights by increasing damage, accuracy and hp for enemies, making fights a lot harder to win. Our last campaign had us all severely overpowered, so he's overcompensating when we all made our characters weaker on damage anyways. Every battle is stressful this time around. :(

Ugh. Overcompensating. That's rough.

[Man_Over_Game]

So it would be better to focus on ways to increase my hp instead? I had wanted to go with Polearm Master for my next ASI, but would more CON or the Toughness feat be better (Probably the toughness feat first as I'm at 17 CON and the dm is a bit generous on custom items, so finding an item to raise my con my 1 pt. isn't impossible.

We no longer have healing as our artificer is dead (the player said he might play a cleric next, but our rogue with a level of cleric won't be playing for awhile as his mother had a stroke (irl) so he wants to focus on her care for the time being.

Survivability, yes. It might be worth maxing out Constitution, or taking the Tough feat (that +2 HP per level translates to +4 with Rage). Shield Master also has a lot of value for someone who doesn't have much use for their Bonus Action.

[GlenSmash!]

Also I try to always stress to Barbarian players that a single attack is enough to keep Rage going even made at range and even with disadvantage.

There have been fights where even as a Barbarian I tried to keep 150+ ft away from enemies. and if there really are no weaklings in the party I wouldn't feel bad doing it. Edit: not always mind you, just when i would think it prudent.

[Man_Over_Game]

Don't be afraid to spread out some of the damage. The overall goal should be to have everyone be as close to death as everyone else. If the Wizard is ending every fight at full HP, then maybe you could let him deal with a straggler for once. Of course, things like Concentration might change things, but from the sound of it, you don't have too much support or party members Concentrating on things in the first place.

[samcifer]

Well, my first session with a 2nd level of fighter was a bit brief as we started late and people were more interested in chatting than in playing. We got a big fight against a powerful demon holding a farmer's daughter hostage and I ended up only taking damage once. We were getting a +2 to our attack rolls for flanking, so I was making good use of that and Bless to power attack with high accuracy. We took it out, then chased after the daughter as she has run home, found her parents dying and her trying to flee. Turns out she was a demon who kept hoping from one young girl to another to maintain her youth and she ended up escaping, but I took a lot of damage as she counter-attacked every time we hit her. No one died this time, but we've now got a warforged life cleric in the party played by a new player and our former artificer nearly died in his first time playing an assimar hexblade that he was rather underwhelmed by on melee performance.

Afterwards I was allowed to buy a +1 CON belt, raising my CON score to 18, so that's another 7 hp and another +1 to my CON saves, which is really good.

[noob]

Well, my first session with a 2nd level of fighter was a bit brief as we started late and people were more interested in chatting than in playing. We got a big fight against a powerful demon holding a farmer's daughter hostage and I ended up only taking damage once. We were getting a +2 to our attack rolls for flanking, so I was making good use of that and Bless to power attack with high accuracy. We took it out, then chased after the daughter as she has run home, found her parents dying and her trying to flee. Turns out she was a demon who kept hoping from one young girl to another to maintain her youth and she ended up escaping, but I took a lot of damage as she counter-attacked every time we hit her. No one died this time, but we've now got a warforged life cleric in the party played by a new player and our former artificer nearly died in his first time playing an assimar hexblade that he was rather underwhelmed by on melee performance.

Afterwards I was allowed to buy a +1 CON belt, raising my CON score to 18, so that's another 7 hp and another +1 to my CON saves, which is really good.

wait +bonus belts exists?
I believed it was removed in the edition change and that now there was instead replace by X the stat belts.

[MaxWilson]

So I'm still fairly new to playing barbarians in dnd (half-orc is the race of my guy, level 5 bear totem barbarian) and had my third session ever playing as one in a homebrewed campaign. We were investigating some murders on the docks of the city and and went to the docks to question the dock workers again, but they had all just been murdered by some kind of zombies and we got into a fight with four of them. I don't know much about which specific creature they were, but they had extra attack and rolled 3d6 damage on a hit and seemed to also have a high attack bonus because they were often getting attack rolls of over 20 total to hit vs. my mere 17 ac and even with bear totem, I was taking 7+ damage per hit from 2 of them. At one point I had to disengage and drink a health potion, then re-enter rage on my next turn and STILL ended up having to resort to my racial ability to keep from going down due to being reduced to 0 hp. Fortunately the last guy attacking me (the last of the 4) was killed before my next turn came up, but I'm wondering if this is typical for barbarians or not.

Yep, absolutely typical, especially if you Reckless Attack. Swarms of creatures do lots of damage; Barbarians get to cut many damage types in half, but 50% of lots of damage = still lots of damage.

Barbarians are at their best against single huge creatures like, I dunno, demons and dragons. But against swarms of creatures, a good old AC 19-26ish Eldritch Knight or Paladorc will last longer in the thick of melee than a Barbarian will. So don't get in the thick of melee. You have a 40' movement speed--use it to stay alive.

[LudicSavant]

Yep, absolutely typical, especially if you Reckless Attack. Swarms of creatures do lots of damage; Barbarians get to cut many damage types in half, but 50% of lots of damage = still lots of damage.

Barbarians are at their best against single huge creatures like, I dunno, demons and dragons. But against swarms of creatures, a good old AC 19-26ish Eldritch Knight or Paladorc will last longer in the thick of melee than a Barbarian will. So don't get in the thick of melee. You have a 40' movement speed--use it to stay alive.

To demonstrate MaxWilson's point about the difference between Reckless Attack when fighting swarms vs fighting single big monsters:

As a simple example, let's imagine that you have a Reckless GWM Barbarian vs a rather standard SnB Eldritch Knight. The Barbarian has 17 AC (half-plate +2 Dex). The EK is going to have 21 base AC (Defense+plate or MA+shield) and Shield on demand. And possibly be using something like Blur, Haste, Greater Invisibility, or PfG&E.

Let's say that you're facing a swarm of foes with +6 to hit. The Reckless GWM Barbarian has a 75% chance to take each hit. The EK has a 30% chance to take each hit, just because of their base AC. Which means before they even use any of their defensive resources, the Barbarian's getting hit fully 2.5x as often. They'll also get crit about twice as often. Even if the Barbarian uses up a rage, they're taking more damage.

If the EK uses Shield, their chance to be hit drops to 5%, and the Barbarian is hit 15x as often.

If the EK has a Disadvantage-granting defensive buff on, their chance to be hit drops all the way to 0.25%, and the Barbarian is hit 300x as often, and will be crit 39x as often (0.25% chance to be crit vs 9.75% chance). Such is the exponential nature of to-hit math.

By contrast if you're fighting a creature with a +17 to hit, the difference is less. For example, the Barbarian's chance to be hit only goes from 95% to 99.75% by Reckless Attacking, and the EK's chance to be hit would be 85% / 60% (shield) / 36% (buff)

[Greywander]

Even with only 1 level in cleric, the rogue can still help out with some support magic. Shield of Faith can get you some extra AC, and is worth a lot more than a Cure Wounds. Likewise, Bless is among the best low level buffs in the game. Clerics are so much more than just healers, so make sure you get your money's worth out of the class.

You could also probably benefit from a wizard specializing in battlefield control. Treantmonk has an excellent guide for how to play such a wizard. In any case, it sounds like you could use a support character to help back you up, and most spellcasters could fill that niche in the hands of a skilled player.

the dm is a bit generous on custom items

This gives me an idea. A magic item OR a homebrew feat (I figure if he's lenient on custom magic items, he might allow a custom feat) that gives you temp HP every round. Thanks to your damage resistant during rage, you can stretch that temp HP twice as far, plus rage assumes you're taking damage every round anyway. A few temp HP every round will work wonders to help mitigate that. It's not as good as damage reduction (as seen with Heavy Armor Master) since it's per round and not per attack, but you can still get a lot of mileage out of it. How about something like the following?

Tenacity (feat)

• Increase your Constitution score by 1, up to a maximum of 20.
• On the start of each of your turns, you gain temporary hit points equal to your proficiency bonus.
• Whenever you regain hit points, you also gain 1 temporary hit point. This stacks with any other temporary hit points you have previously gained from this feat.

Or, you could apply the same effect to a magic item, sans the CON boost. Anyway, if homebrew is on the table, it opens up more options for you. It sounds like this is more of a DM problem than a build problem, though, so build or tactics advice will only get you so far.

You could also conspire with the rest of your party to create the tankiest, cheesiest party. Everyone should be a yuan-ti (from Volo's Guide to Monsters) for that sweet magic resistance, although gnome or vedalken (GGtR) would also probably suffice. If you're less worried about saving throws, warforged get the highest AC, even better than plate +3 (eventually). Life cleric, Abjurist wizard, Ancients paladin, Moon druid, and Bear Totem barbarian are all excellent picks. Maybe a grappler, too.

Or, heck, roll an entire cleric party. You'll never be lacking in support again.

[samcifer]

Well we're playing a homebrewed campaign )this one based off of the Dresden Files series of novels and not the rpg of it, we're all working for Dresden) and the dm is generous with letting us ask for unusual items. I was able to get the +1 CON belt that raised my 17 CON to 18 for 6k in gold.

Our new player was pretty effective with his life cleric and lour rogue/cleric (not sure with subclass he went with) and he was fucusing on getting the farmer's daughter out of there. I've been avoiding using Reckless Attack because in this campaign with foes that have high accuracy to hot as well as doing massive damage per hit, it's just too risky to use for me, making it a near-dead ability for me, which sucks because that was one of the main reasons I chose to play a barbarian.

I'm kind of tempted to let him get killed off before too long so I can play something else. I'd considered a bard, but the spell list is so horribly unappealing to me that I doubt I'll ever play the class. A ranger might be good, or maybe a sun soul monk since we're facing off against so many fiends and undead. Maybe I could combine the two as I've never played either class before. If not, I'd likely just go with my old hexblave/divine soul sorc again and attack from range. The way I've been forced to play my barb is making him less enjoyable than I'd wanted it to be due to having such powerful monsters this time around (every campaign we've had before had much easier battles, but this time it's a struggle to survive every encounter, making playing miuch more stressful.

Whichever character I play next will HAVE to having some form of healing as this campaign demands it.

[Shuruke]

Well we're playing a homebrewed campaign )this one based off of the Dresden Files series of novels and not the rpg of it, we're all working for Dresden) and the dm is generous with letting us ask for unusual items. I was able to get the +1 CON belt that raised my 17 CON to 18 for 6k in gold.

Our new player was pretty effective with his life cleric and lour rogue/cleric (not sure with subclass he went with) and he was fucusing on getting the farmer's daughter out of there. I've been avoiding using Reckless Attack because in this campaign with foes that have high accuracy to hot as well as doing massive damage per hit, it's just too risky to use for me, making it a near-dead ability for me, which sucks because that was one of the main reasons I chose to play a barbarian.

I'm kind of tempted to let him get killed off before too long so I can play something else. I'd considered a bard, but the spell list is so horribly unappealing to me that I doubt I'll ever play the class. A ranger might be good, or maybe a sun soul monk since we're facing off against so many fiends and undead. Maybe I could combine the two as I've never played either class before. If not, I'd likely just go with my old hexblave/divine soul sorc again and attack from range. The way I've been forced to play my barb is making him less enjoyable than I'd wanted it to be due to having such powerful monsters this time around (every campaign we've had before had much easier battles, but this time it's a struggle to survive every encounter, making playing miuch more stressful.

Whichever character I play next will HAVE to having some form of healing as this campaign demands it.

That's understandable this is my first time playing barb and every combat is deadly because we only have one or 2 a long rest

However it feels pretty nice to tank little over 200 damage in a fight at level 5

I rolled pretty good for hp and have 57
I'm a storm herald so every turn I was granting 3 temp hp (6 since I was raging)

Cleric had warding bond on me for first few rounds till they had to leave range because the damage was getting to them

But yeah between the temp hp I gave allies that was constantly getting used and with how long combat went it felt rather rewarding
At the end I had 5 hp but didnt drop to 0 at all

Probably my most rememerable moments. But was only combat ive really had fun. All of the others we were jist against frustratingly high a.c enemies so reckless attack wasnt helping much since I needed 17 or higher on dice to hit and the enemy kept outrolling my grapple attempt


Tbh their hasn't been a singlencombay where I didn't reckless attack every turn
Generally if its a horde ill open with rage throwing javelin and then backing up

Once everything starts getting in motion on second turn I charge in and position myself so I'm a juicy target for enemies that are targeting allies and make a target of myself

[samcifer]

That's understandable this is my first time playing barb and every combat is deadly because we only have one or 2 a long rest

However it feels pretty nice to tank little over 200 damage in a fight at level 5

I rolled pretty good for hp and have 57
I'm a storm herald so every turn I was granting 3 temp hp (6 since I was raging)

Cleric had warding bond on me for first few rounds till they had to leave range because the damage was getting to them

But yeah between the temp hp I gave allies that was constantly getting used and with how long combat went it felt rather rewarding
At the end I had 5 hp but didnt drop to 0 at all

Probably my most rememerable moments. But was only combat ive really had fun. All of the others we were jist against frustratingly high a.c enemies so reckless attack wasnt helping much since I needed 17 or higher on dice to hit and the enemy kept outrolling my grapple attempt


Tbh their hasn't been a singlencombay where I didn't reckless attack every turn
Generally if its a horde ill open with rage throwing javelin and then backing up

Once everything starts getting in motion on second turn I charge in and position myself so I'm a juicy target for enemies that are targeting allies and make a target of myself

yeah. the mystery-solving is fun in this campaign, but when every battle is basically a deadly encounter, all I can really do is focus on surviving. If I were to play a sorc again with hexblade (madatory higher ac is the only way to survive this campaign), I could do higher damage and have at least a chance to survive by having healing spells as well. Then I could focus on skills for interviewing people, etc. for out of combat. In the end, haxblade/divine soul might be the only character I could play that would function well and be enjoyable to play in this campaign.

[bid]

but now that we hit the next level I went to fighter 2. I'm hoping to get good use out of Action Surge.

BTW, BM 3 out-DPR champion 3 until barbarian 13 or so. And you get maneuvers to reduce damage.

[samcifer]

BTW, BM 3 out-DPR champion 3 until barbarian 13 or so. And you get maneuvers to reduce damage.

Yeah, I want to go to fighter 4 if I stay with this character. I'd originally been planning on just going Champion, but my rolls are all over the place and I doubt that 19s would be coming up often enough without recklessly attacking to be worth the investment. Battle Master or Samurai might be a better investment.