D&D Playtest 8: I Want to Play a High Level Barbarian

[@Varatho]

There is an unseen problem with Barbarians at higher levels for the 50th anniversary edition:. Nearly all the higher CR monsters that are being reprinted, and the ones that are being printed for the first time, have elemental damage attacks (even "mundane human" type monsters, who use will use poison or special weapons if nothing else is appropriate ). This change was hinted at in the PAX unplugged stream, but verified by looking at contemporary monster design from recently published books. These attacks bypass the basic b/p/s damage reduction offered from Rage, but still gain the bonus to accuracy whenever a Barbarian uses Reckless Attack. Seeing as how a Barbarian will almost always want to use Reckless Attack now that it has another tactical feature tagged in, this means that higher level Barbarians are suddenly going to become extremely squishy in the the new revised D&D. A totally unthematic and counterintuitive fate for a class that is often touted as the "tankiest". The easy solution is to take elemental resistances from the Bear totem and make them a core feature at say level 9, when Barbarians receive their tier 3 buff to Rage.

[@johngleeman8347]

If that's true, the barb is going to be kissing the floor a lot in the new edition.

[@the_twig131]

Right, yeah. This is a problem actually. Maybe Rage needs to be updated to give resistance to melee attacks or something instead of BPS. That's a fairly non-standard thing for D&D, normally things give you resistance to a damage type rather than a circumstance, but the old Dungeon Delver feat did give resistance to traps.

[@Mrryn]

I feel like the easiest fix (one I'm personally planning to include in my feedback on it) to the foggy parts of Brutal Strike is a simple change in text: "If you use Reckless Attack, for the remainder of the turn, you can forgo the advantage gained from Reckless Attack on one Strength-based attack." Then follow with the details of the Brutal Strike options. That change in wording alone fixes every issue with the feature imo: it confirms it as the feature to use when you have advantage from other sources; it clarifies what advantage you lose when using Brutal Strike (only the Reckless advantage which is what it should be), clearing up confusion in cases where you have disadvantage as well; and it gives some flexibility to not have your Brutal Strike strictly locked to your 1st attack on turn.

[@the_twig131]

That sounds much better, yes.

[@Year2047]

Ran a level 20 barbarian one shot last night playtesting the new barb. It’s amazing. It’s been improved so much, especially for high level play.

[@silverbro13]

I really hope Fighter gets these same kind of features that Monk and the new Barb got, because Tactical Mind and Weapon Masteries are nice, but they aren't enough for high-level Fighters

[@BunnyCrypt]

perhaps its not how it works in reality, but how I interpreted Brutal Strike was that you could choose to forgo the advantage given to you by reckless specifically, and I saw it as a way to make one of the most fun features of barbarians not just useless with a slight tactics improvement. Cause as it works now, if you shove someone prone or have some other thing giving you advantage, you have absolutely no reason to ever use the feature. and then even when you don't, it still wouldn't be the optimal choice in many scenarios, so it ends up being WAY underused. but by giving it an alternate boon aside from advantage, you can make it not only more fun and tactical overall, but also allowing it to have *any* sort of niche outside of when you don't have advantage. I guess it does sort of work the same way negating all advantage, but that feels like you just end up in a weird spot where you'll usually want to use it for advantage when you don't have it, and *still* not use the feature when you have advantage since it would negate the benefit of your other tactics like prone and such, meaning that the new ability goes from a really cool fix for a problem that makes an old ability actually viable, to a niche buff that's sometimes gonna let you do something cool, but really just doesn't help that initial problem. Even if that's not the way wotc intends it, it's how I think it *should* work.

[@the_twig131]

I agree that that's how it should work. That's also how it works in the sidebar, however I don't think it's how it works in the actual rules text. I'd love for there to be a clarification which proves me wrong.

[@jinxtheunluckypony]

I’m really happy to see Brutal Strike. Before this feature was written the only reason to pure class Barbarian was brand loyalty, now I can see straight Barbarian being a ton of fun to play.

[@ryanscanlon2151]

Brutal strikes legitimately makes me want to play barbarian to at least level 9 it such a fun feature. I expect a 2-4 level dip in monk is going to be a very common dip, the new monk features mesh so perfectly witch the updated barbarian. Just two levels gives you so much, a reliable bonus action attack, a free reaction defense option which is excellent to use in case you get hit before raging but even in rage 2d6 +2 negated damage even before applying resistance is still pretty nice and can go a long way on survival, free bonus action dash. Bonus action dodge when needed to counter act reckless when things get hairy, flurry of blows which combos so beautifully with brutal strikes and 2 martial arts die plus the once a day refresh on initiative makes it pretty reliable. A third level gives you an extra job and a subclass many of which offer even more synergy with barbarian and a 4th level gives you a pretty solid pool of ki especially since not all your monk features require it anymore and a feat/asi.

[@the_twig131]

The only issue with the Monk Dip is that you have to give up non-Monk weapons and shields. If you're willing to do that (maybe become a Nick weapon Barbarian?) then I think the Monk dip is really good.

[@ryanscanlon2151]

@@the_twig131 you would really only have to give up shields since bonus action attack and flurry of blows don't require you to attack with a monk weapon first, so you can lay into targets with a maul and follow up with some kicks. if you want stunning strike sure you badly enough sure you would want to whip out a monk weapon to get the most chances but the bonus action unarmed strike or flurry of blows gives you a decent enough chance to land it. Although knick is a great option to add yet another attack

[@the_twig131]

Unfortunately, Martial Arts as a whole turns off if you're holding a weapon which isn't a monk weapon. I guess that you can juggle to get around that, but without using Interact with Object rules, which I'm resistant to do given how the attack action has changed, that would mean that you end 50% of turns with no weapon equipped.

[@ryanscanlon2151]

@@the_twig131 did they remove the weapon drawing and stowing rules from the play test. Last time I checked you could stow or draw a weapon each time you attack

[@the_twig131]

No, that's still there, but it's specifically on the attack action, not when you make an attack. Martial Arts and Flurry of Blows are not the attack action, so you can't draw or stow when you use them.

[@johngleeman8347]

Literally anything would be better than the thrice-cursed brutal critical. I'm not looking forward to barbs dying too quickly and only having one to two worthwhile subclasses. It's a balancing issue WOTC keeps having.

[@killcat1971]

Hell Monk/Barb is good multiclass now, a 2-5 level dip means that you get a free bonus action attack, the ability to use your reaction to reduce an attacks damage, extra mobility etc.

[@the_twig131]

You do unfortunately have to limit yourself to the monk weapons, so no polearms or greatswords or whatever, and you also can't use a shield, but yes.

[@saeedrazavi4428]

@@the_twig131 limiting you to monk weapons, I could see it being very cool to use nick weapons so that with that and the bonus action unarmed strike, you could apply your rage damage bonus to up to 4 attacks per round every round. It does feel like you're missing a lot to not use heavy weapons as a barb though

[@killcat1971]

@@saeedrazavi4428 Yup bit less damage, but the average damage from a great axe is 7 compared to scimitar or dagger at 3.5 (due to using MA damage), so not huge when you're getting an extra attack each round. And if you main Monk as soon as you hit level 5 it's 4.5 as your MA die goes up. But very tanky, rage damage resistance, and you only need one level for that, plus the Deflect attacks at level 3.

[@RaethFennec]

Barbarian Dena didn't even need to Rage! \o/ What a good day. Rage being Long Rest only was one of the only things that got me to Long Rest in Baldur's Gate 3. :P I'm glad to see it getting some Short Rest love here. I also really like the idea of just about every class wanting to Short Rest once or twice per day at minimum. Brutal Strike definitely needs clarification. I read it as you forego the advantage when you use Reckless Attack (exactly the wording, in a different order), thus meaning that other sources of advantage and disadvantage still work. This gives Brutal Strike synergy with Advantage sources from other players, something that often devalued Reckless Attacks. No more fighting safer because your allies are juicing you up. RECKLESS ALL THE WAY! I sincerely hope that's the intent and it's clarified as such.

[@the_twig131]

Yeah, I'm hoping that it gets clarified to only remove reckless as well.

[@David-id6jw]

The design note at the start of the barbarian section indicates that the advantage you give up for Brutal Strike is only the advantage given by Reckless Attack, not other sources of advantage. This seems more like an issue of it just being written poorly in the feature description itself, unless there was a deliberate change after the design notes were written up.

[@jaceg810]

I really like the idea of hamstring blows+Slow mastery, With some teamwork and a caster goes Persistent AOE + ice cantrip it basically freezes them in place

[@the_twig131]

Yeah, stacking speed penalties is actually not bad, just as long as you can get them high enough.

[@ArmoredAnathema]

The fact that things like "Knocking a target prone or 15ft away" are considered gamechanging enough to wait til 9th level for kind of baffles me as someone who plays systems which you can do that and way more right out of the gate. In ValorousGame's Valor at level 1 you can add a Mod that lets you knock someone several spaces away and deal bonus damage if they hit a wall (including another character with Unmovable!) And if you got the points to spare you can slap Whirlwind (hit everyone around you) or Throw (turn the knockback effect into a ranged attacked against a new target) on top of that. In Mutants and Masterminds 3e, even at lower levels, you can take Damage and Link a Move Object with some limits and send someone flying up to several hundred feet away! Heck, if you ever wanted to give Valor or MnM a try, I'd even be willing buy ya a copy and even answer any questions!

[@the_twig131]

I've been trying to find people to play M&M with for ages. I have quite a few of the 2E books, but just never got around to playing it.

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

Just wanting Twig to get algorythmed so as to ensure the channel lasts until the Fabula Ultima video releases! (Not even watching honestly.)

[@sillvvasensei]

If you have both advantage and disadvantage, you are treated as having neither and therefore cannot activate Brutal Strike, because you have no advantage to give up.

[@the_twig131]

So this is a fun little rule actually. the exact wording is: "If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20. This is true even if multiple circumstances impose disadvantage and only one grants advantage or vice versa. In such a situation, you have neither advantage nor disadvantage." This means that advantage and disadvantage cancel out *at the roll*. Before the roll you have all of the stacks of advantage and disadvantage that you want (actually you have the circumstances to give you the advantage and disadvantage, advantage and disadvantage themselves only exist while rolling). Brutal Strike doesn't say that you give up advantage, it says that you "forgo" advantage. That means that you are choosing not to take the advantage, rather than giving it up when you already have it. Practical example, you're using Reckless Attack in a Darkness Spell (for some reason). No Brutal Strike: - You have advantage from Reckless Attack. - You have advantage from heavy obscurement. - You have disadvantage because the enemy is heavily obscured. Result: You are at neutral. Brutal Strike: - You forgo advantage from Reckless Attack. - You forgo advantage from heavy obscurement. - You have disadvantage because the enemy is heavily obscured. Result: You are at disadvantage.

[@williamgordon5443]

@@the_twig131 I don't see where it says that it cancels out "at the roll" and not as soon as you have both an advantage and disadvantage.

[@killcat1971]

@@the_twig131 The wording needs cleaning up to clarify this, I'd read it that you forego the advantage provided by reckless attack.

[@EpicRandomness555]

No… that doesn’t make sense. It certainly wasn’t intentional and I don’t that that’s how it should be played. You just use the Brutal Strike without thinking about the advantage.

[@David-id6jw]

On the design notes indicating that Vitality of the Tree giving an increased range, I'm not seeing that in my copy of the PDF. I just redownloaded the PDF from DNDBeyond, and it's not in that either. It's possible you got an early copy, and they posted an updated copy shortly after that removed that note.

[@croianimris]

Obligatory "Babe, wake up!"

[@eliascabbio7598]

Brutal strike doesn't null all your advantages, only the one given by Reckless Attack's feature, so if the enemy is prone you still get the advantage

[@the_twig131]

There are two different ways of reading it. I think that my reading of forgoing all advantage is correct, but I want it to be your reading of only Reckless Attack advantage. I think that would be better. Either way, a bit of clarity is needed.

[@eliascabbio7598]

@@the_twig131 I totally agree, we should make it be noted on the feedback. From what I remember, in the presentation they pointed out that the given up advantage was the one given by Reckless attack, but in the end what matters is the wording.

[@GangurEXE]

2:16 the writing on the brutal strike fails to take into account that attacks that you make outside of your turn (attacks of opportunity) are also affected by reckless attack

[@kclubok]

Why is that? The writing makes it clear that you are only affecting one attack. So with Extra Attack, the second attack - and all attacks of opportunity - would be done with advantage but no special effects.

[@roninhare9615]

I really like brutal strike, I’m also a fan of cunning strike for rogues. What I’m not a fan of is, they developed weapon mastery, which to me is a bastardized version of battle maneuvers. Fighters were originally pitched in 2014 with battle maneuvers being apart of their base kit. Now we are still being told they are to be kept basic, as a means of an intro class. Yet all of these systems they are giving barbarian and rogues are essentially founded from battle maneuvers. It just seems like a joke tbh.

[@the_twig131]

I feel like the idea of an into class is kind of flawed to be honest. Ideally, all classes should be the intro class, that's why they have levels 1-4.

[@roninhare9615]

@@the_twig131 for me, I believe there is already intro classes in the game, and they are called sidekicks from Tosha’s. A simplified option, that has much less complexity that the main 13 classes bring to the table.

[@nyanbrox5418]

Hey twiggy, just asking because I don't really know how you came to this conclusion, the movement gained when a 9th level barbarian knocks an enemy away with brutal strike, you are saying that the movement must be deducted from any other movement they have already used on their turn The 7th level barbarian feature however, uses the exact same wording except *as part of this action*, but this time it allows the barbarian extra movement Why is this? Edit: "the_twig"

[@the_twig131]

So I forgot to check if they were worded differently. Maybe Brutal Strike does grant you extra movement? The reason I didn't think that it did is because normally features which grant additional movement say that they do, or are off of the trigger of an action, like Instinctive Pounce.

[@nyanbrox5418]

Just checking I wasn't going insane, I'm sure the wording will be cleared up before print anyways, thank you for addressing this in a video!

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

Hi, I'm Jonathan and I like how you analyze rules.

[@the_twig131]

Woo! Someone riffed on my intro!

[@kclubok]

Why do you believe that the movement from Forceful Blow is part of your regular move speed, rather than extra movement? Is it because of the typography (capitalized and underlined), which indicates a reference to the rules glossary? I don't think that is evidence for that interpretation, especially given that Instinctive Pounce uses the same typography (and similar wording). And if Instinctive Pounce isn't granting extra movement, then it isn't doing anything at all.

[@the_twig131]

So this is something that has been brought up a few times, and on second look, I'm not sure I'm right. The reason that I originally thought this is because most features which grant 'extra movement' clearly say so, e.g. the new Jump spell, the Expert Classes playtest Jump action, the Dash action, etc. Forceful Blow doesn't do that. What I didn't think to do was check the wording of the feature directly above it, which as you say, is identical, however Instinctive Pounce's movement is also the only benefit given from that feature. Forceful Blow also gives immunity to opportunity attacks. As such, I'm no longer sure if it gives extra movement and immunity from opportunity attacks, or just immunity from opportunity attacks.

[@skippy9273]

Monk needs a feature like this

[@the_twig131]

Yes. I'd prefer something like this so much over Stunning Strike.

[@kurtoogle4576]

Yep, this is good!

[@Zoddlander]

I think that brutal strike should only cancel the advantage gained from reckless attacks! because you are already giving opponents advantage on all their attacks! so if you shove someone prone on the first attack it will do something for you aswell! but the barbarian "only" have two attacks, so maybe not to powerful! besides that I'm fine with the changes overall! just fix the "missprints"! I like this Tree! but They shouldn't have changed the base Zealot! just leave it be! it was fine! IMO!

[@the_twig131]

I agree actually, I'd much prefer it if it only made you forgo advantage on Reckless Attack only.

[@shadowstone6759]

Personally, I think instead of the extra 1d10, Brutal Strike should instead have you roll twice the amount of damage die you normally would, and upgrades to 3 times when you get 2d10 at lvl 17. Reasoning: while the extra tactical benefits are quite nice, the tenets surrounding Barbarian are usually meant to bolster damage. It also lets Barbs be a prime target for more buff based spells that might be wasted on another class. And while it would take some investment, it also allows for interesting multiclassing, such as with monk and their unarmed strikes and discipline points, or the paladin with their divine smites. It even allows the barbarian to more effectively use magic items. TLDR: Have the Barbarian roll extra damage die instead of d10s. it just makes it a better overall feature.

[@marcducorsky8736]

I know it is minor, but I would like the Brutal strike extra damage to be 1D10 or 1 Weapon damage die whatever is higher and add Str Mod. and an extra 1D10 or extra weapon damage at level 13.

[@marcducorsky8736]

Remember. You either HAVE advantage /Disadvantage/ or neither. You do not have Advantage 2 or Advantage 1 and Disadvantage 2 (no matter the sources). It is either a yes or no. Simple.

[@fenrir509]

I don't think Brutal Strikes means you can't have Advantage, and I don't think it's meant to be 'first attack or nothing.' Engaging with the second clause first, most other features that work this way have text like 'once on your turn;' this reads as 'you can make this choice before every attack, it just doesn't apply to reactions.' Regarding the first clause, you're not trading any chance of Advantage for extra damage and control; you're trading everyone having advantage against you for extra damage and control. It honestly feels like a lot of the conservative readings of Brutal Strikes are treating it like the passive damage boosts from other classes and assuming that it's too good to not have more restrictions or a tradeoff, but forgetting that the tradeoff is "everything is going to smack the bejeezus out of you if it's still alive at the end of your turn." Considering how many things by level 9 have nonphysical riders on their attacks, this really isn't a feature that you're going to want to use every turn, even with the increased potency of healing magic in this playtest. Definitely needs some clarification, though. Another couple of things I'd like to see: the option to spend a Weapon Mastery slot to treat your unarmed strikes more or less as a Versatile Simple weapon (1d6, or 1d8 with no weapon or shield). They tried to make an entire fighter subclass around that, instead, and it was godawful because it got thematic ribbons at levels where most subclasses got actual features, and it just doesn't feel right to have to multiclass to get unarmed damage in the first place- Multiclassing is a great tool, but there's so much thematic space in fantasy for hulking brawlers that being forced to take a level in monk to do it seems WRONG. With the improvements to Monk in both damage and action economy, any martial class with access to Mastery just being able to fight unarmed doesn't step on Monk's niche (nothing is matching the number of attacks a monk can put out, their scaling with it, or the fairly early ability to do force damage with it), it's still not mechanically better than using a martial weapon with its own mastery, and it makes ANY true martial class able to play as a brawler if the player so chooses and is willing to commit a resource to it. The other, speaking as someone who was really sad to see Rage no longer boosting Grapple or Shove in any way, is for the barbarian's Rage Damage to also be added to the save DC of any Strength-based saving throw they force. It's still a step down from expertise+advantage for a really dedicated build, but ANYTHING that incentivizes martials to do something with their turn besides "I make an attack roll" is worth at least considering, and a slow-scaling flat bonus still, even with Bounded Accuracy concerns, seems more reasonable than forcing Disadvantage on the saves- and the fact that almost every monster has proficiency in at least ONE of strength or dexterity saves means that it's very unlikely to get runaway efficacy in-game. You might infer that I'm one of those people that actually DOES like grappler builds(and while I don't often play Monks, I'm thrilled that Monk is now viable for that playstyle)- very much so. Sometimes it's the sheer panache of playing a Wildheart Luchador- a literal Tiger Mask. Sometimes it's just the fact that I like playing Support and don't like playing casters, but either way, I definitely felt it when the playtest rules collectively said "Wait, you're not just attacking every turn? Why are you a Barbarian, then?" (Edited for tone and clarity)

[@demnix6210]

I like the idea of brutal strike, but it is explained poorly, which is evident because there is not a concesus on how it functions.

[@DornishPrincessGaming]

*taking notes*

[@pallen2645]

Yeah so "you lose two unique barbarian features to become more like the battlenaster" isn't what I wanted to see.

[@Mr_Maiq_The_Liar]

Or maybe brutal strike gives up "the fact that you have advantage" so you don't have disadvantage when you swing in darkness? rules unclear

[@arturohernandez8789]

💪🏽