Arelith

Is there supposed to be an in-universe explanation for this? I never really understood what's supposed to be going on in game when I hit a barbarian and it inexplicably causes damage. Are barbarians now like the xenomorphs from alien, spewing acidic blood whenever my character cuts them? Is their skin so hard that my weapon is bouncing off them and bonking my character in the face? Are they supposed to be so ferocious that getting within striking range puts me in the vicinity of their irascible tornado of rage, like Taz the Tasmanian devil? I don't get it.

It is definitely the most video gamey class we have in arelith.

If it comforts you any, the rework script work has begun.

Biteback not included.

I always figured it as them hitting you whenever you hit them. Sort of a "aha, I have cunningly trapped your weapon inside my ribcage, now feel my wrath!" style of fighting.

Baron Saturday wrote:"aha, I have cunningly trapped your weapon inside my ribcage, now feel my wrath!" style of fighting.

Pfft. My grandma can do that.

Cortex wrote:If it comforts you any, the rework script work has begun.

Biteback not included.

It does! Because honestly, biteback damage is kind of lame. If you're gonna hurt your opponent you should earn that privilege by actually doing something well, not just standing there and taking hits.

The problem is that biteback doesn't have a logical reason to exist, not that it's an unearned damage on your attacker. Otherwise would not spells like acid sheath be that way too" I mean you just "stand there" and your enemy dies from acid and fire damage on contact .

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I envision barbarians as a whirlwind of death, dealing damage to all those that get too close. It's not terribly hard to justify.

That said, the mechanic does feel pretty cancerous.

Cortex wrote:If it comforts you any, the rework script work has begun.

Biteback not included.

Nice. Look forward to seeing what happens with them.

I have some very strong negative emotions about the Barbarian biteback. Multiple times I have been with a group where we stun or subdued a barbarian with magic like bigbys hand. But guess what? We die anyways just touching him. Okay.

High DR, super powerful melee ability, oh and anytime you do manage to damage me I can hurt you without even swinging.

Throw in some rogue levels and the Barbarian can even cast timestop. Great.

Biggest troll wver

Peppermint wrote:I envision barbarians as a whirlwind of death, dealing damage to all those that get too close. It's not terribly hard to justify.

That said, the mechanic does feel pretty cancerous.

Give them whirlwind attack as a bonus feat while in rage mode to represent that. Even if they had an automatic whirlwind attack every round replacing their third flurry while in rage, at least that would allow someone to avoid it without just kiting.

Here are the two biggest problems with Berb-berbian Biteback:

1) Any Barbarian that accidentally inflicted damage on himself should logically explode into bloody viscera from an uncontrolled biteback resonance cascade. This should take exactly long enough for him to realize what he did and give the audience a panicked "OH CRAP" look.

2) The badly-needed "Emotional Damage Biteback" feature was never added. This left Barbarians completely unable to dissuade attackers from hurting their feelings during PvP.

Black Wendigo wrote:The problem is that biteback doesn't have a logical reason to exist, not that it's an unearned damage on your attacker. Otherwise would not spells like acid sheath be that way too" I mean you just "stand there" and your enemy dies from acid and fire damage on contact .

Yeah, but you cast those by being a wizard, sacrificing a spell splot, etc.

Peppermint wrote:I envision barbarians as a whirlwind of death, dealing damage to all those that get too close. It's not terribly hard to justify.

Yeah, but then why don't WM's have biteback damage?

Because WM's literally already reign supreme and dont need any help in the damage dealing department?

Because WMs aren't berserkers.

Keen to see how things change!

Cortex wrote:If it comforts you any, the rework script work has begun.

Biteback not included.

Can you tease a little about what replaces the biteback?

Cortex wrote:If it comforts you any, the rework script work has begun.

Biteback not included.

ATM if you build an barb on biteback and dmg-restistance you would not care for AC but only for hp.
That is not an extrem powerbuild - most of all if you dont go +3lvl rogue at the end, which would grant you +6 AC and access to wands/scrolls. (Thats why there should be an incentive for pure barb.)

If you rework barb then the low AC "hard rock" path should continue to stay open and attractive. (There is no other class that as suiteable for this kind of build.)

A nice tool for barb would be to be able to controll their rage with increasing levels (depending on disciplin); e.g. pausing rage when opponent hides and start again when its shows up again. (using the number of available rages to stop and start)

(ATM barb might just smash the wall half an hour untill rage wears off because no enemy can be seen/ is around.)

In addition to this making rage a risk would spice barb rp up too. E.g. you cant ignore hostile NPCs in sight without high DC check. And maybe a small risk to hit close party members during the raged fight.

...

Most of the all troublemakers causing fight and crap IG inside cities were barbarian bite back builds.

would be good if barbs were given the ability to do damage to an area around the person they were attacking, so nearby persons would also be taking damage to from their wild frenzy. or perhaps it can work in their front arc so that within a smaller cone infront of the person it deals a 100% damage, and it falls off slowly towards the 180 angle, so that its like they are laying all about them.

flower wrote:Most of the all troublemakers causing fight and crap IG inside cities were barbarian bite back builds.

Wild and violent men chafing under the restrictions of law and civilized society? Seems like a feature of the class, rather than an error in representation, to me.

FrozenSolid wrote:I have some very strong negative emotions about the Barbarian biteback. Multiple times I have been with a group where we stun or subdued a barbarian with magic like bigbys hand. But guess what? We die anyways just touching him. Okay.

High DR, super powerful melee ability, oh and anytime you do manage to damage me I can hurt you without even swinging.

Throw in some rogue levels and the Barbarian can even cast timestop. Great.

Biggest troll wver

Sometimes the best course of action is to RUN! A barbarian in a rage is not someone to be triffled with even if they are "subdued" with Bigby's hand. Get the heck out of there and don't try to understand the significance of biteback... Also Barbarians who use biteback usually don't want AC they want to be hit so they can dish out more damage. They are glass cannons. They don't need a nerf they just want to be understood. Just because you can't touch them doesn't mean their skills are OP. Sometimes you just have to let yourself RP a person who is extremely terrified (and rightfully so) of a barbarians rage, instead of trying to fight something you shouldn't. Just because you can't beat it doesn't mean it needs to be nerfed.

I like it when barbs take bard levels and can time stop while also having massive saving throws.

But saying that "X can splash levels in Y allowing them to do Z, X needs to be nerfed" is a logically faulty statement. The problem in that scenario lies with Class Y (Bard) - allowing people to whip out very powerful tricks for a relatively small investment in levels/skills - not with Class X (which could be Barbarian... or Paladin... or Fighter. Or pretty much any class that can't cast/use Timestop scrolls on their own, and doesn't already have access to UMD.)

PinkFuzzyBunnyoftheApocolypse wrote: They don't need a nerf they just want to be understood. Just because you can't touch them doesn't mean their skills are OP. Sometimes you just have to let yourself RP a person who is extremely terrified (and rightfully so) of a barbarians rage, instead of trying to fight something you shouldn't. Just because you can't beat it doesn't mean it needs to be nerfed.

I mean, the whole reason they got the biteback damage was out of pity, because they used to be so bad. Thus, the solution was to just give them free damage. For me, the annoyance about biteback doesn't even have anything to do with game balance. It's just, on principle, lame that you get to do damage because another character can hit you. It's like giving someone points on a test for answering a question wrong. It punishes the other character for being good at something and rewards you for effectively being bad at something. The same doesn't apply with wizards and bards who get spells like Mestile's and Wounding Whispers. A mundane melee-class like a Barbarian should be expected to do its damage by dishing out blows, because its means of doing damage is not a magical barrier, but a weapon.

If the rationale for biteback damage is that the Barbarian is hitting you back when you get into their personal rage-space, then shouldn't there be some attack roll involved? Some opportunity for the Barbarian to miss? Why does my weapon connecting with them mean that they can hit me? I've been told that the Barbarian is really vicious and berserk. Why does being berserk mean they can do this to you? If a Barbarian can viciously flail around their weapon and hit anyone who comes into their personal space, shouldn't any class with lots of attacks per round be able to do that? What's the barbarian doing with his weapon, exactly, that allows it to hit me whenever I hit him, and why can't, say, a WM do that? How does it explain the fact that a Barbarian with 2 str wielding a weapon he's not even focused in would do Biteback damage, or a Barbarian who is under the effects of a hold spell?