Class Analysis: Barbarian

 All right, we're getting started on our class analysis posts with the Barbarian, which, apart from the more recent Artificer (who I'll be covering after we finish the originals, probably,) is the first, alphabetically.

To touch on the Barbarian, we need to look at two broad categories: flavor and mechanics. The former is highly subjective, but the latter is also somewhat subjective and somewhat a question of math.

The inspiration for the Barbarian must be Conan the Barbarian, the pulp novels from the early 20th century that helped to popularize the fantasy genre and also were a huge inspiration for Gary Gygax and his collaborators, who viewed the self-interested heroics of Conan as a more direct model for D&D than the altruistic actions of the heroes in, say, Lord of the Rings.

And when we think of Conan the Barbarian, we usually think of Arnold Schwarzenegger from the 80s film adaptations - bulging with muscle and very little covering said muscle. We actually get some of the mechanics from this imagery: Barbarians don't wear armor, despite being front-line melee fighters. Indeed, there is historical precedence for this; the ancient celts would sometimes charge into battle fully naked, painted blue, to intimidate their foes (indeed, in the books, Conan - whose name is rather Irish, which you can compare to a certain veteran late-night host who is also very Irish - is meant to be vaguely Celtic, or proto-Celtic - rather than Germanic).

The term "Barbarian" was used originally by the ancient Greeks to describe, essentially, any foreigners. The word was onomatopoeic, based on the idea that foreign languages sounded like people saying "bah, bah." (I don't know if it has anything to do with beards - though given that the Greeks were pretty into beards, I think that's unlikely. It was the Romans who encouraged shaving). In the context of Greek and then Roman civilization, the term came to mean "uncivilized." In our post-colonial world, the notion that imperialist systems are "civilized" while the people they colonize are "savages" or "barbarians" is, of course something that scholars have been reexamining and deconstructing.

Of course, this makes the term's use for a character class kind of odd - it's basically an epithet thrown at outsiders. Still, the image it conjures - of chaotic brutes wielding violence, usually against a more "civilized" foe - ties the class into the concept of unbridled aggression, which then sees representation in its central class mechanic: Rage.

Indeed, I think that the use of Barbarian as a class name sort of redefines the word: rather than designating a particular culture or group of people as Barbarians, the class defines its members as people who channel their Rage as a martial technique. You could have a fancy Noble character who is a registered member of the dominant social group, but if they channel their Rage as their means of adventuring, they're a Barbarian.

Let's get into mechanics:

Barbarians are one of the more limited classes in terms of the kinds of rolls they can play. Every Barbarian is a melee combatant. While not strictly the "tank" of the group. Barbarians do have some subclasses that emphasize the ability to draw foes to attack them. With the resistance granted by Rage to the three "physical" damage types and the Barbarian's d12 hit die, along with other class mechanics that encourage the Barbarian to have high Constitution, the class encourages Barbarians to play the tank role.

Let's break the class' abilities into three categories: Offense, Defense, and Other.

Offensive:

Rage gives you bonus damage - while it's not a huge amount, it does add up, adding 2, and later 3 and then 4 to your weapon hits.

Reckless Attack makes it easier to hit (and crit) against your targets. The downside is that you open yourself up to being more likely to get hit - but we'll see why that's not always such a big deal when we get to the Defensive section.

Fast Movement is arguably an "other," but mobility on a pure melee class does mean you're less likely to spend a whole turn just getting to the enemy.

Extra Attack is pretty obvious.

Instinctive Pounce was introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, which, like Fast Movement, makes it easier for the Barbarian to get up to their foes. Again, this isn't strictly a damage increase, but it does make it more likely you'll be able to make contact with the enemy on your first turn.

Brutal Critical makes critical hits a bigger deal for Barbarians - which ironically doesn't really synergize with Rage. It does, however, encourage the use of Greataxes, which in almost all other circumstances are inferior (slightly) to Mauls and Greatswords.

Primal Champion lets you push your Strength to 24, which, among other things, makes your attacks more likely to hit and also increases your damage (a raging level 20 Barbarian is going to get 6 more damage per hit just for being a Barbarian).

Generally speaking, I think that a Barbarian's offensive abilities are fairly simple and straightforward. Rage being a limited resource creates the class' most obvious tactical challenge, though Reckless Attack can also be a tricky trade-off. Other than these, though, in most cases you're going to have a pretty clear order of operations: hit things.

I'd argue that Barbarians are one of the simpler classes to play because of this, but I don't think that's a bad thing - D&D needs a mix of simple and complex classes, and I think subclasses are another area you can play around in to give players options on complexity.

Defensive:

The d12 hit die translates to, on average, one more hit point per level than a Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger, two more than most classes, and then three more than Sorcerers and Wizards (and of course double that for level 1). If you roll for hit points, a Barbarian has the widest possible range.

On top of that, though, Unarmored Defense allows Barbarians to lean into Constitution even more. While you won't want a negative to Dexterity, you can more or less push Constitution as your secondary (or even primary) stat, as it will help you both in terms of hit points and armor class. That being said, if you're using the Standard Array, and arranging to get either +2s to Con and Dex at level 1 or a +3 to Con and a +1 to Dex, and then you use all your ASIs to get Con maxed after Strength, you'll cap out at an AC of 16 - though you'll hit 18 with the Primal Champion bonus at level 20. Now, there are magic items like Bracers of Defense, of course, and you can wield a shield. In fact, at level 20, you'd have the equivalent AC of a Fighter wearing nonmagical plate armor - though they would have likely hit that point at level 8 or so. A Barbarian who rolled god stats could theoretically cap Strength, Con, and Dex, and thus wind up with an AC of 22 (or 24 with a shield) at level 20, but that's pretty unlikely.

Of course, the reason Barbarians still work as tanks (on top of just having very high HP) is that Rage cuts most damage they take from attacks in half. Against foes wielding most weapons, the Barbarian effectively doubles its health as long as it can Rage. Given that bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage are extremely common, this makes it very hard for a Barbarian to be taken down in combat - but it does leave them vulnerable to other kinds of damage. (I don't want to get bogged down in subclasses, but this is why the Totem Warrior who picks the Bear totem at 3rd level might be too powerful).

Relentless Rage takes the unlikely scenario that your raging Barbarian has hit 0 hit points and makes it yet harder to actually take them down: allowing them to make a Constitution saving throw (with which they are proficient) and potentially stay at 1 HP. And this ability doesn't even have an official "cooldown," instead just getting a higher DC that resets back to 10 when you finish any rest.

Danger Sense gives Barbarians advantage on dexterity saving throws against things they can see. Given that they're going to likely sacrifice some dexterity in favor of constitution, this helps them survive fireballs and other common dangers.

Persistent Rage lets you keep your rage going even if you haven't been attacked or attacked something, which is great to maintain such an important feature when you're, say, using your action to drag an unconscious party member to safety or otherwise doing something tactical.

Essentially, I think the idea is that a Barbarian should only go down very rarely in combat, though they are highly reliant on Rage. A Barbarian that runs out of Rages is going to be significantly, significantly less effective (my Ravnica game is currently near the end of a long dungeon and the Barbarian has run out of Rages, and I almost feel guilty - though the final boss does a lot poison and force damage, so it wouldn't necessarily help that much).

Other:

This category is, I think, very important for the more combat-oriented classes. Spellcasters often have all sorts of spells they can cast to affect non-combat situations, and I think it's important that brawlers also get some ways to flex outside of the battlefield.

Barbarians don't get a ton of these.

At level 3, though only as an added feature from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, they get Primal Knowledge, which gives the proficiency in one, and later another skill from the Barbarian skill list. This actually winds up giving them just as many skill proficiencies as Rogues, though it takes a while to kick in. Skill proficiencies are actually a pretty important part of D&D, and this is also a great way to shore up the Barbarians out-of-combat capabilities - you might not be super-wise, but if you grab proficiency in Survival, you might be a much more useful tracker/navigator. Indeed, with this feature, you're going to get a majority of Barbarian skills.

Feral Instinct is, actually, a combat ability, but I don't know if it falls neatly into offense or defense. You get advantage on initiative rolls and you can basically ignore surprise if you go into a rage.

Indomitable Might is a nice bonus where if you roll below your strength score on a strength-based ability check (I'd interpret this to include Athletics) you can just use your score instead. By this level, that'd mean you probably can't roll below a 20, which reinforces the Barbarian as a titanically strong individual.

Analysis:

Here's the tough thing: Rage is very, very important to the Barbarian. Many class features and a lot of subclass features only function while you're raging. As such, you need to be very careful in planning out how often you use the ability (at least until you hit 20).

This also puts you a bit at the mercy of the DM. To be sure, this is true with any long-rest-recharging ability, including spell slots for most spellcasters. While only a couple of base features require you to be raging to use them, subclasses often require rage to do nearly anything. Half of the Berserker's four subclass features require it. The Totem Warrior, who just gets more features, is a little less dependent (Totem Warriors also get a lot more out-of-combat stuff). For popular post-PHB subclasses, the Zealot has 3 out of 5 of its features require you to be raging, and the Ancestral Guardian 3 out of 4 require it.

So, if I were to propose a tweak to the Barbarian, I'd allow more features to work regardless of whether you're raging or not.

I think Rages should be a resource to be managed, and the challenge means there has to be a chance to mismanage it. But I think that tying everything to a resource that you can use only a few times a day until you hit level 20 can make it feel like the class is gutted if you run out.

This got... way more in-depth than I think I initially intended, and so I think I might re-think how I do these posts for future classes. (Spellcasters are going to be extra tough given that their spell list is very important to defining their capabilities).