Barbarians : Remove Furors / Rework Rage

[Richørd]

Hello.

Let me preface this by saying that I have just "finished" playing a barbarian. Some of your might have known him. Harry O'Carrol of House Glitt.
Harry was a Human pure barb with a relatively easy to justify minmax build of 16 STR, 14 DEX, 12 CON, 10 INT, 10 WIS and 14 CHA leading up to 18 STR at level 8. His weapon was a warmace for the extra stupid x4 crits on a two handed weapon.
I played Harry because I had the big desire to play an absolute crushbot with one very easy playstyle. Hostile, drink only the most necessary offensive potions, press rage macro, click red and go nuts.


LONG RAMBLING :
[hide]The class is, by far,  the strongest full AB class when playing a pure build. Barbarians are so overloaded with simple but effective goodies that it boggles my mind how anyone who played this class themselves or has been on EfU for years can argue that barbarians are somehow not the strongest base full AB class.

I have been able to take on fights I should have never been able to win. I was capable of pushing out damage numbers that were obnoxious to observe. Because I have just come from playing a rather weak greatsword paladin build, a dozen fighters before that and it is ridiculous when I crit on a Paladin for as much as I hit with a barbarian on standard hits.

It was like going from using a knife and a cutting board for your carrots to a black market blender from a country where they don't have safety regulations.
Shit felt messed up.

Why can I use that previously mentioned build and make a barbarian that gets, upon pressing a single damn button, get from 6 up to 12 strength AND endurance as a free action?
All of which stacks with bull's strength, endurance and rage potions.
So my character at level 8 would have been able to hit 37 STR ...
Guys. Just by being level 8, having "good" rolls on the bull's  strength and popping a rage potion + pressing your rage macro (which is a free action so all of this only takes a single round to set up) I was able to hit a +13 modifier.
That with weapon focus is an AB of 22.
You can still have magic weapon and sip the holy trinity of Bless, Aid and Favor.

This is not okay and is exactly why so many of the "feared" player characters were barbarians. I don't know about other chapters but in the time I have been playing I can only count 2 PCs who I would consider "crushbots" in PvP and weren't barbarians. Everyone else was a barbarian.[/hide]


BUT HOW DID IT FEEL THO?
[hide]PvP was laughable. I was more often than not undersupplied, unprepared and I am not a PvP monster. I am bad at it and too nice. I am the kind of guy who goes for mages last more often than not because I know "Yeah, that d6 hitdie wizard is just going to be instantly smacked by my 20+ damage hits, best leave the poor sucker be so he can have some fun". But as mentioned previously, I have won fights THAT I SHOULD NOT HAVE. Even if I did not crit (which would have resulted in the enemy just instantly loosing) I have often found myself just bullrushing enemies down before they can do anything.
The only thing that sucks about pure barbarians are their saves and AC.

PvE was a more balanced experience. Which was still laughable. When you, the barb, crack the skull of a DM event boss nearly instantly so the DM has to pause the event and heal the boss back up JUST FOR YOU it kind of underlines my point here as well. Barbarians in PvE suck at long and exhausting fighting. Yeah, fighters are better for that. But know what fighters can't do? Solo run down most bosses and just whack-a-mole them in 2 rounds reliably.
Again, the only thing that sucks about pure barbarians are their saves and AC.[/hide]


THE ACTUAL SUGGESTION?
[hide]I wasn't joking with that title. Remove furors. Entirely. Barbarians would still be playable if you did that.
Here is to hoping that whoever came up with the furor system is not taking this personally. Because I don't even know who you are. But the furors feel like someone really wanted to make barbarians on EfU stand out, at which they succeeded. They basically gave a class with a bunch of goodies even more shit on a free button press and no requirements other than having to find laughably easy to access NPCs with slight RNG and having the required levels.[/hide]

[Egon the Monkey]

I would disagree, I knew plenty of feared PCs who weren't barbarians. What barbarian does have really going for it is a massive resistance to people kicking off on you, and the opportunity to cheaply go for broke. You can't slam an area like a prepared Wizard, or whack out the wand spam of a fighter/rogue. But the Rage lets you quickly either get the drop on someone or react to an attack. They are very simple to use and the counter to them is basically "Hit them with a stun first" or "Hit them with a tangle and keep dispelling". Which works on everyone.  And the Hitpoints/DI combo gives them a solid chance of surviving something that's buffed to such high AB that it'll only miss a Halfling Monk :P. 

I don't think furors are the real issue, although adding *another +1dX Str and Con feels a bit out of whack. I think it's that Barbarians are just massively suited to high-risk, short term situations, and that's where most PCs permadie on EfU. It's unlikely you're going to be facing two fights to the death in a row before you've had time to pillage the first one. In both PVP and spice, the ability to win fast is better than long term efficiency. If you put the damage out quick, you do it while your rare potions are still active or they are still buffing up. You can buff your AB high enough to breach their buffed defences, while they have no specific counter to your Damage Immunity and mountain of hitpoints. Both of which are also the only way to tank Monster Crits, which are one of the more usual PVE deaths.

x4 crit weapons are the sort of gamble that pays off very well for a barbarian. You trade a  slightly lower base damage for a 1/20 chance per attack of instantly ending the fight (Concealment notwithstanding). Those are good odds, especially when you're Hasted to 3 APR and  your base damage is so high off static bonuses that slightly lower weapon damage is not real concern. I recall Eq playing the Barbarian 'Old Man Franco' years ago back when quarterstaves were a 2h weapon, and destroying people with a 1d6 weapon and no shield. Because he knew the static STR bonus and massive AB was enough.

Thoughts to make Barbarians less simply effective without just cutting their cool stuff.

• Make Rage more of a double edged sword. If it was -2 Reflex on there, you would have more opportunity to pin down a barbarian on their other weak save. As it is, having +HP and +Will is just the defence you need against casters. Better chance of surviving a fight ending Will stun or a high damage spell, and all the good Reflex save stuns except Web are L1 and Blur blocks them
• Lower their number of skillpoints. As it is, they can max Concentration, Taunt, Discipline and Listen with 10 INT, which is all their important class skills. They don't have any hard choices to make, and they can easily drop Listen and cross Tumble to get the most out their armour.