# What does a barbarian need?



## TPKStudio (Dec 13, 2020)

Hi everyone,

Earlier this year we released a free app that helps barbarians in need to calculate their attack and damage bonuses. This all started due to the barbarian in our party struggling with number crunching when a few bonuses were thrown into the mix.

However now that he's no longer stressing over adding numbers to add to the dice, he's looking for useful items to purchase/acquire. He has his trusty great axe, light armour, healing potions and bow, but wants to get creative. Looking for unique support items roughly levels 0-10.
What are some of the more creative items barbarians in your party have carried on them that you could recommend? Fellow barbarians, he needs your help!

We're hoping to add any feedback into our app so current and future barbarians including himself can be inspired by these items 

For anyone wandering about the app:
Android App
Web Browser version


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## rgoodbb (Dec 13, 2020)

An Immovable Rod and somewhere to shove it!

Seriously though, I like the non-weapon utility items such as above. Others:

Slippers of Spider Climb
Gloves of Missile Snaring
Hat of Disguise (for no other reason than it's fun to see a barb squirm at deception)
Boots of Springing and Striding
Cape of the Mounteback 
Getting to enemies is important.


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## Seramus (Dec 13, 2020)

TPKStudio said:


> What does a barbarian need?



To crush their enemies, to see them driven before them, and to hear the lamentations of their women.


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## EzekielRaiden (Dec 14, 2020)

Which edition are you playing?


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 14, 2020)

Seramus said:


> To crush their enemies, to see them driven before them, and to hear the lamentations of their women.



/thread


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## Benjamin Olson (Dec 14, 2020)

He needs to learn the answer to the riddle of steel.


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## David Howery (Dec 14, 2020)

I'm guessing the answer isn't 'hugs'?


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## LordEntrails (Dec 14, 2020)

A loin cloth and a bigger weapon?

Boots of Springing and Striding are good. Cloak of Arachnida. Healing, anything that he can use to heal. Heroism, potions or other effect items.


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## Eltab (Dec 15, 2020)

Cloak of My Own Will.  Because too many times our Barbarian falls for a _Suggestion_  " Make him stop hurting me!"


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## humble minion (Dec 15, 2020)

The only thing a barbarian needs
is a greataxe and a trunk
and the only time he's satisfied
is when he's got heads to crump


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## Paul Farquhar (Dec 15, 2020)

A straight answer?


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## JustinCase (Dec 15, 2020)

Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.

But seriously, immovable rods, magic weapons and belts of giant strength (if Str isn't already that high) seem like the most obvious items. I've played a barbarian who carried a lightning bolt sword (adapted Javelin of Lightning to a greatsword) which was a lot of fun, and it made for some tactical decisions (if I hurl the sword and hit multiple opponents, I'm unarmed until I can retrieve it...).

For fun roleplaying opportunities, you could look for non-combat things like the cloak of billowing or dread helm (XGtE).


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## jasper (Dec 15, 2020)

a day at the salon to get their hair done, nails and a nice massage.


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## jgsugden (Dec 15, 2020)

Antidepressants, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics.


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## loverdrive (Dec 15, 2020)

jgsugden said:


> Antidepressants



Well, some AD tend to make people angry. Cipralex makes me want to cave people's skulls in with a broken armchair leg for the most petty of reasons.


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## Umbran (Dec 15, 2020)

jgsugden said:


> Antidepressants, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics.




Psychopharmacology is not your strong suit.  Stick to your day job.


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## Ancalagon (Dec 15, 2020)

TPKStudio said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> Earlier this year we released a free app that helps barbarians in need to calculate their attack and damage bonuses. This all started due to the barbarian in our party struggling with number crunching when a few bonuses were thrown into the mix.
> 
> ...



What edition are you playing?  

And no I'm not clicking on your link to find out.


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## Brotton Goodfellow (Dec 15, 2020)

Periapt of Wound Closure so the rest of the team doesn’t have to worry when the barbarian jumps into the middle of a scrum whilst raging.
Necklace of Fireball couldn’t hurt either.


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## Undrave (Dec 15, 2020)

Cloak of Displacement, it grants disadvantage to all attacks against you until your are hit, and then its effect comes back online at the start of your turn.

This would cancel the granted advantage when using Reckless Attack and make them even more hard to bring down. Particularly useful against missile attacks early on in the fight, allowing them to just charge ahead unscathed.


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## jgsugden (Dec 15, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Psychopharmacology is not your strong suit.  Stick to your day job.











						Treating intermittent explosive disorder - Harvard Health
					

Intermittent explosive disorder (IED) is characterized by disproportionate rage responses, leading to serious harm through violent words or deeds.  Several studies suggest that the disorder is associated with abnormal activity of the neurotransm...




					www.health.harvard.edu
				






> *A number of medications are known to reduce aggression and prevent rage outbursts*, *including* *antidepressants* (namely selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs), *mood stabilizers* (lithium and anticonvulsants), and *antipsychotic drugs*...



You know, I may just have to go with the Harvard Mental Health Letter over you on this one.


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## jgsugden (Dec 15, 2020)

Undrave said:


> Cloak of Displacement, it grants disadvantage to all attacks against you until your are hit, and then its effect comes back online at the start of your turn.
> 
> This would cancel the granted advantage when using Reckless Attack and make them even more hard to bring down. Particularly useful against missile attacks early on in the fight, allowing them to just charge ahead unscathed.



An interesting note - Hit points matter, generally, when you run out of them.  As a PC fights just as effectively when they have 1 or 160, the characters generally suffer only when they drop below zero.  When you think about this in terms of the barbarian and the benefits of the class, you may come to the conclusion I did: Defense is a huge waste of resources.  

One of the benefits of a barbarian is that they have a lot of hit points and damage resistance.  It allows them to take a huge amount of damage and keep on ticking.  If your barbarian is not being knocked down often, then expending resources to increase their defenses may not be a great use of resources.  You'd likely be better off devoting those resources to offense or utility capabilities (or non-hp based defenses like saving throws).


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## Ralif Redhammer (Dec 15, 2020)

A good exfoliation and mud mask will help clear up that barbarian bacne! 



jasper said:


> a day at the salon to get their hair done, nails and a nice massage.




Ctrl+F "mighty thews" not found.

In all seriousness, a ring of protection would be great for a barbarian. For non-shield-using barbarians, AC at lower levels is definitely a weak spot - sure they might be resistant to damage, but it's not that hard to hit them.


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## Undrave (Dec 15, 2020)

jgsugden said:


> An interesting note - Hit points matter, generally, when you run out of them.  As a PC fights just as effectively when they have 1 or 160, the characters generally suffer only when they drop below zero.  When you think about this in terms of the barbarian and the benefits of the class, you may come to the conclusion I did: Defense is a huge waste of resources.
> 
> One of the benefits of a barbarian is that they have a lot of hit points and damage resistance.  It allows them to take a huge amount of damage and keep on ticking.  If your barbarian is not being knocked down often, then expending resources to increase their defenses may not be a great use of resources.  You'd likely be better off devoting those resources to offense or utility capabilities (or non-hp based defenses like saving throws).




The point here is that it lets the Barbarian be more reckless. Not only getting Advantage on all attacks, but also charging far ahead of their allies even when faced with superior ranged weaponry. I also only have a small amount of experience with magic items to draw from and I thought this particular one was at least INTERESTING in its mechanic. Also, obviously you'd want a big honking' magic weapon first but I don't think the OP needs us for that suggestion... 

But saving throw buffing is also a good idea! Nothing worse than seeing a Barbarian being mind controlled and attacking your own team! 

A buff to Initiative might also be useful for a Barbarian, like a weapon of Alarm or something. 

Anything that lets the Barbarian fly is also a better alternative to throwing javelins and stuff and gives you more utility.


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## CleverNickName (Dec 15, 2020)

...a reach weapon and the Sentinel feat?


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 16, 2020)

Mighty thews.


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## doctorbadwolf (Dec 16, 2020)

TPKStudio said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> Earlier this year we released a free app that helps barbarians in need to calculate their attack and damage bonuses. This all started due to the barbarian in our party struggling with number crunching when a few bonuses were thrown into the mix.
> 
> ...



If you're down with homebrew, a returning thrown weapon with better reach than a javelin.

One I created for a Paladin in my group is a spear with a 120ft thrown range, returning, and she can, a few times a day, teleport to the spear rather than calling it back to her hand.


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## Eltab (Dec 16, 2020)

Defense is not a waste of resources (poor AC => plenty of incoming hits to sandpaper away those HP).  But after acquiring decent defenses, Evasion capability might be a better investment than uber-AC.


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## jgsugden (Dec 16, 2020)

Eltab said:


> Defense is not a waste of resources (poor AC => plenty of incoming hits to sandpaper away those HP).  But after acquiring decent defenses, Evasion capability might be a better investment than uber-AC.



Let me elaborate further...  Meet Barby and Thelonius.  Barby is a 10th level barbarian, and Thelonius is a 10th level monk.  They're the best of friends.

They've just encountered a bunch of ogres. Barby has 105 HPs, AC 14 and damage resistance. Thelonius has AC 19 and 73 hps. When they go into battle as the front line, the ogres attacking Barby at +6 for 13 average damage will take him down in roughly 25 attacks. They'll take Thelonius down in about 13 attacks. As a starting point, by the time Barby's hps are drained enough to matter, his allies are down - even when he has a low AC.

Let's now bump up that AC. He wears some spiffy armor, a shield, and has some magical defensive bonuses to AC bringing him up to a 19 AC.

How might enemies adjust their tactics?

If the DM has the monsters think simply, they might see the unarmored monk and the armored brutish warrior and think the easy kill is the silly unarmed man.

If the DM has them apply good tactics with complete information, the DM will focus fire on the monk entirely as taking the monk down will allow more of them to survive long enough to gang up on that barbarian. 

Any way you cut it, extra resources devoted to hps or AC, beyond those granted by the core of the class, are likely not going to help you much, if at all. What they may do is give the DM more incentive to not attack you, which draws fire to more vulnerable allies. 

You're much better off seeing additional help with utility capabilities, offense, and saving throw defenses.


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## Undrave (Dec 16, 2020)

jgsugden said:


> Let me elaborate further...  Meet Barby and Thelonius.  Barby is a 10th level barbarian, and Thelonius is a 10th level monk.  They're the best of friends.
> 
> They've just encountered a bunch of ogres. Barby has 105 HPs, AC 14 and damage resistance. Thelonius has AC 19 and 73 hps. When they go into battle as the front line, the ogres attacking Barby at +6 for 13 average damage will take him down in roughly 25 attacks. They'll take Thelonius down in about 13 attacks. As a starting point, by the time Barby's hps are drained enough to matter, his allies are down - even when he has a low AC.
> 
> ...



I mean... you're using a Monk, that's a pretty bad comparaison  Maybe compare to a heavy armor Fighter instead?


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## Weiley31 (Dec 20, 2020)

Technically if a Barbarian takes anti-depressants or something for their rage issue, does that mean you reskin their rage as Adventures in Middle Earth's Slayer's Fury? Since technically in that game, they describe Barbarian Rage as the usual supreme anger or just that cold, tranquil warrior fury where everything slows down and they strike hard tactically?


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## Morrus (Dec 20, 2020)

Moved this to the promotions forum for you. I guess you sneaked in a week before I noticed.


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## Weiley31 (Dec 20, 2020)

Congrats to TPKstudios for getting class changed to Barbarian. At this rate the next class change should happen before Christmas.


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## jgsugden (Dec 20, 2020)

Undrave said:


> I mean... you're using a Monk, that's a pretty bad comparaison  Maybe compare to a heavy armor Fighter instead?



Why?  That would be missing the point.  And it is not a comparison - it is discussing the interaction with party members.

The heavy armor fighter and the barbarian serve the same roll - defender / meat shield. They're there to take the hits so that others do not. My point above was that focusing on defense as a barbarian - rather than using those resources on more useful offensive, utility or save defense capabilities - is not going to help you do your job. By the time it becomes relevant that you have taken less hits, your allies will already be down and dead and you'll have failed at your role. Instead, you're better off hitting harder, being more mobile, etc... because that will actually help your allies by taking down foes faster, allowing you to do more, etc... 

A high AC on a barbarian only is significant for you when your team has already lost the battle.


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