Beginning at 18th level, if your total for a Strength check is less than your Strength score, you can use that score in place of the total.
some people say if you roll less than a 20 on the check the roll becomes a 20 plus any modifiers, but i think it just becomes 20 or 24 depending, am i right or am i reading it poorly?
Beginning at 18th level, if your total for a Strength check is less than your Strength score, you can use that score in place of the total.
some people say if you roll less than a 20 on the check the roll becomes a 20 plus any modifiers, but i think it just becomes 20 or 24 depending, am i right or am i reading it poorly?
It replaces the check, not the roll - it's not like Rogue or Eloquence Bard Reliable Talent. So mechanically, assuming you're proficient and Strength 24 (modifier +7) and pb +6, it means you roll and add +13. So if the die shows a 10 or less, the check will be 23 or less, and be coerced up to 24. But it's worse than Reliable Talent, by a lot. If the same Barbarian had Expertise in Athletics - which is trivial to get - then the total modifier is +19, meaning you only coerce the check up to 24 on a 4 or less. In other words, Indomitable Might punishes you for being good at Athletics, and is at its best/least bad if you made it to Barbarian 18 without Athletics proficiency (which is unlikely).
It's worth noting that athletics isn't the only Strength check you might be asked to make; athletics is really supposed to be about movement, it isn't really intended to apply to say, kicking in a door. So whenever you're called upon to make a generic Strength check this feature will also apply.
The problem is that it's poorly defined, and a lot of players and DMs don't really understand how to use Strength and Constitution for checks, because there aren't a lot of concrete examples, and athletics is the only Strength skill listed on the sheet.
But a Barbarian might for example use Strength as the ability score for physical Intimidation in place of Charisma, so it could help with that as well; you might use a Strength check to steer a ship, hammer something (e.g- black-smithing), lift something heavy on a rope and so-on.
It's a feature that makes more sense in the context of how DM's are supposed to use Strength checks, but sadly doesn't seem so good when you consider how most groups ignore them or just use athletics for everything.
Definitely isn't OP though, especially at 18th level.
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Beginning at 18th level, if your total for a Strength check is less than your Strength score, you can use that score in place of the total.
some people say if you roll less than a 20 on the check the roll becomes a 20 plus any modifiers, but i think it just becomes 20 or 24 depending, am i right or am i reading it poorly?
It replaces the check, not the roll - it's not like Rogue or Eloquence Bard Reliable Talent. So mechanically, assuming you're proficient and Strength 24 (modifier +7) and pb +6, it means you roll and add +13. So if the die shows a 10 or less, the check will be 23 or less, and be coerced up to 24. But it's worse than Reliable Talent, by a lot. If the same Barbarian had Expertise in Athletics - which is trivial to get - then the total modifier is +19, meaning you only coerce the check up to 24 on a 4 or less. In other words, Indomitable Might punishes you for being good at Athletics, and is at its best/least bad if you made it to Barbarian 18 without Athletics proficiency (which is unlikely).
Except that it's not actually worse because of how high of a roll you get but only in the number of different rolls it actually covers. Because it's exceedingly rare to have checks of DC over 20 unless the DM is adjusting DC's for a more powerful party. So by level 18 when this kicks in, which feels a little bit late for this as compared to other classes that get these kinds of abilities your pretty much guaranteed to be able to pass all but the rarest of checks automatically so it basically becomes a non-roll except in situations where it might be contested or the DC is one of the rare ones that are higher.
Reliable Talent is actually overkill after a certain point. it guarantee's high rolls but at the same time basically guarantees that rolls are basically overkill in all but a few instances on them as well. People praise it because they want to see these high bonuses and these big numbers. But they start becoming almost meaningless except for as bragging rights. Stealth vs. Perception Rolls and Deception vs insight Rolls become the only real rolls to have DC's higher than 20 just because they are opposed rolls so your effective DC is what the opposing person rolls but only when your actually rolling against a person actually designed to be a potential foil to your overkill rolls to begin with. meaning that Reliable talents real use is on any skills that you have proficiency in with decent to low modifiers and likely no expertise because it means your more likely to make the checks instead of the uber skills that are going to effectively roll a minimum of 23 in them and never see DC's above 20 without DM intervention.
So it's a nice ability. It's definitely not OP, and it likely should have been gotten sooner than it is. But that's not what we got as a finished product.
It's not just worse it's almost insultingly worse.
At L11 a Rogue gets Reliable Talent and will be unable to roll below a 10 in around 8 skills with a proficiency bonus of 4 and a Dex of 18, maybe 20. By that point their plusses will be +9 or +13 for Stealth, Sleight of Hand and other Dex based skills and probably +5 or +9 on Wis. That's 8 skills where you can't roll lower than ~15. Good. Great even. You could say class defining.
At L18 a Barbarian gets one skill. One. Not only that but their one skill doesn't get buffed as much. A L18 Barbarian has Str 20 and a proficiency bonus of 6 for +11 meaning they effectively get rolls better than a 9 turned into a 9. Thats worse. It doesn't stop there though. With Tasha you can now get expertise in a single skill trivially. At L18 my Barbarian will have Str 20 and Expertise in Athletics for a +17. Now this perk turns rolls below a 3 into 3s. That's before you consider gear. An Ioun Stone of Mastery makes this perk literally worthless.
You say it's pointless in most campaigns to just have the big numbers go brrrr and DCs above 20 are rare. To that I say grapple. A grapple is an opposed Strength Athletics check. Something my Barbarian does all the time. At L10 they are already on +13. It's great to know that by the time I get there the perk will be worthless.
It's terrible. If it came in at L11 it would still be an order of magnitude worse than Reliable Talent. But it doesn't. This is a L18 perk. A level most campaigns never get to.
In summary this perk only buffs your strength if you don't use Athletics for anything. If you spend 18 levels using strength and working towards mastery of grappling it does literally nothing.
Level 18 is supposed to be practically demi-god mode. Wizards are manipulating the space-time continuum bending reality itself to their will, bringing about the apocalypse. Dogs and cats living together mass hysteria!
Barbarians get to lift and break things more reliably.
Level 18 is supposed to be practically demi-god mode. Wizards are manipulating the space-time continuum bending reality itself to their will, bringing about the apocalypse. Dogs and cats living together mass hysteria!
Barbarians get to lift and break things more reliably.
To be fair, a lot of classes, martials in particular, get a pretty raw deal at higher levels, like Wizards of the Coast gave up on writing the features at that point. On the other hand, the Barbarian's 20th level capstones are great; +4 to STR and CON on top of unlimited Rage uses, so maybe it's intentional balance that weaker features precede it?
Doesn't provide much consolation towards Indomitable Might being mechanically a bit rubbish though. If you're playing a pure Barbarian it's just a level to get through, whereas if you're multiclassing you'll lose the capstones so have little reason to proceed that far in Barbarian.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Level 18 is supposed to be practically demi-god mode. Wizards are manipulating the space-time continuum bending reality itself to their will, bringing about the apocalypse. Dogs and cats living together mass hysteria!
Barbarians get to lift and break things more reliably.
To be fair, a lot of classes, martials in particular, get a pretty raw deal at higher levels, like Wizards of the Coast gave up on writing the features at that point. On the other hand, the Barbarian's 20th level capstones are great; +4 to STR and CON on top of unlimited Rage uses, so maybe it's intentional balance that weaker features precede it?
Doesn't provide much consolation towards Indomitable Might being mechanically a bit rubbish though. If you're playing a pure Barbarian it's just a level to get through, whereas if you're multiclassing you'll lose the capstones so have little reason to proceed that far in Barbarian.
One of these days if I ever get to achieve mid-level, let alone high level, if I'm a Barbarian I'll be multi-classing into Fighter.
The Barbarian Capstone is good. The +4 Str and Con are good. The Con gives you 40hp and the Str +2 attack and damage and +2 on Athletics rolls. Depending on the type of Barbarian you are, unlimited rages might be better. You can drop and re-rage every turn for Instinctive Pounce and some sub classes have effects that activate on rage.
It's good but it's not worth giving up a 3 level dip into Fighter.
I'm considering an 8 level dip into fighter.
Then compare it to Cleric. Full caster powers Plus. Ask god for help. god helps.
Depending on your DM that is insane.
Indomitable Might should be this: The dice roll for any physical save (Dex, Str or Con) or Str (Athletics) skill check cannot be less than half your Str score, rounded down.
Does more than one thing, power is commensurate with the level.
It seems like it means if you don’t roll above your Str skill (which is probably 20) then you use that skill as the roll total. Which I’d say is pretty insane! Automatic 20 on a skill check bustedly strong.
It seems like it means if you don’t roll above your Str skill (which is probably 20) then you use that skill as the roll total. Which I’d say is pretty insane! Automatic 20 on a skill check bustedly strong.
Not really; it means the total can't be lower than 20.
Compare this to a Rogue's Reliable Talent (gained at 11th-level) which applies to all proficient skill checks and sets their minimum roll to 10. Combined with expertise in a skill that means their minimum roll is well above 20, for Sleight of Hand for example, with +5 Dexterity and +4 proficiency they'll have a minimum roll of 23 and that's not even that optimised.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I have been playing a Barbarian/Fighter in a campaign with friends for three years. I just hit L20.
I have Str 22, Proficiency bonus of 6 and Expertise in (Str) Athletics.
My (Str) Athletics is +18.
If I have the Rogue feature "Reliable Talent" I would be guaranteed a 10 for a minimum score of 28. This nonsense feature means I can't get less than 22. It turns any dice roll below 4 into a 4. Trash.
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So reading the barbarians 18 level feature
Indomitable Might
Beginning at 18th level, if your total for a Strength check is less than your Strength score, you can use that score in place of the total.
some people say if you roll less than a 20 on the check the roll becomes a 20 plus any modifiers, but i think it just becomes 20 or 24 depending, am i right or am i reading it poorly?
It replaces the check, not the roll - it's not like Rogue or Eloquence Bard Reliable Talent. So mechanically, assuming you're proficient and Strength 24 (modifier +7) and pb +6, it means you roll and add +13. So if the die shows a 10 or less, the check will be 23 or less, and be coerced up to 24. But it's worse than Reliable Talent, by a lot. If the same Barbarian had Expertise in Athletics - which is trivial to get - then the total modifier is +19, meaning you only coerce the check up to 24 on a 4 or less. In other words, Indomitable Might punishes you for being good at Athletics, and is at its best/least bad if you made it to Barbarian 18 without Athletics proficiency (which is unlikely).
It's worth noting that athletics isn't the only Strength check you might be asked to make; athletics is really supposed to be about movement, it isn't really intended to apply to say, kicking in a door. So whenever you're called upon to make a generic Strength check this feature will also apply.
The problem is that it's poorly defined, and a lot of players and DMs don't really understand how to use Strength and Constitution for checks, because there aren't a lot of concrete examples, and athletics is the only Strength skill listed on the sheet.
But a Barbarian might for example use Strength as the ability score for physical Intimidation in place of Charisma, so it could help with that as well; you might use a Strength check to steer a ship, hammer something (e.g- black-smithing), lift something heavy on a rope and so-on.
It's a feature that makes more sense in the context of how DM's are supposed to use Strength checks, but sadly doesn't seem so good when you consider how most groups ignore them or just use athletics for everything.
Definitely isn't OP though, especially at 18th level.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Except that it's not actually worse because of how high of a roll you get but only in the number of different rolls it actually covers. Because it's exceedingly rare to have checks of DC over 20 unless the DM is adjusting DC's for a more powerful party. So by level 18 when this kicks in, which feels a little bit late for this as compared to other classes that get these kinds of abilities your pretty much guaranteed to be able to pass all but the rarest of checks automatically so it basically becomes a non-roll except in situations where it might be contested or the DC is one of the rare ones that are higher.
Reliable Talent is actually overkill after a certain point. it guarantee's high rolls but at the same time basically guarantees that rolls are basically overkill in all but a few instances on them as well. People praise it because they want to see these high bonuses and these big numbers. But they start becoming almost meaningless except for as bragging rights. Stealth vs. Perception Rolls and Deception vs insight Rolls become the only real rolls to have DC's higher than 20 just because they are opposed rolls so your effective DC is what the opposing person rolls but only when your actually rolling against a person actually designed to be a potential foil to your overkill rolls to begin with. meaning that Reliable talents real use is on any skills that you have proficiency in with decent to low modifiers and likely no expertise because it means your more likely to make the checks instead of the uber skills that are going to effectively roll a minimum of 23 in them and never see DC's above 20 without DM intervention.
So it's a nice ability. It's definitely not OP, and it likely should have been gotten sooner than it is. But that's not what we got as a finished product.
I disagree.
It's not just worse it's almost insultingly worse.
At L11 a Rogue gets Reliable Talent and will be unable to roll below a 10 in around 8 skills with a proficiency bonus of 4 and a Dex of 18, maybe 20. By that point their plusses will be +9 or +13 for Stealth, Sleight of Hand and other Dex based skills and probably +5 or +9 on Wis. That's 8 skills where you can't roll lower than ~15. Good. Great even. You could say class defining.
At L18 a Barbarian gets one skill. One. Not only that but their one skill doesn't get buffed as much. A L18 Barbarian has Str 20 and a proficiency bonus of 6 for +11 meaning they effectively get rolls better than a 9 turned into a 9. Thats worse. It doesn't stop there though. With Tasha you can now get expertise in a single skill trivially. At L18 my Barbarian will have Str 20 and Expertise in Athletics for a +17. Now this perk turns rolls below a 3 into 3s. That's before you consider gear. An Ioun Stone of Mastery makes this perk literally worthless.
You say it's pointless in most campaigns to just have the big numbers go brrrr and DCs above 20 are rare. To that I say grapple. A grapple is an opposed Strength Athletics check. Something my Barbarian does all the time. At L10 they are already on +13. It's great to know that by the time I get there the perk will be worthless.
It's terrible. If it came in at L11 it would still be an order of magnitude worse than Reliable Talent. But it doesn't. This is a L18 perk. A level most campaigns never get to.
In summary this perk only buffs your strength if you don't use Athletics for anything. If you spend 18 levels using strength and working towards mastery of grappling it does literally nothing.
Level 18 is supposed to be practically demi-god mode. Wizards are manipulating the space-time continuum bending reality itself to their will, bringing about the apocalypse. Dogs and cats living together mass hysteria!
Barbarians get to lift and break things more reliably.
To be fair, a lot of classes, martials in particular, get a pretty raw deal at higher levels, like Wizards of the Coast gave up on writing the features at that point. On the other hand, the Barbarian's 20th level capstones are great; +4 to STR and CON on top of unlimited Rage uses, so maybe it's intentional balance that weaker features precede it?
Doesn't provide much consolation towards Indomitable Might being mechanically a bit rubbish though. If you're playing a pure Barbarian it's just a level to get through, whereas if you're multiclassing you'll lose the capstones so have little reason to proceed that far in Barbarian.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
One of these days if I ever get to achieve mid-level, let alone high level, if I'm a Barbarian I'll be multi-classing into Fighter.
The Barbarian Capstone is good.
The +4 Str and Con are good.
The Con gives you 40hp and the Str +2 attack and damage and +2 on Athletics rolls.
Depending on the type of Barbarian you are, unlimited rages might be better.
You can drop and re-rage every turn for Instinctive Pounce and some sub classes have effects that activate on rage.
It's good but it's not worth giving up a 3 level dip into Fighter.
I'm considering an 8 level dip into fighter.
Then compare it to Cleric.
Full caster powers
Plus. Ask god for help. god helps.
Depending on your DM that is insane.
Indomitable Might should be this:
The dice roll for any physical save (Dex, Str or Con) or Str (Athletics) skill check cannot be less than half your Str score, rounded down.
Does more than one thing, power is commensurate with the level.
It seems like it means if you don’t roll above your Str skill (which is probably 20) then you use that skill as the roll total. Which I’d say is pretty insane! Automatic 20 on a skill check bustedly strong.
Not really; it means the total can't be lower than 20.
Compare this to a Rogue's Reliable Talent (gained at 11th-level) which applies to all proficient skill checks and sets their minimum roll to 10. Combined with expertise in a skill that means their minimum roll is well above 20, for Sleight of Hand for example, with +5 Dexterity and +4 proficiency they'll have a minimum roll of 23 and that's not even that optimised.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
As Haravikk said, it's bad.
It means your total can't be less than 20.
I have been playing a Barbarian/Fighter in a campaign with friends for three years. I just hit L20.
I have Str 22, Proficiency bonus of 6 and Expertise in (Str) Athletics.
My (Str) Athletics is +18.
If I have the Rogue feature "Reliable Talent" I would be guaranteed a 10 for a minimum score of 28.
This nonsense feature means I can't get less than 22.
It turns any dice roll below 4 into a 4. Trash.