I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
Ready an action to shove and knock them prone when they come in at you. I could see it turning into a rules-lawyer situation, but as I read it, your readied action would trigger before their attack, so it’s not an OA, so mobile wouldn’t apply.
And since they have to spend half their move to stand, if they don’t have at least that left, they’ll be stuck there attacking you from prone, with disadvantage, and then your next round, you attack them while they are prone, with advantage.
I'm not sure you're meant to have a good option here. 1v1 brawls aren't what any of the classes are designed for. Usually you'd have a Ranger or Wizard or whatever you back you up.
This is basically what Thrown Weapons are for in most situation, but 1v1, here's what I recommend.
Ready the Attack Action, then instead of using the Attack Action to make a Melee Weapon Attack, use your two attacks to grapple the opponent and then shove them prone. You'll miss a full round of attacks, but if you succeed you'll have your opponent pinned to the ground. They'll have disadvantage to attack you, while you have advantage, and if they're grappled they have no movement speed to use to get up from prone. So they either need to use their action to break grapple and even then they won't be able to run away from you very far, since even after breaking the grapple they only have half their movement to get away.
Your opponent will still have the upperhand in this situation. Especially if you're facing an opponent who is also a Barbarian and gets advantage on STR checks. But this will make it much harder for them to run circles around you and keep you out of range for hte full combat.
This is basically what Thrown Weapons are for in most situation, but 1v1, here's what I recommend.
Ready the Attack Action, then instead of using the Attack Action to make a Melee Weapon Attack, use your two attacks to grapple the opponent and then shove them prone. You'll miss a full round of attacks, but if you succeed you'll have your opponent pinned to the ground. They'll have disadvantage to attack you, while you have advantage, and if they're grappled they have no movement speed to use to get up from prone. So they either need to use their action to break grapple and even then they won't be able to run away from you very far, since even after breaking the grapple they only have half their movement to get away.
Your opponent will still have the upperhand in this situation. Especially if you're facing an opponent who is also a Barbarian and gets advantage on STR checks. But this will make it much harder for them to run circles around you and keep you out of range for hte full combat.
Ah, thanks. The rules for "Ready" doesn't list a lot of restrictions for actions outside of spells... the PHB rules basically just rule that you can ready an "Action", and I took that to mean that you can hold a full "Attack Action".
Just want to point out that if you Ready an attack and your opponent just sits there and watches you, you lose your Rage because you have neither attacked nor taken damage that round. Thrown weapons or some other ranged option are really a must for barbs if you want to keep Rage up on a bigger battlefield. It is not very forgiving.
I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
I will echo a few things:
1) Grapple. And then Shove prone. Then pummel to death. This is what Rage was designed for with the Strength advantage checks.
2) Orcs can’t use aggressive to move away from you - they have to end their Bonus Action move closer to you than when they started.
I was going to say thrown, as others have suggested, but then you get into the whole "melee weapon attack," vs "attack with a melee weapon" headache. I guess throwing something does count as an attack, so it would keep rage going, but I don't think you can apply rage damage to the thrown attack, since it is an "attack with a melee weapon," but applying rage effects requires a "melee weapon attack." I realize there's other reasons to keep the rage going, just something to consider.
Since the OP already has their subclass, I'm guessing they are at least level 3, so even if they lose their rage for not attacking, they do get to use it at least three times. And in a 1v1 arena, they probably are only having one fight/day, so they can afford to blow through all their rages.
I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
I will echo a few things:
1) Grapple. And then Shove prone. Then pummel to death. This is what Rage was designed for with the Strength advantage checks.
2) Orcs can’t use aggressive to move away from you - they have to end their Bonus Action move closer to you than when they started.
In response to your 2nd point, the bonus action activated “aggressive” feature is worded in a way to allow hit an run tactics if used in the correct order with particular spacing.
”Aggressive. As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started.”
the timing for using the bonus action isn’t specified by a trigger, so it can be used at any time. I would imagine that when the orc starts it’s turn, it immediately uses its aggressive feature to move toward a target, not using its own regular and separate movement normally given at the beginning of a turn. It arrives with range of its target, ending the bonus actions movement closer to the target, which satisfies the features requirement. Then action is used to attack, and regular movement is used to move away. Since the feature specified “you must end this movement closer…” then it separates that movement from another movement. The orc doesn’t have to end its turn closer, just that particular movement.
I never considered the features ability to be used in that way before I read this thread. It’s better than I thought, and seems to work wonderfully with the mobile feat. I think I like this a lot.
I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
I will echo a few things:
1) Grapple. And then Shove prone. Then pummel to death. This is what Rage was designed for with the Strength advantage checks.
2) Orcs can’t use aggressive to move away from you - they have to end their Bonus Action move closer to you than when they started.
In response to your 2nd point, the bonus action activated “aggressive” feature is worded in a way to allow hit an run tactics if used in the correct order with particular spacing.
”Aggressive. As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started.”
the timing for using the bonus action isn’t specified by a trigger, so it can be used at any time. I would imagine that when the orc starts it’s turn, it immediately uses its aggressive feature to move toward a target, not using its own regular and separate movement normally given at the beginning of a turn. It arrives with range of its target, ending the bonus actions movement closer to the target, which satisfies the features requirement. Then action is used to attack, and regular movement is used to move away. Since the feature specified “you must end this movement closer…” then it separates that movement from another movement. The orc doesn’t have to end its turn closer, just that particular movement.
I never considered the features ability to be used in that way before I read this thread. It’s better than I thought, and seems to work wonderfully with the mobile feat. I think I like this a lot.
Oh, I know - but if they BA, attack, and move away, they’re taking an Opp Attack and they’ll only be 30ft away, which means the Barb with 40ft of movement can catch up to them regardless. He was making it sound like somehow the Orc was using Aggressive to go from 10ft away from its target to 50ft away using their BA (Aggressive) and Movement, which isn’t possible. An Orc can use their Aggressive in interesting ways, but running away fast isn’t happening unless they have some other secret they’re using.
“I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing.”
I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
I will echo a few things:
1) Grapple. And then Shove prone. Then pummel to death. This is what Rage was designed for with the Strength advantage checks.
2) Orcs can’t use aggressive to move away from you - they have to end their Bonus Action move closer to you than when they started.
In response to your 2nd point, the bonus action activated “aggressive” feature is worded in a way to allow hit an run tactics if used in the correct order with particular spacing.
”Aggressive. As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started.”
the timing for using the bonus action isn’t specified by a trigger, so it can be used at any time. I would imagine that when the orc starts it’s turn, it immediately uses its aggressive feature to move toward a target, not using its own regular and separate movement normally given at the beginning of a turn. It arrives with range of its target, ending the bonus actions movement closer to the target, which satisfies the features requirement. Then action is used to attack, and regular movement is used to move away. Since the feature specified “you must end this movement closer…” then it separates that movement from another movement. The orc doesn’t have to end its turn closer, just that particular movement.
I never considered the features ability to be used in that way before I read this thread. It’s better than I thought, and seems to work wonderfully with the mobile feat. I think I like this a lot.
Oh, I know - but if they BA, attack, and move away, they’re taking an Opp Attack and they’ll only be 30ft away, which means the Barb with 40ft of movement can catch up to them regardless. He was making it sound like somehow the Orc was using Aggressive to go from 10ft away from its target to 50ft away using their BA (Aggressive) and Movement, which isn’t possible. An Orc can use their Aggressive in interesting ways, but running away fast isn’t happening unless they have some other secret they’re using.
“I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing.”
Well, he did say it was another barbarian, so I guess they’re both at 40 feet, which would put them at even I suppose. Yea you’re right idk why the orc was able to go in for attacks and then stay out of range. Maybe the orc had a reach weapon and the half orc didn’t?
although I think that maybe forcing the half orc to only be able to reliably attack with one reaction might be an effective gain in defense for the orc, since it would not be able to use the attack action effectivey?
but yea there’s not enough info to exactly see what might need to be done.
I will also point out that it seems weird to me that a “brawling pit” is large enough that 40ft of movement isn’t big enough to fight in close quarters. Not really a brawling pit if the distances seem more in favor ranged combat. Or maybe it is, and the half orc could stand in the middle of the arena to mitigate movement advantages instead of running around the edges of the pit?
I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
I will echo a few things:
1) Grapple. And then Shove prone. Then pummel to death. This is what Rage was designed for with the Strength advantage checks.
2) Orcs can’t use aggressive to move away from you - they have to end their Bonus Action move closer to you than when they started.
Yes they can. Aggressive has to end closer to the target than you started. You can spend part of it getting farther away.
I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
I will echo a few things:
1) Grapple. And then Shove prone. Then pummel to death. This is what Rage was designed for with the Strength advantage checks.
2) Orcs can’t use aggressive to move away from you - they have to end their Bonus Action move closer to you than when they started.
Yes they can. Aggressive has to end closer to the target than you started. You can spend part of it getting farther away.
Good point! Go from 20ft away to adjacent, attack, then move back out to 10ft away. Then use movement to go another 30ft for a total of 40ft.
However, that’s still not far enough away in Arena against a Barbarian with 40ft of movement needing to dash.
Even at the best case scenario the Orc has 40ft movement, standing 25ft away, Aggressive to close and return to 15ft away and move to 55ft away, that’s an opp attack at least. And after that round they’ll only get 40ft away on the second round… either way they’re taking an opp attack each round.
I dunno though, in an arena? This arena would have to have unlimited size to do this forever.
Edit: Thanks for the post, Aggressive just moved WAY up on my preference for playing Orcs. Lots of ways to utilize this 🙂
Dash action to come close and then your enemy will need to chose between eat an OA and potentially range attack at disadvantage, or stay close to you and give you the chance to full attack next turn.
What about Sentinel, especially with a reach weapon? As soon as the orc triggers an OA, lock him down and go to town with that glaive on you next turn. Have a throw weapon available, though, just in case.
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Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
STR Barbarian thrives in melee but can still attack up to 60 feet with hand axe and even Two Weapon Fighting with them or up to 120 feet with javelins.
Mobile creatures can move a greater distance to close on you, but if they leave your reach to flee, you will make an Opportunity Attack against them so many won't unless they have a way to avoid it. Aggressive doesn't prevent Opportunity Attack. On your turn you can either catch them, or throw weapons at them. If you ask me, it is not a typical wise tactics for orcs barbarian to act this way. Hit and run are usually more goblins and other creatures who can disengage or otherwise avoid Opportunity Attacks.
Oh, yeah, the problem with my most recent 1v1 is they used Ki to make their open hand style stop my reactions for that turn. So I could never get an Opportunity Attack in. Was very frustrating.
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I play in a post by play server and my half-orc Barb runs a half bakery half brawling pit and is often in the pit fighting 1v1s. However even with 40ft of movement, I'm basically dead in the water against anyone with mobility. I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing. That's just one example of the many run arounds that my Barb can't handle. What are some good ways to deal with mobility/range as a Bear Totem Barb?
Ready an action to shove and knock them prone when they come in at you. I could see it turning into a rules-lawyer situation, but as I read it, your readied action would trigger before their attack, so it’s not an OA, so mobile wouldn’t apply.
And since they have to spend half their move to stand, if they don’t have at least that left, they’ll be stuck there attacking you from prone, with disadvantage, and then your next round, you attack them while they are prone, with advantage.
I'm not sure you're meant to have a good option here. 1v1 brawls aren't what any of the classes are designed for. Usually you'd have a Ranger or Wizard or whatever you back you up.
But anyway, just throw axes at em.
This is basically what Thrown Weapons are for in most situation, but 1v1, here's what I recommend.
Ready the Attack Action, then instead of using the Attack Action to make a Melee Weapon Attack, use your two attacks to grapple the opponent and then shove them prone. You'll miss a full round of attacks, but if you succeed you'll have your opponent pinned to the ground. They'll have disadvantage to attack you, while you have advantage, and if they're grappled they have no movement speed to use to get up from prone. So they either need to use their action to break grapple and even then they won't be able to run away from you very far, since even after breaking the grapple they only have half their movement to get away.
Your opponent will still have the upperhand in this situation. Especially if you're facing an opponent who is also a Barbarian and gets advantage on STR checks. But this will make it much harder for them to run circles around you and keep you out of range for hte full combat.
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If you ready an attack, you only get one attack.
Ah, thanks. The rules for "Ready" doesn't list a lot of restrictions for actions outside of spells... the PHB rules basically just rule that you can ready an "Action", and I took that to mean that you can hold a full "Attack Action".
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Just want to point out that if you Ready an attack and your opponent just sits there and watches you, you lose your Rage because you have neither attacked nor taken damage that round. Thrown weapons or some other ranged option are really a must for barbs if you want to keep Rage up on a bigger battlefield. It is not very forgiving.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
What other people have said. Javelins or handaxes, or readying a grapple or shove.
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
I will echo a few things:
1) Grapple. And then Shove prone. Then pummel to death. This is what Rage was designed for with the Strength advantage checks.
2) Orcs can’t use aggressive to move away from you - they have to end their Bonus Action move closer to you than when they started.
I was going to say thrown, as others have suggested, but then you get into the whole "melee weapon attack," vs "attack with a melee weapon" headache. I guess throwing something does count as an attack, so it would keep rage going, but I don't think you can apply rage damage to the thrown attack, since it is an "attack with a melee weapon," but applying rage effects requires a "melee weapon attack." I realize there's other reasons to keep the rage going, just something to consider.
Since the OP already has their subclass, I'm guessing they are at least level 3, so even if they lose their rage for not attacking, they do get to use it at least three times. And in a 1v1 arena, they probably are only having one fight/day, so they can afford to blow through all their rages.
In response to your 2nd point, the bonus action activated “aggressive” feature is worded in a way to allow hit an run tactics if used in the correct order with particular spacing.
”Aggressive. As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started.”
the timing for using the bonus action isn’t specified by a trigger, so it can be used at any time. I would imagine that when the orc starts it’s turn, it immediately uses its aggressive feature to move toward a target, not using its own regular and separate movement normally given at the beginning of a turn. It arrives with range of its target, ending the bonus actions movement closer to the target, which satisfies the features requirement. Then action is used to attack, and regular movement is used to move away. Since the feature specified “you must end this movement closer…” then it separates that movement from another movement. The orc doesn’t have to end its turn closer, just that particular movement.
I never considered the features ability to be used in that way before I read this thread. It’s better than I thought, and seems to work wonderfully with the mobile feat. I think I like this a lot.
Oh, I know - but if they BA, attack, and move away, they’re taking an Opp Attack and they’ll only be 30ft away, which means the Barb with 40ft of movement can catch up to them regardless. He was making it sound like somehow the Orc was using Aggressive to go from 10ft away from its target to 50ft away using their BA (Aggressive) and Movement, which isn’t possible. An Orc can use their Aggressive in interesting ways, but running away fast isn’t happening unless they have some other secret they’re using.
“I had another barbarian run circles around me because it had Aggressive (they were a full orc) and there was no way for me to close the distance without dashing.”
Well, he did say it was another barbarian, so I guess they’re both at 40 feet, which would put them at even I suppose. Yea you’re right idk why the orc was able to go in for attacks and then stay out of range. Maybe the orc had a reach weapon and the half orc didn’t?
although I think that maybe forcing the half orc to only be able to reliably attack with one reaction might be an effective gain in defense for the orc, since it would not be able to use the attack action effectivey?
but yea there’s not enough info to exactly see what might need to be done.
I will also point out that it seems weird to me that a “brawling pit” is large enough that 40ft of movement isn’t big enough to fight in close quarters. Not really a brawling pit if the distances seem more in favor ranged combat.
Or maybe it is, and the half orc could stand in the middle of the arena to mitigate movement advantages instead of running around the edges of the pit?
Yes they can. Aggressive has to end closer to the target than you started. You can spend part of it getting farther away.
Good point! Go from 20ft away to adjacent, attack, then move back out to 10ft away. Then use movement to go another 30ft for a total of 40ft.
However, that’s still not far enough away in Arena against a Barbarian with 40ft of movement needing to dash.
Even at the best case scenario the Orc has 40ft movement, standing 25ft away, Aggressive to close and return to 15ft away and move to 55ft away, that’s an opp attack at least. And after that round they’ll only get 40ft away on the second round… either way they’re taking an opp attack each round.
I dunno though, in an arena? This arena would have to have unlimited size to do this forever.
Edit: Thanks for the post, Aggressive just moved WAY up on my preference for playing Orcs. Lots of ways to utilize this 🙂
Dash action to come close and then your enemy will need to chose between eat an OA and potentially range attack at disadvantage, or stay close to you and give you the chance to full attack next turn.
Use a thrown weapon if possible or a ranged if not.
What about Sentinel, especially with a reach weapon? As soon as the orc triggers an OA, lock him down and go to town with that glaive on you next turn. Have a throw weapon available, though, just in case.
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
STR Barbarian thrives in melee but can still attack up to 60 feet with hand axe and even Two Weapon Fighting with them or up to 120 feet with javelins.
Mobile creatures can move a greater distance to close on you, but if they leave your reach to flee, you will make an Opportunity Attack against them so many won't unless they have a way to avoid it. Aggressive doesn't prevent Opportunity Attack. On your turn you can either catch them, or throw weapons at them. If you ask me, it is not a typical wise tactics for orcs barbarian to act this way. Hit and run are usually more goblins and other creatures who can disengage or otherwise avoid Opportunity Attacks.
Oh, yeah, the problem with my most recent 1v1 is they used Ki to make their open hand style stop my reactions for that turn. So I could never get an Opportunity Attack in. Was very frustrating.