Barbarian is fine from 1-8. It doesn't need anything else in that bracket. Remember you have Weapon Mastery and Primal Knowledge there now too.
Weapon Mastery is spamming one thing over and over. Not really an interesting thing to do. Options. I want options. Decisions to make. Ways to respond to changing situation. Other than "I do basic bonk".
With Brutal Strikes in particular, as a 9th-level feature it's right on the cusp of being too late; if a campaign lasts until 10th-level then you can still get two levels out of it which is fine, but until that point the Barbarian is still mostly either "I hit things" or "I hit things recklessly". While it wouldn't be the end of the world if it stays there, I could definitely see it coming in closer to the start of tier 2 (5th-, 6th- or 7th-level) just so more players can get more mileage out of it.
I'm definitely in the camp that I would prefer Brutal Strikes as a feature to come online earlier. I actually think it should completely overtake Reckless Attack... that's already how it's built, it's just written as if it's like... a Patch added to Reckless Attack instead of just being restructured to be a standalone feature. Even if you only get two options... say, choose Advantage on an attack or extra damage plus a shove. That alone is meaningful decision-making without bogging down the class with a lot of extra features to track. I believe that the simplicity of Barbarians is still a part of their appeal... many people play a barbarian because they don't want to worry about a bunch of spells and maneuvers and sneak attack qualifications or whatever and just want to rush into a crowd of enemies and start swinging. So I think strategic options like this built into the core class (instead of being subclass features, because I think it's better to add that kind of complexity to a subclass since if you don't want that complexity just don't play that subclass) should be straightforward but impactful.
Just for my information since it is kind of relevant to the latest Barbarian discussion, didn't WotC say they recognize that most users end campaigns around level 10 and were seeking to change that with 1DD?
Barbarian is fine from 1-8. It doesn't need anything else in that bracket. Remember you have Weapon Mastery and Primal Knowledge there now too.
Weapon Mastery is spamming one thing over and over. Not really an interesting thing to do. Options. I want options. Decisions to make. Ways to respond to changing situation. Other than "I do basic bonk".
With Brutal Strikes in particular, as a 9th-level feature it's right on the cusp of being too late; if a campaign lasts until 10th-level then you can still get two levels out of it which is fine, but until that point the Barbarian is still mostly either "I hit things" or "I hit things recklessly". While it wouldn't be the end of the world if it stays there, I could definitely see it coming in closer to the start of tier 2 (5th-, 6th- or 7th-level) just so more players can get more mileage out of it.
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
What would you swap it with then? Everything else from 1-8 is fine where it is too.
I'm definitely in the camp that I would prefer Brutal Strikes as a feature to come online earlier. I actually think it should completely overtake Reckless Attack... that's already how it's built, it's just written as if it's like... a Patch added to Reckless Attack instead of just being restructured to be a standalone feature. Even if you only get two options... say, choose Advantage on an attack or extra damage plus a shove. That alone is meaningful decision-making without bogging down the class with a lot of extra features to track. I believe that the simplicity of Barbarians is still a part of their appeal... many people play a barbarian because they don't want to worry about a bunch of spells and maneuvers and sneak attack qualifications or whatever and just want to rush into a crowd of enemies and start swinging. So I think strategic options like this built into the core class (instead of being subclass features, because I think it's better to add that kind of complexity to a subclass since if you don't want that complexity just don't play that subclass) should be straightforward but impactful.
maybe if it was something like 'Even-More-Reckless Strikes' where they spelled out "When you make your first attack roll on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Choose one: gain advantage on the first strength based attack roll and score a critical on 19 (or 20); or forgo all advantage on the first attack roll but gain 1d10 damage plus shoves and stuff. all your further strength based attack rolls gain advantage until the start of your next turn."
...and i snuck in the crit on 19 thing as a bone thrown to the basic bonk appreciators. on the one hand i can see where some people have identified 'fishing for criticals' as a playstyle that kinda goes away if Brutal Critical goes away. on the other hand, Brutal Critical might have been a bit much with both GWM bonus attack and Cleave mastery additional attack. between 6 and 8 chances overall to super-crit with a reckless heavy weapon? anyway, with Brutal Strikes you still get 5-7 chances for normal crits, so fishing is a little less extreme but still there.
You could make it come on earlier by just deleting the bonus damage. For example:
Level 2: Reckless Attack
When you make your first attack roll on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. If you do so, until the start of your next turn
Attack rolls against you have advantage.
You gain your choice of the following effects
You gain advantage on your attack rolls made using strength.
Your weapons gain one of the following mastery properties which they qualify for: Cleave, Push, Sap, Slow, Topple.
Level 9: Brutal Attack
When you use reckless attack with a melee weapon, your weapon deals one extra die of its damage.
Level 13: Improved Reckless Attack
You gain additional reckless attack options.
Level 17: Improved Brutal Attack
When you use reckless attack with a melee weapon, your weapon deals two extra dice of its damage, instead of one, and you may use two reckless attack options rather than one.
You could make it come on earlier by just deleting the bonus damage. For example:
Level 2: Reckless Attack
When you make your first attack roll on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. If you do so, until the start of your next turn
Attack rolls against you have advantage.
You gain your choice of the following effects
You gain advantage on your attack rolls made using strength.
Your weapons gain one of the following mastery properties which they qualify for: Cleave, Push, Sap, Slow, Topple.
Level 9: Brutal Attack
When you use reckless attack with a melee weapon, your weapon deals one extra die of its damage.
Level 13: Improved Reckless Attack
You gain additional reckless attack options.
Level 17: Improved Brutal Attack
When you use reckless attack with a melee weapon, your weapon deals two extra dice of its damage, instead of one, and you may use two reckless attack options rather than one.
I like this idea a lot. I'm iffy on Weapon Masteries in general, but I think this is a really smart use of the feature that does some work to justify why it works the way it does. I don't think it's a great idea to just have the feature add a full-on additional damage die, kind of turning every attack into an auto-critical, but I think that's a good direction. Maybe double Rage damage? But I like the idea of giving two solid options right at level 2, then just improve them later. Whether that means adding improvements to those options, or just outright adding new options.
You could make it come on earlier by just deleting the bonus damage. For example:
Level 2: Reckless Attack
When you make your first attack roll on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. If you do so, until the start of your next turn
Attack rolls against you have advantage.
You gain your choice of the following effects
You gain advantage on your attack rolls made using strength.
Your weapons gain one of the following mastery properties which they qualify for: Cleave, Push, Sap, Slow, Topple.
Level 9: Brutal Attack
When you use reckless attack with a melee weapon, your weapon deals one extra die of its damage.
Level 13: Improved Reckless Attack
You gain additional reckless attack options.
Level 17: Improved Brutal Attack
When you use reckless attack with a melee weapon, your weapon deals two extra dice of its damage, instead of one, and you may use two reckless attack options rather than one.
But if you tie it to the weapon mastery system, now you're subject to those prerequisites. For example, current BS lets the Barbarian push an enemy no matter what they're using, but if you make it inherit the Push property instead, not only do you push a shorter distance now with a size restriction and no bonus movement, it'll only work with Heavy, Two-Handed or Versatile weapons instead of letting you push them with anything, e.g. a javelin.
And all that is assuming you're keeping standard Weapon Mastery alongside this; if you're getting rid of WM in favor of this conditional one it becomes even worse.
I like this idea a lot. I'm iffy on Weapon Masteries in general, but I think this is a really smart use of the feature that does some work to justify why it works the way it does. I don't think it's a great idea to just have the feature add a full-on additional damage die, kind of turning every attack into an auto-critical, but I think that's a good direction.
Have you looked at how much the damage of fighters and paladins scales in tier 3 and 4? And how the hit points of monsters scale?
But if you tie it to the weapon mastery system, now you're subject to those prerequisites.
A feature that comes on line at level 2 should probably be weaker than a feature that come on at level 9. You could add upgrades so you can eventually push around giant monsters.
You could make it come on earlier by just deleting the bonus damage. For example:
Level 2: Reckless Attack
When you make your first attack roll on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. If you do so, until the start of your next turn
Attack rolls against you have advantage.
You gain your choice of the following effects
You gain advantage on your attack rolls made using strength.
Your weapons gain one of the following mastery properties which they qualify for: Cleave, Push, Sap, Slow, Topple.
Level 9: Brutal Attack
When you use reckless attack with a melee weapon, your weapon deals one extra die of its damage.
Level 13: Improved Reckless Attack
You gain additional reckless attack options.
Level 17: Improved Brutal Attack
When you use reckless attack with a melee weapon, your weapon deals two extra dice of its damage, instead of one, and you may use two reckless attack options rather than one.
But if you tie it to the weapon mastery system, now you're subject to those prerequisites. For example, current BS lets the Barbarian push an enemy no matter what they're using, but if you make it inherit the Push property instead, not only do you push a shorter distance now with a size restriction and no bonus movement, it'll only work with Heavy, Two-Handed or Versatile weapons instead of letting you push them with anything, e.g. a javelin.
And all that is assuming you're keeping standard Weapon Mastery alongside this; if you're getting rid of WM in favor of this conditional one it becomes even worse.
I think something to keep in mind is this suggestion is a change to the level 2 feature of Reckless Attack... it gives tactical options to utilize Weapon Masteries based on the weapon you wield, but doesn't give a huge boost in damage or anything. I think that later features could be used to improve the feature with the pushing and movement, but for a level 2 feature just giving you more versatility with your weapon masteries seems like a nice way to add versatility without front-loaded Barbarian too heavily.
I like this idea a lot. I'm iffy on Weapon Masteries in general, but I think this is a really smart use of the feature that does some work to justify why it works the way it does. I don't think it's a great idea to just have the feature add a full-on additional damage die, kind of turning every attack into an auto-critical, but I think that's a good direction.
Have you looked at how much the damage of fighters and paladins scales in tier 3 and 4? And how the hit points of monsters scale?
But if you tie it to the weapon mastery system, now you're subject to those prerequisites.
A feature that comes on line at level 2 should probably be weaker than a feature that come on at level 9. You could add upgrades so you can eventually push around giant monsters.
Hmm that's a good point... I haven't gone back and done a proper comparison to other classes. I think I also forgot that OneD&D does lean more in the direction of greater damage output across the board.
A feature that comes on line at level 2 should probably be weaker than a feature that come on at level 9. You could add upgrades so you can eventually push around giant monsters.
They already get WM at level 2 (Actually, level 1.) And using that doesn't require new players to go look up weapon prereqs on the fly every time they activate RA since it's not able to add mismatched properties.
You could make it come on earlier by just deleting the bonus damage. For example:
But if you tie it to the weapon mastery system, now you're subject to those prerequisites. For example, current BS lets the Barbarian push an enemy no matter what they're using, but if you make it inherit the Push property instead, not only do you push a shorter distance now with a size restriction and no bonus movement, it'll only work with Heavy, Two-Handed or Versatile weapons instead of letting you push them with anything, e.g. a javelin.
And all that is assuming you're keeping standard Weapon Mastery alongside this; if you're getting rid of WM in favor of this conditional one it becomes even worse.
the prereqs aren't onerous: heavy, two-handed, none, etc. and the feature could ignore them. then it sorta makes the case for a for a different feature that adds +50% (and later +100%?) to weapon masteries. 10ft Push and Slow become 15ft, that's easy. Cleave ...twice per turn? Topple ...maybe now a foe has to pass a Wis save or else they flail about and restrain an adjacent foe as they fall? or just Topple them both.
somehow i hadn't given consideration to fighters having more quantity weapons mastery effects and barbarians having biggerweapons mastery effects.
If we are lowering the BS effect to RA, we might as well reduce either dmg or the effect of the options as instead of 15 ft, they move 5 ft.
I would rather not mix WM into this one feat since, the way it is now, I can apply the WM and the effect of BS simultaneously, which provides more variation on my options.
Also, keep in mind that when u BS and u get extra attack, u can use BS twice in that turn if u wish for RA work until ur next turn per attack, not action, so u can choose to use BS on either of the attacks while the other still has the advantage or replace advantage FROM RA to use BS on both attacks.
With this wording, the question is, IF I'm using the advantage provided by RA for BS but I still got Advantage from another ruling would I be able to use BS with Advantage?
You could make it come on earlier by just deleting the bonus damage. For example:
But if you tie it to the weapon mastery system, now you're subject to those prerequisites. For example, current BS lets the Barbarian push an enemy no matter what they're using, but if you make it inherit the Push property instead, not only do you push a shorter distance now with a size restriction and no bonus movement, it'll only work with Heavy, Two-Handed or Versatile weapons instead of letting you push them with anything, e.g. a javelin.
And all that is assuming you're keeping standard Weapon Mastery alongside this; if you're getting rid of WM in favor of this conditional one it becomes even worse.
the prereqs aren't onerous: heavy, two-handed, none, etc. and the feature could ignore them. then it sorta makes the case for a for a different feature that adds +50% (and later +100%?) to weapon masteries. 10ft Push and Slow become 15ft, that's easy. Cleave ...twice per turn? Topple ...maybe now a foe has to pass a Wis save or else they flail about and restrain an adjacent foe as they fall? or just Topple them both.
somehow i hadn't given consideration to fighters having more quantity weapons mastery effects and barbarians having biggerweapons mastery effects.
I think the WM effects (and prereqs) are designed to be easy to remember. Having one class scale them differently - especially not the class that is supposed to be the supreme weapon master - doesn't seem like it would be a good idea to me.
You could make it come on earlier by just deleting the bonus damage. For example:
But if you tie it to the weapon mastery system, now you're subject to those prerequisites. For example, current BS lets the Barbarian push an enemy no matter what they're using, but if you make it inherit the Push property instead, not only do you push a shorter distance now with a size restriction and no bonus movement, it'll only work with Heavy, Two-Handed or Versatile weapons instead of letting you push them with anything, e.g. a javelin.
And all that is assuming you're keeping standard Weapon Mastery alongside this; if you're getting rid of WM in favor of this conditional one it becomes even worse.
the prereqs aren't onerous: heavy, two-handed, none, etc. and the feature could ignore them. then it sorta makes the case for a for a different feature that adds +50% (and later +100%?) to weapon masteries. 10ft Push and Slow become 15ft, that's easy. Cleave ...twice per turn? Topple ...maybe now a foe has to pass a Wis save or else they flail about and restrain an adjacent foe as they fall? or just Topple them both.
somehow i hadn't given consideration to fighters having more quantity weapons mastery effects and barbarians having biggerweapons mastery effects.
I think the WM effects (and prereqs) are designed to be easy to remember. Having one class scale them differently - especially not the class that is supposed to be the supreme weapon master - doesn't seem like it would be a good idea to me.
but that's still kinda what's happening minus the label. Forceful Blow is Push weapon mastery +5ft +another effect. Hamstring Blow is Slow weapons master +5ft + nothing, it's just a scaled weapon mastery. in fact, if they don't label these as scaled up weapons masteries then they're going to have to explain the interaction between Forceful Blow & Push / Hamstring Blow & Slow. overwrite? stack? multiply? explode?
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but that's still kinda what's happening minus the label. Forceful Blow is Push weapon mastery +5ft +another effect. Hamstring Blow is Slow weapons master +5ft + nothing, it's just a scaled weapon mastery. in fact, if they don't label these as scaled up weapons masteries then they're going to have to explain the interaction between Forceful Blow & Push / Hamstring Blow & Slow. overwrite? stack? multiply? explode?
Those two brutal strikes might work similarly to two of the weapon masteries, but at the end of the day they're not weapon masteries. They work with any Str-based attack - you could knock someone back with your bar stool or fist. More importantly, they would stack with the two similar weapon masteries.
The other two brutal strikes meanwhile are completely orthogonal to the weapon mastery system. There is no weapon mastery that imposes disadvantage on a saving throw - that's Heighten Spell in attack form. Similarly, there's no weapon mastery that grants a static attack bonus.
I wrote them as weapon mastery because it's a bunch of pre-existing options and you it makes 'how do they stack' obvious, but not really that attached to it. The point is mostly that a level 2 feature just shouldn't do that much. You could delete the requirement of the weapon qualifying.
Which brings us back to " don't think they need a level 2 feature that just gives them slightly more of what the level 1 feature already did, and makes it more complex to use." For me, Weapon Mastery and Primal Knowledge are enough of a complexity/capability boost over the 2014 Barb already.
If they pulled Brutal Strike earlier I'd be willing to evaluate how well it works, but I think 9 is the ideal spot for it in its current form.
Barbarian is fine from 1-8. It doesn't need anything else in that bracket. Remember you have Weapon Mastery and Primal Knowledge there now too.
Weapon Mastery is spamming one thing over and over. Not really an interesting thing to do. Options. I want options. Decisions to make. Ways to respond to changing situation. Other than "I do basic bonk".
With Brutal Strikes in particular, as a 9th-level feature it's right on the cusp of being too late; if a campaign lasts until 10th-level then you can still get two levels out of it which is fine, but until that point the Barbarian is still mostly either "I hit things" or "I hit things recklessly". While it wouldn't be the end of the world if it stays there, I could definitely see it coming in closer to the start of tier 2 (5th-, 6th- or 7th-level) just so more players can get more mileage out of it.
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
I’m fine with when it comes online. But if not did come in earlier then the higher level features will really need to be powerful otherwise if they are just or decent it’s just another reason to MC out of Barbarian beforehand.
Weapon Mastery is spamming one thing over and over. Not really an interesting thing to do. Options. I want options. Decisions to make. Ways to respond to changing situation. Other than "I do basic bonk".
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
I'm definitely in the camp that I would prefer Brutal Strikes as a feature to come online earlier. I actually think it should completely overtake Reckless Attack... that's already how it's built, it's just written as if it's like... a Patch added to Reckless Attack instead of just being restructured to be a standalone feature. Even if you only get two options... say, choose Advantage on an attack or extra damage plus a shove. That alone is meaningful decision-making without bogging down the class with a lot of extra features to track. I believe that the simplicity of Barbarians is still a part of their appeal... many people play a barbarian because they don't want to worry about a bunch of spells and maneuvers and sneak attack qualifications or whatever and just want to rush into a crowd of enemies and start swinging. So I think strategic options like this built into the core class (instead of being subclass features, because I think it's better to add that kind of complexity to a subclass since if you don't want that complexity just don't play that subclass) should be straightforward but impactful.
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Just for my information since it is kind of relevant to the latest Barbarian discussion, didn't WotC say they recognize that most users end campaigns around level 10 and were seeking to change that with 1DD?
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What would you swap it with then? Everything else from 1-8 is fine where it is too.
maybe if it was something like 'Even-More-Reckless Strikes' where they spelled out "When you make your first attack roll on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Choose one: gain advantage on the first strength based attack roll and score a critical on 19 (or 20); or forgo all advantage on the first attack roll but gain 1d10 damage plus shoves and stuff. all your further strength based attack rolls gain advantage until the start of your next turn."
...and i snuck in the crit on 19 thing as a bone thrown to the basic bonk appreciators. on the one hand i can see where some people have identified 'fishing for criticals' as a playstyle that kinda goes away if Brutal Critical goes away. on the other hand, Brutal Critical might have been a bit much with both GWM bonus attack and Cleave mastery additional attack. between 6 and 8 chances overall to super-crit with a reckless heavy weapon? anyway, with Brutal Strikes you still get 5-7 chances for normal crits, so fishing is a little less extreme but still there.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
You could make it come on earlier by just deleting the bonus damage. For example:
I like this idea a lot. I'm iffy on Weapon Masteries in general, but I think this is a really smart use of the feature that does some work to justify why it works the way it does. I don't think it's a great idea to just have the feature add a full-on additional damage die, kind of turning every attack into an auto-critical, but I think that's a good direction. Maybe double Rage damage? But I like the idea of giving two solid options right at level 2, then just improve them later. Whether that means adding improvements to those options, or just outright adding new options.
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But if you tie it to the weapon mastery system, now you're subject to those prerequisites. For example, current BS lets the Barbarian push an enemy no matter what they're using, but if you make it inherit the Push property instead, not only do you push a shorter distance now with a size restriction and no bonus movement, it'll only work with Heavy, Two-Handed or Versatile weapons instead of letting you push them with anything, e.g. a javelin.
And all that is assuming you're keeping standard Weapon Mastery alongside this; if you're getting rid of WM in favor of this conditional one it becomes even worse.
Have you looked at how much the damage of fighters and paladins scales in tier 3 and 4? And how the hit points of monsters scale?
A feature that comes on line at level 2 should probably be weaker than a feature that come on at level 9. You could add upgrades so you can eventually push around giant monsters.
I think something to keep in mind is this suggestion is a change to the level 2 feature of Reckless Attack... it gives tactical options to utilize Weapon Masteries based on the weapon you wield, but doesn't give a huge boost in damage or anything. I think that later features could be used to improve the feature with the pushing and movement, but for a level 2 feature just giving you more versatility with your weapon masteries seems like a nice way to add versatility without front-loaded Barbarian too heavily.
Hmm that's a good point... I haven't gone back and done a proper comparison to other classes. I think I also forgot that OneD&D does lean more in the direction of greater damage output across the board.
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They already get WM at level 2 (Actually, level 1.) And using that doesn't require new players to go look up weapon prereqs on the fly every time they activate RA since it's not able to add mismatched properties.
the prereqs aren't onerous: heavy, two-handed, none, etc. and the feature could ignore them. then it sorta makes the case for a for a different feature that adds +50% (and later +100%?) to weapon masteries. 10ft Push and Slow become 15ft, that's easy. Cleave ...twice per turn? Topple ...maybe now a foe has to pass a Wis save or else they flail about and restrain an adjacent foe as they fall? or just Topple them both.
somehow i hadn't given consideration to fighters having more quantity weapons mastery effects and barbarians having bigger weapons mastery effects.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
If we are lowering the BS effect to RA, we might as well reduce either dmg or the effect of the options as instead of 15 ft, they move 5 ft.
I would rather not mix WM into this one feat since, the way it is now, I can apply the WM and the effect of BS simultaneously, which provides more variation on my options.
Also, keep in mind that when u BS and u get extra attack, u can use BS twice in that turn if u wish for RA work until ur next turn per attack, not action, so u can choose to use BS on either of the attacks while the other still has the advantage or replace advantage FROM RA to use BS on both attacks.
With this wording, the question is, IF I'm using the advantage provided by RA for BS but I still got Advantage from another ruling would I be able to use BS with Advantage?
I think the WM effects (and prereqs) are designed to be easy to remember. Having one class scale them differently - especially not the class that is supposed to be the supreme weapon master - doesn't seem like it would be a good idea to me.
but that's still kinda what's happening minus the label. Forceful Blow is Push weapon mastery +5ft +another effect. Hamstring Blow is Slow weapons master +5ft + nothing, it's just a scaled weapon mastery. in fact, if they don't label these as scaled up weapons masteries then they're going to have to explain the interaction between Forceful Blow & Push / Hamstring Blow & Slow. overwrite? stack? multiply? explode?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Those two brutal strikes might work similarly to two of the weapon masteries, but at the end of the day they're not weapon masteries. They work with any Str-based attack - you could knock someone back with your bar stool or fist. More importantly, they would stack with the two similar weapon masteries.
The other two brutal strikes meanwhile are completely orthogonal to the weapon mastery system. There is no weapon mastery that imposes disadvantage on a saving throw - that's Heighten Spell in attack form. Similarly, there's no weapon mastery that grants a static attack bonus.
I wrote them as weapon mastery because it's a bunch of pre-existing options and you it makes 'how do they stack' obvious, but not really that attached to it. The point is mostly that a level 2 feature just shouldn't do that much. You could delete the requirement of the weapon qualifying.
Which brings us back to " don't think they need a level 2 feature that just gives them slightly more of what the level 1 feature already did, and makes it more complex to use." For me, Weapon Mastery and Primal Knowledge are enough of a complexity/capability boost over the 2014 Barb already.
If they pulled Brutal Strike earlier I'd be willing to evaluate how well it works, but I think 9 is the ideal spot for it in its current form.
I’m fine with when it comes online. But if not did come in earlier then the higher level features will really need to be powerful otherwise if they are just or decent it’s just another reason to MC out of Barbarian beforehand.
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