Baldur's Gate 3: Barbarian Class Overview

foreign [Music] what's going on everybody mortum here this time bringing you a class overview for Baldur's Gate 3 and specifically the Barbarian I'm going over all the classes ahead of the launch and I've covered a couple of the casting classes already but I wanted to switch things up and talk about a more martially focused character and in that regard it doesn't get much more direct than the Barbarian with that in mind though we're not going to be crunching numbers or anything like that we're going to be talking more about the general mechanics of the class as well as the class fantasy though while many of these videos would serve as a nice guide if you will to 5th edition DND in general as that is what the game is based on Barbarian in particular does have a few significant changes to the actual Source material here so most of this will translate but some of it absolutely will not to kick this video off though I like to start with the class fantasy some of the reasons you might choose to be a barbarian and while I'm sure many people have an idea of what a barbarian is in their head and you you can absolutely play it that way it is a little bit more interesting than face value might have you believe because barbarians utilize their rage and sort of Primal instincts to guide and shape their martial prowess so whereas a fighter trains and becomes an Exemplar in knowledge and understanding of their specific style of fighting and a paladin mixes both Marshall prowess with the benefits of worshiping and serving a god a barbarian is much more about Primal Instinct and fury which is reflected in their rage class mechanic with that in mind however while we might label a society or something as Barbarians in D and D true barbarians capable of harnessing that rage in combat are relatively rare and it is in learning to harness that rage and manifest it that a barbarian can become truly powerful which is kind of what makes them the kings of melee combat really you want to hit things in melee and you want to do it really really effectively that's why you you would pick a barbarian and while that's all well and good let's talk a bit about how that actually translates into game mechanics first off though we're going to talk a little bit about some general information this is a class whose primary ability is strength with a secondary like right behind it being Constitution as strength is what we want to hit things and then Constitution is what's going to help us stay alive so naturally those two abilities are what we have saving through Proficiency in which makes us better at them and then in terms of equipment a barbarian will start with Proficiency in light and medium armor as well as simple and martial weapons on top of the ability to use Shields which puts most things besides heavy armor and some other very specific weapons well within reach and this is because of course the class focuses almost entirely on melee combat there's not a ton of ranged options here next up however I want to talk about the primary mechanic of a barbarian and that is their rage during combat and a number of times per long rest depending on their level a barbarian is capable of entering their rage state which is going to do a few different things for starters they're going to get advantage on strength rolls which means it's going to be easier to hit enemies and they will deal more damage as well with the rage itself adding a small bonus to the damage plus two most of the time and then a little later it will jump up to plus three which is where it will max out for our level cap of 12. moreover however this also works a little bit defensively because you become resistant to physical damage that is to say slashing bludgeoning and piercing however it does come with some limitations each rage will last one minute assuming you get to use it to its full effect however you can't cast any spells during this your rage makes you incapable of holding concentration or casting a spell however the rage will also End early if you are knocked unconscious or you don't attack anything or take any damage for a turn which means in order to keep your rage stayed up you need to be actively attacked hacking anything or in the absence of being able to hit anything in a turn you need to take some damage now with our level cap of 12 in Baldur's Gate 3 you will potentially be able to go into a rage State up to five times per day which should be more than enough now while that is the primary mechanic of a barbarian there are as you level up several others which are going to help you out a great deal right out of the gate we pick up unarmored defense while not wearing armor our AC increases by our dexterity and Constitution modifier combined this is going to give you a pretty high natural AC which will make you harder to hit than most other classes even when you're not wearing armor though depending on the circumstances there are plenty of times where wearing something like medium armor is actually going to be still more beneficial than the combination of these two modifiers so depending on how much strength and Constitution you have sometimes it will be more beneficial to wear armor and other times it might not be thankfully with this being based on a video game all you've got to do is check in the inventory screen if something is going to give you more AC or not as the game will do the math for you then at level 2 showcasing The barbarian's Reckless attitude they pick up Reckless attack this is going to allow you to take advantage on your strength-based melee attacks with the downside being that enemies will also get advantage against you which means that it will be easier to hit enemies and it will be easier for them to hit you as well which is especially helpful as a barbarian because if you remember while we are in our rage State we're going to be resistant to physical damage anyway plus a barbarian just has a really high Natural Health pool so while Reckless attack might sound like something you want to use sparingly you can actually use it quite a bit while still taking minimal damage because of how your class works also at level 2 a barbarian will pick up danger sins which makes them better at making dexterity saves when they are attacked by something like say a fireball you can make a save to take reduced damage from that and it is easier for barbarians to make that save however the this does require them to be conscious so if they're knocked out or something you won't get this benefit then at fifth level like pretty much all Marshall classes they get their extra attack which will let them make two melee attacks per round if you will however they also get an extra 10 feet of move space while wearing no armor so if you're not wearing armor you get to move farther which may or may not matter to you at seventh level they then pick up a feral instinct which gives them advantage on initiative this means that in combat they are more likely to be able to move more quickly it will be their turn faster in other words another thing this does is if you are surprised by an enemy that is to say ambushed or something if you enter rage immediately it will actually let you skip the surprise round which would normally cost you a turn where you wouldn't get to go right away so feral Instinct can be very helpful in getting moving in terms of combat much more quickly and then at Ninth level barbarians will pick up brutal crit which allows them to deal extra crit damage basically just adding extra dice to the damage itself and then in at level 11 we pick up Relentless Rage which will allow you to instead of dying when you're brought to zero Health while raging if you make a constitution save you can be brought to one HP and continue to fight instead basically making you harder to put down and that will constitute most of the Base Class features to expect as a barbarian within the level cap of balder's gate 3. and as you can probably tell by all that a lot of it is about being very proficient in melee combat both in terms of damage done and your own survivability these class features will very simply make it very advantageous for you to hit things in melee while also reducing the inevitable damage you're going to be taking and all of that is before we even start talking about the Barbarian subclasses this is where what was home brewed by larion is pretty substantial both of the subclasses available in the Early Access have been home brewed a good bit one of them I think was a common sense thing and then the other one is a near overhaul with the third one not being in Early Access but we know a little bit about it so we'll talk about this one but obviously not the specifics as what if anything that's used to change there could be substantial first up though in terms of subclasses we have the Berserker this is the straightforward option this changes your rage into frenzy while using your frenzy version of rage you get to make an extra attack or throw something as a bonus action this means that in addition to potentially making two attacks at level five you can make another melee attack simply as a bonus action which by itself is very good and in the tabletop version they balance that a little bit by causing your character to become exhausted after a frenzy however that's not the case in Baldur's Gate 3 the frenzy does not exhaust you and while that is absolutely a pretty big buff this is ultimately because there's no real limit on resting in Baldur's Gate 3 outside of some Supply type stuff so even if you got exhausted you could clear the status effect to a point where it's more of a nuisance than something actually hindering you which is why they chose to get rid of it the second subclass in the Early Access period that we're already familiar with is the wild heart subclass this is a reimagining of the totem Warrior subclass that puts you more in tune with your animalistic Fury this is going to allow you to take on the heart if you will of one of a few different types of animals though as a base anyone with the Wild Heart feature will be able to speak with animals which is certainly nice and will come up a fair bit from there however depending on the heart you choose it will make a change with your rage it will modify it a little bit giving you an extra effect and potentially an extra ability to use while you are raging the elk will give you a charge ability and just various things like that so if you're looking for a bit of Versatility to your rage Wild Heart might be the way to go but that brings us to our third subclass that has not made an appearance in Early Access so far which is the wild magic cell some class which is very similar to the wild magic of a sorcerer but in Barbarian form wild magic barbarians are able to sense out Magic by being able to detect concentrated forms of it which is a nice sort of just benefit they get by being a wild magic Barbarian but the other half of this is wild surge when a barbarian enters a rage they experience a wild surge that will then convey an effect that lasts while they are raging exactly how this is implemented are things we don't know yet but in the tabletop version this can be something like randomly teleporting you up to 30 feet an enemy taking damage and then giving you temporary hit points alongside a variety of other things that could happen this adds some unpredictability to your rage and while the other two subclasses are pretty straightforward the role play of this one centers around the idea that barbarians by their nature of being in tune with their own ferocity and animal instincts are people that can be pretty susceptible to the influences of rampant magic and intense emotions with all of that said though let's talk a little bit about playing a barbarian naturally as you might imagine this involves a lot of melee-oriented combat they don't really do range at least as a pure class and then they also don't really try to cast spells outside of just hitting things very very hard while at the same time being potentially very hard to kill so because of that they can often play the role of a tank quite well as especially in the form of a video game which is going to be handling all of the math along all of these class mechanics we'll be utilizing which is going to make them a pretty straightforward class to play as much of the gameplay is simply going to be activate rage and hit things however they do have one pretty big weakness which is they have to actually get into melee range to engage you in melee which goes for enemies as well so if you can't reach something with a barbarian that can pose you a lot of problems so much of the gameplay here year revolves around making sure you are in melee range and just destroying things otherwise despite how straightforward the Barbarian class is there are a variety of pretty interesting multi-class options you can take with a couple of them being pretty popular and usually being mixes of other Marshall classes for instance mixing just a barbarian and a fighter can give a barbarian access to the action surge ability of a fighter which is going to give them even more attacks and if you're already using a Berserker Barbarian this can be an extreme number of hits and given that the 11th and 12th levels for a barbarian are not that interesting using those to get the two levels in fighter you would need for Action surge could be incredibly effective but another option is to mix a barbarian with a paladin because paladins with just a couple of levels as well get access to Divine Smite which lets them deal extra damage on a melee hit which is already a barbarian's whole deal if you wanted to take it a little bit farther you could actually get things like Aura of protection and everything as well but it's not strictly necessary another fun option is to mix Barbarian with Druid which will give you access to Wild shape and you can activate rage while also being wild shaped into an animal which is going to give you extra Health as well making you an incredibly difficult to kill tank now the main thing to keep in mind though when you're multi-classing a barbarian is that they cannot cast spells while raging and while things like Divine Smite work because they are not technically a spell this makes other casting classes pretty much a no-go this is not a class you would really want to build a Gish character with because it's not really designed for that barbarians are designed to be in melee hitting things as hard as they can and multi-classes that facilitate that can certainly work out you can even mix it with Rogue if you want to get crazy but while it's certainly a little bit reductive ultimately barbarians are really really good at hitting things and they don't have to worry too much about the details beyond that outside of one or two important class mechanics but the rest mostly just being passive but what I find especially interesting about barbarians is while they are often portrayed as the hulking brute who lacks the brains the actual class fantasy of them and them simply drawing their power from being in tune with their rage and their Primal instincts can lead to a lot more interesting use cases than simply their more brutish portrayal however it can also certainly be that and I think all of that combines to make a class that is pretty fun without trying to overreach too much that though is going to do it for this video I hope you found it interesting I hope you learned something about barbarians and DND if you did like comment subscribe all that YouTube jazz let me know what you think about barbarians down below of course how do you like to play them ideas for other people anything you'd like to add the usual stuff regardless of any of that though truly just thank you so much for watching I really do appreciate it may you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Mortismal Gaming

Views: 131,795

Keywords: Mortym, Mortismal Gaming, Baldurs Gate, BG3, BG2, BG1, Baldur's Gate, Connections, baldur's gate 3 story, baldurs gate 3, bg3 story, baldurs gate 1 & 2 before 3, bg3 multiplayer, bg3 gameplay, bg3 panel from hell, bg3 panel from hell recap, bg3 final panel from hell, bg3 release showcase, baldurs gate 3 release showcase, baldurs gate 3 panel from hell, bg3 multiclassing, baldurs gate 3 multiclassing, bg3 classes, bg3 barbarian, bg3 barbarian guide, bg3 barbarian overview

Id: VqL3TrfYZcs

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 17 2023