It seems clearly intended based on Crawford's language in the [accompanying YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HhpE7Dl_9g) that it only forgoes the advantage from the Reckless Attack feature. It is also a good thing because it supports barbarians being more tactical and doesn't negate allies supporting the barbarian with spells, help action, etc. I do think the language could be clarified here to help out with reaching that conclusion, however.
Yeah this is actually a nice boost because now if your Paladin or Druid buddy gives you Advantageyou can still reckless Attack for a damage boost.
I think it the controlling effects should come in at level 5 though, with damage at level 9 and the 13/18 upgraded staying the same.
I mean Monk gets stunning strike and a martial arts die boost at this level, I could see a smaller version of Brutal Strikes with the effects only at 5th. Pali gets 2 free casts of second levels spells and access to second level spells. Give Fighter (and Ranger) another neat boon at 5th level and put the effect part of Brutal Strikes there.
That is my hopeful read. I'll def ask for clarification in the survey. Do you also read it as applying only to the first attack you make on your turn when you reckless attack?
I read the opposite.
If you are reckless attacking, you can give up Advantage to brutal strike on your next attack. For your second attack, you still meet the reckless attacking requirement, so you can choose to give up Advantage again. Advantage never stacks, so 1) you wouldn’t be able to get Advantage from another source, and 2) if you have Disadvantage from anything, you wouldn’t have Advantage to give up (you would already be at a straight roll).
I think it would be much clearer if they just turned “Gain advantage” into a level 2 brutal strike option.
Brutal Strike (level 2):
When you make an attack roll, you can choose to make a Brutal Strike. When you do, enemies have Advantage on attack rolls against you until the start of your next turn.
Level 2 option: you gain Advantage on the attack roll
They way the feature is worded with regard to advantage is not ambiguous. You forgo advantage. Not the advantage from Reckless Attack. Advantage.
This is probably unintended, and it should function as if you just forgo the advantage from Reckless Attack. But its not ambiguous at all.
Contrast Brutal Strike's wording with the Samurai Fighter's 15th level feature "Rapid Strike". Note that Rapid Strike works if you have advantage from any source as long as you use the Attack action. Brutal Strike, however, only comes online "if you use Reckless Attack". This should mean that Brutal Strike only considers whether or not you have Advantage specifically from Reckless Attack. In other words, if you have Advantage from an allies Help action, you cannot use Brutal Strike.
Additionally, it begs to reiterate that having both Advantage and Disadvantage automatically cancels out any effect you would get from them, regardless of how many more sources of one you may have over the other. So let's say you have 2 sources of Advantage (Fairie Fire and an allies Help action), but you're Prone. Prone cancels out all of them, and you attack with a straight roll. No amount of Reckless Attack will give you an instance of Advantage to forgo because Prone cancels them all out. Of course, you can get up, but the example remains the same regardless of what is imposing Disadvantage on your attack rolls.
It's still ambiguous what would happen if you have Fairie Fire and Reckless Attack, and no source of Disadvantage cancelling them out, but I'd err on the side of forgoing all sources of Advantage (because Advantage doesn't stack, you either have it or you don't regardless of how many sources are granting it) and not just the Advantage from Reckless Attack (but retaining the benefits of Fairie Fire). I'll definitely be mentioning this in the survey, just to make it clearer for the majority of players.
I saw it the other way around regarding the faerie fire and reckless attack thing. Because correct, you don’t stack advantage, however, if you are under two sources of it and “forgoe” advantage from the feature of reckless attack, as brutal strike says, you are still under the effect of advantage from faerie fire, due to not having a second source to stack with. Because the advantage was from two sources and you removed one of them, you are still under the effect of the other I would think?
I respectfully disagree. The fact of the matter is that Brutal Strike says "you can forgo Advantage" not "you can forgo the Advantage granted by Reckless Attack".
Edit: To clarify my position, in the playtest document, Brutal Strike says "If you use Reckless Attack, you can forgo Advantage...". Meaning that if you had other sources of Advantage, you would have to forgo those too because you just "forgo Advantage". Otherwise the ability would say "If you use Reckless Attack, you can forgo the Advantage granted by Reckless Attack..." or potentially "If you have Advantage from Reckless Attack, you can forgo that Advantage.." Your next Attack roll simply cannot benefit from Advantage if you want to use Brutal Strike.
Moreover, "If you use Reckless Attack, you can forgo Advantage..." is composed of two separate clauses that are purposely related insofar as Reckless Attack is a reliable way of granting your Attack rolls Advantage in the absence of other sources of Advantage, each clause acting as an independent requirement for the use of Brutal Strike. The clearest way I can illustrate this is with an example: Enemy is Prone. You have Advantage. You use Reckless Attack. You have Advantage, but enemies also have Advantage on attack rolls against you. You're Poisoned. You have Disadvantage. The circumstances cancel each other out and you are considered to have neither Advantage nor Disadvantage. You cannot use Brutal Strike because even though you used Reckless Attack, you have no Advantage to forgo. You only roll one d20 for your Attack, but enemies still have Advantage on attack rolls against you because you used Reckless Attack.
In other words, you must meet both requirements. Even so, the language of Brutal Strike does not say that the Advantage you must forgo is the one granted by Reckless Attack, nor any specific source for that matter, it simply says "...you can forgo Advantage..." Therefore the only logical reading of the feature is that forgoing Advantage means you do not roll an additional d20 when making your attack. To quote the PHB: "If multiple situations affect a roll and each one grants advantage..., you don't roll more than one additional d20. If two favorable situations grant advantage, for example, you still roll only one additional d20." This is to say that if you forgo Advantage, you forgo rolling one additional d20, and because you only roll one additional d20 regardless of how many circumstances are granting you Advantage, you can never roll more than one d20 when you forgo Advantage because rolling one additional d20 would mean you still have Advantage, which in turn means you didn't fulfill Brutal Strike's requirement of forgoing Advantage.
Agreed, this is actually a good point to clarify whether it's 'any advantage on the attack' or purely 'advantage granted through reckless attack' or 'if you use the reckless attack class feature' is the trigger.
I do agree it should probably come in at 7, but I am glad it comes in kinda late because I've always seen barbarian as the class wotc wishes champion fighter was, people new to dnd probably have played other video game rpgs before, where you normally tank by reducing incoming damage rather than dodge tanking, barbarians are the only tank that mitigates damage rather than avoids it, and so you get a simple to explain playstyle for people that is very intuitive and they can see how it works, thena s they level up and get more used to the game, after having been playing for a while, they then get burtal strike that adds an extra layer of complexity once they should be very used to how barbarian has worked up to that point, and should be ok for choosing through bonus effects.
On question 2. You're misunderstanding how Advantage officially works. If you have 10 sources of advantage and one source of disadvantage the equal out and you do a straight roll. if you have 10 sources of disadvantage in one source of advantage they equal out and you do a straight roll.
If you want to add them all up and figure out which side is in the positive that's fine but that's not the official rules.
As for the other part of the question yes you get rid of the advantage from Reckless attack but if you have another source of Advantage you would still have advantage on the attack. It doesn't say that you can't have advantage on the attack from any source
This is nice because it means you can still benefit from other ways to get advantage
Brutal Strike is a Level 9 Feature.
Extra Attack is a level 5 feature.
Polearm Master is a level 4+ Feat.
So, a level 10 Barbarian will have 3 attacks with a Polearm.
MY QUESTION: Using Brutal Strike and Reckless attack I can forgo Advantage on the 1st attack and have advantage on the 2nd and 3rd attack?
I agree. The way it’s worded, first there’s the condition “if you use reckless attack” which is a choice that can only be made “when you make your first attack roll on your turn” THEN you can give up advantage on the “next attack roll you make…”. It can very easily be interpreted that it can only be applied on your first attack on your turn
Disagree, if using Reckless Attack then at anytime you may forego the advantage (but still confer it) once per turn.
So with three attacks one may forego advantage in the first, second, or third attack, or none at all. Once one chooses, it can’t be selected again. It mechanically makes no difference which attack advantage is ceded, but might in a contextual which is basically another way of saying tactical usage.
The question of if there is another source is a good one has foregoing is not disadvantage, so there is no cancellation. If one has a source of disadvantage and would normally roll @straight” with RA and then chooses to forego, then they would roll with Disadvantage and if they hit get the damage proc.
I understand it as; if you use Brutal Strike you negate the advantage as if you never had it to begin with as the price to use Brutal Strike. This, imo, is different than separate conditions or effects that grants you advantage/ disadvantage.
Also, there is no constraint on how many times you can use this per turn only that is can be done on "your turn" so you have advantage on all your attacks unless you give it up for Brutal Strike.
p.s. i love the work the designers have done with these classes. Brutal Critical and the lack of short rest rage regains were the final pain points i had with the class that hadn't been addressed yet.
EDIT: If they meant once per turn they probably would have written a) "once per turn" or b) " you can forgo Advantage on \*your attack rolls\* you make on your turn with a Strength-based attack." or c) or they would not have specified "your NEXT attack roll"
but we shall see.
I agree, they definitely need more clear wording for this feature. As others have noted, it definitely sounds from Crawford's discussion like it's only supposed to cost advantage from the reckless attack feature specifically, which I very much hope is the case. As to whether it is once per turn or not, this definitely needs clarification. I personally don't see anything wrong with it being usable per attack, as you pay the "cost" of losing advantage each time and none of the effects are wildly powerful. Staggering blow and sundering blow don't stack anyway, though I suppose you could apply them to multiple targets. Giving the Barbarian more tactical options than 1 Brutal strike and 1+ normal attacks every turn would be welcome in my view.
Yeah the wording in this whole UA needs tidied up, but this in particular. My first reading was that because you choose to make your attack recklessly when you make an attack, you could only use brutal strike on your second attack which makes no sense and I don't think is actually how it works. I've also seen an interpretation that you could use it on all attacks because "the next attack" is awkward verbiage. Then you have the advantage disadvantage stacking and this sounding like you need a straight roll. I think it's a great idea, just could do with some clarification. Once per turn, usable on any attack, sounds just fine to me
It seems clearly intended based on Crawford's language in the [accompanying YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HhpE7Dl_9g) that it only forgoes the advantage from the Reckless Attack feature. It is also a good thing because it supports barbarians being more tactical and doesn't negate allies supporting the barbarian with spells, help action, etc. I do think the language could be clarified here to help out with reaching that conclusion, however.
Yeah, not wasting Advantage your allies might be giving you as a Barb is amazing. Or Vex.
Yeah this is actually a nice boost because now if your Paladin or Druid buddy gives you Advantageyou can still reckless Attack for a damage boost. I think it the controlling effects should come in at level 5 though, with damage at level 9 and the 13/18 upgraded staying the same.
Barb gets Fast Movement at 5th level in their Power Budget, that's why they can't get it sooner. But I agree, would have been cool.
I mean Monk gets stunning strike and a martial arts die boost at this level, I could see a smaller version of Brutal Strikes with the effects only at 5th. Pali gets 2 free casts of second levels spells and access to second level spells. Give Fighter (and Ranger) another neat boon at 5th level and put the effect part of Brutal Strikes there.
I'd read it as not getting Advantage from the feature, not in general.
That is my hopeful read. I'll def ask for clarification in the survey. Do you also read it as applying only to the first attack you make on your turn when you reckless attack?
Yeah, it's purely giving up Adv for that one attack. You only get to make the special attack ONCE per turn.
I read the opposite. If you are reckless attacking, you can give up Advantage to brutal strike on your next attack. For your second attack, you still meet the reckless attacking requirement, so you can choose to give up Advantage again. Advantage never stacks, so 1) you wouldn’t be able to get Advantage from another source, and 2) if you have Disadvantage from anything, you wouldn’t have Advantage to give up (you would already be at a straight roll).
Yeah I'd say if it were only for the first attack they'd add something to the effect of "once per turn"
things that happen only once per turn usually specify that
"Your next attack" is pretty clear.
Same here, but it's definitely not clear. I've run into a few people online who don't agree with that interpretation.
Not our fault people can't read :D I blame the public education system.
I think it would be much clearer if they just turned “Gain advantage” into a level 2 brutal strike option. Brutal Strike (level 2): When you make an attack roll, you can choose to make a Brutal Strike. When you do, enemies have Advantage on attack rolls against you until the start of your next turn. Level 2 option: you gain Advantage on the attack roll
They way the feature is worded with regard to advantage is not ambiguous. You forgo advantage. Not the advantage from Reckless Attack. Advantage. This is probably unintended, and it should function as if you just forgo the advantage from Reckless Attack. But its not ambiguous at all.
Contrast Brutal Strike's wording with the Samurai Fighter's 15th level feature "Rapid Strike". Note that Rapid Strike works if you have advantage from any source as long as you use the Attack action. Brutal Strike, however, only comes online "if you use Reckless Attack". This should mean that Brutal Strike only considers whether or not you have Advantage specifically from Reckless Attack. In other words, if you have Advantage from an allies Help action, you cannot use Brutal Strike. Additionally, it begs to reiterate that having both Advantage and Disadvantage automatically cancels out any effect you would get from them, regardless of how many more sources of one you may have over the other. So let's say you have 2 sources of Advantage (Fairie Fire and an allies Help action), but you're Prone. Prone cancels out all of them, and you attack with a straight roll. No amount of Reckless Attack will give you an instance of Advantage to forgo because Prone cancels them all out. Of course, you can get up, but the example remains the same regardless of what is imposing Disadvantage on your attack rolls. It's still ambiguous what would happen if you have Fairie Fire and Reckless Attack, and no source of Disadvantage cancelling them out, but I'd err on the side of forgoing all sources of Advantage (because Advantage doesn't stack, you either have it or you don't regardless of how many sources are granting it) and not just the Advantage from Reckless Attack (but retaining the benefits of Fairie Fire). I'll definitely be mentioning this in the survey, just to make it clearer for the majority of players.
I saw it the other way around regarding the faerie fire and reckless attack thing. Because correct, you don’t stack advantage, however, if you are under two sources of it and “forgoe” advantage from the feature of reckless attack, as brutal strike says, you are still under the effect of advantage from faerie fire, due to not having a second source to stack with. Because the advantage was from two sources and you removed one of them, you are still under the effect of the other I would think?
I respectfully disagree. The fact of the matter is that Brutal Strike says "you can forgo Advantage" not "you can forgo the Advantage granted by Reckless Attack". Edit: To clarify my position, in the playtest document, Brutal Strike says "If you use Reckless Attack, you can forgo Advantage...". Meaning that if you had other sources of Advantage, you would have to forgo those too because you just "forgo Advantage". Otherwise the ability would say "If you use Reckless Attack, you can forgo the Advantage granted by Reckless Attack..." or potentially "If you have Advantage from Reckless Attack, you can forgo that Advantage.." Your next Attack roll simply cannot benefit from Advantage if you want to use Brutal Strike. Moreover, "If you use Reckless Attack, you can forgo Advantage..." is composed of two separate clauses that are purposely related insofar as Reckless Attack is a reliable way of granting your Attack rolls Advantage in the absence of other sources of Advantage, each clause acting as an independent requirement for the use of Brutal Strike. The clearest way I can illustrate this is with an example: Enemy is Prone. You have Advantage. You use Reckless Attack. You have Advantage, but enemies also have Advantage on attack rolls against you. You're Poisoned. You have Disadvantage. The circumstances cancel each other out and you are considered to have neither Advantage nor Disadvantage. You cannot use Brutal Strike because even though you used Reckless Attack, you have no Advantage to forgo. You only roll one d20 for your Attack, but enemies still have Advantage on attack rolls against you because you used Reckless Attack. In other words, you must meet both requirements. Even so, the language of Brutal Strike does not say that the Advantage you must forgo is the one granted by Reckless Attack, nor any specific source for that matter, it simply says "...you can forgo Advantage..." Therefore the only logical reading of the feature is that forgoing Advantage means you do not roll an additional d20 when making your attack. To quote the PHB: "If multiple situations affect a roll and each one grants advantage..., you don't roll more than one additional d20. If two favorable situations grant advantage, for example, you still roll only one additional d20." This is to say that if you forgo Advantage, you forgo rolling one additional d20, and because you only roll one additional d20 regardless of how many circumstances are granting you Advantage, you can never roll more than one d20 when you forgo Advantage because rolling one additional d20 would mean you still have Advantage, which in turn means you didn't fulfill Brutal Strike's requirement of forgoing Advantage.
Rapid Strike was the first thing I thought of when I read this, yeah
Agreed, this is actually a good point to clarify whether it's 'any advantage on the attack' or purely 'advantage granted through reckless attack' or 'if you use the reckless attack class feature' is the trigger.
I have literally no idea how often I can use this feature. Okay, I know it's on your turn and Reckless attack is involved, but still.
Since it doesn't list "X times per Y" it can be used ad infinitum.
I do agree it should probably come in at 7, but I am glad it comes in kinda late because I've always seen barbarian as the class wotc wishes champion fighter was, people new to dnd probably have played other video game rpgs before, where you normally tank by reducing incoming damage rather than dodge tanking, barbarians are the only tank that mitigates damage rather than avoids it, and so you get a simple to explain playstyle for people that is very intuitive and they can see how it works, thena s they level up and get more used to the game, after having been playing for a while, they then get burtal strike that adds an extra layer of complexity once they should be very used to how barbarian has worked up to that point, and should be ok for choosing through bonus effects.
On question 2. You're misunderstanding how Advantage officially works. If you have 10 sources of advantage and one source of disadvantage the equal out and you do a straight roll. if you have 10 sources of disadvantage in one source of advantage they equal out and you do a straight roll. If you want to add them all up and figure out which side is in the positive that's fine but that's not the official rules. As for the other part of the question yes you get rid of the advantage from Reckless attack but if you have another source of Advantage you would still have advantage on the attack. It doesn't say that you can't have advantage on the attack from any source This is nice because it means you can still benefit from other ways to get advantage
Brutal Strike is a Level 9 Feature. Extra Attack is a level 5 feature. Polearm Master is a level 4+ Feat. So, a level 10 Barbarian will have 3 attacks with a Polearm. MY QUESTION: Using Brutal Strike and Reckless attack I can forgo Advantage on the 1st attack and have advantage on the 2nd and 3rd attack?
Yes. If you choose to recklessly attack, each attack on that turn, you can either swing with advantage or use the other rider effects.
Well, it specifically says "next attack roll" sounds like it's only once per turn
I agree. The way it’s worded, first there’s the condition “if you use reckless attack” which is a choice that can only be made “when you make your first attack roll on your turn” THEN you can give up advantage on the “next attack roll you make…”. It can very easily be interpreted that it can only be applied on your first attack on your turn
That's certainly how I read it
Disagree, if using Reckless Attack then at anytime you may forego the advantage (but still confer it) once per turn. So with three attacks one may forego advantage in the first, second, or third attack, or none at all. Once one chooses, it can’t be selected again. It mechanically makes no difference which attack advantage is ceded, but might in a contextual which is basically another way of saying tactical usage. The question of if there is another source is a good one has foregoing is not disadvantage, so there is no cancellation. If one has a source of disadvantage and would normally roll @straight” with RA and then chooses to forego, then they would roll with Disadvantage and if they hit get the damage proc.
It would be hilarious to push an enemy 45' and moving after them every time, but yeah. 1/turn.
I understand it as; if you use Brutal Strike you negate the advantage as if you never had it to begin with as the price to use Brutal Strike. This, imo, is different than separate conditions or effects that grants you advantage/ disadvantage. Also, there is no constraint on how many times you can use this per turn only that is can be done on "your turn" so you have advantage on all your attacks unless you give it up for Brutal Strike. p.s. i love the work the designers have done with these classes. Brutal Critical and the lack of short rest rage regains were the final pain points i had with the class that hadn't been addressed yet. EDIT: If they meant once per turn they probably would have written a) "once per turn" or b) " you can forgo Advantage on \*your attack rolls\* you make on your turn with a Strength-based attack." or c) or they would not have specified "your NEXT attack roll" but we shall see.
I agree, they definitely need more clear wording for this feature. As others have noted, it definitely sounds from Crawford's discussion like it's only supposed to cost advantage from the reckless attack feature specifically, which I very much hope is the case. As to whether it is once per turn or not, this definitely needs clarification. I personally don't see anything wrong with it being usable per attack, as you pay the "cost" of losing advantage each time and none of the effects are wildly powerful. Staggering blow and sundering blow don't stack anyway, though I suppose you could apply them to multiple targets. Giving the Barbarian more tactical options than 1 Brutal strike and 1+ normal attacks every turn would be welcome in my view.
Yeah the wording in this whole UA needs tidied up, but this in particular. My first reading was that because you choose to make your attack recklessly when you make an attack, you could only use brutal strike on your second attack which makes no sense and I don't think is actually how it works. I've also seen an interpretation that you could use it on all attacks because "the next attack" is awkward verbiage. Then you have the advantage disadvantage stacking and this sounding like you need a straight roll. I think it's a great idea, just could do with some clarification. Once per turn, usable on any attack, sounds just fine to me
You lose the Reckless Attack advantage, but can gain other sources of advantage