[RPG] How to deal with the character’s role in our party being overtaken by other PCs

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For some context, I am playing level 20 Barbarian, with 24 STR and CON, and have mostly adopted the totem of the bear.

When we began our campaign many levels ago, my role was to force enemies to target me, while also dealing lots of damage. I was also responsible for most out-of-combat scenarios involving strength, or other classical Barbarian roles (eg scale that wall, intimidate that person, etc). Realizing this, I spent all of my ability score increases in STR and CON, spent my gold on damage dealing items (like a Sword of Sharpness), and took feats to support this role (Shield Master to avoid damage on successful DEX saves, and Sentinel to force opponents to target me).

However, now that we have gotten to level 20, I worry that my role in the party is becoming eclipsed by other characters.

For example, the rogue in our party recently acquired a belt of Fire Giant Strength, upping his strength score to 25 without having to spend ability points like I did. While certainly good for his character, I worry that this single item makes my character's strength obsolete, since it was typically my character who was the king of strength. This is frustrating given the amount of work it required to get myself to such a high STR. Now, when scaling a wall to invade a castle for example, our Rogue is suddenly the better fit, since he now not only possess the strength to scale the wall easily, but also has the stealth skills that would allow him to be better suited to these trespassing-esque tasks. With sneak attack he is also able to deal huge amounts of damage in combat, again encroaching on my historical role as the main damage dealer.

Similarly, our party's Bard has become a skill monkey, meaning that my intimidate is no longer the best in the party, even though I am a Half-orc Barbarian and he is a Gnome.

While I recognize that we are all a team trying to survive the campaign together, I am worrying that my role in the party is slowly being absorbed by other party members.

Please don't misundertand: these concerns are not coming from a place of jealousy or frustration, but more from a concern that my enjoyment and involvement in the game is going to be minimized since I will no longer be the go-to person for many tasks I used to excel at. However, some frustration does admittedly come from the fact that I have now burned ability score increases, taken feats, and built my character in a way that, in a level or two, feels to have been almost entirely eclipsed by other characters.

As of now, I feel like my role has been reduced to taking as much damage as possible in combat, while other players do most of the heavy lifting. This usually involves just me standing next to enemies and hitting them, which gets pretty boring after a while, especially when my character is no longer the heroic barbarian of our party that he used to be. While I understand this is still a role to be played, it feels shallow, and not particularly meaningful given the much more varied roles the other PCs are now playing in our party.

So how should I deal with these changes in our game, and in my role in particular? Am I being oversensitive? Are these changes just a part of the game that I will have to deal with? Or have I just made poor decisions in optimizing my character to this point, in choosing to venture deeply into certain areas (STR and CON) instead of diversifying like my fellow PCs? Should I be speaking to my DM about this (though I'm not sure what he can do)?

Best Answer

As is the usual advice, I would say that talking to your DM and talking to your fellow players is a good place to start. Express your concern to your DM...he's the one who can help you with this, not us.

But, I don't think it's necessary just yet. You still have a significant role in the party.

A few points to consider...

  1. The Bard was almost certainly going to surpass you in Intimidate if he took Proficiency in that skill. Bards are a Cha-primary class who, at high level, get access to the spell Glibness. Only they and Warlocks can cast that, and you simply can't compete with a guaranteed 15 or better on any Charisma roll. I mean...that's a major feature of Bards. Insane Social Skills. This doesn't mean you can't Help though. Be big, threatening, and intimidating. Loom behind the Bard's shoulder while he does the talking. Crack your knuckles or rub the haft of your axe at meaningful times...give that Bard Advantage on his check.
  2. In terms of damage...yeah, Rogues do stupid amounts of single-target damage. That's kind of their whole schtick. But, in exchange, they are relatively fragile. Against a single target smacking them once a round, they are fairly good at not dying. But they'll go down like a chump against a mob of enemies. You won't. It's kind of a trade off. I mean...an angry 20th level Wizard can take out a significant portion of a city in a few rounds...but they are also made of glass. You don't hit quite as hard as the Rogue, but you hit hard enough to meaningfully contribute to the party's damage output, and you can get hit in the face a LOT MORE without going down.
  3. You are still significantly better at Strength-related activity than the Rogue, unless he has Expertise in Athletics. As a Barbarian, you have Advantage on all Strength Checks that you make while Raging and, because of your 15th Level Persistent Rage, coupled with the Unlimited Rages of 20th level...you should be making every strength check with Advantage, simply by firing up your Rage before you attempt it. If you want to see the actual math, you can see it in this AnyDice Program. In it, I compare the Rogue's raw Strength Check with your Advantaged Strength Check (both at a +7 to their Strength Check). Their average roll is a 17.5, yours is 20.8. And with a narrower Standard Deviation, you will consistently churn out better results than the Rogue. (And if you took the 6th level Bear feature, you can carry/lift twice as much as they can without having to make a check at all)
  4. The Rogue should probably always have been the infiltrator all along, even if he wasn't as good at climbing walls. Not being noticed is generally more important than getting over the walls in one attempt.
  5. You are still, quite definitively, the party tank. You almost certainly have the most hit points, and since you should be perpetually raging while in combat, you have resistance to everything but Psychic Damage. And the 14th level Bear trait, coupled with Sentinel makes you fantastic at keeping enemies focused on you...so the comparatively fragile Rogue can hit them like a freight train. In the entire party...you're the one who can take a Dragon's breath weapon to the face and shrug it off without flinching.

Ultimately, your choices while leveling your character resulted in a character that is immensely hard to kill, and can probably throw a horse at someone they don't like, and rip the portcullis off a castle. And he's really good at keeping enemies focused on him. You're good at being scary....but being big and threatening only goes so far compared to the clever words of a Bard who can make all sorts of insinuations and suggestions that are far scarier than a big muscular guy. Or perhaps he just knows the right things to say to make you seem even scarier.

You have somewhat pigeonholed your character into this by your Feat selection, class build selection, and ASI choices and, truthfully, barbarians have a fairly narrow class focus anyway. A Bear Totem Barbarian's primary focus is "I'll keep their attention, they can't really kill me, you guys pummel them." As D&D is first and foremost a game focused on combat...the ability to keep enemy attention focused on the guy who is near-impossible to kill is a very valuable resource to bring to the team.

Seriously...just see how your fellow players feel about the prospect of going into combat without their favorite meat shield. Based on my prior experience with tanky characters....they'll think about all the damage you soaked for them...consider all that damage hitting their characters, and not like the idea one bit.

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