I took resil: wisdom on my barb

[Skrum]

Opie's game coach the little different where they tend to need to max out those things but the system only really considers up to 18 to be normal and 20 exceeding the curve.

I don't think that's true

Bringing your main stat up to 20 is pretty clearly a core assumption of the game. Not doing it should only be done for very good reasons. My barb is taking defensive features (infernal con and resil: wis) over offense: he could be sitting on 20 str instead. +2 attack, +2 damage, +2 athletics. My particular character is giving up 7 DPR for those defensive features (49 --> 42)

If the class only seems to function by dumping all your universal picks into a single ability score, or in the case of barbarian looking at ways to add additional damage riders because the core chassis lacking it, then that's the issue. Well there's a more complex issue where you can't have the same pool of choices at level four then at level 16 and expected them not feel like some free will paradox.

I mean, he's still functional. Good, even. He can take a beating, he's got great movement, nearly unbeatable grapple check, and hopefully now he can even hit a wisdom save. And yeah, he can even dish out some punishment. My original post was literally a rant; like I knew he was taking on that 5% worse factor, but I didn't expect it to get thrown in my face in such a dramatic fashion in the very first game. Just felt crummy that those were my choices when like...paladins and clerics exist.

In my opinion the barbarian should be shaking off these types of effects regardless of their wisdom because that's what the class image is. They're not just physically tough they have the ability to endure all types of strength so if a level one spell is just as likely to take you out of the fight at level one than at level 20 something has fundamentally gone wrong.

10,000%